"Do I displease you in any thing I do?"

"No, my son."

"Do you believe I love you?"

"Yes, I do believe it. I wish, Perry, it could be returned."

The son, under the influence of this discouraging confidence, became
serious and melancholy. He would take his gun on his shoulder and wade
out into the meadow marshes, as if for game, and there would be seen
by other gunners sitting on some old pier or perched on some worm
fence, looking straight up at the sky, as if it might answer the
riddle of his father's hate and his own unreciprocated affection. He
would also, on rainy or cold days, when the inmates could not stir
abroad, mount his horse and ride to the almshouse beyond the town
mill, and, taking a pleasant story or ballad from his pocket, read to
the huddled paupers, as well as to the keeper's family, attracted by
his pleasant condescension. By degrees the boy's face also took the
shadow worn by his father.

"Oh, if they could only love!" remarked the old people around the
court-house; "or if they only could admit the real love between them!"

The Judge never admitted it; that seemed to be a part of his religion,
a duty to himself, if painful, and the son never woke nor retired to
rest without searching in that paternal shadow for the kindly gleam of
awakened love, yet ever kissed the shadow only, and a brow that was
cold.