A stranger founding his judgment upon these circumstances would have said that the dulness of the child 's intellect widely contradicted the promise of his features , but the secret was in the direction of Ilbrahim 's thoughts , which were brooding within him when they should naturally have been wandering abroad . An attempt of Dorothy to revive his former sportiveness was the single occasion on which his quiet demeanor yielded to a violent display of grief ; he burst into passionate weeping and ran and hid himself , for his heart had become so miserably sore that even the hand of kindness tortured it like fire . Sometimes at night , and probably in his dreams , he was heard to cry , `` Mother ! Mother ! '' as if her place , which a stranger had supplied while Ilbrahim was happy , admitted of no substitute in his extreme affliction . Perhaps among the many life-weary wretches then upon the earth there was not one who combined innocence and misery like this poor broken-hearted infant so soon the victim of his own heavenly nature . While this melancholy change had taken place in Ilbrahim , one of an earlier origin and of different character had come to its perfection in his adopted father . The incident with which this tale commences found Pearson in a state of religious dulness , yet mentally disquieted and longing for a more fervid faith than he possessed . The first effect of his kindness to Ilbrahim was to produce a softened feeling , an incipient love for the child 's whole sect , but joined to this , and resulting , perhaps , from self-suspicion , was a proud and ostentatious contempt of their tenets and practical extravagances . In the course of much thought , however -- for the subject struggled irresistibly into his mind -- the foolishness of the doctrine began to be less evident , and the points which had particularly offended his reason assumed another aspect or vanished entirely away . The work within him appeared to go on even while he slept , and that which had been a doubt when he laid down to rest would often hold the place of a truth confirmed by some forgotten demonstration when he recalled his thoughts in the morning . But , while he was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts , his contempt , in nowise decreasing toward them , grew very fierce against himself ; he imagined , also , that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer , and that every word addressed to him was a gibe . Such was his state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim 's misfortune , and the emotions consequent upon that event completed the change of which the child had been the original instrument . In the mean time , neither the fierceness of the persecutors nor the infatuation of their victims had decreased . The dungeons were never empty ; the streets of almost every village echoed daily with the lash ; the life of a woman whose mild and Christian spirit no cruelty could embitter had been sacrificed , and more innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were so often raised in prayer . Early after the Restoration the English Quakers represented to Charles II . that a `` vein of blood was open in his dominions , '' but , though the displeasure of the voluptuous king was roused , his interference was not prompt . And now the tale must stride forward over many months , leaving Pearson to encounter ignominy and misfortune ; his wife , to a firm endurance of a thousand sorrows ; poor Ilbrahim , to pine and droop like a cankered rose-bud ; his mother , to wander on a mistaken errand , neglectful of the holiest trust which can be committed to a woman . * * * * * A winter evening , a night of storm , had darkened over Pearson 's habitation , and there were no cheerful faces to drive the gloom from his broad hearth . The fire , it is true , sent forth a glowing heat and a ruddy light , and large logs dripping with half-melted snow lay ready to cast upon the embers .
But the apartment was saddened in its aspect by the absence of much of the homely wealth which had once adorned it , XXXXX the exaction of repeated fines and his own neglect of temporal affairs had greatly impoverished the owner .
against among for in into like of upon while within