FOOTNOTES:[15]Mr. Gould, in the "Builder" of August 2, says, from certain authorities, it would appear that both were standing at the close of the 12th century.[16]On the 15th of April, 1832, when a proposition for its removal was made in the House of commons, it was stated that it weighed 284 tons. Captain Smyth, R.N., supposes it to be 230 tons.[17]In 1822 Captain Smyth, R.N., was prepared, with the consent of Mehemet Ali, to attempt its removal, but could not procure the authority of our Government. The Pasha offered to build a pier for the embarkation of the obelisk, and to render Captain Smyth every assistance for its removal.
[15]Mr. Gould, in the "Builder" of August 2, says, from certain authorities, it would appear that both were standing at the close of the 12th century.
[15]Mr. Gould, in the "Builder" of August 2, says, from certain authorities, it would appear that both were standing at the close of the 12th century.
[16]On the 15th of April, 1832, when a proposition for its removal was made in the House of commons, it was stated that it weighed 284 tons. Captain Smyth, R.N., supposes it to be 230 tons.
[16]On the 15th of April, 1832, when a proposition for its removal was made in the House of commons, it was stated that it weighed 284 tons. Captain Smyth, R.N., supposes it to be 230 tons.
[17]In 1822 Captain Smyth, R.N., was prepared, with the consent of Mehemet Ali, to attempt its removal, but could not procure the authority of our Government. The Pasha offered to build a pier for the embarkation of the obelisk, and to render Captain Smyth every assistance for its removal.
[17]In 1822 Captain Smyth, R.N., was prepared, with the consent of Mehemet Ali, to attempt its removal, but could not procure the authority of our Government. The Pasha offered to build a pier for the embarkation of the obelisk, and to render Captain Smyth every assistance for its removal.
A traveller sauntering through the Lake districts of England, some years ago, arrived at a small public-house just as the postman stopped to deliver a letter. A young girl came out to receive it. She took it in her hand, turned it over and over, and asked the charge. It was a large sum—no less than a shilling. Sighing heavily she observed that it came from her brother, but that she was too poor to take it in, and she returned it to the postman accordingly. The traveller was a man of kindness as well as of observation; he offered to pay the postage himself, and in spite of more reluctance on the girl's part than he could well understand he did pay it, and gave her the letter. No sooner, however, was the postman's back turned than she confessed that the proceeding had been concerted between her brother and herself, that the letter was empty, that certain signs on the direction conveyed all that she wanted to know, and that as neither of them could afford to pay postage they had devised this method of franking the intelligence desired. The traveller pursued his journey, and as he plodded over the Cumberland fells he mused upon the badness of a system which drove people to such straits for means of correspondence, and defeated its own objects all the time. With most men such musings would have ended before the hour, but this man's name was Rowland Hill, and it was from this incident and these reflections that the whole scheme of penny postage was derived.
The value of this reform is felt in every household throughout the kingdom, but its extent will be well shown by the extraction of some figures from a return which has just been made to the House of Commons. The first general reduction of postage took place on the 5th of December, 1839—a fourpenny rate being interposed for a short time before the universal charge of a penny. At this time the number of letters delivered annually in the united kingdom was about 75 millions, the actual estimate for 1839 being 75,907,572. The gross amount of the tax levied upon this delivery was no less than 2,339,737l., of which, as the cost of management was only 687,000l., there was 1,652,424l.carried to the account of profit. Last year the number of letters delivered in the united kingdom was estimated at upwards ofthree hundred and forty-seven millions, while the penny tax upon the same amounted to no more than 2,264,684l., so that while our payments to the Exchequer have been actually lessened, the service rendered to the public has been multiplied fivefold—in other words, we pay less for five letters than we formerly paid for one.
It is worth remark that the correspondence in the three kingdoms has increased almost equally. In 1839 the deliveries were 59,982,520; 8,301,904; and 7,623,148, in England, Ireland, and Scotland, respectively; while last year they were 276,252,642; 35,388,895; and 35,427,534. The rate of increase has been continuous, though not quite constant, ever since the reduction. The first effect of the reform was to double the deliveries at once, and turn the 75 millions into upwards of 160 millions. From that time to this the increase has proceeded at the rate of 10 or 20 millions a year, the smallest augmentation being in the famous year of 1848, when the delivery exceeded only by 6 millions that of 1847; and the largest in the equally famous times of 1845, when railway speculations added 28 millions of epistles to correspondence of the year preceding. The return before us includes, we hardly know with what view, a weekly account taken once a month for 1850, and from this curious table it would seem that during the month in which ladies talk least they write most; at any rate the largest number of letters yet counted was for the week ending February the 21st.
The cost of management has, of course, been swelled considerably under the new system, though by no means in proportion to the increased service, for whereas the deliveries, as we have said, are multiplied fivefold, the expenses are only multiplied about twice and a half, being 1,460,785l.in 1850, against 686,768l.in 1839. The return does not comprise the items out of which this sum is made up, though it specifies the amounts paid in each year for the conveyance of mails by railway. These amounts fluctuate rather curiously from 12,623l.in 1839, to 206,357l.in this present year of 1851—not increasing gradually or even constantly, but rising or falling occasionally, though with an ultimate tendency to rise. We should have rather liked to see the expenses of management and conveyance stated separately, and some means of comparison given between the cost of railway carriage and that of the old mail coaches. About 10,000l.per annum of the total disbursements is devoted, we are told, to pensions, and must therefore be distinguished from the direct expenses of the Post-office service. All things considered, perhaps, this "non-effective" charge is not heavy; in fact, we believe that Post-office servants are by no means extravagantly paid either for their work or at their retirement.
The Money Order office forms a distinct establishment of itself, and a curious institution it is. The amount of orders issued in 1840, the first year of the system, was 240,063l. for England and Wales, 47,295l.for Ireland, and 25,765l.for Scotland. In theyear 1850 these amounts had increased in England to no less a sum than 7,173,622l., in Ireland to 623,732l., and in Scotland to 697,143l.The total sum was 8,494,498l., and the number of orders of which it was composed 4,439,713, showing an average of some shillings less than 2l.per order. The proportion between the number and the amount of the orders does not vary greatly in the three kingdoms, though the average amount of each order is somewhat larger in Scotland than Ireland, and in England than Scotland.
The Scotch transactions fell off considerably in the year 1849, but the English and Irish offices have steadily increased their business, nor is any effect perceptible in the latter country, either from the famine or the rebellion. The return of "money orders issued" is distinguished from that of "money orders paid," and the difference between these gross amounts is no less than 11,000l.in favor of the Post-office for the year ending the 31st of last December. Some of these orders will no doubt have come in for payment during the current year, but we suspect that ignorance, negligence, or accident must be leaving an appreciable balance to accumulate on the side of the office. Country bankers, we believe, used to reckon upon a gain of 5l. per cent. on the score of notes lost, mislaid, hoarded, destroyed, or otherwise not presented for payment. Money orders are doubtless more rigorously exchanged for cash, but there must still, we imagine, be a profit from this source, especially as the Post-office circumscribes the term of its liability, which bankers did not. The total expenses of the Money Order offices, both in London and the country, are returned at 70,577l.and the total amount of commission received at 73,813l.—a fair balance of charge and service.
The actual benefits, however, of this prodigious reform extend far beyond those immediately represented in the figures we have given. It is not the mere saving of 4d. or 5d. on a letter by which the country has so enormously gained. The facilitation of business, the diffusion of information, the correspondence of friends, and the maintenance of family connexions, which in old days were severed for ever, are the real and inestimable advantages of Mr.Rowland Hill'sinvention. Like most reformers, he had to contend with violent and not always sincere opposition. The system, indeed, was long deprived of a fair trial by the obstinate resistance of those who should have aided him, and it is mainly owing to this concerted hostility that the results are not as favorable to the revenue as they are to the welfare of the country. But the principle is now established, and of all the reductions which a Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever made there has been none attended with such universal relief, convenience, and benefit as this sacrifice of 800,000l.for the sake of the letter writers.
Not the light of the long blue summer,Nor the flowery huntress, Spring,Nor the chilly and moaning Winter,Doth peace to my bosom bring,Like the hazy and red October,When the woods stand bare and brown,And into the lap of the south land,The flowers are blowing down;When all night long, in the moonlight,The boughs of the roof tree chafe,And the wind, like a wandering poet,Is singing a mournful waif;And all day through the cloud-armies,The sunbeams coquettishly rove—For then in my path first unfoldedThe sweet passion-flower of love.With bosom as pale as the sea-shell,And soft as the flax unspun,And locks like the nut-brown shadowsIn the light of the sunken sun,Came the maiden whose wonderful beautyEnchanted my soul from pain,And gladdened my heart, that can never,No, never be happy again.Far away from life's pain and passion,And our Eden of love, she went,Like a pale star fading softlyFrom the morning's golden tent.But oft, when the bosom of AutumnIs warm with the summer beams,We meet in the pallid shadowsThat border the land of dreams,For seeing my woe through the splendorThat hovers about her above,She puts from her forehead the glory,And listens again to my love.
Not the light of the long blue summer,Nor the flowery huntress, Spring,Nor the chilly and moaning Winter,Doth peace to my bosom bring,
Like the hazy and red October,When the woods stand bare and brown,And into the lap of the south land,The flowers are blowing down;
When all night long, in the moonlight,The boughs of the roof tree chafe,And the wind, like a wandering poet,Is singing a mournful waif;
And all day through the cloud-armies,The sunbeams coquettishly rove—For then in my path first unfoldedThe sweet passion-flower of love.
With bosom as pale as the sea-shell,And soft as the flax unspun,And locks like the nut-brown shadowsIn the light of the sunken sun,
Came the maiden whose wonderful beautyEnchanted my soul from pain,And gladdened my heart, that can never,No, never be happy again.
Far away from life's pain and passion,And our Eden of love, she went,Like a pale star fading softlyFrom the morning's golden tent.
But oft, when the bosom of AutumnIs warm with the summer beams,We meet in the pallid shadowsThat border the land of dreams,
For seeing my woe through the splendorThat hovers about her above,She puts from her forehead the glory,And listens again to my love.
"What is courage?" said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a reverie into which he had fallen after the Sixth Book in this history had been read to our family circle.
"What is courage?" he repeated more earnestly. "Is it insensibility to fear?Thatmay be the mere accident of constitution; and, if so, there is no more merit in being courageous than in being this table."
"I am very glad to hear you speak thus," observed Mr. Caxton, "for I should not like to consider myself a coward; yet I am very sensible to fear in all dangers, bodily and moral."
"La, Austin, how can you say so?" cried my mother, firing up; "was it not only last week that you faced the great bull that was rushing after Blanche and the children?"
Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and hanging over his shoulder, kissed his forehead.
Mr. Caxton, (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries.)—"I don't deny that I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened."
Roland.—"The sense of honor which conquers fear is the true courage of chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking on—no gentleman could."
Mr. Caxton.—"Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood, Captain, I shouldhave run fast enough, if it had done any good. I stood upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I could, the only chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself."
Blanche.—"Ah, you did not think of that, your only thought was to save me and the children."
Mr. Caxton.—"Possibly, my dear—very possibly I might have been afraid for you too—but I was very much afraid for myself. However, luckily, I had the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's stupid eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could think of in the First Chorus of the 'Seven against Thebes.' I began withEledemnas pedioploktupos; and when I came to the grand howl of Ιω, ιω, ιω, iô],—the beast stood appalled as at the roar of a lion. I shall never forget his amazed snort at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and went bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with Æschylus and the umbrella, I remained master of the field; but (continued Mr. Caxton, ingenuously) I should not like to go through that half minute again."
"No man would," said the Captain kindly. "I should be very sorry to face a bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even though I had Æschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends."
Mr. Caxton.—"You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman with a sword in his hand?"
Captain.—"Of course not. Rather liked it than otherwise," he added grimly.
Mr. Caxton.—"Yet many a Spanish matador, who doesn't care a button for a bull, would take to his heels at the first lunge en carte from a Frenchman. Therefore, in fact, if courage be a matter of constitution, it is also a matter of custom. We face calmly the dangers we are habituated to, and recoil from those of which we have no familiar experience. I doubt if Marshal Turenne himself would have been quite at his ease on the tight-rope; and a rope-dancer, who seems disposed to scale the heavens with Titanic temerity, might possibly object to charge on a cannon."
Captain Roland.—"Still, either this is not the courage I mean, or there is another kind of it. I mean by courage that which is the especial force and dignity of the human character, without which there is no reliance on principle, no constancy in virtue—a something," continued my uncle, gallantly, and with a half bow towards my mother, "which your sex shares with our own. When the lover, for instance, clasps the hand of his betrothed, and says, 'Wilt thou be true to me, in spite of absence and time, in spite of hazard and fortune, though my foes malign me, though thy friends may dissuade thee, and our lot in life may be rough and rude?' and when the betrothed answers, 'I will be true,' does not the lover trust to her courage as well as her love?"
"Admirably put, Roland," said my father. "Butaproposof what do you puzzle us with these queries on courage?"
Captain Roland, (with a slight blush.)—"I was led to the inquiry (though, perhaps, it may be frivolous to take so much thought of what, no doubt, costs Pisistratus so little) by the last chapters in my nephew's story. I see this poor boy, Leonard, alone with his fallen hopes, (though very irrational they were,) and his sense of shame. And I read his heart, I dare say, better than Pisistratus does, for I could feel like that boy if I had been in the same position; and, conjecturing what he and thousands like him must go through, I asked myself, 'What can save him and them?' I answered, as a soldier would answer, 'Courage!' Very well. But pray, Austin, what is courage?"
Mr. Caxton.(prudently backing out of a reply.)—"Papœ!Brother, since you have just complimented the ladies on that quality, you had better address your question to them."
Blanche here leant both hands on my father's chair, and said, looking down at first bashfully, but afterwards warming with the subject, "Do you not think, sir, that little Helen has already suggested, if not what is courage, what at least is the real essence of all courage that endures and conquers, that ennobles, and hallows, and redeems? Is it not Patience, father?—and that is why we women have a courage of our own. Patience does not affect to be superior to fear, but at least it never admits despair."
Pisistratus.—"Kiss me, my Blanche, for you have come near to the truth which perplexed the soldier and puzzled the sage."
Mr. Caxton, (tartly.)—"If you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled at all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience—it is a virtue very much required in your readers. Nevertheless," added my father, softening with the enjoyment of his joke—"nevertheless, Blanche and Helen are quite right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue,par excellence, of Man against Destiny—of the One against the World, and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore this is the courage of the Gospel; and its importance, in a social view—its importance to races and institutions—cannot be too earnestly inculcated. What is it that distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from all other branches of the human family, peoples deserts with his children, and consigns to them the heritage of rising worlds? What but his faculty to brave, to suffer, to endure—the patience that resists firmly, and innovates slowly? Compare him with the Frenchman. The Frenchman has plenty of valor—that there is no denying; but as for fortitude, he has not enough to cover the point of a pin. He is ready to rush out of the world if he is bit by a flea."
Captain Roland.—"There was a case in the papers the other day, Austin, of a Frenchman who actually did destroy himself because he was so teased by the little creatures you speak of. He left a paper on his table, saying that 'life was not worth having at the price of such torments.'"[19]
Mr. Caxton, (solemnly.)—"Sir, their whole political history, since the great meeting of the Tiers Etat, has been the history of men who would rather go to the devil than be bit by a flea. It is the record of human impatience, that seeks to force time, and expects to grow forests from the spawn of a mushroom. Wherefore, running through all extremes of constitutional experiment, when they are nearest to democracy they are next door to a despot; and all they have really done is to destroy whatever constitutes the foundation of every tolerable government. A constitutional monarchy cannot exist without aristocracy, nor a healthful republic endure with corruption of manners. The cry of equality is incompatible with Civilization, which, of necessity, contrasts poverty with wealth—and, in short, whether it be an emperor or a mob that is to rule, Force is the sole hope of order, and the government is but an army.
"Impress, O Pisistratus! impress the value of patience as regards man and men. You touch there on the kernel of the social system—the secret that fortifies the individual and disciplines the million. I care not, for my part, if you are tedious so long as you are earnest. Be minute and detailed. Let the real human life, in its war with Circumstance, stand out. Never mind if one can read you but slowly—better chance of being less quickly forgotten. Patience, patience! By the soul of Epictetus, your readers shall set you an example!"
Leonard had written twice to Mrs. Fairfield, twice to Riccabocca, and once to Mr. Dale; and the poor, proud boy could not bear to betray his humiliation. He wrote as with cheerful spirits—as if perfectly satisfied with his prospects. He said that he was well employed, in the midst of books, and that he had found kind friends. Then he turned from himself to write about those whom he addressed, and the affairs and interests of the quiet world wherein they lived. He did not give his own address, nor that of Mr. Prickett. He dated his letters from a small coffee-house near the bookseller, to which he occasionally went for his simple meals. He had a motive in this. He did not desire to be found out. Mr. Dale replied for himself and for Mrs. Fairfield, to the epistles addressed to these two. Riccabocca wrote also. Nothing could be more kind than the replies of both. They came to Leonard in a very dark period in his life, and they strengthened him in the noiseless battle with despair.
If there be a good in the world that we do without knowing it, without conjecturing the effect it may have upon a human soul, it is when we show kindness to the young in the first barren foot-path up the mountain of life.
Leonard's face resumed its serenity in his intercourse with his employer; but he did not recover his boyish ingenuous frankness. The under-currents flowed again pure from the turbid soil, and the splintered fragments uptorn from the deep; but they were still too strong and too rapid to allow transparency to the surface. And now he stood in the sublime world of books, still and earnest as a seer who invokes the dead. And thus, face to face with knowledge, hourly he discovered how little he knew. Mr. Prickett lent him such works as he selected and asked to take home with him. He spent whole nights in reading; and no longer desultorily. He read no more poetry, no more Lives of Poets. He read what poets must read if they desire to be—Sapere principium et fons—strict reasonings on the human mind; the relations between motive and conduct, thought and action; the grave and solemn truths of the past world; antiquities, history, philosophy. He was taken out of himself. He was carried along the ocean of the universe. In that ocean, O seeker, study the law of the tides; and seeing Chance nowhere—thought presiding over all—Fate, that dread phantom, shall vanish from creation, and Providence alone be visible in heaven and on earth!
There was to be a considerable book-sale at a country-house one day's journey from London. Mr. Prickett meant to have attended it on his own behalf, and that of several gentlemen who had given him commissions for purchase; but, on the morning fixed for his departure, he was seized with a severe return of his old foe, the rheumatism. He requested Leonard to attend instead of himself. Leonard went, and was absent for the three days during which the sale lasted. He returned late in the evening, and went at once to Mr. Prickett's house. The shop was closed; he knocked at the private entrance; a strange person opened the door to him, and in reply to his question if Mr. Prickett was at home, said with a long and funereal face, "Young man, Mr. Prickett, senior, has gone to his long home, but Mr. Richard Prickett will see you."
At this moment a very grave-looking man,with lank hair, looked forth from the side-door communicating between the shop and the passage, and then stepped forward—"Come in, sir; you are my late uncle's assistant, Mr. Fairfield, I suppose?"
"Your late uncle! Heavens, sir, do I understand aright—can Mr. Prickett be dead since I left London?"
"Died, sir, suddenly, last night. It was an affection of the heart; the Doctor thinks the rheumatism attacked that organ. He had small time to provide for his departure, and his account books seem in sad disorder: I am his nephew and executor."
Leonard had now followed the nephew into the shop. There, still burned the gas lamp. The place seemed more dingy and cavernous than before. Death always makes its presence felt in the house it visits.
Leonard was greatly affected—and yet more, perhaps, by the utter want of feeling which the nephew exhibited. In fact, the deceased had not been on friendly terms with this person, his nearest relative and heir-at-law, who was also a bookseller.
"You were engaged but by the week, I find, young man, on reference to my late uncle's papers. He gave you £1 a week—a monstrous sum! I shall not require your services any further. I shall move these books to my own house. You will be good enough to send me a list of those you bought at the sale, and your account of travelling expenses, &c. What may be due to you shall be sent to your address. Good evening."
Leonard went home, shocked and saddened at the sudden death of his kind employer. He did not think much of himself that night; but, when he rose the next day, he suddenly felt that the world of London lay before him, without a friend, without a calling, without an occupation for bread.
This time it was no fancied sorrow, no poetic dream disappointed. Before him, gaunt and palpable, stood Famine.
Escape!—yes. Back to the village; his mother's cottage; the exile's garden; the radishes and the fount. Why could he not escape? Ask why civilization cannot escape its ills, and fly back to the wild and the wigwam.
Leonard could not have returned to the cottage, even if the Famine that faced had already seized him with her skeleton hand. London releases not so readily her fatal step-sons.
One day three persons were standing before an old book-stall in a passage leading from Oxford Street into Tottenham Court Road. Two were gentlemen; the third, of the class and appearance of those who more habitually halt at old book-stalls.
"Look," said one of the gentlemen to the other, "I have discovered here what I have searched for in vain the last ten years—the Horace of 1580, the Horace of the Forty Commentators—a perfect treasury of learning, and marked only fourteen shillings!"
"Hush, Norreys," said the other, "and observe what is yet more worth your study;" and he pointed to the third bystander, whose face, sharp and attenuated, was bent with an absorbed, and as it were with a hungering attention over an old worm-eaten volume.
"What is the book, my Lord?" whispered Mr. Norreys.
His companion smiled, and replied by another question, "What is the man who reads the book?"
Mr. Norreys moved a few paces, and looked over the student's shoulder. "Preston's translation ofBoethius,The Consolations of Philosophy," he said, coming back to his friend.
"He looks as if he wanted all the consolations Philosophy can give him, poor boy."
At this moment a fourth passenger paused at the book-stall, and, recognizing the pale student, placed his hand on his shoulder and said, "Aha, young sir, we meet again. So poor Prickett is dead. But you are still haunted by associations. Books—books—magnets to which all iron minds move insensibly. What is this?Boethius! Ah, a book written in prison, but a little time before the advent of the only philosopher who solves to the simplest understanding every mystery of life——"
"And that philosopher——"
"Is Death!" said Mr. Burley. "How can you be dull enough to ask? Poor Boethius, rich, nobly born, a consul, his sons consuls—the world one smile to the Last Philosopher of Rome. Then suddenly, against this type of the old world's departingwisdom, stands frowning the new world's grim genius,force—Theodoric the Ostrogoth condemning Boethius the Schoolman; and Boethius, in his Pavian dungeon, holding a dialogue with the shade of Athenian Philosophy. It is the finest picture upon which lingers the glimmering of the Western golden day, before night rushes over time."
"And," said Mr. Norreys abruptly, "Boethius comes back to us with the faint gleam of returning light, translated by Alfred the Great. And, again, as the sun of knowledge bursts forth in all its splendor, by Queen Elizabeth. Boethius influences us as we stand in this passage; and that is the best of all the Consolations of Philosophy—eh, Mr. Burley?"
Mr. Burley turned and bowed.
The two men looked at each other; you could not see a greater contrast. Mr. Burley, his gay green dress already shabby and soiled, with a rent in the skirts, and his face speaking of habitual night-cups. Mr. Norreys, neat and somewhat precise in dress, with firm lean figure, and quiet, collected, vigorous energy in his eyes and aspect.
"If," replied Mr. Burley, "a poor devil like me may argue with a gentleman whomay command his own price with the booksellers, I should say it is no consolation at all, Mr. Norreys. And I should like to see any man of sense accept the condition of Boethius in his prison, with some strangler or headsman waiting behind the door, upon the promised proviso that he should be translated, centuries afterwards, by Kings and by Queens, and help indirectly to influence the minds of Northern barbarians, babbling about him in an alley, jostled by passers-by who never heard the name of Boethius, and who don't care a fig for philosophy. Your servant, sir,—young man, come and talk."
Burley hooked his arm within Leonard's, and led the boy passively away.
"That is a clever young man," said Harley L'Estrange. "But I am sorry to see yon young student, with his bright earnest eyes, and his lip that has the quiver of passion and enthusiasm, leaning on the arm of a guide who seems disenchanted of all that gives purpose to learning and links philosophy with use to the world. Who, and what is this clever man whom you call Burley?"
"A man who might have been famous, if he had condescended to be respectable! The boy listening to us both so attentively interestedmetoo—I should like to have the making of him. But I must buy this Horace."
The shopman, lurking within his hole like a spider for flies, was now called out. And when Mr. Norreys had bought the Horace, and given an address where to send it, Harley asked the shopman if he knew the young man who had been reading Boethius.
"Only by sight. He has come here every day the last week, and spends hours at the stall. When once he fastens on a book, he reads it through."
"And never buys?" said Mr. Norreys.
"Sir," said the shopman, with a good-natured smile, "they who buy seldom read. The poor boy pays me twopence a-day to read as long as he pleases. I would not take it, but he is proud."
"I have known men amass great learning in that way," said Mr. Norreys. "Yes, I should like to have that boy in my hands. And now, my lord, I am at your service, and we shall go to the studio of your artist."
The two gentlemen walked on towards one of the streets out of Fitzroy Square.
In a few minutes more Harley L'Estrange was in his element, seated carelessly on a deal table, smoking his cigar, and discussing art with the gusto of a man who honestly loved, and the taste of a man who thoroughly understood it. The young artist, in his dressing robe, adding slow touch upon touch, paused often to listen the better. And Henry Norreys, enjoying the brief respite from a life of great labor, was gladly reminded of idle hours under rosy skies; for these three men had formed their friendship in Italy, where the bands of friendship are woven by the hands of the Graces.
Leonard and Mr. Burley walked on into the suburbs round the north road from London, and Mr. Burley offered to find literary employment for Leonard—an offer eagerly accepted.
Then they went into a public house by the wayside. Burley demanded a private room, called for pen, ink, and paper; and placing these implements before Leonard, said, "Write what you please, in prose, five sheets of letter paper, twenty-two lines to a page—neither more nor less."
"I cannot write so."
"Tut, 'tis for bread."
The boy's face crimsoned.
"I must forget that," said he.
"There is an arbor in the garden under a weeping ash," returned Burley. "Go there, and fancy yourself in Arcadia."
Leonard was too pleased to obey. He found out the little arbor at one end of a deserted bowling-green. All was still—the hedgerow shut out the sight of the inn. The sun lay warm on the grass, and glinted pleasantly through the leaves of the ash. And Leonard there wrote the first essay from his hand as Author by profession. What was it that he wrote? His dreamy impressions of London? an anathema on the streets, and its hearts of stone? murmurs against poverty? dark elegies on fate?
Oh, no! little knowest thou true genius, if thou askest such questions, or thinkest that there, under the weeping ash, the task-work for bread was remembered; or that the sunbeam glinted but over the practical world, which, vulgar, and sordid, lay around. Leonard wrote a fairy tale—one of the loveliest you can conceive, with a delicate touch of playful humor—in a style all flowered over with happy fancies. He smiled as he wrote the last word—he was happy. In rather more than an hour Mr. Burley came to him, and found him with that smile on his lips.
Mr. Burley had a glass of brandy and water in his hand; it was his third. He too smiled—he too looked happy. He read the paper aloud, and well. He was very complimentary. "You will do!" said he, clapping Leonard on the back. "Perhaps some day you will catch my one-eyed perch." Then he folded up the MS., scribbled off a note, put the whole in one envelope—and they returned to London.
Mr. Burley disappeared within a dingy office near Fleet Street, on which was inscribed—"Office of theBeehive," and soon came forth with a golden sovereign in his hand—Leonard's first-fruits. Leonard thought Peru lay before him. He accompanied Mr. Burley to that gentleman's lodging in Maida Hill. The walk had been very long; Leonard was not fatigued. He listened with a livelier attention than before to Burley's talk. And when they reached theapartments of the latter, and Mr. Burley sent to the cookshop, and their joint supper was taken out of the golden sovereign, Leonard felt proud, and for the first time for weeks he laughed the heart's laugh. The two writers grew more and more intimate and cordial. And there was a vast deal in Burley by which any young man might be made the wiser. There was no apparent evidence of poverty in the apartment—clean, new, well furnished; but all things in the most horrible litter—all speaking of the huge literary sloven.
For several days Leonard almost lived in those rooms. He wrote continuously—save when Burley's conversation fascinated him into idleness. Nay, it was not idleness—his knowledge grew larger as he listened; but the cynicism of the talker began slowly to work its way. That cynicism in which there was no faith, no hope, no vivifying breath from Glory—from Religion. The cynicism of the Epicurean, more degraded in his style than ever was Diogenes in his tub; and yet presented with such ease and such eloquence—with such art and such mirth—so adorned with illustration and anecdote, so unconscious of debasement.
Strange and dread philosophy—that made it a maxim to squander the gifts of mind on the mere care for matter, and fit the soul to live but as from day to day, with its scornful cry, "A fig for immortality and laurels!" An author for bread! Oh, miserable calling! was there something grand and holy, after all, even in Chatterton's despair!
The villanousBeehive! Bread was worked out of it, certainly; but fame, but hope for the future—certainly not. Milton'sParadise Lostwould have perished without a sound, had it appeared in theBeehive.
Fine things were there in a fragmentary crude state, composed by Burley himself. At the end of a week they were dead and forgotten—never read by one man of education and taste; taken simultaneously and indifferently with shallow politics and wretched essays, yet selling, perhaps, twenty or thirty thousand copies—an immense sale; and nothing got out of them but bread and brandy!
"What more would you have?" cried John Burley. "Did not stern old Sam Johnson say he could never write but from want?"
"He might say it," answered Leonard; "but he never meant posterity to believe him. And he would have died of want, I suspect, rather than have writtenRasselasfor theBeehive! Want is a grand thing," continued the boy, thoughtfully. "A parent of grand things. Necessity is strong, and should give us its own strength; but Want should shatter asunder, with its very writhings, the walls of our prison-house, and not sit contented with the allowance the jail gives us in exchange for our work."
"There is no prison-house to a man who calls upon Bacchus—stay—I will translate to you Schiller's Dithyramb. 'Then see I Bacchus—then up come Cupid and Phœbus, and all the Celestials are filling my dwelling.'"
Breaking into impromptu careless rhymes, Burley threw off a rude but spirited translation of that divine lyric.
"O materialist!" cried the boy, with his bright eyes suffused. "Schiller calls on the gods to take him to their heaven with him; and ye would debase the Gods to a gin palace."
"Ho, ho!" cried Burley with his giant laugh. "Drink, and you will understand the Dithyramb."
Suddenly one morning, as Leonard sat with Burley, a fashionable cabriolet, with a very handsome horse, stopped at the door—a loud knock—a quick step on the stairs, and Randal Leslie entered. Leonard recognized him and started. Randal glanced at him in surprise, and then, with a tact that showed he had already learned to profit by London life, after shaking hands with Burley, approached, and said with some successful attempt at ease, "Unless I am not mistaken, sir, we have met before. If you remember me, I hope all boyish quarrels are forgotten?"
Leonard bowed, and his heart was still good enough to be softened.
"Where could you two ever have met?" asked Burley.
"In a village green, and in single combat," answered Randal, smiling; and he told the story of the Battle of the Stocks with a well-bred jest on himself. Burley laughed at the story. "But," said he, when this laugh was over, "my young friend had better have remained guardian of the village stocks, than come to London in search of such fortune as lies at the bottom of an inkhorn."
"Ah," said Randal, with the secret contempt which men elaborately cultivated are apt to feel for those who seek to educate themselves—"ah, you make literature your calling, sir? At what school did you conceive a taste for letters?—not very common at our great public schools."
"I am at school now for the first time," answered Leonard, dryly.
"Experience is the best school-mistress," said Burley; "and that was the maxim of Goethe, who had book-learning enough, in all conscience."
Randal slightly shrugged his shoulders, and, without wasting another thought on Leonard, peasant-born and self-taught, took his seat, and began to talk to Burley upon a political question, which made then the war-cry between the two great Parliamentary parties. It was a subject in which Burley showed much general knowledge; and Randal, seeming to differ from him, drew forth alike his information and his argumentativepowers. The conversation lasted more than an hour.
"I can't quite agree with you," said Randal, taking his leave; "but you must allow me to call again—will the same hour to-morrow suit you?"
"Yes," said Burley.
Away went the young man in his cabriolet. Leonard watched him from the window.
For five days, consecutively, did Randal call and discuss the question in all its bearings; and Burley, after the second day got interested in the matter, looked up his authorities—refreshed his memory and even spent an hour or two in the Library of the British Museum.
By the fifth day, Burley had really exhausted all that could well be said on his side of the question.
Leonard, during these colloquies, had sat apart, seemingly absorbed in reading, and secretly stung by Randal's disregard of his presence. For indeed that young man, in his superb self-esteem, and in the absorption of his ambitious projects, scarce felt even curiosity as to Leonard's rise above his earlier station, and looked on him as a mere journeyman of Burley's. But the self-taught are keen and quick observers. And Leonard had remarked that Randal seemed more as one playing a part for some private purpose, than arguing in earnest; and that when he rose and said, "Mr. Burley, you have convinced me," it was not with the modesty of a sincere reasoner, but the triumph of one who has gained his end. But so struck, meanwhile, was our unheeded and silent listener, with Burley's power of generalization, and the wide surface over which his information extended, that when Randal left the room the boy looked at the slovenly purposeless man, and said aloud—"True; knowledge isnotpower."
"Certainly not," said Burley, dryly—"the weakest thing in the world."
"Knowledge is power," muttered Randal Leslie, as, with a smile on his lip, he drove from the door.
Not many days after this last interview there appeared a short pamphlet; anonymous, but one which made a great impression on the town. It was on the subject discussed between Randal and Burley. It was quoted at great length in the newspapers. And Burley started to his feet one morning, and exclaimed, "My own thoughts! my very words! Who the devil is this pamphleteer?" Leonard took the newspaper from Burley's hand. The most flattering encomiums preceded the extracts, and the extracts were as stereotypes of Burley's talk.
"Can you doubt the author?" cried Leonard, in deep disgust and ingenuous scorn. "The young man who came to steal your brains, and turn your knowledge——"
"Into power," interrupted Burley, with a laugh, but it was a laugh of pain. "Well, this was very mean; I shall tell him so when he comes."
"He will come no more," said Leonard. Nor did Randal come again. But he sent Mr. Burley a copy of the pamphlet with a polite note, saying, with candid but careless acknowledgment, that "he had profited much by Mr. Burley's hints and remarks."
And now it was in all the papers, that the pamphlet which had made so great a noise was by a very young man, Mr. Audley Egerton's relation, and high hopes were expressed of the future career of Mr. Randal Leslie.
Burley still attempted to laugh, and still his pain was visible. Leonard most cordially despised and hated Randal Leslie, and his heart moved to Burley with noble but perilous compassion. In his desire to soothe and comfort the man whom he deemed cheated out of fame, he forgot the caution he had hitherto imposed on himself, and yielded more and more to the charm of that wasted intellect. He accompanied Burley now where he went to spend his evenings, and more and more—though gradually, and with many a recoil and self-rebuke—there crept over him the cynic's contempt for glory, amid miserable philosophy of debased content.
Randal had risen into grave repute upon the strength of Burley's knowledge. But, had Burley written the pamphlet, would the same repute have attendedhim? Certainly not. Randal Leslie brought to that knowledge qualities all his own—a style simple, strong, and logical; a certain tone of good society, and allusions to men and to parties that showed his connection with a cabinet minister, and proved that he had profited no less by Egerton's talk than Burley's.
Had Burley written the pamphlet, it would have showed more genius, it would have had humor and wit, but have been so full of whims and quips, sins against taste, and defects in earnestness, that it would have failed to create any serious sensation. Here, then, there was something else besides knowledge, by which knowledge became power. Knowledge must not smell of the brandy bottle.
Randal Leslie might be mean in his plagiarism, but he turned the useless into use. And so far he was original.
But one's admiration, after all, rests where Leonard's rested—with the poor, shabby, riotous, lawless, big, fallen man.
Burley took himself off to the Brent, and fished again for the one-eyed perch. Leonard accompanied him. His feelings were indeed different from what they had been when he had reclined under the old tree, and talked with Helen of the future. But it was almost pathetic to see how Burley's nature seemed to alter, as he strayed along the banks of the rivulet, and talked of his own boyhood. The man then seemed restored to something of the innocence of the child. He cared, in truth, little for the perch, which continuedintractable, but he enjoyed the air and the sky, the rustling grass and the murmuring waters. These excursions to the haunts of youth seemed to rebaptize him, and then his eloquence took a pastoral character, and Isaac Walton himself would have loved to hear him. But as he got back into the smoke of the metropolis, and the gas lamps made him forget the ruddy sunset, and the soft evening star, the gross habits reassumed their sway; and on he went with his swaggering, reckless step to the orgies in which his abused intellect flamed forth, and then sank into the socket quenched and rayless.
Helen was seized with profound and anxious sadness. Leonard had been three or four times to see her, and each time she saw a change in him that excited all her fears. He seemed, it is true, more shrewd, more worldly-wise, more fitted, it might be, for coarse, daily life; but, on the other hand, the freshness and glory of his youth were waning slowly. His aspirings drooped earthward. He had not mastered the Practical, and moulded its uses with the strong hand of the Spiritual Architect, of the Ideal Builder: the Practical was overpowering himself. She grew pale when he talked of Burley, and shuddered, poor little Helen! when she found he was daily and almost nightly in a companionship which, with her native, honest prudence, she saw so unsuited to strengthen him in his struggles, and aid him against temptation. She almost groaned when, pressing him as to his pecuniary means, she found his old terror of death seemed fading away, and the solid, healthful principles he had taken from his village were loosening fast. Under all, it is true, there was what a wiser and older person than Helen would have hailed as the redeeming promise. But that something wasgrief—a sublime grief In his own sense of falling—in his own impotence against the Fate he had provoked and coveted. The sublimity of that grief Helen could not detect: she saw only that itwasgrief, and she grieved with it, letting it excuse every fault—making her more anxious to comfort, in order that she might save. Even from the first, when Leonard had exclaimed, "Ah, Helen, why did you ever leave me?" she had revolved the idea of return to him; and when in the boy's last visit he told her that Burley, persecuted by duns, was about to fly from his present lodgings, and take his abode with Leonard in the room she had left vacant, all doubt was over. She resolved to sacrifice the safety and shelter of the home assured her. She resolved to come back and share Leonard's penury and struggles, and save the old room, wherein she had prayed for him, from the tempter's dangerous presence. Should she burden him? No; she had assisted her father by many little female arts in needle and fancy work. She had improved herself in these during her sojourn with Miss Starke. She could bring her share to the common stock. Possessed with this idea, she determined to realize it before the day on which Leonard had told her Burley was to move his quarters. Accordingly she rose very early one morning; she wrote a pretty and grateful note to Miss Starke, who was fast asleep, left it on the table, and before any one was astir, stole from the house, her little bundle on her arm. She lingered an instant at the garden-gate, with a remorseful sentiment—a feeling that she had ill-repaid the cold and prim protection that Miss Starke had shown her. But sisterly love carried all before it. She closed the gate with a sigh, and went on.
She arrived at the lodging-house before Leonard was up, took possession of her old chamber, and, presenting herself to Leonard as he was about to go forth, said, (story-teller that she was,)—"I am sent away, brother, and I have to come to you to take care of me. Do not let us part again. But you must be very cheerful and very happy, or I shall think that I am sadly in your way."
Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy; but then he thought of Burley, and then of his own means of supporting her, and was embarrassed, and began questioning Helen as to the possibility of a reconciliation with Miss Starke. And Helen said gravely, "Impossible—do not ask it, and do not go near her."
Then Leonard thought she had been humbled and insulted, and remembered that she was a gentleman's child, and felt for her wounded pride—he was so proud himself. Yet still he was embarrassed.
"Shall I keep the purse again, Leonard?" said Helen coaxingly.
"Alas!" replied Leonard, "the purse is empty."
"That is very naughty in the purse," said Helen, "since you put so much into it."
"I!"
"Did you not say you made, at least, a guinea a-week?"
"Yes; but Burley takes the money; and then, poor fellow! as I owe all to him, I have not the heart to prevent his spending it as he likes."
"Please, I wish you could settle the month's rent," said the landlady, suddenly showing herself. She said it civilly, but with firmness.
Leonard colored. "It shall be paid to-day."
Then he pressed his hat on his head, and putting Helen gently aside, went forth.
"Speak tomein future, kind Mrs. Smedley," said Helen, with the air of a housewife. "Heis always in study, and must not be disturbed."
The landlady—a good woman, though she liked her rent—smiled benignly. She was fond of Helen, whom she had known of old.
"I am so glad you are come back; and perhaps now the young man will not keepsuch late hours. I meant to give him warning, but——"
"But he will be a great man one of these days, and you must bear with him now." And Helen kissed Mrs. Smedley, and sent her away half inclined to cry.
Then Helen busied herself in the rooms. She found her father's box, which had been duly forwarded. She re-examined its contents, and wept as she touched each humble and pious relic. But her father's memory itself thus seemed to give this home a sanction which the former had not; and she rose quietly and began mechanically to put things in order, sighing as she saw all so neglected, till she came to the rose-tree, and that alone showed heed and care. "Dear Leonard!" she murmured, and the smile resettled on her lips.
Nothing, perhaps, could have severed Leonard from Burley but Helen's return to his care. It was impossible for him, even had there been another room in the house vacant, (which there was not,) to install this noisy, riotous son of the Muse by Bacchus, talking at random, and smelling of spirits, in the same dwelling with an innocent, delicate, timid, female child. And Leonard could not leave her alone all the twenty-four hours. She restored a home to him, and imposed its duties. He, therefore, told Mr. Burley that in future he should write and study in his own room, and hinted with many a blush, and as delicately as he could, that it seemed to him that whatever he obtained from his pen ought to be halved with Burley, to whose interest he owed the employment, and from whose books or whose knowledge he took what helped to maintain it; but that the other half, if his, he could no longer afford to spend upon feasts or libations. He had another to provide for.
Burley pooh-poohed the notion of taking half his coadjutor's earning, with much grandeur, but spoke very fretfully of Leonard's sober appropriation of the other half; and, though a good-natured, warm-hearted man, felt extremely indignant against the sudden interposition of poor Helen. However, Leonard was firm; and then Burley grew sullen, and so they parted. But the rent was still to be paid. How? Leonard for the first time thought of the pawn-broker. He had clothes to spare, and Riccabocca's watch. No; that last he shrank from applying to such base uses.
He went home at noon and met Helen at the street door. She too had been out, and her soft cheek was rosy red with unwonted exercise and the sense of joy. She had still preserved the few gold pieces which Leonard had taken back to her on his first visit to Miss Starke's. She had now gone out and bought wools and implements for work; and meanwhile she had paid the rent.
Leonard did not object to the work, but he blushed deeply when he knew about the rent, and was very angry. He payed back to her that night what she had advanced; and Helen wept silently at his pride, and wept more when she saw the next day a woeful hiatus in his wardrobe.
But Leonard now worked at home, and worked resolutely; and Helen sat by his side, working too; so that next day, and the next, slipped peacefully away, and in the evening of the second be asked her to walk out in the fields. She sprang up joyously at the invitation, when bang went the door, and in reeled John Burley—drunk;—And so drunk!
And with Burley there reeled in another man—a friend of his—a man who had been a wealthy trader and once well to do, but who, unluckily, had literary tastes, and was fond of hearing Burley talk. So, since he had known the wit, his business had fallen from him, and he had passed through the Bankrupt Court. A very shabby-looking dog he was, indeed, and his nose was redder than Burley's.
John made a drunken dash at poor Helen. "So you are the Pentheus in petticoats who defies Bacchus," cried he; and therewith he roared out a verse from Euripides. Helen ran away, and Leonard interposed.
"For shame, Burley!"
"He's drunk," said Mr. Douce the bankrupt trader—"very drunk—don't mind—him. I say, sir, I hope we don't intrude. Sit still, Burley, sit still and talk, do—that's a good man. You should hear him ta—ta—talk, sir."
Leonard meanwhile had got Helen out of the room, into her own, and begged her not to be alarmed, and keep the door locked. He then returned to Burley, who had seated himself on the bed, trying wondrous hard to keep himself upright; while Mr. Douce was striving to light a short pipe that he carried in his buttonhole—without having filled it—and, naturally failing in that attempt, was now beginning to weep.
Leonard was deeply shocked and revolted for Helen's sake: but it was hopeless to make Burley listen to reason. And how could the boy turn out of his room the man to whom he was under obligations?
Meanwhile there smote upon Helen's shrinking ears loud jarring talk and maudlin laughter, and cracked attempts at jovial songs. Then she heard Mrs. Smedley in Leonard's room, remonstrating, and Burley's laugh was louder than before, and Mrs. Smedley, who was a meek woman, evidently got frightened, and was heard in precipitate retreat. Long and loud talk recommenced. Burley's great voice predominant, Mr. Douce chiming in with hiccupy broken treble. Hour after hour thus lasted, for want of the drink that would have brought it to a premature close. And Burley gradually began to talk himself somewhatsober. Then Mr. Douce was heard descending the stairs, and silence followed. At dawn, Leonard knocked at Helen's door. She opened it at once, for she had not gone to bed.
"Helen," said he very sadly, "you cannot continue here, I must find out some proper home for you. This man has served me when all London was friendless, and he tells me that he has nowhere else to go—that the bailiffs are after him. He has now fallen asleep. I will go and find you some lodging close at hand—for I cannot expel him who has protected me; and yet you cannot be under the same roof with him. My own good angel, I must lose you."
He did not wait for her answer, but hurried down the stairs.
The morning looked through the shutterless panes in Leonard's garret, and the birds began to chirp from the elm-tree, when Burley rose, and shook himself, and stared round. He could not quite make out where he was. He got hold of the water-jug, which he emptied at three draughts, and felt greatly refreshed. He then began to reconnoitre the chamber—looked at Leonard's MSS.—peeped into the drawers—wondered where the devil Leonard himself had gone to—and finally amused himself by throwing down the fire-irons, ringing the bell, and making all the noise he could, in the hopes of attracting the attention of somebody or other, and procuring himself his morning dram.
In the midst of thischarivarithe door opened softly, but as if with a resolute hand, and the small quiet form of Helen stood before the threshold. Burley turned round, and the two looked at each other for some moments with silent scrutiny.
Burley, (composing his features into their most friendly expression.)—"Come hither, my dear. So you are the little girl whom I saw with Leonard on the banks of the Brent, and you have come back to live with him—and I have come to live with him too. You shall be our little housekeeper, and I will tell you the story of Prince Prettyman, and a great, many others not to be found inMother Goose. Meanwhile, my dear little girl, here is sixpence—just run out and change this for its worth in rum."
Helen, (coming slowly up to Mr. Burley, and still gazing earnestly into his face.)—"Ah, sir, Leonard says you have a kind heart, and that you have served him—he cannot ask you to leave the house; and so I, who have never served him, am to go hence and live alone."
Burley, (moved.)—"You go, my little lady?—and why? Can we not all live together?"
Helen.—"No sir. I left every thing to come to Leonard, for we had met first at my father's grave. But you rob me of him, and I have no other friend on earth."
Burley, (discomposed.)—"Explain, yourself. Why must you leave him because I come?"
Helen looks at Mr. Burley again, long and wistfully, but makes no answer.
Burley, (with a gulp.)—"Is it because he thinks I am not fit company for you?"
Helen bowed her head.
Burley winced, and after a moment's pause said,—"He is right."
Helen, (obeying the impulse of her heart, springs forward and takes Burley's hand.)—"Ah, sir," she cried, "before he knew you he was so different—then he was cheerful—then, even when his first disappointment came, I grieved and wept; but I felt he would conquer still—for his heart was so good and pure. Oh, sir, don't think I reproach you; but what is to become of him if—if—No, it is not for myself I speak. I know that if I was here, that if he had me to care for, he would come home early and—work patiently—and—and—that I might save him. But now when I am gone, and you with him—you to whom he is grateful, you whom he would follow against his own conscience, (you must see that, sir,)—what is to become of him?"
Helen's voice died in sobs.
Burley took three or four long strides through the room—he was greatly agitated. "I am a demon," he murmured. "I never saw it before—but it is true—I should be this boy's ruin." Tears stood in his eyes, he paused abruptly, made a clutch at his hat, and turned to the door.
Helen stopped the way, and taking him gently by the arm, said,—"Oh, sir, forgive me—I have pained you;" and looked up at him with a compassionate expression, that indeed made the child's sweet face as that of an angel.
Burley bent down as if to kiss her, and then drew back—perhaps with a sentiment that his lips were not worthy to touch that innocent brow.
"If I had had a sister—a child like you, little one," he muttered, "perhaps I too might have been saved in time. Now——"
"Ah, now you may stay, sir; I don't fear you any more."
"No, no; you would fear me again ere night time, and I might not be always in the right mood to listen to a voice like yours, child. Your Leonard has a noble heart and rare gifts. He should rise yet, and he shall, I will not drag him into the mire. Good-bye—you will see me no more." He broke from Helen, cleared the stairs with a bound, and was out of the house.
When Leonard returned he was surprised to hear his unwelcome guest was gone—but Helen did not venture to tell him of her interposition. She knew instinctively how such officiousness would mortify and offend the pride of man; but she never again spoke harshly of poor Burley. Leonard supposed that he should either see or hear of the humoristin the course of the day. Finding he did not, he went in search of him at his old haunts; but no trace. He inquired at theBeehiveif they knew there of his new address, but no tidings of Burley could be obtained.
As he came home disappointed and anxious, for he felt uneasy as to the disappearance of his wild friend, Mrs. Smedley met him at the door.
"Please, sir, suit yourself with another lodging," said she. "I can have no such singings and shoutings going on at night in my house. And that poor little girl too! you should be ashamed of yourself."
Leonard frowned and passed by.
Meanwhile, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on; and, as if by some better instinct, for he was unconscious of his own steps, he took the way towards the still green haunts of his youth. When he paused at length, he was already before the door of a rural cottage, standing alone in the midst of fields, with a little farm-yard at the back; and far through the trees in front was caught a glimpse of the winding Brent.
With this cottage Burley was familiar; it was inhabited by a good old couple who had known him from a boy. There he habitually left his rods and fishing-tackle; there, for intervals in his turbid, riotous life, he had sojourned for two or three days together—fancying, the first day that the country was a heaven, and convinced before the third that it was a purgatory.
An old woman of neat and tidy exterior came forth to greet him.
"Ah, Master John," said she, clasping his nerveless hand—"well, the fields be pleasant now—I hope you are come to stay a bit? Do; it will freshen you; you lose all the fine color you had once, in Lunnon town."
"I will stay with you, my kind friend," said Burley, with unusual meekness—"I can have the old room, then?"
"Oh yes, come and look at it. I never let it now to any one but you—never have let it since the dear beautiful lady with the angel's face went away. Poor thing, what could have become of her?"
Thus speaking, while Burley listened not, the old woman drew him within the cottage, and led him up the stairs into a room that might have well become a better house, for it was furnished with taste, and even elegance. A small cabinet pianoforte stood opposite the fire-place, and the window looked upon pleasant meads and tangled hedgerows, and the narrow windings of the blue rivulet. Burley sank down exhausted, and gazed wistfully from the casement.
"You have not breakfasted?" said the hostess anxiously.
"No."
"Well, the eggs are fresh laid, and you would like a rasher of bacon, Master John? And if youwillhave brandy in your tea, I have some that you left long ago in your own bottle."
Burley shook his head. "No brandy, Mrs. Goodyer; only fresh milk. I will see whether I can yet coax Nature."
Mrs. Goodyer did not know what was meant by coaxing Nature, but she said, "Pray do, Master John," and vanished.
That day Burley went out with his rod, and he fished hard for the one-eyed perch; but in vain. Then he roved along the stream with his hands in his pockets, whistling. He returned to the cottage at sunset, partook of the fare provided for him, abstained from the brandy, and felt dreadfully low. He called for pen, ink, and paper, and sought to write, but he could not achieve two lines. He summoned Mrs. Goodyer, "Tell your husband to come and sit and talk."
Up came old Jacob Goodyer, and the great wit bade him tell him all the news of the village. Jacob obeyed willingly, and Burley at last fell asleep. The next day it was much the same, only at dinner he had up the brandy bottle, and finished it; and he didnothave up Jacob, but he contrived to write.
The third day it rained incessantly.
"Have you no books, Mrs. Goodyer?" asked poor John Burley.
"Oh yes; some that the dear lady left behind her; and perhaps you would like to look at some papers in her own writing?"
"No, not the papers—all women scribble, and all scribble the same things. Get me the books."
The books were brought up—poetry and essays—John knew them by heart. He looked out on the rain, and at evening the rain had ceased. He rushed to his hat and fled.
"Nature, Nature!" he exclaimed when he was out in the air, and hurrying by the dripping hedgerows, "you are not to be coaxed by me! I have jilted you shamefully, I own it; you are a female and unforgiving. I don't complain. You may be very pretty, but you are the stupidest and most tiresome companion that ever I met with. Thank heaven, I am not married to you!"
Thus John Burley made his way into town, and paused at the first public-house. Out of that house he came with a jovial air, and on he strode towards the heart of London. Now he is in Leicester Square, and he gazes on the foreigners who stalk that region, and hums a tune; and now from yonder alley two forms emerge, and dog his careless footsteps; now through the maze of passages towards St. Martin's he threads his path, and, anticipating an orgy as he nears his favorite haunts, jingles the silver in his pockets; and now the two forms are at his heels.
"Hail to thee, O Freedom!" mutteredJohn Burley; "thy dwelling is in cities, and thy palace is the tavern."
"In the king's name," quoth a gruff voice; and John Burley feels the horrid and familiar tap on the shoulder.
The two bailiffs who dogged have seized their prey.
"At whose suit?" asked John Burley, falteringly.
"Mr. Cox, the wine-merchant."
"Cox! A man to whom I gave a cheque on my bankers not three months ago!"
"But it war'nt cashed."
"What does that signify?—the intention was the same. A good heart takes the will for the deed. Cox is a monster of ingratitude; and I withdraw my custom."
"Sarve him right. Would your honor like a jarvey?"
"I would rather spend the money on something else," said John Burley. "Give me your arm, I am not proud. After all, thank heaven, I shall not sleep in the country."
And John Burley made a night of it in the Fleet.
Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the direst of all civil strife—war with their servants. She looked upon the members of that class as the unrelenting and sleepless enemies of the unfortunate householders condemned to employ them. She thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors—that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing various nephews, nieces, or cousins, to the strict bounds of a natural affection—that did not exist; and as she felt the want of some friendly face amidst this world of distrust and hate, so she had tried the resource of venal companions. But the venal companions had never staid long—either they disliked Miss Starke, or Miss Starke disliked them. Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon bringing up some little girl whose heart, as she said to herself; would be fresh and uncorrupted, and from whom she might expect gratitude. She had been contented, on the whole, with Helen, and had meant to keep that child in her house as long as she (Miss Starke) remained upon the earth—perhaps some thirty years longer; and then, having carefully secluded her from marriage, and other friendship, to leave her nothing but the regret of having lost so kind a benefactress. Agreeably with this notion, and in order to secure the affections of the child, Miss Starke had relaxed the frigid austerity natural to her manner and mode of thought, and been kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither slapped nor pinched her, neither had she starved. She had allowed her to see Leonard, according to the agreement made with Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence on cakes, besides contributing fruit from her garden for the first interview—a hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on subsequent occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had purchased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing could exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and found the child had gone. As it never had occurred to her to ask Leonard's address, though she suspected Helen had gone to him, she was at a loss what to do, and remained for twenty-four hours in a state of inane depression. But then she began to miss the child so much that her energies woke, and she persuaded herself that she was actuated by the purest benevolence in trying to reclaim this poor creature from the world, into which Helen had thus rashly plunged.