Leonard walked sturdily on in the high-road to the Great City. The day
was calm and sunlit, but with a gentle breeze from gray hills at the
distance; and with each mile that he passed, his step seemed to grow
more firm, and his front more elate. Oh! it is such joy in youth to be
alone with one's day dreams. And youth feels so glorious a vigor in
the sense of its own strength, though the world be before and--against
it! Removed from that chilling counting-house--from the imperious will
of a patron and master--all friendless, but all independent--the young
adventurer felt a new being--felt his grand nature as Man. And on the
Man rushed the genius long interdicted--and thrust aside--rushing
back, with the first breath of adversity to console--no! the Man
needed not consolation,--to kindle, to animate, to rejoice! If there
is a being in the world worthy of our envy, after we have grown wise
philosophers of the fireside, it is not the palled voluptuary, nor the
care-worn statesman, nor even the great prince of arts and letters,
already crowned with the laurel, whose leaves are as fit for poison as
for garlands; it is the young child of adventure and hope. Ay, and the
emptier his purse, ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider
the domains which his fancy enjoys as he goes on with kingly step to
the Future.
Not till towards the evening did our adventurer slacken his pace, and
think of rest and refreshment. There, then, lay before him, on either
side the road, those wide patches of uninclosed land, which in England
often denote the entrance to a village. Presently one or two neat
cottages came in sight--then a small farm-house, with its yard and
barns. And some way farther yet, he saw the sign swinging before an
inn of some pretensions--the sort of inn often found on a long stage
between two great towns, commonly called "The Half-way House." But the
inn stood back from the road, having its own separate sward in front,
whereon were a great beech tree (from which the sign extended) and a
rustic arbor--so that, to gain the inn, the coaches that stopped there
took a sweep from the main thoroughfare. Between our pedestrian and
the inn there stood naked and alone, on the common land, a church; our
ancestors never would have chosen that site for it; therefore it was a
modern church--modern Gothic--handsome to an eye not versed in the
attributes of ecclesiastical architecture--very barbarous to an eye
that was. Somehow or other the church looked cold and raw and
uninviting. It looked a church for show--much too big for the
scattered hamlet--and void of all the venerable associations which
give their peculiar and unspeakable atmosphere of piety to the
churches in which succeeding generations have knelt and worshipped.
Leonard paused and surveyed the edifice with an unlearned but poetical
gaze--it dissatisfied him. And he was yet pondering why, when a young
girl passed slowly before him, her eyes fixed on the ground, opened
the little gate that led into the churchyard, and vanished. He did not
see the child's face; but there was something in her movements so
utterly listless, forlorn, and sad, that his heart was touched. What
did she there? He approached the low wall with a noiseless step, and
looked over it wistfully.
There, by a grave evidently quite recent, with no wooden tomb nor
tombstone like the rest, the little girl had thrown herself, and she
was sobbing loud and passionately. Leonard opened the gate, and
approached her with a soft step. Mingled with her sobs, he heard
broken sentences, wild and vain, as all human sorrowings over graves
must be.
"Father!--oh, father! do you not really hear me? I am so lone--so
lone! Take me to you--take me!" And she buried her face in the deep
grass.
"Poor child!" said Leonard, in a half whisper--"he is not there. Look
above!"
The girl did not heed him--he put his arm round her waist gently--she
made a gesture of impatience and anger, but she would not turn her
face--and she clung to the grave with her hands.
After clear sunny days the dews fall more heavily; and now, as the sun
set, the herbage was bathed in a vaporous haze--a dim mist rose
around. The young man seated himself beside her, and tried to draw the
child to his breast. Then she turned eagerly, indignantly, and pushed
him aside with jealous arms. He profaned the grave! He understood her
with his deep poet heart, and rose. There was a pause.
Leonard was the first to break it.
"Come to your home with me, my child, and we will talk of _him_ by the
way."
"Him! Who are you? You did not know him?" said the girl, still with
anger. "Go away--why do you disturb me? I do no one harm. Go--go!"
"You do yourself harm, and that will grieve him if he sees you yonder!
Come!"
The child looked at him through her blinding tears, and his face
softened and soothed her.
"Go!" she said very plaintively, and in subdued accents. "I will but
stay a minute more. I--I have so much to say yet."
Leonard left the churchyard, and waited without; and in a short time
the child came forth, waved him aside as he approached her, and
hurried away. He followed her at a distance, and saw her disappear
within the inn.