"Hip--hip--Hurrah!" Such was the sound that greeted our young
traveller as he reached the inn door--a sound joyous in itself, but
sadly out of harmony with the feelings which the child's sobbing on
the tombless grave had left at his heart. The sound came from within,
and was followed by thumps and stamps, and the jingle of glasses. A
strong odor of tobacco was wafted to his olfactory sense. He hesitated
a moment at the threshold. Before him on benches under the beech-tree
and within the arbor, were grouped sundry athletic forms with "pipes
in the liberal air." The landlady, as she passed across the passage to
the tap-room, caught sight of his form at the doorway, and came
forward. Leonard still stood irresolute. He would have gone on his
way, but for the child; she had interested him strongly.
"You seem full, ma'am," said he. "Can I have accommodation for the
night?"
"Why, indeed, sir," said the landlady, civilly, "I can give you a
bedroom, but I don't know where to put you meanwhile. The two parlors
and the tap-room and the kitchen are all chokeful. There has been a
great cattle-fair in the neighborhood, and I suppose we have as many
as fifty farmers and drovers stopping here."
"As to that, ma'am, I can sit in the bedroom you are kind enough to
give me; and if it does not cause you too much trouble to let me have
some tea there, I should be glad; but I can wait your leisure. Do not
put yourself out of the way for me."
The landlady was touched by a consideration she was not much
habituated to receive from her bluff customers.
"You speak very handsome, sir, and we will do our best to serve you,
if you will excuse all faults. This way, sir." Leonard lowered his
knapsack, stepped in the passage, with some difficulty forced his way
through a knot of sturdy giants in top-boots or leathern gaiters who
were swarming in and out the tap-room, and followed his hostess up
stairs to a little bedroom at the top of the house.
"It is small, sir, and high," said the hostess apologetically. "But
there be four gentlemen farmers that have come a great distance, and
all the first floor is engaged; you will be more out of the noise
here."
"Nothing can suit me better. But, stay--pardon me;" and Leonard,
glancing at the garb of the hostess, observed she was not in mourning.
"A little girl whom I saw in the churchyard yonder, weeping very
bitterly--is she a relation of yours? Poor child, she seems to have
deeper feelings than are common at her age."
"Ah, sir," said the landlady, putting the corner of her apron to her
eyes, "it is a very sad story--I don't know what to do. Her father was
taken ill on his way to Lunnun, and stopped here, and has been buried
four days. And the poor little girl seems to have no relations--and
where is she to go? Laryer Jones says we must pass her to Marybone
parish, where her father lived last; and what's to become of her then?
My heart bleeds to think on it." Here then rose such an uproar from
below, that it was evident some quarrel had broken out; and the
hostess, recalled to her duties, hastened to carry thither her
propitiatory influences.
Leonard seated himself pensively by the little lattice. Here was some
one more alone in the world than he. And she, poor orphan, had no
stout man's heart to grapple with fate, and no golden manuscripts that
were to be as the "Open Sesame" to the treasures of Aladdin. By-and-by
the hostess brought him up a tray with tea and other refreshments, and
Leonard resumed his inquiries. "No relatives?" said he; "surely the
child must have some kinsfolk in London? Did her father leave no
directions, or was he in possession of his faculties?"
"Yes, sir; he was quite reasonable-like to the last. And I asked him
if he had not any thing on his mind, and he said, 'I have.' And I
said, 'Your little girl, sir?' And he answered, 'Yes, ma'am;' and
laying his head on his pillow, he wept very quietly. I could not say
more myself, for it set me off to see him cry so meekly; but my
husband is harder nor I, and he said, 'Cheer up, Mr. Digby; had not
you better write to your friends?'"
"'Friends!' said the gentleman, in such a voice! 'Friends I have but
one, and I am going to Him! I cannot take her there!' Then he seemed
suddenly to recollect hisself, and called for his clothes, and
rummaged in the pockets as if looking for some address, and could not
find it. He seemed a forgetful kind of gentleman, and his hands were
what I call _helpless_ hands, sir! And then he gasped out,
'Stop--stop! I never had the address. Write to Lord Les--,' something
like Lord Lester--but we could not make out the name. Indeed he did
not finish it, for there was a rush of blood to his lips; and though
he seemed sensible when he recovered, (and knew us and his little girl
too, till he went off smiling,) he never spoke word more."
"Poor man," said Leonard, wiping his eyes. "But his little girl surely
remembers the name that he did not finish?"
"No. She says, he must have meant a gentleman whom they had met in the
Park not long ago, who was very kind to her father, and was Lord
something; but she don't remember the name, for she never saw him
before or since, and her father talked very little about any one
lately, but thought he should find some kind friends at Screwstown,
and travelled down there with her from Lunnon. But she supposes he was
disappointed, for he went out, came back, and merely told her to put
up the things, as they must go back to Lunnon. And on his way there
he--died. Hush what's that? I hope she did not overhear us. No, we
were talking low. She has the next room to your'n, sir. I thought I
heard her sobbing. Hush!"
"In the next room? I hear nothing. Well, with your leave, I will speak
to her before I quit you. And had her father no money with him?"
"Yes, a few sovereigns, sir; they paid for his funeral, and there is a
little left still, enough to take her to town; for my husband said,
says he, 'Hannah, the widow _gave_ her mite, and we must not _take_
the orphans;' and my husband is a hard man, too, sir. Bless him!"
"Let me take your hand, ma'am. God reward you both."
"La, sir!--why, even Dr. Dosewell said, rather grumpily though, 'Never
mind my bill; but don't call me up at six o'clock in the morning
again, without knowing a little more about people.' And I never afore
knew Dr. Dosewell go without his bill being paid. He said it was a
trick o' the other Doctor to spite him."
"What other Doctor?"
"Oh, a very good gentleman, who got out with Mr. Digby when he was
taken ill, and stayed till the next morning; and our Doctor says his
name is Morgan, and he lives in--Lunnon, and is a homy--something."
"Homicide," suggested Leonard ignorantly.
"Ah--homicide; something like that, only a deal longer and worse. But
he left some of the tiniest little balls you ever see, sir, to give
the child; but, bless you, they did her no good--how should they?"
"Tiny balls, oh--homoeopathist--I understand. And the Doctor was
kind to her; perhaps he may help her. Have you written to him?"
"But we don't know his address, and Lunnon is a vast place, sir."
"I am going to London, and will find it out."
"Ah, sir, you seem very kind; and sin' she must go to Lunnon, (for
what can we do with her here?--she's too genteel for service,) I wish
she was going with you."
"With me?" said Leonard startled; "with me! Well, why not?"
"I am sure she comes of good blood, sir. You would have known her
father was quite the gentleman, only to see him die, sir. He went off
so kind and civil like, as if he was ashamed to give so much
trouble--quite a gentleman, if ever there was one. And so are you,
sir, I'm sure," said the landlady, curtseying; "I know what gentlefolk
be. I've been a housekeeper, in the first of families in this very
shire, sir, though I can't say I've served in Lunnon; and so, as
gentlefolks know each other, I've no doubt you could find out her
relations. Dear--dear! Coming, coming!"
Here there were loud cries for the hostess, and she hurried away. The
farmers and drovers were beginning to depart, and their bills were to
be made out and paid. Leonard saw his hostess no more that night. The
last hip-hip-hurrah, was heard; some toast, perhaps, to the health of
the county members;--and the chamber of woe, beside Leonard's, rattled
with the shout. By-and-by silence gradually succeeded the various
dissonant sounds below. The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of
hoofs on the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of
locking-up, and low humming voices below and footsteps mounting the
stairs to bed, with now and then a drunken hiccup or maudlin laugh, as
some conquered votary of Bacchus was fairly carried up to his
domicile.
All, then, at last was silent, just as the clock from the church
sounded the stroke of eleven.
Leonard, meanwhile, had been looking over his MSS. There was first a
project for an improvement on the steam-engine--a project that had
long lain in his mind, begun with the first knowledge of mechanics
that he had gleaned from his purchases of the Tinker. He put that
aside now--it required too great an effort of the reasoning faculty to
re-examine. He glanced less hastily over a collection of essays on
various subjects, some that he thought indifferent, some that he
thought good. He then lingered over a collection of verses, written in
his best hand with loving care--verses first inspired by his perusal
of Nora's melancholy memorials. These verses were as a diary of his
heart and his fancy--those deep unwitnessed struggles which the
boyhood of all more thoughtful natures has passed in its bright yet
murky storm of the cloud and the lightning flash; though but few boys
pause to record the crisis from which slowly emerges Man. And these
first, desultory grapplings with the fugitive airy images that flit
through the dim chambers of the brain, had become with each effort
more sustained and vigorous, till the phantoms were spelled, the
flying ones arrested, the immaterial seized, and clothed with Form.
Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that there at length spoke
forth a Poet. It was a work which, though as yet but half completed,
came from a strong hand; not that shadow trembling on unsteady waters,
which is but the pale reflex and imitation of some bright mind,
sphered out of reach and afar; but an original substance--a life--a
thing of the _Creative_ Faculty--breathing back already the breath it
had received. This work had paused during Leonard's residence with Mr.
Avenel, or had only now and then, in stealth, and at night, received a
rare touch. Now, as with a fresh eye, he re-perused it; and with that
strange, innocent admiration, not of self--(for a man's work is not,
alas! himself--it is the beatified and idealized essence, extracted he
knows not how from his own human elements of clay)--admiration known
but to poets--their purest delight, often their sole reward. And then,
with a warmer and more earthly beat of his full heart, he rushed in
fancy to the Great City, where all rivers of Fame meet, but not to be
merged and lost--sallying forth again, individualized and separate, to
flow through that one vast thought of God which we call THE WORLD.
He put up his papers; and opened his window, as was his ordinary
custom, before he retired to rest--for he had many odd habits; and he
loved to look out into the night when he prayed. His soul seemed to
escape from the body--to mount on the air--to gain more rapid access
to the far Throne in the Infinite--when his breath went forth among
the winds, and his eyes rested fixed on the stars, of Heaven.
So the boy prayed silently; and after his prayer he was about
lingeringly to close the lattice, when he heard distinctly sobs close
at hand. He paused, and held his breath; then gently looked out; the
casement next his own was also open. Some one was also at watch by
that casement--perhaps also praying. He listened yet more attentively,
and caught, soft and low, the words. "Father--father--do you hear me
_now_?"