At noon that same day, the young man and the child were on their road
to London. The host had at first a little demurred at trusting Helen
to so young a companion, but Leonard, in his happy ignorance, had
talked so sanguinely of finding out this lord, or some adequate
protection for the child, and in so grand a strain, though with all
sincerity, had spoken of his own great prospects in the metropolis (he
did not say what they were!) that had it been the craftiest imposter,
he could not have more taken in the rustic host. And while the
landlady still cherished the illusive fancy that all gentlefolks must
know each other in London, as they did in a county, the landlord
believed, at least, that a young man, so respectably dressed, although
but a foot-traveller--who talked in so confident a tone, and who was
so willing to undertake what might be rather a burdensome charge,
unless he saw how to rid himself of it--would be sure to have friends,
older and wiser than himself, who could judge what could best be done
for the orphan.
And what was the host to do with her? Better this volunteered escort,
at least, than vaguely passing her on from parish to parish, and
leaving her friendless at last in the streets of London. Helen, too,
smiled for the first time on being asked her wishes, and again put her
hand in Leonard's. In short, so it was settled.
The little girl made up a bundle of the things she most prized or
needed. Leonard did not feel the additional load, as he slung it to
his knapsack. The rest of the luggage was to be sent to London as soon
as Leonard wrote, (which he promised to do soon,) and gave an address.
Helen paid her last visit to the churchyard; and she joined her
companion as he stood on the road, without the solemn precincts. And
now they had gone on some hours, and when he asked if she was tired,
she still answered "No." But Leonard was merciful, and made their
day's journey short; and it took them some days to reach London. By
the long lonely way, they grew so intimate, at the end of the second
day they called each other brother and sister; and Leonard, to his
delight, found that as her grief, with the bodily movement and the
change of scene, subsided from its first intenseness and its
insensibility to other impressions, she developed a quickness of
comprehension far beyond her years. Poor child! _that_ had been forced
upon her by Necessity. And she understood him in his spiritual
consolations,--half poetical, half religious; and she listened to his
own tale, and the story of his self-education and solitary
struggles--those, too, she understood. But when he burst out with his
enthusiasm, his glorious hopes, his confidence in the fate before
them, then she would shake her head very quietly and very sadly. Did
she comprehend _them_? Alas! perhaps too well. She knew more as to
real life than he did. Leonard was at first their joint treasurer, but
before the second day was over, Helen seemed to discover that he was
too lavish; and she told him so, with a prudent grave look, putting
her hand on his arm, as he was about to enter an inn to dine; and the
gravity would have been comic, but that the eyes through their
moisture were so meek and grateful. She felt he was about to incur
that ruinous extravagance on her account. Somehow or other, the purse
found its way into her keeping, and then she looked proud, and in her
natural element.
Ah! what happy meals under her care were provided: so much more
enjoyable than in dull, sanded inn parlors, swarming with flies, and
reeking with stale tobacco. She would leave him at the entrance of a
village, bound forward, and cater, and return with a little basket and
a pretty blue jug--which she had bought on the road--the last filled
with new milk, the first with new bread and some special dainty in
radishes or water-cresses. And she had such a talent for finding out
the prettiest spot whereon to halt and dine: sometimes in the heart of
a wood--so still, it was like a forest in fairy tales, the hare
stealing through the alleys, or the squirrel peeping at them from the
boughs; sometimes by a little brawling stream, with the fishes seen
under the clear wave, and shooting round the crumbs thrown to them.
They made an Arcadia of the dull road up to their dread
Thermopylae--the war against the million that waited them on the other
side of their pass through Tempe.
"Shall we be as happy when we are _great_?" said Leonard, in his grand
simplicity.
Helen sighed, and the wise little head was shaken.