"Hip--hip--hurrah!" Such was the sound that greeted our young traveler
as he reached the inn-door--a sound joyous in itself, but sadly out of
harmony with the feelings which the child 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
bed-room, but I don't know where to put you meanwhile. The two parlors
and the tap-room and the kitchen are all choke-ful. 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 bed-room you are kind enough to
give me; and if it does not cause you 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 into 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 bed-room 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 church-yard 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 reasonablelike 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 me, '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 than 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 can not 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 traveled
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
orphan's,' 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 staid 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--homeopathist--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, courtesying; "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 of 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 paused 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 the 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 looked gently 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 intently, and
caught, soft and low, the words, "Father--father--do you hear me _now_?"