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 impostor he could not more have
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-traveler--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
would 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 church-yard; 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 were 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.