While Leonard accustoms himself gradually to the splendours that
surround him, and often turns with a sigh to the remembrance of his
mother's cottage and the sparkling fount in the Italian's flowery
garden, we will make with thee, O reader, a rapid flight to the
metropolis, and drop ourselves amidst the gay groups that loiter along
the dusty ground, or loll over the roadside palings of Hyde Park. The
season is still at its height; but the short day of fashionable London
life, which commences two hours after noon, is in its decline. The
crowd in Rotten Row begins to thin. Near the statue of Achilles, and
apart from all other loungers, a gentleman, with one hand thrust into
his waistcoat, and the other resting on his cane, gazed listlessly on
the horsemen and carriages in the brilliant ring. He was still in the
prime of life, at the age when man is usually the most social--when the
acquaintances of youth have ripened into friendship, and a personage
of some rank and fortune has become a well-known feature in the mobile
face of society. But though, when his contemporaries were boys scarce
at college, this gentleman had blazed foremost amongst the princes of
fashion, and though he had all the qualities of nature and circumstance
which either retain fashion to the last, or exchange its false
celebrity for a graver repute, he stood as a stranger in that throng
of his countrymen. Beauties whirled by to the toilet--statesmen passed
on to the senate--dandies took flight to the clubs; and neither nods
nor becks, nor wreathed smiles, said to the solitary spectator, "Follow
us--thou art one of our set." Now and then, some middle-aged beau,
nearing the post of the loiterer, turned round to look again; but the
second glance seemed to dissipate the recognition of the first, and the
beau silently continued his way.
"By the tombs of my fathers!" said the solitary to himself, "I know now
what a dead man might feel if he came to life again, and took a peep at
the living."
Time passed on--the evening shades descended fast. Our stranger in
London had wellnigh the Park to himself. He seemed to breathe more
freely as he saw that the space was so clear.
"There's oxygen in the atmosphere now," said he, half aloud; "and I
can walk without breathing in the gaseous fumes of the multitude. O
those chemists--what dolts they are! They tell us crowds taint the
air, but they never guess why! Pah, it is not the lungs that poison
the element--it is the reek of bad hearts. When a periwig-pated fellow
breathes on me, I swallow a mouthful of care. _Allons!_ my friend Nero;
now for a stroll." He touched with his cane a large Newfoundland dog,
who lay stretched near his feet; and dog and man went slow through the
growing twilight, and over the brown dry turf. At length our solitary
paused, and threw himself on a bench under a tree. "Half-past eight!"
said he, looking at his watch--"one may smoke one's cigar without
shocking the world."
He took out his cigar-case, struck a light, and in another moment
reclined at length on the bench--seemed absorbed in regarding the
smoke, that scarce coloured ere it vanished into air.
"It is the most barefaced lie in the world, my Nero," said he,
addressing his dog, "this boasted liberty of man! Now here am I, a
freeborn Englishman, a citizen of the world, caring--I often say to
myself--caring not a jot for Kaisar or Mob; and yet I no more dare
smoke this cigar in the Park at half-past six, when all the world
is abroad, than I dare pick my Lord Chancellor's pocket, or hit the
Archbishop of Canterbury a thump on the nose. Yet no law in England
forbids me my cigar, Nero! What is law at half-past eight, was not
crime at six and a-half! Britannia says, 'Man, thou art free,' and she
lies like a commonplace woman. O Nero, Nero! you enviable dog!--you
serve but from liking. No thought of the world costs you one wag of the
tail. Your big heart and true instinct suffice you for reason and law.
You would want nothing to your felicity, if in these moments of ennui
you would but smoke a cigar. Try it, Nero!--try it!" And, rising from
his incumbent posture, he sought to force the end of the weed between
the teeth of the dog.
While thus gravely engaged, two figures had approached the place.
The one was a man who seemed weak and sickly. His threadbare coat
was buttoned to the chin, but hung large on his shrunken breast. The
other was a girl of about fourteen, on whose arm he leant heavily. Her
cheek was wan, and there was a patient sad look on her face, which
seemed so settled that you would think she could never have known the
mirthfulness of childhood.
"Pray rest here, papa," said the child softly; and she pointed to
the bench, without taking heed of its pre-occupant, who now, indeed,
confined to one corner of the seat, was almost hidden by the shadow of
the tree.
The man sate down, with a feeble sigh; and then, observing the
stranger, raised his hat, and said, in that tone of voice which betrays
the usages of polished society, "Forgive me, if I intrude on you, sir."
The stranger looked up from his dog, and seeing that the girl was
standing, rose at once as if to make room for her on the bench.
But still the girl did not heed him. She hung over her father, and
wiped his brow tenderly with a little kerchief which she took from her
own neck for the purpose.
Nero, delighted to escape the cigar, had taken to some unwieldy curvets
and gambols, to vent the excitement into which he had been thrown; and
now returning, approached the bench with a low look of surprise, and
sniffed at the intruders of her master's privacy.
"Come here, sir," said the master. "You need not fear him," he added,
addressing himself to the girl.
But the girl, without turning round to him, cried in a voice rather of
anguish than alarm, "He has fainted! Father! father!"
The stranger kicked aside his dog, which was in the way, and loosened
the poor man's stiff military stock. While thus charitably engaged, the
moon broke out, and the light fell full on the pale care-worn face of
the unconscious sufferer.
"This face seems not unfamiliar to me, though sadly changed," said the
stranger to himself; and bending towards the girl, who had sunk on her
knees and was chafing her father's hands, he asked, "My child, what is
your father's name?"
The child continued her task, too absorbed to answer.
The stranger put his hand on her shoulder, and repeated the question.
"Digby," answered the child, almost unconsciously; and as she spoke the
man's senses began to return. In a few minutes more he had sufficiently
recovered to falter forth his thanks to the stranger. But the last took
his hand, and said, in a voice at once tremulous and soothing, "Is it
possible that I see once more an old brother in arms? Algernon Digby, I
do not forget you; but it seems England has forgotten."
A hectic flush spread over the soldier's face, and he looked away from
the speaker as he answered--
"My name is Digby, it is true, sir; but I do not think we have met
before. Come, Helen, I am well now--we will go home."
"Try and play with that great dog, my child," said the stranger--"I
want to talk with your father."
The child bowed her submissive head, and moved away; but she did not
play with the dog.
"I must reintroduce myself, formally, I see," quoth the stranger. "You
were in the same regiment with myself, and my name is L'Estrange."
"My lord," said the soldier, rising, "forgive me that--"
"I don't think that it was the fashion to call me 'my lord' at the
mess-table. Come, what has happened to you?--on half-pay?"
Mr Digby shook his head mournfully.
"Digby, old fellow, can you lend me £100?" said Lord L'Estrange,
clapping his _ci-devant_ brother officer on the shoulder, and in
a tone of voice that seemed like a boy's--so impudent was it, and
devil-me-carish. "No! Well, that's lucky, for I can lend it to you."
Mr Digby burst into tears.
Lord L'Estrange did not seem to observe the emotion. "We were both sad
extravagant fellows in our day," said he, "and I dare say I borrowed of
you pretty freely."
"Me! Oh, Lord L'Estrange!"
"You have married since then, and reformed, I suppose. Tell me, old
friend, all about it."
Mr Digby, who by this time had succeeded in restoring some calm to his
shattered nerves, now rose, and said in brief sentences, but clear firm
tones,--
"My Lord, it is idle to talk of me--useless to help me. I am fast
dying. But, my child there, my only child, (he paused an instant, and
went on rapidly.) I have relations in a distant county, if I could but
get to them--I think they would at least provide for her. This has been
for weeks my hope, my dream, my prayer. I cannot afford the journey
except by your help. I have begged without shame for myself; shall I be
ashamed, then, to beg for her?"
"Digby," said L'Estrange with some grave alteration of manner, "talk
neither of dying, nor begging. You were nearer death when the balls
whistled round you at Waterloo. If soldier meets soldier and says,
'Friend, thy purse,' it is not begging, but brotherhood. Ashamed! By
the soul of Belisarius! if I needed money, I would stand at a crossing
with my Waterloo medal over my breast, and say to each sleek citizen I
had helped to save from the sword of the Frenchman, 'It is your shame
if I starve.' 'Now, lean upon me; I see you should be at home--which
way?"
The poor soldier pointed his hand towards Oxford Street, and
reluctantly accepted the proffered arm.
"And when you return from your relations, you will call on me?
What!--hesitate? Come, promise."
"I will."
"On your honour."
"If I live, on my honour."
"I am staying at present at Knightsbridge, with my father; but you will
always hear of my address at No. -- Grosvenor Square, Mr Egerton's. So
you have a long journey before you?"
"Very long."
"Do not fatigue yourself--travel slowly. Ho, you foolish child!--I see
you are jealous of me. Your father has another arm to spare you."
Thus talking, and getting but short answers, Lord L'Estrange continued
to exhibit those whimsical peculiarities of character, which had
obtained for him the repute of heartlessness in the world. Perhaps the
reader may think the world was not in the right. But if ever the world
does judge rightly of the character of a man who does not live for the
world, nor talk for the world, nor feel with the world, it will be
centuries after the soul of Harley L'Estrange has done with this planet.