Harley spent his day in his usual desultory, lounging manner--dined in
his quiet corner at his favorite club--Nero, not admitted into the club,
patiently waited for him outside the door. The dinner over, dog and man,
equally indifferent to the crowd, sauntered down that thoroughfare
which, to the few who can comprehend the Poetry of London, has
associations of glory and of woe sublime as any that the ruins of the
dead elder world can furnish--thoroughfare that traverses what was once
the courtyard of Whitehall, having to its left the site of the palace
that lodged the royalty of Scotland--gains, through a narrow strait,
that old isle of Thorney, in which Edward the Confessor received the
ominous visit of the Conqueror--and, widening once more by the Abbey and
the Hall of Westminster, then loses itself, like all memories of earthly
grandeur amidst humble passages and mean defiles.
Thus thought Harley L'Estrange--ever less amidst the actual world around
him, than the images invoked by his own solitary soul--as he gained the
Bridge, and saw the dull lifeless craft sleeping on the "Silent Way,"
once loud and glittering with the gilded barks of the antique Seignorie
of England.
It was on that bridge that Audley Egerton had appointed to meet
L'Estrange, at an hour when he calculated he could best steal a respite
from debate. For Harley, with his fastidious dislike to all the resorts
of his equals, had declined to seek his friend in the crowded regions of
Bellamy's.
Harley's eye, as he passed along the bridge, was attracted by a still
form, seated on the stones in one of the nooks, with its face covered
by its hands. "If I were a sculptor," said he to himself, "I should
remember that image whenever I wished to convey the idea of
_Despondency_!" He lifted his looks and saw, a little before him in the
midst of the causeway, the firm erect figure of Audley Egerton. The
moonlight was full on the bronzed countenance of the strong public
man--with its lines of thought and care, and its vigorous but cold
expression of intense self-control.
"And looking yonder," continued Harley's soliloquy, "I should remember
that form when I wished to hew out from the granite the idea of
_Endurance_."
"So you are come, and punctually," said Egerton, linking his arm in
Harley's.
HARLEY.--"Punctually, of course, for I respect your time, and I will not
detain you long. I presume you will speak to-night."
EGERTON.--"I have spoken."
HARLEY (with interest).--"And well, I hope."
EGERTON.--"With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly cheered, which
does not always happen to me."
HARLEY.--"And that gave you pleasure?"
EGERTON (after a moment's thought).--"No, not the least."
HARLEY.--"What, then, attaches you so much to this life--constant
drudgery, constant warfare--the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all
the harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of
those to be applause) do not please you?"
EGERTON.--"What?--custom."
HARLEY.--"Martyr!"
EGERTON.--"You say it. But turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to
leave England next week."
HARLEY (moodily).--"Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so
active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here
amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am
resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the
Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to
marry."
EGERTON.--"Whom?"
HARLEY (seriously).--"Upon my life, my dear fellow, you are a great
philosopher. You have hit the exact question. You see I can not marry a
dream; and where, out of dreams, shall I find this 'whom?'"
EGERTON.--"You do not search for her."
HARLEY.--"Do we ever search for love? Does it not flash upon us when we
least expect it? Is it not like the inspiration to the muse? What poet
sits down and says, 'I will write a poem?' What man looks out and says,
'I will fall in love?' No! Happiness, as the great German tells us,
'falls suddenly from the bosom of the gods;' so does love."
EGERTON.--"You remember the old line in Horace: 'Life's tide flows away,
while the boor sits on the margin and waits for the ford.'"
HARLEY.--"An idea which incidentally dropped from you some weeks ago,
and which I had before half meditated, has since haunted me. If I could
but find some child with sweet dispositions and fair intellect not yet
formed, and train her up, according to my ideal. I am still young enough
to wait a few years, and meanwhile I shall have gained what I so sadly
want--an object in life."
EGERTON.--"You are ever the child of romance. But what--"
Here the minister was interrupted by a messenger from the House of
Commons, whom Audley had instructed to seek him on the bridge should his
presence be required--
"Sir, the opposition are taking advantage of the thinness of the House
to call for a division. Mr.---- is put up to speak for time, but they
won't hear him."
Egerton turned hastily to Lord L'Estrange, "You see you must excuse me
now. To-morrow I must go to Windsor for two days; but we shall meet on
my return."
"It does not matter," answered Harley; "I stand out of the pale of your
advice, O practical man of sense. And if," added Harley, with
affectionate and mournful sweetness--"If I worry you with complaints
which you can not understand, it is only because of old schoolboy
habits. I can have no trouble that I do not confide in you."
Egerton's hand trembled as it pressed his friend's; and, without a word,
he hurried away abruptly. Harley remained motionless for some seconds,
in deep and quiet reverie; then he called to his dog, and turned back
toward Westminster.
He passed the nook in which had sate the still figure of Despondency.
But the figure had now risen, and was leaning against the balustrade.
The dog who preceded his master paused by the solitary form, and sniffed
it suspiciously.
"Nero, sir, come here," said Harley.
"Nero," that was the name by which Helen had said that her father's
friend had called his dog. And the sound startled Leonard as he leaned,
sick at heart, against the stone. He lifted his head and looked
wistfully, eagerly into Harley's face. Those eyes, bright, clear, yet so
strangely deep and absent, which Helen had described, met his own, and
chained them. For L'Estrange halted also; the boy's countenance was not
unfamiliar to him. He returned the inquiring look fixed on his own, and
recognized the student by the book-stall.
"The dog is quite harmless, sir," said L'Estrange, with a smile.
"And you call him Nero?" said Leonard, still gazing on the stranger.
Harley mistook the drift of the question.
"Nero, sir; but he is free from the sanguinary propensities of his Roman
namesake." Harley was about to pass on, when Leonard said, falteringly,
"Pardon me, but can it be possible that you are one whom I have sought
in vain, on behalf of the child of Captain Digby?"
Harley stopped short. "Digby!" he exclaimed, "where is he? He should
have found me easily. I gave him an address."
"Ah, Heaven be thanked," cried Leonard. "Helen is saved; she will not
die;" and he burst into tears.
A very few moments, and a very few words sufficed to explain to Harley
the state of his old fellow-soldier's orphan. And Harley himself soon
stood in the young sufferer's room, supporting her burning temples on
his breast, and whispering into ears that heard him, as in a happy
dream, "Comfort, comfort; your father yet lives in me."
And then Helen, raising her eyes, said, "But Leonard is my brother--more
than brother--and he needs a father's care more than I do."
"Hush, hush, Helen. I need no one--nothing now!" cried Leonard; and his
tears gushed over the little hand that clasped his own.