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 cannot 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 cannot
understand, it is only because of old school-boy 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 towards
Westminster.
He passed the nook in which had sat the still figure of Despondency. But
the figure had now risen, and was leaning against the balustrade. The dog
who had 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 leant, 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 called 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.