第 十五 章 · 第15章

Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on the

morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled sensation

of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly seen in the

clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest Kit. But

although she would gladly have given him her hand and thanked him for

what he had said at their last meeting, it was always a relief to find,

when they came nearer to each other, that the person who approached was

not he, but a stranger; for even if she had not dreaded the effect

which the sight of him might have wrought upon her fellow-traveller,

she felt that to bid farewell to anybody now, and most of all to him

who had been so faithful and so true, was more than she could bear. It

was enough to leave dumb things behind, and objects that were

insensible both to her love and sorrow. To have parted from her only

other friend upon the threshold of that wild journey, would have wrung

her heart indeed.

Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and

while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say

it? On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends

who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual

pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow,

while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of

uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be. Should

possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our

dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them,

whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the

whole remainder of a life.

The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and

distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams

dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain

before sleepers’ eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the

shadows of the night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark,

felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little

cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled

timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat

winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the

door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside. The

nobler beasts confined in dens, stood motionless behind their bars and

gazed on fluttering boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little

window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed--then trod impatiently

the track their prisoned feet had worn--and stopped and gazed again.

Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the

stone that no bright sky could warm. The flowers that sleep by night,

opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light,

creation’s mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power.

The two pilgrims, often pressing each other’s hands, or exchanging a

smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence. Bright and happy

as it was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted streets,

from which, like bodies without souls, all habitual character and

expression had departed, leaving but one dead uniform repose, that made

them all alike. All was so still at that early hour, that the few pale

people whom they met seemed as much unsuited to the scene, as the

sickly lamp which had been here and there left burning, was powerless

and faint in the full glory of the sun.

Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men’s abodes

which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect began to melt

away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place. Some straggling carts

and coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm, then others came, then

others yet more active, then a crowd. The wonder was, at first, to see

a tradesman’s window open, but it was a rare thing soon to see one

closed; then, smoke rose slowly from the chimneys, and sashes were

thrown up to let in air, and doors were opened, and servant girls,

looking lazily in all directions but their brooms, scattered brown

clouds of dust into the eyes of shrinking passengers, or listened

disconsolately to milkmen who spoke of country fairs, and told of

waggons in the mews, with awnings and all things complete, and gallant

swains to boot, which another hour would see upon their journey.

This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and great

traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was already

rife. The old man looked about him with a startled and bewildered

gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun. He pressed his

finger on his lip, and drew the child along by narrow courts and

winding ways, nor did he seem at ease until they had left it far

behind, often casting a backward look towards it, murmuring that ruin

and self-murder were crouching in every street, and would follow if

they scented them; and that they could not fly too fast.

Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling neighbourhood,

where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and windows patched with

rags and paper, told of the populous poverty that sheltered there. The

shops sold goods that only poverty could buy, and sellers and buyers

were pinched and griped alike. Here were poor streets where faded

gentility essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its

last feeble stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as

elsewhere, and the poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less

squalid and manifest than that which had long ago submitted and given

up the game.

This was a wide, wide track--for the humble followers of the camp of

wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile--but its

character was still the same. Damp rotten houses, many to let, many

yet building, many half-built and mouldering away--lodgings, where it

would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who let or those

who came to take--children, scantily fed and clothed, spread over every

street, and sprawling in the dust--scolding mothers, stamping their

slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the pavement--shabby fathers,

hurrying with dispirited looks to the occupation which brought them

‘daily bread’ and little more--mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers,

tailors, chandlers, driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and

back room and garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same

roof--brick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or

timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered by

the flames--mounds of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and

oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusion--small dissenting chapels to

teach, with no lack of illustration, the miseries of Earth, and plenty

of new churches, erected with a little superfluous wealth, to show the

way to Heaven.

At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and

dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering the

road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of old

timber or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough cabbage-stalks

that grew about it, and grottoed at the seams with toad-stools and

tight-sticking snails. To these succeeded pert cottages, two and two

with plots of ground in front, laid out in angular beds with stiff box

borders and narrow paths between, where footstep never strayed to make

the gravel rough. Then came the public-house, freshly painted in green

and white, with tea-gardens and a bowling green, spurning its old

neighbour with the horse-trough where the waggons stopped; then,

fields; and then, some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns,

some even with a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife. Then came a

turnpike; then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill,

and on the top of that, the traveller might stop, and--looking back at

old Saint Paul’s looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above the

cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and casting

his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he traced it down to

the furthest outposts of the invading army of bricks and mortar whose

station lay for the present nearly at his feet--might feel at last that

he was clear of London.

Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and his

little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were bound)

sat down to rest. She had had the precaution to furnish her basket

with some slices of bread and meat, and here they made their frugal

breakfast.

The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the

waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand

exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air--deep joys to most

of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live

solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well--sunk into

their breasts and made them very glad. The child had repeated her

artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had

ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her

lips again. The old man took off his hat--he had no memory for the

words--but he said amen, and that they were very good.

There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress, with strange

plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole

evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where those

distant countries with the curious names might be. As she looked back

upon the place they had left, one part of it came strongly on her mind.

‘Dear grandfather,’ she said, ‘only that this place is prettier and a

great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like it, I

feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this grass all the

cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.’

‘No--never to return--never to return’--replied the old man, waving his

hand towards the city. ‘Thou and I are free of it now, Nell. They

shall never lure us back.’

‘Are you tired?’ said the child, ‘are you sure you don’t feel ill from

this long walk?’

‘I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,’ was his

reply. ‘Let us be stirring, Nell. We must be further away--a long,

long way further. We are too near to stop, and be at rest. Come!’

There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved

her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk

again. She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and

making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her

hands, and dried it with her simple dress.

‘I can do nothing for myself, my darling,’ said the grandfather; ‘I

don’t know how it is, I could once, but the time’s gone. Don’t leave

me, Nell; say that thou’lt not leave me. I loved thee all the while,

indeed I did. If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!’

He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously. The time had

been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have

restrained her tears and must have wept with him. But now she soothed

him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking they could

ever part, and rallied him cheerfully upon the jest. He was soon

calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice, like a

little child.

He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey. The road was

pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn, about

which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled out her

happy song. The air came laden with the fragrance it caught upon its

way, and the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed forth their

drowsy satisfaction as they floated by.

They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and

scattered at long intervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came

upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put

across the open door to keep the scrambling children from the road,

others shut up close while all the family were working in the fields.

These were often the commencement of a little village: and after an

interval came a wheelwright’s shed or perhaps a blacksmith’s forge;

then a thriving farm with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses

peering over the low wall and scampering away when harnessed horses

passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom. There

were dull pigs too, turning up the ground in search of dainty food, and

grunting their monotonous grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed

each other in their quest; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or

strutting on the eaves; and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their

own conceit, waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing

glibly on its surface. The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn;

the humbler beer-shop; and the village tradesman’s; then the lawyer’s

and the parson’s, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled; the

church then peeped out modestly from a clump of trees; then there were

a few more cottages; then the cage, and pound, and not unfrequently, on

a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty well. Then came the

trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road again.

They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds

were let to travellers. Next morning they were afoot again, and though

jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long and proceeded

briskly forward.

They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time, and

still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the morning. It

was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, when drawing near another

cluster of labourers’ huts, the child looked wistfully in each,

doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile, and buy a

draught of milk.

It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of being

repulsed. Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife. In this,

the people seemed too poor; in that, too many. At length she stopped

at one where the family were seated round the table--chiefly because

there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair beside the hearth,

and she thought he was a grandfather and would feel for hers.

There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young sturdy

children, brown as berries. The request was no sooner preferred, than

granted. The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged

two stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother’s

gown, and looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand.

‘God save you, master,’ said the old cottager in a thin piping voice;

‘are you travelling far?’

‘Yes, Sir, a long way’--replied the child; for her grandfather appealed

to her.

‘From London?’ inquired the old man.

The child said yes.

Ah! He had been in London many a time--used to go there often once,

with waggons. It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there

last, and he did hear say there were great changes. Like enough! He

had changed, himself, since then. Two-and-thirty year was a long time

and eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that

had lived to very hard upon a hundred--and not so hearty as he,

neither--no, nothing like it.

‘Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,’ said the old man, knocking

his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply. ‘Take a

pinch out o’ that box; I don’t take much myself, for it comes dear, but

I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye’re but a boy to me. I should

have a son pretty nigh as old as you if he’d lived, but they listed him

for a so’ger--he come back home though, for all he had but one poor

leg. He always said he’d be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb

upon when he was a baby, did my poor boy, and his words come true--you

can see the place with your own eyes; we’ve kept the turf up, ever

since.’

He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said

she needn’t be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more.

He didn’t wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by

what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.

The milk arrived, and the child producing her little basket, and

selecting its best fragments for her grandfather, they made a hearty

meal. The furniture of the room was very homely of course--a few rough

chairs and a table, a corner cupboard with their little stock of

crockery and delf, a gaudy tea-tray, representing a lady in bright red,

walking out with a very blue parasol, a few common, coloured scripture

subjects in frames upon the wall and chimney, an old dwarf

clothes-press and an eight-day clock, with a few bright saucepans and a

kettle, comprised the whole. But everything was clean and neat, and as

the child glanced round, she felt a tranquil air of comfort and content

to which she had long been unaccustomed.

‘How far is it to any town or village?’ she asked of the husband.

‘A matter of good five mile, my dear,’ was the reply, ‘but you’re not

going on to-night?’

‘Yes, yes, Nell,’ said the old man hastily, urging her too by signs.

‘Further on, further on, darling, further away if we walk till

midnight.’

‘There’s a good barn hard by, master,’ said the man, ‘or there’s

travellers’ lodging, I know, at the Plow an’ Harrer. Excuse me, but

you do seem a little tired, and unless you’re very anxious to get on--’

‘Yes, yes, we are,’ returned the old man fretfully. ‘Further away,

dear Nell, pray further away.’

‘We must go on, indeed,’ said the child, yielding to his restless wish.

‘We thank you very much, but we cannot stop so soon. I’m quite ready,

grandfather.’

But the woman had observed, from the young wanderer’s gait, that one of

her little feet was blistered and sore, and being a woman and a mother

too, she would not suffer her to go until she had washed the place and

applied some simple remedy, which she did so carefully and with such a

gentle hand--rough-grained and hard though it was, with work--that the

child’s heart was too full to admit of her saying more than a fervent

‘God bless you!’ nor could she look back nor trust herself to speak,

until they had left the cottage some distance behind. When she turned

her head, she saw that the whole family, even the old grandfather, were

standing in the road watching them as they went, and so, with many

waves of the hand, and cheering nods, and on one side at least not

without tears, they parted company.

They trudged forward, more slowly and painfully than they had done yet,

for another mile or thereabouts, when they heard the sound of wheels

behind them, and looking round observed an empty cart approaching

pretty briskly. The driver on coming up to them stopped his horse and

looked earnestly at Nell.

‘Didn’t you stop to rest at a cottage yonder?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the child.

‘Ah! They asked me to look out for you,’ said the man. ‘I’m going

your way. Give me your hand--jump up, master.’

This was a great relief, for they were very much fatigued and could

scarcely crawl along. To them the jolting cart was a luxurious

carriage, and the ride the most delicious in the world. Nell had

scarcely settled herself on a little heap of straw in one corner, when

she fell asleep, for the first time that day.

She was awakened by the stopping of the cart, which was about to turn

up a bye-lane. The driver kindly got down to help her out, and

pointing to some trees at a very short distance before them, said that

the town lay there, and that they had better take the path which they

would see leading through the churchyard. Accordingly, towards this

spot, they directed their weary steps.