第 86 页

'The elder brother married her. She was in Heaven before long, and

left him with an infant daughter.

'If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will

remember how the same face and figure--often the fairest and slightest

of them all--come upon you in different generations; and how you trace

the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits--never growing

old or changing--the Good Angel of the race--abiding by them in all

reverses--redeeming all their sins--

'In this daughter the mother lived again. You may judge with what

devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this

girl, her breathing image. She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart

to one who could not know its worth. Well! Her fond father could not

see her pine and droop. He might be more deserving than he thought

him. He surely might become so, with a wife like her. He joined their

hands, and they were married.

'Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the cold

neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he brought

upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and

pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, in the deep

devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can.

Her means and substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her

husband's hand, and the hourly witness (for they lived now under one

roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,--she never, but for him,

bewailed her fate. Patient, and upheld by strong affection to the

last, she died a widow of some three weeks' date, leaving to her

father's care two orphans; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the

other a girl--such another infant child--the same in helplessness, in

age, in form, in feature--as she had been herself when her young mother

died.

'The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken

man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the

heavy hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to

trade--in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had

entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he

had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and precarious

subsistence.

'The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her

mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her

mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his

daughter were a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the

shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste.

The old man and the child dwelt alone together.

'It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and

dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature; when

her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of

the too early change he had seen in such another--of all the

sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone;

when the young man's profligate and hardened course drained him of

money as his father's had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary

privation and distress; it was then that there began to beset him, and

to be ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want. He had no

thought for himself in this. His fear was for the child. It was a

spectre in his house, and haunted him night and day.

'The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and had

made his pilgrimage through life alone. His voluntary banishment had

been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and

slight for doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful

shadow on his path. Apart from this, communication between him and the

elder was difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not

so wholly broken off but that he learnt--with long blanks and gaps

between each interval of information--all that I have told you now.

'Then, dreams of their young, happy life--happy to him though laden

with pain and early care--visited his pillow yet oftener than before;

and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother's side. With the

utmost speed he could exert, he settled his affairs; converted into

money all the goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for

both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore

him on, with emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one

evening at his brother's door!'

The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.

'The rest,' said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, 'I know.'

'Yes,' rejoined his friend, 'we may spare ourselves the sequel. You

know the poor result of all my search. Even when by dint of such

inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we

found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen--and in time

discovered the men themselves--and in time, the actual place of their

retreat; even then, we were too late. Pray God, we are not too late

again!'

'We cannot be,' said Mr Garland. 'This time we must succeed.'

'I have believed and hoped so,' returned the other. 'I try to believe

and hope so still. But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my

good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to

neither hope nor reason.'

'That does not surprise me,' said Mr Garland; 'it is a natural

consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time and

place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night. A dismal night,

indeed! Hark! how the wind is howling!'

CHAPTER 70

Day broke, and found them still upon their way. Since leaving home,

they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had

frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for

fresh horses. They had made no other stoppages, but the weather

continued rough, and the roads were often steep and heavy. It would be

night again before they reached their place of destination.

Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and,

having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to

himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about

him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for thinking of

discomforts. Though his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers,

rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours did not stand still. The

short daylight of winter soon faded away, and it was dark again when

they had yet many miles to travel.

As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low and

mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling covertly

among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some great

phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled as it

stalked along. By degrees it lulled and died away, and then it came on

to snow.

The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some inches

deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness. The rolling wheels were

noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the horses' hoofs, became

a dull, muffled tramp. The life of their progress seemed to be slowly

hushed, and something death-like to usurp its place.

Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes

and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse

of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to some not distant town.

He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly. Now,

a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a

barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps.

Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before,

or meeting them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them,

turned to shadows too. A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise

up in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be

the road itself. Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of water,

appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful and

uncertain; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these things,

like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim illusions.

He descended slowly from his seat--for his limbs were numbed--when

they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far they had to

go to reach their journey's end. It was a late hour in such by-places,

and the people were abed; but a voice answered from an upper window,

Ten miles. The ten minutes that ensued appeared an hour; but at the

end of that time, a shivering figure led out the horses they required,

and after another brief delay they were again in motion.

It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four miles,

of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow, were so many

pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to keep a footpace.

As it was next to impossible for men so much agitated as they were by

this time, to sit still and move so slowly, all three got out and

plodded on behind the carriage. The distance seemed interminable, and

the walk was most laborious. As each was thinking within himself that

the driver must have lost his way, a church bell, close at hand, struck

the hour of midnight, and the carriage stopped. It had moved softly

enough, but when it ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as

startling as if some great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness.

'This is the place, gentlemen,' said the driver, dismounting from his

horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn. 'Halloa! Past twelve

o'clock is the dead of night here.'

The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy

inmates. All continued dark and silent as before. They fell back a

little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black patches in

the whitened house front. No light appeared. The house might have

been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life it had about

it.

They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers;

unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now raised.

'Let us go on,' said the younger brother, 'and leave this good fellow

to wake them, if he can. I cannot rest until I know that we are not

too late. Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!'

They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as the

house afforded, and to renew his knocking. Kit accompanied them with a

little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home,

and had not forgotten since--the bird in his old cage--just as she had

left him. She would be glad to see her bird, he knew.

The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of

the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village

clustering round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in

that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the

man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence

until they returned.

The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again

rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A

venerable building--grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. An

ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the

snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself

seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace

the melancholy night.

A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path

across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take,

they came to a stand again.

The village street--if street that could be called which was an

irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with

their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards

the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the

path--was close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window

not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way.

His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently

appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a

protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that

unseasonable hour, wanting him.

''Tis hard weather this,' he grumbled, 'and not a night to call me up

in. My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The

business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this

season. What do you want?'

'I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,'

said Kit.

'Old!' repeated the other peevishly. 'How do you know I am old? Not

so old as you think, friend, perhaps. As to being ill, you will find

many young people in worse case than I am. More's the pity that it

should be so--not that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I

mean, but that they should be weak and tender. I ask your pardon

though,' said the old man, 'if I spoke rather rough at first. My eyes

are not good at night--that's neither age nor illness; they never

were--and I didn't see you were a stranger.'

'I am sorry to call you from your bed,' said Kit, 'but those gentlemen

you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just

arrived from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house. You can

direct us?'

'I should be able to,' answered the old man, in a trembling voice,

'for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years. The

right hand path, friend, is the road.--There is no ill news for our

good gentleman, I hope?'

Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was

turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child.

Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window.

'What is that?' cried the child, earnestly. 'Has my dream come true?