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CHAPTER 15
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 gleamedóthen trod impatiently
the track their prisoned feet had wornóand 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-*** 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 trackófor the humble followers of the camp of wealth pitch their
tents round about it for many a mileóbut its character was still the same. Damp rotten
houses, many to let, many yet building, many half-built and mouldering awayólodgings,
where it would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who let or those who came
to takeóchildren, *** fed and clothed, spread over every street, and sprawling in
the dustóscolding mothers, stamping their slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the
pavementóshabby fathers, hurrying with dispirited looks to the occupation which brought them
'daily bread' and little moreómangling-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 roofóbrick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old
casks, or timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered by the flamesómounds
of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusionósmall 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, andólooking 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 feetómight 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 airódeep 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 wellósunk into
their *** 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 hatóhe had no memory
for the wordsóbut 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.'
'Noónever to returnónever to return'óreplied 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 awayóa 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 tableóchiefly
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'óreplied 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 timeóused 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 hundredóand not so hearty as he, neitheróno, 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'geróhe 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 trueóyou 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 courseóa 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 onó'
'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 handórough-grained and hard though it was, with workóthat 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
handójump 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.