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diff --git a/old/hntmn10h.htm b/old/hntmn10h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index ec4242f..0000000 --- a/old/hntmn10h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4481 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> -<html> -<head> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> -<title>The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin</title> -</head> -<body> -<h2> -<a href="#startoftext">The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin, by Charles Dickens</a> -</h2> -<pre> -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin -by Charles Dickens -(#6 in our series by Charles Dickens) - -Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the -copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing -this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. - -This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project -Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the -header without written permission. - -Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the -eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is -important information about your specific rights and restrictions in -how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a -donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** - - -Title: The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin - -Author: Charles Dickens - -Release Date: September, 1996 [EBook #644] -[This file was first posted on September 11, 1996] -[Most recently updated: September 2, 2002] - -Edition: 10 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII -</pre> -<p> -<a name="startoftext"></a> -Transcribed from the 1907 J. M. Dent and Co. edition by David Price, -email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST’S BARGAIN<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -CHAPTER I - The Gift Bestowed<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -Everybody said so.<br> -<br> -Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. -Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the general -experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in -most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority -is proved to be fallible. Everybody may sometimes be right; “but -<i>that’s</i> no rule,” as the ghost of Giles Scroggins -says in the ballad.<br> -<br> -The dread word, GHOST, recalls me.<br> -<br> -Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my -present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He -did.<br> -<br> -Who could have seen his hollow cheek; his sunken brilliant eye; his -black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-knit and well-proportioned; -his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled sea-weed, about his face, - -as if he had been, through his whole life, a lonely mark for the chafing -and beating of the great deep of humanity, - but might have said he -looked like a haunted man?<br> -<br> -Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed -by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with a distraught -air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening to some -old echoes in his mind, but might have said it was the manner of a haunted -man?<br> -<br> -Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, and grave, with -a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set himself against -and stop, but might have said it was the voice of a haunted man?<br> -<br> -Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part laboratory, -- for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned man in chemistry, -and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes -hung daily, - who that had seen him there, upon a winter night, alone, -surrounded by his drugs and instruments and books; the shadow of his -shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless among a crowd -of spectral shapes raised there by the flickering of the fire upon the -quaint objects around him; some of these phantoms (the reflection of -glass vessels that held liquids), trembling at heart like things that -knew his power to uncombine them, and to give back their component parts -to fire and vapour; - who that had seen him then, his work done, and -he pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame, moving -his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not have -said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber too?<br> -<br> -Who might not, by a very easy flight of fancy, have believed that everything -about him took this haunted tone, and that he lived on haunted ground?<br> -<br> -His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like, - an old, retired part -of an ancient endowment for students, once a brave edifice, planted -in an open place, but now the obsolete whim of forgotten architects; -smoke-age-and-weather-darkened, squeezed on every side by the overgrowing -of the great city, and choked, like an old well, with stones and bricks; -its small quadrangles, lying down in very pits formed by the streets -and buildings, which, in course of time, had been constructed above -its heavy chimney stalks; its old trees, insulted by the neighbouring -smoke, which deigned to droop so low when it was very feeble and the -weather very moody; its grass-plots, struggling with the mildewed earth -to be grass, or to win any show of compromise; its silent pavements, -unaccustomed to the tread of feet, and even to the observation of eyes, -except when a stray face looked down from the upper world, wondering -what nook it was; its sun-dial in a little bricked-up corner, where -no sun had straggled for a hundred years, but where, in compensation -for the sun’s neglect, the snow would lie for weeks when it lay -nowhere else, and the black east wind would spin like a huge humming-top, -when in all other places it was silent and still.<br> -<br> -His dwelling, at its heart and core - within doors - at his fireside -- was so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong, with its worn-eaten -beams of wood in the ceiling, and its sturdy floor shelving downward -to the great oak chimney-piece; so environed and hemmed in by the pressure -of the town yet so remote in fashion, age, and custom; so quiet, yet -so thundering with echoes when a distant voice was raised or a door -was shut, - echoes, not confined to the many low passages and empty -rooms, but rumbling and grumbling till they were stifled in the heavy -air of the forgotten Crypt where the Norman arches were half-buried -in the earth.<br> -<br> -You should have seen him in his dwelling about twilight, in the dead -winter time.<br> -<br> -When the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, with the going down of -the blurred sun. When it was just so dark, as that the forms of -things were indistinct and big - but not wholly lost. When sitters -by the fire began to see wild faces and figures, mountains and abysses, -ambuscades and armies, in the coals. When people in the streets -bent down their heads and ran before the weather. When those who -were obliged to meet it, were stopped at angry corners, stung by wandering -snow-flakes alighting on the lashes of their eyes, - which fell too -sparingly, and were blown away too quickly, to leave a trace upon the -frozen ground. When windows of private houses closed up tight -and warm. When lighted gas began to burst forth in the busy and -the quiet streets, fast blackening otherwise. When stray pedestrians, -shivering along the latter, looked down at the glowing fires in kitchens, -and sharpened their sharp appetites by sniffing up the fragrance of -whole miles of dinners.<br> -<br> -When travellers by land were bitter cold, and looked wearily on gloomy -landscapes, rustling and shuddering in the blast. When mariners -at sea, outlying upon icy yards, were tossed and swung above the howling -ocean dreadfully. When lighthouses, on rocks and headlands, showed -solitary and watchful; and benighted sea-birds breasted on against their -ponderous lanterns, and fell dead. When little readers of story-books, -by the firelight, trembled to think of Cassim Baba cut into quarters, -hanging in the Robbers’ Cave, or had some small misgivings that -the fierce little old woman, with the crutch, who used to start out -of the box in the merchant Abudah’s bedroom, might, one of these -nights, be found upon the stairs, in the long, cold, dusky journey up -to bed.<br> -<br> -When, in rustic places, the last glimmering of daylight died away from -the ends of avenues; and the trees, arching overhead, were sullen and -black. When, in parks and woods, the high wet fern and sodden -moss, and beds of fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were lost to view, -in masses of impenetrable shade. When mists arose from dyke, and -fen, and river. When lights in old halls and in cottage windows, -were a cheerful sight. When the mill stopped, the wheelwright -and the blacksmith shut their workshops, the turnpike-gate closed, the -plough and harrow were left lonely in the fields, the labourer and team -went home, and the striking of the church clock had a deeper sound than -at noon, and the churchyard wicket would be swung no more that night.<br> -<br> -When twilight everywhere released the shadows, prisoned up all day, -that now closed in and gathered like mustering swarms of ghosts. -When they stood lowering, in corners of rooms, and frowned out from -behind half-opened doors. When they had full possession of unoccupied -apartments. When they danced upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings -of inhabited chambers, while the fire was low, and withdrew like ebbing -waters when it sprang into a blaze. When they fantastically mocked -the shapes of household objects, making the nurse an ogress, the rocking-horse -a monster, the wondering child, half-scared and half-amused, a stranger -to itself, - the very tongs upon the hearth, a straddling giant with -his arms a-kimbo, evidently smelling the blood of Englishmen, and wanting -to grind people’s bones to make his bread.<br> -<br> -When these shadows brought into the minds of older people, other thoughts, -and showed them different images. When they stole from their retreats, -in the likenesses of forms and faces from the past, from the grave, -from the deep, deep gulf, where the things that might have been, and -never were, are always wandering.<br> -<br> -When he sat, as already mentioned, gazing at the fire. When, as -it rose and fell, the shadows went and came. When he took no heed -of them, with his bodily eyes; but, let them come or let them go, looked -fixedly at the fire. You should have seen him, then.<br> -<br> -When the sounds that had arisen with the shadows, and come out of their -lurking-places at the twilight summons, seemed to make a deeper stillness -all about him. When the wind was rumbling in the chimney, and -sometimes crooning, sometimes howling, in the house. When the -old trees outside were so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old -rook, unable to sleep, protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy, high-up -“Caw!” When, at intervals, the window trembled, the -rusty vane upon the turret-top complained, the clock beneath it recorded -that another quarter of an hour was gone, or the fire collapsed and -fell in with a rattle.<br> -<br> -- When a knock came at his door, in short, as he was sitting so, and -roused him.<br> -<br> -“Who’s that?” said he. “Come in!”<br> -<br> -Surely there had been no figure leaning on the back of his chair; no -face looking over it. It is certain that no gliding footstep touched -the floor, as he lifted up his head, with a start, and spoke. -And yet there was no mirror in the room on whose surface his own form -could have cast its shadow for a moment; and, Something had passed darkly -and gone!<br> -<br> -“I’m humbly fearful, sir,” said a fresh-coloured busy -man, holding the door open with his foot for the admission of himself -and a wooden tray he carried, and letting it go again by very gentle -and careful degrees, when he and the tray had got in, lest it should -close noisily, “that it’s a good bit past the time to-night. -But Mrs. William has been taken off her legs so often” -<br> -<br> -“By the wind? Ay! I have heard it rising.”<br> -<br> -“ - By the wind, sir - that it’s a mercy she got home at -all. Oh dear, yes. Yes. It was by the wind, Mr. Redlaw. -By the wind.”<br> -<br> -He had, by this time, put down the tray for dinner, and was employed -in lighting the lamp, and spreading a cloth on the table. From -this employment he desisted in a hurry, to stir and feed the fire, and -then resumed it; the lamp he had lighted, and the blaze that rose under -his hand, so quickly changing the appearance of the room, that it seemed -as if the mere coming in of his fresh red face and active manner had -made the pleasant alteration.<br> -<br> -“Mrs. William is of course subject at any time, sir, to be taken -off her balance by the elements. She is not formed superior to -<i>that</i>.”<br> -<br> -“No,” returned Mr. Redlaw good-naturedly, though abruptly.<br> -<br> -“No, sir. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Earth; -as for example, last Sunday week, when sloppy and greasy, and she going -out to tea with her newest sister-in-law, and having a pride in herself, -and wishing to appear perfectly spotless though pedestrian. Mrs. -William may be taken off her balance by Air; as being once over-persuaded -by a friend to try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted on her constitution -instantly like a steam-boat. Mrs. William may be taken off her -balance by Fire; as on a false alarm of engines at her mother’s, -when she went two miles in her nightcap. Mrs. William may be taken -off her balance by Water; as at Battersea, when rowed into the piers -by her young nephew, Charley Swidger junior, aged twelve, which had -no idea of boats whatever. But these are elements. Mrs. -William must be taken out of elements for the strength of <i>her</i> -character to come into play.”<br> -<br> -As he stopped for a reply, the reply was “Yes,” in the same -tone as before.<br> -<br> -“Yes, sir. Oh dear, yes!” said Mr. Swidger, still -proceeding with his preparations, and checking them off as he made them. -“That’s where it is, sir. That’s what I always -say myself, sir. Such a many of us Swidgers! - Pepper. Why -there’s my father, sir, superannuated keeper and custodian of -this Institution, eighty-seven year old. He’s a Swidger! -- Spoon.”<br> -<br> -“True, William,” was the patient and abstracted answer, -when he stopped again.<br> -<br> -“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Swidger. “That’s -what I always say, sir. You may call him the trunk of the tree! -- Bread. Then you come to his successor, my unworthy self - Salt -- and Mrs. William, Swidgers both. - Knife and fork. Then you -come to all my brothers and their families, Swidgers, man and woman, -boy and girl. Why, what with cousins, uncles, aunts, and relationships -of this, that, and t’other degree, and whatnot degree, and marriages, -and lyings-in, the Swidgers - Tumbler - might take hold of hands, and -make a ring round England!”<br> -<br> -Receiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful man whom he addressed, -Mr. William approached, him nearer, and made a feint of accidentally -knocking the table with a decanter, to rouse him. The moment he -succeeded, he went on, as if in great alacrity of acquiescence.<br> -<br> -“Yes, sir! That’s just what I say myself, sir. -Mrs. William and me have often said so. ‘There’s Swidgers -enough,’ we say, ‘without <i>our</i> voluntary contributions,’ -- Butter. In fact, sir, my father is a family in himself - Castors -- to take care of; and it happens all for the best that we have no child -of our own, though it’s made Mrs. William rather quiet-like, too. -Quite ready for the fowl and mashed potatoes, sir? Mrs. William -said she’d dish in ten minutes when I left the Lodge.”<br> -<br> -“I am quite ready,” said the other, waking as from a dream, -and walking slowly to and fro.<br> -<br> -“Mrs. William has been at it again, sir!” said the keeper, -as he stood warming a plate at the fire, and pleasantly shading his -face with it. Mr. Redlaw stopped in his walking, and an expression -of interest appeared in him.<br> -<br> -“What I always say myself, sir. She <i>will</i> do it! -There’s a motherly feeling in Mrs. William’s breast that -must and will have went.”<br> -<br> -“What has she done?”<br> -<br> -“Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of mother to all the -young gentlemen that come up from a variety of parts, to attend your -courses of lectures at this ancient foundation - its surprising how -stone-chaney catches the heat this frosty weather, to be sure!” -Here he turned the plate, and cooled his fingers.<br> -<br> -“Well?” said Mr. Redlaw.<br> -<br> -“That’s just what I say myself, sir,” returned Mr. -William, speaking over his shoulder, as if in ready and delighted assent. -“That’s exactly where it is, sir! There ain’t -one of our students but appears to regard Mrs. William in that light. -Every day, right through the course, they puts their heads into the -Lodge, one after another, and have all got something to tell her, or -something to ask her. ‘Swidge’ is the appellation -by which they speak of Mrs. William in general, among themselves, I’m -told; but that’s what I say, sir. Better be called ever -so far out of your name, if it’s done in real liking, than have -it made ever so much of, and not cared about! What’s a name -for? To know a person by. If Mrs. William is known by something -better than her name - I allude to Mrs. William’s qualities and -disposition - never mind her name, though it <i>is</i> Swidger, by rights. -Let ’em call her Swidge, Widge, Bridge - Lord! London Bridge, -Blackfriars, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo, or Hammersmith Suspension - -if they like.”<br> -<br> -The close of this triumphant oration brought him and the plate to the -table, upon which he half laid and half dropped it, with a lively sense -of its being thoroughly heated, just as the subject of his praises entered -the room, bearing another tray and a lantern, and followed by a venerable -old man with long grey hair.<br> -<br> -Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, innocent-looking person, -in whose smooth cheeks the cheerful red of her husband’s official -waistcoat was very pleasantly repeated. But whereas Mr. William’s -light hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes -up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark -brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved away -under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet manner imaginable. -Whereas Mr. William’s very trousers hitched themselves up at the -ankles, as if it were not in their iron-grey nature to rest without -looking about them, Mrs. William’s neatly-flowered skirts - red -and white, like her own pretty face - were as composed and orderly, -as if the very wind that blew so hard out of doors could not disturb -one of their folds. Whereas his coat had something of a fly-away -and half-off appearance about the collar and breast, her little bodice -was so placid and neat, that there should have been protection for her, -in it, had she needed any, with the roughest people. Who could -have had the heart to make so calm a bosom swell with grief, or throb -with fear, or flutter with a thought of shame! To whom would its -repose and peace have not appealed against disturbance, like the innocent -slumber of a child!<br> -<br> -“Punctual, of course, Milly,” said her husband, relieving -her of the tray, “or it wouldn’t be you. Here’s -Mrs. William, sir! - He looks lonelier than ever to-night,” whispering -to his wife, as he was taking the tray, “and ghostlier altogether.”<br> -<br> -Without any show of hurry or noise, or any show of herself even, she -was so calm and quiet, Milly set the dishes she had brought upon the -table, - Mr. William, after much clattering and running about, having -only gained possession of a butter-boat of gravy, which he stood ready -to serve.<br> -<br> -“What is that the old man has in his arms?” asked Mr. Redlaw, -as he sat down to his solitary meal.<br> -<br> -“Holly, sir,” replied the quiet voice of Milly.<br> -<br> -“That’s what I say myself, sir,” interposed Mr. William, -striking in with the butter-boat. “Berries is so seasonable -to the time of year! - Brown gravy!”<br> -<br> -“Another Christmas come, another year gone!” murmured the -Chemist, with a gloomy sigh. “More figures in the lengthening -sum of recollection that we work and work at to our torment, till Death -idly jumbles all together, and rubs all out. So, Philip!” -breaking off, and raising his voice as he addressed the old man, standing -apart, with his glistening burden in his arms, from which the quiet -Mrs. William took small branches, which she noiselessly trimmed with -her scissors, and decorated the room with, while her aged father-in-law -looked on much interested in the ceremony.<br> -<br> -“My duty to you, sir,” returned the old man. “Should -have spoke before, sir, but know your ways, Mr. Redlaw - proud to say -- and wait till spoke to! Merry Christmas, sir, and Happy New -Year, and many of ’em. Have had a pretty many of ’em -myself - ha, ha! - and may take the liberty of wishing ’em. -I’m eighty-seven!”<br> -<br> -“Have you had so many that were merry and happy?” asked -the other.<br> -<br> -“Ay, sir, ever so many,” returned the old man.<br> -<br> -“Is his memory impaired with age? It is to be expected now,” -said Mr. Redlaw, turning to the son, and speaking lower.<br> -<br> -“Not a morsel of it, sir,” replied Mr. William. “That’s -exactly what I say myself, sir. There never was such a memory -as my father’s. He’s the most wonderful man in the -world. He don’t know what forgetting means. It’s -the very observation I’m always making to Mrs. William, sir, if -you’ll believe me!”<br> -<br> -Mr. Swidger, in his polite desire to seem to acquiesce at all events, -delivered this as if there were no iota of contradiction in it, and -it were all said in unbounded and unqualified assent.<br> -<br> -The Chemist pushed his plate away, and, rising from the table, walked -across the room to where the old man stood looking at a little sprig -of holly in his hand.<br> -<br> -“It recalls the time when many of those years were old and new, -then?” he said, observing him attentively, and touching him on -the shoulder. “Does it?”<br> -<br> -“Oh many, many!” said Philip, half awaking from his reverie. -“I’m eighty-seven!”<br> -<br> -“Merry and happy, was it?” asked the Chemist in a low voice. -“Merry and happy, old man?”<br> -<br> -“Maybe as high as that, no higher,” said the old man, holding -out his hand a little way above the level of his knee, and looking retrospectively -at his questioner, “when I first remember ’em! Cold, -sunshiny day it was, out a-walking, when some one - it was my mother -as sure as you stand there, though I don’t know what her blessed -face was like, for she took ill and died that Christmas-time - told -me they were food for birds. The pretty little fellow thought -- that’s me, you understand - that birds’ eyes were so bright, -perhaps, because the berries that they lived on in the winter were so -bright. I recollect that. And I’m eighty-seven!”<br> -<br> -“Merry and happy!” mused the other, bending his dark eyes -upon the stooping figure, with a smile of compassion. “Merry -and happy - and remember well?”<br> -<br> -“Ay, ay, ay!” resumed the old man, catching the last words. -“I remember ’em well in my school time, year after year, -and all the merry-making that used to come along with them. I -was a strong chap then, Mr. Redlaw; and, if you’ll believe me, -hadn’t my match at football within ten mile. Where’s -my son William? Hadn’t my match at football, William, within -ten mile!”<br> -<br> -“That’s what I always say, father!” returned the son -promptly, and with great respect. “You ARE a Swidger, if -ever there was one of the family!”<br> -<br> -“Dear!” said the old man, shaking his head as he again looked -at the holly. “His mother - my son William’s my youngest -son - and I, have sat among ’em all, boys and girls, little children -and babies, many a year, when the berries like these were not shining -half so bright all round us, as their bright faces. Many of ’em -are gone; she’s gone; and my son George (our eldest, who was her -pride more than all the rest!) is fallen very low: but I can see them, -when I look here, alive and healthy, as they used to be in those days; -and I can see him, thank God, in his innocence. It’s a blessed -thing to me, at eighty-seven.”<br> -<br> -The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so much earnestness, -had gradually sought the ground.<br> -<br> -“When my circumstances got to be not so good as formerly, through -not being honestly dealt by, and I first come here to be custodian,” -said the old man, “ - which was upwards of fifty years ago - where’s -my son William? More than half a century ago, William!”<br> -<br> -“That’s what I say, father,” replied the son, as promptly -and dutifully as before, “that’s exactly where it is. -Two times ought’s an ought, and twice five ten, and there’s -a hundred of ’em.”<br> -<br> -“It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our founders - or -more correctly speaking,” said the old man, with a great glory -in his subject and his knowledge of it, “one of the learned gentlemen -that helped endow us in Queen Elizabeth’s time, for we were founded -afore her day - left in his will, among the other bequests he made us, -so much to buy holly, for garnishing the walls and windows, come Christmas. -There was something homely and friendly in it. Being but strange -here, then, and coming at Christmas time, we took a liking for his very -picter that hangs in what used to be, anciently, afore our ten poor -gentlemen commuted for an annual stipend in money, our great Dinner -Hall. - A sedate gentleman in a peaked beard, with a ruff round his -neck, and a scroll below him, in old English letters, ‘Lord! keep -my memory green!’ You know all about him, Mr. Redlaw?”<br> -<br> -“I know the portrait hangs there, Philip.”<br> -<br> -“Yes, sure, it’s the second on the right, above the panelling. -I was going to say - he has helped to keep <i>my</i> memory green, I -thank him; for going round the building every year, as I’m a doing -now, and freshening up the bare rooms with these branches and berries, -freshens up my bare old brain. One year brings back another, and -that year another, and those others numbers! At last, it seems -to me as if the birth-time of our Lord was the birth-time of all I have -ever had affection for, or mourned for, or delighted in, - and they’re -a pretty many, for I’m eighty-seven!”<br> -<br> -“Merry and happy,” murmured Redlaw to himself.<br> -<br> -The room began to darken strangely.<br> -<br> -“So you see, sir,” pursued old Philip, whose hale wintry -cheek had warmed into a ruddier glow, and whose blue eyes had brightened -while he spoke, “I have plenty to keep, when I keep this present -season. Now, where’s my quiet Mouse? Chattering’s -the sin of my time of life, and there’s half the building to do -yet, if the cold don’t freeze us first, or the wind don’t -blow us away, or the darkness don’t swallow us up.”<br> -<br> -The quiet Mouse had brought her calm face to his side, and silently -taken his arm, before he finished speaking.<br> -<br> -“Come away, my dear,” said the old man. “Mr. -Redlaw won’t settle to his dinner, otherwise, till it’s -cold as the winter. I hope you’ll excuse me rambling on, -sir, and I wish you good night, and, once again, a merry - ”<br> -<br> -“Stay!” said Mr. Redlaw, resuming his place at the table, -more, it would have seemed from his manner, to reassure the old keeper, -than in any remembrance of his own appetite. “Spare me another -moment, Philip. William, you were going to tell me something to -your excellent wife’s honour. It will not be disagreeable -to her to hear you praise her. What was it?”<br> -<br> -“Why, that’s where it is, you see, sir,” returned -Mr. William Swidger, looking towards his wife in considerable embarrassment. -“Mrs. William’s got her eye upon me.”<br> -<br> -“But you’re not afraid of Mrs. William’s eye?”<br> -<br> -“Why, no, sir,” returned Mr. Swidger, “that’s -what I say myself. It wasn’t made to be afraid of. -It wouldn’t have been made so mild, if that was the intention. -But I wouldn’t like to - Milly! - him, you know. Down in -the Buildings.”<br> -<br> -Mr. William, standing behind the table, and rummaging disconcertedly -among the objects upon it, directed persuasive glances at Mrs. William, -and secret jerks of his head and thumb at Mr. Redlaw, as alluring her -towards him.<br> -<br> -“Him, you know, my love,” said Mr. William. “Down -in the Buildings. Tell, my dear! You’re the works -of Shakespeare in comparison with myself. Down in the Buildings, -you know, my love. - Student.”<br> -<br> -“Student?” repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head.<br> -<br> -“That’s what I say, sir!” cried Mr. William, in the -utmost animation of assent. “If it wasn’t the poor -student down in the Buildings, why should you wish to hear it from Mrs. -William’s lips? Mrs. William, my dear - Buildings.”<br> -<br> -“I didn’t know,” said Milly, with a quiet frankness, -free from any haste or confusion, “that William had said anything -about it, or I wouldn’t have come. I asked him not to. -It’s a sick young gentleman, sir - and very poor, I am afraid -- who is too ill to go home this holiday-time, and lives, unknown to -any one, in but a common kind of lodging for a gentleman, down in Jerusalem -Buildings. That’s all, sir.”<br> -<br> -“Why have I never heard of him?” said the Chemist, rising -hurriedly. “Why has he not made his situation known to me? -Sick! - give me my hat and cloak. Poor! - what house? - what number?”<br> -<br> -“Oh, you mustn’t go there, sir,” said Milly, leaving -her father-in-law, and calmly confronting him with her collected little -face and folded hands.<br> -<br> -“Not go there?”<br> -<br> -“Oh dear, no!” said Milly, shaking her head as at a most -manifest and self-evident impossibility. “It couldn’t -be thought of!”<br> -<br> -“What do you mean? Why not?”<br> -<br> -“Why, you see, sir,” said Mr. William Swidger, persuasively -and confidentially, “that’s what I say. Depend upon -it, the young gentleman would never have made his situation known to -one of his own sex. Mrs. Williams has got into his confidence, -but that’s quite different. They all confide in Mrs. William; -they all trust <i>her</i>. A man, sir, couldn’t have got -a whisper out of him; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William combined - !”<br> -<br> -“There is good sense and delicacy in what you say, William,” -returned Mr. Redlaw, observant of the gentle and composed face at his -shoulder. And laying his finger on his lip, he secretly put his -purse into her hand.<br> -<br> -“Oh dear no, sir!” cried Milly, giving it back again. -“Worse and worse! Couldn’t be dreamed of!”<br> -<br> -Such a staid matter-of-fact housewife she was, and so unruffled by the -momentary haste of this rejection, that, an instant afterwards, she -was tidily picking up a few leaves which had strayed from between her -scissors and her apron, when she had arranged the holly.<br> -<br> -Finding, when she rose from her stooping posture, that Mr. Redlaw was -still regarding her with doubt and astonishment, she quietly repeated -- looking about, the while, for any other fragments that might have -escaped her observation:<br> -<br> -“Oh dear no, sir! He said that of all the world he would -not be known to you, or receive help from you - though he is a student -in your class. I have made no terms of secrecy with you, but I -trust to your honour completely.”<br> -<br> -“Why did he say so?”<br> -<br> -“Indeed I can’t tell, sir,” said Milly, after thinking -a little, “because I am not at all clever, you know; and I wanted -to be useful to him in making things neat and comfortable about him, -and employed myself that way. But I know he is poor, and lonely, -and I think he is somehow neglected too. - How dark it is!”<br> -<br> -The room had darkened more and more. There was a very heavy gloom -and shadow gathering behind the Chemist’s chair.<br> -<br> -“What more about him?” he asked.<br> -<br> -“He is engaged to be married when he can afford it,” said -Milly, “and is studying, I think, to qualify himself to earn a -living. I have seen, a long time, that he has studied hard and -denied himself much. - How very dark it is!”<br> -<br> -“It’s turned colder, too,” said the old man, rubbing -his hands. “There’s a chill and dismal feeling in -the room. Where’s my son William? William, my boy, -turn the lamp, and rouse the fire!”<br> -<br> -Milly’s voice resumed, like quiet music very softly played:<br> -<br> -“He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon, after talking -to me” (this was to herself) “about some one dead, and some -great wrong done that could never be forgotten; but whether to him or -to another person, I don’t know. Not <i>by</i> him, I am -sure.”<br> -<br> -“And, in short, Mrs. William, you see - which she wouldn’t -say herself, Mr. Redlaw, if she was to stop here till the new year after -this next one - ” said Mr. William, coming up to him to speak -in his ear, “has done him worlds of good! Bless you, worlds -of good! All at home just the same as ever - my father made as -snug and comfortable - not a crumb of litter to be found in the house, -if you were to offer fifty pound ready money for it - Mrs. William apparently -never out of the way - yet Mrs. William backwards and forwards, backwards -and forwards, up and down, up and down, a mother to him!”<br> -<br> -The room turned darker and colder, and the gloom and shadow gathering -behind the chair was heavier.<br> -<br> -“Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William goes and finds, this -very night, when she was coming home (why it’s not above a couple -of hours ago), a creature more like a young wild beast than a young -child, shivering upon a door-step. What does Mrs. William do, -but brings it home to dry it, and feed it, and keep it till our old -Bounty of food and flannel is given away, on Christmas morning! -If it ever felt a fire before, it’s as much as ever it did; for -it’s sitting in the old Lodge chimney, staring at ours as if its -ravenous eyes would never shut again. It’s sitting there, -at least,” said Mr. William, correcting himself, on reflection, -“unless it’s bolted!”<br> -<br> -“Heaven keep her happy!” said the Chemist aloud, “and -you too, Philip! and you, William! I must consider what to do -in this. I may desire to see this student, I’ll not detain -you any longer now. Good-night!”<br> -<br> -“I thank’ee, sir, I thank’ee!” said the old -man, “for Mouse, and for my son William, and for myself. -Where’s my son William? William, you take the lantern and -go on first, through them long dark passages, as you did last year and -the year afore. Ha ha! <i>I</i> remember - though I’m -eighty-seven! ‘Lord, keep my memory green!’ -It’s a very good prayer, Mr. Redlaw, that of the learned gentleman -in the peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck - hangs up, second on -the right above the panelling, in what used to be, afore our ten poor -gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner Hall. ‘Lord, keep my -memory green!’ It’s very good and pious, sir. -Amen! Amen!”<br> -<br> -As they passed out and shut the heavy door, which, however carefully -withheld, fired a long train of thundering reverberations when it shut -at last, the room turned darker.<br> -<br> -As he fell a musing in his chair alone, the healthy holly withered on -the wall, and dropped - dead branches.<br> -<br> -As the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in that place where it -had been gathering so darkly, it took, by slow degrees, - or out of -it there came, by some unreal, unsubstantial process - not to be traced -by any human sense, - an awful likeness of himself!<br> -<br> -Ghastly and cold, colourless in its leaden face and hands, but with -his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed -in the gloomy shadow of his dress, it came into his terrible appearance -of existence, motionless, without a sound. As <i>he</i> leaned -his arm upon the elbow of his chair, ruminating before the fire, <i>it</i> -leaned upon the chair-back, close above him, with its appalling copy -of his face looking where his face looked, and bearing the expression -his face bore.<br> -<br> -This, then, was the Something that had passed and gone already. -This was the dread companion of the haunted man!<br> -<br> -It took, for some moments, no more apparent heed of him, than he of -it. The Christmas Waits were playing somewhere in the distance, -and, through his thoughtfulness, he seemed to listen to the music. -It seemed to listen too.<br> -<br> -At length he spoke; without moving or lifting up his face.<br> -<br> -“Here again!” he said.<br> -<br> -“Here again,” replied the Phantom.<br> -<br> -“I see you in the fire,” said the haunted man; “I -hear you in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night.”<br> -<br> -The Phantom moved its head, assenting.<br> -<br> -“Why do you come, to haunt me thus?”<br> -<br> -“I come as I am called,” replied the Ghost.<br> -<br> -“No. Unbidden,” exclaimed the Chemist.<br> -<br> -“Unbidden be it,” said the Spectre. “It is enough. -I am here.”<br> -<br> -Hitherto the light of the fire had shone on the two faces - if the dread -lineaments behind the chair might be called a face - both addressed -towards it, as at first, and neither looking at the other. But, -now, the haunted man turned, suddenly, and stared upon the Ghost. -The Ghost, as sudden in its motion, passed to before the chair, and -stared on him.<br> -<br> -The living man, and the animated image of himself dead, might so have -looked, the one upon the other. An awful survey, in a lonely and -remote part of an empty old pile of building, on a winter night, with -the loud wind going by upon its journey of mystery - whence or whither, -no man knowing since the world began - and the stars, in unimaginable -millions, glittering through it, from eternal space, where the world’s -bulk is as a grain, and its hoary age is infancy.<br> -<br> -“Look upon me!” said the Spectre. “I am he, -neglected in my youth, and miserably poor, who strove and suffered, -and still strove and suffered, until I hewed out knowledge from the -mine where it was buried, and made rugged steps thereof, for my worn -feet to rest and rise on.”<br> -<br> -“I <i>am</i> that man,” returned the Chemist.<br> -<br> -“No mother’s self-denying love,” pursued the Phantom, -“no father’s counsel, aided <i>me</i>. A stranger -came into my father’s place when I was but a child, and I was -easily an alien from my mother’s heart. My parents, at the -best, were of that sort whose care soon ends, and whose duty is soon -done; who cast their offspring loose, early, as birds do theirs; and, -if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the pity.”<br> -<br> -It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its look, and with -the manner of its speech, and with its smile.<br> -<br> -“I am he,” pursued the Phantom, “who, in this struggle -upward, found a friend. I made him - won him - bound him to me! -We worked together, side by side. All the love and confidence -that in my earlier youth had had no outlet, and found no expression, -I bestowed on him.”<br> -<br> -“Not all,” said Redlaw, hoarsely.<br> -<br> -“No, not all,” returned the Phantom. “I had -a sister.”<br> -<br> -The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, replied “I -had!” The Phantom, with an evil smile, drew closer to the -chair, and resting its chin upon its folded hands, its folded hands -upon the back, and looking down into his face with searching eyes, that -seemed instinct with fire, went on:<br> -<br> -“Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever known, had streamed -from her. How young she was, how fair, how loving! I took -her to the first poor roof that I was master of, and made it rich. -She came into the darkness of my life, and made it bright. - She is -before me!”<br> -<br> -“I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in -the wind, in the dead stillness of the night,” returned the haunted -man.<br> -<br> -“<i>Did</i> he love her?” said the Phantom, echoing his -contemplative tone. “I think he did, once. I am sure -he did. Better had she loved him less - less secretly, less dearly, -from the shallower depths of a more divided heart!”<br> -<br> -“Let me forget it!” said the Chemist, with an angry motion -of his hand. “Let me blot it from my memory!”<br> -<br> -The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, cruel eyes still -fixed upon his face, went on:<br> -<br> -“A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life.”<br> -<br> -“It did,” said Redlaw.<br> -<br> -“A love, as like hers,” pursued the Phantom, “as my -inferior nature might cherish, arose in my own heart. I was too -poor to bind its object to my fortune then, by any thread of promise -or entreaty. I loved her far too well, to seek to do it. -But, more than ever I had striven in my life, I strove to climb! -Only an inch gained, brought me something nearer to the height. -I toiled up! In the late pauses of my labour at that time, - my -sister (sweet companion!) still sharing with me the expiring embers -and the cooling hearth, - when day was breaking, what pictures of the -future did I see!”<br> -<br> -“I saw them, in the fire, but now,” he murmured. “They -come back to me in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the -night, in the revolving years.”<br> -<br> -“ - Pictures of my own domestic life, in aftertime, with her who -was the inspiration of my toil. Pictures of my sister, made the -wife of my dear friend, on equal terms - for he had some inheritance, -we none - pictures of our sobered age and mellowed happiness, and of -the golden links, extending back so far, that should bind us, and our -children, in a radiant garland,” said the Phantom.<br> -<br> -“Pictures,” said the haunted man, “that were delusions. -Why is it my doom to remember them too well!”<br> -<br> -“Delusions,” echoed the Phantom in its changeless voice, -and glaring on him with its changeless eyes. “For my friend -(in whose breast my confidence was locked as in my own), passing between -me and the centre of the system of my hopes and struggles, won her to -himself, and shattered my frail universe. My sister, doubly dear, -doubly devoted, doubly cheerful in my home, lived on to see me famous, -and my old ambition so rewarded when its spring was broken, and then -- ”<br> -<br> -“Then died,” he interposed. “Died, gentle as -ever; happy; and with no concern but for her brother. Peace!”<br> -<br> -The Phantom watched him silently.<br> -<br> -“Remembered!” said the haunted man, after a pause. -“Yes. So well remembered, that even now, when years have -passed, and nothing is more idle or more visionary to me than the boyish -love so long outlived, I think of it with sympathy, as if it were a -younger brother’s or a son’s. Sometimes I even wonder -when her heart first inclined to him, and how it had been affected towards -me. - Not lightly, once, I think. - But that is nothing. Early -unhappiness, a wound from a hand I loved and trusted, and a loss that -nothing can replace, outlive such fancies.”<br> -<br> -“Thus,” said the Phantom, “I bear within me a Sorrow -and a Wrong. Thus I prey upon myself. Thus, memory is my -curse; and, if I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would!”<br> -<br> -“Mocker!” said the Chemist, leaping up, and making, with -a wrathful hand, at the throat of his other self. “Why have -I always that taunt in my ears?”<br> -<br> -“Forbear!” exclaimed the Spectre in an awful voice. -“Lay a hand on Me, and die!”<br> -<br> -He stopped midway, as if its words had paralysed him, and stood looking -on it. It had glided from him; it had its arm raised high in warning; -and a smile passed over its unearthly features, as it reared its dark -figure in triumph.<br> -<br> -“If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would,” the Ghost -repeated. “If I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would!”<br> -<br> -“Evil spirit of myself,” returned the haunted man, in a -low, trembling tone, “my life is darkened by that incessant whisper.”<br> -<br> -“It is an echo,” said the Phantom.<br> -<br> -“If it be an echo of my thoughts - as now, indeed, I know it is,” -rejoined the haunted man, “why should I, therefore, be tormented? -It is not a selfish thought. I suffer it to range beyond myself. -All men and women have their sorrows, - most of them their wrongs; ingratitude, -and sordid jealousy, and interest, besetting all degrees of life. -Who would not forget their sorrows and their wrongs?”<br> -<br> -“Who would not, truly, and be happier and better for it?” -said the Phantom.<br> -<br> -“These revolutions of years, which we commemorate,” proceeded -Redlaw, “what do <i>they</i> recall! Are there any minds -in which they do not re-awaken some sorrow, or some trouble? What -is the remembrance of the old man who was here to-night? A tissue -of sorrow and trouble.”<br> -<br> -“But common natures,” said the Phantom, with its evil smile -upon its glassy face, “unenlightened minds and ordinary spirits, -do not feel or reason on these things like men of higher cultivation -and profounder thought.”<br> -<br> -“Tempter,” answered Redlaw, “whose hollow look and -voice I dread more than words can express, and from whom some dim foreshadowing -of greater fear is stealing over me while I speak, I hear again an echo -of my own mind.”<br> -<br> -“Receive it as a proof that I am powerful,” returned the -Ghost. “Hear what I offer! Forget the sorrow, wrong, -and trouble you have known!”<br> -<br> -“Forget them!” he repeated.<br> -<br> -“I have the power to cancel their remembrance - to leave but very -faint, confused traces of them, that will die out soon,” returned -the Spectre. “Say! Is it done?”<br> -<br> -“Stay!” cried the haunted man, arresting by a terrified -gesture the uplifted hand. “I tremble with distrust and -doubt of you; and the dim fear you cast upon me deepens into a nameless -horror I can hardly bear. - I would not deprive myself of any kindly -recollection, or any sympathy that is good for me, or others. -What shall I lose, if I assent to this? What else will pass from -my remembrance?”<br> -<br> -“No knowledge; no result of study; nothing but the intertwisted -chain of feelings and associations, each in its turn dependent on, and -nourished by, the banished recollections. Those will go.”<br> -<br> -“Are they so many?” said the haunted man, reflecting in -alarm.<br> -<br> -“They have been wont to show themselves in the fire, in music, -in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years,” -returned the Phantom scornfully.<br> -<br> -“In nothing else?”<br> -<br> -The Phantom held its peace.<br> -<br> -But having stood before him, silent, for a little while, it moved towards -the fire; then stopped.<br> -<br> -“Decide!” it said, “before the opportunity is lost!”<br> -<br> -“A moment! I call Heaven to witness,” said the agitated -man, “that I have never been a hater of any kind, - never morose, -indifferent, or hard, to anything around me. If, living here alone, -I have made too much of all that was and might have been, and too little -of what is, the evil, I believe, has fallen on me, and not on others. -But, if there were poison in my body, should I not, possessed of antidotes -and knowledge how to use them, use them? If there be poison in -my mind, and through this fearful shadow I can cast it out, shall I -not cast it out?”<br> -<br> -“Say,” said the Spectre, “is it done?”<br> -<br> -“A moment longer!” he answered hurriedly. “<i>I -would forget it if I could</i>! Have <i>I</i> thought that, alone, -or has it been the thought of thousands upon thousands, generation after -generation? All human memory is fraught with sorrow and trouble. -My memory is as the memory of other men, but other men have not this -choice. Yes, I close the bargain. Yes! I WILL forget -my sorrow, wrong, and trouble!”<br> -<br> -“Say,” said the Spectre, “is it done?”<br> -<br> -“It is!”<br> -<br> -“IT IS. And take this with you, man whom I here renounce! -The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will. -Without recovering yourself the power that you have yielded up, you -shall henceforth destroy its like in all whom you approach. Your -wisdom has discovered that the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble -is the lot of all mankind, and that mankind would be the happier, in -its other memories, without it. Go! Be its benefactor! -Freed from such remembrance, from this hour, carry involuntarily the -blessing of such freedom with you. Its diffusion is inseparable -and inalienable from you. Go! Be happy in the good you have -won, and in the good you do!”<br> -<br> -The Phantom, which had held its bloodless hand above him while it spoke, -as if in some unholy invocation, or some ban; and which had gradually -advanced its eyes so close to his, that he could see how they did not -participate in the terrible smile upon its face, but were a fixed, unalterable, -steady horror melted before him and was gone.<br> -<br> -As he stood rooted to the spot, possessed by fear and wonder, and imagining -he heard repeated in melancholy echoes, dying away fainter and fainter, -the words, “Destroy its like in all whom you approach!” -a shrill cry reached his ears. It came, not from the passages -beyond the door, but from another part of the old building, and sounded -like the cry of some one in the dark who had lost the way.<br> -<br> -He looked confusedly upon his hands and limbs, as if to be assured of -his identity, and then shouted in reply, loudly and wildly; for there -was a strangeness and terror upon him, as if he too were lost.<br> -<br> -The cry responding, and being nearer, he caught up the lamp, and raised -a heavy curtain in the wall, by which he was accustomed to pass into -and out of the theatre where he lectured, - which adjoined his room. -Associated with youth and animation, and a high amphitheatre of faces -which his entrance charmed to interest in a moment, it was a ghostly -place when all this life was faded out of it, and stared upon him like -an emblem of Death.<br> -<br> -“Halloa!” he cried. “Halloa! This way! -Come to the light!” When, as he held the curtain with one -hand, and with the other raised the lamp and tried to pierce the gloom -that filled the place, something rushed past him into the room like -a wild-cat, and crouched down in a corner.<br> -<br> -“What is it?” he said, hastily.<br> -<br> -He might have asked “What is it?” even had he seen it well, -as presently he did when he stood looking at it gathered up in its corner.<br> -<br> -A bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, in size and form almost -an infant’s, but in its greedy, desperate little clutch, a bad -old man’s. A face rounded and smoothed by some half-dozen -years, but pinched and twisted by the experiences of a life. Bright -eyes, but not youthful. Naked feet, beautiful in their childish -delicacy, - ugly in the blood and dirt that cracked upon them. -A baby savage, a young monster, a child who had never been a child, -a creature who might live to take the outward form of man, but who, -within, would live and perish a mere beast.<br> -<br> -Used, already, to be worried and hunted like a beast, the boy crouched -down as he was looked at, and looked back again, and interposed his -arm to ward off the expected blow.<br> -<br> -“I’ll bite,” he said, “if you hit me!”<br> -<br> -The time had been, and not many minutes since, when such a sight as -this would have wrung the Chemist’s heart. He looked upon -it now, coldly; but with a heavy effort to remember something - he did -not know what - he asked the boy what he did there, and whence he came.<br> -<br> -“Where’s the woman?” he replied. “I want -to find the woman.”<br> -<br> -“Who?”<br> -<br> -“The woman. Her that brought me here, and set me by the -large fire. She was so long gone, that I went to look for her, -and lost myself. I don’t want you. I want the woman.”<br> -<br> -He made a spring, so suddenly, to get away, that the dull sound of his -naked feet upon the floor was near the curtain, when Redlaw caught him -by his rags.<br> -<br> -“Come! you let me go!” muttered the boy, struggling, and -clenching his teeth. “I’ve done nothing to you. -Let me go, will you, to the woman!”<br> -<br> -“That is not the way. There is a nearer one,” said -Redlaw, detaining him, in the same blank effort to remember some association -that ought, of right, to bear upon this monstrous object. “What -is your name?”<br> -<br> -“Got none.”<br> -<br> -“Where do you live?<br> -<br> -“Live! What’s that?”<br> -<br> -The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at him for a moment, and -then, twisting round his legs and wrestling with him, broke again into -his repetition of “You let me go, will you? I want to find -the woman.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist led him to the door. “This way,” he said, -looking at him still confusedly, but with repugnance and avoidance, -growing out of his coldness. “I’ll take you to her.”<br> -<br> -The sharp eyes in the child’s head, wandering round the room, -lighted on the table where the remnants of the dinner were.<br> -<br> -“Give me some of that!” he said, covetously.<br> -<br> -“Has she not fed you?”<br> -<br> -“I shall be hungry again to-morrow, sha’n’t I? -Ain’t I hungry every day?”<br> -<br> -Finding himself released, he bounded at the table like some small animal -of prey, and hugging to his breast bread and meat, and his own rags, -all together, said:<br> -<br> -“There! Now take me to the woman!”<br> -<br> -As the Chemist, with a new-born dislike to touch him, sternly motioned -him to follow, and was going out of the door, he trembled and stopped.<br> -<br> -“The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you -will!”<br> -<br> -The Phantom’s words were blowing in the wind, and the wind blew -chill upon him.<br> -<br> -“I’ll not go there, to-night,” he murmured faintly. -“I’ll go nowhere to-night. Boy! straight down this -long-arched passage, and past the great dark door into the yard, - you -see the fire shining on the window there.”<br> -<br> -“The woman’s fire?” inquired the boy.<br> -<br> -He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away. He came back with -his lamp, locked his door hastily, and sat down in his chair, covering -his face like one who was frightened at himself.<br> -<br> -For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone.<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -CHAPTER II - The Gift Diffused<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -A small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a small shop -by a small screen, pasted all over with small scraps of newspapers. -In company with the small man, was almost any amount of small children -you may please to name - at least it seemed so; they made, in that very -limited sphere of action, such an imposing effect, in point of numbers.<br> -<br> -Of these small fry, two had, by some strong machinery, been got into -bed in a corner, where they might have reposed snugly enough in the -sleep of innocence, but for a constitutional propensity to keep awake, -and also to scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate occasion -of these predatory dashes at the waking world, was the construction -of an oyster-shell wall in a corner, by two other youths of tender age; -on which fortification the two in bed made harassing descents (like -those accursed Picts and Scots who beleaguer the early historical studies -of most young Britons), and then withdrew to their own territory.<br> -<br> -In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and the retorts -of the invaded, who pursued hotly, and made lunges at the bed-clothes -under which the marauders took refuge, another little boy, in another -little bed, contributed his mite of confusion to the family stock, by -casting his boots upon the waters; in other words, by launching these -and several small objects, inoffensive in themselves, though of a hard -substance considered as missiles, at the disturbers of his repose, - -who were not slow to return these compliments.<br> -<br> -Besides which, another little boy - the biggest there, but still little -- was tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and considerably affected -in his knees by the weight of a large baby, which he was supposed by -a fiction that obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing -to sleep. But oh! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and -watchfulness into which this baby’s eyes were then only beginning -to compose themselves to stare, over his unconscious shoulder!<br> -<br> -It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole existence -of this particular young brother was offered up a daily sacrifice. -Its personality may be said to have consisted in its never being quiet, -in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep -when required. “Tetterby’s baby” was as well -known in the neighbourhood as the postman or the pot-boy. It roved -from door-step to door-step, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, -and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the -Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up, all on one side, a little too late -for everything that was attractive, from Monday morning until Saturday -night. Wherever childhood congregated to play, there was little -Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired to -stay, little Moloch became fractious, and would not remain. Whenever -Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep, and must be watched. -Whenever Johnny wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must be -taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it was a faultless -baby, without its peer in the realm of England, and was quite content -to catch meek glimpses of things in general from behind its skirts, -or over its limp flapping bonnet, and to go staggering about with it -like a very little porter with a very large parcel, which was not directed -to anybody, and could never be delivered anywhere.<br> -<br> -The small man who sat in the small parlour, making fruitless attempts -to read his newspaper peaceably in the midst of this disturbance, was -the father of the family, and the chief of the firm described in the -inscription over the little shop front, by the name and title of A. -TETTERBY AND CO., NEWSMEN. Indeed, strictly speaking, he was the -only personage answering to that designation, as Co. was a mere poetical -abstraction, altogether baseless and impersonal.<br> -<br> -Tetterby’s was the corner shop in Jerusalem Buildings. There -was a good show of literature in the window, chiefly consisting of picture-newspapers -out of date, and serial pirates, and footpads. Walking-sticks, -likewise, and marbles, were included in the stock in trade. It -had once extended into the light confectionery line; but it would seem -that those elegancies of life were not in demand about Jerusalem Buildings, -for nothing connected with that branch of commerce remained in the window, -except a sort of small glass lantern containing a languishing mass of -bull’s-eyes, which had melted in the summer and congealed in the -winter until all hope of ever getting them out, or of eating them without -eating the lantern too, was gone for ever. Tetterby’s had -tried its hand at several things. It had once made a feeble little -dart at the toy business; for, in another lantern, there was a heap -of minute wax dolls, all sticking together upside down, in the direst -confusion, with their feet on one another’s heads, and a precipitate -of broken arms and legs at the bottom. It had made a move in the -millinery direction, which a few dry, wiry bonnet-shapes remained in -a corner of the window to attest. It had fancied that a living -might lie hidden in the tobacco trade, and had stuck up a representation -of a native of each of the three integral portions of the British Empire, -in the act of consuming that fragrant weed; with a poetic legend attached, -importing that united in one cause they sat and joked, one chewed tobacco, -one took snuff, one smoked: but nothing seemed to have come of it - -except flies. Time had been when it had put a forlorn trust in -imitative jewellery, for in one pane of glass there was a card of cheap -seals, and another of pencil-cases, and a mysterious black amulet of -inscrutable intention, labelled ninepence. But, to that hour, -Jerusalem Buildings had bought none of them. In short, Tetterby’s -had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of Jerusalem Buildings in -one way or other, and appeared to have done so indifferently in all, -that the best position in the firm was too evidently Co.’s; Co., -as a bodiless creation, being untroubled with the vulgar inconveniences -of hunger and thirst, being chargeable neither to the poor’s-rates -nor the assessed taxes, and having no young family to provide for.<br> -<br> -Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as already mentioned, -having the presence of a young family impressed upon his mind in a manner -too clamorous to be disregarded, or to comport with the quiet perusal -of a newspaper, laid down his paper, wheeled, in his distraction, a -few times round the parlour, like an undecided carrier-pigeon, made -an ineffectual rush at one or two flying little figures in bed-gowns -that skimmed past him, and then, bearing suddenly down upon the only -unoffending member of the family, boxed the ears of little Moloch’s -nurse.<br> -<br> -“You bad boy!” said Mr. Tetterby, “haven’t you -any feeling for your poor father after the fatigues and anxieties of -a hard winter’s day, since five o’clock in the morning, -but must you wither his rest, and corrode his latest intelligence, with -<i>your</i> wicious tricks? Isn’t it enough, sir, that your -brother ’Dolphus is toiling and moiling in the fog and cold, and -you rolling in the lap of luxury with a - with a baby, and everything -you can wish for,” said Mr. Tetterby, heaping this up as a great -climax of blessings, “but must you make a wilderness of home, -and maniacs of your parents? Must you, Johnny? Hey?” -At each interrogation, Mr. Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears -again, but thought better of it, and held his hand.<br> -<br> -“Oh, father!” whimpered Johnny, “when I wasn’t -doing anything, I’m sure, but taking such care of Sally, and getting -her to sleep. Oh, father!”<br> -<br> -“I wish my little woman would come home!” said Mr. Tetterby, -relenting and repenting, “I only wish my little woman would come -home! I ain’t fit to deal with ’em. They make -my head go round, and get the better of me. Oh, Johnny! -Isn’t it enough that your dear mother has provided you with that -sweet sister?” indicating Moloch; “isn’t it enough -that you were seven boys before without a ray of gal, and that your -dear mother went through what she <i>did</i> go through, on purpose -that you might all of you have a little sister, but must you so behave -yourself as to make my head swim?”<br> -<br> -Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings and those of his -injured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby concluded by embracing him, -and immediately breaking away to catch one of the real delinquents. -A reasonably good start occurring, he succeeded, after a short but smart -run, and some rather severe cross-country work under and over the bedsteads, -and in and out among the intricacies of the chairs, in capturing this -infant, whom he condignly punished, and bore to bed. This example -had a powerful, and apparently, mesmeric influence on him of the boots, -who instantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a moment -before, broad awake, and in the highest possible feather. Nor -was it lost upon the two young architects, who retired to bed, in an -adjoining closet, with great privacy and speed. The comrade of -the Intercepted One also shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, -Mr. Tetterby, when he paused for breath, found himself unexpectedly -in a scene of peace.<br> -<br> -“My little woman herself,” said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his -flushed face, “could hardly have done it better! I only -wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed!”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage appropriate to be -impressed upon his children’s minds on the occasion, and read -the following.<br> -<br> -“‘It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have had -remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after life as their best -friends.’ Think of your own remarkable mother, my boys,” -said Mr. Tetterby, “and know her value while she is still among -you!”<br> -<br> -He sat down again in his chair by the fire, and composed himself, cross-legged, -over his newspaper.<br> -<br> -“Let anybody, I don’t care who it is, get out of bed again,” -said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in a very soft-hearted -manner, “and astonishment will be the portion of that respected -contemporary!” - which expression Mr. Tetterby selected from his -screen. “Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, -Sally; for she’s the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your -early brow.”<br> -<br> -Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed himself beneath -the weight of Moloch.<br> -<br> -“Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny!” said his -father, “and how thankful you ought to be! ‘It is -not generally known, Johnny,’” he was now referring to the -screen again, “‘but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate -calculations, that the following immense percentage of babies never -attain to two years old; that is to say - ’”<br> -<br> -“Oh, don’t, father, please!” cried Johnny. “I -can’t bear it, when I think of Sally.”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profound sense of his trust, -wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister.<br> -<br> -“Your brother ’Dolphus,” said his father, poking the -fire, “is late to-night, Johnny, and will come home like a lump -of ice. What’s got your precious mother?”<br> -<br> -“Here’s mother, and ’Dolphus too, father!” exclaimed -Johnny, “I think.”<br> -<br> -“You’re right!” returned his father, listening. -“Yes, that’s the footstep of my little woman.”<br> -<br> -The process of induction, by which Mr Tetterby had come to the conclusion -that his wife was a little woman, was his own secret. She would -have made two editions of himself, very easily. Considered as -an individual, she was rather remarkable for being robust and portly; -but considered with reference to her husband, her dimensions became -magnificent. Nor did they assume a less imposing proportion, when -studied with reference to the size of her seven sons, who were but diminutive. -In the case of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetterby had asserted herself, at -last; as nobody knew better than the victim Johnny, who weighed and -measured that exacting idol every hour in the day.<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried a basket, threw back -her bonnet and shawl, and sitting down, fatigued, commanded Johnny to -bring his sweet charge to her straightway, for a kiss. Johnny -having complied, and gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, -Master Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this time unwound his torso out -of a prismatic comforter, apparently interminable, requested the same -favour. Johnny having again complied, and again gone back to his -stool, and again crushed himself, Mr. Tetterby, struck by a sudden thought, -preferred the same claim on his own parental part. The satisfaction -of this third desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had hardly -breath enough left to get back to his stool, crush himself again, and -pant at his relations.<br> -<br> -“Whatever you do, Johnny,” said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking her -head, “take care of her, or never look your mother in the face -again.”<br> -<br> -“Nor your brother,” said Adolphus.<br> -<br> -“Nor your father, Johnny,” added Mr. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -Johnny, much affected by this conditional renunciation of him, looked -down at Moloch’s eyes to see that they were all right, so far, -and skilfully patted her back (which was uppermost), and rocked her -with his foot.<br> -<br> -“Are you wet, ’Dolphus, my boy?” said his father. -“Come and take my chair, and dry yourself.”<br> -<br> -“No, father, thank’ee,” said Adolphus, smoothing himself -down with his hands. “I an’t very wet, I don’t -think. Does my face shine much, father?”<br> -<br> -“Well, it <i>does</i> look waxy, my boy,” returned Mr. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“It’s the weather, father,” said Adolphus, polishing -his cheeks on the worn sleeve of his jacket. “What with -rain, and sleet, and wind, and snow, and fog, my face gets quite brought -out into a rash sometimes. And shines, it does - oh, don’t -it, though!”<br> -<br> -Master Adolphus was also in the newspaper line of life, being employed, -by a more thriving firm than his father and Co., to vend newspapers -at a railway station, where his chubby little person, like a shabbily-disguised -Cupid, and his shrill little voice (he was not much more than ten years -old), were as well known as the hoarse panting of the locomotives, running -in and out. His juvenility might have been at some loss for a -harmless outlet, in this early application to traffic, but for a fortunate -discovery he made of a means of entertaining himself, and of dividing -the long day into stages of interest, without neglecting business. -This ingenious invention, remarkable, like many great discoveries, for -its simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel in the word “paper,” -and substituting, in its stead, at different periods of the day, all -the other vowels in grammatical succession. Thus, before daylight -in the winter-time, he went to and fro, in his little oilskin cap and -cape, and his big comforter, piercing the heavy air with his cry of -“Morn-ing Pa-per!” which, about an hour before noon, changed -to “Morn-ing Pepper!” which, at about two, changed to “Morn-ing -Pip-per!” which in a couple of hours changed to “Morn-ing -Pop-per!” and so declined with the sun into “Eve-ning Pup-per!” -to the great relief and comfort of this young gentleman’s spirits.<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been sitting with her bonnet -and shawl thrown back, as aforesaid, thoughtfully turning her wedding-ring -round and round upon her finger, now rose, and divesting herself of -her out-of-door attire, began to lay the cloth for supper.<br> -<br> -“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby. -“That’s the way the world goes!”<br> -<br> -“Which is the way the world goes, my dear?” asked Mr. Tetterby, -looking round.<br> -<br> -“Oh, nothing,” said Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby elevated his eyebrows, folded his newspaper afresh, and -carried his eyes up it, and down it, and across it, but was wandering -in his attention, and not reading it.<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby, at the same time, laid the cloth, but rather as if she -were punishing the table than preparing the family supper; hitting it -unnecessarily hard with the knives and forks, slapping it with the plates, -dinting it with the salt-cellar, and coming heavily down upon it with -the loaf.<br> -<br> -“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby. -“That’s the way the world goes!”<br> -<br> -“My duck,” returned her husband, looking round again, “you -said that before. Which is the way the world goes?”<br> -<br> -“Oh, nothing!” said Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“Sophia!” remonstrated her husband, “you said <i>that</i> -before, too.”<br> -<br> -“Well, I’ll say it again if you like,” returned Mrs. -Tetterby. “Oh nothing - there! And again if you like, -oh nothing - there! And again if you like, oh nothing - now then!”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner of his bosom, -and said, in mild astonishment:<br> -<br> -“My little woman, what has put you out?”<br> -<br> -“I’m sure <i>I</i> don’t know,” she retorted. -“Don’t ask me. Who said I was put out at all? -<i>I</i> never did.”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby gave up the perusal of his newspaper as a bad job, and, -taking a slow walk across the room, with his hands behind him, and his -shoulders raised - his gait according perfectly with the resignation -of his manner - addressed himself to his two eldest offspring.<br> -<br> -“Your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus,” -said Mr. Tetterby. “Your mother has been out in the wet, -to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your -mother so to do. <i>You</i> shall get some supper too, very soon, -Johnny. Your mother’s pleased with you, my man, for being -so attentive to your precious sister.”<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby, without any remark, but with a decided subsidence of -her animosity towards the table, finished her preparations, and took, -from her ample basket, a substantial slab of hot pease pudding wrapped -in paper, and a basin covered with a saucer, which, on being uncovered, -sent forth an odour so agreeable, that the three pair of eyes in the -two beds opened wide and fixed themselves upon the banquet. Mr. -Tetterby, without regarding this tacit invitation to be seated, stood -repeating slowly, “Yes, yes, your supper will be ready in a minute, -’Dolphus - your mother went out in the wet, to the cook’s -shop, to buy it. It was very good of your mother so to do” -- until Mrs. Tetterby, who had been exhibiting sundry tokens of contrition -behind him, caught him round the neck, and wept.<br> -<br> -“Oh, Dolphus!” said Mrs. Tetterby, “how could I go -and behave so?”<br> -<br> -This reconciliation affected Adolphus the younger and Johnny to that -degree, that they both, as with one accord, raised a dismal cry, which -had the effect of immediately shutting up the round eyes in the beds, -and utterly routing the two remaining little Tetterbys, just then stealing -in from the adjoining closet to see what was going on in the eating -way.<br> -<br> -“I am sure, ’Dolphus,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, “coming -home, I had no more idea than a child unborn - ”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, and observed, -“Say than the baby, my dear.”<br> -<br> -“ - Had no more idea than the baby,” said Mrs. Tetterby. -- “Johnny, don’t look at me, but look at her, or she’ll -fall out of your lap and be killed, and then you’ll die in agonies -of a broken heart, and serve you right. - No more idea I hadn’t -than that darling, of being cross when I came home; but somehow, ’Dolphus -- ” Mrs. Tetterby paused, and again turned her wedding-ring -round and round upon her finger.<br> -<br> -“I see!” said Mr. Tetterby. “I understand! -My little woman was put out. Hard times, and hard weather, and -hard work, make it trying now and then. I see, bless your soul! -No wonder! Dolf, my man,” continued Mr. Tetterby, exploring -the basin with a fork, “here’s your mother been and bought, -at the cook’s shop, besides pease pudding, a whole knuckle of -a lovely roast leg of pork, with lots of crackling left upon it, and -with seasoning gravy and mustard quite unlimited. Hand in your -plate, my boy, and begin while it’s simmering.”<br> -<br> -Master Adolphus, needing no second summons, received his portion with -eyes rendered moist by appetite, and withdrawing to his particular stool, -fell upon his supper tooth and nail. Johnny was not forgotten, -but received his rations on bread, lest he should, in a flush of gravy, -trickle any on the baby. He was required, for similar reasons, -to keep his pudding, when not on active service, in his pocket.<br> -<br> -There might have been more pork on the knucklebone, - which knucklebone -the carver at the cook’s shop had assuredly not forgotten in carving -for previous customers - but there was no stint of seasoning, and that -is an accessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the -sense of taste. The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard, -like the Eastern rose in respect of the nightingale, if they were not -absolutely pork, had lived near it; so, upon the whole, there was the -flavour of a middle-sized pig. It was irresistible to the Tetterbys -in bed, who, though professing to slumber peacefully, crawled out when -unseen by their parents, and silently appealed to their brothers for -any gastronomic token of fraternal affection. They, not hard of -heart, presenting scraps in return, it resulted that a party of light -skirmishers in nightgowns were careering about the parlour all through -supper, which harassed Mr. Tetterby exceedingly, and once or twice imposed -upon him the necessity of a charge, before which these guerilla troops -retired in all directions and in great confusion.<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby did not enjoy her supper. There seemed to be something -on Mrs. Tetterby’s mind. At one time she laughed without -reason, and at another time she cried without reason, and at last she -laughed and cried together in a manner so very unreasonable that her -husband was confounded.<br> -<br> -“My little woman,” said Mr. Tetterby, “if the world -goes that way, it appears to go the wrong way, and to choke you.”<br> -<br> -“Give me a drop of water,” said Mrs. Tetterby, struggling -with herself, “and don’t speak to me for the present, or -take any notice of me. Don’t do it!”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby having administered the water, turned suddenly on the unlucky -Johnny (who was full of sympathy), and demanded why he was wallowing -there, in gluttony and idleness, instead of coming forward with the -baby, that the sight of her might revive his mother. Johnny immediately -approached, borne down by its weight; but Mrs. Tetterby holding out -her hand to signify that she was not in a condition to bear that trying -appeal to her feelings, he was interdicted from advancing another inch, -on pain of perpetual hatred from all his dearest connections; and accordingly -retired to his stool again, and crushed himself as before.<br> -<br> -After a pause, Mrs. Tetterby said she was better now, and began to laugh.<br> -<br> -“My little woman,” said her husband, dubiously, “are -you quite sure you’re better? Or are you, Sophia, about -to break out in a fresh direction?”<br> -<br> -“No, ’Dolphus, no,” replied his wife. “I’m -quite myself.” With that, settling her hair, and pressing -the palms of her hands upon her eyes, she laughed again.<br> -<br> -“What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a moment!” said -Mrs. Tetterby. “Come nearer, ’Dolphus, and let me -ease my mind, and tell you what I mean. Let me tell you all about -it.”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs. Tetterby laughed again, -gave him a hug, and wiped her eyes.<br> -<br> -“You know, Dolphus, my dear,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “that -when I was single, I might have given myself away in several directions. -At one time, four after me at once; two of them were sons of Mars.”<br> -<br> -“We’re all sons of Ma’s, my dear,” said Mr. -Tetterby, “jointly with Pa’s.”<br> -<br> -“I don’t mean that,” replied his wife, “I mean -soldiers - serjeants.”<br> -<br> -“Oh!” said Mr. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“Well, ’Dolphus, I’m sure I never think of such things -now, to regret them; and I’m sure I’ve got as good a husband, -and would do as much to prove that I was fond of him, as - ”<br> -<br> -“As any little woman in the world,” said Mr. Tetterby. -“Very good. <i>Very</i> good.”<br> -<br> -If Mr. Tetterby had been ten feet high, he could not have expressed -a gentler consideration for Mrs. Tetterby’s fairy-like stature; -and if Mrs. Tetterby had been two feet high, she could not have felt -it more appropriately her due.<br> -<br> -“But you see, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “this -being Christmas-time, when all people who can, make holiday, and when -all people who have got money, like to spend some, I did, somehow, get -a little out of sorts when I was in the streets just now. There -were so many things to be sold - such delicious things to eat, such -fine things to look at, such delightful things to have - and there was -so much calculating and calculating necessary, before I durst lay out -a sixpence for the commonest thing; and the basket was so large, and -wanted so much in it; and my stock of money was so small, and would -go such a little way; - you hate me, don’t you, ’Dolphus?”<br> -<br> -“Not quite,” said Mr. Tetterby, “as yet.”<br> -<br> -“Well! I’ll tell you the whole truth,” pursued -his wife, penitently, “and then perhaps you will. I felt -all this, so much, when I was trudging about in the cold, and when I -saw a lot of other calculating faces and large baskets trudging about, -too, that I began to think whether I mightn’t have done better, -and been happier, if - I - hadn’t - ” the wedding-ring went -round again, and Mrs. Tetterby shook her downcast head as she turned -it.<br> -<br> -“I see,” said her husband quietly; “if you hadn’t -married at all, or if you had married somebody else?”<br> -<br> -“Yes,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby. “That’s really -what I thought. Do you hate me now, ’Dolphus?”<br> -<br> -“Why no,” said Mr. Tetterby. “I don’t -find that I do, as yet.”<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on.<br> -<br> -“I begin to hope you won’t, now, ’Dolphus, though -I’m afraid I haven’t told you the worst. I can’t -think what came over me. I don’t know whether I was ill, -or mad, or what I was, but I couldn’t call up anything that seemed -to bind us to each other, or to reconcile me to my fortune. All -the pleasures and enjoyments we had ever had - <i>they</i> seemed so -poor and insignificant, I hated them. I could have trodden on -them. And I could think of nothing else, except our being poor, -and the number of mouths there were at home.”<br> -<br> -“Well, well, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby, shaking her hand -encouragingly, “that’s truth, after all. We <i>are</i> -poor, and there <i>are</i> a number of mouths at home here.”<br> -<br> -“Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf!” cried his wife, laying her hands -upon his neck, “my good, kind, patient fellow, when I had been -at home a very little while - how different! Oh, Dolf, dear, how -different it was! I felt as if there was a rush of recollection -on me, all at once, that softened my hard heart, and filled it up till -it was bursting. All our struggles for a livelihood, all our cares -and wants since we have been married, all the times of sickness, all -the hours of watching, we have ever had, by one another, or by the children, -seemed to speak to me, and say that they had made us one, and that I -never might have been, or could have been, or would have been, any other -than the wife and mother I am. Then, the cheap enjoyments that -I could have trodden on so cruelly, got to be so precious to me - Oh -so priceless, and dear! - that I couldn’t bear to think how much -I had wronged them; and I said, and say again a hundred times, how could -I ever behave so, ’Dolphus, how could I ever have the heart to -do it!”<br> -<br> -The good woman, quite carried away by her honest tenderness and remorse, -was weeping with all her heart, when she started up with a scream, and -ran behind her husband. Her cry was so terrified, that the children -started from their sleep and from their beds, and clung about her. -Nor did her gaze belie her voice, as she pointed to a pale man in a -black cloak who had come into the room.<br> -<br> -“Look at that man! Look there! What does he want?”<br> -<br> -“My dear,” returned her husband, “I’ll ask him -if you’ll let me go. What’s the matter! How -you shake!”<br> -<br> -“I saw him in the street, when I was out just now. He looked -at me, and stood near me. I am afraid of him.”<br> -<br> -“Afraid of him! Why?”<br> -<br> -“I don’t know why - I - stop! husband!” for he was -going towards the stranger.<br> -<br> -She had one hand pressed upon her forehead, and one upon her breast; -and there was a peculiar fluttering all over her, and a hurried unsteady -motion of her eyes, as if she had lost something.<br> -<br> -“Are you ill, my dear?”<br> -<br> -“What is it that is going from me again?” she muttered, -in a low voice. “What <i>is</i> this that is going away?”<br> -<br> -Then she abruptly answered: “Ill? No, I am quite well,” -and stood looking vacantly at the floor.<br> -<br> -Her husband, who had not been altogether free from the infection of -her fear at first, and whom the present strangeness of her manner did -not tend to reassure, addressed himself to the pale visitor in the black -cloak, who stood still, and whose eyes were bent upon the ground.<br> -<br> -“What may be your pleasure, sir,” he asked, “with -us?”<br> -<br> -“I fear that my coming in unperceived,” returned the visitor, -“has alarmed you; but you were talking and did not hear me.”<br> -<br> -“My little woman says - perhaps you heard her say it,” returned -Mr. Tetterby, “that it’s not the first time you have alarmed -her to-night.”<br> -<br> -“I am sorry for it. I remember to have observed her, for -a few moments only, in the street. I had no intention of frightening -her.”<br> -<br> -As he raised his eyes in speaking, she raised hers. It was extraordinary -to see what dread she had of him, and with what dread he observed it -- and yet how narrowly and closely.<br> -<br> -“My name,” he said, “is Redlaw. I come from -the old college hard by. A young gentleman who is a student there, -lodges in your house, does he not?”<br> -<br> -“Mr. Denham?” said Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“Yes.”<br> -<br> -It was a natural action, and so slight as to be hardly noticeable; but -the little man, before speaking again, passed his hand across his forehead, -and looked quickly round the room, as though he were sensible of some -change in its atmosphere. The Chemist, instantly transferring -to him the look of dread he had directed towards the wife, stepped back, -and his face turned paler.<br> -<br> -“The gentleman’s room,” said Tetterby, “is upstairs, -sir. There’s a more convenient private entrance; but as -you have come in here, it will save your going out into the cold, if -you’ll take this little staircase,” showing one communicating -directly with the parlour, “and go up to him that way, if you -wish to see him.”<br> -<br> -“Yes, I wish to see him,” said the Chemist. “Can -you spare a light?”<br> -<br> -The watchfulness of his haggard look, and the inexplicable distrust -that darkened it, seemed to trouble Mr. Tetterby. He paused; and -looking fixedly at him in return, stood for a minute or so, like a man -stupefied, or fascinated.<br> -<br> -At length he said, “I’ll light you, sir, if you’ll -follow me.”<br> -<br> -“No,” replied the Chemist, “I don’t wish to -be attended, or announced to him. He does not expect me. -I would rather go alone. Please to give me the light, if you can -spare it, and I’ll find the way.”<br> -<br> -In the quickness of his expression of this desire, and in taking the -candle from the newsman, he touched him on the breast. Withdrawing -his hand hastily, almost as though he had wounded him by accident (for -he did not know in what part of himself his new power resided, or how -it was communicated, or how the manner of its reception varied in different -persons), he turned and ascended the stair.<br> -<br> -But when he reached the top, he stopped and looked down. The wife -was standing in the same place, twisting her ring round and round upon -her finger. The husband, with his head bent forward on his breast, -was musing heavily and sullenly. The children, still clustering -about the mother, gazed timidly after the visitor, and nestled together -when they saw him looking down.<br> -<br> -“Come!” said the father, roughly. “There’s -enough of this. Get to bed here!”<br> -<br> -“The place is inconvenient and small enough,” the mother -added, “without you. Get to bed!”<br> -<br> -The whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little Johnny and the baby -lagging last. The mother, glancing contemptuously round the sordid -room, and tossing from her the fragments of their meal, stopped on the -threshold of her task of clearing the table, and sat down, pondering -idly and dejectedly. The father betook himself to the chimney-corner, -and impatiently raking the small fire together, bent over it as if he -would monopolise it all. They did not interchange a word.<br> -<br> -The Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a thief; looking back -upon the change below, and dreading equally to go on or return.<br> -<br> -“What have I done!” he said, confusedly. “What -am I going to do!”<br> -<br> -“To be the benefactor of mankind,” he thought he heard a -voice reply.<br> -<br> -He looked round, but there was nothing there; and a passage now shutting -out the little parlour from his view, he went on, directing his eyes -before him at the way he went.<br> -<br> -“It is only since last night,” he muttered gloomily, “that -I have remained shut up, and yet all things are strange to me. -I am strange to myself. I am here, as in a dream. What interest -have I in this place, or in any place that I can bring to my remembrance? -My mind is going blind!”<br> -<br> -There was a door before him, and he knocked at it. Being invited, -by a voice within, to enter, he complied.<br> -<br> -“Is that my kind nurse?” said the voice. “But -I need not ask her. There is no one else to come here.”<br> -<br> -It spoke cheerfully, though in a languid tone, and attracted his attention -to a young man lying on a couch, drawn before the chimney-piece, with -the back towards the door. A meagre scanty stove, pinched and -hollowed like a sick man’s cheeks, and bricked into the centre -of a hearth that it could scarcely warm, contained the fire, to which -his face was turned. Being so near the windy house-top, it wasted -quickly, and with a busy sound, and the burning ashes dropped down fast.<br> -<br> -“They chink when they shoot out here,” said the student, -smiling, “so, according to the gossips, they are not coffins, -but purses. I shall be well and rich yet, some day, if it please -God, and shall live perhaps to love a daughter Milly, in remembrance -of the kindest nature and the gentlest heart in the world.”<br> -<br> -He put up his hand as if expecting her to take it, but, being weakened, -he lay still, with his face resting on his other hand, and did not turn -round.<br> -<br> -The Chemist glanced about the room; - at the student’s books and -papers, piled upon a table in a corner, where they, and his extinguished -reading-lamp, now prohibited and put away, told of the attentive hours -that had gone before this illness, and perhaps caused it; - at such -signs of his old health and freedom, as the out-of-door attire that -hung idle on the wall; - at those remembrances of other and less solitary -scenes, the little miniatures upon the chimney-piece, and the drawing -of home; - at that token of his emulation, perhaps, in some sort, of -his personal attachment too, the framed engraving of himself, the looker-on. -The time had been, only yesterday, when not one of these objects, in -its remotest association of interest with the living figure before him, -would have been lost on Redlaw. Now, they were but objects; or, -if any gleam of such connexion shot upon him, it perplexed, and not -enlightened him, as he stood looking round with a dull wonder.<br> -<br> -The student, recalling the thin hand which had remained so long untouched, -raised himself on the couch, and turned his head.<br> -<br> -“Mr. Redlaw!” he exclaimed, and started up.<br> -<br> -Redlaw put out his arm.<br> -<br> -“Don’t come nearer to me. I will sit here. Remain -you, where you are!”<br> -<br> -He sat down on a chair near the door, and having glanced at the young -man standing leaning with his hand upon the couch, spoke with his eyes -averted towards the ground.<br> -<br> -“I heard, by an accident, by what accident is no matter, that -one of my class was ill and solitary. I received no other description -of him, than that he lived in this street. Beginning my inquiries -at the first house in it, I have found him.”<br> -<br> -“I have been ill, sir,” returned the student, not merely -with a modest hesitation, but with a kind of awe of him, “but -am greatly better. An attack of fever - of the brain, I believe -- has weakened me, but I am much better. I cannot say I have been -solitary, in my illness, or I should forget the ministering hand that -has been near me.”<br> -<br> -“You are speaking of the keeper’s wife,” said Redlaw.<br> -<br> -“Yes.” The student bent his head, as if he rendered -her some silent homage.<br> -<br> -The Chemist, in whom there was a cold, monotonous apathy, which rendered -him more like a marble image on the tomb of the man who had started -from his dinner yesterday at the first mention of this student’s -case, than the breathing man himself, glanced again at the student leaning -with his hand upon the couch, and looked upon the ground, and in the -air, as if for light for his blinded mind.<br> -<br> -“I remembered your name,” he said, “when it was mentioned -to me down stairs, just now; and I recollect your face. We have -held but very little personal communication together?”<br> -<br> -“Very little.”<br> -<br> -“You have retired and withdrawn from me, more than any of the -rest, I think?”<br> -<br> -The student signified assent.<br> -<br> -“And why?” said the Chemist; not with the least expression -of interest, but with a moody, wayward kind of curiosity. “Why? -How comes it that you have sought to keep especially from me, the knowledge -of your remaining here, at this season, when all the rest have dispersed, -and of your being ill? I want to know why this is?”<br> -<br> -The young man, who had heard him with increasing agitation, raised his -downcast eyes to his face, and clasping his hands together, cried with -sudden earnestness and with trembling lips:<br> -<br> -“Mr. Redlaw! You have discovered me. You know my secret!”<br> -<br> -“Secret?” said the Chemist, harshly. “I know?”<br> -<br> -“Yes! Your manner, so different from the interest and sympathy -which endear you to so many hearts, your altered voice, the constraint -there is in everything you say, and in your looks,” replied the -student, “warn me that you know me. That you would conceal -it, even now, is but a proof to me (God knows I need none!) of your -natural kindness and of the bar there is between us.”<br> -<br> -A vacant and contemptuous laugh, was all his answer.<br> -<br> -“But, Mr. Redlaw,” said the student, “as a just man, -and a good man, think how innocent I am, except in name and descent, -of participation in any wrong inflicted on you or in any sorrow you -have borne.”<br> -<br> -“Sorrow!” said Redlaw, laughing. “Wrong! -What are those to me?”<br> -<br> -“For Heaven’s sake,” entreated the shrinking student, -“do not let the mere interchange of a few words with me change -you like this, sir! Let me pass again from your knowledge and -notice. Let me occupy my old reserved and distant place among -those whom you instruct. Know me only by the name I have assumed, -and not by that of Longford - ”<br> -<br> -“Longford!” exclaimed the other.<br> -<br> -He clasped his head with both his hands, and for a moment turned upon -the young man his own intelligent and thoughtful face. But the -light passed from it, like the sun-beam of an instant, and it clouded -as before.<br> -<br> -“The name my mother bears, sir,” faltered the young man, -“the name she took, when she might, perhaps, have taken one more -honoured. Mr. Redlaw,” hesitating, “I believe I know -that history. Where my information halts, my guesses at what is -wanting may supply something not remote from the truth. I am the -child of a marriage that has not proved itself a well-assorted or a -happy one. From infancy, I have heard you spoken of with honour -and respect - with something that was almost reverence. I have -heard of such devotion, of such fortitude and tenderness, of such rising -up against the obstacles which press men down, that my fancy, since -I learnt my little lesson from my mother, has shed a lustre on your -name. At last, a poor student myself, from whom could I learn -but you?”<br> -<br> -Redlaw, unmoved, unchanged, and looking at him with a staring frown, -answered by no word or sign.<br> -<br> -“I cannot say,” pursued the other, “I should try in -vain to say, how much it has impressed me, and affected me, to find -the gracious traces of the past, in that certain power of winning gratitude -and confidence which is associated among us students (among the humblest -of us, most) with Mr. Redlaw’s generous name. Our ages and -positions are so different, sir, and I am so accustomed to regard you -from a distance, that I wonder at my own presumption when I touch, however -lightly, on that theme. But to one who - I may say, who felt no -common interest in my mother once - it may be something to hear, now -that all is past, with what indescribable feelings of affection I have, -in my obscurity, regarded him; with what pain and reluctance I have -kept aloof from his encouragement, when a word of it would have made -me rich; yet how I have felt it fit that I should hold my course, content -to know him, and to be unknown. Mr. Redlaw,” said the student, -faintly, “what I would have said, I have said ill, for my strength -is strange to me as yet; but for anything unworthy in this fraud of -mine, forgive me, and for all the rest forget me!”<br> -<br> -The staring frown remained on Redlaw’s face, and yielded to no -other expression until the student, with these words, advanced towards -him, as if to touch his hand, when he drew back and cried to him:<br> -<br> -“Don’t come nearer to me!”<br> -<br> -The young man stopped, shocked by the eagerness of his recoil, and by -the sternness of his repulsion; and he passed his hand, thoughtfully, -across his forehead.<br> -<br> -“The past is past,” said the Chemist. “It dies -like the brutes. Who talks to me of its traces in my life? -He raves or lies! What have I to do with your distempered dreams? -If you want money, here it is. I came to offer it; and that is -all I came for. There can be nothing else that brings me here,” -he muttered, holding his head again, with both his hands. “There -<i>can</i> be nothing else, and yet - ”<br> -<br> -He had tossed his purse upon the table. As he fell into this dim -cogitation with himself, the student took it up, and held it out to -him.<br> -<br> -“Take it back, sir,” he said proudly, though not angrily. -“I wish you could take from me, with it, the remembrance of your -words and offer.”<br> -<br> -“You do?” he retorted, with a wild light in his eyes. -“You do?”<br> -<br> -“I do!”<br> -<br> -The Chemist went close to him, for the first time, and took the purse, -and turned him by the arm, and looked him in the face.<br> -<br> -“There is sorrow and trouble in sickness, is there not?” -he demanded, with a laugh.<br> -<br> -The wondering student answered, “Yes.”<br> -<br> -“In its unrest, in its anxiety, in its suspense, in all its train -of physical and mental miseries?” said the Chemist, with a wild -unearthly exultation. “All best forgotten, are they not?”<br> -<br> -The student did not answer, but again passed his hand, confusedly, across -his forehead. Redlaw still held him by the sleeve, when Milly’s -voice was heard outside.<br> -<br> -“I can see very well now,” she said, “thank you, Dolf. -Don’t cry, dear. Father and mother will be comfortable again, -to-morrow, and home will be comfortable too. A gentleman with -him, is there!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw released his hold, as he listened.<br> -<br> -“I have feared, from the first moment,” he murmured to himself, -“to meet her. There is a steady quality of goodness in her, -that I dread to influence. I may be the murderer of what is tenderest -and best within her bosom.”<br> -<br> -She was knocking at the door.<br> -<br> -“Shall I dismiss it as an idle foreboding, or still avoid her?” -he muttered, looking uneasily around.<br> -<br> -She was knocking at the door again.<br> -<br> -“Of all the visitors who could come here,” he said, in a -hoarse alarmed voice, turning to his companion, “this is the one -I should desire most to avoid. Hide me!”<br> -<br> -The student opened a frail door in the wall, communicating where the -garret-roof began to slope towards the floor, with a small inner room. -Redlaw passed in hastily, and shut it after him.<br> -<br> -The student then resumed his place upon the couch, and called to her -to enter.<br> -<br> -“Dear Mr. Edmund,” said Milly, looking round, “they -told me there was a gentleman here.”<br> -<br> -“There is no one here but I.”<br> -<br> -“There has been some one?”<br> -<br> -“Yes, yes, there has been some one.”<br> -<br> -She put her little basket on the table, and went up to the back of the -couch, as if to take the extended hand - but it was not there. -A little surprised, in her quiet way, she leaned over to look at his -face, and gently touched him on the brow.<br> -<br> -“Are you quite as well to-night? Your head is not so cool -as in the afternoon.”<br> -<br> -“Tut!” said the student, petulantly, “very little -ails me.”<br> -<br> -A little more surprise, but no reproach, was expressed in her face, -as she withdrew to the other side of the table, and took a small packet -of needlework from her basket. But she laid it down again, on -second thoughts, and going noiselessly about the room, set everything -exactly in its place, and in the neatest order; even to the cushions -on the couch, which she touched with so light a hand, that he hardly -seemed to know it, as he lay looking at the fire. When all this -was done, and she had swept the hearth, she sat down, in her modest -little bonnet, to her work, and was quietly busy on it directly.<br> -<br> -“It’s the new muslin curtain for the window, Mr. Edmund,” -said Milly, stitching away as she talked. “It will look -very clean and nice, though it costs very little, and will save your -eyes, too, from the light. My William says the room should not -be too light just now, when you are recovering so well, or the glare -might make you giddy.”<br> -<br> -He said nothing; but there was something so fretful and impatient in -his change of position, that her quick fingers stopped, and she looked -at him anxiously.<br> -<br> -“The pillows are not comfortable,” she said, laying down -her work and rising. “I will soon put them right.”<br> -<br> -“They are very well,” he answered. “Leave them -alone, pray. You make so much of everything.”<br> -<br> -He raised his head to say this, and looked at her so thanklessly, that, -after he had thrown himself down again, she stood timidly pausing. -However, she resumed her seat, and her needle, without having directed -even a murmuring look towards him, and was soon as busy as before.<br> -<br> -“I have been thinking, Mr. Edmund, that <i>you</i> have been often -thinking of late, when I have been sitting by, how true the saying is, -that adversity is a good teacher. Health will be more precious -to you, after this illness, than it has ever been. And years hence, -when this time of year comes round, and you remember the days when you -lay here sick, alone, that the knowledge of your illness might not afflict -those who are dearest to you, your home will be doubly dear and doubly -blest. Now, isn’t that a good, true thing?”<br> -<br> -She was too intent upon her work, and too earnest in what she said, -and too composed and quiet altogether, to be on the watch for any look -he might direct towards her in reply; so the shaft of his ungrateful -glance fell harmless, and did not wound her.<br> -<br> -“Ah!” said Milly, with her pretty head inclining thoughtfully -on one side, as she looked down, following her busy fingers with her -eyes. “Even on me - and I am very different from you, Mr. -Edmund, for I have no learning, and don’t know how to think properly -- this view of such things has made a great impression, since you have -been lying ill. When I have seen you so touched by the kindness -and attention of the poor people down stairs, I have felt that you thought -even that experience some repayment for the loss of health, and I have -read in your face, as plain as if it was a book, that but for some trouble -and sorrow we should never know half the good there is about us.”<br> -<br> -His getting up from the couch, interrupted her, or she was going on -to say more.<br> -<br> -“We needn’t magnify the merit, Mrs. William,” he rejoined -slightingly. “The people down stairs will be paid in good -time I dare say, for any little extra service they may have rendered -me; and perhaps they anticipate no less. I am much obliged to -you, too.”<br> -<br> -Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him.<br> -<br> -“I can’t be made to feel the more obliged by your exaggerating -the case,” he said. “I am sensible that you have been -interested in me, and I say I am much obliged to you. What more -would you have?”<br> -<br> -Her work fell on her lap, as she still looked at him walking to and -fro with an intolerant air, and stopping now and then.<br> -<br> -“I say again, I am much obliged to you. Why weaken my sense -of what is your due in obligation, by preferring enormous claims upon -me? Trouble, sorrow, affliction, adversity! One might suppose -I had been dying a score of deaths here!”<br> -<br> -“Do you believe, Mr. Edmund,” she asked, rising and going -nearer to him, “that I spoke of the poor people of the house, -with any reference to myself? To me?” laying her hand upon -her bosom with a simple and innocent smile of astonishment.<br> -<br> -“Oh! I think nothing about it, my good creature,” -he returned. “I have had an indisposition, which your solicitude -- observe! I say solicitude - makes a great deal more of, than it merits; -and it’s over, and we can’t perpetuate it.”<br> -<br> -He coldly took a book, and sat down at the table.<br> -<br> -She watched him for a little while, until her smile was quite gone, -and then, returning to where her basket was, said gently:<br> -<br> -“Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?”<br> -<br> -“There is no reason why I should detain you here,” he replied.<br> -<br> -“Except - ” said Milly, hesitating, and showing her work.<br> -<br> -“Oh! the curtain,” he answered, with a supercilious laugh. -“That’s not worth staying for.”<br> -<br> -She made up the little packet again, and put it in her basket. -Then, standing before him with such an air of patient entreaty that -he could not choose but look at her, she said:<br> -<br> -“If you should want me, I will come back willingly. When -you did want me, I was quite happy to come; there was no merit in it. -I think you must be afraid, that, now you are getting well, I may be -troublesome to you; but I should not have been, indeed. I should -have come no longer than your weakness and confinement lasted. -You owe me nothing; but it is right that you should deal as justly by -me as if I was a lady - even the very lady that you love; and if you -suspect me of meanly making much of the little I have tried to do to -comfort your sick room, you do yourself more wrong than ever you can -do me. That is why I am sorry. That is why I am very sorry.”<br> -<br> -If she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as indignant as she -was calm, as angry in her look as she was gentle, as loud of tone as -she was low and clear, she might have left no sense of her departure -in the room, compared with that which fell upon the lonely student when -she went away.<br> -<br> -He was gazing drearily upon the place where she had been, when Redlaw -came out of his concealment, and came to the door.<br> -<br> -“When sickness lays its hand on you again,” he said, looking -fiercely back at him, “ - may it be soon! - Die here! Rot -here!”<br> -<br> -“What have you done?” returned the other, catching at his -cloak. “What change have you wrought in me? What curse -have you brought upon me? Give me back <i>my</i>self!”<br> -<br> -“Give me back myself!” exclaimed Redlaw like a madman. -“I am infected! I am infectious! I am charged with -poison for my own mind, and the minds of all mankind. Where I -felt interest, compassion, sympathy, I am turning into stone. -Selfishness and ingratitude spring up in my blighting footsteps. -I am only so much less base than the wretches whom I make so, that in -the moment of their transformation I can hate them.”<br> -<br> -As he spoke - the young man still holding to his cloak - he cast him -off, and struck him: then, wildly hurried out into the night air where -the wind was blowing, the snow falling, the cloud-drift sweeping on, -the moon dimly shining; and where, blowing in the wind, falling with -the snow, drifting with the clouds, shining in the moonlight, and heavily -looming in the darkness, were the Phantom’s words, “The -gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will!”<br> -<br> -Whither he went, he neither knew nor cared, so that he avoided company. -The change he felt within him made the busy streets a desert, and himself -a desert, and the multitude around him, in their manifold endurances -and ways of life, a mighty waste of sand, which the winds tossed into -unintelligible heaps and made a ruinous confusion of. Those traces -in his breast which the Phantom had told him would “die out soon,” -were not, as yet, so far upon their way to death, but that he understood -enough of what he was, and what he made of others, to desire to be alone.<br> -<br> -This put it in his mind - he suddenly bethought himself, as he was going -along, of the boy who had rushed into his room. And then he recollected, -that of those with whom he had communicated since the Phantom’s -disappearance, that boy alone had shown no sign of being changed.<br> -<br> -Monstrous and odious as the wild thing was to him, he determined to -seek it out, and prove if this were really so; and also to seek it with -another intention, which came into his thoughts at the same time.<br> -<br> -So, resolving with some difficulty where he was, he directed his steps -back to the old college, and to that part of it where the general porch -was, and where, alone, the pavement was worn by the tread of the students’ -feet.<br> -<br> -The keeper’s house stood just within the iron gates, forming a -part of the chief quadrangle. There was a little cloister outside, -and from that sheltered place he knew he could look in at the window -of their ordinary room, and see who was within. The iron gates -were shut, but his hand was familiar with the fastening, and drawing -it back by thrusting in his wrist between the bars, he passed through -softly, shut it again, and crept up to the window, crumbling the thin -crust of snow with his feet.<br> -<br> -The fire, to which he had directed the boy last night, shining brightly -through the glass, made an illuminated place upon the ground. -Instinctively avoiding this, and going round it, he looked in at the -window. At first, he thought that there was no one there, and -that the blaze was reddening only the old beams in the ceiling and the -dark walls; but peering in more narrowly, he saw the object of his search -coiled asleep before it on the floor. He passed quickly to the -door, opened it, and went in.<br> -<br> -The creature lay in such a fiery heat, that, as the Chemist stooped -to rouse him, it scorched his head. So soon as he was touched, -the boy, not half awake, clutching his rags together with the instinct -of flight upon him, half rolled and half ran into a distant corner of -the room, where, heaped upon the ground, he struck his foot out to defend -himself.<br> -<br> -“Get up!” said the Chemist. “You have not forgotten -me?”<br> -<br> -“You let me alone!” returned the boy. “This -is the woman’s house - not yours.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist’s steady eye controlled him somewhat, or inspired -him with enough submission to be raised upon his feet, and looked at.<br> -<br> -“Who washed them, and put those bandages where they were bruised -and cracked?” asked the Chemist, pointing to their altered state.<br> -<br> -“The woman did.”<br> -<br> -“And is it she who has made you cleaner in the face, too?”<br> -<br> -“Yes, the woman.”<br> -<br> -Redlaw asked these questions to attract his eyes towards himself, and -with the same intent now held him by the chin, and threw his wild hair -back, though he loathed to touch him. The boy watched his eyes -keenly, as if he thought it needful to his own defence, not knowing -what he might do next; and Redlaw could see well that no change came -over him.<br> -<br> -“Where are they?” he inquired.<br> -<br> -“The woman’s out.”<br> -<br> -“I know she is. Where is the old man with the white hair, -and his son?”<br> -<br> -“The woman’s husband, d’ye mean?” inquired the -boy.<br> -<br> -“Ay. Where are those two?”<br> -<br> -“Out. Something’s the matter, somewhere. They -were fetched out in a hurry, and told me to stop here.”<br> -<br> -“Come with me,” said the Chemist, “and I’ll -give you money.”<br> -<br> -“Come where? and how much will you give?”<br> -<br> -“I’ll give you more shillings than you ever saw, and bring -you back soon. Do you know your way to where you came from?”<br> -<br> -“You let me go,” returned the boy, suddenly twisting out -of his grasp. “I’m not a going to take you there. -Let me be, or I’ll heave some fire at you!”<br> -<br> -He was down before it, and ready, with his savage little hand, to pluck -the burning coals out.<br> -<br> -What the Chemist had felt, in observing the effect of his charmed influence -stealing over those with whom he came in contact, was not nearly equal -to the cold vague terror with which he saw this baby-monster put it -at defiance. It chilled his blood to look on the immovable impenetrable -thing, in the likeness of a child, with its sharp malignant face turned -up to his, and its almost infant hand, ready at the bars.<br> -<br> -“Listen, boy!” he said. “You shall take me where -you please, so that you take me where the people are very miserable -or very wicked. I want to do them good, and not to harm them. -You shall have money, as I have told you, and I will bring you back. -Get up! Come quickly!” He made a hasty step towards -the door, afraid of her returning.<br> -<br> -“Will you let me walk by myself, and never hold me, nor yet touch -me?” said the boy, slowly withdrawing the hand with which he threatened, -and beginning to get up.<br> -<br> -“I will!”<br> -<br> -“And let me go, before, behind, or anyways I like?”<br> -<br> -“I will!”<br> -<br> -“Give me some money first, then, and go.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, in his extended hand. -To count them was beyond the boy’s knowledge, but he said “one,” -every time, and avariciously looked at each as it was given, and at -the donor. He had nowhere to put them, out of his hand, but in -his mouth; and he put them there.<br> -<br> -Redlaw then wrote with his pencil on a leaf of his pocket-book, that -the boy was with him; and laying it on the table, signed to him to follow. -Keeping his rags together, as usual, the boy complied, and went out -with his bare head and naked feet into the winter night.<br> -<br> -Preferring not to depart by the iron gate by which he had entered, where -they were in danger of meeting her whom he so anxiously avoided, the -Chemist led the way, through some of those passages among which the -boy had lost himself, and by that portion of the building where he lived, -to a small door of which he had the key. When they got into the -street, he stopped to ask his guide - who instantly retreated from him -- if he knew where they were.<br> -<br> -The savage thing looked here and there, and at length, nodding his head, -pointed in the direction he designed to take. Redlaw going on -at once, he followed, something less suspiciously; shifting his money -from his mouth into his hand, and back again into his mouth, and stealthily -rubbing it bright upon his shreds of dress, as he went along.<br> -<br> -Three times, in their progress, they were side by side. Three -times they stopped, being side by side. Three times the Chemist -glanced down at his face, and shuddered as it forced upon him one reflection.<br> -<br> -The first occasion was when they were crossing an old churchyard, and -Redlaw stopped among the graves, utterly at a loss how to connect them -with any tender, softening, or consolatory thought.<br> -<br> -The second was, when the breaking forth of the moon induced him to look -up at the Heavens, where he saw her in her glory, surrounded by a host -of stars he still knew by the names and histories which human science -has appended to them; but where he saw nothing else he had been wont -to see, felt nothing he had been wont to feel, in looking up there, -on a bright night.<br> -<br> -The third was when he stopped to listen to a plaintive strain of music, -but could only hear a tune, made manifest to him by the dry mechanism -of the instruments and his own ears, with no address to any mystery -within him, without a whisper in it of the past, or of the future, powerless -upon him as the sound of last year’s running water, or the rushing -of last year’s wind.<br> -<br> -At each of these three times, he saw with horror that, in spite of the -vast intellectual distance between them, and their being unlike each -other in all physical respects, the expression on the boy’s face -was the expression on his own.<br> -<br> -They journeyed on for some time - now through such crowded places, that -he often looked over his shoulder thinking he had lost his guide, but -generally finding him within his shadow on his other side; now by ways -so quiet, that he could have counted his short, quick, naked footsteps -coming on behind - until they arrived at a ruinous collection of houses, -and the boy touched him and stopped.<br> -<br> -“In there!” he said, pointing out one house where there -were shattered lights in the windows, and a dim lantern in the doorway, -with “Lodgings for Travellers” painted on it.<br> -<br> -Redlaw looked about him; from the houses to the waste piece of ground -on which the houses stood, or rather did not altogether tumble down, -unfenced, undrained, unlighted, and bordered by a sluggish ditch; from -that, to the sloping line of arches, part of some neighbouring viaduct -or bridge with which it was surrounded, and which lessened gradually -towards them, until the last but one was a mere kennel for a dog, the -last a plundered little heap of bricks; from that, to the child, close -to him, cowering and trembling with the cold, and limping on one little -foot, while he coiled the other round his leg to warm it, yet staring -at all these things with that frightful likeness of expression so apparent -in his face, that Redlaw started from him.<br> -<br> -“In there!” said the boy, pointing out the house again. -“I’ll wait.”<br> -<br> -“Will they let me in?” asked Redlaw.<br> -<br> -“Say you’re a doctor,” he answered with a nod. -“There’s plenty ill here.”<br> -<br> -Looking back on his way to the house-door, Redlaw saw him trail himself -upon the dust and crawl within the shelter of the smallest arch, as -if he were a rat. He had no pity for the thing, but he was afraid -of it; and when it looked out of its den at him, he hurried to the house -as a retreat.<br> -<br> -“Sorrow, wrong, and trouble,” said the Chemist, with a painful -effort at some more distinct remembrance, “at least haunt this -place darkly. He can do no harm, who brings forgetfulness of such -things here!”<br> -<br> -With these words, he pushed the yielding door, and went in.<br> -<br> -There was a woman sitting on the stairs, either asleep or forlorn, whose -head was bent down on her hands and knees. As it was not easy -to pass without treading on her, and as she was perfectly regardless -of his near approach, he stopped, and touched her on the shoulder. -Looking up, she showed him quite a young face, but one whose bloom and -promise were all swept away, as if the haggard winter should unnaturally -kill the spring.<br> -<br> -With little or no show of concern on his account, she moved nearer to -the wall to leave him a wider passage.<br> -<br> -“What are you?” said Redlaw, pausing, with his hand upon -the broken stair-rail.<br> -<br> -“What do you think I am?” she answered, showing him her -face again.<br> -<br> -He looked upon the ruined Temple of God, so lately made, so soon disfigured; -and something, which was not compassion - for the springs in which a -true compassion for such miseries has its rise, were dried up in his -breast - but which was nearer to it, for the moment, than any feeling -that had lately struggled into the darkening, but not yet wholly darkened, -night of his mind - mingled a touch of softness with his next words.<br> -<br> -“I am come here to give relief, if I can,” he said. -“Are you thinking of any wrong?”<br> -<br> -She frowned at him, and then laughed; and then her laugh prolonged itself -into a shivering sigh, as she dropped her head again, and hid her fingers -in her hair.<br> -<br> -“Are you thinking of a wrong?” he asked once more.<br> -<br> -“I am thinking of my life,” she said, with a monetary look -at him.<br> -<br> -He had a perception that she was one of many, and that he saw the type -of thousands, when he saw her, drooping at his feet.<br> -<br> -“What are your parents?” he demanded.<br> -<br> -“I had a good home once. My father was a gardener, far away, -in the country.”<br> -<br> -“Is he dead?”<br> -<br> -“He’s dead to me. All such things are dead to me. -You a gentleman, and not know that!” She raised her eyes -again, and laughed at him.<br> -<br> -“Girl!” said Redlaw, sternly, “before this death, -of all such things, was brought about, was there no wrong done to you? -In spite of all that you can do, does no remembrance of wrong cleave -to you? Are there not times upon times when it is misery to you?”<br> -<br> -So little of what was womanly was left in her appearance, that now, -when she burst into tears, he stood amazed. But he was more amazed, -and much disquieted, to note that in her awakened recollection of this -wrong, the first trace of her old humanity and frozen tenderness appeared -to show itself.<br> -<br> -He drew a little off, and in doing so, observed that her arms were black, -her face cut, and her bosom bruised.<br> -<br> -“What brutal hand has hurt you so?” he asked.<br> -<br> -“My own. I did it myself!” she answered quickly.<br> -<br> -“It is impossible.”<br> -<br> -“I’ll swear I did! He didn’t touch me. -I did it to myself in a passion, and threw myself down here. He -wasn’t near me. He never laid a hand upon me!”<br> -<br> -In the white determination of her face, confronting him with this untruth, -he saw enough of the last perversion and distortion of good surviving -in that miserable breast, to be stricken with remorse that he had ever -come near her.<br> -<br> -“Sorrow, wrong, and trouble!” he muttered, turning his fearful -gaze away. “All that connects her with the state from which -she has fallen, has those roots! In the name of God, let me go -by!”<br> -<br> -Afraid to look at her again, afraid to touch her, afraid to think of -having sundered the last thread by which she held upon the mercy of -Heaven, he gathered his cloak about him, and glided swiftly up the stairs.<br> -<br> -Opposite to him, on the landing, was a door, which stood partly open, -and which, as he ascended, a man with a candle in his hand, came forward -from within to shut. But this man, on seeing him, drew back, with -much emotion in his manner, and, as if by a sudden impulse, mentioned -his name aloud.<br> -<br> -In the surprise of such a recognition there, he stopped, endeavouring -to recollect the wan and startled face. He had no time to consider -it, for, to his yet greater amazement, old Philip came out of the room, -and took him by the hand.<br> -<br> -“Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, “this is like you, -this is like you, sir! you have heard of it, and have come after us -to render any help you can. Ah, too late, too late!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw, with a bewildered look, submitted to be led into the room. -A man lay there, on a truckle-bed, and William Swidger stood at the -bedside.<br> -<br> -“Too late!” murmured the old man, looking wistfully into -the Chemist’s face; and the tears stole down his cheeks.<br> -<br> -“That’s what I say, father,” interposed his son in -a low voice. “That’s where it is, exactly. To -keep as quiet as ever we can while he’s a dozing, is the only -thing to do. You’re right, father!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw paused at the bedside, and looked down on the figure that was -stretched upon the mattress. It was that of a man, who should -have been in the vigour of his life, but on whom it was not likely the -sun would ever shine again. The vices of his forty or fifty years’ -career had so branded him, that, in comparison with their effects upon -his face, the heavy hand of Time upon the old man’s face who watched -him had been merciful and beautifying.<br> -<br> -“Who is this?” asked the Chemist, looking round.<br> -<br> -“My son George, Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, wringing -his hands. “My eldest son, George, who was more his mother’s -pride than all the rest!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw’s eyes wandered from the old man’s grey head, as -he laid it down upon the bed, to the person who had recognised him, -and who had kept aloof, in the remotest corner of the room. He -seemed to be about his own age; and although he knew no such hopeless -decay and broken man as he appeared to be, there was something in the -turn of his figure, as he stood with his back towards him, and now went -out at the door, that made him pass his hand uneasily across his brow.<br> -<br> -“William,” he said in a gloomy whisper, “who is that -man?”<br> -<br> -“Why you see, sir,” returned Mr. William, “that’s -what I say, myself. Why should a man ever go and gamble, and the -like of that, and let himself down inch by inch till he can’t -let himself down any lower!”<br> -<br> -“Has <i>he</i> done so?” asked Redlaw, glancing after him -with the same uneasy action as before.<br> -<br> -“Just exactly that, sir,” returned William Swidger, “as -I’m told. He knows a little about medicine, sir, it seems; -and having been wayfaring towards London with my unhappy brother that -you see here,” Mr. William passed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, -“and being lodging up stairs for the night - what I say, you see, -is that strange companions come together here sometimes - he looked -in to attend upon him, and came for us at his request. What a -mournful spectacle, sir! But that’s where it is. It’s -enough to kill my father!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw looked up, at these words, and, recalling where he was and with -whom, and the spell he carried with him - which his surprise had obscured -- retired a little, hurriedly, debating with himself whether to shun -the house that moment, or remain.<br> -<br> -Yielding to a certain sullen doggedness, which it seemed to be a part -of his condition to struggle with, he argued for remaining.<br> -<br> -“Was it only yesterday,” he said, “when I observed -the memory of this old man to be a tissue of sorrow and trouble, and -shall I be afraid, to-night, to shake it? Are such remembrances -as I can drive away, so precious to this dying man that I need fear -for <i>him</i>? No! I’ll stay here.”<br> -<br> -But he stayed in fear and trembling none the less for these words; and, -shrouded in his black cloak with his face turned from them, stood away -from the bedside, listening to what they said, as if he felt himself -a demon in the place.<br> -<br> -“Father!” murmured the sick man, rallying a little from -stupor.<br> -<br> -“My boy! My son George!” said old Philip.<br> -<br> -“You spoke, just now, of my being mother’s favourite, long -ago. It’s a dreadful thing to think now, of long ago!”<br> -<br> -“No, no, no;” returned the old man. “Think of -it. Don’t say it’s dreadful. It’s not -dreadful to me, my son.”<br> -<br> -“It cuts you to the heart, father.” For the old man’s -tears were falling on him.<br> -<br> -“Yes, yes,” said Philip, “so it does; but it does -me good. It’s a heavy sorrow to think of that time, but -it does me good, George. Oh, think of it too, think of it too, -and your heart will be softened more and more! Where’s my -son William? William, my boy, your mother loved him dearly to -the last, and with her latest breath said, ‘Tell him I forgave -him, blessed him, and prayed for him.’ Those were her words -to me. I have never forgotten them, and I’m eighty-seven!”<br> -<br> -“Father!” said the man upon the bed, “I am dying, -I know. I am so far gone, that I can hardly speak, even of what -my mind most runs on. Is there any hope for me beyond this bed?”<br> -<br> -“There is hope,” returned the old man, “for all who -are softened and penitent. There is hope for all such. Oh!” -he exclaimed, clasping his hands and looking up, “I was thankful, -only yesterday, that I could remember this unhappy son when he was an -innocent child. But what a comfort it is, now, to think that even -God himself has that remembrance of him!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw spread his hands upon his face, and shrank, like a murderer.<br> -<br> -“Ah!” feebly moaned the man upon the bed. “The -waste since then, the waste of life since then!”<br> -<br> -“But he was a child once,” said the old man. “He -played with children. Before he lay down on his bed at night, -and fell into his guiltless rest, he said his prayers at his poor mother’s -knee. I have seen him do it, many a time; and seen her lay his -head upon her breast, and kiss him. Sorrowful as it was to her -and me, to think of this, when he went so wrong, and when our hopes -and plans for him were all broken, this gave him still a hold upon us, -that nothing else could have given. Oh, Father, so much better -than the fathers upon earth! Oh, Father, so much more afflicted -by the errors of Thy children! take this wanderer back! Not as -he is, but as he was then, let him cry to Thee, as he has so often seemed -to cry to us!”<br> -<br> -As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son, for whom he made -the supplication, laid his sinking head against him for support and -comfort, as if he were indeed the child of whom he spoke.<br> -<br> -When did man ever tremble, as Redlaw trembled, in the silence that ensued! -He knew it must come upon them, knew that it was coming fast.<br> -<br> -“My time is very short, my breath is shorter,” said the -sick man, supporting himself on one arm, and with the other groping -in the air, “and I remember there is something on my mind concerning -the man who was here just now, Father and William - wait! - is there -really anything in black, out there?”<br> -<br> -“Yes, yes, it is real,” said his aged father.<br> -<br> -“Is it a man?”<br> -<br> -“What I say myself, George,” interposed his brother, bending -kindly over him. “It’s Mr. Redlaw.”<br> -<br> -“I thought I had dreamed of him. Ask him to come here.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist, whiter than the dying man, appeared before him. Obedient -to the motion of his hand, he sat upon the bed.<br> -<br> -“It has been so ripped up, to-night, sir,” said the sick -man, laying his hand upon his heart, with a look in which the mute, -imploring agony of his condition was concentrated, “by the sight -of my poor old father, and the thought of all the trouble I have been -the cause of, and all the wrong and sorrow lying at my door, that - -”<br> -<br> -Was it the extremity to which he had come, or was it the dawning of -another change, that made him stop?<br> -<br> -“ - that what I <i>can</i> do right, with my mind running on so -much, so fast, I’ll try to do. There was another man here. -Did you see him?”<br> -<br> -Redlaw could not reply by any word; for when he saw that fatal sign -he knew so well now, of the wandering hand upon the forehead, his voice -died at his lips. But he made some indication of assent.<br> -<br> -“He is penniless, hungry, and destitute. He is completely -beaten down, and has no resource at all. Look after him! -Lose no time! I know he has it in his mind to kill himself.”<br> -<br> -It was working. It was on his face. His face was changing, -hardening, deepening in all its shades, and losing all its sorrow.<br> -<br> -“Don’t you remember? Don’t you know him?” -he pursued.<br> -<br> -He shut his face out for a moment, with the hand that again wandered -over his forehead, and then it lowered on Redlaw, reckless, ruffianly, -and callous.<br> -<br> -“Why, d-n you!” he said, scowling round, “what have -you been doing to me here! I have lived bold, and I mean to die -bold. To the Devil with you!”<br> -<br> -And so lay down upon his bed, and put his arms up, over his head and -ears, as resolute from that time to keep out all access, and to die -in his indifference.<br> -<br> -If Redlaw had been struck by lightning, it could not have struck him -from the bedside with a more tremendous shock. But the old man, -who had left the bed while his son was speaking to him, now returning, -avoided it quickly likewise, and with abhorrence.<br> -<br> -“Where’s my boy William?” said the old man hurriedly. -“William, come away from here. We’ll go home.”<br> -<br> -“Home, father!” returned William. “Are you going -to leave your own son?”<br> -<br> -“Where’s my own son?” replied the old man.<br> -<br> -“Where? why, there!”<br> -<br> -“That’s no son of mine,” said Philip, trembling with -resentment. “No such wretch as that, has any claim on me. -My children are pleasant to look at, and they wait upon me, and get -my meat and drink ready, and are useful to me. I’ve a right -to it! I’m eighty-seven!”<br> -<br> -“You’re old enough to be no older,” muttered William, -looking at him grudgingly, with his hands in his pockets. “I -don’t know what good you are, myself. We could have a deal -more pleasure without you.”<br> -<br> -“<i>My</i> son, Mr. Redlaw!” said the old man. “<i>My</i> -son, too! The boy talking to me of <i>my</i> son! Why, what -has he ever done to give me any pleasure, I should like to know?”<br> -<br> -“I don’t know what you have ever done to give <i>me</i> -any pleasure,” said William, sulkily.<br> -<br> -“Let me think,” said the old man. “For how many -Christmas times running, have I sat in my warm place, and never had -to come out in the cold night air; and have made good cheer, without -being disturbed by any such uncomfortable, wretched sight as him there? -Is it twenty, William?”<br> -<br> -“Nigher forty, it seems,” he muttered. “Why, -when I look at my father, sir, and come to think of it,” addressing -Redlaw, with an impatience and irritation that were quite new, “I’m -whipped if I can see anything in him but a calendar of ever so many -years of eating and drinking, and making himself comfortable, over and -over again.”<br> -<br> -“I - I’m eighty-seven,” said the old man, rambling -on, childishly and weakly, “and I don’t know as I ever was -much put out by anything. I’m not going to begin now, because -of what he calls my son. He’s not my son. I’ve -had a power of pleasant times. I recollect once - no I don’t -- no, it’s broken off. It was something about a game of -cricket and a friend of mine, but it’s somehow broken off. -I wonder who he was - I suppose I liked him? And I wonder what -became of him - I suppose he died? But I don’t know. -And I don’t care, neither; I don’t care a bit.”<br> -<br> -In his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of his head, he put his hands -into his waistcoat pockets. In one of them he found a bit of holly -(left there, probably last night), which he now took out, and looked -at.<br> -<br> -“Berries, eh?” said the old man. “Ah! -It’s a pity they’re not good to eat. I recollect, -when I was a little chap about as high as that, and out a walking with -- let me see - who was I out a walking with? - no, I don’t remember -how that was. I don’t remember as I ever walked with any -one particular, or cared for any one, or any one for me. Berries, -eh? There’s good cheer when there’s berries. -Well; I ought to have my share of it, and to be waited on, and kept -warm and comfortable; for I’m eighty-seven, and a poor old man. -I’m eigh-ty-seven. Eigh-ty-seven!”<br> -<br> -The drivelling, pitiable manner in which, as he repeated this, he nibbled -at the leaves, and spat the morsels out; the cold, uninterested eye -with which his youngest son (so changed) regarded him; the determined -apathy with which his eldest son lay hardened in his sin; impressed -themselves no more on Redlaw’s observation, - for he broke his -way from the spot to which his feet seemed to have been fixed, and ran -out of the house.<br> -<br> -His guide came crawling forth from his place of refuge, and was ready -for him before he reached the arches.<br> -<br> -“Back to the woman’s?” he inquired.<br> -<br> -“Back, quickly!” answered Redlaw. “Stop nowhere -on the way!”<br> -<br> -For a short distance the boy went on before; but their return was more -like a flight than a walk, and it was as much as his bare feet could -do, to keep pace with the Chemist’s rapid strides. Shrinking -from all who passed, shrouded in his cloak, and keeping it drawn closely -about him, as though there were mortal contagion in any fluttering touch -of his garments, he made no pause until they reached the door by which -they had come out. He unlocked it with his key, went in, accompanied -by the boy, and hastened through the dark passages to his own chamber.<br> -<br> -The boy watched him as he made the door fast, and withdrew behind the -table, when he looked round.<br> -<br> -“Come!” he said. “Don’t you touch me! -You’ve not brought me here to take my money away.”<br> -<br> -Redlaw threw some more upon the ground. He flung his body on it -immediately, as if to hide it from him, lest the sight of it should -tempt him to reclaim it; and not until he saw him seated by his lamp, -with his face hidden in his hands, began furtively to pick it up. -When he had done so, he crept near the fire, and, sitting down in a -great chair before it, took from his breast some broken scraps of food, -and fell to munching, and to staring at the blaze, and now and then -to glancing at his shillings, which he kept clenched up in a bunch, -in one hand.<br> -<br> -“And this,” said Redlaw, gazing on him with increased repugnance -and fear, “is the only one companion I have left on earth!”<br> -<br> -How long it was before he was aroused from his contemplation of this -creature, whom he dreaded so - whether half-an-hour, or half the night -- he knew not. But the stillness of the room was broken by the -boy (whom he had seen listening) starting up, and running towards the -door.<br> -<br> -“Here’s the woman coming!” he exclaimed.<br> -<br> -The Chemist stopped him on his way, at the moment when she knocked.<br> -<br> -“Let me go to her, will you?” said the boy.<br> -<br> -“Not now,” returned the Chemist. “Stay here. -Nobody must pass in or out of the room now. Who’s that?”<br> -<br> -“It’s I, sir,” cried Milly. “Pray, sir, -let me in!”<br> -<br> -“No! not for the world!” he said.<br> -<br> -“Mr. Redlaw, Mr. Redlaw, pray, sir, let me in.”<br> -<br> -“What is the matter?” he said, holding the boy.<br> -<br> -“The miserable man you saw, is worse, and nothing I can say will -wake him from his terrible infatuation. William’s father -has turned childish in a moment, William himself is changed. The -shock has been too sudden for him; I cannot understand him; he is not -like himself. Oh, Mr. Redlaw, pray advise me, help me!”<br> -<br> -“No! No! No!” he answered.<br> -<br> -“Mr. Redlaw! Dear sir! George has been muttering, -in his doze, about the man you saw there, who, he fears, will kill himself.”<br> -<br> -“Better he should do it, than come near me!”<br> -<br> -“He says, in his wandering, that you know him; that he was your -friend once, long ago; that he is the ruined father of a student here -- my mind misgives me, of the young gentleman who has been ill. -What is to be done? How is he to be followed? How is he -to be saved? Mr. Redlaw, pray, oh, pray, advise me! Help -me!”<br> -<br> -All this time he held the boy, who was half-mad to pass him, and let -her in.<br> -<br> -“Phantoms! Punishers of impious thoughts!” cried Redlaw, -gazing round in anguish, “look upon me! From the darkness -of my mind, let the glimmering of contrition that I know is there, shine -up and show my misery! In the material world as I have long taught, -nothing can be spared; no step or atom in the wondrous structure could -be lost, without a blank being made in the great universe. I know, -now, that it is the same with good and evil, happiness and sorrow, in -the memories of men. Pity me! Relieve me!”<br> -<br> -There was no response, but her “Help me, help me, let me in!” -and the boy’s struggling to get to her.<br> -<br> -“Shadow of myself! Spirit of my darker hours!” cried -Redlaw, in distraction, “come back, and haunt me day and night, -but take this gift away! Or, if it must still rest with me, deprive -me of the dreadful power of giving it to others. Undo what I have -done. Leave me benighted, but restore the day to those whom I -have cursed. As I have spared this woman from the first, and as -I never will go forth again, but will die here, with no hand to tend -me, save this creature’s who is proof against me, - hear me!”<br> -<br> -The only reply still was, the boy struggling to get to her, while he -held him back; and the cry, increasing in its energy, “Help! let -me in. He was your friend once, how shall he be followed, how -shall he be saved? They are all changed, there is no one else -to help me, pray, pray, let me in!”<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -CHAPTER III - The Gift Reversed<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -Night was still heavy in the sky. On open plains, from hill-tops, -and from the decks of solitary ships at sea, a distant low-lying line, -that promised by-and-by to change to light, was visible in the dim horizon; -but its promise was remote and doubtful, and the moon was striving with -the night-clouds busily.<br> -<br> -The shadows upon Redlaw’s mind succeeded thick and fast to one -another, and obscured its light as the night-clouds hovered between -the moon and earth, and kept the latter veiled in darkness. Fitful -and uncertain as the shadows which the night-clouds cast, were their -concealments from him, and imperfect revelations to him; and, like the -night-clouds still, if the clear light broke forth for a moment, it -was only that they might sweep over it, and make the darkness deeper -than before.<br> -<br> -Without, there was a profound and solemn hush upon the ancient pile -of building, and its buttresses and angles made dark shapes of mystery -upon the ground, which now seemed to retire into the smooth white snow -and now seemed to come out of it, as the moon’s path was more -or less beset. Within, the Chemist’s room was indistinct -and murky, by the light of the expiring lamp; a ghostly silence had -succeeded to the knocking and the voice outside; nothing was audible -but, now and then, a low sound among the whitened ashes of the fire, -as of its yielding up its last breath. Before it on the ground -the boy lay fast asleep. In his chair, the Chemist sat, as he -had sat there since the calling at his door had ceased - like a man -turned to stone.<br> -<br> -At such a time, the Christmas music he had heard before, began to play. -He listened to it at first, as he had listened in the church-yard; but -presently - it playing still, and being borne towards him on the night -air, in a low, sweet, melancholy strain - he rose, and stood stretching -his hands about him, as if there were some friend approaching within -his reach, on whom his desolate touch might rest, yet do no harm. -As he did this, his face became less fixed and wondering; a gentle trembling -came upon him; and at last his eyes filled with tears, and he put his -hands before them, and bowed down his head.<br> -<br> -His memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, had not come back to him; -he knew that it was not restored; he had no passing belief or hope that -it was. But some dumb stir within him made him capable, again, -of being moved by what was hidden, afar off, in the music. If -it were only that it told him sorrowfully the value of what he had lost, -he thanked Heaven for it with a fervent gratitude.<br> -<br> -As the last chord died upon his ear, he raised his head to listen to -its lingering vibration. Beyond the boy, so that his sleeping -figure lay at its feet, the Phantom stood, immovable and silent, with -its eyes upon him.<br> -<br> -Ghastly it was, as it had ever been, but not so cruel and relentless -in its aspect - or he thought or hoped so, as he looked upon it trembling. -It was not alone, but in its shadowy hand it held another hand.<br> -<br> -And whose was that? Was the form that stood beside it indeed Milly’s, -or but her shade and picture? The quiet head was bent a little, -as her manner was, and her eyes were looking down, as if in pity, on -the sleeping child. A radiant light fell on her face, but did -not touch the Phantom; for, though close beside her, it was dark and -colourless as ever.<br> -<br> -“Spectre!” said the Chemist, newly troubled as he looked, -“I have not been stubborn or presumptuous in respect of her. -Oh, do not bring her here. Spare me that!”<br> -<br> -“This is but a shadow,” said the Phantom; “when the -morning shines seek out the reality whose image I present before you.”<br> -<br> -“Is it my inexorable doom to do so?” cried the Chemist.<br> -<br> -“It is,” replied the Phantom.<br> -<br> -“To destroy her peace, her goodness; to make her what I am myself, -and what I have made of others!”<br> -<br> -“I have said seek her out,” returned the Phantom. -“I have said no more.”<br> -<br> -“Oh, tell me,” exclaimed Redlaw, catching at the hope which -he fancied might lie hidden in the words. “Can I undo what -I have done?”<br> -<br> -“No,” returned the Phantom.<br> -<br> -“I do not ask for restoration to myself,” said Redlaw. -“What I abandoned, I abandoned of my own free will, and have justly -lost. But for those to whom I have transferred the fatal gift; -who never sought it; who unknowingly received a curse of which they -had no warning, and which they had no power to shun; can I do nothing?”<br> -<br> -“Nothing,” said the Phantom.<br> -<br> -“If I cannot, can any one?”<br> -<br> -The Phantom, standing like a statue, kept its gaze upon him for a while; -then turned its head suddenly, and looked upon the shadow at its side.<br> -<br> -“Ah! Can she?” cried Redlaw, still looking upon the -shade.<br> -<br> -The Phantom released the hand it had retained till now, and softly raised -its own with a gesture of dismissal. Upon that, her shadow, still -preserving the same attitude, began to move or melt away.<br> -<br> -“Stay,” cried Redlaw with an earnestness to which he could -not give enough expression. “For a moment! As an act -of mercy! I know that some change fell upon me, when those sounds -were in the air just now. Tell me, have I lost the power of harming -her? May I go near her without dread? Oh, let her give me -any sign of hope!”<br> -<br> -The Phantom looked upon the shade as he did - not at him - and gave -no answer.<br> -<br> -“At least, say this - has she, henceforth, the consciousness of -any power to set right what I have done?”<br> -<br> -“She has not,” the Phantom answered.<br> -<br> -“Has she the power bestowed on her without the consciousness?”<br> -<br> -The phantom answered: “Seek her out.”<br> -<br> -And her shadow slowly vanished.<br> -<br> -They were face to face again, and looking on each other, as intently -and awfully as at the time of the bestowal of the gift, across the boy -who still lay on the ground between them, at the Phantom’s feet.<br> -<br> -“Terrible instructor,” said the Chemist, sinking on his -knee before it, in an attitude of supplication, “by whom I was -renounced, but by whom I am revisited (in which, and in whose milder -aspect, I would fain believe I have a gleam of hope), I will obey without -inquiry, praying that the cry I have sent up in the anguish of my soul -has been, or will be, heard, in behalf of those whom I have injured -beyond human reparation. But there is one thing - ”<br> -<br> -“You speak to me of what is lying here,” the phantom interposed, -and pointed with its finger to the boy.<br> -<br> -“I do,” returned the Chemist. “You know what -I would ask. Why has this child alone been proof against my influence, -and why, why, have I detected in its thoughts a terrible companionship -with mine?”<br> -<br> -“This,” said the Phantom, pointing to the boy, “is -the last, completest illustration of a human creature, utterly bereft -of such remembrances as you have yielded up. No softening memory -of sorrow, wrong, or trouble enters here, because this wretched mortal -from his birth has been abandoned to a worse condition than the beasts, -and has, within his knowledge, no one contrast, no humanising touch, -to make a grain of such a memory spring up in his hardened breast. -All within this desolate creature is barren wilderness. All within -the man bereft of what you have resigned, is the same barren wilderness. -Woe to such a man! Woe, tenfold, to the nation that shall count -its monsters such as this, lying here, by hundreds and by thousands!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw shrank, appalled, from what he heard.<br> -<br> -“There is not,” said the Phantom, “one of these - -not one - but sows a harvest that mankind MUST reap. From every -seed of evil in this boy, a field of ruin is grown that shall be gathered -in, and garnered up, and sown again in many places in the world, until -regions are overspread with wickedness enough to raise the waters of -another Deluge. Open and unpunished murder in a city’s streets -would be less guilty in its daily toleration, than one such spectacle -as this.”<br> -<br> -It seemed to look down upon the boy in his sleep. Redlaw, too, -looked down upon him with a new emotion.<br> -<br> -“There is not a father,” said the Phantom, “by whose -side in his daily or his nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is -not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there -is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible -in his or her degree for this enormity. There is not a country -throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. There -is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people -upon earth it would not put to shame.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist clasped his hands, and looked, with trembling fear and pity, -from the sleeping boy to the Phantom, standing above him with his finger -pointing down.<br> -<br> -“Behold, I say,” pursued the Spectre, “the perfect -type of what it was your choice to be. Your influence is powerless -here, because from this child’s bosom you can banish nothing. -His thoughts have been in ‘terrible companionship’ with -yours, because you have gone down to his unnatural level. He is -the growth of man’s indifference; you are the growth of man’s -presumption. The beneficent design of Heaven is, in each case, -overthrown, and from the two poles of the immaterial world you come -together.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist stooped upon the ground beside the boy, and, with the same -kind of compassion for him that he now felt for himself, covered him -as he slept, and no longer shrank from him with abhorrence or indifference.<br> -<br> -Soon, now, the distant line on the horizon brightened, the darkness -faded, the sun rose red and glorious, and the chimney stacks and gables -of the ancient building gleamed in the clear air, which turned the smoke -and vapour of the city into a cloud of gold. The very sun-dial -in his shady corner, where the wind was used to spin with such unwindy -constancy, shook off the finer particles of snow that had accumulated -on his dull old face in the night, and looked out at the little white -wreaths eddying round and round him. Doubtless some blind groping -of the morning made its way down into the forgotten crypt so cold and -earthy, where the Norman arches were half buried in the ground, and -stirred the dull sap in the lazy vegetation hanging to the walls, and -quickened the slow principle of life within the little world of wonderful -and delicate creation which existed there, with some faint knowledge -that the sun was up.<br> -<br> -The Tetterbys were up, and doing. Mr. Tetterby took down the shutters -of the shop, and, strip by strip, revealed the treasures of the window -to the eyes, so proof against their seductions, of Jerusalem Buildings. -Adolphus had been out so long already, that he was halfway on to “Morning -Pepper.” Five small Tetterbys, whose ten round eyes were -much inflamed by soap and friction, were in the tortures of a cool wash -in the back kitchen; Mrs. Tetterby presiding. Johnny, who was -pushed and hustled through his toilet with great rapidity when Moloch -chanced to be in an exacting frame of mind (which was always the case), -staggered up and down with his charge before the shop door, under greater -difficulties than usual; the weight of Moloch being much increased by -a complication of defences against the cold, composed of knitted worsted-work, -and forming a complete suit of chain-armour, with a head-piece and blue -gaiters.<br> -<br> -It was a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting teeth. -Whether they never came, or whether they came and went away again, is -not in evidence; but it had certainly cut enough, on the showing of -Mrs. Tetterby, to make a handsome dental provision for the sign of the -Bull and Mouth. All sorts of objects were impressed for the rubbing -of its gums, notwithstanding that it always carried, dangling at its -waist (which was immediately under its chin), a bone ring, large enough -to have represented the rosary of a young nun. Knife-handles, -umbrella-tops, the heads of walking-sticks selected from the stock, -the fingers of the family in general, but especially of Johnny, nutmeg-graters, -crusts, the handles of doors, and the cool knobs on the tops of pokers, -were among the commonest instruments indiscriminately applied for this -baby’s relief. The amount of electricity that must have -been rubbed out of it in a week, is not to be calculated. Still -Mrs. Tetterby always said “it was coming through, and then the -child would be herself;” and still it never did come through, -and the child continued to be somebody else.<br> -<br> -The tempers of the little Tetterbys had sadly changed with a few hours. -Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby themselves were not more altered than their offspring. -Usually they were an unselfish, good-natured, yielding little race, -sharing short commons when it happened (which was pretty often) contentedly -and even generously, and taking a great deal of enjoyment out of a very -little meat. But they were fighting now, not only for the soap -and water, but even for the breakfast which was yet in perspective. -The hand of every little Tetterby was against the other little Tetterbys; -and even Johnny’s hand - the patient, much-enduring, and devoted -Johnny - rose against the baby! Yes, Mrs. Tetterby, going to the -door by mere accident, saw him viciously pick out a weak place in the -suit of armour where a slap would tell, and slap that blessed child.<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby had him into the parlour by the collar, in that same flash -of time, and repaid him the assault with usury thereto.<br> -<br> -“You brute, you murdering little boy,” said Mrs. Tetterby. -“Had you the heart to do it?”<br> -<br> -“Why don’t her teeth come through, then,” retorted -Johnny, in a loud rebellious voice, “instead of bothering me? -How would you like it yourself?”<br> -<br> -“Like it, sir!” said Mrs. Tetterby, relieving him of his -dishonoured load.<br> -<br> -“Yes, like it,” said Johnny. “How would you? -Not at all. If you was me, you’d go for a soldier. -I will, too. There an’t no babies in the Army.”<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene of action, rubbed his chin -thoughtfully, instead of correcting the rebel, and seemed rather struck -by this view of a military life.<br> -<br> -“I wish I was in the Army myself, if the child’s in the -right,” said Mrs. Tetterby, looking at her husband, “for -I have no peace of my life here. I’m a slave - a Virginia -slave:” some indistinct association with their weak descent on -the tobacco trade perhaps suggested this aggravated expression to Mrs. -Tetterby. “I never have a holiday, or any pleasure at all, -from year’s end to year’s end! Why, Lord bless and -save the child,” said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking the baby with an -irritability hardly suited to so pious an aspiration, “what’s -the matter with her now?”<br> -<br> -Not being able to discover, and not rendering the subject much clearer -by shaking it, Mrs. Tetterby put the baby away in a cradle, and, folding -her arms, sat rocking it angrily with her foot.<br> -<br> -“How you stand there, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby -to her husband. “Why don’t you do something?”<br> -<br> -“Because I don’t care about doing anything,” Mr. Tetterby -replied.<br> -<br> -“I am sure <i>I</i> don’t,” said Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“I’ll take my oath <i>I</i> don’t,” said Mr. -Tetterby.<br> -<br> -A diversion arose here among Johnny and his five younger brothers, who, -in preparing the family breakfast table, had fallen to skirmishing for -the temporary possession of the loaf, and were buffeting one another -with great heartiness; the smallest boy of all, with precocious discretion, -hovering outside the knot of combatants, and harassing their legs. -Into the midst of this fray, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated -themselves with great ardour, as if such ground were the only ground -on which they could now agree; and having, with no visible remains of -their late soft-heartedness, laid about them without any lenity, and -done much execution, resumed their former relative positions.<br> -<br> -“You had better read your paper than do nothing at all,” -said Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“What’s there to read in a paper?” returned Mr. Tetterby, -with excessive discontent.<br> -<br> -“What?” said Mrs. Tetterby. “Police.”<br> -<br> -“It’s nothing to me,” said Tetterby. “What -do I care what people do, or are done to?”<br> -<br> -“Suicides,” suggested Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“No business of mine,” replied her husband.<br> -<br> -“Births, deaths, and marriages, are those nothing to you?” -said Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“If the births were all over for good, and all to-day; and the -deaths were all to begin to come off to-morrow; I don’t see why -it should interest me, till I thought it was a coming to my turn,” -grumbled Tetterby. “As to marriages, I’ve done it -myself. I know quite enough about <i>them</i>.”<br> -<br> -To judge from the dissatisfied expression of her face and manner, Mrs. -Tetterby appeared to entertain the same opinions as her husband; but -she opposed him, nevertheless, for the gratification of quarrelling -with him.<br> -<br> -“Oh, you’re a consistent man,” said Mrs. Tetterby, -“an’t you? You, with the screen of your own making -there, made of nothing else but bits of newspapers, which you sit and -read to the children by the half-hour together!”<br> -<br> -“Say used to, if you please,” returned her husband. -“You won’t find me doing so any more. I’m wiser -now.”<br> -<br> -“Bah! wiser, indeed!” said Mrs. Tetterby. “Are -you better?”<br> -<br> -The question sounded some discordant note in Mr. Tetterby’s breast. -He ruminated dejectedly, and passed his hand across and across his forehead.<br> -<br> -“Better!” murmured Mr. Tetterby. “I don’t -know as any of us are better, or happier either. Better, is it?”<br> -<br> -He turned to the screen, and traced about it with his finger, until -he found a certain paragraph of which he was in quest.<br> -<br> -“This used to be one of the family favourites, I recollect,” -said Tetterby, in a forlorn and stupid way, “and used to draw -tears from the children, and make ’em good, if there was any little -bickering or discontent among ’em, next to the story of the robin -redbreasts in the wood. ‘Melancholy case of destitution. -Yesterday a small man, with a baby in his arms, and surrounded by half-a-dozen -ragged little ones, of various ages between ten and two, the whole of -whom were evidently in a famishing condition, appeared before the worthy -magistrate, and made the following recital:’ - Ha! I don’t -understand it, I’m sure,” said Tetterby; “I don’t -see what it has got to do with us.”<br> -<br> -“How old and shabby he looks,” said Mrs. Tetterby, watching -him. “I never saw such a change in a man. Ah! dear -me, dear me, dear me, it was a sacrifice!”<br> -<br> -“What was a sacrifice?” her husband sourly inquired.<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby shook her head; and without replying in words, raised -a complete sea-storm about the baby, by her violent agitation of the -cradle.<br> -<br> -“If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, my good woman - ” -said her husband.<br> -<br> -“I <i>do</i> mean it” said his wife.<br> -<br> -“Why, then I mean to say,” pursued Mr. Tetterby, as sulkily -and surlily as she, “that there are two sides to that affair; -and that I was the sacrifice; and that I wish the sacrifice hadn’t -been accepted.”<br> -<br> -“I wish it hadn’t, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul -I do assure you,” said his wife. “You can’t -wish it more than I do, Tetterby.”<br> -<br> -“I don’t know what I saw in her,” muttered the newsman, -“I’m sure; - certainly, if I saw anything, it’s not -there now. I was thinking so, last night, after supper, by the -fire. She’s fat, she’s ageing, she won’t bear -comparison with most other women.”<br> -<br> -“He’s common-looking, he has no air with him, he’s -small, he’s beginning to stoop and he’s getting bald,” -muttered Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“I must have been half out of my mind when I did it,” muttered -Mr. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“My senses must have forsook me. That’s the only way -in which I can explain it to myself,” said Mrs. Tetterby with -elaboration.<br> -<br> -In this mood they sat down to breakfast. The little Tetterbys -were not habituated to regard that meal in the light of a sedentary -occupation, but discussed it as a dance or trot; rather resembling a -savage ceremony, in the occasionally shrill whoops, and brandishings -of bread and butter, with which it was accompanied, as well as in the -intricate filings off into the street and back again, and the hoppings -up and down the door-steps, which were incidental to the performance. -In the present instance, the contentions between these Tetterby children -for the milk-and-water jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, -presented so lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high -indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory of Dr. Watts. It -was not until Mr. Tetterby had driven the whole herd out at the front -door, that a moment’s peace was secured; and even that was broken -by the discovery that Johnny had surreptitiously come back, and was -at that instant choking in the jug like a ventriloquist, in his indecent -and rapacious haste.<br> -<br> -“These children will be the death of me at last!” said Mrs. -Tetterby, after banishing the culprit. “And the sooner the -better, I think.”<br> -<br> -“Poor people,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ought not to have -children at all. They give <i>us</i> no pleasure.”<br> -<br> -He was at that moment taking up the cup which Mrs. Tetterby had rudely -pushed towards him, and Mrs. Tetterby was lifting her own cup to her -lips, when they both stopped, as if they were transfixed.<br> -<br> -“Here! Mother! Father!” cried Johnny, running -into the room. “Here’s Mrs. William coming down the -street!”<br> -<br> -And if ever, since the world began, a young boy took a baby from a cradle -with the care of an old nurse, and hushed and soothed it tenderly, and -tottered away with it cheerfully, Johnny was that boy, and Moloch was -that baby, as they went out together!<br> -<br> -Mr. Tetterby put down his cup; Mrs. Tetterby put down her cup. -Mr. Tetterby rubbed his forehead; Mrs. Tetterby rubbed hers. Mr. -Tetterby’s face began to smooth and brighten; Mrs. Tetterby’s -began to smooth and brighten.<br> -<br> -“Why, Lord forgive me,” said Mr. Tetterby to himself, “what -evil tempers have I been giving way to? What has been the matter -here!”<br> -<br> -“How could I ever treat him ill again, after all I said and felt -last night!” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, with her apron to her eyes.<br> -<br> -“Am I a brute,” said Mr. Tetterby, “or is there any -good in me at all? Sophia! My little woman!”<br> -<br> -“‘Dolphus dear,” returned his wife.<br> -<br> -“I - I’ve been in a state of mind,” said Mr. Tetterby, -“that I can’t abear to think of, Sophy.”<br> -<br> -“Oh! It’s nothing to what I’ve been in, Dolf,” -cried his wife in a great burst of grief.<br> -<br> -“My Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “don’t take -on. I never shall forgive myself. I must have nearly broke -your heart, I know.”<br> -<br> -“No, Dolf, no. It was me! Me!” cried Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“My little woman,” said her husband, “don’t. -You make me reproach myself dreadful, when you show such a noble spirit. -Sophia, my dear, you don’t know what I thought. I showed -it bad enough, no doubt; but what I thought, my little woman! - ”<br> -<br> -“Oh, dear Dolf, don’t! Don’t!” cried his -wife.<br> -<br> -“Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “I must reveal it. -I couldn’t rest in my conscience unless I mentioned it. -My little woman - ”<br> -<br> -“Mrs. William’s very nearly here!” screamed Johnny -at the door.<br> -<br> -“My little woman, I wondered how,” gasped Mr. Tetterby, -supporting himself by his chair, “I wondered how I had ever admired -you - I forgot the precious children you have brought about me, and -thought you didn’t look as slim as I could wish. I - I never -gave a recollection,” said Mr. Tetterby, with severe self-accusation, -“to the cares you’ve had as my wife, and along of me and -mine, when you might have had hardly any with another man, who got on -better and was luckier than me (anybody might have found such a man -easily I am sure); and I quarrelled with you for having aged a little -in the rough years you have lightened for me. Can you believe -it, my little woman? I hardly can myself.”<br> -<br> -Mrs. Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing and crying, caught his face -within her hands, and held it there.<br> -<br> -“Oh, Dolf!” she cried. “I am so happy that you -thought so; I am so grateful that you thought so! For I thought -that you were common-looking, Dolf; and so you are, my dear, and may -you be the commonest of all sights in my eyes, till you close them with -your own good hands. I thought that you were small; and so you -are, and I’ll make much of you because you are, and more of you -because I love my husband. I thought that you began to stoop; -and so you do, and you shall lean on me, and I’ll do all I can -to keep you up. I thought there was no air about you; but there -is, and it’s the air of home, and that’s the purest and -the best there is, and God bless home once more, and all belonging to -it, Dolf!”<br> -<br> -“Hurrah! Here’s Mrs. William!” cried Johnny.<br> -<br> -So she was, and all the children with her; and so she came in, they -kissed her, and kissed one another, and kissed the baby, and kissed -their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about -her, trooping on with her in triumph.<br> -<br> -Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby were not a bit behind-hand in the warmth of their -reception. They were as much attracted to her as the children -were; they ran towards her, kissed her hands, pressed round her, could -not receive her ardently or enthusiastically enough. She came -among them like the spirit of all goodness, affection, gentle consideration, -love, and domesticity.<br> -<br> -“What! are <i>you</i> all so glad to see me, too, this bright -Christmas morning?” said Milly, clapping her hands in a pleasant -wonder. “Oh dear, how delightful this is!”<br> -<br> -More shouting from the children, more kissing, more trooping round her, -more happiness, more love, more joy, more honour, on all sides, than -she could bear.<br> -<br> -“Oh dear!” said Milly, “what delicious tears you make -me shed. How can I ever have deserved this! What have I -done to be so loved?”<br> -<br> -“Who can help it!” cried Mr. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“Who can help it!” cried Mrs. Tetterby.<br> -<br> -“Who can help it!” echoed the children, in a joyful chorus. -And they danced and trooped about her again, and clung to her, and laid -their rosy faces against her dress, and kissed and fondled it, and could -not fondle it, or her, enough.<br> -<br> -“I never was so moved,” said Milly, drying her eyes, “as -I have been this morning. I must tell you, as soon as I can speak. -- Mr. Redlaw came to me at sunrise, and with a tenderness in his manner, -more as if I had been his darling daughter than myself, implored me -to go with him to where William’s brother George is lying ill. -We went together, and all the way along he was so kind, and so subdued, -and seemed to put such trust and hope in me, that I could not help trying -with pleasure. When we got to the house, we met a woman at the -door (somebody had bruised and hurt her, I am afraid), who caught me -by the hand, and blessed me as I passed.”<br> -<br> -“She was right!” said Mr. Tetterby. Mrs. Tetterby -said she was right. All the children cried out that she was right.<br> -<br> -“Ah, but there’s more than that,” said Milly. -“When we got up stairs, into the room, the sick man who had lain -for hours in a state from which no effort could rouse him, rose up in -his bed, and, bursting into tears, stretched out his arms to me, and -said that he had led a mis-spent life, but that he was truly repentant -now, in his sorrow for the past, which was all as plain to him as a -great prospect, from which a dense black cloud had cleared away, and -that he entreated me to ask his poor old father for his pardon and his -blessing, and to say a prayer beside his bed. And when I did so, -Mr. Redlaw joined in it so fervently, and then so thanked and thanked -me, and thanked Heaven, that my heart quite overflowed, and I could -have done nothing but sob and cry, if the sick man had not begged me -to sit down by him, - which made me quiet of course. As I sat -there, he held my hand in his until he sank in a doze; and even then, -when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come here (which Mr. Redlaw -was very earnest indeed in wishing me to do), his hand felt for mine, -so that some one else was obliged to take my place and make believe -to give him my hand back. Oh dear, oh dear,” said Milly, -sobbing. “How thankful and how happy I should feel, and -do feel, for all this!”<br> -<br> -While she was speaking, Redlaw had come in, and, after pausing for a -moment to observe the group of which she was the centre, had silently -ascended the stairs. Upon those stairs he now appeared again; -remaining there, while the young student passed him, and came running -down.<br> -<br> -“Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures,” he said, falling -on his knee to her, and catching at her hand, “forgive my cruel -ingratitude!”<br> -<br> -“Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Milly innocently, “here’s -another of them! Oh dear, here’s somebody else who likes -me. What shall I ever do!”<br> -<br> -The guileless, simple way in which she said it, and in which she put -her hands before her eyes and wept for very happiness, was as touching -as it was delightful.<br> -<br> -“I was not myself,” he said. “I don’t -know what it was - it was some consequence of my disorder perhaps - -I was mad. But I am so no longer. Almost as I speak, I am -restored. I heard the children crying out your name, and the shade -passed from me at the very sound of it. Oh, don’t weep! -Dear Milly, if you could read my heart, and only knew with what affection -and what grateful homage it is glowing, you would not let me see you -weep. It is such deep reproach.”<br> -<br> -“No, no,” said Milly, “it’s not that. -It’s not indeed. It’s joy. It’s wonder -that you should think it necessary to ask me to forgive so little, and -yet it’s pleasure that you do.”<br> -<br> -“And will you come again? and will you finish the little curtain?”<br> -<br> -“No,” said Milly, drying her eyes, and shaking her head. -“You won’t care for my needlework now.”<br> -<br> -“Is it forgiving me, to say that?”<br> -<br> -She beckoned him aside, and whispered in his ear.<br> -<br> -“There is news from your home, Mr. Edmund.”<br> -<br> -“News? How?”<br> -<br> -“Either your not writing when you were very ill, or the change -in your handwriting when you began to be better, created some suspicion -of the truth; however that is - but you’re sure you’ll not -be the worse for any news, if it’s not bad news?”<br> -<br> -“Sure.”<br> -<br> -“Then there’s some one come!” said Milly.<br> -<br> -“My mother?” asked the student, glancing round involuntarily -towards Redlaw, who had come down from the stairs.<br> -<br> -“Hush! No,” said Milly.<br> -<br> -“It can be no one else.”<br> -<br> -“Indeed?” said Milly, “are you sure?”<br> -<br> -“It is not -” Before he could say more, she put her -hand upon his mouth.<br> -<br> -“Yes it is!” said Milly. “The young lady (she -is very like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) was too -unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, and came up, last night, -with a little servant-maid. As you always dated your letters from -the college, she came there; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, -I saw her. <i>She</i> likes me too!” said Milly. “Oh -dear, that’s another!”<br> -<br> -“This morning! Where is she now?”<br> -<br> -“Why, she is now,” said Milly, advancing her lips to his -ear, “in my little parlour in the Lodge, and waiting to see you.”<br> -<br> -He pressed her hand, and was darting off, but she detained him.<br> -<br> -“Mr. Redlaw is much altered, and has told me this morning that -his memory is impaired. Be very considerate to him, Mr. Edmund; -he needs that from us all.”<br> -<br> -The young man assured her, by a look, that her caution was not ill-bestowed; -and as he passed the Chemist on his way out, bent respectfully and with -an obvious interest before him.<br> -<br> -Redlaw returned the salutation courteously and even humbly, and looked -after him as he passed on. He dropped his head upon his hand too, -as trying to reawaken something he had lost. But it was gone.<br> -<br> -The abiding change that had come upon him since the influence of the -music, and the Phantom’s reappearance, was, that now he truly -felt how much he had lost, and could compassionate his own condition, -and contrast it, clearly, with the natural state of those who were around -him. In this, an interest in those who were around him was revived, -and a meek, submissive sense of his calamity was bred, resembling that -which sometimes obtains in age, when its mental powers are weakened, -without insensibility or sullenness being added to the list of its infirmities.<br> -<br> -He was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly, more and more -of the evil he had done, and as he was more and more with her, this -change ripened itself within him. Therefore, and because of the -attachment she inspired him with (but without other hope), he felt that -he was quite dependent on her, and that she was his staff in his affliction.<br> -<br> -So, when she asked him whether they should go home now, to where the -old man and her husband were, and he readily replied “yes” -- being anxious in that regard - he put his arm through hers, and walked -beside her; not as if he were the wise and learned man to whom the wonders -of Nature were an open book, and hers were the uninstructed mind, but -as if their two positions were reversed, and he knew nothing, and she -all.<br> -<br> -He saw the children throng about her, and caress her, as he and she -went away together thus, out of the house; he heard the ringing of their -laughter, and their merry voices; he saw their bright faces, clustering -around him like flowers; he witnessed the renewed contentment and affection -of their parents; he breathed the simple air of their poor home, restored -to its tranquillity; he thought of the unwholesome blight he had shed -upon it, and might, but for her, have been diffusing then; and perhaps -it is no wonder that he walked submissively beside her, and drew her -gentle bosom nearer to his own.<br> -<br> -When they arrived at the Lodge, the old man was sitting in his chair -in the chimney-corner, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his son -was leaning against the opposite side of the fire-place, looking at -him. As she came in at the door, both started, and turned round -towards her, and a radiant change came upon their faces.<br> -<br> -“Oh dear, dear, dear, they are all pleased to see me like the -rest!” cried Milly, clapping her hands in an ecstasy, and stopping -short. “Here are two more!”<br> -<br> -Pleased to see her! Pleasure was no word for it. She ran -into her husband’s arms, thrown wide open to receive her, and -he would have been glad to have her there, with her head lying on his -shoulder, through the short winter’s day. But the old man -couldn’t spare her. He had arms for her too, and he locked -her in them.<br> -<br> -“Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all this time?” said -the old man. “She has been a long while away. I find -that it’s impossible for me to get on without Mouse. I - -where’s my son William? - I fancy I have been dreaming, William.”<br> -<br> -“That’s what I say myself, father,” returned his son. -“I have been in an ugly sort of dream, I think. - How are you, -father? Are you pretty well?”<br> -<br> -“Strong and brave, my boy,” returned the old man.<br> -<br> -It was quite a sight to see Mr. William shaking hands with his father, -and patting him on the back, and rubbing him gently down with his hand, -as if he could not possibly do enough to show an interest in him.<br> -<br> -“What a wonderful man you are, father! - How are you, father? -Are you really pretty hearty, though?” said William, shaking hands -with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him gently down again.<br> -<br> -“I never was fresher or stouter in my life, my boy.”<br> -<br> -“What a wonderful man you are, father! But that’s -exactly where it is,” said Mr. William, with enthusiasm. -“When I think of all that my father’s gone through, and -all the chances and changes, and sorrows and troubles, that have happened -to him in the course of his long life, and under which his head has -grown grey, and years upon years have gathered on it, I feel as if we -couldn’t do enough to honour the old gentleman, and make his old -age easy. - How are you, father? Are you really pretty well, though?”<br> -<br> -Mr. William might never have left off repeating this inquiry, and shaking -hands with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him down again, -if the old man had not espied the Chemist, whom until now he had not -seen.<br> -<br> -“I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw,” said Philip, “but -didn’t know you were here, sir, or should have made less free. -It reminds me, Mr. Redlaw, seeing you here on a Christmas morning, of -the time when you was a student yourself, and worked so hard that you -were backwards and forwards in our Library even at Christmas time. -Ha! ha! I’m old enough to remember that; and I remember -it right well, I do, though I am eight-seven. It was after you -left here that my poor wife died. You remember my poor wife, Mr. -Redlaw?”<br> -<br> -The Chemist answered yes.<br> -<br> -“Yes,” said the old man. “She was a dear creetur. -- I recollect you come here one Christmas morning with a young lady -- I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw, but I think it was a sister you was -very much attached to?”<br> -<br> -The Chemist looked at him, and shook his head. “I had a -sister,” he said vacantly. He knew no more.<br> -<br> -“One Christmas morning,” pursued the old man, “that -you come here with her - and it began to snow, and my wife invited the -lady to walk in, and sit by the fire that is always a burning on Christmas -Day in what used to be, before our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our -great Dinner Hall. I was there; and I recollect, as I was stirring -up the blaze for the young lady to warm her pretty feet by, she read -the scroll out loud, that is underneath that pictur, ‘Lord, keep -my memory green!’ She and my poor wife fell a talking about -it; and it’s a strange thing to think of, now, that they both -said (both being so unlike to die) that it was a good prayer, and that -it was one they would put up very earnestly, if they were called away -young, with reference to those who were dearest to them. ‘My -brother,’ says the young lady - ‘My husband,’ says -my poor wife. - ‘Lord, keep his memory of me, green, and do not -let me be forgotten!’”<br> -<br> -Tears more painful, and more bitter than he had ever shed in all his -life, coursed down Redlaw’s face. Philip, fully occupied -in recalling his story, had not observed him until now, nor Milly’s -anxiety that he should not proceed.<br> -<br> -“Philip!” said Redlaw, laying his hand upon his arm, “I -am a stricken man, on whom the hand of Providence has fallen heavily, -although deservedly. You speak to me, my friend, of what I cannot -follow; my memory is gone.”<br> -<br> -“Merciful power!” cried the old man.<br> -<br> -“I have lost my memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble,” said -the Chemist, “and with that I have lost all man would remember!”<br> -<br> -To see old Philip’s pity for him, to see him wheel his own great -chair for him to rest in, and look down upon him with a solemn sense -of his bereavement, was to know, in some degree, how precious to old -age such recollections are.<br> -<br> -The boy came running in, and ran to Milly.<br> -<br> -“Here’s the man,” he said, “in the other room. -I don’t want <i>him</i>.”<br> -<br> -“What man does he mean?” asked Mr. William.<br> -<br> -“Hush!” said Milly.<br> -<br> -Obedient to a sign from her, he and his old father softly withdrew. -As they went out, unnoticed, Redlaw beckoned to the boy to come to him.<br> -<br> -“I like the woman best,” he answered, holding to her skirts.<br> -<br> -“You are right,” said Redlaw, with a faint smile. -“But you needn’t fear to come to me. I am gentler -than I was. Of all the world, to you, poor child!”<br> -<br> -The boy still held back at first, but yielding little by little to her -urging, he consented to approach, and even to sit down at his feet. -As Redlaw laid his hand upon the shoulder of the child, looking on him -with compassion and a fellow-feeling, he put out his other hand to Milly. -She stooped down on that side of him, so that she could look into his -face, and after silence, said:<br> -<br> -“Mr. Redlaw, may I speak to you?”<br> -<br> -“Yes,” he answered, fixing his eyes upon her. “Your -voice and music are the same to me.”<br> -<br> -“May I ask you something?”<br> -<br> -“What you will.”<br> -<br> -“Do you remember what I said, when I knocked at your door last -night? About one who was your friend once, and who stood on the -verge of destruction?”<br> -<br> -“Yes. I remember,” he said, with some hesitation.<br> -<br> -“Do you understand it?”<br> -<br> -He smoothed the boy’s hair - looking at her fixedly the while, -and shook his head.<br> -<br> -“This person,” said Milly, in her clear, soft voice, which -her mild eyes, looking at him, made clearer and softer, “I found -soon afterwards. I went back to the house, and, with Heaven’s -help, traced him. I was not too soon. A very little and -I should have been too late.”<br> -<br> -He took his hand from the boy, and laying it on the back of that hand -of hers, whose timid and yet earnest touch addressed him no less appealingly -than her voice and eyes, looked more intently on her.<br> -<br> -“He <i>is</i> the father of Mr. Edmund, the young gentleman we -saw just now. His real name is Longford. - You recollect the name?”<br> -<br> -“I recollect the name.”<br> -<br> -“And the man?”<br> -<br> -“No, not the man. Did he ever wrong me?”<br> -<br> -“Yes!”<br> -<br> -“Ah! Then it’s hopeless - hopeless.”<br> -<br> -He shook his head, and softly beat upon the hand he held, as though -mutely asking her commiseration.<br> -<br> -“I did not go to Mr. Edmund last night,” said Milly, - “You -will listen to me just the same as if you did remember all?”<br> -<br> -“To every syllable you say.”<br> -<br> -“Both, because I did not know, then, that this really was his -father, and because I was fearful of the effect of such intelligence -upon him, after his illness, if it should be. Since I have known -who this person is, I have not gone either; but that is for another -reason. He has long been separated from his wife and son - has -been a stranger to his home almost from this son’s infancy, I -learn from him - and has abandoned and deserted what he should have -held most dear. In all that time he has been falling from the -state of a gentleman, more and more, until - ” she rose up, hastily, -and going out for a moment, returned, accompanied by the wreck that -Redlaw had beheld last night.<br> -<br> -“Do you know me?” asked the Chemist.<br> -<br> -“I should be glad,” returned the other, “and that -is an unwonted word for me to use, if I could answer no.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist looked at the man, standing in self-abasement and degradation -before him, and would have looked longer, in an ineffectual struggle -for enlightenment, but that Milly resumed her late position by his side, -and attracted his attentive gaze to her own face.<br> -<br> -“See how low he is sunk, how lost he is!” she whispered, -stretching out her arm towards him, without looking from the Chemist’s -face. “If you could remember all that is connected with -him, do you not think it would move your pity to reflect that one you -ever loved (do not let us mind how long ago, or in what belief that -he has forfeited), should come to this?”<br> -<br> -“I hope it would,” he answered. “I believe it -would.”<br> -<br> -His eyes wandered to the figure standing near the door, but came back -speedily to her, on whom he gazed intently, as if he strove to learn -some lesson from every tone of her voice, and every beam of her eyes.<br> -<br> -“I have no learning, and you have much,” said Milly; “I -am not used to think, and you are always thinking. May I tell -you why it seems to me a good thing for us, to remember wrong that has -been done us?”<br> -<br> -“Yes.”<br> -<br> -“That we may forgive it.”<br> -<br> -“Pardon me, great Heaven!” said Redlaw, lifting up his eyes, -“for having thrown away thine own high attribute!”<br> -<br> -“And if,” said Milly, “if your memory should one day -be restored, as we will hope and pray it may be, would it not be a blessing -to you to recall at once a wrong and its forgiveness?”<br> -<br> -He looked at the figure by the door, and fastened his attentive eyes -on her again; a ray of clearer light appeared to him to shine into his -mind, from her bright face.<br> -<br> -“He cannot go to his abandoned home. He does not seek to -go there. He knows that he could only carry shame and trouble -to those he has so cruelly neglected; and that the best reparation he -can make them now, is to avoid them. A very little money carefully -bestowed, would remove him to some distant place, where he might live -and do no wrong, and make such atonement as is left within his power -for the wrong he has done. To the unfortunate lady who is his -wife, and to his son, this would be the best and kindest boon that their -best friend could give them - one too that they need never know of; -and to him, shattered in reputation, mind, and body, it might be salvation.”<br> -<br> -He took her head between her hands, and kissed it, and said: “It -shall be done. I trust to you to do it for me, now and secretly; -and to tell him that I would forgive him, if I were so happy as to know -for what.”<br> -<br> -As she rose, and turned her beaming face towards the fallen man, implying -that her mediation had been successful, he advanced a step, and without -raising his eyes, addressed himself to Redlaw.<br> -<br> -“You are so generous,” he said, “ - you ever were -- that you will try to banish your rising sense of retribution in the -spectacle that is before you. I do not try to banish it from myself, -Redlaw. If you can, believe me.”<br> -<br> -The Chemist entreated Milly, by a gesture, to come nearer to him; and, -as he listened looked in her face, as if to find in it the clue to what -he heard.<br> -<br> -“I am too decayed a wretch to make professions; I recollect my -own career too well, to array any such before you. But from the -day on which I made my first step downward, in dealing falsely by you, -I have gone down with a certain, steady, doomed progression. That, -I say.”<br> -<br> -Redlaw, keeping her close at his side, turned his face towards the speaker, -and there was sorrow in it. Something like mournful recognition -too.<br> -<br> -“I might have been another man, my life might have been another -life, if I had avoided that first fatal step. I don’t know -that it would have been. I claim nothing for the possibility. -Your sister is at rest, and better than she could have been with me, -if I had continued even what you thought me: even what I once supposed -myself to be.”<br> -<br> -Redlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, as if he would have put that -subject on one side.<br> -<br> -“I speak,” the other went on, “like a man taken from -the grave. I should have made my own grave, last night, had it -not been for this blessed hand.”<br> -<br> -“Oh dear, he likes me too!” sobbed Milly, under her breath. -“That’s another!”<br> -<br> -“I could not have put myself in your way, last night, even for -bread. But, to-day, my recollection of what has been is so strongly -stirred, and is presented to me, I don’t know how, so vividly, -that I have dared to come at her suggestion, and to take your bounty, -and to thank you for it, and to beg you, Redlaw, in your dying hour, -to be as merciful to me in your thoughts, as you are in your deeds.”<br> -<br> -He turned towards the door, and stopped a moment on his way forth.<br> -<br> -“I hope my son may interest you, for his mother’s sake. -I hope he may deserve to do so. Unless my life should be preserved -a long time, and I should know that I have not misused your aid, I shall -never look upon him more.”<br> -<br> -Going out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw for the first time. Redlaw, -whose steadfast gaze was fixed upon him, dreamily held out his hand. -He returned and touched it - little more - with both his own; and bending -down his head, went slowly out.<br> -<br> -In the few moments that elapsed, while Milly silently took him to the -gate, the Chemist dropped into his chair, and covered his face with -his hands. Seeing him thus, when she came back, accompanied by -her husband and his father (who were both greatly concerned for him), -she avoided disturbing him, or permitting him to be disturbed; and kneeled -down near the chair to put some warm clothing on the boy.<br> -<br> -“That’s exactly where it is. That’s what I always -say, father!” exclaimed her admiring husband. “There’s -a motherly feeling in Mrs. William’s breast that must and will -have went!”<br> -<br> -“Ay, ay,” said the old man; “you’re right. -My son William’s right!”<br> -<br> -“It happens all for the best, Milly dear, no doubt,” said -Mr. William, tenderly, “that we have no children of our own; and -yet I sometimes wish you had one to love and cherish. Our little -dead child that you built such hopes upon, and that never breathed the -breath of life - it has made you quiet-like, Milly.”<br> -<br> -“I am very happy in the recollection of it, William dear,” -she answered. “I think of it every day.”<br> -<br> -“I was afraid you thought of it a good deal.”<br> -<br> -“Don’t say, afraid; it is a comfort to me; it speaks to -me in so many ways. The innocent thing that never lived on earth, -is like an angel to me, William.”<br> -<br> -“You are like an angel to father and me,” said Mr. William, -softly. “I know that.”<br> -<br> -“When I think of all those hopes I built upon it, and the many -times I sat and pictured to myself the little smiling face upon my bosom -that never lay there, and the sweet eyes turned up to mine that never -opened to the light,” said Milly, “I can feel a greater -tenderness, I think, for all the disappointed hopes in which there is -no harm. When I see a beautiful child in its fond mother’s -arms, I love it all the better, thinking that my child might have been -like that, and might have made my heart as proud and happy.”<br> -<br> -Redlaw raised his head, and looked towards her.<br> -<br> -“All through life, it seems by me,” she continued, “to -tell me something. For poor neglected children, my little child -pleads as if it were alive, and had a voice I knew, with which to speak -to me. When I hear of youth in suffering or shame, I think that -my child might have come to that, perhaps, and that God took it from -me in His mercy. Even in age and grey hair, such as father’s, -it is present: saying that it too might have lived to be old, long and -long after you and I were gone, and to have needed the respect and love -of younger people.”<br> -<br> -Her quiet voice was quieter than ever, as she took her husband’s -arm, and laid her head against it.<br> -<br> -“Children love me so, that sometimes I half fancy - it’s -a silly fancy, William - they have some way I don’t know of, of -feeling for my little child, and me, and understanding why their love -is precious to me. If I have been quiet since, I have been more -happy, William, in a hundred ways. Not least happy, dear, in this -- that even when my little child was born and dead but a few days, and -I was weak and sorrowful, and could not help grieving a little, the -thought arose, that if I tried to lead a good life, I should meet in -Heaven a bright creature, who would call me, Mother!”<br> -<br> -Redlaw fell upon his knees, with a loud cry.<br> -<br> -“O Thou, he said, “who through the teaching of pure love, -hast graciously restored me to the memory which was the memory of Christ -upon the Cross, and of all the good who perished in His cause, receive -my thanks, and bless her!”<br> -<br> -Then, he folded her to his heart; and Milly, sobbing more than ever, -cried, as she laughed, “He is come back to himself! He likes -me very much indeed, too! Oh, dear, dear, dear me, here’s -another!”<br> -<br> -Then, the student entered, leading by the hand a lovely girl, who was -afraid to come. And Redlaw so changed towards him, seeing in him -and his youthful choice, the softened shadow of that chastening passage -in his own life, to which, as to a shady tree, the dove so long imprisoned -in his solitary ark might fly for rest and company, fell upon his neck, -entreating them to be his children.<br> -<br> -Then, as Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the -memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around -us, should be active with us, not less than our own experiences, for -all good, he laid his hand upon the boy, and, silently calling Him to -witness who laid His hand on children in old time, rebuking, in the -majesty of His prophetic knowledge, those who kept them from Him, vowed -to protect him, teach him, and reclaim him.<br> -<br> -Then, he gave his right hand cheerily to Philip, and said that they -would that day hold a Christmas dinner in what used to be, before the -ten poor gentlemen commuted, their great Dinner Hall; and that they -would bid to it as many of that Swidger family, who, his son had told -him, were so numerous that they might join hands and make a ring round -England, as could be brought together on so short a notice.<br> -<br> -And it was that day done. There were so many Swidgers there, grown -up and children, that an attempt to state them in round numbers might -engender doubts, in the distrustful, of the veracity of this history. -Therefore the attempt shall not be made. But there they were, -by dozens and scores - and there was good news and good hope there, -ready for them, of George, who had been visited again by his father -and brother, and by Milly, and again left in a quiet sleep. There, -present at the dinner, too, were the Tetterbys, including young Adolphus, -who arrived in his prismatic comforter, in good time for the beef. -Johnny and the baby were too late, of course, and came in all on one -side, the one exhausted, the other in a supposed state of double-tooth; -but that was customary, and not alarming.<br> -<br> -It was sad to see the child who had no name or lineage, watching the -other children as they played, not knowing how to talk with them, or -sport with them, and more strange to the ways of childhood than a rough -dog. It was sad, though in a different way, to see what an instinctive -knowledge the youngest children there had of his being different from -all the rest, and how they made timid approaches to him with soft words -and touches, and with little presents, that he might not be unhappy. -But he kept by Milly, and began to love her - that was another, as she -said! - and, as they all liked her dearly, they were glad of that, and -when they saw him peeping at them from behind her chair, they were pleased -that he was so close to it.<br> -<br> -All this, the Chemist, sitting with the student and his bride that was -to be, Philip, and the rest, saw.<br> -<br> -Some people have said since, that he only thought what has been herein -set down; others, that he read it in the fire, one winter night about -the twilight time; others, that the Ghost was but the representation -of his gloomy thoughts, and Milly the embodiment of his better wisdom. -<i>I</i> say nothing.<br> -<br> -- Except this. That as they were assembled in the old Hall, by -no other light than that of a great fire (having dined early), the shadows -once more stole out of their hiding-places, and danced about the room, -showing the children marvellous shapes and faces on the walls, and gradually -changing what was real and familiar there, to what was wild and magical. -But that there was one thing in the Hall, to which the eyes of Redlaw, -and of Milly and her husband, and of the old man, and of the student, -and his bride that was to be, were often turned, which the shadows did -not obscure or change. Deepened in its gravity by the fire-light, -and gazing from the darkness of the panelled wall like life, the sedate -face in the portrait, with the beard and ruff, looked down at them from -under its verdant wreath of holly, as they looked up at it; and, clear -and plain below, as if a voice had uttered them, were the words.<br> -<br> -<br> -Lord keep my Memory green.<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -<br> -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE HAUNTED MAN ***<br> -<pre> - -******This file should be named hntmn10h.htm or hntmn10h.zip****** -Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, hntmn11h.htm -VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, hntmn10ah.htm - -Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US -unless a copyright notice is included. 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