David Elginbrod Part 63

Hugh took his advertis.e.m.e.nt to the Times office, and paid what seemed to him an awful amount for its insertion. Then he wandered about London till the middle of the day, when he went into a baker's shop, and bought two penny loaves, which he put in his pocket.

Having found his way to the British Museum, he devoured them at his leisure as he walked through the Grecian and Roman saloons. "What is the use of good health," he said to himself, "if a man cannot live upon bread?" Porridge and oatmeal cakes would have pleased him as well; but that food for horses is not so easily procured in London, and costs more than the other. A cousin of his had lived in Edinburgh for six months upon eighteen-pence a week in that way, and had slept the greater part of the time upon the floor, training himself for the hardships of a soldier's life. And he could not forget the college youth whom his comrades had considered mean, till they learned that, out of his poor bursary of fourteen pounds a session, and what he could make besides by private teaching at the rate previously mentioned or even less, he helped his parents to educate a younger brother; and, in order to do so, lived himself upon oatmeal and potatoes. But they did not find this out till after he was dead, poor fellow! He could not stand it.

I ought at the same time to mention, that Hugh rarely made use of a crossing on a muddy day, without finding a half-penny somewhere about him for the sweeper. He would rather walk through oceans of mud, than cross at the natural place when he had no coppers--especially if he had patent leather boots on.

After he had eaten his bread, he went home to get some water. Then, as he had nothing else to do, he sat down in his room, and began to manufacture a story, thinking it just possible it might be accepted by one or other of the pseudo-literary publications with which London is inundated in hebdomadal floods. He found spinning almost as easy as if he had been a spider, for he had a ready invention, and a natural gift of speech; so that, in a few days, he had finished a story, quite as good as most of those that appear in the better sort of weekly publications. This, in his modesty, he sent to one of the inferior sort, and heard nothing more of it than if he had flung it into the sea. Possibly he flew too low. He tried again, but with no better success. His ambition grew with his disappointments, or perhaps rather with the exercise of his faculties. Before many days had pa.s.sed he made up his mind to try a novel. For three months he worked at this six hours a day regularly. When material failed him, from the exhaustion consequent upon uninterrupted production, he would recreate himself by lying fallow for an hour or two, or walking out in a mood for merely pa.s.sive observation. But this antic.i.p.ates.

His advertis.e.m.e.nt did not produce a single inquiry, and he shrunk from spending more money in such an apparently unprofitable appliance. Day after day went by, and no voice reached him from the unknown world of labour. He went at last to several stationers'

shops in the neighbourhood, bought some necessary articles, and took these opportunities of asking if they knew of any one in want of such a.s.sistance as he could give. But unpleasant as he felt it to make such inquiries, he soon found that to most people it was equally unpleasant to reply to them. There seemed to be something disreputable in having to answer such questions, to judge from the constrained, indifferent, and sometimes, though not often, surly answers which he received. "Can it be," thought Hugh, "as disgraceful to ask for work as to ask for bread?" If he had had a thousand a year, and had wanted a situation of another thousand, it would have been quite commendable; but to try to elude cold and hunger by inquiring after paltry shillings' worths of hard labour, was despicable.

So he placed the more hope upon his novel, and worked at that diligently. But he did not find it quite so easy as he had at first expected. No one finds anything either so easy or so difficult as, in opposite moods, he had expected to find it. Everything is possible; but without labour and failure nothing is achievable. The labour, however, comes naturally, and experience grows without agonizing transitions; while the failure generally points, in its detected cause, to the way of future success. He worked on.

He did not, however, forget the ring. Frequent were his meditations, in the pauses of his story, and when walking in the streets, as to the best means of recovering it. I should rather say any means than best; for it was not yet a question of choice and degrees. The count could not but have known that the ring was of no money value; therefore it was not likely that he had stolen it in order to part with it again. Consequently it would be of no use to advertise it, or to search for it in the p.a.w.nbrokers' or second-hand jewellers' shops. To find the crystal, it was clear as itself that he must first find the count.

But how?--He could think of no plan. Any alarm would place the count on the defensive, and the jewel at once beyond reach.

Besides, he wished to keep the whole matter quiet, and gain his object without his or any other name coming before the public.

Therefore he would not venture to apply to the police, though doubtless they would be able to discover the man, if he were anywhere in London. He surmised that in all probability they knew him already. But he could not come to any conclusion as to the object he must have had in view in securing such a trifle.

Hugh had all but forgotten the count's cheque for a hundred guineas; for, in the first place, he had never intended presenting it--the repugnance which some minds feel to using money which they have neither received by gift nor acquired by honest earning, being at least equal to the pleasure other minds feel in gaining it without the expense of either labour or obligation; and in the second place, since he knew more about the drawer, he had felt sure that it would be of no use to present it. To make this latter conviction a certainty, he did present it, and found that there were no effects.

CHAPTER IV.

A LETTER FROM THE POST.

Hipolito. Is your wife then departed?

Orlando. She's an old dweller in those high countries, yet not from me: here, she's here; a good couple are seldom parted.--DEKKER.

What wonderful things letters are! In trembling and hope the fingers unclasp, and the folded sheet drops into--no, not the post-office letter-box--but into s.p.a.ce.

I have read a story somewhere of a poor child that dropped a letter into the post-office, addressed to Jesus Christ in Heaven. And it reached him, and the child had her answer. For was it not Christ present in the good man or woman--I forget the particulars of the story--who sent the child the help she needed? There was no necessity for him to answer in person, as in the case of Abgarus, king of Edessa.

Out of s.p.a.ce from somewhere comes the answer. Such letters as those given in a previous chapter, are each a spirit-cry sent out, like a Noah's dove, into the abyss; and the spirit turns its ear, where its mouth had been turned before, and leans listening for the spirit-echo--the echo with a soul in it--the answering voice which out of the abyss will enter by the gate now turned to receive it.

Whose will be the voice? What will be the sense? What chords on the harp of life have been struck afar off by the arrow-words of the letter? What tones will they send back to the longing, hungering ear? The mouth hath spoken, that the fainting ear may be filled by the return of its words through the alembic of another soul.

One cause of great uneasiness to Hugh was, that, for some time after a reply might have been expected, he received no answer from David Elginbrod. At length, however, a letter arrived, upon the hand-writing of which he speculated in vain, perplexed with a resemblance in it to some writing that he knew; and when he opened it, he found the following answer to his own:

"DEAR MR. SUTHERLAND,--Your letter to my father has been sent to me by my mother, for what you will feel to be the sad reason, that he is no more in this world. But I cannot say it is so very sad to me to think that he is gone home, where my mother and I will soon join him. True love can wait well. Nor indeed, dear Mr. Sutherland, must you be too much troubled that your letter never reached him.

My father was like G.o.d in this, that he always forgave anything the moment there was anything to forgive; for when else could there be such a good time?--although, of course, the person forgiven could not know it till he asked for forgiveness. But, dear Mr.

Sutherland, if you could see me smiling as I write, and could yet see how earnest my heart is in writing it, I would venture to say that, in virtue of my knowing my father as I do--for I am sure I know his very soul, as near as human love could know it--I forgive you, in his name, for anything and everything with which you reproach yourself in regard to him. Ah! how much I owe you! And how much he used to say he owed you! We shall thank you one day, when we all meet.

"I am, dear Mr. Sutherland,

"Your grateful scholar,

"MARGARET ELGINBROD."

Hugh burst into tears on reading this letter,--with no overpowering sense of his own sin, for he felt that he was forgiven; but with a sudden insight into the beauty and grandeur of the man whom he had neglected, and the wondrous loveliness which he had transmitted from the feminine part of his nature to the wholly feminine and therefore delicately powerful nature of Margaret. The vision he had beheld in the library at Arnstead, about which, as well as about many other things that had happened to him there, he could form no theory capable of embracing all the facts--this vision returned to his mind's eye, and he felt that the glorified face he had beheld must surely have been Margaret's, whether he had seen it in the body or out of the body: such a face alone seemed to him worthy of the writer of this letter. Purposely or not, there was no address given in it; and to his surprise, when he examined the envelope with the utmost care, he could discover no postmark but the London one. The date-stamp likewise showed that it must have been posted in London.

"So," said he to himself, "in my quest of a devil, I may cross the track of an angel, who knows? But how can she be here?"

To this of course he had no answer at hand.

CHAPTER V.

BEGINNINGS.

Since a man is bound no farther to himself than to do wisely, chance is only to trouble them that stand upon chance.--SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.--The Arcadia.

Meantime a feeble star, but sparkling some rays of comfort, began to shine upon Hugh's wintry prospects. The star arose in a grocer's shop. For one day his landlady, whose grim attentions had been increasing rather than diminishing, addressed him suddenly as she was removing his breakfast apparatus. This was a very extraordinary event, for she seldom addressed him it all; and replied, when he addressed her, only in the briefest manner possible.

"Have you got any pupils yet, Mr. Sutherland?"

"No--I am sorry to say. But how did you come to know I wanted any, Miss Talbot?"

"You shouldn't have secrets at home, Mr. Sutherland. I like to know what concerns my own family, and I generally find out."

"You saw my advertis.e.m.e.nt, perhaps?"

To this suggestion Miss Talbot made no other answer than the usual compression of her lips.

"You wouldn't be above teaching a tradesman's son to begin with?"

"Certainly not. I should be very happy. Do you know of such a pupil?"

"Well, I can't exactly say I do know or I don't know; but I happened to mention to my grocer round the corner that you wanted pupils.

Don't suppose, Mr. Sutherland, that I'm in the way of talking about any young men of mine; but it--"

"Not for a moment," interrupted Hugh; and Miss Talbot resumed, evidently gratified.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind stepping round the corner, I shouldn't wonder if you might make an arrangement with Mr. Appleditch. He said you might call upon him if you liked."

Hugh jumped up, and got his hat at once; received the few necessary directions from Miss Talbot, and soon found the shop. There were a good many poor people in it, buying sugar, and soap, &c.; and one lady apparently giving a large order. A young man came to Hugh, and bent over the counter in a recipient position, like a live point of interrogation. Hugh answered--

"Mr. Appleditch."

"Mr. Appleditch will be disengaged in a few minutes. Will you take a seat?"

The grocer was occupied with the lady and her order; but as soon as she departed, he approached Hugh behind the rampart, and stood towards him in the usual retail att.i.tude.

"My name is Sutherland."