The Lamplighter Part 42

Gertrude was deeply touched. She forgot that he was a stranger; she only saw a sufferer. An insect lit upon his fair, open forehead; she leaned over him, brushed it away, and, as she did so, one of her tears fell upon his cheek. He awoke, and looked full in the face of the embarra.s.sed girl, who started, and would have hastened away; but, leaning on his elbow, he caught her hand and detained her. He gazed at her a moment without speaking; then said, in a grave voice, "My child, did you shed that tear for me?"

She did not reply, except by her eyes, which were still glistening with the dew of sympathy.

"I believe you _did_," said he, "and from my heart I bless you! But never again weep for a stranger. You will have woes enough of your own if you live to be my age."

"If I had not had sorrows," said Gertrude, "I should not know how to feel for others; if I had not often wept for myself I should not weep now for you."

"But you are happy?"

"Yes."

"Some find it easy to forget the past."

"_I_ have not forgotten it."

"Children's griefs are trifles, and you are still scarce more than a child."

"I _never_ was a child," said Gertrude.

"Strange girl!" soliloquised her companion. "Will you sit down and talk with me a few minutes?"

Gertrude hesitated.

"Do not refuse; I am an old man, and very harmless. Take a seat here under this tree, and tell me what you think of the prospect."

Gertrude smiled inwardly at the idea of his being such an old man, and calling her a child; but, old or young, she had it not in her heart to fear him, or refuse his request. She sat down, and he seated himself beside her, but did not speak of the prospect, or of anything, for a moment or two; then turning to her abruptly, he said, "So you never were unhappy in your life?"

"Never?" exclaimed Gertrude. "Oh, yes; often."

"But never long?"

"Yes, I can remember whole years when happiness was a thing I had never even dreamed of."

"But comfort came at last. What do you think of those to whom it never comes?"

"I know enough of sorrow to pity and wish to help them."

"What can you do for them?"

"_Hope_ for them--_pray_ for them!" said Gertrude, with a voice full of feeling.

"What if they be past hope--beyond the influence of prayer?"

"There are no such," said Gertrude, with decision.

"Do you see," said Mr. Phillips, "this curtain of thick clouds, now overshadowing the world? Even so many a heart is weighed down and overshadowed by thick and impenetrable darkness."

"But the light shines brightly above the clouds," said Gertrude.

"Above! well, that may be; but what avails it to those who see it not?"

"It is sometimes a weary and toilsome road that leads to the mountain-top; but the pilgrim is well repaid for the trouble which brings him _above the clouds_," replied Gertrude, with enthusiasm.

"Few ever find the road that leads so high," responded her melancholy companion; "and those who do cannot live long in so elevated an atmosphere. They must come down from their height, and again dwell among the common herd; again mingle in the warfare with the mean, the base, and the cruel."

"But they have seen the glory; they know that the light is ever burning on high, and will have faith to believe it will pierce the gloom at last. See, see," said she, her eyes glowing with the fervour with which she spoke--"even now the heaviest clouds are parting; the sun will soon light up the valley!"

She pointed as she spoke to a wide fissure which was gradually disclosing itself, as the hitherto solid ma.s.s of clouds separated on either side, and then turned to the stranger to see if he observed the change; but, with the same smile upon his unmoved countenance, he was watching, not the display of nature in the distance, but that close at his side. He was gazing with intense interest upon the young and ardent worshipper of the beautiful and the true; and, in studying her features and observing the play of her countenance, he seemed so wholly absorbed that Gertrude--believing he was not listening to her words, but had fallen into one of his absent moods--ceased speaking, rather abruptly, and was turning away, when he said----

"Go on, happy child! Teach _me_, if you can, to see the world tinged with the rosy colouring it wears for _you_; teach me to love and pity as you do that miserable thing called _man_. I warn you that you have a difficult task, but you seem to be very hopeful."

"Do you hate the world?" asked Gertrude, with straightforward simplicity.

"Almost," was Mr. Phillips' answer.

"_I_ did _once_," said Gertrude, musingly.

"And will again, perhaps."

"No, that would be impossible; it has been a good foster mother to its orphan child, and now I love it dearly."

"Have they been kind to you?" asked he, with eagerness. "Have heartless strangers deserved the love you seem to feel for them?"

"Heartless strangers!" exclaimed Gertrude, the tears rushing to her eyes. "Oh, sir, I wish you could have known my Uncle True, and Emily, dear, blind Emily! you would think better of the world for their sakes."

"Tell me about them," said he, and he looked fixedly down into the precipice which yawned at his feet.

"There is not much to tell, only that one was old and poor, and the other wholly blind; and yet they made everything rich, and bright, and beautiful to me--a poor, desolate, injured child."

"Injured! Then you acknowledge that you had previously met with wrong and injustice?"

"I!" exclaimed Gertrude; "my earliest recollections are only of want, suffering, and much unkindness."

"And these friends took pity on you?"

"Yes. One became an earthly father to me, and the other taught me where to find a heavenly one."

"And ever since then you have been free and light as air, without a wish or care in the world."

"No, indeed, I did not say so--I do not mean so," said Gertrude. "I have had to part from Uncle True, and to give up other dear friends, some for years and some forever; I have had many trials, many lonely, solitary hours, and even now am oppressed by more than one subject of anxiety and dread."

"How, then, so cheerful and happy?" asked Mr. Phillips.

Gertrude had risen, for she saw Dr. Jeremy approaching. She smiled at Mr. Phillips' question; and after looking into the deep valley beneath her, gave him a look of holy faith, and said, in a low but fervent tone, "I see the gulf yawning beneath me, but I lean upon the Rock of Ages."

Gertrude had spoken truly when she said that more than one anxiety and dread oppressed her; for, mingled with a fear lest the time was fast approaching when Emily would be taken from her, she had of late been grieved by the thought that Willie Sullivan, towards whom her heart yearned with more than a sister's love, was forgetting the friend of his childhood, or ceasing to regard her with the love of former years. It was now some months since she had received a letter from India; the last was short, and written in a haste which Willie apologised for on the score of business duties; and Gertrude was compelled unwillingly to admit the chilling presentiment that, now that his mother and grandfather were no more, the ties which bound the exile to his native home were sensibly weakened.

Nothing would have induced her to hint, even to Emily, a suspicion of neglect on Willie's part; nothing would have shocked her more than hearing such neglect imputed to him by another; and still, in the depths of her heart, she sometimes mused with wonder upon his long silence, and his strange diminution of intercourse between herself and him. During several weeks, in which she had received no tidings, she had still continued to write as usual, and felt sure that such reminders must have reached him by every mail. What, then, but illness or indifference could excuse his never replying to her faithfully-despatched missives?