True to His Home Part 33

"And uncommonly interesting comments they are. That library of pamphlets and comments, in my opinion, is as valuable as Pepys's Diary.

Old Humphrey had struck the right chord. In Pepys's Diary, which was kept for nine years during the gay and exciting period of the reign of Charles II, one lives, as it were, amid the old court scenes.

Franklin turned over the leaves of the volume. "It is a curious book,"

said he.

The light was poor, and he took the book to the door. Above the tall houses of the narrow street was a rift of sunny blue sky.

"There is something in the handwriting that looks familiar," said he.

"It seems as though I had seen that writing somewhere before. Where did you find these books?"

"They came to me from my wife's father, who kept the storeway until he was nigh upon ninety years old. He set great store by these books, which led me to read them.

"When Pepys's Diary was printed I was reminded of them, and read them over again, the comments and all. The person who made those notes had a very interesting mind. I think him to have been a philosopher."

The ink on the margin of the volume was fading, and Franklin strained his eyes to read the comments. Suddenly he turned and came into the store and sat down.

"Father Humphrey, bring me another volume."

Father Humphrey lighted the candle again and went into the same dark and tomblike recess, and brought out two more volumes, striking them against the corners of shelves to remove from them the dust and mold.

He noticed that his patron seemed overcome. Franklin was not an emotional man, but his lip quivered.

"You think that the book is interesting?"

He lifted his face and seemed lost in thought.

"Ecton--Ecton--Ecton," he said. "Uncle Tom lived there--Uncle Tom, who started the subscription for the chime of bells."

He had found the word "Ecton" in the pamphlets, and he again began to turn the leaves.

"Squire Isted," he said, "Squire Isted." He had found the name of Squire Isted on one of the leaves. He had heard the name in his youth.

"The World's End," he said. He stood up and turned round and round.

"How queer he acts!" thought Father Humphrey. "I thought him a very calm man. What is it about the World's End?" he asked.

"Oh, it is the name of an old tavern that I have found here. I had some great-uncles that used to have a farm and forge near an inn of that name. That was very long ago, before I was born. Old names seem to me like voices of the past."

He put his spectacles to his eyes and held the book again up to the light.

He presently said: "Luke Fuller--that is an old English name; there was such a one who was ousted for nonconformity in the days of the Conventicles."

He turned round and lifted his face and stood still, like a statue.

Was he going mad? Poor old Father Humphrey began to look toward the door to see if there were clear way of escape for him should the strange man become violent.

Presently he said:

"Earls--Barton," and lifted his brows.

Then he said:

"Mears--Ashby," and lifted his brows higher.

"What, sir, is it about Earls--Barton, and Mears--Ashby?" asked the timid Father Humphrey.

"Oh, you are _here_. I've heard of these places before--it was many years ago. Some folks came over to America from there."

He turned to the book again. "An Essay on the Toleration Act," said he.

"Banbury," he continued. He dropped the book by his side, and lifted his brows again.

Poor Father Humphrey now thought that his customer had indeed gone daft, and was beginning to repeat an old nursery rhyme that that name suggested.

The book went up to the light again. Old Humphrey, frightened, pa.s.sed him and went to the door, so that he might run if his strange visitor should be incited to do him harm.

Suddenly a very alarming expression came over the book-finder's face.

What would he do next, this calm, grand old man, who was going out of his senses in this unfortunate place?

He dropped the book by his side again, and said, as in the voice of another, a long-gone voice:

"Reuben of the Mill--Reuben of the Mill!"

Poor Father Humphrey thought he was summoning the ghost of some strange being from the recesses of the cellar. He began to walk away, when the supposed mind-shattered American seemed to be returning to himself, and said in a very calm and dignified manner:

"Father Humphrey, you must think that I have been acting strangely.

There are some notes here that recall old names and places. They carried my thoughts away back to the past."

The timid man came into the shop hopeful of a bargain.

"It is a useful book, I should think," said Franklin, as if holding himself in restraint.

He took the two other volumes that Father Humphrey had brought him and began to look them over.

"Father Humphrey, what do you want for the whole library of the pamphlets?"

"I do not exactly know what price to fix upon them. They might be valuable to an antiquarian some day, perhaps to some solicitor, or to a library. I would be glad to sell them to you, for somehow--and I speak out of my heart, and use no trade language--somehow I want you to buy them. Would five pounds be too much for the thirty volumes?"

"No, no. There are but few that would want them or give them room. I will pay you five pounds for them. I will take one volume away, but for the present you shall keep the others for me."

He left the store. It was a bright day. Happy faces pa.s.sed him, but he saw them not. He walked, indeed, the streets of London, but it was the Boston of his childhood that was with him now. He wondered at what he had found--he wondered if there were mysterious influences behind life; for he was certain that these pamphlets were those that his G.o.dfather Uncle Benjamin had so valued as a part of himself, and that the notes on the margin of the leaves were in the handwriting of the same kind-hearted man whose influence had so molded his young life.

He went to his apartments, and sat down at his table and read the pamphlet and the notes. He found in the notes the very thoughts and the same expressions of thought that he had received from Uncle Benjamin in his childhood.

What a life had been his, and how much he owed to this honest, pure-minded old man!

He started up.

"I must go back to Father Humphrey," he said, "and find of whom he obtained these books. If these are Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets, this is the strangest incident in all my life; it would look as though there was a finger of Providence in it. I must go back--I must go back."