Part 61 (2/2)

ANGLER (with an appearance of awe).--”It does seem supernatural. But it is that perch; for hark ye, sir, there is ONLY ONE perch in the whole brook! All the years I have fished here, I have never caught another perch; and this solitary inmate of the watery element I know by sight better than I knew my own lost father. For each time that I have raised it out of the water, its profile has been turned to me, and I have seen with a shudder that it has had only--One Eye! It is a most mysterious and a most diabolical phenomenon, that perch! It has been the ruin of my prospects in life. I was offered a situation in Jamaica: I could not go with that perch left here in triumph. I might afterwards have had an appointinent in India, but I could not put the ocean between myself and that perch: thus have I frittered away my existence in the fatal metropolis of my native land. And once a week from February to December I come hither. Good heavens! if I should catch the perch at last, the occupation of my existence will be gone.”

Leonard gazed curiously at the angler, as the last thus mournfully concluded. The ornate turn of his periods did not suit with his costume.

He looked wofully threadbare and shabby,--a genteel sort of shabbiness too,--shabbiness in black. There was humour in the corners of his lip; and his hands, though they did not seem very clean--indeed his occupation was not friendly to such niceties--were those of a man who had not known manual labour. His face was pale and puffed, but the tip of the nose was red. He did not seem as if the watery element was as familiar to himself as to his Delilah, the perch.

”Such is Life!” recommenced the angler, in a moralizing tone, as he slid his rod into its canvas case. ”If a man knew what it was to fish all one's life in a stream that has only one perch, to catch that one perch nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water, plump,--if a man knew what it was, why, then ”--here the angler looked over his shoulder full at Leonard--”why then, young sir, he would know what human life is to vain ambition. Good-evening.”

Away he went treading over the daisies and kingcups. Helen's eyes followed him wistfully.

”What a strange person!” said Leonard, laughing.

”I think he is a very wise one,” murmured Helen; and she came close up to Leonard, and took his hand in both hers, as if she felt already that he was in need of the Comforter,--the line broken, and the perch lost!

CHAPTER IX.

At noon the next day, London stole upon them through a gloomy, thick, oppressive atmosphere; for where is it that we can say London bursts on the sight? It stole on them through one of its fairest and most gracious avenues of approach,--by the stately gardens of Kensington, along the side of Hyde Park, and so on towards c.u.mberland Gate.

Leonard was not the least struck. And yet with a very little money, and a very little taste, it would be easy to render this entrance to London as grand and as imposing as that to Paris from the Champs Elysees. As they came near the Edgware Road, Helen took her new brother by the hand and guided him; for she knew all that neighbourhood, and she was acquainted with a lodging near that occupied by her father (to that lodging itself she could not have gone for the world), where they might be housed cheaply.

But just then the sky, so dull and overcast since morning, seemed one ma.s.s of black cloud. There suddenly came on a violent storm of rain. The boy and girl took refuge in a covered mews, in a street running out of the Edgware Road. This shelter soon became crowded; the two young pilgrims crept close to the wall, apart from the rest, Leonard's arm round Helen's waist, sheltering her from the rain that the strong wind contending with it beat in through the pa.s.sage. Presently a young gentleman of better mien and dress than the other refugees entered, not hastily, but rather with a slow and proud step, as if, though he deigned to take shelter, he scorned to run to it. He glanced somewhat haughtily at the a.s.sembled group, pa.s.sed on through the midst of it, came near Leonard, took off his hat, and shook the rain from its brim. His head thus uncovered, left all his features exposed; and the village youth recognized, at the first glance, his old victorious a.s.sailant on the green at Hazeldean.

CHAPTER IX.

Yet Randal Leslie was altered. His dark cheek was as thin as in boyhood, and even yet more wasted by intense study and night vigils; but the expression of his face was at once more refined and manly, and there was a steady concentrated light in his eye, like that of one who has been in the habit of bringing all his thoughts to one point. He looked older than he was. He was dressed simply in black, a colour which became him; and altogether his aspect and figure were, not showy indeed, but distinguished. He looked to the common eye a gentleman; and to the more observant a scholar.

Helter-skelter! pell-mell! the group in the pa.s.sage now pressed each on each, now scattered on all sides, making way, rus.h.i.+ng down the mews, against the walls, as a fiery horse darted under shelter. The rider, a young man with a very handsome face, and dressed with that peculiar care which we commonly call dandyism, cried out, good-humouredly, ”Don't be afraid; the horse sha'n't hurt any of you. A thousand pardons--so ho! so ho!” He patted the horse, and it stood as still as a statue, filling up the centre of the pa.s.sage. The groups resettled; Randal approached the rider.

”Frank Hazeldean!”

”Ah, is it indeed Randal Leslie?”

Frank was off his horse in a moment, and the bridle was consigned to the care of a slim 'prentice-boy holding a bundle.

”My dear fellow, how glad I am to see you. How lucky it was that I should turn in here. Not like me either, for I don't much care for a ducking. Staying in town, Randal?”

”Yes; at your uncle's, Mr. Egerton. I have left Oxford.”

”For good?”

”For good.”

”But you have not taken your degree, I think? We Etonians all considered you booked for a double-first. Oh, we have been so proud of your fame,--you carried off all the prizes.”

”Not all; but some, certainly. Mr. Egerton offered me my choice,--to stay for my degree, or to enter at once into the Foreign Office. I preferred the end to the means. For, after all, what good are academical honours but as the entrance to life? To enter now is to save a step in a long way, Frank.”

”Ah, you were always ambitious, and you will make a great figure, I am sure.”

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