I tried to recover myself, by doing a few strokes of business on my own account, going into the butcher’s, and complaining sadly that he now weighed the foot in with the leg of mutton – a privilege only to be claimed by lamb – but he said that it now was ordained by nature, and asked how I expected a poor sheep to walk. I knew that his logic would not go upon all-fours, but my wits were so loose that I let it pass; and at that very moment I discovered, betwixt the hearts of two bullocks, something very near my own. Miss Kitty Fairthorn had been set free by Mrs. Jenny Marker, while the housekeeper was driving a bargain in soft goods, unfit for young comprehension. After that, she was to go on for a talk with Widow Cutthumb, and meanwhile the young lady might look at the river, which was now rolling grandly in turbulent flood.
It was rather a shy and a delicate thing for me to go also in that direction; and the butcher (who never confined his attention to his own mutton) was as sure as could be to come out of his door, and look all up the lane. For Sunbury people, as long as I have known them, take a deep interest in one another’s doings; and all the more so, when they happen to perceive that their sympathy is not requested. Wherefore I hurried back to ask another question, as if there were nothing in my mind but meat, and then turned up an alley, which would lead me round the back of some houses to the Halliford Road further on.
There were many things now that I might have done, more sensible haply than what I did. I might have gone home, and had bread and cheese, and a glass of mild ale with Uncle Corny; or if that had seemed a little too ignoble, why not wander along the upper road, and thence survey, as from a terrace – which used to be the origin of the word “contemplate” – the many distant mazes of the flooded river, the trees along the margin bowing over their foundations, the weak smile of autumnal sunshine over the wrongs of its own neglect, and perhaps in the foreground a slender figure, standing as if it were nothing in the mass?
However, what I did was to go straight on towards the one in the world who was all the world to me. By what process of reason, or unreason, or pure stupid heart, I was come in such haste to this state of mind, is more than I can explain to any, and I did not even try to explain it to myself. There was my condition, right or wrong; and those who cannot understand it may be proud of their cool wisdom; and I without harm may be sorry for them.
She wore a grey cloak looking wonderfully simple, yet gathered in small at her beautiful waist, and trimmed at the skirts, and over two little pockets, with a soft blue fur called Vicunha. And she carried a little muff of the same material, and the strings of her hat (which was like a sea-shell) were also of a blue tint very sweetly matching. But the blue that was sweetest and richest of all was that of her large, soft, loving eyes, than which it is impossible for any poet to imagine anything in heaven more lovely.
However, I shall not go on any more about her, though things may slip out unawares; and without being rude, I may say plainly, that I have a right to keep such matters to myself. For a short time, I was at a loss for the commonest presence of mind, and stood wondering; hoping that she would turn round, and yet fearing that she might think I had no business there. Her whole attention was taken up, as I knew by her attitude – for already I seemed to have a gift of understanding her – not with any thought of people near her, but with the grandeur of the rolling flood, and the breadth of quiet lake beyond it. She was saying to herself – so far as I could tell – “What is the use of such a little dot as I am, and what is the value of my little troubles, when the mighty world goes on like this, and all I can do would not make a wrinkle and scarcely a flutter on the vast expanse?”
Then suddenly, an if in dread of her own thoughts, she turned round and saw me within a landyard of her. As if she had been taken in a rosy fog – for we are all ashamed of large thoughts, when caught in them – she coloured to the tint of one of Uncle Corny’s peaches, though without any of the spots he was so proud of; and then she drew one hand from her blue muff, and I found it so soft and warm and precious, that I almost forgot to let it go again.
“Oh, how I am surprised to see you here!” she said, as if my general place of residence was the moon; and probably I looked as if it should be so.
“And I am even more amazed to see you here,” I answered without any of my wits to help me, “but I came to do a little bit of business with the butcher. He has been doing things he had no right to do.”
“I have often been told that they are inclined to take advantage,” she replied, with a look which convinced me at once that she would make a first-rate housekeeper, for what butcher could resist it? “My dear father would have much trouble with them, if, if – I mean if he were at all allowed to have it. But he is always so full of great things.”
“Oh, what a happy man he must be! I have heard that he is the most clever, and learned, and one of the most celebrated men in London.”
I may not have heard all that, but still I was perfectly justified in saying it, for it made her talk; and every time she spoke, her voice sounded sweeter than it did the time before.
“You have been told the truth; it is acknowledged universally,” she went on as if there were no fame to equal his, and with a sparkle in her blue eyes, as if a star had flashed in heaven; “there seems to be nothing that he does not know, and nothing that he does not improve by his knowledge, and make useful for – I mean for the world at large. How I can be his child, and yet so stupid and slow-witted, is a thing that amazes me, and I am trying always not to think of it.”
“I am sure you are not stupid. I am sure you are very quick-witted. I never saw any one half so clever, and accomplished, and ladylike, and gentle, and” – “lovely” was the word I was about to use; but she stopped me, with a smile that would have stopped a rushing bull.
“I am showing my quick wits now,” she said, presenting the charm of her hand again, “by never even thanking you for all you did last evening. I was thinking before you appeared, that but for you I should probably be tossing in these wild waters now, or probably carried down as far as London Bridge, without a chance even of being buried. And it made me so sad, when I remembered that it would make no difference to any one.”
“How can you say such a dreadful thing?” I exclaimed with great indignation, for her eyes that had been so full of light were darkened with sadness, and turned away; “it is not true that I saved you in the least, though I wish that I had; I should deserve to live for ever; but you speak as if no one in the world had any love for the sweetest, and best, and most lovely creature in it.”
This was going rather far, I must confess; not that any word of it was at all exaggerated, or even approached the proper mark; but that it might seem a little early, on the part of one who had never had the pleasure of beholding the lady, till the previous afternoon. The remembrance of this was very awkward to me, and I was wild with myself, but could not stop the mischief now.
“Will you oblige me, Mr. Orchardson,” she asked, as gently as if I had shown no folly, “by just looking down or up the village, to see if Mrs. Marker is coming. She was to have been here ten minutes ago; and we have to make a long round now, since the bridge on the lower road is washed away. I ought not to trouble you; but I never know exactly where I am in country places, although I love the country so.”
This was more than I deserved; for a good box on the ears was the proper reward for my frowardness, and I should have been less abashed by it. “I am a bigger cad than Sam Henderson himself,” I whispered with a timid glance at her. But she seemed at a loss to know what my meaning was; and so with a deep but very clumsy bow, I departed to do her bidding.
Before I had taken many steps, there appeared the lady housekeeper in the distance, walking with great dignity, perhaps to console herself for the insolence of that Widow Cutthumb. Of this I knew nothing as yet, though it was plain that something unrighteous had disturbed her. And this made my