________________________________________________
_ The winter had been a trying one. Ernest had only paid his way by
selling his piano. With this he seemed to cut away the last link
that connected him with his earlier life, and to sink once for all
into the small shop-keeper. It seemed to him that however low he
might sink his pain could not last much longer, for he should simply
die if it did.
He hated Ellen now, and the pair lived in open want of harmony with
each other. If it had not been for his children, he would have left
her and gone to America, but he could not leave the children with
Ellen, and as for taking them with him he did not know how to do it,
nor what to do with them when he had got them to America. If he had
not lost energy he would probably in the end have taken the children
and gone off, but his nerve was shaken, so day after day went by and
nothing was done.
He had only got a few shillings in the world now, except the value
of his stock, which was very little; he could get perhaps 3 pounds
or 4 pounds by selling his music and what few pictures and pieces of
furniture still belonged to him. He thought of trying to live by
his pen, but his writing had dropped off long ago; he no longer had
an idea in his head. Look which way he would he saw no hope; the
end, if it had not actually come, was within easy distance and he
was almost face to face with actual want. When he saw people going
about poorly clad, or even without shoes and stockings, he wondered
whether within a few months' time he too should not have to go about
in this way. The remorseless, resistless hand of fate had caught
him in its grip and was dragging him down, down, down. Still he
staggered on, going his daily rounds, buying second-hand clothes,
and spending his evenings in cleaning and mending them.
One morning, as he was returning from a house at the West End where
he had bought some clothes from one of the servants, he was struck
by a small crowd which had gathered round a space that had been
railed off on the grass near one of the paths in the Green Park.
It was a lovely soft spring morning at the end of March, and
unusually balmy for the time of year; even Ernest's melancholy was
relieved for a while by the look of spring that pervaded earth and
sky; but it soon returned, and smiling sadly he said to himself:
"It may bring hope to others, but for me there can be no hope
henceforth."
As these words were in his mind he joined the small crowd who were
gathered round the railings, and saw that they were looking at three
sheep with very small lambs only a day or two old, which had been
penned off for shelter and protection from the others that ranged
the park.
They were very pretty, and Londoners so seldom get a chance of
seeing lambs that it was no wonder every one stopped to look at
them. Ernest observed that no one seemed fonder of them than a
great lubberly butcher boy, who leaned up against the railings with
a tray of meat upon his shoulder. He was looking at this boy and
smiling at the grotesqueness of his admiration, when he became aware
that he was being watched intently by a man in coachman's livery,
who had also stopped to admire the lambs, and was leaning against
the opposite side of the enclosure. Ernest knew him in a moment as
John, his father's old coachman at Battersby, and went up to him at
once.
"Why, Master Ernest," said he, with his strong northern accent, "I
was thinking of you only this very morning," and the pair shook
hands heartily. John was in an excellent place at the West End. He
had done very well, he said, ever since he had left Battersby,
except for the first year or two, and that, he said, with a screw of
the face, had well nigh broke him.
Ernest asked how this was.
"Why, you see," said John, "I was always main fond of that lass
Ellen, whom you remember running after, Master Ernest, and giving
your watch to. I expect you haven't forgotten that day, have you?"
And here he laughed. "I don't know as I be the father of the child
she carried away with her from Battersby, but I very easily may have
been. Anyhow, after I had left your papa's place a few days I wrote
to Ellen to an address we had agreed upon, and told her I would do
what I ought to do, and so I did, for I married her within a month
afterwards. Why, Lord love the man, whatever is the matter with
him?"--for as he had spoken the last few words of his story Ernest
had turned white as a sheet, and was leaning against the railings.
"John," said my hero, gasping for breath, "are you sure of what you
say--are you quite sure you really married her?"
"Of course I am," said John, "I married her before the registrar at
Letchbury on the 15th of August 1851.
"Give me your arm," said Ernest, "and take me into Piccadilly, and
put me into a cab, and come with me at once, if you can spare time,
to Mr Overton's at the Temple." _
Read next: CHAPTER LXXVII
Read previous: CHAPTER LXXV
Table of content of Way of All Flesh
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
