Stranica 174 [174]
126
with tears of happy expectation coursing
down his face.
Alas! the white house was empty, and
there was a bill in the window—* To Let.”
*“ Knock at the next door,” cried Mr.
Losberne, taking Oliver’s arm in his.
cc What has become of Mr. Brownlow,
who used to live in the adjoining house,
do you know?"
The servant did not know; but would
go and enquire. She presently returned,
and said that Mr. Brownlow had sold off
his goods, and gone to the West Indies
six weeks before. Oliver clasped his
hands, and sank feebly backwards.
*“ Has his housekeeper gone too?" in¬
pause.
cc Yes, sir,” replied the servant. “ The
old gentleman, the housekeeper, and a
gentleman, a friend of Mr. Brownlow’s,
all went together.”
c Then turn towards home again,” said
Losberne to the driver, “and don’t stop
to bait the horse till you get out of this
confounded London !”
c The book-stall keeper, sir?” said
Oliver. “I know the way there. See
him, pray sir! Do see him!”
c My poor boy, this is disappointment
enough for one day,” said the doctor.
* Quite enough for both of us. If we go
to the book-stall keeper’s we shall cer¬
tainly find that he is dead, or has set his
house on fire, or run away. No; home
again straight! And, in ohedience to
the doctor’s first impulse, home they went.
This bitter disappointment caused Oli¬
ver much sorrow and grief even in the
midst of his happiness; for he had
pleased himself many times during his
illness with thinking of all that Mr.
Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin would say to
him, and what delight it would be to tell
them how many long days and nights he
had passed in reflecting upon what they
eruel separation. The hope of eventually
clearing himself with them, too, and ex¬
laining how he had. been forced away,
had buoyed him up and sustained him
under many of his recent trials; and
now the idea that they should have gone
so far, and carried with them the belief
that he was an im r and robber,—a
belief which might remain uncontradict¬
ed to his dying day,—was almost more
than he could bear.
The circumstance occasioned no altera¬
tion, however, in the behaviour of his
benefactors. After another fortnight,
when the fine warm weather had fairly
|
putting forth its young leaves and rich
blossoms, they made preparations for
quitting the house at Chertsey for some
months. Sending the plate which had
so excited the Jew’s cupidity to the
banker’s, and leaving Giles and another
servant in care of the house, they depart¬
ed for a cottage some distance in the
country, and took Oliver with them.
Who can describe the pleasure and de¬
light, the peace of mind and soft tran¬
quillity, which the sickly boy felt in the
rich woods of an inland village! Who
can tell how scenes of peace and quie¬
tude sink into the minds of pain-worn
dwellers in close and noisy places, and
carry their own freshness deep into their
jaded hearts? Men who have lived in
crowded pent-up streets, through whole
lives of toil, and never wished for change;
men to whom custom has indeed been
second nature,and who have come almost
to love each brick and stone that formed
the narrow boundaries of their dail
least for one short glimpse of Nature’s
face, and carried far from the scenes of
their old pains and pleasures, have seem¬
ed to pass at once into a new state of
being, and crawling forth from day to day
to some green sunny spot, have had such
memories wakened up within them by
the mere sight of sky, and hill, and plain,
and glistening water, that a foretaste of
Heaven itself has soothed their quick de.
cline, and they have sunk into their
tombs as peacefully as the sun, whose
setting they watched from their lonely
chamber window but a few hours before,
faded from their dim and feeble sight!
The memories which peaceful country
scenes call up, are not of this world, or
of its thoughts or hopes. Their gentle
influence may teach us to weave fresh
garlands for the graves of those we loved,
may purify our thoughts, and bear down
before it old enmity and hatred; but, be¬
neath all this there lingers in the least
reflective mind a vague and half-formed
consciousness of having held such feel¬
ings long before in some remote and dis¬
tant time, which calls upsolemn thoughts
of distant times to come, and bends down
pride and worldliness beneath it.
It was a lovely spot to which they re¬
paired, and Oliver, whose days had been
spent among squalid crowds, and in the
midst of noise and brawling, seemed to
enter upon a new existence there. The