CHAPTER III.
"How like a prodigal doth she return,
With over-weathered ribs and ragged sails."
/Merchant of Venice/.
"/Mer./ What are these?
/Uncle./ The tenants."
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.--/Wit without Money/.
IT was just two years from the night in which Alice had been torn from
the cottage: and at that time Maltravers was wandering amongst the ruins
of ancient Egypt, when, upon the very lawn where Alice and her lover had
so often loitered hand in hand, a gay party of children and young people
were assembled. The cottage had been purchased by an opulent and
retired manufacturer. He had raised the low thatched roof another story
high--and blue slate had replaced the thatch--and the pretty verandahs
overgrown with creepers had been taken down because Mrs. Hobbs thought
they gave the rooms a dull look; and the little rustic doorway had been
replaced by four Ionic pillars in stucco; and a new dining-room,
twenty-two feet by eighteen, had been built out at one wing, and a new
drawing-room had been built over the new dining-room. And the poor
little cottage looked quite grand and villa-like. The fountain had been
taken away, because it made the house damp; and there was such a broad
carriage-drive from the gate to the house! The gate was no longer the
modest green wooden gate, ever ajar with its easy latch; but a tall,
cast-iron, well-locked gate, between two pillars to match the porch.
And on one of the gates was a brass plate, on which was graven, "Hobbs'
Lodge--Ring the bell." The lesser Hobbses and the bigger Hobbses were
all on the lawn--many of them fresh from school--for it was the
half-holiday of a Saturday afternoon. There was mirth, and noise, and
shouting and whooping, and the respectable old couple looked calmly on;
Hobbs the father smoking his pipe (alas, it was not the dear
meerschaum); Hobbs the mother talking to her eldest daughter (a fine
young woman, three months married, for love, to a poor man), upon the
proper number of days that a leg of mutton (weight ten pounds) should be
made to last. "Always, my dear, have large joints, they are much the
most saving. Let me see--what a noise the boys do make! No, my love,
the ball's not here."
"Mamma, it is under your petticoats."
"La, child, how naughty you are!"
"Holla, you sir! it's my turn to go in now. Biddy, wait,--girls have no
innings--girls only fag out."
"Bob, you cheat."
"Pa, Ned says I cheat."
"Very likely, my dear, you are to be a lawyer."
"Where was I, my dear?" resumed Mrs. Hobbs, resettling herself, and
readjusting the invaded petticoats. "Oh, about the leg of mutton!--yes,
large joints are the best--the second day a nice hash, with dumplings;
the third, broil the bone--your husband is sure to like broiled
bones!--and then keep the scraps for Saturday's pie;--you know, my dear,
your father and I were worse off than you when we began. But now we
have everything that is handsome about us--nothing like management.
Saturday pies are very nice things, and then you start clear with your
joint on Sunday. A good wife like you should never neglect the
Saturday's pie!"
"Yes," said the bride, mournfully; "but Mr. Tiddy does not like pies."
"Not like pies! that very odd--Mr. Hobbs likes pies--perhaps you don't
have the crust made thick eno'. How somever, you can make it up to him
with a pudding. A wife should always study her husband's tastes--what
is a man's home without love? Still a husband ought not to be
aggravating, and dislike pie on a Saturday!"
"Holla! I say, ma, do you see that 'ere gipsy? I shall go and have my
fortune told."
"And I--and I!"
"Lor, if there ben't a tramper!" cried Mr. Hobbs, rising indignantly;
"what can the parish be about?"
The object of these latter remarks, filial and paternal, was a young
woman in a worn, threadbare cloak, with her face pressed to the openwork
of the gate, and looking wistfully--oh, how wistfully!--within. The
children eagerly ran up to her, but they involuntarily slackened their
steps when they drew near, for she was evidently not what they had taken
her for. No gipsy hues darkened the pale, thin, delicate cheek--no
gipsy leer lurked in those large blue and streaming eyes--no gipsy
effrontery bronzed that candid and childish brow. As she thus pressed
her countenance with convulsive eagerness against the cold bars, the
young people caught the contagion of inexpressible and half-fearful
sadness--they approached almost respectfully--"Do you want anything
here?" said the eldest and boldest of the boys.
"I--I--surely this is Dale Cottage?"
"It was Dale Cottage, it is Hobbs' Lodge now; can't you read?" said the
heir of the Hobbs's honours, losing, in contempt at the girl's
ignorance, his first impression of sympathy.
"And--and--Mr. Butler, is he gone too?"
Poor child! she spoke as if the cottage was gone, not improved; the
Ionic portico had no charm for her!
"Butler!--no such person lives here. Pa, do you know where Mr. Butler
lives?"
Pa was now moving up to the place of conference the slow artillery of
his fair round belly and portly calves. "Butler, no--I know nothing of
such a name--no Mr. Butler lives here. Go along with you--ain't you
ashamed to beg?"
"No Mr. Butler!" said the girl, gasping for breath, and clinging to the
gate for support. "Are you sure, sir?"
"Sure, yes!--what do you want with him?"
"Oh, papa, she looks faint!" said one of the /girls/ deprecatingly--"do
let her have something to eat; I'm sure she's hungry."
Mr. Hobbs looked angry; he had often been taken in, and no rich man
likes beggars. Generally speaking, the rich man is in the right. But
then Mr. Hobbs turned to the suspected tramper's sorrowful face and then
to his fair pretty child--and his good angel whispered something to Mr.
Hobbs's heart--and he said, after a pause, "Heaven forbid that we should
not feel for a poor fellow-creature not so well to do as ourselves.
Come in, my lass, and have a morsel to eat."
The girl did not seem to hear him, and he repeated the invitation,
approaching to unlock the gate.
"No, sir," said she, then; "no, I thank you. I could not come in now.
I could not eat here. But tell me, sir, I implore you, can you not even
guess where I may find Mr. Butler?"
"Butler!" said Mrs. Hobbs, whom curiosity had now drawn to the spot. "I
remember that was the name of the gentleman who hired the place, and was
robbed."
"Robbed!" said Mr. Hobbs, falling back and relocking the gate--"and the
new tea-pot just come home," he muttered inly. "Come, be off, child--be
off; we know nothing of your Mr. Butlers."
The young woman looked wildly in his face, cast a hurried glance over
the altered spot, and then, with a kind of shiver, as if the wind had
smitten her delicate form too rudely, she drew her cloak more closely
round her shoulders, and without saying another word, moved away. The
party looked after her as, with trembling steps, she passed down the
road, and all felt that pang of shame which is common to the human heart
at the sight of a distress it has not sought to soothe. But this
feeling vanished at once from the breast of Mrs. and Mr. Hobbs, when
they saw the girl stop where a turn of the road brought the gate before
her eyes; and for the first time, they perceived, what the worn cloak
had hitherto concealed, that the poor young thing bore an infant in her
arms. She halted, she gazed fondly back. Even at that instant the
despair of her eyes was visible; and then, as she pressed her lips to
the infant's brow, they heard a convulsive sob--they saw her turn away,
and she was gone!
"Well, I declare!" said Mrs. Hobbs.
"News for the parish," said Mr. Hobbs; "and she so young too!--what a
shame!"
"The girls about here are very bad nowadays, Jenny," said the mother to
the bride.
"I see now why she wanted Mr. Butler," quoth Hobbs, with a knowing
wink--"the slut has come to swear!"
And it was for this that Alice had supported her strength--her
courage-during the sharp pangs of childbirth; during a severe and
crushing illness, which for months after her confinement had stretched
her upon a peasant's bed (the object of the rude but kindly charity of
an Irish shealing)--for this, day after day, she had whispered to
herself, "I shall get well, and I will beg my way to the cottage, and
find him there still, and put my little one into his arms, and all will
be bright again;"--for this, as soon as she could walk without aid, had
she set out on foot from the distant land; for this, almost with a dog's
instinct (for she knew not what way to turn--what county the cottage was
placed in; she only knew the name of the neighbouring town; and that,
populous as it was, sounded strange to the ears of those she asked; and
she had often and often been directed wrong),--for this, I say, almost
with a dog's faithful instinct, had she, in cold and heat, in hunger and
in thirst, tracked to her old master's home her desolate and lonely way!
And thrice had she over-fatigued herself--and thrice again been indebted
to humble pity for a bed whereon to lay a feverish and broken frame.
And once, too, her baby--her darling, her life of life, had been
ill--had been near unto death, and she could not stir till the infant
(it was a girl) was well again, and could smile in her face and crow.
And thus many, many months had elapsed, since the day she set out on her
pilgrimage, to that on which she found its goal. But never, save when
the child was ill, had she desponded or abated heart and hope. She
should see him again, and he would kiss her child. And now--no--I
cannot paint the might of that stunning blow! She knew not, she dreamed
not, of the kind precautions Maltravers had taken; and he had not
sufficiently calculated on her thorough ignorance of the world. How
could she divine that the magistrate, not a mile distant from her, could
have told her all she sought to know? Could she but have met the
gardener--or the old woman-servant--all would have been well! These
last, indeed, she had the forethought to ask for. But the woman was
dead, and the gardener had taken a strange service in some distant
county. And so died her last gleam of hope. If one person who
remembered the search of Maltravers had but met and recognised her! But
she had been seen by so few--and now the bright, fresh girl was so sadly
altered! Her race was not yet run, and many a sharp wind upon the
mournful seas had the bark to brave before its haven was found at last.
