If any one had told me, so lately as last week, that Sam and myself would be sworn allies upon matters of the deepest interest, within fifty years of such a prophecy, I should have considered him as great a liar as the greatest statesman of the present period prove themselves daily out of their own mouths. Although I had not then the benefit of knowing how the most righteous of mankind deceive us, I knew well enough that the world is full of rogues, for no man can visit Covent Garden twice without having that conviction forced upon him. And Sam Henderson’s quiet grins at my “greenness” naturally led me to ponder just a little upon the possibility of his trafficking upon it. However, I am glad to say, and still hold to it, that neither then, nor even in my later troubles, which were infinitely deeper than any yet recounted, did I ever pass into the bitter shadow through which all men are beheld as liars.
The difficulty was to know what to do next. If I did nothing, which was the easiest thing to do—and a course to which my bashfulness and ignorance inclined me—the foulest of all foul wrongs might triumph; the sweetest and most lovable of all the fair beings, who are sent among the coarser lot to renew their faith in goodness, might even by virtue of her own excellence become a sacrifice to villainy. I knew that my darling had that strong sense of justice, without which pure gentleness is as a broken reed; and I felt that she also had a keen perception of the good and the bad, as they appear in men. But, alas! I knew also that she loved her father before any one on earth, and almost worshipped him, which he deserved for his character at large, but not so entirely for his conduct to herself. He was always kind and loving to her when the state of things permitted it; but the bent of his nature was towards peace, and in the strange home, which had swallowed him, there was no peace, either by day or night, if he even dared to show that he loved his own child. The blackest falsehoods were told about her, and the lowest devices perpetually plied—as I discovered later on—to estrange the father from the daughter, and rob them of their faith in one another. But this part of her story I mean to pass over with as light a step as possible, for to dwell on such matters stirs the lower part of nature, and angers us without the enlargement of good wrath. We must try to forgive, when we cannot forget, and endeavour not to hope—whenever faith allows us—that the cruel and inhuman may be basted with red pepper for more than a millennium of the time to come.
But as yet I had none of this clemency in me. Youth has a stronger and far more militant sense of justice than middle age. I was fired continually with indignation, and often clenched my fists, and was eager to rush at a wall with no door in it, when my uncle’s tale and Sam’s confirmation came into my head like a whirlwind. “What a fool I am, what a helpless idiot!” I kept on muttering to myself; “the murder will be done before I move.”
I could see no pretext, no prospect whatever, no possibility of interference; and my uncle (to whom I confided my misery) could only shake his head, and say—“Very bad job, my boy. You must try to make the best of it.”
Probably it would have made the worst of me, and left me to die an old bachelor, if it had not been for a little chance, such as no one would think much of. Time was drawing on, without a sign of sunshine in it; when to pick up a very small crumb of comfort, and recall the happiest day I had ever known yet, I went to my cupboard, and pulled out a simple sketch in water colours, which I had made of the stricken pear-tree; after some one had made of it the luckiest tree that ever died. She had not finished her work of art, partly through sweet talk with me; and I hoped to surprise her and compare our portraits, when she should come to complete her drawing. Now as I glanced, and sighed, and gazed, and put in a little touch with listless hands, my good genius stood behind me, in the form of a little old woman, holding in one hand a bucket, and in the other a scrubbing-brush.
“Lor’, how bootiful ’e have dooed ’un!” Tabby Tapscott cried, as if she would like to have a turn at it with her reeking brush. “A can zee every crinkle crankum of they leaveses, and a girt bumble-drum coom to sniff at ’un. Her cudn’t do ’un half so natteral as thiccy, if her was to coom a dizen taimes, for kissy-kissy talk like. Think I didn’t clap eyes upon ’e both? Good as a plai it wor, and the both of ’e vancying nobbody naigh! Lor’, I niver zee nort more amoosin!”
“Then all I can say is, you ought to have that bucket of slops thrown over you. What business of yours, you inquisitive old creature?”
“That be vaine manners after arl as I dooed, to vetch ’un here for you to carr’ on with! Ha, ha, ha, I cud tell ’e zummat now, if so be I was mainded to. But I reckon ’e wud goo to drow boocket auver Tabby?”
This renewed my courtesy at once, for I had great faith in Tabby’s devices; and after some coying, and the touch of a crooked sixpence, she told me her plan, which was simplicity itself, so that I wondered at my own dulness. I was to find out where Captain Fairthorn lived, which could be done with the greatest ease; and then to call and make a point of seeing him, on the plea of presenting him with a perfect copy, such as his daughter had no time to finish. Who could tell that good luck might not afford me a glimpse at, or even a few words with, the one who was never absent from my mind? And supposing there were no such bliss as that, at least I could get some tidings of her, and possibly find a chance of doing something more. Be it as it might, I could make things no worse; and anything was better than this horrible suspense. I consulted my uncle about this little scheme, and he readily fell in with it; for he could not bear to see me going about my work as if my heart were not in it, and searching the papers in dread of bad news every morning. And finding that I could be of use to him in London, he proposed that I should go that very night in the fruit-van, with Selsey Bill, and the thief-boy—that is to say, the boy who kept watch against thieves, of whom there are scores in the market.
When I found my way, towards the middle of the day, to that wild weald—as it then was—of London, which is now a camp of Punch-and-Judy boxes strung with balconies, it took me some minutes to become convinced that I was not in a hop-ground turned upside down. Some mighty contractor was at work in a breadth and depth of chaos; and countless volcanoes of piled clay, which none but a demon could have made to burn, were uttering horizontal fumes, not at all like honest smoke in texture, but tenfold worse to cope with. Some thousands of brawny navvies, running on planks (at the head pirate’s order) with skeleton barrows before them, had contrived (with the aid of ten thousand tin pots) to keep their throats clear and their insides going. Not one of them would stop to tell me where I was; all gave a nod and went on barrowing; perhaps they were under conditions, such as occur to most of us in the barrow-drive of life, when to pause for a moment is to topple over.
After shouting in vain to these night-capped fellows, I saw through the blue mist of drifting poison, a young fellow, perhaps about twenty-one, who seemed to be clerk of the works, or something; and I felt myself fit to patronize him, being four or five years his elder, and at least to that amount his bigger. But for his better he would not have me, and snapped in such a style that I seemed to belong almost to a past generation. “Fairthorn?” he said. “Yes, I may have heard of him. Elderly gent—wears goggles, and goes in for thunderbolts. Don’t hang out here, stops business. Three turns to the left, and ask the old applewoman.”
I was much inclined to increase his acquaintance with apples, by giving him one to his eye—external, and not a treasure; but before I could even return his contempt, he was gone, and left me in the wilderness. At last I found a boy who was looking after pots, and for twopence he not only led me truly, but enlightened me largely as to this part of the world. He showed me where the “Great Shebissun” was to be, and how all the roads were to be laid out, and even shook his head (now twelve years old) as to the solvency of this “rum rig.” He dismissed me kindly—with his salary doubled—at the gate of the great philosopher; and with his finger to his nose gave parting counsel.
“Best not go in, young man. The old codger can blow you to bits, by turning a handle, and the old cat’ll scratch your wig off. But there’s a stunnin’ gal—ah, that’s what you’re after! I say, young covey, if you’re game for a bit of sweet’artin’ on the sly, I’ll show yer the very nick for it.” He pointed to a gate between two old trees, and overhung with ivy. “How does I know?” he said, anticipating