Soon after, the cottager's wife made an excuse for bringing back a knife to the table, to prove to Agnes her confidence in her word; but this well-meant attention was lost on her,—she sat leaning on her elbow, and wholly absorbed in her own meditations.
When it was completely night, Agnes arose to depart.—"My kind friends," said she, "who have so hospitably received and entertained a wretched wanderer, believe me I shall never forget the obligations which I owe you, though I can never hope to repay them; but accept this (taking her last half-guinea from her pocket) as a pledge of my inclination to reward your kindness. If I am ever rich you shall—" Here her voice failed her, and she burst into tears.
This hesitation gave the virtuous people whom she addressed an opportunity of rejecting her offers.—"What we did, we did because we could not help it," said the cottager.—"You would not have had me see a fellow-creature going to kill soul and body too, and not prevent it, would you?"—"And as to saving the child," cried the wife, "am I not a mother myself, and can I help feeling for a mother? Poor little thing! it looked so piteous too, and felt so cold!"
Agnes could not speak; but still, by signs she tendered the money to their acceptance.—"No, no," resumed the cottager, "keep it for those who may not be willing to do you a service for nothing:"—and Agnes reluctantly replaced the half-guinea. But then a fresh source of altercation began; the cottager insisted on seeing Agnes to the town, and she insisted on going by herself: at last she agreed that he should go with her as far as the street where her friends lived, wait for her at the end of it, and if they were not living, or were removed, she was to return, and sleep at the cottage.
Then, with a beating heart and dejected countenance, Agnes took her child in her arms, and, leaning on her companion, with slow and unsteady steps she began to walk to her native place, once the scene of her happiness and her glory, but now about to be the witness of her misery and her shame.
As they drew near the town, Agnes saw on one side of the road a new building, and instantly hurried from it as fast as her trembling limbs could carry her.—"Did you hear them?" asked the cottager.—"Hear whom?" said Agnes.—"The poor creatures," returned her companion, "who are confined there. That is the new bedlam, and—Hark! what a loud scream that was!"
Agnes, unable to support herself, staggered to a bench that projected from the court surrounding the building, while the cottager, unconscious why she stopped, observed it was strange that she should like to stay and hear the poor creatures—For his part, he thought it shocking to hear them shriek, and still more so to hear them laugh—"for it is so piteous," said he, "to hear those laugh who have so much reason to cry."
Agnes had not power to interrupt him, and he went on:—"This house was built by subscription; and it was begun by a kind gentleman of the name of Fitzhenry, who afterwards, poor soul, being made low in the world by losses in trade, and by having his brain turned by a good-for-nothing daughter, was one of the first patients in it himself."—Here Agnes, to whom this recollection had but too forcibly occurred already, groaned aloud. "What, tired so soon?" said her companion: "I doubt you have not been used to stir about—you have been too tenderly brought up. Ah! tender parents often spoil children, and they never thank them for it when they grow up neither, and often come to no good besides."
Agnes was going to make some observations wrung from her by the poignancy of self-upbraiding, when she heard a loud cry as of one in agony: fancying it her father's voice, she started up, and stopping her ears, ran towards the town so fast that it was with difficulty that the cottager could overtake her. When he did so, he was surprised at the agitation of her manner.—"What, I suppose you thought they were coming after you?" said he. "But there was no danger—I dare say it was only an unruly one whom they were beating."—Agnes, on hearing this, absolutely screamed with agony: and seizing the cottager's arm, "Let us hasten to the town," said she in a hollow and broken voice, "while I have strength enough left to carry me thither." At length they entered its walls, and the cottager said, "Here we are at last.—A welcome home to you, young woman."—"Welcome! and home to me!" cried Agnes wildly—"I have no home now—I can expect no welcome! Once indeed——" Here, overcome with recollections almost too painful to be endured, she turned from him and sobbed aloud, while the kind-hearted man could scarcely forbear shedding tears at sight of such mysterious, yet evidently real, distress.
In happier days, when Agnes used to leave home on visits to her distant friends, anticipation of the welcome she should receive on her return was, perhaps, the greatest pleasure that she enjoyed during her absence. As the adventurer to India, while toiling for wealth, never loses sight of the hope that he shall spend his fortune in his native land,—so Agnes, whatever company she saw, whatever amusements she partook of, looked eagerly forward to the hour when she should give her expecting father and her affectionate companions a recital of all that she had heard and seen. For, though she had been absent a few weeks only, "her presence made a little holiday," and she was received by Fitzhenry with delight too deep to be expressed; while, even earlier than decorum warranted, her friends were thronging to her door to welcome home the heightener of their pleasures, and the gentle soother of their sorrows; (for Agnes "loved and felt for all:" she had a smile ready to greet the child of prosperity, and a tear for the child of adversity)—As she was thus honoured, thus beloved, no wonder the thoughts of home, and of returning home, were wont to suffuse the eyes of Agnes with tears of exquisite pleasure; and that, when her native town appeared in view, a group of expecting and joyful faces used to swim before her sight, while, hastening forward to have the first glance of her, fancy used to picture her father!——Now, dread reverse! after a long absence, an absence of years, she was returning to the same place, inhabited by the same friends: but the voices that used to be loud in pronouncing her welcome, would now be loud in proclaiming indignation at her sight; the eyes that used to beam with gladness at her presence, would now be turned from her with disgust; and the fond father, who used to be counting the moments till she arrived, was now——I shall not go on——suffice, that Agnes felt, to "her heart's core," all the bitterness of the contrast.