Mr. Hart had noticed, with great inward satisfaction, that during the past two or three weeks Margaret was looking brighter; she had not, it is true, recovered her old animation of speech and manner, but comfort and consolation had come to her in some way. More than once she had seemed to be on the point of confiding something to this dear friend, who was now all in the world she had to cling to, but the words she wished to speak would not come to her tongue. On this night, however, as they stood upon the deck, talking of Philip, of home, of the future, in subdued tones, Mr. Hart learned Margaret's secret. She hoped to become a mother.
"Heaven pray that it may be so," thought Mr. Hart; "it will be a joy and a solace to her bruised heart."
Another day went by, and another. The Good Harvest sailed smartly on to England's shores. The sailors sang blithely at their work; the skipper paced the deck in a joyous frame of mind, thinking of his wife and children at home; and almost at the very hour named by him, the long voyage was at an end, and London smoke was curling over the masts.
[CHAPTER II.]
"THE WORLD IS FULL OF SWEET AND BEAUTIFUL PLACES."
On a day in June, when the roses were blooming, there sauntered through one of the sweetest of all the sweet country lanes in England an elderly man, whose hair was white, and whose dress and bearing denoted that he was a gentleman. The lane was a long one, with many windings, and the few persons whom the gentleman met touched their hats and bowed to him as they passed, with varying degrees of deference, according to their station; he, on his part, receiving all these greetings with uniform courtesy, and with the accustomed air of one to whom homage of this kind was familiar. Walking toward him, at a distance of three or four hundred yards, at the moment his figure first appears upon the scene, was a man of about the same age, whose inquiring looks this way and that proclaimed either that the locality was strange to him, or that he was renewing acquaintance with it after a lapse of years. His dress was composed of much commoner materials than was that of the gentleman he was approaching, and there were a careless freedom and an assertion of independence in his manner which only those exhibit who have travelled about the world.
In the minds of these two men, one holding a high, the other a humble, station in life, there was no thought of each other; but the threads of their lives, which had been so wide apart, and for so long a time as to make it appear almost an impossibility that they should ever again be connected, were approaching closer and closer with each passing moment, and would soon be joined, never more to be unlinked. They knew not of it, thought not of it; but it was most sure. What is it that shapes our lives--chance, or a wise ordination? Say that, invited by a faint smell of lilac or by the fluttering of a butterfly's wings with a rare colour in them which we would behold again, we turn aside but for one moment from our contemplated course--can it be possible that we are such slaves of circumstance that this simple deviation (if it may be so called) may change the current of our lives from good to ill, from bad fortune to prosperity? How often does a breath of air change a comedy into a tragedy! Blindly we walk along, and presently may be struggling in the dark with grim terrors, or may be walking among flowers, surrounded by everything that can make life sweet.
In a very narrow part of the country lane, where the hedgerows were most fragrant, was a stile, upon the top bar of which the stranger rested his foot, and turning, gazed with pleased and grateful eyes over the fair vista of field and wood which the hedgerows shut out from the view of those who walked on the level path. Although he was between sixty and seventy years of age, his eyes were bright, and his face was the face of one who was prone to look upon the best side of things.
"How fair and beautiful it is!" he murmured gratefully. "What is there in the world half so sweet as these dear old English lanes and fields?" He paused to reflect upon his question; and then, with the whimsically-serious air of one who was accustomed to commune with himself, exclaimed, "Nonsense, Gerald, nonsense! The world is full of sweet and beautiful places."
Gentle undulations of land, beautified by various colour, were before him; shadows of light passed over the landscape like waves, and stole from it the sadness which is ever an attribute of still life. There were farmyards in the distance, and sheep, with bells hung to their necks, trudging with patient gait to where the most tempting herbage lay. The sheep were at a great distance from the stranger, and by a curious trick of the fancy he listened to the tinkling of the bells, although it was impossible that the sound could reach him. Other sounds he could hear plainly: the cry of the woodpecker, and the more melodious note of the cuckoo, beautifully clear, notwithstanding its slightly plaintive ring.