Young Mr. Million steals a look at Saul Fielding, whose face, however, is a mask; and in a hesitating voice says: 'I think I can explain the matter; but it is not necessary for this person to remain. You do not know, perhaps, that he was the chief mover in a strike a few years ago, which threatened to do much mischief.'
'I am not surprised to hear it,' says the rich brewer; 'the opinions he has expressed have prepared me for some such statement concerning him. He would desecrate the Sabbath-day by opening museums and picture-galleries, and he would curtail the liberty of the subject by closing public-houses, and depriving the working man of his beer! Monstrous! monstrous! He has nothing to say for himself, I suppose.'
'No, sir,' answers Saul Fielding, raising his head, and looking steadily at young Mr. Million, 'except that I believed in the truth of what I told you, and that I don't know whether I am sorry or glad that I made the application to you.'
The rich brewer has already touched the bell, and the servant comes into the room.
'Show this person to the door,' Mr. Million says haughtily; 'and if he comes again, send for a policeman. He is a dangerous character.'
Saul Fielding's lips wreathe disdainfully, but he walks out of the room, and out of the house, without a word of remonstrance. This chance has slipped from him. Where next shall he turn? He walks slowly onwards until he is clear of the rich brewer's house, and then stops, casting uncertain looks about him. As a sense of his utter helplessness comes upon him, a young woman brushes past him without seeing him. He looks up. Bessie Sparrow! She is walking quickly, and seems to see nothing, seems to wish to see nothing. Without any distinct purpose in his mind, but impelled by an uncontrollable undefinable impulse, Saul Fielding turns and follows her. A gasp of pain escapes him as he sees her pause before Mr. Million's house. She rings the bell, and the door is opened. She hands the servant a letter, and the next moment she is in the house, shut from Saul Fielding's view. The terror that comes upon him is so great that the street and the sky swim before his eyes, and he clings to a lamp-post for support.
'O, George!' he groans. 'O, my friend! How will you bear this? Good God! what bitterness there is in life even for those who have not fallen as I have done!'
[TOTTIE'S DREAM.]
When Tottie was put to bed, it was no wonder that she was haunted by the sweet effigy of old Ben Sparrow, and that his stomach of candied lemon-peel and his head of rich figs and currants presented themselves to her in the most tempting shapes and forms her warm imagination could devise. As she lay in bed, looking at the rushlight in the washhand basin, the effigy appeared bit by bit in front of the basin until it was complete, and when it winked one of its currant eyes at her--as it actually did--the light of the candle threw a halo of glory over the form. Her eyes wandering to the mantelshelf, she saw the effigy come out of the wall and stand in the middle of the shelf; and turning to the table, it rose from beneath it, and sat comfortably down; with its legs of cinnamon and raisins tucked under it like a tailor. When she closed her eyes she saw it loom in the centre of dilating rainbow circles, and in the centre of dark-coloured discs, which as they swelled to larger proportions assumed bright borderings of colour, for the express purpose of setting off more vividly the attraction of the figure. Opening her eyes drowsily, she saw the old man come down the chimney and vanish in the grate, and as he disappeared, down the chimney he came again, and continued thus to repeat himself as it were, as if he were a regiment under full marching orders. Whichever way, indeed, Tottie's eyes turned, she saw him, until the room was full of him and his sweetness, and with his multiplied image in her mind she fell asleep.
No wonder that she dreamt of him. Tottie and Bessie slept in the same room, and Tottie dreamt that long after she fell asleep--it must have been long after, for Bessie was in bed--she woke up suddenly. There she was, lying in bed, wide awake, in the middle of the night. The room was dark, and she could not see anything, but she could hear Bessie's soft breathing. She was not frightened, as she usually was in the dark, for her attention was completely engrossed by one feeling. A frightful craving was upon her, which every moment grew stronger and stronger. This craving had something horrible in it, which, however, she did not quite realise. In the next room slept old Ben Sparrow, who, according to the fancy of her dream, was not made of blood, and flesh, and bone, but of lemon-peel, fig, and currants and raisins. All the sweet things in the shop had been employed in the manufacture, and there they lay embodied in him.