The door closed on the form of the visitor; Waife's head sank on his breast, and all the deep lines upon brow and cheek stood forth, records of mighty griefs revived,—a countenance so altered, now its innocent arch play was gone, that you would not have known it. At length he rose very quietly, took up the candle, and stole into Sophy's room. Shading the light with careful hand, he looked on her face as she slept. The smile was still upon the parted lip: the child was still in the fairyland of dreams. But the cheek was thinner than it had been weeks ago, and the little hand that rested on the coverlet seemed wasted. Waife took that hand noiselessly into his own! it was hot and dry. He dropped it with a look of unutterable fear and anguish, and, shaking his head piteously; stole back again. Seating himself by the table at which he had been caught counting his gains, he folded his arms, and rooted his gaze on the floor; and there, motionless, and as if in stupefied suspense of thought itself, he sat till the dawn crept over the sky,—till the sun shone into the windows. The dog, crouched at his feet, sometimes started up and whined as to attract his notice: he did not heed it. The clock struck six; the house began to stir. The chambermaid came into the room. Waife rose and took his hat, brushing its nap mechanically with his sleeve. "Who did you say was the best here?" he asked with a vacant smile, touching the chambermaid's arm.
"Sir! the best—what?"
"The best doctor, ma'am; none of your parish apothecaries,—the best physician,—Dr. Gill,—did you say Gill? Thank you; his address, High Street. Close by, ma'am." With his grand bow,—such is habit!— Gentleman Waife smiled graciously, and left the room. Sir Isaac stretched himself and followed.
CHAPTER XVI.
In every civilized society there is found a race of men who retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal, and live upon their fellow-men as a natural food. These interesting but formidable bipeds, having caught their victim, invariably select one part of his body on which to fasten their relentless grinders. The part thus selected is peculiarly susceptible, Providence having made it alive to the least nibble; it is situated just above the hip-joint, it is protected by a tegument of exquisite fibre, vulgarly called "THE BREECHES POCKET." The thoroughbred Anthropophagite usually begins with his own relations and friends; and so long as he confines his voracity to the domestic circle, the law interferes little, if at all, with his venerable propensities. But when he has exhausted all that allows itself to be edible in the bosom of private life, the man-eater falls loose on society, and takes to prowling,—then "Sauve qui peut!" the laws rouse themselves, put on their spectacles, call for their wigs and gowns, and the Anthropophagite turned prowler is not always sure of his dinner. It is when he has arrived at this stage of development that the man- eater becomes of importance, enters into the domain of history, and occupies the thoughts of Moralists.
On the same morning in which Waife thus went forth from the Saracen's Head in quest of the doctor, but at a later hour, a man, who, to judge by the elaborate smartness of his attire, and the jaunty assurance of his saunter, must have wandered from the gay purlieus of Regent Street, threaded his way along the silent and desolate thoroughfares that intersect the remotest districts of Bloomsbury. He stopped at the turn into a small street still more sequestered than those which led to it, and looked up to the angle on the wall whereon the name of the street should have been inscribed. But the wall had been lately whitewashed, and the whitewash had obliterated the expected epigraph. The man muttered an impatient execration; and, turning round as if to seek a passenger of whom to make inquiry, beheld on the opposite side of the way another man apparently engaged in the same research. Involuntarily each crossed over the road towards the other.
"Pray, sir," quoth the second wayfarer in that desert, "can you tell me if this is a street that is called a Place,—Podden Place, Upper?"
"Sir," returned the sprucer wayfarer, "it is the question I would have asked of you."
"Strange!"
"Very strange indeed that more than one person can, in this busy age, employ himself in discovering a Podden Place! Not a soul to inquire of, —not a shop that I see, not an orange-stall!"