How different were these young things, with their rhodomontade and exuberant animation and spirits, from him in whom all the sparkle and aspiration of life seemed extinguished!
CHAPTER XXVII
A cup was at my lips: it pass'd
As passes the wild desert blast!
* * * * *
I woke—around me was a gloom
And silence of the tomb;
But in that awful solitude
That little spirit by me stood—
But oh, how changed!
—Thoughts in Past Years
Under Richard's kind let-alone system, Leonard was slowly recovering tone. First he took to ruling lines in the Cocksmoor account-books, then he helped in their audit; and with occupation came the sense of the power of voluntary exertion. He went and came freely, and began to take long rambles in the loneliest parts of the heath and plantations, while Richard left him scrupulously to his own devices, and rejoiced to see them more defined and vigorous every day. The next stop was to assist in the night-school where Richard had hitherto toiled single-handed among very rough subjects. The technical training and experience derived from Leonard's work under the schoolmaster at Portland were invaluable; and though taking the lead was the last thing he would have thought of, he no sooner entered the school than attention and authority were there, and Richard found that what had to him been a vain and patient struggle was becoming both effective and agreeable. Interest in his work was making Leonard cheerful and alert, though still grave, and shrinking from notice—avoiding the town by daylight, and only coming to Dr. May's in the dark evenings.
On the last Sunday in Advent, Richard was engaged to preach at his original curacy, and that the days before and after it should likewise be spent away from home was insisted on after the manner of the friends of hard-working clergy. He had the less dislike to going that he could leave his school-work to Leonard, who was to be housed at his father's, and there was soon perceived to have become a much more ordinary member of society than on his first arrival.
One evening, there was a loud peal at the door-bell, and the maid—one of Ethel's experiments of training—came in.
'Please, sir, a gentleman has brought a cockatoo and a letter and a little boy from the archdeacon.'
'Archdeacon!' cried Dr. May, catching sight of the handwriting on the letter and starting up. 'Archdeacon Norman—'
'One of Norman's stray missionaries and a Maori newly caught; oh, what fun!' cried Daisy, in ecstasy.