In the early morning, when the streets were empty except for policemen or late revellers hurrying home, or market carts coming in from the country, with frosty moisture on the heaps of cabbages, she got on pretty well. She had a cup of coffee at an early coffee stall, and no one took any notice of her; some of those that passed were country people too; and at that early hour people are used to see odd, out-of-the-way figures, that would be stared at in the height of noon. But as the day went on the streets filled with hurrying people, and the shops opened, and omnibuses and cabs began to run, and she got into more bustling, noisy thoroughfares, and was hustled and pushed about and looked at, the terrors of the situation came heavily upon her. She tried to encourage herself with the thought that before long she should get out of London and reach the country, little knowing, poor old soul, how many miles of streets and houses and pavements lay between her and the nearest pretence to real country. And then, too, in that maze of streets where one seemed exactly like another, her course was of a most devious character, often describing a circle and bringing her back through the same streets without the old woman knowing that she was retracing her steps; sometimes a difficult crossing, with an apparently endless succession of omnibuses and carts, turned her from her way; sometimes a quieter looking street, with the trees of a square showing at the end, enticed her aside. Once she actually went up North Crediton street, unconsciously and unnoticed. She reached one of the parks at last, and sat down very thankfully on a seat, though it was clammy and damp, and the fog was lurking under the gaunt black trees, and hanging over the thin, coarse grass, which was being nibbled by dirty, desolate sheep, who looked to the old woman's eyes like some new kind of London animal, not to be recognized as belonging to the same species as the soft, fleecy white flocks on the hillsides and meadows of Sunnybrook. She sat here a long time, resting, dozing, and trying to think. "I don't want to trouble no one, or shame no one, I only want just to get out of the way." She was faint and tired, and she thought perhaps she might be going to die. "It's a bit unked to die all alone, and I'd liefer have died in my bed comfortable-like; but there! it don't much matter, it'll soon be all over and an end to it all." But, no, that would not do either; and the old woman roused herself and shook off the faintness. "Whatever would folks say if Laddie's mother was found dead like any tramp in the road? He'd die of shame, pretty near, to hear it in every one's mouth." Poor old soul! she little knew how people can starve, and break their hearts, and die for want of food or love in London, and no one be the wiser or the sadder. It was just then she found out that her pocket had been picked, or rather that her purse was gone; for she did not wonder where or how it went, and, indeed, she did not feel the loss very acutely, though, at home in the old days, she had turned the house upside down and hunted high and low and spared no pains to find a missing halfpenny. It did not contain all her money, for with good, old-fashioned caution, she had some notes sewed up in her stays; but still it was a serious loss, and one she would have made a great moan over in old times. She did not know that the sight of her worn old netted purse, with the rusty steel rings, had touched a soft spot in a heart that for years had seemed too dry and hard for any feeling. It had lain in the hand of an expert London pickpocket; it was mere child's play taking it; it did not require any skill. There was a bit of lavender stuck into the rings, and he smelt and looked at it, and then the old woman turned and looked at him with her country eyes; and then all at once, almost in spite of himself, he held out the purse to her. "Don't you see as you've dropped your purse?" he said in a surly, angry tone, and finished with an oath that made the old woman tremble and turn pale; and he flung away, setting his teeth, and calling himself a fool. That man was not all bad—who is?—and his poor act of restitution is surely put to his credit in the ledger of life, and will stand there when the books shall be opened. The old woman got little good from it, however, for the purse was soon taken by a less scrupulous thief.
How cold it was! The old woman shivered and drew her damp shawl round her, and longed, oh, how bitterly, for the old fireside, and the settle, worn and polished by generations of shoulders; for the arm-chair with its patchwork cushions; longed, ah, how wearily, for the grave by the churchyard wall, where the master rests free of all his troubles, and where "there's plenty of room for I;" and longed, too, quite as simply and pathetically, for a cup of tea out of the cracked brown teapot. But why should I dwell on the feelings of a foolish, insignificant old woman? There are hundreds and thousands about us whose lives are more interesting, whose thoughts are more worth recording. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?" and yet, "doth not God take thought for sparrows?" Then surely, so may we. Does He indeed despise not the desires of such as be sorrowful,—even though the sorrowful one be only an old country woman, and her desire a cup of tea? Then why should we call that common and uninteresting which He pitifully beholds? And we shall find no life that is not full of interest, tender feeling, noble poetry, deep tragedy, just as there is nobody without the elaborate system of nerves and muscles and veins with which we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
The early November dusk was coming on before she set out on her pilgrimage again, the darkness coming all the earlier for the fog and the London smoke and then, hardly caring which way she went, she turned her face eastward, not knowing that she was making for the very heart of London. The streets were even more crowded and confusing than they had been in the morning; and the gas and the lighted shops, and the noise, and her own weariness combined to increase her bewilderment.
Once, as she passed round the corner of a quieter street, some one ran up against her, and nearly threw her down,—a lady, the old woman would have described her, smartly, even handsomely, dressed, with a bright color on her cheeks, and glowing, restless, unhappy eyes, and dry, feverish lips. She spoke a hasty word of apology, and then, all at once, gave a sharp, sudden cry, and put her hands on the old woman's shoulders and looked eagerly into her face. Then she pushed her away with a painful little laugh. "I thought you were my mother," she said.
"No; I never had no gals."
"You're in luck, then," the girl said; "thank Heaven for it."
"Was your mother, maybe, from the country?"
"Yes; she lived in Somersetshire. But I don't even know that she's alive, and I think she must be dead. I hope she is—I hope it!"
There was something in the girl's voice that told of more bitter despair than words, and the old woman put out her hand and laid it on the girl's velvet sleeve.
"My dear," she said, "maybe I could help you."