“It seems too much—as if it could not last,” whispered Lucy; “and that song brought back so many sorrows, dear—the court, and so much of the past. But you will forgive me, Arthur?”
Again the same hesitating speech, as if it were an assumption upon her part to call him by his name, and she half dreaded rebuke.
“What does the driver want?” said Mr Sterne; for the man was shouting and making signs.
By the time they had overtaken the vehicle, the man had dismounted and was by the bank, stooping over a reclining figure; and on approaching nearer, the curate recognised the cripple, Jean, lying apparently asleep, holding his lark to his lips, while his crutch was by his side. But if the master slept, it was not so with the bird; for its soft feathers were ruffled, its wings half-open, and the lids drawn partly over the little dark, bead-like eyes; the crest lay smooth, the throat-feathers rose not, the wings had fluttered for the last time; the bright, gushing lay would thrill through prisoned hearts in Bennett’s-rents no more—the lark was dead.
And its master? To get one more look, one farewell glance, he had toiled wearily on, mile after mile, towards the village where he had heard they would rest; and on he pressed, with a strength evoked by the despair of his heart, till he had sat down to rest by the wayside and sunk back exhausted.
In an instant Lucy was upon her knees by his side and had raised his head, while her husband’s hand was in the cripple’s breast. Then he slowly opened his eyes and stared wildly round till they rested upon her who supported his head, when his features softened, and a smile came once more upon his lips as they seemed to part to form the words “Good-bye!”
And then slowly and imperceptibly the smile faded from his lip, the light from his eye; and as they gazed upon him, a cold sternness stole over the poor youth’s countenance, till, with agony depicted in her every feature, Lucy looked up appealingly at her husband.
But Jean was dead—passed away; for he had toiled through the streets, nerved by a stern determination—a wild despair—on through the suburbs, and so out into the country; the one purpose always in his mind—to be where she would come once more; on still, slowly, painfully, hour after hour, till he sank exhausted, to die of a ruptured blood-vessel.
And still, of a summer’s evening, may the lounger in the great streets of the West come upon a knot of idlers; and, pausing for a few moments, listen to divers sharply-uttered commands given in French to a pair of wretched poodles; who fetch and carry, rise erect, and march about with aspect doleful and disconsolate, till a few of the bystanders drop halfpence in the basket one of the dogs carries in his mouth. Then a fresh pitch is made; the performance again gone through; and then on again; on after ma mère of the sharp and eager look—the harsh, cracked voice; on again, with drooping ears and tail—unlionlike of aspect; on again, perhaps to cast a look of envy at some free and rollicking idle dog, or of condolence at the miserable sharp-eyed monkey performing on the table, rapid in every moment, but more rapid in the glance of its little dark, blow-watching eye. And at last, when the streets grow thin of passengers, and the dogs tired and blundering, home to the court where they dwell—a court yet standing, though Bennett’s-rents is no more; another court, where the flags lie broken, and the refuse-choked channel festers with the water from the hard-used pump; where the children revel by day in the dirt and filth, and Death oft and oft again beckons the undertaker to come with his shambling horse and shabby Shillibeer-hearse; where the pigeons cluster upon the housetops and coo at daybreak, and then circle in flights, while men of the Jarker stamp urge them on. Home, to another old house, and up the groaning stairs, where even by night the twittering of birds can be heard in lodgers’ rooms—prisoners dwelling in a prison within a prison; here, too, the click of a sewing-machine—patent—man’s make; there, the sigh of a sewing-machine—not patent—God’s make; and up the rickety stairs to another attic, where cages hang—empty cages, kept because they were those of Jean; where the crutch stands in the corner beneath the lark’s home, brought back by the neighbour who keeps a stall, but empty too: canaries, linnets, finches, passed away; while the lark lies upon the breast of its master—the cripple Jean—and the turf grows green above his resting-place at Highgate.
“En avant—venez donc—mes chiens! Home!” though it be not Bennett’s-rents.