“It feels not so soft as the green sward, Master Pierre.”
“No, Miss Ulver,” said Pierre, very bitterly, “the buried hearts of some dead citizens have perhaps come to the surface.”
“Sir?” said Delly.
“And are they so hard-hearted here?” asked Isabel.
“Ask yonder pavements, Isabel. Milk dropt from the milkman’s can in December, freezes not more quickly on those stones, than does snow-white innocence, if in poverty, it chance to fall in these streets.”
“Then God help my hard fate, Master Pierre,” sobbed Delly. “Why didst thou drag hither a poor outcast like me?”
“Forgive me, Miss Ulver,” exclaimed Pierre, with sudden warmth, and yet most marked respect; “forgive me; never yet have I entered the city by night, but, somehow, it made me feel both bitter and sad. Come, be cheerful, we shall soon be comfortably housed, and have our comfort all to ourselves; the old clerk I spoke to you about, is now doubtless ruefully eying his hat on the peg. Come, cheer up, Isabel;—’tis a long ride, but here we are, at last. Come! ’Tis not very far now to our welcome.”
“I hear a strange shuffling and clattering,” said Delly, with a shudder.
“It does not seem so light as just now,” said Isabel.
“Yes,” returned Pierre, “it is the shop-shutters being put on; it is the locking, and bolting, and barring of windows and doors; the town’s-people are going to their rest.”