"Which?" I asked eagerly.
"Huxter's Cross; I remember thinking at the time that it must be a place where they sold things, because of the name Huxter, you see, pronounced just the same as if it was spelt with a cks instead of an x. And I heard afterwards that there'd once been a market held at the place, but it had been done away with before our time. Huxter's Cross; yes, that's the name of the place where Christian Meynell's daughter married and settled. I've heard it many a time from poor Sam, and it comes back to me as plain as if I'd never forgotten it."
There was an air of conviction about the old man which satisfied me that he was not deceived. I thanked him heartily for his aid as I took my leave.
"You may have helped to put a good lump of money in my pocket, Mr. Sparsfield," I said; "and if you have, I'll get my picture taken, if it's only for the pleasure of bringing it here to be framed."
With this valedictory address I left my simple citizens of Barbican. My heart was very light as I wended my way across those metropolitan wilds that lay between Barbican and Omega-street. I am ashamed of myself when I remember the foolish cause of this elation of mind. I was going to Yorkshire, the county of which my Charlotte was now an inhabitant. My Charlotte! It is a pleasure even to write that delicious possessive pronoun—the pleasure of poor Alnascher, the crockery-seller, dreaming his day-dream in the eastern market-place.
Can any one know better than I that I shall be no nearer Charlotte
Halliday in Yorkshire than I am in London? No one. And yet I am glad my
Sheldon's business takes me to the woods and wolds of that wide
northern shire.
Huxter's Cross—some Heaven-forgotten spot, no doubt. I bought a railway time-table on my way home to-night, and have carefully studied the bearings of the place amongst whose mouldy records I am to discover the history of Christian Meynell's daughter and heiress.
I find that Huxter's Cross lies off the railroad, and is to be approached by an obscure little station—as I divine from the ignominious type in which its name appears—about sixty miles northward of Hull. The station is called Hidling; and at Hidling there seems to be a coach which plies between the station and Huxter's Cross.
Figure to yourself again, my dear, the heir-at-law to a hundred thousand pounds vegetating in the unknown regions of Huxter's Cross cum Hidling, unconscious of his heritage!
Shall I find him at the plough-tail, I wonder, this mute inglorious heir-at-law? or shall I find an heiress with brawny arms meekly churning butter? or shall I discover the last of the Meynells taking his rest in some lonely churchyard, not to be awakened by earthly voice proclaiming the tidings of earthly good fortune?