He had no misadventures that day, and reached the town he was bound for by the evening. There he looked about till he saw a modest little inn, where he put up for the night, remembering Mr Winthrop’s advice to play no tricks with himself in such severe weather, and when still not fully recovered from his exposure to the snowstorm.
It was the day but one before Christmas. Poor Arthur’s eyes filled with tears as he sat trying to warm himself on a bench at some little distance from the fire in the rough room of the inn, where a motley enough company of passers-by—small farmers from the neighbourhood, some of the inferior grades of commercial travellers, one or two nondescript figures, looking like wandering showmen, and a few others, were assembled, some talking, some silent, mostly smoking, and all getting as near the fire as they could, for it was again bitterly cold. What a contrast from last Christmas! Then, ill though their mother was, she had not seemed much worse than she had been for long, and had done her utmost to be cheerful for her children’s sake. Arthur recalled the pleasant little drawing-room at the Villa Martine, the bright sunshine and lovely blue sky—for the short, though often even in those climates sharp, winter had not set in till January—which almost seemed to laugh at the usual associations of Christmas. His brighter hopes, too, for he had not yet realised his distaste and unfitness for his chosen profession, and even if misgiving had now and then crossed his mind, there was his mother to confide in, should it ever take form.
“I can’t believe mamma would have been so hard on me,” he said to himself. “She might have been disappointed, but she wouldn’t have thought me disgraced for life. Oh, why did she not live till this was past? She would have been sorry for me; she would not have blamed me so—but then, she did not know all about the money. To think, as Lettice says, that all my education, everything, has in reality been paid for by the man we can’t—or won’t—be even commonly civil to! It is the most miserable complication. Not that it matters now to me. He wouldn’t be so ready to treat me as his son now that I’ve turned out such a fool, and worse than a fool. Lots of fools get on well enough, and nobody finds out they are fools; but I must needs go and make an exhibition of myself and my folly;” and he positively writhed at the remembrance. “However, that part of it is at an end. I’ll use no more of his money, and, if I live to make any of my own, the first thing I’ll do will be to repay what I have used, though without the least idea of all this.”
Then his thoughts wandered off again to the happy family he had just left. How kind they had been to him! How gladly, had they had the slightest notion of who he was, would they have made him welcome to pass his Christmas among them! Mrs Winthrop especially, whom, as his aunt’s sister, he thought of with a peculiar interest. How gentle and motherly she was, and, doubtless, his aunt was just the same.
“Ah!” sighed Arthur again, “if Lettice could but have seen things differently, I would not have been where I am to-day. I might have given up the attempt in time, before I had disgraced myself. I might—”
But his further reflections were cut short by a voice beside him. It came from a burly personage who had, without Arthur’s noticing, so absorbed had he been in his reflections, installed himself on the bench at his side, puffing away busily and contentedly at a clay pipe. He had not hitherto spoken, but had sat still, looking about him with a pair of shrewd but not unkindly eyes.
“And whur,”—with a broad accent—“may you be boun’, young man?” he inquired good-naturedly. “Better bide at home, say I, by such weather, if so be as one’s not forced to be on the roads.”