CHAPTER XLVII.
TOADSTOOLS.
We arranged that our watchman—as my uncle called him, thinking it much more respectable than spy—should hire a room from our friend Mrs. Wilcox, who could help him in many ways. For she knew all the habits of the house of Bulwrag, and had useful friends in the kitchen there, and could introduce Tonks to a distant view of the adversary’s mother and sisters.
All this being settled, and everybody else in good spirits about it, I fell suddenly into deep dejection, not on account of Sam Henderson’s good luck, for that I rejoiced in and would not think of, but simply from dwelling on my own hard fate, and the sympathy aroused by it among all who knew me. For as time went on, I was pitied more and more, and our neighbours one and all made up their minds, that there never had been a more unlucky fellow. And especially the women looked at me in such a way, that when I could avoid them without rudeness, it seemed to be a comfort to have business round the corner.
This began to tell upon me more and more; for as no man can see all the world for himself, but must take his view of it from other people’s eyes; so even in his own affairs he finds their colour affected by the light or shade that others cast upon them. And labour as I might to think that every one was wrong, and ought to be compelled to keep his mind to his own business, yet when I had made all this most certain to myself, a frosty fog and gloom of doubt would settle on my spirits, and wrap me in a world of wonder having no straight road in it. And what with one state of mind and another, sometimes the pangs of memory, and sometimes the stings of fury, and worst of all the heavy ache of listlessness and loneliness, upon the whole it seemed less harm to be out of life than in it.
How it might have ended I know not, if it had not been for something which I took to be an accident, and of no importance to me more than any other meeting. One evening after sunset, as the days were drawing in, though the summer was still in its power and beauty, I was taking my usual lonely walk in “Love Lane,” as the young people called it. There had not been a night, whether fine or wet, from the time of my loss to this moment, when I had failed of this lonely walk, unless I was far from Sunbury. It was some little comfort to end the day in pacing to and fro where last, so far at least as knowledge went, my Kitty’s footsteps must have been.
And now, when the sunset tint was gone, and the sky could be looked into like clear glass, and in the tranquillity of summer night the flutter of a leaf might almost seem to be caused by the twinkle of a star, I, the only unquiet creature—according to the laws of man—was treading the same restless round, and thinking the same endless thoughts, as when the storm of evil fortune had been fresh upon me. Wrapt in my own cares alone, and breathing only for myself—for absorbing love in small men is but selfishness by deputy, and I in all but outward form have been a small man always—here I plodded without heed of grandeur, goodness, or the will of God.
But things are strangely brought about; and any one not remembering this might laugh to hear how I was enlarged, and for the moment more ennobled than by all the stars of heaven, through the sight of a white cotton handkerchief. A man climbed over a gate into the lane, stiffly raising one leg first, and then after a little pause the other, as if his active days were gone. And probably I should not have seen him, for all his clothes were black, unless he carried a white handkerchief. This was conspicuous in the dark of the overhanging foliage; and it seemed to be doubled up by the corners, and bulging with some bulk inside.
“What can he have got in that?” thought I, and hastened my steps to see, although it was no concern by rights of mine.
“Good evening, Mr. Kit—excuse me, Mr. Orchardson I mean.” This was said in a kind and gentle voice; and I took off my hat, for I saw that it was our parson, the Rev. Peter Golightly, not our vicar, who was absent for the summer, but the curate in charge of our parish.