CHAPTER IV
While Leonard accustoms himself gradually to the splendors that surround him, and often turns with a sigh to the remembrance of his mother's cottage and the sparkling fount in the Italian's flowery garden, we will make with thee, O reader, a rapid flight to the metropolis, and drop ourselves amidst the gay groups that loiter along the dusty ground, or loll over the roadside palings of Hyde Park. The season is still at its height; but the short day of fashionable London life, which commences two hours after noon, is in its decline. The crowd in Rotten-row begins to thin. Near the statue of Achilles, and apart from all other loungers, a gentleman, with one hand thrust into his waistcoat, and the other resting on his cane, gazed listlessly on the horsemen and carriages in the brilliant ring. He was still in the prime of life, at the age when man is usually the most social—when the acquaintances of youth have ripened into friendship, and a personage of some rank and fortune has become a well-known feature in the mobile face of society. But though, when his contemporaries were boys scarce at college, this gentleman had blazed foremost among the princes of fashion, and though he had all the qualities of nature and circumstance which either retain fashion to the last, or exchange its false celebrity for a graver repute, he stood as a stranger in that throng of his countrymen. Beauties whirled by to the toilet—statesmen passed on to the senate—dandies took flight to the clubs; and neither nods, nor becks, nor wreathed smiles, said to the solitary spectator, "Follow us—thou art one of our set." Now and then, some middle-aged beau, nearing the post of the loiterer, turned round to look again; but the second glance seemed to dissipate the recognition of the first, and the beau silently continued his way.
"By the tombs of my fathers!" said the solitary to himself, "I know now what a dead man might feel if he came to life again, and took a peep at the living."
Time passed on—the evening shades descended fast. Our stranger in London had well-nigh the Park to himself. He seemed to breathe more freely as he saw that the space was so clear.
"There's oxygen in the atmosphere now," said he, half aloud; "and I can walk without breathing in the gaseous fumes of the multitude. O those chemists—what dolts they are! They tell us crowds taint the air, but they never guess why! Pah! it is not the lungs that poison the element—it is the reek of bad hearts. When a periwig-pated fellow breathes on me, I swallow a mouthful of care. Allons! my friend Nero; now for a stroll." He touched with his cane a large Newfoundland dog, who lay stretched near his feet; a dog and man went slow through the growing twilight, and over the brown dry turf. At length our solitary paused, and threw himself on a bench under a tree. "Half-past eight!" said he, looking at his watch—"one may smoke one's cigar without shocking the world."
He took out his cigar-case, struck a light, and in another moment, reclined at length on the bench, seemed absorbed in regarding the smoke, that scarce colored ere it vanished into air.
"It is the most barefaced lie in the world, my Nero," said he, addressing his dog—"this boasted liberty of man! Now, here am I, a freeborn Englishman, a citizen of the world, caring—I often say to myself—caring not a jot for Kaisar or Mob; and yet I no more dare smoke this cigar in the Park at half-past six, when all the world is abroad, than I dare pick my Lord Chancellor's pocket, or hit the Archbishop of Canterbury a thump on the nose. Yet no law in England forbids me my cigar, Nero! What is law at half-past eight, was not crime at six and a half! Britannia says, "Man, thou art free," and she lies like a commonplace woman. O Nero, Nero! you enviable dog!—you serve but from liking. No thought of the world costs you one wag of the tail. Your big heart and true instinct suffice you for reason and law. You would want nothing to your felicity, if in these moments of ennui you would but smoke a cigar. Try it, Nero!—try it!" And, rising from his incumbent posture, he sought to force the end of the weed between the teeth of the dog.
While thus gravely engaged, two figures had approached the place. The one was a man who seemed weak and sickly. His threadbare coat was buttoned to the chin, but hung large on his shrunken breast. The other was a girl of about fourteen, on whose arm he leant heavily. Her cheek was wan, and there was a patient sad look on her face, which seemed so settled that you would think she could never have known the mirthfulness of childhood.
"Pray rest here, papa," said the child softly; and she pointed to the bench, without taking heed of its pre-occupant, who now, indeed, confined to one corner of the seat, was almost hidden by the shadow of a tree.
The man sate down, with a feeble sigh; and then, observing the stranger, raised his hat, and said, in that tone of voice which betrays the usages of polished society, "Forgive me, if I intrude on you, sir."