What has light; the pure breath of the morning; the white rays of the early sun; and the soft, quiet, and refreshing stillness of the hour, to do with him? He only lifts up his eyes to examine a house: he only casts them around to observe what goes on in the streets; he is of the earth, earthy,—the sacred odor exists not for him.
Yet, in the deep melancholy, the expression of harrowing regret with which he did look up at that house—even in the very depths of his moral degradation and suffering—the seeds of better things might be germinating. Who shall say? He has sounded the very base-string of misery: he touches ground at last—that may be something.
The sparrows chirped in the rays of the sun, and the little sweeper whistled away. Different figures began sparingly to appear, and one by one crept out; objects of strange aspect who seem to come, one knows not whence;—the old clothes-man, with his low and sullen croak; country carts; milk-men, rattling their cans against area rails; butcher-boys swinging their trays. Presently were heard, immediately below where the man was sitting, the sounds of awakening life;—unlocking of doors, opening of windows, the pert voices of the women servants, and the surly responses of the men; shutters above began to be unfolded, and the eyes of the large house gradually to open. The man watched them—his head resting still upon his hand, and his face turned upwards—until, at length, the hall-door opened, displaying a handsome vestibule, and a staircase gay with painting and guilding. A housemaid issued forth to shake the door-mat.
Then he arose and slowly moved away; every now and then casting a wistful glance backwards at the house, until he turned the corner, and it was lost to his sight.
Thus he left a place which once had been his own.
With his head bent downwards, he walked slowly on; not properly pursuing his way—for he had no way nor object to pursue—but continuing his way, as if he had, like a ball once set in motion, no motive to stand still. He looked neither to the right nor to the left; yet seemed mechanically to direct his footsteps towards the north. At length, he slowly entered one of the larger streets in the neighborhood of Portland Place. His attention was excited by a bustle at the door of one of the houses, and he looked up. There was a funeral at a house which stood in this street a little detached from the others. The plumes were white. It was the funeral of an unmarried person. Why did his heart quiver? Why did he make a sudden pause? Had he never seen a funeral with white plumes before in his life?
Was it by some mysterious sympathy of nature that this reckless, careless, fallen man—who had looked at the effigies of death, and at death itself, hundreds and hundreds of times, with negligent unconcern—shuddered and turned pale, as if smitten to the heart by some unanticipated horror?
I cannot tell. All I know is, that, struck with a sudden invincible terror, impelled by a strange but dreadful curiosity, he staggered, rather than walked forward; supporting himself as he went against the iron rails, and thus reached the steps of the house just as the coffin was being carried down.
Among the many many gifts once possessed, and all misused, was one of the longest, clearest, and quickest sights that I ever remember to have heard of. His forlorn eye glanced upon the coffin; it read:
"Ella Winstanley,
Died June 29, 18..
Aged Twenty-three."