Роберт Льюис Стивенсон
Lay Morals, and Other Papers
IV. NURSES
I knew one once, and the room where, lonely and old, she waited for death. It was pleasant enough, high up above the lane, and looking forth upon a hill-side, covered all day with sheets and yellow blankets, and with long lines of underclothing fluttering between the battered posts. There were any number of cheap prints, and a drawing by one of ‘her children,’ and there were flowers in the window, and a sickly canary withered into consumption in an ornamental cage. The bed, with its checked coverlid, was in a closet. A great Bible lay on the table; and her drawers were full of ‘scones,’ which it was her pleasure to give to young visitors such as I was then.
You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the canary, and the cat, and the white mouse that she had for a while, and that died, were all indications of the want that ate into her heart. I think I know a little of what that old woman felt; and I am as sure as if I had seen her, that she sat many an hour in silent tears, with the big Bible open before her clouded eyes.
If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great chain that had linked her to one child after another, sometimes to be wrenched suddenly through, and sometimes, which is infinitely worse, to be torn gradually off through years of growing neglect, or perhaps growing dislike! She had, like the mother, overcome that natural repugnance – repugnance which no man can conquer – towards the infirm and helpless mass of putty of the earlier stage. She had spent her best and happiest years in tending, watching, and learning to love like a mother this child, with which she has no connection and to which she has no tie. Perhaps she refused some sweetheart (such things have been), or put him off and off, until he lost heart and turned to some one else, all for fear of leaving this creature that had wound itself about her heart. And the end of it all – her month’s warning, and a present perhaps, and the rest of the life to vain regret. Or, worse still, to see the child gradually forgetting and forsaking her, fostered in disrespect and neglect on the plea of growing manliness, and at last beginning to treat her as a servant whom he had treated a few years before as a mother. She sees the Bible or the Psalm-book, which with gladness and love unutterable in her heart she had bought for him years ago out of her slender savings, neglected for some newer gift of his father, lying in dust in the lumber-room or given away to a poor child, and the act applauded for its unfeeling charity. Little wonder if she becomes hurt and angry, and attempts to tyrannise and to grasp her old power back again. We are not all patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but the most of us human beings with feelings and tempers of our own.
And so, in the end, behold her in the room that I described. Very likely and very naturally, in some fling of feverish misery or recoil of thwarted love, she has quarrelled with her old employers and the children are forbidden to see her or to speak to her; or at best she gets her rent paid and a little to herself, and now and then her late charges are sent up (with another nurse, perhaps) to pay her a short visit. How bright these visits seem as she looks forward to them on her lonely bed! How unsatisfactory their realisation, when the forgetful child, half wondering, checks with every word and action the outpouring of her maternal love! How bitter and restless the memories that they leave behind! And for the rest, what else has she? – to watch them with eager eyes as they go to school, to sit in church where she can see them every Sunday, to be passed some day unnoticed in the street, or deliberately cut because the great man or the great woman are with friends before whom they are ashamed to recognise the old woman that loved them.
When she goes home that night, how lonely will the room appear to her! Perhaps the neighbours may hear her sobbing to herself in the dark, with the fire burnt out for want of fuel, and the candle still unlit upon the table.
And it is for this that they live, these quasi-mothers – mothers in everything but the travail and the thanks. It is for this that they have remained virtuous in youth, living the dull life of a household servant. It is for this that they refused the old sweetheart, and have no fireside or offspring of their own.
I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no more nurses, and that every mother will nurse her own offspring; for what can be more hardening and demoralising than to call forth the tenderest feelings of a woman’s heart and cherish them yourself as long as you need them, as long as your children require a nurse to love them, and then to blight and thwart and destroy them, whenever your own use for them is at an end. This may be Utopian; but it is always a little thing if one mother or two mothers can be brought to feel more tenderly to those who share their toil and have no part in their reward.
V. A CHARACTER
The man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short and squat. So far there is nothing in him to notice, but when you see his eyes, you can read in these hard and shallow orbs a depravity beyond measure depraved, a thirst after wickedness, the pure, disinterested love of Hell for its own sake. The other night, in the street, I was watching an omnibus passing with lit-up windows, when I heard some one coughing at my side as though he would cough his soul out; and turning round, I saw him stopping under a lamp, with a brown greatcoat buttoned round him and his whole face convulsed. It seemed as if he could not live long; and so the sight set my mind upon a train of thought, as I finished my cigar up and down the lighted streets.
He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched his thirst for evil, and his eyes still delight themselves in wickedness. He is dumb; but he will not let that hinder his foul trade, or perhaps I should say, his yet fouler amusement, and he has pressed a slate into the service of corruption. Look at him, and he will sign to you with his bloated head, and when you go to him in answer to the sign, thinking perhaps that the poor dumb man has lost his way, you will see what he writes upon his slate. He haunts the doors of schools, and shows such inscriptions as these to the innocent children that come out. He hangs about picture-galleries, and makes the noblest pictures the text for some silent homily of vice. His industry is a lesson to ourselves. Is it not wonderful how he can triumph over his infirmities and do such an amount of harm without a tongue? Wonderful industry – strange, fruitless, pleasureless toil? Must not the very devil feel a soft emotion to see his disinterested and laborious service? Ah, but the devil knows better than this: he knows that this man is penetrated with the love of evil and that all his pleasure is shut up in wickedness: he recognises him, perhaps, as a fit type for mankind of his satanic self, and watches over his effigy as we might watch over a favourite likeness. As the business man comes to love the toil, which he only looked upon at first as a ladder towards other desires and less unnatural gratifications, so the dumb man has felt the charm of his trade and fallen captivated before the eyes of sin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is hideous and loathsome; for even vice has her Hörsel and her devotees, who love her for her own sake.
THE GREAT NORTH ROAD
CHAPTER I – NANCE AT THE ‘GREEN DRAGON’
Nance Holdaway was on her knees before the fire blowing the green wood that voluminously smoked upon the dogs, and only now and then shot forth a smothered flame; her knees already ached and her eyes smarted, for she had been some while at this ungrateful task, but her mind was gone far away to meet the coming stranger. Now she met him in the wood, now at the castle gate, now in the kitchen by candle-light; each fresh presentment eclipsed the one before; a form so elegant, manners so sedate, a countenance so brave and comely, a voice so winning and resolute – sure such a man was never seen! The thick-coming fancies poured and brightened in her head like the smoke and flames upon the hearth.
Presently the heavy foot of her uncle Jonathan was heard upon the stair, and as he entered the room she bent the closer to her work. He glanced at the green fagots with a sneer, and looked askance at the bed and the white sheets, at the strip of carpet laid, like an island, on the great expanse of the stone floor, and at the broken glazing of the casement clumsily repaired with paper.
‘Leave that fire a-be,’ he cried. ‘What, have I toiled all my life to turn innkeeper at the hind end? Leave it a-be, I say.’
‘La, uncle, it doesn’t burn a bit; it only smokes,’ said Nance, looking up from her position.
‘You are come of decent people on both sides,’ returned the old man. ‘Who are you to blow the coals for any Robin-run-agate? Get up, get on your hood, make yourself useful, and be off to the “Green Dragon.”’
‘I thought you was to go yourself,’ Nance faltered.
‘So did I,’ quoth Jonathan; ‘but it appears I was mistook.’
The very excess of her eagerness alarmed her, and she began to hang back. ‘I think I would rather not, dear uncle,’ she said. ‘Night is at hand, and I think, dear, I would rather not.’
‘Now you look here,’ replied Jonathan, ‘I have my lord’s orders, have I not? Little he gives me, but it’s all my livelihood. And do you fancy, if I disobey my lord, I’m likely to turn round for a lass like you? No, I’ve that hell-fire of pain in my old knee, I wouldn’t walk a mile, not for King George upon his bended knees.’ And he walked to the window and looked down the steep scarp to where the river foamed in the bottom of the dell.
Nance stayed for no more bidding. In her own room, by the glimmer of the twilight, she washed her hands and pulled on her Sunday mittens; adjusted her black hood, and tied a dozen times its cherry ribbons; and in less than ten minutes, with a fluttering heart and excellently bright eyes, she passed forth under the arch and over the bridge, into the thickening shadows of the groves. A well-marked wheel-track conducted her. The wood, which upon both sides of the river dell was a mere scrambling thicket of hazel, hawthorn, and holly, boasted on the level of more considerable timber. Beeches came to a good growth, with here and there an oak; and the track now passed under a high arcade of branches, and now ran under the open sky in glades. As the girl proceeded these glades became more frequent, the trees began again to decline in size, and the wood to degenerate into furzy coverts. Last of all there was a fringe of elders; and beyond that the track came forth upon an open, rolling moorland, dotted with wind-bowed and scanty bushes, and all golden brown with the winter, like a grouse. Right over against the girl the last red embers of the sunset burned under horizontal clouds; the night fell clear and still and frosty, and the track in low and marshy passages began to crackle under foot with ice.
Some half a mile beyond the borders of the wood the lights of the ‘Green Dragon’ hove in sight, and running close beside them, very faint in the dying dusk, the pale ribbon of the Great North Road. It was the back of the post-house that was presented to Nance Holdaway; and as she continued to draw near and the night to fall more completely, she became aware of an unusual brightness and bustle. A post-chaise stood in the yard, its lamps already lighted: light shone hospitably in the windows and from the open door; moving lights and shadows testified to the activity of servants bearing lanterns. The clank of pails, the stamping of hoofs on the firm causeway, the jingle of harness, and, last of all, the energetic hissing of a groom, began to fall upon her ear. By the stir you would have thought the mail was at the door, but it was still too early in the night. The down mail was not due at the ‘Green Dragon’ for hard upon an hour; the up mail from Scotland not before two in the black morning.
Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, was polishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his feet letting up spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical roof was peppered.
‘Hey, miss,’ said he jocularly, ‘you won’t look at me any more, now you have gentry at the castle.’
Her cheeks burned with anger.
‘That’s my lord’s chay,’ the man continued, nodding at the chaise, ‘Lord Windermoor’s. Came all in a fluster – dinner, bowl of punch, and put the horses to. For all the world like a runaway match, my dear – bar the bride. He brought Mr. Archer in the chay with him.’
‘Is that Holdaway?’ cried the landlord from the lighted entry, where he stood shading his eyes.
‘Only me, sir,’ answered Nance.
‘O, you, Miss Nance,’ he said. ‘Well, come in quick, my pretty. My lord is waiting for your uncle.’
And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and lighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, for in that second she made sure that she had twice betrayed herself – betrayed by the involuntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to behold this new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed her disappointment in the realisation of her dreams. He, meanwhile, as if unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved decorum.
‘O, a man of wood,’ thought Nance.
‘What – what?’ said his lordship. ‘Who is this?’
‘If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway’s niece,’ replied Nance, with a curtsey.
‘Should have been here himself,’ observed his lordship. ‘Well, you tell Holdaway that I’m aground, not a stiver – not a stiver. I’m running from the beagles – going abroad, tell Holdaway. And he need look for no more wages: glad of ’em myself, if I could get ’em. He can live in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend him to take him in – a friend of mine – and Mr. Archer will pay, as I wrote. And I regard that in the light of a precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off against the wages.’
‘But O, my lord!’ cried Nance, ‘we live upon the wages, and what are we to do without?’
‘What am I to do? – what am I to do?’ replied Lord Windermoor with some exasperation. ‘I have no wages. And there is Mr. Archer. And if Holdaway doesn’t like it, he can go to the devil, and you with him! – and you with him!’
‘And yet, my lord,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘these good people will have as keen a sense of loss as you or I; keener, perhaps, since they have done nothing to deserve it.’
‘Deserve it?’ cried the peer. ‘What? What? If a rascally highwayman comes up to me with a confounded pistol, do you say that I’ve deserved it? How often am I to tell you, sir, that I was cheated – that I was cheated?’
‘You are happy in the belief,’ returned Mr. Archer gravely.
‘Archer, you would be the death of me!’ exclaimed his lordship. ‘You know you’re drunk; you know it, sir; and yet you can’t get up a spark of animation.’
‘I have drunk fair, my lord,’ replied the younger man; ‘but I own I am conscious of no exhilaration.’
‘If you had as black a look-out as me, sir,’ cried the peer, ‘you would be very glad of a little innocent exhilaration, let me tell you. I am glad of it – glad of it, and I only wish I was drunker. For let me tell you it’s a cruel hard thing upon a man of my time of life and my position, to be brought down to beggary because the world is full of thieves and rascals – thieves and rascals. What? For all I know, you may be a thief and a rascal yourself; and I would fight you for a pinch of snuff – a pinch of snuff,’ exclaimed his lordship.
Here Mr. Archer turned to Nance Holdaway with a pleasant smile, so full of sweetness, kindness, and composure that, at one bound, her dreams returned to her. ‘My good Miss Holdaway,’ said he, ‘if you are willing to show me the road, I am even eager to be gone. As for his lordship and myself, compose yourself; there is no fear; this is his lordship’s way.’
‘What? what?’ cried his lordship. ‘My way? Ish no such a thing, my way.’
‘Come, my lord,’ cried Archer; ‘you and I very thoroughly understand each other; and let me suggest, it is time that both of us were gone. The mail will soon be due. Here, then, my lord, I take my leave of you, with the most earnest assurance of my gratitude for the past, and a sincere offer of any services I may be able to render in the future.’
‘Archer,’ exclaimed Lord Windermoor, ‘I love you like a son. Le’ ’s have another bowl.’
‘My lord, for both our sakes, you will excuse me,’ replied Mr. Archer. ‘We both require caution; we must both, for some while at least, avoid the chance of a pursuit.’
‘Archer,’ quoth his lordship, ‘this is a rank ingratishood. What? I’m to go firing away in the dark in the cold po’chaise, and not so much as a game of écarté possible, unless I stop and play with the postillion, the postillion; and the whole country swarming with thieves and rascals and highwaymen.’
‘I beg your lordship’s pardon,’ put in the landlord, who now appeared in the doorway to announce the chaise, ‘but this part of the North Road is known for safety. There has not been a robbery, to call a robbery, this five years’ time. Further south, of course, it’s nearer London, and another story,’ he added.
‘Well, then, if that’s so,’ concluded my lord, ‘le’ ’s have t’other bowl and a pack of cards.’
‘My lord, you forget,’ said Archer, ‘I might still gain; but it is hardly possible for me to lose.’
‘Think I’m a sharper?’ inquired the peer. ‘Gen’leman’s parole’s all I ask.’
But Mr. Archer was proof against these blandishments, and said farewell gravely enough to Lord Windermoor, shaking his hand and at the same time bowing very low. ‘You will never know,’ says he, ‘the service you have done me.’ And with that, and before my lord had finally taken up his meaning, he had slipped about the table, touched Nance lightly but imperiously on the arm, and left the room. In face of the outbreak of his lordship’s lamentations she made haste to follow the truant.
CHAPTER II – IN WHICH MR. ARCHER IS INSTALLED
The chaise had been driven round to the front door; the courtyard lay all deserted, and only lit by a lantern set upon a window-sill. Through this Nance rapidly led the way, and began to ascend the swellings of the moor with a heart that somewhat fluttered in her bosom. She was not afraid, but in the course of these last passages with Lord Windermoor Mr. Archer had ascended to that pedestal on which her fancy waited to instal him. The reality, she felt, excelled her dreams, and this cold night walk was the first romantic incident in her experience.
It was the rule in these days to see gentlemen unsteady after dinner, yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side with the most airy divagations. Sometimes he would get so close to her that she must edge away; and at others lurch clear out of the track and plough among deep heather. His courtesy and gravity meanwhile remained unaltered. He asked her how far they had to go; whether the way lay all upon the moorland, and when he learned they had to pass a wood expressed his pleasure. ‘For,’ said he, ‘I am passionately fond of trees. Trees and fair lawns, if you consider of it rightly, are the ornaments of nature, as palaces and fine approaches – ’ And here he stumbled into a patch of slough and nearly fell. The girl had hard work not to laugh, but at heart she was lost in admiration for one who talked so elegantly.
They had got to about a quarter of a mile from the ‘Green Dragon,’ and were near the summit of the rise, when a sudden rush of wheels arrested them. Turning and looking back, they saw the post-house, now much declined in brightness; and speeding away northward the two tremulous bright dots of my Lord Windermoor’s chaise-lamps. Mr. Archer followed these yellow and unsteady stars until they dwindled into points and disappeared.
‘There goes my only friend,’ he said. ‘Death has cut off those that loved me, and change of fortune estranged my flatterers; and but for you, poor bankrupt, my life is as lonely as this moor.’
The tone of his voice affected both of them. They stood there on the side of the moor, and became thrillingly conscious of the void waste of the night, without a feature for the eye, and except for the fainting whisper of the carriage-wheels without a murmur for the ear. And instantly, like a mockery, there broke out, very far away, but clear and jolly, the note of the mail-guard’s horn. ‘Over the hills’ was his air. It rose to the two watchers on the moor with the most cheerful sentiment of human company and travel, and at the same time in and around the ‘Green Dragon’ it woke up a great bustle of lights running to and fro and clattering hoofs. Presently after, out of the darkness to southward, the mail grew near with a growing rumble. Its lamps were very large and bright, and threw their radiance forward in overlapping cones; the four cantering horses swarmed and steamed; the body of the coach followed like a great shadow; and this lit picture slid with a sort of ineffectual swiftness over the black field of night, and was eclipsed by the buildings of the ‘Green Dragon.’
Mr. Archer turned abruptly and resumed his former walk; only that he was now more steady, kept better alongside his young conductor, and had fallen into a silence broken by sighs. Nance waxed very pitiful over his fate, contrasting an imaginary past of courts and great society, and perhaps the King himself, with the tumbledown ruin in a wood to which she was now conducting him.
‘You must try, sir, to keep your spirits up,’ said she. ‘To be sure this is a great change for one like you; but who knows the future?’
Mr. Archer turned towards her in the darkness, and she could clearly perceive that he smiled upon her very kindly. ‘There spoke a sweet nature,’ said he, ‘and I must thank you for these words. But I would not have you fancy that I regret the past for any happiness found in it, or that I fear the simplicity and hardship of the country. I am a man that has been much tossed about in life; now up, now down; and do you think that I shall not be able to support what you support – you who are kind, and therefore know how to feel pain; who are beautiful, and therefore hope; who are young, and therefore (or am I the more mistaken?) discontented?’
‘Nay, sir, not that, at least,’ said Nance; ‘not discontented. If I were to be discontented, how should I look those that have real sorrows in the face? I have faults enough, but not that fault; and I have my merits too, for I have a good opinion of myself. But for beauty, I am not so simple but that I can tell a banter from a compliment.’
‘Nay, nay,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘I had half forgotten; grief is selfish, and I was thinking of myself and not of you, or I had never blurted out so bold a piece of praise. ’Tis the best proof of my sincerity. But come, now, I would lay a wager you are no coward?’
‘Indeed, sir, I am not more afraid than another,’ said Nance. ‘None of my blood are given to fear.’
‘And you are honest?’ he returned.
‘I will answer for that,’ said she.
‘Well, then, to be brave, to be honest, to be kind, and to be contented, since you say you are so – is not that to fill up a great part of virtue?’
‘I fear you are but a flatterer,’ said Nance, but she did not say it clearly, for what with bewilderment and satisfaction, her heart was quite oppressed.
There could be no harm, certainly, in these grave compliments; but yet they charmed and frightened her, and to find favour, for reasons however obscure, in the eyes of this elegant, serious, and most unfortunate young gentleman, was a giddy elevation, was almost an apotheosis, for a country maid.
But she was to be no more exercised; for Mr. Archer, disclaiming any thought of flattery, turned off to other subjects, and held her all through the wood in conversation, addressing her with an air of perfect sincerity, and listening to her answers with every mark of interest. Had open flattery continued, Nance would have soon found refuge in good sense; but the more subtle lure she could not suspect, much less avoid. It was the first time she had ever taken part in a conversation illuminated by any ideas. All was then true that she had heard and dreamed of gentlemen; they were a race apart, like deities knowing good and evil. And then there burst upon her soul a divine thought, hope’s glorious sunrise: since she could understand, since it seemed that she too, even she, could interest this sorrowful Apollo, might she not learn? or was she not learning? Would not her soul awake and put forth wings? Was she not, in fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but a touch to become royal? She saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in the most exquisite taste: her face grown longer and more refined; her tint etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted wonder talking like a book.
Meanwhile they had arrived at where the track comes out above the river dell, and saw in front of them the castle, faintly shadowed on the night, covering with its broken battlements a bold projection of the bank, and showing at the extreme end, where were the habitable tower and wing, some crevices of candle-light. Hence she called loudly upon her uncle, and he was seen to issue, lantern in hand, from the tower door, and, where the ruins did not intervene, to pick his way over the swarded courtyard, avoiding treacherous cellars and winding among blocks of fallen masonry. The arch of the great gate was still entire, flanked by two tottering bastions, and it was here that Jonathan met them, standing at the edge of the bridge, bent somewhat forward, and blinking at them through the glow of his own lantern. Mr. Archer greeted him with civility; but the old man was in no humour of compliance. He guided the newcomer across the court-yard, looking sharply and quickly in his face, and grumbling all the time about the cold, and the discomfort and dilapidation of the castle. He was sure he hoped that Mr. Archer would like it; but in truth he could not think what brought him there. Doubtless he had a good reason – this with a look of cunning scrutiny – but, indeed, the place was quite unfit for any person of repute; he himself was eaten up with the rheumatics. It was the most rheumaticky place in England, and some fine day the whole habitable part (to call it habitable) would fetch away bodily and go down the slope into the river. He had seen the cracks widening; there was a plaguy issue in the bank below; he thought a spring was mining it; it might be to-morrow, it might be next day; but they were all sure of a come-down sooner or later. ‘And that is a poor death,’ said he, ‘for any one, let alone a gentleman, to have a whole old ruin dumped upon his belly. Have a care to your left there; these cellar vaults have all broke down, and the grass and hemlock hide ’em. Well, sir, here is welcome to you, such as it is, and wishing you well away.’
And with that Jonathan ushered his guest through the tower door, and down three steps on the left hand into the kitchen or common room of the castle. It was a huge, low room, as large as a meadow, occupying the whole width of the habitable wing, with six barred windows looking on the court, and two into the river valley. A dresser, a table, and a few chairs stood dotted here and there upon the uneven flags. Under the great chimney a good fire burned in an iron fire-basket; a high old settee, rudely carved with figures and Gothic lettering, flanked it on either side; there was a hinge table and a stone bench in the chimney corner, and above the arch hung guns, axes, lanterns, and great sheaves of rusty keys.
Jonathan looked about him, holding up the lantern, and shrugged his shoulders, with a pitying grimace. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘See the damp on the floor, look at the moss; where there’s moss you may be sure that it’s rheumaticky. Try and get near that fire for to warm yourself; it’ll blow the coat off your back. And with a young gentleman with a face like yours, as pale as a tallow-candle, I’d be afeard of a churchyard cough and a galloping decline,’ says Jonathan, naming the maladies with gloomy gusto, ‘or the cold might strike and turn your blood,’ he added.
Mr. Archer fairly laughed. ‘My good Mr. Holdaway,’ said he, ‘I was born with that same tallow-candle face, and the only fear that you inspire me with is the fear that I intrude unwelcomely upon your private hours. But I think I can promise you that I am very little troublesome, and I am inclined to hope that the terms which I can offer may still pay you the derangement.’
‘Yes, the terms,’ said Jonathan, ‘I was thinking of that. As you say, they are very small,’ and he shook his head.
‘Unhappily, I can afford no more,’ said Mr. Archer. ‘But this we have arranged already,’ he added with a certain stiffness; ‘and as I am aware that Miss Holdaway has matter to communicate, I will, if you permit, retire at once. To-night I must bivouac; to-morrow my trunk is to follow from the “Dragon.” So if you will show me to my room I shall wish you a good slumber and a better awakening.’
Jonathan silently gave the lantern to Nance, and she, turning and curtseying in the doorway, proceeded to conduct their guest up the broad winding staircase of the tower. He followed with a very brooding face.
‘Alas!’ cried Nance, as she entered the room, ‘your fire black out,’ and, setting down the lantern, she clapped upon her knees before the chimney and began to rearrange the charred and still smouldering remains. Mr. Archer looked about the gaunt apartment with a sort of shudder. The great height, the bare stone, the shattered windows, the aspect of the uncurtained bed, with one of its four fluted columns broken short, all struck a chill upon his fancy. From this dismal survey his eyes returned to Nance crouching before the fire, the candle in one hand and artfully puffing at the embers; the flames as they broke forth played upon the soft outline of her cheek – she was alive and young, coloured with the bright hues of life, and a woman. He looked upon her, softening; and then sat down and continued to admire the picture.
