The Path of Roses [A tale.] With illustrations

Chapter I. Umbrellas To Mend

HE rain was most uncompro mising. It delivered itself in close, continuous, and penetrat ing threads, woven across and across by gusts from the east, and puffs from the north ; and people hurried about like mice in a dreadful trap of wire gauze. Long before the dull gray night had withdrawn a shade or two, and become dull gray morning, the pitdess drizzle began ; and when the day darkened into evening, still fell the rain, ever so dense and ever so cold. Curtains, through which streamed comfortable B light and warmth, were drawn aside ; and Emily, looking with hopeless glances from the dun sky to the dark earth, remembered her mercies, and thanked Heaven that Frederick could come in a fly. While as for poor little Mary—thread ing her needle for the thousand-and-second time that day, she pricked her fingers as she remembered that John had absolutely no umbreda — as she remembered the pains she had been at to get up the old frock, and all that she might look nice when she went out with him the next clay, which was Sunday.

Tradespeople put their hands into their pockets, and told their wives that if that sort of thing went on many more Saturdays, they would apply for parochial redes. Passengers shivered under their umbrellas, as, with swift short paces, they flitted like forlorn ghosts along the pavements ; while the pavements themselves, flooded as they were, seemed to shiver in the light that struggled from street lamp and shop. But nobody shivered with such complete success as a certain thin and smad old man, who, so far as age went, was not so old as he looked by nearly a third ; and, as for um brellas, laboured under a superfluity of them. With five or six of various colours and sizes upon the ground at his feet, he stood at the corner of Blackfriars Bridge, and sent forth his thin old voice upon the night like the very spirit of the drizzle.

His incantations were these : " Strong um'rella for a shillin' !" and "A shillin' for a strong silk um'rella!" alternately repeated. But of what avail were his enchant ments ? They were lost, and of no avail. The charmer was very feeble, very tired, and, to tell one of those truths which ought to be kept strictly en famille, rather hungry. He would have said, " peckish : " hunger is a word which those who are best acquainted with the Wolf seldom mention. Our umbrella man's voice, therefore, was not strong ; it reached few ears ; and even they appeared heedless of the fact that strong silk umbredas were going for a shilling a piece. Still he chants the announcement. A shelterless figure beats up the road, his hands in his pockets — appa rently that he might steady the steerage that he made with his elbows — and his head thrust forward as if to bore his way through the thick falling rain.

" Strong um'rella for a shdlin'," falters the vender. The head continues its course; tacking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and, heed less of ad distress signals, beats steadily through the storm under a press of coat-collar : while the voice of Old Um brellas goes down the cold wind, and gets woven in with the melancholy rain. Church clocks sulkily told the hour. Judging from their tone, they had their collars up also ; from whence scarcely emerging, they said it was ten o'clock, adding with a mental growl that that was enough ! And ten o'clock it was. But the old man, to keep his heart up, said to himself that there was an excellent chance yet of disposing of a strong silk umbrella ; for the streams of passengers had scarcely thinned. In fact, at that moment another unsheltered head, thrust out exactly like the former, bore down towards him, evidently with intentions.

" Only a shillin' for a strong um'rella. Buy one, sir?" continued the old boy — thinking he had detected a purchaser. "Cuss your umberellas!" replied the undeviating head. The umbredas had been cursed before. The old man himself has been objurgated such a number of times that he came at length to accept that sort of thing as incidental to his profession. He was used to it, indeed, when to the world he was Harper and Co., coachmakers, of Long Acre. But on this occasion he retreated — all abashed and ashamed of himself. For several minutes after that, the old man suffered the people of Babylon to pour themselves away, without asserting his mission. He was not a man of hardened heart, or of particularly stiff neck ; and he felt the rebuke. It fell, indeed, with a half-numbing, half-soothing effect on his weary old nerves ; he began to feel that perhaps the head was right, and that he had no business to keep bawling out there in a manner certainly not respectable, when it was clear nobody wanted him to do so : and that it might be much more to his credit to go home.

He even began to act upon this feeling ; and had stooped to gather up precisely the same number of articles he had laid down four hours before, when a very small woman with an exceedingly large market-basket to the fore, and a still more disproportionate husband in her wake, came up. "Well! How much ? " inquired the little woman, rally ing all her forces round the umbrella man in the twinkling of an eve. " One shilling, ma'am !" feebly responded the enemy. "Oh! Rediclus! Give you sebmpence ! " She was a practised matron and housekeeper ; she knew the disadvan tages of her opponent, and accordingly brought all her forces into the field at once. "Come, now ! Give you sebmpence ! " "Ready, ma'am!" replied Old Umbrellas, retreating behind his trenches, and endeavouring to gain time, " that's too low.

It cost me sixpence 'fore ever I touched it with a tool. Did, indeed, ma'am. Say ten!" "Come on, Bill!" said the smad woman disgusted, and addressing her ponderous husband. But this was merely a feint to alarm the foe. " Say nine, then ! "—taken off his guard. " Shan't say a fard'n more'n sebm." It was the final charge. At this critical moment the huge husband, who, with a leg of pork dependent over his shoulder and an unwonted cigar excoriating his tongue, had hitherto employed himself as a corps of observation, brought himself into the field. "You take it, guv'nor ! " cried he, heavily nodding and winking in the rear of his intrepid ally. "You take it, guv'nor !" Old Umbrellas was overpowered by the nodding and winking, and gave in. "Here, Mrier!" added William, as he took possession ofthe umbrella, " I got the ha'pence."

He had been looking on while the affair lasted as attentively as he could (con sidering how much of his mind was occupied in arranging curses on the cigar he still insisted on smoking) — and he had discerned in the umbrella man what the poor are usually quick to detect and never slow to appreciate — the signs of " better days." It was on this account that he had taken upon himself tc conclude his wife's bargain. But that piquant little woman was not to be deceived. "Now, you Bill!" remonstrated she in a compound tone. " you've been and give more'n sebm !" The traitor took a step forward and blushed. " Never mind, Mrier," faltered he, " I've been a noticin' of our little boy lately ; and I think it's werry likely he'll be a old umbreda man. So you take it out of he /" And, in fact, on counting the pieces of money, old Harper found that they amounted to tenpence-halfpenny : the exact amount of change our luxurious stone-cutter had received from the lovely and fascinating young creature in blue who keeps the cigar-shop round the corner. b The clocks, coming out of their collars once more, declared that the eleventh hour was past ; upon which Harper glanced once more at the proceeds of the evening. dropped the money with extraordinary carelessness into his pocket, and prepared to return home — with carelessness, because it suddenly seemed to him that, good-fortune or ill, it was of no consequence.

Whatever the cause, for the first time he looked upon tenpence-halfpenny without an emotion. For the first time, perhaps, ever since the unselfish days of youth had passed away, he felt that money really was dross. And as he tried to urge his tired feet into a trot, and failed, a certain sore and ominous sickness flooded his heart with this old conviction : you cannot carry money with you to the grave. Not even so little as tenpence. You cannot cam money with you to the grave. The sentiment is trite enough. We are ad in the habit of quoting it, with particular and unctuous application to such of our friends as are not good lenders. Poor old Harper had often quoted the hackney phrase, not only in reference to other people but also to his own individual case and ca pability ; but hitherto there seemed this comfort to rearward — as now with you, O reader ! — that in ad probability he had a long way to carry it before he came to the grave.

How happened it, then, that now this comfort seemed to be taken away? He knew wed enough, ordinarily, what rain and cold were ; he had made his bread in them and by them several long years ; then what was there in the chill drizzle of that April night to wash away the dim and shadowy bulwarks which Life ever advances towards Death ? And the tramping of horses' hoofs, and the dripping of the shower — where did they learn the laws of harmony, that they should set that trite piece of morals to music, and chant with a melancholy fall into his ears, continually, continually, that you cannot carry money to the grave ? Or of all the angels that whisper to Earth from the borders of Heaven, who so quaint as to point the moral of Dives with the small sum of tenpence-halfpenny ? These ideas trespassed upon the man's mind as slowly he went home ; and the spirit of childhood returning, he cautiously chew the coins out of his pocket, glancing at them as he passed under a lamp, to see what he could make out of it that way- Nothing, however, was to be made out of it that way, nor any way ; except that he was weary, and wet, and cold, and hungry, and feeble, and in spirit altogether broken down — now with a sickness within him, like fire choked in its own great smoke.

And further, this was to be made of it : if he could not carry the price of a strong silk umbrella to the grave, he could leave it on the table for Charlie. Old Umbrellas neither slackened nor hastened his pace as he came to this conclusion, and dwelt upon it. How long this conclusion had been coming to him — how often the meanings it meant had gathered their clouds under his shabby old hat, can only be estimated, perhaps, by the number of penndess days he had lately sickened through. At any rate. he seemed reconciled to them at presentation, for ad their vagueness and strangeness — jogging home at a sad mecha nical pace, as if his legs were worked by crank a-piece, in default of knees. His course was shaped to what is called in the metropolis the Surrey side of the water. Speedily quitting the main thoroughfare, the old man bore down one dark street and up another ; and so arrived at home.

It was a tad, commodious house, and had been important in the days when the prim and spindled railings — reminding one of all his aunts of that generation — were new, and the great extinguishers on each side the doorway had uses for society. At this time, how ever, not even the doorway had any uses for Umbrellas. He resided exclusively in the kitchen ; and his way thereto was in at the area-gate and clown the steps of the area. Arrived at the house, he returned the polite " good evening" of his landlord, Mr. Kiddle (who stood at the door listening with irrepressible emotion to the retreating sound of " Beer, oh !") the cranks worked him clown the ladder, and, lifting the latch, old Harper was at home. No matter that the carpet was of sand, and the hearthrug very like a sack. No matter that the chairs had suffered indiscriminate amputation, or that the cat had turned her back upon a fire it was not worth her while to wink at.

Nevertheless, here was home. A candle burning on the table, cast dim and melancholy looks on the departing fire, like a widow — sad in weeds of wick and abandoned in tallowv tears. There was also a boy asleep by the hearth. Harper observed these things as he entered ; and ere he deposited his unsold wares in their accustomed corner, addressed him self to the dip with a comfortable application of the snuffers : whereupon the poor thing revived, and evidently felt much better. He then returned to mend the fire, and sat clown and looked at it. At that same time, but miles and miles away among the coal-fields of the north, a miner sat and looked at the fire too. Like old Harper, he saw faces in it. In the dim perspective ofthe fire, in its dull red heart, he spied his brother Mark's face, and the faces of Abrm and Joe ; nearer and brighter, he saw the six-year old face of his own little girl Martha : and the light flickered over all these faces and made them alive.

A ruddy glow breathed brightly over them, and the miner thought of the time when he and all (save Martha) who were known by those faces played together among the saharas of ashes which surrounded the pit's mouth. A shadow disfigured the countenance of one of them, and the miner recognised the identical black eye he had branded Abrm with, when he "fit" him with one hand. But the smile elicited by this apparition — a smile certainly not so melancholy as a moral man might desire — scarce darkened upon the miner's lips when the faces in the fire grew older ; and suddenly they all — Mark's and Joe's, and Abrm's, and that of his own dear little girl, were swept with a swift agony, became gray as ashes, then dark as death. The miner's heart also seemed to crumble to ashes as he remembered how thus they were ad blasted together in the cruel caverns of the pit.

Well might he start and shiver — though of course there was no occasion to swear ; for were not these the ghosts of the fore gone, imprisoned in the coal, and now first released ? At any rate, who could know that story better, or what mocking devd tell it better, than the coal-fire ? Wed, that was sad enough ; yet Harper, though neither starting nor trembling, but keeping his eyes calmly fixed upon the embers, saw sadder things than the miner. Plea sant things, too, some of them were, bearing fragrance in their memory ; but fragrance sickens to the sick sense. So when he saw the little old parsonage, opposite the little old church, both of which — (because they had so often seen the budding and the falling leaves — because they had so often seen out the old play of "From Cradle to Grave " — because they had had so many beautiful bright faces look through their casements, and not one that did not grow old, and pinched, and brown, and faded altogether away— because they were tired of the throbbing of so many hearts, that throbbed all alike, and ever the same — because, in short, they were so old and none would bury them) — had set about burying themselves, and were already sunk a few feet into their big graves — when he saw these, he did not perceive that it was altogether a delightful picture.

Not he. And then his mother, with her fair hair and soft mouth, came into the porch of the parsonage, where reposed the shadow of the church weathercock on summer afternoons : she came into the porch of the parsonage, looking for her children, coming home from the fields by the churchyard path, as by the churchyard path we all go Home. But that did not enliven the scene for the old umbreda-man. Picturesque as it was even in the coals — picturesque as it must have been to any one looking down from the neighbouring hill, to see her children run across the road to the happy mother, it was quite another thing to old Harper, gazing down into the past — that sad valley of shadows. Perhaps for this reason : He was once one of the children — one of the dttle ones who caught sight of mother as they turned the corner of the church, and ran to her, and not more truly went down into the house than down into her bosom ; and now, as we were all aware, he was nothing but an old umbrella-man.

Chapter II Mended

Between the kitchen on the Surrey side of the water, where, in cold and gloom, old Harper sat, to the sunny village and the summer clay, and little Tom Harper going home with field-spoils, the vista was long and dark ; with patches of light, indeed, and places of rest, and breaks of golden glade — but long and dark never- THE PATn OF ROSES. 20 theless. Philosophers and county poets delight in cutting short their existence. How do they uplift their eyes, and inquire What is Life ? And answer, that it is swift as a meteor ; passing as a cloud ; evanescent as a snowflake on the wing ; a raindrop fading to the ocean ; — by the boldest restricted to a moment's space, by the more cheerful allowed the limits of an April day. But then they measure Time by Sleep. They know how soon their score of years may be slumbered away, and their watches do run rapidly down between the evening and the morning.

But, alas ! not every suburban philosopher, or poet, is gifted with a part of that divinity to which, if a thousand years is as one day, a day is equally as a thousand years. The miner of whom something has been said, lived his threescore vears, good calendar measure, not more nor less. He lived for himself ; did his own daily duty ; worked as long as possible ; slept as little as possible, earned as much, and dined as wed, and drank beer as often as his neighbours ; took as much recreation as he cared for, and died his own way. Umbrellas had existed twice as long, and bore the proofs of it. Every week of his childhood, had not whole months of love and care been bestowed upon him — to say nothing of toys ? Did not the Day linger longest in the beautiful calm of his mother's home — stealing many an hour from the vicious, the idle, and those who cared not for them, or didn't know what to do with them, to add to the spring morning, or summer afternoon, or autumnal dusk, or winter evening, at the pious old parsonage ?

Then labour and suffering prolong the days; and Harper had laboured, and suffered, and consorted with suffering ; he had his bitter secrets, and not a few of other people's — secrets almost as hard to bear as an unquiet conscience, and which imposed upon him a second and separate existence, as it were, apart from his own. The shabby old fellow had had his love affair even — a regular affair too, in which all his heart was engaged when they were chddren in the happy vidage, and she wore poking white sun-bonnets to school, and walked ashamed of the length of her legs — she was so tall ; a love-affair which became very serious, involved his happiness, his fortune, wrecked him, buffeted his old hull from sea to sea, and cast him at length upon a dismal shore of old umbrellas. Ah ! how much better to be the shore than the ship ! the dead, impassive rock upon which storms vainly break, than the bark that foolishly rejoices because it seems to live — playing with the waves that by and by will dash it to pieces — laugh ingly shaking its sails in the winds by which it is to perish ! c THE PATH Ot' ROSES.

What says a poet unknown about that rock which I am sure I wish I were ? — " The summer breezes Kissed it lightly, And the sun shone on it Brightly, brightly. But there came not forth Of its cold, cold breast So much as to shelter The sea-mew's nest. There came not a leaf, There came not a spray, -Sot the heather brown, Nor the blossom gay ; The simpler came not, To pick with care The healing buds Of the balsam there. What ails thee, thou Rock. That still in vain The spring returns With its jocund train, So richly dight, So gaily sped, And finds no wreath On thy sullen head ? I looked again And the waters grew, They reached its base, They reached its brow : Again and again, With fearless shock, The billows broke O'er the lonely rock. But it trembled not As it passed them through, And it rose in smiles As the waves withdrew ; And its brow was decked With gems so bright, They seemed like drops Of the rainbow's light. 'Tis well !

And so O'er some beside Adversity flows With as rough a tide ; It rifles the heart Of the joys it bore, And it comes so oft, They will grow no more. But it leaves it firm, It leaves it bright, It leaves it decked With unearthly light ; In hallowed tears Serene to stand. As the lonely rock On the cold sea-strand." There's an example for us, if we would only follow it. But we are agreed that some of us can never be rocks, because we are ships : and — argosies, Indiamen, discoveryships, and men-of-war, yachts, colliers, and cock-boats — the winds we court are our destruction. What a glorious bark was the Tom Harper, when, with Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm, and Love breathing in the sails, he got out of Infancy Harbour into Life ! How often has he tried to get back into that harbour — Youth overboard, Pleasure in hospital, and the sails blown to rags !

But there is no return under any circumstances. The wind that blows off the land there, and gets you so easily over the bar, keeps you off for ever after ; and though we are able now and then, in certain calm seasons, to get back so near that the coast may be made out, and all its quiet and innocence, that is a poor pleasure. But let us get back to our story, and especiady to the poking sun-bonnet. We will say no more of the church, or the parsonage over the way. The weathercock of the one shall still steal its shadow into the porch of the other of a summer afternoon ; but what then may be the subject of gossip between them — even whether it be of the sweet mouthed mother, whom we know, we will not speculate upon at present. Nor how the sacred stories related by the house sanctified to Heaven may compare with the human stories that have been worked out in the other house, sanctified by household fires and the coming and departing breath of life.

Perhaps those who see the old building puded down will realise how great such a sanctity may be, and bow in reverence before that majesty of Life which leaves a presence on barren walls. At this point, I am again advised, if I mean to be popular, not to philosophise, but to be funny. So the poking sun-bonnet. Not that there was anything comical in that ; not that Charlotte Weirdon was a comical child — with her soft dark eyes and beautiful kindly forehead, and heavy hair ; not that it was by any means the fun of the thing which older people laughed over, when they observed the queer, wise, quiet affection which subsisted between her and little Tom Harper. Nor was it quite so comical as people did think, to see how they used to make ridiculous little presents to each other ; and how they used to steal away together to the quietest lane, to the widest common, to the most leafy copse, seeking big nuts for each other or the ripest berry.

Joskin, gentleman farmer, heehaw' cl at a tremendous rate when he came upon the children, one warm July evening, as they sat in the same deep copse with the brook running through it ; and saw the parson's son going softly with a dock-leaf, and coming back yet more softly with the leaf full of water ; and how Charlotte sat stid with wide lap, like a sulan's daughter, put her hands behind her, threw back her hair, and updfted her mouth while young Tom reverently held the water to her lips ; and how she looked in his face all the while she drank, and so very beautifudy said, " Thank you, dear Tom." "Lord!" cried the gentleman farmer, with his nose through the bushes, " lookee here ! They're sweetheartun, to be shewer ! Why, Master Tummas ! why, Charlotte Weird'n ! what be ye do-un here, just so sloy as a rabbut !

" And Lord ! what fun it was to see them start, and turn so red, and slink away, faithfully holding each other's hand ! But it was not so comical as Joskin said it was when he went home and told the dairymaids. It may be averred with equal truth that the ladies of the vidage saw no fun in Charlotte's growing so beautiful, as day by day she did ; in the grace of her figure ; in the proud air which was the natural adjunct of her person, and not of pride ; in the fact that she grew as much in good ness as in grace, and was innocent, and merry, and wise, and was already loved at the parsonage as a daughter. And how she left the vidage, and why she left the village, and what came of the journey — there was nothing very comical in that either, was there, Umbredas ? Eh ? But the old man's memory is swifter than my pen, I see.

While we have only seen Charlotte out of simplicity and sun-bonnets, into what changes has not old Harper followed her ? While we have only seen her emerge from childhood, to take Tom's place in the arms of his mother, whenever fae, her sweetheart, was absent, and wandering thence among the poppies scattered at the gate of the downward path — the rosy path ! — that never had a turning, the umbrella-man has c travelled through every stage of the story. Not an hour has passed since he began the retrospective journey, and yet it is plain, from the travail-marks on his face, that he has already traversed every step of a hard path now more than twenty years long. To him, then, a day may be as a thousand years ; and though life may ride out the tempest years by the score, in one hour her anchors may all come home.

The fire is nearly out. Only in one corner of the grate the embers burn fiercely ; but in that one corner the figures conjured up by the old man's fevered fancy seem to congregate, so earnestly does he stare at it ! Alas ! to look at him, his fire also is nearly out. Only in one corner of him — only in his eyes — the fire still burns. In fact, and in short, the burden of his troubles and trials, of many days of cold and rain, of humility and hunger, is finally down upon him. Had he possessed a little more penetration indeed, that is what he would have discovered when he tried to solve the question of the tenpence-halfpenny under the gas-lamp. " Why, father ?" cries little Charlie, who, roused by the falling of a very cold hand on his head, is wide awake, and has been looking at his father rather anxiously for some time, " what is the matter?"

The fierce spark in the old man's eyes flashes back into his heart, softening as it goes. "Matter, Charlie?" says he ; " matter, Charlie ? why, things are awful bad. I don't know what the poor '11 do this winter. Did you never hear of a patent for making bread out of sawdust ?" The low, absent tone, the eager yet faltering, searching. yet reserved expression of the poor old pinner's gaze as he asks this question, makes it more touching than ridiculous. Charlie, too, seems to be thinking of something else which he does not wish to betray, as he answers — "Sawdust? No. I wonder whether the little French princess who wanted the people to eat buns ever heard of it?" The question then dropped "Where's Crop?" asked Harper, after a long pause, during which he looked like a soldier with his last chance gone, desperately hurrying about him all his strength.