Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/123

 26, 1862.] friend had put up his fishing-tackle. “Whither now?”

Sampson was approaching. Of course he had seen nobody but the porter. Only the porter and one other person,—the tailor of the establishment,—a fellow in sufficiently gay clothes, who was conferring with the porter about the time it would take to obtain some material for his work from London, if Stafford or Derby could not furnish it. It was a silken lining that was wanted; and some trimmings of a nature which Sampson understood. The tailor thought it lucky that the youth had arrived at that moment, and had desired him to prepare patterns of the commodity without delay, and carry them up himself.

Sampson was now dismissed to his loom, with a string of fish in his hand, and a silver coin in his pocket,—well satisfied with his morning’s work.

“Is that tailor your dark sentinel in light apparel?” asked Stansbury.

“No doubt. Can he make any profit of the youth?”

“He will find him a silk-weaver; and further, a stout Calvinist, fresh from Switzerland; and further, a fellow thoroughly familiar with the ways of this neighbourhood.”

Felton was silent; and the pair sauntered on into the forest. It was past the dinner hour, and yet far from supper time. They fancied that they might find dry wood in the sheltered part of the forest, where they might broil their fish.

They followed one path, and another, and another; but each led to some open space where snow was still lying, or where it had in melting soaked the wood which lay about. They were very hungry before they lighted on a track which soon led them within scent of wood-smoke. This track they pursued till it brought them in view of a low cottage, made of wattle, and plastered with clay, and thatched with fir-branches, from amidst which the thin blue smoke rose into the still air. Here was a fire ready made.

“Who lives here?” asked Felton; a question which was answered by a laugh from within, and an invitation to come in and see.

Having entered, the friends were no wiser. A man of middle age sat on the settle. A bundle of papers and books lay beside him: and, as far off as she could get,—that is, close by the door, sat a woman, across whose lap lay a sick child. When she looked up, and the child began to complain, Stansbury recognised her as his hostess. In great surprise, he asked whether she had actually brought that child all the way in her arms. Not altogether in her arms, she said: she had carried him on her back, part of the way. A mother would do much, she explained, for the hope of obtaining her child’s cure. She was urged to wait a little,—only a very short time, and Stansbury would help her home with her burden. But she would not hear of it. She must instantly depart. While Felton was talking with the man about broiling the fish, Dame Chell was bending her mind to humble entreaty that Stansbury would tell no one of her having been here. The explanation that she gave was that Dr. Pantlin, now her husband’s guest, was daily giving medical advice and physic, with his other ministrations: that thus far her child had been rather worse than better since the preacher’s prayers for him began: and she could not be satisfied without inquiring from a higher authority whether she was in a right or a wrong course. Stansbury promised everything she asked, and she turned to take her leave of the host. When, however, she saw the preparations made for cooking and eating within the house, she sank back upon her seat in evident consternation. She would not, or could not explain herself; but gathered up her forces, and crossed the threshold, tottering under her burden, and saying with white lips that it was the boldest deed she had ever heard of; and she feared it could never come to good.

“Did you hear what she said?” asked Stansbury, seeing that the host was smiling. “You heard her? What can her warning mean? It seems you are an apothecary. Is she afraid of your poisons?”

“She is afraid of my art. Persons who have an art—”

“You mean black art,” said Felton.

“What the ignorant call so. Those who have knowledge and skill are exiles, even more than the priests of your Church. Your priests are wandering in foreign countries, but they are among friends. I am living under the trees which I climbed for birds’-nests when a boy; but I am exiled from human society. No man will eat with me, or walk with me, or sit on the same bench, or open his mind as to a comrade.”

“We are not well enough acquainted to be comrades,” said Stansbury; “but we will dine together, and walk afterwards, if you will.”

The Wise Man carefully closed the door, and then sat down to the board; but he refused to appear abroad with his guests. Their generosity might ruin them, he said.

As his heart opened under the long lost pleasure of free conversation, his visitors could say anything they wished; and what they wished was to know what could compensate to him for such isolation as he incurred by his choice of a way of life. His reply was, that there was no choice in the case. He had sought knowledge early, thinking no harm; and one day—one terrible day—he discovered himself to be in possession of a knowledge, not only surpassing other persons’ in degree, but different in kind. Nothing could then be done: his fate was sealed. He could only endeavour to do good with his power, and take such pleasure as he could in the pursuit of wisdom. That pursuit had its pleasures, he emphatically declared.

“But, surely, you see human faces almost every day?” asked Felton. “How many days in the year pass without your hearing a human voice?”

“Formerly I was sometimes weeks together without hearing a footstep in the wood,” the Wise Man replied; “or worse, the boys that were nesting or gathering berries made game of me; or, if they were afraid of what I might do to them, I knew that their fathers scorned me. For the last ten years the fate of my order has been changing; and now we have attained nearly as much honour as perhaps we ever shall.”