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Page 42
"And is that all, papa? If that be all, let us leave it, and have
light hearts elsewhere: if that be all, let us go. Oh, papa, you and
I could be happy if we had only bread to eat, so long as our hearts
were light."
And Eleanor's face was lighted up with enthusiasm as she told her
father how he might banish all his care; and a gleam of joy shot
across his brow as this idea of escape again presented itself, and
he again fancied for a moment that he could spurn away from him the
income which the world envied him; that he could give the lie to that
wielder of the tomahawk who had dared to write such things of him in
_The Jupiter_; that he could leave Sir Abraham, and the archdeacon,
and Bold, and the rest of them with their lawsuit among them, and
wipe his hands altogether of so sorrow-stirring a concern. Ah, what
happiness might there be in the distance, with Eleanor and him in some
small cottage, and nothing left of their former grandeur but their
music! Yes, they would walk forth with their music books, and their
instruments, and shaking the dust from off their feet as they went,
leave the ungrateful place. Never did a poor clergyman sigh for a warm
benefice more anxiously than our warden did now to be rid of his.
"Give it up, papa," she said again, jumping from his knees and
standing on her feet before him, looking boldly into his face; "give
it up, papa."
Oh, it was sad to see how that momentary gleam of joy passed away;
how the look of hope was dispersed from that sorrowful face, as the
remembrance of the archdeacon came back upon our poor warden, and he
reflected that he could not stir from his now hated post. He was as
a man bound with iron, fettered with adamant: he was in no respect a
free agent; he had no choice. "Give it up!" Oh if he only could:
what an easy way that were out of all his troubles!
"Papa, don't doubt about it," she continued, thinking that his
hesitation arose from his unwillingness to abandon so comfortable
a home; "is it on my account that you would stay here? Do you
think that I cannot be happy without a pony-carriage and a fine
drawing-room? Papa, I never can be happy here, as long as there is a
question as to your honour in staying here; but I could be gay as the
day is long in the smallest tiny little cottage, if I could see you
come in and go out with a light heart. Oh! papa, your face tells so
much; though you won't speak to me with your voice, I know how it is
with you every time I look at you."
How he pressed her to his heart again with almost a spasmodic
pressure! How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from his old
eyes! How he blessed her, and called her by a hundred soft sweet
names which now came new to his lips! How he chid himself for ever
having been unhappy with such a treasure in his house, such a jewel on
his bosom, with so sweet a flower in the choice garden of his heart!
And then the floodgates of his tongue were loosed, and, at length,
with unsparing detail of circumstances, he told her all that he
wished, and all that he could not do. He repeated those arguments
of the archdeacon, not agreeing in their truth, but explaining his
inability to escape from them;--how it had been declared to him that
he was bound to remain where he was by the interests of his order,
by gratitude to the bishop, by the wishes of his friends, by a sense
of duty, which, though he could not understand it, he was fain to
acknowledge. He told her how he had been accused of cowardice, and
though he was not a man to make much of such a charge before the
world, now in the full candour of his heart he explained to her that
such an accusation was grievous to him; that he did think it would be
unmanly to desert his post, merely to escape his present sufferings,
and that, therefore, he must bear as best he might the misery which
was prepared for him.
And did she find these details tedious? Oh, no; she encouraged him
to dilate on every feeling he expressed, till he laid bare the inmost
corners of his heart to her. They spoke together of the archdeacon,
as two children might of a stern, unpopular, but still respected
schoolmaster, and of the bishop as a parent kind as kind could be, but
powerless against an omnipotent pedagogue.
And then when they had discussed all this, when the father had told
all to the child, she could not be less confiding than he had been;
and as John Bold's name was mentioned between them, she owned how well
she had learned to love him,--"had loved him once," she said, "but she
would not, could not do so now--no, even had her troth been plighted
to him, she would have taken it back again;--had she sworn to love
him as his wife, she would have discarded him, and not felt herself
forsworn, when he proved himself the enemy of her father."
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