Her head bowed low; her bonnet drawn over her eyes; ignorant what course she took, and earnest only to discover any inlet into the country by which she might immediately quit the town; Juliet, with hurried footsteps, and trembling apprehensions, became again a Wanderer.
She passed through various streets, but, unacquainted with London, read, without any aid to her purpose, their names, till, printed in large characters, her eyes were struck with the word Piccadilly; and, presently, she was accosted by an ordinary man, who had a long whip in his hand, and who, holding open the door of a carriage, asked whether she would have a cast; saying that he was ready to set off immediately.
Finding that the vehicle was a stage-coach, she eagerly accepted the proposal, and seated herself next to an elderly woman.
The man demanded whether she meant to go all the way.
She answered in the affirmative; and, to her inexpressible satisfaction, was driven out of London.
Not to risk discovering to her fellow-travellers so extraordinary a circumstance, as that of beginning an excursion in utter ignorance where it might end, she forbore asking any questions; and left to the time of her alighting at the spot to which the stage was destined, her own acquaintance with her local situation.
It was not, therefore, till she descended from the coach, that she found that she had taken the road to Bagshot.
The immediate plan which, in her way, she had formed, was to enter the first shop that she saw open; thence to write to Gabriella; and then to stroll on to the nearest village, and lodge herself in the first clean cottage which could afford her a room.
The sight, however, of the Salisbury stage, gave her a desire to travel instantly further from London; and she asked whether there were a vacant place. She was immediately accommodated; and her journey thither, though long, and passed in dreadful apprehension, was without accident or event.
Arrived at Salisbury, she quitted the machine, and her fellow travellers, with whom she had scarcely exchanged a word; and, hoping that she was now out of the way of pursuit, she put her plan into execution, by writing a tranquillizing line to Gabriella, from a stationer’s shop; and then, set forth in search of a dwelling.
This was by no means easy to find. A solitary stranger, bearing her own small baggage, after travelling all night, was not very likely to be seen but with eyes of scrutiny and suspicion. Yet her air, her manner, and her language made her application always best received by the upper class of trades-people, who were most able to discern, that such belonged not to any vulgar or ordinary person: but, when they found that she enquired for a lodging, without giving any name, or any reference, they held back, alike, from granting her admission, or forwarding her wish by any recommendation.
The evident caution with which she hid as much as possible of her face, made the beauty of what was still necessarily visible, create as much ill opinion as admiration; though the perfect modesty of her deportment rescued her from receiving any offence.
In the smaller shops, and by the meaner and poorer sort of people, her carrying her parcel herself, levelled her, instantly, to their own rank; while her demand of assistance, her loneliness and even her loveliness, sunk her far beneath it, in their opinion; and, almost with one accord, they bluntly told her that she might find a lodging at an inn.
Helpless, distressed, she wandered some time in this fruitless research; too much self-occupied to remark the buildings, the neatness, the antiquities, or the singularities of the city which she was patrolling; till her eyes were caught by the little rivulets which, in most of the streets, separate the foot-path from the high-road, by perceiving two ruddy-cheeked, smiling little cherubs, attempting to paddle over one of them, and playing so incautiously, that they seemed every moment in danger of falling into the water.
She hastened towards them, to point out a bridge, somewhat higher up, by which they might more safely pass; but the elder child, a rosy boy, careless and sportive, heeded her not; till, finding the stream deeper than he expected, his little feet slipt, and he would inevitably have been under water, had not Juliet, with dextrous speed, caught him by the coat.
She aided him to scramble out, though with much difficulty, for he was wet through, and covered with mud. Frightened out of his little senses, he set up an unappeaseable cry; in which the other child, a pretty little girl, impelled by babyish though unconscious sympathy, joined, with all the vociferation which her feeble lungs were capable of emitting.
Juliet, with that kindness which childish helplessness ought always to inspire, soothed them with gentle words, and persuaded the boy to hasten to his home, that he might take off his wet cloaths before he caught cold. But they both sat down to cry at their leisure; though rather as if they did not understand, than as if they resisted her counsel.
Pitying their simple sufferings, she offered the boy a penny, to buy a gingerbread cake, if he would rise.
Quick, or rather immediate, now, was the transition from despondence to transport. The boy not merely wiped his eyes, and ceased his sobs, but, all smiles and delight, began a rapid prattling of where he should buy, and of what sort should be, his cake; while every word, rapturously, though indistinctly, was echoed by the little girl, not less slack in reviving.
The elasticity, however, of their little persons, kept not entirely pace with that of their spirits. The wet attire of the boy, which his seat on the dust had rendered as heavy as it was uncomfortable, nearly disabled him from rising; and his little sister, who had lost one of her shoes in the rivulet, had run a thorn into her foot, and could not stand without crying.
The children were not able to give any account of who they were that was intelligible; nor of whence they came, save that it was from a great, great way off. Unwilling to leave them in so pitiable a plight, Juliet, observing that the street, which led out of the town, was empty, looked for a clean spot, and, bending upon one knee, had just drawn out the splinter from the foot of the little girl, when the sound of the voice of a female, who was approaching, calling out, ‘Here I be, my loveys! here comes mammy!’ so miraculously electrified the little creatures, that, forgetting all impediment to motion, they bounded up, delighted; the boy no longer sensible to the weight of his wet garments, nor the girl to the tenderness of her hurt foot: and both capered to embrace the knees of their mammy; whose eyes alone could return their caresses; her hands being engaged in holding a heavy basket upon her head.
But when she perceived their condition, she anxiously demanded what had happened.
They both again began grievously to cry, while the boy related that he had been drowned, but that the dood ady (good lady) had come and saved his life: and the little girl, interrupting him every moment, kept presenting her foot, in telling a similar story of the kindness of the dood ady.
To Juliet scarcely a word of their narrations was intelligible; but, to the ears of their mother, accustomed to their dialect, their lisping and their imperfect speech, these prattling details were as potent in eloquence, as the most polished orations of Cicero or Demosthenes, are to those of the classical scholar.
The gratitude of the good woman for the services rendered to her little ones, was so warm and cordial, that she cried for joy, in pouring forth blessings upon the head of Juliet, for having lent so friendly a hand, she said, to her poor boy; and having done what she called so neighbourly a kindness by her dear little girl.
She had directed her children, she said, to go straight to Dame Goss’s, beyond the turnpike; having had business to transact at a house which they could not enter; but the little dearys were not yet come to their memory; and, but for so good a friend, the poor loveys might have lain in the wet and the mud, till they had been half choaked.
Seeing the children thus safely restored to their best friend, Juliet meant to continue her solitary search; but the good woman, judging from her kind offices, that there was nothing to fear from her disdain; and concluding from her parcel, that there was nothing to respect in her rank, frankly demanded her assistance, for helping on the children as far as to the turnpike; simply adding, that she would do as good a turn for her, in requital, another time; but that her basket was heavily laden, and the poor little things, one without its shoe, and the other in wet cloaths, would be but troublesome, in such a broiling sun, to pull all the way by her petticoat.
Cruelly experiencing want of succour herself, Juliet, always open to charity, was now more than usually ready to serve or oblige. With the utmost alacrity, therefore, complying with the request, she deposited her packet in the poor woman’s basket; bound her pocket-handkerchief round the foot and ancle of the little girl; and then, taking a hand of each of the children, and gently alluring them on, by lively and playful talk, she conducted them to the turnpike; without any other difficulty than some fatigue to herself; which was amply compensated by the pleasure of helping the little innocents, and their affectionate mother; joined to the relief to her own feelings, afforded by a social exercise, that drew her, for a while, from her fearful reflections.
The woman, charmed by such kindness, begged to have the direction of Juliet, that she might call to thank her, when next she came to Salisbury; whither some business commonly brought her every four or five months.
Juliet was obliged to confess herself a mere passenger; but asked, in return, the name and address of her new acquaintance.
Margery Fairfield, she answered, was her name, and she............