As for the state of my mind, I can say no more about it than I have said already.
If I can trust my memory I may, however, mention that my thoughts were now more busy with Miss Urban than with her niece. I had turned a deaf ear to Mira’s entreaties at the time; but they had their own irresistible influence when I found myself alone; and they led me to the conviction that the schoolmistress must be answerable for what had befallen me since I entered her house. How was she answerable? To find the right reply to this, was the one obstacle that no effort of mine could overcome. There was a provocation in constantly trying, and constantly failing, to hit on a reasonable interpretation of what Mira had said, which ended in making me too restless to remain in my place of repose. I left the pleasant shade, and wandered away; still battling with my difficulties, and neither knowing nor caring whither I went.
On a sudden, I found myself called back to present things, oddly enough, by a pull at my coat-tail.
Looking around, I discovered a little boy who seemed to be about five or six years of age — a really pretty child, with bright merry eyes and beautiful dark red hair. Here no doubt was the fatal creature who had caused me such suffering when I heard who his mother was. If he had not spoken first, I am afraid I should have gone on without taking any notice of him.
‘Do come, sir, and see my garden.’
He took hold of my hand as he preferred that request, and he looked up in my face with a smile, so innocent and so pretty, that Herod himself must have felt the charm of it.
We took the way to his garden, ‘My little man,’ I said, ‘suppose you tell me your name?’
‘The boys call me Blazes — because of my red hair.’
‘Have you no other name besides that?’
‘Yes; I’m Kit.’
‘Well, Kit, and who do you belong to?’
‘I belong to Aunt Urban.’
‘Have you got no father and mother?’
‘I don’t know that I’ve got a father. They tell me mother lives far away, somewhere.’
‘Have you any playfellows?’
The child shook his head: ‘I’m left to play by myself. Here’s my garden.’
It was a barren little spot in a corner between two walls. Kit’s pride in his few sickly-looking flowers, and his small crookedly directed walks, might have made some people laugh; it made me feel readier to cry.
‘I hope you like my garden?’ the boy said.
‘Indeed I do like it.’
‘And you call me a good boy?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘I like to be praised — I don’t get much of it,’ poor little Kit confessed. He took up his small toy spade. ‘I want to make a new walk. You’re a goodnatured fellow. Will you help me?’
I marked out the course of a new path, and left him hard at work on it. The sooner we separated the better it would be for me: the poor boy innocently embittered my mind against the mother who had deserted him — who had ignored his existence at the very time when she had promised to be my wife. I was afraid to go back to her until I had mastered my own indignation by the help of time.
Walking straight on, and still failing to compose myself, experience reminded me of the comforting and companionable friend of man through the journey of life. In a moment more, my pipe and pouch were in my hand — but I had lost or mislaid the means of lighting the tobacco. While I was still vainly searching my pockets, I noticed a thin blue column of smoke rising through a clump of trees on my left hand. Advancing in that direction, I reached the limit of the grounds and discovered a gate with the customary Lodge by the side of it.
An old woman was knitting at an open window. I asked her if she would kindly give me a light for my pipe.
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‘Surely, sir,’ was the cheerful reply. ‘Please come round to the door.’
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