Leonard Fairfield

“ And the conqueror would be the ruder and the coarser. Let me pursue those ideas that, though they have but flitted across me, vague and formless, have ever soared towards the sunlight. No matter whether or not they lead to fortune or to fame,—at least they will lead me upward! Knowledge for itself I desire; what care I if it be not power!”
“Enough,” said Harley, with a pleased smile at his young companion’s outburst. “As you decide so shall it be settled. And now permit me, if not impertinent, to ask you a few questions. Your name is Leonard Fairfield?” ”

“ But when the doctor, in admiration at a simplicity which contrasted so evident an intelligence, finally asked him his name and connections, and Leonard told them, the homoeopathist actually started. "Leonard Fairfield, grandson of my old friend, John Avenel of Lansmere! I must shake you by the hand. Brought up by Mrs. Fairfield!—
"Ah, now I look, strong family likeness,—very strong"
The tears stood in the doctor's eyes. "Poor Nora!" said he.
"Nora! Did you know my aunt?"
"Your aunt! Ah! ah! yes, yes! Poor Nora! she died almost in these arms,—so young, so beautiful. ”

“ When I listened to his grateful praises of your beneficence, and marked with melancholy pleasure the reverence in which he holds you, my heart swelled within me. I acknowledged the mysterious force of nature.”
HARLEY.—“Force of nature! You talk in riddles.”
MR. DALE (indignantly) .—“Oh, my Lord, how can you so disguise your better self? Surely in Leonard Fairfield you have long since recognized the son of Nora Avenel?”
Harley passed his hand over his face. “Ah,” thought he, “she lived to bear a son then,—a son to Egerton! Leonard is that son. ”

“ He began by reminding, or rather informing, Leonard Fairfield of all the instances of illustrious men afflicted by the injustice of others that occurred to his own excellent memory. He told him how the great Epictetus, when in slavery, had a master whose favourite amusement was pinching his leg, which, as the amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than the stocks. He also told him the anecdote of Lenny’s own gallant countryman, Admiral Byng, whose execution gave rise to Voltaire’s celebrated witticism, “En Angleterre on tue un admiral pour encourager les autres.” ”

“ But in this here willage there ben't a man, woman, nor child, as has any consarn for Squire or Parish, barring myself." It was just as he arrived at that misanthropical conclusion that Mr. Stirn beheld Leonard Fairfield walking very fast from his own home. The superintendent clapped on his hat, and stuck his right arm akimbo. "Hollo, you sir," said he, as Lenny now came in hearing, "where be you going at that rate?" ”

“ You must learn to think a little of others, lad. You sees how I sweats to serve the Squire! and you [Pg 385] must serve him too. Why, your mother's got the house and premishes almost rent free: you ought to have a grateful heart, Leonard Fairfield, and feel for his honor! Poor man! his heart is wellnigh bruk, I am sure, with the goings on."
Leonard opened his innocent blue eyes, while Mr. Stirn dolorously wiped his own. ”

“ The Squire struck his cane violently into the ground. "I would rather you had told me Black Bess had got the glanders. A young gentleman, coming to visit my son, struck and insulted in Hazeldean; a young gentleman—'sdeath, sir, a relation—his grandmother was a Hazeldean. I do believe Jemima's right, and the world's coming to an end! But Leonard Fairfield in the Stocks! What will the Parson say? and after such a sermon! 'Rich man, respect the poor!' And the good widow too; and poor Mark, who almost died in my arms. Stirn, you have a heart of stone! ”

“ With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fairfield, and got her to retire to bed; for she was, indeed, thoroughly exhausted. He then stepped forth into the road; musingly. All the stars were out; and Youth, in its troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars. Folding his arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured.
From this trance, for so it might be called, he was awakened by a voice in a decidedly London accent; and, turning hastily round, saw Mr. Avenel's very gentlemanlike butler. ”

“ Harley smiled, and took his departure, and left Genius at school with Common-Sense and Experience.
CHAPTER XX. While Leonard Fairfield had been obscurely wrestling against poverty, neglect, hunger, and dread temptation, bright had been the opening day and smooth the upward path of Randal Leslie. Certainly no young man, able and ambitious, could enter life under fairer auspices ”

“ Unluckily, Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized. Though Stirn at first kept his own counsel the tinker blabbed the whole affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So then Stirn told his story, as the tinker had told his own; both tales were very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern-boy had broken the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain ”

“ It is the attribute of the poet to seem always living, always a friend. Leonard felt as if some one very dear had been suddenly torn from his heart. He tried to console his mother; but her emotion was contagious, and he wept with her.
"And how long has she been dead?" he asked at last, in mournful accents.
"Many's the long year, many; but," added Mrs. Fairfield, rising, and putting her tremulous hand on Leonard's shoulder, "you'll just never talk to me about her—I can't bear it—it breaks my heart. I can bear better to talk of Mark—come down stairs—come."
"May I not keep these verses, mother? ”

“ Leonard sighed. He understood now how Mark Fairfield saw, in the homely features of his unlettered wife, the reflection of the sister's soul and face.
A few words told the final parting,—words that were a picture. The long friendless highway, stretching on—on—towards the remorseless city, and the doors of home opening on the desolate thoroughfare, and the old pollard-tree beside the threshold, with the ravens wheeling round it and calling to their young. He too had watched that threshold from the same desolate thoroughfare. He too had heard the cry of the ravens. ”

“ I will do more than apologize,—I will repair the wrong. Excuse me, Mr. Dale, I have one word to say in private to Leonard." He drew Fairfield aside.
"Avenel tells me that if you were to retire from this contest, it would be a sacrifice of inclination. Is it so?"
"My Lord, I have sorrows that I would fain forget; and though I at first shrunk from the strife in which I have been since engaged, yet now a literary career seems to me to have lost its old charm; and I find that, in public life, there is a distraction to the thoughts which embitter solitude, that books fail to bestow. ”

“ Amidst the cheers that followed this admirable sketch of the “loyal man,” Harley recognized Leonard’s enthusiastic voice. He turned sharply towards the young man: “Mr. Fairfield cheers this description of integrity, and its application; let him imitate the model set before him, and he may live to hear praise as genuine as mine from some friend who has tested his worth as I have tested Mr. Egerton’s. Mr. Fairfield is a poet: his claim to that title was disputed by one of the speakers who preceded me!—unjustly disputed! Mr. Fairfield is every inch a poet. ”

“ And there are few sights in the moral world more sublime than that which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus would bare the roofs to our survey—viz., a brave, patient, earnest human being, toiling his own arduous way, athwart the iron walls of penury, into the magnificent Infinite, which is luminous with starry souls.
So there sits Leonard the Self-taught in the little cottage alone; for though scarcely past the hour in which great folks dine, it is the hour in which small folks go to bed, and Mrs. Fairfield has retired to rest, while Leonard has settled to his books. ”

“ Avenel.
“Do not be alarmed, mother. He is the kindest—”
“Don't talk so; I can't bear it!” cried Mrs. Fairfield.
“No wonder you are affected by the recollection of all his benefits. But when once you have seen him, you will find yourself ever after at your ease. And so, pray, smile and look as good as you are; for I am proud of your open, honest look when you are pleased, mother. And he must see your heart in your face as I do.”
With this, Leonard put his arm round the widow's neck and kissed her. She clung to him fondly for a moment, and he felt her tremble from head to foot. ”

“ Fairfield has retired to rest, while Leonard has settled to his books. He had placed his table under the lattice, and from time to time he looked up and enjoyed the stillness of the moon. Well for him that, in reparation for those hours stolen from night, the hardy physical labor commenced with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they are, if they worked as many hours in the open air as my scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. ”

“ Fairfield, to prevent discovery, moved to a village at some distance. There her child died; and when she returned to Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, you passed as the son she had lost. Mark, I know, was as a father to you, for he had loved Nora: they had been children together."
"And she came to London,—London is strong and cruel," muttered Leonard. "She was friendless and deceived. I see all,—I desire to know no more. This father—he must in deed have been like those whom I have read of in books. To love, to wrong her,—that I can conceive ”

“ You see at once, though the writer does not mean to convey it, how far beyond the scope of her male companion flies the heavenward imagination of the girl. It is he who questions—it is she who answers; and soon there steals upon you, as you read, the conviction that the youth loves the girl, and loves in vain. All in this writing, though terse, is so truthful! Leonard, in the youth, already recognizes the rude, imperfect scholar—the village bard—Mark Fairfield. ”

“ He dated his letters from a small coffee-house near the bookseller’s, to which he occasionally went for his simple meals. He had a motive in this. He did not desire to be found out. Mr. Dale replied for himself and for Mrs. Fairfield, to the epistles addressed to these two. Riccabocca wrote also.
Nothing could be more kind than the replies of both. They came to Leonard in a very dark period in his life, and they strengthened him in the noiseless battle with despair.
If there be a good in the world that we do without knowing it, without conjecturing the effect it may have upon a human soul ”

“ The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in his head. "Sir, the ladies are getting very impatient, and say they'll go."
"Sir," said Leonard, with a strange calm return to the things about him, "I ask your pardon for taking up your time so long. I go now. I will never mention to my moth—I mean to Mrs. Fairfield—what I have learned, nor to any one. I will work my way somehow. If Mr. Prickett will keep me, I will stay with him at present; but I repeat, I cannot take Mrs. Avenel's money and be bound apprentice. Sir, you have been good and patient with me—Heaven reward you." ”

“ When Leonard returned home that evening, Mrs. Fairfield showed him the letter. It ran thus:
"Dear Jane,—Mr. Dale will tell you that we wish Leonard to come to us. We are glad to hear you are well. We forward, by Mr. Dale, a bank-note for £50, which comes from Richard, your brother. So no more at present from your affectionate parents,
"John and Margaret Avenel." ”

“ Fairfield!" exclaimed the butler, while the waiter walked discreetly on.
Leonard looked, and said nothing. The butler began to think that some apology was due for leaving his plate and his pantry, and that he might as well secure Leonard's propitiatory influence with his master.
"Please, sir," said he, touching his hat, "I was just a showing Mr. Giles the way to the Blue Bells, where he puts up for the night. I hope my master will not be offended. If you are a going back, sir, would you kindly mention it?"
"I am not going back, Jarvis," answered Leonard, after a pause; "I am leaving Mr. ”

“ Nevertheless, pleasure ran ahead of him, and in racing after it he came to grief, and had to mortgage his own private income of four hundred pounds to such an extent that it presently passed out of his hands and became the property of the money-lenders. His father and half-brother never failed him; they were living quietly and modestly in England, and every appeal Leonard made to them was promptly and affectionately responded to. He was not thankful for the assistance; there gathers upon some natures a crust of selfishness so thick as to deaden the sentiment of gratitude for kindness rendered. ”

“ The name of Fairfax was as good as a letter of introduction in the metropolis, and the Major had lived on it for years, on that and a carefully nursed little income—an habitue of the club, and a methodical cultivator of the art of dining out. A most agreeable man, and perhaps the wisest man in his generation in those things about which it would be as well not to know anything. ”

“ These unsatisfactory iterations produced no outward effect upon Leonard; he was a man who never showed his hand. With a pleasant smile he left the hotel thinking, "Now where the devil has the young fool gone? To make inquiries for his goddess, no doubt. Does that indicate impatience merely, or that he cannot trust me? I must no lose my hold on him. If it is necessary to humor him, humored he shall be. There is more than one way out of a wood." As a measure of precaution he walked in the direction of the house of the maiden sisters, and reaching it, walked slowly back toward the hotel. ”