When Malcolm at length reached his lodging, he found
there a letter from Miss Horn, containing the much
desired information as to where the schoolmaster was
to be found in the London wilderness. It was
now getting rather late, and the dusk of a spring night
had begun to gather; but little more than the breadth
of the Regent’s Park lay between him and his
best friend—his only one in London—
and he set out immediately for Camden Town.
The relation between him and his late schoolmaster
was indeed of the strongest and closest. Long
before Malcolm was born, and ever since, had Alexander
Graham loved Malcolm’s mother; but not until
within the last few months had he learned that Malcolm
was the son of Griselda Campbell. The discovery
was to the schoolmaster like the bursting out of a
known flower on an unknown plant. He knew then,
not why he had loved the boy, for he loved every one
of his pupils more or less, but why he had loved him
with such a peculiar tone of affection.
It was a lovely evening. There had been rain
in the afternoon as Malcolm walked home from the Pool,
but before the sun set it had cleared up; and as he
went through the park towards the dingy suburb, the
first heralds of the returning youth of the year met
him from all sides in the guise of odours—not
yet those of flowers, but the more ethereal if less
sweet, scents of buds and grass, and ever pure earth
moistened with the waters of heaven. And to his
surprise he found that his sojourn in a great city,
although as yet so brief, had already made the open
earth with its corn and grass more dear to him and
wonderful. But when he left the park, and crossed
the Hampstead Road into a dreary region of dwellings
crowded and commonplace as the thoughts of a worshipper
of Mammon, houses upon houses, here and there shepherded
by a tall spire, it was hard to believe that the spring
was indeed coming slowly up this way.
After not a few inquiries, he found himself at a stationer’s
shop, a poor little place, and learned that Mr Graham
lodged over it, and was then at home.
He was shown up into a shabby room, with an iron bedstead,
a chest of drawers daubed with sickly paint, a table
with a stained red cover, a few bookshelves in a recess
over the washstand, and two chairs seated with haircloth.
On one of these, by the side of a small fire in a
neglected grate, sat the schoolmaster reading his
Plato. On the table beside him lay his Greek New
Testament, and an old edition of George Herbert.
He looked up as the door opened, and, notwithstanding
his strange dress, recognising at once his friend
and pupil, rose hastily, and welcomed him with hand
and eyes, and countenance, but without word spoken.
For a few moments the two stood silent, holding each
the other’s hand, and gazing each in the other’s
eyes, then sat down, still speechless, one on each
side of the fire.
