Thompson kindly offered to accompany me on the following morning to the inn from which I was destined to depart, but I would not hear of it. He was full of business; had little time to spare, and none to throw away upon me. I begged him not to think of it, and he acquiesced in my wishes. We were sitting together, and his wife and children had an hour or two previously retired to rest.
"Them's good children, ain't they, Stukely?" enquired Thompson, after having made a long pause.
"You may well be proud of them," I answered.
"It looked nice of 'em to make you a little present of something before you went. But it was quite right. That's just as it should be. I like that sort of thing, especially when a man understands the sperrit that a thing's given with. Now, some fellows would have been offended if any thing had been offered 'em. How I do hate all that!"
"I assure you, Thompson, I feel deeply their kind treatment of their friend. I shall never forget it."
"Well, now, I am so happy to hear it, you can't think," continued Thompson, fumbling about his breeches pocket, and drawing from it at length something which he concealed in his fist. "There, take that," he suddenly exclaimed; "take it, my old fellow, and God bless you. It's no good trying to make a fuss about it."
"No, Thompson," I replied, "I cannot accept it. Do not think me proud or ungrateful; but I have no right to take it."
"It's only twenty guineas, man, and I can afford it. Now look, Stukely, you are going to leave me. If you don't take it, you'll make me as wretched as the day is long. You are my friend, and my friend mustn't go amongst strangers without an independent spirit. If you have twenty guineas in your pocket, you needn't be worrying yourself about little things. You'll find plenty of ways to make the money useful. You shall pay me, if you like, when you grow rich, and we meets again; but take it now, and make John Thompson happy."
In the lap of nature the troubled mind gets rest; and the wounds of the heart heal rapidly, once delivered there, safe from contact with the infectious world; and the bosom of the nursing mother is not more powerful or quick to lull the pain and still the sobs of her distressed ones. It is the sanctuary of the bruised spirit, and to arrive at it is to secure shelter and to find repose. Peace, eternal and blessed, birthright and joy of angels, whither do those glimpses hover that we catch of thee in this tumultuous life, weak, faint, and transient though they be, melting the human soul with heavenly tranquillity? Whither, if not upon the everlasting hills, where the brown line divides the sky, or on the gentle sea, where sea and sky are one--a liquid cupola--or in the leafy woods and secret vales, where beauty lends her thrilling voice to silence? How often will the remembrance only of one bright spot--a vision of Paradise rising over the dull waste of my existence--send a glow of comfort to my aged heart, and a fresh feeling of repose which the harsh business of life cannot extinguish or disturb! And what a fair history comes with that shadowy recollection! How much of passionate condensed existence is involved in it, and how mysteriously, yet naturally connected with it, seem all the noblest feelings of my imperfect nature! The scene of beauty has become "a joy for ever."