A Perilous Secret | Page 3

Grace had begun to cough, a little dry cough that struck
on the father's heart like a knell. Her mother had died of consumption:
were the seeds of that fatal malady in her child? If so, hardship, fatigue,
cold, and privation would develop them rapidly, and she would wither
away into the grave before his eyes. So he looked down on her in an
agony of foreboding, and shivered in his shirt sleeves, not at the cold,
but at the future. She, poor girl, was, like the animals, blessed with
ignorance of everything beyond the hour; and soon she woke her father
from his dire reverie with a cry of delight.
"Oh, what's they?" said she, and beamed with pleasure. Hope followed
the direction of her blue eyes, open to their full extent; and lo! there
was a little fleet of swans coming round a bend of the river. Hope told
her all about the royal birds, and that they belonged to sovereigns in
one district, to cities in another. Meantime the fair birds sailed on, and
passed stately, arching their snowy necks. Grace gloated on them, and
for a day or two her discourse was of swans.
At last, when very near the goal, misfortunes multiplied. They came
into a town on a tidal river, whence they could hope to drift down to
their destination for a shilling or two; but here Hope spent his last
farthing on Grace's supper at an eating-house, and had not wherewithal
to pay for bed or breakfast at the humble inn. Here, too, he took up the
local paper, praying Heaven there might be some employment

advertised, however mean, that so he might feed his girl, and not let the
fiend Consumption take her at a gift.
No, there was nothing in the advertising column, but in the body of the
paper he found a paragraph to the effect that Mr. Samuelson, of Hull,
had built a gigantic steam vessel in that port, and was going out to New
Zealand in her on her trial trip, to sail that morning at high tide, 6.45
A.M., and it was now nine.
How a sentence in a newspaper can blast a man! Bereavement, Despair,
Lost Love--they come like lightning in a single line. Hope turned sick
at these few words, and down went his head and his hands, and he sat
all of a heap, cold at heart. Then he began to disbelieve in everything,
especially in honesty. For why? If he had only left Liverpool in debt
and taken the rail, he would have reached Hull in ample time, and
would have gone out to New Zealand in the new ship with money in
both pockets.
But it was no use fretting. Starvation and disease impended over his
child. He must work, or steal, or something. In truth he was getting
desperate. He picked himself up and went about, offering his many
accomplishments to humble shop-keepers. They all declined him, some
civilly. At last he came to a superior place of business. There were
large offices and a handsome house connected with it in the rear. At the
side of the offices were pulleys, cranes, and all the appliances for
loading vessels, and a yard with horses and vans, so that the whole
frontage of the premises was very considerable. A brass plate said, "R.
Bartley, ship-broker and commission agent"; but the man was evidently
a ship-owner and a carrier besides; so this miscellaneous shop roused
hopes in our versatile hero. He rapidly surveyed the outside, and then
cast hungry glances through the window of the man's office. It was a
bow-window of unusual size, through which the proprietor or his
employees could see a long way up and down the river. Through this
window Hope peered. Repulses had made him timid. He wanted to see
the face he had to apply to before he ventured.
But Mr. Bartley was not there. The large office was at present occupied
by his clerks; one of these was Leonard Monckton, a pale young man
with dark hair, a nose like a hawk, and thin lips. The other was quite a
young fellow, with brown hair, hazel eyes, and an open countenance.
"Many a hard rub puts a point on a man." So Hope resolved at once to

say nothing to that pale clerk so like a kite, but to interest the open
countenance in him and his hungry child.
There were two approaches to the large office. One, to Hope's right,
through a door and a lobby. This was seldom used except by the
habitués of the place. The other was to Hope's left, through a very small
office, generally occupied by an inferior clerk, who kept an eye upon
the work outside. However, this office had also