Heart and Science | Page 5

man, he had
no alternative but to make her a present of the strawberries? Why did
two dirty boyfriends of hers appear immediately afterwards with news
of Punch in a neighbouring street, and lead the little girl away with
them? Why did these two new circumstances inspire him with a fear
that the boys might take the strawberries away from the poor child,
burdened as she was with a baby almost as big as herself? When we
suffer from overwrought nerves we are easily disturbed by small
misgivings. The idle man of wearied mind followed the friends of the
street drama to see what happened, forgetful of the College of Surgeons,
and finding a new fund of amusement in himself.
Arrived in the neighbouring street, he discovered that the Punch
performance had come to an end--like some other dramatic

performances of higher pretensions--for want of a paying audience. He
waited at a certain distance, watching the children. His doubts had done
them an injustice. The boys only said, "Give us a taste." And the liberal
little girl rewarded their good conduct. An equitable and friendly
division of the strawberries was made in a quiet corner.
Where--always excepting the case of a miser or a millionaire--is the
man to be found who could have returned to the pursuit of his own
affairs, under these circumstances, without encouraging the practice of
the social virtues by a present of a few pennies? Ovid was not that man.
Putting back in his breast-pocket the bag in which he was accustomed
to carry small coins for small charities, his hand touched something
which felt like the envelope of a letter. He took it out--looked at it with
an expression of annoyance and surprise--and once more turned aside
from the direct way to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The envelope contained his last prescription. Having occasion to
consult the "Pharmacopoeia," he had written it at home, and had
promised to send it to the patient immediately. In the absorbing interest
of making his preparations for leaving England, it had remained
forgotten in his pocket for nearly two days. The one means of setting
this unlucky error right, without further delay, was to deliver his
prescription himself, and to break through his own rules for the second
time by attending to a case of illness--purely as an act of atonement.
The patient lived in a house nearly opposite to the British Museum. In
this northward direction he now set his face.
He made his apologies, and gave his advice--and, getting out again into
the street, tried once more to shape his course for the College of
Surgeons. Passing the walled garden of the British Museum, he looked
towards it--and paused. What had stopped him, this time? Nothing but
a tree, fluttering its bright leaves in the faint summer air.
A marked change showed itself in his face.
The moment before he had been passing in review the curious little

interruptions which had attended his walk, and had wondered
humorously what would happen next. Two women, meeting him, and
seeing a smile on his lips, had said to each other, "There goes a happy
man." If they had encountered him now, they might have reversed their
opinion. They would have seen a man thinking of something once dear
to him, in the far and unforgotten past.
He crossed over the road to the side-street which faced the garden. His
head drooped; he moved mechanically. Arrived in the street, he lifted
his eyes, and stood (within nearer view of it) looking at the tree.
Hundreds of miles away from London, under another tree of that gentle
family, this man--so cold to women in after life--had made child-love,
in the days of his boyhood, to a sweet little cousin long since numbered
with the dead. The present time, with its interests and anxieties, passed
away like the passing of a dream. Little by little, as the minutes
followed each other, his sore heart felt a calming influence, breathed
mysteriously from the fluttering leaves. Still forgetful of the outward
world, he wandered slowly up the street; living in the old scenes;
thinking, not unhappily now, the old thoughts.
Where, in all London, could he have found a solitude more congenial to
a dreamer in daylight?
The broad district, stretching northward and eastward from the British
Museum, is like the quiet quarter of a country town set in the midst of
the roaring activities of the largest city in the world. Here, you can
cross the road, without putting limb or life in peril. Here, when you are
idle, you can saunter and look about, safe from collision with merciless
straight-walkers whose time is money, and whose destiny is business.
Here, you may meet undisturbed cats on the pavement, in the full glare
of noontide, and