Paul Kelver | Page 4

arms to welcome me. Then the teeming life
it now shelters, hushed for a time within its walls, the flickering flare
from the "King of Prussia" opposite extinguished, will it talk with me
of the past, asking me many questions, reminding me of many things I
had forgotten. Then into the silent street come the well-remembered
footsteps; in and out the creaking gate pass, not seeing me, the
well-remembered faces; and we talk concerning them; as two cronies,
turning the torn leaves of some old album where the faded portraits in
forgotten fashions, speak together in low tones of those now dead or
scattered, with now a smile and now a sigh, and many an "Ah me!" or
"Dear, dear!"
This bent, worn man, coming towards us with quick impatient steps,
which yet cease every fifty yards or so, while he pauses, leaning
heavily upon his high Malacca cane: "It is a handsome face, is it not?" I
ask, as I gaze upon it, shadow framed.
"Aye, handsome enough," answers the old House; "and handsomer still
it must have been before you and I knew it, before mean care had
furrowed it with fretful lines."
"I never could make out," continues the old House, musingly, "whom
you took after; for they were a handsome pair, your father and your

mother, though Lord! what a couple of children!"
"Children!" I say in surprise, for my father must have been past five
and thirty before the House could have known him, and my mother's
face is very close to mine, in the darkness, so that I see the many grey
hairs mingling with the bonny brown.
"Children," repeats the old House, irritably, so it seems to me, not
liking, perhaps, its opinions questioned, a failing common to old folk;
"the most helpless pair of children I ever set eyes upon. Who but a
child, I should like to know, would have conceived the notion of
repairing his fortune by becoming a solicitor at thirty-eight, or, having
conceived such a notion, would have selected the outskirts of Poplar as
a likely centre in which to put up his door-plate?"
"It was considered to be a rising neighbourhood," I reply, a little
resentful. No son cares to hear the family wisdom criticised, even
though at the bottom of his heart he may be in agreement with the critic.
"All sorts and conditions of men, whose affairs were in connection with
the sea would, it was thought, come to reside hereabout, so as to be
near to the new docks; and had they, it is not unreasonable to suppose
they would have quarrelled and disputed with one another, much to the
advantage of a cute solicitor, convenient to their hand."
"Stuff and nonsense," retorts the old House, shortly; "why, the mere
smell of the place would have been sufficient to keep a sensible man
away. And"--the grim brick face before me twists itself into a goblin
smile--"he, of all men in the world, as 'the cute solicitor,' giving advice
to shady clients, eager to get out of trouble by the shortest way, can you
fancy it! he who for two years starved himself, living on five shillings a
week--that was before you came to London, when he was here alone.
Even your mother knew nothing of it till years afterwards--so that no
man should be a penny the poorer for having trusted his good name. Do
you think the crew of chandlers and brokers, dock hustlers and freight
wreckers would have found him a useful man of business, even had
they come to settle here?"
I have no answer; nor does the old House wait for any, but talks on.

"And your mother! would any but a child have taken that soft-tongued
wanton to her bosom, and not have seen through acting so transparent?
Would any but the veriest child that never ought to have been let out
into the world by itself have thought to dree her weird in such folly?
Children! poor babies they were, both of them."
"Tell me," I say--for at such times all my stock of common sense is not
sufficient to convince me that the old House is but clay. From its walls
so full of voices, from its floors so thick with footsteps, surely it has
learned to live; as a violin, long played on, comes to learn at last a
music of its own. "Tell me, I was but a child to whom life speaks in a
strange tongue, was there any truth in the story?"
"Truth!" snaps out the old House; "just truth enough to plant a lie upon;
and Lord knows not much ground is needed for that weed. I saw what I
saw, and I know what I know. Your mother had a good man, and