It was otherwise with Harley; he ran upstairs to his aunt with the
history of his fellow-travellers glowing on his lips. His aunt was an
economist; but she knew the pleasure of doing charitable things, and
withal was fond of her nephew, and solicitous to oblige him. She
received old Edwards therefore with a look of more complacency than is
perhaps natural to maiden ladies of three-score, and was remarkably
attentive to his grandchildren: she roasted apples with her own hands for
their supper, and made up a little bed beside her own for the girl.
Edwards made some attempts towards an acknowledgment for these favours;
but his young friend stopped them in their beginnings.
“Whosoever receiveth any of these children,” said his aunt; for her
acquaintance with her Bible was habitual.
Early next morning Harley stole into the room where Edwards lay: he
expected to have found him a-bed, but in this he was mistaken: the old
man had risen, and was leaning over his sleeping grandson, with the tears
flowing down his cheeks. At first he did not perceive Harley; when he
did, he endeavoured to hide his grief, and crossing his eyes with his
hand expressed his surprise at seeing him so early astir.
“I was thinking of you,” said Harley, “and your children: I learned last
night that a small farm of mine in the neighbourhood is now vacant: if
you will occupy it I shall gain a good neighbour and be able in some
measure to repay the notice you took of me when a boy, and as the
furniture of the house is mine, it will be so much trouble saved.”
Edwards’s tears gushed afresh, and Harley led him to see the place he
intended for him.
The house upon this farm was indeed little better than a hut; its
situation, however, was pleasant, and Edwards, assisted by the
beneficence of Harley, set about improving its neatness and convenience.
He staked out a piece of the green before for a garden, and Peter, who
acted in Harley’s family as valet, butler, and gardener, had orders to
furnish him with parcels of the different seeds he chose to sow in it. I
have seen his master at work in this little spot with his coat off, and
his dibble in his hand: it was a scene of tranquil virtue to have stopped
an angel on his errands of mercy! Harley had contrived to lead a little
bubbling brook through a green walk in the middle of the ground, upon
which he had erected a mill in miniature for the diversion of Edwards’s
infant grandson, and made shift in its construction to introduce a pliant
bit of wood that answered with its fairy clack to the murmuring of the
rill that turned it. I have seen him stand, listening to these mingled
sounds, with his eye fixed on the boy, and the smile of conscious
satisfaction on his cheek, while the old man, with a look half turned to
Harley and half to heaven, breathed an ejaculation of gratitude and
piety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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