a gooddeal in my rooms; but for a blind man to go forth into the busy Strandhe must have perfect confidence, and be able to guide himself among thebustling throng. Therefore, on my airings I usually went forth uponDick's arm, and the extent of our wanderings was the end of theEmbankment at Westminster Bridge, or around those small ornamentalgardens which extend from the Charing Cross station of the UndergroundRailway up to Waterloo Bridge. Sometimes, on rare occasions, he wouldtake me to dine with him at the Savage Club, in Adelphi Terrace; andmen, easy-going Bohemians, whom I could not see, would warmly shake myhand. I heard their voices--voices of artists and _litterateurs_ whosenames were as household words--sat charmed by their merry gossip ofartistic "shop," laughed at their droll stories, or listened to one orother of the members who would recite or sing for the benefit of his"brother Savages." Those evenings, spent amid the tobacco-smoke andglass-jingling of the only Bohemia still existing in London, were thehappiest in all that dull, colourless, dismal life of sound and touch.
They were the only recreations left to me. Truly mine was a tristfullife.
In April, after I had lived in that dingy den six months or more, Dickcame into my room one morning and made an announcement. It was that hehad been commissioned by his paper to go as its correspondent with aBritish punitive expedition on the North-West Frontier of India.
"You'll go, of course," I said, reflecting that such an offer meant bothadvancement and profit. He had long ago told me that a commission aswar correspondent was his greatest ambition.
"No, my dear old fellow," his deep voice answered in a tone more gravethan usual. "I can't leave you alone."
"Nonsense!" I ejaculated. "I'm not going to allow you to fling awaysuch a good offer to remain with me. No, you must go, Dick. You'll beback in three months at most, won't you?"
"Perhaps before," and his voice sounded low and strange. "But really,old fellow, I can't go and leave you helpless, like this."
"You'll go," I said decisively. "Mrs Parker will look after me, andthree months will soon pass."
"No," he said. "It's all very well, but you can't sit here month aftermonth, helpless as you are. It's impossible."
"I shall amuse myself with my books and my basket-making," I answered.Truth to tell, this announcement of his had utterly crushed me. Hissociety was the only bright spot in my life. If he left me I should beentirely alone, cheerless and melancholy. Nevertheless, when the sightis destroyed the mind is quickened, and I reflected all that this offermeant to him, and admired his self-denial and readiness to refuse it onmy account.
Therefore I insisted that he should go. In the end he was persuaded,and three days later left Charing Cross for India.
When he had gone I became hopelessly depressed. In vain did I try tointerest myself in the embossed books, but they were mostly works whichI had read long ago, and in vain I toiled at basket-making until myfinger-tips were sore and aching. Sometimes at evening Mrs Parker,herself a sad scholar, would try and read a few of what she consideredthe choicest morsels of the "extra special." She read very slowly andinaccurately, poor old soul, and many were the words she was compelledto spell and leave me to solve their meaning. Indeed, in those longhours I spent by myself I sank lower and lower in dejection. No longerI heard Dick's merry voice saying--
"Come, cheer up, old chap. Let me tell you all I heard to-day over atthe club."
No longer could I lean upon his arm as we descended that steep flight ofsteps leading from the end of Essex Street to the Embankment; no longerdid I hear those playful words of his on such occasions--
"Take care, darling, or you'll fall."
Dear old Dick! Now, when I reflected upon it all, I saw how in my greataffliction he treated me as tenderly as he could a woman. Forlorn,hypped, and heart-sick, I lived on from day to day, taking interest innothing, moping doleful and unmanned.
A single letter came from him, posted at some outlandish place in theNorth-West. It was read to me by old Mrs Parker, but as Dick was a sadscribbler, its translation was not a very brilliant success.Nevertheless, from it I gathered how deep were his thoughts of me, andhow eager he was to complete his work and return. Truly no man had amore devoted friend, and certainly no man was more in need of one.
As the days grew warmer, and I sat ever with the _taedium vitae_ uponme, joyless and dispirited in that narrow world of darkness, I feltstifled, and longed for air. Essex Street is terribly close in July,therefore, finding the heat intolerable, I went forth at evening uponthe Embankment with Mrs Parker, and, with my stick, practised walkingalone upon that long, rather unfrequented stretch of pavement betweenthe railings of the Temple Gardens and the corner of Savoy Street.
Try to walk a dozen paces as one blind. Close your eyes, and taplightly with your stick before you as you walk, and see how utterlyhelpless you feel, and how erratic are your footsteps. Then you willknow how extremely difficult I found my first essays alone. I walkedfull of fear, as a child walks, stumbling, colliding, halting, andafterwards waiting for my pitying old woman-servant to take my arm andguide me in safety.
Yet evening after evening I went forth and steadily persevered. I had,in the days before the world became shut out from my gaze, seen men whowere blind guiding themselves fearlessly hither and thither among theLondon crowds, and I was determined, in Dick's absence, to master themeans of visionless locomotion, so that I might walk alone for health'ssake, if for nothing else. And so I continued, striving and striving.When Mrs Parker had served my dinner, cutting it up for me just as oneplaces meat before a helpless infant, we went forth together, and for anhour each evening I went out upon that wide expanse of the Embankmentpavement which formed my practice-ground.
Gradually, by slow degrees, I became proficient in guiding myself withthat constant tapping that marks a blind man's progress through theblack void which constitutes his own narrow joyless world. At last,after several weeks of constant practice, I found to my great delightthat I could actually walk alone the whole length of the pavement,guiding myself by intuition when encountering passers-by, and continuingstraight on without stumbling or colliding with any object, a fact whichgave me the utmost satisfaction, for it seemed to place me beyond, theneed of a constant guide. With this progress I intended to astound Dickupon his return, and so gradually persevered towards proficiency.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE BRACELET AND THE PALM.
August was dusty and blazing in London, and I felt it sorely in EssexStreet. The frontier war dragged on its weary length, as frontier warsalways drag, and Dick was still unable to return. His brilliantdescriptions of the fighting had become a feature in the journal herepresented. On one of my short walks from end to end of that long evenstrip of pavement a hand was suddenly placed upon my shoulder, and thevoice told me that it was Shadrack Fennell, a charming old fellow, whohad been a popular actor of a day long since past, and was now aprominent "Savage," well known in that little circle of London Bohemia.He walked with me a little way, and next evening called and spent anhour over cigars and whisky. He was the only visitor I had had in allthose months of Dick's absence.
A blind man has, alas! very few friends.
Once or twice, when the heat became insufferable in my close stuffyrooms, I contemplated going to the country or to the sea. Yet, onreflection, I told myself bitterly that, being unable to see thebeauties of God's earth, I was just as well there moping in that gloomystreet, and taking my evening airing beside the Thames.
Therefore with all desire for life or enjoyment crushed from my soul, Iremained in London, going out each fine evening, sometimes with MrsParker, and at others, with a fearlessness acquired by practice, Icarefully guided myself down the steep granite steps leading from EssexStreet to the Embankment, and then paced my strip of pavement alone.But how tristful, dispiriting, and soul-sickening was that monotonousworld of darkness in which I eternally existed, none can know, onlythose unfortunate ones who are blind themselves.
About half-past eight o'clock o
ne breathless evening in mid-August, MrsParker being unwell, I went forth alone for my usual stroll. Theatmosphere was close and oppressive, the pavement seemed to reflect theheat, and even along the Embankment there was not a breath of air.Alone, plunged in my own thoughts--for the blind think far more deeplythan those whose minds are distracted by the sights around them--I wenton with those short steps that I had acquired, ever tapping with mystick to discover the crossings. I was afraid of no street traffic;only of cycles, which, by reason of their silence, are veritable ogresto the blind.
Almost unconsciously I passed beyond the limit of my regular track,beneath a railway-bridge which I knew led from Charing Cross station,and then straight on, with only a single crossing, until I came to whatseemed the junction of several roads, where I hesitated. It was