id="Pg_36" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 36]"/>

CHAPTER III

THE REAL AND THE IDEAL

It was a perfect day in "the sweet o' the year" when the carrier's waggon creaked along the highway to Stratford with Henry Charles perched beside the red-faced driver.

There is, perhaps, no county in all England so full of charm in spring-time and the early summer as leafy Ardenshire. The road on which the hope of Hampton travelled is typical of many in that fair countryside. Gleaming white in the morning sunshine, it lies snug between high banks of prodigal growth, bramble and trailing arbutus, backed by green bushes, among which the massy white clots of elder-blossom look like snowy souvenirs of the winter that has fled, with here and there a strong note of colour struck by swaying foxgloves. The lanes that steal away from the highway are often as beautiful as those of glorious Devon, and all bear promise that if the wanderer will but come with them he will surely find the veritable

"Bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlip and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopy'd with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine."

But it was not of the wild beauties by the way that Henry thought as onward creaked the waggon. Nor was it for long that the picture of his mother's face and the light of violet eyes occupied his mind. His thoughts ran forward swifter than ever the train would go which in later years was to bring Hampton Bagot within half-an-hour's journey of Stratford.

Twice before had he travelled this same way, and both times to the same place. But now all was changed. The carrier would crack his whip on his homeward way that evening and sing his snatches of song, but not for Henry.

For the first time in his life the youth would stretch himself upon an unfamiliar bed, and hear voices that had never spoken to him before. He would tread the streets where once the steps of the immortal bard had been as common as his own comings and goings at the Hampton Post Office. Till now he had dreamed what life might be in a town larger than his native hamlet, and this night he would begin to know, to live it.

The wayside wild flowers, so recently part and parcel of his daily life, paled before his eyes when he thought of the temple of books toward which his course was bent. The smell of the new bindings, and the mouldy suggestions of old volumes, were sweeter to him for the moment than the scented hedgerows. Already he had built up for himself the figure of his Mr. Ephraim Griggs.

A man of medium height, somewhat bent in the back, high forehead, intelligent face, eyes aided with spectacles in their constant task of examining the treasures stacked around.

His hair? Grey—yes, of course, it must be grey; thin to baldness on the top, but abundant at the back of the head. Clothes? Old-fashioned, no doubt; negligent, certainly; yet not altogether slovenly.

He saw the figure, vivid as life, moving about the shop, talking with innocent display of erudition to some wealthy customer, or half reluctantly selling a costly volume from his shelves.

This dream-companion kept him company all the way, and it was only in a listless fashion that he chatted with the carrier, to whom books were no better than common lumber.

Stratford was reached early in the afternoon, and as the waggon rumbled over the Clopton Bridge, Henry thought that the scene presented here by the soft flowing Avon, with the spire of Shakespeare's Church softly etched on the sky, and the strange masonry of the world-famed Memorial Theatre in the middle distance, was the fairest man could see.

The thoughtfulness of his father had arranged for Henry a lodging near to Rother Street, and thither the carrier undertook to drive him before stopping at the market-hall to distribute his goods. On the way up the broad and pleasant High Street Henry was excited, for there, to his joy, he beheld the name of Ephraim Griggs upon a window well stocked with books—smaller, perhaps, and dustier than he had pictured it in his own mind.

Mrs. Filbert, the landlady with whom Edward John had arranged for Henry's board and lodging, was a widow of more than middle age, who had brought up a considerable family, most of whom were now "doing for themselves." In summertime she often let her best rooms to visitors, but nothing rejoiced her more than the prospect of a permanent lodger. She was fortunate already in having one who came under that description, and whose acquaintance we may make in due time.

Mrs. Filbert was a motherly soul, and set Henry at his ease at once when she took him to the little bedroom he was to share with one of her sons, a lad about his own age. Nor would she allow him to fare forth into the town until he had disposed of some dinner she had kept for him, suspecting that his means did not run to the luxury of a meal at one of the country inns on the way from Hampton.

When Henry had freed himself from the motherly attentions of Mrs. Filbert, and again found himself in the High Street, it was late afternoon. With a beating heart he walked direct to the shop of Mr. Griggs, but as his engagement commenced the next morning, he did not intend to present himself to his future employer that afternoon.

His purpose was merely a preliminary inspection of the place, for on his two previous visits to Stratford the establishment which had suddenly become his centre of interest had not been noticed by him.

The window was dustier than he had supposed from his sight of it while passing with the carrier, and many of the books that were offered for sale were disappointingly commonplace. As for the collection in the window-box, labelled in crude blue letters, "All in this row 2d. each," he was amazed that Mr. Griggs should exhibit them. For the most part they were old school-books, and he remembered, with a sudden sense of wealth unreckoned, that he had quite a number at home as good as these. He was not aware that only a summer ago a sharp visitor had picked up from this bundle a volume which he sold in London for £9.

Timidly did Henry peep in at the doorway, which was narrower than he had expected, and a trifle shabby so far as painting was concerned.

So much as he could see of the shop inside accorded but little better with his mental picture of the place. Books were there in abundance, many of them presenting some degree of order, and as many more seemingly in hopeless confusion.

He got a glimpse of a counter, at which he supposed the business of the place was transacted, but the inadequate back view of the figure of a young man bending at a desk in a gloomy corner was the only thing suggesting life.

His first peep assuredly was not what he had looked forward to, but who knew to what hidden chambers of interest the door at the far side of the front shop gave access?

Afraid to further pursue his inspection, Henry moved away somewhat hurriedly when the young man at the desk showed signs of moving towards the door, having probably scented a customer.

He wandered next to Shakespeare's Church, lingering on the way at the Memorial, then fresh from the hands of the builders, and loudly out of harmony with everything else in Stratford. Anon he was peeping in at the old Grammar School and the Guild Hall, and tea-time found him loitering around the Birthplace, with half a desire to set out then and there