his compassion and his wonder if he could have known all that had passed,
within the last few weeks, through that gloomy, yet silent breast, which,
by the very breadth of its mirth, showed what must be the depth of its
sadness!




CHAPTER XIII.

THE LOSS OF THE CROSSING.

Despite the lateness of the hour before he got to rest, Percival had
already breakfasted, when his valet informed him, with raised,
supercilious eyebrows, that an uncommon ragged sort of a person insisted
that he had been told to call. Though Beck had been at the house before,
and the valet had admitted him, so much thinner, so much more ragged was
he now, that the trim servant--no close observer of such folk--did not
recognize him. However, at Percival's order, too well-bred to show
surprise, he ushered Beck up with much civility; and St. John was
painfully struck with the ravages a few weeks had made upon the sweeper's
countenance. The lines were so deeply ploughed, the dry hair looked so
thin, and was so sown with gray that Beck might have beat all Farren's
skill in the part of an old man.

The poor sweeper's tale, extricated from its peculiar phraseology, was
simple enough, and soon told. He had returned home at night to find his
hoards stolen, and the labour of his life overthrown. How he passed that
night he did not very well remember. We may well suppose that the little
reason he possessed was wellnigh bereft from him. No suspicion of the