thoughtfully away, he left Leonard Fairfield trying to extract light from
the smoke.




CHAPTER IX.

Shortly after this discourse of Riccabocca's, an incident occurred to
Leonard that served to carry his mind into new directions. One evening,
when his mother was out, he was at work on a new mechanical contrivance,
and had the misfortune to break one of the instruments which he employed.
Now it will be remembered that his father had been the squire's head
carpenter: the widow had carefully hoarded the tools of his craft, which
had belonged to her poor Mark; and though she occasionally lent them to
Leonard, she would not give them up to his service. Amongst these
Leonard knew that he should find the one that he wanted; and being much
interested in his contrivance, he could not wait till his mother's
return. The tools, with other little relies of the lost, were kept in a
large trunk in Mrs. Fairfield's sleepingroom; the trunk was not locked,
and Leonard went to it with out ceremony or scruple. In rummaging for
the instrument his eye fell upon a bundle of manuscripts; and he suddenly
recollected that when he was a mere child, and before he much knew the
difference between verse and prose, his mother had pointed to these
manuscripts, and said, "One day or other, when you can read nicely, I'll
let you look at these, Lenny. My poor Mark wrote such verses--ah, he was
a schollard!" Leonard, reasonably enough, thought that the time had now
arrived when he was worthy the privilege of reading the paternal
effusions, and he took forth the manuscripts with a keen but melancholy
interest. He recognized his father's handwriting, which he had often