Infinite difficulties were now complicating themselves on the head of poor Daniel Thwaite. The packet which the Countess addressed to him did not reach him in London, but was forwarded after him down to Cumberland, whither he had hurried on receipt of news from Keswick that his father was like to die. The old man had fallen in a fit, and when the message was sent it was not thought likely that he would ever see his son again. Daniel went down to the north as quickly as his means would allow him, going by steamer to Whitehaven, and thence by coach to Keswick. His entire wages were but thirty-five shillings a week, and on that he could not afford to travel by the mail to Keswick. But he did reach home in time to see his father alive, and to stand by the bedside when the old man died.
Though there was not time for many words between them, and though the apathy of coming death had already clouded the mind of Thomas Thwaite, so that he, for the most part, disregarded,—as dying men do disregard,—those things which had been fullest of interest to him; still something was said about the Countess and Lady Anna. "Just don\'t mind them any further, Dan," said the father.
"Indeed that will be best," said Daniel.
"Yes, in truth. What can they be to the likes o\' you? Give me a drop of brandy, Dan." The drop of brandy was more to him now than the Countess; but though he thought but little of this last word, his son thought much of it. What could such as the Countess and her titled daughter be to him, Daniel Thwaite, the broken tailor? For, in truth, his father was dying, a broken man. There was as much owed by him in Keswick as all the remaining property would pay; and as for the business, it had come to that, that the business was not worth preserving.
The old tailor died and was buried, and all Keswick knew that he had left nothing behind him, except the debt that was due to him by the Countess, as to which, opinion in the world of Keswick varied very much. There were those who said that the two Thwaites, father and son, had known very well on which side their bread was buttered, and that Daniel Thwaite would now, at his father\'s death, become the owner of bonds to a vast amount on the Lovel property. It was generally understood in Keswick that the Earl\'s claim was to be abandoned, that the rights of the Countess and her daughter were to be acknowledged, and that the Earl and his cousin were to become man and wife. If so the bonds would be paid, and Daniel Thwaite would become a rich man. Such was the creed of those who believed in the debt. But there were others who did not believe in the existence of any such bonds, and who ridiculed the idea of advances of money having been made. The old tailor had, no doubt, relieved the immediate wants of the Countess by giving her shelter and food, and had wasted his substance in making journeys, and neglecting his business; but that was supposed to be all. For such services on behalf of the father, it was not probable that much money would be paid to the son; and the less so, as it was known in Keswick that Daniel Thwaite had quarrelled with the Countess. As this latter opinion preponderated Daniel did not find that he was treated with any marked respect in his native town.
The old man did leave a will;—a very simple document, by which everything that he had was left to his son. And there was this paragraph in it; "I expect that the Countess Lovel will repay to my son Daniel all moneys that I have advanced on her behalf." As for bonds,—or any single bond,—Daniel could find none. There was an account of certain small items due by the Countess, of long date, and there was her ladyship\'s receipt for a sum of ￡500, which had apparently been lent at the time of the trial for bigamy. Beyond this he could find no record of any details whatever, and it seemed to him that his claim was reduced to something less than ￡600. Nevertheless, he had understood from his father that the whole of the old man\'s savings had been spent on behalf of the two ladies, and he believed that some time since he had heard a sum named exceeding ￡6,000. In his difficulty he asked a local attorney, and the attorney advised him to throw himself on the generosity of the Countess. He paid the attorney some small fee, and made up his mind at once that he would not take the lawyer\'s advice. He would not throw himself on the generosity of the Countess.
There was then still living in that neighbourhood a great man, a poet, who had nearly carried to its close a life of great honour and of many afflictions. He was one who, in these, his latter days, eschewed all society, and cared to see no faces but those of the surviving few whom he had loved in early life. And as those few survivors lived far away, and as he was but little given to move from home, his life was that of a recluse. Of the inhabitants of the place around him, who for the most part had congregated there since he had come among them, he saw but little, and his neighbours said that he was sullen and melancholic. But, according to their degrees, he had been a friend to Thomas Thwaite, and now, in his emergency, the son called upon the poet. Indifferent visitors, who might be and often were intruders, were but seldom admitted at that modest gate; but Daniel Thwaite was at once shown into the presence of the man of letters. They had not seen each other since Daniel was a youth, and neither would have known the other. The poet was hardly yet an old man, but he had all the characteristics of age. His shoulders were bent, and his eyes were deep set in his head, and his lips were thin and fast closed. But the beautiful oval of his face was still there, in spite of the ravages of years, of labours, and of sorrow; and the special brightness of his eye had not yet been dimmed. "I have been sorry, Mr. Thwaite, to hear of your father\'s death," said the poet. "I knew him well, but it was some years since, and I valued him as a man of singular probity and spirit." Then Daniel craved permission to tell his story;—and he told it all from the beginning to the end,—how his father and he had worked for the Countess and her girl, how their time and then their money had been spent for her; how he had learned to love the girl, and how, as he believed, the girl had loved him. And he told with absolute truth the whole story, as far as he knew it, of what had been done in London during the last nine months. He exaggerated nothing, and did not scruple to speak openly of his own hopes. He showed his letter to the Countess, and her note to him, and while doing so hid none of his own feelings. Did the poet think that there was any reason why, in such circumstances, a tailor should not marry the daughter of a Countess? And then he gave, as far as he knew it, the history of the money that had been advanced, and produced a copy of his father\'s will. "And now, sir, what would you have me do?"
"When you first spoke to the girl of love, should you not have spoken to the mother also, Mr. Thwaite?"
"Would you, sir, have done so?"
"I will not say that;—but I think that I ought. Her girl was all that she had."
"It may be that I was wrong. But if the girl loves me now—"
"I would not hurt your feelings for the world, Mr. Thwaite."
"Do not spare them, sir. I did not come to you that soft things might be said to me."
"I do not think it of your father\'s son. Seeing what is your own degree in life and what is theirs, that they are noble and of an old nobility, among the few hot-house plants of the nation, and that you are one of the people,—a blade of corn out of the open field, if I may say so,—born to eat your bread in the sweat of your brow, can you think that such a marriage would be other than distressing to them?"
"Is the hot-house plant stronger or better, or of higher use, than the ear of corn?"
"Have I said that it was, my friend? I will not say that either is higher in God\'s sight than the other, or be............