Talking over their little adventure, Frank Maynard and Arthur Prescott crossed from the Serpentine to Albert Gate. The evening had set in with a cold raw fog, which was momentarily getting thicker.  
“One ought to be very careful at the crossings such a night as this, Prescott. It is just foggy enough to prevent the drivers seeing twenty yards ahead of them, and yet not sufficiently thick to make them go slowly. The road is very slippery, too.”
 
As they spoke a man who was standing at the edge of the pavement near them, after peering cautiously into the fog, started to cross. Frank and his friend followed slowly, for it really required considerable caution; as, from the constant roar and rumble of the traffic it was difficult 47to judge how far off an approaching vehicle might be.
 
They had not gone half-way across the road when there was a shout, and a rapid trampling of horses, and an omnibus came out of the fog not fifteen yards distant. It was driving fast, and the friends stopped simultaneously to allow it to pass in front of them.
 
The man who was crossing before them was, however, exactly in the line of the omnibus as it came out of the fog. He stopped, hesitated, and, although three steps would have placed him out of danger, he turned to go back. As he did so in his haste and confusion his foot slipped on the frozen road, and he fell. In another instant the horses would have been upon him, when Frank Maynard, who had at once perceived the danger when he stopped, sprang forward, snatched him up in his strong arms, as if he had been a child, and threw himself forward. He was barely in time. The shoulder of the off horse struck him, and sent him staggering with his burden to the ground, but fortunately beyond the reach of the wheels. Frank was on his feet in an instant, raised the man, who appeared to be confused and 48hardly conscious of what was occurring, to his feet, and assisted him to the footpath. All this was the work of half a minute, and they were at once joined by Prescott.
 
“Are you hurt, Frank?” he asked, anxiously.
 
“No, nothing to speak of, old man; bruised myself a bit, and barked my arm, at least I should say so by the feel of it; but I think that is about all the damage.”
 
“I thought you were under the horses, Frank; you have made me feel quite sick and faint. My dear fellow, this is the last walk I shall take with you, if this is your way of going on.”
 
Frank laughed.
 
“It is all right, Prescott, there are no bones broken. How are you, sir? not hurt, I hope,” he asked the man he had picked up, who was standing looking round in a sort of confused bewildered way, as if he hardly yet understood what had happened.
 
Frank repeated his question.
 
“Eh? I beg your pardon,” the man said; “were you speaking to me? No—no, I don’t think I am hurt; indeed, I hardly know what is the 49matter. Let me see——;” and he passed his hand helplessly over his forehead. “Oh yes, I remember now. I was crossing, and I saw a ‘bus coming, and somehow I slipped down. I shut my eyes so as not to see it come over me, and then I felt myself caught up, and then another great shake. Yes, yes, I see it all now; and it was you, sir, who picked me up, and saved my life? Dear me—dear me—I do hope you are not hurt, sir. I know I owe my life to you, for I must have been killed, and then what would have happened to Carry? I do hope you are not hurt.”
 
Frank assured him that he was not.
 
“Now, really, sir” (the man went on in a rambling nervous sort of way), “really I can’t thank you as I ought to do, but if you would but kindly come in to see me, my Carry will thank you for both of us. I am a poor nervous creature at the best, and the whole place seems in a whirl with me, but here is my card,” and he produced a packet of cards from his pocket. “It is a poor place, sir, but we should be very glad if you will come in to see me; and will you please tell me what your name is?”
 
“My name is Maynard, and I live in the 50Temple,” Frank answered. “Pray do not trouble yourself about thanking me. I am quite content to know that you have got off without more harm than a few bruises. I will be sure to look you up one of these days—yes, you can rely upon it. Good evening, mind how you go home; you are rather shaky still. Good night.” And, shaking him by the hand, Frank moved away with his friend.
 
The man stood looking after them as they disappeared in the fog, and then turned and walked westward. Pausing sometimes, taking off his hat and passing his hand across his forehead and over his hair in a confused puzzled sort of way, as if even now he were not quite clear what had really happened.
 
At the corner of Sloane Street he stopped, too nervous to attempt to cross; others went over quietly enough, but he could not summon up resolution to follow their example. At last he went up to a policeman who was standing at the corner, and meekly requested him to be kind enough to cross with him.
 
The man looked sharply and suspiciously at him. Certainly, his appearance was against him. 51One side of his face was much cut where he had fallen the second time, and his hat was all crushed in; altogether, he did not look a reputable figure.
 
“You have begun it pretty early, you have!” he said, sternly. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a respectable-looking man to be about the streets in this state before six o’clock in the evening.”
 
“I have not been drinking, indeed I have not, policeman; but I have been knocked down by an omnibus, or at least I was nearly knocked down; at least—indeed I don’t quite clearly know how it did happen; but I know an omnibus had something to do with it.”
 
The policeman’s belief in the man’s state of inebriety was evidently unshaken; however, he took him by the arm and walked across the road with him, and then dismissed him, telling him that “he should advise him to go straight home, or he would find himself in the wrong box before long.” The man again attempted to expostulate, but the policeman cut him short by turning to go back to his former station, with a parting admonition: “There, don’t you talk, it won’t do you 52any good; you go home; take my advice, and don’t stop by the way.”
 
The man, shaking his head in feeble deprecation at the policeman’s opinion, pursued his way along the crowded pavement, past the bright shops, and the stalls with their noisy vendors—through which Evan Holl had passed a short half-hour before. He went along quite unconscious of the crowd and the bustle, getting frequently jostled and pushed against, and receiving angry expostulation and considerable abuse, to none of which he paid the slightest heed. At length he reached the end of the row where the next street ran across it into the main road. This, however, he had not to cross, as his way lay up the side street, but not far, only past three or four houses; then he stopped at the door of a small shop, opened it, and went in.
 
It was a small stationer’s shop, illuminated by a solitary tallow candle standing upon the counter, and whose long wick with its dull red cap testified plainly that it had not been attended to for some time. Round the shop were ranges of shelves filled with dingy volumes, with paper numbers pasted upon their backs. There were 53piles of penny periodicals upon the counter, and a glass case with partitions containing cigars. These, with the small pair of scales beside them, and sundry canisters upon the shelves, showed that its proprietor combined the tobacco and literary businesses. The little parlour behind was separated from the shop by a glass door, with a muslin curtain drawn across it, and through this the bright flickering light of a fire shone cheerfully. The man opened the door, and went in. It was a small room, but was very snug and comfortable. The furniture and curtains were neat and well chosen, and altogether much superior to what would have been expected from the shop and locality. The tea-things stood upon the table, and a copper kettle on the hob was singing merrily. On the hearth-rug a girl was sitting reading a novel by the light of the fire; a very pretty figure, light and graceful, as could be seen in the attitude in which she half sat, half reclined; a girl of some eighteen years old, with a bright happy face. Her hair was pushed back from her forehead, and fell in thick clustering curls behind her ears. Her face was very pretty, with an innocent child-like expression. 54About her mouth and chin there was some want of firmness and character, but by no means sufficiently so to mar the general effect of her face. She had large blue eyes, over which she had a little trick of drooping her eyelids, and she had a saucy way of tossing her head. Altogether, Carry was a belle, and was perfectly aware of it; and indeed, to say truth, her head was a little turned by all the nonsense and flattery that she was constantly receiving; but she was a good girl for all that, and devotedly attached to her father, the man who now entered.
 
Stephen Walker was perhaps fifty years old, about the middle height, but stooping a good deal; evidently, by his manner, a nervous, timid man. His address and way of speaking unmistakably showed that he had seen better days; but when he slipped down the rounds of the ladder, he had lost any little faith he might ever have had in himself, and was content to remain helplessly at its foot, with scarce an effort to try to regain his lost position. Stephen Walker’s father had been a well-to-do City tradesman, a very great man in his own eyes; an active bustling member of the Court of Common 55Council, respected but not much liked there for the harsh dictatorial way in which he enunciated his opinions; very great upon the inexpediency of pampering the poor, a strict reformer of abuses, and withal a harsh, vulgar, narrow-minded man.
 
Stephen was a weakly child, and his mother, a quiet timid woman, would fain have kept him at home, and herself attended to his education until he should be old enough to be sent to some school down in the country; but his father would not hear of it, and in his own house his will was law. Accordingly, at the earliest possible age, he was sent to St. Paul’s School, a timid, shrinking child, and among the rough spirits there he fared but badly. Cowed and kept down at home, bullied and laughed at at school, Stephen Walker grew up a nervous delicate boy. When he was fifteen his father said that he knew enough now, or if he did not he ought to, and that so he was to come into the shop. Into the shop he accordingly came, and when there his life was a burden to him. His mother, who would have softened things for him as far as she could, and would at all events have been kind to him, and 56have commiserated with and cheered him, had been dead some three years, and his life became one long blank of misery. He hated the shop, he hated business, he almost hated his father. Heartily did he envy his associates in the shop, who at least, when the day’s work was over, could take their departure and be their own masters until the shutters were taken down in the morning. His drudgery never ceased, for when the shop was closed, his father, a great part of whose daytime was occupied by City business, would sit down with him at his desk and go into the whole accounts of the day’s sales until half-past nine. Then upstairs, where the servants would be summoned, and his father take his place at the head of the table with a large Bible before him, which he would read and expound in a stern harsh manner, eminently calculated to make the Scriptures altogether hateful to those who heard him. This with prayer lasted for an hour. Then to bed; to begin over again in the morning. Such was Stephen Walker’s life for six years; and then, when he was twenty-one, his father died suddenly. It was just in time to save his son’s life; in another year it might 57have been too late, for his health was breaking fast; as it was, it was too late for him ever to become other than he was, a nervous timid man.
 
It was some time before Stephen Walker could come to understand that he was now a free agent, and that he could really do as he liked. It was so unnatural for him to be able to carry into execution any wish of his own, that, after his father’s funeral was over, he went back as regularly as ever to his duties in the shop. At the end of a month an old schoolfellow came in, told him he was not looking well, and asked him to go into the country with him for the day. Stephen was absolutely startled, even the possibility of such a thing as his leaving the shop had never entered his mind. In the six years such an event had never happened. He looked round frightened and aghast at the proposition. As, however, he had no reasons to adduce, beyond the fact that he never did go anywhere, which his friend insisted was the very reason why he should go now, he was finally persuaded. Never did man enjoy his first holiday less than Stephen Walker did. He felt like a guilty self-convicted truant; he had a constant impression upon his mind that he was 58doing something very wrong, and on his return entered the shop with a guilty air, and a conviction that the assistants behind the counter were eyeing him disapprovingly.
 
However, the ice was broken. He began, at first at long intervals, but afterwards, as he learnt really to enjoy the sweets of his newly found liberty more and more often, to absent himself from the shop, until by degrees he discovered that he really was his own master. The first time a friend remarked that he rather wondered he did not sell the business and retire altogether, it seemed to him almost a profane suggestion. Still in time it became familiar to his mind, and at length, finding that no obstacle except that of his own imagination stood in his way, he determined to carry it out. Accordingly in less than eighteen months from his father’s death he disposed of the lease and goodwill of the business, and found that he was master of ￡30,000. He then, acting upon the advice of his physician, started for a long tour upon the continent; not going alone,—he had not sufficient confidence in himself for that, but taking with him as companion a friend who had been on the continent before, and who spoke 59French, paying all his expenses, and a handsome sum in addition.
 
There he remained in all three years, and in this time his health became re-established; but although his manner greatly improved from his mixture with travelling society, he still remained a nervous timid man.
 
At the end of this three years he married a very pretty ladylike looking girl, who was governess in a family wintering in Rome. Her beauty was her only redeeming point, for she was a silly, vain, indolent woman.
 
The newly married couple returned after another three months wanderings to London, near which they shortly after took a pretty villa.
 
They were unfortunate in their children, having lost all they had when quite young, with the exception only of their youngest daughter Carry. Had Stephen Walker continued to live quietly upon his income all might have gone well; but his wife was an extravagant woman and a miserable manager, and Stephen, who in money matters was helpless as a child, soon found that his expenditure was greater than his income.
 
The idea of remonstrating with his wife or 60endeavouring to curtail the household expenses never entered his mind; the only plan which presented itself to him was to increase his income. To do this he took to speculation, and to the most hazardous of all speculations, that in mining shares; hazardous to anyone, but most of all to a man like Stephen Walker. As might have been anticipated, his operations were almost always unsuccessful. Indeed in the way in which he conducted them it was impossible that it could have been otherwise. He bought shares in mines when they were most prosperous, and stood at the highest point in the market, and directly any reverse or depression took place, although perhaps only of a temporary nature, instead of holding on and waiting until the mine recovered itself, he would rush into the market and dispose of his shares for what they would fetch. It may therefore be readily imagined that Stephen Walker’s fortune melted rapidly away, under his repeated and heavy losses, and the extravagance of his wife. The latter although she would peevishly remonstrate with him, not as to his speculation, but on his losses, had not the least idea of suiting their expenditure to their decreased means. And so 61things went on from bad to worse, until at last the end came. A mine in which he had invested far more heavily than usual under the influence of the brilliant prospects held out, and the advice of a friend, collapsed, and that so suddenly, that Stephen had no opportunity to dispose of his shares. He was placed on the list of contributories, and called upon for a heavy sum for the winding-up expenses. Then the crash came, and Stephen Walker found himself possessed of only a few hundred pounds and the furniture of the villa. This was sold, and he removed with his wife and his child, then about seven years old, into small lodgings. Here for a year his life was embittered by the reproaches and complainings of his helpless wife; at the end of that time she died, and left a great blank in his life. He had been blind to her faults, and had accepted her querulous reproaches as deserved and natural; besides, as long as she lived, he had had some one to look to for advice, little qualified as she was to give it. Now, excepting his little daughter, he was quite alone. For another year, while his little capital dwindled away, he tried in vain to get something to do. This would have been in 62any case an almost hopeless task, and was rendered still more so from his extreme want of confidence in himself, which altogether prevented his endeavouring to push himself forward.
 
At length he took a resolution, one of the few, and certainly by far the best, he ever had taken. He determined to sink the few hundred pounds he had remaining in buying a house and opening a shop. After a considerable search, he found the one in New Street; the former proprietor, who was also in the tobacco and periodical line, had died, and his widow was anxious to dispose of the house; the goodwill, such as it was, of the shop being thrown into the bargain. Stephen Walker purchased it of her, furnished the lower part, and let off the upper, and never regretted his bargain.
 
The profits of the shop were not large, but having no rent to pay, and receiving a few shillings every week from the tenants, he was able to live comfortably, and with the company and affection of his little daughter, found himself really happier and more in his element than he had ever before been in his life.
 
Carry grew up in her humble home, a bright 63happy child, very fond of her father, and very fond, too, of all the admiration which the frequenters of the shop bestowed upon her.
 
“Why, how late you are, father!” she said as he entered. “Tea has been ready this half-hour at the very least,” and she put down her book and looked up at him. “Why, father, what has happened?” she exclaimed in a changed tone, and leaping hastily to her feet. “Your cheek is all covered with blood, your hat is broken in, and you look quite strange. Oh! father, what is the matter? are you hurt?”
 
“No, Carry, I do not think I am, but I am confused and bewildered.”
 
“Sit down in the chair by the fire, then; now give me your hat and coat; that’s right, and your comforter, dear old father; now wait and I will get warm water and a towel, and bathe its dear old face. There, now you look nice; now tell me all about it.”
 
The man submitted himself to the girl’s hands in the helpless way natural to him.
 
“Well, Carry, I hardly know myself what has happened. I was crossing at Albert Gate when I saw a ‘bus coming. It was very foggy and 64slippery, and I did not see it till it was quite close, and then somehow I fell. I tried to shut my eyes, but I could not, and then I felt the horses trampling upon me, and the wheels came crushing down upon my body. Oh, it was terrible, Carry!”
 
“But, oh, father,” the girl said faintly, and the bright colour was quite gone from her cheeks now, “you must be terribly hurt; some of your ribs must be broken; why did not you say so at once? Please sit quiet while I put on my bonnet, and run round to fetch a doctor,” and she turned to do so, but she was trembling so much that she had to sit down in a chair.
 
“No, Carry, you do not understand me. I do not mean that the ‘bus absolutely did run over me.”
 
“But you just said it did, father; you said that you felt the wheels crush your body.”
 
“Did I, Carry? Well, I did not mean it. Oh no, I was not run over after all.”
 
“What a dear, silly old father you are, and how you frightened me!” the girl said, laughing and crying together. “I have a great mind to be very angry with you in real earnest, and 65not to speak another word to you all the evening.”
 
“I am very sorry, Carry. I did not mean it, my child. I only meant that I felt it was going to run over me, and I am sure I suffered quite as much as if it had. No, just as the horses were quite close to me—certainly within a yard or two, for their heads looked to me almost over mine—I felt myself caught up by some one, like a baby, carried a step or two, then there was a great shake, and down we both went with a terrible shock, then I was picked up again, and found myself safe on the pavement.”
 
“Oh, father, what a narrow escape! you might really have been killed, and it was very very serious after all, so I will forgive you for frightening me so much. And who was it saved your life?”
 
“I hardly remember rightly, my dear, my head is quite in a whirl still. I remember, though, there were two gentlemen waiting to cross just as I started, for I heard one of them say we ought to be careful, and so I was, my dear, very careful, else I should not have slipped. I suppose they were just behind me, and one of them caught me 66up just as the horses were going to trample on me. He was not quite in time, for the horses caught him and knocked us both down, only I suppose it was out of reach of the wheels, at any rate they did not go over us; and really that is all I know about it.”
 
“Oh, father, how brave of him! Who was he?”
 
“I am sure I don’t know, Carry. He did tell me what his name was; but I am sure I forget it. Let me see—no, I don’t remember it at all; but I know he said he lived in the Temple—or, no—let me see, perhaps it was in Lincoln’s Inn, either that or Gray’s Inn—anyhow I am nearly sure it was one of the three.”
 
“Oh, father, I am so sorry you do not recollect his name, I should so have liked to thank him, and it will seem so ungrateful if you never go near him to tell him how much obliged you are. If it had not been for him what would have happened to you? I am very sorry.” And the girl’s eyes filled with tears again. “Did you tell him where you lived, father?” she asked presently, as her father sat gazing dejectedly into the fire.
 
67“I think I did, Carry; yes, I do think I did. By the way I have some recollection that I gave him my card, and I fancy that he said he would call upon me.”
 
“But can’t you remember for certain, father, whether you gave him your card? surely you must remember such a thing as that,” Carry persisted.
 
Stephen Walker passed his hand vaguely across his forehead.
 
“Really, my dear, I can’t help thinking that I did, although I can’t be sure. Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly, “I have it now. I know I had twelve cards in my pocket. I know that, because when I went to the printer for them the fresh lot were not ready, but as I wanted some to go on with, he struck off a dozen while I was waiting. Look in the breast-pocket of my great coat, the cards are there. Count them, and if there is one short I must have given it to him, for I am sure I spoke to no one else on my way home.”
 
Carry eagerly took the cards and counted them; to her delight there were only eleven.
 
“Did he say he would come, father?”
 
“It seems to me that I have a distinct remembrance 68that he did, Carry; but, there, I may be wrong. I am a poor nervous creature.”
 
“You are a dear, silly old darling,” Carry said, kissing him, “and I shan’t be able to trust you out by yourself in future. The idea of slipping down in the street like a little baby! I have a great mind to scold you dreadfully. But there you have had fright enough for once; and now I will make tea for you, and that always does you good.”
 
While they were at tea Carry asked, “Do you think you should know the gentleman again if you met him, father?”
 
“Yes, my dear, I am nearly sure that I should.”
 
“What was he like, father?” Carry asked, “do try and think what he was like.”
 
“He was a young man of four or five and twenty, I should say, and he seemed tall to me, and he must have been as strong as a giant, for he picked me up as easily as you would a kitten.”
 
“Was he good-looking, father?” Carry asked, a little shyly, this time.
 
“I should say he was, my dear; but my head 69was in such a swim that I did not notice much about his face; but I certainly think he was good-looking. There, my dear, there is some one just come into the shop.”
 
After this several customers came in, and Carry was pretty well occupied for the rest of the evening. She did not renew the subject of her father’s preserver. Stephen Walker lit a long pipe and smoked thoughtfully beside the fire. Once or twice he went into the shop, but he was not of much use to Carry, and received orders to sit quiet and smoke his pipe, for that he had given her quite anxiety enough for one day. At ten o’clock the shop was shut, and they went up to bed, Stephen Walker to sleep fitfully, waking up with great starts, under the idea that the omnibus wheels were passing over his body. Carry lay awake for a long time, trying to picture to herself her father’s preserver, and wondering whether he would ever come to see them.