When the tea was over Bryda cleared it away, and carefully washing the handleless cups, replaced them in the corner cupboard. Then she took a seat by the window, at Mrs Lambert's request, and read to her--a dry sermon first, and then Mrs Lambert told her she might go to the bookcase and choose a book for her own reading.

Bryda's eyes kindled with delight, and she joyfully accepted the offer.

'May I choose any book, madam?'

'Any book that is not a novel. There are some there not for Sunday reading, or indeed for workaday reading for a young person.'

'Milton's _Paradise Lost_,' Bryda said, 'may I take that?'

'Yes, but be careful not to finger the binding, and remember no book leaves this room. I found the apprentice had dared to abstract a volume of an old poet--which I am sure he could not read--by name Chaucer, for the poems are wrote in old English. He had a deserved reprimand, and a box on the ears for his pains.'

'Old English,' thought Bryda, 'old English, Tom Chatterton can read old English, for I suppose Rowley the priest's poems are in old English.'

CHAPTER IX

THE POET'S FRIENDS.

When Chatterton left his mother's house soon after Bryda and Jack Henderson had gone away together he was in one of his most depressed moods.

What did anyone care for him or his disappointments and continually deferred hope that Mr Walpole would at least return the manuscripts, at first so graciously received, and now it would seem thrown aside as worthless?

Everything seemed against him, and the gay throng of pleasure seekers on the fair summer evening was an offence to him.

As he passed over Bristol Bridge he looked down into the river with a strange longing that he could find rest there, and be free from the torments of disappointed life and fruitless aims.

As he leaned over the parapet, gazing down into the dun-coloured waters, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a cheery voice said,--

'Eh, Tom, my lad, what are you dreaming about? Come with me to sup at Mr Barrett's and meet my brother Alexander, the parson. I'll warrant you have got some more bits of history for him to put into his big book.

Come, come, don't look so glum, and we'll take a glass at the tavern in Wine Street on the way.'

'No,' was the reply; 'you are very good sir, but I am in no mood for taverns to-night.'

'Well, a little bird whispered in my ear that you were seen in Redcliffe Meadows walking with a mighty pretty young lady, with a figure like a sylph and a face like an angel. Now then, Tom, don't be shy, but out with it, and tell the truth.'

'There's nothing to tell, sir. Miss Palmer is so unfortunate as to be under the same roof with me in Dowry Square, and misfortunes make us akin. She has great literary taste, and--'

'Ah, can see the beauties of Rowley's poems! Well, I am glad to hear it.

They are wonders--wonders, and, Tom, you are a wonder for bringing them to light.' 'Then you are a poet, you know, a real poet, and Bristol will be proud of you some day. Why, there is not a lad of your age who can boast of his verses being taken by a London magazine and printed and admired. Come, Tom, don't be downcast; you should hear what my brother the reverend Alexander says of you, and he is a judge. A man who can write a book about the Deluge must be a judge--eh?'

Mr Catcott was a pewterer by trade, and a simple-hearted, kindly man, a staunch friend of Chatterton from first to last, never wavering in his allegiance nor in his faith in Rowley the priest; no, not even when not long after the great Dr Johnson asserted that the poems were a forgery, though at the same time he acknowledged that it was wonderful how the _whelp_ had written such things. The honest pewterer now put his arm through Chatterton's, and soon his sympathy and perfect faith dispelled the cloud, and by the time they reached Mr Barrett's house Chatterton was his most winning self again.

Mr Barrett was a surgeon in good practice, and a man of culture, who found time to pursue his historical studies without neglecting his professional duties. In this he was very different from the ordinary general country practitioners of his times, who were for the most part men of scant education. Mr Barrett's introduction to Thomas Chatterton was brought about by the boy assuring Mr Burgum, Mr Catcott's partner in the pewtering business, that he came of a noble race, and that he had discovered a full account of the family of the De Bergheims, and at once presented Mr Burgum with a manuscript copy of the original document on parchment.

Mr Burgum had been so pleased that he gave the boy, then scarcely fourteen years old, in Colston's School, five shillings.

This success was followed by further particulars of the family, and a poet was found amongst the pewterer's ancestors, one John de Bergheim, a Cistercian monk, and a poem called the _Romaunt of the Cnyghte_ was inserted in the second document to give the good pewterer a specimen of his skill.

To make the poem more intelligible to the puzzled pewterer a modern English version was appended, and very soon the boy at Colston's School attracted attention and became celebrated amongst a small circle of the more educated and literary Bristol people.

Mr Barrett received Chatterton on this particular Sunday evening with much cordiality, and the conversation over the supper-table was easy and pleasant.

'Any news of the manuscripts?' Mr Barrett asked.

'No, sir, nor ever will be. I fear now they are lost beyond recall.'

'Nonsense; that cannot be allowed. Mr Walpole shall be forced to return them--if he is forced to do nothing else.'

'Sir,' Chatterton said, 'you know full well that Mr Walpole's whole manner changed when he discovered I was the son of a poor widow, and was small, and of no repute.'

'The very information which should have secured his heart and made your literary zeal of more value in his eyes. But means shall not be wanting to come to the bottom of this conduct of Mr Walpole's. Your friends will rally round you,' exclaimed Mr Catcott vehemently.

'Gently, gently, George,' exclaimed his more wary brother Alexander: 'We must first know that Mr Walpole has any dishonest intentions, which in a person of quality like him is scarce reasonable to suppose,' and then the author of _The History of the Deluge_ pulled from his capacious waistcoat pocket a bit of fossil, which he handed round for inspection in support of one of his theories.

When the clock chimed the quarter to ten o'clock Chatterton hastily rose, saying,--

'I am late as it is, sir. Permit me to bid you good evening.'

Mr Barrett followed Chatterton to the door, and laying his hand kindly on his arm, he slipped into his hand half-a-guinea.

'This is a small acknowledgment for the last curious bit of information you handed me on Bristol antiquities. Be of good courage, my boy; your time will come, and your industry in adding to the history of past ages will meet its reward.'

Chatterton pressed Mr Barrett's hand fervently.

'I thank you, sir,' he said; 'you are my good friend, and were there others like you I might be delivered from the chains which gall me.'

Then Chatterton took a flying leap down the steps before Mr Barrett's house and sped on his way to Dowry Square.

'Poor boy!' the kindly surgeon said, 'poor boy! he is not made to bear the frowns of the rich and great, nor the buffets which all must meet in life. Poor boy! I would fain be of some use to him, but it is a hard matter to help such as he.'

In his better moments Chatterton had a longing to throw aside all shams, and be true.

As he stood at the door of the house in Dowry Square, waiting the first stroke of ten before he gave the single knock which should announce his arrival, he, looking up at the starlit sky, felt there was something greater and nobler to strive after than mere fame and recognition of his powers by those around him.

The silent majesty of the heavens has often brought a message, as to the psalmist of old, 'When I consider Thy heaven the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast created, what is man that Thou art mindful of Him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him.' That this poor boy had moments when he felt after God as the supreme good is shown by his poem which he calls 'The Resignation.'

O God, whose thunder shakes the sky, Whose eye this atom globe surveys, To Thee, my only Rock, I fly, Thy mercy in Thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of Thy will, The shadows of celestial light Are past the power of human skill, But what the Eternal does is right.

Then why, my soul, dost thou complain, Why drooping, seek the dark recess?

Shake off the melancholy chain, For God created all to bless.

We, who read these verses after the lapse of a hundred and twenty years, may well feel as sorrowful as if it were but a story of yesterday, that for Chatterton the last verse of this fine poem was, as far as our poor human judgment can go, never fulfilled, when he says,--

The gloomy mantle of the night Which on my sinking spirit steals, Will vanish at the morning light Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.