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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 617
off his horse, and Cousin Ringwood did not look behind to see how
he fared. But these, again, may have had their opinion regarding
our friend, who may have been misrepresented to them _________ I protest
as I look back at the past portions of this history, I begin to
have qualms, and ask myself whether the folks of whom we have
been prattling have had justice done to them: whether Agnes
Twysden is not a suffering martyr justly offended by Philip's
turbulent behaviour, and whether Philip deserves any particular
attention or kindness at all. He is not transcendently clever ; he
is not gloriously beautiful. He is not about to illuminate the darkness
in which the people grovel, with the flashing emanations of his
truth. He sometimes owes money, which he cannot pay. He
slips, stumbles, blunders, brags. Ah ! he sins and repents—pray
Heaven—of faults, of vanities, of pride, of a thousand shortcomings !
This I say—Ego—as my friend's biographer. Perhaps I do not
understand the other characters round about him so well, and have
overlooked a number of their merits, and caricatured and exaggerated
their little defects.
Among the Samaritans who came to Philip's help in these his
straits, he loves to remember the name of J. J., the painter, whom
he found sitting with the children one day making drawings for
them, which the good painter never tired to sketch.
Now, if those children would but have kept Ridley's sketches,
and waited for a good season at Christie's, I have no doubt they
might have got scores of pounds for the drawings ; but then, you
see, they chose to improve the drawings with their own hands.
They painted the soldiers yellow, the horses blue, and so forth.
On the horses they put soldiers of their own construction. Ridley's
landscapes were enriched with representations of " omnibuses," which
the children saw and admired in the neighbouring New Road. I
daresay, as the fever left her, and as she came to see things as they
were, Charlotte's eyes dwelt fondly on the pictures of the omnibuses
inserted in Mr. Ridley's sketches, and she put some aside, and
showed them to her friends, and said, " Doesn't our darling show
extraordinary talent for drawing ? Mr. Ridley says he does. He
did a great part of this etching."
But, besides the drawings, what do you think Master Ridley
offered to draw for his friends? Besides the prescriptions of
medicine, what drafts did Dr. Goodenough prescribe? When
Nurse Brandon came to Mrs. Philip in her anxious time, we know
what sort of payment she proposed for her services. Who says the
world is all cold ? There is the sun and the shadows. And the
Heaven which ordains poverty and sickness, sends pity, and love,
and succour.