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Sam was sitting with his eyes fixed upon the dust-heap outside the next gate to that by which the groom had disappeared, profoundly turning over in his mind the difficulties of his present undertaking, when the gate opened, and a female servant came out into the lane to shake some bedside carpets.
I took out not a letter, but a printed paragraph, cut from a Scotch newspaper. "Read it," said Eustace. I read as follows: "STRANGE DOINGS AT GLENINCH A romance in real life seems to be in course of progress at Mr. Macallan's country-house. Private excavations are taking place if our readers will pardon us the unsavory allusion at the dust-heap, of all places in the world!
I've come all the way from Yankee America, to visit my native dust-heap, which never produced, beside its daily growth of what might be known the other side of the water, as nature's own pie-plant and sausage-improver, but one Sampson; but," added he, in a subdued voice, "may I ask who can take enough interest in a poor fellow, who never belonged to nothing, as to speak his name?
But I have; and therefore, as she likes you and I like you, I'll make you both an offer. I will give my daughter twenty thousand pounds, or you shall have the Dust-heap. Choose!" Mr. Waterhouse was puzzled and amused, and referred the matter entirely to the young lady. But she was for having the money, and no trouble.
Upon a piece of waste land at the corner of the furze a very large cinder and dust heap was made by carting refuse there from the neighbouring suburb. During the sharp and continued frosts of the winter this dust-heap was the resort of almost every species of bird sparrows, starlings, greenfinches, and rooks searching for any stray morsels of food.
Having eaten to his satisfaction he quite ingratiated himself with Caddy by picking up all the crumbs he had spilled during tea, and throwing them upon the dust-heap. This last act was quite a stroke of policy, as even Caddy began to regard him as capable of reformation.
A canal ran along at the rear of the Dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by with hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands the forlorn figure of a man, in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman it still belonged but in what a position!
"What a strange thing!" said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. "This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away." So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying. "Bring me the two most precious things in the city," said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
And strange as it may seem, these breadths of happy days, when the old questions cease to torment, and a man can trust in Providence and without one qualifying thought bless the day that he was born, are very frequently connected with the passion which is known as love; that mysterious symbol of our double nature, that strange tree of life which, with its roots sucking their strength from the dust-heap of humanity, yet springs aloft above our level and bears its blooms in the face of heaven.
"Two white skins, and a tor'shell-un!" It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the dead-cat department of the Dust-heap, and now announced that a prize of three skins, in superior condition. had rewarded him for being first in the field. He was enjoying a seat on the wall, in order to recover himself from the excitement of his good fortune.
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