CHAPTER XVIII.
How often, as society is constituted, does the passing of one single hour affect the whole of the hours that gather into life. A moment is sometimes enough; but it is more frequently an hour--two hours--an evening.
I wonder if it was so with the patriarchs. I rather think not; for if so, they would not have lived so long. If Methuselah had gone on at the rail-road pace at which we live in modern days--if he had crowded into each day of life the same amount of thought, sensation, act, event, which now fills up the space of every four-and-twenty hours, between seventeen and seventy, the whole history of the world, in its hundred thousand folio tomes, would have been a joke to the annals of his existence. But we make a great mistake if we think those old gentlemen, in any thing, lived as fast as we do; and this, I feel sure, was the secret of their longevity.
Oh no, they moved from place to place, with their flocks and herds, traveling not much more than five or six miles a day. They struck their tents in the morning; they pitched them in the evening; they milked their cows, tended their "much cattle," and the day was done. Sometimes they did not even strike their tents at all, but remained upon one spot, till, like the locusts, they had eaten up every green thing. An occasional combat with a lion or a bear--a fight with a neighboring herdsman, or the procuration of venison "to make savory meat," was an event agreeably diversifying the monotony of existence; and I have a strong notion that thought and feeling marched at as slow a rate as all the rest.
Thus was it, probably, that their thoughts were so grand, their feelings so powerful. In mighty masses, they moved slow; but whatever they touched they overwhelmed.
We, on the contrary, can never go too fast; forgetting that there is but a certain portion of life allotted to every man, and that life is not mere time, measured by suns or moons, but a certain amount of action, event, idea, sensation. We crowd more into seven days than a patriarch put into seven years; and then we wonder that life is so brief, that so little time has been allowed us.
There was an evening--a long evening--before Ralph Woodhall and Hortensia Danvers. What might they not have done in that space of time? How completely, under many circumstances, might it have altered the whole course of the fate of both; and it did affect their fate considerably: perhaps not in event, perhaps not in that course and conduct of external life which is open to the eye of the world, which consists of act, and influences others, but much in that internal life, where thought and feeling are the actors, where spirit speaks to spirit, and their proceedings are only open to the eye of consciousness.
But let me tell, and as briefly as possible, for I must hurry on to other things, what did actually take place.
When Ralph returned to the inn, he was led at once by the landlord, with every demonstration of the most profound respect, to the apartments which had been assigned to Lady Danvers. He found one of the servants of the Duke of Norfolk with her, one of her own men, and her own waiting-woman; and he saw, at a glance, by the sparkling look with which she gave him her hand, that she had heard all, and had approved what he had done. He was somewhat surprised to see, indeed, the state and condition of the room into which he was shown. It had been understood that Lady Danvers was to go on that night, as soon as her horses had been refreshed; but now, every thing seemed prepared for her longer stay.
Hortensia had an art of giving any place of her temporary abode an air of graceful refinement which was very charming, and it was done with a rapidity and precision which could only be accomplished by the aid of the fairy or order. The room was a large, old-fashioned, dingy room, well-furnished enough, and reserved for persons of high degree who might chance occasionally to visit the house; but since Hortensia Danvers entered it, the furniture had been rearranged, a number of little articles of taste and ornament had been taken by the maid from her baggage, and laid about upon the tables with apparently a careless care. Here was seen the book of Common Prayer, in its cover of crimson velvet, with silver clasps; there a beautifully finished miniature in a golden frame. In other places were seen materials for writing, arranged in quaintly-formed stands of the workmanship of the fifteenth century, while all the flowers that could be procured in the neighborhood decorated different parts of the room. The maid was still busy with these arrangements, under her lady's direction, when Ralph entered, and gazed round with a look of wonder.
His fair young companion seemed to enjoy his surprise, and asked, in a cheerful tone, if she had not decorated the room gayly.
"You have, indeed, sweet lady," he answered; "but is not all this labor thrown away? I thought you were going forward this evening."
"So thought I," replied Lady Danvers, "till you chose to get yourself apprehended by constables, Master Woodhall. Then, as you had courteously come so far to take care of me, I found myself bound in courtesy to stay to take care of you. You would not have had me go on and leave you in the hands of the Philistines, surely? I have just heard how it has all ended for the time; but, over and above a wish to know how the matter goes with you to-morrow, it is too late now, at half past five, to think of moving my quarters for the night. I therefore invite you to sup with me here, and to spend such portion of your time with me, in this dull solitude, as you can withdraw from more weighty occupations."
She spoke in a gay and jesting tone; and seeing a certain look of uneasiness upon Ralph's countenance, which she justly attributed to the thought of being detained--though she misunderstood entirely the circumstances which rendered the detention painful--she added, "Moreover, I lay my commands upon you to clear your countenance instantly, to submit with a good grace to the will of Fate, to cast off all thought of repining at being cooped up for a whole evening with Hortensia Danvers, and, if possible, to make yourself exceedingly agreeable, and more civil than ordinary. Alice, you stay here," she continued, addressing the waiting-maid, who seemed about to quit the room; and then, with a laughing look to Ralph, she added, "It is as well that she should have the benefit of our learned conversation, both for her own instruction and the instruction of others."
Ralph could not help smiling; and, seating himself beside her in one of the window seats, he made up his mind to do as she bade him, to think no more of what could not be avoided, and to let the present pass as agreeably as might be.
There was no very romantic scene before them: a wide old street, with the quaint gables of the houses turned to the highway; edifices of wood, with galleries and sometimes stair-cases running over the outside; edifices of stone and brick--for the country afforded both--with flights of steps descending from the path to the reception rooms. There was the market cross in the middle of the highway, where the latter grew wide, about twenty yards above the inn door, enlarging into a sort of market square, and the church tower a hundred yards beyond, with a group of boys playing at marbles before the gate by which the dead were borne into the cemetery, and wrangling over their game as fiercely as if they had tasted human blood. Some knots of people still lingered in the streets, gossiping sagely over the events which had just passed, and presaging more sagely still the events which were to come; and numerous carts and wagons, with their loads still packed, or ready for removal, occupied a considerable portion of the street. It was like a dream of the age fading away and ready to give place to a period fresher, stiffer, more practical.
Yet over the whole there hung a light, misty haze of sunshine and vapor commingled, not uncommon on an English afternoon, and not unlike the dim, magnifying fog which shrouds from the eager eye the transition from the present to the future.
"How richly the sunshine streams down the street upon that old carved cross and the straw-strewn market-place!" said Ralph.
"All the more bright because we see not whence it comes," replied Hortensia; "and the warmer--to the eye, at least--for passing through an atmosphere grosser than that from which it issues. What is it most like, Ralph--like woman's love, or Heaven's bounty, or the rays of Hope, that stream between the close dwellings of man's earthly aspirations, gilding the straws upon his onward way, and making the stones on his path shine like jewels?"
"Like woman's love, methinks," said Ralph, "because, as you say, it pours from sources we do not see, brightens the dimmer air that it pervades, and often lends a luster to worthless objects, which shine in its light alone."
"True," said the lady, with a sigh; "but see, it catches on the cross upon the steeple-top, and makes it shine as if with fire."
"It will rest there longest," replied her companion; "shining after all is dark below."
"Even so," said the lady, retiring from the window; "I love the shaded light of a quiet room better than the wide, garish sunshine abroad. Come, let us talk of other days, when you and I were boy and girl, and knew not of each other's being, and chased butterflies, and sought to catch the rainbow, and did all that the common bond of nature uses to link withal the human hearts through the wide world in one community of universal sympathy in early years. Tell me, Ralph Woodhall, why is it that all mankind, thus one in happy youth, should part so widely in maturer years--part in feeling and in thought, in conduct and in course, in object and in means?"
"Because," replied Ralph, "at least so I suppose, infancy is one general starting-point from which all the roads diverge, leading further and further asunder."
"Till all guide us to the great precipice which surrounds our arena on every side," said the lady, "and we take the leap from points wide apart. But we are getting dull, Mr. Woodhall. Do you remember your mother?"
"But faintly," replied Ralph, "yet brightly too, though it may seem a contradiction. The long look back through life is to me like the prospect down that street, where there are many long, shadowy spaces in which I can see nothing clearly, while every here and there comes a bright gleam of light, displaying every thing as vividly as in mid-day."
"Memory! memory!" said the lady; "it is ever like the setting sun."
"Sometimes," continued Ralph, "the objects furthest off seem to catch the light of that sun of memory most brightly; and where a dark lapse of shadow intervenes, the objects beyond are the most brilliant. One of my earliest recollections is of having been taken into a large room, dimly lighted by a shaded lamp, and seeing a pale, beautiful face pillowed on my father's arm. I remember being lifted up by a nurse upon the side of the bed, and my father's raising gently that fair, faded form, while my mother cast her arms around me, and I heard her say, 'God bless and keep thee, my child;' and then some tears fell upon my face, and I was carried away. All around that scene is dark and obscure; but it is as clear to memory as the events of yesterday."
"It may be that such is the happiest parting," said Lady Danvers, shading her eyes with her hand. "It is very sad to watch the decreasing strength, to gaze anxiously upon the waning color, to listen terrified to the panting breath, to see the eyes we love lose their light, and to mark the dull, awful change steal over the face once warm and eager with affection. Yet who can tell? Each one has his sorrow; Nature's lamp is only lighted to go out, and leave the heart it cheered in darkness. What matters it if it be suddenly extinguished by some harsh wind, or slowly flicker out for failing oil? Come, let us be more cheerful; let us talk of the gay, great world, or of country scenes and happy life at home. Surely we may find some more cheering themes than death or sunset."
"Both have a morrow," replied Ralph; and then he tried, with some success, to vary the conversation with lighter topics; but still the somber tone which it had at first assumed spread through it all a quiet, gentle melancholy, which was not without its danger to one heart there. Ralph had but little knowledge of the world--none of courts or courtly scenes. By nature he was a gentleman--by habit, by thought, by feeling. His collegiate life had not been long enough to stiffen or to harden, and his studies had been directed to all those things which embellish as well as enrich the mind. Thus his conversation was new--almost strange to Hortensia's ears--unlike aught she had heard before, yet full of sympathies with much in her own heart and mind; and for several hours the time passed sweetly, till toward half past eight Ralph rose to retire.
"Surely," she thought, "all danger of an angry meeting must have gone by for to-day;" and, perhaps, with too strong a consciousness that she would willingly have detained him longer, she let him go.
Shortly after, an undefinable feeling of dread took possession of her. "There is no knowing," she thought, "what men in their intemperate courage may do to satisfy themselves upon their point of honor. Alice!" she cried aloud, "go and see for Mr. Ralph Woodhall; tell him I want him--that I had forgotten something which I wished to say."
"Lord! my lady, I dare say he is gone to bed," replied the girl.
"Ascertain, at all events," said Lady Danvers; "ask one of the duke's servants."
The waiting-woman left the room, and remained away for some five minutes. When she returned, she said, with a laugh, unconscious of her mistress's anxiety, "The young gentleman has gone forth, my lady--to amuse himself in the town, I'll warrant. But Master Wilton says he will give him your ladyship's message as soon as he returns."
Lady Danvers sat up for more than one hour, but Ralph did not make his appearance; and with a heavy heart she at length retired to rest.