CHAPTER X.
This chapter shall be, I think, what that delightful wight, Washington Irving, would call a Salmagundi, or, as it should be, perhaps, a _Salmi à la Gondi_; but, having mentioned that name, Irving, I dedicate this book to you. It is long since we first met--long since we last parted--and it may be long, long, ere we meet again. Nevertheless, Heaven speed you, wherever you are, and send you forward on your voyage, with a calm sea and a swelling sail! In all the many that I have known, and among the few that I have loved and esteemed, there is not now a living man that can compete with you in that delightful conversation where the heart pours forth its tide, and where fancy and feeling mingle together, and flow on in one ever sparkling stream. The dim Atlantic--whose very name sounds like that of eternity--may roll between us till death close the eyes of one or the other; but till the things of this world pass away, you shall not be forgotten.
Although we have now brought up the events in London nearly to the same point as the events in the country, we must still leave Henry Burrel strolling on through Emberton Park beside Blanche Delaware, while we turn for a moment to his silent servant, who having, on the same morning, walked with his usual slow and quiet step to the post-office, brought home, and deposited upon his master's table, two or three letters, after first gleaning every possible information that their outside or their inside could furnish. He then proceeded to inspect the contents of another epistle, which bore his own name and superscription. The words therein written had a considerable effect upon him, causing more twitches and contortions of the muscles of his countenance than was usually visible upon that still and patient piece of furniture. The first expression was certainly full of pleasure; but that soon relapsed into deep thought, and then a grave shake of the head, and close setting of the lower jaw, might be supposed to argue a negative determination. "No, no, Mr. Tims," he muttered, "that won't do! If one could make sure of getting clear off--well and good. But first, there is the chance of my not being sent for the money--then you would take good care to have me closely watched; and then, again, I do not know whether the chance here at Emberton may not be worth ten of the other--and I may come in for my share of the other too. No, no, Mr. Tims, it won't do!--so I will come the conscientious upon you." And down he sat to indite an epistle to Mr. Peter Tims, the agent of Lord Ashborough. It was written in one of those fair, easy, but vacillating, running-hands, which bespeak a peculiar and inherent gift or talent for committing forgery; and was to the following effect:--
"Emberton, September, 18--
"Sir--Your honored letter was duly received this morning; and I hasten to reply, as in duty bound. I am very sure that such honorable gentlemen as my lord the earl and yourself would not undertake any thing but upon good and reasonable grounds; but, hoping that you will pardon my boldness in saying so much, yet I can not imagine that I have any other than a straight forward duty to perform--namely, when my master sends me for any sum of money, or other valuable thing, to hasten to give it up into his hands as soon as I have received it; which I would certainly do, in case he should send me up to London, although I do not think it probable he will. It is very true, certainly, that I do think our notions of property are very confined and wrong; and that no man should have at his disposal a superabundance, while another man is wanting the necessaries or even the conveniences of life; and that, if things were equally distributed, a better system must spontaneously arise. This much I have learned by reading; and I heartily wish that the principles of regeneration, which are at present in active existence among the operative classes, may go on to complete a change of the old corrupt system. Nevertheless, until such time as the intellect of the country in general shall have worked such results, I can be doing no wrong in following the laws and usages established; and shall, consequently, abstain from acting upon the abstract principles of general utility, until such time as the general welfare may require a physical demonstration of popular opinion.
"In regard to certain passages of my past life, to which you are pleased to refer; although I believe that I could perfectly justify myself upon my own fixed principles for every thing that I have done through life, yet I am sorry that any thing should have occurred to make you for a moment doubt the integrity of a person you strongly recommended to Mr. Beauchamp; and I am determined to do nothing that shall confirm any evil opinion you may have unfortunately been led to form, or to maim my master regret having listened to the recommendation which you formerly thought fit to give your very humble and most obedient servant,
"Stephen Harding."
Having penned this delectable epistle, and read it over more than once, with much genuine satisfaction at the skill with which he had endeavored to raise his own character, while rejecting the offers of Mr. Tims, Harding sealed it up, and hastened to put it in the post. He then sauntered slowly through the town; and having visited the widow's cottage, and conversed for a few minutes with her son, he proceeded to walk on in the same direction which we have seen Burrel pursue upon a former occasion, shortly after his first arrival at Emberton. The purpose of the silent servant, however, was not to visit the old miser of Ryebury in person; and, ere he had gone a quarter of a mile upon the road, he was joined by the same bold vulgar personage who had, during part of the journey, occupied a place in the stage-coach which brought his master to Emberton.
They met evidently as old and familiar friends and with that sort of easy nonchalance which bespoke that their meeting was not unexpected. The servant pursued his way, scarcely pausing to say the necessary passwords of civility, and the other turning onward upon the same path, walked by his side, with his arms bent behind his back, conversing, not exactly in an under voice, but rather in that between-the-teeth sort of tone, which renders what is said more difficult to be understood by any one not quite near, than even a whisper.
The terms in which they spoke, also, were something enigmatical, and none, probably, but the initiated, could have discovered their views or purposes by such terms as the following.
"I have just been thinking last night, Master Harding," said his new companion, "that we had better get the other job done as soon as possible. We are wasting time, I thinks, and it seems to me as how you are growing something squeamish."
"You are a fool, Tony" replied Harding, "you are a fool for thinking, any thing of the kind. I'll tell you what, you may count yourself extremely well off that you have fallen in with a man of principle and education like myself, or you would have put your neck in a noose long ago. You take no extended views of things; and, instead of acting upon principle, which would always make you cautious in regard to times and seasons, and means and methods, you go bolt on, and would run your head into the stone pitcher, if I were not by to pull you back by the heels."
"Well, I think you're a rum covey, now!" replied the other; and was proceeding in the same strain, when he was stopped by his companion exclaiming--"Hush, hush! Curse your slang, it will betray you as soon as the mark of the hot iron would. Look here, now. I am no more squeamish than you are. I always act upon principle; and as to the job before us, considering the sum of general utility that is to be gained, I see no objection to doing the matter completely--I mean, making a finish of it. You understand? But where is the hurry? Let us go cautiously to work, learn our ground, and get every thing prepared. I say, where's the hurry?"
"As to the matter of that," answered the other, "there mayn't be no great hurry, to be sure. But we're both wasting our time somewhat; and, besides, they are looking out sharp after that other job--you see they have digged for the plate like mad--so that there is no use staying longer nor necessary, you know."
"Don't be afraid!" answered Harding, coolly, "they can make nothing of that. Besides, look here, Smithson; if we wait four or five days longer, there will be five-and-twenty thousand pounds down from London."
"Whew!" whistled Mr. Anthony Smithson, laying one finger on the side of his nose "That is a go! But are you sure?"
"I never say any thing without being sure," answered Harding, with laconic pomposity. "So make yourself easy on that score. I say there will be five-and-twenty thousand pounds down in three or four days; and, if I know the old man right, the larger half will be in gold. Have you tried Sally the maid?"
"It wont do!" answered the other, with somewhat of a rueful face. "She has lived long enough with that old fellow to be as cautious as a beak."
"Well, I suppose I must do that too!" answered the valet; "though it is a little tiresome, Master Smithson, that all the hard work is to fall upon me."
"Why, how the devil can I help it, Harding?" replied the other. "If the girl will have nothing to say to me, what can I do, you know! No, no, when it comes to the real hard work, you never find me behind!"
"Well, well," answered his worthy coadjutor, "I must come round her myself somehow, though she be but a dirty, trapesing slut, that a man of gentlemanly feelings will find some difficulty in making love to--but, nevertheless, when one acts upon principle, one learns to overcome one's repugnance to such things, from a consideration of the mass of general utility to be obtained by a trifling sacrifice."
His companion grinned, but he was too well accustomed to Mr. Harding's method a reasoning to express any farther surprise. After a few words more on both sides, however, as they judged it expedient to be seen together as little as possible, these two respectable persons separated, and, while Anthony Smithson returned to the town, Harding pursued his way onward; and having, on the strength of the communication he had received, determined to proceed to Ryebury, he took the same path that Burrel had followed before him. The beauties of nature occupied less of his thoughts than those of his master; and while, with solemn steps and slow, he wandered on his way, his ideas were much fuller of shillings and sixpences, and trips across the Atlantic, than of the verdant mead and purling stream.
As I believe I have before said, Master Harding was by no means an ugly person; and the charms of his good looks, together with a marvelous sweet voice, and a good deal more eloquence of its own peculiar kind than any one could have suspected him to possess from his usual taciturnity, he was what the French render, with somewhat profligate decency, by calling the person so gifted _un homme à bonnes fortunes_. His expedition against the heart of Sally, the miser's maid, was more successful than that of his companion had been, and he returned home flattering himself on having made more progress than he had anticipated. In fact, he had been fortunate in finding Mr. Tims out, and Sally at home; but as the intrigues of a slattern and a valet form no part of the staple of this book, we shall leave the matter as it is, without any farther elucidation.
In the mean while, Burrel--for so we shall still call him--had sauntered on, whiling away the golden minutes of a fair day, on the early side of thirty, in sweet conversation beside a beautiful girl. I have described what their conversation was like before, and I leave every one who can remember what were the sensations he experienced, when deep and fervent love just began to break upon his heart, to imagine how sweet were the winged minutes as they flew. Even the unspoken consciousness was not a burden, but a joy; and though Blanche Delaware might be said to tremble at the feelings that were growing upon her, yet there was a sort of vague internal conviction that those feelings were reciprocal--that they could not thus have crept over her heart unless some, nay, many of the signs of similar sentiments, on his side, had been sufficiently displayed to make her feel secure that she did not love unsought. Still there would every now and then come a shrinking apprehension across her mind, that she might be deceived--that it might be all merely a courteous and engaging manner, the same toward every one, which she in her ignorance had vainly fancied particular to herself. But those thoughts were but for a moment; and as Burrel walked onward by her side, there was in his tone, in his manner, and still more in the current through which all his thoughts appeared now to flow, a balmy influence that seemed to soothe away every fear. She knew not well whence she derived that balm; for had she tried--which, by the way, she did not--she could not have found one particular word he spoke, which was more appropriate to the vocabulary of love than to Johnson's Dictionary. It was, perhaps--but she knew nothing about it. It was perhaps, that pouring forth of the soul upon every topic, which can never take place but in conversation with one we love and esteem; for the hours of love are like a sunshiny day in the midst of summer, and all the flowers open, and the birds sing, and the bright things come forth through the heart's universe. It was this, perhaps, more than aught else in Burrel's manner, that made Blanche Delaware believe that she herself was loved.
It is sometimes a very difficult thing to get two people to acknowledge in any language under the sun, the feelings that are passing in their hearts. It is more especially difficult in a book; for no author likes to tell how he and his managed the matter themselves--at least, if he be not an ass or a coxcomb--and any thing that is manufactured is almost always "flat, stale, and unprofitable." A true story canters one easily over all such difficulties; and it so fortunately happened, that Henry Burrel and Blanche Delaware acknowledged it all without the slightest idea in the world that they were doing any thing of the kind.
There had been something spoken accidentally, that went too deep, and both felt, perhaps, though almost unconsciously, that nothing more could be said on that topic without saying more still; and as there was a third person by, of course the matter dropped, and equally, of course, a long pause ensued, which grew unpleasant.
"I thought," said Burrel, at length, "that we were to meet with some antiquities--even more interesting than the house itself--at least your father said so;" and conscious that he had made an awkward speech, and very little to the purpose, Burrel looked up and smiled, though many other men would have looked down and colored.
"You are not far from them," replied Captain Delaware--for Blanche's eyes were fixed upon the ground, and her thoughts were--not at Nova Zembla. "But surely you are not tired?"
"Nay, nay, any thing but tired?" answered Burrel; "but your father declared he would catechise me upon these ruins severely, and I was only afraid that I should forget them altogether."
"A piece of inattention which Blanche or I would excuse much more readily than my father," replied the good-humored sailor. "But we are close upon them. You see those two wooded banks that fall across each other, with the stream flowing out in foam from between them? They form the mouth of a little glen, about a hundred yards up which stands the Prior's Fountain, and farther still, the Hermit's Chapel. In architecture, I believe, they are unique, and there is many a curious tradition about both."
"Hush, hush, William!" cried his sister, seeing him about to proceed, "never tell the traditions but upon the spot. Oh, an old legend, in these days of steam and manufactory, can never be properly told, except under the gray stone and the ivy, where the memories of a thousand years are carved by the chisel of time on every tottering pinnacle and moldering cornice, which vouch, by their unusual forms, for the strange stories of their founders!"
"Oh, let us go on, by all means," said Burrel, smiling; "an old legend is worthy of every accessory with which we can furnish it. But there it is," he added, as they turned the angle of the bank, and, entering the little glen, had before them a small Gothic building, covered with the richest ornaments of the most luxurious age of Norman architecture. "That, I suppose, is the chapel?"
"No, that is the Prior's Fountain," answered Captain Delaware; "and certainly the monks must have attached some peculiar importance to it, from covering it over with so splendid a structure."
Another minute brought them near it, and Burrel found that, under a beautiful canopy of stone-work, supported by eight cluster pillars, was placed a small stone fountain, full of the most limpid water, which, welling from a basin somewhat like the baptismal font of a Gothic church, poured through a little channel in the pavement, and thence made a small, sparkling stream, which joined the larger one ere it had run fifty yards. Attached to the basin by an iron chain, was a cup of the same metal, of very ancient date, though, perhaps, more modern than the fountain. This cup, as soon as they approached, Captain Delaware dipped into the water, and, laughing gayly, held it to Burrel.
"You must drink of the Prior's Fountain, Mr. Burrel," he said; "but listen, listen before you do so. The monks, you know, having vowed celibacy, found that the less they had to do with love the better; and it being luckily discovered that the waters of this well were a complete and everlasting cure for that malady, one of the priors covered it over, as you see, and enjoined that, on commencing his novitiate at Emberton, every pseudo-monk should be brought hither, and made to drink one cup of the water. It is added, that the remedy was never known to fail; and now, with this warning, Burrel, drink if you will."
Burrel, by this time, had the cup in his hand, and for a single instant his eyes sought those of Blanche Delaware. She was looking down into the fountain, with one hand resting on the edge. There was a slight smile upon her lip, but there was a scarcely perceptible degree of agitation in her aspect at the same time, which Burrel understood--or, at least, hoped--might have some reference to himself, although she might believe as little as he did in the efficacy of the waters of the fountain.
"No, no!" he replied at once, giving back the cup to Captain Delaware, and laughing lightly, as people do when they have very serious feelings at their hearts--"no, no! I dare not drink of such waters--they are too cold, in every sense of the word, to drink after such a walk as this. The very cup has frozen my hand!" he added, to take out any point that he might have given to his speech.
"He is actually afraid, Blanche!" cried her brother laughing. "Come, show him what a brave girl you are, and drain the cup to the bottom!"
"No, indeed!" answered Blanche Delaware. "Mr. Burrel is very right. The water is a great deal too cold!" And, as she spoke, she blushed till the tell-tale blood spread rosy over her fair forehead, and tingled in her small rounded ear.
"Cowards both, as I live!" cried Captain Delaware, drinking off the contents, and letting the cup drop--"cowards both, as I live!" and, springing across the little streamlet, he took two or three steps onward, toward the chapel.
"Let me assist you across!" said Burrel, offering his hand. As his fingers touched those of Blanche Delaware, to aid her in crossing the rivulet, they clasped upon her hand with a gentle pressure of thanks--so slight that she could not be offended, so defined that she could not mistake. The natural impulse of surprise was to look up; and before she could recollect herself, she had done so, and her eyes met Burrel's. What she saw was all kind, and gentle, and tender; but she instantly cast down her eyes, with another blush that was painful from its intensity, and with a single tear of agitation--and perhaps delight.