"Well," said she, "it is the sweetest compliment that was ever paid to a woman."
The next morning we started betimes in the same cheerfulness of spirits, and making light of that dreaded snow as we crossed Burnmoor, descended into Eskdale about nine of the forenoon, and so reached Ravenglass before it was dusk. There, to my inexpressible delight, I saw the Swallow riding on an anchor a little way out. We crept down to the beach, and waited there until it was dark. Then I lighted a lantern which I had brought from the farmhouse for the very purpose, and lifting it up, swung it to and fro. In a little there was an answering flash from the sloop, and a little after that I heard the sound of oars in the water, and fell to wondering what sort of parting we should make, and, perhaps, in a measure, to dreading it. But the parting was of the simplest kind.
"It is good-bye, then," said Dorothy, "and we will shake hands, if you please."
This time I took her hand fairly within my palm, and held it clasped whilst it clasped mine.
"I am thanking God," said I, "for the truest friend that ever man had."
"Yes!" said she, nodding her head, "that is very prettily said, and no more than the truth."
"Ah!" said I, "you ever enjoyed a very proper notion of yourself;" and with that the boat grounded upon the beach, and, after all, we two parted with a laugh. I heard the song of the seamen at the windlass, coming across the water with an airy faintness, and then I set my face to the hillside.
CHAPTER XXI.
[I TRAVEL TO CARLISLE AND MEET AN ATTORNEY.]
It was a lonely business whereto I now was set, but in truth it is lonelier in the recollection than it was in the actual happening. As I sit over my fire here on a winter's night, I begin at times to wonder how I went through with it. I remember the incessant moaning of the sea,—for I followed my old plan, only with a greater precaution, and kept along the coast until I was nigh upon Whitehaven—and discover a loneliness in the thought that it was carrying Dorothy from me to France; I find, too, an overwhelming desolation in the knowledge that she and I had spoken the last good-bye, and a melancholy atop of that in the cheerfulness of our parting. But these notions are but the moss that gathers upon recollections. The sea brought no loneliness home to me,—rather it crooned of Dorothy's safety, nor was I conscious then of any desolation in the knowledge that my eyes would not again rejoice in the sight of her, for that very parting raised me out of my slough more nearly to her level; and as for the cheerfulness—why, just in that way would I have had her part from me. I believe, indeed, that I was more sensible of her presence on that journey from Ravenglass to Carlisle than ever I had been, even when her voice was in my ears or the knocking of her shoes upon the stones.