“I have presented Sir Walter with the letter, your worship,” he said. “I would have returned straight; but he bade me, as a favour, to order his barge, and I could not cry him nay. He hath since gone off to London.”
Cecil, being desirous of an early interview with Sir Walter, was somewhat disappointed by this intelligence; but he did not suffer his chagrin to reveal itself. Dismissing the pursuivant, he determined, as he could not see him that night, to visit Sir Walter early in the morning; and thus resolved, he quietly took his departure.
The following morning found him an early visiter at the door of Durham House. The noble proprietor of that mansion, however, had been astir for several hours, and was now busily engaged in the various employments of his study. He sat at a long table, in the middle of the room, with his face, which rested on one of his hands, turned towards the window, and his back towards the door. On the table, within reach of his hand, were divers papers and books, and one volume lying open, which, on a close view, proved to be a collection of the plays of Shakspear. The open page presented, on one side, the faint trace of a pencil, marking some reader’s admiration of the following passage:—
“Oh, how wretched
Is that poor man, that hangs on princes’ favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars and women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.”
The pencil-mark might have been made by Sir Walter himself; but, whether it had been, or not, that personage was not now meditating, under the prompture of his own experience, on its high and incontrovertible philosophy. Before him was spread a large chart, representing, in rude but accurate outlines, the continent of North America; and on this he seemed to bend his undivided attention.
Ever and anon, as his eye fixed itself on some more striking point of the broken shore, indicating a safe bay, or favourable commercial situation, he raised his pen, and, by a slight tick, marked it as the site of a future settlement. Gradually, breaking away from the shore, he moved his pen inland, and, after a deliberate pause, traced on the centre of the chart, in bold characters, these magic words:—
El Dorado.
As he thus fixed the site of his imagined Canaan, a smile rose to the lips of the philosopher, and seemed, on a cursory glance, to shed a sort of light over his every feature. There was, however, whether from intense thought, or secret anxiety, still a touch of melancholy on his brow; and it shortly spread itself further, and became, what it was in the first instance, the dominant expression of his countenance. Nevertheless, he continued to bend over the chart, and would, perhaps, ultimately have resumed the employment he had been engaged in; but, while he yet paused, a slight knock on the chamber-door brought his meditation to a close.