Sir Henry of course did excuse him. There was nothing he himself liked so much as sitting cosy over a dining-room fire.
In about an hour Caroline did come down again; and in another hour, before the old man went, she again vanished for the night. Sir Henry had made up his mind not to speak to Mr. Bertram about money that evening; so he also soon followed Caroline, and sat down to work upon the County Courts in his own bedroom.
On the next morning Sir Henry and Caroline went to church. All the Hadleyians of course knew of the engagement, and were delighted to have an opportunity of staring at the two turtle-doves. A solicitor-general in love is a sight to behold; and the clergyman had certainly no right to be angry if the attention paid to his sermon was something less fixed than usual. Before dinner, there was luncheon; and then Sir Henry asked his betrothed if she would take a walk with him. "Oh, certainly, she would be delighted." Her church-going bonnet was still on, and she was quite ready. Sir Henry also was ready; but as he left the room he stooped over Mr. Bertram's chair and whispered to him, "Could I speak to you a few words before dinner, sir; on business? I know I ought to apologize, this being Sunday."
"Oh, I don't care about Sunday," said the stubborn-minded old man. "I shall be here till I go to bed, I suppose, if you want me."
And then they started on their walk. Oh, those lovers' rambles! A man as he grows old can perhaps teach himself to regret but few of the sweets which he is compelled to leave behind him. He can learn to disregard most of his youth's pleasures, and to live contented though he has outlived them. The polka and the waltz were once joyous; but he sees now that the work was warm, and that one was often compelled to perform it in company for which one did not care. Those picnics too were nice; but it may be a question whether a good dinner at his own dinner-table is not nicer. Though fat and over forty he may still ride to hounds, and as for boating and cricketing, after all they were but boy's play. For those things one's soul does not sigh. But, ah! those lovers' walks, those loving lovers' rambles. Tom Moore is usually somewhat sugary and mawkish; but in so much he was right. If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this. They are done and over for us, oh, my compatriots! Never again, unless we are destined to rejoin our houris in heaven, and to saunter over fields of asphodel in another and a greener youth—never again shall those joys be ours! And what can ever equal them? 'Twas then, between sweet hedgerows, under green oaks, with our feet rustling on the crisp leaves, that the world's cold reserve was first thrown off, and we found that those we loved were not goddesses made of buckram and brocade, but human beings like ourselves, with blood in their veins, and hearts in their bosoms—veritable children of Adam like ourselves.
"Gin a body meet a body comin' through the rye." Ah, how delicious were those meetings! How convinced we were that there was no necessity for loud alarm! How fervently we agreed with the poet! My friends, born together with me in the consulship of Lord Liverpool, all that is done and over for us. We shall never gang that gait' again.
There is a melancholy in this that will tinge our thoughts, let us draw ever so strongly on our philosophy. We can still walk with our wives;—and that is pleasant too, very—of course. But there was more animation in it when we walked with the same ladies under other names. Nay, sweet spouse, mother of dear bairns, who hast so well done thy duty; but this was so, let thy brows be knit never so angrily. That lord of thine has been indifferently good to thee, and thou to him has been more than good. Up-hill together have ye walked peaceably labouring; and now arm-in-arm ye shall go down the gradual slope which ends below there in the green churchyard. 'Tis good and salutary to walk thus. But for the full cup of joy, for the brimming spring-tide of human bliss, oh, give me back, give me back— — —! Well, well, well; it is nonsense; I know it; but may not a man dream now and again in his evening nap and yet do no harm?
Vici puellis nuper idoneus, et militavi. How well Horace knew all about it! But that hanging up of the gittern—. One would fain have put it off, had falling hairs, and marriage-vows, and obesity have permitted it. Nay, is it not so, old friend of the grizzled beard? Dost thou not envy that smirk young knave with his five lustrums, though it goes hard with him to purchase his kid-gloves? He dines for one-and-twopence at an eating-house; but what cares Maria where he dines? He rambles through the rye with his empty pockets, and at the turn of the field-path Maria will be there to meet him. Envy him not; thou hast had thy walk; but lend him rather that thirty shillings that he asks of thee. So shall Maria's heart be glad as she accepts his golden brooch.
But for our friend Sir Henry every joy was present. Youth and wealth and love were all his, and his all together. He was but eight-and-twenty, was a member of Parliament, solicitor-general, owner of a house in Eaton Square, and possessor of as much well-trained beauty as was to be found at that time within the magic circle of any circumambient crinoline within the bills of mortality. Was it not sweet for him to wander through the rye? Had he not fallen upon an Elysium, a very paradise of earthly joys? Was not his spring-tide at the full flood?
And so they started on their walk. It was the first that they had ever taken together. What Sir Henry may have done before in that line this history says not. A man who is solicitor-general at eight-and-twenty can hardly have had time for much. But the practice which he perhaps wanted, Caroline had had. There had been walks as well as rides at Littlebath; and walks also, though perhaps of doubtful joy, amidst those graves below the walls of Jerusalem.