As he looked up, his eye caught afar, embedded among the soft verdure of the spring, one lone and grey house, from whose chimney there rose no smoke—sad, inhospitable, dismantled as that beside which he now stood;—as if the curse which had fallen on the inmates of either mansion, still clung to either roof. One hasty glance only, the traveller gave to the solitary and distant abode,—and then started and quickened his pace.
On re-entering the stables, the traveller found the Corporal examining his horse from head to foot with great care and scrupulosity.
“Good hoofs too, humph!” quoth the Corporal, as he released the front leg; and, turning round, saw, with some little confusion, the owner of the steed he had been honouring with so minute a survey. “Oh,—augh! looking at the beastie, Sir, lest it might have cast a shoe. Thought your honour might want some intelligent person to shew you the premises, if so be you have come to buy; nothing but an old ‘oman there; dare say your honour does not like old ‘omen—augh!”
“The owner is not in these parts?” said the horseman.
“No, over seas, Sir; a fine young gentleman, but hasty; and—and—but Lord bless me! sure—no, it can’t be—yes, now you turn—it is—it is my young master!” So saying, the old Corporal, roused into affection, hobbled up to the wanderer, and seized and kissed his hand. “Ah, Sir, we shall be glad, indeed, to see you back after such doings. But’s all forgotten now, and gone by—augh! Poor Miss Ellinor, how happy she’ll be to see your honour. Ah! how she be changed, surely!”
“Changed; ay, I make no doubt! What! does she look in weak health?”
“No; as to that, your honour, she be winsome enough still,” quoth the Corporal, smacking his lips; “I seed her the week afore last, when I went over to—, for I suppose you knows as she lives there, all alone like, in a small house, with a green rail afore it, and a brass knocker on the door, at top of the town, with a fine view of the—hills in front? Well, Sir, I seed her, and mighty handsome she looked, though a little thinner than she was; but, for all that, she be greatly changed.”
“How! for the worse?”
“For the worse, indeed,” answered the Corporal, assuming an air of melancholy and grave significance; “she be grown religious, Sir, think of that—augh—bother—whaugh!”
“Is that all?” said Walter, relieved, and with a slight smile. “And she lives alone?”