Aram did not return to the house with Madeline; he accompanied her to the garden gate, and then taking leave of her, bent his way homeward. He had gained the entrance of the little valley that led to his abode, when he saw Walter cross his path at a short distance. His heart, naturally susceptible to kindly emotion, smote him as he remarked the moody listlessness of the young man’s step, and recalled the buoyant lightness it was once wont habitually to wear. He quickened his pace, and joined Walter before the latter was aware of his presence.
“Good evening,” said he, mildly; “if you are going my way, give me the benefit of your company.”
“My path lies yonder,” replied Walter, somewhat sullenly; “I regret that it is different from yours.”
“In that case,” said Aram, “I can delay my return home, and will, with your leave, intrude my society upon you for some few minutes.”
Walter bowed his head in reluctant assent. They walked on for some moments without speaking, the one unwilling, the other seeking an occasion, to break the silence.
“This to my mind,” said Aram at length, “is the most pleasing landscape in the whole country; observe the bashful water stealing away among the woodlands. Methinks the wave is endowed with an instinctive wisdom, that it thus shuns the world.”
“Rather,” said Walter, “with the love for change which exists everywhere in nature, it does not seek the shade until it has passed by ‘towered cities, and ‘the busy hum of men.’”
“I admire the shrewdness of your reply,” rejoined Aram; “but note how far more pure and lovely are its waters in these retreats, than when washing the walls of the reeking town, receiving into its breast the taint of a thousand pollutions, vexed by the sound, and stench, and unholy perturbation of men’s dwelling-place. Now it glasses only what is high or beautiful in nature—the stars or the leafy banks. The wind that ruffles it, is clothed with perfumes; the rivulet that swells it, descends from the everlasting mountains, or is formed by the rains of Heaven. Believe me, it is the type of a life that glides into solitude, from the weariness and fretful turmoil of the world.
‘No flattery, hate, or envy lodgeth there, There no suspicion walled in proved steel, Yet fearful of the arms herself doth wear, Pride is not there; no tyrant there we feel!’”
[Phineas Fletcher.]