He paused, greatly agitated.
Harley was no less so. But, as if by a sudden impulse, the soldier bent down his manly head and kissed the poet’s brow; then he hastened to the gate, flung himself on his horse, and rode away.
CHAPTER XVII.
Lord L’Estrange did not proceed at once to Riecabocca’s house. He was under the influence of a remembrance too deep and too strong to yield easily to the lukewarm claim of friendship. He rode fast and far; and impossible it would be to define the feelings that passed through a mind so acutely sensitive, and so rootedly tenacious of all affections. When, recalling his duty to the Italian, he once more struck into the road to Norwood, the slow pace of his horse was significant of his own exhausted spirits; a deep dejection had succeeded to feverish excitement. “Vain task,” he murmured, “to wean myself from the dead! Yet I am now betrothed to another; and she, with all her virtues, is not the one to—” He stopped short in generous self-rebuke. “Too late to think of that! Now, all that should remain to me is to insure the happiness of the life to which I have pledged my own. But—” He sighed as he so murmured. On reaching the vicinity of Riccabocca’s house, he put up his horse at a little inn, and proceeded on foot across the heathland towards the dull square building, which Leonard’s description had sufficed to indicate as the exile’s new home. It was long before any one answered his summons at the gate. Not till he had thrice rung did he hear a heavy step on the gravel walk within; then the wicket within the gate was partially drawn aside, a dark eye gleamed out, and a voice in imperfect English asked who was there.
“Lord L’Estrange; and if I am right as to the person I seek, that name will at once admit me.”
The door flew open as did that of the mystic cavern at the sound of “Open, Sesame;” and Giacomo, almost weeping with joyous emotion, exclaimed in Italian, “The good Lord! Holy San Giacomo! thou hast heard me at last! We are safe now.” And dropping the blunderbuss with which he had taken the precaution to arm himself, he lifted Harley’s hand to his lips, in the affectionate greeting familiar to his countrymen.
“And the padrone?” asked Harley, as he entered the jealous precincts.
“Oh, he is just gone out; but he will not be long. You will wait for him?”
“Certainly. What lady is that I see at the far end of the garden?”