“I think I have now learned all particulars,” said Clarence; “it only remains for me to congratulate you: but are you, in truth, never tired of the monotony and sameness of domestic life?”
“Yes! and then I do, as I have just done, saddle Little John, and go on an excursion of three or four days, or even weeks, just as the whim seizes me; for I never return till I am driven back by the yearning for home, and the feeling that after all one’s wanderings there is no place like it. Whether in private life or public, sir, in parting with a little of one’s liberty one gets a great deal of comfort in exchange.”
“I thank you truly for your frankness,” said Clarence; “it has solved many doubts with respect to you that have often occurred to me. And now we are in the main road, and I must bid you farewell: we part, but our paths lead to the same object; you return to happiness, and I seek it.”
“May you find it, and I not lose it, sir,” said the wanderer reclaimed; and, shaking hands, the pair parted.
CHAPTER LXVI.
Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est, nisi Naevia Rufo,
Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur;
Coenat, propinat, poscit, negat, annuit, una est Naevia;
si non sit Naevia, mutus erit.
Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem
Naevia lux, inquit, Naevia numen, ave.—MART.
[“Whatever Rufus does is nothing, except Naevia be at his elbow.
Be he joyful or sorrowful, be he even silent, he is still harping
upon her. He eats, he drinks, he talks, he denies, he assents;
Naevia is his sole theme: no Naevia, and he’s dumb. Yesterday at
daybreak, he would fain write a letter of salutation to his
father: ‘Hail, Naevia, light of my eyes,’ quoth he; ‘hail, Naevia,
my divine one.’”]
“The last time,” said Clarence to himself, “that I travelled this road, on exactly the same errand that I travel now, I do remember that I was honoured by the company of one in all respects the opposite to mine honest host; for, whereas in the latter there is a luxuriant and wild eccentricity, an open and blunt simplicity, and a shrewd sense, which looks not after pence, but peace; so, in the mind of the friend of the late Lady Waddilove there was a flat and hedged-in primness and narrowness of thought; an enclosure of bargains and profits of all species,—mustard-pots, rings, monkeys, chains, jars, and plum-coloured velvet inexpressibles; his ideas, with the true alchemy of trade, turned them all into gold: yet was he also as shrewd and acute as he with whose character he contrasts,—equally with him seeking comfort and gladness, and an asylum for his old age. Strange that all tempers should have a common object, and never a common road to it! But since I have begun the contrast, let me hope that it may be extended in its omen unto me; let me hope that as my encountering with the mercantile Brown brought me ill-luck in my enterprise, thereby signifying the crosses and vexations of those who labour in the cheateries and overreachings which constitute the vocation of the world; so my meeting with the philosophical Cole, who has, both in vagrancy and rest, found cause to boast of happiness, authorities from his studies to favour his inclination to each, and reason to despise what he, with Sir Kenelm Digby, would wisely call—
‘The fading blossoms of the earth;’
so my meeting with him may prove a token of good speed to mine errand, and thereby denote prosperity to one who seeks not riches, nor honour, nor the conquest of knaves, nor the good word of fools, but happy love, and the bourne of its quiet home.”