Just as Darrell, scarcely heeding the exclamation, and with his musing eyes on the ground, approached the gate, a respectful hand opened it wide, a submissive head bowed low, a voice artificially soft faltered forth words, broken and, indistinct, but of which those most audible were—“Pardon, me; something to communicate,—important; hear me.”
Darrell started, just as the traveller almost touched him, started, recoiled, as one on whose path rises a wild beast. His bended head became erect, haughty, indignant, defying; but his cheek was pale, and his lip quivered. “You here! You in England-at Fawley! You presume to accost me! You, sir,—you!”
Lionel just caught the sound of the voice as the doe had come timidly up to him. He turned round sharply, and beheld Darrell’s stern, imperious countenance, on which, stern and imperious though it was, a hasty glance could discover, at once, a surprise that almost bordered upon fear. Of the stranger still holding the gate he saw but the back, and his voice he did not hear, though by the man’s gesture he was evidently replying. Lionel paused a moment irresolute; but as the man continued to speak, he saw Darrell’s face grow paler and paler, and in the impulse of a vague alarm he hastened towards him; but just within three feet of the spot, Darrell arrested his steps.
“Go home, Lionel; this person would speak to me in private.” Then, in a lower tone, he said to the stranger, “Close the gate, sir; you are standing upon the land of my fathers. If you would speak with me, this way;” and, brushing through the corn, Darrell strode towards a patch of waste land that adjoined the field: the man followed him, and both passed from Lionel’s eyes. The doe had come to the gate to greet her master; she now rested her nostrils on the bar, with a look disappointed and plaintive.
“Come,” said Lionel, “come.” The doe would not stir.
So the boy walked on alone, not much occupied with what had just passed. “Doubtless,” thought he, “some person in the neighbourhood upon country business.”
He skirted the lake, and seated himself on a garden bench near the house. What did he there think of?—who knows? Perhaps of the Great World; perhaps of little Sophy! Time fled on: the sun was receding in the west when Darrell hurried past him without speaking, and entered the house.
The host did not appear at dinner, nor all that evening. Mr. Mills made an excuse: Mr. Darrell did not feel very well.
Fairthorn had Lionel all to himself, and having within the last few days reindulged in open cordiality to the young guest, he was especially communicative that evening. He talked much on Darrell, and with all the affection that, in spite of his fear, the poor flute-player felt for his ungracious patron. He told many anecdotes of the stern man’s tender kindness to all that came within its sphere. He told also anecdotes more striking of the kind man’s sternness where some obstinate prejudice, some ruling passion, made him “granite.”
“Lord, my dear young sir,” said Fairthorn, “be his most bitter open enemy, and fall down in the mire, the first hand to help you would be Guy Darrell’s; but be his professed friend, and betray him to the worth of a straw, and never try to see his face again if you are wise,—the most forgiving and the least forgiving of human beings. But—”