‘I see I can expect little satisfaction for my questions. Yet I am not very happy, Master Clerivault, and I think you might know it.’
The poor fellow looked at him kindly; there was the suggestion of a moist blink in his eyes.
‘Nay,’ he said: ‘all is well for thee; there is no need for unhappiness, but caution is the keynote of the legal mind. Mutiana cautio. What I may answer thee I will answer. Ask, in God’s name.’
‘Well,’ said Brion, ‘I would fain know why my uncle, after this long abandoning of me to ignorance of his very existence, hath come at this late hour to claim me for his own?’
‘Ha!’ cried the other: ‘I can satisfy thee there. It is sentiment, Sir—pure sentiment; the desire of a man made lonely, and something occupationless, to fasten to the only tie of kinship left remaining to him.’
The boy did not speak again for a while. There was something moving in his heart, some wonderful new sense of a warmth and meaning underlying the chill enigma of these happenings. That to him, for some mystic reason, this great overshadowing figure, with its dark preoccupations, could be looking for solace and affection, seemed pathetically incredible; yet the paragon spoke like one who knew, and he could not misdoubt him. I think from that moment all dread of his strange kinsman left him, and was supplanted by a shy confidence in his own tender ability to play the part desired of him. They were alone in the world, it appeared—just they two. The thought clung suddenly to him, as his arms already in spirit clung about the desolate man. Presently he sighed, and looked up.
‘What is to be done with me?’ said he. ‘May you tell me that?’
‘What duty and fondness may conspire,’ answered Clerivault, ‘and love repay. Learning thou hast, and swordmanship shalt have, to beat the brains of the world with a double edge. It is a fine place, the world, in these days, Sir. There is a greatness come into it for anyone to seize that hath the spirit and the courage. Dismiss what is lost with a snap of the fingers. What is office but confinement—to live in a Court when one might possess infinity. The horizons of the dawn arch upwards, revealing new prospects: there is a wind blows in under them, freighted with strange messages from gods and peoples never known before. The matrix of this sweet motherland of ours heaves with birth imminent: that great Triton of the sea that wed with her prepares a glory for his sons. There shall be wings—ha! to sweep the stars withal, or white as swans upon the waters, skimming down the moonlit levels. Enlargement is in the air, and our English lungs expand to it. Shall we not adventure with the rest, you and I? Here’s but a necessary interval, till we come, like mewing hawks, to burst our bars and rise to heaven.’
His wild eyes gleamed exultant; his voice squeaked and cracked; he flung one hand aloft, as if to point the upward way. And Brion sat regarding him, a little amazed, but still more curious. Presently he said:—
‘Are you English, Master Clerivault? I had not thought it.’