But I cannot tell all there was in that strange place. From end to end it was stocked with learned lumber; from end to end my sweet guide led me, pointing, whispering, and shuddering, all on tiptoe and in silence; and then, ere I was nearly satisfied, or had sampled one-quarter of that dusty treasure-hall, she led me through a little wicket, down twenty stairs, and so once more into the fresh open air.
“There, Sir,” she said, “now I have laid bare my father’s riches to you. Is it not a wonderful corridor? Oh! what a full place the world must be, if one man can gather so much strange of it!”
I told her that indeed it was and had been full, right back into the illimitable, of those hopes and fancies to which all yonder shreds did hint of; and thus talking, I of infinite experience watching the sweet wonder and vague speculation dawning in those unruffled child-eyes of hers, we sauntered about the gardens and pleasant paths, and spent a sunny afternoon in her ambient fields.
CHAPTER XXII
He who has not left something sad behind him, and reawoke in the sunshine to feel the golden elixir of health and happiness moving in his veins anew, may take it that he has at least one pleasure yet unspent.
I opened my eyes the next morning in as sweet a frame of contentment as any one could wish for. They had put me to sleep in a chamber in that same wing of the rearward buildings where slept Elizabeth and her father; thus, when I roused, the yellow sun was pouring in at my lattice, rich with sweet country scents, and the April air was swaying the white curtains, hung by dainty female hands across the diamond panes, with youth and sweetness in every breath. I lay and basked in it, and lazily wondered what all this changing fortune might mean. Where had I got to? Who was I? I turned about and stared upon the smooth white walls of the little room, patterned and tinseled with the dancing sunshine from outside, then gazed at the great carved columns of my four-post bedstead, then to the head, where, in a wide wooden field, were blazoned old Faulkener’s arms and cognizance. I turned to all the chairs, dusted so clean and set back true and straight, to the ewer and the basin, full of limpid water from the well that caught the morning shine and threw a dancing constellation of speckled light upon the ceiling; I wondered even at the bare floor, scrubbed until there was no spot upon it, and the snowy furniture of my couch and those downy pillows upon which I presently sank back in luxurious indolence.
Was I indeed that rude, rough captain of a grizzled cohort, with sinews of steel and frame impervious to the soft touch of pleasure, who only yesterday had burst through all the glittering phalanxes of France, and cut a way with that arm that lay supine upon the coverlet right down through the thickets of their spears to where the white fleur de lys flashed in their midmost shelter? Could I be that same wanderer who, down the devious ways of chance, had tried a thousand ventures, and slept in palaces and ditches, and drank from the same cup with kings and the same trough with outlaws? I laughed and stretched, and presently gave over speculating, and rose.
I washed and dressed, and went to the lattice, and looked forth. It was as sweet a morning as you could wish for. The tepid sunshine spread over everything, fleecy clouds were floating overhead upon the softest of winds, the sweet new-varnished leaves were glittering in the dew upon every bush, the small birds singing far and near, the kine lowing as they went to grass, the distant cock crowed proudly from his vantage-point among the straw, and everything seemed fair, fresh, and happy in that budding season.
I had not been luxuriating in that sweet leisure many minutes when by below came Mistress Bess, with cheeks like roses, and kerchief whiter than snow, and brown unstranded hair that lifted on the breeze—a very fair vision indeed. That maid tripped across the grass and down the cobblestones, rattling the shiny milk-pan she was carrying until she caught a sight of me, and stopped below my window. Then, saucy, she began: “How looks the world from there, Sir? A little too young and chilly for your tenderness? Get back abed, it will presently be June, and then, no doubt, more nicely suited to your valor’s mind.”
“Nay, but lady,” I explained, “I was enjoying the morning air, and just coming to seek you——”