"It does seem very strange, sir,—at least two things especially."
"What is the first, then?"
"First, that I should serve you; and the second, that you should like me."
"No, believe me, it is not strange,"—he still spoke in that beautiful pure English, swift and keen, as his German was mild and slow,—"not strange that you should serve me, because there was a secret agreement between us that we should either serve the other. Had you been in my place, I should have run to fetch you water; but I fear I should have spilled a drop or two. And how could I but like you when you came before me like something of my own in that crowd, that multitude in nothing of me?"
"Sir," I answered, to save myself from saying what I really felt, "how beautifully you speak English!"
He resumed in German: "That is nothing, because we can have no real language. I make myself think in all. I dream first in this, and then in that; so that, amidst the floating fragments, as in the strange mixture we call an orchestra, some accent may be expressed from the many voices of the language of our unknown home."
As he said these words, his tones, so clear and reverent, became mystical and inward. I was absolved from communion with that soul. His eye, travelling onwards, was already with the lime-trees at the summit of the hill we had nearly reached, and he appeared to have forgotten me. I felt how frail, how dissoluble, were the fiery links that bound my feeble spirit to that strong immortal. But how little I knew it yet!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The school of Cecilia was not only at the summit of the hill, it was the only building on the summit; it was isolated, and in its isolation grand. There were cottages in orchards, vine-gardens, fertile lands, an ancient church, sprinkled upon the sides, or nestling in the slopes; but itself looked lonely and consecrated, as in verity it might be named. A belt of glorious trees, dark and dense as a Druid grove, surrounded with an older growth the modern superstructure; but its basis had been a feudal ruin, whose entrance still remained; a hall, a wide waste of room, of rugged symmetry and almost twilight atmosphere. A court-yard in front was paved with stone, and here were carriages and unharnessed horses feeding happily. The doorway of the hall was free; we entered together, and my companion left me one moment while he made some arrangements with the porter, who was quite alone in his corner. Otherwise silence reigned, and also it seemed with solitude; for no one peered among the strong square pillars that upheld as rude a gallery,—the approach to which was by a sweeping staircase of the brightest oak with noble balustrades. Two figures in bronze looked down from the landing-place on either hand, and as we passed between them I felt their size, if not their beauty, overawe me as the shadow of the entrance. They were, strange to say, not counterparts, though companion forms of the same head, the same face, the same dun laurel crown; but the one gathered its drapery to its breast, and stretched its hand beckoningly towards the portal,—the other with outstretched arm pointed with an expression almost amounting to menace down the gallery. In niched archways there, one door after another met the eye, massive and polished, but all closed.