“No, thank you, sir. I’m tired of smoking.”
“Maurice, if you go on in this fashion, I will be angry with you. It’s a beautiful day, so you ought to have a beautiful smile on your face. Listen to that lark! Does not its gush of song thrill your heart? Admire my roses! Where, even in the gorgeous East, will you see such splendor? The birds sing, the sun shines, the flowers bloom, and yet you are as discontented as if you were shut up between four bare walls. Maurice, I’m really and truly ashamed of your ingratitude to God for His many gifts.” Maurice made no reply, but punched holes in the gravel with his walking-stick. “Now you wait here, my lad,” said the Rector, recovering breath after his little lecture, “and see if yon lark will sing you into a better frame of mind. It may be the David to your Saul, and drive the evil spirit out of you. I am going away to wash my hands, which are somewhat grubby with my gardening, and will return in a few moments.”
Off went the Rector with a light step, as springy as that of a young man, and Maurice looked after him in sheer envy of such light-heartedness.
“Why cannot I be happy like that?” he sighed, baring his head to the cool breeze.
Did ever a man ask himself so ridiculous a question? Here was a healthy young man, of good personal appearance, with a superfluity of the gifts of fortune, yet he commiserated himself for nothing at all, and propounded riddles to himself which he was unable to answer. But all such misery came from incessant brooding and self-analysis, which is bound to make even the most complacent person dissatisfied with his advantages in the long-run. If Maurice, throwing aside his books, art, broodings, and everything else, had gone in for fishing, hunting, dancing, rowing, as he did in his earlier youth, his mind would soon have resumed its normal healthiness. Unluckily, the ten years’ life in Bohemia, where he had no money nor time to indulge in such sports, had weakened his interest in them, and he by no means seemed inclined to take up the broken thread of his life. This was a great mistake, as, had he reverted to his earlier mode of living, he would in a short time have come to look upon that weary decade as but a bad dream, and ultimately have recovered this mens sana in corpore sano condition, which is so essential to the happiness of one’s existence. If there is a person to be envied, ’tis a healthy man with an average stock of brains, for he does not live with shadows, he has no torturing dreams, he does not rack his soul with thinking out the problems of life; but simply takes the goods the gods provide, enjoys them to the full measure of his capacity, and throws all disturbing influences to the winds. Maurice Roylands was a man of this sort in many respects, but he had a trifle too much brain power, and therefore, in accordance with the great law of compensation, suffered from the excess, by using it to torture his otherwise healthy mind. Unfortunately, he did not reason in this way, but, feeling that he was miserable, hastily decided that such misery was incurable. Not a wise way of looking at the matter certainly, but then Maurice, though no fool in many ways, was not a Solomon for wisdom; and besides, Melancholia, who places all things in a dull light, had him in her grip, which prevented him from giving his diseased mind the medicine it required.
However, in accordance with his old tutor’s instructions, he sat there in silence, drinking in the odors of the flowers, and listening to the music of the lark. Not only that, but a thrush in the tree above him began to pour forth his mellow notes; and though it was nigh mid-June, he heard the quaint call of the cuckoo sound in the distance. Nature and Nature’s voices exercised their benign influence on his restless spirit, and even in that short space of time soothed him so much that, when Mr. Carriston returned, he missed the frowning face with which Maurice had greeted him.
“Ah,” said the Rector, with a nod of satisfaction, “you have benefited by the music of the birds already. I would undertake to cure you, if you would only let me be your physician. Now your soul is more at rest, but I have no doubt your nerves need soothing, so try this churchwarden and this excellent tobacco.”
Maurice burst out laughing at this odd cure for melancholy, but did not refuse the Rector’s hospitality; and any one who entered the garden a few minutes afterwards, would have discovered the venerable Rector and the youthful Squire puffing gravely at long clays, like two cronies in a village taproom.
They chatted in a desultory manner of little things, such as Mrs. Dengelton,—who would have been very angry to find herself placed in such a category,—Eunice, love-making, Crispin, the home farm, and such like trifles, when, after a short pause, Maurice abruptly turned to the Rector, who, lying back in luxurious ease, was watching the trembling of the leaves above his head.
“And the story, Rector?”