This question brought Mr. Carriston from heaven to earth, and he looked at the young man with a grave smile on his face.
“Ah, the story,” he repeated, laying aside his pipe. “Yes, I promised to tell you the one romance of my life. I am afraid it is a very prosaic romance, still it may show you how a man can find life endurable even after his heart is broken.”
“Why, Rector, is your heart broken?”
“I thought it was once, but I’m afraid ’twas mended long ago. Et ego in Arcadia fui, Maurice, although you would never think so to look at me. Tush! what has an old man pottering about among his flowers in common with Cupid, god of love? Yet I, too, have sported with Amaryllis in the shade, and piped love-songs to the careless ear of Neæra.”
He sighed a trifle sadly, very probably somewhat regretful of that dead and gone romance which still looked bright through the mists of forty years, and glanced sorrowfully at the wrinkled hands which had once played with the golden tresses of Chloe. Ah, Chloe was old now, and her famous golden locks were white with the snows of many winters; or perchance she was dead, with the gentle winds blowing across her daisied grave, and piping songs as beautiful as those of her faithful shepherd. Is it not a painful thing to be old and gray and full of sad memories of our fine days? yet, mingled with such melancholics, we recall many bright dreams which then haunted our youthful brains. Alas, Arcady! why are we not permitted to dwell forever in thy flowery meadows, beneath thy blue sky, instead of being driven forth by the whip of Fate to crowded cities and desolate wastes, wherein sound no gleeful melodies.
“It was at Oxford that I first met her,” said the Rector in his mellow voice, which was touched with vague regret; “for she, too, dwelt in that grave scholastic city. I was not in holy orders then! No; my ambition was to be a soldier, and win the V.C.; but, alas! such dreams came to naught. You may not believe it, Maurice, but I was wild and light-hearted in those days—to be sure, it was Consula Planco, and youth is ever foolish. Her name was Miriam, and she was a dressmaker. Ah, you are astonished that I, Stephen Carriston, fixed my eyes on such a lowly damsel; but then, you see, I loved her dearly, and that, I think, is a sufficient answer to your unspoken objection. Love knows nothing of rank or position, and sees beauty in the wayside daisy as well as in the costly hothouse plant. I need not tell you she was very beautiful, for that is the common saying of lovers, who see no loveliness save in the nymph of their affections. What is it the poet says about a lover seeing Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt? Sure, my memory is weak with age, and I misquote. Still, the saying is true. Miriam was very beautiful, and I think must have had some Jewish blood in her veins, for her dark, imperial beauty was that of the East. Her hair was as dark as the wing of a raven, her eyes liquid wells of light, and her mouth was as the thread of scarlet spoken of in the song of the wise king. You see, Maurice, old as I am, I can still rhapsodize on Chloe’s perfections, though she basely deceived me. Alas, Strephon! how the years have destroyed thy goddess!—nay, she destroyed herself by her own act.”
“I did not know you were a poet, Rector.”
Mr. Carriston, whose brow was dark with bitter memories, aroused himself with a forced laugh, and strove to speak lightly of the past.
“Live and learn, Maurice. I no poet? Why, my dear lad, I am even now courting the Nine, and turning Aristophanes into good English verse. No poet? Why, every man is a poet when in love; and if he does not write a poem, he at least lives a poem. I, alas, have been in love these many years with a shadow—the shadow of Miriam before she left me!”
“Left you?”