If she thought the stranger good-looking (she declared afterwards she never thought about it at all) be sure she did not admit so much, even to herself, though conscious she was pleased—a feeling she attributed to the improvement in her grandfather's spirits, and his obvious delight in his new friend's society.
Old Carew, shut out for so many years from the conversation of such men as himself, men of action and adventure, men of the busy world, felt like the blind restored to sight, when he heard once more the familiar tones, the familiar terms, that took him back a score of years at least. It was pleasant to recognise the well-remembered trick of phrase and gesture, that is not to be caught by imitation, nor purchased second-hand. "The man's a gentleman," thought old Carew, "a real gentleman; and how unlike Parson Gale!"
He bade him stay to supper of course. He opened in his honour one of the dozen bottles of choice Rhine wine that had lasted as many years. He chatted, he chuckled, he coughed and wheezed, and told his stories, and fought his battles, and enjoyed his evening thoroughly, while Nelly sat silent at her needle-work, grateful to the visitor who made grandfather so happy.
John Garnet was a good listener, none the less perhaps that his attention often wandered to the blue eyes in the corner of the room, eyes that rarely met his own, and when they did were immediately cast down; but he put in his exclamations of astonishment, admiration, and approval at the right places, sympathising with the old man's memories, gentle to his foibles, tolerant of his garrulity—and all honour to him for it, say I.
You do not know what it is to live in the past, you young men who still possess the illimitable inheritance of the future, an account that it seems impossible to overdraw. Even the present is hardly good enough to satisfy you, and you cheat yourselves out of no little happiness by anticipating to-morrow, when you should be content with the enjoyment of to-day. But wait a few years, wait till the to-morrows begin to look scantier and scantier, while the yesterdays are counted by thousands—wait till all that made the pride, the excitement, the happiness of life, is an experience, and not a hope—till the good horse has been forgotten by all but yourself—the true love has been cold in her grave for years—the very laurels you have won are become withered garlands, put away in some neglected hiding-place, only to be brought out again when the mourners hang them round your tomb! Then you will know the happiness of living once more, if only for an hour, if only till the glass is empty, or the tobacco burnt to ashes, in the glowing, thrilling memories of an imperishable past. Imperishable, for is it not, in truth, the only reality? Imperishable, for it cleaves to us during life. Imperishable, for we are taught to believe that it goes with us into eternity.
You may make an old man happy at trifling cost, if you will only yield a few minutes of patient attention, while he wanders back through its well-remembered maze, and loses himself dreamily in the labyrinth we call life.
Nelly never knew her grandfather so communicative. He talked till he was thoroughly tired out. Marlborough, Prince Eugene, the vineyards of France, the swamps of the low countries, London coffee-houses, foreign theatres, dice, duelling, midnight revels, and the fierce joys of the old roaring Mohock days—he had something to recall of each, and seemed nothing loth to embark on his adventurous godless career once again.
But his voice grew weaker, his chin sank on his breast, the light in his eye, that had flickered up in transient gleams, dimmed visibly, and the guest resisting his host's quavering entreaties to remain, discreetly took leave, thereby earning golden opinions of Nelly Carew. She opened the door for him herself. She even condescended to shake hands, and wished him good-night, with a grateful smile. Walking home to his lodgings, through the balmy summer air, with slow and lingering steps, John Garnet began to think that his term of retirement would be no such dreary penance after all, that, under certain conditions, a man might do worse than settle down to vegetate at Porlock for the rest of his life.
Had he forgotten Waif? No! he told himself. A thousand times, No! He was grateful to her; he was interested in her; he pitied the girl from his heart; but hers was not the whisper that seemed floating on the night breeze in his ear, and it was a pair of blue eyes that peered at him out of the twilight gloom whichever way he turned. Blue eyes, calm, deep, and beautiful as the summer sky and the summer sea.
We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, but, alas! there is too much truth in the adage, "We always believe our first love is our last, and our last love our first!"