"Then, first," said Ned Dyram, "I would buy a clasp to fasten the hood round your fair face."
"What!" exclaimed Ella, in a tone of merry anger; "accept a present within a week of having seen you first! Nay, nay, servant of mine, that is a grace you must not expect for months to come. No, if that be all you want, I shall turn back," and she did so accordingly; but Ned Dyram had accomplished as much of his object as he had hoped or expected, for that day at least. He had spoken of love with Ella Brune; and, although what a great seer of the human heart has said, that "talking of love is not making it," may be true, yet it is undoubtedly a very great step to that pleasant consummation. But Ned Dyram had done more; he had overstepped the first great barrier; and Ella now knew that he loved her. He trusted to time and opportunity for the rest; and he was not one to doubt his skill in deriving the greatest advantage from both.
The foolish and obtuse are often deceived by others; the shrewd and quick are often deceived by themselves. Without that best of all qualities of the mind, strong common sense, there is little to choose between the two: for if the dull man has in the world to contend with a thousand knaves, the quick one has in his own heart to contend with a thousand passions; and, perhaps, the domestic cheats are the most dangerous after all. There is not so great a fool on the earth as a clever man, when he is one; and Ned Dyram was one of that class, so frequently to be found in all ages, whose abilities are sometimes serviceable to others, but are rarely, if ever, found serviceable to themselves.
Ella had used but little art towards him, but that which all women use, or would use, under such circumstances. Her first great thought was to conceal the love she felt; and where--when it becomes necessary to do so--is there a woman who will not find a thousand disguises to hide it from all eyes? But to him especially she was anxious to suffer no feeling of her bosom to appear; for she had speedily discovered, by a sort of intuition rather than observation--or, perhaps by a quickness in the perception of small traits which often seems like intuition--that he was keen and cunning beyond his seeming; and now she had a double motive for burying every secret deep in her own heart. She laid out no plan, indeed, for her future conduct towards him; she thought not what she would say, or what she would do; and if, in her after course, she employed aught like wile against his wiles, it was done on the impulse of the moment, and not on any predetermined scheme.
Ned Dyram had remarked his master's conduct well since Ella had been their companion; he had seen that Woodville had been sincere in the opinion he had expressed, that it would be better for her to remain in England; and the very calm indifference which he had displayed on finding her in the ship with himself, had proved to him, both that there had never been any love passages between them ere he knew either, as he had imagined when first he was sent to London, and thus there was no chance of the young gentleman's kindly sympathy for the fair girl he protected growing into a warmer feeling. He read the unaffected conduct of his master aright; but to that of Ella Brune he had been more blind, partly because he was deceived by his own passions, partly because, in this instance, he had a much deeper and less legible book to read--a woman's heart; and, though naturally of a clear-sighted and even suspicious mind, he saw not, in the slightest degree, the real impulses on which she acted.
Contented, therefore, with the progress he had made, he purchased some articles of small value at one of the stalls which they passed, and returned to the inn with his fair companion, who at once sought her chamber, and retired to rest, without waiting for Richard of Woodville's return. Then sitting down in a dark corner of the hall, in which several of his companions were playing at tables, and two or three other guests listening to a tale in broad Flemish, delivered by the host, Dyram turned in his mind all that had passed between him and Ella, and, with vanity to aid him, easily persuaded himself that his suit would find favour in her eyes. He saw, indeed, that the rash and licentious thoughts which he had at one time entertained in regard to her when he found her poor, solitary, and unprotected, at a hostel in the liberties of the city, were injurious to her; but as his character was one of those too ordinary and debased ones, which value all things by the difficulty of attainment, he felt the more eagerly inclined to seek her, and to take any means to make her his, because he found her less easy to be obtained than he had at first imagined.
CHAPTER XXI.
[THE EXILE.]
At one side of a small square or open space, in the town of Ghent, rose a large pile of very ancient architecture, called the Graevensteen, for many centuries the residence of the Counts of Flanders. Covering a wide extent of ground with its walls and towers, the building ran back almost to the banks of the Liève, over which a bridge was thrown, communicating with the castle on one side, and the suburbs on the other. In front, towards the square, and projecting far before the rest of the pile, was a massive castellated gate of stone, flanked by high towers, rising to a considerable height. The aspect of the whole was gloomy and stern; but the gay scene before the gates--the guards, the attendants, the pages in the bright-coloured and splendid costumes, particularly affected by the house of Burgundy--relieved the forbidding aspect of the dark portal, contrasting brilliantly, though strangely, with its sombre and prison-like air.
At a small light wicket, in a sort of balustrade, or screen, of richly sculptured stone, which separated the palace from the rest of the square, stood two or three persons, some of them in arms, others dressed in the garb of peace; and Richard of Woodville, with his guide, approaching one who seemed to be the porter, inquired if Sir Philip de Morgan could be spoken with?