"You have learned the best philosophy since we parted, dear girl," replied Miss Walton; "and in truth you are much changed."
"No, no!" said Arrah Neil, eagerly: "I am not changed; I am the same as ever--just the same. Have you not seen a little brown bud upon a tree in the spring-time, looking as if there were nothing in its heart but dry leaves? and then the sun shines upon it for an hour, and out it bursts all green and fresh. But still it is the same bud you looked at in the morning. As for my philosophy, if such be the name you give it, I have learned that in the course of this day. As I rode along, now hither, now thither, in our flight from Hull, I thought of all that has passed within the last two or three months: I thought of how I had grieved, and how I had wept when they dragged me away from you and your kind brother; and at the same time I remembered what all that pain had purchased for me, and I asked myself if it might not be always so here, even on the earth. Ay, and more, Annie; if the grief and anguish of this world might not have its compensation hereafter. So, when I found myself surrounded by the troopers without, and saw that good lord borne in here wounded, and the bridge raised behind him, I said, 'Now is the trial; O God! thy will be done.'"
Annie Walton gazed upon her with surprise, increasing every moment; but she would not suffer the effect produced upon her mind to be seen, lest she should alarm and check the fair being beside her: fearing, too, that at any moment one of those fits of deep, sad abstraction of mind should come upon her, which she could not believe to have wholly passed away.
She merely replied, then, "You say, dear Arrah, that the pain you felt in parting with us has purchased you some great happiness. May I ask you what it is?--from no idle curiosity, believe me, but merely because, as I have often shared and felt for your sorrows, Arrah, I would fain share and sympathize with your joy."
"I will tell you; I will tell you all," replied Arrah Neil, laying her hand upon Miss Walton's; "I must tell you, indeed very soon; for I could not keep it in my own bosom, lest my heart should break with it. But I would fain tell him first--I mean your brother, who has been so kind and noble, so good and generous towards a poor girl like me, whom he knew not."
But, before she could conclude the sentence, Captain Barecolt returned from the chamber of the Earl of Beverley, and a conversation interesting to both was brought for the time to an abrupt conclusion.
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
The beauty of the illustrious Captain Barecolt, in its kind, was rather heightened than diminished by a large stripe of black plaster which he had drawn across the bridge of his egregious nose; for he was one of those provident men who never go without a certain store of needful articles in their pockets, and his professional habits had taught him exactly what sort of small commodities were most frequently required. Thus, there were few occasions on which that personage would have been found unprovided with a piece of strong cord, a sharp pocket-knife, a lump of wax, a corkscrew, a hand's-breadth of good sticking-plaster, and a crown-piece. I do not say more than one, for but too frequently the piece of silver was a mere unity; and, indeed, he seemed to have a pleasure in reducing it to solitude; for, no sooner had it any companions, than he took the most expeditious means of removing them. At the last crown, however, he always paused; and it seldom happened, what between good luck and occasional strong powers of abstinence, that sheer necessity compelled him to spend that piece before he had recruited his stock.
He now advanced towards Arrah Neil and Miss Walton with all the consciousness of great exploits about him; and, after a long inquiry regarding their health, began a recapitulation of all his deeds that day, notwithstanding the presence of an eye-witness, by which it would have appeared that he had killed at least seven of the enemy with his own hand; regretting indeed, in a deprecatory tone, that he had not killed more, but attributing this short-coming, in comparison with his usual achievements, to the care he had been obliged to take of the earl after he was wounded; otherwise, he hinted, he might have destroyed the whole force. He was still in full career when Lord Walton and Lady Margaret reappeared; and, whether it was to be attributed to the fact of his having delivered himself of a sufficient quantity of long-pent-up hyperbole, or whether it was that he knew that the young lord was not likely to give entire credit to his military statements, certain it is that his tone became moderated as soon as that gentleman appeared.
Captain Barecolt, however, was obliged to answer several questions; for, while the lady of the house went to give orders for the accommodation of the numerous unexpected visiters by whom her house was thronged, Lord Walton proceeded to inquire how all the events of the day had come about, and especially how it had happened that a party of five or six persons, quietly crossing the country, were charged by a body of the parliamentary horse.