His companion grinned, but he was too well accustomed to Mr. Harding's method of reasoning to express any farther surprise. After a few words more on both sides, however, as they judged it expedient to be seen together as little as possible, those two respectable persons separated, and, while Anthony Smithson returned to the town, Harding pursued his way onward; and having, on the strength of the communication he had received, determined to proceed to Ryebury, he took the same path that Burrel had followed before him. The beauties of nature occupied less of his thoughts than those of his master; and while, with solemn steps and slow, he wandered on his way, his ideas were much fuller of shillings and sixpences, and trips across the Atlantic, than of the verdant mead and purling stream.
As I believe I have before said. Master Harding was by no means an ugly person; and the charms of his good looks, together with a marvellous sweet voice, and a good deal more eloquence of its own peculiar kind than any one could have suspected him to possess from his usual taciturnity, he was what the French render, with somewhat profligate decency, by calling the persons so gifted, un homme à bonnes fortunes. His expedition against the heart of Sally, the miser's maid, was more successful than that of his companion had been, and he returned home flattering himself on having made more progress than he had anticipated. In fact, he had been fortunate in finding Mr. Tims out, and Sally at home; but as the intrigues of a slattern and a valet form no part of the staple of this book, we shall leave the matter as it is, without any farther elucidation.
In the meanwhile, Burrel--for so we shall still call him--had sauntered on, whiling away the golden minutes of a fair day, on the early side of thirty, in sweet conversation beside a beautiful girl. I have described what their conversation was like before, and I leave every one who can remember what were the sensations he experienced, when deep and fervent love just began to break upon his heart, to imagine how sweet were the winged minutes as they flew. Even the unspoken consciousness was not a burden, but a joy; and though Blanche Delaware might be said to tremble at the feelings that were growing upon her, yet there was a sort of vague internal conviction that those feelings were reciprocal--that they could not thus have crept over her heart unless some, nay, many of the signs of similar sentiments, on his side, had been sufficiently displayed to make her feel secure that she did not love unsought. Still there would every now and then come a shrinking apprehension across her mind, that she might be deceived--that it might be all, merely a courteous and engaging manner, the same towards every one, which she in her ignorance had vainly fancied particular to herself. But those thoughts were but for a moment; and as Burrel walked onward by her side, there was in his tone, in his manner, and still more in the current through which all his thoughts appeared now to flow, a balmy influence that seemed to soothe away every fear. She knew not well whence she derived that balm; for had she tried, which, by the way, she did not, she could not have found one particular word he spoke, which was more appropriate to the vocabulary of love than to Johnson's Dictionary. It was, perhaps--but she knew nothing about it--It was, perhaps, that pouring forth of the soul upon every topic, which can never take place but in conversation with one we love and esteem; for the hours of love are like a sunshiny day in the midst of summer, and all the flowers open, and the birds sing, and the bright things come forth through the hearts universe. It was this, perhaps, more than ought else in Burrel's manner, that made Blanche Delaware believe that she herself was loved.
It is sometimes a very difficult thing to get two people to acknowledge, in any language under the sun, the feelings that are passing in their hearts. It is more especially difficult in a book; for no author likes to tell how he and his managed the matter themselves--at least, if he be not an ass or a coxcomb--and any thing that is manufactured, is almost always "flat, stale, and unprofitable." A true story canters one easily over all such difficulties; and it so fortunately happened, that Henry Burrel and Blanche Delaware acknowledged it all without the slightest idea in the world that they were doing any thing of the kind.
There had been something spoken accidentally, that went too deep, and both felt, perhaps, though almost unconsciously, that nothing more could be said on that topic without saying more still; and as there was a third person by, of course the matter dropt, and equally of course, a long pause ensued, which grew unpleasant.
"I thought," said Burrel at length, "that we were to meet with some antiquities--even more interesting than the house itself--at least, your father said so;" and conscious that he had made an awkward speech, and very little to the purpose, Burrel looked up and smiled, though many other men would have looked down and coloured.
"You are not far from them," replied Captain Delaware--for Blanche's eyes were fixed upon the ground, and her thoughts were--not at Nova Zembla. "But surely you are not tired?"
"Nay, nay, any thing but tired," answered Burrel; "but your father declared he would catechize me upon these ruins severely, and I was only afraid that I should forget them altogether."
"A piece of inattention, which Blanche or I would excuse much more readily than my father," replied the good-humoured sailor. "But we are close upon them. You see those two wooded banks that fall across each other, with the stream flowing out in foam from between them? They form the mouth of a little glen, about a hundred yards up which, stands the Prior's Fountain, and farther still the Hermit's Chapel. In architecture, I believe, they are unique, and there is many a curious tradition about both."
"Hush, hush, William!" cried his sister, seeing him about to proceed, "Never tell the traditions but upon the spot. Oh, an old legend, in these days of steam and manufactory, can never be properly told, except under the gray stone and the ivy, where the memories of a thousand years are carved by the chisel of time on every tottering pinnacle and mouldering cornice, which vouch, by their unusual forms, for the strange stories of their founders!"