"Nay, I trust your strength will every day increase," replied the earl; but the old man shook his head, and cast a grave and melancholy glance upon the beautiful girl who sat near him.
"The things of this life are waning away," he said; "and in truth, it is time that I should depart. Eighty years are a heavy load; and the burden is still increasing. There were men, as you have heard, who would fain have eased me of it; but as it contained a few things that are valuable, I was unwilling at that moment to part with it, like all other men, clinging to my treasure though it bent down the shoulders that bore it."
"Methinks a life of study and the calm enjoyment of tranquil thought may well lighten the burden of years," replied the earl; "and but for the apprehension and annoyance caused by these foolish men, your existence, my good friend, has been tranquil and peaceable enough."
The old man smiled sadly. "We always fail," he said, "when we judge of the fate of others. Life is double, Gowrie, an internal and an external life; the latter often open to the eyes of all, the former only seen by the eye of God. Nor is it alone those material things which we conceal from the eyes of others, which often make the apparently splendid lot in reality a dark one, or that which seems sad or solitary, cheerful and light within. Our characters, our spirits operate upon all that fate or accident subjects to them. We transform the events of life for our own uses, be those uses bitter or sweet; and as a piece of gold loses its form and its solidity when dropped into a certain acid, so the hard things of life are resolved by the operations of our own minds into things the least resembling themselves. True, a life of study and of thought may seem to most men a calm and tranquil state of existence. Such pursuits gently excite, and exercise softly and peacefully, the highest faculties of the intellectual soul; but age brings with it indifference even to these enjoyments--nay, it does more, it teaches us the vanity and emptiness of all man's knowledge. We reach the bounds and barriers which God has placed across our path in every branch of science, and we find, with bitter disappointment, at life's extreme close, that when we know all, we know nothing. This I have learned, my young friend, and it is all that I have learned in eighty years, that the only knowledge really worth pursuing is the knowledge of God in his word and his works--the only practical application of that high science, to do good to all God's creatures."
"Still study is not wasted," said the earl, "when it leads to such an elevated result, when it teaches us in the creature to see the Creator, and in the events of existence to behold his will, and surely the fruit of such conclusions must be peaceful."
"Tend to peace they must," replied the old man; "for they must quiet strong passions, moderate vehement desires, teach us to bear afflictions with fortitude, and to temper our anxieties with hope; but yet, noble lord, neither philosophy nor religion can alter the constitution of our minds. We may know that God is good and merciful. We may know that in the end all must be well; but we still see that on this earth there is a world of sorrow, and we may shrink under the anguish ourselves, or tremble at seeing it approach those we love."
"Fear not for me," said the beautiful girl who was seated beside him, seeing his eyes turned with a sad look towards her; "oh, let not one anxiety on my account add to the burden of years, and make your last days cheerless. Though those may deny me who are bound to protect me, thank God, I can render myself independent of them. The education you have given, the arts you have taught, would always enable me with my own hands to win my own bread----" and then she added, in a low tone, catching a look almost reproachful on the earl's face, "should it be needful."
"Which it shall never be," replied the earl at once, "so long as I have a hand and heart to offer, and means----"
"Hush! hush!" exclaimed the old man, turning his eyes almost sternly from the one to the other; "no such rash words. You know not what you speak of. At all events wait till you know what fate maybe before you; and then, with the deliberate forethought of a man, act as becomes a man, and not as a rash boy."
The effect of his words upon Julia were not such as might have been expected, perhaps; for whether the severer part had found an antidote in what her lover had said before, or whether, from some secret source in her own heart, the waters of hope swelled forth anew, she seemed from that moment to cast away the deeper tone of thought and feeling which had characterized her conversation and demeanour during the evening, and to resume the light-hearted spirit of youth which had spread such a charm around her in the first years of her acquaintance with Lord Gowrie.