He and his young friend parted with deep and mutual regret. It is seldom that so much friendship ever exists between the old and the young; but each might feel that he owed the other his life, not by any sudden act which might be the result of a momentary impulse, but by calm, determined, persevering kindness, which could not but have a deeper source.
This has been a very short chapter: but we may as well change the scene; for our space, according to the law of Goths and Vandals, which altereth not, is very short, alas!
CHAPTER XLV.
The days of vis-à-vis lined with sky-blue velvet had not come, though, as any one who is read in the pleasant Antoine Hamilton must know, one generation was sufficient to produce them. But, had they been in existence, there were no roads for them to travel upon; for we hear that just about this time one of the presidents of the Parliament of Paris lost his life by the great imprudence of travelling in a large heavy coach over a French country-road.
I was in great hope at this place to be enabled to introduce, for the gratification of my readers, a solitary horseman. But I am disappointed; for Edward Langdale, now that I have again to bring him on the scene, had good Pierrot la Grange with him. And it would never do to have a solitary horseman two.
It was on a road, then, leading from London into the heart of the country, that Lord Montagu's page—Lord Montagu's page no longer, for he had formally resigned his attendance upon that nobleman—rode along, on a cold, bright, wintry evening, with the renowned Pierrot la Grange, whose face, by adherence to the total-abstinence system, though much less brilliant in hue, had become much smoother, plumper, and fairer. Both he and his master were well armed, as was the custom of the day, and each was a likely man enough to repel any thing like attack on the part of others; for be it remarked that Edward Langdale was very much changed by the passage of twenty months over his head since first we introduced him to the reader. He was broader, stronger, older, in appearance; and, though of course there was nothing of the mould of age about him, yet all the batterings and bruisings he had gone through had certainly stamped manhood both on his face and form. He had a very tolerable beard also,—at least as far as mustache and royal were concerned,—trimmed in that shape which the pencil of Vandyke has transmitted to us in his portraits of some of the most memorable characters in modern history. It is probable that he had grown a little also; for at his age men will grow, notwithstanding all the world will do to keep them down. He was, in short, somewhat above the middle height, though not a very tall man,—of that height which is more serviceable in the field than in the ring.
At the crossing of two roads, one of which ran into Cambridgeshire, while the other took toward Huntingdon, was a small, low inn: I mean low in structure, for it was by no means low in character. It was one of the neatest inns I ever set my eyes on,—for it was standing in my day and is probably standing still,—with its neat well-whitewashed front, its carved doorway, its various gables, and its mullioned windows and the lozenge-shaped panes set in primitive lead. To the right of the inn, as you looked from the door upon the road, was a very neat farm-yard, half full of golden straw, with a barn and innumerable chickens,—chanticleers of all hues and colors, and dame partlets of every breed. Beyond the barn, at the distance of fifty or sixty yards, ran a beautiful clear stream, which crossed both the roads very nearly at their bifurcation, and which, though so shallow as only to wash gently the fetlocks of the passengers' horses, was, and must be still, renowned for its beautiful trout, silvery, with gold and crimson spots and the flesh the color of a blush-rose. On the other side of the stream, about a quarter of a mile farther up, was a picturesque little mill, with a group of towering Huntingdon poplars shading it on the east.
Here Edward Langdale drew in his horse, although the sun was not fully down.