"Certainly, sir," replied Stilling; "but I think it is done already, in all probability. Either you do not know well the person who first placed me with you, or he has not told you how his eyes are always on those in whom he takes an interest. His eyes need no perspective glasses, sir, and he is just as well aware of the whole facts as you or I--better, indeed, most likely, than either of us. Nor will he let the knowledge sleep, depend upon it. He will make your cause good with those who are most concerned, whether you ask him or not."
Ralph smiled faintly. "You seem to have great faith," he said; "but I must not trust to any thing like a chance in such matters. I should like the letters to go."
"Well, sir, they shall go," replied Gaunt Stilling; "but one must trust to chance in all matters. For instance, I must give this letter for London to the king's post: there's a chance of his being stopped on the way. This must be sent to Lady Danvers by a special messenger, who is just as likely to miss her as not. The Duke of Norfolk will be gone from Norwich by this time, and--"
Ralph waved his hand somewhat impatiently. "I wish them to go," he said; "there is no chance, at least, of the messenger not reaching London."
"The greatest in the world," answered Gaunt Stilling; "but I see, sir, that you are not aware of all that is going on. Do you know that the country between this and London is all in a flame? If civil war has not broken out already, it won't be long first, and depend upon it that no letter will reach London, without being stopped and examined, for this month to come. I haven't got all the particulars right, but you shall hear more to-morrow morning, for I have got friends in Lyme, where this matter first broke out, and I have sent over a boy to inquire."
"Give me the letters," said Ralph Woodhall, "and I will decide to-morrow, when we have heard more."
Thus saying, he took them back, determined, on account of the difficulties Stilling threw in his way, to see them dispatched himself. The news of insurrection made but small impression upon his mind at the moment, occupied so fully as it was by personal feelings; but he asked a few questions in an indifferent tone; and, receiving nothing but a report of vague rumors, to which he attached but little importance, he retired to bed, determined to rise early on the following morning, and transact his business for himself.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The most capricious gift of heaven is sleep--That is a very bad expression--unphilosophical--not logical; but yet it expresses what I mean, perhaps, better than any other form I could have used. A gift can not be capricious, though the giver may; and yet, in this instance, the giver is never capricious, and the gift, as if instinct with life, and will, and perversity itself, seems to have no rule, no regularity, no consequence of effect.
One is always inclined to repeat or copy the opening of Young's Night Thoughts when one speaks of sleep; and yet the owl-poet, soft and solemn as he was, did not always direct his thoughts aright. Sleep does not always "his ready visit pay where Fortune smiles;" nor does he always forsake the wretched to light on lids unsullied by a tear. Far, far from it. Shakspeare knew the world, waking and sleeping, better than Young; for sleep does often "knit up the raveled sleave of care," and bestows his balmy blessing, as the gift of Heaven, upon wearied eyelids, and aching hearts, and care-worn brains, which naught of earth earthly could ever soothe. Ay, and he does so, too, in circumstances where the blessed boon could never be expected; unless man could calculate finely, and to the utmost nicety, all the varied shades of the heart's feelings, all the different hues of the mind's thoughts, all the delicate outlines of the body's sensations, and balance the harmonies existing through the whole as in a goldsmith's scale.