The sweet girl looked pleased, for I believe it is in female nature to like to be a viscountess; but, throwing herself into my arms, she protested that her joy was at my elevation and not at her own.
“I owed you this effort, Anna, as some acknowledgment for your faith and disinterestedness in the affair of Lord M’Dee.”
“And yet, Jack, he had neither high cheek-bones, nor red hair; and his accent was such as might please a girl less capricious than myself!”
This was said playfully and coquettishly, but in a way to make me feel how near folly would have been to depriving me of a treasure, had the heart I so much prized been less ingenuous and pure. I drew the dear creature to my bosom, as if afraid my rival might yet rob me of her possession. Anna looked up, smiling through her tears; and, making an effort to be calm, she said, in a voice so smothered as to prove how delicate she felt the subject to be:—
“We will speak seldom of this journey, dear John, and try to think of the long and dark journey which is yet before us. We will speak of it, however, for there should be nothing totally concealed between us.”
I kissed her serene and humid eyes, and repeated what she had just said, syllable for syllable. Anna has not been unmindful of her words; for rarely, indeed, has she touched on the past, and then oftener in allusion to her own sorrows, than in reference to my impressions.
But, while the subject of my voyage to the monikin region is, in a measure, forbidden between me and my wife, there exists no such restraint as between me and other people. The reader may like to know, therefore, what effect this extraordinary adventure has left on my mind, after an interval of ten years.
There have been moments when the whole has appeared a dream; but, on looking back, and comparing it with other scenes in which I have been an actor, I cannot perceive that this is not quite as indelibly stamped on my memory as those. The facts themselves, moreover, are so very like what I see daily in the course of occurrence around me, that I have come to the conclusion, I did go to Leaphigh in the way related, and that I must have been brought back during the temporary insanity of a fever. I believe, therefore, that there are such countries as Leaphigh and Leaplow; and after much thought, I am of opinion that great justice has here been done to the monikin character in general.
The result of much meditation on what I witnessed, has been to produce sundry material changes in my former opinions, and to unsettle even many of the notions in which I may be said to have been born and bred. In order to consume as little of the reader’s time as possible, I shall set down a summary of my conclusions, and then take my leave of him, with many thanks for his politeness in reading what I have written. Before completing my task in this way, however, it will be well to add a word on the subject of one or two of my fellow-travellers.
I never could make up my mind relating to the fact whether we did or did not actually eat Brigadier Downright. The flesh was so savory, and it tasted so delicious after a week of philosophical meditation on nuts, and the recollection of its pleasures is so very vivid, that I am inclined to think nothing but a good material dinner could have left behind it impressions so lively, I have had many melancholy thoughts on this subject, especially in November; but observing that men are constantly devouring each other, in one shape or another, I endeavor to make the best of it, and to persuade myself that a slight difference in species may exonerate me from the imputation of cannibalism.