Intense was the loneliness, and bitter the irritation of mind in which he pursued his aimless way, by the old and narrow road, which was bordered by ancient hedgerows where brambles and Gueldre-roses were growing wild and untrimmed, and where the wind was howling now among the old beech-trees, as an occasional drop of rather warm rain that fell on his face, or plashed in the dust under foot, gave warning for a rough and comfortless night for a belated wayfarer.
Again and again he looked back to the picturesque, turreted, and varied outline of Rohallion, and saw its many lighted windows, one which he knew well, in the crowstepped gable of the western wing. It was the sleeping-place of Flora Warrender.
She would be there now—her head resting on her pillow, perhaps, sleepless and weeping for him, no doubt, and for the probable results of a quarrel, the end of which she could not foresee—weeping for the young heart that loved her so truly, so he flattered himself; and in the morning she would find that his room was tenantless, his bed unslept in, and that he was gone—gone no-one knew whither!
Hope had scarcely yet risen in Quentin's breast; he felt but the stern and crushing knowledge that he was leaving his only home where all had loved, and where he truly loved all save one, to launch out upon an unknown world, and to begin a career that was as friendless as it was shadowy.
He had no defined plan, where to proceed, or what to essay. He naturally thought of the army; but, as he had ever anticipated a commission, he shrunk from enlisting, and thereby depriving himself of all liberty of action, and perhaps of forfeiting for ever the place which he felt himself, by birth and education, entitled to take in society.
Of business or the mode of attaining a profession, he was as ignorant as of the contents of the Koran, the Talmud, the Shasters, or the books of Brahma; and had he dropped from the moon, or sprung out of the turf, he could not have felt more lonely, friendless, and isolated in the world.
He was now passing the old ruined church, with its low and crumbling boundary-wall that encloses the graveyard, where, long ago, his drowned father had been reverently laid by the Rohallion Volunteers and the worthy old quartermaster.
How well Quentin knew the spot amid the solemn obscurity! he could see it from the time-worn foot-stile where he lingered for a moment. He was lying beside the ancient east window, near the Rohallion aisle, where dead Crawfords of ages past, even those who had fallen in their armour at Flodden and Pinkey, Sark and Arkinholme, were buried. No stone marked the spot; but now the rough-bearded thistle, the long green nettle, the broad-leaved dock, and the sweetbriar, mingled mournfully over the humble last home of the poor dead wanderer.
Quentin felt his heart very full at that moment.
Did the father see his son to-night? Was he looking upon him from some mysterious bourne among the stars? Did he know the tumult, the sorrow, and the half-despair that were mingling in his breast?