"Let us follow him," rejoined Alice, "if he go on at that rate, and not being aware, he may slip down some of the fissures into the sea."
Alice hastened forward as she spoke; and not merely walking, but running, joined him as he had gained the top of the cliff. Cornelia came up soon after; and seeking to divert Ferdinand from whatever painful thoughts possessed him, she uttered the first idea that presented itself, and exclaimed as she approached, "You two stand there, your garments waving in the breeze, like Adam and the angel overlooking the earth and its waters."
"To me," answered Ferdinand, "it might well be called the hill of paradise; if you and your sweet Alice, would indeed be to me what the sister-angels were to the erring father of mankind!"
Alice looked from him to her sister, with a tender pity that did not escape its object. Again he found a balmy warmth encircle his heart. The freezing hand of despair, which a moment before had obliterated all other impressions, was again withdrawn. "Have I," said he to himself, "indeed interested this innocent creature? I, so unworthy, so self-despised!" He drew towards her, as she followed Cornelia, who turned through some broken craggs, and crossing a ravine, brought them forth on a ridge that faced the west. At their feet lay the strait which divides the two shores. The tide was retreating, and rapidly discovering the sands and sunken rocks which form the foundation of the stupendous cliff on which stand the towers of Bamborough.
"What princely fortress is that?" demanded Ferdinand, surprised into exclamation by the commanding line of coast; and the magnitude of the warlike structure which crowned its summit.
"It is the castle of my mother's ancestors," replied Cornelia; "under that parental roof, when my dear grandfather lived, she passed many a happy day; and there my sister Alice was born."
Ferdinand could not forbear looking from its regal grandeur, to the two lovely beings by his side: the offspring of the barons bold, who in former ages had poured the storm of sovereignty from those embattled walls! and they were content to pass their lives in an obscure parsonage, on an almost deserted island!—Their garments were simple as their lot; but the air of the one still demanded the coronet of her ancestors; while the other, fair, tender, and unaspiring, seemed ready to shrink from the threatening front of what had once been the stronghold of her fathers. "Bright Cornelia!" said he to himself, as he looked on the castle, and listened to her observations; "your lover may be he who courts the wonderful, the wild, on the dizzy steep or the wide ocean!—But my heart—had it not engendered the vulture which preys upon its vitals!—would cleave to seclusion and peace, in the bosom of your timid Alice."
Cornelia described the extent of ground which the fortress occupied; enumerated its towers, and assigned to each the era of its erection. She pointed with particular complacency to the white walls of the formidable dungeon; and quoted Archives in Durham Abbey, to prove that its foundation was the work of a Roman Emperor. She named the Saxon Kings, from Ida to Egbert, who had raised their standard on its roof; and made Ferdinand distinguish a high-grated window, which yet went by the name of Queen Bebba's chamber.
"But what is that in the sea yonder?" asked her auditor; who had accidentally looked down to the dashing surges at the foot of the rock, while she was directing his attention along its summit. The eyes of the sisters followed his.
"It seems to be somebody swimming," said Cornelia.