The travellers continued to follow their guide over rough ground covered with loose stones, and rendered intricate by the stunted trees which grew in scattered loneliness amongst the detached masses of the decayed monastery. Through the shadowy arches of what had once been a passage to the west cloisters, they espied a distant light.
"For your sake, my son," said the elder stranger, "I hope that portends we are near houses!"
"I hope so too," rejoined Ferdinand, "but I also fear, it may be only the lantern of some vessel, more lucky than we were, passing this desolate rock."
Having made their way through the varied gloom of the ruins, they came out on a smooth sheep-path.—The abbey now lay behind them.—Before them, rose the spire of the parish church; and near it, in holy fellowship, stood the parsonage; from whose ivy-latticed window still streamed the friendly ray which had guided them to its gate.
"This be our pastor's,—and God's blessing abide with him and his!" said the fisherman, pointing with a bow to the house.—Ferdinand put money into the man's hand; and then followed his father and their servant through a wicket into a little green court. They crossed its soft grass, and stooping beneath a low stone porch, knocked at the house-door. It was opened by a hoary-headed servant, of a hale and cheerful aspect. The elder stranger asked for the Reverend Richard Athelstone. The old man immediately opened a door at his right hand; and without other reply than a respectful bow, ushered the travellers into the presence of his master.
The venerable pastor of Lindisfarne advanced to meet his visitors; who, though unannounced, he saw by their air were foreigners and gentlemen. The elder apologized for their appearance at so late an hour; saying, they had arrived from Holland at Berwick that morning in the midst of a storm. "But," said he, "when so fine an evening succeeded, I became too impatient to tread the sacred shore of Lindisfarne; and to deliver a packet entrusted to me by the Grand-Pensionary Hensius, to delay my coming until another day."
As the stranger spoke, he presented the packet. Mr. Athelstone received it with a hospitable smile: and turning to a lady, who sat with two younger ones at a work-table near the fire; "Mrs. Coningsby, my dear niece," said he, "welcome these gentlemen; they come from a friend of your father's."
The lady rose; and gracefully obeyed, by expressing her reverence for the Grand-Pensionary; and the pleasure she felt in seeing Lindisfarne honoured by his remembrance in the persons of his friends. She then introduced the young ladies as her daughters. The eldest she called Cornelia, and the youngest Alice. They cast down their eyes, and bowed their fair necks to the strangers, as their mother named them:—and when, on observing the pale countenance of Ferdinand, she invited the two gentlemen to draw nearer the fire; the sisters moved their chairs back, and pursued their needle-work with redoubled industry.
Mr. Athelstone took a hasty survey of the Grand-Pensionary's letter; and folding it up, repeated his former polite greeting with the cordial addition of taking the strangers each by the hand.