Distressed by the outrageous emotions of Sir Anthony; so different from the chastised feelings of the Pastor, whose profound affections smoothed by their fulness the rising sorrow of the parting moment; Louis found a refuge, though a dreary one, in the solitude of his cabin. He sat for some hours, alone and silent, in the encreasing gloom. The evening-gun fired from the fort at the mouth of the harbour; and in a few minutes Castanos appeared with a lamp. He set it on the table, and silently threw himself into the birth appropriated to his use. Louis was not in a mood to desire companionship; and with little more than a gracious word or two of thanks to the civilities of the captain and his mate, as they stepped in at intervals to enquire how he fared, he passed the remainder of the night.
Next morning at dawn, when he pressed his repeater and counted the hour, he calculated that if the breeze had continued, his vessel must now be far from the coast; and fearing to lose a last look of the shore where he first remembered consciousness of being, and where he had imbibed, from friends dear to his heart, all the valued impulses of his soul; he sprang from the cot on which he lay, and stepped upon deck. The lonely helmsman was at his post, gazing at the stars, and steering, slowly to leeward.—To windward, stretched darkly along the horizon, lay the embattled cliffs of Northumberland.
"Majestic England!" said he, as he turned towards them; "How do thy lofty rocks declare thy noble nature! There, liberty has stationed her throne; there, virtue builds her altar; and there peace has planted her groves! I leave thee, to prove myself worthy of being thy adopted son. I go far away, to send a good report to the dear friends slumbering behind thy promontories. England, beloved, honoured! Where shall I find a country like thee? Will gorgeous Spain be to me what thy simple glades have been?" He smiled at his own soliloquy.
"I go not to luxurious groves, and gorgeous indolence," cried he, "my errand is to the arena of populous cities; to win, or lose myself, in the Olympian struggles of man with man."
Louis forgot the receding shores of his country and its beloved inhabitants, in the ideas these images suggested; and forgetful alike of the wintery blast, he only drew his thick cloak closer around him; and cradled in the coiled rope of the anchor, with his eyes half-closed, he continued to muse on his future destiny: dreaming of martial achievements, and a succession of visionary triumphs, till the bright phantoms were lost in the chaos of sound sleep.
CHAP. XI.
A prosperous voyage brought the travellers safely to Ostend.—Castanos found the instructions he expected from the Baron de Ripperda; and he informed his charge, their commands were that they must proceed immediately to the metropolis of Germany, for there he was to meet his father's friend. Surprised, but not displeased at this extraordinary route, Louis cheerfully set forward; and did not permit the curiosity natural to his thirst for knowledge, to detain him a moment in any of the countries through which he travelled.
On a dark evening in January he and his guide arrived at Vienna. The streets were in so profound a gloom, he could not have guessed he was now in one of the most magnificent capitals of the world, had he not received some intimation of its greatness, by the extent of pavement he went over from the point of the town at which he entered to that which was to be his destination. As he drove along, he perceived some other proofs that he was indeed in the modern Cæsarean metropolis. He passed noble houses, whose open gates shewed they were superbly illuminated, and whence proceeded strains of gay music that gave sign of life and festivity within. Castanos remarked, that these were palaces of the nobility. Exhilarated by the splendour of the lights, Louis enquired whether the house he was going to, promised as much consolation after a tedious journey. "But I flatter myself it will," added he, "from what I understand of the general rank of my father's friends."
"As the Baron de Ripperda is a nobleman of an universal acquaintance," replied Castanos, "he has friends of every rank, in every country."