“Good-night,” echoed Charles.
Harry touched his hat with a smile, and was away the next moment, flying at a ringing trot over the narrow unfenced road that traverses the common, and dwindling in the distant moonlight.
“There he goes—light of heart; nothing to trouble him—life a holiday—the world a toy.”
He walked a little bit slowly in the direction of the disappearing horseman, and paused again, and watched him moodily till he was fairly out of sight.
“I hope he won’t forget; he’s always so busy about those stupid horses—a lot of money he makes, I dare say. I wish I knew something about them. I must beat about for some way of turning a penny. Poor little Alice! I hope I have not made a mull of it! I’ll save every way I can—of course that’s due to her; but when you come to think of it, and go over it all, there’s very little you can give up. You can lay down your horses, if you have them, except one. You must have one in a place like this—you’d run a risk of starving, or never getting your letters, or dying for want of the doctor. And—I won’t drink wine; brandy, or Old Tom does just as well, and I’ll give up smoking totally. A fellow must make sacrifices. I’ll just work through this one box slowly, and order no more: it’s all a habit, and I’ll give it up.”
So he took a cigar from his case and lighted it.
“I’ll not spend another pound on them, and the sooner these are out the better.”
He sauntered slowly away with his hands in his pockets to a little eminence about a hundred yards to the right, and mounted it, and looked all around, smoking. I don’t think he saw much of that extensive view; but you would have fancied him an artist in search of the picturesque.
His head was full of ideas of selling Carwell Grange; but he was not quite sure that he had power, and did not half like asking his attorney, to whom he already owed something. He thought how snug and pleasant they might be comparatively in one of those quaint little toy towns in Germany, where dull human nature bursts its cerements, and floats and flutters away into a butterfly life of gold and colour—where the punter and the croupier assist at the worship of the brilliant and fickle goddess, and bands play sweetly, and people ain’t buried alive in deserts and forests among dogs and “chawbacons”—where little Alice would be all wonder and delight. Was it quite fair to bring her down here to immure her in the mouldering cloister of Carwell Grange?
He had begun now to re-enter the wooded ascent toward that melancholy mansion; his cigar was burnt out, and he said, looking toward his home through the darkness—