A sure instinct told me that Monsieur Droqville would be directed inflexibly by the interests of his order, to consult which, at all times, unawed by consequences to himself or others, was his stern and narrow duty.
Here, in this beautiful and sequestered corner of the world, how far, after all, I had been from quiet. Well might I cry with Campbell's exile—
| "Ah! cruel fate, wilt thou never replace me |
| In a mansion of peace where no perils can chase me?" |
My terrors hung upon a secret I dared not disclose. There was no one to help me; for I could consult no one.
The next day I was really ill. I remained in my room. I thought Monsieur Droqville would come to claim an interview; and perhaps would seek, by the power he possessed, to force me to become an instrument in forwarding some of his plans, affecting either the faith or the property of others. I was in an agony of suspense and fear.
Days passed; a week; and no sign of Monsieur Droqville. I began to breathe. He was not a man, I knew, to waste weeks, or even days, in search of the picturesque, in a semi-barbarous region like Golden Friars.
At length I summoned courage to speak to Rebecca Torkill. I told her I had seen Monsieur Droqville, and that I wanted her, without telling the servants at Dorracleugh, to make inquiry at the "George and Dragon," whether a person answering that description had been there. No such person was there. So I might assume he was gone. He had come with Sir Richard Mardykes, I conjectured, from Carsbrook, where he often was. But such a man was not likely to make even a pleasure excursion without an eye to business. He had, I supposed, made inquiries; possibly, he had set a watch upon me. Under the eye of such a master of strategy as Monsieur Droqville I could not feel quite at ease.
Nevertheless, in a little time, such serenity as I had enjoyed at Dorracleugh gradually returned; and I enjoyed a routine life, the dulness of which would have been in another state of my spirits insupportable, with very real pleasure.
We were now deep in winter, and in its snowy shroud how beautiful the landscape looked! Cold, but stimulating and pleasant was the clear, dry air; and our frost-bound world sparkled in the wintry sun.
Old Sir Harry Rokestone, a keen sportsman, proof as granite against cold, was out by moonlight on the grey down with his old-fashioned duck-guns, and, when the lake was not frozen over, with two hardy men manoeuvring his boat for him. Town-bred, Mr. Blount contented himself with his brisk walk, stick in hand, and a couple of the dogs for companions to the town; and Mr. Marston was away upon some mission, on which his uncle had sent him, Mr. Blount said, to try whether he was "capable of business and steady."