“Yes,” was the ready reply; “they are ‘O F A—A F O,’ which, being interpreted, mean ‘One for All, All for One.’ Let me see! ‘A F E.’ All for each. I wonder if that is not the password in this case?”
“Very probable,” assented Marston. “If necessary, let us try it, at all events.”
This proposition was agreed to. As the distance between Millmont and the Spout, over a road which traversed, in rapidly succeeding alternations, fields and forests, hills and plains, was fully nine miles, the two young men were obliged to put their horses to a tolerably high speed to reach the place of their destination in time. But little more conversation passed between them, therefore, until they arrived at the head of the ravine, down which their road led to the shore of Saint Leonard’s Creek.
Story 2--Chapter IV.
At the Spout.
Ossario. Stand, ho! Who are you?
Antonio. We are true men, sir.
Ossario. True men, give the word - and pass.
Old Play.
Walter. Only a pleasant jest, I do assure you.
The borry Joke.
When the two men descended the ravine leading to the shore, the sun was half an hour above the horizon. Before they left the mouth of the ravine, they dismounted, at the suggestion of Captain Marston, and fastened their horses to the drooping branches of a tree which grew by the side of the road. The animals were, in this situation, out of sight of the place of rendezvous. The companions having thus made their horses secure, advanced to the shore.
The novelist, and even the poet, could find no lovelier locality, ready created for the scenes of fancied grief and pleasures, than that contained within lines embracing Saint Leonard’s Creek and its immediate adjuncts. Not only is the stream itself—especially in the fair expanse near its junction with the river, which is now supposed to lie glowing and dimpling in the morning sunshines with varying lights and shadows, before the reader’s mental eyes—remarkably beautiful; but all around it—every bill and dale, every field and grove, every jutting promontory and retiring cove—partakes of the same character of pre-eminent loveliness.