Eustace Trevor had not been able to escape from the church, at the close of the service, without a renewal of the clergyman's thanks for the services he had so obligingly rendered him. Indeed, even then he did not seem at all inclined to part from his stranger friend; and after a little more conversation respecting the beauties of the neighbourhood, he offered—seeing that Eustace also had his horse in readiness—to conduct him a little en détour from the route back to ——, in order to show him the view from his own house, most romantically situated amidst the woods on the high ground flanking the valley. Eustace could not well decline the offer, and they rode on together.
His companion had soon shown himself to be a man of higher birth and education, than are usually found amongst ministers of such remote districts of the Principality. He had been settled for many years in this living, and was enthusiastic in his love and admiration of the country; so much so, that it seemed not even his failing health could induce him to relinquish his post; although, as it had been the case this afternoon, both himself and congregation often ran the risk of being put to great inconvenience and extremity: the asthmatic complaint under which he laboured being of a most uncertain and capricious character, and the English service being entirely dependant on his powers.
All this the good man communicated to Eustace on the way. His frank and simple confidence on every subject connected with himself and his concerns, without the least demonstration of curiosity respecting his companion, winning gradually on Eustace's sensations of security and ease, he accepted the clergyman's invitation to enter his abode; the beauty and romantic seclusion of whose situation excited his deep admiration and envy.
The original, but amiable and intelligent conversation of its possessor, won more and more on his favour and confidence; the other, on his part, evidently felt himself to be in the society of a being to whom some more than common degree of interest attached. His keen observant eye saw imprinted upon that striking countenance more than any mere bodily illness, from which the stranger reported himself to have but lately recovered. The snares of death might have encompassed him round about, and the pains of hell got hold of him; but they were those sorrows and pains such as the Psalmist himself had gained such deep experience of, rather than any physical affliction which had engraven those strong signs there.
It was truly, as a great writer of the day has expressed himself, "the mournfulest face that ever was seen—an altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. There was in it, as foundation, the softness, tenderness, gentle affection, as of a child; but all this, as it were, congealed into sharp, isolated, hopeless pain; a silent pain—silent and scornful. The lip curled, as it were, in a kind of god-like disdain of the thing that is eating out his heart; as if he whom it had power to torture were greater than the cause."
"The eye, too, that dark earnest eye, looking out as in a kind of surprise, a kind of inquiry, why the world was of that sort!"
Mr. Wynne had many questions put to him concerning the remarkable looking stranger, from the ladies of Glan Pennant, when they met the next day. All he could tell them was, that the stranger was perfectly unknown to him, that he had no idea even of his name; that he now talked of leaving the neighbourhood early that week, but Mr. Wynne added, he was to call at the inn at ——, and hoped to find that he was able to persuade his new acquaintance to remain and explore a little longer the beauties of the vicinity, and at the same time, he slyly added, "give them a second benefit of his beautiful voice." The young ladies as slyly hoped their worthy friend might have his hopes crowned with success. And their desire was not ungratified. The following Sunday the beautiful voice once more made itself heard.
A great deal had taken place to change the tenor of Eustace Trevor's views and purposes during that one short week. Only too readily had he yielded to the parting persuasions of Mr. Wynne, that he would at least extend his stay beyond the day he had mentioned as having been fixed for his departure. Nay, even as he turned his horse's head back towards ----, had the yearning desire diffused itself through his heart, that instead of that hopeless, homeless, outcast fate to which he had devoted himself, it could have been his lot to find a little spot of earth like that in which this day he had first performed the duties of a profession he had once thought to commence under such different circumstances—a spot, from the spirit of beauty, innocence, purity and peace, seeming to breathe around, as contrasted with that world—that home, from which he had been driven, appeared to his imagination scarcely less than a little heaven upon earth, a different sphere to any in which he had yet existed.
But this was but an imaginary suggestion—a dream-like fancy which vaguely flitted across his mind, ill accordant with his dark and bitter destiny. The very next day his new friend called. They rode out again together, and one or two such meetings only served to strengthen between these two men, of such different ages, characters and circumstances, that strange and sudden liking which is often found to spring up between two passing strangers of to-day, as necessarily as flowers expand from bud to blossom in the course of a few sunny and dewy hours of one vernal morning. As much then was elicited from Eustace, as revealed pretty clearly to the other the purposeless circumstances of his present position—
"A bark sent forth to sail alone,
At midnight on the moonlight sea."