No man who has not been long a-roving can understand all the fluttering ways of a man's heart when he comes home again. How he looks at every one of all the old houses he knows so well; at first as if he feared it for having another piece built on, or grander people inside of it. And then upon finding this fear vain, he is almost ready to beg its pardon for not having looked at it such a long time. It is not in him to say a word to, or even about, the children coming out thus to stare at him. All the children he used to know are gone to day's work long ago; and the new ones would scarcely trust him so as to suck a foreign lollipop. He knows them by their mothers; but he cannot use their names to them.
There is nothing solid dwelling for a poor man long away, except the big trees that lay hold upon the ground in earnest, and the tomb-stones keeping up his right to the parish churchyard. Along the wall of this I glanced, with joy to keep outside of it; while I struck, for the third time strongly, at not being let into mine own house.
At last a weak and faltering step sounded in my little room, and then a voice came through the latch-hole, "Man of noise, how dare you thus? you will wake up our young lady."
"Master Roger, let me in. Know you not your own landlord?"
The learned schoolmaster was so astonished that he could scarcely draw back the bolt. "Is it so? Is it so indeed? I thank the Lord for sending thee," was all he could say, while he stood there shaking both my hands to the very utmost that his slender palms could compass.
"Friend Llewellyn," he whispered at last, "I beg thy pardon heartily, for having been so rude to thee. But it is such a business to hush the young lady; and if she once wakes she talks all the night long. I fear that her mind is almost too active for a maid of her tender years."
"What young lady do you mean?" I asked; "is Bunny become a young lady now?"
"Bunny!" he cried, with no small contempt; then perceiving how rude this was to me, began casting about for apologies.
"Never mind that," I said; "only tell me who this wonderful young lady is."
"Miss Andalusia, the 'Maid of Sker,' as every one now begins to call her. There is no other young lady in the neighbourhood to my knowledge."