"You are going in and out, yourself," I said, though I took good care to lead Miss Twentifold away; "as if there were no sign of danger whatever. But if we should do more harm than good, the best plan would be to go shrimping, as you say. But how shall we know, sir, when you are ready for us,—or at least for me, of course, I mean? Lady Twentifold will be down, perhaps, about three o'clock."
"When all is made safe, and I want your good hand," the Professor answered, with a look at me, and a wave of his faithful old hat to the lady, (which said—for all his hats said something—"I like you very much, but I don't want you now") "you will see, my dear friends, this conspicuous example of the industry of the Orient, waving on that pole."
He pulled from his hat a large yellow silk handkerchief, spotted with white, and shook it at us, as a flag-signal to be off.
"Now, what shall we do? Shall we obey orders, or is there anything you would like better? Perhaps you are afraid of the rocks, and the sea-weed, and the way the waves come running up the hollow places."
I said this, on purpose to stimulate her; perceiving the very fine spirit she had, which the colour in her cheeks was enough to prove. All I was afraid of was, that she might doubt the propriety of going round the point with me.
But she was too simple and good, to do that. She thought not of harm, any more than she had done it; and the only expression in her eyes was pleasure.
"Where have you put the nets?" she asked; "you shall have Roly's, and I will have my own."
Now, if there had been in my nature yet any lingering of the old tendency to rise into the air, through exultation, could anything have baulked it of its operation now? Within a mere mile of the spot, still shown as the scene of my early exploit, with the weather set fair, and the wind the right way, and with beauty at my side, a millionfold more enchanting than any first view of the sea—what was the reason that I did not fly?
Let Professor Brachipod explain that, if he can; and there is nothing that he will not explain most ably, whether he is able, or whether he is not. Some great change had "permeated my organisation"—as they call it, as if I were full of pipes—which made me cleave rather to the earth (in periods of exuberant happiness) than soar to the sky, to complete it there. Perhaps when I grow old, I shall become less earthy, and again seek my happiness by going upward; but nothing now sets me on the springs of my system, except the most expansive and elevating indignation.
And to put aside that, and all questions whatever of the motives for this, or the reasons against that, would manners (any more than common sense, and sound judgment) have allowed me to fly away from lovely Laura? So long as I had her at my side, what else in the earth, or the air, or the sky, could I desire?