When Mrs. Grant had gone, the three men drew near one of the tall narrow windows that looked west along the Island and commanded the beautiful valley of the broad river, and the broad, blue, bright Weeslade itself.
An everlasting Sabbath filled that luxuriant valley with a peace which seemed too fine for earth. Because of the height on which the Castle stood, and its distance from the nearest shore beyond the western end of the Island, all detail was subdued and lost; nothing was left to trouble the eye or excite enquiry. The eye could see nothing but broad green pasturages and vast expanses of emerald grainshoots reaching down to the river's brink, and sloping softly inward towards the quiet hills that stood up apart, clad in purple and blue wood, and crowned with violet uplands lying secure against the azure sky.
The tide was full; the winds were still; from the trees around through the open window came the fragrant spices of the may. Above, the lark took up where all human voices end the praises of the spring. The glory of inextinguishable youth was in his song, the wild rapture of a regenerated soul. Below, the sad-throated thrush piped of the mellow melancholy of a ripe old world that had borne a thousand generations of men, who had moved all their days through the same narrow and unsatisfying avenues of desire and passion and final failure to the richly padded grave. The thrush sang to the earth of those who had died; the lark sang to the skies of those who shall live for ever.
Around the three men as they stood by the open window was the mouldering chamber of an ancient house. On one side lay the decayed old man of a noble race. On the other side the maiden daughter of that man, who had smothered up his affectionate visitings under piles of gold, scraped together for her, for the pride of his lineage.
Beyond there in the city was ruin. A great bank which had a branch in Daneford had stopped payment to-day. The three men by the window were talking of that while they awaited the return of the woman.
"Dreadful! I am told that the poor Mainwarings are completely ruined by it."
"Completely. Fancy old John Musgrave put four thousand pounds into it on deposit this day week. It will kill him. He had sold out Turks, and was going to buy United States."
"Poor old fellow! I do pity him."
"There was a rumour of one of the local banks being in a bad way. Did either of you hear it?"
"Not the Daneford?"