But he had to speak again, laying his hand on Dacre's shoulder before he got an answer, though Dacre had noted the question, as his answer showed when it came.
"See! I see a glorious panorama," and he turned and looked at Geoffrey, still with arms folded. "I have seen the history of our country stretched out like a map upon the sea. I saw thereon all those things which have made England famous forever among the nations—the kings, the nobles and the people, advancing like a host from the darkness to the light."
"Yes, to the light of other days. But you know that has faded," said Geoffrey, as he buttoned his overcoat and pulled down his hat.
"No; not the light of other days, but the light of to-morrow, which never fades."
"Well, then, I don't understand you, old man; that is all," said Geoffrey, contentedly, as he paced along, casting a satisfied, thoughtless glance at the shimmering waves below, in some such natural way as a sea-bird flying overhead might have done.
Geoffrey was of a placid and easy, perhaps lazy, disposition; but his placidity rested like the ice of a mountain lake on deep and dangerous water. It was hard to ruffle him or even to move him; but when moved he was apt not to return to the position he had left, nor to be quite natural to the new position.
"How far away is your house?" asked Dacre.
"Not far; there, you see the light over there. Old Reynolds is sitting up for me and keeping the kettle going. He sticks by me through thick and thin. I have tried to make him take a better place, but he will not go."
Dacre was silent, and they walked on, descending from the cliffs and following a path across the wide lawn-like fields, darkened by enormous heaps of shadow from scattered chestnut trees.
An hour before the young men crossed these fields another figure, a woman's, had travelled the same path. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, and though she had lingered and loitered on the cliff-walk, she hurried on the lower ground till she arrived near Geoffrey's lodge.