“I regret I did not meet him. There is another road to meet the stage route, perhaps he took that.”
“Oh no, he went by the same which you traveled. It is strange you did not see him.”
As James spoke, he directed a look of anxious inquiry toward his father, who sighed, and turning to me, said “Ernest has caused me much pain lately. He is sadly altered.”
I looked surprised, but he did not explain, and the silence of the next few minutes left me to ponder on his words.
Ernest altered!—the studious, mild, spiritual Ernest? How altered?—in what way? It could not be favorably, for he had already been my standard of excellence, and in my enthusiastic admiration he could rise no higher. Was it for the worse? Heaven forbid! Yet some years had passed since we parted, and, alas! for changeful man, even Ernest might have fallen into error.
In his continued absence the time seemed slowly and anxiously to pass away. Linda rose to retire, and as I pressed her hand in saying “good-night,” I observed a look of sadness, and a starting tear had changed the expression of her sweet face. As had always been her custom from childhood, she knelt for her father’s blessing, and when his venerable hand, pressed on the rich clusters of her dark brown hair, and “God bless you, my child,” came from his lips, she earnestly added, “And may he protect my brother from all danger.”
I could not help sharing the general anxiety, and felt more unwilling to impart to them the late encounter in the wood, lest it should increase their fears for the safety of Ernest. Yet what enemy had he? and the road leading to his home would be plain to him on the darkest night. But I might with the same reason ask, What enemy had I? And who was my assailant? If a highwayman, he would have demanded my purse.
As I turned on my pillow after retiring to the chamber alloted to me, I vainly sought repose. The journey of the day had been a long and weary one, although supported by the joyous anticipations of a buoyant spirit: tired I felt, but not sleepy, for a strange feeling of uncertainty and anxiety was now upon me, which was not relieved by the murmur of voices in the next apartment. My chamber, which was the same I had occupied in boyhood, was only separated from the next by a wooden partition, so common in country houses, and what was spoken there, even in a low voice, could be heard with a little attention by me. Shall I confess this attention was not wanting on my part? For the first time in my life I listened willingly to the communications of others not intended for my ear. My conscientious scruples were quieted by the reflection that long-existing ties bound me to the interests of the family, and besides, was I not about to unite myself to its dearest member, and had I not something like a brother’s right to learn what were the sorrows or troubles of Ernest, whose name was more than once spoken in the subdued but agitated voice of my venerated old friend, his father, whose chamber I knew adjoined mine. My name was also mentioned, and regret expressed by James that he had not confided in me and entered into an explanation. This certainly exonerated me from all blame in eaves-dropping, and I listened without dreading the admonitions of my inward monitor.
“I will share your pillow to-night, my dear father,” said James, “for I fear you cannot sleep.”
“As you please, my dear son,” he replied, “and surely we have cause for alarm. Oh! Ernest, Ernest, you whom I thought by intellectual culture and literary acquirements to place above the trials and troubles of this world, that after all you should act so rashly.”