Emily was well pleased with the prospect, and they set out together, both apparently equally prepared to enjoy every thing they met with. The drive was a long one in point of time, for not only were the carriages more cumbrous and heavy in those days, but the road continued ascending nearly the whole way. Sometimes, indeed, a short run down into a gentle valley released the horses from the continual tug on the collar, but it was very brief, and the ascent commenced almost immediately. Beautiful views over the scenery round presented themselves at every turn; and Emily, who had all the spirit of a painter in her heart, looked forth from the window enchanted.
Mrs. Hazleton marked her enjoyment with great satisfaction; for either by study or intuition she had a deep knowledge of the springs and sources of human emotions, and she knew well that one enthusiasm always disposes to another. Nay, more, she knew that whatever is associated in the mind with pleasant scenes is usually pleasing, and she had plotted the meeting between Emily and him she intended to be her lover with considerable pains to produce that effect. Nature seemed to have been a sharer in her schemes. The day could not have been better chosen. There was the light fresh air, the few floating clouds, the merry dancing gleams upon hill and dale, a light, momentary shower of large, jewel-like drops, the fragment of a broken rainbow painting the distant verge of heaven.
At length the summit of the hills was reached; and Mrs. Hazleton told her sweet companion to look out there, ordering the carriage at the same time to stop. It was indeed a scene well worthy of the gaze. Far spreading out beneath the eye lay a wide basin in the hills, walled in, as it were, by those tall summits, here and there broken by a crag. The ground sloped gently down from the spot at which the carriage paused, so that the whole expanse was open to the eye, and over the short brown herbage, through which a purple gleam from the yet unblossomed heath shone out, the lights and shades seemed sporting in mad glee. All was indeed solitary, uncultivated, and even barren, except where, in the very centre of the wide hollow, appeared a number of trees, not grouped together in a wood, but scattered over a considerable space of ground, as if the remnants of some old deer-park, and over their tall tops rose up the ruined keep of some ancient stronghold of races passed away, with here and there another tower or pinnacle appearing, and long lines of grassy mounds, greener than the rest of the landscape, glancing between the stems of the older trees, or bearing up in picturesque confusion their own growth of wild, fantastic, seedling ashes.
By the name of the spot, Ellendon, which means strong-hill, I believe it is more than probable that the Anglo-Saxons had here some forts before the conquest; but the ruin which now presented itself to the eyes of Emily and Mrs. Hazleton was evidently of a later date and of Norman construction.
Here, probably, some proud baron of the times of Henry, Stephen, or Matilda, had built his nest on high, perchance to overawe the Saxon churls around him, perhaps to set at defiance the royal power itself. Here the merry chase had swept the hills; here revelry and pageantry had checkered a life of fierce strife and haughty oppression. Such scenes, at least such thoughts, presented themselves to the imaginative mind of Emily, like the dreamy gleams that skimmed in gold and purple before her eyes; but the effect of any strong feeling, whether of enjoyment or of grief, was always to make her silent; and she gazed without uttering a word.
Mrs. Hazleton, however, understood some points in her character, and by the long fixed look from beneath the dark sweeping lashes of her eye, by the faint sweet smile that gently curled her young, beautiful lip, and by the sort of gasping sigh after she had gazed breathless for some moments, she knew how intense was that gentle creature's delight in a scene, which to many an eye would have offered no peculiar charm.
She would not suffer it to lose any of its first effect, and after a brief pause ordered the carriage to drive on. Still Emily continued to look onwards out of the carriage-window, and as the road turned in the descent, the castle and the ancient trees grouped themselves differently every minute. At length, as they came nearer, she said, turning to Mrs. Hazleton, "There seems to be a man standing at the very highest point of the old keep."
"He must be bold indeed," replied her companion, looking out also. "When you come close to it, dear Emily, you will see that it requires the foot of a goat and the heart of a lion to climb up there over the rough, disjointed, tottering stones. Good Heaven, I hope he will not fall!"
Emily closed her eyes. "It is very foolish," she said.
"Oh, men have pleasure in such feats of daring," answered Mrs. Hazleton, "which we women cannot understand. He is coming down again as steadily as if he were treading a ball-room. I wish that tree were out of the way."