Still farther meditating on the perplexing affair, he came to the unpleasant conclusion, that, if there had been on the part of Clara any feeling of regard and attachment towards him, she must now necessarily conclude that he had no especial regard for her, or he would not have left England without declaring himself, or at least without giving some intimation of the state of his mind. But no sooner had he arrived at this conclusion, which ought at once to have put him out of suspense, than he flew back from it again; and instead of sorrowing only for himself, he began to feel great compassion for Clara, on the gratuitous supposition that her heart was partly if not entirely lost to him, and lost in vain; and, thereupon, he reproached himself for having behaved unkindly towards her.
Thus ingeniously did the young gentleman torment himself till past midnight, till his fire was extinct for want of stirring, and his candles were like torches for want of snuffing. Cold and cheerless he retired to rest, and there remains on record no memorial of his dreams.
CHAPTER XIX.
“And if thou ever happen that same way
To traveill, go to see that dreadful place.”
Spenser.
The following day dawned brighter. Though it was November, the sun had strength to struggle through the clouds; and much of the heavy weight that lay on Markham’s mind the preceding day was alleviated by brighter hopes and better thoughts. There was a pleasant re-action in his spirits, and he wondered how it was that he had been so depressed on the previous evening. He was cheerful and light-hearted in giving his orders concerning the removal of his luggage, and when he went aboard the vessel which was destined to convey him from England, he met with so flattering and complimentary a reception from the captain, that all the world seemed bright about him, and he trusted that he should not lack friends in a distant land. His thoughts rushed impetuously forward to the new scene which was about to open upon him, and he was pleased to think how many valuable introductory letters he possessed, and he hoped that acquaintances would, many of them, become valuable friends and agreeable companions. But we have no intention of accompanying our young friend on his voyage. Suffice it to say, that he sailed in good spirits, that the wind blew variously as it often does on a long voyage, and that he reached his port in safety.
We must return now to old Mr. Martindale and his family. His attachment to his family was continually increasing. He was more than pleased with his daughter, he was absolutely proud of her. He always spoke of her emphatically as my daughter. He consulted her wishes in every thing, and was always guided by her opinion, the least intimation of which was law to him. With all his oddities, and he had not a few, he had discernment enough to see that Signora Rivolta was really a person of solid understanding and of clear judgment. He only wondered how it was that a woman of such good sense should adopt the Roman Catholic religion; but on this subject he seldom touched, for he found that he could make no impression. With the Colonel, however, he would occasionally enter into an argument, and not unfrequently did he fancy that in these discussions he had the advantage. Colonel Rivolta was not a very zealous believer in the infallibility of His Holiness. He had never paid much attention to theology as a matter of argument or reflection; he did not know enough of his native religion to be converted to any other, though the side which he had taken in politics rendered him not very bigoted to the religion established in Italy. In religion he was a liberal, not a sceptic or an unbeliever; he had no doubts, for he scarcely ever thought of the subject. He had no wish to make converts, he was willing to let every one enjoy his own opinions; and he would never have taken the trouble to defend the Catholic religion against Mr. Martindale, but that he thought the old gentleman was fond of an argument, and he liked to indulge him. As for the religion of Clara, which is of the most importance to our purpose, it is rather difficult to define or describe it. Her education had been miscellaneous; she had been in early life initiated into the religion of Italy, but in after-years the conversation of Richard Smith, her great uncle, had somewhat disturbed and unsettled her mind as to the exclusive safety of the Catholic religion. Her strongest ground of attachment to that faith was, that it was the religion of her mother. There was, however, in her mind that degree of imaginativeness, that needed not so much external and visible aid to devotion as that religion presented her with, therefore she did not feel herself dependent on its forms. Truth compels us to add, which we do with a considerable degree of reluctance, that Clara Rivolta, during her residence at Brigland, had more than once said to her great uncle, that her principal objection to the Protestant religion was the indifference of its priests. This remark had reference, we ought to say, almost solely to Mr. Denver, the perpetual curate of Brigland; and every allowance ought to be made for him. It is no easy matter to serve three churches with a very lively and ardent feeling, especially when to the fatigue of the duty there is also added the toil of riding several miles on a tall, old, raw-boned, shuffling, stumbling, jumbling, broken-winded, and ill-saddled, iron-grey mare. Clara had never seen any other clergyman, except one or two who had occasionally been visiting the Hon. Philip Martindale during the shooting season. Of these gentlemen she knew nothing, except that whenever they met her, they stared very rudely at her. She formed her judgment of the English clergy from a very few and very so-so samples. Blending a respectable share of discrimination and reflection with an imaginative soul and a feeling heart, her religion was in the most comprehensive sense of the word purely Catholic. Outwardly her conformity was to the religion of her birth-place; and perhaps had she never been acquainted with any other mode, her devotion to that in which she had been educated would have been much stronger. But when she was instructed that religion was the medium by which virtue was impressed on the mind, and man made acceptable to his Maker, and when she was told that there was no salvation out of the pale of the Roman Catholic Church, and when she saw what real excellences and what solid virtues adorned the character of her maternal great uncle, then she thought it absolutely impossible that the religion of such a man could be otherwise than acceptable to his Maker; and thereupon, without the elaborateness of argument or the undetectable wiliness of sophistry, there entered irresistibly into her mind a spirit of liberality and pure Catholicism.