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THE GIPSY;
A TALE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"RICHELIEU," "MARY OF BURGUNDY," &c.
"Ah! what a tangled web we weave,
When first we venture to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1855.
THE GIPSY.
CHAPTER I.
At that time in the world's history when watches, in their decline
from the fat comeliness of the turnip to the scanty meagerness of the
half-crown, had arrived at the intermediate form of a biffin--when the
last remnant of a chivalrous spirit instigated men to wear swords
every day, and to take purses on horseback--when quadrupeds were
preferred to steam, and sails were necessary to a ship--when Chatham
and Blackstone appeared in the senate and at the bar, and Goldsmith,
Johnson, and Burke, Cowper, Reynolds, Robertson Hume, and Smollett,
were just beginning to cumber the highways of arts and sciences--at
that period of the dark ages, the events which are about to be related
undoubtedly took place, in a county which shall be nameless.
It may be that the reader would rather have the situation more
precisely defined, in order, as he goes along, to fix each particular
incident that this book may hereafter contain to the precise spot and
person for which it was intended. Nevertheless, such disclosures must
not be; in the first place, because the story, being totally and
entirely a domestic one, depends little upon locality; and, in the
next place, because greater liberties can be taken with people and
things when their identity is left in doubt, than when it is clearly
ascertained; for, although--
"When caps into a crowd are thrown,
What each man fits he calls his own,"
yet no one likes to have his name written upon his fool's cap, and
handed down for the benefit of posterity, attached to such an
ornament.
It was, then, on an evening in the early autumn, at that particular
period of history which we have described, that two persons on
horseback were seen riding through a part of the country, the aspect
of which was one whereon we delight to dwell; that is to say, it was a
purely English aspect. Now, this character is different from all
others, yet subject to a thousand varieties; for although England, in
its extent, contains more, and more beautiful scenes, of different
kinds and sorts of the picturesque, than any other country under
heaven, nevertheless there is an aspect in them all that proclaims
them peculiarly English. It is not a sameness--far, far from it; but
it is a harmony; and whether the view be of a mountain or a valley, a
plain or a wood, a group of cottages by the side of a clear, still
trout stream, or a country town cheering the upland, there is still to
be seen in each a fresh green Englishness, which--like the peculiar
tone of a great composer's mind, pervading all his music, from his
requiem to his lightest air--gives character and identity to every
object, and mingles our country, and all its sweet associations, with
the individual scene.
The spot through which the travellers were riding, and which was a
wide piece of forest ground, one might have supposed, from the nature
of the scenery, to be as common to all lands as possible; but no such
thing! and any one who gazed upon it required not to ask themselves in
what part of the world they were. The road, which, though sandy, was
smooth, neat, and well tended, came down the slope of a long hill,
exposing its course to the eye for near a mile. There was a gentle
rise on each side, covered with wood; but this rise, and its forest
burden, did not advance within a hundred yards of the road on either
hand, leaving between--except where it was interrupted by some old
sand-pits--a space of open ground covered with short green turf, with
here and there an ancient oak standing forward before the other trees,
and spreading its branches to the way-side. To the right was a little
rivulet gurgling along the deep bed it had worn for itself among the
short grass, in its way towards a considerable river that flowed
through the valley at about two miles' distance; and, on the left, the
eye might range far amid the tall, separate trees--now, perhaps,
lighting upon a stag at gaze, or a fallow deer tripping away over the
dewy ground as light and gracefully as a lady in a ballroom--till
sight became lost in the green shade and the dim wilderness of leaves
and branches.
Amid the scattered oaks in advance of the wood, and nestled into
the dry nooks of the sand-pits, appeared about half a dozen dirty
brown shreds of canvass, none of which seemed larger than a dinner
napkin, yet which--spread over hoops, cross sticks, and other
contrivances--served as habitations to six or seven families of that
wild and dingy race, whose existence and history is a phenomenon, not
among the least strange of all the wonderful things that we pass by
daily without investigation or inquiry. At the mouths of one or two of
these little dwelling-places might be seen some gipsy women with their
peculiar straw bonnets, red cloaks, and silk handkerchiefs; some
withered, shrunk, and witch-like, bore evident the traces of long
years of wandering exposure and vicissitude; while others, with the
warm rose of health and youth glowing through the golden brown of
their skins, and their dark gem-like eyes flashing undimmed by sorrow
or infirmity, gave the beau ideal of a beautiful nation long passed
away from thrones and dignities, and left but as the fragments of a
wreck dashed to atoms by the waves of the past.
At one point, amid white wood ashes, and many an unlawful feather from
the plundered cock and violated turkey, sparkled a fire and boiled a
caldron; and, round about the ancient beldam who presided over the pot
were placed in various easy attitudes several of the male members of
the tribe--mostly covered with long loose great-coats, which bespoke
the owners either changed or shrunk. A number of half-naked brats,
engaged in many a sport, filled up the scene, and promised a sturdy
and increasing race of rogues and vagabonds for after years.
Over the whole--wood, and road, and streamlet, and gipsy
encampment--was pouring in full stream the purple light of evening,
with the long shadows stretching across, and marking the distances all
the way up the slope of the hill. Where an undulation of the ground,
about half-way up the ascent, gave a wider space of light than
ordinary, were seen, as we have before said, two strangers riding
slowly down the road, whose appearance soon called the eyes of the
gipsy fraternity upon their movements; for the laws in regard to
vagabondism[1] had lately been strained somewhat hard, especially in
that part of the country, and the natural consequence was, that the
gipsy and the beggar looked upon almost every human thing as an enemy.
With their usual quick perception, however, they soon gathered that
the travellers were not of that cast from whom they had anything to
fear; and indeed there was nothing of the swaggering bailiff or
bullying constable in the aspect of either. The one was a man of
about six-and-twenty years of age, with fine features, a slight but
well-made person, and a brown but somewhat pale complexion. His eyes
were remarkably fine, and his mouth and chin beautifully cut; he rode
his horse, too, with skill and grace; and withal he had that air of
consequence which is at any time worth the riband of the Bath. His
companion was older, taller, stronger. In age he might be thirty-two
or three, in height he was fully six feet, and seldom was there ever a
form which excelled his in all those points where great strength is
afforded without any appearance of clumsiness. He rode his horse,
which was a powerful dark-brown gelding, as if half his life were
spent on horseback; and as he came down the hill with the peculiar
appearance of ease and power which great bodily strength and activity
usually give, one might well have concluded that he was as
fine-looking a man as one had ever beheld. But when he approached so
as to allow his features to be seen, all one's prepossessions were
dispelled, and one perceived that, notwithstanding this fine person,
he was in some respects as ugly a man as it was possible to conceive.
---------------------
[Footnote 1: At various times very severe laws have been enacted in
all countries against gipsies. The very fact of being a gipsy, or
consorting with them for a certain length of time, was, at one period,
punishable by death in England. The greater part of these laws,
however, had been repealed before the epoch at which the events
recorded in this book occurred; and that wandering race were simply
subject to the regulations respecting rogues and vagabonds. The old
spirit of the penal statutes, however, was not forgotten, and the
gipsies were often visited with bitter persecution long after those
statutes had ceased to exist. It is not unworthy of remark, that in
Scotland they have been, at various times, not only treated with great
lenity, but that their leaders have been recognised by law as
sovereign princes, exercising capital jurisdiction over their own race.]
---------------------
Thanks to Jenner and vaccination, we (the English) are nowadays as
handsome a people as any, perhaps, in Europe, with smooth skins and
features as nature made them; but in the times I talk of, vaccination,
alas! was unknown; and whatever the traveller we speak of might have
been before he had been attacked by the smallpox, the traces which
that horrible malady had left upon his face had deprived it of every
vestige of beauty--if, indeed, we except his eyes and eyelashes, which
had been spared as if just to redeem his countenance from the
frightful. They--his eyes and eyelashes--were certainly fine, very
fine; but they were like the beauty of Tadmor in the wilderness,
for all was ugliness around them. However, his countenance had a
good-humoured expression, which made up for much; neither was it of
that vulgar ugliness which robes and ermine but serve to render more
low and unprepossessing. But still, when first you saw him, you could
not but feel that he was excessively plain; and yet there was always
something at the heart which made one--as the ravages of the disease
struck the eye--think, if not say, "What a pity!"
The dress of the two strangers was alike, and it was military; but
although an officer of those days did not feel it at all scandalous or
wrong to show himself in his regimentals, yet such was not the case in
the present instance; and the habiliments of the two horsemen
consisted, as far as could be seen, of a blue riding-coat, bound round
the waist by a crimson scarf, with a pair of heavy boots, of that form
which afterward obtained the name of Pendragon. Swords were at their
sides, and--as was usual in those days, even for the most pacific
travellers--large fur-covered holsters were at their saddle-bows; so
that, although they had no servants with them, and were evidently of
that class of society upon which the more liberal-minded prey and have
preyed in all ages, there was about them "something dangerous," to
attack which would have implied great necessity or a very combative
disposition.
As the travellers rode on, the gipsy men, without moving from the
places they had before occupied, eyed them from under their bent
brows, affecting withal hardly to see them; while the urchins ran like
young apes by the side of their horses, performing all sorts of
antics, and begging hard for halfpence; and at length a girl of
about fifteen or sixteen--notwithstanding some forcible injunctions
to forbear on the part of the old woman who was tending the
caldron--sprang up the bank, beseeching the gentlemen, in the usual
singsong of her tribe, to cross her hand with silver, and have their
fortunes told; promising them at the same time a golden future, and,
like Launcelot, "a pretty trifle of wives."
In regard to her chiromantic science the gentlemen were obdurate,
though each of them gave her one of those flat polished pieces of
silver which were sixpences in our young days; and having done this,
they rode on, turning for a moment or two their conversation, which
had been flowing in a very different channel, to the subject of the
gipsies they had just passed, moralizing deeply on their strange
history and wayward fate, and wondering that no philanthropic
government had ever endeavoured to give them a "local habitation and a
name" among the sons and daughters of honest industry.
"I am afraid that the attempt would be in vain," answered the younger
of the two to his companion. "And besides, it would be doing a notable
injustice to the profession of petty larceny to deprive it of its only
avowed and honourable professors, while we have too many of its
amateur practitioners in the very best society already."
"Nay, nay! Society is not as bad as that would argue it," rejoined the
other. "Thank God, there are few thieves or pilferers within the
circle of my acquaintance, which is not small."
"Indeed!" said his companion. "Think for a moment, my dear colonel,
how many of your dearly-beloved friends are there who, for but a small
gratification, would pilfer from you those things that you value most
highly! How many would steal from one the affection of one's mistress
or wife! How many, for some flimsy honour, some dignity of riband or
of place, would pocket the reputation of deeds they had never done!
How many, for some party interest or political rancour, would deprive
you of your rightful renown, strip you of your credit and your fame,
and 'filch from you your good name!' Good God! those gipsies are
princes of honesty compared with the great majority of our dear
friends and worldly companions."
His fellow-traveller replied nothing for a moment or two, unless a
smile, partly gay, partly bitter, could pass for answer. The next
minute, however, he read his own comment upon it, saying, "I thought,
De Vaux, you were to forget your misanthropy when you returned to
England."
"Oh, so I have," replied the other in a gayer tone; "it was only a
single seed of the wormwood sprouting up again. But, as you must have
seen throughout our journey, my heart is all expansion at coming back
again to my native land, and at the prospect of seeing so many beings
that I love: though God knows," he added, somewhat gloomily--"God
knows whether the love be as fully returned. However, imagination
serves me for Prince Ali's perspective glass; and I can see them all,
even now, at their wonted occupations, while my vanity dresses up
their faces in smiles when they think of my near approach."
His companion sighed; and as he did not at all explain why he did
so, we must take the liberty of asking the worthy reader to walk into
the tabernacle of his bosom, and examine which of the mind's gods it
was that gave forth that oracular sigh, so that the officiating
priest may afford the clear interpretation thereof. But, to leave an
ill-conceived figure of speech, the simple fact was, that the picture
of home, and friends, and smiling welcome, and happy love, which his
companion's speech had displayed, had excited somewhat like envy in
the breast of Colonel Manners. Envy, indeed, properly so called, it
was not; for the breast of Colonel Manners was swept out and garnished
every day by a body of kindly spirits, who left not a stain of envy,
hatred, or malice in any corner thereof. The proper word would have
been _regret_; for regret it certainly was that he felt when he
reflected that, though he had many of what the world calls friends,
and a milky-way of acquaintances--though he was honoured and esteemed
wherever he came, and felt a proud consciousness that he deserved to
be so--yet that on all the wide surface of the earth there was no
sweet individual spot where dearer love, and brighter smiles, and
outstretched arms, glad voices, and sparkling eyes, waited to welcome
the wanderer home from battle, and danger, and privation, and fatigue.
He felt that there was a vacancy to him in all things; that the magic
chain of life's associations wanted a link; and he sighed--not with
_envy_, but with _regret_. That it was so was partly owing to events
over which he had no control. Left an orphan at an early age, the
father's mansion and the mother's bosom he had never known; and
neither brother nor sister had accompanied his pilgrimage through
life. His relations were all distant ones; and though (being the last
of a long line) great care had been bestowed upon his infancy and
youth, yet all the sweet ties and kindred fellowship which gather
thickly round us in a large family were wanting to him.
So far his isolated situation depended upon circumstances which he
could neither alter nor avoid; but that he had not created for himself
a home, and ties as dear as those which fortune had at first denied
him, depended on himself; or rather what in vulgar parlance is called
a _crotchet_, which was quite sufficiently identified with his whole
nature, to be considered as part of himself, though it was mingled
intimately--woven in and out--with qualities of a very different
character.
This crotchet--for that is the only term fitted for it, as it was
certainly neither a whim nor a caprice--this crotchet may be
considered as a matter of history--of his history, I mean; for it
depended upon foregone facts, which must be here explained. It is sad
to overturn all that imagination may have already done for the reader
on the very first news that Colonel Manners had a foregone history at
all. He had not been crossed in love, as may be supposed, nor had he
seen the object of his affections swept away by a torrent, burned in a
house on fire, killed by an unruly horse, or die by any of those means
usually employed for such a purpose. No; he had neither to bewail the
coldness nor the loss of her he loved, because, up to the moment when
we have set him before the reader, he had unfortunately never been in
love at all.
The fact is, that during his youth Colonel Manners had possessed one
of the finest faces in the world, and every one of his judicious
friends had taken care to impress deeply upon his mind that it was the
best portion of all his present possessions or future expectations. By
nature he was quite the reverse of a vain man; but when he saw that
the great majority of those by whom he was surrounded admired the
beauties of his face far more than the beauties of his mind, and loved
him for the symmetry of his external person more than for the
qualities of his heart, of course the conviction that, however much
esteem and respect might be gained by mental perfections, affection
was only given to beauty, became an integral part of that fine texture
of memories and ideas which, though I do not think it, as some have
done, the mind itself, I yet look upon as the mind's innermost
garment. Such was the case when, at the age of about twenty, he was
attacked by the smallpox. For a length of time he was not allowed to
see a looking-glass, the physicians mildly telling him that his
appearance would improve; that they trusted no great traces would
remain: but when he did see a looking-glass, he certainly saw the
reflection of somebody he had never seen before. In the mean while his
relations had too much regard for their own persons to come near him;
and when, after having purified in the country, he went to visit an
antique female cousin, who had been a card-playing belle in the reign
of his majesty of blessed memory, King George the First, the old lady
first made him a profound courtesy, taking him for a stranger; and
when she discovered who he was, burst forth with, "Good God, Charles!
you are perfectly frightful!"
To the same conclusion Charles Manners had by this time come himself;
and the very modesty of his original nature now leagued with one of
the deceptions of vanity, and made him believe that he could never, by
any circumstances, or events, obtain love. Nevertheless he made up his
mind to his fate entirely, and determined neither to seek for nor to
think of a good that could not be his. Indeed, at first, according to
the usual extravagance of man's nature, he flew to the very far
extreme, and believed that, putting woman's love out of the question,
even the more intimate friendship and affection of his fellow-men
might be influenced by his changed appearance, and that he would be
always more or less an object of that pity which touches upon scorn.
These ideas his commerce with the world soon showed him to be
fallacious; but in the mean time they had a certain effect upon his
conduct. Possessing a consciousness of great powers of mind and fine
qualities of the heart, he determined to cultivate and employ them to
the utmost, and compel esteem and respect, if love and affection were
not to be obtained. In his course through the army, too, the sort of
animosity which he felt against his own ugliness, which had cut him
off from happiness of a sort that he was well calculated to enjoy,
together with that mental and corporeal complexion which did not
suffer him to know what fear is, led him to be somewhat careless of
his own person; and during his earlier years of service he acquired
the name of rash Charles Manners. But it was soon found that wherever
the conduct of any enterprise was intrusted to his judgment, its
success was almost certain, and that skill and intrepidity with him
went hand-in-hand.
Gradually he found that, with men at least, and with soldiers
especially, personal beauty formed no necessary ingredient in
friendship; and with a warm heart and noble feelings--guarded,
however, by wisdom and discretion--he soon rendered himself
universally liked and esteemed in the different corps with which
he served, and had an opportunity of selecting one or two of his
fellow-officers for more intimate regard. Unfortunately, however, he
saw no reason to change his opinion in respect to woman's love.
Indeed, he sought not to change it; for, as we have already said, the
belief that female affection could only be won by personal beauty was
one of those intimate convictions which were interwoven with all the
fabric of his ideas. He ceased to think of it; he devoted himself
entirely to his profession; he won honour and the highest renown; he
found himself liked and esteemed by his military companions, courted
and admired in general society, and he was content: at least, if he
was not content, the regrets which would not wholly be smothered--the
yearnings for nearer ties and dearer affections, which are principles,
not thoughts--only found vent occasionally in such a sigh as that
which we have just described.
His companion, though he remarked it, made no comment on his sigh;
for, notwithstanding the most intimate relationships of friendship
which existed between himself and his fellow-traveller, and which had
arisen in mutual services that may hereafter be more fully mentioned,
he felt that the length of their acquaintance had not been such as to
warrant his inquiring more curiously into those private intricacies of
the bosom from which such signs of feeling issued forth. He saw,
however, that the proximate cause of the slight shadow that came over
his friend lay in something that he himself had said in picturing the
happy dreams that checkered his misanthropy; and putting his horse
into a quicker pace as they got upon the level ground, he changed the
subject while they rode on.
The time, as we have said, was evening; and as the strangers passed by
the gipsy encampment, a flood of purple light, pouring from as
splendid a heaven as ever held out the promise of bright after-days,
was streaming over the road; but as the travellers reached the flat,
and turned the angle of the wood where the road wound round the bases
of the hills, the sky was already waxing gray, and a small twinkling
spot of gold here and there told that darkness was coming fast. At the
distance of about half a mile farther, the river was first seen
flowing broad and silvery through the valley; and a quarter of an hour
more brought the travellers to a spot where the water, taking an
abrupt turn round a salient promontory thrown out from the main body
of the hills, left hardly room for the road between the margin and the
wood. On the other side of the river, which might be a hundred yards
broad, was a narrow green meadow, backed by some young fir plantings,
and just beyond the first turn of the bank a deep sombre dell led away
to the right; while the shadows of the trees over the water, the
darkening hue of the sky, and the wild uninhabited aspect of the whole
scene, gave a sensation of gloom, which was not diminished by a large
raven flapping heavily up from the edge of the water, and hovering
with a hoarse croak over some carrion it had found among the reeds.
"This is a murderous-looking spot enough!" said Colonel Manners,
turning slightly towards De Vaux, who had been silent for some
minutes; "this is a murderous-looking spot enough!"
"Well may it be so!" answered his companion abruptly; "well may it be
so; for on this very spot my uncle was murdered twenty years ago."
"Indeed!" exclaimed his fellow-traveller; "indeed--but on reflection,"
he added, "I remember having heard something of it, though I was then
a boy, and have forgotten all the circumstances."
He spoke as if he would willingly have heard them again detailed; but,
for a moment or two, De Vaux made no reply; and the next instant the
sound of a horse's feet at a quick trot suddenly broke upon the ear,
and called the attention of both. In a minute more, a horseman wrapped
in a large roquelaure passed them rapidly; and though he neither spoke
nor bowed, his sudden appearance was enough to break off the thread of
their discourse. When he was gone, Colonel Manners felt that, though
De Vaux might take it up again if he would, he himself could not in
propriety do so. De Vaux, however, was silent; for he was not one of
those men to whom the accidents and misfortunes of their friends and
relations furnished matter for pleasant discourse; and the topic of
course dropped there. Perhaps, indeed, the younger traveller showed
some inclination even to avoid the subject; for he led the
conversation almost immediately into another channel, pointing out to
his friend the various hills and landmarks which distinguished the
grounds of his father from those of his aunt, and dwelling with
enthusiasm upon the pleasures that his boyhood had there known, and
the hopes which his return had re-awakened in his bosom; and yet there
was mingled with the whole a touch of fastidiousness which contrasted
strangely enough with the warmth of feeling and expression to which he
gave way in other respects. He seemed to doubt the very love, the
happiness of which he pictured so brightly; he seemed to distrust the
joys to which he was so sensitively alive; he even seemed, in some
degree, to sneer at himself for giving the credence that he did to
those things which he most desired to believe true.
But Edward de Vaux had been brought up in a fastidious school. He had
lived at the acme of fortune and trod upon circumstances all his life,
and this we hold to be the true way of becoming misanthropical. It is
nonsense to suppose that a man turns misanthrope in consequence of
great misfortunes. No such thing! it is by being fortunate _ter et
amplius_. The spoiled children of the blind goddess are those that
kick at her wheel; and those on whom she showers nothing but
misfortunes cling tight to the tire, in hopes of a better turn, till
the next whirl casts them off into the wide hereafter.
Edward de Vaux stood at the climax of fortune. Never in his life had
he known what a serious reverse or great misfortune is; and
consequently he had gathered together all the petty vexations and
minor disappointments that he had met with, and, to use the term of
Napoleon Bonaparte, had nearly stung himself to death with wasps.
Perhaps, too, he might be fastidious by inheritance, for his father
was so in a still higher degree than himself; though in the father it
showed itself in irritable impatience, and a sort of contempt both
tyrannical and insulting towards those whom he disliked; while in the
son, mingled with, if not springing from, finer feelings: passing,
too, through the purifying medium of a gentler heart, and corrected by
a high sense of what is gentlemanly, his fastidiousness seldom showed
itself except in a passing sneer at any thing that is false, affected,
or absurd, in an indignant sarcasm at that which is base or evil, or
in petulant irritability at that which is weak.
As he now rode onward to rejoin those friends whom he had not seen for
nearly three years, accompanied by a companion who had never seen them
at all, the little world of his heart was in a strange commotion. All
the joy which an affectionate disposition can feel was rising up at
every point against the sway of cold propriety, and yet he tormented
himself with a thousand imaginary annoyances. Now he fancied that the
delight he felt and expressed was undignified, and might lower him in
the eyes of his companion; now he chose to doubt that his reception
from those he had left behind would be warm enough to justify the
exuberant pleasure that he himself experienced; while, keenly alive to
the slightest ridicule, he shrunk from the idea of exposing, even to
his dearest friend, one single spot in his heart to which the lash
could be applied.
"I was foolish," he thought, "not to leave Manners in London for a
day, and get all the joyful absurdities of a first welcome over before
he came down. However, my aunt would have it so; and it cannot be
avoided now."
As they proceeded, the purple of the evening died entirely away, and a
gray dimness fell over tree, and stream, and hill. Star by star looked
out, grew brighter and brighter, as the wandering ball on which we
travel through the inconceivable depth turned our hemisphere from the
superior light, and at length all was night.
In the lapse of ten minutes more, the road--which, winding about
between the hills and the stream, was forced often out of its true
direction,--had conducted them to a steep bank overhanging a wider
part of the valley, and here Colonel Manners divined--for he could
scarcely be said to see--that a scattered but considerable village lay
before them. Up and down the sides of the hill, a hundred twinkling
lights in cottage windows were sprinkled like glow-worms among the
darker masses of orchard and copsewood; and now and then, as the
travellers advanced, a bright glare suddenly flashed forth from some
opening door; and then again was as speedily extinguished, when the
entrance or the exit of the visiter was accomplished. Some watchful
dog, too, caught the sound of horses' feet, and, after one or two
desultory barks, set up his tongue into a continual peal. His
neighbours of the canine race took the signal, and--not at all unlike
the human species--ever inclined to clamour, yelped forth in concert,
whether they had heard or not the noise that roused their comrade's
indignation, so that the village was soon one continued roar with the
efforts of various hairy throats.
The salutation, however, was sweet to Edward de Vaux, for it spoke of
home--or at least of a dwelling that was dearer than any other home he
might possess; and, pausing a moment, he pointed onward to a spot,
where, on the edge of the hill beyond the village, might be seen,
cutting sharp upon the pale silvery gray of the western sky, the dark
outline of a large house, with a plentiful supply of chimneys, of an
architecture somewhat less light and fanciful than that of Palladio,
but very well suited to a dwelling in the land of peace and comfort.
"That is my aunt's house," said De Vaux, "and, though it is nearly
three miles by the road from the spot where that horseman passed us,
it is not much more than three-quarters of a mile by the path over the
hill. But that path," he added, "is impracticable for horses, or I
should certainly have risked breaking your neck, Manners, rather than
take this long tedious round."
Now, strange to say, the round that they had taken seemed longer and
more tedious to Edward de Vaux, when he came within sight of the
mansion which was to end his journey, than it had done at any other
moment of the ride. But so it was; and without inquiring into things
with which we have nothing to do, we may conclude that he felt some
of those vague, unreasonable doubts and apprehensions, which almost
every one experiences on the first view of one's home after a long
absence--those fears which are the very children of our hopes--that
anxiety which the uncertainty of human fate impresses upon our minds,
till we are sure that all is well. Who is there that has not gazed up
at his own dwelling-place as he returned from far, and asked himself,
with a sudden consciousness of the instability of all things, "Shall I
find nothing gone amiss? Has no misfortune trod that threshold? Has
disease or sorrow never visited it? Has death turned his steps aside?"
Whatever it was that Edward de Vaux felt, although the round seemed a
long one, and the time tedious that it had consumed, he yet drew in
his rein, not so as to bring his horse quite up, but to check him into
a walk; while he pointed out the house to his companion, and gazed at
its dark and distant mass himself. At that very moment, a single ray
glimmered in one of the windows, passed on into another, and then
three windows suddenly streamed forth with light. It looked like a
beacon to say that all was well; and though no man in the present day
cares a straw for things that in other years, when skilfully applied,
have won battles and overthrown dynasties--I mean omens--yet every man
has a silent, unacknowledged, foolish little system of augury of his
own; and Edward de Vaux and his companion, at the sight of this dexter
omen, set spurs to their horses, and rode merrily on their way.