DANGEROUS GROUND.
Old Mr. Blount was a religious man. Sir Harry, whose ideas upon such
subjects I never could exactly divine, went to church every Sunday; but
he scoffed at bishops, and neither loved nor trusted clergymen. He had,
however, family prayers every morning, at which Mr. Blount officiated,
with evident happiness and peace in the light of his simple countenance.
No radiance of this happy light was reflected on the face of Sir Harry
Rokestone, who sat by the mantelpiece, in one of the old oak arm chairs,
a colossal image of solitude, stern and melancholy, and never, it seemed
to me, so much alone as at those moments which seem to draw other
mortals nearer. I fancied that some associations connected with such
simple gatherings long ago, perhaps, recalled mamma to his thoughts. He
seemed to sit in a stern and melancholy reverie, and he would often come
over to me, when the prayer was ended, and, looking at me with great
affection, ask gently:
"Well, my little lass, do they try to make you happy here? Is there
anything you think of that you'd like me to get down from Lunnon? You
must think. I'd like to be doing little things for you; think, and tell
me this evening." And at such times he would turn on me a look of
full-hearted affection, and smoothe my hair caressingly with his old
hand.
Sometimes he would say: "You like this place, you tell me; but the
winters here, I'm thinking, will be too hard for you."
"But I like a good, cold, frosty winter," I would answer him. "There is
nothing I think so pleasant."
"Ay, but maybe ye'll be getting a cough or something."
"No, I assure you I'm one of the few persons on earth who never take
cold," I urged, for I really wished to spend the winter at Golden
Friars.
"Well, pretty lass, ye shall do as you like best, but you mustn't fall
sick; if you do, what's to become o' the auld man?"
You must allow me here to help myself with my diary once more. I am
about to quote from what I find there, dated the following Sunday:
"We went to Golden Friars to church as usual; and Mr. Marston, instead
of performing his devotions twelve miles away, came with us.
"After the service was ended, Sir Harry, who had a call to make, took
leave of us. The day was so fine that we were tempted to walk home
instead of driving.
"We chose the path by the lake, and sent the carriage on to Dorracleugh.
"Mr. Blount chooses to talk over the sermon, and I am sure thinks it
profane to mention secular subjects on Sunday. I think this a mistake;
and I confess I was not sorry when good Mr. Blount stopped and told us
he was going into Shenstone's cottage. I felt that a respite of five
minutes from the echoes of the good vicar's sermon would be pleasant.
But when he went on to say that he was going in to read some of the
Bible and talk a little with the consumptive little boy, placing me
under Mr. Marston's escort for the rest of the walk, which was about a
mile, I experienced a new alarm. I had no wish that Mr. Marston should
return to his old heroics.
"I did not well know what to say or do, Mr. Blount's good-bye came so
suddenly. My making a difficulty about walking home with Mr. Marston
would to him, who knew nothing of what had passed at Malory, have
appeared an unaccountable affectation of prudery. I asked Mr. Blount
whether he intended staying any time. He answered, 'Half an hour at
least; and if the poor boy wishes it, I shall stay an hour,' he added.
"Mr. Marston, who, I am sure, perfectly understood me, did not say a
word. I had only to make the best of an uncomfortable situation, and,
very nervous, I nodded and smiled my farewell to Mr. Blount, and set out
on my homeward march with Mr. Marston.
"I need not have been in such a panic--it was very soon perfectly plain
that Mr. Marston did not intend treating me to any heroics.
"'I don't know any one in the world I have a much higher opinion of than
Mr. Blount,' he said; 'but I do think it a great mercy to get away from
him a little on Sundays; I can't talk to him in his own way, and I turn
simply into a Trappist--I become, I mean, perfectly dumb.'
"I agreed, but said that I had such a regard for Mr. Blount that I could
not bring myself to vex him.
"'That is my rule also,' he said, 'only I carry it a little further,
ever since I received my education,' he smiled, darkly; 'that is, since
I begun to suffer, about three years ago, I have learned to practise it
with all my friends. You would not believe what constraint I often place
upon myself to avoid saying that which is in my heart and next my lips,
but which I fear--I fear with too good reason--might not be liked by
others. There was a time, I daresay, when Hamlet blurted out everything
that came into his mind, before he learned in the school of sorrow to
say, "But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue."'
"He looked very expressively, and I thought I knew perfectly what he
meant, and that if by any blunder I happened to say a foolish thing, I
might find myself, before I knew where I was, in the midst of a
conversation as wild as that of the wood of Plas Ylwd.
"In reply to this I said, not very adroitly:
"And what a beautiful play _Hamlet_ is! I have been trying to copy
Retsch's outline, but I have made such a failure. The faces are so fine
and forcible, and the expression of the hands is so wonderful, and my
hands are so tame and clumsy; I can do nothing but the ghost, and that
is because he is the only absurd figure in the series."
"'Yes,' he acquiesced, 'like a thing in an _opera bouffe_.'
"I could perceive very plainly that my rather precipitate and incoherent
excursion into Retsch's outlines, into which he had followed me with the
best grace he could, had wounded him. It was equally plain, however,
that he was in good faith practising the rule he had just now mentioned,
and was by no means the insolent and overbearing suitor he had shown
himself in that scene, now removed alike by time and distance, in which
I had before seen him.
"No one could be more submissive than he to my distinct decision that
there was to be no more such wild talk.
"For the rest of our walk he talked upon totally indifferent subjects.
Certainly, of the two, I had been the most put out by his momentary
ascent to a more tragic level. I wonder now whether I did not possibly
suspect a great deal more than was intended. If so, what a fool I must
have appeared! Is there anything so ridiculous as a demonstration of
resistance where no attack is meditated? I began to feel so confused and
ashamed that I hardly took the trouble to follow what he said. As we
approached Dorracleugh, I began to feel more like myself. After a little
silence he said what I am going to set down; I have gone over it again
and again in my mind; I know I have added nothing, and I really think I
write very nearly exactly as he spoke it.
"'When I had that strange escape with my life from the Conway Castle,'
he said, 'no man on earth was more willing and less fit to die than I. I
don't suppose there was a more miserable man in England. I had
disappointed my uncle by doing what seemed a very foolish thing. I could
not tell him my motive--no one knew it--the secret was not
mine--everything combined to embarrass and crush me. I had the hardest
thing on earth to endure--unmerited condemnation was my portion. Some
good people, whom, notwithstanding, I have learned to respect, spoke of
me to my face as if I had committed a murder. My uncle understands me
now, but he has not yet forgiven me. When I was at Malory, I was in a
mood to shoot myself through the head; I was desperate, I was bitter, I
was furious. Every unlucky thing that could happen did happen there.
The very people who had judged me most cruelly turned up; and among them
one who forced a quarrel on me, and compelled that miserable duel in
which I wished at the time I had been killed.'
"I listened to all this with more interest than I allowed him to see, as
we walked on together side by side, I looking down on the path before
us, and saying nothing.
"'If it were not for one or two feelings left me, I should not know
myself for the shipwrecked man who thanked his young hostess at Malory
for her invaluable hospitality,' he said; 'there are some things one
never forgets. I often think of Malory--I have thought of it in all
kinds of distant, out-of-the-way, savage places; it rises before me as I
saw it last. My life has all gone wrong. While hope remains, we can bear
anything--but my last hope seems pretty near its setting--and, when it
is out, I hope, seeing I cross and return in all weathers, there is
drowning enough in that lake to give a poor fool, at least, a cool head
and a quiet heart.'
"Then, without any tragic pause, he turned to other things lightly, and
never looked towards me to discover what effect his words were
producing; but he talked on, and now very pleasantly. We loitered a
little at the hall-door. I did not want him to come into the
drawing-room, and establish himself there. Here were the open door, the
hall, the court-yard, the windows, all manner of possibilities for
listeners, and I felt I was protected from any embarrassment that an
impetuous companion might please to inflict if favoured by a
_tete-a-tete_.
"I must, however, do him justice: he seemed very anxious not to
offend--very careful so to mask any disclosure of his feelings as to
leave me quite free to 'ignore' it, and, as it seemed to me, on the
watch to catch any evidence of my impatience.
"He is certainly very agreeable and odd; and the time passed very
pleasantly while we loitered in the court-yard.
"Mr. Blount soon came up, and after a word or two I left them, and ran
up to my room."