When Lord Dewry quitted Colonel Manners at the end of the flower-garden, as we have shown in a preceding chapter, the gallant soldier had turned back towards the house, but with steps much less rapid than those of the peer, from the simple fact of no violent passion moving in his breast. In truth, it would seem, after all, that man, notwithstanding his great pretensions, his reasonings about his own existence, and his conceit in his painted jacket, is not at all unlike one of those figures that children buy at fairs, with his arms and legs, and even his head, hung on by wires; and with the passions to pull the string at the back, not only without his volition, but often against his will. Wrath pulls, and he kicks; revenge pulls, and he strikes; jealousy pulls, and he writhes; fear pulls, and he runs; love pulls, and he dances; and, as no one of these passions was behind Colonel Manners at the time, he had walked on slowly and deliberately towards the house, sometimes turning to look at the landscape, sometimes trifling with a flower, but doing neither one nor the other, perhaps, quite so often as when he set out that day upon his morning's walk.
Still, it is not to be supposed that, though no very violent affection of the mind followed Lord Dewry's departure, Colonel Manners remained perfectly indifferent to what had occurred: on the contrary, it threw him into a fit of musing, if not of deep thought, and produced reflections which ended in resolutions, such as Colonel Manners might be expected to form. At the peer's wrath he laughed, and laughed at his menaces equally, secure in that calm, self-confident courage, which, not knowing what fear is, never dreams that it can be attributed to us; but at the uncomfort that his dispute with De Vaux's father might and would produce in the family he had come to visit, Colonel Manners did not laugh. He had assented on the preceding night, in words which, with him, amounted to a promise, to forget the baron's rudeness, and not to suffer it to abridge his stay; but, at present, new provocation had been given, and he had every reason to believe that his visit could not be prolonged to the period he had at first proposed, without material uncomfort to the family at Morley House, however strongly their kindness or their politeness might urge his stay.
"Doubtless," thought Colonel Manners,--for we must put his private cogitations into the form of that necessary folly, a soliloquy,--"doubtless, the worthy peer will not go and expose himself so much to his own family, as to tell them what has occurred between us this morning; but equally, without doubt, he will contrive, by his demeanour towards me, to render the house, not only very unpleasant to me, but also to all its occupants; and, therefore, as this is a field where honour is neither to be gained nor supported, I must even beat a retreat. Yet De Vaux will, I know, feel very much mortified, if he fancies that his father is the cause of my departure; and therefore I suppose that the best plan be, to wait a day or two, and then, with the first letters that arrive,--and I must receive some soon, to plead important business, and set out. I suppose I must bear with this ill-tempered old gentleman's behaviour as best I may for eight and forty hours, though I am afraid it will be a struggle to avoid retorting a little of his bitterness upon himself."
Such had been the substance of Colonel Manners' thoughts upon this subject, as he walked back, and such the determination he formed; but as he did form them, there was something like a sigh escaped from his bosom. The reception he had met with from Mrs. Falkland and her family, on his first arrival, had been so warm and kind, that all the best feelings of his heart had been enlisted on their side. He had completely made up his mind to spend a happy three weeks with people who seemed, in every respect, so amiable; and although he felt that it might be a little dangerous,--by making him feel more acutely, from comparison, the want of domestic ties and comforts,--although he felt it might be a little dangerous, yet he had experienced a pleasure at the idea of thus dwelling, even for a short space, in the midst of a true old English family, that made him bitterly regret the necessity of foregoing what he had set his heart upon. As he thought of going forth again alone, it seemed as if it were the voice of fate that forbade him to expose himself to the sight of feelings and enjoyments that he was never to know personally, and sent him back imperiously to the solitary state of existence which was to be his portion; and although Colonel Manners was accustomed to the contemplation, and had nerved his mind, not only to bear the uncomforts of his lot, but to resist every thought that would teach him to repine, yet there were times--and this was one--when he could not but feel the chill wind of solitude blow from the dreary prospect of the future, and blight even the enjoyment of the present. A dissertation on the moral and physical nature of man might be given to prove to a demonstration, that domestic ties are a necessity of his existence: and let any man gaze forward into future years, and fancy that some cold barrier is placed between him and domestic affection; that no kindred eye is to brighten at his presence, no affectionate lip smile at his happiness, no tear of sympathy to wash away one half of his griefs, no cheerful voice to dispel the thoughts of care, no assiduous hand to smooth the pillow of sickness, and close the eye of death,--let him picture his being solitary, his joys unshared, his sorrows undivided, his misfortunes unaided but by general compassion, his sickness tended by the slow hand of mercenaries, and his eyes closed, while the light has scarce departed, by the rude touch of some weary and indifferent menial,--let him fancy all this, and then he will feel, indeed, that domestic ties are a necessity of our existence; at least, if he be not either drunk with licentious passions, or a mere calculating machine.
We do not mean to say that all these ideas, or any one of them, presented themselves to the mind of Colonel Manners. Far be it from us to insinuate that he was foolish enough to give a vivid form and painful minuteness to the evils of a state that he believed he could not avoid. He struggled even against the general impression; but, as we have said, there were moments in his life--and this was one--when, notwithstanding reason and resolution, he would feel bitterly that it is sad and sorrowful to pass through life alone, to spend one's days in solitude, and to go down into the grave without a tie. The impression was so strongly raised, and clung so firmly to his mind, at the moment we speak of, that he took a turn of a hundred yards back upon the walk, to give the thoughts full range. Then remembering himself, he broke out into an involuntary exclamation of, "This is folly!" and turned quickly back to the house.
In the breakfast-room he found Miss Falkland alone, and was not sorry so to find her; for there was in her conversation a pleasant and good-humoured sparkling, a frank and fearless liveliness, which amused and interested him. Besides, Colonel Manners was by no means a man to object to the society of a very beautiful girl: on that score he was quite fearless; for he had so guarded his heart by rampart, and bastion, and half-moon, that he feared no attack, either by siege or storm. The thing that he feared was, the sight of a state of happiness which he coveted, but did not hope for; and therefore he could enjoy the gay conversation and pleasing presence of Isadore Falkland without alloy, though he might apprehend that a lengthened stay, in the midst of a cheerful family circle, might deepen his regret at his own loneliness.
Now, although the house of Mrs. Falkland, like most other houses of its date, had a certain ramblingness of construction, midway between the Gothic of Henry the Seventh's and the anomalous architecture of the nineteenth century, yet the rooms were sufficiently proximate to allow Colonel Manners to hear every now and then, as the servant opened and shut the door of the breakfast-room, the voice of Lord Dewry, in tones more sharp than was becoming. Nor was he slack in attributing the acerbity of the sounds he heard to their right cause; so that, as we have before shown, when Mrs. Falkland and her nephew spoke of the departure of the noble lord as a thing that had taken place in the ordinary course of affairs, Manners had very nearly smiled.
However, having taken his determination in regard to his proceedings, and, seeing no better plan that he could pursue, he suffered the matter to pass quietly, well knowing that real delicacy never makes a noise. To say the truth, he was not at all sorry to find that Lord Dewry had taken his departure; for he had every inclination to make himself both comfortable and agreeable while he did stay, neither of which objects are very attainable in the same house with a man who wants to fight a duel with you. After breakfast, as Manners was too much of a general to leave any thing to chance, he retired to his own apartments, in order to write such letters to London as would ensure immediate replies of the kind that would afford him a fair excuse for breaking through his engagement with De Vaux, without rendering the matter painful to his friend by any direct reference to his father; and, when this was accomplished, he returned to the rest of the party, whom he found in the act of seeing the footman leave the room with Marian's note to her uncle.
"We propose to take a walk, Manners," said De Vaux, as he entered; "I must show you the beauties of our county; and I think we will go upon the path which leads across the hill, and brings us through the wood to within a few hundred yards of the spot where we saw the gipsies. We call it Marian's Walk, as she might always be found there when we were but little boys and girls."
"It might have been called Edward's Walk as well, then," answered Isadore, gayly; "for I am sure she was never there without you, Edward. At all events, if you did not go with her, you were not long before you found her."
"And can Miss de Vaux venture on so long a walk?" asked Colonel Manners, "in the present day, when the extent of a lady's morning promenade is twice round the room and once round the garden--when shoemakers stare, I am told, at the name of walking shoes, and declare that they never heard of such things?"
Marian smiled. "You are severe upon us, Colonel Manners," she said; "but this walk is not so far either--though it is a little steep."
"It seemed to me nearly six miles," replied Colonel Manners; "six miles, at least, from this spot to the place De Vaux mentions."
"Oh, that was because you came by the road," replied Isadore: "if you had come over the hill, you would have shortened the way by one half--but I forgot; you would have met with some accident also, as it was dark, and you were on horseback. It is not much more than two miles to the place where the path again joins the high-road after passing through Morley wood."
"If you find it so short, I trust you are to be of the party, Miss Falkland," said Colonel Manners.
"Oh, most certainly," she replied. "It was all very well for Edward and Marian to wander through the woods together when they were boys and girls; but now propriety, you know, Colonel Manners, requires a sedate and aged chaperon; and besides, I could not leave the party of such an odd and unfortunate number as three: I should be afraid of some accident happening to you by the way."
"But three is a fortunate number, my gay cousin," replied De Vaux, smiling, "not an unfortunate one, by every rule of cabalistic science."
"In figures, but not in love, Edward," answered his cousin, with a gay laugh. "At least, I have read as much in your face, more than once, when I happened to be the unfortunate third--"
"Hush, hush, Isadore," cried Marian. "Come, let us dress ourselves to go;" and taking her cousin's arm, she hurried her away. Now Marian de Vaux, who knew her cousin well, was quite sure that Isadore would not push her raillery of her lover one step too far; but still she was not sorry to break off Isadore's discourse; for love is one of those things that people may talk about a great deal when they feel it not, but which they bury deep in the heart's innermost tabernacle as soon as they know its value, and, like misers, tremble even when their treasure is named.
Every one was soon ready to set out; and strolling through the garden separately, they proceeded to what was called the little gate, which gave them exit upon the road of which they were in search. By separately, I mean that neither of the gentlemen offered an arm to their female companions so long as they were within rows of box-wood bordering and upon gravel walks. There would have been something ridiculous in it; although, perhaps, the quality of walking arm-in-arm is to be looked upon as one of the peculiar privileges of humanity, which as much distinguishes man from other animals, as any other quality of his mind or body. He has been called, by those who strove to define him, "a forked radish, fantastically cut," "a viviparous biped, without feathers," "a cooking animal," and many another name. But had they called him "the animal that walks arm-in-arm," philosophers might have come nearer to his distinctive quality; for not only is it a thing that no other animal does, but it also gives at once the idea of many of the finer qualities of man's mind, and is, in fact, a sort of living hieroglyphic of affection and sympathy, and mutual assistance and support.
Now Colonel Manners and Edward de Vaux, looking upon the privilege of walking arm-in-arm in its true light, might consider it with too much reverence to enter upon it lightly, and therefore not offer to exercise it towards their fair companions, till the steepness of the way and the openness of the country seemed to render it necessary for their convenience and protection. There might, indeed, be another reason, which was, that in issuing forth from the house, a little derangement in the natural order of things had taken place--some stray glove, or wandering stick, or something of the kind, had been forgotten, so as to throw out the order of the march; and Colonel Manners found himself walking beside Marian de Vaux, while De Vaux was at the elbow of his cousin Isadore. Colonel Manners, in agreeing to go out upon this expedition, had perfectly well understood the part he was held to play; and De Vaux had the most firm and implicit reliance upon his friend's tact in the business; so that by a tacit convention it was arranged between them, that the long ramble which Marian had promised to take with her lover was to be as completely solitary and agreeable as if they had not a friend or relation upon the face of the earth. But the derangement which had taken place in the position of the forces of course rendered a counter movement on the part of De Vaux and his friend necessary; and yet, as the walk they followed was narrow, and did not admit of the advance of more than two abreast, the desired evolution could not be performed without rendering the object unpleasantly obvious, till some little accident came to their aid. Colonel Manners, however, had been out in the morning, as we have already seen, to reconnoitre the ground; and as soon as he saw the difficulty, he instantly laid out the plan of the evolutions, and fixed upon the exact position, walking on still by the side of Marian de Vaux, and talking of les mouches qui volent.
But to proceed. Colonel Manners and Marian reached the little gate first, and unlocked it, and then Colonel Manners halted till Miss de Vaux and Miss Falkland had passed. The two ladies immediately halted on the bank of the little road facing the gate, with Marian on the right hand and Isadore on the left. Colonel Manners then resigned the command of the gate to Edward de Vaux; but, in marching out, while the other locked the door and brought the key, Manners took up a position upon the extreme left. De Vaux then advanced to the right of the line, and, wheeling about, gave his arm to Marian; Colonel Manners offered his to Miss Falkland, and led the way up the road to the left. This detail is given as an exemplification of Manners' military skill,--a quality which, unfortunately, we shall have no other opportunity of displaying throughout this book. Nor was Isadore Falkland's knowledge of strategy less marked, in taking up the position to the left, as it entirely commanded the road up which they were about to proceed; and as people in love in general walk a great deal slower than people not in love, it was necessary that she and Colonel Manners should lead the way, in order at once to give Edward and Marian de Vaux the protection of their presence and the benefit of their absence.
Colonel Manners and Miss Falkland did not lose much time in silence, for they were both people who could talk very pleasantly; and, whatever they might think in regard to themselves, they each felt that it was so in regard to the other. They spoke of many things; and Isadore's conversation, as she became better acquainted with her companion, and discovered that there were stores of feeling and kindness at his heart which would prevent him from laughing at her own enthusiasms, poured forth more of the deeper stream of her character, over which the rippling current of gay and sparkling jest that she usually displayed, flowed as much to conceal the depth, as for any other purpose. Besides, she was happy and young; and where was ever the stream, however profound, that did not sparkle when the sun shone full upon it?
Their first topic, as perhaps might be expected, was De Vaux and Marian; a topic which, under some circumstances, might have been dangerous; but Manners and Miss Falkland felt themselves perfectly secure. Still it was a delicate one: for however deep and true Colonel Manners' friendship might be for De Vaux, and however warm and enthusiastic might be the love of Isadore for her cousin Marian, there were, of course, a thousand little circumstances and feelings, upon which neither could enter, out of respect for the very friendship and affection which they felt for the two lovers. Nevertheless, perhaps, this very retenue, with the sort of faint and misty allusions which they were obliged to make to their friends' love and their friends' hopes and prospects, and the graceful circumlocutions and explicative figures that it obliged them to seek, were not without charms in themselves. Colonel Manners, for his part, felt very sure that, under Marian de Vaux's calm and tranquil manners were very deep and powerful feelings; but, at the same time, he wished--if consistently with delicacy it were possible--to find out from Miss Falkland whether his opinions were fully justified; and Isadore longed to know--with all a woman's yearnings to prove to her own heart the substantial existence of real, pure, permanent, unswerving love--whether her cousin had retained, during his long absence, all that tender, devoted, undivided attachment which he displayed towards Marian when present. Not at all did she wish to know whether Edward de Vaux had made love to, or flirted with, or talked sweet nonsense to any other woman. Do not let it be misunderstood; she never suspected such a thing, nor would have believed it had it been told her: but she would have given a great deal to find out, whether in the bosom of her cousin, the one thought of his affection had ever been paramount; whether the world, and ambition, and other scenes, and absence, and danger, and excitement had never banished the image of Marian from the bosom of Edward de Vaux; and, in short, she would have willingly heard it proved, in his instance, that love can exist in the bosom of man, under prolonged absence and varying circumstances. In all this, she was as disinterested as a woman ever can be in regard to an affair of love; but, the truth is, no woman can be totally so. The whole of that bright race are, in this respect, but a joint-stock company--to borrow a figure from familiar things--and love is their capital, in which all have an interest, and all a share.
However, it will be easily conceived that, under these circumstances, the conversation between Miss Falkland and Colonel Manners was as nice, and delicate, and difficult an encounter of their wits as ever was practised. Colonel Manners was soon satisfied; for, in answer to some complimentary observation upon her cousin's manners and appearance, which went to praise their tranquillity as well as their elegance, Isadore answered frankly, and smiling as she did so, "Oh, Marian is often more commoto dentro than you think." Miss Falkland's researches, however, were less easily pursued, and they led her, like a child hunting a butterfly, through a world of flowers. One time, she would put her problem generally, and wonder whether any man ever did feel, and continue to feel, as she wished to believe Edward had done towards Marian; and then she would put it particularly, and say, that she thought such an attachment as his must have been a wonderful solace and delight to him; an inexhaustible fund of sweet feelings and hope, throughout all that he had been obliged to endure. But still Colonel Manners, who very clearly understood what she meant, hung back a little in his explanations; pleased, in truth, to watch the feelings that prompted her and the path she pursued; pleased with all the graces that the subject called up in her countenance and her manner; the beaming smile, the sparkling eye, and sometimes the sudden stop and passing blush, when she became uncertain of the next step and dared not advance.
After he had amused himself a little, and saw that she might misconstrue his backwardness into something disadvantageous to his friend, he caught at the next sentence, and replied, "Yes, indeed, I look upon De Vaux's attachment, and his engagement to your fair cousin, before he went to America, as one of the greatest blessings that could have happened to him; especially for a man whose heart was calculated to make it his happiness and his safeguard, and his leading star wherever he went."
Isadore blushed warmly; and perhaps there was a little mingling of emotions in her blush; for, in the first place, the full confirmation of what she had wished and hoped, made her cheek glow; and, in the next place, Colonel Manners' words were so exactly a reply to the questions which had been lurking unspoken in her heart, that she almost suspected he had seen deeper into her thoughts than she had anticipated. A slight smile that followed upon his lip she considered as excessively malicious; but she was one who never suffered wrath to rankle in her bosom, but, in her way, revenged herself always on the spot. "You speak so feelingly, Colonel Manners," said she, just suffering a single ray of laughing light to gleam out of her fine dark eyes; "you speak so feelingly, that I doubt not you have been guarded and led in the same manner."
Let it be clearly kept in mind, that Isadore Falkland had only known Colonel Charles Manners fourteen hours and a half, or she would not have said what she did for the world. It may be thought that the case ought to have been quite the contrary, and that she might have ventured more had she been more intimate. But such would be an erroneous view of the matter. Isadore Falkland well knew that fourteen hours and a half was not a sufficient space of time for any rational man either to feel or to affect love for the most enchanting being that ever the world beheld, and, consequently, that she might say a sportive thing in regard to Colonel Manners' heart, without any chance of a retort which might have been disagreeable--unless he had been a fool or a coxcomb, which she knew him not to be. Had she known him a fortnight, he might have made the retort, as a jest, which would have been disagreeable enough; or as a compliment, which would have been still more disagreeable; or as a serious fact, which would have been most disagreeable; and therefore, under such circumstances, she would never have thought of talking about the heart of one of the company, when there were but two in it. Had she known, too, that the subject was a painful one to Colonel Manners, she would as little have thought of touching upon it; and, indeed, a feeling that he was not handsome, and a vague misty sort of consciousness that that fact might have something to do with his remaining unmarried, did make her regret that she had said such words, almost as soon as they were beyond recall.
"No, indeed," said Colonel Manners, with a touch of melancholy in his manner that could not wholly be banished; "no, indeed, I have not been so fortunate as either to have guardian angel or leading star;" and he smiled at the triteness of his own figures of speech, but with a smile that did not counteract, to the mind of Miss Falkland, the sadness of his tone. She was vexed with herself, and would have done anything on earth, in a reasonable way, to efface whatever painful feelings she might have awakened: but though she was generally skilful enough in putting an end to a difficulty where others were concerned, she found it not so easy to disentangle the affair when she herself was the culprit.
Whether Colonel Manners perceived that Miss Falkland felt she had given pain, and was vexed with herself, or whether he likewise wished to get rid of the subject, matters little; but he now changed the topic somewhat abruptly; and looking round upon the woods, into the very heart of which they were plunging, he said, "I wonder that you fair ladies are not somewhat afraid of walking through these solitudes by yourselves."
"There is no danger," she replied; "we have none but very orderly, peaceable people in our part of the world: though, in truth," she added, after a moment's thought, "we are the last family that should say there is no danger; but I have never heard of any very serious offence being committed in our neighbourhood since the murder of my poor uncle, which, as it is long ago, of course I do not recollect.
"I remember having heard something of that event," replied Colonel Manners, "but do not recollect the particulars. Was he killed by highwaymen?"
"I believe so," answered Miss Falkland, "though I know too little about it to tell you exactly what happened. But--oh, yes!--he was robbed and murdered, I remember; for it was proved that he had a large sum of money upon his person when he went out--several thousand pounds--and it was supposed that some one who knew the fact had either waylaid him, or had informed the murderers of the booty they might obtain."
"He was, I think, your uncle by the side of Mrs. Falkland," said Colonel Manners, who of course felt an interest in the matter in proportion to the little difficulties of obtaining information.
"Yes, my mother's brother," replied Isadore; "Marian's father. You may easily imagine that such a story rendered her an object of double interest to all her family--of redoubled tenderness, I believe I should say, and even my uncle, who is not very scrupulous in regard to what he says to any one, is more kind and considerate towards Marian than towards any other human being. That great and horrible crime, however--I mean the murder--seems to have frightened others from our neighbourhood; and though we occasionally hear of a little poaching, the people round us are uniformly well-behaved and peaceable."
"Can you say as much for the gipsies towards whose encampment, if I understood De Vaux right, we are bending our way?" asked Colonel Manners. "They are, in general, very troublesome and unquiet neighbours."
"I had not heard of their being here," replied Miss Falkland: "we are very seldom so honoured, I can assure you. I do not remember having seen gipsies here more than once; and that was not in this wood, but on a large common up yonder at the top of that hill, behind the house. They are a strange race!"
"They are, indeed," answered her companion; "and De Vaux and I, as we passed their encampment, could not help marvelling that no government had ever thought it worth its while to pay some attention to them, either for the purpose of reclaiming them to civilized life, or, if that were judged impossible, for the purpose of obtaining those traces of knowledge which are waning from among them every day, but which some of their better men are said still to retain."
"Do you mean their astrological knowledge?" asked Miss Falkland, with a look of no slight interest in the question.
"O, no!" answered Colonel Manners, with a smile; "I mean the knowledge of their real history, of their original country, of their former laws, of their language in its purity, and of many facts of great interest, which, though with them they are merely traditionary, yet might be confirmed or invalidated by other testimony in our own possession."
"They are a strange people, indeed!" said Miss Falkland. "Do you know, Colonel Manners, that the separate existence of these gipsies and of the Jews--coming down, as it were, two distinct streams, amid all the whirling confusion of an ocean of other nations--keeping their identity among wars, and battles, and changes, and the overturning of all things but themselves; retaining their habits, and their thoughts, and their national character apart, in spite both of sudden and violent revolutions in society, and of the slow, but even more powerful efforts of gradual improvement and civilization. Do you know, whenever I think of this, it gives me a strange feeling of mysterious awe that I cannot describe? It seems as if I saw more distinctly than in the common course of things the workings of the particular will of the Almighty; for I cannot understand how these facts can be accounted for by any of the common motives in existence; as, in both instances, interest, ambition, policy, and pleasure, with almost every inducement that could be enumerated, would have produced exactly the opposite result."
"I shall not attempt to reason against you, Miss Falkland," replied Colonel Manners, with a smile; "and, indeed, I very much agree with you in opinion, though perhaps not in your wonder; for being a complete believer in a special providence, I only see the same hand in this that I think is discernible throughout creation."
"But tell me, Colonel Manners," said Isadore, "have you any belief in the fortune-telling powers of the gipsies?"
"None whatever," answered Colonel Manners.
"Nor perhaps have I," said Isadore; "but at the same time it is strange that in all ages and in all countries, as far as I can understand, these gipsies have pretended to this particular science, and have been very generally believed. At all events, it shows that they have an immemorial tradition of such a power having been possessed by their ancestors; and if it were possessed by their ancestors, why not by themselves?"
"But we have no reason to believe that it was possessed by their ancestors," replied Colonel Manners, "except, indeed, their own tradition, which, as you say, is evidently very ancient."
"Nay, nay, but I think we have other proofs," replied Isadore, "and very strong ones, it appears to me. It is evident from the historical part of the Bible that the most ancient Egyptians had various means of divination, and even a magical influence, the reality and power of which is admitted by the sacred writers most distinctly; and consequently, when these facts are joined to an immemorial tradition of the descendants of the same nation, it seems that there is strong reason for believing that these powers existed even after the period to which the sacred volume refers."
"I am inclined, indeed, to believe," replied Colonel Manners, "that the gipsies are descendants from some Egyptian tribe, although the fact has been contested strongly, and the French call them Bohemians--unreasonably enough. In regard to the powers of divination attributed to the ancient Egyptians, too, I believe them to have existed, because I believe the Bible not only as an inspired record, but as the best-authenticated history, without any exception, that exists; and at the same time I cannot suppose that men who had so grand, so comprehensive, and also so philosophical an idea of the Divinity, that four thousand years have not been able to produce the slightest enlargement of it, as displayed in many passages of Holy Writ--I cannot suppose that such men would have recorded as facts anything substantially inconsistent with the majesty of that Being whom they alone knew in the age when they wrote. But you must remember that these powers, though permitted then for reasons we know not, may have ceased now, like the powers of prophecy, and many other things of the same kind; and did the gipsies possess such powers at present, depend upon it, we should find them clothed in purple in the closets of kings, instead of wandering upon bare heaths, and stealing for a livelihood."
"You are right, I know," replied Miss Falkland, with a smile, at the lingerings of credulity that still haunted her own bosom, "and I have convinced myself, and been convinced by others over and over again, that it is all nonsense; and yet,--"
She paused, and Manners rejoined, "One of our old humorous poets says,
'A man convinced against his will,
Is of the same opinion still.'"
"And perhaps you think the verses still more applicable to a woman, Colonel Manners," replied Miss Falkland; "but that is not exactly the case with me. My weakness extends no farther than this:--were a gipsy to predict any great evil for my future life, it would make me very uneasy, however much I might struggle against the impression; and, on that account, I would not have my fortune told, as they call it, for the world! Would you?"
"Without the slightest apprehension," answered Colonel Manners, laughing. "They may try their chiromancy on me, when they please, and do me all the harm they can for half a crown, which is, I believe, the stipulated sum."
"That is, because you are a man and a hero," replied Miss Falkland, in the same gay tone, "and you are bound by honour and profession to be afraid of nothing; but remember, I look upon it as an agreement--you are to have your fortune told this very day, and that will do for the whole party; for I will not have mine told, and I am sure Marian shall not, if I can prevent it."
"Oh, I will be the scape-goat, with all my heart," he replied; "but I suppose we cannot be far from their encampment, if your computation of miles be correct."
"We are close to the high-road," answered Miss Falkland; "but how far up the hill they are, you best know. However, let us wait for Edward and Marian. We must not make the babes in the wood of them; and of course they are a good way behind. Now, I dare say, while you and Edward were in America, you heard of Marian de Vaux till you were tired--was it not so, Colonel Manners?"
"No, indeed," he answered, smiling; "far from it, I can assure you. Although I long ago found out by various infallible signs that De Vaux was in love; yet, never till circumstances had produced esteem and friendship, and friendship had become intimacy, did he ever mention his engagement, or the object of his attachment."
"And then he doubtless painted her in very glowing colours," added Isadore, trying strenuously to while away the time till her cousins came up, they having lingered behind farther than she had expected.
"Oh, of course, all lovers are like the old painter Arellius," answered Colonel Manners, "and always paint the objects of their love as goddesses. But I will not gratify your malice, Miss Falkland; De Vaux has too fine a sense of the ridiculous ever to render himself so by exaggerating any feeling."
"He has, indeed, too fine a sense of the ridiculous," answered Isadore; "it is his worst fault, Colonel Manners; and I fear that, like all the rest of our faults, it may some day prove his own bane; but here they come! Now, Colonel Manners, prepare to hear your fate. Edward, here is your friend going to have his fortune told."
"You mean going to give half a crown to a gipsy," said De Vaux; "but if you are serious, Manners, I will, of course, stand by you to the last, as if you were going to fight a duel, or any other unreasonable thing. Turn to the left and you will see the appointed place, as the newspapers call it, before you."
In this expectation, however, De Vaux was mistaken; for the gipsies and their accompaniments, men, women, and children, pots, kettles, and tents, had all disappeared. It must not be said, indeed, that they had left no vestige of their abode behind them, for half a dozen black spots burnt in the turf, and more than one pile of white wood ashes, attested the extent of their encampment; but nothing else was to be seen in the green wood, except the old oaks, and the yellow sunshine streaming through the rugged boughs, with a squirrel balancing itself on the branch of a fir, and two noisy jays screaming from tree to tree.
"This is a very Robin Hood like scene," said Colonel Manners, as he looked around, "and less gloomy in the broad daylight than at eventide. But here are no gipsies, Miss Falkland; and I am afraid that you must put off hearing the future fate and fortunes of Charles Manners till another time."
"I am very much mortified, indeed," replied Isadore, "and I see that you only laugh at me, Colonel Manners, without sympathizing in the least with disappointed curiosity; which,--as no one believes more fully than yourself,--is a very serious event in a woman's case. However, I shall hold you bound by your promise, and look upon you engaged as a man of honour to have your fortune told the very first time you meet with a party of gipsies,--nay, more, to let me know the result also."
She spoke with playful seriousness; and Colonel Manners replied, "With all my heart, Miss Falkland; and, indeed, you shall find that your commands are so lightly borne by me, that I will take other obligations upon myself, and even seek out your favourites, the gipsies; for these protegées of yours seldom move far at a time, unless, indeed, all the poultry in the neighbourhood happens to be exhausted."
"Oh, that is not the case here," answered Isadore; "there is plenty yet remaining in every farm-yard, and I dare say you will find them on the common."
"I will go to-morrow, then, without fail," he answered, "for--" and he had nearly added words which would have betrayed his meditated departure; but he turned his speech another way; and all parties, well satisfied with their ramble, returned by the same path to the house.
Nothing occurred during the rest of the day to disturb the tranquillity of the party. The evening passed away in conversation, generally light enough, but of which we have given a specimen above, fully sufficient to show its nature and quality. Sometimes it touched, indeed, upon deeper feelings, without ever becoming grave; and sometimes it ventured farther into the realms of learning, without approaching pedantry. The annoyance of Lord Dewry's behaviour on the preceding night had at the time reconciled Colonel Manners in some degree to the idea of quitting a circle in which he found much to please and interest him; but no such annoyance interrupted the course of this evening, and he experienced more pain than he liked to acknowledge, when he thought of leaving behind him for ever, a scene in which the hours passed so pleasantly. He felt, however, that the annoyance might soon be renewed, or that even if it were not, he had no right by his presence to shut out De Vaux's father from Mrs. Falkland's house; and he resolved still to adhere to his purpose, and set out for London on the day after that which was just about to follow.
The ordinary and too well-deserved lamentation over the fragility of human resolutions was not in general applicable to the determinations of Charles Manners, who was usually very rigid in his adherence to his purposes, whether they were of great or small importance. But it must not be supposed that this pertinacity, if it may so be called, in pursuit of designs he had already formed, proceeded from what the world calls obstinacy. Obstinacy maybe defined the act of persisting in error; and the rectitude and precision of his judgment generally kept him from being in error at first, so that he had rarely a legitimate cause for breaking his resolution. Nor was he either of such a hard and tenacious nature as to resist all persuasion, and, like the cement of the Romans, only to grow the stiffer by the action of external things. Far from it; he was always very willing to sacrifice his purposes--where no moral sacrifice was implied--to the wishes and solicitations of those he loved or esteemed. Nor is there any contradiction in this statement, though it may be inquired, how, then, did he break his resolutions less frequently than other people? The secret was this, and it is worth while to burden memory with it: he never formed his resolutions without thought, which saved at least one-third from fracture; and though he broke them sometimes at the entreaty of others, he never sacrificed them to any whim of his own, which saved very nearly two-thirds more; for we may depend upon it that the determinations which we abandon, either from a change of circumstances, or from the persuasions of our friends, form but a very minute fraction, when compared with those that we give up, either from original error or after caprice.
It has seemed necessary to give this lecture upon resolutions, because Colonel Manners very speedily found cause to abandon the determination which he formed so vigorously on the day we spoke of in the last chapter; and, that he might not be charged with inconsistency, it became requisite to enter into all those strict definitions and explanations that generally leave us as many loopholes for escape and evasion, as a treaty of peace or a deed of settlement.
One resolution, however, and one promise, Colonel Manners certainly did keep, as soon as it was possible, which was, to inquire whether the gipsies were still in the neighbourhood, and to seek them out, with the full purpose of having his fortune told. Now, it may be supposed that here was a little weakness on the part of Colonel Manners--that he did give some credit to gipsy chiromancy; nay, the reader may even push his conjectures farther, and imagine him dreaming of Isadore Falkland's beautiful eyes, and all their varieties of expression, from the deep and soft to the gayest sparkle that ever twinkled through two rows of long silky eyelashes. But the simple fact was, that he had promised to go, and that he went; and though he might think Miss Falkland extremely beautiful and extremely pleasing, as every man who had been two minutes in her company must have thought, he no more dreamed of the possibility of so fair a creature, courted and loved as he knew she must be, ever uniting herself to so ugly a man as himself--and as he sat and shaved himself that morning he thought himself uglier than ever--than Napoleon Bonaparte, in the plenitude of power and the majesty of victory, thought of a low grave beneath a willow on a rock in the Atlantic.
In regard to any belief in the gipsies' fortune-telling, there were little use of investigating closely, whether some thin fibre of the root of superstition had or had not been left in the bosom of Charles Manners. If any particle thereof did remain, it went no farther than to excite, perhaps, a slight degree of curiosity in regard to what the people would predict, more, perhaps, from feeling that it must be absurd, than from expecting any point of coincidence with his real fate; and certain it is that, whatever the gipsies might have told to Colonel Manners, he would have thought no more of after the immediate moment, except as a matter for jest, than he would of any other kind of sortes, whether drawn from Virgil or Joe Miller.
It was just a quarter to six on the morning after that which had seen the walk in Morley Wood, when Manners, who was, as we have said, an early riser, gave some orders to his servant concerning his horses, and went out into the new wakened world. Having observed on the preceding day, for the purpose of carrying on the jest, the exact position of the hill on which Miss Falkland conjectured that the gipsies might have quartered themselves, he took his way across the park from that side which formed, in fact, the back of Morley House; and, having assured himself beforehand that he could find means of egress in that direction, he was soon beyond the walls, and winding up a small cart-road towards the summit.
The hill itself was somewhat singular in form; and as it is rather characteristic of that particular county, we may as well endeavour to give the reader some idea of its appearance. It formed a portion of that steep range of upland which we have before described as principally covered with fine wood; but this particular point, projecting towards the river in the form of very nearly a right angle, seemed to have cast behind it the mass of forest which still continued over the ridge of the other hills. Vestiges of the wood, too, hung in broken patches on the flanks of even this protuberance, but the summit offered nothing but a bare, open plain, full of pits and ravines, and only further diversified by a few stunted hawthorns, and one single group of tall beeches, gathered together upon a tumulus, which covered the bodies of some of those invading warriors to whom our island was once a prey. The ascent to this plain from the small gate in the park wall, by which Colonel Manners issued forth, was in length somewhat more than a mile; but it consisted of two distinct grades, or steps, the first of which was formed by a little peninsula, jutting out from the salient angle of the main hill, and completely surrounded by the river on all sides except the one which served to unite it, by a narrow neck not above three hundred yards in breadth, to the high ground we have mentioned. This small peninsula, which was itself covered with wood, rose in a rocky bank to the height of about a hundred and fifty yards above the stream; and over the narrow isthmus was carried the road which passed the park; while the wall of the park itself, just excluding the wooded banks from the grounds of Morley House, was lowered in that part, so as to leave a full view of the picturesque little promontory from the windows of the mansion. Let the reader remember all this, for his memory may be taxed hereafter.
Branching off from the right of the high-road lay the path up which Colonel Manners took his way, and which passed over a track upon the side of the hill, partly hedged in and cultivated, and partly left to its own ungrateful sterility. It was steep also, but Manners was a good climber; and, knowing that Mrs. Falkland's breakfast hour was half-past nine, he did not linger by the way, but soon found himself at the summit of the hill, and on the piece of waste ground which will be found in the county map under the name of Morley Common, or Morley Down. A good deal of dew had fallen in the night; and as the sun, who had not yet pursued his bright course far up the arch of heaven, poured the flood of his morning light upon the short blades of grass covering the common, the whole would have seemed crisp with hoarfrost, had not, every here and there, a tuft of longer leaves caught the rays more fully, and twinkled as if sprinkled with living diamonds, as the early air moved it gently in the beams. In different directions across the common might be seen a hundred small foot-roads, winding in that tortuous and unsteady manner which is sure to mark a path trodden out by man's unguided feet, and which offers no bad comment on his uncertain and roundabout way of arriving at his object; but, as the ground comprised many hundred acres, Colonel Manners might have been puzzled which way to take, had not his military habits at once sent him to the small planted tumulus which we have mentioned, in order to obtain a general view of the place.
Climbing up the sides of the little mound, therefore, he gazed round him; but neither gipsies nor tents were visible; and he might have returned to Mrs. Falkland's, satisfied that they were not there, had not a small column of faint blue smoke, rising from behind some bushes, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, marked the presence of human beings in that direction, and shown that the bushes, though apparently not higher than a man's hat, masked some fall in the ground where the fire was kindled. Thither, then, Manners turned his steps, and soon perceived that another old sand-pit, with some bushes climbing up one of the sides, had given shelter to those of whom he was now in search.
Before he could even discover so much, he became aware, by two low whistles, that his own approach had been perceived; and, as he was advancing directly towards the sand-pit, where a number of the gipsies had paused in their various occupations to watch him, he saw a man issue forth from one of the huts, put something hastily into the bosom of his long wrapping coat, and then come forward to meet him. The gipsy, as he came nearer, gazed at him from head to foot, with a clear dark eye, which had in it nothing either of the dogged sullenness or cunning stealthiness that sometimes marks the male part of the race,--often the fruit both of their own vices and the world's harshness. There was something in the air and manner of the man, that to so accurate an observer as Manners, spoke a great difference between him and the general class of his people; but, to save a repetition of description, it may be as well to say at once, that the gipsy who now appeared was the same whom we have designated Pharold.
"Good-morning!" said Colonel Manners, as the other came near; "you have hid your tents very completely here."
"Good-morning!" replied the gipsy, slightly knitting his brow, as he saw the soldier's eye running over every part of their encampment with some degree of curiosity; "Good-morning! It seems you were seeking me or mine."
"I was so," replied Manners, still gazing with some interest upon the old sand-pit and its picturesque tenants, with their blazing fire of sticks, and its white smoke curling through the broken ground and amid the scattered bushes.
"And what did you want with us, then?" asked Pharold, somewhat impatiently; "you wanted something, or you would not have come here."
"I wish to have my fortune told," replied Manners with a smile, excited equally by the impatience of the gipsy's tone, and by the nature of his own errand.
The gipsy looked at him steadily, and then shook his head. "No, no, no," said he; "you did not come for that. Never tell me, that you would get out of your bed by daybreak, and climb a high hill, and seek a bare common, at this hour, to have your fortune told--never tell me that, Colonel Manners."
Manners started at hearing his own name pronounced familiarly by the gipsy, though he knew the world, and all the tricks that accident and confederacy can put upon us, too well to suppose that he who is emphatically termed in Scripture "the prince of the power of the air" had taken the trouble to send an account of his name and quality to a gipsy on a common. Still, as it was unexpected, he was surprised, and expressed it; but not in such a way as to make the gipsy believe more fully than he had done at first, that he really gave credit to the supernatural pretensions of his nation, and came there for the purpose of consulting them upon his destiny.
"Pray how did you become acquainted with my name?" demanded Colonel Manners, calmly. "I do not know that I ever saw you before?"
"Perhaps not," replied the gipsy; "but if you believe that I can tell you what you will become hereafter, why should you be surprised that I know what you are now?"
"I never said that I would believe what you told me," answered Manners; "but I know that, as I have been scarcely two days in this country, you must have been very expeditious in gaining my name. However, it is a matter of small consequence: I came, as I said, to have my fortune told according to your method. Will you do it?"
"It shall be done," said the gipsy, still gazing at him inquiringly. "It shall de done, if you really desire it; but I know you men of the world, and I cannot help thinking you came not on that errand alone. I should think that Lord Dewry had sent you, did I not know that he went away yesterday morning to Dimden, and then before midday back to the hall."
"You are a very singular person," said Colonel Manners, with a smile, "not only because you know every thing that is going on in the place, as well as a village gossip, but because you will not believe the truth when it is told you. Once more, then, my good friend, let me assure you, that nobody sent me; and that my sole purpose is to have my fortune told: nor should I stay here any longer, even for that purpose, had I not promised another person to submit to the infliction.
"So, so," said the gipsy; "so the fair lady you were walking with yesterday in Morley Wood is more wise, or, as you would call it, more credulous than you are. But do not look angry, gentleman. I will tell you your fortune presently, and will tell it truly, if you will do me a piece of service, of which I stand in need too--something that I have promised to do, though not for a lady with dark eyes; and you seem sent here on purpose to aid in it."
Now Manners was half amused and half angry; but it is probable the anger would have got the better of the other feeling, had not his curiosity been excited also by the language, the manners, and the request of the gipsy, whose whole demeanour was something quite new to him. He replied, however, "I never undertake to do any thing without knowing the precise nature thereof; but if you will tell me what you desire, and I find it reasonable, I will not, of course, refuse."
"Yes, yes! you shall hear what it is," answered the gipsy; "nor will you find the request unreasonable. But come hither a little away from the people, for they need not know it." Thus speaking, he led the way towards the mound from which Manners had made his reconnoissance of the common; and, as he went, he kept his right hand in his bosom, but spoke not a word. At length, when they were fully out of earshot, Manners himself stopped, thinking that he had humoured his companion's caprices far enough.
"Now, my good fellow," he said, "nobody can either see or hear, unless they follow for the purpose. Pray what is it you wish me to do for you?"
"You are a friend of Mr. De Vaux, are you not?" said the gipsy abruptly, stopping and turning round as Manners spoke.
"As far as esteeming him highly, and desiring to serve him with all my heart, can make me so," answered Manners, now more particularly surprised, "I believe I may call myself his dear friend: but what if I be so?"
"If you be really a friend of Mr. Edward de Vaux," said the gipsy, "you will not object to take a letter to him."
"Why," answered Manners, "although I am not exactly either a private courier or a postman, yet if your request stops there, I can have no objection to do as you desire; reserving to myself, of course, the right of telling him where I got the letter, and the circumstances that attended my receiving it."
"That you will do, if you please," replied the gipsy; "but the request does not stop there. There are conditions in regard to the delivery of the letter which you must observe, and that punctually."
Manners smiled. "This is all very extraordinary," he said; "you speak in somewhat of a dictatorial tone, my good friend; and it is not easy for me to comprehend what business one of your class and nation can have with my friend De Vaux, so soon after his return from other lands."
"Trouble not yourself with that, Colonel Manners," answered the gipsy; and then added, seeing that something like a cloud was gathering on his auditor's brow, "if I have offended you, sir, I am sorry: such was not my purpose; and, believe me, I may know what is due both to you and myself better than you think. You are the commander of one of the King of England's regiments, and I am a poor gipsy; but you come to make a request to me, for granting which--as every thing is barter or robbery in this world--for granting which I require something of you. So far we are as much equals as in the enjoyment of the free air, and yonder bright sunshine, and this piece of common ground. Whether there be any other difference between us, in point of higher or lower, God knows, and he alone. Thus, then, hear me patiently, while I tell you the conditions of my bargain; and afterward I will do your bidding concerning your future fortunes--whether you esteem my skill or not, being your business, and not mine, as you seek it without my offering it."
"I believe you are right," replied Colonel Manners, beginning more fully to appreciate the character of him with whom he spoke; "go on, and let me hear your conditions in regard to the delivery of this letter, which is, I suppose, the object that you hold in your bosom."
"It is not a pistol," said the gipsy, producing the letter.
"I did not suppose that it was," replied Colonel Manners; "and had it been so, it would have been a matter of much indifference to me: but now for your conditions."
"They are few and simple," answered the gipsy; "I require, or request, you to give this into Mr. De Vaux's own hand, and to choose a moment when he is not only alone, but when he is likely to have an opportunity of reading it in private; and though you may tell him when and how you received it, and add what comments you like, you must not indulge in the same tattle to other people; but must keep silence on all concerning it."
"Your conditions are not very difficult," replied Colonel Manners; "I will undertake them. Give me the letter. Upon my honour," he added, seeing that Pharold hesitated, "I will do exactly as you have desired."
The man gave him the letter, which was cleaner, neater, and, as far as the address went, better written than the hands from which it came would have led one to anticipate. The moment he had done so, Pharold uttered a long, loud whistle, which brought a little yellow urchin of ten years old to their side, as fast as a pair of bare feet could carry him. "Thou mayst go," said the gipsy; "and make haste." The boy set off like lightning on the road which led to the river, and the gipsy again turned to Colonel Manners. "Give me your hand, sir," he said.
Colonel Manners did as he desired, smiling while he did so at a certain lurking feeling of the ridicule of his situation, which he could not repress. "If any of my old fellow-soldiers were to see me here," he thought, "taking counsel with a gipsy upon my future fate and prospects, they would certainly think Charles Manners mad." The gipsy, however, gazed seriously upon his hand, and then raised his eyes to the other's face, without the slightest expression in his own countenance which could raise a suspicion that he was seeking to play upon credulity.
"Colonel Manners," said Pharold, "before I tell you what I read here, listen to me for one moment. Most people who come to us on such an errand smile as they give us their hand; some because they believe us thoroughly, and affect by a laugh to show they do not believe at all; while some, who really do not believe, smile out of vain conceit in their own superior strength of mind: but do you remember that this that we practise is, when properly practised, a science in which we have ourselves the most confident faith. We never inquire afterward whether what we have predicted has proved true or not, for we are always sure that it must do so: but, at all events, such confidence in our own knowledge cannot spring from nothing."
Manners could have easily found a reply in favour of his own side of the question, but he did not think it worth while to argue logically upon chiromancy with a gipsy, although that gipsy might be somewhat superior to others of his tribe; and, therefore, without answering the arguments of Pharold, he remained in silence, while the other again turned a very steadfast glance upon his extended hand.
"Colonel Manners," said the gipsy at length, "if I read right, you have been a fortunate man."
"And, in some respects, an unfortunate one," rejoined his auditor, "though, in truth, I have no great reason to complain."
"Far more fortunate than unfortunate," answered the gipsy. "Here are but three crosses in all your life as yet; two so near the beginning, that you could not have felt them; and one--a deep one--much more lately."
Colonel Manners smiled. "In the past you are certainly not far wrong: but it is the future I wish to hear: what of it?"
"You mock us, sir," said the gipsy, eying him. "However, you shall hear your fate as it is. You shall be fortunate and unfortunate."
"That is the common lot of human nature," rejoined Colonel Manners.
"But herein does your fate differ from the common lot of human nature," replied the gipsy: "you shall be no longer fortunate in those things wherein you have hitherto found success; for you shall do all that you think you will not do; and prosper where you neither hope nor strive."
"That is certainly a strange fate," answered Manners; "for I have ever found that success is a coy goddess, who needs all our efforts to obtain her smiles, and even then gives them but sparingly."
"It is a strange fate, and yet, in some sense, it is not," answered the gipsy; "your painters rightly represent Fortune as a woman, though they might as well have left her eyes unbandaged; for it is neither new nor marvellous to see woman fly from those that pursue her, and cast herself into the arms of those who care not for her smiles. And yet the fate written on that hand is strange, too; for it speaks of fortunes as fair without effort, for the future, as those of the past have been rendered by toil and exertion. It is a strange fate; but, nevertheless it shall be yours: and now, forget not my words, but, when you find them verified, remember him that spoke them."
"But are you going to tell me no more?" demanded Colonel Manners: "I would fain have you come a little more to particulars, my good friend. One can make but little of these broad generalities."
"One can make nothing to laugh at," answered the gipsy, "and therefore I shall keep to them, though, perhaps, I could tell you more. Remember them, however, and, as you will soon find them true, lay them to your heart, sir, and let them teach you to believe, that a thing is not false because you do not understand it; that there may be truths without the range either of your knowledge or of your faculties--some that you cannot comprehend, because they have not been explained to you; and some that, if they were explained to you a thousand times, your mind is too narrow to conceive--and yet they are."
"I wish, my good friend, that I could send you to converse with Voltaire," said Colonel Manners. "Who is he?" demanded Pharold; "I do not know him."
"No," replied Manners; "I dare say not: but he is a famous wit, who dabbles in philosophy, and seems inclined to teach the world, by his example, if not by his precepts, that man should credit nothing that he cannot understand."
"And what should I do with him'?" demanded the gipsy, frowning: "I think you are mocking me--is it not so?"
"No, on my honour," replied Colonel Manners; "I am not mocking you. On the contrary, I think you a very extraordinary person, and fitted for a different station from that in which I find you. Whether you yourself believe that which you have told me concerning my future fortune, or not, I thank you for having gratified me; and, at all events, I have derived from your conversation more that I shall remember long, than I anticipated when I came here. Will you accept of that?"
Colonel Manners offered him one of those beautiful golden pieces which are now, I fear me, lost to the world for ever, and which were then called guineas. But the gipsy put it away. "No," he said; "you have undertaken to fulfil my request, and I have complied with yours. We owe each other nothing, then. Farewell!" and, turning on his heel, he left Colonel Manners to descend the hill, thinking him more extraordinary than ever, from the last very ungipsy-like act, by which he had terminated their conversation.
The sun was now much higher than when Manners had trod that path before; for, according to his usual custom, the gracious luminary seemed to have run more quickly at his first rising than he does after having climbed the steep hill of heaven; and the wayfarer began to think that he might be late at Mrs. Falkland's breakfast-table, where cold eggs and lukewarm coffee were the just punishments of those who linger long abed. As he had closed the park gate, however, and had not the key, he was obliged to go round and enter by the other side of the house; but this proceeding, at all events, tended to solve one mystery connected with his late interview. In the hall the first object he beheld was the little gipsy boy whom he had seen with Pharold on the hill; and he now found him in conversation with Mrs. Falkland herself, who appeared to be asking after some of the Egyptian fraternity who were ill. Old Peter stood behind, keeping a wary eye upon the boy, whom he justly considered a very promising élève in no inferior school of petty larceny; and as Colonel Manners approached, Mrs. Falkland terminated her inquiries, and made over her little companion to the care of the footman, with orders to give him something and send him away; an order, the latter part of which was complied with in a more summary manner than she anticipated, as soon as her back was turned.
"Good-morning, Colonel Manners," she said, as they walked towards the breakfast-room; "you find me with a curious little companion: but the fact is, that, while you were all out walking yesterday, a poor gipsy woman accidentally fell down from the high bank close by the house, and was brought in here, completely stunned. The village apothecary was away; and, as I endeavour to enact my Lady Bountiful, I did what I could for the poor creature, who soon recovered. We had half a dozen of her tribe in the servant's hall, however; and, much to the butler's and Peter's surprise--and, I must confess, to my own also--when they went away, nothing was missing. According to a promise made by one of them, they have sent me down that little boy this morning to tell me that the poor woman is now quite well. I wished to have despatched the apothecary to her, and offered to do so as soon as he returned; but they seemed to have an invincible repugnance to all the professors of the healing art."
"All people, I believe, who enjoy very good health," replied Colonel Manners, "feel the same towards the learned doctors--the very sight of one reminds us of losing one of the best blessings of Heaven. However, the meeting with that little gipsy gentleman here explains something which I might have made a mystery of, had I not heard your account of your yesterday's interview; for this morning I had a long conversation with a gipsy on the hill--a very singular person--who addressed me at once by name, and seemed perfectly well acquainted with my being at your house."
"Oh, your servant was present yesterday," replied Mrs. Falkland, "and, with all the dexterity of an old soldier, gave us very great assistance in bringing the poor woman to herself. I remarked, too, that her gipsy companions did but little, and contented themselves with standing round, asking irrelevant questions of the servants, which, of course, in that temple of tittle-tattle, a servant's hall, they found somebody willing to answer; so that I dare say there was nothing supernatural in your name being known on the hill. But how came you, Colonel Manners," she added, with a smile, "how came you in such deep consultation with a gipsy at this hour of the morning? You surely have not been having your fortune told?"
"I must plead guilty, I am afraid," replied Colonel Manners; "but if the fault be a very grievous one, I must lay the blame upon Miss Falkland, as it was under her special injunctions that I went."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Falkland; "and to answer what object?"
"Oh, if you mean Miss Falkland's object, I really cannot tell," he replied; "and my object was certainly a very foolish one, but one that leads many a man to do a still more foolish thing: I mean, it was to prove that I was not afraid."
"And pray, what was the result?" demanded Mrs. Falkland; but by this time they were at the breakfast-room door, and Colonel Manners declared that he would not communicate his fate to any one before he revealed it to Miss Falkland in general consistory. This he had soon an opportunity of doing: and the whole business was laughed at gayly enough. It is wonderful how light a little merriment soon makes every thing appear; and this is the reason why, in moments of mirth and cheerfulness, so many secrets are revealed that one would often give worlds to shut up again in the casket of one's own breast. Let wise diplomatists keep far from merriment; for a light laugh or a gay witticism, whose idle wings seemed hardly strong enough to flutter it across the table, has often taken a weighty secret on its back, and flown away with it, never to return. Now, the letter that the gipsy had given Colonel Manners for his friend he had believed might be of some importance, as long as he was alone; but every gay word that was spoken on the subject of gipsies and fortune-telling took away something from its weight in his estimation; and had he been only restrained by a sense of its importance, he might have delivered the letter before breakfast was over, and made a jest of it. It has never been said that Colonel Manners was perfect; and though his mind was strong, it certainly was not without a full share of human weaknesses. Colonel Manners, however, was restrained by something besides a sense of the letter's importance--he had given his word to deliver it in a particular manner; and, whatever else he might do in the way of frailties, he never forgot a promise, though, in the present instance, it was long ere he found an opportunity of fulfilling the one he had made the gipsy on the hill.