him in the prayer, which my soul felt, though my ear caught it not, was for me. But when he had ceased, and turned towards me, I clasped him to my breast. “My brother,” I said, “we shall part, it is true, but not till our hearts have annihilated the space that was between them; not till we have felt that the love of brotherhood can pass the love of woman. Whatever await you, your devoted and holy mind will be, if not your shield from affliction, at least your balm for its wounds. Remain here. The quiet which breathes around you well becomes your tranquillity within; and sometimes bless me in your devotions, as you have done now. For me, I shall not regret those harder and harsher qualities which you blame in me, if thereafter their very sternness can afford me an opportunity of protecting your gentleness from evil, or redressing the wrongs from which your nature may be too innocent to preserve you. And now let us return home in the conviction that we have in our friendship one treasure beyond the reach of fate.”
Aubrey did not answer; but he kissed my forehead, and I felt his tears upon my cheek. We rose, and with arms still embracing each other as we walked, bent our steps to the house.
Ah, earth! what hast thou more beautiful than the love of those whose ties are knit by nature, and whose union seems ordained to begin from the very moment of their birth?
CHAPTER VIII
WE are under very changeful influences in this world! The night on which occurred the interview with Aubrey that I have just narrated, I was burning to leave Devereux Court. Within one little week from that time my eagerness was wonderfully abated. The sagacious reader will readily discover the cause of this alteration. About eight miles from my uncle’s house was a seaport town; there were many and varied rides leading to it, and the town was a favourite place of visitation with all the family. Within a few hundred yards of the town was a small cottage, prettily situated in the midst of a garden, kept with singular neatness, and ornamented with several rare shrubs and exotics. I had more than once observed in the garden of this house a female in the very first blush of youth, and beautiful enough to excite within me a strong curiosity to learn the owner of the cottage. I inquired, and ascertained that its tenant was a Spaniard of high birth, and one who had acquired a melancholy celebrity by his conduct and misfortunes in the part he had taken in a certain feeble but gallant insurrection in his native country. He had only escaped with life and a very small sum of money, and now lived in the obscure seaport of———, a refugee and a recluse. He was a widower, and had only one child,—a daughter; and I was therefore at no loss to discover who was the beautiful female I had noted and admired.
On the day after my conversation with Aubrey detailed in the last chapter, in riding past this cottage alone, I perceived a crowd assembled round the entrance; I paused to inquire the cause.
“Why, your honour,” quoth a senior of the village, “I believe the tipstaves be come to take the foreigner for not paying his rent; and he does not understand our English liberty like, and has drawn his sword, and swears, in his outlandish lingo, he will not be made prisoner alive.”
I required no further inducement to make me enter the house. The crowd gave way when they saw me dismount, and suffered me to penetrate into the first apartment. There I found the gallant old Spaniard with his sword drawn, keeping at bay a couple of sturdy-looking men, who appeared to be only prevented from using violence by respect for the person or the safety of a young woman, who clung to her father’s knees and implored him not to resist where resistance was so unavailing. Let me cut short this scene; I dismissed the bailiffs, and paid the debt. I then endeavoured to explain to the Spaniard, in French, for he scarcely understood three words of our language, the cause of a rudeness towards him which he persisted in calling a great insult and inhospitality manifested to a stranger and an exile. I succeeded at length in pacifying him. I remained for more than an hour at the cottage, and I left it with a heart beating at a certain persuasion that I had established therein the claim of acquaintance and visitation.
Will the reader pardon me for having curtailed this scene? It is connected with a subject on which I shall better endure to dwell as my narrative proceeds. From that time I paid frequent visits to the cottage; the Spaniard soon grew intimate with me, and I thought the daughter began to blush when I entered, and to sigh when I departed.
One evening I was conversing with Don Diego D’Alvarez (such was the Spaniard’s name), as he sat without the threshold, inhaling the gentle air, that stole freshness from the rippling sea that spread before us, and fragrance from the earth, over which the summer now reigned in its most mellow glory. Isora (the daughter) sat at a little distance.
“How comes it,” said Don Diego, “that you have never met our friend Senor Bar—Bar—these English names are always escaping my memory. How is he called, Isora?”
“Mr.—Mr. Barnard,” said Isora (who, brought early to England, spoke its language like a native), but with evident confusion, and looking down as she spoke—“Mr. Barnard, I believe, you mean.”
“Right, my love,” rejoined the Spaniard, who was smoking a long pipe with great gravity, and did not notice his daughter’s embarrassment,—“a fine youth, but somewhat shy and over-modest in manner.”
“Youth!” thought I, and I darted a piercing look towards Isora. “How comes it, indeed,” I said aloud, “that I have not met him? Is he a friend of long standing?”
“Nay, not very,—perhaps of some six weeks earlier date than you, Senor Don Devereux. I pressed him, when he called this morning, to tarry your coming: but, poor youth, he is diffident, and not yet accustomed to mix freely with strangers, especially those of rank; our own presence a little overawes him;” and from Don Diego’s gray mustachios issued a yet fuller cloud than was ordinarily wont to emerge thence.
My eyes were still fixed on Isora; she looked up, met them, blushed deeply, rose, and disappeared within the house. I was already susceptible of jealousy. My lip trembled as I resumed: “And will Don Diego pardon me for inquiring how commenced his knowledge of this ingenuous youth?”
The question was a little beyond the pale of good breeding; perhaps the Spaniard, who was tolerably punctilious in such matters, thought so, for he did not reply. I was sensible of my error, and apologizing for it, insinuated, nevertheless, the question in a more respectful and covert shape. Still Don Diego, inhaling the fragrant weed with renewed vehemence, only—like Pion’s tomb, recorded by Pausanias—replied to the request of his petitioner by smoke. I did not venture to renew my interrogatories, and there was a long silence. My eyes fixed their gaze on the door by which Isora had disappeared. In vain; she returned not; and as the chill of the increasing evening began now to make itself felt by the frame of one accustomed to warmer skies, the Spaniard soon rose to re-enter his house, and I took my farewell for the night.
There were many ways (as I before said) by which I could return home, all nearly equal in picturesque beauty; for the county in which my uncle’s estates were placed was one where stream roved and woodland flourished even to the very strand or cliff of the sea. The shortest route, though one the least frequented by any except foot-passengers, was along the coast, and it was by this path that I rode slowly homeward. On winding a curve in the road about one mile from Devereux Court, the old building broke slowly, tower by tower, upon me. I have never yet described the house, and perhaps it will not be uninteresting to the reader if I do so now.
It had anciently belonged to Ralph de Bigod. From his possession it had passed into that of the then noblest branch the stem of Devereux, whence, without break or flaw in the direct line of heritage, it had ultimately descended to the present owner. It was a pile of vast extent, built around three quadrangular courts, the farthest of which spread to the very verge of the gray, tall cliffs that overhung the sea; in this court was a rude tower, which, according to tradition, had contained the apartments ordinarily inhabited by our ill-fated namesake and distant kinsman, Robert Devereux, the favourite and the victim of Elizabeth, whenever he had honoured the mansion with a visit. There was nothing, it is true, in the old tower calculated to flatter the tradition, for it contained only two habitable rooms, communicating with each other, and