“Because then I should not have got paid for
my journey to Dover. Shut the door, boy; first
stage on to Canterbury.” And, drawing a
woollen nightcap over his ears, Mr. Tickletrout resigned
himself to his nocturnal excursion.
On the very day on which the patent for his peerage
was to have been made out, on the very day on which
he had afterwards calculated on reaching Paris, on
that very day was Mr. Richard Crauford lodged in Newgate,
fully committed for a trial of life and death.
There, if, O gentle love!
I read aright
The utterance that sealed
thy sacred bond,
’T was listening to
those accents of delight
She hid upon his breast those
eyes, beyond
Expression’s power to
paint, all languishingly fond.—Campbell.
“And you will positively leave us for London,”
said Lady Flora, tenderly, “and to-morrow too!”
This was said to one who under the name of Clarence
Linden has played the principal part in our drama,
and whom now, by the death of his brother succeeding
to the honours of his house, we present to our reader
as Clinton L’Estrange, Earl of Ulswater.
They were alone in the memorable pavilion; and though
it was winter the sun shone cheerily into the apartment;
and through the door, which was left partly open,
the evergreens, contrasting with the leafless boughs
of the oak and beech, could be just descried, furnishing
the lover with some meet simile of love, and deceiving
the eyes of those willing to be deceived with a resemblance
to the departed summer. The unusual mildness
of the day seemed to operate genially upon the birds,—those
children of light and song; and they grouped blithely
beneath the window and round the door, where the hand
of the kind young spirit of the place had so often
ministered to their wants. Every now and then,
too, you might hear the shrill glad note of the blackbird
keeping measure to his swift and low flight, and sometimes
a vagrant hare from the neighbouring preserves sauntered
fearlessly by the half-shut door, secure, from long
experience, of an asylum in the vicinity of one who
had drawn from the breast of Nature a tenderness and
love for all its offspring.
Her lover sat at Flora’s feet; and, looking
upward, seemed to seek out the fond and melting eyes
which, too conscious of their secret, turned bashfully
from his gaze. He had drawn her arm over his
shoulder; and clasping that small and snowy hand,
which, long coveted with a miser’s desire, was
at length won, he pressed upon it a thousand kisses,
sweeter beguilers of time than even words. All
had been long explained; the space between their hearts
annihilated; doubt, anxiety, misconstruction, those
clouds of love, had passed away, and left not a wreck
to obscure its heaven.
“And you will leave us to-morrow; must it be
to-morrow?”
“Ah! Flora, it must; but see, I have your
lock of hair—your beautiful, dark hair—to
kiss, when I am away from you, and I shall have your
letters, dearest,—a letter every day; and
oh! more than all, I shall have the hope, the certainty,
that when we meet again, you will be mine forever.”
