Lionel could no longer glean from Mr. Fairthorn any
stray hints upon the family records. That gentleman
had evidently been reprimanded for indiscretion, or
warned against its repetition, and he became as reserved
and mum as if he had just emerged from the cave of
Trophonius. Indeed he shunned trusting himself
again alone to Lionel, and affecting a long arrear
of correspondence on behalf of his employer, left the
lad during the forenoons to solitary angling, or social
intercourse with the swans and the tame doe.
But from some mystic concealment within doors would
often float far into the open air the melodies of that
magic flute; and the boy would glide back, along the
dark-red mournful walls of the old house, or the futile
pomp of pilastered arcades in the uncompleted new
one, to listen to the sound: listening, he, blissful
boy, forgot the present; he seized the unchallenged
royalty of his years. For him no rebels in the
past conspired with poison to the wine-cup, murder
to the sleep. No deserts in the future, arresting
the march of ambition, said, “Here are sands
for a pilgrim, not fields for a conqueror.”
CHAPTER X.
In which chapter the
history quietly moves on to the next.
Thus nearly a week had gone, and Lionel began to feel
perplexed as to the duration of his visit. Should
he be the first to suggest departure? Mr. Darrell
rescued him from that embarrassment. On the seventh
day, Lionel met his host in a lane near the house,
returning from his habitual ride. The boy walked
home by the side of the horseman, patting the steed,
admiring its shape, and praising the beauty of another
saddle-horse, smaller and slighter, which he had seen
in the paddock exercised by a groom. “Do
you ever ride that chestnut? I think it even
handsomer than this.”
“Half our preferences are due to the vanity
they flatter. Few can ride this horse; any one,
perhaps, that.”
“There speaks the Dare-all!” said Lionel,
laughing. The host did not look displeased.
“Where no difficulty, there no pleasure,”
said he in his curt laconic diction. “I
was in Spain two years ago. I had not an English
horse there, so I bought that Andalusian jennet.
What has served him at need, no preux chevalier
would leave to the chance of ill-usage. So the
jennet came with me to England. You have not
been much accustomed to ride, I suppose?”
“Not much; but my dear mother thought I ought
to learn. She pinched for a whole year to have
me taught at a riding-school during one school vacation.”
“Your mother’s relations are, I believe,
well off. Do they suffer her to pinch?”
“I do not know that she has relations living;
she never speaks of them.”
“Indeed!” This was the first question
on home matters that Darrell had ever directly addressed
to Lionel. He there dropped the subject, and
said, after a short pause, “I was not aware that
you are a horseman, or I would have asked you to accompany
me; will you do so to-morrow, and mount the jennet?”
