’Your dutiful and loving servant,
TAMAR.’
So, old Tamar, after a little, took her departure;
and it needed a great effort to enable her to take
the turn up the dark and lonely mill-road, leading
to Redman’s Farm; so much did she dread the possibility
of again encountering the person she had just described.
THE MEETING IN THE LONG POND ALLEY.
I suppose there were few waking heads at this hour
in all the wide parish of Gylingden, though many a
usually idle one was now busy enough about the great
political struggle which was to muster its native forces,
both in borough and county, and agitate these rural
regions with the roar and commotion of civil strife.
But generals must sleep like other men; and even Tom
Wealdon was snoring in the fairy land of dreams.
The night was very still—a sharp night,
with a thin moon, like a scimitar, hanging bright
in the sky, and a myriad of intense stars blinking
in the heavens, above the steep roofs and spiral chimneys
of Brandon Hall, and the ancient trees that surrounded
it.
It was late in the night, as we know. The family,
according to their custom, had sought their slumbers
early; and the great old house was perfectly still.
One pair, at least, of eyes, however, were wide open;
one head busy; and one person still in his daily costume.
This was Mr. Larcom—the grave major
domo, the bland and attached butler. He was
not busy about his plate, nor balancing the cellar
book, nor even perusing his Bible.
He was seated in that small room or closet which he
had, years ago, appropriated as his private apartment.
It is opposite the housekeeper’s room—a
sequestered, philosophic retreat. He dressed in
it, read his newspaper there, and there saw his select
acquaintance. His wardrobe stood there.
The iron safe in which he kept his keys, filled one
of its nooks. He had his two or three shelves
of books in the recess; not that he disturbed them
much, but they were a grave and gentlemanlike property,
and he liked them for their binding, and the impression
they produced on his visitors. There was a meditative
fragrance of cigars about him, and two or three Havannah
stumps under the grate.
The fact is, he was engaged over a letter, the writing
of which, considering how accomplished a gentleman
he was, he had found rather laborious and tedious.
The penmanship was, I am afraid, clumsy, and the spelling
here and there, irregular. It was finished however,
and he was now reading it over with care.
It was thus expressed:—
