Eugene Aram — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
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proud quean!” said the Stranger, as he re-seated himself, and watched the sisters gliding across the green.
All mouths were opened against him immediately. He found it no easy matter to make his peace; and before he had quite done it, he called for his bill, and rose to depart.
“Well!” said he, as he tendered his hand to the Corporal, “we may meet again, and enjoy together some more of your good stories. Meanwhile, which is my way to this—this—this famous scholar’s—Ehem?”
“Why,” quoth Peter, “you saw the direction in which the young ladies went; you must take the same. Cross the stile you will find at the right—wind along the foot of the hill for about three parts of a mile, and you will then see in the middle of a broad plain, a lonely grey house with a thingumebob at the top; a servatory they call it. That’s Master Aram’s.”
“Thank you.”
“And a very pretty walk it is too,” said the Dame, “the prettiest hereabouts to my liking, till you get to the house at least; and so the young ladies think, for it’s their usual walk every evening!”
“Humph,—then I may meet them.”
“Well, and if you do, make yourself look as Christian-like as you can,” retorted the hostess.
There was a second grin at the ill-favoured Traveller’s expense, amidst which he went his way.
“An odd chap!” said Peter, looking after the sturdy form of the Traveller. “I wonder what he is; he seems well edicated—makes use of good words.”
“What sinnifies?” said the Corporal, who felt a sort of fellow-feeling for his new acquaintance’s brusquerie of manner;—“what sinnifies what he is. Served his country,—that’s enough;—never told me, by the by, his regiment;—set me a talking, and let out nothing himself;—old soldier every inch of him!”
“He can take care of number one,” said Peter. “How he emptied the jug; and my stars! what an appetite!”
“Tush,” said the Corporal, “hold jaw. Man of the world—man of the world,—that’s clear.”
CHAPTER III.
A DIALOGUE AND AN ALARM.—A STUDENT’S HOUSE
“A fellow by the hand of Nature marked, Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame.”
“He is a scholar, if a man may trust The liberal voice of Fame, in her report. Myself was once a student, and indeed Fed with the self-same humour he is now.”
The two sisters pursued their walk along a scene which might well be favoured by their selection. No sooner had they crossed the stile, than the village seemed vanished into earth; so quiet, so lonely, so far from the evidence of life was the landscape through which they passed. On their right, sloped a green and silent hill, shutting out all view beyond itself, save the deepening and twilight sky; to the left, and immediately along their road lay fragments of stone, covered with moss, or shadowed by wild shrubs, that here and there, gathered into copses, or breaking abruptly away from the rich sod, left frequent spaces through which you caught long vistas of forestland, or the brooklet gliding in a noisy and rocky course, and breaking into a thousand tiny waterfalls, or mimic eddies. So secluded was the scene, and so unwitnessing of cultivation, that you would not have believed that a human habitation could be at hand, and this air of perfect solitude and quiet gave an additional charm to the spot.
“But I assure you,” said Ellinor, earnestly continuing a conversation they had begun, “I assure you I was not mistaken, I saw it as plainly as I see you.”
“What, in the breast pocket?”
“Yes, as he drew out his handkerchief, I saw the barrel of the pistol quite distinctly.”
“Indeed, I think we had better tell my father as soon as we get home; it may be as well to be on our guard, though robbery, I believe, has not been heard of in Grassdale for these twenty years.”
“Yet for what purpose, save that of evil, could he in these peaceable times and this peaceable country, carry fire arms about him. And what a countenance! Did you note the shy, and yet ferocious eye, like that of some animal, that longs, yet fears to spring upon you.”
“Upon my word, Ellinor,” said Madeline, smiling, “you are not very merciful to strangers. After all, the man might have provided himself with the pistol which you saw as a natural precaution; reflect that, as a stranger, he may well not know how safe this district usually is, and he may have come from London, in the neighbourhood of which they say robberies have been frequent of late. As to his looks, they are I own unpardonable; for so much ugliness there can be no excuse. Had the man been as handsome as our cousin Walter, you would not perhaps have been so uncharitable in your fears at the pistol.”
“Nonsense, Madeline,” said Ellinor, blushing, and turning away her face;—there was a moment’s pause, which the younger sister broke.
“We do not seem,” said she, “to make much progress in the friendship of our singular neighbour. I never knew my father court any one so much as he has courted Mr. Aram, and yet, you see how seldom he calls upon us; nay, I often think that he seeks to shun us; no great compliment to our attractions, Madeline.”
“I regret his want of sociability, for his own sake,” said Madeline, “for he seems melancholy as well as thoughtful, and he leads so secluded a life, that I cannot but think my father’s conversation and society, if he would but encourage it, might afford some relief to his solitude.”
“And he always seems,” observed Ellinor, “to take pleasure in my father’s conversation, as who would not? how his countenance lights up when he converses! it is a pleasure to watch it. I think him positively handsome when he speaks.”
“Oh, more than handsome!” said Madeline, with enthusiasm, “with that high, pale brow, and those deep, unfathomable eyes!”
Ellinor smiled, and it was now Madeline’s turn to blush.
“Well,” said the former, “there is something about him that fills one with an indescribable interest; and his manner, if cold at times, is yet always so gentle.”
“And to hear him converse,” said Madeline, “it is like music. His thoughts, his very words, seem so different from the language and ideas of others. What a pity that he should ever be silent!”
“There is one peculiarity about his gloom, it never inspires one with distrust,” said Ellinor; “if I had observed him in the same circumstances as that ill-omened traveller, I should have had no apprehension.”
“Ah! that traveller still runs in your head. If we were to meet him in this spot.”
“Heaven forbid!” cried Ellinor, turning hastily round in alarm—and, lo! as if her sister had been a prophet, she saw the very person in question at some little distance behind them, and walking on with rapid strides.
She uttered a faint shriek of surprise and terror, and Madeline, looking back at the sound, immediately participated in her alarm. The spot looked so desolate and lonely, and the imagination of both had been already so worked upon by Ellinor’s fears, and their conjectures respecting