But when another week had passed, and my next visit became due, the hills, and the valley, and everything else had put on a different complexion. It was not like a sunset when the year is growing old; but as lively and lovely as a morning of the May, when all the earth is clad in fresh apparel, and all the air is full of smiling glances at it. There came to my perception such a bright wink from the west, and so many touches, on the high ground and the low, of the encouragement of heaven to whatsoever thing looks up at it, that in my heart there must have been a sense it had no words for – a forecast of its own perhaps that it was going to be pleased, far beyond the pleasure of the eyes and mind. And in that prophecy it hit the mark, for who should meet me at a winding of the path, but Dariel herself, no other? Dariel, my darling!
As yet she knew not – and I shivered with the thought that she might never care to know – in what lowly but holy shrine she was for ever paramount. But a little blush, such as a white rose might feel at the mark H. C. in an exhibition, answered my admiring gaze; and then I was nowhere in the splendour of her eyes – nowhere, except for being altogether there.
But with no such disturbance was her mind astray. Alas, it was "all there," as sharp as the wits of the last man who wanted to sell me a horse. And she did not want to sell me anything; only to keep her precious value to herself. What a shame it is to leave things so that a poor fellow never knows how to begin! But that was not her meaning. In all her lovely life, she never meant anything that was not kind.
"I am not quite assured," she began, after waiting for me to speak, – as if I could, with the tongue in such a turbulence of eyes and heart! – "it is beyond my knowledge of English society, Mr. Cran-lee, to be confident that I am taking the correct step, in advancing in this manner to declare to you the things that have come into my thoughts. But if I have done wrong, you will pardon me, I hope, because I am so anxious about very dismal things."
"I assure you," I answered, with a flourish of my hat which I had been practising upon the road, "that it is of the very best English society. If we dared, we should insist upon it upon every occasion, Mademoiselle."
"You must not call me that, sir. I am not of the French. I prefer the English nation very greatly. There has only been one name given to me by my father, and that is Dariel."
"It is the sweetest name in all the world. Oh, Dariel, am I to call you Dariel?"
"If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Cran-lee, it will be also agreeable to me; for why should you not pronounce me the same as Stepan does, and Allai?" – oh, that was a cruel fall for me. "Although I have passed most of my life in England, and some of it even in London, I have not departed from the customs of my country, which are simple, very simple. See here is Kuban and Orla too! Will you not make reply to them?"
How could I make reply to dogs, with Dariel's eyes upon me? Many fellows would have been glad to kick Kuban and his son Orla, to teach them better than to jump around emotions so far above them. But not I, or at any rate not for more than half a moment; so sweetly was my spirit raised, that I never lifted either foot. Some of Dariel's gentle nature came to strike the balance; for I may have been a little short of that.
"Good dogs, noble dogs, what a pattern to us!" I had a very choice pair of trousers on, worthy of Tom Erricker, – if his had been ever bashful, – and in another minute there scarcely would have been enough of them left to plough in.
But the joy of my heart – as I was beginning already to myself to call her – perceived at a glance the right thing to do; and her smile and blush played into one another, as the rising sun colours the veil he weaves.
"If Mr. Cran-lee will follow me, a step or two, I will show him a place where the dogs dare not to come."
"Follow thee! Follow thee! Wha wud na follow thee?" came into my head, with a worthier sequence, than ever was vouchsafed to Highlanders.
"Where the dogs dare not come" – I kept saying to myself, instead of looking to the right or left. The music of her voice seemed to linger in those words, though they have not even a fine English sound, let alone Italian. But my mind was so far out of call that it went with them into a goodly parable. "All men are dogs in comparison, with her. Let none of them come near, where ever it may be, except the one dog, that is blest beyond all others."
"Are you a Christian?" The question came so suddenly, that it sounded like a mild rebuke – but no, it was not meant so. The maiden turned towards me at a little wicket-gate, and her face expressed some doubt about letting me come in.
"Yes, I am a Christian," I answered pretty firmly, and then began to trim a little – "not a very hot one I should say. Not at all bigoted, I mean; not one of those who think that every other person is a heathen."
I had made a mull of it. For the first time I beheld a smile of some contempt upon the gentle face. And I resolved to be of the strictest Orthodoxy evermore. Feeble religious views did not suit her.
"Christian! I should think so," I proceeded with high courage. "There is scarcely a church-tower for ten miles round, that has not been built by my ancestors." Possibly this assertion needed not only a grain but a block of salt.
But Dariel was of good strong faith, without which a woman deserves only to be a man. She opened the gate, and let me in, so beautifully that I was quite afraid.
"You must not be frightened," she said, with a very fine rally of herself, to encourage mine, "it is the House of the Lord, and you have come into it with your hat on. But you did not know, because there is no roof."
No roof, and no walls, and no anything left, except the sweet presence of this young maid. I took off my hat, and tried to think of the Creed, and the Catechism, and my many pious ancestors, if there had been any. And I almost tumbled over a great pile of ruin stones.
"We will not go in there, because – because we are not thinking of it properly," she pointed, as she spoke, to an inner circle of ruins, with some very fine blackberries just showing colour; and suddenly I knew it as the sanctuary, in which I had first descried her kneeling figure. "But here we may sit down, without – without – it is a long word, Mr. Cran-lee, I cannot quite recall it."
"Desecration," I suggested, and she looked at me with doubt, as if the word had made the thing. "But you do not think it will be that, if I speak of my dear father here?"
I was very near telling her that we think nothing of such old monkish ruins, except to eat our chicken-pie, and drink our bottled beer in their most holy places; but why should I shock her feelings so? Little knows the ordinary English girl, that when she displays her want of reverence for the things above her, she is doing all she can to kill that feeling towards herself, which is one of her choicest gifts.
"Dariel, you may be quite sure of this," I replied, after taking my seat upon a stone, over against the one she had chosen, but lower, so that I could look up at her; "a place of holy memories like this is the very spot especially fitted for – for consideration of your dear father. Some of my ancestors no doubt were the founders of this ancient chapel, so that I speak with some authority, upon a point of that sort."
All content has a murmur in it, according to the laws of earth; and within a few yards of my joy, the brook with perpetual change of tone, and rise and fall of liquid tune, was making as sweet a melody as a man can stop to hearken. But the brook might have ceased its noise for shame, at the music of my Dariel's voice. She gave me a timid glance at first, not for any care of me, but doubt of unlocking of her heart; and then the power of a higher love swept away all sense of self.
"My father, as you must have learned already, is one of the greatest men that have ever lived. There are many great men in this country also, in their way, which is very good; but they do not appear to cast away all regard for their own interests, in such a degree as my father does; and although they are very high Christians, they stop, or at least they appear to stop short of their doctrines, when the fear arises of not providing for themselves. They call it a question of the public good, and they are afraid