Submissive as he always was, the ancient dog lay down when touched, and drew his grizzled eyelids meekly over his dim and sunken eyes. Before he lifted them again Frida was below the sea gulls, and beneath the waves they fished.

Lear, with a puzzled sniff, arose and shook his head, and peered, with his old eyes full of wistful wonder, down the fearful precipice. Seeing something, he made his mind, up, gave one long re-echoed howl, then tossed his mane, like a tawny wave, and followed down the death-leap.

Neither body was ever found; and the whole of this might not have been known so clearly as it is known, unless it had happened that Mother Eyebright, growing uneasy, came round the corner just in time to be too late. She, like a sensible woman, never dreamed of jumping after them, but ran home so fast that she could not walk to church for three months afterward; and when her breath came back was enabled to tell tenfold of all she had seen.

One of the strangest things in life is the way in which we mortals take the great and fatal blows of life.

For instance, the baron was suddenly told, while waiting for Frida to sit beside him, at his one o’clock dinner:

“Plaize, my lard, your lardship’s darter hath a been and jumped off Duty Point.”

“What an undutiful thing to do!” was the first thing Lord de Wichehalse said; and those who knew no better thought that this was how he took it.

Aubyn Auberley, however, took a different measure of a broken-hearted father’s strength. For the baron buckled on the armour of a century ago, which had served his grandsire through hard blows in foreign battles, and, with a few of his trusty servants, rode to join the Parliament. It happened so that he could not make redress of his ruined life until the middle of the summer. Then, at last, his chance came to him, and he did not waste it. Viscount Auberley, who had so often slipped away and laughed at him, was brought to bay beneath a tree in the famous fight of Lansdowne.

The young man offered to hold parley, but the old man had no words. His snowy hair and rugged forehead, hard-set mouth and lifted arm, were enough to show his meaning. The gallant, being so skilled of fence, thought to play with this old man as he had with his daughter; but the Gueldres ax cleft his curly head, and split what little brain it takes to fool a trusting maiden.

So, in early life, deceiver and deceived were quit of harm; and may ere now have both found out whether it is better to inflict the wrong or suffer it.

Страница 10 из 10

Назад 1…9 10Далее