“Ay, those were days when life had wings, And flew—ah! flew so wild a height,
That like the lark that sunward springs,
I was giddy with too much light!”
Moore.
It was with a sensation of delightful expectation that Mabel Aumerle rose on the following morning. The sun rising over the distant hills was scarcely so early as she. Mabel could hardly believe that the long-expected day was actually come, on which her most delightful dream of hope was to be fully realized!
No one else in the vicarage was stirring when the young girl crept softly from the house, for her spirit felt so blythe and elastic that it could only expand in freedom under the open vault of heaven. How deliciously fresh was the breath of morn! Mabel gazed at the light clouds above her, and almost shouted for joy at the thought that in a few hours she would be winging her way amongst them, no more chained down as a captive to earth. She would no longer envy the little bird, pouring his carol down from the sky—she would soar yet higher than he!
[179]
Mabel lingered about the garden for nearly two hours, too much excited to settle for a moment to any quiet occupation. She was troubled by nothing but the fever of impatience, and the fear that something might occur to stop her expected treat. She ever and anon looked anxiously towards the house; as long as Mrs. Aumerle’s shutters were closed, Mabel retained a feeling of security; but as soon as she saw them open, the eager girl determined to go a little way on the road by which her uncle was to come, “to meet him and prevent delay,” as she said to herself, but really to give opportunity to no one to object to her ascent in the Eaglet.
How quiet the road appeared! how thick lay the diamond dew on the sward that fringed it! how bright and cheerful all nature looked to the rejoicing eye of Mabel! Yet her uncle seemed to her to take a wearisome time in coming. The minutes were terribly long, and the impatient girl could scarcely believe the testimony of the village church clock when it struck only the number eight.
“I think that the morning will never end!” exclaimed Mabel; “I was foolish to rise so early. But see,—see,—surely there is a gig coming at last down the hill,—and that is my uncle driving; I should know Black Prince miles off, he trots down at so dashing a pace! O uncle!” she cried, running forward to meet him, “it seemed as if you never would come!”
[180]
“I’m not late,” said Augustine, reining up his horse, whose black hide was flecked with foam; “we shall be back in good time for breakfast. Up with you!” and Mabel, with eager pleasure, mounted to the seat at his side.
“Shall I just wish them good morning at the vicarage, and see if Ida has changed her mind?”
“Oh no! pray don’t,” said Mabel uneasily, “I am certain that Ida would not come.”
“Well, then we had better be off for Aspendale, and not keep Verdon waiting for breakfast,” cried Augustine, backing his horse up to the hedge to turn his head round on the narrow road.
“How good you are to come all this way for me!” said Mabel. “And so Mr. Verdon has really arrived, and the balloon, is it all right—all ready?”
“It will be ready by the time that our guests arrive,” replied her uncle, lightly shaking the rein, and touching his steed with the whip, “Have you leave to ascend with us, Mabel?”
“Yes; Papa’s leave, at least,” she replied. “Oh! how delightful it is to go driving on at this pace; but it will be far more delightful still to go scudding aloft before the breeze!”
“Is not that Bardon’s cottage?” asked Augustine, as they dashed past a little tenement. Mabel gave an affirmative reply.
“I had had some thought,” observed her uncle, “of calling for Dr. Bardon; but I confess that, after[181] what has past, I feel somewhat disgusted at his coming at all. There is a singular want of good taste in his showing himself at this time to Dashleigh.”
“Surely the doctor is not going in the balloon!” exclaimed Mabel.
“No, no, not quite so bad as that,” answered Augustine with a smile; “I could not undertake to carry up lion and bear in one car, even with my fair niece to help me to keep the peace between them.”
“But do you believe,” asked Mabel, “that the earl will really ascend?”
Augustine’s handsome countenance became grave. “He must do something, poor fellow,” he observed, “to efface from the minds of men the remembrance of that mischievous squib.”
“But if he be really so timid—”
“Reginald has no want of courage,” said Augustine Aumerle, with unusual warmth in his manner; “I have seen him plunge into a rapid stream to save a drowning child; and when we were boys together, I have known him fight a bully who was twice as strong as himself. Certainly he never could climb a tree,” added the friend in a more thoughtful tone.
“And he played a poor figure on the mountain, according to ‘The Precipice and the Peer,’” said Mabel.
“There was a great deal of exaggeration in that piece; any one could see that,” replied Augustine.[182] “It contained the very essence of malicious satire. I don’t know what could have possessed the countess to write it.”
“Pride, I suppose,” answered Mabel.
“Detestable pride!” muttered her uncle.
“But do you not think that they will be one day reconciled to each other? Annabella has so much that is noble in her; she is so generous and affectionate,—and you seem to have a good opinion of the earl.”
“The mischief is,”............