Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet man, he endured it better than most men would. Having a large world of his own in his own head and heart, he tolerated to a small, still corner of the real world very patiently.
How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore—Miss Keeldar, the whole family of the Sympsons, even Henry—are gone to Nunnely. Sir Philip would have them come; he wished to make them acquainted with his mother and sisters, who are now at the priory. Kind gentleman as the baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the of the thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather have appointed with a abbess, or mist-pale , among the wet and weedy of that ruined of theirs, in the core of the wood. Louis Moore longs to have something near him to-night; but not the boy-baronet, nor his but stern mother, nor his sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons.
This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The wild rains of the day are ; the great single cloud disparts and rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all , but tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest. The moon glorious, glad of the , as glad as if she gave herself to his fierce with love. No Endymion will watch for his goddess to-night. There are no flocks out on the mountains; and it is well, for to-night she welcomes Æolus.
Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, heard the storm roar round the other gable and along the hall-front. This454 end was sheltered. He wanted no shelter; he desired no sounds or screened position.
"All the parlours are empty," said he. "I am sick at heart of this cell."
He left it, and went where the , larger and freer than the branch-screened lattice of his own apartment, admitted unimpeded the dark-blue, the silver-fleeced, the stirring and vision of the autumn night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or fire. The broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating beam of the moon shone on every floor and wall.
Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill, and polished, and fireless like the . The is hot and ruddy; the in the intense heat of their clear glow; near the rug is a little work-table, a desk upon it, a chair near it.
Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so, could you see him before it. There is as much interest now in his eye, and as much significance in his face, as if in this household he had found a living companion, and was going to speak to it.
He makes discoveries. A bag—a small satin bag—hangs on the chair-back. The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen, a berry or two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean, delicate glove—these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the stand they . Order forbids details in a picture—she puts them tidily away; but details give charm.
Moore .
"Her mark," he said. "Here she has been—careless, attractive thing!—called away in haste, doubtless, and forgetting to return and put all to rights. Why does she leave in her footprints? Whence did she acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There is always something to in her, and the reprimand never settles in displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover or her husband, when it had a while in words, would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss. Better pass half an hour in with her than a day in admiring or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering? soliloquizing? Stop that."
455He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for his evening's comfort.
He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon. He shut out sovereign and court and armies; he added fuel to the hot but fast-wasting fire; he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the table; he placed another chair opposite that near the workstand; and then he sat down. His next movement was to take from his pocket a small, thick book of blank paper, to produce a pencil, and to begin to write in a , compact hand. Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy. Stoop over his shoulder fearlessly, and read as he .
"It is nine o'clock; the carriage will not return before eleven, I am certain. Freedom is mine till then; till then I may occupy her room, sit opposite her chair, rest my elbow on her table, have her little mementoes about me.
"I used rather to like Solitude—to fancy her a somewhat quiet and serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, to me from mountain-passes, something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of their chill breeze in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty in her . I once could court her , and imagine my heart easier when I held her to it—all mute, but .
"Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me, asked my protection, appealed to my strength—since that hour I Solitude. Cold abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and mate of Death!
"It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my heart. None can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil I can say to it what I will—say what I dare utter to nothing living—say what I dare not think aloud.
"We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when I was alone in the drawing-room, seeking a book of Henry's, she entered, dressed for a concert at Stilbro'. Shyness—her shyness, not mine—drew a silver veil between us. Much have I heard and read about ' ,' but, properly used, and not hackneyed, the words are good and appropriate words. As she passed to the window, after tacitly but recognizing me, I could call her nothing in my own mind save 'stainless456 .' To my perception, a delicate splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be the most , as I am one of the plainest, of men, but in truth that shyness of hers touched me ; it flattered my finest sensations. I looked a stupid block, I dare say. I was alive with a life of Paradise, as she turned her glance from my glance, and softly her head to hide the of her cheek.
"I know this is the talk of a dreamer—of a rapt, romantic lunatic. I do dream. I will dream now and then; and if she has inspired romance into my composition, how can I help it?
"What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing! I see her now looking up into my face, and me to prevent them from her, and to be sure and give her a strong . I see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent of sympathy, as people thought. I see the secret tear drop quietly from her eyelash. She said I thought her childish, and I did. She imagined I despised her. Despised her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at once near her and above her—to be conscious of a natural right and power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife.
"I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle her to my heart, that fold her about with my love, and that for a most selfish but deeply-natural reason. These faults are the steps by which I mount to ascendency over her. If she rose a trimmed, artificial , without inequality, what vantage would she offer the foot? It is the natural hill, with its mossy breaks and hollows, whose slope invites , whose summit it is pleasure to gain.
"To leave . It delights my eye to look on her. She suits me. If I were a king and she the housemaid that swept my palace-stairs, across all that space between us my eye would recognize her qualities; a true pulse would beat for her in my heart, though an unspanned made acquaintance impossible. If I were a gentleman, and she waited on me as a servant, I could not help that Shirley. Take from her her education; take her , her dress, all advantages; take all grace, but such as the symmetry of her form renders ; present her to me at a cottage door, in a stuff gown; let her offer me there a of water, with that457 smile, with that warm good-will with which she now hospitality—I should like her. I should wish to stay an hour; I should linger to talk with that . I sho............