Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song.
* * * * *
Great things, and full of wonder, in our ears,
Far differing from the world, thou hast revealed,
Divine Interpreter.
MILTON
The morning that followed was rife with the sweet and balmy air and the
gay sunshine, so duly prized in our variable climate, because of the
rarity of their occurrence; more especially when the year is yet too
young to assist with vigour the energies of all-industrious nature. The
trees, in their faint greenery, looked cheerful as the face of
childhood: the merry birds were busied after their own gentle fashion
forming their dwellings in the covert and solitude of the wooded slopes
which effectually sheltered Cecil Place from the chill blast of the
neighbouring sea. The freshened breeze came so kindly through the thick
underwood, as to be scarcely felt by the early wanderers of the upland
hill or valley green. Even the rough trooper, Roupall, yielded to the
salutary influence of the morn; and as he toiled in his pedlar's guise
across the downs, which were mottled with many hundred sheep, and
pointed the pathway to King's Ferry, his heart softened within him.
Visions of his once happy home in Cumberland--of the aged parents who
fostered his infancy--of the companions of his youth, before he had
lived in sin, or dwelt with sorrow--of the innocent girl, who had loved,
though she had forsaken him--all passed before him; the retrospect
became the present; and his heart swelled painfully within him; for he
thought on what he had been, and on what he was, until, drawing his
coarse hand across his brows, he gave forth a dissolute song, seeking,
like many who ought to be wiser, to stifle conscience by tumultuous
noise.
About the same hour, our friend Robin Hays was more than usually active
in his mother's house, which we have already described, and which was
known by the name of the "Gull's Nest." The old woman had experienced
continued kindness from the few families of rank and wealth who at that
time resided in Shepey. With a good deal of tact, she managed outwardly
to steer clear of all party feuds; though people said she was by no
means so simple as she pretended; but the universal sympathy of her
neighbours was excited by her widowed and almost childless state--three
fine sons having been slain during the civil wars--and the fourth, our
acquaintance Robin, being singularly undervalued, on the ordinary
principle, we may presume, that "a prophet hath no honour in his own
country." This feeling of depreciation Robin certainly returned with
interest, indulging a most bitter, and, occasionally, biting contempt
for all the high and low in his vicinity, the family at Cecil Place
forming the only exception. Despite his defects natural and acquired, he
had, however, managed to gain the good opinion of Burrell of Burrell,
who, though, frequently on the island, possessed only a small portion of
land within its boundary. Into his service he entered for the purpose of
accompanying the knight to London as travelling-groom; and he had
rendered himself so useful while sojourning in the metropolis, that
Burrell would fain have retained him in his employ--a project, however,
to which Robin strenuously objected, the moment it was communicated to
him. "Nature," he said, "had doubtless made him a bond-slave; but he
liked her fetters so little, that he never would be slave to any one or
any thing beside." He therefore returned to the "Gull's Nest" on the
night his late master arrived at Cecil Place, from which his mother's
home was distant about three miles.