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IT wanted still two or three miles to Castle Mowbray, and De Vere pushed on to save the dusk. He had not even determined where to lodge; whether to take that liberty with his uncle, with whom (and almost with Constance) he now felt upon form; or to put up for the night at a little inn which he knew to be in the neighbourhood. A quarter of an hour's riding brought him in sight of the object of his pilgrimage; the castle opening upon him as he turned the brow of an opposite hill, in the boldest, broadest relief from the setting sun.

He checked his pace to prolong the feast of his eye, and felt his moral eye still more interested in ruminating upon the power of Him who made the glory he beheld. By degrees the great planet had sunk, but the horizon was still burnished in beautiful splendour, while closer to him every thing had melted into shade and softness. Never were more beautifully exemplified those charming lines,

"While through the west, where sinks the crimson day,

Meek twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray."

He now began to ascend the eminence on which Castle Mowbray was situated, and while he revolved all the gay scenes that had passed there during the summer (the throng of visiters, and the pleasures of social conversation with many he had loved), he was struck with the deserted air, the silence, and almost melancholy of the place. This was increased by the stillness of the evening, in which every thing was unruffled, and not a bough or a leaf but seemed buried in rest, as well as their feathered inhabitants. Of these not even a trace of existence appeared, except in now and then a single chirp from some straggler that had arrived late, and was nestling itself to repose.

The comparison struck forcibly upon the mind of De Vere, and did not dissipate the train of ideas which had got VOL. II.-5

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possession of him. There are, indeed, few contrasts more marked than that of a large and ample mansion, which we have been accustomed to see peopled through all its halls and chambers, and every thing full of life; and the same mansion, on our return to it after absence, deserted; the master flown, the subordinates dispersed, and the instruments of pleasure or service entirely withdrawn. Such now appeared to De Vere the whole region of Castle Mowbray. Where all had resounded with jollity, there was silence; where there had been nothing but motion, nothing moved; where every window had been illuminated, all was dark.

The first thing that made him feel the change was the deserted state of the park-lodges. The gates that had used to fly open at his approach, were close locked, and no keeper at hand to give him entrance. He had, therefore, to go round by a rough back-way to the now empty courtyard, which had so often thundered with the rattling of wheels.

He passed through a wicket (the great gates being here also barred), and found the pavement already overgrown with weeds. He called in vain for some chance assistance, where at least a dozen grooms and helpers had usually been on the watch; and as none came, he himself tried the doors of several stables before he found one that yielded. This was what was called the posthorse stable, which had only bails for stalls; and being calculated for full twenty cattle, we may suppose how lost and almost forlorn his two poor steeds appeared. Though almost summer, they shivered in their cold ranges, where not a remnant of fodder could be detected, and their shivering seemed to be caught by the feelings of De Vere. He sent his man to the house in search of help, and throwing his own great-coat over his pretty mare,—“ It was not thus, Beauty," said he, "that you were used to be treated in this once hospitable place."

The thought, somehow or another, communicated itself to his own situation, and, strange as it may appear, from the peculiar associations which it brought along with it, this little circumstance affected the whole frame of his mind. He felt a gloom-a sort of want of support, unusual to his nerves; nor did he like to quit Beauty, who had been such a favourite with the heiress of the place, and now seemed the only friend he had left, where once he had almost commanded.

The return of his man announced to him that there was little chance of comfort in the castle if he remained there the night. The housekeeper had gone on a visit to her friends at Uttoxeter, and the rest of the servants had all sallied out to a neighbouring fair, whence they were not expected till the return of daylight. In short, there was nobody left in the whole place but old Robin the keeper, who was laid up by illness, and whose wife kept watch with him, till the truant servants should return.

"To tell the truth, your honour," said De Vere's groom (a sober, middle-aged campaigner, who had lived with the general), "I am not sorry for it. I speak not for myself, for I could easily stow in Robin's room; but I don't think her ladyship" (meaning Lady Eleanor) “would be pleased with a damp bed for your honour; and I am sure you would not like Sweepstakes, let alone Beauty, fo catch their deaths, or be bitten by the rats in that posthorse stable."

"You say true, Ralph," said De Vere, "and indeed my call here is untimely; so take the poor things to the Fox, down the hill, and bespeak me a bed; I will follow on foot."

He did so, but not till he had rejoiced Robin by a visit of inquiry. The old man, who was recovering, became garrulous with pleasure, though his garrulity was chiefly occupied with descanting on the difference between the castle now, and what it was when the family were down. De Vere felt this rather more than Robin, yet felt an impulse, for which he could scarcely account, to visit the abandoned chambers which had so lately been the abode of hospitality and pleasure. He however penetrated no farther than the armoury, where the helmets and banderols seemed to frown upon him, and gave him any thing but welcome. One figure in particular, which, from bearing his supposed armour, went by the name of the Duke of Norfolk, seemed, as he thought, in the last gleam of the dusk, to gloom heavily upon him. He laughed at himself for the thought, and opened one or two doors where once he remembered feasting and song; but all now struck him as desolate, and he hastened to make his retreat. In doing so he had to pass the room where the mask had been represented, and it rather disconcerted him.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed he, " that this should have ever been the court of the Queen of Arcadia!"

The sword of the duke seemed here to point most meaningly to the door, which shutting with some force, a solemn echo ascended to the vaulted roof of the hall, and this echo was returned several times by the distant galleries and chambers above. It added something like awe to the excitement of his mind, and in the humour he was in nerves less firm than his might have been affected by it. As it was, it left him at least disconsolate, if not melancholy.

"I hope," said he, as he repassed the wicket of the courtyard "I hope this is not ominous. Yet there were times when evil might be portended from such a reception. To-morrow I will try the dairy-house; my dear Constance used there-alas! what right have I to apply that term to her?-The heiress of Mowbray is the Queen of Arcadia no longer; she has complied with my own advice, and fixed her temple in 'the bustle of resort.'

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These thoughts did not please, and he hurried through the park and descended the hill in darkness. For though the moon was near her full, and he implored her to cheer him (which, whatever his reflections, she could almost always do), she was then dark to him and silent,

"Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."

As he was, however, familiar with the way, he proceeded down the hill in safety, stopping every now and then to inhale the odours emitted by the springing herbagea refreshment to his parched senses which he much needed, and much enjoyed.

By the time he had reached the Fox, De Vere had asked himself one or two rather important questions, which the reader, indeed, may before this have asked for him. One of them, not the least important, was, what business he had at the castle ?-and why he went so far out of his way, merely, as it should seem, to call up melancholy recollections and hopeless visions?

If any one

It was a question he could not answer. blame him, I will not be the person to argue the matter; but leave him to the praiseworthy prudence which stops to calculate profit and loss before it allows itself to feel. Nor, if he censure a heart for getting brimful before it settle the consequences of overflowing, will I say that it is not wise in him to do so. Yet for all that, I cannot be angry with De Vere.

The moon had now broken through the fleece of clouds which had hitherto obscured her, and the mirth of several straggling parties coming from the fair might have diverted him from his musing on the cold reception which the castle of his uncle had seemed to give him. Some of these parties were singing, some laughing and shouting, all of them careless, none uncivil. If their jollity displayed no mental happiness, it discovered no discontent. To be sure, he that is drunk, they say, is as great as a king; and many of these were at least as great as princes. But there was a tone of pleased existence among them, which a lover of human nature would have been glad to observe. Now and then a girl's voice was heard floating, at first alone on the air, in the stanza of a quaint ballad; and this was followed by five or six deeper voices roaring the burden in chorus. The open air softened the roughness, and dignified the want of skill of these chanters.. as they came close to De Vere. After they had passed, as the distance increased the sounds died gradually away, and were succeeded by the shriller notes of a tabor and pipe, which occupied a set of dancers at the inn below.

"These good people," said De Vere, as he slackened his pace to listen and moralize, " cannot be unhappy, if they are not positively in a state of happiness. But the feeling is negative-they have no sensibilities."

A few stragglers at that moment passed, one of whom, in a female voice, articulately, and not meanly, sang an air which was just then very popular all over England :

"How blest the maid whose bosom

No headstrong passion knows."

:

"That may be the true secret,” said De Vere, as she went by. "I begin to believe that the less heart we have, the better the chance of happiness. For may not happiness, after all, be characterized as the absence of uneasiness, rather than positive pleasure?"

With this profound reflection, and in a most philosophical train of thought, he lost himself in revery, till the concourse of people whom he met, night-wandering from the fair, began to make him fear that he might fail in his expectation of the lodging which he had ordered his groom to secure for him; and on arriving at the Fox, he found his fears were realized,

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