The Earl was not a man peculiarly alive to scenery, but he now involuntarily checked his horse, and gazed for a few moments on the beautiful and singular aspect which the landscape had so suddenly assumed. As he so gazed, he observed in a field at some little distance, three or four persons gathered around a bank, and among them he thought he recognised the comely form of Rowland Lester. A second inspection convinced him that he was right in his conjecture, and, turning from the road through a gap in the hedge, he made towards the group in question. He had not proceeded far, before he saw, that the remainder of the party was composed of Lester’s daughters, the lover of the elder, and a fourth, whom he recognised as a celebrated French botanist who had lately arrived in England, and who was now making an amateur excursion throughout the more attractive districts of the island.
The Earl guessed rightly, that Monsieur de N--had not neglected to apply to Aram for assistance in a pursuit which the latter was known to have cultivated with such success, and that he had been conducted hither, as a place affording some specimen or another not unworthy of research. He now, giving his horse to his groom, joined the group.
WHEREIN THE EARL AND THE STUDENT CONVERSE ON GRAVE BUT DELIGHTFUL MATTERS.--THE STUDENT’S NOTION OF THE ONLY EARTHLY HAPPINESS.
ARAM. If the witch Hope forbids us to be wise, Yet when I turn to these--Woe’s only friends, And with their weird and eloquent voices calm The stir and Babel of the world within, I can but dream that my vex’d years at last Shall find the quiet of a hermit’s cell:-- And, neighbouring not this hacked and jaded world, Beneath the lambent eyes of the loved stars, And, with the hollow rocks and sparry caves, The tides, and all the many-music’d winds
My oracles and co-mates;--watch my life Glide down the Stream of Knowledge, and behold Its waters with a musing stillness glass The thousand hues of Nature and of Heaven. --From Eugene Aram, a MS. Tragedy.
The Earl continued with the party he had joined; and when their occupation was concluded and they turned homeward, he accepted the Squire’s frank invitation to partake of some refreshment at the Manor-house. It so chanced, or perhaps the Earl so contrived it, that Aram and himself, in their way to the village lingered a little behind the rest, and that their conversation was thus, for a few minutes, not altogether general.