“Oh, is it not to leave this--to leave him--maybe forever? To be sure, it's forever,” cried she, bitterly. “He 'll never forgive me!”
A wild burst of revelry now resounded from the parlor, and the discordant sounds of half-drunken voices burst upon their ears.
Joan started, and gazed wildly around her. The agonized look of her features bespoke her dread of detection; and then with a bound she sprung madly from the spot, and was away. Mary followed quickly; but before she had secured her horse and mounted, the other was already half-way down the mountain. Now catching, now losing sight of her again, Mary at last came up with her.
“Remember, dear Joan,” said Mary, “there are nine weary miles of mountain before you.”
“And if you go by Burnane the rocks are slippy with the rain, and the path to the shore is full of danger.”
“If I was afeard of danger, would I be here?” cried she. “Oh, Miss Mary,” added she, stopping and grasping her hand in both her own, “leave me to myself; don't come with me,--it's not one like you ought to keep me company.”
“But Joan,--dear Joan,--I have promised to be your friend, and I am not one who forgets a pledge.”
“My heart will break; it will break in two if you talk to me. Leave me, for the love of Heaven, and let me go my road all alone. There, at the two trees there, is the way to Cro' Martin; take it, and may the Saints guide you safe home!”
“And if I do, Joan, will you promise me to come straight back to Cro' Martin after you 've seen him? Will you do this?”
“I will,--I will,” cried she, bathing Mary's hand with her tears as she kissed it.
“Then God bless and protect you, poor girl!” said Mary. “It is not for me to dictate to your own full heart. Goodbye,--good-bye.”
Before Mary had dried the warm tears that rose to her eyes, Joan was gone.
There are few things more puzzling to the uninitiated than the total separation lawyers are able to exercise between their private sentiments and the emotions they display in the wear and tear of their profession. So widely apart are these two characters, that it is actually difficult to understand how they ever can unite in one man. But so it is. He can pass his morning in the most virulent assaults upon his learned brother, ridiculing his law, laughing at his logic, arraigning his motives,--nay, sometimes ascribing to him some actually base and wicked. Altercations, heightened by all that passion stimulated by wit can produce, ensue. Nothing that can taunt, provoke, or irritate, is omitted. Personalities even are introduced to swell the acrimony of the contest; and yet, when the jury have given in their verdict and the court breaks up, the gladiators, who seemed only thirsting for each other's blood, are seen laughingly going homeward arm-in-arm, mayhap discoursing over the very cause which, but an hour back, seemed to have stamped them enemies for the rest of life.