Dariel: A Romance of Surrey. Blackmore Richard Doddridge

Cran-lee; as if it were spelled with a double e coming after the letter l," said I to her. While to my all abroad self I whispered, "May the kind powers teach her to spell it, by making it her own, while she looks like that."

      For sometimes it is vain to think, and to talk is worse than lunacy. Her attitude and manner now, and her way of looking at me, – as if I were what she might come to like, but would rather know more about it, – and the touches of foreign style (which it is so sweet to domicile), and the exquisite music which her breath made, or it may have been her lips, with our stringy words – I am lost in my sentence, and care not how or why, any more than I cared how I was lost then, so long as it was in Dariel's eyes.

      If Dariel's eyes will find me there, and send me down into her heart, what odds to me of the earth or heaven, the stars, the sun, or the moon itself – wherein I am qualified to walk with her?

      Possibly that sweet Dariel saw, but could not comprehend my catastrophe. She drew back, as if from something strange, and utterly beyond her knowledge. Then she cast down those eyes, that were so upsetting me; and I felt that as yet I had no right to perceive the tint, as of heaven, before the earth has glimpsed the dawn, which awoke in welcome wonder on the wavering of her face. See it I did however, and a glow went through me.

      Who can measure time when time acts thus? Kuban arose, as if his wounds were all a sham, or as if we at least were taking them in that light, and hating – as a good dog always does – to play second fiddle, turned his eyes from one to the other of the twain, in a manner so tragic that we both began to laugh. And when Dariel laughed, there could be nothing more divine, unless it were Dariel crying.

      "Oh, how he does love you, Mr. Cran-lee!" she exclaimed with a little pout, pretending to be vexed. "What a wicked dog he is to depart from his mind so! Why, he always used to think that there was nobody like me."

      "If he would only think that I am like you, or at any rate try to make you like me, what a blessed animal he would be!" This I said with pathos, and vainly looking at her.

      "I am not very strong of the English language yet. It has so many words that are of turns incomprehensible. And when one thinks to have learned them all, behold they are quite different! To you I seem to speak it very, very far from native."

      "To me you seem to speak it so that it is full of music, of soft clear sounds, and melody, that no English voice can make of it. It is like the nightingale I heard when first – I mean one summer evening long ago; only your voice is sweeter."

      "Is it? Then I am glad, because my father hears it always. And he knows everything I think, before I have time to tell him. And he can speak the English well, – as well as those who were born in it. Seven different languages he can speak. Oh, how he is learned! To hear me talk is nothing – nothing – folly, trifles, nothing more than deficiency of wisdom, and yet of himself he thinks no more, perhaps not so much as you do."

      "I think nothing of myself at all. How can I, when I am with you? Yet a great many different people think highly of me, and I do my best to deserve it." This was no vain word, although it is not like my usual manner to repeat it.

      "I am glad of that," she answered simply, looking with kind approval at me; and I saw that her own clear nature led her to believe everything she heard. "That is the proper way for people, and as the good Lord intended. But how long we have been discoursing, without anything to be said, while the dusk of the night is approaching! It is my father beyond all doubt whom you have come by this long road to see. And he has been desiring for many days to obtain the privilege of seeing you; not only that he may return his thanks, but to learn that you did not receive a wound; for he says that the wound of a dog is very dangerous in this country."

      "Yes, I did receive a wound, and a bad one rather," – how mean of me it was to speak like this! Although I was telling the simple truth, for there was a deep gash all down my left forearm. "But I would gladly receive a hundred wounds, for the sake of anything that you loved. For what am I? Who could find any good in me, compared with you, or even with Kuban?"

      But this fine appeal to the tender emotions did not obtain any success that time. If the pity, so ignobly fished for, felt any tendency to move, it took good care not to show itself in the fountains watched by me.

      "Mr. Cran-lee speaks much from his good-will to please. For there must be good in him, even to compare with Kuban, if a great many people think highly of him, and he does his best to deserve it. But is it not the best thing to hasten at once with this very bad wound to the one who can cure it? Let us waste no more time, but go at once to meet my father."

      There was no getting out of this; and I said to myself that Miss Dariel was not quite so soft after all. What had she told me about herself? Nothing. How much about her father? Very little. And here was I being towed off to him, when I wanted to talk with her, study her, make way with her, find out whether there was any other villain in pursuit of her marvellous attractions, – in a word, make my best love to her.

      But this was the very thing she would not have at present; and I felt like a man tumbling out of a tree, through making too lofty a grab at the fruit. So I fell into the opposite extreme of manner, to make it come home to her that I was hurt. This was another mistake; because, as I came to understand long afterwards, the feminine part of mankind is never struck all of a heap, as we are. If you will only think twice, you will see that it never could be expected. For drop as we may – and the ladies too often call upon us now to drop it – the sense that is inborn in us, of a purer and higher birth in them, which they kept and exalted by modesty – even if at their own demand we let fall every atom of that, and endeavour to regard them as bipeds on a wheel, with limbs rounder than our own, – I say that we ought to try still to regard them as better than ourselves, though they will not have it so. And what could say more for their modesty?

      I looked at Dariel, and saw that she was not thinking of me at all, except as a matter of business. And fearing to have gone too far, I tried to behave in every way as a well-conducted stranger. This put her into a friendly state of mind, and even more than that. For it was now her place to be hospitable; and I displayed such bashfulness, that believing her father to be the greatest man on earth, she concluded that I was terribly afraid of him.

      "You must not be uneasy about meeting him;" she spoke in a voice as gentle as the whisper of the wind in May, when it tempts a young lamb to say "Ba!" "I assure you, Mr. Cran-lee, although he can be very stern with persons at all wicked, to those who are upright and good, he is a great deal less austere and rigid than even I am. And I am afraid that you have discovered much harshness in my character, for you appear to dread a walk with me."

      I had fallen behind as we approached the door, partly to show my humility, and partly to admire the grace and true perfection of her slender figure in motion. English girls may have lovely figures, but none of them can walk like that.

      "No," I said after some delay, to make her turn her head again, and repeat that look of penitence; "you have been as kind as I could expect, perhaps more kind than the ladies of your country are to a mere stranger."

      If ever I deserved a good hearty kick, and too often that has been my merit, here was a solid occasion for it. She stopped and spread both hands to me, and looked at me with her clear chin raised, and trembling lips, and soft dark eyes, whose radiant depths appeared to thrill with tender sorrow and self-reproach. What eyes to tell the tale of love, to the happy man who shall inspire it!

      No dawn was there now of any warmth, but light alone, the light of kindliness and good-will, and the tranquil beams of gratitude. What more could I expect as yet, though myself in such a hurry?

      "What a beautiful place! I had no idea that it would be like this."

      I spoke as we stood within the wall, for the maiden now seemed timid. "Why, I must have lost my wits altogether, when I was here the other day, for I do not remember a bit of this. What a wonderful man your father is! What taste, and skill, and knowledge! But it must have taken him many years to bring it into this condition. It was nothing but a pile of ruins, inside an old ruinous wall, at the time when I used to come home from Winton. And how beautifully it is laid out! I should like to know who planned it. Why you must have quite a number of men to keep it in such order. It is almost like a dream to me. But