fate had so long tortured him; and yet, never had Roland appeared so
free from sorrow! Was it natural, was it effort? Several days passed
before I could answer that question, and then not wholly to my
satisfaction. Effort there was, or rather resolute, systematic
determination. At moments Roland's head drooped, his brows met, and the
whole man seemed to sink. Yet these were only moments; he would rouse
himself up, like a dozing charger at the sound of the trumpet, and shake
off the creeping weight. But whether from the vigor of his
determination, or from some aid in other trains of reflection, I could
not but perceive that Roland's sadness really was less grave and bitter
than it had been, or than it was natural to suppose. He seemed to
transfer, daily, more and more, his affections from the dead to those
around him, especially to Blanche and myself. He let it be seen that he
looked on me now as his lawful successor,--as the future supporter of
his name; he was fond of confiding to me all his little plans, and
consulting me on them. He would walk with me around his domains (of
which I shall say more hereafter),--point out, from every eminence we
climbed, where the broad lands which his forefathers had owned stretched
away to the horizon: unfold with tender hand the mouldering pedigree,
and rest lingeringly on those of his ancestors who had held martial post
or had died on the field. There was a crusader who had followed Richard
to Ascalon; there was a knight who had fought at Agincourt: there was a
cavalier (whose picture was still extant), with fair love-locks, who had
fallen at Worcester,--no doubt the same who had cooled his son in that
well which the son devoted to more agreeable associations. But of all
these worthies there was none whom my uncle, perhaps from the spirit of
contradiction, valued like that apocryphal Sir William. And why?
Because when the apostate Stanley turned the fortunes of the field at
Bosworth, and when that cry of despair, "Treason! treason!" burst from
the lips of the last Plantagenet, "amongst the faithless," this true