his side--now through the broad waste lands--now through the dim woods,
pausing oft with short quick sigh, with hand swept across his brow as if
to clear away a cloud;--now snatched from our sight by the evergreens
round the tomb in that still churchyard--now emerging slow, with
melancholy eyes fixed on the old roof-tree! What will he do with it?
The Question of Questions, in which all Futurity is opened, has him on
its rack. WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT? Let us see.




CHAPTER IV.

Immunis aram si tetigit manus,
Non sumptuosa blandior hostia,
Mollivit aversas Penates,
Farre pio et saliente mica.--HORAT.

It is the grey of the evening. Fairthorn is sauntering somewhat sullenly
along the banks of the lake. He has missed, the last three days, his
walk with Sophy--missed the pleasing excitement of talking at her, and of
the family in whose obsolete glories he considers her very interest an
obtrusive impertinence. He has missed, too, his more habitual and less
irritating conversation with Darrell. In short, altogether he is put
out, and he vents his spleen on the swans, who follow him along the wave
as he walks along the margin, intimating either their affection for
himself, or their anticipation of the bread-crumbs associated with his
image--by the amiable note, half snort and half grunt, to which change of
time or climate has reduced the vocal accomplishments of those classical
birds, so pathetically melodious in the age of Moschus and on the banks