To say the truth, he questioned within himself whether it were not better
to get as quickly as he could out of the vicinity; and, at any rate, not
to put anything of earnest in what had hitherto been nothing more than a
romance to him. There was something very dark and sinister in the events
of family history, which now assumed a reality that they had never before
worn; so much tragedy, so much hatred, had been thrown into that deep
pit, and buried under the accumulated debris, the fallen leaves, the rust
and dust of more than two centuries, that it seemed not worth while to
dig it up; for perhaps the deadly influences, which it had taken so much
time to hide, might still be lurking there, and become potent if he now
uncovered them. There was something that startled him, in the strange,
wild light, which gleamed from the old man's eyes, as he threw out the
suggestions which had opened this prospect to him. What right had he--an
American, Republican, disconnected with this country so long, alien from
its habits of thought and life, reverencing none of the things which
Englishmen reverenced--what right had he to come with these musty claims
from the dim past, to disturb them in the life that belonged to them?
There was a higher and a deeper law than any connected with ancestral
claims which he could assert; and he had an idea that the law bade him
keep to the country which his ancestor had chosen and to its
institutions, and not meddle nor make with England. The roots of his
family tree could not reach under the ocean; he was at most but a
seedling from the parent tree. While thus meditating he found that his
footsteps had brought him unawares within sight of the old manor-house of
Smithell's; and that he was wandering in a path which, if he followed it
further, would bring him to an entrance in one of the wings of the
mansion. With a sort of shame upon him, he went forward, and, leaning
against a tree, looked at what he considered the home of his ancestors.