--But hark to
Woodcock's whistle again. Come, and I will teach you all the trick
on't as we go on."
"I thank you," said Roland Graeme, endeavouring to assume an air of
indifference and of superiority; "but I have another path before me,
and were it otherwise, I could not tread in yours."
"Very true, Master Roland," replied the clown; "and every man knows
his own matters best, and so I will not keep you from the path, as you
say. Give us a grip of your hand, man, for auld lang syne.--What! not
clap palms ere we part?--well, so be it--a wilful man will have his
way, and so farewell, and the blessing of the morning to you."
"Good-morrow--good-morrow," said Roland, hastily; and the clown walked
lightly off, whistling as he went, and glad, apparently, to be rid of
an acquaintance, whose claims might be troublesome, and who had no
longer the means to be serviceable to him.
Roland Graeme compelled himself to walk on while they were within
sight of each other that his former intimate might not augur any
vacillation of purpose, or uncertainty of object, from his remaining
on the same spot; but the effort was a painful one. He seemed stunned,
as it were, and giddy; the earth on which he stood felt as if unsound,
and quaking under his feet like the surface of a bog; and he had once
or twice nearly fallen, though the path he trode was of firm
greensward. He kept resolutely moving forward, in spite of the
internal agitation to which these symptoms belonged, until the distant
form of his acquaintance disappeared behind the slope of a hill, when
his heart failed at once; and, sitting down on the turf, remote from
human ken, he gave way to the natural expressions of wounded pride,
grief, and fear, and wept with unrestrained profusion and unqualified
bitterness.
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