wo actors in this courtly pantomime. They turned
their heads, and beheld the hope of Raynham on horseback surveying the
scene. The next moment he had galloped away.

CHAPTER XIV

All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a rapid canter,
and his brain bestriding it, traversing the rich untasted world, and
the great Realm of Mystery, from which he was now restrained no longer.
Months he had wandered about the gates of the Bonnet, wondering,
sighing, knocking at them, and getting neither admittance nor answer.
He had the key now. His own father had given it to him. His heart was a
lightning steed, and bore him on and on over limitless regions bathed
in superhuman beauty and strangeness, where cavaliers and ladies leaned
whispering upon close green swards, and knights and ladies cast a
splendour upon savage forests, and tilts and tourneys were held in
golden courts lit to a glorious day by ladies' eyes, one pair of which,
dimly visioned, constantly distinguishable, followed him through the
boskage and dwelt upon him in the press, beaming while he bent above
a hand glittering white and fragrant as the frosted blossom of a May
night.

Awhile the heart would pause and flutter to a shock: he was in the act
of consummating all earthly bliss by pressing his lips to the small
white hand. Only to do that, and die! cried the Magnetic Youth: to fling
the Jewel of Life into that one cup and drink it off! He was intoxicated
by anticipation. For that he was born. There was, then, some end in
existence, something to live for! to kiss a woman's hand, and die! He
would leap from the couch, and rush to pen and paper to relieve his
swarming sensations. Scarce was he seated when the pen was dashed aside,
the paper sent flying with the exclamation, "Have I not sworn I would
never write again?" Sir Austin had shut that safety-valve. The nonsense
that was in the youth might have poured harmlessly out, and its urgency
for ebullition was so great that he was repeatedly oblivious of his
oath, and found himself seated under the lamp in the act of composition
before pride could speak a word. Possibly the pride even of Richard
Feverel had been swamped if the act of composition were easy at such a
time, and a single idea could stand clearly foremost; but myriads were
demanding the first place; chaotic hosts, like ranks of stormy billows,
pressed impetuously for expression, and despair of reducing them to
form, quite as much as prid