cup
from the wine flagon, "me seemeth that, if the mistake could continue,
it would be no weighty misfortune; ha! ha!" He stopped abruptly in the
unwonted laughter, put down the cup; his face fell. "Ah, Heaven forgive
me!--and the poor Eureka and faithful Madge!"

"Oh, Father! fear not; we are not without protection. Lord Hastings is
returned to London,--we will seek him; he will make our cruel neighbours
respect thee. And Madge--poor Madge!--will be so happy at our return,
for they could not harm her,--a woman, old and alone; no, no, man is not
fierce enough for that."

"Let us so pray; but thou eatest not, child."

"Anon, Father, anon; I am sick and weary. But, nay--nay, I am better
now,--better. Smile again, Father. I am hungered, too; yes, indeed and
in sooth, yes. Ah, sweet Saint Mary, give me life and strength, and hope
and patience, for his dear sake!"

The stirring events which had within the last few weeks diversified
the quiet life of the scholar had somewhat roused him from his wonted
abstraction, and made the actual world a more sensible and living thing
than it had hitherto seemed to his mind; but now, his repast ended, the
quiet of the place (for the inn was silent and almost deserted) with the
fumes of the wine--a luxury he rarely tasted--operated soothingly upon
his thought and fancy, and plunged him into those reveries, so dear
alike to poet and mathematician. To the thinker the most trifling
external object often suggests ideas, which, like Homer's chain, extend,
link after link; from earth to heaven. The sunny motes, that in a
glancing column came through the lattice, called Warner from the real
day,--the day of strife and blood, with thousands hard by driving each
other to the Hades,--and led his scheming fancy into the ideal and
abstract day,--the theory of light itself; and the theory suggested
mechanism, and mechanism called up the memory of his oracle, old Roger
Bacon; and that memory revived the great friar's hints in the Opus
magnus,--hints which outlined the grand invention of the telescope; and
so, as over some dismal precipice a bird swings itself to and fro upon
the airy bough, the schoolman's mind played with its quivering fancy,
and folded its calm wings above the verge of terror.

Occupied with her own dreams, Sibyll respected those of her father; and
so in silence, not altogether mournful, the morning and the noon passed,
and the sun was sloping westward, when a confused sound belo