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No European could realize so fully in his own life the ideal of a European dilettante in all the meaning of that cheapened word; as no European could so deeply and tenderly feel the sweetness and loveliness of the English past as the sick American, Searle, in "The Passionate Pilgrim."
We made our way out of the gardens into the adjoining village, where we entered an inn which I pronounced, very sincerely, exactly what we wanted. Mr. Searle had approached our board as shyly as if it had been a cold bath; but, gradually warming to his work, he declared at the end of half an hour that for the first time in a month he enjoyed his victuals.
It was impossible to withstand such treatment. Monsignor Talbot was extremely surprised. 'Your greatest enemies have entirely come round, he wrote. 'I received the other day a panegyric of you from Searle.
I never shall regret it! I did the only thing I COULD, heaven forgive me!" "Heaven bless you, Miss Searle! Is any harm to come of it? I did the evil; let me bear the brunt!" She shook her head gravely. "You don't know my brother!" "The sooner I master the subject the better then," I said.
"If I could only tell you!" he said at last. "Do tell me. You must come and stay with us." It moved him to an oddity of mirth. "Take care, take care I should surprise you! I'm afraid I should bore you. I should never leave you." "Oh you'd get homesick for your real home!" At this he was still more amused. "By the way, tell Miss Searle about our real home," he said to me.
I wouldn't have thought " she started, then she shivered in horror, reflecting swiftly on the fate that might have befallen herself and Elsa had they too been captured with Searle.
He was placed with his back to us, holding a large Venetian hand-mirror, framed in chiselled silver, which he had taken from a shelf of antiquities, just at such an angle that he caught the reflexion of his sister's person. It was evident that I too was under his attention, and was resolved I wouldn't be suspected for nothing. "Miss Searle," I said with urgency, "promise me something."
"The very beasts have made him welcome," I noted as we rejoined our companion. "The peacock has done for you, Mr. Searle," said his cousin, "what he does only for very great people. A year ago there came here a great person a grand old lady to see my brother. I don't think that since then he has spread his tail as wide for any one else not by a dozen feathers."
My pot was too nearly empty. At last I came with my empty pot!" Mr. Searle had a wait for delicacy, but he proceeded. "You're reduced, you're a straitened?" Our companion's very breath blew away the veil. "Reduced to nothing. Straitened to the clothes on my back!" "You don't say so!" said Mr. Searle with a large vague gasp.
The shopkeeper corroborated all Captain Searle had told me, and added so many other stories of the character of Captain Hawk and his schooner, that I felt truly glad there was yet time to escape from him. Bad as he might be, there was something in his manner which made me wish not to desert him altogether, without offering him some excuse for my conduct.
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