"I do not by any means acknowledge that impossibility," responded Redclyffe, with a smile. "I certainly feel that sentiment very strongly in my own breast, more especially since I have left America three thousand miles behind me."
Again Redclyffe was struck with the impression that there was something marked, something individually addressed to himself, in the old man's words; at any rate, it appealed to that primal imaginative vein in him which had so often, in his own country, allowed itself to dream over the possibilities of his birth. He knew that the feeling was a vague and idle one; but yet, just at this time, a convalescent, with a little play moment in what had heretofore been a turbulent life, he felt an inclination to follow out this dream, and let it sport with him, and by and by to awake to realities, refreshed by a season of unreality. At a firmer and stronger period of his life, though Redclyffe might have indulged his imagination with these dreams, yet he would not have let them interfere with his course of action; but having come hither in utter weariness of active life, it seemed just the thing for him to do,--just the fool's paradise for him to be in.
"Did you observe that man?" asked the Warden.
In front of the church was a little green, on which stood a very ancient yew tree, [Endnote: 2] all the heart of which seemed to have been eaten away by time, so that a man could now creep into the trunk, through a wide opening, and, looking upward, see another opening to the sky.
She indicated a flat gravestone, near the porch, which time had indeed beautified in a singular way, for there was cut deep into it a name and date, in old English characters, very deep it must originally have been; and as if in despair of obliterating it, Time had taken the kindlier method of filling up the letters with moss; so that now, high embossed in loveliest green, was seen the name "Richard Oglethorpe 1613";--green, and flourishing, and beautiful, like the memory of a good man. The inscription originally seemed to have contained some twenty lines, which might have been poetry, or perhaps a prose eulogy, or perhaps the simple record of the buried person's life; but all this, having been done in fainter and smaller letters, was now so far worn away as to be illegible; nor had they ever been deep enough to be made living in moss, like the rest of the inscription.
"Accept it?" cried the Warden, opening his eyes. "I should think so, indeed! Why, it puts you above the level of the highest nobility of the Court to which you are accredited; simple republican as you are, it gives you rank with the old blood and birth of Europe. Accept it? By all means; and I will come and see you at your court."
"These plants and shrubs," returned Redclyffe, "seem at all events to recognize the goodness of your rule, so far as it has extended over them. See how joyfully they take the sun; how clear [they are] from all these vices that lie scattered round, in the shape of weeds. It is a lovely sight, and I could almost fancy a quiet enjoyment in the plants themselves, which they have no way of making us aware of, except by giving out a fragrance."
"Not at all," said Redclyffe. "I know Lord Braithwaite by sight, indeed, but have had no introduction. He is a man, certainly, of distinguished appearance."