This sensibility of nature, this fresh and
unworn feeling, in one whom she had believed hardened by scenes of toil
and terror against the perception of beauty,--whom her imagination had
painted to her as _fitter to cross the Alps, than to luxuriate in
Campania_,--touched her deeply. She attempted to reply, but was
unable,--she remembered how her quick susceptibility of nature had
enabled her to sympathize with and improve on the admiration expressed
by others, and she wondered at her silence, for she knew not its cause. “As they approached the Castle, the scene became glorious beyond the
imagination of a painter, whose eye has dreamed of sun-set in foreign
climes. The vast edifice lay buried in shade,--all its varied and
strongly charactered features of tower and pinnacle, bartizan and
battlement, were melted into one dense and sombrous mass. The distant
hills, with their conical summits, were still clearly defined in the
dark-blue heaven, and their peaks still retained a hue of purple so
brilliant and lovely, that it seemed as if the light had loved to linger
there, and, parting, had left that tint as the promise of a glorious
morning. The woods that surrounded the Castle stood as dark, and
apparently as solid as itself. Sometimes a gleam like gold trembled over
the tufted foliage of their summits, and at length, through a glade
which opened among the dark and massive boles of the ancient trees, one
last rich and gorgeous flood of light burst in, turned every blade of
grass it touched into emerald for a moment,--paused on its lovely
work--and parted. The effect was so instantaneous, brilliant, and
evanishing, that Elinor had scarce time for a half uttered exclamation,
as she extended her arm in the direction where the light had fallen so
brightly and so briefly. She raised her eyes to her companion, in that
full consciousness of perfect sympathy that make words seem like
counters, compared to the sterling gold of a heart-minted look. Her
companion had turned towards it too. He neither uttered exclamation, nor
pointed with finger,--he smiled, and his countenance was as that of an
angel. It seemed to reflect and answer the last bright farewell of day,
as if friends had parted smiling at each other. It was not alone the
lips that smiled,--the eyes, the cheeks, every feature had its share in
that effulgent light that was diffused over his aspect, and all combined
to make that harmony to the eye, which is often as deliciously
perceptible, as the combination of the most exquisite voices with the
most perfect modulation, is to the ear. To the last hour of her mortal
existence, that smile, and the scene where it was _uttered_, were
engraved on the heart of Elinor. It announced at once a spirit, that,
like the ancient statue, answered every ray of light that fell on it
with a voice of melody, and blended the triumph of the glories of nature
with the profound and tender felicities of the heart. They spoke no more
during the remainder of their walk, but there was more eloquence in
their silence than in many words. * * * * * *

“It was almost night before they arrived at the Castle. Mrs Ann received
her distinguished kinsman with stately cordiality, and affection mingled
with pride. Margaret welcomed him rather as the hero than the relative;
and John, after the ceremonies of introduction, turned to repose himself
on the smile of Elinor. They had arrived just at the time when the
chaplain was about to read the evening prayers,--a form so strictly
adhered to at the Castle, that not even the arrival of a stranger was
permitted to interfere with its observance. Elinor watched this moment
with peculiar solicitude;--her religious feelings were profound, and
amid all the young hero’s vivid display of the gentlest affections, and
purest sensibilities by which our wretched existence can be enhanced or
beautified, she still dreaded that religion, the companion of deep
thought and solemn habits, might wander far for an abode before it
settled in the heart of a sailor. The last doubt passed from her mind,
as she beheld the intense but silent devotion with which John mingled in
the family rite. There is something very ennobling in the sight of male
piety. To see that lofty form, that never bowed to man, bowed to the
earth to God,--to behold the knee, whose joints would be as adamant
under the influence of mortal force or threat, as flexible as those of
infancy in the presence of the Almighty,--to see the locked and lifted
hands, to hear the fervent aspiration, to feel the sound of the mortal
weapon as it drags on the floor beside the kneeling warrior,--these are
things that touch the senses and the heart at once, and suggest the
awful and affecting image of all physical energy prostrate before the
power of the Divinity. Elinor watched him even to the forgetfulness of
her own devotions;--and when his white hands, that seemed never formed
to grasp a weapon of destruction, were clasped in devotion, and one of
them slightly and occasionally raised to part the redundant curls that
shaded his face as he knelt, she thought that she beheld at once angelic
strength and angelic purity. “When the service concluded, Mrs Ann, after repeating her solemn welcome
to her nephew, could not help expressing her satisfaction at the
devotion he had showed; but she mingled with that expression a kind of
incredulity, that men accustomed to toil and peril could ever have
devotional feelings. John Sandal bowed to the congratulatory part of Mrs
Ann’s speech, and, resting one hand on his short sword, and with the
other removing the thick ringlets of his luxuriant hair, he stood before
them a hero in deed, and a boy in form. A blush overspread his young
features, as he said, in accents at once emphatic and tremulous, “Dear
Aunt, why should you accuse those of neglecting the protection of the
Almighty who need it most. They who “go down to the sea in ships, and
occupy their business in the great waters,” have the best right to feel,
in their hour of peril, “it is but the wind and the storm fulfilling his
word.” A seaman without a belief and hope in God, is worse off than a
seaman without chart or pilot.”

“As he spoke with that trembling eloquence that makes conviction be felt
almost before it is heard, Mrs Ann held out to him her withered but
still snow-white hand to kiss. Margaret presented hers also, like a
heroine to a feudal knight; and Elinor turned aside, and wept in
delicious agony. * * * * * * * *

“When we set ourselves resolutely to discover perfection in a character,
we are always sure to find it. But Elinor needed little aid from the
pencil of imagination to colour the object that had been stamped by an
ineffaceable touch upon her heart. Her kinsman’s character and temper
developed themselves slowly, or rather were developed by external and
accidental causes; for a diffidence almost feminine prevented his ever
saying much,--and when he did, himself was the last theme he touched on.