ough the storm. And kind and loving were Harold's
looks and brief words, as he rode with vailed bonnet through the swarming
streets.

At length he cleared the town and the bridge; and the yellowing boughs of
the orchards drooped over the road towards the Roman home, when, as he
spurred his steed, he heard behind him hoofs as in pursuit, looked back,
and beheld Haco. He drew rein,--"What wantest thou, my nephew?"

"Thee!" answered Haco, briefly, as he gained his side. "Thy
companionship."

"Thanks, Haco; but I pray thee to stay in my mother's house, for I would
fain ride alone."

"Spurn me not from thee, Harold! This England is to me the land of the
stranger; in thy mother's house I feel but the more the orphan.
Henceforth I have devoted to thee my life! And my life my dead and dread
father hath left to thee, as a doom or a blessing; wherefore cleave I to
thy side;--cleave we in life and in death to each other!"

An undefined and cheerless thrill shot through the Earl's heart as the
youth spoke thus; and the remembrance that Haco's counsel had first
induced him to abandon his natural hardy and gallant manhood, meet wile
by wile, and thus suddenly entangle him in his own meshes, had already
mingled an inexpressible bitterness with his pity and affection for his
brother's son. But, struggling against that uneasy sentiment, as unjust
towards one to whose counsel--however sinister, and now repented--he
probably owed, at least, his safety and deliverance, he replied gently:

"I accept thy trust and thy love, Haco! Ride with me, then; but pardon a
dull comrade, for when the soul communes with itself the lip is silent."

"True," said Haco, "and I am no babbler. Three things are ever silent:
Thought, Destiny, and the Grave."

Each then, pursuing his own fancies, rode on fast, and side by side; the
long shadows of declining day struggling with a sky of unusual
brightness, and thrown from the dim forest trees and the distant
hillocks. Alternately through shade and through light rode they on; the
bulls gazing on them from holt and glade, and the boom of the bittern
sounding in its peculiar mournfulness of toile as it rose from the dank
pools that glistened in the western sun.

It was always by the rear of the house, where stood the ruined temple, so
associated with the romance of his life, that Harold approached the home
of the Vala; and as now the hillock, with its melancholy diadem of
stones, came in view, Haco