A Pair of Blue Eyes | Page 5

two or three additional hours had merged the same afternoon in
evening, some moving outlines might have been observed against the
sky on the summit of a wild lone hill in that district. They
circumscribed two men, having at present the aspect of silhouettes,
sitting in a dog-cart and pushing along in the teeth of the wind.
Scarcely a solitary house or man had been visible along the whole
dreary distance of open country they were traversing; and now that
night had begun to fall, the faint twilight, which still gave an idea of the
landscape to their observation, was enlivened by the quiet appearance
of the planet Jupiter, momentarily gleaming in intenser brilliancy in
front of them, and by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from his
position over their shoulders. The only lights apparent on earth were
some spots of dull red, glowing here and there upon the distant hills,
which, as the driver of the vehicle gratuitously remarked to the hirer,
were smouldering fires for the consumption of peat and gorse-roots,
where the common was being broken up for agricultural purposes. The
wind prevailed with but little abatement from its daytime
boisterousness, three or four small clouds, delicate and pale, creeping
along under the sky southward to the Channel.
Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway terminus
and the end of their journey had been gone over, when they began to
pass along the brink of a valley some miles in extent, wherein the
wintry skeletons of a more luxuriant vegetation than had hitherto
surrounded them proclaimed an increased richness of soil, which
showed signs of far more careful enclosure and management than had
any slopes they had yet passed. A little farther, and an opening in the

elms stretching up from this fertile valley revealed a mansion.
'That's Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' said the driver.
'Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' repeated the other mechanically.
He then turned himself sideways, and keenly scrutinized the almost
invisible house with an interest which the indistinct picture itself
seemed far from adequate to create. 'Yes, that's Lord Luxellian's,' he
said yet again after a while, as he still looked in the same direction.
'What, be we going there?'
'No; Endelstow Vicarage, as I have told you.'
'I thought you m't have altered your mind, sir, as ye have stared that
way at nothing so long.'
'Oh no; I am interested in the house, that's all.'
'Most people be, as the saying is.'
'Not in the sense that I am.'
'Oh!...Well, his family is no better than my own, 'a b'lieve.'
'How is that?'
'Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in ancient times one of 'em,
when he was at work, changed clothes with King Charles the Second,
and saved the king's life. King Charles came up to him like a common
man, and said off-hand, "Man in the smock-frock, my name is Charles
the Second, and that's the truth on't. Will you lend me your clothes?" "I
don't mind if I do," said Hedger Luxellian; and they changed there and
then. "Now mind ye," King Charles the Second said, like a common
man, as he rode away, "if ever I come to the crown, you come to court,
knock at the door, and say out bold, 'Is King Charles the Second at
home?' Tell your name, and they shall let you in, and you shall be made
a lord." Now, that was very nice of Master Charley?'

'Very nice indeed.'
'Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne; and some years after
that, away went Hedger Luxellian, knocked at the king's door, and
asked if King Charles the Second was in. "No, he isn't," they said.
"Then, is Charles the Third?" said Hedger Luxellian. "Yes," said a
young feller standing by like a common man, only he had a crown on,
"my name is Charles the Third." And----'
'I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don't recollect anything in
English history about Charles the Third,' said the other in a tone of mild
remonstrance.
'Oh, that's right history enough, only 'twasn't prented; he was rather a
queer-tempered man, if you remember.'
'Very well; go on.'
'And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and
everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a most
terrible row with King Charles the Fourth
'I can't stand Charles the Fourth. Upon my word, that's too much.'
'Why? There was a George the Fourth, wasn't there?'
'Certainly.'
'Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. However I'll say no more
about it....Ah, well! 'tis the funniest world ever I lived in--upon my life
'tis. Ah, that such should be!'
The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed, and
the outline