He stopt, terrified at his own presumption; but the looks of Indiana
were never more beautiful, and never less formidable. A milder doom,
therefore, seemed suddenly to burst upon his view. Elated and
enraptured, he vehemently exclaimed: 'Oh, were my lot not irrevocably
miserable! were the smallest ray of light to beam upon my
despondence!'--
Indiana still spoke not a word, but she withdrew not her smiles; and the
enraptured student, lifted into the highest bliss by the permission
even of a doubt, walked on, transported, by her side, too happy in
suspence to wish an explanation.
In this manner they proceeded, till they were joined by Dr. Marchmont.
The task he had attempted was beyond his power of performance; Miss
Margland was inexorable; she declared nothing should induce her to go a
step towards the field inhabited by the bull, and every assurance of
safety the Doctor could urge was ineffectual.
He next assailed Indiana; but her first terror, soothed by the
compassion and admiration of Melmond, was now revived, and she
protested, almost with tears, that to go within a hundred yards of that
dreadful meadow would make her undoubtedly faint away. The tender
commiseration of Melmond confirmed her apprehensions, and she soon
looked upon Dr. Marchmont as a barbarian for making the proposal.
The Doctor then commended them to the care of Lionel, and returned with
this repulse to Sir Hugh.
The baronet, incapable of being angry with any one he conceived to be
frightened, said they should be pressed no more, for he would give up
going to the cottage, and put his best foot forward to walk on to them
himself; adding he was so overjoyed to have got rid of that young spark,
that he had no fear but that he, and poor Eugenia, too, should both do
as well as they could.
They proceeded very slowly, the baronet leaning upon Dr. Marchmont, and
Eugenia upon Dr. Orkborne, who watchful, with no small alarm, of the
behaviour of the only man he had yet seen with any internal respect,
since he left the university, sacrificed completely his notes and his
tablets to emulate his attentions.
When they approached the church-yard, in which Miss Margland and her
party had halted, Sir Hugh perceived Bellamy. He stopt short, calling
out, with extreme chagrin, 'Lord help us! what a thing it is to rejoice!
which one never knows the right season to do, on the score of meeting
with disappointments!'
Then, after a little meditation, 'There is but one thing,' he cried, 'to
be done, which is to guard from the first against any more mischief,
having already had enough of it for one morning, not to say more than I
could have wished by half: So do you, good Dr. Marchmont, take Eugenia
under your own care, and I'll make shift with Dr. Orkborne for myself;
for, in the case he should take again to writing or thinking, it will be
nothing to me to keep still till he has done; provided it should happen
at a place where I can sit down.'