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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
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- After a little further waiting for him, Mrs. Glendinning heard Pierre's
voice--"Yes, before eight o'clock at least, Lucy--no fear;" and then the
hall door banged, and Pierre returned to her.
But now she found that this unforeseen visit of Lucy had completely
routed all business capacity in her mercurial son; fairly capsizing him
again into, there was no telling what sea of pleasant pensiveness.
"Dear me! some other time, sister Mary."
"Not this time; that is very certain, Pierre. Upon my word I shall have
to get Lucy kidnapped, and temporarily taken out of the country, and you
handcuffed to the table, else there will be no having a preliminary
understanding with you, previous to calling in the lawyers. Well, I
shall yet manage you, one way or other. Good-bye, Pierre; I see you
don't want me now. I suppose I shan't see you till to-morrow morning.
Luckily, I have a very interesting book to read. Adieu!"
But Pierre remained in his chair; his gaze fixed upon the stilly sunset
beyond the meadows, and far away to the now golden hills. A glorious,
softly glorious, and most gracious evening, which seemed plainly a
tongue to all humanity, saying: I go down in beauty to rise in joy; Love
reigns throughout all worlds that sunsets visit; it is a foolish ghost
story; there is no such thing as misery. Would Love, which is
omnipotent, have misery in his domain? Would the god of sunlight decree
gloom? It is a flawless, speckless, fleckless, beautiful world
throughout; joy now, and joy forever!
Then the face, which before had seemed mournfully and reproachfully
looking out upon him from the effulgent sunset's heart; the face slid
from him; and left alone there with his soul's joy, thinking that that
very night he would utter the magic word of marriage to his Lucy; not a
happier youth than Pierre Glendinning sat watching that day's sun go
down.
IV.
After this morning of gayety, this noon of tragedy, and this evening so
full of chequered pensiveness; Pierre now possessed his soul in joyful
mildness and steadfastness; feeling none of that wild anguish of
anticipative rapture, which, in weaker minds, too often dislodges Love's
sweet bird from her nest.
The early night was warm, but dark--for the moon was not risen yet--and
as Pierre passed on beneath the pendulous canopies of the long arms of
the weeping elms of the village, an almost impenetrable blackness
surrounded him, but entered not the gently illuminated halls of his
heart. He had not gone very far, when in the distance beyond, he noticed
a light moving along the opposite side of the road, and slowly
approaching. As it was the custom for some of the more elderly, and
perhaps timid inhabitants of the village, to carry a lantern when going
abroad of so dark a night, this object conveyed no impression of novelty
to Pierre; still, as it silently drew nearer and nearer, the one only
distinguishable thing before him, he somehow felt a nameless
presentiment that the light must be seeking him. He had nearly gained
the cottage door, when the lantern crossed over toward him; and as his
nimble hand was laid at last upon the little wicket-gate, which he
thought was now to admit him to so much delight; a heavy hand was laid
upon himself, and at the same moment, the lantern was lifted toward his
face, by a hooded and obscure-looking figure, whose half-averted
countenance he could but indistinctly discern. But Pierre's own open
aspect, seemed to have been quickly scrutinized by the other.
"I have a letter for Pierre Glendinning," said the stranger, "and I
believe this is he." At the same moment, a letter was drawn forth, and
sought his hand.
"For me!" exclaimed Pierre, faintly, starting at the strangeness of the
encounter;--"methinks this is an odd time and place to deliver your
mail;--who are you?--Stay!"
- title
- Chunk 12