The early matin prime, she was wont to say, was always her brightest hour, but it found her, on the present occasion, white and worn, not with her long vigil, but because it was “borne in upon her,” as poor Joanna used to say, that her son and she must part for his own good:  so soon as the spring should come she would bid him go.  London, where all was prudence and constraint, was no place to win the bride she sought for him.  He should go forth into the country, where even heiresses were still girls, and win her, as troubadour of old, but with sketch-book in hand instead of harp.  Not a promising scheme, one might say; but then, what schemes for a young man’s future, who has no money, are promising nowadays?  Moreover, it could be said of it (as can not be often said) that, such as it was, her Richard was by nature adapted for it; and—­though this was a less satisfactory reflection—­was adapted for nothing else.

CHAPTER XI.

THE GUIDE TO GETHIN.

It is the spring-time, that time of all the year when those “in city pent” desire most to leave it, if only for a day or two, and breathe the air of the mountain or the sea; the time when the freshest incense arises from the great altar of Nature, and all men would come to worship at it if they could.  Even the old, who so far from the East have traveled that they have well-nigh forgotten their priesthood, feel the sacred longing; in their sluggish blood there still beats a pulse in spring-time, as the sap stirs in the ancient tree; but the young turn to the open fields with rapture, and drink the returning sunbeams in like wine.  To draw breath beneath the broad sky is to them an intoxication, and the very air kisses their cheek like the red lips of love.

With his face set ever southward or westward, Richard Yorke has traveled afoot for days, nor yet has tired; neither coach nor train has carried him, and all the luggage that he possesses is in the knapsack on his back, to which is strapped his sketch-book, like a shield.  He is striding across a heath-clad moor, with stony ridges, and here and there a distant mine-chimney—­a desolate barren scene enough, but with sunshine, and a breeze from the unseen sea.  It is classic ground, for here, or hereabouts, twelve centuries ago, was fought “that last weird battle in the west,” wherein King Arthur perished, and many a gallant knight, Lancelot, or Galahad, may have pricked across that Cornish moor before him on a less promising quest than even his.  How silent and how solitary it was; for even what men were near were underground, and not a roof to be seen any where, nor track of man nor beast, nor even a tree.  There had been men enough, and beasts and trees too, in old times—­heathen and ravening creatures, and huge forests; but it seemed, as the wayfarer looked around him, as though all things had been as he now beheld them from the beginning of creation.  Richard, artist though he was by calling, had not the soul to take pleasure in a picture for the filling in of which so much imagination was required; and he turned aside to one of the stony hills, and climbed it, in hopes to see some dwelling-place of man.  He was gregarious by nature, and, besides, he was in want of his mid-day meal.