Chapter 16

A Rumour

Through the passing of two years Osmonde's foot did not press English
soil again, and his existence during that period was more vivid and
changeful than it had ever been before. He saw Ramillies follow
Blenheim, great Marlborough attain the height of renown, and French
Louis's arrogant ambitions end in downfall and defeat. Life in both
camp and Court he knew at its highest tension, brilliant scenes he
beheld, strange ones, wicked ones, and lived a life so eventful and
full of motion and excitement that there were few men who through its
picturesque adventures would have been like to hold in mind one image
and one thought. Yet this he did, telling himself that 'twas the
thought which held him, not he the thought, it having been proven in
the past 'twas one which would not have released him from its dominion
even had he been inclined to withdraw himself from it. And this he was
not. Nature had so built him, that on the day when he had found himself
saying, "In two years' time I will come back to Gloucestershire and see
what time has wrought," he had reached a point from which there was no
retreating. Through many an hour in time past there had been turmoil in
his mind, but in a measure, at least, this ended the uncertainties, and
was no rash outburst but a resolve. It had not been made lightly, but
had been like a plant which had grown from a seed, long hidden in dark
earth and slowly fructifying till at last summer rain and warming sun
had caused it to burst forth from its prison, a thing promising full
fruit and flower. For long he had not even known the seed was in the
soil; he had felt its stirrings before he had believed in its
existence, and then one day the earth had broke and he had seen its
life and known what its strength might be. 'Twould be of wondrous
strength, he knew, and of wondrous beauty if no frost should blight nor
storm uproot it.

In its freedom from all tendency to plaything-sentiments and trivial
romances, his youth had been unlike the youth of other men. Being man
and young, he had known temptation, but had disdained it; being also
proud and perhaps haughty in his fastidiousness, and being strong, he
had thrust base and light things aside. He had held in his brain a
fancy from his boyhood, and singularly enough it had but grown stronger
and become more fully formed with his own strength and increase of
years. 'Twas a strange fancy indeed to fit the time he lived in, but
'twas his choice. The woman whose eyes held the answer to the question
his own soul asked, and whose being asked the question to which his own
replied, would bring great and deep joy to him--others did not count in
his existence--and for her he had waited and longed, sometimes so