Chapter 9

"At length, he cries, behold the fated spring!
Yon rugged cliff conceals the fountain blest,
Dark rocks its crystal source o'ershadowing."
-PSYCHE.

The tale now returns to Fanshawe, who, as will be recollected, after
being overtaken by Edward Walcott, was left with little apparent prospect
of aiding in the deliverance of Ellen Langton.

It would be difficult to analyze the feelings with which the student
pursued the chase, or to decide whether he was influenced and animated by
the same hopes of successful love that cheered his rival. That he was
conscious of such hopes, there is little reason to suppose; for the most
powerful minds are not always the best acquainted with their own feelings.
Had Fanshawe, moreover, acknowledged to himself the possibility of gaining
Ellen's affections, his generosity would have induced him to refrain from
her society before it was too late. He had read her character with
accuracy, and had seen how fit she was to love, and to be loved, by a man
who could find his happiness in the common occupations of the world; and
Fanshawe never deceived himself so far as to suppose that this would be
the case with him. Indeed, he often wondered at the passion with which
Ellen's simple loveliness of mind and person had inspired him, and which
seemed to be founded on the principle of contrariety, rather than of
sympathy. It was the yearning of a soul, formed by Nature in a peculiar
mould, for communion with those to whom it bore a resemblance, yet of whom
it was not. But there was no reason to suppose that Ellen, who differed
from the multitude only as being purer and better, would cast away her
affections on the one, of all who surrounded her, least fitted to make her
happy. Thus Fanshawe reasoned with himself, and of this he believed that
he was convinced. Yet ever and anon he found himself involved in a dream
of bliss, of which Ellen was to be the giver and the sharer. Then would he
rouse himself, and press upon his mind the chilling consciousness that it
was and could be but a dream. There was also another feeling, apparently
discordant with those which have been enumerated. It was a longing for
rest, for his old retirement, that came at intervals so powerfully upon
him, as he rode on, that his heart sickened of the active exertion on
which fate had thrust him.

After being overtaken by Edward Walcott, Fanshawe continued his journey
with as much speed as was attainable by his wearied horse, but at a pace
infinitely too slow for his earnest thoughts. These had carried him far
away, leaving him only such a consciousness of his present situation as to
make diligent use of the spur, when a horse's tread at no great distance
struck upon his ear. He looked forward and