"Then go thither at once," said Corse de Leon, with a dissatisfied air. "If you will still trust to those whom you have not tried, go thither, and encounter whatever the consequence may be. Were I you, my conduct would be different."
"What would you do, then?" asked Bernard de Rohan. "I do not propose to go to the court _at once_, but merely after I have done all that I can to trace my Isabel on the road that she has taken. Say! what would you do were you situated as I am?"
"It matters little," replied Corse de Leon, "for we are differently formed. You are like the stately warhorse, doubtless strong and full of fire, but broken down to the bit and rein of custom, and trained to pace hither and thither, as the great riding-master called society wills. Your affections may be vehement, your courage high, your heart sincere, but you are not fitted and formed for the wild life of freedom, or for a desperate and deadly struggle against the trammels of habit, and the lash and spur of opinion. I, on the contrary, am the lion--or, if you will, the tiger, or the wolf. No hand tames me and goads me on--my mouth knows no bit and curb--the desert is my home--solitude my society--my own will my law--and they who strive to take and chain me, to break me down to the world's habits, or to bind me by man's opinions, will either rue the bite of the free wild beast, or see him die before the hunters, in silence and despair. If you would know what I would do, I would take my revenge of that bad man; I would seek the lady till I found her; I would tell her that dangers, obstructions, impediments, and the vain idleness of a world's laws were before us if we did not trample upon that world's judgments; I would ask her to cast off for me and with me the prejudices of country and connexions; I would make my native place of the first land of freedom I could find; I would find my friends and my relations among the brave, and the free, and the good, wherever I met them; I would press out from the grape of liberty the wine of my own happiness, and I would drink of the cup that my own hand had prepared. But such counsels are not for you; such things are not parts of your nature."
"I believe not," replied Bernard de Rohan; "but still the first part of your advice I shall follow, and at daybreak to-morrow will set out to meet this man upon the way, and bid him draw his sword where there is none to interrupt us."