The Last Man

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Title: The Last Man
Author: Mary Shelley
Release Date: April 24, 2006 [EBook #18247]
[Last updated: August 19, 2011]
Language: English
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The Last Man
Mary W. Shelley
First edition.
Henry Colburn
London
1826
VOL. I.
INTRODUCTION.
I VISITED Naples in the year 1818. On the 8th of December of that year, my
companion and I crossed the Bay, to visit the antiquities which are
scattered on the shores of Baiae. The translucent and shining waters of the
calm sea covered fragments of old Roman villas, which were interlaced by
sea-weed, and received diamond tints from the chequering of the sun-beams;
the blue and pellucid element was such as Galatea might have skimmed in her
car of mother of pearl; or Cleopatra, more fitly than the Nile, have chosen
as the path of her magic ship. Though it was winter, the atmosphere seemed
more appropriate to early spring; and its genial warmth contributed to
inspire those sensations of placid delight, which are the portion of every
traveller, as he lingers, loath to quit the tranquil bays and radiant
promontories of Baiae.
We visited the so called Elysian Fields and Avernus: and wandered through
various ruined temples, baths, and classic spots; at length we entered the
gloomy cavern of the Cumaean Sibyl. Our Lazzeroni bore flaring torches,
which shone red, and almost dusky, in the murky subterranean passages,
whose darkness thirstily surrounding them, seemed eager to imbibe more and
more of the element of light. We passed by a natural archway, leading to a
second gallery, and enquired, if we could not enter there also. The guides
pointed to the reflection of their torches on the water that paved it,
leaving us to form our own conclusion; but adding it was a pity, for it led
to the Sibyl's Cave. Our curiosity and enthusiasm were excited by this
circumstance, and we insisted upon attempting the passage. As is usually
the case in the prosecution of such enterprizes, the difficulties decreased
on examination. We found, on each side of the humid pathway, "dry land for
the sole of the foot."
At length we arrived at a large, desert, dark cavern, which the Lazzeroni
assured us was the Sibyl's Cave. We were sufficiently disappointed--Yet
we examined it with care, as if its blank, rocky walls could still bear
trace of celestial visitant. On one side was a small opening. Whither does
this lead? we asked: can we enter here?--"Questo poi, no,"--said the
wild looking savage, who held the torch; "you can advance but a short
distance, and nobody visits it."
"Nevertheless, I will try it," said my companion; "it may lead to the real
cavern. Shall I go alone, or will you accompany me?"
I signified my readiness to proceed, but our guides protested against such
a measure. With great volubility, in their native Neapolitan dialect, with
which we were not very familiar, they told us that there were spectres,
that the roof would fall in, that it was too narrow to admit us, that there
was a deep hole within, filled with water, and we might be drowned. My
friend shortened the harangue, by taking the man's torch from him; and we
proceeded alone.
The passage, which at first scarcely admitted us, quickly grew narrower and
lower; we were almost bent double; yet still we persisted in making our way
through it. At length we entered a wider space, and the low roof
heightened; but, as we congratulated ourselves on this change, our torch
was extinguished by a current of air, and we were left in utter darkness.
The guides bring with them materials for renewing the light, but we had
none--our only resource was to return as we came. We groped round the
widened space to find the entrance, and after a time fancied that we had
succeeded. This proved however to be a second passage, which evidently
ascended. It terminated like the former; though something approaching to a
ray, we could not tell whence, shed a very doubtful twilight in the space.
By degrees, our eyes grew somewhat accustomed to this dimness, and we
perceived that there was no direct passage leading us further; but that it
was possible to climb one side of the cavern to a low arch at top, which
promised a more easy path, from whence we now discovered that this light
proceeded. With considerable difficulty we scrambled up, and came to
another passage with still more of illumination, and this led to another
ascent like the former.
After a succession of these, which our resolution alone permitted us to
surmount, we arrived at a wide cavern with an arched dome-like roof. An
aperture in the midst let in the light of heaven; but this was overgrown
with brambles and underwood, which acted as a veil, obscuring the day, and
giving a solemn religious hue to the apartment. It was spacious, and nearly
circular, with a raised seat of stone, about the size of a Grecian couch,
at one end. The only sign that life had been here, was the perfect
snow-white skeleton of a goat, which had probably not perceived the opening
as it grazed on the hill above, and had fallen headlong. Ages perhaps had
elapsed since this catastrophe; and the ruin it had made above, had been
repaired by the growth of vegetation during many hundred summers.
The rest of the furniture of the cavern consisted of piles of leaves,
fragments of bark, and a white filmy substance, resembling the inner part
of the green hood which shelters the grain of the unripe Indian corn. We
were fatigued by our struggles to attain this point, and seated ourselves
on the rocky couch, while the sounds of tinkling sheep-bells, and shout of
shepherd-boy, reached us from above.
At length my friend, who had taken up some of the leaves strewed about,
exclaimed, "This is the Sibyl's cave; these are Sibylline leaves." On
examination, we found that all the leaves, bark, and other substances, were
traced with written characters. What appeared to us more astonishing, was
that these writings were expressed in various languages: some unknown to my
companion, ancient Chaldee, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, old as the
Pyramids. Stranger still, some were in modern dialects, English and
Italian. We could make out little by the dim light, but they seemed to
contain prophecies, detailed relations of events but lately passed; names,
now well known, but of modern date; and often exclamations of exultation or
woe, of victory or defeat, were traced on their thin scant pages. This was
certainly the Sibyl's Cave; not indeed exactly as Virgil describes it, but
the whole of this land had been so convulsed by earthquake and volcano,
that the change was not wonderful, though the traces of ruin were effaced
by time; and we probably owed the preservation of these leaves, to the
accident which had closed the mouth of the cavern, and the swift-growing
vegetation which had rendered its sole opening impervious to the storm. We
made a hasty selection of such of the leaves, whose writing one at least of
us could understand; and then, laden with our treasure, we bade adieu to
the dim hypaethric cavern, and after much difficulty succeeded in rejoining
our guides.
During our stay at Naples, we often returned to this cave, sometimes alone,
skimming the sun-lit sea, and each time added to our store. Since that
period, whenever the world's circumstance has not imperiously called me
away, or the temper of my mind impeded such study, I have been employed in
deciphering these sacred remains. Their meaning, wondrous and eloquent, has
often repaid my toil, soothing me in sorrow, and exciting my imagination to
daring flights, through the immensity of nature and the mind of man. For
awhile my labours were not solitary; but that time is gone; and, with the
selected and matchless companion of my toils, their dearest reward is also
lost to me--
Di mie tenere frondi altro lavoro
Credea mostrarte; e qual fero pianeta
Ne' nvidio insieme, o mio nobil tesoro?
I present the public with my latest discoveries in the slight Sibylline
pages. Scattered and unconnected as they were, I have been obliged to add
links, and model the work into a consistent form. But the main substance
rests on the truths contained in these poetic rhapsodies, and the divine
intuition which the Cumaean damsel obtained from heaven.
I have often wondered at the subject of her verses, and at the English
dress of the Latin poet. Sometimes I have thought, that, obscure and
chaotic as they are, they owe their present form to me, their decipherer.
As if we should give to another artist, the painted fragments which form
the mosaic copy of Raphael's Transfiguration in St. Peter's; he would put
them together in a form, whose mode would be fashioned by his own peculiar
mind and talent. Doubtless the leaves of the Cumaean Sibyl have suffered
distortion and diminution of interest and excellence in my hands. My only
excuse for thus transforming them, is that they were unintelligible in
their pristine condition.
My labours have cheered long hours of solitude, and taken me out of a
world, which has averted its once benignant face from me, to one glowing
with imagination and power. Will my readers ask how I could find solace
from the narration of misery and woeful change? This is one of the
mysteries of our nature, which holds full sway over me, and from whose
influence I cannot escape. I confess, that I have not been unmoved by the
development of the tale; and that I have been depressed, nay, agonized, at
some parts of the recital, which I have faithfully transcribed from my
materials. Yet such is human nature, that the excitement of mind was dear
to me, and that the imagination, painter of tempest and earthquake, or,
worse, the stormy and ruin-fraught passions of man, softened my real
sorrows and endless regrets, by clothing these fictitious ones in that
ideality, which takes the mortal sting from pain.
I hardly know whether this apology is necessary. For the merits of my
adaptation and translation must decide how far I have well bestowed my time
and imperfect powers, in giving form and substance to the frail and
attenuated Leaves of the Sibyl.
CHAPTER I.
I AM the native of a sea-surrounded nook, a cloud-enshadowed land, which,
when the surface of the globe, with its shoreless ocean and trackless
continents, presents itself to my mind, appears only as an inconsiderable
speck in the immense whole; and yet, when balanced in the scale of mental
power, far outweighed countries of larger extent and more numerous
population. So true it is, that man's mind alone was the creator of all
that was good or great to man, and that Nature herself was only his first
minister. England, seated far north in the turbid sea, now visits my dreams
in the semblance of a vast and well-manned ship, which mastered the winds
and rode proudly over the waves. In my boyish days she was the universe to
me. When I stood on my native hills, and saw plain and mountain stretch out
to the utmost limits of my vision, speckled by the dwellings of my
countrymen, and subdued to fertility by their labours, the earth's very
centre was fixed for me in that spot, and the rest of her orb was as a
fable, to have forgotten which would have cost neither my imagination nor
understanding an effort.
My fortunes have been, from the beginning, an exemplification of the power
that mutability may possess over the varied tenor of man's life. With
regard to myself, this came almost by inheritance. My father was one of
those men on whom nature had bestowed to prodigality the envied gifts of
wit and imagination, and then left his bark of life to be impelled by these
winds, without adding reason as the rudder, or judgment as the pilot for
the voyage. His extraction was obscure; but circumstances brought him early
into public notice, and his small paternal property was soon dissipated in
the splendid scene of fashion and luxury in which he was an actor. During
the short years of thoughtless youth, he was adored by the high-bred
triflers of the day, nor least by the youthful sovereign, who escaped from
the intrigues of party, and the arduous duties of kingly business, to find
never-failing amusement and exhilaration of spirit in his society. My
father's impulses, never under his own controul, perpetually led him into
difficulties from which his ingenuity alone could extricate him; and the
accumulating pile of debts of honour and of trade, which would have bent to
earth any other, was supported by him with a light spirit and tameless
hilarity; while his company was so necessary at the tables and assemblies
of the rich, that his derelictions were considered venial, and he himself
received with intoxicating flattery.
This kind of popularity, like every other, is evanescent: and the
difficulties of every kind with which he had to contend, increased in a
frightful ratio compared with his small means of extricating himself. At
such times the king, in his enthusiasm for him, would come to his relief,
and then kindly take his friend to task; my father gave the best promises
for amendment, but his social disposition, his craving for the usual diet
of admiration, and more than all, the fiend of gambling, which fully
possessed him, made his good resolutions transient, his promises vain. With
the quick sensibility peculiar to his temperament, he perceived his power
in the brilliant circle to be on the wane. The king married; and the
haughty princess of Austria, who became, as queen of England, the head of
fashion, looked with harsh eyes on his defects, and with contempt on the
affection her royal husband entertained for him. My father felt that his
fall was near; but so far from profiting by this last calm before the storm
to save himself, he sought to forget anticipated evil by making still
greater sacrifices to the deity of pleasure, deceitful and cruel arbiter of
his destiny.
The king, who was a man of excellent dispositions, but easily led, had now
become a willing disciple of his imperious consort. He was induced to look
with extreme disapprobation, and at last with distaste, on my father's
imprudence and follies. It is true that his presence dissipated these
clouds; his warm-hearted frankness, brilliant sallies, and confiding
demeanour were irresistible: it was only when at a distance, while still
renewed tales of his errors were poured into his royal friend's ear, that
he lost his influence. The queen's dextrous management was employed to
prolong these absences, and gather together accusations. At length the king
was brought to see in him a source of perpetual disquiet, knowing that he
should pay for the short-lived pleasure of his society by tedious homilies,
and more painful narrations of excesses, the truth of which he could not
disprove. The result was, that he would make one more attempt to reclaim
him, and in case of ill success, cast him off for ever.
Such a scene must have been one of deepest interest and high-wrought
passion. A powerful king, conspicuous for a goodness which had heretofore
made him meek, and now lofty in his admonitions, with alternate entreaty
and reproof, besought his friend to attend to his real interests,
resolutely to avoid those fascinations which in fact were fast deserting
him, and to spend his great powers on a worthy field, in which he, his
sovereign, would be his prop, his stay, and his pioneer. My father felt
this kindness; for a moment ambitious dreams floated before him; and he
thought that it would be well to exchange his present pursuits for nobler
duties. With sincerity and fervour he gave the required promise: as a
pledge of continued favour, he received from his royal master a sum of
money to defray pressing debts, and enable him to enter under good auspices
his new career. That very night, while yet full of gratitude and good
resolves, this whole sum, and its amount doubled, was lost at the
gaming-table. In his desire to repair his first losses, my father risked
double stakes, and thus incurred a debt of honour he was wholly unable to
pay. Ashamed to apply again to the king, he turned his back upon London,
its false delights and clinging miseries; and, with poverty for his sole
companion, buried himself in solitude among the hills and lakes of
Cumberland. His wit, his bon mots, the record of his personal attractions,
fascinating manners, and social talents, were long remembered and repeated
from mouth to mouth. Ask where now was this favourite of fashion, this
companion of the noble, this excelling beam, which gilt with alien
splendour the assemblies of the courtly and the gay--you heard that he
was under a cloud, a lost man; not one thought it belonged to him to repay
pleasure by real services, or that his long reign of brilliant wit deserved
a pension on retiring. The king lamented his absence; he loved to repeat
his sayings, relate the adventures they had had together, and exalt his
talents--but here ended his reminiscence.
Meanwhile my father, forgotten, could not forget. He repined for the loss
of what was more necessary to him than air or food--the excitements of
pleasure, the admiration of the noble, the luxurious and polished living of
the great. A nervous fever was the consequence; during which he was nursed
by the daughter of a poor cottager, under whose roof he lodged. She was
lovely, gentle, and, above all, kind to him; nor can it afford
astonishment, that the late idol of high-bred beauty should, even in a
fallen state, appear a being of an elevated and wondrous nature to the
lowly cottage-girl. The attachment between them led to the ill-fated
marriage, of which I was the offspring. Notwithstanding the tenderness and
sweetness of my mother, her husband still deplored his degraded state.
Unaccustomed to industry, he knew not in what way to contribute to the
support of his increasing family. Sometimes he thought of applying to the
king; pride and shame for a while withheld him; and, before his necessities
became so imperious as to compel him to some kind of exertion, he died. For
one brief interval before this catastrophe, he looked forward to the
future, and contemplated with anguish the desolate situation in which his
wife and children would be left. His last effort was a letter to the king,
full of touching eloquence, and of occasional flashes of that brilliant
spirit which was an integral part of him. He bequeathed his widow and
orphans to the friendship of his royal master, and felt satisfied that, by
this means, their prosperity was better assured in his death than in his
life. This letter was enclosed to the care of a nobleman, who, he did not
doubt, would perform the last and inexpensive office of placing it in the
king's own hand.
He died in debt, and his little property was seized immediately by his
creditors. My mother, pennyless and burthened with two children, waited
week after week, and month after month, in sickening expectation of a
reply, which never came. She had no experience beyond her father's cottage;
and the mansion of the lord of the manor was the chiefest type of grandeur
she could conceive. During my father's life, she had been made familiar
with the name of royalty and the courtly circle; but such things, ill
according with her personal experience, appeared, after the loss of him who
gave substance and reality to them, vague and fantastical. If, under any
circumstances, she could have acquired sufficient courage to address the
noble persons mentioned by her husband, the ill success of his own
application caused her to banish the idea. She saw therefore no escape from
dire penury: perpetual care, joined to sorrow for the loss of the wondrous
being, whom she continued to contemplate with ardent admiration, hard
labour, and naturally delicate health, at length released her from the sad
continuity of want and misery.
The condition of her orphan children was peculiarly desolate. Her own
father had been an emigrant from another part of the country, and had died
long since: they had no one relation to take them by the hand; they were
outcasts, paupers, unfriended beings, to whom the most scanty pittance was
a matter of favour, and who were treated merely as children of peasants,
yet poorer than the poorest, who, dying, had left them, a thankless
bequest, to the close-handed charity of the land.
I, the elder of the two, was five years old when my mother died. A
remembrance of the discourses of my parents, and the communications which
my mother endeavoured to impress upon me concerning my father's friends, in
slight hope that I might one day derive benefit from the knowledge, floated
like an indistinct dream through my brain. I conceived that I was different
and superior to my protectors and companions, but I knew not how or
wherefore. The sense of injury, associated with the name of king and noble,
clung to me; but I could draw no conclusions from such feelings, to serve
as a guide to action. My first real knowledge of myself was as an
unprotected orphan among the valleys and fells of Cumberland. I was in the
service of a farmer; and with crook in hand, my dog at my side, I
shepherded a numerous flock on the near uplands. I cannot say much in
praise of such a life; and its pains far exceeded its pleasures. There was
freedom in it, a companionship with nature, and a reckless loneliness; but
these, romantic as they were, did not accord with the love of action and
desire of human sympathy, characteristic of youth. Neither the care of my
flock, nor the change of seasons, were sufficient to tame my eager spirit;
my out-door life and unemployed time were the temptations that led me early
into lawless habits. I associated with others friendless like myself; I
formed them into a band, I was their chief and captain. All shepherd-boys
alike, while our flocks were spread over the pastures, we schemed and
executed many a mischievous prank, which drew on us the anger and revenge
of the rustics. I was the leader and protector of my comrades, and as I
became distinguished among them, their misdeeds were usually visited upon
me. But while I endured punishment and pain in their defence with the
spirit of an hero, I claimed as my reward their praise and obedience.
In such a school my disposition became rugged, but firm. The appetite for
admiration and small capacity for self-controul which I inherited from my
father, nursed by adversity, made me daring and reckless. I was rough as
the elements, and unlearned as the animals I tended. I often compared
myself to them, and finding that my chief superiority consisted in power, I
soon persuaded myself that it was in power only that I was inferior to the
chiefest potentates of the earth. Thus untaught in refined philosophy, and
pursued by a restless feeling of degradation from my true station in
society, I wandered among the hills of civilized England as uncouth a
savage as the wolf-bred founder of old Rome. I owned but one law, it was
that of the strongest, and my greatest deed of virtue was never to submit.
Yet let me a little retract from this sentence I have passed on myself. My
mother, when dying, had, in addition to her other half-forgotten and
misapplied lessons, committed, with solemn exhortation, her other child to
my fraternal guardianship; and this one duty I performed to the best of my
ability, with all the zeal and affection of which my nature was capable. My
sister was three years younger than myself; I had nursed her as an infant,
and when the difference of our sexes, by giving us various occupations, in
a great measure divided us, yet she continued to be the object of my
careful love. Orphans, in the fullest sense of the term, we were poorest
among the poor, and despised among the unhonoured. If my daring and courage
obtained for me a kind of respectful aversion, her youth and sex, since
they did not excite tenderness, by proving her to be weak, were the causes
of numberless mortifications to her; and her own disposition was not so
constituted as to diminish the evil effects of her lowly station.
She was a singular being, and, like me, inherited much of the peculiar
disposition of our father. Her countenance was all expression; her eyes
were not dark, but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after
space in their intellectual glance, and to feel that the soul which was
their soul, comprehended an universe of thought in its ken. She was pale
and fair, and her golden hair clustered on her temples, contrasting its
rich hue with the living marble beneath. Her coarse peasant-dress, little
consonant apparently with the refinement of feeling which her face
expressed, yet in a strange manner accorded with it. She was like one of
Guido's saints, with heaven in her heart and in her look, so that when you
saw her you only thought of that within, and costume and even feature were
secondary to the mind that beamed in her countenance.
Yet though lovely and full of noble feeling, my poor Perdita (for this was
the fanciful name my sister had received from her dying parent), was not
altogether saintly in her disposition. Her manners were cold and repulsive.
If she had been nurtured by those who had regarded her with affection, she
might have been different; but unloved and neglected, she repaid want of
kindness with distrust and silence. She was submissive to those who held
authority over her, but a perpetual cloud dwelt on her brow; she looked as
if she expected enmity from every one who approached her, and her actions
were instigated by the same feeling. All the time she could command she
spent in solitude. She would ramble to the most unfrequented places, and
scale dangerous heights, that in those unvisited spots she might wrap
herself in loneliness. Often she passed whole hours walking up and down the
paths of the woods; she wove garlands of flowers and ivy, or watched the
flickering of the shadows and glancing of the leaves; sometimes she sat
beside a stream, and as her thoughts paused, threw flowers or pebbles into
the waters, watching how those swam and these sank; or she would set afloat
boats formed of bark of trees or leaves, with a feather for a sail, and
intensely watch the navigation of her craft among the rapids and shallows
of the brook. Meanwhile her active fancy wove a thousand combinations; she
dreamt "of moving accidents by flood and field"--she lost herself
delightedly in these self-created wanderings, and returned with unwilling
spirit to the dull detail of common life. Poverty was the cloud that veiled
her excellencies, and all that was good in her seemed about to perish from
want of the genial dew of affection. She had not even the same advantage as
I in the recollection of her parents; she clung to me, her brother, as her
only friend, but her alliance with me completed the distaste that her
protectors felt for her; and every error was magnified by them into crimes.
If she had been bred in that sphere of life to which by inheritance the
delicate framework of her mind and person was adapted, she would have been
the object almost of adoration, for her virtues were as eminent as her
defects. All the genius that ennobled the blood of her father illustrated
hers; a generous tide flowed in her veins; artifice, envy, or meanness,
were at the antipodes of her nature; her countenance, when enlightened by
amiable feeling, might have belonged to a queen of nations; her eyes were
bright; her look fearless.
Although by our situation and dispositions we were almost equally cut off
from the usual forms of social intercourse, we formed a strong contrast to
each other. I always required the stimulants of companionship and applause.
Perdita was all-sufficient to herself. Notwithstanding my lawless habits,
my disposition was sociable, hers recluse. My life was spent among tangible
realities, hers was a dream. I might be said even to love my enemies, since
by exciting me they in a sort bestowed happiness upon me; Perdita almost
disliked her friends, for they interfered with her visionary moods. All my
feelings, even of exultation and triumph, were changed to bitterness, if
unparticipated; Perdita, even in joy, fled to loneliness, and could go on
from day to day, neither expressing her emotions, nor seeking a
fellow-feeling in another mind. Nay, she could love and dwell with
tenderness on the look and voice of her friend, while her demeanour
expressed the coldest reserve. A sensation with her became a sentiment, and
she never spoke until she had mingled her perceptions of outward objects
with others which were the native growth of her own mind. She was like a
fruitful soil that imbibed the airs and dews of heaven, and gave them forth
again to light in loveliest forms of fruits and flowers; but then she was
often dark and rugged as that soil, raked up, and new sown with unseen
seed.
She dwelt in a cottage whose trim grass-plat sloped down to the waters of
the lake of Ulswater; a beech wood stretched up the hill behind, and a
purling brook gently falling from the acclivity ran through poplar-shaded
banks into the lake. I lived with a farmer whose house was built higher up
among the hills: a dark crag rose behind it, and, exposed to the north, the
snow lay in its crevices the summer through. Before dawn I led my flock to
the sheep-walks, and guarded them through the day. It was a life of toil;
for rain and cold were more frequent than sunshine; but it was my pride to
contemn the elements. My trusty dog watched the sheep as I slipped away to
the rendezvous of my comrades, and thence to the accomplishment of our
schemes. At noon we met again, and we threw away in contempt our peasant
fare, as we built our fire-place and kindled the cheering blaze destined to
cook the game stolen from the neighbouring preserves. Then came the tale of
hair-breadth escapes, combats with dogs, ambush and flight, as gipsey-like
we encompassed our pot. The search after a stray lamb, or the devices by
which we elude or endeavoured to elude punishment, filled up the hours of
afternoon; in the evening my flock went to its fold, and I to my sister.
It was seldom indeed that we escaped, to use an old-fashioned phrase, scot
free. Our dainty fare was often exchanged for blows and imprisonment. Once,
when thirteen years of age, I was sent for a month to the county jail. I
came out, my morals unimproved, my hatred to my oppressors encreased
tenfold. Bread and water did not tame my blood, nor solitary confinement
inspire me with gentle thoughts. I was angry, impatient, miserable; my only
happy hours were those during which I devised schemes of revenge; these
were perfected in my forced solitude, so that during the whole of the
following season, and I was freed early in September, I never failed to
provide excellent and plenteous fare for myself and my comrades. This was a
glorious winter. The sharp frost and heavy snows tamed the animals, and
kept the country gentlemen by their firesides; we got more game than we
could eat, and my faithful dog grew sleek upon our refuse.
Thus years passed on; and years only added fresh love of freedom, and
contempt for all that was not as wild and rude as myself. At the age of
sixteen I had shot up in appearance to man's estate; I was tall and
athletic; I was practised to feats of strength, and inured to the
inclemency of the elements. My skin was embrowned by the sun; my step was
firm with conscious power. I feared no man, and loved none. In after life I
looked back with wonder to what I then was; how utterly worthless I should
have become if I had pursued my lawless career. My life was like that of an
animal, and my mind was in danger of degenerating into that which informs
brute nature. Until now, my savage habits had done me no radical mischief;
my physical powers had grown up and flourished under their influence, and
my mind, undergoing the same discipline, was imbued with all the hardy
virtues. But now my boasted independence was daily instigating me to acts
of tyranny, and freedom was becoming licentiousness. I stood on the brink
of manhood; passions, strong as the trees of a forest, had already taken
root within me, and were about to shadow with their noxious overgrowth, my
path of life.
I panted for enterprises beyond my childish exploits, and formed
distempered dreams of future action. I avoided my ancient comrades, and I
soon lost them. They arrived at the age when they were sent to fulfil their
destined situations in life; while I, an outcast, with none to lead or
drive me forward, paused. The old began to point at me as an example, the
young to wonder at me as a being distinct from themselves; I hated them,
and began, last and worst degradation, to hate myself. I clung to my
ferocious habits, yet half despised them; I continued my war against
civilization, and yet entertained a wish to belong to it.
I revolved again and again all that I remembered my mother to have told me
of my father's former life; I contemplated the few relics I possessed
belonging to him, which spoke of greater refinement than could be found
among the mountain cottages; but nothing in all this served as a guide to
lead me to another and pleasanter way of life. My father had been connected
with nobles, but all I knew of such connection was subsequent neglect. The
name of the king,--he to whom my dying father had addressed his latest
prayers, and who had barbarously slighted them, was associated only with
the ideas of unkindness, injustice, and consequent resentment. I was born
for something greater than I was--and greater I would become; but
greatness, at least to my distorted perceptions, was no necessary associate
of goodness, and my wild thoughts were unchecked by moral considerations
when they rioted in dreams of distinction. Thus I stood upon a pinnacle, a
sea of evil rolled at my feet; I was about to precipitate myself into it,
and rush like a torrent over all obstructions to the object of my wishes--
when a stranger influence came over the current of my fortunes, and changed
their boisterous course to what was in comparison like the gentle
meanderings of a meadow-encircling streamlet.
CHAPTER II.
I LIVED far from the busy haunts of men, and the rumour of wars or
political changes came worn to a mere sound, to our mountain abodes.
England had been the scene of momentous struggles, during my early boyhood.
In the year 2073, the last of its kings, the ancient friend of my father,
had abdicated in compliance with the gentle force of the remonstrances of
his subjects, and a republic was instituted. Large estates were secured to
the dethroned monarch and his family; he received the title of Earl of
Windsor, and Windsor Castle, an ancient royalty, with its wide demesnes
were a part of his allotted wealth. He died soon after, leaving two
children, a son and a daughter.
The ex-queen, a princess of the house of Austria, had long impelled her
husband to withstand the necessity of the times. She was haughty and
fearless; she cherished a love of power, and a bitter contempt for him who
had despoiled himself of a kingdom. For her children's sake alone she
consented to remain, shorn of regality, a member of the English republic.
When she became a widow, she turned all her thoughts to the educating her
son Adrian, second Earl of Windsor, so as to accomplish her ambitious ends;
and with his mother's milk he imbibed, and was intended to grow up in the
steady purpose of re-acquiring his lost crown. Adrian was now fifteen years
of age. He was addicted to study, and imbued beyond his years with learning
and talent: report said that he had already begun to thwart his mother's
views, and to entertain republican principles. However this might be, the
haughty Countess entrusted none with the secrets of her family-tuition.
Adrian was bred up in solitude, and kept apart from the natural companions
of his age and rank. Some unknown circumstance now induced his mother to
send him from under her immediate tutelage; and we heard that he was about
to visit Cumberland. A thousand tales were rife, explanatory of the
Countess of Windsor's conduct; none true probably; but each day it became
more certain that we should have the noble scion of the late regal house of
England among us.
There was a large estate with a mansion attached to it, belonging to this
family, at Ulswater. A large park was one of its appendages, laid out with
great taste, and plentifully stocked with game. I had often made
depredations on these preserves; and the neglected state of the property
facilitated my incursions. When it was decided that the young Earl of
Windsor should visit Cumberland, workmen arrived to put the house and
grounds in order for his reception. The apartments were restored to their
pristine splendour, and the park, all disrepairs restored, was guarded with
unusual care.
I was beyond measure disturbed by this intelligence. It roused all my
dormant recollections, my suspended sentiments of injury, and gave rise to
the new one of revenge. I could no longer attend to my occupations; all my
plans and devices were forgotten; I seemed about to begin life anew, and
that under no good auspices. The tug of war, I thought, was now to begin.
He would come triumphantly to the district to which my parent had fled
broken-hearted; he would find the ill-fated offspring, bequeathed with such
vain confidence to his royal father, miserable paupers. That he should know
of our existence, and treat us, near at hand, with the same contumely which
his father had practised in distance and absence, appeared to me the
certain consequence of all that had gone before. Thus then I should meet
this titled stripling--the son of my father's friend. He would be hedged
in by servants; nobles, and the sons of nobles, were his companions; all
England rang with his name; and his coming, like a thunderstorm, was heard
from far: while I, unlettered and unfashioned, should, if I came in contact
with him, in the judgment of his courtly followers, bear evidence in my
very person to the propriety of that ingratitude which had made me the
degraded being I appeared.
With my mind fully occupied by these ideas, I might be said as if
fascinated, to haunt the destined abode of the young Earl. I watched the
progress of the improvements, and stood by the unlading waggons, as various
articles of luxury, brought from London, were taken forth and conveyed into
the mansion. It was part of the Ex-Queen's plan, to surround her son with
princely magnificence. I beheld rich carpets and silken hangings, ornaments
of gold, richly embossed metals, emblazoned furniture, and all the
appendages of high rank arranged, so that nothing but what was regal in
splendour should reach the eye of one of royal descent. I looked on these;
I turned my gaze to my own mean dress.--Whence sprung this difference?
Whence but from ingratitude, from falsehood, from a dereliction on the part
of the prince's father, of all noble sympathy and generous feeling.
Doubtless, he also, whose blood received a mingling tide from his proud
mother--he, the acknowledged focus of the kingdom's wealth and nobility,
had been taught to repeat my father's name with disdain, and to scoff at my
just claims to protection. I strove to think that all this grandeur was but
more glaring infamy, and that, by planting his gold-enwoven flag beside my
tarnished and tattered banner, he proclaimed not his superiority, but his
debasement. Yet I envied him. His stud of beautiful horses, his arms of
costly workmanship, the praise that attended him, the adoration, ready
servitor, high place and high esteem,--I considered them as forcibly
wrenched from me, and envied them all with novel and tormenting
bitterness.
To crown my vexation of spirit, Perdita, the visionary Perdita, seemed to
awake to real life with transport, when she told me that the Earl of
Windsor was about to arrive.
"And this pleases you?" I observed, moodily.
"Indeed it does, Lionel," she replied; "I quite long to see him; he is the
descendant of our kings, the first noble of the land: every one admires and
loves him, and they say that his rank is his least merit; he is generous,
brave, and affable."
"You have learnt a pretty lesson, Perdita," said I, "and repeat it so
literally, that you forget the while the proofs we have of the Earl's
virtues; his generosity to us is manifest in our plenty, his bravery in the
protection he affords us, his affability in the notice he takes of us. His
rank his least merit, do you say? Why, all his virtues are derived from his
station only; because he is rich, he is called generous; because he is
powerful, brave; because he is well served, he is affable. Let them call
him so, let all England believe him to be thus--we know him--he is our
enemy--our penurious, dastardly, arrogant enemy; if he were gifted with
one particle of the virtues you call his, he would do justly by us, if it
were only to shew, that if he must strike, it should not be a fallen foe.
His father injured my father--his father, unassailable on his throne,
dared despise him who only stooped beneath himself, when he deigned to
associate with the royal ingrate. We, descendants from the one and the
other, must be enemies also. He shall find that I can feel my injuries; he
shall learn to dread my revenge!"
A few days after he arrived. Every inhabitant of the most miserable
cottage, went to swell the stream of population that poured forth to meet
him: even Perdita, in spite of my late philippic, crept near the highway,
to behold this idol of all hearts. I, driven half mad, as I met party after
party of the country people, in their holiday best, descending the hills,
escaped to their cloud-veiled summits, and looking on the sterile rocks
about me, exclaimed--"They do not cry, long live the Earl!" Nor, when
night came, accompanied by drizzling rain and cold, would I return home;
for I knew that each cottage rang with the praises of Adrian; as I felt my
limbs grow numb and chill, my pain served as food for my insane aversion;
nay, I almost triumphed in it, since it seemed to afford me reason and
excuse for my hatred of my unheeding adversary. All was attributed to him,
for I confounded so entirely the idea of father and son, that I forgot that
the latter might be wholly unconscious of his parent's neglect of us; and
as I struck my aching head with my hand, I cried: "He shall hear of this! I
will be revenged! I will not suffer like a spaniel! He shall know, beggar
and friendless as I am, that I will not tamely submit to injury!" Each day,
each hour added to these exaggerated wrongs. His praises were so many
adder's stings infixed in my vulnerable breast. If I saw him at a distance,
riding a beautiful horse, my blood boiled with rage; the air seemed
poisoned by his presence, and my very native English was changed to a vile
jargon, since every phrase I heard was coupled with his name and honour. I
panted to relieve this painful heart-burning by some misdeed that should
rouse him to a sense of my antipathy. It was the height of his offending,
that he should occasion in me such intolerable sensations, and not deign
himself to afford any demonstration that he was aware that I even lived to
feel them.
It soon became known that Adrian took great delight in his park and
preserves. He never sported, but spent hours in watching the tribes of
lovely and almost tame animals with which it was stocked, and ordered that
greater care should be taken of them than ever. Here was an opening for my
plans of offence, and I made use of it with all the brute impetuosity I
derived from my active mode of life. I proposed the enterprize of poaching
on his demesne to my few remaining comrades, who were the most determined
and lawless of the crew; but they all shrunk from the peril; so I was left
to achieve my revenge myself. At first my exploits were unperceived; I
increased in daring; footsteps on the dewy grass, torn boughs, and marks of
slaughter, at length betrayed me to the game-keepers. They kept better
watch; I was taken, and sent to prison. I entered its gloomy walls in a fit
of triumphant extasy: "He feels me now," I cried, "and shall, again and
again!"--I passed but one day in confinement; in the evening I was
liberated, as I was told, by the order of the Earl himself. This news
precipitated me from my self-raised pinnacle of honour. He despises me, I
thought; but he shall learn that I despise him, and hold in equal contempt
his punishments and his clemency. On the second night after my release, I
was again taken by the gamekeepers--again imprisoned, and again released;
and again, such was my pertinacity, did the fourth night find me in the
forbidden park. The gamekeepers were more enraged than their lord by my
obstinacy. They had received orders that if I were again taken, I should be
brought to the Earl; and his lenity made them expect a conclusion which
they considered ill befitting my crime. One of them, who had been from the
first the leader among those who had seized me, resolved to satisfy his own
resentment, before he made me over to the higher powers.
The late setting of the moon, and the extreme caution I was obliged to use
in this my third expedition, consumed so much time, that something like a
qualm of fear came over me when I perceived dark night yield to twilight. I
crept along by the fern, on my hands and knees, seeking the shadowy coverts
of the underwood, while the birds awoke with unwelcome song above, and the
fresh morning wind, playing among the boughs, made me suspect a footfall at
each turn. My heart beat quick as I approached the palings; my hand was on
one of them, a leap would take me to the other side, when two keepers
sprang from an ambush upon me: one knocked me down, and proceeded to
inflict a severe horse-whipping. I started up--a knife was in my grasp; I
made a plunge at his raised right arm, and inflicted a deep, wide wound in
his hand. The rage and yells of the wounded man, the howling execrations of
his comrade, which I answered with equal bitterness and fury, echoed
through the dell; morning broke more and more, ill accordant in its
celestial beauty with our brute and noisy contest. I and my enemy were
still struggling, when the wounded man exclaimed, "The Earl!" I sprang out
of the herculean hold of the keeper, panting from my exertions; I cast
furious glances on my persecutors, and placing myself with my back to a
tree, resolved to defend myself to the last. My garments were torn, and
they, as well as my hands, were stained with the blood of the man I had
wounded; one hand grasped the dead birds--my hard-earned prey, the other
held the knife; my hair was matted; my face besmeared with the same guilty
signs that bore witness against me on the dripping instrument I clenched;
my whole appearance was haggard and squalid. Tall and muscular as I was in
form, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian that
ever trod the earth.
The name of the Earl startled me, and caused all the indignant blood that
warmed my heart to rush into my cheeks; I had never seen him before; I
figured to myself a haughty, assuming youth, who would take me to task, if
he deigned to speak to me, with all the arrogance of superiority. My reply
was ready; a reproach I deemed calculated to sting his very heart. He came
up the while; and his appearance blew aside, with gentle western breath, my
cloudy wrath: a tall, slim, fair boy, with a physiognomy expressive of the
excess of sensibility and refinement stood before me; the morning sunbeams
tinged with gold his silken hair, and spread light and glory over his
beaming countenance. "How is this?" he cried. The men eagerly began their
defence; he put them aside, saying, "Two of you at once on a mere lad--
for shame!" He came up to me: "Verney," he cried, "Lionel Verney, do we
meet thus for the first time? We were born to be friends to each other; and
though ill fortune has divided us, will you not acknowledge the hereditary
bond of friendship which I trust will hereafter unite us?"
As he spoke, his earnest eyes, fixed on me, seemed to read my very soul: my
heart, my savage revengeful heart, felt the influence of sweet benignity
sink upon it; while his thrilling voice, like sweetest melody, awoke a mute
echo within me, stirring to its depths the life-blood in my frame. I
desired to reply, to acknowledge his goodness, accept his proffered
friendship; but words, fitting words, were not afforded to the rough
mountaineer; I would have held out my hand, but its guilty stain restrained
me. Adrian took pity on my faltering mien: "Come with me," he said, "I have
much to say to you; come home with me--you know who I am?"
"Yes," I exclaimed, "I do believe that I now know you, and that you will
pardon my mistakes--my crime."
Adrian smiled gently; and after giving his orders to the gamekeepers, he
came up to me; putting his arm in mine, we walked together to the mansion.
It was not his rank--after all that I have said, surely it will not be
suspected that it was Adrian's rank, that, from the first, subdued my heart
of hearts, and laid my entire spirit prostrate before him. Nor was it I
alone who felt thus intimately his perfections. His sensibility and
courtesy fascinated every one. His vivacity, intelligence, and active
spirit of benevolence, completed the conquest. Even at this early age, he
was deep read and imbued with the spirit of high philosophy. This spirit
gave a tone of irresistible persuasion to his intercourse with others, so
that he seemed like an inspired musician, who struck, with unerring skill,
the "lyre of mind," and produced thence divine harmony. In person, he
hardly appeared of this world; his slight frame was overinformed by the
soul that dwelt within; he was all mind; "Man but a rush against" his
breast, and it would have conquered his strength; but the might of his
smile would have tamed an hungry lion, or caused a legion of armed men to
lay their weapons at his feet.
I spent the day with him. At first he did not recur to the past, or indeed
to any personal occurrences. He wished probably to inspire me with
confidence, and give me time to gather together my scattered thoughts. He
talked of general subjects, and gave me ideas I had never before conceived.
We sat in his library, and he spoke of the old Greek sages, and of the
power which they had acquired over the minds of men, through the force of
love and wisdom only. The room was decorated with the busts of many of
them, and he described their characters to me. As he spoke, I felt subject
to him; and all my boasted pride and strength were subdued by the honeyed
accents of this blue-eyed boy. The trim and paled demesne of civilization,
which I had before regarded from my wild jungle as inaccessible, had its
wicket opened by him; I stepped within, and felt, as I entered, that I trod
my native soil.
As evening came on, he reverted to the past. "I have a tale to relate," he
said, "and much explanation to give concerning the past; perhaps you can
assist me to curtail it. Do you remember your father? I had never the
happiness of seeing him, but his name is one of my earliest recollections:
he stands written in my mind's tablets as the type of all that was gallant,
amiable, and fascinating in man. His wit was not more conspicuous than the
overflowing goodness of his heart, which he poured in such full measure on
his friends, as to leave, alas! small remnant for himself."
Encouraged by this encomium, I proceeded, in answer to his inquiries, to
relate what I remembered of my parent; and he gave an account of those
circumstances which had brought about a neglect of my father's testamentary
letter. When, in after times, Adrian's father, then king of England, felt
his situation become more perilous, his line of conduct more embarrassed,
again and again he wished for his early friend, who might stand a mound
against the impetuous anger of his queen, a mediator between him and the
parliament. From the time that he had quitted London, on the fatal night of
his defeat at the gaming-table, the king had received no tidings concerning
him; and when, after the lapse of years, he exerted himself to discover
him, every trace was lost. With fonder regret than ever, he clung to his
memory; and gave it in charge to his son, if ever he should meet this
valued friend, in his name to bestow every succour, and to assure him that,
to the last, his attachment survived separation and silence.
A short time before Adrian's visit to Cumberland, the heir of the nobleman
to whom my father had confided his last appeal to his royal master, put
this letter, its seal unbroken, into the young Earl's hands. It had been
found cast aside with a mass of papers of old date, and accident alone
brought it to light. Adrian read it with deep interest; and found there
that living spirit of genius and wit he had so often heard commemorated. He
discovered the name of the spot whither my father had retreated, and where
he died; he learnt the existence of his orphan children; and during the
short interval between his arrival at Ulswater and our meeting in the park,
he had been occupied in making inquiries concerning us, and arranging a
variety of plans for our benefit, preliminary to his introducing himself to
our notice.
The mode in which he spoke of my father was gratifying to my vanity; the
veil which he delicately cast over his benevolence, in alledging a duteous
fulfilment of the king's latest will, was soothing to my pride. Other
feelings, less ambiguous, were called into play by his conciliating manner
and the generous warmth of his expressions, respect rarely before
experienced, admiration, and love--he had touched my rocky heart with his
magic power, and the stream of affection gushed forth, imperishable and
pure. In the evening we parted; he pressed my hand: "We shall meet again;
come to me to-morrow." I clasped that kind hand; I tried to answer; a
fervent "God bless you!" was all my ignorance could frame of speech, and I
darted away, oppressed by my new emotions.
I could not rest. I sought the hills; a west wind swept them, and the stars
glittered above. I ran on, careless of outward objects, but trying to
master the struggling spirit within me by means of bodily fatigue. "This,"
I thought, "is power! Not to be strong of limb, hard of heart, ferocious,
and daring; but kind compassionate and soft."--Stopping short, I clasped
my hands, and with the fervour of a new proselyte, cried, "Doubt me not,
Adrian, I also will become wise and good!" and then quite overcome, I wept
aloud.
As this gust of passion passed from me, I felt more composed. I lay on the
ground, and giving the reins to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my former
life; and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my heart, and
to discover how brutish, savage, and worthless I had hitherto been. I could
not however at that time feel remorse, for methought I was born anew; my
soul threw off the burthen of past sin, to commence a new career in
innocence and love. Nothing harsh or rough remained to jar with the soft
feelings which the transactions of the day had inspired; I was as a child
lisping its devotions after its mother, and my plastic soul was remoulded
by a master hand, which I neither desired nor was able to resist.
This was the first commencement of my friendship with Adrian, and I must
commemorate this day as the most fortunate of my life. I now began to be
human. I was admitted within that sacred boundary which divides the
intellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes animals.
My best feelings were called into play to give fitting responses to the
generosity, wisdom, and amenity of my new friend. He, with a noble goodness
all his own, took infinite delight in bestowing to prodigality the
treasures of his mind and fortune on the long-neglected son of his father's
friend, the offspring of that gifted being whose excellencies and talents
he had heard commemorated from infancy.
After his abdication the late king had retreated from the sphere of
politics, yet his domestic circle afforded him small content. The ex-queen
had none of the virtues of domestic life, and those of courage and daring
which she possessed were rendered null by the secession of her husband: she
despised him, and did not care to conceal her sentiments. The king had, in
compliance with her exactions, cast off his old friends, but he had
acquired no new ones under her guidance. In this dearth of sympathy, he had
recourse to his almost infant son; and the early development of talent and
sensibility rendered Adrian no unfitting depository of his father's
confidence. He was never weary of listening to the latter's often repeated
accounts of old times, in which my father had played a distinguished part;
his keen remarks were repeated to the boy, and remembered by him; his wit,
his fascinations, his very faults were hallowed by the regret of affection;
his loss was sincerely deplored. Even the queen's dislike of the favourite
was ineffectual to deprive him of his son's admiration: it was bitter,
sarcastic, contemptuous--but as she bestowed her heavy censure alike on
his virtues as his errors, on his devoted friendship and his ill-bestowed
loves, on his disinterestedness and his prodigality, on his pre-possessing
grace of manner, and the facility with which he yielded to temptation, her
double shot proved too heavy, and fell short of the mark. Nor did her angry
dislike prevent Adrian from imaging my father, as he had said, the type of
all that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. It was not strange
therefore, that when he heard of the existence of the offspring of this
celebrated person, he should have formed the plan of bestowing on them all
the advantages his rank made him rich to afford. When he found me a
vagabond shepherd of the hills, a poacher, an unlettered savage, still his
kindness did not fail. In addition to the opinion he entertained that his
father was to a degree culpable of neglect towards us, and that he was
bound to every possible reparation, he was pleased to say that under all my
ruggedness there glimmered forth an elevation of spirit, which could be
distinguished from mere animal courage, and that I inherited a similarity
of countenance to my father, which gave proof that all his virtues and
talents had not died with him. Whatever those might be which descended to
me, my noble young friend resolved should not be lost for want of culture.
Acting upon this plan in our subsequent intercourse, he led me to wish to
participate in that cultivation which graced his own intellect. My active
mind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it with extreme
avidity. At first it was the great object of my ambition to rival the
merits of my father, and render myself worthy of the friendship of Adrian.
But curiosity soon awoke, and an earnest love of knowledge, which caused me
to pass days and nights in reading and study. I was already well acquainted
with what I may term the panorama of nature, the change of seasons, and the
various appearances of heaven and earth. But I was at once startled and
enchanted by my sudden extension of vision, when the curtain, which had
been drawn before the intellectual world, was withdrawn, and I saw the
universe, not only as it presented itself to my outward senses, but as it
had appeared to the wisest among men. Poetry and its creations, philosophy
and its researches and classifications, alike awoke the sleeping ideas in
my mind, and gave me new ones.
I felt as the sailor, who from the topmast first discovered the shore of
America; and like him I hastened to tell my companions of my discoveries in
unknown regions. But I was unable to excite in any breast the same craving
appetite for knowledge that existed in mine. Even Perdita was unable to
understand me. I had lived in what is generally called the world of
reality, and it was awakening to a new country to find that there was a
deeper meaning in all I saw, besides that which my eyes conveyed to me. The
visionary Perdita beheld in all this only a new gloss upon an old reading,
and her own was sufficiently inexhaustible to content her. She listened to
me as she had done to the narration of my adventures, and sometimes took an
interest in this species of information; but she did not, as I did, look on
it as an integral part of her being, which having obtained, I could no more
put off than the universal sense of touch.
We both agreed in loving Adrian: although she not having yet escaped from
childhood could not appreciate as I did the extent of his merits, or feel
the same sympathy in his pursuits and opinions. I was for ever with him.
There was a sensibility and sweetness in his disposition, that gave a
tender and unearthly tone to our converse. Then he was gay as a lark
carolling from its skiey tower, soaring in thought as an eagle, innocent as
the mild-eyed dove. He could dispel the seriousness of Perdita, and take
the sting from the torturing activity of my nature. I looked back to my
restless desires and painful struggles with my fellow beings as to a
troubled dream, and felt myself as much changed as if I had transmigrated
into another form, whose fresh sensorium and mechanism of nerves had
altered the reflection of the apparent universe in the mirror of mind. But
it was not so; I was the same in strength, in earnest craving for sympathy,
in my yearning for active exertion. My manly virtues did not desert me, for
the witch Urania spared the locks of Sampson, while he reposed at her feet;
but all was softened and humanized. Nor did Adrian instruct me only in the
cold truths of history and philosophy. At the same time that he taught me
by their means to subdue my own reckless and uncultured spirit, he opened
to my view the living page of his own heart, and gave me to feel and
understand its wondrous character.
The ex-queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavoured to implant
daring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw that he was
endowed with genius and surpassing talent; these she cultivated for the
sake of afterwards using them for the furtherance of her own views. She
encouraged his craving for knowledge and his impetuous courage; she even
tolerated his tameless love of freedom, under the hope that this would, as
is too often the case, lead to a passion for command. She endeavoured to
bring him up in a sense of resentment towards, and a desire to revenge
himself upon, those who had been instrumental in bringing about his
father's abdication. In this she did not succeed. The accounts furnished
him, however distorted, of a great and wise nation asserting its right to
govern itself, excited his admiration: in early days he became a republican
from principle. Still his mother did not despair. To the love of rule and
haughty pride of birth she added determined ambition, patience, and
self-control. She devoted herself to the study of her son's disposition. By
the application of praise, censure, and exhortation, she tried to seek and
strike the fitting chords; and though the melody that followed her touch
seemed discord to her, she built her hopes on his talents, and felt sure
that she would at last win him. The kind of banishment he now experienced
arose from other causes.
The ex-queen had also a daughter, now twelve years of age; his fairy
sister, Adrian was wont to call her; a lovely, animated, little thing, all
sensibility and truth. With these, her children, the noble widow constantly
resided at Windsor; and admitted no visitors, except her own partizans,
travellers from her native Germany, and a few of the foreign ministers.
Among these, and highly distinguished by her, was Prince Zaimi, ambassador
to England from the free States of Greece; and his daughter, the young
Princess Evadne, passed much of her time at Windsor Castle. In company with
this sprightly and clever Greek girl, the Countess would relax from her
usual state. Her views with regard to her own children, placed all her
words and actions relative to them under restraint: but Evadne was a
plaything she could in no way fear; nor were her talents and vivacity
slight alleviations to the monotony of the Countess's life.
Evadne was eighteen years of age. Although they spent much time together at
Windsor, the extreme youth of Adrian prevented any suspicion as to the
nature of their intercourse. But he was ardent and tender of heart beyond
the common nature of man, and had already learnt to love, while the
beauteous Greek smiled benignantly on the boy. It was strange to me, who,
though older than Adrian, had never loved, to witness the whole heart's
sacrifice of my friend. There was neither jealousy, inquietude, or mistrust
in his sentiment; it was devotion and faith. His life was swallowed up in
the existence of his beloved; and his heart beat only in unison with the
pulsations that vivified hers. This was the secret law of his life--he
loved and was beloved. The universe was to him a dwelling, to inhabit with
his chosen one; and not either a scheme of society or an enchainment of
events, that could impart to him either happiness or misery. What, though
life and the system of social intercourse were a wilderness, a
tiger-haunted jungle! Through the midst of its errors, in the depths of its
savage recesses, there was a disentangled and flowery pathway, through
which they might journey in safety and delight. Their track would be like
the passage of the Red Sea, which they might traverse with unwet feet,
though a wall of destruction were impending on either side.
Alas! why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen of
humanity? What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards
pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be
attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the
never-failing pilot of our life's bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the
shoals. Who was better framed than this highly-gifted youth to love and be
beloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion? If his heart
had slept but a few years longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke in
its infancy; it had power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as a
too early-blowing bud is nipt by the killing frost.
I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover; but
the first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not love him;
it was written with elegance, and, foreigner as she was, with great command
of language. The hand-writing itself was exquisitely beautiful; there was
something in her very paper and its folds, which even I, who did not love,
and was withal unskilled in such matters, could discern as being tasteful.
There was much kindness, gratitude, and sweetness in her expression, but no
love. Evadne was two years older than Adrian; and who, at eighteen, ever
loved one so much their junior? I compared her placid epistles with the
burning ones of Adrian. His soul seemed to distil itself into the words he
wrote; and they breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of the
life of love, which was his life. The very writing used to exhaust him; and
he would weep over them, merely from the excess of emotion they awakened in
his heart.
Adrian's soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceit
were at the antipodes to the dreadless frankness of his nature. Evadne made
it her earnest request that the tale of their loves should not be revealed
to his mother; and after for a while contesting the point, he yielded it to
her. A vain concession; his demeanour quickly betrayed his secret to the
quick eyes of the ex-queen. With the same wary prudence that characterized
her whole conduct, she concealed her discovery, but hastened to remove her
son from the sphere of the attractive Greek. He was sent to Cumberland; but
the plan of correspondence between the lovers, arranged by Evadne, was
effectually hidden from her. Thus the absence of Adrian, concerted for the
purpose of separating, united them in firmer bonds than ever. To me he
discoursed ceaselessly of his beloved Ionian. Her country, its ancient
annals, its late memorable struggles, were all made to partake in her glory
and excellence. He submitted to be away from her, because she commanded
this submission; but for her influence, he would have declared his
attachment before all England, and resisted, with unshaken constancy, his
mother's opposition. Evadne's feminine prudence perceived how useless any
assertion of his resolves would be, till added years gave weight to his
power. Perhaps there was besides a lurking dislike to bind herself in the
face of the world to one whom she did not love--not love, at least, with
that passionate enthusiasm which her heart told her she might one day feel
towards another. He obeyed her injunctions, and passed a year in exile in
Cumberland.
CHAPTER III.
HAPPY, thrice happy, were the months, and weeks, and hours of that year.
Friendship, hand in hand with admiration, tenderness and respect, built a
bower of delight in my heart, late rough as an untrod wild in America, as
the homeless wind or herbless sea. Insatiate thirst for knowledge, and
boundless affection for Adrian, combined to keep both my heart and
understanding occupied, and I was consequently happy. What happiness is so
true and unclouded, as the overflowing and talkative delight of young
people. In our boat, upon my native lake, beside the streams and the pale
bordering poplars--in valley and over hill, my crook thrown aside, a
nobler flock to tend than silly sheep, even a flock of new-born ideas, I
read or listened to Adrian; and his discourse, whether it concerned his
love or his theories for the improvement of man, alike entranced me.
Sometimes my lawless mood would return, my love of peril, my resistance to
authority; but this was in his absence; under the mild sway of his dear
eyes, I was obedient and good as a boy of five years old, who does his
mother's bidding.
After a residence of about a year at Ulswater, Adrian visited London, and
came back full of plans for our benefit. You must begin life, he said: you
are seventeen, and longer delay would render the necessary apprenticeship
more and more irksome. He foresaw that his own life would be one of
struggle, and I must partake his labours with him. The better to fit me for
this task, we must now separate. He found my name a good passport to
preferment, and he had procured for me the situation of private secretary
to the Ambassador at Vienna, where I should enter on my career under the
best auspices. In two years, I should return to my country, with a name
well known and a reputation already founded.
And Perdita?--Perdita was to become the pupil, friend and younger sister
of Evadne. With his usual thoughtfulness, he had provided for her
independence in this situation. How refuse the offers of this generous
friend?--I did not wish to refuse them; but in my heart of hearts, I made
a vow to devote life, knowledge, and power, all of which, in as much as
they were of any value, he had bestowed on me--all, all my capacities and
hopes, to him alone I would devote.
Thus I promised myself, as I journied towards my destination with roused
and ardent expectation: expectation of the fulfilment of all that in
boyhood we promise ourselves of power and enjoyment in maturity. Methought
the time was now arrived, when, childish occupations laid aside, I should
enter into life. Even in the Elysian fields, Virgil describes the souls of
the happy as eager to drink of the wave which was to restore them to this
mortal coil. The young are seldom in Elysium, for their desires,
outstripping possibility, leave them as poor as a moneyless debtor. We are
told by the wisest philosophers of the dangers of the world, the deceits of
men, and the treason of our own hearts: but not the less fearlessly does
each put off his frail bark from the port, spread the sail, and strain his
oar, to attain the multitudinous streams of the sea of life. How few in
youth's prime, moor their vessels on the "golden sands," and collect the
painted shells that strew them. But all at close of day, with riven planks
and rent canvas make for shore, and are either wrecked ere they reach it,
or find some wave-beaten haven, some desart strand, whereon to cast
themselves and die unmourned.
A truce to philosophy!--Life is before me, and I rush into possession.
Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides, and my soul knows
no dread. What has been, though sweet, is gone; the present is good only
because it is about to change, and the to come is all my own. Do I fear,
that my heart palpitates? high aspirations cause the flow of my blood; my
eyes seem to penetrate the cloudy midnight of time, and to discern within
the depths of its darkness, the fruition of all my soul desires.
Now pause!--During my journey I might dream, and with buoyant wings reach
the summit of life's high edifice. Now that I am arrived at its base, my
pinions are furled, the mighty stairs are before me, and step by step I
must ascend the wondrous fane--
Speak!--What door is opened?
Behold me in a new capacity. A diplomatist: one among the pleasure-seeking
society of a gay city; a youth of promise; favourite of the Ambassador. All
was strange and admirable to the shepherd of Cumberland. With breathless
amaze I entered on the gay scene, whose actors were
--the lilies glorious as Solomon,
Who toil not, neither do they spin.
Soon, too soon, I entered the giddy whirl; forgetting my studious hours,
and the companionship of Adrian. Passionate desire of sympathy, and ardent
pursuit for a wished-for object still characterized me. The sight of beauty
entranced me, and attractive manners in man or woman won my entire
confidence. I called it rapture, when a smile made my heart beat; and I
felt the life's blood tingle in my frame, when I approached the idol which
for awhile I worshipped. The mere flow of animal spirits was Paradise, and
at night's close I only desired a renewal of the intoxicating delusion. The
dazzling light of ornamented rooms; lovely forms arrayed in splendid
dresses; the motions of a dance, the voluptuous tones of exquisite music,
cradled my senses in one delightful dream.
And is not this in its kind happiness? I appeal to moralists and sages. I
ask if in the calm of their measured reveries, if in the deep meditations
which fill their hours, they feel the extasy of a youthful tyro in the
school of pleasure? Can the calm beams of their heaven-seeking eyes equal
the flashes of mingling passion which blind his, or does the influence of
cold philosophy steep their soul in a joy equal to his, engaged
In this dear work of youthful revelry.
But in truth, neither the lonely meditations of the hermit, nor the
tumultuous raptures of the reveller, are capable of satisfying man's heart.
From the one we gather unquiet speculation, from the other satiety. The
mind flags beneath the weight of thought, and droops in the heartless
intercourse of those whose sole aim is amusement. There is no fruition in
their vacant kindness, and sharp rocks lurk beneath the smiling ripples of
these shallow waters.
Thus I felt, when disappointment, weariness, and solitude drove me back
upon my heart, to gather thence the joy of which it had become barren. My
flagging spirits asked for something to speak to the affections; and not
finding it, I drooped. Thus, notwithstanding the thoughtless delight that
waited on its commencement, the impression I have of my life at Vienna is
melancholy. Goethe has said, that in youth we cannot be happy unless we
love. I did not love; but I was devoured by a restless wish to be something
to others. I became the victim of ingratitude and cold coquetry--then I
desponded, and imagined that my discontent gave me a right to hate the
world. I receded to solitude; I had recourse to my books, and my desire
again to enjoy the society of Adrian became a burning thirst.
Emulation, that in its excess almost assumed the venomous properties of
envy, gave a sting to these feelings. At this period the name and exploits
of one of my countrymen filled the world with admiration. Relations of what
he had done, conjectures concerning his future actions, were the
never-failing topics of the hour. I was not angry on my own account, but I
felt as if the praises which this idol received were leaves torn from
laurels destined for Adrian. But I must enter into some account of this
darling of fame--this favourite of the wonder-loving world.
Lord Raymond was the sole remnant of a noble but impoverished family. From
early youth he had considered his pedigree with complacency, and bitterly
lamented his want of wealth. His first wish was aggrandisement; and the
means that led towards this end were secondary considerations. Haughty, yet
trembling to every demonstration of respect; ambitious, but too proud to
shew his ambition; willing to achieve honour, yet a votary of pleasure,--
he entered upon life. He was met on the threshold by some insult, real or
imaginary; some repulse, where he least expected it; some disappointment,
hard for his pride to bear. He writhed beneath an injury he was unable to
revenge; and he quitted England with a vow not to return, till the good
time should arrive, when she might feel the power of him she now despised.
He became an adventurer in the Greek wars. His reckless courage and
comprehensive genius brought him into notice. He became the darling hero of
this rising people. His foreign birth, and he refused to throw off his
allegiance to his native country, alone prevented him from filling the
first offices in the state. But, though others might rank higher in title
and ceremony, Lord Raymond held a station above and beyond all this. He led
the Greek armies to victory; their triumphs were all his own. When he
appeared, whole towns poured forth their population to meet him; new songs
were adapted to their national airs, whose themes were his glory, valour,
and munificence. A truce was concluded between the Greeks and Turks. At the
same time, Lord Raymond, by some unlooked-for chance, became the possessor
of an immense fortune in England, whither he returned, crowned with glory,
to receive the meed of honour and distinction before denied to his
pretensions. His proud heart rebelled against this change. In what was the
despised Raymond not the same? If the acquisition of power in the shape of
wealth caused this alteration, that power should they feel as an iron yoke.
Power therefore was the aim of all his endeavours; aggrandizement the mark
at which he for ever shot. In open ambition or close intrigue, his end was
the same--to attain the first station in his own country.
This account filled me with curiosity. The events that in succession
followed his return to England, gave me keener feelings. Among his other
advantages, Lord Raymond was supremely handsome; every one admired him; of
women he was the idol. He was courteous, honey-tongued--an adept in
fascinating arts. What could not this man achieve in the busy English
world? Change succeeded to change; the entire history did not reach me; for
Adrian had ceased to write, and Perdita was a laconic correspondent. The
rumour went that Adrian had become--how write the fatal word--mad: that
Lord Raymond was the favourite of the ex-queen, her daughter's destined
husband. Nay, more, that this aspiring noble revived the claim of the house
of Windsor to the crown, and that, on the event of Adrian's incurable
disorder and his marriage with the sister, the brow of the ambitious
Raymond might be encircled with the magic ring of regality.
Such a tale filled the trumpet of many voiced fame; such a tale rendered my
longer stay at Vienna, away from the friend of my youth, intolerable. Now I
must fulfil my vow; now range myself at his side, and be his ally and
support till death. Farewell to courtly pleasure; to politic intrigue; to
the maze of passion and folly! All hail, England! Native England, receive
thy child! thou art the scene of all my hopes, the mighty theatre on which
is acted the only drama that can, heart and soul, bear me along with it in
its development. A voice most irresistible, a power omnipotent, drew me
thither. After an absence of two years I landed on its shores, not daring
to make any inquiries, fearful of every remark. My first visit would be to
my sister, who inhabited a little cottage, a part of Adrian's gift, on the
borders of Windsor Forest. From her I should learn the truth concerning our
protector; I should hear why she had withdrawn from the protection of the
Princess Evadne, and be instructed as to the influence which this
overtopping and towering Raymond exercised over the fortunes of my friend.
I had never before been in the neighbourhood of Windsor; the fertility and
beauty of the country around now struck me with admiration, which encreased
as I approached the antique wood. The ruins of majestic oaks which had
grown, flourished, and decayed during the progress of centuries, marked
where the limits of the forest once reached, while the shattered palings
and neglected underwood shewed that this part was deserted for the younger
plantations, which owed their birth to the beginning of the nineteenth
century, and now stood in the pride of maturity. Perdita's humble dwelling
was situated on the skirts of the most ancient portion; before it was
stretched Bishopgate Heath, which towards the east appeared interminable,
and was bounded to the west by Chapel Wood and the grove of Virginia Water.
Behind, the cottage was shadowed by the venerable fathers of the forest,
under which the deer came to graze, and which for the most part hollow and
decayed, formed fantastic groups that contrasted with the regular beauty of
the younger trees. These, the offspring of a later period, stood erect and
seemed ready to advance fearlessly into coming time; while those out worn
stragglers, blasted and broke, clung to each other, their weak boughs
sighing as the wind buffetted them--a weather-beaten crew.
A light railing surrounded the garden of the cottage, which, low-roofed,
seemed to submit to the majesty of nature, and cower amidst the venerable
remains of forgotten time. Flowers, the children of the spring, adorned her
garden and casements; in the midst of lowliness there was an air of
elegance which spoke the graceful taste of the inmate. With a beating heart
I entered the enclosure; as I stood at the entrance, I heard her
voice, melodious as it had ever been, which before I saw her assured me of
her welfare.
A moment more and Perdita appeared; she stood before me in the fresh bloom
of youthful womanhood, different from and yet the same as the mountain girl
I had left. Her eyes could not be deeper than they were in childhood, nor
her countenance more expressive; but the expression was changed and
improved; intelligence sat on her brow; when she smiled her face was
embellished by the softest sensibility, and her low, modulated voice seemed
tuned by love. Her person was formed in the most feminine proportions; she
was not tall, but her mountain life had given freedom to her motions, so
that her light step scarce made her foot-fall heard as she tript across the
hall to meet me. When we had parted, I had clasped her to my bosom with
unrestrained warmth; we met again, and new feelings were awakened; when
each beheld the other, childhood passed, as full grown actors on this
changeful scene. The pause was but for a moment; the flood of association
and natural feeling which had been checked, again rushed in full tide upon
our hearts, and with tenderest emotion we were swiftly locked in each
other's embrace.
This burst of passionate feeling over, with calmed thoughts we sat
together, talking of the past and present. I alluded to the coldness of her
letters; but the few minutes we had spent together sufficiently explained
the origin of this. New feelings had arisen within her, which she was
unable to express in writing to one whom she had only known in childhood;
but we saw each other again, and our intimacy was renewed as if nothing had
intervened to check it. I detailed the incidents of my sojourn abroad, and
then questioned her as to the changes that had taken place at home, the
causes of Adrian's absence, and her secluded life.
The tears that suffused my sister's eyes when I mentioned our friend, and
her heightened colour seemed to vouch for the truth of the reports that had
reached me. But their import was too terrible for me to give instant credit
to my suspicion. Was there indeed anarchy in the sublime universe of
Adrian's thoughts, did madness scatter the well-appointed legions, and was
he no longer the lord of his own soul? Beloved friend, this ill world was
no clime for your gentle spirit; you delivered up its governance to false
humanity, which stript it of its leaves ere winter-time, and laid bare its
quivering life to the evil ministration of roughest winds. Have those
gentle eyes, those "channels of the soul" lost their meaning, or do they
only in their glare disclose the horrible tale of its aberrations? Does
that voice no longer "discourse excellent music?" Horrible, most horrible!
I veil my eyes in terror of the change, and gushing tears bear witness to
my sympathy for this unimaginable ruin.
In obedience to my request Perdita detailed the melancholy circumstances
that led to this event.
The frank and unsuspicious mind of Adrian, gifted as it was by every
natural grace, endowed with transcendant powers of intellect, unblemished
by the shadow of defect (unless his dreadless independence of thought was
to be construed into one), was devoted, even as a victim to sacrifice, to
his love for Evadne. He entrusted to her keeping the treasures of his soul,
his aspirations after excellence, and his plans for the improvement of
mankind. As manhood dawned upon him, his schemes and theories, far from
being changed by personal and prudential motives, acquired new strength
from the powers he felt arise within him; and his love for Evadne became
deep-rooted, as he each day became more certain that the path he pursued
was full of difficulty, and that he must seek his reward, not in the
applause or gratitude of his fellow creatures, hardly in the success of his
plans, but in the approbation of his own heart, and in her love and
sympathy, which was to lighten every toil and recompence every sacrifice.
In solitude, and through many wanderings afar from the haunts of men, he
matured his views for the reform of the English government, and the
improvement of the people. It would have been well if he had concealed his
sentiments, until he had come into possession of the power which would
secure their practical development. But he was impatient of the years that
must intervene, he was frank of heart and fearless. He gave not only a
brief denial to his mother's schemes, but published his intention of using
his influence to diminish the power of the aristocracy, to effect a greater
equalization of wealth and privilege, and to introduce a perfect system of
republican government into England. At first his mother treated his
theories as the wild ravings of inexperience. But they were so
systematically arranged, and his arguments so well supported, that though
still in appearance incredulous, she began to fear him. She tried to reason
with him, and finding him inflexible, learned to hate him.
Strange to say, this feeling was infectious. His enthusiasm for good which
did not exist; his contempt for the sacredness of authority; his ardour and
imprudence were all at the antipodes of the usual routine of life; the
worldly feared him; the young and inexperienced did not understand the
lofty severity of his moral views, and disliked him as a being different
from themselves. Evadne entered but coldly into his systems. She thought he
did well to assert his own will, but she wished that will to have been more
intelligible to the multitude. She had none of the spirit of a martyr, and
did not incline to share the shame and defeat of a fallen patriot. She was
aware of the purity of his motives, the generosity of his disposition, his
true and ardent attachment to her; and she entertained a great affection
for him. He repaid this spirit of kindness with the fondest gratitude, and
made her the treasure-house of all his hopes.
At this time Lord Raymond returned from Greece. No two persons could be
more opposite than Adrian and he. With all the incongruities of his
character, Raymond was emphatically a man of the world. His passions were
violent; as these often obtained the mastery over him, he could not always
square his conduct to the obvious line of self-interest, but
self-gratification at least was the paramount object with him. He looked on
the structure of society as but a part of the machinery which supported the
web on which his life was traced. The earth was spread out as an highway
for him; the heavens built up as a canopy for him.
Adrian felt that he made a part of a great whole. He owned affinity not
only with mankind, but all nature was akin to him; the mountains and sky
were his friends; the winds of heaven and the offspring of earth his
playmates; while he the focus only of this mighty mirror, felt his life
mingle with the universe of existence. His soul was sympathy, and dedicated
to the worship of beauty and excellence. Adrian and Raymond now came into
contact, and a spirit of aversion rose between them. Adrian despised the
narrow views of the politician, and Raymond held in supreme contempt the
benevolent visions of the philanthropist.
With the coming of Raymond was formed the storm that laid waste at one fell
blow the gardens of delight and sheltered paths which Adrian fancied that
he had secured to himself, as a refuge from defeat and contumely. Raymond,
the deliverer of Greece, the graceful soldier, who bore in his mien a tinge
of all that, peculiar to her native clime, Evadne cherished as most dear--
Raymond was loved by Evadne. Overpowered by her new sensations, she did not
pause to examine them, or to regulate her conduct by any sentiments except
the tyrannical one which suddenly usurped the empire of her heart. She
yielded to its influence, and the too natural consequence in a mind
unattuned to soft emotions was, that the attentions of Adrian became
distasteful to her. She grew capricious; her gentle conduct towards him was
exchanged for asperity and repulsive coldness. When she perceived the wild
or pathetic appeal of his expressive countenance, she would relent, and for
a while resume her ancient kindness. But these fluctuations shook to its
depths the soul of the sensitive youth; he no longer deemed the world
subject to him, because he possessed Evadne's love; he felt in every nerve
that the dire storms of the mental universe were about to attack his
fragile being, which quivered at the expectation of its advent.
Perdita, who then resided with Evadne, saw the torture that Adrian endured.
She loved him as a kind elder brother; a relation to guide, protect, and
instruct her, without the too frequent tyranny of parental authority. She
adored his virtues, and with mixed contempt and indignation she saw Evadne
pile drear sorrow on his head, for the sake of one who hardly marked her.
In his solitary despair Adrian would often seek my sister, and in covered
terms express his misery, while fortitude and agony divided the throne of
his mind. Soon, alas! was one to conquer. Anger made no part of his
emotion. With whom should he be angry? Not with Raymond, who was
unconscious of the misery he occasioned; not with Evadne, for her his soul
wept tears of blood--poor, mistaken girl, slave not tyrant was she, and
amidst his own anguish he grieved for her future destiny. Once a writing of
his fell into Perdita's hands; it was blotted with tears--well might any
blot it with the like--
"Life"--it began thus--"is not the thing romance writers describe it;
going through the measures of a dance, and after various evolutions
arriving at a conclusion, when the dancers may sit down and repose. While
there is life there is action and change. We go on, each thought linked to
the one which was its parent, each act to a previous act. No joy or sorrow
dies barren of progeny, which for ever generated and generating, weaves the
chain that make our life:
Un dia llama a otro dia
y ass i llama, y encadena
llanto a llanto, y pena a pena.
Truly disappointment is the guardian deity of human life; she sits
at the threshold of unborn time, and marshals the events as they
come forth. Once my heart sat lightly in my bosom; all the beauty of the
world was doubly beautiful, irradiated by the sun-light shed from my own
soul. O wherefore are love and ruin for ever joined in this our mortal
dream? So that when we make our hearts a lair for that gently seeming
beast, its companion enters with it, and pitilessly lays waste what might
have been an home and a shelter."
By degrees his health was shaken by his misery, and then his intellect
yielded to the same tyranny. His manners grew wild; he was sometimes
ferocious, sometimes absorbed in speechless melancholy. Suddenly Evadne
quitted London for Paris; he followed, and overtook her when the vessel was
about to sail; none knew what passed between them, but Perdita had never
seen him since; he lived in seclusion, no one knew where, attended by such
persons as his mother selected for that purpose.
CHAPTER IV.
THE next day Lord Raymond called at Perdita's cottage, on his way to
Windsor Castle. My sister's heightened colour and sparkling eyes half
revealed her secret to me. He was perfectly self-possessed; he accosted us
both with courtesy, seemed immediately to enter into our feelings, and to
make one with us. I scanned his physiognomy, which varied as he spoke, yet
was beautiful in every change. The usual expression of his eyes was soft,
though at times he could make them even glare with ferocity; his complexion
was colourless; and every trait spoke predominate self-will; his smile was
pleasing, though disdain too often curled his lips--lips which to female
eyes were the very throne of beauty and love. His voice, usually gentle,
often startled you by a sharp discordant note, which shewed that his usual
low tone was rather the work of study than nature. Thus full of
contradictions, unbending yet haughty, gentle yet fierce, tender and again
neglectful, he by some strange art found easy entrance to the admiration
and affection of women; now caressing and now tyrannizing over them
according to his mood, but in every change a despot.
At the present time Raymond evidently wished to appear amiable. Wit,
hilarity, and deep observation were mingled in his talk, rendering every
sentence that he uttered as a flash of light. He soon conquered my latent
distaste; I endeavoured to watch him and Perdita, and to keep in mind every
thing I had heard to his disadvantage. But all appeared so ingenuous, and
all was so fascinating, that I forgot everything except the pleasure his
society afforded me. Under the idea of initiating me in the scene of
English politics and society, of which I was soon to become a part, he
narrated a number of anecdotes, and sketched many characters; his
discourse, rich and varied, flowed on, pervading all my senses with
pleasure. But for one thing he would have been completely triumphant. He
alluded to Adrian, and spoke of him with that disparagement that the
worldly wise always attach to enthusiasm. He perceived the cloud gathering,
and tried to dissipate it; but the strength of my feelings would not permit
me to pass thus lightly over this sacred subject; so I said emphatically,
"Permit me to remark, that I am devotedly attached to the Earl of Windsor;
he is my best friend and benefactor. I reverence his goodness, I accord
with his opinions, and bitterly lament his present, and I trust temporary,
illness. That illness, from its peculiarity, makes it painful to me beyond
words to hear him mentioned, unless in terms of respect and affection."
Raymond replied; but there was nothing conciliatory in his reply. I saw
that in his heart he despised those dedicated to any but worldly idols.
"Every man," he said, "dreams about something, love, honour, and pleasure;
you dream of friendship, and devote yourself to a maniac; well, if that be
your vocation, doubtless you are in the right to follow it."--
Some reflection seemed to sting him, and the spasm of pain that for a
moment convulsed his countenance, checked my indignation. "Happy are
dreamers," he continued, "so that they be not awakened! Would I could
dream! but 'broad and garish day' is the element in which I live; the
dazzling glare of reality inverts the scene for me. Even the ghost of
friendship has departed, and love"----He broke off; nor could I guess
whether the disdain that curled his lip was directed against the passion,
or against himself for being its slave.
This account may be taken as a sample of my intercourse with Lord Raymond.
I became intimate with him, and each day afforded me occasion to admire
more and more his powerful and versatile talents, that together with his
eloquence, which was graceful and witty, and his wealth now immense, caused
him to be feared, loved, and hated beyond any other man in England.
My descent, which claimed interest, if not respect, my former connection
with Adrian, the favour of the ambassador, whose secretary I had been, and
now my intimacy with Lord Raymond, gave me easy access to the fashionable
and political circles of England. To my inexperience we at first appeared
on the eve of a civil war; each party was violent, acrimonious, and
unyielding. Parliament was divided by three factions, aristocrats,
democrats, and royalists. After Adrian's declared predeliction to the
republican form of government, the latter party had nearly died away,
chiefless, guideless; but, when Lord Raymond came forward as its leader, it
revived with redoubled force. Some were royalists from prejudice and
ancient affection, and there were many moderately inclined who feared alike
the capricious tyranny of the popular party, and the unbending despotism of
the aristocrats. More than a third of the members ranged themselves under
Raymond, and their number was perpetually encreasing. The aristocrats built
their hopes on their preponderant wealth and influence; the reformers on
the force of the nation itself; the debates were violent, more violent the
discourses held by each knot of politicians as they assembled to arrange
their measures. Opprobrious epithets were bandied about, resistance even to
the death threatened; meetings of the populace disturbed the quiet order of
the country; except in war, how could all this end? Even as the destructive
flames were ready to break forth, I saw them shrink back; allayed by the
absence of the military, by the aversion entertained by every one to any
violence, save that of speech, and by the cordial politeness and even
friendship of the hostile leaders when they met in private society. I was
from a thousand motives induced to attend minutely to the course of events,
and watch each turn with intense anxiety.
I could not but perceive that Perdita loved Raymond; methought also that he
regarded the fair daughter of Verney with admiration and tenderness. Yet I
knew that he was urging forward his marriage with the presumptive heiress
of the Earldom of Windsor, with keen expectation of the advantages that
would thence accrue to him. All the ex-queen's friends were his friends; no
week passed that he did not hold consultations with her at Windsor.
I had never seen the sister of Adrian. I had heard that she was lovely,
amiable, and fascinating. Wherefore should I see her? There are times when
we have an indefinable sentiment of impending change for better or for
worse, to arise from an event; and, be it for better or for worse, we fear
the change, and shun the event. For this reason I avoided this high-born
damsel. To me she was everything and nothing; her very name mentioned by
another made me start and tremble; the endless discussion concerning her
union with Lord Raymond was real agony to me. Methought that, Adrian
withdrawn from active life, and this beauteous Idris, a victim probably to
her mother's ambitious schemes, I ought to come forward to protect her from
undue influence, guard her from unhappiness, and secure to her freedom of
choice, the right of every human being. Yet how was I to do this? She
herself would disdain my interference. Since then I must be an object of
indifference or contempt to her, better, far better avoid her, nor expose
myself before her and the scornful world to the chance of playing the mad
game of a fond, foolish Icarus. One day, several months after my return to
England, I quitted London to visit my sister. Her society was my chief
solace and delight; and my spirits always rose at the expectation of seeing
her. Her conversation was full of pointed remark and discernment; in her
pleasant alcove, redolent with sweetest flowers, adorned by magnificent
casts, antique vases, and copies of the finest pictures of Raphael,
Correggio, and Claude, painted by herself, I fancied myself in a fairy
retreat untainted by and inaccessible to the noisy contentions of
politicians and the frivolous pursuits of fashion. On this occasion, my
sister was not alone; nor could I fail to recognise her companion: it was
Idris, the till now unseen object of my mad idolatry.
In what fitting terms of wonder and delight, in what choice expression and
soft flow of language, can I usher in the loveliest, wisest, best? How in
poor assemblage of words convey the halo of glory that surrounded her, the
thousand graces that waited unwearied on her. The first thing that struck
you on beholding that charming countenance was its perfect goodness and
frankness; candour sat upon her brow, simplicity in her eyes, heavenly
benignity in her smile. Her tall slim figure bent gracefully as a poplar to
the breezy west, and her gait, goddess-like, was as that of a winged angel
new alit from heaven's high floor; the pearly fairness of her complexion
was stained by a pure suffusion; her voice resembled the low, subdued tenor
of a flute. It is easiest perhaps to describe by contrast. I have detailed
the perfections of my sister; and yet she was utterly unlike Idris.
Perdita, even where she loved, was reserved and timid; Idris was frank and
confiding. The one recoiled to solitude, that she might there entrench
herself from disappointment and injury; the other walked forth in open day,
believing that none would harm her. Wordsworth has compared a beloved
female to two fair objects in nature; but his lines always appeared to me
rather a contrast than a similitude:
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky.
Such a violet was sweet Perdita, trembling to entrust herself to the very
air, cowering from observation, yet betrayed by her excellences; and
repaying with a thousand graces the labour of those who sought her in her
lonely bye-path. Idris was as the star, set in single splendour in the
dim anadem of balmy evening; ready to enlighten and delight the subject
world, shielded herself from every taint by her unimagined distance from
all that was not like herself akin to heaven.
I found this vision of beauty in Perdita's alcove, in earnest conversation
with its inmate. When my sister saw me, she rose, and taking my hand, said,
"He is here, even at our wish; this is Lionel, my brother." Idris arose
also, and bent on me her eyes of celestial blue, and with grace peculiar
said--"You hardly need an introduction; we have a picture, highly valued
by my father, which declares at once your name. Verney, you will
acknowledge this tie, and as my brother's friend, I feel that I may trust
you."
Then, with lids humid with a tear and trembling voice, she continued--
"Dear friends, do not think it strange that now, visiting you for the first
time, I ask your assistance, and confide my wishes and fears to you. To you
alone do I dare speak; I have heard you commended by impartial spectators;
you are my brother's friends, therefore you must be mine. What can I say?
if you refuse to aid me, I am lost indeed!" She cast up her eyes, while
wonder held her auditors mute; then, as if carried away by her feelings,
she cried--"My brother! beloved, ill-fated Adrian! how speak of your
misfortunes? Doubtless you have both heard the current tale; perhaps
believe the slander; but he is not mad! Were an angel from the foot of
God's throne to assert it, never, never would I believe it. He is wronged,
betrayed, imprisoned--save him! Verney, you must do this; seek him out in
whatever part of the island he is immured; find him, rescue him from his
persecutors, restore him to himself, to me--on the wide earth I have none
to love but only him!"
Her earnest appeal, so sweetly and passionately expressed, filled me with
wonder and sympathy; and, when she added, with thrilling voice and look,
"Do you consent to undertake this enterprize?" I vowed, with energy and
truth, to devote myself in life and death to the restoration and welfare of
Adrian. We then conversed on the plan I should pursue, and discussed the
probable means of discovering his residence. While we were in earnest
discourse, Lord Raymond entered unannounced: I saw Perdita tremble and grow
deadly pale, and the cheeks of Idris glow with purest blushes. He must have
been astonished at our conclave, disturbed by it I should have thought; but
nothing of this appeared; he saluted my companions, and addressed me with a
cordial greeting. Idris appeared suspended for a moment, and then with
extreme sweetness, she said, "Lord Raymond, I confide in your goodness and
honour."
Smiling haughtily, he bent his head, and replied, with emphasis, "Do you
indeed confide, Lady Idris?"
She endeavoured to read his thought, and then answered with dignity, "As
you please. It is certainly best not to compromise oneself by any
concealment."
"Pardon me," he replied, "if I have offended. Whether you trust me or not,
rely on my doing my utmost to further your wishes, whatever they may be."
Idris smiled her thanks, and rose to take leave. Lord Raymond requested
permission to accompany her to Windsor Castle, to which she consented, and
they quitted the cottage together. My sister and I were left--truly like
two fools, who fancied that they had obtained a golden treasure, till
daylight shewed it to be lead--two silly, luckless flies, who had played
in sunbeams and were caught in a spider's web. I leaned against the
casement, and watched those two glorious creatures, till they disappeared
in the forest-glades; and then I turned. Perdita had not moved; her eyes
fixed on the ground, her cheeks pale, her very lips white, motionless and
rigid, every feature stamped by woe, she sat. Half frightened, I would
have taken her hand; but she shudderingly withdrew it, and strove to
collect herself. I entreated her to speak to me: "Not now," she replied,
"nor do you speak to me, my dear Lionel; you can say nothing, for you know
nothing. I will see you to-morrow; in the meantime, adieu!" She rose, and
walked from the room; but pausing at the door, and leaning against it, as
if her over-busy thoughts had taken from her the power of supporting
herself, she said, "Lord Raymond will probably return. Will you tell him
that he must excuse me to-day, for I am not well. I will see him to-morrow
if he wishes it, and you also. You had better return to London with him;
you can there make the enquiries agreed upon, concerning the Earl of
Windsor and visit me again to-morrow, before you proceed on your
journey--till then, farewell!"
She spoke falteringly, and concluded with a heavy sigh. I gave my assent to
her request; and she left me. I felt as if, from the order of the
systematic world, I had plunged into chaos, obscure, contrary,
unintelligible. That Raymond should marry Idris was more than ever
intolerable; yet my passion, though a giant from its birth, was too
strange, wild, and impracticable, for me to feel at once the misery I
perceived in Perdita. How should I act? She had not confided in me; I could
not demand an explanation from Raymond without the hazard of betraying what
was perhaps her most treasured secret. I would obtain the truth from her
the following day--in the mean time--But, while I was occupied by
multiplying reflections, Lord Raymond returned. He asked for my sister; and
I delivered her message. After musing on it for a moment, he asked me if I
were about to return to London, and if I would accompany him: I consented.
He was full of thought, and remained silent during a considerable part of
our ride; at length he said, "I must apologize to you for my abstraction;
the truth is, Ryland's motion comes on to-night, and I am considering my
reply."
Ryland was the leader of the popular party, a hard-headed man, and in his
way eloquent; he had obtained leave to bring in a bill making it treason to
endeavour to change the present state of the English government and the
standing laws of the republic. This attack was directed against Raymond and
his machinations for the restoration of the monarchy.
Raymond asked me if I would accompany him to the House that evening. I
remembered my pursuit for intelligence concerning Adrian; and, knowing that
my time would be fully occupied, I excused myself. "Nay," said my
companion, "I can free you from your present impediment. You are going to
make enquiries concerning the Earl of Windsor. I can answer them at once,
he is at the Duke of Athol's seat at Dunkeld. On the first approach of his
disorder, he travelled about from one place to another; until, arriving at
that romantic seclusion he refused to quit it, and we made arrangements
with the Duke for his continuing there."
I was hurt by the careless tone with which he conveyed this information,
and replied coldly: "I am obliged to you for your intelligence, and will
avail myself of it."
"You shall, Verney," said he, "and if you continue of the same mind, I will
facilitate your views. But first witness, I beseech you, the result of this
night's contest, and the triumph I am about to achieve, if I may so call
it, while I fear that victory is to me defeat. What can I do? My dearest
hopes appear to be near their fulfilment. The ex-queen gives me Idris;
Adrian is totally unfitted to succeed to the earldom, and that earldom in
my hands becomes a kingdom. By the reigning God it is true; the paltry
earldom of Windsor shall no longer content him, who will inherit the rights
which must for ever appertain to the person who possesses it. The Countess
can never forget that she has been a queen, and she disdains to leave a
diminished inheritance to her children; her power and my wit will rebuild
the throne, and this brow will be clasped by a kingly diadem.--I can do
this--I can marry Idris."---
He stopped abruptly, his countenance darkened, and its expression changed
again and again under the influence of internal passion. I asked, "Does
Lady Idris love you?"
"What a question," replied he laughing. "She will of course, as I shall
her, when we are married."
"You begin late," said I, ironically, "marriage is usually considered the
grave, and not the cradle of love. So you are about to love her, but do not
already?"
"Do not catechise me, Lionel; I will do my duty by her, be assured. Love! I
must steel my heart against that; expel it from its tower of strength,
barricade it out: the fountain of love must cease to play, its waters be
dried up, and all passionate thoughts attendant on it die--that is to
say, the love which would rule me, not that which I rule. Idris is a
gentle, pretty, sweet little girl; it is impossible not to have an
affection for her, and I have a very sincere one; only do not speak of love
--love, the tyrant and the tyrant-queller; love, until now my conqueror,
now my slave; the hungry fire, the untameable beast, the fanged
snake--no--no--I will have nothing to do with that love. Tell me,
Lionel, do you consent that I should marry this young lady?"
He bent his keen eyes upon me, and my uncontrollable heart swelled in my
bosom. I replied in a calm voice--but how far from calm was the thought
imaged by my still words--"Never! I can never consent that Lady Idris
should be united to one who does not love her."
"Because you love her yourself."
"Your Lordship might have spared that taunt; I do not, dare not love her."
"At least," he continued haughtily, "she does not love you. I would not
marry a reigning sovereign, were I not sure that her heart was free. But,
O, Lionel! a kingdom is a word of might, and gently sounding are the terms
that compose the style of royalty. Were not the mightiest men of the olden
times kings? Alexander was a king; Solomon, the wisest of men, was a king;
Napoleon was a king; Caesar died in his attempt to become one, and
Cromwell, the puritan and king-killer, aspired to regality. The father of
Adrian yielded up the already broken sceptre of England; but I will rear
the fallen plant, join its dismembered frame, and exalt it above all the
flowers of the field.
"You need not wonder that I freely discover Adrian's abode. Do not
suppose that I am wicked or foolish enough to found my purposed
sovereignty on a fraud, and one so easily discovered as the truth
or falsehood of the Earl's insanity. I am just come from him. Before I
decided on my marriage with Idris, I resolved to see him myself again, and
to judge of the probability of his recovery.--He is irrecoverably mad."
I gasped for breath--
"I will not detail to you," continued Raymond, "the melancholy particulars.
You shall see him, and judge for yourself; although I fear this visit,
useless to him, will be insufferably painful to you. It has weighed on my
spirits ever since. Excellent and gentle as he is even in the downfall of
his reason, I do not worship him as you do, but I would give all my hopes
of a crown and my right hand to boot, to see him restored to himself."
His voice expressed the deepest compassion: "Thou most unaccountable
being," I cried, "whither will thy actions tend, in all this maze of
purpose in which thou seemest lost?"
"Whither indeed? To a crown, a golden be-gemmed crown, I hope; and yet I
dare not trust and though I dream of a crown and wake for one, ever and
anon a busy devil whispers to me, that it is but a fool's cap that I seek,
and that were I wise, I should trample on it, and take in its stead, that
which is worth all the crowns of the east and presidentships of the west."
"And what is that?"
"If I do make it my choice, then you shall know; at present I dare not
speak, even think of it."
Again he was silent, and after a pause turned to me laughingly. When scorn
did not inspire his mirth, when it was genuine gaiety that painted his
features with a joyous expression, his beauty became super-eminent, divine.
"Verney," said he, "my first act when I become King of England, will be to
unite with the Greeks, take Constantinople, and subdue all Asia. I intend
to be a warrior, a conqueror; Napoleon's name shall vail to mine; and
enthusiasts, instead of visiting his rocky grave, and exalting the merits
of the fallen, shall adore my majesty, and magnify my illustrious
achievements."
I listened to Raymond with intense interest. Could I be other than all ear,
to one who seemed to govern the whole earth in his grasping imagination,
and who only quailed when he attempted to rule himself. Then on his word
and will depended my own happiness--the fate of all dear to me. I
endeavoured to divine the concealed meaning of his words. Perdita's name
was not mentioned; yet I could not doubt that love for her caused the
vacillation of purpose that he exhibited. And who was so worthy of love as
my noble-minded sister? Who deserved the hand of this self-exalted king
more than she whose glance belonged to a queen of nations? who loved him,
as he did her; notwithstanding that disappointment quelled her passion, and
ambition held strong combat with his.
We went together to the House in the evening. Raymond, while he knew that
his plans and prospects were to be discussed and decided during the
expected debate, was gay and careless. An hum, like that of ten thousand
hives of swarming bees, stunned us as we entered the coffee-room. Knots of
politicians were assembled with anxious brows and loud or deep voices. The
aristocratical party, the richest and most influential men in England,
appeared less agitated than the others, for the question was to be
discussed without their interference. Near the fire was Ryland and his
supporters. Ryland was a man of obscure birth and of immense wealth,
inherited from his father, who had been a manufacturer. He had witnessed,
when a young man, the abdication of the king, and the amalgamation of the
two houses of Lords and Commons; he had sympathized with these popular
encroachments, and it had been the business of his life to consolidate and
encrease them. Since then, the influence of the landed proprietors had
augmented; and at first Ryland was not sorry to observe the machinations of
Lord Raymond, which drew off many of his opponent's partizans. But the
thing was now going too far. The poorer nobility hailed the return of
sovereignty, as an event which would restore them to their power and
rights, now lost. The half extinct spirit of royalty roused itself in the
minds of men; and they, willing slaves, self-constituted subjects, were
ready to bend their necks to the yoke. Some erect and manly spirits still
remained, pillars of state; but the word republic had grown stale to the
vulgar ear; and many--the event would prove whether it was a majority--
pined for the tinsel and show of royalty. Ryland was roused to resistance;
he asserted that his sufferance alone had permitted the encrease of this
party; but the time for indulgence was passed, and with one motion of his
arm he would sweep away the cobwebs that blinded his countrymen.
When Raymond entered the coffee-room, his presence was hailed by his
friends almost with a shout. They gathered round him, counted their
numbers, and detailed the reasons why they were now to receive an addition
of such and such members, who had not yet declared themselves. Some
trifling business of the House having been gone through, the leaders took
their seats in the chamber; the clamour of voices continued, till Ryland
arose to speak, and then the slightest whispered observation was audible.
All eyes were fixed upon him as he stood--ponderous of frame, sonorous of
voice, and with a manner which, though not graceful, was impressive. I
turned from his marked, iron countenance to Raymond, whose face, veiled by
a smile, would not betray his care; yet his lips quivered somewhat, and his
hand clasped the bench on which he sat, with a convulsive strength that
made the muscles start again.
Ryland began by praising the present state of the British empire. He
recalled past years to their memory; the miserable contentions which in the
time of our fathers arose almost to civil war, the abdication of the late
king, and the foundation of the republic. He described this republic;
shewed how it gave privilege to each individual in the state, to rise to
consequence, and even to temporary sovereignty. He compared the royal and
republican spirit; shewed how the one tended to enslave the minds of men;
while all the institutions of the other served to raise even the meanest
among us to something great and good. He shewed how England had become
powerful, and its inhabitants valiant and wise, by means of the freedom
they enjoyed. As he spoke, every heart swelled with pride, and every cheek
glowed with delight to remember, that each one there was English, and that
each supported and contributed to the happy state of things now
commemorated. Ryland's fervour increased--his eyes lighted up--his
voice assumed the tone of passion. There was one man, he continued, who
wished to alter all this, and bring us back to our days of impotence and
contention:--one man, who would dare arrogate the honour which was due to
all who claimed England as their birthplace, and set his name and style
above the name and style of his country. I saw at this juncture that
Raymond changed colour; his eyes were withdrawn from the orator, and cast
on the ground; the listeners turned from one to the other; but in the
meantime the speaker's voice filled their ears--the thunder of his
denunciations influenced their senses. The very boldness of his language
gave him weight; each knew that he spoke truth--a truth known, but not
acknowledged. He tore from reality the mask with which she had been
clothed; and the purposes of Raymond, which before had crept around,
ensnaring by stealth, now stood a hunted stag--even at bay--as all
perceived who watched the irrepressible changes of his countenance. Ryland
ended by moving, that any attempt to re-erect the kingly power should be
declared treason, and he a traitor who should endeavour to change the
present form of government. Cheers and loud acclamations followed the close
of his speech.
After his motion had been seconded, Lord Raymond rose,--his countenance
bland, his voice softly melodious, his manner soothing, his grace and
sweetness came like the mild breathing of a flute, after the loud,
organ-like voice of his adversary. He rose, he said, to speak in favour of
the honourable member's motion, with one slight amendment subjoined. He was
ready to go back to old times, and commemorate the contests of our fathers,
and the monarch's abdication. Nobly and greatly, he said, had the
illustrious and last sovereign of England sacrificed himself to the
apparent good of his country, and divested himself of a power which could
only be maintained by the blood of his subjects--these subjects named so
no more, these, his friends and equals, had in gratitude conferred certain
favours and distinctions on him and his family for ever. An ample estate
was allotted to them, and they took the first rank among the peers of Great
Britain. Yet it might be conjectured that they had not forgotten their
ancient heritage; and it was hard that his heir should suffer alike with
any other pretender, if he attempted to regain what by ancient right and
inheritance belonged to him. He did not say that he should favour such an
attempt; but he did say that such an attempt would be venial; and, if the
aspirant did not go so far as to declare war, and erect a standard in the
kingdom, his fault ought to be regarded with an indulgent eye. In his
amendment he proposed, that an exception should be made in the bill in
favour of any person who claimed the sovereign power in right of the earls
of Windsor. Nor did Raymond make an end without drawing in vivid and glowing
colours, the splendour of a kingdom, in opposition to the commercial spirit
of republicanism. He asserted, that each individual under the English
monarchy, was then as now, capable of attaining high rank and power--with
one only exception, that of the function of chief magistrate; higher and
nobler rank, than a bartering, timorous commonwealth could afford. And for
this one exception, to what did it amount? The nature of riches and
influence forcibly confined the list of candidates to a few of the
wealthiest; and it was much to be feared, that the ill-humour and
contention generated by this triennial struggle, would counterbalance its
advantages in impartial eyes. I can ill record the flow of language and
graceful turns of expression, the wit and easy raillery that gave vigour
and influence to his speech. His manner, timid at first, became firm--his
changeful face was lit up to superhuman brilliancy; his voice, various as
music, was like that enchanting.
It were useless to record the debate that followed this harangue. Party
speeches were delivered, which clothed the question in cant, and veiled its
simple meaning in a woven wind of words. The motion was lost; Ryland
withdrew in rage and despair; and Raymond, gay and exulting, retired to
dream of his future kingdom.
CHAPTER IV.
IS there such a feeling as love at first sight? And if there be, in what
does its nature differ from love founded in long observation and slow
growth? Perhaps its effects are not so permanent; but they are, while they
last, as violent and intense. We walk the pathless mazes of society, vacant
of joy, till we hold this clue, leading us through that labyrinth to
paradise. Our nature dim, like to an unlighted torch, sleeps in formless
blank till the fire attain it; this life of life, this light to moon, and
glory to the sun. What does it matter, whether the fire be struck from
flint and steel, nourished with care into a flame, slowly communicated to
the dark wick, or whether swiftly the radiant power of light and warmth
passes from a kindred power, and shines at once the beacon and the hope. In
the deepest fountain of my heart the pulses were stirred; around, above,
beneath, the clinging Memory as a cloak enwrapt me. In no one moment of
coming time did I feel as I had done in time gone by. The spirit of Idris
hovered in the air I breathed; her eyes were ever and for ever bent on
mine; her remembered smile blinded my faint gaze, and caused me to walk as
one, not in eclipse, not in darkness and vacancy--but in a new and
brilliant light, too novel, too dazzling for my human senses. On every
leaf, on every small division of the universe, (as on the hyacinth ai is
engraved) was imprinted the talisman of my existence--SHE LIVES! SHE IS!
--I had not time yet to analyze my feeling, to take myself to task, and
leash in the tameless passion; all was one idea, one feeling, one knowledge
--it was my life!
But the die was cast--Raymond would marry Idris. The merry marriage bells
rung in my ears; I heard the nation's gratulation which followed the union;
the ambitious noble uprose with swift eagle-flight, from the lowly ground
to regal supremacy--and to the love of Idris. Yet, not so! She did not
love him; she had called me her friend; she had smiled on me; to me she had
entrusted her heart's dearest hope, the welfare of Adrian. This reflection
thawed my congealing blood, and again the tide of life and love flowed
impetuously onward, again to ebb as my busy thoughts changed.
The debate had ended at three in the morning. My soul was in tumults; I
traversed the streets with eager rapidity. Truly, I was mad that night--
love--which I have named a giant from its birth, wrestled with despair!
My heart, the field of combat, was wounded by the iron heel of the one,
watered by the gushing tears of the other. Day, hateful to me, dawned; I
retreated to my lodgings--I threw myself on a couch--I slept--was it
sleep?--for thought was still alive--love and despair struggled still,
and I writhed with unendurable pain.
I awoke half stupefied; I felt a heavy oppression on me, but knew not
wherefore; I entered, as it were, the council-chamber of my brain, and
questioned the various ministers of thought therein assembled; too soon I
remembered all; too soon my limbs quivered beneath the tormenting power;
soon, too soon, I knew myself a slave!
Suddenly, unannounced, Lord Raymond entered my apartment. He came in gaily,
singing the Tyrolese song of liberty; noticed me with a gracious nod, and
threw himself on a sopha opposite the copy of a bust of the Apollo
Belvidere. After one or two trivial remarks, to which I sullenly replied,
he suddenly cried, looking at the bust, "I am called like that victor! Not
a bad idea; the head will serve for my new coinage, and be an omen to all
dutiful subjects of my future success."
He said this in his most gay, yet benevolent manner, and smiled, not
disdainfully, but in playful mockery of himself. Then his countenance
suddenly darkened, and in that shrill tone peculiar to himself, he cried,
"I fought a good battle last night; higher conquest the plains of Greece
never saw me achieve. Now I am the first man in the state, burthen of every
ballad, and object of old women's mumbled devotions. What are your
meditations? You, who fancy that you can read the human soul, as your
native lake reads each crevice and folding of its surrounding hills--say
what you think of me; king-expectant, angel or devil, which?"
This ironical tone was discord to my bursting, over-boiling-heart; I was
nettled by his insolence, and replied with bitterness; "There is a spirit,
neither angel or devil, damned to limbo merely." I saw his cheeks become
pale, and his lips whiten and quiver; his anger served but to enkindle
mine, and I answered with a determined look his eyes which glared on me;
suddenly they were withdrawn, cast down, a tear, I thought, wetted the dark
lashes; I was softened, and with involuntary emotion added, "Not that you
are such, my dear lord."
I paused, even awed by the agitation he evinced; "Yes," he said at length,
rising and biting his lip, as he strove to curb his passion; "Such am I!
You do not know me, Verney; neither you, nor our audience of last night,
nor does universal England know aught of me. I stand here, it would seem,
an elected king; this hand is about to grasp a sceptre; these brows feel in
each nerve the coming diadem. I appear to have strength, power, victory;
standing as a dome-supporting column stands; and I am--a reed! I have
ambition, and that attains its aim; my nightly dreams are realized, my
waking hopes fulfilled; a kingdom awaits my acceptance, my enemies are
overthrown. But here," and he struck his heart with violence, "here is the
rebel, here the stumbling-block; this over-ruling heart, which I may drain
of its living blood; but, while one fluttering pulsation remains, I am its
slave."
He spoke with a broken voice, then bowed his head, and, hiding his face in
his hands, wept. I was still smarting from my own disappointment; yet this
scene oppressed me even to terror, nor could I interrupt his access of
passion. It subsided at length; and, throwing himself on the couch, he
remained silent and motionless, except that his changeful features shewed a
strong internal conflict. At last he rose, and said in his usual tone of
voice, "The time grows on us, Verney, I must away. Let me not forget my
chiefest errand here. Will you accompany me to Windsor to-morrow? You will
not be dishonoured by my society, and as this is probably the last service,
or disservice you can do me, will you grant my request?"
He held out his hand with almost a bashful air. Swiftly I thought--Yes, I
will witness the last scene of the drama. Beside which, his mien conquered
me, and an affectionate sentiment towards him, again filled my heart--I
bade him command me. "Aye, that I will," said he gaily, "that's my cue now;
be with me to-morrow morning by seven; be secret and faithful; and you
shall be groom of the stole ere long."
So saying, he hastened away, vaulted on his horse, and with a gesture as if
he gave me his hand to kiss, bade me another laughing adieu. Left to
myself, I strove with painful intensity to divine the motive of his request
and foresee the events of the coming day. The hours passed on unperceived;
my head ached with thought, the nerves seemed teeming with the over full
fraught--I clasped my burning brow, as if my fevered hand could medicine
its pain. I was punctual to the appointed hour on the following day, and
found Lord Raymond waiting for me. We got into his carriage, and proceeded
towards Windsor. I had tutored myself, and was resolved by no outward sign
to disclose my internal agitation.
"What a mistake Ryland made," said Raymond, "when he thought to overpower
me the other night. He spoke well, very well; such an harangue would have
succeeded better addressed to me singly, than to the fools and knaves
assembled yonder. Had I been alone, I should have listened to him with a
wish to hear reason, but when he endeavoured to vanquish me in my own
territory, with my own weapons, he put me on my mettle, and the event was
such as all might have expected."
I smiled incredulously, and replied: "I am of Ryland's way of thinking, and
will, if you please, repeat all his arguments; we shall see how far you
will be induced by them, to change the royal for the patriotic style."
"The repetition would be useless," said Raymond, "since I well remember
them, and have many others, self-suggested, which speak with unanswerable
persuasion."
He did not explain himself, nor did I make any remark on his reply. Our
silence endured for some miles, till the country with open fields, or shady
woods and parks, presented pleasant objects to our view. After some
observations on the scenery and seats, Raymond said: "Philosophers have
called man a microcosm of nature, and find a reflection in the internal
mind for all this machinery visibly at work around us. This theory has
often been a source of amusement to me; and many an idle hour have I spent,
exercising my ingenuity in finding resemblances. Does not Lord Bacon say
that, 'the falling from a discord to a concord, which maketh great
sweetness in music, hath an agreement with the affections, which are
re-integrated to the better after some dislikes?' What a sea is the tide of
passion, whose fountains are in our own nature! Our virtues are the
quick-sands, which shew themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves
arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their
durability, finds them sink from under him. The fashions of the world, its
exigencies, educations and pursuits, are winds to drive our wills, like
clouds all one way; but let a thunderstorm arise in the shape of love,
hate, or ambition, and the rack goes backward, stemming the opposing air in
triumph."
"Yet," replied I, "nature always presents to our eyes the appearance of a
patient: while there is an active principle in man which is capable of
ruling fortune, and at least of tacking against the gale, till it in some
mode conquers it."
"There is more of what is specious than true in your distinction," said my
companion. "Did we form ourselves, choosing our dispositions, and our
powers? I find myself, for one, as a stringed instrument with chords and
stops--but I have no power to turn the pegs, or pitch my thoughts to a
higher or lower key."
"Other men," I observed, "may be better musicians."
"I talk not of others, but myself," replied Raymond, "and I am as fair an
example to go by as another. I cannot set my heart to a particular tune, or
run voluntary changes on my will. We are born; we choose neither our
parents, nor our station; we are educated by others, or by the world's
circumstance, and this cultivation, mingling with our innate disposition,
is the soil in which our desires, passions, and motives grow."
"There is much truth in what you say," said I, "and yet no man ever acts
upon this theory. Who, when he makes a choice, says, Thus I choose, because
I am necessitated? Does he not on the contrary feel a freedom of will
within him, which, though you may call it fallacious, still actuates him as
he decides?"
"Exactly so," replied Raymond, "another link of the breakless chain.
Were I now to commit an act which would annihilate my hopes, and
pluck the regal garment from my mortal limbs, to clothe them in ordinary
weeds, would this, think you, be an act of free-will on my part?"
As we talked thus, I perceived that we were not going the ordinary road to
Windsor, but through Englefield Green, towards Bishopgate Heath. I began to
divine that Idris was not the object of our journey, but that I was brought
to witness the scene that was to decide the fate of Raymond--and of
Perdita. Raymond had evidently vacillated during his journey, and
irresolution was marked in every gesture as we entered Perdita's cottage. I
watched him curiously, determined that, if this hesitation should continue,
I would assist Perdita to overcome herself, and teach her to disdain the
wavering love of him, who balanced between the possession of a crown, and
of her, whose excellence and affection transcended the worth of a
kingdom.
We found her in her flower-adorned alcove; she was reading the newspaper
report of the debate in parliament, that apparently doomed her to
hopelessness. That heart-sinking feeling was painted in her sunk eyes and
spiritless attitude; a cloud was on her beauty, and frequent sighs were
tokens of her distress. This sight had an instantaneous effect on Raymond;
his eyes beamed with tenderness, and remorse clothed his manners with
earnestness and truth. He sat beside her; and, taking the paper from her
hand, said, "Not a word more shall my sweet Perdita read of this contention
of madmen and fools. I must not permit you to be acquainted with the extent
of my delusion, lest you despise me; although, believe me, a wish to appear
before you, not vanquished, but as a conqueror, inspired me during my wordy
war."
Perdita looked at him like one amazed; her expressive countenance shone for
a moment with tenderness; to see him only was happiness. But a bitter
thought swiftly shadowed her joy; she bent her eyes on the ground,
endeavouring to master the passion of tears that threatened to overwhelm
her. Raymond continued, "I will not act a part with you, dear girl, or
appear other than what I am, weak and unworthy, more fit to excite your
disdain than your love. Yet you do love me; I feel and know that you do,
and thence I draw my most cherished hopes. If pride guided you, or even
reason, you might well reject me. Do so; if your high heart, incapable of
my infirmity of purpose, refuses to bend to the lowness of mine. Turn from
me, if you will,--if you can. If your whole soul does not urge you to
forgive me--if your entire heart does not open wide its door to admit me
to its very centre, forsake me, never speak to me again. I, though sinning
against you almost beyond remission, I also am proud; there must be no
reserve in your pardon--no drawback to the gift of your affection."
Perdita looked down, confused, yet pleased. My presence embarrassed her; so
that she dared not turn to meet her lover's eye, or trust her voice to
assure him of her affection; while a blush mantled her cheek, and her
disconsolate air was exchanged for one expressive of deep-felt joy. Raymond
encircled her waist with his arm, and continued, "I do not deny that I have
balanced between you and the highest hope that mortal men can entertain;
but I do so no longer. Take me--mould me to your will, possess my heart
and soul to all eternity. If you refuse to contribute to my happiness, I
quit England to-night, and will never set foot in it again.
"Lionel, you hear: witness for me: persuade your sister to forgive the
injury I have done her; persuade her to be mine."
"There needs no persuasion," said the blushing Perdita, "except your own
dear promises, and my ready heart, which whispers to me that they are
true."
That same evening we all three walked together in the forest, and, with the
garrulity which happiness inspires, they detailed to me the history of
their loves. It was pleasant to see the haughty Raymond and reserved
Perdita changed through happy love into prattling, playful children, both
losing their characteristic dignity in the fulness of mutual contentment. A
night or two ago Lord Raymond, with a brow of care, and a heart oppressed
with thought, bent all his energies to silence or persuade the legislators
of England that a sceptre was not too weighty for his hand, while visions
of dominion, war, and triumph floated before him; now, frolicsome as a
lively boy sporting under his mother's approving eye, the hopes of his
ambition were complete, when he pressed the small fair hand of Perdita to
his lips; while she, radiant with delight, looked on the still pool, not
truly admiring herself, but drinking in with rapture the reflection there
made of the form of herself and her lover, shewn for the first time in dear
conjunction.
I rambled away from them. If the rapture of assured sympathy was theirs, I
enjoyed that of restored hope. I looked on the regal towers of Windsor.
High is the wall and strong the barrier that separate me from my Star of
Beauty. But not impassible. She will not be his. A few more years dwell in
thy native garden, sweet flower, till I by toil and time acquire a right to
gather thee. Despair not, nor bid me despair! What must I do now? First I
must seek Adrian, and restore him to her. Patience, gentleness, and untired
affection, shall recall him, if it be true, as Raymond says, that he is
mad; energy and courage shall rescue him, if he be unjustly imprisoned.
After the lovers again joined me, we supped together in the alcove. Truly
it was a fairy's supper; for though the air was perfumed by the scent of
fruits and wine, we none of us either ate or drank--even the beauty of
the night was unobserved; their extasy could not be increased by outward
objects, and I was wrapt in reverie. At about midnight Raymond and I took
leave of my sister, to return to town. He was all gaiety; scraps of songs
fell from his lips; every thought of his mind--every object about us,
gleamed under the sunshine of his mirth. He accused me of melancholy, of
ill-humour and envy.
"Not so," said I, "though I confess that my thoughts are not occupied as
pleasantly as yours are. You promised to facilitate my visit to Adrian; I
conjure you to perform your promise. I cannot linger here; I long to soothe
--perhaps to cure the malady of my first and best friend. I shall
immediately depart for Dunkeld."
"Thou bird of night," replied Raymond, "what an eclipse do you throw across
my bright thoughts, forcing me to call to mind that melancholy ruin, which
stands in mental desolation, more irreparable than a fragment of a carved
column in a weed-grown field. You dream that you can restore him? Daedalus
never wound so inextricable an error round Minotaur, as madness has woven
about his imprisoned reason. Nor you, nor any other Theseus, can thread the
labyrinth, to which perhaps some unkind Ariadne has the clue."
"You allude to Evadne Zaimi: but she is not in England."
"And were she," said Raymond, "I would not advise her seeing him. Better to
decay in absolute delirium, than to be the victim of the methodical
unreason of ill-bestowed love. The long duration of his malady has probably
erased from his mind all vestige of her; and it were well that it should
never again be imprinted. You will find him at Dunkeld; gentle and
tractable he wanders up the hills, and through the wood, or sits listening
beside the waterfall. You may see him--his hair stuck with wild flowers
--his eyes full of untraceable meaning--his voice broken--his person
wasted to a shadow. He plucks flowers and weeds, and weaves chaplets of
them, or sails yellow leaves and bits of bark on the stream, rejoicing in
their safety, or weeping at their wreck. The very memory half unmans me. By
Heaven! the first tears I have shed since boyhood rushed scalding into my
eyes when I saw him."
It needed not this last account to spur me on to visit him. I only doubted
whether or not I should endeavour to see Idris again, before I departed.
This doubt was decided on the following day. Early in the morning Raymond
came to me; intelligence had arrived that Adrian was dangerously ill, and
it appeared impossible that his failing strength should surmount the
disorder. "To-morrow," said Raymond, "his mother and sister set out for
Scotland to see him once again."
"And I go to-day," I cried; "this very hour I will engage a sailing
balloon; I shall be there in forty-eight hours at furthest, perhaps in
less, if the wind is fair. Farewell, Raymond; be happy in having chosen the
better part in life. This turn of fortune revives me. I feared madness, not
sickness--I have a presentiment that Adrian will not die; perhaps this
illness is a crisis, and he may recover."
Everything favoured my journey. The balloon rose about half a mile from the
earth, and with a favourable wind it hurried through the air, its feathered
vans cleaving the unopposing atmosphere. Notwithstanding the melancholy
object of my journey, my spirits were exhilarated by reviving hope, by the
swift motion of the airy pinnace, and the balmy visitation of the sunny
air. The pilot hardly moved the plumed steerage, and the slender mechanism
of the wings, wide unfurled, gave forth a murmuring noise, soothing to the
sense. Plain and hill, stream and corn-field, were discernible below, while
we unimpeded sped on swift and secure, as a wild swan in his spring-tide
flight. The machine obeyed the slightest motion of the helm; and, the wind
blowing steadily, there was no let or obstacle to our course. Such was the
power of man over the elements; a power long sought, and lately won; yet
foretold in by-gone time by the prince of poets, whose verses I quoted much
to the astonishment of my pilot, when I told him how many hundred years ago
they had been written:--
Oh! human wit, thou can'st invent much ill,
Thou searchest strange arts: who would think by skill,
An heavy man like a light bird should stray,
And through the empty heavens find a way?
I alighted at Perth; and, though much fatigued by a constant exposure to
the air for many hours, I would not rest, but merely altering my mode of
conveyance, I went by land instead of air, to Dunkeld. The sun was rising
as I entered the opening of the hills. After the revolution of ages Birnam
hill was again covered with a young forest, while more aged pines, planted
at the very commencement of the nineteenth century by the then Duke of
Athol, gave solemnity and beauty to the scene. The rising sun first tinged
the pine tops; and my mind, rendered through my mountain education deeply
susceptible of the graces of nature, and now on the eve of again beholding
my beloved and perhaps dying friend, was strangely influenced by the sight
of those distant beams: surely they were ominous, and as such I regarded
them, good omens for Adrian, on whose life my happiness depended.
Poor fellow! he lay stretched on a bed of sickness, his cheeks glowing with
the hues of fever, his eyes half closed, his breath irregular and
difficult. Yet it was less painful to see him thus, than to find him
fulfilling the animal functions uninterruptedly, his mind sick the while. I
established myself at his bedside; I never quitted it day or night. Bitter
task was it, to behold his spirit waver between death and life: to see his
warm cheek, and know that the very fire which burned too fiercely there,
was consuming the vital fuel; to hear his moaning voice, which might never
again articulate words of love and wisdom; to witness the ineffectual
motions of his limbs, soon to be wrapt in their mortal shroud. Such for
three days and nights appeared the consummation which fate had decreed for
my labours, and I became haggard and spectre-like, through anxiety and
watching. At length his eyes unclosed faintly, yet with a look of returning
life; he became pale and weak; but the rigidity of his features was
softened by approaching convalescence. He knew me. What a brimful cup of
joyful agony it was, when his face first gleamed with the glance of
recognition--when he pressed my hand, now more fevered than his own, and
when he pronounced my name! No trace of his past insanity remained, to dash
my joy with sorrow.
This same evening his mother and sister arrived. The Countess of Windsor
was by nature full of energetic feeling; but she had very seldom in her
life permitted the concentrated emotions of her heart to shew themselves on
her features. The studied immovability of her countenance; her slow,
equable manner, and soft but unmelodious voice, were a mask, hiding her
fiery passions, and the impatience of her disposition. She did not in the
least resemble either of her children; her black and sparkling eye, lit up
by pride, was totally unlike the blue lustre, and frank, benignant
expression of either Adrian or Idris. There was something grand and
majestic in her motions, but nothing persuasive, nothing amiable. Tall,
thin, and strait, her face still handsome, her raven hair hardly tinged
with grey, her forehead arched and beautiful, had not the eye-brows been
somewhat scattered--it was impossible not to be struck by her, almost to
fear her. Idris appeared to be the only being who could resist her mother,
notwithstanding the extreme mildness of her character. But there was a
fearlessness and frankness about her, which said that she would not
encroach on another's liberty, but held her own sacred and unassailable.
The Countess cast no look of kindness on my worn-out frame, though
afterwards she thanked me coldly for my attentions. Not so Idris; her first
glance was for her brother; she took his hand, she kissed his eye-lids, and
hung over him with looks of compassion and love. Her eyes glistened with
tears when she thanked me, and the grace of her expressions was enhanced,
not diminished, by the fervour, which caused her almost to falter as she
spoke. Her mother, all eyes and ears, soon interrupted us; and I saw, that
she wished to dismiss me quietly, as one whose services, now that his
relatives had arrived, were of no use to her son. I was harassed and ill,
resolved not to give up my post, yet doubting in what way I should assert
it; when Adrian called me, and clasping my hand, bade me not leave him. His
mother, apparently inattentive, at once understood what was meant, and
seeing the hold we had upon her, yielded the point to us.
The days that followed were full of pain to me; so that I sometimes
regretted that I had not yielded at once to the haughty lady, who watched
all my motions, and turned my beloved task of nursing my friend to a work
of pain and irritation. Never did any woman appear so entirely made of
mind, as the Countess of Windsor. Her passions had subdued her appetites,
even her natural wants; she slept little, and hardly ate at all; her body
was evidently considered by her as a mere machine, whose health was
necessary for the accomplishment of her schemes, but whose senses formed no
part of her enjoyment. There is something fearful in one who can thus
conquer the animal part of our nature, if the victory be not the effect of
consummate virtue; nor was it without a mixture of this feeling, that I
beheld the figure of the Countess awake when others slept, fasting when I,
abstemious naturally, and rendered so by the fever that preyed on me, was
forced to recruit myself with food. She resolved to prevent or diminish my
opportunities of acquiring influence over her children, and circumvented my
plans by a hard, quiet, stubborn resolution, that seemed not to belong to
flesh and blood. War was at last tacitly acknowledged between us. We had
many pitched battles, during which no word was spoken, hardly a look was
interchanged, but in which each resolved not to submit to the other. The
Countess had the advantage of position; so I was vanquished, though I would
not yield.
I became sick at heart. My countenance was painted with the hues of ill
health and vexation. Adrian and Idris saw this; they attributed it to my
long watching and anxiety; they urged me to rest, and take care of myself,
while I most truly assured them, that my best medicine was their good
wishes; those, and the assured convalescence of my friend, now daily more
apparent. The faint rose again blushed on his cheek; his brow and lips lost
the ashy paleness of threatened dissolution; such was the dear reward of my
unremitting attention--and bounteous heaven added overflowing recompence,
when it gave me also the thanks and smiles of Idris.
After the lapse of a few weeks, we left Dunkeld. Idris and her mother
returned immediately to Windsor, while Adrian and I followed by slow
journies and frequent stoppages, occasioned by his continued weakness. As
we traversed the various counties of fertile England, all wore an
exhilarating appearance to my companion, who had been so long secluded by
disease from the enjoyments of weather and scenery. We passed through busy
towns and cultivated plains. The husbandmen were getting in their plenteous
harvests, and the women and children, occupied by light rustic toils,
formed groupes of happy, healthful persons, the very sight of whom carried
cheerfulness to the heart. One evening, quitting our inn, we strolled down
a shady lane, then up a grassy slope, till we came to an eminence, that
commanded an extensive view of hill and dale, meandering rivers, dark
woods, and shining villages. The sun was setting; and the clouds, straying,
like new-shorn sheep, through the vast fields of sky, received the golden
colour of his parting beams; the distant uplands shone out, and the busy
hum of evening came, harmonized by distance, on our ear. Adrian, who felt
all the fresh spirit infused by returning health, clasped his hands in
delight, and exclaimed with transport:
"O happy earth, and happy inhabitants of earth! A stately palace has God
built for you, O man! and worthy are you of your dwelling! Behold the
verdant carpet spread at our feet, and the azure canopy above; the fields
of earth which generate and nurture all things, and the track of heaven,
which contains and clasps all things. Now, at this evening hour, at the
period of repose and refection, methinks all hearts breathe one hymn of
love and thanksgiving, and we, like priests of old on the mountain-tops,
give a voice to their sentiment.
"Assuredly a most benignant power built up the majestic fabric we inhabit,
and framed the laws by which it endures. If mere existence, and not
happiness, had been the final end of our being, what need of the profuse
luxuries which we enjoy? Why should our dwelling place be so lovely, and
why should the instincts of nature minister pleasurable sensations? The
very sustaining of our animal machine is made delightful; and our
sustenance, the fruits of the field, is painted with transcendant hues,
endued with grateful odours, and palatable to our taste. Why should this
be, if HE were not good? We need houses to protect us from the seasons, and
behold the materials with which we are provided; the growth of trees with
their adornment of leaves; while rocks of stone piled above the plains
variegate the prospect with their pleasant irregularity.
"Nor are outward objects alone the receptacles of the Spirit of Good. Look
into the mind of man, where wisdom reigns enthroned; where imagination, the
painter, sits, with his pencil dipt in hues lovelier than those of sunset,
adorning familiar life with glowing tints. What a noble boon, worthy the
giver, is the imagination! it takes from reality its leaden hue: it
envelopes all thought and sensation in a radiant veil, and with an hand of
beauty beckons us from the sterile seas of life, to her gardens, and
bowers, and glades of bliss. And is not love a gift of the divinity? Love,
and her child, Hope, which can bestow wealth on poverty, strength on the
weak, and happiness on the sorrowing.
"My lot has not been fortunate. I have consorted long with grief, entered
the gloomy labyrinth of madness, and emerged, but half alive. Yet I thank
God that I have lived! I thank God, that I have beheld his throne, the
heavens, and earth, his footstool. I am glad that I have seen the changes
of his day; to behold the sun, fountain of light, and the gentle pilgrim
moon; to have seen the fire bearing flowers of the sky, and the flowery
stars of earth; to have witnessed the sowing and the harvest. I am glad
that I have loved, and have experienced sympathetic joy and sorrow with my
fellow-creatures. I am glad now to feel the current of thought flow through
my mind, as the blood through the articulations of my frame; mere existence
is pleasure; and I thank God that I live!
"And all ye happy nurslings of mother-earth, do ye not echo my words? Ye
who are linked by the affectionate ties of nature, companions, friends,
lovers! fathers, who toil with joy for their offspring; women, who while
gazing on the living forms of their children, forget the pains of
maternity; children, who neither toil nor spin, but love and are loved!
"Oh, that death and sickness were banished from our earthly home! that
hatred, tyranny, and fear could no longer make their lair in the human
heart! that each man might find a brother in his fellow, and a nest of
repose amid the wide plains of his inheritance! that the source of tears
were dry, and that lips might no longer form expressions of sorrow.
Sleeping thus under the beneficent eye of heaven, can evil visit thee, O
Earth, or grief cradle to their graves thy luckless children? Whisper it
not, let the demons hear and rejoice! The choice is with us; let us will
it, and our habitation becomes a paradise. For the will of man is
omnipotent, blunting the arrows of death, soothing the bed of disease, and
wiping away the tears of agony. And what is each human being worth, if he
do not put forth his strength to aid his fellow-creatures? My soul is a
fading spark, my nature frail as a spent wave; but I dedicate all of
intellect and strength that remains to me, to that one work, and take upon
me the task, as far as I am able, of bestowing blessings on my
fellow-men!"
His voice trembled, his eyes were cast up, his hands clasped, and his
fragile person was bent, as it were, with excess of emotion. The spirit of
life seemed to linger in his form, as a dying flame on an altar flickers on
the embers of an accepted sacrifice.
CHAPTER V.
WHEN we arrived at Windsor, I found that Raymond and Perdita had departed
for the continent. I took possession of my sister's cottage, and blessed
myself that I lived within view of Windsor Castle. It was a curious fact,
that at this period, when by the marriage of Perdita I was allied to one of
the richest individuals in England, and was bound by the most intimate
friendship to its chiefest noble, I experienced the greatest excess of
poverty that I had ever known. My knowledge of the worldly principles of
Lord Raymond, would have ever prevented me from applying to him, however
deep my distress might have been. It was in vain that I repeated to myself
with regard to Adrian, that his purse was open to me; that one in soul, as
we were, our fortunes ought also to be common. I could never, while with
him, think of his bounty as a remedy to my poverty; and I even put aside
hastily his offers of supplies, assuring him of a falsehood, that I needed
them not. How could I say to this generous being, "Maintain me in idleness.
You who have dedicated your powers of mind and fortune to the benefit of
your species, shall you so misdirect your exertions, as to support in
uselessness the strong, healthy, and capable?"
And yet I dared not request him to use his influence that I might obtain an
honourable provision for myself--for then I should have been obliged to
leave Windsor. I hovered for ever around the walls of its Castle, beneath
its enshadowing thickets; my sole companions were my books and my loving
thoughts. I studied the wisdom of the ancients, and gazed on the happy
walls that sheltered the beloved of my soul. My mind was nevertheless idle.
I pored over the poetry of old times; I studied the metaphysics of Plato
and Berkeley. I read the histories of Greece and Rome, and of England's
former periods, and I watched the movements of the lady of my heart. At
night I could see her shadow on the walls of her apartment; by day I viewed
her in her flower-garden, or riding in the park with her usual companions.
Methought the charm would be broken if I were seen, but I heard the music
of her voice and was happy. I gave to each heroine of whom I read, her
beauty and matchless excellences--such was Antigone, when she guided the
blind Oedipus to the grove of the Eumenides, and discharged the funeral
rites of Polynices; such was Miranda in the unvisited cave of Prospero;
such Haidee, on the sands of the Ionian island. I was mad with excess of
passionate devotion; but pride, tameless as fire, invested my nature, and
prevented me from betraying myself by word or look.
In the mean time, while I thus pampered myself with rich mental repasts, a
peasant would have disdained my scanty fare, which I sometimes robbed from
the squirrels of the forest. I was, I own, often tempted to recur to the
lawless feats of my boy-hood, and knock down the almost tame pheasants that
perched upon the trees, and bent their bright eyes on me. But they were the
property of Adrian, the nurslings of Idris; and so, although my imagination
rendered sensual by privation, made me think that they would better become
the spit in my kitchen, than the green leaves of the forest,
Nathelesse,
I checked my haughty will, and did not eat;
but supped upon sentiment, and dreamt vainly of "such morsels sweet," as
I might not waking attain.
But, at this period, the whole scheme of my existence was about to change.
The orphan and neglected son of Verney, was on the eve of being linked to
the mechanism of society by a golden chain, and to enter into all the
duties and affections of life. Miracles were to be wrought in my favour,
the machine of social life pushed with vast effort backward. Attend, O
reader! while I narrate this tale of wonders!
One day as Adrian and Idris were riding through the forest, with their
mother and accustomed companions, Idris, drawing her brother aside from the
rest of the cavalcade, suddenly asked him, "What had become of his friend,
Lionel Verney?"
"Even from this spot," replied Adrian, pointing to my sister's cottage,
"you can see his dwelling."
"Indeed!" said Idris, "and why, if he be so near, does he not come to see
us, and make one of our society?"
"I often visit him," replied Adrian; "but you may easily guess the motives,
which prevent him from coming where his presence may annoy any one among
us."
"I do guess them," said Idris, "and such as they are, I would not
venture to combat them. Tell me, however, in what way he passes his time;
what he is doing and thinking in his cottage retreat?"
"Nay, my sweet sister," replied Adrian, "you ask me more than I can well
answer; but if you feel interest in him, why not visit him? He will feel
highly honoured, and thus you may repay a part of the obligation I owe him,
and compensate for the injuries fortune has done him."
"I will most readily accompany you to his abode," said the lady, "not that
I wish that either of us should unburthen ourselves of our debt, which,
being no less than your life, must remain unpayable ever. But let us go;
to-morrow we will arrange to ride out together, and proceeding towards that
part of the forest, call upon him."
The next evening therefore, though the autumnal change had brought on cold
and rain, Adrian and Idris entered my cottage. They found me Curius-like,
feasting on sorry fruits for supper; but they brought gifts richer than the
golden bribes of the Sabines, nor could I refuse the invaluable store of
friendship and delight which they bestowed. Surely the glorious twins of
Latona were not more welcome, when, in the infancy of the world, they were
brought forth to beautify and enlighten this "sterile promontory," than
were this angelic pair to my lowly dwelling and grateful heart. We sat like
one family round my hearth. Our talk was on subjects, unconnected with the
emotions that evidently occupied each; but we each divined the other's
thought, and as our voices spoke of indifferent matters, our eyes, in mute
language, told a thousand things no tongue could have uttered.
They left me in an hour's time. They left me happy--how unspeakably
happy. It did not require the measured sounds of human language to syllable
the story of my extasy. Idris had visited me; Idris I should again and
again see--my imagination did not wander beyond the completeness of this
knowledge. I trod air; no doubt, no fear, no hope even, disturbed me; I
clasped with my soul the fulness of contentment, satisfied, undesiring,
beatified.
For many days Adrian and Idris continued to visit me thus. In this dear
intercourse, love, in the guise of enthusiastic friendship, infused more
and more of his omnipotent spirit. Idris felt it. Yes, divinity of the
world, I read your characters in her looks and gesture; I heard your
melodious voice echoed by her--you prepared for us a soft and flowery
path, all gentle thoughts adorned it--your name, O Love, was not spoken,
but you stood the Genius of the Hour, veiled, and time, but no mortal hand,
might raise the curtain. Organs of articulate sound did not proclaim the
union of our hearts; for untoward circumstance allowed no opportunity for
the expression that hovered on our lips. Oh my pen! haste thou to write what
was, before the thought of what is, arrests the hand that guides thee. If I
lift up my eyes and see the desart earth, and feel that those dear eyes
have spent their mortal lustre, and that those beauteous lips are silent,
their "crimson leaves" faded, for ever I am mute!
But you live, my Idris, even now you move before me! There was a glade, O
reader! a grassy opening in the wood; the retiring trees left its velvet
expanse as a temple for love; the silver Thames bounded it on one side, and
a willow bending down dipt in the water its Naiad hair, dishevelled by the
wind's viewless hand. The oaks around were the home of a tribe of
nightingales--there am I now; Idris, in youth's dear prime, is by my side
--remember, I am just twenty-two, and seventeen summers have scarcely
passed over the beloved of my heart. The river swollen by autumnal rains,
deluged the low lands, and Adrian in his favourite boat is employed in the
dangerous pastime of plucking the topmost bough from a submerged oak. Are
you weary of life, O Adrian, that you thus play with danger?--
He has obtained his prize, and he pilots his boat through the flood; our
eyes were fixed on him fearfully, but the stream carried him away from us;
he was forced to land far lower down, and to make a considerable circuit
before he could join us. "He is safe!" said Idris, as he leapt on shore,
and waved the bough over his head in token of success; "we will wait for
him here."
We were alone together; the sun had set; the song of the nightingales
began; the evening star shone distinct in the flood of light, which was yet
unfaded in the west. The blue eyes of my angelic girl were fixed on this
sweet emblem of herself: "How the light palpitates," she said, "which is
that star's life. Its vacillating effulgence seems to say that its state,
even like ours upon earth, is wavering and inconstant; it fears, methinks,
and it loves."
"Gaze not on the star, dear, generous friend," I cried, "read not love in
its trembling rays; look not upon distant worlds; speak not of the mere
imagination of a sentiment. I have long been silent; long even to sickness
have I desired to speak to you, and submit my soul, my life, my entire
being to you. Look not on the star, dear love, or do, and let that eternal
spark plead for me; let it be my witness and my advocate, silent as it
shines--love is to me as light to the star; even so long as that is
uneclipsed by annihilation, so long shall I love you."
Veiled for ever to the world's callous eye must be the transport of that
moment. Still do I feel her graceful form press against my full-fraught
heart--still does sight, and pulse, and breath sicken and fail, at the
remembrance of that first kiss. Slowly and silently we went to meet Adrian,
whom we heard approaching.
I entreated Adrian to return to me after he had conducted his sister home.
And that same evening, walking among the moon-lit forest paths, I poured
forth my whole heart, its transport and its hope, to my friend. For a
moment he looked disturbed--"I might have foreseen this," he said, "what
strife will now ensue! Pardon me, Lionel, nor wonder that the expectation
of contest with my mother should jar me, when else I should delightedly
confess that my best hopes are fulfilled, in confiding my sister to your
protection. If you do not already know it, you will soon learn the deep
hate my mother bears to the name Verney. I will converse with Idris; then
all that a friend can do, I will do; to her it must belong to play the
lover's part, if she be capable of it."
While the brother and sister were still hesitating in what manner they
could best attempt to bring their mother over to their party, she,
suspecting our meetings, taxed her children with them; taxed her fair
daughter with deceit, and an unbecoming attachment for one whose only merit
was being the son of the profligate favourite of her imprudent father; and
who was doubtless as worthless as he from whom he boasted his descent. The
eyes of Idris flashed at this accusation; she replied, "I do not deny that
I love Verney; prove to me that he is worthless; and I will never see him
more."
"Dear Madam," said Adrian, "let me entreat you to see him, to cultivate his
friendship. You will wonder then, as I do, at the extent of his
accomplishments, and the brilliancy of his talents." (Pardon me, gentle
reader, this is not futile vanity;--not futile, since to know that Adrian
felt thus, brings joy even now to my lone heart).
"Mad and foolish boy!" exclaimed the angry lady, "you have chosen with
dreams and theories to overthrow my schemes for your own aggrandizement;
but you shall not do the same by those I have formed for your sister. I but
too well understand the fascination you both labour under; since I had the
same struggle with your father, to make him cast off the parent of this
youth, who hid his evil propensities with the smoothness and subtlety of a
viper. In those days how often did I hear of his attractions, his wide
spread conquests, his wit, his refined manners. It is well when flies only
are caught by such spiders' webs; but is it for the high-born and powerful
to bow their necks to the flimsy yoke of these unmeaning pretensions? Were
your sister indeed the insignificant person she deserves to be, I would
willingly leave her to the fate, the wretched fate, of the wife of a man,
whose very person, resembling as it does his wretched father, ought to
remind you of the folly and vice it typifies--but remember, Lady Idris,
it is not alone the once royal blood of England that colours your veins,
you are a Princess of Austria, and every life-drop is akin to emperors and
kings. Are you then a fit mate for an uneducated shepherd-boy, whose only
inheritance is his father's tarnished name?"
"I can make but one defence," replied Idris, "the same offered by my
brother; see Lionel, converse with my shepherd-boy"---The Countess
interrupted her indignantly--"Yours!"--she cried: and then, smoothing
her impassioned features to a disdainful smile, she continued--"We will
talk of this another time. All I now ask, all your mother, Idris, requests
is, that you will not see this upstart during the interval of one month."
"I dare not comply," said Idris, "it would pain him too much. I have no
right to play with his feelings, to accept his proffered love, and then
sting him with neglect."
"This is going too far," her mother answered, with quivering lips, and eyes
again instinct by anger.
"Nay, Madam," said Adrian, "unless my sister consent never to see him
again, it is surely an useless torment to separate them for a month."
"Certainly," replied the ex-queen, with bitter scorn, "his love, and her
love, and both their childish flutterings, are to be put in fit comparison
with my years of hope and anxiety, with the duties of the offspring of
kings, with the high and dignified conduct which one of her descent ought
to pursue. But it is unworthy of me to argue and complain. Perhaps you will
have the goodness to promise me not to marry during that interval?"
This was asked only half ironically; and Idris wondered why her mother
should extort from her a solemn vow not to do, what she had never dreamed
of doing--but the promise was required and given.
All went on cheerfully now; we met as usual, and talked without dread of
our future plans. The Countess was so gentle, and even beyond her wont,
amiable with her children, that they began to entertain hopes of her
ultimate consent. She was too unlike them, too utterly alien to their
tastes, for them to find delight in her society, or in the prospect of its
continuance, but it gave them pleasure to see her conciliating and kind.
Once even, Adrian ventured to propose her receiving me. She refused with a
smile, reminding him that for the present his sister had promised to be
patient.
One day, after the lapse of nearly a month, Adrian received a letter from a
friend in London, requesting his immediate presence for the furtherance of
some important object. Guileless himself, Adrian feared no deceit. I rode
with him as far as Staines: he was in high spirits; and, since I could not
see Idris during his absence, he promised a speedy return. His gaiety,
which was extreme, had the strange effect of awakening in me contrary
feelings; a presentiment of evil hung over me; I loitered on my return; I
counted the hours that must elapse before I saw Idris again. Wherefore
should this be? What evil might not happen in the mean time? Might not her
mother take advantage of Adrian's absence to urge her beyond her
sufferance, perhaps to entrap her? I resolved, let what would befall, to
see and converse with her the following day. This determination soothed me.
To-morrow, loveliest and best, hope and joy of my life, to-morrow I will
see thee--Fool, to dream of a moment's delay!
I went to rest. At past midnight I was awaked by a violent knocking. It was
now deep winter; it had snowed, and was still snowing; the wind whistled in
the leafless trees, despoiling them of the white flakes as they fell; its
drear moaning, and the continued knocking, mingled wildly with my dreams--
at length I was wide awake; hastily dressing myself, I hurried to discover
the cause of this disturbance, and to open my door to the unexpected
visitor. Pale as the snow that showered about her, with clasped hands,
Idris stood before me. "Save me!" she exclaimed, and would have sunk to the
ground had I not supported her. In a moment however she revived, and, with
energy, almost with violence, entreated me to saddle horses, to take her
away, away to London--to her brother--at least to save her. I had no
horses--she wrung her hands. "What can I do?" she cried, "I am lost--we
are both for ever lost! But come--come with me, Lionel; here I must not
stay,--we can get a chaise at the nearest post-house; yet perhaps we have
time! come, O come with me to save and protect me!"
When I heard her piteous demands, while with disordered dress, dishevelled
hair, and aghast looks, she wrung her hands--the idea shot across me is
she also mad?--"Sweet one," and I folded her to my heart, "better repose
than wander further;--rest--my beloved, I will make a fire--you are
chill."
"Rest!" she cried, "repose! you rave, Lionel! If you delay we are lost;
come, I pray you, unless you would cast me off for ever."
That Idris, the princely born, nursling of wealth and luxury, should have
come through the tempestuous winter-night from her regal abode, and
standing at my lowly door, conjure me to fly with her through darkness and
storm--was surely a dream--again her plaintive tones, the sight of her
loveliness assured me that it was no vision. Looking timidly around, as if
she feared to be overheard, she whispered: "I have discovered--to-morrow
--that is, to-day--already the to-morrow is come--before dawn,
foreigners, Austrians, my mother's hirelings, are to carry me off to
Germany, to prison, to marriage--to anything, except you and my brother
--take me away, or soon they will be here!"
I was frightened by her vehemence, and imagined some mistake in her
incoherent tale; but I no longer hesitated to obey her. She had come by
herself from the Castle, three long miles, at midnight, through the heavy
snow; we must reach Englefield Green, a mile and a half further, before we
could obtain a chaise. She told me, that she had kept up her strength and
courage till her arrival at my cottage, and then both failed. Now she could
hardly walk. Supporting her as I did, still she lagged: and at the distance
of half a mile, after many stoppages, shivering fits, and half faintings,
she slipt from my supporting arm on the snow, and with a torrent of tears
averred that she must be taken, for that she could not proceed. I lifted
her up in my arms; her light form rested on my breast.--I felt no
burthen, except the internal one of contrary and contending emotions.
Brimming delight now invested me. Again her chill limbs touched me as a
torpedo; and I shuddered in sympathy with her pain and fright. Her head lay
on my shoulder, her breath waved my hair, her heart beat near mine,
transport made me tremble, blinded me, annihilated me--till a suppressed
groan, bursting from her lips, the chattering of her teeth, which she
strove vainly to subdue, and all the signs of suffering she evinced,
recalled me to the necessity of speed and succour. At last I said to her,
"There is Englefield Green; there the inn. But, if you are seen thus
strangely circumstanced, dear Idris, even now your enemies may learn your
flight too soon: were it not better that I hired the chaise alone? I will
put you in safety meanwhile, and return to you immediately."
She answered that I was right, and might do with her as I pleased. I
observed the door of a small out-house a-jar. I pushed it open; and, with
some hay strewed about, I formed a couch for her, placing her exhausted
frame on it, and covering her with my cloak. I feared to leave her, she
looked so wan and faint--but in a moment she re-acquired animation, and,
with that, fear; and again she implored me not to delay. To call up the
people of the inn, and obtain a conveyance and horses, even though I
harnessed them myself, was the work of many minutes; minutes, each
freighted with the weight of ages. I caused the chaise to advance a little,
waited till the people of the inn had retired, and then made the post-boy
draw up the carriage to the spot where Idris, impatient, and now somewhat
recovered, stood waiting for me. I lifted her into the chaise; I assured
her that with our four horses we should arrive in London before five
o'clock, the hour when she would be sought and missed. I besought her to
calm herself; a kindly shower of tears relieved her, and by degrees she
related her tale of fear and peril.
That same night after Adrian's departure, her mother had warmly
expostulated with her on the subject of her attachment to me. Every motive,
every threat, every angry taunt was urged in vain. She seemed to consider
that through me she had lost Raymond; I was the evil influence of her life;
I was even accused of encreasing and confirming the mad and base apostacy
of Adrian from all views of advancement and grandeur; and now this
miserable mountaineer was to steal her daughter. Never, Idris related, did
the angry lady deign to recur to gentleness and persuasion; if she had, the
task of resistance would have been exquisitely painful. As it was, the
sweet girl's generous nature was roused to defend, and ally herself with,
my despised cause. Her mother ended with a look of contempt and covert
triumph, which for a moment awakened the suspicions of Idris. When they
parted for the night, the Countess said, "To-morrow I trust your tone will
be changed: be composed; I have agitated you; go to rest; and I will send
you a medicine I always take when unduly restless--it will give you a
quiet night."
By the time that she had with uneasy thoughts laid her fair cheek upon her
pillow, her mother's servant brought a draught; a suspicion again crossed
her at this novel proceeding, sufficiently alarming to determine her not to
take the potion; but dislike of contention, and a wish to discover whether
there was any just foundation for her conjectures, made her, she said,
almost instinctively, and in contradiction to her usual frankness, pretend
to swallow the medicine. Then, agitated as she had been by her mother's
violence, and now by unaccustomed fears, she lay unable to sleep, starting
at every sound. Soon her door opened softly, and on her springing up, she
heard a whisper, "Not asleep yet," and the door again closed. With a
beating heart she expected another visit, and when after an interval her
chamber was again invaded, having first assured herself that the intruders
were her mother and an attendant, she composed herself to feigned sleep. A
step approached her bed, she dared not move, she strove to calm her
palpitations, which became more violent, when she heard her mother say
mutteringly, "Pretty simpleton, little do you think that your game is
already at an end for ever."
For a moment the poor girl fancied that her mother believed that she had
drank poison: she was on the point of springing up; when the Countess,
already at a distance from the bed, spoke in a low voice to her companion,
and again Idris listened: "Hasten," said she, "there is no time to lose--
it is long past eleven; they will be here at five; take merely the clothes
necessary for her journey, and her jewel-casket." The servant obeyed; few
words were spoken on either side; but those were caught at with avidity by
the intended victim. She heard the name of her own maid mentioned;--"No,
no," replied her mother, "she does not go with us; Lady Idris must forget
England, and all belonging to it." And again she heard, "She will not wake
till late to-morrow, and we shall then be at sea."----"All is ready," at
length the woman announced. The Countess again came to her daughter's
bedside: "In Austria at least," she said, "you will obey. In Austria, where
obedience can be enforced, and no choice left but between an honourable
prison and a fitting marriage."
Both then withdrew; though, as she went, the Countess said, "Softly; all
sleep; though all have not been prepared for sleep, like her. I would not
have any one suspect, or she might be roused to resistance, and perhaps
escape. Come with me to my room; we will remain there till the hour agreed
upon." They went. Idris, panic-struck, but animated and strengthened even
by her excessive fear, dressed herself hurriedly, and going down a flight
of back-stairs, avoiding the vicinity of her mother's apartment, she
contrived to escape from the castle by a low window, and came through snow,
wind, and obscurity to my cottage; nor lost her courage, until she arrived,
and, depositing her fate in my hands, gave herself up to the desperation
and weariness that overwhelmed her.
I comforted her as well as I might. Joy and exultation, were mine, to
possess, and to save her. Yet not to excite fresh agitation in her, "per
non turbar quel bel viso sereno," I curbed my delight. I strove to quiet
the eager dancing of my heart; I turned from her my eyes, beaming with too
much tenderness, and proudly, to dark night, and the inclement atmosphere,
murmured the expressions of my transport. We reached London, methought, all
too soon; and yet I could not regret our speedy arrival, when I witnessed
the extasy with which my beloved girl found herself in her brother's arms,
safe from every evil, under his unblamed protection.
Adrian wrote a brief note to his mother, informing her that Idris was under
his care and guardianship. Several days elapsed, and at last an answer
came, dated from Cologne. "It was useless," the haughty and disappointed
lady wrote, "for the Earl of Windsor and his sister to address again the
injured parent, whose only expectation of tranquillity must be derived from
oblivion of their existence. Her desires had been blasted, her schemes
overthrown. She did not complain; in her brother's court she would find,
not compensation for their disobedience (filial unkindness admitted of
none), but such a state of things and mode of life, as might best reconcile
her to her fate. Under such circumstances, she positively declined any
communication with them."
Such were the strange and incredible events, that finally brought about my
union with the sister of my best friend, with my adored Idris. With
simplicity and courage she set aside the prejudices and opposition which
were obstacles to my happiness, nor scrupled to give her hand, where she
had given her heart. To be worthy of her, to raise myself to her height
through the exertion of talents and virtue, to repay her love with devoted,
unwearied tenderness, were the only thanks I could offer for the matchless
gift.
CHAPTER VI.
AND now let the reader, passing over some short period of time, be
introduced to our happy circle. Adrian, Idris and I, were established in
Windsor Castle; Lord Raymond and my sister, inhabited a house which the
former had built on the borders of the Great Park, near Perdita's cottage,
as was still named the low-roofed abode, where we two, poor even in hope,
had each received the assurance of our felicity. We had our separate
occupations and our common amusements. Sometimes we passed whole days under
the leafy covert of the forest with our books and music. This occurred
during those rare days in this country, when the sun mounts his etherial
throne in unclouded majesty, and the windless atmosphere is as a bath of
pellucid and grateful water, wrapping the senses in tranquillity. When the
clouds veiled the sky, and the wind scattered them there and here, rending
their woof, and strewing its fragments through the aerial plains--then we
rode out, and sought new spots of beauty and repose. When the frequent
rains shut us within doors, evening recreation followed morning study,
ushered in by music and song. Idris had a natural musical talent; and her
voice, which had been carefully cultivated, was full and sweet. Raymond and
I made a part of the concert, and Adrian and Perdita were devout listeners.
Then we were as gay as summer insects, playful as children; we ever met one
another with smiles, and read content and joy in each other's countenances.
Our prime festivals were held in Perdita's cottage; nor were we ever weary
of talking of the past or dreaming of the future. Jealousy and disquiet
were unknown among us; nor did a fear or hope of change ever disturb our
tranquillity. Others said, We might be happy--we said--We are.
When any separation took place between us, it generally so happened, that
Idris and Perdita would ramble away together, and we remained to discuss
the affairs of nations, and the philosophy of life. The very difference of
our dispositions gave zest to these conversations. Adrian had the
superiority in learning and eloquence; but Raymond possessed a quick
penetration, and a practical knowledge of life, which usually displayed
itself in opposition to Adrian, and thus kept up the ball of discussion. At
other times we made excursions of many days' duration, and crossed the
country to visit any spot noted for beauty or historical association.
Sometimes we went up to London, and entered into the amusements of the busy
throng; sometimes our retreat was invaded by visitors from among them. This
change made us only the more sensible to the delights of the intimate
intercourse of our own circle, the tranquillity of our divine forest, and
our happy evenings in the halls of our beloved Castle.
The disposition of Idris was peculiarly frank, soft, and affectionate. Her
temper was unalterably sweet; and although firm and resolute on any point
that touched her heart, she was yielding to those she loved. The nature of
Perdita was less perfect; but tenderness and happiness improved her temper,
and softened her natural reserve. Her understanding was clear and
comprehensive, her imagination vivid; she was sincere, generous, and
reasonable. Adrian, the matchless brother of my soul, the sensitive and
excellent Adrian, loving all, and beloved by all, yet seemed destined not
to find the half of himself, which was to complete his happiness. He often
left us, and wandered by himself in the woods, or sailed in his little
skiff, his books his only companions. He was often the gayest of our party,
at the same time that he was the only one visited by fits of despondency;
his slender frame seemed overcharged with the weight of life, and his soul
appeared rather to inhabit his body than unite with it. I was hardly more
devoted to my Idris than to her brother, and she loved him as her teacher,
her friend, the benefactor who had secured to her the fulfilment of her
dearest wishes. Raymond, the ambitious, restless Raymond, reposed midway on
the great high-road of life, and was content to give up all his schemes of
sovereignty and fame, to make one of us, the flowers of the field. His
kingdom was the heart of Perdita, his subjects her thoughts; by her he was
loved, respected as a superior being, obeyed, waited on. No office, no
devotion, no watching was irksome to her, as it regarded him. She would sit
apart from us and watch him; she would weep for joy to think that he was
hers. She erected a temple for him in the depth of her being, and each
faculty was a priestess vowed to his service. Sometimes she might be
wayward and capricious; but her repentance was bitter, her return entire,
and even this inequality of temper suited him who was not formed by nature
to float idly down the stream of life.
During the first year of their marriage, Perdita presented Raymond with a
lovely girl. It was curious to trace in this miniature model the very
traits of its father. The same half-disdainful lips and smile of triumph,
the same intelligent eyes, the same brow and chestnut hair; her very hands
and taper fingers resembled his. How very dear she was to Perdita! In
progress of time, I also became a father, and our little darlings, our
playthings and delights, called forth a thousand new and delicious
feelings.
Years passed thus,--even years. Each month brought forth its successor,
each year one like to that gone by; truly, our lives were a living comment
on that beautiful sentiment of Plutarch, that "our souls have a natural
inclination to love, being born as much to love, as to feel, to reason, to
understand and remember." We talked of change and active pursuits, but
still remained at Windsor, incapable of violating the charm that attached
us to our secluded life.
Pareamo aver qui tutto il ben raccolto
Che fra mortali in piu parte si rimembra.
Now also that our children gave us occupation, we found excuses for
our idleness, in the idea of bringing them up to a more splendid
career. At length our tranquillity was disturbed, and the course of events,
which for five years had flowed on in hushing tranquillity, was broken by
breakers and obstacles, that woke us from our pleasant dream.
A new Lord Protector of England was to be chosen; and, at Raymond's
request, we removed to London, to witness, and even take a part in the
election. If Raymond had been united to Idris, this post had been his
stepping-stone to higher dignity; and his desire for power and fame had
been crowned with fullest measure. He had exchanged a sceptre for a lute, a
kingdom for Perdita.
Did he think of this as we journeyed up to town? I watched him, but could
make but little of him. He was particularly gay, playing with his child,
and turning to sport every word that was uttered. Perhaps he did this
because he saw a cloud upon Perdita's brow. She tried to rouse herself, but
her eyes every now and then filled with tears, and she looked wistfully on
Raymond and her girl, as if fearful that some evil would betide them. And
so she felt. A presentiment of ill hung over her. She leaned from the
window looking on the forest, and the turrets of the Castle, and as these
became hid by intervening objects, she passionately exclaimed--"Scenes of
happiness! scenes sacred to devoted love, when shall I see you again! and
when I see ye, shall I be still the beloved and joyous Perdita, or shall I,
heart-broken and lost, wander among your groves, the ghost of what I
am!"
"Why, silly one," cried Raymond, "what is your little head pondering
upon, that of a sudden you have become so sublimely dismal? Cheer up, or I
shall make you over to Idris, and call Adrian into the carriage, who, I see
by his gesture, sympathizes with my good spirits."
Adrian was on horseback; he rode up to the carriage, and his gaiety, in
addition to that of Raymond, dispelled my sister's melancholy. We entered
London in the evening, and went to our several abodes near Hyde Park.
The following morning Lord Raymond visited me early. "I come to you," he
said, "only half assured that you will assist me in my project, but
resolved to go through with it, whether you concur with me or not. Promise
me secrecy however; for if you will not contribute to my success, at least
you must not baffle me."
"Well, I promise. And now---"
"And now, my dear fellow, for what are we come to London? To be present at
the election of a Protector, and to give our yea or nay for his shuffling
Grace of----? or for that noisy Ryland? Do you believe, Verney, that I
brought you to town for that? No, we will have a Protector of our own. We
will set up a candidate, and ensure his success. We will nominate Adrian,
and do our best to bestow on him the power to which he is entitled by his
birth, and which he merits through his virtues.
"Do not answer; I know all your objections, and will reply to them in
order. First, Whether he will or will not consent to become a great man?
Leave the task of persuasion on that point to me; I do not ask you to
assist me there. Secondly, Whether he ought to exchange his employment of
plucking blackberries, and nursing wounded partridges in the forest, for
the command of a nation? My dear Lionel, we are married men, and find
employment sufficient in amusing our wives, and dancing our children. But
Adrian is alone, wifeless, childless, unoccupied. I have long observed him.
He pines for want of some interest in life. His heart, exhausted by his
early sufferings, reposes like a new-healed limb, and shrinks from all
excitement. But his understanding, his charity, his virtues, want a field
for exercise and display; and we will procure it for him. Besides, is it
not a shame, that the genius of Adrian should fade from the earth like a
flower in an untrod mountain-path, fruitless? Do you think Nature composed
his surpassing machine for no purpose? Believe me, he was destined to be
the author of infinite good to his native England. Has she not bestowed on
him every gift in prodigality?--birth, wealth, talent, goodness? Does not
every one love and admire him? and does he not delight singly in such
efforts as manifest his love to all? Come, I see that you are already
persuaded, and will second me when I propose him to-night in parliament."
"You have got up all your arguments in excellent order," I replied; "and,
if Adrian consent, they are unanswerable. One only condition I would make,
--that you do nothing without his concurrence."
"I believe you are in the right," said Raymond; "although I had thought at
first to arrange the affair differently. Be it so. I will go instantly to
Adrian; and, if he inclines to consent, you will not destroy my labour by
persuading him to return, and turn squirrel again in Windsor Forest. Idris,
you will not act the traitor towards me?"
"Trust me," replied she, "I will preserve a strict neutrality."
"For my part," said I, "I am too well convinced of the worth of our friend,
and the rich harvest of benefits that all England would reap from his
Protectorship, to deprive my countrymen of such a blessing, if he consent
to bestow it on them."
In the evening Adrian visited us.--"Do you cabal also against me," said
he, laughing; "and will you make common cause with Raymond, in dragging a
poor visionary from the clouds to surround him with the fire-works and
blasts of earthly grandeur, instead of heavenly rays and airs? I thought
you knew me better."
"I do know you better," I replied "than to think that you would be happy in
such a situation; but the good you would do to others may be an inducement,
since the time is probably arrived when you can put your theories into
practice, and you may bring about such reformation and change, as will
conduce to that perfect system of government which you delight to
portray."
"You speak of an almost-forgotten dream," said Adrian, his countenance
slightly clouding as he spoke; "the visions of my boyhood have long since
faded in the light of reality; I know now that I am not a man fitted to
govern nations; sufficient for me, if I keep in wholesome rule the little
kingdom of my own mortality.
"But do not you see, Lionel, the drift of our noble friend; a drift,
perhaps, unknown to himself, but apparent to me. Lord Raymond was never
born to be a drone in the hive, and to find content in our pastoral life.
He thinks, that he ought to be satisfied; he imagines, that his present
situation precludes the possibility of aggrandisement; he does not
therefore, even in his own heart, plan change for himself. But do you not
see, that, under the idea of exalting me, he is chalking out a new path for
himself; a path of action from which he has long wandered?
"Let us assist him. He, the noble, the warlike, the great in every quality
that can adorn the mind and person of man; he is fitted to be the Protector
of England. If I--that is, if we propose him, he will assuredly be
elected, and will find, in the functions of that high office, scope for the
towering powers of his mind. Even Perdita will rejoice. Perdita, in whom
ambition was a covered fire until she married Raymond, which event was for
a time the fulfilment of her hopes; Perdita will rejoice in the glory and
advancement of her lord--and, coyly and prettily, not be discontented
with her share. In the mean time, we, the wise of the land, will return to
our Castle, and, Cincinnatus-like, take to our usual labours, until our
friend shall require our presence and assistance here."
The more Adrian reasoned upon this scheme, the more feasible it appeared.
His own determination never to enter into public life was insurmountable,
and the delicacy of his health was a sufficient argument against it. The
next step was to induce Raymond to confess his secret wishes for dignity
and fame. He entered while we were speaking. The way in which Adrian had
received his project for setting him up as a candidate for the
Protectorship, and his replies, had already awakened in his mind, the view
of the subject which we were now discussing. His countenance and manner
betrayed irresolution and anxiety; but the anxiety arose from a fear that
we should not prosecute, or not succeed in our idea; and his irresolution,
from a doubt whether we should risk a defeat. A few words from us decided
him, and hope and joy sparkled in his eyes; the idea of embarking in a
career, so congenial to his early habits and cherished wishes, made him as
before energetic and bold. We discussed his chances, the merits of the
other candidates, and the dispositions of the voters.
After all we miscalculated. Raymond had lost much of his popularity, and
was deserted by his peculiar partizans. Absence from the busy stage had
caused him to be forgotten by the people; his former parliamentary
supporters were principally composed of royalists, who had been willing to
make an idol of him when he appeared as the heir of the Earldom of Windsor;
but who were indifferent to him, when he came forward with no other
attributes and distinctions than they conceived to be common to many among
themselves. Still he had many friends, admirers of his transcendent
talents; his presence in the house, his eloquence, address and imposing
beauty, were calculated to produce an electric effect. Adrian also,
notwithstanding his recluse habits and theories, so adverse to the spirit
of party, had many friends, and they were easily induced to vote for a
candidate of his selection.
The Duke of----, and Mr. Ryland, Lord Raymond's old antagonist, were the
other candidates. The Duke was supported by all the aristocrats of the
republic, who considered him their proper representative. Ryland was the
popular candidate; when Lord Raymond was first added to the list, his
chance of success appeared small. We retired from the debate which had
followed on his nomination: we, his nominators, mortified; he dispirited to
excess. Perdita reproached us bitterly. Her expectations had been strongly
excited; she had urged nothing against our project, on the contrary, she
was evidently pleased by it; but its evident ill success changed the
current of her ideas. She felt, that, once awakened, Raymond would never
return unrepining to Windsor. His habits were unhinged; his restless mind
roused from its sleep, ambition must now be his companion through life; and
if he did not succeed in his present attempt, she foresaw that unhappiness
and cureless discontent would follow. Perhaps her own disappointment added
a sting to her thoughts and words; she did not spare us, and our own
reflections added to our disquietude.
It was necessary to follow up our nomination, and to persuade Raymond to
present himself to the electors on the following evening. For a long time
he was obstinate. He would embark in a balloon; he would sail for a distant
quarter of the world, where his name and humiliation were unknown. But this
was useless; his attempt was registered; his purpose published to the
world; his shame could never be erased from the memories of men. It was as
well to fail at last after a struggle, as to fly now at the beginning of
his enterprise.
From the moment that he adopted this idea, he was changed. His depression
and anxiety fled; he became all life and activity. The smile of triumph
shone on his countenance; determined to pursue his object to the uttermost,
his manner and expression seem ominous of the accomplishment of his wishes.
Not so Perdita. She was frightened by his gaiety, for she dreaded a greater
revulsion at the end. If his appearance even inspired us with hope, it only
rendered the state of her mind more painful. She feared to lose sight of
him; yet she dreaded to remark any change in the temper of his mind. She
listened eagerly to him, yet tantalized herself by giving to his words a
meaning foreign to their true interpretation, and adverse to her hopes. She
dared not be present at the contest; yet she remained at home a prey to
double solicitude. She wept over her little girl; she looked, she spoke, as
if she dreaded the occurrence of some frightful calamity. She was half mad
from the effects of uncontrollable agitation.
Lord Raymond presented himself to the house with fearless confidence and
insinuating address. After the Duke of----and Mr. Ryland had finished
their speeches, he commenced. Assuredly he had not conned his lesson; and
at first he hesitated, pausing in his ideas, and in the choice of his
expressions. By degrees he warmed; his words flowed with ease, his language
was full of vigour, and his voice of persuasion. He reverted to his past
life, his successes in Greece, his favour at home. Why should he lose this,
now that added years, prudence, and the pledge which his marriage gave to
his country, ought to encrease, rather than diminish his claims to
confidence? He spoke of the state of England; the necessary measures to be
taken to ensure its security, and confirm its prosperity. He drew a glowing
picture of its present situation. As he spoke, every sound was hushed,
every thought suspended by intense attention. His graceful elocution
enchained the senses of his hearers. In some degree also he was fitted to
reconcile all parties. His birth pleased the aristocracy; his being the
candidate recommended by Adrian, a man intimately allied to the popular
party, caused a number, who had no great reliance either on the Duke or Mr.
Ryland, to range on his side.
The contest was keen and doubtful. Neither Adrian nor myself would have
been so anxious, if our own success had depended on our exertions; but we
had egged our friend on to the enterprise, and it became us to ensure his
triumph. Idris, who entertained the highest opinion of his abilities, was
warmly interested in the event: and my poor sister, who dared not hope, and
to whom fear was misery, was plunged into a fever of disquietude.
Day after day passed while we discussed our projects for the evening, and
each night was occupied by debates which offered no conclusion. At last the
crisis came: the night when parliament, which had so long delayed its
choice, must decide: as the hour of twelve passed, and the new day began,
it was by virtue of the constitution dissolved, its power extinct.
We assembled at Raymond's house, we and our partizans. At half past five
o'clock we proceeded to the House. Idris endeavoured to calm Perdita; but
the poor girl's agitation deprived her of all power of self-command. She
walked up and down the room,--gazed wildly when any one entered, fancying
that they might be the announcers of her doom. I must do justice to my
sweet sister: it was not for herself that she was thus agonized. She alone
knew the weight which Raymond attached to his success. Even to us he
assumed gaiety and hope, and assumed them so well, that we did not divine
the secret workings of his mind. Sometimes a nervous trembling, a sharp
dissonance of voice, and momentary fits of absence revealed to Perdita the
violence he did himself; but we, intent on our plans, observed only his
ready laugh, his joke intruded on all occasions, the flow of his spirits
which seemed incapable of ebb. Besides, Perdita was with him in his
retirement; she saw the moodiness that succeeded to this forced hilarity;
she marked his disturbed sleep, his painful irritability--once she had
seen his tears--hers had scarce ceased to flow, since she had beheld the
big drops which disappointed pride had caused to gather in his eye, but
which pride was unable to dispel. What wonder then, that her feelings were
wrought to this pitch! I thus accounted to myself for her agitation; but
this was not all, and the sequel revealed another excuse.
One moment we seized before our departure, to take leave of our beloved
girls. I had small hope of success, and entreated Idris to watch over my
sister. As I approached the latter, she seized my hand, and drew me into
another apartment; she threw herself into my arms, and wept and sobbed
bitterly and long. I tried to soothe her; I bade her hope; I asked what
tremendous consequences would ensue even on our failure. "My brother," she
cried, "protector of my childhood, dear, most dear Lionel, my fate hangs by
a thread. I have you all about me now--you, the companion of my infancy;
Adrian, as dear to me as if bound by the ties of blood; Idris, the sister
of my heart, and her lovely offspring. This, O this may be the last time
that you will surround me thus!"
Abruptly she stopped, and then cried: "What have I said?--foolish false
girl that I am!" She looked wildly on me, and then suddenly calming
herself, apologized for what she called her unmeaning words, saying that
she must indeed be insane, for, while Raymond lived, she must be happy; and
then, though she still wept, she suffered me tranquilly to depart. Raymond
only took her hand when he went, and looked on her expressively; she
answered by a look of intelligence and assent.
Poor girl! what she then suffered! I could never entirely forgive Raymond
for the trials he imposed on her, occasioned as they were by a selfish
feeling on his part. He had schemed, if he failed in his present attempt,
without taking leave of any of us, to embark for Greece, and never again to
revisit England. Perdita acceded to his wishes; for his contentment was the
chief object of her life, the crown of her enjoyment; but to leave us all,
her companions, the beloved partners of her happiest years, and in the
interim to conceal this frightful determination, was a task that almost
conquered her strength of mind. She had been employed in arranging for
their departure; she had promised Raymond during this decisive evening, to
take advantage of our absence, to go one stage of the journey, and he,
after his defeat was ascertained, would slip away from us, and join her.
Although, when I was informed of this scheme, I was bitterly offended by
the small attention which Raymond paid to my sister's feelings, I was led
by reflection to consider, that he acted under the force of such strong
excitement, as to take from him the consciousness, and, consequently, the
guilt of a fault. If he had permitted us to witness his agitation, he would
have been more under the guidance of reason; but his struggles for the shew
of composure, acted with such violence on his nerves, as to destroy his
power of self-command. I am convinced that, at the worst, he would have
returned from the seashore to take leave of us, and to make us the partners
of his council. But the task imposed on Perdita was not the less painful.
He had extorted from her a vow of secrecy; and her part of the drama, since
it was to be performed alone, was the most agonizing that could be devised.
But to return to my narrative.
The debates had hitherto been long and loud; they had often been protracted
merely for the sake of delay. But now each seemed fearful lest the fatal
moment should pass, while the choice was yet undecided. Unwonted silence
reigned in the house, the members spoke in whispers, and the ordinary
business was transacted with celerity and quietness. During the first stage
of the election, the Duke of----had been thrown out; the question
therefore lay between Lord Raymond and Mr. Ryland. The latter had felt
secure of victory, until the appearance of Raymond; and, since his name had
been inserted as a candidate, he had canvassed with eagerness. He had
appeared each evening, impatience and anger marked in his looks, scowling
on us from the opposite side of St. Stephen's, as if his mere frown would
cast eclipse on our hopes.
Every thing in the English constitution had been regulated for the better
preservation of peace. On the last day, two candidates only were allowed to
remain; and to obviate, if possible, the last struggle between these, a
bribe was offered to him who should voluntarily resign his pretensions; a
place of great emolument and honour was given him, and his success
facilitated at a future election. Strange to say however, no instance had
yet occurred, where either candidate had had recourse to this expedient; in
consequence the law had become obsolete, nor had been referred to by any of
us in our discussions. To our extreme surprise, when it was moved that we
should resolve ourselves into a committee for the election of the Lord
Protector, the member who had nominated Ryland, rose and informed us that
this candidate had resigned his pretensions. His information was at first
received with silence; a confused murmur succeeded; and, when the chairman
declared Lord Raymond duly chosen, it amounted to a shout of applause and
victory. It seemed as if, far from any dread of defeat even if Mr. Ryland
had not resigned, every voice would have been united in favour of our
candidate. In fact, now that the idea of contest was dismissed, all hearts
returned to their former respect and admiration of our accomplished friend.
Each felt, that England had never seen a Protector so capable of fulfilling
the arduous duties of that high office. One voice made of many voices,
resounded through the chamber; it syllabled the name of Raymond.
He entered. I was on one of the highest seats, and saw him walk up the
passage to the table of the speaker. The native modesty of his disposition
conquered the joy of his triumph. He looked round timidly; a mist seemed
before his eyes. Adrian, who was beside me, hastened to him, and jumping
down the benches, was at his side in a moment. His appearance re-animated
our friend; and, when he came to speak and act, his hesitation vanished,
and he shone out supreme in majesty and victory. The former Protector
tendered him the oaths, and presented him with the insignia of office,
performing the ceremonies of installation. The house then dissolved. The
chief members of the state crowded round the new magistrate, and conducted
him to the palace of government. Adrian suddenly vanished; and, by the time
that Raymond's supporters were reduced to our intimate friends merely,
returned leading Idris to congratulate her friend on his success.
But where was Perdita? In securing solicitously an unobserved retreat in
case of failure, Raymond had forgotten to arrange the mode by which she was
to hear of his success; and she had been too much agitated to revert to
this circumstance. When Idris entered, so far had Raymond forgotten
himself, that he asked for my sister; one word, which told of her
mysterious disappearance, recalled him. Adrian it is true had already gone
to seek the fugitive, imagining that her tameless anxiety had led her to
the purlieus of the House, and that some sinister event detained her. But
Raymond, without explaining himself, suddenly quitted us, and in another
moment we heard him gallop down the street, in spite of the wind and rain
that scattered tempest over the earth. We did not know how far he had to
go, and soon separated, supposing that in a short time he would return to
the palace with Perdita, and that they would not be sorry to find
themselves alone.
Perdita had arrived with her child at Dartford, weeping and inconsolable.
She directed everything to be prepared for the continuance of their
journey, and placing her lovely sleeping charge on a bed, passed several
hours in acute suffering. Sometimes she observed the war of elements,
thinking that they also declared against her, and listened to the pattering
of the rain in gloomy despair. Sometimes she hung over her child, tracing
her resemblance to the father, and fearful lest in after life she should
display the same passions and uncontrollable impulses, that rendered him
unhappy. Again, with a gush of pride and delight, she marked in the
features of her little girl, the same smile of beauty that often irradiated
Raymond's countenance. The sight of it soothed her. She thought of the
treasure she possessed in the affections of her lord; of his
accomplishments, surpassing those of his contemporaries, his genius, his
devotion to her.--Soon she thought, that all she possessed in the world,
except him, might well be spared, nay, given with delight, a propitiatory
offering, to secure the supreme good she retained in him. Soon she
imagined, that fate demanded this sacrifice from her, as a mark she was
devoted to Raymond, and that it must be made with cheerfulness. She figured
to herself their life in the Greek isle he had selected for their retreat;
her task of soothing him; her cares for the beauteous Clara, her rides in
his company, her dedication of herself to his consolation. The picture then
presented itself to her in such glowing colours, that she feared the
reverse, and a life of magnificence and power in London; where Raymond
would no longer be hers only, nor she the sole source of happiness to him.
So far as she merely was concerned, she began to hope for defeat; and it
was only on his account that her feelings vacillated, as she heard him
gallop into the court-yard of the inn. That he should come to her alone,
wetted by the storm, careless of every thing except speed, what else could
it mean, than that, vanquished and solitary, they were to take their way
from native England, the scene of shame, and hide themselves in the myrtle
groves of the Grecian isles?
In a moment she was in his arms. The knowledge of his success had become so
much a part of himself, that he forgot that it was necessary to impart it
to his companion. She only felt in his embrace a dear assurance that while
he possessed her, he would not despair. "This is kind," she cried; "this is
noble, my own beloved! O fear not disgrace or lowly fortune, while you have
your Perdita; fear not sorrow, while our child lives and smiles. Let us go
even where you will; the love that accompanies us will prevent our
regrets."
Locked in his embrace, she spoke thus, and cast back her head, seeking an
assent to her words in his eyes--they were sparkling with ineffable
delight. "Why, my little Lady Protectress," said he, playfully, "what is
this you say? And what pretty scheme have you woven of exile and obscurity,
while a brighter web, a gold-enwoven tissue, is that which, in truth, you
ought to contemplate?"
He kissed her brow--but the wayward girl, half sorry at his triumph,
agitated by swift change of thought, hid her face in his bosom and wept. He
comforted her; he instilled into her his own hopes and desires; and soon
her countenance beamed with sympathy. How very happy were they that night!
How full even to bursting was their sense of joy!
CHAPTER VII.
HAVING seen our friend properly installed in his new office, we turned our
eyes towards Windsor. The nearness of this place to London was such, as to
take away the idea of painful separation, when we quitted Raymond and
Perdita. We took leave of them in the Protectoral Palace. It was pretty
enough to see my sister enter as it were into the spirit of the drama, and
endeavour to fill her station with becoming dignity. Her internal pride and
humility of manner were now more than ever at war. Her timidity was not
artificial, but arose from that fear of not being properly appreciated,
that slight estimation of the neglect of the world, which also
characterized Raymond. But then Perdita thought more constantly of others
than he; and part of her bashfulness arose from a wish to take from those
around her a sense of inferiority; a feeling which never crossed her mind.
From the circumstances of her birth and education, Idris would have been
better fitted for the formulae of ceremony; but the very ease which
accompanied such actions with her, arising from habit, rendered them
tedious; while, with every drawback, Perdita evidently enjoyed her
situation. She was too full of new ideas to feel much pain when we
departed; she took an affectionate leave of us, and promised to visit us
soon; but she did not regret the circumstances that caused our separation.
The spirits of Raymond were unbounded; he did not know what to do with his
new got power; his head was full of plans; he had as yet decided on none--
but he promised himself, his friends, and the world, that the aera of his
Protectorship should be signalized by some act of surpassing glory. Thus, we
talked of them, and moralized, as with diminished numbers we returned to
Windsor Castle. We felt extreme delight at our escape from political
turmoil, and sought our solitude with redoubled zest. We did not want for
occupation; but my eager disposition was now turned to the field of
intellectual exertion only; and hard study I found to be an excellent
medicine to allay a fever of spirit with which in indolence, I should
doubtless have been assailed. Perdita had permitted us to take Clara back
with us to Windsor; and she and my two lovely infants were perpetual
sources of interest and amusement.
The only circumstance that disturbed our peace, was the health of Adrian.
It evidently declined, without any symptom which could lead us to suspect
his disease, unless indeed his brightened eyes, animated look, and
flustering cheeks, made us dread consumption; but he was without pain or
fear. He betook himself to books with ardour, and reposed from study in the
society he best loved, that of his sister and myself. Sometimes he went up
to London to visit Raymond, and watch the progress of events. Clara often
accompanied him in these excursions; partly that she might see her parents,
partly because Adrian delighted in the prattle, and intelligent looks of
this lovely child.
Meanwhile all went on well in London. The new elections were finished;
parliament met, and Raymond was occupied in a thousand beneficial schemes.
Canals, aqueducts, bridges, stately buildings, and various edifices for
public utility, were entered upon; he was continually surrounded by
projectors and projects, which were to render England one scene of
fertility and magnificence; the state of poverty was to be abolished; men
were to be transported from place to place almost with the same facility as
the Princes Houssain, Ali, and Ahmed, in the Arabian Nights. The physical
state of man would soon not yield to the beatitude of angels; disease was
to be banished; labour lightened of its heaviest burden. Nor did this seem
extravagant. The arts of life, and the discoveries of science had augmented
in a ratio which left all calculation behind; food sprung up, so to say,
spontaneously--machines existed to supply with facility every want of the
population. An evil direction still survived; and men were not happy, not
because they could not, but because they would not rouse themselves to
vanquish self-raised obstacles. Raymond was to inspire them with his
beneficial will, and the mechanism of society, once systematised according
to faultless rules, would never again swerve into disorder. For these hopes
he abandoned his long-cherished ambition of being enregistered in the
annals of nations as a successful warrior; laying aside his sword, peace
and its enduring glories became his aim--the title he coveted was that of
the benefactor of his country.
Among other works of art in which he was engaged, he had projected the
erection of a national gallery for statues and pictures. He possessed many
himself, which he designed to present to the Republic; and, as the edifice
was to be the great ornament of his Protectorship, he was very fastidious
in his choice of the plan on which it would be built. Hundreds were brought
to him and rejected. He sent even to Italy and Greece for drawings; but, as
the design was to be characterized by originality as well as by perfect
beauty, his endeavours were for a time without avail. At length a drawing
came, with an address where communications might be sent, and no artist's
name affixed. The design was new and elegant, but faulty; so faulty, that
although drawn with the hand and eye of taste, it was evidently the work of
one who was not an architect. Raymond contemplated it with delight; the
more he gazed, the more pleased he was; and yet the errors multiplied under
inspection. He wrote to the address given, desiring to see the draughtsman,
that such alterations might be made, as should be suggested in a
consultation between him and the original conceiver.
A Greek came. A middle-aged man, with some intelligence of manner, but with
so common-place a physiognomy, that Raymond could scarcely believe that he
was the designer. He acknowledged that he was not an architect; but the
idea of the building had struck him, though he had sent it without the
smallest hope of its being accepted. He was a man of few words. Raymond
questioned him; but his reserved answers soon made him turn from the man to
the drawing. He pointed out the errors, and the alterations that he wished
to be made; he offered the Greek a pencil that he might correct the sketch
on the spot; this was refused by his visitor, who said that he perfectly
understood, and would work at it at home. At length Raymond suffered him to
depart.
The next day he returned. The design had been re-drawn; but many defects
still remained, and several of the instructions given had been
misunderstood. "Come," said Raymond, "I yielded to you yesterday, now
comply with my request--take the pencil."
The Greek took it, but he handled it in no artist-like way; at length he
said: "I must confess to you, my Lord, that I did not make this drawing. It
is impossible for you to see the real designer; your instructions must pass
through me. Condescend therefore to have patience with my ignorance, and to
explain your wishes to me; in time I am certain that you will be
satisfied."
Raymond questioned vainly; the mysterious Greek would say no more. Would an
architect be permitted to see the artist? This also was refused. Raymond
repeated his instructions, and the visitor retired. Our friend resolved
however not to be foiled in his wish. He suspected, that unaccustomed
poverty was the cause of the mystery, and that the artist was unwilling to
be seen in the garb and abode of want. Raymond was only the more excited by
this consideration to discover him; impelled by the interest he took in
obscure talent, he therefore ordered a person skilled in such matters, to
follow the Greek the next time he came, and observe the house in which he
should enter. His emissary obeyed, and brought the desired intelligence. He
had traced the man to one of the most penurious streets in the metropolis.
Raymond did not wonder, that, thus situated, the artist had shrunk from
notice, but he did not for this alter his resolve.
On the same evening, he went alone to the house named to him. Poverty,
dirt, and squalid misery characterized its appearance. Alas! thought
Raymond, I have much to do before England becomes a Paradise. He knocked;
the door was opened by a string from above--the broken, wretched
staircase was immediately before him, but no person appeared; he knocked
again, vainly--and then, impatient of further delay, he ascended the
dark, creaking stairs. His main wish, more particularly now that he
witnessed the abject dwelling of the artist, was to relieve one, possessed
of talent, but depressed by want. He pictured to himself a youth, whose
eyes sparkled with genius, whose person was attenuated by famine. He half
feared to displease him; but he trusted that his generous kindness would be
administered so delicately, as not to excite repulse. What human heart is
shut to kindness? and though poverty, in its excess, might render the
sufferer unapt to submit to the supposed degradation of a benefit, the zeal
of the benefactor must at last relax him into thankfulness. These thoughts
encouraged Raymond, as he stood at the door of the highest room of the
house. After trying vainly to enter the other apartments, he perceived just
within the threshold of this one, a pair of small Turkish slippers; the
door was ajar, but all was silent within. It was probable that the inmate
was absent, but secure that he had found the right person, our adventurous
Protector was tempted to enter, to leave a purse on the table, and silently
depart. In pursuance of this idea, he pushed open the door gently--but
the room was inhabited.
Raymond had never visited the dwellings of want, and the scene that now
presented itself struck him to the heart. The floor was sunk in many
places; the walls ragged and bare--the ceiling weather-stained--a
tattered bed stood in the corner; there were but two chairs in the room,
and a rough broken table, on which was a light in a tin candlestick;--yet
in the midst of such drear and heart sickening poverty, there was an air of
order and cleanliness that surprised him. The thought was fleeting; for his
attention was instantly drawn towards the inhabitant of this wretched
abode. It was a female. She sat at the table; one small hand shaded her
eyes from the candle; the other held a pencil; her looks were fixed on a
drawing before her, which Raymond recognized as the design presented to
him. Her whole appearance awakened his deepest interest. Her dark hair was
braided and twined in thick knots like the head-dress of a Grecian statue;
her garb was mean, but her attitude might have been selected as a model of
grace. Raymond had a confused remembrance that he had seen such a form
before; he walked across the room; she did not raise her eyes, merely
asking in Romaic, who is there? "A friend," replied Raymond in the same
dialect. She looked up wondering, and he saw that it was Evadne Zaimi.
Evadne, once the idol of Adrian's affections; and who, for the sake of her
present visitor, had disdained the noble youth, and then, neglected by him
she loved, with crushed hopes and a stinging sense of misery, had returned
to her native Greece. What revolution of fortune could have brought her to
England, and housed her thus?
Raymond recognized her; and his manner changed from polite beneficence to
the warmest protestations of kindness and sympathy. The sight of her, in
her present situation, passed like an arrow into his soul. He sat by her,
he took her hand, and said a thousand things which breathed the deepest
spirit of compassion and affection. Evadne did not answer; her large dark
eyes were cast down, at length a tear glimmered on the lashes. "Thus," she
cried, "kindness can do, what no want, no misery ever effected; I weep."
She shed indeed many tears; her head sunk unconsciously on the shoulder of
Raymond; he held her hand: he kissed her sunken tear-stained cheek. He told
her, that her sufferings were now over: no one possessed the art of
consoling like Raymond; he did not reason or declaim, but his look shone
with sympathy; he brought pleasant images before the sufferer; his caresses
excited no distrust, for they arose purely from the feeling which leads a
mother to kiss her wounded child; a desire to demonstrate in every possible
way the truth of his feelings, and the keenness of his wish to pour balm
into the lacerated mind of the unfortunate. As Evadne regained her
composure, his manner became even gay; he sported with the idea of her
poverty. Something told him that it was not its real evils that lay heavily
at her heart, but the debasement and disgrace attendant on it; as he
talked, he divested it of these; sometimes speaking of her fortitude with
energetic praise; then, alluding to her past state, he called her his
Princess in disguise. He made her warm offers of service; she was too much
occupied by more engrossing thoughts, either to accept or reject them; at
length he left her, making a promise to repeat his visit the next day. He
returned home, full of mingled feelings, of pain excited by Evadne's
wretchedness, and pleasure at the prospect of relieving it. Some motive for
which he did not account, even to himself, prevented him from relating his
adventure to Perdita.
The next day he threw such disguise over his person as a cloak afforded,
and revisited Evadne. As he went, he bought a basket of costly fruits, such
as were natives of her own country, and throwing over these various
beautiful flowers, bore it himself to the miserable garret of his friend.
"Behold," cried he, as he entered, "what bird's food I have brought for my
sparrow on the house-top."
Evadne now related the tale of her misfortunes. Her father, though of high
rank, had in the end dissipated his fortune, and even destroyed his
reputation and influence through a course of dissolute indulgence. His
health was impaired beyond hope of cure; and it became his earnest wish,
before he died, to preserve his daughter from the poverty which would be
the portion of her orphan state. He therefore accepted for her, and
persuaded her to accede to, a proposal of marriage, from a wealthy Greek
merchant settled at Constantinople. She quitted her native Greece; her
father died; by degrees she was cut off from all the companions and ties of
her youth.
The war, which about a year before the present time had broken out between
Greece and Turkey, brought about many reverses of fortune. Her husband
became bankrupt, and then in a tumult and threatened massacre on the part
of the Turks, they were obliged to fly at midnight, and reached in an open
boat an English vessel under sail, which brought them immediately to this
island. The few jewels they had saved, supported them awhile. The whole
strength of Evadne's mind was exerted to support the failing spirits of her
husband. Loss of property, hopelessness as to his future prospects, the
inoccupation to which poverty condemned him, combined to reduce him to a
state bordering on insanity. Five months after their arrival in England, he
committed suicide.
"You will ask me," continued Evadne, "what I have done since; why I have
not applied for succour to the rich Greeks resident here; why I have not
returned to my native country? My answer to these questions must needs
appear to you unsatisfactory, yet they have sufficed to lead me on, day
after day, enduring every wretchedness, rather than by such means to seek
relief. Shall the daughter of the noble, though prodigal Zaimi, appear a
beggar before her compeers or inferiors--superiors she had none. Shall I
bow my head before them, and with servile gesture sell my nobility for
life? Had I a child, or any tie to bind me to existence, I might descend to
this--but, as it is--the world has been to me a harsh step-mother; fain
would I leave the abode she seems to grudge, and in the grave forget my
pride, my struggles, my despair. The time will soon come; grief and famine
have already sapped the foundations of my being; a very short time, and I
shall have passed away; unstained by the crime of self-destruction, unstung
by the memory of degradation, my spirit will throw aside the miserable
coil, and find such recompense as fortitude and resignation may deserve.
This may seem madness to you, yet you also have pride and resolution; do
not then wonder that my pride is tameless, my resolution unalterable."
Having thus finished her tale, and given such an account as she deemed fit,
of the motives of her abstaining from all endeavour to obtain aid from her
countrymen, Evadne paused; yet she seemed to have more to say, to which she
was unable to give words. In the mean time Raymond was eloquent. His desire
of restoring his lovely friend to her rank in society, and to her lost
prosperity, animated him, and he poured forth with energy, all his wishes
and intentions on that subject. But he was checked; Evadne exacted a
promise, that he should conceal from all her friends her existence in
England. "The relatives of the Earl of Windsor," said she haughtily,
"doubtless think that I injured him; perhaps the Earl himself would be the
first to acquit me, but probably I do not deserve acquittal. I acted then,
as I ever must, from impulse. This abode of penury may at least prove the
disinterestedness of my conduct. No matter: I do not wish to plead my cause
before any of them, not even before your Lordship, had you not first
discovered me. The tenor of my actions will prove that I had rather die,
than be a mark for scorn--behold the proud Evadne in her tatters! look on
the beggar-princess! There is aspic venom in the thought--promise me that
my secret shall not be violated by you."
Raymond promised; but then a new discussion ensued. Evadne required another
engagement on his part, that he would not without her concurrence enter
into any project for her benefit, nor himself offer relief. "Do not degrade
me in my own eyes," she said; "poverty has long been my nurse; hard-visaged
she is, but honest. If dishonour, or what I conceive to be dishonour, come
near me, I am lost." Raymond adduced many arguments and fervent persuasions
to overcome her feeling, but she remained unconvinced; and, agitated by the
discussion, she wildly and passionately made a solemn vow, to fly and hide
herself where he never could discover her, where famine would soon bring
death to conclude her woes, if he persisted in his to her disgracing
offers. She could support herself, she said. And then she shewed him how,
by executing various designs and paintings, she earned a pittance for her
support. Raymond yielded for the present. He felt assured, after he had for
awhile humoured her self-will, that in the end friendship and reason would
gain the day.
But the feelings that actuated Evadne were rooted in the depths of her
being, and were such in their growth as he had no means of understanding.
Evadne loved Raymond. He was the hero of her imagination, the image carved
by love in the unchanged texture of her heart. Seven years ago, in her
youthful prime, she had become attached to him; he had served her country
against the Turks; he had in her own land acquired that military glory
peculiarly dear to the Greeks, since they were still obliged inch by inch
to fight for their security. Yet when he returned thence, and first
appeared in public life in England, her love did not purchase his, which
then vacillated between Perdita and a crown. While he was yet undecided,
she had quitted England; the news of his marriage reached her, and her
hopes, poorly nurtured blossoms, withered and fell. The glory of life was
gone for her; the roseate halo of love, which had imbued every object with
its own colour, faded;--she was content to take life as it was, and to
make the best of leaden-coloured reality. She married; and, carrying her
restless energy of character with her into new scenes, she turned her
thoughts to ambition, and aimed at the title and power of Princess of
Wallachia; while her patriotic feelings were soothed by the idea of the
good she might do her country, when her husband should be chief of this
principality. She lived to find ambition, as unreal a delusion as love. Her
intrigues with Russia for the furtherance of her object, excited the
jealousy of the Porte, and the animosity of the Greek government. She was
considered a traitor by both, the ruin of her husband followed; they
avoided death by a timely flight, and she fell from the height of her
desires to penury in England. Much of this tale she concealed from Raymond;
nor did she confess, that repulse and denial, as to a criminal convicted of
the worst of crimes, that of bringing the scythe of foreign despotism to
cut away the new springing liberties of her country, would have followed
her application to any among the Greeks.
She knew that she was the cause of her husband's utter ruin; and she strung
herself to bear the consequences. The reproaches which agony extorted; or
worse, cureless, uncomplaining depression, when his mind was sunk in a
torpor, not the less painful because it was silent and moveless. She
reproached herself with the crime of his death; guilt and its punishments
appeared to surround her; in vain she endeavoured to allay remorse by the
memory of her real integrity; the rest of the world, and she among them,
judged of her actions, by their consequences. She prayed for her husband's
soul; she conjured the Supreme to place on her head the crime of his
self-destruction--she vowed to live to expiate his fault.
In the midst of such wretchedness as must soon have destroyed her, one
thought only was matter of consolation. She lived in the same country,
breathed the same air as Raymond. His name as Protector was the burthen of
every tongue; his achievements, projects, and magnificence, the argument of
every story. Nothing is so precious to a woman's heart as the glory and
excellence of him she loves; thus in every horror Evadne revelled in his
fame and prosperity. While her husband lived, this feeling was regarded by
her as a crime, repressed, repented of. When he died, the tide of love
resumed its ancient flow, it deluged her soul with its tumultuous waves,
and she gave herself up a prey to its uncontrollable power.
But never, O, never, should he see her in her degraded state. Never should
he behold her fallen, as she deemed, from her pride of beauty, the
poverty-stricken inhabitant of a garret, with a name which had become a
reproach, and a weight of guilt on her soul. But though impenetrably veiled
from him, his public office permitted her to become acquainted with all his
actions, his daily course of life, even his conversation. She allowed
herself one luxury, she saw the newspapers every day, and feasted on the
praise and actions of the Protector. Not that this indulgence was devoid of
accompanying grief. Perdita's name was for ever joined with his; their
conjugal felicity was celebrated even by the authentic testimony of facts.
They were continually together, nor could the unfortunate Evadne read the
monosyllable that designated his name, without, at the same time, being
presented with the image of her who was the faithful companion of all his
labours and pleasures. They, their Excellencies, met her eyes in each line,
mingling an evil potion that poisoned her very blood.
It was in the newspaper that she saw the advertisement for the design for a
national gallery. Combining with taste her remembrance of the edifices
which she had seen in the east, and by an effort of genius enduing them
with unity of design, she executed the plan which had been sent to the
Protector. She triumphed in the idea of bestowing, unknown and forgotten as
she was, a benefit upon him she loved; and with enthusiastic pride looked
forward to the accomplishment of a work of hers, which, immortalized in
stone, would go down to posterity stamped with the name of Raymond. She
awaited with eagerness the return of her messenger from the palace; she
listened insatiate to his account of each word, each look of the Protector;
she felt bliss in this communication with her beloved, although he knew not
to whom he addressed his instructions. The drawing itself became ineffably
dear to her. He had seen it, and praised it; it was again retouched by her,
each stroke of her pencil was as a chord of thrilling music, and bore to
her the idea of a temple raised to celebrate the deepest and most
unutterable emotions of her soul. These contemplations engaged her, when
the voice of Raymond first struck her ear, a voice, once heard, never to be
forgotten; she mastered her gush of feelings, and welcomed him with quiet
gentleness.
Pride and tenderness now struggled, and at length made a compromise
together. She would see Raymond, since destiny had led him to her, and her
constancy and devotion must merit his friendship. But her rights with
regard to him, and her cherished independence, should not be injured by the
idea of interest, or the intervention of the complicated feelings attendant
on pecuniary obligation, and the relative situations of the benefactor, and
benefited. Her mind was of uncommon strength; she could subdue her sensible
wants to her mental wishes, and suffer cold, hunger and misery, rather than
concede to fortune a contested point. Alas! that in human nature such a
pitch of mental discipline, and disdainful negligence of nature itself,
should not have been allied to the extreme of moral excellence! But the
resolution that permitted her to resist the pains of privation, sprung from
the too great energy of her passions; and the concentrated self-will of
which this was a sign, was destined to destroy even the very idol, to
preserve whose respect she submitted to this detail of wretchedness.
Their intercourse continued. By degrees Evadne related to her friend the
whole of her story, the stain her name had received in Greece, the weight
of sin which had accrued to her from the death of her husband. When Raymond
offered to clear her reputation, and demonstrate to the world her real
patriotism, she declared that it was only through her present sufferings
that she hoped for any relief to the stings of conscience; that, in her
state of mind, diseased as he might think it, the necessity of occupation
was salutary medicine; she ended by extorting a promise that for the space
of one month he would refrain from the discussion of her interests,
engaging after that time to yield in part to his wishes. She could not
disguise to herself that any change would separate her from him; now she
saw him each day. His connection with Adrian and Perdita was never
mentioned; he was to her a meteor, a companionless star, which at its
appointed hour rose in her hemisphere, whose appearance brought felicity,
and which, although it set, was never eclipsed. He came each day to her
abode of penury, and his presence transformed it to a temple redolent with
sweets, radiant with heaven's own light; he partook of her delirium. "They
built a wall between them and the world"--Without, a thousand harpies
raved, remorse and misery, expecting the destined moment for their
invasion. Within, was the peace as of innocence, reckless blindless,
deluding joy, hope, whose still anchor rested on placid but unconstant
water.
Thus, while Raymond had been wrapt in visions of power and fame, while he
looked forward to entire dominion over the elements and the mind of man,
the territory of his own heart escaped his notice; and from that unthought
of source arose the mighty torrent that overwhelmed his will, and carried
to the oblivious sea, fame, hope, and happiness.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN the mean time what did Perdita?
During the first months of his Protectorate, Raymond and she had been
inseparable; each project was discussed with her, each plan approved by
her. I never beheld any one so perfectly happy as my sweet sister. Her
expressive eyes were two stars whose beams were love; hope and
light-heartedness sat on her cloudless brow. She fed even to tears of joy
on the praise and glory of her Lord; her whole existence was one sacrifice
to him, and if in the humility of her heart she felt self-complacency, it
arose from the reflection that she had won the distinguished hero of the
age, and had for years preserved him, even after time had taken from love
its usual nourishment. Her own feeling was as entire as at its birth. Five
years had failed to destroy the dazzling unreality of passion. Most men
ruthlessly destroy the sacred veil, with which the female heart is wont to
adorn the idol of its affections. Not so Raymond; he was an enchanter,
whose reign was for ever undiminished; a king whose power never was
suspended: follow him through the details of common life, still the same
charm of grace and majesty adorned him; nor could he be despoiled of the
innate deification with which nature had invested him. Perdita grew in
beauty and excellence under his eye; I no longer recognised my reserved
abstracted sister in the fascinating and open-hearted wife of Raymond. The
genius that enlightened her countenance, was now united to an expression of
benevolence, which gave divine perfection to her beauty.
Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness. Suffering and
amiability may exist together, and writers have loved to depict their
conjunction; there is a human and touching harmony in the picture. But
perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who possess it,
appear angelic. Fear has been said to be the parent of religion: even of
that religion is it the generator, which leads its votaries to sacrifice
human victims at its altars; but the religion which springs from happiness
is a lovelier growth; the religion which makes the heart breathe forth
fervent thanksgiving, and causes us to pour out the overflowings of the
soul before the author of our being; that which is the parent of the
imagination and the nurse of poetry; that which bestows benevolent
intelligence on the visible mechanism of the world, and makes earth a
temple with heaven for its cope. Such happiness, goodness, and religion
inhabited the mind of Perdita.
During the five years we had spent together, a knot of happy human beings
at Windsor Castle, her blissful lot had been the frequent theme of my
sister's conversation. From early habit, and natural affection, she
selected me in preference to Adrian or Idris, to be the partner in her
overflowings of delight; perhaps, though apparently much unlike, some
secret point of resemblance, the offspring of consanguinity, induced this
preference. Often at sunset, I have walked with her, in the sober,
enshadowed forest paths, and listened with joyful sympathy. Security gave
dignity to her passion; the certainty of a full return, left her with no
wish unfulfilled. The birth of her daughter, embryo copy of her Raymond,
filled up the measure of her content, and produced a sacred and
indissoluble tie between them. Sometimes she felt proud that he had
preferred her to the hopes of a crown. Sometimes she remembered that she
had suffered keen anguish, when he hesitated in his choice. But this memory
of past discontent only served to enhance her present joy. What had been
hardly won, was now, entirely possessed, doubly dear. She would look at him
at a distance with the same rapture, (O, far more exuberant rapture!) that
one might feel, who after the perils of a tempest, should find himself in
the desired port; she would hasten towards him, to feel more certain in his
arms, the reality of her bliss. This warmth of affection, added to the
depth of her understanding, and the brilliancy of her imagination, made her
beyond words dear to Raymond.
If a feeling of dissatisfaction ever crossed her, it arose from the idea
that he was not perfectly happy. Desire of renown, and presumptuous
ambition, had characterized his youth. The one he had acquired in Greece;
the other he had sacrificed to love. His intellect found sufficient field
for exercise in his domestic circle, whose members, all adorned by
refinement and literature, were many of them, like himself, distinguished
by genius. Yet active life was the genuine soil for his virtues; and he
sometimes suffered tedium from the monotonous succession of events in our
retirement. Pride made him recoil from complaint; and gratitude and
affection to Perdita, generally acted as an opiate to all desire, save that
of meriting her love. We all observed the visitation of these feelings, and
none regretted them so much as Perdita. Her life consecrated to him, was a
slight sacrifice to reward his choice, but was not that sufficient--Did
he need any gratification that she was unable to bestow? This was the only
cloud in the azure of her happiness.
His passage to power had been full of pain to both. He however attained his
wish; he filled the situation for which nature seemed to have moulded him.
His activity was fed in wholesome measure, without either exhaustion or
satiety; his taste and genius found worthy expression in each of the modes
human beings have invented to encage and manifest the spirit of beauty; the
goodness of his heart made him never weary of conducing to the well-being
of his fellow-creatures; his magnificent spirit, and aspirations for the
respect and love of mankind, now received fruition; true, his exaltation
was temporary; perhaps it were better that it should be so. Habit would not
dull his sense of the enjoyment of power; nor struggles, disappointment and
defeat await the end of that which would expire at its maturity. He
determined to extract and condense all of glory, power, and achievement,
which might have resulted from a long reign, into the three years of his
Protectorate.
Raymond was eminently social. All that he now enjoyed would have been
devoid of pleasure to him, had it been unparticipated. But in Perdita he
possessed all that his heart could desire. Her love gave birth to sympathy;
her intelligence made her understand him at a word; her powers of intellect
enabled her to assist and guide him. He felt her worth. During the early
years of their union, the inequality of her temper, and yet unsubdued
self-will which tarnished her character, had been a slight drawback to the
fulness of his sentiment. Now that unchanged serenity, and gentle
compliance were added to her other qualifications, his respect equalled his
love. Years added to the strictness of their union. They did not now guess
at, and totter on the pathway, divining the mode to please, hoping, yet
fearing the continuance of bliss. Five years gave a sober certainty to
their emotions, though it did not rob them of their etherial nature. It had
given them a child; but it had not detracted from the personal attractions
of my sister. Timidity, which in her had almost amounted to awkwardness,
was exchanged for a graceful decision of manner; frankness, instead of
reserve, characterized her physiognomy; and her voice was attuned to
thrilling softness. She was now three and twenty, in the pride of
womanhood, fulfilling the precious duties of wife and mother, possessed of
all her heart had ever coveted. Raymond was ten years older; to his
previous beauty, noble mien, and commanding aspect, he now added gentlest
benevolence, winning tenderness, graceful and unwearied attention to the
wishes of another.
The first secret that had existed between them was the visits of Raymond to
Evadne. He had been struck by the fortitude and beauty of the ill-fated
Greek; and, when her constant tenderness towards him unfolded itself, he
asked with astonishment, by what act of his he had merited this passionate
and unrequited love. She was for a while the sole object of his reveries;
and Perdita became aware that his thoughts and time were bestowed on a
subject unparticipated by her. My sister was by nature destitute of the
common feelings of anxious, petulant jealousy. The treasure which she
possessed in the affections of Raymond, was more necessary to her being,
than the life-blood that animated her veins--more truly than Othello she
might say,
To be once in doubt,
Is--once to be resolved.
On the present occasion she did not suspect any alienation of affection; but
she conjectured that some circumstance connected with his high place, had
occasioned this mystery. She was startled and pained. She began to count
the long days, and months, and years which must elapse, before he would be
restored to a private station, and unreservedly to her. She was not content
that, even for a time, he should practice concealment with her. She often
repined; but her trust in the singleness of his affection was undisturbed;
and, when they were together, unchecked by fear, she opened her heart to
the fullest delight.
Time went on. Raymond, stopping mid-way in his wild career, paused suddenly
to think of consequences. Two results presented themselves in the view he
took of the future. That his intercourse with Evadne should continue a
secret to, or that finally it should be discovered by Perdita. The
destitute condition, and highly wrought feelings of his friend prevented
him from adverting to the possibility of exiling himself from her. In the
first event he had bidden an eternal farewell to open-hearted converse, and
entire sympathy with the companion of his life. The veil must be thicker
than that invented by Turkish jealousy; the wall higher than the
unscaleable tower of Vathek, which should conceal from her the workings of
his heart, and hide from her view the secret of his actions. This idea was
intolerably painful to him. Frankness and social feelings were the essence
of Raymond's nature; without them his qualities became common-place;
without these to spread glory over his intercourse with Perdita, his
vaunted exchange of a throne for her love, was as weak and empty as the
rainbow hues which vanish when the sun is down. But there was no remedy.
Genius, devotion, and courage; the adornments of his mind, and the energies
of his soul, all exerted to their uttermost stretch, could not roll back
one hair's breadth the wheel of time's chariot; that which had been was
written with the adamantine pen of reality, on the everlasting volume of
the past; nor could agony and tears suffice to wash out one iota from the
act fulfilled.
But this was the best side of the question. What, if circumstance should
lead Perdita to suspect, and suspecting to be resolved? The fibres of his
frame became relaxed, and cold dew stood on his forehead, at this idea.
Many men may scoff at his dread; but he read the future; and the peace of
Perdita was too dear to him, her speechless agony too certain, and too
fearful, not to unman him. His course was speedily decided upon. If the
worst befell; if she learnt the truth, he would neither stand her
reproaches, or the anguish of her altered looks. He would forsake her,
England, his friends, the scenes of his youth, the hopes of coming time, he
would seek another country, and in other scenes begin life again. Having
resolved on this, he became calmer. He endeavoured to guide with prudence
the steeds of destiny through the devious road which he had chosen, and
bent all his efforts the better to conceal what he could not alter.
The perfect confidence that subsisted between Perdita and him, rendered
every communication common between them. They opened each other's letters,
even as, until now, the inmost fold of the heart of each was disclosed to
the other. A letter came unawares, Perdita read it. Had it contained
confirmation, she must have been annihilated. As it was, trembling, cold,
and pale, she sought Raymond. He was alone, examining some petitions lately
presented. She entered silently, sat on a sofa opposite to him, and gazed
on him with a look of such despair, that wildest shrieks and dire moans
would have been tame exhibitions of misery, compared to the living
incarnation of the thing itself exhibited by her.
At first he did not take his eyes from the papers; when he raised them, he
was struck by the wretchedness manifest on her altered cheek; for a moment
he forgot his own acts and fears, and asked with consternation--"Dearest
girl, what is the matter; what has happened?"
"Nothing," she replied at first; "and yet not so," she continued, hurrying
on in her speech; "you have secrets, Raymond; where have you been lately,
whom have you seen, what do you conceal from me?--why am I banished from
your confidence? Yet this is not it--I do not intend to entrap you with
questions--one will suffice--am I completely a wretch?"
With trembling hand she gave him the paper, and sat white and motionless
looking at him while he read it. He recognised the hand-writing of Evadne,
and the colour mounted in his cheeks. With lightning-speed he conceived the
contents of the letter; all was now cast on one die; falsehood and artifice
were trifles in comparison with the impending ruin. He would either
entirely dispel Perdita's suspicions, or quit her for ever. "My dear girl,"
he said, "I have been to blame; but you must pardon me. I was in the wrong
to commence a system of concealment; but I did it for the sake of sparing
you pain; and each day has rendered it more difficult for me to alter my
plan. Besides, I was instigated by delicacy towards the unhappy writer of
these few lines."
Perdita gasped: "Well," she cried, "well, go on!"
"That is all--this paper tells all. I am placed in the most difficult
circumstances. I have done my best, though perhaps I have done wrong. My
love for you is inviolate."
Perdita shook her head doubtingly: "It cannot be," she cried, "I know that
it is not. You would deceive me, but I will not be deceived. I have lost
you, myself, my life!"
"Do you not believe me?" said Raymond haughtily.
"To believe you," she exclaimed, "I would give up all, and expire with joy,
so that in death I could feel that you were true--but that cannot be!"
"Perdita," continued Raymond, "you do not see the precipice on which you
stand. You may believe that I did not enter on my present line of conduct
without reluctance and pain. I knew that it was possible that your
suspicions might be excited; but I trusted that my simple word would cause
them to disappear. I built my hope on your confidence. Do you think that I
will be questioned, and my replies disdainfully set aside? Do you think
that I will be suspected, perhaps watched, cross-questioned, and
disbelieved? I am not yet fallen so low; my honour is not yet so tarnished.
You have loved me; I adored you. But all human sentiments come to an end.
Let our affection expire--but let it not be exchanged for distrust and
recrimination. Heretofore we have been friends--lovers--let us not
become enemies, mutual spies. I cannot live the object of suspicion--you
cannot believe me--let us part!"
"Exactly so," cried Perdita, "I knew that it would come to this! Are we not
already parted? Does not a stream, boundless as ocean, deep as vacuum, yawn
between us?"
Raymond rose, his voice was broken, his features convulsed, his manner calm
as the earthquake-cradling atmosphere, he replied: "I am rejoiced that you
take my decision so philosophically. Doubtless you will play the part of
the injured wife to admiration. Sometimes you may be stung with the feeling
that you have wronged me, but the condolence of your relatives, the pity of
the world, the complacency which the consciousness of your own immaculate
innocence will bestow, will be excellent balm;--me you will never see
more!"
Raymond moved towards the door. He forgot that each word he spoke was
false. He personated his assumption of innocence even to self-deception.
Have not actors wept, as they pourtrayed imagined passion? A more intense
feeling of the reality of fiction possessed Raymond. He spoke with pride;
he felt injured. Perdita looked up; she saw his angry glance; his hand was
on the lock of the door. She started up, she threw herself on his neck, she
gasped and sobbed; he took her hand, and leading her to the sofa, sat down
near her. Her head fell on his shoulder, she trembled, alternate changes of
fire and ice ran through her limbs: observing her emotion he spoke with
softened accents:
"The blow is given. I will not part from you in anger;--I owe you too
much. I owe you six years of unalloyed happiness. But they are passed. I
will not live the mark of suspicion, the object of jealousy. I love you too
well. In an eternal separation only can either of us hope for dignity and
propriety of action. We shall not then be degraded from our true
characters. Faith and devotion have hitherto been the essence of our
intercourse;--these lost, let us not cling to the seedless husk of life,
the unkernelled shell. You have your child, your brother, Idris, Adrian"--
"And you," cried Perdita, "the writer of that letter."
Uncontrollable indignation flashed from the eyes of Raymond. He knew that
this accusation at least was false. "Entertain this belief," he cried, "hug
it to your heart--make it a pillow to your head, an opiate for your eyes
--I am content. But, by the God that made me, hell is not more false than
the word you have spoken!"
Perdita was struck by the impassioned seriousness of his asseverations. She
replied with earnestness, "I do not refuse to believe you, Raymond; on the
contrary I promise to put implicit faith in your simple word. Only assure
me that your love and faith towards me have never been violated; and
suspicion, and doubt, and jealousy will at once be dispersed. We shall
continue as we have ever done, one heart, one hope, one life."
"I have already assured you of my fidelity," said Raymond with disdainful
coldness, "triple assertions will avail nothing where one is despised. I
will say no more; for I can add nothing to what I have already said, to
what you before contemptuously set aside. This contention is unworthy of
both of us; and I confess that I am weary of replying to charges at once
unfounded and unkind."
Perdita tried to read his countenance, which he angrily averted. There was
so much of truth and nature in his resentment, that her doubts were
dispelled. Her countenance, which for years had not expressed a feeling
unallied to affection, became again radiant and satisfied. She found it
however no easy task to soften and reconcile Raymond. At first he refused
to stay to hear her. But she would not be put off; secure of his unaltered
love, she was willing to undertake any labour, use any entreaty, to dispel
his anger. She obtained an hearing, he sat in haughty silence, but he
listened. She first assured him of her boundless confidence; of this he
must be conscious, since but for that she would not seek to detain him. She
enumerated their years of happiness; she brought before him past scenes of
intimacy and happiness; she pictured their future life, she mentioned their
child--tears unbidden now filled her eyes. She tried to disperse them,
but they refused to be checked--her utterance was choaked. She had not
wept before. Raymond could not resist these signs of distress: he felt
perhaps somewhat ashamed of the part he acted of the injured man, he who
was in truth the injurer. And then he devoutly loved Perdita; the bend of
her head, her glossy ringlets, the turn of her form were to him subjects of
deep tenderness and admiration; as she spoke, her melodious tones entered
his soul; he soon softened towards her, comforting and caressing her, and
endeavouring to cheat himself into the belief that he had never wronged
her.
Raymond staggered forth from this scene, as a man might do, who had been
just put to the torture, and looked forward to when it would be again
inflicted. He had sinned against his own honour, by affirming, swearing to,
a direct falsehood; true this he had palmed on a woman, and it might
therefore be deemed less base--by others--not by him;--for whom had
he deceived?--his own trusting, devoted, affectionate Perdita, whose
generous belief galled him doubly, when he remembered the parade of
innocence with which it had been exacted. The mind of Raymond was not so
rough cast, nor had been so rudely handled, in the circumstance of life, as
to make him proof to these considerations--on the contrary, he was all
nerve; his spirit was as a pure fire, which fades and shrinks from every
contagion of foul atmosphere: but now the contagion had become incorporated
with its essence, and the change was the more painful. Truth and falsehood,
love and hate lost their eternal boundaries, heaven rushed in to mingle
with hell; while his sensitive mind, turned to a field for such battle, was
stung to madness. He heartily despised himself, he was angry with Perdita,
and the idea of Evadne was attended by all that was hideous and cruel. His
passions, always his masters, acquired fresh strength, from the long sleep
in which love had cradled them, the clinging weight of destiny bent him
down; he was goaded, tortured, fiercely impatient of that worst of
miseries, the sense of remorse. This troubled state yielded by degrees, to
sullen animosity, and depression of spirits. His dependants, even his
equals, if in his present post he had any, were startled to find anger,
derision, and bitterness in one, before distinguished for suavity and
benevolence of manner. He transacted public business with distaste, and
hastened from it to the solitude which was at once his bane and relief. He
mounted a fiery horse, that which had borne him forward to victory in
Greece; he fatigued himself with deadening exercise, losing the pangs of a
troubled mind in animal sensation.
He slowly recovered himself; yet, at last, as one might from the effects of
poison, he lifted his head from above the vapours of fever and passion into
the still atmosphere of calm reflection. He meditated on what was best to
be done. He was first struck by the space of time that had elapsed, since
madness, rather than any reasonable impulse, had regulated his actions. A
month had gone by, and during that time he had not seen Evadne. Her power,
which was linked to few of the enduring emotions of his heart, had greatly
decayed. He was no longer her slave--no longer her lover: he would never
see her more, and by the completeness of his return, deserve the confidence
of Perdita.
Yet, as he thus determined, fancy conjured up the miserable abode of the
Greek girl. An abode, which from noble and lofty principle, she had refused
to exchange for one of greater luxury. He thought of the splendour of her
situation and appearance when he first knew her; he thought of her life at
Constantinople, attended by every circumstance of oriental magnificence; of
her present penury, her daily task of industry, her lorn state, her faded,
famine-struck cheek. Compassion swelled his breast; he would see her once
again; he would devise some plan for restoring her to society, and the
enjoyment of her rank; their separation would then follow, as a matter of
course.
Again he thought, how during this long month, he had avoided Perdita,
flying from her as from the stings of his own conscience. But he was awake
now; all this should be remedied; and future devotion erase the memory of
this only blot on the serenity of their life. He became cheerful, as he
thought of this, and soberly and resolutely marked out the line of conduct
he would adopt. He remembered that he had promised Perdita to be present
this very evening (the 19th of October, anniversary of his election as
Protector) at a festival given in his honour. Good augury should this
festival be of the happiness of future years. First, he would look in on
Evadne; he would not stay; but he owed her some account, some compensation
for his long and unannounced absence; and then to Perdita, to the forgotten
world, to the duties of society, the splendour of rank, the enjoyment of
power.
After the scene sketched in the preceding pages, Perdita had contemplated
an entire change in the manners and conduct of Raymond. She expected
freedom of communication, and a return to those habits of affectionate
intercourse which had formed the delight of her life. But Raymond did not
join her in any of her avocations. He transacted the business of the day
apart from her; he went out, she knew not whither. The pain inflicted by
this disappointment was tormenting and keen. She looked on it as a
deceitful dream, and tried to throw off the consciousness of it; but like
the shirt of Nessus, it clung to her very flesh, and ate with sharp agony
into her vital principle. She possessed that (though such an assertion may
appear a paradox) which belongs to few, a capacity of happiness. Her
delicate organization and creative imagination rendered her peculiarly
susceptible of pleasurable emotion. The overflowing warmth of her heart, by
making love a plant of deep root and stately growth, had attuned her whole
soul to the reception of happiness, when she found in Raymond all that
could adorn love and satisfy her imagination. But if the sentiment on which
the fabric of her existence was founded, became common place through
participation, the endless succession of attentions and graceful action
snapt by transfer, his universe of love wrested from her, happiness must
depart, and then be exchanged for its opposite. The same peculiarities of
character rendered her sorrows agonies; her fancy magnified them, her
sensibility made her for ever open to their renewed impression; love
envenomed the heart-piercing sting. There was neither submission, patience,
nor self-abandonment in her grief; she fought with it, struggled beneath
it, and rendered every pang more sharp by resistance. Again and again the
idea recurred, that he loved another. She did him justice; she believed
that he felt a tender affection for her; but give a paltry prize to him who
in some life-pending lottery has calculated on the possession of tens of
thousands, and it will disappoint him more than a blank. The affection and
amity of a Raymond might be inestimable; but, beyond that affection,
embosomed deeper than friendship, was the indivisible treasure of love.
Take the sum in its completeness, and no arithmetic can calculate its
price; take from it the smallest portion, give it but the name of parts,
separate it into degrees and sections, and like the magician's coin, the
valueless gold of the mine, is turned to vilest substance. There is a
meaning in the eye of love; a cadence in its voice, an irradiation in its
smile, the talisman of whose enchantments one only can possess; its spirit
is elemental, its essence single, its divinity an unit. The very heart and
soul of Raymond and Perdita had mingled, even as two mountain brooks that
join in their descent, and murmuring and sparkling flow over shining
pebbles, beside starry flowers; but let one desert its primal course, or be
dammed up by choaking obstruction, and the other shrinks in its altered
banks. Perdita was sensible of the failing of the tide that fed her life.
Unable to support the slow withering of her hopes, she suddenly formed a
plan, resolving to terminate at once the period of misery, and to bring to
an happy conclusion the late disastrous events.
The anniversary was at hand of the exaltation of Raymond to the office of
Protector; and it was customary to celebrate this day by a splendid
festival. A variety of feelings urged Perdita to shed double magnificence
over the scene; yet, as she arrayed herself for the evening gala, she
wondered herself at the pains she took, to render sumptuous the celebration
of an event which appeared to her the beginning of her sufferings. Woe
befall the day, she thought, woe, tears, and mourning betide the hour, that
gave Raymond another hope than love, another wish than my devotion; and
thrice joyful the moment when he shall be restored to me! God knows, I put
my trust in his vows, and believe his asserted faith--but for that, I
would not seek what I am now resolved to attain. Shall two years more be
thus passed, each day adding to our alienation, each act being another
stone piled on the barrier which separates us? No, my Raymond, my only
beloved, sole possession of Perdita! This night, this splendid assembly,
these sumptuous apartments, and this adornment of your tearful girl, are
all united to celebrate your abdication. Once for me, you relinquished the
prospect of a crown. That was in days of early love, when I could only hold
out the hope, not the assurance of happiness. Now you have the experience
of all that I can give, the heart's devotion, taintless love, and
unhesitating subjection to you. You must choose between these and your
protectorate. This, proud noble, is your last night! Perdita has bestowed
on it all of magnificent and dazzling that your heart best loves--but,
from these gorgeous rooms, from this princely attendance, from power and
elevation, you must return with to-morrow's sun to our rural abode; for I
would not buy an immortality of joy, by the endurance of one more week
sister to the last.
Brooding over this plan, resolved when the hour should come, to propose,
and insist upon its accomplishment, secure of his consent, the heart of
Perdita was lightened, or rather exalted. Her cheek was flushed by the
expectation of struggle; her eyes sparkled with the hope of triumph. Having
cast her fate upon a die, and feeling secure of winning, she, whom I have
named as bearing the stamp of queen of nations on her noble brow, now rose
superior to humanity, and seemed in calm power, to arrest with her finger,
the wheel of destiny. She had never before looked so supremely lovely.
We, the Arcadian shepherds of the tale, had intended to be present at this
festivity, but Perdita wrote to entreat us not to come, or to absent
ourselves from Windsor; for she (though she did not reveal her scheme to
us) resolved the next morning to return with Raymond to our dear circle,
there to renew a course of life in which she had found entire felicity.
Late in the evening she entered the apartments appropriated to the
festival. Raymond had quitted the palace the night before; he had promised
to grace the assembly, but he had not yet returned. Still she felt sure
that he would come at last; and the wider the breach might appear at this
crisis, the more secure she was of closing it for ever.
It was as I said, the nineteenth of October; the autumn was far advanced
and dreary. The wind howled; the half bare trees were despoiled of the
remainder of their summer ornament; the state of the air which induced the
decay of vegetation, was hostile to cheerfulness or hope. Raymond had been
exalted by the determination he had made; but with the declining day his
spirits declined. First he was to visit Evadne, and then to hasten to the
palace of the Protectorate. As he walked through the wretched streets in
the neighbourhood of the luckless Greek's abode, his heart smote him for
the whole course of his conduct towards her. First, his having entered into
any engagement that should permit her to remain in such a state of
degradation; and then, after a short wild dream, having left her to drear
solitude, anxious conjecture, and bitter, still--disappointed
expectation. What had she done the while, how supported his absence and
neglect? Light grew dim in these close streets, and when the well known
door was opened, the staircase was shrouded in perfect night. He groped his
way up, he entered the garret, he found Evadne stretched speechless, almost
lifeless on her wretched bed. He called for the people of the house, but
could learn nothing from them, except that they knew nothing. Her story was
plain to him, plain and distinct as the remorse and horror that darted
their fangs into him. When she found herself forsaken by him, she lost the
heart to pursue her usual avocations; pride forbade every application to
him; famine was welcomed as the kind porter to the gates of death, within
whose opening folds she should now, without sin, quickly repose. No
creature came near her, as her strength failed.
If she died, where could there be found on record a murderer, whose cruel
act might compare with his? What fiend more wanton in his mischief, what
damned soul more worthy of perdition! But he was not reserved for this
agony of self-reproach. He sent for medical assistance; the hours passed,
spun by suspense into ages; the darkness of the long autumnal night yielded
to day, before her life was secure. He had her then removed to a more
commodious dwelling, and hovered about her, again and again to assure
himself that she was safe.
In the midst of his greatest suspense and fear as to the event, he
remembered the festival given in his honour, by Perdita; in his honour
then, when misery and death were affixing indelible disgrace to his name,
honour to him whose crimes deserved a scaffold; this was the worst mockery.
Still Perdita would expect him; he wrote a few incoherent words on a scrap
of paper, testifying that he was well, and bade the woman of the house take
it to the palace, and deliver it into the hands of the wife of the Lord
Protector. The woman, who did not know him, contemptuously asked, how he
thought she should gain admittance, particularly on a festal night, to that
lady's presence? Raymond gave her his ring to ensure the respect of the
menials. Thus, while Perdita was entertaining her guests, and anxiously
awaiting the arrival of her lord, his ring was brought her; and she was
told that a poor woman had a note to deliver to her from its wearer.
The vanity of the old gossip was raised by her commission, which, after
all, she did not understand, since she had no suspicion, even now that
Evadne's visitor was Lord Raymond. Perdita dreaded a fall from his horse,
or some similar accident--till the woman's answers woke other fears. From
a feeling of cunning blindly exercised, the officious, if not malignant
messenger, did not speak of Evadne's illness; but she garrulously gave an
account of Raymond's frequent visits, adding to her narration such
circumstances, as, while they convinced Perdita of its truth, exaggerated
the unkindness and perfidy of Raymond. Worst of all, his absence now from
the festival, his message wholly unaccounted for, except by the disgraceful
hints of the woman, appeared the deadliest insult. Again she looked at the
ring, it was a small ruby, almost heart-shaped, which she had herself given
him. She looked at the hand-writing, which she could not mistake, and
repeated to herself the words--"Do not, I charge you, I entreat you,
permit your guests to wonder at my absence:" the while the old crone going
on with her talk, filled her ear with a strange medley of truth and
falsehood. At length Perdita dismissed her.
The poor girl returned to the assembly, where her presence had not been
missed. She glided into a recess somewhat obscured, and leaning against an
ornamental column there placed, tried to recover herself. Her faculties
were palsied. She gazed on some flowers that stood near in a carved vase:
that morning she had arranged them, they were rare and lovely plants; even
now all aghast as she was, she observed their brilliant colours and starry
shapes.--"Divine infoliations of the spirit of beauty," she exclaimed,
"Ye droop not, neither do ye mourn; the despair that clasps my heart, has
not spread contagion over you!--Why am I not a partner of your
insensibility, a sharer in your calm!"
She paused. "To my task," she continued mentally, "my guests must not
perceive the reality, either as it regards him or me. I obey; they shall
not, though I die the moment they are gone. They shall behold the antipodes
of what is real--for I will appear to live--while I am--dead." It
required all her self-command, to suppress the gush of tears self-pity
caused at this idea. After many struggles, she succeeded, and turned to
join the company.
All her efforts were now directed to the dissembling her internal conflict.
She had to play the part of a courteous hostess; to attend to all; to shine
the focus of enjoyment and grace. She had to do this, while in deep woe she
sighed for loneliness, and would gladly have exchanged her crowded rooms
for dark forest depths, or a drear, night-enshadowed heath. But she became
gay. She could not keep in the medium, nor be, as was usual with her,
placidly content. Every one remarked her exhilaration of spirits; as all
actions appear graceful in the eye of rank, her guests surrounded her
applaudingly, although there was a sharpness in her laugh, and an
abruptness in her sallies, which might have betrayed her secret to an
attentive observer. She went on, feeling that, if she had paused for a
moment, the checked waters of misery would have deluged her soul, that her
wrecked hopes would raise their wailing voices, and that those who now
echoed her mirth, and provoked her repartees, would have shrunk in fear
from her convulsive despair. Her only consolation during the violence which
she did herself, was to watch the motions of an illuminated clock, and
internally count the moments which must elapse before she could be alone.
At length the rooms began to thin. Mocking her own desires, she rallied her
guests on their early departure. One by one they left her--at length she
pressed the hand of her last visitor. "How cold and damp your hand is,"
said her friend; "you are over fatigued, pray hasten to rest." Perdita
smiled faintly--her guest left her; the carriage rolling down the street
assured the final departure. Then, as if pursued by an enemy, as if wings
had been at her feet, she flew to her own apartment, she dismissed her
attendants, she locked the doors, she threw herself wildly on the floor,
she bit her lips even to blood to suppress her shrieks, and lay long a prey
to the vulture of despair, striving not to think, while multitudinous ideas
made a home of her heart; and ideas, horrid as furies, cruel as vipers, and
poured in with such swift succession, that they seemed to jostle and wound
each other, while they worked her up to madness.
At length she rose, more composed, not less miserable. She stood before a
large mirror--she gazed on her reflected image; her light and graceful
dress, the jewels that studded her hair, and encircled her beauteous arms
and neck, her small feet shod in satin, her profuse and glossy tresses, all
were to her clouded brow and woe-begone countenance like a gorgeous frame
to a dark tempest-pourtraying picture. "Vase am I," she thought, "vase
brimful of despair's direst essence. Farewell, Perdita! farewell, poor
girl! never again will you see yourself thus; luxury and wealth are no
longer yours; in the excess of your poverty you may envy the homeless
beggar; most truly am I without a home! I live on a barren desart, which,
wide and interminable, brings forth neither fruit or flower; in the midst
is a solitary rock, to which thou, Perdita, art chained, and thou seest the
dreary level stretch far away."
She threw open her window, which looked on the palace-garden. Light and
darkness were struggling together, and the orient was streaked by roseate
and golden rays. One star only trembled in the depth of the kindling
atmosphere. The morning air blowing freshly over the dewy plants, rushed
into the heated room. "All things go on," thought Perdita, "all things
proceed, decay, and perish! When noontide has passed, and the weary day has
driven her team to their western stalls, the fires of heaven rise from the
East, moving in their accustomed path, they ascend and descend the skiey
hill. When their course is fulfilled, the dial begins to cast westward an
uncertain shadow; the eye-lids of day are opened, and birds and flowers,
the startled vegetation, and fresh breeze awaken; the sun at length
appears, and in majestic procession climbs the capitol of heaven. All
proceeds, changes and dies, except the sense of misery in my bursting
heart.
"Ay, all proceeds and changes: what wonder then, that love has journied on
to its setting, and that the lord of my life has changed? We call the
supernal lights fixed, yet they wander about yonder plain, and if I look
again where I looked an hour ago, the face of the eternal heavens is
altered. The silly moon and inconstant planets vary nightly their erratic
dance; the sun itself, sovereign of the sky, ever and anon deserts his
throne, and leaves his dominion to night and winter. Nature grows old, and
shakes in her decaying limbs,--creation has become bankrupt! What wonder
then, that eclipse and death have led to destruction the light of thy life,
O Perdita!"
CHAPTER IX.
THUS sad and disarranged were the thoughts of my poor sister, when she
became assured of the infidelity of Raymond. All her virtues and all her
defects tended to make the blow incurable. Her affection for me, her
brother, for Adrian and Idris, was subject as it were to the reigning
passion of her heart; even her maternal tenderness borrowed half its force
from the delight she had in tracing Raymond's features and expression in
the infant's countenance. She had been reserved and even stern in
childhood; but love had softened the asperities of her character, and her
union with Raymond had caused her talents and affections to unfold
themselves; the one betrayed, and the other lost, she in some degree
returned to her ancient disposition. The concentrated pride of her nature,
forgotten during her blissful dream, awoke, and with its adder's sting
pierced her heart; her humility of spirit augmented the power of the venom;
she had been exalted in her own estimation, while distinguished by his
love: of what worth was she, now that he thrust her from this preferment?
She had been proud of having won and preserved him--but another had won
him from her, and her exultation was as cold as a water quenched ember.
We, in our retirement, remained long in ignorance of her misfortune. Soon
after the festival she had sent for her child, and then she seemed to have
forgotten us. Adrian observed a change during a visit that he afterward
paid them; but he could not tell its extent, or divine the cause. They
still appeared in public together, and lived under the same roof. Raymond
was as usual courteous, though there was, on occasions, an unbidden
haughtiness, or painful abruptness in his manners, which startled his
gentle friend; his brow was not clouded but disdain sat on his lips, and
his voice was harsh. Perdita was all kindness and attention to her lord;
but she was silent, and beyond words sad. She had grown thin and pale; and
her eyes often filled with tears. Sometimes she looked at Raymond, as if to
say--That it should be so! At others her countenance expressed--I will
still do all I can to make you happy. But Adrian read with uncertain aim
the charactery of her face, and might mistake.--Clara was always with
her, and she seemed most at ease, when, in an obscure corner, she could sit
holding her child's hand, silent and lonely. Still Adrian was unable to
guess the truth; he entreated them to visit us at Windsor, and they
promised to come during the following month.
It was May before they arrived: the season had decked the forest trees with
leaves, and its paths with a thousand flowers. We had notice of their
intention the day before; and, early in the morning, Perdita arrived with
her daughter. Raymond would follow soon, she said; he had been detained by
business. According to Adrian's account, I had expected to find her sad;
but, on the contrary, she appeared in the highest spirits: true, she had
grown thin, her eyes were somewhat hollow, and her cheeks sunk, though
tinged by a bright glow. She was delighted to see us; caressed our
children, praised their growth and improvement; Clara also was pleased to
meet again her young friend Alfred; all kinds of childish games were
entered into, in which Perdita joined. She communicated her gaiety to us,
and as we amused ourselves on the Castle Terrace, it appeared that a
happier, less care-worn party could not have been assembled. "This is
better, Mamma," said Clara, "than being in that dismal London, where you
often cry, and never laugh as you do now."--"Silence, little foolish
thing," replied her mother, "and remember any one that mentions London is
sent to Coventry for an hour."
Soon after, Raymond arrived. He did not join as usual in the playful spirit
of the rest; but, entering into conversation with Adrian and myself, by
degrees we seceded from our companions, and Idris and Perdita only remained
with the children. Raymond talked of his new buildings; of his plan for an
establishment for the better education of the poor; as usual Adrian and he
entered into argument, and the time slipped away unperceived.
We assembled again towards evening, and Perdita insisted on our having
recourse to music. She wanted, she said, to give us a specimen of her new
accomplishment; for since she had been in London, she had applied herself
to music, and sang, without much power, but with a great deal of sweetness.
We were not permitted by her to select any but light-hearted melodies; and
all the Operas of Mozart were called into service, that we might choose the
most exhilarating of his airs. Among the other transcendant attributes of
Mozart's music, it possesses more than any other that of appearing to come
from the heart; you enter into the passions expressed by him, and are
transported with grief, joy, anger, or confusion, as he, our soul's master,
chooses to inspire. For some time, the spirit of hilarity was kept up; but,
at length, Perdita receded from the piano, for Raymond had joined in the
trio of "Taci ingiusto core," in Don Giovanni, whose arch entreaty was
softened by him into tenderness, and thrilled her heart with memories of
the changed past; it was the same voice, the same tone, the self-same
sounds and words, which often before she had received, as the homage of
love to her--no longer was it that; and this concord of sound with its
dissonance of expression penetrated her with regret and despair. Soon after
Idris, who was at the harp, turned to that passionate and sorrowful air in
Figaro, "Porgi, amor, qualche risforo," in which the deserted Countess
laments the change of the faithless Almaviva. The soul of tender sorrow is
breathed forth in this strain; and the sweet voice of Idris, sustained by
the mournful chords of her instrument, added to the expression of the
words. During the pathetic appeal with which it concludes, a stifled sob
attracted our attention to Perdita, the cessation of the music recalled her
to herself, she hastened out of the hall--I followed her. At first, she
seemed to wish to shun me; and then, yielding to my earnest questioning,
she threw herself on my neck, and wept aloud:--"Once more," she cried,
"once more on your friendly breast, my beloved brother, can the lost
Perdita pour forth her sorrows. I had imposed a law of silence on myself;
and for months I have kept it. I do wrong in weeping now, and greater wrong
in giving words to my grief. I will not speak! Be it enough for you to know
that I am miserable--be it enough for you to know, that the painted veil
of life is rent, that I sit for ever shrouded in darkness and gloom, that
grief is my sister, everlasting lamentation my mate!"
I endeavoured to console her; I did not question her! but I caressed her,
assured her of my deepest affection and my intense interest in the changes
of her fortune:--"Dear words," she cried, "expressions of love come upon
my ear, like the remembered sounds of forgotten music, that had been dear
to me. They are vain, I know; how very vain in their attempt to soothe or
comfort me. Dearest Lionel, you cannot guess what I have suffered during
these long months. I have read of mourners in ancient days, who clothed
themselves in sackcloth, scattered dust upon their heads, ate their bread
mingled with ashes, and took up their abode on the bleak mountain tops,
reproaching heaven and earth aloud with their misfortunes. Why this is the
very luxury of sorrow! thus one might go on from day to day contriving new
extravagances, revelling in the paraphernalia of woe, wedded to all the
appurtenances of despair. Alas! I must for ever conceal the wretchedness
that consumes me. I must weave a veil of dazzling falsehood to hide my
grief from vulgar eyes, smoothe my brow, and paint my lips in deceitful
smiles--even in solitude I dare not think how lost I am, lest I become
insane and rave."
The tears and agitation of my poor sister had rendered her unfit to return
to the circle we had left--so I persuaded her to let me drive her through
the park; and, during the ride, I induced her to confide the tale of her
unhappiness to me, fancying that talking of it would lighten the burthen,
and certain that, if there were a remedy, it should be found and secured to
her.
Several weeks had elapsed since the festival of the anniversary, and she
had been unable to calm her mind, or to subdue her thoughts to any regular
train. Sometimes she reproached herself for taking too bitterly to heart,
that which many would esteem an imaginary evil; but this was no subject for
reason; and, ignorant as she was of the motives and true conduct of
Raymond, things assumed for her even a worse appearance, than the reality
warranted. He was seldom at the palace; never, but when he was assured that
his public duties would prevent his remaining alone with Perdita. They
seldom addressed each other, shunning explanation, each fearing any
communication the other might make. Suddenly, however, the manners of
Raymond changed; he appeared to desire to find opportunities of bringing
about a return to kindness and intimacy with my sister. The tide of love
towards her appeared to flow again; he could never forget, how once he had
been devoted to her, making her the shrine and storehouse wherein to place
every thought and every sentiment. Shame seemed to hold him back; yet he
evidently wished to establish a renewal of confidence and affection. From
the moment Perdita had sufficiently recovered herself to form any plan of
action, she had laid one down, which now she prepared to follow. She
received these tokens of returning love with gentleness; she did not shun
his company; but she endeavoured to place a barrier in the way of familiar
intercourse or painful discussion, which mingled pride and shame prevented
Raymond from surmounting. He began at last to shew signs of angry
impatience, and Perdita became aware that the system she had adopted could
not continue; she must explain herself to him; she could not summon courage
to speak--she wrote thus:--
"Read this letter with patience, I entreat you. It will contain no
reproaches. Reproach is indeed an idle word: for what should I reproach
you?
"Allow me in some degree to explain my feeling; without that, we shall both
grope in the dark, mistaking one another; erring from the path which may
conduct, one of us at least, to a more eligible mode of life than that led
by either during the last few weeks.
"I loved you--I love you--neither anger nor pride dictates these lines;
but a feeling beyond, deeper, and more unalterable than either. My
affections are wounded; it is impossible to heal them:--cease then the
vain endeavour, if indeed that way your endeavours tend. Forgiveness!
Return! Idle words are these! I forgive the pain I endure; but the trodden
path cannot be retraced.
"Common affection might have been satisfied with common usages. I believed
that you read my heart, and knew its devotion, its unalienable fidelity
towards you. I never loved any but you. You came the embodied image of my
fondest dreams. The praise of men, power and high aspirations attended your
career. Love for you invested the world for me in enchanted light; it was
no longer the earth I trod--the earth, common mother, yielding only trite
and stale repetition of objects and circumstances old and worn out. I lived
in a temple glorified by intensest sense of devotion and rapture; I walked,
a consecrated being, contemplating only your power, your excellence;
For O, you stood beside me, like my youth,
Transformed for me the real to a dream,
Cloathing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
'The bloom has vanished from my life'--there is no morning to this all
investing night; no rising to the set-sun of love. In those days the
rest of the world was nothing to me: all other men--I never
considered nor felt what they were; nor did I look on you as one of them.
Separated from them; exalted in my heart; sole possessor of my affections;
single object of my hopes, the best half of myself.
"Ah, Raymond, were we not happy? Did the sun shine on any, who could enjoy
its light with purer and more intense bliss? It was not--it is not a
common infidelity at which I repine. It is the disunion of an whole which
may not have parts; it is the carelessness with which you have shaken off
the mantle of election with which to me you were invested, and have become
one among the many. Dream not to alter this. Is not love a divinity,
because it is immortal? Did not I appear sanctified, even to myself,
because this love had for its temple my heart? I have gazed on you as you
slept, melted even to tears, as the idea filled my mind, that all I
possessed lay cradled in those idolized, but mortal lineaments before me.
Yet, even then, I have checked thick-coming fears with one thought; I would
not fear death, for the emotions that linked us must be immortal.
"And now I do not fear death. I should be well pleased to close my eyes,
never more to open them again. And yet I fear it; even as I fear all
things; for in any state of being linked by the chain of memory with this,
happiness would not return--even in Paradise, I must feel that your love
was less enduring than the mortal beatings of my fragile heart, every pulse
of which knells audibly,
The funeral note
Of love, deep buried, without resurrection.
No--no--me miserable; for love extinct there is no resurrection!
"Yet I love you. Yet, and for ever, would I contribute all I possess to
your welfare. On account of a tattling world; for the sake of my--of our
child, I would remain by you, Raymond, share your fortunes, partake your
counsel. Shall it be thus? We are no longer lovers; nor can I call myself a
friend to any; since, lost as I am, I have no thought to spare from my own
wretched, engrossing self. But it will please me to see you each day! to
listen to the public voice praising you; to keep up your paternal love for
our girl; to hear your voice; to know that I am near you, though you are no
longer mine.
"If you wish to break the chains that bind us, say the word, and it
shall be done--I will take all the blame on myself, of harshness
or unkindness, in the world's eye.
"Yet, as I have said, I should be best pleased, at least for the present,
to live under the same roof with you. When the fever of my young life is
spent; when placid age shall tame the vulture that devours me, friendship
may come, love and hope being dead. May this be true? Can my soul,
inextricably linked to this perishable frame, become lethargic and cold,
even as this sensitive mechanism shall lose its youthful elasticity? Then,
with lack-lustre eyes, grey hairs, and wrinkled brow, though now the words
sound hollow and meaningless, then, tottering on the grave's extreme edge,
I may be--your affectionate and true friend,
"PERDITA."
Raymond's answer was brief. What indeed could he reply to her complaints,
to her griefs which she jealously paled round, keeping out all thought of
remedy. "Notwithstanding your bitter letter," he wrote, "for bitter I must
call it, you are the chief person in my estimation, and it is your
happiness that I would principally consult. Do that which seems best to
you: and if you can receive gratification from one mode of life in
preference to another, do not let me be any obstacle. I foresee that the
plan which you mark out in your letter will not endure long; but you are
mistress of yourself, and it is my sincere wish to contribute as far as you
will permit me to your happiness."
"Raymond has prophesied well," said Perdita, "alas, that it should be so!
our present mode of life cannot continue long, yet I will not be the first
to propose alteration. He beholds in me one whom he has injured even unto
death; and I derive no hope from his kindness; no change can possibly be
brought about even by his best intentions. As well might Cleopatra have
worn as an ornament the vinegar which contained her dissolved pearl, as I
be content with the love that Raymond can now offer me."
I own that I did not see her misfortune with the same eyes as Perdita. At
all events methought that the wound could be healed; and, if they remained
together, it would be so. I endeavoured therefore to sooth and soften her
mind; and it was not until after many endeavours that I gave up the task as
impracticable. Perdita listened to me impatiently, and answered with some
asperity:--"Do you think that any of your arguments are new to me? or
that my own burning wishes and intense anguish have not suggested them all
a thousand times, with far more eagerness and subtlety than you can put
into them? Lionel, you cannot understand what woman's love is. In days of
happiness I have often repeated to myself, with a grateful heart and
exulting spirit, all that Raymond sacrificed for me. I was a poor,
uneducated, unbefriended, mountain girl, raised from nothingness
by him. All that I possessed of the luxuries of life came
from him. He gave me an illustrious name and noble station; the world's
respect reflected from his own glory: all this joined to his own undying
love, inspired me with sensations towards him, akin to those with which we
regard the Giver of life. I gave him love only. I devoted myself to him:
imperfect creature that I was, I took myself to task, that I might become
worthy of him. I watched over my hasty temper, subdued my burning
impatience of character, schooled my self-engrossing thoughts, educating
myself to the best perfection I might attain, that the fruit of my
exertions might be his happiness. I took no merit to myself for this. He
deserved it all--all labour, all devotion, all sacrifice; I would have
toiled up a scaleless Alp, to pluck a flower that would please him. I was
ready to quit you all, my beloved and gifted companions, and to live only
with him, for him. I could not do otherwise, even if I had wished; for if
we are said to have two souls, he was my better soul, to which the other
was a perpetual slave. One only return did he owe me, even fidelity. I
earned that; I deserved it. Because I was mountain bred, unallied to the
noble and wealthy, shall he think to repay me by an empty name and station?
Let him take them back; without his love they are nothing to me. Their only
merit in my eyes was that they were his."
Thus passionately Perdita ran on. When I adverted to the question of their
entire separation, she replied: "Be it so! One day the period will arrive;
I know it, and feel it. But in this I am a coward. This imperfect
companionship, and our masquerade of union, are strangely dear to me. It is
painful, I allow, destructive, impracticable. It keeps up a perpetual fever
in my veins; it frets my immedicable wound; it is instinct with poison. Yet
I must cling to it; perhaps it will kill me soon, and thus perform a
thankful office."
In the mean time, Raymond had remained with Adrian and Idris. He was
naturally frank; the continued absence of Perdita and myself became
remarkable; and Raymond soon found relief from the constraint of months, by
an unreserved confidence with his two friends. He related to them the
situation in which he had found Evadne. At first, from delicacy to Adrian
he concealed her name; but it was divulged in the course of his narrative,
and her former lover heard with the most acute agitation the history of her
sufferings. Idris had shared Perdita's ill opinion of the Greek; but
Raymond's account softened and interested her. Evadne's constancy,
fortitude, even her ill-fated and ill-regulated love, were matter of
admiration and pity; especially when, from the detail of the events of the
nineteenth of October, it was apparent that she preferred suffering and
death to any in her eyes degrading application for the pity and assistance
of her lover. Her subsequent conduct did not diminish this interest. At
first, relieved from famine and the grave, watched over by Raymond with the
tenderest assiduity, with that feeling of repose peculiar to convalescence,
Evadne gave herself up to rapturous gratitude and love. But reflection
returned with health. She questioned him with regard to the motives which
had occasioned his critical absence. She framed her enquiries with Greek
subtlety; she formed her conclusions with the decision and firmness
peculiar to her disposition. She could not divine, that the breach which
she had occasioned between Raymond and Perdita was already irreparable: but
she knew, that under the present system it would be widened each day, and
that its result must be to destroy her lover's happiness, and to implant
the fangs of remorse in his heart. From the moment that she perceived the
right line of conduct, she resolved to adopt it, and to part from Raymond
for ever. Conflicting passions, long-cherished love, and self-inflicted
disappointment, made her regard death alone as sufficient refuge for her
woe. But the same feelings and opinions which had before restrained her,
acted with redoubled force; for she knew that the reflection that he had
occasioned her death, would pursue Raymond through life, poisoning every
enjoyment, clouding every prospect. Besides, though the violence of her
anguish made life hateful, it had not yet produced that monotonous,
lethargic sense of changeless misery which for the most part produces
suicide. Her energy of character induced her still to combat with the ills
of life; even those attendant on hopeless love presented themselves, rather
in the shape of an adversary to be overcome, than of a victor to whom she
must submit. Besides, she had memories of past tenderness to cherish,
smiles, words, and even tears, to con over, which, though remembered in
desertion and sorrow, were to be preferred to the forgetfulness of the
grave. It was impossible to guess at the whole of her plan. Her letter to
Raymond gave no clue for discovery; it assured him, that she was in no
danger of wanting the means of life; she promised in it to preserve
herself, and some future day perhaps to present herself to him in a station
not unworthy of her. She then bade him, with the eloquence of despair and
of unalterable love, a last farewell.
All these circumstances were now related to Adrian and Idris. Raymond then
lamented the cureless evil of his situation with Perdita. He declared,
notwithstanding her harshness, he even called it coldness, that he loved
her. He had been ready once with the humility of a penitent, and the duty
of a vassal, to surrender himself to her; giving up his very soul to her
tutelage, to become her pupil, her slave, her bondsman. She had rejected
these advances; and the time for such exuberant submission, which must be
founded on love and nourished by it, was now passed. Still all his wishes
and endeavours were directed towards her peace, and his chief discomfort
arose from the perception that he exerted himself in vain. If she were to
continue inflexible in the line of conduct she now pursued, they must part.
The combinations and occurrences of this senseless mode of intercourse were
maddening to him. Yet he would not propose the separation. He was haunted
by the fear of causing the death of one or other of the beings implicated
in these events; and he could not persuade himself to undertake to direct
the course of events, lest, ignorant of the land he traversed, he should
lead those attached to the car into irremediable ruin.
After a discussion on this subject, which lasted for several hours, he took
leave of his friends, and returned to town, unwilling to meet Perdita
before us, conscious, as we all must be, of the thoughts uppermost in the
minds of both. Perdita prepared to follow him with her child. Idris
endeavoured to persuade her to remain. My poor sister looked at the
counsellor with affright. She knew that Raymond had conversed with her; had
he instigated this request?--was this to be the prelude to their eternal
separation?--I have said, that the defects of her character awoke and
acquired vigour from her unnatural position. She regarded with suspicion
the invitation of Idris; she embraced me, as if she were about to be
deprived of my affection also: calling me her more than brother, her only
friend, her last hope, she pathetically conjured me not to cease to love
her; and with encreased anxiety she departed for London, the scene and
cause of all her misery.
The scenes that followed, convinced her that she had not yet fathomed the
obscure gulph into which she had plunged. Her unhappiness assumed every day
a new shape; every day some unexpected event seemed to close, while in fact
it led onward, the train of calamities which now befell her.
The selected passion of the soul of Raymond was ambition. Readiness of
talent, a capacity of entering into, and leading the dispositions of men;
earnest desire of distinction were the awakeners and nurses of his
ambition. But other ingredients mingled with these, and prevented him from
becoming the calculating, determined character, which alone forms a
successful hero. He was obstinate, but not firm; benevolent in his first
movements; harsh and reckless when provoked. Above all, he was remorseless
and unyielding in the pursuit of any object of desire, however lawless.
Love of pleasure, and the softer sensibilities of our nature, made a
prominent part of his character, conquering the conqueror; holding him in
at the moment of acquisition; sweeping away ambition's web; making him
forget the toil of weeks, for the sake of one moment's indulgence of the
new and actual object of his wishes. Obeying these impulses, he had become
the husband of Perdita: egged on by them, he found himself the lover of
Evadne. He had now lost both. He had neither the ennobling
self-gratulation, which constancy inspires, to console him, nor the
voluptuous sense of abandonment to a forbidden, but intoxicating passion.
His heart was exhausted by the recent events; his enjoyment of life was
destroyed by the resentment of Perdita, and the flight of Evadne; and the
inflexibility of the former, set the last seal upon the annihilation of his
hopes. As long as their disunion remained a secret, he cherished an
expectation of re-awakening past tenderness in her bosom; now that we were
all made acquainted with these occurrences, and that Perdita, by declaring
her resolves to others, in a manner pledged herself to their
accomplishment, he gave up the idea of re-union as futile, and sought only,
since he was unable to influence her to change, to reconcile himself to the
present state of things. He made a vow against love and its train of
struggles, disappointment and remorse, and sought in mere sensual
enjoyment, a remedy for the injurious inroads of passion.
Debasement of character is the certain follower of such pursuits. Yet this
consequence would not have been immediately remarkable, if Raymond had
continued to apply himself to the execution of his plans for the public
benefit, and the fulfilling his duties as Protector. But, extreme in all
things, given up to immediate impressions, he entered with ardour into this
new pursuit of pleasure, and followed up the incongruous intimacies
occasioned by it without reflection or foresight. The council-chamber was
deserted; the crowds which attended on him as agents to his various
projects were neglected. Festivity, and even libertinism, became the order
of the day.
Perdita beheld with affright the encreasing disorder. For a moment she
thought that she could stem the torrent, and that Raymond could be induced
to hear reason from her.--Vain hope! The moment of her influence was
passed. He listened with haughtiness, replied disdainfully; and, if in
truth, she succeeded in awakening his conscience, the sole effect was that
he sought an opiate for the pang in oblivious riot. With the energy natural
to her, Perdita then endeavoured to supply his place. Their still apparent
union permitted her to do much; but no woman could, in the end, present a
remedy to the encreasing negligence of the Protector; who, as if seized
with a paroxysm of insanity, trampled on all ceremony, all order, all duty,
and gave himself up to license.
Reports of these strange proceedings reached us, and we were undecided what
method to adopt to restore our friend to himself and his country, when
Perdita suddenly appeared among us. She detailed the progress of the
mournful change, and entreated Adrian and myself to go up to London, and
endeavour to remedy the encreasing evil:--"Tell him," she cried, "tell
Lord Raymond, that my presence shall no longer annoy him. That he need not
plunge into this destructive dissipation for the sake of disgusting me, and
causing me to fly. This purpose is now accomplished; he will never see me
more. But let me, it is my last entreaty, let me in the praises of his
countrymen and the prosperity of England, find the choice of my youth
justified."
During our ride up to town, Adrian and I discussed and argued upon
Raymond's conduct, and his falling off from the hopes of permanent
excellence on his part, which he had before given us cause to entertain. My
friend and I had both been educated in one school, or rather I was his
pupil in the opinion, that steady adherence to principle was the only road
to honour; a ceaseless observance of the laws of general utility, the only
conscientious aim of human ambition. But though we both entertained these
ideas, we differed in their application. Resentment added also a sting to
my censure; and I reprobated Raymond's conduct in severe terms. Adrian was
more benign, more considerate. He admitted that the principles that I laid
down were the best; but he denied that they were the only ones. Quoting the
text, there are many mansions in my father's house, he insisted that the
modes of becoming good or great, varied as much as the dispositions of men,
of whom it might be said, as of the leaves of the forest, there were no two
alike.
We arrived in London at about eleven at night. We conjectured,
notwithstanding what we had heard, that we should find Raymond in St.
Stephen's: thither we sped. The chamber was full--but there was no
Protector; and there was an austere discontent manifest on the countenances
of the leaders, and a whispering and busy tattle among the underlings, not
less ominous. We hastened to the palace of the Protectorate. We found
Raymond in his dining room with six others: the bottle was being pushed
about merrily, and had made considerable inroads on the understanding of
one or two. He who sat near Raymond was telling a story, which convulsed
the rest with laughter.
Raymond sat among them, though while he entered into the spirit of the
hour, his natural dignity never forsook him. He was gay, playful,
fascinating--but never did he overstep the modesty of nature, or the
respect due to himself, in his wildest sallies. Yet I own, that considering
the task which Raymond had taken on himself as Protector of England, and
the cares to which it became him to attend, I was exceedingly provoked to
observe the worthless fellows on whom his time was wasted, and the jovial
if not drunken spirit which seemed on the point of robbing him of his
better self. I stood watching the scene, while Adrian flitted like a shadow
in among them, and, by a word and look of sobriety, endeavoured to restore
order in the assembly. Raymond expressed himself delighted to see him,
declaring that he should make one in the festivity of the night.
This action of Adrian provoked me. I was indignant that he should sit at
the same table with the companions of Raymond--men of abandoned
characters, or rather without any, the refuse of high-bred luxury, the
disgrace of their country. "Let me entreat Adrian," I cried, "not to
comply: rather join with me in endeavouring to withdraw Lord Raymond from
this scene, and restore him to other society."
"My good fellow," said Raymond, "this is neither the time nor place for the
delivery of a moral lecture: take my word for it that my amusements and
society are not so bad as you imagine. We are neither hypocrites or fools
--for the rest, 'Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be
no more cakes and ale?'"
I turned angrily away: "Verney," said Adrian, "you are very cynical: sit
down; or if you will not, perhaps, as you are not a frequent visitor, Lord
Raymond will humour you, and accompany us, as we had previously agreed
upon, to parliament."
Raymond looked keenly at him; he could read benignity only in his gentle
lineaments; he turned to me, observing with scorn my moody and stern
demeanour. "Come," said Adrian, "I have promised for you, enable me to keep
my engagement. Come with us."--Raymond made an uneasy movement, and
laconically replied--"I won't!"
The party in the mean time had broken up. They looked at the pictures,
strolled into the other apartments, talked of billiards, and one by one
vanished. Raymond strode angrily up and down the room. I stood ready to
receive and reply to his reproaches. Adrian leaned against the wall. "This
is infinitely ridiculous," he cried, "if you were school-boys, you could
not conduct yourselves more unreasonably."
"You do not understand," said Raymond. "This is only part of a system:--a
scheme of tyranny to which I will never submit. Because I am Protector of
England, am I to be the only slave in its empire? My privacy invaded, my
actions censured, my friends insulted? But I will get rid of the whole
together.--Be you witnesses," and he took the star, insignia of office,
from his breast, and threw it on the table. "I renounce my office, I
abdicate my power--assume it who will!"---
"Let him assume it," exclaimed Adrian, "who can pronounce himself, or whom
the world will pronounce to be your superior. There does not exist the man
in England with adequate presumption. Know yourself, Raymond, and your
indignation will cease; your complacency return. A few months ago, whenever
we prayed for the prosperity of our country, or our own, we at the same
time prayed for the life and welfare of the Protector, as indissolubly
linked to it. Your hours were devoted to our benefit, your ambition was to
obtain our commendation. You decorated our towns with edifices, you
bestowed on us useful establishments, you gifted the soil with abundant
fertility. The powerful and unjust cowered at the steps of your
judgment-seat, and the poor and oppressed arose like morn-awakened flowers
under the sunshine of your protection.
"Can you wonder that we are all aghast and mourn, when this appears
changed? But, come, this splenetic fit is already passed; resume your
functions; your partizans will hail you; your enemies be silenced; our
love, honour, and duty will again be manifested towards you. Master
yourself, Raymond, and the world is subject to you."
"All this would be very good sense, if addressed to another," replied
Raymond, moodily, "con the lesson yourself, and you, the first peer of the
land, may become its sovereign. You the good, the wise, the just, may rule
all hearts. But I perceive, too soon for my own happiness, too late for
England's good, that I undertook a task to which I am unequal. I cannot
rule myself. My passions are my masters; my smallest impulse my tyrant. Do
you think that I renounced the Protectorate (and I have renounced it) in a
fit of spleen? By the God that lives, I swear never to take up that bauble
again; never again to burthen myself with the weight of care and misery, of
which that is the visible sign.
"Once I desired to be a king. It was in the hey-day of youth, in the pride
of boyish folly. I knew myself when I renounced it. I renounced it to gain
--no matter what--for that also I have lost. For many months I have
submitted to this mock majesty--this solemn jest. I am its dupe no
longer. I will be free.
"I have lost that which adorned and dignified my life; that which linked me
to other men. Again I am a solitary man; and I will become again, as in my
early years, a wanderer, a soldier of fortune. My friends, for Verney, I
feel that you are my friend, do not endeavour to shake my resolve. Perdita,
wedded to an imagination, careless of what is behind the veil, whose
charactery is in truth faulty and vile, Perdita has renounced me. With her
it was pretty enough to play a sovereign's part; and, as in the recesses of
your beloved forest we acted masques, and imagined ourselves Arcadian
shepherds, to please the fancy of the moment--so was I content, more for
Perdita's sake than my own, to take on me the character of one of the great
ones of the earth; to lead her behind the scenes of grandeur, to vary her
life with a short act of magnificence and power. This was to be the colour;
love and confidence the substance of our existence. But we must live, and
not act our lives; pursuing the shadow, I lost the reality--now I
renounce both.
"Adrian, I am about to return to Greece, to become again a soldier, perhaps
a conqueror. Will you accompany me? You will behold new scenes; see a new
people; witness the mighty struggle there going forward between
civilization and barbarism; behold, and perhaps direct the efforts of a
young and vigorous population, for liberty and order. Come with me. I have
expected you. I waited for this moment; all is prepared;--will you
accompany me?"
"I will," replied Adrian. "Immediately?"
"To-morrow if you will."
"Reflect!" I cried.
"Wherefore?" asked Raymond--"My dear fellow, I have done nothing else
than reflect on this step the live-long summer; and be assured that Adrian
has condensed an age of reflection into this little moment. Do not talk of
reflection; from this moment I abjure it; this is my only happy moment
during a long interval of time. I must go, Lionel--the Gods will it; and
I must. Do not endeavour to deprive me of my companion, the out-cast's
friend.
"One word more concerning unkind, unjust Perdita. For a time, I thought
that, by watching a complying moment, fostering the still warm ashes, I
might relume in her the flame of love. It is more cold within her, than a
fire left by gypsies in winter-time, the spent embers crowned by a pyramid
of snow. Then, in endeavouring to do violence to my own disposition, I made
all worse than before. Still I think, that time, and even absence, may
restore her to me. Remember, that I love her still, that my dearest hope is
that she will again be mine. I know, though she does not, how false the
veil is which she has spread over the reality--do not endeavour to rend
this deceptive covering, but by degrees withdraw it. Present her with a
mirror, in which she may know herself; and, when she is an adept in that
necessary but difficult science, she will wonder at her present mistake,
and hasten to restore to me, what is by right mine, her forgiveness, her
kind thoughts, her love."
CHAPTER X.
AFTER these events, it was long before we were able to attain any degree of
composure. A moral tempest had wrecked our richly freighted vessel, and we,
remnants of the diminished crew, were aghast at the losses and changes
which we had undergone. Idris passionately loved her brother, and could ill
brook an absence whose duration was uncertain; his society was dear and
necessary to me--I had followed up my chosen literary occupations with
delight under his tutorship and assistance; his mild philosophy, unerring
reason, and enthusiastic friendship were the best ingredient, the exalted
spirit of our circle; even the children bitterly regretted the loss of
their kind playfellow. Deeper grief oppressed Perdita. In spite of
resentment, by day and night she figured to herself the toils and dangers
of the wanderers. Raymond absent, struggling with difficulties, lost to the
power and rank of the Protectorate, exposed to the perils of war, became an
object of anxious interest; not that she felt any inclination to recall
him, if recall must imply a return to their former union. Such return she
felt to be impossible; and while she believed it to be thus, and with
anguish regretted that so it should be, she continued angry and impatient
with him, who occasioned her misery. These perplexities and regrets caused
her to bathe her pillow with nightly tears, and to reduce her in person and
in mind to the shadow of what she had been. She sought solitude, and
avoided us when in gaiety and unrestrained affection we met in a family
circle. Lonely musings, interminable wanderings, and solemn music were her
only pastimes. She neglected even her child; shutting her heart against all
tenderness, she grew reserved towards me, her first and fast friend.
I could not see her thus lost, without exerting myself to remedy the evil
--remediless I knew, if I could not in the end bring her to reconcile
herself to Raymond. Before he went I used every argument, every persuasion
to induce her to stop his journey. She answered the one with a gush of
tears--telling me that to be persuaded--life and the goods of life were
a cheap exchange. It was not will that she wanted, but the capacity; again
and again she declared, it were as easy to enchain the sea, to put reins on
the wind's viewless courses, as for her to take truth for falsehood, deceit
for honesty, heartless communion for sincere, confiding love. She answered
my reasonings more briefly, declaring with disdain, that the reason was
hers; and, until I could persuade her that the past could be unacted, that
maturity could go back to the cradle, and that all that was could become as
though it had never been, it was useless to assure her that no real change
had taken place in her fate. And thus with stern pride she suffered him to
go, though her very heart-strings cracked at the fulfilling of the act,
which rent from her all that made life valuable.
To change the scene for her, and even for ourselves, all unhinged by the
cloud that had come over us, I persuaded my two remaining companions that
it were better that we should absent ourselves for a time from Windsor. We
visited the north of England, my native Ulswater, and lingered in scenes
dear from a thousand associations. We lengthened our tour into Scotland,
that we might see Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond; thence we crossed to
Ireland, and passed several weeks in the neighbourhood of Killarney. The
change of scene operated to a great degree as I expected; after a year's
absence, Perdita returned in gentler and more docile mood to Windsor. The
first sight of this place for a time unhinged her. Here every spot was
distinct with associations now grown bitter. The forest glades, the ferny
dells, and lawny uplands, the cultivated and cheerful country spread around
the silver pathway of ancient Thames, all earth, air, and wave, took up one
choral voice, inspired by memory, instinct with plaintive regret.
But my essay towards bringing her to a saner view of her own situation, did
not end here. Perdita was still to a great degree uneducated. When first
she left her peasant life, and resided with the elegant and cultivated
Evadne, the only accomplishment she brought to any perfection was that of
painting, for which she had a taste almost amounting to genius. This had
occupied her in her lonely cottage, when she quitted her Greek friend's
protection. Her pallet and easel were now thrown aside; did she try to
paint, thronging recollections made her hand tremble, her eyes fill with
tears. With this occupation she gave up almost every other; and her mind
preyed upon itself almost to madness.
For my own part, since Adrian had first withdrawn me from my selvatic
wilderness to his own paradise of order and beauty, I had been wedded to
literature. I felt convinced that however it might have been in former
times, in the present stage of the world, no man's faculties could be
developed, no man's moral principle be enlarged and liberal, without an
extensive acquaintance with books. To me they stood in the place of an
active career, of ambition, and those palpable excitements necessary to the
multitude. The collation of philosophical opinions, the study of historical
facts, the acquirement of languages, were at once my recreation, and the
serious aim of my life. I turned author myself. My productions however were
sufficiently unpretending; they were confined to the biography of favourite
historical characters, especially those whom I believed to have been
traduced, or about whom clung obscurity and doubt.
As my authorship increased, I acquired new sympathies and pleasures. I
found another and a valuable link to enchain me to my fellow-creatures; my
point of sight was extended, and the inclinations and capacities of all
human beings became deeply interesting to me. Kings have been called the
fathers of their people. Suddenly I became as it were the father of all
mankind. Posterity became my heirs. My thoughts were gems to enrich the
treasure house of man's intellectual possessions; each sentiment was a
precious gift I bestowed on them. Let not these aspirations be attributed
to vanity. They were not expressed in words, nor even reduced to form in my
own mind; but they filled my soul, exalting my thoughts, raising a glow of
enthusiasm, and led me out of the obscure path in which I before walked,
into the bright noon-enlightened highway of mankind, making me, citizen of
the world, a candidate for immortal honors, an eager aspirant to the praise
and sympathy of my fellow men.
No one certainly ever enjoyed the pleasures of composition more intensely
than I. If I left the woods, the solemn music of the waving branches, and
the majestic temple of nature, I sought the vast halls of the Castle, and
looked over wide, fertile England, spread beneath our regal mount, and
listened the while to inspiring strains of music. At such times solemn
harmonies or spirit-stirring airs gave wings to my lagging thoughts,
permitting them, methought, to penetrate the last veil of nature and her
God, and to display the highest beauty in visible expression to the
understandings of men. As the music went on, my ideas seemed to quit their
mortal dwelling house; they shook their pinions and began a flight, sailing
on the placid current of thought, filling the creation with new glory, and
rousing sublime imagery that else had slept voiceless. Then I would hasten
to my desk, weave the new-found web of mind in firm texture and brilliant
colours, leaving the fashioning of the material to a calmer moment.
But this account, which might as properly belong to a former period of my
life as to the present moment, leads me far afield. It was the pleasure I
took in literature, the discipline of mind I found arise from it, that made
me eager to lead Perdita to the same pursuits. I began with light hand and
gentle allurement; first exciting her curiosity, and then satisfying it in
such a way as might occasion her, at the same time that she half forgot her
sorrows in occupation, to find in the hours that succeeded a reaction of
benevolence and toleration.
Intellectual activity, though not directed towards books, had always been
my sister's characteristic. It had been displayed early in life, leading
her out to solitary musing among her native mountains, causing her to form
innumerous combinations from common objects, giving strength to her
perceptions, and swiftness to their arrangement. Love had come, as the rod
of the master-prophet, to swallow up every minor propensity. Love had
doubled all her excellencies, and placed a diadem on her genius. Was she to
cease to love? Take the colours and odour from the rose, change the sweet
nutriment of mother's milk to gall and poison; as easily might you wean
Perdita from love. She grieved for the loss of Raymond with an anguish,
that exiled all smile from her lips, and trenched sad lines on her brow of
beauty. But each day seemed to change the nature of her suffering, and
every succeeding hour forced her to alter (if so I may style it) the
fashion of her soul's mourning garb. For a time music was able to satisfy
the cravings of her mental hunger, and her melancholy thoughts renewed
themselves in each change of key, and varied with every alteration in the
strain. My schooling first impelled her towards books; and, if music had
been the food of sorrow, the productions of the wise became its
medicine. The acquisition of unknown languages was too tedious an
occupation, for one who referred every expression to the universe within,
and read not, as many do, for the mere sake of filling up time; but who was
still questioning herself and her author, moulding every idea in a thousand
ways, ardently desirous for the discovery of truth in every sentence. She
sought to improve her understanding; mechanically her heart and
dispositions became soft and gentle under this benign discipline. After
awhile she discovered, that amidst all her newly acquired knowledge, her
own character, which formerly she fancied that she thoroughly understood,
became the first in rank among the terrae incognitae, the pathless wilds of
a country that had no chart. Erringly and strangely she began the task of
self-examination with self-condemnation. And then again she became aware of
her own excellencies, and began to balance with juster scales the shades of
good and evil. I, who longed beyond words, to restore her to the happiness
it was still in her power to enjoy, watched with anxiety the result of
these internal proceedings.
But man is a strange animal. We cannot calculate on his forces like that of
an engine; and, though an impulse draw with a forty-horse power at what
appears willing to yield to one, yet in contempt of calculation the
movement is not effected. Neither grief, philosophy, nor love could make
Perdita think with mildness of the dereliction of Raymond. She now took
pleasure in my society; towards Idris she felt and displayed a full and
affectionate sense of her worth--she restored to her child in abundant
measure her tenderness and care. But I could discover, amidst all her
repinings, deep resentment towards Raymond, and an unfading sense of
injury, that plucked from me my hope, when I appeared nearest to its
fulfilment. Among other painful restrictions, she has occasioned it to
become a law among us, never to mention Raymond's name before her. She
refused to read any communications from Greece, desiring me only to mention
when any arrived, and whether the wanderers were well. It was curious that
even little Clara observed this law towards her mother. This lovely child
was nearly eight years of age. Formerly she had been a light-hearted
infant, fanciful, but gay and childish. After the departure of her father,
thought became impressed on her young brow. Children, unadepts in language,
seldom find words to express their thoughts, nor could we tell in what
manner the late events had impressed themselves on her mind. But certainly
she had made deep observations while she noted in silence the changes that
passed around her. She never mentioned her father to Perdita, she appeared
half afraid when she spoke of him to me, and though I tried to draw her out
on the subject, and to dispel the gloom that hung about her ideas
concerning him, I could not succeed. Yet each foreign post-day she watched
for the arrival of letters--knew the post mark, and watched me as I read.
I found her often poring over the article of Greek intelligence in the
newspaper.
There is no more painful sight than that of untimely care in children, and
it was particularly observable in one whose disposition had heretofore been
mirthful. Yet there was so much sweetness and docility about Clara, that
your admiration was excited; and if the moods of mind are calculated to
paint the cheek with beauty, and endow motions with grace, surely her
contemplations must have been celestial; since every lineament was moulded
into loveliness, and her motions were more harmonious than the elegant
boundings of the fawns of her native forest. I sometimes expostulated with
Perdita on the subject of her reserve; but she rejected my counsels, while
her daughter's sensibility excited in her a tenderness still more
passionate.
After the lapse of more than a year, Adrian returned from Greece.
When our exiles had first arrived, a truce was in existence between the
Turks and Greeks; a truce that was as sleep to the mortal frame, signal of
renewed activity on waking. With the numerous soldiers of Asia, with all of
warlike stores, ships, and military engines, that wealth and power could
command, the Turks at once resolved to crush an enemy, which creeping on by
degrees, had from their stronghold in the Morea, acquired Thrace and
Macedonia, and had led their armies even to the gates of Constantinople,
while their extensive commercial relations gave every European nation an
interest in their success. Greece prepared for a vigorous resistance; it
rose to a man; and the women, sacrificing their costly ornaments, accoutred
their sons for the war, and bade them conquer or die with the spirit of the
Spartan mother. The talents and courage of Raymond were highly esteemed
among the Greeks. Born at Athens, that city claimed him for her own, and by
giving him the command of her peculiar division in the army, the
commander-in-chief only possessed superior power. He was numbered among her
citizens, his name was added to the list of Grecian heroes. His judgment,
activity, and consummate bravery, justified their choice. The Earl of
Windsor became a volunteer under his friend.
"It is well," said Adrian, "to prate of war in these pleasant shades, and
with much ill-spent oil make a show of joy, because many thousand of our
fellow-creatures leave with pain this sweet air and natal earth. I shall
not be suspected of being averse to the Greek cause; I know and feel its
necessity; it is beyond every other a good cause. I have defended it with
my sword, and was willing that my spirit should be breathed out in its
defence; freedom is of more worth than life, and the Greeks do well to
defend their privilege unto death. But let us not deceive ourselves. The
Turks are men; each fibre, each limb is as feeling as our own, and every
spasm, be it mental or bodily, is as truly felt in a Turk's heart or brain,
as in a Greek's. The last action at which I was present was the taking of
----. The Turks resisted to the last, the garrison perished on the
ramparts, and we entered by assault. Every breathing creature within the
walls was massacred. Think you, amidst the shrieks of violated innocence
and helpless infancy, I did not feel in every nerve the cry of a fellow
being? They were men and women, the sufferers, before they were Mahometans,
and when they rise turbanless from the grave, in what except their good or
evil actions will they be the better or worse than we? Two soldiers
contended for a girl, whose rich dress and extreme beauty excited the
brutal appetites of these wretches, who, perhaps good men among their
families, were changed by the fury of the moment into incarnated evils. An
old man, with a silver beard, decrepid and bald, he might be her
grandfather, interposed to save her; the battle axe of one of them clove
his skull. I rushed to her defence, but rage made them blind and deaf; they
did not distinguish my Christian garb or heed my words--words were blunt
weapons then, for while war cried "havoc," and murder gave fit echo, how
could I--
Turn back the tide of ills, relieving wrong
With mild accost of soothing eloquence?
One of the fellows, enraged at my interference, struck me with his bayonet
in the side, and I fell senseless.
"This wound will probably shorten my life, having shattered a frame, weak
of itself. But I am content to die. I have learnt in Greece that one man,
more or less, is of small import, while human bodies remain to fill up the
thinned ranks of the soldiery; and that the identity of an individual may
be overlooked, so that the muster roll contain its full numbers. All this
has a different effect upon Raymond. He is able to contemplate the ideal of
war, while I am sensible only to its realities. He is a soldier, a general.
He can influence the blood-thirsty war-dogs, while I resist their
propensities vainly. The cause is simple. Burke has said that, 'in all
bodies those who would lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow.'
--I cannot follow; for I do not sympathize in their dreams of massacre and
glory--to follow and to lead in such a career, is the natural bent of
Raymond's mind. He is always successful, and bids fair, at the same time
that he acquires high name and station for himself, to secure liberty,
probably extended empire, to the Greeks."
Perdita's mind was not softened by this account. He, she thought, can be
great and happy without me. Would that I also had a career! Would that I
could freight some untried bark with all my hopes, energies, and desires,
and launch it forth into the ocean of life--bound for some attainable
point, with ambition or pleasure at the helm! But adverse winds detain me
on shore; like Ulysses, I sit at the water's edge and weep. But my
nerveless hands can neither fell the trees, nor smooth the planks. Under
the influence of these melancholy thoughts, she became more than ever in
love with sorrow. Yet Adrian's presence did some good; he at once broke
through the law of silence observed concerning Raymond. At first she
started from the unaccustomed sound; soon she got used to it and to love
it, and she listened with avidity to the account of his achievements. Clara
got rid also of her restraint; Adrian and she had been old playfellows; and
now, as they walked or rode together, he yielded to her earnest entreaty,
and repeated, for the hundredth time, some tale of her father's bravery,
munificence, or justice.
Each vessel in the mean time brought exhilarating tidings from Greece. The
presence of a friend in its armies and councils made us enter into the
details with enthusiasm; and a short letter now and then from Raymond told
us how he was engrossed by the interests of his adopted country. The Greeks
were strongly attached to their commercial pursuits, and would have been
satisfied with their present acquisitions, had not the Turks roused them by
invasion. The patriots were victorious; a spirit of conquest was instilled;
and already they looked on Constantinople as their own. Raymond rose
perpetually in their estimation; but one man held a superior command to him
in their armies. He was conspicuous for his conduct and choice of position
in a battle fought in the plains of Thrace, on the banks of the Hebrus,
which was to decide the fate of Islam. The Mahometans were defeated, and
driven entirely from the country west of this river. The battle was
sanguinary, the loss of the Turks apparently irreparable; the Greeks, in
losing one man, forgot the nameless crowd strewed upon the bloody field,
and they ceased to value themselves on a victory, which cost them--
Raymond.
At the battle of Makri he had led the charge of cavalry, and pursued the
fugitives even to the banks of the Hebrus. His favourite horse was found
grazing by the margin of the tranquil river. It became a question whether
he had fallen among the unrecognized; but no broken ornament or stained
trapping betrayed his fate. It was suspected that the Turks, finding
themselves possessed of so illustrious a captive, resolved to satisfy their
cruelty rather than their avarice, and fearful of the interference of
England, had come to the determination of concealing for ever the
cold-blooded murder of the soldier they most hated and feared in the
squadrons of their enemy.
Raymond was not forgotten in England. His abdication of the Protectorate
had caused an unexampled sensation; and, when his magnificent and manly
system was contrasted with the narrow views of succeeding politicians, the
period of his elevation was referred to with sorrow. The perpetual
recurrence of his name, joined to most honourable testimonials, in the
Greek gazettes, kept up the interest he had excited. He seemed the
favourite child of fortune, and his untimely loss eclipsed the world, and
shewed forth the remnant of mankind with diminished lustre. They clung with
eagerness to the hope held out that he might yet be alive. Their minister
at Constantinople was urged to make the necessary perquisitions, and should
his existence be ascertained, to demand his release. It was to be hoped
that their efforts would succeed, and that though now a prisoner, the sport
of cruelty and the mark of hate, he would be rescued from danger and
restored to the happiness, power, and honour which he deserved.
The effect of this intelligence upon my sister was striking. She never for
a moment credited the story of his death; she resolved instantly to go to
Greece. Reasoning and persuasion were thrown away upon her; she would
endure no hindrance, no delay. It may be advanced for a truth, that, if
argument or entreaty can turn any one from a desperate purpose, whose
motive and end depends on the strength of the affections only, then it is
right so to turn them, since their docility shews, that neither the motive
nor the end were of sufficient force to bear them through the obstacles
attendant on their undertaking. If, on the contrary, they are proof against
expostulation, this very steadiness is an omen of success; and it becomes
the duty of those who love them, to assist in smoothing the obstructions in
their path. Such sentiments actuated our little circle. Finding Perdita
immoveable, we consulted as to the best means of furthering her purpose.
She could not go alone to a country where she had no friends, where she
might arrive only to hear the dreadful news, which must overwhelm her with
grief and remorse. Adrian, whose health had always been weak, now suffered
considerable aggravation of suffering from the effects of his wound. Idris
could not endure to leave him in this state; nor was it right either to
quit or take with us a young family for a journey of this description. I
resolved at length to accompany Perdita. The separation from my Idris was
painful--but necessity reconciled us to it in some degree: necessity and
the hope of saving Raymond, and restoring him again to happiness and
Perdita. No delay was to ensue. Two days after we came to our
determination, we set out for Portsmouth, and embarked. The season was May,
the weather stormless; we were promised a prosperous voyage. Cherishing the
most fervent hopes, embarked on the waste ocean, we saw with delight the
receding shore of Britain, and on the wings of desire outspeeded our well
filled sails towards the South. The light curling waves bore us onward, and
old ocean smiled at the freight of love and hope committed to his charge;
it stroked gently its tempestuous plains, and the path was smoothed for us.
Day and night the wind right aft, gave steady impulse to our keel--nor
did rough gale, or treacherous sand, or destructive rock interpose an
obstacle between my sister and the land which was to restore her to her
first beloved,
Her dear heart's confessor--a heart within that heart.
VOL. II.
CHAPTER I.
DURING this voyage, when on calm evenings we conversed on deck, watching
the glancing of the waves and the changeful appearances of the sky, I
discovered the total revolution that the disasters of Raymond had wrought
in the mind of my sister. Were they the same waters of love, which, lately
cold and cutting as ice, repelling as that, now loosened from their frozen
chains, flowed through the regions of her soul in gushing and grateful
exuberance? She did not believe that he was dead, but she knew that he was
in danger, and the hope of assisting in his liberation, and the idea of
soothing by tenderness the ills that he might have undergone, elevated and
harmonized the late jarring element of her being. I was not so sanguine as
she as to the result of our voyage. She was not sanguine, but secure; and
the expectation of seeing the lover she had banished, the husband, friend,
heart's companion from whom she had long been alienated, wrapt her senses
in delight, her mind in placidity. It was beginning life again; it was
leaving barren sands for an abode of fertile beauty; it was a harbour after
a tempest, an opiate after sleepless nights, a happy waking from a terrible
dream.
Little Clara accompanied us; the poor child did not well understand what
was going forward. She heard that we were bound for Greece, that she would
see her father, and now, for the first time, she prattled of him to her
mother.
On landing at Athens we found difficulties encrease upon us: nor could the
storied earth or balmy atmosphere inspire us with enthusiasm or pleasure,
while the fate of Raymond was in jeopardy. No man had ever excited so
strong an interest in the public mind; this was apparent even among the
phlegmatic English, from whom he had long been absent. The Athenians had
expected their hero to return in triumph; the women had taught their
children to lisp his name joined to thanksgiving; his manly beauty, his
courage, his devotion to their cause, made him appear in their eyes almost
as one of the ancient deities of the soil descended from their native
Olympus to defend them. When they spoke of his probable death and certain
captivity, tears streamed from their eyes; even as the women of Syria
sorrowed for Adonis, did the wives and mothers of Greece lament our English
Raymond--Athens was a city of mourning.
All these shews of despair struck Perdita with affright. With that sanguine
but confused expectation, which desire engendered while she was at a
distance from reality, she had formed an image in her mind of instantaneous
change, when she should set her foot on Grecian shores. She fancied that
Raymond would already be free, and that her tender attentions would come to
entirely obliterate even the memory of his mischance. But his fate was
still uncertain; she began to fear the worst, and to feel that her soul's
hope was cast on a chance that might prove a blank. The wife and lovely
child of Lord Raymond became objects of intense interest in Athens. The
gates of their abode were besieged, audible prayers were breathed for his
restoration; all these circumstances added to the dismay and fears of
Perdita.
My exertions were unremitted: after a time I left Athens, and joined the
army stationed at Kishan in Thrace. Bribery, threats, and intrigue, soon
discovered the secret that Raymond was alive, a prisoner, suffering the
most rigorous confinement and wanton cruelties. We put in movement every
impulse of policy and money to redeem him from their hands.
The impatience of my sister's disposition now returned on her, awakened by
repentance, sharpened by remorse. The very beauty of the Grecian climate,
during the season of spring, added torture to her sensations. The
unexampled loveliness of the flower-clad earth--the genial sunshine and
grateful shade--the melody of the birds--the majesty of the woods--
the splendour of the marble ruins--the clear effulgence of the stars by
night--the combination of all that was exciting and voluptuous in this
transcending land, by inspiring a quicker spirit of life and an added
sensitiveness to every articulation of her frame, only gave edge to the
poignancy of her grief. Each long hour was counted, and "He suffers" was
the burthen of all her thoughts. She abstained from food; she lay on the
bare earth, and, by such mimickry of his enforced torments, endeavoured to
hold communion with his distant pain. I remembered in one of her harshest
moments a quotation of mine had roused her to anger and disdain. "Perdita,"
I had said, "some day you will discover that you have done wrong in again
casting Raymond on the thorns of life. When disappointment has sullied his
beauty, when a soldier's hardships have bent his manly form, and loneliness
made even triumph bitter to him, then you will repent; and regret for the
irreparable change
"will move
In hearts all rocky now, the late remorse of love."[1]
The stinging "remorse of love" now pierced her heart. She accused herself
of his journey to Greece--his dangers--his imprisonment. She pictured
to herself the anguish of his solitude; she remembered with what eager
delight he had in former days made her the partner of his joyful hopes--
with what grateful affection he received her sympathy in his cares. She
called to mind how often he had declared that solitude was to him the
greatest of all evils, and how death itself was to him more full of fear
and pain when he pictured to himself a lonely grave. "My best girl," he had
said, "relieves me from these phantasies. United to her, cherished in her
dear heart, never again shall I know the misery of finding myself alone.
Even if I die before you, my Perdita, treasure up my ashes till yours may
mingle with mine. It is a foolish sentiment for one who is not a
materialist, yet, methinks, even in that dark cell, I may feel that my
inanimate dust mingles with yours, and thus have a companion in decay." In
her resentful mood, these expressions had been remembered with acrimony and
disdain; they visited her in her softened hour, taking sleep from her eyes,
all hope of rest from her uneasy mind.
Two months passed thus, when at last we obtained a promise of Raymond's
release. Confinement and hardship had undermined his health; the Turks
feared an accomplishment of the threats of the English government, if he
died under their hands; they looked upon his recovery as impossible; they
delivered him up as a dying man, willingly making over to us the rites of
burial.
He came by sea from Constantinople to Athens. The wind, favourable to him,
blew so strongly in shore, that we were unable, as we had at first
intended, to meet him on his watery road. The watchtower of Athens was
besieged by inquirers, each sail eagerly looked out for; till on the first
of May the gallant frigate bore in sight, freighted with treasure more
invaluable than the wealth which, piloted from Mexico, the vexed Pacific
swallowed, or that was conveyed over its tranquil bosom to enrich the crown
of Spain. At early dawn the vessel was discovered bearing in shore; it was
conjectured that it would cast anchor about five miles from land. The news
spread through Athens, and the whole city poured out at the gate of the
Piraeus, down the roads, through the vineyards, the olive woods and
plantations of fig-trees, towards the harbour. The noisy joy of the
populace, the gaudy colours of their dress, the tumult of carriages and
horses, the march of soldiers intermixed, the waving of banners and sound
of martial music added to the high excitement of the scene; while round us
reposed in solemn majesty the relics of antient time. To our right the
Acropolis rose high, spectatress of a thousand changes, of ancient glory,
Turkish slavery, and the restoration of dear-bought liberty; tombs and
cenotaphs were strewed thick around, adorned by ever renewing vegetation;
the mighty dead hovered over their monuments, and beheld in our enthusiasm
and congregated numbers a renewal of the scenes in which they had been the
actors. Perdita and Clara rode in a close carriage; I attended them on
horseback. At length we arrived at the harbour; it was agitated by the
outward swell of the sea; the beach, as far could be discerned, was covered
by a moving multitude, which, urged by those behind toward the sea, again
rushed back as the heavy waves with sullen roar burst close to them. I
applied my glass, and could discern that the frigate had already cast
anchor, fearful of the danger of approaching nearer to a lee shore: a boat
was lowered; with a pang I saw that Raymond was unable to descend the
vessel's side; he was let down in a chair, and lay wrapt in cloaks at the
bottom of the boat.
I dismounted, and called to some sailors who were rowing about the harbour
to pull up, and take me into their skiff; Perdita at the same moment
alighted from her carriage--she seized my arm--"Take me with you," she
cried; she was trembling and pale; Clara clung to her--"You must not," I
said, "the sea is rough--he will soon be here--do you not see his
boat?" The little bark to which I had beckoned had now pulled up; before I
could stop her, Perdita, assisted by the sailors was in it--Clara
followed her mother--a loud shout echoed from the crowd as we pulled out
of the inner harbour; while my sister at the prow, had caught hold of one
of the men who was using a glass, asking a thousand questions, careless of
the spray that broke over her, deaf, sightless to all, except the little
speck that, just visible on the top of the waves, evidently neared. We
approached with all the speed six rowers could give; the orderly and
picturesque dress of the soldiers on the beach, the sounds of exulting
music, the stirring breeze and waving flags, the unchecked exclamations of
the eager crowd, whose dark looks and foreign garb were purely eastern; the
sight of temple-crowned rock, the white marble of the buildings glittering
in the sun, and standing in bright relief against the dark ridge of lofty
mountains beyond; the near roar of the sea, the splash of oars, and dash of
spray, all steeped my soul in a delirium, unfelt, unimagined in the common
course of common life. Trembling, I was unable to continue to look through
the glass with which I had watched the motion of the crew, when the
frigate's boat had first been launched. We rapidly drew near, so that at
length the number and forms of those within could be discerned; its dark
sides grew big, and the splash of its oars became audible: I could
distinguish the languid form of my friend, as he half raised himself at our
approach.
Perdita's questions had ceased; she leaned on my arm, panting with emotions
too acute for tears--our men pulled alongside the other boat. As a last
effort, my sister mustered her strength, her firmness; she stepped from one
boat to the other, and then with a shriek she sprang towards Raymond, knelt
at his side, and glueing her lips to the hand she seized, her face shrouded
by her long hair, gave herself up to tears.
Raymond had somewhat raised himself at our approach, but it was with
difficulty that he exerted himself even thus much. With sunken cheek and
hollow eyes, pale and gaunt, how could I recognize the beloved of Perdita?
I continued awe-struck and mute--he looked smilingly on the poor girl;
the smile was his. A day of sun-shine falling on a dark valley, displays
its before hidden characteristics; and now this smile, the same with which
he first spoke love to Perdita, with which he had welcomed the
protectorate, playing on his altered countenance, made me in my heart's
core feel that this was Raymond.
He stretched out to me his other hand; I discerned the trace of manacles on
his bared wrist. I heard my sister's sobs, and thought, happy are women who
can weep, and in a passionate caress disburthen the oppression of their
feelings; shame and habitual restraint hold back a man. I would have given
worlds to have acted as in days of boyhood, have strained him to my breast,
pressed his hand to my lips, and wept over him; my swelling heart choked
me; the natural current would not be checked; the big rebellious tears
gathered in my eyes; I turned aside, and they dropped in the sea--they
came fast and faster;--yet I could hardly be ashamed, for I saw that the
rough sailors were not unmoved, and Raymond's eyes alone were dry from
among our crew. He lay in that blessed calm which convalescence always
induces, enjoying in secure tranquillity his liberty and re-union with her
whom he adored. Perdita at length subdued her burst of passion, and rose,
--she looked round for Clara; the child frightened, not recognizing her
father, and neglected by us, had crept to the other end of the boat; she
came at her mother's call. Perdita presented her to Raymond; her first
words were: "Beloved, embrace our child!"
"Come hither, sweet one," said her father, "do you not know me?" she
knew his voice, and cast herself in his arms with half bashful but
uncontrollable emotion.
Perceiving the weakness of Raymond, I was afraid of ill consequences from
the pressure of the crowd on his landing. But they were awed as I had been,
at the change of his appearance. The music died away, the shouts abruptly
ended; the soldiers had cleared a space in which a carriage was drawn up.
He was placed in it; Perdita and Clara entered with him, and his escort
closed round it; a hollow murmur, akin to the roaring of the near waves,
went through the multitude; they fell back as the carriage advanced, and
fearful of injuring him they had come to welcome, by loud testimonies of
joy, they satisfied themselves with bending in a low salaam as the carriage
passed; it went slowly along the road of the Piraeus; passed by antique
temple and heroic tomb, beneath the craggy rock of the citadel. The sound
of the waves was left behind; that of the multitude continued at intervals,
supressed and hoarse; and though, in the city, the houses, churches, and
public buildings were decorated with tapestry and banners--though the
soldiery lined the streets, and the inhabitants in thousands were assembled
to give him hail, the same solemn silence prevailed, the soldiery presented
arms, the banners vailed, many a white hand waved a streamer, and vainly
sought to discern the hero in the vehicle, which, closed and encompassed by
the city guards, drew him to the palace allotted for his abode.
Raymond was weak and exhausted, yet the interest he perceived to be excited
on his account, filled him with proud pleasure. He was nearly killed with
kindness. It is true, the populace retained themselves; but there arose a
perpetual hum and bustle from the throng round the palace, which added to
the noise of fireworks, the frequent explosion of arms, the tramp to and
fro of horsemen and carriages, to which effervescence he was the focus,
retarded his recovery. So we retired awhile to Eleusis, and here rest and
tender care added each day to the strength of our invalid. The zealous
attention of Perdita claimed the first rank in the causes which induced his
rapid recovery; but the second was surely the delight he felt in the
affection and good will of the Greeks. We are said to love much those whom
we greatly benefit. Raymond had fought and conquered for the Athenians; he
had suffered, on their account, peril, imprisonment, and hardship; their
gratitude affected him deeply, and he inly vowed to unite his fate for ever
to that of a people so enthusiastically devoted to him.
Social feeling and sympathy constituted a marked feature in my disposition.
In early youth, the living drama acted around me, drew me heart and soul
into its vortex. I was now conscious of a change. I loved, I hoped, I
enjoyed; but there was something besides this. I was inquisitive as to the
internal principles of action of those around me: anxious to read their
thoughts justly, and for ever occupied in divining their inmost mind. All
events, at the same time that they deeply interested me, arranged
themselves in pictures before me. I gave the right place to every personage
in the groupe, the just balance to every sentiment. This undercurrent of
thought, often soothed me amidst distress, and even agony. It gave ideality
to that, from which, taken in naked truth, the soul would have revolted: it
bestowed pictorial colours on misery and disease, and not unfrequently
relieved me from despair in deplorable changes. This faculty, or instinct,
was now rouzed. I watched the re-awakened devotion of my sister; Clara's
timid, but concentrated admiration of her father, and Raymond's appetite
for renown, and sensitiveness to the demonstrations of affection of the
Athenians. Attentively perusing this animated volume, I was the less
surprised at the tale I read on the new-turned page.
The Turkish army were at this time besieging Rodosto; and the Greeks,
hastening their preparations, and sending each day reinforcements, were on
the eve of forcing the enemy to battle. Each people looked on the coming
struggle as that which would be to a great degree decisive; as, in case of
victory, the next step would be the siege of Constantinople by the Greeks.
Raymond, being somewhat recovered, prepared to re-assume his command in the
army.
Perdita did not oppose herself to his determination. She only stipulated to
be permitted to accompany him. She had set down no rule of conduct for
herself; but for her life she could not have opposed his slightest wish, or
do other than acquiesce cheerfully in all his projects. One word, in truth,
had alarmed her more than battles or sieges, during which she trusted
Raymond's high command would exempt him from danger. That word, as yet it
was not more to her, was PLAGUE. This enemy to the human race had begun
early in June to raise its serpent-head on the shores of the Nile; parts of
Asia, not usually subject to this evil, were infected. It was in
Constantinople; but as each year that city experienced a like visitation,
small attention was paid to those accounts which declared more people to
have died there already, than usually made up the accustomed prey of the
whole of the hotter months. However it might be, neither plague nor war
could prevent Perdita from following her lord, or induce her to utter one
objection to the plans which he proposed. To be near him, to be loved by
him, to feel him again her own, was the limit of her desires. The object of
her life was to do him pleasure: it had been so before, but with a
difference. In past times, without thought or foresight she had made him
happy, being so herself, and in any question of choice, consulted her own
wishes, as being one with his. Now she sedulously put herself out of the
question, sacrificing even her anxiety for his health and welfare to her
resolve not to oppose any of his desires. Love of the Greek people,
appetite for glory, and hatred of the barbarian government under which he
had suffered even to the approach of death, stimulated him. He wished to
repay the kindness of the Athenians, to keep alive the splendid
associations connected with his name, and to eradicate from Europe a power
which, while every other nation advanced in civilization, stood still, a
monument of antique barbarism. Having effected the reunion of Raymond and
Perdita, I was eager to return to England; but his earnest request, added
to awakening curiosity, and an indefinable anxiety to behold the
catastrophe, now apparently at hand, in the long drawn history of Grecian
and Turkish warfare, induced me to consent to prolong until the autumn, the
period of my residence in Greece.
As soon as the health of Raymond was sufficiently re-established, he
prepared to join the Grecian camp, hear Kishan, a town of some importance,
situated to the east of the Hebrus; in which Perdita and Clara were to
remain until the event of the expected battle. We quitted Athens on the 2nd
of June. Raymond had recovered from the gaunt and pallid looks of fever. If
I no longer saw the fresh glow of youth on his matured countenance, if care
had besieged his brow, "And dug deep trenches in his beauty's field," if
his hair, slightly mingled with grey, and his look, considerate even in its
eagerness, gave signs of added years and past sufferings, yet there was
something irresistibly affecting in the sight of one, lately snatched from
the grave, renewing his career, untamed by sickness or disaster. The
Athenians saw in him, not as heretofore, the heroic boy or desperate man,
who was ready to die for them; but the prudent commander, who for their
sakes was careful of his life, and could make his own warrior-propensities
second to the scheme of conduct policy might point out.
All Athens accompanied us for several miles. When he had landed a month
ago, the noisy populace had been hushed by sorrow and fear; but this was a
festival day to all. The air resounded with their shouts; their picturesque
costume, and the gay colours of which it was composed, flaunted in the
sunshine; their eager gestures and rapid utterance accorded with their wild
appearance. Raymond was the theme of every tongue, the hope of each wife,
mother or betrothed bride, whose husband, child, or lover, making a part of
the Greek army, were to be conducted to victory by him.
Notwithstanding the hazardous object of our journey, it was full of
romantic interest, as we passed through the vallies, and over the hills, of
this divine country. Raymond was inspirited by the intense sensations of
recovered health; he felt that in being general of the Athenians, he filled
a post worthy of his ambition; and, in his hope of the conquest of
Constantinople, he counted on an event which would be as a landmark in the
waste of ages, an exploit unequalled in the annals of man; when a city of
grand historic association, the beauty of whose site was the wonder of the
world, which for many hundred years had been the strong hold of the
Moslems, should be rescued from slavery and barbarism, and restored to a
people illustrious for genius, civilization, and a spirit of liberty.
Perdita rested on his restored society, on his love, his hopes and fame,
even as a Sybarite on a luxurious couch; every thought was transport, each
emotion bathed as it were in a congenial and balmy element.
We arrived at Kishan on the 7th of July. The weather during our journey had
been serene. Each day, before dawn, we left our night's encampment, and
watched the shadows as they retreated from hill and valley, and the golden
splendour of the sun's approach. The accompanying soldiers received, with
national vivacity, enthusiastic pleasure from the sight of beautiful
nature. The uprising of the star of day was hailed by triumphant strains,
while the birds, heard by snatches, filled up the intervals of the music.
At noon, we pitched our tents in some shady valley, or embowering wood
among the mountains, while a stream prattling over pebbles induced grateful
sleep. Our evening march, more calm, was yet more delightful than the
morning restlessness of spirit. If the band played, involuntarily they
chose airs of moderated passion; the farewell of love, or lament at
absence, was followed and closed by some solemn hymn, which harmonized with
the tranquil loveliness of evening, and elevated the soul to grand and
religious thought. Often all sounds were suspended, that we might listen to
the nightingale, while the fire-flies danced in bright measure, and the
soft cooing of the aziolo spoke of fair weather to the travellers. Did we
pass a valley? Soft shades encompassed us, and rocks tinged with beauteous
hues. If we traversed a mountain, Greece, a living map, was spread beneath,
her renowned pinnacles cleaving the ether; her rivers threading in silver
line the fertile land. Afraid almost to breathe, we English travellers
surveyed with extasy this splendid landscape, so different from the sober
hues and melancholy graces of our native scenery. When we quitted
Macedonia, the fertile but low plains of Thrace afforded fewer beauties;
yet our journey continued to be interesting. An advanced guard gave
information of our approach, and the country people were quickly in motion
to do honour to Lord Raymond. The villages were decorated by triumphal
arches of greenery by day, and lamps by night; tapestry waved from the
windows, the ground was strewed with flowers, and the name of Raymond,
joined to that of Greece, was echoed in the Evive of the peasant crowd.
When we arrived at Kishan, we learnt, that on hearing of the advance of
Lord Raymond and his detachment, the Turkish army had retreated from
Rodosto; but meeting with a reinforcement, they had re-trod their steps. In
the meantime, Argyropylo, the Greek commander-in-chief, had advanced, so as
to be between the Turks and Rodosto; a battle, it was said, was inevitable.
Perdita and her child were to remain at Kishan. Raymond asked me, if I
would not continue with them. "Now by the fells of Cumberland," I cried,
"by all of the vagabond and poacher that appertains to me, I will stand at
your side, draw my sword in the Greek cause, and be hailed as a victor
along with you!"
All the plain, from Kishan to Rodosto, a distance of sixteen leagues, was
alive with troops, or with the camp-followers, all in motion at the
approach of a battle. The small garrisons were drawn from the various towns
and fortresses, and went to swell the main army. We met baggage waggons,
and many females of high and low rank returning to Fairy or Kishan, there
to wait the issue of the expected day. When we arrived at Rodosto, we found
that the field had been taken, and the scheme of the battle arranged. The
sound of firing, early on the following morning, informed us that advanced
posts of the armies were engaged. Regiment after regiment advanced, their
colours flying and bands playing. They planted the cannon on the tumuli,
sole elevations in this level country, and formed themselves into column
and hollow square; while the pioneers threw up small mounds for their
protection.
These then were the preparations for a battle, nay, the battle itself; far
different from any thing the imagination had pictured. We read of centre
and wing in Greek and Roman history; we fancy a spot, plain as a table, and
soldiers small as chessmen; and drawn forth, so that the most ignorant of
the game can discover science and order in the disposition of the forces.
When I came to the reality, and saw regiments file off to the left far out
of sight, fields intervening between the battalions, but a few troops
sufficiently near me to observe their motions, I gave up all idea of
understanding, even of seeing a battle, but attaching myself to Raymond
attended with intense interest to his actions. He shewed himself collected,
gallant and imperial; his commands were prompt, his intuition of the events
of the day to me miraculous. In the mean time the cannon roared; the music
lifted up its enlivening voice at intervals; and we on the highest of the
mounds I mentioned, too far off to observe the fallen sheaves which death
gathered into his storehouse, beheld the regiments, now lost in smoke, now
banners and staves peering above the cloud, while shout and clamour drowned
every sound.
Early in the day, Argyropylo was wounded dangerously, and Raymond assumed
the command of the whole army. He made few remarks, till, on observing
through his glass the sequel of an order he had given, his face, clouded
for awhile with doubt, became radiant. "The day is ours," he cried, "the
Turks fly from the bayonet." And then swiftly he dispatched his
aides-de-camp to command the horse to fall on the routed enemy. The defeat
became total; the cannon ceased to roar; the infantry rallied, and horse
pursued the flying Turks along the dreary plain; the staff of Raymond was
dispersed in various directions, to make observations, and bear commands.
Even I was dispatched to a distant part of the field.
The ground on which the battle was fought, was a level plain--so level,
that from the tumuli you saw the waving line of mountains on the
wide-stretched horizon; yet the intervening space was unvaried by the least
irregularity, save such undulations as resembled the waves of the sea. The
whole of this part of Thrace had been so long a scene of contest, that it
had remained uncultivated, and presented a dreary, barren appearance. The
order I had received, was to make an observation of the direction which a
detachment of the enemy might have taken, from a northern tumulus; the
whole Turkish army, followed by the Greek, had poured eastward; none but
the dead remained in the direction of my side. From the top of the mound, I
looked far round--all was silent and deserted.
The last beams of the nearly sunken sun shot up from behind the far summit
of Mount Athos; the sea of Marmora still glittered beneath its rays, while
the Asiatic coast beyond was half hid in a haze of low cloud. Many a
casque, and bayonet, and sword, fallen from unnerved arms, reflected the
departing ray; they lay scattered far and near. From the east, a band of
ravens, old inhabitants of the Turkish cemeteries, came sailing along
towards their harvest; the sun disappeared. This hour, melancholy yet
sweet, has always seemed to me the time when we are most naturally led to
commune with higher powers; our mortal sternness departs, and gentle
complacency invests the soul. But now, in the midst of the dying and the
dead, how could a thought of heaven or a sensation of tranquillity possess
one of the murderers? During the busy day, my mind had yielded itself a
willing slave to the state of things presented to it by its fellow-beings;
historical association, hatred of the foe, and military enthusiasm had held
dominion over me. Now, I looked on the evening star, as softly and calmly
it hung pendulous in the orange hues of sunset. I turned to the
corse-strewn earth; and felt ashamed of my species. So perhaps were the
placid skies; for they quickly veiled themselves in mist, and in this
change assisted the swift disappearance of twilight usual in the south;
heavy masses of cloud floated up from the south east, and red and turbid
lightning shot from their dark edges; the rushing wind disturbed the
garments of the dead, and was chilled as it passed over their icy forms.
Darkness gathered round; the objects about me became indistinct, I
descended from my station, and with difficulty guided my horse, so as to
avoid the slain.
Suddenly I heard a piercing shriek; a form seemed to rise from the earth;
it flew swiftly towards me, sinking to the ground again as it drew near.
All this passed so suddenly, that I with difficulty reined in my horse, so
that it should not trample on the prostrate being. The dress of this person
was that of a soldier, but the bared neck and arms, and the continued
shrieks discovered a female thus disguised. I dismounted to her aid, while
she, with heavy groans, and her hand placed on her side, resisted my
attempt to lead her on. In the hurry of the moment I forgot that I was in
Greece, and in my native accents endeavoured to soothe the sufferer. With
wild and terrific exclamations did the lost, dying Evadne (for it was she)
recognize the language of her lover; pain and fever from her wound had
deranged her intellects, while her piteous cries and feeble efforts to
escape, penetrated me with compassion. In wild delirium she called upon the
name of Raymond; she exclaimed that I was keeping him from her, while the
Turks with fearful instruments of torture were about to take his life. Then
again she sadly lamented her hard fate; that a woman, with a woman's heart
and sensibility, should be driven by hopeless love and vacant hopes to take
up the trade of arms, and suffer beyond the endurance of man privation,
labour, and pain--the while her dry, hot hand pressed mine, and her brow
and lips burned with consuming fire.
As her strength grew less, I lifted her from the ground; her emaciated form
hung over my arm, her sunken cheek rested on my breast; in a sepulchral
voice she murmured:--"This is the end of love!--Yet not the end!"--
and frenzy lent her strength as she cast her arm up to heaven: "there is
the end! there we meet again. Many living deaths have I borne for thee, O
Raymond, and now I expire, thy victim!--By my death I purchase thee--
lo! the instruments of war, fire, the plague are my servitors. I dared, I
conquered them all, till now! I have sold myself to death, with the sole
condition that thou shouldst follow me--Fire, and war, and plague, unite
for thy destruction--O my Raymond, there is no safety for thee!"
With an heavy heart I listened to the changes of her delirium; I made her a
bed of cloaks; her violence decreased and a clammy dew stood on her brow as
the paleness of death succeeded to the crimson of fever, I placed her on
the cloaks. She continued to rave of her speedy meeting with her beloved in
the grave, of his death nigh at hand; sometimes she solemnly declared that
he was summoned; sometimes she bewailed his hard destiny. Her voice grew
feebler, her speech interrupted; a few convulsive movements, and her
muscles relaxed, the limbs fell, no more to be sustained, one deep sigh,
and life was gone.
I bore her from the near neighbourhood of the dead; wrapt in cloaks, I
placed her beneath a tree. Once more I looked on her altered face; the last
time I saw her she was eighteen; beautiful as poet's vision, splendid as a
Sultana of the East--Twelve years had past; twelve years of change,
sorrow and hardship; her brilliant complexion had become worn and dark, her
limbs had lost the roundness of youth and womanhood; her eyes had sunk
deep,
Crushed and o'erworn,
The hours had drained her blood, and filled her brow
With lines and wrinkles.
With shuddering horror I veiled this monument of human passion and human
misery; I heaped over her all of flags and heavy accoutrements I could
find, to guard her from birds and beasts of prey, until I could bestow on
her a fitting grave. Sadly and slowly I stemmed my course from among the
heaps of slain, and, guided by the twinkling lights of the town, at length
reached Rodosto.
[1] Lord Byron's Fourth Canto of Childe Harolde.
[2] Shakspeare's Sonnets.
CHAPTER II.
ON my arrival, I found that an order had already gone forth for the army to
proceed immediately towards Constantinople; and the troops which had
suffered least in the battle were already on their way. The town was full
of tumult. The wound, and consequent inability of Argyropylo, caused
Raymond to be the first in command. He rode through the town, visiting the
wounded, and giving such orders as were necessary for the siege he
meditated. Early in the morning the whole army was in motion. In the hurry
I could hardly find an opportunity to bestow the last offices on Evadne.
Attended only by my servant, I dug a deep grave for her at the foot of the
tree, and without disturbing her warrior shroud, I placed her in it,
heaping stones upon the grave. The dazzling sun and glare of daylight,
deprived the scene of solemnity; from Evadne's low tomb, I joined Raymond
and his staff, now on their way to the Golden City.
Constantinople was invested, trenches dug, and advances made. The whole
Greek fleet blockaded it by sea; on land from the river Kyat Kbanah, near
the Sweet Waters, to the Tower of Marmora, on the shores of the Propontis,
along the whole line of the ancient walls, the trenches of the siege were
drawn. We already possessed Pera; the Golden Horn itself, the city,
bastioned by the sea, and the ivy-mantled walls of the Greek emperors was
all of Europe that the Mahometans could call theirs. Our army looked on her
as certain prey. They counted the garrison; it was impossible that it
should be relieved; each sally was a victory; for, even when the Turks were
triumphant, the loss of men they sustained was an irreparable injury. I rode
one morning with Raymond to the lofty mound, not far from the Top Kapou,
(Cannon-gate), on which Mahmoud planted his standard, and first saw the
city. Still the same lofty domes and minarets towered above the verdurous
walls, where Constantine had died, and the Turk had entered the city. The
plain around was interspersed with cemeteries, Turk, Greek, and Armenian,
with their growth of cypress trees; and other woods of more cheerful
aspect, diversified the scene. Among them the Greek army was encamped, and
their squadrons moved to and fro--now in regular march, now in swift
career.
Raymond's eyes were fixed on the city. "I have counted the hours of her
life," said he; "one month, and she falls. Remain with me till then; wait
till you see the cross on St. Sophia; and then return to your peaceful
glades."
"You then," I asked, "still remain in Greece?"
"Assuredly," replied Raymond. "Yet Lionel, when I say this,
believe me I look back with regret to our tranquil life at Windsor.
I am but half a soldier; I love the renown, but not the trade of war.
Before the battle of Rodosto I was full of hope and spirit; to
conquer there, and afterwards to take Constantinople, was the
hope, the bourne, the fulfilment of my ambition. This enthusiasm is now
spent, I know not why; I seem to myself to be entering a darksome gulph;
the ardent spirit of the army is irksome to me, the rapture of triumph
null."
He paused, and was lost in thought. His serious mien recalled, by some
association, the half-forgotten Evadne to my mind, and I seized this
opportunity to make enquiries from him concerning her strange lot. I asked
him, if he had ever seen among the troops any one resembling her; if since
he had returned to Greece he had heard of her?
He started at her name,--he looked uneasily on me. "Even so," he cried,
"I knew you would speak of her. Long, long I had forgotten her. Since our
encampment here, she daily, hourly visits my thoughts. When I am addressed,
her name is the sound I expect: in every communication, I imagine that she
will form a part. At length you have broken the spell; tell me what you
know of her."
I related my meeting with her; the story of her death was told and re-told.
With painful earnestness he questioned me concerning her prophecies with
regard to him. I treated them as the ravings of a maniac. "No, no," he
said, "do not deceive yourself,--me you cannot. She has said nothing but
what I knew before--though this is confirmation. Fire, the sword, and
plague! They may all be found in yonder city; on my head alone may they
fall!"
From this day Raymond's melancholy increased. He secluded himself as much
as the duties of his station permitted. When in company, sadness would in
spite of every effort steal over his features, and he sat absent and mute
among the busy crowd that thronged about him. Perdita rejoined him, and
before her he forced himself to appear cheerful, for she, even as a mirror,
changed as he changed, and if he were silent and anxious, she solicitously
inquired concerning, and endeavoured to remove the cause of his
seriousness. She resided at the palace of Sweet Waters, a summer seraglio
of the Sultan; the beauty of the surrounding scenery, undefiled by war, and
the freshness of the river, made this spot doubly delightful. Raymond felt
no relief, received no pleasure from any show of heaven or earth. He often
left Perdita, to wander in the grounds alone; or in a light shallop he
floated idly on the pure waters, musing deeply. Sometimes I joined him; at
such times his countenance was invariably solemn, his air dejected. He
seemed relieved on seeing me, and would talk with some degree of interest
on the affairs of the day. There was evidently something behind all this;
yet, when he appeared about to speak of that which was nearest his heart,
he would abruptly turn away, and with a sigh endeavour to deliver the
painful idea to the winds.
It had often occurred, that, when, as I said, Raymond quitted Perdita's
drawing-room, Clara came up to me, and gently drawing me aside, said, "Papa
is gone; shall we go to him? I dare say he will be glad to see you." And,
as accident permitted, I complied with or refused her request. One evening
a numerous assembly of Greek chieftains were gathered together in the
palace. The intriguing Palli, the accomplished Karazza, the warlike
Ypsilanti, were among the principal. They talked of the events of the day;
the skirmish at noon; the diminished numbers of the Infidels; their defeat
and flight: they contemplated, after a short interval of time, the capture
of the Golden City. They endeavoured to picture forth what would then
happen, and spoke in lofty terms of the prosperity of Greece, when
Constantinople should become its capital. The conversation then reverted to
Asiatic intelligence, and the ravages the plague made in its chief cities;
conjectures were hazarded as to the progress that disease might have made
in the besieged city.
Raymond had joined in the former part of the discussion. In lively terms he
demonstrated the extremities to which Constantinople was reduced; the
wasted and haggard, though ferocious appearance of the troops; famine and
pestilence was at work for them, he observed, and the infidels would soon
be obliged to take refuge in their only hope--submission. Suddenly in the
midst of his harangue he broke off, as if stung by some painful thought; he
rose uneasily, and I perceived him at length quit the hall, and through the
long corridor seek the open air. He did not return; and soon Clara crept
round to me, making the accustomed invitation. I consented to her request,
and taking her little hand, followed Raymond. We found him just about to
embark in his boat, and he readily agreed to receive us as companions.
After the heats of the day, the cooling land-breeze ruffled the river, and
filled our little sail. The city looked dark to the south, while numerous
lights along the near shores, and the beautiful aspect of the banks
reposing in placid night, the waters keenly reflecting the heavenly lights,
gave to this beauteous river a dower of loveliness that might have
characterized a retreat in Paradise. Our single boatman attended to the
sail; Raymond steered; Clara sat at his feet, clasping his knees with her
arms, and laying her head on them. Raymond began the conversation somewhat
abruptly.
"This, my friend, is probably the last time we shall have an opportunity of
conversing freely; my plans are now in full operation, and my time will
become more and more occupied. Besides, I wish at once to tell you my
wishes and expectations, and then never again to revert to so painful a
subject. First, I must thank you, Lionel, for having remained here at my
request. Vanity first prompted me to ask you: vanity, I call it; yet even
in this I see the hand of fate--your presence will soon be necessary; you
will become the last resource of Perdita, her protector and consoler. You
will take her back to Windsor."--
"Not without you," I said. "You do not mean to separate again?"
"Do not deceive yourself," replied Raymond, "the separation at hand is one
over which I have no control; most near at hand is it; the days are already
counted. May I trust you? For many days I have longed to disclose the
mysterious presentiments that weigh on me, although I fear that you will
ridicule them. Yet do not, my gentle friend; for, all childish and unwise
as they are, they have become a part of me, and I dare not expect to shake
them off.
"Yet how can I expect you to sympathize with me? You are of this world; I
am not. You hold forth your hand; it is even as a part of yourself; and you
do not yet divide the feeling of identity from the mortal form that shapes
forth Lionel. How then can you understand me? Earth is to me a tomb, the
firmament a vault, shrouding mere corruption. Time is no more, for I have
stepped within the threshold of eternity; each man I meet appears a corse,
which will soon be deserted of its animating spark, on the eve of decay and
corruption.
Cada piedra un piramide levanta,
y cada flor costruye un monumento,
cada edificio es un sepulcro altivo,
cada soldado un esqueleto vivo."[1]
His accent was mournful,--he sighed deeply. "A few months ago," he
continued, "I was thought to be dying; but life was strong within me. My
affections were human; hope and love were the day-stars of my life. Now--
they dream that the brows of the conqueror of the infidel faith are about
to be encircled by triumphant laurel; they talk of honourable reward, of
title, power, and wealth--all I ask of Greece is a grave. Let them raise
a mound above my lifeless body, which may stand even when the dome of St.
Sophia has fallen.
"Wherefore do I feel thus? At Rodosto I was full of hope; but when first I
saw Constantinople, that feeling, with every other joyful one, departed.
The last words of Evadne were the seal upon the warrant of my death. Yet I
do not pretend to account for my mood by any particular event. All I can
say is, that it is so. The plague I am told is in Constantinople, perhaps I
have imbibed its effluvia--perhaps disease is the real cause of my
prognostications. It matters little why or wherefore I am affected, no
power can avert the stroke, and the shadow of Fate's uplifted hand already
darkens me.
"To you, Lionel, I entrust your sister and her child. Never mention to her
the fatal name of Evadne. She would doubly sorrow over the strange link
that enchains me to her, making my spirit obey her dying voice, following
her, as it is about to do, to the unknown country."
I listened to him with wonder; but that his sad demeanour and solemn
utterance assured me of the truth and intensity of his feelings, I should
with light derision have attempted to dissipate his fears. Whatever I was
about to reply, was interrupted by the powerful emotions of Clara. Raymond
had spoken, thoughtless of her presence, and she, poor child, heard with
terror and faith the prophecy of his death. Her father was moved by her
violent grief; he took her in his arms and soothed her, but his very
soothings were solemn and fearful. "Weep not, sweet child," said he, "the
coming death of one you have hardly known. I may die, but in death I can
never forget or desert my own Clara. In after sorrow or joy, believe that
you father's spirit is near, to save or sympathize with you. Be proud of
me, and cherish your infant remembrance of me. Thus, sweetest, I shall not
appear to die. One thing you must promise,--not to speak to any one but
your uncle, of the conversation you have just overheard. When I am gone,
you will console your mother, and tell her that death was only bitter
because it divided me from her; that my last thoughts will be spent on her.
But while I live, promise not to betray me; promise, my child."
With faltering accents Clara promised, while she still clung to her father
in a transport of sorrow. Soon we returned to shore, and I endeavoured to
obviate the impression made on the child's mind, by treating Raymond's
fears lightly. We heard no more of them; for, as he had said, the siege,
now drawing to a conclusion, became paramount in interest, engaging all his
time and attention.
The empire of the Mahometans in Europe was at its close. The Greek fleet
blockading every port of Stamboul, prevented the arrival of succour from
Asia; all egress on the side towards land had become impracticable, except
to such desperate sallies, as reduced the numbers of the enemy without
making any impression on our lines. The garrison was now so much
diminished, that it was evident that the city could easily have been
carried by storm; but both humanity and policy dictated a slower mode of
proceeding. We could hardly doubt that, if pursued to the utmost, its
palaces, its temples and store of wealth would be destroyed in the fury of
contending triumph and defeat. Already the defenceless citizens had
suffered through the barbarity of the Janisaries; and, in time of storm,
tumult and massacre, beauty, infancy and decrepitude, would have alike been
sacrificed to the brutal ferocity of the soldiers. Famine and blockade were
certain means of conquest; and on these we founded our hopes of victory.
Each day the soldiers of the garrison assaulted our advanced posts, and
impeded the accomplishment of our works. Fire-boats were launched from the
various ports, while our troops sometimes recoiled from the devoted courage
of men who did not seek to live, but to sell their lives dearly. These
contests were aggravated by the season: they took place during summer, when
the southern Asiatic wind came laden with intolerable heat, when the
streams were dried up in their shallow beds, and the vast basin of the sea
appeared to glow under the unmitigated rays of the solsticial sun. Nor did
night refresh the earth. Dew was denied; herbage and flowers there were
none; the very trees drooped; and summer assumed the blighted appearance of
winter, as it went forth in silence and flame to abridge the means of
sustenance to man. In vain did the eye strive to find the wreck of some
northern cloud in the stainless empyrean, which might bring hope of change
and moisture to the oppressive and windless atmosphere. All was serene,
burning, annihilating. We the besiegers were in the comparison little
affected by these evils. The woods around afforded us shade,--the river
secured to us a constant supply of water; nay, detachments were employed in
furnishing the army with ice, which had been laid up on Haemus, and Athos,
and the mountains of Macedonia, while cooling fruits and wholesome food
renovated the strength of the labourers, and made us bear with less
impatience the weight of the unrefreshing air. But in the city things wore
a different face. The sun's rays were refracted from the pavement and
buildings--the stoppage of the public fountains--the bad quality of the
food, and scarcity even of that, produced a state of suffering, which was
aggravated by the scourge of disease; while the garrison arrogated every
superfluity to themselves, adding by waste and riot to the necessary evils
of the time. Still they would not capitulate.
Suddenly the system of warfare was changed. We experienced no more
assaults; and by night and day we continued our labours unimpeded. Stranger
still, when the troops advanced near the city, the walls were vacant, and
no cannon was pointed against the intruders. When these circumstances were
reported to Raymond, he caused minute observations to be made as to what
was doing within the walls, and when his scouts returned, reporting only
the continued silence and desolation of the city, he commanded the army to
be drawn out before the gates. No one appeared on the walls; the very
portals, though locked and barred, seemed unguarded; above, the many domes
and glittering crescents pierced heaven; while the old walls, survivors of
ages, with ivy-crowned tower and weed-tangled buttress, stood as rocks in
an uninhabited waste. From within the city neither shout nor cry, nor aught
except the casual howling of a dog, broke the noon-day stillness. Even our
soldiers were awed to silence; the music paused; the clang of arms was
hushed. Each man asked his fellow in whispers, the meaning of this sudden
peace; while Raymond from an height endeavoured, by means of glasses, to
discover and observe the stratagem of the enemy. No form could be discerned
on the terraces of the houses; in the higher parts of the town no moving
shadow bespoke the presence of any living being: the very trees waved not,
and mocked the stability of architecture with like immovability.
The tramp of horses, distinctly heard in the silence, was at length
discerned. It was a troop sent by Karazza, the Admiral; they bore
dispatches to the Lord General. The contents of these papers were
important. The night before, the watch, on board one of the smaller vessels
anchored near the seraglio wall, was roused by a slight splashing as of
muffled oars; the alarm was given: twelve small boats, each containing
three Janizaries, were descried endeavouring to make their way through the
fleet to the opposite shore of Scutari. When they found themselves
discovered they discharged their muskets, and some came to the front to
cover the others, whose crews, exerting all their strength, endeavoured to
escape with their light barks from among the dark hulls that environed
them. They were in the end all sunk, and, with the exception of two or
three prisoners, the crews drowned. Little could be got from the survivors;
but their cautious answers caused it to be surmised that several
expeditions had preceded this last, and that several Turks of rank and
importance had been conveyed to Asia. The men disdainfully repelled the
idea of having deserted the defence of their city; and one, the youngest
among them, in answer to the taunt of a sailor, exclaimed, "Take it,
Christian dogs! take the palaces, the gardens, the mosques, the abode of
our fathers--take plague with them; pestilence is the enemy we fly; if
she be your friend, hug her to your bosoms. The curse of Allah is on
Stamboul, share ye her fate."
Such was the account sent by Karazza to Raymond: but a tale full of
monstrous exaggerations, though founded on this, was spread by the
accompanying troop among our soldiers. A murmur arose, the city was the
prey of pestilence; already had a mighty power subjugated the inhabitants;
Death had become lord of Constantinople.
I have heard a picture described, wherein all the inhabitants of earth were
drawn out in fear to stand the encounter of Death. The feeble and decrepid
fled; the warriors retreated, though they threatened even in flight. Wolves
and lions, and various monsters of the desert roared against him; while the
grim Unreality hovered shaking his spectral dart, a solitary but invincible
assailant. Even so was it with the army of Greece. I am convinced, that had
the myriad troops of Asia come from over the Propontis, and stood defenders
of the Golden City, each and every Greek would have marched against the
overwhelming numbers, and have devoted himself with patriotic fury for his
country. But here no hedge of bayonets opposed itself, no death-dealing
artillery, no formidable array of brave soldiers--the unguarded walls
afforded easy entrance--the vacant palaces luxurious dwellings; but above
the dome of St. Sophia the superstitious Greek saw Pestilence, and shrunk
in trepidation from her influence.
Raymond was actuated by far other feelings. He descended the hill with a
face beaming with triumph, and pointing with his sword to the gates,
commanded his troops to--down with those barricades--the only obstacles
now to completest victory. The soldiers answered his cheerful words with
aghast and awe-struck looks; instinctively they drew back, and Raymond rode
in the front of the lines:--"By my sword I swear," he cried, "that no
ambush or stratagem endangers you. The enemy is already vanquished; the
pleasant places, the noble dwellings and spoil of the city are already
yours; force the gate; enter and possess the seats of your ancestors, your
own inheritance!"
An universal shudder and fearful whispering passed through the lines; not a
soldier moved. "Cowards!" exclaimed their general, exasperated, "give me an
hatchet! I alone will enter! I will plant your standard; and when you see
it wave from yon highest minaret, you may gain courage, and rally round
it!"
One of the officers now came forward: "General," he said, "we neither fear
the courage, nor arms, the open attack, nor secret ambush of the Moslems.
We are ready to expose our breasts, exposed ten thousand times before, to
the balls and scymetars of the infidels, and to fall gloriously for Greece.
But we will not die in heaps, like dogs poisoned in summer-time, by the
pestilential air of that city--we dare not go against the Plague!"
A multitude of men are feeble and inert, without a voice, a leader; give
them that, and they regain the strength belonging to their numbers. Shouts
from a thousand voices now rent the air--the cry of applause became
universal. Raymond saw the danger; he was willing to save his troops from
the crime of disobedience; for he knew, that contention once begun between
the commander and his army, each act and word added to the weakness of the
former, and bestowed power on the latter. He gave orders for the retreat to
be sounded, and the regiments repaired in good order to the camp.
I hastened to carry the intelligence of these strange proceedings to
Perdita; and we were soon joined by Raymond. He looked gloomy and
perturbed. My sister was struck by my narrative: "How beyond the
imagination of man," she exclaimed, "are the decrees of heaven, wondrous
and inexplicable!"
"Foolish girl," cried Raymond angrily, "are you like my valiant soldiers,
panic-struck? What is there inexplicable, pray, tell me, in so very natural
an occurrence? Does not the plague rage each year in Stamboul? What wonder,
that this year, when as we are told, its virulence is unexampled in Asia,
that it should have occasioned double havoc in that city? What wonder then,
in time of siege, want, extreme heat, and drought, that it should make
unaccustomed ravages? Less wonder far is it, that the garrison, despairing
of being able to hold out longer, should take advantage of the negligence
of our fleet to escape at once from siege and capture. It is not pestilence
--by the God that lives! it is not either plague or impending danger that
makes us, like birds in harvest-time, terrified by a scarecrow, abstain
from the ready prey--it is base superstition--And thus the aim of the
valiant is made the shuttlecock of fools; the worthy ambition of the
high-souled, the plaything of these tamed hares! But yet Stamboul shall be
ours! By my past labours, by torture and imprisonment suffered for them, by
my victories, by my sword, I swear--by my hopes of fame, by my former
deserts now awaiting their reward, I deeply vow, with these hands to plant
the cross on yonder mosque!"
"Dearest Raymond!" interrupted Perdita, in a supplicating accent.
He had been walking to and fro in the marble hall of the seraglio; his very
lips were pale with rage, while, quivering, they shaped his angry words--
his eyes shot fire--his gestures seemed restrained by their very
vehemence. "Perdita," he continued, impatiently, "I know what you would
say; I know that you love me, that you are good and gentle; but this is no
woman's work--nor can a female heart guess at the hurricane which tears
me!"
He seemed half afraid of his own violence, and suddenly quitted the hall: a
look from Perdita shewed me her distress, and I followed him. He was pacing
the garden: his passions were in a state of inconceivable turbulence. "Am I
for ever," he cried, "to be the sport of fortune! Must man, the
heaven-climber, be for ever the victim of the crawling reptiles of his
species! Were I as you, Lionel, looking forward to many years of life, to a
succession of love-enlightened days, to refined enjoyments and
fresh-springing hopes, I might yield, and breaking my General's staff, seek
repose in the glades of Windsor. But I am about to die!--nay, interrupt
me not--soon I shall die. From the many-peopled earth, from the
sympathies of man, from the loved resorts of my youth, from the kindness of
my friends, from the affection of my only beloved Perdita, I am about to be
removed. Such is the will of fate! Such the decree of the High Ruler from
whom there is no appeal: to whom I submit. But to lose all--to lose with
life and love, glory also! It shall not be!
"I, and in a few brief years, all you,--this panic-struck army, and all
the population of fair Greece, will no longer be. But other generations
will arise, and ever and for ever will continue, to be made happier by our
present acts, to be glorified by our valour. The prayer of my youth was to
be one among those who render the pages of earth's history splendid; who
exalt the race of man, and make this little globe a dwelling of the mighty.
Alas, for Raymond! the prayer of his youth is wasted--the hopes of his
manhood are null!
"From my dungeon in yonder city I cried, soon I will be thy lord! When
Evadne pronounced my death, I thought that the title of Victor of
Constantinople would be written on my tomb, and I subdued all mortal fear.
I stand before its vanquished walls, and dare not call myself a conqueror.
So shall it not be! Did not Alexander leap from the walls of the city of
the Oxydracae, to shew his coward troops the way to victory, encountering
alone the swords of its defenders? Even so will I brave the plague--and
though no man follow, I will plant the Grecian standard on the height of
St. Sophia."
Reason came unavailing to such high-wrought feelings. In vain I shewed him,
that when winter came, the cold would dissipate the pestilential air, and
restore courage to the Greeks. "Talk not of other season than this!" he
cried. "I have lived my last winter, and the date of this year, 2092, will
be carved upon my tomb. Already do I see," he continued, looking up
mournfully, "the bourne and precipitate edge of my existence, over which I
plunge into the gloomy mystery of the life to come. I am prepared, so that
I leave behind a trail of light so radiant, that my worst enemies cannot
cloud it. I owe this to Greece, to you, to my surviving Perdita, and to
myself, the victim of ambition."
We were interrupted by an attendant, who announced, that the staff of
Raymond was assembled in the council-chamber. He requested me in the
meantime to ride through the camp, and to observe and report to him the
dispositions of the soldiers; he then left me. I had been excited to the
utmost by the proceedings of the day, and now more than ever by the
passionate language of Raymond. Alas! for human reason! He accused the
Greeks of superstition: what name did he give to the faith he lent to the
predictions of Evadne? I passed from the palace of Sweet Waters to the
plain on which the encampment lay, and found its inhabitants in commotion.
The arrival of several with fresh stories of marvels, from the fleet; the
exaggerations bestowed on what was already known; tales of old prophecies,
of fearful histories of whole regions which had been laid waste during the
present year by pestilence, alarmed and occupied the troops. Discipline was
lost; the army disbanded itself. Each individual, before a part of a great
whole moving only in unison with others, now became resolved into the unit
nature had made him, and thought of himself only. They stole off at first
by ones and twos, then in larger companies, until, unimpeded by the
officers, whole battalions sought the road that led to Macedonia.
About midnight I returned to the palace and sought Raymond; he was alone,
and apparently composed; such composure, at least, was his as is inspired
by a resolve to adhere to a certain line of conduct. He heard my account of
the self-dissolution of the army with calmness, and then said, "You know,
Verney, my fixed determination not to quit this place, until in the light
of day Stamboul is confessedly ours. If the men I have about me shrink from
following me, others, more courageous, are to be found. Go you before break
of day, bear these dispatches to Karazza, add to them your own entreaties
that he send me his marines and naval force; if I can get but one regiment
to second me, the rest would follow of course. Let him send me this
regiment. I shall expect your return by to-morrow noon."
Methought this was but a poor expedient; but I assured him of my obedience
and zeal. I quitted him to take a few hours rest. With the breaking of
morning I was accoutred for my ride. I lingered awhile, desirous of taking
leave of Perdita, and from my window observed the approach of the sun. The
golden splendour arose, and weary nature awoke to suffer yet another day of
heat and thirsty decay. No flowers lifted up their dew-laden cups to meet
the dawn; the dry grass had withered on the plains; the burning fields of
air were vacant of birds; the cicale alone, children of the sun, began
their shrill and deafening song among the cypresses and olives. I saw
Raymond's coal-black charger brought to the palace gate; a small company of
officers arrived soon after; care and fear was painted on each cheek, and
in each eye, unrefreshed by sleep. I found Raymond and Perdita together. He
was watching the rising sun, while with one arm he encircled his beloved's
waist; she looked on him, the sun of her life, with earnest gaze of mingled
anxiety and tenderness. Raymond started angrily when he saw me. "Here
still?" he cried. "Is this your promised zeal?"
"Pardon me," I said, "but even as you speak, I am gone."
"Nay, pardon me," he replied; "I have no right to command or reproach; but
my life hangs on your departure and speedy return. Farewell!"
His voice had recovered its bland tone, but a dark cloud still hung on his
features. I would have delayed; I wished to recommend watchfulness to
Perdita, but his presence restrained me. I had no pretence for my
hesitation; and on his repeating his farewell, I clasped his outstretched
hand; it was cold and clammy. "Take care of yourself, my dear Lord," I
said.
"Nay," said Perdita, "that task shall be mine. Return speedily,
Lionel." With an air of absence he was playing with her auburn locks, while
she leaned on him; twice I turned back, only to look again on this
matchless pair. At last, with slow and heavy steps, I had paced out of the
hall, and sprung upon my horse. At that moment Clara flew towards me;
clasping my knee she cried, "Make haste back, uncle! Dear uncle, I have
such fearful dreams; I dare not tell my mother. Do not be long away!" I
assured her of my impatience to return, and then, with a small escort rode
along the plain towards the tower of Marmora.
I fulfilled my commission; I saw Karazza. He was somewhat surprised; he
would see, he said, what could be done; but it required time; and Raymond
had ordered me to return by noon. It was impossible to effect any thing in
so short a time. I must stay till the next day; or come back, after having
reported the present state of things to the general. My choice was easily
made. A restlessness, a fear of what was about to betide, a doubt as to
Raymond's purposes, urged me to return without delay to his quarters.
Quitting the Seven Towers, I rode eastward towards the Sweet Waters. I took
a circuitous path, principally for the sake of going to the top of the
mount before mentioned, which commanded a view of the city. I had my glass
with me. The city basked under the noon-day sun, and the venerable walls
formed its picturesque boundary. Immediately before me was the Top Kapou,
the gate near which Mahomet had made the breach by which he entered the
city. Trees gigantic and aged grew near; before the gate I discerned a
crowd of moving human figures--with intense curiosity I lifted my glass
to my eye. I saw Lord Raymond on his charger; a small company of officers
had gathered about him; and behind was a promiscuous concourse of soldiers
and subalterns, their discipline lost, their arms thrown aside; no music
sounded, no banners streamed. The only flag among them was one which
Raymond carried; he pointed with it to the gate of the city. The circle
round him fell back. With angry gestures he leapt from his horse, and
seizing a hatchet that hung from his saddle-bow, went with the apparent
intention of battering down the opposing gate. A few men came to aid him;
their numbers increased; under their united blows the obstacle was
vanquished, gate, portcullis, and fence were demolished; and the wide
sun-lit way, leading to the heart of the city, now lay open before them.
The men shrank back; they seemed afraid of what they had already done, and
stood as if they expected some Mighty Phantom to stalk in offended majesty
from the opening. Raymond sprung lightly on his horse, grasped the
standard, and with words which I could not hear (but his gestures, being
their fit accompaniment, were marked by passionate energy,) he seemed to
adjure their assistance and companionship; even as he spoke, the crowd
receded from him. Indignation now transported him; his words I guessed were
fraught with disdain--then turning from his coward followers, he
addressed himself to enter the city alone. His very horse seemed to back
from the fatal entrance; his dog, his faithful dog, lay moaning and
supplicating in his path--in a moment more, he had plunged the rowels
into the sides of the stung animal, who bounded forward, and he, the
gateway passed, was galloping up the broad and desart street.
Until this moment my soul had been in my eyes only. I had gazed with
wonder, mixed with fear and enthusiasm. The latter feeling now
predominated. I forgot the distance between us: "I will go with thee,
Raymond!" I cried; but, my eye removed from the glass, I could scarce
discern the pigmy forms of the crowd, which about a mile from me surrounded
the gate; the form of Raymond was lost. Stung with impatience, I urged my
horse with force of spur and loosened reins down the acclivity, that,
before danger could arrive, I might be at the side of my noble, godlike
friend. A number of buildings and trees intervened, when I had reached the
plain, hiding the city from my view. But at that moment a crash was heard.
Thunderlike it reverberated through the sky, while the air was darkened. A
moment more and the old walls again met my sight, while over them hovered a
murky cloud; fragments of buildings whirled above, half seen in smoke,
while flames burst out beneath, and continued explosions filled the air
with terrific thunders. Flying from the mass of falling ruin which leapt
over the high walls, and shook the ivy towers, a crowd of soldiers made for
the road by which I came; I was surrounded, hemmed in by them, unable to
get forward. My impatience rose to its utmost; I stretched out my hands to
the men; I conjured them to turn back and save their General, the conqueror
of Stamboul, the liberator of Greece; tears, aye tears, in warm flow gushed
from my eyes--I would not believe in his destruction; yet every mass that
darkened the air seemed to bear with it a portion of the martyred Raymond.
Horrible sights were shaped to me in the turbid cloud that hovered over the
city; and my only relief was derived from the struggles I made to approach
the gate. Yet when I effected my purpose, all I could discern within the
precincts of the massive walls was a city of fire: the open way through
which Raymond had ridden was enveloped in smoke and flame. After an
interval the explosions ceased, but the flames still shot up from various
quarters; the dome of St. Sophia had disappeared. Strange to say (the
result perhaps of the concussion of air occasioned by the blowing up of the
city) huge, white thunder clouds lifted themselves up from the southern
horizon, and gathered over-head; they were the first blots on the blue
expanse that I had seen for months, and amidst this havoc and despair they
inspired pleasure. The vault above became obscured, lightning flashed from
the heavy masses, followed instantaneously by crashing thunder; then the
big rain fell. The flames of the city bent beneath it; and the smoke and
dust arising from the ruins was dissipated.
I no sooner perceived an abatement of the flames than, hurried on by an
irresistible impulse, I endeavoured to penetrate the town. I could only do
this on foot, as the mass of ruin was impracticable for a horse. I had
never entered the city before, and its ways were unknown to me. The streets
were blocked up, the ruins smoking; I climbed up one heap, only to view
others in succession; and nothing told me where the centre of the town
might be, or towards what point Raymond might have directed his course. The
rain ceased; the clouds sunk behind the horizon; it was now evening, and
the sun descended swiftly the western sky. I scrambled on, until I came to
a street, whose wooden houses, half-burnt, had been cooled by the rain, and
were fortunately uninjured by the gunpowder. Up this I hurried--until now
I had not seen a vestige of man. Yet none of the defaced human forms which
I distinguished, could be Raymond; so I turned my eyes away, while my heart
sickened within me. I came to an open space--a mountain of ruin in the
midst, announced that some large mosque had occupied the space--and here,
scattered about, I saw various articles of luxury and wealth, singed,
destroyed--but shewing what they had been in their ruin--jewels,
strings of pearls, embroidered robes, rich furs, glittering tapestries, and
oriental ornaments, seemed to have been collected here in a pile destined
for destruction; but the rain had stopped the havoc midway.
Hours passed, while in this scene of ruin I sought for Raymond.
Insurmountable heaps sometimes opposed themselves; the still burning fires
scorched me. The sun set; the atmosphere grew dim--and the evening star
no longer shone companionless. The glare of flames attested the progress of
destruction, while, during mingled light and obscurity, the piles around me
took gigantic proportions and weird shapes. For a moment I could yield to
the creative power of the imagination, and for a moment was soothed by the
sublime fictions it presented to me. The beatings of my human heart drew me
back to blank reality. Where, in this wilderness of death, art thou, O
Raymond--ornament of England, deliverer of Greece, "hero of unwritten
story," where in this burning chaos are thy dear relics strewed? I called
aloud for him--through the darkness of night, over the scorching ruins of
fallen Constantinople, his name was heard; no voice replied--echo even
was mute.
I was overcome by weariness; the solitude depressed my spirits. The sultry
air impregnated with dust, the heat and smoke of burning palaces, palsied
my limbs. Hunger suddenly came acutely upon me. The excitement which had
hitherto sustained me was lost; as a building, whose props are loosened,
and whose foundations rock, totters and falls, so when enthusiasm and hope
deserted me, did my strength fail. I sat on the sole remaining step of an
edifice, which even in its downfall, was huge and magnificent; a few broken
walls, not dislodged by gunpowder, stood in fantastic groupes, and a flame
glimmered at intervals on the summit of the pile. For a time hunger and
sleep contended, till the constellations reeled before my eyes and then
were lost. I strove to rise, but my heavy lids closed, my limbs
over-wearied, claimed repose--I rested my head on the stone, I yielded to
the grateful sensation of utter forgetfulness; and in that scene of
desolation, on that night of despair--I slept.
[1] Calderon de la Barca.
CHAPTER III.
THE stars still shone brightly when I awoke, and Taurus high in the
southern heaven shewed that it was midnight. I awoke from disturbed dreams.
Methought I had been invited to Timon's last feast; I came with keen
appetite, the covers were removed, the hot water sent up its unsatisfying
steams, while I fled before the anger of the host, who assumed the form of
Raymond; while to my diseased fancy, the vessels hurled by him after me,
were surcharged with fetid vapour, and my friend's shape, altered by a
thousand distortions, expanded into a gigantic phantom, bearing on its brow
the sign of pestilence. The growing shadow rose and rose, filling, and then
seeming to endeavour to burst beyond, the adamantine vault that bent over,
sustaining and enclosing the world. The night-mare became torture; with a
strong effort I threw off sleep, and recalled reason to her wonted
functions. My first thought was Perdita; to her I must return; her I must
support, drawing such food from despair as might best sustain her wounded
heart; recalling her from the wild excesses of grief, by the austere laws
of duty, and the soft tenderness of regret.
The position of the stars was my only guide. I turned from the awful ruin
of the Golden City, and, after great exertion, succeeded in extricating
myself from its enclosure. I met a company of soldiers outside the walls; I
borrowed a horse from one of them, and hastened to my sister. The
appearance of the plain was changed during this short interval; the
encampment was broken up; the relics of the disbanded army met in small
companies here and there; each face was clouded; every gesture spoke
astonishment and dismay.
With an heavy heart I entered the palace, and stood fearful to advance, to
speak, to look. In the midst of the hall was Perdita; she sat on the marble
pavement, her head fallen on her bosom, her hair dishevelled, her fingers
twined busily one within the other; she was pale as marble, and every
feature was contracted by agony. She perceived me, and looked up
enquiringly; her half glance of hope was misery; the words died before I
could articulate them; I felt a ghastly smile wrinkle my lips. She
understood my gesture; again her head fell; again her fingers worked
restlessly. At last I recovered speech, but my voice terrified her; the
hapless girl had understood my look, and for worlds she would not that the
tale of her heavy misery should have been shaped out and confirmed by hard,
irrevocable words. Nay, she seemed to wish to distract my thoughts from the
subject: she rose from the floor: "Hush!" she said, whisperingly; "after
much weeping, Clara sleeps; we must not disturb her." She seated herself
then on the same ottoman where I had left her in the morning resting on the
beating heart of her Raymond; I dared not approach her, but sat at a
distant corner, watching her starting and nervous gestures. At length, in
an abrupt manner she asked, "Where is he?"
"O, fear not," she continued, "fear not that I should entertain hope! Yet
tell me, have you found him? To have him once more in my arms, to see him,
however changed, is all I desire. Though Constantinople be heaped above him
as a tomb, yet I must find him--then cover us with the city's weight,
with a mountain piled above--I care not, so that one grave hold Raymond
and his Perdita." Then weeping, she clung to me: "Take me to him," she
cried, "unkind Lionel, why do you keep me here? Of myself I cannot find him
--but you know where he lies--lead me thither."
At first these agonizing plaints filled me with intolerable compassion. But
soon I endeavoured to extract patience for her from the ideas she
suggested. I related my adventures of the night, my endeavours to find our
lost one, and my disappointment. Turning her thoughts this way, I gave them
an object which rescued them from insanity. With apparent calmness she
discussed with me the probable spot where he might be found, and planned
the means we should use for that purpose. Then hearing of my fatigue and
abstinence, she herself brought me food. I seized the favourable moment,
and endeavoured to awaken in her something beyond the killing torpor of
grief. As I spoke, my subject carried me away; deep admiration; grief, the
offspring of truest affection, the overflowing of a heart bursting with
sympathy for all that had been great and sublime in the career of my
friend, inspired me as I poured forth the praises of Raymond.
"Alas, for us," I cried, "who have lost this latest honour of the world!
Beloved Raymond! He is gone to the nations of the dead; he has become one
of those, who render the dark abode of the obscure grave illustrious by
dwelling there. He has journied on the road that leads to it, and joined
the mighty of soul who went before him. When the world was in its infancy
death must have been terrible, and man left his friends and kindred to
dwell, a solitary stranger, in an unknown country. But now, he who dies
finds many companions gone before to prepare for his reception. The great
of past ages people it, the exalted hero of our own days is counted among
its inhabitants, while life becomes doubly 'the desart and the solitude.'
"What a noble creature was Raymond, the first among the men of our time. By
the grandeur of his conceptions, the graceful daring of his actions, by his
wit and beauty, he won and ruled the minds of all. Of one only fault he
might have been accused; but his death has cancelled that. I have heard him
called inconstant of purpose--when he deserted, for the sake of love, the
hope of sovereignty, and when he abdicated the protectorship of England,
men blamed his infirmity of purpose. Now his death has crowned his life,
and to the end of time it will be remembered, that he devoted himself, a
willing victim, to the glory of Greece. Such was his choice: he expected to
die. He foresaw that he should leave this cheerful earth, the lightsome
sky, and thy love, Perdita; yet he neither hesitated or turned back, going
right onward to his mark of fame. While the earth lasts, his actions will
be recorded with praise. Grecian maidens will in devotion strew flowers on
his tomb, and make the air around it resonant with patriotic hymns, in
which his name will find high record."
I saw the features of Perdita soften; the sternness of grief yielded to
tenderness--I continued:--"Thus to honour him, is the sacred duty of
his survivors. To make his name even as an holy spot of ground, enclosing
it from all hostile attacks by our praise, shedding on it the blossoms of
love and regret, guarding it from decay, and bequeathing it untainted to
posterity. Such is the duty of his friends. A dearer one belongs to you,
Perdita, mother of his child. Do you remember in her infancy, with what
transport you beheld Clara, recognizing in her the united being of yourself
and Raymond; joying to view in this living temple a manifestation of your
eternal loves. Even such is she still. You say that you have lost Raymond.
O, no!--yet he lives with you and in you there. From him she sprung,
flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone--and not, as heretofore, are you
content to trace in her downy cheek and delicate limbs, an affinity to
Raymond, but in her enthusiastic affections, in the sweet qualities of her
mind, you may still find him living, the good, the great, the beloved. Be
it your care to foster this similarity--be it your care to render her
worthy of him, so that, when she glory in her origin, she take not shame
for what she is."
I could perceive that, when I recalled my sister's thoughts to her duties
in life, she did not listen with the same patience as before. She appeared
to suspect a plan of consolation on my part, from which she, cherishing her
new-born grief, revolted. "You talk of the future," she said, "while the
present is all to me. Let me find the earthly dwelling of my beloved; let
us rescue that from common dust, so that in times to come men may point to
the sacred tomb, and name it his--then to other thoughts, and a new
course of life, or what else fate, in her cruel tyranny, may have marked
out for me."
After a short repose I prepared to leave her, that I might endeavour to
accomplish her wish. In the mean time we were joined by Clara, whose pallid
cheek and scared look shewed the deep impression grief had made on her
young mind. She seemed to be full of something to which she could not give
words; but, seizing an opportunity afforded by Perdita's absence, she
preferred to me an earnest prayer, that I would take her within view of the
gate at which her father had entered Constantinople. She promised to commit
no extravagance, to be docile, and immediately to return. I could not
refuse; for Clara was not an ordinary child; her sensibility and
intelligence seemed already to have endowed her with the rights of
womanhood. With her therefore, before me on my horse, attended only by the
servant who was to re-conduct her, we rode to the Top Kapou. We found a
party of soldiers gathered round it. They were listening. "They are human
cries," said one: "More like the howling of a dog," replied another; and
again they bent to catch the sound of regular distant moans, which issued
from the precincts of the ruined city. "That, Clara," I said, "is the gate,
that the street which yestermorn your father rode up." Whatever Clara's
intention had been in asking to be brought hither, it was balked by the
presence of the soldiers. With earnest gaze she looked on the labyrinth of
smoking piles which had been a city, and then expressed her readiness to
return home. At this moment a melancholy howl struck on our ears; it was
repeated; "Hark!" cried Clara, "he is there; that is Florio, my father's
dog." It seemed to me impossible that she could recognise the sound, but
she persisted in her assertion till she gained credit with the crowd about.
At least it would be a benevolent action to rescue the sufferer, whether
human or brute, from the desolation of the town; so, sending Clara back to
her home, I again entered Constantinople. Encouraged by the impunity
attendant on my former visit, several soldiers who had made a part of
Raymond's body guard, who had loved him, and sincerely mourned his loss,
accompanied me.
It is impossible to conjecture the strange enchainment of events which
restored the lifeless form of my friend to our hands. In that part of the
town where the fire had most raged the night before, and which now lay
quenched, black and cold, the dying dog of Raymond crouched beside the
mutilated form of its lord. At such a time sorrow has no voice; affliction,
tamed by it is very vehemence, is mute. The poor animal recognised me,
licked my hand, crept close to its lord, and died. He had been evidently
thrown from his horse by some falling ruin, which had crushed his head, and
defaced his whole person. I bent over the body, and took in my hand the
edge of his cloak, less altered in appearance than the human frame it
clothed. I pressed it to my lips, while the rough soldiers gathered around,
mourning over this worthiest prey of death, as if regret and endless
lamentation could re-illumine the extinguished spark, or call to its
shattered prison-house of flesh the liberated spirit. Yesterday those limbs
were worth an universe; they then enshrined a transcendant power, whose
intents, words, and actions were worthy to be recorded in letters of gold;
now the superstition of affection alone could give value to the shattered
mechanism, which, incapable and clod-like, no more resembled Raymond, than
the fallen rain is like the former mansion of cloud in which it climbed the
highest skies, and gilded by the sun, attracted all eyes, and satiated the
sense by its excess of beauty.
Such as he had now become, such as was his terrene vesture, defaced and
spoiled, we wrapt it in our cloaks, and lifting the burthen in our arms,
bore it from this city of the dead. The question arose as to where we
should deposit him. In our road to the palace, we passed through the Greek
cemetery; here on a tablet of black marble I caused him to be laid; the
cypresses waved high above, their death-like gloom accorded with his state
of nothingness. We cut branches of the funereal trees and placed them over
him, and on these again his sword. I left a guard to protect this treasure
of dust; and ordered perpetual torches to be burned around.
When I returned to Perdita, I found that she had already been informed of
the success of my undertaking. He, her beloved, the sole and eternal object
of her passionate tenderness, was restored her. Such was the maniac
language of her enthusiasm. What though those limbs moved not, and those
lips could no more frame modulated accents of wisdom and love! What though
like a weed flung from the fruitless sea, he lay the prey of corruption--
still that was the form she had caressed, those the lips that meeting hers,
had drank the spirit of love from the commingling breath; that was the
earthly mechanism of dissoluble clay she had called her own. True, she
looked forward to another life; true, the burning spirit of love seemed to
her unextinguishable throughout eternity. Yet at this time, with human
fondness, she clung to all that her human senses permitted her to see and
feel to be a part of Raymond.
Pale as marble, clear and beaming as that, she heard my tale, and enquired
concerning the spot where he had been deposited. Her features had lost the
distortion of grief; her eyes were brightened, her very person seemed
dilated; while the excessive whiteness and even transparency of her skin,
and something hollow in her voice, bore witness that not tranquillity, but
excess of excitement, occasioned the treacherous calm that settled on her
countenance. I asked her where he should be buried. She replied, "At
Athens; even at the Athens which he loved. Without the town, on the
acclivity of Hymettus, there is a rocky recess which he pointed out to me
as the spot where he would wish to repose."
My own desire certainly was that he should not be removed from the spot
where he now lay. But her wish was of course to be complied with; and I
entreated her to prepare without delay for our departure.
Behold now the melancholy train cross the flats of Thrace, and wind through
the defiles, and over the mountains of Macedonia, coast the clear waves of
the Peneus, cross the Larissean plain, pass the straits of Thermopylae, and
ascending in succession Oeta and Parnassus, descend to the fertile plain of
Athens. Women bear with resignation these long drawn ills, but to a man's
impatient spirit, the slow motion of our cavalcade, the melancholy repose
we took at noon, the perpetual presence of the pall, gorgeous though it
was, that wrapt the rifled casket which had contained Raymond, the
monotonous recurrence of day and night, unvaried by hope or change, all the
circumstances of our march were intolerable. Perdita, shut up in herself,
spoke little. Her carriage was closed; and, when we rested, she sat leaning
her pale cheek on her white cold hand, with eyes fixed on the ground,
indulging thoughts which refused communication or sympathy.
We descended from Parnassus, emerging from its many folds, and passed
through Livadia on our road to Attica. Perdita would not enter Athens; but
reposing at Marathon on the night of our arrival, conducted me on the
following day, to the spot selected by her as the treasure house of
Raymond's dear remains. It was in a recess near the head of the ravine to
the south of Hymettus. The chasm, deep, black, and hoary, swept from the
summit to the base; in the fissures of the rock myrtle underwood grew and
wild thyme, the food of many nations of bees; enormous crags protruded into
the cleft, some beetling over, others rising perpendicularly from it. At
the foot of this sublime chasm, a fertile laughing valley reached from sea
to sea, and beyond was spread the blue Aegean, sprinkled with islands, the
light waves glancing beneath the sun. Close to the spot on which we stood,
was a solitary rock, high and conical, which, divided on every side from
the mountain, seemed a nature-hewn pyramid; with little labour this block
was reduced to a perfect shape; the narrow cell was scooped out beneath in
which Raymond was placed, and a short inscription, carved in the living
stone, recorded the name of its tenant, the cause and aera of his death.
Every thing was accomplished with speed under my directions. I agreed to
leave the finishing and guardianship of the tomb to the head of the
religious establishment at Athens, and by the end of October prepared for
my return to England. I mentioned this to Perdita. It was painful to appear
to drag her from the last scene that spoke of her lost one; but to linger
here was vain, and my very soul was sick with its yearning to rejoin my
Idris and her babes. In reply, my sister requested me to accompany her the
following evening to the tomb of Raymond. Some days had passed since I had
visited the spot. The path to it had been enlarged, and steps hewn in the
rock led us less circuitously than before, to the spot itself; the platform
on which the pyramid stood was enlarged, and looking towards the south, in
a recess overshadowed by the straggling branches of a wild fig-tree, I saw
foundations dug, and props and rafters fixed, evidently the commencement of
a cottage; standing on its unfinished threshold, the tomb was at our
right-hand, the whole ravine, and plain, and azure sea immediately before
us; the dark rocks received a glow from the descending sun, which glanced
along the cultivated valley, and dyed in purple and orange the placid
waves; we sat on a rocky elevation, and I gazed with rapture on the
beauteous panorama of living and changeful colours, which varied and
enhanced the graces of earth and ocean.
"Did I not do right," said Perdita, "in having my loved one conveyed
hither? Hereafter this will be the cynosure of Greece. In such a spot death
loses half its terrors, and even the inanimate dust appears to partake of
the spirit of beauty which hallows this region. Lionel, he sleeps there;
that is the grave of Raymond, he whom in my youth I first loved; whom my
heart accompanied in days of separation and anger; to whom I am now joined
for ever. Never--mark me--never will I leave this spot. Methinks his
spirit remains here as well as that dust, which, uncommunicable though it
be, is more precious in its nothingness than aught else widowed earth
clasps to her sorrowing bosom. The myrtle bushes, the thyme, the little
cyclamen, which peep from the fissures of the rock, all the produce of the
place, bear affinity to him; the light that invests the hills participates
in his essence, and sky and mountains, sea and valley, are imbued by the
presence of his spirit. I will live and die here!
"Go you to England, Lionel; return to sweet Idris and dearest Adrian;
return, and let my orphan girl be as a child of your own in your house.
Look on me as dead; and truly if death be a mere change of state, I am
dead. This is another world, from that which late I inhabited, from that
which is now your home. Here I hold communion only with the has been, and
to come. Go you to England, and leave me where alone I can consent to drag
out the miserable days which I must still live."
A shower of tears terminated her sad harangue. I had expected some
extravagant proposition, and remained silent awhile, collecting my thoughts
that I might the better combat her fanciful scheme. "You cherish dreary
thoughts, my dear Perdita," I said, "nor do I wonder that for a time your
better reason should be influenced by passionate grief and a disturbed
imagination. Even I am in love with this last home of Raymond's;
nevertheless we must quit it."
"I expected this," cried Perdita; "I supposed that you would treat me as a
mad, foolish girl. But do not deceive yourself; this cottage is built by my
order; and here I shall remain, until the hour arrives when I may share his
happier dwelling."
"My dearest girl!"
"And what is there so strange in my design? I might have deceived you; I
might have talked of remaining here only a few months; in your anxiety to
reach Windsor you would have left me, and without reproach or contention, I
might have pursued my plan. But I disdained the artifice; or rather in my
wretchedness it was my only consolation to pour out my heart to you, my
brother, my only friend. You will not dispute with me? You know how wilful
your poor, misery-stricken sister is. Take my girl with you; wean her from
sights and thoughts of sorrow; let infantine hilarity revisit her heart,
and animate her eyes; so could it never be, were she near me; it is far
better for all of you that you should never see me again. For myself, I
will not voluntarily seek death, that is, I will not, while I can command
myself; and I can here. But drag me from this country; and my power of self
control vanishes, nor can I answer for the violence my agony of grief may
lead me to commit."
"You clothe your meaning, Perdita," I replied, "in powerful words, yet that
meaning is selfish and unworthy of you. You have often agreed with me that
there is but one solution to the intricate riddle of life; to improve
ourselves, and contribute to the happiness of others: and now, in the very
prime of life, you desert your principles, and shut yourself up in useless
solitude. Will you think of Raymond less at Windsor, the scene of your
early happiness? Will you commune less with his departed spirit, while you
watch over and cultivate the rare excellence of his child? You have been
sadly visited; nor do I wonder that a feeling akin to insanity should drive
you to bitter and unreasonable imaginings. But a home of love awaits you in
your native England. My tenderness and affection must soothe you; the
society of Raymond's friends will be of more solace than these dreary
speculations. We will all make it our first care, our dearest task, to
contribute to your happiness."
Perdita shook her head; "If it could be so," she replied, "I were much in
the wrong to disdain your offers. But it is not a matter of choice; I can
live here only. I am a part of this scene; each and all its properties are
a part of me. This is no sudden fancy; I live by it. The knowledge that I
am here, rises with me in the morning, and enables me to endure the light;
it is mingled with my food, which else were poison; it walks, it sleeps
with me, for ever it accompanies me. Here I may even cease to repine, and
may add my tardy consent to the decree which has taken him from me. He
would rather have died such a death, which will be recorded in history to
endless time, than have lived to old age unknown, unhonoured. Nor can I
desire better, than, having been the chosen and beloved of his heart, here,
in youth's prime, before added years can tarnish the best feelings of my
nature, to watch his tomb, and speedily rejoin him in his blessed repose.
"So much, my dearest Lionel, I have said, wishing to persuade you that I do
right. If you are unconvinced, I can add nothing further by way of
argument, and I can only declare my fixed resolve. I stay here; force only
can remove me. Be it so; drag me away--I return; confine me, imprison me,
still I escape, and come here. Or would my brother rather devote the
heart-broken Perdita to the straw and chains of a maniac, than suffer her
to rest in peace beneath the shadow of His society, in this my own selected
and beloved recess?"--
All this appeared to me, I own, methodized madness. I imagined, that it was
my imperative duty to take her from scenes that thus forcibly reminded her
of her loss. Nor did I doubt, that in the tranquillity of our family circle
at Windsor, she would recover some degree of composure, and in the end, of
happiness. My affection for Clara also led me to oppose these fond dreams
of cherished grief; her sensibility had already been too much excited; her
infant heedlessness too soon exchanged for deep and anxious thought. The
strange and romantic scheme of her mother, might confirm and perpetuate the
painful view of life, which had intruded itself thus early on her
contemplation.
On returning home, the captain of the steam packet with whom I had agreed
to sail, came to tell me, that accidental circumstances hastened his
departure, and that, if I went with him, I must come on board at five on
the following morning. I hastily gave my consent to this arrangement, and
as hastily formed a plan through which Perdita should be forced to become
my companion. I believe that most people in my situation would have acted
in the same manner. Yet this consideration does not, or rather did not in
after time, diminish the reproaches of my conscience. At the moment, I felt
convinced that I was acting for the best, and that all I did was right and
even necessary.
I sat with Perdita and soothed her, by my seeming assent to her wild
scheme. She received my concurrence with pleasure, and a thousand times
over thanked her deceiving, deceitful brother. As night came on, her
spirits, enlivened by my unexpected concession, regained an almost
forgotten vivacity. I pretended to be alarmed by the feverish glow in her
cheek; I entreated her to take a composing draught; I poured out the
medicine, which she took docilely from me. I watched her as she drank it.
Falsehood and artifice are in themselves so hateful, that, though I still
thought I did right, a feeling of shame and guilt came painfully upon me. I
left her, and soon heard that she slept soundly under the influence of the
opiate I had administered. She was carried thus unconscious on board; the
anchor weighed, and the wind being favourable, we stood far out to sea;
with all the canvas spread, and the power of the engine to assist, we
scudded swiftly and steadily through the chafed element.
It was late in the day before Perdita awoke, and a longer time elapsed
before recovering from the torpor occasioned by the laudanum, she perceived
her change of situation. She started wildly from her couch, and flew to the
cabin window. The blue and troubled sea sped past the vessel, and was
spread shoreless around: the sky was covered by a rack, which in its swift
motion shewed how speedily she was borne away. The creaking of the masts,
the clang of the wheels, the tramp above, all persuaded her that she was
already far from the shores of Greece.--"Where are we?" she cried, "where
are we going?"--
The attendant whom I had stationed to watch her, replied, "to England."--
"And my brother?"--
"Is on deck, Madam."
"Unkind! unkind!" exclaimed the poor victim, as with a deep sigh she looked
on the waste of waters. Then without further remark, she threw herself on
her couch, and closing her eyes remained motionless; so that but for the
deep sighs that burst from her, it would have seemed that she slept.
As soon as I heard that she had spoken, I sent Clara to her, that the sight
of the lovely innocent might inspire gentle and affectionate thoughts. But
neither the presence of her child, nor a subsequent visit from me, could
rouse my sister. She looked on Clara with a countenance of woful meaning,
but she did not speak. When I appeared, she turned away, and in reply to my
enquiries, only said, "You know not what you have done!"--I trusted that
this sullenness betokened merely the struggle between disappointment and
natural affection, and that in a few days she would be reconciled to her
fate.
When night came on, she begged that Clara might sleep in a separate cabin.
Her servant, however, remained with her. About midnight she spoke to the
latter, saying that she had had a bad dream, and bade her go to her
daughter, and bring word whether she rested quietly. The woman obeyed.
The breeze, that had flagged since sunset, now rose again. I was on deck,
enjoying our swift progress. The quiet was disturbed only by the rush of
waters as they divided before the steady keel, the murmur of the moveless
and full sails, the wind whistling in the shrouds, and the regular motion
of the engine. The sea was gently agitated, now shewing a white crest, and
now resuming an uniform hue; the clouds had disappeared; and dark ether
clipt the broad ocean, in which the constellations vainly sought their
accustomed mirror. Our rate could not have been less than eight knots.
Suddenly I heard a splash in the sea. The sailors on watch rushed to the
side of the vessel, with the cry--some one gone overboard. "It is not
from deck," said the man at the helm, "something has been thrown from the
aft cabin." A call for the boat to be lowered was echoed from the deck. I
rushed into my sister's cabin; it was empty.
With sails abaft, the engine stopt, the vessel remained unwillingly
stationary, until, after an hour's search, my poor Perdita was brought on
board. But no care could re-animate her, no medicine cause her dear eyes to
open, and the blood to flow again from her pulseless heart. One clenched
hand contained a slip of paper, on which was written, "To Athens." To
ensure her removal thither, and prevent the irrecoverable loss of her body
in the wide sea, she had had the precaution to fasten a long shawl round
her waist, and again to the staunchions of the cabin window. She had
drifted somewhat under the keel of the vessel, and her being out of sight
occasioned the delay in finding her. And thus the ill-starred girl died a
victim to my senseless rashness. Thus, in early day, she left us for the
company of the dead, and preferred to share the rocky grave of Raymond,
before the animated scene this cheerful earth afforded, and the society of
loving friends. Thus in her twenty-ninth year she died; having enjoyed some
few years of the happiness of paradise, and sustaining a reverse to which
her impatient spirit and affectionate disposition were unable to submit. As
I marked the placid expression that had settled on her countenance in
death, I felt, in spite of the pangs of remorse, in spite of heart-rending
regret, that it was better to die so, than to drag on long, miserable years
of repining and inconsolable grief. Stress of weather drove us up the
Adriatic Gulph; and, our vessel being hardly fitted to weather a storm, we
took refuge in the port of Ancona. Here I met Georgio Palli, the
vice-admiral of the Greek fleet, a former friend and warm partizan of
Raymond. I committed the remains of my lost Perdita to his care, for the
purpose of having them transported to Hymettus, and placed in the cell her
Raymond already occupied beneath the pyramid. This was all accomplished
even as I wished. She reposed beside her beloved, and the tomb above was
inscribed with the united names of Raymond and Perdita.
I then came to a resolution of pursuing our journey to England overland. My
own heart was racked by regrets and remorse. The apprehension, that Raymond
had departed for ever, that his name, blended eternally with the past, must
be erased from every anticipation of the future, had come slowly upon me. I
had always admired his talents; his noble aspirations; his grand
conceptions of the glory and majesty of his ambition: his utter want of
mean passions; his fortitude and daring. In Greece I had learnt to love
him; his very waywardness, and self-abandonment to the impulses of
superstition, attached me to him doubly; it might be weakness, but it was
the antipodes of all that was grovelling and selfish. To these pangs were
added the loss of Perdita, lost through my own accursed self-will and
conceit. This dear one, my sole relation; whose progress I had marked from
tender childhood through the varied path of life, and seen her throughout
conspicuous for integrity, devotion, and true affection; for all that
constitutes the peculiar graces of the female character, and beheld her at
last the victim of too much loving, too constant an attachment to the
perishable and lost, she, in her pride of beauty and life, had thrown aside
the pleasant perception of the apparent world for the unreality of the
grave, and had left poor Clara quite an orphan. I concealed from this
beloved child that her mother's death was voluntary, and tried every means
to awaken cheerfulness in her sorrow-stricken spirit.
One of my first acts for the recovery even of my own composure, was to bid
farewell to the sea. Its hateful splash renewed again and again to my sense
the death of my sister; its roar was a dirge; in every dark hull that was
tossed on its inconstant bosom, I imaged a bier, that would convey to death
all who trusted to its treacherous smiles. Farewell to the sea! Come, my
Clara, sit beside me in this aerial bark; quickly and gently it cleaves the
azure serene, and with soft undulation glides upon the current of the air;
or, if storm shake its fragile mechanism, the green earth is below; we can
descend, and take shelter on the stable continent. Here aloft, the
companions of the swift-winged birds, we skim through the unresisting
element, fleetly and fearlessly. The light boat heaves not, nor is opposed
by death-bearing waves; the ether opens before the prow, and the shadow of
the globe that upholds it, shelters us from the noon-day sun. Beneath are
the plains of Italy, or the vast undulations of the wave-like Apennines:
fertility reposes in their many folds, and woods crown the summits. The
free and happy peasant, unshackled by the Austrian, bears the double
harvest to the garner; and the refined citizens rear without dread the long
blighted tree of knowledge in this garden of the world. We were lifted
above the Alpine peaks, and from their deep and brawling ravines entered
the plain of fair France, and after an airy journey of six days, we landed
at Dieppe, furled the feathered wings, and closed the silken globe of our
little pinnace. A heavy rain made this mode of travelling now incommodious;
so we embarked in a steam-packet, and after a short passage landed at
Portsmouth.
A strange story was rife here. A few days before, a tempest-struck vessel
had appeared off the town: the hull was parched-looking and cracked, the
sails rent, and bent in a careless, unseamanlike manner, the shrouds
tangled and broken. She drifted towards the harbour, and was stranded on
the sands at the entrance. In the morning the custom-house officers,
together with a crowd of idlers, visited her. One only of the crew appeared
to have arrived with her. He had got to shore, and had walked a few paces
towards the town, and then, vanquished by malady and approaching death, had
fallen on the inhospitable beach. He was found stiff, his hands clenched,
and pressed against his breast. His skin, nearly black, his matted hair and
bristly beard, were signs of a long protracted misery. It was whispered
that he had died of the plague. No one ventured on board the vessel, and
strange sights were averred to be seen at night, walking the deck, and
hanging on the masts and shrouds. She soon went to pieces; I was shewn
where she had been, and saw her disjoined timbers tossed on the waves. The
body of the man who had landed, had been buried deep in the sands; and none
could tell more, than that the vessel was American built, and that several
months before the Fortunatas had sailed from Philadelphia, of which no
tidings were afterwards received.
CHAPTER IV.
I RETURNED to my family estate in the autumn of the year 2092. My heart had
long been with them; and I felt sick with the hope and delight of seeing
them again. The district which contained them appeared the abode of every
kindly spirit. Happiness, love and peace, walked the forest paths, and
tempered the atmosphere. After all the agitation and sorrow I had endured
in Greece, I sought Windsor, as the storm-driven bird does the nest in
which it may fold its wings in tranquillity.
How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its shelter, entangled
themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world call
"life,"--that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To live,
according to this sense of the word, we must not only observe and learn, we
must also feel; we must not be mere spectators of action, we must act; we
must not describe, but be subjects of description. Deep sorrow must have
been the inmate of our bosoms; fraud must have lain in wait for us; the
artful must have deceived us; sickening doubt and false hope must have
chequered our days; hilarity and joy, that lap the soul in ecstasy, must at
times have possessed us. Who that knows what "life" is, would pine for this
feverish species of existence? I have lived. I have spent days and nights
of festivity; I have joined in ambitious hopes, and exulted in victory:
now,--shut the door on the world, and build high the wall that is to
separate me from the troubled scene enacted within its precincts. Let us
live for each other and for happiness; let us seek peace in our dear home,
near the inland murmur of streams, and the gracious waving of trees, the
beauteous vesture of earth, and sublime pageantry of the skies. Let us
leave "life," that we may live.
Idris was well content with this resolve of mine. Her native sprightliness
needed no undue excitement, and her placid heart reposed contented on my
love, the well-being of her children, and the beauty of surrounding nature.
Her pride and blameless ambition was to create smiles in all around her,
and to shed repose on the fragile existence of her brother. In spite of her
tender nursing, the health of Adrian perceptibly declined. Walking, riding,
the common occupations of life, overcame him: he felt no pain, but seemed
to tremble for ever on the verge of annihilation. Yet, as he had lived on
for months nearly in the same state, he did not inspire us with any
immediate fear; and, though he talked of death as an event most familiar to
his thoughts, he did not cease to exert himself to render others happy, or
to cultivate his own astonishing powers of mind. Winter passed away; and
spring, led by the months, awakened life in all nature. The forest was
dressed in green; the young calves frisked on the new-sprung grass; the
wind-winged shadows of light clouds sped over the green cornfields; the
hermit cuckoo repeated his monotonous all-hail to the season; the
nightingale, bird of love and minion of the evening star, filled the woods
with song; while Venus lingered in the warm sunset, and the young green of
the trees lay in gentle relief along the clear horizon.
Delight awoke in every heart, delight and exultation; for there was peace
through all the world; the temple of Universal Janus was shut, and man died
not that year by the hand of man.
"Let this last but twelve months," said Adrian; "and earth will become a
Paradise. The energies of man were before directed to the destruction of
his species: they now aim at its liberation and preservation. Man cannot
repose, and his restless aspirations will now bring forth good instead of
evil. The favoured countries of the south will throw off the iron yoke of
servitude; poverty will quit us, and with that, sickness. What may not the
forces, never before united, of liberty and peace achieve in this dwelling
of man?"
"Dreaming, for ever dreaming, Windsor!" said Ryland, the old adversary of
Raymond, and candidate for the Protectorate at the ensuing election. "Be
assured that earth is not, nor ever can be heaven, while the seeds of hell
are natives of her soil. When the seasons have become equal, when the air
breeds no disorders, when its surface is no longer liable to blights and
droughts, then sickness will cease; when men's passions are dead, poverty
will depart. When love is no longer akin to hate, then brotherhood will
exist: we are very far from that state at present."
"Not so far as you may suppose," observed a little old astronomer, by name
Merrival, "the poles precede slowly, but securely; in an hundred thousand
years--"
"We shall all be underground," said Ryland.
"The pole of the earth will coincide with the pole of the ecliptic,"
continued the astronomer, "an universal spring will be produced, and earth
become a paradise."
"And we shall of course enjoy the benefit of the change," said Ryland,
contemptuously.
"We have strange news here," I observed. I had the newspaper in my hand,
and, as usual, had turned to the intelligence from Greece. "It seems that
the total destruction of Constantinople, and the supposition that winter
had purified the air of the fallen city, gave the Greeks courage to visit
its site, and begin to rebuild it. But they tell us that the curse of God
is on the place, for every one who has ventured within the walls has been
tainted by the plague; that this disease has spread in Thrace and
Macedonia; and now, fearing the virulence of infection during the coming
heats, a cordon has been drawn on the frontiers of Thessaly, and a strict
quarantine exacted." This intelligence brought us back from the prospect of
paradise, held out after the lapse of an hundred thousand years, to the
pain and misery at present existent upon earth. We talked of the ravages
made last year by pestilence in every quarter of the world; and of the
dreadful consequences of a second visitation. We discussed the best means
of preventing infection, and of preserving health and activity in a large
city thus afflicted--London, for instance. Merrival did not join in this
conversation; drawing near Idris, he proceeded to assure her that the
joyful prospect of an earthly paradise after an hundred thousand years, was
clouded to him by the knowledge that in a certain period of time after, an
earthly hell or purgatory, would occur, when the ecliptic and equator would
be at right angles.[1] Our party at length broke up; "We are all dreaming
this morning," said Ryland, "it is as wise to discuss the probability of a
visitation of the plague in our well-governed metropolis, as to calculate
the centuries which must escape before we can grow pine-apples here in the
open air."
But, though it seemed absurd to calculate upon the arrival of the plague in
London, I could not reflect without extreme pain on the desolation this
evil would cause in Greece. The English for the most part talked of Thrace
and Macedonia, as they would of a lunar territory, which, unknown to them,
presented no distinct idea or interest to the minds. I had trod the soil.
The faces of many of the inhabitants were familiar to me; in the towns,
plains, hills, and defiles of these countries, I had enjoyed unspeakable
delight, as I journied through them the year before. Some romantic village,
some cottage, or elegant abode there situated, inhabited by the lovely and
the good, rose before my mental sight, and the question haunted me, is the
plague there also?--That same invincible monster, which hovered over and
devoured Constantinople--that fiend more cruel than tempest, less tame
than fire, is, alas, unchained in that beautiful country--these
reflections would not allow me to rest.
The political state of England became agitated as the time drew near when
the new Protector was to be elected. This event excited the more interest,
since it was the current report, that if the popular candidate (Ryland)
should be chosen, the question of the abolition of hereditary rank, and
other feudal relics, would come under the consideration of parliament. Not
a word had been spoken during the present session on any of these topics.
Every thing would depend upon the choice of a Protector, and the elections
of the ensuing year. Yet this very silence was awful, shewing the deep
weight attributed to the question; the fear of either party to hazard an
ill-timed attack, and the expectation of a furious contention when it
should begin.
But although St. Stephen's did not echo with the voice which filled each
heart, the newspapers teemed with nothing else; and in private companies
the conversation however remotely begun, soon verged towards this central
point, while voices were lowered and chairs drawn closer. The nobles did
not hesitate to express their fear; the other party endeavoured to treat
the matter lightly. "Shame on the country," said Ryland, "to lay so much
stress upon words and frippery; it is a question of nothing; of the new
painting of carriage-pannels and the embroidery of footmen's coats."
Yet could England indeed doff her lordly trappings, and be content with the
democratic style of America? Were the pride of ancestry, the patrician
spirit, the gentle courtesies and refined pursuits, splendid attributes of
rank, to be erased among us? We were told that this would not be the case;
that we were by nature a poetical people, a nation easily duped by words,
ready to array clouds in splendour, and bestow honour on the dust. This
spirit we could never lose; and it was to diffuse this concentrated spirit
of birth, that the new law was to be brought forward. We were assured that,
when the name and title of Englishman was the sole patent of nobility, we
should all be noble; that when no man born under English sway, felt another
his superior in rank, courtesy and refinement would become the birth-right
of all our countrymen. Let not England be so far disgraced, as to have it
imagined that it can be without nobles, nature's true nobility, who bear
their patent in their mien, who are from their cradle elevated above the
rest of their species, because they are better than the rest. Among a race
of independent, and generous, and well educated men, in a country where the
imagination is empress of men's minds, there needs be no fear that we
should want a perpetual succession of the high-born and lordly. That party,
however, could hardly yet be considered a minority in the kingdom, who
extolled the ornament of the column, "the Corinthian capital of polished
society;" they appealed to prejudices without number, to old attachments
and young hopes; to the expectation of thousands who might one day become
peers; they set up as a scarecrow, the spectre of all that was sordid,
mechanic and base in the commercial republics.
The plague had come to Athens. Hundreds of English residents returned to
their own country. Raymond's beloved Athenians, the free, the noble people
of the divinest town in Greece, fell like ripe corn before the merciless
sickle of the adversary. Its pleasant places were deserted; its temples and
palaces were converted into tombs; its energies, bent before towards the
highest objects of human ambition, were now forced to converge to one
point, the guarding against the innumerous arrows of the plague.
At any other time this disaster would have excited extreme compassion among
us; but it was now passed over, while each mind was engaged by the coming
controversy. It was not so with me; and the question of rank and right
dwindled to insignificance in my eyes, when I pictured the scene of
suffering Athens. I heard of the death of only sons; of wives and husbands
most devoted; of the rending of ties twisted with the heart's fibres, of
friend losing friend, and young mothers mourning for their first born; and
these moving incidents were grouped and painted in my mind by the knowledge
of the persons, by my esteem and affection for the sufferers. It was the
admirers, friends, fellow soldiers of Raymond, families that had welcomed
Perdita to Greece, and lamented with her the loss of her lord, that were
swept away, and went to dwell with them in the undistinguishing tomb.
The plague at Athens had been preceded and caused by the contagion from the
East; and the scene of havoc and death continued to be acted there, on a
scale of fearful magnitude. A hope that the visitation of the present year
would prove the last, kept up the spirits of the merchants connected with
these countries; but the inhabitants were driven to despair, or to a
resignation which, arising from fanaticism, assumed the same dark hue.
America had also received the taint; and, were it yellow fever or plague,
the epidemic was gifted with a virulence before unfelt. The devastation was
not confined to the towns, but spread throughout the country; the hunter
died in the woods, the peasant in the corn-fields, and the fisher on his
native waters.
A strange story was brought to us from the East, to which little credit
would have been given, had not the fact been attested by a multitude of
witnesses, in various parts of the world. On the twenty-first of June, it
was said that an hour before noon, a black sun arose: an orb, the size of
that luminary, but dark, defined, whose beams were shadows, ascended from
the west; in about an hour it had reached the meridian, and eclipsed the
bright parent of day. Night fell upon every country, night, sudden,
rayless, entire. The stars came out, shedding their ineffectual glimmerings
on the light-widowed earth. But soon the dim orb passed from over the sun,
and lingered down the eastern heaven. As it descended, its dusky rays
crossed the brilliant ones of the sun, and deadened or distorted them. The
shadows of things assumed strange and ghastly shapes. The wild animals in
the woods took fright at the unknown shapes figured on the ground. They
fled they knew not whither; and the citizens were filled with greater
dread, at the convulsion which "shook lions into civil streets;"--birds,
strong-winged eagles, suddenly blinded, fell in the market-places, while
owls and bats shewed themselves welcoming the early night. Gradually the
object of fear sank beneath the horizon, and to the last shot up shadowy
beams into the otherwise radiant air. Such was the tale sent us from Asia,
from the eastern extremity of Europe, and from Africa as far west as the
Golden Coast. Whether this story were true or not, the effects were certain.
Through Asia, from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the Caspian, from
the Hellespont even to the sea of Oman, a sudden panic was driven. The men
filled the mosques; the women, veiled, hastened to the tombs, and carried
offerings to the dead, thus to preserve the living. The plague was
forgotten, in this new fear which the black sun had spread; and, though the
dead multiplied, and the streets of Ispahan, of Pekin, and of Delhi were
strewed with pestilence-struck corpses, men passed on, gazing on the
ominous sky, regardless of the death beneath their feet. The christians
sought their churches,--christian maidens, even at the feast of roses,
clad in white, with shining veils, sought, in long procession, the places
consecrated to their religion, filling the air with their hymns; while,
ever and anon, from the lips of some poor mourner in the crowd, a voice of
wailing burst, and the rest looked up, fancying they could discern the
sweeping wings of angels, who passed over the earth, lamenting the
disasters about to fall on man.
In the sunny clime of Persia, in the crowded cities of China, amidst the
aromatic groves of Cashmere, and along the southern shores of the
Mediterranean, such scenes had place. Even in Greece the tale of the sun of
darkness encreased the fears and despair of the dying multitude. We, in our
cloudy isle, were far removed from danger, and the only circumstance that
brought these disasters at all home to us, was the daily arrival of vessels
from the east, crowded with emigrants, mostly English; for the Moslems,
though the fear of death was spread keenly among them, still clung
together; that, if they were to die (and if they were, death would as
readily meet them on the homeless sea, or in far England, as in Persia,)--
if they were to die, their bones might rest in earth made sacred by the
relics of true believers. Mecca had never before been so crowded with
pilgrims; yet the Arabs neglected to pillage the caravans, but, humble and
weaponless, they joined the procession, praying Mahomet to avert plague
from their tents and deserts.
I cannot describe the rapturous delight with which I turned from political
brawls at home, and the physical evils of distant countries, to my own dear
home, to the selected abode of goodness and love; to peace, and the
interchange of every sacred sympathy. Had I never quitted Windsor, these
emotions would not have been so intense; but I had in Greece been the prey
of fear and deplorable change; in Greece, after a period of anxiety and
sorrow, I had seen depart two, whose very names were the symbol of
greatness and virtue. But such miseries could never intrude upon the
domestic circle left to me, while, secluded in our beloved forest, we
passed our lives in tranquillity. Some small change indeed the progress of
years brought here; and time, as it is wont, stamped the traces of
mortality on our pleasures and expectations. Idris, the most affectionate
wife, sister and friend, was a tender and loving mother. The feeling was
not with her as with many, a pastime; it was a passion. We had had three
children; one, the second in age, died while I was in Greece. This had
dashed the triumphant and rapturous emotions of maternity with grief and
fear. Before this event, the little beings, sprung from herself, the young
heirs of her transient life, seemed to have a sure lease of existence; now
she dreaded that the pitiless destroyer might snatch her remaining
darlings, as it had snatched their brother. The least illness caused throes
of terror; she was miserable if she were at all absent from them; her
treasure of happiness she had garnered in their fragile being, and kept
forever on the watch, lest the insidious thief should as before steal these
valued gems. She had fortunately small cause for fear. Alfred, now nine
years old, was an upright, manly little fellow, with radiant brow, soft
eyes, and gentle, though independent disposition. Our youngest was yet in
infancy; but his downy cheek was sprinkled with the roses of health, and
his unwearied vivacity filled our halls with innocent laughter.
Clara had passed the age which, from its mute ignorance, was the source of
the fears of Idris. Clara was dear to her, to all. There was so much
intelligence combined with innocence, sensibility with forbearance, and
seriousness with perfect good-humour, a beauty so transcendant, united to
such endearing simplicity, that she hung like a pearl in the shrine of our
possessions, a treasure of wonder and excellence.
At the beginning of winter our Alfred, now nine years of age, first went to
school at Eton. This appeared to him the primary step towards manhood, and
he was proportionably pleased. Community of study and amusement developed
the best parts of his character, his steady perseverance, generosity, and
well-governed firmness. What deep and sacred emotions are excited in a
father's bosom, when he first becomes convinced that his love for his child
is not a mere instinct, but worthily bestowed, and that others, less akin,
participate his approbation! It was supreme happiness to Idris and myself,
to find that the frankness which Alfred's open brow indicated, the
intelligence of his eyes, the tempered sensibility of his tones, were not
delusions, but indications of talents and virtues, which would "grow with
his growth, and strengthen with his strength." At this period, the
termination of an animal's love for its offspring,--the true affection of
the human parent commences. We no longer look on this dearest part of
ourselves, as a tender plant which we must cherish, or a plaything for an
idle hour. We build now on his intellectual faculties, we establish our
hopes on his moral propensities. His weakness still imparts anxiety to this
feeling, his ignorance prevents entire intimacy; but we begin to respect
the future man, and to endeavour to secure his esteem, even as if he were
our equal. What can a parent have more at heart than the good opinion of
his child? In all our transactions with him our honour must be inviolate,
the integrity of our relations untainted: fate and circumstance may, when
he arrives at maturity, separate us for ever--but, as his aegis in
danger, his consolation in hardship, let the ardent youth for ever bear
with him through the rough path of life, love and honour for his parents.
We had lived so long in the vicinity of Eton, that its population of young
folks was well known to us. Many of them had been Alfred's playmates,
before they became his school-fellows. We now watched this youthful
congregation with redoubled interest. We marked the difference of character
among the boys, and endeavoured to read the future man in the stripling.
There is nothing more lovely, to which the heart more yearns than a
free-spirited boy, gentle, brave, and generous. Several of the Etonians had
these characteristics; all were distinguished by a sense of honour, and
spirit of enterprize; in some, as they verged towards manhood, this
degenerated into presumption; but the younger ones, lads a little older
than our own, were conspicuous for their gallant and sweet dispositions.
Here were the future governors of England; the men, who, when our ardour
was cold, and our projects completed or destroyed for ever, when, our drama
acted, we doffed the garb of the hour, and assumed the uniform of age, or
of more equalizing death; here were the beings who were to carry on the
vast machine of society; here were the lovers, husbands, fathers; here the
landlord, the politician, the soldier; some fancied that they were even now
ready to appear on the stage, eager to make one among the dramatis personae
of active life. It was not long since I was like one of these beardless
aspirants; when my boy shall have obtained the place I now hold, I shall
have tottered into a grey-headed, wrinkled old man. Strange system! riddle
of the Sphynx, most awe-striking! that thus man remains, while we the
individuals pass away. Such is, to borrow the words of an eloquent and
philosophic writer, "the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body
composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous
wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human
race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but,
in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied
tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression."[2]
Willingly do I give place to thee, dear Alfred! advance, offspring of
tender love, child of our hopes; advance a soldier on the road to which I
have been the pioneer! I will make way for thee. I have already put off the
carelessness of childhood, the unlined brow, and springy gait of early
years, that they may adorn thee. Advance; and I will despoil myself still
further for thy advantage. Time shall rob me of the graces of maturity,
shall take the fire from my eyes, and agility from my limbs, shall steal
the better part of life, eager expectation and passionate love, and shower
them in double portion on thy dear head. Advance! avail thyself of the
gift, thou and thy comrades; and in the drama you are about to act, do not
disgrace those who taught you to enter on the stage, and to pronounce
becomingly the parts assigned to you! May your progress be uninterrupted
and secure; born during the spring-tide of the hopes of man, may you lead
up the summer to which no winter may succeed!
[1] See an ingenious Essay, entitled, "The Mythological Astronomy of the
Ancients Demonstrated," by Mackey, a shoemaker, of Norwich printed in 1822.
[2] Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution.
CHAPTER V.
SOME disorder had surely crept into the course of the elements, destroying
their benignant influence. The wind, prince of air, raged through his
kingdom, lashing the sea into fury, and subduing the rebel earth into some
sort of obedience.
The God sends down his angry plagues from high,
Famine and pestilence in heaps they die.
Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls;
Arrests their navies on the ocean's plain,
And whelms their strength with mountains of the main.
Their deadly power shook the flourishing countries of the south, and
during winter, even, we, in our northern retreat, began to quake under
their ill effects.
That fable is unjust, which gives the superiority to the sun over the wind.
Who has not seen the lightsome earth, the balmy atmosphere, and basking
nature become dark, cold and ungenial, when the sleeping wind has awoke in
the east? Or, when the dun clouds thickly veil the sky, while exhaustless
stores of rain are poured down, until, the dank earth refusing to imbibe
the superabundant moisture, it lies in pools on the surface; when the torch
of day seems like a meteor, to be quenched; who has not seen the
cloud-stirring north arise, the streaked blue appear, and soon an opening
made in the vapours in the eye of the wind, through which the bright azure
shines? The clouds become thin; an arch is formed for ever rising upwards,
till, the universal cope being unveiled, the sun pours forth its rays,
re-animated and fed by the breeze.
Then mighty art thou, O wind, to be throned above all other vicegerents of
nature's power; whether thou comest destroying from the east, or pregnant
with elementary life from the west; thee the clouds obey; the sun is
subservient to thee; the shoreless ocean is thy slave! Thou sweepest over
the earth, and oaks, the growth of centuries, submit to thy viewless axe;
the snow-drift is scattered on the pinnacles of the Alps, the avalanche
thunders down their vallies. Thou holdest the keys of the frost, and canst
first chain and then set free the streams; under thy gentle governance the
buds and leaves are born, they flourish nursed by thee.
Why dost thou howl thus, O wind? By day and by night for four long months
thy roarings have not ceased--the shores of the sea are strewn with
wrecks, its keel-welcoming surface has become impassable, the earth has
shed her beauty in obedience to thy command; the frail balloon dares no
longer sail on the agitated air; thy ministers, the clouds, deluge the land
with rain; rivers forsake their banks; the wild torrent tears up the
mountain path; plain and wood, and verdant dell are despoiled of their
loveliness; our very cities are wasted by thee. Alas, what will become of
us? It seems as if the giant waves of ocean, and vast arms of the sea, were
about to wrench the deep-rooted island from its centre; and cast it, a ruin
and a wreck, upon the fields of the Atlantic.
What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that
people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of
our being is subject to merest accident. Day by day we are forced to
believe this. He whom a scratch has disorganized, he who disappears from
apparent life under the influence of the hostile agency at work around us,
had the same powers as I--I also am subject to the same laws. In the face
of all this we call ourselves lords of the creation, wielders of the
elements, masters of life and death, and we allege in excuse of this
arrogance, that though the individual is destroyed, man continues for
ever.
Thus, losing our identity, that of which we are chiefly conscious, we glory
in the continuity of our species, and learn to regard death without terror.
But when any whole nation becomes the victim of the destructive powers of
exterior agents, then indeed man shrinks into insignificance, he feels his
tenure of life insecure, his inheritance on earth cut off.
I remember, after having witnessed the destructive effects of a fire, I
could not even behold a small one in a stove, without a sensation of fear.
The mounting flames had curled round the building, as it fell, and was
destroyed. They insinuated themselves into the substances about them, and
the impediments to their progress yielded at their touch. Could we take
integral parts of this power, and not be subject to its operation? Could we
domesticate a cub of this wild beast, and not fear its growth and
maturity?
Thus we began to feel, with regard to many-visaged death let loose on the
chosen districts of our fair habitation, and above all, with regard to the
plague. We feared the coming summer. Nations, bordering on the already
infected countries, began to enter upon serious plans for the better
keeping out of the enemy. We, a commercial people, were obliged to bring
such schemes under consideration; and the question of contagion became
matter of earnest disquisition.
That the plague was not what is commonly called contagious, like the
scarlet fever, or extinct small-pox, was proved. It was called an epidemic.
But the grand question was still unsettled of how this epidemic was
generated and increased. If infection depended upon the air, the air was
subject to infection. As for instance, a typhus fever has been brought by
ships to one sea-port town; yet the very people who brought it there, were
incapable of communicating it in a town more fortunately situated. But how
are we to judge of airs, and pronounce--in such a city plague will die
unproductive; in such another, nature has provided for it a plentiful
harvest? In the same way, individuals may escape ninety-nine times, and
receive the death-blow at the hundredth; because bodies are sometimes in a
state to reject the infection of malady, and at others, thirsty to imbibe
it. These reflections made our legislators pause, before they could decide
on the laws to be put in force. The evil was so wide-spreading, so violent
and immedicable, that no care, no prevention could be judged superfluous,
which even added a chance to our escape.
These were questions of prudence; there was no immediate necessity for an
earnest caution. England was still secure. France, Germany, Italy and
Spain, were interposed, walls yet without a breach, between us and the
plague. Our vessels truly were the sport of winds and waves, even as
Gulliver was the toy of the Brobdignagians; but we on our stable abode
could not be hurt in life or limb by these eruptions of nature. We could
not fear--we did not. Yet a feeling of awe, a breathless sentiment of
wonder, a painful sense of the degradation of humanity, was introduced into
every heart. Nature, our mother, and our friend, had turned on us a brow of
menace. She shewed us plainly, that, though she permitted us to assign her
laws and subdue her apparent powers, yet, if she put forth but a finger, we
must quake. She could take our globe, fringed with mountains, girded by the
atmosphere, containing the condition of our being, and all that man's mind
could invent or his force achieve; she could take the ball in her hand, and
cast it into space, where life would be drunk up, and man and all his
efforts for ever annihilated.
These speculations were rife among us; yet not the less we proceeded in our
daily occupations, and our plans, whose accomplishment demanded the lapse
of many years. No voice was heard telling us to hold! When foreign
distresses came to be felt by us through the channels of commerce, we set
ourselves to apply remedies. Subscriptions were made for the emigrants, and
merchants bankrupt by the failure of trade. The English spirit awoke to its
full activity, and, as it had ever done, set itself to resist the evil, and
to stand in the breach which diseased nature had suffered chaos and death
to make in the bounds and banks which had hitherto kept them out.
At the commencement of summer, we began to feel, that the mischief which
had taken place in distant countries was greater than we had at first
suspected. Quito was destroyed by an earthquake. Mexico laid waste by the
united effects of storm, pestilence and famine. Crowds of emigrants
inundated the west of Europe; and our island had become the refuge of
thousands. In the mean time Ryland had been chosen Protector. He had sought
this office with eagerness, under the idea of turning his whole forces to
the suppression of the privileged orders of our community. His measures
were thwarted, and his schemes interrupted by this new state of things.
Many of the foreigners were utterly destitute; and their increasing numbers
at length forbade a recourse to the usual modes of relief. Trade was
stopped by the failure of the interchange of cargoes usual between us, and
America, India, Egypt and Greece. A sudden break was made in the routine of
our lives. In vain our Protector and his partizans sought to conceal this
truth; in vain, day after day, he appointed a period for the discussion of
the new laws concerning hereditary rank and privilege; in vain he
endeavoured to represent the evil as partial and temporary. These disasters
came home to so many bosoms, and, through the various channels of commerce,
were carried so entirely into every class and division of the community,
that of necessity they became the first question in the state, the chief
subjects to which we must turn our attention.
Can it be true, each asked the other with wonder and dismay, that whole
countries are laid waste, whole nations annihilated, by these disorders in
nature? The vast cities of America, the fertile plains of Hindostan, the
crowded abodes of the Chinese, are menaced with utter ruin. Where late the
busy multitudes assembled for pleasure or profit, now only the sound of
wailing and misery is heard. The air is empoisoned, and each human being
inhales death, even while in youth and health, their hopes are in the
flower. We called to mind the plague of 1348, when it was calculated that a
third of mankind had been destroyed. As yet western Europe was uninfected;
would it always be so?
O, yes, it would--Countrymen, fear not! In the still uncultivated wilds
of America, what wonder that among its other giant destroyers, Plague
should be numbered! It is of old a native of the East, sister of the
tornado, the earthquake, and the simoon. Child of the sun, and nursling of
the tropics, it would expire in these climes. It drinks the dark blood of
the inhabitant of the south, but it never feasts on the pale-faced Celt. If
perchance some stricken Asiatic come among us, plague dies with him,
uncommunicated and innoxious. Let us weep for our brethren, though we can
never experience their reverse. Let us lament over and assist the children
of the garden of the earth. Late we envied their abodes, their spicy
groves, fertile plains, and abundant loveliness. But in this mortal life
extremes are always matched; the thorn grows with the rose, the poison tree
and the cinnamon mingle their boughs. Persia, with its cloth of gold,
marble halls, and infinite wealth, is now a tomb. The tent of the Arab is
fallen in the sands, and his horse spurns the ground unbridled and
unsaddled. The voice of lamentation fills the valley of Cashmere; its dells
and woods, its cool fountains, and gardens of roses, are polluted by the
dead; in Circassia and Georgia the spirit of beauty weeps over the ruin of
its favourite temple--the form of woman.
Our own distresses, though they were occasioned by the fictitious
reciprocity of commerce, encreased in due proportion. Bankers, merchants,
and manufacturers, whose trade depended on exports and interchange of
wealth, became bankrupt. Such things, when they happen singly, affect only
the immediate parties; but the prosperity of the nation was now shaken by
frequent and extensive losses. Families, bred in opulence and luxury, were
reduced to beggary. The very state of peace in which we gloried was
injurious; there were no means of employing the idle, or of sending any
overplus of population out of the country. Even the source of colonies was
dried up, for in New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, and the Cape of Good Hope,
plague raged. O, for some medicinal vial to purge unwholesome nature, and
bring back the earth to its accustomed health!
Ryland was a man of strong intellects and quick and sound decision in the
usual course of things, but he stood aghast at the multitude of evils that
gathered round us. Must he tax the landed interest to assist our commercial
population? To do this, he must gain the favour of the chief land-holders,
the nobility of the country; and these were his vowed enemies--he must
conciliate them by abandoning his favourite scheme of equalization; he must
confirm them in their manorial rights; he must sell his cherished plans for
the permanent good of his country, for temporary relief. He must aim no
more at the dear object of his ambition; throwing his arms aside, he must
for present ends give up the ultimate object of his endeavours. He came to
Windsor to consult with us. Every day added to his difficulties; the
arrival of fresh vessels with emigrants, the total cessation of commerce,
the starving multitude that thronged around the palace of the Protectorate,
were circumstances not to be tampered with. The blow was struck; the
aristocracy obtained all they wished, and they subscribed to a
twelvemonths' bill, which levied twenty per cent on all the rent-rolls of
the country. Calm was now restored to the metropolis, and to the populous
cities, before driven to desperation; and we returned to the consideration
of distant calamities, wondering if the future would bring any alleviation
to their excess. It was August; so there could be small hope of relief
during the heats. On the contrary, the disease gained virulence, while
starvation did its accustomed work. Thousands died unlamented; for beside
the yet warm corpse the mourner was stretched, made mute by death.
On the eighteenth of this month news arrived in London that the plague was
in France and Italy. These tidings were at first whispered about town; but
no one dared express aloud the soul-quailing intelligence. When any one met
a friend in the street, he only cried as he hurried on, "You know!"--
while the other, with an ejaculation of fear and horror, would answer,--
"What will become of us?" At length it was mentioned in the newspapers. The
paragraph was inserted in an obscure part: "We regret to state that there
can be no longer a doubt of the plague having been introduced at Leghorn,
Genoa, and Marseilles." No word of comment followed; each reader made his
own fearful one. We were as a man who hears that his house is burning, and
yet hurries through the streets, borne along by a lurking hope of a
mistake, till he turns the corner, and sees his sheltering roof enveloped
in a flame. Before it had been a rumour; but now in words uneraseable, in
definite and undeniable print, the knowledge went forth. Its obscurity of
situation rendered it the more conspicuous: the diminutive letters grew
gigantic to the bewildered eye of fear: they seemed graven with a pen of
iron, impressed by fire, woven in the clouds, stamped on the very front of
the universe.
The English, whether travellers or residents, came pouring in one great
revulsive stream, back on their own country; and with them crowds of
Italians and Spaniards. Our little island was filled even to bursting. At
first an unusual quantity of specie made its appearance with the emigrants;
but these people had no means of receiving back into their hands what they
spent among us. With the advance of summer, and the increase of the
distemper, rents were unpaid, and their remittances failed them. It was
impossible to see these crowds of wretched, perishing creatures, late
nurslings of luxury, and not stretch out a hand to save them. As at the
conclusion of the eighteenth century, the English unlocked their hospitable
store, for the relief of those driven from their homes by political
revolution; so now they were not backward in affording aid to the victims
of a more wide-spreading calamity. We had many foreign friends whom we
eagerly sought out, and relieved from dreadful penury. Our Castle became an
asylum for the unhappy. A little population occupied its halls. The revenue
of its possessor, which had always found a mode of expenditure congenial to
his generous nature, was now attended to more parsimoniously, that it might
embrace a wider portion of utility. It was not however money, except
partially, but the necessaries of life, that became scarce. It was
difficult to find an immediate remedy. The usual one of imports was
entirely cut off. In this emergency, to feed the very people to whom we had
given refuge, we were obliged to yield to the plough and the mattock our
pleasure-grounds and parks. Live stock diminished sensibly in the country,
from the effects of the great demand in the market. Even the poor deer, our
antlered proteges, were obliged to fall for the sake of worthier
pensioners. The labour necessary to bring the lands to this sort of
culture, employed and fed the offcasts of the diminished manufactories.
Adrian did not rest only with the exertions he could make with regard to
his own possessions. He addressed himself to the wealthy of the land; he
made proposals in parliament little adapted to please the rich; but his
earnest pleadings and benevolent eloquence were irresistible. To give up
their pleasure-grounds to the agriculturist, to diminish sensibly the
number of horses kept for the purposes of luxury throughout the country,
were means obvious, but unpleasing. Yet, to the honour of the English be it
recorded, that, although natural disinclination made them delay awhile, yet
when the misery of their fellow-creatures became glaring, an enthusiastic
generosity inspired their decrees. The most luxurious were often the first
to part with their indulgencies. As is common in communities, a fashion was
set. The high-born ladies of the country would have deemed themselves
disgraced if they had now enjoyed, what they before called a necessary, the
ease of a carriage. Chairs, as in olden time, and Indian palanquins were
introduced for the infirm; but else it was nothing singular to see females
of rank going on foot to places of fashionable resort. It was more common,
for all who possessed landed property to secede to their estates, attended
by whole troops of the indigent, to cut down their woods to erect temporary
dwellings, and to portion out their parks, parterres and flower-gardens, to
necessitous families. Many of these, of high rank in their own countries,
now, with hoe in hand, turned up the soil. It was found necessary at last
to check the spirit of sacrifice, and to remind those whose generosity
proceeded to lavish waste, that, until the present state of things became
permanent, of which there was no likelihood, it was wrong to carry change
so far as to make a reaction difficult. Experience demonstrated that in a
year or two pestilence would cease; it were well that in the mean time we
should not have destroyed our fine breeds of horses, or have utterly
changed the face of the ornamented portion of the country.
It may be imagined that things were in a bad state indeed, before this
spirit of benevolence could have struck such deep roots. The infection had
now spread in the southern provinces of France. But that country had so
many resources in the way of agriculture, that the rush of population from
one part of it to another, and its increase through foreign emigration, was
less felt than with us. The panic struck appeared of more injury, than
disease and its natural concomitants.
Winter was hailed, a general and never-failing physician. The embrowning
woods, and swollen rivers, the evening mists, and morning frosts, were
welcomed with gratitude. The effects of purifying cold were immediately
felt; and the lists of mortality abroad were curtailed each week. Many of
our visitors left us: those whose homes were far in the south, fled
delightedly from our northern winter, and sought their native land, secure
of plenty even after their fearful visitation. We breathed again. What the
coming summer would bring, we knew not; but the present months were our
own, and our hopes of a cessation of pestilence were high.
[1] Elton's translation of Hesiod's Works.
CHAPTER VI.
I HAVE lingered thus long on the extreme bank, the wasting shoal that
stretched into the stream of life, dallying with the shadow of death. Thus
long, I have cradled my heart in retrospection of past happiness, when hope
was. Why not for ever thus? I am not immortal; and the thread of my history
might be spun out to the limits of my existence. But the same sentiment
that first led me to pourtray scenes replete with tender recollections, now
bids me hurry on. The same yearning of this warm, panting heart, that has
made me in written words record my vagabond youth, my serene manhood, and
the passions of my soul, makes me now recoil from further delay. I must
complete my work.
Here then I stand, as I said, beside the fleet waters of the flowing years,
and now away! Spread the sail, and strain with oar, hurrying by dark
impending crags, adown steep rapids, even to the sea of desolation I have
reached. Yet one moment, one brief interval before I put from shore--
once, once again let me fancy myself as I was in 2094 in my abode at
Windsor, let me close my eyes, and imagine that the immeasurable boughs of
its oaks still shadow me, its castle walls anear. Let fancy pourtray the
joyous scene of the twentieth of June, such as even now my aching heart
recalls it.
Circumstances had called me to London; here I heard talk that symptoms
of the plague had occurred in hospitals of that city. I returned to
Windsor; my brow was clouded, my heart heavy; I entered the Little
Park, as was my custom, at the Frogmore gate, on my way to the
Castle. A great part of these grounds had been given to cultivation,
and strips of potatoe-land and corn were scattered here and there.
The rooks cawed loudly in the trees above; mixed with their hoarse
cries I heard a lively strain of music. It was Alfred's birthday.
The young people, the Etonians, and children of the neighbouring gentry,
held a mock fair, to which all the country people were invited. The
park was speckled by tents, whose flaunting colours and gaudy flags, waving
in the sunshine, added to the gaiety of the scene. On a platform erected
beneath the terrace, a number of the younger part of the assembly were
dancing. I leaned against a tree to observe them. The band played the wild
eastern air of Weber introduced in Abon Hassan; its volatile notes gave
wings to the feet of the dancers, while the lookers-on unconsciously beat
time. At first the tripping measure lifted my spirit with it, and for a
moment my eyes gladly followed the mazes of the dance. The revulsion of
thought passed like keen steel to my heart. Ye are all going to die, I
thought; already your tomb is built up around you. Awhile, because you are
gifted with agility and strength, you fancy that you live: but frail is the
"bower of flesh" that encaskets life; dissoluble the silver cord than binds
you to it. The joyous soul, charioted from pleasure to pleasure by the
graceful mechanism of well-formed limbs, will suddenly feel the axle-tree
give way, and spring and wheel dissolve in dust. Not one of you, O! fated
crowd, can escape--not one! not my own ones! not my Idris and her babes!
Horror and misery! Already the gay dance vanished, the green sward was
strewn with corpses, the blue air above became fetid with deathly
exhalations. Shriek, ye clarions! ye loud trumpets, howl! Pile dirge on
dirge; rouse the funereal chords; let the air ring with dire wailing; let
wild discord rush on the wings of the wind! Already I hear it, while
guardian angels, attendant on humanity, their task achieved, hasten away,
and their departure is announced by melancholy strains; faces all unseemly
with weeping, forced open my lids; faster and faster many groups of these
woe-begone countenances thronged around, exhibiting every variety of
wretchedness--well known faces mingled with the distorted creations of
fancy. Ashy pale, Raymond and Perdita sat apart, looking on with sad
smiles. Adrian's countenance flitted across, tainted by death--Idris,
with eyes languidly closed and livid lips, was about to slide into the wide
grave. The confusion grew--their looks of sorrow changed to mockery; they
nodded their heads in time to the music, whose clang became maddening.
I felt that this was insanity--I sprang forward to throw it off; I rushed
into the midst of the crowd. Idris saw me: with light step she advanced; as
I folded her in my arms, feeling, as I did, that I thus enclosed what was
to me a world, yet frail as the waterdrop which the noon-day sun will drink
from the water lily's cup; tears filled my eyes, unwont to be thus
moistened. The joyful welcome of my boys, the soft gratulation of Clara,
the pressure of Adrian's hand, contributed to unman me. I felt that they
were near, that they were safe, yet methought this was all deceit;--the
earth reeled, the firm-enrooted trees moved--dizziness came over me--I
sank to the ground.
My beloved friends were alarmed--nay, they expressed their alarm so
anxiously, that I dared not pronounce the word plague, that hovered on my
lips, lest they should construe my perturbed looks into a symptom, and see
infection in my languor. I had scarcely recovered, and with feigned
hilarity had brought back smiles into my little circle, when we saw Ryland
approach.
Ryland had something the appearance of a farmer; of a man whose muscles and
full grown stature had been developed under the influence of vigorous
exercise and exposure to the elements. This was to a great degree the case:
for, though a large landed proprietor, yet, being a projector, and of an
ardent and industrious disposition, he had on his own estate given himself
up to agricultural labours. When he went as ambassador to the Northern
States of America, he, for some time, planned his entire migration; and
went so far as to make several journies far westward on that immense
continent, for the purpose of choosing the site of his new abode. Ambition
turned his thoughts from these designs--ambition, which labouring through
various lets and hindrances, had now led him to the summit of his hopes, in
making him Lord Protector of England.
His countenance was rough but intelligent--his ample brow and quick grey
eyes seemed to look out, over his own plans, and the opposition of his
enemies. His voice was stentorian: his hand stretched out in debate, seemed
by its gigantic and muscular form, to warn his hearers that words were not
his only weapons. Few people had discovered some cowardice and much
infirmity of purpose under this imposing exterior. No man could crush a
"butterfly on the wheel" with better effect; no man better cover a speedy
retreat from a powerful adversary. This had been the secret of his
secession at the time of Lord Raymond's election. In the unsteady glance of
his eye, in his extreme desire to learn the opinions of all, in the
feebleness of his hand-writing, these qualities might be obscurely traced,
but they were not generally known. He was now our Lord Protector. He had
canvassed eagerly for this post. His protectorate was to be distinguished
by every kind of innovation on the aristocracy. This his selected task was
exchanged for the far different one of encountering the ruin caused by the
convulsions of physical nature. He was incapable of meeting these evils by
any comprehensive system; he had resorted to expedient after expedient, and
could never be induced to put a remedy in force, till it came too late to
be of use.
Certainly the Ryland that advanced towards us now, bore small resemblance
to the powerful, ironical, seemingly fearless canvasser for the first rank
among Englishmen. Our native oak, as his partisans called him, was visited
truly by a nipping winter. He scarcely appeared half his usual height; his
joints were unknit, his limbs would not support him; his face was
contracted, his eye wandering; debility of purpose and dastard fear were
expressed in every gesture.
In answer to our eager questions, one word alone fell, as it were
involuntarily, from his convulsed lips: The Plague.--"Where?"--"Every
where--we must fly--all fly--but whither? No man can tell--there is
no refuge on earth, it comes on us like a thousand packs of wolves--we
must all fly--where shall you go? Where can any of us go?"
These words were syllabled trembling by the iron man. Adrian replied,
"Whither indeed would you fly? We must all remain; and do our best to help
our suffering fellow-creatures."
"Help!" said Ryland, "there is no help!--great God, who talks of help!
All the world has the plague!"
"Then to avoid it, we must quit the world," observed Adrian, with a
gentle smile.
Ryland groaned; cold drops stood on his brow. It was useless to oppose his
paroxysm of terror: but we soothed and encouraged him, so that after an
interval he was better able to explain to us the ground of his alarm. It
had come sufficiently home to him. One of his servants, while waiting on
him, had suddenly fallen down dead. The physician declared that he died of
the plague. We endeavoured to calm him--but our own hearts were not calm.
I saw the eye of Idris wander from me to her children, with an anxious
appeal to my judgment. Adrian was absorbed in meditation. For myself, I own
that Ryland's words rang in my ears; all the world was infected;--in what
uncontaminated seclusion could I save my beloved treasures, until the
shadow of death had passed from over the earth? We sunk into silence: a
silence that drank in the doleful accounts and prognostications of our
guest. We had receded from the crowd; and ascending the steps of the
terrace, sought the Castle. Our change of cheer struck those nearest to us;
and, by means of Ryland's servants, the report soon spread that he had fled
from the plague in London. The sprightly parties broke up--they assembled
in whispering groups. The spirit of gaiety was eclipsed; the music ceased;
the young people left their occupations and gathered together. The
lightness of heart which had dressed them in masquerade habits, had
decorated their tents, and assembled them in fantastic groups, appeared a
sin against, and a provocative to, the awful destiny that had laid its
palsying hand upon hope and life. The merriment of the hour was an unholy
mockery of the sorrows of man. The foreigners whom we had among us, who had
fled from the plague in their own country, now saw their last asylum
invaded; and, fear making them garrulous, they described to eager listeners
the miseries they had beheld in cities visited by the calamity, and gave
fearful accounts of the insidious and irremediable nature of the disease.
We had entered the Castle. Idris stood at a window that over-looked the
park; her maternal eyes sought her own children among the young crowd. An
Italian lad had got an audience about him, and with animated gestures was
describing some scene of horror. Alfred stood immoveable before him, his
whole attention absorbed. Little Evelyn had endeavoured to draw Clara away
to play with him; but the Italian's tale arrested her, she crept near, her
lustrous eyes fixed on the speaker. Either watching the crowd in the park,
or occupied by painful reflection, we were all silent; Ryland stood by
himself in an embrasure of the window; Adrian paced the hall, revolving
some new and overpowering idea--suddenly he stopped and said: "I have
long expected this; could we in reason expect that this island should be
exempt from the universal visitation? The evil is come home to us, and we
must not shrink from our fate. What are your plans, my Lord Protector, for
the benefit of our country?"
"For heaven's love! Windsor," cried Ryland, "do not mock me with that
title. Death and disease level all men. I neither pretend to protect nor
govern an hospital--such will England quickly become."
"Do you then intend, now in time of peril, to recede from your duties?"
"Duties! speak rationally, my Lord!--when I am a plague-spotted corpse,
where will my duties be? Every man for himself! the devil take the
protectorship, say I, if it expose me to danger!"
"Faint-hearted man!" cried Adrian indignantly--"Your countrymen put their
trust in you, and you betray them!"
"I betray them!" said Ryland, "the plague betrays me. Faint-hearted! It is
well, shut up in your castle, out of danger, to boast yourself out of fear.
Take the Protectorship who will; before God I renounce it!"
"And before God," replied his opponent, fervently, "do I receive it! No one
will canvass for this honour now--none envy my danger or labours. Deposit
your powers in my hands. Long have I fought with death, and much" (he
stretched out his thin hand) "much have I suffered in the struggle. It is
not by flying, but by facing the enemy, that we can conquer. If my last
combat is now about to be fought, and I am to be worsted--so let it be!"
"But come, Ryland, recollect yourself! Men have hitherto thought you
magnanimous and wise, will you cast aside these titles? Consider the panic
your departure will occasion. Return to London. I will go with you.
Encourage the people by your presence. I will incur all the danger. Shame!
shame! if the first magistrate of England be foremost to renounce his
duties."
Meanwhile among our guests in the park, all thoughts of festivity had
faded. As summer-flies are scattered by rain, so did this congregation,
late noisy and happy, in sadness and melancholy murmurs break up, dwindling
away apace. With the set sun and the deepening twilight the park became
nearly empty. Adrian and Ryland were still in earnest discussion. We had
prepared a banquet for our guests in the lower hall of the castle; and
thither Idris and I repaired to receive and entertain the few that
remained. There is nothing more melancholy than a merry-meeting thus turned
to sorrow: the gala dresses--the decorations, gay as they might otherwise
be, receive a solemn and funereal appearance. If such change be painful
from lighter causes, it weighed with intolerable heaviness from the
knowledge that the earth's desolator had at last, even as an arch-fiend,
lightly over-leaped the boundaries our precautions raised, and at once
enthroned himself in the full and beating heart of our country. Idris sat
at the top of the half-empty hall. Pale and tearful, she almost forgot her
duties as hostess; her eyes were fixed on her children. Alfred's serious
air shewed that he still revolved the tragic story related by the Italian
boy. Evelyn was the only mirthful creature present: he sat on Clara's lap;
and, making matter of glee from his own fancies, laughed aloud. The vaulted
roof echoed again his infant tone. The poor mother who had brooded long
over, and suppressed the expression of her anguish, now burst into tears,
and folding her babe in her arms, hurried from the hall. Clara and Alfred
followed. While the rest of the company, in confused murmur, which grew
louder and louder, gave voice to their many fears.
The younger part gathered round me to ask my advice; and those who had
friends in London were anxious beyond the rest, to ascertain the present
extent of disease in the metropolis. I encouraged them with such thoughts
of cheer as presented themselves. I told them exceedingly few deaths had
yet been occasioned by pestilence, and gave them hopes, as we were the last
visited, so the calamity might have lost its most venomous power before it
had reached us. The cleanliness, habits of order, and the manner in which
our cities were built, were all in our favour. As it was an epidemic, its
chief force was derived from pernicious qualities in the air, and it would
probably do little harm where this was naturally salubrious. At first, I
had spoken only to those nearest me; but the whole assembly gathered about
me, and I found that I was listened to by all. "My friends," I said, "our
risk is common; our precautions and exertions shall be common also. If
manly courage and resistance can save us, we will be saved. We will fight
the enemy to the last. Plague shall not find us a ready prey; we will
dispute every inch of ground; and, by methodical and inflexible laws, pile
invincible barriers to the progress of our foe. Perhaps in no part of the
world has she met with so systematic and determined an opposition. Perhaps
no country is naturally so well protected against our invader; nor has
nature anywhere been so well assisted by the hand of man. We will not
despair. We are neither cowards nor fatalists; but, believing that God has
placed the means for our preservation in our own hands, we will use those
means to our utmost. Remember that cleanliness, sobriety, and even
good-humour and benevolence, are our best medicines."
There was little I could add to this general exhortation; for the plague,
though in London, was not among us. I dismissed the guests therefore; and
they went thoughtful, more than sad, to await the events in store for
them.
I now sought Adrian, anxious to hear the result of his discussion with
Ryland. He had in part prevailed; the Lord Protector consented to return to
London for a few weeks; during which time things should be so arranged, as
to occasion less consternation at his departure. Adrian and Idris were
together. The sadness with which the former had first heard that the plague
was in London had vanished; the energy of his purpose informed his body
with strength, the solemn joy of enthusiasm and self-devotion illuminated
his countenance; and the weakness of his physical nature seemed to pass
from him, as the cloud of humanity did, in the ancient fable, from the
divine lover of Semele. He was endeavouring to encourage his sister, and to
bring her to look on his intent in a less tragic light than she was
prepared to do; and with passionate eloquence he unfolded his designs to
her.
"Let me, at the first word," he said, "relieve your mind from all fear on
my account. I will not task myself beyond my powers, nor will I needlessly
seek danger. I feel that I know what ought to be done, and as my presence
is necessary for the accomplishment of my plans, I will take especial care
to preserve my life.
"I am now going to undertake an office fitted for me. I cannot intrigue, or
work a tortuous path through the labyrinth of men's vices and passions; but
I can bring patience, and sympathy, and such aid as art affords, to the bed
of disease; I can raise from earth the miserable orphan, and awaken to new
hopes the shut heart of the mourner. I can enchain the plague in limits,
and set a term to the misery it would occasion; courage, forbearance, and
watchfulness, are the forces I bring towards this great work.
"O, I shall be something now! From my birth I have aspired like the eagle
--but, unlike the eagle, my wings have failed, and my vision has been
blinded. Disappointment and sickness have hitherto held dominion over me;
twin born with me, my would, was for ever enchained by the shall not, of
these my tyrants. A shepherd-boy that tends a silly flock on the mountains,
was more in the scale of society than I. Congratulate me then that I have
found fitting scope for my powers. I have often thought of offering my
services to the pestilence-stricken towns of France and Italy; but fear of
paining you, and expectation of this catastrophe, withheld me. To England
and to Englishmen I dedicate myself. If I can save one of her mighty
spirits from the deadly shaft; if I can ward disease from one of her
smiling cottages, I shall not have lived in vain."
Strange ambition this! Yet such was Adrian. He appeared given up to
contemplation, averse to excitement, a lowly student, a man of visions--
but afford him worthy theme, and--
Like to the lark at break of day arising,
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.[1]
so did he spring up from listlessness and unproductive thought, to the
highest pitch of virtuous action.
With him went enthusiasm, the high-wrought resolve, the eye that without
blenching could look at death. With us remained sorrow, anxiety, and
unendurable expectation of evil. The man, says Lord Bacon, who hath wife
and children, has given hostages to fortune. Vain was all philosophical
reasoning--vain all fortitude--vain, vain, a reliance on probable good.
I might heap high the scale with logic, courage, and resignation--but let
one fear for Idris and our children enter the opposite one, and,
over-weighed, it kicked the beam.
The plague was in London! Fools that we were not long ago to have foreseen
this. We wept over the ruin of the boundless continents of the east, and
the desolation of the western world; while we fancied that the little
channel between our island and the rest of the earth was to preserve us
alive among the dead. It were no mighty leap methinks from Calais to Dover.
The eye easily discerns the sister land; they were united once; and the
little path that runs between looks in a map but as a trodden footway
through high grass. Yet this small interval was to save us: the sea was to
rise a wall of adamant--without, disease and misery--within, a shelter
from evil, a nook of the garden of paradise--a particle of celestial
soil, which no evil could invade--truly we were wise in our generation,
to imagine all these things!
But we are awake now. The plague is in London; the air of England is
tainted, and her sons and daughters strew the unwholesome earth. And now,
the sea, late our defence, seems our prison bound; hemmed in by its gulphs,
we shall die like the famished inhabitants of a besieged town. Other
nations have a fellowship in death; but we, shut out from all
neighbourhood, must bury our own dead, and little England become a wide,
wide tomb.
This feeling of universal misery assumed concentration and shape, when I
looked on my wife and children; and the thought of danger to them possessed
my whole being with fear. How could I save them? I revolved a thousand and
a thousand plans. They should not die--first I would be gathered to
nothingness, ere infection should come anear these idols of my soul. I
would walk barefoot through the world, to find an uninfected spot; I would
build my home on some wave-tossed plank, drifted about on the barren,
shoreless ocean. I would betake me with them to some wild beast's den,
where a tyger's cubs, which I would slay, had been reared in health. I
would seek the mountain eagle's eirie, and live years suspended in some
inaccessible recess of a sea-bounding cliff--no labour too great, no
scheme too wild, if it promised life to them. O! ye heart-strings of mine,
could ye be torn asunder, and my soul not spend itself in tears of blood
for sorrow!
Idris, after the first shock, regained a portion of fortitude. She
studiously shut out all prospect of the future, and cradled her heart in
present blessings. She never for a moment lost sight of her children. But
while they in health sported about her, she could cherish contentment and
hope. A strange and wild restlessness came over me--the more intolerable,
because I was forced to conceal it. My fears for Adrian were ceaseless;
August had come; and the symptoms of plague encreased rapidly in London. It
was deserted by all who possessed the power of removing; and he, the
brother of my soul, was exposed to the perils from which all but slaves
enchained by circumstance fled. He remained to combat the fiend--his side
unguarded, his toils unshared--infection might even reach him, and he die
unattended and alone. By day and night these thoughts pursued me. I
resolved to visit London, to see him; to quiet these agonizing throes by
the sweet medicine of hope, or the opiate of despair.
It was not until I arrived at Brentford, that I perceived much change in
the face of the country. The better sort of houses were shut up; the busy
trade of the town palsied; there was an air of anxiety among the few
passengers I met, and they looked wonderingly at my carriage--the first
they had seen pass towards London, since pestilence sat on its high places,
and possessed its busy streets. I met several funerals; they were slenderly
attended by mourners, and were regarded by the spectators as omens of
direst import. Some gazed on these processions with wild eagerness--
others fled timidly--some wept aloud.
Adrian's chief endeavour, after the immediate succour of the sick, had been
to disguise the symptoms and progress of the plague from the inhabitants of
London. He knew that fear and melancholy forebodings were powerful
assistants to disease; that desponding and brooding care rendered the
physical nature of man peculiarly susceptible of infection. No unseemly
sights were therefore discernible: the shops were in general open, the
concourse of passengers in some degree kept up. But although the appearance
of an infected town was avoided, to me, who had not beheld it since the
commencement of the visitation, London appeared sufficiently changed. There
were no carriages, and grass had sprung high in the streets; the houses had
a desolate look; most of the shutters were closed; and there was a ghast
and frightened stare in the persons I met, very different from the usual
business-like demeanour of the Londoners. My solitary carriage attracted
notice, as it rattled along towards the Protectoral Palace--and the
fashionable streets leading to it wore a still more dreary and deserted
appearance. I found Adrian's anti-chamber crowded--it was his hour for
giving audience. I was unwilling to disturb his labours, and waited,
watching the ingress and egress of the petitioners. They consisted of
people of the middling and lower classes of society, whose means of
subsistence failed with the cessation of trade, and of the busy spirit of
money-making in all its branches, peculiar to our country. There was an air
of anxiety, sometimes of terror in the new-comers, strongly contrasted with
the resigned and even satisfied mien of those who had had audience. I could
read the influence of my friend in their quickened motions and cheerful
faces. Two o'clock struck, after which none were admitted; those who had
been disappointed went sullenly or sorrowfully away, while I entered the
audience-chamber.
I was struck by the improvement that appeared in the health of Adrian. He
was no longer bent to the ground, like an over-nursed flower of spring,
that, shooting up beyond its strength, is weighed down even by its own
coronal of blossoms. His eyes were bright, his countenance composed, an air
of concentrated energy was diffused over his whole person, much unlike its
former languor. He sat at a table with several secretaries, who were
arranging petitions, or registering the notes made during that day's
audience. Two or three petitioners were still in attendance. I admired his
justice and patience. Those who possessed a power of living out of London,
he advised immediately to quit it, affording them the means of so doing.
Others, whose trade was beneficial to the city, or who possessed no other
refuge, he provided with advice for better avoiding the epidemic; relieving
overloaded families, supplying the gaps made in others by death. Order,
comfort, and even health, rose under his influence, as from the touch of a
magician's wand.
"I am glad you are come," he said to me, when we were at last alone; "I can
only spare a few minutes, and must tell you much in that time. The plague
is now in progress--it is useless closing one's eyes to the fact--the
deaths encrease each week. What will come I cannot guess. As yet, thank
God, I am equal to the government of the town; and I look only to the
present. Ryland, whom I have so long detained, has stipulated that I shall
suffer him to depart before the end of this month. The deputy appointed by
parliament is dead; another therefore must be named; I have advanced my
claim, and I believe that I shall have no competitor. To-night the question
is to be decided, as there is a call of the house for the purpose. You must
nominate me, Lionel; Ryland, for shame, cannot shew himself; but you, my
friend, will do me this service?
How lovely is devotion! Here was a youth, royally sprung, bred in
luxury, by nature averse to the usual struggles of a public life,
and now, in time of danger, at a period when to live was the
utmost scope of the ambitious, he, the beloved and heroic Adrian, made, in
sweet simplicity, an offer to sacrifice himself for the public good. The
very idea was generous and noble,--but, beyond this, his unpretending
manner, his entire want of the assumption of a virtue, rendered his act ten
times more touching. I would have withstood his request; but I had seen the
good he diffused; I felt that his resolves were not to be shaken, so, with
an heavy heart, I consented to do as he asked. He grasped my hand
affectionately:--"Thank you," he said, "you have relieved me from a
painful dilemma, and are, as you ever were, the best of my friends.
Farewell--I must now leave you for a few hours. Go you and converse with
Ryland. Although he deserts his post in London, he may be of the greatest
service in the north of England, by receiving and assisting travellers, and
contributing to supply the metropolis with food. Awaken him, I entreat you,
to some sense of duty."
Adrian left me, as I afterwards learnt, upon his daily task of visiting the
hospitals, and inspecting the crowded parts of London. I found Ryland much
altered, even from what he had been when he visited Windsor. Perpetual fear
had jaundiced his complexion, and shrivelled his whole person. I told him
of the business of the evening, and a smile relaxed the contracted muscles.
He desired to go; each day he expected to be infected by pestilence, each
day he was unable to resist the gentle violence of Adrian's detention. The
moment Adrian should be legally elected his deputy, he would escape to
safety. Under this impression he listened to all I said; and, elevated
almost to joy by the near prospect of his departure, he entered into a
discussion concerning the plans he should adopt in his own county,
forgetting, for the moment, his cherished resolution of shutting himself up
from all communication in the mansion and grounds of his estate.
In the evening, Adrian and I proceeded to Westminster. As we went he
reminded me of what I was to say and do, yet, strange to say, I entered the
chamber without having once reflected on my purpose. Adrian remained in the
coffee-room, while I, in compliance with his desire, took my seat in St.
Stephen's. There reigned unusual silence in the chamber. I had not visited
it since Raymond's protectorate; a period conspicuous for a numerous
attendance of members, for the eloquence of the speakers, and the warmth of
the debate. The benches were very empty, those by custom occupied by the
hereditary members were vacant; the city members were there--the members
for the commercial towns, few landed proprietors, and not many of those who
entered parliament for the sake of a career. The first subject that
occupied the attention of the house was an address from the Lord Protector,
praying them to appoint a deputy during a necessary absence on his part.
A silence prevailed, till one of the members coming to me, whispered that
the Earl of Windsor had sent him word that I was to move his election, in
the absence of the person who had been first chosen for this office. Now
for the first time I saw the full extent of my task, and I was overwhelmed
by what I had brought on myself. Ryland had deserted his post through fear
of the plague: from the same fear Adrian had no competitor. And I, the
nearest kinsman of the Earl of Windsor, was to propose his election. I was
to thrust this selected and matchless friend into the post of danger--
impossible! the die was cast--I would offer myself as candidate.
The few members who were present, had come more for the sake of terminating
the business by securing a legal attendance, than under the idea of a
debate. I had risen mechanically--my knees trembled; irresolution hung on
my voice, as I uttered a few words on the necessity of choosing a person
adequate to the dangerous task in hand. But, when the idea of presenting
myself in the room of my friend intruded, the load of doubt and pain was
taken from off me. My words flowed spontaneously--my utterance was firm
and quick. I adverted to what Adrian had already done--I promised the
same vigilance in furthering all his views. I drew a touching picture of
his vacillating health; I boasted of my own strength. I prayed them to save
even from himself this scion of the noblest family in England. My alliance
with him was the pledge of my sincerity, my union with his sister, my
children, his presumptive heirs, were the hostages of my truth.
This unexpected turn in the debate was quickly communicated to Adrian. He
hurried in, and witnessed the termination of my impassioned harangue. I did
not see him: my soul was in my words,--my eyes could not perceive that
which was; while a vision of Adrian's form, tainted by pestilence, and
sinking in death, floated before them. He seized my hand, as I concluded--
"Unkind!" he cried, "you have betrayed me!" then, springing forwards, with
the air of one who had a right to command, he claimed the place of deputy
as his own. He had bought it, he said, with danger, and paid for it with
toil. His ambition rested there; and, after an interval devoted to the
interests of his country, was I to step in, and reap the profit? Let them
remember what London had been when he arrived: the panic that prevailed
brought famine, while every moral and legal tie was loosened. He had
restored order--this had been a work which required perseverance,
patience, and energy; and he had neither slept nor waked but for the good
of his country.--Would they dare wrong him thus? Would they wrest his
hard-earned reward from him, to bestow it on one, who, never having mingled
in public life, would come a tyro to the craft, in which he was an adept.
He demanded the place of deputy as his right. Ryland had shewn that he
preferred him. Never before had he, who was born even to the inheritance of
the throne of England, never had he asked favour or honour from those now
his equals, but who might have been his subjects. Would they refuse him?
Could they thrust back from the path of distinction and laudable ambition,
the heir of their ancient kings, and heap another disappointment on a
fallen house.
No one had ever before heard Adrian allude to the rights of his ancestors.
None had ever before suspected, that power, or the suffrage of the many,
could in any manner become dear to him. He had begun his speech with
vehemence; he ended with unassuming gentleness, making his appeal with the
same humility, as if he had asked to be the first in wealth, honour, and
power among Englishmen, and not, as was the truth, to be the foremost in
the ranks of loathsome toils and inevitable death. A murmur of approbation
rose after his speech. "Oh, do not listen to him," I cried, "he speaks
false--false to himself,"--I was interrupted: and, silence being restored,
we were ordered, as was the custom, to retire during the decision of the
house. I fancied that they hesitated, and that there was some hope for
me--I was mistaken--hardly had we quitted the chamber, before Adrian was
recalled, and installed in his office of Lord Deputy to the Protector.
We returned together to the palace. "Why, Lionel," said Adrian, "what did
you intend? you could not hope to conquer, and yet you gave me the pain of
a triumph over my dearest friend."
"This is mockery," I replied, "you devote yourself,--you, the adored
brother of Idris, the being, of all the world contains, dearest to our
hearts--you devote yourself to an early death. I would have prevented
this; my death would be a small evil--or rather I should not die; while
you cannot hope to escape."
"As to the likelihood of escaping," said Adrian, "ten years hence the
cold stars may shine on the graves of all of us; but as to my peculiar
liability to infection, I could easily prove, both logically and
physically, that in the midst of contagion I have a better chance
of life than you.
"This is my post: I was born for this--to rule England in anarchy, to
save her in danger--to devote myself for her. The blood of my forefathers
cries aloud in my veins, and bids me be first among my countrymen. Or, if
this mode of speech offend you, let me say, that my mother, the proud
queen, instilled early into me a love of distinction, and all that, if the
weakness of my physical nature and my peculiar opinions had not prevented
such a design, might have made me long since struggle for the lost
inheritance of my race. But now my mother, or, if you will, my mother's
lessons, awaken within me. I cannot lead on to battle; I cannot, through
intrigue and faithlessness rear again the throne upon the wreck of English
public spirit. But I can be the first to support and guard my country, now
that terrific disasters and ruin have laid strong hands upon her.
"That country and my beloved sister are all I have. I will protect the
first--the latter I commit to your charge. If I survive, and she be lost,
I were far better dead. Preserve her--for her own sake I know that you
will--if you require any other spur, think that, in preserving her, you
preserve me. Her faultless nature, one sum of perfections, is wrapt up in
her affections--if they were hurt, she would droop like an unwatered
floweret, and the slightest injury they receive is a nipping frost to her.
Already she fears for us. She fears for the children she adores, and for
you, the father of these, her lover, husband, protector; and you must be
near her to support and encourage her. Return to Windsor then, my brother;
for such you are by every tie--fill the double place my absence imposes
on you, and let me, in all my sufferings here, turn my eyes towards that
dear seclusion, and say--There is peace."
[1] Shakespeare's Sonnets.
CHAPTER VII.
I DID proceed to Windsor, but not with the intention of remaining there. I
went but to obtain the consent of Idris, and then to return and take my
station beside my unequalled friend; to share his labours, and save him, if
so it must be, at the expence of my life. Yet I dreaded to witness the
anguish which my resolve might excite in Idris. I had vowed to my own heart
never to shadow her countenance even with transient grief, and should I
prove recreant at the hour of greatest need? I had begun my journey with
anxious haste; now I desired to draw it out through the course of days and
months. I longed to avoid the necessity of action; I strove to escape from
thought--vainly--futurity, like a dark image in a phantasmagoria, came
nearer and more near, till it clasped the whole earth in its shadow.
A slight circumstance induced me to alter my usual route, and to return
home by Egham and Bishopgate. I alighted at Perdita's ancient abode, her
cottage; and, sending forward the carriage, determined to walk across the
park to the castle. This spot, dedicated to sweetest recollections, the
deserted house and neglected garden were well adapted to nurse my
melancholy. In our happiest days, Perdita had adorned her cottage with
every aid art might bring, to that which nature had selected to favour. In
the same spirit of exaggeration she had, on the event of her separation
from Raymond, caused it to be entirely neglected. It was now in ruin: the
deer had climbed the broken palings, and reposed among the flowers; grass
grew on the threshold, and the swinging lattice creaking to the wind, gave
signal of utter desertion. The sky was blue above, and the air impregnated
with fragrance by the rare flowers that grew among the weeds. The trees
moved overhead, awakening nature's favourite melody--but the melancholy
appearance of the choaked paths, and weed-grown flower-beds, dimmed even
this gay summer scene. The time when in proud and happy security we
assembled at this cottage, was gone--soon the present hours would join
those past, and shadows of future ones rose dark and menacing from the womb
of time, their cradle and their bier. For the first time in my life I
envied the sleep of the dead, and thought with pleasure of one's bed under
the sod, where grief and fear have no power. I passed through the gap of
the broken paling--I felt, while I disdained, the choaking tears--I
rushed into the depths of the forest. O death and change, rulers of our
life, where are ye, that I may grapple with you! What was there in our
tranquillity, that excited your envy--in our happiness, that ye should
destroy it? We were happy, loving, and beloved; the horn of Amalthea
contained no blessing unshowered upon us, but, alas!
la fortuna
deidad barbara importuna,
oy cadaver y ayer flor,
no permanece jamas![1]
As I wandered on thus ruminating, a number of country people passed me.
They seemed full of careful thought, and a few words of their conversation
that reached me, induced me to approach and make further enquiries. A party
of people flying from London, as was frequent in those days, had come up
the Thames in a boat. No one at Windsor would afford them shelter; so,
going a little further up, they remained all night in a deserted hut near
Bolter's lock. They pursued their way the following morning, leaving one of
their company behind them, sick of the plague. This circumstance once
spread abroad, none dared approach within half a mile of the infected
neighbourhood, and the deserted wretch was left to fight with disease and
death in solitude, as he best might. I was urged by compassion to hasten to
the hut, for the purpose of ascertaining his situation, and administering
to his wants.
As I advanced I met knots of country-people talking earnestly of this
event: distant as they were from the apprehended contagion, fear was
impressed on every countenance. I passed by a group of these terrorists, in
a lane in the direct road to the hut. One of them stopped me, and,
conjecturing that I was ignorant of the circumstance, told me not to go on,
for that an infected person lay but at a short distance.
"I know it," I replied, "and I am going to see in what condition the poor
fellow is."
A murmur of surprise and horror ran through the assembly. I continued:--
"This poor wretch is deserted, dying, succourless; in these unhappy times,
God knows how soon any or all of us may be in like want. I am going to do,
as I would be done by."
"But you will never be able to return to the Castle--Lady Idris--his
children--" in confused speech were the words that struck my ear.
"Do you not know, my friends," I said, "that the Earl himself, now Lord
Protector, visits daily, not only those probably infected by this disease,
but the hospitals and pest houses, going near, and even touching the sick?
yet he was never in better health. You labour under an entire mistake as to
the nature of the plague; but do not fear, I do not ask any of you to
accompany me, nor to believe me, until I return safe and sound from my
patient."
So I left them, and hurried on. I soon arrived at the hut: the door was
ajar. I entered, and one glance assured me that its former inhabitant was
no more--he lay on a heap of straw, cold and stiff; while a pernicious
effluvia filled the room, and various stains and marks served to shew the
virulence of the disorder.
I had never before beheld one killed by pestilence. While every mind was
full of dismay at its effects, a craving for excitement had led us to
peruse De Foe's account, and the masterly delineations of the author of
Arthur Mervyn. The pictures drawn in these books were so vivid, that we
seemed to have experienced the results depicted by them. But cold were the
sensations excited by words, burning though they were, and describing the
death and misery of thousands, compared to what I felt in looking on the
corpse of this unhappy stranger. This indeed was the plague. I raised his
rigid limbs, I marked the distortion of his face, and the stony eyes lost
to perception. As I was thus occupied, chill horror congealed my blood,
making my flesh quiver and my hair to stand on end. Half insanely I spoke
to the dead. So the plague killed you, I muttered. How came this? Was the
coming painful? You look as if the enemy had tortured, before he murdered
you. And now I leapt up precipitately, and escaped from the hut, before
nature could revoke her laws, and inorganic words be breathed in answer
from the lips of the departed.
On returning through the lane, I saw at a distance the same assemblage of
persons which I had left. They hurried away, as soon as they saw me; my
agitated mien added to their fear of coming near one who had entered within
the verge of contagion.
At a distance from facts one draws conclusions which appear infallible,
which yet when put to the test of reality, vanish like unreal dreams. I had
ridiculed the fears of my countrymen, when they related to others; now that
they came home to myself, I paused. The Rubicon, I felt, was passed; and it
behoved me well to reflect what I should do on this hither side of disease
and danger. According to the vulgar superstition, my dress, my person, the
air I breathed, bore in it mortal danger to myself and others. Should I
return to the Castle, to my wife and children, with this taint upon me? Not
surely if I were infected; but I felt certain that I was not--a few hours
would determine the question--I would spend these in the forest, in
reflection on what was to come, and what my future actions were to be. In
the feeling communicated to me by the sight of one struck by the plague, I
forgot the events that had excited me so strongly in London; new and more
painful prospects, by degrees were cleared of the mist which had hitherto
veiled them. The question was no longer whether I should share Adrian's
toils and danger; but in what manner I could, in Windsor and the
neighbourhood, imitate the prudence and zeal which, under his government,
produced order and plenty in London, and how, now pestilence had spread
more widely, I could secure the health of my own family.
I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no one spot of its
surface could I put my finger and say, here is safety. In the south, the
disease, virulent and immedicable, had nearly annihilated the race of man;
storm and inundation, poisonous winds and blights, filled up the measure of
suffering. In the north it was worse--the lesser population gradually
declined, and famine and plague kept watch on the survivors, who, helpless
and feeble, were ready to fall an easy prey into their hands.
I contracted my view to England. The overgrown metropolis, the great heart
of mighty Britain, was pulseless. Commerce had ceased. All resort for
ambition or pleasure was cut off--the streets were grass-grown--the
houses empty--the few, that from necessity remained, seemed already
branded with the taint of inevitable pestilence. In the larger
manufacturing towns the same tragedy was acted on a smaller, yet more
disastrous scale. There was no Adrian to superintend and direct, while
whole flocks of the poor were struck and killed. Yet we were not all to die.
No truly, though thinned, the race of man would continue, and the great
plague would, in after years, become matter of history and wonder.
Doubtless this visitation was for extent unexampled--more need that we
should work hard to dispute its progress; ere this men have gone out in
sport, and slain their thousands and tens of thousands; but now man had
become a creature of price; the life of one of them was of more worth than
the so called treasures of kings. Look at his thought-endued countenance,
his graceful limbs, his majestic brow, his wondrous mechanism--the type
and model of this best work of God is not to be cast aside as a broken
vessel--he shall be preserved, and his children and his children's
children carry down the name and form of man to latest time.
Above all I must guard those entrusted by nature and fate to my especial
care. And surely, if among all my fellow-creatures I were to select those
who might stand forth examples of the greatness and goodness of man, I
could choose no other than those allied to me by the most sacred ties. Some
from among the family of man must survive, and these should be among the
survivors; that should be my task--to accomplish it my own life were a
small sacrifice. There then in that castle--in Windsor Castle,
birth-place of Idris and my babes, should be the haven and retreat for the
wrecked bark of human society. Its forest should be our world--its garden
afford us food; within its walls I would establish the shaken throne of
health. I was an outcast and a vagabond, when Adrian gently threw over me
the silver net of love and civilization, and linked me inextricably to
human charities and human excellence. I was one, who, though an aspirant
after good, and an ardent lover of wisdom, was yet unenrolled in any list
of worth, when Idris, the princely born, who was herself the
personification of all that was divine in woman, she who walked the earth
like a poet's dream, as a carved goddess endued with sense, or pictured
saint stepping from the canvas--she, the most worthy, chose me, and gave
me herself--a priceless gift.
During several hours I continued thus to meditate, till hunger and fatigue
brought me back to the passing hour, then marked by long shadows cast from
the descending sun. I had wandered towards Bracknel, far to the west of
Windsor. The feeling of perfect health which I enjoyed, assured me that I
was free from contagion. I remembered that Idris had been kept in ignorance
of my proceedings. She might have heard of my return from London, and my
visit to Bolter's Lock, which, connected with my continued absence, might
tend greatly to alarm her. I returned to Windsor by the Long Walk, and
passing through the town towards the Castle, I found it in a state of
agitation and disturbance.
"It is too late to be ambitious," says Sir Thomas Browne. "We cannot hope
to live so long in our names as some have done in their persons; one face
of Janus holds no proportion to the other." Upon this text many fanatics
arose, who prophesied that the end of time was come. The spirit of
superstition had birth, from the wreck of our hopes, and antics wild and
dangerous were played on the great theatre, while the remaining particle of
futurity dwindled into a point in the eyes of the prognosticators.
Weak-spirited women died of fear as they listened to their denunciations;
men of robust form and seeming strength fell into idiotcy and madness,
racked by the dread of coming eternity. A man of this kind was now pouring
forth his eloquent despair among the inhabitants of Windsor. The scene of
the morning, and my visit to the dead, which had been spread abroad, had
alarmed the country-people, so they had become fit instruments to be played
upon by a maniac.
The poor wretch had lost his young wife and lovely infant by the plague. He
was a mechanic; and, rendered unable to attend to the occupation which
supplied his necessities, famine was added to his other miseries. He left
the chamber which contained his wife and child--wife and child no more,
but "dead earth upon the earth"--wild with hunger, watching and grief,
his diseased fancy made him believe himself sent by heaven to preach the
end of time to the world. He entered the churches, and foretold to the
congregations their speedy removal to the vaults below. He appeared like
the forgotten spirit of the time in the theatres, and bade the spectators
go home and die. He had been seized and confined; he had escaped and
wandered from London among the neighbouring towns, and, with frantic
gestures and thrilling words, he unveiled to each their hidden fears, and
gave voice to the soundless thought they dared not syllable. He stood under
the arcade of the town-hall of Windsor, and from this elevation harangued a
trembling crowd.
"Hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth," he cried, "hear thou, all seeing,
but most pitiless Heaven! hear thou too, O tempest-tossed heart, which
breathes out these words, yet faints beneath their meaning! Death is among
us! The earth is beautiful and flower-bedecked, but she is our grave! The
clouds of heaven weep for us--the pageantry of the stars is but our
funeral torchlight. Grey headed men, ye hoped for yet a few years in your
long-known abode--but the lease is up, you must remove--children, ye
will never reach maturity, even now the small grave is dug for ye--
mothers, clasp them in your arms, one death embraces you!"
Shuddering, he stretched out his hands, his eyes cast up, seemed bursting
from their sockets, while he appeared to follow shapes, to us invisible, in
the yielding air--"There they are," he cried, "the dead! They rise in
their shrouds, and pass in silent procession towards the far land of their
doom--their bloodless lips move not--their shadowy limbs are void of
motion, while still they glide onwards. We come," he exclaimed, springing
forwards, "for what should we wait? Haste, my friends, apparel yourselves
in the court-dress of death. Pestilence will usher you to his presence. Why
thus long? they, the good, the wise, and the beloved, are gone before.
Mothers, kiss you last--husbands, protectors no more, lead on the
partners of your death! Come, O come! while the dear ones are yet in sight,
for soon they will pass away, and we never never shall join them more."
From such ravings as these, he would suddenly become collected, and with
unexaggerated but terrific words, paint the horrors of the time; describe
with minute detail, the effects of the plague on the human frame, and tell
heart-breaking tales of the snapping of dear affinities--the gasping
horror of despair over the death-bed of the last beloved--so that groans
and even shrieks burst from the crowd. One man in particular stood in
front, his eyes fixt on the prophet, his mouth open, his limbs rigid, while
his face changed to various colours, yellow, blue, and green, through
intense fear. The maniac caught his glance, and turned his eye on him--
one has heard of the gaze of the rattle-snake, which allures the trembling
victim till he falls within his jaws. The maniac became composed; his
person rose higher; authority beamed from his countenance. He looked on the
peasant, who began to tremble, while he still gazed; his knees knocked
together; his teeth chattered. He at last fell down in convulsions. "That
man has the plague," said the maniac calmly. A shriek burst from the lips
of the poor wretch; and then sudden motionlessness came over him; it was
manifest to all that he was dead.
Cries of horror filled the place--every one endeavoured to effect his
escape--in a few minutes the market place was cleared--the corpse lay
on the ground; and the maniac, subdued and exhausted, sat beside it,
leaning his gaunt cheek upon his thin hand. Soon some people, deputed by
the magistrates, came to remove the body; the unfortunate being saw a
jailor in each--he fled precipitately, while I passed onwards to the
Castle.
Death, cruel and relentless, had entered these beloved walls. An old
servant, who had nursed Idris in infancy, and who lived with us more on the
footing of a revered relative than a domestic, had gone a few days before
to visit a daughter, married, and settled in the neighbourhood of London.
On the night of her return she sickened of the plague. From the haughty and
unbending nature of the Countess of Windsor, Idris had few tender filial
associations with her. This good woman had stood in the place of a mother,
and her very deficiencies of education and knowledge, by rendering her
humble and defenceless, endeared her to us--she was the especial
favourite of the children. I found my poor girl, there is no exaggeration
in the expression, wild with grief and dread. She hung over the patient in
agony, which was not mitigated when her thoughts wandered towards her
babes, for whom she feared infection. My arrival was like the newly
discovered lamp of a lighthouse to sailors, who are weathering some
dangerous point. She deposited her appalling doubts in my hands; she relied
on my judgment, and was comforted by my participation in her sorrow. Soon
our poor nurse expired; and the anguish of suspense was changed to deep
regret, which though at first more painful, yet yielded with greater
readiness to my consolations. Sleep, the sovereign balm, at length steeped
her tearful eyes in forgetfulness.
She slept; and quiet prevailed in the Castle, whose inhabitants were hushed
to repose. I was awake, and during the long hours of dead night, my busy
thoughts worked in my brain, like ten thousand mill-wheels, rapid, acute,
untameable. All slept--all England slept; and from my window, commanding
a wide prospect of the star-illumined country, I saw the land stretched out
in placid rest. I was awake, alive, while the brother of death possessed my
race. What, if the more potent of these fraternal deities should obtain
dominion over it? The silence of midnight, to speak truly, though
apparently a paradox, rung in my ears. The solitude became intolerable--I
placed my hand on the beating heart of Idris, I bent my head to catch the
sound of her breath, to assure myself that she still existed--for a
moment I doubted whether I should not awake her; so effeminate an horror
ran through my frame.--Great God! would it one day be thus? One day all
extinct, save myself, should I walk the earth alone? Were these warning
voices, whose inarticulate and oracular sense forced belief upon me?
Yet I would not call them
Voices of warning, that announce to us
Only the inevitable. As the sun,
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere--so often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.[2]
[1] Calderon de la Barca.
[2] Coleridge's Translation of Schiller's Wallenstein.
CHAPTER VIII.
AFTER a long interval, I am again impelled by the restless spirit within me
to continue my narration; but I must alter the mode which I have hitherto
adopted. The details contained in the foregoing pages, apparently trivial,
yet each slightest one weighing like lead in the depressed scale of human
afflictions; this tedious dwelling on the sorrows of others, while my own
were only in apprehension; this slowly laying bare of my soul's wounds:
this journal of death; this long drawn and tortuous path, leading to the
ocean of countless tears, awakens me again to keen grief. I had used this
history as an opiate; while it described my beloved friends, fresh with
life and glowing with hope, active assistants on the scene, I was soothed;
there will be a more melancholy pleasure in painting the end of all. But
the intermediate steps, the climbing the wall, raised up between what was
and is, while I still looked back nor saw the concealed desert beyond, is a
labour past my strength. Time and experience have placed me on an height
from which I can comprehend the past as a whole; and in this way I must
describe it, bringing forward the leading incidents, and disposing light
and shade so as to form a picture in whose very darkness there will be
harmony.
It would be needless to narrate those disastrous occurrences, for which a
parallel might be found in any slighter visitation of our gigantic
calamity. Does the reader wish to hear of the pest-houses, where death is
the comforter--of the mournful passage of the death-cart--of the
insensibility of the worthless, and the anguish of the loving heart--of
harrowing shrieks and silence dire--of the variety of disease, desertion,
famine, despair, and death? There are many books which can feed the
appetite craving for these things; let them turn to the accounts of
Boccaccio, De Foe, and Browne. The vast annihilation that has swallowed all
things--the voiceless solitude of the once busy earth--the lonely state
of singleness which hems me in, has deprived even such details of their
stinging reality, and mellowing the lurid tints of past anguish with poetic
hues, I am able to escape from the mosaic of circumstance, by perceiving
and reflecting back the grouping and combined colouring of the past.
I had returned from London possessed by the idea, with the intimate feeling
that it was my first duty to secure, as well as I was able, the well-being
of my family, and then to return and take my post beside Adrian. The events
that immediately followed on my arrival at Windsor changed this view of
things. The plague was not in London alone, it was every where--it came
on us, as Ryland had said, like a thousand packs of wolves, howling through
the winter night, gaunt and fierce. When once disease was introduced into
the rural districts, its effects appeared more horrible, more exigent, and
more difficult to cure, than in towns. There was a companionship in
suffering there, and, the neighbours keeping constant watch on each other,
and inspired by the active benevolence of Adrian, succour was afforded, and
the path of destruction smoothed. But in the country, among the scattered
farm-houses, in lone cottages, in fields, and barns, tragedies were acted
harrowing to the soul, unseen, unheard, unnoticed. Medical aid was less
easily procured, food was more difficult to obtain, and human beings,
unwithheld by shame, for they were unbeheld of their fellows, ventured on
deeds of greater wickedness, or gave way more readily to their abject
fears.
Deeds of heroism also occurred, whose very mention swells the heart and
brings tears into the eyes. Such is human nature, that beauty and deformity
are often closely linked. In reading history we are chiefly struck by the
generosity and self-devotion that follow close on the heels of crime,
veiling with supernal flowers the stain of blood. Such acts were not
wanting to adorn the grim train that waited on the progress of the plague.
The inhabitants of Berkshire and Bucks had been long aware that the plague
was in London, in Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, York, in short, in all
the more populous towns of England. They were not however the less
astonished and dismayed when it appeared among themselves. They were
impatient and angry in the midst of terror. They would do something to
throw off the clinging evil, and, while in action, they fancied that a
remedy was applied. The inhabitants of the smaller towns left their houses,
pitched tents in the fields, wandering separate from each other careless of
hunger or the sky's inclemency, while they imagined that they avoided the
death-dealing disease. The farmers and cottagers, on the contrary, struck
with the fear of solitude, and madly desirous of medical assistance,
flocked into the towns.
But winter was coming, and with winter, hope. In August, the plague had
appeared in the country of England, and during September it made its
ravages. Towards the end of October it dwindled away, and was in some
degree replaced by a typhus, of hardly less virulence. The autumn was warm
and rainy: the infirm and sickly died off--happier they: many young
people flushed with health and prosperity, made pale by wasting malady,
became the inhabitants of the grave. The crop had failed, the bad corn, and
want of foreign wines, added vigour to disease. Before Christmas half
England was under water. The storms of the last winter were renewed; but
the diminished shipping of this year caused us to feel less the tempests of
the sea. The flood and storms did more harm to continental Europe than to
us--giving, as it were, the last blow to the calamities which destroyed
it. In Italy the rivers were unwatched by the diminished peasantry; and,
like wild beasts from their lair when the hunters and dogs are afar, did
Tiber, Arno, and Po, rush upon and destroy the fertility of the plains.
Whole villages were carried away. Rome, and Florence, and Pisa were
overflowed, and their marble palaces, late mirrored in tranquil streams,
had their foundations shaken by their winter-gifted power. In Germany and
Russia the injury was still more momentous.
But frost would come at last, and with it a renewal of our lease of earth.
Frost would blunt the arrows of pestilence, and enchain the furious
elements; and the land would in spring throw off her garment of snow,
released from her menace of destruction. It was not until February that the
desired signs of winter appeared. For three days the snow fell, ice stopped
the current of the rivers, and the birds flew out from crackling branches
of the frost-whitened trees. On the fourth morning all vanished. A
south-west wind brought up rain--the sun came out, and mocking the usual
laws of nature, seemed even at this early season to burn with solsticial
force. It was no consolation, that with the first winds of March the lanes
were filled with violets, the fruit trees covered with blossoms, that the
corn sprung up, and the leaves came out, forced by the unseasonable heat.
We feared the balmy air--we feared the cloudless sky, the flower-covered
earth, and delightful woods, for we looked on the fabric of the universe no
longer as our dwelling, but our tomb, and the fragrant land smelled to the
apprehension of fear like a wide church-yard.
Pisando la tierra dura
de continuo el hombre esta
y cada passo que da
es sobre su sepultura.[1]
Yet notwithstanding these disadvantages winter was breathing time; and we
exerted ourselves to make the best of it. Plague might not revive with the
summer; but if it did, it should find us prepared. It is a part of man's
nature to adapt itself through habit even to pain and sorrow. Pestilence
had become a part of our future, our existence; it was to be guarded
against, like the flooding of rivers, the encroachments of ocean, or the
inclemency of the sky. After long suffering and bitter experience, some
panacea might be discovered; as it was, all that received infection died--
all however were not infected; and it became our part to fix deep the
foundations, and raise high the barrier between contagion and the sane; to
introduce such order as would conduce to the well-being of the survivors,
and as would preserve hope and some portion of happiness to those who were
spectators of the still renewed tragedy. Adrian had introduced systematic
modes of proceeding in the metropolis, which, while they were unable to
stop the progress of death, yet prevented other evils, vice and folly, from
rendering the awful fate of the hour still more tremendous. I wished to
imitate his example, but men are used to
--move all together, if they move at all,[2]
and I could find no means of leading the inhabitants of scattered
towns and villages, who forgot my words as soon as they heard them
not, and veered with every baffling wind, that might arise from an
apparent change of circumstance.
I adopted another plan. Those writers who have imagined a reign of peace
and happiness on earth, have generally described a rural country, where
each small township was directed by the elders and wise men. This was the
key of my design. Each village, however small, usually contains a leader,
one among themselves whom they venerate, whose advice they seek in
difficulty, and whose good opinion they chiefly value. I was immediately
drawn to make this observation by occurrences that presented themselves to
my personal experience.
In the village of Little Marlow an old woman ruled the community. She had
lived for some years in an alms-house, and on fine Sundays her threshold
was constantly beset by a crowd, seeking her advice and listening to her
admonitions. She had been a soldier's wife, and had seen the world;
infirmity, induced by fevers caught in unwholesome quarters, had come on
her before its time, and she seldom moved from her little cot. The plague
entered the village; and, while fright and grief deprived the inhabitants
of the little wisdom they possessed, old Martha stepped forward and said--
"Before now I have been in a town where there was the plague."--"And you
escaped?"--"No, but I recovered."--After this Martha was seated more
firmly than ever on the regal seat, elevated by reverence and love. She
entered the cottages of the sick; she relieved their wants with her own
hand; she betrayed no fear, and inspired all who saw her with some portion
of her own native courage. She attended the markets--she insisted upon
being supplied with food for those who were too poor to purchase it. She
shewed them how the well-being of each included the prosperity of all. She
would not permit the gardens to be neglected, nor the very flowers in the
cottage lattices to droop from want of care. Hope, she said, was better
than a doctor's prescription, and every thing that could sustain and
enliven the spirits, of more worth than drugs and mixtures.
It was the sight of Little Marlow, and my conversations with Martha, that
led me to the plan I formed. I had before visited the manor houses and
gentlemen's seats, and often found the inhabitants actuated by the purest
benevolence, ready to lend their utmost aid for the welfare of their
tenants. But this was not enough. The intimate sympathy generated by
similar hopes and fears, similar experience and pursuits, was wanting here.
The poor perceived that the rich possessed other means of preservation than
those which could be partaken of by themselves, seclusion, and, as far as
circumstances permitted, freedom from care. They could not place reliance
on them, but turned with tenfold dependence to the succour and advice of
their equals. I resolved therefore to go from village to village, seeking
out the rustic archon of the place, and by systematizing their exertions,
and enlightening their views, encrease both their power and their use among
their fellow-cottagers. Many changes also now occurred in these spontaneous
regal elections: depositions and abdications were frequent, while, in the
place of the old and prudent, the ardent youth would step forward, eager
for action, regardless of danger. Often too, the voice to which all
listened was suddenly silenced, the helping hand cold, the sympathetic eye
closed, and the villagers feared still more the death that had selected a
choice victim, shivering in dust the heart that had beat for them, reducing
to incommunicable annihilation the mind for ever occupied with projects for
their welfare.
Whoever labours for man must often find ingratitude, watered by vice and
folly, spring from the grain which he has sown. Death, which had in our
younger days walked the earth like "a thief that comes in the night," now,
rising from his subterranean vault, girt with power, with dark banner
floating, came a conqueror. Many saw, seated above his vice-regal throne, a
supreme Providence, who directed his shafts, and guided his progress, and
they bowed their heads in resignation, or at least in obedience. Others
perceived only a passing casualty; they endeavoured to exchange terror for
heedlessness, and plunged into licentiousness, to avoid the agonizing
throes of worst apprehension. Thus, while the wise, the good, and the
prudent were occupied by the labours of benevolence, the truce of winter
produced other effects among the young, the thoughtless, and the vicious.
During the colder months there was a general rush to London in search of
amusement--the ties of public opinion were loosened; many were rich,
heretofore poor--many had lost father and mother, the guardians of their
morals, their mentors and restraints. It would have been useless to have
opposed these impulses by barriers, which would only have driven those
actuated by them to more pernicious indulgencies. The theatres were open
and thronged; dance and midnight festival were frequented--in many of
these decorum was violated, and the evils, which hitherto adhered to an
advanced state of civilization, were doubled. The student left his books,
the artist his study: the occupations of life were gone, but the amusements
remained; enjoyment might be protracted to the verge of the grave. All
factitious colouring disappeared--death rose like night, and, protected
by its murky shadows the blush of modesty, the reserve of pride, the
decorum of prudery were frequently thrown aside as useless veils. This was
not universal. Among better natures, anguish and dread, the fear of eternal
separation, and the awful wonder produced by unprecedented calamity, drew
closer the ties of kindred and friendship. Philosophers opposed their
principles, as barriers to the inundation of profligacy or despair, and the
only ramparts to protect the invaded territory of human life; the
religious, hoping now for their reward, clung fast to their creeds, as the
rafts and planks which over the tempest-vexed sea of suffering, would bear
them in safety to the harbour of the Unknown Continent. The loving heart,
obliged to contract its view, bestowed its overflow of affection in triple
portion on the few that remained. Yet, even among these, the present, as an
unalienable possession, became all of time to which they dared commit the
precious freight of their hopes.
The experience of immemorial time had taught us formerly to count our
enjoyments by years, and extend our prospect of life through a lengthened
period of progression and decay; the long road threaded a vast labyrinth,
and the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in which it terminated, was hid by
intervening objects. But an earthquake had changed the scene--under our
very feet the earth yawned--deep and precipitous the gulph below opened
to receive us, while the hours charioted us towards the chasm. But it was
winter now, and months must elapse before we are hurled from our security.
We became ephemera, to whom the interval between the rising and setting sun
was as a long drawn year of common time. We should never see our children
ripen into maturity, nor behold their downy cheeks roughen, their blithe
hearts subdued by passion or care; but we had them now--they lived, and
we lived--what more could we desire? With such schooling did my poor
Idris try to hush thronging fears, and in some measure succeeded. It was
not as in summer-time, when each hour might bring the dreaded fate--until
summer, we felt sure; and this certainty, short lived as it must be, yet
for awhile satisfied her maternal tenderness. I know not how to express or
communicate the sense of concentrated, intense, though evanescent
transport, that imparadized us in the present hour. Our joys were dearer
because we saw their end; they were keener because we felt, to its fullest
extent, their value; they were purer because their essence was sympathy--
as a meteor is brighter than a star, did the felicity of this winter
contain in itself the extracted delights of a long, long life.
How lovely is spring! As we looked from Windsor Terrace on the sixteen
fertile counties spread beneath, speckled by happy cottages and wealthier
towns, all looked as in former years, heart-cheering and fair. The land was
ploughed, the slender blades of wheat broke through the dark soil, the
fruit trees were covered with buds, the husbandman was abroad in the
fields, the milk-maid tripped home with well-filled pails, the swallows and
martins struck the sunny pools with their long, pointed wings, the new
dropped lambs reposed on the young grass, the tender growth of leaves--
Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds
A silent space with ever sprouting green.[3]
Man himself seemed to regenerate, and feel the frost of winter yield to
an elastic and warm renewal of life--reason told us that care and sorrow
would grow with the opening year--but how to believe the ominous voice
breathed up with pestiferous vapours from fear's dim cavern, while nature,
laughing and scattering from her green lap flowers, and fruits, and
sparkling waters, invited us to join the gay masque of young life she
led upon the scene?
Where was the plague? "Here--every where!" one voice of horror and dismay
exclaimed, when in the pleasant days of a sunny May the Destroyer of man
brooded again over the earth, forcing the spirit to leave its organic
chrysalis, and to enter upon an untried life. With one mighty sweep of its
potent weapon, all caution, all care, all prudence were levelled low: death
sat at the tables of the great, stretched itself on the cottager's pallet,
seized the dastard who fled, quelled the brave man who resisted:
despondency entered every heart, sorrow dimmed every eye.
Sights of woe now became familiar to me, and were I to tell all of anguish
and pain that I witnessed, of the despairing moans of age, and the more
terrible smiles of infancy in the bosom of horror, my reader, his limbs
quivering and his hair on end, would wonder how I did not, seized with
sudden frenzy, dash myself from some precipice, and so close my eyes for
ever on the sad end of the world. But the powers of love, poetry, and
creative fancy will dwell even beside the sick of the plague, with the
squalid, and with the dying. A feeling of devotion, of duty, of a high and
steady purpose, elevated me; a strange joy filled my heart. In the midst of
saddest grief I seemed to tread air, while the spirit of good shed round me
an ambrosial atmosphere, which blunted the sting of sympathy, and purified
the air of sighs. If my wearied soul flagged in its career, I thought of my
loved home, of the casket that contained my treasures, of the kiss of love
and the filial caress, while my eyes were moistened by purest dew, and my
heart was at once softened and refreshed by thrilling tenderness.
Maternal affection had not rendered Idris selfish; at the beginning of our
calamity she had, with thoughtless enthusiasm, devoted herself to the care
of the sick and helpless. I checked her; and she submitted to my rule. I
told her how the fear of her danger palsied my exertions, how the knowledge
of her safety strung my nerves to endurance. I shewed her the dangers which
her children incurred during her absence; and she at length agreed not to
go beyond the inclosure of the forest. Indeed, within the walls of the
Castle we had a colony of the unhappy, deserted by their relatives, and in
themselves helpless, sufficient to occupy her time and attention, while
ceaseless anxiety for my welfare and the health of her children, however
she strove to curb or conceal it, absorbed all her thoughts, and undermined
the vital principle. After watching over and providing for their safety,
her second care was to hide from me her anguish and tears. Each night I
returned to the Castle, and found there repose and love awaiting me. Often
I waited beside the bed of death till midnight, and through the obscurity
of rainy, cloudy nights rode many miles, sustained by one circumstance
only, the safety and sheltered repose of those I loved. If some scene of
tremendous agony shook my frame and fevered my brow, I would lay my head on
the lap of Idris, and the tumultuous pulses subsided into a temperate flow
--her smile could raise me from hopelessness, her embrace bathe my
sorrowing heart in calm peace. Summer advanced, and, crowned with the sun's
potent rays, plague shot her unerring shafts over the earth. The nations
beneath their influence bowed their heads, and died. The corn that sprung
up in plenty, lay in autumn rotting on the ground, while the melancholy
wretch who had gone out to gather bread for his children, lay stiff and
plague-struck in the furrow. The green woods waved their boughs
majestically, while the dying were spread beneath their shade, answering
the solemn melody with inharmonious cries. The painted birds flitted
through the shades; the careless deer reposed unhurt upon the fern--the
oxen and the horses strayed from their unguarded stables, and grazed among
the wheat, for death fell on man alone.
With summer and mortality grew our fears. My poor love and I looked at each
other, and our babes.--"We will save them, Idris," I said, "I will save
them. Years hence we shall recount to them our fears, then passed away with
their occasion. Though they only should remain on the earth, still they
shall live, nor shall their cheeks become pale nor their sweet voices
languish." Our eldest in some degree understood the scenes passing around,
and at times, he with serious looks questioned me concerning the reason of
so vast a desolation. But he was only ten years old; and the hilarity of
youth soon chased unreasonable care from his brow. Evelyn, a laughing
cherub, a gamesome infant, without idea of pain or sorrow, would, shaking
back his light curls from his eyes, make the halls re-echo with his
merriment, and in a thousand artless ways attract our attention to his
play. Clara, our lovely gentle Clara, was our stay, our solace, our
delight. She made it her task to attend the sick, comfort the sorrowing,
assist the aged, and partake the sports and awaken the gaiety of the young.
She flitted through the rooms, like a good spirit, dispatched from the
celestial kingdom, to illumine our dark hour with alien splendour.
Gratitude and praise marked where her footsteps had been. Yet, when she
stood in unassuming simplicity before us, playing with our children, or
with girlish assiduity performing little kind offices for Idris, one
wondered in what fair lineament of her pure loveliness, in what soft tone
of her thrilling voice, so much of heroism, sagacity and active goodness
resided.
The summer passed tediously, for we trusted that winter would at least
check the disease. That it would vanish altogether was an hope too dear--
too heartfelt, to be expressed. When such a thought was heedlessly uttered,
the hearers, with a gush of tears and passionate sobs, bore witness how
deep their fears were, how small their hopes. For my own part, my exertions
for the public good permitted me to observe more closely than most others,
the virulence and extensive ravages of our sightless enemy. A short month
has destroyed a village, and where in May the first person sickened, in
June the paths were deformed by unburied corpses--the houses tenantless,
no smoke arising from the chimneys; and the housewife's clock marked only
the hour when death had been triumphant. From such scenes I have sometimes
saved a deserted infant--sometimes led a young and grieving mother from
the lifeless image of her first born, or drawn the sturdy labourer from
childish weeping over his extinct family.
July is gone. August must pass, and by the middle of September we may hope.
Each day was eagerly counted; and the inhabitants of towns, desirous to
leap this dangerous interval, plunged into dissipation, and strove, by
riot, and what they wished to imagine to be pleasure, to banish thought and
opiate despair. None but Adrian could have tamed the motley population of
London, which, like a troop of unbitted steeds rushing to their pastures,
had thrown aside all minor fears, through the operation of the fear
paramount. Even Adrian was obliged in part to yield, that he might be able,
if not to guide, at least to set bounds to the license of the times. The
theatres were kept open; every place of public resort was frequented;
though he endeavoured so to modify them, as might best quiet the agitation
of the spectators, and at the same time prevent a reaction of misery when
the excitement was over. Tragedies deep and dire were the chief favourites.
Comedy brought with it too great a contrast to the inner despair: when such
were attempted, it was not unfrequent for a comedian, in the midst of the
laughter occasioned by his disporportioned buffoonery, to find a word or
thought in his part that jarred with his own sense of wretchedness, and
burst from mimic merriment into sobs and tears, while the spectators,
seized with irresistible sympathy, wept, and the pantomimic revelry was
changed to a real exhibition of tragic passion.
It was not in my nature to derive consolation from such scenes; from
theatres, whose buffoon laughter and discordant mirth awakened distempered
sympathy, or where fictitious tears and wailings mocked the heart-felt
grief within; from festival or crowded meeting, where hilarity sprung from
the worst feelings of our nature, or such enthralment of the better ones,
as impressed it with garish and false varnish; from assemblies of mourners
in the guise of revellers. Once however I witnessed a scene of singular
interest at one of the theatres, where nature overpowered art, as an
overflowing cataract will tear away the puny manufacture of a mock cascade,
which had before been fed by a small portion of its waters.
I had come to London to see Adrian. He was not at the palace; and, though
the attendants did not know whither he had gone, they did not expect him
till late at night. It was between six and seven o'clock, a fine summer
afternoon, and I spent my leisure hours in a ramble through the empty
streets of London; now turning to avoid an approaching funeral, now urged
by curiosity to observe the state of a particular spot; my wanderings were
instinct with pain, for silence and desertion characterized every place I
visited, and the few beings I met were so pale and woe-begone, so marked
with care and depressed by fear, that weary of encountering only signs of
misery, I began to retread my steps towards home.
I was now in Holborn, and passed by a public house filled with uproarious
companions, whose songs, laughter, and shouts were more sorrowful than the
pale looks and silence of the mourner. Such an one was near, hovering round
this house. The sorry plight of her dress displayed her poverty, she was
ghastly pale, and continued approaching, first the window and then the door
of the house, as if fearful, yet longing to enter. A sudden burst of song
and merriment seemed to sting her to the heart; she murmured, "Can he have
the heart?" and then mustering her courage, she stepped within the
threshold. The landlady met her in the passage; the poor creature asked,
"Is my husband here? Can I see George?"
"See him," cried the woman, "yes, if you go to him; last night he was taken
with the plague, and we sent him to the hospital."
The unfortunate inquirer staggered against a wall, a faint cry escaped her
--"O! were you cruel enough," she exclaimed, "to send him there?"
The landlady meanwhile hurried away; but a more compassionate bar-maid gave
her a detailed account, the sum of which was, that her husband had been
taken ill, after a night of riot, and sent by his boon companions with all
expedition to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I had watched this scene, for
there was a gentleness about the poor woman that interested me; she now
tottered away from the door, walking as well as she could down Holborn
Hill; but her strength soon failed her; she leaned against a wall, and her
head sunk on her bosom, while her pallid cheek became still more white. I
went up to her and offered my services. She hardly looked up--"You can do
me no good," she replied; "I must go to the hospital; if I do not die
before I get there."
There were still a few hackney-coaches accustomed to stand about the
streets, more truly from habit than for use. I put her in one of these, and
entered with her that I might secure her entrance into the hospital. Our
way was short, and she said little; except interrupted ejaculations of
reproach that he had left her, exclamations on the unkindness of some of
his friends, and hope that she would find him alive. There was a simple,
natural earnestness about her that interested me in her fate, especially
when she assured me that her husband was the best of men,--had been so,
till want of business during these unhappy times had thrown him into bad
company. "He could not bear to come home," she said, "only to see our
children die. A man cannot have the patience a mother has, with her own
flesh and blood."
We were set down at St. Bartholomew's, and entered the wretched precincts
of the house of disease. The poor creature clung closer to me, as she saw
with what heartless haste they bore the dead from the wards, and took them
into a room, whose half-opened door displayed a number of corpses, horrible
to behold by one unaccustomed to such scenes. We were directed to the ward
where her husband had been first taken, and still was, the nurse said, if
alive. My companion looked eagerly from one bed to the other, till at the
end of the ward she espied, on a wretched bed, a squalid, haggard creature,
writhing under the torture of disease. She rushed towards him, she embraced
him, blessing God for his preservation.
The enthusiasm that inspired her with this strange joy, blinded her to the
horrors about her; but they were intolerably agonizing to me. The ward was
filled with an effluvia that caused my heart to heave with painful qualms.
The dead were carried out, and the sick brought in, with like indifference;
some were screaming with pain, others laughing from the influence of more
terrible delirium; some were attended by weeping, despairing relations,
others called aloud with thrilling tenderness or reproach on the friends
who had deserted them, while the nurses went from bed to bed, incarnate
images of despair, neglect, and death. I gave gold to my luckless
companion; I recommended her to the care of the attendants; I then hastened
away; while the tormentor, the imagination, busied itself in picturing my
own loved ones, stretched on such beds, attended thus. The country afforded
no such mass of horrors; solitary wretches died in the open fields; and I
have found a survivor in a vacant village, contending at once with famine
and disease; but the assembly of pestilence, the banqueting hall of death,
was spread only in London.
I rambled on, oppressed, distracted by painful emotions--suddenly I found
myself before Drury Lane Theatre. The play was Macbeth--the first actor
of the age was there to exert his powers to drug with irreflection the
auditors; such a medicine I yearned for, so I entered. The theatre was
tolerably well filled. Shakspeare, whose popularity was established by the
approval of four centuries, had not lost his influence even at this dread
period; but was still "Ut magus," the wizard to rule our hearts and govern
our imaginations. I came in during the interval between the third and
fourth act. I looked round on the audience; the females were mostly of the
lower classes, but the men were of all ranks, come hither to forget awhile
the protracted scenes of wretchedness, which awaited them at their
miserable homes. The curtain drew up, and the stage presented the scene of
the witches' cave. The wildness and supernatural machinery of Macbeth, was
a pledge that it could contain little directly connected with our present
circumstances. Great pains had been taken in the scenery to give the
semblance of reality to the impossible. The extreme darkness of the stage,
whose only light was received from the fire under the cauldron, joined to a
kind of mist that floated about it, rendered the unearthly shapes of the
witches obscure and shadowy. It was not three decrepid old hags that bent
over their pot throwing in the grim ingredients of the magic charm, but
forms frightful, unreal, and fanciful. The entrance of Hecate, and the wild
music that followed, took us out of this world. The cavern shape the stage
assumed, the beetling rocks, the glare of the fire, the misty shades that
crossed the scene at times, the music in harmony with all witch-like
fancies, permitted the imagination to revel, without fear of contradiction,
or reproof from reason or the heart. The entrance of Macbeth did not
destroy the illusion, for he was actuated by the same feelings that
inspired us, and while the work of magic proceeded we sympathized in his
wonder and his daring, and gave ourselves up with our whole souls to the
influence of scenic delusion. I felt the beneficial result of such
excitement, in a renewal of those pleasing flights of fancy to which I had
long been a stranger. The effect of this scene of incantation communicated
a portion of its power to that which followed. We forgot that Malcolm and
Macduff were mere human beings, acted upon by such simple passions as
warmed our own breasts. By slow degrees however we were drawn to the real
interest of the scene. A shudder like the swift passing of an electric
shock ran through the house, when Rosse exclaimed, in answer to "Stands
Scotland where it did?"
Alas, poor country;
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be called our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern extasy: the dead man's knell
Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.
Each word struck the sense, as our life's passing bell; we feared to look
at each other, but bent our gaze on the stage, as if our eyes could fall
innocuous on that alone. The person who played the part of Rosse, suddenly
became aware of the dangerous ground he trod. He was an inferior actor, but
truth now made him excellent; as he went on to announce to Macduff the
slaughter of his family, he was afraid to speak, trembling from
apprehension of a burst of grief from the audience, not from his
fellow-mime. Each word was drawn out with difficulty; real anguish painted
his features; his eyes were now lifted in sudden horror, now fixed in dread
upon the ground. This shew of terror encreased ours, we gasped with him,
each neck was stretched out, each face changed with the actor's changes--
at length while Macduff, who, attending to his part, was unobservant of the
high wrought sympathy of the house, cried with well acted passion:
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all?--O hell kite! All?
What! all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop!
A pang of tameless grief wrenched every heart, a burst of despair was
echoed from every lip.--I had entered into the universal feeling--I
had been absorbed by the terrors of Rosse--I re-echoed the cry of Macduff,
and then rushed out as from an hell of torture, to find calm in the free
air and silent street.
Free the air was not, or the street silent. Oh, how I longed then for the
dear soothings of maternal Nature, as my wounded heart was still further
stung by the roar of heartless merriment from the public-house, by the
sight of the drunkard reeling home, having lost the memory of what he would
find there in oblivious debauch, and by the more appalling salutations of
those melancholy beings to whom the name of home was a mockery. I ran on at
my utmost speed until I found myself I knew not how, close to Westminster
Abbey, and was attracted by the deep and swelling tone of the organ. I
entered with soothing awe the lighted chancel, and listened to the solemn
religious chaunt, which spoke peace and hope to the unhappy. The notes,
freighted with man's dearest prayers, re-echoed through the dim aisles, and
the bleeding of the soul's wounds was staunched by heavenly balm. In spite
of the misery I deprecated, and could not understand; in spite of the cold
hearths of wide London, and the corpse-strewn fields of my native land; in
spite of all the variety of agonizing emotions I had that evening
experienced, I thought that in reply to our melodious adjurations, the
Creator looked down in compassion and promise of relief; the awful peal of
the heaven-winged music seemed fitting voice wherewith to commune with the
Supreme; calm was produced by its sound, and by the sight of many other
human creatures offering up prayers and submission with me. A sentiment
approaching happiness followed the total resignation of one's being to the
guardianship of the world's ruler. Alas! with the failing of this solemn
strain, the elevated spirit sank again to earth. Suddenly one of the
choristers died--he was lifted from his desk, the vaults below were
hastily opened--he was consigned with a few muttered prayers to the
darksome cavern, abode of thousands who had gone before--now wide yawning
to receive even all who fulfilled the funeral rites. In vain I would then
have turned from this scene, to darkened aisle or lofty dome, echoing with
melodious praise. In the open air alone I found relief; among nature's
beauteous works, her God reassumed his attribute of benevolence, and again
I could trust that he who built up the mountains, planted the forests, and
poured out the rivers, would erect another state for lost humanity, where
we might awaken again to our affections, our happiness, and our faith.
Fortunately for me those circumstances were of rare occurrence that obliged
me to visit London, and my duties were confined to the rural district which
our lofty castle overlooked; and here labour stood in the place of pastime,
to occupy such of the country people as were sufficiently exempt from
sorrow or disease. My endeavours were directed towards urging them to their
usual attention to their crops, and to the acting as if pestilence did not
exist. The mower's scythe was at times heard; yet the joyless haymakers
after they had listlessly turned the grass, forgot to cart it; the
shepherd, when he had sheared his sheep, would let the wool lie to be
scattered by the winds, deeming it useless to provide clothing for another
winter. At times however the spirit of life was awakened by these
employments; the sun, the refreshing breeze, the sweet smell of the hay,
the rustling leaves and prattling rivulets brought repose to the agitated
bosom, and bestowed a feeling akin to happiness on the apprehensive. Nor,
strange to say, was the time without its pleasures. Young couples, who had
loved long and hopelessly, suddenly found every impediment removed, and
wealth pour in from the death of relatives. The very danger drew them
closer. The immediate peril urged them to seize the immediate opportunity;
wildly and passionately they sought to know what delights existence
afforded, before they yielded to death, and
Snatching their pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life,[4]
they defied the conquering pestilence to destroy what had been, or to
erase even from their death-bed thoughts the sentiment of happiness
which had been theirs.
One instance of this kind came immediately under our notice, where a
high-born girl had in early youth given her heart to one of meaner
extraction. He was a schoolfellow and friend of her brother's, and usually
spent a part of the holidays at the mansion of the duke her father. They
had played together as children, been the confidants of each other's little
secrets, mutual aids and consolers in difficulty and sorrow. Love had crept
in, noiseless, terrorless at first, till each felt their life bound up in
the other, and at the same time knew that they must part. Their extreme
youth, and the purity of their attachment, made them yield with less
resistance to the tyranny of circumstances. The father of the fair Juliet
separated them; but not until the young lover had promised to remain absent
only till he had rendered himself worthy of her, and she had vowed to
preserve her virgin heart, his treasure, till he returned to claim and
possess it.
Plague came, threatening to destroy at once the aim of the ambitious and
the hopes of love. Long the Duke of L----derided the idea that there
could be danger while he pursued his plans of cautious seclusion; and he so
far succeeded, that it was not till this second summer, that the destroyer,
at one fell stroke, overthrew his precautions, his security, and his life.
Poor Juliet saw one by one, father, mother, brothers, and sisters, sicken
and die. Most of the servants fled on the first appearance of disease,
those who remained were infected mortally; no neighbour or rustic ventured
within the verge of contagion. By a strange fatality Juliet alone escaped,
and she to the last waited on her relatives, and smoothed the pillow of
death. The moment at length came, when the last blow was given to the last
of the house: the youthful survivor of her race sat alone among the dead.
There was no living being near to soothe her, or withdraw her from this
hideous company. With the declining heat of a September night, a whirlwind
of storm, thunder, and hail, rattled round the house, and with ghastly
harmony sung the dirge of her family. She sat upon the ground absorbed in
wordless despair, when through the gusty wind and bickering rain she
thought she heard her name called. Whose could that familiar voice be? Not
one of her relations, for they lay glaring on her with stony eyes. Again
her name was syllabled, and she shuddered as she asked herself, am I
becoming mad, or am I dying, that I hear the voices of the departed? A
second thought passed, swift as an arrow, into her brain; she rushed to the
window; and a flash of lightning shewed to her the expected vision, her
lover in the shrubbery beneath; joy lent her strength to descend the
stairs, to open the door, and then she fainted in his supporting arms.
A thousand times she reproached herself, as with a crime, that she should
revive to happiness with him. The natural clinging of the human mind to
life and joy was in its full energy in her young heart; she gave herself
impetuously up to the enchantment: they were married; and in their radiant
features I saw incarnate, for the last time, the spirit of love, of
rapturous sympathy, which once had been the life of the world.
I envied them, but felt how impossible it was to imbibe the same feeling,
now that years had multiplied my ties in the world. Above all, the anxious
mother, my own beloved and drooping Idris, claimed my earnest care; I could
not reproach the anxiety that never for a moment slept in her heart, but I
exerted myself to distract her attention from too keen an observation of
the truth of things, of the near and nearer approaches of disease, misery,
and death, of the wild look of our attendants as intelligence of another
and yet another death reached us; for to the last something new occurred
that seemed to transcend in horror all that had gone before. Wretched
beings crawled to die under our succouring roof; the inhabitants of the
Castle decreased daily, while the survivors huddled together in fear, and,
as in a famine-struck boat, the sport of the wild, interminable waves, each
looked in the other's face, to guess on whom the death-lot would next fall.
All this I endeavoured to veil, so that it might least impress my Idris;
yet, as I have said, my courage survived even despair: I might be
vanquished, but I would not yield.
One day, it was the ninth of September, seemed devoted to every disaster,
to every harrowing incident. Early in the day, I heard of the arrival of
the aged grandmother of one of our servants at the Castle. This old woman
had reached her hundredth year; her skin was shrivelled, her form was bent
and lost in extreme decrepitude; but as still from year to year she
continued in existence, out-living many younger and stronger, she began to
feel as if she were to live for ever. The plague came, and the inhabitants
of her village died. Clinging, with the dastard feeling of the aged, to the
remnant of her spent life, she had, on hearing that the pestilence had come
into her neighbourhood, barred her door, and closed her casement, refusing
to communicate with any. She would wander out at night to get food, and
returned home, pleased that she had met no one, that she was in no danger
from the plague. As the earth became more desolate, her difficulty in
acquiring sustenance increased; at first, her son, who lived near, had
humoured her by placing articles of food in her way: at last he died. But,
even though threatened by famine, her fear of the plague was paramount; and
her greatest care was to avoid her fellow creatures. She grew weaker each
day, and each day she had further to go. The night before, she had reached
Datchet; and, prowling about, had found a baker's shop open and deserted.
Laden with spoil, she hastened to return, and lost her way. The night was
windless, hot, and cloudy; her load became too heavy for her; and one by
one she threw away her loaves, still endeavouring to get along, though her
hobbling fell into lameness, and her weakness at last into inability to
move.
She lay down among the tall corn, and fell asleep. Deep in midnight, she
was awaked by a rustling near her; she would have started up, but her stiff
joints refused to obey her will. A low moan close to her ear followed, and
the rustling increased; she heard a smothered voice breathe out, Water,
Water! several times; and then again a sigh heaved from the heart of the
sufferer. The old woman shuddered, she contrived at length to sit upright;
but her teeth chattered, and her knees knocked together--close, very
close, lay a half-naked figure, just discernible in the gloom, and the cry
for water and the stifled moan were again uttered. Her motions at length
attracted the attention of her unknown companion; her hand was seized with
a convulsive violence that made the grasp feel like iron, the fingers like
the keen teeth of a trap.--"At last you are come!" were the words given
forth--but this exertion was the last effort of the dying--the joints
relaxed, the figure fell prostrate, one low moan, the last, marked the
moment of death. Morning broke; and the old woman saw the corpse, marked
with the fatal disease, close to her; her wrist was livid with the hold
loosened by death. She felt struck by the plague; her aged frame was unable
to bear her away with sufficient speed; and now, believing herself
infected, she no longer dreaded the association of others; but, as swiftly
as she might, came to her grand-daughter, at Windsor Castle, there to
lament and die. The sight was horrible; still she clung to life, and
lamented her mischance with cries and hideous groans; while the swift
advance of the disease shewed, what proved to be the fact, that she could
not survive many hours.
While I was directing that the necessary care should be taken of her, Clara
came in; she was trembling and pale; and, when I anxiously asked her the
cause of her agitation, she threw herself into my arms weeping and
exclaiming--"Uncle, dearest uncle, do not hate me for ever! I must tell
you, for you must know, that Evelyn, poor little Evelyn"--her voice was
choked by sobs. The fear of so mighty a calamity as the loss of our adored
infant made the current of my blood pause with chilly horror; but the
remembrance of the mother restored my presence of mind. I sought the little
bed of my darling; he was oppressed by fever; but I trusted, I fondly and
fearfully trusted, that there were no symptoms of the plague. He was not
three years old, and his illness appeared only one of those attacks
incident to infancy. I watched him long--his heavy half-closed lids, his
burning cheeks and restless twining of his small fingers--the fever was
violent, the torpor complete--enough, without the greater fear of
pestilence, to awaken alarm. Idris must not see him in this state. Clara,
though only twelve years old, was rendered, through extreme sensibility, so
prudent and careful, that I felt secure in entrusting the charge of him to
her, and it was my task to prevent Idris from observing their absence. I
administered the fitting remedies, and left my sweet niece to watch beside
him, and bring me notice of any change she should observe.
I then went to Idris, contriving in my way, plausible excuses for remaining
all day in the Castle, and endeavouring to disperse the traces of care from
my brow. Fortunately she was not alone. I found Merrival, the astronomer,
with her. He was far too long sighted in his view of humanity to heed the
casualties of the day, and lived in the midst of contagion unconscious of
its existence. This poor man, learned as La Place, guileless and
unforeseeing as a child, had often been on the point of starvation, he, his
pale wife and numerous offspring, while he neither felt hunger, nor
observed distress. His astronomical theories absorbed him; calculations
were scrawled with coal on the bare walls of his garret: a hard-earned
guinea, or an article of dress, was exchanged for a book without remorse;
he neither heard his children cry, nor observed his companion's emaciated
form, and the excess of calamity was merely to him as the occurrence of a
cloudy night, when he would have given his right hand to observe a
celestial phenomenon. His wife was one of those wondrous beings, to be
found only among women, with affections not to be diminished by misfortune.
Her mind was divided between boundless admiration for her husband, and
tender anxiety for her children--she waited on him, worked for them, and
never complained, though care rendered her life one long-drawn, melancholy
dream.
He had introduced himself to Adrian, by a request he made to observe some
planetary motions from his glass. His poverty was easily detected and
relieved. He often thanked us for the books we lent him, and for the use of
our instruments, but never spoke of his altered abode or change of
circumstances. His wife assured us, that he had not observed any
difference, except in the absence of the children from his study, and to
her infinite surprise he complained of this unaccustomed quiet.
He came now to announce to us the completion of his Essay on the
Pericyclical Motions of the Earth's Axis, and the precession of the
equinoctial points. If an old Roman of the period of the Republic had
returned to life, and talked of the impending election of some
laurel-crowned consul, or of the last battle with Mithridates, his ideas
would not have been more alien to the times, than the conversation of
Merrival. Man, no longer with an appetite for sympathy, clothed his
thoughts in visible signs; nor were there any readers left: while each one,
having thrown away his sword with opposing shield alone, awaited the
plague, Merrival talked of the state of mankind six thousand years hence.
He might with equal interest to us, have added a commentary, to describe
the unknown and unimaginable lineaments of the creatures, who would then
occupy the vacated dwelling of mankind. We had not the heart to undeceive
the poor old man; and at the moment I came in, he was reading parts of his
book to Idris, asking what answer could be given to this or that position.
Idris could not refrain from a smile, as she listened; she had already
gathered from him that his family was alive and in health; though not apt
to forget the precipice of time on which she stood, yet I could perceive
that she was amused for a moment, by the contrast between the contracted
view we had so long taken of human life, and the seven league strides with
which Merrival paced a coming eternity. I was glad to see her smile,
because it assured me of her total ignorance of her infant's danger: but I
shuddered to think of the revulsion that would be occasioned by a discovery
of the truth. While Merrival was talking, Clara softly opened a door behind
Idris, and beckoned me to come with a gesture and look of grief. A mirror
betrayed the sign to Idris--she started up. To suspect evil, to perceive
that, Alfred being with us, the danger must regard her youngest darling, to
fly across the long chambers into his apartment, was the work but of a
moment. There she beheld her Evelyn lying fever-stricken and motionless. I
followed her, and strove to inspire more hope than I could myself
entertain; but she shook her head mournfully. Anguish deprived her of
presence of mind; she gave up to me and Clara the physician's and nurse's
parts; she sat by the bed, holding one little burning hand, and, with
glazed eyes fixed on her babe, passed the long day in one unvaried agony.
It was not the plague that visited our little boy so roughly; but she could
not listen to my assurances; apprehension deprived her of judgment and
reflection; every slight convulsion of her child's features shook her frame
--if he moved, she dreaded the instant crisis; if he remained still, she
saw death in his torpor, and the cloud on her brow darkened.
The poor little thing's fever encreased towards night. The sensation is
most dreary, to use no stronger term, with which one looks forward to
passing the long hours of night beside a sick bed, especially if the
patient be an infant, who cannot explain its pain, and whose flickering
life resembles the wasting flame of the watch-light,
Whose narrow fire
Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge
Devouring darkness hovers.[5]
With eagerness one turns toward the east, with angry impatience
one marks the unchequered darkness; the crowing of a cock, that
sound of glee during day-time, comes wailing and untuneable--the creaking
of rafters, and slight stir of invisible insect is heard and felt as the
signal and type of desolation. Clara, overcome by weariness, had seated
herself at the foot of her cousin's bed, and in spite of her efforts
slumber weighed down her lids; twice or thrice she shook it off; but at
length she was conquered and slept. Idris sat at the bedside, holding
Evelyn's hand; we were afraid to speak to each other; I watched the stars
--I hung over my child--I felt his little pulse--I drew near the
mother--again I receded. At the turn of morning a gentle sigh from the
patient attracted me, the burning spot on his cheek faded--his pulse beat
softly and regularly--torpor yielded to sleep. For a long time I dared
not hope; but when his unobstructed breathing and the moisture that
suffused his forehead, were tokens no longer to be mistaken of the
departure of mortal malady, I ventured to whisper the news of the change to
Idris, and at length succeeded in persuading her that I spoke truth.
But neither this assurance, nor the speedy convalescence of our child could
restore her, even to the portion of peace she before enjoyed. Her fear had
been too deep, too absorbing, too entire, to be changed to security. She
felt as if during her past calm she had dreamed, but was now awake; she
was
As one
In some lone watch-tower on the deep, awakened
From soothing visions of the home he loves,
Trembling to hear the wrathful billows roar;[6]
as one who has been cradled by a storm, and awakes to find the
vessel sinking. Before, she had been visited by pangs of fear--now, she
never enjoyed an interval of hope. No smile of the heart ever irradiated
her fair countenance; sometimes she forced one, and then gushing tears
would flow, and the sea of grief close above these wrecks of past
happiness. Still while I was near her, she could not be in utter despair--
she fully confided herself to me--she did not seem to fear my death, or
revert to its possibility; to my guardianship she consigned the full
freight of her anxieties, reposing on my love, as a wind-nipped fawn by the
side of a doe, as a wounded nestling under its mother's wing, as a tiny,
shattered boat, quivering still, beneath some protecting willow-tree. While
I, not proudly as in days of joy, yet tenderly, and with glad consciousness
of the comfort I afforded, drew my trembling girl close to my heart, and
tried to ward every painful thought or rough circumstance from her
sensitive nature.
One other incident occurred at the end of this summer. The Countess of
Windsor, Ex-Queen of England, returned from Germany. She had at the
beginning of the season quitted the vacant city of Vienna; and, unable to
tame her haughty mind to anything like submission, she had delayed at
Hamburgh, and, when at last she came to London, many weeks elapsed before
she gave Adrian notice of her arrival. In spite of her coldness and long
absence, he welcomed her with sensibility, displaying such affection as
sought to heal the wounds of pride and sorrow, and was repulsed only by her
total apparent want of sympathy. Idris heard of her mother's return with
pleasure. Her own maternal feelings were so ardent, that she imagined her
parent must now, in this waste world, have lost pride and harshness, and
would receive with delight her filial attentions. The first check to her
duteous demonstrations was a formal intimation from the fallen majesty of
England, that I was in no manner to be intruded upon her. She consented,
she said, to forgive her daughter, and acknowledge her grandchildren;
larger concessions must not be expected.
To me this proceeding appeared (if so light a term may be permitted)
extremely whimsical. Now that the race of man had lost in fact all
distinction of rank, this pride was doubly fatuitous; now that we felt a
kindred, fraternal nature with all who bore the stamp of humanity, this
angry reminiscence of times for ever gone, was worse than foolish. Idris
was too much taken up by her own dreadful fears, to be angry, hardly
grieved; for she judged that insensibility must be the source of this
continued rancour. This was not altogether the fact: but predominant
self-will assumed the arms and masque of callous feeling; and the haughty
lady disdained to exhibit any token of the struggle she endured; while the
slave of pride, she fancied that she sacrificed her happiness to immutable
principle.
False was all this--false all but the affections of our nature, and the
links of sympathy with pleasure or pain. There was but one good and one
evil in the world--life and death. The pomp of rank, the assumption of
power, the possessions of wealth vanished like morning mist. One living
beggar had become of more worth than a national peerage of dead lords--
alas the day!--than of dead heroes, patriots, or men of genius. There was
much of degradation in this: for even vice and virtue had lost their
attributes--life--life--the continuation of our animal mechanism--
was the Alpha and Omega of the desires, the prayers, the prostrate ambition
of human race.
[1] Calderon de la Barca.
[2] Wordsworth.
[3] Keats.
[4] Andrew Marvell.
[5] The Cenci
[6] The Brides' Tragedy, by T. L. Beddoes, Esq.
CHAPTER IX.
HALF England was desolate, when October came, and the equinoctial winds
swept over the earth, chilling the ardours of the unhealthy season. The
summer, which was uncommonly hot, had been protracted into the beginning of
this month, when on the eighteenth a sudden change was brought about from
summer temperature to winter frost. Pestilence then made a pause in her
death-dealing career. Gasping, not daring to name our hopes, yet full even
to the brim with intense expectation, we stood, as a ship-wrecked sailor
stands on a barren rock islanded by the ocean, watching a distant vessel,
fancying that now it nears, and then again that it is bearing from sight.
This promise of a renewed lease of life turned rugged natures to melting
tenderness, and by contrast filled the soft with harsh and unnatural
sentiments. When it seemed destined that all were to die, we were reckless
of the how and when--now that the virulence of the disease was mitigated,
and it appeared willing to spare some, each was eager to be among the
elect, and clung to life with dastard tenacity. Instances of desertion
became more frequent; and even murders, which made the hearer sick with
horror, where the fear of contagion had armed those nearest in blood
against each other. But these smaller and separate tragedies were about to
yield to a mightier interest--and, while we were promised calm from
infectious influences, a tempest arose wilder than the winds, a tempest
bred by the passions of man, nourished by his most violent impulses,
unexampled and dire.
A number of people from North America, the relics of that populous
continent, had set sail for the East with mad desire of change, leaving
their native plains for lands not less afflicted than their own. Several
hundreds landed in Ireland, about the first of November, and took
possession of such vacant habitations as they could find; seizing upon the
superabundant food, and the stray cattle. As they exhausted the produce of
one spot, they went on to another. At length they began to interfere with
the inhabitants, and strong in their concentrated numbers, ejected the
natives from their dwellings, and robbed them of their winter store. A few
events of this kind roused the fiery nature of the Irish; and they attacked
the invaders. Some were destroyed; the major part escaped by quick and well
ordered movements; and danger made them careful. Their numbers ably
arranged; the very deaths among them concealed; moving on in good order,
and apparently given up to enjoyment, they excited the envy of the Irish.
The Americans permitted a few to join their band, and presently the
recruits outnumbered the strangers--nor did they join with them, nor
imitate the admirable order which, preserved by the Trans-Atlantic chiefs,
rendered them at once secure and formidable. The Irish followed their track
in disorganized multitudes; each day encreasing; each day becoming more
lawless. The Americans were eager to escape from the spirit they had
roused, and, reaching the eastern shores of the island, embarked for
England. Their incursion would hardly have been felt had they come alone;
but the Irish, collected in unnatural numbers, began to feel the inroads of
famine, and they followed in the wake of the Americans for England also.
The crossing of the sea could not arrest their progress. The harbours of
the desolate sea-ports of the west of Ireland were filled with vessels of
all sizes, from the man of war to the small fishers' boat, which lay
sailorless, and rotting on the lazy deep. The emigrants embarked by
hundreds, and unfurling their sails with rude hands, made strange havoc of
buoy and cordage. Those who modestly betook themselves to the smaller
craft, for the most part achieved their watery journey in safety. Some, in
the true spirit of reckless enterprise, went on board a ship of an hundred
and twenty guns; the vast hull drifted with the tide out of the bay, and
after many hours its crew of landsmen contrived to spread a great part of
her enormous canvass--the wind took it, and while a thousand mistakes of
the helmsman made her present her head now to one point, and now to
another, the vast fields of canvass that formed her sails flapped with a
sound like that of a huge cataract; or such as a sea-like forest may give
forth when buffeted by an equinoctial north-wind. The port-holes were open,
and with every sea, which as she lurched, washed her decks, they received
whole tons of water. The difficulties were increased by a fresh breeze
which began to blow, whistling among the shrowds, dashing the sails this
way and that, and rending them with horrid split, and such whir as may have
visited the dreams of Milton, when he imagined the winnowing of the
arch-fiend's van-like wings, which encreased the uproar of wild chaos.
These sounds were mingled with the roaring of the sea, the splash of the
chafed billows round the vessel's sides, and the gurgling up of the water
in the hold. The crew, many of whom had never seen the sea before, felt
indeed as if heaven and earth came ruining together, as the vessel dipped
her bows in the waves, or rose high upon them. Their yells were drowned in
the clamour of elements, and the thunder rivings of their unwieldy
habitation--they discovered at last that the water gained on them, and
they betook themselves to their pumps; they might as well have laboured to
empty the ocean by bucketfuls. As the sun went down, the gale encreased;
the ship seemed to feel her danger, she was now completely water-logged,
and presented other indications of settling before she went down. The bay
was crowded with vessels, whose crews, for the most part, were observing
the uncouth sportings of this huge unwieldy machine--they saw her
gradually sink; the waters now rising above her lower decks--they could
hardly wink before she had utterly disappeared, nor could the place where
the sea had closed over her be at all discerned. Some few of her crew were
saved, but the greater part clinging to her cordage and masts went down
with her, to rise only when death loosened their hold.
This event caused many of those who were about to sail, to put foot again
on firm land, ready to encounter any evil rather than to rush into the
yawning jaws of the pitiless ocean. But these were few, in comparison to
the numbers who actually crossed. Many went up as high as Belfast to ensure
a shorter passage, and then journeying south through Scotland, they were
joined by the poorer natives of that country, and all poured with one
consent into England.
Such incursions struck the English with affright, in all those towns where
there was still sufficient population to feel the change. There was room
enough indeed in our hapless country for twice the number of invaders; but
their lawless spirit instigated them to violence; they took a delight in
thrusting the possessors from their houses; in seizing on some mansion of
luxury, where the noble dwellers secluded themselves in fear of the plague;
in forcing these of either sex to become their servants and purveyors;
till, the ruin complete in one place, they removed their locust visitation
to another. When unopposed they spread their ravages wide; in cases of
danger they clustered, and by dint of numbers overthrew their weak and
despairing foes. They came from the east and the north, and directed their
course without apparent motive, but unanimously towards our unhappy
metropolis.
Communication had been to a great degree cut off through the paralyzing
effects of pestilence, so that the van of our invaders had proceeded as far
as Manchester and Derby, before we received notice of their arrival. They
swept the country like a conquering army, burning--laying waste--
murdering. The lower and vagabond English joined with them. Some few of the
Lords Lieutenant who remained, endeavoured to collect the militia--but
the ranks were vacant, panic seized on all, and the opposition that was
made only served to increase the audacity and cruelty of the enemy. They
talked of taking London, conquering England--calling to mind the long
detail of injuries which had for many years been forgotten. Such vaunts
displayed their weakness, rather than their strength--yet still they
might do extreme mischief, which, ending in their destruction, would render
them at last objects of compassion and remorse.
We were now taught how, in the beginning of the world, mankind clothed
their enemies in impossible attributes--and how details proceeding from
mouth to mouth, might, like Virgil's ever-growing Rumour, reach the heavens
with her brow, and clasp Hesperus and Lucifer with her outstretched hands.
Gorgon and Centaur, dragon and iron-hoofed lion, vast sea-monster and
gigantic hydra, were but types of the strange and appalling accounts
brought to London concerning our invaders. Their landing was long unknown,
but having now advanced within an hundred miles of London, the country
people flying before them arrived in successive troops, each exaggerating
the numbers, fury, and cruelty of the assailants. Tumult filled the before
quiet streets--women and children deserted their homes, escaping they
knew not whither--fathers, husbands, and sons, stood trembling, not for
themselves, but for their loved and defenceless relations. As the country
people poured into London, the citizens fled southwards--they climbed the
higher edifices of the town, fancying that they could discern the smoke and
flames the enemy spread around them. As Windsor lay, to a great degree, in
the line of march from the west, I removed my family to London, assigning
the Tower for their sojourn, and joining Adrian, acted as his Lieutenant in
the coming struggle.
We employed only two days in our preparations, and made good use of them.
Artillery and arms were collected; the remnants of such regiments, as could
be brought through many losses into any show of muster, were put under
arms, with that appearance of military discipline which might encourage our
own party, and seem most formidable to the disorganized multitude of our
enemies. Even music was not wanting: banners floated in the air, and the
shrill fife and loud trumpet breathed forth sounds of encouragement and
victory. A practised ear might trace an undue faltering in the step of the
soldiers; but this was not occasioned so much by fear of the adversary, as
by disease, by sorrow, and by fatal prognostications, which often weighed
most potently on the brave, and quelled the manly heart to abject
subjection.
Adrian led the troops. He was full of care. It was small relief to him that
our discipline should gain us success in such a conflict; while plague
still hovered to equalize the conqueror and the conquered, it was not
victory that he desired, but bloodless peace. As we advanced, we were met
by bands of peasantry, whose almost naked condition, whose despair and
horror, told at once the fierce nature of the coming enemy. The senseless
spirit of conquest and thirst of spoil blinded them, while with insane fury
they deluged the country in ruin. The sight of the military restored hope
to those who fled, and revenge took place of fear. They inspired the
soldiers with the same sentiment. Languor was changed to ardour, the slow
step converted to a speedy pace, while the hollow murmur of the multitude,
inspired by one feeling, and that deadly, filled the air, drowning the
clang of arms and sound of music. Adrian perceived the change, and feared
that it would be difficult to prevent them from wreaking their utmost fury
on the Irish. He rode through the lines, charging the officers to restrain
the troops, exhorting the soldiers, restoring order, and quieting in some
degree the violent agitation that swelled every bosom.
We first came upon a few stragglers of the Irish at St. Albans. They
retreated, and, joining others of their companions, still fell back, till
they reached the main body. Tidings of an armed and regular opposition
recalled them to a sort of order. They made Buckingham their head-quarters,
and scouts were sent out to ascertain our situation. We remained for the
night at Luton. In the morning a simultaneous movement caused us each to
advance. It was early dawn, and the air, impregnated with freshest odour,
seemed in idle mockery to play with our banners, and bore onwards towards
the enemy the music of the bands, the neighings of the horses, and regular
step of the infantry. The first sound of martial instruments that came upon
our undisciplined foe, inspired surprise, not unmingled with dread. It
spoke of other days, of days of concord and order; it was associated with
times when plague was not, and man lived beyond the shadow of imminent
fate. The pause was momentary. Soon we heard their disorderly clamour, the
barbarian shouts, the untimed step of thousands coming on in disarray.
Their troops now came pouring on us from the open country or narrow lanes;
a large extent of unenclosed fields lay between us; we advanced to the
middle of this, and then made a halt: being somewhat on superior ground, we
could discern the space they covered. When their leaders perceived us drawn
out in opposition, they also gave the word to halt, and endeavoured to form
their men into some imitation of military discipline. The first ranks had
muskets; some were mounted, but their arms were such as they had seized
during their advance, their horses those they had taken from the peasantry;
there was no uniformity, and little obedience, but their shouts and wild
gestures showed the untamed spirit that inspired them. Our soldiers
received the word, and advanced to quickest time, but in perfect order:
their uniform dresses, the gleam of their polished arms, their silence, and
looks of sullen hate, were more appalling than the savage clamour of our
innumerous foe. Thus coming nearer and nearer each other, the howls and
shouts of the Irish increased; the English proceeded in obedience to their
officers, until they came near enough to distinguish the faces of their
enemies; the sight inspired them with fury: with one cry, that rent heaven
and was re-echoed by the furthest lines, they rushed on; they disdained the
use of the bullet, but with fixed bayonet dashed among the opposing foe,
while the ranks opening at intervals, the matchmen lighted the cannon,
whose deafening roar and blinding smoke filled up the horror of the scene. I
was beside Adrian; a moment before he had again given the word to halt, and
had remained a few yards distant from us in deep meditation: he was forming
swiftly his plan of action, to prevent the effusion of blood; the noise of
cannon, the sudden rush of the troops, and yell of the foe, startled him:
with flashing eyes he exclaimed, "Not one of these must perish!" and
plunging the rowels into his horse's sides, he dashed between the
conflicting bands. We, his staff, followed him to surround and protect him;
obeying his signal, however, we fell back somewhat. The soldiery perceiving
him, paused in their onset; he did not swerve from the bullets that passed
near him, but rode immediately between the opposing lines. Silence
succeeded to clamour; about fifty men lay on the ground dying or dead.
Adrian raised his sword in act to speak: "By whose command," he cried,
addressing his own troops, "do you advance? Who ordered your attack? Fall
back; these misguided men shall not be slaughtered, while I am your
general. Sheath your weapons; these are your brothers, commit not
fratricide; soon the plague will not leave one for you to glut your revenge
upon: will you be more pitiless than pestilence? As you honour me--as you
worship God, in whose image those also are created--as your children and
friends are dear to you,--shed not a drop of precious human blood."
He spoke with outstretched hand and winning voice, and then turning to our
invaders, with a severe brow, he commanded them to lay down their arms: "Do
you think," he said, "that because we are wasted by plague, you can
overcome us; the plague is also among you, and when ye are vanquished by
famine and disease, the ghosts of those you have murdered will arise to bid
you not hope in death. Lay down your arms, barbarous and cruel men--men
whose hands are stained with the blood of the innocent, whose souls are
weighed down by the orphan's cry! We shall conquer, for the right is on our
side; already your cheeks are pale--the weapons fall from your nerveless
grasp. Lay down your arms, fellow men! brethren! Pardon, succour, and
brotherly love await your repentance. You are dear to us, because you wear
the frail shape of humanity; each one among you will find a friend and
host among these forces. Shall man be the enemy of man, while plague, the
foe to all, even now is above us, triumphing in our butchery, more cruel
than her own?"
Each army paused. On our side the soldiers grasped their arms firmly, and
looked with stern glances on the foe. These had not thrown down their
weapons, more from fear than the spirit of contest; they looked at each
other, each wishing to follow some example given him,--but they had no
leader. Adrian threw himself from his horse, and approaching one of those
just slain: "He was a man," he cried, "and he is dead. O quickly bind up
the wounds of the fallen--let not one die; let not one more soul escape
through your merciless gashes, to relate before the throne of God the tale
of fratricide; bind up their wounds--restore them to their friends. Cast
away the hearts of tigers that burn in your breasts; throw down those tools
of cruelty and hate; in this pause of exterminating destiny, let each man
be brother, guardian, and stay to the other. Away with those blood-stained
arms, and hasten some of you to bind up these wounds."
As he spoke, he knelt on the ground, and raised in his arms a man from
whose side the warm tide of life gushed--the poor wretch gasped--so
still had either host become, that his moans were distinctly heard, and
every heart, late fiercely bent on universal massacre, now beat anxiously
in hope and fear for the fate of this one man. Adrian tore off his military
scarf and bound it round the sufferer--it was too late--the man heaved
a deep sigh, his head fell back, his limbs lost their sustaining power.--
"He is dead!" said Adrian, as the corpse fell from his arms on the ground,
and he bowed his head in sorrow and awe. The fate of the world seemed bound
up in the death of this single man. On either side the bands threw down
their arms, even the veterans wept, and our party held out their hands to
their foes, while a gush of love and deepest amity filled every heart. The
two forces mingling, unarmed and hand in hand, talking only how each might
assist the other, the adversaries conjoined; each repenting, the one side
their former cruelties, the other their late violence, they obeyed the
orders of the General to proceed towards London.
Adrian was obliged to exert his utmost prudence, first to allay the
discord, and then to provide for the multitude of the invaders. They were
marched to various parts of the southern counties, quartered in deserted
villages,--a part were sent back to their own island, while the season of
winter so far revived our energy, that the passes of the country were
defended, and any increase of numbers prohibited.
On this occasion Adrian and Idris met after a separation of nearly a year.
Adrian had been occupied in fulfilling a laborious and painful task. He had
been familiar with every species of human misery, and had for ever found
his powers inadequate, his aid of small avail. Yet the purpose of his soul,
his energy and ardent resolution, prevented any re-action of sorrow. He
seemed born anew, and virtue, more potent than Medean alchemy, endued him
with health and strength. Idris hardly recognized the fragile being, whose
form had seemed to bend even to the summer breeze, in the energetic man,
whose very excess of sensibility rendered him more capable of fulfilling
his station of pilot in storm-tossed England.
It was not thus with Idris. She was uncomplaining; but the very soul of
fear had taken its seat in her heart. She had grown thin and pale, her eyes
filled with involuntary tears, her voice was broken and low. She tried to
throw a veil over the change which she knew her brother must observe in
her, but the effort was ineffectual; and when alone with him, with a burst
of irrepressible grief she gave vent to her apprehensions and sorrow. She
described in vivid terms the ceaseless care that with still renewing hunger
ate into her soul; she compared this gnawing of sleepless expectation of
evil, to the vulture that fed on the heart of Prometheus; under the
influence of this eternal excitement, and of the interminable struggles she
endured to combat and conceal it, she felt, she said, as if all the wheels
and springs of the animal machine worked at double rate, and were fast
consuming themselves. Sleep was not sleep, for her waking thoughts, bridled
by some remains of reason, and by the sight of her children happy and in
health, were then transformed to wild dreams, all her terrors were
realized, all her fears received their dread fulfilment. To this state
there was no hope, no alleviation, unless the grave should quickly receive
its destined prey, and she be permitted to die, before she experienced a
thousand living deaths in the loss of those she loved. Fearing to give me
pain, she hid as best she could the excess of her wretchedness, but meeting
thus her brother after a long absence, she could not restrain the
expression of her woe, but with all the vividness of imagination with which
misery is always replete, she poured out the emotions of her heart to her
beloved and sympathizing Adrian.
Her present visit to London tended to augment her state of inquietude, by
shewing in its utmost extent the ravages occasioned by pestilence. It
hardly preserved the appearance of an inhabited city; grass sprung up thick
in the streets; the squares were weed-grown, the houses were shut up, while
silence and loneliness characterized the busiest parts of the town. Yet in
the midst of desolation Adrian had preserved order; and each one continued
to live according to law and custom--human institutions thus surviving as
it were divine ones, and while the decree of population was abrogated,
property continued sacred. It was a melancholy reflection; and in spite of
the diminution of evil produced, it struck on the heart as a wretched
mockery. All idea of resort for pleasure, of theatres and festivals had
passed away. "Next summer," said Adrian as we parted on our return to
Windsor, "will decide the fate of the human race. I shall not pause in
my exertions until that time; but, if plague revives with the coming year,
all contest with her must cease, and our only occupation be the choice of
a grave."
I must not forget one incident that occurred during this visit to London.
The visits of Merrival to Windsor, before frequent, had suddenly ceased. At
this time where but a hair's line separated the living from the dead, I
feared that our friend had become a victim to the all-embracing evil. On
this occasion I went, dreading the worst, to his dwelling, to see if I
could be of any service to those of his family who might have survived. The
house was deserted, and had been one of those assigned to the invading
strangers quartered in London. I saw his astronomical instruments put to
strange uses, his globes defaced, his papers covered with abstruse
calculations destroyed. The neighbours could tell me little, till I lighted
on a poor woman who acted as nurse in these perilous times. She told me
that all the family were dead, except Merrival himself, who had gone mad--
mad, she called it, yet on questioning her further, it appeared that he was
possessed only by the delirium of excessive grief. This old man, tottering
on the edge of the grave, and prolonging his prospect through millions of
calculated years,--this visionary who had not seen starvation in the
wasted forms of his wife and children, or plague in the horrible sights and
sounds that surrounded him--this astronomer, apparently dead on earth,
and living only in the motion of the spheres--loved his family with
unapparent but intense affection. Through long habit they had become a part
of himself; his want of worldly knowledge, his absence of mind and infant
guilelessness, made him utterly dependent on them. It was not till one of
them died that he perceived their danger; one by one they were carried off
by pestilence; and his wife, his helpmate and supporter, more necessary to
him than his own limbs and frame, which had hardly been taught the lesson
of self-preservation, the kind companion whose voice always spoke peace to
him, closed her eyes in death. The old man felt the system of universal
nature which he had so long studied and adored, slide from under him, and
he stood among the dead, and lifted his voice in curses.--No wonder that
the attendant should interpret as phrensy the harrowing maledictions of the
grief-struck old man.
I had commenced my search late in the day, a November day, that closed in
early with pattering rain and melancholy wind. As I turned from the door, I
saw Merrival, or rather the shadow of Merrival, attenuated and wild, pass
me, and sit on the steps of his home. The breeze scattered the grey locks
on his temples, the rain drenched his uncovered head, he sat hiding his
face in his withered hands. I pressed his shoulder to awaken his attention,
but he did not alter his position. "Merrival," I said, "it is long since we
have seen you--you must return to Windsor with me--Lady Idris desires
to see you, you will not refuse her request--come home with me."
He replied in a hollow voice, "Why deceive a helpless old man, why talk
hypocritically to one half crazed? Windsor is not my home; my true home I
have found; the home that the Creator has prepared for me."
His accent of bitter scorn thrilled me--"Do not tempt me to speak," he
continued, "my words would scare you--in an universe of cowards I dare
think--among the church-yard tombs--among the victims of His merciless
tyranny I dare reproach the Supreme Evil. How can he punish me? Let him
bare his arm and transfix me with lightning--this is also one of his
attributes"--and the old man laughed.
He rose, and I followed him through the rain to a neighbouring church-yard
--he threw himself on the wet earth. "Here they are," he cried, "beautiful
creatures--breathing, speaking, loving creatures. She who by day and
night cherished the age-worn lover of her youth--they, parts of my flesh,
my children--here they are: call them, scream their names through the
night; they will not answer!" He clung to the little heaps that marked the
graves. "I ask but one thing; I do not fear His hell, for I have it here; I
do not desire His heaven, let me but die and be laid beside them; let me
but, when I lie dead, feel my flesh as it moulders, mingle with theirs.
Promise," and he raised himself painfully, and seized my arm, "promise to
bury me with them."
"So God help me and mine as I promise," I replied, "on one condition:
return with me to Windsor."
"To Windsor!" he cried with a shriek, "Never!--from this place I never go
--my bones, my flesh, I myself, are already buried here, and what you see
of me is corrupted clay like them. I will lie here, and cling here, till
rain, and hail, and lightning and storm, ruining on me, make me one in
substance with them below."
In a few words I must conclude this tragedy. I was obliged to leave London,
and Adrian undertook to watch over him; the task was soon fulfilled; age,
grief, and inclement weather, all united to hush his sorrows, and bring
repose to his heart, whose beats were agony. He died embracing the sod,
which was piled above his breast, when he was placed beside the beings whom
he regretted with such wild despair.
I returned to Windsor at the wish of Idris, who seemed to think that there
was greater safety for her children at that spot; and because, once having
taken on me the guardianship of the district, I would not desert it while
an inhabitant survived. I went also to act in conformity with Adrian's
plans, which was to congregate in masses what remained of the population;
for he possessed the conviction that it was only through the benevolent and
social virtues that any safety was to be hoped for the remnant of mankind.
It was a melancholy thing to return to this spot so dear to us, as the
scene of a happiness rarely before enjoyed, here to mark the extinction of
our species, and trace the deep uneraseable footsteps of disease over the
fertile and cherished soil. The aspect of the country had so far changed,
that it had been impossible to enter on the task of sowing seed, and other
autumnal labours. That season was now gone; and winter had set in with
sudden and unusual severity. Alternate frosts and thaws succeeding to
floods, rendered the country impassable. Heavy falls of snow gave an arctic
appearance to the scenery; the roofs of the houses peeped from the white
mass; the lowly cot and stately mansion, alike deserted, were blocked up,
their thresholds uncleared; the windows were broken by the hail, while the
prevalence of a north-east wind rendered out-door exertions extremely
painful. The altered state of society made these accidents of nature,
sources of real misery. The luxury of command and the attentions of
servitude were lost. It is true that the necessaries of life were assembled
in such quantities, as to supply to superfluity the wants of the diminished
population; but still much labour was required to arrange these, as it
were, raw materials; and depressed by sickness, and fearful of the future,
we had not energy to enter boldly and decidedly on any system.
I can speak for myself--want of energy was not my failing. The intense
life that quickened my pulses, and animated my frame, had the effect, not
of drawing me into the mazes of active life, but of exalting my lowliness,
and of bestowing majestic proportions on insignificant objects--I could
have lived the life of a peasant in the same way--my trifling occupations
were swelled into important pursuits; my affections were impetuous and
engrossing passions, and nature with all her changes was invested in divine
attributes. The very spirit of the Greek mythology inhabited my heart; I
deified the uplands, glades, and streams, I
Had sight of Proteus coming from the sea;
And heard old Triton blow his wreathed horn.[1]
Strange, that while the earth preserved her monotonous course, I dwelt with
ever-renewing wonder on her antique laws, and now that with excentric wheel
she rushed into an untried path, I should feel this spirit fade; I
struggled with despondency and weariness, but like a fog, they choked me.
Perhaps, after the labours and stupendous excitement of the past summer,
the calm of winter and the almost menial toils it brought with it, were by
natural re-action doubly irksome. It was not the grasping passion of the
preceding year, which gave life and individuality to each moment--it was
not the aching pangs induced by the distresses of the times. The utter
inutility that had attended all my exertions took from them their usual
effects of exhilaration, and despair rendered abortive the balm of self
applause--I longed to return to my old occupations, but of what use were
they? To read were futile--to write, vanity indeed. The earth, late wide
circus for the display of dignified exploits, vast theatre for a
magnificent drama, now presented a vacant space, an empty stage--for
actor or spectator there was no longer aught to say or hear.
Our little town of Windsor, in which the survivors from the neighbouring
counties were chiefly assembled, wore a melancholy aspect. Its streets were
blocked up with snow--the few passengers seemed palsied, and frozen by
the ungenial visitation of winter. To escape these evils was the aim and
scope of all our exertions. Families late devoted to exalting and refined
pursuits, rich, blooming, and young, with diminished numbers and
care-fraught hearts, huddled over a fire, grown selfish and grovelling
through suffering. Without the aid of servants, it was necessary to
discharge all household duties; hands unused to such labour must knead the
bread, or in the absence of flour, the statesmen or perfumed courtier must
undertake the butcher's office. Poor and rich were now equal, or rather the
poor were the superior, since they entered on such tasks with alacrity and
experience; while ignorance, inaptitude, and habits of repose, rendered
them fatiguing to the luxurious, galling to the proud, disgustful to all
whose minds, bent on intellectual improvement, held it their dearest
privilege to be exempt from attending to mere animal wants.
But in every change goodness and affection can find field for exertion and
display. Among some these changes produced a devotion and sacrifice of self
at once graceful and heroic. It was a sight for the lovers of the human
race to enjoy; to behold, as in ancient times, the patriarchal modes in
which the variety of kindred and friendship fulfilled their duteous and
kindly offices. Youths, nobles of the land, performed for the sake of
mother or sister, the services of menials with amiable cheerfulness. They
went to the river to break the ice, and draw water: they assembled on
foraging expeditions, or axe in hand felled the trees for fuel. The females
received them on their return with the simple and affectionate welcome
known before only to the lowly cottage--a clean hearth and bright fire;
the supper ready cooked by beloved hands; gratitude for the provision for
to-morrow's meal: strange enjoyments for the high-born English, yet they
were now their sole, hard earned, and dearly prized luxuries.
None was more conspicuous for this graceful submission to circumstances,
noble humility, and ingenious fancy to adorn such acts with romantic
colouring, than our own Clara. She saw my despondency, and the aching cares
of Idris. Her perpetual study was to relieve us from labour and to spread
ease and even elegance over our altered mode of life. We still had some
attendants spared by disease, and warmly attached to us. But Clara was
jealous of their services; she would be sole handmaid of Idris, sole
minister to the wants of her little cousins; nothing gave her so much
pleasure as our employing her in this way; she went beyond our desires,
earnest, diligent, and unwearied,--
Abra was ready ere we called her name,
And though we called another, Abra came.[2]
It was my task each day to visit the various families assembled in our
town, and when the weather permitted, I was glad to prolong my ride, and to
muse in solitude over every changeful appearance of our destiny,
endeavouring to gather lessons for the future from the experience of the
past. The impatience with which, while in society, the ills that afflicted
my species inspired me, were softened by loneliness, when individual
suffering was merged in the general calamity, strange to say, less
afflicting to contemplate. Thus often, pushing my way with difficulty
through the narrow snow-blocked town, I crossed the bridge and passed
through Eton. No youthful congregation of gallant-hearted boys thronged the
portal of the college; sad silence pervaded the busy school-room and noisy
playground. I extended my ride towards Salt Hill, on every side impeded by
the snow. Were those the fertile fields I loved--was that the interchange
of gentle upland and cultivated dale, once covered with waving corn,
diversified by stately trees, watered by the meandering Thames? One sheet
of white covered it, while bitter recollection told me that cold as the
winter-clothed earth, were the hearts of the inhabitants. I met troops of
horses, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, wandering at will; here throwing
down a hay-rick, and nestling from cold in its heart, which afforded them
shelter and food--there having taken possession of a vacant cottage. Once
on a frosty day, pushed on by restless unsatisfying reflections, I sought a
favourite haunt, a little wood not far distant from Salt Hill. A bubbling
spring prattles over stones on one side, and a plantation of a few elms and
beeches, hardly deserve, and yet continue the name of wood. This spot had
for me peculiar charms. It had been a favourite resort of Adrian; it was
secluded; and he often said that in boyhood, his happiest hours were spent
here; having escaped the stately bondage of his mother, he sat on the rough
hewn steps that led to the spring, now reading a favourite book, now
musing, with speculation beyond his years, on the still unravelled skein of
morals or metaphysics. A melancholy foreboding assured me that I should
never see this place more; so with careful thought, I noted each tree,
every winding of the streamlet and irregularity of the soil, that I might
better call up its idea in absence. A robin red-breast dropt from the
frosty branches of the trees, upon the congealed rivulet; its panting
breast and half-closed eyes shewed that it was dying: a hawk appeared in
the air; sudden fear seized the little creature; it exerted its last
strength, throwing itself on its back, raising its talons in impotent
defence against its powerful enemy. I took it up and placed it in my
breast. I fed it with a few crumbs from a biscuit; by degrees it revived;
its warm fluttering heart beat against me; I cannot tell why I detail this
trifling incident--but the scene is still before me; the snow-clad fields
seen through the silvered trunks of the beeches,--the brook, in days of
happiness alive with sparkling waters, now choked by ice--the leafless
trees fantastically dressed in hoar frost--the shapes of summer leaves
imaged by winter's frozen hand on the hard ground--the dusky sky, drear
cold, and unbroken silence--while close in my bosom, my feathered
nursling lay warm, and safe, speaking its content with a light chirp--
painful reflections thronged, stirring my brain with wild commotion--cold
and death-like as the snowy fields was all earth--misery-stricken the
life-tide of the inhabitants--why should I oppose the cataract of
destruction that swept us away?--why string my nerves and renew my
wearied efforts--ah, why? But that my firm courage and cheerful exertions
might shelter the dear mate, whom I chose in the spring of my life; though
the throbbings of my heart be replete with pain, though my hopes for the
future are chill, still while your dear head, my gentlest love, can repose
in peace on that heart, and while you derive from its fostering care,
comfort, and hope, my struggles shall not cease,--I will not call myself
altogether vanquished.
One fine February day, when the sun had reassumed some of its genial power,
I walked in the forest with my family. It was one of those lovely
winter-days which assert the capacity of nature to bestow beauty on
barrenness. The leafless trees spread their fibrous branches against the
pure sky; their intricate and pervious tracery resembled delicate sea-weed;
the deer were turning up the snow in search of the hidden grass; the white
was made intensely dazzling by the sun, and trunks of the trees, rendered
more conspicuous by the loss of preponderating foliage, gathered around
like the labyrinthine columns of a vast temple; it was impossible not to
receive pleasure from the sight of these things. Our children, freed from
the bondage of winter, bounded before us; pursuing the deer, or rousing the
pheasants and partridges from their coverts. Idris leant on my arm; her
sadness yielded to the present sense of pleasure. We met other families on
the Long Walk, enjoying like ourselves the return of the genial season. At
once, I seemed to awake; I cast off the clinging sloth of the past months;
earth assumed a new appearance, and my view of the future was suddenly made
clear. I exclaimed, "I have now found out the secret!"
"What secret?"
In answer to this question, I described our gloomy winter-life, our sordid
cares, our menial labours:--"This northern country," I said, "is no place
for our diminished race. When mankind were few, it was not here that they
battled with the powerful agents of nature, and were enabled to cover the
globe with offspring. We must seek some natural Paradise, some garden of
the earth, where our simple wants may be easily supplied, and the enjoyment
of a delicious climate compensate for the social pleasures we have lost. If
we survive this coming summer, I will not spend the ensuing winter in
England; neither I nor any of us."
I spoke without much heed, and the very conclusion of what I said brought
with it other thoughts. Should we, any of us, survive the coming summer? I
saw the brow of Idris clouded; I again felt, that we were enchained to the
car of fate, over whose coursers we had no control. We could no longer say,
This we will do, and this we will leave undone. A mightier power than the
human was at hand to destroy our plans or to achieve the work we avoided.
It were madness to calculate upon another winter. This was our last. The
coming summer was the extreme end of our vista; and, when we arrived there,
instead of a continuation of the long road, a gulph yawned, into which we
must of force be precipitated. The last blessing of humanity was wrested
from us; we might no longer hope. Can the madman, as he clanks his chains,
hope? Can the wretch, led to the scaffold, who when he lays his head on the
block, marks the double shadow of himself and the executioner, whose
uplifted arm bears the axe, hope? Can the ship-wrecked mariner, who spent
with swimming, hears close behind the splashing waters divided by a shark
which pursues him through the Atlantic, hope? Such hope as theirs, we also
may entertain!
Old fable tells us, that this gentle spirit sprung from the box of Pandora,
else crammed with evils; but these were unseen and null, while all admired
the inspiriting loveliness of young Hope; each man's heart became her home;
she was enthroned sovereign of our lives, here and here-after; she was
deified and worshipped, declared incorruptible and everlasting. But like
all other gifts of the Creator to Man, she is mortal; her life has attained
its last hour. We have watched over her; nursed her flickering existence;
now she has fallen at once from youth to decrepitude, from health to
immedicinable disease; even as we spend ourselves in struggles for her
recovery, she dies; to all nations the voice goes forth, Hope is dead! We
are but mourners in the funeral train, and what immortal essence or
perishable creation will refuse to make one in the sad procession that
attends to its grave the dead comforter of humanity?
Does not the sun call in his light? and day
Like a thin exhalation melt away--
Both wrapping up their beams in clouds to be
Themselves close mourners at this obsequie.[3]
[1] Wordsworth.
[2] Prior's "Solomon."
[3] Cleveland's Poems.
VOL. III.
CHAPTER I.
HEAR YOU not the rushing sound of the coming tempest? Do you not behold the
clouds open, and destruction lurid and dire pour down on the blasted earth?
See you not the thunderbolt fall, and are deafened by the shout of heaven
that follows its descent? Feel you not the earth quake and open with
agonizing groans, while the air is pregnant with shrieks and wailings,--
all announcing the last days of man? No! none of these things accompanied
our fall! The balmy air of spring, breathed from nature's ambrosial home,
invested the lovely earth, which wakened as a young mother about to lead
forth in pride her beauteous offspring to meet their sire who had been long
absent. The buds decked the trees, the flowers adorned the land: the dark
branches, swollen with seasonable juices, expanded into leaves, and the
variegated foliage of spring, bending and singing in the breeze, rejoiced
in the genial warmth of the unclouded empyrean: the brooks flowed
murmuring, the sea was waveless, and the promontories that over-hung it
were reflected in the placid waters; birds awoke in the woods, while
abundant food for man and beast sprung up from the dark ground. Where was
pain and evil? Not in the calm air or weltering ocean; not in the woods or
fertile fields, nor among the birds that made the woods resonant with song,
nor the animals that in the midst of plenty basked in the sunshine. Our
enemy, like the Calamity of Homer, trod our hearts, and no sound was echoed
from her steps--
With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea,
Diseases haunt our frail humanity,
Through noon, through night, on casual wing they glide,
Silent,--a voice the power all-wise denied.[1]
Once man was a favourite of the Creator, as the royal psalmist sang, "God
had made him a little lower than the angels, and had crowned him with glory
and honour. God made him to have dominion over the works of his hands, and
put all things under his feet." Once it was so; now is man lord of the
creation? Look at him--ha! I see plague! She has invested his form, is
incarnate in his flesh, has entwined herself with his being, and blinds his
heaven-seeking eyes. Lie down, O man, on the flower-strown earth; give up
all claim to your inheritance, all you can ever possess of it is the small
cell which the dead require. Plague is the companion of spring, of sunshine,
and plenty. We no longer struggle with her. We have forgotten what we did
when she was not. Of old navies used to stem the giant ocean-waves betwixt
Indus and the Pole for slight articles of luxury. Men made perilous
journies to possess themselves of earth's splendid trifles, gems and gold.
Human labour was wasted--human life set at nought. Now life is all that
we covet; that this automaton of flesh should, with joints and springs in
order, perform its functions, that this dwelling of the soul should be
capable of containing its dweller. Our minds, late spread abroad through
countless spheres and endless combinations of thought, now retrenched
themselves behind this wall of flesh, eager to preserve its well-being
only. We were surely sufficiently degraded.
At first the increase of sickness in spring brought increase of toil to
such of us, who, as yet spared to life, bestowed our time and thoughts on
our fellow creatures. We nerved ourselves to the task: "in the midst of
despair we performed the tasks of hope." We went out with the resolution of
disputing with our foe. We aided the sick, and comforted the sorrowing;
turning from the multitudinous dead to the rare survivors, with an energy
of desire that bore the resemblance of power, we bade them--live. Plague
sat paramount the while, and laughed us to scorn.
Have any of you, my readers, observed the ruins of an anthill immediately
after its destruction? At first it appears entirely deserted of its former
inhabitants; in a little time you see an ant struggling through the
upturned mould; they reappear by twos and threes, running hither and
thither in search of their lost companions. Such were we upon earth,
wondering aghast at the effects of pestilence. Our empty habitations
remained, but the dwellers were gathered to the shades of the tomb.
As the rules of order and pressure of laws were lost, some began with
hesitation and wonder to transgress the accustomed uses of society. Palaces
were deserted, and the poor man dared at length, unreproved, intrude into
the splendid apartments, whose very furniture and decorations were an
unknown world to him. It was found, that, though at first the stop put
to all circulation of property, had reduced those before supported by the
factitious wants of society to sudden and hideous poverty, yet when the
boundaries of private possession were thrown down, the products of human
labour at present existing were more, far more, than the thinned generation
could possibly consume. To some among the poor this was matter of
exultation. We were all equal now; magnificent dwellings, luxurious
carpets, and beds of down, were afforded to all. Carriages and horses,
gardens, pictures, statues, and princely libraries, there were enough of
these even to superfluity; and there was nothing to prevent each from
assuming possession of his share. We were all equal now; but near at hand
was an equality still more levelling, a state where beauty and strength,
and wisdom, would be as vain as riches and birth. The grave yawned beneath
us all, and its prospect prevented any of us from enjoying the ease and
plenty which in so awful a manner was presented to us.
Still the bloom did not fade on the cheeks of my babes; and Clara sprung up
in years and growth, unsullied by disease. We had no reason to think the
site of Windsor Castle peculiarly healthy, for many other families had
expired beneath its roof; we lived therefore without any particular
precaution; but we lived, it seemed, in safety. If Idris became thin and
pale, it was anxiety that occasioned the change; an anxiety I could in no
way alleviate. She never complained, but sleep and appetite fled from her,
a slow fever preyed on her veins, her colour was hectic, and she often wept
in secret; gloomy prognostications, care, and agonizing dread, ate up the
principle of life within her. I could not fail to perceive this change. I
often wished that I had permitted her to take her own course, and engage
herself in such labours for the welfare of others as might have distracted
her thoughts. But it was too late now. Besides that, with the nearly
extinct race of man, all our toils grew near a conclusion, she was too
weak; consumption, if so it might be called, or rather the over active life
within her, which, as with Adrian, spent the vital oil in the early morning
hours, deprived her limbs of strength. At night, when she could leave me
unperceived, she wandered through the house, or hung over the couches of
her children; and in the day time would sink into a perturbed sleep, while
her murmurs and starts betrayed the unquiet dreams that vexed her. As this
state of wretchedness became more confirmed, and, in spite of her
endeavours at concealment more apparent, I strove, though vainly, to awaken
in her courage and hope. I could not wonder at the vehemence of her care;
her very soul was tenderness; she trusted indeed that she should not
outlive me if I became the prey of the vast calamity, and this thought
sometimes relieved her. We had for many years trod the highway of life hand
in hand, and still thus linked, we might step within the shades of death;
but her children, her lovely, playful, animated children--beings sprung
from her own dear side--portions of her own being--depositories of our
loves--even if we died, it would be comfort to know that they ran man's
accustomed course. But it would not be so; young and blooming as they were,
they would die, and from the hopes of maturity, from the proud name of
attained manhood, they were cut off for ever. Often with maternal affection
she had figured their merits and talents exerted on life's wide stage. Alas
for these latter days! The world had grown old, and all its inmates partook
of the decrepitude. Why talk of infancy, manhood, and old age? We all stood
equal sharers of the last throes of time-worn nature. Arrived at the same
point of the world's age--there was no difference in us; the name of
parent and child had lost their meaning; young boys and girls were level
now with men. This was all true; but it was not less agonizing to take the
admonition home.
Where could we turn, and not find a desolation pregnant with the dire
lesson of example? The fields had been left uncultivated, weeds and gaudy
flowers sprung up,--or where a few wheat-fields shewed signs of the
living hopes of the husbandman, the work had been left halfway, the
ploughman had died beside the plough; the horses had deserted the furrow,
and no seedsman had approached the dead; the cattle unattended wandered
over the fields and through the lanes; the tame inhabitants of the poultry
yard, baulked of their daily food, had become wild--young lambs were
dropt in flower-gardens, and the cow stalled in the hall of pleasure.
Sickly and few, the country people neither went out to sow nor reap; but
sauntered about the meadows, or lay under the hedges, when the inclement
sky did not drive them to take shelter under the nearest roof. Many of
those who remained, secluded themselves; some had laid up stores which
should prevent the necessity of leaving their homes;--some deserted wife
and child, and imagined that they secured their safety in utter solitude.
Such had been Ryland's plan, and he was discovered dead and half-devoured
by insects, in a house many miles from any other, with piles of food laid
up in useless superfluity. Others made long journies to unite themselves to
those they loved, and arrived to find them dead.
London did not contain above a thousand inhabitants; and this number was
continually diminishing. Most of them were country people, come up for the
sake of change; the Londoners had sought the country. The busy eastern part
of the town was silent, or at most you saw only where, half from cupidity,
half from curiosity, the warehouses had been more ransacked than pillaged:
bales of rich India goods, shawls of price, jewels, and spices, unpacked,
strewed the floors. In some places the possessor had to the last kept watch
on his store, and died before the barred gates. The massy portals of the
churches swung creaking on their hinges; and some few lay dead on the
pavement. The wretched female, loveless victim of vulgar brutality, had
wandered to the toilet of high-born beauty, and, arraying herself in the
garb of splendour, had died before the mirror which reflected to herself
alone her altered appearance. Women whose delicate feet had seldom touched
the earth in their luxury, had fled in fright and horror from their homes,
till, losing themselves in the squalid streets of the metropolis, they had
died on the threshold of poverty. The heart sickened at the variety of
misery presented; and, when I saw a specimen of this gloomy change, my soul
ached with the fear of what might befall my beloved Idris and my babes.
Were they, surviving Adrian and myself, to find themselves protectorless in
the world? As yet the mind alone had suffered--could I for ever put off
the time, when the delicate frame and shrinking nerves of my child of
prosperity, the nursling of rank and wealth, who was my companion, should
be invaded by famine, hardship, and disease? Better die at once--better
plunge a poinard in her bosom, still untouched by drear adversity, and then
again sheathe it in my own! But, no; in times of misery we must fight
against our destinies, and strive not to be overcome by them. I would not
yield, but to the last gasp resolutely defended my dear ones against sorrow
and pain; and if I were vanquished at last, it should not be ingloriously.
I stood in the gap, resisting the enemy--the impalpable, invisible foe,
who had so long besieged us--as yet he had made no breach: it must be my
care that he should not, secretly undermining, burst up within the very
threshold of the temple of love, at whose altar I daily sacrificed. The
hunger of Death was now stung more sharply by the diminution of his food:
or was it that before, the survivors being many, the dead were less eagerly
counted? Now each life was a gem, each human breathing form of far, O! far
more worth than subtlest imagery of sculptured stone; and the daily, nay,
hourly decrease visible in our numbers, visited the heart with sickening
misery. This summer extinguished our hopes, the vessel of society was
wrecked, and the shattered raft, which carried the few survivors over the
sea of misery, was riven and tempest tost. Man existed by twos and threes;
man, the individual who might sleep, and wake, and perform the animal
functions; but man, in himself weak, yet more powerful in congregated
numbers than wind or ocean; man, the queller of the elements, the lord of
created nature, the peer of demi-gods, existed no longer.
Farewell to the patriotic scene, to the love of liberty and well earned
meed of virtuous aspiration!--farewell to crowded senate, vocal with the
councils of the wise, whose laws were keener than the sword blade tempered
at Damascus!--farewell to kingly pomp and warlike pageantry; the crowns
are in the dust, and the wearers are in their graves!--farewell to the
desire of rule, and the hope of victory; to high vaulting ambition, to the
appetite for praise, and the craving for the suffrage of their fellows! The
nations are no longer! No senate sits in council for the dead; no scion of
a time honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel
house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave
dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth. The market-place is
empty, the candidate for popular favour finds none whom he can represent.
To chambers of painted state farewell!--To midnight revelry, and the
panting emulation of beauty, to costly dress and birth-day shew, to title
and the gilded coronet, farewell!
Farewell to the giant powers of man,--to knowledge that could pilot the
deep-drawing bark through the opposing waters of shoreless ocean,--to
science that directed the silken balloon through the pathless air,--to
the power that could put a barrier to mighty waters, and set in motion
wheels, and beams, and vast machinery, that could divide rocks of granite
or marble, and make the mountains plain!
Farewell to the arts,--to eloquence, which is to the human mind as the
winds to the sea, stirring, and then allaying it;--farewell to poetry and
deep philosophy, for man's imagination is cold, and his enquiring mind can
no longer expatiate on the wonders of life, for "there is no work, nor
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest!"--to
the graceful building, which in its perfect proportion transcended the rude
forms of nature, the fretted gothic and massy saracenic pile, to the
stupendous arch and glorious dome, the fluted column with its capital,
Corinthian, Ionic, or Doric, the peristyle and fair entablature, whose
harmony of form is to the eye as musical concord to the ear!--farewell to
sculpture, where the pure marble mocks human flesh, and in the plastic
expression of the culled excellencies of the human shape, shines forth the
god!--farewell to painting, the high wrought sentiment and deep knowledge
of the artists's mind in pictured canvas--to paradisaical scenes, where
trees are ever vernal, and the ambrosial air rests in perpetual glow:--to
the stamped form of tempest, and wildest uproar of universal nature encaged
in the narrow frame, O farewell! Farewell to music, and the sound of song;
to the marriage of instruments, where the concord of soft and harsh unites
in sweet harmony, and gives wings to the panting listeners, whereby to
climb heaven, and learn the hidden pleasures of the eternals!--Farewell
to the well-trod stage; a truer tragedy is enacted on the world's ample
scene, that puts to shame mimic grief: to high-bred comedy, and the low
buffoon, farewell!--Man may laugh no more. Alas! to enumerate the
adornments of humanity, shews, by what we have lost, how supremely great
man was. It is all over now. He is solitary; like our first parents
expelled from Paradise, he looks back towards the scene he has quitted. The
high walls of the tomb, and the flaming sword of plague, lie between it and
him. Like to our first parents, the whole earth is before him, a wide
desart. Unsupported and weak, let him wander through fields where the
unreaped corn stands in barren plenty, through copses planted by his
fathers, through towns built for his use. Posterity is no more; fame, and
ambition, and love, are words void of meaning; even as the cattle that
grazes in the field, do thou, O deserted one, lie down at evening-tide,
unknowing of the past, careless of the future, for from such fond ignorance
alone canst thou hope for ease!
Joy paints with its own colours every act and thought. The happy do not
feel poverty--for delight is as a gold-tissued robe, and crowns them with
priceless gems. Enjoyment plays the cook to their homely fare, and mingles
intoxication with their simple drink. Joy strews the hard couch with roses,
and makes labour ease.
Sorrow doubles the burthen to the bent-down back; plants thorns in the
unyielding pillow; mingles gall with water; adds saltness to their bitter
bread; cloathing them in rags, and strewing ashes on their bare heads. To
our irremediable distress every small and pelting inconvenience came with
added force; we had strung our frames to endure the Atlean weight thrown on
us; we sank beneath the added feather chance threw on us, "the grasshopper
was a burthen." Many of the survivors had been bred in luxury--their
servants were gone, their powers of command vanished like unreal shadows:
the poor even suffered various privations; and the idea of another winter
like the last, brought affright to our minds. Was it not enough that we
must die, but toil must be added?--must we prepare our funeral repast
with labour, and with unseemly drudgery heap fuel on our deserted hearths
--must we with servile hands fabricate the garments, soon to be our
shroud?
Not so! We are presently to die, let us then enjoy to its full relish the
remnant of our lives. Sordid care, avaunt! menial labours, and pains,
slight in themselves, but too gigantic for our exhausted strength, shall
make no part of our ephemeral existences. In the beginning of time, when,
as now, man lived by families, and not by tribes or nations, they were
placed in a genial clime, where earth fed them untilled, and the balmy air
enwrapt their reposing limbs with warmth more pleasant than beds of down.
The south is the native place of the human race; the land of fruits, more
grateful to man than the hard-earned Ceres of the north,--of trees, whose
boughs are as a palace-roof, of couches of roses, and of the
thirst-appeasing grape. We need not there fear cold and hunger.
Look at England! the grass shoots up high in the meadows; but they are dank
and cold, unfit bed for us. Corn we have none, and the crude fruits cannot
support us. We must seek firing in the bowels of the earth, or the unkind
atmosphere will fill us with rheums and aches. The labour of hundreds of
thousands alone could make this inclement nook fit habitation for one man.
To the south then, to the sun!--where nature is kind, where Jove has
showered forth the contents of Amalthea's horn, and earth is garden.
England, late birth-place of excellence and school of the wise, thy
children are gone, thy glory faded! Thou, England, wert the triumph of man!
Small favour was shewn thee by thy Creator, thou Isle of the North; a
ragged canvas naturally, painted by man with alien colours; but the hues he
gave are faded, never more to be renewed. So we must leave thee, thou
marvel of the world; we must bid farewell to thy clouds, and cold, and
scarcity for ever! Thy manly hearts are still; thy tale of power and
liberty at its close! Bereft of man, O little isle! the ocean waves will
buffet thee, and the raven flap his wings over thee; thy soil will be
birth-place of weeds, thy sky will canopy barrenness. It was not for the
rose of Persia thou wert famous, nor the banana of the east; not for the
spicy gales of India, nor the sugar groves of America; not for thy vines
nor thy double harvests, nor for thy vernal airs, nor solstitial sun--but
for thy children, their unwearied industry and lofty aspiration. They are
gone, and thou goest with them the oft trodden path that leads to oblivion,
--
Farewell, sad Isle, farewell, thy fatal glory
Is summed, cast up, and cancelled in this story.[2]
[1] Elton's translation of Hesiod.
[2] Cleveland's Poems.
CHAPTER II.
IN the autumn of this year 2096, the spirit of emigration crept in among
the few survivors, who, congregating from various parts of England, met in
London. This spirit existed as a breath, a wish, a far off thought, until
communicated to Adrian, who imbibed it with ardour, and instantly engaged
himself in plans for its execution. The fear of immediate death vanished
with the heats of September. Another winter was before us, and we might
elect our mode of passing it to the best advantage. Perhaps in rational
philosophy none could be better chosen than this scheme of migration, which
would draw us from the immediate scene of our woe, and, leading us through
pleasant and picturesque countries, amuse for a time our despair. The idea
once broached, all were impatient to put it in execution.
We were still at Windsor; our renewed hopes medicined the anguish we had
suffered from the late tragedies. The death of many of our inmates had
weaned us from the fond idea, that Windsor Castle was a spot sacred from
the plague; but our lease of life was renewed for some months, and even
Idris lifted her head, as a lily after a storm, when a last sunbeam tinges
its silver cup. Just at this time Adrian came down to us; his eager looks
shewed us that he was full of some scheme. He hastened to take me aside,
and disclosed to me with rapidity his plan of emigration from England.
To leave England for ever! to turn from its polluted fields and groves,
and, placing the sea between us, to quit it, as a sailor quits the rock on
which he has been wrecked, when the saving ship rides by. Such was his
plan.
To leave the country of our fathers, made holy by their graves!--We could
not feel even as a voluntary exile of old, who might for pleasure or
convenience forsake his native soil; though thousands of miles might divide
him, England was still a part of him, as he of her. He heard of the passing
events of the day; he knew that, if he returned, and resumed his place in
society, the entrance was still open, and it required but the will, to
surround himself at once with the associations and habits of boyhood. Not
so with us, the remnant. We left none to represent us, none to repeople the
desart land, and the name of England died, when we left her,
In vagabond pursuit of dreadful safety.
Yet let us go! England is in her shroud,--we may not enchain ourselves to
a corpse. Let us go--the world is our country now, and we will choose for
our residence its most fertile spot. Shall we, in these desart halls, under
this wintry sky, sit with closed eyes and folded hands, expecting death?
Let us rather go out to meet it gallantly: or perhaps--for all this
pendulous orb, this fair gem in the sky's diadem, is not surely
plague-striken--perhaps, in some secluded nook, amidst eternal spring,
and waving trees, and purling streams, we may find Life. The world is vast,
and England, though her many fields and wide spread woods seem
interminable, is but a small part of her. At the close of a day's march
over high mountains and through snowy vallies, we may come upon health, and
committing our loved ones to its charge, replant the uprooted tree of
humanity, and send to late posterity the tale of the ante-pestilential
race, the heroes and sages of the lost state of things.
Hope beckons and sorrow urges us, the heart beats high with expectation,
and this eager desire of change must be an omen of success. O come!
Farewell to the dead! farewell to the tombs of those we loved!--farewell
to giant London and the placid Thames, to river and mountain or fair
district, birth-place of the wise and good, to Windsor Forest and its
antique castle, farewell! themes for story alone are they,--we must live
elsewhere.
Such were in part the arguments of Adrian, uttered with enthusiasm and
unanswerable rapidity. Something more was in his heart, to which he dared
not give words. He felt that the end of time was come; he knew that one by
one we should dwindle into nothingness. It was not adviseable to wait this
sad consummation in our native country; but travelling would give us our
object for each day, that would distract our thoughts from the
swift-approaching end of things. If we went to Italy, to sacred and eternal
Rome, we might with greater patience submit to the decree, which had laid
her mighty towers low. We might lose our selfish grief in the sublime
aspect of its desolation. All this was in the mind of Adrian; but he
thought of my children, and, instead of communicating to me these resources
of despair, he called up the image of health and life to be found, where we
knew not--when we knew not; but if never to be found, for ever and for
ever to be sought. He won me over to his party, heart and soul.
It devolved on me to disclose our plan to Idris. The images of health and
hope which I presented to her, made her with a smile consent. With a smile
she agreed to leave her country, from which she had never before been
absent, and the spot she had inhabited from infancy; the forest and its
mighty trees, the woodland paths and green recesses, where she had played
in childhood, and had lived so happily through youth; she would leave them
without regret, for she hoped to purchase thus the lives of her children.
They were her life; dearer than a spot consecrated to love, dearer than all
else the earth contained. The boys heard with childish glee of our removal:
Clara asked if we were to go to Athens. "It is possible," I replied; and
her countenance became radiant with pleasure. There she would behold the
tomb of her parents, and the territory filled with recollections of her
father's glory. In silence, but without respite, she had brooded over these
scenes. It was the recollection of them that had turned her infant gaiety
to seriousness, and had impressed her with high and restless thoughts.
There were many dear friends whom we must not leave behind, humble though
they were. There was the spirited and obedient steed which Lord Raymond had
given his daughter; there was Alfred's dog and a pet eagle, whose sight was
dimmed through age. But this catalogue of favourites to be taken with us,
could not be made without grief to think of our heavy losses, and a deep
sigh for the many things we must leave behind. The tears rushed into the
eyes of Idris, while Alfred and Evelyn brought now a favourite rose tree,
now a marble vase beautifully carved, insisting that these must go, and
exclaiming on the pity that we could not take the castle and the forest,
the deer and the birds, and all accustomed and cherished objects along with
us. "Fond and foolish ones," I said, "we have lost for ever treasures far
more precious than these; and we desert them, to preserve treasures to
which in comparison they are nothing. Let us not for a moment forget our
object and our hope; and they will form a resistless mound to stop the
overflowing of our regret for trifles."
The children were easily distracted, and again returned to their prospect
of future amusement. Idris had disappeared. She had gone to hide her
weakness; escaping from the castle, she had descended to the little park,
and sought solitude, that she might there indulge her tears; I found her
clinging round an old oak, pressing its rough trunk with her roseate lips,
as her tears fell plenteously, and her sobs and broken exclamations could
not be suppressed; with surpassing grief I beheld this loved one of my
heart thus lost in sorrow! I drew her towards me; and, as she felt my
kisses on her eyelids, as she felt my arms press her, she revived to the
knowledge of what remained to her. "You are very kind not to reproach me,"
she said: "I weep, and a bitter pang of intolerable sorrow tears my heart.
And yet I am happy; mothers lament their children, wives lose their
husbands, while you and my children are left to me. Yes, I am happy, most
happy, that I can weep thus for imaginary sorrows, and that the slight loss
of my adored country is not dwindled and annihilated in mightier misery.
Take me where you will; where you and my children are, there shall be
Windsor, and every country will be England to me. Let these tears flow not
for myself, happy and ungrateful as I am, but for the dead world--for our
lost country--for all of love, and life, and joy, now choked in the dusty
chambers of death."
She spoke quickly, as if to convince herself; she turned her eyes from the
trees and forest-paths she loved; she hid her face in my bosom, and we--
yes, my masculine firmness dissolved--we wept together consolatory tears,
and then calm--nay, almost cheerful, we returned to the castle.
The first cold weather of an English October, made us hasten our
preparations. I persuaded Idris to go up to London, where she might better
attend to necessary arrangements. I did not tell her, that to spare her the
pang of parting from inanimate objects, now the only things left, I had
resolved that we should none of us return to Windsor. For the last time we
looked on the wide extent of country visible from the terrace, and saw the
last rays of the sun tinge the dark masses of wood variegated by autumnal
tints; the uncultivated fields and smokeless cottages lay in shadow below;
the Thames wound through the wide plain, and the venerable pile of Eton
college, stood in dark relief, a prominent object; the cawing of the myriad
rooks which inhabited the trees of the little park, as in column or thick
wedge they speeded to their nests, disturbed the silence of evening. Nature
was the same, as when she was the kind mother of the human race; now,
childless and forlorn, her fertility was a mockery; her loveliness a mask
for deformity. Why should the breeze gently stir the trees, man felt not
its refreshment? Why did dark night adorn herself with stars--man saw
them not? Why are there fruits, or flowers, or streams, man is not here to
enjoy them?
Idris stood beside me, her dear hand locked in mine. Her face was radiant
with a smile.--"The sun is alone," she said, "but we are not. A strange
star, my Lionel, ruled our birth; sadly and with dismay we may look upon
the annihilation of man; but we remain for each other. Did I ever in the
wide world seek other than thee? And since in the wide world thou
remainest, why should I complain? Thou and nature are still true to me.
Beneath the shades of night, and through the day, whose garish light
displays our solitude, thou wilt still be at my side, and even Windsor will
not be regretted."
I had chosen night time for our journey to London, that the change and
desolation of the country might be the less observable. Our only surviving
servant drove us. We past down the steep hill, and entered the dusky avenue
of the Long Walk. At times like these, minute circumstances assume giant
and majestic proportions; the very swinging open of the white gate that
admitted us into the forest, arrested my thoughts as matter of interest; it
was an every day act, never to occur again! The setting crescent of the
moon glittered through the massy trees to our right, and when we entered
the park, we scared a troop of deer, that fled bounding away in the forest
shades. Our two boys quietly slept; once, before our road turned from the
view, I looked back on the castle. Its windows glistened in the moonshine,
and its heavy outline lay in a dark mass against the sky--the trees near
us waved a solemn dirge to the midnight breeze. Idris leaned back in the
carriage; her two hands pressed mine, her countenance was placid, she
seemed to lose the sense of what she now left, in the memory of what she
still possessed.
My thoughts were sad and solemn, yet not of unmingled pain. The very excess
of our misery carried a relief with it, giving sublimity and elevation to
sorrow. I felt that I carried with me those I best loved; I was pleased,
after a long separation to rejoin Adrian; never again to part. I felt that
I quitted what I loved, not what loved me. The castle walls, and long
familiar trees, did not hear the parting sound of our carriage-wheels with
regret. And, while I felt Idris to be near, and heard the regular breathing
of my children, I could not be unhappy. Clara was greatly moved; with
streaming eyes, suppressing her sobs, she leaned from the window, watching
the last glimpse of her native Windsor.
Adrian welcomed us on our arrival. He was all animation; you could no
longer trace in his look of health, the suffering valetudinarian; from his
smile and sprightly tones you could not guess that he was about to lead
forth from their native country, the numbered remnant of the English
nation, into the tenantless realms of the south, there to die, one by one,
till the LAST MAN should remain in a voiceless, empty world.
Adrian was impatient for our departure, and had advanced far in his
preparations. His wisdom guided all. His care was the soul, to move the
luckless crowd, who relied wholly on him. It was useless to provide many
things, for we should find abundant provision in every town. It was
Adrian's wish to prevent all labour; to bestow a festive appearance on this
funeral train. Our numbers amounted to not quite two thousand persons.
These were not all assembled in London, but each day witnessed the arrival
of fresh numbers, and those who resided in the neighbouring towns, had
received orders to assemble at one place, on the twentieth of November.
Carriages and horses were provided for all; captains and under officers
chosen, and the whole assemblage wisely organized. All obeyed the Lord
Protector of dying England; all looked up to him. His council was chosen,
it consisted of about fifty persons. Distinction and station were not the
qualifications of their election. We had no station among us, but that
which benevolence and prudence gave; no distinction save between the living
and the dead. Although we were anxious to leave England before the depth of
winter, yet we were detained. Small parties had been dispatched to various
parts of England, in search of stragglers; we would not go, until we had
assured ourselves that in all human probability we did not leave behind a
single human being.
On our arrival in London, we found that the aged Countess of Windsor was
residing with her son in the palace of the Protectorate; we repaired to our
accustomed abode near Hyde Park. Idris now for the first time for many
years saw her mother, anxious to assure herself that the childishness of
old age did not mingle with unforgotten pride, to make this high-born dame
still so inveterate against me. Age and care had furrowed her cheeks, and
bent her form; but her eye was still bright, her manners authoritative and
unchanged; she received her daughter coldly, but displayed more feeling as
she folded her grand-children in her arms. It is our nature to wish to
continue our systems and thoughts to posterity through our own offspring.
The Countess had failed in this design with regard to her children; perhaps
she hoped to find the next remove in birth more tractable. Once Idris named
me casually--a frown, a convulsive gesture of anger, shook her mother,
and, with voice trembling with hate, she said--"I am of little worth in
this world; the young are impatient to push the old off the scene; but,
Idris, if you do not wish to see your mother expire at your feet, never
again name that person to me; all else I can bear; and now I am resigned to
the destruction of my cherished hopes: but it is too much to require that I
should love the instrument that providence gifted with murderous properties
for my destruction."
This was a strange speech, now that, on the empty stage, each might play
his part without impediment from the other. But the haughty Ex-Queen
thought as Octavius Caesar and Mark Antony,
We could not stall together
In the whole world.
The period of our departure was fixed for the twenty-fifth of November. The
weather was temperate; soft rains fell at night, and by day the wintry sun
shone out. Our numbers were to move forward in separate parties, and to go
by different routes, all to unite at last at Paris. Adrian and his
division, consisting in all of five hundred persons, were to take the
direction of Dover and Calais. On the twentieth of November, Adrian and I
rode for the last time through the streets of London. They were grass-grown
and desert. The open doors of the empty mansions creaked upon their hinges;
rank herbage, and deforming dirt, had swiftly accumulated on the steps of
the houses; the voiceless steeples of the churches pierced the smokeless
air; the churches were open, but no prayer was offered at the altars;
mildew and damp had already defaced their ornaments; birds, and tame
animals, now homeless, had built nests, and made their lairs in consecrated
spots. We passed St. Paul's. London, which had extended so far in suburbs
in all direction, had been somewhat deserted in the midst, and much of what
had in former days obscured this vast building was removed. Its ponderous
mass, blackened stone, and high dome, made it look, not like a temple, but
a tomb. Methought above the portico was engraved the Hic jacet of England.
We passed on eastwards, engaged in such solemn talk as the times inspired.
No human step was heard, nor human form discerned. Troops of dogs, deserted
of their masters, passed us; and now and then a horse, unbridled and
unsaddled, trotted towards us, and tried to attract the attention of those
which we rode, as if to allure them to seek like liberty. An unwieldy ox,
who had fed in an abandoned granary, suddenly lowed, and shewed his
shapeless form in a narrow door-way; every thing was desert; but nothing
was in ruin. And this medley of undamaged buildings, and luxurious
accommodation, in trim and fresh youth, was contrasted with the lonely
silence of the unpeopled streets.
Night closed in, and it began to rain. We were about to return homewards,
when a voice, a human voice, strange now to hear, attracted our attention.
It was a child singing a merry, lightsome air; there was no other sound. We
had traversed London from Hyde Park even to where we now were in the
Minories, and had met no person, heard no voice nor footstep. The singing
was interrupted by laughing and talking; never was merry ditty so sadly
timed, never laughter more akin to tears. The door of the house from which
these sounds proceeded was open, the upper rooms were illuminated as for a
feast. It was a large magnificent house, in which doubtless some rich
merchant had lived. The singing again commenced, and rang through the
high-roofed rooms, while we silently ascended the stair-case. Lights now
appeared to guide us; and a long suite of splendid rooms illuminated, made
us still more wonder. Their only inhabitant, a little girl, was dancing,
waltzing, and singing about them, followed by a large Newfoundland dog, who
boisterously jumping on her, and interrupting her, made her now scold, now
laugh, now throw herself on the carpet to play with him. She was dressed
grotesquely, in glittering robes and shawls fit for a woman; she appeared
about ten years of age. We stood at the door looking on this strange scene,
till the dog perceiving us barked loudly; the child turned and saw us: her
face, losing its gaiety, assumed a sullen expression: she slunk back,
apparently meditating an escape. I came up to her, and held her hand; she
did not resist, but with a stern brow, so strange in childhood, so
different from her former hilarity, she stood still, her eyes fixed on the
ground. "What do you do here?" I said gently; "Who are you?"--she was
silent, but trembled violently.--"My poor child," asked Adrian, "are you
alone?" There was a winning softness in his voice, that went to the heart
of the little girl; she looked at him, then snatching her hand from me,
threw herself into his arms, clinging round his neck, ejaculating--"Save
me! save me!" while her unnatural sullenness dissolved in tears.
"I will save you," he replied, "of what are you afraid? you need not fear
my friend, he will do you no harm. Are you alone?"
"No, Lion is with me."
"And your father and mother?--"
"I never had any; I am a charity girl. Every body is gone, gone for a
great, great many days; but if they come back and find me out, they will
beat me so!"
Her unhappy story was told in these few words: an orphan, taken on
pretended charity, ill-treated and reviled, her oppressors had died:
unknowing of what had passed around her, she found herself alone; she had
not dared venture out, but by the continuance of her solitude her courage
revived, her childish vivacity caused her to play a thousand freaks, and
with her brute companion she passed a long holiday, fearing nothing but the
return of the harsh voices and cruel usage of her protectors. She readily
consented to go with Adrian.
In the mean time, while we descanted on alien sorrows, and on a solitude
which struck our eyes and not our hearts, while we imagined all of change
and suffering that had intervened in these once thronged streets, before,
tenantless and abandoned, they became mere kennels for dogs, and stables
for cattle:--while we read the death of the world upon the dark fane, and
hugged ourselves in the remembrance that we possessed that which was all
the world to us--in the meanwhile---
We had arrived from Windsor early in October, and had now been in London
about six weeks. Day by day, during that time, the health of my Idris
declined: her heart was broken; neither sleep nor appetite, the chosen
servants of health, waited on her wasted form. To watch her children hour
by hour, to sit by me, drinking deep the dear persuasion that I remained to
her, was all her pastime. Her vivacity, so long assumed, her affectionate
display of cheerfulness, her light-hearted tone and springy gait were gone.
I could not disguise to myself, nor could she conceal, her life-consuming
sorrow. Still change of scene, and reviving hopes might restore her; I
feared the plague only, and she was untouched by that.
I had left her this evening, reposing after the fatigues of her
preparations. Clara sat beside her, relating a story to the two boys. The
eyes of Idris were closed: but Clara perceived a sudden change in the
appearance of our eldest darling; his heavy lids veiled his eyes, an
unnatural colour burnt in his cheeks, his breath became short. Clara looked
at the mother; she slept, yet started at the pause the narrator made--
Fear of awakening and alarming her, caused Clara to go on at the eager call
of Evelyn, who was unaware of what was passing. Her eyes turned alternately
from Alfred to Idris; with trembling accents she continued her tale, till
she saw the child about to fall: starting forward she caught him, and her
cry roused Idris. She looked on her son. She saw death stealing across his
features; she laid him on a bed, she held drink to his parched lips.
Yet he might be saved. If I were there, he might be saved; perhaps it was
not the plague. Without a counsellor, what could she do? stay and behold
him die! Why at that moment was I away? "Look to him, Clara," she
exclaimed, "I will return immediately."
She inquired among those who, selected as the companions of our journey,
had taken up their residence in our house; she heard from them merely that
I had gone out with Adrian. She entreated them to seek me: she returned to
her child, he was plunged in a frightful state of torpor; again she rushed
down stairs; all was dark, desert, and silent; she lost all
self-possession; she ran into the street; she called on my name. The
pattering rain and howling wind alone replied to her. Wild fear gave wings
to her feet; she darted forward to seek me, she knew not where; but,
putting all her thoughts, all her energy, all her being in speed only, most
misdirected speed, she neither felt, nor feared, nor paused, but ran right
on, till her strength suddenly deserted her so suddenly, that she had not
thought to save herself. Her knees failed her, and she fell heavily on the
pavement. She was stunned for a time; but at length rose, and though sorely
hurt, still walked on, shedding a fountain of tears, stumbling at times,
going she knew not whither, only now and then with feeble voice she called
my name, adding with heart-piercing exclamations, that I was cruel and
unkind. Human being there was none to reply; and the inclemency of the
night had driven the wandering animals to the habitations they had usurped.
Her thin dress was drenched with rain; her wet hair clung round her neck;
she tottered through the dark streets; till, striking her foot against an
unseen impediment, she again fell; she could not rise; she hardly strove;
but, gathering up her limbs, she resigned herself to the fury of the
elements, and the bitter grief of her own heart. She breathed an earnest
prayer to die speedily, for there was no relief but death. While hopeless
of safety for herself, she ceased to lament for her dying child, but shed
kindly, bitter tears for the grief I should experience in losing her. While
she lay, life almost suspended, she felt a warm, soft hand on her brow, and
a gentle female voice asked her, with expressions of tender compassion, if
she could not rise? That another human being, sympathetic and kind, should
exist near, roused her; half rising, with clasped hands, and fresh
springing tears, she entreated her companion to seek for me, to bid me
hasten to my dying child, to save him, for the love of heaven, to save
him!
The woman raised her; she led her under shelter, she entreated her to
return to her home, whither perhaps I had already returned. Idris easily
yielded to her persuasions, she leaned on the arm of her friend, she
endeavoured to walk on, but irresistible faintness made her pause again and
again.
Quickened by the encreasing storm, we had hastened our return, our little
charge was placed before Adrian on his horse. There was an assemblage of
persons under the portico of our house, in whose gestures I instinctively
read some heavy change, some new misfortune. With swift alarm, afraid to
ask a single question, I leapt from my horse; the spectators saw me, knew
me, and in awful silence divided to make way for me. I snatched a light,
and rushing up stairs, and hearing a groan, without reflection I threw open
the door of the first room that presented itself. It was quite dark; but,
as I stept within, a pernicious scent assailed my senses, producing
sickening qualms, which made their way to my very heart, while I felt my
leg clasped, and a groan repeated by the person that held me. I lowered my
lamp, and saw a negro half clad, writhing under the agony of disease, while
he held me with a convulsive grasp. With mixed horror and impatience I
strove to disengage myself, and fell on the sufferer; he wound his naked
festering arms round me, his face was close to mine, and his breath,
death-laden, entered my vitals. For a moment I was overcome, my head was
bowed by aching nausea; till, reflection returning, I sprung up, threw the
wretch from me, and darting up the staircase, entered the chamber usually
inhabited by my family. A dim light shewed me Alfred on a couch; Clara
trembling, and paler than whitest snow, had raised him on her arm, holding
a cup of water to his lips. I saw full well that no spark of life existed
in that ruined form, his features were rigid, his eyes glazed, his head had
fallen back. I took him from her, I laid him softly down, kissed his cold
little mouth, and turned to speak in a vain whisper, when loudest sound of
thunderlike cannon could not have reached him in his immaterial abode.
And where was Idris? That she had gone out to seek me, and had not
returned, were fearful tidings, while the rain and driving wind clattered
against the window, and roared round the house. Added to this, the
sickening sensation of disease gained upon me; no time was to be lost, if
ever I would see her again. I mounted my horse and rode out to seek her,
fancying that I heard her voice in every gust, oppressed by fever and
aching pain.
I rode in the dark and rain through the labyrinthine streets of unpeopled
London. My child lay dead at home; the seeds of mortal disease had taken
root in my bosom; I went to seek Idris, my adored, now wandering alone,
while the waters were rushing from heaven like a cataract to bathe her dear
head in chill damp, her fair limbs in numbing cold. A female stood on the
step of a door, and called to me as I gallopped past. It was not Idris; so
I rode swiftly on, until a kind of second sight, a reflection back again on
my senses of what I had seen but not marked, made me feel sure that another
figure, thin, graceful and tall, stood clinging to the foremost person who
supported her. In a minute I was beside the suppliant, in a minute I
received the sinking Idris in my arms. Lifting her up, I placed her on the
horse; she had not strength to support herself; so I mounted
behind her, and held her close to my bosom, wrapping my riding-cloak round
her, while her companion, whose well known, but changed countenance, (it
was Juliet, daughter of the Duke of L---) could at this moment of horror
obtain from me no more than a passing glance of compassion. She took the
abandoned rein, and conducted our obedient steed homewards. Dare I avouch
it? That was the last moment of my happiness; but I was happy. Idris must
die, for her heart was broken: I must die, for I had caught the plague;
earth was a scene of desolation; hope was madness; life had married death;
they were one; but, thus supporting my fainting love, thus feeling that I
must soon die, I revelled in the delight of possessing her once more; again
and again I kissed her, and pressed her to my heart.
We arrived at our home. I assisted her to dismount, I carried her up
stairs, and gave her into Clara's care, that her wet garments might be
changed. Briefly I assured Adrian of her safety, and requested that we
might be left to repose. As the miser, who with trembling caution visits
his treasure to count it again and again, so I numbered each moment, and
grudged every one that was not spent with Idris. I returned swiftly to the
chamber where the life of my life reposed; before I entered the room I
paused for a few seconds; for a few seconds I tried to examine my state;
sickness and shuddering ever and anon came over me; my head was heavy, my
chest oppressed, my legs bent under me; but I threw off resolutely the
swift growing symptoms of my disorder, and met Idris with placid and even
joyous looks. She was lying on a couch; carefully fastening the door to
prevent all intrusion; I sat by her, we embraced, and our lips met in a
kiss long drawn and breathless--would that moment had been my last!
Maternal feeling now awoke in my poor girl's bosom, and she asked: "And
Alfred?"
"Idris," I replied, "we are spared to each other, we are together;
do not let any other idea intrude. I am happy; even on this fatal night, I
declare myself happy, beyond all name, all thought--what would you more,
sweet one?"
Idris understood me: she bowed her head on my shoulder and wept. "Why," she
again asked, "do you tremble, Lionel, what shakes you thus?"
"Well may I be shaken," I replied, "happy as I am. Our child is dead, and
the present hour is dark and ominous. Well may I tremble! but, I am happy,
mine own Idris, most happy."
"I understand thee, my kind love," said Idris, "thus--pale as thou art
with sorrow at our loss; trembling and aghast, though wouldest assuage my
grief by thy dear assurances. I am not happy," (and the tears flashed and
fell from under her down-cast lids), "for we are inmates of a miserable
prison, and there is no joy for us; but the true love I bear you will
render this and every other loss endurable."
"We have been happy together, at least," I said; "no future misery can
deprive us of the past. We have been true to each other for years, ever
since my sweet princess-love came through the snow to the lowly cottage
of the poverty-striken heir of the ruined Verney. Even now, that eternity
is before us, we take hope only from the presence of each other. Idris,
do you think, that when we die, we shall be divided?"
"Die! when we die! what mean you? What secret lies hid from me in those
dreadful words?"
"Must we not all die, dearest?" I asked with a sad smile.
"Gracious God! are you ill, Lionel, that you speak of death? My only
friend, heart of my heart, speak!"
"I do not think," replied I, "that we have any of us long to live; and when
the curtain drops on this mortal scene, where, think you, we shall find
ourselves?" Idris was calmed by my unembarrassed tone and look; she
answered:--"You may easily believe that during this long progress of the
plague, I have thought much on death, and asked myself, now that all
mankind is dead to this life, to what other life they may have been borne.
Hour after hour, I have dwelt on these thoughts, and strove to form a
rational conclusion concerning the mystery of a future state. What a
scare-crow, indeed, would death be, if we were merely to cast aside the
shadow in which we now walk, and, stepping forth into the unclouded
sunshine of knowledge and love, revived with the same companions, the same
affections, and reached the fulfilment of our hopes, leaving our fears with
our earthly vesture in the grave. Alas! the same strong feeling which makes
me sure that I shall not wholly die, makes me refuse to believe that I
shall live wholly as I do now. Yet, Lionel, never, never, can I love any
but you; through eternity I must desire your society; and, as I am innocent
of harm to others, and as relying and confident as my mortal nature
permits, I trust that the Ruler of the world will never tear us asunder."
"Your remarks are like yourself, dear love," replied I, "gentle and good;
let us cherish such a belief, and dismiss anxiety from our minds. But,
sweet, we are so formed, (and there is no sin, if God made our nature, to
yield to what he ordains), we are so formed, that we must love life, and
cling to it; we must love the living smile, the sympathetic touch, and
thrilling voice, peculiar to our mortal mechanism. Let us not, through
security in hereafter, neglect the present. This present moment, short as
it is, is a part of eternity, and the dearest part, since it is our own
unalienably. Thou, the hope of my futurity, art my present joy. Let me then
look on thy dear eyes, and, reading love in them, drink intoxicating
pleasure."
Timidly, for my vehemence somewhat terrified her, Idris looked on me. My
eyes were bloodshot, starting from my head; every artery beat, methought,
audibly, every muscle throbbed, each single nerve felt. Her look of wild
affright told me, that I could no longer keep my secret:--"So it is, mine
own beloved," I said, "the last hour of many happy ones is arrived, nor can
we shun any longer the inevitable destiny. I cannot live long--but, again
and again, I say, this moment is ours!"
Paler than marble, with white lips and convulsed features, Idris became
aware of my situation. My arm, as I sat, encircled her waist. She felt the
palm burn with fever, even on the heart it pressed:--"One moment," she
murmured, scarce audibly, "only one moment."--
She kneeled, and hiding her face in her hands, uttered a brief, but earnest
prayer, that she might fulfil her duty, and watch over me to the last.
While there was hope, the agony had been unendurable;--all was now
concluded; her feelings became solemn and calm. Even as Epicharis,
unperturbed and firm, submitted to the instruments of torture, did Idris,
suppressing every sigh and sign of grief, enter upon the endurance of
torments, of which the rack and the wheel are but faint and metaphysical
symbols.
I was changed; the tight-drawn cord that sounded so harshly was loosened,
the moment that Idris participated in my knowledge of our real situation.
The perturbed and passion-tossed waves of thought subsided, leaving only
the heavy swell that kept right on without any outward manifestation of its
disturbance, till it should break on the remote shore towards which I
rapidly advanced:--"It is true that I am sick," I said, "and your
society, my Idris is my only medicine; come, and sit beside me."
She made me lie down on the couch, and, drawing a low ottoman near, sat
close to my pillow, pressing my burning hands in her cold palms. She
yielded to my feverish restlessness, and let me talk, and talked to me, on
subjects strange indeed to beings, who thus looked the last, and heard the
last, of what they loved alone in the world. We talked of times gone by; of
the happy period of our early love; of Raymond, Perdita, and Evadne. We
talked of what might arise on this desert earth, if, two or three being
saved, it were slowly re-peopled.--We talked of what was beyond the tomb;
and, man in his human shape being nearly extinct, we felt with certainty of
faith, that other spirits, other minds, other perceptive beings, sightless
to us, must people with thought and love this beauteous and imperishable
universe.
We talked--I know not how long--but, in the morning I awoke from a
painful heavy slumber; the pale cheek of Idris rested on my pillow; the
large orbs of her eyes half raised the lids, and shewed the deep blue
lights beneath; her lips were unclosed, and the slight murmurs they formed
told that, even while asleep, she suffered. "If she were dead," I thought,
"what difference? now that form is the temple of a residing deity; those
eyes are the windows of her soul; all grace, love, and intelligence are
throned on that lovely bosom--were she dead, where would this mind, the
dearer half of mine, be? For quickly the fair proportion of this edifice
would be more defaced, than are the sand-choked ruins of the desert temples
of Palmyra."
CHAPTER III.
IDRIS stirred and awoke; alas! she awoke to misery. She saw the signs of
disease on my countenance, and wondered how she could permit the long night
to pass without her having sought, not cure, that was impossible, but
alleviation to my sufferings. She called Adrian; my couch was quickly
surrounded by friends and assistants, and such medicines as were judged
fitting were administered. It was the peculiar and dreadful distinction of
our visitation, that none who had been attacked by the pestilence had
recovered. The first symptom of the disease was the death-warrant, which in
no single instance had been followed by pardon or reprieve. No gleam of
hope therefore cheered my friends.
While fever producing torpor, heavy pains, sitting like lead on my limbs,
and making my breast heave, were upon me; I continued insensible to every
thing but pain, and at last even to that. I awoke on the fourth morning as
from a dreamless sleep. An irritating sense of thirst, and, when I strove
to speak or move, an entire dereliction of power, was all I felt.
For three days and nights Idris had not moved from my side. She
administered to all my wants, and never slept nor rested. She did not hope;
and therefore she neither endeavoured to read the physician's countenance,
nor to watch for symptoms of recovery. All her thought was to attend on me
to the last, and then to lie down and die beside me. On the third night
animation was suspended; to the eye and touch of all I was dead. With
earnest prayer, almost with force, Adrian tried to draw Idris from me. He
exhausted every adjuration, her child's welfare and his own. She shook her
head, and wiped a stealing tear from her sunk cheek, but would not yield;
she entreated to be allowed to watch me that one night only, with such
affliction and meek earnestness, that she gained her point, and sat silent
and motionless, except when, stung by intolerable remembrance, she kissed
my closed eyes and pallid lips, and pressed my stiffening hands to her
beating heart.
At dead of night, when, though it was mid winter, the cock crowed at three
o'clock, as herald of the morning change, while hanging over me, and
mourning in silent, bitter thought for the loss of all of love towards her
that had been enshrined in my heart; her dishevelled hair hung over her
face, and the long tresses fell on the bed; she saw one ringlet in motion,
and the scattered hair slightly stirred, as by a breath. It is not so, she
thought, for he will never breathe more. Several times the same thing
occurred, and she only marked it by the same reflection; till the whole
ringlet waved back, and she thought she saw my breast heave. Her first
emotion was deadly fear, cold dew stood on her brow; my eyes half opened;
and, re-assured, she would have exclaimed, "He lives!" but the words were
choked by a spasm, and she fell with a groan on the floor.
Adrian was in the chamber. After long watching, he had unwillingly fallen
into a sleep. He started up, and beheld his sister senseless on the earth,
weltering in a stream of blood that gushed from her mouth. Encreasing signs
of life in me in some degree explained her state; the surprise, the burst
of joy, the revulsion of every sentiment, had been too much for her frame,
worn by long months of care, late shattered by every species of woe and
toil. She was now in far greater danger than I, the wheels and springs of
my life, once again set in motion, acquired elasticity from their short
suspension. For a long time, no one believed that I should indeed continue
to live; during the reign of the plague upon earth, not one person,
attacked by the grim disease, had recovered. My restoration was looked on
as a deception; every moment it was expected that the evil symptoms would
recur with redoubled violence, until confirmed convalescence, absence of
all fever or pain, and encreasing strength, brought slow conviction that I
had recovered from the plague.
The restoration of Idris was more problematical. When I had been attacked
by illness, her cheeks were sunk, her form emaciated; but now, the vessel,
which had broken from the effects of extreme agitation, did not entirely
heal, but was as a channel that drop by drop drew from her the ruddy stream
that vivified her heart. Her hollow eyes and worn countenance had a ghastly
appearance; her cheek-bones, her open fair brow, the projection of the
mouth, stood fearfully prominent; you might tell each bone in the thin
anatomy of her frame. Her hand hung powerless; each joint lay bare, so that
the light penetrated through and through. It was strange that life could
exist in what was wasted and worn into a very type of death.
To take her from these heart-breaking scenes, to lead her to forget the
world's desolation in the variety of objects presented by travelling, and
to nurse her failing strength in the mild climate towards which we had
resolved to journey, was my last hope for her preservation. The
preparations for our departure, which had been suspended during my illness,
were renewed. I did not revive to doubtful convalescence; health spent her
treasures upon me; as the tree in spring may feel from its wrinkled limbs
the fresh green break forth, and the living sap rise and circulate, so did
the renewed vigour of my frame, the cheerful current of my blood, the
new-born elasticity of my limbs, influence my mind to cheerful endurance
and pleasurable thoughts. My body, late the heavy weight that bound me to
the tomb, was exuberant with health; mere common exercises were
insufficient for my reviving strength; methought I could emulate the speed
of the race-horse, discern through the air objects at a blinding distance,
hear the operations of nature in her mute abodes; my senses had become so
refined and susceptible after my recovery from mortal disease.
Hope, among my other blessings, was not denied to me; and I did fondly
trust that my unwearied attentions would restore my adored girl. I was
therefore eager to forward our preparations. According to the plan first
laid down, we were to have quitted London on the twenty-fifth of November;
and, in pursuance of this scheme, two-thirds of our people--thepeople--
all that remained of England, had gone forward, and had already been some
weeks in Paris. First my illness, and subsequently that of Idris, had
detained Adrian with his division, which consisted of three hundred
persons, so that we now departed on the first of January, 2098. It was my
wish to keep Idris as distant as possible from the hurry and clamour of the
crowd, and to hide from her those appearances that would remind her most
forcibly of our real situation. We separated ourselves to a great degree
from Adrian, who was obliged to give his whole time to public business. The
Countess of Windsor travelled with her son. Clara, Evelyn, and a female who
acted as our attendant, were the only persons with whom we had contact. We
occupied a commodious carriage, our servant officiated as coachman. A party
of about twenty persons preceded us at a small distance. They had it in
charge to prepare our halting places and our nightly abode. They had been
selected for this service out of a great number that offered, on account of
the superior sagacity of the man who had been appointed their leader.
Immediately on our departure, I was delighted to find a change in Idris,
which I fondly hoped prognosticated the happiest results. All the
cheerfulness and gentle gaiety natural to her revived. She was weak, and
this alteration was rather displayed in looks and voice than in acts; but
it was permanent and real. My recovery from the plague and confirmed health
instilled into her a firm belief that I was now secure from this dread
enemy. She told me that she was sure she should recover. That she had a
presentiment, that the tide of calamity which deluged our unhappy race had
now turned. That the remnant would be preserved, and among them the dear
objects of her tender affection; and that in some selected spot we should
wear out our lives together in pleasant society. "Do not let my state of
feebleness deceive you," she said; "I feel that I am better; there is a
quick life within me, and a spirit of anticipation that assures me, that I
shall continue long to make a part of this world. I shall throw off this
degrading weakness of body, which infects even my mind with debility, and I
shall enter again on the performance of my duties. I was sorry to leave
Windsor: but now I am weaned from this local attachment; I am content to
remove to a mild climate, which will complete my recovery. Trust me,
dearest, I shall neither leave you, nor my brother, nor these dear
children; my firm determination to remain with you to the last, and to
continue to contribute to your happiness and welfare, would keep me alive,
even if grim death were nearer at hand than he really is."
I was only half re-assured by these expressions; I could not believe that
the over-quick flow of her blood was a sign of health, or that her burning
cheeks denoted convalescence. But I had no fears of an immediate
catastrophe; nay, I persuaded myself that she would ultimately recover. And
thus cheerfulness reigned in our little society. Idris conversed with
animation on a thousand topics. Her chief desire was to lead our thoughts
from melancholy reflections; so she drew charming pictures of a tranquil
solitude, of a beauteous retreat, of the simple manners of our little
tribe, and of the patriarchal brotherhood of love, which would survive the
ruins of the populous nations which had lately existed. We shut out from
our thoughts the present, and withdrew our eyes from the dreary landscape
we traversed. Winter reigned in all its gloom. The leafless trees lay
without motion against the dun sky; the forms of frost, mimicking the
foliage of summer, strewed the ground; the paths were overgrown; the
unploughed cornfields were patched with grass and weeds; the sheep
congregated at the threshold of the cottage, the horned ox thrust his head
from the window. The wind was bleak, and frequent sleet or snow-storms,
added to the melancholy appearance wintry nature assumed.
We arrived at Rochester, and an accident caused us to be detained there a
day. During that time, a circumstance occurred that changed our plans, and
which, alas! in its result changed the eternal course of events, turning me
from the pleasant new sprung hope I enjoyed, to an obscure and gloomy
desert. But I must give some little explanation before I proceed with the
final cause of our temporary alteration of plan, and refer again to those
times when man walked the earth fearless, before Plague had become Queen of
the World.
There resided a family in the neighbourhood of Windsor, of very humble
pretensions, but which had been an object of interest to us on account of
one of the persons of whom it was composed. The family of the Claytons had
known better days; but, after a series of reverses, the father died a
bankrupt, and the mother heartbroken, and a confirmed invalid, retired with
her five children to a little cottage between Eton and Salt Hill. The
eldest of these children, who was thirteen years old, seemed at once from
the influence of adversity, to acquire the sagacity and principle belonging
to a more mature age. Her mother grew worse and worse in health, but Lucy
attended on her, and was as a tender parent to her younger brothers and
sisters, and in the meantime shewed herself so good-humoured, social, and
benevolent, that she was beloved as well as honoured, in her little
neighbourhood.
Lucy was besides extremely pretty; so when she grew to be sixteen, it was
to be supposed, notwithstanding her poverty, that she should have admirers.
One of these was the son of a country-curate; he was a generous,
frank-hearted youth, with an ardent love of knowledge, and no mean
acquirements. Though Lucy was untaught, her mother's conversation and
manners gave her a taste for refinements superior to her present situation.
She loved the youth even without knowing it, except that in any difficulty
she naturally turned to him for aid, and awoke with a lighter heart every
Sunday, because she knew that she would be met and accompanied by him in
her evening walk with her sisters. She had another admirer, one of the
head-waiters at the inn at Salt Hill. He also was not without pretensions
to urbane superiority, such as he learnt from gentlemen's servants and
waiting-maids, who initiating him in all the slang of high life below
stairs, rendered his arrogant temper ten times more intrusive. Lucy did not
disclaim him--she was incapable of that feeling; but she was sorry when
she saw him approach, and quietly resisted all his endeavours to establish
an intimacy. The fellow soon discovered that his rival was preferred to
him; and this changed what was at first a chance admiration into a passion,
whose main springs were envy, and a base desire to deprive his competitor
of the advantage he enjoyed over himself.
Poor Lucy's sad story was but a common one. Her lover's father died; and he
was left destitute. He accepted the offer of a gentleman to go to India
with him, feeling secure that he should soon acquire an independence, and
return to claim the hand of his beloved. He became involved in the war
carried on there, was taken prisoner, and years elapsed before tidings of
his existence were received in his native land. In the meantime disastrous
poverty came on Lucy. Her little cottage, which stood looking from its
trellice, covered with woodbine and jessamine, was burnt down; and the
whole of their little property was included in the destruction. Whither
betake them? By what exertion of industry could Lucy procure them another
abode? Her mother nearly bed-rid, could not survive any extreme of
famine-struck poverty. At this time her other admirer stept forward, and
renewed his offer of marriage. He had saved money, and was going to set up
a little inn at Datchet. There was nothing alluring to Lucy in this offer,
except the home it secured to her mother; and she felt more sure of this,
since she was struck by the apparent generosity which occasioned the
present offer. She accepted it; thus sacrificing herself for the comfort
and welfare of her parent.
It was some years after her marriage that we became acquainted with her.
The accident of a storm caused us to take refuge in the inn, where we
witnessed the brutal and quarrelsome behaviour of her husband, and her
patient endurance. Her lot was not a fortunate one. Her first lover had
returned with the hope of making her his own, and met her by accident, for
the first time, as the mistress of his country inn, and the wife of
another. He withdrew despairingly to foreign parts; nothing went well with
him; at last he enlisted, and came back again wounded and sick, and yet
Lucy was debarred from nursing him. Her husband's brutal disposition was
aggravated by his yielding to the many temptations held out by his
situation, and the consequent disarrangement of his affairs. Fortunately
she had no children; but her heart was bound up in her brothers and
sisters, and these his avarice and ill temper soon drove from the house;
they were dispersed about the country, earning their livelihood with toil
and care. He even shewed an inclination to get rid of her mother--but
Lucy was firm here--she had sacrificed herself for her; she lived for her
--she would not part with her--if the mother went, she would also go beg
bread for her, die with her, but never desert her. The presence of Lucy was
too necessary in keeping up the order of the house, and in preventing the
whole establishment from going to wreck, for him to permit her to leave
him. He yielded the point; but in all accesses of anger, or in his drunken
fits, he recurred to the old topic, and stung poor Lucy's heart by
opprobrious epithets bestowed on her parent.
A passion however, if it be wholly pure, entire, and reciprocal, brings
with it its own solace. Lucy was truly, and from the depth of heart,
devoted to her mother; the sole end she proposed to herself in life, was
the comfort and preservation of this parent. Though she grieved for the
result, yet she did not repent of her marriage, even when her lover
returned to bestow competence on her. Three years had intervened, and how,
in their pennyless state, could her mother have existed during this time?
This excellent woman was worthy of her child's devotion. A perfect
confidence and friendship existed between them; besides, she was by no
means illiterate; and Lucy, whose mind had been in some degree cultivated
by her former lover, now found in her the only person who could understand
and appreciate her. Thus, though suffering, she was by no means desolate,
and when, during fine summer days, she led her mother into the flowery and
shady lanes near their abode, a gleam of unmixed joy enlightened her
countenance; she saw that her parent was happy, and she knew that this
happiness was of her sole creating.
Meanwhile her husband's affairs grew more and more involved; ruin was near
at hand, and she was about to lose the fruit of all her labours, when
pestilence came to change the aspect of the world. Her husband reaped
benefit from the universal misery; but, as the disaster encreased, the
spirit of lawlessness seized him; he deserted his home to revel in the
luxuries promised him in London, and found there a grave. Her former lover
had been one of the first victims of the disease. But Lucy continued to
live for and in her mother. Her courage only failed when she dreaded peril
for her parent, or feared that death might prevent her from performing
those duties to which she was unalterably devoted.
When we had quitted Windsor for London, as the previous step to our final
emigration, we visited Lucy, and arranged with her the plan of her own and
her mother's removal. Lucy was sorry at the necessity which forced her to
quit her native lanes and village, and to drag an infirm parent from her
comforts at home, to the homeless waste of depopulate earth; but she was
too well disciplined by adversity, and of too sweet a temper, to indulge in
repinings at what was inevitable.
Subsequent circumstances, my illness and that of Idris, drove her from our
remembrance; and we called her to mind at last, only to conclude that she
made one of the few who came from Windsor to join the emigrants, and that
she was already in Paris. When we arrived at Rochester therefore, we were
surprised to receive, by a man just come from Slough, a letter from this
exemplary sufferer. His account was, that, journeying from his home, and
passing through Datchet, he was surprised to see smoke issue from the
chimney of the inn, and supposing that he should find comrades for his
journey assembled there, he knocked and was admitted. There was no one in
the house but Lucy, and her mother; the latter had been deprived of the use
of her limbs by an attack of rheumatism, and so, one by one, all the
remaining inhabitants of the country set forward, leaving them alone. Lucy
intreated the man to stay with her; in a week or two her mother would be
better, and they would then set out; but they must perish, if they were
left thus helpless and forlorn. The man said, that his wife and children
were already among the emigrants, and it was therefore, according to his
notion, impossible for him to remain. Lucy, as a last resource, gave him a
letter for Idris, to be delivered to her wherever he should meet us. This
commission at least he fulfilled, and Idris received with emotion the
following letter:--
"HONOURED LADY,
"I am sure that you will remember and pity me, and I dare hope that you
will assist me; what other hope have I? Pardon my manner of writing, I am
so bewildered. A month ago my dear mother was deprived of the use of her
limbs. She is already better, and in another month would I am sure be able
to travel, in the way you were so kind as to say you would arrange for us.
But now everybody is gone--everybody--as they went away, each said,
that perhaps my mother would be better, before we were quite deserted. But
three days ago I went to Samuel Woods, who, on account of his new-born
child, remained to the last; and there being a large family of them, I
thought I could persuade them to wait a little longer for us; but I found
the house deserted. I have not seen a soul since, till this good man came.
--What will become of us? My mother does not know our state; she is so
ill, that I have hidden it from her.
"Will you not send some one to us? I am sure we must perish miserably as we
are. If I were to try to move my mother now, she would die on the road; and
if, when she gets better, I were able, I cannot guess how, to find out the
roads, and get on so many many miles to the sea, you would all be in
France, and the great ocean would be between us, which is so terrible even
to sailors. What would it be to me, a woman, who never saw it? We should be
imprisoned by it in this country, all, all alone, with no help; better die
where we are. I can hardly write--I cannot stop my tears--it is not for
myself; I could put my trust in God; and let the worst come, I think I
could bear it, if I were alone. But my mother, my sick, my dear, dear
mother, who never, since I was born, spoke a harsh word to me,
who has been patient in many sufferings; pity her, dear Lady,
she must die a miserable death if you do not pity her. People speak
carelessly of her, because she is old and infirm, as if we must not all, if
we are spared, become so; and then, when the young are old themselves, they
will think that they ought to be taken care of. It is very silly of me to
write in this way to you; but, when I hear her trying not to groan, and see
her look smiling on me to comfort me, when I know she is in pain; and when
I think that she does not know the worst, but she soon must; and then she
will not complain; but I shall sit guessing at all that she is dwelling
upon, of famine and misery--I feel as if my heart must break, and I do
not know what I say or do; my mother--mother for whom I have borne much,
God preserve you from this fate! Preserve her, Lady, and He will bless you;
and I, poor miserable creature as I am, will thank you and pray for you
while I live.
"Your unhappy and dutiful servant,
"Dec. 30th, 2097. LUCY MARTIN."
This letter deeply affected Idris, and she instantly proposed, that we
should return to Datchet, to assist Lucy and her mother. I said that I
would without delay set out for that place, but entreated her to join her
brother, and there await my return with the children. But Idris was in high
spirits, and full of hope. She declared that she could not consent even to
a temporary separation from me, but that there was no need of this, the
motion of the carriage did her good, and the distance was too trifling to
be considered. We could dispatch messengers to Adrian, to inform him of our
deviation from the original plan. She spoke with vivacity, and drew a
picture after her own dear heart, of the pleasure we should bestow upon
Lucy, and declared, if I went, she must accompany me, and that she should
very much dislike to entrust the charge of rescuing them to others, who
might fulfil it with coldness or inhumanity. Lucy's life had been one act
of devotion and virtue; let her now reap the small reward of finding her
excellence appreciated, and her necessity assisted, by those whom she
respected and honoured.
These, and many other arguments, were urged with gentle pertinacity, and
the ardour of a wish to do all the good in her power, by her whose simple
expression of a desire and slightest request had ever been a law with me.
I, of course, consented, the moment that I saw that she had set her heart
upon this step. We sent half our attendant troop on to Adrian; and with the
other half our carriage took a retrograde course back to Windsor.
I wonder now how I could be so blind and senseless, as thus to risk the
safety of Idris; for, if I had eyes, surely I could see the sure, though
deceitful, advance of death in her burning cheek and encreasing weakness.
But she said she was better; and I believed her. Extinction could not be
near a being, whose vivacity and intelligence hourly encreased, and whose
frame was endowed with an intense, and I fondly thought, a strong and
permanent spirit of life. Who, after a great disaster, has not looked back
with wonder at his inconceivable obtuseness of understanding, that could
not perceive the many minute threads with which fate weaves the
inextricable net of our destinies, until he is inmeshed completely in it?
The cross roads which we now entered upon, were even in a worse state than
the long neglected high-ways; and the inconvenience seemed to menace the
perishing frame of Idris with destruction. Passing through Dartford, we
arrived at Hampton on the second day. Even in this short interval my
beloved companion grew sensibly worse in health, though her spirits were
still light, and she cheered my growing anxiety with gay sallies; sometimes
the thought pierced my brain--Is she dying?--as I saw her fair
fleshless hand rest on mine, or observed the feebleness with which she
performed the accustomed acts of life. I drove away the idea, as if it had
been suggested by insanity; but it occurred again and again, only to be
dispelled by the continued liveliness of her manner.
About mid-day, after quitting Hampton, our carriage broke down: the shock
caused Idris to faint, but on her reviving no other ill consequence ensued;
our party of attendants had as usual gone on before us, and our coachman
went in search of another vehicle, our former one being rendered by this
accident unfit for service. The only place near us was a poor village, in
which he found a kind of caravan, able to hold four people, but it was
clumsy and ill hung; besides this he found a very excellent cabriolet: our
plan was soon arranged; I would drive Idris in the latter; while the
children were conveyed by the servant in the former. But these arrangements
cost time; we had agreed to proceed that night to Windsor, and thither our
purveyors had gone: we should find considerable difficulty in getting
accommodation, before we reached this place; after all, the distance was
only ten miles; my horse was a good one; I would go forward at a good pace
with Idris, leaving the children to follow at a rate more consonant to the
uses of their cumberous machine.
Evening closed in quickly, far more quickly than I was prepared to expect.
At the going down of the sun it began to snow heavily. I attempted in vain
to defend my beloved companion from the storm; the wind drove the snow in
our faces; and it lay so high on the ground, that we made but small way;
while the night was so dark, that but for the white covering on the ground
we should not have been able to see a yard before us. We had left our
accompanying caravan far behind us; and now I perceived that the storm had
made me unconsciously deviate from my intended route. I had gone some miles
out of my way. My knowledge of the country enabled me to regain the right
road; but, instead of going, as at first agreed upon, by a cross road
through Stanwell to Datchet, I was obliged to take the way of Egham and
Bishopgate. It was certain therefore that I should not be rejoined by the
other vehicle, that I should not meet a single fellow-creature till we
arrived at Windsor.
The back of our carriage was drawn up, and I hung a pelisse before it, thus
to curtain the beloved sufferer from the pelting sleet. She leaned on my
shoulder, growing every moment more languid and feeble; at first she
replied to my words of cheer with affectionate thanks; but by degrees she
sunk into silence; her head lay heavily upon me; I only knew that she lived
by her irregular breathing and frequent sighs. For a moment I resolved to
stop, and, opposing the back of the cabriolet to the force of the tempest,
to expect morning as well as I might. But the wind was bleak and piercing,
while the occasional shudderings of my poor Idris, and the intense cold I
felt myself, demonstrated that this would be a dangerous experiment. At
length methought she slept--fatal sleep, induced by frost: at this moment
I saw the heavy outline of a cottage traced on the dark horizon close to
us: "Dearest love," I said, "support yourself but one moment, and we shall
have shelter; let us stop here, that I may open the door of this blessed
dwelling."
As I spoke, my heart was transported, and my senses swam with excessive
delight and thankfulness; I placed the head of Idris against the carriage,
and, leaping out, scrambled through the snow to the cottage, whose door was
open. I had apparatus about me for procuring light, and that shewed me a
comfortable room, with a pile of wood in one corner, and no appearance of
disorder, except that, the door having been left partly open, the snow,
drifting in, had blocked up the threshold. I returned to the carriage, and
the sudden change from light to darkness at first blinded me. When I
recovered my sight--eternal God of this lawless world! O supreme Death! I
will not disturb thy silent reign, or mar my tale with fruitless
exclamations of horror--I saw Idris, who had fallen from the seat to the
bottom of the carriage; her head, its long hair pendent, with one arm, hung
over the side.--Struck by a spasm of horror, I lifted her up; her heart
was pulseless, her faded lips unfanned by the slightest breath.
I carried her into the cottage; I placed her on the bed. Lighting a fire, I
chafed her stiffening limbs; for two long hours I sought to restore
departed life; and, when hope was as dead as my beloved, I closed with
trembling hands her glazed eyes. I did not doubt what I should now do. In
the confusion attendant on my illness, the task of interring our darling
Alfred had devolved on his grandmother, the Ex-Queen, and she, true to her
ruling passion, had caused him to be carried to Windsor, and buried in the
family vault, in St. George's Chapel. I must proceed to Windsor, to calm
the anxiety of Clara, who would wait anxiously for us--yet I would fain
spare her the heart-breaking spectacle of Idris, brought in by me lifeless
from the journey. So first I would place my beloved beside her child in the
vault, and then seek the poor children who would be expecting me.
I lighted the lamps of my carriage; I wrapt her in furs, and placed her
along the seat; then taking the reins, made the horses go forward. We
proceeded through the snow, which lay in masses impeding the way, while the
descending flakes, driving against me with redoubled fury, blinded me. The
pain occasioned by the angry elements, and the cold iron of the shafts of
frost which buffetted me, and entered my aching flesh, were a relief to me;
blunting my mental suffering. The horses staggered on, and the reins hung
loosely in my hands. I often thought I would lay my head close to the
sweet, cold face of my lost angel, and thus resign myself to conquering
torpor. Yet I must not leave her a prey to the fowls of the air; but, in
pursuance of my determination place her in the tomb of her forefathers,
where a merciful God might permit me to rest also.
The road we passed through Egham was familiar to me; but the wind and snow
caused the horses to drag their load slowly and heavily. Suddenly the wind
veered from south-west to west, and then again to north-west. As Sampson
with tug and strain stirred from their bases the columns that supported the
Philistine temple, so did the gale shake the dense vapours propped on the
horizon, while the massy dome of clouds fell to the south, disclosing
through the scattered web the clear empyrean, and the little stars, which
were set at an immeasurable distance in the crystalline fields, showered
their small rays on the glittering snow. Even the horses were cheered, and
moved on with renovated strength. We entered the forest at Bishopgate, and
at the end of the Long Walk I saw the Castle, "the proud Keep of Windsor,
rising in the majesty of proportion, girt with the double belt of its
kindred and coeval towers." I looked with reverence on a structure, ancient
almost as the rock on which it stood, abode of kings, theme of admiration
for the wise. With greater reverence and, tearful affection I beheld it as
the asylum of the long lease of love I had enjoyed there with the
perishable, unmatchable treasure of dust, which now lay cold beside me. Now
indeed, I could have yielded to all the softness of my nature, and wept;
and, womanlike, have uttered bitter plaints; while the familiar trees, the
herds of living deer, the sward oft prest by her fairy-feet, one by one
with sad association presented themselves. The white gate at the end of the
Long Walk was wide open, and I rode up the empty town through the first
gate of the feudal tower; and now St. George's Chapel, with its blackened
fretted sides, was right before me. I halted at its door, which was open; I
entered, and placed my lighted lamp on the altar; then I returned, and with
tender caution I bore Idris up the aisle into the chancel, and laid her
softly down on the carpet which covered the step leading to the communion
table. The banners of the knights of the garter, and their half drawn
swords, were hung in vain emblazonry above the stalls. The banner of her
family hung there, still surmounted by its regal crown. Farewell to the
glory and heraldry of England!--I turned from such vanity with a slight
feeling of wonder, at how mankind could have ever been interested in such
things. I bent over the lifeless corpse of my beloved; and, while looking
on her uncovered face, the features already contracted by the rigidity of
death, I felt as if all the visible universe had grown as soulless, inane,
and comfortless as the clay-cold image beneath me. I felt for a moment the
intolerable sense of struggle with, and detestation for, the laws which
govern the world; till the calm still visible on the face of my dead love
recalled me to a more soothing tone of mind, and I proceeded to fulfil the
last office that could now be paid her. For her I could not lament, so much
I envied her enjoyment of "the sad immunities of the grave."
The vault had been lately opened to place our Alfred therein. The ceremony
customary in these latter days had been cursorily performed, and the
pavement of the chapel, which was its entrance, having been removed, had
not been replaced. I descended the steps, and walked through the long
passage to the large vault which contained the kindred dust of my Idris. I
distinguished the small coffin of my babe. With hasty, trembling hands I
constructed a bier beside it, spreading it with the furs and Indian shawls,
which had wrapt Idris in her journey thither. I lighted the glimmering
lamp, which flickered in this damp abode of the dead; then I bore my lost
one to her last bed, decently composing her limbs, and covering them with a
mantle, veiling all except her face, which remained lovely and placid. She
appeared to rest like one over-wearied, her beauteous eyes steeped in sweet
slumber. Yet, so it was not--she was dead! How intensely I then longed to
lie down beside her, to gaze till death should gather me to the same
repose.
But death does not come at the bidding of the miserable. I had lately
recovered from mortal illness, and my blood had never flowed with such an
even current, nor had my limbs ever been so instinct with quick life, as
now. I felt that my death must be voluntary. Yet what more natural than
famine, as I watched in this chamber of mortality, placed in a world of the
dead, beside the lost hope of my life? Meanwhile as I looked on her, the
features, which bore a sisterly resemblance to Adrian, brought my thoughts
back again to the living, to this dear friend, to Clara, and to Evelyn, who
were probably now in Windsor, waiting anxiously for our arrival.
Methought I heard a noise, a step in the far chapel, which was re-echoed by
its vaulted roof, and borne to me through the hollow passages. Had Clara
seen my carriage pass up the town, and did she seek me here? I must save
her at least from the horrible scene the vault presented. I sprung up the
steps, and then saw a female figure, bent with age, and clad in long
mourning robes, advance through the dusky chapel, supported by a slender
cane, yet tottering even with this support. She heard me, and looked up;
the lamp I held illuminated my figure, and the moon-beams, struggling
through the painted glass, fell upon her face, wrinkled and gaunt, yet with
a piercing eye and commanding brow--I recognized the Countess of Windsor.
With a hollow voice she asked, "Where is the princess?"
I pointed to the torn up pavement: she walked to the spot, and looked down
into the palpable darkness; for the vault was too distant for the rays of
the small lamp I had left there to be discernible.
"Your light," she said. I gave it her; and she regarded the now visible,
but precipitous steps, as if calculating her capacity to descend.
Instinctively I made a silent offer of my assistance. She motioned me away
with a look of scorn, saying in an harsh voice, as she pointed downwards,
"There at least I may have her undisturbed."
She walked deliberately down, while I, overcome, miserable beyond words, or
tears, or groans, threw myself on the pavement near--the stiffening form
of Idris was before me, the death-struck countenance hushed in eternal
repose beneath. That was to me the end of all! The day before, I had
figured to my self various adventures, and communion with my friends in
after time--now I had leapt the interval, and reached the utmost edge and
bourne of life. Thus wrapt in gloom, enclosed, walled up, vaulted over by
the omnipotent present, I was startled by the sound of feet on the steps of
the tomb, and I remembered her whom I had utterly forgotten, my angry
visitant; her tall form slowly rose upwards from the vault, a living
statue, instinct with hate, and human, passionate strife: she seemed to me
as having reached the pavement of the aisle; she stood motionless, seeking
with her eyes alone, some desired object--till, perceiving me close to
her, she placed her wrinkled hand on my arm, exclaiming with tremulous
accents, "Lionel Verney, my son!" This name, applied at such a moment by my
angel's mother, instilled into me more respect than I had ever before felt
for this disdainful lady. I bowed my head, and kissed her shrivelled hand,
and, remarking that she trembled violently, supported her to the end of the
chancel, where she sat on the steps that led to the regal stall. She
suffered herself to be led, and still holding my hand, she leaned her head
back against the stall, while the moon beams, tinged with various colours
by the painted glass, fell on her glistening eyes; aware of her weakness,
again calling to mind her long cherished dignity, she dashed the tears
away; yet they fell fast, as she said, for excuse, "She is so beautiful and
placid, even in death. No harsh feeling ever clouded her serene brow; how
did I treat her? wounding her gentle heart with savage coldness; I had no
compassion on her in past years, does she forgive me now? Little, little
does it boot to talk of repentance and forgiveness to the dead, had I
during her life once consulted her gentle wishes, and curbed my rugged
nature to do her pleasure, I should not feel thus."
Idris and her mother were unlike in person. The dark hair, deep-set black
eyes, and prominent features of the Ex-Queen were in entire contrast to the
golden tresses, the full blue orbs, and the soft lines and contour of her
daughter's countenance. Yet, in latter days, illness had taken from my poor
girl the full outline of her face, and reduced it to the inflexible shape
of the bone beneath. In the form of her brow, in her oval chin, there was
to be found a resemblance to her mother; nay in some moods, their gestures
were not unlike; nor, having lived so long together, was this wonderful.
There is a magic power in resemblance. When one we love dies, we hope to
see them in another state, and half expect that the agency of mind will
inform its new garb in imitation of its decayed earthly vesture. But these
are ideas of the mind only. We know that the instrument is shivered, the
sensible image lies in miserable fragments, dissolved to dusty nothingness;
a look, a gesture, or a fashioning of the limbs similar to the dead in a
living person, touches a thrilling chord, whose sacred harmony is felt in
the heart's dearest recess. Strangely moved, prostrate before this spectral
image, and enslaved by the force of blood manifested in likeness of look
and movement, I remained trembling in the presence of the harsh, proud, and
till now unloved mother of Idris.
Poor, mistaken woman! in her tenderest mood before, she had cherished the
idea, that a word, a look of reconciliation from her, would be received
with joy, and repay long years of severity. Now that the time was gone for
the exercise of such power, she fell at once upon the thorny truth of
things, and felt that neither smile nor caress could penetrate to the
unconscious state, or influence the happiness of her who lay in the vault
beneath. This conviction, together with the remembrance of soft replies to
bitter speeches, of gentle looks repaying angry glances; the perception of
the falsehood, paltryness and futility of her cherished dreams of birth and
power; the overpowering knowledge, that love and life were the true
emperors of our mortal state; all, as a tide, rose, and filled her soul
with stormy and bewildering confusion. It fell to my lot, to come as the
influential power, to allay the fierce tossing of these tumultuous waves. I
spoke to her; I led her to reflect how happy Idris had really been, and how
her virtues and numerous excellencies had found scope and estimation in her
past career. I praised her, the idol of my heart's dear worship, the
admired type of feminine perfection. With ardent and overflowing eloquence,
I relieved my heart from its burthen, and awoke to the sense of a new
pleasure in life, as I poured forth the funeral eulogy. Then I referred to
Adrian, her loved brother, and to her surviving child. I declared, which I
had before almost forgotten, what my duties were with regard to these
valued portions of herself, and bade the melancholy repentant mother
reflect, how she could best expiate unkindness towards the dead, by
redoubled love of the survivors. Consoling her, my own sorrows were
assuaged; my sincerity won her entire conviction.
She turned to me. The hard, inflexible, persecuting woman, turned with a
mild expression of face, and said, "If our beloved angel sees us now, it
will delight her to find that I do you even tardy justice. You were worthy
of her; and from my heart I am glad that you won her away from me. Pardon,
my son, the many wrongs I have done you; forget my bitter words and unkind
treatment--take me, and govern me as you will."
I seized this docile moment to propose our departure from the church.
"First," she said, "let us replace the pavement above the vault."
We drew near to it; "Shall we look on her again?" I asked.
"I cannot," she replied, "and, I pray you, neither do you. We need not
torture ourselves by gazing on the soulless body, while her living spirit
is buried quick in our hearts, and her surpassing loveliness is so deeply
carved there, that sleeping or waking she must ever be present to us."
For a few moments, we bent in solemn silence over the open vault. I
consecrated my future life, to the embalming of her dear memory; I vowed to
serve her brother and her child till death. The convulsive sob of my
companion made me break off my internal orisons. I next dragged the stones
over the entrance of the tomb, and closed the gulph that contained the life
of my life. Then, supporting my decrepid fellow-mourner, we slowly left the
chapel. I felt, as I stepped into the open air, as if I had quitted an
happy nest of repose, for a dreary wilderness, a tortuous path, a bitter,
joyless, hopeless pilgrimage.
CHAPTER IV.
OUR escort had been directed to prepare our abode for the night at the inn,
opposite the ascent to the Castle. We could not again visit the halls and
familiar chambers of our home, on a mere visit. We had already left for
ever the glades of Windsor, and all of coppice, flowery hedgerow, and
murmuring stream, which gave shape and intensity to the love of our
country, and the almost superstitious attachment with which we regarded
native England. It had been our intention to have called at Lucy's dwelling
in Datchet, and to have re-assured her with promises of aid and protection
before we repaired to our quarters for the night. Now, as the Countess of
Windsor and I turned down the steep hill that led from the Castle, we saw
the children, who had just stopped in their caravan, at the inn-door. They
had passed through Datchet without halting. I dreaded to meet them, and to
be the bearer of my tragic story, so while they were still occupied in the
hurry of arrival, I suddenly left them, and through the snow and clear
moon-light air, hastened along the well known road to Datchet.
Well known indeed it was. Each cottage stood on its accustomed site, each
tree wore its familiar appearance. Habit had graven uneraseably on my
memory, every turn and change of object on the road. At a short distance
beyond the Little Park, was an elm half blown down by a storm, some ten
years ago; and still, with leafless snow-laden branches, it stretched
across the pathway, which wound through a meadow, beside a shallow brook,
whose brawling was silenced by frost--that stile, that white gate, that
hollow oak tree, which doubtless once belonged to the forest, and which now
shewed in the moonlight its gaping rent; to whose fanciful appearance,
tricked out by the dusk into a resemblance of the human form, the children
had given the name of Falstaff;--all these objects were as well known to
me as the cold hearth of my deserted home, and every moss-grown wall and
plot of orchard ground, alike as twin lambs are to each other in a
stranger's eye, yet to my accustomed gaze bore differences, distinction,
and a name. England remained, though England was dead--it was the ghost
of merry England that I beheld, under those greenwood shade passing
generations had sported in security and ease. To this painful recognition
of familiar places, was added a feeling experienced by all, understood by
none--a feeling as if in some state, less visionary than a dream, in some
past real existence, I had seen all I saw, with precisely the same feelings
as I now beheld them--as if all my sensations were a duplex mirror of a
former revelation. To get rid of this oppressive sense I strove to imagine
change in this tranquil spot--this augmented my mood, by causing me to
bestow more attention on the objects which occasioned me pain.
I reached Datchet and Lucy's humble abode--once noisy with Saturday night
revellers, or trim and neat on Sunday morning it had borne testimony to the
labours and orderly habits of the housewife. The snow lay high about the
door, as if it had remained unclosed for many days.
"What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?" I muttered to myself as
I looked at the dark casements. At first I thought I saw a light in one of
them, but it proved to be merely the refraction of the moon-beams, while
the only sound was the crackling branches as the breeze whirred the snow
flakes from them--the moon sailed high and unclouded in the interminable
ether, while the shadow of the cottage lay black on the garden behind. I
entered this by the open wicket, and anxiously examined each window. At
length I detected a ray of light struggling through a closed shutter in one
of the upper rooms--it was a novel feeling, alas! to look at any house
and say there dwells its usual inmate--the door of the house was merely
on the latch: so I entered and ascended the moon-lit staircase. The door of
the inhabited room was ajar: looking in, I saw Lucy sitting as at work at
the table on which the light stood; the implements of needlework were about
her, but her hand had fallen on her lap, and her eyes, fixed on the ground,
shewed by their vacancy that her thoughts wandered. Traces of care and
watching had diminished her former attractions--but her simple dress and
cap, her desponding attitude, and the single candle that cast its light
upon her, gave for a moment a picturesque grouping to the whole. A fearful
reality recalled me from the thought--a figure lay stretched on the bed
covered by a sheet--her mother was dead, and Lucy, apart from all the
world, deserted and alone, watched beside the corpse during the weary
night. I entered the room, and my unexpected appearance at first drew a
scream from the lone survivor of a dead nation; but she recognised me, and
recovered herself, with the quick exercise of self-control habitual to her.
"Did you not expect me?" I asked, in that low voice which the presence of
the dead makes us as it were instinctively assume.
"You are very good," replied she, "to have come yourself; I can never thank
you sufficiently; but it is too late."
"Too late," cried I, "what do you mean? It is not too late to take you from
this deserted place, and conduct you to---"
My own loss, which I had forgotten as I spoke, now made me turn away, while
choking grief impeded my speech. I threw open the window, and looked on the
cold, waning, ghastly, misshaped circle on high, and the chill white earth
beneath--did the spirit of sweet Idris sail along the moon-frozen crystal
air?--No, no, a more genial atmosphere, a lovelier habitation was surely
hers!
I indulged in this meditation for a moment, and then again addressed the
mourner, who stood leaning against the bed with that expression of resigned
despair, of complete misery, and a patient sufferance of it, which is far
more touching than any of the insane ravings or wild gesticulation of
untamed sorrow. I desired to draw her from this spot; but she opposed my
wish. That class of persons whose imagination and sensibility have never
been taken out of the narrow circle immediately in view, if they possess
these qualities to any extent, are apt to pour their influence into the
very realities which appear to destroy them, and to cling to these with
double tenacity from not being able to comprehend any thing beyond. Thus
Lucy, in desert England, in a dead world, wished to fulfil the usual
ceremonies of the dead, such as were customary to the English country
people, when death was a rare visitant, and gave us time to receive his
dreaded usurpation with pomp and circumstance--going forth in procession
to deliver the keys of the tomb into his conquering hand. She had already,
alone as she was, accomplished some of these, and the work on which I found
her employed, was her mother's shroud. My heart sickened at such detail of
woe, which a female can endure, but which is more painful to the masculine
spirit than deadliest struggle, or throes of unutterable but transient
agony.
This must not be, I told her; and then, as further inducement, I
communicated to her my recent loss, and gave her the idea that she must
come with me to take charge of the orphan children, whom the death of Idris
had deprived of a mother's care. Lucy never resisted the call of a duty, so
she yielded, and closing the casements and doors with care, she accompanied
me back to Windsor. As we went she communicated to me the occasion of her
mother's death. Either by some mischance she had got sight of Lucy's letter
to Idris, or she had overheard her conversation with the countryman who
bore it; however it might be, she obtained a knowledge of the appalling
situation of herself and her daughter, her aged frame could not sustain the
anxiety and horror this discovery instilled--she concealed her knowledge
from Lucy, but brooded over it through sleepless nights, till fever and
delirium, swift forerunners of death, disclosed the secret. Her life, which
had long been hovering on its extinction, now yielded at once to the united
effects of misery and sickness, and that same morning she had died.
After the tumultuous emotions of the day, I was glad to find on my arrival
at the inn that my companions had retired to rest. I gave Lucy in charge to
the Countess's attendant, and then sought repose from my various struggles
and impatient regrets. For a few moments the events of the day floated in
disastrous pageant through my brain, till sleep bathed it in forgetfulness;
when morning dawned and I awoke, it seemed as if my slumber had endured for
years.
My companions had not shared my oblivion. Clara's swollen eyes shewed that
she has passed the night in weeping. The Countess looked haggard and wan.
Her firm spirit had not found relief in tears, and she suffered the more
from all the painful retrospect and agonizing regret that now occupied her.
We departed from Windsor, as soon as the burial rites had been performed
for Lucy's mother, and, urged on by an impatient desire to change the
scene, went forward towards Dover with speed, our escort having gone before
to provide horses; finding them either in the warm stables they
instinctively sought during the cold weather, or standing shivering in the
bleak fields ready to surrender their liberty in exchange for offered
corn.
During our ride the Countess recounted to me the extraordinary
circumstances which had brought her so strangely to my side in the chancel
of St. George's chapel. When last she had taken leave of Idris, as she
looked anxiously on her faded person and pallid countenance, she had
suddenly been visited by a conviction that she saw her for the last time.
It was hard to part with her while under the dominion of this sentiment,
and for the last time she endeavoured to persuade her daughter to commit
herself to her nursing, permitting me to join Adrian. Idris mildly refused,
and thus they separated. The idea that they should never again meet grew on
the Countess's mind, and haunted her perpetually; a thousand times she had
resolved to turn back and join us, and was again and again restrained by
the pride and anger of which she was the slave. Proud of heart as she was,
she bathed her pillow with nightly tears, and through the day was subdued
by nervous agitation and expectation of the dreaded event, which she was
wholly incapable of curbing. She confessed that at this period her hatred
of me knew no bounds, since she considered me as the sole obstacle to the
fulfilment of her dearest wish, that of attending upon her daughter in her
last moments. She desired to express her fears to her son, and to seek
consolation from his sympathy with, or courage from his rejection of, her
auguries.
On the first day of her arrival at Dover she walked with him on the sea
beach, and with the timidity characteristic of passionate and exaggerated
feeling was by degrees bringing the conversation to the desired point, when
she could communicate her fears to him, when the messenger who bore my
letter announcing our temporary return to Windsor, came riding down to
them. He gave some oral account of how he had left us, and added, that
notwithstanding the cheerfulness and good courage of Lady Idris, he was
afraid that she would hardly reach Windsor alive. "True," said the Countess,
"your fears are just, she is about to expire!"
As she spoke, her eyes were fixed on a tomblike hollow of the cliff, and
she saw, she averred the same to me with solemnity, Idris pacing slowly
towards this cave. She was turned from her, her head was bent down, her
white dress was such as she was accustomed to wear, except that a thin
crape-like veil covered her golden tresses, and concealed her as a dim
transparent mist. She looked dejected, as docilely yielding to a commanding
power; she submissively entered, and was lost in the dark recess.
"Were I subject to visionary moods," said the venerable lady, as she
continued her narrative, "I might doubt my eyes, and condemn my credulity;
but reality is the world I live in, and what I saw I doubt not had
existence beyond myself. From that moment I could not rest; it was worth my
existence to see her once again before she died; I knew that I should not
accomplish this, yet I must endeavour. I immediately departed for Windsor;
and, though I was assured that we travelled speedily, it seemed to me that
our progress was snail-like, and that delays were created solely for my
annoyance. Still I accused you, and heaped on your head the fiery ashes of
my burning impatience. It was no disappointment, though an agonizing pang,
when you pointed to her last abode; and words would ill express the
abhorrence I that moment felt towards you, the triumphant impediment to my
dearest wishes. I saw her, and anger, and hate, and injustice died at her
bier, giving place at their departure to a remorse (Great God, that I
should feel it!) which must last while memory and feeling endure."
To medicine such remorse, to prevent awakening love and new-born mildness
from producing the same bitter fruit that hate and harshness had done, I
devoted all my endeavours to soothe the venerable penitent. Our party was a
melancholy one; each was possessed by regret for what was remediless; for
the absence of his mother shadowed even the infant gaiety of Evelyn. Added
to this was the prospect of the uncertain future. Before the final
accomplishment of any great voluntary change the mind vacillates, now
soothing itself by fervent expectation, now recoiling from obstacles which
seem never to have presented themselves before with so frightful an aspect.
An involuntary tremor ran through me when I thought that in another day we
might have crossed the watery barrier, and have set forward on that
hopeless, interminable, sad wandering, which but a short time before I
regarded as the only relief to sorrow that our situation afforded.
Our approach to Dover was announced by the loud roarings of the wintry sea.
They were borne miles inland by the sound-laden blast, and by their
unaccustomed uproar, imparted a feeling of insecurity and peril to our
stable abode. At first we hardly permitted ourselves to think that any
unusual eruption of nature caused this tremendous war of air and water, but
rather fancied that we merely listened to what we had heard a thousand
times before, when we had watched the flocks of fleece-crowned waves,
driven by the winds, come to lament and die on the barren sands and pointed
rocks. But we found upon advancing farther, that Dover was overflowed--
many of the houses were overthrown by the surges which filled the streets,
and with hideous brawlings sometimes retreated leaving the pavement of the
town bare, till again hurried forward by the influx of ocean, they returned
with thunder-sound to their usurped station.
Hardly less disturbed than the tempestuous world of waters was the assembly
of human beings, that from the cliff fearfully watched its ravings. On the
morning of the arrival of the emigrants under the conduct of Adrian, the
sea had been serene and glassy, the slight ripples refracted the sunbeams,
which shed their radiance through the clear blue frosty air. This placid
appearance of nature was hailed as a good augury for the voyage, and the
chief immediately repaired to the harbour to examine two steamboats which
were moored there. On the following midnight, when all were at rest, a
frightful storm of wind and clattering rain and hail first disturbed them,
and the voice of one shrieking in the streets, that the sleepers must awake
or they would be drowned; and when they rushed out, half clothed, to
discover the meaning of this alarm, they found that the tide, rising above
every mark, was rushing into the town. They ascended the cliff, but the
darkness permitted only the white crest of waves to be seen, while the
roaring wind mingled its howlings in dire accord with the wild surges. The
awful hour of night, the utter inexperience of many who had never seen the
sea before, the wailing of women and cries of children added to the horror
of the tumult. All the following day the same scene continued. When the tide
ebbed, the town was left dry; but on its flow, it rose even higher than on
the preceding night. The vast ships that lay rotting in the roads were
whirled from their anchorage, and driven and jammed against the cliff, the
vessels in the harbour were flung on land like sea-weed, and there battered
to pieces by the breakers. The waves dashed against the cliff, which if in
any place it had been before loosened, now gave way, and the affrighted
crowd saw vast fragments of the near earth fall with crash and roar into
the deep. This sight operated differently on different persons. The greater
part thought it a judgment of God, to prevent or punish our emigration from
our native land. Many were doubly eager to quit a nook of ground now become
their prison, which appeared unable to resist the inroads of ocean's giant
waves.
When we arrived at Dover, after a fatiguing day's journey, we all required
rest and sleep; but the scene acting around us soon drove away such ideas.
We were drawn, along with the greater part of our companions, to the edge
of the cliff, there to listen to and make a thousand conjectures. A fog
narrowed our horizon to about a quarter of a mile, and the misty veil, cold
and dense, enveloped sky and sea in equal obscurity. What added to our
inquietude was the circumstance that two-thirds of our original number were
now waiting for us in Paris, and clinging, as we now did most painfully, to
any addition to our melancholy remnant, this division, with the tameless
impassable ocean between, struck us with affright. At length, after
loitering for several hours on the cliff, we retired to Dover Castle, whose
roof sheltered all who breathed the English air, and sought the sleep
necessary to restore strength and courage to our worn frames and languid
spirits.
Early in the morning Adrian brought me the welcome intelligence that the
wind had changed: it had been south-west; it was now north-east. The sky
was stripped bare of clouds by the increasing gale, while the tide at its
ebb seceded entirely from the town. The change of wind rather increased the
fury of the sea, but it altered its late dusky hue to a bright green; and
in spite of its unmitigated clamour, its more cheerful appearance instilled
hope and pleasure. All day we watched the ranging of the mountainous waves,
and towards sunset a desire to decypher the promise for the morrow at its
setting, made us all gather with one accord on the edge of the cliff. When
the mighty luminary approached within a few degrees of the tempest-tossed
horizon, suddenly, a wonder! three other suns, alike burning and brilliant,
rushed from various quarters of the heavens towards the great orb; they
whirled round it. The glare of light was intense to our dazzled eyes; the
sun itself seemed to join in the dance, while the sea burned like a
furnace, like all Vesuvius a-light, with flowing lava beneath. The horses
broke loose from their stalls in terror--a herd of cattle, panic struck,
raced down to the brink of the cliff, and blinded by light, plunged down
with frightful yells in the waves below. The time occupied by the
apparition of these meteors was comparatively short; suddenly the three
mock suns united in one, and plunged into the sea. A few seconds
afterwards, a deafening watery sound came up with awful peal from the spot
where they had disappeared.
Meanwhile the sun, disencumbered from his strange satellites, paced with
its accustomed majesty towards its western home. When--we dared not trust
our eyes late dazzled, but it seemed that--the sea rose to meet it--it
mounted higher and higher, till the fiery globe was obscured, and the wall
of water still ascended the horizon; it appeared as if suddenly the motion
of earth was revealed to us--as if no longer we were ruled by ancient
laws, but were turned adrift in an unknown region of space. Many cried
aloud, that these were no meteors, but globes of burning matter, which had
set fire to the earth, and caused the vast cauldron at our feet to bubble
up with its measureless waves; the day of judgment was come they averred,
and a few moments would transport us before the awful countenance of the
omnipotent judge; while those less given to visionary terrors, declared
that two conflicting gales had occasioned the last phaenomenon. In support
of this opinion they pointed out the fact that the east wind died away,
while the rushing of the coming west mingled its wild howl with the roar of
the advancing waters. Would the cliff resist this new battery? Was not the
giant wave far higher than the precipice? Would not our little island be
deluged by its approach? The crowd of spectators fled. They were dispersed
over the fields, stopping now and then, and looking back in terror. A
sublime sense of awe calmed the swift pulsations of my heart--I awaited
the approach of the destruction menaced, with that solemn resignation which
an unavoidable necessity instils. The ocean every moment assumed a more
terrific aspect, while the twilight was dimmed by the rack which the west
wind spread over the sky. By slow degrees however, as the wave advanced, it
took a more mild appearance; some under current of air, or obstruction in
the bed of the waters, checked its progress, and it sank gradually; while
the surface of the sea became uniformly higher as it dissolved into it.
This change took from us the fear of an immediate catastrophe, although we
were still anxious as to the final result. We continued during the whole
night to watch the fury of the sea and the pace of the driving clouds,
through whose openings the rare stars rushed impetuously; the thunder of
conflicting elements deprived us of all power to sleep.
This endured ceaselessly for three days and nights. The stoutest hearts
quailed before the savage enmity of nature; provisions began to fail us,
though every day foraging parties were dispersed to the nearer towns. In
vain we schooled ourselves into the belief, that there was nothing out of
the common order of nature in the strife we witnessed; our disasterous and
overwhelming destiny turned the best of us to cowards. Death had hunted us
through the course of many months, even to the narrow strip of time on
which we now stood; narrow indeed, and buffeted by storms, was our footway
overhanging the great sea of calamity--
As an unsheltered northern shore
Is shaken by the wintry wave--
And frequent storms for evermore,
(While from the west the loud winds rave,
Or from the east, or mountains hoar)
The struck and tott'ring sand-bank lave.[1]
It required more than human energy to bear up against the menaces of
destruction that every where surrounded us.
After the lapse of three days, the gale died away, the sea-gull sailed upon
the calm bosom of the windless atmosphere, and the last yellow leaf on the
topmost branch of the oak hung without motion. The sea no longer broke with
fury; but a swell setting in steadily for shore, with long sweep and sullen
burst replaced the roar of the breakers. Yet we derived hope from the
change, and we did not doubt that after the interval of a few days the sea
would resume its tranquillity. The sunset of the fourth day favoured this
idea; it was clear and golden. As we gazed on the purple sea, radiant
beneath, we were attracted by a novel spectacle; a dark speck--as it
neared, visibly a boat--rode on the top of the waves, every now and then
lost in the steep vallies between. We marked its course with eager
questionings; and, when we saw that it evidently made for shore, we
descended to the only practicable landing place, and hoisted a signal to
direct them. By the help of glasses we distinguished her crew; it consisted
of nine men, Englishmen, belonging in truth to the two divisions of our
people, who had preceded us, and had been for several weeks at Paris. As
countryman was wont to meet countryman in distant lands, did we greet our
visitors on their landing, with outstretched hands and gladsome welcome.
They were slow to reciprocate our gratulations. They looked angry and
resentful; not less than the chafed sea which they had traversed with
imminent peril, though apparently more displeased with each other than with
us. It was strange to see these human beings, who appeared to be given
forth by the earth like rare and inestimable plants, full of towering
passion, and the spirit of angry contest. Their first demand was to be
conducted to the Lord Protector of England, so they called Adrian, though
he had long discarded the empty title, as a bitter mockery of the shadow to
which the Protectorship was now reduced. They were speedily led to Dover
Castle, from whose keep Adrian had watched the movements of the boat. He
received them with the interest and wonder so strange a visitation created.
In the confusion occasioned by their angry demands for precedence, it was
long before we could discover the secret meaning of this strange scene. By
degrees, from the furious declamations of one, the fierce interruptions of
another, and the bitter scoffs of a third, we found that they were deputies
from our colony at Paris, from three parties there formed, who, each with
angry rivalry, tried to attain a superiority over the other two. These
deputies had been dispatched by them to Adrian, who had been selected
arbiter; and they had journied from Paris to Calais, through the vacant
towns and desolate country, indulging the while violent hatred against each
other; and now they pleaded their several causes with unmitigated
party-spirit.
By examining the deputies apart, and after much investigation, we learnt
the true state of things at Paris. Since parliament had elected him
Ryland's deputy, all the surviving English had submitted to Adrian. He was
our captain to lead us from our native soil to unknown lands, our lawgiver
and our preserver. On the first arrangement of our scheme of emigration, no
continued separation of our members was contemplated, and the command of
the whole body in gradual ascent of power had its apex in the Earl of
Windsor. But unforeseen circumstances changed our plans for us, and
occasioned the greater part of our numbers to be divided for the space of
nearly two months, from the supreme chief. They had gone over in two
distinct bodies; and on their arrival at Paris dissension arose between
them.
They had found Paris a desert. When first the plague had appeared, the
return of travellers and merchants, and communications by letter, informed
us regularly of the ravages made by disease on the continent. But with the
encreased mortality this intercourse declined and ceased. Even in England
itself communication from one part of the island to the other became slow
and rare. No vessel stemmed the flood that divided Calais from Dover; or if
some melancholy voyager, wishing to assure himself of the life or death of
his relatives, put from the French shore to return among us, often the
greedy ocean swallowed his little craft, or after a day or two he was
infected by the disorder, and died before he could tell the tale of the
desolation of France. We were therefore to a great degree ignorant of the
state of things on the continent, and were not without some vague hope of
finding numerous companions in its wide track. But the same causes that had
so fearfully diminished the English nation had had even greater scope for
mischief in the sister land. France was a blank; during the long line of
road from Calais to Paris not one human being was found. In Paris there
were a few, perhaps a hundred, who, resigned to their coming fate, flitted
about the streets of the capital and assembled to converse of past times,
with that vivacity and even gaiety that seldom deserts the individuals of
this nation.
The English took uncontested possession of Paris. Its high houses and
narrow streets were lifeless. A few pale figures were to be distinguished
at the accustomed resort at the Tuileries; they wondered wherefore the
islanders should approach their ill-fated city--for in the excess of
wretchedness, the sufferers always imagine, that their part of the calamity
is the bitterest, as, when enduring intense pain, we would exchange the
particular torture we writhe under, for any other which should visit a
different part of the frame. They listened to the account the emigrants
gave of their motives for leaving their native land, with a shrug almost of
disdain--"Return," they said, "return to your island, whose sea breezes,
and division from the continent gives some promise of health; if Pestilence
among you has slain its hundreds, with us it has slain its thousands. Are
you not even now more numerous than we are?--A year ago you would have
found only the sick burying the dead; now we are happier; for the pang of
struggle has passed away, and the few you find here are patiently waiting
the final blow. But you, who are not content to die, breathe no longer the
air of France, or soon you will only be a part of her soil."
Thus, by menaces of the sword, they would have driven back those who had
escaped from fire. But the peril left behind was deemed imminent by my
countrymen; that before them doubtful and distant; and soon other feelings
arose to obliterate fear, or to replace it by passions, that ought to have
had no place among a brotherhood of unhappy survivors of the expiring
world.
The more numerous division of emigrants, which arrived first at Paris,
assumed a superiority of rank and power; the second party asserted their
independence. A third was formed by a sectarian, a self-erected prophet,
who, while he attributed all power and rule to God, strove to get the real
command of his comrades into his own hands. This third division consisted
of fewest individuals, but their purpose was more one, their obedience to
their leader more entire, their fortitude and courage more unyielding and
active.
During the whole progress of the plague, the teachers of religion were in
possession of great power; a power of good, if rightly directed, or of
incalculable mischief, if fanaticism or intolerance guided their efforts.
In the present instance, a worse feeling than either of these actuated the
leader. He was an impostor in the most determined sense of the term. A man
who had in early life lost, through the indulgence of vicious propensities,
all sense of rectitude or self-esteem; and who, when ambition was awakened
in him, gave himself up to its influence unbridled by any scruple. His
father had been a methodist preacher, an enthusiastic man with simple
intentions; but whose pernicious doctrines of election and special grace
had contributed to destroy all conscientious feeling in his son. During the
progress of the pestilence he had entered upon various schemes, by which to
acquire adherents and power. Adrian had discovered and defeated these
attempts; but Adrian was absent; the wolf assumed the shepherd's garb, and
the flock admitted the deception: he had formed a party during the few
weeks he had been in Paris, who zealously propagated the creed of his
divine mission, and believed that safety and salvation were to be afforded
only to those who put their trust in him.
When once the spirit of dissension had arisen, the most frivolous causes
gave it activity. The first party, on arriving at Paris, had taken
possession of the Tuileries; chance and friendly feeling had induced the
second to lodge near to them. A contest arose concerning the distribution
of the pillage; the chiefs of the first division demanded that the whole
should be placed at their disposal; with this assumption the opposite party
refused to comply. When next the latter went to forage, the gates of Paris
were shut on them. After overcoming this difficulty, they marched in a body
to the Tuileries. They found that their enemies had been already expelled
thence by the Elect, as the fanatical party designated themselves, who
refused to admit any into the palace who did not first abjure obedience to
all except God, and his delegate on earth, their chief. Such was the
beginning of the strife, which at length proceeded so far, that the three
divisions, armed, met in the Place Vendome, each resolved to subdue by
force the resistance of its adversaries. They assembled, their muskets were
loaded, and even pointed at the breasts of their so called enemies. One
word had been sufficient; and there the last of mankind would have
burthened their souls with the crime of murder, and dipt their hands in
each other's blood. A sense of shame, a recollection that not only their
cause, but the existence of the whole human race was at stake, entered the
breast of the leader of the more numerous party. He was aware, that if the
ranks were thinned, no other recruits could fill them up; that each man was
as a priceless gem in a kingly crown, which if destroyed, the earth's deep
entrails could yield no paragon. He was a young man, and had been hurried
on by presumption, and the notion of his high rank and superiority to all
other pretenders; now he repented his work, he felt that all the blood
about to be shed would be on his head; with sudden impulse therefore he
spurred his horse between the bands, and, having fixed a white handkerchief
on the point of his uplifted sword, thus demanded parley; the opposite
leaders obeyed the signal. He spoke with warmth; he reminded them of the
oath all the chiefs had taken to submit to the Lord Protector; he declared
their present meeting to be an act of treason and mutiny; he allowed that
he had been hurried away by passion, but that a cooler moment had arrived;
and he proposed that each party should send deputies to the Earl of
Windsor, inviting his interference and offering submission to his decision.
His offer was accepted so far, that each leader consented to command a
retreat, and moreover agreed, that after the approbation of their several
parties had been consulted, they should meet that night on some neutral
spot to ratify the truce. At the meeting of the chiefs, this plan was
finally concluded upon. The leader of the fanatics indeed refused to admit
the arbitration of Adrian; he sent ambassadors, rather than deputies, to
assert his claim, not plead his cause.
The truce was to continue until the first of February, when the bands were
again to assemble on the Place Vendome; it was of the utmost consequence
therefore that Adrian should arrive in Paris by that day, since an hair
might turn the scale, and peace, scared away by intestine broils, might
only return to watch by the silent dead. It was now the twenty-eighth of
January; every vessel stationed near Dover had been beaten to pieces and
destroyed by the furious storms I have commemorated. Our journey however
would admit of no delay. That very night, Adrian, and I, and twelve others,
either friends or attendants, put off from the English shore, in the boat
that had brought over the deputies. We all took our turn at the oar; and
the immediate occasion of our departure affording us abundant matter for
conjecture and discourse, prevented the feeling that we left our native
country, depopulate England, for the last time, to enter deeply into the
minds of the greater part of our number. It was a serene starlight night,
and the dark line of the English coast continued for some time visible at
intervals, as we rose on the broad back of the waves. I exerted myself with
my long oar to give swift impulse to our skiff; and, while the waters
splashed with melancholy sound against its sides, I looked with sad
affection on this last glimpse of sea-girt England, and strained my eyes
not too soon to lose sight of the castellated cliff, which rose to protect
the land of heroism and beauty from the inroads of ocean, that, turbulent
as I had lately seen it, required such cyclopean walls for its repulsion. A
solitary sea-gull winged its flight over our heads, to seek its nest in a
cleft of the precipice. Yes, thou shalt revisit the land of thy birth, I
thought, as I looked invidiously on the airy voyager; but we shall, never
more! Tomb of Idris, farewell! Grave, in which my heart lies sepultured,
farewell for ever!
We were twelve hours at sea, and the heavy swell obliged us to exert all
our strength. At length, by mere dint of rowing, we reached the French
coast. The stars faded, and the grey morning cast a dim veil over the
silver horns of the waning moon--the sun rose broad and red from the sea,
as we walked over the sands to Calais. Our first care was to procure
horses, and although wearied by our night of watching and toil, some of our
party immediately went in quest of these in the wide fields of the
unenclosed and now barren plain round Calais. We divided ourselves, like
seamen, into watches, and some reposed, while others prepared the morning's
repast. Our foragers returned at noon with only six horses--on these,
Adrian and I, and four others, proceeded on our journey towards the great
city, which its inhabitants had fondly named the capital of the civilized
world. Our horses had become, through their long holiday, almost wild, and
we crossed the plain round Calais with impetuous speed. From the height
near Boulogne, I turned again to look on England; nature had cast a misty
pall over her, her cliff was hidden--there was spread the watery barrier
that divided us, never again to be crossed; she lay on the ocean plain,
In the great pool a swan's nest.
Ruined the nest, alas! the swans of Albion had passed away for ever--an
uninhabited rock in the wide Pacific, which had remained since the
creation uninhabited, unnamed, unmarked, would be of as much account in
the world's future history, as desert England.
Our journey was impeded by a thousand obstacles. As our horses grew tired,
we had to seek for others; and hours were wasted, while we exhausted our
artifices to allure some of these enfranchised slaves of man to resume the
yoke; or as we went from stable to stable through the towns, hoping to find
some who had not forgotten the shelter of their native stalls. Our ill
success in procuring them, obliged us continually to leave some one of our
companions behind; and on the first of February, Adrian and I entered
Paris, wholly unaccompanied. The serene morning had dawned when we arrived
at Saint Denis, and the sun was high, when the clamour of voices, and the
clash, as we feared, of weapons, guided us to where our countrymen had
assembled on the Place Vendome. We passed a knot of Frenchmen, who were
talking earnestly of the madness of the insular invaders, and then coming
by a sudden turn upon the Place, we saw the sun glitter on drawn swords and
fixed bayonets, while yells and clamours rent the air. It was a scene of
unaccustomed confusion in these days of depopulation. Roused by fancied
wrongs, and insulting scoffs, the opposite parties had rushed to attack
each other; while the elect, drawn up apart, seemed to wait an opportunity
to fall with better advantage on their foes, when they should have mutually
weakened each other. A merciful power interposed, and no blood was shed;
for, while the insane mob were in the very act of attack, the females,
wives, mothers and daughters, rushed between; they seized the bridles; they
embraced the knees of the horsemen, and hung on the necks, or enweaponed
arms of their enraged relatives; the shrill female scream was mingled with
the manly shout, and formed the wild clamour that welcomed us on our
arrival.
Our voices could not be heard in the tumult; Adrian however was eminent for
the white charger he rode; spurring him, he dashed into the midst of the
throng: he was recognized, and a loud cry raised for England and the
Protector. The late adversaries, warmed to affection at the sight of him,
joined in heedless confusion, and surrounded him; the women kissed his
hands, and the edges of his garments; nay, his horse received tribute of
their embraces; some wept their welcome; he appeared an angel of peace
descended among them; and the only danger was, that his mortal nature would
be demonstrated, by his suffocation from the kindness of his friends. His
voice was at length heard, and obeyed; the crowd fell back; the chiefs
alone rallied round him. I had seen Lord Raymond ride through his lines;
his look of victory, and majestic mien obtained the respect and obedience
of all: such was not the appearance or influence of Adrian. His slight
figure, his fervent look, his gesture, more of deprecation than rule, were
proofs that love, unmingled with fear, gave him dominion over the hearts of
a multitude, who knew that he never flinched from danger, nor was actuated
by other motives than care for the general welfare. No distinction was now
visible between the two parties, late ready to shed each other's blood,
for, though neither would submit to the other, they both yielded ready
obedience to the Earl of Windsor.
One party however remained, cut off from the rest, which did not sympathize
in the joy exhibited on Adrian's arrival, or imbibe the spirit of peace,
which fell like dew upon the softened hearts of their countrymen. At the
head of this assembly was a ponderous, dark-looking man, whose malign eye
surveyed with gloating delight the stern looks of his followers. They had
hitherto been inactive, but now, perceiving themselves to be forgotten in
the universal jubilee, they advanced with threatening gestures: our friends
had, as it were in wanton contention, attacked each other; they wanted but
to be told that their cause was one, for it to become so: their mutual
anger had been a fire of straw, compared to the slow-burning hatred they
both entertained for these seceders, who seized a portion of the world to
come, there to entrench and incastellate themselves, and to issue with
fearful sally, and appalling denunciations, on the mere common children of
the earth. The first advance of the little army of the elect reawakened
their rage; they grasped their arms, and waited but their leader's signal
to commence the attack, when the clear tones of Adrian's voice were heard,
commanding them to fall back; with confused murmur and hurried retreat, as
the wave ebbs clamorously from the sands it lately covered, our friends
obeyed. Adrian rode singly into the space between the opposing bands; he
approached the hostile leader, as requesting him to imitate his example,
but his look was not obeyed, and the chief advanced, followed by his whole
troop. There were many women among them, who seemed more eager and resolute
than their male companions. They pressed round their leader, as if to
shield him, while they loudly bestowed on him every sacred denomination and
epithet of worship. Adrian met them half way; they halted: "What," he said,
"do you seek? Do you require any thing of us that we refuse to give, and
that you are forced to acquire by arms and warfare?"
His questions were answered by a general cry, in which the words election,
sin, and red right arm of God, could alone be heard.
Adrian looked expressly at their leader, saying, "Can you not silence your
followers? Mine, you perceive, obey me."
The fellow answered by a scowl; and then, perhaps fearful that his people
should become auditors of the debate he expected to ensue, he commanded
them to fall back, and advanced by himself. "What, I again ask," said
Adrian, "do you require of us?"
"Repentance," replied the man, whose sinister brow gathered clouds as he
spoke. "Obedience to the will of the Most High, made manifest to these his
Elected People. Do we not all die through your sins, O generation of
unbelief, and have we not a right to demand of you repentance and
obedience?"
"And if we refuse them, what then?" his opponent inquired mildly.
"Beware," cried the man, "God hears you, and will smite your stony heart in
his wrath; his poisoned arrows fly, his dogs of death are unleashed! We
will not perish unrevenged--and mighty will our avenger be, when he
descends in visible majesty, and scatters destruction among you."
"My good fellow," said Adrian, with quiet scorn, "I wish that you were
ignorant only, and I think it would be no difficult task to prove to you,
that you speak of what you do not understand. On the present occasion
however, it is enough for me to know that you seek nothing of us; and,
heaven is our witness, we seek nothing of you. I should be sorry to
embitter by strife the few days that we any of us may have here to live;
when there," he pointed downwards, "we shall not be able to contend, while
here we need not. Go home, or stay; pray to your God in your own mode; your
friends may do the like. My orisons consist in peace and good will, in
resignation and hope. Farewell!"
He bowed slightly to the angry disputant who was about to reply; and,
turning his horse down Rue Saint Honore, called on his friends to follow
him. He rode slowly, to give time to all to join him at the Barrier, and
then issued his orders that those who yielded obedience to him, should
rendezvous at Versailles. In the meantime he remained within the walls of
Paris, until he had secured the safe retreat of all. In about a fortnight
the remainder of the emigrants arrived from England, and they all repaired
to Versailles; apartments were prepared for the family of the Protector in
the Grand Trianon, and there, after the excitement of these events, we
reposed amidst the luxuries of the departed Bourbons.
[1] Chorus in Oedipus Coloneus.
CHAPTER V.
AFTER the repose of a few days, we held a council, to decide on our future
movements. Our first plan had been to quit our wintry native latitude, and
seek for our diminished numbers the luxuries and delights of a southern
climate. We had not fixed on any precise spot as the termination of our
wanderings; but a vague picture of perpetual spring, fragrant groves, and
sparkling streams, floated in our imagination to entice us on. A variety of
causes had detained us in England, and we had now arrived at the middle of
February; if we pursued our original project, we should find ourselves in a
worse situation than before, having exchanged our temperate climate for the
intolerable heats of a summer in Egypt or Persia. We were therefore obliged
to modify our plan, as the season continued to be inclement; and it was
determined that we should await the arrival of spring in our present abode,
and so order our future movements as to pass the hot months in the icy
vallies of Switzerland, deferring our southern progress until the ensuing
autumn, if such a season was ever again to be beheld by us.
The castle and town of Versailles afforded our numbers ample accommodation,
and foraging parties took it by turns to supply our wants. There was a
strange and appalling motley in the situation of these the last of the
race. At first I likened it to a colony, which borne over the far seas,
struck root for the first time in a new country. But where was the bustle
and industry characteristic of such an assemblage; the rudely constructed
dwelling, which was to suffice till a more commodious mansion could be
built; the marking out of fields; the attempt at cultivation; the eager
curiosity to discover unknown animals and herbs; the excursions for the
sake of exploring the country? Our habitations were palaces our food was
ready stored in granaries--there was no need of labour, no
inquisitiveness, no restless desire to get on. If we had been assured that
we should secure the lives of our present numbers, there would have been
more vivacity and hope in our councils. We should have discussed as to the
period when the existing produce for man's sustenance would no longer
suffice for us, and what mode of life we should then adopt. We should have
considered more carefully our future plans, and debated concerning the spot
where we should in future dwell. But summer and the plague were near, and
we dared not look forward. Every heart sickened at the thought of
amusement; if the younger part of our community were ever impelled, by
youthful and untamed hilarity, to enter on any dance or song, to cheer the
melancholy time, they would suddenly break off, checked by a mournful look
or agonizing sigh from any one among them, who was prevented by sorrows and
losses from mingling in the festivity. If laughter echoed under our roof,
yet the heart was vacant of joy; and, when ever it chanced that I witnessed
such attempts at pastime, they encreased instead of diminishing my sense of
woe. In the midst of the pleasure-hunting throng, I would close my eyes,
and see before me the obscure cavern, where was garnered the mortality of
Idris, and the dead lay around, mouldering in hushed repose. When I again
became aware of the present hour, softest melody of Lydian flute, or
harmonious maze of graceful dance, was but as the demoniac chorus in the
Wolf's Glen, and the caperings of the reptiles that surrounded the magic
circle.
My dearest interval of peace occurred, when, released from the obligation
of associating with the crowd, I could repose in the dear home where my
children lived. Children I say, for the tenderest emotions of paternity
bound me to Clara. She was now fourteen; sorrow, and deep insight into the
scenes around her, calmed the restless spirit of girlhood; while the
remembrance of her father whom she idolized, and respect for me and Adrian,
implanted an high sense of duty in her young heart. Though serious she was
not sad; the eager desire that makes us all, when young, plume our wings,
and stretch our necks, that we may more swiftly alight tiptoe on the height
of maturity, was subdued in her by early experience. All that she could
spare of overflowing love from her parents' memory, and attention to her
living relatives, was spent upon religion. This was the hidden law of her
heart, which she concealed with childish reserve, and cherished the more
because it was secret. What faith so entire, what charity so pure, what
hope so fervent, as that of early youth? and she, all love, all tenderness
and trust, who from infancy had been tossed on the wide sea of passion and
misfortune, saw the finger of apparent divinity in all, and her best hope
was to make herself acceptable to the power she worshipped. Evelyn was only
five years old; his joyous heart was incapable of sorrow, and he enlivened
our house with the innocent mirth incident to his years.
The aged Countess of Windsor had fallen from her dream of power, rank and
grandeur; she had been suddenly seized with the conviction, that love was
the only good of life, virtue the only ennobling distinction and enriching
wealth. Such a lesson had been taught her by the dead lips of her neglected
daughter; and she devoted herself, with all the fiery violence of her
character, to the obtaining the affection of the remnants of her family. In
early years the heart of Adrian had been chilled towards her; and, though
he observed a due respect, her coldness, mixed with the recollection of
disappointment and madness, caused him to feel even pain in her society.
She saw this, and yet determined to win his love; the obstacle served the
rather to excite her ambition. As Henry, Emperor of Germany, lay in the
snow before Pope Leo's gate for three winter days and nights, so did she in
humility wait before the icy barriers of his closed heart, till he, the
servant of love, and prince of tender courtesy, opened it wide for her
admittance, bestowing, with fervency and gratitude, the tribute of filial
affection she merited. Her understanding, courage, and presence of mind,
became powerful auxiliaries to him in the difficult task of ruling the
tumultuous crowd, which were subjected to his control, in truth by a single
hair.
The principal circumstances that disturbed our tranquillity during this
interval, originated in the vicinity of the impostor-prophet and his
followers. They continued to reside at Paris; but missionaries from among
them often visited Versailles--and such was the power of assertions,
however false, yet vehemently iterated, over the ready credulity of the
ignorant and fearful, that they seldom failed in drawing over to their
party some from among our numbers. An instance of this nature coming
immediately under our notice, we were led to consider the miserable state
in which we should leave our countrymen, when we should, at the approach of
summer, move on towards Switzerland, and leave a deluded crew behind us in
the hands of their miscreant leader. The sense of the smallness of our
numbers, and expectation of decrease, pressed upon us; and, while it would
be a subject of congratulation to ourselves to add one to our party, it
would be doubly gratifying to rescue from the pernicious influence of
superstition and unrelenting tyranny, the victims that now, though
voluntarily enchained, groaned beneath it. If we had considered the
preacher as sincere in a belief of his own denunciations, or only
moderately actuated by kind feeling in the exercise of his assumed powers,
we should have immediately addressed ourselves to him, and endeavoured with
our best arguments to soften and humanize his views. But he was instigated
by ambition, he desired to rule over these last stragglers from the fold of
death; his projects went so far, as to cause him to calculate that, if,
from these crushed remains, a few survived, so that a new race should
spring up, he, by holding tight the reins of belief, might be remembered by
the post-pestilential race as a patriarch, a prophet, nay a deity; such as
of old among the post-diluvians were Jupiter the conqueror, Serapis the
lawgiver, and Vishnou the preserver. These ideas made him inflexible in his
rule, and violent in his hate of any who presumed to share with him his
usurped empire.
It is a strange fact, but incontestible, that the philanthropist, who
ardent in his desire to do good, who patient, reasonable and gentle, yet
disdains to use other argument than truth, has less influence over men's
minds, than he who, grasping and selfish, refuses not to adopt any means,
nor awaken any passion, nor diffuse any falsehood, for the advancement of
his cause. If this from time immemorial has been the case, the contrast was
infinitely greater, now that the one could bring harrowing fears and
transcendent hopes into play; while the other had few hopes to hold forth,
nor could influence the imagination to diminish the fears which he himself
was the first to entertain. The preacher had persuaded his followers, that
their escape from the plague, the salvation of their children, and the rise
of a new race of men from their seed, depended on their faith in, and their
submission to him. They greedily imbibed this belief; and their
over-weening credulity even rendered them eager to make converts to the
same faith.
How to seduce any individuals from such an alliance of fraud, was a
frequent subject of Adrian's meditations and discourse. He formed many
plans for the purpose; but his own troop kept him in full occupation to
ensure their fidelity and safety; beside which the preacher was as cautious
and prudent, as he was cruel. His victims lived under the strictest rules
and laws, which either entirely imprisoned them within the Tuileries, or
let them out in such numbers, and under such leaders, as precluded the
possibility of controversy. There was one among them however whom I
resolved to save; she had been known to us in happier days; Idris had loved
her; and her excellent nature made it peculiarly lamentable that she should
be sacrificed by this merciless cannibal of souls.
This man had between two and three hundred persons enlisted under his
banners. More than half of them were women; there were about fifty children
of all ages; and not more than eighty men. They were mostly drawn from that
which, when such distinctions existed, was denominated the lower rank of
society. The exceptions consisted of a few high-born females, who,
panic-struck, and tamed by sorrow, had joined him. Among these was one,
young, lovely, and enthusiastic, whose very goodness made her a more easy
victim. I have mentioned her before: Juliet, the youngest daughter, and now
sole relic of the ducal house of L---. There are some beings, whom fate
seems to select on whom to pour, in unmeasured portion, the vials of her
wrath, and whom she bathes even to the lips in misery. Such a one was the
ill-starred Juliet. She had lost her indulgent parents, her brothers and
sisters, companions of her youth; in one fell swoop they had been carried
off from her. Yet she had again dared to call herself happy; united to her
admirer, to him who possessed and filled her whole heart, she yielded to
the lethean powers of love, and knew and felt only his life and presence.
At the very time when with keen delight she welcomed the tokens of
maternity, this sole prop of her life failed, her husband died of the
plague. For a time she had been lulled in insanity; the birth of her child
restored her to the cruel reality of things, but gave her at the same time
an object for whom to preserve at once life and reason. Every friend and
relative had died off, and she was reduced to solitude and penury; deep
melancholy and angry impatience distorted her judgment, so that she could
not persuade herself to disclose her distress to us. When she heard of the
plan of universal emigration, she resolved to remain behind with her
child, and alone in wide England to live or die, as fate might decree,
beside the grave of her beloved. She had hidden herself in one of the many
empty habitations of London; it was she who rescued my Idris on the fatal
twentieth of November, though my immediate danger, and the subsequent
illness of Idris, caused us to forget our hapless friend. This circumstance
had however brought her again in contact with her fellow-creatures; a
slight illness of her infant, proved to her that she was still bound to
humanity by an indestructible tie; to preserve this little creature's life
became the object of her being, and she joined the first division of
migrants who went over to Paris.
She became an easy prey to the methodist; her sensibility and acute fears
rendered her accessible to every impulse; her love for her child made her
eager to cling to the merest straw held out to save him. Her mind, once
unstrung, and now tuned by roughest inharmonious hands, made her credulous:
beautiful as fabled goddess, with voice of unrivalled sweetness, burning
with new lighted enthusiasm, she became a stedfast proselyte, and powerful
auxiliary to the leader of the elect. I had remarked her in the crowd, on
the day we met on the Place Vendome; and, recollecting suddenly her
providential rescue of my lost one, on the night of the twentieth of
November, I reproached myself for my neglect and ingratitude, and felt
impelled to leave no means that I could adopt untried, to recall her to her
better self, and rescue her from the fangs of the hypocrite destroyer.
I will not, at this period of my story, record the artifices I used to
penetrate the asylum of the Tuileries, or give what would be a tedious
account of my stratagems, disappointments, and perseverance. I at last
succeeded in entering these walls, and roamed its halls and corridors in
eager hope to find my selected convert. In the evening I contrived to
mingle unobserved with the congregation, which assembled in the chapel to
listen to the crafty and eloquent harangue of their prophet. I saw Juliet
near him. Her dark eyes, fearfully impressed with the restless glare of
madness, were fixed on him; she held her infant, not yet a year old, in her
arms; and care of it alone could distract her attention from the words to
which she eagerly listened. After the sermon was over, the congregation
dispersed; all quitted the chapel except she whom I sought; her babe had
fallen asleep; so she placed it on a cushion, and sat on the floor beside,
watching its tranquil slumber.
I presented myself to her; for a moment natural feeling produced a
sentiment of gladness, which disappeared again, when with ardent and
affectionate exhortation I besought her to accompany me in flight from this
den of superstition and misery. In a moment she relapsed into the delirium
of fanaticism, and, but that her gentle nature forbade, would have loaded
me with execrations. She conjured me, she commanded me to leave her--
"Beware, O beware," she cried, "fly while yet your escape is practicable.
Now you are safe; but strange sounds and inspirations come on me at times,
and if the Eternal should in awful whisper reveal to me his will, that to
save my child you must be sacrificed, I would call in the satellites of him
you call the tyrant; they would tear you limb from limb; nor would I hallow
the death of him whom Idris loved, by a single tear."
She spoke hurriedly, with tuneless voice, and wild look; her child awoke,
and, frightened, began to cry; each sob went to the ill-fated mother's
heart, and she mingled the epithets of endearment she addressed to her
infant, with angry commands that I should leave her. Had I had the means, I
would have risked all, have torn her by force from the murderer's den, and
trusted to the healing balm of reason and affection. But I had no choice,
no power even of longer struggle; steps were heard along the gallery, and
the voice of the preacher drew near. Juliet, straining her child in a close
embrace, fled by another passage. Even then I would have followed her; but
my foe and his satellites entered; I was surrounded, and taken prisoner.
I remembered the menace of the unhappy Juliet, and expected the full
tempest of the man's vengeance, and the awakened wrath of his followers, to
fall instantly upon me. I was questioned. My answers were simple and
sincere. "His own mouth condemns him," exclaimed the impostor; "he
confesses that his intention was to seduce from the way of salvation our
well-beloved sister in God; away with him to the dungeon; to-morrow he dies
the death; we are manifestly called upon to make an example, tremendous and
appalling, to scare the children of sin from our asylum of the saved."
My heart revolted from his hypocritical jargon: but it was unworthy of me
to combat in words with the ruffian; and my answer was cool; while, far
from being possessed with fear, methought, even at the worst, a man true to
himself, courageous and determined, could fight his way, even from the
boards of the scaffold, through the herd of these misguided maniacs.
"Remember," I said, "who I am; and be well assured that I shall not die
unavenged. Your legal magistrate, the Lord Protector, knew of my design,
and is aware that I am here; the cry of blood will reach him, and you and
your miserable victims will long lament the tragedy you are about to act."
My antagonist did not deign to reply, even by a look;--"You know your
duty," he said to his comrades,--"obey."
In a moment I was thrown on the earth, bound, blindfolded, and hurried away
--liberty of limb and sight was only restored to me, when, surrounded by
dungeon-walls, dark and impervious, I found myself a prisoner and alone.
Such was the result of my attempt to gain over the proselyte of this man of
crime; I could not conceive that he would dare put me to death.--Yet I
was in his hands; the path of his ambition had ever been dark and cruel;
his power was founded upon fear; the one word which might cause me to die,
unheard, unseen, in the obscurity of my dungeon, might be easier to speak
than the deed of mercy to act. He would not risk probably a public
execution; but a private assassination would at once terrify any of my
companions from attempting a like feat, at the same time that a cautious
line of conduct might enable him to avoid the enquiries and the vengeance
of Adrian.
Two months ago, in a vault more obscure than the one I now inhabited, I had
revolved the design of quietly laying me down to die; now I shuddered at
the approach of fate. My imagination was busied in shaping forth the kind
of death he would inflict. Would he allow me to wear out life with famine;
or was the food administered to me to be medicined with death? Would he
steal on me in my sleep; or should I contend to the last with my murderers,
knowing, even while I struggled, that I must be overcome? I lived upon an
earth whose diminished population a child's arithmetic might number; I had
lived through long months with death stalking close at my side, while at
intervals the shadow of his skeleton-shape darkened my path. I had believed
that I despised the grim phantom, and laughed his power to scorn.
Any other fate I should have met with courage, nay, have gone out gallantly
to encounter. But to be murdered thus at the midnight hour by cold-blooded
assassins, no friendly hand to close my eyes, or receive my parting
blessing--to die in combat, hate and execration--ah, why, my angel
love, didst thou restore me to life, when already I had stepped within the
portals of the tomb, now that so soon again I was to be flung back a
mangled corpse!
Hours passed--centuries. Could I give words to the many thoughts which
occupied me in endless succession during this interval, I should fill
volumes. The air was dank, the dungeon-floor mildewed and icy cold; hunger
came upon me too, and no sound reached me from without. To-morrow the
ruffian had declared that I should die. When would to-morrow come? Was it
not already here?
My door was about to be opened. I heard the key turn, and the bars and
bolts slowly removed. The opening of intervening passages permitted sounds
from the interior of the palace to reach me; and I heard the clock strike
one. They come to murder me, I thought; this hour does not befit a public
execution. I drew myself up against the wall opposite the entrance; I
collected my forces, I rallied my courage, I would not fall a tame prey.
Slowly the door receded on its hinges--I was ready to spring forward to
seize and grapple with the intruder, till the sight of who it was changed
at once the temper of my mind. It was Juliet herself; pale and trembling
she stood, a lamp in her hand, on the threshold of the dungeon, looking at
me with wistful countenance. But in a moment she re-assumed her
self-possession; and her languid eyes recovered their brilliancy. She said,
"I am come to save you, Verney."
"And yourself also," I cried: "dearest friend, can we indeed be saved?"
"Not a word," she replied, "follow me!"
I obeyed instantly. We threaded with light steps many corridors, ascended
several flights of stairs, and passed through long galleries; at the end of
one she unlocked a low portal; a rush of wind extinguished our lamp; but,
in lieu of it, we had the blessed moon-beams and the open face of heaven.
Then first Juliet spoke:--"You are safe," she said, "God bless you!--
farewell!"
I seized her reluctant hand--"Dear friend," I cried, "misguided victim,
do you not intend to escape with me? Have you not risked all in
facilitating my flight? and do you think, that I will permit you to return,
and suffer alone the effects of that miscreant's rage? Never!"
"Do not fear for me," replied the lovely girl mournfully, "and do not
imagine that without the consent of our chief you could be without these
walls. It is he that has saved you; he assigned to me the part of leading
you hither, because I am best acquainted with your motives for coming here,
and can best appreciate his mercy in permitting you to depart."
"And are you," I cried, "the dupe of this man? He dreads me alive as an
enemy, and dead he fears my avengers. By favouring this clandestine escape
he preserves a shew of consistency to his followers; but mercy is far from
his heart. Do you forget his artifices, his cruelty, and fraud? As I am
free, so are you. Come, Juliet, the mother of our lost Idris will welcome
you, the noble Adrian will rejoice to receive you; you will find peace and
love, and better hopes than fanaticism can afford. Come, and fear not; long
before day we shall be at Versailles; close the door on this abode of crime
--come, sweet Juliet, from hypocrisy and guilt to the society of the
affectionate and good."
I spoke hurriedly, but with fervour: and while with gentle violence I drew
her from the portal, some thought, some recollection of past scenes of
youth and happiness, made her listen and yield to me; suddenly she broke
away with a piercing shriek:--"My child, my child! he has my child; my
darling girl is my hostage."
She darted from me into the passage; the gate closed between us--she was
left in the fangs of this man of crime, a prisoner, still to inhale the
pestilential atmosphere which adhered to his demoniac nature; the unimpeded
breeze played on my cheek, the moon shone graciously upon me, my path was
free. Glad to have escaped, yet melancholy in my very joy, I retrod my
steps to Versailles.
CHAPTER VI.
EVENTFUL winter passed; winter, the respite of our ills. By degrees the
sun, which with slant beams had before yielded the more extended reign to
night, lengthened his diurnal journey, and mounted his highest throne, at
once the fosterer of earth's new beauty, and her lover. We who, like flies
that congregate upon a dry rock at the ebbing of the tide, had played
wantonly with time, allowing our passions, our hopes, and our mad desires
to rule us, now heard the approaching roar of the ocean of destruction, and
would have fled to some sheltered crevice, before the first wave broke over
us. We resolved without delay, to commence our journey to Switzerland; we
became eager to leave France. Under the icy vaults of the glaciers, beneath
the shadow of the pines, the swinging of whose mighty branches was arrested
by a load of snow; beside the streams whose intense cold proclaimed their
origin to be from the slow-melting piles of congelated waters, amidst
frequent storms which might purify the air, we should find health, if in
truth health were not herself diseased.
We began our preparations at first with alacrity. We did not now bid adieu
to our native country, to the graves of those we loved, to the flowers, and
streams, and trees, which had lived beside us from infancy. Small sorrow
would be ours on leaving Paris. A scene of shame, when we remembered our
late contentions, and thought that we left behind a flock of miserable,
deluded victims, bending under the tyranny of a selfish impostor. Small
pangs should we feel in leaving the gardens, woods, and halls of the
palaces of the Bourbons at Versailles, which we feared would soon be
tainted by the dead, when we looked forward to vallies lovelier than any
garden, to mighty forests and halls, built not for mortal majesty, but
palaces of nature's own, with the Alp of marmoreal whiteness for their
walls, the sky for their roof.
Yet our spirits flagged, as the day drew near which we had fixed for our
departure. Dire visions and evil auguries, if such things were, thickened
around us, so that in vain might men say--
These are their reasons, they are natural,[1]
we felt them to be ominous, and dreaded the future event enchained
to them. That the night owl should screech before the noon-day
sun, that the hard-winged bat should wheel around the bed of
beauty, that muttering thunder should in early spring startle
the cloudless air, that sudden and exterminating blight should fall
on the tree and shrub, were unaccustomed, but physical events, less
horrible than the mental creations of almighty fear. Some had sight of
funeral processions, and faces all begrimed with tears, which flitted
through the long avenues of the gardens, and drew aside the curtains of the
sleepers at dead of night. Some heard wailing and cries in the air; a
mournful chaunt would stream through the dark atmosphere, as if spirits
above sang the requiem of the human race. What was there in all this, but
that fear created other senses within our frames, making us see, hear, and
feel what was not? What was this, but the action of diseased imaginations
and childish credulity? So might it be; but what was most real, was the
existence of these very fears; the staring looks of horror, the faces pale
even to ghastliness, the voices struck dumb with harrowing dread, of those
among us who saw and heard these things. Of this number was Adrian, who
knew the delusion, yet could not cast off the clinging terror. Even
ignorant infancy appeared with timorous shrieks and convulsions to
acknowledge the presence of unseen powers. We must go: in change of scene,
in occupation, and such security as we still hoped to find, we should
discover a cure for these gathering horrors.
On mustering our company, we found them to consist of fourteen hundred
souls, men, women, and children. Until now therefore, we were undiminished
in numbers, except by the desertion of those who had attached themselves to
the impostor-prophet, and remained behind in Paris. About fifty French
joined us. Our order of march was easily arranged; the ill success which
had attended our division, determined Adrian to keep all in one body. I,
with an hundred men, went forward first as purveyor, taking the road of the
Cote d'Or, through Auxerre, Dijon, Dole, over the Jura to Geneva. I was to
make arrangements, at every ten miles, for the accommodation of such
numbers as I found the town or village would receive, leaving behind a
messenger with a written order, signifying how many were to be quartered
there. The remainder of our tribe was then divided into bands of fifty
each, every division containing eighteen men, and the remainder, consisting
of women and children. Each of these was headed by an officer, who carried
the roll of names, by which they were each day to be mustered. If the
numbers were divided at night, in the morning those in the van waited for
those in the rear. At each of the large towns before mentioned, we were all
to assemble; and a conclave of the principal officers would hold council
for the general weal. I went first, as I said; Adrian last. His mother,
with Clara and Evelyn under her protection, remained also with him. Thus
our order being determined, I departed. My plan was to go at first no
further than Fontainebleau, where in a few days I should be joined by
Adrian, before I took flight again further eastward.
My friend accompanied me a few miles from Versailles. He was sad; and, in a
tone of unaccustomed despondency, uttered a prayer for our speedy arrival
among the Alps, accompanied with an expression of vain regret that we were
not already there. "In that case," I observed, "we can quicken our march;
why adhere to a plan whose dilatory proceeding you already disapprove?"
"Nay," replied he, "it is too late now. A month ago, and we were masters of
ourselves; now,--" he turned his face from me; though gathering twilight
had already veiled its expression, he turned it yet more away, as he added
--"a man died of the plague last night!"
He spoke in a smothered voice, then suddenly clasping his hands, he
exclaimed, "Swiftly, most swiftly advances the last hour for us all; as the
stars vanish before the sun, so will his near approach destroy us. I have
done my best; with grasping hands and impotent strength, I have hung on the
wheel of the chariot of plague; but she drags me along with it, while, like
Juggernaut, she proceeds crushing out the being of all who strew the high
road of life. Would that it were over--would that her procession
achieved, we had all entered the tomb together!"
Tears streamed from his eyes. "Again and again," he continued, "will the
tragedy be acted; again I must hear the groans of the dying, the wailing of
the survivors; again witness the pangs, which, consummating all, envelope
an eternity in their evanescent existence. Why am I reserved for this? Why
the tainted wether of the flock, am I not struck to earth among the first?
It is hard, very hard, for one of woman born to endure all that I endure!"
Hitherto, with an undaunted spirit, and an high feeling of duty and worth,
Adrian had fulfilled his self-imposed task. I had contemplated him with
reverence, and a fruitless desire of imitation. I now offered a few words
of encouragement and sympathy. He hid his face in his hands, and while he
strove to calm himself, he ejaculated, "For a few months, yet for a few
months more, let not, O God, my heart fail, or my courage be bowed down;
let not sights of intolerable misery madden this half-crazed brain, or
cause this frail heart to beat against its prison-bound, so that it burst.
I have believed it to be my destiny to guide and rule the last of the race
of man, till death extinguish my government; and to this destiny I submit.
"Pardon me, Verney, I pain you, but I will no longer complain. Now I am
myself again, or rather I am better than myself. You have known how from my
childhood aspiring thoughts and high desires have warred with inherent
disease and overstrained sensitiveness, till the latter became victors. You
know how I placed this wasted feeble hand on the abandoned helm of human
government. I have been visited at times by intervals of fluctuation; yet,
until now, I have felt as if a superior and indefatigable spirit had taken
up its abode within me or rather incorporated itself with my weaker being.
The holy visitant has for a time slept, perhaps to show me how powerless I
am without its inspiration. Yet, stay for a while, O Power of goodness and
strength; disdain not yet this rent shrine of fleshly mortality, O immortal
Capability! While one fellow creature remains to whom aid can be afforded,
stay by and prop your shattered, falling engine!"
His vehemence, and voice broken by irrepressible sighs, sunk to my heart;
his eyes gleamed in the gloom of night like two earthly stars; and, his
form dilating, his countenance beaming, truly it almost seemed as if at his
eloquent appeal a more than mortal spirit entered his frame, exalting him
above humanity. He turned quickly towards me, and held out his hand.
"Farewell, Verney," he cried, "brother of my love, farewell; no other weak
expression must cross these lips, I am alive again: to our tasks, to our
combats with our unvanquishable foe, for to the last I will struggle
against her."
He grasped my hand, and bent a look on me, more fervent and animated than
any smile; then turning his horse's head, he touched the animal with the
spur, and was out of sight in a moment.
A man last night had died of the plague. The quiver was not emptied, nor
the bow unstrung. We stood as marks, while Parthian Pestilence aimed and
shot, insatiated by conquest, unobstructed by the heaps of slain. A
sickness of the soul, contagious even to my physical mechanism, came over
me. My knees knocked together, my teeth chattered, the current of my blood,
clotted by sudden cold, painfully forced its way from my heavy heart. I did
not fear for myself, but it was misery to think that we could not even save
this remnant. That those I loved might in a few days be as clay-cold as
Idris in her antique tomb; nor could strength of body or energy of mind
ward off the blow. A sense of degradation came over me. Did God create man,
merely in the end to become dead earth in the midst of healthful vegetating
nature? Was he of no more account to his Maker, than a field of corn
blighted in the ear? Were our proud dreams thus to fade? Our name was
written "a little lower than the angels;" and, behold, we were no better
than ephemera. We had called ourselves the "paragon of animals," and, lo!
we were a "quint-essence of dust." We repined that the pyramids had
outlasted the embalmed body of their builder. Alas! the mere shepherd's hut
of straw we passed on the road, contained in its structure the principle of
greater longevity than the whole race of man. How reconcile this sad change
to our past aspirations, to our apparent powers!
Sudden an internal voice, articulate and clear, seemed to say:--Thus from
eternity, it was decreed: the steeds that bear Time onwards had this hour
and this fulfilment enchained to them, since the void brought forth its
burthen. Would you read backwards the unchangeable laws of Necessity?
Mother of the world! Servant of the Omnipotent! eternal, changeless
Necessity! who with busy fingers sittest ever weaving the indissoluble
chain of events!--I will not murmur at thy acts. If my human mind cannot
acknowledge that all that is, is right; yet since what is, must be, I will
sit amidst the ruins and smile. Truly we were not born to enjoy, but to
submit, and to hope.
Will not the reader tire, if I should minutely describe our long-drawn
journey from Paris to Geneva? If, day by day, I should record, in the form
of a journal, the thronging miseries of our lot, could my hand write, or
language afford words to express, the variety of our woe; the hustling and
crowding of one deplorable event upon another? Patience, oh reader! whoever
thou art, wherever thou dwellest, whether of race spiritual, or, sprung
from some surviving pair, thy nature will be human, thy habitation the
earth; thou wilt here read of the acts of the extinct race, and wilt ask
wonderingly, if they, who suffered what thou findest recorded, were of
frail flesh and soft organization like thyself. Most true, they were--
weep therefore; for surely, solitary being, thou wilt be of gentle
disposition; shed compassionate tears; but the while lend thy attention to
the tale, and learn the deeds and sufferings of thy predecessors.
Yet the last events that marked our progress through France were so full of
strange horror and gloomy misery, that I dare not pause too long in the
narration. If I were to dissect each incident, every small fragment of a
second would contain an harrowing tale, whose minutest word would curdle
the blood in thy young veins. It is right that I should erect for thy
instruction this monument of the foregone race; but not that I should drag
thee through the wards of an hospital, nor the secret chambers of the
charnel-house. This tale, therefore, shall be rapidly unfolded. Images of
destruction, pictures of despair, the procession of the last triumph of
death, shall be drawn before thee, swift as the rack driven by the north
wind along the blotted splendour of the sky.
Weed-grown fields, desolate towns, the wild approach of riderless horses
had now become habitual to my eyes; nay, sights far worse, of the unburied
dead, and human forms which were strewed on the road side, and on the steps
of once frequented habitations, where,
Through the flesh that wastes away
Beneath the parching sun, the whitening bones
Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust.[2]
Sights like these had become--ah, woe the while! so familiar, that we had
ceased to shudder, or spur our stung horses to sudden speed, as we passed
them. France in its best days, at least that part of France through which
we travelled, had been a cultivated desert, and the absence of enclosures,
of cottages, and even of peasantry, was saddening to a traveller from sunny
Italy, or busy England. Yet the towns were frequent and lively, and the
cordial politeness and ready smile of the wooden-shoed peasant restored
good humour to the splenetic. Now, the old woman sat no more at the door
with her distaff--the lank beggar no longer asked charity in
courtier-like phrase; nor on holidays did the peasantry thread with slow
grace the mazes of the dance. Silence, melancholy bride of death, went in
procession with him from town to town through the spacious region.
We arrived at Fontainebleau, and speedily prepared for the reception of our
friends. On mustering our numbers for the night, three were found missing.
When I enquired for them, the man to whom I spoke, uttered the word
"plague," and fell at my feet in convulsions; he also was infected. There
were hard faces around me; for among my troop were sailors who had crossed
the line times unnumbered, soldiers who, in Russia and far America, had
suffered famine, cold and danger, and men still sterner-featured, once
nightly depredators in our over-grown metropolis; men bred from their
cradle to see the whole machine of society at work for their destruction. I
looked round, and saw upon the faces of all horror and despair written in
glaring characters.
We passed four days at Fontainebleau. Several sickened and died, and in the
mean time neither Adrian nor any of our friends appeared. My own troop was
in commotion; to reach Switzerland, to plunge into rivers of snow, and to
dwell in caves of ice, became the mad desire of all. Yet we had promised to
wait for the Earl; and he came not. My people demanded to be led forward--
rebellion, if so we might call what was the mere casting away of
straw-formed shackles, appeared manifestly among them. They would away on
the word without a leader. The only chance of safety, the only hope of
preservation from every form of indescribable suffering, was our keeping
together. I told them this; while the most determined among them answered
with sullenness, that they could take care of themselves, and replied to my
entreaties with scoffs and menaces.
At length, on the fifth day, a messenger arrived from Adrian, bearing
letters, which directed us to proceed to Auxerre, and there await his
arrival, which would only be deferred for a few days. Such was the tenor of
his public letters. Those privately delivered to me, detailed at length the
difficulties of his situation, and left the arrangement of my future plans
to my own discretion. His account of the state of affairs at Versailles was
brief, but the oral communications of his messenger filled up his
omissions, and shewed me that perils of the most frightful nature were
gathering around him. At first the re-awakening of the plague had been
concealed; but the number of deaths encreasing, the secret was divulged,
and the destruction already achieved, was exaggerated by the fears of the
survivors. Some emissaries of the enemy of mankind, the accursed Impostors,
were among them instilling their doctrine that safety and life could only
be ensured by submission to their chief; and they succeeded so well, that
soon, instead of desiring to proceed to Switzerland, the major part of the
multitude, weak-minded women, and dastardly men, desired to return to
Paris, and, by ranging themselves under the banners of the so called
prophet, and by a cowardly worship of the principle of evil, to purchase
respite, as they hoped, from impending death. The discord and tumult
induced by these conflicting fears and passions, detained Adrian. It
required all his ardour in pursuit of an object, and his patience under
difficulties, to calm and animate such a number of his followers, as might
counterbalance the panic of the rest, and lead them back to the means from
which alone safety could be derived. He had hoped immediately to follow me;
but, being defeated in this intention, he sent his messenger urging me to
secure my own troop at such a distance from Versailles, as to prevent the
contagion of rebellion from reaching them; promising, at the same time, to
join me the moment a favourable occasion should occur, by means of which he
could withdraw the main body of the emigrants from the evil influence at
present exercised over them.
I was thrown into a most painful state of uncertainty by these
communications. My first impulse was that we should all return to
Versailles, there to assist in extricating our chief from his perils. I
accordingly assembled my troop, and proposed to them this retrograde
movement, instead of the continuation of our journey to Auxerre. With one
voice they refused to comply. The notion circulated among them was, that
the ravages of the plague alone detained the Protector; they opposed his
order to my request; they came to a resolve to proceed without me, should I
refuse to accompany them. Argument and adjuration were lost on these
dastards. The continual diminution of their own numbers, effected by
pestilence, added a sting to their dislike of delay; and my opposition only
served to bring their resolution to a crisis. That same evening they
departed towards Auxerre. Oaths, as from soldiers to their general, had
been taken by them: these they broke. I also had engaged myself not to
desert them; it appeared to me inhuman to ground any infraction of my word
on theirs. The same spirit that caused them to rebel against me, would
impel them to desert each other; and the most dreadful sufferings would be
the consequence of their journey in their present unordered and chiefless
array. These feelings for a time were paramount; and, in obedience to them,
I accompanied the rest towards Auxerre. We arrived the same night at
Villeneuve-la-Guiard, a town at the distance of four posts from
Fontainebleau. When my companions had retired to rest, and I was left alone
to revolve and ruminate upon the intelligence I received of Adrian's
situation, another view of the subject presented itself to me. What was I
doing, and what was the object of my present movements? Apparently I was to
lead this troop of selfish and lawless men towards Switzerland, leaving
behind my family and my selected friend, which, subject as they were hourly
to the death that threatened to all, I might never see again. Was it not my
first duty to assist the Protector, setting an example of attachment and
duty? At a crisis, such as the one I had reached, it is very difficult to
balance nicely opposing interests, and that towards which our inclinations
lead us, obstinately assumes the appearance of selfishness, even when we
meditate a sacrifice. We are easily led at such times to make a compromise
of the question; and this was my present resource. I resolved that very
night to ride to Versailles; if I found affairs less desperate than I now
deemed them, I would return without delay to my troop; I had a vague idea
that my arrival at that town, would occasion some sensation more or less
strong, of which we might profit, for the purpose of leading forward the
vacillating multitude--at least no time was to be lost--I visited the
stables, I saddled my favourite horse, and vaulting on his back, without
giving myself time for further reflection or hesitation, quitted
Villeneuve-la-Guiard on my return to Versailles.
I was glad to escape from my rebellious troop, and to lose sight for a
time, of the strife of evil with good, where the former for ever remained
triumphant. I was stung almost to madness by my uncertainty concerning the
fate of Adrian, and grew reckless of any event, except what might lose or
preserve my unequalled friend. With an heavy heart, that sought relief in
the rapidity of my course, I rode through the night to Versailles. I
spurred my horse, who addressed his free limbs to speed, and tossed his
gallant head in pride. The constellations reeled swiftly by, swiftly each
tree and stone and landmark fled past my onward career. I bared my head to
the rushing wind, which bathed my brow in delightful coolness. As I lost
sight of Villeneuve-la-Guiard, I forgot the sad drama of human misery;
methought it was happiness enough to live, sensitive the while of the
beauty of the verdure-clad earth, the star-bespangled sky, and the tameless
wind that lent animation to the whole. My horse grew tired--and I,
forgetful of his fatigue, still as he lagged, cheered him with my voice,
and urged him with the spur. He was a gallant animal, and I did not wish to
exchange him for any chance beast I might light on, leaving him never to be
refound. All night we went forward; in the morning he became sensible that
we approached Versailles, to reach which as his home, he mustered his
flagging strength. The distance we had come was not less than fifty miles,
yet he shot down the long Boulevards swift as an arrow; poor fellow, as I
dismounted at the gate of the castle, he sunk on his knees, his eyes were
covered with a film, he fell on his side, a few gasps inflated his noble
chest, and he died. I saw him expire with an anguish, unaccountable even to
myself, the spasm was as the wrenching of some limb in agonizing torture,
but it was brief as it was intolerable. I forgot him, as I swiftly darted
through the open portal, and up the majestic stairs of this castle of
victories--heard Adrian's voice--O fool! O woman nurtured, effeminate
and contemptible being--I heard his voice, and answered it with
convulsive shrieks; I rushed into the Hall of Hercules, where he stood
surrounded by a crowd, whose eyes, turned in wonder on me, reminded me that
on the stage of the world, a man must repress such girlish extacies. I
would have given worlds to have embraced him; I dared not--Half in
exhaustion, half voluntarily, I threw myself at my length on the ground--
dare I disclose the truth to the gentle offspring of solitude? I did so,
that I might kiss the dear and sacred earth he trod.
I found everything in a state of tumult. An emissary of the leader of the
elect, had been so worked up by his chief, and by his own fanatical creed,
as to make an attempt on the life of the Protector and preserver of lost
mankind. His hand was arrested while in the act of poignarding the Earl;
this circumstance had caused the clamour I heard on my arrival at the
castle, and the confused assembly of persons that I found assembled in the
Salle d'Hercule. Although superstition and demoniac fury had crept among
the emigrants, yet several adhered with fidelity to their noble chieftain;
and many, whose faith and love had been unhinged by fear, felt all their
latent affection rekindled by this detestable attempt. A phalanx of
faithful breasts closed round him; the wretch, who, although a prisoner and
in bonds, vaunted his design, and madly claimed the crown of martyrdom,
would have been torn to pieces, had not his intended victim interposed.
Adrian, springing forward, shielded him with his own person, and commanded
with energy the submission of his infuriate friends--at this moment I had
entered.
Discipline and peace were at length restored in the castle; and then Adrian
went from house to house, from troop to troop, to soothe the disturbed
minds of his followers, and recall them to their ancient obedience. But the
fear of immediate death was still rife amongst these survivors of a world's
destruction; the horror occasioned by the attempted assassination, past
away; each eye turned towards Paris. Men love a prop so well, that they
will lean on a pointed poisoned spear; and such was he, the impostor, who,
with fear of hell for his scourge, most ravenous wolf, played the driver to
a credulous flock.
It was a moment of suspense, that shook even the resolution of the
unyielding friend of man. Adrian for one moment was about to give in, to
cease the struggle, and quit, with a few adherents, the deluded crowd,
leaving them a miserable prey to their passions, and to the worse tyrant
who excited them. But again, after a brief fluctuation of purpose, he
resumed his courage and resolves, sustained by the singleness of his
purpose, and the untried spirit of benevolence which animated him. At this
moment, as an omen of excellent import, his wretched enemy pulled
destruction on his head, destroying with his own hands the dominion he had
erected.
His grand hold upon the minds of men, took its rise from the doctrine
inculcated by him, that those who believed in, and followed him, were the
remnant to be saved, while all the rest of mankind were marked out for
death. Now, at the time of the Flood, the omnipotent repented him that he
had created man, and as then with water, now with the arrows of pestilence,
was about to annihilate all, except those who obeyed his decrees,
promulgated by the ipse dixit prophet. It is impossible to say on what
foundations this man built his hopes of being able to carry on such an
imposture. It is likely that he was fully aware of the lie which murderous
nature might give to his assertions, and believed it to be the cast of a
die, whether he should in future ages be reverenced as an inspired delegate
from heaven, or be recognized as an impostor by the present dying
generation. At any rate he resolved to keep up the drama to the last act.
When, on the first approach of summer, the fatal disease again made its
ravages among the followers of Adrian, the impostor exultingly proclaimed
the exemption of his own congregation from the universal calamity. He was
believed; his followers, hitherto shut up in Paris, now came to Versailles.
Mingling with the coward band there assembled, they reviled their admirable
leader, and asserted their own superiority and exemption. At length the
plague, slow-footed, but sure in her noiseless advance, destroyed the
illusion, invading the congregation of the elect, and showering promiscuous
death among them. Their leader endeavoured to conceal this event; he had a
few followers, who, admitted into the arcana of his wickedness, could help
him in the execution of his nefarious designs. Those who sickened were
immediately and quietly withdrawn, the cord and a midnight-grave disposed
of them for ever; while some plausible excuse was given for their absence.
At last a female, whose maternal vigilance subdued even the effects of the
narcotics administered to her, became a witness of their murderous designs
on her only child. Mad with horror, she would have burst among her deluded
fellow-victims, and, wildly shrieking, have awaked the dull ear of night
with the history of the fiend-like crime; when the Impostor, in his last
act of rage and desperation, plunged a poignard in her bosom. Thus wounded
to death, her garments dripping with her own life-blood, bearing her
strangled infant in her arms, beautiful and young as she was, Juliet, (for
it was she) denounced to the host of deceived believers, the wickedness of
their leader. He saw the aghast looks of her auditors, changing from horror
to fury--the names of those already sacrificed were echoed by their
relatives, now assured of their loss. The wretch with that energy of
purpose, which had borne him thus far in his guilty career, saw his danger,
and resolved to evade the worst forms of it--he rushed on one of the
foremost, seized a pistol from his girdle, and his loud laugh of derision
mingled with the report of the weapon with which he destroyed himself.
They left his miserable remains even where they lay; they placed the corpse
of poor Juliet and her babe upon a bier, and all, with hearts subdued to
saddest regret, in long procession walked towards Versailles. They met
troops of those who had quitted the kindly protection of Adrian, and were
journeying to join the fanatics. The tale of horror was recounted--all
turned back; and thus at last, accompanied by the undiminished numbers of
surviving humanity, and preceded by the mournful emblem of their recovered
reason, they appeared before Adrian, and again and for ever vowed obedience
to his commands, and fidelity to his cause.
[1] Shakespeare--Julius Caesar.
[2] Elton's Translation of Hesiod's "Shield of Hercules."
CHAPTER VII.
THESE events occupied so much time, that June had numbered more than half
its days, before we again commenced our long-protracted journey. The day
after my return to Versailles, six men, from among those I had left at
Villeneuve-la-Guiard, arrived, with intelligence, that the rest of the
troop had already proceeded towards Switzerland. We went forward in the
same track.
It is strange, after an interval of time, to look back on a period, which,
though short in itself, appeared, when in actual progress, to be drawn out
interminably. By the end of July we entered Dijon; by the end of July those
hours, days, and weeks had mingled with the ocean of forgotten time, which
in their passage teemed with fatal events and agonizing sorrow. By the end
of July, little more than a month had gone by, if man's life were measured
by the rising and setting of the sun: but, alas! in that interval ardent
youth had become grey-haired; furrows deep and uneraseable were trenched in
the blooming cheek of the young mother; the elastic limbs of early manhood,
paralyzed as by the burthen of years, assumed the decrepitude of age.
Nights passed, during whose fatal darkness the sun grew old before it rose;
and burning days, to cool whose baleful heat the balmy eve, lingering far
in eastern climes, came lagging and ineffectual; days, in which the dial,
radiant in its noon-day station, moved not its shadow the space of a little
hour, until a whole life of sorrow had brought the sufferer to an untimely
grave.
We departed from Versailles fifteen hundred souls. We set out on the
eighteenth of June. We made a long procession, in which was contained every
dear relationship, or tie of love, that existed in human society. Fathers
and husbands, with guardian care, gathered their dear relatives around
them; wives and mothers looked for support to the manly form beside them,
and then with tender anxiety bent their eyes on the infant troop around.
They were sad, but not hopeless. Each thought that someone would be saved;
each, with that pertinacious optimism, which to the last characterized our
human nature, trusted that their beloved family would be the one
preserved.
We passed through France, and found it empty of inhabitants. Some one or
two natives survived in the larger towns, which they roamed through like
ghosts; we received therefore small encrease to our numbers, and such
decrease through death, that at last it became easier to count the scanty
list of survivors. As we never deserted any of the sick, until their death
permitted us to commit their remains to the shelter of a grave, our journey
was long, while every day a frightful gap was made in our troop--they
died by tens, by fifties, by hundreds. No mercy was shewn by death; we
ceased to expect it, and every day welcomed the sun with the feeling that
we might never see it rise again.
The nervous terrors and fearful visions which had scared us during the
spring, continued to visit our coward troop during this sad journey. Every
evening brought its fresh creation of spectres; a ghost was depicted by
every blighted tree; and appalling shapes were manufactured from each
shaggy bush. By degrees these common marvels palled on us, and then other
wonders were called into being. Once it was confidently asserted, that the
sun rose an hour later than its seasonable time; again it was discovered
that he grew paler and paler; that shadows took an uncommon appearance. It
was impossible to have imagined, during the usual calm routine of life men
had before experienced, the terrible effects produced by these extravagant
delusions: in truth, of such little worth are our senses, when unsupported
by concurring testimony, that it was with the utmost difficulty I kept
myself free from the belief in supernatural events, to which the major part
of our people readily gave credit. Being one sane amidst a crowd of the
mad, I hardly dared assert to my own mind, that the vast luminary had
undergone no change--that the shadows of night were unthickened by
innumerable shapes of awe and terror; or that the wind, as it sung in the
trees, or whistled round an empty building, was not pregnant with sounds of
wailing and despair. Sometimes realities took ghostly shapes; and it was
impossible for one's blood not to curdle at the perception of an evident
mixture of what we knew to be true, with the visionary semblance of all
that we feared.
Once, at the dusk of the evening, we saw a figure all in white, apparently
of more than human stature, flourishing about the road, now throwing up its
arms, now leaping to an astonishing height in the air, then turning round
several times successively, then raising itself to its full height and
gesticulating violently. Our troop, on the alert to discover and believe in
the supernatural, made a halt at some distance from this shape; and, as it
became darker, there was something appalling even to the incredulous, in
the lonely spectre, whose gambols, if they hardly accorded with spiritual
dignity, were beyond human powers. Now it leapt right up in the air, now
sheer over a high hedge, and was again the moment after in the road before
us. By the time I came up, the fright experienced by the spectators of this
ghostly exhibition, began to manifest itself in the flight of some, and the
close huddling together of the rest. Our goblin now perceived us; he
approached, and, as we drew reverentially back, made a low bow. The sight
was irresistibly ludicrous even to our hapless band, and his politeness was
hailed by a shout of laughter;--then, again springing up, as a last
effort, it sunk to the ground, and became almost invisible through the
dusky night. This circumstance again spread silence and fear through the
troop; the more courageous at length advanced, and, raising the dying
wretch, discovered the tragic explanation of this wild scene. It was an
opera-dancer, and had been one of the troop which deserted from
Villeneuve-la-Guiard: falling sick, he had been deserted by his companions;
in an access of delirium he had fancied himself on the stage, and, poor
fellow, his dying sense eagerly accepted the last human applause that could
ever be bestowed on his grace and agility.
At another time we were haunted for several days by an apparition, to which
our people gave the appellation of the Black Spectre. We never saw it
except at evening, when his coal black steed, his mourning dress, and plume
of black feathers, had a majestic and awe-striking appearance; his face,
one said, who had seen it for a moment, was ashy pale; he had lingered far
behind the rest of his troop, and suddenly at a turn in the road, saw the
Black Spectre coming towards him; he hid himself in fear, and the horse and
his rider slowly past, while the moonbeams fell on the face of the latter,
displaying its unearthly hue. Sometimes at dead of night, as we watched the
sick, we heard one galloping through the town; it was the Black Spectre
come in token of inevitable death. He grew giant tall to vulgar eyes; an
icy atmosphere, they said, surrounded him; when he was heard, all animals
shuddered, and the dying knew that their last hour was come. It was Death
himself, they declared, come visibly to seize on subject earth, and quell
at once our decreasing numbers, sole rebels to his law. One day at noon, we
saw a dark mass on the road before us, and, coming up, beheld the Black
Spectre fallen from his horse, lying in the agonies of disease upon the
ground. He did not survive many hours; and his last words disclosed the
secret of his mysterious conduct. He was a French noble of distinction,
who, from the effects of plague, had been left alone in his district;
during many months, he had wandered from town to town, from province to
province, seeking some survivor for a companion, and abhorring the
loneliness to which he was condemned. When he discovered our troop, fear of
contagion conquered his love of society. He dared not join us, yet he could
not resolve to lose sight of us, sole human beings who besides himself
existed in wide and fertile France; so he accompanied us in the spectral
guise I have described, till pestilence gathered him to a larger
congregation, even that of Dead Mankind.
It had been well, if such vain terrors could have distracted our thoughts
from more tangible evils. But these were too dreadful and too many not to
force themselves into every thought, every moment, of our lives. We were
obliged to halt at different periods for days together, till another and
yet another was consigned as a clod to the vast clod which had been once
our living mother. Thus we continued travelling during the hottest season;
and it was not till the first of August, that we, the emigrants,--reader,
there were just eighty of us in number,--entered the gates of Dijon.
We had expected this moment with eagerness, for now we had accomplished the
worst part of our drear journey, and Switzerland was near at hand. Yet how
could we congratulate ourselves on any event thus imperfectly fulfilled?
Were these miserable beings, who, worn and wretched, passed in sorrowful
procession, the sole remnants of the race of man, which, like a flood, had
once spread over and possessed the whole earth? It had come down clear and
unimpeded from its primal mountain source in Ararat, and grew from a puny
streamlet to a vast perennial river, generation after generation flowing on
ceaselessly. The same, but diversified, it grew, and swept onwards towards
the absorbing ocean, whose dim shores we now reached. It had been the mere
plaything of nature, when first it crept out of uncreative void into light;
but thought brought forth power and knowledge; and, clad with these, the
race of man assumed dignity and authority. It was then no longer the mere
gardener of earth, or the shepherd of her flocks; "it carried with it an
imposing and majestic aspect; it had a pedigree and illustrious ancestors;
it had its gallery of portraits, its monumental inscriptions, its records
and titles."[1]
This was all over, now that the ocean of death had sucked in the slackening
tide, and its source was dried up. We first had bidden adieu to the state
of things which having existed many thousand years, seemed eternal; such a
state of government, obedience, traffic, and domestic intercourse, as had
moulded our hearts and capacities, as far back as memory could reach. Then
to patriotic zeal, to the arts, to reputation, to enduring fame, to the
name of country, we had bidden farewell. We saw depart all hope of
retrieving our ancient state--all expectation, except the feeble one of
saving our individual lives from the wreck of the past. To preserve these
we had quitted England--England, no more; for without her children, what
name could that barren island claim? With tenacious grasp we clung to such
rule and order as could best save us; trusting that, if a little colony
could be preserved, that would suffice at some remoter period to restore
the lost community of mankind.
But the game is up! We must all die; nor leave survivor nor heir to the
wide inheritance of earth. We must all die! The species of man must perish;
his frame of exquisite workmanship; the wondrous mechanism of his senses;
the noble proportion of his godlike limbs; his mind, the throned king of
these; must perish. Will the earth still keep her place among the planets;
will she still journey with unmarked regularity round the sun; will the
seasons change, the trees adorn themselves with leaves, and flowers shed
their fragrance, in solitude? Will the mountains remain unmoved, and
streams still keep a downward course towards the vast abyss; will the tides
rise and fall, and the winds fan universal nature; will beasts pasture,
birds fly, and fishes swim, when man, the lord, possessor, perceiver, and
recorder of all these things, has passed away, as though he had never been?
O, what mockery is this! Surely death is not death, and humanity is not
extinct; but merely passed into other shapes, unsubjected to our
perceptions. Death is a vast portal, an high road to life: let us hasten to
pass; let us exist no more in this living death, but die that we may live!
We had longed with inexpressible earnestness to reach Dijon, since we had
fixed on it, as a kind of station in our progress. But now we entered it
with a torpor more painful than acute suffering. We had come slowly but
irrevocably to the opinion, that our utmost efforts would not preserve one
human being alive. We took our hands therefore away from the long grasped
rudder; and the frail vessel on which we floated, seemed, the government
over her suspended, to rush, prow foremost, into the dark abyss of the
billows. A gush of grief, a wanton profusion of tears, and vain laments,
and overflowing tenderness, and passionate but fruitless clinging to the
priceless few that remained, was followed by languor and recklessness.
During this disastrous journey we lost all those, not of our own family, to
whom we had particularly attached ourselves among the survivors. It were
not well to fill these pages with a mere catalogue of losses; yet I cannot
refrain from this last mention of those principally dear to us. The little
girl whom Adrian had rescued from utter desertion, during our ride through
London on the twentieth of November, died at Auxerre. The poor child had
attached herself greatly to us; and the suddenness of her death added to
our sorrow. In the morning we had seen her apparently in health--in the
evening, Lucy, before we retired to rest, visited our quarters to say that
she was dead. Poor Lucy herself only survived, till we arrived at Dijon.
She had devoted herself throughout to the nursing the sick, and attending
the friendless. Her excessive exertions brought on a slow fever, which
ended in the dread disease whose approach soon released her from her
sufferings. She had throughout been endeared to us by her good qualities,
by her ready and cheerful execution of every duty, and mild acquiescence in
every turn of adversity. When we consigned her to the tomb, we seemed at
the same time to bid a final adieu to those peculiarly feminine virtues
conspicuous in her; uneducated and unpretending as she was, she was
distinguished for patience, forbearance, and sweetness. These, with all
their train of qualities peculiarly English, would never again be revived
for us. This type of all that was most worthy of admiration in her class
among my countrywomen, was placed under the sod of desert France; and it
was as a second separation from our country to have lost sight of her for
ever.
The Countess of Windsor died during our abode at Dijon. One morning I was
informed that she wished to see me. Her message made me remember, that
several days had elapsed since I had last seen her. Such a circumstance had
often occurred during our journey, when I remained behind to watch to their
close the last moments of some one of our hapless comrades, and the rest of
the troop past on before me. But there was something in the manner of her
messenger, that made me suspect that all was not right. A caprice of the
imagination caused me to conjecture that some ill had occurred to Clara or
Evelyn, rather than to this aged lady. Our fears, for ever on the stretch,
demanded a nourishment of horror; and it seemed too natural an occurrence,
too like past times, for the old to die before the young. I found the
venerable mother of my Idris lying on a couch, her tall emaciated figure
stretched out; her face fallen away, from which the nose stood out in sharp
profile, and her large dark eyes, hollow and deep, gleamed with such light
as may edge a thunder cloud at sun-set. All was shrivelled and dried up,
except these lights; her voice too was fearfully changed, as she spoke to
me at intervals. "I am afraid," said she, "that it is selfish in me to have
asked you to visit the old woman again, before she dies: yet perhaps it
would have been a greater shock to hear suddenly that I was dead, than to
see me first thus."
I clasped her shrivelled hand: "Are you indeed so ill?" I asked.
"Do you not perceive death in my face," replied she, "it is strange; I
ought to have expected this, and yet I confess it has taken me unaware. I
never clung to life, or enjoyed it, till these last months, while among
those I senselessly deserted: and it is hard to be snatched immediately
away. I am glad, however, that I am not a victim of the plague; probably I
should have died at this hour, though the world had continued as it was in
my youth."
She spoke with difficulty, and I perceived that she regretted the necessity
of death, even more than she cared to confess. Yet she had not to complain
of an undue shortening of existence; her faded person shewed that life had
naturally spent itself. We had been alone at first; now Clara entered; the
Countess turned to her with a smile, and took the hand of this lovely
child; her roseate palm and snowy fingers, contrasted with relaxed fibres
and yellow hue of those of her aged friend; she bent to kiss her, touching
her withered mouth with the warm, full lips of youth. "Verney," said the
Countess, "I need not recommend this dear girl to you, for your own sake
you will preserve her. Were the world as it was, I should have a thousand
sage precautions to impress, that one so sensitive, good, and beauteous,
might escape the dangers that used to lurk for the destruction of the fair
and excellent. This is all nothing now.
"I commit you, my kind nurse, to your uncle's care; to yours I entrust the
dearest relic of my better self. Be to Adrian, sweet one, what you have
been to me--enliven his sadness with your sprightly sallies; sooth his
anguish by your sober and inspired converse, when he is dying; nurse him as
you have done me."
Clara burst into tears; "Kind girl," said the Countess, "do not weep for
me. Many dear friends are left to you."
"And yet," cried Clara, "you talk of their dying also. This is indeed cruel
--how could I live, if they were gone? If it were possible for my beloved
protector to die before me, I could not nurse him; I could only die too."
The venerable lady survived this scene only twenty-four hours. She was the
last tie binding us to the ancient state of things. It was impossible to
look on her, and not call to mind in their wonted guise, events and
persons, as alien to our present situation as the disputes of Themistocles
and Aristides, or the wars of the two roses in our native land. The crown
of England had pressed her brow; the memory of my father and his
misfortunes, the vain struggles of the late king, the images of Raymond,
Evadne, and Perdita, who had lived in the world's prime, were brought
vividly before us. We consigned her to the oblivious tomb with reluctance;
and when I turned from her grave, Janus veiled his retrospective face; that
which gazed on future generations had long lost its faculty.
After remaining a week at Dijon, until thirty of our number deserted the
vacant ranks of life, we continued our way towards Geneva. At noon on the
second day we arrived at the foot of Jura. We halted here during the heat
of the day. Here fifty human beings--fifty, the only human beings that
survived of the food-teeming earth, assembled to read in the looks of each
other ghastly plague, or wasting sorrow, desperation, or worse,
carelessness of future or present evil. Here we assembled at the foot of
this mighty wall of mountain, under a spreading walnut tree; a brawling
stream refreshed the green sward by its sprinkling; and the busy
grasshopper chirped among the thyme. We clustered together a group of
wretched sufferers. A mother cradled in her enfeebled arms the child, last
of many, whose glazed eye was about to close for ever. Here beauty, late
glowing in youthful lustre and consciousness, now wan and neglected, knelt
fanning with uncertain motion the beloved, who lay striving to paint his
features, distorted by illness, with a thankful smile. There an
hard-featured, weather-worn veteran, having prepared his meal, sat, his
head dropped on his breast, the useless knife falling from his grasp, his
limbs utterly relaxed, as thought of wife and child, and dearest relative,
all lost, passed across his recollection. There sat a man who for forty
years had basked in fortune's tranquil sunshine; he held the hand of his
last hope, his beloved daughter, who had just attained womanhood; and he
gazed on her with anxious eyes, while she tried to rally her fainting
spirit to comfort him. Here a servant, faithful to the last, though dying,
waited on one, who, though still erect with health, gazed with gasping fear
on the variety of woe around.
Adrian stood leaning against a tree; he held a book in his hand, but his
eye wandered from the pages, and sought mine; they mingled a sympathetic
glance; his looks confessed that his thoughts had quitted the inanimate
print, for pages more pregnant with meaning, more absorbing, spread out
before him. By the margin of the stream, apart from all, in a tranquil
nook, where the purling brook kissed the green sward gently, Clara and
Evelyn were at play, sometimes beating the water with large boughs,
sometimes watching the summer-flies that sported upon it. Evelyn now chased
a butterfly--now gathered a flower for his cousin; and his laughing
cherub-face and clear brow told of the light heart that beat in his bosom.
Clara, though she endeavoured to give herself up to his amusement, often
forgot him, as she turned to observe Adrian and me. She was now fourteen,
and retained her childish appearance, though in height a woman; she acted
the part of the tenderest mother to my little orphan boy; to see her
playing with him, or attending silently and submissively on our wants, you
thought only of her admirable docility and patience; but, in her soft eyes,
and the veined curtains that veiled them, in the clearness of her marmoreal
brow, and the tender expression of her lips, there was an intelligence and
beauty that at once excited admiration and love.
When the sun had sunk towards the precipitate west, and the evening shadows
grew long, we prepared to ascend the mountain. The attention that we were
obliged to pay to the sick, made our progress slow. The winding road,
though steep, presented a confined view of rocky fields and hills, each
hiding the other, till our farther ascent disclosed them in succession. We
were seldom shaded from the declining sun, whose slant beams were instinct
with exhausting heat. There are times when minor difficulties grow gigantic
--times, when as the Hebrew poet expressively terms it, "the grasshopper
is a burthen;" so was it with our ill fated party this evening. Adrian,
usually the first to rally his spirits, and dash foremost into fatigue and
hardship, with relaxed limbs and declined head, the reins hanging loosely
in his grasp, left the choice of the path to the instinct of his horse, now
and then painfully rousing himself, when the steepness of the ascent
required that he should keep his seat with better care. Fear and horror
encompassed me. Did his languid air attest that he also was struck with
contagion? How long, when I look on this matchless specimen of mortality,
may I perceive that his thought answers mine? how long will those limbs
obey the kindly spirit within? how long will light and life dwell in the
eyes of this my sole remaining friend? Thus pacing slowly, each hill
surmounted, only presented another to be ascended; each jutting corner only
discovered another, sister to the last, endlessly. Sometimes the pressure
of sickness in one among us, caused the whole cavalcade to halt; the call
for water, the eagerly expressed wish to repose; the cry of pain, and
suppressed sob of the mourner--such were the sorrowful attendants of our
passage of the Jura.
Adrian had gone first. I saw him, while I was detained by the loosening of
a girth, struggling with the upward path, seemingly more difficult than any
we had yet passed. He reached the top, and the dark outline of his figure
stood in relief against the sky. He seemed to behold something unexpected
and wonderful; for, pausing, his head stretched out, his arms for a moment
extended, he seemed to give an All Hail! to some new vision. Urged by
curiosity, I hurried to join him. After battling for many tedious minutes
with the precipice, the same scene presented itself to me, which had wrapt
him in extatic wonder.
Nature, or nature's favourite, this lovely earth, presented her most
unrivalled beauties in resplendent and sudden exhibition. Below, far, far
below, even as it were in the yawning abyss of the ponderous globe, lay the
placid and azure expanse of lake Leman; vine-covered hills hedged it in,
and behind dark mountains in cone-like shape, or irregular cyclopean wall,
served for further defence. But beyond, and high above all, as if the
spirits of the air had suddenly unveiled their bright abodes, placed in
scaleless altitude in the stainless sky, heaven-kissing, companions of the
unattainable ether, were the glorious Alps, clothed in dazzling robes of
light by the setting sun. And, as if the world's wonders were never to be
exhausted, their vast immensities, their jagged crags, and roseate
painting, appeared again in the lake below, dipping their proud heights
beneath the unruffled waves--palaces for the Naiads of the placid waters.
Towns and villages lay scattered at the foot of Jura, which, with dark
ravine, and black promontories, stretched its roots into the watery expanse
beneath. Carried away by wonder, I forgot the death of man, and the living
and beloved friend near me. When I turned, I saw tears streaming from his
eyes; his thin hands pressed one against the other, his animated
countenance beaming with admiration; "Why," cried he, at last, "Why, oh
heart, whisperest thou of grief to me? Drink in the beauty of that scene,
and possess delight beyond what a fabled paradise could afford."
By degrees, our whole party surmounting the steep, joined us, not one among
them, but gave visible tokens of admiration, surpassing any before
experienced. One cried, "God reveals his heaven to us; we may die blessed."
Another and another, with broken exclamations, and extravagant phrases,
endeavoured to express the intoxicating effect of this wonder of nature. So
we remained awhile, lightened of the pressing burthen of fate, forgetful of
death, into whose night we were about to plunge; no longer reflecting that
our eyes now and for ever were and would be the only ones which might
perceive the divine magnificence of this terrestrial exhibition. An
enthusiastic transport, akin to happiness, burst, like a sudden ray from
the sun, on our darkened life. Precious attribute of woe-worn humanity!
that can snatch extatic emotion, even from under the very share and harrow,
that ruthlessly ploughs up and lays waste every hope.
This evening was marked by another event. Passing through Ferney in our way
to Geneva, unaccustomed sounds of music arose from the rural church which
stood embosomed in trees, surrounded by smokeless, vacant cottages. The
peal of an organ with rich swell awoke the mute air, lingering along, and
mingling with the intense beauty that clothed the rocks and woods, and
waves around. Music--the language of the immortals, disclosed to us as
testimony of their existence--music, "silver key of the fountain of
tears," child of love, soother of grief, inspirer of heroism and radiant
thoughts, O music, in this our desolation, we had forgotten thee! Nor pipe
at eve cheered us, nor harmony of voice, nor linked thrill of string; thou
camest upon us now, like the revealing of other forms of being; and
transported as we had been by the loveliness of nature, fancying that we
beheld the abode of spirits, now we might well imagine that we heard their
melodious communings. We paused in such awe as would seize on a pale
votarist, visiting some holy shrine at midnight; if she beheld animated and
smiling, the image which she worshipped. We all stood mute; many knelt. In
a few minutes however, we were recalled to human wonder and sympathy by a
familiar strain. The air was Haydn's "New-Created World," and, old and
drooping as humanity had become, the world yet fresh as at creation's day,
might still be worthily celebrated by such an hymn of praise. Adrian and I
entered the church; the nave was empty, though the smoke of incense rose
from the altar, bringing with it the recollection of vast congregations, in
once thronged cathedrals; we went into the loft. A blind old man sat at the
bellows; his whole soul was ear; and as he sat in the attitude of attentive
listening, a bright glow of pleasure was diffused over his countenance;
for, though his lack-lustre eye could not reflect the beam, yet his parted
lips, and every line of his face and venerable brow spoke delight. A young
woman sat at the keys, perhaps twenty years of age. Her auburn hair hung on
her neck, and her fair brow shone in its own beauty; but her drooping eyes
let fall fast-flowing tears, while the constraint she exercised to suppress
her sobs, and still her trembling, flushed her else pale cheek; she was
thin; languor, and alas! sickness, bent her form. We stood looking at the
pair, forgetting what we heard in the absorbing sight; till, the last chord
struck, the peal died away in lessening reverberations. The mighty voice,
inorganic we might call it, for we could in no way associate it with
mechanism of pipe or key, stilled its sonorous tone, and the girl, turning
to lend her assistance to her aged companion, at length perceived us.
It was her father; and she, since childhood, had been the guide of his
darkened steps. They were Germans from Saxony, and, emigrating thither but
a few years before, had formed new ties with the surrounding villagers.
About the time that the pestilence had broken out, a young German student
had joined them. Their simple history was easily divined. He, a noble,
loved the fair daughter of the poor musician, and followed them in their
flight from the persecutions of his friends; but soon the mighty leveller
came with unblunted scythe to mow, together with the grass, the tall
flowers of the field. The youth was an early victim. She preserved herself
for her father's sake. His blindness permitted her to continue a delusion,
at first the child of accident--and now solitary beings, sole survivors
in the land, he remained unacquainted with the change, nor was aware that
when he listened to his child's music, the mute mountains, senseless lake,
and unconscious trees, were, himself excepted, her sole auditors.
The very day that we arrived she had been attacked by symptomatic illness.
She was paralyzed with horror at the idea of leaving her aged, sightless
father alone on the empty earth; but she had not courage to disclose the
truth, and the very excess of her desperation animated her to surpassing
exertions. At the accustomed vesper hour, she led him to the chapel; and,
though trembling and weeping on his account, she played, without fault in
time, or error in note, the hymn written to celebrate the creation of the
adorned earth, soon to be her tomb.
We came to her like visitors from heaven itself; her high-wrought courage;
her hardly sustained firmness, fled with the appearance of relief. With a
shriek she rushed towards us, embraced the knees of Adrian, and uttering
but the words, "O save my father!" with sobs and hysterical cries, opened
the long-shut floodgates of her woe.
Poor girl!--she and her father now lie side by side, beneath the high
walnut-tree where her lover reposes, and which in her dying moments she had
pointed out to us. Her father, at length aware of his daughter's danger,
unable to see the changes of her dear countenance, obstinately held her
hand, till it was chilled and stiffened by death. Nor did he then move or
speak, till, twelve hours after, kindly death took him to his breakless
repose. They rest beneath the sod, the tree their monument;--the hallowed
spot is distinct in my memory, paled in by craggy Jura, and the far,
immeasurable Alps; the spire of the church they frequented still points
from out the embosoming trees; and though her hand be cold, still methinks
the sounds of divine music which they loved wander about, solacing their
gentle ghosts.
[1] Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution.
CHAPTER VIII.
WE had now reached Switzerland, so long the final mark and aim of our
exertions. We had looked, I know not wherefore, with hope and pleasing
expectation on her congregation of hills and snowy crags, and opened our
bosoms with renewed spirits to the icy Biz, which even at Midsummer used to
come from the northern glacier laden with cold. Yet how could we nourish
expectation of relief? Like our native England, and the vast extent of
fertile France, this mountain-embowered land was desolate of its
inhabitants. Nor bleak mountain-top, nor snow-nourished rivulet; not the
ice-laden Biz, nor thunder, the tamer of contagion, had preserved them--
why therefore should we claim exemption?
Who was there indeed to save? What troop had we brought fit to stand at
bay, and combat with the conqueror? We were a failing remnant, tamed to
mere submission to the coming blow. A train half dead, through fear of
death--a hopeless, unresisting, almost reckless crew, which, in the
tossed bark of life, had given up all pilotage, and resigned themselves to
the destructive force of ungoverned winds. Like a few furrows of unreaped
corn, which, left standing on a wide field after the rest is gathered to
the garner, are swiftly borne down by the winter storm. Like a few
straggling swallows, which, remaining after their fellows had, on the first
unkind breath of passing autumn, migrated to genial climes, were struck to
earth by the first frost of November. Like a stray sheep that wanders over
the sleet-beaten hill-side, while the flock is in the pen, and dies before
morning-dawn. Like a cloud, like one of many that were spread in
impenetrable woof over the sky, which, when the shepherd north has driven
its companions "to drink Antipodean noon," fades and dissolves in the clear
ether--Such were we!
We left the fair margin of the beauteous lake of Geneva, and entered the
Alpine ravines; tracing to its source the brawling Arve, through the
rock-bound valley of Servox, beside the mighty waterfalls, and under the
shadow of the inaccessible mountains, we travelled on; while the luxuriant
walnut-tree gave place to the dark pine, whose musical branches swung in
the wind, and whose upright forms had braved a thousand storms--till the
verdant sod, the flowery dell, and shrubbery hill were exchanged for the
sky-piercing, untrodden, seedless rock, "the bones of the world, waiting to
be clothed with every thing necessary to give life and beauty."[1] Strange
that we should seek shelter here! Surely, if, in those countries where
earth was wont, like a tender mother, to nourish her children, we had found
her a destroyer, we need not seek it here, where stricken by keen penury
she seems to shudder through her stony veins. Nor were we mistaken in our
conjecture. We vainly sought the vast and ever moving glaciers of
Chamounix, rifts of pendant ice, seas of congelated waters, the leafless
groves of tempest-battered pines, dells, mere paths for the loud avalanche,
and hill-tops, the resort of thunder-storms. Pestilence reigned paramount
even here. By the time that day and night, like twin sisters of equal
growth, shared equally their dominion over the hours, one by one, beneath
the ice-caves, beside the waters springing from the thawed snows of a
thousand winters, another and yet another of the remnant of the race of
Man, closed their eyes for ever to the light.
Yet we were not quite wrong in seeking a scene like this, whereon to close
the drama. Nature, true to the last, consoled us in the very heart of
misery. Sublime grandeur of outward objects soothed our hapless hearts, and
were in harmony with our desolation. Many sorrows have befallen man during
his chequered course; and many a woe-stricken mourner has found himself
sole survivor among many. Our misery took its majestic shape and colouring
from the vast ruin, that accompanied and made one with it. Thus on lovely
earth, many a dark ravine contains a brawling stream, shadowed by romantic
rocks, threaded by mossy paths--but all, except this, wanted the mighty
back-ground, the towering Alps, whose snowy capes, or bared ridges, lifted
us from our dull mortal abode, to the palaces of Nature's own.
This solemn harmony of event and situation regulated our feelings, and gave
as it were fitting costume to our last act. Majestic gloom and tragic pomp
attended the decease of wretched humanity. The funeral procession of
monarchs of old, was transcended by our splendid shews. Near the sources of
the Arveiron we performed the rites for, four only excepted, the last of
the species. Adrian and I, leaving Clara and Evelyn wrapt in peaceful
unobserving slumber, carried the body to this desolate spot, and placed it
in those caves of ice beneath the glacier, which rive and split with the
slightest sound, and bring destruction on those within the clefts--no
bird or beast of prey could here profane the frozen form. So, with hushed
steps and in silence, we placed the dead on a bier of ice, and then,
departing, stood on the rocky platform beside the river springs. All hushed
as we had been, the very striking of the air with our persons had sufficed
to disturb the repose of this thawless region; and we had hardly left the
cavern, before vast blocks of ice, detaching themselves from the roof,
fell, and covered the human image we had deposited within. We had chosen a
fair moonlight night, but our journey thither had been long, and the
crescent sank behind the western heights by the time we had accomplished
our purpose. The snowy mountains and blue glaciers shone in their own
light. The rugged and abrupt ravine, which formed one side of Mont Anvert,
was opposite to us, the glacier at our side; at our feet Arveiron, white
and foaming, dashed over the pointed rocks that jutted into it, and, with
whirring spray and ceaseless roar, disturbed the stilly night. Yellow
lightnings played around the vast dome of Mont Blanc, silent as the
snow-clad rock they illuminated; all was bare, wild, and sublime, while the
singing of the pines in melodious murmurings added a gentle interest to the
rough magnificence. Now the riving and fall of icy rocks clave the air; now
the thunder of the avalanche burst on our ears. In countries whose features
are of less magnitude, nature betrays her living powers in the foliage of
the trees, in the growth of herbage, in the soft purling of meandering
streams; here, endowed with giant attributes, the torrent, the
thunder-storm, and the flow of massive waters, display her activity. Such
the church-yard, such the requiem, such the eternal congregation, that
waited on our companion's funeral!
Nor was it the human form alone which we had placed in this eternal
sepulchre, whose obsequies we now celebrated. With this last victim Plague
vanished from the earth. Death had never wanted weapons wherewith to
destroy life, and we, few and weak as we had become, were still exposed to
every other shaft with which his full quiver teemed. But pestilence was
absent from among them. For seven years it had had full sway upon earth;
she had trod every nook of our spacious globe; she had mingled with the
atmosphere, which as a cloak enwraps all our fellow-creatures--the
inhabitants of native Europe--the luxurious Asiatic--the swarthy
African and free American had been vanquished and destroyed by her. Her
barbarous tyranny came to its close here in the rocky vale of Chamounix.
Still recurring scenes of misery and pain, the fruits of this distemper,
made no more a part of our lives--the word plague no longer rung in our
ears--the aspect of plague incarnate in the human countenance no longer
appeared before our eyes. From this moment I saw plague no more. She
abdicated her throne, and despoiled herself of her imperial sceptre among
the ice rocks that surrounded us. She left solitude and silence co-heirs of
her kingdom.
My present feelings are so mingled with the past, that I cannot say whether
the knowledge of this change visited us, as we stood on this sterile spot.
It seems to me that it did; that a cloud seemed to pass from over us, that
a weight was taken from the air; that henceforth we breathed more freely,
and raised our heads with some portion of former liberty. Yet we did not
hope. We were impressed by the sentiment, that our race was run, but that
plague would not be our destroyer. The coming time was as a mighty river,
down which a charmed boat is driven, whose mortal steersman knows, that the
obvious peril is not the one he needs fear, yet that danger is nigh; and
who floats awe-struck under beetling precipices, through the dark
and turbid waters--seeing in the distance yet stranger and ruder
shapes, towards which he is irresistibly impelled. What would
become of us? O for some Delphic oracle, or Pythian maid, to utter
the secrets of futurity! O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle of
the cruel Sphynx! Such Oedipus was I to be--not divining a word's juggle,
but whose agonizing pangs, and sorrow-tainted life were to be the engines,
wherewith to lay bare the secrets of destiny, and reveal the meaning of the
enigma, whose explanation closed the history of the human race.
Dim fancies, akin to these, haunted our minds, and instilled feelings not
unallied to pleasure, as we stood beside this silent tomb of nature, reared
by these lifeless mountains, above her living veins, choking her vital
principle. "Thus are we left," said Adrian, "two melancholy blasted trees,
where once a forest waved. We are left to mourn, and pine, and die. Yet
even now we have our duties, which we must string ourselves to fulfil: the
duty of bestowing pleasure where we can, and by force of love, irradiating
with rainbow hues the tempest of grief. Nor will I repine if in this
extremity we preserve what we now possess. Something tells me, Verney, that
we need no longer dread our cruel enemy, and I cling with delight to the
oracular voice. Though strange, it will be sweet to mark the growth of your
little boy, and the development of Clara's young heart. In the midst of a
desert world, we are everything to them; and, if we live, it must be our
task to make this new mode of life happy to them. At present this is easy,
for their childish ideas do not wander into futurity, and the stinging
craving for sympathy, and all of love of which our nature is susceptible,
is not yet awake within them: we cannot guess what will happen then, when
nature asserts her indefeasible and sacred powers; but, long before that
time, we may all be cold, as he who lies in yonder tomb of ice. We need
only provide for the present, and endeavour to fill with pleasant images
the inexperienced fancy of your lovely niece. The scenes which now surround
us, vast and sublime as they are, are not such as can best contribute to
this work. Nature is here like our fortunes, grand, but too destructive,
bare, and rude, to be able to afford delight to her young imagination. Let
us descend to the sunny plains of Italy. Winter will soon be here, to
clothe this wilderness in double desolation; but we will cross the bleak
hill-tops, and lead her to scenes of fertility and beauty, where her path
will be adorned with flowers, and the cheery atmosphere inspire pleasure
and hope."
In pursuance of this plan we quitted Chamounix on the following day. We had
no cause to hasten our steps; no event was transacted beyond our actual
sphere to enchain our resolves, so we yielded to every idle whim, and
deemed our time well spent, when we could behold the passage of the hours
without dismay. We loitered along the lovely Vale of Servox; passed long
hours on the bridge, which, crossing the ravine of Arve, commands a
prospect of its pine-clothed depths, and the snowy mountains that wall it
in. We rambled through romantic Switzerland; till, fear of coming winter
leading us forward, the first days of October found us in the valley of La
Maurienne, which leads to Cenis. I cannot explain the reluctance we felt at
leaving this land of mountains; perhaps it was, that we regarded the Alps
as boundaries between our former and our future state of existence, and so
clung fondly to what of old we had loved. Perhaps, because we had now so
few impulses urging to a choice between two modes of action, we were
pleased to preserve the existence of one, and preferred the prospect of
what we were to do, to the recollection of what had been done. We felt that
for this year danger was past; and we believed that, for some months, we
were secured to each other. There was a thrilling, agonizing delight in the
thought--it filled the eyes with misty tears, it tore the heart with
tumultuous heavings; frailer than the "snow fall in the river," were we
each and all--but we strove to give life and individuality to the
meteoric course of our several existences, and to feel that no moment
escaped us unenjoyed. Thus tottering on the dizzy brink, we were happy.
Yes! as we sat beneath the toppling rocks, beside the waterfalls, near
--Forests, ancient as the hills,
And folding sunny spots of greenery, where the chamois grazed, and the
timid squirrel laid up its hoard--descanting on the charms of nature,
drinking in the while her unalienable beauties--we were, in an empty
world, happy.
Yet, O days of joy--days, when eye spoke to eye, and voices, sweeter than
the music of the swinging branches of the pines, or rivulet's gentle
murmur, answered mine--yet, O days replete with beatitude, days of loved
society--days unutterably dear to me forlorn--pass, O pass before me,
making me in your memory forget what I am. Behold, how my streaming eyes
blot this senseless paper--behold, how my features are convulsed by
agonizing throes, at your mere recollection, now that, alone, my tears
flow, my lips quiver, my cries fill the air, unseen, unmarked, unheard!
Yet, O yet, days of delight! let me dwell on your long-drawn hours!
As the cold increased upon us, we passed the Alps, and descended into
Italy. At the uprising of morn, we sat at our repast, and cheated our
regrets by gay sallies or learned disquisitions. The live-long day we
sauntered on, still keeping in view the end of our journey, but careless of
the hour of its completion. As the evening star shone out, and the orange
sunset, far in the west, marked the position of the dear land we had for
ever left, talk, thought enchaining, made the hours fly--O that we had
lived thus for ever and for ever! Of what consequence was it to our four
hearts, that they alone were the fountains of life in the wide world? As
far as mere individual sentiment was concerned, we had rather be left thus
united together, than if, each alone in a populous desert of unknown men,
we had wandered truly companionless till life's last term. In this manner,
we endeavoured to console each other; in this manner, true philosophy
taught us to reason.
It was the delight of Adrian and myself to wait on Clara, naming her the
little queen of the world, ourselves her humblest servitors. When we
arrived at a town, our first care was to select for her its most choice
abode; to make sure that no harrowing relic remained of its former
inhabitants; to seek food for her, and minister to her wants with assiduous
tenderness. Clara entered into our scheme with childish gaiety. Her chief
business was to attend on Evelyn; but it was her sport to array herself in
splendid robes, adorn herself with sunny gems, and ape a princely state.
Her religion, deep and pure, did not teach her to refuse to blunt thus the
keen sting of regret; her youthful vivacity made her enter, heart and soul,
into these strange masquerades.
We had resolved to pass the ensuing winter at Milan, which, as being a
large and luxurious city, would afford us choice of homes. We had descended
the Alps, and left far behind their vast forests and mighty crags. We
entered smiling Italy. Mingled grass and corn grew in her plains, the
unpruned vines threw their luxuriant branches around the elms. The grapes,
overripe, had fallen on the ground, or hung purple, or burnished green,
among the red and yellow leaves. The ears of standing corn winnowed to
emptiness by the spendthrift winds; the fallen foliage of the trees, the
weed-grown brooks, the dusky olive, now spotted with its blackened fruit;
the chestnuts, to which the squirrel only was harvest-man; all plenty, and
yet, alas! all poverty, painted in wondrous hues and fantastic groupings
this land of beauty. In the towns, in the voiceless towns, we visited the
churches, adorned by pictures, master-pieces of art, or galleries of
statues--while in this genial clime the animals, in new found liberty,
rambled through the gorgeous palaces, and hardly feared our forgotten
aspect. The dove-coloured oxen turned their full eyes on us, and paced
slowly by; a startling throng of silly sheep, with pattering feet, would
start up in some chamber, formerly dedicated to the repose of beauty, and
rush, huddling past us, down the marble staircase into the street, and
again in at the first open door, taking unrebuked possession of hallowed
sanctuary, or kingly council-chamber. We no longer started at these
occurrences, nor at worse exhibition of change--when the palace had
become a mere tomb, pregnant with fetid stench, strewn with the dead; and
we could perceive how pestilence and fear had played strange antics,
chasing the luxurious dame to the dank fields and bare cottage; gathering,
among carpets of Indian woof, and beds of silk, the rough peasant, or the
deformed half-human shape of the wretched beggar.
We arrived at Milan, and stationed ourselves in the Vice-Roy's palace. Here
we made laws for ourselves, dividing our day, and fixing distinct
occupations for each hour. In the morning we rode in the adjoining country,
or wandered through the palaces, in search of pictures or antiquities. In
the evening we assembled to read or to converse. There were few books that
we dared read; few, that did not cruelly deface the painting we bestowed on
our solitude, by recalling combinations and emotions never more to be
experienced by us. Metaphysical disquisition; fiction, which wandering from
all reality, lost itself in self-created errors; poets of times so far gone
by, that to read of them was as to read of Atlantis and Utopia; or such as
referred to nature only, and the workings of one particular mind; but most
of all, talk, varied and ever new, beguiled our hours.
While we paused thus in our onward career towards death, time held on its
accustomed course. Still and for ever did the earth roll on, enthroned in
her atmospheric car, speeded by the force of the invisible coursers of
never-erring necessity. And now, this dew-drop in the sky, this ball,
ponderous with mountains, lucent with waves, passing from the short tyranny
of watery Pisces and the frigid Ram, entered the radiant demesne of Taurus
and the Twins. There, fanned by vernal airs, the Spirit of Beauty sprung
from her cold repose; and, with winnowing wings and soft pacing feet, set a
girdle of verdure around the earth, sporting among the violets, hiding
within the springing foliage of the trees, tripping lightly down the
radiant streams into the sunny deep. "For lo! winter is past, the rain is
over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of
birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig
tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the tender grape,
give a good smell."[2] Thus was it in the time of the ancient regal poet;
thus was it now.
Yet how could we miserable hail the approach of this delightful season? We
hoped indeed that death did not now as heretofore walk in its shadow; yet,
left as we were alone to each other, we looked in each other's faces with
enquiring eyes, not daring altogether to trust to our presentiments, and
endeavouring to divine which would be the hapless survivor to the other
three. We were to pass the summer at the lake of Como, and thither we
removed as soon as spring grew to her maturity, and the snow disappeared
from the hill tops. Ten miles from Como, under the steep heights of the
eastern mountains, by the margin of the lake, was a villa called the
Pliniana, from its being built on the site of a fountain, whose periodical
ebb and flow is described by the younger Pliny in his letters. The house
had nearly fallen into ruin, till in the year 2090, an English nobleman had
bought it, and fitted it up with every luxury. Two large halls, hung with
splendid tapestry, and paved with marble, opened on each side of a court,
of whose two other sides one overlooked the deep dark lake, and the other
was bounded by a mountain, from whose stony side gushed, with roar and
splash, the celebrated fountain. Above, underwood of myrtle and tufts of
odorous plants crowned the rock, while the star-pointing giant cypresses
reared themselves in the blue air, and the recesses of the hills were
adorned with the luxuriant growth of chestnut-trees. Here we fixed our
summer residence. We had a lovely skiff, in which we sailed, now stemming
the midmost waves, now coasting the over-hanging and craggy banks, thick
sown with evergreens, which dipped their shining leaves in the waters, and
were mirrored in many a little bay and creek of waters of translucent
darkness. Here orange plants bloomed, here birds poured forth melodious
hymns; and here, during spring, the cold snake emerged from the clefts, and
basked on the sunny terraces of rock.
Were we not happy in this paradisiacal retreat? If some kind spirit had
whispered forgetfulness to us, methinks we should have been happy here,
where the precipitous mountains, nearly pathless, shut from our view the
far fields of desolate earth, and with small exertion of the imagination,
we might fancy that the cities were still resonant with popular hum, and
the peasant still guided his plough through the furrow, and that we, the
world's free denizens, enjoyed a voluntary exile, and not a remediless
cutting off from our extinct species.
Not one among us enjoyed the beauty of this scenery so much as Clara.
Before we quitted Milan, a change had taken place in her habits and
manners. She lost her gaiety, she laid aside her sports, and assumed an
almost vestal plainness of attire. She shunned us, retiring with Evelyn to
some distant chamber or silent nook; nor did she enter into his pastimes
with the same zest as she was wont, but would sit and watch him with sadly
tender smiles, and eyes bright with tears, yet without a word of complaint.
She approached us timidly, avoided our caresses, nor shook off her
embarrassment till some serious discussion or lofty theme called her for
awhile out of herself. Her beauty grew as a rose, which, opening to the
summer wind, discloses leaf after leaf till the sense aches with its excess
of loveliness. A slight and variable colour tinged her cheeks, and her
motions seemed attuned by some hidden harmony of surpassing sweetness. We
redoubled our tenderness and earnest attentions. She received them with
grateful smiles, that fled swift as sunny beam from a glittering wave on an
April day.
Our only acknowledged point of sympathy with her, appeared to be Evelyn.
This dear little fellow was a comforter and delight to us beyond all words.
His buoyant spirit, and his innocent ignorance of our vast calamity, were
balm to us, whose thoughts and feelings were over-wrought and spun out in
the immensity of speculative sorrow. To cherish, to caress, to amuse him
was the common task of all. Clara, who felt towards him in some degree like
a young mother, gratefully acknowledged our kindness towards him. To me, O!
to me, who saw the clear brows and soft eyes of the beloved of my heart, my
lost and ever dear Idris, re-born in his gentle face, to me he was dear
even to pain; if I pressed him to my heart, methought I clasped a real and
living part of her, who had lain there through long years of youthful
happiness.
It was the custom of Adrian and myself to go out each day in our skiff to
forage in the adjacent country. In these expeditions we were seldom
accompanied by Clara or her little charge, but our return was an hour of
hilarity. Evelyn ransacked our stores with childish eagerness, and we
always brought some new found gift for our fair companion. Then too we made
discoveries of lovely scenes or gay palaces, whither in the evening we all
proceeded. Our sailing expeditions were most divine, and with a fair wind
or transverse course we cut the liquid waves; and, if talk failed under the
pressure of thought, I had my clarionet with me, which awoke the echoes,
and gave the change to our careful minds. Clara at such times often
returned to her former habits of free converse and gay sally; and though
our four hearts alone beat in the world, those four hearts were happy.
One day, on our return from the town of Como, with a laden boat, we
expected as usual to be met at the port by Clara and Evelyn, and we were
somewhat surprised to see the beach vacant. I, as my nature prompted, would
not prognosticate evil, but explained it away as a mere casual incident.
Not so Adrian. He was seized with sudden trembling and apprehension, and he
called to me with vehemence to steer quickly for land, and, when near,
leapt from the boat, half falling into the water; and, scrambling up the
steep bank, hastened along the narrow strip of garden, the only level space
between the lake and the mountain. I followed without delay; the garden and
inner court were empty, so was the house, whose every room we visited.
Adrian called loudly upon Clara's name, and was about to rush up the near
mountain-path, when the door of a summer-house at the end of the garden
slowly opened, and Clara appeared, not advancing towards us, but leaning
against a column of the building with blanched cheeks, in a posture of
utter despondency. Adrian sprang towards her with a cry of joy, and folded
her delightedly in his arms. She withdrew from his embrace, and, without a
word, again entered the summer-house. Her quivering lips, her despairing
heart refused to afford her voice to express our misfortune. Poor little
Evelyn had, while playing with her, been seized with sudden fever, and now
lay torpid and speechless on a little couch in the summer-house.
For a whole fortnight we unceasingly watched beside the poor child, as his
life declined under the ravages of a virulent typhus. His little form and
tiny lineaments encaged the embryo of the world-spanning mind of man. Man's
nature, brimful of passions and affections, would have had an home in that
little heart, whose swift pulsations hurried towards their close. His small
hand's fine mechanism, now flaccid and unbent, would in the growth of sinew
and muscle, have achieved works of beauty or of strength. His tender rosy
feet would have trod in firm manhood the bowers and glades of earth--
these reflections were now of little use: he lay, thought and strength
suspended, waiting unresisting the final blow.
We watched at his bedside, and when the access of fever was on him, we
neither spoke nor looked at each other, marking only his obstructed breath
and the mortal glow that tinged his sunken cheek, the heavy death that
weighed on his eyelids. It is a trite evasion to say, that words could not
express our long drawn agony; yet how can words image sensations, whose
tormenting keenness throw us back, as it were, on the deep roots and hidden
foundations of our nature, which shake our being with earth-quake-throe, so
that we leave to confide in accustomed feelings which like mother-earth
support us, and cling to some vain imagination or deceitful hope, which
will soon be buried in the ruins occasioned by the final shock. I have
called that period a fortnight, which we passed watching the changes of the
sweet child's malady--and such it might have been--at night, we
wondered to find another day gone, while each particular hour seemed
endless. Day and night were exchanged for one another uncounted; we slept
hardly at all, nor did we even quit his room, except when a pang of grief
seized us, and we retired from each other for a short period to conceal our
sobs and tears. We endeavoured in vain to abstract Clara from this
deplorable scene. She sat, hour after hour, looking at him, now softly
arranging his pillow, and, while he had power to swallow, administered his
drink. At length the moment of his death came: the blood paused in its flow
--his eyes opened, and then closed again: without convulsion or sigh, the
frail tenement was left vacant of its spiritual inhabitant.
I have heard that the sight of the dead has confirmed materialists in their
belief. I ever felt otherwise. Was that my child--that moveless decaying
inanimation? My child was enraptured by my caresses; his dear voice
cloathed with meaning articulations his thoughts, otherwise inaccessible;
his smile was a ray of the soul, and the same soul sat upon its throne in
his eyes. I turn from this mockery of what he was. Take, O earth, thy debt!
freely and for ever I consign to thee the garb thou didst afford. But thou,
sweet child, amiable and beloved boy, either thy spirit has sought a fitter
dwelling, or, shrined in my heart, thou livest while it lives.
We placed his remains under a cypress, the upright mountain being scooped
out to receive them. And then Clara said, "If you wish me to live, take me
from hence. There is something in this scene of transcendent beauty, in
these trees, and hills and waves, that for ever whisper to me, leave thy
cumbrous flesh, and make a part of us. I earnestly entreat you to take me
away."
So on the fifteenth of August we bade adieu to our villa, and the
embowering shades of this abode of beauty; to calm bay and noisy waterfall;
to Evelyn's little grave we bade farewell! and then, with heavy hearts, we
departed on our pilgrimage towards Rome.
[1] Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters from Norway.
[2] Solomon's Song.
CHAPTER IX.
NOW--soft awhile--have I arrived so near the end? Yes! it is all over
now--a step or two over those new made graves, and the wearisome way is
done. Can I accomplish my task? Can I streak my paper with words capacious
of the grand conclusion? Arise, black Melancholy! quit thy Cimmerian
solitude! Bring with thee murky fogs from hell, which may drink up the day;
bring blight and pestiferous exhalations, which, entering the hollow
caverns and breathing places of earth, may fill her stony veins with
corruption, so that not only herbage may no longer flourish, the trees may
rot, and the rivers run with gall--but the everlasting mountains be
decomposed, and the mighty deep putrify, and the genial atmosphere which
clips the globe, lose all powers of generation and sustenance. Do this, sad
visaged power, while I write, while eyes read these pages.
And who will read them? Beware, tender offspring of the re-born world--
beware, fair being, with human heart, yet untamed by care, and human brow,
yet unploughed by time--beware, lest the cheerful current of thy blood be
checked, thy golden locks turn grey, thy sweet dimpling smiles be changed
to fixed, harsh wrinkles! Let not day look on these lines, lest garish day
waste, turn pale, and die. Seek a cypress grove, whose moaning boughs will
be harmony befitting; seek some cave, deep embowered in earth's dark
entrails, where no light will penetrate, save that which struggles, red and
flickering, through a single fissure, staining thy page with grimmest
livery of death.
There is a painful confusion in my brain, which refuses to delineate
distinctly succeeding events. Sometimes the irradiation of my friend's
gentle smile comes before me; and methinks its light spans and fills
eternity--then, again, I feel the gasping throes--
We quitted Como, and in compliance with Adrian's earnest desire, we took
Venice in our way to Rome. There was something to the English peculiarly
attractive in the idea of this wave-encircled, island-enthroned city.
Adrian had never seen it. We went down the Po and the Brenta in a boat;
and, the days proving intolerably hot, we rested in the bordering palaces
during the day, travelling through the night, when darkness made the
bordering banks indistinct, and our solitude less remarkable; when the
wandering moon lit the waves that divided before our prow, and the
night-wind filled our sails, and the murmuring stream, waving trees, and
swelling canvass, accorded in harmonious strain. Clara, long overcome by
excessive grief, had to a great degree cast aside her timid, cold reserve,
and received our attentions with grateful tenderness. While Adrian with
poetic fervour discoursed of the glorious nations of the dead, of the
beauteous earth and the fate of man, she crept near him, drinking in his
speech with silent pleasure. We banished from our talk, and as much as
possible from our thoughts, the knowledge of our desolation. And it would
be incredible to an inhabitant of cities, to one among a busy throng, to
what extent we succeeded. It was as a man confined in a dungeon, whose
small and grated rift at first renders the doubtful light more sensibly
obscure, till, the visual orb having drunk in the beam, and adapted itself
to its scantiness, he finds that clear noon inhabits his cell. So we, a
simple triad on empty earth, were multiplied to each other, till we became
all in all. We stood like trees, whose roots are loosened by the wind,
which support one another, leaning and clinging with encreased fervour
while the wintry storms howl. Thus we floated down the widening stream of
the Po, sleeping when the cicale sang, awake with the stars. We entered the
narrower banks of the Brenta, and arrived at the shore of the Laguna at
sunrise on the sixth of September. The bright orb slowly rose from behind
its cupolas and towers, and shed its penetrating light upon the glassy
waters. Wrecks of gondolas, and some few uninjured ones, were strewed on
the beach at Fusina. We embarked in one of these for the widowed daughter
of ocean, who, abandoned and fallen, sat forlorn on her propping isles,
looking towards the far mountains of Greece. We rowed lightly over the
Laguna, and entered Canale Grande. The tide ebbed sullenly from out the
broken portals and violated halls of Venice: sea weed and sea monsters were
left on the blackened marble, while the salt ooze defaced the matchless
works of art that adorned their walls, and the sea gull flew out from the
shattered window. In the midst of this appalling ruin of the monuments of
man's power, nature asserted her ascendancy, and shone more beauteous from
the contrast. The radiant waters hardly trembled, while the rippling waves
made many sided mirrors to the sun; the blue immensity, seen beyond Lido,
stretched far, unspecked by boat, so tranquil, so lovely, that it seemed to
invite us to quit the land strewn with ruins, and to seek refuge from
sorrow and fear on its placid extent.
We saw the ruins of this hapless city from the height of the tower of San
Marco, immediately under us, and turned with sickening hearts to the sea,
which, though it be a grave, rears no monument, discloses no ruin. Evening
had come apace. The sun set in calm majesty behind the misty summits of the
Apennines, and its golden and roseate hues painted the mountains of the
opposite shore. "That land," said Adrian, "tinged with the last glories of
the day, is Greece." Greece! The sound had a responsive chord in the bosom
of Clara. She vehemently reminded us that we had promised to take her once
again to Greece, to the tomb of her parents. Why go to Rome? what should we
do at Rome? We might take one of the many vessels to be found here, embark
in it, and steer right for Albania.
I objected the dangers of ocean, and the distance of the mountains we saw,
from Athens; a distance which, from the savage uncultivation of the
country, was almost impassable. Adrian, who was delighted with Clara's
proposal, obviated these objections. The season was favourable; the
north-west that blew would take us transversely across the gulph; and then
we might find, in some abandoned port, a light Greek caique, adapted for
such navigation, and run down the coast of the Morea, and, passing over the
Isthmus of Corinth, without much land-travelling or fatigue, find ourselves
at Athens. This appeared to me wild talk; but the sea, glowing with a
thousand purple hues, looked so brilliant and safe; my beloved companions
were so earnest, so determined, that, when Adrian said, "Well, though it is
not exactly what you wish, yet consent, to please me"--I could no longer
refuse. That evening we selected a vessel, whose size just seemed fitted
for our enterprize; we bent the sails and put the rigging in order, and
reposing that night in one of the city's thousand palaces, agreed to embark
at sunrise the following morning.
When winds that move not its calm surface, sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind--
Thus said Adrian, quoting a translation of Moschus's poem, as in the clear
morning light, we rowed over the Laguna, past Lido, into the open sea--I
would have added in continuation,
But when the roar
Of ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst--
But my friends declared that such verses were evil augury;
so in cheerful mood we left the shallow waters, and, when
out at sea, unfurled our sails to catch the favourable breeze.
The laughing morning air filled them, while sun-light bathed earth, sky and
ocean--the placid waves divided to receive our keel, and playfully kissed
the dark sides of our little skiff, murmuring a welcome; as land receded,
still the blue expanse, most waveless, twin sister to the azure empyrean,
afforded smooth conduct to our bark. As the air and waters were tranquil
and balmy, so were our minds steeped in quiet. In comparison with the
unstained deep, funereal earth appeared a grave, its high rocks and stately
mountains were but monuments, its trees the plumes of a herse, the brooks
and rivers brackish with tears for departed man. Farewell to desolate towns
--to fields with their savage intermixture of corn and weeds--to ever
multiplying relics of our lost species. Ocean, we commit ourselves to thee
--even as the patriarch of old floated above the drowned world, let us be
saved, as thus we betake ourselves to thy perennial flood.
Adrian sat at the helm; I attended to the rigging, the breeze right aft
filled our swelling canvas, and we ran before it over the untroubled deep.
The wind died away at noon; its idle breath just permitted us to hold our
course. As lazy, fair-weather sailors, careless of the coming hour, we
talked gaily of our coasting voyage, of our arrival at Athens. We would
make our home of one of the Cyclades, and there in myrtle-groves, amidst
perpetual spring, fanned by the wholesome sea-breezes--we would live long
years in beatific union--Was there such a thing as death in the world?--
The sun passed its zenith, and lingered down the stainless floor of heaven.
Lying in the boat, my face turned up to the sky, I thought I saw on its
blue white, marbled streaks, so slight, so immaterial, that now I said--
They are there--and now, It is a mere imagination. A sudden fear stung me
while I gazed; and, starting up, and running to the prow,--as I stood, my
hair was gently lifted on my brow--a dark line of ripples appeared to the
east, gaining rapidly on us--my breathless remark to Adrian, was followed
by the flapping of the canvas, as the adverse wind struck it, and our boat
lurched--swift as speech, the web of the storm thickened over head, the
sun went down red, the dark sea was strewed with foam, and our skiff rose
and fell in its encreasing furrows.
Behold us now in our frail tenement, hemmed in by hungry, roaring waves,
buffeted by winds. In the inky east two vast clouds, sailing contrary ways,
met; the lightning leapt forth, and the hoarse thunder muttered. Again in
the south, the clouds replied, and the forked stream of fire running along
the black sky, shewed us the appalling piles of clouds, now met and
obliterated by the heaving waves. Great God! And we alone--we three--
alone--alone--sole dwellers on the sea and on the earth, we three must
perish! The vast universe, its myriad worlds, and the plains of boundless
earth which we had left--the extent of shoreless sea around--contracted
to my view--they and all that they contained, shrunk up to one point,
even to our tossing bark, freighted with glorious humanity.
A convulsion of despair crossed the love-beaming face of Adrian, while with
set teeth he murmured, "Yet they shall be saved!" Clara, visited by an
human pang, pale and trembling, crept near him--he looked on her with an
encouraging smile--"Do you fear, sweet girl? O, do not fear, we shall
soon be on shore!"
The darkness prevented me from seeing the changes of her countenance; but
her voice was clear and sweet, as she replied, "Why should I fear? neither
sea nor storm can harm us, if mighty destiny or the ruler of destiny does
not permit. And then the stinging fear of surviving either of you, is not
here--one death will clasp us undivided."
Meanwhile we took in all our sails, save a gib; and, as soon as we might
without danger, changed our course, running with the wind for the Italian
shore. Dark night mixed everything; we hardly discerned the white crests of
the murderous surges, except when lightning made brief noon, and drank the
darkness, shewing us our danger, and restoring us to double night. We were
all silent, except when Adrian, as steersman, made an encouraging
observation. Our little shell obeyed the rudder miraculously well, and ran
along on the top of the waves, as if she had been an offspring of the sea,
and the angry mother sheltered her endangered child.
I sat at the prow, watching our course; when suddenly I heard the waters
break with redoubled fury. We were certainly near the shore--at the same
time I cried, "About there!" and a broad lightning filling the concave,
shewed us for one moment the level beach a-head, disclosing even the sands,
and stunted, ooze-sprinkled beds of reeds, that grew at high water mark.
Again it was dark, and we drew in our breath with such content as one may,
who, while fragments of volcano-hurled rock darken the air, sees a vast
mass ploughing the ground immediately at his feet. What to do we knew not
--the breakers here, there, everywhere, encompassed us--they roared, and
dashed, and flung their hated spray in our faces. With considerable
difficulty and danger we succeeded at length in altering our course, and
stretched out from shore. I urged my companions to prepare for the wreck of
our little skiff, and to bind themselves to some oar or spar which might
suffice to float them. I was myself an excellent swimmer--the very sight
of the sea was wont to raise in me such sensations, as a huntsman
experiences, when he hears a pack of hounds in full cry; I loved to feel
the waves wrap me and strive to overpower me; while I, lord of myself,
moved this way or that, in spite of their angry buffetings. Adrian also
could swim--but the weakness of his frame prevented him from feeling
pleasure in the exercise, or acquiring any great expertness. But what power
could the strongest swimmer oppose to the overpowering violence of ocean in
its fury? My efforts to prepare my companions were rendered nearly futile
--for the roaring breakers prevented our hearing one another speak, and
the waves, that broke continually over our boat, obliged me to exert all my
strength in lading the water out, as fast as it came in. The while
darkness, palpable and rayless, hemmed us round, dissipated only by the
lightning; sometimes we beheld thunderbolts, fiery red, fall into the sea,
and at intervals vast spouts stooped from the clouds, churning the wild
ocean, which rose to meet them; while the fierce gale bore the rack
onwards, and they were lost in the chaotic mingling of sky and sea. Our
gunwales had been torn away, our single sail had been rent to ribbands, and
borne down the stream of the wind. We had cut away our mast, and lightened
the boat of all she contained--Clara attempted to assist me in heaving
the water from the hold, and, as she turned her eyes to look on the
lightning, I could discern by that momentary gleam, that resignation had
conquered every fear. We have a power given us in any worst extremity,
which props the else feeble mind of man, and enables us to endure the most
savage tortures with a stillness of soul which in hours of happiness we
could not have imagined. A calm, more dreadful in truth than the tempest,
allayed the wild beatings of my heart--a calm like that of the gamester,
the suicide, and the murderer, when the last die is on the point of being
cast--while the poisoned cup is at the lips,--as the death-blow is
about to be given.
Hours passed thus--hours which might write old age on the face of
beardless youth, and grizzle the silky hair of infancy---hours, while the
chaotic uproar continued, while each dread gust transcended in fury the one
before, and our skiff hung on the breaking wave, and then rushed into the
valley below, and trembled and spun between the watery precipices that
seemed most to meet above her. For a moment the gale paused, and ocean sank
to comparative silence--it was a breathless interval; the wind which, as
a practised leaper, had gathered itself up before it sprung, now with
terrific roar rushed over the sea, and the waves struck our stern. Adrian
exclaimed that the rudder was gone;--"We are lost," cried Clara, "Save
yourselves--O save yourselves!" The lightning shewed me the poor girl
half buried in the water at the bottom of the boat; as she was sinking in
it Adrian caught her up, and sustained her in his arms. We were without a
rudder--we rushed prow foremost into the vast billows piled up a-head--
they broke over and filled the tiny skiff; one scream I heard--one cry
that we were gone, I uttered; I found myself in the waters; darkness was
around. When the light of the tempest flashed, I saw the keel of our upset
boat close to me--I clung to this, grasping it with clenched hand and
nails, while I endeavoured during each flash to discover any appearance of
my companions. I thought I saw Adrian at no great distance from me,
clinging to an oar; I sprung from my hold, and with energy beyond my human
strength, I dashed aside the waters as I strove to lay hold of him. As that
hope failed, instinctive love of life animated me, and feelings of
contention, as if a hostile will combated with mine. I breasted the surges,
and flung them from me, as I would the opposing front and sharpened claws
of a lion about to enfang my bosom. When I had been beaten down by one
wave, I rose on another, while I felt bitter pride curl my lip.
Ever since the storm had carried us near the shore, we had never attained
any great distance from it. With every flash I saw the bordering coast; yet
the progress I made was small, while each wave, as it receded, carried me
back into ocean's far abysses. At one moment I felt my foot touch the sand,
and then again I was in deep water; my arms began to lose their power of
motion; my breath failed me under the influence of the strangling waters--
a thousand wild and delirious thoughts crossed me: as well as I can now
recall them, my chief feeling was, how sweet it would be to lay my head on
the quiet earth, where the surges would no longer strike my weakened frame,
nor the sound of waters ring in my ears--to attain this repose, not to
save my life, I made a last effort--the shelving shore suddenly presented
a footing for me. I rose, and was again thrown down by the breakers--a
point of rock to which I was enabled to cling, gave me a moment's respite;
and then, taking advantage of the ebbing of the waves, I ran forwards--
gained the dry sands, and fell senseless on the oozy reeds that sprinkled
them.
I must have lain long deprived of life; for when first, with a sickening
feeling, I unclosed my eyes, the light of morning met them. Great change
had taken place meanwhile: grey dawn dappled the flying clouds, which sped
onwards, leaving visible at intervals vast lakes of pure ether. A fountain
of light arose in an encreasing stream from the east, behind the waves of
the Adriatic, changing the grey to a roseate hue, and then flooding sky and
sea with aerial gold.
A kind of stupor followed my fainting; my senses were alive, but memory was
extinct. The blessed respite was short--a snake lurked near me to sting
me into life--on the first retrospective emotion I would have started up,
but my limbs refused to obey me; my knees trembled, the muscles had lost
all power. I still believed that I might find one of my beloved companions
cast like me, half alive, on the beach; and I strove in every way to
restore my frame to the use of its animal functions. I wrung the brine from
my hair; and the rays of the risen sun soon visited me with genial warmth.
With the restoration of my bodily powers, my mind became in some degree
aware of the universe of misery, henceforth to be its dwelling. I ran to
the water's edge, calling on the beloved names. Ocean drank in, and
absorbed my feeble voice, replying with pitiless roar. I climbed a near
tree: the level sands bounded by a pine forest, and the sea clipped round
by the horizon, was all that I could discern. In vain I extended my
researches along the beach; the mast we had thrown overboard, with tangled
cordage, and remnants of a sail, was the sole relic land received of our
wreck. Sometimes I stood still, and wrung my hands. I accused earth and sky
--the universal machine and the Almighty power that misdirected it. Again
I threw myself on the sands, and then the sighing wind, mimicking a human
cry, roused me to bitter, fallacious hope. Assuredly if any little bark or
smallest canoe had been near, I should have sought the savage plains of
ocean, found the dear remains of my lost ones, and clinging round them,
have shared their grave.
The day passed thus; each moment contained eternity; although when hour
after hour had gone by, I wondered at the quick flight of time. Yet even
now I had not drunk the bitter potion to the dregs; I was not yet persuaded
of my loss; I did not yet feel in every pulsation, in every nerve, in every
thought, that I remained alone of my race,--that I was the LAST MAN.
The day had clouded over, and a drizzling rain set in at sunset. Even the
eternal skies weep, I thought; is there any shame then, that mortal man
should spend himself in tears? I remembered the ancient fables, in which
human beings are described as dissolving away through weeping into
ever-gushing fountains. Ah! that so it were; and then my destiny would be
in some sort akin to the watery death of Adrian and Clara. Oh! grief is
fantastic; it weaves a web on which to trace the history of its woe from
every form and change around; it incorporates itself with all living
nature; it finds sustenance in every object; as light, it fills all things,
and, like light, it gives its own colours to all.
I had wandered in my search to some distance from the spot on which I had
been cast, and came to one of those watch-towers, which at stated distances
line the Italian shore. I was glad of shelter, glad to find a work of human
hands, after I had gazed so long on nature's drear barrenness; so I
entered, and ascended the rough winding staircase into the guard-room. So
far was fate kind, that no harrowing vestige remained of its former
inhabitants; a few planks laid across two iron tressels, and strewed with
the dried leaves of Indian corn, was the bed presented to me; and an open
chest, containing some half mouldered biscuit, awakened an appetite, which
perhaps existed before, but of which, until now, I was not aware. Thirst
also, violent and parching, the result of the sea-water I had drank, and of
the exhaustion of my frame, tormented me. Kind nature had gifted the supply
of these wants with pleasurable sensations, so that I--even I!--was
refreshed and calmed, as I ate of this sorry fare, and drank a little of
the sour wine which half filled a flask left in this abandoned dwelling.
Then I stretched myself on the bed, not to be disdained by the victim of
shipwreck. The earthy smell of the dried leaves was balm to my sense after
the hateful odour of sea-weed. I forgot my state of loneliness. I neither
looked backward nor forward; my senses were hushed to repose; I fell asleep
and dreamed of all dear inland scenes, of hay-makers, of the shepherd's
whistle to his dog, when he demanded his help to drive the flock to fold;
of sights and sounds peculiar to my boyhood's mountain life, which I had
long forgotten.
I awoke in a painful agony--for I fancied that ocean, breaking its
bounds, carried away the fixed continent and deep rooted mountains,
together with the streams I loved, the woods, and the flocks--it raged
around, with that continued and dreadful roar which had accompanied the
last wreck of surviving humanity. As my waking sense returned, the bare
walls of the guard room closed round me, and the rain pattered against the
single window. How dreadful it is, to emerge from the oblivion of slumber,
and to receive as a good morrow the mute wailing of one's own hapless heart
--to return from the land of deceptive dreams, to the heavy knowledge of
unchanged disaster!--Thus was it with me, now, and for ever! The sting of
other griefs might be blunted by time; and even mine yielded sometimes
during the day, to the pleasure inspired by the imagination or the senses;
but I never look first upon the morning-light but with my fingers pressed
tight on my bursting heart, and my soul deluged with the interminable flood
of hopeless misery. Now I awoke for the first time in the dead world--I
awoke alone--and the dull dirge of the sea, heard even amidst the rain,
recalled me to the reflection of the wretch I had become. The sound came
like a reproach, a scoff--like the sting of remorse in the soul--I
gasped--the veins and muscles of my throat swelled, suffocating me. I put
my fingers to my ears, I buried my head in the leaves of my couch, I would
have dived to the centre to lose hearing of that hideous moan.
But another task must be mine--again I visited the detested beach--
again I vainly looked far and wide--again I raised my unanswered cry,
lifting up the only voice that could ever again force the mute air to
syllable the human thought.
What a pitiable, forlorn, disconsolate being I was! My very aspect and garb
told the tale of my despair. My hair was matted and wild--my limbs soiled
with salt ooze; while at sea, I had thrown off those of my garments that
encumbered me, and the rain drenched the thin summer-clothing I had
retained--my feet were bare, and the stunted reeds and broken shells made
them bleed--the while, I hurried to and fro, now looking earnestly on
some distant rock which, islanded in the sands, bore for a moment a
deceptive appearance--now with flashing eyes reproaching the murderous
ocean for its unutterable cruelty.
For a moment I compared myself to that monarch of the waste--Robinson
Crusoe. We had been both thrown companionless--he on the shore of a
desolate island: I on that of a desolate world. I was rich in the so called
goods of life. If I turned my steps from the near barren scene, and entered
any of the earth's million cities, I should find their wealth stored up for
my accommodation--clothes, food, books, and a choice of dwelling beyond
the command of the princes of former times--every climate was subject to
my selection, while he was obliged to toil in the acquirement of every
necessary, and was the inhabitant of a tropical island, against whose heats
and storms he could obtain small shelter.--Viewing the question thus, who
would not have preferred the Sybarite enjoyments I could command, the
philosophic leisure, and ample intellectual resources, to his life of
labour and peril? Yet he was far happier than I: for he could hope, nor
hope in vain--the destined vessel at last arrived, to bear him to
countrymen and kindred, where the events of his solitude became a fire-side
tale. To none could I ever relate the story of my adversity; no hope had I.
He knew that, beyond the ocean which begirt his lonely island, thousands
lived whom the sun enlightened when it shone also on him: beneath the
meridian sun and visiting moon, I alone bore human features; I alone could
give articulation to thought; and, when I slept, both day and night were
unbeheld of any. He had fled from his fellows, and was transported with
terror at the print of a human foot. I would have knelt down and worshipped
the same. The wild and cruel Caribbee, the merciless Cannibal--or worse
than these, the uncouth, brute, and remorseless veteran in the vices of
civilization, would have been to me a beloved companion, a treasure dearly
prized--his nature would be kin to mine; his form cast in the same mould;
human blood would flow in his veins; a human sympathy must link us for
ever. It cannot be that I shall never behold a fellow being more!--never!
--never!--not in the course of years!--Shall I wake, and speak to
none, pass the interminable hours, my soul, islanded in the world, a
solitary point, surrounded by vacuum? Will day follow day endlessly thus?
--No! no! a God rules the world--providence has not exchanged its golden
sceptre for an aspic's sting. Away! let me fly from the ocean-grave, let me
depart from this barren nook, paled in, as it is, from access by its own
desolateness; let me tread once again the paved towns; step over the
threshold of man's dwellings, and most certainly I shall find this thought
a horrible vision--a maddening, but evanescent dream.
I entered Ravenna, (the town nearest to the spot whereon I had been cast),
before the second sun had set on the empty world; I saw many living
creatures; oxen, and horses, and dogs, but there was no man among them; I
entered a cottage, it was vacant; I ascended the marble stairs of a palace,
the bats and the owls were nestled in the tapestry; I stepped softly, not
to awaken the sleeping town: I rebuked a dog, that by yelping disturbed the
sacred stillness; I would not believe that all was as it seemed--The
world was not dead, but I was mad; I was deprived of sight, hearing, and
sense of touch; I was labouring under the force of a spell, which permitted
me to behold all sights of earth, except its human inhabitants; they were
pursuing their ordinary labours. Every house had its inmate; but I could
not perceive them. If I could have deluded myself into a belief of this
kind, I should have been far more satisfied. But my brain, tenacious of its
reason, refused to lend itself to such imaginations--and though I
endeavoured to play the antic to myself, I knew that I, the offspring of
man, during long years one among many--now remained sole survivor of my
species.
The sun sank behind the western hills; I had fasted since the preceding
evening, but, though faint and weary, I loathed food, nor ceased, while yet
a ray of light remained, to pace the lonely streets. Night came on, and
sent every living creature but me to the bosom of its mate. It was my
solace, to blunt my mental agony by personal hardship--of the thousand
beds around, I would not seek the luxury of one; I lay down on the
pavement,--a cold marble step served me for a pillow--midnight came;
and then, though not before, did my wearied lids shut out the sight of the
twinkling stars, and their reflex on the pavement near. Thus I passed the
second night of my desolation.
CHAPTER X.
I AWOKE in the morning, just as the higher windows of the lofty houses
received the first beams of the rising sun. The birds were chirping,
perched on the windows sills and deserted thresholds of the doors. I awoke,
and my first thought was, Adrian and Clara are dead. I no longer shall be
hailed by their good-morrow--or pass the long day in their society. I
shall never see them more. The ocean has robbed me of them--stolen their
hearts of love from their breasts, and given over to corruption what was
dearer to me than light, or life, or hope.
I was an untaught shepherd-boy, when Adrian deigned to confer on me his
friendship. The best years of my life had been passed with him. All I had
possessed of this world's goods, of happiness, knowledge, or virtue--I
owed to him. He had, in his person, his intellect, and rare qualities,
given a glory to my life, which without him it had never known. Beyond all
other beings he had taught me, that goodness, pure and single, can be an
attribute of man. It was a sight for angels to congregate to behold, to
view him lead, govern, and solace, the last days of the human race.
My lovely Clara also was lost to me--she who last of the daughters of
man, exhibited all those feminine and maiden virtues, which poets,
painters, and sculptors, have in their various languages strove to express.
Yet, as far as she was concerned, could I lament that she was removed in
early youth from the certain advent of misery? Pure she was of soul, and
all her intents were holy. But her heart was the throne of love, and the
sensibility her lovely countenance expressed, was the prophet of many
woes, not the less deep and drear, because she would have for ever
concealed them.
These two wondrously endowed beings had been spared from the universal
wreck, to be my companions during the last year of solitude. I had felt,
while they were with me, all their worth. I was conscious that every other
sentiment, regret, or passion had by degrees merged into a yearning,
clinging affection for them. I had not forgotten the sweet partner of my
youth, mother of my children, my adored Idris; but I saw at least a part of
her spirit alive again in her brother; and after, that by Evelyn's death I
had lost what most dearly recalled her to me; I enshrined her memory in
Adrian's form, and endeavoured to confound the two dear ideas. I sound the
depths of my heart, and try in vain to draw thence the expressions that can
typify my love for these remnants of my race. If regret and sorrow came
athwart me, as well it might in our solitary and uncertain state, the clear
tones of Adrian's voice, and his fervent look, dissipated the gloom; or I
was cheered unaware by the mild content and sweet resignation Clara's
cloudless brow and deep blue eyes expressed. They were all to me--the
suns of my benighted soul--repose in my weariness--slumber in my
sleepless woe. Ill, most ill, with disjointed words, bare and weak, have I
expressed the feeling with which I clung to them. I would have wound myself
like ivy inextricably round them, so that the same blow might destroy us. I
would have entered and been a part of them--so that
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
even now I had accompanied them to their new and incommunicable abode.
Never shall I see them more. I am bereft of their dear converse--bereft
of sight of them. I am a tree rent by lightning; never will the bark close
over the bared fibres--never will their quivering life, torn by the
winds, receive the opiate of a moment's balm. I am alone in the world--
but that expression as yet was less pregnant with misery, than that Adrian
and Clara are dead.
The tide of thought and feeling rolls on for ever the same, though the
banks and shapes around, which govern its course, and the reflection in the
wave, vary. Thus the sentiment of immediate loss in some sort decayed,
while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew on me with time. Three
days I wandered through Ravenna--now thinking only of the beloved beings
who slept in the oozy caves of ocean--now looking forward on the dread
blank before me; shuddering to make an onward step--writhing at each
change that marked the progress of the hours.
For three days I wandered to and fro in this melancholy town. I passed
whole hours in going from house to house, listening whether I could detect
some lurking sign of human existence. Sometimes I rang at a bell; it
tinkled through the vaulted rooms, and silence succeeded to the sound. I
called myself hopeless, yet still I hoped; and still disappointment ushered
in the hours, intruding the cold, sharp steel which first pierced me, into
the aching festering wound. I fed like a wild beast, which seizes its food
only when stung by intolerable hunger. I did not change my garb, or seek
the shelter of a roof, during all those days. Burning heats, nervous
irritation, a ceaseless, but confused flow of thought, sleepless nights,
and days instinct with a frenzy of agitation, possessed me during that
time.
As the fever of my blood encreased, a desire of wandering came upon me. I
remember, that the sun had set on the fifth day after my wreck, when,
without purpose or aim, I quitted the town of Ravenna. I must have been
very ill. Had I been possessed by more or less of delirium, that night had
surely been my last; for, as I continued to walk on the banks of the
Mantone, whose upward course I followed, I looked wistfully on the stream,
acknowledging to myself that its pellucid waves could medicine my woes
for ever, and was unable to account to myself for my tardiness in seeking
their shelter from the poisoned arrows of thought, that were piercing me
through and through. I walked a considerable part of the night, and
excessive weariness at length conquered my repugnance to the availing
myself of the deserted habitations of my species. The waning moon, which
had just risen, shewed me a cottage, whose neat entrance and trim garden
reminded me of my own England. I lifted up the latch of the door and
entered. A kitchen first presented itself, where, guided by the moon beams,
I found materials for striking a light. Within this was a bed room; the
couch was furnished with sheets of snowy whiteness; the wood piled on the
hearth, and an array as for a meal, might almost have deceived me into the
dear belief that I had here found what I had so long sought--one
survivor, a companion for my loneliness, a solace to my despair. I steeled
myself against the delusion; the room itself was vacant: it was only
prudent, I repeated to myself, to examine the rest of the house. I fancied
that I was proof against the expectation; yet my heart beat audibly, as I
laid my hand on the lock of each door, and it sunk again, when I perceived
in each the same vacancy. Dark and silent they were as vaults; so I
returned to the first chamber, wondering what sightless host had spread the
materials for my repast, and my repose. I drew a chair to the table, and
examined what the viands were of which I was to partake. In truth it was a
death feast! The bread was blue and mouldy; the cheese lay a heap of dust.
I did not dare examine the other dishes; a troop of ants passed in a double
line across the table cloth; every utensil was covered with dust, with
cobwebs, and myriads of dead flies: these were objects each and all
betokening the fallaciousness of my expectations. Tears rushed into my
eyes; surely this was a wanton display of the power of the destroyer. What
had I done, that each sensitive nerve was thus to be anatomized? Yet why
complain more now than ever? This vacant cottage revealed no new sorrow--
the world was empty; mankind was dead--I knew it well--why quarrel
therefore with an acknowledged and stale truth? Yet, as I said, I had hoped
in the very heart of despair, so that every new impression of the hard-cut
reality on my soul brought with it a fresh pang, telling me the yet
unstudied lesson, that neither change of place nor time could bring
alleviation to my misery, but that, as I now was, I must continue, day
after day, month after month, year after year, while I lived. I hardly
dared conjecture what space of time that expression implied. It is true, I
was no longer in the first blush of manhood; neither had I declined far in
the vale of years--men have accounted mine the prime of life: I had just
entered my thirty-seventh year; every limb was as well knit, every
articulation as true, as when I had acted the shepherd on the hills of
Cumberland; and with these advantages I was to commence the train of
solitary life. Such were the reflections that ushered in my slumber on that
night.
The shelter, however, and less disturbed repose which I enjoyed, restored
me the following morning to a greater portion of health and strength, than
I had experienced since my fatal shipwreck. Among the stores I had
discovered on searching the cottage the preceding night, was a quantity of
dried grapes; these refreshed me in the morning, as I left my lodging and
proceeded towards a town which I discerned at no great distance. As far as
I could divine, it must have been Forli. I entered with pleasure its wide
and grassy streets. All, it is true, pictured the excess of desolation; yet
I loved to find myself in those spots which had been the abode of my fellow
creatures. I delighted to traverse street after street, to look up at the
tall houses, and repeat to myself, once they contained beings similar to
myself--I was not always the wretch I am now. The wide square of Forli,
the arcade around it, its light and pleasant aspect cheered me. I was
pleased with the idea, that, if the earth should be again peopled, we, the
lost race, would, in the relics left behind, present no contemptible
exhibition of our powers to the new comers.
I entered one of the palaces, and opened the door of a magnificent saloon.
I started--I looked again with renewed wonder. What wild-looking,
unkempt, half-naked savage was that before me? The surprise was momentary.
I perceived that it was I myself whom I beheld in a large mirror at the end
of the hall. No wonder that the lover of the princely Idris should fail to
recognize himself in the miserable object there pourtrayed. My tattered
dress was that in which I had crawled half alive from the tempestuous sea.
My long and tangled hair hung in elf locks on my brow--my dark eyes, now
hollow and wild, gleamed from under them--my cheeks were discoloured by
the jaundice, which (the effect of misery and neglect) suffused my skin,
and were half hid by a beard of many days' growth.
Yet why should I not remain thus, I thought; the world is dead, and this
squalid attire is a fitter mourning garb than the foppery of a black suit.
And thus, methinks, I should have remained, had not hope, without which I
do not believe man could exist, whispered to me, that, in such a plight, I
should be an object of fear and aversion to the being, preserved I knew not
where, but I fondly trusted, at length, to be found by me. Will my readers
scorn the vanity, that made me attire myself with some care, for the sake
of this visionary being? Or will they forgive the freaks of a half crazed
imagination? I can easily forgive myself--for hope, however vague, was so
dear to me, and a sentiment of pleasure of so rare occurrence, that I
yielded readily to any idea, that cherished the one, or promised any
recurrence of the former to my sorrowing heart. After such occupation, I
visited every street, alley, and nook of Forli. These Italian towns
presented an appearance of still greater desolation, than those of England
or France. Plague had appeared here earlier--it had finished its course,
and achieved its work much sooner than with us. Probably the last summer
had found no human being alive, in all the track included between the
shores of Calabria and the northern Alps. My search was utterly vain, yet I
did not despond. Reason methought was on my side; and the chances were by
no means contemptible, that there should exist in some part of Italy a
survivor like myself--of a wasted, depopulate land. As therefore I
rambled through the empty town, I formed my plan for future operations. I
would continue to journey on towards Rome. After I should have satisfied
myself, by a narrow search, that I left behind no human being in the towns
through which I passed, I would write up in a conspicuous part of each,
with white paint, in three languages, that "Verney, the last of the race of
Englishmen, had taken up his abode in Rome."
In pursuance of this scheme, I entered a painter's shop, and procured
myself the paint. It is strange that so trivial an occupation should have
consoled, and even enlivened me. But grief renders one childish, despair
fantastic. To this simple inscription, I merely added the adjuration,
"Friend, come! I wait for thee!--Deh, vieni! ti aspetto!" On the
following morning, with something like hope for my companion, I quitted
Forli on my way to Rome. Until now, agonizing retrospect, and dreary
prospects for the future, had stung me when awake, and cradled me to my
repose. Many times I had delivered myself up to the tyranny of anguish--
many times I resolved a speedy end to my woes; and death by my own hands
was a remedy, whose practicability was even cheering to me. What could I
fear in the other world? If there were an hell, and I were doomed to it, I
should come an adept to the sufferance of its tortures--the act were
easy, the speedy and certain end of my deplorable tragedy. But now these
thoughts faded before the new born expectation. I went on my way, not as
before, feeling each hour, each minute, to be an age instinct with
incalculable pain.
As I wandered along the plain, at the foot of the Appennines--through
their vallies, and over their bleak summits, my path led me through a
country which had been trodden by heroes, visited and admired by thousands.
They had, as a tide, receded, leaving me blank and bare in the midst. But
why complain? Did I not hope?--so I schooled myself, even after the
enlivening spirit had really deserted me, and thus I was obliged to call up
all the fortitude I could command, and that was not much, to prevent a
recurrence of that chaotic and intolerable despair, that had succeeded to
the miserable shipwreck, that had consummated every fear, and dashed to
annihilation every joy.
I rose each day with the morning sun, and left my desolate inn. As my feet
strayed through the unpeopled country, my thoughts rambled through the
universe, and I was least miserable when I could, absorbed in reverie,
forget the passage of the hours. Each evening, in spite of weariness, I
detested to enter any dwelling, there to take up my nightly abode--I have
sat, hour after hour, at the door of the cottage I had selected, unable to
lift the latch, and meet face to face blank desertion within. Many nights,
though autumnal mists were spread around, I passed under an ilex--many
times I have supped on arbutus berries and chestnuts, making a fire,
gypsy-like, on the ground--because wild natural scenery reminded me less
acutely of my hopeless state of loneliness. I counted the days, and bore
with me a peeled willow-wand, on which, as well as I could remember, I had
notched the days that had elapsed since my wreck, and each night I added
another unit to the melancholy sum.
I had toiled up a hill which led to Spoleto. Around was spread a plain,
encircled by the chestnut-covered Appennines. A dark ravine was on one
side, spanned by an aqueduct, whose tall arches were rooted in the dell
below, and attested that man had once deigned to bestow labour and thought
here, to adorn and civilize nature. Savage, ungrateful nature, which in
wild sport defaced his remains, protruding her easily renewed, and fragile
growth of wild flowers and parasite plants around his eternal edifices. I
sat on a fragment of rock, and looked round. The sun had bathed in gold the
western atmosphere, and in the east the clouds caught the radiance, and
budded into transient loveliness. It set on a world that contained me alone
for its inhabitant. I took out my wand--I counted the marks. Twenty-five
were already traced--twenty-five days had already elapsed, since human
voice had gladdened my ears, or human countenance met my gaze. Twenty-five
long, weary days, succeeded by dark and lonesome nights, had mingled with
foregone years, and had become a part of the past--the never to be
recalled--a real, undeniable portion of my life--twenty-five long, long
days.
Why this was not a month!--Why talk of days--or weeks--or months--I
must grasp years in my imagination, if I would truly picture the future to
myself--three, five, ten, twenty, fifty anniversaries of that fatal epoch
might elapse--every year containing twelve months, each of more numerous
calculation in a diary, than the twenty-five days gone by--Can it be?
Will it be?--We had been used to look forward to death tremulously--
wherefore, but because its place was obscure? But more terrible, and far
more obscure, was the unveiled course of my lone futurity. I broke my wand;
I threw it from me. I needed no recorder of the inch and barley-corn growth
of my life, while my unquiet thoughts created other divisions, than those
ruled over by the planets--and, in looking back on the age that had
elapsed since I had been alone, I disdained to give the name of days and
hours to the throes of agony which had in truth portioned it out.
I hid my face in my hands. The twitter of the young birds going to rest,
and their rustling among the trees, disturbed the still evening-air--the
crickets chirped--the aziolo cooed at intervals. My thoughts had been of
death--these sounds spoke to me of life. I lifted up my eyes--a bat
wheeled round--the sun had sunk behind the jagged line of mountains, and
the paly, crescent moon was visible, silver white, amidst the orange
sunset, and accompanied by one bright star, prolonged thus the twilight. A
herd of cattle passed along in the dell below, untended, towards their
watering place--the grass was rustled by a gentle breeze, and the
olive-woods, mellowed into soft masses by the moonlight, contrasted their
sea-green with the dark chestnut foliage. Yes, this is the earth; there is
no change--no ruin--no rent made in her verdurous expanse; she
continues to wheel round and round, with alternate night and day, through
the sky, though man is not her adorner or inhabitant. Why could I not
forget myself like one of those animals, and no longer suffer the wild
tumult of misery that I endure? Yet, ah! what a deadly breach yawns between
their state and mine! Have not they companions? Have not they each their
mate--their cherished young, their home, which, though unexpressed to us,
is, I doubt not, endeared and enriched, even in their eyes, by the society
which kind nature has created for them? It is I only that am alone--I, on
this little hill top, gazing on plain and mountain recess--on sky, and
its starry population, listening to every sound of earth, and air, and
murmuring wave,--I only cannot express to any companion my many thoughts,
nor lay my throbbing head on any loved bosom, nor drink from meeting eyes
an intoxicating dew, that transcends the fabulous nectar of the gods. Shall
I not then complain? Shall I not curse the murderous engine which has mowed
down the children of men, my brethren? Shall I not bestow a malediction on
every other of nature's offspring, which dares live and enjoy, while I live
and suffer?
Ah, no! I will discipline my sorrowing heart to sympathy in your joys; I
will be happy, because ye are so. Live on, ye innocents, nature's selected
darlings; I am not much unlike to you. Nerves, pulse, brain, joint, and
flesh, of such am I composed, and ye are organized by the same laws. I have
something beyond this, but I will call it a defect, not an endowment, if it
leads me to misery, while ye are happy. Just then, there emerged from a
near copse two goats and a little kid, by the mother's side; they began to
browze the herbage of the hill. I approached near to them, without their
perceiving me; I gathered a handful of fresh grass, and held it out; the
little one nestled close to its mother, while she timidly withdrew. The
male stepped forward, fixing his eyes on me: I drew near, still holding out
my lure, while he, depressing his head, rushed at me with his horns. I was
a very fool; I knew it, yet I yielded to my rage. I snatched up a huge
fragment of rock; it would have crushed my rash foe. I poized it--aimed
it--then my heart failed me. I hurled it wide of the mark; it rolled
clattering among the bushes into dell. My little visitants, all aghast,
galloped back into the covert of the wood; while I, my very heart bleeding
and torn, rushed down the hill, and by the violence of bodily exertion,
sought to escape from my miserable self.
No, no, I will not live among the wild scenes of nature, the enemy of all
that lives. I will seek the towns--Rome, the capital of the world, the
crown of man's achievements. Among its storied streets, hallowed ruins, and
stupendous remains of human exertion, I shall not, as here, find every
thing forgetful of man; trampling on his memory, defacing his works,
proclaiming from hill to hill, and vale to vale,--by the torrents freed
from the boundaries which he imposed--by the vegetation liberated from
the laws which he enforced--by his habitation abandoned to mildew and
weeds, that his power is lost, his race annihilated for ever.
I hailed the Tiber, for that was as it were an unalienable possession of
humanity. I hailed the wild Campagna, for every rood had been trod by man;
and its savage uncultivation, of no recent date, only proclaimed more
distinctly his power, since he had given an honourable name and sacred
title to what else would have been a worthless, barren track. I entered
Eternal Rome by the Porta del Popolo, and saluted with awe its
time-honoured space. The wide square, the churches near, the long extent of
the Corso, the near eminence of Trinita de' Monti appeared like fairy work,
they were so silent, so peaceful, and so very fair. It was evening; and the
population of animals which still existed in this mighty city, had gone to
rest; there was no sound, save the murmur of its many fountains, whose soft
monotony was harmony to my soul. The knowledge that I was in Rome, soothed
me; that wondrous city, hardly more illustrious for its heroes and sages,
than for the power it exercised over the imaginations of men. I went to
rest that night; the eternal burning of my heart quenched,--my senses
tranquil.
The next morning I eagerly began my rambles in search of oblivion. I
ascended the many terraces of the garden of the Colonna Palace, under whose
roof I had been sleeping; and passing out from it at its summit, I found
myself on Monte Cavallo. The fountain sparkled in the sun; the obelisk
above pierced the clear dark-blue air. The statues on each side, the works,
as they are inscribed, of Phidias and Praxiteles, stood in undiminished
grandeur, representing Castor and Pollux, who with majestic power tamed the
rearing animal at their side. If those illustrious artists had in truth
chiselled these forms, how many passing generations had their giant
proportions outlived! and now they were viewed by the last of the species
they were sculptured to represent and deify. I had shrunk into
insignificance in my own eyes, as I considered the multitudinous beings
these stone demigods had outlived, but this after-thought restored me to
dignity in my own conception. The sight of the poetry eternized in these
statues, took the sting from the thought, arraying it only in poetic
ideality.
I repeated to myself,--I am in Rome! I behold, and as it were, familiarly
converse with the wonder of the world, sovereign mistress of the
imagination, majestic and eternal survivor of millions of generations of
extinct men. I endeavoured to quiet the sorrows of my aching heart, by even
now taking an interest in what in my youth I had ardently longed to see.
Every part of Rome is replete with relics of ancient times. The meanest
streets are strewed with truncated columns, broken capitals--Corinthian
and Ionic, and sparkling fragments of granite or porphyry. The walls of the
most penurious dwellings enclose a fluted pillar or ponderous stone, which
once made part of the palace of the Caesars; and the voice of dead time, in
still vibrations, is breathed from these dumb things, animated and
glorified as they were by man.
I embraced the vast columns of the temple of Jupiter Stator, which survives
in the open space that was the Forum, and leaning my burning cheek against
its cold durability, I tried to lose the sense of present misery and
present desertion, by recalling to the haunted cell of my brain vivid
memories of times gone by. I rejoiced at my success, as I figured Camillus,
the Gracchi, Cato, and last the heroes of Tacitus, which shine meteors of
surpassing brightness during the murky night of the empire;--as the
verses of Horace and Virgil, or the glowing periods of Cicero thronged into
the opened gates of my mind, I felt myself exalted by long forgotten
enthusiasm. I was delighted to know that I beheld the scene which they
beheld--the scene which their wives and mothers, and crowds of the
unnamed witnessed, while at the same time they honoured, applauded, or wept
for these matchless specimens of humanity. At length, then, I had found a
consolation. I had not vainly sought the storied precincts of Rome--I had
discovered a medicine for my many and vital wounds.
I sat at the foot of these vast columns. The Coliseum, whose naked ruin is
robed by nature in a verdurous and glowing veil, lay in the sunlight on my
right. Not far off, to the left, was the Tower of the Capitol. Triumphal
arches, the falling walls of many temples, strewed the ground at my feet. I
strove, I resolved, to force myself to see the Plebeian multitude and lofty
Patrician forms congregated around; and, as the Diorama of ages passed
across my subdued fancy, they were replaced by the modern Roman; the Pope,
in his white stole, distributing benedictions to the kneeling worshippers;
the friar in his cowl; the dark-eyed girl, veiled by her mezzera; the
noisy, sun-burnt rustic, leading his herd of buffaloes and oxen to the
Campo Vaccino. The romance with which, dipping our pencils in the rainbow
hues of sky and transcendent nature, we to a degree gratuitously endow the
Italians, replaced the solemn grandeur of antiquity. I remembered the dark
monk, and floating figures of "The Italian," and how my boyish blood had
thrilled at the description. I called to mind Corinna ascending the Capitol
to be crowned, and, passing from the heroine to the author, reflected how
the Enchantress Spirit of Rome held sovereign sway over the minds of the
imaginative, until it rested on me--sole remaining spectator of its
wonders.
I was long wrapt by such ideas; but the soul wearies of a pauseless flight;
and, stooping from its wheeling circuits round and round this spot,
suddenly it fell ten thousand fathom deep, into the abyss of the present--
into self-knowledge--into tenfold sadness. I roused myself--I cast off
my waking dreams; and I, who just now could almost hear the shouts of the
Roman throng, and was hustled by countless multitudes, now beheld the
desart ruins of Rome sleeping under its own blue sky; the shadows lay
tranquilly on the ground; sheep were grazing untended on the Palatine, and
a buffalo stalked down the Sacred Way that led to the Capitol. I was alone
in the Forum; alone in Rome; alone in the world. Would not one living man
--one companion in my weary solitude, be worth all the glory and
remembered power of this time-honoured city? Double sorrow--sadness,
bred in Cimmerian caves, robed my soul in a mourning garb. The generations
I had conjured up to my fancy, contrasted more strongly with the end of all
--the single point in which, as a pyramid, the mighty fabric of society
had ended, while I, on the giddy height, saw vacant space around me.
From such vague laments I turned to the contemplation of the minutiae of my
situation. So far, I had not succeeded in the sole object of my desires,
the finding a companion for my desolation. Yet I did not despair. It is
true that my inscriptions were set up for the most part, in insignificant
towns and villages; yet, even without these memorials, it was possible that
the person, who like me should find himself alone in a depopulate land,
should, like me, come to Rome. The more slender my expectation was, the
more I chose to build on it, and to accommodate my actions to this vague
possibility.
It became necessary therefore, that for a time I should domesticate myself
at Rome. It became necessary, that I should look my disaster in the face--
not playing the school-boy's part of obedience without submission; enduring
life, and yet rebelling against the laws by which I lived.
Yet how could I resign myself? Without love, without sympathy, without
communion with any, how could I meet the morning sun, and with it trace its
oft repeated journey to the evening shades? Why did I continue to live--
why not throw off the weary weight of time, and with my own hand, let out
the fluttering prisoner from my agonized breast?--It was not cowardice
that withheld me; for the true fortitude was to endure; and death had a
soothing sound accompanying it, that would easily entice me to enter its
demesne. But this I would not do. I had, from the moment I had reasoned on
the subject, instituted myself the subject to fate, and the servant of
necessity, the visible laws of the invisible God--I believed that my
obedience was the result of sound reasoning, pure feeling, and an exalted
sense of the true excellence and nobility of my nature. Could I have seen
in this empty earth, in the seasons and their change, the hand of a blind
power only, most willingly would I have placed my head on the sod, and
closed my eyes on its loveliness for ever. But fate had administered life
to me, when the plague had already seized on its prey--she had dragged me
by the hair from out the strangling waves--By such miracles she had
bought me for her own; I admitted her authority, and bowed to her decrees.
If, after mature consideration, such was my resolve, it was doubly
necessary that I should not lose the end of life, the improvement of my
faculties, and poison its flow by repinings without end. Yet how cease to
repine, since there was no hand near to extract the barbed spear that had
entered my heart of hearts? I stretched out my hand, and it touched none
whose sensations were responsive to mine. I was girded, walled in, vaulted
over, by seven-fold barriers of loneliness. Occupation alone, if I could
deliver myself up to it, would be capable of affording an opiate to my
sleepless sense of woe. Having determined to make Rome my abode, at least
for some months, I made arrangements for my accommodation--I selected my
home. The Colonna Palace was well adapted for my purpose. Its grandeur--
its treasure of paintings, its magnificent halls were objects soothing and
even exhilarating.
I found the granaries of Rome well stored with grain, and particularly with
Indian corn; this product requiring less art in its preparation for food, I
selected as my principal support. I now found the hardships and lawlessness
of my youth turn to account. A man cannot throw off the habits of sixteen
years. Since that age, it is true, I had lived luxuriously, or at least
surrounded by all the conveniences civilization afforded. But before that
time, I had been "as uncouth a savage, as the wolf-bred founder of old
Rome"--and now, in Rome itself, robber and shepherd propensities, similar
to those of its founder, were of advantage to its sole inhabitant. I spent
the morning riding and shooting in the Campagna--I passed long hours in
the various galleries--I gazed at each statue, and lost myself in a
reverie before many a fair Madonna or beauteous nymph. I haunted the
Vatican, and stood surrounded by marble forms of divine beauty. Each stone
deity was possessed by sacred gladness, and the eternal fruition of love.
They looked on me with unsympathizing complacency, and often in wild
accents I reproached them for their supreme indifference--for they were
human shapes, the human form divine was manifest in each fairest limb and
lineament. The perfect moulding brought with it the idea of colour and
motion; often, half in bitter mockery, half in self-delusion, I clasped
their icy proportions, and, coming between Cupid and his Psyche's lips,
pressed the unconceiving marble.
I endeavoured to read. I visited the libraries of Rome. I selected a
volume, and, choosing some sequestered, shady nook, on the banks of the
Tiber, or opposite the fair temple in the Borghese Gardens, or under the
old pyramid of Cestius, I endeavoured to conceal me from myself, and
immerse myself in the subject traced on the pages before me. As if in the
same soil you plant nightshade and a myrtle tree, they will each
appropriate the mould, moisture, and air administered, for the fostering
their several properties--so did my grief find sustenance, and power of
existence, and growth, in what else had been divine manna, to feed radiant
meditation. Ah! while I streak this paper with the tale of what my so named
occupations were--while I shape the skeleton of my days--my hand
trembles--my heart pants, and my brain refuses to lend expression, or
phrase, or idea, by which to image forth the veil of unutterable woe that
clothed these bare realities. O, worn and beating heart, may I dissect thy
fibres, and tell how in each unmitigable misery, sadness dire, repinings,
and despair, existed? May I record my many ravings--the wild curses I
hurled at torturing nature--and how I have passed days shut out from
light and food--from all except the burning hell alive in my own bosom?
I was presented, meantime, with one other occupation, the one best fitted
to discipline my melancholy thoughts, which strayed backwards, over many a
ruin, and through many a flowery glade, even to the mountain recess, from
which in early youth I had first emerged.
During one of my rambles through the habitations of Rome, I found writing
materials on a table in an author's study. Parts of a manuscript lay
scattered about. It contained a learned disquisition on the Italian
language; one page an unfinished dedication to posterity, for whose profit
the writer had sifted and selected the niceties of this harmonious language
--to whose everlasting benefit he bequeathed his labours.
I also will write a book, I cried--for whom to read?--to whom
dedicated? And then with silly flourish (what so capricious and childish as
despair?) I wrote, DEDICATION TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. SHADOWS, ARISE, AND
READ YOUR FALL! BEHOLD THE HISTORY OF THE LAST MAN.
Yet, will not this world be re-peopled, and the children of a saved pair of
lovers, in some to me unknown and unattainable seclusion, wandering to
these prodigious relics of the ante-pestilential race, seek to learn how
beings so wondrous in their achievements, with imaginations infinite, and
powers godlike, had departed from their home to an unknown country?
I will write and leave in this most ancient city, this "world's sole
monument," a record of these things. I will leave a monument of the
existence of Verney, the Last Man. At first I thought only to speak of
plague, of death, and last, of desertion; but I lingered fondly on my early
years, and recorded with sacred zeal the virtues of my companions. They
have been with me during the fulfilment of my task. I have brought it to an
end--I lift my eyes from my paper--again they are lost to me. Again I
feel that I am alone.
A year has passed since I have been thus occupied. The seasons have made
their wonted round, and decked this eternal city in a changeful robe of
surpassing beauty. A year has passed; and I no longer guess at my state or
my prospects--loneliness is my familiar, sorrow my inseparable companion.
I have endeavoured to brave the storm--I have endeavoured to school
myself to fortitude--I have sought to imbue myself with the lessons of
wisdom. It will not do. My hair has become nearly grey--my voice, unused
now to utter sound, comes strangely on my ears. My person, with its human
powers and features, seem to me a monstrous excrescence of nature. How
express in human language a woe human being until this hour never knew! How
give intelligible expression to a pang none but I could ever understand!--
No one has entered Rome. None will ever come. I smile bitterly at the
delusion I have so long nourished, and still more, when I reflect that I
have exchanged it for another as delusive, as false, but to which I now
cling with the same fond trust.
Winter has come again; and the gardens of Rome have lost their leaves--
the sharp air comes over the Campagna, and has driven its brute inhabitants
to take up their abode in the many dwellings of the deserted city--frost
has suspended the gushing fountains--and Trevi has stilled her eternal
music. I had made a rough calculation, aided by the stars, by which I
endeavoured to ascertain the first day of the new year. In the old out-worn
age, the Sovereign Pontiff was used to go in solemn pomp, and mark the
renewal of the year by driving a nail in the gate of the temple of Janus.
On that day I ascended St. Peter's, and carved on its topmost stone the
aera 2100, last year of the world!
My only companion was a dog, a shaggy fellow, half water and half
shepherd's dog, whom I found tending sheep in the Campagna. His master was
dead, but nevertheless he continued fulfilling his duties in expectation of
his return. If a sheep strayed from the rest, he forced it to return to the
flock, and sedulously kept off every intruder. Riding in the Campagna I had
come upon his sheep-walk, and for some time observed his repetition of
lessons learned from man, now useless, though unforgotten. His delight was
excessive when he saw me. He sprung up to my knees; he capered round and
round, wagging his tail, with the short, quick bark of pleasure: he left
his fold to follow me, and from that day has never neglected to watch by
and attend on me, shewing boisterous gratitude whenever I caressed or
talked to him. His pattering steps and mine alone were heard, when we
entered the magnificent extent of nave and aisle of St. Peter's. We
ascended the myriad steps together, when on the summit I achieved my
design, and in rough figures noted the date of the last year. I then turned
to gaze on the country, and to take leave of Rome. I had long determined to
quit it, and I now formed the plan I would adopt for my future career,
after I had left this magnificent abode.
A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer, and that I would become. A hope
of amelioration always attends on change of place, which would even lighten
the burthen of my life. I had been a fool to remain in Rome all this time:
Rome noted for Malaria, the famous caterer for death. But it was still
possible, that, could I visit the whole extent of earth, I should find in
some part of the wide extent a survivor. Methought the sea-side was the
most probable retreat to be chosen by such a one. If left alone in an
inland district, still they could not continue in the spot where their last
hopes had been extinguished; they would journey on, like me, in search of a
partner for their solitude, till the watery barrier stopped their further
progress.
To that water--cause of my woes, perhaps now to be their cure, I would
betake myself. Farewell, Italy!--farewell, thou ornament of the world,
matchless Rome, the retreat of the solitary one during long months!--to
civilized life--to the settled home and succession of monotonous days,
farewell! Peril will now be mine; and I hail her as a friend--death will
perpetually cross my path, and I will meet him as a benefactor; hardship,
inclement weather, and dangerous tempests will be my sworn mates. Ye
spirits of storm, receive me! ye powers of destruction, open wide your
arms, and clasp me for ever! if a kinder power have not decreed another
end, so that after long endurance I may reap my reward, and again feel my
heart beat near the heart of another like to me.
Tiber, the road which is spread by nature's own hand, threading her
continent, was at my feet, and many a boat was tethered to the banks. I
would with a few books, provisions, and my dog, embark in one of these and
float down the current of the stream into the sea; and then, keeping near
land, I would coast the beauteous shores and sunny promontories of the blue
Mediterranean, pass Naples, along Calabria, and would dare the twin perils
of Scylla and Charybdis; then, with fearless aim, (for what had I to lose?)
skim ocean's surface towards Malta and the further Cyclades. I would avoid
Constantinople, the sight of whose well-known towers and inlets belonged to
another state of existence from my present one; I would coast Asia Minor,
and Syria, and, passing the seven-mouthed Nile, steer northward again, till
losing sight of forgotten Carthage and deserted Lybia, I should reach the
pillars of Hercules. And then--no matter where--the oozy caves, and
soundless depths of ocean may be my dwelling, before I accomplish this
long-drawn voyage, or the arrow of disease find my heart as I float singly
on the weltering Mediterranean; or, in some place I touch at, I may find
what I seek--a companion; or if this may not be--to endless time,
decrepid and grey headed--youth already in the grave with those I love--
the lone wanderer will still unfurl his sail, and clasp the tiller--and,
still obeying the breezes of heaven, for ever round another and another
promontory, anchoring in another and another bay, still ploughing seedless
ocean, leaving behind the verdant land of native Europe, adown the tawny
shore of Africa, having weathered the fierce seas of the Cape, I may moor
my worn skiff in a creek, shaded by spicy groves of the odorous islands of
the far Indian ocean.
These are wild dreams. Yet since, now a week ago, they came on me, as I
stood on the height of St. Peter's, they have ruled my imagination. I have
chosen my boat, and laid in my scant stores. I have selected a few books;
the principal are Homer and Shakespeare--But the libraries of the world
are thrown open to me--and in any port I can renew my stock. I form no
expectation of alteration for the better; but the monotonous present is
intolerable to me. Neither hope nor joy are my pilots--restless despair
and fierce desire of change lead me on. I long to grapple with danger, to
be excited by fear, to have some task, however slight or voluntary, for
each day's fulfilment. I shall witness all the variety of appearance, that
the elements can assume--I shall read fair augury in the rainbow--
menace in the cloud--some lesson or record dear to my heart in
everything. Thus around the shores of deserted earth, while the sun is
high, and the moon waxes or wanes, angels, the spirits of the dead, and the
ever-open eye of the Supreme, will behold the tiny bark, freighted with
Verney--the LAST MAN.
THE END.
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