The Castle of Otranto

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Edited by Henry Morley
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Title: The Castle of Otranto
Author: Horace Walpole
Editor: Henry Morley
Release Date: May 5, 2012 [eBook #696]
[This file was first posted on October 22, 1996]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO***
Transcribed from the 1901 Cassell and Company edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY
(New Series)
* * * * *
THE
CASTLE OF OTRANTO.
* * * * *
BY
HORACE WALPOLE.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_
1901
INTRODUCTION
HORACE WALPOLE was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, the great
statesman, who died Earl of Orford. He was born in 1717, the year in
which his father resigned office, remaining in opposition for almost
three years before his return to a long tenure of power. Horace Walpole
was educated at Eton, where he formed a school friendship with Thomas
Gray, who was but a few months older. In 1739 Gray was
travelling-companion with Walpole in France and Italy until they differed
and parted; but the friendship was afterwards renewed, and remained firm
to the end. Horace Walpole went from Eton to King’s College, Cambridge,
and entered Parliament in 1741, the year before his father’s final
resignation and acceptance of an earldom. His way of life was made easy
to him. As Usher of the Exchequer, Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of
the Estreats in the Exchequer, he received nearly two thousand a year for
doing nothing, lived with his father, and amused himself.
Horace Walpole idled, and amused himself with the small life of the
fashionable world to which he was proud of belonging, though he had a
quick eye for its vanities. He had social wit, and liked to put it to
small uses. But he was not an empty idler, and there were seasons when
he could become a sharp judge of himself. “I am sensible,” he wrote to
his most intimate friend, “I am sensible of having more follies and
weaknesses and fewer real good qualities than most men. I sometimes
reflect on this, though, I own, too seldom. I always want to begin
acting like a man, and a sensible one, which I think I might be if I
would.” He had deep home affections, and, under many polite
affectations, plenty of good sense.
Horace Walpole’s father died in 1745. The eldest son, who succeeded to
the earldom, died in 1751, and left a son, George, who was for a time
insane, and lived until 1791. As George left no child, the title and
estates passed to Horace Walpole, then seventy-four years old, and the
only uncle who survived. Horace Walpole thus became Earl of Orford,
during the last six years of his life. As to the title, he said that he
felt himself being called names in his old age. He died unmarried, in
the year 1797, at the age of eighty.
He had turned his house at Strawberry Hill, by the Thames, near
Twickenham, into a Gothic villa—eighteenth-century Gothic—and amused
himself by spending freely upon its adornment with such things as were
then fashionable as objects of taste. But he delighted also in his
flowers and his trellises of roses, and the quiet Thames. When confined
by gout to his London house in Arlington Street, flowers from Strawberry
Hill and a bird were necessary consolations. He set up also at
Strawberry Hill a private printing press, at which he printed his friend
Gray’s poems, also in 1758 his own “Catalogue of the Royal and Noble
Authors of England,” and five volumes of “Anecdotes of Painting in
England,” between 1762 and 1771.
Horace Walpole produced _The Castle of Otranto_ in 1765, at the mature
age of forty-eight. It was suggested by a dream from which he said he
waked one morning, and of which “all I could recover was, that I had
thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head like
mine, filled with Gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister of a
great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat
down and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to
say or relate.” So began the tale which professed to be translated by
“William Marshal, gentleman, from the Italian of Onuphro Muralto, canon
of the Church of St. Nicholas, at Otranto.” It was written in two
months. Walpole’s friend Gray reported to him that at Cambridge the book
made “some of them cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed
o’ nights.” _The Castle of Otranto_ was, in its own way, an early sign
of the reaction towards romance in the latter part of the last century.
This gives it interest. But it has had many followers, and the hardy
modern reader, when he read’s Gray’s note from Cambridge, needs to be
reminded of its date.
H. M.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The following work was found in the library of an ancient Catholic family
in the north of England. It was printed at Naples, in the black letter,
in the year 1529. How much sooner it was written does not appear. The
principal incidents are such as were believed in the darkest ages of
Christianity; but the language and conduct have nothing that savours of
barbarism. The style is the purest Italian.
If the story was written near the time when it is supposed to have
happened, it must have been between 1095, the era of the first Crusade,
and 1243, the date of the last, or not long afterwards. There is no
other circumstance in the work that can lead us to guess at the period in
which the scene is laid: the names of the actors are evidently
fictitious, and probably disguised on purpose: yet the Spanish names of
the domestics seem to indicate that this work was not composed until the
establishment of the Arragonian Kings in Naples had made Spanish
appellations familiar in that country. The beauty of the diction, and
the zeal of the author (moderated, however, by singular judgment) concur
to make me think that the date of the composition was little antecedent
to that of the impression. Letters were then in their most flourishing
state in Italy, and contributed to dispel the empire of superstition, at
that time so forcibly attacked by the reformers. It is not unlikely that
an artful priest might endeavour to turn their own arms on the
innovators, and might avail himself of his abilities as an author to
confirm the populace in their ancient errors and superstitions. If this
was his view, he has certainly acted with signal address. Such a work as
the following would enslave a hundred vulgar minds beyond half the books
of controversy that have been written from the days of Luther to the
present hour.
This solution of the author’s motives is, however, offered as a mere
conjecture. Whatever his views were, or whatever effects the execution
of them might have, his work can only be laid before the public at
present as a matter of entertainment. Even as such, some apology for it
is necessary. Miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams, and other
preternatural events, are exploded now even from romances. That was not
the case when our author wrote; much less when the story itself is
supposed to have happened. Belief in every kind of prodigy was so
established in those dark ages, that an author would not be faithful to
the manners of the times, who should omit all mention of them. He is not
bound to believe them himself, but he must represent his actors as
believing them.
If this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader will find nothing
else unworthy of his perusal. Allow the possibility of the facts, and
all the actors comport themselves as persons would do in their situation.
There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary
descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe. Never is
the reader’s attention relaxed. The rules of the drama are almost
observed throughout the conduct of the piece. The characters are well
drawn, and still better maintained. Terror, the author’s principal
engine, prevents the story from ever languishing; and it is so often
contrasted by pity, that the mind is kept up in a constant vicissitude of
interesting passions.
Some persons may perhaps think the characters of the domestics too little
serious for the general cast of the story; but besides their opposition
to the principal personages, the art of the author is very observable in
his conduct of the subalterns. They discover many passages essential to
the story, which could not be well brought to light but by their
_naïveté_ and simplicity. In particular, the womanish terror and foibles
of Bianca, in the last chapter, conduce essentially towards advancing the
catastrophe.
It is natural for a translator to be prejudiced in favour of his adopted
work. More impartial readers may not be so much struck with the beauties
of this piece as I was. Yet I am not blind to my author’s defects. I
could wish he had grounded his plan on a more useful moral than this:
that “the sins of fathers are visited on their children to the third and
fourth generation.” I doubt whether, in his time, any more than at
present, ambition curbed its appetite of dominion from the dread of so
remote a punishment. And yet this moral is weakened by that less direct
insinuation, that even such anathema may be diverted by devotion to St.
Nicholas. Here the interest of the Monk plainly gets the better of the
judgment of the author. However, with all its faults, I have no doubt
but the English reader will be pleased with a sight of this performance.
The piety that reigns throughout, the lessons of virtue that are
inculcated, and the rigid purity of the sentiments, exempt this work from
the censure to which romances are but too liable. Should it meet with
the success I hope for, I may be encouraged to reprint the original
Italian, though it will tend to depreciate my own labour. Our language
falls far short of the charms of the Italian, both for variety and
harmony. The latter is peculiarly excellent for simple narrative. It is
difficult in English to relate without falling too low or rising too
high; a fault obviously occasioned by the little care taken to speak pure
language in common conversation. Every Italian or Frenchman of any rank
piques himself on speaking his own tongue correctly and with choice. I
cannot flatter myself with having done justice to my author in this
respect: his style is as elegant as his conduct of the passions is
masterly. It is a pity that he did not apply his talents to what they
were evidently proper for—the theatre.
I will detain the reader no longer, but to make one short remark. Though
the machinery is invention, and the names of the actors imaginary, I
cannot but believe that the groundwork of the story is founded on truth.
The scene is undoubtedly laid in some real castle. The author seems
frequently, without design, to describe particular parts. “The chamber,”
says he, “on the right hand;” “the door on the left hand;” “the distance
from the chapel to Conrad’s apartment:” these and other passages are
strong presumptions that the author had some certain building in his eye.
Curious persons, who have leisure to employ in such researches, may
possibly discover in the Italian writers the foundation on which our
author has built. If a catastrophe, at all resembling that which he
describes, is believed to have given rise to this work, it will
contribute to interest the reader, and will make the “Castle of Otranto”
a still more moving story.
SONNET TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADY MARY COKE.
The gentle maid, whose hapless tale
These melancholy pages speak;
Say, gracious lady, shall she fail
To draw the tear adown thy cheek?
No; never was thy pitying breast
Insensible to human woes;
Tender, tho’ firm, it melts distrest
For weaknesses it never knows.
Oh! guard the marvels I relate
Of fell ambition scourg’d by fate,
From reason’s peevish blame.
Blest with thy smile, my dauntless sail
I dare expand to Fancy’s gale,
For sure thy smiles are Fame.
H. W.
CHAPTER I.
Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a
most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the
son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising
disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any
symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for
his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella; and she had
already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that
he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health
would permit.
Manfred’s impatience for this ceremonial was remarked by his family and
neighbours. The former, indeed, apprehending the severity of their
Prince’s disposition, did not dare to utter their surmises on this
precipitation. Hippolita, his wife, an amiable lady, did sometimes
venture to represent the danger of marrying their only son so early,
considering his great youth, and greater infirmities; but she never
received any other answer than reflections on her own sterility, who had
given him but one heir. His tenants and subjects were less cautious in
their discourses. They attributed this hasty wedding to the Prince’s
dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy, which was said to have
pronounced that the castle and lordship of Otranto “should pass from the
present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to
inhabit it.” It was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; and
still less easy to conceive what it had to do with the marriage in
question. Yet these mysteries, or contradictions, did not make the
populace adhere the less to their opinion.
Young Conrad’s birthday was fixed for his espousals. The company was
assembled in the chapel of the Castle, and everything ready for beginning
the divine office, when Conrad himself was missing. Manfred, impatient
of the least delay, and who had not observed his son retire, despatched
one of his attendants to summon the young Prince. The servant, who had
not stayed long enough to have crossed the court to Conrad’s apartment,
came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and
foaming at the mouth. He said nothing, but pointed to the court.
The company were struck with terror and amazement. The Princess
Hippolita, without knowing what was the matter, but anxious for her son,
swooned away. Manfred, less apprehensive than enraged at the
procrastination of the nuptials, and at the folly of his domestic, asked
imperiously what was the matter? The fellow made no answer, but
continued pointing towards the courtyard; and at last, after repeated
questions put to him, cried out, “Oh! the helmet! the helmet!”
In the meantime, some of the company had run into the court, from whence
was heard a confused noise of shrieks, horror, and surprise. Manfred,
who began to be alarmed at not seeing his son, went himself to get
information of what occasioned this strange confusion. Matilda remained
endeavouring to assist her mother, and Isabella stayed for the same
purpose, and to avoid showing any impatience for the bridegroom, for
whom, in truth, she had conceived little affection.
The first thing that struck Manfred’s eyes was a group of his servants
endeavouring to raise something that appeared to him a mountain of sable
plumes. He gazed without believing his sight.
“What are ye doing?” cried Manfred, wrathfully; “where is my son?”
A volley of voices replied, “Oh! my Lord! the Prince! the Prince! the
helmet! the helmet!”
Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he
advanced hastily,—but what a sight for a father’s eyes!—he beheld his
child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an
hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and
shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers.
The horror of the spectacle, the ignorance of all around how this
misfortune had happened, and above all, the tremendous phenomenon before
him, took away the Prince’s speech. Yet his silence lasted longer than
even grief could occasion. He fixed his eyes on what he wished in vain
to believe a vision; and seemed less attentive to his loss, than buried
in meditation on the stupendous object that had occasioned it. He
touched, he examined the fatal casque; nor could even the bleeding
mangled remains of the young Prince divert the eyes of Manfred from the
portent before him.
All who had known his partial fondness for young Conrad, were as much
surprised at their Prince’s insensibility, as thunderstruck themselves at
the miracle of the helmet. They conveyed the disfigured corpse into the
hall, without receiving the least direction from Manfred. As little was
he attentive to the ladies who remained in the chapel. On the contrary,
without mentioning the unhappy princesses, his wife and daughter, the
first sounds that dropped from Manfred’s lips were, “Take care of the
Lady Isabella.”
The domestics, without observing the singularity of this direction, were
guided by their affection to their mistress, to consider it as peculiarly
addressed to her situation, and flew to her assistance. They conveyed
her to her chamber more dead than alive, and indifferent to all the
strange circumstances she heard, except the death of her son.
Matilda, who doted on her mother, smothered her own grief and amazement,
and thought of nothing but assisting and comforting her afflicted parent.
Isabella, who had been treated by Hippolita like a daughter, and who
returned that tenderness with equal duty and affection, was scarce less
assiduous about the Princess; at the same time endeavouring to partake
and lessen the weight of sorrow which she saw Matilda strove to suppress,
for whom she had conceived the warmest sympathy of friendship. Yet her
own situation could not help finding its place in her thoughts. She felt
no concern for the death of young Conrad, except commiseration; and she
was not sorry to be delivered from a marriage which had promised her
little felicity, either from her destined bridegroom, or from the severe
temper of Manfred, who, though he had distinguished her by great
indulgence, had imprinted her mind with terror, from his causeless rigour
to such amiable princesses as Hippolita and Matilda.
While the ladies were conveying the wretched mother to her bed, Manfred
remained in the court, gazing on the ominous casque, and regardless of
the crowd which the strangeness of the event had now assembled around
him. The few words he articulated, tended solely to inquiries, whether
any man knew from whence it could have come? Nobody could give him the
least information. However, as it seemed to be the sole object of his
curiosity, it soon became so to the rest of the spectators, whose
conjectures were as absurd and improbable, as the catastrophe itself was
unprecedented. In the midst of their senseless guesses, a young peasant,
whom rumour had drawn thither from a neighbouring village, observed that
the miraculous helmet was exactly like that on the figure in black marble
of Alfonso the Good, one of their former princes, in the church of St.
Nicholas.
“Villain! What sayest thou?” cried Manfred, starting from his trance in
a tempest of rage, and seizing the young man by the collar; “how darest
thou utter such treason? Thy life shall pay for it.”
The spectators, who as little comprehended the cause of the Prince’s fury
as all the rest they had seen, were at a loss to unravel this new
circumstance. The young peasant himself was still more astonished, not
conceiving how he had offended the Prince. Yet recollecting himself,
with a mixture of grace and humility, he disengaged himself from
Manfred’s grip, and then with an obeisance, which discovered more
jealousy of innocence than dismay, he asked, with respect, of what he was
guilty? Manfred, more enraged at the vigour, however decently exerted,
with which the young man had shaken off his hold, than appeased by his
submission, ordered his attendants to seize him, and, if he had not been
withheld by his friends whom he had invited to the nuptials, would have
poignarded the peasant in their arms.
During this altercation, some of the vulgar spectators had run to the
great church, which stood near the castle, and came back open-mouthed,
declaring that the helmet was missing from Alfonso’s statue. Manfred, at
this news, grew perfectly frantic; and, as if he sought a subject on
which to vent the tempest within him, he rushed again on the young
peasant, crying—
“Villain! Monster! Sorcerer! ’tis thou hast done this! ’tis thou hast
slain my son!”
The mob, who wanted some object within the scope of their capacities, on
whom they might discharge their bewildered reasoning, caught the words
from the mouth of their lord, and re-echoed—
“Ay, ay; ’tis he, ’tis he: he has stolen the helmet from good Alfonso’s
tomb, and dashed out the brains of our young Prince with it,” never
reflecting how enormous the disproportion was between the marble helmet
that had been in the church, and that of steel before their eyes; nor how
impossible it was for a youth seemingly not twenty, to wield a piece of
armour of so prodigious a weight.
The folly of these ejaculations brought Manfred to himself: yet whether
provoked at the peasant having observed the resemblance between the two
helmets, and thereby led to the farther discovery of the absence of that
in the church, or wishing to bury any such rumour under so impertinent a
supposition, he gravely pronounced that the young man was certainly a
necromancer, and that till the Church could take cognisance of the
affair, he would have the Magician, whom they had thus detected, kept
prisoner under the helmet itself, which he ordered his attendants to
raise, and place the young man under it; declaring he should be kept
there without food, with which his own infernal art might furnish him.
It was in vain for the youth to represent against this preposterous
sentence: in vain did Manfred’s friends endeavour to divert him from this
savage and ill-grounded resolution. The generality were charmed with
their lord’s decision, which, to their apprehensions, carried great
appearance of justice, as the Magician was to be punished by the very
instrument with which he had offended: nor were they struck with the
least compunction at the probability of the youth being starved, for they
firmly believed that, by his diabolic skill, he could easily supply
himself with nutriment.
Manfred thus saw his commands even cheerfully obeyed; and appointing a
guard with strict orders to prevent any food being conveyed to the
prisoner, he dismissed his friends and attendants, and retired to his own
chamber, after locking the gates of the castle, in which he suffered none
but his domestics to remain.
In the meantime, the care and zeal of the young Ladies had brought the
Princess Hippolita to herself, who amidst the transports of her own
sorrow frequently demanded news of her lord, would have dismissed her
attendants to watch over him, and at last enjoined Matilda to leave her,
and visit and comfort her father. Matilda, who wanted no affectionate
duty to Manfred, though she trembled at his austerity, obeyed the orders
of Hippolita, whom she tenderly recommended to Isabella; and inquiring of
the domestics for her father, was informed that he was retired to his
chamber, and had commanded that nobody should have admittance to him.
Concluding that he was immersed in sorrow for the death of her brother,
and fearing to renew his tears by the sight of his sole remaining child,
she hesitated whether she should break in upon his affliction; yet
solicitude for him, backed by the commands of her mother, encouraged her
to venture disobeying the orders he had given; a fault she had never been
guilty of before.
The gentle timidity of her nature made her pause for some minutes at his
door. She heard him traverse his chamber backwards, and forwards with
disordered steps; a mood which increased her apprehensions. She was,
however, just going to beg admittance, when Manfred suddenly opened the
door; and as it was now twilight, concurring with the disorder of his
mind, he did not distinguish the person, but asked angrily, who it was?
Matilda replied, trembling—
“My dearest father, it is I, your daughter.”
Manfred, stepping back hastily, cried, “Begone! I do not want a
daughter;” and flinging back abruptly, clapped the door against the
terrified Matilda.
She was too well acquainted with her father’s impetuosity to venture a
second intrusion. When she had a little recovered the shock of so bitter
a reception, she wiped away her tears to prevent the additional stab that
the knowledge of it would give to Hippolita, who questioned her in the
most anxious terms on the health of Manfred, and how he bore his loss.
Matilda assured her he was well, and supported his misfortune with manly
fortitude.
“But will he not let me see him?” said Hippolita mournfully; “will he not
permit me to blend my tears with his, and shed a mother’s sorrows in the
bosom of her Lord? Or do you deceive me, Matilda? I know how Manfred
doted on his son: is not the stroke too heavy for him? has he not sunk
under it? You do not answer me—alas! I dread the worst!—Raise me, my
maidens; I will, I will see my Lord. Bear me to him instantly: he is
dearer to me even than my children.”
Matilda made signs to Isabella to prevent Hippolita’s rising; and both
those lovely young women were using their gentle violence to stop and
calm the Princess, when a servant, on the part of Manfred, arrived and
told Isabella that his Lord demanded to speak with her.
“With me!” cried Isabella.
“Go,” said Hippolita, relieved by a message from her Lord: “Manfred
cannot support the sight of his own family. He thinks you less
disordered than we are, and dreads the shock of my grief. Console him,
dear Isabella, and tell him I will smother my own anguish rather than add
to his.”
As it was now evening the servant who conducted Isabella bore a torch
before her. When they came to Manfred, who was walking impatiently about
the gallery, he started, and said hastily—
“Take away that light, and begone.”
Then shutting the door impetuously, he flung himself upon a bench against
the wall, and bade Isabella sit by him. She obeyed trembling.
“I sent for you, Lady,” said he—and then stopped under great appearance
of confusion.
“My Lord!”
“Yes, I sent for you on a matter of great moment,” resumed he. “Dry your
tears, young Lady—you have lost your bridegroom. Yes, cruel fate! and I
have lost the hopes of my race! But Conrad was not worthy of your
beauty.”
“How, my Lord!” said Isabella; “sure you do not suspect me of not feeling
the concern I ought: my duty and affection would have always—”
“Think no more of him,” interrupted Manfred; “he was a sickly, puny
child, and Heaven has perhaps taken him away, that I might not trust the
honours of my house on so frail a foundation. The line of Manfred calls
for numerous supports. My foolish fondness for that boy blinded the eyes
of my prudence—but it is better as it is. I hope, in a few years, to
have reason to rejoice at the death of Conrad.”
Words cannot paint the astonishment of Isabella. At first she
apprehended that grief had disordered Manfred’s understanding. Her next
thought suggested that this strange discourse was designed to ensnare
her: she feared that Manfred had perceived her indifference for his son:
and in consequence of that idea she replied—
“Good my Lord, do not doubt my tenderness: my heart would have
accompanied my hand. Conrad would have engrossed all my care; and
wherever fate shall dispose of me, I shall always cherish his memory, and
regard your Highness and the virtuous Hippolita as my parents.”
“Curse on Hippolita!” cried Manfred. “Forget her from this moment, as I
do. In short, Lady, you have missed a husband undeserving of your
charms: they shall now be better disposed of. Instead of a sickly boy,
you shall have a husband in the prime of his age, who will know how to
value your beauties, and who may expect a numerous offspring.”
“Alas, my Lord!” said Isabella, “my mind is too sadly engrossed by the
recent catastrophe in your family to think of another marriage. If ever
my father returns, and it shall be his pleasure, I shall obey, as I did
when I consented to give my hand to your son: but until his return,
permit me to remain under your hospitable roof, and employ the melancholy
hours in assuaging yours, Hippolita’s, and the fair Matilda’s
affliction.”
“I desired you once before,” said Manfred angrily, “not to name that
woman: from this hour she must be a stranger to you, as she must be to
me. In short, Isabella, since I cannot give you my son, I offer you
myself.”
“Heavens!” cried Isabella, waking from her delusion, “what do I hear?
You! my Lord! You! My father-in-law! the father of Conrad! the husband
of the virtuous and tender Hippolita!”
“I tell you,” said Manfred imperiously, “Hippolita is no longer my wife;
I divorce her from this hour. Too long has she cursed me by her
unfruitfulness. My fate depends on having sons, and this night I trust
will give a new date to my hopes.”
At those words he seized the cold hand of Isabella, who was half dead
with fright and horror. She shrieked, and started from him, Manfred rose
to pursue her, when the moon, which was now up, and gleamed in at the
opposite casement, presented to his sight the plumes of the fatal helmet,
which rose to the height of the windows, waving backwards and forwards in
a tempestuous manner, and accompanied with a hollow and rustling sound.
Isabella, who gathered courage from her situation, and who dreaded
nothing so much as Manfred’s pursuit of his declaration, cried—
“Look, my Lord! see, Heaven itself declares against your impious
intentions!”
“Heaven nor Hell shall impede my designs,” said Manfred, advancing again
to seize the Princess.
At that instant the portrait of his grandfather, which hung over the
bench where they had been sitting, uttered a deep sigh, and heaved its
breast.
Isabella, whose back was turned to the picture, saw not the motion, nor
knew whence the sound came, but started, and said—
“Hark, my Lord! What sound was that?” and at the same time made towards
the door.
Manfred, distracted between the flight of Isabella, who had now reached
the stairs, and yet unable to keep his eyes from the picture, which began
to move, had, however, advanced some steps after her, still looking
backwards on the portrait, when he saw it quit its panel, and descend on
the floor with a grave and melancholy air.
“Do I dream?” cried Manfred, returning; “or are the devils themselves in
league against me? Speak, internal spectre! Or, if thou art my
grandsire, why dost thou too conspire against thy wretched descendant,
who too dearly pays for—” Ere he could finish the sentence, the vision
sighed again, and made a sign to Manfred to follow him.
“Lead on!” cried Manfred; “I will follow thee to the gulf of perdition.”
The spectre marched sedately, but dejected, to the end of the gallery,
and turned into a chamber on the right hand. Manfred accompanied him at
a little distance, full of anxiety and horror, but resolved. As he would
have entered the chamber, the door was clapped to with violence by an
invisible hand. The Prince, collecting courage from this delay, would
have forcibly burst open the door with his foot, but found that it
resisted his utmost efforts.
“Since Hell will not satisfy my curiosity,” said Manfred, “I will use the
human means in my power for preserving my race; Isabella shall not escape
me.”
The lady, whose resolution had given way to terror the moment she had
quitted Manfred, continued her flight to the bottom of the principal
staircase. There she stopped, not knowing whither to direct her steps,
nor how to escape from the impetuosity of the Prince. The gates of the
castle, she knew, were locked, and guards placed in the court. Should
she, as her heart prompted her, go and prepare Hippolita for the cruel
destiny that awaited her, she did not doubt but Manfred would seek her
there, and that his violence would incite him to double the injury he
meditated, without leaving room for them to avoid the impetuosity of his
passions. Delay might give him time to reflect on the horrid measures he
had conceived, or produce some circumstance in her favour, if she
could—for that night, at least—avoid his odious purpose. Yet where
conceal herself? How avoid the pursuit he would infallibly make
throughout the castle?
As these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, she recollected a
subterraneous passage which led from the vaults of the castle to the
church of St. Nicholas. Could she reach the altar before she was
overtaken, she knew even Manfred’s violence would not dare to profane the
sacredness of the place; and she determined, if no other means of
deliverance offered, to shut herself up for ever among the holy virgins
whose convent was contiguous to the cathedral. In this resolution, she
seized a lamp that burned at the foot of the staircase, and hurried
towards the secret passage.
The lower part of the castle was hollowed into several intricate
cloisters; and it was not easy for one under so much anxiety to find the
door that opened into the cavern. An awful silence reigned throughout
those subterraneous regions, except now and then some blasts of wind that
shook the doors she had passed, and which, grating on the rusty hinges,
were re-echoed through that long labyrinth of darkness. Every murmur
struck her with new terror; yet more she dreaded to hear the wrathful
voice of Manfred urging his domestics to pursue her.
She trod as softly as impatience would give her leave, yet frequently
stopped and listened to hear if she was followed. In one of those
moments she thought she heard a sigh. She shuddered, and recoiled a few
paces. In a moment she thought she heard the step of some person. Her
blood curdled; she concluded it was Manfred. Every suggestion that
horror could inspire rushed into her mind. She condemned her rash
flight, which had thus exposed her to his rage in a place where her cries
were not likely to draw anybody to her assistance. Yet the sound seemed
not to come from behind. If Manfred knew where she was, he must have
followed her. She was still in one of the cloisters, and the steps she
had heard were too distinct to proceed from the way she had come.
Cheered with this reflection, and hoping to find a friend in whoever was
not the Prince, she was going to advance, when a door that stood ajar, at
some distance to the left, was opened gently: but ere her lamp, which she
held up, could discover who opened it, the person retreated precipitately
on seeing the light.
Isabella, whom every incident was sufficient to dismay, hesitated whether
she should proceed. Her dread of Manfred soon outweighed every other
terror. The very circumstance of the person avoiding her gave her a sort
of courage. It could only be, she thought, some domestic belonging to
the castle. Her gentleness had never raised her an enemy, and conscious
innocence made her hope that, unless sent by the Prince’s order to seek
her, his servants would rather assist than prevent her flight.
Fortifying herself with these reflections, and believing by what she
could observe that she was near the mouth of the subterraneous cavern,
she approached the door that had been opened; but a sudden gust of wind
that met her at the door extinguished her lamp, and left her in total
darkness.
Words cannot paint the horror of the Princess’s situation. Alone in so
dismal a place, her mind imprinted with all the terrible events of the
day, hopeless of escaping, expecting every moment the arrival of Manfred,
and far from tranquil on knowing she was within reach of somebody, she
knew not whom, who for some cause seemed concealed thereabouts; all these
thoughts crowded on her distracted mind, and she was ready to sink under
her apprehensions. She addressed herself to every saint in heaven, and
inwardly implored their assistance. For a considerable time she remained
in an agony of despair.
At last, as softly as was possible, she felt for the door, and having
found it, entered trembling into the vault from whence she had heard the
sigh and steps. It gave her a kind of momentary joy to perceive an
imperfect ray of clouded moonshine gleam from the roof of the vault,
which seemed to be fallen in, and from whence hung a fragment of earth or
building, she could not distinguish which, that appeared to have been
crushed inwards. She advanced eagerly towards this chasm, when she
discerned a human form standing close against the wall.
She shrieked, believing it the ghost of her betrothed Conrad. The
figure, advancing, said, in a submissive voice—
“Be not alarmed, Lady; I will not injure you.”
Isabella, a little encouraged by the words and tone of voice of the
stranger, and recollecting that this must be the person who had opened
the door, recovered her spirits enough to reply—
“Sir, whoever you are, take pity on a wretched Princess, standing on the
brink of destruction. Assist me to escape from this fatal castle, or in
a few moments I may be made miserable for ever.”
“Alas!” said the stranger, “what can I do to assist you? I will die in
your defence; but I am unacquainted with the castle, and want—”
“Oh!” said Isabella, hastily interrupting him; “help me but to find a
trap-door that must be hereabout, and it is the greatest service you can
do me, for I have not a minute to lose.”
Saying a these words, she felt about on the pavement, and directed the
stranger to search likewise, for a smooth piece of brass enclosed in one
of the stones.
“That,” said she, “is the lock, which opens with a spring, of which I
know the secret. If we can find that, I may escape—if not, alas!
courteous stranger, I fear I shall have involved you in my misfortunes:
Manfred will suspect you for the accomplice of my flight, and you will
fall a victim to his resentment.”
“I value not my life,” said the stranger, “and it will be some comfort to
lose it in trying to deliver you from his tyranny.”
“Generous youth,” said Isabella, “how shall I ever requite—”
As she uttered those words, a ray of moonshine, streaming through a
cranny of the ruin above, shone directly on the lock they sought.
“Oh! transport!” said Isabella; “here is the trap-door!” and, taking out
the key, she touched the spring, which, starting aside, discovered an
iron ring. “Lift up the door,” said the Princess.
The stranger obeyed, and beneath appeared some stone steps descending
into a vault totally dark.
“We must go down here,” said Isabella. “Follow me; dark and dismal as it
is, we cannot miss our way; it leads directly to the church of St.
Nicholas. But, perhaps,” added the Princess modestly, “you have no
reason to leave the castle, nor have I farther occasion for your service;
in a few minutes I shall be safe from Manfred’s rage—only let me know to
whom I am so much obliged.”
“I will never quit you,” said the stranger eagerly, “until I have placed
you in safety—nor think me, Princess, more generous than I am; though you
are my principal care—”
The stranger was interrupted by a sudden noise of voices that seemed
approaching, and they soon distinguished these words—
“Talk not to me of necromancers; I tell you she must be in the castle; I
will find her in spite of enchantment.”
“Oh, heavens!” cried Isabella; “it is the voice of Manfred! Make haste,
or we are ruined! and shut the trap-door after you.”
Saying this, she descended the steps precipitately; and as the stranger
hastened to follow her, he let the door slip out of his hands: it fell,
and the spring closed over it. He tried in vain to open it, not having
observed Isabella’s method of touching the spring; nor had he many
moments to make an essay. The noise of the falling door had been heard
by Manfred, who, directed by the sound, hastened thither, attended by his
servants with torches.
“It must be Isabella,” cried Manfred, before he entered the vault. “She
is escaping by the subterraneous passage, but she cannot have got far.”
What was the astonishment of the Prince when, instead of Isabella, the
light of the torches discovered to him the young peasant whom he thought
confined under the fatal helmet!
“Traitor!” said Manfred; “how camest thou here? I thought thee in
durance above in the court.”
“I am no traitor,” replied the young man boldly, “nor am I answerable for
your thoughts.”
“Presumptuous villain!” cried Manfred; “dost thou provoke my wrath? Tell
me, how hast thou escaped from above? Thou hast corrupted thy guards,
and their lives shall answer it.”
“My poverty,” said the peasant calmly, “will disculpate them: though the
ministers of a tyrant’s wrath, to thee they are faithful, and but too
willing to execute the orders which you unjustly imposed upon them.”
“Art thou so hardy as to dare my vengeance?” said the Prince; “but
tortures shall force the truth from thee. Tell me; I will know thy
accomplices.”
“There was my accomplice!” said the youth, smiling, and pointing to the
roof.
Manfred ordered the torches to be held up, and perceived that one of the
cheeks of the enchanted casque had forced its way through the pavement of
the court, as his servants had let it fall over the peasant, and had
broken through into the vault, leaving a gap, through which the peasant
had pressed himself some minutes before he was found by Isabella.
“Was that the way by which thou didst descend?” said Manfred.
“It was,” said the youth.
“But what noise was that,” said Manfred, “which I heard as I entered the
cloister?”
“A door clapped,” said the peasant; “I heard it as well as you.”
“What door?” said Manfred hastily.
“I am not acquainted with your castle,” said the peasant; “this is the
first time I ever entered it, and this vault the only part of it within
which I ever was.”
“But I tell thee,” said Manfred (wishing to find out if the youth had
discovered the trap-door), “it was this way I heard the noise. My
servants heard it too.”
“My Lord,” interrupted one of them officiously, “to be sure it was the
trap-door, and he was going to make his escape.”
“Peace, blockhead!” said the Prince angrily; “if he was going to escape,
how should he come on this side? I will know from his own mouth what
noise it was I heard. Tell me truly; thy life depends on thy veracity.”
“My veracity is dearer to me than my life,” said the peasant; “nor would
I purchase the one by forfeiting the other.”
“Indeed, young philosopher!” said Manfred contemptuously; “tell me, then,
what was the noise I heard?”
“Ask me what I can answer,” said he, “and put me to death instantly if I
tell you a lie.”
Manfred, growing impatient at the steady valour and indifference of the
youth, cried—
“Well, then, thou man of truth, answer! Was it the fall of the trap-door
that I heard?”
“It was,” said the youth.
“It was!” said the Prince; “and how didst thou come to know there was a
trap-door here?”
“I saw the plate of brass by a gleam of moonshine,” replied he.
“But what told thee it was a lock?” said Manfred. “How didst thou
discover the secret of opening it?”
“Providence, that delivered me from the helmet, was able to direct me to
the spring of a lock,” said he.
“Providence should have gone a little farther, and have placed thee out
of the reach of my resentment,” said Manfred. “When Providence had
taught thee to open the lock, it abandoned thee for a fool, who did not
know how to make use of its favours. Why didst thou not pursue the path
pointed out for thy escape? Why didst thou shut the trap-door before
thou hadst descended the steps?”
“I might ask you, my Lord,” said the peasant, “how I, totally
unacquainted with your castle, was to know that those steps led to any
outlet? but I scorn to evade your questions. Wherever those steps lead
to, perhaps I should have explored the way—I could not be in a worse
situation than I was. But the truth is, I let the trap-door fall: your
immediate arrival followed. I had given the alarm—what imported it to me
whether I was seized a minute sooner or a minute later?”
“Thou art a resolute villain for thy years,” said Manfred; “yet on
reflection I suspect thou dost but trifle with me. Thou hast not yet
told me how thou didst open the lock.”
“That I will show you, my Lord,” said the peasant; and, taking up a
fragment of stone that had fallen from above, he laid himself on the
trap-door, and began to beat on the piece of brass that covered it,
meaning to gain time for the escape of the Princess. This presence of
mind, joined to the frankness of the youth, staggered Manfred. He even
felt a disposition towards pardoning one who had been guilty of no crime.
Manfred was not one of those savage tyrants who wanton in cruelty
unprovoked. The circumstances of his fortune had given an asperity to
his temper, which was naturally humane; and his virtues were always ready
to operate, when his passions did not obscure his reason.
While the Prince was in this suspense, a confused noise of voices echoed
through the distant vaults. As the sound approached, he distinguished
the clamours of some of his domestics, whom he had dispersed through the
castle in search of Isabella, calling out—
“Where is my Lord? where is the Prince?”
“Here I am,” said Manfred, as they came nearer; “have you found the
Princess?”
The first that arrived, replied, “Oh, my Lord! I am glad we have found
you.”
“Found me!” said Manfred; “have you found the Princess?”
“We thought we had, my Lord,” said the fellow, looking terrified, “but—”
“But, what?” cried the Prince; “has she escaped?”
“Jaquez and I, my Lord—”
“Yes, I and Diego,” interrupted the second, who came up in still greater
consternation.
“Speak one of you at a time,” said Manfred; “I ask you, where is the
Princess?”
“We do not know,” said they both together; “but we are frightened out of
our wits.”
“So I think, blockheads,” said Manfred; “what is it has scared you thus?”
“Oh! my Lord,” said Jaquez, “Diego has seen such a sight! your Highness
would not believe our eyes.”
“What new absurdity is this?” cried Manfred; “give me a direct answer,
or, by Heaven—”
“Why, my Lord, if it please your Highness to hear me,” said the poor
fellow, “Diego and I—”
“Yes, I and Jaquez—” cried his comrade.
“Did not I forbid you to speak both at a time?” said the Prince: “you,
Jaquez, answer; for the other fool seems more distracted than thou art;
what is the matter?”
“My gracious Lord,” said Jaquez, “if it please your Highness to hear me;
Diego and I, according to your Highness’s orders, went to search for the
young Lady; but being comprehensive that we might meet the ghost of my
young Lord, your Highness’s son, God rest his soul, as he has not
received Christian burial—”
“Sot!” cried Manfred in a rage; “is it only a ghost, then, that thou hast
seen?”
“Oh! worse! worse! my Lord,” cried Diego: “I had rather have seen ten
whole ghosts.”
“Grant me patience!” said Manfred; “these blockheads distract me. Out of
my sight, Diego! and thou, Jaquez, tell me in one word, art thou sober?
art thou raving? thou wast wont to have some sense: has the other sot
frightened himself and thee too? Speak; what is it he fancies he has
seen?”
“Why, my Lord,” replied Jaquez, trembling, “I was going to tell your
Highness, that since the calamitous misfortune of my young Lord, God rest
his precious soul! not one of us your Highness’s faithful servants—indeed
we are, my Lord, though poor men—I say, not one of us has dared to set a
foot about the castle, but two together: so Diego and I, thinking that my
young Lady might be in the great gallery, went up there to look for her,
and tell her your Highness wanted something to impart to her.”
“O blundering fools!” cried Manfred; “and in the meantime, she has made
her escape, because you were afraid of goblins!—Why, thou knave! she left
me in the gallery; I came from thence myself.”
“For all that, she may be there still for aught I know,” said Jaquez;
“but the devil shall have me before I seek her there again—poor Diego! I
do not believe he will ever recover it.”
“Recover what?” said Manfred; “am I never to learn what it is has
terrified these rascals?—but I lose my time; follow me, slave; I will see
if she is in the gallery.”
“For Heaven’s sake, my dear, good Lord,” cried Jaquez, “do not go to the
gallery. Satan himself I believe is in the chamber next to the gallery.”
Manfred, who hitherto had treated the terror of his servants as an idle
panic, was struck at this new circumstance. He recollected the
apparition of the portrait, and the sudden closing of the door at the end
of the gallery. His voice faltered, and he asked with disorder—
“What is in the great chamber?”
“My Lord,” said Jaquez, “when Diego and I came into the gallery, he went
first, for he said he had more courage than I. So when we came into the
gallery we found nobody. We looked under every bench and stool; and
still we found nobody.”
“Were all the pictures in their places?” said Manfred.
“Yes, my Lord,” answered Jaquez; “but we did not think of looking behind
them.”
“Well, well!” said Manfred; “proceed.”
“When we came to the door of the great chamber,” continued Jaquez, “we
found it shut.”
“And could not you open it?” said Manfred.
“Oh! yes, my Lord; would to Heaven we had not!” replied he—“nay, it was
not I neither; it was Diego: he was grown foolhardy, and would go on,
though I advised him not—if ever I open a door that is shut again—”
“Trifle not,” said Manfred, shuddering, “but tell me what you saw in the
great chamber on opening the door.”
“I! my Lord!” said Jaquez; “I was behind Diego; but I heard the noise.”
“Jaquez,” said Manfred, in a solemn tone of voice; “tell me, I adjure
thee by the souls of my ancestors, what was it thou sawest? what was it
thou heardest?”
“It was Diego saw it, my Lord, it was not I,” replied Jaquez; “I only
heard the noise. Diego had no sooner opened the door, than he cried out,
and ran back. I ran back too, and said, ‘Is it the ghost?’ ‘The ghost!
no, no,’ said Diego, and his hair stood on end—‘it is a giant, I believe;
he is all clad in armour, for I saw his foot and part of his leg, and
they are as large as the helmet below in the court.’ As he said these
words, my Lord, we heard a violent motion and the rattling of armour, as
if the giant was rising, for Diego has told me since that he believes the
giant was lying down, for the foot and leg were stretched at length on
the floor. Before we could get to the end of the gallery, we heard the
door of the great chamber clap behind us, but we did not dare turn back
to see if the giant was following us—yet, now I think on it, we must have
heard him if he had pursued us—but for Heaven’s sake, good my Lord, send
for the chaplain, and have the castle exorcised, for, for certain, it is
enchanted.”
“Ay, pray do, my Lord,” cried all the servants at once, “or we must leave
your Highness’s service.”
“Peace, dotards!” said Manfred, “and follow me; I will know what all this
means.”
“We! my Lord!” cried they with one voice; “we would not go up to the
gallery for your Highness’s revenue.” The young peasant, who had stood
silent, now spoke.
“Will your Highness,” said he, “permit me to try this adventure? My life
is of consequence to nobody; I fear no bad angel, and have offended no
good one.”
“Your behaviour is above your seeming,” said Manfred, viewing him with
surprise and admiration—“hereafter I will reward your bravery—but now,”
continued he with a sigh, “I am so circumstanced, that I dare trust no
eyes but my own. However, I give you leave to accompany me.”
Manfred, when he first followed Isabella from the gallery, had gone
directly to the apartment of his wife, concluding the Princess had
retired thither. Hippolita, who knew his step, rose with anxious
fondness to meet her Lord, whom she had not seen since the death of their
son. She would have flown in a transport mixed of joy and grief to his
bosom, but he pushed her rudely off, and said—
“Where is Isabella?”
“Isabella! my Lord!” said the astonished Hippolita.
“Yes, Isabella,” cried Manfred imperiously; “I want Isabella.”
“My Lord,” replied Matilda, who perceived how much his behaviour had
shocked her mother, “she has not been with us since your Highness
summoned her to your apartment.”
“Tell me where she is,” said the Prince; “I do not want to know where she
has been.”
“My good Lord,” says Hippolita, “your daughter tells you the truth:
Isabella left us by your command, and has not returned since;—but, my
good Lord, compose yourself: retire to your rest: this dismal day has
disordered you. Isabella shall wait your orders in the morning.”
“What, then, you know where she is!” cried Manfred. “Tell me directly,
for I will not lose an instant—and you, woman,” speaking to his wife,
“order your chaplain to attend me forthwith.”
“Isabella,” said Hippolita calmly, “is retired, I suppose, to her
chamber: she is not accustomed to watch at this late hour. Gracious my
Lord,” continued she, “let me know what has disturbed you. Has Isabella
offended you?”
“Trouble me not with questions,” said Manfred, “but tell me where she
is.”
“Matilda shall call her,” said the Princess. “Sit down, my Lord, and
resume your wonted fortitude.”
“What, art thou jealous of Isabella?” replied he, “that you wish to be
present at our interview!”
“Good heavens! my Lord,” said Hippolita, “what is it your Highness
means?”
“Thou wilt know ere many minutes are passed,” said the cruel Prince.
“Send your chaplain to me, and wait my pleasure here.”
At these words he flung out of the room in search of Isabella, leaving
the amazed ladies thunderstruck with his words and frantic deportment,
and lost in vain conjectures on what he was meditating.
Manfred was now returning from the vault, attended by the peasant and a
few of his servants whom he had obliged to accompany him. He ascended
the staircase without stopping till he arrived at the gallery, at the
door of which he met Hippolita and her chaplain. When Diego had been
dismissed by Manfred, he had gone directly to the Princess’s apartment
with the alarm of what he had seen. That excellent Lady, who no more
than Manfred doubted of the reality of the vision, yet affected to treat
it as a delirium of the servant. Willing, however, to save her Lord from
any additional shock, and prepared by a series of griefs not to tremble
at any accession to it, she determined to make herself the first
sacrifice, if fate had marked the present hour for their destruction.
Dismissing the reluctant Matilda to her rest, who in vain sued for leave
to accompany her mother, and attended only by her chaplain, Hippolita had
visited the gallery and great chamber; and now with more serenity of soul
than she had felt for many hours, she met her Lord, and assured him that
the vision of the gigantic leg and foot was all a fable; and no doubt an
impression made by fear, and the dark and dismal hour of the night, on
the minds of his servants. She and the chaplain had examined the
chamber, and found everything in the usual order.
Manfred, though persuaded, like his wife, that the vision had been no
work of fancy, recovered a little from the tempest of mind into which so
many strange events had thrown him. Ashamed, too, of his inhuman
treatment of a Princess who returned every injury with new marks of
tenderness and duty, he felt returning love forcing itself into his eyes;
but not less ashamed of feeling remorse towards one against whom he was
inwardly meditating a yet more bitter outrage, he curbed the yearnings of
his heart, and did not dare to lean even towards pity. The next
transition of his soul was to exquisite villainy.
Presuming on the unshaken submission of Hippolita, he flattered himself
that she would not only acquiesce with patience to a divorce, but would
obey, if it was his pleasure, in endeavouring to persuade Isabella to
give him her hand—but ere he could indulge his horrid hope, he reflected
that Isabella was not to be found. Coming to himself, he gave orders
that every avenue to the castle should be strictly guarded, and charged
his domestics on pain of their lives to suffer nobody to pass out. The
young peasant, to whom he spoke favourably, he ordered to remain in a
small chamber on the stairs, in which there was a pallet-bed, and the key
of which he took away himself, telling the youth he would talk with him
in the morning. Then dismissing his attendants, and bestowing a sullen
kind of half-nod on Hippolita, he retired to his own chamber.
CHAPTER II.
Matilda, who by Hippolita’s order had retired to her apartment, was
ill-disposed to take any rest. The shocking fate of her brother had
deeply affected her. She was surprised at not seeing Isabella; but the
strange words which had fallen from her father, and his obscure menace to
the Princess his wife, accompanied by the most furious behaviour, had
filled her gentle mind with terror and alarm. She waited anxiously for
the return of Bianca, a young damsel that attended her, whom she had sent
to learn what was become of Isabella. Bianca soon appeared, and informed
her mistress of what she had gathered from the servants, that Isabella
was nowhere to be found. She related the adventure of the young peasant
who had been discovered in the vault, though with many simple additions
from the incoherent accounts of the domestics; and she dwelt principally
on the gigantic leg and foot which had been seen in the gallery-chamber.
This last circumstance had terrified Bianca so much, that she was
rejoiced when Matilda told her that she would not go to rest, but would
watch till the Princess should rise.
The young Princess wearied herself in conjectures on the flight of
Isabella, and on the threats of Manfred to her mother. “But what
business could he have so urgent with the chaplain?” said Matilda, “Does
he intend to have my brother’s body interred privately in the chapel?”
“Oh, Madam!” said Bianca, “now I guess. As you are become his heiress,
he is impatient to have you married: he has always been raving for more
sons; I warrant he is now impatient for grandsons. As sure as I live,
Madam, I shall see you a bride at last.—Good madam, you won’t cast off
your faithful Bianca: you won’t put Donna Rosara over me now you are a
great Princess.”
“My poor Bianca,” said Matilda, “how fast your thoughts amble! I a great
princess! What hast thou seen in Manfred’s behaviour since my brother’s
death that bespeaks any increase of tenderness to me? No, Bianca; his
heart was ever a stranger to me—but he is my father, and I must not
complain. Nay, if Heaven shuts my father’s heart against me, it overpays
my little merit in the tenderness of my mother—O that dear mother! yes,
Bianca, ’tis there I feel the rugged temper of Manfred. I can support
his harshness to me with patience; but it wounds my soul when I am
witness to his causeless severity towards her.”
“Oh! Madam,” said Bianca, “all men use their wives so, when they are
weary of them.”
“And yet you congratulated me but now,” said Matilda, “when you fancied
my father intended to dispose of me!”
“I would have you a great Lady,” replied Bianca, “come what will. I do
not wish to see you moped in a convent, as you would be if you had your
will, and if my Lady, your mother, who knows that a bad husband is better
than no husband at all, did not hinder you.—Bless me! what noise is that!
St. Nicholas forgive me! I was but in jest.”
“It is the wind,” said Matilda, “whistling through the battlements in the
tower above: you have heard it a thousand times.”
“Nay,” said Bianca, “there was no harm neither in what I said: it is no
sin to talk of matrimony—and so, Madam, as I was saying, if my Lord
Manfred should offer you a handsome young Prince for a bridegroom, you
would drop him a curtsey, and tell him you would rather take the veil?”
“Thank Heaven! I am in no such danger,” said Matilda: “you know how many
proposals for me he has rejected—”
“And you thank him, like a dutiful daughter, do you, Madam? But come,
Madam; suppose, to-morrow morning, he was to send for you to the great
council chamber, and there you should find at his elbow a lovely young
Prince, with large black eyes, a smooth white forehead, and manly curling
locks like jet; in short, Madam, a young hero resembling the picture of
the good Alfonso in the gallery, which you sit and gaze at for hours
together—”
“Do not speak lightly of that picture,” interrupted Matilda sighing; “I
know the adoration with which I look at that picture is uncommon—but I am
not in love with a coloured panel. The character of that virtuous
Prince, the veneration with which my mother has inspired me for his
memory, the orisons which, I know not why, she has enjoined me to pour
forth at his tomb, all have concurred to persuade me that somehow or
other my destiny is linked with something relating to him.”
“Lord, Madam! how should that be?” said Bianca; “I have always heard that
your family was in no way related to his: and I am sure I cannot conceive
why my Lady, the Princess, sends you in a cold morning or a damp evening
to pray at his tomb: he is no saint by the almanack. If you must pray,
why does she not bid you address yourself to our great St. Nicholas? I
am sure he is the saint I pray to for a husband.”
“Perhaps my mind would be less affected,” said Matilda, “if my mother
would explain her reasons to me: but it is the mystery she observes, that
inspires me with this—I know not what to call it. As she never acts from
caprice, I am sure there is some fatal secret at bottom—nay, I know there
is: in her agony of grief for my brother’s death she dropped some words
that intimated as much.”
“Oh! dear Madam,” cried Bianca, “what were they?”
“No,” said Matilda, “if a parent lets fall a word, and wishes it
recalled, it is not for a child to utter it.”
“What! was she sorry for what she had said?” asked Bianca; “I am sure,
Madam, you may trust me—”
“With my own little secrets when I have any, I may,” said Matilda; “but
never with my mother’s: a child ought to have no ears or eyes but as a
parent directs.”
“Well! to be sure, Madam, you were born to be a saint,” said Bianca, “and
there is no resisting one’s vocation: you will end in a convent at last.
But there is my Lady Isabella would not be so reserved to me: she will
let me talk to her of young men: and when a handsome cavalier has come to
the castle, she has owned to me that she wished your brother Conrad
resembled him.”
“Bianca,” said the Princess, “I do not allow you to mention my friend
disrespectfully. Isabella is of a cheerful disposition, but her soul is
pure as virtue itself. She knows your idle babbling humour, and perhaps
has now and then encouraged it, to divert melancholy, and enliven the
solitude in which my father keeps us—”
“Blessed Mary!” said Bianca, starting, “there it is again! Dear Madam,
do you hear nothing? this castle is certainly haunted!”
“Peace!” said Matilda, “and listen! I did think I heard a voice—but it
must be fancy: your terrors, I suppose, have infected me.”
“Indeed! indeed! Madam,” said Bianca, half-weeping with agony, “I am
sure I heard a voice.”
“Does anybody lie in the chamber beneath?” said the Princess.
“Nobody has dared to lie there,” answered Bianca, “since the great
astrologer, that was your brother’s tutor, drowned himself. For certain,
Madam, his ghost and the young Prince’s are now met in the chamber
below—for Heaven’s sake let us fly to your mother’s apartment!”
“I charge you not to stir,” said Matilda. “If they are spirits in pain,
we may ease their sufferings by questioning them. They can mean no hurt
to us, for we have not injured them—and if they should, shall we be more
safe in one chamber than in another? Reach me my beads; we will say a
prayer, and then speak to them.”
“Oh! dear Lady, I would not speak to a ghost for the world!” cried
Bianca. As she said those words they heard the casement of the little
chamber below Matilda’s open. They listened attentively, and in a few
minutes thought they heard a person sing, but could not distinguish the
words.
“This can be no evil spirit,” said the Princess, in a low voice; “it is
undoubtedly one of the family—open the window, and we shall know the
voice.”
“I dare not, indeed, Madam,” said Bianca.
“Thou art a very fool,” said Matilda, opening the window gently herself.
The noise the Princess made was, however, heard by the person beneath,
who stopped; and they concluded had heard the casement open.
“Is anybody below?” said the Princess; “if there is, speak.”
“Yes,” said an unknown voice.
“Who is it?” said Matilda.
“A stranger,” replied the voice.
“What stranger?” said she; “and how didst thou come there at this unusual
hour, when all the gates of the castle are locked?”
“I am not here willingly,” answered the voice. “But pardon me, Lady, if
I have disturbed your rest; I knew not that I was overheard. Sleep had
forsaken me; I left a restless couch, and came to waste the irksome hours
with gazing on the fair approach of morning, impatient to be dismissed
from this castle.”
“Thy words and accents,” said Matilda, “are of melancholy cast; if thou
art unhappy, I pity thee. If poverty afflicts thee, let me know it; I
will mention thee to the Princess, whose beneficent soul ever melts for
the distressed, and she will relieve thee.”
“I am indeed unhappy,” said the stranger; “and I know not what wealth is.
But I do not complain of the lot which Heaven has cast for me; I am young
and healthy, and am not ashamed of owing my support to myself—yet think
me not proud, or that I disdain your generous offers. I will remember
you in my orisons, and will pray for blessings on your gracious self and
your noble mistress—if I sigh, Lady, it is for others, not for myself.”
“Now I have it, Madam,” said Bianca, whispering the Princess; “this is
certainly the young peasant; and, by my conscience, he is in love—Well!
this is a charming adventure!—do, Madam, let us sift him. He does not
know you, but takes you for one of my Lady Hippolita’s women.”
“Art thou not ashamed, Bianca!” said the Princess. “What right have we
to pry into the secrets of this young man’s heart? He seems virtuous and
frank, and tells us he is unhappy. Are those circumstances that
authorise us to make a property of him? How are we entitled to his
confidence?”
“Lord, Madam! how little you know of love!” replied Bianca; “why, lovers
have no pleasure equal to talking of their mistress.”
“And would you have _me_ become a peasant’s confidante?” said the
Princess.
“Well, then, let me talk to him,” said Bianca; “though I have the honour
of being your Highness’s maid of honour, I was not always so great.
Besides, if love levels ranks, it raises them too; I have a respect for
any young man in love.”
“Peace, simpleton!” said the Princess. “Though he said he was unhappy,
it does not follow that he must be in love. Think of all that has
happened to-day, and tell me if there are no misfortunes but what love
causes.—Stranger,” resumed the Princess, “if thy misfortunes have not
been occasioned by thy own fault, and are within the compass of the
Princess Hippolita’s power to redress, I will take upon me to answer that
she will be thy protectress. When thou art dismissed from this castle,
repair to holy father Jerome, at the convent adjoining to the church of
St. Nicholas, and make thy story known to him, as far as thou thinkest
meet. He will not fail to inform the Princess, who is the mother of all
that want her assistance. Farewell; it is not seemly for me to hold
farther converse with a man at this unwonted hour.”
“May the saints guard thee, gracious Lady!” replied the peasant; “but oh!
if a poor and worthless stranger might presume to beg a minute’s audience
farther; am I so happy? the casement is not shut; might I venture to
ask—”
“Speak quickly,” said Matilda; “the morning dawns apace: should the
labourers come into the fields and perceive us—What wouldst thou ask?”
“I know not how, I know not if I dare,” said the Young stranger,
faltering; “yet the humanity with which you have spoken to me
emboldens—Lady! dare I trust you?”
“Heavens!” said Matilda, “what dost thou mean? With what wouldst thou
trust me? Speak boldly, if thy secret is fit to be entrusted to a
virtuous breast.”
“I would ask,” said the peasant, recollecting himself, “whether what I
have heard from the domestics is true, that the Princess is missing from
the castle?”
“What imports it to thee to know?” replied Matilda. “Thy first words
bespoke a prudent and becoming gravity. Dost thou come hither to pry
into the secrets of Manfred? Adieu. I have been mistaken in thee.”
Saying these words she shut the casement hastily, without giving the
young man time to reply.
“I had acted more wisely,” said the Princess to Bianca, with some
sharpness, “if I had let thee converse with this peasant; his
inquisitiveness seems of a piece with thy own.”
“It is not fit for me to argue with your Highness,” replied Bianca; “but
perhaps the questions I should have put to him would have been more to
the purpose than those you have been pleased to ask him.”
“Oh! no doubt,” said Matilda; “you are a very discreet personage! May I
know what _you_ would have asked him?”
“A bystander often sees more of the game than those that play,” answered
Bianca. “Does your Highness think, Madam, that this question about my
Lady Isabella was the result of mere curiosity? No, no, Madam, there is
more in it than you great folks are aware of. Lopez told me that all the
servants believe this young fellow contrived my Lady Isabella’s escape;
now, pray, Madam, observe you and I both know that my Lady Isabella never
much fancied the Prince your brother. Well! he is killed just in a
critical minute—I accuse nobody. A helmet falls from the moon—so, my
Lord, your father says; but Lopez and all the servants say that this
young spark is a magician, and stole it from Alfonso’s tomb—”
“Have done with this rhapsody of impertinence,” said Matilda.
“Nay, Madam, as you please,” cried Bianca; “yet it is very particular
though, that my Lady Isabella should be missing the very same day, and
that this young sorcerer should be found at the mouth of the trap-door.
I accuse nobody; but if my young Lord came honestly by his death—”
“Dare not on thy duty,” said Matilda, “to breathe a suspicion on the
purity of my dear Isabella’s fame.”
“Purity, or not purity,” said Bianca, “gone she is—a stranger is found
that nobody knows; you question him yourself; he tells you he is in love,
or unhappy, it is the same thing—nay, he owned he was unhappy about
others; and is anybody unhappy about another, unless they are in love
with them? and at the very next word, he asks innocently, pour soul! if
my Lady Isabella is missing.”
“To be sure,” said Matilda, “thy observations are not totally without
foundation—Isabella’s flight amazes me. The curiosity of the stranger is
very particular; yet Isabella never concealed a thought from me.”
“So she told you,” said Bianca, “to fish out your secrets; but who knows,
Madam, but this stranger may be some Prince in disguise? Do, Madam, let
me open the window, and ask him a few questions.”
“No,” replied Matilda, “I will ask him myself, if he knows aught of
Isabella; he is not worthy I should converse farther with him.” She was
going to open the casement, when they heard the bell ring at the
postern-gate of the castle, which is on the right hand of the tower,
where Matilda lay. This prevented the Princess from renewing the
conversation with the stranger.
After continuing silent for some time, “I am persuaded,” said she to
Bianca, “that whatever be the cause of Isabella’s flight it had no
unworthy motive. If this stranger was accessory to it, she must be
satisfied with his fidelity and worth. I observed, did not you, Bianca?
that his words were tinctured with an uncommon infusion of piety. It was
no ruffian’s speech; his phrases were becoming a man of gentle birth.”
“I told you, Madam,” said Bianca, “that I was sure he was some Prince in
disguise.”
“Yet,” said Matilda, “if he was privy to her escape, how will you account
for his not accompanying her in her flight? why expose himself
unnecessarily and rashly to my father’s resentment?”
“As for that, Madam,” replied she, “if he could get from under the
helmet, he will find ways of eluding your father’s anger. I do not doubt
but he has some talisman or other about him.”
“You resolve everything into magic,” said Matilda; “but a man who has any
intercourse with infernal spirits, does not dare to make use of those
tremendous and holy words which he uttered. Didst thou not observe with
what fervour he vowed to remember _me_ to heaven in his prayers? Yes;
Isabella was undoubtedly convinced of his piety.”
“Commend me to the piety of a young fellow and a damsel that consult to
elope!” said Bianca. “No, no, Madam, my Lady Isabella is of another
guess mould than you take her for. She used indeed to sigh and lift up
her eyes in your company, because she knows you are a saint; but when
your back was turned—”
“You wrong her,” said Matilda; “Isabella is no hypocrite; she has a due
sense of devotion, but never affected a call she has not. On the
contrary, she always combated my inclination for the cloister; and though
I own the mystery she has made to me of her flight confounds me; though
it seems inconsistent with the friendship between us; I cannot forget the
disinterested warmth with which she always opposed my taking the veil.
She wished to see me married, though my dower would have been a loss to
her and my brother’s children. For her sake I will believe well of this
young peasant.”
“Then you do think there is some liking between them,” said Bianca.
While she was speaking, a servant came hastily into the chamber and told
the Princess that the Lady Isabella was found.
“Where?” said Matilda.
“She has taken sanctuary in St. Nicholas’s church,” replied the servant;
“Father Jerome has brought the news himself; he is below with his
Highness.”
“Where is my mother?” said Matilda.
“She is in her own chamber, Madam, and has asked for you.”
Manfred had risen at the first dawn of light, and gone to Hippolita’s
apartment, to inquire if she knew aught of Isabella. While he was
questioning her, word was brought that Jerome demanded to speak with him.
Manfred, little suspecting the cause of the Friar’s arrival, and knowing
he was employed by Hippolita in her charities, ordered him to be
admitted, intending to leave them together, while he pursued his search
after Isabella.
“Is your business with me or the Princess?” said Manfred.
“With both,” replied the holy man. “The Lady Isabella—”
“What of her?” interrupted Manfred, eagerly.
“Is at St. Nicholas’s altar,” replied Jerome.
“That is no business of Hippolita,” said Manfred with confusion; “let us
retire to my chamber, Father, and inform me how she came thither.”
“No, my Lord,” replied the good man, with an air of firmness and
authority, that daunted even the resolute Manfred, who could not help
revering the saint-like virtues of Jerome; “my commission is to both, and
with your Highness’s good-liking, in the presence of both I shall deliver
it; but first, my Lord, I must interrogate the Princess, whether she is
acquainted with the cause of the Lady Isabella’s retirement from your
castle.”
“No, on my soul,” said Hippolita; “does Isabella charge me with being
privy to it?”
“Father,” interrupted Manfred, “I pay due reverence to your holy
profession; but I am sovereign here, and will allow no meddling priest to
interfere in the affairs of my domestic. If you have aught to say attend
me to my chamber; I do not use to let my wife be acquainted with the
secret affairs of my state; they are not within a woman’s province.”
“My Lord,” said the holy man, “I am no intruder into the secrets of
families. My office is to promote peace, to heal divisions, to preach
repentance, and teach mankind to curb their headstrong passions. I
forgive your Highness’s uncharitable apostrophe; I know my duty, and am
the minister of a mightier prince than Manfred. Hearken to him who
speaks through my organs.”
Manfred trembled with rage and shame. Hippolita’s countenance declared
her astonishment and impatience to know where this would end. Her
silence more strongly spoke her observance of Manfred.
“The Lady Isabella,” resumed Jerome, “commends herself to both your
Highnesses; she thanks both for the kindness with which she has been
treated in your castle: she deplores the loss of your son, and her own
misfortune in not becoming the daughter of such wise and noble Princes,
whom she shall always respect as Parents; she prays for uninterrupted
union and felicity between you” [Manfred’s colour changed]: “but as it is
no longer possible for her to be allied to you, she entreats your consent
to remain in sanctuary, till she can learn news of her father, or, by the
certainty of his death, be at liberty, with the approbation of her
guardians, to dispose of herself in suitable marriage.”
“I shall give no such consent,” said the Prince, “but insist on her
return to the castle without delay: I am answerable for her person to her
guardians, and will not brook her being in any hands but my own.”
“Your Highness will recollect whether that can any longer be proper,”
replied the Friar.
“I want no monitor,” said Manfred, colouring; “Isabella’s conduct leaves
room for strange suspicions—and that young villain, who was at least the
accomplice of her flight, if not the cause of it—”
“The cause!” interrupted Jerome; “was a _young_ man the cause?”
“This is not to be borne!” cried Manfred. “Am I to be bearded in my own
palace by an insolent Monk? Thou art privy, I guess, to their amours.”
“I would pray to heaven to clear up your uncharitable surmises,” said
Jerome, “if your Highness were not satisfied in your conscience how
unjustly you accuse me. I do pray to heaven to pardon that
uncharitableness: and I implore your Highness to leave the Princess at
peace in that holy place, where she is not liable to be disturbed by such
vain and worldly fantasies as discourses of love from any man.”
“Cant not to me,” said Manfred, “but return and bring the Princess to her
duty.”
“It is my duty to prevent her return hither,” said Jerome. “She is where
orphans and virgins are safest from the snares and wiles of this world;
and nothing but a parent’s authority shall take her thence.”
“I am her parent,” cried Manfred, “and demand her.”
“She wished to have you for her parent,” said the Friar; “but Heaven that
forbad that connection has for ever dissolved all ties betwixt you: and I
announce to your Highness—”
“Stop! audacious man,” said Manfred, “and dread my displeasure.”
“Holy Father,” said Hippolita, “it is your office to be no respecter of
persons: you must speak as your duty prescribes: but it is my duty to
hear nothing that it pleases not my Lord I should hear. Attend the
Prince to his chamber. I will retire to my oratory, and pray to the
blessed Virgin to inspire you with her holy counsels, and to restore the
heart of my gracious Lord to its wonted peace and gentleness.”
“Excellent woman!” said the Friar. “My Lord, I attend your pleasure.”
Manfred, accompanied by the Friar, passed to his own apartment, where
shutting the door, “I perceive, Father,” said he, “that Isabella has
acquainted you with my purpose. Now hear my resolve, and obey. Reasons
of state, most urgent reasons, my own and the safety of my people, demand
that I should have a son. It is in vain to expect an heir from
Hippolita. I have made choice of Isabella. You must bring her back; and
you must do more. I know the influence you have with Hippolita: her
conscience is in your hands. She is, I allow, a faultless woman: her
soul is set on heaven, and scorns the little grandeur of this world: you
can withdraw her from it entirely. Persuade her to consent to the
dissolution of our marriage, and to retire into a monastery—she shall
endow one if she will; and she shall have the means of being as liberal
to your order as she or you can wish. Thus you will divert the
calamities that are hanging over our heads, and have the merit of saying
the principality of Otranto from destruction. You are a prudent man, and
though the warmth of my temper betrayed me into some unbecoming
expressions, I honour your virtue, and wish to be indebted to you for the
repose of my life and the preservation of my family.”
“The will of heaven be done!” said the Friar. “I am but its worthless
instrument. It makes use of my tongue to tell thee, Prince, of thy
unwarrantable designs. The injuries of the virtuous Hippolita have
mounted to the throne of pity. By me thou art reprimanded for thy
adulterous intention of repudiating her: by me thou art warned not to
pursue the incestuous design on thy contracted daughter. Heaven that
delivered her from thy fury, when the judgments so recently fallen on thy
house ought to have inspired thee with other thoughts, will continue to
watch over her. Even I, a poor and despised Friar, am able to protect
her from thy violence—I, sinner as I am, and uncharitably reviled by your
Highness as an accomplice of I know not what amours, scorn the
allurements with which it has pleased thee to tempt mine honesty. I love
my order; I honour devout souls; I respect the piety of thy Princess—but
I will not betray the confidence she reposes in me, nor serve even the
cause of religion by foul and sinful compliances—but forsooth! the
welfare of the state depends on your Highness having a son! Heaven mocks
the short-sighted views of man. But yester-morn, whose house was so
great, so flourishing as Manfred’s?—where is young Conrad now?—My Lord, I
respect your tears—but I mean not to check them—let them flow, Prince!
They will weigh more with heaven toward the welfare of thy subjects, than
a marriage, which, founded on lust or policy, could never prosper. The
sceptre, which passed from the race of Alfonso to thine, cannot be
preserved by a match which the church will never allow. If it is the
will of the Most High that Manfred’s name must perish, resign yourself,
my Lord, to its decrees; and thus deserve a crown that can never pass
away. Come, my Lord; I like this sorrow—let us return to the Princess:
she is not apprised of your cruel intentions; nor did I mean more than to
alarm you. You saw with what gentle patience, with what efforts of love,
she heard, she rejected hearing, the extent of your guilt. I know she
longs to fold you in her arms, and assure you of her unalterable
affection.”
“Father,” said the Prince, “you mistake my compunction: true, I honour
Hippolita’s virtues; I think her a Saint; and wish it were for my soul’s
health to tie faster the knot that has united us—but alas! Father, you
know not the bitterest of my pangs! it is some time that I have had
scruples on the legality of our union: Hippolita is related to me in the
fourth degree—it is true, we had a dispensation: but I have been informed
that she had also been contracted to another. This it is that sits heavy
at my heart: to this state of unlawful wedlock I impute the visitation
that has fallen on me in the death of Conrad!—ease my conscience of this
burden: dissolve our marriage, and accomplish the work of godliness—which
your divine exhortations have commenced in my soul.”
How cutting was the anguish which the good man felt, when he perceived
this turn in the wily Prince! He trembled for Hippolita, whose ruin he
saw was determined; and he feared if Manfred had no hope of recovering
Isabella, that his impatience for a son would direct him to some other
object, who might not be equally proof against the temptation of
Manfred’s rank. For some time the holy man remained absorbed in thought.
At length, conceiving some hopes from delay, he thought the wisest
conduct would be to prevent the Prince from despairing of recovering
Isabella. Her the Friar knew he could dispose, from her affection to
Hippolita, and from the aversion she had expressed to him for Manfred’s
addresses, to second his views, till the censures of the church could be
fulminated against a divorce. With this intention, as if struck with the
Prince’s scruples, he at length said:
“My Lord, I have been pondering on what your Highness has said; and if in
truth it is delicacy of conscience that is the real motive of your
repugnance to your virtuous Lady, far be it from me to endeavour to
harden your heart. The church is an indulgent mother: unfold your griefs
to her: she alone can administer comfort to your soul, either by
satisfying your conscience, or upon examination of your scruples, by
setting you at liberty, and indulging you in the lawful means of
continuing your lineage. In the latter case, if the Lady Isabella can be
brought to consent—”
Manfred, who concluded that he had either over-reached the good man, or
that his first warmth had been but a tribute paid to appearance, was
overjoyed at this sudden turn, and repeated the most magnificent
promises, if he should succeed by the Friar’s mediation. The
well-meaning priest suffered him to deceive himself, fully determined to
traverse his views, instead of seconding them.
“Since we now understand one another,” resumed the Prince, “I expect,
Father, that you satisfy me in one point. Who is the youth that I found
in the vault? He must have been privy to Isabella’s flight: tell me
truly, is he her lover? or is he an agent for another’s passion? I have
often suspected Isabella’s indifference to my son: a thousand
circumstances crowd on my mind that confirm that suspicion. She herself
was so conscious of it, that while I discoursed her in the gallery, she
outran my suspicious, and endeavoured to justify herself from coolness to
Conrad.”
The Friar, who knew nothing of the youth, but what he had learnt
occasionally from the Princess, ignorant what was become of him, and not
sufficiently reflecting on the impetuosity of Manfred’s temper, conceived
that it might not be amiss to sow the seeds of jealousy in his mind: they
might be turned to some use hereafter, either by prejudicing the Prince
against Isabella, if he persisted in that union or by diverting his
attention to a wrong scent, and employing his thoughts on a visionary
intrigue, prevent his engaging in any new pursuit. With this unhappy
policy, he answered in a manner to confirm Manfred in the belief of some
connection between Isabella and the youth. The Prince, whose passions
wanted little fuel to throw them into a blaze, fell into a rage at the
idea of what the Friar suggested.
“I will fathom to the bottom of this intrigue,” cried he; and quitting
Jerome abruptly, with a command to remain there till his return, he
hastened to the great hall of the castle, and ordered the peasant to be
brought before him.
“Thou hardened young impostor!” said the Prince, as soon as he saw the
youth; “what becomes of thy boasted veracity now? it was Providence, was
it, and the light of the moon, that discovered the lock of the trap-door
to thee? Tell me, audacious boy, who thou art, and how long thou hast
been acquainted with the Princess—and take care to answer with less
equivocation than thou didst last night, or tortures shall wring the
truth from thee.”
The young man, perceiving that his share in the flight of the Princess
was discovered, and concluding that anything he should say could no
longer be of any service or detriment to her, replied—
“I am no impostor, my Lord, nor have I deserved opprobrious language. I
answered to every question your Highness put to me last night with the
same veracity that I shall speak now: and that will not be from fear of
your tortures, but because my soul abhors a falsehood. Please to repeat
your questions, my Lord; I am ready to give you all the satisfaction in
my power.”
“You know my questions,” replied the Prince, “and only want time to
prepare an evasion. Speak directly; who art thou? and how long hast thou
been known to the Princess?”
“I am a labourer at the next village,” said the peasant; “my name is
Theodore. The Princess found me in the vault last night: before that
hour I never was in her presence.”
“I may believe as much or as little as I please of this,” said Manfred;
“but I will hear thy own story before I examine into the truth of it.
Tell me, what reason did the Princess give thee for making her escape?
thy life depends on thy answer.”
“She told me,” replied Theodore, “that she was on the brink of
destruction, and that if she could not escape from the castle, she was in
danger in a few moments of being made miserable for ever.”
“And on this slight foundation, on a silly girl’s report,” said Manfred,
“thou didst hazard my displeasure?”
“I fear no man’s displeasure,” said Theodore, “when a woman in distress
puts herself under my protection.”
During this examination, Matilda was going to the apartment of Hippolita.
At the upper end of the hall, where Manfred sat, was a boarded gallery
with latticed windows, through which Matilda and Bianca were to pass.
Hearing her father’s voice, and seeing the servants assembled round him,
she stopped to learn the occasion. The prisoner soon drew her attention:
the steady and composed manner in which he answered, and the gallantry of
his last reply, which were the first words she heard distinctly,
interested her in his flavour. His person was noble, handsome, and
commanding, even in that situation: but his countenance soon engrossed
her whole care.
“Heavens! Bianca,” said the Princess softly, “do I dream? or is not that
youth the exact resemblance of Alfonso’s picture in the gallery?”
She could say no more, for her father’s voice grew louder at every word.
“This bravado,” said he, “surpasses all thy former insolence. Thou shalt
experience the wrath with which thou darest to trifle. Seize him,”
continued Manfred, “and bind him—the first news the Princess hears of her
champion shall be, that he has lost his head for her sake.”
“The injustice of which thou art guilty towards me,” said Theodore,
“convinces me that I have done a good deed in delivering the Princess
from thy tyranny. May she be happy, whatever becomes of me!”
“This is a lover!” cried Manfred in a rage: “a peasant within sight of
death is not animated by such sentiments. Tell me, tell me, rash boy,
who thou art, or the rack shall force thy secret from thee.”
“Thou hast threatened me with death already,” said the youth, “for the
truth I have told thee: if that is all the encouragement I am to expect
for sincerity, I am not tempted to indulge thy vain curiosity farther.”
“Then thou wilt not speak?” said Manfred.
“I will not,” replied he.
“Bear him away into the courtyard,” said Manfred; “I will see his head
this instant severed from his body.”
Matilda fainted at hearing those words. Bianca shrieked, and cried—
“Help! help! the Princess is dead!” Manfred started at this ejaculation,
and demanded what was the matter! The young peasant, who heard it too,
was struck with horror, and asked eagerly the same question; but Manfred
ordered him to be hurried into the court, and kept there for execution,
till he had informed himself of the cause of Bianca’s shrieks. When he
learned the meaning, he treated it as a womanish panic, and ordering
Matilda to be carried to her apartment, he rushed into the court, and
calling for one of his guards, bade Theodore kneel down, and prepare to
receive the fatal blow.
The undaunted youth received the bitter sentence with a resignation that
touched every heart but Manfred’s. He wished earnestly to know the
meaning of the words he had heard relating to the Princess; but fearing
to exasperate the tyrant more against her, he desisted. The only boon he
deigned to ask was, that he might be permitted to have a confessor, and
make his peace with heaven. Manfred, who hoped by the confessor’s means
to come at the youth’s history, readily granted his request; and being
convinced that Father Jerome was now in his interest, he ordered him to
be called and shrive the prisoner. The holy man, who had little foreseen
the catastrophe that his imprudence occasioned, fell on his knees to the
Prince, and adjured him in the most solemn manner not to shed innocent
blood. He accused himself in the bitterest terms for his indiscretion,
endeavoured to disculpate the youth, and left no method untried to soften
the tyrant’s rage. Manfred, more incensed than appeased by Jerome’s
intercession, whose retraction now made him suspect he had been imposed
upon by both, commanded the Friar to do his duty, telling him he would
not allow the prisoner many minutes for confession.
“Nor do I ask many, my Lord,” said the unhappy young man. “My sins,
thank heaven, have not been numerous; nor exceed what might be expected
at my years. Dry your tears, good Father, and let us despatch. This is
a bad world; nor have I had cause to leave it with regret.”
“Oh wretched youth!” said Jerome; “how canst thou bear the sight of me
with patience? I am thy murderer! it is I have brought this dismal hour
upon thee!”
“I forgive thee from my soul,” said the youth, “as I hope heaven will
pardon me. Hear my confession, Father; and give me thy blessing.”
“How can I prepare thee for thy passage as I ought?” said Jerome. “Thou
canst not be saved without pardoning thy foes—and canst thou forgive that
impious man there?”
“I can,” said Theodore; “I do.”
“And does not this touch thee, cruel Prince?” said the Friar.
“I sent for thee to confess him,” said Manfred, sternly; “not to plead
for him. Thou didst first incense me against him—his blood be upon thy
head!”
“It will! it will!” said the good man, in an agony of sorrow. “Thou and
I must never hope to go where this blessed youth is going!”
“Despatch!” said Manfred; “I am no more to be moved by the whining of
priests than by the shrieks of women.”
“What!” said the youth; “is it possible that my fate could have
occasioned what I heard! Is the Princess then again in thy power?”
“Thou dost but remember me of my wrath,” said Manfred. “Prepare thee,
for this moment is thy last.”
The youth, who felt his indignation rise, and who was touched with the
sorrow which he saw he had infused into all the spectators, as well as
into the Friar, suppressed his emotions, and putting off his doublet, and
unbuttoning, his collar, knelt down to his prayers. As he stooped, his
shirt slipped down below his shoulder, and discovered the mark of a
bloody arrow.
“Gracious heaven!” cried the holy man, starting; “what do I see? It is
my child! my Theodore!”
The passions that ensued must be conceived; they cannot be painted. The
tears of the assistants were suspended by wonder, rather than stopped by
joy. They seemed to inquire in the eyes of their Lord what they ought to
feel. Surprise, doubt, tenderness, respect, succeeded each other in the
countenance of the youth. He received with modest submission the
effusion of the old man’s tears and embraces. Yet afraid of giving a
loose to hope, and suspecting from what had passed the inflexibility of
Manfred’s temper, he cast a glance towards the Prince, as if to say,
canst thou be unmoved at such a scene as this?
Manfred’s heart was capable of being touched. He forgot his anger in his
astonishment; yet his pride forbad his owning himself affected. He even
doubted whether this discovery was not a contrivance of the Friar to save
the youth.
“What may this mean?” said he. “How can he be thy son? Is it consistent
with thy profession or reputed sanctity to avow a peasant’s offspring for
the fruit of thy irregular amours!”
“Oh, God!” said the holy man, “dost thou question his being mine? Could
I feel the anguish I do if I were not his father? Spare him! good
Prince! spare him! and revile me as thou pleasest.”
“Spare him! spare him!” cried the attendants; “for this good man’s sake!”
“Peace!” said Manfred, sternly. “I must know more ere I am disposed to
pardon. A Saint’s bastard may be no saint himself.”
“Injurious Lord!” said Theodore, “add not insult to cruelty. If I am
this venerable man’s son, though no Prince, as thou art, know the blood
that flows in my veins—”
“Yes,” said the Friar, interrupting him, “his blood is noble; nor is he
that abject thing, my Lord, you speak him. He is my lawful son, and
Sicily can boast of few houses more ancient than that of Falconara. But
alas! my Lord, what is blood! what is nobility! We are all reptiles,
miserable, sinful creatures. It is piety alone that can distinguish us
from the dust whence we sprung, and whither we must return.”
“Truce to your sermon,” said Manfred; “you forget you are no longer Friar
Jerome, but the Count of Falconara. Let me know your history; you will
have time to moralise hereafter, if you should not happen to obtain the
grace of that sturdy criminal there.”
“Mother of God!” said the Friar, “is it possible my Lord can refuse a
father the life of his only, his long-lost, child! Trample me, my Lord,
scorn, afflict me, accept my life for his, but spare my son!”
“Thou canst feel, then,” said Manfred, “what it is to lose an only son!
A little hour ago thou didst preach up resignation to me: _my_ house, if
fate so pleased, must perish—but the Count of Falconara—”
“Alas! my Lord,” said Jerome, “I confess I have offended; but aggravate
not an old man’s sufferings! I boast not of my family, nor think of such
vanities—it is nature, that pleads for this boy; it is the memory of the
dear woman that bore him. Is she, Theodore, is she dead?”
“Her soul has long been with the blessed,” said Theodore.
“Oh! how?” cried Jerome, “tell me—no—she is happy! Thou art all my care
now!—Most dread Lord! will you—will you grant me my poor boy’s life?”
“Return to thy convent,” answered Manfred; “conduct the Princess hither;
obey me in what else thou knowest; and I promise thee the life of thy
son.”
“Oh! my Lord,” said Jerome, “is my honesty the price I must pay for this
dear youth’s safety?”
“For me!” cried Theodore. “Let me die a thousand deaths, rather than
stain thy conscience. What is it the tyrant would exact of thee? Is the
Princess still safe from his power? Protect her, thou venerable old man;
and let all the weight of his wrath fall on me.”
Jerome endeavoured to check the impetuosity of the youth; and ere Manfred
could reply, the trampling of horses was heard, and a brazen trumpet,
which hung without the gate of the castle, was suddenly sounded. At the
same instant the sable plumes on the enchanted helmet, which still
remained at the other end of the court, were tempestuously agitated, and
nodded thrice, as if bowed by some invisible wearer.
CHAPTER III.
Manfred’s heart misgave him when he beheld the plumage on the miraculous
casque shaken in concert with the sounding of the brazen trumpet.
“Father!” said he to Jerome, whom he now ceased to treat as Count of
Falconara, “what mean these portents? If I have offended—” the plumes
were shaken with greater violence than before.
“Unhappy Prince that I am,” cried Manfred. “Holy Father! will you not
assist me with your prayers?”
“My Lord,” replied Jerome, “heaven is no doubt displeased with your
mockery of its servants. Submit yourself to the church; and cease to
persecute her ministers. Dismiss this innocent youth; and learn to
respect the holy character I wear. Heaven will not be trifled with: you
see—” the trumpet sounded again.
“I acknowledge I have been too hasty,” said Manfred. “Father, do you go
to the wicket, and demand who is at the gate.”
“Do you grant me the life of Theodore?” replied the Friar.
“I do,” said Manfred; “but inquire who is without!”
Jerome, falling on the neck of his son, discharged a flood of tears, that
spoke the fulness of his soul.
“You promised to go to the gate,” said Manfred.
“I thought,” replied the Friar, “your Highness would excuse my thanking
you first in this tribute of my heart.”
“Go, dearest Sir,” said Theodore; “obey the Prince. I do not deserve
that you should delay his satisfaction for me.”
Jerome, inquiring who was without, was answered, “A Herald.”
“From whom?” said he.
“From the Knight of the Gigantic Sabre,” said the Herald; “and I must
speak with the usurper of Otranto.”
Jerome returned to the Prince, and did not fail to repeat the message in
the very words it had been uttered. The first sounds struck Manfred with
terror; but when he heard himself styled usurper, his rage rekindled, and
all his courage revived.
“Usurper!—insolent villain!” cried he; “who dares to question my title?
Retire, Father; this is no business for Monks: I will meet this
presumptuous man myself. Go to your convent and prepare the Princess’s
return. Your son shall be a hostage for your fidelity: his life depends
on your obedience.”
“Good heaven! my Lord,” cried Jerome, “your Highness did but this instant
freely pardon my child—have you so soon forgot the interposition of
heaven?”
“Heaven,” replied Manfred, “does not send Heralds to question the title
of a lawful Prince. I doubt whether it even notifies its will through
Friars—but that is your affair, not mine. At present you know my
pleasure; and it is not a saucy Herald that shall save your son, if you
do not return with the Princess.”
It was in vain for the holy man to reply. Manfred commanded him to be
conducted to the postern-gate, and shut out from the castle. And he
ordered some of his attendants to carry Theodore to the top of the black
tower, and guard him strictly; scarce permitting the father and son to
exchange a hasty embrace at parting. He then withdrew to the hall, and
seating himself in princely state, ordered the Herald to be admitted to
his presence.
“Well! thou insolent!” said the Prince, “what wouldst thou with me?”
“I come,” replied he, “to thee, Manfred, usurper of the principality of
Otranto, from the renowned and invincible Knight, the Knight of the
Gigantic Sabre: in the name of his Lord, Frederic, Marquis of Vicenza, he
demands the Lady Isabella, daughter of that Prince, whom thou hast basely
and traitorously got into thy power, by bribing her false guardians
during his absence; and he requires thee to resign the principality of
Otranto, which thou hast usurped from the said Lord Frederic, the nearest
of blood to the last rightful Lord, Alfonso the Good. If thou dost not
instantly comply with these just demands, he defies thee to single combat
to the last extremity.” And so saying the Herald cast down his warder.
“And where is this braggart who sends thee?” said Manfred.
“At the distance of a league,” said the Herald: “he comes to make good
his Lord’s claim against thee, as he is a true knight, and thou an
usurper and ravisher.”
Injurious as this challenge was, Manfred reflected that it was not his
interest to provoke the Marquis. He knew how well founded the claim of
Frederic was; nor was this the first time he had heard of it. Frederic’s
ancestors had assumed the style of Princes of Otranto, from the death of
Alfonso the Good without issue; but Manfred, his father, and grandfather,
had been too powerful for the house of Vicenza to dispossess them.
Frederic, a martial and amorous young Prince, had married a beautiful
young lady, of whom he was enamoured, and who had died in childbed of
Isabella. Her death affected him so much that he had taken the cross and
gone to the Holy Land, where he was wounded in an engagement against the
infidels, made prisoner, and reported to be dead. When the news reached
Manfred’s ears, he bribed the guardians of the Lady Isabella to deliver
her up to him as a bride for his son Conrad, by which alliance he had
proposed to unite the claims of the two houses. This motive, on Conrad’s
death, had co-operated to make him so suddenly resolve on espousing her
himself; and the same reflection determined him now to endeavour at
obtaining the consent of Frederic to this marriage. A like policy
inspired him with the thought of inviting Frederic’s champion into the
castle, lest he should be informed of Isabella’s flight, which he
strictly enjoined his domestics not to disclose to any of the Knight’s
retinue.
“Herald,” said Manfred, as soon as he had digested these reflections,
“return to thy master, and tell him, ere we liquidate our differences by
the sword, Manfred would hold some converse with him. Bid him welcome to
my castle, where by my faith, as I am a true Knight, he shall have
courteous reception, and full security for himself and followers. If we
cannot adjust our quarrel by amicable means, I swear he shall depart in
safety, and shall have full satisfaction according to the laws of arms:
So help me God and His holy Trinity!”
The Herald made three obeisances and retired.
During this interview Jerome’s mind was agitated by a thousand contrary
passions. He trembled for the life of his son, and his first thought was
to persuade Isabella to return to the castle. Yet he was scarce less
alarmed at the thought of her union with Manfred. He dreaded Hippolita’s
unbounded submission to the will of her Lord; and though he did not doubt
but he could alarm her piety not to consent to a divorce, if he could get
access to her; yet should Manfred discover that the obstruction came from
him, it might be equally fatal to Theodore. He was impatient to know
whence came the Herald, who with so little management had questioned the
title of Manfred: yet he did not dare absent himself from the convent,
lest Isabella should leave it, and her flight be imputed to him. He
returned disconsolately to the monastery, uncertain on what conduct to
resolve. A Monk, who met him in the porch and observed his melancholy
air, said—
“Alas! brother, is it then true that we have lost our excellent Princess
Hippolita?”
The holy man started, and cried, “What meanest thou, brother? I come
this instant from the castle, and left her in perfect health.”
“Martelli,” replied the other Friar, “passed by the convent but a quarter
of an hour ago on his way from the castle, and reported that her Highness
was dead. All our brethren are gone to the chapel to pray for her happy
transit to a better life, and willed me to wait thy arrival. They know
thy holy attachment to that good Lady, and are anxious for the affliction
it will cause in thee—indeed we have all reason to weep; she was a mother
to our house. But this life is but a pilgrimage; we must not murmur—we
shall all follow her! May our end be like hers!”
“Good brother, thou dreamest,” said Jerome. “I tell thee I come from the
castle, and left the Princess well. Where is the Lady Isabella?”
“Poor Gentlewoman!” replied the Friar; “I told her the sad news, and
offered her spiritual comfort. I reminded her of the transitory
condition of mortality, and advised her to take the veil: I quoted the
example of the holy Princess Sanchia of Arragon.”
“Thy zeal was laudable,” said Jerome, impatiently; “but at present it was
unnecessary: Hippolita is well—at least I trust in the Lord she is; I
heard nothing to the contrary—yet, methinks, the Prince’s
earnestness—Well, brother, but where is the Lady Isabella?”
“I know not,” said the Friar; “she wept much, and said she would retire
to her chamber.”
Jerome left his comrade abruptly, and hastened to the Princess, but she
was not in her chamber. He inquired of the domestics of the convent, but
could learn no news of her. He searched in vain throughout the monastery
and the church, and despatched messengers round the neighbourhood, to get
intelligence if she had been seen; but to no purpose. Nothing could
equal the good man’s perplexity. He judged that Isabella, suspecting
Manfred of having precipitated his wife’s death, had taken the alarm, and
withdrawn herself to some more secret place of concealment. This new
flight would probably carry the Prince’s fury to the height. The report
of Hippolita’s death, though it seemed almost incredible, increased his
consternation; and though Isabella’s escape bespoke her aversion of
Manfred for a husband, Jerome could feel no comfort from it, while it
endangered the life of his son. He determined to return to the castle,
and made several of his brethren accompany him to attest his innocence to
Manfred, and, if necessary, join their intercession with his for
Theodore.
The Prince, in the meantime, had passed into the court, and ordered the
gates of the castle to be flung open for the reception of the stranger
Knight and his train. In a few minutes the cavalcade arrived. First
came two harbingers with wands. Next a herald, followed by two pages and
two trumpets. Then a hundred foot-guards. These were attended by as
many horse. After them fifty footmen, clothed in scarlet and black, the
colours of the Knight. Then a led horse. Two heralds on each side of a
gentleman on horseback bearing a banner with the arms of Vicenza and
Otranto quarterly—a circumstance that much offended Manfred—but he
stifled his resentment. Two more pages. The Knight’s confessor telling
his beads. Fifty more footmen clad as before. Two Knights habited in
complete armour, their beavers down, comrades to the principal Knight.
The squires of the two Knights, carrying their shields and devices. The
Knight’s own squire. A hundred gentlemen bearing an enormous sword, and
seeming to faint under the weight of it. The Knight himself on a
chestnut steed, in complete armour, his lance in the rest, his face
entirely concealed by his vizor, which was surmounted by a large plume of
scarlet and black feathers. Fifty foot-guards with drums and trumpets
closed the procession, which wheeled off to the right and left to make
room for the principal Knight.
As soon as he approached the gate he stopped; and the herald advancing,
read again the words of the challenge. Manfred’s eyes were fixed on the
gigantic sword, and he scarce seemed to attend to the cartel: but his
attention was soon diverted by a tempest of wind that rose behind him.
He turned and beheld the Plumes of the enchanted helmet agitated in the
same extraordinary manner as before. It required intrepidity like
Manfred’s not to sink under a concurrence of circumstances that seemed to
announce his fate. Yet scorning in the presence of strangers to betray
the courage he had always manifested, he said boldly—
“Sir Knight, whoever thou art, I bid thee welcome. If thou art of mortal
mould, thy valour shall meet its equal: and if thou art a true Knight,
thou wilt scorn to employ sorcery to carry thy point. Be these omens
from heaven or hell, Manfred trusts to the righteousness of his cause and
to the aid of St. Nicholas, who has ever protected his house. Alight,
Sir Knight, and repose thyself. To-morrow thou shalt have a fair field,
and heaven befriend the juster side!”
The Knight made no reply, but dismounting, was conducted by Manfred to
the great hall of the castle. As they traversed the court, the Knight
stopped to gaze on the miraculous casque; and kneeling down, seemed to
pray inwardly for some minutes. Rising, he made a sign to the Prince to
lead on. As soon as they entered the hall, Manfred proposed to the
stranger to disarm, but the Knight shook his head in token of refusal.
“Sir Knight,” said Manfred, “this is not courteous, but by my good faith
I will not cross thee, nor shalt thou have cause to complain of the
Prince of Otranto. No treachery is designed on my part; I hope none is
intended on thine; here take my gage” (giving him his ring): “your
friends and you shall enjoy the laws of hospitality. Rest here until
refreshments are brought. I will but give orders for the accommodation
of your train, and return to you.” The three Knights bowed as accepting
his courtesy. Manfred directed the stranger’s retinue to be conducted to
an adjacent hospital, founded by the Princess Hippolita for the reception
of pilgrims. As they made the circuit of the court to return towards the
gate, the gigantic sword burst from the supporters, and falling to the
ground opposite to the helmet, remained immovable. Manfred, almost
hardened to preternatural appearances, surmounted the shock of this new
prodigy; and returning to the hall, where by this time the feast was
ready, he invited his silent guests to take their places. Manfred,
however ill his heart was at ease, endeavoured to inspire the company
with mirth. He put several questions to them, but was answered only by
signs. They raised their vizors but sufficiently to feed themselves, and
that sparingly.
“Sirs” said the Prince, “ye are the first guests I ever treated within
these walls who scorned to hold any intercourse with me: nor has it oft
been customary, I ween, for princes to hazard their state and dignity
against strangers and mutes. You say you come in the name of Frederic of
Vicenza; I have ever heard that he was a gallant and courteous Knight;
nor would he, I am bold to say, think it beneath him to mix in social
converse with a Prince that is his equal, and not unknown by deeds in
arms. Still ye are silent—well! be it as it may—by the laws of
hospitality and chivalry ye are masters under this roof: ye shall do your
pleasure. But come, give me a goblet of wine; ye will not refuse to
pledge me to the healths of your fair mistresses.”
The principal Knight sighed and crossed himself, and was rising from the
board.
“Sir Knight,” said Manfred, “what I said was but in sport. I shall
constrain you in nothing: use your good liking. Since mirth is not your
mood, let us be sad. Business may hit your fancies better. Let us
withdraw, and hear if what I have to unfold may be better relished than
the vain efforts I have made for your pastime.”
Manfred then conducting the three Knights into an inner chamber, shut the
door, and inviting them to be seated, began thus, addressing himself to
the chief personage:—
“You come, Sir Knight, as I understand, in the name of the Marquis of
Vicenza, to re-demand the Lady Isabella, his daughter, who has been
contracted in the face of Holy Church to my son, by the consent of her
legal guardians; and to require me to resign my dominions to your Lord,
who gives himself for the nearest of blood to Prince Alfonso, whose soul
God rest! I shall speak to the latter article of your demands first.
You must know, your Lord knows, that I enjoy the principality of Otranto
from my father, Don Manuel, as he received it from his father, Don
Ricardo. Alfonso, their predecessor, dying childless in the Holy Land,
bequeathed his estates to my grandfather, Don Ricardo, in consideration
of his faithful services.” The stranger shook his head.
“Sir Knight,” said Manfred, warmly, “Ricardo was a valiant and upright
man; he was a pious man; witness his munificent foundation of the
adjoining church and two convents. He was peculiarly patronised by St.
Nicholas—my grandfather was incapable—I say, Sir, Don Ricardo was
incapable—excuse me, your interruption has disordered me. I venerate the
memory of my grandfather. Well, Sirs, he held this estate; he held it by
his good sword and by the favour of St. Nicholas—so did my father; and
so, Sirs, will I, come what come will. But Frederic, your Lord, is
nearest in blood. I have consented to put my title to the issue of the
sword. Does that imply a vicious title? I might have asked, where is
Frederic your Lord? Report speaks him dead in captivity. You say, your
actions say, he lives—I question it not—I might, Sirs, I might—but I do
not. Other Princes would bid Frederic take his inheritance by force, if
he can: they would not stake their dignity on a single combat: they would
not submit it to the decision of unknown mutes!—pardon me, gentlemen, I
am too warm: but suppose yourselves in my situation: as ye are stout
Knights, would it not move your choler to have your own and the honour of
your ancestors called in question?”
“But to the point. Ye require me to deliver up the Lady Isabella. Sirs,
I must ask if ye are authorised to receive her?”
The Knight nodded.
“Receive her,” continued Manfred; “well, you are authorised to receive
her, but, gentle Knight, may I ask if you have full powers?”
The Knight nodded.
“’Tis well,” said Manfred; “then hear what I have to offer. Ye see,
gentlemen, before you, the most unhappy of men!” (he began to weep);
“afford me your compassion; I am entitled to it, indeed I am. Know, I
have lost my only hope, my joy, the support of my house—Conrad died
yester morning.”
The Knights discovered signs of surprise.
“Yes, Sirs, fate has disposed of my son. Isabella is at liberty.”
“Do you then restore her?” cried the chief Knight, breaking silence.
“Afford me your patience,” said Manfred. “I rejoice to find, by this
testimony of your goodwill, that this matter may be adjusted without
blood. It is no interest of mine dictates what little I have farther to
say. Ye behold in me a man disgusted with the world: the loss of my son
has weaned me from earthly cares. Power and greatness have no longer any
charms in my eyes. I wished to transmit the sceptre I had received from
my ancestors with honour to my son—but that is over! Life itself is so
indifferent to me, that I accepted your defiance with joy. A good Knight
cannot go to the grave with more satisfaction than when falling in his
vocation: whatever is the will of heaven, I submit; for alas! Sirs, I am
a man of many sorrows. Manfred is no object of envy, but no doubt you
are acquainted with my story.”
The Knight made signs of ignorance, and seemed curious to have Manfred
proceed.
“Is it possible, Sirs,” continued the Prince, “that my story should be a
secret to you? Have you heard nothing relating to me and the Princess
Hippolita?”
They shook their heads.
“No! Thus, then, Sirs, it is. You think me ambitious: ambition, alas!
is composed of more rugged materials. If I were ambitious, I should not
for so many years have been a prey to all the hell of conscientious
scruples. But I weary your patience: I will be brief. Know, then, that
I have long been troubled in mind on my union with the Princess
Hippolita. Oh! Sirs, if ye were acquainted with that excellent woman! if
ye knew that I adore her like a mistress, and cherish her as a friend—but
man was not born for perfect happiness! She shares my scruples, and with
her consent I have brought this matter before the church, for we are
related within the forbidden degrees. I expect every hour the definitive
sentence that must separate us for ever—I am sure you feel for me—I see
you do—pardon these tears!”
The Knights gazed on each other, wondering where this would end.
Manfred continued—
“The death of my son betiding while my soul was under this anxiety, I
thought of nothing but resigning my dominions, and retiring for ever from
the sight of mankind. My only difficulty was to fix on a successor, who
would be tender of my people, and to dispose of the Lady Isabella, who is
dear to me as my own blood. I was willing to restore the line of
Alfonso, even in his most distant kindred. And though, pardon me, I am
satisfied it was his will that Ricardo’s lineage should take place of his
own relations; yet where was I to search for those relations? I knew of
none but Frederic, your Lord; he was a captive to the infidels, or dead;
and were he living, and at home, would he quit the flourishing State of
Vicenza for the inconsiderable principality of Otranto? If he would not,
could I bear the thought of seeing a hard, unfeeling, Viceroy set over my
poor faithful people? for, Sirs, I love my people, and thank heaven am
beloved by them. But ye will ask whither tends this long discourse?
Briefly, then, thus, Sirs. Heaven in your arrival seems to point out a
remedy for these difficulties and my misfortunes. The Lady Isabella is
at liberty; I shall soon be so. I would submit to anything for the good
of my people. Were it not the best, the only way to extinguish the feuds
between our families, if I was to take the Lady Isabella to wife? You
start. But though Hippolita’s virtues will ever be dear to me, a Prince
must not consider himself; he is born for his people.” A servant at that
instant entering the chamber apprised Manfred that Jerome and several of
his brethren demanded immediate access to him.
The Prince, provoked at this interruption, and fearing that the Friar
would discover to the strangers that Isabella had taken sanctuary, was
going to forbid Jerome’s entrance. But recollecting that he was
certainly arrived to notify the Princess’s return, Manfred began to
excuse himself to the Knights for leaving them for a few moments, but was
prevented by the arrival of the Friars. Manfred angrily reprimanded them
for their intrusion, and would have forced them back from the chamber;
but Jerome was too much agitated to be repulsed. He declared aloud the
flight of Isabella, with protestations of his own innocence.
Manfred, distracted at the news, and not less at its coming to the
knowledge of the strangers, uttered nothing but incoherent sentences, now
upbraiding the Friar, now apologising to the Knights, earnest to know
what was become of Isabella, yet equally afraid of their knowing;
impatient to pursue her, yet dreading to have them join in the pursuit.
He offered to despatch messengers in quest of her, but the chief Knight,
no longer keeping silence, reproached Manfred in bitter terms for his
dark and ambiguous dealing, and demanded the cause of Isabella’s first
absence from the castle. Manfred, casting a stern look at Jerome,
implying a command of silence, pretended that on Conrad’s death he had
placed her in sanctuary until he could determine how to dispose of her.
Jerome, who trembled for his son’s life, did not dare contradict this
falsehood, but one of his brethren, not under the same anxiety, declared
frankly that she had fled to their church in the preceding night. The
Prince in vain endeavoured to stop this discovery, which overwhelmed him
with shame and confusion. The principal stranger, amazed at the
contradictions he heard, and more than half persuaded that Manfred had
secreted the Princess, notwithstanding the concern he expressed at her
flight, rushing to the door, said—
“Thou traitor Prince! Isabella shall be found.”
Manfred endeavoured to hold him, but the other Knights assisting their
comrade, he broke from the Prince, and hastened into the court, demanding
his attendants. Manfred, finding it vain to divert him from the pursuit,
offered to accompany him and summoning his attendants, and taking Jerome
and some of the Friars to guide them, they issued from the castle;
Manfred privately giving orders to have the Knight’s company secured,
while to the knight he affected to despatch a messenger to require their
assistance.
The company had no sooner quitted the castle than Matilda, who felt
herself deeply interested for the young peasant, since she had seen him
condemned to death in the hall, and whose thoughts had been taken up with
concerting measures to save him, was informed by some of the female
attendants that Manfred had despatched all his men various ways in
pursuit of Isabella. He had in his hurry given this order in general
terms, not meaning to extend it to the guard he had set upon Theodore,
but forgetting it. The domestics, officious to obey so peremptory a
Prince, and urged by their own curiosity and love of novelty to join in
any precipitate chase, had to a man left the castle. Matilda disengaged
herself from her women, stole up to the black tower, and unbolting the
door, presented herself to the astonished Theodore.
“Young man,” said she, “though filial duty and womanly modesty condemn
the step I am taking, yet holy charity, surmounting all other ties,
justifies this act. Fly; the doors of thy prison are open: my father and
his domestics are absent; but they may soon return. Be gone in safety;
and may the angels of heaven direct thy course!”
“Thou art surely one of those angels!” said the enraptured Theodore:
“none but a blessed saint could speak, could act—could look—like thee.
May I not know the name of my divine protectress? Methought thou namedst
thy father. Is it possible? Can Manfred’s blood feel holy pity! Lovely
Lady, thou answerest not. But how art thou here thyself? Why dost thou
neglect thy own safety, and waste a thought on a wretch like Theodore?
Let us fly together: the life thou bestowest shall be dedicated to thy
defence.”
“Alas! thou mistakest,” said Matilda, signing: “I am Manfred’s daughter,
but no dangers await me.”
“Amazement!” said Theodore; “but last night I blessed myself for yielding
thee the service thy gracious compassion so charitably returns me now.”
“Still thou art in an error,” said the Princess; “but this is no time for
explanation. Fly, virtuous youth, while it is in my power to save thee:
should my father return, thou and I both should indeed have cause to
tremble.”
“How!” said Theodore; “thinkest thou, charming maid, that I will accept
of life at the hazard of aught calamitous to thee? Better I endured a
thousand deaths.”
“I run no risk,” said Matilda, “but by thy delay. Depart; it cannot be
known that I have assisted thy flight.”
“Swear by the saints above,” said Theodore, “that thou canst not be
suspected; else here I vow to await whatever can befall me.”
“Oh! thou art too generous,” said Matilda; “but rest assured that no
suspicion can alight on me.”
“Give me thy beauteous hand in token that thou dost not deceive me,” said
Theodore; “and let me bathe it with the warm tears of gratitude.”
“Forbear!” said the Princess; “this must not be.”
“Alas!” said Theodore, “I have never known but calamity until this
hour—perhaps shall never know other fortune again: suffer the chaste
raptures of holy gratitude: ’tis my soul would print its effusions on thy
hand.”
“Forbear, and be gone,” said Matilda. “How would Isabella approve of
seeing thee at my feet?”
“Who is Isabella?” said the young man with surprise.
“Ah, me! I fear,” said the Princess, “I am serving a deceitful one.
Hast thou forgot thy curiosity this morning?”
“Thy looks, thy actions, all thy beauteous self seem an emanation of
divinity,” said Theodore; “but thy words are dark and mysterious. Speak,
Lady; speak to thy servant’s comprehension.”
“Thou understandest but too well!” said Matilda; “but once more I command
thee to be gone: thy blood, which I may preserve, will be on my head, if
I waste the time in vain discourse.”
“I go, Lady,” said Theodore, “because it is thy will, and because I would
not bring the grey hairs of my father with sorrow to the grave. Say but,
adored Lady, that I have thy gentle pity.”
“Stay,” said Matilda; “I will conduct thee to the subterraneous vault by
which Isabella escaped; it will lead thee to the church of St. Nicholas,
where thou mayst take sanctuary.”
“What!” said Theodore, “was it another, and not thy lovely self that I
assisted to find the subterraneous passage?”
“It was,” said Matilda; “but ask no more; I tremble to see thee still
abide here; fly to the sanctuary.”
“To sanctuary,” said Theodore; “no, Princess; sanctuaries are for
helpless damsels, or for criminals. Theodore’s soul is free from guilt,
nor will wear the appearance of it. Give me a sword, Lady, and thy
father shall learn that Theodore scorns an ignominious flight.”
“Rash youth!” said Matilda; “thou wouldst not dare to lift thy
presumptuous arm against the Prince of Otranto?”
“Not against thy father; indeed, I dare not,” said Theodore. “Excuse me,
Lady; I had forgotten. But could I gaze on thee, and remember thou art
sprung from the tyrant Manfred! But he is thy father, and from this
moment my injuries are buried in oblivion.”
A deep and hollow groan, which seemed to come from above, startled the
Princess and Theodore.
“Good heaven! we are overheard!” said the Princess. They listened; but
perceiving no further noise, they both concluded it the effect of pent-up
vapours. And the Princess, preceding Theodore softly, carried him to her
father’s armoury, where, equipping him with a complete suit, he was
conducted by Matilda to the postern-gate.
“Avoid the town,” said the Princess, “and all the western side of the
castle. ’Tis there the search must be making by Manfred and the
strangers; but hie thee to the opposite quarter. Yonder behind that
forest to the east is a chain of rocks, hollowed into a labyrinth of
caverns that reach to the sea coast. There thou mayst lie concealed,
till thou canst make signs to some vessel to put on shore, and take thee
off. Go! heaven be thy guide!—and sometimes in thy prayers
remember—Matilda!”
Theodore flung himself at her feet, and seizing her lily hand, which with
struggles she suffered him to kiss, he vowed on the earliest opportunity
to get himself knighted, and fervently entreated her permission to swear
himself eternally her knight. Ere the Princess could reply, a clap of
thunder was suddenly heard that shook the battlements. Theodore,
regardless of the tempest, would have urged his suit: but the Princess,
dismayed, retreated hastily into the castle, and commanded the youth to
be gone with an air that would not be disobeyed. He sighed, and retired,
but with eyes fixed on the gate, until Matilda, closing it, put an end to
an interview, in which the hearts of both had drunk so deeply of a
passion, which both now tasted for the first time.
Theodore went pensively to the convent, to acquaint his father with his
deliverance. There he learned the absence of Jerome, and the pursuit
that was making after the Lady Isabella, with some particulars of whose
story he now first became acquainted. The generous gallantry of his
nature prompted him to wish to assist her; but the Monks could lend him
no lights to guess at the route she had taken. He was not tempted to
wander far in search of her, for the idea of Matilda had imprinted itself
so strongly on his heart, that he could not bear to absent himself at
much distance from her abode. The tenderness Jerome had expressed for
him concurred to confirm this reluctance; and he even persuaded himself
that filial affection was the chief cause of his hovering between the
castle and monastery.
Until Jerome should return at night, Theodore at length determined to
repair to the forest that Matilda had pointed out to him. Arriving
there, he sought the gloomiest shades, as best suited to the pleasing
melancholy that reigned in his mind. In this mood he roved insensibly to
the caves which had formerly served as a retreat to hermits, and were now
reported round the country to be haunted by evil spirits. He recollected
to have heard this tradition; and being of a brave and adventurous
disposition, he willingly indulged his curiosity in exploring the secret
recesses of this labyrinth. He had not penetrated far before he thought
he heard the steps of some person who seemed to retreat before him.
Theodore, though firmly grounded in all our holy faith enjoins to be
believed, had no apprehension that good men were abandoned without cause
to the malice of the powers of darkness. He thought the place more
likely to be infested by robbers than by those infernal agents who are
reported to molest and bewilder travellers. He had long burned with
impatience to approve his valour. Drawing his sabre, he marched sedately
onwards, still directing his steps as the imperfect rustling sound before
him led the way. The armour he wore was a like indication to the person
who avoided him. Theodore, now convinced that he was not mistaken,
redoubled his pace, and evidently gained on the person that fled, whose
haste increasing, Theodore came up just as a woman fell breathless before
him. He hasted to raise her, but her terror was so great that he
apprehended she would faint in his arms. He used every gentle word to
dispel her alarms, and assured her that far from injuring, he would
defend her at the peril of his life. The Lady recovering her spirits
from his courteous demeanour, and gazing on her protector, said—
“Sure, I have heard that voice before!”
“Not to my knowledge,” replied Theodore; “unless, as I conjecture, thou
art the Lady Isabella.”
“Merciful heaven!” cried she. “Thou art not sent in quest of me, art
thou?” And saying those words, she threw herself at his feet, and
besought him not to deliver her up to Manfred.
“To Manfred!” cried Theodore—“no, Lady; I have once already delivered
thee from his tyranny, and it shall fare hard with me now, but I will
place thee out of the reach of his daring.”
“Is it possible,” said she, “that thou shouldst be the generous unknown
whom I met last night in the vault of the castle? Sure thou art not a
mortal, but my guardian angel. On my knees, let me thank—”
“Hold! gentle Princess,” said Theodore, “nor demean thyself before a poor
and friendless young man. If heaven has selected me for thy deliverer,
it will accomplish its work, and strengthen my arm in thy cause. But
come, Lady, we are too near the mouth of the cavern; let us seek its
inmost recesses. I can have no tranquillity till I have placed thee
beyond the reach of danger.”
“Alas! what mean you, sir?” said she. “Though all your actions are
noble, though your sentiments speak the purity of your soul, is it
fitting that I should accompany you alone into these perplexed retreats?
Should we be found together, what would a censorious world think of my
conduct?”
“I respect your virtuous delicacy,” said Theodore; “nor do you harbour a
suspicion that wounds my honour. I meant to conduct you into the most
private cavity of these rocks, and then at the hazard of my life to guard
their entrance against every living thing. Besides, Lady,” continued he,
drawing a deep sigh, “beauteous and all perfect as your form is, and
though my wishes are not guiltless of aspiring, know, my soul is
dedicated to another; and although—” A sudden noise prevented Theodore
from proceeding. They soon distinguished these sounds—
“Isabella! what, ho! Isabella!” The trembling Princess relapsed into her
former agony of fear. Theodore endeavoured to encourage her, but in
vain. He assured her he would die rather than suffer her to return under
Manfred’s power; and begging her to remain concealed, he went forth to
prevent the person in search of her from approaching.
At the mouth of the cavern he found an armed Knight, discoursing with a
peasant, who assured him he had seen a lady enter the passes of the rock.
The Knight was preparing to seek her, when Theodore, placing himself in
his way, with his sword drawn, sternly forbad him at his peril to
advance.
“And who art thou, who darest to cross my way?” said the Knight,
haughtily.
“One who does not dare more than he will perform,” said Theodore.
“I seek the Lady Isabella,” said the Knight, “and understand she has
taken refuge among these rocks. Impede me not, or thou wilt repent
having provoked my resentment.”
“Thy purpose is as odious as thy resentment is contemptible,” said
Theodore. “Return whence thou camest, or we shall soon know whose
resentment is most terrible.”
The stranger, who was the principal Knight that had arrived from the
Marquis of Vicenza, had galloped from Manfred as he was busied in getting
information of the Princess, and giving various orders to prevent her
falling into the power of the three Knights. Their chief had suspected
Manfred of being privy to the Princess’s absconding, and this insult from
a man, who he concluded was stationed by that Prince to secrete her,
confirming his suspicions, he made no reply, but discharging a blow with
his sabre at Theodore, would soon have removed all obstruction, if
Theodore, who took him for one of Manfred’s captains, and who had no
sooner given the provocation than prepared to support it, had not
received the stroke on his shield. The valour that had so long been
smothered in his breast broke forth at once; he rushed impetuously on the
Knight, whose pride and wrath were not less powerful incentives to hardy
deeds. The combat was furious, but not long. Theodore wounded the
Knight in three several places, and at last disarmed him as he fainted by
the loss of blood.
The peasant, who had fled on the first onset, had given the alarm to some
of Manfred’s domestics, who, by his orders, were dispersed through the
forest in pursuit of Isabella. They came up as the Knight fell, whom
they soon discovered to be the noble stranger. Theodore, notwithstanding
his hatred to Manfred, could not behold the victory he had gained without
emotions of pity and generosity. But he was more touched when he learned
the quality of his adversary, and was informed that he was no retainer,
but an enemy, of Manfred. He assisted the servants of the latter in
disarming the Knight, and in endeavouring to stanch the blood that flowed
from his wounds. The Knight recovering his speech, said, in a faint and
faltering voice—
“Generous foe, we have both been in an error. I took thee for an
instrument of the tyrant; I perceive thou hast made the like mistake. It
is too late for excuses. I faint. If Isabella is at hand—call her—I
have important secrets to—”
“He is dying!” said one of the attendants; “has nobody a crucifix about
them? Andrea, do thou pray over him.”
“Fetch some water,” said Theodore, “and pour it down his throat, while I
hasten to the Princess.”
Saying this, he flew to Isabella, and in few words told her modestly that
he had been so unfortunate by mistake as to wound a gentleman from her
father’s court, who wished, ere he died, to impart something of
consequence to her.
The Princess, who had been transported at hearing the voice of Theodore,
as he called to her to come forth, was astonished at what she heard.
Suffering herself to be conducted by Theodore, the new proof of whose
valour recalled her dispersed spirits, she came where the bleeding Knight
lay speechless on the ground. But her fears returned when she beheld the
domestics of Manfred. She would again have fled if Theodore had not made
her observe that they were unarmed, and had not threatened them with
instant death if they should dare to seize the Princess.
The stranger, opening his eyes, and beholding a woman, said, “Art
thou—pray tell me truly—art thou Isabella of Vicenza?”
“I am,” said she: “good heaven restore thee!”
“Then thou—then thou”—said the Knight, struggling for
utterance—“seest—thy father. Give me one—”
“Oh! amazement! horror! what do I hear! what do I see!” cried Isabella.
“My father! You my father! How came you here, Sir? For heaven’s sake,
speak! Oh! run for help, or he will expire!”
“’Tis most true,” said the wounded Knight, exerting all his force; “I am
Frederic thy father. Yes, I came to deliver thee. It will not be. Give
me a parting kiss, and take—”
“Sir,” said Theodore, “do not exhaust yourself; suffer us to convey you
to the castle.”
“To the castle!” said Isabella. “Is there no help nearer than the
castle? Would you expose my father to the tyrant? If he goes thither, I
dare not accompany him; and yet, can I leave him!”
“My child,” said Frederic, “it matters not for me whither I am carried.
A few minutes will place me beyond danger; but while I have eyes to dote
on thee, forsake me not, dear Isabella! This brave Knight—I know not who
he is—will protect thy innocence. Sir, you will not abandon my child,
will you?”
Theodore, shedding tears over his victim, and vowing to guard the
Princess at the expense of his life, persuaded Frederic to suffer himself
to be conducted to the castle. They placed him on a horse belonging to
one of the domestics, after binding up his wounds as well as they were
able. Theodore marched by his side; and the afflicted Isabella, who
could not bear to quit him, followed mournfully behind.
CHAPTER IV.
The sorrowful troop no sooner arrived at the castle, than they were met
by Hippolita and Matilda, whom Isabella had sent one of the domestics
before to advertise of their approach. The ladies causing Frederic to be
conveyed into the nearest chamber, retired, while the surgeons examined
his wounds. Matilda blushed at seeing Theodore and Isabella together;
but endeavoured to conceal it by embracing the latter, and condoling with
her on her father’s mischance. The surgeons soon came to acquaint
Hippolita that none of the Marquis’s wounds were dangerous; and that he
was desirous of seeing his daughter and the Princesses.
Theodore, under pretence of expressing his joy at being freed from his
apprehensions of the combat being fatal to Frederic, could not resist the
impulse of following Matilda. Her eyes were so often cast down on
meeting his, that Isabella, who regarded Theodore as attentively as he
gazed on Matilda, soon divined who the object was that he had told her in
the cave engaged his affections. While this mute scene passed, Hippolita
demanded of Frederic the cause of his having taken that mysterious course
for reclaiming his daughter; and threw in various apologies to excuse her
Lord for the match contracted between their children.
Frederic, however incensed against Manfred, was not insensible to the
courtesy and benevolence of Hippolita: but he was still more struck with
the lovely form of Matilda. Wishing to detain them by his bedside, he
informed Hippolita of his story. He told her that, while prisoner to the
infidels, he had dreamed that his daughter, of whom he had learned no
news since his captivity, was detained in a castle, where she was in
danger of the most dreadful misfortunes: and that if he obtained his
liberty, and repaired to a wood near Joppa, he would learn more. Alarmed
at this dream, and incapable of obeying the direction given by it, his
chains became more grievous than ever. But while his thoughts were
occupied on the means of obtaining his liberty, he received the agreeable
news that the confederate Princes who were warring in Palestine had paid
his ransom. He instantly set out for the wood that had been marked in
his dream.
For three days he and his attendants had wandered in the forest without
seeing a human form: but on the evening of the third they came to a cell,
in which they found a venerable hermit in the agonies of death. Applying
rich cordials, they brought the fainting man to his speech.
“My sons,” said he, “I am bounden to your charity—but it is in vain—I am
going to my eternal rest—yet I die with the satisfaction of performing
the will of heaven. When first I repaired to this solitude, after seeing
my country become a prey to unbelievers—it is alas! above fifty years
since I was witness to that dreadful scene! St. Nicholas appeared to me,
and revealed a secret, which he bade me never disclose to mortal man, but
on my death-bed. This is that tremendous hour, and ye are no doubt the
chosen warriors to whom I was ordered to reveal my trust. As soon as ye
have done the last offices to this wretched corse, dig under the seventh
tree on the left hand of this poor cave, and your pains will—Oh! good
heaven receive my soul!” With those words the devout man breathed his
last.
“By break of day,” continued Frederic, “when we had committed the holy
relics to earth, we dug according to direction. But what was our
astonishment when about the depth of six feet we discovered an enormous
sabre—the very weapon yonder in the court. On the blade, which was then
partly out of the scabbard, though since closed by our efforts in
removing it, were written the following lines—no; excuse me, Madam,”
added the Marquis, turning to Hippolita; “if I forbear to repeat them: I
respect your sex and rank, and would not be guilty of offending your ear
with sounds injurious to aught that is dear to you.”
He paused. Hippolita trembled. She did not doubt but Frederic was
destined by heaven to accomplish the fate that seemed to threaten her
house. Looking with anxious fondness at Matilda, a silent tear stole
down her cheek: but recollecting herself, she said—
“Proceed, my Lord; heaven does nothing in vain; mortals must receive its
divine behests with lowliness and submission. It is our part to
deprecate its wrath, or bow to its decrees. Repeat the sentence, my
Lord; we listen resigned.”
Frederic was grieved that he had proceeded so far. The dignity and
patient firmness of Hippolita penetrated him with respect, and the tender
silent affection with which the Princess and her daughter regarded each
other, melted him almost to tears. Yet apprehensive that his forbearance
to obey would be more alarming, he repeated in a faltering and low voice
the following lines:
“Where’er a casque that suits this sword is found,
With perils is thy daughter compass’d round;
_Alfonso’s_ blood alone can save the maid,
And quiet a long restless Prince’s shade.”
“What is there in these lines,” said Theodore impatiently, “that affects
these Princesses? Why were they to be shocked by a mysterious delicacy,
that has so little foundation?”
“Your words are rude, young man,” said the Marquis; “and though fortune
has favoured you once—”
“My honoured Lord,” said Isabella, who resented Theodore’s warmth, which
she perceived was dictated by his sentiments for Matilda, “discompose not
yourself for the glosing of a peasant’s son: he forgets the reverence he
owes you; but he is not accustomed—”
Hippolita, concerned at the heat that had arisen, checked Theodore for
his boldness, but with an air acknowledging his zeal; and changing the
conversation, demanded of Frederic where he had left her Lord? As the
Marquis was going to reply, they heard a noise without, and rising to
inquire the cause, Manfred, Jerome, and part of the troop, who had met an
imperfect rumour of what had happened, entered the chamber. Manfred
advanced hastily towards Frederic’s bed to condole with him on his
misfortune, and to learn the circumstances of the combat, when starting
in an agony of terror and amazement, he cried—
“Ha! what art thou? thou dreadful spectre! is my hour come?”
“My dearest, gracious Lord,” cried Hippolita, clasping him in her arms,
“what is it you see! Why do you fix your eye-balls thus?”
“What!” cried Manfred breathless; “dost thou see nothing, Hippolita? Is
this ghastly phantom sent to me alone—to rue, who did not—”
“For mercy’s sweetest self, my Lord,” said Hippolita, “resume your soul,
command your reason. There is none here, but us, your friends.”
“What, is not that Alfonso?” cried Manfred. “Dost thou not see him? can
it be my brain’s delirium?”
“This! my Lord,” said Hippolita; “this is Theodore, the youth who has
been so unfortunate.”
“Theodore!” said Manfred mournfully, and striking his forehead; “Theodore
or a phantom, he has unhinged the soul of Manfred. But how comes he
here? and how comes he in armour?”
“I believe he went in search of Isabella,” said Hippolita.
“Of Isabella!” said Manfred, relapsing into rage; “yes, yes, that is not
doubtful—. But how did he escape from durance in which I left him? Was
it Isabella, or this hypocritical old Friar, that procured his
enlargement?”
“And would a parent be criminal, my Lord,” said Theodore, “if he
meditated the deliverance of his child?”
Jerome, amazed to hear himself in a manner accused by his son, and
without foundation, knew not what to think. He could not comprehend how
Theodore had escaped, how he came to be armed, and to encounter Frederic.
Still he would not venture to ask any questions that might tend to
inflame Manfred’s wrath against his son. Jerome’s silence convinced
Manfred that he had contrived Theodore’s release.
“And is it thus, thou ungrateful old man,” said the Prince, addressing
himself to the Friar, “that thou repayest mine and Hippolita’s bounties?
And not content with traversing my heart’s nearest wishes, thou armest
thy bastard, and bringest him into my own castle to insult me!”
“My Lord,” said Theodore, “you wrong my father: neither he nor I are
capable of harbouring a thought against your peace. Is it insolence thus
to surrender myself to your Highness’s pleasure?” added he, laying his
sword respectfully at Manfred’s feet. “Behold my bosom; strike, my Lord,
if you suspect that a disloyal thought is lodged there. There is not a
sentiment engraven on my heart that does not venerate you and yours.”
The grace and fervour with which Theodore uttered these words interested
every person present in his favour. Even Manfred was touched—yet still
possessed with his resemblance to Alfonso, his admiration was dashed with
secret horror.
“Rise,” said he; “thy life is not my present purpose. But tell me thy
history, and how thou camest connected with this old traitor here.”
“My Lord,” said Jerome eagerly.
“Peace! impostor!” said Manfred; “I will not have him prompted.”
“My Lord,” said Theodore, “I want no assistance; my story is very brief.
I was carried at five years of age to Algiers with my mother, who had
been taken by corsairs from the coast of Sicily. She died of grief in
less than a twelvemonth;” the tears gushed from Jerome’s eyes, on whose
countenance a thousand anxious passions stood expressed. “Before she
died,” continued Theodore, “she bound a writing about my arm under my
garments, which told me I was the son of the Count Falconara.”
“It is most true,” said Jerome; “I am that wretched father.”
“Again I enjoin thee silence,” said Manfred: “proceed.”
“I remained in slavery,” said Theodore, “until within these two years,
when attending on my master in his cruises, I was delivered by a
Christian vessel, which overpowered the pirate; and discovering myself to
the captain, he generously put me on shore in Sicily; but alas! instead
of finding a father, I learned that his estate, which was situated on the
coast, had, during his absence, been laid waste by the Rover who had
carried my mother and me into captivity: that his castle had been burnt
to the ground, and that my father on his return had sold what remained,
and was retired into religion in the kingdom of Naples, but where no man
could inform me. Destitute and friendless, hopeless almost of attaining
the transport of a parent’s embrace, I took the first opportunity of
setting sail for Naples, from whence, within these six days, I wandered
into this province, still supporting myself by the labour of my hands;
nor until yester-morn did I believe that heaven had reserved any lot for
me but peace of mind and contented poverty. This, my Lord, is Theodore’s
story. I am blessed beyond my hope in finding a father; I am unfortunate
beyond my desert in having incurred your Highness’s displeasure.”
He ceased. A murmur of approbation gently arose from the audience.
“This is not all,” said Frederic; “I am bound in honour to add what he
suppresses. Though he is modest, I must be generous; he is one of the
bravest youths on Christian ground. He is warm too; and from the short
knowledge I have of him, I will pledge myself for his veracity: if what
he reports of himself were not true, he would not utter it—and for me,
youth, I honour a frankness which becomes thy birth; but now, and thou
didst offend me: yet the noble blood which flows in thy veins, may well
be allowed to boil out, when it has so recently traced itself to its
source. Come, my Lord,” (turning to Manfred), “if I can pardon him,
surely you may; it is not the youth’s fault, if you took him for a
spectre.”
This bitter taunt galled the soul of Manfred.
“If beings from another world,” replied he haughtily, “have power to
impress my mind with awe, it is more than living man can do; nor could a
stripling’s arm.”
“My Lord,” interrupted Hippolita, “your guest has occasion for repose:
shall we not leave him to his rest?” Saying this, and taking Manfred by
the hand, she took leave of Frederic, and led the company forth.
The Prince, not sorry to quit a conversation which recalled to mind the
discovery he had made of his most secret sensations, suffered himself to
be conducted to his own apartment, after permitting Theodore, though
under engagement to return to the castle on the morrow (a condition the
young man gladly accepted), to retire with his father to the convent.
Matilda and Isabella were too much occupied with their own reflections,
and too little content with each other, to wish for farther converse that
night. They separated each to her chamber, with more expressions of
ceremony and fewer of affection than had passed between them since their
childhood.
If they parted with small cordiality, they did but meet with greater
impatience, as soon as the sun was risen. Their minds were in a
situation that excluded sleep, and each recollected a thousand questions
which she wished she had put to the other overnight. Matilda reflected
that Isabella had been twice delivered by Theodore in very critical
situations, which she could not believe accidental. His eyes, it was
true, had been fixed on her in Frederic’s chamber; but that might have
been to disguise his passion for Isabella from the fathers of both. It
were better to clear this up. She wished to know the truth, lest she
should wrong her friend by entertaining a passion for Isabella’s lover.
Thus jealousy prompted, and at the same time borrowed an excuse from
friendship to justify its curiosity.
Isabella, not less restless, had better foundation for her suspicions.
Both Theodore’s tongue and eyes had told her his heart was engaged; it
was true—yet, perhaps, Matilda might not correspond to his passion; she
had ever appeared insensible to love: all her thoughts were set on
heaven.
“Why did I dissuade her?” said Isabella to herself; “I am punished for my
generosity; but when did they meet? where? It cannot be; I have deceived
myself; perhaps last night was the first time they ever beheld each
other; it must be some other object that has prepossessed his
affections—if it is, I am not so unhappy as I thought; if it is not my
friend Matilda—how! Can I stoop to wish for the affection of a man, who
rudely and unnecessarily acquainted me with his indifference? and that at
the very moment in which common courtesy demanded at least expressions of
civility. I will go to my dear Matilda, who will confirm me in this
becoming pride. Man is false—I will advise with her on taking the veil:
she will rejoice to find me in this disposition; and I will acquaint her
that I no longer oppose her inclination for the cloister.”
In this frame of mind, and determined to open her heart entirely to
Matilda, she went to that Princess’s chamber, whom she found already
dressed, and leaning pensively on her arm. This attitude, so
correspondent to what she felt herself, revived Isabella’s suspicions,
and destroyed the confidence she had purposed to place in her friend.
They blushed at meeting, and were too much novices to disguise their
sensations with address. After some unmeaning questions and replies,
Matilda demanded of Isabella the cause of her flight? The latter, who
had almost forgotten Manfred’s passion, so entirely was she occupied by
her own, concluding that Matilda referred to her last escape from the
convent, which had occasioned the events of the preceding evening,
replied—
“Martelli brought word to the convent that your mother was dead.”
“Oh!” said Matilda, interrupting her, “Bianca has explained that mistake
to me: on seeing me faint, she cried out, ‘The Princess is dead!’ and
Martelli, who had come for the usual dole to the castle—”
“And what made you faint?” said Isabella, indifferent to the rest.
Matilda blushed and stammered—
“My father—he was sitting in judgment on a criminal—”
“What criminal?” said Isabella eagerly.
“A young man,” said Matilda; “I believe—”
“I think it was that young man that—”
“What, Theodore?” said Isabella.
“Yes,” answered she; “I never saw him before; I do not know how he had
offended my father, but as he has been of service to you, I am glad my
Lord has pardoned him.”
“Served me!” replied Isabella; “do you term it serving me, to wound my
father, and almost occasion his death? Though it is but since yesterday
that I am blessed with knowing a parent, I hope Matilda does not think I
am such a stranger to filial tenderness as not to resent the boldness of
that audacious youth, and that it is impossible for me ever to feel any
affection for one who dared to lift his arm against the author of my
being. No, Matilda, my heart abhors him; and if you still retain the
friendship for me that you have vowed from your infancy, you will detest
a man who has been on the point of making me miserable for ever.”
Matilda held down her head and replied: “I hope my dearest Isabella does
not doubt her Matilda’s friendship: I never beheld that youth until
yesterday; he is almost a stranger to me: but as the surgeons have
pronounced your father out of danger, you ought not to harbour
uncharitable resentment against one, who I am persuaded did not know the
Marquis was related to you.”
“You plead his cause very pathetically,” said Isabella, “considering he
is so much a stranger to you! I am mistaken, or he returns your
charity.”
“What mean you?” said Matilda.
“Nothing,” said Isabella, repenting that she had given Matilda a hint of
Theodore’s inclination for her. Then changing the discourse, she asked
Matilda what occasioned Manfred to take Theodore for a spectre?
“Bless me,” said Matilda, “did not you observe his extreme resemblance to
the portrait of Alfonso in the gallery? I took notice of it to Bianca
even before I saw him in armour; but with the helmet on, he is the very
image of that picture.”
“I do not much observe pictures,” said Isabella: “much less have I
examined this young man so attentively as you seem to have done. Ah?
Matilda, your heart is in danger, but let me warn you as a friend, he has
owned to me that he is in love; it cannot be with you, for yesterday was
the first time you ever met—was it not?”
“Certainly,” replied Matilda; “but why does my dearest Isabella conclude
from anything I have said, that”—she paused—then continuing: “he saw you
first, and I am far from having the vanity to think that my little
portion of charms could engage a heart devoted to you; may you be happy,
Isabella, whatever is the fate of Matilda!”
“My lovely friend,” said Isabella, whose heart was too honest to resist a
kind expression, “it is you that Theodore admires; I saw it; I am
persuaded of it; nor shall a thought of my own happiness suffer me to
interfere with yours.”
This frankness drew tears from the gentle Matilda; and jealousy that for
a moment had raised a coolness between these amiable maidens soon gave
way to the natural sincerity and candour of their souls. Each confessed
to the other the impression that Theodore had made on her; and this
confidence was followed by a struggle of generosity, each insisting on
yielding her claim to her friend. At length the dignity of Isabella’s
virtue reminding her of the preference which Theodore had almost declared
for her rival, made her determine to conquer her passion, and cede the
beloved object to her friend.
During this contest of amity, Hippolita entered her daughter’s chamber.
“Madam,” said she to Isabella, “you have so much tenderness for Matilda,
and interest yourself so kindly in whatever affects our wretched house,
that I can have no secrets with my child which are not proper for you to
hear.”
The princesses were all attention and anxiety.
“Know then, Madam,” continued Hippolita, “and you my dearest Matilda,
that being convinced by all the events of these two last ominous days,
that heaven purposes the sceptre of Otranto should pass from Manfred’s
hands into those of the Marquis Frederic, I have been perhaps inspired
with the thought of averting our total destruction by the union of our
rival houses. With this view I have been proposing to Manfred, my lord,
to tender this dear, dear child to Frederic, your father.”
“Me to Lord Frederic!” cried Matilda; “good heavens! my gracious
mother—and have you named it to my father?”
“I have,” said Hippolita; “he listened benignly to my proposal, and is
gone to break it to the Marquis.”
“Ah! wretched princess!” cried Isabella; “what hast thou done! what ruin
has thy inadvertent goodness been preparing for thyself, for me, and for
Matilda!”
“Ruin from me to you and to my child!” said Hippolita “what can this
mean?”
“Alas!” said Isabella, “the purity of your own heart prevents your seeing
the depravity of others. Manfred, your lord, that impious man—”
“Hold,” said Hippolita; “you must not in my presence, young lady, mention
Manfred with disrespect: he is my lord and husband, and—”
“Will not long be so,” said Isabella, “if his wicked purposes can be
carried into execution.”
“This language amazes me,” said Hippolita. “Your feeling, Isabella, is
warm; but until this hour I never knew it betray you into intemperance.
What deed of Manfred authorises you to treat him as a murderer, an
assassin?”
“Thou virtuous, and too credulous Princess!” replied Isabella; “it is not
thy life he aims at—it is to separate himself from thee! to divorce thee!
to—”
“To divorce me!” “To divorce my mother!” cried Hippolita and Matilda at
once.
“Yes,” said Isabella; “and to complete his crime, he meditates—I cannot
speak it!”
“What can surpass what thou hast already uttered?” said Matilda.
Hippolita was silent. Grief choked her speech; and the recollection of
Manfred’s late ambiguous discourses confirmed what she heard.
“Excellent, dear lady! madam! mother!” cried Isabella, flinging herself
at Hippolita’s feet in a transport of passion; “trust me, believe me, I
will die a thousand deaths sooner than consent to injure you, than yield
to so odious—oh!—”
“This is too much!” cried Hippolita: “What crimes does one crime suggest!
Rise, dear Isabella; I do not doubt your virtue. Oh! Matilda, this
stroke is too heavy for thee! weep not, my child; and not a murmur, I
charge thee. Remember, he is thy father still!”
“But you are my mother too,” said Matilda fervently; “and you are
virtuous, you are guiltless!—Oh! must not I, must not I complain?”
“You must not,” said Hippolita—“come, all will yet be well. Manfred, in
the agony for the loss of thy brother, knew not what he said; perhaps
Isabella misunderstood him; his heart is good—and, my child, thou knowest
not all! There is a destiny hangs over us; the hand of Providence is
stretched out; oh! could I but save thee from the wreck! Yes,” continued
she in a firmer tone, “perhaps the sacrifice of myself may atone for all;
I will go and offer myself to this divorce—it boots not what becomes of
me. I will withdraw into the neighbouring monastery, and waste the
remainder of life in prayers and tears for my child and—the Prince!”
“Thou art as much too good for this world,” said Isabella, “as Manfred is
execrable; but think not, lady, that thy weakness shall determine for me.
I swear, hear me all ye angels—”
“Stop, I adjure thee,” cried Hippolita: “remember thou dost not depend on
thyself; thou hast a father.”
“My father is too pious, too noble,” interrupted Isabella, “to command an
impious deed. But should he command it; can a father enjoin a cursed
act? I was contracted to the son, can I wed the father? No, madam, no;
force should not drag me to Manfred’s hated bed. I loathe him, I abhor
him: divine and human laws forbid—and my friend, my dearest Matilda!
would I wound her tender soul by injuring her adored mother? my own
mother—I never have known another”—
“Oh! she is the mother of both!” cried Matilda: “can we, can we,
Isabella, adore her too much?”
“My lovely children,” said the touched Hippolita, “your tenderness
overpowers me—but I must not give way to it. It is not ours to make
election for ourselves: heaven, our fathers, and our husbands must decide
for us. Have patience until you hear what Manfred and Frederic have
determined. If the Marquis accepts Matilda’s hand, I know she will
readily obey. Heaven may interpose and prevent the rest. What means my
child?” continued she, seeing Matilda fall at her feet with a flood of
speechless tears—“But no; answer me not, my daughter: I must not hear a
word against the pleasure of thy father.”
“Oh! doubt not my obedience, my dreadful obedience to him and to you!”
said Matilda. “But can I, most respected of women, can I experience all
this tenderness, this world of goodness, and conceal a thought from the
best of mothers?”
“What art thou going to utter?” said Isabella trembling. “Recollect
thyself, Matilda.”
“No, Isabella,” said the Princess, “I should not deserve this
incomparable parent, if the inmost recesses of my soul harboured a
thought without her permission—nay, I have offended her; I have suffered
a passion to enter my heart without her avowal—but here I disclaim it;
here I vow to heaven and her—”
“My child! my child;” said Hippolita, “what words are these! what new
calamities has fate in store for us! Thou, a passion? Thou, in this
hour of destruction—”
“Oh! I see all my guilt!” said Matilda. “I abhor myself, if I cost my
mother a pang. She is the dearest thing I have on earth—Oh! I will
never, never behold him more!”
“Isabella,” said Hippolita, “thou art conscious to this unhappy secret,
whatever it is. Speak!”
“What!” cried Matilda, “have I so forfeited my mother’s love, that she
will not permit me even to speak my own guilt? oh! wretched, wretched
Matilda!”
“Thou art too cruel,” said Isabella to Hippolita: “canst thou behold this
anguish of a virtuous mind, and not commiserate it?”
“Not pity my child!” said Hippolita, catching Matilda in her arms—“Oh! I
know she is good, she is all virtue, all tenderness, and duty. I do
forgive thee, my excellent, my only hope!”
The princesses then revealed to Hippolita their mutual inclination for
Theodore, and the purpose of Isabella to resign him to Matilda.
Hippolita blamed their imprudence, and showed them the improbability that
either father would consent to bestow his heiress on so poor a man,
though nobly born. Some comfort it gave her to find their passion of so
recent a date, and that Theodore had had but little cause to suspect it
in either. She strictly enjoined them to avoid all correspondence with
him. This Matilda fervently promised: but Isabella, who flattered
herself that she meant no more than to promote his union with her friend,
could not determine to avoid him; and made no reply.
“I will go to the convent,” said Hippolita, “and order new masses to be
said for a deliverance from these calamities.”
“Oh! my mother,” said Matilda, “you mean to quit us: you mean to take
sanctuary, and to give my father an opportunity of pursuing his fatal
intention. Alas! on my knees I supplicate you to forbear; will you leave
me a prey to Frederic? I will follow you to the convent.”
“Be at peace, my child,” said Hippolita: “I will return instantly. I
will never abandon thee, until I know it is the will of heaven, and for
thy benefit.”
“Do not deceive me,” said Matilda. “I will not marry Frederic until thou
commandest it. Alas! what will become of me?”
“Why that exclamation?” said Hippolita. “I have promised thee to
return—”
“Ah! my mother,” replied Matilda, “stay and save me from myself. A frown
from thee can do more than all my father’s severity. I have given away
my heart, and you alone can make me recall it.”
“No more,” said Hippolita; “thou must not relapse, Matilda.”
“I can quit Theodore,” said she, “but must I wed another? let me attend
thee to the altar, and shut myself from the world for ever.”
“Thy fate depends on thy father,” said Hippolita; “I have ill-bestowed my
tenderness, if it has taught thee to revere aught beyond him. Adieu! my
child: I go to pray for thee.”
Hippolita’s real purpose was to demand of Jerome, whether in conscience
she might not consent to the divorce. She had oft urged Manfred to
resign the principality, which the delicacy of her conscience rendered an
hourly burthen to her. These scruples concurred to make the separation
from her husband appear less dreadful to her than it would have seemed in
any other situation.
Jerome, at quitting the castle overnight, had questioned Theodore
severely why he had accused him to Manfred of being privy to his escape.
Theodore owned it had been with design to prevent Manfred’s suspicion
from alighting on Matilda; and added, the holiness of Jerome’s life and
character secured him from the tyrant’s wrath. Jerome was heartily
grieved to discover his son’s inclination for that princess; and leaving
him to his rest, promised in the morning to acquaint him with important
reasons for conquering his passion.
Theodore, like Isabella, was too recently acquainted with parental
authority to submit to its decisions against the impulse of his heart.
He had little curiosity to learn the Friar’s reasons, and less
disposition to obey them. The lovely Matilda had made stronger
impressions on him than filial affection. All night he pleased himself
with visions of love; and it was not till late after the morning-office,
that he recollected the Friar’s commands to attend him at Alfonso’s tomb.
“Young man,” said Jerome, when he saw him, “this tardiness does not
please me. Have a father’s commands already so little weight?”
Theodore made awkward excuses, and attributed his delay to having
overslept himself.
“And on whom were thy dreams employed?” said the Friar sternly. His son
blushed. “Come, come,” resumed the Friar, “inconsiderate youth, this
must not be; eradicate this guilty passion from thy breast—”
“Guilty passion!” cried Theodore: “Can guilt dwell with innocent beauty
and virtuous modesty?”
“It is sinful,” replied the Friar, “to cherish those whom heaven has
doomed to destruction. A tyrant’s race must be swept from the earth to
the third and fourth generation.”
“Will heaven visit the innocent for the crimes of the guilty?” said
Theodore. “The fair Matilda has virtues enough—”
“To undo thee:” interrupted Jerome. “Hast thou so soon forgotten that
twice the savage Manfred has pronounced thy sentence?”
“Nor have I forgotten, sir,” said Theodore, “that the charity of his
daughter delivered me from his power. I can forget injuries, but never
benefits.”
“The injuries thou hast received from Manfred’s race,” said the Friar,
“are beyond what thou canst conceive. Reply not, but view this holy
image! Beneath this marble monument rest the ashes of the good Alfonso;
a prince adorned with every virtue: the father of his people! the delight
of mankind! Kneel, headstrong boy, and list, while a father unfolds a
tale of horror that will expel every sentiment from thy soul, but
sensations of sacred vengeance—Alfonso! much injured prince! let thy
unsatisfied shade sit awful on the troubled air, while these trembling
lips—Ha! who comes there?—”
“The most wretched of women!” said Hippolita, entering the choir. “Good
Father, art thou at leisure?—but why this kneeling youth? what means the
horror imprinted on each countenance? why at this venerable tomb—alas!
hast thou seen aught?”
“We were pouring forth our orisons to heaven,” replied the Friar, with
some confusion, “to put an end to the woes of this deplorable province.
Join with us, Lady! thy spotless soul may obtain an exemption from the
judgments which the portents of these days but too speakingly denounce
against thy house.”
“I pray fervently to heaven to divert them,” said the pious Princess.
“Thou knowest it has been the occupation of my life to wrest a blessing
for my Lord and my harmless children.—One alas! is taken from me! would
heaven but hear me for my poor Matilda! Father! intercede for her!”
“Every heart will bless her,” cried Theodore with rapture.
“Be dumb, rash youth!” said Jerome. “And thou, fond Princess, contend
not with the Powers above! the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away:
bless His holy name, and submit to his decrees.”
“I do most devoutly,” said Hippolita; “but will He not spare my only
comfort? must Matilda perish too?—ah! Father, I came—but dismiss thy
son. No ear but thine must hear what I have to utter.”
“May heaven grant thy every wish, most excellent Princess!” said Theodore
retiring. Jerome frowned.
Hippolita then acquainted the Friar with the proposal she had suggested
to Manfred, his approbation of it, and the tender of Matilda that he was
gone to make to Frederic. Jerome could not conceal his dislike of the
notion, which he covered under pretence of the improbability that
Frederic, the nearest of blood to Alfonso, and who was come to claim his
succession, would yield to an alliance with the usurper of his right.
But nothing could equal the perplexity of the Friar, when Hippolita
confessed her readiness not to oppose the separation, and demanded his
opinion on the legality of her acquiescence. The Friar caught eagerly at
her request of his advice, and without explaining his aversion to the
proposed marriage of Manfred and Isabella, he painted to Hippolita in the
most alarming colours the sinfulness of her consent, denounced judgments
against her if she complied, and enjoined her in the severest terms to
treat any such proposition with every mark of indignation and refusal.
Manfred, in the meantime, had broken his purpose to Frederic, and
proposed the double marriage. That weak Prince, who had been struck with
the charms of Matilda, listened but too eagerly to the offer. He forgot
his enmity to Manfred, whom he saw but little hope of dispossessing by
force; and flattering himself that no issue might succeed from the union
of his daughter with the tyrant, he looked upon his own succession to the
principality as facilitated by wedding Matilda. He made faint opposition
to the proposal; affecting, for form only, not to acquiesce unless
Hippolita should consent to the divorce. Manfred took that upon himself.
Transported with his success, and impatient to see himself in a situation
to expect sons, he hastened to his wife’s apartment, determined to extort
her compliance. He learned with indignation that she was absent at the
convent. His guilt suggested to him that she had probably been informed
by Isabella of his purpose. He doubted whether her retirement to the
convent did not import an intention of remaining there, until she could
raise obstacles to their divorce; and the suspicions he had already
entertained of Jerome, made him apprehend that the Friar would not only
traverse his views, but might have inspired Hippolita with the resolution
of talking sanctuary. Impatient to unravel this clue, and to defeat its
success, Manfred hastened to the convent, and arrived there as the Friar
was earnestly exhorting the Princess never to yield to the divorce.
“Madam,” said Manfred, “what business drew you hither? why did you not
await my return from the Marquis?”
“I came to implore a blessing on your councils,” replied Hippolita.
“My councils do not need a Friar’s intervention,” said Manfred; “and of
all men living is that hoary traitor the only one whom you delight to
confer with?”
“Profane Prince!” said Jerome; “is it at the altar that thou choosest to
insult the servants of the altar?—but, Manfred, thy impious schemes are
known. Heaven and this virtuous lady know them—nay, frown not, Prince.
The Church despises thy menaces. Her thunders will be heard above thy
wrath. Dare to proceed in thy cursed purpose of a divorce, until her
sentence be known, and here I lance her anathema at thy head.”
“Audacious rebel!” said Manfred, endeavouring to conceal the awe with
which the Friar’s words inspired him. “Dost thou presume to threaten thy
lawful Prince?”
“Thou art no lawful Prince,” said Jerome; “thou art no Prince—go, discuss
thy claim with Frederic; and when that is done—”
“It is done,” replied Manfred; “Frederic accepts Matilda’s hand, and is
content to waive his claim, unless I have no male issue”—as he spoke
those words three drops of blood fell from the nose of Alfonso’s statue.
Manfred turned pale, and the Princess sank on her knees.
“Behold!” said the Friar; “mark this miraculous indication that the blood
of Alfonso will never mix with that of Manfred!”
“My gracious Lord,” said Hippolita, “let us submit ourselves to heaven.
Think not thy ever obedient wife rebels against thy authority. I have no
will but that of my Lord and the Church. To that revered tribunal let us
appeal. It does not depend on us to burst the bonds that unite us. If
the Church shall approve the dissolution of our marriage, be it so—I have
but few years, and those of sorrow, to pass. Where can they be worn away
so well as at the foot of this altar, in prayers for thine and Matilda’s
safety?”
“But thou shalt not remain here until then,” said Manfred. “Repair with
me to the castle, and there I will advise on the proper measures for a
divorce;—but this meddling Friar comes not thither; my hospitable roof
shall never more harbour a traitor—and for thy Reverence’s offspring,”
continued he, “I banish him from my dominions. He, I ween, is no sacred
personage, nor under the protection of the Church. Whoever weds
Isabella, it shall not be Father Falconara’s started-up son.”
“They start up,” said the Friar, “who are suddenly beheld in the seat of
lawful Princes; but they wither away like the grass, and their place
knows them no more.”
Manfred, casting a look of scorn at the Friar, led Hippolita forth; but
at the door of the church whispered one of his attendants to remain
concealed about the convent, and bring him instant notice, if any one
from the castle should repair thither.
CHAPTER V.
Every reflection which Manfred made on the Friar’s behaviour, conspired
to persuade him that Jerome was privy to an amour between Isabella and
Theodore. But Jerome’s new presumption, so dissonant from his former
meekness, suggested still deeper apprehensions. The Prince even
suspected that the Friar depended on some secret support from Frederic,
whose arrival, coinciding with the novel appearance of Theodore, seemed
to bespeak a correspondence. Still more was he troubled with the
resemblance of Theodore to Alfonso’s portrait. The latter he knew had
unquestionably died without issue. Frederic had consented to bestow
Isabella on him. These contradictions agitated his mind with numberless
pangs.
He saw but two methods of extricating himself from his difficulties. The
one was to resign his dominions to the Marquis—pride, ambition, and his
reliance on ancient prophecies, which had pointed out a possibility of
his preserving them to his posterity, combated that thought. The other
was to press his marriage with Isabella. After long ruminating on these
anxious thoughts, as he marched silently with Hippolita to the castle, he
at last discoursed with that Princess on the subject of his disquiet, and
used every insinuating and plausible argument to extract her consent to,
even her promise of promoting the divorce. Hippolita needed little
persuasions to bend her to his pleasure. She endeavoured to win him over
to the measure of resigning his dominions; but finding her exhortations
fruitless, she assured him, that as far as her conscience would allow,
she would raise no opposition to a separation, though without better
founded scruples than what he yet alleged, she would not engage to be
active in demanding it.
This compliance, though inadequate, was sufficient to raise Manfred’s
hopes. He trusted that his power and wealth would easily advance his
suit at the court of Rome, whither he resolved to engage Frederic to take
a journey on purpose. That Prince had discovered so much passion for
Matilda, that Manfred hoped to obtain all he wished by holding out or
withdrawing his daughter’s charms, according as the Marquis should appear
more or less disposed to co-operate in his views. Even the absence of
Frederic would be a material point gained, until he could take further
measures for his security.
Dismissing Hippolita to her apartment, he repaired to that of the
Marquis; but crossing the great hall through which he was to pass he met
Bianca. The damsel he knew was in the confidence of both the young
ladies. It immediately occurred to him to sift her on the subject of
Isabella and Theodore. Calling her aside into the recess of the oriel
window of the hall, and soothing her with many fair words and promises,
he demanded of her whether she knew aught of the state of Isabella’s
affections.
“I! my Lord! no my Lord—yes my Lord—poor Lady! she is wonderfully alarmed
about her father’s wounds; but I tell her he will do well; don’t your
Highness think so?”
“I do not ask you,” replied Manfred, “what she thinks about her father;
but you are in her secrets. Come, be a good girl and tell me; is there
any young man—ha!—you understand me.”
“Lord bless me! understand your Highness? no, not I. I told her a few
vulnerary herbs and repose—”
“I am not talking,” replied the Prince, impatiently, “about her father; I
know he will do well.”
“Bless me, I rejoice to hear your Highness say so; for though I thought
it not right to let my young Lady despond, methought his greatness had a
wan look, and a something—I remember when young Ferdinand was wounded by
the Venetian—”
“Thou answerest from the point,” interrupted Manfred; “but here, take
this jewel, perhaps that may fix thy attention—nay, no reverences; my
favour shall not stop here—come, tell me truly; how stands Isabella’s
heart?”
“Well! your Highness has such a way!” said Bianca, “to be sure—but can
your Highness keep a secret? if it should ever come out of your lips—”
“It shall not, it shall not,” cried Manfred.
“Nay, but swear, your Highness.”
“By my halidame, if it should ever be known that I said it—”
“Why, truth is truth, I do not think my Lady Isabella ever much
affectioned my young Lord your son; yet he was a sweet youth as one
should see; I am sure, if I had been a Princess—but bless me! I must
attend my Lady Matilda; she will marvel what is become of me.”
“Stay,” cried Manfred; “thou hast not satisfied my question. Hast thou
ever carried any message, any letter?”
“I! good gracious!” cried Bianca; “I carry a letter? I would not to be a
Queen. I hope your Highness thinks, though I am poor, I am honest. Did
your Highness never hear what Count Marsigli offered me, when he came a
wooing to my Lady Matilda?”
“I have not leisure,” said Manfred, “to listen to thy tale. I do not
question thy honesty. But it is thy duty to conceal nothing from me.
How long has Isabella been acquainted with Theodore?”
“Nay, there is nothing can escape your Highness!” said Bianca; “not that
I know any thing of the matter. Theodore, to be sure, is a proper young
man, and, as my Lady Matilda says, the very image of good Alfonso. Has
not your Highness remarked it?”
“Yes, yes,—No—thou torturest me,” said Manfred. “Where did they meet?
when?”
“Who! my Lady Matilda?” said Bianca.
“No, no, not Matilda: Isabella; when did Isabella first become acquainted
with this Theodore!”
“Virgin Mary!” said Bianca, “how should I know?”
“Thou dost know,” said Manfred; “and I must know; I will—”
“Lord! your Highness is not jealous of young Theodore!” said Bianca.
“Jealous! no, no. Why should I be jealous? perhaps I mean to unite
them—If I were sure Isabella would have no repugnance.”
“Repugnance! no, I’ll warrant her,” said Bianca; “he is as comely a youth
as ever trod on Christian ground. We are all in love with him; there is
not a soul in the castle but would be rejoiced to have him for our
Prince—I mean, when it shall please heaven to call your Highness to
itself.”
“Indeed!” said Manfred, “has it gone so far! oh! this cursed Friar!—but I
must not lose time—go, Bianca, attend Isabella; but I charge thee, not a
word of what has passed. Find out how she is affected towards Theodore;
bring me good news, and that ring has a companion. Wait at the foot of
the winding staircase: I am going to visit the Marquis, and will talk
further with thee at my return.”
Manfred, after some general conversation, desired Frederic to dismiss the
two Knights, his companions, having to talk with him on urgent affairs.
As soon as they were alone, he began in artful guise to sound the Marquis
on the subject of Matilda; and finding him disposed to his wish, he let
drop hints on the difficulties that would attend the celebration of their
marriage, unless—At that instant Bianca burst into the room with a
wildness in her look and gestures that spoke the utmost terror.
“Oh! my Lord, my Lord!” cried she; “we are all undone! it is come again!
it is come again!”
“What is come again?” cried Manfred amazed.
“Oh! the hand! the Giant! the hand!—support me! I am terrified out of my
senses,” cried Bianca. “I will not sleep in the castle to-night. Where
shall I go? my things may come after me to-morrow—would I had been
content to wed Francesco! this comes of ambition!”
“What has terrified thee thus, young woman?” said the Marquis. “Thou art
safe here; be not alarmed.”
“Oh! your Greatness is wonderfully good,” said Bianca, “but I dare
not—no, pray let me go—I had rather leave everything behind me, than stay
another hour under this roof.”
“Go to, thou hast lost thy senses,” said Manfred. “Interrupt us not; we
were communing on important matters—My Lord, this wench is subject to
fits—Come with me, Bianca.”
“Oh! the Saints! No,” said Bianca, “for certain it comes to warn your
Highness; why should it appear to me else? I say my prayers morning and
evening—oh! if your Highness had believed Diego! ’Tis the same hand that
he saw the foot to in the gallery-chamber—Father Jerome has often told us
the prophecy would be out one of these days—‘Bianca,’ said he, ‘mark my
words—’”
“Thou ravest,” said Manfred, in a rage; “be gone, and keep these
fooleries to frighten thy companions.”
“What! my Lord,” cried Bianca, “do you think I have seen nothing? go to
the foot of the great stairs yourself—as I live I saw it.”
“Saw what? tell us, fair maid, what thou hast seen,” said Frederic.
“Can your Highness listen,” said Manfred, “to the delirium of a silly
wench, who has heard stories of apparitions until she believes them?”
“This is more than fancy,” said the Marquis; “her terror is too natural
and too strongly impressed to be the work of imagination. Tell us, fair
maiden, what it is has moved thee thus?”
“Yes, my Lord, thank your Greatness,” said Bianca; “I believe I look very
pale; I shall be better when I have recovered myself—I was going to my
Lady Isabella’s chamber, by his Highness’s order—”
“We do not want the circumstances,” interrupted Manfred. “Since his
Highness will have it so, proceed; but be brief.”
“Lord! your Highness thwarts one so!” replied Bianca; “I fear my hair—I
am sure I never in my life—well! as I was telling your Greatness, I was
going by his Highness’s order to my Lady Isabella’s chamber; she lies in
the watchet-coloured chamber, on the right hand, one pair of stairs: so
when I came to the great stairs—I was looking on his Highness’s present
here—”
“Grant me patience!” said Manfred, “will this wench never come to the
point? what imports it to the Marquis, that I gave thee a bauble for thy
faithful attendance on my daughter? we want to know what thou sawest.”
“I was going to tell your Highness,” said Bianca, “if you would permit
me. So as I was rubbing the ring—I am sure I had not gone up three
steps, but I heard the rattling of armour; for all the world such a
clatter as Diego says he heard when the Giant turned him about in the
gallery-chamber.”
“What Giant is this, my Lord?” said the Marquis; “is your castle haunted
by giants and goblins?”
“Lord! what, has not your Greatness heard the story of the Giant in the
gallery-chamber?” cried Bianca. “I marvel his Highness has not told you;
mayhap you do not know there is a prophecy—”
“This trifling is intolerable,” interrupted Manfred. “Let us dismiss
this silly wench, my Lord! we have more important affairs to discuss.”
“By your favour,” said Frederic, “these are no trifles. The enormous
sabre I was directed to in the wood, yon casque, its fellow—are these
visions of this poor maiden’s brain?”
“So Jaquez thinks, may it please your Greatness,” said Bianca. “He says
this moon will not be out without our seeing some strange revolution.
For my part, I should not be surprised if it was to happen to-morrow;
for, as I was saying, when I heard the clattering of armour, I was all in
a cold sweat. I looked up, and, if your Greatness will believe me, I saw
upon the uppermost banister of the great stairs a hand in armour as big
as big. I thought I should have swooned. I never stopped until I came
hither—would I were well out of this castle. My Lady Matilda told me but
yester-morning that her Highness Hippolita knows something.”
“Thou art an insolent!” cried Manfred. “Lord Marquis, it much misgives
me that this scene is concerted to affront me. Are my own domestics
suborned to spread tales injurious to my honour? Pursue your claim by
manly daring; or let us bury our feuds, as was proposed, by the
intermarriage of our children. But trust me, it ill becomes a Prince of
your bearing to practise on mercenary wenches.”
“I scorn your imputation,” said Frederic. “Until this hour I never set
eyes on this damsel: I have given her no jewel. My Lord, my Lord, your
conscience, your guilt accuses you, and would throw the suspicion on me;
but keep your daughter, and think no more of Isabella. The judgments
already fallen on your house forbid me matching into it.”
Manfred, alarmed at the resolute tone in which Frederic delivered these
words, endeavoured to pacify him. Dismissing Bianca, he made such
submissions to the Marquis, and threw in such artful encomiums on
Matilda, that Frederic was once more staggered. However, as his passion
was of so recent a date, it could not at once surmount the scruples he
had conceived. He had gathered enough from Bianca’s discourse to
persuade him that heaven declared itself against Manfred. The proposed
marriages too removed his claim to a distance; and the principality of
Otranto was a stronger temptation than the contingent reversion of it
with Matilda. Still he would not absolutely recede from his engagements;
but purposing to gain time, he demanded of Manfred if it was true in fact
that Hippolita consented to the divorce. The Prince, transported to find
no other obstacle, and depending on his influence over his wife, assured
the Marquis it was so, and that he might satisfy himself of the truth
from her own mouth.
As they were thus discoursing, word was brought that the banquet was
prepared. Manfred conducted Frederic to the great hall, where they were
received by Hippolita and the young Princesses. Manfred placed the
Marquis next to Matilda, and seated himself between his wife and
Isabella. Hippolita comported herself with an easy gravity; but the
young ladies were silent and melancholy. Manfred, who was determined to
pursue his point with the Marquis in the remainder of the evening, pushed
on the feast until it waxed late; affecting unrestrained gaiety, and
plying Frederic with repeated goblets of wine. The latter, more upon his
guard than Manfred wished, declined his frequent challenges, on pretence
of his late loss of blood; while the Prince, to raise his own disordered
spirits, and to counterfeit unconcern, indulged himself in plentiful
draughts, though not to the intoxication of his senses.
The evening being far advanced, the banquet concluded. Manfred would
have withdrawn with Frederic; but the latter pleading weakness and want
of repose, retired to his chamber, gallantly telling the Prince that his
daughter should amuse his Highness until himself could attend him.
Manfred accepted the party, and to the no small grief of Isabella,
accompanied her to her apartment. Matilda waited on her mother to enjoy
the freshness of the evening on the ramparts of the castle.
Soon as the company were dispersed their several ways, Frederic, quitting
his chamber, inquired if Hippolita was alone, and was told by one of her
attendants, who had not noticed her going forth, that at that hour she
generally withdrew to her oratory, where he probably would find her. The
Marquis, during the repast, had beheld Matilda with increase of passion.
He now wished to find Hippolita in the disposition her Lord had promised.
The portents that had alarmed him were forgotten in his desires.
Stealing softly and unobserved to the apartment of Hippolita, he entered
it with a resolution to encourage her acquiescence to the divorce, having
perceived that Manfred was resolved to make the possession of Isabella an
unalterable condition, before he would grant Matilda to his wishes.
The Marquis was not surprised at the silence that reigned in the
Princess’s apartment. Concluding her, as he had been advertised, in her
oratory, he passed on. The door was ajar; the evening gloomy and
overcast. Pushing open the door gently, he saw a person kneeling before
the altar. As he approached nearer, it seemed not a woman, but one in a
long woollen weed, whose back was towards him. The person seemed
absorbed in prayer. The Marquis was about to return, when the figure,
rising, stood some moments fixed in meditation, without regarding him.
The Marquis, expecting the holy person to come forth, and meaning to
excuse his uncivil interruption, said,
“Reverend Father, I sought the Lady Hippolita.”
“Hippolita!” replied a hollow voice; “camest thou to this castle to seek
Hippolita?” and then the figure, turning slowly round, discovered to
Frederic the fleshless jaws and empty sockets of a skeleton, wrapt in a
hermit’s cowl.
“Angels of grace protect me!” cried Frederic, recoiling.
“Deserve their protection!” said the Spectre. Frederic, falling on his
knees, adjured the phantom to take pity on him.
“Dost thou not remember me?” said the apparition. “Remember the wood of
Joppa!”
“Art thou that holy hermit?” cried Frederic, trembling. “Can I do aught
for thy eternal peace?”
“Wast thou delivered from bondage,” said the spectre, “to pursue carnal
delights? Hast thou forgotten the buried sabre, and the behest of Heaven
engraven on it?”
“I have not, I have not,” said Frederic; “but say, blest spirit, what is
thy errand to me? What remains to be done?”
“To forget Matilda!” said the apparition; and vanished.
Frederic’s blood froze in his veins. For some minutes he remained
motionless. Then falling prostrate on his face before the altar, he
besought the intercession of every saint for pardon. A flood of tears
succeeded to this transport; and the image of the beauteous Matilda
rushing in spite of him on his thoughts, he lay on the ground in a
conflict of penitence and passion. Ere he could recover from this agony
of his spirits, the Princess Hippolita with a taper in her hand entered
the oratory alone. Seeing a man without motion on the floor, she gave a
shriek, concluding him dead. Her fright brought Frederic to himself.
Rising suddenly, his face bedewed with tears, he would have rushed from
her presence; but Hippolita stopping him, conjured him in the most
plaintive accents to explain the cause of his disorder, and by what
strange chance she had found him there in that posture.
“Ah, virtuous Princess!” said the Marquis, penetrated with grief, and
stopped.
“For the love of Heaven, my Lord,” said Hippolita, “disclose the cause of
this transport! What mean these doleful sounds, this alarming
exclamation on my name? What woes has heaven still in store for the
wretched Hippolita? Yet silent! By every pitying angel, I adjure thee,
noble Prince,” continued she, falling at his feet, “to disclose the
purport of what lies at thy heart. I see thou feelest for me; thou
feelest the sharp pangs that thou inflictest—speak, for pity! Does aught
thou knowest concern my child?”
“I cannot speak,” cried Frederic, bursting from her. “Oh, Matilda!”
Quitting the Princess thus abruptly, he hastened to his own apartment.
At the door of it he was accosted by Manfred, who flushed by wine and
love had come to seek him, and to propose to waste some hours of the
night in music and revelling. Frederic, offended at an invitation so
dissonant from the mood of his soul, pushed him rudely aside, and
entering his chamber, flung the door intemperately against Manfred, and
bolted it inwards. The haughty Prince, enraged at this unaccountable
behaviour, withdrew in a frame of mind capable of the most fatal
excesses. As he crossed the court, he was met by the domestic whom he
had planted at the convent as a spy on Jerome and Theodore. This man,
almost breathless with the haste he had made, informed his Lord that
Theodore, and some lady from the castle were, at that instant, in private
conference at the tomb of Alfonso in St. Nicholas’s church. He had
dogged Theodore thither, but the gloominess of the night had prevented
his discovering who the woman was.
Manfred, whose spirits were inflamed, and whom Isabella had driven from
her on his urging his passion with too little reserve, did not doubt but
the inquietude she had expressed had been occasioned by her impatience to
meet Theodore. Provoked by this conjecture, and enraged at her father,
he hastened secretly to the great church. Gliding softly between the
aisles, and guided by an imperfect gleam of moonshine that shone faintly
through the illuminated windows, he stole towards the tomb of Alfonso, to
which he was directed by indistinct whispers of the persons he sought.
The first sounds he could distinguish were—
“Does it, alas! depend on me? Manfred will never permit our union.”
“No, this shall prevent it!” cried the tyrant, drawing his dagger, and
plunging it over her shoulder into the bosom of the person that spoke.
“Ah, me, I am slain!” cried Matilda, sinking. “Good heaven, receive my
soul!”
“Savage, inhuman monster, what hast thou done!” cried Theodore, rushing
on him, and wrenching his dagger from him.
“Stop, stop thy impious hand!” cried Matilda; “it is my father!”
Manfred, waking as from a trance, beat his breast, twisted his hands in
his locks, and endeavoured to recover his dagger from Theodore to
despatch himself. Theodore, scarce less distracted, and only mastering
the transports of his grief to assist Matilda, had now by his cries drawn
some of the monks to his aid. While part of them endeavoured, in concert
with the afflicted Theodore, to stop the blood of the dying Princess, the
rest prevented Manfred from laying violent hands on himself.
Matilda, resigning herself patiently to her fate, acknowledged with looks
of grateful love the zeal of Theodore. Yet oft as her faintness would
permit her speech its way, she begged the assistants to comfort her
father. Jerome, by this time, had learnt the fatal news, and reached the
church. His looks seemed to reproach Theodore, but turning to Manfred,
he said,
“Now, tyrant! behold the completion of woe fulfilled on thy impious and
devoted head! The blood of Alfonso cried to heaven for vengeance; and
heaven has permitted its altar to be polluted by assassination, that thou
mightest shed thy own blood at the foot of that Prince’s sepulchre!”
“Cruel man!” cried Matilda, “to aggravate the woes of a parent; may
heaven bless my father, and forgive him as I do! My Lord, my gracious
Sire, dost thou forgive thy child? Indeed, I came not hither to meet
Theodore. I found him praying at this tomb, whither my mother sent me to
intercede for thee, for her—dearest father, bless your child, and say you
forgive her.”
“Forgive thee! Murderous monster!” cried Manfred, “can assassins
forgive? I took thee for Isabella; but heaven directed my bloody hand to
the heart of my child. Oh, Matilda!—I cannot utter it—canst thou forgive
the blindness of my rage?”
“I can, I do; and may heaven confirm it!” said Matilda; “but while I have
life to ask it—oh! my mother! what will she feel? Will you comfort her,
my Lord? Will you not put her away? Indeed she loves you! Oh, I am
faint! bear me to the castle. Can I live to have her close my eyes?”
Theodore and the monks besought her earnestly to suffer herself to be
borne into the convent; but her instances were so pressing to be carried
to the castle, that placing her on a litter, they conveyed her thither as
she requested. Theodore, supporting her head with his arm, and hanging
over her in an agony of despairing love, still endeavoured to inspire her
with hopes of life. Jerome, on the other side, comforted her with
discourses of heaven, and holding a crucifix before her, which she bathed
with innocent tears, prepared her for her passage to immortality.
Manfred, plunged in the deepest affliction, followed the litter in
despair.
Ere they reached the castle, Hippolita, informed of the dreadful
catastrophe, had flown to meet her murdered child; but when she saw the
afflicted procession, the mightiness of her grief deprived her of her
senses, and she fell lifeless to the earth in a swoon. Isabella and
Frederic, who attended her, were overwhelmed in almost equal sorrow.
Matilda alone seemed insensible to her own situation: every thought was
lost in tenderness for her mother.
Ordering the litter to stop, as soon as Hippolita was brought to herself,
she asked for her father. He approached, unable to speak. Matilda,
seizing his hand and her mother’s, locked them in her own, and then
clasped them to her heart. Manfred could not support this act of
pathetic piety. He dashed himself on the ground, and cursed the day he
was born. Isabella, apprehensive that these struggles of passion were
more than Matilda could support, took upon herself to order Manfred to be
borne to his apartment, while she caused Matilda to be conveyed to the
nearest chamber. Hippolita, scarce more alive than her daughter, was
regardless of everything but her; but when the tender Isabella’s care
would have likewise removed her, while the surgeons examined Matilda’s
wound, she cried,
“Remove me! never, never! I lived but in her, and will expire with her.”
Matilda raised her eyes at her mother’s voice, but closed them again
without speaking. Her sinking pulse and the damp coldness of her hand
soon dispelled all hopes of recovery. Theodore followed the surgeons
into the outer chamber, and heard them pronounce the fatal sentence with
a transport equal to frenzy.
“Since she cannot live mine,” cried he, “at least she shall be mine in
death! Father! Jerome! will you not join our hands?” cried he to the
Friar, who, with the Marquis, had accompanied the surgeons.
“What means thy distracted rashness?” said Jerome. “Is this an hour for
marriage?”
“It is, it is,” cried Theodore. “Alas! there is no other!”
“Young man, thou art too unadvised,” said Frederic. “Dost thou think we
are to listen to thy fond transports in this hour of fate? What
pretensions hast thou to the Princess?”
“Those of a Prince,” said Theodore; “of the sovereign of Otranto. This
reverend man, my father, has informed me who I am.”
“Thou ravest,” said the Marquis. “There is no Prince of Otranto but
myself, now Manfred, by murder, by sacrilegious murder, has forfeited all
pretensions.”
“My Lord,” said Jerome, assuming an air of command, “he tells you true.
It was not my purpose the secret should have been divulged so soon, but
fate presses onward to its work. What his hot-headed passion has
revealed, my tongue confirms. Know, Prince, that when Alfonso set sail
for the Holy Land—”
“Is this a season for explanations?” cried Theodore. “Father, come and
unite me to the Princess; she shall be mine! In every other thing I will
dutifully obey you. My life! my adored Matilda!” continued Theodore,
rushing back into the inner chamber, “will you not be mine? Will you not
bless your—”
Isabella made signs to him to be silent, apprehending the Princess was
near her end.
“What, is she dead?” cried Theodore; “is it possible!”
The violence of his exclamations brought Matilda to herself. Lifting up
her eyes, she looked round for her mother.
“Life of my soul, I am here!” cried Hippolita; “think not I will quit
thee!”
“Oh! you are too good,” said Matilda. “But weep not for me, my mother!
I am going where sorrow never dwells—Isabella, thou hast loved me;
wouldst thou not supply my fondness to this dear, dear woman? Indeed I
am faint!”
“Oh! my child! my child!” said Hippolita in a flood of tears, “can I not
withhold thee a moment?”
“It will not be,” said Matilda; “commend me to heaven—Where is my father?
forgive him, dearest mother—forgive him my death; it was an error. Oh!
I had forgotten—dearest mother, I vowed never to see Theodore
more—perhaps that has drawn down this calamity—but it was not
intentional—can you pardon me?”
“Oh! wound not my agonising soul!” said Hippolita; “thou never couldst
offend me—Alas! she faints! help! help!”
“I would say something more,” said Matilda, struggling, “but it cannot
be—Isabella—Theodore—for my sake—Oh!—” she expired.
Isabella and her women tore Hippolita from the corse; but Theodore
threatened destruction to all who attempted to remove him from it. He
printed a thousand kisses on her clay-cold hands, and uttered every
expression that despairing love could dictate.
Isabella, in the meantime, was accompanying the afflicted Hippolita to
her apartment; but, in the middle of the court, they were met by Manfred,
who, distracted with his own thoughts, and anxious once more to behold
his daughter, was advancing to the chamber where she lay. As the moon
was now at its height, he read in the countenances of this unhappy
company the event he dreaded.
“What! is she dead?” cried he in wild confusion. A clap of thunder at
that instant shook the castle to its foundations; the earth rocked, and
the clank of more than mortal armour was heard behind. Frederic and
Jerome thought the last day was at hand. The latter, forcing Theodore
along with them, rushed into the court. The moment Theodore appeared,
the walls of the castle behind Manfred were thrown down with a mighty
force, and the form of Alfonso, dilated to an immense magnitude, appeared
in the centre of the ruins.
“Behold in Theodore the true heir of Alfonso!” said the vision: And
having pronounced those words, accompanied by a clap of thunder, it
ascended solemnly towards heaven, where the clouds parting asunder, the
form of St. Nicholas was seen, and receiving Alfonso’s shade, they were
soon wrapt from mortal eyes in a blaze of glory.
The beholders fell prostrate on their faces, acknowledging the divine
will. The first that broke silence was Hippolita.
“My Lord,” said she to the desponding Manfred, “behold the vanity of
human greatness! Conrad is gone! Matilda is no more! In Theodore we
view the true Prince of Otranto. By what miracle he is so I know
not—suffice it to us, our doom is pronounced! shall we not, can we but
dedicate the few deplorable hours we have to live, in deprecating the
further wrath of heaven? heaven ejects us—whither can we fly, but to yon
holy cells that yet offer us a retreat.”
“Thou guiltless but unhappy woman! unhappy by my crimes!” replied
Manfred, “my heart at last is open to thy devout admonitions. Oh!
could—but it cannot be—ye are lost in wonder—let me at last do justice on
myself! To heap shame on my own head is all the satisfaction I have left
to offer to offended heaven. My story has drawn down these judgments:
Let my confession atone—but, ah! what can atone for usurpation and a
murdered child? a child murdered in a consecrated place? List, sirs, and
may this bloody record be a warning to future tyrants!”
“Alfonso, ye all know, died in the Holy Land—ye would interrupt me; ye
would say he came not fairly to his end—it is most true—why else this
bitter cup which Manfred must drink to the dregs. Ricardo, my
grandfather, was his chamberlain—I would draw a veil over my ancestor’s
crimes—but it is in vain! Alfonso died by poison. A fictitious will
declared Ricardo his heir. His crimes pursued him—yet he lost no Conrad,
no Matilda! I pay the price of usurpation for all! A storm overtook
him. Haunted by his guilt he vowed to St. Nicholas to found a church and
two convents, if he lived to reach Otranto. The sacrifice was accepted:
the saint appeared to him in a dream, and promised that Ricardo’s
posterity should reign in Otranto until the rightful owner should be
grown too large to inhabit the castle, and as long as issue male from
Ricardo’s loins should remain to enjoy it—alas! alas! nor male nor
female, except myself, remains of all his wretched race! I have done—the
woes of these three days speak the rest. How this young man can be
Alfonso’s heir I know not—yet I do not doubt it. His are these
dominions; I resign them—yet I knew not Alfonso had an heir—I question
not the will of heaven—poverty and prayer must fill up the woeful space,
until Manfred shall be summoned to Ricardo.”
“What remains is my part to declare,” said Jerome. “When Alfonso set
sail for the Holy Land he was driven by a storm to the coast of Sicily.
The other vessel, which bore Ricardo and his train, as your Lordship must
have heard, was separated from him.”
“It is most true,” said Manfred; “and the title you give me is more than
an outcast can claim—well! be it so—proceed.”
Jerome blushed, and continued. “For three months Lord Alfonso was
wind-bound in Sicily. There he became enamoured of a fair virgin named
Victoria. He was too pious to tempt her to forbidden pleasures. They
were married. Yet deeming this amour incongruous with the holy vow of
arms by which he was bound, he determined to conceal their nuptials until
his return from the Crusade, when he purposed to seek and acknowledge her
for his lawful wife. He left her pregnant. During his absence she was
delivered of a daughter. But scarce had she felt a mother’s pangs ere
she heard the fatal rumour of her Lord’s death, and the succession of
Ricardo. What could a friendless, helpless woman do? Would her
testimony avail?—yet, my lord, I have an authentic writing—”
“It needs not,” said Manfred; “the horrors of these days, the vision we
have but now seen, all corroborate thy evidence beyond a thousand
parchments. Matilda’s death and my expulsion—”
“Be composed, my Lord,” said Hippolita; “this holy man did not mean to
recall your griefs.” Jerome proceeded.
“I shall not dwell on what is needless. The daughter of which Victoria
was delivered, was at her maturity bestowed in marriage on me. Victoria
died; and the secret remained locked in my breast. Theodore’s narrative
has told the rest.”
The Friar ceased. The disconsolate company retired to the remaining part
of the castle. In the morning Manfred signed his abdication of the
principality, with the approbation of Hippolita, and each took on them
the habit of religion in the neighbouring convents. Frederic offered his
daughter to the new Prince, which Hippolita’s tenderness for Isabella
concurred to promote. But Theodore’s grief was too fresh to admit the
thought of another love; and it was not until after frequent discourses
with Isabella of his dear Matilda, that he was persuaded he could know no
happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge
the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.
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