Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

CHAPTER IX. THE ‘COUR’ OF THE ALTIERI

A LONG autumn day was drawing to its close in Rome, and gradually here and there might be seen a few figures stealing listlessly along, or seated in melancholy mood before the shop-doors, trying to catch a momentary breath of air ere the hour of sunset should fall. All the great and noble of the capital had left a month before for the sea-side, or for Albano, or the shady valleys above Lucca. You might walk for days and never meet a carriage. It was a city in complete desolation. The grass sprang up between the stones, and troops of seared leaves, carried from the gardens, littered the empty streets. The palaces were barred up and fastened, the massive doors looking as if they had not opened for centuries. In one alone, throughout the entire city, did any signs of habitation linger, and here a single lamp threw its faint light over a wide courtyard, giving a ghost-like air to the vaulted corridors and dim distances around. All was still and silent within the walls; not a light gleamed from a window, not a sound issued. A solitary figure walked with weary footsteps up and down, stopping at times to listen, as if he heard the noise of one approaching, and then resuming his dreary round again.

As night closed in, a second stranger made his appearance, and timidly halting at the porter’s lodge, asked leave to enter; but the porter had gone to refresh himself at a neighbouring café, and the visitor passed in of his own accord. He was in a friar’s robe, and by his dusty dress and tired look showed that he had had a long journey; indeed, so overcome was he with fatigue that he sat down at once on a stone bench, depositing his heavy bag beside him. The oppressive heat, the fatigue, the silence of the lonesome spot, all combined, composed him to sleep; and poor Fra Luke, for it was he, crossed his arms before him, and snored away manfully.

Astonished by the deep-drawn breathing, the other stranger drew nigh, and, as well as the imperfect light permitted, examined him. He himself was a man of immense stature, and, though bowed and doubled by age, showed the remnant of a powerful frame: his dress was worn and shabby, but in its cut and in the fashion he wore it, bespoke the gentleman. He gazed long and attentively at the sleeping friar, and then approaching, he took up the bag that lay on the bench. It was weighty, and contained money—a considerable sum, too, as the stranger remarked, while he replaced it. The heavy bang of a door at this moment, and the sound of feet, however, recalled him from this contemplation, and at the same time a low whistle was heard, and a voice, in a subdued tone, called out, ‘O’Sullivan!’

‘Here!’ cried the stranger, who was quickly joined by another.

‘I am sorry to have kept you so long, chief,’ said the latter; ‘but he detained me, watching me so closely, too, that I feared to leave the room.’

‘And how is he—better?’

‘Far from it; he seems to be sinking every hour. His irritability is intense; eternally asking who have called to inquire after him—if Boyer had been to ask, if the Cardinal Caraffa had come. In fact, so eagerly set is his mind on these things, I have been obliged to make the coachman drive repeatedly into the courtyard, and by a loud uproar without convey the notion of a press of visitors.’

‘Has he asked after Barra or myself?’ said the chieftain, after a pause.

‘Yes; he said twice, “We must have our old followers up here—to-morrow or the next day.” But his mind is scarcely settled, for he talked of Florence and the duchess, and then went off about the insult of that arrest in France, which preys upon him incessantly.’

‘And why should it not, Kelly? Was there ever such baseness as that of Louis? Take my word for it, there’s a heavy day of reckoning to come to that house yet for this iniquity. It’s a sore trouble to me to think it will not be in my time, but it is not far off.’

‘Everything is possible now,’ said Kelly. ‘Heaven knows what’s in store for any of us! Men are talking in a way I never heard before. Boyer told me, two days ago, that the garrison of Paris was to be doubled, and Vincennes placed in a perfect state of defence.’

A bitter laugh from the old chieftain showed how he relished these symptoms of terror.

‘It will be no laughing matter when it comes,’ said Kelly gravely.

‘But who have called here? Tell me their names,’ said O’Sullivan sternly.

‘Not one, not one—stay, I am wrong. The cripple who sells the water-melons at the corner of the Babuino, he has been here; and Giacchino, the strolling actor, comes every morning and says, “Give my duty to his Royal Highness.”’

A muttered curse broke from O’Sullivan, and Kelly went on: ‘It was on Wednesday last he wished to have a mass in the chapel here, and I went to the Quirinal to say so. They should, of course, have sent a cardinal; but who came?—the Vicar of Santa Maria maggiore. I shut the door in his face, and told him that the highest of his masters might have been proud to come in his stead.’

‘They are tired of us all, Kelly,’ sighed the chieftain. ‘I have walked every day of the eight long years I have passed here in the Vatican gardens, and it was only yesterday a guard stopped me to ask if I were noble?—ay, by Heaven, if I were noble! I gulped down my passion and answered, “I am a gentleman in the service of his Royal Highness of England”; and he said, “That may well be, and yet give you no right to enter here.” The old Cardinal Balfi was passing, so I just said to his Eminence, “Give me your arm, for you are my junior by three good years.” Ay, and he did it too, and I passed in; but I’ll go there no more! no more!’ muttered he sadly. ‘Insults are hard to bear when one’s arm is too feeble to resent them.’

Kelly sighed too; and neither spoke for some seconds. ‘What heavy breathings are those I hear?’ cried Kelly suddenly; ‘some one has overheard us.’

‘Have no fear of that,’ replied the other; ‘it is a stout friar, taking his evening nap, on the stone bench yonder.’

Kelly hastened to the spot, and by the struggling gleam of the lamp could just recognise Fra Luke as he lay sleeping, snoring heavily.

‘You know him, then?’ asked O’Sullivan.

‘That do I: he is a countryman of ours, and as honest a soul as lives; but yet I’d just as soon not see him here Fra Luke,’ said he, shaking the sleeper’s shoulder, ‘Fra Luke. By St. Joseph! they must have hard mattresses up there at the convent, or he ‘d not sleep so soundly here.’

The burly friar at last stirred, and shook himself like some great water-dog, and then turning his eyes on Kelly, gradually recalled where he was. ‘Would he see me, Laurence? would he just let me say one word to him?’ muttered he in Kelly’s ear.

‘Impossible, Fra Luke; he is on a bed of sickness. God alone knows if he is ever to rise up from it!’

The Fra bent his head, and for some minutes continued to pray with great fervour, then turning to Kelly, said: * If it’s dying he is, there’s no good in disturbing his last moments; but if he was to get well enough to hear it, Laurence, will you promise to let me have two or three minutes beside his bed? Will you, at least* ask him if he ‘d see Fra Luke? He ‘ll know why himself.’

‘My poor fellow,’ said Kelly kindly, ‘like all the world, you fancy that the things which touch yourself must be nearest to the hearts of others. I don’t want to learn your secret, Luke—Heaven knows I have more than I wish for in my keeping already!—but take my word for it, the Prince has cares enough on his mind without your asking him to hear yours.’

‘Will you give him this, then,’ said the Fra, handing him the bag with the money; ‘there’s a hundred crowns in it just as he gave it to me, Monday was a fortnight. Tell him that—‘here he stopped and wiped his forehead, in confusion of thought; ‘tell him that it ‘s not wanting any more for—for what he knows; that it’s all over now; not that he’s dead, though—God be praised!—but what am I saying? Oh dear! oh dear! after my swearing never to speak of him!’

‘You are safe with me, Luke, depend on that. Only, as to the money, take my advice, and just keep it. He ‘ll never want to hear more of it. Many a hundred crowns have left this on a worse errand, whatever be its fate.’

‘I wouldn’t, to save my life! I wouldn’t, if it was to keep me from the galleys!’

‘Have your own way, then,’ said Kelly sharply; ‘I must not loiter here’; and so saying, took the bag from the friar’s hand, and moved over toward where O’Sullivan was standing.

‘Come along home with me, friar,’ said O’Sullivan, as Kelly wished them good-night; ‘I’ll give you a glass of Vermouth, and we ‘ll have a talk about the old country.’

CHAPTER X. GABRIEL DE———

‘I wish I knew how I could ever repay you, Pippo, for all your kindness to me,’ said Gerald, as he sat one fine evening with the old man at the door; ‘but when I tell you that I am as poor and as friendless in the world as on that same night when Signor Gabriel found me beside the lake——’

‘Not a whit poorer or more alone in the world than the rest of us,’ said Pippo good-naturedly. ‘We have all a rough journey before us in life, and the least we can do is to help one another.’

The youth grasped the old man’s hand and pressed it to his heart.

‘Besides,’ continued Pippo, ‘all your gratitude is owing to Signor Gabriel himself. Any little comforts you have had here have been of his procuring. He it was fetched that doctor from Bolseno, and his own hands carried the little jar of honey from St. Stephano.’

‘What a kind heart he has!’ cried Gerald eagerly.

‘Well,’ said Pippo, with a dry, odd smile, ‘that’s not exactly what people say of him; not but he can do a kind thing too, just as he can do anything.’

‘Is he so clever, then?’ asked Gerald curiously.

‘Is he not!’ exclaimed Pippo; ‘where has he not travelled, what has he not seen! And then the books he has written—scores of them, they tell me: he’s always writing still—whole nights through; after which, instead of going to his bed like any one else, he is off for a plunge in the lake there, though I’ve told him over and over, that the water that kills fish can never be healthy for a human being!’

‘What a strange nature his must be! And what brings him here?’

‘That’s his secret, and it would be mine too, if I knew it; for, I promise you, he ‘s not one it’s over safe to talk about.’

‘Where does he come from?’

‘He ‘s French, and that’s all I can tell you.’

‘It can’t be for the chasse he comes here,’ said Gerald musingly. ‘There’s no game in these mountains. It can scarcely be for seclusion, for he’s always rambling away to some village or town near. It’s now more than a week since we have seen him. I wish I could make out who or what he is!’

‘Would you indeed?’ cried a deep voice, as a large, heavy hand fell upon his shoulder; ‘and what would the knowledge benefit you, boy?’ Gerald looked up, and there stood Gabriel. He was dressed in a loose peasant’s frock, and seemed by his mien as if he had come off a long day’s march.

‘Go in, Pippo, and make me a good salad. Grill me that old hen yonder, and I’ll give you a share of a flask of Orvieto that was in the bishop’s cellar last night.’

He threw off his knapsack as he spoke, and removing his hat, wiped his heated forehead, and then turning to the youth at his side, he said: ‘So, boy, I am a sort of mystery to you, it seems—mayhap others share in that same sentiment—at least I have heard as much. But whence this curiosity on your part? You were a stranger to me, and you are so still. What can it signify to either of us what has happened before we met and knew each other? Life is not a river running in one bed, but a series of streams that follow fifty channels—some pure and limpid, some, perchance, turbid and foul enough. What you have been gives no guarantee to what you may be, remember that!’

He spoke with a tone of sternness that made his words sound like reproof, and the youth held down his head abashed.

‘Don’t suppose I am angry with you,’ continued the other, but in the self-same tone as before; ‘nor that I regard this curious desire of yours as ingratitude. You owe me nothing, or next to nothing, and you ‘re a rare instance of such in life, if within the next ten years the wish will not occur to you at least twenty times, that I had left you to die beside the dark shores of Bolseno!’

‘I can well believe it may be so,’ said Gerald with a sigh.

‘Not that this is my own philosophy,’ said the other, in a voice of powerful meaning. ‘I soon made the discovery that life was not a garden, but a hunting-ground, and that the wolves had the best of it! Ay, boy,’ cried he, with a kind of savage exultation, ‘there’s the experience of one whose boast it is to know something of his fellows!’

Gerald was silent, and for some time Gabriel also did not speak. At last, looking steadfastly at the youth, he said: ‘I have been up to Rome these last three days. My errand there was to learn something about you.’

‘About me?’ said Gerald, blushing deeply.

‘Yes. It was a whim—(I am the slave of such caprices)—seized me to learn how you came among the Jesuit brothers, and why you left them.’

‘I thought I had told you why myself,’ said the youth proudly.

‘So you had; but I am one of those who can only build on the foundation their own hands have laid, and so I went myself to learn your history.’

‘And has the journey rewarded your exertions?’ said the boy, half mockingly.

A sudden start, and a look of almost savage ferocity on Gabriel’s features, made Gerald tremble for his own rashness; and then, with a measured voice, he repeated the boy’s words:

‘The journey has rewarded my exertions.’

‘May I venture to ask what you have discovered?’ said Gerald timidly.

‘I went to satisfy my own curiosity, not yours, boy. What I have learned may suffice for the one, and not for the other. Here comes Pippo with pleasanter tidings than all this gossip,’ said he, rising, and entering the house.

‘Won’t you come in and have a bit of supper with us, Gerald?’ asked Pippo kindly.

‘No, I cannot eat,’ said the boy, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

‘Come and taste a glass of the generous Orvieto, however.’

‘No, Pippo; I could not swallow it,’ said he, in a half-choking voice.

‘Ah!’ muttered the old man with a sigh, ‘Signor Gabriel’s talk rarely makes one relish the meal they wait for,’ and with bent-down head he re-entered the house.

The feeling Gerald had long experienced toward Gabriel was one of fear, almost verging upon terror. There was about the man’s look, his voice, his manner, something that portended danger. Do what he would, the boy never could make his sense of gratitude rise superior to his fear. He tried, over and over again, to think of him only as one who had saved his life, and to whom he owed all the present comforts he enjoyed; but above these thoughts there triumphed a terrible dread of the man, and a strange, mysterious belief that he possessed a sort of control over his destiny.

‘If it were indeed so,’ muttered he to himself, ‘and that his shadow were to be over me through life, I ‘d curse the day he carried me from the shore of the Lagoscuro!’

Night was rapidly closing in, and the dreary landscape was every moment growing sadder and drearier. As the sun sank beneath the hills the heavy exhalations began to well up from the damp earth, till a bluish haze of vapour rested over the plains and even partly up the mountain side. An odour, oppressive and sickening, accompanied this mist, which embarrassed the respiration, and made the senses dull and weary; and yet there sat Gerald, drinking in these noxious influences, careless of his fate, and half triumphing in his own indifference as to life. A drowsy stupor was rapidly gaining on him, when he felt his arm violently shaken, and, looking up, saw Gabriel at his side. In a gruff, rude voice, he chided him for his imprudence, and told him to go in.

‘Isn’t my life, at least, my own?’ said Gerald boldly.

‘That it is not,’ said the other. ‘Your priestly teachers might have told you that you hold it in trust for Him who gave it. I, and men like me, would say that each of us here has his allotted task to do in life; and that he is but a coward, or as bad as a coward, who skulks his share of it. Go in, I say, boy.’

Gerald obeyed without a word; and now a slavish sense of fear came over him, and he felt that this man swayed and controlled him as he pleased.

‘There, Gerald, drink that,’ said Gabriel, filling him out a goblet of red wine. ‘That’s the liquor inspires the pious sentiments of the Bishop of Orvieto. From that generous grape-juice spring his Christian charities and his heavenly precepts. Let us see what miracles it can work upon two such sinful mortals as you and me. Well done, boy; drain off another,’ and he refilled his glass as he spoke.

Old Pippo had retired and left them alone together. The moon was slowly rising beyond the lake, and threw a long yellow stream upon the floor, the only light in the chamber where they sat, thus giving a sort of solemnity to a moment when each felt too deeply sunk in his own thoughts for much conversation.

‘Do you remark how that streak of moonlight seems to separate us, Gerald?’ said Gabriel. ‘A superstitious mind would find food for speculation there, and trace some mysterious meaning—perhaps a warning—from it. Are you superstitious?’

‘I can scarcely say I am not,’ said the boy diffidently.

‘None of us are,’ said the other boldly. ‘If we affect to despise spirits we are just as eager slaves of our own presentiments. What we dignify by the name of reason is just as often a mere prompting of instinct. It amuses us to believe that we steer the bark of our destiny; but the truth comes upon us at last, that the tiller was lashed when the voyage began.’ After a long silence on both sides, Gabriel said: ‘I have told you, Gerald, that I made a journey to Rome on your account. I have been to the Jesuit College; conversed with the superior; saw your cell, your torn school-books, your little table carved over with your pen-knife; and, by a date scratched on a window-pane, was led to discover where you had passed the evening of the fifth of January.’

‘And did you go there also?’ asked Gerald eagerly.

‘Ay, boy. I gave an afternoon to the Altieri and the café in front of it.’

‘You saw the Count, then?’

‘No, I have not seen him,’ said Gabriel dryly. ‘He was away from Rome at a villa, I believe; but I have learned that, indignant at your flight from the Cardinal’s villa, he absolves himself of all further interest in you.’

‘Have you seen Fra Luke?’ asked the boy, who now talked as if the other had known every incident of his life.

‘No; he too was away. In fact, Gerald, there was little to learn, and I came back very nearly as I went. I only know that you are about as much alone in the world as myself. We are meet companions. You said, a while ago, you were curious to know who and what I was. You shall hear. I am of a good Provençal family, originally derived from Italy. We are counts, from a date before the Medici; so much for blood. As to fortune, my grandfather was rich, and my own father enjoyed a reasonable fortune. I was, however, brought up to believe all men my brothers; all interested alike in serving and aiding each other: helping in the cause of that excellent thing we are pleased to call Humanity; and as a creed firmly believing that, bating a chance yielding to temptation, a little backsliding now and then on the score of an evil passion, men and women were wonderfully good, and were on the road to be better. We were most ingenious in our devices to build up this belief. My father wrote books and delivered lectures to prove it. He did more: he squandered all his patrimony in support of his theory, and he trained me up to be—what I am.’ And the last words were uttered in a voice of intense solemnity.

‘I am not going to give you a story of my life,’ said he, after some time; ‘I mean only to let you hear its moral. Till I was eighteen I was taught to believe that men were honest, truthful, brave, and affectionate; and that women were pure-hearted, gentle, forgiving, and trustful. Before I was nineteen I knew men to be scoundrels; it took me about a year more to think worse of the others. Then began my real life. I ceased to be a dupe, and felt a man. I am a quick learner, and I acquired their vices rapidly, all but one, that is still my stumbling-block—hypocrisy. All that I have done,’ said he, in half soliloquy, ‘might have passed harmlessly had I known but how to shroud it. Slander, theft, and seduction must not walk naked in this well-dressed world; but, with fine clothes on, they make very good company. I was curious to see if other lands were the same slaves of conventionalities, and I travelled. I went to Holland and to England; I found both as bad—nay worse—than France. If I obtained a momentary success in life I was certain to be robbed of it by some allegation foreign to the question. My book was clever; but I had deserted my wife. My treatise was admirable; but I had seduced the daughter of my protector. My views were just, right-minded, and true; but I had robbed my father. Thus, with a subtlety the stupidest possess, they were able to detract from my genius by charging it with the defects of my character, as if it behoved one to pay the debts of the other. I went on insisting that it was my opinions alone were before the world; they as steadily persisted in dragging myself there. At last they have had their will, and I wish them joy of the victory.’ There was a savage triumph in his eyes as he spoke this that made Gerald tremble while he looked at him.

‘If you care for my story, boy,’ resumed he, ‘old Pippo there will give it to you for a flask of Monte Pulciano. He ‘ll tell you of all my cruelties in my first campaign in Corsica; how I won my wife by first blasting her reputation; how I left her; how I was imprisoned and fined, and how escaped from both by a seduction. If he forget the name, you may remind him of Sophie De Mounier. They beheaded me in effigy for this at Dole. But why go on with vulgar incidents which have happened to so many! It is the moral of it all I would impress, boy, which is this—take nothing from the world but solid gifts. Laugh at its praises, and drink deep of its indulgences! Those born great are able to do this by prerogative; you and I may succeed to it by skill. Remember, too, that my theory is a wide, a most catholic one; and to follow it you need assume no special discipline, but be priest, soldier, statesman, scholar, just as you will. I have been all these in turn, and may be so again; but whether I wear a cassock or a cuirass, my knowledge of men will guide me to but one mode of dealing with them.’

‘There is nothing in what you have told me of your life to make me revere your principles,’ said Gerald, with a courageous boldness.

‘Because I have told you how I fell, and not how I was tempted; because I have stooped to say of myself that which none dare say to my face; because whatever I have been to the world it was that same world fashioned me to. What would it avail me that I made out a case of undeserving hardships and injustice, proved myself an injured, martyred saint: would your wondering sympathy heal any the least of those wounds that fester here, boy? Every man’s course in life is but one swing of the pendulum. I have vowed that with mine I shall cleave the dense mob and scatter the vile multitude. As to you,’ said he, suddenly turning his glaring eyes upon the youth, ‘you are free to leave this to-morrow. I’ll take care that you are safely restored to those you came from, if you wish to return. If you prefer it, you may remain here for a month or two; by that time I shall return.’

‘Are you going, then, from this?’ asked Gerald.

‘Yes. I am on my trial at Aix, for cruelty and desertion of my wife. They have spread a report that I have no intention to appear; that, having fled France, I mean never to return to it. Ere the week’s over they shall learn their mistake. I shall be there before them; and, if instances from the uses of court and courtiers are admissible, show, that when they prove me guilty, they must be ready to include Versailles in the next prosecution. Watch this case, boy; I’ll send you the newspapers daily. Watch it closely, and you ‘ll see that the file is at work noiselessly now, but still at work on those old fetters that have bound mankind so long. But first say if you desire to stay here.’

Gerald held down his head and muttered a half audible ‘Yes.’

‘To-night, then, I will jot down the names of certain books you ought to read. I shall leave you many others too, and take your choice among them. Read and think, and, if you are able, write too: I care not on what theme, so the thoughts be your own.’

Gerald wished to thank him, but even gratitude could not surmount the dread he felt for him. Gabriel saw the struggle that was engaged in the boy’s heart, and, smiling half sadly, said, ‘To our next meeting, lad!’

CHAPTER XI. LAST DAYS AT THE TANA

If Gerald breathed more freely the next morning, on hearing that Signor Gabriel had departed, it is, perhaps, no great wonder. The Tana was not a very agreeable abode. Dreariness within doors and without, a poverty unredeemed by that graceful content which so often sheds its influence over humble fortune, a wearisome round of life—these were the characteristics of a spot which, in a manner, was associated in his mind with all the sufferings of a sickbed. Yet no sooner had he learned that Gabriel was gone, than he felt as if a load were removed from his heart, and that even by the shores of that gloomy lake, or on the sides of those barren hills, he might now indulge his own teeming fancies, and live in a world of his own thoughts.

It was no common terror that possessed him; his studies as a child had stored his memory with many a dreadful story of satanic temptation. One in particular he remembered well, of St. Francis, who, accompanied by a chance traveller, had made a journey of several days; but whenever the saint, passing some holy shrine or sacred spot, would kneel to pray, the most terrible blasphemies would issue from his lips instead of prayer; for his fellow-traveller was the Evil One himself. What if Gabriel had some horrible mission of this kind? There was enough in his look, his manner, and his conversation to warrant the belief. He half laughed when the thought first crossed his mind, but it came up again and again, gaining strength and consistency at each recurrence; nor was the melancholy desolation of the scene itself ill suited to aid the dreary conjecture. Though Gabriel had confided to him the key of his chamber where all his books were kept, Gerald passed days before he could summon resolution to enter it. A vague terror—a dread to which he could not give shape or form—arrested his steps, and he would turn away from the door and creep noiselessly down the stairs, as though afraid of confessing, even to himself, what his errand had been.

At last, ashamed of yielding to this childish fear, he took a moment when old Pippo and his niece were at work in the garden, to explore the long-dreaded chamber. The room was very different from what he had anticipated, and presented a degree of comfort singularly in contrast to the rest of the Tana. Maps and book-shelves covered the walls, with here and there prints, mostly portraits of celebrated actresses. A large table was littered with letters and papers, left just as Gabriel had quitted the spot. Great piles of manuscript, too, showed what laborious hours had been spent there, while books of reference were strewn about, the pages marked by pencil-notes and interlineations. All indicated a life of study and labour. One trait alone gave another and different impression; it was a long rapier that hung over the fire-place, around whose blade, at about a foot from the point, was tied a small bow of sky-blue ribbon. As, curious to divine the meaning of this, Gerald examined the weapon closely, he perceived that the steel was stained with blood up to the place where the ribbon was attached. What strange, wild fancies did not the boy weave as he gazed on this curious relic! Some fatal encounter there had been. Doubtless the unwiped blood upon that blade had once welled in a human heart. Some murderous hand had grasped that strong hilt, and some silk tresses had once been fastened with that blue band which now marked where the blade had ceased to penetrate. ‘A sad tale, surely, would it be to hear,’ said he, as he sat down in deep thought.

Tired of these musings, he turned to the objects on the table. The writings that were scattered about showed that almost every species of composition had engaged his pen. Essays on education, a history of the Illuminati, love-songs, a sketch of Cagliostroa, a paper on the commerce of the Scheldt, a life of Frederic, with portions of an unfinished novel, all indicated the habits of a daily labourer of literature; while passages selected from classic authorities, with great care and research, evinced that much pains had been expended in cultivating that rich intelligence.

The last work which had occupied his hand—it still lay open, with an unfinished sentence in the pen—was a memoir of the Pretender’s expedition in ‘45. The name of Charles Edward was like a spell to Gerald’s heart. From the earliest day he could remember he was taught to call him his own Prince, and among the prayers his infant lips had syllabled, none were uttered with more intense devotion than for the return of that true and rightful sovereign to the land of his fathers. And now, how his eyes filled up, and his heart swelled, as a long-forgotten verse arose to his mind! He had learned it when its meaning was all mystery, but the clink of the rhythm had left it stored in his memory:

Heavy and hot were the tears that rolled down the youth’s cheeks, for he was thinking of home and long ago—of that far-away home where loving hearts had clustered round him. He could recall, too, the little room, the little bed he slept in, and he pondered over his strange, forlorn destiny. And yet, thought he suddenly, ‘What is there in my fate equal to that poor Prince’s? I am a Géraldine, they say, but I have none to own or acknowledge me. Who knows in what condition of shame I came into the world, since none will call me theirs? This noble name is little better than a scoff upon me.’ The boy’s heart felt bursting at this sad retrospect of his lot. ‘Would that I had never left the college!’ cried he in his misery. ‘Another year or two had, doubtless, calmed down the rebellious longings of my heart for a life of action, and then I should have followed my calling humbly, calmly, perhaps contentedly.’

Partly to divert his thoughts from this theme, he turned to the memoir of the Prince’s expedition, and soon became so deeply interested in its details as to forget himself and his own sorrows. Brief and sketchy as the narrative was, it displayed in all the warm colouring of a romance that glorious outburst of national chivalry which gathered the chieftains around their sovereign—all the graces, too, of his own captivating manner, his handsome person, his courtly address, were dwelt upon, exerting as they did an almost magical influence upon every one who came before him. The short and bloody struggle which began at Preston and ended at Culloden was before his eyes, with all its errors exposed, all its mistakes displayed; every fault of strategy dwelt upon, and every miscalculation criticised. All the train of events which might have occurred had this or that policy been adopted was set forth in most persuasive form; till, when the youth arose from the perusal, such a conviction was forced upon him that rashness alone had defeated the enterprise, that he sprang to his feet, and paced the room in passionate indignation. As he thought over the noble devotion of Charles Edward’s followers, he felt as if such a cause could not die. ‘The right is there,’ muttered he, ‘and there must yet be brave men who think so. It cannot, surely, be possible that for one defeat so great a claim could be abandoned for ever! Where is the Prince now? how is he occupied? who are his adherents and counsellors?’ were the questions which quickly succeeded each other in his mind. ‘Would I were a soldier, that I could lay my services at his feet, or that I had skill or ability to aid his cause in any way!’

He turned eagerly again to the memoir, whose concluding words were, ‘He landed once more in France, on the 20th of September.’ ‘And that is now many a year ago,’ said he, and with a dreary sigh; ‘mayhap, of his wrecked fortune, not a plank now remains. Who could guide me in this matter—who advise me? ‘He knew of but one, and yet he shuddered at the idea of seeking counsel from Gabriel. The more Gerald reflected on it, the more was he assured that if he could obtain access to the Prince, his Royal Highness would remember his name. ‘It is impossible,’ thought he, ‘but that some of my family must have been engaged in his cause, or why should I, as a mere child, have been taught to pray each night for his success, and ask for a blessing on his head?’ Yearning as his heart was for some high purpose in life, it sent a thrill of intense delight through him to think of such a destiny.

It was a part of the training in the Jesuit College, to induce the youth to select some saintly model for imitation in life, and while some chose St. Francis Xavier, or St. Vincent de Paul, others took St. Anthony of Padua, St. Francis d’Assisi, or any other illustrious martyr of the faith; each votary being from the hour of his selection a most strenuous upholder of the patron he assumed. Indeed, of the enthusiasm in this respect some strange and almost incredible stories ran, showing how, in their zeal, many had actually submitted to most painful self-tortures, to resemble the idols of their ambition. How easy was it now for Gerald to replace any of these grim saints and martyrs by an image that actually filled his whole heart—one who possessed every graceful attribute and every attractive quality. The seed of hero-worship thus sown in his nature ripened to a harvest very different from that it was intended to bear, and Charles Edward occupied the shrine some pious martyr should have held. He little knew, indeed, how easily affections, nurtured for one class of objects, are transferred to others totally unlike them, and how often are the temples we rear and mean to dedicate to our highest and holiest aspirations made homes for most worldly passions! And what a strange chaos did that poor boy’s mind soon become! for now he read whole days, and almost whole nights long, hurrying from his meals back to that lonely chamber, where he loved to be. With the insatiable thirst for new acquirement he tasted of all about him: dramatists, historians, essay-writers, theologians; the wildest theories of the rights of man, the most uncompromising asserters of divine authority for royalty, the sufferings and sorrows of noble-hearted missionaries, the licentious lives of courtly debauchees—all poured in like a strong flood over the soil of his mind, enriching, corrupting, ennobling, and debasing it by turns. Like some great edifice reared without plan, his mind displayed the strangest and most opposite combinations, and thus the noble eloquence of Massillon, the wit of Molière, the epigrammatic pungency of Pascal, blended themselves with the caustic severity of Voltaire, the touching pathos of Rousseau, and the knowledge of life so eminently the gift of Le Sage. To see that world of which these great men presented such a picture, became now his all-absorbing passion. To mingle with his fellow-men as actor, and not spectator. To be one of that immense dramatis persono who moved about the stage of life, seemed enough for all ambition. The strong spirit of adventure lay deeply in his heart, and he felt a kind of pride to think that if any future success was to greet him, he could recall the days at the Tana, and say, there never was one who started in life poorer or more friendless.

There was no exaggeration in this. His clothes were rags, his shoes barely held together, and the only covering he had for his head was the little skullcap he used to wear in school hours. Even old Pippo began to scoff at his miserable appearance, and hinted a hope, that before the season of the contraband begun Gerald would have taken his departure, or be able to make a more respectable figure. As Gabriel had now been gone many weeks, and no tidings whatever come of him, the old man’s reserve and deference daily decreased. He grumbled at Gerald’s habits of study, profitless and idle as they seemed to him, while there was many a thing to be done about the house and the garden. He was not weak or sickly now: he could help to chop the wood for winter firing; he could raise those heavy water-buckets that swung over the deep well in the garden; he could draw the net in the little stream behind the house, or trench about the few stunted olives that struggled for life on the hillside. Gerald would willingly have done any or all of these, if the idea had occurred to himself. He was not indolent by nature, and liked the very fact of active occupation. As a task, however, he rejected the notion at once. It savoured of servitude to his mind, and who was this same Pippo who aspired to be his master?

The more the boy’s mind became stored with knowledge, the fuller his intelligence grew of great examples and noble instances—the more indignantly did he repulse the advances of Pippo’s companionship. ‘What!’ he would mutter to himself, ‘leave Bossuet and his divine teachings for his coarse converse! Quit the sarcastic intensity of Voltaire’s ridicule for the vulgar jests of this illiterate boor! Exchange the glorious company of wits and sages, and poets and moralists, for a life of daily drudgery, with a mean peasant to talk to! Besides, I am not his guest, nor a burden upon his charity. It is to Gabriel I owe my shelter here.’

When driven by many a sarcasm to assume this position, Pippo gravely remarked: ‘True enough, boy, so long as he was here; but he is gone now, and who ‘ll tell us will he ever come back? He may have been sentenced by the tribunal. At the hour we are talking here he may be in prison—at the galleys, for aught we know; and I promise you one thing, there’s many a better man there.’

‘And I, too, promise one thing,’ replied Gerald angrily, ‘if he ever do come, he shall hear how you have dared to speak of him.’

Old Pippo started at the words, and his face became lividly pale, and muttering a few words beneath his breath, he left the spot. Nothing was further from Gerald’s mind than any defence of Gabriel, for whom, do what he might, he could feel neither affection nor gratitude. In what he had said he merely yielded to a momentary impatience to sting the old man by an angry reply. For the remainder of that day not a word was exchanged between them. They met and parted without saluting; they sat silently opposite each other at their meals. The following day opened with the same cold distance between them, the old man barely eyeing Gerald, when the youth was not observing him, and casting toward him glances of doubtful meaning. Too deeply engaged in his books to pay much attention to these signs of displeasure, Gerald passed his hours as usual in Gabriel’s room.

He was seated, reading, when the door opened gently, and the old man’s niece entered: her step was so noiseless, that she was nearly beside Gerald’s chair before he noticed her.

‘What is it, Tina,’ said he, starting; ‘what makes you look so frightened?’

She placed her finger on her lip, a sign of caution, and looked anxiously around her.

‘He has not been cruel or angry with you, poor girl?’ asked the boy; ‘tell me this.’

‘No, Gerald,’ said she, in a low and broken voice; ‘but there is danger over you—ay, and near too, if you can’t escape it. He sent me last night over to St. Stephano, twelve weary miles across the mountain, after nightfall, to fetch the Gobbino——’

‘The Gobbino—who is he?’

‘The hunch-back, that was at the galleys in Messina,’ said the girl, trembling all over; and then went on, ‘and to tell him to come over to the Tana, for he wanted him.’

‘Well, and then——’

‘And then,’ muttered the girl, ‘and then,’ and she made a pantomimic gesture of drawing a knife suddenly across the throat. ‘It is so with him, they say; he ‘d think no more of it than do I of killing a hen!’

‘No, no, Tina,’ said the boy, smiling at her fears. ‘You wrong old Pippo and the Gobbo too. Take my word for it, there is something else he wants him for; besides, why should he dislike me? What have I done to provoke such a vengeance?’

‘Haven’t you threatened him?’ said the girl eagerly. ‘Have you not said that when Signor Gabriel comes back you will tell him something Pippo said of him?’ Is that not enough? Is the Signor Gabriel one who ever forgives an injury?’

‘I ‘ll not believe, I can’t believe it,’ said Gerald musingly.

‘But I tell you it is true; I tell you I know it,’ cried the girl passionately.

‘But what am I to do, then? How can I defend myself,’’ ‘Fly—leave this—get over to Bolseno, or cross the frontier; neither of them can follow you into Tuscany.’

‘Remember, Tina, I have no money. I am almost naked. I know no one.’

‘What matters all that if you have life?’ said she boldly.

‘Well said, girl!’ cried he, warmed by the same daring spirit that prompted her words. A slight noise in the garden underneath the window startled Tina, and she stepped quietly from the room and closed the door.

It was some time before Gerald could thoroughly take in the full force of the emergency that threatened him. He knew well that in the Italian nature the sentiment of vengeance occupies no low nor ignominious place, but is classed among high and generous qualities; and that he who submits tamely to an injury is infinitely meaner than the man who, at any cost of treachery, exacts his revenge for it.

That a terrible vengeance was often exacted for some casual slight, even a random word, the youth well knew. These were the points of honour in that strange national character of which, even to this hour, we know less than of any people’s in Europe; and certainly, no crime could promise an easier accomplishment or less chance of discovery. ‘Who is ever to know if I sunk under the Maremma fever,’ said he, ‘and who to care?’

He gazed out upon the lonesome waste of mountain and the black and stagnant lake at its foot, and thought the spot, at least, was well chosen for such an incident. If there were moments in which the dread of a terrible fate chilled his blood and made his heart cold with fear, there were others in which the sense of peril rallied and excited him. The stirring incidents of his readings were full of suchlike adventures, and he felt a sort of heroism in seeing himself thus summoned to meet an emergency. ‘With this good rapier,’ said he, taking down Gabriel’s sword from its place, ‘methinks I might offer a stout resistance. That blade, if I mistake not, already knows the way to a man’s heart,’ and he flourished the weapon so as to throw himself into an attitude of defence. Too much excited to read, except by snatches, he imagined to his own mind every possible species of attack that might be made upon him. He knew that a fair fight would never enter into their thoughts; that even before the fate reserved for him would come the plan for their own security; and so he pictured the various ways in which he might be taken unawares and disposed of without even a chance of reprisal. As night drew near his anxieties increased. The book in which from time to time he had been reading was the Life of Benvenuto Cellini, an autobiography filled with the wildest incidents of personal encounter, and well suited to call up ideas of conflict and peril. Not less, however, was it calculated to suggest notions of daring and defiance; for in every perilous strait and hair-breadth emergency the great Florentine displayed the noblest traits of calm and reasoning courage. ‘They shall not do it without cost,’ said Gerald, as he stole up noiselessly to his room, never appearing at the supper-table, but retiring to concert his future steps. Gerald’s first care on entering his room was to search it thoroughly, though there was not a corner nor a cupboard capable of concealing a child. He went through the process of investigation with all the diligence his readings prompted. He sounded the walls for secret panels, and the floor for trapdoors; but all was so far safe. He next proceeded to barricade his door with chairs; not, indeed, to prevent an entrance, but arrayed so skilfully that they must topple down at the least touch, and thus apprise him of his peril if sleeping. He then trimmed and replenished his lamp, and with his trusty rapier at his side, lay down, all dressed as he was, to await what might happen.

He who has experienced in life what it is to lie watching for the dawn of a day full of Heaven-knows-what fatalities, patiently expecting the sun to rise upon what may prove his saddest, his last hour of existence, even he, however, will fall short of imagining the intense anxiety of one who with aching ears watches for the slightest sound, the lightest footfall, or the lowest word that may betoken the approach of danger. With the intensity of the emotion the senses become preternaturally acute, and the brain, overcharged with thought, suggests the wildest and strangest combinations. Through Gerald’s mind, too, Cellini’s daring adventures were passing. The dark and narrow streets of old Florence; the muffled ‘sbirri’ crowding in the dim doorways; the stealthy footsteps heard and lost again; the sudden clash of swords and the cries of combat; the shouts for succour, and the heavy plash into the dark waters of the Arno, all filled his waking, ay, and his dreamy thoughts, for he fell asleep at last and slept soundly. The day was just breaking, a grey, half-pinkish light faintly struggling through his window, when Gerald started up from his sleep. He had surely heard a sound. It was his name was called. Was it a human voice that uttered it? or was the warning from a more solemn world? He bent down his head to listen again; and now he distinctly heard a low, creaking sound, and as distinctly saw that the door was slightly moved, and then the words ‘Gerald, Gerald,’ whispered. He arose at once, and quickly recognising Tina’s voice, drew nigh the door.

‘You have no time to lose, Gerald,’ said she rapidly. ‘Pippo has taken the boat and is rowing across the lake; and even by this half light I can see a figure standing on the rock at the foot of the mountain waiting for him, just where the pathway from St. Stephano comes down to the water.’

‘The Gobbo, I suppose,’ said Gerald, half mockingly, as he showed the rapier he still held in his hand.

‘And if it be he, boy, there is no need to laugh,’ said Tina, shuddering. ‘The dark waters of that lake there, that cover some of his handiwork, if they could speak, would tell you so.’

‘Then what am I to do, Tina?’’ said he, throwing open the door. ‘You ‘d not have me meet them on the shore there and begin the attack, would you?’

If Gerald threw out this suggestion as impracticable, it was yet precisely the course he was longing himself to follow, and most eager that she should assent to.

‘The Blessed Virgin forbid it!’ cried she, crossing herself. ‘There is but one road to take, and that is yonder,’ and she pointed to a little rugged footpath that wound its way over the mountain, which joined the frontier with Tuscany.

‘And am I in meet condition to travel, Tina?’ said he jestingly, as he showed his ragged dress and pulled out the lining of his empty pockets.

‘There is Signor Gabriel’s cape,’ said she; ‘it is almost as good as a cloak: he left it with me, but I have no need of it; and there is the crown-piece you gave me yourself when you were ill of the fever, and I want it just as little.’

The boy struggled hard to refuse both, but the sorrow Tina felt for the rejection at last overcame him, and, half in shame and half in pleasure—for the sense of exacting sacrifice is pleasure, deny it how we may—he yielded, and accepted her gift.

‘Oh, Tina, will there ever come a day when I can repay this kindness?’ said he. ‘I almost think there will.’

‘To be sure, Gerald, and you ‘ll not forget me even if there should not. You who were taught by the pious Frati how to pray will surely say a good word in your devotions for a poor girl like Tina.’

The boy’s heart overflowed with emotion at the trait of simple piety, and he kissed her twice with all the affection of a fond brother. ‘Good-bye, Tina,’ said he, sobbing; ‘I feel stronger and stouter in heart, now that I know your kind wishes are going along with me—they are better to me, love, than a purse full of money.’

‘Do not take that sword, Gerald,’ said she, trying to take the weapon from him. ‘If you enter a village with a rapier at your side, they ‘ll call you a brigand, and give you up to the carabinieri.’

‘I’ll not quit the good blade so long as I can wear it,’ said he resolutely; and then added to himself, ‘I am nobly born, and have a right to a sword. “Cinctus gladio,” says the old statute of knighthood; and if I be a Géraldine, I am noble!’

And with these words the boy bade his last farewell, and issued from the house.