“Have you any plans, Glencore?” asked Upton, as they posted along towards Dover.
“None,” was the brief reply.
“Nor any destination you desire to reach?”
“Just as little.”
“Such a state as yours, then, I take it, is about the best thing going in life. Every move one makes is attended with so many adverse considerations,—every goal so separated from us by unforeseen difficulties,—that an existence, even without what is called an object, has certain great advantages.”
“I am curious to hear them,” said the other, half cynically.
“For myself,” said Upton, not accepting the challenge, “the brief intervals of comparative happiness I have enjoyed have been in periods when complete repose, almost torpor, has surrounded me, and when the mere existence of the day has engaged my thoughts.”
“What became of memory all this while?”
“Memory!” said Upton, laughing, “I hold my memory in proper subjection. It no more dares obtrude upon me uncalled for than would my valet come into my room till I ring for him. Of the slavery men endure from their own faculties I have no experience.”
“And, of course, no sympathy for them.”
“I will not say that I cannot compassionate sufferings, though I have not felt them.”
“Are you quite sure of that?” asked Glencore, almost sternly; “is not your very pity a kind of contemptuous sentiment towards those who sorrow without reason,—the strong man's estimate of the weak man's sufferings? Believe me, there is no true condolence where there is not the same experience of woe!”
“I should be sorry to lay down so narrow a limit to fellow-feeling,” said Upton.
“You told me a few moments back,” said Glencore, “that your memory was your slave. How, then, can you feel for one like me, whose memory is his master? How understand a path that never wanders out of the shadow of the past?”
There was such an accent of sorrow impressed upon these words that Upton did not desire to prolong a discussion so painful; and thus, for the remainder of the way, little was interchanged between them. They crossed the strait by night, and as Upton stole upon deck after dusk, he found Glencore seated near the wheel, gazing intently at the lights on shore, from which they were fast receding.
“I am taking my last look at England, Upton,” said he, affecting a tone of easy indifference.
“You surely mean to go back again one of these days?” said Upton.
“Never, never!” said he, solemnly. “I have made all my arrangements for the future,—every disposition regarding my property; I have neglected nothing, so far as I know, of those claims which, in the shape of relationship, the world has such reverence for; and now I bethink me of myself. I shall have to consult you, however, about this boy,” said he, faltering in the words. “The objection I once entertained to his bearing my name exists no longer; he may call himself Massy, if he will. The chances are,” added he, in a lower and more feeling voice, “that he rejects a name that will only remind him of a wrong!”
“My dear Glencore,” said Upton, with real tenderness, “do I apprehend you aright? Are you at last convinced that you have been unjust? Has the moment come in which your better judgment rises above the evil counsels of prejudice and passion—”
“Do you mean, am I assured of her innocence?” broke in Glencore, wildly. “Do you imagine, if I were so, that I could withhold my hand from taking a life so infamous and dishonored as mine? The world would have no parallel for such a wretch! Mark me, Upton!” cried he, fiercely, “there is no torture I have yet endured would equal the bare possibility of what you hint at.”
“Good Heavens! Glencore, do not let me suppose that selfishness has so marred and disfigured your nature that this is true. Bethink you of what you say. Would it not be the crowning glory of your life to repair a dreadful wrong, and acknowledge before the world that the fame you had aspersed was without stain or spot?”
“And with what grace should I ask the world to believe me? Is it when expiating the shame of a falsehood that I should call upon men to accept me as truthful? Have I not proclaimed her, from one end of Europe to the other, dishonored? If she be absolved, what becomes of me?”
“This is unworthy of you, Glencore,” said Upton, severely; “nor, if illness and long suffering had not impaired your judgment, had you ever spoken such words. I say once more, that if the day came that you could declare to the world that her fame had no other reproach than the injustice of your own unfounded jealousy, that day would be the best and the proudest of your life.”
“The proud day that published me a calumniator of all that I was most pledged to defend,—the deliberate liar against the obligation of the holiest of all contracts! You forget, Upton,—but I do not forget,—that it was by this very argument you once tried to dissuade me from my act of vengeance. You told me—ay, in words that still ring in my ears—to remember that if by any accident or chance her innocence might be proven, I could never avail myself of the indication without first declaring my own unworthiness to profit by it; that if the Wife stood forth in all the pride of purity, the Husband would be a scoff and a shame throughout the world!”
“When I said so,” said Upton, “it was to turn you from a path that could not but lead to ruin; I endeavored to deter you by an appeal that interested even your selfishness.”
“Your subtlety has outwitted itself, Upton,” said Glencore, with a bitter irony; “it is not the first instance on record where blank cartridge has proved fatal!”
“One thing is perfectly clear,” said Upton, boldly, “the man who shrinks from the repair of a wrong he has done, on the consideration of how it would affect himself and his own interests, shows that he cares more for the outward show of honor than its real and sustaining power.”
“And will you tell me, Upton, that the world's estimate of a man's fame is not essential to his self-esteem, or that there yet lived one, who would brave obloquy without, by the force of something within him?”
“This I will tell you,” replied Upton, “that he who balances between the two is scarcely an honest man, and that he who accepts the show for the substance is not a wise one.”
“These are marvellous sentiments to hear from one whose craft has risen to a proverb, and whose address in life is believed to be not his meanest gift.”
“I accept the irony in all good humor; I go farther, Glencore, I stoop to explain. When any one in the great and eventful journey of life seeks to guide himself safely, he has to weigh all the considerations, and calculate all the combinations adverse to him. The straight road is rarely, or never, possible; even if events were, which they are not, easy to read, they must be taken in combination with others, and with their consequences. The path of action becomes necessarily devious and winding, and compromises are called for at every step. It is not in the moment of shipwreck that a man stops to inquire into petty details of the articles he throws into a long-boat; he is bent on saving himself as best he can. He seizes what is next to him, if it suit his purpose. Now, were he to act in this manner in all the quiet security of his life on shore, his conduct would be highly blamable. No emergency would warrant his taking what belonged to another,—no critical moment would drive him to the instinct of self-preservation. Just the same is the interval between action and reflection. Give me time and forethought, and I will employ something better and higher than craft. My subtlety, as you like to call it, is not my best weapon; I only use it in emergency.”
“I read the matter differently,” said Glencore, sulkily; “I could, perhaps, offer another explanation of your practice.”
“Pray let me hear it; we are all in confidence here, and I promise you I will not take badly whatever you say to me.”
Glencore sat silent and motionless.
“Come, shall I say it for you, Glencore? for I think I know what is passing in your mind.”
The other nodded, and he went on,—
“You would tell me, in plain words, that I keep my craft for myself; my high principle for my friends.”
Glencore only smiled, but Upton continued,—
“So, then, I have guessed aright; and the very worst you can allege against this course is, that what I bestow is better than what I retain!”
“One of Solomon's proverbs may be better than a shilling; but which would a hungry man rather have? I want no word-fencing, Upton; still less do I seek what might sow distrust between us. This much, however, has life taught me: the great trials of this world are like its great maladies. Providence has meant them to be fatal. We call in the doctor in the one case, or the counsellor in the other, out of habit rather than out of hope. Our own consciousness has already whispered that nothing can be of use; but we like to do as our neighbors, and so we take remedies and follow injunctions to the last. The wise man quickly detects by the character of the means how emergent is the case believed to be, and rightly judges that recourse to violent measures implies the presence of great peril. If he be really wise, then he desists at once from what can only torture his few remaining hours. They can be given to better things than the agonies of such agency. To this exact point has my case come, and by the counsels you have given me do I read my danger! Your only remedy is as bad as the malady it is meant to cure! I cannot take it!”
“Accepting your own imagery, I would say,” said Upton, “that you are one who will not submit to an operation of some pain that he might be cured.”
Glencore sat moodily for some moments without speaking; at last he said,—
“I feel as though continual change of place and scene would be a relief to me. Let us rendezvous, therefore, somewhere for the autumn, and meanwhile I 'll wander about alone.”
“What direction do you purpose to take?”
“The Schwarzwald and the Hohlenthal, first. I want to revisit a place I knew in happier days. Memory must surely have something besides sorrows to render us. I owned a little cottage there once, near Steig. I fished and read Uhland for a summer long. I wonder if I could resume the same life. I knew the whole village,—the blacksmith, the schoolmaster, the Dorfrichter,—all of them. Good, kind souls they were: how they wept when we parted! Nothing consoled them but my having purchased the cottage, and promised to come back again!”
Upton was glad to accept even this much of interest in the events of life, and drew Glencore on to talk of the days he had passed in this solitary region.
As in the dreariest landscape a ray of sunlight will reveal some beautiful effects, making the eddies of the dark pool to glitter, lighting up the russet moss, and giving to the half-dried lichen a tinge of bright color, so will, occasionally, memory throw over a life of sorrow a gleam of happier meaning. Faces and events, forms and accents, that once found the way to our hearts, come back again, faintly and imperfectly it may be, but with a touch that revives in us what we once were. It is the one sole feature in which self-love becomes amiable, when, looking back on our past, we cherish the thought of a time before the world had made us sceptical and hard-hearted!
Glencore warmed as he told of that tranquil period when poetry gave a color to his life, and the wild conceptions of genius ran like a thread of gold through the whole web of existence. He quoted passages that had struck him for their beauty or their truthfulness; he told how he had tried to allure his own mind to the tone that vibrated in “the magic music of verse,” and how the very attempt had inspired him with gentler thoughts, a softer charity, and a more tender benevolence towards his fellows.
“Tieck is right, Upton, when he says there are two natures in us, distinct and apart: one, the imaginative and ideal; the other, the actual and the sensual. Many shake them together and confound them, making of the incongruous mixture that vile compound of inconsistency where the beautiful and the true are ever warring with the deformed and the false; their lives a long struggle with themselves, a perpetual contest between high hope and base enjoyment. A few keep them apart, retaining, through their worldliness, some hallowed spot in the heart, where ignoble desires and mean aspirations have never dared to come. A fewer still have made the active work of life subordinate to the guiding spirit of purity, adventuring on no road unsanctioned by high and holy thoughts, caring for no ambitions but such as make us nobler and better.
“I once had a thought of such a life; and even the memory of it, like the prayers we have learned in our childhood, has a hallowing influence over after years. If that poor boy, Upton,” and his lips trembled on the words,—“if that poor boy could have been brought up thus humbly! If he had been taught to know no more than an existence of such simplicity called for, what a load of care might it have spared his heart and mine!”
“You have read over those letters I gave you about him?” asked Upton, who eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to approach an almost forbidden theme.
“I have read them over and over,” said Glencore, sadly; “in all the mention of him I read the faults of my own nature,—a stubborn spirit of pride that hardens as much as elevates; a resentful temper, too prone to give way to its own impulses; an over-confidence in himself, too, always ready to revenge its defeats on the world about him. These are his defects, and they are mine. Poor fellow, that he should inherit all that I have of bad, and yet not be heir to the accidents of fortune which make others so lenient to faults!”
If Upton heard these words with much interest, no less was he struck by the fact that Glencore made no inquiry whatever as to the youth's fate. The last letter of the packet revealed the story of an eventful duel and the boy's escape from Massa by night, with his subsequent arrest by the police; and yet in the face of incidents like these he continued to speculate on traits of mind and character, nor even adverted to the more closely touching events of his fate. By many an artful hint and ingenious device did Sir Horace try to tempt him to some show of curiosity; but all were fruitless. Glencore would talk freely and willingly of the boy's disposition and his capacity; he would even speculate on the successes and failures such a temperament might meet with in life; but still he spoke as men might speak of a character in a fiction, ingeniously weighing casualties and discussing chances; never, even by accident, approaching the actual story of his life, or seeming to attach any interest to his destiny.
Upton's shrewd intelligence quickly told him that this reserve was not accidental; and he deliberated within himself how far it was safe to invade it.
At length he resumed the attempt by adroitly alluding to the spirited resistance the boy had made to his capture, and the consequences one might naturally enough ascribe to a proud and high-hearted youth thus tyrannically punished.
“I have heard something,” said Upton, “of the severities practised at Kuffstein, and they recall the horrible tales of the Inquisition; the terrible contrivances to extort confessions,—expedients that often break down the intellect whose secrets they would discover; so that one actually shudders at the name of a spot so associated with evil.”
Glencore placed his hands over his face, but did not utter a word; and again Upton went on urging, by every device he could think of, some indication that might mean interest, if not anxiety, when suddenly he felt Glencore's hand grasp his arm with violence.
“No more of this, Upton,” cried he, sternly; “you do not know the torture you are giving me.” There was a long and painful pause between them, at the end of which Glencore spoke, but it was in a voice scarcely above a whisper, and every accent of which trembled with emotion. “You remember one sad and memorable night, Upton, in that old castle in Ireland,—the night when I came to the resolution of this vengeance! I sent for the boy to my room; we were alone there together, face to face. It was such a scene as could brook no witness, nor dare I now recall its details as they occurred. He came in frankly and boldly, as he felt he had a right to do. How he left that room,—cowed, abashed, and degraded,—I have yet before me. Our meeting did not exceed many minutes in duration; neither of us could have endured it longer. Brief as it was, we ratified a compact between us: it was this,—neither was ever to question or inquire after the other, as no tie should unite, no interest should bind us. Had you seen him then, Upton,” cried Glencore, wildly, “the proud disdain with which he listened to my attempts at excuse, the haughty distance with which he seemed to reject every thought of complaint, the stern coldness with which he heard me plan out his future,—you would have said that some curse had fallen upon my heart, or it could never have been dead to traits which proclaimed him to be my own. In that moment it was my lot to be like him who held out his own right hand to be first burned, ere he gave his body to the flames.
“We parted without an embrace; not even a farewell was spoken between us. While I gloried in his pride, had he but yielded ever so little, had one syllable of weakness, one tear escaped him, I had given up my project, reversed all my planned vengeance, and taken him to my heart as my own. But no! He was resolved on proving by his nature that he was of that stern race from which, by a falsehood, I was about to exclude him. It was as though my own blood hurled a proud defiance to me.
“As he walked slowly to the door, his glove fell from his hand. I stealthily caught it up. I wanted to keep it as a memorial of that bitter hour; but he turned hastily around and plucked it from my hand. The action was even a rude one; and with a mocking smile, as though he read my meaning and despised it, he departed.
“You now have heard the last secret of my heart in this sad history. Let us speak of it no more.” And with this, Glencore arose and left the deck.
When it rains in Italy it does so with a passionate ardor that bespeaks an unusual pleasure. It is no “soft dissolving in tears,” but a perfect outburst of woe,—wailing in accents the very wildest, and deluging the land in torrents. Mountain streams that were rivulets in the morning, before noon arrives are great rivers, swollen and turbid, carrying away massive rocks from their foundations, and tearing up large trees by the roots. The dried-up stony bed you have crossed a couple of hours back with unwetted feet is now the course of a stream that would defy the boldest.
These sudden changes are remarkably frequent along that beautiful tract between Nice and Massa, and which is known as the “Riviera di Levante.” The rivers, fed from innumerable streams that pour down from the Apennines, are almost instantaneously swollen; and as their bed continually slopes towards the sea, the course of the waters is one of headlong velocity. Of these, the most dangerous by far is the Magra. The river, which even in dry seasons is a considerable stream, becomes, when fed by its tributaries, a very formidable body of water, stretching full a mile in width, and occasionally spreading a vast sheet of foam close to the very outskirts of Sarzana. The passage of the river is all the more dangerous at these periods as it approaches the sea, and more than one instance is recorded where the stout raft, devoted to the use of travellers, has been carried away to the ocean.
Where the great post-road from Genoa to the South passes, a miserable shealing stands, half hidden in tall osiers, and surrounded with a sedgy, swampy soil the foot sinks in at every step. This is the shelter of the boatmen who navigate the raft, and who, in relays by day and night, are in waiting for the service of travellers. In the dreary days of winter, or in the drearier nights, it is scarcely possible to imagine a more hopeless spot; deep in the midst of a low marshy tract, the especial home of tertian fever, with the wild stream roaring at the very door-sill, and the thunder of the angry ocean near, it is indeed all that one can picture of desolation and wretchedness. Nor do the living features of the scene relieve its gloomy influence. Though strong men, and many of them in the prime of life, premature age and decay seem to have settled down upon them. Their lustreless eyes and leaden lips tell of ague, and their sad, thoughtful faces bespeak those who are often called upon to meet peril, and who are destined to lives of emergency and hazard.
It was in the low and miserable hut we speak of, just as night set in of a raw November, that four of these raftsmen sat at their smoky fire, in company with two travellers on foot, whose humble means compelled them to await the arrival of some one rich enough to hire the raft. Meanly clad and wayworn were the strangers who now sat endeavoring to dry their dripping clothes at the blaze, and conversing in a low tone together. If the elder, dressed in a russet-colored blouse and a broad-leafed hat, his face almost hid in beard and moustaches, seemed by his short and almost grotesque figure a travelling showman, the appearance of the younger, despite all the poverty of his dress, implied a very different class.
He was tall and well knit, with a loose activity in all his gestures which almost invariably characterizes the Englishman; and though his dark hair and his bronzed cheek gave him something of a foreign look, there was a calm, cold self-possession in his air that denoted the Anglo-Saxon. He sat smoking his cigar, his head resting on one hand, and evidently listening with attention to the words of his companion. The conversation that passed will save us the trouble of introducing them to our reader, if he have not already guessed them.
“If we don't wait,” said the elder, “till somebody richer and better off than ourselves comes, we 'll have to pay seven francs for passin' in such a night as this.”
“It is a downright robbery to ask so much,” cried the other, angrily. “What so great danger is there, or what so great hardship, after all?”
“There is both one and the other, I believe,” replied he, in a tone evidently meant to moderate his passion; “and just look at the poor craytures that has to do it. They're as weak as a bit of wet paper; they haven't strength to make themselves heard when they talk out there beside the river.”
“The fellow yonder,” said the youth, “has got good brawny arms and sinewy legs of his own.”
“Ay, and he is starved after all. A cut of rye bread and an onion won't keep the heart up, nor a jug of red vinegar, though ye call it grape-juice. On my conscience, I 'm thinkin' that the only people that preserves their strength upon nothin' is the Irish. I used to carry the bags over Slieb-na-boregan mountain and the Turk's Causeway on wet potatoes and buttermilk, and never a day late for eleven years.”
“What a life!” cried the youth, in an accent of utter pity.
“Faix, it was an elegant life,—that is, when the weather was anyways good. With a bright sun shinin' and a fine fresh breeze blowin' the white clouds away over the Atlantic, my road was a right cheery one, and I went along inventin' stories, sometimes fairy tales, sometimes makin' rhymes to myself, but always happy and contented. There wasn't a bit of the way I had n't a name for in my own mind, either some place I read about, or some scene in a story of my own; but better than all, there was a dog,—a poor starved lurcher he was,—with a bit of the tail cut off; he used to meet me, as regular as the clock, on the side of Currah-na-geelah, and come beside me down to the ford every day in the year. No temptation nor flattery would bring him a step farther. I spent three-quarters of an hour once trying it, but to no good; he took leave of me on the bank of the river, and went away back with his head down, as if he was grievin' over something. Was n't that mighty curious?”
“Perhaps, like ourselves, Billy, he wasn't quite sure of his passport,” said the other, dryly.
“Faix, may be so,” replied he, with perfect seriousness. “My notion was that he was a kind of an outlaw, a chap that maybe bit a child of the family, or ate a lamb of a flock given him to guard. But indeed his general appearance and behavior was n't like that; he had good manners, and, starved as he was, he never snapped the bread out of my fingers, but took it gently, though his eyes was dartin' out of his head with eagerness all the while.”
“A great test of good breeding, truly,” said the youth, sadly. “It must be more than a mere varnish when it stands the hard rubs of life in this wise.”
“'Tis the very notion occurred to myself. It was the dhrop of good blood in him made him what he was.”
Stealthy and fleeting as was the look that accompanied these words, the youth saw it, and blushed to the very top of his forehead. “The night grows milder,” said he, to relieve the awkwardness of the moment by any remark.
“It's a mighty grand sight out there now,” replied the other; “there's three miles if there's an inch of white foam dashing down to the sea, that breaks over the bar with a crash like thunder; big trees are sweepin' past, and pieces of vine trellises, and a bit of a mill-wheel, all carried off just like twigs on a stream.”
“Would money tempt those fellows, I wonder, to venture out on such a night as this?”
“To be sure; and why not? The daily fight poverty maintains with existence dulls the sense of every danger but what comes of want. Don't I know it myself? The poor man has no inimy but hunger; for, ye see, the other vexations and troubles of life, there's always a way of gettin' round them. You can chate even grief, and you can slip away from danger; but there's no circumventin' an empty stomach.”
“What a tyrant is then your rich man!” sighed the youth, heavily.
“That he is. 'Dives honoratus. Pulcher rex denique regum.' You may do as you please if ye'r rich as a Begum.”
“A free translation, rather, Billy,” said the other, laughing.
“Or ye might render it this way,” said Billy,—
And I 've nothing to say agin it,” continued he. “The raal stimulus to industhry in life, is to make wealth powerful. Gettin' and heapin' up money for money's sake is a debasin' kind of thing; but makin' a fortune, in order that you may extind your influence, and mowld the distinies of others,—that's grand.”
“And see what comes of it!” cried the youth, bitterly. “Mark the base and unworthy subserviency it leads to; see the race of sycophants it begets.”
“I have you there, too,” cried Billy, with all the exultation of a ready debater. “Them dirty varmint ye speak of is the very test of the truth I 'm tellin' ye. 'T is because they won't labor—because they won't work—that they are driven to acts of sycophancy and meanness. The spirit of industhry saves a man even the excuse of doin' anything low!”
“And how often, from your own lips, have I listened to praises at your poor humble condition; rejoicings that your lot in life secured you against the cares of wealth and grandeur!”
“And you will again, plaze God! if I live, and you pre-sarve your hearin'. What would I be if I was rich, but an ould—an ould voluptuary?” said Billy, with great emphasis on a word he had some trouble in discovering. “Atin' myself sick with delicacies, and drinkin' cordials all day long. How would I know the uses of wealth? Like all other vulgar creatures, I 'd be buyin' with my money the respect that I ought to be buyin' with my qualities. It's the very same thing you see in a fair or a market,—the country girls goin' about, hobbled and crippled with shoes on, that, if they had bare feet, could walk as straight as a rush. Poverty is not ungraceful itself. It's tryin' to be what isn't natural, spoils people entirely.”
“I think I hear voices without. Listen!” cried the youth.
“It 's only the river; it's risin' every minute.”
“No, that was a shout. I heard it distinctly. Ay, the boatmen hear it now!”
“It is a travelling-carriage. I see the lamps,” cried one of the men, as he stood at the door and looked landward. “They may as well keep the road; there's no crossing the Magra to-night!”
By this time the postilions' whips commenced that chorus of cracking by which they are accustomed to announce all arrivals of importance.
“Tell them to go back, Beppo,” said the chief of the raftsmen to one of his party. “If we might try to cross with the mail-bags in a boat, there's not one of us would attempt the passage on the raft.”
To judge from the increased noise and uproar, the travellers' impatience had now reached its highest point; but to this a slight lull succeeded, probably occasioned by the parley with the boatman.
“They'll give us five Napoleons for the job,” said Beppo, entering, and addressing his Chief.
“Per Dio, that won't support our families if we leave them fatherless,” muttered the other. “Who and what are they that can't wait till morning?”
“Who knows?” said Beppo, with a genuine shrug of native indifference. “Princes, belike!”
“Princes or beggars, we all have lives to save!” mumbled out an old man, as he reseated himself by the fire. Meanwhile the courier had entered the hut, and was in earnest negotiation with the chief, who, however, showed no disposition to run the hazard of the attempt.
“Are you all cowards alike?” said the courier, in all the insolence of his privileged order; “or is it a young fellow of your stamp that shrinks from the risk of a wet jacket?”
This speech was addressed to the youth, whom he had mistaken for one of the raftsmen.
“Keep your coarse speeches for those who will bear them, my good fellow,” said the other, boldly, “or mayhap the first wet jacket here will be one with gold lace on the collar.”
“He's not one of us; he's a traveller,” quickly interposed the chief, who saw that an angry scene was brewing. “He's only waiting to cross the river,” muttered he in a whisper, “when some one comes rich enough to hire the raft.”
“Sacre bleu! Then he shan't come with us; that I'll promise him,” said the courier, whose offended dignity roused all his ire. “Now, once for all, my men, will you earn a dozen Napoleons, or not? Here they are for you if you land us safely at the other side; and never were you so well paid in your lives for an hour's labor.”
The sight of the gold, as it glistened temptingly in his outstretched hand, appealed to their hearts far more eloquently than all his words, and they gathered in a group together to hold counsel.
“And you, are you also a distinguished stranger?” said the courier, addressing Billy, who sat warming his hands by the embers of the fire.
“Look you, my man,” cried the youth, “all the gold in your master's leathern bag there can give you no claim to insult those who have offered you no offence. It is enough that you know that we do not belong to the raft to suffer us to escape your notice.”
“Sacristi!” exclaimed the courier, in a tone of insolent mockery, “I have travelled the road long enough to learn that one does not need an introduction before addressing a vagabond.”
“Vagabond!” cried the youth, furiously; and he sprang at the other with the bound of a tiger. The courier quickly parried the blow aimed at him, and, closely grappled, they both now reeled out of the hut in terrible conflict. With that terror of the knife that figures in all Italian quarrels, the boatmen did not dare to interfere, but looked on as, wrestling with all their might, the combatants struggled, each endeavoring to push the other towards the stream. Billy, too, restrained by force, could not come to the rescue, and could only by words, screamed out in all the wildness of his agony, encourage his companion. “Drop on your knee—catch him by the legs—throw him back—back into the stream. That's it—that's it! Good luck to ye!” shouted he, madly, as he fought like a lion with those about him. Slipping in the slimy soil, they had both now come to their knees; and after a struggle of some minutes' duration, rolled, clasped in each other's fierce embrace, down the slope into the river. A plash, and a cry half smothered, were heard, and all was over.
While some threw themselves on the frantic creature, whose agony now overtopped his reason, and who fought to get free, with the furious rage of despair, others, seizing lanterns and torches, hurried along the bank of the torrent to try and rescue the combatants. A sudden winding of the river at the place gave little hope to the search, and it was all but certain that the current must already have swept them down far beyond any chance of succor. Assisted by the servants of the traveller, who speedily were apprised of the disaster, the search was continued for hours, and morning at length began to break over the dreary scene, without one ray of hope. By the gray cold dawn, the yellow flood could be seen for a considerable distance, and the banks too, over which a gauzy mist was hanging; but not a living thing was there! The wild torrent swept along his murky course with a deep monotonous roar. Trunks of trees and leafy branches rose and sank in the wavy flood, but nothing suggested the vaguest hope that either had escaped. The traveller's carriage returned to Spezia, and Billy, now bereft of reason, was conveyed to the same place, fast tied with cords, to restrain him from a violence that threatened his own life and that of any near him.
In the evening of that day a peasant's car arrived at Spezia, conveying the almost lifeless courier, who had been found on the river's bank, near the mouth of the Magra. How he had reached the spot, or what had become of his antagonist, he knew not. Indeed, the fever which soon set in placed him beyond the limit of all questioning, and his incoherent cries and ravings only betrayed the terrible agonies his mind must have passed through.
If this tragic incident, heightened by the actual presence of two of the actors—one all but dead, the other dying—engaged the entire interest and sympathy of the little town, the authorities were actively employed in investigating the event, and ascertaining, so far as they could, to which side the chief blame inclined.
The raftsmen had all been arrested, and were examined carefully, one by one; and now it only remained to obtain from the traveller himself whatever information he could contribute to throw light on the affair.
His passport, showing that he was an English peer, obtained for him all the deference and respect foreign officials are accustomed to render to that title, and the Prefect announced that if it suited his convenience, he would wait on his Lordship at his hotel to receive his deposition.
“I have nothing to depose, no information to give,” was the dry and not over-courteous response; but as the visit, it was intimated, was indispensable, he named his hour to admit him.
The bland and polite tone of the Prefect was met by a manner of cold but well-bred ease which seemed to imply that the traveller only regarded the incident in the light of an unpleasant interruption to his journey, but in which he took no other interest. Even the hints thrown out that he ought to consider himself aggrieved and his dignity insulted, produced no effect upon him.
“It was my intention to have halted a few days at Massa, and I could have obtained another courier in the interval,” was the cool commentary he bestowed on the incident.
“But your Lordship would surely desire investigation. A man is missing; a great crime may have been committed—”
“Excuse my interrupting; but as I am not, nor can be supposed to be, the criminal,—nor do I feel myself the victim,—while I have not a claim to the character of witness, you would only harass me with interrogatories I could not answer, and excite me to take interest, or at least bestow attention, on what cannot concern me.”
“Yet there are circumstances in this case which give it the character of a preconcerted plan,” said the Prefect, thoughtfully.
“Perhaps so,” said the other, in a tone of utter indifference.
“Certainly, the companion of the man who is missing, and of whom no clew can be discovered, is reported to have uttered your name repeatedly in his ravings.”
“My name,—how so?” cried the stranger, hurriedly.
“Yes, my Lord, the name of your passport,—Lord Glen-core. Two of those I have placed to watch beside his bed have repeated the same story, and told how he has never ceased to mutter the name to himself in his wanderings.”
“Is this a mere fancy?” said the stranger, over whose sickly features a flush now mantled. “Can I see him?”
“Of course. He is in the hospital, and too ill to be removed; but if you will visit him there, I will accompany you.”
It was only when a call was made upon Lord Glencore for some bodily exertion that his extreme debility became apparent. Seated at ease in a chair, his manner seemed merely that of natural coolness and apathy; he spoke as one who would not suffer his nature to be ruffled by any avoidable annoyance; but now, as he arose from his seat, and endeavored to walk, one side betrayed unmistakable signs of palsy, and his general frame exhibited the last stage of weakness.
“You see, sir, that the exertion costs its price,” said he, with a sad, sickly smile. “I am the wreck of what once was a man noted for his strength.”
The other muttered some words of comfort and compassion, and they descended the stairs together.
“I do not know this man,” said Lord Glencore, as he gazed on the flushed and fevered face of the sick man, whose ill-trimmed and shaggy beard gave additional wild-ness to his look; “I have never, to my knowledge, seen him before.”
The accents of the speaker appeared to have suddenly struck some chord in the sufferer's intelligence, for he struggled for an instant, and then, raising himself on his elbow, stared fixedly at him. “Not know me?” cried he, in English; “'t is because sorrow and sickness has changed me, then.”
“Who are you? Tell me your name?” said Glencore, eagerly.
“I'm Billy Traynor, my Lord, the one you remember, the doctor—”
“And my boy!” screamed Glencore, wildly.
The sick man threw up both his arms in the air, and fell backward with a cry of despair; while Glencore, tottering for an instant, sank with a low groan, and fell senseless on the ground.
Long before Lord Glencore had begun to rally from an attack which had revived all the symptoms of his former illness, Billy Traynor had perfectly recovered, and was assiduously occupied in attending him. Almost the first tidings which Glencore could comprehend assured him that the boy was safe, and living at Massa under the protection of the Chevalier Stubber, and waiting eagerly for Billy to join him. A brief extract from one of the youth's letters to his warm-hearted follower will suffice to show how he himself regarded the incident which befell, and the fortune that lay before him.
It was a long swim, of a dark night too, Master Billy; and whenever the arm of a tree would jostle me, as it floated past, I felt as though that “blessed” courier was again upon me, and turned to give fight at once. If it were not that the river took a sudden bend as it nears the sea, I must infallibly have been carried out; but I found myself quite suddenly in slack water, and very soon after it shallowed so much that I could walk ashore. The thought of what became of my adversary weighed more heavily on me when I touched land; indeed, while my own chances of escape were few, I took his fate easily enough. With all its dangers, it was a glorious time, as, hurrying downward in the torrent, through the dark night, the thunder growling overhead, the breakers battering away on the bar, I was the only living thing there to confront that peril! What an emblem of my own fate in everything! A headlong course, an unknown ending, darkness—utter and day less darkness—around me, and not one single soul to say, “Courage!” There is something splendidly exciting in the notion of having felt thoughts that others have never felt,—of having set footsteps in that un tracked sand where no traveller has ever ventured. This impression never left me as I buffeted the murky waves, and struck out boldly through the surfy stream. Nay, more, it will never leave me while I live. I have now proved myself to my own heart! I have been, and for a considerable time too, face to face with death. I have regarded my fate as certain, and yet have I not quailed in spirit or flinched in coolness. No, Billy; I reviewed every step of my strange and wayward life. I bethought me of my childhood, with all its ambitious longings, and my boyish days as sorrow first broke upon me, and I felt that there was a fitness in this darksome and mysterious ending to a life that touched on no other existence. For am I not as much alone in the great world as when I swam there in the yellow flood of the Magra?
As the booming breakers of the sea met my ear, and I saw that I was nearing the wide ocean, I felt as might a soldier when charging an enemy's battery at speed. I was wildly mad with impatience to get forward, and shouted till my voice rang out above the din around me. How the mad cheer echoed in my own heart! It was the trumpet-call of victory.
Was it reaction from all this excitement—the depression that follows past danger—that made me feel low and miserable afterwards? I know I walked along towards Lavenza in listlessness, and when a gendarme stopped to question me, and asked for my passport, I had not even energy to tell him how I came there. Even the intense desire to see that spot once more,—to walk that garden and sit upon that terrace,—all had left me; it was as though the waves had drowned the spirit, and left the limbs to move unguided. He led me beside the walls of the villa, by the little wicket itself, and still I felt no touch of feeling, no memory came back on me; I was indifferent to all! and yet you know how many a weary mile I have come just to see them once more,—to revisit a spot where the only day-dream of my life lingered, and where I gave way to the promptings of a hope that have not often warmed this sad heart.
What a sluggish swamp has this nature of mine become, when it needs a hurricane of passion to stir it! Here I am, living, breathing, walking, and sleeping, but without one sentiment that attaches me to existence; and yet do I feel as though whatever endangered life, or jeoparded fame would call me up to an effort and make me of some value to myself.
I went yesterday to see my old studio: sorry things were those strivings of mine,—false endeavors to realize conceptions that must have some other interpreter than marble. Forms are but weak appeals, words are coarse ones; music alone, my dear friend, is the true voice of the heart's meanings.
How a little melody that a peasant girl was singing last night touched me! It was one that she used to warble, humming as we walked, like some stray waif thrown up by memory on the waste of life.
So then, at last, I feel I am not a sculptor; still as little, with all your teaching, am I a scholar. The world of active life offers to me none of its seductions; I only recognize what there is in it of vulgar contention and low rivalry. I cannot be any of the hundred things by which men eke out subsistence, and yet I long for the independence of being the arbiter of my own daily life. What is to become of me? Say, dearest, best of friends,—say but the word, and let me try to obey you. What of our old plans of 'savagery'? The fascinations of civilized habits have made no stronger hold upon me since we relinquished that grand idea. Neither you nor I assuredly have any places assigned us at the feast of this old-world life; none have bidden us to it, nor have we even the fitting garments to grace it!
There are moments, however,—one of them is on me while I write,—wherein I should like to storm that strong citadel of social exclusion, and test its strength. Who are they who garrison it? Are they better, and wiser, and purer than their fellows? Are they lifted by the accidents of fortune above the casualties and infirmities of nature? and are they more gentle-minded, more kindly-hearted, and more forgiving than others? This I should wish to know and learn for myself. Would they admit us, for the nonce, to see and judge them? let the Bastard and the Beggar sit down at their board, and make brotherhood with them? I trow not, Billy. They would hand us over to the police!
And my friend the courier was not so far astray when he called us vagabonds!
If I were free, I should, of course, be with you; but I am under a kind of mild bondage here, of which I don't clearly comprehend the meaning. The chief minister has taken me, in some fashion, under his protection, and I am given to understand that no ill is intended me; and, indeed, so far as treatment and moderate liberty are concerned, I have every reason to be satisfied. Still is there something deeply wounding in all this mysterious “consideration.” It whispers to me of an interest in me on the part of those who are ashamed to avow it,—of kind feelings held in check by self-esteem. Good Heavens! what have I done, that this humiliation should be my portion? There is no need of any subtlety to teach me what I am, and what the world insists I must remain. There is no ambition I dare to strive for, no affection my heart may cherish, no honorable contest I may engage in, but that the utterance of one fatal word may not bar the gate against my entrance, and send me back in shame and confusion. Had I of myself incurred this penalty, there would be in me that stubborn sense of resistance that occurs to every one who counts the gain and loss of all his actions; but I have not done so! In the work of my own degradation I am blameless!
I have just been told that a certain Princess de Sabloukoff is to arrive here this evening, and that I am to wait upon her immediately. Good Heavens! can she be—? The thought has just struck me, and my head is already wandering at the bare notion of it! How I pray that this may not be so; my own shame is enough, and more than I can bear; but to witness that of—I Can you tell me nothing of this? But even if you can, the tidings will come too late; I shall have already seen her.
I am unable to write more now; my brain is burning, and my hand trembles so that I cannot trace the letters. Adieu till this evening.
Midnight.
I was all in error, dear friend. I have seen her; for the last two hours we have conversed together, and my suspicion had no foundation. She evidently knows all my history, and almost gives me to believe that one day or other I may stand free of this terrible shame that oppresses me. If this were possible, what vengeance would be enough to wreak on those who have thus practised on me? Can you imagine any vendetta that would pay off the heart-corroding misery that has made my youth like a sorrowful old age, dried up hope within me, made my ambition to be a snare, and my love a mere mockery? I could spend a life in the search after this revenge, and think it all too short to exhaust it!
I have much to tell you of this Princess, but I doubt if I can remember it. Her manner meant so much, and yet so little; there was such elegance of expression with such perfect ease,—so much of the finest knowledge of life united to a kind of hopeful trust in mankind, that I kept eternally balancing in my mind whether her intelligence or her kindliness had the supremacy. She spoke to me much of the Harleys. Ida was well, and at Florence. She had refused Wahnsdorf's offer of marriage, and though ardently solicited to let time test her decision, persisted in her rejection.
Whether she knew of my affection or not, I cannot say; but I opine not, for she talked of Ida as one whose haughty nature would decline alliance with even an imperial house if they deemed it a condescension; so that the refusal of Wahnsdorf may have been on this ground. But how can it matter to me?
I am to remain here a week, I think they said. Sir Horace Upton is coming on his way south, and wishes to see me; but you will be with me ere that time, and then we can plan our future together. As this web of intrigue—for so I cannot but feel it—draws more closely around me, I grow more and more impatient to break bounds and be away! It is evident enough that my destiny is to be the sport of some accident, lucky or unlucky, in the fate of others. Shall I await this?
And they have given me money, and fine clothes, and a servant to wait upon me, and treated me like one of condition. Is this but another act of the drama, the first scene of which was an old ruined castle in Ireland? They will fail signally if they think so; a heart can be broken only once! They may even feel sorry for what they have done, but I can never forgive them for what they have made me! Come to me, dear, kind friend, as soon as you can; you little know how far your presence reconciles me to the world and to yourself!—Ever yours,
C. M.
This letter Billy Traynor read over and over as he sat by Glencore's bedside. It was his companion in the long, dreary hours of the night, and he pondered over it as he sat in the darkened room at noonday.
“What is that you are crumpling up there? From whom is the letter?” said Lord Glencore, as Billy hurriedly endeavored to conceal the oft-perused epistle. “Nay,” cried he, suddenly correcting himself, “you need not tell me; I asked without forethought.” He paused a few seconds, and then went on: “I am now as much recovered as I ever hope to be, and you may leave me to-morrow. I know that both your wish and your duty call you elsewhere. Whatever future fortune may betide any of us, you at least have been a true and faithful friend, and shall never want! As I count upon your honesty to keep a pledge, I reckon on your delicacy not asking the reasons for it. You will, therefore, not speak of having been with me here. To mention me would be but to bring up bitter memories.”
In the pause which now ensued, Billy Traynor's feelings underwent a sore trial; for while he bethought him that now or never had come the moment to reconcile the father and the son, thus mysteriously separated, his fears also whispered the danger of any ill-advised step on his part, and the injury he might by possibility inflict on one he loved best on earth.
“You make me this pledge, therefore, before we part,” said Lord Glencore, who continued to ruminate on what he had spoken. “It is less for my sake than that of another.” Billy took the hand Glencore tendered towards him respectfully in his own, and kissed it twice.
“There are men who have no need of oaths to ratify their faith and trustfulness. You are one of them, Tray-nor,” said Glencore, affectionately.
Billy tried to speak, but his heart was too full, and he could not utter a word.
“A dying man's words have ever their solemn weight,” said Glencore, “and mine beseech you not to desert one who has no prize in life equal to your friendship. Promise me nothing, but do not forget my prayer to you.” And with this, Lord Glencore turned away, and buried his face between his hands.
“And in the name of Heaven,” muttered Billy to himself as he stole away, “what is it that keeps them apart and won't let them love one another? Sure it wasn't in nature that a boy of his years could ever do what would separate them this way. What could he possibly say or do that his father might n't forget and forgive by this time? And then if it was n't the child's fault at all, where's the justice in makin' him pay for another's crime? Sure enough, great people must be unlike poor craytures like me, in their hearts and feelin's as well as in their grandeur; and there must be things that we never mind nor think of, that are thought to be mortial injuries by them. Ay, and that is raysonable too! We see the same in the matayrial world. There's fevers that some never takes; and there's climates some can live in, and no others can bear!
“I suppose, now,” said he, with a wise shake of the head, “pride—pride is at the root of it all, some way or other; and if it is, I may give up the investigation at onst, for divil a one o' me knows what pride is,—barrin' it's the delight one feels in consthruin' a hard bit in a Greek chorus, or hittin' the manin' of a doubtful passage in ould Æschylus. But what's the good o' me puzzlin' myself? If I was to speculate for fifty years, I 'd never be able to think like a lord, after all!” And with this conclusion he began to prepare for his journey.