i OUR FLAG IS THERE ! We trill defend it. of X ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, COMPRISING TALES OF FIVE LANDS, BY THE AUTHOR OF PENCILINGS BY THE WAY. y /s PUBLISHED BY S. COLMAN, VIII ASTOR HOUSE. 1840, . according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by S. COLMAN, In the Clerk s Office of the District of the Uaited States, for the Southern District of New- York. PS 33 A 4 ^ INSCRIBED TO RUFUS DAWES, WITH THE SINCEREST FRIENDSHIP OF THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS LADY RAVELGOLD, a, . ]5 PALETTO S BRIDE, .... VIOLANTA CESARINA, . . / PASQUALI, THE TAILOR OF VENICE 139 THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA 159 DER HOOFDEN, OR THE UNDERCLIFF, - - - - 227 THE PICKER AND FILER 247 STRATFORD-ON-AVON " 269 CHARLECOTE, - - ^ V a air ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. LADY RAVELCOLD. CHAP. I. " What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut With diamonds 1 or to be smothered quick With cassia, or be shot to death with pearls !" DUCHESS OF MALFY. " I ve been i the Indies twice, and seen strange things But two honest women ! One. I read of once !" RULE A WIFE. IT was what is called by people on the conti nent a " London day." A thin, gray mist drizzled down through the smoke which darkened the long cavern of Fleet-street ; the sidewalks were slippery 16 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL, and clammy ; the drays slid from side to side on the greasy pavement, creating a perpetual clamour among the lighter carriages with which they came in contact ; the porters wondered that " gemmen" would carry their umbrellas up when there was no rain, and the gentlemen wondered that porters should be permitted on the sidewalks ; there were passengers in box-coats though it was the first of May, and beggars with bare breasts though it was chilly as November ; the boys were looking wist fully into the hosier s windows who were generally at the pastry-cook s, and there were persons who wished to know the time, trying in vain to see the dial of St. Paul s through the gambage atmosphere. It was twelve o clock, and a plain chariot with a simple cres" on the panels, slowly picked its way through the choked and disputed thoroughfare east of Temple Bar. The smart glazed hat of the coachman, the well-fitted drab greatcoat and gaiters of the footman, and the sort of half-submissive, half- contemptuous look on both their faces, (implying that they were bound to drive to the devil if it were miladi s orders, but that the rabble of Fleet-street was a leetk too vulgar for their contact,) expressed very plainly that the lady within was a denizen of a more privileged quarter, but had chosen a rainy day for some compulsory visit to the city." LADY RAVELGOLD. 17 At the rate of perhaps a mile an hour, the well- groomed night horses (a pair of smart, hardy, twelve-mile cabs, all bottom but little style, kept for night- work and force.d journeys) had threaded the tortuous entrails of London, and had arrived at the arch of a dark court in Throgmorton-street. The coachman put his wheels snug against the edge of the sidewalk, to avoid being crushed by the passing drays, and settled his many-caped benjamin about him ; while the footman spread his umbrella, and making a balustrade of his arm for his mistresses assistance, a closely-veiled lady descended and dis appeared up the wet and ill-paved avenue. The green-baize door of Firkins and Co. opened on its silent hinges and admitted the mysterious visi- ter, who, inquiring if the nearest clerk of the junior partner were in, was showed to a small inner room containing a desk, two chairs, a coal fire, and a young gentleman. The last article of furniture rose on the lady s entrance, and as she threw off her veil he made a low bow, with the air of a gentleman, who is neither surprised nor embarrassed, and pushing aside the door-check, they were left alone. There was that forced complaisance in the lady s manner on her first entrance, which produced the slightest possible elevation in a very scornful lip owned by the junior partner, but the lady was only forty-five, high-born, and very handsome, and as she 2* 18 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. looked at the fine specimen of nature s nobility, who met her with a look as proud and yet as gentle as her own, the smoke of Fleet-street passed away from her memory, and she became natural and even gracious. The effect upon the junior partner was simply that of removing from his breast the shade of her first impression. " I have brought you," said his visiter, drawing a card from her reticule, "an invitation to the dutchess of Hautaigle s ball. She sent me half a dozen to fill up for what she calls ornamentals and I am sure I shall scarce find another who comes so deci dedly under her grace s category." The fair speaker had delivered this pretty speech in the sweetest and best-bred tone of St. James s, looking the while at the toe of the small brodequin which she held up to the fire perhaps thinking only of drying it. As she concluded her sentence, she turned to her companion for an answer, and was surprised at the impassive politeness of his bow of acknowledgment. " I regret that I shall not be able to avail myself of your ladyship s kindness," said the junior partner, in the same well-enunciated tone of courtesy. " Then," replied the lady with a smile, " Lord Augustus Fitz-Moi, who looks at himself all dinner time in a spoon, will be the Apollo of the hour. What a pity such a handsome creature should be LADY RAVELGOLD. 19 so vain ! By the way, Mr. Firkins, you live without a looking-glass, I see." " Your ladyship reminds me that this is merely a place of business. May I ask at once what errand has procured me the honour of a visit on so unplea sant a day ?" A slight flush brightened the cheek and forehead of the beautiful woman, as she compressed her lips, and forced herself to say with affected ease, " the want of five hundred pounds." The junior partner paused an instant while the lady tapped with her boot upon the fender in ill- dissembled anxiety, and then, turning to his desk, he filled up the check without remark, presented it, and took his hat to wait on her to her carriage. A gleam of relief and pleasure shot over her countenance as she closed her small jewelled hand over it, followed immediately by a look of embarrassed inquiry into the face of the unquestioning banker. " I am in your debt already." " Thirty thousand pounds, madam !" " And for this you think the securities on the estate ofRockland " "Are worth nothing, madam! But it rains. I regret that your ladyship s carriage cannot come to the door. In the old-fashioned days of sedan-chairs, now, the dark courts of Lothbury must have been 20 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. more attractive. By the way, talking of Lothbury, there is Lady Roseberry s/efe champetre next week. If you should chance to have a spare card " " Twenty, if you like I am too happy really, Mr. Firkins " " It s on the fifteenth ; I shall have the honour of seeing your ladyship there ! Good morning ! Home, coachman !" "Does this man love me?" was Lady Ravelgold s first thought, as she sank back in her returning cha riot. Yet no ! he was even rude in his haste to be rid of me. And I would willingly have staid, too, for there is something about him of a mart that I like. Ay, and he must have seen it a lighter encouragement has been interpreted more readily. Five hundred pounds ! Really five hundred pounds! And thirty thousand at the back of it ! What does he mean ? Heavens, if he should be deeper than I thought ! If he should wish to involve me first !" And spite of the horrour with which the thought was met in the mind of Lady Ravelgold, the blush over her forehead died away into a half smile and a brighter tint in her lips; and as the carriage wound slowly on through the confused press of Fleet-street and the Strand, the image of the handsome and haughty young banker shut her eyes from all sounds without, and she was at her own door in Grosvenor- LADY RAVELGOLI). 21 square before she had changed position or wandered for half a moment from the subject of those busy dreams. CHAP. II. The morning of the fifteenth of May seemed to have been appointed by all the flowers as a jubilee of perfume and bloom. The birds had been invited and sang in the summer with a welcome as full- throated as a prim a donna singing down the tenor in a duet ; the most laggard buds turned out their hearts to the sunshine, and promised leaves on the morrow, and that portion of London that had been invited to Lady Roseberry s fete, thought it a very fine day ! That portion which was not, wondered how people would go sweltering about in such a glare for a cold dinner! At about half-past two, a very elegant dark green cab without a crest, and with a servant in whose slight figure and plain blue livery there was not a fault, whirled out at the gate of the Regent s Park, and took its way up the well-watered road leading to Hampstead. The gentlemen whom it passed or met turned to admire the performance of the dark gray horse, and the ladie.s looked after the cab as if they could see the handsome occupant once more through its leather back. Whether by conspiracy 22 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. among the coach-makers, or by an aristocracy of taste, the degree of elegance in a turn-out attained by the cab just described, is usually confined to the acquaintances of Lady ; that list being under stood to enumerate all " the nice young men" of the West end, beside the guardsmen. (The ton of the latter, in all matters that affect the style of the regiment, is looked after by the club and the colonel.) The junior Firkins seemed an exception to this exclusive rule. No " nice man" could come from Lothbury, and he did not visit Lady ; but his horse was faultless, and when he turned into the gate of Rose-Eden, the policeman at the porter s lodge, though he did not know him, thought it unnecessary to ask for his name. Away he spat tered up the hilly avenue, and giving the reins to his groom at the end of a green arbour leading to the reception-lawn, he walked in and made his bow to Lady Roseberry, who remarked, " How very handsome ! Who can he be ?" and the junior partner walked on and disappeared down an avenue of laburnums. Ah ! but Rose-Eden looked a Paradise that day ! Hundreds had passed across the close-shaven lawn, with a bow to the lady-mistress of this fair abode. Yet the grounds were still private enough for Milton s pair, so lost were they in the green labyrinths of hill and dale. Some had descended through heavily- LADY RAVELGOLD. 23 shaded paths to a fancy-dairy, built over a fountain in the bottom of a cool dell ; and here, amid her milk-pans of old and costly china, the prettiest maid in the country round pattered about upon a floor of Dutch tiles, and served her visiters with creams and ices ; already, as it were, adapted to fashionable comprehension. Some had strayed to the orna mental cottages in the skirts of the flower-garden poetical abodes, built from a picturesque drawing, with imitation roughness; thatch, lattice- window, and low pa ling, all complete ; and inhabited by super annuated dependants of Lord Roseberry, whose only duties were to look like patriarchs, and give tea and new cream-cheese to visiters on fete-days. Some had gone to see the silver and gold pheasants in their wire-houses stately aristocrats of the game tribe, who carry their finely-pencilled feathers like " Marmalet Madarus," strutting in hoop and farthin gale. Some had gone to the kennels, to see setters and pointers, hounds and terriers, lodged like gen tlemen, each breed in its own apartment ; the pup pies, as elsewhere, treated with most attention. Some were in the flower-garden, some in the green houses, some in the graperies, aviaries, and grottoes ; and at the side of a bright sparkling fountain, in the recesses of a fir-grove, with her foot upon its marble lip, and one hand on the shoulder of a small Cupid who archly made a drinking-cup of his wing, and 24 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, caught the bright water as it fell, stood Lady Imogen Ravelgold, the loveliest girl of nineteen that prayed night and morning within the parish of May Fair, listening to very passionate language from the young banker of Lothbury. A bugle on the lawn rang a recall. From every alley, and by every path, poured in the gay multi tude, and the smooth sward looked like a plateau of animated flowers, waked by m gic from a broidery on green velvet. Ah ! the beautiful demi-toikttes ! so difficult to attain, yet, when attained, the dress most modest, most captivating, most worthy the divine grace of woman. Those airy hats, shelter ing from the sun, yet not enviously concealing a feature or a ringlet that a painter would draw for his exhibition picture ! Those summery and shape ly robes, covering the person more to show its outline better, and provoke more the worship, which, like all worship, is made more adoring by mystery ! Those complexions which but betray their transpa rency in the sun : lips in which the blood is translucent when between you and the light: cheeks finer-grained than alabaster, yet as cool in their virgin purity as a tint in the dark corner of a Ruysdael : the human race was at less perfection in Athens in the days of Lais in Egypt in the days of Cleopatra, than that day on the lawn of Rose-Eden. LADY RAVELGOLD* 25 Cart-loads of ribands, of every gay colour, had been laced through the trees in all directions ; and amid every variety of foliage, and every shade of green, the tulip-tints shone vivid and brilliant, like an A merican forest after the first frost. From the left edge of the lawn, the ground suddenly sunk into a dell, shaped like an amphitheatre, with a level platform at its bottom, and all around, above and below, thickened a shady wood. The music of a delicious band stole up from the recesses of a grove, draped as an orchestra and green-room on the lower side, and while the audience disposed themselves in the shade of the upper grove, a company of players and dancing-girls commenced their theatricals. Imogen Ravelgold, who was separated, by a pine tree only, from the junior partner, could scarce tell you, when it was finished, what was the plot of the play. The recall-bugle sounded again, and the band wound away from the lawn, playing a gay march. Followed lady Roseberry and her suite of gentlemen, followed dames and their daughters, followed all who wished to see the flight of my lord s falcons. By a narrow path and a wicket-gate, the long music- guided train stole out upon an open hill-side, looking down on a verdant and spreading meadow. The band played at a short distance behind the gay groups of spectators, and it was a pretty picture to 3 2 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL^ look down upon the splendidly-dressed falconer and his men, holding their fierce birds upon their wrists, in their hoods and jesses, a foreground of old chivalry and romance ; while far beyond extended, like a sea over the horizon, the smoke-clad pinnacles of busy and every-day London. There are such contrasts of the eyes of the rich I The scarlet hood was taken from the trustiest falcon, and a dove, confined, at first, wit \ a string, was thrown up, and brought back, to excite his attention. As he fixed his eye upon him, the fright ened victim was let loose, and the falcon flung off; away skimmed the dove in a low flight over the meadow, and up to the very zenith, in circles of amazing swiftness and power, spc<5 the exulting falcon, apparently forgetful of his prey, and bound for the eye of the sun with his strong wings and .his liberty. The falconers whistle and cry were heard ; the dove circled round the edge of the meadow in his wavy flight; and down, with the speed of lightning, shot the falcon, striking his prey dead to the earth before the eye could settle on his form. As the proud bird stood upon his victim, looking around with a lifted crest and fierce eye, Lady Imogen Ra- vengold heard, in a voice of which her heart knew the musick, "They who soar highest strike surest the dove lies in the falcon s bosom." L AD Y H A VELGOLD CHAP. III. The afternoon had, meantime, been wearing on. and at six the " breakfast" was announced. The -tents beneath which the tables were spread were in different parts of the grounds, and the guests had made up their own parties. Each sped to his ren dezvous, and as the last loiterers disappeared from the lawn, a gentleman in a claret coat and a brown study, found himself stopping to let a lady pass who had obeyed the summons as tardily as himself. In i white chip hat, Hairbault s last, a few lilies of the valley laid among her raven curls beneath, a simple white robe, the chsf-d ceuvre of Vlctotine in style and toum^re, Lady Ravelgold would have been the belle of th3 fete, but for her daughter. " Well emerged from Lothbury !" she said, curt sying, with a slight flush over her features, but immediately taking his arm ; " I have lost my party, and meeting you is opportune. Where shall we breakfast ?" There was a small tent standing invitingly open on the opposite side of the lawn, and by the fainter rattle of soup-spoons from that quarter, it promised to be less crowded than the others. The junior partner would willingly have declined the proffered 8 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. honour, but he saw at a glance that there was no escape, and submitted with a grace. " You know very few people here," said his fair creditor, taking the bread from her napkin. " Your ladyship and one other." " Ah, we shall have dancing by and by, and I must introduce you to my daughter. By the way, have you no name from your mother s side? * Fir kins sounds so very odd. Give me some pretter word to drink in this champagne." " What do you think of Tremlet?" "Too effeminate for your severe style of beauty but it will do. Mr. Tremlet, your health ! Will you give me a little of the pate before you ? Pray, if it is not indiscreet, how comes that classick profile, and, more surprising still, that distinguished look of yours, to have found no gayer destiny than the signing of Firkins and Co. to notes of hand ? Though I thought you became your den in Lothbury, upon my honour you look more at home here." And Lady Ravengold fixed her superb eyes upon the beautiful features of her companion, wondering partly why he did not speak, and partly why she had not observed before that he was incomparably the handsomest creature she had ever seen. " I can regret no vocation," he answered after a moment, " which procures me an acquaintance with, your ladyship s family/ LADYRAVELGOLP. 29 "" There is an arriere pensee in that formal speech, Mr. Tremlet. You are insincere. I am the only one in my family whom you know, and what plea sure have you taken in my acquaintance ? And, now I think of it, there is a mystery about you, which, but for the noble truth written so legibly on your features, I should be afraid to fathom. Why have you suffered me to over-draw my credit so enormously, and without a shadow of a protest?" When Lady Ravelgold had disburdened her heart of this direct question, she turned half round and looked her companion in the face with an intense interest, which produced upon her own features an expression of earnestness very uncommon upon their pale and impassive lines. She was one of those persons of little thought, who care nothing foi causes or consequences, so that the present difficul ty is removed, or the present hour provided with its ^ings ; but the repeated relief she had received from the young banker, when total ruin would have been the consequence of his refusal, and his marked cold ness in his manner to her, had stimulated the utmost curiosity of which she was capable. Her vanity, founded upon her high rank and great renown as a beauty, would have agreed that he might be willing to get her into his power at that price, had he been less agreeable in his own person, or more eager in his manner. But she .had wanted money sufficiently SO ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, to know, that thirty thousand pounds are not a ba gatelle, and her brain was busy till she discovered the equivalent he sought for it. Meant me her fear that he would turn out to be a lover, grew rapidly into a fear that he would not. Lady Ravelgold had been the wife of a disso lute earl, who had died, leaving his estate inex tricably involved. With no male heir to the title or proparty, and no very near relation, the beautiful . widow shut her eyes to the difficulties by which she was surrounded, and at the first decent moment after the death of her lord, she had re-entered the gay society of which she had been the bright and particular star, and never dreamed either of dimi nishing her establishment, or of calculating her pos sible income. The first heavy draft she had made upon the house of Firkins and Co., her husband s bankers, had been returned with a statement of the Ravelgold debt and credit on their books, by which it appeared that Lord Ravelgold had overdrawn four or five thousand pounds before his death, and that from some legal difficulties, nothing could be realized from the securities given on his estates. This bad news arrived on the morning of a fete to be given by the Russian ambassador, at which her only child, Lady Imogen, was to make her debut in society. With the facility of disposition which was peculiar to her, Lady Ravelgold thrust the papers I*ADYRAVELGOLD. 31 into her drawer, and determining to visit her banker on the following morning, threw the matter entirely from her mind and made preparations for the ball. With the Russian government the house of Firkins and Co. had long carried on very extensive fiscal transactions, and in obedience to instruction^jrom the emperor, regular invitations for the embassy *etes were sent to the bankers, accepted occasion ally by tli3 junior partner only, who was generally supposed to be a natural son of old Firkins. Out of the banking-house he was known as Mr. Trem- let, and it was by this name, which was presumed to be his mother s, that he was casually introduced to Lady Imogen on the night of the fete, while she was separated from her mother in the dancing- room. The consequence was a sudden, d?ep, in effaceable passion in the bosom of the young bank er, checked and silenced, but never lessened or chilled by the recollection of the obstacle of his birth. The impression of his subdued manner, his worshipping, yet most respectful tones, and the bright soul that breathed through his handsome features with his unusual excitement, was, to say the least, favourable upon Lady Imogen, and they parted on the night of the fate, mutually aware of each other s preference. On th3 following morn : ng Lady Ravelgold made her proposed visit to tho city; and inquiring for 32 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. Mr. Firkins, was shown in as usual to the junior partner, to whom the colloquial business of the con cern had long been entrusted. To her surprise she found no difficulty in obtaining the sum of money which had been refused her on the preceding day a result which she attributed to her powers of per suasion, or to some new turn in the affairs of the estate ; and for two years these visits had been re peated at intervals of three or four months, with the same success, though not with the same delusion as to the cause. She had discovered that the estate was worse than nothing, and the junior partner cared little to prolong his t2tes-d-tetss with her, and, up to the visit with which this tale opened, she had looked to every succeeding one with increased fear and doubt. During these two years, Tremlet had seen Lady Imogen ocsasionally at balls and public places, and every look they exchanged wove more strongly be tween them the subtle threads of love. Once or twice she had endeavoured to interest her mother in conversation on the subject, with the intention of of making a confidence of her feelings ; but Lady Ravengold, when not anxious, was giddy with her own success, and the unfamiliar name never rested a moment on her ear. With this explanation to render the tale intelligible, " let us," as the French say, " return to our muttons." LADY RAVE I, GOLD. 33 Of the conversation between Tremlet and her mother, Lady Imogen was an unobserved and asto nished witness. The tent which they had entered was large, with a buffet in the centre, and a circu lar table waited on by servants within the ring ; and, just concealed by the drapery around the pole, sat Lady Imogen with a party of her friends, discussing very seriously the threatened fashion of tight sleeves. She had half risen, when her mother entered, to offer her a seat by her side, but the sight of Tremlet, who immediately followed, had checked the words upon her lip, and to her surprise they seated them selves on the side that was wholly unoccupied, ! and conversed in a tone inaudible to all but themselves. Not aware that her lover knew Lady Ravelgold, she supposed that they might have been casually introduced, till the earnestness of her mother s man ner, and a certain ease between them in the little courtesies of the table, assured her that this could not be their first interview. Tremlet s face was turned from her, and she could not judge whether he was equally interested ; but she had been so ac customed to consider her mother as irrisistible when she chose to please, that she supposed it of course ; and very soon the heightened colour of Lady Ra velgold, and the unwavering look of mingled admi ration and curiosity which she bent upon the hand some face of her companion, left no doubt in her 34 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. mind that her reserved and exclusive lover was in Ihe dangerous toils of a rival whose power sho knew. From the mortal pangs of a first jealousy, heaven send thee deliverance, fair Lady Imogen ! " We shall find our account in the advances on your ladyship s credit ;" said Tremlet, in reply to the direct question that was put to him. " Mean time permit me to ad mire the courage with which you look so disagreeable a subject in the face." " For * disagreeable subject/ read Mr. Tremlet. I show my temerity more in that. Apropos effaces, yours would become the new fashion of cravat. The men at Crockford s slip the ends through a ring of their lady-love s, if they chance to have one thus P and untying the loose knot of his black satin cravat, Lady Ravelgold slipped over the ends a diamond of small value, conspicuously set in pearls. " The men at Crockford s," said Tremlet, hesita ting to commit the rudeness of removing the ring, " are not of my school of manners. If I had been so fortunate as to inspire a lady with a preference for me, I should not advertise it on my cravat." " But suppose the lady were proud of her prefer ence, as dames were of the devotion of their knights in the days of chivalry would you not wear her favour as conspicuously as they ?" A flush of mingled embarrassment and surprise shot over the forehead of Tremlet, and he was LADYRAVELGOLu. 35 turning the ring with his fingers, when Lady Imo gen, attempting to pass out of the tent, was stopped by her mother. " Imogen, my daughter ! this is Mr. TremleL Lady Imogen Ravelgold, Mr. Tremlet !" The cold and scarce perceptible bow which tht wounded girl gave to her lover, betrayed no pre vious acquaintance to the careless Lady Ravelgold. Without giving a second thought to her daughter, she held her glass for some champagne to a passing servant, and as Lady Imogen and her friends cross ed the lawn to the dancing tent, she resumed the conversation which they had interrupted ; while Tremlet, with his heart brooding on the altered look he had received, listened and replied almost uncon sciously ; yet from this very circumstance, in a man ner which was interpreted by his companion as the embarrassment of a timid and long-repressed pas sion for herself. While Lady Ravelgold and the junior partner were thi s playing at cross purposes over their champagne and bons-bons, Grisi and Lablanche were singing a duet from / Puritani, to a full au dience in the saloon ; the drinking young men sat over their wine at the nearly deserted tables ; Lady Imogen and her friends waltzed to Collinet s bane and the artizans were busy b ;bw the lawn, erectin ; the machinery for the fire-works. Meantime ever iUi ROMANCE OF T R A V K I. - alloy and avenue, grot and labyrinth, had boon dimly illuminated with coloured lamps, showing like vari coloured glow-worms amid the foliage and shells; ami if the bright scenery of RoeoEden had been lovely by day, it xvas lay-land and \vileliery by night. Fatal impulse of our nature, that these ap proaches to paradise in the "delight of the eye." stir only in our bosoms the passions upon which law and holy \vr.it have put ban and bridle! * Shall \ve stroll down this alley of crimson lamps " said Lady Uavclgold, crossing the lawn from the tent where their eollee had been brought to them, and putting her slender arm far into that of her now pale and silent companion. A lady in a white dr. t the i ntranco of that crimson a\enue. as Tromlot and his passionate adtoirer disappeared beneath the clos n^ lines of the long jHTspeetive, and. rem:iiniii;y a moment gazing through the unbroken twinkle of the confusing lamps, she pressed her hand hard upon her fore head, drew up her form as if struggling with some irrepressible feeling, and in another moment was whirling in the wait/, with Lo-.d F.nvst Fitznnte- lopc, whose mother wrote a complimentary para graph about their performmuv for the next Satur day s Court Journal. The bugle soun Jed. and the band played a march the lawn. From the breakfast tents, from the LADY RAVEL GOLD. 37 coffee-rooms, from the dance, from the card-tables, poured all who wished to witness the marvels that lie in saltpetre. Gentlemen who stood in a ten der attitude in the darkness, held themselves ready to lean the other way when the rockets blazed up, and mammas who were encouraging flirtations with cligibles, whispered a caution on the same subject to their less-experienced daughters. Up sped the missiles, round spun the wheels, fair burned the pagodas, swift flew the fire-doves off and back again on their wires, and softly floated down through the dewy atmosphere of that May night the lambent and many-coloured stars, flung burning from the exploded rockets. Device followed device, and Lady Imogen almost forgot, in her child s de light at the spectacle, that she had taken into her bosom a green serpent, whose folds were closing like suffocation about her heart. The finals was to consist of a new light, invented by the Pyrotechnist, promised to Lady Roseberry to be several degrees brighter than the sun com paratively with the quantity of matter. Before this last flourish came a pause ; and while all the world were murmuring love and applause around her, Lady Imogen, with her eyes fixed on an indefinite point in the darkness, took advantage of the cessation of light to feed her serpent with thoughts of passion- ate and uncontrollable pain. A French attach*, 4 . 38 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. Phillipiste to the very tips of his mustache, addressed to her ear, meantime, the compliments he had found most effective in the Chaussee UAntin. The light burst suddenly from a hundred blazing points, clear, dazzling, intense illuminating, as by the instantaneous burst of day, the farthest corner of Rose-Eden. And Monsieur Mangepoire, with a French contempt for English fire- works, took advan tage of the first ray to look into Lady Imogen s eyes. "Mais, Miladi!" was his immediate exclama tion, after following their direction with a glance, " ce n est qu un tableau vivant, cela ! Help, gentle men ! Elk s evanouit. Some salts ! Misericorde ! Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu /" And Lady Imogen Ra- velgold was carried fainting to Lady Roseberry s chamber. In a small opening at the end of a long avenue of lilachs, extended from the lawn in the direction of Lady Imogen s fixed and unconscious gaze, was presented, by the unexpected illumination, the tableau vivant, seen by her ladyship and Monsieur Mange poire at the same instant a gentleman drawn up to his fullest height, with his arms folded, and a lady kneeling on the ground at his feet with her arms stretched up to his bosom. l.ADYRAVELGOLD. 39 CHAP. IV. A little after two o clock on the following Wed nesday, Tremlet s cabriolet stopped near the perron of Willis s rooms in King-street, and while he sent up his card to the lady patronesses for his ticket to that night s Almack s, he busied himself in looking into the crowd of carriages about him, and reading on the faces of their fair occupants the hope and anxiety to which they were a prey till John the footman brought them tickets or despair. Drawn up on the opposite side of the street, stood a family carriage of the old style, covered with half the arms of the herald s office, and containing a fat dowager and three very over-dressed daughters. Watching them, to see the effect of their application, stood upon the sidewalk three or four young men from the neighbouring club-house, and at the moment Trem- let was observing these circumstances, a foreign britscka, containing a beautiful woman of a reputa tion better understood than expressed in the conclave above stairs, flew round the corner of St. James - street, and very nearly drove into the open mouth of the junior partner s cabriolet. " I will bet you a Ukraine colt against this fine bay of yours," said the Russian secretary of legation, 40 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. advancing from the group of dandies to Tremlet, " that miladi, yonder, with all the best blood of En gland in her own and her daughter s red faces, gets no tickets this morning." " I ll take a bet upon the lady who has nearly extinguished me, if you like," answered Tremlet, gazing with admiration at the calm, delicate, child like looking creature, who sat before him in the britscka. " No !" said the secretary, " for Almack s is a republic of beauty, and she ll be voted in without either blood or virtue. Par exemple, Lady Ravel- gold s voucher is good here, though she does study tableaux in Lothbury eh Tremlet ?" Totally unaware of the unlucky discovery by the fireworks at Lady Roseberry s fete, Tremlet colour ed and was inclined to take the insinuation as an affront ; but a laugh from the dandies drew off his companion s attention, and he observed the dowa ger s footman standing at her coach window with his empty hands held up in most expressive negation, while the three young ladies within sat aghast, in all the agonies of disappointed hopes. The lumbering carriage got into motion its ineffective blazonry paled by the mortified blush of its occupants and, as the junior partner drove away, philosophizing on the arbitrary opinions and unprovoked insults of polite society, the britscka shot by, showing him, as LADYRAVELGOLD. 41 he leaned forward, a lovely woman who bent on him the most dangerous eyes in London, and an Almack s ticket lying on the unoccupied cushion beside her. The white relievo upon the pale blue wall of Al mack s showed every crack in its stucco flowers, and the faded chaperons who had defects of a similar description to conceal, took warning of the walls, and retreated to the friendlier dimness of the tea room. Collinet was beginning the second set of quadrilles, and among the fairest of the surpassingly beautiful women who were moving to his heavenly music, was Lady Imogen Ravelgold, the lovelier to night for the first heavy sadness that had ever dimmed the roses in her cheek. Her lady mother divided her thoughts between what this could mean, and whether Mr. Tremlet would come to the ball ; and when, presently after, in the dos-a-dos, she forgot to look at her daughter, on seeing that gentleman enter, she lost a very good opportunity for a guess at the cause of Lady Imogen s paleness. To the pure and true eye that appreciates the divinity of the form after which woman is made, it would have been a glorious feast to have seen the perfection of shape, colour, motion and countenance shown that night on the bright floor of Almack s. For the young and beautiful girls whose envied 42 ROMANCE OF -TRAVEL. destiny is to commence their woman s history in this exclusive hall, there exist aids to beauty known to no other class or nation. Perpetual vigilance over every limb from the cradle up ; physical education of a perfection, discipline and judgment pursued only at great expense and under great responsibility; moral education of the highest kind, habitual con sciousness of rank, exclusive contact with elegance and luxury, and a freedom of intellectual culture which breathes a soul through the face before pas sion has touched it with a line or a shade these are some of the circumstances which make Almack s the cynosure of the world for adorable and radiant beauty* There were three ladies who had come to Al mack s with a definite object that night, each of whom was destined to be surprised and foiled : Lady Ravelgold, who feared she had been abrupt with the inexperienced banker, but trusted to find him softened by a day or two s reflection ; Mrs. St. Leger, the Lady of the britscka, who had ordered supper for two on her arrival at home from her morning s drive, and intended to have the company of the handsome creature she had nearly run over in King-street ; and Lady Imogen Ravelgold, as will appear in the sequel. Tremlet stood in the entrance from the tea-room a moment, gathering courage to walk alone into such LADVRAVELGOLD. 43 a dazzling scene, and then, having caught a glimpse of the glossy lines of Lady Imogen s head at the farthest end of the room, he was advancing toward her, when he was addressed by a lady who leaned against one of the slender columns of the orchestra. After a sweetly-phrased apology for having nearly knocked out his brains that morning with her horses fore feet, Mrs. St. Leger took his arm, and walking deliberately two or three times up and down the room, took possession, at last, of a banquette on the highest range, so far from any other person, that it would have been a marked rudeness to have left her alone. Tremlet took his seat by her with this instinctive feeling, trusting that some of her acquain tances would soon approach, and give him a fair excuse to leave her ; but he soon became amused with her piquant style of conversation, and, not aware of being observed, fell into the attitude of a pleased and earnest listener. Lady Ravelgold s feelings during this petit entre- tien, were of a very positive description. She had an instinctive knowledge, and consequently a jealous dislike of Mrs. St. Leger s character ; and, still under the delusion that the young banker s liberality was prompted by a secret passion for herself, she saw her credit in the city and her hold upon the affections of Tremlet, (for whom she had really conceived a violent affection,) melting away in every smile of 4* 44 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. the dangerous woman who engrossed him. As she looked around for a friend, to whose ear she might communicate some of the suffocating poison in her own heart, Lady Imogen returned to her from a galopade ; and, like a second dagger into the heart of the pure-minded girl, went this second proof of her lover s corrupt principle and conduct. Unwil ling to believe even her own eyes on the night of Lady Roseberry s/efe, she had summoned resolution on the road home to ask an explanation of her mother. Embarrassed by the abrupt question, Lady Ravel- gold felt obliged to make a partial confidence of the state of her pecuniary affairs ; and to clear herself, she represented Tremlet as having taken advantage of her obligations to him, to push a dishonourable suit. The scene disclosed by the sudden blaze of the fire- works being thus simply explained, Lady Imogen determined at once to give up Tremlef s acquaintance altogether ; a resolution which his open flirtation with a woman of Mrs. St. Leger s character served to confirm. She had, however, one errand with him, prompted by her filial feelings and favoured by an accidental circumstance which will appear. " Do you believe in animal magnetism ?" asked Mrs. St. Leger, " for by the fixedness of Lady Ravel- gold s eyes in this quarter, something is going to happen to one of us." LADYRAVELGOLD. 45 The next moment the Russian secretary approach ed and took his seat by Mrs. St. Leger, and with diplomatic address contrived to convey to Tremlet s ear that Lady Ravelgold wished to speak with him. The banker rose, but the quick wit of his companion comprehended the manoeuvre. " Ah ! I see how it is," she said, " but stay you ll sup with me to-night ? Promise me parole d hon- neur !" " Parole /" answered Tremlet, making his way out between the seats, half pleased and half embar rassed. " As for you, Monsieur le Secretaire" said Mrs. St. Leger, " you have forfeited my favour, and may sup elsewhere. How dare you conspire against me?" While the Russian was making his peace, Trem let crossed over to Lady Ravelgold ; but, astonished at the change in Lady Imogen, he soon broke in abruptly upon her mother s conversation, to ask her to dance. She accepted his hand for a quadrille ; but as they walked down the room in search of a vis-d-vis, she complained of heat, and asked timidly if he would take her to the tea-room. " Mr. Tremlet," she said, fixing her eyes upon the cup of tea which he had given her, and which she found some difficulty in holding, " I have come here to-night to communicate to you some important 46 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. information, to ask a favour, and to break off an acquaintance which has lasted too long." Lady Imogen stopped, for the blood had fled from her lips, and she was compelled to ask his arm for a support. She drew herself up to her fullest height the next moment, looked at Tremlet, who stood in speechless astonishment, and with a strong effort, commenced again in a low, firm tone " I have been acquainted with you some time, sir, and have never inquired, nor knew more than your name, up to this day. I suffered myself to be pleased too blindly " " Dear Lady Imogen !" " Stay a moment, sir! I will proceed directly to my business. I received this morning a letter from the senior partner of a mercantile house in the city, with which you are connected. It is written on the supposition that I have some interest in you, and informs me that you are not, as you yourself sup pose, the son of the gentleman who writes the letter." " Madam !" " That gentleman, sir. as you know, never was married. He informs me that in the course of many financial visits to St. Petersburgh, he formed a friend ship with Count Manteuffel, then minister of finance to the emperour, whose tragical end, in consequence of his extensive defalcations, is well known. In brief, sir, you were his child, and were taken by this LADYRAVELGOLD. 47 English banker, and carefully educated as his own, in happy ignorance, as he imagined, of your father s misfortunes and mournful death." Tremlet leaned against the wall, unable to reply to this astounding intelligence, and Lady Imogen went on. " Your title and estates have been restored to you at the request of your kind benefactor, and you are now the heir to a princely fortune, and a count of the Russian empire. Here is the letter, sir, which is of no value to me now. Mr. Tremlet ! one word more, sir." Lady Imogen gasped for breath. " In return, sir, for much interest given you here tofore in return, sir, for this information " " Speak, dear Lady Imogen !" " Spare my mother !" " Mrs. St. Leger s carriage stops the way !" shout ed a servant at that moment, at the top of the stairs ; and as if there were a spell in the sound to nerve her resolution anew, Lady Imogen Ravelgold shook the tears from her eyes, bowed coldly to Tremlet, and passed out into the dressing-room. " If you please, sir," said a servant, approaching the amazed banker, " Mrs. St. Leger waits for you jn her carriage." 48 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. " Will you come home and sup with us ?" said Lady Ravelgold at the same instant, joining him in the tea-room. " I shall be only too happy, Lady Ravelgold." The bold coachman of Mrs. St. Leger continued to " stop the way," spite of policemen and infuriated footmen, for some fifteen minutes. At the end of that time Mr. Tremlet appeared, handing down Lady Ravelgold and her daughter, who walked to their chariot, which was a few steps behind ; and very much to Mrs. St. Leger s astonishment, the handsome banker sprang past her horses heads a minute after, jumped into his cabriolet, which stood on the opposite side of the street, and drove after the vanish ; ng chariot as if his life depended on over taking it. Still Mrs. St. Leger s carriage " stopped the way." But, in a few minutes after, the same footman who had summoned Tremlet in vain, re turned with the Russian secretary, doomed in blessed unconsciousness to play the pis aller at her tete-a- tete supper in Spring Gardens. LADY RAVELGOLD. 40 CHAP. V. If Lady Ravelgold showed beautiful by the uncompromising light and in the ornamented halj of Almack s, she was radiant as she came through the mirror door of her own loved-contrived and beauty-breathing boudoir. Tremlet had been show ed into this recess of luxury and elegance on his arrival, and Lady Ravelgold and her daughter, who preceded her by a minute or two, had gone to their chambers, the first to make some slight changes in her toilette, and the latter (entirely ignorant of her lover s presence in the house,) to be alone with a heart never before in such painful need of self-aban donment and solitude. Tremlet looked about him in the enchanted room in which he found himself alone, and, spite of the prepossessed agitation of his feelings, the voluptuous beauty of every object had the effect to divert and tranquillize him. The light was profuse, but it came softened through the thinnest alabaster ; and while every object in the room was distinctly and minutely visible, the effect of moonlight was not more soft and dreamy. The general form of the boudoir was an oval, but within the pilasters of folded silk with their cornices of gold, lay crypts containing 5 50 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. copies exquisitely done in marble of the most grace ful statues of antiquity, one of which seemed, by the curtain drawn quite aside and a small antique lamp burning near it, to be the divinity of the place the Greek Antinous, with his drooped head and full, smooth limbs, the most passionate and life-like representation of voluptuous beauty that intoxicates the slumberous air of Italy. Opposite this, another niche contained a few books, whose retreating shelves swung on a secret door, and as it stood half open, the nodding head of a snowy magnolia leaned through, as if pouring from the lips of its broad chalice the mingled odours of the unseen conserva tory it betrayed. The first sketch in crayons of a portrait of Lady Ravelgold by young Lawrence, stood against the wall, with the frame half buried in a satin ottoman ; and, as Tremlet stood before it, idmiring the clear, classic outline of the head and bust, and wondering in what chamber of his brain the gifted artist had found the beautiful drapery in which he had drawn her, the dim light glanced faintly on the left, and the broad mirror by which he had entered swung again on its silver hinges, and admitted the very presentment of what he gazed on. Lady Ravelgold had removed the jewels from her hair, and the robe of wrought lace, which she had worn that night over a boddice of white satin laced loosely below the bosom. In the place of this LADY RAVELGOLD. 51 she had thrown upon her shoulders a flowing wrap per of purple velvet, made open after the Persian fashion, with a short and large sleeve, and embroi dered richly with gold upon the skirts. Her admi rable figure, gracefully defined by the satin petticoat and boddice, showed against the gorgeous purple as it flowed back in her advancing motion, with a relief which would have waked the very soul of Titian ; her complexion was dazzling and faultless in the flattering light of her own rooms ; and there are those who will read this who know how the circumstances which surround a woman luxury, elegance, taste, or the opposite of these enhance or dim, beyond help or calculation, even the highest order of woman s beauty. Lady Ravelgold held a bracelet in her hand as she came in. . - " In my own house," she said, holding the glitter ing jewel to Tremlet, " I have a fancy for the style antique. Tasseline, my maid, has gone to bed, and you must do the devoir of a knight, or an abigail, and loop up this Tyrian sleeve. Stay look first at the model that small statue of Cytheris, yonder ! Not the shoulder for you are to swear mine is pret tier but the clasp. Fasten it like that. So! Now take me for a Grecian nymph the rest of the evening. " Lady Ravelgold !" 52 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " Hermione or Aglae, if you please ! But let us ring for supper !" As the bell sounded, a superb South American trulian darted in from the conservatory, and, spread ing his gorgeous black and gold wings a moment over the alabaster shoulder of Lady Ravelgold, as if he took a pleasure in prolonging the first touch as he alighted, turned his large liquid eye fiercely on Tremlet. " Thus it is," said Lady Ravelgold, " we forget our old favourites in our new. See how jealous he is!" " Supper is served, miladi !" said a servant enter ing. " A hand to each, then, for the present," she said, putting one into Tremlet s, and holding up the trulian with the other. " He who behaves best shall drink first with me." " I beg your ladyship s pardon," said Tremlet, drawing back, and looking at the servant, who immediately left the room. "Let us understand each other! Does Lady Imogen sup with us to night?" " Lady Imogen has retired," said her mother, in some surprise. " Then, madam, will you be seated one moment and listen to me ?" I LADY RAVELGOLD. 53 Lady Ravelgold sat down on the nearest ottoman, with the air of a person too high bred to be taken by surprise, but the colour deepened to crimson in the centre of her cheek, and the bird on her hand betrayed by one of his gurgling notes that he was held more tightly than pleased him. With a calm and decisive tone, Tremlet went through the explan ation given in the previous parts of this narration. He declared his love for Lady Imogen, his hopes (while he had doubts of his birth) that Lady Ravel- gold s increasing obligations and embarrassments and his own wealth might weigh against his disad vantages, and now, his honourable descent being established, and his rank entitling him to propose for her hand, he called upon Lady Ravelgold to redeem her obligations to him by an immediate explanation to her daughter of his conduct toward herself, and by lending her whole influence to the success of his suit. Five minutes are brief time to change a lover into a son-in-law ; and Lady Ravelgold, as we have seen in the course of this story, was no philosopher. She buried her face in her hands, and sat silent for awhile after Tremlet had concluded ; but the case was a very clear one. Ruin and mortification were in one scale, mortification and prosperity in the other. She rose, pale but decided, and requesting 5* 54 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. Monsieur le Conte Manteuffel to await her a few minutes, ascended to her daughter s chamber. " If you please, sir," said a servant, entering in about half an hour, "miladi and Lady Imogen beg that you will join them in the supper-room." CHAP. VI. The spirit of beauty, if it haunt in such artificial atmospheres as Belgrave-square, might have been pleased to sit invisibly on the vacant side of Lady Ravelgold s table. Tremlet had been shown in by the servant to a small apartment, built like a belvi- dere over the garden, half boudoir in its character, yet intended as a supper-room, and at the long win dow (opening forth upon descending terraces laden with flowers and just now flooded with the light of a glorious moon) stood Lady Imogen, with her glossy head laid against the casement, and the palm of her left hand pressed close upon her heart If those two lights the moon faintly shed off from the divine curve of her temple, and the stained rose- lamp pouring its mellow tint full on the heavenly shape and whiteness of her shoulder and neck if those two lights, I say, could have been skilfully LADY RAVELGOLD. 55 managed, Mr. Lawrence ! what a picture you might have made of Lady Imogen Ravelgold ! " Imogen, my daughter ! Mr. Tremlet !" said her mother as he entered. Without changing her position, she gave him the hand she had been pressing on her heart. " Mr. Tremlet !" said Lady Ravelgold, evidently entering into her daughter s embarrassment, " trou ble yourself to come to the table and give me a bit of this pheasant. Imogen, George waits to give you some champagne." " Can you forgive me ?" said the beautiful girl, before turning to betray her blushing cheek and suffused eyes to her mother. Tremlet stopped as if to pluck a leaf from the verbena at her feet, and passed his lips over the slight fingers he held. " Pretty trulian !" murmured Lady Ravelgold, to her bird, as he stood on the edge of her champagne glass, and curving his superb neck nearly double, contrived to drink from the sparkling brim, " pretty trulian ! you will be merry after this ! What an cient Sybarite, think you, Mr. Tremlet, inhabits the body of this bright bird ? Look up, mignon, and tell us if you were Hylas or Alcibiades ! Is the pheasant good, Mr. Tremlet ?" " Too good to come from Hades, miladi. Is it true that you have your table supplied fromCrockford s ?" 56 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " Tout bonnement ! I make it a principle to avoid all great anxieties, and I can trust nobody but Ude. He sends my dinners quite hot, and if there is a particular dish of game, he drives round at the hour and gives it the last turn in my own kitchen. I should die to be responsible for my dinners. I don t know how people get on that have no grand artiste. Pray, Mr. Tremlet, (I beg pardon Mon sieur le Conte, perhaps I should say ?") " No, no, I implore you ! * Tremlet has been spoken too musically to be so soon forgotten. Trem let or Charles, which you will !" Lady Ravelgold put her hand in his, and looked from his face to her daughter s wit i a smile, which assured him that she had obtained a victory over herself. Shrinking immediately, however, from anything like sentiment, (with the nervous dread of pathos so peculiar to the English,) she threw off her trulian, that made a circle and alighted on the eme rald bracelet of Lady Imogen, and rang the bell for coffee. " I flatter myself, Mr. Tremlet," she said, " that I have made a new application of the homoeopathic philosophy. Hahnemann, they say, cures fevers by aggravating the disease ; and when I cannot sleep> I drink coffee. J en suis passablement fiere ! You did not know I was a philosopher V "No, indeed!" L A D Y R A V E T, G O L D . 57 " Well, take some of this spiced mocha. I got it of the Turkish ambassador, to whom I made beaux yeux on purpose. Stop ! you shall have it in the little tinsel cups he sent me. George, bring those filagree things ! Now, Mr. Tremlet, imagine your self in the serail du Bosphore Imogen and I, two lovely Circassians, par exemple ! Is it not delicious ? Talking of the Bosphorus, nobody was classical enough to understand the device in my coiffure to night." " What was it ?" asked Tremlet absently, gazing while he spoke, with eyes of envy at the trulian, who was whetting his bill backward and forward on the clear bright lips of Lady Imogen. " Do you think my profile Grecian ?" asked Lady Ravelgold. " Perfectly !" " And my hair is coifed a la Grec" " Most becomingly." " But still you won t see my golden grasshopper ! Do you happen to know, sir, that to wear the golden grasshopper was the birthright of an Athenian ? I saw it in a book. Well ! I had to explain it to everybody. By the way, what did that gambler, George Heriot, mean by telling me that its legs should be black. All Greeks have black legs, said he, yawning in his stupid way. What did he mean, Mr. Tremlet?" 58 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. - * Greeks and blacklegs are convertible terms. He thought you were more aufait of the slang dic tionary. Will you permit me to coax my beautiful rival from your hand, Lady Imogen ?" She smiled, and put forward her wrist, with a bend of its slender and alabaster lines which would have drawn a sigh from Praxiteles. The trulian glanced his fiery eyes from his mistress s face to Tremlet s, and as the strange hand was put out to take him from his emerald perch, he flew with the quickness of lightning into the face of her lover, and buried the sharp beak in his lip. The blood follow ed copiously, and Lady Imogen, startled from her timidity, sprang from her chair and pressed her hands one after the other upon the wound, in pas sionate and girlish abandonment. Lady Ravelgold hurried to her dressing-room for something to staunch the wound, and, left alone with the divine creature, who hung over him, Tremlet drew her to his bosom and pressed his cheek long and closely to hers, while to his lips, as if to keep in life, clung her own crimsoned and trembling fingers. " Imogen !" said Lady Ravelgold, entering, " take him to the fountain in the garden and wash the wound ; then put on this bit of gold-beater s skin. I will come to you when I have locked up the tru lian. Is it painful, Mr.. Tremlet ?" LADYRAVELGOLD. 59 Tremlet could not trust his voice to answer, but with his arm still around Lady Imogen, he descend ed by the terrace of flowers to the fountain. They sat upon the edge of the marble basin, and the moonlight striking through the jet of the foun tain, descended upon them like a rain of silver. Lady Imogen had recovered from her fright and buried her face in her hands, remembering into what her feelings had betrayed her ; and Tremlet, some times listening to the clear bell-like music of the descending water, sometimes uttering the broken sentences which are most eloquent in love, sat out the hours till the stars began to pale, undisturbed by Lady Ravelgold, who, on the upper stair of the terrace, read by a small lamp, which, in the calm of that heavenly summer night, burned unflickeringly in the open air. It was broad daylight when Tremlet, on foot, sauntered slowly past Hyde Park corner on his way to the Albany. The lamps were still struggling with the brightening approach to sunrise, the cab men and their horses slept on the stand by the Green Park, and with cheerful faces the labourers went to their work, and with haggard faces the night- birds of dissipation crept wearily home. The well- ground dust lay in confused heel-marks on the side walk, a little dampened by the night-dew; the 60 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. atmosphere in the street was clear, as it never is after the stir of day commences ; a dandy, stealing out from Crockford s, crossed Piccadilly, lifting up his head to draw in long breaths of the cool air. after the closeness of over-lighted rooms and excite ment ; and Tremlet, marking none of these things, was making his way through a line of carriages slowly drawing up to take off their wearied master? from a prolonged fete at Devonshire-house, when a rude hand clapped him on the shoulder. " Monsieur Tremlet !" " Ah, Baron ! bien bon jour /" "Bien rencontre, Monsieur ! You have insulted a lady to-night, who has confided her cause to my hands. Madam St. Leger, sir, is without a natural protector, and you have taken advantage of her position to insult her giossly,Mr. Tremlet ! grossly !" Tremlet looked at the Russian during this extraor dinary address, and saw that he was evidently highly excited with wine. He drew him aside into Berke ley-street, and in the calmest manner attempted to explain what was not very clear to himself. He had totally forgotten Mrs. St. Leger. The diplomate. though quite beyond himself with his excitement had sufficient perception left to see the weak point of his statement, and infuriated with the placid man ner in which he attempted to excuse himself, sud denly struck his glove into his face, and turned upon LADYRAVELGOLD. 61 his heel. They had been observed by a policeman, and at the moment that Tremlet, recovering from his astonishment, sprang forward to resent the blow, the gray-coated guardian of the place laid his hand upon his collar and detained him till the baron had disappeared. More than once on his way to the Albany, Trem let surprised himself forgetting both the baron and the insult, and feeding his heart in delicious aban donment with the dreams of his new happiness. He reached his rooms and threw himself on t}ie bed, forcing from his mind, with a strong effort, the pre sence of Lady Imogen, and trying to look calmly on the unpleasant circumstance before him. A quarrel which, the day before, he would have looked upon merely as an inconvenience, or which, under the insult of a blow, he would have eagerly sought, became now an almost insupportable evil. When he reflected on the subject of the dispute a conten tion about a woman of doubtful reputation taking place in the same hour with a first avowal from the delicate and pure Lady Imogen when he remem bered the change in his fortunes, which he had as yet scarcely found time to realize on the consequen ces to her who was so newly dear to him, and all on he might lose, now that life had become invaluable* his thoughts were almost too painful to bear. How seldom do men play with an equal stake in the game 6 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. of taking life, and how strange it is that equality of weapons is the only comparison made necessary by the laws of honour ! Tremlet was not a man to be long undecided. He rose after an hour s reflection and wrote as follows : " BARON Before taking the usual notice of the occur rence of this morning, I wish to rectify one or two points in which our position is false. I find myself, since last night, the accepted lover of Lady Imogen RaVelgold, and the mas ter of estates and title as a count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune, perhaps my forgetfulness of the lady in whose cause you are so interested, admits of indulgence. At any rate, I am so newly in love with life that I am willing to suppose for an hour that had you known these circumstan ces you would have taken a different view of the offence in question. I shall remain at home till two, and it is in your power till then to make me the reparation necessary to my honour. Yours, etc. TREMLET." There was a bridal on the following Monday at 1 >t. George s Church, and the Russian secretary stood behind the bridegroom. Lady Ravelgold had never been seen so pale, but her face was clear of all painful feeling ; and it was observed by one who knew her well, that her beauty had acquired, during the brief engagement of her daughter, a singular and undefinable elevation. As the carriages with their white favours turned into Bond-street, pn their way back toBelgrave-square.the cortege was check- LADYRAVELGOLD. 63 ed by the press of vehicles, and the Russian, who accompanied Lady Ravelgold in her chariot, found himself opposite the open britscka of a lady who fixed her glass full upon him without recognising a feature of his face. " I am afraid you have affronted Mrs. St. Leger, baron !" said Lady Ravelgold. "Or I should not have been here !" said the Rus sian ; and as they drove up Piccadilly, he had just time between Bond-street and Milton Crescent to tell her ladyship the foregone chapter of this story. The trulian, on that day, was fed with wedding- cake, and the wound on Mr. Tremlet s lip was not cured by letting alone. ROMANCE OF TRAVEL- PALETTO S BRIDE. CHAP. I. " As a fish will sometimes gather force, and, with a long ing, perhaps, for the brightness of upper air, leap from its- prescribed element, and glitter a moment among the birds, so will there be found men whose souls revolt against destiny, and make a fiery pluck at things above them. But, like the fish, who drops, panting, with dry scales, backward, the aspiring man oftenest regrets the native element he has left; and, with the failure of his unnatural effort, drops back, content, to obscurity." Jeremy Taylor. "My daughter !" said the Count Spinola. The lady so addressed threw off a slight mantle and turned her fair features inquiringly to her father. Heedless of the attention he had arrested, the ab stracted count paced up and down the marble pave- 68 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. ment of his hall, and when, a moment after, Fran- cesca came to him for his good-night kiss, he imprinted it silently on her forehead, and stepped out on the balcony to pursue, under the aiding light of the stars, thoughts that were more imperative than sleep. There had been a fete of great splendour in the ducal gardens of the Boboli, and Francesca Spinola had shown there, as usual, the most radiant and worshipped daughter of the ndbilita of Florence. The melancholy duke himself (this was in the days of his first marriage) had seemed even gay in pre senting her with flowers which he had gathered at her side, with the dew on them, (in an alley glittering with the diamonds on noble bosoms, and dewdrops on roses that would slumber, though it was the birth- night of a princess,) and marked as was the royal attention to the envied beauty, it was more easily forgiven her than her usual triumphs for it cost no one a lover. True to his conjugal vows, the sad- featured monarch paid to beauty only the homage exacted alike by every most admirable work of nature. The Grand Duke Leopold had not been the only admirer whose attentions to Francesca Spinola had been remarked. A stranger, dressed with a mag nificence that seemed more fitted for a masquerade than a court-ball, and yet of a mein that promised PAL ETTOS BRIDE. 69 danger to the too inquisitive, had entered alone, and, marking out the daughter of the haughty count from the first, had procured an introduction, no one knew how, and sought every opportunity which the inter" vals of the dance afforded, to place himself at her side. Occupied with the courtly devoirs of his rank, the count was, for a while, unaware of what struck almost every one else, and it was only when the stranger s name was inquired of him by the duke, that his dark and jealous eye fell upon a face whose language of kindling and undisguised admi ration a child would have interpreted aright. It was one of those faces that are of no degree that may belong to a barbaric king, or to a Greek slave that no refinement would improve, and no servile habits degrade ; faces which take their changes from an indomitable and powerful soul, and are beyond the trifling impression of the common usages of life. Spinola was offended with the daring and passionate freedom of the stranger s gaze upon his daughter ; but he hesitated to interrupt their conversation too rudely. He stayed to exchange a compliment with some fair obstruction in his way across the crowded saloon, and, in the next moment, Francesca stood alone. " Who left you this moment, my Francesca ?" ask ed the count, with affected unconcern. TO ROMANCE OF TRAVEL* " I think, a Venetian," she answered. "And, his name?" " I know not, my father P The count s face flashed. "Who presented him to my darling?" he asked, again forcing himself to composure. Francesca coloured ; and, with downcast eyes, answered " No one, my father ! He seemed to know me, and I thought I might have forgotten him. Spinola turned on his heel, and after a few vain enquiries, and as vain a search for the stranger, ordered his attendants, and drove silently home. It was close upon the gray of the morning, and the count still leaned over the stone-railing of his balcony. Francesca had been gone an hour to her chamber. A guitar-string sounded from the street below, and, a moment after, a manly and mellow voice broke into a Venetian barcarole, and sang with a skill and tenderness which a vestal could scarce have listened to unmoved. Spinola stepped back and laid his hand upon his sword ; but, changing his thought, he took a lamp from the wall within, and crept noiselessly to his daughter s chamber. She lay within her silken curtains, with her hands crossed on her bosom, and from her parted lips came the low breath of innocent and untroubled sleep. Reassured, the count closed her window airf P ALETTO S B RIDE. 71 extinguished his lamp; and, when the guitar was no longer heard echoing from the old palace walls, and the rich voice of the serenader had died away with his footsteps, the lord of the Palazzo Spinola betook himself to sleep with a heart somewhat relieved of its burden. On the following day, the count pleaded the early- coming heats of summer ; and, with slight prepara tion, left Florence for his summer-palace in the Appenines. When Francesca joined him cheer fully, and even gaily, in his sudden plan, he threw aside the jealous fears that had haunted his breast, and forgot the stranger and his barcarole. The old trees of his maison de plaisance were heavy with the leaves of the Italian May ; the statues stood cool in the shade ; the mountain rivulets forgot their birth in the rocky brooks, and ran over channels of marble, and played up through cactus-leaves and sea-shells, and nereids horns, all carved by the con temporaries of Donatello. " And here," thought the proud noble, " I arn a Vecart of the designs of ad venturers, and the temptations and dangers of gaiety, and the child of my hopes will refresh her beauty and her innocence, under the watchful eye, ever present, of my love." Francesca Spinola was one of those Italian natures of which it is difficult for the inhabitants of other climes to conceive. She had no feelings. She had 72 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. passions. She couki love but it sprang in an in stant to its fullest power and maidenly reserve and hesitation were incompatible with its existence. She had listened, unmoved, to all the adulation of the duke s court, and- had been amused with the devotion of all around her but never touched. The voice of the stranger at the fete of the Boboli the daring words he had addressed to her had arrested her attention ; and it needed scarce the hour which flew like a. moment at his side to send a new sen sation, like a tempest, through her heart. She reasoned upon nothing asked nothing ; but, while she gave up her soul wholly to a passion hitherto unfelt, the deep dissimulation which seems a natural part of the love of that burning clime, prompted her, by an unquestioned impulse, to conceal it en tirely from her father. She had counterfeited sleep when nearly surprised in listening to the barcarole, and she had little need to counterfeit joy at her depar ture for the mountains. The long valley of the Arno lay marked out upon the landscape by a wreath of vapour, stealing up as if enamoured of the fading colour of the clouds : and far away, like a silver bar on the rim of the horizon, shone the long line of the Mediterranean. The mountain sides lay bathed in azure ; and, echo ing from the nearest, came the vesper-bells of Val- PALETTO S BRIDE. 73 lombrosa. Peace and purity were stamped upon the hour. "My child," said the softened count, drawing Francesca to his bosom, as they stood looking off upon this scene from the flowery terrace beneath the portico ; " does my child love me ?" Francesca placed her hands upon his shoulders and kissed him for reply. " I feel impelled," he continued, " to talk to you while this beautiful hour is around us, of an affection that resembles it." " Resembles the sunset, my father ?" 4; Yes ! Shall I tell you how ? By affecting with its soft influence every object under the bend of the sky ! My Francesca ! there are parents who love their children, and love them well, and yet find feel ings for other attachments, and devotion for every other interest in life. Not so mine ! My love for my child is a whole existence poured into hers. Look at me, Francesca ! I am not old. I am capa ble, perhaps, of other love than a parent s. There are among the young and beautiful who have looked on me with favouring eyes. My blood runs warm yet, and my step is as full of manhood perhaps my heart as prompt to be gay as ever. I mean to say, that I am not too old for a lover. Does my daughter think so ?" 74 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, I have been long vain of your beauty, dear father," said Francesca, threading her hand in his dark curls. There are other things that might share your empire in my heart politics, play, the arts a hun dred passions which possess themselves of men whose fortune or position gives them means and leisure. Now listen, my daughter! You have supplanted all these ! You have filled my heart with yourself. I am tempted to love my heart is my daughter s. I am asked to play my thoughts are with my child. I have neither time for politics, nor attention for the arts my being breathes through my child. I am incapable of all else. Do you hear me, Francesca?" I do, dear father !" Then, one moment more ! I cannot conceal my thoughts from you, and you will pardon love like mine for ungrounded fears. I liked not the stranger at the duke s palace." Francesca stole a quick look at her father, and. with the rapidity of light, her dark eye resumed its tranquillity. " I say I liked him not ! No one knew him ! He is gone, no one knows whither ! I trust he will never be seen more in Florence. But I will not disguise from you that I thought you pleased with him !" PALETTO S BRIDE. 75 * Father !" " Forgive me if I wrong you but, without pur suing the subject, let your father implore you, on his knees, for the confidence of your heart. Will you tell me your thoughts, Franoesca ? Will you love me with but the thousandth part of my adoration, my devotion, for my child ?" " Father ! I will !" The count rose from the knee on which he had fallen, gave his daughter a long embrace, and led her in. And that night she fled over the Tuscan border, into neighbouring Romagna, and, with the stranger at her side, sped away, under the cover of night, toward the shores of the Brenta. Like a city of secrets, sleeps silent Venice. Her sea- washed foundations are buried under the smooth glass of the tide. Her palace-entrances are dark caverns, impenetrable to the eye. Her veiled dames are unseen in their floating chambers, as they go from street to street ; and mysteriously and silently glide to and fro those swift gondolas, black as night, yet carrying sadness and mirth, innocence and guilt, alike swiftly, mysteriously, and silently. Water, that betrays no footstep, and covers all with the; same mantle of light, fills her streets. Silence, that is the seal of secresy, reigns day nnd night over her thousand palaces. 76 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. For an hour the smooth mirror of the broad canal that sweeps under the Rialto, had not been divided by the steel prow of a gondola. Francesca Spinola stood at the window of a chamber in a palace of gorgeous magnificence, watching that still water for the coming of her husband. The silver lines of the moon stole back imperceptibly, as her full orb sailed up the heavens, and the turrets of the old architecture of Venice, drawn clearly on the unruf fled bosom of the canal, seemed retiring before a consuming sheet of silver. The silence seemed painful. To the ear of the beautiful Florentine, the want of the sound of a footstep, of the echo of some distant wheel, the utter death of all sound common to even the stillest hour of a paved city, seemed oppressive and awful. Behind her burned lamps of alabaster, and perfumes filled the chamber, and on a cushion of costly velvet lay a mean and unorna- mented guitar. Its presence in so costly a palace was a secret yet withheld. She wished to touch its strings, if only to disperse the horror of silence. But she raised her fingers, and again, without touch ing it, leaned out and watched the dark arch of the Rialto. A gondola, with a single oar, sped swiftly from its black shadow. It could not be Paletto. He had gone with his two faithful servants to St. Marc s. The oar censed the bark headed in the PA LETTo s BRIDE. 77 water splashed on the marble stair and the gon dolier stepped on shore. Ah, who but Paletto had such a form as stood there in the moonlight ? "Are we to be married again," said Francesca, as her husband entered the chamber, " that you have once more disguised yourself as a fisherman?" Paletto turned from the light, and took up the mysterious guitar. " It is no night to be in-doors, my Francesca ! Come with me to the lagoon, and I will tell you the story of this despised instrument. Will you come ?" he pursued, as she stood looking at him in wonder at his strange dress and disturbed look. " Will you come, my wife 1" "But you have returned without your gondo liers !" she said, advancing a step to take his hand. " I have rowed a gondola ere now," he answered ; and, without further explanation, he led her down the lofty staircase, and seating her in the stern of the bark which he had brought with him, stepped upon the platform, and, with masterly skill and power, drove it like a shadow under the Rialto. He who has watched the horn of a quarter-moon gliding past the towers, pinnacles and palaces of the drifting clouds, and in his youthful and restless brain, fancied such must be the smooth delight and chang ing vision of a traveller in strange lands one who has thus dreamed in his boyhood will scarce shoot through Venice for the first time in a gondola, with- 7* 78 H O M A N C E OF T R A V Lv out a sense of familiarity with the scene and motion. The architecture of the clouds is again drifting past, and himself seems borne onward by the silver shal- Jop of the moon. Francesca sat on the low cushion of the gondola, watching and wondering. How should her luxu rious Paletto have acquired the exquisite skill with which he drove the noiseless boat like a lance-fly over the water-* Another gondola approached or was left behind, the corner of a palace was to be rounded, or the black arch of a bridge to be shot Bunder, a*nd the peculiar warning-cry of the gondo- Siers, giving notice of their unheard approach, fell from his lips so mechanically, that the hireling oars men of the city, marvelling at his speed, but never doubting that it was a comrade of the Piazza, added the "fratello mio" to their passing salutation. She saw by every broad beam of light, w r hich, between the palaces, came down across them, a brow cloud ed and a mind far from the oar he turned so skilfully. She looked at the gondola in which she sat. It was old and mean. In the prow lay a fisher s net, and the shabby guitar, thrown upon it, seemed now, at least, not out of place. She looked up at Paletto once more, and, in his bare throat and bosom, his loose cap and neglected hair, she could with diffi culty recognize the haughty stranger of the Boboli. She spoke to him. It was necessary to break the PALETTO SBRIDE. 70 low-born spell that seemed closing around her. Pal- <etto started at her voice, and suspending his oar, while the gondola still kept way as if with its own irresistible volition, he passed his hand over his eyes, and seemed waking from some painful dream. The gondola was now far out in the lagoon. Around them floated an almost impalpable vapour, just making the moonlight visible, and the soft click of the water beneath the rising and dropping prow was the only sound between them and the cloudless heaven. In that silence Paletto strung his guitar and sang to his bride with a strange energy. She listened and played with his tangled locks, but there seemed a spell upon her tongue when she would ask the meaning of this mystery. " Francesca !" he said at last, raising his head from her lap. " What says my fisherman ?" she replied, holding up his rough cap with a smile. Paletto started, but recovering his composure, in stantly took the cap from her jewelled fingers and threw it carelessly upon his head. " Francesca ! who is your husband ?" " Paletto." " And who is Paletto ?" " I would have asked sometimes, but your kisses have interrupted me. Yet I know enough." " What know you ?" 80 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " That he is a rich and noble seignior of Venice !" " Do I look one to-night ?" " Nay for a masquerade, I have never seen a better ! Where learned you to look so like a fisher man and row so like a gondolier ?" Paletto frowned. " Francesca !" said he folding his arms across his bosom, " I am the son of a fisherman, and I was bred to row the gondola beneath you !" The sternness of his tone checked the smile upon her beautiful lip, and when she spoke it was with a look almost as stern as his own. " You mock me too gravely, Paletto ! But come ! I will question you in your own humour. Who edu cated the fisherman s son ?" " The fisherman." " And his palace and his wealth whence came they, Signor Pescatore ?" The scornful smile of incredulity with which this question was asked, speedily fled from her lip as Paletto answered it. " Listen ! Three months since I had never known other condition than a fisherman of the lagoon, nor worn other dress than this in which you see me. The first property I ever possessed beyond my day s earnings, was this gondola. It was my father s, Giannotto the fisherman. When it became mine by his death, I suddenly wearied of my tame life, BRIDE. 81 sold boat and nets, and with thoughts which you cannot understand, but which have brought you here, took my way to the Piazza. A night of chance, begun with the whole of my inheritance staked upon a throw, left me master of wealth I had never dreamed of. I became a gay signore. It seemed to me that my soul had gone out of me, and a new spirit, demoniac if you will, had taken possession. I no longer recognized myself. I pass ed for an equal with the best-born, my language altered, my gait, my humour. One strong feeling alone predominated an insane hatred to the rank in which you were born, Francesca ! It was strange, too, that I tried to ape its manners. I bought the palace you have just left, and filled it with costly luxuries. And then there grew upon me the desire to humiliate that rank to pluck down to myself some one of its proud and cherished daughters such as you !" Francesca muttered something between her teeth, and folded her small arms over her bosom. Paletto went on. " I crossed to Florence with this sole intention. Unknown and uninvited, I entered the palace at the fete of the Boboli, and looked around for a victim. You were the proudest and most beautiful. I chose you and you are here." 82 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. Paletto looked at her with a smile, and never sunbeam was more unmixed with shadow than the smile which answered it on the lips of Spinola s daughter. " My Paletto !" she said, " you have the soul of a noble, and the look of one, and I am your bride. Let us return to the palace !" " I have no palace but this !" he said striking his hand like a bar of iron upon the side of the gondola, " You have not heard out my tale." Francesca sat with a face unmoved as marble. " This night, at play, I lost all. My servants are dismissed, my palace belongs to another, and with this bark which I had repurchased, I am once more Paletto the fisherman !" A slight heave of the bosom of the fair Florentine was her only response to this astounding announce ment. Her eyes turned slowly from the face of the fisherman, and fixing apparently on some point far out in the Adriatic, she sat silent, motionless and cold. " I am a man, Francesca !" said Paletto after a pause which, in the utter stillness of the lagoon around them, seemed like a suspension of the breath ing of nature, and " I have not gone through this insane dream without some turning aside of the heart. Spite of myself, I loved you, and I could not dishonour you. We are married, Francesca !" BRIDE. 83 The small dark brows of the Florentine lowered till the silken lashes they overhung seemed starting from beneath here forehead. Her eyes flashed fire below. "Bene!" said Paletto, rising to his feet; "one word more while we have silence around us and are alone. You are free to leave me, and I will so far repair the wrong I have done you, as to point out the way. It will be daylight in an hour. Fly to the governor s palace, announce your birth, declare that you were forced from your father by brigands, and claim his protection. The world will believe you, and the consequences to myself I will suffer in silence." With a sudden, convulsive motion, Francesca thrust out her arm, and pointed a single finger to ward Venice. Paletto bent to his oar, and quivering in every seam beneath its blade, the gondola sped on its way. The steel prow struck fire on the gra nite steps of the Piazza, the superb daughter of Spi- nola stepped over the trembling side, and with a half-wave of her hand, strode past the Lion of St. Mark, and approached the sentinel at the palace- gate. And as her figure was lost among the ara besque columns shaded from the moon, Paletto s lonely gondola shot once more silently and slowly from the shore. 84 ROMANCEOF TRAVEL.. CHAP. II. The smooth, flat pavement of the Borg ognisanti had been covered since morning with earth, and the windows and balconies on eit :er side were flaunting with draperies of the most gorgeous colours. The riderless horse-races, which conclude the carnival in Florence, were to be honoured by the presence of the court. At the far extremity of the street, close by the gate of the Cascine, an open veranda,, painted in fresco, stood glittering with the prepara tions for the royal party, and near it the costlier hangings of here and there a window or balustrade, showed the embroidered crests of the different nobles of Tuscany. It was the people s place and hour, and beneath the damask and cloth of gold, the rough stone windows were worn smooth by the touch of peasant hands, and the smutch d occupants, looking down from the balconies above, upon the usurpers of their week-day habitations, formed, to the stranger s eye, not the least interesting feature of the scene* As evening approached, the balconies began to show their burden of rank and beauty, and the street below filled with the press of the gay contadini. The ducal cortege, in open carriages, drove down the length of the course to their veranda at the gate, PALETTO S BRIDE. 85 but no other vehicle was permitted to enter the ser ried crowd ; and, on foot like the peasant-girl, the noble s daughter followed the servants of her house, who slowly opened for her a passage to the balcony she sought. The sun- light began to grow golden. The convent-bell across the Arno rang the first peal of vespers, and the horses were led in. It was a puzzle to any but an Italian how that race was to be run. The entire population of Flor ence was crowded into a single narrow street, men, women and children, struggling only for a foothold. The signal was about to be given for the start, yet no attempt was made to clear a passage. Twenty high-spirited horses fretted behind the rope, each with a dozen spurs hung to his surcingales, which, at the least motion, must drive him onward like the steed of Mazeppa. Gay ribands were braided in their manes, and the bets ran high. All sounded and looked merry, yet it would seem as if the loosing of the start-rope must be like the letting in of destruc tion upon the crowd. In a projecting gallery of a house on the side next the Arno, was a party that attracted attention, somewhat from their rank and splendid attire, but more from the remarkable beauty of a female, who seemed their star and idol. She was something above the middle height of the women of Italy, and of the style of face seen in the famous Judith of 8 86 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. the Pitti dark, and of melancholy so unfathomable as almost to affray the beholder. She looked a brooding prophetess, yet through the sad expression of her features there was a gleam of fierceness, that to the more critical eye betrayed a more earthly gleam of human passion and suffering. As if to belie the maturity of years of which such an expres sion should be the work, an ungloved hand and arm of almost child-like softness and roundness lay on the drapery of the railed gallery ; and stealing from that to her just-perfected form, the gazer made a new judgment of her year.-, while he wondered what strange fires had forced outward the riper lineaments of her character. The Count Fazelli, the husband of this fair dame, stood within reach of her hand, for it w s pressed on his arm with no gentle touch, yet his face was turned from her. He was a slight youth, little older, apparently, than herself, of an effeminate and yet wilful cast of countenance, and would have been pronounced by women (what a man would scarce allow him to be) eminently handsome. Effeminate coxcomb as he was, he had power over the stronger nature beside him, and of such stuff, in courts and cities, are made, sometimes, the heroes whose suc cess makes worthier men almost forswear the wor ship due to women. BRIDE. 87 There were two other persons in the balconies of the Corso, who were actors in the drama of which this was a scene. The first was the prima donna of the Cocomero, to whose rather mature charms the capricious Fazelli had been for a month paying a too open homage ; and the second was a captain in the duke s guard, whose personal daring in the extermination of a troop of brigands, had won for him some celebrity and his present commission. What thread of sympathy rested between so hum ble an individual and the haughty Countess Fazelli, will be shown in the sequel. Enough for the pre sent, that as he stood leaning against the pillar of an opposite gallery, looking carelessly on the prepara tions for the course, that proud dame saw and remembered him. A blast from a bugle drew all eyes to the starting- post, and in another minute the rope was dropped and the fiery horses loosed upon their career. Right into the crowd, as if the bodies of the good citizens of Florence were made of air, sprang the goaded troop, and the impossible thing was done, for the suffocating throngs divided like waves before the prow, and united again as scatheless and as soon. The spurs played merrily upon the flanks of the affrighted animals, and in an instant they had swept through the Borg ognisanti, and disappeared into the narrow lane leading to the Trinita. It was 88 ROMANGEOF TRAVEL* more a scramble than a race, yet there must be $ winner, and all eyes were now occupied in gazing after the first glimpse of his ribands as he was led back in triumph. Uncompelled by danger, the suffocating crowd made way with more difficulty for the one winning horse than they had done for the score that had contended with him. Yet, champing the bit, and tossing his ribands into the air, he came slowly back, and after passing in front of the royal veranda, where a small flag was thrown down to be set into the rosette of his bridle, he returned a few steps, and was checked by the groom under the balcony of the prim a donna. A moment after, the winning flag was waving from the rails above, and as the sign that she was the owner of the victorious horse was seen by the people,, a shout arose which thrilled the veins of the fair singer, more than all the plau dits of the Cocomero. It is thought to be pleasant to succeed in that for which we have most struggled that for which our ambition and our efforts are known to the world to be eminent, in short, in our metier our vocation. I am inclined to think it nat ural to most men, however, and to all possessors of genius, to undervalue that for which the world is most willing to praise them, and to delight more in excelling in that which seems foreign to their usual pursuits, even if it be a trifle. It is delightful to dis- BRIDE. 89 appoint the world by success in anything. Detrac tion, that follows genius to the grave, sometimes admits its triumph, but never without the " back water" that it could do no more. The fine actress had won a shout from assembled Florence, yet off the scene. She laid one hand upon her heart, and the other, in the rash exultation of the moment, ven tured to wave a kiss of gratitude to the Count Fazelli. As that favoured signor crossed to offer his con gratulations, his place beside the countess was filled by a young noble, who gave her the explanatory information that the horse was Fazelli s gift. Calmly, almost without a sign of interest or emotion, she turned her eyes upon the opposite balcony. A less searching and interested glance would have dis covered, that if the young count had hitherto shared the favour of the admired singer with his rivals, he bad no rival now. There was in the demeanour of both an undisguised tenderness that the young countess had little need to watch long, and retiring from the balcony, she accepted the attendance of her communicative companion, and was soon whirling in her chariot over the Ponte St. Angelo, on her way to the princely palace that would soon cease to call her its mistress. 8* 90 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. Like square ingots of silver, the moonlight came through the battlements of the royal abode of the Medici. It was an hour before day. The heavy heel of the sentry was the only sound near the walls of the Pitti, save, when he passed to turn, the rip ple of the Arno beneath the arches of the jeweller s bridge broke faintly on the ear. The captain of the guard had strolled fron\ the deep shadow of the palace into the open moonlight, and leaned against a small stone shrine of the Virgin set into the opposite wall, watching musingly the companionable and thought-stirring empress of the night. " Paletto !" suddenly uttered a voice near him 1 The guardsman started, but instantly recovered his position ; and stood looking over his epaulet at the intruder, with folded arms. " Paletto !" she said again, in a lower and more appealing tone ; " will you listen to me ?" " Say on, Countess Fazelli !" " Countess Fazelli no longer, but Paletfto s wife !" " Ha ! ha !" laughed the guardsman bitterly, "that story is old, for so false a one." " Scorn me not ! I am changed." The dark eyes of Francesca Cappone lifted up, moist and full, into the moonlight, and fixing them steadfastly on the soldier s, she seemed to demand that he should read her soul in them. For an instant, as he did so, a troubled emotion was visible in his own features, PALETTOS BRIDE. but a new thought seemed to succeed the feeling and turning away with a cold gesture, he said, " I knew you false, but till now I thought you pure. Tempt me not to despise as well as hate you !" " I have deserved much at your hand," she ans wered, with a deeper tone, " but not this. You are my husband, Paletto !" " One of them !" he replied with a sneer. Francesca clasped her hands in agony. " I have come to you," she said, " trusting the generous nature which I have proved so well. I cannot live unloved. I deserted you, for I was ignorant of my self. I have tried splendour and the love of my own rank, but one is hollow and the last is selfish. Oh Paletto ! What love is generous like yours !" The guardsman s bosom heaved, but he did not turn to her. She laid her hand upon his arm, " I have come to implore you to take me back, Paletto. False as I was to you, you have been true to me. I would be your wife again. I would share your poverty, if you were once more a fisherman on the lagoon. Are you inexorable, Paletto 1 Her hand stole up to his shoulder; she crept closer to him, and buried her head, unrepelled, in his bosom. Paletto laid his hand upon the mass of raven hair whose touch had once been to him so familiar, and while the moon drew their shadows as one on the shrine of the Virgin, the vows of early 92 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, love were repeated with a fervour unknown hither to to the lips of Cappone s daughter, the Paletto replied, not like a courtly noble, but like that which was more eloquent his own love-prompted and fiery spirit. The next day there was a brief but fierce rencontre between Count Fazelli and the guardsman Paletto, at the door of the church of Santa Trinita. Fran- cesca had gone openly with her husband to ves pers, attended by a monk. When attacked by the young count as the daring abducer of his wife, he had placed her under that monk s protection till the quarrel should be over, and, with the same holy man to plead his cause, he boldly claimed his wife at the duke s hands, and bore her triumphantly from Florence. I heard this story in Venice. The gondolier Paletto they say still rows his boat on the lagoon, and sometimes his wife is with him, and sometimes a daughter, whose exquisite beauty, though she is still a child, is the wonder of the Rialto as he passes under. I never chanced to see him, but many a stranger has hired the best oar of the Piazza, to pull out toward the Adriatic in the hope of finding Paletto s boat and getting a glimpse of his proud and still most beautiful wife a wife, it is said, than whom a happier or more contented one with her lot, lives not in the " city of the sea." ROMANCE OF TRAVEL- VIOLAIMTA CESARINI. CHAP. I. " When every feather sticks in its own wing, Lord Timon will be left a naked gull." IT was an eve fit for an angel s birthnight, (and we know angels are born in this loving world,) and while the moon, as if shining only for artist s eyes, drew the outlines of palace and chapel, stern turret and serenaded belvidere, with her silver pencil on the street, two grave seniors, guardians in their own veins of the blood of two lofty names known long to Roman story, leaned together over a balcony of fretted stone, jutting out upon the Corso, and affian- 96 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. ced a fair and noble maid of seventeen summers to a gentleman whose character you shall learn, if we come safe to the sequel. " The cardinal has offered me a thousand scudi for my Giorgione," said the old Count Malaspina, at last, changing his attitude and the subject at the same time. " Anima di porco !" exclaimed the other, u what stirs the curtain ? The wind is changing, Malaspina. Let us in ! So, he offers but a thousand ! I shall feel my rheumatism to-morrow with this change. But a thousand ! ha ha ! Let us in ! Let us in !" " Let us out, say I !" murmured two lips that were never made of cherries, though a bird would have pecked at them; and stealing from behind the curtain, whose agitation had persuaded her father that the wind was rising, Violanta Cesarini, countess in her own right, and beautiful by heaven s rare grace, stepped forth into the moonlight. She drew a long breath as she looked down into the Corso. The carriages were creeping up and down at a foot-pace, and the luxurious dames, thrown back on their soft cushions, nodded to the passers by, as they recognized friends and acquaintances where the moonlight broke through ; crowds of slowprome- naders loitered indolently on, now turning to look at the berry-brown back of a Contadina,with her stride like a tragedy-queen, and her eyes like wells of jet, VIOLANTACESARINI. 97 and now leaning against a palace wall, while a wan dering harp-girl sung better for a baiocco than noble ladies for the praise of a cardinal ; at one corner stood an artist with his tablet, catching some chance effect perhaps in the drapery of a marble saint, perhaps in the softer drapery of a sinner; the cafes far up and down, looked like festas out of doors, with their groups of gaily dressed idlers, eating sherbets and buying flowers ; a gray friar passed now with his low toned benedicite; and again a black cowl with a face that reddened the very moonbeam that peeped under ; hunchbacks contended testily for the wall and tall fellows (by their long hair and fine symmetry, professed models for sculptors and paint ers) yielded to them with a gibe. And this is Rome when the moon shines well, and on this care cheat ing scene looked down the Countess Violanta, with her heart as full of perplexity as her silk boddice- lace would bear without breaking. I dare say you did not observe, if you were in Rome that night, and strolling, as you would have been, in the Corso, (this was three years ago last May, and if you were in the habit of reading the Diario di Roma, the story w r ill not be new to you ;) you did not observe, I am sure, that a thread ran across from the balcony I speak of, in the Palazzo Cesarini, to a high window in an old palace opposite, inhabited, as are many palaces in Rome, by a 98 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. decayed family and several artists. On the two sides of this thread, pressed, while she mused, the slight fingers of Violanta Cesarini ; and, as if it descended from the stars at every pull which the light May-breeze gave it in passing, she turned her soft blue eyes upwards, and her face grew radiant with hope not such as is fed with star-gazing ! Like a white dove shooting with slant wings downwards a folded slip of paper flew across on this invisible thread, and, by heaven s unflickering lamp, Violanta read some characters traced with a rough crayon, but in most sweet Italian. A look upwards, and a nod, as if she were answering the stars that peeped over her, and the fair form had gone with its snowy robes from the balcony, and across the high window from which the messenger had come, dropped the thick and impenetrable folds of the gray curtain of an artist. It was a large upper room, such as is found in the vast houses of the decayed nobility of Rome, and of its two windows one was roughly boarded up to exclude the light, while a coarse gray cloth did nearly the same service at the other, shutting out all but an artist s modicum of day. The walls of rough plaster were covered with grotesque drawings, done apparently with bits of coal, varied here and there with scraps of unframed canvass, nailed carelessly VIOLANTACESARINI. 99 np, and covered with the study of some head, by a famous master. A large table on one side of the room was burdened with a confused heap of brushes^ paint-bags, and discoloured cloths, surmounted with a clean pallette ; and not far off stood an easel, covered with thumb-marks of all dyes, and support ing a new canvass, on which was outlined the figure of a nymph, with the head finished in a style that would have stirred the warm blood of Raphael himself with emulous admiration. A low flock bed, and a chair without a bottom, but with a large cloak hung over its back, a pair of foils and a rapier, com pleted so much of the furniture of the room as belonged to a gay student of Corregio s art, who wrote himself Biondo Amieri. By the light of ths same antique lamp, hung on a rusty nail against the wall, you might see a very good effect on the face of an unfinished group in marble, of which the model, in plaster, stood a little behind, representing a youth with a dagger at his heart, arrested in the act of self-murder by a female, whose softened resembled to him proclaimed her at the first glance his sister. A mallet, chisels, and other implements used in sculpture, lay on the rough base of the unfinished group, and half disclosed, half concealed, by a screen covered with prints by some curious female hand, stood a bed with white curtains, and an oratory of carved oak at its head, supporting 100 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. a clasped missal. A chair or two, whose seats of worked satin had figured one day in more luxurious neighborhood, a table covered with a few books and several drawings from the antique, and a carefully locked escritoire, served, with other appearances, to distinguish this side of the room as belonging to a separate occupant, of gentler taste or nurture. While the adventurous Violanta is preparing her self to take advantage of the information received by her secret telegraph, I shall have time, dear reader, to put you up to a little of the family history of the Cesarini, necessary no less to a proper under standing of the story, than to the herione s character for discretion. On the latter point, I would suggest to you, you may as well suspend your opinion. It is well known to all the gossips in Rome, that, for four successive generations, the Marquises of Cesarini have obtained dispensations of the Pope for marrying beautiful peasant girls from the neighbor hood of their castle, in Romagna. The considera ble sums paid for these dispensations, reconciled the Holy See to such an unprecedented introduction of vulgar blood into the veins of the nobility, and the remarkable female beauty of the race, (heightened by the addition of nature s aristocracy to its own,) contributed to maintain good-will at a court, devoted above all others to the cultivation of the fine arts, of which woman is the Eidolon and the souk The VIOL Atf TA CESARINA. 101 last marquis, educated like his fathers, in their wild domain among the mountains, selected, like them, the fairest wild-flower that sprung at his feet, and after the birth of one son, applied for the tardy dis pensation. From some unknown cause, (possibly a diminished bribe, as the marquis was less lavish in his disposition than his predecessors,) the Pope sanctioned the marriage, but refused to legitimatize the son, unless the next born should be a daughter. The marchioness soon after retired, (from mortifi cation it is supposed,) to her home in the mountains, and after two years of close seclusion, returned to Rome, bringing with her an infant daughter, then three months of age, destined to be the heroine of our story. No other child appearing, the young Cesa- rini was legitimatized, and with his infant sister pass ed most of his youth at Rome. Some three or four years before the time when our tale commences, this youth, who had betrayed always, a coarse and brutal tem per, administered his stiletto to a gentleman on the Corso, and flying from Rome, became a brigand in the Abruzzi. His violence and atrocity in this congenial life, soon put him beyond hope of pardon, and on his outlawry by the Pope, Violanta became the heiress of the estates of Cesarini. The marchioness had died when Violanta was between seven and eight years of age, leaving her, by a deathbed injunction, in the charge of her own 9* 102 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. constant attendant, afaithful servant from Romagno, supposed to be distant kinswomen to her mistress. With this tried dependant, the young countess was permitted to go where she pleased, at all hours when not attended by her masters, and seeing her tractable and lovely, the old marquess, whose pride in the beauty of his family was the passion next to love of money in his heart, gave himself little trouble, and thought himself consoled for the loss of his son in the growing attractions and filial virtues of his daughter- On a bright morning in early spring, six years before the date of our tale, the young countess and her attendant were gathering wild flowers near the Fountain of Egeria, (of all spots of earth, that on which the wild flowers are most profuse and sweet est,) when a deformed youth, who seemed to be no stranger to Donna Bettina, addressed Violanta in a tone of voice so musical, and with a look so kindly and winning, that the frank child took his hand, and led him off in search of cardinals and Hue-bells, with the familiarity of an established playfellow. After this day, the little countess never came home pleased from a morning drive and ramble in which she had not seen her friend Signor Giulio ; and the romantic baths of Caracalla v and the many delici ous haunts among the ruins about Rome, had borne witness to the growth of a friendship, all fondness VIOLANTACESARINA, 103 and impulse on the part of Violanta, all tenderness and delicacy on that of the deformed youth. By what wonderful instinct they happened always to meet, the delighted child never found time or thought to inquire. Two or three years passed on thus, and the old marquess had grown to listen with amused fami liarity to his daughter s prattle about the deformed youth, and no incident had varied the pleasant tenour of their lives and rambles, except that, Giulio once falling ill, Bettina had taken the young coun tess to his home, where she discovered that, young as he was, he made some progress in moulding in clay, and was destined for a sculptor. This visit to the apartment of an obscure youth, however, the marquis had seen fit to object to ; and though, at his daughter s request, he sent the young sculptor an order for his first statue, he peremptorily forbade all further intercourse between him and Violanta. In the paroxysm of her grief at the first disgrace she had ever fallen into with her master, Bettina dis closed to her young mistress, by way of justification, a secret she had been bound by the most solemn oaths to conceal, and of which she now was the sole living depository that this deformed youth was born in the castle of the Cesarini, inRomagna, of no less obscure parentage than the castle s lord and lady, and beingthe first child after the dispensation of 104 R OM A N CE OF T R A VEL, marriage, anda son, he was consequently the right ful heir to the marquisate and estates of Cesarini ; and the elder son, by the terms of that dispensation, was illegitimate. This was astounding intelligence to Violanta, who, nevertheless, child as she was, felt its truth in the yearnings of her heart to Giulio ; but it was with no little pains and difficulty on Bettina s part, that she was persuaded to preserve the secrc t from her father. The Romagnese knew her master s weakness ; and as the birth of the child had occurred during his long absence from the castle, and the marchioness, proud of her eldest-born, had deter mined from the first that he alone should enjoy the name and honours of his father, it was not very probable that upon the simple word of a domestic, he would believe a deformed hunchback to be his son and heir. The into] mediate history of Giulio, Bettina knew little about, simply informing her mistress, that dis gusted with his deformity, the unnatural mother had sent him to nurse in a far-off village of Romagna, and that the interest of a small sum which the mar quess supposed had been expended on masses for the souls of his ancestors, was still paid to his foster- parents for his use. From the time of this disclosure, Violanta s life had been but too happy. Feeling justified in con- V I O L A N T A C E S A 11 INI. 105 triving secret interviews with her brother ; and pos sessing the efficient connivance of Bettinti, who grew, like, herself, almost to worship the pure-minded and the gentle Giulio, her heart and her time were blissfully crowded w th interest^ So far, the love that had welled from her heart had been all joyous and untroubled. It was during the absence of the marquis and his daughter from Rome, and in an unhealthy season, that Giulio, always delicate in health and liable to excessive fits of depression, had fallen ill in his soli tary room, and, but for the friendly care of a young artist whom he had long known, must have died of want and neglect. As he began to recover, he ac cepted the offer of Amicri, his friend, to share with him a lodging in the more elevated air of the Cor- so, and, the more readily, that this room chanced to overlook the palace of Cesarina. Here Violanta found him on her return, and though displeased that he was no longer alone, she still continued, when Amieri was absent, to see him sometimes in his room, and their old haunts without the walls were frequented as often as his health and strength would permit. A chance meeting of Violanta and Amierj in his own studio, however, made it necessary that he should be admitted to their secret, and the conse quence of that interview, and others which Violanta found it impossible to avoid, was a passion in the 106 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, heart of the enthusiastic painter, which consumed, as it well might, every faculty of his soul. We are thus brought to an evening of balmy May, when Giulio found himself alone. Biondo had been painting all day on the face of his nymph, endea voring in vain to give it any other features than those of the lady of his intense worship, and having gone out to ramble for fresh air and relaxation in the Cor- so, Giulio thought he might venture to throw across his ball of thread and send a missive to his sister, promising her an uninterrupted hour of his society. With these preliminaries, our story will now run smoothly on. CHAP. II. " COME in, carissima /" said the low, silver- toned voice of the deformed sculptor, as a female figure, in the hood and cloak of an old woman, crossed the threshold of his chamber. " Dear Giulio !" And she leaned slightly over the diminutive form of her brother, and first kissing his pale forehead, while she unfastened the clasp of Bettina s cloak of black silk, threw her arms about him as the disguise fell off, and multiplied, between her caresses, the endearing terms in which the laix" guage of that soft clime is so prodigal.. VIOLANTA CESARINI. 107 They sat down at the foot of his group in marble, and each told the little history of the hours they had spent apart. They grew alike as they conversed ; for theirs was that resemblance of the soul, to which the features answer only when the soul is breathing through. Unless seen together, and not only toge ther, but gazing on each other in complete abandon ment of heart, the friends that knew them best would have said they were unlike. Yet Amieri s nymph on the canvass was like both, for Amieridrew from the picture burnt on his own heart by love, and the soul of Violanta lay breathing beneath every lineament. "You have not touched the marble to-day!" said the countess, taking the lamp from its nail, and shed ding the light aslant on the back of the statue. " No ! I have lifted the hammer twenty times to break it in pieces." " Ah ! dearest Giulio ! talk not thus ! Think it is my image you would destroy !" " If it were, and truly done, I would sooner strike the blessed crucifix. But, Violanta ! there is a link wanting in this deformed frame of mine ! The sense of beauty, or the power to body it forth wants room in me. I feel it I feel it !" Violanta ran to him and pressed the long curls that fell over his pallid temples to her bosom. There 108 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. was a tone of conviction in his voice that she knew not how to answer. He continued, as if he were musing aloud : " I have tried to stifle this belief in my bosom, and have never spoken of it till now but it is true ! Look at that statue ! Parts of it are like nature but it wants uniformity it wants grace it wants what / want proportion ! I never shall give it that, because I want the sense, the consciousness, the emotion, of complete godlike movement. It is only the well formed who feel this. Sculptors may imitate gods ! for they are made in God s image. But oh, Violanta ! / am not !" " My poor brother !" "Our blessed Saviour was not more beautiful than the Apollo," he passionately continued, " but could / feel like the Apollo ! Can / stand before the clay and straighten myself to his attitude, and fancy, by the most delirious effort of imagination, that I realize in this frame, and could ever have conceived and moulded his indignant and lofty beau ty?" No no no!" " Dear dear Giulio." He dropped his head again, and she felt his tears penetrate to her bosom. " Leave this melancholy theme," she said, in an imploring tone, " and let us talk of other things, J have something to tell you, Giulio !" VIOEANTA CE8ARINI. 109 "Raphael was beautiful," he said, raising himself up, unconscious of the interruption, " and Giorgione, and Titian, both nobly formed, and Michael Angelo had the port of an archangel ! Yes, the soul inha bits the whole body, and the sentiment of beauty moves and quickens through it all. My tenement is cramped ! Viola nta !" "Well dear brother!" " Tell me your feelings when you first breathe the air in a bright morning in spring. Do you feel graceful ? Is there a sensation of beauty ? Do you lift yourself and feel swan-like and lofty, and worthy of the divine image in which you breathe. Tell me truly, Violanta." " Yes, brother !" " I knew it ! I have a faint dream of such a feel ing a sensation that is confined to my brain some how which I struggle to express in motio n but *f I lift my finger, it is gone. I w r atch Amieri sometimes, when he draws. He pierces my very soul by assuming, always, the attitude on his can vass. Violanta ! how can / stand like a statue that would please the eye ?" "Giulio! Giulio!" " Well, I will not burden you with my sadness. Let us look at Biondo s nymph. Pray the Virgin he come not in the while for painting, by lamp-light, shows less fairly than marble." 10 110 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. He took the lamp, and while Violanta shook the tears from her eyes, he drew out the pegs of the easel, and lowered the picture to the light. " Are you sure Amieri will not come in, Giulio ?" inquired his sister, looking back timidly at the door while she advanced. " I think he will not. The Corso is gay to night, and his handsome face and frank carriage, win greet ings, as the diamond draws light. Look at his picture, Violanta ! With what triumph he paints ! How different from my hesitating hand! The thought that is born in his fancy, collects instant fire in his veins and comes prompt and proportionate to his hand. It looks like a thing born, not wrought ! How beautiful you are, my Violanta ! He has done we ll brave Biondo !" " It is like me, yet fairer." " I wish it were done ! There is a look on the lips that is like a sensation I feel sometimes on my own I almost feel as if I should straighten and grow fair as it advances. Would it not be a blessed thing, Violanta?" " I love you as you are, dear Giulio !" But I thirst to be loved like other men ! I would pass in the street and not read pity in all eyes. I would go out like Biondo, and be greeted in the street with Mio bravo ! Mio bello ! I would be beloved by some one that is not my sister, Violanta ! I would have my share only my share of huma V 10 L A N T A C E S ARIN I . Ill joy and regard. I were better dead than be a hunchback. I would die, but for you to-night yes, to night." With a convulsive hand he pulled aside the cur tain, and sent a long, earnest look up to the stars. Violanta had never before heard him give words to his melancholy thoughts, and she felt appalled and silenced by the inexpressible poignancy of his tones, and the feverish, tearless, broken-heartedness of his whole manner. As she took his hand, there was a noise in the street below, and presently after, a hur_ ried step was heard on the stair, and Amieri rushed in, seized the rapier which hung over his bed and without observing Violanta, was flying again from the apartment. " Biondo !" cried a voice which would have stayed him were next breath to have been drawn in heaven. " Contessa Violanta !" " What is it Amieri? Where go you now ?" asked Giulio, gliding between him and the door. Biondo s cheek and brow had flushed when first arrested by the voice of the countess, but now he stood silent and with his eyes on the floor, pale as the statue before him. " A quarrel, Giulio ! he said at length. " Biondo !" The countess sprang to his side with the simple utterance of his name, and laid her small hand on his arm. " You shall not go ! You are 112 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. dear to us dear to Guilio, Signor Amieri ! If you love us if you care for Giulio nay, I will say it if you care for me, dear Biondo, put not your life in peril." " Lady !" said the painter, bowing his head to his wrist, and kissing lightly the small white fingers that pressed it, " if I were to lose my life this hour, I should bless with my dying lips the occasion which had drawn from you the blessed words I hear. But the more life is valuable to me by your regard, the more need you should not delay me. I am waited for. Farewell !" Disengaging himself from Viol anta s grasp, quickly but gently, Amieri darted through the door, and was gone. CHAP. 111. BIONDO had readily found a second in the first artist he met on the Corso, and after a rapid walk they turned on the lonely and lofty wall of the Palatine, to look back on the ruins of the Forum. At a fountain side, not far beyond, he had agreed to find his antagonist ; but spite of the pressing business of the hour, the wonderful and solemn beauty of the ruins that lay steeped in moonlight at his feet, awoke, for an instant, all of the painter in his soul. VIOLANTA CESARINI. US Is it not glorious, Lenzoni ?" he said, pointing with his rapier to the softened and tall columns that carried their capitals among the stars. "We have not come out to sketch, Amieri !" was the reply. " True, caro ! hut my fingers work as if the pencil was in them, and I forget revenge while I see what I shall never sketch again!" Lenzoni struck his hand heavily on Amieri s shoulder, as if to wake him from a dream, and looked close into his face. " If you fight in this spirit, Biondo " " I shall fight with heart and soul, Lenzoni ; fear me not ! But when I saw, just now, the bel ejfetto of the sharp-drawn shadows under the arch of Con- stantine, and felt instinctively for my pencil, some thing told me, at my heart s ear you will never trace line again, Amieri !" " Take heart, caro amico /" My heart is ready, but my thoughts come fast ! What were my blood, I cannot but reflect, added to the ashes of Rome ? We fight in the grave of an empire ! But you will not philosophize, dull Lenzoni ! Come on to the fountain !" The moon shone soft on the greensward rim of the neglected fountain that once sparkled through the " gold palace" of Nero. The white edges of half buried marble peeped here and there from the 10* 114 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. grass, and beneath the shadow of an ivy-covered ancf tottering arch, sang a nightingale, the triumphant possessor of life amid the forgotten ashes of the Caesars. Amieri listened to his song. " You are prompt, signor !" said a gay-voiced gentleman, turning the corner of the ruined wall, as Biondo, still listening to the nightingale, fed his heart with the last sweet words of Violanta. " < Sempre pronto, 9 is a good device," answered Lenzoni, springing to his feet. " Will you fight, side to the moon, signors, or shall we pull straws for the choice of light?" Amieri s antagonist was a strongly made man of thirty, costly in his dress, and of that class of features eminently handsome, yet eminently displeasing. The origin of the quarrel was an insulting observa tion, coupled with the name of the young Countess Cesarini, which Biondo, who was standing in the shadow of a wall, watching her window from the Corso, accidentally overheard. A blow on the mouth was the first warning the stranger received of a listener s neighbourhood, and after a momentary struggle they exchanged cards, and separated to meet in an hour, with swords, at the fountain, on the Palatine. Amieri was accounted the best foil in the ateliers of Rome, but his antagonist, the Count Lamba Malaspina, had just returned from a long residence VIOLANTACESARINI. 115 in France, and had the reputation of an accomplished swordsman. Amieri was slighter in person, but well made, and agile as a leopard ; but when Lenzoni looked into the cool eye of Malaspina, the spirit and fire which he wouli have relied upon to ensure his friend success in an ordinary contest, made him tremble now r . Count Lamba bowed, and they crossed swords. Amieri had read his antagonist s character, like his friend, and, at the instant their blades parted, he broke down his guard with the quickness of lightning, and wounded him in the face. Malapina smiled as he crossed his rapier again, and in the next moment Amieri s sword flew high above his head, and the count s was at h s breast. " Ask for your life, mio bravo /" he said, as calmly as if they had met by chance in the Corso. "A jnorte! villain an I slanderer !" cried Amieri, and striking the sword from his bosom , he aimed a a blow at Malaspina, which by a backward move ment, was recieved on the point of the blade. Trans fixed through the wrist, Amieri struggled in vain against the superior strength and coolness of his antagonist, and falling on his knee, waited in silence for his death-blow. Malaspina drew his sword gently as possible from the wound, and recommend ing a tourniquet to Lenzom till a surgeon could be procured, washed the blood from his face in the 116 ROMANCE OF 1 R A V E L . fountain,and descended into the Forum, humming the air of a new song. Faint with loss of blood, and with his left arm around Lenzoni s neck, Biondo arrived at the sur geon s door. "Can you save his hand?" was the first eager question. Amieri held up his bleeding wrist with difficulty, and the surgeon shook his head as ho laid the helpless fingers in his palm. The tendon was entirely parted. " I may save the hand," he s-id, "but hewittnever use it more!" Amieri gave his friend a look full of anguish, and fell back insensible. " Poor Biondo !" said Lenzoni, as he raised his pallid head from the surgeon s pillow. "Death were less misfortune than the loss of a hand like thine. The foreboding was too true, alas that thou never wouldst use pencil more !" CHAP. IV. THE frowning battlements of St. Angelo were brightened with the glare of lamps across the Tiber, and the dark breast of the river was laced with bars of gold like the coat of acaptain of dragoons. Here VIOLANTA CESARINI. 117 and there lay a boat in mid-stream, and while the drift of the current was counteracted by an occa sional stroke at the oar, the boatmen listened to the heavenly strains of a waltz, dying and triumphing in alternate cadences upon the breath of night and the pope s band. A platform was built out over the river, forming a continuation of the stage, the pit was floored over, and all draped like a Persian harem ; and thus began a masquerade at the Teatro della Pergola at Rome, which stands, if you will take the trouble to remember, close by the bridge and castle of St. Angelo upon the bank of the " yellow Tiber." The entrance of the crowd to the theatre was like a procession intended to represent the things of which we are commanded, not to make graven images, nor to bow down and worship them. There was the likeness of everything in heaven above and on the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth. There were angels, devils, serpents, birds, beasts, fishes and fair women of which none except the last occasioned much transgression of the com mandment. Oddly enough, the fishes waltzed and so did the beasts and fair women, the serpents and birds pairing ofFas they came \\ithin sound of the musick, with a defiance of natural antipathies which would have driven a naturalist out of his senses. A chariot drove up with the crest of the Cesarini 118 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. on the pannel, and out of it stepped rather a stiff figure dressed as a wandering palmer, with serge and scallop-shells, followed by a masked hunchback whose costume, even to the threadbare spot on the ridge of his deformity, was approved, by the loungers at the door, in a general " bravissimo." They entered the dressing-room, and the cloak-keeper was not surprised when the lump was withdrawn in the shape of a pad of wool, and by the aid of a hood and petticoat of black silk, the deformed was trans formed into a slender domino, undistinguished but for the grace and elasticity of her movements. The attendant was surprised, however, when having stepped aside to deposite the pad given in charge to her, she turned and saw the domino flitting from the room, but the hunchback with his threadbare hump still leaning on the palmer s arm ! " Santissima Vergine!" she exclaimed, pulling out her cross and holding it between herself and Giulio-, "the Fiend the unholy Fiend !" Donna Bettina laughed under her palmer s cowf, and drawing Giulio s arm within her own, they mingled in the masquerade. The old Oount Cesarini arrived a few miriutes after in one of the equipages of the Malaspina, accompanied by a red-cross knight in a magnificent armour, his sword-hilt sparkling with diamonds, and the bars of his visor half drawn, yet showing a VI OLA XT A CES ARINX* 119 beard of jetty and curling black, and a mouth of the most regular, yet unpleasant beauty. The upper part of his face was quite concealed, yet the sneer on his lips promised a cold and unfeeling eye. " As a hunchback, did you say, count ?" " It was her whim," answered Cesarini. " She has given arms to a poor sculptor with that deformi ty till her brain is filled with it. Pray the saints to affect not your offspring, Lamba !" Malaspina surveyed himself in the long mirror at the entrance of the saloon, and smiled back incredu lously with his white teeth. "I gave Bettina strict orders not to leave her side," said Cesarini. " You will find the old donna by her palmer s dress. The saints speed your suit, Lamba! I will await you in the card-room when the dance wearies you !" It was not for some time after the two old nobles had affianced their children, that Cesarini had found a fitting opportunity to break the subject to his daughter. When he did so, somewhat to his embar rassment, Violanta listened to it without surprise; and after hearing all he had to say upon the honour able descent, large fortune and courtly accomplish ments of the young Count Lamba, she only permitted her father to entertain any future hope on the subject, upon the condition, that, till she was of age, her proposed husband should not even be presented to 120 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. her. For this victory over the most cherished ambition of the old count, Violonta was indebted partly to the Holy See, and partly to some qualities in her own character, of which her father knew the force. He w r as aware with what readiness the car dinals would seize upon the slightest wish she might express to take the veil and bring her possessions into the church, and he was sufficiently acquainted with the qualities of a Cesarini, not to drive one of their daughters to extremity. With some embarrassment the old count made a clean breast to Malaspina and his son, and was exhausting language in regrets, when he was reliev ed by an assurance from Lamba that the difficulty increased his zest for the match, and that, Cesarini s permission, he would find opportunitie to encounter her in her walks as a stranger, and make his way after the romantic taste which he supposed was alone at the bottom of her refusal. For success in this, Count Lambo relied on his personal beauty and on that address in the arts of adventure which is acquired by a residence in France. Since his duel, Atnieri had been confined to his bed with a violent fever, dangerously aggravated by the peculiar nature of his calamity. The love of the pencil was the breath of his soul, and in all his thoughts of Violanta, it was only as a rival of the lofty fame of painters who had made them- VIOLANTA CESARINI. 121 selves the companions of kings, that he could ima gine himself a claimant for her love. It, seemed to him that his nerveless hand had shut out heaven s intire light. Giulio had watched by his friend with the faithful fondness of a woman, and had gathered from his moments of delirium, whatBiondo had from delicacy to Violanta never revealed to his second, Lenzoni the cause of his quarrel with Malaspina. Touched with this chivalric tenderness toward his eioter the kind Giulio hung over h : m with renewed affection, and when, in subsequent ravings, the maimed youth betrayed the real sting of his misfortune the death of his hopes of her love the unambitious brother resolved in his heart that if he could aid him by service or sacrifice, by influence with Violanta, or by making the almost desperate attempt to esta blish his own claims to the name and fortunes of Cesarini, he would devote himself to his service heart and soul. During the confinement of Amieri to his room, the young countess had of course, been unable to visit her brother, and as he scarce left the patient s side for a moment, their intercourse for two or three weeks had been entirely interrupted. On the first day the convalescent youth could walk out, she had stolen to the studio, and heard from Giulio the whole history of the duel and its consequences. When he 11 122 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. had finished his narrative, Violanta sat, for a few minutes, lost in thought. " Giulio !" she said at last, with a gaiety of tone* which startled him. Violanta !" " Did you ever remark that our voices are very much alike ?" " Biondo often says so." " And you have a foot almost as small as mine/ " I have not the proportions of a man, Violanta !" " Nay, brother, but I mean that that we might pass for each other, if we were masked. Our height is the same. Stand up, Giulio !" " You would not mock me !" said the melancholy youth with a faint smile, as he rose and set his bent back beside the straight and lithe form of his sister. " Listen to me, amato-bene /" she replied, sitting down and drawing him upon her knee, after satisfy ing himself that there was no perceptible difference in their height. " Put your arm about my neck, and love me while I tell you of rny little plot." Giulio impressed a kiss upon the clear, alabaster forehead of the beautiful girl, and looked into her face inquiringly. " There is to be a masquerade at La Pergola, she said " a superb masquerade given to some prince ! And I am to go, Giulio mio /" " Well," answered the listener, sadly. VIOL.ANTA CESARINI. 123 But do you not seem surprised that I am permit ted to go ! Shall I tell you the reason why papa gave me permission ?" If you will, \fiolonta!" A little bird told me that Malaspina means to be there !" " And you will go to meet him ?" " You shall go to meet him, and I " she hesitated and cast down the long dark fringes of her eyes. " I will meet Biondo !" " Giulio clasped her passionately to his heart. I se e ! I see !" he cried, springing upon his feet, as he anticipated the remaining circumstances of the plot. " We shall be two hunchbacks they will little think that we are two Cesarini. Dear, noble Violanta ! you will speak kindly to Biondo. Send Bettina for the clothes, carina mia! You will get twin masks in the Corso. And, Violanta ?" "What, Giulio?" " Tell Bettina to breathe no word of our project to Amieri ! 1 will persuade him to go but to see you dance ! Poor Amieri ! Dear, dear sister ! Farewell now ! He will be returning, and you must be gone. The Holy Virgin guard you, my Violanta !" 124 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, CHAP. V. THE reader will long since have been reminded, by the trouble we have to whip in and flog up the lagging and straggling members of our story, of a flock of sheep driven unwillingly to market. In deed, to stop at the confessional, (as you will see many a shepherd of the Campagna, on his way to Rome,) this tale of many tails should have been a novel. You have, in brief, what should have heen well elaborated, embarrassed with difficulties, relieved by digressions, tipped with a, moral, and bound in two volumes, with a portrait of the author. We are sacrificed to the spirit of the age. The eighteenth century will be known in hieroglyphics by a pair of shears. But, "to return to our muttons." The masquerade went merrily on, or, if there were more than one heavy heart among those light heels, it was not known, as the newspapers say, " to our reporter." One, there certainly was heavy as Etna on the breast of Fnceladus. Biondo Amie- ri sat in a corner of the gallery, with his swathed hand laid before him, pale as a new statue, and with a melancholy in his soft dark eyes, which would have touched the executioners of St. Agatha. Beside him sat Lenzoni, who was content to forego the VIOLANTA CE3ARINA. ^ 125 waltz for a while, and keep company for pity with a friend who was too busy with his own thoughts to give him word or look, but still keeping sharp watch on the scene below, and betraying by unconscious ejaculations how great a penance he had put on him. self for love and charity. "JL/i, la bella musica, Biondo!" he exclaimed drumming on the banquette, while his friend held up his wounded hand to escape the jar, " listen to that waltz, that might set fire to the heels of St. Peter. Corpo di Bacco ! look at the dragon ! a dragon making love to a nun, Amieri ! Ah ! San Pietro ! what a foot ! Wait till I come, sweet goblin ! That a goblin s tail should follow such ankles, Biondo ! Eh ! bellissimo ! the knight ! Look at the red-cross knight. Amieri ! and what ? il gobbo, by St. An thony ! and the red-cross takes him for a woman ! It is Giulio, or there never were two hunchbacks so wondrous like ! JEcco, Biondo !" But there was little need to cry "look" to Amie ri, now. A hunchback, closely masked, and leaning on a palmer s arm, made his way slowly through the crowd, and a red-cross knight, a figure gallant enough to have made a monarch jealous, whispered with courteous and courtly deference in his ear. " Cielo ! it is she !" said Biondo, with mournful earnestness, not heeding his companion, and laying 11* 126 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. his hand upon his wounded wrist, as if the sight he looked on gave it a fresher pang. "She?" answered Lenzoni, with a laugh. "If it is not he not gobbo Giulio I ll eat that cross-hiked rapier ! What she should it be, caro Biondo!" " I tell thee," said Amieri, " Giulio is asleep at the foot of his marred statue ! I left him but now, he is too ill with his late vigils to be here but his clothes* I may tell thee, are borrowed by one who wears them as you see. Look at the foot, Lenzoni !" "A woman, true enough, if the shoe were all? But I ll have a close look ! Stay for me, dear Amie ri! I will return ere you have looked twice at them!" And happy, with all his kind sympathy, to find a fair apology to be free, Lenzoni leaped over the benches and mingled in the crowd below. Left alone, Biondo devoured with his eyes, every movement of the group in which he was so deeply interested, and the wound in his hand seerried burn ing with a throb of fire, while he tried in vain to de tect, in the manner of the hunchback, that coyness which might show, even through a mask, dislike or indifference. There was even, he thought, (and he * delivered his soul over to Apollyon in the usual phrase- for thinking such ill of such an angel ;) there was even in her manner a levity and freedom of gesture for which the mask she wore should be no apology. VIOT, ANTA CESAR INT. 127 He was about to curse Malaspina for having spar ed his life at the fountain, when some one jumped lightly over the seat, and took a place beside him. It was a female in a black domino, closely masked, and through the pasteboard mouth protruded the bit of ivory, commonly held in the teeth by maskers, to disguise the voice. " Good evening to you, fair signor !" " Good even to you, lady !" "I am come to share your melancholy, signor !" " I have none to give away unless you will take all ; and just now, my fair one, it is rather anger than sadness. If it please you, leave me !" " What if I am more pleased to stay !"" " Briefly, I would be alone ! I am not of the fes- ta. I but look on, here !"" And Biondo turned his shoulder to the mask, and fixed his eyes again on the hunchback, who having taken the knight s arm, was talking and promenading most gaily between him and the palmer. " You have a wounded hand, signor !" resumed his importunate neighbor. "A useless one, lady. Would it were well! "Signor Melancholy, repine not against provi dence. I that am no witch, tell thee that thou wilt yet bless heaven that this hand is disabled." Biondo turned and looked at the bold prophetess, but her disguise was impenetrable. 128 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " You are a masker, lady, and talk at random !" " No ! I will tell you the thought uppermost in your bosom !" "What is it?" " A longing for a pluck at the red-cross, yonder !" " True, by St. Mary !" said Biondo, starting en ergetically : " but you read it in my eyes !" " I have told you your first thought, signor, and I will give you a hint of the second. Is there a like ness between a nymph on canvass, and a gobbo in a mask !" " Giulio !" exclaimed Amieri, turning suddenly round ; but the straight back of the domino met his eye, and totally bewildered, he resumed his seat, and slowly perused the stranger from head to foot. " Talk to me as if my mask were the mirror, of your soul, Amieri," said the soft but undisguised voice. " You need sympathy in this mood, and I am your good angel. Is your wrist painful to-night ?" " I cannot talk to you," he said, turning to resume his observation on the scene below. " If you know the face beneath the gobbo s mask, you know the heaven from which I am shut out. But I must gaze on it still." " Is it a woman?" " No ! an angel." " And encourages the devil in the shape of Ma- laspina ? You miscall her, Amieri !" VIOLANTA CESARINT. 129 The answer was interrupted by Lenzoni, who ran into the gallery, but seeing his friend beset by a mask, he gave him joy of his good luck, and refus ing to interrupt the tete-a-tete, disappeared with a laugh. " Brave, kind Lenzoni !" said the stranger. " Are you his good angel, too ?" asked Amieri, surprised aga^n at the knowledge so mysteriously displayed. " No ! Little as you know of me you would not be willing to share me with another ! Say, Amie ri ! love you the gobbo on the knight s arm ?" " You have read me riddles less clear, my fair incognita ! I would die at morn but to say farewell to her at midnight !" " Do you despair of her love ?" " Do I despair of excelling Raphael with these unstrung fingers ? I never hoped but in my dreams, lady !" " Then hope, waking ! For as there is truth in heaven, Violanta Cesarini loves you, Biondo !" Laying his left hand sternly on the arm of the stranger, Biondo raised his helpless wrist and point ed towards the hunchback, who, seated by the red- cross night, played with the diamond cross of his sword-hilt, while the palmer turned his back, as if to- give two lovers aa opportunity.. 130 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. With a heart overwhelmed with bitterness, he then turned to the mocking incognito. Violanta sat beside him ! Holding her mask between her and the crowd below, the maiden blush mounted to her temples, and the long sweeping lashes dropped over her eyes their veiling and silken fringes. And while the red- cross knight still made eloquent love to Giulio in the saloon of the masquerade, Amieri and Violanta, in their unobserved retreat, exchanged vows, faint and choked with emotion on his part, but all hope, en couragement and assurance on hers. CHAP. VI. " Will you waltz ?" said a merry- voiced domino to the red-cross knight, a few minutes after tapping him smartly on the corslet with her black fan, and pointing, for the first step, a foot that would have tempted St. Anthony. " By the mass !" answered Malaspina, " I should pay an ill compliment to the sweetest voice that ever enchanted human ear," (and he bowed low to Giulio) " did I refuse invitation so sweetly toned. Yet my Milan armour is not light !" "I have been icfusing his entreaties this hour, * said Giulio, as the knight whirled away with Vio- VIOL ANT A CES ARIN I. 131 lanta, " for though I can chatter like a woman, 1 should dance like myself. He is not unwilling to show his grace to his lady-mistress ! Ha ! ha ! It is worth while to sham the petticoat for once to see what fools men are when they would please a woman ! But, close mask ! Here comes the Count Cesarini!" " How fares my child ?" said the old noble, lean ing over the masked Giulio, and touching with his lips the glossy curl which concealed his temple. "Are you amused, idolo mio ?" A sudden tremour shot through the frame of poor Giulio at the first endearment ever addressed to his ear by the voice of a parent. The tears coursed down under his mask, and for all answer to the ques tion, he could only lay his small soft hand in his fathers and return his pressure with irresistible strength and emotion. " You are not well, my child !" he said, surprised at not receiving an answer, " this ugly hump oppresses you ! Come to the air ! So lean on me, caro tesoro ! We will remove the hump presently. A Cesarini with a hump indeed ! Straighten your self, my life, my child, and you will breathe more freely !" Thus entered, at one wound, daggers and balm into the heart of the deformed youth ; and while Bettina, trembling in every limb, grew giddy with 132 ROMANCE OPT RAVEL. fear as they made their way through the crowd, Giulio, relieved by his tears, nerved himself with a strong effort and prepared to play out his difficult part with calmness. They threaded slowly the crowded maze of waltzers, and, emerging from the close saloons, stood at last in the gallery overhanging the river. The moon was rising, and touched with a pale light the dark face of the Tiber ; the music came faintly out to the night air, and a fresh west wind, cool and balmy from the verdant campagna, breathed softly through the lattices. Refusing a chair, Giulio leaned over the balustrade, and the count stood by his side and encircled his waist with his arm. " I cannot bear this deformity, my Violanta !" he said, " you look so unlike my child with it ; I need this Lttle hand to re-assure me." " Should you know that was my hand, father ?" said Giulio. " Should I not ! I have told you a thousand times that the nails of a Cesarini were marked let me see you again by the arch of this rosy line ! See, my little Gobbo ! They are like four pink fairy shells of India laid over rolled leaves of roses. What was the poet s name who said that of the old Countess Giulia Cesarini la bella Giulia ?" " Should you have known my voice, father?" asked Giulio, evading the question. VIOLANTA CE8ARINI. 133 " Yes my darling, why ask me ?" " But, father ! if I had been stolen by brigands from the cradle or you had not seen me for many, many years and I had met you to night as a gobbo and had spoken to you only in sport and had called you father, dear father / should you have known my voice ? would you have owned me for a ^Cesarini?" " Instantly, my fair child !" " But suppose my back had been broken suppose I were a gobbo a deformed hunchback indeed, in deed but had still nails with a rosy arch, and the same voice with which I speak to you now and pressed your hand thus and loved you would you disown me, father ?" Giulio had raised himself while he spoke, and ta ken his hand from his father s with a feeling that life or death would be in his answer to that question. Cesarini was disturbed, and did not reply for a moment. "My child!" said he at last "there is that in your voice that would convince me you are mine, against all the evidence in the universe. I cannot imagine the dreadful image yon have conjured up, for the Cesarini are beautiful and straight by long inheritance. But if a monster spoke to me thus, I should love him ! Come to my bosom, my blessed child ! and dispel those wild dreams ! Come, Vio- 1 anta !" 12 I 134 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. " Giulio attempted to raise his arms to his father s neck, but the strength that had sustained him so well, began to ebb from him. He uttered some in distinct words, lifted his hand to his mask as if to remove it for breath, and sunk slowly to the floor. " It is your son, my lord !" cried Bettina. " Lift him, Count Cesarini ! Lift your child to the air be fore he dies !" She tore off his mask and disclosed to the thun der-stricken count the face of the stranger ! As he stood pale and aghast, too much confounded for ut terance or action, the black domino tripped into the gallery, followed by the red-cross knight, panting under his armor. " Giulio ! my own Giulio !" cried Violanta, throw ing herself on her knees beside her pale and insen sible brother, and covering his forehead and lips with kisses. " Is he hurt? Is he dead? Water! for the love of heaven ! Will no one bring water ?" And tearing away her own mask, she lifted him from the ground, and totally regardless of the as tonished group who looked on in petrified silence, fanned and caressed him into life and consciousness. " Come away, Violanta ! said her father at last, in a hoarse voice. * Never, my father ! he is our own blood ! How feel you now, Giulio ?" " Better, sweet ! where is Biondo ?" VIOLANTA CESARINI. 135 "Near by! But you shall go home with me. Signor Malaspina, as you hope for my favor, lend my brother an arm. Bettina, call up the chariot. Nay, father ! he goes home with me, or I with him. we never part more !" The red-cross knight gave Giulio an arm, and leaning on him and Violanta, the poor youth made his way to the carriage. Amieri sat at the door, and received only a look as she passed, and helping Giulio tenderly in, she gave the order to drive swift ly home, and in a few minutes they entered toge ther the palace of their common inheritance. It would be superfluous to dwell on the incidents of the sequel, which were detailed in the Diario di Roma, and are known to all the world. The hunch back Count Cesarini has succeeded his father in his title and estates, and is beloved of all Rome. The next heir to the title is a son (now two years of age) of the Countess Amieri, who is to take the name of Cesarini on coming to his majority. They live toge ther in the old palazzo, and all strangers go to see their gallery of pictures, of which none are bad, ex cept some well intended but not very felicitously ex ecuted compositions by one Lenzoni. Count Lamba Malaspina is at present in exile having been convicted of drawing a sword on a disabled gentleman, on his way from a masquerade 136 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. at La Pergola. His seclusion is rendered the more tolerable by the loss of his teeth, which were rudely thrust down his throat by this same Lenzoni (fated to have a finger in every pie) in defence of the at tacked party on that occasion. You will hear Len- zoni s address (should you wish to purchase a pic ture of his painting) at the Caffe del Gioco, opposite the trattoria of La, Bella Donna in the Corso, Dasqttalf, tfte bailor of &rnfcr. 13 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, PASQUALI, THE TAILOR OF VENICE. CHAP. I. GIANNINO PASCIUALI was a smart tailor some five years ago, occupying a cool shop on one of the smaller canals of Venice. Four pairs of suspend ers, a print of the fashions, and a motley row of the gay colored trousers worn by the gondoliers, orna mented the window looking on the dark alley in the rear, and, attached to the post of the water-gate on the canal side, floated a small black gondola, the possession of which afforded the same proof of prosperity of the Venetian tailor which is expressed by a horse and buggy at the door of a snip in Lon don. The place-seeking traveller, who, nez en Fair. threaded the tangled labarynth of alleys and bridges 140 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. between the Rialto and St. Marc s, would scarce have observed the humble shop- window of Pasqua li, yet he had a consequence on the Piazza, and the lagoon had seen his triumphs as an amateur gondo lier. Giannino was some thirty years of age, and his wife Fiametta, whom he had married for her zecchini, was on the shady side of fifty. If the truth must be told, Pasquali had discovered that, even with a bag of sequins for eye-water, Fi ametta was not always the most lovely woman in Venice. Just across the canal lived old Donna Bentoccata, the nurse, whose daughter Turturilla was like the blonde in Titian s picture of the Mary s; and to the charms of Turturilla, even seen through the leaden light of poverty, the unhappy Pasquali was far from insensible. The festa of San Antonio arrived after a damp week of November, and though you wold suppose the atmosphere of Venice not liable to any very sensible increase of moisture, Fiametta, like people who live on land, and who have the rheumatism as a punishment for their age and ugliness, was usually confined to her b azero of hot coals till it was dry enough on the Lido for the peacocks to walk abroad. On this festa, however, San Antonio being, as eve rv one knows, the patron saint of Padua, the Padovese were to come down the Brenta, as was their cus tom, and cross over the sea to Venice to assist in FASQUALI, THE TAILOR OF VENICE. 141 the celebration ; and Fiametta once more thought Pasquali loved her for herself alone when he swore by his rosary that unless she accompanied him to the festa in her wedding dress, he would not turn an oar in the race, nor unfasten his gondola from the door post. Alas ! Fiametta was married in the summer solstice, and her dress was permeable to the wind as a cobweb or gossamer, Is it possible you could have remembered that, oh, wicked Pasquali ? It was a day to puzzle a barometer ; now bright, now rainy ; now gusty as a corridor in a novel, and now calm as a lady after a fit of tears. Pasquali was up early and waked Fiametta with a kiss, and, by way of unusual tenderness, or by way of ensur ing the wedding dress, he chose to play dressing maid, and arranged with his own hands her jupon and fezzoktta. She emerged from her chamber looking like a slice of orange-peel in a flower-bed* but smiling and nodding, and vowing the day warm as April, and the sky without a cloud. The widen ing circles of an occasional drop of rain in the ca nal were nothing but the bubbles bursting after a passing oar, or perhaps the last flies of summer. Pasquali swore it was weather to win down a peri. As Fiametta stepped into the gondola, she glanced her eyes over the way and saw Turturilla, with a face as sorrowful as the first day in Lent, seated at her window. Her lap was full of work, and it was 142 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. quite evident that she had not thought of being at the festa. Fiametta s heart was already warm, and it melted quite at the view of the poor girl s loneliness. " Pasquali mio !" she said, in a deprecating tone, as if she were uncertain how the proposition would be received, "I think we could make room for poor Turturilla !" A gleam of pleasure, unobserved by the confid ing sposa, tinted faintly the smooth olive cheek of Pasquali, " Eh ! diavolo /" he replied, so loud that the sor rowful seamstress heard, and hung down her head still lower ; " must you take pity on every cheese paring of a regczza who happens to have no lover ! Have reason ! have reason ! The Gondola is nar rower than your brave heart my fine Fiametta !" And away he pushed from the water-steps. Turturilla rose from her work and stepped out upon the rusty gratings of the balcony to see them depart. Pasquali stopped to grease the notch of his oar, and between that and some other embar rassments, the gondola was suffered to float directly under her window, The compliment to the gener ous nature of Fiametta, was, meantime, working, and as she was compelled to exchange a word or two with Turturilla while her husband was getting his oar into the socket, it resulted, (as he thought it very probable it would,) in the good wife s renewing PASdUAALI, THE TAIPOR OF VENICE. 143 her proposition, and making a point of sending the deserted girl for her holiday bonnet. Pasquali swore through all the saints and angels by the time she had made herself ready, though she was but five minutes gone from the window, and telling Fiametta in her ear that she must consider it as the purest obli gation, he backed up to the steps of old Donna Ben. toccata, helped in her daughter with a better grace than could have been expected, and with one or two short and deep strokes, put forth into the grand ca nal with the velocity of a lance-fly. A gleam of sunshine lay along the bosom of the broad silver sheet, and it was beautiful to see the gondolas with their gay colored freights all hastening in one direction, and with swift track to the festa. Far up and down they rippled the smooth water, here gliding out from below a palace-arch, there from a narrow and unseen canal, the steel beaks curved and flashing, the water glancing on the oar- blades, the curtains moving, and the fair women of Venice leaning out and touching hands as they near- ed neighbor or acquaintance in the close-pressing gondolas. It was a beautiful sight, indeed, and three of the happiest hearts in that swift gliding company were in Pasquali s gondola, though the bliss of Fiametta, I am compelled to say, was en tirely owing to the bandage with which love is so significantly painted. Ah ! poor Fiametta ! 144 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. From the Lido, from Fusina, from under the Bridge of Sighs, from all quarters of the lagoon, and from all points of the fl< >ating city of Venice, streamed the flying gondolas to the Giudecca. The narrow walk along the edge of the long and close- built island was thronged with booths and promen- aders, and the black barks by hundreds bumped their steel noses against the pier as the agitated water rose and fell beneath them. The gondolas intended for the race pulled slowly up and down, close to the shore, exhibiting their fairy-like forms and their sin ewy and gaily dressed gondoliers to the crowds on land and water ; the bands of music, attached to different parties, played here and there a strain ; the criers of holy pictures and gingerbread made the air vocal with their lisping and soft Venetian ; and all over the scene, as if it was the light of the sky or some other light as blessed but less common, shone glowing black eyes, black as night, and sparkling as the stars on night s darkest bosom. He who thinks lightly of Italian beauty should have seen the wo men of Venice on St. Antonio s day 32, or on any day or at any hour when their pulses are beating high and their eyes alight for they are neither one nor the other always. The women of that fair clime, to borrow the similie of Moore, are like lava- streams, only bright when the volcano kindles. Their long lasnes cover lustreless eves, and their PASaUALI, THE TAILOR OFVENICE. 145 blood shows dully through the cheek in common and listless hours. The calm, the passive tranquil lity in which the delicate graces of colder climes find their element are to them a torpor of the heart when the blood scarce seems to flow. They are wakeful only to the energetic, the passionate, the joyous movements of the soul. Pasquali stood erect in the prow of his gondola, and stole furtive glances at Turturilla while he pointed away with his finger to call off the sharp eyes of Fiametta ; but Fiametta was happy and unsuspicious. Only when now and then the wind came up chilly from the Adriatick, the poor wife shivered and sat closer to Turturilla, who in her plainer but thicker dress, to say nothing of younger blood, sat more comfortably on the black cushion and thought less about the weather. An occasional drop of rain fell on the nose of poor Fiametta, but if she did not believe it was the spray from Pasquali s oar, she at least did her best to believe so ; and the perfidious tailor swore by St. Anthony that the clouds were as dry as her eyelashes. 1 never was very certain that Turturilla was not in the secret of this day s treacheries. The broad centre of the Giudecca was cleared, and the boats took their places for the race. Pas quali ranged his gondola with those of the other spectators, and telling Fiametla in her ear that he 13 146 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. should sit on the other side of Turturilla as a punish ment for their malapropos invitation, he placed him self on the small remainder of the deep cushion on the farthest side from his now penitent spouse, and while he complained almost rudely of the narrowness of his seat, he made free to hold on by Turturilla s waist which no doubt made the poor girl s mind more easy on the subject of her intrusion. Who won and who lost the race what was the device of each flag, and what bets and bright eyes changed owners by the result, no personage of this tale knew or cared, save Fiametta. She looked on eagerly. Pasquali and Turturilla, as the French say trouvaient autress chats a frotter. After the decision of the grand race, St. Antonio being the protector, more particularly of the humble^ (" patron of pigs" in the saints calendar,) the seig- noria and the grand people generally, pulled away for St. Marc s, leaving the crowded Giudecca to the people. Pasquali, as was said before, had some renown as a gondolier. Something what would be called in other countries a scrub race, followed the departure of the winning boat, and several gondolas, holding each one person only, took their places for the start. The tailor laid his hand on his bosom, and, with the smile that had first stirred the heart and the sequins of Fiametta, begged her to gratify his love by acting as his make- weight while he turned PASdUALI,THETAlLOROFVENICE. 147 an oar for the pig of St. Antonio. The prize roasted to an appetizing crisp, stood high on a platter in front of one of the booths on shore, and Fiametta smacked her lips, overcame her tears with an effort, and told him, in accents as little as possible like the creak of a dry oar in the socket, that he might set Turturilla on shore. A word in her ear, as he handed her over the gunwale, reconciled Donna Bentoccata s fair daugh ter to this conjugal partiality, and stripping his manly figure of its upper disguises, Pasquali straightened out his fine limbs, and drove his bark to the line in a style that drew applause from even his competitors. As a mark of their approbation, they offered him an outside place where his fair dame would be less likely to be spattered with the contending oars ; but he was too generous to take advantage of this con siderate offer, and crying out as he took the middle, " ben pronto, signori /" gave Fiametta a confident look and stood like a hound in the leash. Off they went at the tap of the drum, poor Fia metta holding her breath and clinging to the sides of the gondola, and Pasquali developing skill and muscle not for Fiametta s eyes only. It was a short, sharp race, without jockeying or management, all fair play and main strength, and the tailor shot past the end of the Giudecca a boat s length ahead. Much more applauded than a king at a coronation 148 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. or a lord -mayor taking water at London stairs, I*e slowly made his way back to Turturilla, and it was only when that demure damsel rather shrunk from sitting down in two inches of water, that he discover ed how the disturbed element had quite filled up the hollow of the leather cushion and made a peninsula of the uncomplaining Fiametta. She was as well watered, as a favourite plant in a flower- garden. " Pasquali mio !" she said in an imploring tone, holding up the skirt of her dress with the tips of her thumb and finger, " could you just take me home while I change my dress. " One moment, Fiametta cara ! they are bringing the pig r The crisp and succulent trophy was solemnly placed in the prow of the victor s gondola, and pre paration was made to convoy him home with a triumphant procession. A half hour before it was in order to move- an hour in first making the circuit of the grand canal, and an hour more in drinking a glass and exchanging good wishes at the stairs of the Rialto, nd Donna Fiametta had sat too long by two hours and a half with scarce a dry thread on her body. What afterwards befell will be seen in the* more melancholy sequel. L I,.TMI ETA.ILOROF VENICE, 149 CHAP. II. The hospital of St. Girolamo is attached to the convent of that name, standing on one of the canals which put forth on the seaward side of Venice. It is a long building, with its low windows and latti ced doors opening almost on the level of the sea, and the wards for the sick are large and well aired ; but. except when the breeze is stirring, impregnated with a saline dampness from the canal, which, as Pasquali remarked, was good for the rheumatism. It was- not so good for the patient. The loving wife Fiametta grew worse and worse after the fatal festa, and the fit of rheumatism brought on by the slightness of her dress and the spattering he had given hsr in the race, had increased by the end of the week, to a rheumatic fever. Fiametta was old and tough, however, and struggled manfully (woman as she was) with the disease, but being one night a little out of her head, her loving husband took occasion to shudder at the responsibility of taking care of her, and jumping into his gondola, he pulled across to St. Girolamo and bespoke a dry bed and a sister of charity, and brought back the pious father Gasparo and a comfortable litter. Fiametta was dozing when they arrived, and the kind hearted tailor willing to spare her the pain of knowing that 13* ISO ROMANCE OF TRAVEL- she was on her way to the hospital for the poor, set out some meat and wine for the monk, and send ing over for Turturilla and the nurse to mix the salad, they sat and eat away the hours till the poor dame s brain should be wandering again. Toward night the monk and dame Bentoccata were comfortably dozing with each other s support, (having fallen asleep at table.) and Pasquali with a kiss from Turturilla, stole softly up stairs. Fiametta was muttering unquietly, and working her fingers in. the palms of her hands, and on feeling her pulse he found the fever was at its height. She took him, besides, for the prize pig of the festa, for he knew her wits were fairly abroad. He crept down stairs, gave the monk a strong cup of coffee to get him, well awake, and, between the four of them, they got poor Fiametta into the litter, drew the curtains ten derly around and deposited her safely in the bottom of the gondola. Lightly and smoothly the winner of the pig pulled away with his loving burden, and gliding around the slimy corners of the palaces, and hushing his voice as he cried out "right!" or "left!" to guard the coming gondoliers of his vicinity, he arrived, like a thought of love to a maid s mind in sleep, at the door of St. Girolamo. The abbess looked out and said, benedicite /" and the monk stood firm on his brown sandals to receive the precious burden from the arms PASQUALI, THE TAILOR OF VENICE. 151 of Pasquali. Believing firmly that it was equivalent to committing her to the hand of St. Peter, and of course abandoning all hope of seeing her again ir* this world, the soft-hearted tailor wiped his eye as she was lifted in, and receiving a promise from father Gasparo that he would communicate faithfully the state of her soul in the last agony, he pulled, with lightened gondola and heart, back to his widower s home and Turturilla. For many good reasons, and apparent as good f it is a rule in the hospital of St. Girolamo, that the sick under its holy charge shall receive the visit of neither friend nor relative. If they recover, they return to their abodes to earn candles for the altar of the restoring saint. If they die, their clothes are sent to their surviving friends, and this affecting me-^ morial, besides communicating the melancholy news, affords all the particulars and all the consolation they are supposed to require upon the subject of their loss. Waiting patiently for Father Gasparo and his bundle, Pasquali and Turturilla gave themselves up to hopes, which- on the tailor s part, (we fear it must be admitted,) augttred a quicker recovery from grief than might be credited to an elastic constitution. The fortune of poor Fiametta was sufficent to war rant Pasquali in neglecting his shop to celebrate every festa that the church acknowledged, and for tendays 152" ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. subsequent to the committal of his wife to the tender mercies of St. Girolamo, five days out of seven was the proportion of merry holidays with his new betrothed. They were sitting one evening in the open piazza of St. Mark, in front of the most thronged cafe of that matchless square. The moon was resting her silver disk on the point of the Campanile, and the shadows of thousands of gay Venetians fell on the immense pavement below, clear and sharply drawn as a. black cartoon. The four extending sides of the square lay half in shades half in light, with their innumerable columns and balconies and sculptured work, and, frowning down on all, in broken light and shadow, stood the arabesque structure of St. Mark s itself dizzying the eyes with its mosaicksand confused devices, and thrusting forth the heads of her four golden-collared steeds into the moonbeams, till they looked on that black relief, like the horses of Pluto issuing from the gates of Hades. In the centre of the square stood a tall woman, singing, in rich con tralto, an old song of the better days of Venice ; and against one of the pillars, Polichinello had backed his wooden stage, and beat about his puppets with an energy worthy of old Dandolo and his helmeted galley-men. To those who wore not the spectacles of grief or discontent, the square of St. Mark s that night was like some cozeningtableau. /never saw anything so gay ! PASdUALI,THE TAILOR OF VENICE 153 Every body who ha? " swam in a gondola," knows how the cafes of Venice thrust out their checkered awnings over a portion of the square, and fill the shaded space below with chairs and marble tables. In a corner of the shadow thus afforded, with jce and coffee on a small round slab between them, and the flat pavement of the public promenade under their feet, sat our two lovers. With neither hoof nor wheel to drown or interrupt their voices, (as in cities whose streets are stones, not water,) they murmured their hopes and wishes in the softest language under the sun, and with the sotto voce acquired by all the in habitants of this noiseless city. Fiametta had taken ice to cool her and coffee to take off the chill of her ice, and a bicchiere del perfetto amove to reconcile these two antagonists in her digestion, when the slippers of a monk glided by, and in a moment the recognized father Gasparo made a third in the shadowy corner. The expected bundle was under his arm, and he was on his way to Pasquali s dwel ling. Having assured the disconsolate tailor that she had had unction and wafer as became the wife of a citizen of Venice like himself, he took heart and grew content that she was in heaven. It was a better place, and Turturilla for so little as a gold ring, would supply her place in his bosom. The moon was but a brief week older when Pas- quali and Turturilla stood in the church of our Lady 154 ROMAN C E OF TRAVEL. of Grief, and father Gasparo within the palings of the altar. She was as fair a maid as ever bloomed in the garden of beauty beloved of Titian, and the tailor was nearer worth nine men to look at, than the fraction of a man considered usually the expo nent of his profession. Away mumbled the good father upon the matrimonial service, thinking of the old wine and rich pastries that were holding their sweetness under cork and crust only till he had done his ceremony, and quicker by some seconds than had ever been achieved before by priest or bishop, he arrived at the putting on of the ring. His hand was tremulous, and (oh unlucky omen !) he dropped it within the gilden fence of the chan cel. The choristers were called, and father Gas paro dropped on his knees to look for it but if the devil had not spirited it away, there was no other reason why that search was in vain. Short of an errand to the goldsmith on the Rialto, it was at last determined the wedding could not proceed. Fa ther Gasparo went to hide his impatience within the restiary, and Turturilla knelt down to pray against the arts of Sathanas. Before they had settled sev erally to their pious occupations. Pasquali was half way to the Rialto. Half an hour elapsed, and the^n instead of the light grazing of a swift-sped gondola along the church stairs, the splash of a sullen oar was heard, PASQUALI, THE TAILOR OF VENICE. 155 and Pasquali stepped on shore. They had hasten ed to the door to receive him monk, choristers and bride and to their surprise and bewilderment, he waited to hand out a woman in a strange dress, who seemed disposed, bridegroom as he was, to make him wait her leisure. Her clothes fitted her ill, and she carried in her hand a pair of shoes, it was easy to see were never made for her. She rose at last, and as her face became visible, down dropped Turturilla and the pious father, and motion less and aghast stood the simple Pasquali. Fiamet- ta stepped on shore ! In broken words Pasquali explained. He had landed at the stairs near the fish market, and with two leaps reaching the top, sped off past the buttress in the direction of the goldsmith, when his course was arrested by encountering at full speed, the person of an old woman. Hastily raising her up, he recognized his wife, who, fully recovered, but without a gondola, was threading the zig-zag alleys on foot, on her way to her own domicil. Af ter the first astonishment was over, her dress ex plained the error of the good father and the extent of his own misfortune. The clothes had been hung between the bed of Fiametta and that of a smaller woman who had been long languishing of a con sumption. She died, and Fiameta s clothes, brought to the door by mistake were recognized by father Gasparo and taken to Pasquali. 1 56 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL* The holy monk, chop-fallen and sad, took his sol itary way to the convent, but with the first step he felt something slide into the h3el of his sandal. He sat down on the church stairs and absolved the de vil from theft it was the lost ring, which had fall en upon his foot and saved Pasquali the tailor from the pains of bigamy. Efie itattUit of atustrta* ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. "Affection is a fire which kindleth as well in the bram ble as in the oak, and catcheth hoM where it first lighteth, not where it may best burn. Larks that mount in the air build their nests below in the earth ; and women that cast their eyes upon kings, may place their hearts upon vassals." MARLOWE. i L agrement est arbitraire : la beaute est quelque chose e plus reel et de plus independent du gout et de I" 1 opinion." LA BRUYERE. FAST and rebukingly rang the matins from the towers of St. Etienne, and, though unused to wake, much less to pray, at that sunrise hour, I felt a com. punctious visiting as, my postillion -cracked his whip and flew past the sacred threshold, over which trip ped, as if every stroke would be the last, the tardy 160 ROMANCE O F T R A V E L . yet light-footed mass-goers of Vienna. It was my first entrance into this Paris of Germany, and I stretched my head from the window to look back with delight upon the fretted gothic pile, so cumbered with ornament, yet so light and airy so vast .in the area it coverd, yet so crusted in every part with delicate device and sculpture. On sped the merci less postillion, and the next moment we rattled into the court-yard of the hotel. I gave my keys to the most faithful and intelligent of valets an English boy of sixteen, promoted from white top-boots and a cabriolet in London, to a plain coat and almost his master s friendship upon the continent and leaving him to find rooms to my taste, make them habitable and get breakfast, I re traced my way to ramble a half hour through the aisles of St. Etienne. The lingering bell was still beating its quick and monotonous call, and just before me, followed close ly by a female domestic, a veiled and slightly-formV. ed lady stepped over the threshold of the cathedral, and took her way by the least-frequented aisle to the altar. I gave a passing glance of admiration at the small ankle and dainty chaussure betrayed by her hurried step ; but remembering with a slight effort that I had sought the church with at least some fee ble intentions of religious worship, I crossed the broad nave to the opposite side, and was soon lean- THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 161 ing against a pillar, and listening to the heavenly- breathed music of the voluntary, with a confused, but I trust, not altogether unprofitable feeling of de votion. The peasants, with their baskets standing beside them on the tesselated floor, counted their beads up on their knees ; the murmur, low-toned and univer sal, rose through the vibrations of the anthem with an accompaniment upon which I have always thought the great composers calculated, no less than upon the echoing arches, and atmosphere thickened with incense ; and the deep-throated priest muttered his Latin prayer, more edifying to me that it left my thoughts to their own impulses of worship, unde- meaned by the irresistible littleness of criticism, and unchecked by the narrow bounds of another s com prehension of the Divinity. Without being in any leaning of opinion a son of the church of Rome, I confess my soul gets nearer to heaven ; and my re- ous tendencies, dulled and diverted from improve- nt by a life of travel and excitement, are more gratefully ministered to, in the indistinct worship of the catholics. It seems to me that no man can pray well through the hesitating lips of another. The inflated style or rhetorical efforts of many, addres sing heaven with difficult grammar and embarrass ed logic and the weary monotony of others, re peating without interest and apparently without 14* 162 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. thought, the most solemn appeals to the mercy of the Almighty are imperfect vehicles, at least ta me, for a fresh and apprehensive spirit of worship: The religious architecture of the catholics favors the solitary prayer of the heart. The vast floor of the cathedral, the far receding aisles with their solemn light, to which penetrate only the indistinct murmur of priest and penitent, and the affecting wail or tri umphant hallelujah of the choir ; the touching atti tudes and utter abandonment of all around to their unarticulated devotions ; the freedom to enter and depart, unquestioned and unnoticed, and the won derful impressiveness of the lofty architecture, clus tered with mementos of death, and presenting through every sense, some unobtrusive persuasion to the duties of the spot all these, I cannot but think, are aids, not unimportant to devout feeling, nor to the most careless keeper of his creed and conscience, entirely without salutary use. My eye had been resting unconsciously on drapery of a statue, upon which the light of a p ed oriel window threw the mingled dyes of a pea cock. It was the figure of an apostle ; and curious at last to see whence the colours came which turn ed the saintly garb into a mantle of shot silk, 1 stray ed towards the eastern window, and was studying the georgeous dyes and grotesque drawing of an art !ostto the world, when: I discovered^ that I was in TH E 1 B AN D lT OF AUSTRIA. 163? the neighbourhood of the pretty figure that had trip* ped into church so lightly before me. She knelt near the altar, a little forward from one of the hea vy gothic pillars, with her maid beside her, and, close behind knelt a gentleman, who I observed at a second glance, was paying his devotions exclu sively to the small foot that peeped from the edge of. a snowy peignoir, the dishabille of which was cover ed and betrayed by a lace- veil arid mantle. As 1 stood thinking what a graceful study her figure would make for a sculptor, and what an irreligious impertinenee was visible in the air of the gentleman behind, he leaned forward as if to prostrate his face upon the pavement, an I pressed his lips upon the slender sole of (I have no doubt) the prettiest shoe in Vienna. The natural aversion which all men have for eaeh other as strangers, was quickened in my bosom by a feeling much more vivid, and said to be quite as natural resentment at any demon- tration by another of preference for the woman one admired. If I have not mistaken human nature, there is a sort of imaginary property which every man feels in a woman he has looked upon with even the most transient regard, which is violated malgre hi, by a similar feeling on the part of any other in dividual. Not sure that the gentleman, who had so sudden ly become my enemy^ had any warrant in the lady s 164 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. connivance for his attentions, I retreated to the shel ter of the pillar, and was presently satisfied that he was as much a stranger to her as myself, and was decidedly annoying her. A slight advance in her position to eseape his contact gave me the opportu nity I wished, and stepping upon the small space be tween the skirt of her dress and the outpost of his- ebony cane, I began to study the architecture of the roof with great seriousness. The gothic order, it is said, sprang from the first attempts at constructing roofs from the branches of trees, and is more per fect as it imitates more closely the natural wilder ness with its tall tree-shafts and interlacing limbs. With my eyes half shut I endeavoured to transport myself to an American forest, and convert the beams and angles of this vast gothic structure into a primitive temple of pines, with the sunshine coming brokingly through ; but the delusion, otherwise easy enough, was destroyed by the cherubs roosting on. the cornices, and the apostles and saints perched as it were in the branches ; and, spite of myself, thought it represented best Shylock s " wilderness of monkeys." " S il vous plait, monsieur /" said the gentleman, pulling me by the pantaloons as I was losing myself in these ill-timed speculations. I looked down. " Vous me genez, monsieur /" THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 165 " .7*671 suis Men sure, monsieur /" and I resumed my study of the roof, turning gradually round till my heels were against his knees, and backing peu-a-peu. It has often occurred to me as a defect in the sys tem of civil justice, that the time of the day at which a crime is committed is never taken into account by judge or jury. The humours of an empty stomach act so energetically on the judgment and temper of a man, and the same act appears so differently to him, fasting and full, that I presume an inquiry into the subject would prove that few offences against law and human pity were ever perpetrated by vil lains who had dined. In the adventure before us, the best-disposed reader will condemn my interfer ence in a stranger s gallantries as impertinent and quixotick. Later in the day, I should as soon have thought of ordering water-cresses for the gentle man s dindon aux truffes. I was calling myself to account something after ^the above fashion, the gentleman in question stand ing near me. drumming on his boot with his ebony cane, when the lady rose, threw her rosary over her neck, and turning to me with a grateful smile, cour- tesied slightly and disappeared. I was struck so exceedingly with the intense melancholy in the ex pression of the face an expression so. totally at variance with the elasticity of the step, and the pro mise of the slight and riante figure and air that \ 166 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. quite forgot I had drawn a quarrel on myself, and was loitering slowly toward the door of the church,, when the gentleman I had offended touched me on the arm, and in the politest manner possible requested my address. We exchanged cards, and I hastened home to breakfast, musing on the facility with which the current of our daily life may be thickened. I fancied 1 had a new love on my hands, and I was telerably sure of a quarrel yet I had been in Vienna but fifty-four minutes by Breguet. My breakfast was waiting, and Percie had found time to turn a comb through his brown curls, and get the dust off his gaiters. He was tall for his age, and, (unaware to himself, poor boy !) every word and action reflected upon the handsome seamstress in Cranbourne Alley, whom he called his mother for he showed blood. His father was a gentleman, or there is no truth in thorough-breeding. As I looked at him. a difficulty vanished from my mind. " Percie !" "Sir!" " Get into your best suit of plain clothes, and if a foreigner calls on me this morning, come in and for get that you are a valet. I have occasion to use you for a gentleman." "Yes, sir!" " My pistols are clean, I presume ?" "Yes, sir!" THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 167 I wrote a letter or two, read a volume of " Ni jamais, ni toujours" and about noon a captain of dragoons was announced, bringing me the expected cartel. Percie came in, treading gingerly in a pair of tight French boots, but behaving exceedingly like a gentleman, and after a little conversation, managed on his part strictly according my instruc tions, he took his cane and walked off with his friend of the steel scabbard to become acquainted with the ground. The gray of a heavenly summer morning was brightening above the chimneys of the fair city of Vienna as I stepped into a caleche, followed by Per cie. With a special passport (procured by the politeness of my antagonist) we made our sortie at that early hour from the gates, and crossing the glacis, took the road to the banks of the Danube. It was but a mile from the city, and the mist lay low on the face of the troubled current of the river, while the towers and pinnacles of the silent capital cut the sky in clear and sharp lines as if tranquillity and purity, those immaculate hand-maidens of nature, had tired of innocence and their mistress and slept in town ! I had taken some coffee and broiled chicken before starting, and (removed thus from the category of the savage unbreakfasted) I was in one of those moods of universal benevolence, said (erroneously) 168 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. to be produced only by a clean breast and milk diet. I could have wept, with Wordsworth, over a violet. My opponent was there with his dragoon, and Per- cie, cool and gentlemanlike, like aman who " had serv ed," looked on at the loading of the pistols, and gave me mine with a very firm hand, but with a moisture and onxiety in his eye which I have remembered since. We were to fire any time after the counting of three, and having no malice against my friend, whose impertinence to a lady was (really!) no business of mine, I intended, of course, to throw away my fire. The first word was given and I looked at my an tagonist, who, I saw at a glance, had no such gentle intentions. He was taking deliberate aim, and in the four seconds that elapsed between the remaining two words, I changed my mind (one thinks so fast when his leisure is limited !) at least twenty times whether I should fire at him or no. " Trois r pronounced the dragoon, from a throat like a trombone, and with the last thought, up flew my hand, and as my pistol discharged in the air, my friend s shot struck upon a large turquoise which I wore on my third finger, and drew a slight pencil- line across my left organ of causality. It was well aimed for my temple, but the ring had saved me. Friend of those days, regretted and unforgotten ! days of the deepest sadness and heart-heaviness, yet THE BAN:-; IT OF AUSTRIA. 169 somehow dearer in remembrance than all the joys I can recall there was a talisman in thy parting gift thou didst not think would be, one day, my angel ! " You will be able to wear your hair over the scar, sir !" said Percie, coming up and putting his finger on the wound. " Monsieur !" said the dragoon, advancing to Per cie after a short conference with his principal, and looking twice as fierce as before. " Monsieur !" said Percie, wheeling short upon him. " My friend is not satisfied. He presumes that monsieur V Anglais wishes to trifle with him." " Then let your friend take care of himself," said I, roused by the unprovoked murderousness of the feeling. Load the pistols, Percie ! In my country," I continued, turning to the dragoon, " a man is dis graced who fires twice upon an antagonist who has spared him ! Your friend is a ruffian, and the con sequences be on his own hand !" We took our places and the first word was given, when a man dashed between us on horseback at top-speed. The violence with which he drew rein brought his horse upon his haunches, and he was on his feet in half a breath. The idea that he was an officer of the police was immediately dissipated by his step and air. Of the finest athletic form I had ever seen, agile, graceful 15 170 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. and dressed pointedly well, there was still an inde finable something about him, either above or below a gentleman which, it was difficult to say. His features were slight, fair, and, except a brow too heavy for them and a lip of singular and (I thought) habitual defiance, almost feminine. His hair grew long and had been soigne, probably by more cares sing fingers than his own, and his rather silken mous tache was glossy with some odorent oil. As he approached me and took my hand, with a clasp like a smith s vice, I observed these circumstances, and could have drawn his portrait without ever seeing him again so marked a man was he, in every point and feature. His business was soon explained. He was the husband of the lady my opponent had insulted, and that pleasant gentleman could, of course, make no objection to taking my place. I officiated as temoin and, as they took their positions, I anticipated for the dragoon and myself the trouble of carrying them both off the field. I had a practical assurance of my friend s pistol, and the stranger was not the looking man to miss a hair s breadth of his aim. The word was not fairly off my lips when both pistols cracked like one discharge, and high into the air sprang my revengeful opponent, and dropped like a clod upon the grass. The stranger opened his waistcoat, thrust his fore-finger into a wound in T H E B A N D I T O F AU STRI A. 171 his left breast, and slightly closing his teeth, pushed a bullet through, which had been checked by the bone and lodged in the flesh near the skin. The surgeon who had accompanied my unfortunate an tagonist, left the body, which he had found beyond his art, and readily gave his assistance to stanch the blood of my preserver ; and jumping with the latter into my caleche, I put Percieupon the stranger s horse, and we drove back to Vienna. The market people were crowding in at the gate, the merry peasant girls glanced at us with their blue, German eyes, the shopmen laid out their gay wares to the street, and the tide of life ran on as busily and as gaily, though a drop had been extracted, within scarce ten minutes, from its quickest vein. I felt a revulsion at my heart, and grew faint and sick. Is a human life is my life worth anything, even a thought, to my fellow-creatures? was the bitter question forced upon my soul. How icily and keenly the unconscious indifference of the world penetrates to the nerve and marrow of him who suddenly real izes it. We dashed through the kohl-market, and driving l nto the porte-cochere of a dark-looking house in one of the cross streets of that quarter, were ushered into apartments of extraordinary magnificence. 172 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. CHAP. 11. * What do you want, Percie?" He was walking into the room v^th all the deli berate politeness of a " gold-stick-in-waiting." "I beg pardon, sir, but I was asked to walk up, and I was not sure whether I was still a gentleman." It instantly struck me that it might seem rather infra dig to the chevalier (my new friend had thus announced himself) to have had a valet for a second, and as he immediately after entered the room, having stepped below to give orders about his horse, I pre sented Percie as a gentleman and my friend, and resumed my observation of the singular apartment in which I found myself. The effect on coming first in at the door, was that of a small and lofty chapel, where the light struggled in from an unseen aperture above the altar. There were two windows at the farther extremity, but cur tained so heavily, and set so deeply into the wall, that I did not at first observe the six richly-carpeted steps which led up to them, nor the luxuriously cush ioned seats on either side of the casement, within the niche, for those who would mount thither for fresh air. The walls were tapestried, but very THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 173 ragged and dusty, and the floor, though there were several thicknesses of the heavy-piled, small, Tur key carpets laid loosely over it, was irregular and sunken. The corners were heaped with various articles I could not at first distinguish. My host fortunately gave me an opportunity to gratify my curiosity by frequent absences under the housekeep er s apology ( odd I thought for a chevalier) of expediting breakfast; and with the aid of Percie, I tumbled his chatties about with all necessary free dom. " That," said the chevalier, entering, as I turned out the face of a fresh coloured picture to the light, " is a capo d* opera of a French artist, who painted it, as you may say by the gleam of the dagger." " A cool light, as a painter would say !" " He was a cool fellow, sir, and would have han dled a broad sword better than a pencil." Percie stepped up while I was examining the exquisite finish of the picture, and asked very re spectfully if the chevalier would give him the par ticulars of the story. It was a full-length portrait of a young and excessively beautiful girl, of apa- rently scarce fifteen, entirely nude, and lying upon a black velvet couch, with one foot laid on a broken diadem, and her right hand pressing a wild rose to her heart. " It was the fancy, sir," continued the chevalier, 15* 174 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " of a bold outlaw, who loved the only daughter of a noble of Hungary, "Is this the lady sir?" asked Percie, in his politest valet French. The chevalier hesitated a moment and looked over his shoulder as if he might be overheard. " This is she copied to the minutest shadow of a hair ! He was a bold outlaw, gentlemen, and had plucked the lady from her father s castle with his awn hand." "Against her will?" interrupted Percie, rather energetically. "No !" scowled the chevalier, as if his lowering brows had articulated the word, " by her own will and connivance; for she loved him." Percie drew a long breath, and looked more close ly at the taper limbs and the exquisitely-chiselled features of the face, which was turned over the shoulder with a look of timid shame inimitably true to- nature. " She loved him," continued our fierce narrator, who, I almost began to suspect was the outlaw him self, by the energy with which he enforced the tale, " and after a moonlight ramble or two with him in the forest of her father s domain, she fled and be came his wife. You are admiring the hair, sir ! It is as luxuriant and glossy now !" " If you please, sir, it is the villain himself !" said Percie in an undertone* THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 175 " Bref" continued the chevalier, either not under standing English or not heeding the interruption, "an adventurous painter, one day hunting the picturesque in the neighbourhood of the outlaw s retreat, surpris ed this fair creature bathing in one of the loneliest mountain-streams in Hungary. His art appeared to be his first passion, for he hid himself in the trees and drew her as she stood dallying on the margin of the small pool in which the brook loitered ; and so busy was h^ with his own work, or so soft was the mountain moss under its master s tread, that the outlaw looked, unperceived the while, over his shoulder, and fell in love anew with the admirable counterfeit. She looked like a naiad, sir, new-born of a dew-drop and a violet." I nodded an assent to Percie. "The sketch, excellent as it seemed, was still un finished when the painter, enamoured as he might well be, of these sweet limbs, glossy with the shining water, flung down his book and sprang toward her. The outlaw " "Struck him to the heart? Oh heaven!" said Percie, covering his eyes as if he could see the murder. "No ! he was a student of the human soul, and deferred his vengeance." Percie looked up and listened, like a man whose wits were perfectly abroad. 1 76 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " He was not unwilling since her person had been seen irretrievably, to know how his shrinking Imin- ild (this was her name of melody) would have es caped, had she been found alone." " The painter" prompted Percie, impatient for the sequel " The painter flew over rock and brake, and sprang into the pool in which she was half immersed ; and my brave girl " He hesitated, for he had betiayed himself. " Ay she is mine, gentlemen ; and I am Yvain, the outlaw my brave wife, I say with a single bound, leaped to the rock where her dress was con cealed, seized a short spear which she used as a staff in her climbing rambles, and struck it through his shoulder as he pursued !" " Bravely done !" I thought aloud.. " Was it not ? I came up the next moment, but the spear stuck in his shoulder, and I could not fall upon a wounded man. We carried him to our ruined castle in the mountains, and while my Iminild cured her own wound, I sent for his paints, and let him finish his bold beginning with a difference of my own. You see the picture." " Was the painter s love cured with his wound !" I asked with a smile. " No, by St. Stephen ! He grew ten times more enamoured as he drew. He was as fierce as a THE BANDIT OP AUSTRIA. 177 welk hawk, and as w lling to quarrel for his prey. I could have driven my dagger to his heart a hun dred times for the mutter of his lips and the flash of his dark eyes as he fed his gaze upon her : but he finished the picture, and I gave him a fair field. He chose the broadsword, and hacked away at me like a man." And the result" I asked. " I am here !" replied the outlaw significantly. Percie leaped upon the carpeted steps, and pushed back the window for fresh air ; and, for myself, I scarce knew how to act under the roof of a man, who. though he confessed himself an outlaw and almost an assassin, was bound to me by the ties of our own critical adventure, and had confided his condition to me with so ready a reliance on my honour. In the midst of my dilemma, while I was pretending to occupy myself with examining a silver mounted and peaked saddle, which I found behind the picture in the corner, a deep and unpleasant voice announced breakfast. " Wolfen is rather a grim chamberlain," said the chevalier, bowing with the grace and smile of the softest courtier, " but he will usher you to breakfast and I am sure you stand in need of it. For myself, I could eat worse meat than my grandfather with this appetite." Percie gave me a look of inquiry and uneasiness 178 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. when he found we were to follow the rough domes tic through the dark corridors of the old house, and through his underbred politeness of insisting on fol lowing his host, I could see that he was unwilling to trust the outlaw with the rear ; but a massive and broad door, flung open at the end of the passage, let in upon us presently the cool and fresh air from a northern exposure, and, stepping forward quickly to the threshold, we beheld a picture which changed the current and colour of our thoughts. In the bottom of an excavated area, which, as well as I could judge, must be forty feet below the level of the court, lay a small and antique garden, brilliant with the most costly flowers, and cooled by a fountain gushing from under the foot of a nymph in marble. The spreading tops of six alleys of lindens reaching to the level of .the street, formed a living roof to the grot-like depths of the garden, and con cealed it from all view but that of persons descend ing like ourselves from the house ; while, instead of walls to shut in this Paradise in the heart of a city, sharply-inclined slopes of green-sward leaned in under the branches of the lindens, and completed the fairy-like enclosure of shade and verdure. As we descended the rose-laden steps and terraces, I ob served, that, of the immense profusion of flowers in- the area below, nearly all were costly exo ticks, whose pots were set in the earth, and probably brought THEB A NDITOF AUSTRIA. 179 away from the sunshine only when in high bloom ; and as we rounded the spreading basin of the foun tain which broke the perspective of the alley, a table, which had been concealed by the marble nymph, and a skilfully-disposed array of rhododendrons lay just beneath our feet, while a lady, whose features I could not fail to remember, smiled up from her couch of crimson cushions and gave us a graceful welcome. The same taste for depth which had been shown in the room sunk below the windows, and the garden below the street, was continued in the kind of mar ble divan in which we were to breakfast. Four steps descending from the pavement of the alley introduc ed us into a circular excavation, whose marble seats, covered with cushions of crimson silk, surrounded a table laden with the substantial viands which are common to a morning meal in Vienna, and smoking with coffee, whose aroma (Percie agreed with me) exceeded even the tube roses in grateful sweetness. Between the cushions at our backs and the pave ments just above the level of our heads, were piled cir cles of thickly-flowering geraniums, which enclosed us in rings of perfume, and, pouring from the cup of a sculptured flower, held in the hand of the nymph a smooth stream like a silver rod supplied a channel grooved around the centre of the marble table, through which the bright water, with the impulse of 180 m ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. its descent, made a swift revolution and disappeared. It was a scene to give memory the lie if it could have recalled the bloodshed of the morning. The green light flecked down through the leafy roof upon the glittering and singing water ; a nightingale in a recess of the garden, gurgled through his wires as if intoxicated with the congenial twilight of his prison ; the heavy-cupped flowers of the tropics nodded with the rain ofihe fountain spray ; the distant roll of wheels in the neighbouring streets came with an assurance of reality to this dream-land, yet softened by the unreverberating roof and an air crowded with flowers and trembling with the pulsations of falling water ; the lowering forehead of the outlaw cleared up like a sky of June after a. thunder-shower, and his voice grew gentle and caressing ; and the delicate mistress of all (by birth, Countess Iminild,) a crea ture as slight as Psyche, and as white as the lotus, whose flexile stem served her for a bracelet, wel comed us with her soft voice and humid eyes, and saddened by the event of the morning, looked on her husband with a tenderness that would have assoiled her of her sins against delicacy, I thought even in the mind of an angel. " We live, like truth, here, in the bottom of a well," said the countess to Percie, as she gave him his cof fee ; ** how do you like my whimsical abode, sir?" " I should like anyplace where you were,Miladi !" THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 181 he answered, blushing and stealing his eyes across at me, either in doubt how far he might presume upon his new character, or suspecting that I should smile at his gallantry. The outlaw glanced his eyes over the curling head of the boy, with one of those just perceptible smiles which developed, occasionally, in great beau ty, the gentle spirit in his bosom ; and Iminild, pleased with the compliment or the blush, threw off her pen sive mood, and assumed in an instant, the coquettish air which had attracted my notice as she stepped before me into the church of St. Etienne. " You had hard work," she said to keep up with your long-legged dragoon yesterday, Monsieur Percie !" " Miladi ?" he answered, with a look of inquiry. " Oh, I was be hind you, and my legs are not much longer than yours. How he strided away with his long spurs, to be sure ! Do you remember a smart young gentleman with a blue cap that walked past you on the glacis occasionally." Ah, with laced boots, like a Hungarian ?" " I see I am ever to be known by my foot," said she, putting it out upon the cushion, and turning it about with naive admiration ; " that poor captain of the imperial guard payed dearly for kissing it, holy virgin !" and she crossed herself and was silent for a moment 16 182 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " If I might take the freedom, chevalier," I said, pray how came I indebted to your assistance in this affair?" " Iminild has partly explained," he answered. u She knew, of course, that a challenge would follow your interference, and it was very easy to know that an officer of some sort would take a message in the course of the morning to Le Prince Charles, the only hotel frequented by the English (Fun certain gens. I bowed to the compliment. " Arriving in Vienna late last night, I found Iminild (who had followed this gentleman and the dragoon unperceived) in possession of all the circumstances ; and, but for oversleeping myself this morning,! should have saved your turquoise, mon seigneur 7" " Have you lived here long, Miladi ?" asked Per- cie, looking up into her eyes with an unconscious passionateness which made the Countess Iminild colour slightly, and bite her lips to retain an expres sion of pleasure. " I have not lived long, anywhere, sir !" she answered half archly, "but I played in this garden when not much older than you !" Percie looked confused and pulled up his cravat. " This house said the chevalier, willing apparent ly to spare the countess a painful narration, " is the property of the old Count Ildefert, my wife s father, THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 183 He has long ceased to visit Vienna, and has left it, he supposes, to a stranger. When Iminild tires of the forest, she comes here, and I join her if I can find time. I must to the saddle to-morrow, by St. Jacques !" The word had scarce died on his lips when the door by which we had entered the garden was flung open, and the measured tread of gens-d armes re sounded in the corridor. The first man who stood out upon the upper terrace was the dragoon who had been second to my opponent. " Traitor and villain !" muttered the outlaw be tween his teeth, " I thought I remembered you ! It is that false comrade Berthold, Iminild !" Yvain had risen from the table as if but to stretch his legs ; and drawing a pistol from his bosom he cocked it as he quietly stepped up into the garden. I saw at a glance that there was no chance for his escape, and laid my hand on his arm. " Chevalier !" I said, " surrender and trust to op portunity. It is madness to resist here." "Yvain !" said Iminild, in a low voice, flying to his side as she comprehended his intention, " leave me that vengeance, and try the parapet. 1,11 kill him before he sleeps ! Quick ! Ah, heavens !" The dragoon had turned at that instant to fly, and with suddenness of thought the pistol flashed, and the traitor dropped heavily on the terrace. Spring- 184 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. ing like a cat up the slope of green sward, Yvain stood an instant on the summit of the wall, hesitat ing where to jump beyond, and in the next moment rolled heavily back, stabbed through and through with a bayonet from the opposite side. The blood left the lips and cheek of Iminild ; but without a word or a sign of terror, she sprang to the side of the fallen outlaw and lifted him up against her knee. The gens-d armes rushed to the spot, but the subaltern w r ho commanded them yielded instant ly to my wish that they should retire to the skirts of the garden ; and, sending Percie to the fountain for water, we bathed the lips and forehead of the dying man and set him against the sloping parapet. With one hand grasping the dress of Iminild and fa e other clasped in mine, he struggled to speak. " The cross !" he gasped, " the cross!" Iminild drew a silver crucifix from her bosom. " Swear on this," he said, putting it to my lips and speaking with terrible energy, " swear that you will protect her while you live !" " I swear !" He shut our hands together convulsively, gasped slightly as if he would speak again, and, in another instant sunk, relaxed and lifeless, on the shoulder of Iminild. THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 185 CHAP. III. The fate and history of Yvain, the outlaw, be came, on the following day, the talk of Vienna. He had been long known as the daring horse-stealer of Hungary ; and, though it was not doubted that his sway was exercised over plunderers of every description, even pirates upon the high seas, his own courage and address were principally applied to rob bery of the well-guarded steeds of the emperor and his nobles. It was said that there was not a horse in the dominions of Austria whose qualities and breeding were not known to him, nor one he cared to have which was not in his concealed stables in the forest. The most incredible stories were told of his horsemanship. He would so disguise the animal on which he rode, either by forcing him into new paces or by other arts only known to himself, that he would make the tour of the Glacis on the emperor s best horse, newly stolen, unsuspected even by the royal grooms. The roadsters of his own troop were the best steeds bred on the banks of the Danube ; but, though always in the highest condition, they would never have been suspected to be worth a florin till put upon their mettle. The 16* 186 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. extraordinary escapes of his band from the vigilant and well-mounted gens-cFarmes were thus accounted for; and, in most of the villages in Austria, the peo ple, on some market-day or other, had seen a body of apparently ill -mounted peasants suddenly start off with the speed of lightning at the appearance of gens-d armes, and, flying over fence and wall, draw a straight course for the mountains, distancing their pursuers with the ease of swallows on the wing. After the death of Yvain in the garden, I had been forced with Percie into a carriage, standing in the court, and accompanied by a guard, driven to my hotel, where I was given to understand that I was to remain under arrest till further orders. A sen tinel at the door forbade all ingress or egress except to the people of the house : a circumstance which was only distressing to me, as it precluded my inqui ries after the Countess Iminild, of whom common rumour, the servants informed me, made not the slightest mention. Four days after this, on the relief of the guard at noon, a subaltern entered my room and informed me that I was at liberty. I instantly made prepara tions to go out, and was drawing on my boots when Percie, who had not yet recovered from the shock of his arrest, entered in some alarm, and informed me that one of the royal grooms was in the court with a letter, which he would deliver only into my THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 187 own hands. He had orders beside, he said, not to leave his saddle. Wondering what new leaf of my destiny was to turn over, I went below and received a letter, with apparently the imperial seal, from a well-dressed groom in the livery of the emperor s brother, the king of Hungary, He was mounted on a compact, yet fine-limbed horse, and both horse and rider were as still as if cut in marble. I returned to my room and broke the seal. It was a letter from Iminild, and the bold bearer was an outlaw disguised ! She had heard that I was to be released that morning, and desired me to ride out on the road to Gratz. In a postscript she begged I would request Monsieur Percie to accompany me. I sent for horses, and, wishing to be left to my own thoughts, ordered Percie to fall behind, and rode slowly out of the southern gate. If the Coun tess Iminild were safe, 1 had enough of the adven ture for my taste. My oath bound me to protect this wild an unsexed woman, but farther intercourse with a band of outlaws, or farther peril of my head for no reason that either a court of gallantry or of jus tice would recognize, was beyond my usual pro gramme of pleasant events. The road was a gen tle ascent, and with the bridle on the neck of my hack I paced thoughfully on, till, at a slight turn, we stood at a fair height above Vienna. " It is a beautiful city, sir," said Percie, riding up. 188 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " How the deuce could she have escaped 1" said I, thinking aloud. " Has she escaped, sir ? Ah, thank heaven !" ex claimed the passionate boy, the tears rushing to his eyes. " Why, Percie !" I said with a tone of surprise which called a blush into his face, " have you really found leisure to fall in love amid all this imbroglio T "I beg pardon, my dear master !" he replied in a confused voice, " I scarce know what it is to fall in love ; but I would die for Miladi Iminild." "Not at all an impossible sequel, my poor boy ! But wheel about and touch your hat, for here comes some one of the royal family !" A horseman was approaching at an easy canter, over the broad and unfenced plain of table-land which overlooks Vienna on the south, attended by six mounted servants in the white kerseymere frocks? braided with the two-headed black eagle, which distinguish the members of the imperial household. The carriages on the road stopped while he passed, the foot-passengers touched their caps, and, as he came near,,! perceived that he was slight and young, but rode with a confidence and a grace not often attained. His horse had the subdued, half-fiery action of an Arab, and Percie nearly dropped from his saddle when the young horseman suddenly drove in his spurs, and with almost a single vault stood motionless before us. THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 189 " Monsieur !" Madame la Contesse /" I was uncertain how to receive her, and took re fuge in civility. Whether she would be overwhelm ed with the recollection of Yvain s death, or had put away the thought altogether with her masculine firmness, was a dilemma for which the eccentric con tradictions of her character left me no probable solu tion. Motioning with her hand after saluting me, two of the party rode back and forward in differ ent directions, as if patrolling; and giving a look between a tear and a smile at Percie, she placed her hand in mine, and shook off her sadness with a strong effort. " You did not expect so large a suite with your protegee, 11 she said, rather gaily, after a moment. " Do I understand that you come now to put yourself under my protection !" I asked in reply. " Soon, but not now, nor here. I have a hundred men at the foot of Mount Semering, whose future iate, in some important respects, none can decide but myself. Yvain was always prepared for this, and everything is en train. I come now but to ap point a place of meeting* Quick ! my patrole comes in, and some one approaches whom we must fly. Can you await me at Gratz ?" " I can and will !" She put her slight hand to my lips, waved a kiss 190 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. at Percie, and away with the speed of wind, flew her swift Arab over the plain, followed by the six horse men, every one of whom seemed part of the animal that carried him he rode so admirably. The slight figure of Iminild in the close fitting dress of a Hungarian page, her jacket open and her beautiful limbs perfectly defined, silver fringes at her ankles and waist, and a row of silver buttons gallonne down to the instep, her bright, flashing eyes, her short curls escaping from her cap and tangled over her left temple, with the gold tassel, dirk and pistol at her belt and spurs upon her heels it was an apparition I had scarce time to realize, but it seem ed painted on my eyes. The cloud of dust which followed their rapid flight faded away as I watched it, but I saw her still., " Shall I ride back and order post-horses, sir !" asked Percie standing up in his stirrups. " No ; but you may order dinner at six. And Percie, !" he was riding away with a gloomy air ; " you may go to the police and get our passports for Venice." " By the way of Gratz, sir!" " Yes, simpleton !" There is a difference between sixteen and twenty- six, I thought to myself, as the handsome boy flogged his horse into a gallop. The time is gone when I could love without reason. Yet I THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 191 remember when a feather, stuck jauntily into a bon net, would have made any woman a princess ; and in those days heaven help us ! I should have loved this woman more for her galliardize than ten times a prettier one with all the virtues of Dorcas. For which of my sins am I made guardian to a robber s wife, I wonder ! The heavy German postillions, with their cocked hats and yellow coats, got us over the ground after a manner, and toward the sunset of a summer s evening the tall castle of Gratz, perched on a pinnacle of rock in the centre of a vast plain, stood up boldly against the reddening- sky. The rich fields of Styria were ripening to an early harvest, the people sat at their doors with the look of house hold happiness for which the inhabitants of these " despotic countries" are so remarkable ; and now and then on the road the rattling of steel scabbards drew my attention from a book or a reverie, and the mounted troops, so perpetually seen on the broad roads of Austria, lingered slowly past with their dust and baggage-trains. It had been a long summer s day, and, contrary to my usual practice, I had not mounted, even for half a post, to Percie s side in the rumble. Out of humour 192 ROMANCEOF TRAVEL. with fate for having drawn me into very embaras- sing circumstances out of humour with myself for the quixotic step which had first broughtiton me and a little out of humour with Percie, (perhaps from an unacknowledged jealously of Iminild s marked preference for the varied) I left him to toast alone in the sun, while I tried to forget him and myself in " Le Marquis de Pontanges" What a very cle ver book it is, by the way ! The pompous sergeant of the guard performed his office upon my passport at the gate giving me at least a kreutzer worth of his majesty s black sand in exchange for my florin and my English curse ; (I said before I was out of temper, and he was half an hour writing his abominable name,) and leaving my carriage and Percie to find their way together to the hotel, I dismounted at the foot of a steep street and made my way to the battlements of the castle, in search of scenery and equanimity. Ah ! what a glorious landscape ! The precipitous rock on which the old fortress is built seems drop ped by the Titans in the midst of a plain, extending miles in every direction, with scarce another peb ble. Close at it? base run the populous streets, coiling about it like serpents around a pyramid, and away from the walls of the city spread the broad fields, laden, as far as the eye can see, with tribute for the emperor ! The tall castle, with its armed crest, looks down among the reapers. THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 193 " You have not lost your friend and lover, yet yon are melancholy !" said a voice behind me, that 1 was scarce startled to hear. " Is it you, Iminild 1" " Scarce the same for Iminild was never before so sad. It is something in the sunset. Come away while the woman keeps down in me, and let us stroll through the Plaza, where the band is playing. Do you love military music?" I looked at the costume and figure of the extra ordinary creature before I ventured with her on a public promenade. She was dressed like one of the travelling apprentices of Germany, with cap and bleuzer, arii had assumed the air of the craft with a success absolutely beyond detection. I gave her my arm and we sauntered through the crowd, listening to the thrilling music of one of the finest bands in Germany. The priviliged character and free manners of the wandering craftsmen whose dress she had adopted, I was well aware, recon ciled, in the eyes of the inhabitants, the marked contrast betwen our conditions in life. They would simply have said, if they had made a remark at all, that the Englishman was bon enfant and the crafts man bon camarade. " You had better look at me, messieurs !" said the dusty apprentice, as two officers of the regiment passed and gave me the usual strangers stare; " I 17 194 ROMANCE OPTRAVEL. am better worth your while by exactly five thou sand florins." " And pray how ?" I asked. " That price is set on my head !" " Heavens ! and you walk here !" " They kept you longer than usual with your pass port, I presume?" " At the gate ? yes." " I came in with my pack at the time. They have orders to examine all travellers and passports with unusual care, these sharp officials ! But I shall get out as easily as I got in!" " My dear countess !" I said, in a tone of serious remonstrance, t " do not trifle with the vigilance of the best police in Europe ! I am your guardian, and you owe my advice some respect. Come away from the square and let us talk of it in earnest." "Wise seignior! suffer me to remind you how deftly I slipped through the fingers of these gentry after our tragedy in Vienna, and pay my opinion some respect ! It was my vanity that brought me, with my lackeys, to meet you a la prince royale so near Vienna; and hence this alarm in the police, for I was seen and suspected. I have shown myself to you in my favourite character, however, and have done with rash measures. You shall see me on the road to-morrow, safe as the heart in your bosom. Where is Monsieur Percie !" THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 195 "At the hotel. But stay! can I trust you with yourself?" " Yes, and dull company, too ! A revoir /" And whistling the popular air of the craft she had assumed, the Countess Iminild struck her long staff on the pavement, and with the gait of a tired and habitual pedestrian, disappeared by a narrow street leading under the precipitory battlements of the cas tle. Percie made his appearance with a cup of coffee the following morning, and, with the intention of post, ing a couple of leagues to breakfast, I hurried through my toilet and was in my carriage an hour after sun rise. The postillion was in his saddle and only wai ted for Percie, who, upon enquiry, was nowhere to be found. I sat fifteen minutes, and just as I was beginning to be alarmed he ran into the large court of the hotel, and, crying out to the postillions that all was right, jumped into his place with an agility, it struck me, very unlike his usual gentlemanlike deliberation. Determining to take advantage of the first up-hill to catechize him upon his matutinal rambles, I read the signs along the street till we pulled up at the gate. Iminild s communication had prepared me for unusual delay with my passport, and I was not surprised when the officer, in returning it to me. 196 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. requested me as a matter of form, to declare, upon my honour, that the servant behind my carriage was an Englishman, and the person mentioned in my passport. " Foi d honneur, monsieur," I said, placing my hand politely on my heart, and off trotted the postil lion, while the captain of the gaurd, flattered with my civility, touched his foraging-cap, and sent me a German blessing through his mustache. It was a divine morning, and the fresh and dewy" air took me back many a year, to the days when I was more familiar with the hour. We had a long trajet across the plain, and unlooping an antivibration tablet, for the invention of which my ingenuity took great credit to itself, (suspended on caoutchouc cords from the roof of the carriage and deserving of a patent I trust you will allow !) I let off my poetical vein in the following beginning to what might have turned out, but for the interruption, a very edifying copy of verses : Ye are not what ye were to me, Oh waning night and morning star! Though silent still your watches flee Though hang yon lamp in heaven as far Though live the thoughts ye fed of yore I m thine, oh starry dawn no more! THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 197 Yet to that dew-pearl d hour alone I was not folly s blindest child; It came when wearied mirth had flown, And sleep was on the gay and wild ; And wakeful with repentant pain, I lay amid its lap of flowers, And with a truant s earnest brain Turned back the leaves of wasted hours. The angels that by day would flee, Returned, oh morning star ! with thee ! Yet now again * * * * A foot thrust into my carriage- window rudely broke the thread of these delicate musings. The postillion was on a walk, and before I could get my wits back from their wool-gathering, the Countess Iminild, in Percie s clothes, sat laughing on the cushion beside me. " On what bird s back has your ladyship descended from the clouds ?" I asked with unfeigned astonish ment. " The same bird has brought us both down c est a dire, if you are not still en Fair" she added, look ing from my scrawled tablets to my perplexed face. " Are you really and really the Countess Iminild?" I asked with a smile, looking down at the trowsered feet and loose-fitting boots of the pseudo-valet. 17* ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " Yes, indeed ! but I leave it to you to swear, /oi d honneurj that a born countess is an English valet !" And she laughed so long and merrily that the postillion looked over his yellow epaulettes in astonishment. " Kind, generous Percie !" she said, changing her tone presently to one of great feeling, I would scarce believe him last night when he informed me, as as in ducement to leave him behind, that he was only a ser vant ! You never told me this. But he is a gentle man, in every feeling as well as in every feature, and, by heavens ! he shall be a menial no longer !" This speech, begun with much tenderness, rose, toward the close, to the violence of passion ; and folding her arms with an air of defiance, the lady- outlaw threw herself back in the carriage. " I have no objection," I said, after a short silence, " that Percie should set up for a gentleman. Nature has certainly done her part to make him one ; but till you can give him means and education, the coat which you wear, with such a grace, is his safest shell. Ants live safely till they have gotten wings, says the old proverb." The blowing of the postillion s horn interrupted the argument, and, a moment after, we were rolled up, with German leisure, to the door of the small inn where I had designed to breakfast. Thinking it probable that the people of the house, in so small a THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 199 village, would be too simple to make any dangerous comments upon our appearance, I politely handed the countess out of the carriage, and ordered plates for two. " It is scarce worth while," she said, as she heard the order, " for I shall remain at the door on the look out. The eil-wa^gen, for Trieste, which was to leave Gratz an hour after us, will be soon here, and, (if my friends have served me well,) Per- cie in it. St. Mary speed him safely !" She stode away to a small hillock to look out for the lumbering diligence, with a gait that was no stranger to, " doublet and hose." It soon came on with its usual tempest of whip-cracking and bugle- blasts, and nearly overturning a fat burgher, who would have profferred the assistance of his hand, out jumped a petticoat, which, I saw. at a glance, gave a very embarrassed motion to gentleman Percie. " This young lady," said the countess, dragging the striding and unwilling damsel into the little par lour where I was breakfasting " travels under the charge of a deaf old brazier, who has been requested to protect her modesty as far as Laybach. Make a curtsy, child !" " I beg pardon, sir !" began Percie. "Hush, hush ! no English ! Walls have ears, and your voice is rather gruffish, mademoiselle. Show 200 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. me your passport? Cunegunda Von Krakenpate, eighteen years of age, blue eyes, nose and chin mid dling, etc! There is the conductor s horn ! Allez vite!" We meet a Laybach. Adieu, charmante femme ! Adieu ! And with the sort of caricatured elegance which women always assume in their imitations of our sex, Countess Iminild, in frock-coat and trowsers, helped into the diligence, in hood and petticoat, my " tiger" from Cranbourne-alley ! CHAP. IV. Spite of remonstrance on my part, the imperative countess, who had asserted her authority more than once on our way to Laybach, insisted on the com pany of Miss Cunegunda Von Krakenpate, in an evening walk around the town. Fearing that Per- cie s masculine stride would betray him, and object ing to lend myself to a farce with my valet, 1 opposed the freak as long as it was courteous but it was not the first time I had learned that a spoiled woman would have her own way, and, too vexed .* to laugh, I soberly promenaded the broad avenue of the capital of Styria, with a valet en demoiselle, and a dame en valet. It was but a few hours hence to Planina, and Imi- THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 201 nild, who seemed to fear no risk out of u walled city, waited on Percie to the carriage the following morning, and in a few hours we drove up to the rural inn of this small town of Littorale. I had been too much out of humour to ask the countess, a second time, what errand she could have in so rustic a neighbourhood. She had made a mystery of it, merely requiring of me that I should defer all arrangements for the future, as far as she was concerned, till we had visited a spot in Littorale, upon which her fate in many respects depended. After twenty fruitless conjectures, I abandoned my self to the course of circumstances, reserving only the determination, if it should prove a haunt of Yvain s troop, to separate at once from her company and await her at Trieste. Our dinner was preparing at the inn, and tired of the embarrassment Percie exhibited in my presence, I walked out and seated myself under an immense linden, that every traveller will remember, standing in the centre of the motley and indescribable clusters of buildings, which serve the innkeeper and black smith of Planina for barns, forge, dwelling, and outhouses. The tree seems the father of the village. It was a hot afternoon, and I was compelled to dispute the shade with a congregation of cows and double-jointed postborses; but finding a seat high up on the root, at last I busied myself with gazing down 202 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. the road, and conjecturing what a cloud of dust might contain, which, in an opposite direction from that which we had come, was slowly creeping onward to the inn. Four roughly-harnessed horses at length, ap peared, with their traces tied over their backs one of them ridden by a man in a farmers frock. They struck me at first as fine specimens of the German breed of draught-horses, with their shaggy fetlocks and long manes ; but while they drank at the trough which stood in the shade of the linden, the low tone in which the man checked their greedy thirst, and the instant obedience of the well-trained animals, awa kened at once my suspicions that we were to become better acquainted. A more narrow examination convinced me that, covered with dust and disguised with coarse harness as they were, they were four horses of such bone and condition, as were never seen in a farmer s stables. The rider dismounted at the inn door, and very much to the embarrassment of my suppositions, the landlord, a stupid and heavy Boniface, greeted him with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, and in answer, apparently to an in quiry, pointed to my carriage, and led him into the house. "Monsieur Tyrell," said Iminild, coming out to me a moment after, " a servant whom I had ex pected has arrived with my horses, and with your THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 203 consent, they shall be put to your carriage immedi ately." "To take us where?" "To our place of destination." " Too indefinite, by half, Countess ! Listen to me ! I have very sufficient reason to fancy that, in leaving the post-road to Trieste, I shall leave the society of honest men. You and your * minions of the moon may be very pleasant, but you are not very safe companions ; and having really a wish to die quietly in my bed " The countess burst into a laucrh. o "If you will have the character of the gentleman you are about to visit from the landlord here " "Who is one of your ruffians himself, I ll be sworn !" " No, on my honour ! A more innocent old beer- guzzler lives not on the road. But I will tell you thus much, and it ought to content you. Ten miles to the west of this dwells a country gentleman, who, the landlord will cgrtify, is as honest a subject of his gracious majesty as is to be found in Littorale. He lives freely on his means, and entertains strangers occasionally from all countries, for he has been a traveller in his time. You are invited to pass a day or two with this Mynheer Krakenpate, (who, by the way, has no objection to pass for father of the young lady you have so kindly brought from Laybach,) 204 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. and he has sent you his horses, like a generous host, to bring you to his cbor. More seriously, this was a retreat of Yvain s, where he would live quietly and play bon citoyzn, and you have nothing earthly to fear in accompanying me thither. And now will you wait and eat the greasy meal you have ordered, or will you save your-appstite for la fortune de pot at Mynheer Kraken pate s, and get presently on the road !" I yielded rather to the seducing smile and capti vating beauty of my pleasing ward, than to any confidence in the honesty of Myneer Krakenpate ; and Percie being once more ceremoniously handed in, we left the village at the sober trot becoming the fat steeds of a landholder. A quarter of a mile of this was quite sufficient for Iminild, and a word to the postillion changed, like a metamorpho sis, both horse and rider. From a heavy unelastic figure, he rose into a gallant and withy horseman, and, with one of his low-spoken words, away flew the four compact animals, treading lightly as cats, and, with the greatest apparent ease, putting us over the ground at the rate of fourteen miles in the hour. The dust was distanced, a pleasant breeze was created by the motion, and when at last we turned from the main road, and sped off to the right at the same exhilarating pace, I returned Iminild s arch look of remonstrace with mv best-humoured smile THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 20f> and an affectionate je me fie a vous ! Miss Kraken- pate, I observed, echoed the sentiment by a slight pressure of the countess s arm, looking very inno cently out of the window all the while. A couple oi miles, soon done, brought us round the face of a craggy precipice, forming the brow oi a hill, and with a continuation of the turn, we drew up at the gate of a substantial-looking building, something between a villa and a farm-house, built against the rock, as if for the purpose of shelter from the north winds. Two beautiful Angora hounds sprang out at the noise, and recognized Iminild through all her disguise, and presently, with a look of forced courtesy, as if not quite sure whether he might throw off the mask, a stout man of about fifty, hardly a gentleman, yet above a common peasant in his manners, stepped forward from the garden to give Miss Krakenpate his assistance in alighting. " Dinner in half an hour !" was Iminild s brief greeting, and, stepping between her bowing depen dant and Percie, she led the way into the house. I was shown into a chamber, furnished scarce above the common style of a German inn, where I made a hungry man s despatch in my toilet, and de scended at once to the parlour. The doors were all open upon the ground floor, and, finding myself quite alone, I sauntered from room to room, wondering at the scantiness of the furniture and general air of 18 Wti ROMANCE OF TKAVEL, discomfort, and scarce able to believe that the same mistress presided over this and the singular paradise in which I had first found her at Vienna. After visiting every corner of the ground floor with a freedom which I assumed in my character as guardian, it occurred to me that I had not yet found the dining- room, and I was making a new search, when Imi- nild entered. I have said she was a beautiful woman. She was- dressed now in the Albanian costume, with the ad r aitionai gorgeousness of gold embroidery, which might distinguish the favourite chjld of a chief of Suli. It was the male attire, with a snowy white juktanilla reaching to the knee, a short jacket of crimson velvet, and a close-buttoned vest of silver cloth, fitting admirably to her girlish bust, and leav ing her slender and pearly neck to rise bare and swan-like into the masses of her clustering hair. Her slight waist was defined by the girdle of fine linen edged with fringe of gold, which was tied co- quettishly over her left side and fell to her ankle and below the , embroidered leggin appeared the fairy foot, which had drawn upon me all this long train of adventure, thrust into a Turkish slipper with a sparkling emerald on its instep. A feroniere of the yellowest gold sequins bound her hair back from her temples, and this was the only confinement to the dark brown meshes which, in wavv lines and THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 201 in the richest profusion, fell almost to her feet. Th*. only blemish to this vision of loveliness was a flus! about her eyes. The place had recalled Yvain t her memory. " I am about to disclose to you secrets ," said shr laying her hand on my arm, " which have neve been revealed but to the most trusty of Yvain s con federates. To satisfy those whom you will mee you must swear to me on the same cross which h pressed to your lips when dying, that you will neve violate, while I live, the tiust we repose in you." " I will take no oath," I said ; " for you are leadin: me blindfolded. If you are not satisfied with th; assurance that I can beti^iy no confidence whic: honour would preserve, hungry as I am, I will \< dine in Planina." " Then I will trust to the faith of an Englishman. And now I have a favour, not to beg, but to insist upon that from this moment you consider Perch: as dismissed from your service, and treat him, whil< here at least, as my equal and friend." 44 Willingly !" I said ; and ns the word left in\ lips, enter Percie in the counterpart dress of Iminild with a silver-sheathed ataghan at his side, and the blueish muzzles of a pair of Egg s linir-trigger;< peeping from below his girdle. To do the rasca; justice, h<;- was .as han.Isrmio in his runv toggery a Hs mistress, and carried it as irallantlv. The 1 , 208 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL* would have made the prettiest tableau as Juan and llaidee. " Is there any chance that these * persuaders may be necessary," I asked, pointing to his pistols which awoke in my mind a momentary suspicion. " No none that I can foresee but they are loaded. A favourite, among men whose passions are professionally wild," she continued with a mean ing glance at Percie ; " should be ready to lay his hand on them, even if stirred in his sleep !" I had been so accustomed to surprises of late, that I scarce started to observe, while Imimld was speak ing, that an old-fashioned clock, which stood in a niche in the wall, was slowly swinging out upon hinges. A narrow aperture of sufficient breadth to admit one person at a time, was disclosed when it had made its entire revolution, and in it stood with a lighted torch, the stout landlord Von Krakenpate. Iminild looked at me an instant as if to enjoy my surprise. " Will you lead me in to dinner, Mr. Tyrell ?" she said at last, with a laugh. " If we are to follow Myneer Von Krakenpate," I replied, "give me hold of the skirt of yomjukta- nilla, rather, and let me follow ! Do we dine in the cellar?" I stepped before Percie, who was inclined to take advantage of my hesitation to precede me, and fol- f H E B A N D I T O F A U S T 1 1 A . lowed the countess into the opening, which, from *he position of the house, I saw must lead directly into the face of the rock. Two or three descending steps convinced me that it was a natural opening en larged by art ; and after one or two sharp turns, and a descent of perhaps fifty feet, we came to a door which, suddenly flung open by our torch-bearer^ deluged the dark passage with a blaze of light which the eyesight almost refused to bear. Recovering irom my amazement, I stepped over the threshold of the door, and stood upon a carpet in a gallery of sparkling stalactites, the dazzling reflection of inu- merable lamps flooding the air around, and a long snow-white vista of the same briU ancy and effect streching downward before me. Two ridges of the calcareous stratta running almost parallel over >ur heads, formed the cornices of the descending corridor, and from these with a regularity that seemed like design, the sparkling pillars, white as alabaster, and shaped like inverted cones, dropped nearly to the floor, their transparent points resi- ng on the peaks of the corresponding stalagmites, which of a darker hue and coarser grain, seemed designed as bases to a new order of architectural columns. The reflection from the pure crystalline rock gave to this singular gallery a splendor which only the palace of Aladdin could have equalled. The 18* 210 ROMANCE j OF TRAVEL. lamps were hung between in irregular but effective ranges, and in our descent, like Thalaba, who re freshed his dazzled eyes in the desert of snow by loo king on the green wings of the spirit bird, I was compelled to bend my eyes perpetually for relief up on the soft, dark masses of hair which floated upon the lovely shoulders of Iminild. At the e xtremity of the gallery we turned short to the right, and followed an irregular passage, some- tim3S S3 low that we could scarce stand upright, but all lighted with the same intense brilliancy, and formed of the same glittering and snow-white sub stance. We had be en rambling on thus far perhaps ten minutes, when sudd enly the air, which I had felt uncomfortably chill, gre w warm and soft, and the low reverberation of running water fell delighfully on our ears. Far a-he ad we could see two sparry columns standing close together, and apparently closing up the wa y. " Courage ! my ven erable guardian !" cried Im : - nild, laughing over her shoulder ; ** you will see your dinner presently. Are you hungry, Percie 1" tk Not while you look back, Madame la Comtes- S3 I" answered th-3 callow gentleman, with an in stinctive tact at his new vocation. We stood at the two pillars which formed ths extremity of tin passage, and looked down upon a scene of which all cbscription mast b? faint and im- THE BAND IT OF AUSTRIA. perfect. A hundred feet below ran a broad subter raneous river, whose waters sparkling in the blaze of a thousand torches, sprang into light from the deepest darkness, crossed with foaming rapidity the bosom of the vast illuminated cavern, and disappear ed again in the same inscrutable gloom. Whence it it came or whither it lied was a mystery beyond the reach of the eye. The deep recesses of the cavern seemed darker for the intense light gathered about the centre. After the first few minutes of bewilderment, 1 en deavoured to realize in detail the wondrous scene be fore me. The cavern was of an irregular shape, but all studded above with the same sparry incrustation, thousands upon thousands of pendant stalactites glit tering on the roof, and showering back light upon the clusters of blazing torches fastened everywhere upon the shelvy sides. Here and there vast columns, alabaster white, with bases of gold colour, fell from the roof to the floor, like pillars left stand ing in the ruined aisle of a cathedral, and from cor ner to corner ran their curtains of the same brjlliant calcareous spar, shaped like the sharp edge of u snow-drift, and almost white. It was like laying* bare the palace of some king- wizard of the mine to gaze down upon it. What think you of Myneer Krakenpate s taste in a dining-room, Monsieur Tyrell?" asked the OOUD- ,12 ftOMANCE OF TRAVEL. less, who stood between Percie and myself, with a hand on the shoulder of each. I had scarce found time, as yet, to scrutinize the artificial portion of the marvellous scene, but, at the question of Iminild, I bent my gaze on a broad plat form, rising high above the river on its opposite bank, the rear of which was closed in by perhaps forty irregular columns, leaving between them and the sharp precipice on the river-side, an area, in height and extent of about the capacity of a ball room. A rude bridg-3, of very light construction, rose in a single arch across the river, forming the only possible access to the platform from the side- where we stood, and, following the path back witli my eye, I observed a narrow and spiral staircase, partly of wood and partly cut in the rock, ascending irom the bridge to the gallery we had followed hither. The platform was carpctted richly, and flooded with intense light, and in it s centre stood ;; gorgeous array of smoking dishes, served after the Turkish fashion, with a cloth upon the floor and sur rounded with cushions and ottomans of every shape and colour. A troop of black slaves, whose silver anklets, glittered as they moved, were busy bringing wines and completing I lie arrangements for the meal. " Allans, million /" cried Iminild, getting impati ent arid seizing Percie s arm. " let us get over the" THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. river, and perhaps Mr. Tyrell will look down upon us with his grands yeux while we dine. Oh, you will come with us ! Suivez done /" An iron door, which I had not hitherto observed^ jet us out from the gallery upon the staircase, and Myneer Von Krakenpate carefully turned the key behind us. We crept slowly down the narrow staircase and reached the edge of the river, where the warm air from the open sunshine came pouring through the cavern with the current, bringing with [t a smell of green fields and flowers, and removing entirely the chill of the cavernous and confined at mosphere I had found so uncomfortable above We crossed the bridge, and stepping upon the elas tic carpets piled thickly on the platform, arranged ourselves about the smoking repast, Myneer Von Krakenpate sitting down after permission from Imi- nild, and Percie by order of the same imperative dictatress, throwing his graceful length at her feet. CHAP. V. " TAKE a lesson in flattery from Percie, Mr. Tyrell, and be satisfied with your bliss in my society with out asking for explanations. I would fain have the use of my tongue (to swallow) for ten minutes, and I see you making up your mouth for a question, ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, Try this pilau ! It is made by a Greek cook, who fries, boils and stews in a kitchen with a river for a chimney." " Precisely what I was going to ask you. I was wondering how you cook without smoking your snow-white roof." " Yes, the river is a good slave, and steals wood as well. We have only to cut it by moonlight and commit it to the current." " The kitchen is down stream, then ?" " Down stream ; and down stream lives jolly Per- dicaris the cook, who having lost his nose in a sea- fight, is reconciled to forswear sunshine and man kind, and cook rice for pirates." " Is it true then that Yvain held command on the sea ?" " No, not Yvain, but Tranchcoeur his equal in command over this honest confederacy. By the way, he his your countryman, Mr.Tyrell, though he tights under a nom de guerre. You are very likely to see him, too, for his bark is at Trieste, and he is the only human being besides myself (and my com pany here) who can come and go at wiil jn this robber s paradise. He is a lover of mine, parbleu, ! and since Yvain s death, heaven knows what fancy he may bring hither in his hot brain ! I have armed Percie for the hazard ?" The thin nostrils of rnv friend from Cranbournr- THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 5 Alley dilated with prophetic dislike of a rival thus abruptly alluded to, and there was that in his face which would have proved, against all the nurses oaths in Christendom, that the spirit of a gentleman s blood ran warm through his heart. Signor Tran- chcoeur must be gentle in his suit, I said to myself or he will find what virtue lies in a hair-trigger ! Percie had forgot to eat since the mention of the pirate s name, and sat with folded arms and his right hand on his pistol. A black slave brought in an oindletfe soufflw, as light and delicate as the chef-d asuvre of an artiste in the Palais Royal. Iminild spoke to him in Greek ^ as he knelt and placed it before her. " I have a presentiment," she said, looking at me as the slave disappeared, " that Tranchcreur wilj be here presently. I have ordered another omeleff<> on the strength of the feeling, for he is fond of it, and may be soothed by the attention." "Yor fear him, then?" " Not if I were alone, for he is as gentle as a wo man when he has no rival near him but I doubt his relish of Percie. Have you dined ?" Quite." " Then come and look at my garden, and hare a peep at old Perdicaris. Stay here, Percie, and finish your grapes, mon-mignon ! I have a word to say- to Mr. Tvrell." 210 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. t We walked across the platform, and passing be tween two of the sparry columns forming its bound ary, entered upon a low passage which led to a large opening, resembling singularly a garden of low shrubs turned by some magic to sparkling marble. Two or three hundred of these stalagmite cones, formed by the dripping of calcareous water from t he roof, (as those on the roof were formed by the same fluid which hardened and pondered,) stood about in the spacious area, every shrub having an answering cone on the roof, like the reflection of the same marble garden in a mirror. One side of this singular apartment was used as a treasury for the spoils of the band, and on the points of the white cones hung pitchers and altar lamps of silver, gold drinking-cups, and chains, and plate and jewellery of every age and description. Farther oil were piled, in unthrifty confusion, heaps of velvets and silks, fine broadcloths, French gloves, shoes and slippers, brocades of Genoa, pieces of English linen, damask curtains still fastened to their cornices, a harp and mandolin, cases of damaged bons-bons, two or three richly-bound books, and, (last and most valuable in my eyes.) a minature bureau, evidently the plunder of some antiquary s treasure, containing in its little drawers antique gold coins of India, carefully dated and arranged, with a list of its contents half-torn from the lid. THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA 21? %< You should hear Tranchcoeur s sermons on these pretty texts," said the countess, trying to thrust open a bale of Brusa silk with her Turkish slipper, "He will beat off the top of a stalagmite with his sabre-hilt, and sit down and talk over his spoils and the adventures they recall, till morning dawns." " And how is that discovered in this sunless cave ?" " By the perfume. The river brings news of it. and fills the cavern with the sun s first kisses. Those violets kiss and tell, Mr. Tyrell ! Apropos des bottes, let us look into the kitchen." We turned to the right, keeping on the same level, and a few steps brought us to the brow of a consider able descent forming the lower edge of the carpeted platform, but separated from it by a wall of close stalactites. At the bottom of the descent ran the river, but just along the brink, forming a considerable crescent, extended a flat rock, occupied by all the varied implements of a kitchen, and lighted bv the glare of two or three different fires blazing against the perpendicular limit of the cave. The smoke of these followed the inclination of the wall, and was swept entirely down with the current of the river. At the nearest fire stood Perdicaris, a fat, long-haired and sinister-looking rascal, his noseless face glowing with the heat, and at his side waited, with a silver dish, the Nubian slave who had been sent for Tranchcoeur s omelette. 19 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. " One of the most bloody fights of my friend the rover," said Iminild, "was with an armed slaver, from whom he took these six pages of mine. They have reason enough to comprehend an order, but too little to dream of liberty. They are as contented as tortoises, ici-bas" " Is there no egress hence but by the iron door ?" " None that I know of, unless one could swim up this swift river like a salmon. You may have sur mised by this time, that we monopolize an unex plored part of the great cave of Adelsberg. Com mon report says it extends ten miles under ground, but common report has never burrowed as far as this, and I doubt whether there is any communica tion. Father Krakenpate s clock conceals an en trance, discovered first by robbers, and handed down by tradition, heaven knows how long. But hark ! Tranchcoeur, by heaven ! my heart foreboded it!" I sprang after the countess, who, with her last exclamation, darted between two of the glittering columns separating us from the platform, and my first glance convinced me that her fullest anticipa tions of the pirate s jealousy were more than realis ed. Percie stood with his back to a tall pillar on the farther side, with his pistol levelled, calm and unmoveable as a stalactite; and, with his sabre THE BANDIT OP AUSTRIA. 219 drawn and his eyes flashing fire, a tall powerfully- built man in a sailor s preks, was arrested by Iminild in the act of rushing on him. " Stop ! or you die, Tranchcoeur !" said the countess, in a tone of trifling command. He is my guest !" " He is my prisoner, madame !" was the answer as the pirate changed his position to one of perfect repose and shot his sabre into his sheath, as if a brief delay could make little difference. " We shall see that," said the countess, once more* with as soft a voice as was ever heard in a lady s boudoir ; and stepping to the edge of the platform she touched with her slipper a suspended gong, which sent through the cavern a shrill reveberation heard clearly over the rushing music of the river. In an instant the click of forty muskets from the other side fell on our ears ; and, at a wave of her hand, the butts rattled on the rocks, and all was still again. " I have not trusted myself within your reach, Monsieur Tranchcceur," said Iminild, flinging her self carelessly on an ottoman, and motioning to Per- cie to keep his stand, " withont a score or two of my free riders from Mount Semering to regulate your conscience. I am mistress here, sir! You may sit down !" Tranchcoeur had assumed an air of the most gen tlemanly tranquillity, and motioning to one of the 220 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. slaves for his pipe, he politely begged pardon for smoking in the countess s presence, and filled the enamelled bowl with Shiraz tobacco. " You heard of Yvain s death ?" she remarked after a moment passing her hand over her eyes. "Yes, at Venice." "With his dying words, he gave me and mine in charge to this Englishman. Mr. Tyrell, Monsieur Tranchcceur." The pirate bowed. " Have you been long from England 7" he asked with an accent and voice that even in that brief question, savoured of the nonchalant English of the West End. " Two years P ? I answered. " I should have supposed much longer from your chivalry in St. Etienne, Mr. Tyrell. My country men generally are less hasty. Your valet there," he continued, looking sneeringly at Percie, " seems as quick on the trigger as his master." Percie turned on his heel, and walked to the edge of the platform as if uneasy at the remark, and Im- inild rose to her feet. " Look you, Tranchco3ur ! I ll have none of your sneers. That youth is as well-born and better bred than yourself, and with his consent, shall have the authority of the holy church ere long to protect my property and me. Will you aid me in this, Mr.. Tyrell I" THE BANDIT OF AUSTRIA. 221 " Willingly, countess !" " Then, Tranchcoeur, farewell ! I have withdrawn from the common stock Yvain s gold and jewels, and I trust to your sense of honour to render me at Venice whatever else of his private property may be concealed in the island." " Iminild !" cried the pirate, springing to his feet, " I did not think to show a weakness before this stranger, but I implore you to delay !" His bosom heaved with strong emotion as he spoke, and the colour fled from his bronzed features as if he were struck with a mortal sickness. " I cannot lose you, Iminild ! I have loved you too long. You must " She motioned to Percie to pass on. " By heaven, you shall !" he cried, in a voice sud denly become hoarse with passion ; and reckless of consequences, he leaped across the heaps of cushions , and, seizing Percie by the throat, flung him with terrible and headlong violence into the river. A scream from Iminild, and the report of a mus ket from the other side, rang at the same instant through the cavern, and as I rushed forward to seize the pistol which he had struck from Percie s hand, his half-drawn sabre slid back powerless into the sheath, and Tranchcceur dropped heavily on his knee. " I am peppered, Mr. Tyrell !" he said, waving me 19* ROMANCE OF TRAVfit. off with difficult effort to smile, "look after the boy, if you care for him ! A curse on her German wolves !" Percie met me on the bridge, supporting Iminild, who hung on his neck, smothering him with kisses. " Where is that dog of a pirate V she cried, sud denly snatching her ataghan from the sheath and flying across the platform. " Tranchcoeur !" Her hand was arrested by the deadly pallor and helpless attitude of the wounded man, and the wea pon dropped as she stood over him. \ " 1 think it is not mortal," he said, groaning as he pressed his hand to his side. " but take your boy out of my sight! Iminild!" Well^ranchcceur !" " I have not done well but you know my nature and my love ! Forgive me, and farewell ! Send Bertram to stanch his blood I get faint ! A little wine, Iminild !" He took the massive flagon from her hand, and drank a long draught, and then drawing to him a cloak which lay near, he covered his head and drop ped on his side as if to sleep. Iminild knelt beside him and tore open the shirt beneath his jacket, and while she busied herself in stanching the blood, Perdicaris, apparently well pre pared tor such accidents, arrived with a surgeon s probe, and, on examination of the wound, assured THE BANDIT OF AU-STRIA. Iminild that she might safely leave him. Washing her hands in the flagon of wine, she threw a cloak over the wet and shivering Percie, and, silent with horror at the scene behind us, we made our way over the bridge, and in a short time, to my infinite relief, stood in the broad moonlight on the portico of Myneer Krakenpate. My carriage was soon loaded with the baggage and treasure of the countess, and with the same swift horses that had brought us from Planina, we regained the post-road, and sped on toward Venice by the Friuli. We arrived on the following night at the fair city so beloved of romance, and with what haste I might, I procured a priest and mar ried the Countess Iminild to gentleman Percie. As she possessed now a natural guardian, and a sufficient means of life, I felt released from my death vow to Yvain, and bidding farewell to the "happy couple," I resumed my quiet habit of travel, and three days after my arrival at Venice, was on the road to Padua by the Brenta. , or tfte ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. OONDER-HOOFDEN, O.I THE UNDERCLIFF. A TALE OF THE VOYAGE OF HKNDRICK HUDSON. CHAP. 1. " It is but an arm of the sea, as I told thee, skip per," said John Fleming, the mate of the " Halve- Mane," standing ready to jam down the tiller and bring-to, if his master should agree with him in opi nion. Hudson stood by his steersman, with folded arms, now looking at the high-water mark on the rocks, which betrayed a falling tide, now turning his ear slightly forward to catch the cry of the man who stood heaving the lead from the larboard bow. The wind drew lightly across the starboard quarter, and, with a counter-tide, the little vessel stole on scarce perceptibly, though her mainsail was kept full the 228 OONDER-HOOFDEtt* 4 slowly passing forest trees on the shore giving the lie to the merry and gurgling ripple at the prow. The noble river, or creek, which they had follow ed in admiring astonishment for fifty miles, had hith erto opened fairly and broadly before them, though, once or twice, its widening and mountain-girt bosom had deceived the bold navigator into the belief, that he was entering upon some inland lake. The wind still blew kindly and steadily from the south east, and the sunset of the second day a spectacle of tumultuous and gorgeous glory which Hudson attributed justly to the more violent atmospheric laws of an unsettled continent had found them appa rently closed in by impenetrable mountains, and run ning immediately on the head shore of an extended arm of the sea. " She ll strike before she can follow her helm, " cried the young sailor in an impatient tone, yet still with hab ! tual obedience keeping her duly on her course. " Port a little !" answered the skipper, a moment after, as if he had not heard the querulous comment of his mate. Fleming s attention was withdrawn an instant by a low gutteral sound of satisfaction, which reached his ear as the head of the vessel went round, and. casting his eye a-mid-ships, he observed the three Indians who had come off to the Half-Moon in a OONDER-HOOFDEN. 220 canor and had been received onboard by the master, standing together in the chains, and looking for ward to the rocks they were approaching with countenances of the most eager interest. "Master Hendrick!" he vociferated in the tone of a man who can contain his anger no longer, " will you look at these grinning red-devils, who are re joicing to see you run so blindly ashore ?" The adventurous little bark was r>y this time within a biscuit toss of a rocky point that jutted forth iiiio rhe river with the grace of a ^cidy ; c root dallying with the water in her bath ; and, beyond the sedgy bank disappeared in an apparent inlet, barely deep enough, it seemed to the irritated steers man, to shelter a canoe. As the Half-Moon obeyed her last order, and headed a point more to the west, Hudson strode forward to the bow, and sprang upon the windlass, stretching his gaze eagerly into the bosom of the hills that were now darkening with the heavy sha dows of twilight, though the sky was still gorgeously purple overhead. The crew had by this time gathered with uncon scious apprehension at the halyards, ready to let go at the slightest gesture of the master, but, in the slow progress of the little bark, the minute or two which she took to advance beyond the point on which his eye was fixed, seemed an age of suspense. 20 230 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. The Half-Moon seemed now almost immoveable for the current, which convinced Hudson there was a passage beyond, set her back from the point with increasing force, and the wind lulled a little with the sunset. Inch by inch, however she crept on, till at last the silent skipper sprang from the windlass upon the bowsprit, and, running out with the agility of a boy, gave a single glance ahead, and the next mo ment had the tiller in his hand, and cried out with a voice of thunder, "Stand bv the halvards! helm s- alee!" In a moment, as if his words had been lightning, the blocks rattled, tho heavy boom swung round lik^ a willow spray, and the white canvass, after flutter ing an instant in the wind, filled and drew steadily on the other tack. Looks of satisfaction were exchanged between the crew, who expected the next instant an order to take in the sail and drop anchor but the master was at the helm, and to their utter consternation, he kept her steadily to the wind and drove straight on while a gorge, that in the increasing darkness, seemed the entrance to a cavern, opened its rocky sides as they advanced. The apprehensions of the crew were half lost in their astonishment at the grandeur of the scene. The cliffs seemed to close up behind them ; a moun tain, that reached apparently to the now colourless ObNliEk-HOOFDEN. 231 clouds, rose up gigantic, in the increasing twilight, over the prow; on the right, where the water seemed to bend, a craggy precipice extended its threaten ing wall ; and in the midst of this round bay, which seemed to them to be an enclosed lake in the bottom of an abyss, the wind suddenly took them aback, the Halve Mane lost her headway, and threatened to go on the rocks with the current, and audible cur ses at his folly reached the ears of the determined master. More to divert their attention than with a prognos tic of the direction of the wind, Hudson gave the order to tack, and, more slowly this time, but still with sufficient expedition, the movement was execut ed, and the flapping sails swung round. The hal yards, were not belayed before the breeze, rush ing down a steep valley on the left, struck full on the larboard quarter, and, running sharp past the face of the precipice over the starboard bow, Hudson pointed out, exultingly, to his astonished men, the broad waters of the mighty river, extend ing far through the gorge beyond the dim purple of the lingering day, which had been long lost to the cavernous and overshadowed pass they had pene trated, tinting its far bosom like the last faint hue of the expiring dolphin. The exulting glow of triumph suffused the face of the skipper, and relinquishing the tiller once more ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. to the mortified Fleming, he walked forward to look out for an anchorage. The Indians, who still stood in the chains together, and who had continued to express their satisfaction as the vessel made her way through the pass, now pointed eagerly to a little bay on the left, across which a canoe was shooting like the reflection of a lance in the air, and, the wind dying momently away, Hudson gave the order to round to, and dropped his anchor for the night. In obedience to the politic orders of Hudson the men were endeavouring, by presents and s : gns, to induce the Indians to leave the vessel, and the mas ter himself stood on the poop with his mate, gazing back on the wonderful scene they had passed through. " This passage," said Hudson, musingly, " has been rent open by an earthquake, and the rocks look still as if they felt the agony of the throe." " It is a pity the earthquake did its job so rag gedly, then !" answered his sulky companion, who had not yet forgiven the mountains for the shame their zig-zag precipices hnd put upon his sagacity. At that instant a sound, like that of a heavy body sliding into the water, struck the ear of Fleming, and looking quickly over the stern, he saw one of the Indians swimming from the vessel with a pillow in his hand, which he had evidently stolen from the cabin window. To seize a musket, which lay ready OONDER-HOOFDEN. 233 for attack on the quarter-deck, and fire upon the poor savage, was the sudden thought and action of a man on the watch, for a vent to incensed feelings. The Indian gave a yell which mingled wildly with the echoes of the report from the reverberating hills, and springing waist-high out of the water, the gurg ling eddy closed suddenly over his head. The canoe in which the other savages were already embarked shot away, like an arrow, to the shore, and Hudson, grieved and alarmed inexpres sibly at the fool-hardy rashness of his mate, ordered all hands to arms, and established a double watch for the night. Hour after hour, the master and the non-repent ant Fleming paced fore and aft, each in his own quarter of the vessel, watching the shore and the dark face of the water with straining eyes : but no sound came from the low cliff round which the fly ing canoe had vanished, and the stars seemed to wink almost audibly in the dread stillness of nature. The men alarmed at the evident agitation of Hud son, who, in these pent-up waters, anticipated a most effective and speedy revenge from the sur rounding tribes, drowsed not upon their watch, and the gray light of the morning began to show faintly over the mountains before the anxious master with drew his aching eyes from the still and star waters. 20* 234 ROMANCE TRAVEL. CHAP. II. LIKE a web woven of gold by the lightning, the sun s rays ran in swift threads from summit to sum mit of the dark green mountains, and the soft mist that slept on the breast of the river began to lift like the slumberous lid from the eye of woman, when her dream is broken at dawn. Not so poetically were these daily glories regarded, however, by the morning watch of the Half-Moon, who, between the desire to drop asleep with their heads on the capstan, and the necessity of keeping sharper watch lest the Indians should come off through the rising mist, bore the double pains of Tantalus and Sysi- phus ungratified desire at their lips and threaten ing ruin over their heads. After dividing the watch at the break of day, Hudson, with the relieved part of his crew, had gone below, and might have been asleep an hour, when Fleming suddenly entered the cabin and laid his hand upon his shoulder. The skipper sprang from his birth with the habitual readiness of a sea man, and followed his mate upon deck, w!: re he found his men standing to their arms, and watching an object that, to his first glance, seemed like a canoe sailing down upon them through the air. The rash homi cide drew close to Hendrick as he regarded it ? OONDER-HOOFDEN. 235 and the chatter of his teeth betrayed that during the long and anxious watches of the night, his conscience had not justified him for the hasty death he had awarded to a fellow creature. " She but looms through the mist !" said the skip per, after regarding the advancing object for a moment. " It is a single canoe, and can scarce harm us. Let her come alongside !" The natural explanation of the phenomenon at once satisfied the crew, who had taken their super- stitous fears rather from Fleming s evident alarm than from their own want of reflection ; but the guilty man himself still gazed on the advancing phantom, and when a slight stir of the breeze raised the mist like the corner of a curtain, and dropped the canoe plain upon the surface of the river, he turned gloomily on his heel, and muttered in an undertone to Hudson, " It brings no good, Skipper Hendrick !" Meanwhile the canoe advanced slowly. The single paddle which propelled her paused before every turn, and as the mist lifted quite up and show ed a long green line of shore between its shadowy fringe and the water, an Indian, highly painted, and more ornamented than any they had hitherto seen, appeared gazing earnestly at the vessel, and evident ly approaching with fear and caution. The Half-Moon was heading up the river wi tn 236 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. the rising tide, and Hudson walked forward to the bows to look at the savage more closely. By the eagle and bear, so richly embroidered in the gay- coloured quills of the porcupine on his belt of wam pum, he presumed him to be a chief; and glancing his eye into the canoe, he saw the pillow which had occasioned the death of the plunderer the night before, and on it lay two ears of corn, and two broken arrows. Pausing a moment as he drew near, the Indian pointed to these signs of peace, and Hudson, in reply, spread out his open hands and beckoned him to come on board. In an instant the slight canoe shot under the starboard bow, and with a noble confidence which the skipper remarked upon with admiration, the tall savage sprang upon the deck and laid the hand of the commander to his breast. The noon arrived, hot and sultry, and there was no likelihood of a wind till sunset. The chief had been feasted on board, and had shown, in his delight, the most^unequivocal evidence of good feeling; and even Fleming, at last, who had drank more freely than usual during the morning, abajadoned his suspicion, and joined in amusing the superp savage who was their guest. In the course of the forenoon, another canoe came off, paddled by a single young woman, whom Fleming, recognised as having accompanied OONDER-HOOFDEN. the plunderers the night before, but in his half-intox^ icated state, it seemed to recall none of his previous bodings, and to his own surprise, and that of the crew, she evidently regarded him with particulai favour, and by pertinacious and ingenious signs, endeavoured to induce him to go ashore with her in the canoe. The particular character of her face and form would have given the mate a clue to her probable motives, had he been less reckless from his excitement. She was taller than is common for females of the savage tribes, and her polished limbs, as gracefully moulded in their dark hues as those of the mercury of the fountain, combined, with their slightness, a nerve and steadiness of action which betrayed strength and resolution of heart and frame. Her face was highly beautiful, but the voluptuous fulness of the lips was contradicted by a fierce fire in her night- dark eyes, and a quickness of the brow to descend, which told of angry passions habitu ally on the alert. It was remarked by Hans Chris- taern, one of the crew, that when Fleming left her for an instant, she abstracted herself from the other joyous groups, and, with folded arms and looks of brooding thoughtfulness, stood looking over the stern ; but immediately on his re-appearance, her snowy teeth became visible between her relaxing lips, and she resumed her patient gaze upon his countenance, and her occasionl efforts to draw him into the canoe, 238 ROMANCE OF TRAVfiL. Quite regardless of the presence of the woman, the chief sat apart with Hudson, communicating his ideas by intelligent signs, and after a while, the skip per called his mate, and informed him that, as far as he could understand, the chief wished to give them a feast on shore. " Arm yourselves well, " said he, " though I look for no treachery from this noble pagan ; and if chance should put us in danger, we shall be more tKan a match for the whole tribe. Come with me, Fleming," he continued, after a pause, " you are too rash with your fire-arms to be left in command. Man the watch, four of you, and the rest get into the long-boat. We ll while away these sluggish hours, though danger is in it." The men sprang gaily below for their arms, and were soon equipped and ready, and the chief, with an expression of delight, put offin his canoe, followed more slowly by the heavy long-boat, into which Hudson, having given particular orders to the watch to let no savages on board during his absence, was the last to embark. The woman, whom the chief had called to him before his departure by the name of Kihyalee, sped off before in her swift canoe to ano ther point of the shore, and when Fleming cried out from the bow of the boat, impatiently motioning her to follow, she smiled in a manner that sent a momen tary shudder through the veins of the skipper who chanced to observe the action, and by a circular OONDER-HOOPDEN. 239 movement of her arm conveyed to him that she should meet him from the other side of the hill. As they followed the chief, they disco verd the wig wams of an Indian village behind the rocky point for which she was making, and understood that the chief had sent her thither on some errand connected with his proposed hospitality. A large square rock, which had the look of hav ing been hurled with some avalanche from the mountain, lay in the curve of a small beach of sand, surrounded by the shallow water, and, on the left of this, the chief pointed out to the skipper a deeper channel, hollowed by the entrance of a mountain* torrent into the river, through which he might bring his boat to land. At the edge of this torrent s bed, the scene of the first act of hospitality to our race upon the Hudson, stands at this day the gate to the most hospitable mansion on the river, as if the spirit of the spot had consecrated it to its first association with the white man. The chief led the way when the crew had disem barked, by a path skirting the deep-worn bed of the torrent, and after an ascent of a few minutes, through a grove of tall firs, a short turn to the left brought them upon an open table of land, a hundred and fifty feet above the river, shut in by a circle of forest-trees, and frowned over on the east by a tall and bald cliff, which shot up in a perpendicular line to the height 40 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. of three hundred feet. From a cleft in the face of* this precipice a natural spring oozed forth, drawing a darker line down the sun-parched rock, and feeding a small stream that found its way to the river on the northern side of the platform just mentioned, creating between itself and the deeper torrent to the south, a sort of highland peninsula, now constituting the estate of the hospitable gentleman above alluded to. Hudson looked around him with delight and sur- piise when he stood on the highest part of the broad natural table selected by the chief for his entertain ment. The view north showed a cleft through the hills, with the river coiled like a lake in its widening bed, while a blue and wavy line of mountains form ed the far horizon at its back ; south, the bold eminen ces, between which he had found his adventurous way, closed in like the hollowed sides of a bright- green vase, with glimpses of the river lying in its bottom like crystal; below him descended a sharp and wooded bank, with the river at its foot, and directly opposite rose a hill in a magnificent cone to the very sky, sending its shadow down through the mirrored water, as if it entered to some inner world. The excessive lavishness of the foliage clothed these bold natural features with a grace and richness altogether capt vating to the senses, and Hudson long stood, gazing around him, believing that the tales of brighter and happier lands were OONDER-HOOFDBN. 241 truer than he had deemed, and that it was his lucky destiny to have been the discoverer of a future Utopia. A little later, several groups of Indians were seen advancing from the village, bearing the materials for a feast, which they deposited under a large tree, indicated by the chief. It was soon arranged, and Hudson with his men surrounded the dishes of shell and wood, one of which, placed in the centre, con tained a roasted dog, half buried in Indian-corn. While the chief and several of his warriors sat down in company with the whites, the young men danced the calumet-dance to the sound of a rude drum, formed by drawing a skin tightly over a wooden bowl, and near them, in groups, stood the women and children of the village, glancing with looks of curiosity from the feats of the young men to the unaccustomed faces of the strangers. Among the women stood Kihyalee, who kept her large bright eyes fixed almost fiercely upon Fleming yet when he looked towards her, she smiled and turned as if she would beckon him away a bid ding which he tried in vain to obey, under the vi gilant watch of his master. The feast went on, and the Indians having pro duced gourds, filled with a slight intoxicating liquor made from the corn, Hudson offered to the chief some spirits from a bottle which he had entrusted 21 242 ROBAWCE OP TRAVEL. to one of the men to wash down the expected rough ness of the savage viands. The bottle passed in turn to the mate, who was observed to drink freely, and, a few minutes after, Hudson rising to see more nearly a trial of skill with the bow and arrow, Flem ing found the desired opportunity, and followed the tempting Kihyalee into the forest. The sun began to throw the shadows of the tall pines in gigantic pinnacles along the ground and the youths of the friendly tribe, who had entertained the great navigator, ceased from their dances and feats of skill, and clustered around the feast- tree. Intend ing to get under weigh with the evening breeze and proceed still farther up the river, Hudson rose to col lect his men, and bid the chief farewell. Taking the hand of the majestic savage and putting it to his breast, to express in his own manner the kind feel ings he entertained for him, he turned toward the path by which he came, and was glancing round at his men, when Hans Christaern enquired if he had sent the mate back to the vessel. " Der teufel, no !" answered the skipper, missing him for the first time ; " has he been long gone ?" " A full hour !" said one of the men. Hudson put his hand to his head, and remember- ed the deep wroug Fleming had done to the tribe. Retribution, he feared, had over-taken him but OONDEE-HOPDBN. 243 how was it done so silently ? How had the guilty man been induced to leave his comrades, and acce lerate his doom by his own voluntary act? The next instant resolved the question. A distant, and prolonged scream, as of a man in mortal agony, drew all eyes to the summit of the beetling cliff, which overhung them. On its extremest verge, out lined distinctly against the sky, stood the tall figure of Kihyalee, holding from her, yet poised over the pre cipice, the writhing form of her victim, while in the other hand, flashing in the rays of the sun, glittered the bright hatchet she had plucked from his girdle. Infuriated at the sight, and suspecting collision on the part of the chief, Hudson drew his cutlass and gave the order to stand to arms, but as he turned? the gigantic savage had drawn an arrow to its head with incredible force, and though it fell far short of its mark, there was that in the action and in his look which, in the passing of a thought, changed the mind of the skipper. In another instant, the hesitating arm of the widowed Kihyalee descended, and loose- ening her hold upon the relaxed body of her victim, the doomed mate fell heavily down the face of the precipice. The chief turned to Hudson, who stood trembling and aghast at the awful scene, and plucking the re maining arrows from his quiver, he broke them and threw himself on the ground. The tribe gathered 244 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. around their chief, Hudson moved his hand to them in token of forgiveness, and in a melancholy silence the crew took their way after him to the shore. ROMANCE OF TRAVEL, THE PICKER AND FILER. The nature of the strange incident I have to relate forbids me to record either place or time. On one of the wildest nights in which I had ever been abroad, I drove my panting horses through a snow drift breast high, to the door of a small tavern in the western country. The host turned out un willingly at the knock of my whip handle on the outer door, and, wading, before the tired animals to the barn, which was nearly inaccessible from the banks of snow, he assisted me in getting off their frozen harnesses, and bestowing them safely for the night The "bar-room" fire burnt brightly, and never was fire more welcome. Room was made for me by four or five rough men who sat silent around it, and $4$ ROMANCE OF* TRAVEL, with a keen comprehension of " pleasure after pain, I took off my furs and moccasins, and streched my cold contracted limbs to the blaze. When, a few minutes after, a plate of cold salt beef was brought hie, with a corn cake and a mug of " flip" hissing from the poker, it certainly would have been hard to convince me that I would have put on my coats and moccasins again to have ridden a mile to Paradise* The faces pf my new companions, which I had not found time to inspect very closely while my sup per lasted, were fully revealed by the light of a pitch- pine knot, thrown on the hearth by the landlord and their grim reserve and ferocity put me in mind* for the first time since I had entered the room, of my errand in that quarter of the country. The timber-tracts which lie convenient to the rivers of the west, offer to the refugee and desperado of every description, a resource from want, and, (in their own opinion,) from crime, which is seized upon by aH at least who are willing to labour. The own ers of the extensive forests, destined to - become so valuable, are mostly men of large speculation, living in citeis, who> satisfied with the constant advance.-in the price of lumber, consider their pine-trees as liable to nothing but the laws of nature, and leave them unfenced and unprotected, to increase in size and value till the land beneath them is wanted for culture, It is natural enough that solitary settlers, living in the TUB PICKER A X D FILER. 249 neighborhood of miles of apparently unclaimed land, should think seldom of the owner, and in time grow to the opinion of the Indian, that the Great Spirit gave the land, the air, and the water, to all his children, and they are free to all alike. Furnishing the requisite teams and implements therefore, the inhabitants of these tracts collect a number of the stragglers through the country, and forming what is called a " bee," go into the nearest woods, and for a month or more, work laboriously at selecting, and felling the tallest and straightest pines. In their rude shanty at night they have bread, pork, and whiskey, which hard labour makes sufficiently palat able, and the time is passed merrily till the snow is right for sledding. The logs are then drawn to the water sides, rafts are formed, and the valuable lumber, for which they paid nothing but their labour, is run to the cites for their common advantage. The only enemies of this class of men are the agents who are sometimes sent out in the winter to detect them in the act of felling or drawing off timber, and in the dark countenances around the fire, I read this as the interpretation of my own visit to the woods. They soon brightened and grew talkative when they discovered that I was in search of hands to fell and burn, and make clearing for a farm ; and after a talk of an hour or two, I was told in answer to my inquiries, that all the" men people" in the country 250 ROMANCE OF TEAVEL. were busy "lumbering for themselves," unless it were the " Picker and Filer." As the words were pronounced, a shrill neigh outside the door pronounced the arrival of a new comer. " Talk of the devil" said the man in a lower tone, and without finishing the proverb he rose with a respect which he had not accorded to me, to make room for the Picker and Piler. A man of rather low stature entered, and turned to drive back his horse, who had followed him nearly in. I observed that the animal had neither saddle uor bridle. Shutting the door upon him without violence, he exchanged nods with one or two of the men, and giving the landlord a small keg which he had brought, he pleaded haste for refusing the offered chair, and stood silent by the fire. His fea tures were blackened with smoke, but I could see that they were small and regular, and his voice, though it conveyed in its deliberate accents an indefinable resolution, was almost femininely soft and winning. " That stranger yonder has got a job for you, " said the landlord, as he gave him back the keg and received the money. Turning quickly upon me, he detected me in a very eager scrunity of himself, and for a moment I was thrown too much off my guard to address him. THE PICKER AND FILER. 251 " Is it you, sir ?" he asked, after waiting a mo ment. Yes, I have some work to be done hereabouts, but you seem in a hurry. Could you call here to morrow." " I may not be here again in a week." " Do you live far from here ?" He smiled. " I scarce know where I live, but I am burning a piece of wood a mile or two up the run, and if you would like a warmer bed than the landlord will give you " That personage decided the question for me by telling me in so many words that I had better go. His beds were all taken up, and my horses should be taken care of till my return. I saw that my pre sence had interrupted something, probably the for. mation of a " bee," and more willingly than I would have believed possible an hour before, I resumed my furs and wrappers, and declared that I was ready. The Picker and Filer had inspired me, and I knew not why, with an involuntary respect and liking. " It is a rough night, sir," said he, as he shoulder ed a rifle he had left outside, and slung the keg by a leather strap over the neck of his horse, "but I will soon show you a better climate. Come, sir, jump on !" "And you?" I said inquisitively, as he held his horse by the mane for me to mount. It was a 252 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. Canadian pony, scarce larger than a Newfoundland dog. " I am more used to the road, sir, and will walk. Come?" " It was no time to stand upon etiquette, even if it had been possible to resist the strange tone of authority with which he spoke. So without more ado, I sprang upon the animal s back, and holding on by the long tuft upon his withers, suffered him passively to plunge through the drift after his master. Wondering at the readiness with which I had entered upon this equivocal adventure, but never for an instant losing confidence in my guide, I shut my eyes to the blinding cold, and accommodating my limbs as well as I could to the bare back and scram bling paces of the Canadian. The Picker and Filer strode on before, the pony following like a spaniel at his heels, and after a half hour s tramp, during which I had merely observed that we were rounding the base of a considerable hill, we turned short to the right, and were met by a column of smoke, which, lifting, the moment after, disclosed the two slopes of a considerable valley enveloped in one sea of fire. A red, lurid cloud, overhung it at the tops of the tallest trees, and far and wide, above that, spread a covering of black smoke, heav ing upward in vast and billowy masses, and rolling away on every side into the darkness. THE PICKER AND FILER. 253 We approached a pine of gigantic height, on fire to the very peak, not a branch left on the trunk, and its pitchy knots distributed like the eyes of the lamprey, burning pure and steady amid the irregu lar flame. I had once or twice, with an instinctive wish to draw rein, pulled hard upon the tangled tuft in my hand, but master and horsa* kept on. This burning tree, however, was the first of a thou sand, and as the pony turned his eyes away from the intense heat to pass between it and a bare rock, I glanced into the glowing labyrinth beyond, and my faith gave way. I jumped from his back and hailed the Picker and Filer, with a halloo scarcely audible amid the tumult of the crackling branches* My voice did not evidently reach his ear, but the pony, relieved from my weight, galloped to his side, and rubbed his muzzle against the unoccupied hand of his master. He turned back immediately. " I beg pardon," he said, "I have that to think of just now which makes me forgetful. I am not surprised at your hesitation, but mount again and trust the pony." The animal turned rather unwillingly at his mas ter s bidding, and a little ashamed of having shown fear, while a horse would follow, I jumped again on his back. " If you find the heat inconvienent, cover your face." And with this laconic advice, the Picker 22 254 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. and Filer turned on his heel, and once more strode away before us. Sheltering the sides of my face by holding up the corners of my wrapper with both hands, I aban doned myself to the horse. He overtook his master with a shuffling canter, and putting his nose ag close to the ground as he could carry it without stumbling, followed closely at his heels. I observed, by the green logs lying immediately along our path, that we were following an avenue of prostrate timber which had been felled before the wood was fired ; but descending presently to the left, we , struck at once into the deep bed of a brook, and by the lifted head and slower gait of the pony, as well as my own easier respiration, I found that the" hollow through which it ran, contained a body of pure air unreached by the swaying curtains of smoke or the excessive heat of the fiery currents above. The pony now picked his way leisurely along the brookside, and while my lungs expanded with the relief of breathing a more temperate atmosphere, I raised myself from my stooping post ure in a profuse perspiration, and one by one disem- barassed myself from my protectives against the cold. I had lost sight for several minutes of the Picker and Filer, and presumed by the pony s desultory movements that he was near the end of his journey y THE PICKER AND PILBR. when, rounding a shelvy point of rock, we stood suddenly upon the brink of a slight waterfall, where the brook leaped four or five feet into a shrunken dell, and after describing a half circle on a rocky platform, resumed its onward course in the same direction as before. This curve of the brook and the platform it enclosed lay lower than the general level of the forest, and the air around and within it, it seemed to me, was as clear and genial as the summer noon. Over one side, from the rocky wall, a rude and temporary roof of pine slabs drooped upon a barricade of logs, forming a low hut, and before the entrance of this, at the moment of my appearance, stood a woman and a showily dressed young man, both evidently confused at the sudden apparition of the Picker and Filer. My eyes had scarce rested on the latter, when, from standing at his fullest height with his rifle raised as if to beat the other to the earth, he suddenly resumed his stooping and quiet mien, set his rifle against the rock, and came forward to give me his hand. " My daughter !" he said, more in the way of explanation than introduction, and without taking further notice of the young man whose presence seemed so unwelcome, he poured me a draught from the keg he had brought, pointed to the water falling close at my hand, and threw himself at his length upon the ground. 256 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. The face and general appearance of the young man, now seated directly opposite me, offered no temptation for more than a single glance, and my whole attention was soon absorbed by the daughter of my singular host, who, crossing from the plat form to the hut, divided her attention between a haunch of venison roasting before a burning log of hickory, and the arrangement of a few most primi tive implements for our coming supper. She was slight, like her father, in form, and as far as I had been able to distinguish his blackened features, resembled him in the general outline. But in the place of his thin and determined mouth, her lips were round and voluptuous, and though her eye looked as if it might wake, it expressed, even in the pre sence of her moody father, a drowsy and soft indo lence, common enough to the Asiatics, but seldom seen in America. Her dress was coarse and careless, but she was beautiful with every possible disadvantage, and, whether married or not, evi dently soon to become a mother. The venison was placed before us on the rock, and the young man, uninvited, and with rather an air of bravado, cut himself a steak from the haunch and broiled it on the hickory coals, while the daugh ter kept as near him as her attention to her father s wants would permit, but neither joined us in eating, nor encouraged my attempts at conversation. The THE PICKER AND P I L E R. 257 Picker and Filer ate in silence, leaving me to be my own carver, and finishing his repast by a deep draught from the keg which had been the means of our acquaintance, he sprang upon his feet and dis- ppaeared. "The wind has changed," said the daughter, looking up at the smoke, " and he has gone to the western edge to start a new fire. It s a full half mile, and he ll be gone an hour." This was said with a look at me which was any thing but equivocal. I was de trop. I took up the rifle of the Picker and Piler, forgetting that there was probably nothing to shoot in a burning wood, and remarking that I would have a look for a deer, jumped up the water-fall side, and was immediately hidden by the rocks. I had no conception of the scene that lay around me. The natural cave or hollow of rock in which the hut lay embosomed, was the centre of an area of perhaps an acre, which had been felled in the heart of the wood before it was set on fire. The forest encircled it with blazing columns, whose capitals were apparently lost in the sky, and cur tains of smoke and flame, which flew as if lashed into ribands by a whirlwind. The grandeur, the violence, the intense brightness of the spectacle, outran all imagination. The pines, on fire to the peak, and straight as arrows, seemed to resemble, 22* 258 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. at one moment the conflagration of an eastern city, with innumerable minarets abandoned to the de vouring element. At the next moment," the wind, changing its direction, swept out every vestige of smoke, and extinguished every tongue of flame, and the tall trees, in clear and flameless ignition, standing parallel in thousands, resembled some blinding temple of the genii, whose columns of miraculous rubies, sparkling audibly, outshone the day. By single glances, my eye penetrated into aisles of blazing pillars, extending far into the forest, and the next instant, like a tremendous surge alive with serpents of fire, the smoke and flame swept through it, and it seemed to me as if some glorious structure had been consumed in the passing of a thought. For a minute, again, all would be still except the crackling of the fibres of the wood, and with the first stir of the wind, like a shower of flashing gems, the bright coals rained down through the forest, and for a moment the earth glowed under the trees as if its whole crust were alive with one bright ignition^ With the pungency of the smoke and heat, and the variety and bewilderment of the spectacle, I found my eyes and brain growing giddy. The brook ran cool below, and the heat had dried the leaves in the small clearing, and with the abandon ment of a man overcome with the sultriness of THE PICKER AND FILER. 259 summer, I lay down on the rivulet s bank, and dipped my head and bathed my eyes in the running water. Close to its surface there was not a parti cle of smoke in the air, and, exceedingly refreshed with its temperate coolness, I lay for sometime in luxurious ease, trying in vain to fancy the winter that howled without. Frost and cold were never more difficult to realize in midsummer, though within a hundred rods, probably, a sleeping man would freeze to death in an hour. "I have a better bed for you in the shanty," said the Picker and Filer, who had approached unheard in the noise of the fires, and suddenly stood over me. He took up his rifle, which I had laid against a prostrate log, and looked anxiously towards the descent to the hut. " I am little inclined for sleep," I answered, " and perhaps you will give me an hour of conversation here. The scene is new to me" "I have another guest to dispose of," he ans wered, " and we shall be more out of the smoke near the shanty." I was not surprised, as I jumped upon the platform, to find him angrily separating his daugh ter and the stranger. The girl entered the hut, and with a decisive gesture, he pointed the young man to a " shake-down" of straw in the remotest corner of the rocky enclosure. 260 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. "With your leave, old gentleman," said the intruder, after glancing at his intended place of repose, " I ll find a crib for myself." And springing up the craggy rock opposite the door of the shanty he gathered a slight heap of brush, and threw it into a hollow left in the earth by a tree, which, though full grown and green, had been borne to the earth and partly uprooted by the falling across it of an overblown and gigantic pine. The earth and stones had followed the uptorn mass, forming a solid upright wall, from which, like struggling fingers, stretching back in agony to the ground from which they had parted, a few rent and naked roots pointed into the cavity. The sequel will show why I am so particular in this description. "When peace was declared between England and this country," said the Picker and Filer (after an hour s conversation, which had led insensibly to his own history,) 1 was in command of a privateer. Not choosing to become a pirate, by continuing the cruise, I was set ashore in the West Indies by a crew in open mutiny. My property was all on board, and I was left a beggar. I had one child, a daughter, whose mother died in giving her birth. " Having left a sufficient sum for her education in the hands of a brother of my own, under whose roof she had passed the first years of her life, I determined to retrieve my fortunes before she or- THE PICKER AND FILER. 261 my friends should be made acquainted with my disaster. * Ten years passed over, and I was still a wand erer and a beggar. "I determined to see my child, and came back, like one from the dead, to my brother s door. He had forgotten me, and abused his trust. My daughter, then seventeen, and such as you see her here, was the drudge in the family of a stranger ignorant and friendless. My heart turned against mankind with this last drop in a bitter cup, and, unfitted for quiet life, I looked around for some channel of desperate adventure. But my daughter was the perpetual obstacle. What to do with her? She had neither the manners nor the education of a lady, and to leave her a servant was impossible. I started with her for the West, with the vague design of joining some tribe of Indians, and chance and want have thrown me into the only mode of life on earth that could now be palatable to me." " Is it not lonely," I asked, " after your stirring adventures ?" " Lonely ! If you knew the delight with which I live in the wilderness, with a circle of fire to shut out the world ! The labour is hard it is true, but I need it, to sleep and forget. There is no way else in which I could seclude my daughter. Till lately, ihe has been contented, too. We live a month ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. together in one place the centre like this of a burn ing wood. I can bear hardship, but I love a high temperature the climate of the tropics and I have it here. For weeks I forget that it is winter, tend ing my fires and living on the game I have stored up. There is a hollow or a brook a bed or a cave, in every wood, where the cool air, as here, sinks to the bottom, and there I can put up my shanty, secure from all intrusion but such as I bring upon myself." The look he gave to the uprooted ash and the sleeper beneath it, made an apology for this last clause unnecessary. He thought not of me. " Some months since," continued the Picker and Filer, in a voice husky with suppressed feeling, " I met the villain who sleeps yonder, accidentally, as I met you. He is the owner of this land. After engaging to clear and burn it, I invited him, as I did yourself, from a momentary fever for company which sometimes comes over the solitary, to go with me to the fallow I was clearing. He loitered in the neighborhood awhile, under pretext of hunt ing, and twice on my return from the village, I found that my daughter had seen him. Time has betrayed the wrong he inflicted on me. The voice of the agitated father sank almost to a whisper as he pronounced the last few words, and, rising from the rock on which we were sitting, THE PICKER AND FILER. 263 he paced for a few minutes up and down the plat form in silence. The reader must fill up from his own imagination the drama of which this is but the outline, for the Picker and Filer was not a man to be questioned, and I can tell but what I saw and heard. In the narration of his story he seemed but recapitulating the prominent events for his own self-converse, rather than attempting to tell a tale to me, and it was hurried over as brokenly and briefly as I have put it down. I sat in a listening attitude after he concluded, but he seemed to have unburthened his- bosom sufficiently, and his lips were closed with stern compression. " You forget," he said, after pacing awhile, " that I offered you a place to sleep. The night wears late. Stretch yourself on that straw, with your cloak over you. Good night !" I lay down and looked up at the smoke rolling hca-vily into the sky till I slept. I awoke, feeling chilled, for the rock sheltered me from the rays of the fire. 1 stepped out from the hollow. The fires were pale with the gray of the morning, and the sky was visible through the smoke. I looked around for a place to warm myself. The hickory log had srriouldered out, but a fire had been kindled under the overblown pine, aid its pitchy heart was now flowing with the steady 264 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. brilliancy of a torch. I took up one of its broken branches, cracked it on my knee, and stirring up the coals below, soon sent up a merry blaze, which enveloped the whole trunk. Turning my back to the increasing heat, I started, for, creeping to vvards me, with a look of eagerness for which I was at a loss to account, came the Picker and Filer. " Twice doomed !" he muttered between his teeth, " but not by me !" He threw down a handful of pitch pine knots, laid his axe against a burning tree, and with a branch of hemlock, swept off the flame from the spot where the fire was eating through, as if to see how nearly it was divided. I began to think him insane, for I could get no answer to my questions, and when he spoke, it was half audible, and with his eyes turned from me fixedly. I looked in the same direction, but could see nothing remarkable. The seducer slept sound ly beneath his matted wall, and the rude door of the shanty was behind us. Leaving him to see phan toms in the air, as I thought, I turned my eyes to the drips of the waterfall, and was absorbed in memories of my own, when I saw the girl steal from the shanty, and with one bound overleap the rfcky barrier of the platform. I laid my hand on the shoulder of my host, and pointed after her, as . THE PICKER AND FILER* 265 with stealthy pace looking back occasionally to the hut, where she evidently thought her father slept, she crept round toward her lover. "He dies !" cried the infuriated man; but as he jumped from me to seize his axe, the girl crouched out of sight, and my own first thought was to awake the sleeper. I made two bounds and look ed back, for I heard no footstep. " Stand clear!" shouted a voice of almost super natural shrillness! and as I caught sight of the Picker and Filer standing enveloped in smoke upon the bnrning tree, with his axe high in the air, the trnth flashed on me. Down came the axe into the very heart of the pitchy flame, and trembling with the tremendous smoke, the trunk slowly bent upwards from the fire. The Picker and Piler sprang clear, the overborne ash creaked and heaved, and With a sick giddiness in my eyes, I look at the unwarned sleeper. One half of the dissevered pine fell to the earth, and the shock startled him from his sleep. A whole age seemed to me elapsing while the other rose with the slow lift of the ash. As it slid heavi ly away, the vigorous tree righted, like a giant springing to his feet. I saw the root pin the hand of the seducer to the earth a struggle a contor tion and the leafless and waving top of the fecov^ ered and upright tree rocked with its effort, and a 266 ROMANCE OP fttAVEL. long, sharp cry had gone out echoing through the woods, and was still. I felt my brain reel Blanched to a livid paleness, the girl moved about in the sickly daylight when I recovered ; but the Picker and Filer, with a clearer brow thaft I had yet seen him wear, was kindling fires beneath the remnants of the pine. ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. STRATFORD-ON-AVON. " One-p un -five outside, sir, two pun in." It was a bright, calm afternoon in September, promising nothing but a morrow of sunshine and autumn, when I stepped in at the "White-Horse cellar," in Piccadilly, to take my place in the Tantivy coach for Stratford-on-Avon. Preferring the outside of the coach, at least by as much as the difference in the prices, and accustomed from long habit to pay dearest for that which most pleased me, I wrote myself down for the outside, and deposited my two pound in the horny palm of the old ex-coachman, retired from the box, and playing clerk in this dingy den of parcels and port manteaus. Supposing my buisness concluded, \ stood a minute speculating on the weather-beaten, 23* $70 ROM A NOB OF T1AVBL. cramp-handed old Jehu before me, and trying to reconcile his ideas of "retirement from office* with those of his almost next door neighbour, the hero of Strathfieldsaye, He was at least as "soft a gentleman" to look at as the duke; but compare his crammed and noisesome cellar with the lordly parks and spacious domains of a king s bounty ! Yet for the mere courage of the man, there are exigencies in the life of a coachman that require as much as might have served his grace at Waterloo . The broad rimmed beaver set knowingly on the ex-Jehu s forehead, forebade a comparison between their sculls. I had mounted the first stair toward daylight, when a touch on the shoulder with the end of a long whip a technical "reminder," which proba bly came easier to the old driver than the phrasing of a sentence to a " gemman "-recalled me to the cellar. "Fifteen shillin , sir," said he laconically, pointing with the same expressive exponent of his profession to the change for my out side place, which I had left lying on the counter. " You are at least as honest as the duke," I soli loquized, as I pocketed the six bright and substan tial half-crowns, " and if a long life of honesty and courage are to be rewarded but with a seat in a gloomy cellar, while the addition of brain- work to BTE ATPO1D-OK-A V O If . 571 these is paid with the princely possessions of a duke, there is a mistake somewhere in the scale of merit." I was at the White-Horse cellar again the fol lowing morning at six, promising myself with great sincerity never to rely again on the constancy of an English sky. It rained in torrents. The four inside places were all taken, and with twelve fellow-outsides, I mounted to the wet seat, and begging a little straw by way of cushion from the ostler, spread my umbrella/abandoned my knees with a single effort of mind to the drippings of the driver s weather- proof upper Benjamin, and away we sped. I was " due" at the house of a hospitable old Catholic Baronet, a hundred and two miles from London, at the dinner-hour of that day, and to wait till it had done raining in England, is to expect the millenium. London in the morning I mean the poor man s morning, daylight is to me matter for the most speculative and intense melancholy. Hyde Park in the sunshine of a bright afternoon, glittering with equipages and gay with the Aladdin splendours of rank and wealth, is a scene which sends the mer curial qualities of the blood trippingly through the veins. But Hyde Park at daylight seen from Piccadilly through fog and rain, is perhaps, of all contrasts, to one who has frequented it in its bright 72 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. hours, the most dispiriting and dreary. To remem ber that, behind the barricaded and wet windows of Apsley House, sleeps the hero of Waterloo ; that within the dripping and close-shuttered balcony visible beyond, slumbers and dreams in her splen did beauty the gifted woman, to whom Moore has swung his censer of glorious incense, whom Byron has sought, whom all the genius of England gath ers about and acknowledges supreme over minds like her own that under these crowded and fog- wrapped houses lie in their dim chambers, breath ing of perfume and luxury, the high-born and nobly- moulded creatures who preserve for the aristo cracy of England the palm of the world s beauty to remember this, and a thousand other associa tions linked with the spot, is not at all to dimmish, but rather to deepen the melancholy of the picture. Why is it that the deserted stage of a theatre, the echo of an empty ball-room, the loneliness of a frequented promenade in untimely hours any scene, in short, of gayety gone by but remember edoppresses and dissatisfies tfye hrvirt! One would think memory should re-bright HI and re- populate such places. The wheels hissed through the shn ! v, pools in the Macad irn road, the regular patl of the small hoofs in the wei, carriage-trap ntained its quick aad monotomous beat, on " ar; the BTRATFOKD-ON-AYON. 273 silent driver kept his eye on the traces, and " remin ded" now and then with but the weight of his silk snapper a lagging wheeler or leader, and the complicated but compact machine of which the square foot that I occupied had been so nicely calculated, sped on its ten miles in the hour with the steadfastness of a star in its orbit, and as inde pendent of clouds and rain. " Est ce que monsieur parle Francois ?" asked at the end of the first stage my right-hand neigh bour, a little gentleman, of whom I had hitherto only remarked that he was holding on to the iron railing of the seat with great tenacity. Having admited in an evil moment that I had been in France, I was first distinctly made to understand that my neighbour was on his way to Birmingham purely for pleasure, and without the most distant object of business a point on which he insisted so long, and recurred to so often, that he succeeded at last in persuading me that he was doubtless a candidate for the French clerkship of some exporter of buttons. After listening to an amusing dissertation on the rashness of committing one s life to an English stage-coach, with scarce room enough for the perch of a parrot, and a velocity so diabkment dangereux, I tired of my Frenchman \ and, * ince I could not have my own thought* in peace, opened a conversation with a 274 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. straw-bonnet and shawl on my left the property, I soon discovered, of a very smart lady s maid, very indignant at having been made to change places with Master George, who, with his mother and her mistress, were dry and comfortable inside. She "would not have minded the outside place," she said, " for there were sometimes very agreeable gentlemen on the outside, very! but she had been promised to go inside, and had dressed accordingly ; and it was very provoking to spoil a nice new shawl and best bonnet, just because a great school boy, that had nothing on that would damage, chose not to ride in the rain. " " Very provoking, indeed ! " I responded, letting in the rain upon myself unconsciously, in extending my umbrella forward so as to protect her on the side of the wind. " We should have gone down in the carriage sir," she continued, edging a little closer to get the full advantage of my umbrella; "but John the coachman has got the hinfluenzy, and my missis won t be driven by no other coachman ; she s as obstinate as a mule, sir. And that isn t all I could tell, sir ; but I scorns to hurt the character of one of my own sex. " And the pretty Abigal pursed up her red lips, and looked determined not to destroy her mistress s character unless particularly re quested. STB ATFORD-ON-A VON. 275 I detest what may be called a proper road-book ^- even would it be less absurd than it is to write one on a country so well conned as England. I shall say nothing therefore of Marlow, which looked the picture of rural lovliness though seen through fog, nor of Oxford, of which all I remem ber is that I dined there with my teeth chattering, and my knees saturated with rain. All England is lovely to the wild eye of an American unused to high cultivation ; and though my enthusiasm was somewhat damp, I arrived at the bridge over the Avon, blessing England sufficiently for its beauty, and much more for the speed of its coaches. The Avon, above and below the bridge, ran brightly along between low banks, half sward, half meadow; and on the other side lay the native town of the immortal wool-comber a gay cheerful-look ing village, narrowing in the centre to a closely built street, across which swung, broad and fair, the sign of the Red Horse. More ambitious hotels lay beyond, and broader streets ; but while Wash ington Irving is remembered, (and that will be, while the language lasts,) the quiet inn in which the great Geoffrey thought and wrote of Shakespeare, will be the altar of the pilgrim s devotions. My baggage was set down, the coachman and guard tipped their hats for a shilling, and, chilled to the bone, I raised my hat instinctively to the cour- 276 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. tesy of a slender gentlewoman in black, who, by the keys at her girdle, should be the landlady. Having expected to see a rosy little Mrs. Boniface, with a brown pinafore and worstedjnittens, I made up my mind at once that the inn had changed mistresses. On the right of the old-fashioned entrance blazed cheerily the kitchen fire, and with my enthusiasm rather dashed by my disappoint ment, I stepped in to make friends with the cook, and get a little warmth and information. " So your old mistress is dead, Mrs. Cook, " said I, rubbing my hands with great satisfaction between the fire and a well-roasted chicken. " Lauk, sir, no, she isn t 1" answered the rosy lass, pointing with a dredging-box to the same respect able lady in black who was just entering to look after me. " I beg pardon, sir," she said, dropping a cour tesy; "but are you the gentleman expected by Sir Charles ?" "Yes, madam! And can you tell me anything of your predecessor who had the inn in the days of \ Washington Irving?" She dropped another courtesy, and drew up her thin person to its full height, while a smile of grati- , fied vanity stole out at the corners of her mouth. "The carriage has been waiting some time for * you, sir, "she said, with a softer tone than that in r STRATFORD-ON-AVOW. 277 which she had hitherto addressed me; and you will scarce be at C in time for dinner. You will be coming over to-morrow or the day after perhaps, sir; and then, if you would honor my little room by taking a cup of tea with me, I should be pleased to tell you all about it, sir." I remembered a promise I had nearly forgotten, that I would reserve my visit to Stratford till I could be accompanied by Miss J. P , whom I was to have the honor of meeting at my place of destination, and promising an early acceptance of the kind landlady^ invitation, I hurried on to my appointment over the fertile hills of Warwickshire. I was established in one of those old Elizabethan country houses, which, with their vast parks, their self-sufficing resources of subsistence and company, and the absolute deference shown on all sides to the lord of the manor, give one the impression rather of a little kingdom with a castle in its heart, than of an abode for a gentleman subject. The house itself (called like most houses of this size and consequence in Warwickshire, a "Court,") was n Gothic, half castellated square, with four roum 1 towers, and innumerable embrasures and windows : two wings in front, probably more modern than tho body of the house, and again two long win^s extending to the rear, at right angles, and enclosing a flowery and formal parterre. There had been a 24 278 ROMANCE! of TRAVEL. trench about it, now filled up, and at a short distance from the house stood a polyangular and massive structure, well calculated for defence, and intended as a stronghold for the retreat of the family and ten ants in more troubled times. One of these rear wings enclosed a Catholic chapel, for the worship of the baronet and those of his tenants who professed the same faith ; while on the northern side, between the house and the garden, stood a large Protestant stone church, with a turret and spire, both chapel and church, with their clergyman and priest, depen dent on the estate, and equally favoured by the liberal and high-minded baronet. The tenantry formed two considerable congregations, and lived and worshipped side by side, with the most perfect harmony an instance of real Christianity, in my opinion, which the angels of heaven might come down to see. A lovely rural graveyard for the lord and his tenants, and a secluded lake below the garden, in which hundreds of wild duck swan and screamed unmolested, completed the outward fea tures of C - Court. There are noble houses in England, with a door communicating from the dining-room to the stables, that the master and his friends may see their fa vourites, after dinner, without exposure to the weather. In the place of this rather bizarre luxury, the oak pannelled and spacious dining-hall of C STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 279 is on a level with the organ loft of the chapel, and when the cloth is removed, the large door between is thrown open, and the noble instrument pours the rich and thrilling music of vespers through the rooms. When the service is concluded, and the lights on the altar extinguished, the blind organist (an accomplished musician, and a tenant on the estate) continues his voluntaries in the dark until the hall-door informs him of the retreat of the company to the drawing-room. There is not only refinement and luxury in this beautiful arrangement? but food for the soul and heart. 1 chose my room from among the endless vacant but equally luxurious chambers of the rambling old house; my preference solely directed by the por trait of a nun, one of the family in ages gone by a picture full of melancholy beauty, which hung opposite the window. The face was distinguished by all that in England marks the gentlewoman of ancient and pure descent; and while it was a woman with the more tender qualites of her sex breathing through her features, it was still a lofty and sainted sister, true to her cross, and sincere in her vows and seclusion. It was the work of a master, probably Vandyke, and a picture in which the most solitary man would find company and communion. On the other walls, and in most of the other rooms and corridors were distributed 280 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. portraits of the gentleman and soldiers of the fa mily, most of them bearing some resemblance to the nun, but differing, as brothers in those wild times may be supposed to have differed, from the gentle creatures of the same blood, nursed in the privacy of peace. One of the first visits in the neighbourhood was naturally to Stratford-on-Avon. It lay some ten miles south of us, and I drove down, with that dis tinguished literary friend I have before mentioned, in the carriage of our kind host, securing, by the presence of his servants and equippage, a degree of respect and attention which would not have been accorded to us in our simple character of travellers. The prim mistress of the Red Lion, in her close black bonnet and widow s weeds, received us at the door with a deeper courtesy than usual, and a smile of less wintry formality; and proposing to dine at the inn, and "suck the brain" of the hostess more at our leisure, we started immediately for the house of the wool-comber the birthplace of Shaks- peare. Stratford should have been forbidden ground to builders, masons, shopkeepers, and generally to all people of thrift and whitewash. It is now rather a smart town, with gay calicoes, shawls of the last pattern, hardware, aiyl millinery, exhibited in all alRATFaD-ON- AVON. their splendour down the widened and newer streets ; and though here and there remains a glori ous old gloomy and inconvenient abode, which looks as if Shakspeare might have taken shelter under its eaves, the gayer features of the town have the best of it, and flaunt their gaudy and unrespected newness in the very windows of that immortal birthplace. I stepped into a shop to inquire the way to it. "Shiksper s ouse, sir? Yes, sir!" said a drap- per clerk, with his hair astonished into the most impossible directions by force of brushing; "keep to the right, sir ! Shiksper lived in the white ouse, sir the ouse, you see beyond, with the windy swung up, sir." A low, old-fashioned house, with a window sus pended on a hinge, newly whitewashed and scrub bed, stood a little up the street. A sign over the door informed us in an inflated paragraph, that the immortal Will Shakspeare was . born under this roof, and that an old woman within would show it to us for a consideration. It had been used until very lately, 1 had been told, for a butcher s shop. A "garrulous old lady" met us at the bottom of the narrow stair leading to the second floor, and began not to say anything of Shakspeare but to show, us the names of Byron, Moore, Rogers, etc., written among thousands of others on the wall! 24* ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. She had worn out Shakspeare ! She had told that story till she was tired of it! or (what perhaps is more probable) most people \vho go there fall to reading the names of the visitors so industriously, that she has grown to think some of Shakspeare s pilgrims greater than Shakspeare. " Was this old oaken chest here in the days of Shakspeare, madam," I asked. "Yes, sir," and here s the name of Byron here with a capital R Here s a curiosity, sir." "And this small wooden box?" "Made of Shakspeare s mulberry, sir. I had sich a time abort!, that box, sir. Two young gem- maii were here tfn other day just run up while the coach was changing horses, to see the house. As soon as they were i^ono I misses the box. Off scuds my son to- the Red Lion, and there they sat on the top looking as innocent as may be. " Stop the coach," says my son. "What do you want," says the driver. "My mother s mulberry box? Shakspeare s mulberry box f One of them ere young men s got it in his pocket." And true enough^ sir* one on< *em had the imperence to take it out of his po-. ket and ffings it into my son s fece; and you kn >w the coach nev^r stops a min- Bit for nothing sir, or he d a* smarted for it." Spirit of Sh;ikroare! dost thou n->t sometimes w.ilk. alone in this humble ohambo Must one s STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 283 inmost soul be fretted and frighted always from its devotion by an abominable old woman? Why should not such lucrative occupations be given in charity to the deaf and dumb? The pointing of a finger were enough in such spots of earth ! I sat down in despair to look over the book of visiters, trusting that she would tire of my inatten tion. As it was of no use to point out names to those who would not look, however, she commen ced a long story of an American, who had lately taken the whim to sleep in Shakspeare s birth- chamber. She had shaken him down a bed on the floor, and he had passed the night there. It seemed to bother her to comprehend why two- thirds of her visiters should be Americans a cir cumstance that was abundantly proved by the books. It was only when we were fairfy in the street that I began to realize that I had seen one of the most glorious altars of memory -that deathless Will Shakspeare, the mortal, who was, perhaps, (not to speak profanely) next to his Maker, in the divine faculty of creation, first saw the light through the low lattice om which we turned back to took. The single window of the room in which Scott died at Abottsford, and this in the birth-chamber of Shakspeare, have seemed to me almost marked with the touch of the tire ot those great 284 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. think we have an instinct which tells us on the spot where mighty spirits have come or gone, that they came and went with the light of heaven. We walked down the street to see the house where Shakspeare lived on his return to Strat ford. It stands at the corner of a lane, not far from the church were he was buried, and is a new ish un-Shaksperian looking place no doubt, if it li c indeed the same house, most profanely and con- * derably altered. The present proprietor or occu pant of the house or site, took upon himself some -ime since the odium of cutting down the famous mul- oerry tree planted by the poet s hand in the garden. I forgot to mention in the beginning of these notes that two or three miles before coming to Strat ford, we passed through Shottery,. where Anne Hathaway lived. A nephew of the excellent baro net whose guests we were, occupies the house. I looked up and down the green lanes about it, and glanced my eye round upon the hills over which the sun has continued to set and the moon to ride in her love-inspiring beauty ever since. There were doubtless outl nes in the landscape which had been followed by the eye of Shakspeare when com ing, a trembling lover, to Shottery-doubtless. teints in the sky, crops on the fields, smoke-wreaths from the old homesteads on the hill-sides, which are little altered now. How daringly the imagination plucks STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 285 back the past in such places ! How boldly we ask of fancy and probability the thousand questions we would put, if we might, to the magic mirror of Agrippa? Did that great mortal love timidly, like ourselves? Was the passionate outpouring of his heart simple, and suited to the humble condition of Anne Hathaway, or was it the first fiery coinage of Romeo and Othello? Did she know the immortal honour and light poured upon woman by the love of genius? Did she know how this common and oftenest terrestrial passion becomes fused in the poet s bosom with celestial fire, and, in its won drous elevation and purity, ascends lambently and musically to the very stars ! Did she coy it with him? Was she a woman to him, as commoner mortals find woman capricious, tender, cruel, intoxicating, cold everything by changes impossi ble to calculate or foresee I Did he walk home to Stratford, sometimes, despairing in perfect sick- heartedness of her affection, and was he recalled by a message or a lover s instinct to find her weep ing and passionately repentant? How natural it is by such questions and specula tions to betray our innate desire to bring the lofty spirits of our common mould to our own inward level to seek analogies between our affections, pas sions, appetites and theirs-to wish they might have been no more exalted, no more fervent, no more 286 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. worthy of the adorable love of woman than our selves ! The same temper that prompts the depre ciation, the envy, the hatred exercised toward the poet in his lifetime, mingles, not inconsiderably, in the researches so industriously prosecuted after his death into his youth and history. To be admired in this world, and much more to be beloved for higher qualites than his fellow-men, ensures to genius not only to be persecuted in life, but to be ferretted out with all his frailties and imperfections from the grave. The church in which Shakspeare is buried stands near the banks of the Avon, and is a most pictu resque and proper place of repose for his ashes. An avenue of small trees and vines, ingeniously over-laced, extends from the street to the principal door, and the interior is broken up into that confus ed and accidental medley of tombs, pews, cross- lights, and pillars, for which the old churches of England are remarkable. The tomb and effigy of the great poet, lie in an inner chapel, nnd are as described in every traveller s book. I will not take up room with the repetition. It gives one an odd feeling to see the tomb of his wife and daughter beside him. One does not real ize before, that Shakspeare had wife, children, kinsmen, like other men that there were those who had a right to lie in the same tomb; to whom STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 287 he owed the charites of life ; whom he mny have beriefitted or offended ; who may have influenced materially his destiny, or he theirs ; who were the inheritors of his household goods, his wardrobe, his books people who looked on him on Shaks- peare as a landholder, a renter of a pew, a towns man ; a relative, in short, who had claims upon them, not for the eternal homage due to celestial inspiration, but for the charity of shelter and bread had he been poor, for kindness and ministry had he been sick, for burial and the tears of natural affection when he died. It is painful and embarrassing to the mind to go to Stratford to reconcile the immor tality and the incomprehensible power of genius like Shakspeare s, with the space, tenement and cir cumstance of a man ! The poet should be like the sea-bird, seen only on the wing his birth, his slum ber and his death mysteries alike. I had stipulated with the hostess that my bag gage should be put into the chamber occupied by Washington Irving. I was shown into it to dress for dinner a small, neat room, a perfect specimen in short of an English bed-room, with snow-white curtains, a looking glass the size of the face, a well- polished grate and poker, a well fitted carpet, and as much light as heaven permits to the climate. Our dinner for two was served in a neat parlor on the same floor an English inn dinner simple, 288 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. neat and comfortable in the sense of that word unknown in other countries. There was just fire enough in the grate, just enough for two in the different dishes, a servant who was just enough in the room, and just civil enough in short, it was, like every thing else in that country of adaptation and fitness, just what was ordered and wanted, and no more. The evening turned out stormy, and the rain pattered merrily against the windows. The shut ters were closed, the fire blazed up with new brightness, the well fitted wax-lights were set on the table, and when the dishes were removed, we replaced the wine with a tea-tray, and sent for the hostess to give us her company and a little gossip over our cups. Nothing could be more nicely understood and defined than the manner of English hostesses generally in such situations, and of Mrs. Gardiner particularly in this. Respectful without servility, perfectly sure of the propriety of her own manner and mode of expression, yet preserving in every look and word the proper distinction between herself and her guests, she ensured from them that kindness and ease of communication which would make a long evening of social conversation pass not only without embarrassment on either side, but with mutual pleasure and gratification. STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 289 " I have brought up, mem," she said, producing a well-polished poker from under her black apron before she took the chair set for her at the table, " I have brought up a relic for you to see that no money would buy from me." She turned it over in my hand, and I read on one of the flat sides at the bottom, " GEOFFREY CRAYON S SCEPTRE. " "Do you remember Mr. Irving," asked my friend, "or have you supposed, since reading his sketch of Stratford-on-Avon, that the gentleman in number three might be the person?" The hostess drew up her thin figure, and the expression of a person about to compliment herself stole into the corners of her mouth. " Why, you see, mem, I am very much in the habit of observing my guests, and I think I may say I knows a super.or gentleman when I sees him. "If you remember, mem," (and she took down from the mantle piece a much worn copy of the Sketch-Book,) GeofFery Crayon tells the circum stance of my stepping in when it was getting late and asking if he had rung. I knows it by that, and then the gentleman I mean was an America^ and I th ; nk, mem, besides," (and she hesitated a little as if she was about to advance an original and rather ventursome opinion,) " I think I can see that gentleman s likeness all through this book," 25 290 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. A truer remark or a more just criticism perhaps never made on the Sketch-Book. We smiled, and Mrs. Gardiner preceded : " I was in and out of the coffee-room the night he arrived, mem, and I sees directly by his modest ways and timid look that he was a gentleman, and not fit company for the other travellers. They were all young men, sir, and business travellers, and you know, mem, ignorance takes the advantage of modest merit, and after their dinner they were very noisy and rude. So, I says to Sarah, the chamber maid, says I, that nice gentleman can t get near the fire, and you go and light a fire in number three and he shall sit alone, and it shan t cost him nothing for I like the look on him, Well, mem, he seemed pleased, to be alone, and after his tea, he puts his legs up over the grate, and there he sits with the poker in his hand till ten o clock. The other travellers went to bed, and at last the house was as still as midnight, all but a poke in the grate now and then in number three, and every time I heard it I jumped up and lit a bed-candle, for I was getting very sleepy, and I hoped he was getting up to ring for a light,. Well, rn^m. I nodded and nodded, and still no ring at th^ boll. At last I says to Sanh, says I, go into irimber three and upset something, for I am sure tJrit gentleman has fallen asleep. La, ma am, s;iys Sarah, I don t STRATFORD- ON-AVON. 29 1 dare. Well, then, says I, I ll go. So I opens the door, and I says, If you please sir, did you ring little thinking that question would ever be written down in such a beautiful book, mem. He sat with his feet on the fender poking the fire, and a smile on his face, as if some pleasant thought was in his mind. No, ma am, says he, I did not. I shuts the door, and sits down again, for I hadn t the heart to tell him that it was late, for he was a gentleman not to speak rudely to, mem. Well, it was past twelve o clock, when the bell did ring. There, says I to Sarah, thank heaven he has done thinking, and we can go to bed. So he walked up stairs with his light, and the next morning he was up early and off to the Shakspeare house, and he brings me home a box of the mulberry tree, and asks me if I thought it was genuine, and said it was for his mother in America. And I loved him still more for that, and I m sure I prayed she might live to see him return." "1 believe she did, Mrs. Gardiner; but how soon after did you set aside the poker." "Why, sir, you see there s a Mr. Vincent that comes here sometimes, and he says to me one day, 4 So, Mrs. Gardiner, you re finely immortalized. Read that. So the minnit I read it, I remembered who it was and all about it, and I runs and gets the number three poker, and locks it up safe and 292 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. sound, and by and by I sends it to Brummagem, and has his name engraved on it, and here you see it, sir, and I would t take no money for it." 1 had never the honor to meet or know Mr. Irving^ and I evidently lost ground with the hostess of the Red Horse for that misfortune. I delighted her,, however, with the account which I had seen in a late newspaper, of his having shot a buffalo in the praries of the west, and she soon courtesied herself out and left me to the delightful society of the dis tinguished lady who had accompanied me. Among all my many loiterings in many lands, I remember none more intellectually pure and gratifying, than this at Stratford-on-Avon. My sleep, in the little bed consecrated by the slumbers of the immortal Geoffery, was sweet and light, and I write myself his debtor far a large share of the pleasure which genius like his lavishes on the workU Cfiarlccotr, ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. CHARLECOTE. ONCR more posting through Shottery and Strat- ford-on-Avon, on the road to Kenilworth and War wick, I felt a pleasure in becoming an habitu6 in Shakspeare s town in being recognized by the Stratford post-boys, known at the Stratford Inn, and remembered at the toll-gates. It is pleasant to be welcomed byname any where ; but at Stratford- on-Avon, it is a recognition by those whose fathers or predecessors were the companions of Shak- speare s frolics. Every fellow in a slouched hat every idler on a tavern bench every saunterer with a dog at his heels on ihe highway, should be a deer-stealer from Charlecote. You would I most ask him, "Was Will Shakspeare with you last night?" " The Lucys still live at Charlecote, immortalized by a varlet poacher who was tried before old Sir 296 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL.. Thomas for stealing a buck. They have drawn an? apology from Walter Savage Landor for making too free with the family history, under cover of an, imaginary account of the trial. I thought, as we drove along in sight of the fine old hal!, with its broad park and majestic trees (very much as it stood in the days of Sir Thomas, I believe) that most pro bably the descendants of the old justice look even now upon Shakspeare more as an offender against the game-laws, than as a writer of immortal plays. I venture to say, it would be bad tact in a visiter to Charlecote to felicitate the family on the honour of possessing a park in which Shakspeare had stolen deer to show more interest in seeing the hall in which he was tried, than in the family portraits. On the road which I was travelling, (from Strat ford to Charlecote,) Shakspeare had been dragged as a culprit. What were his feelings before Sir Thomas ! He felt, doubtless, as every possessor of the divine fire of genius must feel, when brought rudely in contact with his fellow-men, that he was too much their superior to be angry. The humour in which he has drawn Justice Shallow, proves abundantly that he was more amused than displeas ed with his owft trial. But was there no vexation at the moment? A reflection, it might be, from the estimate of his position in the minds of those who were about him who looked on him simply as a CHARLECOTE. 279 stealer of so much venison. Did he care for Anne Hatha way s opinion, then? How little did Sir Thomas Lucy understand the relation between judge and culprit on that trial! How littld did he dream he was sitting for his pic ture to the pestilent varlet at the bar; that the deer-stealer could better afford to forgive him, than he the deer-stealer. Genius forgives, or rather for gets, all wrongs done in ignorance of its immortal presence. Had Ben Johnson made a wilful jest on a line in his new play, it would have rankled longer than fine and imprisonment for deer-stealing. Those who crowd back and trample upon men of genius in the common walk of life ; who cheat them, mis represent them, take advantage of their inattention or their generosity in worldly matters, are some times surprised how their injuries, if not themselves, are forgotten. Old Adam Woodcock might as well have held malice against Roland Graeme for the stab in the stuffed doublet of the Abbot of Misrule. Yet, as I might have remarked in the paragraph gone before, it is probably not easy to put conscious and secret superiority entirely between the mind and the opinions of those around who think differ ently. It is one reason why men of genius love more than the common share of solitude to recover self-respect. In the midst of the amusing travesty he was drawing in his own mind of the grave scen u 298 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. about him, Shakspeare possibly felt at moments as like a detected culprit as he seemed to the game keeper and the justice. It is a small penalty to pay for the after worship of the world ! The ragged and proverbially ill-dressed peasants who are selected from the whole campagna, as models to the sculp tors of Rome, care little what is thought of their good looks in the Corso. The disguised proportions beneath their rags will be admired in deathless mar ble, when the noble who scarce deigns their posses sor a look, will lie in forgotten dust under his stone scutcheon. Were it not for the " out-heroded" descriptions in the Guide-Books, one might say a great deal of Warwick Castle. It is the quality of over-done or ill-expressed enthusiasm, to silence that which is more rational and real. Warwick is, perhaps, the best kept of all the famous old castles of England. It is superb and admirably appointed modern dwel ling, in the shell, and with all the means and appli ances preserved, of an ancient strong-hold. It is a curious union, too. My lady s maid and my lord s valet, coquet upon the bartizan, where old Guy of Warwick stalked in his coat of mail. The London cockney, from his two days watering at Leaming ton, stops his poney-chaise, hired at half-a-crown the hour, and walks Mrs. Popkins over the old CHARLECOTE* 299 draw-bridge as peacefully, as if it were the threshold of his shop in the Strand. Scot and Frenchman saunter through fosse and tower, and no ghost of the middle ages stalks forth, with closed visor, to challenge these once natural foes. The powdered butler yawns through an embrazure, expecting " miladi," the countess of this fair domain, who in one day s posting from London, seeks relief in War wick Castle from the routs and soirees of town. What would old Guy say, or the "noble imp" whose effigy is among the escutcheoned tombs of his fa thers, if they could rise through their marble slabs, and be whirled over the drawbridge in a post- chaise? How indignantly they would listen to the reckoning within their own portcullis, of the rates for chaise and postillion ! How astonished they would be at the butler s bow, and the proffered officiousness of the valet. " Shall I draw off your lordship s boots. Which of these new vests from Staub will your lordship put on for dinner. Among the pictures at Warwick, I was interested by a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, (the best of that sovereign I ever saw ;) one of Michiavelli, one of Essex, and one of Sir Philip Sidney, The delight ful and gifted woman whom I had accompanied to the castle, observed of the latter, that the hand alone expressed all his character. I had often made the remark in real life, but I had never seen an instance 300 ROMANCE OP TRAVEL. on painting where the likeness was so true. No one could doubt, who knew Sir Philip Sidney s character, that it was a literal portrait of his hand. In our day, if you have an artist for a friend, he makes use of you while you call, to "sit for the hand" of the portrait on his easel. Having a pre ference for the society of artists myself, and fre quenting their studios considerably, I know of some hundred and fifty unsuspecting gentlemen on can vass, who have procured for posterity and their children, portraits of their own heads and dress-coats to be sure, but of the hands of other persons ! The head of Machiavelli is, as is seen in the marble in the gallery of Florence, small, slender, and visibly "made to creep into crevices." The facn is impassive and calm, and the lips, though slight and [almost feminine, have an indefinable firmness and character. Essex is the bold, plain, and blunt soldier history makes him, and Elizabeth not unqueenly, nor (to my thinking) of an uninter esting countenance ; but, with all the artist s flattery, ugly enough to be the ab^de of the murderous envy that brought Mary to the block. We paid our five shillings for having been walked through the marble hall of Castle Warwick, and the dressing-room of its modern lady, and gra tified much more by our visit than I have expressed in this brief description, posted on to Kenilworth. LOAN DEPT. REC D LD 2lA-40m-4, 63 (>647l8lO)476B .General Library University of California Berkeley U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CDSEDlSflflD THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY