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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4483-0.txt b/4483-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aed251c --- /dev/null +++ b/4483-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3456 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4483 *** + +THE AMAZING MARRIAGE + +By George Meredith + +1895 + + + +CONTENTS: + +BOOK 1. +I. ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS +II. MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF + CRESSETT WITH THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE + POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, AND OF A GREAT COUNTY FAMILY +III. CONTINUATION OF THE INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP, + TOGETHER WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION +IV. MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME +V. A MOUNTAIN WALK IN MIST AND SUNSHINE +VI. THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER +VII. THE LADY'S LETTER +VIII. OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: + IN WHICH THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT WILD + CREATURE HE WAS IN HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE FEMALE SHOULD MARVEL + CREDULOUSLY +IX. CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, + TOGETHER WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES + +BOOK 2. +X. SMALL CAUSES +XI. THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD +XII. HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT +XIII. AN IRRUPTION OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION +XIV. A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING +XV. OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON +XVI. IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD + ENGLAND +XVII. RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING +XVIII. DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY +XIX. THE GIRL MADGE + +BOOK 3. +XX. STUDIES IN FOG, GOUT, AN OLD SEAMAN, A LOVELY SERPENT, AND THE + MORAL EFFECTS THAT MAY COME OF A BORROWED SHIRT +XXI. IN WHICH WE HAVE FURTHER GLIMPSES OF THE WONDROUS MECHANISM OF + OUR YOUNGER MAN +XXII. A RIGHT-MINDED GREAT LADY +XXIII. IN DAME GOSSIP'S VEIN +XXIV. A KIDNAPPING AND NO GREAT HARM +XXV. THE PHILOSOPHER MAN OF ACTION +XXVI. AFTER SOME FENCING THE DAME PASSES OUR GUARD +XXVII. WE DESCEND INTO A STEAMER'S ENGINE-ROOM +XXVIII. BY CONCESSIONS TO MISTRESS GOSSIP A FURTHER INTRUSION IS + AVERTED + +BOOK 4. +XXIX. CARINTHIA IN WALES +XXX. REBECCA WYTHAN +XXXI. WE HAVE AGAIN TO DEAL WITH THE EXAMPLES OF OUR YOUNGER MAN +XXXII. IN WHICH WE SEE CARINTHIA PUT IN PRACTICE ONE OF HER OLD + FATHER'S LESSONS +XXXIII. A FRIGHTFUL DEBATE +XXXIV. A SURVEY OF THE RIDE OF THE WELSH CAVALIERS ESCORTING THE + COUNTESS OF FLEETWOOD TO KENTISH ESSLEMONT +XXXV. IN WHICH CERTAIN CHANGES MAY BE DISCERNED +XXXVI. BELOW THE SURFACE AND ABOVE +XXXVII. BETWEEN CARINTHIA AND HER LORD +XXXVIII. A DIP INTO THE SPRING'S WATERS + +BOOK 5. +XXXIX. THE RED WARNING FROM A SON OF VAPOUR +XL. A RECORD OF MINOR INCIDENTS +XLI. IN WHICH THE FATES ARE SEEN AND A CHOICE OF THE REFUGES FROM + THEM +XLII. THE RETARDED COURTSHIP +XLIII. ON THE ROAD TO THE ACT OF PENANCE +XLIV. BETWEEN THE EARL; THE COUNTESS AND HER BROTHER, AND OF A SILVER + CROSS +XLV. CONTAINS A RECORD OF WHAT WAS FEARED, WHAT WAS HOPED, AND WHAT + HAPPENED +XLVI. A CHAPTER OF UNDERCURRENTS AND SOME SURFACE FLASHES +XLVII. THE LAST: WITH A CONCLUDING WORD BY THE DAME + + + + +THE AMAZING MARRIAGE + + +BOOK 1. + +I. ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS +II. MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF + CRESSETT WITH THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE + POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, AND OF A GREAT COUNTY FAMILY +III. CONTINUATION OF THE INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP, + TOGETHER WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION +IV. MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME +V. A MOUNTAIN WALK IN MIST AND SUNSHINE +VI. THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER +VII. THE LADY'S LETTER +VIII. OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: + IN WHICH THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT WILD + CREATURE HE WAS IN HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE FEMALE SHOULD MARVEL + CREDULOUSLY +IX. CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, + TOGETHER WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES + + + +CHAPTER I + +ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS + +Everybody has heard of the beautiful Countess of Cressett, who was one of +the lights of this country at the time when crowned heads were running +over Europe, crying out for charity's sake to be amused after their +tiresome work of slaughter: and you know what a dread they have of +moping. She was famous for her fun and high spirits besides her good +looks, which you may judge of for yourself on a walk down most of our +great noblemen's collections of pictures in England, where you will +behold her as the goddess Diana fitting an arrow to a bow; and elsewhere +an Amazon holding a spear; or a lady with dogs, in the costume of the +day; and in one place she is a nymph, if not Diana herself, gazing at her +naked feet before her attendants loosen her tunic for her to take the +bath, and her hounds are pricking their ears, and you see antlers of a +stag behind a block of stone. She was a wonderful swimmer, among other +things, and one early morning, when she was a girl, she did really swim, +they say, across the Shannon and back to win a bet for her brother Lord +Levellier, the colonel of cavalry, who left an arm in Egypt, and changed +his way of life to become a wizard, as the common people about his +neighbourhood supposed, because he foretold the weather and had cures for +aches and pains without a doctor's diploma. But we know now that he was +only a mathematician and astronomer, all for inventing military engines. +The brother and sister were great friends in their youth, when he had his +right arm to defend her reputation with; and she would have done anything +on earth to please him. + +There is a picture of her in an immense flat white silk hat trimmed with +pale blue, like a pavilion, the broadest brim ever seen, and she simply +sits on a chair; and Venus the Queen of Beauty would have been +extinguished under that hat, I am sure; and only to look at Countess +Fanny's eye beneath the brim she has tipped ever so slightly in her +artfulness makes the absurd thing graceful and suitable. Oh! she was a +cunning one. But you must be on your guard against the scandalmongers +and collectors of anecdotes, and worst of any, the critic, of our +Galleries of Art; for she being in almost all of them (the principal +painters of the day were on their knees for the favour of a sitting), +they have to speak of her pretty frequently, and they season their dish, +the coxcombs do, by hinting a knowledge of her history. + +'Here we come to another portrait of the beautiful but, we fear, naughty +Countess of Cressett.' + +You are to imagine that they know everything, and they are so indulgent +when they drop their blot on a lady's character. + +They can boast of nothing more than having read Nymriey's Letters and +Correspondence, published, fortunately for him, when he was no longer to +be called to account below for his malicious insinuations, pretending to +decency in initials and dashes: That man was a hater of women and the +clergy. He was one of the horrid creatures who write with a wink at you, +which sets the wicked part of us on fire: I have known it myself, and I +own it to my shame; and if I happened to be ignorant of the history of +Countess Fanny, I could not refute his wantonness. He has just the same +benevolent leer for a bishop. Give me, if we are to make a choice, the +beggar's breech for decency, I say: I like it vastly in preference to a +Nymney, who leads you up to the curtain and agitates it, and bids you to +retire on tiptoe. You cannot help being angry with the man for both +reasons. But he is the writer society delights in, to show what it is +composed of. A man brazen enough to declare that he could hold us in +suspense about the adventures of a broomstick, with the aid of a yashmak +and an ankle, may know the world; you had better not know him--that is my +remark; and do not trust him. + +He tells the story of the Old Buccaneer in fear of the public, for it was +general property, but of course he finishes with a Nymney touch: 'So the +Old Buccaneer is the doubloon she takes in exchange for a handful of +silver pieces.' There is no such handful to exchange--not of the kind he +sickeningly nudges at you. I will prove to you it was not Countess +Fanny's naughtiness, though she was indeed very blamable. Women should +walk in armour as if they were born to it; for these cold sneerers will +never waste their darts on cuirasses. An independent brave young +creature, exposing herself thoughtlessly in her reckless innocence, is +the victim for them. They will bring all society down on her with one of +their explosive sly words appearing so careless, the cowards. I say +without hesitation, her conduct with regard to Kirby, the Old Buccaneer, +as he was called, however indefensible in itself, warrants her at heart +an innocent young woman, much to be pitied. Only to think of her, I +could sometimes drop into a chair for a good cry. And of him too! and +their daughter Carinthia Jane was the pair of them, as to that, and so +was Chillon John, the son. + +Those critics quoting Nymney should look at the portrait of her in the +Long Saloon of Cresset Castle, where she stands in blue and white, +completely dressed, near a table supporting a couple of holster pistols, +and then let them ask themselves whether they would speak of her so if +her little hand could move. + +Well, and so the tale of her swim across the Shannon river and back drove +the young Earl of Cresset straight over to Ireland to propose for her, +he saying; that she was the girl to suit his book; not allowing her time +to think of how much he might be the man to suit hers. The marriage was +what is called a good one: both full of frolic, and he wealthy and rather +handsome, and she quite lovely and spirited. + +No wonder the whole town was very soon agog about the couple, until at +the end of a year people began to talk of them separately, she going her +way, and he his. She could not always be on the top of a coach, which +was his throne of happiness. + +Plenty of stories are current still of his fame as a four-in-hand +coachman. They say he once drove an Emperor and a King, a Prince +Chancellor and a pair of Field Marshals, and some ladies of the day, +from the metropolis to Richmond Hill in fifty or sixty odd minutes, +having the ground cleared all the way by bell and summons, and only a +donkey-cart and man, and a deaf old woman, to pay for; and went, as you +can imagine, at such a tearing gallop, that those Grand Highnesses had +to hold on for their lives and lost their hats along the road; and a +publican at Kew exhibits one above his bar to the present hour. And +Countess Fanny was up among them, they say. She was equal to it. And +some say, that was the occasion of her meeting the Old Buccaneer. + +She met him at Richmond in Surrey we know for certain. It was on +Richmond Hill, where the old King met his Lass. They say Countess Fanny +was parading the hill to behold the splendid view, always admired so much +by foreigners, with their Achs and Hechs! and surrounded by her crowned +courtiers in frogged uniforms and moustachioed like sea-horses, a little +before dinner time, when Kirby passed her, and the Emperor made a remark +on him, for Kirby was a magnificent figure of a man, and used to be +compared to a three-decker entering harbour after a victory. He stood +six feet four, and was broad-shouldered and deep-chested to match, and +walked like a king who has humbled his enemy. You have seen big dogs. +And so Countess Fanny looked round. Kirby was doing the same. But he +had turned right about, and appeared transfixed and like a royal beast +angry, with his wound. If ever there was love at first sight, and a +dreadful love, like a runaway mail-coach in a storm of wind and lightning +at black midnight by the banks of a flooded river, which was formerly our +comparison for terrible situations, it was when those two met. + +And, what! you exclaim, Buccaneer Kirby full sixty-five, and Countess +Fanny no more than three and twenty, a young beauty of the world of +fashion, courted by the highest, and she in love with him! Go and gaze +at one of our big ships coming out of an engagement home with all her +flags flying and her crew manning the yards. That will give you an idea +of a young woman's feelings for an old warrior never beaten down an inch +by anything he had to endure; matching him, I dare say, in her woman's +heart, with the Mighty Highnesses who had only smelt the outside edge of +battle. She did rarely admire a valiant man. Old as Methuselah, he +would have made her kneel to him. She was all heart for a real hero. + +The story goes, that Countess Fanny sent her husband to Captain Kirby, +at the emperor's request, to inquire his name; and on hearing it, she +struck her hands on her bosom, telling his Majesty he saw there the +bravest man in the king's dominions; which the emperor scarce crediting, +and observing that the man must be, then, a superhuman being to be so +distinguished in a nation of the brave, Countess Fanny related the well- +known tale of Captain Kirby and the shipful of mutineers; and how when +not a man of them stood by him, and he in the service of the first +insurgent State of Spanish America, to save his ship from being taken +over to the enemy,--he blew her up, fifteen miles from land: and so he +got to shore swimming and floating alternately, and was called Old Sky- +high by English sailors, any number of whom could always be had to sail +under Buccaneer Kirby. He fought on shore as well; and once he came down +from the tops of the Andes with a black beard turned white, and went into +action with the title of Kirby's Ghost. + +But his heart was on salt water; he was never so much at home as in a +ship foundering or splitting into the clouds. We are told that he never +forgave the Admiralty for striking him off the list of English naval +captains: which is no doubt why in his old age he nursed a grudge against +his country. + +Ours, I am sure, was the loss; and many have thought so since. He was a +mechanician, a master of stratagems; and would say, that brains will beat +Grim Death if we have enough of them. He was a standing example of the +lessons of his own MAXIMS FOR MEN, a very curious book, that fetches a +rare price now wherever a copy is put up for auction. I shudder at them +as if they were muzzles of firearms pointed at me; but they were not +addressed to my sex; and still they give me an interest in the writer who +would declare, that 'he had never failed in an undertaking without +stripping bare to expose to himself where he had been wanting in +Intention and Determination.' + +There you may see a truly terrible man. + +So the emperor being immensely taken with Kirby's method of preserving +discipline on board ship, because (as we say to the madman, 'Your strait- +waistcoat is my easy-chair') monarchs have a great love of discipline, +he begged Countess Fanny's permission that he might invite Captain Kirby +to his table; and Countess Fanny (she had the name from the ballad + + 'I am the star of Prince and Czar, + My light is shed on many, + But I wait here till my bold Buccaneer + Makes prize of Countess Fanny':-- + +for the popular imagination was extraordinarily roused by the elopement, +and there were songs and ballads out of number), Countess Fanny +despatched her husband to Captain Kirby again, meaning no harm, though +the poor man is laughed at in the songs for going twice upon his mission. + +None of the mighty people repented of having the Old Buccaneer--for that +night, at all events. He sat in the midst of them, you may believe, like +the lord of that table, with his great white beard and hair--not a lock +of it shed--and his bronze lion-face, and a resolute but a merry eye that +he had. He was no deep drinker of wine, but when he did drink, and the +wine champagne, he drank to show his disdain of its powers; and the +emperor wishing for a narrative of some of his exploits, particularly the +blowing up of his ship, Kirby paid his Majesty the compliment of giving +it him as baldly as an official report to the Admiralty. So disengaged +and calm was he, with his bottles of champagne in him, where another +would have been sparkling and laying on the colours, that he was then and +there offered Admiral's rank in the Imperial navy; and the Old Buccaneer, +like a courtier of our best days, bows to Countess Fanny, and asks her, +if he is a free man to go: and, No, says she, we cannot spare you! And +there was a pretty wrangle between Countess Fanny and the emperor, each +pulling at the Old Buccaneer to have possession of him. + +He was rarely out of her sight after their first meeting, and the +ridiculous excuse she gave to her husband's family was, she feared he +would be kidnapped and made a Cossack of! And young Lord Cressett, her +husband, began to grumble concerning her intimacy with a man old enough +to be her grandfather. As if the age were the injury! He seemed to +think it so, and vowed he would shoot the old depredator dead, if he +found him on the grounds of Cressett: 'like vermin,' he said, and it was +considered that he had the right, and no jury would have convicted him. +You know what those days were. + +He had his opportunity one moonlight night, not far from the castle, and +peppered Kirby with shot from a fowling-piece at, some say, five paces' +distance, if not point-blank. + +But Kirby had a maxim, Steady shakes them, and he acted on it to receive +his enemy's fire; and the young lord's hand shook, and the Old Buccaneer +stood out of the smoke not much injured, except in the coat-collar, with +a pistol cocked in his hand, and he said: + +'Many would take that for a declaration of war, but I know it 's only +your lordship's diplomacy'; and then he let loose to his mad fun, +astounding Lord Cressett and his gamekeeper, and vowed, as the young lord +tried to relate subsequently, as well as he could recollect the words-- +here I have it in print:--'that he was a man pickled in saltpetre when an +infant, like Achilles, and proof against powder and shot not marked with +cross and key, and fetched up from the square magazine in the central +depot of the infernal factory, third turning to the right off the grand +arcade in Kingdom-come, where the night-porter has to wear wet +petticoats, like a Highland chief, to make short work of the sparks +flying about, otherwise this world and many another would not have to +wait long for combustion.' + +Kirby had the wildest way of talking when he was not issuing orders under +fire, best understood by sailors. I give it you as it stands here +printed. I do not profess to understand. + +So Lord Cressett said: 'Diplomacy and infernal factories be hanged! Have +your shot at me; it's only fair.' And Kirby discharged his pistol at the +top twigs of an old oak tree, and called the young lord a Briton, and +proposed to take him in hand and make a man of him, as nigh worthy of his +wife as any one not an Alexander of Macedon could be. + +So they became friendly, and the young lord confessed it was his family +that had urged him to the attack; and Kirby abode at the castle, and all +three were happy, in perfect honour, I am convinced: but such was not the +opinion of the Cressetts and Levelliers. Down they trooped to Cressett +Castle with a rush and a roar, crying on the disgrace of an old desperado +like Kirby living there; Dukes, Marchionesses, Cabinet Ministers, leaders +of fashion, and fire-eating colonels of the King's body-guard, one of +whom Captain John Peter Kirby laid on his heels at ten paces on an April +morning, when the duel was fought, as early as the blessed heavens had +given them light to see to do it. Such days those were! + +There was talk of shutting up the infatuated lady. If not incarcerated, +she was rigidly watched. The earl her husband fell altogether to +drinking and coaching, and other things. The ballad makes her say: + + 'My family my gaolers be, + My husband is a zany; + Naught see I clear save my bold Buccaneer + To rescue Countess Fanny!' + +and it goes on: + + 'O little lass, at play on the grass, + + Come earn a silver penny, + And you'll be dear to my bold Buccaneer + For news of his Countess Fanny.' + +In spite of her bravery, that poor woman suffered! + +We used to learn by heart the ballads and songs upon famous events in +those old days when poetry was worshipped. + +But Captain Kirby gave provocation enough to both families when he went +among the taverns and clubs, and vowed before Providence over his big +fist that they should rue their interference, and he would carry off the +lady on a day he named; he named the hour as well, they say, and that was +midnight of the month of June. The Levelliers and Cressetts foamed at +the mouth in speaking of him, so enraged they were on account of his age +and his passion for a young woman. As to blood, the Kirbys of +Lincolnshire were quite equal to the Cressetts of Warwick. The Old +Buccaneer seems to have had money too. But you can see what her people +had to complain of: his insolent contempt of them was unexampled. And +their tyranny had roused my lady's high spirit not a bit less; and she +said right out: 'When he comes, I am ready and will go with him.' + +There was boldness for you on both sides! All the town was laughing and +betting on the event of the night in June: and the odds were in favour of +Kirby; for though, Lord Cressett was quite the popular young English +nobleman, being a capital whip and free of his coin, in those days men +who had smelt powder were often prized above titles, and the feeling, +out of society, was very strong for Kirby, even previous to the fight +on the heath. And the age of the indomitable adventurer must have +contributed to his popularity. He was the hero of every song. + + "'What's age to me!" cries Kirby; + "Why, young and fresh let her be, + But it 's mighty better reasoned + For a man to be well seasoned, + And a man she has in me," cries Kirby.' + +As to his exact age: + + "'Write me down sixty-three," cries Kirby.' + +I have always maintained that it was an understatement. We must +remember, it was not Kirby speaking, but the song-writer. Kirby would +not, in my opinion, have numbered years he was proud of below their due +quantity. He was more, if he died at ninety-one; and Chillon Switzer +John Kirby, born eleven months after the elopement, was, we know, twenty- +three years old when the old man gave up the ghost and bequeathed him +little besides a law-suit with the Austrian Government, and the care of +Carinthia Jane, the second child of this extraordinary union; both +children born in wedlock, as you will hear. Sixty-three, or sixty-seven, +near upon seventy, when most men are reaping and stacking their sins with +groans and weak knees, Kirby was a match for his juniors, which they +discovered. + +Captain John Peter Avason Kirby, son of a Lincolnshire squire of an +ancient stock, was proud of his blood, and claimed descent from a chief +of the Danish rovers. + + '"What's rank to me!" cries Kirby; + "A titled lass let her be, + But unless my plans miscarry, + I'll show her when we marry; + As brave a pedigree," cries Kirby.' + +That was the song-writer's answer to the charge that the countess had +stooped to a degrading alliance. + +John Peter was fourth of a family of seven children, all males, and hard +at the bottle early in life: 'for want of proper occupation,' he says in +his Memoirs, and applauds his brother Stanson, the clergyman, for being +ahead of him in renouncing strong dunks, because he found that he 'cursed +better upon water.' Water, however, helped Stanson Kirby to outlive his +brothers and inherit the Lincolnshire property, and at the period of the +great scandal in London he was palsied, and waited on by his grandson and +heir Ralph Thorkill Kirby, the hero of an adventure celebrated in our Law +courts and on the English stage; for he took possession of his coachman's +wife, and was accused of compassing the death of the husband. He was not +hanged for it, so we are bound to think him not guilty. + +The stage-piece is called 'Saturday Night', and it had an astonishing +run, but is only remembered now for the song of 'Saturday,' sung by the +poor coachman and labourers at the village ale-house before he starts to +capture his wife from the clutches of her seducer and meets his fate. +Never was there a more popular song: you heard it everywhere. +I recollect one verse: + + 'O Saturday money is slippery metal, + And Saturday ale it is tipsy stuff + At home the old woman is boiling her kettle, + She thinks we don't know when we've tippled enough. + We drink, and of never a man are we jealous, + And never a man against us will he speak + For who can be hard on a set of poor fellows + Who only see Saturday once a week! + +You chorus the last two lines. + +That was the very song the unfortunate coachman of Kirby Hall joined in +singing before he went out to face his end for the woman he loved. He +believed in her virtue to the very last. + +'The ravished wife of my bosom,' he calls her all through the latter half +of the play. It is a real tragedy. The songs of that day have lost +their effect now, I suppose. They will ever remain pathetic to me; and +to hear the poor coachman William Martin invoking the name of his dear +stolen wife Elizabeth, jug in hand, so tearfully, while he joins the song +of Saturday, was a most moving thing. You saw nothing but handkerchiefs +out all over the theatre. What it is that has gone from our drama, I +cannot tell: I am never affected now as I was then; and people in a low +station of life could affect me then, without being flung at me, for I +dislike an entire dish of them, I own. We were simpler in our habits and +ways of thinking. Elizabeth Martin, according to report, was a woman to +make better men than Ralph Thorkill act evilly--as to good looks, I mean. +She was not entirely guiltless, I am afraid; though in the last scene, +Mrs. Kempson, who played the part (as, alas, she could do to the very +life!), so threw herself into the pathos of it that there were few to +hold out against her, and we felt that Elizabeth had been misled. So +much for morality in those days! + +And now for the elopement. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF CRESSETT WITH +THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, +AND OF A GREAT COUNTY FAMILY + +The twenty-first of June was the day appointed by Captain Kirby to carry +off Countess Fanny, and the time midnight: and ten minutes to the stroke +of twelve, Countess Fanny, as if she scorned to conceal that she was in a +conspiracy with her grey-haired lover, notwithstanding that she was +watched and guarded, left the Marchioness of Arpington's ball-room and +was escorted downstairs by her brother Lord Levellier, sworn to baffle +Kirby. Present with him in the street and witness to the shutting of the +carriage-door on Countess Fanny, were brother officers of his, General +Abrane, Colonel Jack Potts, and Sir Upton Tomber. + +The door fast shut, Countess Fanny kissed her hand to them and drew up +the window, seeming merry, and as they had expected indignation and +perhaps resistance, for she could be a spitfire in a temper and had no +fear whatever of firearms, they were glad to have her safe on such good +terms; and so General Abrane jumped up on the box beside the coachman, +Jack Potts jumped up between the footmen, and Sir Upton Tomber and the +one-armed lord, as soon as the carriage was disengaged from the ruck two +deep, walked on each side of it in the road all the way to Lord +Cressett's town house. No one thought of asking where that silly young +man was--probably under some table. + +Their numbers were swelled by quite a host going along, for heavy bets +were on the affair, dozens having backed Kirby; and it must have appeared +serious to them, with the lady in custody, and constables on the look- +out, and Kirby and his men nowhere in sight. They expected an onslaught +at some point of the procession, and it may be believed they wished it, +if only that they might see something for their money. A beautiful +bright moonlight night it happened to be. Arm in arm among them were +Lord Pitscrew and Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, a great friend of Kirby's; +for it was a device of the Old Buccaneer's that helped the earl to win +the great Welsh heiress who made him, even before he took to hoarding and +buying,--one of the wealthiest noblemen in England; but she was crazed by +her marriage or the wild scenes leading to it; she never presented +herself in society. She would sit on the top of Estlemont towers--as +they formerly spelt it--all day and half the night in midwinter, often, +looking for the mountains down in her native West country, covered with +an old white flannel cloak, and on her head a tall hat of her Welsh +women-folk; and she died of it, leaving a son in her likeness, of whom +you will hear. Lord Fleetwood had lost none of his faith in Kirby, and +went on booking bets giving him huge odds, thousands! + +He accepted fifty to one when the carriage came to a stop at the steps of +Lord Cressett's mansion; but he was anxious, and well he might be, seeing +Countess Fanny alight and pass up between two lines of gentlemen all +bowing low before her: not a sign of the Old Buccaneer anywhere to right +or left! Heads were on the look out, and vows offered up for his +appearance. + +She was at the door and about to enter the house. Then it was; that with +a shout of the name of some dreadful heathen god, Colonel Jack Potts +roared out, 'She's half a foot short o' the mark!' + +He was on the pavement, and it seems he measured her as she slipped by +him, and one thing and another caused him to smell a cheat; and General +Abrane, standing beside her near the door, cried: 'Where art flying now, +Jack?' But Jack Potts grew more positive and bellowed, 'Peel her wig! +we're done!' + +And she did not speak a word, but stood huddled-up and hooded; and Lord +Levellier caught her up by the arm as she was trying a dash into the +hall, and Sir Upton Tomber plucked at her veil and raised it, and +whistled: + +'Phew!'--which struck the rabble below with awe of the cunning of the Old +Buccaneer; and there was no need for them to hear General Abrane say: +'Right! Jack, we've a dead one in hand,' or Jack Potts reply: + +'It's ten thousand pounds clean winged away from my pocket, like a string +of wild geese!' + +The excitement of the varletry in the square, they say, was fearful to +hear. So the principal noblemen and gentlemen concerned thought it +prudent to hurry the young woman into the house and bar the door; and +there she was very soon stripped of veil and blonde false wig with long +curls, the whole framing of her artificial resemblance to Countess Fanny, +and she proved to be a good-looking foreign maid, a dark one, powdered, +trembling very much, but not so frightened upon hearing that her penalty +for the share she had taken in the horrid imposture practised upon them +was to receive and return a salute from each of the gentlemen in +rotation; which the hussy did with proper submission; and Jack Potts +remarked, that 'it was an honest buss, but dear at ten thousand!' + +When you have been the victim of a deceit, the explanation of the +simplicity of the trick turns all the wonder upon yourself, you know, and +the backers of the Old Buccaneer and the wagerers against him crowed and +groaned in chorus at the maid's narrative of how the moment Countess +Fanny had thrown up the window of her carriage, she sprang out to a +carriage on the off side, containing Kirby, and how she, this little +French jade, sprang in to take her place. One snap of the fingers and +the transformation was accomplished. So for another kiss all round they +let her go free, and she sat at the supper-table prepared for Countess +Fanny and the party by order of Lord Levellier, and amused the gentlemen +with stories of the ladies she had served, English and foreign. And that +is how men are taught to think they know our sex and may despise it! I +could preach them a lesson. Those men might as well not believe in the +steadfastness of the very stars because one or two are reported lost out +of the firmament, and now and then we behold a whole shower of fragments +descending. The truth is, they have taken a stain from the life they +lead, and are troubled puddles, incapable of clear reflection. To listen +to the tattle of a chatting little slut, and condemn the whole sex upon +her testimony, is a nice idea of justice. Many of the gentlemen present +became notorious as woman-scorners, whether owing to Countess Fanny or +other things. Lord Levellier was, and Lord Fleetwood, the wicked man! +And certainly the hearing of naughty stories of us by the light of a +grievous and vexatious instance of our misconduct must produce an +impression. Countess Fanny's desperate passion for a man of the age of +Kirby struck them as out of nature. They talked of it as if they could +have pardoned her a younger lover. + +All that Lord Cressett said, on the announcement of the flight of his +wife, was: 'Ah! Fan! she never would run in my ribbons.' + +He positively declined to persue. Lord Levellier would not attempt to +follow her up without him, as it would have cost money, and he wanted all +that he could spare for his telescopes and experiments. Who, then, was +the gentleman who stopped the chariot, with his three mounted attendants, +on the road to the sea, on the heath by the great Punch-Bowl? + +That has been the question for now longer than half a century, in fact +approaching seventy mortal years. No one has ever been able to say for +certain. + +It occurred at six o'clock on the summer morning. Countess Fanny must +have known him,--and not once did she open her mouth to breathe his name. +Yet she had no objection to talk of the adventure and how Simon Fettle, +Captain Kirby's old ship's steward in South America, seeing horsemen +stationed on the ascent of the high road bordering the Bowl, which is +miles round and deep, made the postillion cease jogging, and sang out to +his master for orders, and Kirby sang back to him to look to his priming, +and then the postillion was bidden proceed, and he did not like it, but +he had to deal with pistols behind, where men feel weak, and he went +bobbing on the saddle in dejection, as if upon his very heart he jogged; +and soon the fray commenced. There was very little parleying between +determined men. + +Simon Fettle was a plain kindly creature without a thought of malice, +who kept his master's accounts. He fired the first shot at the foremost +man, as he related in after days, 'to reduce the odds.' Kirby said to +Countess Fanny, just to comfort her, never so much as imagining she would +be afraid, 'The worst will be a bloody shirt for Simon to mangle,' for +they had been arranging to live cheaply in a cottage on the Continent, +and Simon Fettle to do the washing. She could not help laughing +outright. But when the Old Buccaneer was down striding in the battle, +she took a pistol and descended likewise; and she used it, too, and +loaded again. + +She had not to use it a second time. Kirby pulled the gentleman off his +horse, wounded in the thigh, and while dragging him to Countess Fanny to +crave her pardon, a shot intended for Kirby hit the poor gentleman in the +breast, and Kirby stretched him at his length, and Simon and he disarmed +the servant who had fired. One was insensible, one flying, and those two +on the ground. All in broad daylight; but so lonely is that spot, +nothing might have been heard of it, if at the end of the week the +postillion who had been bribed and threatened with terrible threats to +keep his tongue from wagging, had not begun to talk. So the scene of the +encounter was examined, and on one spot, carefully earthed over, blood- +marks were discovered in the green sand. People in the huts on the hill- +top, a quarter of a mile distant, spoke of having heard sounds of firing +while they were at breakfast, and a little boy named Tommy Wedger said he +saw a dead body go by in an open coach that morning; all bloody and +mournful. He had to appear before the magistrates, crying terribly, but +did not know the nature of an oath, and was dismissed. Time came when +the boy learned to swear, and he did, and that he had seen a beautiful +lady firing and killing men like pigeons and partridges; but that was +after Charles Dump, the postillion, had been telling the story. + +Those who credited Charles Dump's veracity speculated on dozens of great +noblemen--and gentlemen known to be dying in love with Countess Fanny. +And this brings us to another family. + +I do not say I know anything; I do but lay before you the evidence we +have to fix suspicion upon a notorious character, perfectly capable of +trying to thwart a man like Kirby, and with good reason to try, if she +had bewitched him to a consuming passion, as we are told. + +About eleven miles distant, as the crow flies and a bold huntsman will +ride in that heath country, from the Punch-Bowl, right across the mounds +and the broad water, lies the estate of the Fakenhams, who intermarried +with the Coplestones of the iron mines, and were the wealthiest of the +old county families until Curtis Fakenham entered upon his inheritance. +Money with him was like the farm-wife's dish of grain she tosses in +showers to her fowls. He was more than what you call a lady-killer, he +was a woman-eater. His pride was in it as well as his taste, and when +men are like that, indeed they are devourers! + +Curtis was the elder brother of Commodore Baldwin Fakenham, whose +offspring, like his own, were so strangely mixed up with Captain Kirby's +children by Countess Fanny, as you will hear. And these two brothers +were sons of Geoffrey Fakenham, celebrated for his devotion to the French +Countess Jules d'Andreuze, or some such name, a courtly gentleman, who +turned Papist on his death-bed in France, in Brittany somewhere, not to +be separated from her in the next world, as he solemnly left word; +wickedly, many think. + +To show the oddness of things and how opposite to one another brothers +may be, his elder, the uncle of Curtis, and Baldwin, was the renowned old +Admiral Fakenham, better known along our sea-coasts and ports among +sailors as 'Old Showery,' because of a remark he once made to his flag- +captain, when cannon-balls were coming thick on them in a hard-fought +action. 'Hot work, sir,' his captain said. 'Showery,' replied the +admiral, as his cocked-hat was knocked off by the wind of a cannon-ball. +He lost both legs before the war was over, and said merrily, 'Stumps for +life'' while they were carrying him below to the cockpit. In my girlhood +the boys were always bringing home anecdotes of old Admiral Showery: not +all of them true ones, perhaps, but they fitted him. He was a rough +seaman, fond, as they say, of his glass and his girl, and utterly +despising his brother Geoffrey for the airs he gave himself, and crawling +on his knees to a female Parleyvoo; and when Geoffrey died, the admiral +drank to his rest in the grave: 'There's to my brother Jeff,' he said, +and flinging away the dregs of his glass: 'There 's to the Frog!' and +flinging away the glass to shivers: 'There's to the Turncoat!' + +He salted his language in a manner I cannot repeat; no epithet ever stood +by itself. When I was young the boys relished these dreadful words +because they seemed to smell of tar and battle-smoke, when every English +boy was for being a sailor and daring the Black Gentleman below. In all +truth, the bad words came from him; though an excellent scholar has +assured me they should be taken for aspirates, and mean no harm; and so +it may be, but heartily do I rejoice that aspirates, have been dropped by +people of birth; for you might once hear titled ladies guilty of them in +polite society, I do assure you. + +We have greatly improved in that respect. They say the admiral's +reputation as a British sailor of the old school made him, rather his +name, a great favourite at Court; but to Court he could not be got to go, +and if the tale be true, their Majesties paid him a visit on board his +ship, in harbour one day, and sailors tell you that Old Showery gave +his liege lord and lady a common dish of boiled beef with carrots and +turnips, and a plain dumpling, for their dinner, with ale and port wine, +the merit of which he swore to; and he became so elate, that after the +cloth was removed, he danced them a hornpipe on his pair of wooden legs, +whistling his tune, and holding his full tumbler of hot grog in his hand +all the while, without so much as the spilling of a drop!--so earnest was +he in everything he did. They say his limit was two bottles of port wine +at a sitting, with his glass of hot grog to follow, and not a soul could +induce him to go beyond that. In addition to being a great seaman, he +was a very religious man and a stout churchman. + +Well, now, the Curtis Fakenham of Captain Kirby's day had a good deal of +his uncle as well as his father in him, the spirit of one and the +outside, of the other; and, favoured or not, he had been distinguished +among Countess Fanny's adorers: she certainly chose to be silent about +the name of the assailant. And it has been attested on oath that two +days and a night subsequent to the date furnished by Charles Dump, Curtis +Fakenham was brought to his house, Hollis Grange, lame of a leg, with a +shot in his breast, that he carried to the family vault; and his head +gamekeeper, John Wiltshire, a resolute fellow, was missing from that +hour. Some said they had a quarrel, and Curtis was wounded and John +Wiltshire killed. Curtis was known to have been extremely attached to +the man. Yet when Wiltshire was inquired for, he let fall a word of +'having more of Wiltshire than was agreeable to Hampshire'--his county. +People asked what that meant. Yet, according to the tale, it was the +surviving servant, by whom he, or whoever it may have been, was +accidentally shot. + +We are in a perfect tangle. On the other hand, it was never denied that +Curtis and John Wiltshire were in London together at the time of Countess +Fanny's flight: and Curtis Fakenham was one of the procession of armed +gentleman conducting her in her carriage, as they supposed; and he was +known to have started off, on the discovery of the cheat, with horrible +imprecations against Frenchwomen. It became known, too; that horses of +his were standing saddled in his innyard at midnight. And more, Charles +Dump the postillion was taken secretly to set eyes on him as they wheeled +him in his garden-walk, and he vowed it was the identical gentleman. But +this coming by and by to the ear of Curtis, he had Charles Dump fetched +over to confront him; and then the man made oath that he had never seen +Mr. Curtis Fakenham anywhere but there, in his own house at Hollis! One +does not really know what, to think of it. + +This postillion made a small fortune. He was everywhere in request. +People were never tired of asking him how he behaved while the fight was +going on, and he always answered that he sat as close to his horse as he +could, and did not dream of dismounting; for, he said, 'he was a figure +on a horse, and naught when off it.' His repetition of the story, with +some adornments, and that same remark, made him the popular man of the +county; people said he might enter Parliament, and I think at one time it +was possible. But a great success is full of temptations. After being +hired at inns to fill them with his account of the battle, and tipped by +travellers from London to show the spot, he set up for himself as +innkeeper, and would have flourished, only he had contracted habits on +his rounds, and he fell to contradicting himself, so that he came to be +called Lying Charley; and the people of the country said it was 'he who +drained the Punch-Bowl, for though he helped to put the capital into it, +he took all the interest out of it.' + +Yet we have the doctor of the village of Ipley, Dr. Cawthorne, a noted +botanist, assuring us of the absolute credibility of Charles Dump, whom +he attended in the poor creature's last illness, when Charles Dump +confessed he had lived in mortal terror of Squire Curtis, and had got +the trick of lying, through fear of telling the truth. Hence his ruin. + +So he died delirious and contrite. Cawthorne, the great Turf man, +inherited a portrait of him from his father the doctor. It was often +the occasion of the story being told over again, and used to hang in +the patients' reception room, next to an oil-painting of the Punch-Bowl, +an admired landscape picture by a local artist, highly-toned and true +to every particular of the scene, with the bright yellow road winding +uphill, and the banks of brilliant purple heath, and a white thorn in +bloom quite beautiful, and the green fir trees, and the big Bowl black as +a cauldron,--indeed a perfect feast of harmonious contrasts in colours. + +And now you know how it is that the names of Captain Kirby and Curtis +Fakenham are alive to the present moment in the district. + +We lived a happy domestic life in those old coaching days, when county +affairs and county people were the topics of firesides, and the country +enclosed us to make us feel snug in our own importance. My opinion is, +that men and women grow to their dimensions only where such is the case. +We had our alarms from the outside now and again, but we soon relapsed +to dwell upon our private business and our pleasant little hopes and +excitements; the courtships and the crosses and the scandals, the tea- +parties and the dances, and how the morning looked after the stormy night +had passed, and the coach coming down the hill with a box of news and +perhaps a curious passenger to drop at the inn. I do believe we had a +liking for the very highwaymen, if they had any reputation for civility. +What I call human events, things concerning you and me, instead of the +deafening catastrophes now afflicting and taking all conversation out of +us, had their natural interest then. We studied the face of each morning +as it came, and speculated upon the secret of the thing it might have in +store for us or our heroes and heroines; we thought of them more than of +ourselves. Long after the adventures of the Punch-Bowl, our county was +anxious about Countess Fanny and the Old Buccaneer, wondering where they +were and whether they were prospering, whether they were just as much in +love as ever, and which of them would bury the other, and what the +foreign people abroad thought of that strange pair. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CONTINUATION OF THE INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP, TOGETHER +WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION + +I have still time before me, according to the terms of my agreement with +the person to whom I have, I fear foolishly, entrusted the letters and +documents of a story surpassing ancient as well as modern in the +wonderment it causes, that would make the Law courts bless their hearts, +judges no less than the barristers, to have it running through them day +by day, with every particular to wrangle over, and many to serve as a +text for the pulpit. So to proceed. + +It should be mentioned that the postillion Charles Dump is not +represented, and I have no conception of the reason why not, sitting +on horseback, in the portrait in the possession of the Cawthorne family. +I have not seen it, I am bound to admit. We had offended Dr. Cawthorne, +by once in an urgent case calling in another doctor, who, he would have +it, was a quack, that ought to have killed us, and we ceased to visit; +but a gentleman who was an established patient of Dr. Cawthorne's and +had frequent opportunities of judging the portrait, in the course of a +chronic malady, describes Charles Dump on his legs as a small man looking +diminished from a very much longer one by shrinkage in thickish wrinkles +from the shoulders to the shanks. His hat is enormous and very gay. +He is rather of sad countenance. An elevation of his collar behind the +ears, and pointed at the neck, gives you notions of his having dropped +from some hook. He stands with his forefinger extended, like a disused +semaphore-post, that seems tumbling and desponding on the hill by the +highroad, in his attitude while telling the tale; if standing it may be +called, where the whole figure appears imploring for a seat. That was +his natural position, as one would suppose any artist must have thought, +and a horse beneath him. But it has been suggested that the artist in +question was no painter of animals. Then why did he not get a painter of +animals to put in the horse? It is vain to ask, though it is notorious +that artists combine without bickering to do these things; and one puts +his name on the animal, the other on the human being or landscape. + +My informant adds, that the prominent feature, telling a melancholy tale +of its own, is of sanguine colour, and while plainly in the act of +speaking, Charles Dump might be fancied about to drop off to sleep. He +was impressed by the dreaminess of the face; and I must say I regard him +as an interesting character. During my girlhood Napoleon Bonaparte alone +would have been his rival for filling an inn along our roads. I have +known our boys go to bed obediently and get up at night to run three +miles to THE WHEATSHEAF, only to stand on the bench or traveller's-rest +outside the window and look in at Charles Dump reciting, with just room +enough in the crowd to point his finger, as his way was. + +He left a child, Mary Dump, who grew up to become lady's maid to Livia +Fakenham, daughter of Curtis, the beauty of Hampshire, equalled by no one +save her cousin Henrietta Fakenham, the daughter of Commodore Baldwin; +and they were two different kinds of beauties, not to be compared, and +different were their fortunes; for this lady was likened to the sun going +down on a cloudy noon, and that lady to the moon riding through a stormy +night. Livia was the young widow of Lord Duffield when she accepted the +Earl of Fleetwood, and was his third countess, and again a widow at +eight-and-twenty, and stepmother to young Croesus, the Earl of Fleetwood +of my story. Mary Dump testifies to her kindness of heart to her +dependents. If we are to speak of goodness, I am afraid there are other +witnesses. + +I resent being warned that my time is short and that I have wasted much +of it over 'the attractive Charles.' What I have done I have done with a +purpose, and it must be a storyteller devoid of the rudiments of his art +who can complain of my dwelling on Charles Dump, for the world to have a +pause and pin its faith to him, which it would not do to a grander +person--that is, as a peg. Wonderful events, however true they are, +must be attached to something common and familiar, to make them credible. +Charles Dump, I say, is like a front-page picture to a history of those +old quiet yet exciting days in England, and when once you have seized him +the whole period is alive to you, as it was to me in the delicious +dulness I loved, that made us thirsty to hear of adventures and able to +enjoy to the utmost every thing occurring. The man is no more attractive +to me than a lump of clay. How could he be? But supposing I took up the +lump and told you that there where I found it, that lump of clay had been +rolled over and flung off by the left wheel of the prophet's Chariot of +Fire before it mounted aloft and disappeared in the heavens above!-- +you would examine it and cherish it and have the scene present with you, +you may be sure; and magnificent descriptions would not be one-half so +persuasive. And that is what we call, in my profession, Art, if you +please. + +So to continue: the Earl of Cressett fell from his coach-box in a fit, +and died of it, a fortnight after the flight of his wife; and the people +said she might as well have waited. Kirby and Countess Fanny were at +Lucerne or Lausanne, or some such place, in Switzerland when the news +reached them, and Kirby, without losing an hour, laid hold of an English +clergyman of the Established Church and put him through the ceremony of +celebrating his lawful union with the beautiful young creature he adored. +And this he did, he said, for the world to guard his Fan in a wider +circle than his two arms could compass, if not quite so well. + +So the Old Buccaneer was ever after that her lawful husband, and as his +wedded wife, not wedded to a fool, she was an example to her sex, like +many another woman who has begun badly with a light-headed mate. It is +hard enough for a man to be married to a fool, but a man is only half- +cancelled by that burden, it has been said; whereas a woman finds herself +on board a rudderless vessel, and often the desperate thing she does is +to avoid perishing! Ten months, or eleven, some say, following the +proclamation of the marriage-tie, a son was born to Countess Fanny, close +by the castle of Chillon-on-the-lake, and he had the name of Chillon +Switzer John Kirby given to him to celebrate the fact. + +Two years later the girl was born, and for the reason of her first seeing +the light in that Austrian province, she was christened Carinthia Jane. +She was her old father's pet; but Countess Fanny gloried in the boy. She +had fancied she would be a childless woman before he gave sign of coming; +and they say she wrote a little volume of Meditations in Prospect of +Approaching Motherhood, for the guidance of others in a similar +situation. + +I have never been able to procure the book or pamphlet, but I know she +was the best of mothers, and of wives too. And she, with her old +husband, growing like a rose out of a weather-beaten rock, proved she was +that, among those handsome foreign officers poorly remarkable for their +morals. Not once had the Old Buccaneer to teach them a lesson. Think of +it and you will know that her feet did not stray--nor did her pretty +eyes. Her heart was too full for the cravings of vanity. Innocent +ladies who get their husbands into scrapes are innocent, perhaps; but +knock you next door in their bosoms, where the soul resides, and ask for +information of how innocence and uncleanness may go together. Kirby +purchased a mine in Carinthia, on the borders of Styria, and worked it +himself. His native land displeased him, so that he would not have been +unwilling to see Chillon enter the Austrian service, which the young man +was inclined for, subsequent to his return to his parents from one of the +English public schools, notwithstanding his passionate love for Old +England. But Lord Levellier explained the mystery in a letter to his +half-forgiven sister, praising the boy for his defence of his mother's +name at the school, where a big brutal fellow sneered at her, and Chillon +challenged him to sword or pistol; and then he walked down to the boy's +home in Staffordshire to force him to fight; and the father of the boy +made him offer an apology. That was not much balm to Master Chillon's +wound. He returned to his mother quite heavy, unlike a young man; and +the unhappy lady, though she knew, him to be bitterly sensitive on the +point of honour, and especially as to everything relating to her, saw +herself compelled to tell him the history of her life, to save him, as +she thought, from these chivalrous vindications of her good name. She +may have even painted herself worse than she was, both to excuse her +brother's miserliness to her son and the world's evil speaking of her. +Wisely or not, she chose this course devotedly to protect him from the +perils she foresaw in connection with the name of the once famous +Countess Fanny in the British Isles. And thus are we stricken by the +days of our youth. It is impossible to moralize conveniently when one is +being hurried by a person at one's elbow. + +So the young man heard his mother out and kissed her, and then he went +secretly to Vienna and enlisted and served for a year as a private in the +regiment of Hussars, called, my papers tell me, Liechtenstein, and what +with his good conduct and the help of Kirby's friends, he would have +obtained a commission from the emperor, when, at the right moment to keep +a sprig of Kirby's growth for his country, Lord Levellier sent word that +he was down for a cornetcy in a British regiment of dragoons. Chillon +came home from a garrison town, and there was a consultation about his +future career. Shall it be England? Shall it be Austria? Countess +Fanny's voice was for England, and she carried the vote, knowing though +she did that it signified separation, and it might be alienation--where +her son would chance to hear things he could not refute. She believed +that her son by such a man as Kirby would be of use to his country, and +her voice, against herself, was for England. + +It broke her heart. If she failed to receive the regular letter, she +pined and was disconsolate. He has heard more of me! was in her mind. +Her husband sat looking at her with his old large grey glassy eyes. You +would have fancied him awaiting her death as the signal for his own +release. But she, poor mother, behind her weeping lids beheld her son's +filial love of her wounded and bleeding. When there was anything to be +done for her, old Kirby was astir. When it was nothing, either in physic +or assistance, he was like a great corner of rock. You may indeed +imagine grief in the very rock that sees its flower fading to the +withered shred. On the last night of her life this old man of past +ninety carried her in his arms up a flight of stairs to her bed. + +A week after her burial, Kirby was found a corpse in the mountain forest. +His having called the death of his darling his lightning-stroke must have +been the origin of the report that he died of lightning. He touched not +a morsel of food from the hour of the dropping of the sod on her coffin +of ebony wood. An old crust of their mahogany bread, supposed at first +to be a specimen of quartz, was found in one of his coat pockets. He +kissed his girl Carinthia before going out on his last journey from home, +and spoke some wandering words. The mine had not been worked for a year. +She thought she would find him at the mouth of the shaft, where he would +sometimes be sitting and staring, already dead at heart with the death he +saw coming to the beloved woman. They had to let her down with ropes, +that she might satisfy herself he was not below. She and her great dog +and a faithful man-servant discovered the body in the forest. Chillon +arrived from England to see the common grave of both his parents. + +And now good-bye to sorrow for a while. Keep your tears for the living. +And first I am going to describe to you the young Earl of Fleetwood, son +of the strange Welsh lady, the richest nobleman of his time, and how he +persued and shunned the lady who had fascinated him, Henrietta, the +daughter of Commodore Baldwin Fakenham; and how he met Carinthia Jane; +and concerning that lovely Henrietta and Chillon Kirby-Levellier; and of +the young poet of ordinary parentage, and the giant Captain Abrane, and +Livia the widowed Countess of Fleetwood, Henrietta's cousin, daughter of +Curtis Fakenham; and numbers of others; Lord Levellier, Lord Brailstone, +Lord Simon Pitscrew, Chumley Potts, young Ambrose Mallard; and the +English pugilist, such a man of honour though he drank; and the +adventures of Madge, Carinthia Jane's maid. Just a few touches. And +then the marriage dividing Great Britain into halves, taking sides. +After that, I trust you may go on, as I would carry you were we all +twenty years younger, had I but sooner been in possession of these +treasured papers. I promise you excitement enough, if justice is done to +them. But I must and will describe the wedding. This young Earl of +Fleetwood, you should know, was a very powder-magazine of ambition, and +never would he break his word: which is right, if we are properly +careful; and so he-- + +She ceases. According to the terms of the treaty, the venerable lady's +time has passed. An extinguisher descends on her, giving her the +likeness of one under condemnation of 'the Most Holy Inqusition, in the +ranks of an 'auto da fe'; and singularly resembling that victim at the +first sharp bite of the flames she will, be when she hears the version of +her story. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME + +Brother and sister were about to leave the mountainland for England. +They had not gone to bed overnight, and from the windows of their +deserted home, a little before dawn, they saw the dwindled moon, a late +riser, break through droves of hunted cloud, directly topping their +ancient guardian height, the triple peak and giant of the range, +friendlier in his name than in aspect for the two young people clinging +to the scene they were to quit. His name recalled old-days: the +apparition of his head among the heavens drummed on their sense of +banishment. + +To the girl, this was a division of her life, and the dawn held the +sword. She felt herself midswing across a gulf that was the grave of one +half, without a light of promise for the other. Her passionate excess of +attachment to her buried home robbed the future of any colours it might +have worn to bid a young heart quicken. And England, though she was of +British blood, was a foreign place to her, not alluring: her brother had +twice come out of England reserved in speech; her mother's talk of +England had been unhappy; her father had suffered ill-treatment there +from a brutal institution termed the Admiralty, and had never regretted +the not seeing England again. The thought that she was bound thitherward +enfolded her like a frosty mist. But these bare walls, these loud +floors, chill rooms, dull windows, and the vault-sounding of the ghostly +house, everywhere the absence of the faces in the house told her she had +no choice, she must go. The appearance of her old friend the towering +mountain-height, up a blue night-sky, compelled her swift mind to see +herself far away, yearning to him out of exile, an exile that had no +local features; she would not imagine them to give a centre of warmth, +her wilful grief preferred the blank. It resembled death in seeming some +hollowness behind a shroud, which we shudder at. + +The room was lighted by a stable-lantern on a kitchen-table. Their seat +near the window was a rickety garden-bench rejected in the headlong sale +of the furniture; and when she rose, unable to continue motionless while +the hosts of illuminated cloud flew fast, she had to warn her brother to +preserve his balance. He tacitly did so, aware of the necessity. + +She walked up and down the long seven-windowed saloon, haunted by her +footfall, trying to think, chafing at his quietness and acknowledging +that he did well to be quiet. They had finished their packing of boxes +and of wearing-apparel for the journey. There was nothing to think of, +nothing further to talk of, nothing for her to do save to sit and look, +and deaden her throbs by counting them. She soon returned to her seat +beside her brother, with the marvel in her breast that the house she +desired so much to love should be cold and repel her now it was a vacant +shell. Her memories could not hang within it anywhere. She shut her +eyes to be with the images of the dead, conceiving the method as her +brother's happy secret, and imitated his posture, elbows propped on knees +to support the chin. His quietness breathed of a deeper love than her +own. + +Meanwhile the high wind had sunk; the moon, after pushing her withered +half to the zenith, was climbing the dusky edge, revealed fitfully; +threads and wisps of thin vapour travelled along a falling gale, and +branched from the dome of the sky in migratory broken lines, like wild +birds shifting the order of flight, north and east, where the dawn sat in +a web, but as yet had done no more than shoot up a glow along the central +heavens, in amid the waves of deepened aloud: a mirror for night to see +her dark self in her own hue. A shiver between the silent couple pricked +their wits, and she said: + +'Chillon, shall we run out and call the morning?' + +It was an old game of theirs, encouraged by their hearty father, to be +out in the early hour on a rise of ground near the house and 'call the +morning.' Her brother was glad of the challenge, and upon one of the +yawns following a sleepless night, replied with a return to boyishness: +'Yes, if you like. It's the last time we shall do her the service here. +Let's go.' + +They sprang up together and the bench fell behind them. Swinging the +lantern he carried inconsiderately, the ring of it was left on his +finger, and the end of candle rolled out of the crazy frame to the floor +and was extinguished. Chillon had no match-box. He said to her: + +'What do you think of the window?--we've done it before, Carin. Better +than groping down stairs and passages blocked with lumber.' + +'I'm ready,' she said, and caught at her skirts by instinct to prove her +readiness on the spot. + +A drop of a dozen feet or so from the French window to a flower--bed was +not very difficult. Her father had taught her how to jump, besides the +how of many other practical things. She leaped as lightly as her +brother, never touching earth with her hands; and rising from the proper +contraction of the legs in taking the descent, she quoted her father: +'Mean it when you're doing it.' + +'For no enemy's shot is equal to a weak heart in the act,' + +Chillon pursued the quotation, laying his hand on her shoulder for a sign +of approval. She looked up at him. + +They passed down the garden and a sloping meadow to a brook swollen by +heavy rains; over the brook on a narrow plank, and up a steep and stony +pathway, almost a watercourse, between rocks, to another meadow, level +with the house, that led ascending through a firwood; and there the +change to thicker darkness told them light was abroad, though whether of +the clouded moon or of the first grey of the quiet revolution was +uncertain. Metallic light of a subterranean realm, it might have been +thought. + +'You remember everything of father,' Carinthia said. 'We both do,' said +Chillon. + +She pressed her brother's arm. 'We will. We will never forget +anything.' + +Beyond the firwood light was visibly the dawn's. Half-way down the +ravines it resembled the light cast off a torrent water. It lay on the +grass like a sheet of unreflecting steel, and was a face without a smile +above. Their childhood ran along the tracks to the forest by the light, +which was neither dim nor cold, but grave; presenting tree and shrub and +dwarf growth and grass austerely, not deepening or confusing them. They +wound their way by borders of crag, seeing in a dell below the mouth of +the idle mine begirt with weedy and shrub-hung rock, a dripping semi- +circle. Farther up they came on the flat juniper and crossed a wet +ground-thicket of whortleberry: their feet were in the moist moss among +sprigs of heath; and a great fir-tree stretched his length, a peeled +multitude of his dead fellows leaned and stood upright in the midst of +scattered fire-stained members, and through their skeleton limbs the +sheer precipice of slate-rock of the bulk across the chasm, nursery of +hawk and eagle; wore a thin blue tinge, the sign of warmer light abroad. + +'This way, my brother!' cried Carinthia, shuddering at a path he was +about to follow. + +Dawn in the mountain-land is a meeting of many friends. The pinnacle, +the forest-head, the latschen-tufted mound, rock-bastion and defiant +cliff and giant of the triple peak, were in view, clearly lined for a +common recognition, but all were figures of solid gloom, unfeatured and +bloomless. Another minute and they had flung off their mail, and changed +to various, indented, intricate, succinct in ridge, scar and channel; +and they had all a look of watchfulness that made them one company. +The smell of rock-waters and roots of herb and moss grew keen; air became +a wine that raised the breast high to breathe it; an uplifting coolness +pervaded the heights. What wonder that the mountain-bred girl should let +fly her voice. The natural carol woke an echo. She did not repeat it. + +'And we will not forget our home, Chillon,' she said, touching him gently +to comfort some saddened feeling. + +The plumes of cloud now slowly entered into the lofty arch of dawn and +melted from brown to purpleblack. The upper sky swam with violet; and in +a moment each stray cloud-feather was edged with rose, and then suffused. +It seemed that the heights fronted East to eye the interflooding of +colours, and it was imaginable that all turned to the giant whose +forehead first kindled to the sun: a greeting of god and king. + +On the morning of a farewell we fluctuate sharply between the very +distant and the close and homely: and even in memory the fluctuation +occurs, the grander scene casting us back on the modestly nestling, and +that, when it has refreshed us, conjuring imagination to embrace the +splendour and wonder. But the wrench of an immediate division from what +we love makes the things within us reach the dearest, we put out our +hands for them, as violently-parted lovers do, though the soul in days to +come would know a craving, and imagination flap a leaden wing, if we had +not looked beyond them. + +'Shall we go down?' said Carinthia, for she knew a little cascade near +the house, showering on rock and fern, and longed to have it round her. + +They descended, Chillon saying that they would soon have the mists +rising, and must not delay to start on their journey. + +The armies of the young sunrise in mountain-lands neighbouring the +plains, vast shadows, were marching over woods and meads, black against +the edge of golden; and great heights were cut with them, and bounding +waters took the leap in a silvery radiance to gloom; the bright and dark- +banded valleys were like night and morning taking hands down the sweep of +their rivers. Immense was the range of vision scudding the peaks and +over the illimitable Eastward plains flat to the very East and sources of +the sun. + +Carinthia said: 'When I marry I shall come here to live and die.' + +Her brother glanced at her. He was fond of her, and personally he liked +her face; but such a confident anticipation of marriage on the part of a +portionless girl set him thinking of the character of her charms and the +attraction they would present to the world of men. They were expressive +enough; at times he had thought them marvellous in their clear cut of the +animating mind.--No one could fancy her handsome; and just now her hair +was in some disorder, a night without sleep had an effect on her +complexion. + +'It's not usually the wife who decides where to live,' said he. + +Her ideas were anywhere but with the dream of a husband. 'Could we stay +on another day?--' + +'My dear girl! Another night on that crazy stool! 'Besides, Mariandl is +bound to go to-day to her new place, and who's to cook for us? Do you +propose fasting as well as watching?' + +'Could I cook?' she asked him humbly. + +'No, you couldn't; not for a starving regiment! Your accomplishments are +of a different sort. No, it's better to get over the pain at once, if we +can't escape it. + +'That I think too,' said she, 'and we should have to buy provisions. +Then, brother, instantly after breakfast. Only, let us walk it. I know +the whole way, and it is not more than a two days' walk for you and me. +Consent. Driving would be like going gladly. I could never bear to +remember that I was driven away. + +And walking will save money; we are not rich, you tell me, brother.' + +'A few florins more or less!' he rejoined, rather frowning. 'You have +good Styrian boots, I see. But I want to be over at the Baths there +soon; not later than to-morrow.' + +'But, brother, if they know we are coming they will wait for us. And we +can be there to-morrow night or the next morning!' + +He considered it. He wanted exercise and loved this mountain-land; his +inclinations melted into hers; though he had reasons for hesitating. +'Well, we'll send on my portmanteau and your boxes in the cart; we'll +walk it. You're a capital walker, you're a gallant comrade; I wouldn't +wish for a better.' He wondered, as he spoke, whether any true-hearted +gentleman besides himself would ever think the same of this lonely girl. + +Her eyes looked a delighted 'No-really?' for the sweetest on earth to her +was to be prized by her brother. + +She hastened forward. 'We will go down and have our last meal at home,' +she said in the dialect of the country. 'We have five eggs. No meat for +you, dear, but enough bread and butter, some honey left, and plenty of +coffee. I should like to have left old Mariandl more, but we are unable +to do very much for poor people now. Milk, I cannot say. She is just +the kind soul to be up and out to fetch us milk for an early first +breakfast; but she may have overslept herself.' + +Chillon smiled. 'You were right, Janet', about not going to bed last +night; we might have missed the morning.' + +'I hate sleep: I hate anything that robs me of my will,' she replied. + +'You'd be glad of your doses of sleep if you had to work and study.' + +'To fall down by the wayside tired out--yes, brother, a dead sleep is +good. Then you are in the hands of God. Father used to say, four hours +for a man, six for a woman.' + +'And four and twenty for a lord,' added Chillon. 'I remember.' + +'A lord of that Admiralty,' she appealed to his closer recollection. +'But I mean, brother, dreaming is what I detest so.' + +'Don't be detesting, my dear; reserve your strength,' said he. 'I suppose +dreams are of some use, now and then.' + +'I shall never think them useful.' + +'When we can't get what we want, my good Carin.' + +'Then we should not waste ourselves in dreams.' + +'They promise falsely sometimes. That's no reason why we should reject +the consolation when we can't get what we want, my little sister.' + +'I would not be denied.' + +'There's the impossible.' + +'Not for you, brother.' + +Perhaps a half-minute after she had spoken, he said, 'pursuing a dialogue +within himself aloud rather than revealing a secret: 'You don't know her +position.' + +Carinthia's heart stopped beating. Who was this person suddenly conjured +up? + +She fancied she might not have heard correctly; she feared to ask and yet +she perceived a novel softness in him that would have answered. Pain of +an unknown kind made her love of her brother conscious that if she asked +she would suffer greater pain. + +The house was in sight, a long white building with blinds down at some of +the windows, and some wide open, some showing unclean glass: the three +aspects and signs of a house's emptiness when they are seen together. + +Carinthia remarked on their having met nobody. It had a serious meaning +for them. Formerly they were proud of outstripping the busy population +of the mine, coming down on them with wild wavings and shouts of sunrise. +They felt the death again, a whole field laid low by one stroke, and +wintriness in the season of glad life. A wind had blown and all had +vanished. + +The second green of the year shot lively sparkles off the meadows, from a +fringe of coloured glovelets to a warm silver lake of dews. The firwood +was already breathing rich and sweet in the sun. The half-moon fell +rayless and paler than the fan of fleeces pushed up Westward, high +overhead, themselves dispersing on the blue in downy feathers, like the +mottled grey of an eagle's breast: the smaller of them bluish like traces +of the beaked wood-pigeon. + +She looked above, then below on the slim and straightgrown flocks of +naked purple crocuses in bud and blow abounding over the meadow that +rolled to the level of the house, and two of these she gathered. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A MOUNTAIN WALK IN MIST AND SUNSHINE + +Chillon was right in his forecast of the mists. An over-moistened earth +steaming to the sun obscured it before the two had finished breakfast, +which was a finish to everything eatable in the ravaged dwelling, with +the exception of a sly store for the midday meal, that old Mariandl had +stuffed into Chillon's leather sack--the fruit of secret begging on their +behalf about the neighbourhood. He found the sack heavy and bulky as he +slung it over his shoulders; but she bade him make nothing of such a +trifle till he had it inside him. 'And you that love tea so, my pretty +one, so that you always laughed and sang after drinking a cup with your +mother,' she said to Carinthia, 'you will find one pinch of it in your +bag at the end of the left-foot slipper, to remember your home by when +you are out in the world.' + +She crossed the strap of the bag on her mistress's bosom, and was +embraced by Carinthia and Chillon in turns, Carinthia telling her to dry +her eyes, for that she would certainly come back and perhaps occupy the +house one day or other. The old soul moaned of eyes that would not be +awake to behold her; she begged a visit at her grave, though it was to be +in a Catholic burial-place and the priests had used her dear master and +mistress ill, not allowing them to lie in consecrated ground; affection +made her a champion of religious tolerance and a little afraid of +retribution. Carinthia soothed her, kissed her, gave the promise, and +the parting was over. + +She and Chillon had on the previous day accomplished a pilgrimage to the +resting-place of their father and mother among humble Protestants, iron- +smelters, in a valley out of the way of their present line of march to +the glacier of the great snow-mountain marking the junction of three +Alpine provinces of Austria. Josef, the cart-driver with the boxes, who +was to pass the valley, vowed of his own accord to hang a fresh day's +wreath on the rails. He would not hear of money for the purchase, and +they humoured him. The family had been beloved. There was an offer of a +home for Carinthia in the castle of Count Lebern, a friend of her +parents, much taken with her, and she would have accepted it had not +Chillon overruled her choice, determined that, as she was English, she +must come to England and live under the guardianship of her uncle, Lord +Levellier, of whose character he did not speak. + +The girl's cheeks were drawn thin and her lips shut as they departed; +she was tearless. A phantom ring of mist accompanied her from her first +footing outside the house. She did not look back. The house came +swimming and plunging after her, like a spectral ship on big seas, and +her father and mother lived and died in her breast; and now they were +strong, consulting, chatting, laughing, caressing; now still and white, +caught by a vapour that dived away with them either to right or left, but +always with the same suddenness, leaving her to question herself whether +she existed, for more of life seemed to be with their mystery than with +her speculations. The phantom ring of mist enclosing for miles the +invariable low-sweeping dark spruce-fir kept her thoughts on them as +close as the shroud. She walked fast, but scarcely felt that she was +moving. Near midday the haunted circle widened; rocks were loosely +folded in it, and heads of trees, whose round intervolving roots grasped +the yellow roadside soil; the mists shook like a curtain, and partly +opened and displayed a tapestry-landscape, roughly worked, of woollen +crag and castle and suggested glen, threaded waters, very prominent +foreground, Autumn flowers on banks; a predominant atmospheric greyness. +The sun threw a shaft, liquid instead of burning, as we see his beams +beneath a wave; and then the mists narrowed again, boiled up the valleys +and streams above the mountain, curled and flew, and were Python coils +pierced by brighter arrows of the sun. A spot of blue signalled his +victory above. + +To look at it was to fancy they had been walking under water and had now +risen to the surface. Carinthia's mind stepped out of the chamber of +death. The different air and scene breathed into her a timid warmth +toward the future, and between her naming of the lesser mountains on +their side of the pass, she asked questions relating to England, and +especially the ladies she was to see at the Baths beyond the glacier- +pass. She had heard of a party of his friends awaiting him there, +without much encouragement from him to ask particulars of them, +and she had hitherto abstained, as she was rather shy of meeting her +countrywomen. The ladies, Chillon said, were cousins; one was a young +widow, the Countess of Fleetwood, and the other was Miss Fakenham, a +younger lady. + +Carinthia murmured in German: 'Poor soul!' Which one was she pitying? +The widow, she said, in the tone implying, naturally. + +Her brother assured her the widow was used to it, for this was her second +widowhood. + +'She marries again!' exclaimed the girl. + +'You don't like that idea?' said he. + +Carinthia betrayed a delicate shudder. + +Her brother laughed to himself at her expressive present tense. 'And +marries again!' he said. 'There will certainly be a third.' + +'Husband?' said she, as at the incredible. + +'Husband, let's hope,' he answered. + +She dropped from her contemplation of the lady, and her look at her +brother signified: It will not be you! + +Chillon was engaged in spying for a place where he could spread out the +contents of his bag. Sharp hunger beset them both at the mention of +eating. A bank of sloping green shaded by a chestnut proposed the seat, +and here he relieved the bag of a bottle of wine, slices of, meat, bread, +hard eggs, and lettuce, a chipped cup to fling away after drinking the +wine, and a supply of small butler-cakes known to be favourites with +Carinthia. She reversed the order of the feast by commencing upon one of +the cakes, to do honour to Mariandl's thoughtfulness. As at their +breakfast, they shared the last morsel. + +'But we would have made it enough for our dear old dog Pluto as well, if +he had lived,' said Carinthia, sighing with her thankfulness and +compassionate regrets, a mixture often inspiring a tender babbling +melancholy. 'Dogs' eyes have such a sick look of love. He might have +lived longer, though he was very old, only he could not survive the loss +of father. I know the finding of the body broke his heart. He sprang +forward, he stopped and threw up his head. It was human language to hear +him, Chillon. He lay in the yard, trying to lift his eyes when I came to +him, they were so heavy; and he had not strength to move his poor old +tail more than once. He died with his head on my lap. He seemed to beg +me, and I took him, and he breathed twice, and that was his end. Pluto! +old dog! Well, for you or for me, brother, we could not have a better +wish. As for me, death! . . . When we know we are to die! Only let +my darling live! that is my prayer, and that we two may not be separated +till I am taken to their grave. Father bought ground for four--his wife +and himself and his two children. It does not oblige us to be buried +there, but could we have any other desire?' + +She stretched her hand to her brother. He kissed it spiritedly. + +'Look ahead, my dear girl. Help me to finish this wine. There 's +nothing like good hard walking to give common wine of the country a +flavour--and out of broken crockery.' + +'I think it so good,' Carinthia replied, after drinking from the cup. +'In England they, do not grow wine. Are the people there kind?' + +'They're civilized people, of course.' + +'Kind--warm to you, Chillon?' + +'Some of them, when you know them. "Warm," is hardly the word. Winter's +warm on skates. You must do a great deal for yourself. They don't boil +over. By the way, don't expect much of your uncle.' + +'Will he not love me?' + +'He gives you a lodging in his house, and food enough, we'll hope. You +won't see company or much of him.' + +'I cannot exist without being loved. I do not care for company. He must +love me a little.' + +'He is one of the warm-hearted race--he's mother's brother; but where his +heart is, I 've not discovered. + +Bear with him just for the present, my dear, till I am able to support +you.' + +'I will,' she said. + +The dreary vision of a home with an unloving uncle was not brightened by +the alternative of her brother's having to support her. She spoke of +money. 'Have we none, Chillon?' + +'We have no debts,' he answered. 'We have a claim on the Government here +for indemnification for property taken to build a fortress upon one of +the passes into Italy. Father bought the land, thinking there would be a +yield of ore thereabout; and they have seized it, rightly enough, but +they dispute our claim for the valuation we put on it. A small sum they +would consent to pay. It would be a very small sum, and I 'm father's +son, I will have justice.' + +'Yes!' Carthinia joined with him to show the same stout nature. + +'We have nothing else except a bit to toss up for luck.' + +'And how can I help being a burden on my brother?' she inquired, in +distress. + +'Marry, and be a blessing to a husband,' he said lightly. + +They performed a sacrifice of the empty bottle and cracked cup on the +site of their meal, as if it had been a ceremony demanded from +travellers, and leaving them in fragments, proceeded on their journey +refreshed. + +Walking was now high enjoyment, notwithstanding the force of the sun, for +they were a hardy couple, requiring no more than sufficient nourishment +to combat the elements with an exulting blood. Besides they loved +mountain air and scenery, and each step to the ridge of the pass they +climbed was an advance in splendour. Peaks of ashen hue and pale dry red +and pale sulphur pushed up, straight, forked, twisted, naked, striking +their minds with an indeterminate ghostliness of Indian, so strange they +were in shape and colouring. These sharp points were the first to greet +them between the blue and green. A depression of the pass to the left +gave sight of the points of black fir forest below, round the girths of +the barren shafts. Mountain blocks appeared pushing up in front, and a +mountain wall and woods on it, and mountains in the distance, and cliffs +riven with falls of water that were silver skeins, down lower to meadows, +villages and spires, and lower finally to the whole valley of the foaming +river, field and river seeming in imagination rolled out from the hand of +the heading mountain. + +'But see this in winter, as I did with father, Chillon!' said Carinthia. + +She said it upon love's instinct to halo the scene with something beyond +present vision, and to sanctify it for her brother, so that this walk of +theirs together should never be forgotten. + +A smooth fold of cloud, moveless along one of the upper pastures, and +still dense enough to be luminous in sunlight, was the last of the mist. + +They watched it lying in the form of a fish, leviathan diminished, as +they descended their path; and the head was lost, the tail spread +peacockwise, and evaporated slowly in that likeness; and soft to a breath +of air as gossamer down, the body became a ball, a cock, a little lizard, +nothingness. + +The bluest bright day of the year was shining. Chillon led the descent. +With his trim and handsome figure before her, Carinthia remembered the +current saying, that he should have been the girl and she the boy. That +was because he resembled their mother in face. But the build of his +limbs and shoulders was not feminine. + +To her admiring eyes, he had a look superior to simple strength and +grace; the look of a great sky-bird about to mount, a fountain-like +energy of stature, delightful to her contemplation. And he had the mouth +women put faith in for decision and fixedness. She did, most fully; and +reflecting how entirely she did so, the thought assailed her: some one +must be loving him! + +She allowed it to surprise her, not choosing to revert to an uneasy +sensation of the morning. + +That some one, her process of reasoning informed her, was necessarily an +English young lady. She reserved her questions till they should cease +this hopping and heeling down the zigzag of the slippery path-track. +When children they had been collectors of beetles and butterflies, and +the flying by of a 'royal-mantle,' the purple butterfly grandly fringed, +could still remind Carinthia of the event it was of old to spy and chase +one. Chillon himself was not above the sentiment of their "very early +days"; he stopped to ask if she had been that lustrous blue-wing, a rarer +species, prized by youngsters, shoot through the chestnut trees: and they +both paused for a moment, gazing into the fairyland of infancy, she +seeing with her brother's eyes, this prince of the realm having escaped +her. He owned he might have been mistaken, as the brilliant fellow flew +swift and high between leaves, like an ordinary fritillary. Not the less +did they get their glimpse of the wonders in the sunny eternity of a +child's afternoon. + +'An Auerhahn, Chillon!' she said, picturing the maturer day when she had +scaled perilous heights with him at night to stalk the blackcock in the +prime of the morning. She wished they could have had another such +adventure to stamp the old home on his heart freshly, to tile exclusion +of beautiful English faces. + +On the level of the valley, where they met the torrent-river, walking +side by side with him, she ventured an inquiry: 'English girls are fair +girls, are they not?' + +'There are some dark also,' he replied. + +'But the best-looking are fair?' + +'Perhaps they are, with us.' + +'Mother was fair.' + +'She was.' + +'I have only seen a few of them, once at Vies and at Venice, and those +Baths we are going to; and at Meran, I think.' + +'You considered them charming?' + +'Not all.' + +It was touching that she should be such a stranger to her countrywomen! +He drew a portrait-case from his breast-pocket, pressing the spring, +and handed it to her, saying: 'There is one.' He spoke indifferently, +but as soon as she had seen the face inside it, with a look at him and a +deep breath; she understood that he was an altered brother, and that they +were three instead of two. + +She handed it back to him, saying hushedly and only 'Yes.' + +He did not ask an opinion upon the beauty she had seen. His pace +increased, and she hastened her steps beside him. She had not much to +learn when some minutes later she said; 'Shall I see her, Chillon?' + +'She is one of the ladies we are to meet.' + +'What a pity!' Carinthia stepped faster, enlightened as to his wish to +get to the Baths without delay; and her heart softened in reflecting how +readily he had yielded to her silly preference for going on foot. + +Her cry of regret was equivocal; it produced no impression on him. They +reached a village where her leader deemed it adviseable to drive for the +remainder of the distance up the valley to the barrier snow-mountain. +She assented instantly, she had no longer any active wishes of her own, +save to make amends to her brother, who was and would ever be her +brother: she could not be robbed of their relationship. + +Something undefined in her feeling of possession she had been robbed of, +she knew it by her spiritlessness; and she would fain have attributed it +to the idle motion of the car, now and them stupidly jolting her on, +after the valiant exercise of her limbs. They were in a land of +waterfalls and busy mills, a narrowing vale where the runs of grass grew +short and wild, and the glacier-river roared for the leap, more foam than +water, and the savagery, naturally exciting to her, breathed of its lair +among the rocks and ice-fields. + +Her brother said: 'There he is.' She saw the whitecrowned king of the +region, of whose near presence to her old home she had been accustomed to +think proudly, end she looked at him without springing to him, and +continued imaging her English home and her loveless uncle, merely +admiring the scene, as if the fire of her soul had been extinguished.-- +'Marry, and be a blessing to a husband.' Chillon's words whispered of +the means of escape from the den of her uncle. + +But who would marry me! she thought. An unreproved sensation of melting +pervaded her; she knew her capacity for gratitude, and conjuring it up in +her 'heart, there came with it the noble knightly gentleman who would +really stoop to take a plain girl by the hand, release her, and say: 'Be +mine!' His vizor was down, of course. She had no power of imagining the +lineaments of that prodigy. Or was he a dream? He came and went. Her +mother, not unkindly, sadly, had counted her poor girl's chances of +winning attention and a husband. Her father had doated on her face; but, +as she argued, her father had been attracted by her mother, a beautiful +woman, and this was a circumstance that reflected the greater +hopelessness on her prospects. She bore a likeness to her father, +little to her mother, though he fancied the reverse and gave her the +mother's lips and hair. Thinking of herself, however, was destructive +to the form of her mirror of knightliness: he wavered, he fled for good, +as the rosy vapour born of our sensibility must do when we relapse to +coldness, and the more completely when we try to command it. No, she +thought, a plain girl should think of work, to earn her independence. + +'Women are not permitted to follow armies, Chillon?' she said. + +He laughed out. 'What 's in your head?' + +The laugh abashed her; she murmured of women being good nurses for +wounded soldiers, if they were good walkers to march with the army; and, +as evidently it sounded witless to him, she added, to seem reasonable: +'You have not told me the Christian names of those ladies.' + +He made queer eyes over the puzzle to connect the foregoing and the +succeeding in her remarks, but answered straightforwardly: 'Livia is one, +and Henrietta! + +Her ear seized on the stress of his voice. 'Henrietta!' She chose that +name for the name of the person disturbing her; it fused best, she +thought, with the new element she had been compelled to take into her +system, to absorb it if she could. + +'You're not scheming to have them serve as army hospital nurses, my +dear?' + +'No, Chillon.' + +'You can't explain it, I suppose?' + +'A sister could go too, when you go to war, Chillon.' + +A sister could go, if it were permitted by the authorities, and be near +her brother to nurse him in case of wounds; others would be unable to +claim the privilege. That was her meaning, involved with the hazy +project of earning an independence; but she could not explain it, and +Chillon set her down for one of the inexplicable sex, which the simple +adventurous girl had not previously seemed to be. + +She was inwardly warned of having talked foolishly, and she held her +tongue. Her humble and modest jealousy, scarce deserving the title, +passed with a sigh or two. It was her first taste of life in the world. + +A fit of heavy-mindedness ensued, that heightened the contrast her recent +mood had bequeathed, between herself, ignorant as she was, and those +ladies. Their names, Livia and Henrietta, soared above her and sang the +music of the splendid spheres. Henrietta was closer to earth, for her +features had been revealed; she was therefore the dearer, and the richer +for him who loved her, being one of us, though an over-earthly one; and +Carinthia gave her to Chillon, reserving for herself a handmaiden's place +within the circle of their happiness. + +This done, she sat straight in the car. It was toiling up the steep +ascent of a glen to the mountain village, the last of her native +province. Her proposal to walk was accepted, and the speeding of her +blood, now that she had mastered a new element in it, soon restored her +to her sisterly affinity with natural glories. The sunset was on yonder +side of the snows. Here there was a feast of variously-tinted sunset +shadows on snow, meadows, rock, river, serrated cliff. The peaked cap of +the rushing rock-dotted sweeps of upward snow caught a scarlet +illumination: one flank of the white in heaven was violetted wonderfully. + +At nightfall, under a clear black sky, alive with wakeful fires round +head and breast of the great Alp, Chillon and Carinthia strolled out of +the village, and he told her some of his hopes. They referred to +inventions of destructive weapons, which were primarily to place his +country out of all danger from a world in arms; and also, it might be +mentioned, to bring him fortune. 'For I must have money!' he said, +sighing it out like a deliberate oath. He and his uncle were associated +in the inventions. They had an improved rocket that would force military +chiefs to change their tactics: they had a new powder, a rifle, a model +musket--the latter based on his own plans; and a scheme for fortress +artillery likely to turn the preponderance in favour of the defensive +once again. 'And that will be really doing good,' said Chillon, 'for +where it's with the offensive, there's everlasting bullying and +plundering.' + +Carinthia warmly agreed with him, but begged him be sure his uncle +divided the profits equally. She discerned what his need of money +signified. + +Tenderness urged her to say: 'Henrietta! Chillon.' + +'Well?' he answered quickly. + +'Will she wait?' + +'Can she, you should ask.' + +'Is she brave?' + +'Who can tell, till she has been tried?' + +'Is she quite free?' + +'She has not yet been captured.' + +'Brother, is there no one else . . . ?' + +'There's a nobleman anxious to bestow his titles on her.' + +'He is rich?' + +'The first or second wealthiest in Great Britain, they say.' + +'Is he young?' + +'About the same age as mine.' + +'Is he a handsome young man?' + +'Handsomer than your brother, my girl.' + +'No, no, no !' said she. 'And what if he is, and your Henrietta does not +choose him? Now let me think what I long to think. I have her close to +me.' + +She rocked a roseate image on her heart and went to bed with it by +starlight. + +By starlight they sprang to their feet and departed the next morning, in +the steps of a guide carrying, Chillon said, 'a better lantern than we +left behind us at the smithy.' + +'Father!' exclaimed Carinthia on her swift inward breath, for this one of +the names he had used to give to her old home revived him to her thoughts +and senses fervently. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER + +Three parts down a swift decline of shattered slate, where travelling +stones loosened from rows of scree hurl away at a bound after one roll +over, there sat a youth dusty and torn, nursing a bruised leg, not in the +easiest of postures, on a sharp tooth of rock, that might at any moment +have broken from the slanting slab at the end of which it formed a stump, +and added him a second time to the general crumble of the mountain. He +had done a portion of the descent in excellent imitation of the detached +fragments, and had parted company with his alpenstock and plaid; +preserving his hat and his knapsack. He was alone, disabled, and +cheerful; in doubt of the arrival of succour before he could trust his +left leg to do him further service unaided; but it was morning still, the +sun was hot, the air was cool; just the tempering opposition to render +existence pleasant as a piece of vegetation, especially when there has +been a question of your ceasing to exist; and the view was of a +sustaining sublimity of desolateness: crag and snow overhead; a gloomy +vale below; no life either of bird or herd; a voiceless region where +there had once been roars at the bowling of a hill from a mountain to the +deep, and the third flank of the mountain spoke of it in the silence. + +He would have enjoyed the scene unremittingly, like the philosopher he +pretended to be, in a disdain of civilization and the ambitions of men, +had not a contest with earth been forced on him from time to time to keep +the heel of his right foot, dug in shallow shale, fixed and supporting. +As long as it held he was happy and maintained the attitude of a guitar- +player, thrumming the calf of the useless leg to accompany tuneful +thoughts, but the inevitable lapse and slide of the foot recurred, and +the philosopher was exhibited as an infant learning to crawl. The seat, +moreover, not having been fashioned for him or for any soft purpose, +resisted his pressure and became a thing of violence, that required to be +humiliatingly coaxed. His last resource to propitiate it was counselled +by nature turned mathematician: tenacious extension solved the problem; +he lay back at his length, and with his hat over his eyes consented to +see nothing for the sake of comfort. Thus he was perfectly rational, +though when others beheld him he appeared the insanest of mortals. + +A girl's voice gave out the mountain carol ringingly above. His heart +and all his fancies were in motion at the sound. He leaned on an elbow +to listen; the slide threatened him, and he resumed his full stretch, +determined to take her for a dream. He was of the class of youths who, +in apprehension that their bright season may not be permanent, choose to +fortify it by a systematic contempt of material realities unless they +come in the fairest of shapes, and as he was quite sincere in this +feeling and election of the right way to live, disappointment and +sullenness overcame him on hearing men's shouts and steps; despite his +helpless condition he refused to stir, for they had jarred on his dream. +Perhaps his temper, unknown to himself, had been a little injured by his +mishap, and he would not have been sorry to charge them with want of +common humanity in passing him; or he did not think his plight so bad, +else he would have bawled after them had they gone by: far the youths of +his description are fools only upon system,--however earnestly they +indulge the present self-punishing sentiment. The party did not pass; +they stopped short, they consulted, and a feminine tongue more urgent +than the others, and very musical, sweet to hear anywhere, put him in +tune. She said, 'Brother! brother!' in German. Our philosopher flung +off his hat. + +'You see!' said the lady's brother. + +'Ask him, Anton,'she said to their guide. + +'And quick!' her brother added. + +The guide scrambled along to him, and at a closer glance shouted: 'The +Englishman!' wheeling his finger to indicate what had happened to the +Tomnoddy islander. + +His master called to know if there were broken bones, as if he could stop +for nothing else. + +The cripple was raised. The gentleman and lady made their way to him, +and he tried his hardest to keep from tottering on the slope in her +presence. No injury had been done to the leg; there was only a +stiffness, and an idiotic doubling of the knee, as though at each step +his leg pronounced a dogged negative to the act of walking. He said +something equivalent to 'this donkey leg,' to divert her charitable eyes +from a countenance dancing with ugly twitches. She was the Samaritan. A +sufferer discerns his friend, though it be not the one who physically +assists him: he is inclined by nature to put material aid at a lower mark +than gentleness, and her brief words of encouragement, the tone of their +delivery yet more, were medical to his blood, better help than her +brother's iron arm, he really believed. Her brother and the guide held +him on each side, and she led to pick out the safer footing for him; she +looked round and pointed to some projection that would form a step; she +drew attention to views here and there, to win excuses for his resting; +she did not omit to soften her brother's visible impatience as well, and +this was the art which affected her keenly sensible debtor most. + +'I suppose I ought to have taken a guide,' he said. + +'There's not a doubt of that,' said Chillon Kirby. + +Carinthia halted, leaning on her staff: 'But I had the same wish. They +told us at the inn of an Englishman who left last night to sleep on the +mountain, and would go alone; and did I not say, brother, that must be +true love of the mountains?' + +'These freaks get us a bad name on the Continent,' her brother replied. +He had no sympathy with nonsense, and naturally not with a youth who +smelt of being a dreamy romancer and had caused the name of Englishman to +be shouted in his ear in derision. And the fellow might delay his +arrival at the Baths and sight of the lady of his love for hours! + +They managed to get him hobbling and slipping to the first green tuft of +the base, where long black tongues of slate-rubble pouring into the +grass, like shore-waves that have spent their burden, seem about to draw +back to bring the mountain down. Thence to the level pasture was but a +few skips performed sliding. + +'Well, now,' said Chillon, 'you can stand?' + +'Pretty well, I think.' He tried his foot on the ground, and then +stretched his length, saying that it only wanted rest. Anton pressed a +hand at his ankle and made him wince, but the bones were sound, leg and +hip not worse than badly bruised. He was advised by Anton to plant his +foot in the first running water he came to, and he was considerate enough +to say to Chillon + +'Now you can leave me; and let me thank you. Half an hour will set me +right. My name is Woodseer, if ever we meet again.' + +Chillon nodded a hurried good-bye, without a thought of giving his name +in return. But Carinthia had thrown herself on the grass. Her brother +asked her in dismay if she was tired. She murmured to him: 'I should +like to hear more English.' + +'My dear girl, you'll have enough of it in two or three weeks.' + +'Should we leave a good deed half done, Chillon?' + +'He shall have our guide.' + +'He may not be rich.' + +'I'll pay Anton to stick to him.' + +'Brother, he has an objection to guides.' + +Chillon cast hungry eyes on his watch: 'Five minutes, then.' He +addressed Mr. Woodseer, who was reposing, indifferent to time, hard-by: +'Your objection to guides might have taught you a sharp lesson. It 's +like declining to have a master in studying a science--trusting to +instinct for your knowledge of a bargain. One might as well refuse an +oar to row in a boat.' + +'I 'd rather risk it,' the young man replied. 'These guides kick the +soul out of scenery. I came for that and not for them.' + +'You might easily have been a disagreeable part of the scene.' + +'Why not here as well as elsewhere?' + +'You don't care for your life?' + +'I try not to care for it a fraction more than Destiny does.' + +'Fatalism. I suppose you care for something?' + +'Besides I've a slack purse, and shun guides and inns when I can. I care +for open air, colour, flowers, weeds, birds, insects, mountains. There's +a world behind the mask. I call this life; and the town's a boiling pot, +intolerably stuffy. My one ambition is to be out of it. I thank heaven +I have not another on earth. Yes, I care for my note-book, because it's +of no use to a human being except me. I slept beside a spring last +night, and I never shall like a bedroom so well. I think I have +discovered the great secret: I may be wrong, of course.' And if so, +he had his philosophy, the admission was meant to say. + +Carinthia expected the revelation of a notable secret, but none came; +or if it did it eluded her grasp:--he was praising contemplation, he was +praising tobacco. He talked of the charm of poverty upon a settled +income of a very small sum of money, the fruit of a compact he would +execute with the town to agree to his perpetual exclusion from it, +and to retain his identity, and not be the composite which every townsman +was. He talked of Buddha. He said: 'Here the brook's the brook, the +mountain's the mountain: they are as they always were.' + +'You'd have men be the same,' Chillon remarked as to a nursling prattler, +and he rejoined: 'They've lost more than they've gained; though, he +admitted, 'there has been some gain, in a certain way.' + +Fortunately for them, young men have not the habit of reflecting upon the +indigestion of ideas they receive from members of their community, +sometimes upon exchange. They compare a view of life with their own +view, to condemn it summarily; and he was a curious object to Chillon as +the perfect opposite of himself. + +'I would advise you,' Chillon said, 'to get a pair of Styrian boots, if +you intend to stay in the Alps. Those boots of yours are London make.' + +'They 're my father's make,' said Mr. Woodseer. + +Chillon drew out his watch. 'Come, Carinthia, we must be off.' He +proposed his guide, and, as Anton was rejected, he pointed the route over +the head of the valley, stated the distance to an inn that way, saluted +and strode. + +Mr. Woodseer, partly rising, presumed, in raising his hat and thanking +Carinthia, to touch her fingers. She smiled on him, frankly extending +her open hand, and pointing the route again, counselling him to rest at +the inn, even saying: 'You have not yet your strength to come on with +us?' + +He thought he would stay some time longer: he had a disposition to smoke. + +She tripped away to her brother and was watched through the whiffs of a +pipe far up the valley, guiltless of any consciousness of producing an +impression. But her mind was with the stranger sufficiently to cause her +to say to Chillon, at the close of a dispute between him and Anton on the +interesting subject of the growth of the horns of chamois: 'Have we been +quite kind to that gentleman?' + +Chillon looked over his shoulder. 'He's there still; he's fond of +solitude. And, Carin, my dear, don't give your hand when you are meeting +or parting with people it's not done.' + +His uninstructed sister said: 'Did you not like him?' + +She was answered with an 'Oh,' the tone of which balanced lightly on the +neutral line. 'Some of the ideas he has are Lord Fleetwood's, I hear, +and one can understand them in a man of enormous wealth, who doesn't know +what to do with himself and is dead-sick of flattery; though it seems odd +for an English nobleman to be raving about Nature. Perhaps it's because +none else of them does.' + +'Lord Fleetwood loves our mountains, Chillon?' + +'But a fellow who probably has to make his way in the world!--and he +despises ambition!' . . . Chillon dropped him. He was antipathetic to +eccentrics, and his soldierly and social training opposed the profession +of heterodox ideas: to have listened seriously to them coming from the +mouth of an unambitious bootmaker's son involved him in the absurdity. +He considered that there was no harm in the lad, rather a commendable +sort of courage and some notion of manners; allowing for his ignorance of +the convenable in putting out his hand to take a young lady's, with the +plea of thanking her. He hoped she would be more on her guard. + +Carinthia was sure she had the name of the nobleman wishing to bestow his +title upon the beautiful Henrietta. Lord Fleetwood! That slender thread +given her of the character of her brother's rival who loved the mountains +was woven in her mind with her passing experience of the youth they had +left behind them, until the two became one, a highly transfigured one, +and the mountain scenery made him very threatening to her brother. A +silky haired youth, brown-eyed, unconquerable in adversity, immensely +rich, fond of solitude, curled, decorated, bejewelled by all the elves +and gnomes of inmost solitude, must have marvellous attractions, she +feared. She thought of him so much, that her humble spirit conceived the +stricken soul of the woman as of necessity the pursuer; as shamelessly, +though timidly, as she herself pursued in imagination the enchanted +secret of the mountain-land. She hoped her brother would not supplicate, +for it struck her that the lover who besieged the lady would forfeit her +roaming and hunting fancy. + +'I wonder what that gentleman is doing now,' she said to Chillon. + +He grimaced slightly, for her sake; he would have liked to inform her, +for the sake of educating her in the customs of the world she was going +to enter, that the word 'gentleman' conveys in English a special +signification. + +Her expression of wonder whether they were to meet him again gave Chillon +the opportunity of saying: + +'It 's the unlikeliest thing possible--at all events in England.' + +'But I think we shall,' said she. + +'My dear, you meet people of your own class; you don't meet others.' + +'But we may meet anybody, Chillon!' + +'In the street. I suppose you would not stop to speak to him in the +street.' + +'It would be strange to see him in the street!' Carinthia said. + +'Strange or not!' + +. . Chillon thought he had said sufficient. She was under his +protectorship, otherwise he would not have alluded to the observance of +class distinctions. He felt them personally in this case because of +their seeming to stretch grotesquely by the pretentious heterodoxy of the +young fellow, whom, nevertheless, thinking him over now that he was +mentioned, he approved for his manliness in bluntly telling his origin +and status. + +A chalet supplied them with fresh milk, and the inn of a village on a +perch with the midday meal. Their appetites were princely and swept over +the little inn like a conflagration. Only after clearing it did they +remember the rearward pedestrian, whose probable wants Chillon was urged +by Carthinia to speak of to their host. They pushed on, clambering up, +scurrying down, tramping gaily, till by degrees the chambers of +Carinthia's imagination closed their doors and would no longer +intercommunicate. Her head refused to interest her, and left all +activity to her legs and her eyes, and the latter became unobservant, +except of foot-tracks, animal-like. She felt that she was a fine +machine, and nothing else: and she was rapidly approaching those ladies! + +'You will tell them how I walked with you,' she said. + +'Your friends over yonder?' said he. + +'So that they may not think me so ignorant, brother.' She stumbled on +the helpless word in a hasty effort to cloak her vanity. + +He laughed. Her desire to meet the critical English ladies with a +towering reputation in one department of human enterprise was +comprehensible, considering the natural apprehensiveness of the half-wild +girl before such a meeting. As it often happens with the silly phrases +of simple people, the wrong word, foolish although it was, went to the +heart of the hearer and threw a more charitable light than ridicule on +her. So that they may know I can do something they cannot do, was the +interpretation. It showed her deep knowledge of her poorness in laying +bare the fact. + +Anxious to cheer her, he said: 'Come, come, you can dance. You dance +well, mother has told me, and she was a judge. You ride, you swim, you +have a voice for country songs, at all events. And you're a bit of a +botanist too. You're good at English and German; you had a French +governess for a couple of years. By the way, you understand the use of a +walking-stick in self-defence: you could handle a sword on occasion.' + +'Father trained me,' said Carthinia. 'I can fire a pistol, aiming.' + +'With a good aim, too. Father told me you could. How fond he was of his +girl! Well, bear in mind that father was proud of you, and hold up your +head wherever you are.' + +'I will,' she said. + +He assured her he had a mind to have a bugle blown at the entrance +of the Baths for a challenge to the bathers to match her in warlike +accomplishments. + +She bit her lips: she could not bear much rallying on the subject just +then: + +'Which is the hard one to please?' she asked. + +'The one you will find the kinder of the two.' + +'Henrietta?' + +He nodded. + +'Has she a father?' + +'A gallant old admiral: Admiral Baldwin Fakenham.' + +'I am glad of that!' Carinthia sighed out heartily. 'And he is with her? +And likes you, Chillon?' + +'On the whole, I think he does.' + +'A brave officer!' Such a father would be sure to like him. + +So the domestic prospect was hopeful. + +At sunset they stood on the hills overlooking the basin of the Baths, all +enfolded in swathes of pink and crimson up to the shining grey of a high +heaven that had the fresh brightness of the morning. + +'We are not tired in the slightest,' said Carinthia, trifling with the +vision of a cushioned rest below. 'I could go on through the night quite +comfortably.' + +'Wait till you wake up in your little bed to-morrow,' Chillon replied +stoutly, to drive a chill from his lover's heart, that had seized it at +the bare suggestion of their going on. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE LADY'S LETTER + +Is not the lover a prophet? He that fervently desires may well be one; +his hurried nature is alive with warmth to break the possible blow: and +if his fears were not needed they were shadows; and if fulfilled, was he +not convinced of his misfortune by a dark anticipation that rarely erred? +Descending the hills, he remembered several omens: the sun had sunk when +he looked down on the villas and clustered houses, not an edge of the orb +had been seen; the admiral's quarters in tile broad-faced hotel had worn +an appearance resembling the empty house of yesterday; the encounter with +the fellow on the rocks had a bad whisper of impish tripping. And what +moved Carinthia to speak of going on? + +A letter was handed to Chillon in the hall of the admiral's hotel, where +his baggage had already been delivered. The manager was deploring the +circumstance that his rooms were full to the roof, when Chillon said: + +'Well, we must wash and eat'; and Carinthia, from watching her brother's +forehead during his perusal of the letter, declared her readiness for +anything. He gave her the letter to read by herself while preparing to +sit at table, unwilling to ask her for a further tax on her energies--but +it was she who had spoken of going on! He thought of it as of a debt she +had contracted and might be supposed to think payable to their +misfortune. + +She read off the first two sentences. + +'We can have a carriage here, Chillon; order a carriage; I shall get as +much sleep in a carriage as in a bed: I shall enjoy driving at night,' +she said immediately, and strongly urged it and forced him to yield, the +manager observing that a carriage could be had. + +In the privacy of her room, admiring the clear flowing hand, she read the +words, delicious in their strangeness to her, notwithstanding the heavy +news, as though they were sung out of a night-sky: + + 'Most picturesque of Castles! + + May none these marks efface, + For they appeal from Tyranny . . .' + +'We start at noon to-day. Sailing orders have been issued, and I could +only have resisted them in my own person by casting myself overboard. +I go like the boat behind the vessel. You were expected yesterday, at +latest this morning. I have seen boxes in the hall, with a name on them +not foreign to me. Why does the master tarry? Sir, of your valliance +you should have held to your good vow,--quoth the damozel, for now you +see me sore perplexed and that you did not your devoir is my affliction. +Where lingers chivalry, she should have proceeded, if not with my knight? +I feast on your regrets. I would not have you less than miserable: and I +fear the reason is, that I am not so very, very sure you will be so at +all or very hugely, as I would command it of you for just time enough to +see that change over your eyebrows I know so well. + +'If you had seen a certain Henrietta yesterday you would have the picture +of how you ought to look. The admiral was heard welcoming a new arrival +--you can hear him. She ran down the stairs quicker than any cascade of +this district, she would have made a bet with Livia that it could be no +one else--her hand was out, before she was aware of the difference it was +locked in Lord F.'s! + +'Let the guilty absent suffer for causing such a betrayal of +disappointment. I must be avenged! But if indeed you are unhappy and +would like to chide the innocent, I am full of compassion for the poor +gentleman inheriting my legitimate feelings of wrath, and beg merely that +he will not pour them out on me with pen and paper, but from his lips and +eyes. + +'Time pressing, I chatter no more. The destination is Livia's beloved +Baden. We rest a night in the city of Mozart, a night at Munich, a night +at Stuttgart. Baden will detain my cousin full a week. She has Captain +Abrane and Sir Meeson Corby in attendance--her long shadow and her short: +both devoted to Lord F., to win her smile, and how he drives them! The +captain has been paraded on the promenade, to the stupefaction of the +foreigner. Princes, counts, generals, diplomats passed under him in awe. +I am told that he is called St. Christopher. + +'Why do we go thus hastily?--my friend, this letter has to be concealed. +I know some one who sees in the dark. + +'Think no harm of Livia. She is bent upon my worldly advantage, and that +is plain even to the person rejecting it. How much more so must it be to +papa, though he likes you, and when you are near him would perhaps, in a +fit of unworldliness, be almost as reckless as the creature he calls +madcap and would rather call countess. No! sooner with a Will-o'-the- +wisp, my friend. Who could ever know where the man was when he himself +never knows where he is. He is the wind that bloweth as it listeth-- +because it is without an aim or always with a new one. And am I the one +to direct him? I need direction. My lord and sovereign must fix my +mind. I am volatile, earthly, not to be trusted if I do not worship. He +himself said to me that--he reads our characters. "Nothing but a proved +hero will satisfy Henrietta," his words! And the hero must be shining +like a beacon-fire kept in a blaze. Quite true; I own it. Is Chillon +Kirby satisfied? He ought to be. + +'But oh!--to be yoked is an insufferable thought, unless we name all the +conditions. But to be yoked to a creature of impulses! Really I could +only describe his erratic nature by commending you to the study of a +dragon-fly. It would map you an idea of what he has been in the twenty- +four hours since we had him here. They tell me a vain sort of person is +the cause. Can she be the cause of his resolving to have a residence +here, to buy up half the valley--erecting a royal palace--and marking +out the site--raving about it in the wildest language, poetical if +it had been a little reasonable--and then, after a night, suddenly, +unaccountably, hating the place, and being under the necessity of flying +from it in hot haste, tearing us all away, as if we were attached to a +kite that will neither mount nor fall, but rushes about headlong. Has he +heard, or suspected? or seen certain boxes bearing a name? Livia has no +suspicion, though she thinks me wonderfully contented in so dull a place, +where it has rained nine days in a fortnight. I ask myself whether my +manner of greeting him betrayed my expectation of another. He has +brains. It is the greatest of errors to suppose him at all like the +common run of rich young noblemen. He seems to thirst for brilliant wits +and original sayings. His ambition is to lead all England in everything! +I readily acknowledge that he has generous ideas too; but try to hold +him, deny him his liberty, and it would be seen how desperate and +relentless he would be to get loose. Of this I am convinced: he would be +either the most abject of lovers, or a woman (if it turned out not to be +love) would find him the most unscrupulous of yoke-fellows. Yoke-fellow! +She would not have her reason in consenting. A lamb and a furious bull! +Papa and I have had a serious talk. He shuts his ears to my comparisons, +but admits, that as I am the principal person concerned, etc. Rich and a +nobleman is too tempting for an anxious father; and Livia's influence is +paramount. She has not said a syllable in depreciation of you. That is +to her credit. She also admits that I must yield freely if at all, and +she grants me the use of similes; but her tactics are to contest them one +by one, and the admirable pretender is not as shifty as the mariner's +breeze, he is not like the wandering spark in burnt paper, of which you +cannot say whether it is chasing or chased: it is I who am the shifty +Pole to the steadiest of magnets. She is a princess in other things +besides her superiority to Physics. There will be wild scenes at Baden. + +'My Diary of to-day is all bestowed on you. What have I to write in it +except the pair of commas under the last line of yesterday--" He has not +come!" Oh! to be caring for a he. + +'O that I were with your sister now, on one side of her idol, to correct +her extravagant idolatry! I long for her. I had a number of nice little +phrases to pet her with. + +'You have said (I have it written) that men who are liked by men are the +best friends for women. In which case, the earl should be worthy of our +friendship; he is liked. Captain Abrane and Sir Meeson, in spite of the +hard service he imposes on them with such comical haughtiness, incline to +speak well of him, and Methuen Rivers--here for two days on his way to +his embassy at Vienna--assured us he is the rarest of gentlemen on the +point of honour of his word. They have stories of him, to confirm +Livia's eulogies, showing him punctilious to chivalry: No man alive is +like him in that, they say. He grieves me. All that you have to fear +is my pity for one so sensitive. So speed, sir! It is not good for us +to be much alone, and I am alone when you are absent. + +'I hear military music! + +'How grand that music makes the dullest world appear in a minute. There +is a magic in it to bring you to me from the most dreadful of distances. +--Chillon! it would kill me!--Writing here and you perhaps behind the +hill, I can hardly bear it;--I am torn away, my hand will not any more. +This music burst out to mock me! Adieu. + + 'I am yours. + + 'Your HENRIETTA. + +'A kiss to the sister. It is owing to her.' + +Carinthia kissed the letter on that last line. It seemed to her to end +in a celestial shower. + +She was oppressed by wonder of the writer who could run like the rill of +the mountains in written speech; and her recollection of the contents +perpetually hurried to the close, which was more in her way of writing, +for there the brief sentences had a throb beneath them. + +She did not speak of the letter to her brother when she returned it. A +night in the carriage, against his shoulder, was her happy prospect, in +the thought that she would be with her dearest all night, touching him +asleep, and in the sweet sense of being near to the beloved of the +fairest angel of her sex. They pursued their journey soon after Anton +was dismissed with warm shakes of the hand and appointments for a +possible year in the future. + +The blast of the postillion's horn on the dark highway moved Chillon to +say: 'This is what they call posting, my dear.' + +She replied: 'Tell me, brother: I do not understand, "Let none these +marks efface," at the commencement, after most "picturesque of Castles": +--that is you.' + +'They are quoted from the verses of a lord who was a poet, addressed to +the castle on Lake Leman. She will read them to you.' + +'Will she?' + +The mention of the lord set Carinthia thinking of the lord whom that +beautiful SHE pitied because she was forced to wound him and he was very +sensitive. Wrapped in Henrietta, she slept through the joltings of the +carriage, the grinding of the wheels, the blowing of the horn, the +flashes of the late moonlight and the kindling of dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: IN WHICH +THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT WILD CREATURE HE WAS IN +HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE FEMALE SHOULD MARVEL CREDULOUSLY. + +The young man who fancied he had robed himself in the plain homespun +of a natural philosopher at the age of twenty-three journeyed limping +leisurely in the mountain maid Carinthia's footsteps, thankful to the +Fates for having seen her; and reproving the remainder of superstition +within him, which would lay him open to smarts of evil fortune if he, +encouraged a senseless gratitude for good; seeing that we are simply to +take what happens to us. The little inn of the village on the perch +furnished him a night's lodging and a laugh of satisfaction to hear of a +young lady and gentleman, and their guide, who had devoured everything +eatable half a day in advance of him, all save the bread and butter, and +a few scraps of meat, apologetically spread for his repast by the maid of +the inn: not enough for, a bantam cock, she said, promising eggs for +breakfast. He vowed with an honest heart, that it was more than enough, +and he was nourished by sympathy with the appetites of his precursors and +the maid's description of their deeds. That name, Carinthia, went a good +way to fill him. + +Farther on he had plenty, but less contentment. He was compelled to +acknowledge that he had expected to meet Carinthia again at the Baths. +Her absence dealt a violent shock to the aerial structure he dwelt in; +for though his ardour for the life of the solitudes was unfeigned, as was +his calm overlooking of social distinctions, the self-indulgent dreamer +became troubled with an alarming sentience, that for him to share the +passions of the world of men was to risk the falling lower than most. +Women are a cause of dreams, but they are dreaded enemies of his kind of +dream, deadly enemies of the immaterial dreamers; and should one of them +be taken on board a vessel of the vapourish texture young Woodseer sailed +in above the clouds lightly while he was in it alone, questions of past, +future, and present, the three weights upon humanity, bear it down, and +she must go, or the vessel sinks. And cast out of it, what was he? The +asking exposed him to the steadiest wind the civilized world is known to +blow. From merely thinking upon one of the daughters of earth, he was +made to feel his position in that world, though he refused to understand +it, and assisted by two days of hard walking he reduced Carinthia to an +abstract enthusiasm, no very serious burden. His note-book sustained it +easily. He wrote her name in simple fondness of the name; a verse, and +hints for more, and some sentences, which he thought profound. They were +composed as he sat by the roadway, on the top of hills, and in a boat +crossing a dark green lake deep under wooded mountain walls: things of +priceless value. + +It happened, that midway on the lake he perceived his boatman about to +prime a pistol to murder the mild-eyed stillness, and he called to the +man in his best German to desist. During the altercation, there passed a +countryman of his in another of the punts, who said gravely: 'I thank you +for that.' It was early morning, and they had the lake to themselves, +each deeming the other an intruder; for the courtship of solitude wanes +when we are haunted by a second person in pursuit of it; he is +discolouring matter in our pure crystal cup. Such is the worship of the +picturesque; and it would appear to say, that the spirit of man finds +itself yet in the society of barbarians. The case admits of good +pleading either way, even upon the issue whether the exclusive or the +vulgar be the more barbarous. But in those days the solicitation of the +picturesque had been revived by a poet of some impassioned rhetoric, and +two devotees could hardly meet, as the two met here, and not be mutually +obscurants. + +They stepped ashore in turn on the same small shoot of land where a farm- +house near a chapel in the shadow of cliffs did occasional service for an +inn. Each had intended to pass a day and a night in this lonely +dwelling-place by the lake, but a rival was less to be tolerated there +than in love, and each awaited the other's departure, with an air that +said: 'You are in my sunlight'; and going deeper, more sternly: 'Sir, you +are an offence to Nature's pudency!' + +Woodseer was the more placable of the two; he had taken possession of the +bench outside, and he had his note-book and much profundity to haul up +with it while fish were frying. His countryman had rushed inside to +avoid him, and remained there pacing the chamber like a lion newly caged. +Their boatmen were brotherly in the anticipation of provision and +payment. + +After eating his fish, Woodseer decided abruptly, that as he could not +have the spot to himself, memorable as it would have been to intermarry +with Nature in so sacred a welldepth of the mountains, he had better be +walking and climbing. Another boat paddling up the lake had been spied: +solitude was not merely shared with a rival, but violated by numbers. +In the first case, we detest the man; in the second, we fly from an +outraged scene. He wrote a line or so in his book, hurriedly paid his +bill, and started, full of the matter he had briefly committed to his +pages. + +At noon, sitting beside the beck that runs from the lake, he was +overtaken by the gentleman he had left behind, and accosted in the +informal English style, with all the politeness possible to a nervously +blunt manner: 'This book is yours,--I have no doubt it is yours; I am +glad to be able to restore it; I should be glad to be the owner-writer of +the contents, I mean. I have to beg your excuse; I found it lying open; +I looked at the page, I looked through the whole; I am quite at your +mercy.' + +Woodseer jumped at the sight of his note-book, felt for the emptiness of +his pocket, and replied: 'Thank you, thank you. It's of use to me, +though to no one else.' + +'You pardon me?' + +'Certainly. I should have done it myself.' + +'I cannot offer you my apologies as a stranger.' Lord Fleetwood was the +name given. + +Woodseer's plebeian was exchanged for it, and he stood up. + +The young lord had fair, straight, thin features, with large restless +eyes that lighted quickly, and a mouth that was winning in his present +colloquial mood. + +'You could have done the same? I should find it hard to forgive the man +who pried into my secret thoughts,' he remarked. + +'There they are. If one puts them to paper! . . .' Woodseer shrugged. + +'Yes, yes. They never last long enough with me. So far I'm safe. One +page led to another. You can meditate. I noticed some remarks on +Religions. You think deeply.' + +Woodseer was of that opinion, but modesty urged him to reply with a small +flourish. 'Just a few heads of ideas. When the wind puffs down a sooty +chimney the air is filled with little blacks that settle pretty much like +the notes in this book of mine. There they wait for another puff, or my +fingers to stamp them.' + +'I could tell you were the owner of that book,' said Lord Fleetwood. He +swept his forehead feverishly. 'What a power it is to relieve one's +brain by writing! May I ask you, which one of the Universities . . ?' + +The burden of this question had a ring of irony to one whom it taught to +feel rather defiantly, that he carried the blazon of a reeking tramp. +'My University,' Woodseer replied, 'was a merchant's office in Bremen +for some months. I learnt more Greek and Latin in Bremen than business. +I was invalided home, and then tried a merchant's office in London. +I put on my hat one day, and walked into the country. My College fellows +were hawkers, tinkers, tramps and ploughmen, choughs and crows. A volume +of our Poets and a History of Philosophy composed my library. I had +scarce any money, so I learnt how to idle inexpensively--a good first +lesson. We're at the bottom of the world when we take to the road; we +see men as they were in the beginning--not so eager for harness till they +get acquainted with hunger, as I did, and studied in myself the old +animal having his head pushed into the collar to earn a feed of corn.' + +Woodseer laughed, adding, that he had been of a serious mind in those +days of the alternation of smooth indifference and sharp necessity, and +he had plucked a flower from them. + +His nature prompted him to speak of himself with simple candour, as he +had done spontaneously to Chillon Kirby, yet he was now anxious to let +his companion know at once the common stuff he was made of, together with +the great stuff he contained. He grew conscious of an over-anxiety, and +was uneasy, recollecting how he had just spoken about his naturalness, +dimly if at all apprehending the cause of this disturbance within. What +is a lord to a philosopher! But the world is around us as a cloak, if +not a coat; in his ignorance he supposed it specially due to a lord +seeking acquaintance with him, that he should expose his condition: doing +the which appeared to subject him to parade his intellectual treasures +and capacity for shaping sentences; and the effect upon Lord Fleetwood +was an incentive to the display. Nevertheless he had a fretful desire to +escape from the discomposing society of a lord; he fixed his knapsack and +began to saunter. + +The young lord was at his elbow. 'I can't part with you. Will you allow +me?' + +Woodseer was puzzled and had to say: 'If you wish it.' + +'I do wish it: an hour's walk with you. One does not meet a man like you +every day. I have to join a circle of mine in Baden, but there's no +hurry; I could be disengaged for a week. And I have things to ask you, +owing to my indiscretion--but you have excused it.' + +Woodseer turned for a farewell gaze at the great Watzmann, and saluted +him. + +'Splendid,' said Lord Fleetwood; 'but don't clap names on the mountains. +--I saw written in your book: "A text for Dada." You write: "A despotism +would procure a perfect solitude, but kill the ghost." That was my +thought at the place where we were at the lake. I had it. Tell me-- +though I could not have written it, and "ghost" is just the word, the +exact word--tell me, are you of Welsh blood? "Dad" is good Welsh-- +pronounce it hard.' + +Woodseer answered: 'My mother was a Glamorganshire woman. My father, +I know, walked up from Wales, mending boots on his road for a livelihood. +He is not a bad scholar, he knows Greek enough to like it. He is a +Dissenting preacher. When I strike a truism, I 've a habit of scoring it +to give him a peg or tuning-fork for one of his discourses. He's a man +of talent; he taught himself, and he taught me more than I learnt at +school. He is a thinker in his way. He loves Nature too. I rather envy +him in some respects. He and I are hunters of Wisdom on different +tracks; and he, as he says, "waits for me." He's patient!' + +Ah, and I wanted to ask you,' Lord Fleetwood observed, bursting with it, +'I was puzzled by a name you write here and there near the end, and +permit me to ask, it: Carinthia! It cannot be the country? You write +after, the name: "A beautiful Gorgon--a haggard Venus." It seized me. +I have had the face before my eyes ever since. You must mean a woman. +I can't be deceived in allusions to a woman: they have heart in them. +You met her somewhere about Carinthia, and gave her the name? You write +--may I refer to the book?' + +He received the book and flew through the leaves: + +'Here--"A panting look": you write again: "A look of beaten flame: a look +of one who has run and at last beholds!" But that is a living face: I +see her! Here again: "From minute to minute she is the rock that loses +the sun at night and reddens in the morning." You could not create an +idea of a woman to move you like that. No one could, I am certain of it, +certain; if so, you 're a wizard--I swear you are. But that's a face +high over beauty. Just to know there is a woman like her, is an +antidote. You compare her to a rock. Who would imagine a comparison of +a woman to a rock! But rock is the very picture of beautiful Gorgon, +haggard Venus. Tell me you met her, you saw her. I want only to hear +she lives, she is in the world. Beautiful women compared to roses may +whirl away with their handsome dragoons! A pang from them is a thing +to be ashamed of. And there are men who trot about whining with it! +But a Carinthia makes pain honourable. You have done what I thought +impossible--fused a woman's face and grand scenery, to make them +inseparable. She might be wicked for me. I should see a bright rim +round hatred of her!--the rock you describe. I could endure horrors +and not annihilate her! I should think her sacred.' + +Woodseer turned about to have a look at the man who was even quicker than +he at realizing a person from a hint of description, and almost insanely +extravagant in the pitch of the things he uttered to a stranger. For +himself, he was open with everybody, his philosophy not allowing that +strangers existed on earth. But the presence of a lord brought the +conventional world to his feelings, though at the same time the title +seemed to sanction the exceptional abruptness and wildness of this lord. +As for suspecting him to be mad, it would have been a common idea: no +stretching of speech or overstepping of social rules could waken a +suspicion so spiritless in Woodseer. + +He said: 'I can tell you I met her and she lives. I could as soon swim +in that torrent or leap the mountain as repeat what she spoke, or sketch +a feature of her. She goes into the blood, she is a new idea of women. +She has the face that would tempt a gypsy to evil tellings. I could +think of it as a history written in a line: Carinthia, Saint and Martyr! +As for comparisons, they are flowers thrown into the fire.' + +'I have had that--I have thought that,' said Lord Fleetwood. 'Go on; +talk of her, pray; without comparisons. I detest them. How did you meet +her? What made you part? Where is she now? I have no wish to find her, +but I want thoroughly to believe in her.' + +Another than Woodseer would have perceived the young lord's malady. Here +was one bitten by the serpent of love, and athirst for an image of the +sex to serve for the cooling herb, as youth will be. Woodseer put it +down to a curious imaginative fellowship with himself. He forgot the +lord, and supposed he had found his own likeness, less gifted in speech. +After talking of Carinthia more and more in the abstract, he fell upon +his discovery of the Great Secret of life, against which his hearer +struggled for a time, though that was cooling to him too; but ultimately +there was no resistance, and so deep did they sink into the idea of pure +contemplation, that the idea of woman seemed to have become a part of it. +No stronger proof of their aethereal conversational earnestness could be +offered. A locality was given to the Great Secret, and of course it was +the place where the most powerful recent impression had been stamped on +the mind of the discoverer: the shadowy valley rolling from the slate- +rock. Woodseer was too artistic a dreamer to present the passing vision +of Carinthia with any associates there. She passed: the solitude +accepted her and lost her; and it was the richer for the one swift gleam: +she brought no trouble, she left no regrets; she was the ghost of the +rocky obscurity. But now remembering her mountain carol, he chanced to +speak of her as a girl. + +'She is a girl?' cried Lord Fleetwood, frowning over an utter revolution +of sentiment at the thought of the beautiful Gorgon being a girl; for, +rapid as he was to imagine, he had raised a solid fabric upon his +conception of Carinthia the woman, necessarily the woman--logically. +Who but the woman could look the Gorgon! He tried to explain it to be +impossible for a girl to wear the look: and his notion evidently was, +that it had come upon a beautiful face in some staring horror of a world +that had bitten the tender woman. She touched him sympathetically +through the pathos. + +Woodseer flung out vociferously for the contrary. Who but a girl could +look the beautiful Gorgon! What other could seem an emanation of the +mountain solitude? A woman would instantly breathe the world on it to +destroy it. Hers would be the dramatic and not the poetic face. It +would shriek of man, wake the echoes with the tale of man, slaughter all. +quietude. But a girl's face has no story of poisonous intrusion. She +indeed may be cast in the terrors of Nature, and yet be sweet with +Nature, beautiful because she is purely of Nature. Woodseer did his best +to present his view irresistibly. Perhaps he was not clear; it was a +piece of skiamachy, difficult to render clear to the defeated. + +Lord Fleetwood had nothing to say but 'Gorgon! a girl a Gorgon!' and it +struck Woodseer as intensely unreasonable, considering that he had seen +the girl whom, in his effort to portray her, he had likened to a +beautiful Gorgon. He recounted the scene of the meeting with her, +pictured it in effective colours, but his companion gave no response, nor +a nod. They ceased to converse, and when the young lord's hired carriage +drew up on the road, Woodseer required persuasion to accompany him. They +were both in their different stations young tyrants of the world, ready +to fight the world and one another for not having their immediate view of +it such as they wanted it. They agreed, however, not to sleep in the +city. Beds were to be had near the top of a mountain on the other side +of the Salza, their driver informed them, and vowing themselves to that +particular height, in a mutual disgust of the city, they waxed +friendlier, with a reserve. + +Woodseer soon had experience that he was receiving exceptional treatment +from Lord Fleetwood, whose manservant was on the steps of the hotel in +Salzburg on the lookout for his master. + +'Sir Meeson has been getting impatient, my lord,' said the man. + +Sir Meeson Corby appeared; Lord Fleetwood cut him short: 'You 're in a +hurry; go at once, don't wait for me; I join you in Baden.--Do me the +favour to eat with me,' he turned to Woodseer. 'And here, Corby! tell +the countess I have a friend to bear me company, and there is to be an +extra bedroom secured at her hotel. That swinery of a place she insists +on visiting is usually crammed. With you there,' he turned to Woodseer, +'I might find it agreeable.--You can take my man, Corby; I shall not want +the fellow.' + +'Positively, my dear Fleetwood, you know,' Sir Meeson expostulated, 'I am +under orders; I don't see how--I really can't go on without you.' + +'Please yourself. This gentleman is my friend, Mr. Woodseer.' + +Sir Meeson Corby was a plump little beau of forty, at war with his fat +and accounting his tight blue tail coat and brass buttons a victory. His +tightness made his fatness elastic; he looked wound up for a dance, and +could hardly hold on a leg; but the presentation of a creature in a +battered hat and soiled garments, carrying a tattered knapsack half +slung, lank and with disorderly locks, as the Earl of Fleetwood's friend +--the friend of the wealthiest nobleman of Great Britain!--fixed him in a +perked attitude of inquiry that exhausted interrogatives. Woodseer +passed him, slouching a bow. The circular stare of Sir Meeson seemed +unable to contract. He directed it on Lord Fleetwood, and was then +reminded that he dealt with prickles. + +'Where have you been?' he said, blinking to refresh his eyeballs. 'I +missed you, I ran round and round the town after you.' + +'I have been to the lake.' + +'Queer fish there!' Sir Meeson dropped a glance on the capture. + +Lord Fleetwood took Woodseer's arm. 'Do you eat with us?' he asked the +baronet, who had stayed his eating for an hour and was famished; so they +strode to the dining-room. + +'Do you wash, sir, before eating?' Sir Meeson said to Woodseer, caressing +his hands when they had seated themselves at table. 'Appliances are to +be found in this hotel.' + +'Soap?' said Lord Fleetwood. + +'Soap--at least, in my chamber.' + +'Fetch it, please.' + +Sir Meeson, of course, could not hear that. He requested the waiter to +show the gentleman to a room. + +Lord Fleetwood ordered the waiter to bring a handbasin and towel. 'We're +off directly and must eat at once,' he said. + +'Soap--soap! my dear Fleetwood,' Sir Meeson knuckled on the table, to +impress it that his appetite and his gorge demanded a thorough cleansing +of those fingers, if they were to sit at one board. + +'Let the waiter fetch it.' + +'The soap is in my portmanteau.' + +'You spoke of it as a necessity for this gentleman and me. Bring it.' + +Woodseer had risen. Lord Fleetwood motioned him down. He kept an eye +dead--as marble on Corby, who muttered: 'You can't mean that you ask me +. . .?' But the alternative was forced on Sir Meeson by too strong a +power of the implacable eye; there was thunder in it, a continuity of +gaze forcefuller than repetitions of the word. He knew Lord Fleetwood. +Men privileged to attend on him were dogs to the flinty young despot: +they were sure to be called upon to expiate the faintest offence to him. +He had hastily to consider, that he was banished beyond appeal, with the +whole torture of banishment to an adorer of the Countess Livia, or else +the mad behest must be obeyed. He protested, shrugged, sat fast, and +sprang up, remarking, that he went with all the willingness imaginable. +It could not have been the first occasion. + +He was affecting the excessively obsequious when he came back bearing his +metal soap-case. The performance was checked by another look solid as +shot, and as quick. Woodseer, who would have done for Sir Meeson Corby +or Lazarus what had been done for him, thought little of the service, but +so intense a peremptoriness in the look of an eye made him uncomfortable +in his own sense of independence. The humblest citizen of a free nation +has that warning at some notable exhibition of tyranny in a neighbouring +State: it acts like a concussion of the air. + +Lord Fleetwood led an easy dialogue with him and Sir Meeson, on their +different themes immediately, which was not less impressive to an +observer. He listened to Sir Meeson's entreaties that he should start +at once for Baden, and appeared to pity the poor gentleman, condemned by +his office to hang about him in terror of his liege lady's displeasure. +Presently, near the close of the meal, drawing a ring from his finger, +he handed it to the baronet, and said, 'Give her that. She knows I shall +follow that.' He added to himself:--I shall have ill-luck till I have it +back! and he asked Woodseer whether he put faith in the virtue of +talismans. + +'I have never possessed one,' said Woodseer, with his natural frankness. +'It would have gone long before this for a night's lodging.' + +Sir Meeson heard him, and instantly urged Lord Fleetwood not to think of +dismissing his man Francis. 'I beg it, Fleetwood! I beg you to take the +man. Her ladyship will receive me badly, ring or no ring, if she hears +of your being left alone. I really can't present myself. I shall not +go, not go. I say no.' + +'Stay, then,' said Fleetwood. + +He turned to Woodseer with an air of deference, and requested the +privilege of glancing at his notebook again, and scanned it closely +at one of the pages. 'I believe it true,' he cried; 'I had a half +recollection of it--I have had some such thought, but never could +put it in words. You have thought deeply.' + +'That is only a surface thought, or common reflection,' said Woodseer. + +Sir Meeson stared at them in turn. Judging by their talk and the effect +produced on the earl, he took Woodseer for a sort of conjuror. + +It was his duty to utter a warning. + +He drew Fleetwood aside. A word was whispered, and they broke asunder +with a snap. Francis was called. His master gave him his keys, and +despatched him into the town to purchase a knapsack or bag for the outfit +of a jolly beggar. The prospect delighted Lord Fleetwood. He sang notes +from the deep chest, flaunting like an opera brigand, and contemplating +his wretched satellite's indecision with brimming amusement. + +'Remember, we fight for our money. I carry mine,' he said to Woodseer. + +'Wouldn't it be expedient, Fleetwood . . .' Sir Meeson suggested a +treasurer in the person of himself. + +'Not a florin, Corby! I should find it all gambled away at Baden.' + +'But I am not Abrane, I'm not Abrane! I never play, I have no mania, +none. It would be prudent, Fleetwood.' + +'The slightest bulging of a pocket would show on you, Corby; and they +would be at you, they would fall on you and pluck you to have another +fling. I 'd rather my money should go to a knight of the road than feed +that dragon's jaw. A highwayman seems an honest fellow compared with +your honourable corporation of fly-catchers. I could surrender to him +with some satisfaction after a trial of the better man. I 've tried +these tables, and couldn't stir a pulse. Have you?' + +It had to be explained to Woodseer what was meant by trying the tables. +'Not I,' said he, in strong contempt of the queer allurement. + +Lord Fleetwood studied him half a minute, as if measuring and discarding +a suspicion of the young philosopher's possible weakness under +temptation. + +Sir Meeson Corby accompanied the oddly assorted couple through the town +and a short way along the road to the mountain, for the sake of quieting +his conscience upon the subject of his leaving them together. He could +not have sat down a second time at a table with those hands. He said +it:--he could not have done the thing. So the best he could do was to +let them go. Like many of his class, he had a mind open to the effect of +striking contrasts, and the spectacle of the wealthiest nobleman in Great +Britain tramping the road, pack on back, with a young nobody for his +comrade, a total stranger, who might be a cut-throat, and was avowedly +next to a mendicant, charged him with quantities of interjectory matter, +that he caught himself firing to the foreign people on the highway. +Hundreds of thousands a year, and tramping it like a pedlar, with a +beggar for his friend! He would have given something to have an English +ear near him as he watched them rounding under the mountain they were +about to climb. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, TOGETHER +WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES + +In those early days of Fortune's pregnant alternations of colour between +the Red and the Black, exhibited publicly, as it were a petroleum spring +of the ebony-fiery lake below, Black-Forest Baden was the sprightliest' +of the ante-chambers of Hades. Thither in the ripeness of the year +trooped the devotees of the sable goddess to perform sacrifice; and +annually among them the beautiful Livia, the Countess of Fleetwood; for +nowhere else had she sensation of the perfect repose which is rocked to a +slumber by gales. + +She was not of the creatures who are excited by an atmosphere of +excitement; she took it as the nymph of the stream her native wave, and +swam on the flood with expansive languor, happy to have the master +passions about her; one or two of which her dainty hand caressed, +fearless of a sting; the lady petted them as her swans. It surprised +her to a gentle contempt of men and women, that they should be ruffled +either by love or play. A withholding from the scene will naturally +arouse disturbing wishes; but to be present lulls; for then we live, we +are in our element. And who could expect, what sane person can desire, +perpetual good luck? Fortune, the goddess, and young Love, too, are +divine in their mutability: and Fortune would resemble a humdrum +housewife, Love a droning husband, if constancy were practised by them. +Observe the staggering and plunging of the blindfold wretch seeking to be +persuaded of their faithfulness. + +She could make for herself a quiet centre in the heart of the whirlwind, +but the whirlwind was required. The clustered lights at the corner of +the vale under forest hills, the burst of music, the blazing windows of +the saloons of the Furies, and the gamblers advancing and retreating, +with their totally opposite views of consequences, and fashions of +wearing or tearing the mask; and closer, the figures shifting up and down +the promenade, known and unknown faces, and the histories half known, +half woven, weaving fast, which flew their, threads to provoke +speculation; pleasantly embraced and diverted the cool-blooded lady +surrounded by her courtiers, who could upon occasion supply the luminous +clue or anecdote. She had an intuitive liveliness to detect interchanges +of eyes, the shuttle of intrigue; the mild hypocrisy, the clever +audacity, the suspicion confirmed, the complication threatening to become +resonant and terrible; and the old crossing the young and the young +outwitting the old, wiles of fair traitors and dark, knaves of all suits +of the pack. A more intimate acquaintance with their lineaments inspired +a regard for them, such as poets may feign the throned high moon to +entertain for objects causing her rays to flash. + +The simple fools, performing in character, were a neutral people, +grotesques and arabesques wreathed about the margins of the scene. +Venus or Fortune smote them to a relievo distinguishing one from another. +Here, however, as elsewhere, the core of interest was with the serious +population, the lovers and the players in earnest, who stood round the +furnace and pitched themselves into it, not always under a miscalculation +of their chances of emerging transfigured instead of serving for fuel. +These, the tragical children of folly, were astute: they played with +lightning, and they knew the conditions of the game; victories were to be +had. + +The ulterior conditions of the game, the price paid for a victory, they +thought little of: for they were feverish worshippers of the phantasmal +deity called the Present; a god reigning over the Past, appreciable only +in the Future; whose whiff of actual being is composed of the embryo idea +of the union of these two periods. Still he is occasionally a benevolent +god to the appetites; which have but to be continuous to establish him in +permanence; and as nothing in us more readily supposes perpetuity than +the appetite rushing to destroy itself, the rational nature of the most +universal worship on earth is perceived at once. + +Now, the price paid for a victory is this: that having been favoured in a +single instance by the spouse of the aforesaid eminent divinity--the +Black Goddess of the golden fringes--men believe in her for ever after, +behold her everywhere, they belong to her. Their faith as to sowing and +reaping has gone; and so has their capacity to see the actual as it is: +she has the power to attach them to her skirts the more by rewarding +their impassioned devotion with cuffs and scorns. They have ceased to +have a first notion upon anything without a second haunting it, which +directs them to propitiate Fortune. + +But I am reminded by the convulsions of Dame Gossip, that the wisdom of +our ancestors makes it a mere hammering of commonplace to insist on such +reflections. Many of them, indeed, took the union of the Black Goddess +and the Rosy Present for the composition of the very Arch-Fiend. Some +had a shot at the strange conjecture, figuring her as tired of men in the +end and challengeing him below--equally tired of his easy conquests of +men since the glorious old times of the duelling saints. By virtue of +his one incorrigible weakness, which we know him to have as long as we +have it ourselves: viz., the belief in her existence, she is to get the +better of him. + +Upon this point the experience of Captain Abrane has a value. Livia was +a follower of the Red and Black and the rounding ball in the person of +the giant captain, through whom she received her succession of sweetly +teasing thrills and shocks, as one of the adventurous company they formed +together. The place was known to him as the fair Philistine to another +muscular hero; he had been shorn there before, and sent forth tottering, +treating the friends he met as pillars to fall with him; and when the +operation was done thoroughly, he pronounced himself refreshed by it, +like a more sensible Samson, the cooler for his clipping. Then it was +that he relapsed undistractedly upon processes of his mind and he often +said he thought Fortune would beat the devil. + +Her power is shown in the moving of her solicitors to think, instantly +after they have made their cast, that the reverse of it was what they +intended. It comes as though she had withdrawn the bandage from her +forehead and dropped a leaden glance on them, like a great dame angry to +have her signal misinterpreted. Well, then, distinguished by the goddess +in such a manner, we have it proved to us how she wished to favour: for +the reverse wins, and we who are pinched blame not her cruelty but our +blind folly. This is true worship. Henceforth the pain of her nip is +mingled with the dream of her kiss; between the positive and the imagined +of her we remain confused until the purse is an empty body on a gallows, +honour too, perhaps. + +Captain Abrane was one of the Countess Livia's numerous courtiers on the +border of the promenade under the lighted saloons. A colossus inactive, +he had little to say among the chattering circle; for when seated, cards +were wanted to animate him: and he looked entirely out of place and +unfitted, like a great vessel's figure-head in a shipwright's yard. + +She murmured: 'Not this evening?' + +Abrane quoted promptly a line of nursery song 'How shall he cut it +without e'er a knife?' + +'Have we run it down so low?' said she, with no reproach in her tone. + +The captain shrugged over his clean abyss, where nothing was. + +Yesterday their bank presented matronly proportions. But an importuned +goddess reduces the most voluminous to bare stitches within a few winks +of an eye. + +Livia turned to a French gentleman of her court, M. de St. Ombre, and +pursued a conversation. He was a stately cavalier of the Gallicized +Frankish outlines, ready, but grave in his bearing, grave in his +delivery, trimly moustached, with a Guise beard. + +His profound internal question relating to this un-English beauty of the +British Isles:--had she no passion in her nature? was not convinced by +her apparent insensibility to Fortune's whips. + +Sir Meeson Corby inserted a word of Bull French out of place from time to +time. + +As it might be necessary to lean on the little man for weapons of war, +supposing Lord Fleetwood delayed his arrival yet another day, Livia was +indulgent. She assisted him to think that he spoke the foreign tongue. + +Mention of Lord Fleetwood set Sir Meeson harping again on his alarms, in +consideration of the vagabond object of the young lord had roamed away +with. + +'You forget that Russett has gypsy in him: Welsh! it's about the same,' +said Livia. 'He can take excellent care of himself and his purse.' + +'Countess, he is a good six days overdue.' + +'He will be in time for the ball at the Schloss.' + +Sir Meeson Corby produced an aspect of the word 'if,' so perkily, that +the dejected Captain Abrane laughed outright and gave him double reason +to fret for Lord Fleetwood's arrival, by saying: 'If he hangs off much +longer, I shall have to come on you for another fifty.' + +Our two pedestrians out of Salzburg were standing up in the night of +cloud and pines above the glittering pool, having made their way along +the path from the hill anciently dedicated to the god Mercury; and at the +moment when Sir Meeson put forth his frilled wrists to say: 'If you had +seen his hands--the creature Fleetwood trotted off alone with!--you'd be +a bit anxious too'; the young lord called his comrade to gaze underneath +them: 'There they are, hard at it, at their play!--it's the word used for +the filthiest gutter scramble.' + +They had come to know something of one another's humours; which are +taken by young men for their characters; and should the humours please, +they are friends, until further humours develop, trying these nascent +conservatives hard to suit them to their moods as well as the accustomed. +Lord Fleetwood had discovered in his companion, besides the spirit of +independence and the powers of thought impressed on him by Woodseer's +precocious flashes, a broad playfulness, that trenched on buffoonery; it +astonished, amused, and relieved him, loosening the spell of reverence +cast over him by one who could so wonderfully illumine his brain. Prone +to admire and bend the knee where he admired, he chafed at subjection, +unless he had the particular spell constantly renewed. A tone in him +once or twice of late, different from the comrade's, had warned Woodseer +to be guarded. + +Susceptible, however, of the extreme contrast between the gamblers below +and Nature's lover beside him, Fleetwood returned to his enthusiasm +without thinking it a bondage. + +'I shall never forget the walk we 've had. I have to thank you for the +noblest of pleasures. You 've taught me--well, a thousand things; the +things money can't buy. What mornings they were! And the dead-tired +nights! Under the rock and up to see the snowy peak pink in a gap of +thick mist. You were right: it made a crimsoning colour shine like a new +idea. Up in those mountains one walks with the divinities, you said. +It's perfectly true. I shall remember I did. I have a treasure for +life! Now I understand where you get your ideas. The life we lead down +there is hoggish. You have chosen the right. You're right, over and +over again, when you say, the dirty sweaters are nearer the angels for +cleanliness than my Lord and Lady Sybarite out of a bath, in chemical +scents. A man who thinks, loathes their High Society. I went through +Juvenal at college. But you--to be sure, you add example--make me feel +the contempt of it more. I am everlastingly indebted to you. Yes, I +won't forget: you preach against the despising of anything. + +This was pleasant in Woodseer's ears, inasmuch as it established the +young nobleman as the pupil of his philosophy for the conduct of life; +and to fortify him, he replied: + +'Set your mind on the beauty, and there'll be no room for comparisons. +Most of them are unjust, precious few instructive. In this case, they +spoil both pictures: and that scene down there rather hooks me; though I +prefer the Dachstein in the wane of the afterglow. You called it +Carinthia.' + +'I did: the beautiful Gorgon, haggard Venus--if she is to be a girl!' +Fleetwood rejoined. 'She looked burnt out--a spectre.' + +'One of the admirably damned,' said Woodseer, and he murmured with +enjoyment: 'Between the lights--that 's the beauty and the tragedy of +Purgatory!' + +His comrade fell in with the pictured idea: 'You hit it:--not what you +called the "sublimely milky," and not squalid as you'll see the faces of +the gambling women at the tables below. Oblige me--may I beg?--don't +clap names on the mountains we've seen. It stamps guide-book on them, +English tourist, horrors. We'll moralize over the crowds at the tables +down there. On the whole, it's a fairish game: you know the odds against +you, as you don't on the Turf or the Bourse. Have your fling; but don't +get bitten. There's a virus. I'm not open to it. Others are.' + +Hereupon Woodseer, wishing to have his individuality recognised in the +universality it consented to, remarked on an exchequer that could not +afford to lose, and a disposition free of the craving to win. + +These were, no doubt, good reasons for abstaining, and they were grand +morality. They were, at the same time, customary phrases of the +unfleshed in folly. They struck Fleetwood with a curious reminder +of the puking inexperienced, whom he had seen subsequently plunge +suicidally. He had a sharp vision of the attractive forces of the game; +and his elemental nature exulted in siding with the stronger against a +pretender to the superhuman. For Woodseer had spoken a trifle loftily, +as quite above temptation. To see a forewarned philosopher lured to try +the swim on those tides, pulled along the current, and caught by the +undertug of the lasher, would be fun. + +'We'll drop down on them, find our hotel, and have a look at what they're +doing,' he said, and stepped. + +Woodseer would gladly have remained. The starlit black ridges about him +and the dragon's mouth yawing underneath were an opposition of spiritual +and mundane; innocent, noxious; exciting to the youthful philosopher. +He had to follow, and so rapidly in the darkness that he stumbled and +fell on an arm; a small matter. + +Bed-chambers awaited them at the hotel, none of the party: and +Fleetwood's man-servant was absent. + +'Gambling, the rascal!' he said. Woodseer heard the first note of the +place in that. + +His leader was washed, neatly dressed, and knocking at his door very +soon, impatient to be off, and he flung a promise of 'supper presently' +to one whose modest purse had fallen into a debate with this lordly +hostelry, counting that a supper and a night there would do for it. +They hurried on to the line of promenaders, a river of cross-currents +by the side of seated groups; and the willowy swish of silken dresses, +feminine perfumery, cigar-smoke, chatter, laughter, told of pleasure +reigning. + +Fleetwood scanned the groups. He had seen enough in a moment and his +face blackened. A darting waiter was called to him. + +He said to Woodseer, savagely, as it sounded: 'You shall have something +to joint your bones!' What cause of wrath he had was past a guess: a wolf +at his vitals bit him, hardening his handsome features. + +The waiter darted back, bearing a tray and tall glasses filled each with +piled parti-coloured liqueurs, on the top of which an egg-yolk swam. +Fleetwood gave example. Swallowing your egg, the fiery-velvet triune +behind slips after it, in an easy milky way, like a princess's train on a +state-march, and you are completely, transformed, very agreeably; you +have become a merry demon. 'Well, yes, it's next to magic,' he replied +to Woodseer's astonished snigger after the draught, and explained, that +it was a famous Viennese four-of-the-morning panacea, the revellers' +electrical restorer. 'Now you can hold on for an hour or two, and then +we'll sup. At Rome?' + +'Ay! Druids to-morrow!' cried the philosopher bewitched. + +He found himself bowing to a most heavenly lady, composed of day and +night in her colouring, but more of night, where the western edge has +become a pale steel blade. Men were around her, forming a semi-circle. +The world of men and women was mere timber and leafage to this flower of +her sex, glory of her kind. How he behaved in her presence, he knew not; +he was beyond self-criticism or conscious reflection; simply the engine +of the commixed three liqueurs, with parlous fine thoughts, and a sense +of steaming into the infinite. + +To leave her was to have her as a moon in the heavens and to think of her +creatively. A swarm of images rushed about her and away, took lustre and +shade. She was a miracle of greyness, her eyes translucently grey, a +dark-haired queen of the twilights; and his heart sprang into his brain +to picture the novel beauty; language became a flushed Bacchanal in a +ring of dancing similes. Lying beside a bank of silvery cinquefoil +against a clear evening sky, where the planet Venus is a point of new and +warmer light, one has the vision of her. Or something of Persephone +rising to greet her mother, when our beam of day first melts through her +as she kneels to gather an early bud of the year, would be near it. Or +there is a lake in mid-forest, that curls part in shadow under the foot +of morning: there we have her. + +He strained to the earthly and the skyey likenesses of his marvel of +human beauty because they bestowed her on him in passing. All the while, +he was gazing on a green gaming-table. + +The gold glittered, and it heaped or it vanished. Contemptuous of money, +beyond the limited sum for his needs, he gazed; imagination was blunted +in him to the hot drama of the business. Moreover his mind was engaged +in insisting that the Evening Star is not to be called Venus, because of +certain stories; and he was vowed to defend his lady from any allusion +to them. This occupied him. By degrees, the visible asserted its +authority; his look on the coin fell to speculating. Oddly, too, he was +often right;--the money, staked on the other side, would have won. He +considered it rather a plain calculation than a guess. + +Philosophy withdrew him from his temporary interest in the tricks of a +circling white marble ball. The chuck farthing of street urchins has +quite as much dignity. He compared the creatures dabbling, over the +board to summer flies on butcher's meat, periodically scared by a cloth. +More in the abstract, they were snatching at a snapdragon bowl. It +struck him, that the gamblers had thronged on an invitation to drink the +round of seed-time and harvest in a gulp. Again they were desperate +gleaners, hopping, skipping, bleeding, amid a whizz of scythe-blades, +for small wisps of booty. Nor was it long before the presidency of an +ancient hoary Goat-Satan might be perceived, with skew-eyes and pucker- +mouth, nursing a hoof on a knee. + +Our mediaeval Enemy sat symbolical in his deformities, as in old Italian +and Dutch thick-line engravings of him. He rolled a ball for souls, +excited like kittens, to catch it, and tumbling into the dozens of vacant +pits. So it seemed to Woodseer, whose perceptions were discoloured by +hereditary antagonism. Had he preserved his philosopher's eye, he would +have known that the Hoofed One is too wily to show himself, owing to his +ugliness. The Black Goddess and no other presides at her own game. +She (it is good for us to know it) is the Power who challenges the +individual, it is he who spreads the net for the mass. She liquefies +the brain of man; he petrifies or ossifies the heart. From her comes +craziness, from him perversity: a more provocative and, on the whole, +more contagious disease. The gambler does not seek to lead his fellows +into perdition; the snared of the Demon have pleasure in the act. Hence +our naturally interested forecasts of the contests between them: for if +he is beaten, as all must be at the close of an extended game with her, +we have only to harden the brain against her allurements and we enter a +clearer field. + +Woodseer said to Fleetwood: 'That ball has a look of a nymph running +round and round till she changes to one of the Fates.' + +'We'll have a run with her,' said Fleetwood, keener for business than for +metaphors--at the moment. + +He received gold for a bank-note. Captain Abrane hurriedly begged a +loan. Both of them threw. Neither of them threw on the six numbers +Woodseer would have selected, and they lost. He stated that the number +of 17 had won before. Abrane tried the transversal enclosing this +favoured number. 'Of course!' he cried, with foul resignation and a +hostile glare: the ball had seated itself and was grinning at him from +the lowest of the stalls. + +Fleetwood quitted the table-numbers to throw on Pair; he won, won again, +pushed his luck and lost, dragging Abrane with him. The giant varied his +tone of acquiescence in Fortune's whims: 'Of course! I 've only to +fling! Luck hangs right enough till I put down my stake.' + +'If the luck has gone three times, the chances . . . .' Woodseer was +rather inquiring than pronouncing. . . . Lord Fleetwood cut him short. +'The chances are equally the contrary!' and discomposed his argumentative +mind. + +As argument in such a place was impossible, he had a wild idea of +example--'just to see'--; and though he smiled, his brain was liquefying. +Upon a calculation of the chances, merely for the humour of it, he laid a +silver piece on the first six, which had been neglected. They were now +blest. He laid his winnings on the numbed 17. Who would have expected +it? why, the player, surely! Woodseer comported himself like a veteran: +he had proved that you can calculate the chances. Instead of turning in +triumph to Lord Fleetwood, he laid gold pieces to hug the number 17, and +ten in the centre. And it is the truth, he hoped then to lose and have +done with it--after proving his case. The ball whirled, kicked, tried +for seat in two, in three points, and entered 17. The usual temporary +wonderment flew round the table; and this number was courted in dread, +avoided with apprehension. + +Abrane let fly a mighty breath: 'Virgin, by Jove!' + +Success was a small matter to Gower Woodseer. He displayed his contempt +of fortune by letting his heap of bank-notes lie on Impair, and he won. +Abrane bade him say 'Maximum' in a furious whisper. He did so, as one at +home with the word; and winning repeatedly, observed to Fleetwood: 'Now I +can understand what historians mean, in telling us of heroes rushing into +the fray and vainly seeking death. I always thought death was to be had, +if you were in earnest.' + +Fleetwood scrutinized the cast of his features and the touch of his +fingers on the crispy paper. + +'Come to another of these "green fields,"' he returned briefly. 'The +game here is child's play.' + +Urging Virgin Luck not to quit his initiatory table, the captain +reluctantly went at their heels. Shortly before the tables were clad in +mantles for the night, he reported to Livia one of the great cases of +Virgin Luck; described it, from the silver piece to the big heap of +notes, and drew on his envy of the fellow to sketch the indomitable +coolness shown in following or in quitting a run. 'That fellow it is, +Fleetwood's tag-rag; holds his head like a street-fiddler; Woodler or +some name. But there's nothing to be done if we don't cultivate him. +He must have pocketed a good three thousand and more. They had a quarrel +about calculations of chances, and Fleet ran the V up his forehead at a +piece of impudence. Fellow says some high-flying stuff; Fleet brightens +like a Sunday chimney-sweep. If I believed in Black Arts, upon my word!' + +'Russett is not usually managed with ease,' the lady said. + +Her placid observation was directed on the pair then descending the +steps. + +'Be careful how you address, this gentleman,' she counselled Abrane. +'The name is not Woodier, I know. It must be the right name or none.' + +Livia's fairest smile received them. She heard the captain accosting the +child of luck as Mr. Woodier, and she made a rustle in rising to take +Fleetwood's arm. + +'We haven't dined, we have to sup,' said he. + +'You are released at the end of the lamps. You redeem your ring, +Russett, and I will restore it. I have to tell you, Henrietta is here +to-morrow.' + +'She might be in a better place.' + +'The place where she is to be seen is not generally undervalued by men. +It is not her fault that she is absent. The admiral was persuaded to go +and attend those cavalry manoeuvres with the Grand Duke, to whom he had +been civil when in command of the Mediterranean squadron. You know, the +admiral believes he has military--I mean soldierly-genius; and the +delusion may have given him wholesome exercise and helped him to forget +his gout. So far, Henrietta will have been satisfied. She cannot have +found much amusement among dusty troopers or at that court at Carlsruhe. +Our French milliner there has helped in retarding her quite against her +will. She has had to choose a balldress for the raw mountain-girl they +have with them, and get her fitted, and it's a task! Why take her to the +ball? But the admiral's infatuated with this girl, and won't hear of her +exclusion--because, he says, she understands a field of battle; and the +Ducal party have taken to her. Ah, Russett, you should not have flown! +No harm, only Henrietta does require a trifle of management. She writes, +that she is sure of you for the night at the Schloss.' + +'Why, ma'am?' + +'You have given your word. "He never breaks his lightest word," she +says.' + +'It sounds like the beginning of respect.' + +'The rarest thing men teach women to feel for them!' + +'A respectable love match--eh? Good Lord! You'll be civil to my friend. +You have struck him to the dust. You have your one poetical admirer in +him.' + +'I am honoured, Russett.' + +'Cleared out, I suppose? Abrane is a funnel for pouring into that Bank. +Have your fun as you like it! I shall get supplies to-morrow. By the +way, you have that boy Cressett here. What are you doing with him?' + +Livia spoke of watching over him and guarding him: + +'He was at the table beside me, bursting to have a fling; and my friend +Mr. Woodseer said, it was "Adonis come to spy the boar":--the picture!' + +Prompt as bugle to the breath, Livia proposed to bet him fifty pounds +that she would keep young Cressett from gambling a single louis. The +pretty saying did not touch her. + +Fleetwood moved and bowed. Sir Meeson Corby simulated a petrifaction of +his frame at seeing the Countess of Fleetwood actually partly bent with +her gracious acknowledgement of the tramp's gawky homage. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Accounting his tight blue tail coat and brass buttons a victory +Amused after their tiresome work of slaughter +And her voice, against herself, was for England +As for comparisons, they are flowers thrown into the fire +As if the age were the injury! +Brains will beat Grim Death if we have enough of them +But a great success is full of temptations +Could affect me then, without being flung at me +Country enclosed us to make us feel snug in our own importance +Did not know the nature of an oath, and was dismissed +Dogs' eyes have such a sick look of love +Drank to show his disdain of its powers +Earl of Cressett fell from his coach-box in a fit +Father used to say, four hours for a man, six for a woman +Fond, as they say, of his glass and his girl +Found that he 'cursed better upon water' +Good-bye to sorrow for a while--Keep your tears for the living +Had got the trick of lying, through fear of telling the truth +Hard enough for a man to be married to a fool +He was a figure on a horse, and naught when off it +Her intimacy with a man old enough to be her grandfather +I hate sleep: I hate anything that robs me of my will +Innocence and uncleanness may go together +It was an honest buss, but dear at ten thousand +Limit was two bottles of port wine at a sitting +Little boy named Tommy Wedger said he saw a dead body go by +Mighty Highnesses who had only smelt the outside edge of battle +No enemy's shot is equal to a weak heart in the act +Not afford to lose, and a disposition free of the craving to win +Past, future, and present, the three weights upon humanity +Put material aid at a lower mark than gentleness +Puzzle to connect the foregoing and the succeeding +Seventy, when most men are reaping and stacking their sins +Should we leave a good deed half done +Showery, replied the admiral, as his cocked-hat was knocked off +So indulgent when they drop their blot on a lady's character +So much for morality in those days! +Steady shakes them +Sweetest on earth to her was to be prized by her brother +They could have pardoned her a younger lover +Thus are we stricken by the days of our youth +Truth is, they have taken a stain from the life they lead +Very little parleying between determined men +Warm, is hardly the word--Winter's warm on skates +Woman finds herself on board a rudderless vessel +Writer society delights in, to show what it is composed of +You are to imagine that they know everything +You saw nothing but handkerchiefs out all over the theatre + + +[The End] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4483 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information +they need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext. +To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end, +rather than having it all here at the beginning. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + + +Title: The Amazing Marriage, v1 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4483] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 26, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Amazing Marriage, v1, by Meredith +********This file should be named 4483.txt or 4483.zip******** + + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + +THE AMAZING MARRIAGE + +By George Meredith + +1895 + + + +CONTENTS: + +BOOK 1. +I. ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS +II. MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF + CRESSETT WITH THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE + POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, AND OF A GREAT COUNTY FAMILY +III. CONTINUATION OF THE INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP, + TOGETHER WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION +IV. MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME +V. A MOUNTAIN WALK IN MIST AND SUNSHINE +VI. THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER +VII. THE LADY'S LETTER +VIII. OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: + IN WHICH THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT WILD + CREATURE HE WAS IN HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE FEMALE SHOULD MARVEL + CREDULOUSLY +IX. CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, + TOGETHER WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES + +BOOK 2. +X. SMALL CAUSES +XI. THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD +XII. HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT +XIII. AN IRRUPTION OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION +XIV. A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING +XV. OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON +XVI. IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD + ENGLAND +XVII. RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING +XVIII. DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY +XIX. THE GIRL MADGE + +BOOK 3. +XX. STUDIES IN FOG, GOUT, AN OLD SEAMAN, A LOVELY SERPENT, AND THE + MORAL EFFECTS THAT MAY COME OF A BORROWED SHIRT +XXI. IN WHICH WE HAVE FURTHER GLIMPSES OF THE WONDROUS MECHANISM OF + OUR YOUNGER MAN +XXII. A RIGHT-MINDED GREAT LADY +XXIII. IN DAME GOSSIP'S VEIN +XXIV. A KIDNAPPING AND NO GREAT HARM +XXV. THE PHILOSOPHER MAN OF ACTION +XXVI. AFTER SOME FENCING THE DAME PASSES OUR GUARD +XXVII. WE DESCEND INTO A STEAMER'S ENGINE-ROOM +XXVIII. BY CONCESSIONS TO MISTRESS GOSSIP A FURTHER INTRUSION IS + AVERTED + +BOOK 4. +XXIX. CARINTHIA IN WALES +XXX. REBECCA WYTHAN +XXXI. WE HAVE AGAIN TO DEAL WITH THE EXAMPLES OF OUR YOUNGER MAN +XXXII. IN WHICH WE SEE CARINTHIA PUT IN PRACTICE ONE OF HER OLD + FATHER'S LESSONS +XXXIII. A FRIGHTFUL DEBATE +XXXIV. A SURVEY OF THE RIDE OF THE WELSH CAVALIERS ESCORTING THE + COUNTESS OF FLEETWOOD TO KENTISH ESSLEMONT +XXXV. IN WHICH CERTAIN CHANGES MAY BE DISCERNED +XXXVI. BELOW THE SURFACE AND ABOVE +XXXVII. BETWEEN CARINTHIA AND HER LORD +XXXVIII. A DIP INTO THE SPRING'S WATERS + +BOOK 5. +XXXIX. THE RED WARNING FROM A SON OF VAPOUR +XL. A RECORD OF MINOR INCIDENTS +XLI. IN WHICH THE FATES ARE SEEN AND A CHOICE OF THE REFUGES FROM + THEM +XLII. THE RETARDED COURTSHIP +XLIII. ON THE ROAD TO THE ACT OF PENANCE +XLIV. BETWEEN THE EARL; THE COUNTESS AND HER BROTHER, AND OF A SILVER + CROSS +XLV. CONTAINS A RECORD OF WHAT WAS FEARED, WHAT WAS HOPED, AND WHAT + HAPPENED +XLVI. A CHAPTER OF UNDERCURRENTS AND SOME SURFACE FLASHES +XLVII. THE LAST: WITH A CONCLUDING WORD BY THE DAME + + + + +THE AMAZING MARRIAGE + + +BOOK 1. + +I. ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS +II. MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF + CRESSETT WITH THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE + POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, AND OF A GREAT COUNTY FAMILY +III. CONTINUATION OF THE INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP, + TOGETHER WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION +IV. MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME +V. A MOUNTAIN WALK IN MIST AND SUNSHINE +VI. THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER +VII. THE LADY'S LETTER +VIII. OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: + IN WHICH THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT WILD + CREATURE HE WAS IN HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE FEMALE SHOULD MARVEL + CREDULOUSLY +IX. CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, + TOGETHER WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES + + + +CHAPTER I + +ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS + +Everybody has heard of the beautiful Countess of Cressett, who was one of +the lights of this country at the time when crowned heads were running +over Europe, crying out for charity's sake to be amused after their +tiresome work of slaughter: and you know what a dread they have of +moping. She was famous for her fun and high spirits besides her good +looks, which you may judge of for yourself on a walk down most of our +great noblemen's collections of pictures in England, where you will +behold her as the goddess Diana fitting an arrow to a bow; and elsewhere +an Amazon holding a spear; or a lady with dogs, in the costume of the +day; and in one place she is a nymph, if not Diana herself, gazing at her +naked feet before her attendants loosen her tunic for her to take the +bath, and her hounds are pricking their ears, and you see antlers of a +stag behind a block of stone. She was a wonderful swimmer, among other +things, and one early morning, when she was a girl, she did really swim, +they say, across the Shannon and back to win a bet for her brother Lord +Levellier, the colonel of cavalry, who left an arm in Egypt, and changed +his way of life to become a wizard, as the common people about his +neighbourhood supposed, because he foretold the weather and had cures for +aches and pains without a doctor's diploma. But we know now that he was +only a mathematician and astronomer, all for inventing military engines. +The brother and sister were great friends in their youth, when he had his +right arm to defend her reputation with; and she would have done anything +on earth to please him. + +There is a picture of her in an immense flat white silk hat trimmed with +pale blue, like a pavilion, the broadest brim ever seen, and she simply +sits on a chair; and Venus the Queen of Beauty would have been +extinguished under that hat, I am sure; and only to look at Countess +Fanny's eye beneath the brim she has tipped ever so slightly in her +artfulness makes the absurd thing graceful and suitable. Oh! she was a +cunning one. But you must be on your guard against the scandalmongers +and collectors of anecdotes, and worst of any, the critic, of our +Galleries of Art; for she being in almost all of them (the principal +painters of the day were on their knees for the favour of a sitting), +they have to speak of her pretty frequently, and they season their dish, +the coxcombs do, by hinting a knowledge of her history. + +'Here we come to another portrait of the beautiful but, we fear, naughty +Countess of Cressett.' + +You are to imagine that they know everything, and they are so indulgent +when they drop their blot on a lady's character. + +They can boast of nothing more than having read Nymriey's Letters and +Correspondence, published, fortunately for him, when he was no longer to +be called to account below for his malicious insinuations, pretending to +decency in initials and dashes: That man was a hater of women and the +clergy. He was one of the horrid creatures who write with a wink at you, +which sets the wicked part of us on fire: I have known it myself, and I +own it to my shame; and if I happened to be ignorant of the history of +Countess Fanny, I could not refute his wantonness. He has just the same +benevolent leer for a bishop. Give me, if we are to make a choice, the +beggar's breech for decency, I say: I like it vastly in preference to a +Nymney, who leads you up to the curtain and agitates it, and bids you to +retire on tiptoe. You cannot help being angry with the man for both +reasons. But he is the writer society delights in, to show what it is +composed of. A man brazen enough to declare that he could hold us in +suspense about the adventures of a broomstick, with the aid of a yashmak +and an ankle, may know the world; you had better not know him--that is my +remark; and do not trust him. + +He tells the story of the Old Buccaneer in fear of the public, for it was +general property, but of course he finishes with a Nymney touch: 'So the +Old Buccaneer is the doubloon she takes in exchange for a handful of +silver pieces.' There is no such handful to exchange--not of the kind he +sickeningly nudges at you. I will prove to you it was not Countess +Fanny's naughtiness, though she was indeed very blamable. Women should +walk in armour as if they were born to it; for these cold sneerers will +never waste their darts on cuirasses. An independent brave young +creature, exposing herself thoughtlessly in her reckless innocence, is +the victim for them. They will bring all society down on her with one of +their explosive sly words appearing so careless, the cowards. I say +without hesitation, her conduct with regard to Kirby, the Old Buccaneer, +as he was called, however indefensible in itself, warrants her at heart +an innocent young woman, much to be pitied. Only to think of her, I +could sometimes drop into a chair for a good cry. And of him too! and +their daughter Carinthia Jane was the pair of them, as to that, and so +was Chillon John, the son. + +Those critics quoting Nymney should look at the portrait of her in the +Long Saloon of Cresset Castle, where she stands in blue and white, +completely dressed, near a table supporting a couple of holster pistols, +and then let them ask themselves whether they would speak of her so if +her little hand could move. + +Well, and so the tale of her swim across the Shannon river and back drove +the young Earl of Cresset straight over to Ireland to propose for her, +he saying; that she was the girl to suit his book; not allowing her time +to think of how much he might be the man to suit hers. The marriage was +what is called a good one: both full of frolic, and he wealthy and rather +handsome, and she quite lovely and spirited. + +No wonder the whole town was very soon agog about the couple, until at +the end of a year people began to talk of them separately, she going her +way, and he his. She could not always be on the top of a coach, which +was his throne of happiness. + +Plenty of stories are current still of his fame as a four-in-hand +coachman. They say he once drove an Emperor and a King, a Prince +Chancellor and a pair of Field Marshals, and some ladies of the day, +from the metropolis to Richmond Hill in fifty or sixty odd minutes, +having the ground cleared all the way by bell and summons, and only a +donkey-cart and man, and a deaf old woman, to pay for; and went, as you +can imagine, at such a tearing gallop, that those Grand Highnesses had +to hold on for their lives and lost their hats along the road; and a +publican at Kew exhibits one above his bar to the present hour. And +Countess Fanny was up among them, they say. She was equal to it. And +some say, that was the occasion of her meeting the Old Buccaneer. + +She met him at Richmond in Surrey we know for certain. It was on +Richmond Hill, where the old King met his Lass. They say Countess Fanny +was parading the hill to behold the splendid view, always admired so much +by foreigners, with their Achs and Hechs! and surrounded by her crowned +courtiers in frogged uniforms and moustachioed like sea-horses, a little +before dinner time, when Kirby passed her, and the Emperor made a remark +on him, for Kirby was a magnificent figure of a man, and used to be +compared to a three-decker entering harbour after a victory. He stood +six feet four, and was broad-shouldered and deep-chested to match, and +walked like a king who has humbled his enemy. You have seen big dogs. +And so Countess Fanny looked round. Kirby was doing the same. But he +had turned right about, and appeared transfixed and like a royal beast +angry, with his wound. If ever there was love at first sight, and a +dreadful love, like a runaway mail-coach in a storm of wind and lightning +at black midnight by the banks of a flooded river, which was formerly our +comparison for terrible situations, it was when those two met. + +And, what! you exclaim, Buccaneer Kirby full sixty-five, and Countess +Fanny no more than three and twenty, a young beauty of the world of +fashion, courted by the highest, and she in love with him! Go and gaze +at one of our big ships coming out of an engagement home with all her +flags flying and her crew manning the yards. That will give you an idea +of a young woman's feelings for an old warrior never beaten down an inch +by anything he had to endure; matching him, I dare say, in her woman's +heart, with the Mighty Highnesses who had only smelt the outside edge of +battle. She did rarely admire a valiant man. Old as Methuselah, he +would have made her kneel to him. She was all heart for a real hero. + +The story goes, that Countess Fanny sent her husband to Captain Kirby, +at the emperor's request, to inquire his name; and on hearing it, she +struck her hands on her bosom, telling his Majesty he saw there the +bravest man in the king's dominions; which the emperor scarce crediting, +and observing that the man must be, then, a superhuman being to be so +distinguished in a nation of the brave, Countess Fanny related the well- +known tale of Captain Kirby and the shipful of mutineers; and how when +not a man of them stood by him, and he in the service of the first +insurgent State of Spanish America, to save his ship from being taken +over to the enemy,--he blew her up, fifteen miles from land: and so he +got to shore swimming and floating alternately, and was called Old Sky- +high by English sailors, any number of whom could always be had to sail +under Buccaneer Kirby. He fought on shore as well; and once he came down +from the tops of the Andes with a black beard turned white, and went into +action with the title of Kirby's Ghost. + +But his heart was on salt water; he was never so much at home as in a +ship foundering or splitting into the clouds. We are told that he never +forgave the Admiralty for striking him off the list of English naval +captains: which is no doubt why in his old age he nursed a grudge against +his country. + +Ours, I am sure, was the loss; and many have thought so since. He was a +mechanician, a master of stratagems; and would say, that brains will beat +Grim Death if we have enough of them. He was a standing example of the +lessons of his own MAXIMS FOR MEN, a very curious book, that fetches a +rare price now wherever a copy is put up for auction. I shudder at them +as if they were muzzles of firearms pointed at me; but they were not +addressed to my sex; and still they give me an interest in the writer who +would declare, that 'he had never failed in an undertaking without +stripping bare to expose to himself where he had been wanting in +Intention and Determination.' + +There you may see a truly terrible man. + +So the emperor being immensely taken with Kirby's method of preserving +discipline on board ship, because (as we say to the madman, 'Your strait- +waistcoat is my easy-chair') monarchs have a great love of discipline, +he begged Countess Fanny's permission that he might invite Captain Kirby +to his table; and Countess Fanny (she had the name from the ballad + + 'I am the star of Prince and Czar, + My light is shed on many, + But I wait here till my bold Buccaneer + Makes prize of Countess Fanny':-- + +for the popular imagination was extraordinarily roused by the elopement, +and there were songs and ballads out of number), Countess Fanny +despatched her husband to Captain Kirby again, meaning no harm, though +the poor man is laughed at in the songs for going twice upon his mission. + +None of the mighty people repented of having the Old Buccaneer--for that +night, at all events. He sat in the midst of them, you may believe, like +the lord of that table, with his great white beard and hair--not a lock +of it shed--and his bronze lion-face, and a resolute but a merry eye that +he had. He was no deep drinker of wine, but when he did drink, and the +wine champagne, he drank to show his disdain of its powers; and the +emperor wishing for a narrative of some of his exploits, particularly the +blowing up of his ship, Kirby paid his Majesty the compliment of giving +it him as baldly as an official report to the Admiralty. So disengaged +and calm was he, with his bottles of champagne in him, where another +would have been sparkling and laying on the colours, that he was then and +there offered Admiral's rank in the Imperial navy; and the Old Buccaneer, +like a courtier of our best days, bows to Countess Fanny, and asks her, +if he is a free man to go: and, No, says she, we cannot spare you! And +there was a pretty wrangle between Countess Fanny and the emperor, each +pulling at the Old Buccaneer to have possession of him. + +He was rarely out of her sight after their first meeting, and the +ridiculous excuse she gave to her husband's family was, she feared he +would be kidnapped and made a Cossack of! And young Lord Cressett, her +husband, began to grumble concerning her intimacy with a man old enough +to be her grandfather. As if the age were the injury! He seemed to +think it so, and vowed he would shoot the old depredator dead, if he +found him on the grounds of Cressett: 'like vermin,' he said, and it was +considered that he had the right, and no jury would have convicted him. +You know what those days were. + +He had his opportunity one moonlight night, not far from the castle, and +peppered Kirby with shot from a fowling-piece at, some say, five paces' +distance, if not point-blank. + +But Kirby had a maxim, Steady shakes them, and he acted on it to receive +his enemy's fire; and the young lord's hand shook, and the Old Buccaneer +stood out of the smoke not much injured, except in the coat-collar, with +a pistol cocked in his hand, and he said: + +'Many would take that for a declaration of war, but I know it 's only +your lordship's diplomacy'; and then he let loose to his mad fun, +astounding Lord Cressett and his gamekeeper, and vowed, as the young lord +tried to relate subsequently, as well as he could recollect the words-- +here I have it in print:--'that he was a man pickled in saltpetre when an +infant, like Achilles, and proof against powder and shot not marked with +cross and key, and fetched up from the square magazine in the central +depot of the infernal factory, third turning to the right off the grand +arcade in Kingdom-come, where the night-porter has to wear wet +petticoats, like a Highland chief, to make short work of the sparks +flying about, otherwise this world and many another would not have to +wait long for combustion.' + +Kirby had the wildest way of talking when he was not issuing orders under +fire, best understood by sailors. I give it you as it stands here +printed. I do not profess to understand. + +So Lord Cressett said: 'Diplomacy and infernal factories be hanged! Have +your shot at me; it's only fair.' And Kirby discharged his pistol at the +top twigs of an old oak tree, and called the young lord a Briton, and +proposed to take him in hand and make a man of him, as nigh worthy of his +wife as any one not an Alexander of Macedon could be. + +So they became friendly, and the young lord confessed it was his family +that had urged him to the attack; and Kirby abode at the castle, and all +three were happy, in perfect honour, I am convinced: but such was not the +opinion of the Cressetts and Levelliers. Down they trooped to Cressett +Castle with a rush and a roar, crying on the disgrace of an old desperado +like Kirby living there; Dukes, Marchionesses, Cabinet Ministers, leaders +of fashion, and fire-eating colonels of the King's body-guard, one of +whom Captain John Peter Kirby laid on his heels at ten paces on an April +morning, when the duel was fought, as early as the blessed heavens had +given them light to see to do it. Such days those were! + +There was talk of shutting up the infatuated lady. If not incarcerated, +she was rigidly watched. The earl her husband fell altogether to +drinking and coaching, and other things. The ballad makes her say: + + 'My family my gaolers be, + My husband is a zany; + Naught see I clear save my bold Buccaneer + To rescue Countess Fanny!' + +and it goes on: + + 'O little lass, at play on the grass, + + Come earn a silver penny, + And you'll be dear to my bold Buccaneer + For news of his Countess Fanny.' + +In spite of her bravery, that poor woman suffered! + +We used to learn by heart the ballads and songs upon famous events in +those old days when poetry was worshipped. + +But Captain Kirby gave provocation enough to both families when he went +among the taverns and clubs, and vowed before Providence over his big +fist that they should rue their interference, and he would carry off the +lady on a day he named; he named the hour as well, they say, and that was +midnight of the month of June. The Levelliers and Cressetts foamed at +the mouth in speaking of him, so enraged they were on account of his age +and his passion for a young woman. As to blood, the Kirbys of +Lincolnshire were quite equal to the Cressetts of Warwick. The Old +Buccaneer seems to have had money too. But you can see what her people +had to complain of: his insolent contempt of them was unexampled. And +their tyranny had roused my lady's high spirit not a bit less; and she +said right out: 'When he comes, I am ready and will go with him.' + +There was boldness for you on both sides! All the town was laughing and +betting on the event of the night in June: and the odds were in favour of +Kirby; for though, Lord Cressett was quite the popular young English +nobleman, being a capital whip and free of his coin, in those days men +who had smelt powder were often prized above titles, and the feeling, +out of society, was very strong for Kirby, even previous to the fight +on the heath. And the age of the indomitable adventurer must have +contributed to his popularity. He was the hero of every song. + + "'What's age to me!" cries Kirby; + "Why, young and fresh let her be, + But it 's mighty better reasoned + For a man to be well seasoned, + And a man she has in me," cries Kirby.' + +As to his exact age: + + "'Write me down sixty-three," cries Kirby.' + +I have always maintained that it was an understatement. We must +remember, it was not Kirby speaking, but the song-writer. Kirby would +not, in my opinion, have numbered years he was proud of below their due +quantity. He was more, if he died at ninety-one; and Chillon Switzer +John Kirby, born eleven months after the elopement, was, we know, twenty- +three years old when the old man gave up the ghost and bequeathed him +little besides a law-suit with the Austrian Government, and the care of +Carinthia Jane, the second child of this extraordinary union; both +children born in wedlock, as you will hear. Sixty-three, or sixty-seven, +near upon seventy, when most men are reaping and stacking their sins with +groans and weak knees, Kirby was a match for his juniors, which they +discovered. + +Captain John Peter Avason Kirby, son of a Lincolnshire squire of an +ancient stock, was proud of his blood, and claimed descent from a chief +of the Danish rovers. + + '"What's rank to me!" cries Kirby; + "A titled lass let her be, + But unless my plans miscarry, + I'll show her when we marry; + As brave a pedigree," cries Kirby.' + +That was the song-writer's answer to the charge that the countess had +stooped to a degrading alliance. + +John Peter was fourth of a family of seven children, all males, and hard +at the bottle early in life: 'for want of proper occupation,' he says in +his Memoirs, and applauds his brother Stanson, the clergyman, for being +ahead of him in renouncing strong dunks, because he found that he 'cursed +better upon water.' Water, however, helped Stanson Kirby to outlive his +brothers and inherit the Lincolnshire property, and at the period of the +great scandal in London he was palsied, and waited on by his grandson and +heir Ralph Thorkill Kirby, the hero of an adventure celebrated in our Law +courts and on the English stage; for he took possession of his coachman's +wife, and was accused of compassing the death of the husband. He was not +hanged for it, so we are bound to think him not guilty. + +The stage-piece is called 'Saturday Night', and it had an astonishing +run, but is only remembered now for the song of 'Saturday,' sung by the +poor coachman and labourers at the village ale-house before he starts to +capture his wife from the clutches of her seducer and meets his fate. +Never was there a more popular song: you heard it everywhere. +I recollect one verse: + + 'O Saturday money is slippery metal, + And Saturday ale it is tipsy stuff + At home the old woman is boiling her kettle, + She thinks we don't know when we've tippled enough. + We drink, and of never a man are we jealous, + And never a man against us will he speak + For who can be hard on a set of poor fellows + Who only see Saturday once a week! + +You chorus the last two lines. + +That was the very song the unfortunate coachman of Kirby Hall joined in +singing before he went out to face his end for the woman he loved. He +believed in her virtue to the very last. + +'The ravished wife of my bosom,' he calls her all through the latter half +of the play. It is a real tragedy. The songs of that day have lost +their effect now, I suppose. They will ever remain pathetic to me; and +to hear the poor coachman William Martin invoking the name of his dear +stolen wife Elizabeth, jug in hand, so tearfully, while he joins the song +of Saturday, was a most moving thing. You saw nothing but handkerchiefs +out all over the theatre. What it is that has gone from our drama, I +cannot tell: I am never affected now as I was then; and people in a low +station of life could affect me then, without being flung at me, for I +dislike an entire dish of them, I own. We were simpler in our habits and +ways of thinking. Elizabeth Martin, according to report, was a woman to +make better men than Ralph Thorkill act evilly--as to good looks, I mean. +She was not entirely guiltless, I am afraid; though in the last scene, +Mrs. Kempson, who played the part (as, alas, she could do to the very +life!), so threw herself into the pathos of it that there were few to +hold out against her, and we felt that Elizabeth had been misled. So +much for morality in those days! + +And now for the elopement. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MISTRESS GOSSIP TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF CRESSETT WITH +THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, +AND OF A GREAT COUNTY FAMILY + +The twenty-first of June was the day appointed by Captain Kirby to carry +off Countess Fanny, and the time midnight: and ten minutes to the stroke +of twelve, Countess Fanny, as if she scorned to conceal that she was in a +conspiracy with her grey-haired lover, notwithstanding that she was +watched and guarded, left the Marchioness of Arpington's ball-room and +was escorted downstairs by her brother Lord Levellier, sworn to baffle +Kirby. Present with him in the street and witness to the shutting of the +carriage-door on Countess Fanny, were brother officers of his, General +Abrane, Colonel Jack Potts, and Sir Upton Tomber. + +The door fast shut, Countess Fanny kissed her hand to them and drew up +the window, seeming merry, and as they had expected indignation and +perhaps resistance, for she could be a spitfire in a temper and had no +fear whatever of firearms, they were glad to have her safe on such good +terms; and so General Abrane jumped up on the box beside the coachman, +Jack Potts jumped up between the footmen, and Sir Upton Tomber and the +one-armed lord, as soon as the carriage was disengaged from the ruck two +deep, walked on each side of it in the road all the way to Lord +Cressett's town house. No one thought of asking where that silly young +man was--probably under some table. + +Their numbers were swelled by quite a host going along, for heavy bets +were on the affair, dozens having backed Kirby; and it must have appeared +serious to them, with the lady in custody, and constables on the look- +out, and Kirby and his men nowhere in sight. They expected an onslaught +at some point of the procession, and it may be believed they wished it, +if only that they might see something for their money. A beautiful +bright moonlight night it happened to be. Arm in arm among them were +Lord Pitscrew and Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, a great friend of Kirby's; +for it was a device of the Old Buccaneer's that helped the earl to win +the great Welsh heiress who made him, even before he took to hoarding and +buying,--one of the wealthiest noblemen in England; but she was crazed by +her marriage or the wild scenes leading to it; she never presented +herself in society. She would sit on the top of Estlemont towers--as +they formerly spelt it--all day and half the night in midwinter, often, +looking for the mountains down in her native West country, covered with +an old white flannel cloak, and on her head a tall hat of her Welsh +women-folk; and she died of it, leaving a son in her likeness, of whom +you will hear. Lord Fleetwood had lost none of his faith in Kirby, and +went on booking bets giving him huge odds, thousands! + +He accepted fifty to one when the carriage came to a stop at the steps of +Lord Cressett's mansion; but he was anxious, and well he might be, seeing +Countess Fanny alight and pass up between two lines of gentlemen all +bowing low before her: not a sign of the Old Buccaneer anywhere to right +or left! Heads were on the look out, and vows offered up for his +appearance. + +She was at the door and about to enter the house. Then it was; that with +a shout of the name of some dreadful heathen god, Colonel Jack Potts +roared out, 'She's half a foot short o' the mark!' + +He was on the pavement, and it seems he measured her as she slipped by +him, and one thing and another caused him to smell a cheat; and General +Abrane, standing beside her near the door, cried: 'Where art flying now, +Jack?' But Jack Potts grew more positive and bellowed, 'Peel her wig! +we're done!' + +And she did not speak a word, but stood huddled-up and hooded; and Lord +Levellier caught her up by the arm as she was trying a dash into the +hall, and Sir Upton Tomber plucked at her veil and raised it, and +whistled: + +'Phew!'--which struck the rabble below with awe of the cunning of the Old +Buccaneer; and there was no need for them to hear General Abrane say: +'Right! Jack, we've a dead one in hand,' or Jack Potts reply: + +'It's ten thousand pounds clean winged away from my pocket, like a string +of wild geese!' + +The excitement of the varletry in the square, they say, was fearful to +hear. So the principal noblemen and gentlemen concerned thought it +prudent to hurry the young woman into the house and bar the door; and +there she was very soon stripped of veil and blonde false wig with long +curls, the whole framing of her artificial resemblance to Countess Fanny, +and she proved to be a good-looking foreign maid, a dark one, powdered, +trembling very much, but not so frightened upon hearing that her penalty +for the share she had taken in the horrid imposture practised upon them +was to receive and return a salute from each of the gentlemen in +rotation; which the hussy did with proper submission; and Jack Potts +remarked, that 'it was an honest buss, but dear at ten thousand!' + +When you have been the victim of a deceit, the explanation of the +simplicity of the trick turns all the wonder upon yourself, you know, and +the backers of the Old Buccaneer and the wagerers against him crowed and +groaned in chorus at the maid's narrative of how the moment Countess +Fanny had thrown up the window of her carriage, she sprang out to a +carriage on the off side, containing Kirby, and how she, this little +French jade, sprang in to take her place. One snap of the fingers and +the transformation was accomplished. So for another kiss all round they +let her go free, and she sat at the supper-table prepared for Countess +Fanny and the party by order of Lord Levellier, and amused the gentlemen +with stories of the ladies she had served, English and foreign. And that +is how men are taught to think they know our sex and may despise it! I +could preach them a lesson. Those men might as well not believe in the +steadfastness of the very stars because one or two are reported lost out +of the firmament, and now and then we behold a whole shower of fragments +descending. The truth is, they have taken a stain from the life they +lead, and are troubled puddles, incapable of clear reflection. To listen +to the tattle of a chatting little slut, and condemn the whole sex upon +her testimony, is a nice idea of justice. Many of the gentlemen present +became notorious as woman-scorners, whether owing to Countess Fanny or +other things. Lord Levellier was, and Lord Fleetwood, the wicked man! +And certainly the hearing of naughty stories of us by the light of a +grievous and vexatious instance of our misconduct must produce an +impression. Countess Fanny's desperate passion for a man of the age of +Kirby struck them as out of nature. They talked of it as if they could +have pardoned her a younger lover. + +All that Lord Cressett said, on the announcement of the flight of his +wife, was: 'Ah! Fan! she never would run in my ribbons.' + +He positively declined to persue. Lord Levellier would not attempt to +follow her up without him, as it would have cost money, and he wanted all +that he could spare for his telescopes and experiments. Who, then, was +the gentleman who stopped the chariot, with his three mounted attendants, +on the road to the sea, on the heath by the great Punch-Bowl? + +That has been the question for now longer than half a century, in fact +approaching seventy mortal years. No one has ever been able to say for +certain. + +It occurred at six o'clock on the summer morning. Countess Fanny must +have known him,--and not once did she open her mouth to breathe his name. +Yet she had no objection to talk of the adventure and how Simon Fettle, +Captain Kirby's old ship's steward in South America, seeing horsemen +stationed on the ascent of the high road bordering the Bowl, which is +miles round and deep, made the postillion cease jogging, and sang out to +his master for orders, and Kirby sang back to him to look to his priming, +and then the postillion was bidden proceed, and he did not like it, but +he had to deal with pistols behind, where men feel weak, and he went +bobbing on the saddle in dejection, as if upon his very heart he jogged; +and soon the fray commenced. There was very little parleying between +determined men. + +Simon Fettle was a plain kindly creature without a thought of malice, +who kept his master's accounts. He fired the first shot at the foremost +man, as he related in after days, 'to reduce the odds.' Kirby said to +Countess Fanny, just to comfort her, never so much as imagining she would +be afraid, 'The worst will be a bloody shirt for Simon to mangle,' for +they had been arranging to live cheaply in a cottage on the Continent, +and Simon Fettle to do the washing. She could not help laughing +outright. But when the Old Buccaneer was down striding in the battle, +she took a pistol and descended likewise; and she used it, too, and +loaded again. + +She had not to use it a second time. Kirby pulled the gentleman off his +horse, wounded in the thigh, and while dragging him to Countess Fanny to +crave her pardon, a shot intended for Kirby hit the poor gentleman in the +breast, and Kirby stretched him at his length, and Simon and he disarmed +the servant who had fired. One was insensible, one flying, and those two +on the ground. All in broad daylight; but so lonely is that spot, +nothing might have been heard of it, if at the end of the week the +postillion who had been bribed and threatened with terrible threats to +keep his tongue from wagging, had not begun to talk. So the scene of the +encounter was examined, and on one spot, carefully earthed over, blood- +marks were discovered in the green sand. People in the huts on the hill- +top, a quarter of a mile distant, spoke of having heard sounds of firing +while they were at breakfast, and a little boy named Tommy Wedger said he +saw a dead body go by in an open coach that morning; all bloody and +mournful. He had to appear before the magistrates, crying terribly, but +did not know the nature of an oath, and was dismissed. Time came when +the boy learned to swear, and he did, and that he had seen a beautiful +lady firing and killing men like pigeons and partridges; but that was +after Charles Dump, the postillion, had been telling the story. + +Those who credited Charles Dump's veracity speculated on dozens of great +noblemen--and gentlemen known to be dying in love with Countess Fanny. +And this brings us to another family. + +I do not say I know anything; I do but lay before you the evidence we +have to fix suspicion upon a notorious character, perfectly capable of +trying to thwart a man like Kirby, and with good reason to try, if she +had bewitched him to a consuming passion, as we are told. + +About eleven miles distant, as the crow flies and a bold huntsman will +ride in that heath country, from the Punch-Bowl, right across the mounds +and the broad water, lies the estate of the Fakenhams, who intermarried +with the Coplestones of the iron mines, and were the wealthiest of the +old county families until Curtis Fakenham entered upon his inheritance. +Money with him was like the farm-wife's dish of grain she tosses in +showers to her fowls. He was more than what you call a lady-killer, he +was a woman-eater. His pride was in it as well as his taste, and when +men are like that, indeed they are devourers! + +Curtis was the elder brother of Commodore Baldwin Fakenham, whose +offspring, like his own, were so strangely mixed up with Captain Kirby's +children by Countess Fanny, as you will hear. And these two brothers +were sons of Geoffrey Fakenham, celebrated for his devotion to the French +Countess Jules d'Andreuze, or some such name, a courtly gentleman, who +turned Papist on his death-bed in France, in Brittany somewhere, not to +be separated from her in the next world, as he solemnly left word; +wickedly, many think. + +To show the oddness of things and how opposite to one another brothers +may be, his elder, the uncle of Curtis, and Baldwin, was the renowned old +Admiral Fakenham, better known along our sea-coasts and ports among +sailors as 'Old Showery,' because of a remark he once made to his flag- +captain, when cannon-balls were coming thick on them in a hard-fought +action. 'Hot work, sir,' his captain said. 'Showery,' replied the +admiral, as his cocked-hat was knocked off by the wind of a cannon-ball. +He lost both legs before the war was over, and said merrily, 'Stumps for +life'' while they were carrying him below to the cockpit. In my girlhood +the boys were always bringing home anecdotes of old Admiral Showery: not +all of them true ones, perhaps, but they fitted him. He was a rough +seaman, fond, as they say, of his glass and his girl, and utterly +despising his brother Geoffrey for the airs he gave himself, and crawling +on his knees to a female Parleyvoo; and when Geoffrey died, the admiral +drank to his rest in the grave: 'There's to my brother Jeff,' he said, +and flinging away the dregs of his glass: 'There 's to the Frog!' and +flinging away the glass to shivers: 'There's to the Turncoat!' + +He salted his language in a manner I cannot repeat; no epithet ever stood +by itself. When I was young the boys relished these dreadful words +because they seemed to smell of tar and battle-smoke, when every English +boy was for being a sailor and daring the Black Gentleman below. In all +truth, the bad words came from him; though an excellent scholar has +assured me they should be taken for aspirates, and mean no harm; and so +it may be, but heartily do I rejoice that aspirates, have been dropped by +people of birth; for you might once hear titled ladies guilty of them in +polite society, I do assure you. + +We have greatly improved in that respect. They say the admiral's +reputation as a British sailor of the old school made him, rather his +name, a great favourite at Court; but to Court he could not be got to go, +and if the tale be true, their Majesties paid him a visit on board his +ship, in harbour one day, and sailors tell you that Old Showery gave +his liege lord and lady a common dish of boiled beef with carrots and +turnips, and a plain dumpling, for their dinner, with ale and port wine, +the merit of which he swore to; and he became so elate, that after the +cloth was removed, he danced them a hornpipe on his pair of wooden legs, +whistling his tune, and holding his full tumbler of hot grog in his hand +all the while, without so much as the spilling of a drop!--so earnest was +he in everything he did. They say his limit was two bottles of port wine +at a sitting, with his glass of hot grog to follow, and not a soul could +induce him to go beyond that. In addition to being a great seaman, he +was a very religious man and a stout churchman. + +Well, now, the Curtis Fakenham of Captain Kirby's day had a good deal of +his uncle as well as his father in him, the spirit of one and the +outside, of the other; and, favoured or not, he had been distinguished +among Countess Fanny's adorers: she certainly chose to be silent about +the name of the assailant. And it has been attested on oath that two +days and a night subsequent to the date furnished by Charles Dump, Curtis +Fakenham was brought to his house, Hollis Grange, lame of a leg, with a +shot in his breast, that he carried to the family vault; and his head +gamekeeper, John Wiltshire, a resolute fellow, was missing from that +hour. Some said they had a quarrel, and Curtis was wounded and John +Wiltshire killed. Curtis was known to have been extremely attached to +the man. Yet when Wiltshire was inquired for, he let fall a word of +'having more of Wiltshire than was agreeable to Hampshire'--his county. +People asked what that meant. Yet, according to the tale, it was the +surviving servant, by whom he, or whoever it may have been, was +accidentally shot. + +We are in a perfect tangle. On the other hand, it was never denied that +Curtis and John Wiltshire were in London together at the time of Countess +Fanny's flight: and Curtis Fakenham was one of the procession of armed +gentleman conducting her in her carriage, as they supposed; and he was +known to have started off, on the discovery of the cheat, with horrible +imprecations against Frenchwomen. It became known, too; that horses of +his were standing saddled in his innyard at midnight. And more, Charles +Dump the postillion was taken secretly to set eyes on him as they wheeled +him in his garden-walk, and he vowed it was the identical gentleman. But +this coming by and by to the ear of Curtis, he had Charles Dump fetched +over to confront him; and then the man made oath that he had never seen +Mr. Curtis Fakenham anywhere but there, in his own house at Hollis! One +does not really know what, to think of it. + +This postillion made a small fortune. He was everywhere in request. +People were never tired of asking him how he behaved while the fight was +going on, and he always answered that he sat as close to his horse as he +could, and did not dream of dismounting; for, he said, 'he was a figure +on a horse, and naught when off it.' His repetition of the story, with +some adornments, and that same remark, made him the popular man of the +county; people said he might enter Parliament, and I think at one time it +was possible. But a great success is full of temptations. After being +hired at inns to fill them with his account of the battle, and tipped by +travellers from London to show the spot, he set up for himself as +innkeeper, and would have flourished, only he had contracted habits on +his rounds, and he fell to contradicting himself, so that he came to be +called Lying Charley; and the people of the country said it was 'he who +drained the Punch-Bowl, for though he helped to put the capital into it, +he took all the interest out of it.' + +Yet we have the doctor of the village of Ipley, Dr. Cawthorne, a noted +botanist, assuring us of the absolute credibility of Charles Dump, whom +he attended in the poor creature's last illness, when Charles Dump +confessed he had lived in mortal terror of Squire Curtis, and had got +the trick of lying, through fear of telling the truth. Hence his ruin. + +So he died delirious and contrite. Cawthorne, the great Turf man, +inherited a portrait of him from his father the doctor. It was often +the occasion of the story being told over again, and used to hang in +the patients' reception room, next to an oil-painting of the Punch-Bowl, +an admired landscape picture by a local artist, highly-toned and true +to every particular of the scene, with the bright yellow road winding +uphill, and the banks of brilliant purple heath, and a white thorn in +bloom quite beautiful, and the green fir trees, and the big Bowl black as +a cauldron,--indeed a perfect feast of harmonious contrasts in colours. + +And now you know how it is that the names of Captain Kirby and Curtis +Fakenham are alive to the present moment in the district. + +We lived a happy domestic life in those old coaching days, when county +affairs and county people were the topics of firesides, and the country +enclosed us to make us feel snug in our own importance. My opinion is, +that men and women grow to their dimensions only where such is the case. +We had our alarms from the outside now and again, but we soon relapsed +to dwell upon our private business and our pleasant little hopes and +excitements; the courtships and the crosses and the scandals, the tea- +parties and the dances, and how the morning looked after the stormy night +had passed, and the coach coming down the hill with a box of news and +perhaps a curious passenger to drop at the inn. I do believe we had a +liking for the very highwaymen, if they had any reputation for civility. +What I call human events, things concerning you and me, instead of the +deafening catastrophes now afflicting and taking all conversation out of +us, had their natural interest then. We studied the face of each morning +as it came, and speculated upon the secret of the thing it might have in +store for us or our heroes and heroines; we thought of them more than of +ourselves. Long after the adventures of the Punch-Bowl, our county was +anxious about Countess Fanny and the Old Buccaneer, wondering where they +were and whether they were prospering, whether they were just as much in +love as ever, and which of them would bury the other, and what the +foreign people abroad thought of that strange pair. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CONTINUATION OF THE INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP, TOGETHER +WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION + +I have still time before me, according to the terms of my agreement with +the person to whom I have, I fear foolishly, entrusted the letters and +documents of a story surpassing ancient as well as modern in the +wonderment it causes, that would make the Law courts bless their hearts, +judges no less than the barristers, to have it running through them day +by day, with every particular to wrangle over, and many to serve as a +text for the pulpit. So to proceed. + +It should be mentioned that the postillion Charles Dump is not +represented, and I have no conception of the reason why not, sitting +on horseback, in the portrait in the possession of the Cawthorne family. +I have not seen it, I am bound to admit. We had offended Dr. Cawthorne, +by once in an urgent case calling in another doctor, who, he would have +it, was a quack, that ought to have killed us, and we ceased to visit; +but a gentleman who was an established patient of Dr. Cawthorne's and +had frequent opportunities of judging the portrait, in the course of a +chronic malady, describes Charles Dump on his legs as a small man looking +diminished from a very much longer one by shrinkage in thickish wrinkles +from the shoulders to the shanks. His hat is enormous and very gay. +He is rather of sad countenance. An elevation of his collar behind the +ears, and pointed at the neck, gives you notions of his having dropped +from some hook. He stands with his forefinger extended, like a disused +semaphore-post, that seems tumbling and desponding on the hill by the +highroad, in his attitude while telling the tale; if standing it may be +called, where the whole figure appears imploring for a seat. That was +his natural position, as one would suppose any artist must have thought, +and a horse beneath him. But it has been suggested that the artist in +question was no painter of animals. Then why did he not get a painter of +animals to put in the horse? It is vain to ask, though it is notorious +that artists combine without bickering to do these things; and one puts +his name on the animal, the other on the human being or landscape. + +My informant adds, that the prominent feature, telling a melancholy tale +of its own, is of sanguine colour, and while plainly in the act of +speaking, Charles Dump might be fancied about to drop off to sleep. He +was impressed by the dreaminess of the face; and I must say I regard him +as an interesting character. During my girlhood Napoleon Bonaparte alone +would have been his rival for filling an inn along our roads. I have +known our boys go to bed obediently and get up at night to run three +miles to THE WHEATSHEAF, only to stand on the bench or traveller's-rest +outside the window and look in at Charles Dump reciting, with just room +enough in the crowd to point his finger, as his way was. + +He left a child, Mary Dump, who grew up to become lady's maid to Livia +Fakenham, daughter of Curtis, the beauty of Hampshire, equalled by no one +save her cousin Henrietta Fakenham, the daughter of Commodore Baldwin; +and they were two different kinds of beauties, not to be compared, and +different were their fortunes; for this lady was likened to the sun going +down on a cloudy noon, and that lady to the moon riding through a stormy +night. Livia was the young widow of Lord Duffield when she accepted the +Earl of Fleetwood, and was his third countess, and again a widow at +eight-and-twenty, and stepmother to young Croesus, the Earl of Fleetwood +of my story. Mary Dump testifies to her kindness of heart to her +dependents. If we are to speak of goodness, I am afraid there are other +witnesses. + +I resent being warned that my time is short and that I have wasted much +of it over 'the attractive Charles.' What I have done I have done with a +purpose, and it must be a storyteller devoid of the rudiments of his art +who can complain of my dwelling on Charles Dump, for the world to have a +pause and pin its faith to him, which it would not do to a grander +person--that is, as a peg. Wonderful events, however true they are, +must be attached to something common and familiar, to make them credible. +Charles Dump, I say, is like a front-page picture to a history of those +old quiet yet exciting days in England, and when once you have seized him +the whole period is alive to you, as it was to me in the delicious +dulness I loved, that made us thirsty to hear of adventures and able to +enjoy to the utmost every thing occurring. The man is no more attractive +to me than a lump of clay. How could he be? But supposing I took up the +lump and told you that there where I found it, that lump of clay had been +rolled over and flung off by the left wheel of the prophet's Chariot of +Fire before it mounted aloft and disappeared in the heavens above!-- +you would examine it and cherish it and have the scene present with you, +you may be sure; and magnificent descriptions would not be one-half so +persuasive. And that is what we call, in my profession, Art, if you +please. + +So to continue: the Earl of Cressett fell from his coach-box in a fit, +and died of it, a fortnight after the flight of his wife; and the people +said she might as well have waited. Kirby and Countess Fanny were at +Lucerne or Lausanne, or some such place, in Switzerland when the news +reached them, and Kirby, without losing an hour, laid hold of an English +clergyman of the Established Church and put him through the ceremony of +celebrating his lawful union with the beautiful young creature he adored. +And this he did, he said, for the world to guard his Fan in a wider +circle than his two arms could compass, if not quite so well. + +So the Old Buccaneer was ever after that her lawful husband, and as his +wedded wife, not wedded to a fool, she was an example to her sex, like +many another woman who has begun badly with a light-headed mate. It is +hard enough for a man to be married to a fool, but a man is only half- +cancelled by that burden, it has been said; whereas a woman finds herself +on board a rudderless vessel, and often the desperate thing she does is +to avoid perishing! Ten months, or eleven, some say, following the +proclamation of the marriage-tie, a son was born to Countess Fanny, close +by the castle of Chillon-on-the-lake, and he had the name of Chillon +Switzer John Kirby given to him to celebrate the fact. + +Two years later the girl was born, and for the reason of her first seeing +the light in that Austrian province, she was christened Carinthia Jane. +She was her old father's pet; but Countess Fanny gloried in the boy. She +had fancied she would be a childless woman before he gave sign of coming; +and they say she wrote a little volume of Meditations in Prospect of +Approaching Motherhood, for the guidance of others in a similar +situation. + +I have never been able to procure the book or pamphlet, but I know she +was the best of mothers, and of wives too. And she, with her old +husband, growing like a rose out of a weather-beaten rock, proved she was +that, among those handsome foreign officers poorly remarkable for their +morals. Not once had the Old Buccaneer to teach them a lesson. Think of +it and you will know that her feet did not stray--nor did her pretty +eyes. Her heart was too full for the cravings of vanity. Innocent +ladies who get their husbands into scrapes are innocent, perhaps; but +knock you next door in their bosoms, where the soul resides, and ask for +information of how innocence and uncleanness may go together. Kirby +purchased a mine in Carinthia, on the borders of Styria, and worked it +himself. His native land displeased him, so that he would not have been +unwilling to see Chillon enter the Austrian service, which the young man +was inclined for, subsequent to his return to his parents from one of the +English public schools, notwithstanding his passionate love for Old +England. But Lord Levellier explained the mystery in a letter to his +half-forgiven sister, praising the boy for his defence of his mother's +name at the school, where a big brutal fellow sneered at her, and Chillon +challenged him to sword or pistol; and then he walked down to the boy's +home in Staffordshire to force him to fight; and the father of the boy +made him offer an apology. That was not much balm to Master Chillon's +wound. He returned to his mother quite heavy, unlike a young man; and +the unhappy lady, though she knew, him to be bitterly sensitive on the +point of honour, and especially as to everything relating to her, saw +herself compelled to tell him the history of her life, to save him, as +she thought, from these chivalrous vindications of her good name. She +may have even painted herself worse than she was, both to excuse her +brother's miserliness to her son and the world's evil speaking of her. +Wisely or not, she chose this course devotedly to protect him from the +perils she foresaw in connection with the name of the once famous +Countess Fanny in the British Isles. And thus are we stricken by the +days of our youth. It is impossible to moralize conveniently when one is +being hurried by a person at one's elbow. + +So the young man heard his mother out and kissed her, and then he went +secretly to Vienna and enlisted and served for a year as a private in the +regiment of Hussars, called, my papers tell me, Liechtenstein, and what +with his good conduct and the help of Kirby's friends, he would have +obtained a commission from the emperor, when, at the right moment to keep +a sprig of Kirby's growth for his country, Lord Levellier sent word that +he was down for a cornetcy in a British regiment of dragoons. Chillon +came home from a garrison town, and there was a consultation about his +future career. Shall it be England? Shall it be Austria? Countess +Fanny's voice was for England, and she carried the vote, knowing though +she did that it signified separation, and it might be alienation--where +her son would chance to hear things he could not refute. She believed +that her son by such a man as Kirby would be of use to his country, and +her voice, against herself, was for England. + +It broke her heart. If she failed to receive the regular letter, she +pined and was disconsolate. He has heard more of me! was in her mind. +Her husband sat looking at her with his old large grey glassy eyes. You +would have fancied him awaiting her death as the signal for his own +release. But she, poor mother, behind her weeping lids beheld her son's +filial love of her wounded and bleeding. When there was anything to be +done for her, old Kirby was astir. When it was nothing, either in physic +or assistance, he was like a great corner of rock. You may indeed +imagine grief in the very rock that sees its flower fading to the +withered shred. On the last night of her life this old man of past +ninety carried her in his arms up a flight of stairs to her bed. + +A week after her burial, Kirby was found a corpse in the mountain forest. +His having called the death of his darling his lightning-stroke must have +been the origin of the report that he died of lightning. He touched not +a morsel of food from the hour of the dropping of the sod on her coffin +of ebony wood. An old crust of their mahogany bread, supposed at first +to be a specimen of quartz, was found in one of his coat pockets. He +kissed his girl Carinthia before going out on his last journey from home, +and spoke some wandering words. The mine had not been worked for a year. +She thought she would find him at the mouth of the shaft, where he would +sometimes be sitting and staring, already dead at heart with the death he +saw coming to the beloved woman. They had to let her down with ropes, +that she might satisfy herself he was not below. She and her great dog +and a faithful man-servant discovered the body in the forest. Chillon +arrived from England to see the common grave of both his parents. + +And now good-bye to sorrow for a while. Keep your tears for the living. +And first I am going to describe to you the young Earl of Fleetwood, son +of the strange Welsh lady, the richest nobleman of his time, and how he +persued and shunned the lady who had fascinated him, Henrietta, the +daughter of Commodore Baldwin Fakenham; and how he met Carinthia Jane; +and concerning that lovely Henrietta and Chillon Kirby-Levellier; and of +the young poet of ordinary parentage, and the giant Captain Abrane, and +Livia the widowed Countess of Fleetwood, Henrietta's cousin, daughter of +Curtis Fakenham; and numbers of others; Lord Levellier, Lord Brailstone, +Lord Simon Pitscrew, Chumley Potts, young Ambrose Mallard; and the +English pugilist, such a man of honour though he drank; and the +adventures of Madge, Carinthia Jane's maid. Just a few touches. And +then the marriage dividing Great Britain into halves, taking sides. +After that, I trust you may go on, as I would carry you were we all +twenty years younger, had I but sooner been in possession of these +treasured papers. I promise you excitement enough, if justice is done to +them. But I must and will describe the wedding. This young Earl of +Fleetwood, you should know, was a very powder-magazine of ambition, and +never would he break his word: which is right, if we are properly +careful; and so he-- + +She ceases. According to the terms of the treaty, the venerable lady's +time has passed. An extinguisher descends on her, giving her the +likeness of one under condemnation of 'the Most Holy Inqusition, in the +ranks of an 'auto da fe'; and singularly resembling that victim at the +first sharp bite of the flames she will, be when she hears the version of +her story. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MORNING AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME + +Brother and sister were about to leave the mountainland for England. +They had not gone to bed overnight, and from the windows of their +deserted home, a little before dawn, they saw the dwindled moon, a late +riser, break through droves of hunted cloud, directly topping their +ancient guardian height, the triple peak and giant of the range, +friendlier in his name than in aspect for the two young people clinging +to the scene they were to quit. His name recalled old-days: the +apparition of his head among the heavens drummed on their sense of +banishment. + +To the girl, this was a division of her life, and the dawn held the +sword. She felt herself midswing across a gulf that was the grave of one +half, without a light of promise for the other. Her passionate excess of +attachment to her buried home robbed the future of any colours it might +have worn to bid a young heart quicken. And England, though she was of +British blood, was a foreign place to her, not alluring: her brother had +twice come out of England reserved in speech; her mother's talk of +England had been unhappy; her father had suffered ill-treatment there +from a brutal institution termed the Admiralty, and had never regretted +the not seeing England again. The thought that she was bound thitherward +enfolded her like a frosty mist. But these bare walls, these loud +floors, chill rooms, dull windows, and the vault-sounding of the ghostly +house, everywhere the absence of the faces in the house told her she had +no choice, she must go. The appearance of her old friend the towering +mountain-height, up a blue night-sky, compelled her swift mind to see +herself far away, yearning to him out of exile, an exile that had no +local features; she would not imagine them to give a centre of warmth, +her wilful grief preferred the blank. It resembled death in seeming some +hollowness behind a shroud, which we shudder at. + +The room was lighted by a stable-lantern on a kitchen-table. Their seat +near the window was a rickety garden-bench rejected in the headlong sale +of the furniture; and when she rose, unable to continue motionless while +the hosts of illuminated cloud flew fast, she had to warn her brother to +preserve his balance. He tacitly did so, aware of the necessity. + +She walked up and down the long seven-windowed saloon, haunted by her +footfall, trying to think, chafing at his quietness and acknowledging +that he did well to be quiet. They had finished their packing of boxes +and of wearing-apparel for the journey. There was nothing to think of, +nothing further to talk of, nothing for her to do save to sit and look, +and deaden her throbs by counting them. She soon returned to her seat +beside her brother, with the marvel in her breast that the house she +desired so much to love should be cold and repel her now it was a vacant +shell. Her memories could not hang within it anywhere. She shut her +eyes to be with the images of the dead, conceiving the method as her +brother's happy secret, and imitated his posture, elbows propped on knees +to support the chin. His quietness breathed of a deeper love than her +own. + +Meanwhile the high wind had sunk; the moon, after pushing her withered +half to the zenith, was climbing the dusky edge, revealed fitfully; +threads and wisps of thin vapour travelled along a falling gale, and +branched from the dome of the sky in migratory broken lines, like wild +birds shifting the order of flight, north and east, where the dawn sat in +a web, but as yet had done no more than shoot up a glow along the central +heavens, in amid the waves of deepened aloud: a mirror for night to see +her dark self in her own hue. A shiver between the silent couple pricked +their wits, and she said: + +'Chillon, shall we run out and call the morning?' + +It was an old game of theirs, encouraged by their hearty father, to be +out in the early hour on a rise of ground near the house and 'call the +morning.' Her brother was glad of the challenge, and upon one of the +yawns following a sleepless night, replied with a return to boyishness: +'Yes, if you like. It's the last time we shall do her the service here. +Let's go.' + +They sprang up together and the bench fell behind them. Swinging the +lantern he carried inconsiderately, the ring of it was left on his +finger, and the end of candle rolled out of the crazy frame to the floor +and was extinguished. Chillon had no match-box. He said to her: + +'What do you think of the window?--we've done it before, Carin. Better +than groping down stairs and passages blocked with lumber.' + +'I'm ready,' she said, and caught at her skirts by instinct to prove her +readiness on the spot. + +A drop of a dozen feet or so from the French window to a flower--bed was +not very difficult. Her father had taught her how to jump, besides the +how of many other practical things. She leaped as lightly as her +brother, never touching earth with her hands; and rising from the proper +contraction of the legs in taking the descent, she quoted her father: +'Mean it when you're doing it.' + +'For no enemy's shot is equal to a weak heart in the act,' + +Chillon pursued the quotation, laying his hand on her shoulder for a sign +of approval. She looked up at him. + +They passed down the garden and a sloping meadow to a brook swollen by +heavy rains; over the brook on a narrow plank, and up a steep and stony +pathway, almost a watercourse, between rocks, to another meadow, level +with the house, that led ascending through a firwood; and there the +change to thicker darkness told them light was abroad, though whether of +the clouded moon or of the first grey of the quiet revolution was +uncertain. Metallic light of a subterranean realm, it might have been +thought. + +'You remember everything of father,' Carinthia said. 'We both do,' said +Chillon. + +She pressed her brother's arm. 'We will. We will never forget +anything.' + +Beyond the firwood light was visibly the dawn's. Half-way down the +ravines it resembled the light cast off a torrent water. It lay on the +grass like a sheet of unreflecting steel, and was a face without a smile +above. Their childhood ran along the tracks to the forest by the light, +which was neither dim nor cold, but grave; presenting tree and shrub and +dwarf growth and grass austerely, not deepening or confusing them. They +wound their way by borders of crag, seeing in a dell below the mouth of +the idle mine begirt with weedy and shrub-hung rock, a dripping semi- +circle. Farther up they came on the flat juniper and crossed a wet +ground-thicket of whortleberry: their feet were in the moist moss among +sprigs of heath; and a great fir-tree stretched his length, a peeled +multitude of his dead fellows leaned and stood upright in the midst of +scattered fire-stained members, and through their skeleton limbs the +sheer precipice of slate-rock of the bulk across the chasm, nursery of +hawk and eagle; wore a thin blue tinge, the sign of warmer light abroad. + +'This way, my brother!' cried Carinthia, shuddering at a path he was +about to follow. + +Dawn in the mountain-land is a meeting of many friends. The pinnacle, +the forest-head, the latschen-tufted mound, rock-bastion and defiant +cliff and giant of the triple peak, were in view, clearly lined for a +common recognition, but all were figures of solid gloom, unfeatured and +bloomless. Another minute and they had flung off their mail, and changed +to various, indented, intricate, succinct in ridge, scar and channel; +and they had all a look of watchfulness that made them one company. +The smell of rock-waters and roots of herb and moss grew keen; air became +a wine that raised the breast high to breathe it; an uplifting coolness +pervaded the heights. What wonder that the mountain-bred girl should let +fly her voice. The natural carol woke an echo. She did not repeat it. + +'And we will not forget our home, Chillon,' she said, touching him gently +to comfort some saddened feeling. + +The plumes of cloud now slowly entered into the lofty arch of dawn and +melted from brown to purpleblack. The upper sky swam with violet; and in +a moment each stray cloud-feather was edged with rose, and then suffused. +It seemed that the heights fronted East to eye the interflooding of +colours, and it was imaginable that all turned to the giant whose +forehead first kindled to the sun: a greeting of god and king. + +On the morning of a farewell we fluctuate sharply between the very +distant and the close and homely: and even in memory the fluctuation +occurs, the grander scene casting us back on the modestly nestling, and +that, when it has refreshed us, conjuring imagination to embrace the +splendour and wonder. But the wrench of an immediate division from what +we love makes the things within us reach the dearest, we put out our +hands for them, as violently-parted lovers do, though the soul in days to +come would know a craving, and imagination flap a leaden wing, if we had +not looked beyond them. + +'Shall we go down?' said Carinthia, for she knew a little cascade near +the house, showering on rock and fern, and longed to have it round her. + +They descended, Chillon saying that they would soon have the mists +rising, and must not delay to start on their journey. + +The armies of the young sunrise in mountain-lands neighbouring the +plains, vast shadows, were marching over woods and meads, black against +the edge of golden; and great heights were cut with them, and bounding +waters took the leap in a silvery radiance to gloom; the bright and dark- +banded valleys were like night and morning taking hands down the sweep of +their rivers. Immense was the range of vision scudding the peaks and +over the illimitable Eastward plains flat to the very East and sources of +the sun. + +Carinthia said: 'When I marry I shall come here to live and die.' + +Her brother glanced at her. He was fond of her, and personally he liked +her face; but such a confident anticipation of marriage on the part of a +portionless girl set him thinking of the character of her charms and the +attraction they would present to the world of men. They were expressive +enough; at times he had thought them marvellous in their clear cut of the +animating mind.--No one could fancy her handsome; and just now her hair +was in some disorder, a night without sleep had an effect on her +complexion. + +'It's not usually the wife who decides where to live,' said he. + +Her ideas were anywhere but with the dream of a husband. 'Could we stay +on another day?--' + +'My dear girl! Another night on that crazy stool! 'Besides, Mariandl is +bound to go to-day to her new place, and who's to cook for us? Do you +propose fasting as well as watching?' + +'Could I cook?' she asked him humbly. + +'No, you couldn't; not for a starving regiment! Your accomplishments are +of a different sort. No, it's better to get over the pain at once, if we +can't escape it. + +'That I think too,' said she, 'and we should have to buy provisions. +Then, brother, instantly after breakfast. Only, let us walk it. I know +the whole way, and it is not more than a two days' walk for you and me. +Consent. Driving would be like going gladly. I could never bear to +remember that I was driven away. + +And walking will save money; we are not rich, you tell me, brother.' + +'A few florins more or less!' he rejoined, rather frowning. 'You have +good Styrian boots, I see. But I want to be over at the Baths there +soon; not later than to-morrow.' + +'But, brother, if they know we are coming they will wait for us. And we +can be there to-morrow night or the next morning!' + +He considered it. He wanted exercise and loved this mountain-land; his +inclinations melted into hers; though he had reasons for hesitating. +'Well, we'll send on my portmanteau and your boxes in the cart; we'll +walk it. You're a capital walker, you're a gallant comrade; I wouldn't +wish for a better.' He wondered, as he spoke, whether any true-hearted +gentleman besides himself would ever think the same of this lonely girl. + +Her eyes looked a delighted 'No-really?' for the sweetest on earth to her +was to be prized by her brother. + +She hastened forward. 'We will go down and have our last meal at home,' +she said in the dialect of the country. 'We have five eggs. No meat for +you, dear, but enough bread and butter, some honey left, and plenty of +coffee. I should like to have left old Mariandl more, but we are unable +to do very much for poor people now. Milk, I cannot say. She is just +the kind soul to be up and out to fetch us milk for an early first +breakfast; but she may have overslept herself.' + +Chillon smiled. 'You were right, Janet', about not going to bed last +night; we might have missed the morning.' + +'I hate sleep: I hate anything that robs me of my will,' she replied. + +'You'd be glad of your doses of sleep if you had to work and study.' + +'To fall down by the wayside tired out--yes, brother, a dead sleep is +good. Then you are in the hands of God. Father used to say, four hours +for a man, six for a woman.' + +'And four and twenty for a lord,' added Chillon. 'I remember.' + +'A lord of that Admiralty,' she appealed to his closer recollection. +'But I mean, brother, dreaming is what I detest so.' + +'Don't be detesting, my dear; reserve your strength,' said he. 'I suppose +dreams are of some use, now and then.' + +'I shall never think them useful.' + +'When we can't get what we want, my good Carin.' + +'Then we should not waste ourselves in dreams.' + +'They promise falsely sometimes. That's no reason why we should reject +the consolation when we can't get what we want, my little sister.' + +'I would not be denied.' + +'There's the impossible.' + +'Not for you, brother.' + +Perhaps a half-minute after she had spoken, he said, 'pursuing a dialogue +within himself aloud rather than revealing a secret: 'You don't know her +position.' + +Carinthia's heart stopped beating. Who was this person suddenly conjured +up? + +She fancied she might not have heard correctly; she feared to ask and yet +she perceived a novel softness in him that would have answered. Pain of +an unknown kind made her love of her brother conscious that if she asked +she would suffer greater pain. + +The house was in sight, a long white building with blinds down at some of +the windows, and some wide open, some showing unclean glass: the three +aspects and signs of a house's emptiness when they are seen together. + +Carinthia remarked on their having met nobody. It had a serious meaning +for them. Formerly they were proud of outstripping the busy population +of the mine, coming down on them with wild wavings and shouts of sunrise. +They felt the death again, a whole field laid low by one stroke, and +wintriness in the season of glad life. A wind had blown and all had +vanished. + +The second green of the year shot lively sparkles off the meadows, from a +fringe of coloured glovelets to a warm silver lake of dews. The firwood +was already breathing rich and sweet in the sun. The half-moon fell +rayless and paler than the fan of fleeces pushed up Westward, high +overhead, themselves dispersing on the blue in downy feathers, like the +mottled grey of an eagle's breast: the smaller of them bluish like traces +of the beaked wood-pigeon. + +She looked above, then below on the slim and straightgrown flocks of +naked purple crocuses in bud and blow abounding over the meadow that +rolled to the level of the house, and two of these she gathered. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A MOUNTAIN WALK IN MIST AND SUNSHINE + +Chillon was right in his forecast of the mists. An over-moistened earth +steaming to the sun obscured it before the two had finished breakfast, +which was a finish to everything eatable in the ravaged dwelling, with +the exception of a sly store for the midday meal, that old Mariandl had +stuffed into Chillon's leather sack--the fruit of secret begging on their +behalf about the neighbourhood. He found the sack heavy and bulky as he +slung it over his shoulders; but she bade him make nothing of such a +trifle till he had it inside him. 'And you that love tea so, my pretty +one, so that you always laughed and sang after drinking a cup with your +mother,' she said to Carinthia, 'you will find one pinch of it in your +bag at the end of the left-foot slipper, to remember your home by when +you are out in the world.' + +She crossed the strap of the bag on her mistress's bosom, and was +embraced by Carinthia and Chillon in turns, Carinthia telling her to dry +her eyes, for that she would certainly come back and perhaps occupy the +house one day or other. The old soul moaned of eyes that would not be +awake to behold her; she begged a visit at her grave, though it was to be +in a Catholic burial-place and the priests had used her dear master and +mistress ill, not allowing them to lie in consecrated ground; affection +made her a champion of religious tolerance and a little afraid of +retribution. Carinthia soothed her, kissed her, gave the promise, and +the parting was over. + +She and Chillon had on the previous day accomplished a pilgrimage to the +resting-place of their father and mother among humble Protestants, iron- +smelters, in a valley out of the way of their present line of march to +the glacier of the great snow-mountain marking the junction of three +Alpine provinces of Austria. Josef, the cart-driver with the boxes, who +was to pass the valley, vowed of his own accord to hang a fresh day's +wreath on the rails. He would not hear of money for the purchase, and +they humoured him. The family had been beloved. There was an offer of a +home for Carinthia in the castle of Count Lebern, a friend of her +parents, much taken with her, and she would have accepted it had not +Chillon overruled her choice, determined that, as she was English, she +must come to England and live under the guardianship of her uncle, Lord +Levellier, of whose character he did not speak. + +The girl's cheeks were drawn thin and her lips shut as they departed; +she was tearless. A phantom ring of mist accompanied her from her first +footing outside the house. She did not look back. The house came +swimming and plunging after her, like a spectral ship on big seas, and +her father and mother lived and died in her breast; and now they were +strong, consulting, chatting, laughing, caressing; now still and white, +caught by a vapour that dived away with them either to right or left, but +always with the same suddenness, leaving her to question herself whether +she existed, for more of life seemed to be with their mystery than with +her speculations. The phantom ring of mist enclosing for miles the +invariable low-sweeping dark spruce-fir kept her thoughts on them as +close as the shroud. She walked fast, but scarcely felt that she was +moving. Near midday the haunted circle widened; rocks were loosely +folded in it, and heads of trees, whose round intervolving roots grasped +the yellow roadside soil; the mists shook like a curtain, and partly +opened and displayed a tapestry-landscape, roughly worked, of woollen +crag and castle and suggested glen, threaded waters, very prominent +foreground, Autumn flowers on banks; a predominant atmospheric greyness. +The sun threw a shaft, liquid instead of burning, as we see his beams +beneath a wave; and then the mists narrowed again, boiled up the valleys +and streams above the mountain, curled and flew, and were Python coils +pierced by brighter arrows of the sun. A spot of blue signalled his +victory above. + +To look at it was to fancy they had been walking under water and had now +risen to the surface. Carinthia's mind stepped out of the chamber of +death. The different air and scene breathed into her a timid warmth +toward the future, and between her naming of the lesser mountains on +their side of the pass, she asked questions relating to England, and +especially the ladies she was to see at the Baths beyond the glacier- +pass. She had heard of a party of his friends awaiting him there, +without much encouragement from him to ask particulars of them, +and she had hitherto abstained, as she was rather shy of meeting her +countrywomen. The ladies, Chillon said, were cousins; one was a young +widow, the Countess of Fleetwood, and the other was Miss Fakenham, a +younger lady. + +Carinthia murmured in German: 'Poor soul!' Which one was she pitying? +The widow, she said, in the tone implying, naturally. + +Her brother assured her the widow was used to it, for this was her second +widowhood. + +'She marries again!' exclaimed the girl. + +'You don't like that idea?' said he. + +Carinthia betrayed a delicate shudder. + +Her brother laughed to himself at her expressive present tense. 'And +marries again!' he said. 'There will certainly be a third.' + +'Husband?' said she, as at the incredible. + +'Husband, let's hope,' he answered. + +She dropped from her contemplation of the lady, and her look at her +brother signified: It will not be you! + +Chillon was engaged in spying for a place where he could spread out the +contents of his bag. Sharp hunger beset them both at the mention of +eating. A bank of sloping green shaded by a chestnut proposed the seat, +and here he relieved the bag of a bottle of wine, slices of, meat, bread, +hard eggs, and lettuce, a chipped cup to fling away after drinking the +wine, and a supply of small butler-cakes known to be favourites with +Carinthia. She reversed the order of the feast by commencing upon one of +the cakes, to do honour to Mariandl's thoughtfulness. As at their +breakfast, they shared the last morsel. + +'But we would have made it enough for our dear old dog Pluto as well, if +he had lived,' said Carinthia, sighing with her thankfulness and +compassionate regrets, a mixture often inspiring a tender babbling +melancholy. 'Dogs' eyes have such a sick look of love. He might have +lived longer, though he was very old, only he could not survive the loss +of father. I know the finding of the body broke his heart. He sprang +forward, he stopped and threw up his head. It was human language to hear +him, Chillon. He lay in the yard, trying to lift his eyes when I came to +him, they were so heavy; and he had not strength to move his poor old +tail more than once. He died with his head on my lap. He seemed to beg +me, and I took him, and he breathed twice, and that was his end. Pluto! +old dog! Well, for you or for me, brother, we could not have a better +wish. As for me, death! . . . When we know we are to die! Only let +my darling live! that is my prayer, and that we two may not be separated +till I am taken to their grave. Father bought ground for four--his wife +and himself and his two children. It does not oblige us to be buried +there, but could we have any other desire?' + +She stretched her hand to her brother. He kissed it spiritedly. + +'Look ahead, my dear girl. Help me to finish this wine. There 's +nothing like good hard walking to give common wine of the country a +flavour--and out of broken crockery.' + +'I think it so good,' Carinthia replied, after drinking from the cup. +'In England they, do not grow wine. Are the people there kind?' + +'They're civilized people, of course.' + +'Kind--warm to you, Chillon?' + +'Some of them, when you know them. "Warm," is hardly the word. Winter's +warm on skates. You must do a great deal for yourself. They don't boil +over. By the way, don't expect much of your uncle.' + +'Will he not love me?' + +'He gives you a lodging in his house, and food enough, we'll hope. You +won't see company or much of him.' + +'I cannot exist without being loved. I do not care for company. He must +love me a little.' + +'He is one of the warm-hearted race--he's mother's brother; but where his +heart is, I 've not discovered. + +Bear with him just for the present, my dear, till I am able to support +you.' + +'I will,' she said. + +The dreary vision of a home with an unloving uncle was not brightened by +the alternative of her brother's having to support her. She spoke of +money. 'Have we none, Chillon?' + +'We have no debts,' he answered. 'We have a claim on the Government here +for indemnification for property taken to build a fortress upon one of +the passes into Italy. Father bought the land, thinking there would be a +yield of ore thereabout; and they have seized it, rightly enough, but +they dispute our claim for the valuation we put on it. A small sum they +would consent to pay. It would be a very small sum, and I 'm father's +son, I will have justice.' + +'Yes!' Carthinia joined with him to show the same stout nature. + +'We have nothing else except a bit to toss up for luck.' + +'And how can I help being a burden on my brother?' she inquired, in +distress. + +'Marry, and be a blessing to a husband,' he said lightly. + +They performed a sacrifice of the empty bottle and cracked cup on the +site of their meal, as if it had been a ceremony demanded from +travellers, and leaving them in fragments, proceeded on their journey +refreshed. + +Walking was now high enjoyment, notwithstanding the force of the sun, for +they were a hardy couple, requiring no more than sufficient nourishment +to combat the elements with an exulting blood. Besides they loved +mountain air and scenery, and each step to the ridge of the pass they +climbed was an advance in splendour. Peaks of ashen hue and pale dry red +and pale sulphur pushed up, straight, forked, twisted, naked, striking +their minds with an indeterminate ghostliness of Indian, so strange they +were in shape and colouring. These sharp points were the first to greet +them between the blue and green. A depression of the pass to the left +gave sight of the points of black fir forest below, round the girths of +the barren shafts. Mountain blocks appeared pushing up in front, and a +mountain wall and woods on it, and mountains in the distance, and cliffs +riven with falls of water that were silver skeins, down lower to meadows, +villages and spires, and lower finally to the whole valley of the foaming +river, field and river seeming in imagination rolled out from the hand of +the heading mountain. + +'But see this in winter, as I did with father, Chillon!' said Carinthia. + +She said it upon love's instinct to halo the scene with something beyond +present vision, and to sanctify it for her brother, so that this walk of +theirs together should never be forgotten. + +A smooth fold of cloud, moveless along one of the upper pastures, and +still dense enough to be luminous in sunlight, was the last of the mist. + +They watched it lying in the form of a fish, leviathan diminished, as +they descended their path; and the head was lost, the tail spread +peacockwise, and evaporated slowly in that likeness; and soft to a breath +of air as gossamer down, the body became a ball, a cock, a little lizard, +nothingness. + +The bluest bright day of the year was shining. Chillon led the descent. +With his trim and handsome figure before her, Carinthia remembered the +current saying, that he should have been the girl and she the boy. That +was because he resembled their mother in face. But the build of his +limbs and shoulders was not feminine. + +To her admiring eyes, he had a look superior to simple strength and +grace; the look of a great sky-bird about to mount, a fountain-like +energy of stature, delightful to her contemplation. And he had the mouth +women put faith in for decision and fixedness. She did, most fully; and +reflecting how entirely she did so, the thought assailed her: some one +must be loving him! + +She allowed it to surprise her, not choosing to revert to an uneasy +sensation of the morning. + +That some one, her process of reasoning informed her, was necessarily an +English young lady. She reserved her questions till they should cease +this hopping and heeling down the zigzag of the slippery path-track. +When children they had been collectors of beetles and butterflies, and +the flying by of a 'royal-mantle,' the purple butterfly grandly fringed, +could still remind Carinthia of the event it was of old to spy and chase +one. Chillon himself was not above the sentiment of their "very early +days"; he stopped to ask if she had been that lustrous blue-wing, a rarer +species, prized by youngsters, shoot through the chestnut trees: and they +both paused for a moment, gazing into the fairyland of infancy, she +seeing with her brother's eyes, this prince of the realm having escaped +her. He owned he might have been mistaken, as the brilliant fellow flew +swift and high between leaves, like an ordinary fritillary. Not the less +did they get their glimpse of the wonders in the sunny eternity of a +child's afternoon. + +'An Auerhahn, Chillon!' she said, picturing the maturer day when she had +scaled perilous heights with him at night to stalk the blackcock in the +prime of the morning. She wished they could have had another such +adventure to stamp the old home on his heart freshly, to tile exclusion +of beautiful English faces. + +On the level of the valley, where they met the torrent-river, walking +side by side with him, she ventured an inquiry: 'English girls are fair +girls, are they not?' + +'There are some dark also,' he replied. + +'But the best-looking are fair?' + +'Perhaps they are, with us.' + +'Mother was fair.' + +'She was.' + +'I have only seen a few of them, once at Vies and at Venice, and those +Baths we are going to; and at Meran, I think.' + +'You considered them charming?' + +'Not all.' + +It was touching that she should be such a stranger to her countrywomen! +He drew a portrait-case from his breast-pocket, pressing the spring, +and handed it to her, saying: 'There is one.' He spoke indifferently, +but as soon as she had seen the face inside it, with a look at him and a +deep breath; she understood that he was an altered brother, and that they +were three instead of two. + +She handed it back to him, saying hushedly and only 'Yes.' + +He did not ask an opinion upon the beauty she had seen. His pace +increased, and she hastened her steps beside him. She had not much to +learn when some minutes later she said; 'Shall I see her, Chillon?' + +'She is one of the ladies we are to meet.' + +'What a pity!' Carinthia stepped faster, enlightened as to his wish to +get to the Baths without delay; and her heart softened in reflecting how +readily he had yielded to her silly preference for going on foot. + +Her cry of regret was equivocal; it produced no impression on him. They +reached a village where her leader deemed it adviseable to drive for the +remainder of the distance up the valley to the barrier snow-mountain. +She assented instantly, she had no longer any active wishes of her own, +save to make amends to her brother, who was and would ever be her +brother: she could not be robbed of their relationship. + +Something undefined in her feeling of possession she had been robbed of, +she knew it by her spiritlessness; and she would fain have attributed it +to the idle motion of the car, now and them stupidly jolting her on, +after the valiant exercise of her limbs. They were in a land of +waterfalls and busy mills, a narrowing vale where the runs of grass grew +short and wild, and the glacier-river roared for the leap, more foam than +water, and the savagery, naturally exciting to her, breathed of its lair +among the rocks and ice-fields. + +Her brother said: 'There he is.' She saw the whitecrowned king of the +region, of whose near presence to her old home she had been accustomed to +think proudly, end she looked at him without springing to him, and +continued imaging her English home and her loveless uncle, merely +admiring the scene, as if the fire of her soul had been extinguished.-- +'Marry, and be a blessing to a husband.' Chillon's words whispered of +the means of escape from the den of her uncle. + +But who would marry me! she thought. An unreproved sensation of melting +pervaded her; she knew her capacity for gratitude, and conjuring it up in +her 'heart, there came with it the noble knightly gentleman who would +really stoop to take a plain girl by the hand, release her, and say: 'Be +mine!' His vizor was down, of course. She had no power of imagining the +lineaments of that prodigy. Or was he a dream? He came and went. Her +mother, not unkindly, sadly, had counted her poor girl's chances of +winning attention and a husband. Her father had doated on her face; but, +as she argued, her father had been attracted by her mother, a beautiful +woman, and this was a circumstance that reflected the greater +hopelessness on her prospects. She bore a likeness to her father, +little to her mother, though he fancied the reverse and gave her the +mother's lips and hair. Thinking of herself, however, was destructive +to the form of her mirror of knightliness: he wavered, he fled for good, +as the rosy vapour born of our sensibility must do when we relapse to +coldness, and the more completely when we try to command it. No, she +thought, a plain girl should think of work, to earn her independence. + +'Women are not permitted to follow armies, Chillon?' she said. + +He laughed out. 'What 's in your head?' + +The laugh abashed her; she murmured of women being good nurses for +wounded soldiers, if they were good walkers to march with the army; and, +as evidently it sounded witless to him, she added, to seem reasonable: +'You have not told me the Christian names of those ladies.' + +He made queer eyes over the puzzle to connect the foregoing and the +succeeding in her remarks, but answered straightforwardly: 'Livia is one, +and Henrietta! + +Her ear seized on the stress of his voice. 'Henrietta!' She chose that +name for the name of the person disturbing her; it fused best, she +thought, with the new element she had been compelled to take into her +system, to absorb it if she could. + +'You're not scheming to have them serve as army hospital nurses, my +dear?' + +'No, Chillon.' + +'You can't explain it, I suppose?' + +'A sister could go too, when you go to war, Chillon.' + +A sister could go, if it were permitted by the authorities, and be near +her brother to nurse him in case of wounds; others would be unable to +claim the privilege. That was her meaning, involved with the hazy +project of earning an independence; but she could not explain it, and +Chillon set her down for one of the inexplicable sex, which the simple +adventurous girl had not previously seemed to be. + +She was inwardly warned of having talked foolishly, and she held her +tongue. Her humble and modest jealousy, scarce deserving the title, +passed with a sigh or two. It was her first taste of life in the world. + +A fit of heavy-mindedness ensued, that heightened the contrast her recent +mood had bequeathed, between herself, ignorant as she was, and those +ladies. Their names, Livia and Henrietta, soared above her and sang the +music of the splendid spheres. Henrietta was closer to earth, for her +features had been revealed; she was therefore the dearer, and the richer +for him who loved her, being one of us, though an over-earthly one; and +Carinthia gave her to Chillon, reserving for herself a handmaiden's place +within the circle of their happiness. + +This done, she sat straight in the car. It was toiling up the steep +ascent of a glen to the mountain village, the last of her native +province. Her proposal to walk was accepted, and the speeding of her +blood, now that she had mastered a new element in it, soon restored her +to her sisterly affinity with natural glories. The sunset was on yonder +side of the snows. Here there was a feast of variously-tinted sunset +shadows on snow, meadows, rock, river, serrated cliff. The peaked cap of +the rushing rock-dotted sweeps of upward snow caught a scarlet +illumination: one flank of the white in heaven was violetted wonderfully. + +At nightfall, under a clear black sky, alive with wakeful fires round +head and breast of the great Alp, Chillon and Carinthia strolled out of +the village, and he told her some of his hopes. They referred to +inventions of destructive weapons, which were primarily to place his +country out of all danger from a world in arms; and also, it might be +mentioned, to bring him fortune. 'For I must have money!' he said, +sighing it out like a deliberate oath. He and his uncle were associated +in the inventions. They had an improved rocket that would force military +chiefs to change their tactics: they had a new powder, a rifle, a model +musket--the latter based on his own plans; and a scheme for fortress +artillery likely to turn the preponderance in favour of the defensive +once again. 'And that will be really doing good,' said Chillon, 'for +where it's with the offensive, there's everlasting bullying and +plundering.' + +Carinthia warmly agreed with him, but begged him be sure his uncle +divided the profits equally. She discerned what his need of money +signified. + +Tenderness urged her to say: 'Henrietta! Chillon.' + +'Well?' he answered quickly. + +'Will she wait?' + +'Can she, you should ask.' + +'Is she brave?' + +'Who can tell, till she has been tried?' + +'Is she quite free?' + +'She has not yet been captured.' + +'Brother, is there no one else . . . ?' + +'There's a nobleman anxious to bestow his titles on her.' + +'He is rich?' + +'The first or second wealthiest in Great Britain, they say.' + +'Is he young?' + +'About the same age as mine.' + +'Is he a handsome young man?' + +'Handsomer than your brother, my girl.' + +'No, no, no !' said she. 'And what if he is, and your Henrietta does not +choose him? Now let me think what I long to think. I have her close to +me.' + +She rocked a roseate image on her heart and went to bed with it by +starlight. + +By starlight they sprang to their feet and departed the next morning, in +the steps of a guide carrying, Chillon said, 'a better lantern than we +left behind us at the smithy.' + +'Father!' exclaimed Carinthia on her swift inward breath, for this one of +the names he had used to give to her old home revived him to her thoughts +and senses fervently. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER + +Three parts down a swift decline of shattered slate, where travelling +stones loosened from rows of scree hurl away at a bound after one roll +over, there sat a youth dusty and torn, nursing a bruised leg, not in the +easiest of postures, on a sharp tooth of rock, that might at any moment +have broken from the slanting slab at the end of which it formed a stump, +and added him a second time to the general crumble of the mountain. He +had done a portion of the descent in excellent imitation of the detached +fragments, and had parted company with his alpenstock and plaid; +preserving his hat and his knapsack. He was alone, disabled, and +cheerful; in doubt of the arrival of succour before he could trust his +left leg to do him further service unaided; but it was morning still, the +sun was hot, the air was cool; just the tempering opposition to render +existence pleasant as a piece of vegetation, especially when there has +been a question of your ceasing to exist; and the view was of a +sustaining sublimity of desolateness: crag and snow overhead; a gloomy +vale below; no life either of bird or herd; a voiceless region where +there had once been roars at the bowling of a hill from a mountain to the +deep, and the third flank of the mountain spoke of it in the silence. + +He would have enjoyed the scene unremittingly, like the philosopher he +pretended to be, in a disdain of civilization and the ambitions of men, +had not a contest with earth been forced on him from time to time to keep +the heel of his right foot, dug in shallow shale, fixed and supporting. +As long as it held he was happy and maintained the attitude of a guitar- +player, thrumming the calf of the useless leg to accompany tuneful +thoughts, but the inevitable lapse and slide of the foot recurred, and +the philosopher was exhibited as an infant learning to crawl. The seat, +moreover, not having been fashioned for him or for any soft purpose, +resisted his pressure and became a thing of violence, that required to be +humiliatingly coaxed. His last resource to propitiate it was counselled +by nature turned mathematician: tenacious extension solved the problem; +he lay back at his length, and with his hat over his eyes consented to +see nothing for the sake of comfort. Thus he was perfectly rational, +though when others beheld him he appeared the insanest of mortals. + +A girl's voice gave out the mountain carol ringingly above. His heart +and all his fancies were in motion at the sound. He leaned on an elbow +to listen; the slide threatened him, and he resumed his full stretch, +determined to take her for a dream. He was of the class of youths who, +in apprehension that their bright season may not be permanent, choose to +fortify it by a systematic contempt of material realities unless they +come in the fairest of shapes, and as he was quite sincere in this +feeling and election of the right way to live, disappointment and +sullenness overcame him on hearing men's shouts and steps; despite his +helpless condition he refused to stir, for they had jarred on his dream. +Perhaps his temper, unknown to himself, had been a little injured by his +mishap, and he would not have been sorry to charge them with want of +common humanity in passing him; or he did not think his plight so bad, +else he would have bawled after them had they gone by: far the youths of +his description are fools only upon system,--however earnestly they +indulge the present self-punishing sentiment. The party did not pass; +they stopped short, they consulted, and a feminine tongue more urgent +than the others, and very musical, sweet to hear anywhere, put him in +tune. She said, 'Brother! brother!' in German. Our philosopher flung +off his hat. + +'You see!' said the lady's brother. + +'Ask him, Anton,'she said to their guide. + +'And quick!' her brother added. + +The guide scrambled along to him, and at a closer glance shouted: 'The +Englishman!' wheeling his finger to indicate what had happened to the +Tomnoddy islander. + +His master called to know if there were broken bones, as if he could stop +for nothing else. + +The cripple was raised. The gentleman and lady made their way to him, +and he tried his hardest to keep from tottering on the slope in her +presence. No injury had been done to the leg; there was only a +stiffness, and an idiotic doubling of the knee, as though at each step +his leg pronounced a dogged negative to the act of walking. He said +something equivalent to 'this donkey leg,' to divert her charitable eyes +from a countenance dancing with ugly twitches. She was the Samaritan. A +sufferer discerns his friend, though it be not the one who physically +assists him: he is inclined by nature to put material aid at a lower mark +than gentleness, and her brief words of encouragement, the tone of their +delivery yet more, were medical to his blood, better help than her +brother's iron arm, he really believed. Her brother and the guide held +him on each side, and she led to pick out the safer footing for him; she +looked round and pointed to some projection that would form a step; she +drew attention to views here and there, to win excuses for his resting; +she did not omit to soften her brother's visible impatience as well, and +this was the art which affected her keenly sensible debtor most. + +'I suppose I ought to have taken a guide,' he said. + +'There's not a doubt of that,' said Chillon Kirby. + +Carinthia halted, leaning on her staff: 'But I had the same wish. They +told us at the inn of an Englishman who left last night to sleep on the +mountain, and would go alone; and did I not say, brother, that must be +true love of the mountains?' + +'These freaks get us a bad name on the Continent,' her brother replied. +He had no sympathy with nonsense, and naturally not with a youth who +smelt of being a dreamy romancer and had caused the name of Englishman to +be shouted in his ear in derision. And the fellow might delay his +arrival at the Baths and sight of the lady of his love for hours! + +They managed to get him hobbling and slipping to the first green tuft of +the base, where long black tongues of slate-rubble pouring into the +grass, like shore-waves that have spent their burden, seem about to draw +back to bring the mountain down. Thence to the level pasture was but a +few skips performed sliding. + +'Well, now,' said Chillon, 'you can stand?' + +'Pretty well, I think.' He tried his foot on the ground, and then +stretched his length, saying that it only wanted rest. Anton pressed a +hand at his ankle and made him wince, but the bones were sound, leg and +hip not worse than badly bruised. He was advised by Anton to plant his +foot in the first running water he came to, and he was considerate enough +to say to Chillon + +'Now you can leave me; and let me thank you. Half an hour will set me +right. My name is Woodseer, if ever we meet again.' + +Chillon nodded a hurried good-bye, without a thought of giving his name +in return. But Carinthia had thrown herself on the grass. Her brother +asked her in dismay if she was tired. She murmured to him: 'I should +like to hear more English.' + +'My dear girl, you'll have enough of it in two or three weeks.' + +'Should we leave a good deed half done, Chillon?' + +'He shall have our guide.' + +'He may not be rich.' + +'I'll pay Anton to stick to him.' + +'Brother, he has an objection to guides.' + +Chillon cast hungry eyes on his watch: 'Five minutes, then.' He +addressed Mr. Woodseer, who was reposing, indifferent to time, hard-by: +'Your objection to guides might have taught you a sharp lesson. It 's +like declining to have a master in studying a science--trusting to +instinct for your knowledge of a bargain. One might as well refuse an +oar to row in a boat.' + +'I 'd rather risk it,' the young man replied. 'These guides kick the +soul out of scenery. I came for that and not for them.' + +'You might easily have been a disagreeable part of the scene.' + +'Why not here as well as elsewhere?' + +'You don't care for your life?' + +'I try not to care for it a fraction more than Destiny does.' + +'Fatalism. I suppose you care for something?' + +'Besides I've a slack purse, and shun guides and inns when I can. I care +for open air, colour, flowers, weeds, birds, insects, mountains. There's +a world behind the mask. I call this life; and the town's a boiling pot, +intolerably stuffy. My one ambition is to be out of it. I thank heaven +I have not another on earth. Yes, I care for my note-book, because it's +of no use to a human being except me. I slept beside a spring last +night, and I never shall like a bedroom so well. I think I have +discovered the great secret: I may be wrong, of course.' And if so, +he had his philosophy, the admission was meant to say. + +Carinthia expected the revelation of a notable secret, but none came; +or if it did it eluded her grasp:--he was praising contemplation, he was +praising tobacco. He talked of the charm of poverty upon a settled +income of a very small sum of money, the fruit of a compact he would +execute with the town to agree to his perpetual exclusion from it, +and to retain his identity, and not be the composite which every townsman +was. He talked of Buddha. He said: 'Here the brook's the brook, the +mountain's the mountain: they are as they always were.' + +'You'd have men be the same,' Chillon remarked as to a nursling prattler, +and he rejoined: 'They've lost more than they've gained; though, he +admitted, 'there has been some gain, in a certain way.' + +Fortunately for them, young men have not the habit of reflecting upon the +indigestion of ideas they receive from members of their community, +sometimes upon exchange. They compare a view of life with their own +view, to condemn it summarily; and he was a curious object to Chillon as +the perfect opposite of himself. + +'I would advise you,' Chillon said, 'to get a pair of Styrian boots, if +you intend to stay in the Alps. Those boots of yours are London make.' + +'They 're my father's make,' said Mr. Woodseer. + +Chillon drew out his watch. 'Come, Carinthia, we must be off.' He +proposed his guide, and, as Anton was rejected, he pointed the route over +the head of the valley, stated the distance to an inn that way, saluted +and strode. + +Mr. Woodseer, partly rising, presumed, in raising his hat and thanking +Carinthia, to touch her fingers. She smiled on him, frankly extending +her open hand, and pointing the route again, counselling him to rest at +the inn, even saying: 'You have not yet your strength to come on with +us?' + +He thought he would stay some time longer: he had a disposition to smoke. + +She tripped away to her brother and was watched through the whiffs of a +pipe far up the valley, guiltless of any consciousness of producing an +impression. But her mind was with the stranger sufficiently to cause her +to say to Chillon, at the close of a dispute between him and Anton on the +interesting subject of the growth of the horns of chamois: 'Have we been +quite kind to that gentleman?' + +Chillon looked over his shoulder. 'He's there still; he's fond of +solitude. And, Carin, my dear, don't give your hand when you are meeting +or parting with people it's not done.' + +His uninstructed sister said: 'Did you not like him?' + +She was answered with an 'Oh,' the tone of which balanced lightly on the +neutral line. 'Some of the ideas he has are Lord Fleetwood's, I hear, +and one can understand them in a man of enormous wealth, who doesn't know +what to do with himself and is dead-sick of flattery; though it seems odd +for an English nobleman to be raving about Nature. Perhaps it's because +none else of them does.' + +'Lord Fleetwood loves our mountains, Chillon?' + +'But a fellow who probably has to make his way in the world!--and he +despises ambition!' . . . Chillon dropped him. He was antipathetic to +eccentrics, and his soldierly and social training opposed the profession +of heterodox ideas: to have listened seriously to them coming from the +mouth of an unambitious bootmaker's son involved him in the absurdity. +He considered that there was no harm in the lad, rather a commendable +sort of courage and some notion of manners; allowing for his ignorance of +the convenable in putting out his hand to take a young lady's, with the +plea of thanking her. He hoped she would be more on her guard. + +Carinthia was sure she had the name of the nobleman wishing to bestow his +title upon the beautiful Henrietta. Lord Fleetwood! That slender thread +given her of the character of her brother's rival who loved the mountains +was woven in her mind with her passing experience of the youth they had +left behind them, until the two became one, a highly transfigured one, +and the mountain scenery made him very threatening to her brother. A +silky haired youth, brown-eyed, unconquerable in adversity, immensely +rich, fond of solitude, curled, decorated, bejewelled by all the elves +and gnomes of inmost solitude, must have marvellous attractions, she +feared. She thought of him so much, that her humble spirit conceived the +stricken soul of the woman as of necessity the pursuer; as shamelessly, +though timidly, as she herself pursued in imagination the enchanted +secret of the mountain-land. She hoped her brother would not supplicate, +for it struck her that the lover who besieged the lady would forfeit her +roaming and hunting fancy. + +'I wonder what that gentleman is doing now,' she said to Chillon. + +He grimaced slightly, for her sake; he would have liked to inform her, +for the sake of educating her in the customs of the world she was going +to enter, that the word 'gentleman' conveys in English a special +signification. + +Her expression of wonder whether they were to meet him again gave Chillon +the opportunity of saying: + +'It 's the unlikeliest thing possible--at all events in England.' + +'But I think we shall,' said she. + +'My dear, you meet people of your own class; you don't meet others.' + +'But we may meet anybody, Chillon!' + +'In the street. I suppose you would not stop to speak to him in the +street.' + +'It would be strange to see him in the street!' Carinthia said. + +'Strange or not!' + +. . Chillon thought he had said sufficient. She was under his +protectorship, otherwise he would not have alluded to the observance of +class distinctions. He felt them personally in this case because of +their seeming to stretch grotesquely by the pretentious heterodoxy of the +young fellow, whom, nevertheless, thinking him over now that he was +mentioned, he approved for his manliness in bluntly telling his origin +and status. + +A chalet supplied them with fresh milk, and the inn of a village on a +perch with the midday meal. Their appetites were princely and swept over +the little inn like a conflagration. Only after clearing it did they +remember the rearward pedestrian, whose probable wants Chillon was urged +by Carthinia to speak of to their host. They pushed on, clambering up, +scurrying down, tramping gaily, till by degrees the chambers of +Carinthia's imagination closed their doors and would no longer +intercommunicate. Her head refused to interest her, and left all +activity to her legs and her eyes, and the latter became unobservant, +except of foot-tracks, animal-like. She felt that she was a fine +machine, and nothing else: and she was rapidly approaching those ladies! + +'You will tell them how I walked with you,' she said. + +'Your friends over yonder?' said he. + +'So that they may not think me so ignorant, brother.' She stumbled on +the helpless word in a hasty effort to cloak her vanity. + +He laughed. Her desire to meet the critical English ladies with a +towering reputation in one department of human enterprise was +comprehensible, considering the natural apprehensiveness of the half-wild +girl before such a meeting. As it often happens with the silly phrases +of simple people, the wrong word, foolish although it was, went to the +heart of the hearer and threw a more charitable light than ridicule on +her. So that they may know I can do something they cannot do, was the +interpretation. It showed her deep knowledge of her poorness in laying +bare the fact. + +Anxious to cheer her, he said: 'Come, come, you can dance. You dance +well, mother has told me, and she was a judge. You ride, you swim, you +have a voice for country songs, at all events. And you're a bit of a +botanist too. You're good at English and German; you had a French +governess for a couple of years. By the way, you understand the use of a +walking-stick in self-defence: you could handle a sword on occasion.' + +'Father trained me,' said Carthinia. 'I can fire a pistol, aiming.' + +'With a good aim, too. Father told me you could. How fond he was of his +girl! Well, bear in mind that father was proud of you, and hold up your +head wherever you are.' + +'I will,' she said. + +He assured her he had a mind to have a bugle blown at the entrance +of the Baths for a challenge to the bathers to match her in warlike +accomplishments. + +She bit her lips: she could not bear much rallying on the subject just +then: + +'Which is the hard one to please?' she asked. + +'The one you will find the kinder of the two.' + +'Henrietta?' + +He nodded. + +'Has she a father?' + +'A gallant old admiral: Admiral Baldwin Fakenham.' + +'I am glad of that!' Carinthia sighed out heartily. 'And he is with her? +And likes you, Chillon?' + +'On the whole, I think he does.' + +'A brave officer!' Such a father would be sure to like him. + +So the domestic prospect was hopeful. + +At sunset they stood on the hills overlooking the basin of the Baths, all +enfolded in swathes of pink and crimson up to the shining grey of a high +heaven that had the fresh brightness of the morning. + +'We are not tired in the slightest,' said Carinthia, trifling with the +vision of a cushioned rest below. 'I could go on through the night quite +comfortably.' + +'Wait till you wake up in your little bed to-morrow,' Chillon replied +stoutly, to drive a chill from his lover's heart, that had seized it at +the bare suggestion of their going on. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE LADY'S LETTER + +Is not the lover a prophet? He that fervently desires may well be one; +his hurried nature is alive with warmth to break the possible blow: and +if his fears were not needed they were shadows; and if fulfilled, was he +not convinced of his misfortune by a dark anticipation that rarely erred? +Descending the hills, he remembered several omens: the sun had sunk when +he looked down on the villas and clustered houses, not an edge of the orb +had been seen; the admiral's quarters in tile broad-faced hotel had worn +an appearance resembling the empty house of yesterday; the encounter with +the fellow on the rocks had a bad whisper of impish tripping. And what +moved Carinthia to speak of going on? + +A letter was handed to Chillon in the hall of the admiral's hotel, where +his baggage had already been delivered. The manager was deploring the +circumstance that his rooms were full to the roof, when Chillon said: + +'Well, we must wash and eat'; and Carinthia, from watching her brother's +forehead during his perusal of the letter, declared her readiness for +anything. He gave her the letter to read by herself while preparing to +sit at table, unwilling to ask her for a further tax on her energies--but +it was she who had spoken of going on! He thought of it as of a debt she +had contracted and might be supposed to think payable to their +misfortune. + +She read off the first two sentences. + +'We can have a carriage here, Chillon; order a carriage; I shall get as +much sleep in a carriage as in a bed: I shall enjoy driving at night,' +she said immediately, and strongly urged it and forced him to yield, the +manager observing that a carriage could be had. + +In the privacy of her room, admiring the clear flowing hand, she read the +words, delicious in their strangeness to her, notwithstanding the heavy +news, as though they were sung out of a night-sky: + + 'Most picturesque of Castles! + + May none these marks efface, + For they appeal from Tyranny . . .' + +'We start at noon to-day. Sailing orders have been issued, and I could +only have resisted them in my own person by casting myself overboard. +I go like the boat behind the vessel. You were expected yesterday, at +latest this morning. I have seen boxes in the hall, with a name on them +not foreign to me. Why does the master tarry? Sir, of your valliance +you should have held to your good vow,--quoth the damozel, for now you +see me sore perplexed and that you did not your devoir is my affliction. +Where lingers chivalry, she should have proceeded, if not with my knight? +I feast on your regrets. I would not have you less than miserable: and I +fear the reason is, that I am not so very, very sure you will be so at +all or very hugely, as I would command it of you for just time enough to +see that change over your eyebrows I know so well. + +'If you had seen a certain Henrietta yesterday you would have the picture +of how you ought to look. The admiral was heard welcoming a new arrival +--you can hear him. She ran down the stairs quicker than any cascade of +this district, she would have made a bet with Livia that it could be no +one else--her hand was out, before she was aware of the difference it was +locked in Lord F.'s! + +'Let the guilty absent suffer for causing such a betrayal of +disappointment. I must be avenged! But if indeed you are unhappy and +would like to chide the innocent, I am full of compassion for the poor +gentleman inheriting my legitimate feelings of wrath, and beg merely that +he will not pour them out on me with pen and paper, but from his lips and +eyes. + +'Time pressing, I chatter no more. The destination is Livia's beloved +Baden. We rest a night in the city of Mozart, a night at Munich, a night +at Stuttgart. Baden will detain my cousin full a week. She has Captain +Abrane and Sir Meeson Corby in attendance--her long shadow and her short: +both devoted to Lord F., to win her smile, and how he drives them! The +captain has been paraded on the promenade, to the stupefaction of the +foreigner. Princes, counts, generals, diplomats passed under him in awe. +I am told that he is called St. Christopher. + +'Why do we go thus hastily?--my friend, this letter has to be concealed. +I know some one who sees in the dark. + +'Think no harm of Livia. She is bent upon my worldly advantage, and that +is plain even to the person rejecting it. How much more so must it be to +papa, though he likes you, and when you are near him would perhaps, in a +fit of unworldliness, be almost as reckless as the creature he calls +madcap and would rather call countess. No! sooner with a Will-o'-the- +wisp, my friend. Who could ever know where the man was when he himself +never knows where he is. He is the wind that bloweth as it listeth-- +because it is without an aim or always with a new one. And am I the one +to direct him? I need direction. My lord and sovereign must fix my +mind. I am volatile, earthly, not to be trusted if I do not worship. He +himself said to me that--he reads our characters. "Nothing but a proved +hero will satisfy Henrietta," his words! And the hero must be shining +like a beacon-fire kept in a blaze. Quite true; I own it. Is Chillon +Kirby satisfied? He ought to be. + +'But oh!--to be yoked is an insufferable thought, unless we name all the +conditions. But to be yoked to a creature of impulses! Really I could +only describe his erratic nature by commending you to the study of a +dragon-fly. It would map you an idea of what he has been in the twenty- +four hours since we had him here. They tell me a vain sort of person is +the cause. Can she be the cause of his resolving to have a residence +here, to buy up half the valley--erecting a royal palace--and marking +out the site--raving about it in the wildest language, poetical if +it had been a little reasonable--and then, after a night, suddenly, +unaccountably, hating the place, and being under the necessity of flying +from it in hot haste, tearing us all away, as if we were attached to a +kite that will neither mount nor fall, but rushes about headlong. Has he +heard, or suspected? or seen certain boxes bearing a name? Livia has no +suspicion, though she thinks me wonderfully contented in so dull a place, +where it has rained nine days in a fortnight. I ask myself whether my +manner of greeting him betrayed my expectation of another. He has +brains. It is the greatest of errors to suppose him at all like the +common run of rich young noblemen. He seems to thirst for brilliant wits +and original sayings. His ambition is to lead all England in everything! +I readily acknowledge that he has generous ideas too; but try to hold +him, deny him his liberty, and it would be seen how desperate and +relentless he would be to get loose. Of this I am convinced: he would be +either the most abject of lovers, or a woman (if it turned out not to be +love) would find him the most unscrupulous of yoke-fellows. Yoke-fellow! +She would not have her reason in consenting. A lamb and a furious bull! +Papa and I have had a serious talk. He shuts his ears to my comparisons, +but admits, that as I am the principal person concerned, etc. Rich and a +nobleman is too tempting for an anxious father; and Livia's influence is +paramount. She has not said a syllable in depreciation of you. That is +to her credit. She also admits that I must yield freely if at all, and +she grants me the use of similes; but her tactics are to contest them one +by one, and the admirable pretender is not as shifty as the mariner's +breeze, he is not like the wandering spark in burnt paper, of which you +cannot say whether it is chasing or chased: it is I who am the shifty +Pole to the steadiest of magnets. She is a princess in other things +besides her superiority to Physics. There will be wild scenes at Baden. + +'My Diary of to-day is all bestowed on you. What have I to write in it +except the pair of commas under the last line of yesterday--" He has not +come!" Oh! to be caring for a he. + +'O that I were with your sister now, on one side of her idol, to correct +her extravagant idolatry! I long for her. I had a number of nice little +phrases to pet her with. + +'You have said (I have it written) that men who are liked by men are the +best friends for women. In which case, the earl should be worthy of our +friendship; he is liked. Captain Abrane and Sir Meeson, in spite of the +hard service he imposes on them with such comical haughtiness, incline to +speak well of him, and Methuen Rivers--here for two days on his way to +his embassy at Vienna--assured us he is the rarest of gentlemen on the +point of honour of his word. They have stories of him, to confirm +Livia's eulogies, showing him punctilious to chivalry: No man alive is +like him in that, they say. He grieves me. All that you have to fear +is my pity for one so sensitive. So speed, sir! It is not good for us +to be much alone, and I am alone when you are absent. + +'I hear military music! + +'How grand that music makes the dullest world appear in a minute. There +is a magic in it to bring you to me from the most dreadful of distances. +--Chillon! it would kill me!--Writing here and you perhaps behind the +hill, I can hardly bear it;--I am torn away, my hand will not any more. +This music burst out to mock me! Adieu. + + 'I am yours. + + 'Your HENRIETTA. + +'A kiss to the sister. It is owing to her.' + +Carinthia kissed the letter on that last line. It seemed to her to end +in a celestial shower. + +She was oppressed by wonder of the writer who could run like the rill of +the mountains in written speech; and her recollection of the contents +perpetually hurried to the close, which was more in her way of writing, +for there the brief sentences had a throb beneath them. + +She did not speak of the letter to her brother when she returned it. A +night in the carriage, against his shoulder, was her happy prospect, in +the thought that she would be with her dearest all night, touching him +asleep, and in the sweet sense of being near to the beloved of the +fairest angel of her sex. They pursued their journey soon after Anton +was dismissed with warm shakes of the hand and appointments for a +possible year in the future. + +The blast of the postillion's horn on the dark highway moved Chillon to +say: 'This is what they call posting, my dear.' + +She replied: 'Tell me, brother: I do not understand, "Let none these +marks efface," at the commencement, after most "picturesque of Castles": +--that is you.' + +'They are quoted from the verses of a lord who was a poet, addressed to +the castle on Lake Leman. She will read them to you.' + +'Will she?' + +The mention of the lord set Carinthia thinking of the lord whom that +beautiful SHE pitied because she was forced to wound him and he was very +sensitive. Wrapped in Henrietta, she slept through the joltings of the +carriage, the grinding of the wheels, the blowing of the horn, the +flashes of the late moonlight and the kindling of dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: IN WHICH +THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT WILD CREATURE HE WAS IN +HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE FEMALE SHOULD MARVEL CREDULOUSLY. + +The young man who fancied he had robed himself in the plain homespun +of a natural philosopher at the age of twenty-three journeyed limping +leisurely in the mountain maid Carinthia's footsteps, thankful to the +Fates for having seen her; and reproving the remainder of superstition +within him, which would lay him open to smarts of evil fortune if he, +encouraged a senseless gratitude for good; seeing that we are simply to +take what happens to us. The little inn of the village on the perch +furnished him a night's lodging and a laugh of satisfaction to hear of a +young lady and gentleman, and their guide, who had devoured everything +eatable half a day in advance of him, all save the bread and butter, and +a few scraps of meat, apologetically spread for his repast by the maid of +the inn: not enough for, a bantam cock, she said, promising eggs for +breakfast. He vowed with an honest heart, that it was more than enough, +and he was nourished by sympathy with the appetites of his precursors and +the maid's description of their deeds. That name, Carinthia, went a good +way to fill him. + +Farther on he had plenty, but less contentment. He was compelled to +acknowledge that he had expected to meet Carinthia again at the Baths. +Her absence dealt a violent shock to the aerial structure he dwelt in; +for though his ardour for the life of the solitudes was unfeigned, as was +his calm overlooking of social distinctions, the self-indulgent dreamer +became troubled with an alarming sentience, that for him to share the +passions of the world of men was to risk the falling lower than most. +Women are a cause of dreams, but they are dreaded enemies of his kind of +dream, deadly enemies of the immaterial dreamers; and should one of them +be taken on board a vessel of the vapourish texture young Woodseer sailed +in above the clouds lightly while he was in it alone, questions of past, +future, and present, the three weights upon humanity, bear it down, and +she must go, or the vessel sinks. And cast out of it, what was he? The +asking exposed him to the steadiest wind the civilized world is known to +blow. From merely thinking upon one of the daughters of earth, he was +made to feel his position in that world, though he refused to understand +it, and assisted by two days of hard walking he reduced Carinthia to an +abstract enthusiasm, no very serious burden. His note-book sustained it +easily. He wrote her name in simple fondness of the name; a verse, and +hints for more, and some sentences, which he thought profound. They were +composed as he sat by the roadway, on the top of hills, and in a boat +crossing a dark green lake deep under wooded mountain walls: things of +priceless value. + +It happened, that midway on the lake he perceived his boatman about to +prime a pistol to murder the mild-eyed stillness, and he called to the +man in his best German to desist. During the altercation, there passed a +countryman of his in another of the punts, who said gravely: 'I thank you +for that.' It was early morning, and they had the lake to themselves, +each deeming the other an intruder; for the courtship of solitude wanes +when we are haunted by a second person in pursuit of it; he is +discolouring matter in our pure crystal cup. Such is the worship of the +picturesque; and it would appear to say, that the spirit of man finds +itself yet in the society of barbarians. The case admits of good +pleading either way, even upon the issue whether the exclusive or the +vulgar be the more barbarous. But in those days the solicitation of the +picturesque had been revived by a poet of some impassioned rhetoric, and +two devotees could hardly meet, as the two met here, and not be mutually +obscurants. + +They stepped ashore in turn on the same small shoot of land where a farm- +house near a chapel in the shadow of cliffs did occasional service for an +inn. Each had intended to pass a day and a night in this lonely +dwelling-place by the lake, but a rival was less to be tolerated there +than in love, and each awaited the other's departure, with an air that +said: 'You are in my sunlight'; and going deeper, more sternly: 'Sir, you +are an offence to Nature's pudency!' + +Woodseer was the more placable of the two; he had taken possession of the +bench outside, and he had his note-book and much profundity to haul up +with it while fish were frying. His countryman had rushed inside to +avoid him, and remained there pacing the chamber like a lion newly caged. +Their boatmen were brotherly in the anticipation of provision and +payment. + +After eating his fish, Woodseer decided abruptly, that as he could not +have the spot to himself, memorable as it would have been to intermarry +with Nature in so sacred a welldepth of the mountains, he had better be +walking and climbing. Another boat paddling up the lake had been spied: +solitude was not merely shared with a rival, but violated by numbers. +In the first case, we detest the man; in the second, we fly from an +outraged scene. He wrote a line or so in his book, hurriedly paid his +bill, and started, full of the matter he had briefly committed to his +pages. + +At noon, sitting beside the beck that runs from the lake, he was +overtaken by the gentleman he had left behind, and accosted in the +informal English style, with all the politeness possible to a nervously +blunt manner: 'This book is yours,--I have no doubt it is yours; I am +glad to be able to restore it; I should be glad to be the owner-writer of +the contents, I mean. I have to beg your excuse; I found it lying open; +I looked at the page, I looked through the whole; I am quite at your +mercy.' + +Woodseer jumped at the sight of his note-book, felt for the emptiness of +his pocket, and replied: 'Thank you, thank you. It's of use to me, +though to no one else.' + +'You pardon me?' + +'Certainly. I should have done it myself.' + +'I cannot offer you my apologies as a stranger.' Lord Fleetwood was the +name given. + +Woodseer's plebeian was exchanged for it, and he stood up. + +The young lord had fair, straight, thin features, with large restless +eyes that lighted quickly, and a mouth that was winning in his present +colloquial mood. + +'You could have done the same? I should find it hard to forgive the man +who pried into my secret thoughts,' he remarked. + +'There they are. If one puts them to paper! . . .' Woodseer shrugged. + +'Yes, yes. They never last long enough with me. So far I'm safe. One +page led to another. You can meditate. I noticed some remarks on +Religions. You think deeply.' + +Woodseer was of that opinion, but modesty urged him to reply with a small +flourish. 'Just a few heads of ideas. When the wind puffs down a sooty +chimney the air is filled with little blacks that settle pretty much like +the notes in this book of mine. There they wait for another puff, or my +fingers to stamp them.' + +'I could tell you were the owner of that book,' said Lord Fleetwood. He +swept his forehead feverishly. 'What a power it is to relieve one's +brain by writing! May I ask you, which one of the Universities . . ?' + +The burden of this question had a ring of irony to one whom it taught to +feel rather defiantly, that he carried the blazon of a reeking tramp. +'My University,' Woodseer replied, 'was a merchant's office in Bremen +for some months. I learnt more Greek and Latin in Bremen than business. +I was invalided home, and then tried a merchant's office in London. +I put on my hat one day, and walked into the country. My College fellows +were hawkers, tinkers, tramps and ploughmen, choughs and crows. A volume +of our Poets and a History of Philosophy composed my library. I had +scarce any money, so I learnt how to idle inexpensively--a good first +lesson. We're at the bottom of the world when we take to the road; we +see men as they were in the beginning--not so eager for harness till they +get acquainted with hunger, as I did, and studied in myself the old +animal having his head pushed into the collar to earn a feed of corn.' + +Woodseer laughed, adding, that he had been of a serious mind in those +days of the alternation of smooth indifference and sharp necessity, and +he had plucked a flower from them. + +His nature prompted him to speak of himself with simple candour, as he +had done spontaneously to Chillon Kirby, yet he was now anxious to let +his companion know at once the common stuff he was made of, together with +the great stuff he contained. He grew conscious of an over-anxiety, and +was uneasy, recollecting how he had just spoken about his naturalness, +dimly if at all apprehending the cause of this disturbance within. What +is a lord to a philosopher! But the world is around us as a cloak, if +not a coat; in his ignorance he supposed it specially due to a lord +seeking acquaintance with him, that he should expose his condition: doing +the which appeared to subject him to parade his intellectual treasures +and capacity for shaping sentences; and the effect upon Lord Fleetwood +was an incentive to the display. Nevertheless he had a fretful desire to +escape from the discomposing society of a lord; he fixed his knapsack and +began to saunter. + +The young lord was at his elbow. 'I can't part with you. Will you allow +me?' + +Woodseer was puzzled and had to say: 'If you wish it.' + +'I do wish it: an hour's walk with you. One does not meet a man like you +every day. I have to join a circle of mine in Baden, but there's no +hurry; I could be disengaged for a week. And I have things to ask you, +owing to my indiscretion--but you have excused it.' + +Woodseer turned for a farewell gaze at the great Watzmann, and saluted +him. + +'Splendid,' said Lord Fleetwood; 'but don't clap names on the mountains. +--I saw written in your book: "A text for Dada." You write: "A despotism +would procure a perfect solitude, but kill the ghost." That was my +thought at the place where we were at the lake. I had it. Tell me-- +though I could not have written it, and "ghost" is just the word, the +exact word--tell me, are you of Welsh blood? "Dad" is good Welsh-- +pronounce it hard.' + +Woodseer answered: 'My mother was a Glamorganshire woman. My father, +I know, walked up from Wales, mending boots on his road for a livelihood. +He is not a bad scholar, he knows Greek enough to like it. He is a +Dissenting preacher. When I strike a truism, I 've a habit of scoring it +to give him a peg or tuning-fork for one of his discourses. He's a man +of talent; he taught himself, and he taught me more than I learnt at +school. He is a thinker in his way. He loves Nature too. I rather envy +him in some respects. He and I are hunters of Wisdom on different +tracks; and he, as he says, "waits for me." He's patient!' + +Ah, and I wanted to ask you,' Lord Fleetwood observed, bursting with it, +'I was puzzled by a name you write here and there near the end, and +permit me to ask, it: Carinthia! It cannot be the country? You write +after, the name: "A beautiful Gorgon--a haggard Venus." It seized me. +I have had the face before my eyes ever since. You must mean a woman. +I can't be deceived in allusions to a woman: they have heart in them. +You met her somewhere about Carinthia, and gave her the name? You write +--may I refer to the book?' + +He received the book and flew through the leaves: + +'Here--"A panting look": you write again: "A look of beaten flame: a look +of one who has run and at last beholds!" But that is a living face: I +see her! Here again: "From minute to minute she is the rock that loses +the sun at night and reddens in the morning." You could not create an +idea of a woman to move you like that. No one could, I am certain of it, +certain; if so, you 're a wizard--I swear you are. But that's a face +high over beauty. Just to know there is a woman like her, is an +antidote. You compare her to a rock. Who would imagine a comparison of +a woman to a rock! But rock is the very picture of beautiful Gorgon, +haggard Venus. Tell me you met her, you saw her. I want only to hear +she lives, she is in the world. Beautiful women compared to roses may +whirl away with their handsome dragoons! A pang from them is a thing +to be ashamed of. And there are men who trot about whining with it! +But a Carinthia makes pain honourable. You have done what I thought +impossible--fused a woman's face and grand scenery, to make them +inseparable. She might be wicked for me. I should see a bright rim +round hatred of her!--the rock you describe. I could endure horrors +and not annihilate her! I should think her sacred.' + +Woodseer turned about to have a look at the man who was even quicker than +he at realizing a person from a hint of description, and almost insanely +extravagant in the pitch of the things he uttered to a stranger. For +himself, he was open with everybody, his philosophy not allowing that +strangers existed on earth. But the presence of a lord brought the +conventional world to his feelings, though at the same time the title +seemed to sanction the exceptional abruptness and wildness of this lord. +As for suspecting him to be mad, it would have been a common idea: no +stretching of speech or overstepping of social rules could waken a +suspicion so spiritless in Woodseer. + +He said: 'I can tell you I met her and she lives. I could as soon swim +in that torrent or leap the mountain as repeat what she spoke, or sketch +a feature of her. She goes into the blood, she is a new idea of women. +She has the face that would tempt a gypsy to evil tellings. I could +think of it as a history written in a line: Carinthia, Saint and Martyr! +As for comparisons, they are flowers thrown into the fire.' + +'I have had that--I have thought that,' said Lord Fleetwood. 'Go on; +talk of her, pray; without comparisons. I detest them. How did you meet +her? What made you part? Where is she now? I have no wish to find her, +but I want thoroughly to believe in her.' + +Another than Woodseer would have perceived the young lord's malady. Here +was one bitten by the serpent of love, and athirst for an image of the +sex to serve for the cooling herb, as youth will be. Woodseer put it +down to a curious imaginative fellowship with himself. He forgot the +lord, and supposed he had found his own likeness, less gifted in speech. +After talking of Carinthia more and more in the abstract, he fell upon +his discovery of the Great Secret of life, against which his hearer +struggled for a time, though that was cooling to him too; but ultimately +there was no resistance, and so deep did they sink into the idea of pure +contemplation, that the idea of woman seemed to have become a part of it. +No stronger proof of their aethereal conversational earnestness could be +offered. A locality was given to the Great Secret, and of course it was +the place where the most powerful recent impression had been stamped on +the mind of the discoverer: the shadowy valley rolling from the slate- +rock. Woodseer was too artistic a dreamer to present the passing vision +of Carinthia with any associates there. She passed: the solitude +accepted her and lost her; and it was the richer for the one swift gleam: +she brought no trouble, she left no regrets; she was the ghost of the +rocky obscurity. But now remembering her mountain carol, he chanced to +speak of her as a girl. + +'She is a girl?' cried Lord Fleetwood, frowning over an utter revolution +of sentiment at the thought of the beautiful Gorgon being a girl; for, +rapid as he was to imagine, he had raised a solid fabric upon his +conception of Carinthia the woman, necessarily the woman--logically. +Who but the woman could look the Gorgon! He tried to explain it to be +impossible for a girl to wear the look: and his notion evidently was, +that it had come upon a beautiful face in some staring horror of a world +that had bitten the tender woman. She touched him sympathetically +through the pathos. + +Woodseer flung out vociferously for the contrary. Who but a girl could +look the beautiful Gorgon! What other could seem an emanation of the +mountain solitude? A woman would instantly breathe the world on it to +destroy it. Hers would be the dramatic and not the poetic face. It +would shriek of man, wake the echoes with the tale of man, slaughter all. +quietude. But a girl's face has no story of poisonous intrusion. She +indeed may be cast in the terrors of Nature, and yet be sweet with +Nature, beautiful because she is purely of Nature. Woodseer did his best +to present his view irresistibly. Perhaps he was not clear; it was a +piece of skiamachy, difficult to render clear to the defeated. + +Lord Fleetwood had nothing to say but 'Gorgon! a girl a Gorgon!' and it +struck Woodseer as intensely unreasonable, considering that he had seen +the girl whom, in his effort to portray her, he had likened to a +beautiful Gorgon. He recounted the scene of the meeting with her, +pictured it in effective colours, but his companion gave no response, nor +a nod. They ceased to converse, and when the young lord's hired carriage +drew up on the road, Woodseer required persuasion to accompany him. They +were both in their different stations young tyrants of the world, ready +to fight the world and one another for not having their immediate view of +it such as they wanted it. They agreed, however, not to sleep in the +city. Beds were to be had near the top of a mountain on the other side +of the Salza, their driver informed them, and vowing themselves to that +particular height, in a mutual disgust of the city, they waxed +friendlier, with a reserve. + +Woodseer soon had experience that he was receiving exceptional treatment +from Lord Fleetwood, whose manservant was on the steps of the hotel in +Salzburg on the lookout for his master. + +'Sir Meeson has been getting impatient, my lord,' said the man. + +Sir Meeson Corby appeared; Lord Fleetwood cut him short: 'You 're in a +hurry; go at once, don't wait for me; I join you in Baden.--Do me the +favour to eat with me,' he turned to Woodseer. 'And here, Corby! tell +the countess I have a friend to bear me company, and there is to be an +extra bedroom secured at her hotel. That swinery of a place she insists +on visiting is usually crammed. With you there,' he turned to Woodseer, +'I might find it agreeable.--You can take my man, Corby; I shall not want +the fellow.' + +'Positively, my dear Fleetwood, you know,' Sir Meeson expostulated, 'I am +under orders; I don't see how--I really can't go on without you.' + +'Please yourself. This gentleman is my friend, Mr. Woodseer.' + +Sir Meeson Corby was a plump little beau of forty, at war with his fat +and accounting his tight blue tail coat and brass buttons a victory. His +tightness made his fatness elastic; he looked wound up for a dance, and +could hardly hold on a leg; but the presentation of a creature in a +battered hat and soiled garments, carrying a tattered knapsack half +slung, lank and with disorderly locks, as the Earl of Fleetwood's friend +--the friend of the wealthiest nobleman of Great Britain!--fixed him in a +perked attitude of inquiry that exhausted interrogatives. Woodseer +passed him, slouching a bow. The circular stare of Sir Meeson seemed +unable to contract. He directed it on Lord Fleetwood, and was then +reminded that he dealt with prickles. + +'Where have you been?' he said, blinking to refresh his eyeballs. 'I +missed you, I ran round and round the town after you.' + +'I have been to the lake.' + +'Queer fish there!' Sir Meeson dropped a glance on the capture. + +Lord Fleetwood took Woodseer's arm. 'Do you eat with us?' he asked the +baronet, who had stayed his eating for an hour and was famished; so they +strode to the dining-room. + +'Do you wash, sir, before eating?' Sir Meeson said to Woodseer, caressing +his hands when they had seated themselves at table. 'Appliances are to +be found in this hotel.' + +'Soap?' said Lord Fleetwood. + +'Soap--at least, in my chamber.' + +'Fetch it, please.' + +Sir Meeson, of course, could not hear that. He requested the waiter to +show the gentleman to a room. + +Lord Fleetwood ordered the waiter to bring a handbasin and towel. 'We're +off directly and must eat at once,' he said. + +'Soap--soap! my dear Fleetwood,' Sir Meeson knuckled on the table, to +impress it that his appetite and his gorge demanded a thorough cleansing +of those fingers, if they were to sit at one board. + +'Let the waiter fetch it.' + +'The soap is in my portmanteau.' + +'You spoke of it as a necessity for this gentleman and me. Bring it.' + +Woodseer had risen. Lord Fleetwood motioned him down. He kept an eye +dead--as marble on Corby, who muttered: 'You can't mean that you ask me +. . .?' But the alternative was forced on Sir Meeson by too strong a +power of the implacable eye; there was thunder in it, a continuity of +gaze forcefuller than repetitions of the word. He knew Lord Fleetwood. +Men privileged to attend on him were dogs to the flinty young despot: +they were sure to be called upon to expiate the faintest offence to him. +He had hastily to consider, that he was banished beyond appeal, with the +whole torture of banishment to an adorer of the Countess Livia, or else +the mad behest must be obeyed. He protested, shrugged, sat fast, and +sprang up, remarking, that he went with all the willingness imaginable. +It could not have been the first occasion. + +He was affecting the excessively obsequious when he came back bearing his +metal soap-case. The performance was checked by another look solid as +shot, and as quick. Woodseer, who would have done for Sir Meeson Corby +or Lazarus what had been done for him, thought little of the service, but +so intense a peremptoriness in the look of an eye made him uncomfortable +in his own sense of independence. The humblest citizen of a free nation +has that warning at some notable exhibition of tyranny in a neighbouring +State: it acts like a concussion of the air. + +Lord Fleetwood led an easy dialogue with him and Sir Meeson, on their +different themes immediately, which was not less impressive to an +observer. He listened to Sir Meeson's entreaties that he should start +at once for Baden, and appeared to pity the poor gentleman, condemned by +his office to hang about him in terror of his liege lady's displeasure. +Presently, near the close of the meal, drawing a ring from his finger, +he handed it to the baronet, and said, 'Give her that. She knows I shall +follow that.' He added to himself:--I shall have ill-luck till I have it +back! and he asked Woodseer whether he put faith in the virtue of +talismans. + +'I have never possessed one,' said Woodseer, with his natural frankness. +'It would have gone long before this for a night's lodging.' + +Sir Meeson heard him, and instantly urged Lord Fleetwood not to think of +dismissing his man Francis. 'I beg it, Fleetwood! I beg you to take the +man. Her ladyship will receive me badly, ring or no ring, if she hears +of your being left alone. I really can't present myself. I shall not +go, not go. I say no.' + +'Stay, then,' said Fleetwood. + +He turned to Woodseer with an air of deference, and requested the +privilege of glancing at his notebook again, and scanned it closely +at one of the pages. 'I believe it true,' he cried; 'I had a half +recollection of it--I have had some such thought, but never could +put it in words. You have thought deeply.' + +'That is only a surface thought, or common reflection,' said Woodseer. + +Sir Meeson stared at them in turn. Judging by their talk and the effect +produced on the earl, he took Woodseer for a sort of conjuror. + +It was his duty to utter a warning. + +He drew Fleetwood aside. A word was whispered, and they broke asunder +with a snap. Francis was called. His master gave him his keys, and +despatched him into the town to purchase a knapsack or bag for the outfit +of a jolly beggar. The prospect delighted Lord Fleetwood. He sang notes +from the deep chest, flaunting like an opera brigand, and contemplating +his wretched satellite's indecision with brimming amusement. + +'Remember, we fight for our money. I carry mine,' he said to Woodseer. + +'Wouldn't it be expedient, Fleetwood . . .' Sir Meeson suggested a +treasurer in the person of himself. + +'Not a florin, Corby! I should find it all gambled away at Baden.' + +'But I am not Abrane, I'm not Abrane! I never play, I have no mania, +none. It would be prudent, Fleetwood.' + +'The slightest bulging of a pocket would show on you, Corby; and they +would be at you, they would fall on you and pluck you to have another +fling. I 'd rather my money should go to a knight of the road than feed +that dragon's jaw. A highwayman seems an honest fellow compared with +your honourable corporation of fly-catchers. I could surrender to him +with some satisfaction after a trial of the better man. I 've tried +these tables, and couldn't stir a pulse. Have you?' + +It had to be explained to Woodseer what was meant by trying the tables. +'Not I,' said he, in strong contempt of the queer allurement. + +Lord Fleetwood studied him half a minute, as if measuring and discarding +a suspicion of the young philosopher's possible weakness under +temptation. + +Sir Meeson Corby accompanied the oddly assorted couple through the town +and a short way along the road to the mountain, for the sake of quieting +his conscience upon the subject of his leaving them together. He could +not have sat down a second time at a table with those hands. He said +it:--he could not have done the thing. So the best he could do was to +let them go. Like many of his class, he had a mind open to the effect of +striking contrasts, and the spectacle of the wealthiest nobleman in Great +Britain tramping the road, pack on back, with a young nobody for his +comrade, a total stranger, who might be a cut-throat, and was avowedly +next to a mendicant, charged him with quantities of interjectory matter, +that he caught himself firing to the foreign people on the highway. +Hundreds of thousands a year, and tramping it like a pedlar, with a +beggar for his friend! He would have given something to have an English +ear near him as he watched them rounding under the mountain they were +about to climb. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, TOGETHER +WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES + +In those early days of Fortune's pregnant alternations of colour between +the Red and the Black, exhibited publicly, as it were a petroleum spring +of the ebony-fiery lake below, Black-Forest Baden was the sprightliest' +of the ante-chambers of Hades. Thither in the ripeness of the year +trooped the devotees of the sable goddess to perform sacrifice; and +annually among them the beautiful Livia, the Countess of Fleetwood; for +nowhere else had she sensation of the perfect repose which is rocked to a +slumber by gales. + +She was not of the creatures who are excited by an atmosphere of +excitement; she took it as the nymph of the stream her native wave, and +swam on the flood with expansive languor, happy to have the master +passions about her; one or two of which her dainty hand caressed, +fearless of a sting; the lady petted them as her swans. It surprised +her to a gentle contempt of men and women, that they should be ruffled +either by love or play. A withholding from the scene will naturally +arouse disturbing wishes; but to be present lulls; for then we live, we +are in our element. And who could expect, what sane person can desire, +perpetual good luck? Fortune, the goddess, and young Love, too, are +divine in their mutability: and Fortune would resemble a humdrum +housewife, Love a droning husband, if constancy were practised by them. +Observe the staggering and plunging of the blindfold wretch seeking to be +persuaded of their faithfulness. + +She could make for herself a quiet centre in the heart of the whirlwind, +but the whirlwind was required. The clustered lights at the corner of +the vale under forest hills, the burst of music, the blazing windows of +the saloons of the Furies, and the gamblers advancing and retreating, +with their totally opposite views of consequences, and fashions of +wearing or tearing the mask; and closer, the figures shifting up and down +the promenade, known and unknown faces, and the histories half known, +half woven, weaving fast, which flew their, threads to provoke +speculation; pleasantly embraced and diverted the cool-blooded lady +surrounded by her courtiers, who could upon occasion supply the luminous +clue or anecdote. She had an intuitive liveliness to detect interchanges +of eyes, the shuttle of intrigue; the mild hypocrisy, the clever +audacity, the suspicion confirmed, the complication threatening to become +resonant and terrible; and the old crossing the young and the young +outwitting the old, wiles of fair traitors and dark, knaves of all suits +of the pack. A more intimate acquaintance with their lineaments inspired +a regard for them, such as poets may feign the throned high moon to +entertain for objects causing her rays to flash. + +The simple fools, performing in character, were a neutral people, +grotesques and arabesques wreathed about the margins of the scene. +Venus or Fortune smote them to a relievo distinguishing one from another. +Here, however, as elsewhere, the core of interest was with the serious +population, the lovers and the players in earnest, who stood round the +furnace and pitched themselves into it, not always under a miscalculation +of their chances of emerging transfigured instead of serving for fuel. +These, the tragical children of folly, were astute: they played with +lightning, and they knew the conditions of the game; victories were to be +had. + +The ulterior conditions of the game, the price paid for a victory, they +thought little of: for they were feverish worshippers of the phantasmal +deity called the Present; a god reigning over the Past, appreciable only +in the Future; whose whiff of actual being is composed of the embryo idea +of the union of these two periods. Still he is occasionally a benevolent +god to the appetites; which have but to be continuous to establish him in +permanence; and as nothing in us more readily supposes perpetuity than +the appetite rushing to destroy itself, the rational nature of the most +universal worship on earth is perceived at once. + +Now, the price paid for a victory is this: that having been favoured in a +single instance by the spouse of the aforesaid eminent divinity--the +Black Goddess of the golden fringes--men believe in her for ever after, +behold her everywhere, they belong to her. Their faith as to sowing and +reaping has gone; and so has their capacity to see the actual as it is: +she has the power to attach them to her skirts the more by rewarding +their impassioned devotion with cuffs and scorns. They have ceased to +have a first notion upon anything without a second haunting it, which +directs them to propitiate Fortune. + +But I am reminded by the convulsions of Dame Gossip, that the wisdom of +our ancestors makes it a mere hammering of commonplace to insist on such +reflections. Many of them, indeed, took the union of the Black Goddess +and the Rosy Present for the composition of the very Arch-Fiend. Some +had a shot at the strange conjecture, figuring her as tired of men in the +end and challengeing him below--equally tired of his easy conquests of +men since the glorious old times of the duelling saints. By virtue of +his one incorrigible weakness, which we know him to have as long as we +have it ourselves: viz., the belief in her existence, she is to get the +better of him. + +Upon this point the experience of Captain Abrane has a value. Livia was +a follower of the Red and Black and the rounding ball in the person of +the giant captain, through whom she received her succession of sweetly +teasing thrills and shocks, as one of the adventurous company they formed +together. The place was known to him as the fair Philistine to another +muscular hero; he had been shorn there before, and sent forth tottering, +treating the friends he met as pillars to fall with him; and when the +operation was done thoroughly, he pronounced himself refreshed by it, +like a more sensible Samson, the cooler for his clipping. Then it was +that he relapsed undistractedly upon processes of his mind and he often +said he thought Fortune would beat the devil. + +Her power is shown in the moving of her solicitors to think, instantly +after they have made their cast, that the reverse of it was what they +intended. It comes as though she had withdrawn the bandage from her +forehead and dropped a leaden glance on them, like a great dame angry to +have her signal misinterpreted. Well, then, distinguished by the goddess +in such a manner, we have it proved to us how she wished to favour: for +the reverse wins, and we who are pinched blame not her cruelty but our +blind folly. This is true worship. Henceforth the pain of her nip is +mingled with the dream of her kiss; between the positive and the imagined +of her we remain confused until the purse is an empty body on a gallows, +honour too, perhaps. + +Captain Abrane was one of the Countess Livia's numerous courtiers on the +border of the promenade under the lighted saloons. A colossus inactive, +he had little to say among the chattering circle; for when seated, cards +were wanted to animate him: and he looked entirely out of place and +unfitted, like a great vessel's figure-head in a shipwright's yard. + +She murmured: 'Not this evening?' + +Abrane quoted promptly a line of nursery song 'How shall he cut it +without e'er a knife?' + +'Have we run it down so low?' said she, with no reproach in her tone. + +The captain shrugged over his clean abyss, where nothing was. + +Yesterday their bank presented matronly proportions. But an importuned +goddess reduces the most voluminous to bare stitches within a few winks +of an eye. + +Livia turned to a French gentleman of her court, M. de St. Ombre, and +pursued a conversation. He was a stately cavalier of the Gallicized +Frankish outlines, ready, but grave in his bearing, grave in his +delivery, trimly moustached, with a Guise beard. + +His profound internal question relating to this un-English beauty of the +British Isles:--had she no passion in her nature? was not convinced by +her apparent insensibility to Fortune's whips. + +Sir Meeson Corby inserted a word of Bull French out of place from time to +time. + +As it might be necessary to lean on the little man for weapons of war, +supposing Lord Fleetwood delayed his arrival yet another day, Livia was +indulgent. She assisted him to think that he spoke the foreign tongue. + +Mention of Lord Fleetwood set Sir Meeson harping again on his alarms, in +consideration of the vagabond object of the young lord had roamed away +with. + +'You forget that Russett has gypsy in him: Welsh! it's about the same,' +said Livia. 'He can take excellent care of himself and his purse.' + +'Countess, he is a good six days overdue.' + +'He will be in time for the ball at the Schloss.' + +Sir Meeson Corby produced an aspect of the word 'if,' so perkily, that +the dejected Captain Abrane laughed outright and gave him double reason +to fret for Lord Fleetwood's arrival, by saying: 'If he hangs off much +longer, I shall have to come on you for another fifty.' + +Our two pedestrians out of Salzburg were standing up in the night of +cloud and pines above the glittering pool, having made their way along +the path from the hill anciently dedicated to the god Mercury; and at the +moment when Sir Meeson put forth his frilled wrists to say: 'If you had +seen his hands--the creature Fleetwood trotted off alone with!--you'd be +a bit anxious too'; the young lord called his comrade to gaze underneath +them: 'There they are, hard at it, at their play!--it's the word used for +the filthiest gutter scramble.' + +They had come to know something of one another's humours; which are +taken by young men for their characters; and should the humours please, +they are friends, until further humours develop, trying these nascent +conservatives hard to suit them to their moods as well as the accustomed. +Lord Fleetwood had discovered in his companion, besides the spirit of +independence and the powers of thought impressed on him by Woodseer's +precocious flashes, a broad playfulness, that trenched on buffoonery; it +astonished, amused, and relieved him, loosening the spell of reverence +cast over him by one who could so wonderfully illumine his brain. Prone +to admire and bend the knee where he admired, he chafed at subjection, +unless he had the particular spell constantly renewed. A tone in him +once or twice of late, different from the comrade's, had warned Woodseer +to be guarded. + +Susceptible, however, of the extreme contrast between the gamblers below +and Nature's lover beside him, Fleetwood returned to his enthusiasm +without thinking it a bondage. + +'I shall never forget the walk we 've had. I have to thank you for the +noblest of pleasures. You 've taught me--well, a thousand things; the +things money can't buy. What mornings they were! And the dead-tired +nights! Under the rock and up to see the snowy peak pink in a gap of +thick mist. You were right: it made a crimsoning colour shine like a new +idea. Up in those mountains one walks with the divinities, you said. +It's perfectly true. I shall remember I did. I have a treasure for +life! Now I understand where you get your ideas. The life we lead down +there is hoggish. You have chosen the right. You're right, over and +over again, when you say, the dirty sweaters are nearer the angels for +cleanliness than my Lord and Lady Sybarite out of a bath, in chemical +scents. A man who thinks, loathes their High Society. I went through +Juvenal at college. But you--to be sure, you add example--make me feel +the contempt of it more. I am everlastingly indebted to you. Yes, I +won't forget: you preach against the despising of anything. + +This was pleasant in Woodseer's ears, inasmuch as it established the +young nobleman as the pupil of his philosophy for the conduct of life; +and to fortify him, he replied: + +'Set your mind on the beauty, and there'll be no room for comparisons. +Most of them are unjust, precious few instructive. In this case, they +spoil both pictures: and that scene down there rather hooks me; though I +prefer the Dachstein in the wane of the afterglow. You called it +Carinthia.' + +'I did: the beautiful Gorgon, haggard Venus--if she is to be a girl!' +Fleetwood rejoined. 'She looked burnt out--a spectre.' + +'One of the admirably damned,' said Woodseer, and he murmured with +enjoyment: 'Between the lights--that 's the beauty and the tragedy of +Purgatory!' + +His comrade fell in with the pictured idea: 'You hit it:--not what you +called the "sublimely milky," and not squalid as you'll see the faces of +the gambling women at the tables below. Oblige me--may I beg?--don't +clap names on the mountains we've seen. It stamps guide-book on them, +English tourist, horrors. We'll moralize over the crowds at the tables +down there. On the whole, it's a fairish game: you know the odds against +you, as you don't on the Turf or the Bourse. Have your fling; but don't +get bitten. There's a virus. I'm not open to it. Others are.' + +Hereupon Woodseer, wishing to have his individuality recognised in the +universality it consented to, remarked on an exchequer that could not +afford to lose, and a disposition free of the craving to win. + +These were, no doubt, good reasons for abstaining, and they were grand +morality. They were, at the same time, customary phrases of the +unfleshed in folly. They struck Fleetwood with a curious reminder +of the puking inexperienced, whom he had seen subsequently plunge +suicidally. He had a sharp vision of the attractive forces of the game; +and his elemental nature exulted in siding with the stronger against a +pretender to the superhuman. For Woodseer had spoken a trifle loftily, +as quite above temptation. To see a forewarned philosopher lured to try +the swim on those tides, pulled along the current, and caught by the +undertug of the lasher, would be fun. + +'We'll drop down on them, find our hotel, and have a look at what they're +doing,' he said, and stepped. + +Woodseer would gladly have remained. The starlit black ridges about him +and the dragon's mouth yawing underneath were an opposition of spiritual +and mundane; innocent, noxious; exciting to the youthful philosopher. +He had to follow, and so rapidly in the darkness that he stumbled and +fell on an arm; a small matter. + +Bed-chambers awaited them at the hotel, none of the party: and +Fleetwood's man-servant was absent. + +'Gambling, the rascal!' he said. Woodseer heard the first note of the +place in that. + +His leader was washed, neatly dressed, and knocking at his door very +soon, impatient to be off, and he flung a promise of 'supper presently' +to one whose modest purse had fallen into a debate with this lordly +hostelry, counting that a supper and a night there would do for it. +They hurried on to the line of promenaders, a river of cross-currents +by the side of seated groups; and the willowy swish of silken dresses, +feminine perfumery, cigar-smoke, chatter, laughter, told of pleasure +reigning. + +Fleetwood scanned the groups. He had seen enough in a moment and his +face blackened. A darting waiter was called to him. + +He said to Woodseer, savagely, as it sounded: 'You shall have something +to joint your bones!' What cause of wrath he had was past a guess: a wolf +at his vitals bit him, hardening his handsome features. + +The waiter darted back, bearing a tray and tall glasses filled each with +piled parti-coloured liqueurs, on the top of which an egg-yolk swam. +Fleetwood gave example. Swallowing your egg, the fiery-velvet triune +behind slips after it, in an easy milky way, like a princess's train on a +state-march, and you are completely, transformed, very agreeably; you +have become a merry demon. 'Well, yes, it's next to magic,' he replied +to Woodseer's astonished snigger after the draught, and explained, that +it was a famous Viennese four-of-the-morning panacea, the revellers' +electrical restorer. 'Now you can hold on for an hour or two, and then +we'll sup. At Rome?' + +'Ay! Druids to-morrow!' cried the philosopher bewitched. + +He found himself bowing to a most heavenly lady, composed of day and +night in her colouring, but more of night, where the western edge has +become a pale steel blade. Men were around her, forming a semi-circle. +The world of men and women was mere timber and leafage to this flower of +her sex, glory of her kind. How he behaved in her presence, he knew not; +he was beyond self-criticism or conscious reflection; simply the engine +of the commixed three liqueurs, with parlous fine thoughts, and a sense +of steaming into the infinite. + +To leave her was to have her as a moon in the heavens and to think of her +creatively. A swarm of images rushed about her and away, took lustre and +shade. She was a miracle of greyness, her eyes translucently grey, a +dark-haired queen of the twilights; and his heart sprang into his brain +to picture the novel beauty; language became a flushed Bacchanal in a +ring of dancing similes. Lying beside a bank of silvery cinquefoil +against a clear evening sky, where the planet Venus is a point of new and +warmer light, one has the vision of her. Or something of Persephone +rising to greet her mother, when our beam of day first melts through her +as she kneels to gather an early bud of the year, would be near it. Or +there is a lake in mid-forest, that curls part in shadow under the foot +of morning: there we have her. + +He strained to the earthly and the skyey likenesses of his marvel of +human beauty because they bestowed her on him in passing. All the while, +he was gazing on a green gaming-table. + +The gold glittered, and it heaped or it vanished. Contemptuous of money, +beyond the limited sum for his needs, he gazed; imagination was blunted +in him to the hot drama of the business. Moreover his mind was engaged +in insisting that the Evening Star is not to be called Venus, because of +certain stories; and he was vowed to defend his lady from any allusion +to them. This occupied him. By degrees, the visible asserted its +authority; his look on the coin fell to speculating. Oddly, too, he was +often right;--the money, staked on the other side, would have won. He +considered it rather a plain calculation than a guess. + +Philosophy withdrew him from his temporary interest in the tricks of a +circling white marble ball. The chuck farthing of street urchins has +quite as much dignity. He compared the creatures dabbling, over the +board to summer flies on butcher's meat, periodically scared by a cloth. +More in the abstract, they were snatching at a snapdragon bowl. It +struck him, that the gamblers had thronged on an invitation to drink the +round of seed-time and harvest in a gulp. Again they were desperate +gleaners, hopping, skipping, bleeding, amid a whizz of scythe-blades, +for small wisps of booty. Nor was it long before the presidency of an +ancient hoary Goat-Satan might be perceived, with skew-eyes and pucker- +mouth, nursing a hoof on a knee. + +Our mediaeval Enemy sat symbolical in his deformities, as in old Italian +and Dutch thick-line engravings of him. He rolled a ball for souls, +excited like kittens, to catch it, and tumbling into the dozens of vacant +pits. So it seemed to Woodseer, whose perceptions were discoloured by +hereditary antagonism. Had he preserved his philosopher's eye, he would +have known that the Hoofed One is too wily to show himself, owing to his +ugliness. The Black Goddess and no other presides at her own game. +She (it is good for us to know it) is the Power who challenges the +individual, it is he who spreads the net for the mass. She liquefies +the brain of man; he petrifies or ossifies the heart. From her comes +craziness, from him perversity: a more provocative and, on the whole, +more contagious disease. The gambler does not seek to lead his fellows +into perdition; the snared of the Demon have pleasure in the act. Hence +our naturally interested forecasts of the contests between them: for if +he is beaten, as all must be at the close of an extended game with her, +we have only to harden the brain against her allurements and we enter a +clearer field. + +Woodseer said to Fleetwood: 'That ball has a look of a nymph running +round and round till she changes to one of the Fates.' + +'We'll have a run with her,' said Fleetwood, keener for business than for +metaphors--at the moment. + +He received gold for a bank-note. Captain Abrane hurriedly begged a +loan. Both of them threw. Neither of them threw on the six numbers +Woodseer would have selected, and they lost. He stated that the number +of 17 had won before. Abrane tried the transversal enclosing this +favoured number. 'Of course!' he cried, with foul resignation and a +hostile glare: the ball had seated itself and was grinning at him from +the lowest of the stalls. + +Fleetwood quitted the table-numbers to throw on Pair; he won, won again, +pushed his luck and lost, dragging Abrane with him. The giant varied his +tone of acquiescence in Fortune's whims: 'Of course! I 've only to +fling! Luck hangs right enough till I put down my stake.' + +'If the luck has gone three times, the chances . . . .' Woodseer was +rather inquiring than pronouncing. . . . Lord Fleetwood cut him short. +'The chances are equally the contrary!' and discomposed his argumentative +mind. + +As argument in such a place was impossible, he had a wild idea of +example--'just to see'--; and though he smiled, his brain was liquefying. +Upon a calculation of the chances, merely for the humour of it, he laid a +silver piece on the first six, which had been neglected. They were now +blest. He laid his winnings on the numbed 17. Who would have expected +it? why, the player, surely! Woodseer comported himself like a veteran: +he had proved that you can calculate the chances. Instead of turning in +triumph to Lord Fleetwood, he laid gold pieces to hug the number 17, and +ten in the centre. And it is the truth, he hoped then to lose and have +done with it--after proving his case. The ball whirled, kicked, tried +for seat in two, in three points, and entered 17. The usual temporary +wonderment flew round the table; and this number was courted in dread, +avoided with apprehension. + +Abrane let fly a mighty breath: 'Virgin, by Jove!' + +Success was a small matter to Gower Woodseer. He displayed his contempt +of fortune by letting his heap of bank-notes lie on Impair, and he won. +Abrane bade him say 'Maximum' in a furious whisper. He did so, as one at +home with the word; and winning repeatedly, observed to Fleetwood: 'Now I +can understand what historians mean, in telling us of heroes rushing into +the fray and vainly seeking death. I always thought death was to be had, +if you were in earnest.' + +Fleetwood scrutinized the cast of his features and the touch of his +fingers on the crispy paper. + +'Come to another of these "green fields,"' he returned briefly. 'The +game here is child's play.' + +Urging Virgin Luck not to quit his initiatory table, the captain +reluctantly went at their heels. Shortly before the tables were clad in +mantles for the night, he reported to Livia one of the great cases of +Virgin Luck; described it, from the silver piece to the big heap of +notes, and drew on his envy of the fellow to sketch the indomitable +coolness shown in following or in quitting a run. 'That fellow it is, +Fleetwood's tag-rag; holds his head like a street-fiddler; Woodler or +some name. But there's nothing to be done if we don't cultivate him. +He must have pocketed a good three thousand and more. They had a quarrel +about calculations of chances, and Fleet ran the V up his forehead at a +piece of impudence. Fellow says some high-flying stuff; Fleet brightens +like a Sunday chimney-sweep. If I believed in Black Arts, upon my word!' + +'Russett is not usually managed with ease,' the lady said. + +Her placid observation was directed on the pair then descending the +steps. + +'Be careful how you address, this gentleman,' she counselled Abrane. +'The name is not Woodier, I know. It must be the right name or none.' + +Livia's fairest smile received them. She heard the captain accosting the +child of luck as Mr. Woodier, and she made a rustle in rising to take +Fleetwood's arm. + +'We haven't dined, we have to sup,' said he. + +'You are released at the end of the lamps. You redeem your ring, +Russett, and I will restore it. I have to tell you, Henrietta is here +to-morrow.' + +'She might be in a better place.' + +'The place where she is to be seen is not generally undervalued by men. +It is not her fault that she is absent. The admiral was persuaded to go +and attend those cavalry manoeuvres with the Grand Duke, to whom he had +been civil when in command of the Mediterranean squadron. You know, the +admiral believes he has military--I mean soldierly-genius; and the +delusion may have given him wholesome exercise and helped him to forget +his gout. So far, Henrietta will have been satisfied. She cannot have +found much amusement among dusty troopers or at that court at Carlsruhe. +Our French milliner there has helped in retarding her quite against her +will. She has had to choose a balldress for the raw mountain-girl they +have with them, and get her fitted, and it's a task! Why take her to the +ball? But the admiral's infatuated with this girl, and won't hear of her +exclusion--because, he says, she understands a field of battle; and the +Ducal party have taken to her. Ah, Russett, you should not have flown! +No harm, only Henrietta does require a trifle of management. She writes, +that she is sure of you for the night at the Schloss.' + +'Why, ma'am?' + +'You have given your word. "He never breaks his lightest word," she +says.' + +'It sounds like the beginning of respect.' + +'The rarest thing men teach women to feel for them!' + +'A respectable love match--eh? Good Lord! You'll be civil to my friend. +You have struck him to the dust. You have your one poetical admirer in +him.' + +'I am honoured, Russett.' + +'Cleared out, I suppose? Abrane is a funnel for pouring into that Bank. +Have your fun as you like it! I shall get supplies to-morrow. By the +way, you have that boy Cressett here. What are you doing with him?' + +Livia spoke of watching over him and guarding him: + +'He was at the table beside me, bursting to have a fling; and my friend +Mr. Woodseer said, it was "Adonis come to spy the boar":--the picture!' + +Prompt as bugle to the breath, Livia proposed to bet him fifty pounds +that she would keep young Cressett from gambling a single louis. The +pretty saying did not touch her. + +Fleetwood moved and bowed. Sir Meeson Corby simulated a petrifaction of +his frame at seeing the Countess of Fleetwood actually partly bent with +her gracious acknowledgement of the tramp's gawky homage. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Accounting his tight blue tail coat and brass buttons a victory +Amused after their tiresome work of slaughter +And her voice, against herself, was for England +As for comparisons, they are flowers thrown into the fire +As if the age were the injury! +Brains will beat Grim Death if we have enough of them +But a great success is full of temptations +Could affect me then, without being flung at me +Country enclosed us to make us feel snug in our own importance +Did not know the nature of an oath, and was dismissed +Dogs' eyes have such a sick look of love +Drank to show his disdain of its powers +Earl of Cressett fell from his coach-box in a fit +Father used to say, four hours for a man, six for a woman +Fond, as they say, of his glass and his girl +Found that he 'cursed better upon water' +Good-bye to sorrow for a while--Keep your tears for the living +Had got the trick of lying, through fear of telling the truth +Hard enough for a man to be married to a fool +He was a figure on a horse, and naught when off it +Her intimacy with a man old enough to be her grandfather +I hate sleep: I hate anything that robs me of my will +Innocence and uncleanness may go together +It was an honest buss, but dear at ten thousand +Limit was two bottles of port wine at a sitting +Little boy named Tommy Wedger said he saw a dead body go by +Mighty Highnesses who had only smelt the outside edge of battle +No enemy's shot is equal to a weak heart in the act +Not afford to lose, and a disposition free of the craving to win +Past, future, and present, the three weights upon humanity +Put material aid at a lower mark than gentleness +Puzzle to connect the foregoing and the succeeding +Seventy, when most men are reaping and stacking their sins +Should we leave a good deed half done +Showery, replied the admiral, as his cocked-hat was knocked off +So indulgent when they drop their blot on a lady's character +So much for morality in those days! +Steady shakes them +Sweetest on earth to her was to be prized by her brother +They could have pardoned her a younger lover +Thus are we stricken by the days of our youth +Truth is, they have taken a stain from the life they lead +Very little parleying between determined men +Warm, is hardly the word--Winter's warm on skates +Woman finds herself on board a rudderless vessel +Writer society delights in, to show what it is composed of +You are to imagine that they know everything +You saw nothing but handkerchiefs out all over the theatre + + +[The End] + + + + +*************************************************************************** +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Amazing Marriage, v1, by George Meredith +************This file should be named gm89v10.txt or gm89v10.zip*********** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm89v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm89v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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