THE FATHERLAND
There is a great contrast between the easy deshabille of the ocean life, and the prim attire, and conventional spirit of the land. In the first, there are but few to please, and these few are known, and they know us; upon the shore, there is a world to humor, and a world of strangers. In a brilliant drawing-room looking out upon the site of old Charing-Cross, and upon the one-armed Nelson, standing aloft at his coil of rope, I take leave of the fair voyager of the sea. Her white negligé has given place to silks; and the simple careless coiffe of the ocean, is replaced by the rich dressing of a modiste. Yet her face has the same bloom upon it; and her eye sparkles, as it seems to me, with a higher pride; and her little hand has I think a tremulous quiver in it (I am sure my own has)—as I bid her adieu, and take up the trail of my wanderings into the heart of England.
Abuse her, as we will—pity her starving peasantry, as we may—smile at her court pageantry, as much as we like—old England is dear old England still. Her cottage homes, her green fields, her castles, her blazing firesides, her church spires are as old as songs; and by song and story, we inherit them in our hearts. This joyous boast, was, I remember, upon my lip, as I first trod upon the rich meadow of Runnymede; and recalled that Great Charter: wrested from the king, which made the first stepping stone toward the bounties of our western freedom.
It is a strange feeling that comes over the Western Saxon, as he strolls first along the green by-lanes of England, and scents the hawthorn in its April bloom, and lingers at some quaint stile to watch the rooks wheeling and cawing around some lofty elm-tops, and traces the carved gables of some old country mansion that lies in their shadow, and hums some fragment of charming English poesy, that seems made for the scene. This is not sight-seeing, nor travel; it is dreaming sweet dreams, that are fed with the old life of Books.
I wander on, fearing to break the dream, by a swift step; and winding and rising between the blooming hedgerows, I come presently to the sight of some sweet valley below me, where a thatched hamlet lies sleeping in the April sun, as quietly as the dead lie in history; no sound reaches me save the occasional clink of the smith’s hammer, or the hedgeman’s bill-hook, or the plowman’s “ho-tup,” from the hills. At evening, listening to the nightingale, I stroll wearily into some close-nestled village, that I had seen long ago from a rolling height. It is far away from the great lines of travel—and the children stop their play to have a look at me, and the rosy-faced girls peep from behind half opened doors.
Standing apart, and with a bench on either side of the entrance, is the inn of the Eagle and the Falcon—which guardian birds, some native Dick Tinto has pictured upon the swinging signboard at the corner. The hostess is half ready to embrace me, and treats me like a prince in disguise. She shows me through the tap-room into a little parlor, with white curtains, and with neatly framed prints of the old patriarchs. Here, alone beside a brisk fire, kindled with furze, I watch the white flame leaping playfully through the black lumps of coal, and enjoy the best fare of the Eagle and the Falcon. If too late, or too early for her garden stock, the hostess bethinks herself of some small pot of jelly in an out-of-the-way cupboard of the house, and setting it temptingly in her prettiest dish, she coyly slips it upon the white cloth, with a modest regret that it is no better; and a little evident satisfaction—that it is so good.
I muse for an hour before the glowing fire, as quiet as the cat that has come in, to bear me company; and at bedtime, I find sheets, as fresh as the air of the mountains.
At another time, and many months later, I am walking under a wood of Scottish firs. It is near nightfall, and the fir tops are swaying, and sighing hoarsely, in the cool wind of the Northern Highlands. There is none of the smiling landscape of England about me; and the crags of Edinburgh and Castle Stirling, and sweet Perth, in its silver valley, are far to the southward. The larches of Athol and Bruar Water, and that highland gem—Dunkeld, are passed. I am tired with a morning’s tramp over Culloden Moor; and from the edge of the wood there stretches before me, in the cool gray twilight, broad fields of heather. In the middle, there rise against the night-sky, the turrets of a castle; it is Castle Cawdor, where King Duncan was murdered by Macbeth.
The sight of it lends a spur to my weary step; and emerging from the wood, I bound over the springy heather. In an hour, I clamber a broken wall, and come under the frowning shadows of the castle. The ivy clambers up here and there, and shakes its uncropped branches, and its dried berries over the heavy portal. I cross the moat, and my step makes the chains of the drawbridge rattle. All is kept in the old state; only in lieu of the warder’s horn, I pull at the warder’s bell. The echoes ring, and die in the stone courts; but there is no one astir, nor is there a light at any of the castle windows. I ring again, and the echoes come, and blend with the rising night wind that sighs around the turrets, as they sighed that night of murder. I fancy—it must be a fancy—that I hear an owl scream; I am sure that I hear the crickets cry.
I sit down upon the green bank of the moat; a little dark water lies in the bottom. The walls rise from it gray and stern in the deepening shadows. I hum chance passages of Macbeth, listening for the echoes—echoes from the wall; and echoes from that far-away time, when I stole the first reading of the tragic story.
“Did’st thou not hear a noise?
I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.
Did you not speak?
When?
Now.
As I descended?
Ay.
——Hark!”
And the sharp echo comes back—“Hark!” And at dead of night, in the thatched cottage under the castle walls, where a dark-faced, Gaelic woman, in plaid turban, is my hostess, I wake, startled by the wind, and my trembling lips say involuntarily—“hark!”
Again, three months later, I am in the sweet county of Devon. Its valleys are like emerald; its threads of waters stretched over the fields, by their provident husbandry, glisten in the broad glow of summer, like skeins of silk. A bland old farmer, of the true British stamp, is my host. On market days he rides over to the old town of Totness, in a trim, black farmer’s cart; and he wears glossy-topped boots, and a broad-brimmed white hat. I take a vast deal of pleasure in listening to his honest, straight-forward talk about the improvements of the day and the state of the nation. I sometimes get upon one of his nags, and ride off with him over his fields, or visit the homes of the laborers, which show their gray roofs, in every charming nook of the landscape. At the parish church I doze against the high pew backs, as I listen to the see-saw tones of the drawling curate; and in my half wakeful moments, the withered holly sprigs (not removed since Easter) grow upon my vision, into Christmas boughs, and preach sermons to me—of the days of old.
Sometimes, I wander far over the hills into a neighboring park; and spend hours on hours under the sturdy oaks, watching the sleek fallow deer gazing at me with their soft liquid eyes. The squirrels, too, play above me, with their daring leaps, utterly careless of my presence, and the pheasants whir away from my very feet.
On one of these random strolls—I remember it very well—when I was idling along, thinking of the broad reach of water that lay between me and that old forest home—and beating off the daisy heads with my cane—I heard the tramp of horses coming up one of the forest avenues. The sound was unusual, for the family, I had been told, was still in town, and no right of way lay through the park. There they were, however: I was sure it must be the family, from the careless way in which they came sauntering up.
First, there was a noble hound that came bounding toward me—gazed a moment, and turned to watch the approach of the little cavalcade. Next was an elderly gentleman mounted upon a spirited hunter, attended by a boy of some dozen years, who managed his pony with a grace, that is a part of the English boy’s education. Then followed two older lads, and a traveling phaëton in which sat a couple of elderly ladies. But what most drew my attention was a girlish figure, that rode beyond the carriage, upon a sleek-limbed gray. There was something in the easy grace of her attitude, and the rich glow that lit up her face—heightened as it was, by the little black riding cap, relieved with a single flowing plume—that kept my eye. It was strange, but I thought that I had seen such a figure before, and such a face, and such an eye; and as I made the ordinary salutation of a stranger, and caught her smile, I could have sworn that it was she—my fair companion of the ocean. The truth flashed upon me in a moment. She was to visit, she had told me, a friend in the south of England; and this was the friend’s home; and one of the ladies of the carriage was her mother; and one of the lads, the schoolboy brother, who had teased her on the sea.
I recall now perfectly her frank manner, as she ungloved her hand to bid me welcome. I strolled beside them to the steps. Old Devon had suddenly renewed its beauties for me. I had much to tell her, of the little outlying nooks, which my wayward feet had led me to: and she—as much to ask. My stay with the bland old farmer lengthened; and two days’ hospitalities at the Park ran over into three, and four. There was hard galloping down those avenues; and new strolls, not at all lonely, under the sturdy oaks. The long summer twilight of England used to find a very happy fellow lingering on the garden terrace—looking, now at the rookery, where the belated birds quarreled for a resting place, and now down the long forest vista, gray with distance, and closed with the white spire of Madbury church.
English country life gains fast upon one—very fast; and it is not so easy, as in the drawing-room of Charing Cross, to say—adieu! But it is said—very sadly said; for God only knows how long it is to last. And as I rode slowly down toward the lodge after my leave-taking, I turned back again, and again, and again. I thought I saw her standing still upon the terrace, though it was almost dark; and I thought—it could hardly have been an illusion—that I saw something white waving from her hand.
Her name—as if I could forget it—was Caroline; her mother called her—Carry. I wondered how it would seem for me to call her—Carry! I tried it—it sounded well. I tried it—over and over—until I came too near the lodge. There I threw a half crown to the woman who opened the gate for me. She courtesied low, and said—“God bless you, sir!”
I liked her for it; I would have given a guinea for it: and that night—whether it was the old woman’s benediction, or the waving scarf upon the terrace, I do not know—but there was a charm upon my thought, and my hope, as if an angel had been near me.
It passed away though in my dreams; for I dreamed that I saw the sweet face of Bella in an English park, and that she wore a black-velvet riding cap, with a plume; and I came up to her and murmured, very sweetly, I thought—“Carry, dear Carry!” and she started, looked sadly at me, and turned away. I ran after her, to kiss her as I did when she sat upon my mother’s lap, on the day when she came near drowning: I longed to tell her, as I did then—I do love you. But she turned her tearful face upon me, I dreamed; and then—I saw no more.
A
ROMAN
GIRL
—I remember the very words—“non parlo Francese, Signore—I do not speak French, Signor”—said the stout lady—“but my daughter, perhaps, will understand you.”
And she called out—“Enrica!—Enrica! venite, subito! c’ è un forestiere.”
And the daughter came, her light-brown hair falling carelessly over her shoulders, her rich, hazel eye twinkling and full of life, the color coming and going upon her transparent cheek, and her bosom heaving with her quick step. With one hand she put back the scattered locks that had fallen over her forehead, while she laid the other gently upon the arm of her mother, and asked in that sweet music of the south—“cosa volete, mamma?”
It was the prettiest picture I had seen in many a day; and this, notwithstanding I was in Rome, and had come that very morning from the Palace of Borghese.
The stout lady was my hostess, and Enrica—so fair, so young, so unlike in her beauty, to other Italian beauties, was my landlady’s daughter. The house was one of those tall houses—very, very old which stand along the eastern side of the Corso, looking out upon the Piazzo di Colonna. The staircases were very tall and dirty, and they were narrow and dark. Four flights of stone steps led up to the corridor where they lived. A little trap was in the door; and there was a bell-rope, at the least touch of which, I was almost sure to hear tripping feet run along the stone floor within, and then to see the trap thrown slyly back, and those deep hazel eyes looking out upon me; and then the door would open, and along the corridor, under the daughter’s guidance (until I had learned the way), I passed to my Roman home. I was a long time learning the way.
My chamber looked out upon the Corso, and I could catch from it a glimpse of the top of the tall column of Antoninus, and of a fragment of the palace of the governor. My parlor, which was separated from the apartments of the family by a narrow corridor, looked upon a small court, hung around with balconies. From the upper one a couple of black-eyed girls are occasionally looking out, and they can almost read the title of my book, when I sit by the window. Below are three or four blooming ragazze, who are dark-eyed, and have Roman luxuriance of hair. The youngest is a friend of our Enrica, and is of course frequently looking up with all the innocence in the world, to see if Enrica may be looking out.
Night after night a bright blaze glows upon my hearth, of the alder faggots which they bring from the Albanian hills. Night after night, too, the family come in to aid my blundering speech and to enjoy the rich sparkling of my faggot fire. Little Cesare, a dark-faced Italian boy, takes up his position with pencil and slate, and draws by the light of the blaze genii and castles. The old one-eyed teacher of Enrica lays his snuff box upon the table, and his handkerchief across his lap, and with his spectacles upon his nose, and his big fingers on the lesson, runs through the French tenses of the verb amare. The father, a sallow-faced, keen-eyed man, with true Italian visage, sits with his arms upon the elbows of his chair, and talks of the pope, or of the weather. A spruce count from the Marches of Ancona, wears a heavy watch seal, and reads Dante with furore. The mother, with arms akimbo, looks proudly upon her daughter, and counts her, as well she may, a gem among the Roman beauties.
The table was round, with the fire blazing on one side; there was scarce room for but three upon the other. Signor il maestro was one—then Enrica, and next—how well I remember it—came myself. For I could sometimes help Enrica to a word of French; and far oftener she could help me to a word of Italian. Her face was rich, and full of feeling; I used greatly to love to watch the puzzled expressions that passed over her forehead, as the sense of some hard phrase escaped her; and better still, to see the happy smile, as she caught at a glance, the thought of some old scholastic Frenchman, and transferred it into the liquid melody of her speech.
She had seen just sixteen summers, and only that very autumn was escaped from the thraldom of a convent, upon the skirts of Rome. She knew nothing of life, but the life of feeling; and all thoughts of happiness lay as yet in her childish hopes. It was pleasant to look upon her face; and it was still more pleasant to listen to that sweet Roman voice. What a rich flow of superlatives, and endearing diminutives, from those vermilion lips! Who would not have loved the study, and who would not have loved—without meaning it—the teacher?
In those days I did not linger long at the tables of lame Pietro in the Via Condotti: but would hurry back to my little Roman parlor—the fire was so pleasant! And it was so pleasant to greet Enrica with her mother, even before the one-eyed maestro had come in; and it was pleasant to unfold the book between us, and to lay my hand upon the page—a small page—where hers lay already. And when she pointed wrong, it was pleasant to correct her—over and over; insisting that her hand should be here, and not there, and lifting those little fingers from one page, and putting them down upon the other. And sometimes, half provoked with my fault-finding she would pat my hand smartly with hers; but when I looked in her face to know what that could mean, she would meet my eye with such a kind submission, and half earnest regret, as made me not only pardon the offense—but tempt me to provoke it again.
Through all the days of Carnival, when I rode pelted with confetti, and pelting back, my eyes used to wander up, from a long way off, to that tall house upon the Corso, where I was sure to meet, again and again, those forgiving eyes and that soft brown hair, all gathered under the little brown sombrero, set off with one pure white plume. And her hand full of bon-bons, she would shake at me threateningly; and laugh—a musical laugh—as I bowed my head to the assault, and recovering from the shower of missiles, would turn to throw my stoutest bouquet at her balcony. At night I would bear home to the Roman parlor my best trophy of the day, as a guerdon for Enrica; and Enrica would be sure to render in acknowledgment, some carefully hidden flowers, the prettiest that her beauty had won.
Sometimes upon those Carnival nights, she arrays herself in the costume of the Albanian water-carriers; and nothing, one would think, could be prettier than the laced crimson jacket, and the strange headgear with its trinkets, and the short skirts leaving to view as delicate an ankle as could be found in Rome. Upon another night, she glides into my little parlor, as we sit by the blaze, in a close velvet bodice, and with a Swiss hat caught up by a looplet of silver, and adorned with a full-blown rose—nothing you think could be prettier than this. Again, in one of her girlish freaks, she robes herself like a nun; and with the heavy black serge, for dress, and the funereal veil—relieved only by the plain white ruffle of her cap—you wish she were always a nun. But the wish vanishes, when you see her in a pure white muslin, with a wreath of orange blossoms about her forehead, and a single white rose-bud in her bosom.
Upon the little balcony Enrica keeps a pot or two of flowers, which bloom all winter long; and each morning I find upon my table a fresh rosebud; each night, I bear back for thank-offering the prettiest bouquet that can be found in the Via Conditti. The quiet fireside evenings come back; in which my hand seeks its wonted place upon her book; and my other will creep around upon the back of Enrica’s chair, and Enrica will look indignant—and then all forgiveness.
One day I received a large packet of letters—ah, what luxury to lie back in my big armchair, there before the crackling faggots, with the pleasant rustle of that silken dress beside me, and run over a second, and a third time, those mute paper missives, which bore to me over so many miles of water, the words of greeting, and of love. It would be worth traveling to the shores of the Ægean, to find one’s heart quickened into such life as the ocean letters will make. Enrica threw down her book, and wondered what could be in them—and snatched one from my hand, and looked with sad, but vain intensity over that strange scrawl. What can it be? said she; and she laid her finger upon the little half line—“Dear Paul.”
I told her it was—“Caro mio.”
Enrica laid it upon her lap and looked in my face; “It is from your mother?” said she.
“No,” said I.
“From your sister?” said she.
“Alas, no!”
“Il vostro fratello, dunque?”
“Nemmeno”—said I, “not from a brother either.”
She handed me the letter, and took up her book; and presently she laid the book down again; and looked at the letter, and then at me—and went out.
She did not come in again that evening; in the morning, there was no rose-bud on my table. And when I came at night, with a bouquet from Pietro’s at the corner, she asked me—“who had written my letter?”
“A very dear friend,” said I.
“A lady?” continued she.
“A lady,” said I.
“Keep this bouquet for her,” said she, and put it in my hands.
“But, Enrica, she has plenty of flowers; she lives among them, and each morning her children gather them by scores to make garlands of.”
Enrica put her fingers within my hand to take again the bouquet; and for a moment I held both fingers and flowers.
The flowers slipped out first.
I had a friend at Rome in that time, who afterward died between Ancona and Corinth; we were sitting one day upon a block of tufa in the middle of the Coliseum, looking up at the shadows which the waving shrubs upon the southern wall cast upon the ruined arcades within, and listening to the chirping sparrows that lived upon the wreck—when he said to me suddenly—“Paul, you love the Italian girl.”
“She is very beautiful,” said I.
“I think she is beginning to love you,” said he soberly.
“She has a very warm heart, I believe,” said I.
“Ay,” said he.
“But her feelings are those of a girl,” continued I.
“They are not,” said my friend; and he laid his hand upon my knee, and left off drawing diagrams with his cane; “I have seen, Paul, more than you of this southern nature. The Italian girl of fifteen is a woman; an impassioned, sensitive, tender creature—yet still a woman; you are loving—if you love—a full-grown heart; she is loving—if she loves—as a ripe heart should.”
“But I do not think that either is wholly true,” said I.
“Try it,” said he, setting his cane down firmly, and looking in my face.
“How?” returned I.
“I have three weeks upon my hands,” continued he. “Go with me into the Appenines; leave your home in the Corso, and see if you can forget in the air of the mountains, your bright-eyed Roman girl.”
I was pondering for an answer, when he went on: “It is better so; love as you might, that southern nature with all its passion, is not the material to build domestic happiness upon; nor is your northern habit—whatever you may think at your time of life, the one to cherish always those passionate sympathies which are bred by this atmosphere, and their scenes.”
One moment my thought ran to my little parlor, and to that fairy figure, and to that sweet angel face; and then, like lightning it traversed oceans, and fed upon the old ideal of home, and brought images to my eye of lost—dead ones, who seemed to be stirring on heavenly wings, in that soft Roman atmosphere, with greeting, and with beckoning.
—“I will go with you,” said I.
The father shrugged his shoulders, when I told him I was going to the mountains, and wanted a guide. His wife said it would be cold upon the hills, for the winter was not ended. Enrica said it would be warm in the valleys, for the spring was coming. The old man drummed with his fingers on the table, and shrugged his shoulders again, but said nothing.
My landlady said I could not ride. Cesare said it would be hard walking. Enrica asked papa, if there would be any danger. And again the old man shrugged his shoulders. Again I asked him, if he knew a man who would serve us as a guide among the Appenines; and finding me determined, he shrugged his shoulders, and said he would find one the next day.
As I passed out at evening, on my way to the Piazzo near the Monte Citorio, where stand the carriages that go out to Tivoli, Enrica glided up to me, and whispered—“Ah, mi dispiace tanto—tanto, Signor!”
