CHAPTER VII.
It was a sultry autumnal day--one of those days of early autumn when the summer seems to return and make a fierce struggle to resume its reign, when the leaves are yet green, or just tinted with the yellow hue of decay, when the grape is still ruddy on the bough, and the fig looks purple amongst its broad green leaves. The air had seemed languid and loaded all the day, as if a sirocco had been blowing, though the wind was in the west, and a hazy whiteness spread over the wide plains through which wander the Po, the Mincio, and the Adige. The silver gray cattle strayed lazily through the fields, sometimes lifting their heads, and bellowing as if for fresh cool air, sometimes plunging amongst the sedges, or actually swimming in the streams. Not a bird was seen winging its way through the air, the very beccaficos were still amongst the vines, and the horses of a large party of travellers who were approaching the banks of the Po, hung their heads, and wearily wended on, oppressed more by the languid heat of the day than by the length of the way they had travelled.
The travellers themselves, however, seemed gay and full of high spirits: the three gentlemen who rode in front jesting lightly with each other, though one was an elderly man of a staid, though somewhat feeble looking countenance: and the servants behind chattering in various languages with no very reverent lowness of tone.
"Do you remember, Hume," said one of the former, as they rode on, "our first journey by night through these plains?"
"Yes," replied the other, "and your plunging your horse into the Mincio, vowing we had all got off the high road."
"Because we had nothing but fire-flies to light us," replied Gowrie, "and Mr. Rhind took the first we saw for falling stars."
"Though there were no stars in the sky to fall," cried Hume; "or if they had fallen, they would have been caught in the thick blanket of cloud, and tossed up again."
"Well, my young friend," said meek Mr. Rhind, "they were the first I ever saw, you know, and every man may make a mistake."
"I wonder you did not take them for the burning bush," said Hume, a little irreverently; "for, my dear Rhind, you had had the Old Testament in your mouth from the moment we left Mantua, and you had paid our bill to the Moabitish woman who cheated us so fearfully. You called her by every gentile name you could muster, simply because she would have twenty scudi more than her due."
"Well, I own I loved her not," replied Mr. Rhind.
"But she did not want you to love her!" retorted Hume; "she wanted Gowrie to love her, and he would not; so she charged the twenty scudi for the disappointment; and all she wanted with you was to pay the money."
"Which I certainly would not have done, if I could have helped it," replied Mr. Rhind.
"But you could not, my dear sir," said Lord Gowrie; "depend upon it, Rhind, there is no striving against woman, circumstances, or an innkeeper's bill; and it is only waste of words and time to contest a point with either."
"I am sorry you find it so, my dear lord," replied Mr. Rhind, somewhat tartly, for he had been rather hardly pressed by his young companions' gay humour during the morning. Lord Gowrie only laughed, however, for his heart was very light. He was returning to her he loved; he had known few sorrows since his very early years, and each step of his horse's foot seemed, to hope and fancy, to bring him nearer to happiness. He could have jested at that moment good-humouredly with a fiend; and certainly Mr. Rhind did not deserve that name. The young earl, however, saw clearly that his former preceptor was somewhat annoyed, and he consequently changed the subject, stretching out his hand, and saying, "Behold the mighty Po. I know not how it is, but this river, about the part where we are now, though less in course and in volume than either the Rhine, the Rhone, or the Danube, always gives me more the idea of a great river than they do. Perhaps it may be even from the lack of beautiful scenery. With the others we lose the grandeur of the river in the grandeur of its banks. Here the broad stream comes upon us in the dead flat plain, without anything to distract the attention or engage the eye. I am inclined to believe that a river, as a river, is always more striking when there is no other great object to be seen."
"And yet to me," said Hume, "the ocean itself, simply as the ocean, without storms to lash it into magnificent fury, or rocky shores to hem it in, like a defending and attacking army, but seen from a plain sandy shore upon a calm day, is not half so sublime a sight as poets and enthusiasts would have us believe. There is a great deal of quackery in poetry, don't you think so, Gowrie? Poets bolster themselves and one another up with associations and images, till they believe things to be very sublime, which abstractedly are very insignificant. I remember once standing upon a low beach, and putting the whole sea out, by holding up a kerchief at arm's length. I have never since been able to think it sublime except during a storm."
"Take care how you try other things by such standards," said Gowrie; "I am afraid, my dear Hume, that the same kerchief would have equally reduced the finest, the noblest, and the best of all the things of earth. It is he who extends his vision, not he who contracts it, that learns to judge things most finely, and also, I believe, most really."
As these words were passing, they were slowly approaching the banks of the great river, which at that spot is broader perhaps than at any other point of its course. The land on either side was bare and dusty, and the heat became more and more intense from the want of verdure around. At length a proposal was made that instead of crossing at once in the ferry boat, and pursuing their journey on horseback from the other side, they should hire a boat and drop down to Occhiobello, leaving the horses and grooms to rest for an hour or two at Massa, and then follow down the stream in the course of the evening, when the weather would be less sultry. The proposal came from Mr. Rhind, who was evidently a good deal fatigued; and the Earl of Gowrie, ever anxious to contribute as much as possible to his old tutor's comfort, acceded at once, although the plan might cause a few hours' delay, and he was anxious to hasten on as fast as possible, impelled by love and the expectation of speedily meeting her for whom his affection seemed but to increase by absence. There was some difficulty, indeed, in procuring a boat; for although the large ferry-boat, which, like Charon's, had carried over many a generation, was lying at its accustomed mooring place, yet no small boats were near, and they had to ride slowly down the bank of the stream for more than a mile before they came to a village where they could procure what they wanted. There, however, they engaged a small skiff of a rude kind, then commonly used by the peasantry; the three gentlemen embarked without any of their attendants; and the boatmen, after a little consultation amongst themselves, put off from the shore.
"What were you talking about just now while you were looking at the sky every minute?" asked Lord Gowrie, in Italian, addressing the master of the boat.
"We were saying that we should not get back without a storm, signor," replied the man. "I should not wonder if we had to stay at Occhiobello to-night, for when the Po is angry she is a thorough lion."
"I hope the storm will not come before we land," said Mr. Rhind, who was of a timid and unadventurous nature.
His two young companions only laughed, teazing him a little with regard to his fears, for they were at that age when a portion of danger is the sauce of life, giving a higher flavour to enjoyment. The boatmen assured the old gentleman that the storm would not come till evening; and away they went down the full quick stream, having for the first half hour the same hot and glaring sun above them, shining with undiminished force through the thin haze which lay upon the landscape. If they expected to find fresher air upon the water they were mistaken, for not a breath of wind rippled the current of the stream, and the reflection of the light from its broad glassy current rendered the heat more intense and scorching than on the land. Sir John Hume amused himself by taking Mr. Rhind to task for the bad success of his plan; but Lord Gowrie good-humouredly remarked, that at all events they were saved the trouble of riding. The boat dropped down the stream more rapidly than usual, for there was a large body of water in the river at the time, and the current was exceedingly fierce; but at the end of about a quarter of an hour the wind suddenly changed to the southeast, and blowing directly against the course of the eager waters, tossed them into waves as if on the sea. The change was so sudden--from almost a perfect calm, with the bright smooth glassy river hastening on unrippled towards the Adriatic, to a gale of wind and a wild fierce turbulent torrent--that good Mr. Rhind was nearly thrown off his seat, and showed manifest symptoms of apprehension. The boatmen showed no alarm, however, and Lord Gowrie and Sir John Hume contented themselves with looking up towards the sky, which in the zenith was becoming mottled with gray and white, while to windward some heavy black masses of cloud were seen rising rapidly in strange fantastic shapes. The air was as sultry as before, however, and after blowing for about a quarter of an hour sufficiently hard to retard the progress of the travellers very much, the wind suddenly fell altogether, and a perfect calm succeeded. The waters of the river still remained as much agitated as ever, and Lord Gowrie called the attention of Hume to a very peculiar appearance in the sky to the south.
"Do you see that mass of leaden gray cloud, Hume?" he said, "lying upon the black expanse behind. See how strangely it twists itself into different forms, as if torn with some mortal agony."
"Agony enough," answered Sir John Hume, "for the poor cloud looks as if it had the cholic; but I have remarked that it always is so when the wind is in the southeast. We shall see presently if there be thunder or anything else, for it is nothing strange to witness a conflict of the elements at this season of the year, especially in this dry and arid country, where the sun seems to reign supreme, without one green blade of grass to refresh the eye, or one cheering sound to raise a heart not utterly deprived of feeling for its fellow creatures."
The young gentleman spoke in English; but the elder boatman, a man who had numbered many years, and who with his three sons was now still following the profession in which he had been bred in his early youth, seemed to remark the direction of his eyes, and to divine the subject of his thoughts and conversation. "Ah, sir," he said, "I should not wonder if there were an earthquake before night. You are staring at that queer-looking cloud; and I have rarely seen such a fellow as that, working away as if it were twisting itself into all sorts of shapes rather than begin the devastation, without its ending in something very sharp."
The two young men, who comprehended every word, though spoken in the broad Mantuan dialect, looked at each other in silence; but Mr. Rhind, who, notwithstanding his long residence in Italy, had with difficulty mastered the common terms of the language, remained silent, merely observing, "Well, it is pleasant that the wind has gone down, although the river is still tossing about in a strange way; I am half-inclined to be sick as if I were at sea."
Half an hour passed without the prognostication of the fisherman being fulfilled. The same lull in the air, the same agitation of the water continued; Occhiobello was in sight, and the sun was sinking far away over the Piedmontese hills, surrounded by a leaden purple colour, in which it was difficult to say whether the dull stormy gray or the crimson glow of evening predominated. In the south, the same heavy clouds were seen, somewhat higher than when the wind fell, cutting hard upon the blue sky overhead; and the large mass of vapour, the peculiar appearance of which I have already mentioned, lay contorting itself into a thousand different forms every moment. On the right bank, not far behind them, when they looked back, the travellers could see their horses and servants coming at an easy pace down the course of the stream, the slow progress of the boat having given an advantage to the party on land; and in front, a little more than half way between them and Occhiobello, a row boat was perceived crossing the broad river from the left bank to the right, apparently with great difficulty, and heavily laden.
"That is Mantini's boat," said one of the boatmen to the other.
"Ay, he'll get himself into a scrape some day," said the old man. "You see he's got horses in it now!"
"How is that likely to get him into a scrape?" asked Lord Gowrie. "Is the boat not fitted for horses?"
"Oh yes, signor," replied the man; "but it is not that I spoke of. The law says, no boat shall carry horses, oxen, or asses, except the regular ferry boats."
"Few would get across, then, by any other conveyance," said Sir John Hume; "for this infernal tossing is beginning to make me think that none but asses, would go in a small boat when they could get a big one. Come, row on, row on, my men; for if you lose time grinning at my joke, I shall not take it as a compliment."
The men put their strength to the oar, and the boat flew on a good deal more rapidly; for a gay good-humoured manner will always do more with an Italian than either promises or commands. The boat before them was rather more than half way across the river, while they, in the mid-stream, were rapidly approaching it, when suddenly the old boatman, starting up, pushed his way to the stern between the earl and Mr. Rhind, and thrust his oar deep in the water, somewhat in the fashion of a rudder, exclaiming, "It is coming, by St. Antony! keep her head on, boys--keep her head on!" and looking out along the course of the stream, Lord Gowrie saw a wave rushing up against the current, not unlike that which, under the name of the Mascaré, proves so frequently fatal to boats in Dordogne. Towards the middle of the river, the height of this watery wall, as it seemed to be, was not less than seven or eight feet, though near the banks it was much less, and all along the top was an overhanging crest of foam, snow-white, like an edge of curling plumes. A loud roar accompanied it; and the fierce hurricane, which was probably the cause of the phenomenon, seemed to precede the billow it had raised by some forty or fifty yards; for the heavy-laden boat which they had seen, and which, having approached much nearer the bank, was much less exposed to the force of the rushing wave than their own, was in an instant capsized by the violence of the blast, and every one it contained cast into the rushing water.
Horses and men were seen struggling in the stream; and with horror the earl beheld a woman's garments also. "Towards the bank!--towards the bank!" he cried, "to give them help;" but the boatmen paid not the least attention, and scarcely had the words quitted his mouth when the wind struck their boat also. One of the young men, who had been standing up, was cast headlong into the bottom of the bark; those who were seated could hardly resist the fury of the gale; and the next instant the wall of water struck them with such force, that instead of rising over it, as the old boatman had hoped, the skiff filled in a moment, and went down.
For an instant the Earl of Gowrie saw nothing but the green flashing light of the wave, and heard nothing but the roaring of the water in his ears; but accustomed from his infancy to breast the dangerous billows of the Firth of Tay, he struck boldly out, rising to the surface, with very little alarm for himself or for his companion Hume, whom he knew to be a practised swimmer also. His first thought was for his good old preceptor; but he soon saw that Mr. Rhind was even in a better condition than himself, having somehow got possession of an oar, over which he had cast his arms, so as both to hold it fast, and to keep his head and shoulders out of water. The old boatman and his two sons were seen at some little distance striking away towards the shore; and Hume, never losing his merriment even in the moment of the greatest peril, shouted loudly, "Get to land, Gowrie--get to land! I will pilot Rhind to the bank, if he will but keep his helm down, and his prow as near the wind as possible."
As Hume was much nearer to the worthy tutor, Lord Gowrie followed his advice; but the first two strokes which he took towards the land, drifting, as he did so, part of the way down the stream, showed him at a few yards' distance a scene of even greater interest than that which actually surrounded him. It was that of the boat which had been capsized by the first rush of the hurricane. It had not sunk at once as his own smaller craft had done, and one or two men were clinging to a part of it which appeared above the water. Close by, a horse's head and neck protruded above the stream; and the hoofs were seen beating the water furiously, in the poor animal's violent efforts to reach the land. Considerably nearer to the earl was a group of three persons, two men and a woman. One of the men, only a few feet distant from the others, and apparently but little practised in the art of swimming, was struggling furiously, with energetic efforts, to reach a better swimmer, who was not only making his own way towards the shore, but supporting coolly and steadily with his left hand the head and shoulders of the girl beside him. She herself was dressed in the garb of a peasant; but a feeling of terror indescribable seized upon the earl, when in the face of the man who supported her he recognised the features of his own servant, Austin Jute. He saw in an instant that if the drowning man once caught hold of them, all three must inevitably perish; and swimming towards them as fast as possible, he shouted, "To the shore, Austin--to the shore! Don't let him reach you, or you're lost!"
"Here, take her, my lord," cried Austin Jute--"take her, and leave me to settle with him. Drowning men catch at a straw; and he has got hold of one of the tags of my jerkin--in God's name take her quick, or he'll have us all down!"
As he spoke the earl reached his side. He asked no questions, for one look at the girl's face before him was enough. The dark eyes were closed. The long black hair floated in ringlets on the water, and the face was very pale, but the small fair hands were clasped together on the breast, as if with a strong effort to resist an almost overpowering inclination to grasp at the objects near.
"She lives," thought the earl, cheered by that sign; and placing his hand under her shoulders he bade the servant let go his hold. Then, with no more exertion than was needful to support himself and her in the water, and to guide them in an oblique line towards the shore, he suffered the stream to bear them on. The only peril that remained was to be encountered in passing the boat, where the horse was still struggling furiously; but that was safely avoided, and then, confident in his own strength and skill, the earl made more directly for the bank, and reached it just as the sun was disappearing in the west. For one so young, Lord Gowrie had known in life both very bitter sorrow and very intense joy; but nothing that he had ever felt was at all to be compared with his sensations at the moment when, after staggering up the bank with Julia in his arms, he placed her on the dry turf at the foot of a mulberry tree, and gazed upon her fair face as she lay with the eyes still closed.
"Julia," he said, "Julia;" and then everything gave way to joy as she faintly opened her eyes and unclasped her hands. The bright purple light of evening was streaming around them, and glancing through the vine leaves which garlanded the trees. There was no one there but themselves; and with warm and passionate joy he kissed her fair cheek again and again, and wrung the water from her hair, and bound the long tresses round her ivory brow, while, with wild words of tenderness and love, he poured forth the mingled expression of joy and apprehension and thankfulness. For a moment or two she did not speak. I know not indeed whether it was terror, or exhaustion, or the overpowering emotions of the moment that kept her silent; but even when she could find words they were at first but two, "Oh, Gowrie!"
A moment after they were joined by Sir John Hume and Mr. Rhind, and, looking up the stream, Gowrie saw a group of several persons on the bank, busy apparently in helping sufferers out of the water.
"Did you see my man Austin, Hume?" asked the earl, after some other words had passed, of that quick and whirling kind by which moments of much agitation are followed.
"Oh yes, he is safe," answered Hume. "Indeed, you need not have asked the question, he'll not drown easily, though another fellow near him did his best to prevent him keeping his head above water."
"It was that which alarmed me for him," replied the earl; "and I owe him too much this day, Hume, not to feel anxious for his safety. Are you sure he reached the shore?"
"Quite sure," replied his friend, "and I trust that there are not many lost from amongst us. Fair lady," he continued, taking Julia's hand, "I rejoice indeed to see you safe, and if Gowrie will take my advice, and you can find strength to walk, he will lead you at once to the little town down there, where you can dry your wet garments and obtain some refreshment and repose."
As the young knight spoke, Mr. Rhind turned an inquiring glance to Lord Gowrie's face, as if he would fain have asked who the beautiful creature before him was, and what was her connexion with his former pupil. The earl did not remark the expression, however; but Julia called his attention away by touching his hand and making a sign to him to bend down his head. He did so at once, and after listening to a few whispered but eager words, he said aloud, "No, we will not go to Occhiobello. There is a village up there; it will do well enough. Have you strength to go, Julia? If not, we will either get or make a litter for you."
She rose, feebly, however, and though feeling faint and giddy, declared that she was quite capable of walking. "Let us see first," she added, "if all the people are saved. It would darken the joy of our own escape if any of the rest were lost."
"Here comes your man Jute," said Sir John Hume, addressing the earl. "He will tell us how the others have fared."
They walked on a little way to meet the man who was approaching; and as soon as he was within ear shot the earl called to him, inquiring if all were safe.
"Two have gone to the bottom, my good lord," replied Austin; "the master of our own boat for one, and the same fellow who tried so hard to drag me down with him. For the former I am sorry enough; for he seemed a good cheerful-minded man; but for the latter I don't care a rush; and, to say truth, I believe he may be as well where he is. He followed us down to the boat, my lord," continued Jute, in a whisper to the earl, "and jumped in, willy nilly, just as we were putting off. I've a great notion he had no good will to my young lady, for he kept his eyes fixed upon us the whole time, as if ready to make a spring at us as soon as we got out of the boat."
"You must tell me more by and by," said the earl. "Now let us forward."
Thus saying, with Julia's arm drawn through his own, he walked slowly on towards the group which was standing on the bank, while Hume followed, conversing with Mr. Rhind, whom he seemed to be teazing by exciting his curiosity in regard to Julia, without satisfying him by a single word. Such broken sentences as, "Oh, very beautiful indeed. Don't you think so?--Quite a mystery altogether--I can tell you nothing about it, for I know nothing--Gowrie has known her a long time--Her name? Lord bless you! my dear sir, I don't know her name, I hardly know my own sometimes--" reached Gowrie's ear from time to time, and brought a serious smile upon his lip. At length, however, they approached the group upon the bank, and found the whole of the Italians much more taken up with grief for the various losses they had sustained than with joy at their own escape from a watery grave. The brother of the man Mantini, who had been drowned, was sitting upon the sand, pouring forth a mixture of strange lamentations, sometimes for the boat, sometimes for his brother. The other old fisherman and his two sons were wringing their hands, and bemoaning the ruinous accident which had befallen them. The old man could not be comforted; and his sons seemed to increase the paroxysms of his grief from time to time by recapitulating the various perfections of their little craft, and the sums of money which had been expended upon her. Lord Gowrie, however, contrived very speedily to tranquillize their somewhat clamorous grief by saying, "Do not wring your hands so, my good man; you lost your boat in my service, and the best you can buy or build to replace it, you shall have at my cost. Show us now the way to that village, for I see no path towards it; and come and see whether you can procure some lodging for us there during the night. I dare say you know most of the good people there, and can tell us where we can find rest and provisions."
The old man declared that the best of everything was to be found at the village, though there was a better inn, he said, at Occhiobello, which was not above three quarters of a mile farther.
"That makes all the difference to the lady," replied the earl; "and we shall do very well at the village for the night."
He then approached the younger Mantini, and attempted to comfort him as he had done the other boatman, by promising to pay the amount of his loss.
"That wont buy back my brother," said the man, sadly. "I should not have cared a straw about the old boat if it had not been for that."
"That is God's doing, not man's," replied the earl; "and man cannot undo it. This should be some comfort, for he deals better for us than we could deal for ourselves; but think of what I have said, and let me know the expense of a new boat, this night at the village there. Can you tell who was the other unfortunate man who has been drowned?"
"His name I don't know," answered the boatman; "but when I wanted to keep him out of the boat, which was too heavy laden as it was, he whispered that he was a messenger of the holy office, and told me to refuse him a passage at my peril. He brought a curse into our boat, I trow, or we should not have had such a storm; but there is no use of my sitting here and watching the water. Two horses and two men have gone down beside the boat, and no one will ever rise again till the last trumpet calls them out of the grave. I may as well go with you to the village as sit here watching the water that rolls over them all;" and getting up, he followed the rest of the party with his hands behind his back, in dull and silent grief.