CHAPTER VI.
"Tony," cried the page, standing in the gateway of the Golden Stag, and turning half-round towards a sort of covered half-enclosed shed or booth in the court yard, where the English servant, who had accompanied the two travellers on their journey to Heidelberg, was cleaning a pair of his master's silver stirrups, "here's a man inquiring for my lord, and I cannot make out a word that he says."
"What does he want?" cried Tony from the shed, rubbing away as hard as if his life depended upon making the stirrups look brighter than the groom had been able to render them.
"I can't tell," replied the boy; "but he seems to want to give me a hundred crowns."
"Take them, take them," rejoined the man, sagaciously, "and ask no questions. I'll tell you what, Frill, always take gold when you can get it. It comes slow, goes fast, and calls no man master long: a very changeable servant; but a very useful one, while we have him; and there is no fear of his growing old in our service. Don't let the man know you can speak French, or he might put you to disagreeable interrogatories. Pocket and be silent; it is the way many a man becomes great in this world."
The advice was given in that sort of bantering tone, which showed evidently that it was not intended to be strictly followed; and the page, taking the crowns, held them up before the eyes of the man who brought them, saying: "For Algernon Grey?"
"Ja, Ja!" said the German servant; "for Algernon Grey;" and, adding a word or two more, which might have been Syriac for aught the page knew, he withdrew, leaving the money in the boy's hands.
As soon as he was gone, Freville or Frill, as he was familiarly termed by the household, walked back to where his companion was at work, and quietly counted over the money upon the loose board which formed the only table of the shed.
"I must give this to some one to keep, till my lord's return," he said; "will you take care of it, Tony?"
"Not I," replied the servant; "I repeat the Lord's Prayer every morning and evening; the first time, to keep me out of temptation by day; the second, to defend me against it by night--I'll have none of it, Master Frill; it is a good sum, and too much for any poor man's pocket, especially where the plaket-hole is wide and the bottom somewhat leaky."
"I will take it up to Sir William, then," said the boy; "for I won't keep it myself. It would be risking my lord's money sadly. Even now my fingers begin to feel somewhat sticky, as if I had been handling the noses of horse-chestnut buds."
"Get you gone, for a graceless young villain," answered Tony; "what have you to do with the noses of other men's children; you will have enough to do with your own, if I guess right; but, as to the money, methinks it is quite as safe in your pocket, as Sir William's."
"Why, you don't think he would keep it, Tony?" said the page in an inquiring tone.
"As to keeping it," answered Tony, "that's as it may be. He never could keep his own, therefore why should he keep other people's; but between you and I, Frill--" and he dropped his voice as if he did not wish to be overheard--"our young lord is not likely to gain much by Sir William's company. We did very well without him; and though he may not choose to pick my lord's pocket of hard gold, he may take from him what gold will not buy. I have a strange notion, somehow, that it was not altogether for love he came. If it were, why did not he come long before? But I remember him well, when he was a boy; and he was a cunning devil then; as full of mischief as a pistachio-nut. Why he hung the buttery hatch with a wire like a bird-trap; and the moment old Jonas put his hand out, it fell and nearly chopped off his fingers."
This was a jest just fitted to the meridian of a boy's understanding; and he burst into a fit of laughter at the anecdote.
"Ay, ay," continued Tony, "it would have passed as a wild lad's fun, if we had not known that he had a spite at Jonas, who, one day, when he was thirsty, refused him a cup of hypocras that he wanted, and would only give him a jug of ale.--But who in the name of silks and satins, is this peeping about the court on the tips of his toes, with rosettes and sword-knots enough to swallow him up? It is a page of the court, I do believe. To him, Frill, to him! Speak French to this one, for he looks as if he had been dieted on comfits and spiced wine; and nothing will go down with him, depend upon it, unless it be garnished with French tongue."
Following the suggestion of his companion, Frill advanced, and the two pages met in the midst of the court-yard, where they stood bowing and complimenting each other, with an extravagance of courtesy which had nearly overpowered good Tony with laughter.
"My heavens! what a pair of monkeys," he exclaimed. "Take away their cloaks, and stick a tail through their satin breeches, and you have got the beast as perfect as at a puppet-show. Look at that little monster Frill, if he has not wriggled himself into an attitude in which he cannot stand while I count four. There, 'tis all over; and now he twists to the other side.--What does he want, Frill?" he continued, raising his voice; "talk to him, boy, and don't stand there grinning like a cat-ape."
"He comes down from the castle," answered Frill, turning round, very well satisfied with the graces he had been displaying, "to ask my lord and Sir William to join the court in a progress to Schönau."
"Tell him Master Algernon Grey is out, and Heaven knows when he will be back again," exclaimed Tony, who was wearied with the courtly air of the pages. "What does the devil's foal say now?" he continued, when Frill had rendered the reply he dictated, and received a speech and a low bow in return.
"He says I must tell Master William Lovet then," replied the page; and conducting the other youth ceremoniously back to the threshold of the gateway, he took leave of him after some farther civil speeches on the one part, and directions on the other.
"There, go and tell Sir William," said Tony, when the boy rejoined him, "and lay the money on the table in our lord's room.--And hark you, Frill, you may as well keep an eye on Sir William's doings; I've doubts, Frill, I have doubts; and I should like to know what he is seeking; for I can't help thinking there's more under his jerkin than God's will and a good conscience."
"If I thought he meant my lord any harm," answered the boy, boldly, "I'd drive my dagger into him."
"Pooh! nonsense; prick him with a needle or a cobbler's awl," answered Tony, "you'd only let him blood and make him more feverish towards spring time. No, no, my boy, he'll give no cause for offence; but a man may do more harm sometimes with a simple word than a drawn sword--I'll watch him well, however; do you so, too; and if you find out anything, let me know.--Now, away with you, away with you, and tell the good man above; for if he do not make haste, he will not be in time, and then your young bones are likely to suffer."
The page turned to obey, but he had scarcely reached the archway, when William Lovet issued forth, descending from above, and called loudly for his horse.
The page's communication, however, seemed to make an alteration in his purpose; and after pausing for a moment or two to think, he re-entered the house, ordering everything to be prepared for him to join the train of Frederic and Elizabeth, as soon as he heard them coming down the hill.
William Lovet was a very different man in the solitude of his own chamber and in the company of his cousin. He now waited some twenty minutes, expecting almost every moment to hear the approach of the cavalcade, which was to pass before the windows; but he showed no impatience, no lover-like haste to join the lady at whose suggestion he doubted not the invitation had been given. Sitting at the table, with his hat cast down and his sword taken out of the belt, he leaned his head upon his hand, and seemed buried in meditation. His brow was contracted, and heavy with apparently gloomy thought; and his hand played with the curls of his long dark hair unconsciously. Like many men of strong passions, who set a careful guard upon their tongue when any other human being is near to hear and comment on their words, but feel painfully the restraint then put upon themselves, he was apt, as if for relief, to suffer the secret counsels of his heart to break forth at times, when he felt perfectly certain they would reach no other ear but his own. And this was one of those moments when the workings of strong purposes within him, forced him to give way to the dangerous habit. It was no long continued monologue that he spoke, no loud and vehement outburst of passion; but broken fragments of sentences--as if a portion of his thoughts would clothe themselves in words, and were suddenly checked before they were complete--came forth muttered and disjointed from his lips.
"It must do this time," he said; and then he fell into thought again, continuing, in about a minute after, "If it do not, means must be found to make it--the time is very short--In another year he goes back--To think of his having wasted full four years amongst all that could tempt a man!--He must be a stone--but he is touched now, or I am mistaken--I must get this woman to help me--make her a tool when she thinks herself a conqueror! Ha! ha! ha!" and he laughed aloud. "I will never leave it till it is finished.--It may cost a good deal yet; for he is not easily led, that's clear.--Example, example! That has been always wanting. We will accustom his mind to it--break him like a young colt that first flies from the hand, but soon suffers every child to pat him.--Ay, he is in the high road, if he do not take flight and dart off; but surely, in the wide world of accidents, we shall find something, which, improved by skilful management, will keep him here till that same glittering web of golden threads, called love's net, is round him--then let the poor stag struggle, and pant, and toss about, he will not easily break through, and the prize is mine."
His farther thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. "Come in," he said; and then exclaimed, in surprise, as the very object of his contemplation stood before him, "Why, Algernon, you have become mighty ceremonious."
"Nay," answered Algernon Grey, laughing, "I thought you were not alone; for I heard one voice speaking, at least; and with a gentleman of your pursuits, one can never tell how inopportune a visit may be."
"Pshaw!" cried Lovet; "'tis a bad habit I have from my mother. We rash and thoughtless folks, unlike you calm and cautious ones, cannot keep the secrets of our bosom in the safe casket of the heart. We must speak out our thoughts, whatever they may be; and, if we can find no other man to tell them to, we tell them to ourselves."
"The safest confidant by far," answered Algernon Grey. "What now, boy?" he continued, turning to the page, who had followed him into the room, and was waiting at hand for an opportunity to speak.
"May it please you, noble sir," replied the page, "a man, with a badge upon his arm, brought hither a hundred crowns, whence or why I could not make out, for he had neither French nor English; but he said Algernon Grey well enough; and so I laid them in your chamber."
"I understand," replied his master; "what more?"
"A page from the court, sir," answered the boy; "a very gallant youth, full of fine essences and rich conceits, with satin in abundance, and no lack of ribands----"
"On my life! he must have been your counterpart, Frill," exclaimed his master, laughing; and, turning to his companion, he added: "This boy has been studying Sydney or Lilly, or some high-flown writer. Well, most delicate Frill, what said your delicate friend?"
"He brought a message, noble sir," replied the page, "inviting Messieurs Algernon Grey and William Lovet to join the cavalcade of the court, going joyously to Schönau. They were to pass by the inn in half an hour."
"And, pray, how did this ingenuous youth deliver himself?" asked Algernon Grey.
"Oh! with marvellous fineness, my lord," replied the page, "with every courteous invention that his genius could suggest."
"But the tongue, Master Frill, the tongue?" cried Algernon; "if you could not understand one man, how could you understand the other?"
"He spoke French, my lord, with the utmost perfection," replied the boy.
"Come, Algernon, you are wasting time," exclaimed Lovet; "order your horses and your people, or you will be too late."
Algernon Grey mused for a single instant, and then replied: "I do not go, William."
"Nay, not go!" exclaimed his friend. "Why, you cannot help yourself, unless you would be called the Great Bear of England. In every country of the world such an invitation from the prince is considered a command."
"What reply did you make, Frill?" asked the boy's master.
"I said what Tony told me," replied the page, namely, "'Master Algernon Grey is out, and Heaven knows when he will return.'"
"I shall not go, William," repeated the young gentleman, in a thoughtful tone; "I have my own reasons, and assuredly I do not ride to-day."
"Then you are either going to fight a duel, make love, or, in the silent and tender solitude of your chamber in an inn, give yourself up to sweet meditation of your lady's ankles," replied William Lovet, resuming his usual bantering tone. "Methinks, I see you, sitting with the indicator digit of your dexter hand pressed softly on the delicate cheek of youth, the eyebrow raised, one eye to heaven, the other to earth, with a slight poetical squint upon your countenance, and your bosom heaving sighs like a pot of hot broth.--Come, come, Algernon, cast off these humours, or turn anchorite at once. Live like other men, and don't go about the world as if your grandmother's brocade petticoat were hanging for ever over your head, like an extinguisher, putting out the flame of youth, and health, and strength, and love, and life. Look about you; see if you can find one single man, of your own age, bearing willingly about upon his shoulders scruples enough to cram a pedlar's pack full of wares, as flimsy and worthless as any it ever contained. Be a man, be a man! Surely, your boyhood is past; and you have no longer to fear the pedagogue's rod, if you stray a little beyond the tether of your mother's apron-string."
Algernon Grey smiled calmly, but merely nodded his head, saying: "I shall not go, Lovet, and all the less for a laugh. If I could be turned from my purposes by a jest, I should think myself a boy, indeed. You will find that out at last, good friend. But, hark, there are the trumpets; get you gone, and good fortune attend you. Call out his horse, Frill, that he may not imitate my sullen boorishness, and keep the princely party waiting."
"Well," cried Lovet, shrugging his shoulders, "most reverend cousin, I will wish you a good morning. In your solemn prayers and devout outpourings of the heart, remember your poor sinful cousin, and especially petition that he may never see the evil of his ways, nor let one pleasure slip from him that fortune offers to his lip. It is a devout prayer; for if I did not enjoy myself I should do something much worse; and the devil would not only have me in the end, but in the beginning. Adieu, adieu! Here they come; I hear the clatter;" and running to the door he closed it sharply behind him, while Algernon Grey, without approaching too near, turned to the window and gazed out into the market-place.
The next instant a gay and splendid train swept up, preceded by two trumpeters in gorgeous liveries. Magnificent horses, many-coloured apparel, gold and embroidery, graceful forms, and joyous bearing, rendered the party one which any young heart might have been glad to join; but the eye of Algernon Grey ran over the various groups of which it was composed, seemingly seeking some particular object, with a curious and inquiring glance. It rested principally on the various female figures of the princess's train; but almost all the ladies wore the small black mask, or loup, then common at the court of France, and sometimes, though not so frequently, seen in England. The heat of the day and the power of the sun gave them a fair excuse, in the care of their complexions, for adopting a mode most favourable to intrigue; and, whoever it might be that the young gentleman's eye sought for in the cavalcade, he could not ascertain, with any certainty, which she was.
The etiquette of the court prevented the train from stopping for any of the expected party; but, before it had defiled towards the bridge, the horse of William Lovet dashed forward from the gateway; and, after a low reverence to the Elector, he fell back and attached himself to the side of one of the ladies in the train, who greeted him with a playful nod.
Algernon Grey seated himself at the table, leaned his head thoughtfully upon his hand, and remained in that position for nearly a quarter of an hour.
"No," he said, at length, "no, I will not risk her happiness or my own--I will not do it again--it has been once too often."
He rose as he spoke, and after giving some orders to his servants, strolled down to the river's side, and there, hiring a rude bark, many of which were moored to the bank, he directed the boatman to let it drop slowly down the stream. The hours passed dully, though he was not one of those to whom the silent commune of the heart with itself is wearisome. But there was a cause why that calm meditation, in which he had often found true pleasure, was not now a resource. He tried to cast it off, to fix his mind upon subjects foreign to that upon which his heart was resolved to dwell; and the struggle to escape from an ever recurring object of thought is always heavy labour. Still the hours flew, though with a flagging wing; and when he calculated that the time of his promised visit to Colonel Herbert at the castle was approaching he returned to the town, and making some change in his apparel, walked slowly up the hill.
The sun was indeed declining, but when he reached the gates of the castle, which stood open, the clock in the bridge tower struck seven, and showed him that he was earlier on the way than he had proposed to be. "Well," he thought, "it matters not. The great and the gay are all absent, and I can stroll about the gardens and courts till the hour comes. Doubtless they will give me admission."
He found no difficulty in gaining entrance, and a servant, of whom he inquired for the lodging of Colonel Herbert, courteously accompanied him across the court-yard, saying he would point it out. Entering the building at the further angle of the court, they passed under the arcade of three stages near the Knights' hall, and then through a long stone passage, to the foot of a flight of steps in the open air, above the highest of which, on a level with his own breast, Algernon Grey saw a wide stone platform, like that of an enormous rampart, surrounded by a balustrade flanked by two small octagon turrets. The tops of the mountains on the other side of the Neckar appeared above the balustrade, the clear blue sky was seen over head, and the evening song of one of the autumn-singing birds made itself heard from the castle gardens, rising clear and melodious over the dull hum which came up from the city below.
"I am half an hour before my time," said the young gentleman to the servant, "and if you will just point out to me which is Colonel Herbert's lodging, I will wait here till the hour appointed. I may as well pass the minutes in this pleasant place as any where else."
"This is the Altan, sir," replied the man; "the view from it is greatly admired; and if you turn to the right at the end, it will lead you by the only passage there to a door in the first tower--you see it there. The English knight's lodging is above, and you cannot miss your way. You might, indeed, go round by the arsenal; but the sentinel will not let you pass, unless I am with you."
"Oh, I shall find it easily, I doubt not," answered the young Englishman; and adding thanks, and a substantial token thereof, he mounted the steps and walked slowly forward to the parapet, while a crowd of the beautiful objects which only nature's treasury can display, rushed upon his eyes in dream-like splendour. Hardly had the first feeling of admiration been felt, however, when a slight exclamation of surprise uttered close to him made him turn his head towards one of the two small octagon turrets which stood at either extreme end of the Altan.
The door was open, and he beheld coming forward a female figure which it required but one look to recognise. There was a well-pleased smile upon her countenance, bland, frank, and simple. She saw her agreeable companion of the night before; she remembered with satisfaction, and without one agitating thought, the pleasant hours she had spent with him, and advanced gaily and gladly to meet him, only conscious of friendship and esteem.
Algernon Grey was better read in the world than his companion Lovet believed--aye, even in its most difficult page, the heart of woman.
Nevertheless, though he marked the lady's manner, and instantly drew conclusions from it, those conclusions were not altogether just. He saw that straightforward well-pleased look--the free and unembarrassed air, and he said within his heart,--"She at least is in no danger. It is for myself I must beware."
The courtesies of life, however, were not to be omitted; and, though with a grave look, he met his fair companion with the usual salutations of the morning, proposing to himself to speak a few words, and then withdraw. But there are as strong attractions as those of the magnet for the needle; and, once by her side, resolution failed.
"I am very glad to see you," she said, with the same beaming look; "I had come out hither for a solitary walk upon the Altan while the court is absent, and little thought of having a companion who can enjoy this scene as I do."
"How comes it you are not with the gay party?" asked Algernon Grey; "I thought all the world had gone."
"But you and I," answered the lady, "and one whom you have not seen, but whom you should know before you leave this place; for a wiser or a kinder being does not live than the Electress Dowager, Louisa Juliana. No, I stayed to read to and amuse her; for she has been ill lately--what with some anxiety and some sorrow. She would not let me remain longer, or I would gladly have done so; for she has been as a mother to me when I most needed a mother's care--and what can I ever do to repay her?"
"Love her," answered the young Englishman; "that is the repayment from noble heart to noble heart. But this is indeed a splendid view! What a confusion of magnificent objects present themselves at once to the eye, with the sun setting over yon wide plain and those golden hills beyond."
"Ay," answered Agnes, following with her eyes the direction in which he pointed, "and those golden hills hide in their bosom, as in a rich casket, a thousand jewels. There is not a valley amongst them that is not rich in loveliness, not a hill or craggy steep that does not bear up some castle or abbey, some legend of old times, or some deep history. Can you not mark, too, the current of the glorious Rhine, the King of Europe's streams, as he flows onward there?--No? Beside those towers, you catch a glistening of the waters as they pour forward to revel in the magnificence beyond."
"I see," answered Algernon Grey, "I always love the Rhine, with its vine-covered hills and castled rocks and its storied memories. Its course seems to me like that of some fine old poem, where, in even flow, and amidst images of beauty, the mind is led on with ever varying delight till in the end it falls into calm, solemn, contemplative repose."
"I know little of poetry or poets," replied Agnes. "Some, indeed, I have read, especially some of the Italian poets, and they are very beautiful, it is true; but I fancy it is better to know the poem than the poet, the work rather than the writer--at least so it has been with all those I have seen."
"It is true, I believe," said Algernon Grey, "our thoughts are generally more poetic than our actions, almost always than our demeanour; invariably, I may say, than our persons; and when we remember, that the highest quality of the human mind places before us in a poem only that which mature and deliberate judgment pronounces to be the best of its fruits, it is not wonderful that the man should seem less, when we can see him near, than the poem gave us cause to expect."
In such conversation as this, of an elaborate and somewhat didactic turn, the young Englishman thought himself perfectly safe. He fancied he could discuss poetry and poems, beautiful scenery, the grand works of nature or of art, with the loveliest being ever eye beheld, without the slightest danger to himself or others. Unwarned by the fate of Beatrice and her lover, or of Abelard and his pupil, he fancied that on such cold and general themes, he could discourse in safety, even with the fair creature beside him; but he forgot, that through the whole world of the beautiful and the excellent, in nature and in art, there is a grand tie which links with the rest the heart of man: that sympathy is love, in a shallower, or a deeper degree: and he forgot, moreover, that the transition is so easy, by the ever open doors of association, from the most cold and indifferent things to the warmest and the dearest, that the heart must be well guarded, the mind well assured, before it ventures to deal with aught that excites the fancy in companionship with one who has already some hold upon the imagination.
Insensibly, they knew not well how, their conversation deviated from the mere objects tangible to the senses, to the effects produced by those objects on the mind. From the mind they went to the heart; and Agnes, for a time, went on to talk with glowing eloquence, of all those feelings and emotions, of which it was evident enough to her companion, she spoke by hearsay rather than by experience. Her words were careless, brilliant, even, perhaps, we may say light, in its better sense, for some time after their discourse took that turn. She jested with the subject, she sported with it--like a child who, having found a shining piece of steel, makes a plaything of it, unknowing that it is a dagger which, with a light blow, may cut the knot of life. Suddenly, however, from some feeling, undefined even to herself, she stopped in full career, became thoughtful, serious, more avaricious of her words. A deeper tone pervaded them when they were spoken; and she seemed to have found unexpectedly, that she was dealing with things which at some time might have a more powerful and heartfelt interest for herself, and that she had better escape from such topics, treating them gravely, whilst she was obliged to treat of them at all. Her conversation, in short, was like a gay pleasure-boat, which quits the shore in sunshine and merriment, but, finding itself far from land, makes its way back with earnest speed with the first cloud that gathers on the sky.
Her altered manner called Algernon Grey to himself; and, as they turned back again along the Altan, he said, anxious to fly from a danger which he felt had its fascination too, but yet mingling with the adieu he was about to speak such a portion of feeling as might pass for ordinary gallantry; "I must now leave you, I believe, for the sun is so low, that it warns me of my engagement to spend this evening with a countryman of ours, named Colonel Herbert, whom I have made acquaintance with this morning--indeed, it is past the hour."
"Oh, I will show you the way," answered Alice, with a smile; "I am going thither, too; but do stay for an instant to look at that star rising over the Odenwald. How clear and calm it shines! How round, and full, and unvarying! It must be a planet; and I cannot help thinking often, that woman's true sphere is like that of yonder star. There may be brighter things in the heavens, twinkling and sparkling with transcendent light; but her fate is like that of the planet, to wander round one sole object, from which she receives all her brightness, in constant, tranquil, peaceful watchfulness, calm but not dull, and bright but not alone--now come."