CONCLUSION.
Carlo having recovered himself, proceeded as follows:—
“In the thus light-hearted and unmurmuring though tedious and toilsome accumulation of the fund that was to purchase station and happiness for Bianca, the first of the three years sped prosperously past. Francesco—for old Marcolini, confiding in the integrity and industry of my father to fulfil the conditional arrangement, laid no restraint upon him—was our almost daily visitor, and not rarely a cheerful assistant in the lighter labours of our garden, in tending our rich parterres, our fig trees, and our vines. One serious drawback on our happiness—the first flush of devotion to Bianca over—we soon experienced. Ludovico, though at times he worked harder and longer than the rest, and rejected the occasional cheap indulgences my father permitted, had unfortunately been so entangled with his lawless and loose-living companions, that after a while he was again seduced by them into scenes of profligate amusement and disgraceful licence. It mischanced that near the close of the year, the very day before the great fair of Telese, to which we had long looked forward as likely to swell our savings much, our father met with an accident which disabled him from going to it. The cart, laden with our richest and choicest garden produce, my mother’s eggs and poultry, and Bianca’s contribution of nosegays, needlework, and straw plaits, was in his unfitness necessarily entrusted to the charge of Ludovico. At the fair he unfortunately fell in with some of his low-principled associates, who seduced him into a gambling booth, where soon, infected with the excitement of play, he hazarded a small sum, which by an evil chance was returned to him threefold. Inflamed by the easy acquisition, he thought with rapture how much readier a way this was for a lucky fellow, as he appeared to be, to make his money, than by the slow and dull and difficult returns of labour, and almost anticipated his returning home that night with Bianca’s fortune in his pocket, and an immediate abridgement, in consequence, of the weary postponement of her wedding. He risked a higher sum with success, another with disappointment, and so on with varying fortune, till a friendly neighbour, who had heard where he was, came in and forced him with difficulty from the fatal fascination. He had been at the table but a short time, and had lost but little, which, to escape detection, he replaced by a loan; but he was inspired with a passion for play, which, whenever an occasion was afforded, he eagerly indulged. But notwithstanding this, and the occasional losses and anxious evasions to which it exposed us, our efforts flourished, and our reserved earnings increased apace. Never before had we gathered such abundant returns from our garden and few fields, for never before had we tended them with half the care. Our sales were quick as our produce was luxuriant, and before half the allotted period had expired, Bianca’s purse was by the half more valuable than we had ventured to expect. At this time my father was induced by my mother’s influence and representations to try and bring the suspense and postponement of the nuptials to a close, by borrowing on security what would complete the stipulated sum, and engage old Marcolini’s consent to an immediate union. This was accordingly done, the necessary sum furnished by a money-lender, Marcolini’s approval obtained, a day fixed, our festive arrangements made, and all was light and merriment. But, alas and alas! a cruel blow was in wait to dash to pieces our fond and joyous schemes, just as they seemed to approach reality.
One morning, as by sunrise my father was going to the garden—it was to decorate a bridal arbour which we had constructed for the occasion—I heard from him, as he passed through the inner room, a cry of astonishment and dismay, and hurrying in, found him gazing in horror upon an open and, alas, empty box—it was the one in which Bianca’s long hoarded dower had been kept! All was gone—the hardly gathered earnings, the borrowed money, and with it all our mirthful plans and sparkling expectations; and, though a grave, strong-minded man, he was for the time quite crushed and broken by the shock. ‘Carlo,’ said he, ‘we are ruined, utterly undone. Villains have plundered us: your sister’s heart will be broken, and there is nothing left for us but despair. These weakened limbs could not go through such another term of trial in the face of such misfortune. It will be well if they last long enough to earn what will meet the demands of Bartolo the broker. Your brother, to whom we might else have looked for aid, is getting worse and worse in his evil ways: he has turned—that ever I should have to speak such words of son of mine!—yes, turned a worthless profligate and gamester. The God of Heaven grant,’ continued he, turning ghastly pale, and staggering against the wall as his eye fell upon a well-known knife, that, with its blade broken, lay upon the floor, ‘that it be not even worse. Carlo, look on that, and tell me, O tell me, that you know it not!’ With horror I recognized my unhappy brother’s knife; and a fragment of the steel fixed in the box showed too plainly in what base work it had been employed. I was struck speechless at the sight; but in defiance of all evidence, when I thought of my warm-hearted generous brother, I burned with anger at myself for my momentary misgiving, and almost fiercely chid my father for his dark suspicion. ‘Carlo,’ answered he gravely, ‘you are yet childish and inexperienced, and know not the power of evil company, the blight of that accursed vice upon every principle of truth and honesty. Your brother, I have told you, is an abandoned gambler—consorts with all the dregs and refuse of the country, mocks at the entreaties of a mother, the warnings of a father, the honest, ay, till he bore it, the ever honest name of his family; and he who does all this, will, time and temptation pressing him, but feebly shrink from the basest act. But go,’ added he with stern emphasis, ‘call him. Though guilty, I will see him face to face before I lay my curse upon him.’ With fear and trembling, for I knew how terrible my father’s temper was when roused, I was obliged to confess that he had not spent the night at home; and his forehead grew still gloomier and more wrinkled as he listened.
He said nothing, but fell upon a seat, folded his arms, and remained looking fixedly upon the ground in great and fearful agony of thought.
About half an hour afterwards, my heart leaped within me as I caught the sound of Ludovico’s cautiously approaching steps—for on such occasions he strove to steal in unnoticed—and I rushed to the door. There indeed he was coming up the walk in front. But what a figure!—his eyes were bloodshot, his face haggard, his dress disordered, his gait uneven, and altogether he appeared still under the power of a deep overnight debauch. My father upon hearing rose to meet him, and at the sight of his agitated and afflicted features, Ludovico, overcome with dismay and confusion, only afforded confirmatory evidence of guilt. Without a word, my father beckoned with his hand to him, and walking into the room, pointed to the forced and vacant box, fixing his eyes sternly and accusingly upon my poor brother, who with fainting knees accompanied him. With constrained silence he then lifted up the broken knife from the floor, fitted it before Ludovico’s eyes to the fragment remaining in the lid, and then turning up the haft, presented it to him. A cry of dismay and horror broke from his lips as he recognized his knife, and the terrible truth burst upon him.
‘I am innocent, oh, my father, I am innocent,’ he cried as he fell on his knees before him. But, alas, the action, in place of removing, was about to rivet the evidence of his guilt, for as he stooped, a key fell from his pocket—a false one for the door which led from the very room into the garden, which he had privately procured for the purpose of secret admission when belated in his revels. My father, without other reply, seized it, applied it to the door, and opened the lock. He then turned to him, as if every stay and doubt were banished, and with a voice in which pain and sorrow only aggravated passion, exclaimed, ‘Wretched boy, I disown thee! Never shall villain, gambler, robber, liar, be called son of mine. Away, then, from my presence and my roof for ever! He who could so basely forget every lesson of honesty he was taught from his childhood, who could plunder his poor sister of what we have painfully earned for her by the sweat of our brows, and doom her to hopelessness and life-long loneliness, to feed his own vile profligacy, would not scruple to dip his hand in blood, ay, in the blood of his household, for their inheritance. We are not safe with such a one. Away to your brigand comrades of the hills—lead the villain life you incline to—do what you will—but never cross this threshold again!’ My mother and Bianca, roused by the noise, now hurried fearfully into the room, and a glance at Ludovico’s horror-struck and supplicating posture, at the shattered box, and my father’s inflamed and convulsed countenance, was enough without words to inform them of the revolting truth.
‘My father’s heart is hardened against me,’ exclaimed Ludovico, ‘and I wonder not. I have indeed been loose-lived and disobedient, but never base nor dishonest, and let me not be now condemned because these appearances are against me. I solemnly swear by——’ My father fiercely checked him. ‘Add not perjury to infamy—it needs not swearing—the matter can be put beyond a doubt, ay, even beyond your own audacious denial. Mark those footsteps in the soft soil before the door: that bed was left by me smooth and unruffled yesternight—they are those of the villain thief; and, Ludovico, I cannot mistake the footprints of him who has wrought by my side since boyhood—wretched father that I am! they are yours. Deny it if you can.’ Convinced in my own heart of his innocence, I sprang forward to apply the test, but soon recoiled in horror, as before the anxious eyes of all I proved the accurate correspondence of the marks—a shock which for a moment crushed my own faith in my brother’s truth. What now availed my mother’s entreaties, my sister’s tears, Ludovico’s continued passionate assertion of his innocence, to change the stern conviction of my father? He vehemently reiterated his sentence of banishment, and counselled him, if he would mitigate the keenness of remorse, to confess his crime and return its ill-gotten fruits. Ludovico, stung to the quick by his reproaches, and by the agonies of my mother and Bianca, felt resentment rise in his heart to strengthen him to support his fate, and indignantly rose to depart. ‘Cease your prayers, my mother and my Bianca. Carlo, you will live, I feel, to see me righted, and my father, too, to repent his harshness to his son, and his distrust in one whom he has often detected in error, but never yet in ignominy. My sister, if my heart’s blood could at this moment be coined into treasure to replace that which you have lost, and build again your shattered hopes, freely would I pour it out. But words are idle to make your heart what it was but an hour ago. I go—better any where than here—and if you hear of me again, it will be of one who has learned seriousness from suffering, and proved by acts his love and interest for you all.’ As he finished speaking, he hurried from the door without further farewell, and, plunging among the thickly wooded slopes, was speedily lost to my passionate pursuit.
That evening, however, a boy left a billet from him to Bianca, in which he mentioned his intention of trying to turn his musical talent to account, by proceeding to England, where he was told that money was but lightly thought of, and purses were ever open, and where he might readily glean both what would support himself, and supply something towards enabling my father to meet Bartolo the usurer, and perhaps, too, old Marcolini, upon the day first fixed for her union with Francesco. He concluded by asking pardon from our offended confidence and affection for once more scornfully denying the odious charge—a denial which, amid our joint tears over the letter, we believed as firmly as the words of holy writ.
Why need I stay to mention all the gloom and grief which was now spread over our but lately so bright and hopeful household, for Ludovico, despite his thoughtless forwardness, had been the life and spring of all our movements.
My father’s dark locks soon became streaked with grey, for his pride of honesty in an unblemished name was sorely abased: his heart was wounded and enfeebled; and when the fever of his first anger was past, he began to think at times that perhaps he had dealt too hardly and hastily with Ludovico. My mother often wept: my sister’s cheek became wan and pale even with Francesco by her side: my own heart was faint and joyless: a cloud of spiritless sadness and depression settled over all, and every thing seemed to lament him who was far away among strangers, in loneliness and disgrace—him whose bold spirit, athletic form, and buoyant beauty, had, notwithstanding his frailties, been the pride and glory, secret or avowed, of all.
But Providence is able and merciful to cleanse the character of the innocent and calumniated in the end, and after many weary months Ludovico’s was cleared before all the village by the death-bed confession of one of his former associates, who, under the impulse of a late remorse, stated that the robbery had been committed by himself—that Ludovico had on the night in question been designedly drugged by some of his accomplices—his knife taken and purposely left in the room, and his shoes borrowed for the same end, of warding search or suspicion from themselves by his condemnation. By way of expiation for the diabolical villany, he secretly menaced his partners in the plot that he would reveal their names and give them up to justice, unless the money with the interest in full was forthwith restored, which in consequence was quickly done. And now that his son’s good fame was established in the light of day, my father’s breast was lightened of the burthen of conscious disgrace, but only to suffer the more keenly the poignancy of self-reproach for the extreme and unjust severity of his treatment; and often would he bitterly accuse himself of savage inhumanity, and madly wish that by the sacrifice of his own life he could restore his exiled son to his embrace once more. As I listened to his painful lamentations and upbraiding, I formed a scheme, which was no sooner devised than I hurried to execute, of following Ludovico to England, of finding him, as in the credulity of inexperience I doubted not readily to do, and bringing him back with me to home, to reputation, and to happiness. Knowing the opposition I would meet if I mentioned my secret, I collected as speedily as I could what money I supposed would defray my first expenses, procured this organ, and my poor little marmoset, as I knew my wandering countrymen were wont to furnish themselves; and leaving a letter with a young neighbour to give when I was gone, took my way to Naples, whence I got a passage to London. My heart often died within me as I wandered through its great and busy streets, and many is the hour of sorrow and hardship I endured; but desire for Ludovico, and the hope of finding him which never failed me, carried me through all. For nearly a year I traversed England, much of Scotland and Ireland, supporting myself by grinding this poor music. I have not my brother’s fine voice and skill, but the people here are for the most part indulgent, and not so delicate to please as those of Italy. But the good God guided me at last to a happy meeting with an old Neapolitan, who alone, of the hundreds whom I questioned, was able to give me any information of Ludovico, with whom he had fortunately fallen in a few months before in this very city. With that cordial confidence which one is apt to flare in a fellow countryman when cast among strangers, Ludovico had made known to him all his story, adding that, having now by prudence and exertion of his talent for music—and few could touch a guitar or raise a voice like him—gathered a sufficient sum of money, he was about to return to Italy and to the neighbourhood of his native village, to apportion Bianca once more, and set on foot some inquiry to redeem, if possible, his forfeited character, and fix the guilt of the robbery upon the real offenders, whom long reflection on the circumstances had erewhile led him to suspect. Oh! how my heart thrilled and burned within me as I listened to the long-sought blissful words, and knew that in very deed I was at last upon the track of him—though the rapture of an unexpected meeting in this foreign land I was not to have—after whom I had made such a weary pilgrimage in vain. Not in vain neither. I have done what I could, and when I stand proudly amid my family once more, and receive their embraces and congratulations, say, shall I be without my reward? My daily gleanings I hoard with the eagerness of a miser: little do I spend on food or lodging: for when I think of my own dear Montanio, of those to complete whose happiness I alone am wanting, I have but one wish, one prayer—to have wherewithal to carry me to my own beautiful land again, to my father’s blessing, my brother’s love, my mother’s and my sister’s arms.”
Tears of tenderness and rapture started to the eyes of the ardent and devoted youth as he thus concluded his narrative, in which the fervour and interest of truth were, as he told it, beautifully blended with much of the elevation and singularity of romance.
Further particulars respecting this generous witness to the disinterestedness and fortitude with which family and fraternal love can inspire the young, the delicate, and the undisciplined, my necessary limitation of space compels me to forego. I need scarcely add that I was instrumental in furnishing a supplement for his insufficient means, and I did not lose sight of the noble lad, till, with mixed emotions of buoyant anticipation, and perhaps momentarily regretful gratitude, he parted from me on his return to Italy. In imagination I often make one of the reunited family, and at times, too, indulge the hope that the chances and changes of a shifting lot may some time enable me in very deed to look on old Girardi and his spouse, Carlo and the reformed Ludovico, the fair Bianca and the faithful Francesco, and claim a return in kind—an evening spent among their gleeful rural party—for the fellow-feeling I had the good fortune to conceive for the desolation, and the part I was privileged to take in abridging the banishment, of the Italian Organ Boy.
J. J. M.