As soon as I was enabled to speak upon the matter, I begged Trevanion to look to poor O’Leary, who still lay upon the ground in a state of perfect unconsciousness. Captain Derigny, on hearing my wish, at once returned to the quarry, and, with the greatest difficulty, persuaded my friend to rise and endeavour to walk, which at last he did attempt, calling him to bear witness that it perhaps was the only case on record where a man with a bullet in his brain had made such an exertion.
With a view to my comfort and quiet, they put him into the cab of Le Baron; and, having undertaken to send Dupuytrien to me immediately on my reaching Paris, took their leave, and Trevanion and I set out homeward.
Not all my exhaustion and debility—nor even the acute pain I was suffering, could prevent my laughing at O’Leary’s adventure; and it required all Trevanion’s prudence to prevent my indulging too far in my recollection of it.
When we reached Meurice’s, I found Dupuytrien in waiting, who immediately pronounced the main artery of the limb as wounded; and almost as instantaneously proceeded to pass a ligature round it. This painful business being concluded, I was placed upon a sofa, and being plentifully supplied with lemonade, and enjoined to keep quiet, left to my own meditations, such as they were, till evening—Trevanion having taken upon him to apologize for our absence at Mrs. Bingham’s dejeune, and O’Leary being fast asleep in his own apartments.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS—A FIRST LOVE.
I know of no sensations so very nearly alike, as those felt on awaking after very sudden and profuse loss of blood, and those resulting from a large dose of opium. The dizziness, the confusion, and the abstraction at first, gradually yielding, as the senses became clearer, to a vague and indistinct consciousness; then the strange mistiness, in which fact and fiction are wrapped up—the confounding of persons, and places, and times, not so as to embarrass and annoy—for the very debility you feel subdues all irritation—but rather to present a panoramic picture of odd and incongruous events more pleasing than otherwise.
Of the circumstances by which I was thus brought to a sick couch, I had not even the most vague recollection—the faces and the dress of all those I had lately seen were vividly before me; but how, and for what purpose I knew not. Something in their kindness and attention had left an agreeable impression upon my mind, and without being able, or even attempting to trace it, I felt happy in the thought. While thus the “hour before” was dim and indistinct, the events of years past were vividly and brightly pictured before me; and strange, too, the more remote the period, the more did it seem palpable and present to my imagination. For so it is, there is in memory a species of mental long-sightedness, which, though blind to the object close beside you, can reach the blue mountains and the starry skies, which lie full many a league away. Is this a malady? or is it rather a providential gift to alleviate the tedious hours of the sick bed, and cheer the lonely sufferer, whose thoughts are his only realm?
My school-boy days, in all their holiday excitement; the bank where I had culled the earliest cowslips of the year; the clear but rapid stream, where days long I have watched the speckled trout, as they swam peacefully beneath, or shook their bright fins in the gay sunshine; the gorgeous dragon-fly that played above the water, and dipped his bright wings in its ripple—they were all before me. And then came the thought of school itself, with its little world of boyish cares and emulations; the early imbibed passion for success; the ardent longing for superiority; the high and swelling feeling of the heart, as home drew near, to think that I had gained the wished for prize—the object of many an hour’s toil—the thought of many a long night’s dream; my father’s smile; my mother’s kiss! Oh! what a very world of tender memory that one thought suggests; for what are all our later successes in life—how bright soever our fortune be—compared with the early triumphs of our infancy? Where, among the jealous rivalry of some, the cold and half-wrung praise of others, the selfish and unsympathising regard of all, shall we find any thing to repay us for the swelling extacy of our young hearts, as those who have cradled and loved us grow proud in our successes? For myself, a life that has failed in every prestige of those that prophesied favourably—years that have followed on each other only to blight the promise that kind and well-wishing friends foretold—leave but little to dwell upon, that can be reckoned as success. And yet, some moments I have had, which half seemed to realize my early dream of ambition, and rouse my spirit within me; but what were they all compared to my boyish glories? what the passing excitement one’s own heart inspires in the lonely and selfish solitude, when compared with that little world of sympathy and love our early home teemed with, as, proud in some trifling distinction, we fell into a mother’s arms, and heard our father’s “God bless you, boy?” No, no; the world has no requital for this. It is like the bright day-spring, which, as its glories gild the east, display before us a whole world of beauty and promise—blighted hopes have not withered, false friendships have not scathed, cold, selfish interest has not yet hardened our hearts, or dried up our affections, and we are indeed happy; but equally like the burst of morning is it fleeting and short-lived; and equally so, too, does it pass away, never, never to return.
From thoughts like these my mind wandered on to more advanced years, when, emerging from very boyhood, I half believed myself a man, and was fully convinced I was in love.
Perhaps, after all, for the time it lasted—ten days, I think—it was the most sincere passion I ever felt. I had been spending some weeks at a small watering-place in Wales with some relatives of my mother. There were, as might be supposed, but few “distractions” in such a place, save the scenery, and an occasional day’s fishing in the little river of Dolgelly, which ran near. In all these little rambles which the younger portion of the family made together, frequent mention was ever being made of a visit from a very dear cousin, and to which all looked forward with the greatest eagerness—the elder ones of the party with a certain air of quiet pleasure, as though they knew more than they said, and the younger with all the childish exuberance of youthful delight. Clara Mourtray seemed to be, from all I was hourly hearing, the very paragon and pattern of every thing. If any one was praised for beauty, Clara was immediately pronounced much prettier—did any one sing, Clara’s voice and taste were far superior. In our homeward walk, should the shadows of the dark hills fall with a picturesque effect upon the blue lake, some one was sure to say, “Oh! how Clara would like to sketch that.” In short, there was no charm nor accomplishment ever the gift of woman, that Clara did not possess; or, what amounted pretty much to the same thing, that my relatives did not implicitly give her credit for. The constantly recurring praises of the same person affect us always differently as we go on in life. In youth the prevailing sentiment is an ardent desire to see the prodigy of whom we have heard so much—in after years, heartily to detest what hourly hurts our self-love by comparisons. We would take any steps to avoid meeting what we have inwardly decreed to be a “bore.” The former was my course; and though my curiosity was certainly very great, I had made up my mind to as great a disappointment, and half wished for the longed arrival as a means of criticising what they could see no fault in.