De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

I had fallen upon my left shoulder and hip, and my head had fortunately escaped without the same sudden contact with the stones; so that, though somewhat confused, I could reply that I believed I was not much injured, but that I could not rise without assistance.

"Help him to rise," cried a voice, which very much resembled that of the Chevalier de Montenero, "and give him what assistance you can."

The person who spoke I could not see; but the servants, who had been hitherto gazing at me without lending me any very substantial aid, now hurried to raise me, one taking me by each arm. This proceeding, however, gave me such exquisite pain in my left shoulder, that after a groan or two, and an ineffectual effort to make them comprehend that they were inflicting on me the tortures of the damned, I lost all recollection with the excess of agony.

When I recovered my perception of what was passing around me, I found that the servants had procured a kind of brancard, or litter, and having laid me upon it, were carrying me on, I conjectured, to the house of some surgeon.

They stopped, however, a moment after, at the entrance of what was evidently a very handsome private hotel, and passing through the porte cochère and the court, they bore me into an immense salle-à-manger, and thence into a small chamber beyond, where I was carefully laid on a bed, and bade to compose myself, as a surgeon had been sent for, and would arrive, they expected, immediately.

He was not indeed long; and on examining my side, he found that my shoulder was dislocated, but that I had sustained no other injury of consequence. After a painful operation, the process of which I need not detail, I was put to bed, and the surgeon having given me a draught to procure sleep and allay the pain I suffered, recommended me to be kept as quiet as possible, and left me. I did not, however, suffer all the servants to quit the room without inquiring whether I had not heard the voice of the Chevalier de Montenero.

The valet replied, that he thought I must have been mistaken, for he never heard of such a name in all his life; but as there had been a good many persons round about when I was taken up, it was possible one of these might have spoken in the manner I mentioned.

I was now left alone, and I endeavoured to forget as fast as possible, in the arms of sleep, all the unpleasant circumstances round which memory would fain have lingered. It was in vain, however, that I did so; the feverish aching of my bones kept slumber far away. Every noise that stirred in the house I heard; every step that moved along its various halls and passages seemed beating upon the drum of my ear: I could hear my own blood rush along my veins and throb in my head, as if Vulcan and all the Cyclops of Etna had transferred their anvils to my brain.

While in this state, a light suddenly shone through the keyhole and under the door, and I heard several persons enter the dining-hall through which I had been borne thither. Everything that was said reached my ears as distinctly as if I had been present, and I soon found that the principal person who entered was the nephew of the proprietor of the house. He had just returned, it seemed, from some spectacle, and bringing a friend with him, demanded supper with the tone of a spoiled boy, who knew that his lightest word was law to all who surrounded him. The supper was brought, with apparently all the delicacies he demanded, for he made no complaint; and having sent for all the most excellent wines in his uncle's cellar, he dismissed the servants, and remained alone with his friend.

Tossing about, restless and irritable, I was nearly frantic with their mirth and their gaiety, and could have willingly murdered them both to make them silent; but soon their conversation began to take a turn which interested even me. The youth, who was evidently the entertainer, and whom his companion named Charles, had for several minutes been expatiating with all the hyperbolical enthusiasm of youthful passion on some beautiful girl whom he had determined, he said, to marry, let who would oppose it. Her name was mentioned by neither of the speakers, their conversation referring to something that had passed before. With the very natural pleasure which most people experience in finding all sorts of obstacles to whatever another person proposes, the friend seemed bent upon suggesting difficulties in opposition to his companion's passion. "Consider, my dear Charles," said he, "this girl may be as beautiful as the day, but, from her father's situation, her education must have been very much neglected."