I have said that I was between twelve and thirteen years old when Helen Arnault first became an inmate of the same dwelling. Two years rapidly passed by, and not long after I had reached the age of fourteen, I was sent to the college of Pau, where three years and a half more glided away in unperturbed tranquillity--calm--quiet--slow; but what a change had taken place in all my thoughts and feelings by the time they had passed! I was farther advanced both in stature, in form, and ideas, than most youths of my age. Childhood was gone--manhood was at hand. I left the placid, innocent bowers of infancy, with their cool and passionless shades; and I stood with my footstep on the threshold of man's busy and tumultuous theatre, ready to plunge into the arena and struggle with the rest. My heart full of strong and ardent passions, my imagination vivid and uncontrolled, with some knowledge gained from books, and some shrewd sense of my own, but with little self-government, and no experience, I set out from Pau, to return to my paternal mansion; and as from that day I may date the commencement of a new existence, I will pause, and begin my manhood with a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER IV.
I was now eighteen; slim, tall, and vigorous, inheriting some portion both of my father's and of my mother's personal beauty, and superadding all those graces which are peculiarly the property of youth; the flowers which partial nature bestows upon the spring of life, and which are rarely compensated by the fruits of manhood's summer. I know not why I should refrain from saying I was handsome. Long before any one reads these lines, that which was so, will be dust and ashes--a thing that creatures composed of the same sordid materials, cemented by the same fragile medium of life, will turn from with insect disgust. With this consciousness before me, I will venture, then, to say, that I was handsome:--if ever I was personally vain, such a folly is amongst those that have left me.
However, with some good looks, and some knowledge that I did possess them, it is not very wonderful that I should try to set them off to the best advantage, on my return home after a long absence. There might be a little native puppyism in the business; there might be, also, some thought of looking well in the eyes of Helen Arnault, for even at that early age I had begun to think about her a great deal more than was necessary; and to pamper my imagination with a thousand fine romances which need the lustrous air, the glowing skies, the magnificent scenes, of the romance-breathing Pyrenees, to make them at all comprehensible. Certain it is, that I did think of Helen Arnault very often; but never was her idea more strongly in my mind than on that morning when I was awakened for the purpose of bidding adieu to my college studies, and of returning once more to my home, and my parents, and the scenes of my infancy. I am afraid, that amongst all the expectations which crowded upon my imagination, the thought of Helen Arnault was most prominent.
At five o'clock precisely, old Houssaye, who had been trumpeter to my grandfather's regiment of royalists in the wars of the League, and was now promoted to the high and dignified station of my valet-de-chambre and gouverneur, stood at my bed-side, and told me that our horses were saddled, our baggage packed up, and that I had nothing to do but to dress myself, mount, and set out. He was somewhat astonished, I believe, at seeing me lie, for some ten minutes after he had drawn the curtains, in the midst of meditations which to him seemed very simple meditations indeed, but which were, in fact, so complicated of thoughts, and feelings, and hopes, and wishes, and remembrances, that I defy any mortal being to have disentangled the Gordian knot into which I had twisted them. After trying some time in vain, I took the method of that great Macedonian baby, who found the world too small a plaything, and by jumping up, I cut the knot with all its involutions asunder. But my farther proceedings greatly increased good master Houssaye's astonishment; for instead of contenting myself with my student's dress of simple black, with a low collar devoid of lace, which he judged would suit a dusty road better than any other suit I had, I insisted on his again opening the valise, and taking out my very best slashed pourpoint, my lace collar, my white buskins, and my gilt spurs. Then, having dressed myself en cavalier parfait, drawn the long curls of my dark hair over my forehead, and tossed on my feathered hat, instead of the prim looking conceit with which I had covered my head at college, I rushed down the interminable staircase into the courtyard, with a sudden burst of youthful extravagance; and, springing on my horse, left poor Houssaye to follow as he best might.
Away I went out of Pau, like a young colt when first freed from the restraint of the stable, and turned out to grass in the joy-inspiring fields. Over hill and dale, and rough and smooth, I spurred on, with very little regard to my horse's wind, till I came to the rising ground which presents itself just before crossing the river to reach Estelle. The first object on the height is the Château of Coarasse, in which Henry IV. passed the earlier years of his youth, and wherein he received that education which gave to the world one of the most noble and generous-hearted of its kings. I had seen it often before; and I know not what chain of association established itself between my own feelings at the time, and the memories that hovered round its old gray walls, but I drew in my horse's bridle on the verge, and gazed upon the building before me, as if interrogating it of greatness, and of fame, and of the world's applause. There was, however, a chill and a sternness about all that it replied, which fell coldly upon the warm wishes of youth. It spoke of glory, indeed, and of honour, and the immortality of a mighty name; but it spoke also of the dead--of those who could not hear, who could not enjoy the cheerless recompence of posthumous renown. It told, too, of Fortune's fickleness--of a world's ingratitude--of the vanity of greatness--and the emptiness of hope.
With a tightened bridle, and slow pace, I pursued my way to Estelle, and dismounting in the yard of the post-house, I desired the saddle to be taken off my horse, which was wearied with my inconsiderate galloping up and down hill, and to be then placed on the best beast which was disengaged in the stable.
While this was in execution, I walked into the kitchen with some degree of sulkiness of mood, at not being able to press out some brighter encouragement from a place so full of great memories as the château of Henri Quatre, and laying my hat on the table, I amused myself, for some time, with twisting the straws upon the floor into various shapes with the point of my sword; and then returned to the court to see if I had been obeyed. The saddle, it is true, had been placed upon the fresh horse; but just as this was finished, a gentleman rode into the yard with four or five servants--smooth-faced, pink-and-white lackeys--with that look of swaggering tiptoe insolence which bespeaks, in general, either a weak or an uncourteous lord. Seeing my saddle on a horse that suited his whim, the stranger, without ceremony, ordered the hostler to take it off instantly, and prepare the beast for his use.
He was a tall, elegant man, of about forty, with an air of most insufferable pride; which--though ever but tinsel quality at the best--shone like gold in the master, when compared with the genuine brass of his servants, who, while their lord dismounted, treated the hostler with the sweet and delectable epithets of villain, hog, slave, and ass, for simply setting forth that the horse was pre-engaged.
There have been many moments in my life, when either laziness, or good-humour, or carelessness, would have prevented me from opposing this sort of infraction of my prior right; but, on the present occasion, I was not in a humour to yield one step to anybody. Without seeking my hat, therefore, I walked up to the cavalier, who still stood in the court, and informed him that the saddle must not be removed, for that I had engaged the horse. Without turning round, he looked at me for a moment over his shoulder, and seeing a face fringed by no martial beard, yet insolent enough to contradict his will, he bestowed a buffet upon it with the back of his hand, which deluged my fine lace collar in blood from my nose.