Such was the tale of our new acquaintance, nearly in his own words; but as he spoke rapidly and fluently, the time it occupied in telling was not, or at least did not seem, long. We felt that he had a good right to call upon us for a return, and finding myself, as usual, when I wish to recollect a good story, totally bankrupt of memory, I turned to the friend who had accompanied me from England--a gentleman in every sense of the word, a man of refined taste and excellent heart. I was very sure that, if he could so far conquer his laziness as to begin, whatever he told would prove interesting; but idleness was predominant, and he was endeavouring to push back the burden to my shoulders, when Monsieur Petit, who seemed to divine the spirit which held us so long together, glided into the room, and told us, that if we were curious in wine, he had some Burgundy so perfect in its kind that he would beg us just to try it.
We nodded the universal head; and while our worthy host was producing his nectar, my friend, stimulated by the very anticipation, gave me one reproachful look for stirring him from his repose, and said, "Well, well, since it must be so, I will try if I can remember a story I once heard of our own country, and give you Two Scenes from the Civil Wars."
TWO SCENES FROM THE CIVIL WARS.
SCENE I.
It was late on the night of an early day in spring--perhaps about two hours past midnight--and yet the inhabitants of a small lonely dwelling on the edge of a large piece of common-ground, lying about ten miles from Farringdon House, were all awake and up, and, with anxious eyes, gazing from the small long windows upon the blank darkness that hung over the world. A single candle stood upon a plain oaken table in the midst of the room, by the light of which might be seen, at one of the windows, a small finely-formed female figure, which still preserved all the lines of exquisite beauty, though a certain degree of stiffness, corresponding well with some deep wrinkles on the cheek, and with the white hair that was braided from the forehead, spoke the passing of many years under the petrifying power of Time, since that form had been in its prime, and the beauty, which still lingered, had known its first expansion. Leaning over her shoulder was a second figure so like the first--but with every grace which time had nipped in the other, just blown; with the cheek unwithered, and the brow unseared--that it seemed a living picture of what the other had been some twenty years before--a portrait in a family picture-gallery, where human loveliness may see and moralize on all the graces that the eternal reaper has gathered as he flew.
At the second window was a somewhat untidy maid-servant, contrasting strongly, in her slatternly disarray, with the plain neatness which decked the two other figures, whose garb I shall not pause to describe; let it suffice that it was of white, and fashioned in the mode of the time, A. D.164-, though either poverty, simplicity of taste, or deference to the puritanical mania of the day, had deprived it of every extraneous ornament.
The night upon which the whole party looked out was dark and sad; for the moon had gone down, and the clouds over head, though not particularly heavy, were quite sufficiently so to hide every star, and cast a deep gray shadow over the wide extent of undulating moorland which, in the day-time, stretched away for many a mile within view. A few faint streaks of pale light upon the edge of sky separated the darkness of the heavens from the darkness of the earth, and marked where the prospect ended; and thitherward were turned the eyes of all, watching with strained and anxious gaze a particular point on the dim horizon, where, every now and then, bright red flashes, sudden and sharp, but circumscribed and momentary, broke upon the night, followed by a distant report as quick and transitory.
No one spoke while those flashes continued; but the silence itself seemed to show the intense anxiety which was felt, by the tenants of that chamber, in regard to the events of which they obtained so dim and unsatisfactory a view. At the end of five minutes, however, the sudden bursts of light entirely ceased; the reports were no longer heard; and the elder of the two ladies, turning away from the window, said, in a low voice, "It is over: God's will is wrought by this time!"
The younger said nothing; but, clasping her fair hands together, raised her eyes towards the dark, heavens, while her full sweet lips moved silently, offering up a petition to that never-closed ear which hears the still voice of the heart's thoughts as plainly as the loudest-tongued appeal.
In a moment after, the clattering sound of horses' feet was heard coming quickly down the road. At first it was faint and distant--the dull heavy tramp of several fleet steeds galloping over moist ground; but soon it came nearer and nearer--left the turf of the common--clanged over the firm and stony road--came close to the house--passed it--and died away in the distance.