Transcriber's Notes:
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The Works of G.P.R. James, Esq.--Volume 16
https://books.google.com/books?id=dTYoAQAAIAAJ
(University of California, Davis)

THE WORKS

OF

G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR.
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE.

"D'autres auteurs l'ont encore plus avili, (le roman,) en y mêlant les tableaux dégoutant du vice; et tandis que le premier avantage des fictions est de rassembler autour de l'homme tout ce qui, dans la nature, peut lui servir de leçon ou de modèle, on a imaginé qu'on tirerait une utilité quelconque des peintures odieuses de mauvaises moeurs; comme si elles pouvaient jamais; laisser le cœur qui les repousse, dans une situation aussi pure que le cœur qui les aurait toujours Ignorées. Mais un roman tel qu'on peut le concevoir, tel que nous en avons quelques modèles, est une des plus belles productions de l'esprit humain, une des plus influentes sur la morale des individus, qui doit former ensuite les mœurs publiques."--Madame de Staël. Essai sur les Fictions.

"Poca favilla gran flamma seconda:
Forse diretro a me, con miglior voci
Si pregherà, perchè Cirra risonda."

Dante. Paradiso, Canto I.

VOL. XVI.

DE L'ORME.

LONDON:
PARRY AND CO., LEADENHALL STREET.
M DCCCXLVIII.

DE L'ORME.

BY

G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF
"MARGARET GRAHAM,"
"THE LAST OF THE FAIRIES," ETC.

LONDON:
PARRY AND CO., LEADENHALL STREET.
M DCCCXLVIII.

PREFACE

TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Romance writing, when rightly viewed and rightly treated, is of the same nature as the teaching by parables of the eastern nations; and I believe, when high objects are steadily kept in view and good principles carefully inculcated, it may prove far more generally beneficial than more severe forms of instruction.

The man who is already virtuous and wise, or who, at least, seeks eagerly to be so, takes up the Essay or the Lecture, and reads therein the sentiments ever present in his own heart. But while the same man may find equal pleasure in the work of fiction addressed to the same great ends, how many thousands are there who will open the pages of the Novel or the Romance, but who would avoid anything less amusing to their fancy? If, then, while we excite their imagination with pleasant images, we can cause the latent seeds of virtue to germinate in their hearts; if we can point out the consequences of errors, follies, and crimes; if we can recall good feelings fleeting away, or crush bad ones rising up under temptation,--and that we can do so with great effect, may be safely asserted,--we can benefit, in the most essential particular, a large body of our fellow-men; a much larger body, I fear, than that which can be attracted by anything that does not wear the form of amusement.

Such has been my conviction ever since I entered upon a career in which the public has shown me such undeserved encouragement; and with such a purpose, and for such an object, have I always written. In some works I have striven alone to impress those general principles of honour and virtue, and those high and elevated feelings, which do not seem to me to be increasing in the world. In others, I have endeavoured to advocate, without seeming too much to do so, some particular principle, or to warn against some particular error. In the following pages my purpose was to expose the evil consequences of an ill-regulated spirit of enterprise and a love of adventure, and to deter from errors, the magnitude of which I may have felt by sharing in them.

To do so, it was necessary to choose as my subject the life of a young man placed in circumstances of difficulty and temptation; and no writer can ever hope to produce a good effect by painting man otherwise than man is.

At the same time I have ever been convinced that no benefit can ensue from drawing the mind of the reader through long scenes of vice and guilt, for the sake of a short moral at the end; and in writing the history of the Count de l'Orme, I determined to show, as was absolutely necessary, that he was led by the love of adventure into error nearly approaching to guilt: but to dwell upon his errors no longer than was absolutely required; to point out, even while I related them, that their consequences were terrible; and to make the great bulk of the book display a life of regret, pain and difficulty, consequent upon the fault I sought to reprehend. This I have done to the best of my judgment, restricting all details of the error into which the principal character of the book fell, to some ten or twelve pages. Having read those pages again, after a lapse of many years, with the deepest attention and consideration, I send them forth with scarcely an alteration; being firmly convinced, that the mind which can contract any evil from the terrible scene which they depict--a scene which, I have every reason to believe, really occurred--must be foul and corrupt ere it sits down to the perusal. One thing I certainly know, that those pages were written in the spirit of purity, and with the purpose of good; and I will never believe that such feelings can generate, in the breast of others, likewise pure, aught but their own likeness.

De l'Orme was first published in 1830, and was written while I was residing in France. The incidents, however, had been collected and arranged long before, and only required form and compression. For some curious details regarding the battle of Sedan I was indebted to a gentleman of that city, and I believe the facts of the famous revolt of the Count of Soissons will be found historically correct, even to very minute particulars.

DE L'ORME.

CHAPTER I.

I was born in the heart of Bearn, in the year 1619; and if the scenery amongst which we first open our eyes, and from which we receive our earliest impressions, could communicate its own peculiar character to our minds, I should certainly have possessed a thousand great and noble qualities, that might have taught me to play a very different part from that which I have done, in the great tragic farce of human life. Nevertheless, in contemplating the strange contrasts of scenery, the gay, the sparkling, the grand, the gloomy, the sublime, wherein my infant years were passed, I have often thought I saw a sort of picture of my own fate, with its abrupt and rapid changes; and even in some degree of my own character, or rather of my own mood, varying continually through all the different shades of disposition, from the lightest mirth to the most profound gloom, from the idlest heedlessness to the most anxious thought.

However, it is not my own peculiar character that I sit down to depict--that will be sufficiently displayed in the detail of my adventures: but it is rather those strange and singular events which, contrary to all probability, mingled me with great men, and with great actions, and which, continually counteracting my own will, impelled me ever on the very opposite course from that which I straggled to pursue.

For many reasons, it is necessary to commence this narrative with those early years, wherein the mind of man receives its first bias, when the seeds of all future actions are sown in the heart, and when causes, in themselves so trifling as almost to be imperceptible, chain us to good or evil, to fortune or misfortune, for ever. The character of man is like a piece of potter's clay, which, when fresh and new, is easily fashioned according to the will of those into whose hands it falls; but its form once given, and hardened, either by the slow drying of time, or by its passage through the ardent furnace of the world, men may break it to atoms, but never bend it again to another mould.

Our parents, our teachers, our companions, all serve to modify our dispositions. The very proximity of their faults, their failings, or their virtues, leaves, as it were, an impress on the flexible mind of infancy, which the steadiest reason can hardly do more than modify, and years themselves can never erase. To the events of those early years I owe many of my errors in life; and my faults and their consequences are not without their moral: for in my history, as in that of every other man, it will be found that punishment of some kind never failed to tread fast upon the heels of each wrong action; and in one instance, a few hours of indiscretion mingled a dark and fearful current with the course of many an after year.

To begin, then, with the beginning:--I was, as I have said, born in the heart of the little mountainous principality of Bearn, which, stretching along the northern side of the Pyrenees, contains within itself some of the most fertile and some of the most picturesque, some of the sweetest and some of the grandest scenes that any part of Europe can boast. The chain of my native mountains, interposing between France and Spain, forms a gigantic wall whereby the unerring hand of nature has marked the limits of either land; and although this immense bulwark is, in itself, scarcely broken by any but very narrow and difficult passes, yet the mountainous ridges which it sends off, like enormous buttresses, into the plain country on each side, are intersected by a number of wide and beautiful valleys, rich with all the gifts of summer, and glowing with all the loveliness of bright fertility.

One of the most striking, though perhaps not one of the most extensive, of these valleys, is that which, running from east to west, lies in a direct line between Bagneres de Bigorre and the little town and castle of Lourdes.[^[1]] Never have I seen, and certainly never shall I now see, any other valley so sweet, so fair, so tranquil;--never, one so bright in itself, or so surrounded by objects of grandeur and magnificence. I need not say after this, that it was my native place.

The dwelling of my father, Roger De l'Orme, Count de Bigorre, was perched up high upon the hill-side, about two miles from Lourdes, and looked far over all the splendid scene below. The wide valley, with its rich carpet of verdure, the river dashing in liquid diamonds amidst the rocks and over the precipices; the long far windings of the deep purple mountains, filling the mind with vague, but grand imaginings; the dark majestic shadows of the pine forest that every here and there were cast like a black mantle round the enormous limbs of each giant hill; the long wavy perspective, of the passes towards Cauteretz, and the Pont d'Espagne, with the icy Vigne Malle raising up his frozen head, as if to dare the full power of the summer sun beyond,--all was spread out to the eye, offering in one grand view a thousand various sorts of loveliness.

I must be pardoned for dilating upon those sweet scenes of my early childhood, whose very memory bestows a calm and placid joy, which I have never found in any other spot, or in any other feeling; neither in the gaiety and splendour of a court, the gratification of passion, the hurry and energy of political intrigue, the excitement and triumph of the battle field, the struggle of conflicting hosts, or the maddening thrill of victory.--But for a moment, let me indulge, and then I quit such memories for things and circumstances whose interest is more easily communicable to the minds of others.

The château in which my eyes first opened to the light was little inferior in size to the castle of Lourdes, and infinitely too large for the small establishment of servants and retainers which my father's reduced finances enabled him to maintain. Our diminished household looked, within its enormous walls, like the shrunken form of some careful old miser, insinuated into the wide and hanging garments of his youth; and yet my excellent parent fondly insisted upon as much pomp and ceremony as his own father had kept up with a hundred and fifty retainers waiting in his hall. Still the trumpet sounded at the hour of dinner, though the weak lungs of the broken-winded old maître d'hôtel produced but a cacophonous sound from the hollow brass: still all the servants, who amounted to five, including the gardener, the shepherd, and the cook, were drawn up at the foot of the staircase, in unstarched ruffs and tarnished liveries of green and gold, while my father, with slow and solemn pace, handed down to dinner Madame la Comtesse; still would he talk of his vassals, and his seigneurial rights, though his domain scarce covered five hundred acres of wood and mountain, and vassals, God knows, he had but few. However, the banners still hung in the hall; and it was impossible to gaze upon the walls, the pinnacles, the towers, and the battlements of the old castle, without attaching the idea of power and influence to the lord of such a hold; so that it was not extraordinary he himself should, in some particulars forget the decay of his house, and fancy himself as great as his ancestors.

A thousand excellent qualities of the heart covered any little foibles in my father's character. He was liberal to a fault; kind, with that minute and discriminating benevolence which weighs every word ere it be spoken, lest it should hurt the feelings of another; brave, to that degree that scarcely believes in fear, yet at the same time so humane, that his sympathy with others often proved the torture of his own heart; but----

Oh! that in this world there should still be a but, to qualify everything that is good and excellent!--but, still he had one fault that served greatly to counteract all the high qualities which he possessed. He was invincibly lazy in mind. He could endure nothing that gave him trouble; and, though the natural quickness of his disposition would lead him to purpose a thousand great undertakings, yet long ere the time came for executing them, various little obstacles and impediments had gradually worn down his resolution; or else the trouble of thinking about one thing for long was too much for him, and the enterprise dropped by its own weight. Had fortune brought him great opportunities, no one would have seized them more willingly, or used them to better or to nobler purposes; but fortune was to seek--and he did nothing.

The wars of the League, in which his father had taken a considerable part, had gradually lopped away branch after branch of our estates, and even hewn deeply into the trunk; and my father was not a man, either by active enterprise or by court intrigue, to mend the failing fortunes of his family. On the contrary, after having served in two campaigns, and distinguished himself in several battles, out of pure weariness, he retired to our château of De l'Orme, where, being once fixed in quiet, he passed the rest of his days, never having courage to undertake a longer journey than to Pau or to Tarbes; and forming in his solitude a multitude of fine and glorious schemes, which fell to nothing almost in the same moment that they were erected: as we may see a child build up, with a pack of cards, many a high and ingenious structure, which the least breath of air will instantly reduce to the same flat nonentities from which they were reared at the first.

My mother's character is soon told. It was all excellence; or if there was, indeed, in its composition, one drop of that evil from which human nature is probably never entirely free, it consisted in a touch of family pride--and yet, while I write it, my heart reproaches me, and says that it was not so. However, the reader shall judge by the sequel; but if she had this fault, it was her only one, and all the rest was virtue and gentleness. Restricted as were her means of charity, still every one that came within the sphere of her influence experienced her kindness, or partook of her bounty. Nor was her charity alone the charity that gives; it was the charity that feels, that excuses, that forgives.

A willing aid in all that was amiable and benevolent was to be found in good Father Francis of Allurdi, the chaplain of the château. In his young days they said he had been a soldier; and on some slight, received from a world for which he was too good, he threw away the corslet and took the gown, not with the feeling of a misanthrope, but of a philanthropist. For many years he remained as cure at the little village of Allurdi, in the Val d'Ossau; but his sight and his strength both failing him, and the cure being an arduous one, he resigned it to a younger man, (who, he thought, might better perform the duties of the station,) and brought as gentle a heart and as pure a spirit as ever rested in a mortal frame, to dwell with the two others I have described in the Château de l'Orme.

It may be asked, if he too had his foible? Believe me, dear reader, whoever thou art, that every one on this earth has some; nor was he without one: and, strange as it may appear, his was superstition--I say, strange as it may appear, for he was a man of a strong and vigorous mind, calm, reflective, rational, without any of that hurried and perturbed indistinctness of judgment which suffers imagination to usurp the place of reason. But still he was superstitious to a great degree, affording a striking instance of that union of opposite qualities, which every one who takes the trouble of examining his own bosom will find more or less exemplified in himself. His superstition, however, grew in a mild and benevolent soil, and was, indeed, but as one of those tender climbing plants which hang upon the ruined tower or the shattered oak, and clothe them with a verdure not their own: thus he fondly adhered to the imaginative tenets of ancient days fast falling into decay. He peopled the air with spirits, and in his fancy gave them visible shapes, and in some degree even corporeal qualities. However, on an ardent and youthful mind like mine, such picturesque superstitions were most likely to have effect; and so far, indeed, did they influence me, that though reason in after-life exerted her power to sweep them all away, imagination often rebelled, and clung fondly to the delusion still.

Such as I have described them were the denizens of the Château de l'Orme at the time of my birth, which was unmarked by any other peculiarity than that of my mother having been married, and yet childless, for more than eight years. The joy which the unexpected birth of an heir produced, may easily be imagined, though little indeed was the inheritance which I came to claim. All with one consent gave themselves up to hope and to gladness; and more substantial signs of rejoicing were displayed in the hall than the château had known for many a day.

My father declared that I should infallibly retrieve the fortunes of my house. Father Francis, with tears in his eyes, exclaimed that it was evidently a blessing from Heaven; and even my mother discovered that, though futurity was still misty and indistinct, there was now a landmark to guide on hope across the wide ocean of the years to come.

CHAPTER II.

I know not by what letters patent the privilege is held, but it seems clearly established, that the parents of an only child have full right and liberty to spoil him to whatsoever extent they may please; and though, my grandfathers on both sides of the house being dead long before my birth, I wanted the usual chief aiders and abettors of over-indulgence, yet, in consideration of my being an unexpected gift, my father thought himself entitled to expend more unrestrictive fondness upon me than if my birth had taken place at an earlier period of his marriage.

My education was in consequence somewhat desultory. The persuasions of Father Francis, indeed, often won me for a time to study, and the wishes of my mother, whose word was ever law to her son, made me perhaps attend to the instructions of the good old priest more than my natural volatility would have otherwise admitted. At times, too, the mad spirit of laughing and jesting at everything, which possessed me from my earliest youth, would suddenly and unaccountably be changed into the most profound pensiveness, and reading would become a delight and a relief. I thus acquired a certain knowledge of Latin and of Greek, the first principles of mathematics, and a great many of those absurd and antiquated theories which were taught in that day under the name of philosophy. But from Father Francis, also, I learned what should always form one principal branch of a child's education--a very tolerable knowledge of my native language, which I need not say is, in general, spoken in Bearn in the most corrupt and barbarous manner.

Thus, very irregularly, proceeded the course of my mental instruction; my corporeal education my father took upon himself, and as his laziness was of the mind rather than the body, he taught me thoroughly, from my very infancy, all those exercises which, according to his conception, were necessary to make a perfect cavalier. I could ride, I could shoot, I could fence, I could wrestle, before I was twelve years old; and of course the very nature of these lessons tended to harden and confirm a frame originally strong, and a constitution little susceptible of disease.

The buoyancy of youth, the springy vigour of my muscles, and a good deal of imaginative feeling, gave me a sort of indescribable passion for adventure from my childhood, which required even the stimulus of danger to satisfy. Had I lived in the olden time, I had certainly been a knight errant. Everything that was wild, and strange, and even fearful, was to me delight; and it needed many a hard morsel from the rough hand of the world to quell such a spirit's appetite for excitement.

To climb the highest pinnacles of the rocks, to plunge into the deepest caverns, to stand on the very brink of the precipices and look down into the dizzy void below, to hang above the cataract on some tottering stone, and gaze upon the frantic fury of the river boiling in the pools beneath, till my eye was wearied, and my ear deafened with the flashing whiteness of the stream, and the thundering roar of its fall--these were the enjoyments of my youth, and many, I am afraid, were the anxious pangs which my temerity inflicted on the bosom of my mother.

I will pass over all the little accidents and misadventure of youth; but on one circumstance, which occurred when I was about twelve years old, I must dwell more particularly, inasmuch as it was not only of import at the time, but also affected all my future life by its consequences.

On a fine clear summer morning, I had risen in one of those thoughtful moods, which rarely cloud the sunny mind of youth, but which, as I have said, frequently succeeded to my gayest moments; and, walking slowly down the side of the hill, I took my way through the windings of a deep glen, that led far into the heart of the mountain. I was well acquainted with the spot, and wandered on almost unconsciously, with scarcely more attention to any external object than a casual glance to the rocks that lay tossed about on either side, amidst a profusion of shrubs and flowers, and trees of every hue and leaf.

The path ran along on a high bank of rocks overhanging the river, which, dashing in and out round a thousand stony promontories, and over a thousand bright cascades, gradually collected its waters into a fuller body, and flowed on in a deep swift stream towards a more profound fall below. At the side of the cataract, the most industrious of all the universe's insects, man, had taken advantage of the combination of stream and precipice, and fixed a small mill-wheel under the full jet of water, the clacking sound of which, mingling with the murmur of the stream, and the savage scenery around, communicated strange, undefined sensations to my mind, associating all the cheerful ideas of human proximity, with the wild grandeur of rude uncultivated nature.

I was too young to unravel my feelings, or trace the sources of the pleasure I experienced; but getting to the very verge of the rock, a little way above the mill, I stood, watching the dashing eddies as they hurried on to be precipitated down the fall, and listening to the various sounds that came floating on the air.

On what impulse I forget at this moment, but after gazing for some time, I put my foot still farther towards the edge of the rocky stone on which I stood, and bent over, looking down the side of the bank. The stone was a detached fragment of grey marble, lying somewhat loosely upon the edge of the descent--my weight overthrew its balance--it tottered--I made a violent effort to recover myself, but in vain--the rock rolled over, and I was pitched headlong into the stream.

The agony of finding myself irretrievably gone--the dazzle and the flash of the water as it closed over my head--the thousand regrets that whirled through my brain during the brief moment that I was below the surface--the struggle of renewed hope as I rose again and beheld the blue sky and the fair face of nature, are all as deeply graven on my memory as if the whole had occurred but yesterday. Although all panting when I got my head above the water, I succeeded in uttering a loud shout for assistance, while I struggled to keep myself up with my hand; but as I had never learned to swim, I soon sunk again, and on rising a second time, my strength was so far gone, I could but give voice to a feeble cry, though I saw myself drifting quickly towards the mill and the waterfall, where death seemed inevitable. My only hope was that the miller would hear me; but to my dismay, I found that my call, though uttered with all the power I had left, was far too faint to rise above the roar of the cascade and the clatter of the mill-wheels.

Hope gave way, and ceasing to struggle, I was letting myself sink, when I caught a faint glimpse of some one running down amongst the rocks towards me, but at that moment, in spite of my renewed efforts, the water overwhelmed me again. For an instant there was an intolerable sense of suffocation--a ringing in my ears, and a flashing of light in my eyes that was very dreadful, but it passed quickly away, and a sweet dreamy sensation came over me, as if I had been walking in green fields, I did not well know where--the fear and the struggle were all gone, and, gradually losing remembrance of everything, I seemed to fall asleep.

Such is all that my memory has preserved of the sensations I experienced in drowning--a death generally considered a very dreadful one, but which is, in reality, anything but painful. We have no means of judging what is suffered in almost any other manner of passing from the world; but were I to speak from what I myself felt in the circumstances I have detailed, I should certainly say that it is the fear that is the death.

My next remembrance is of a most painful tingling, spreading itself through every part of my body, even to my very heart, without any other consciousness of active being, till at length, opening my eyes, I found myself lying in a large barely furnished room in the mill, with a multitude of faces gazing at me, some strange and some familiar, amongst the last of which I perceived the pimpled nose of the old maître d'hôtel, and the mild countenance of Father Francis of Allurdi.

My father, too, was there; and I remember seeing him with his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes straining upon me as if his whole soul was in them. When I opened mine, he raised his look towards heaven, and a tear rolled over his cheek; but I saw or heard little of what passed, for an irresistible sensation of weariness came over me; and the moment after I awoke from the sleep of death, I fell into a quiet and refreshing slumber, very different from the "cold obstruction" of the others.

I will pass over all the rejoicing that signalized my recovery--my father's joy, my mother's thanks and prayers, the servants' carousing, and the potations, deep and strong, of the pimple-nosed maître d'hôtel, whose hatred of water never demonstrated itself more strongly than the day after I had escaped drowning. As soon as I had completely regained my strength, my mother told me, that after having shown our gratitude to God, it became our duty to show our gratitude also to the person who had been the immediate means of saving me from destruction; and it was then I learned that I owed my life to the courage and skill of a lad but little older than myself, the son of a poor procureur, or attorney, at Lourdes. He had been fishing in the stream at the time the rock gave way under my feet, and seeing my fall, hurried to save me. With much difficulty and danger he accomplished his object, and having drawn me from the water, carried me to the mill, where he remained only long enough to see me open my eyes, retiring modestly the moment he was assured of my safety.

In those young days, life was to me so bright a plaything, all the wheels of existence moved so easily, there was so much beauty in the world, so much delight in being, that my most enthusiastic gratitude was sure to follow such a service as that I had received. Readily did I assent to my mother's proposal, that she should accompany me to Lourdes to offer our thanks--not as with the world in general, in mere empty words, as unsubstantial as the air that bears them, but by some more lasting mark of our gratitude.

Upon the nature of the recompense she was to offer, she held a long consultation with my father, who, unwilling to give anything minute consideration, left it entirely to her own judgment, promising the fullest acquiescence in whatever she should think fit; and accordingly we set out early the next day for Lourdes, my mother mounted on a hawking palfrey, and I riding by her side on a small fleet Limousin horse, which my father had given me a few days before.

This was not, indeed, the equipage with which the Countess de Bigorre should have visited a town once under the dominion of her husband's ancestors; but what was to be done? A carriage, indeed, we had, which would have held six, and if required, eight persons; though the gilding was somewhat tarnished, and a few industrious spiders had spun their delicate nets in the windows, and between the spokes of the wheels. Neither were horses wanting, for on the side of the mountain were eight coursers, with tails and manes as long as the locks of a mermaid, and a plentiful supply of hair to correspond about their feet. They were somewhat aged, indeed, and for the last six years they had gone about slip-shod amongst the hills, enjoying the otium cum dignitate which neither men nor horses often find. Still they would have done; but where were we to find the six men dressed in the colours of the family, necessary to protect the foot-board behind? where the four stout cavaliers, armed up to the teeth, to ride by the side of the carriage? where the postilions? where the coachman?

My mother did much more wisely than strive for a pomp which we were never to see again. She went quietly and simply, to discharge what she considered a duty, with as little ostentation as possible; and when the worthy maître d'hôtel lamented, with the familiarity of long service, that the Countess de Bigorre should go without such a retinue as in his day had always made the name respected, she replied, quietly, that those who were as proud of the name as she was, would find no retinue needful to make it respectable. My father retired into his library, as we were about to depart, saying to my mother, that he hoped she had commanded such a body of retainers to accompany her as she thought necessary. She merely replied that she had; and set out, with a single groom to hold the horses, and a boy to show us the way to the dwelling of the procureur.

Let it be observed, that, up to the commencement of the year of which I speak, Lourdes had never been visited with the plague of an attorney; but at that epoch, the father of the lad who had saved my life, and who, like him, was named Jean Baptiste Arnault, had come to settle in that place, much to the horror and astonishment of the inhabitants. He had, it was rumoured, been originally intendant, or steward, to some nobleman in Poitou, and having, by means best known to himself, obtained the charge of procureur in Bearn, he had first visited Pau, and thence removed to Lourdes.

The name of an attorney had at first frightened the good Bearnois of that town; but they soon discovered that Maître Jean Baptiste Arnault was a very clever, quiet, amiable, little man, about two cubits in height, of which stature his head monopolised at least the moiety. He was not particularly handsome; but, as he appeared to have other better qualities, that did not much signify, and they gradually made him their friend, their confidant, and their adviser; in all of which capacities, he acted in a mild, tranquil, easy little manner, that seemed quite delightful: but, notwithstanding all this, the people of the town of Lourdes began insensibly to get of a quarrelsome and a litigious turn, so that Jean Baptiste Arnault had his study in general pretty full of clients; and, though he made it appear clearly to the most common understanding, that his sole object was to promote peace and good-will, yet, strange to say, discord, the faithful jackal of all attorneys, was a very constant attendant on his steps.

Such were the reports that had reached us at the Château de l'Orme; and the maître d'hôtel, when he repeated them, laid his finger upon the side of his prominent and rubicund proboscis, and screwed up his eye till it nearly suffered an eclipse, saying as plainly as nose and eye could say, "Monsieur Jean Baptiste Arnault is a cunning fellow." However, my father had no will to believe ill of any one, and my mother as little; so that, when we set out for Lourdes, both were fully convinced that the parent of their child's deliverer was one of the most excellent of men.

After visiting the church, and offering at the shrine of Notre Dame du bon secours, we proceeded to the dwelling of the procureur, and dismounting from our horses, entered the étude, or office, of the lawyer; the boy, who had come to show us the way, throwing open the door with a consequential fling, calculated to impress the mind of the attorney with the honour which we did him. It was a miserable chamber, with a low table, and a few chairs, both strewed with some books of law, and written papers, greased and browned by the continual thumbing of the coarse-handed peasants, in whose concerns they were written.

Jean Baptiste Arnault was not there, but in his place appeared a person, plainly dressed in a suit of black, with buttons of jet, without any embroidery or ornament whatever. He wore a pair of riding boots, with immense tops, shaped like a funnel, according to the mode of the day, and the dust upon these appendages, as well as the disordered state of his long wavy hair, seemed to announce that he had ridden far; while a large Sombrero hat, and a long steel-hilted Toledo sword, which lay beside him, led the mind naturally to conclude that his journey had been from Spain.

To judge of his station by his dress, one would have concluded him to be some Spanish merchant of no very large fortune; but his person and his air told a different tale. Pale, and even rather sallow in complexion, the high broad forehead, rising almost upright from his brow, and seen still higher through the floating curls of his dark hair, the straight, finely turned nose, the small mouth curled with a sort of smile, strangely mingled of various expressions, half cynical, half bland, the full rounded chin, the very turn of his head and neck, as he sat writing at a table exactly opposite the door, all gave that nobility to his aspect, which was not to be mistaken.

On our entrance, the stranger rose, and in answer to my mother's inquiry for the procureur, replied, "Arnault is not at present here; but if the Countess de Bigorre will sit down, he shall attend her immediately," and taking up the letter he had been writing, he left the apartment. The moment after, the door by which he had gone out again opened, and Jean Baptiste Arnault entered the room, at once verifying by his appearance everything we had heard of his person. He was quite a dwarf in stature; and, in size at least, dame Nature had certainly very much favoured his head, at the expense of the rest of his body. His face, to my youthful eyes, appeared at least two feet square, with all the features in proportion, except the eyes, which were peculiarly small and black; and not being very regularly set in his head, seemed like two small boats, nearly lost in the vast ocean of countenance which lay before us.

I do not precisely remember the particulars of the conversation which took place upon his coming in, but I very well recollect laughing most amazingly at his appearance, in spite of my mother's reproof, and telling him, with the unceremonious candour of a spoiled child, that he was certainly the ugliest man I had ever seen. He affected to take my boldness in very good part, and called me a fine frank boy; but there was a vindictive gleam in his little black eyes, which contradicted his words; and I have since had reason to believe that he never forgot or forgave my childish rudeness. It is a very general rule, that a man is personally vain in proportion to his ugliness, and hates the truth in the same degree that he deceives himself. Certain it is, no man was ever more ugly, or ever more vain; and his conceit had not been nourished a little by marrying a very handsome woman.

Of course the first subject of conversation which arose between my mother and himself was the service which his son had rendered me; and as a recompense, she offered that the young Jean Baptiste should be received into the Château de l'Orme, and educated with its heir, which she considered as the highest honour that could be conferred on the young roturier; and in the second place, she promised, in the name of my father, that five hundred livres per annum should be settled upon him for life,--a sum of no small importance in those days, and in that part of the country.

The surprise and gratitude of the attorney can hardly be properly expressed. Of liberality he had not in his own bosom one single idea; and, I verily believe, that at first he thought my mother had some sinister object in the proposals which she made; but speedily recovering himself, he accepted with great readiness the pension that was offered to his son; at the same time hesitating a good deal in regard to sending him to the Château de l'Orme. He enlarged upon his sense of the honour, and the favour, and the condescension; but his son, he said, was the only person he had who could act as his clerk, and he was afraid he could not continue his business without him. In short, his objections hurt my mother's pride, and she was rising with an air of dignity to put an end to the matter, by taking her departure, when, as if by a sudden thought, the procureur besought her to stay one moment, and as her bounty had already been so great, perhaps she would extend it one degree farther. His son, he said, was absolutely necessary to him to carry on his business; but he had one daughter, whom, her mother being dead, he had no means of educating as he could wish. "If," said he, "Madame la Comtesse de Bigorre will transfer the benefit she intended for my son to his sister, she will lay my whole family under an everlasting obligation; and I will take upon myself to affirm, that the disposition and talents of the child are such as will do justice to the kindness of her benefactress."

These words he pronounced in a loud voice, and then starting up, as if to cut across all deliberation on the subject, he said he would call both his children, and left the room.

After having been absent some time, he returned with the lad who had saved my life, and a little girl of about ten years old. Jean Baptiste, the younger, was at this time about fifteen; and though totally unlike his father in stature, in make, or in mind, he had still a sufficient touch of the old procureur in his countenance, to justify his mother in the matter of paternity.

Not so the little Helen, whose face was certainly not the reflection of her father's, if such he was. Her long soft dark eyes alone were sufficient to have overset the whole relationship, without even the glossy brown hair that curled round her brow, the high clear forehead, the mouth like twin cherries, or the brilliant complexion, which certainly put Monsieur Arnault's coffee-coloured skin very much out of countenance.

Her manners were as sweet and gentle as her person: my mother's heart was soon won, and the exchange proposed readily conceded. The young Jean Baptiste was thanked both by my mother and myself, in all the terms we could find to express our gratitude, all which he received in a good-humoured and yet a sheepish manner, as if he were at once gratified and distressed by the commendations that were showered upon him. Helen, it was agreed, should be brought over to the château the next day; and having now acquitted ourselves of the debt of obligation under which we had lain, we again mounted our horses and rode away from Lourdes.

CHAPTER III.

Though I have not gone very far into my history, I have learned to hate being my own historian, stringing I, and I, and I, together to the end of the chapter. Nevertheless, I believe that no man's history can be so well told as by himself, if he will but be candid; for no one can so completely enter into his feelings, or have so vivid an impression of the circumstances amidst which he has acted. Notwithstanding this, it shall be my endeavour to pass over the events of my youth as rapidly as possible, for the purpose of arriving at that part of this history where the stirring nature of the scenes in which I mingled may cover the egotism of the detail; but still, as there are persons and occurrences yet unmentioned, by which my after life was entirely modified, I must still pause a little on this part of my tale.

Faithful to the charge she had undertaken, my mother made the education of Helen Arnault her particular care. At first, she confined her instructions to those arts alone that were likely to be useful to her in the bourgeoise class in which she had been born; but there was a degree of ready genius mixed with the infinite gentleness of Helen's disposition, which gradually seduced my mother into teaching her much more than she had at first intended. Nor was she ill qualified for the task, possessing every female accomplishment, both mental and corporeal, in as much perfection as they had received in those days. At first, the education of the sweet girl, thus placed under her protection, formed a sort of amusement for her, when my father and myself were absent in any of the long rides we used to take through the country--gradually it became so habitual as to be necessary to her comfort; and Helen so completely wound herself round the Countess's heart, that she could not bear to be without her for any considerable length of time.

Perhaps it was the very attachment which she herself experienced towards Helen, that made my mother feel how strong might be the effect of such sweetness and such beauty at some after time upon the heart of an ardent, sensitive, imaginative youth--and my mother from the first knew me to be such. Whatever was the cause, certain it is she took care that between Helen and myself should be placed a barrier of severe and chilling formality, calculated to repress the least intimacy in its very bud. Whenever she mentioned my name to her young protégée, it was always under the ceremonious epithet of Count Louis. Whenever I entered the room, Helen Arnault was sent away, upon some excuse which prevented her return; or if she was permitted to remain, there was a sort of courtly etiquette maintained, well calculated to freeze all the warmer blood of youth.

All this my mind has commented on since, though I only regarded it, at the time, as something very disagreeable, without in the least understanding why my mother chose to play so very different a part from that which suited her natural character. She certainly acted for the best, but I think she was mistaken in her judgment of the means to be employed for effecting her object. It is probable, that had she suffered me at the first to look upon Helen Arnault as a sister, and taught her to consider me as her brother, the feelings which we acquired towards each other at ten and twelve years old would have remained unchanged at a later period. God knows how it would have been! I am afraid that all experiments upon young hearts are dangerous things. The only remedy is, I believe, a stone wall; and the example of Pyramus and Thisbe demonstrates that even it must not have a crack in it.

As it was, the years rolled on, and I began to acquire the sensations of manhood. I saw Helen Arnault but by glimpses, but I saw nothing on earth so lovely. Every day new beauties broke forth upon me; and it was impossible to behold her hour by hour expanding into the perfection of womanhood, without experiencing those feelings with which we see a bud open out into the rose--a wish to possess so beautiful a thing.

In the meanwhile, several changes took place in our vicinity; the most important of which was the arrival of a neighbour. The Château de l'Orme stood, as I have said, upon the side of the hill, commanding an extensive view through the valley below. It had originally been nothing more than one of those towers to be found in every gorge of the Pyrenees, built in times long past to defend the country from the incursions of the Moors of Spain.

After the expulsion of the infidels from the Peninsula, it had been converted into a hunting residence for the counts of Bigorre, and a great many additions had been made to it, according to the various tastes of a long line of proprietors, who had each in general followed the particular style of architecture which accorded with his own immediate pursuits. The more warlike had built towers, and walls, and turrets, and battlements. One of the counts dying without children, it had fallen into the hands of his brother, who was a bishop. He added a Gothic chapel and a dormitory for ecclesiastics. His nephew, a famous lawyer and President de Grenoble, no sooner succeeded, than he built an immense hall, exactly copied from the hall of justice in which he had so often presided; and others of different dispositions had equally taken care of the stables, the dairy, and the kitchen.

In short, they had been like the fairies called to the birth of a child in our nursery tales; each had endowed the building with some particular gift, so that on the whole, though somewhat straggling and irregular, it contained an apartment of every kind, sort, and description, that could be wanted or wished for.

In one of the square towers, built upon the edge of a steep rock, some ninety feet in height, my father had fixed his library. Here he could read whatever book he chose, in a quiet, dozy sort of manner, without hearing any noise from the rest of the house; though, at the same time, he just caught, through the open windows, the murmuring of the waterfall below, and could look up from what he was perusing, and run his eye through all the windings of the valley, with a dreamy contemplative listlessness, in which he was very fond to indulge.

At about a quarter of a mile from the château, and amongst the first objects within the scope of my father's view as he sat in this library, was a small house, which had belonged to some of the wealthier retainers of the family, when it had been in its flush prosperity. This had since passed into the hands of a farmer, at the time that my grandfather had judged proper to diminish the family estate, and expend its current representative in gunpowder and cannon balls; but a year or two before the time to which I refer, it had become vacant by the death of its occupier, and had remained shut up ever since.

Little care being taken to keep this house in repair, it formed a sort of eye-sore in my father's view, and regularly every month he declared he would repurchase it, and arrange it according to his own taste, with a degree of energy, and even vehemence of manner, which would have led any one, who did not know him, to suppose that within an hour the purchase would be completed, and the alterations put in train; but the moment he had shut the library door behind him, he began to think of something else, and before he was in the court-yard, he had forgotten all about it.

One morning, however, he was not a little surprised to see the windows of the house opened, and two or three workmen of various kinds employed in rendering it habitable. Without giving himself time to recover from his astonishment, or to forget the change, he sent down the lackey to inquire the name of its new occupier, and, in short, the whole particulars.

How the man executed his commission I know not; but the reply was, that the Chevalier de Montenero would do himself the honour of waiting upon the Count de Bigorre. My father said, "Very well," and resolved to have everything prepared to receive this new neighbour with ceremony; but finding that the arrangements required a good deal of thought, he resolved to leave them all to my mother, and was proceeding to her apartments for the purpose of casting the weight of it upon her shoulders, when, in the corridor, he met little Helen Arnault, who had then been with us about six months--began playing with and caressing her--forgot the Chevalier de Montenero, and went out to ride with me towards Bigorre.

On our return, we found a strong iron grey horse saddled in the court-yard, and were informed that the Chevalier de Montenero was in the apartments of Madame la Comtesse. On following my father thither, I instantly recognised the person we had seen in the étude of the procureur at Lourdes. The sight, I will own, was a pleasing one to me, for from the moment I had first beheld him I had wished to hear and see more. There was a sort of dignity in his aspect that struck my boyish imagination, and captivated me in a way I cannot account for. I am well aware that on every principle of right reasoning, the theory of innate sympathies is one of the most ridiculous that ever the theory-mongers of this earth produced, but yet, though strange, it is no less a fact, which every one must have felt, that there are persons whom we meet in the world, and who, without one personal beauty to attract, and, even before we have had any opportunity of judging of their minds, obtain a sort of hold upon our feelings and imagination, more powerful than long acquaintance with their qualities of mind could produce. Perhaps it may proceed from some association between their persons and our preconceived ideas of goodness.

The Chevalier de Montenero, however, in his youth must have been remarkable for personal beauty, and the strongest traces of it remained even yet, though, in this respect, years had been the less merciful, inasmuch as they had been leagued with care. Deep lines of painful and anxious thought were evident on the Chevalier's forehead and in his cheek--but it was not thought of a mean or sordid nature. The grandeur of his brow, the erect unshrinking dignity of his carriage, all contradicted it. Powerful, or rather overpowering passions, might perchance speak forth in the flash of his dark eye, but its expression for good or bad was still great and elevated. There was something also that might be called impenetrable in his air. It was that of a man long accustomed to bury matters of much import deep in his own bosom; and very few, I believe, would have liked to ask him an impertinent question.

In manner he was mild and grave; and though his name was evidently Spanish, and his whole dress and appearance betrayed that he had very lately arrived from that country, yet he spoke our language with perfect facility, and without the slightest foreign accent. I believe the pleasure I felt in seeing him again showed itself in somewhat of youthful gladness; and as he was not a man to despise anything that was pure and unaffected, he seemed gratified by my remembrance, and invited me to visit him in his solitude. "I mean, madame," said he, turning to my mother, "to make the house which I have bought in the valley a hermitage, in almost everything but the name; but if you will occasionally permit your son to cheer it with his company, I shall be the happier in the society of one who as yet is certainly uncorrupted by this bad world, and, in return, he may perhaps learn from me some of that lore which long commerce with my fellow-creatures, and much familiarity with great and strange events, have taught me."

I eagerly seized on the permission, and from that day, whenever my mood turned towards the serious and the thoughtful, my steps naturally followed the path towards the dwelling of the Chevalier. I may say that I won his affection; and much did he strive to correct and guide my disposition to high and noble objects, marking keenly every propensity in my nature, and endeavouring to direct them aright. There was a charm in his conversation, an impressive truth in all he said, that both persuaded and convinced; and, had I followed the lessons of wisdom I heard from his lips, I should have been both happier and better in my after life; but the struggle of youthful passion was ever too strong for reason: and for many years of my being I was but a creature of impulse, carried away by the wish of the moment, and forgetting, at the time I most needed them, all the resolutions I had founded upon the experience of others.

The Chevalier evidently saw and regretted the wildness of my disposition, but I do not think he loved me the less. There was something in it that harmonized with his own character; for often, notwithstanding all that he had learned in the impressive school of the world, the original enthusiasm of his heart would shine out, in spite of the veil of stern coldness with which he covered his warmer feelings. This I remarked afterwards; but suffice it in this place to say, that his regard for me assumed a character of almost paternal tenderness, which I ever repaid by a respect and reverence I am afraid more than filial. In his manners, to every one but the members of our family, he was distant and cold, but it seemed as if towards us his heart had expanded from the first. My mother he would often visit, behaving on such occasions with the calm, elegant attention of high bred courtesy, never stiffening into coldness or sinking into familiarity. With my father he would sit for many hours at a time, conversing over various subjects of life and morals, with which, even to my young mind, it was apparent that he was actively and practically acquainted; while my father, though perhaps his reasoning was as good, spoke evidently but from what he had read and what he had heard, without the clear precision of personal knowledge.

Other acquaintances, also, though of an inferior class, and very different character, must now be mentioned, though neither their habits of life, or rank in society, were calculated to throw much lustre on those who in any way consorted with them.

The excessive height to which the gabelle had carried the price of salt acted as one of the greatest encouragements to those Spanish smugglers, who have in all times frequented the various passes of the Pyrenees, and distinguished themselves by a daring and reckless courage, and a keen penetrating sagacity, which might have raised them individually to the highest stations of society, if employed for the nobler and better purposes of existence.

It unfortunately happens in the world, that talent is less frequently wanting than the wisdom to employ it; and many men, who, to my knowledge, might have established their own fortune, served their country, and rendered their name immortal, have wasted grand abilities upon petty schemes, and heroic courage upon disgraceful enterprises. So was it, though in a minor degree, with many of the Spanish smugglers that were continually passing to and fro in our immediate neighbourhood; and a braver or more ingenious race of men never existed.

Of course they were not without their aiders and abettors on the French side of the mountains; and it was very generally supposed that the mill, near which I had fallen into the water, was a great receptacle for the contraband goods which they imported. However, nothing of the kind was to be discovered, although the officers of the gabelle, called Gabellateurs, and the Douaniers, or custom-house officers, had visited it at all times and seasons. The mill had ever been found clear and fair, and the miller, a quiet, civil sort of person, who let them look where they listed, and took it all in good part.

Notwithstanding all this fair appearance, which baffled even the keen eyes of those interested in the discovery, and deceived completely all who were not interested in the smuggling itself, whenever my father wanted some good Alicante wine, or Xeres, or anything else of the same nature, he sent to the miller, who was always found ready to oblige Monseigneur le Comte. Often also, in my childhood, did I visit the mill in company with the old maître d'hôtel, whose predilection for the good things of this life, especially in the form of liquids, would have led him to cultivate the acquaintance of the Devil himself, if he had appeared with a bottle of wine under his arm. Many was the curious scene that I thus saw, now floating faintly before my memory as a remembered dream; and many were the means employed to make the amiable practice of smuggling palatable to the taste of the heir of Bigorre. Oranges, and pomegranates, and dates, were always brought forward to gratify the young Count, and my bold and daring spirit, even as a child, excited the admiration and delight of many of the dark smugglers, who used, in return, to tell me long stories of their strange adventures, which, heightened by the barbarous yet picturesque dialect that they spoke, excited my fancy to the utmost, and sent me away with my brain full of wild imaginations.

Very often, if any of these men had something peculiarly rare or curious to dispose of, they went so far as to bring it up to the Château de l'Orme, where my father generally became a purchaser, notwithstanding a remonstrance which my mother would occasionally venture to make against the encouragement of persons habitually infringing the law of the land. Our family thus acquired the reputation amongst the smugglers of being their patrons and benefactors; and violent in all their passions, whether good or bad, their gratitude was enthusiastic in proportion. One of them, named Pedro Garcias, deserves more particular notice than the rest on many accounts. When I first knew him, he was a man of about forty, perhaps more; but time and danger, and excited passion and fatigue, had made as little impression upon him as the soft waves of some sheltered bay do upon the granite rocks that surround it. He was born at the little village of Jacca, on the other side of the mountains, the son of a wealthy farmer, who afforded him an education much superior to his rank in life. The blood of his ancestors, they said, was mingled with that of the Moors; but instead of feeling this circumstance as a stain upon his race, like most of his countrymen, he seemed rather to glory in his descent from a valiant and conquering people, and to exult in the African fire that circled in his veins.

His complexion was not peculiarly swarthy, though his long stiff black hair, and flashing eyes, spoke out in favour of his Moorish origin. In height he was nearly six feet three inches; but instead of any of the awkward disproportion which we sometimes see in tall people, his form was cast in the most exquisite mould of vigorous masculine beauty.

There existed between his mind and person that similarity which we more frequently find amongst the uncultivated children of nature, than where education has changed the character, or impeded its development. His intellect and all his perceptions were strong, powerful, and active, with a certain cast of fearless grandeur about them, that gave something great and fine even to the employment he had chosen. His disposition also was quick, hasty, and unsparing, but full of a rude enthusiastic generosity, that would have taught him to die for those he considered his friends, and also a bold dignity, which led him to trust to daring more than cunning. He had in his nature much of the beast of prey, but it was of the nobler kind.

Heaven knows how, with so many qualities of mind and person--qualities calculated to raise him above, rather than sink him below, the station in which he was born--Heaven knows how he fell into the perilous but inglorious life of a simple contrabandisto between France and Spain.

This man was one of the smugglers who most frequently visited the château, and it sometimes happened that the intermediation of the old maître d'hôtel was dispensed with, and that he would be admitted to an audience of my father himself, which generally lasted a considerable time; for Garcias possessed that sort of natural eloquence which, mingled with a degree of caustic humour, was sure to command attention, and to engage without wearying. There was something, too, in his very appearance that attracted and interested. Certainly never was a more picturesque, I may say, a more striking figure seen, than he presented, as I have beheld him often, coming down amongst the mountains, whose child he seemed to be: his long black hair gathered into a net under his broad sombrero; his cloak of chequered cloth, mantling all the upper part of his figure, and only leaving free the left hip, with the steel hilt of his sword, and the right arm ready to make use of it; while his legs, whose swelling muscles told of their gigantic strength, appeared striding underneath, covered to the knees with the tight elastic silk breeches of the Aragonese mountaineers. The rest of his dress generally consisted of a brown cloth jacket, a crimson sash round his waist, containing his pistols and long knife, white stockings, and a pair of mountain sandals, made of untanned cowhide, laced up to his ankle.

Such were the various persons that surrounded me in my youth; and such indeed were the only ones with whom I had any communication, except the young Jean Baptiste Arnault, who used to come frequently to see his sister. Her father troubled himself very little about her, after she was once fairly under the protection of my mother; but her brother was not so remiss, and, whenever he came, was received with kindness by all the family, nor suffered to depart without some little token of regard. For my own part, the memory of the service he had rendered me remained ever upon my mind, and showed itself in every way that my youthful imagination could devise; till, at length, the good simple-hearted lad, from the person obliging, began to feel himself the obliged, and both feelings mingling in his heart together, produced towards me the most generous and disinterested attachment.

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.

The soul of Laure de Bigorre, my ancestress, who contended for her birthright with a king, rose in my bosom at the affront, and drawing my sword, without a moment's hesitation, I lunged straight at his heart. The dazzling of my eyes from the blow he had given me just gave him time to draw and parry my thrust, or that instant he had lain a dead man at my feet. The scorn with which he treated me at first now turned to rage at the boldness of my attack; and the moment he had parried, he pressed me hard in return, thinking, doubtless, soon to master the sword of an inexperienced boy. A severe wound in his sword-arm was the first thing that showed him his mistake, and in an instant after, in making a furious lunge, his foot slipped, and he fell; his weapon at the same time flying out of his hand in another direction, while his thunder-struck lackeys stood gaping with open mouths and bloodless cheeks, turned into statues by a magical mixture of fright and astonishment.

I am ashamed to say, that anger overpowered my better feelings, and I was about to wash out the indignity he had offered me in his blood, when I heard some one opposite exclaim, "Ha!" in an accent both of surprise and reproach. I looked up, and immediately my eyes encountered those of Chevalier de Montenero, standing in the yard, with his arms crossed upon his bosom, regarding us intently.

I understood the meaning of his exclamation at once, and dropping the point of my weapon, I turned to my adversary, saying, "Rise, sir, and take up your sword."

He rose slowly and sullenly; and while his servants pressed round to aid him, returned his blade into its scabbard, bending his brows upon me with a very sinister frown:--"We shall meet again, young sir," said he, with a meaning nod; "we shall meet again, where I may have better space to chastise your insolence."

"I dare say we shall meet again," answered I; "what may come then, God knows;" and I turned upon my heel towards the Chevalier, who embraced me affectionately, whispering at the same time, "Wash the blood from your face, and mount as quickly as you can; your adversary is not a man who may be offended with impunity."

I did as he bade me, and we rode out of the court together, taking our way onward towards Lourdes. As we went, the Chevalier threw back his hat from his face, and with one of those beaming smiles that sometimes lighted up his whole countenance, bestowed the highest praises on my conduct.

"Believe me, my dear Louis," said he, "such is the way to pass tranquilly through life: for with courage, and skill, and moderation, such as you have shown to-day, bad men will be afraid to be your enemies, and good men will be proud to be your friends." He then informed me that my opponent was the famous Marquis de Saint Brie, who had been strongly suspected in two instances of having used somewhat foul means to rid himself of a successful rival. "He prevailed on the Chevalier de Valençais to sup with him," proceeded the Chevalier. "The supper was good, the wine excellent, the marquis fascinating; and poor De Valençais returned home, believing that he had lost an enemy and gained a friend. Ere he had been half an hour in bed, he called his valet in great agony, and before morning he had lost all his enemies together, and gone to join his friends in heaven. The physician shook his head; but after having had an hour's conversation with the marquis, he became quite convinced that the poor youth had died of an inflammation.

"The other is not so distinct a tale," continued the Chevalier, "or I have not heard it so completely; but from this man's general character, I have no doubt of his criminality. He some years ago proposed to marry the beautiful Henriette de Vergne, and offered himself to her father. The old man examined his rents, and finding that he had three hundred thousand livres per annum, he felt instantly convinced the Marquis de St. Brie was the most noble-minded, honourable, sweet-tempered, and amiable man in the world; and possessed all these qualities in exactly the proportion of three to one more than the Count de Bagnols, to whom he had before promised his daughter, and who had but one hundred thousand livres per annum. His calculation was soon made; and sending for the young Count, he informed him that he was not near so good a man as the Marquis de St. Brie, and gave him his reasons for thinking so, at the same time breaking formally his former engagement. De Bagnols instantly sent his cartel to the Marquis de St. Brie, who accepted it, but named a distant day. Before that day arrived, the young Count was accused of aiding the Huguenots at Rochelle, and was arrested; but he contrived to escape and transfer great part of his property to Spain. Now comes the more obscure part of the tale. The marriage of the Marquis with Mademoiselle de Vergne approached, and great preparations were made at her father's château; but a man was seen lurking about the park, whom many of the servants recognised as the Count de Bagnols. They were wise, however, and said nothing, though it was generally rumoured amongst them that the Count had been privately married to their young lady some weeks before his arrest. The night, however, on which Monsieur de St. Brie arrived, and which was to precede his marriage by one week, an uneasy conscience having rendered him restless, he by chance beheld a man descend from the window of Mademoiselle de Vergne's apartment. He gave the alarm, and with much fury declared he had been cheated, deceived, betrayed; and it then appeared, they say, that the fair Henriette had really married her lover. He was now, however, an exile, and a wanderer; and her father declared he would have the marriage annulled if the Marquis de St. Brie would but do him the honour to stay and wed his daughter. The Marquis, however, sternly refused, and that very night departed, and took up his lodging at the village hard by. The Count de Bagnols was never heard of more. Two mornings afterwards, there was found in the park of M. de Vergne a broken sword, near the spot where it was supposed the lover used to leap the wall. The ground round about was dented with the struggling of many feet, died and dabbled with gore. Part of a torn cloak, too, was found, and a long train of bloody drops from that place to the bank of the river; a peasant also deposed to having seen two men fling a heavy burden into the stream at that spot--he would not swear that it was a dead body, but he thought it was."

"And what became of Mademoiselle de la Vergne?" demanded I.

"The Countess de Bagnols," said the Chevalier,--"for no doubt remained of her marriage, removed, or was removed, I know not precisely which, to a convent, where she died about five or six months afterwards."

The Chevalier ceased, and we both fell into a deep silence. The fate of the two lovers, whose story he had just told, was one well calculated to excite many of those feelings in my young heart, which, when really strong, do not evaporate in words. I could have wept for the fate of the two lovers, and my heart burned like fire to think that such base wrongs should exist--and exist unpunished. All the sympathy I felt for them easily changed into indignation towards him whom I looked upon as the cause of the death of both; and I regretted that I had not passed my sword through the heart of their murderer when he lay prostrate on the ground before me.

"Had I known," cried I, at length--"had I known but half an hour ago, who was the man, and what were his actions, yon black-hearted assassin should have gone to another world to answer for the crimes he has committed in this.

"You did wisely to refrain," replied the chevalier, with a tone of calmness that, to my unrepressed heat, smacked of apathetic frigidity. "Viewed by an honourable mind, my dear Louis, his very fall covered him with a shield more impenetrable than the sevenfold buckler of Telamon. Never regret an act of generosity, however worthless the object. If you act nobly to one that deserves nobly, you confer a benefit on him and a benefit on yourself: if he be undeserving, still the very action does good to your own heart. In the present instance, had you slain that bad man, you would probably have entailed ruin on yourself for ever. Allied as he is to all the most powerful of the land, the direst vengeance would infallibly follow his fall, from whatever hand it came, and instant flight or certain death must have been your choice. Even as it is, you have called upon yourself the hatred of a man who was never known to forgive. When the first heat of his rage is past, he may seem to forget the affront he has received, but still it will be remembered and treasured up till occasion serves for wiping it out in the most remorseless manner. At present, I would certainly advise your father to take advantage of the temporary peace that exists with Spain, and send you into that land, till the man you have offended has quitted this part of the country, and it is possible you may never meet with him again. If you do, however, beware of his anger. Believe me, it is as imperishable as the fabled wrath of Juno. I am going to Saragossa myself upon business of importance, and will willingly take all charge of you, if you will join me there. Tell the Count what has happened--tell him what I say, and bid him lose no time--I would urge it upon him personally, but the affairs that call me into Spain admit of no delay."

CHAPTER V.

As the chevalier concluded, he put his horse into a quicker pace, and in a minute or two after, the road opened out into the beautiful valley of Lourdes. It would be difficult to express the thrilling feelings of exquisite delight with which I beheld again the scenes of my early remembrances. One must be a mountaineer to feel that strange attachment to one particular spot of earth which makes all the rest of the world but a desert to the heart. I have read a thousand theories, by a thousand philosophers, intended to show the latent causes of such sensations, and on comparing them with the living feelings of my own breast, I have found them what I believe the theories of philosophers generally are, chains of reasoning as fragile and unsubstantial as those links which the children in the country weave out of flowers, graceful in formation and apparently firmly united, but which the slightest touch will snap asunder. Such feelings are too fine, too subtle for the grasp of reason; they cannot be analyzed; they cannot be described; and even while we experience them, we can render to ourselves no account of why they are felt. The first sight of the Castle of Lourdes, perched upon its high rock, with its battlements, and turrets, and watch-towers; while the mountains sweeping round it formed a glorious purple background to its bold features, and the sparkling stream seemed playing at its feet--the very first sight made my heart beat like a young lover's, when he sees again after a long absence the first inspirer of his airy dreams.

Each blue hill, each winding path, each detached rock, each ancient tree, that my eye rested upon, was a landmark to guide the wanderer, memory, back through the waste of years, to some joy, or some sport, or some pleasure, long left behind. Eagerly I followed the chevalier on, from one object to another, gleaning bright remembrances as I went along; while the rapid mind, with every footfall of my horse, still ran through a thousand associations, and came back like light to mark some new theme of memory. Even the dirty, little, insignificant town of Lourdes had greater charms, in my eyes, than a city of palaces would, at that moment, have possessed, and I looked upon all the faces that I saw as if I recognised them for my kinsfolk.

When we arrived at the market-place, the Chevalier, who was about to visit the house of Arnault, his procureur, left me, and I proceeded alone, riding rapidly on, till the path, winding through the narrow gorge beyond Lourdes, opened out into the wide basin of Argelés. I paused for a moment to look over its far extent, rich in sunny magnificence. All seemed brightness, and tranquillity, and summer; every asperity was smoothed and harmonized, and the lustrous purple of the distant air spread a misty softness over each rough feature of the mountains; while a thousand blue and indistinct passes wound away on every side, promising to lead to calm and splendid lands beyond. It was like the prospect of life to a young and ardent imagination, before years have clouded the scene, or experience has exposed its ruggedness. There, was the dazzling misty sunshine with which fancy invests every distant object--there, the sweet valleys of repose where we promise ourselves peace and enjoyment--there, the mighty steps whereby ambition would mount unto the sky; while the dim passes, that branched away on either hand, imaged not ill the thousand vague and dreamy schemes of youth for reaching fancied delights which shall never be attained.

There were, however, real and substantial joys before me, which I hurried on to taste, and in the expectation of which was mingled no probable alloy, although I had been so long absent from my native home. The meeting of long-separated friends is rarely indeed without its pain. To mark the ravages that Time's deliberate, remorseless hand has worked upon those we love--to see a grace fled--or a happiness--any, any change in what is dear, is something to regret. But I was not at a time of life to anticipate sorrow; and my parents had seen me at Pau some four months before, so that but little alteration could have taken place.

Nothing, therefore, waited me but delight. My horse flew rather than ran, and the dwelling of my sires was soon within sight. I sprang to the ground in the courtyard, and, without a moment's pause, ran up the stairs to my mother's apartments, not hearing or attending to the old maître d'hôtel, who reiterated that she was in the garden.

There was delight in treading each old-accustomed step of my infancy, of gazing round upon objects, every line of which was a memory. The gloom of the old vestibule, the channeled marble of the grand staircase, the immense oaken door of my mother's apartments, all called up remembrances of the sweet past; and I hurried on, gathering recollections, till I entered the embroidery-room, where I had sprung a thousand times to her arms in my early boyhood.

The only person that I found there was Helen. She had risen on hearing my step, and what was passing in her mind I know not, but the blood rushed up through her beautiful clear skin till it covered her whole forehead and her temples with a hue like the rose; and I could see her lip quiver, and her knees shake, as she waited to receive my first salutation. I was carried on by the joyful impetus of my return, or, perhaps, I might have been as embarrassed as herself; but springing forward towards her, without giving myself time to become agitated, I kissed the one fair cheek she turned towards me, and was going on, in the usual form, to have kissed the other; but in travelling round, my lips passed hers, and they were so round, so full, so sweet, for my life I could not get any farther, and I stopped my journey there.

Helen started back, and, gazing at me with a look of deep surprise and even distress, sunk into the chair from which she had risen at my coming; while I, with a brain reeling with strange and new feelings, and a heart palpitating with I knew not what, hurried away to seek my mother; unable even to find one word of excuse for what I had done, and feeling it wrong, very wrong, but finding it impossible to wish it undone.

The garden consisted of about an acre of ground, disposed in a long parallelogram, and forced into a level much against the will of the mountain, which invaded its rectilinear figure with several unmathematical rocks. Luckily my mother was at the extreme end, leaning on the arm of my father, who, with an affection that the chilly touch of Time had found no power to cool, was supporting her in her walk with as much attentive kindness as he had shown to his bride upon his wedding-day.

I had thus time to get rid of a certain sort of whirl in my brain, which the impress of Helen's lips had left, and to turn the current of my thoughts back to those parents, for whom in truth I entertained the deepest affection.

My mother, I found, had been ill, and was so still, though in some degree better; so that my sorrow to see her so much enfeebled as she appeared to be, together with many other feelings, drove my adventure of the morning, the Marquis de St. Brie, and the advice of the chevalier, entirely out of my thoughts, till poor Houssaye, whom I had left at Pau, arrived, bringing a sadly mangled and magnified account of my rencontre, gathered from hostlers and postilions at Estelle.

As his history of my exploits went to give me credit for the death of five or six giants and anthropophagi, I thought it necessary to interrupt him, and tell my own tale myself. The different effects that it produced upon a brave man and a timid woman may well be conceived. My father said I had acted right in everything, and my mother nearly fainted. Perceiving her agitation, I thought it better to delay the message of the chevalier till dinner, when I judged that her mind would be in some degree calmed, for she wept over the first essay of my sword, as if it had been a misfortune. My father and myself conducted the Countess to her apartments, where Helen still sat, hardly recovered from the agitation into which I had thrown her. On seeing me again, she cast down her look, and the tell-tale blood rushed up into her cheek so quickly, that had not my mother's eyes been otherwise engaged in weeping, she must have remarked her sudden change of colour. Observing the Countess's tears, Helen glided forward, and cast her arms round the neck of her patroness, saying, that she hoped that nothing had occurred to give her alarm or discomfort.

"Both, Helen," replied my mother; "both!" and then proceeded to detail the whole story, foreboding danger and sorrow, from my early initiation into strife and bloodshed. Yet, although not knowing it, my mother, I am sure, did not escape without feeling some small share of maternal pride at her son's first achievement. I saw it in her face, I heard it in her tone; and often since I have had occasion to remark, how like the passions, the feelings, and the prejudices, which swarm in our bosoms, are to a large mixed society, wherein the news that is painful to one is pleasing to another, and joy and sorrow are the results of the same cause, at the same moment. Man's heart is a microcosm, the actors in which are the passions, as varied, as opposed, as shaded one into the other, as we see the characters of men, in the great scene of the world.

As my mother spoke, Helen's lovely face grew paler and paler, and I could see her full snowy bosom, which was just panting into womanhood, heave as with some strong internal emotion, till at length she suddenly fell back, apparently lifeless.

It was long ere we could bring her back to sensation; but when she was fully recovered, she attributed her illness to having remained the whole day stooping over a miniature picture, which she was drawing of my mother; and the Countess, whose love for her had by this time become nearly maternal, exacted a promise from her that she would take a mountain walk every morning before she began her task.

This may seem a trifle; but I have learned by many a rude rebuff to know, that there is no such thing as a trifle in this world. All is of consequence--all may be of import. Helen's mountain walks sealed my fate. At dinner I delivered the message and advice, with which the chevalier had charged me; and after some discussion, it was determined that it should be followed. My father at first opposed it, and indignantly spurned at the idea of any one attempting injury to the heir of Bigorre in his paternal dwelling; but my mother's anxiety prevailed, backed by the advice and persuasions of good Father Francis of Allurdi, who offered to accompany me for the short time that my absence might be necessary. My father soon grew weary of making any opposition; and it was agreed that myself, Father Francis, and Houssaye, my valet, should take our departure for Spain within two days, and, joining the chevalier at Saragossa, should remain there till we received information that the Marquis de St. Brie had quitted Bearn.

That day ended, and another began, and, springing from my bed with the vigorous freshness that dwellers in cities never know, I took my gun, and proceeded to the mountain, purposing to search the rocks for an izzard. Gradually, however, I became thoughtful; and, revolving the events just past, many a varied feeling rose in my mind; and I found that one stirring and active day had changed me more than years of what had gone before--that it was, in fact, my first day of manhood.

I had staked and won in the perilous game of mortal strife. I had shed blood--I had passed the rubicon--I was a man. Onward! onward! onward! was the cry of my heart. I felt that I could not--and I wished not that I could--go back from that I was to that which I had been.

And yet there was a regret--a feeling of undefinable clinging to the past--a sort of innate conviction that the peaceful, the quiet, the tranquil, was left behind for ever; and even while I joyed in the active and gay existence that Fancy and Hope spread out before me, I looked back to the gone, and yielded it a sigh, for the calm enjoyments that were lost for ever.

From these ideas, my mind easily turned to the latter part of that day which formed the theme of my thoughts, and I could not help hoping, nay, even believing, that the fainting of Helen Arnault was linked in some degree with concern for me. I had remarked the blush and the agitation when first I came; I had noted her behaviour on the kiss which I had taken; and from the whole I gathered hope.

Yet, nevertheless, I reproached myself for having used a liberty with her, which her dependent situation might lead her to look upon less as a token of love than as an insult, and I resolved to justify myself in her eyes. And how to justify myself? it may be asked. By taking that irrevocable step, which would clear all doubt from her mind. But whether it was solely to efface any bad impression that my conduct might have caused, or whether it was, that I gladly availed myself of that pretext to act as my heart rather than my reason prompted, I cannot tell. Certain it is, that I loved her with an ardour and a truth that I did not even know myself; and such a passion could not long have been concealed, even if the impatience of my disposition had not hurried me on to acknowledge it to her so soon.

By the time I had taken this resolution, I had climbed high amongst the hills, and was wandering on upon the rocky ridge that overhung the valley of the Gave, when I caught a glimpse of some one strolling slowly onward along the path by the riverside. It wanted but one look to tell me that it was Helen. High above her as I was, I could distinguish neither her figure nor her face; but it mattered not--I felt as well convinced that it was she, as if I had stood within a pace of her, and began descending the rocks as quickly as I could to join her in her walk, watching her as I did so, to see that she did not turn back before I could reach her.

After having gone some way up the valley, looking back every ten steps towards the château, as if she had imposed on herself the task of walking a certain distance, and would be glad when it was over, Helen at length seated herself on a piece of rock, under the shade of an old oak, that started out across the stream; and there, with her head bent over the running waters, she offered one of the loveliest pictures my eyes ever beheld. She was, as I have said, in the spring of womanhood. Time had not laid his withering touch upon a single grace, or a single beauty; it was all expanding loveliness--that perfect moment of human existence, when all has been gained, and nothing has been lost; when nature has done her utmost, and years have yet known nothing of decay.

I approached her as quietly as I could, and when I came near, only said, "Helen," in a low tone, not calculated to surprise her. She started up, however, and the same blush mantled in her cheeks which I had seen the day before. The good-morrow that she gave me was confused enough; and, in truth, my own heart beat so fast, that I did not know how to proceed, till I saw her about to return to the château.

"Stay, Helen," said I, taking her hand, and bringing her again to the rock on which she had been sitting--"stay for one moment, and listen to me; for I have something to say to you, which, perhaps, I may never have an opportunity of saying hereafter."

The colours varied in her cheek like the hues of an evening sky, and she trembled very much, but she let me lead her back; and for a moment raising her eyes from the ground, they glanced towards my face, from under their long dark lashes, with a look in which fear and timidity, and love, too, I thought, were all mingled; but it fell in a moment, and I went on with a greater degree of boldness; for all that love well, I believe, are, in some degree, cowards, and but gain courage from the fears of those they seek to win.

"There is a secret, Helen," I said, assuming as calm a tone as I could, "which I cannot go into Spain without communicating to some one, as it is one of the greatest importance, and I have fixed upon you to tell it to, because, I am sure, you will keep it well and truly; without, indeed," I added, "I were by any chance to die in Spain, when you may freely reveal it--nay, more, I request you would do so to both my parents."

Helen was deceived, and looked up with some degree of curiosity, brushing back the dark ringlets from her clear fair brow. "Will you promise me, Helen," I asked, "by all you hold most sacred, never to reveal my secret so long as I am in life?"

"Had you not better make some other person the depositary of so serious a trust?" she answered, half afraid, half curious still.--"Think, Count Louis, I am but a poor inexperienced girl--tell it to Father Francis, he will both respect your secret and counsel you as to your actions."

"He will not do," I replied. "Besides, he is going with me. Will you promise me, Helen? It is necessary to my happiness."

"Oh, then I will," replied she, with a tone and a look that went to my very heart, and had almost made me cast myself at her feet at once.

"You must know, then, Helen," I proceeded, "that there is, on this earth, one sweet girl that I love more than any other thing that it contains"--while I spoke, she turned so deadly pale, that I thought she was going to faint again. "Listen to me, Helen," I continued, rapidly--"listen to me, dear Helen--I love her, I adore her, and I would not offend her for the world. If, therefore, I pained her for one instant, by robbing her lips of a kiss in the full joy of my return, I am here to atone it by any penance which she may think fit to impose."

While I spoke, my arm had glided round her waist, and my hand had clasped one of hers. Helen's head sunk upon my shoulder, and she wept so long, that I could have fancied her deeply grieved at the discovery of my love, but that the hand which I had taken remained entirely abandoned in mine, and that, from time to time, she murmured, "Oh, Louis!" in a voice indistinct to anything but the ears of love.

At length, however, she recovered herself, and raised her head, though she still left her hand in mine:--"Oh, Louis," she said, "you have made me both very happy and very unhappy: very happy, because I am sure that you are too generous, too noble, to deceive, even in the least, a poor girl that doubts not one word from your lips; but I am very unhappy to feel sure, as I do, that neither your father nor your mother will ever consent that you should wed any one in the class bourgeoise, even though it were their own little Helen, on whom they have already showered so many bounties. It cannot be, indeed it cannot be! The very mention of it would make them wretched, and that must never happen, on account of one who owes them so deep a debt of gratitude."

I tried to persuade her, as I had persuaded myself, that in time they would consent; but I failed in the endeavour, and as the first agitation subsided, and she began to reflect upon her situation at the moment, she became anxious to leave me.--"Let me return home," she said; "and oh, Louis! if you love me, never try to meet me in this way again, for I shall always feel like a guilty thing when I see your mother afterwards. I have your secret, and as I have promised, I will keep it: you have mine, and let me conjure you to hold it equally sacred. Forget poor Helen Arnault as soon as you can, and marry some lady in your own rank, who may love you perhaps as----"

The tears prevented her going on.

"Never, Helen, never!" exclaimed I, still holding her hand. "Stay yet one moment:--we are about to part for some months; promise me before I go, if you would make my absence from you endurable, that sooner or later you will be my wife!"

"No, Louis, no!" answered she, firmly, "that I will not promise; for I will never be your wife without the consent of your parents. But I will promise," she added, seeing that her refusal to accede to what I asked had pained my impatient spirit more than she expected, "I will vow, if you require it, never, never, to be the wife of another."

With these words she withdrew her hand, and left me, turning her steps towards the château; while I, delighted to find myself loved, yet vexed she would not promise more, darted away into the hills; and, as if to escape the pursuit of feelings which, though in some degree happy, were still too strong for endurance, I sprang from rock to rock after the izzards, with agility and daring little less than their own, making the crags ring with my carbine, till I could return home sufficiently successful in the chase to prevent any one supposing I had been otherwise employed.

CHAPTER VI.

We were very young to feel such passions as then throbbed within our bosoms, so strong, so keen, so durable; but our hearts had never known any other--they had not been hardened in the petrifying stream of time, nor had the world engraved so many lines upon the tablets of feeling as to render them unsusceptible of any deep and defined impression. Our whole hearts were open to love, and we loved with our whole hearts.

The two days of my stay soon drew to an end, and on the morning of the third, my horse, and that of Houssaye, together with a mule for Father Francis, were brought into the courtyard; and, after receiving my mother's counsel and my father's blessing, I mounted and rode forth with few of those pleasurable feelings which I had anticipated in setting out to explore foreign lands. But love was at that moment the predominant feeling in my bosom, and I would have resigned all, abandoned all, to have stayed and passed my life in tranquillity beside Helen.

It was not to be, and I went forth; but a sensation of swelling at my heart prevented me from either conversing with Father Francis, or noticing the beautiful country through which we travelled--a thing seldom lost to my eyes.

By the time we reached Pierrefitte, however, a distance of about ten miles, the successive passing of different objects, though each but called my attention in the very slightest degree, upon the whole, began to draw my mind from itself; and when proceeding onward we wound our horses through the narrow gorge leading towards Luz, the magnificent scenery of the pass, with its enormous rocks, its luxuriant woods, and its rushing river, stole from me my feelings of regret, and left me nothing but admiration of the grand and beautiful works which nature had spread around. By this time the day had somewhat waned, for we were obliged to conform our horses' pace to the humour of Father Francis' mule, which was not the most vivacious of animals. The sun had got beyond the high mountains on our right, which, now robed in one vast pall of purple shadow, rose like Titans against the sky, and seemed to cover at least one third of its extent; but the western hills still caught the rays, and kept glowing with a thousand varied hues as we went along, like the quick changes of hope as man advances along the tortuous and varied path of existence.

Amongst other objects on which the sunshine still caught, was a little woody mound projecting from the surface of the hill, and crowned with an old round tower beginning to fall into ruins. As we passed it, the good priest, who never loved to see me in any of those fits of gloom which sometimes fell upon me--the natural placidity of his disposition leading him to miscomprehend the variability of mine--pointed out to me the mound and the crumbling tower as the spot where a great victory had been gained over the Moors, in times long gone; and our conversation gradually turned to war and deeds of renown: but Father Francis had abjured the sword, and little appreciated the word glory.

"Glory, my dear Louis," said he, "according to the world's acceptation of the word, is, I am afraid, little better in general than the gilding with which mighty robbers cover over great crimes. When I was young, however, I thought like you, and I am afraid all young men will think so, till reason teaches them that the only true glory which man can have, is to be found in the love of his fellow-creatures, not in their fears. All other glory is but emptiness. You remember the Italian poet's lines on the field of Cannæ.

I.
"Glory! alas! what is it but a name?
Go search the records of the years of old,
And thou shalt find, too sure, that brightest fame,
For which hard toiled the skilful and the bold,
Was but a magic gift that none could hold--
A name, traced with an infant's finger in the sand,
O'er which dark Time's effacing waves are rolled--
A fragile blossom in a giant's hand,
Crushed with a thousand more, that die as they expand.
II.
"I stand on Cannæ:--here for endless years,
Might fond remembrance dream o'er days pass'd by,
Tracing this bitter place of many tears:
But mem'ry too has flown, and leaves the eye
To rest on nought but bleakness, and the sigh
To mourn the frailty of man's greatest deeds--
Oh, would he learn by truth such deeds to try,
Lo! how devouring Time on conquest feeds;
Forgot the hand that slays, forgot the land that bleeds.
III.
"Time! mighty vaunter! Thou of all the race
That strive for glory, o'er thine acts canst raise
The monument that never falls, and place
The ruins of a world to mark thy ways.
Each other conq'ror's memory decays
To heap the pile that comments on thy name;
Thy column rises with increasing days,
And desolation adds unto thy fame;
But Cannae was forgot--Time, 'tis with thee the same."

It is astonishing how chilly the words of age fall upon the glowing enthusiasm of youth. As we go on through life, doubtless we gather all the same cold truths; but it is by degrees, not all at once, as when the freezing experience of many years is poured forth, like a sudden fall of snow upon our hearts. Lucky, most lucky is it, that we cannot believe the lessons which the old would teach us; for certainly if we were as wise when we come into life as we are when we go out of it, there would be nothing great, and very little good, done in the world; I mean that there would be no enthusiasm of wish or of endeavour.

Nevertheless, there is always some damp rests upon the mind from such views of human existence, however warm may be the fire of the heart; and when Father Francis had repeated his lines upon Glory, he left a weight upon me which I found difficult to throw off.

We were now near Luz, and the good father's mule--which, by the way, was the best epitome I ever saw of a selfish and interested spirit--as if it entertained a presentiment of approaching hay and oats, suffered its sober legs to be seduced into an amble that speedily brought us to the door of the little cabaret where we were to pass the night. The accommodations which its appearance promised, were not of the most exquisite description, and one must have been very charitable to suppose it contained anything better than pumpkin soup and goose's thighs.[^[2]] Father Francis, however, was tired and exhausted with a longer ride than he had taken for more than fifty years. Houssaye was an old soldier, and I was too young and in too high health to trouble myself much about the quality of my entertainment. Dismounting then, our horses were led into the stable, and we ourselves were shown to the room of general reception, which we found already tenanted by a fat monk, all grease and jollity; and a thin gentleman in black, who, for grimness and solemnity, looked like a mourning sword in a black scabbard. It seemed as if nature, having made a more fat and jovial man than ordinary in the capuchin, had been fain to patch up his companion out of the scrapings of her dish.

Father Francis did not appear to like the couple, and indeed he had reason; for it wanted no great skill in physiognomy to read in the jovial countenance of the monk a very plain history of the sort of self-denial and sensual mortification which he practised on himself. As for his companion, had I known as much of the world as I do now, I should instantly have understood him to be one of those solemn villains, who, if they sometimes lose a good opportunity by want of conversational powers, often catch many a gull by their gravity, and escape many an error into which a talkative rascal is sure to fall by his very volubility.

However, I was at an age when every one, more or less, pays for experience; and if I took upon me to judge the pair of worthies before me, I did not judge them rightly. Immediately after our entrance, Father Francis, as I have said, being very much fatigued, retired to bed, whispering to me that I had better get my supper and follow his example as soon as I could. To this, however, I was not very well inclined, my stock of animal powers for the day not being yet half exhausted; and as I saw the aubergiste beginning to place on the table, before the monk and his companion, various savoury dishes, for which my ride had provided an appetite, I whispered to Houssaye, and proposed to them to join their table. The matter was soon arranged, my Capuchin professing a taste for good cheer and good company, somewhat opposed to his vows of fasting and meditation, and my thin cavalier, laying his hand on his heart, and making the most solemn bow that his stiff back-bone could achieve.

The viands set before us offered a very palatable contradiction to what the appearance of the house had promised: and the conversation was as savoury as the dishes, for the monk was a man whose fat and happiness overflowed in a jocose and merry humour; and even the thin person in black, though his mustachios were rather of a grave cast, would occasionally venture a dry and solemn joke, which was a good deal enhanced by his appearance. The wine, however, was the most thin, poor, miserable abortion of vinegar that ever I tasted; and, after having made every tooth in my head as sharp as a drawn sword by attempting to drink it, I inquired of the Capuchin whether any better could be procured within twenty miles for love or money.

"Most assuredly," answered he, "for money, though not for love. No one gives any thing for love, except a young girl of sixteen, or an old woman of seventy. But the truth is, my host tells us always that this is the best wine in the world, till he sees a piece of silver between the fingers of some worthy signor who desires to treat a poor Capuchin to a horn of the best Cahors."

"Oh, if that be all," I answered, "we will soon have something better;" and I drew a crown piece from my purse.

"Ho! aubergiste!" exclaimed the Capuchin, as soon as he saw it; "a flagon of your best for this sweet youth; and mind, I tell you, 'tis a mortal sin to give bad wine when 'tis well paid for, and a Capuchin is to drink it."

I was not at the time of life to estimate very critically every propriety in the demeanour of a companion for half an hour. Man, unlike the insect, begins the being as a butterfly, which he generally ends as a chrysalis. Amusement, or as it should be called, excitement, is everything at nineteen; and the butterfly, though it destroys not like the worm, nor hoards like the bee, still flies to every leaf that meets its sight, if it be but for the sake of the flutter. The Capuchin's gaiety amused me, and I saw no deeper into his character. The wine was brought; and having passed once round and proved to all our tastes, the jovial monk set the flagon between himself and me, and enlivened the next half-hour with a variety of tales, at the end of each taking a deep draught, and exclaiming, "If it be not a true story, may this be the last drop I ever shall drink in my life!" At length, with a story far more marvellous than any of the others, the Capuchin emptied the flagon, adding his usual asseveration in regard to its truth.

"I don't believe a word of it," said the man in black.

"And I say it's true," reiterated the Capuchin, laughing till a stag might have jumped down his throat. "Order another flagon of wine, and I will drink upon it till the death."

"Nay," replied the other, "I will play you for a flagon of the best at trictrac, and treat the company."

The Capuchin readily accepted the defiance; the cards were brought, the window shut, and mine host lighted six large candles in an immense sconce, just behind the Capuchin and myself. The thin gentleman with his mustachios was on the other side of the table with old Houssaye, who, though an indefatigable old soldier, seemed tired out, and, laying his head upon his folded arms, fell asleep.

In the meanwhile, the wine made its appearance, and passed round; after which the game began, and the poor player in black lost his flagon of wine in the space of five minutes, much to the amusement of the Capuchin, who chuckled and drank with much profane glee.

The whole scene amused me. I flattered myself I was fond of studying character, and I would have done a great deal to excite the two originals before me to unfold themselves. This they seemed very well inclined to do, without my taking any trouble to bring it about. The thin gentleman got somewhat angry, and claimed his revenge of the Capuchin, who beat him again, and chuckled more than ever. The other's rage then burst forth: he attributed his defeat to ill luck, and demanded what the monk meant by laughing, and whether he meant to say he had played ill.

"Ay, truly!" replied the Capuchin, "and so ill, that I will answer for it this young gentleman, even if he knows nothing of the game, will beat you for a pistole;" and, turning round, he asked me "if I knew the game?" or if I was afraid to play with so skilful an antagonist.

I said that I knew very little of it, but that I was willing to play, and took the cards, only intending to sit one game, seeing that my opponent played miserably ill. He lost as before, and, still cursing his luck, demanded his revenge, which was worse. Nothing could be more diverting than the fury into which he cast himself, twisting up his mustachios, and wriggling his back into contortions, of which I had not deemed its rigidity capable, while the Capuchin chuckled, and, looking over my cards, advised me what to do. At length my adversary proposed to double, to which I agreed, hoping heartily that he would win, and thus leave us as we had sat down; but fortune was still against him, or rather his bad playing, for he laid his game entirely open, and suffered me to play through it. He lost, and drawing forth a leathern pouch, was about to pay me, when the Capuchin said, that perhaps I would play one more game for the twelve pistoles. The thin gentleman said it would be but generous of me, but, however, he could not demand it, if I chose to refuse. So much foolish shame did I feel about taking his money, that, to tell the truth, I was glad to sit down again, and we recommenced, each staking twelve pistoles. Fortune had changed, however; the dice favoured him; he played more carefully, and won the game, but by so slight a matter, that it showed nothing but extraordinary luck could have made him gain it.

It was now my turn to be anxious. I had lost six pistoles out of the money my father had given for my journey to Spain. How could I tell Father Francis? I asked myself, especially when I had lost them in such a manner, and in such company. My antagonist, too, had won by such a mere trifle, that it made me angry; I therefore resolved to try again--and again I lost. The sum was so considerable, I dared not now stop, and I claimed my revenge. My adversary was all complaisance, and, as before, we doubled our stake. An intolerable thirst had now seized upon me, and pouring out a cup of wine, I set it down beside me while I played. The game went on, and I never suspected false play, though my opponent paused long between each of his cards; but that was natural, as the stake was large, and I fancied that he felt the same palpitating anxiety that I did myself. To conceal this as much as possible, while he pondered, I fixed my eyes upon the cup of wine, in which the lights of the sconce were reflected very brilliantly. Suddenly, two of the flames seemed to become obscured, for I lost the reflection in the wine. This surprised me; but I had still sufficient presence of mind to take no notice, and keep my eyes fixed, when presently the lights appeared again. The moment after the same eclipse took place, and, raising my eyes to my opponent's countenance, I perceived that his glance was fixed upon a point immediately above my head.

The matter was now clear; my good friend, the Capuchin, who was kindly giving me his advice and assistance, seeming all the while most anxious that I should recover my loss, and assuring me that it was a momentary run of ill luck, which must change within five minutes, took care, at the same time, to communicate to my adversary, by signs above my head, the cards I had in my hand, and what I was likely to play.

What was to be done I knew not. To be cheated in so barefaced a manner was unendurable; and yet, how to avoid paying what I lost, unless I could prove the fraud, was a question difficult to solve. In this dilemma, I resolved to wake my faithful Houssaye, by touching his foot under the table, at the moment the Capuchin was executing his fraud. What was my joy then, when, on glancing towards the ci-devant trumpeter, I perceived his eyes twinkling brightly just above his arms, notwithstanding that he still pretended to sleep, and I immediately saw that he had, from the first, appreciated the talents of my companions.

My resolution was instantly taken; and letting the game proceed to its most anxious point, I saw, in the accidental mirror that the wine afforded me, the signs of the worthy Capuchin proceeding with vast celerity, when, starting suddenly up, I caught his wrist, as the hand was in the very act, and held it there with all the vigour of a young and powerful frame, excited to unusual energy by anger and indignation.

Houssaye was upon his feet in a moment, and, catching the collar of the black cavalier, who was beginning to swear some very big oaths, he flung him back upon the ground with little ceremony, at the same time dislodging from the lawn frills which adorned his wrists a pair of dice, that the honest gentleman kept there to meet all occasions.

For a minute or two the presence of mind, which is part of a sharper's profession, abandoned our two amiable companions; the Capuchin, especially, remaining without motion of any kind, his mouth open, his eyes staring, and his hands up in the air, with three fingers extended, exactly in the same attitude as he was when I detected his knavery. He soon, however, recovered himself, and jerking his hand out of my grasp with a force I knew not he possessed, he burst into a fit of laughter--"Very good; very good indeed," cried he: "so you have found it out. Well, are you not very much obliged to us for the lesson? Remember it, young man; remember it, to the last day you have to live; for you may chance to fall into the hands of sharpers, from whom you may not escape very easily."

The impudence of the fellow was beyond my patience, especially as, while he was speaking, I had split one of the dice produced from his companion's sleeve, and found it loaded with a piece of lead the size of a pea. "Whenever I meet with sharpers," said I, "I shall treat them but one way--namely, if they do not get out of the room whenever they are found out, I shall kick them down stairs, from the top to the bottom."

"Suppose there are no stairs?" said the Capuchin, coolly, moving towards the door at the same time.

"Then I shall throw them out of the window," replied I.

"I weigh two hundred weight," answered the monk, with the same imperturbable composure. "Good night, my young Wittol; you'll be caught yet, though your wings are so free. Come along, Count Crack!" he continued to his companion, whom I suffered to take up his own money after I had repossessed myself of the pistoles which he had won before I had discovered his fraud. "Your game is over for to-night. Goodnight, fair sirs; good night! God bless you, and keep you from sharpers," and leering his small leaden eyes, with a look strangely compounded of humour and cunning, and even stupidity, he rolled out of the room with his companion, leaving us to our own reflections.

When they were gone, my worthy attendant and myself stood looking at each other for some moments in silence. At length, however, he began laughing. "I saw," cried he, "what they were about from the first, but I did not think your young wit was sharp as my old knowledge; so I pretended to be asleep, and lay watching them. But you served them a famous trick, Count Louis, that you did; your father would laugh heartily to hear it."

"Hush, hush!" cried I; "for Heaven's sake, never mention it to my father, or to any one; but, above all, on no account to Father Francis." I then exacted a promise to this effect from the good old soldier, feeling heartily ashamed of my night's employment; and turning as red as fire every time the thought crossed my mind, that I had been sitting drinking and playing with a couple of vulgar sharpers, who had nearly succeeded in cheating me of all the money which my father had given me from his own limited means. To get rid of these pleasant reflections, I hurried to bed; and meeting the rotund form of the Capuchin on the stairs, nearly jostled him to the bottom in pure ill-humour.

CHAPTER VII.

Early the next morning we arose, and took our departure for Gavarnie. Mine host at Luz, however, drew me aside as we were setting out, and said he hoped we had not suffered ourselves to be cheated by the Capuchin or his companion, each of whom he was sure was a great rogue, and the Capuchin, he believed, had no more of the monk about him than the gown and shaved head. "Be cautious, be cautious," said he, "and if ever you meet them again, have nothing to do with them." I thanked this candid host for his information, giving him at the same time to understand, that he had better have warned me the night before, and that I took his tardy caution at no more than it was worth; after which I spurred on, and joined Father Francis and Houssaye, who had not proceeded far on their journey ere I reached them.

Our road to Gavarnie lay through scenery of that grand and magnificent nature, which mocks the feeble power of language. The change was still from sublime to sublime, till the heart seemed to ache at its own expansion. The vast, the wonderful, the beautiful, the sweet, were spread around in dazzling confusion. The gigantic rocks and precipices, the profuse vegetation, the peculiar lustrous atmosphere of the mountains, the thousand rare and lovely flowers with which every spot of soil was carpeted and every rock adorned, the very butterflies which, fluttering about in thousands, seemed like flying blossoms; all occupied my mind with new and beautiful objects, till it was almost wearied with the exhaustless novelty. All was lovely, and yet I felt then, and always do feel, in such scenes, a degree of calm melancholy, so undefined in its nature, that I know not in what to seek its cause. Whether it is, that man feels all the weaknesses and follies of his passions reproved by the calm grandeur of nature's vaster works; or whether his spirit, excited by the view of things so beautiful, seemed clogged and shackled by the clay to which she is joined, and longs to throw off those earthly trammels which circumscribe her powers to enjoy, to estimate, to comprehend--I know not.

Had the scenery through which we passed needed a climax even more sublime than itself, it could not have been more exquisitely terminated than by the famous Circle of Gavarnie, where above an amphitheatre of black marble fourteen hundred feet in height--perpendicular as a wall, and sweeping round an extent of half a league--rises the icy summit of the Pyrenees, flashing back the rays of the sun in long beams of many-coloured light. When we arrived in the centre of the amphitheatre, a light cloud was stretched across the top of the cascade, while the stream, shooting over the precipice above us, fell with one burst full fourteen hundred feet; and, before it reached the ground, also spread out into another cloud. Gazing upon it, as we did, from a distance, we saw it thus pouring on, between the two, without perceiving whence it came, or whither it went; so that the long defined line of its waters, streaming from the one indistinct vapour to the other, offered no bad image of the course of mortal time flowing on between two misty eternities. At the same time, the bright diamond heads of the mountains shone out above the clouds, with a grand, unearthly lustre, like those mighty visions of heaven seen by the inspired apostle at Samos.

I could have gazed on it for ever, but the evening light soon began to fail; and as we had to rise early also the next morning, our stay in the amphitheatre was necessarily curtailed. Winding round the little lakes[^[3]] that the stream forms after its fall, we returned to the filthy hut in which we were to pass the night, often looking back by the way to catch another glance of that grand and wonderful scene, whose very remembrance makes every other object seem small and insignificant.

By sunrise we were once more upon our way, and passing through what is called the Porte de Gavarnie, entered Spain, after having been examined from top to toe by the officers of the Spanish custom-house. A wide and wavy sea of blue interminable hills now presented themselves; and a guide, whom we had hired at Gavarnie, pointed out a spot in the distance which he called Saragossa. Had he called it Jerusalem, he might have done so uncontradicted by any object visible to our eyes, for nothing was to be seen but hill beyond hill, valley running into valley, till the far distance and the blue sky mingled together, with scarcely a perceptible line to mark the division.

Thitherward, however, we wended on, and some hours after reached Jacca, where, out of complaisance to Father Francis's mule, we remained for the night, and set off before daybreak the next morning, hoping to escape the heat of the middle of the day. In this we were deceived, making less progress than we anticipated, and enjoying the scorching of a meridian sun till we reached the gates of Saragossa.

On arriving at the inn, we inquired for the Chevalier, as we had been directed, but found that he had ridden out early in the morning. He returned, however, soon after, and having welcomed us cordially to Spain, as no apartments could be procured in the house, he led us out to seek for a lodging in the immediate neighbourhood. It was some time before we could discover one to our mind, for it is with great difficulty that the Spaniards can be induced to receive any foreigner into their dwelling; and even when we did so, we had to undergo as strict an examination by the old lady of the house, as we had bestowed upon her apartments. She said it was but just that both parties should be satisfied, she with us as well as we with her; and not content with asking all manner of questions, which had as much to do with her lodgings as with her hopes of heaven, she actually turned me round to take a more complete view of my figure.

This was carrying the ridiculous to so high a point, that I burst out into a fit of laughter, which, far from offending the good dame, tickled her own organs of risibility, and from that moment we were the best friends in the world. Our baggage being brought, and it being agreed that we should eat at the posada with the Chevalier, nothing remained but to distribute the three chambers upon the same floor, which constituted our apartments, according to our various tastes. As Father Francis sought more quiet than amusement, he fixed upon the large room behind, where he certainly could be quiet enough, for if ever even the distant voice of an amorous cat on the house-top reached his solitude, it must have been a far and a faint sound, like the hymns of angels said to be heard by monks in the cells of a monastery. Houssaye took up with the small chamber between the two larger ones, and I occupied the front room of a tall house in a narrow street, whose extreme width of which might possibly be two ells. Nevertheless, whatever was to be seen, was to be seen from my window; and my very first determination was to see as much of Spain while I was in it, as I possibly could.

At eighteen, one has very few doubts, and very few fears; much passion, and much curiosity; and for my own part, I had resolved if I did not view the Spaniard in all situations, it should not be my fault. In short, by the time I arrived at Saragossa, I was willing to enter into any sort of adventure that might present itself, and though the memory of Helen might act as some restraint upon me, yet I am afraid I wanted that strong moral principle, which ought ever to guide us in all our actions. I make this acknowledgment, because I look upon these sheets to be a sort of confession, which in making at all, I am bound to write truly; and though I shall not dwell upon any of those scenes of vice which might lead others by the mere detail into the very errors that I commemorate, be it remembered, that I seek not to show myself at any period of my life as better or purer than I was. With regard to every feeling that came within the direct code of honour, or even its refinements, I had imbibed them from my earliest days; but I was a countryman of Henri Quatre, and not without a great share of that weakness, which in the gallant monarch was redeemed by a thousand great and shining qualities. But the love of adventure was my principal failing, which is a sort of mental spirit drinking, as hard to be overcome as the passion for strong waters itself.

I know not why or how, but the Chevalier seemed to have an instinctive perception of my character which almost frightened me; and while Father Francis was seeking in his bags for a parcel which Arnault at Lourdes had intrusted to his care, my keen-sighted companion drew me to the window of the front chamber, and after having, by a few brief observations on my disposition, shown me that he saw into my bosom even more clearly than I did myself, he warned me of many of the dangers of a Spanish town. "Remember, my dear Louis," continued he, "that I only tell you that such things exist--I do not tell you to avoid them. Your own good sense, as far as the good sense of a very young man can go, will tell you how to act, and I am afraid that all men in this world must buy experience for themselves; for if an angel from heaven were to vouch its truths, they would not believe the experience of others. However, loving you as I do--and you do not know how much I love you--there is one thing I must exact--if you want advice, apply to me--if you want assistance, apply to me--if you want a sword to back your quarrel, you must seek none but mine."

As he spoke, Father Francis entered the room with a look of much consternation and sorrow. "I hope and trust," said he, advancing to the Chevalier, "that the packet which your procureur Arnault intrusted to me for you is of no great value, for on my honour it has been stolen by some one out of my bags."

The pale cheek of the Chevalier grew a shade paler, and though no other emotion was visible, that one sign led me to think that the packet was of the utmost import, for never before did I see him yield the least symptom of agitation to any event whatever. "I did expect," replied he, in a calm, unshaken voice, "some papers of much consequence, but I know not whether this packet you mention contained them. There is no use, my good Father Francis, of distressing yourself upon the subject," he added, seeing the very great pain which the accident had caused to the worthy old man; "if by calling to mind the circumstances you can find a probability of its recovery, we will immediately take measures to effect it. If not, the packet is lost, and we will forget it."

"How it has been abstracted, or when," answered the good priest, "I know not. On arriving at Luz, at the end of our first day's journey, I opened my valise on purpose to put that packet in safety, wrapping it up with some small stock of money that I had laid by for the purpose of doing alms; but both are gone."

"Stolen for the sake of the money!" said the Chevalier, shutting his teeth, and compressing his lips, as if to master the vexation he felt. "Well," proceeded he, with a sigh, "it is in vain we struggle against destiny. For sixteen years I have been seeking those papers, but always by some unfortunate accident they have been thrown out of my reach; destiny wills not that I shall have them, and I will give it up."

"And what do you mean by destiny, my dear son?" demanded Father Francis, with the anxious haste of an enthusiastic man, who fancies he discovers some great error or mistake in a person he esteems. "Many people allow their energies to be benumbed, and even their religion, by a theory of fatalism which has its foundation in a great mistake."

"It appears to me, my good father," replied the Chevalier, with a smile, "that fate grasps us, as it were, in a cleft stick, as I have seen many a boor catch a viper--there we may struggle as much as we like, but we are fixed down, and cannot escape."

"Nay, nay," said Father Francis, "it is denying the goodness of God. Every one must feel within himself the power of choosing whatever way or whatever conduct he thinks fit. A man standing at a spot where two roads separate, does he not always feel within himself the power to follow whichever he likes? and yet, perhaps, death lies on the one road, and good fortune on the other."

"But if he is destined to die that day, that day will he die," replied the Chevalier. "And if you allow that God foresees which the traveller will take, of course he must take it, and his free will is at an end."

"Nay, my son, not so," replied the old man. "What you call foresight, is in the Deity what memory would be in man, if it were perfect. It is knowledge. Standing in the midst of eternity, all is present to the eye of God; and he knows what man will do, as well as what man has done; but that does not imply that man has not the liberty of choice, for it is his very own choice that conducts him to the results which God already knows. When a lizard runs away frightened from before your footsteps, you may know positively that it will fly to its hole, but your knowledge does not affect its purpose; nor would it, if your knowledge was as certain as Omniscience. If you ask me why, if man's choice will be bad, the Omnipotent does not will it to be good? I say, it is to leave him that very freedom of choice which you deny. Farther, if there were no evil in the world, morally or physically,--and it would be easy to show that one cannot exist without the other--what would the world be? There would be no virtue, because there could be no possibility of vice; there would be no passions, because there would be nothing to excite them; there would be no wishes, because privation being an ill, no desire for anything could possibly exist; there could be no motion, for the movement of one thing would displace another, which was in its proper place before; there would be no action, for there being neither passions nor wishes, nothing would prompt action. In short, the argument might be carried on to show that the universe would not be, and that the whole would be God alone. No one will deny that the least imperfection is in itself evil, and that without God created what was equal to himself--which implies, as far as the act of creation goes, a mathematical impossibility--whatever he created must have been subject to imperfection, and consequently would admit of evil. Evil once admitted, all the rest follows; and if any one dare to ask, why then God created at all? let him look round on the splendid universe, the thousand magnificent effects of divine love, of divine bounty, and of divine power, and feel himself rebuked for thinking that such attributes could slumber unexerted."

"But," said the Chevalier, "it appears to me that your argument militates against the first principle of our religion--the divinity of Christ: for you say it implies an impossibility that God should create what was equal to himself."

"Christ was not created," replied the priest, and laying his hand on his breast he bowed his head reverently, repeating the words of Scripture: "This is my only begotten Son, in whom I am well pleased."

Whether the Chevalier retained his own opinions or not I cannot tell; but most probably he did, for certain it is, that nothing is more difficult to find in any man, than the faculty of being convinced. However, he dropped the subject, and never more to my knowledge, resumed it.

Father Francis, whose whole heart was mildness and humility, began to fancy after a few minutes that he had been guilty of some presumption in arguing so boldly on the secrets of Providence. "God forgive me," said he, "if I have done irreverently in seeking, as far as my poor intellect could go, to demonstrate by simple reasoning, that which we ought to receive as a matter of faith; but often, in my more solitary hours, in thinking over these subjects I would find a degree of obscurity and confusion in my own ideas, which impelled me to endeavour to clear and to arrange them."

"I am convinced you did very right, my good father," replied the Chevalier, "and that one great object in the good regulations of one's mind is to obtain fixed principles on every subject which comes under our review, carrying to the examination an ardent desire for truth; and to religious inquiries, that profound reverence and humble diffidence of human reason, that so deep and so important a subject imperatively requires."

Here dropped the conversation, leaving both parties better satisfied with each other than usually happens after any discussion, but more especially where religion is at all involved.

CHAPTER VIII.

My first care, after finding myself completely settled at Saragossa, was to overcome the difficulties of the Spanish language. I had studied it superficially long before, and, thanks to my Bearnaise tongue, I now accomplished the hardest part of the undertaking, namely, the pronunciation, which is very rarely acquired by Frenchmen in general. By the time this was gained, I had been three months in Spain, living in a state of high ease and tranquillity, very much against my will; finding nothing to excite or to romance upon; and, at best, meeting with but those little adventures which are unworthy, if not unfit for detail. It was not, however, my fault. I went continually to the Teatro, to the Plaza de Toros, and to all those places where one may most easily get one's self into mischief, without accomplishing my object; going from one to the other with the most provoking, quiet, uninterrupted facility that fortune could furnish forth to annoy me withal. Every one was calm, polite, and cold; no one fell in love with me; no one quarrelled with me; no one took any notice of me, and I was beginning to think the Spaniards the most stupid, sober, mole-like race that the world contained, when some circumstances occurred, which, from the very first excited my curiosity, if they did not reach any more violent passion.

I have said, that the room which I had chosen looked into the street wherein we lodged, and also that that street was very narrow. At first, I had hoped to draw something from this circumstance, having always entertained high ideas of the pleasures and agitations of making love across a street, and for the whole first night after our arrival, I amused myself with fancying some very beautiful lady, with some very horrible guardian, who would find means of conversing with me from the jalousies on the other side.

I was soon undeceived; a very little knowledge of the localities showing me that the windows opposite to my own were placed in the back of a row of houses, forming one side of the principal street, to which our own was parallel; and I had reason to believe that none but servants and inferior persons in general dwelt in those rooms, the windows of which might communicate with mine. This was a disappointment, and I thought no more of it till one evening, when I had been riding in the environs with the Chevalier de Montenero, who, in general, gave me about an hour of his society every day. The rest of his time was principally spent, I understood, in reading and writing, and in bringing to a conclusion some affairs of importance, which had accumulated during a long absence in the New World, where, my talkative landlady assured me, he had won high honours both as a statesman and a warrior. On the day which I speak of, however, we had been absent nearly three hours, and, returning somewhat heated, I threw myself down before the open window, with a book in my hand. How I happened to raise my eyes to the opposite houses, I know not; but doing so, I saw the fingers of a hand so fair, that it could belong to no servant, resting on the bars of the jalousie, while, at the same time, a very bright pair of eyes glittered through the aperture, apparently rather turned down the street, as if watching for the coming of some one.

My own jalousie was drawn for the sake of the shade, so that I could observe without being remarked; and, approaching the window, in a few minutes after, I saw a priest enter at a small door, just below the window, where the eyes were watching. I concluded that this was the father confessor, and I took care to see him depart; after which I partly opened my blind, and remarked, behind the one opposite, the same eyes I had before seen, but now evidently turned towards myself, and I determined not to lose, for lack of boldness, whatever good fortune should fall in my way.

Love, of course, was out of the question: for I certainly loved Helen now as deeply as ever; and having no excuse, I shall not seek one, nor even try to palliate my fault. The only incentives I had, were idleness, youth, and a passion for adventure; but these were quite sufficient to carry me headlong on, upon the first mad scheme that opened to my view. Every one, I believe, feels, or must have felt, sensations somewhat similar, when the heart's wild spirit seems rioting to be free, and hurrying on reason, and thought, and virtue tumultuously along the mad course of passion, till each is trodden down in turn beneath the feet of the follies that come after. What I sought I hardly know. It was not vice--it was adventure.

From that day forward, I was more frequently at my window than anywhere else; and I cannot say that the fair object of my watchings seemed, after a time, to find the proximity of her own blind the most disagreeable part of her apartment. Indeed, the weather was so warm and so oppressive, that on more than one occasion she partially opened her jalousie to admit a freer current of air, giving me, at the same time, an opportunity of beholding one of the loveliest faces and forms I ever beheld, though so shadowed by the semi-darkness of the room, as to throw over the whole a mysterious air of dimness, doubly exciting. Of course the matter paused not here. I had heard and read a thousand tales of such encounters; I was as deeply read in all romances of love, as the Knight of La Mancha was in those of chivalry; and I had recourse to the only means in my power of commencing a communication with my fair neighbour--namely, by signs. At first she withdrew, as if indignant; then endured them; then laughed at them; and, in the end, somewhat suddenly and abruptly seemed to return them, though so slightly, that all my ingenuity would not serve me to comprehend what she sought to express. I had heard that the ladies of Spain were so skilful in finding the means of carrying on these mute conversations, that many a tender tale had been told in silently playing with a fan; and I somewhat wondered to find even one Spanish girl so ignorant of the language of signs. She had evidently, however, endeavoured to return an answer to mine, and that was enough to make my heart beat high.

As soon as night followed upon the day which had beheld this gracious and favourable change, I returned to my station at the window. The jalousies were closed, and no sign or symptom announced that any one was within for near half an hour, when suddenly I heard them move, and beheld them slowly and cautiously open, to perhaps the extent of three inches. I could see nothing, but that they were open, though I strained my eyes to discover what was beyond. However, after a moment's silence I had my recompense, by hearing a very soft and musical voice demand, in a low tone, "Are you there?"

"I am," answered I, in the hyperbolic style usual to Spanish gallants,--"I am, fairest of earth's creatures! and ready to serve you with life and----"

"Hush!" said the voice. "Go instantly to the theatre, and ask for the box marked G. Wait there, whatever betide--and say no more."

The jalousie immediately closed; and snatching up my hat, I prepared to obey the command, when my door opened, and Father Francis appeared with a light.

"In the dark, my dear Louis!" said he, with some astonishment; "what are you doing in the dark? Better come and read Seneca with me."

"I am just going to the play," replied I, holding up my hand to my eyes, as if the sudden light affected them, but, in reality, to cover a certain crimsoning of the cheek, which the mere presence of so good and pure a being called up, in spite of my efforts to prevent it. "They play to-night Calderon's Cisma de Inglaterra."

"You are all too fond of that bad place, a theatre," said Father Francis; "but I suppose, Louis, that it will always be so at your age. I must not forget now, when I can no longer enjoy, that you are in the season of enjoyment, and that I was once like you. However, I hope that your love of theatres will soon pass. They were instituted, doubtless, to promote morality, and to do good, but they are sadly perverted in our day. Well, God be with you!"

I could have well spared the interruption, but more especially the good father's recommendation to God, when my purpose was not what my own heart could fully approve. Not that I had any formed design of evil--not that I had any wish of wronging innocence--nay, nor of breaking my faith to Helen. 'Twas but excitement I sought; and though perhaps I wished I had not advanced so far, I was ashamed of drawing back, and I hurried on to the theatre.

A great crowd was going in; and, following the course of the stream, I sought for the box marked G. On finding it, I was surprised to discover that it was one of the curtained boxes reserved for the principal officers of the city. An old woman had the keys of these boxes in charge, and to her I applied for admission. The face of surprise which she assumed I shall not easily forget. "Heyday!" she exclaimed, "let you into the box of the corregidor! I dare say! Pray, young sir, where is your order?"

"Here!" said I, nothing abashed, and resolved to accomplish my object; and, putting my hand in my pocket, I seemed to search for the order till some persons who were near had passed on. I then produced a pistole, which the old lady found to be an order in so good and authentic a form, that she drew forth the key, and proceeded towards the door, saying, "The corregidor went out of town this morning, and will not return for two days, so there can be no great harm in letting you in; but keep the curtains close. You can see and hear very well through the chinks, without showing yourself in the corregidor's box, I warrant."

I promised to observe her directions, and entered the box, which was empty. I seated myself behind the curtains, which, drawn completely across the front, hid me from the spectators, though I had still a good view of the stage. The play, indeed, was not what I came to see; and at first I listened with eager and attentive ears to the sound of every foot that passed by the door of the box. Actually trembling with anxiety and excitement, I could hear one person after another go by, till the tide of spectators began to slacken, and, at last, but the solitary step of some late straggler sounded along the passage, hurrying on to make up for his delay. Two or three times, when the foot was lighter than the rest, or when it seemed to pause near the door, I started up, and my heart beat till it was actually painful to feel it throbbing against my side: but, after a while, in order to calm such sensations, I endeavoured to fix my mind upon the play; and, won by the cunning of the scene, I gradually entered into the passions I saw portrayed.

The play (La Cisma de Inglaterra) contained all Calderon's rigour and wit, and also all his extravagance. The first scene, representing the dream of Henry VIII., King of England, and his reception of the two letters from the pope, and from Martin Luther, was too full of petty conceits to engage me for a moment; but the description of Anne Bullen, as given by Carlos in the second scene, caught my young imagination, and the exquisite wit of the court-fool, Pasquin, soon riveted my attention. This character had been allotted to one of the best performers of the company; and it was wonderful what point he gave to the least word of the jester. Calderon had done much, but every theatrical writer must leave much for the player; and, in this instance, nothing he could have wished expressed was either omitted or caricatured. It was all true and simple, from the broad childish stare, half folly, half satire, with which he exclaimed, "Que soy galan de galanes," to the face of moralizing meditation, half bewildered, half severe, with which he commented on the king's melancholy:--

"Triste està Rey, de què sirve
Quanto puede, quanto manda
Si no puede, estàr alegre
Quando quiere?"

The play had proceeded for some time, and I was listening with deep interest to the exquisite dialogue between the king and Anne Bullen, in which he first discovers his passion to her, when the door of the box opened, and a lady entered, wrapped in a black mantilla. Her face was also concealed with a black velvet mask; and though, after shutting the door of the box carefully, she dropped the mantilla, discovering a form on whose beauties I will not dwell, she still retained the mask for some moments, and I could see her hand shake as it leaned on the back of one of the seats. My heart beat so violently, that I could scarcely speak; and I would have given worlds for one word from her lips, to which I might have replied. Time, however, was not to be lost, and advancing, I offered my hand to lead her forward; but she raised her finger, saying, in a very low voice, "Hush! Is there any one in the box to the left?"

"I have heard no one," replied I, rejoicing to recognise the same tones in which the appointment had been made with me. "Nay, do not tremble so," I added, laying my hand on hers; and I believe the agitation which that touch must have told her I experienced myself, served more to re-assure her than my words. "Why should you fear, with a friend, a lover, an adorer? Why, too, should you hide your face from one to whom its lightest look is joy? Will you not take off your mask?"

The lady made no reply; but, seating herself in the back part of the box, leaned her head for some time upon her hand, over which the ringlets of her rich black hair fell in glossy profusion. My agitation gradually subsided; I added caresses to tender language--I held her hand in mine--I ventured to carry it to my lips, and I am afraid many a burning word did passion suggest to my tongue. For a moment or two she let me retain her hand, seeming totally absorbed by feelings which gave no other sense power to act; but at length she gently withdrew it from mine, and, untying a string that passed through her hair, let the mask drop from her face. If her figure had struck me as lovely, how transcendently beautiful did her face appear when that which hid it was thus suddenly removed. She could not be more than eighteen, and each clear, exquisite feature seemed moulded after the enchanting specimens of ancient art, but animated with that living grace which leaves the statue far below. Her lip was all sweetness, and her brow all bland expanse; but there was a wild energetic fire in her eye, which spoke of the strong and ardent passions of her country; and there was also an occasional gleam in it, that had something almost approaching the intensity of mental wandering. Let me not say that those eyes were anything less than beautiful. They were of those full, dark, thrilling orbs, that seem to look deep into the heart of man, and exercise upon all its pulses a strange, attracting influence, like that which the bright moon holds over the waters of the world; and round them swept a long, black, silky fringe, that shaded and softened without diminishing their lustre by a ray.

As soon as she recovered herself sufficiently to speak, she replied to my ardent professions in language which, though somewhat wild and undefined, left me no doubt of her feelings. She told me, too, that she was the daughter of the corregidor; that her mother was dead, and that her father loved her even to idolatry; that she returned his affection; and that never, even were it to wed a monarch, would she leave him. At the same time she spoke enthusiastically, even wildly, of love and passion, and to what it might prompt a determined heart. She spoke, too, of jealousy, but she said it was incompatible with love, for that a mind which felt like hers would instantly convert its love into hate, if it once found itself deceived: and what was there, she asked, that such hate would not do?

On this subject she threw out some dark and mysterious hints, which, at any other moment, might have made me estimate the dangerous excess of all her passions; but I was infatuated, and would not see the perils that surrounded the dim gulf into which I was plunging. We talked long, and we talked ardently, and in the end, when, some little time before the play was concluded, she rose to leave me, my brain was in a whirl that wanted little but the name to be madness.

"Though I have unlimited power over my own actions," said she, "even perhaps too much so--for, ungrateful that I am!--I sometimes wish my father loved me less, or more wisely;--but, as I said, though I have unlimited power over my own actions, some reasons forbade me to-night receiving you in my own house. To-morrow night you may come. You have remarked," she added, putting on her mask, and wrapping her mantilla round her, "a small door under the window of my dressing-room; at midnight it will be open--come thither, for there are many things I wish to say." She then enjoined me not to leave the theatre till the play was completely over, and left me, my whole mind and thoughts in a state of agitation and confusion hardly to be expressed. I will not say that conscience did not somewhat whisper I was doing wrong; but the tumult of excited passion, and the gratification of my spirit of romance, prevented me even from calculating how far I might be hurried. There was certainly some vague point where I proposed to stop short of vice; and I trust I should have done so, even had not other circumstances intervened to save me therefrom. However that may be, let it be marked and remembered, from the first, that the steps I took in wrong, by an extraordinary chain of circumstances, caused all the misery of my existence.

CHAPTER IX.

Never, perhaps, in my existence--an existence varied by dangers, by difficulties, by passions, and by follies--never did any day seem to drag so heavily towards its conclusion as that which lay between me and the meeting appointed for the following night. It was not alone that impatient expectation which lengthens time till moments seem eternities, but it was, added to this, that I had to find occupation for every moment, lest tardy regrets should interpose, and mingle bitter with what was ever a sweet cup to me--excitement. Verily do I believe that I crowded into that one day more employments than many men bestow upon a year. I rode through the whole town; I witnessed the bull-fight; I wrote a letter to my father--God knows what it contained, for I know not, and I never knew; I read Plato, which was like pouring cold water on a burning furnace; I played on my guitar--I sung to it; I solved a problem of Euclid; I read a page of Descartes: and thousands of other things did I do to fill up the horrid vacancy of each long-expectant minute. At length, however, day waned, night came, and the hour approached nearer and more near. At ten o'clock I pretended fatigue, and leaving Father Francis, who seemed well inclined to consume the midnight oil, I retired to my apartment as if to bed. Old Houssaye came to assist me, but I made an excuse to send him away, which, though perhaps a lame one, he was too old a soldier not to take at once. He was a man that never asked any questions; whatever the order was, he obeyed it instantly, and he was unrivalled at the quick conception of a hint. Thus I had scarcely finished my first sentence, explanatory of my reasons for not requiring his services, than running on at once to the conclusion, he made his bow, and quitted the room.

Being left alone, two more long hours did I wear out in the fever of expectation. All noises gradually subsided in the town and in the house, and everybody was evidently at repose before half-past eleven. This was now the longest half-hour of all. I thought the church clock must have gone wrong, and have stopped; and I was confirmed in this idea when I heard the midnight round of the patrol of the Holy Brotherhood pass by the house, as usual pushing at every door to see that all were closed for the night. Shortly after, however, the chimes of midnight began; and, with a beating heart, I descended the stairs, having previously insured the means of opening the door without noise. In a moment after, the fresh night air blew chill upon my cheek, and conveyed a sort of shudder to my heart, which I could scarce help feeling as a sinister omen; but, closing the door as near as I could, without shutting it entirely, I darted across the street, pushed open the little door, and entered. As I did so, the garments of a woman rustled against me, and I caught the same fair soft hand I had held the former night. It burned like a living fire; and, as I held it in mine, it did not return or even seem sensible to the pressure, but my fingers felt almost scorched with the feverish heat of hers.

Cautiously shutting the door, she led me by the hand up a flight of stairs to a small, elegant dressing-room, wherein, on the toilet-table, was a burning lamp. It shone dimly, but with sufficient light to show me that my fair companion, though lovely as ever, was deadly pale; and, attributing it to that agitation which she could not but feel a thousand times more than even I did, I attempted to compose her by a multitude of caresses and vows, which she suffered me to lavish upon her almost unnoticed, remaining with a mute tongue and wandering eye, as if my words scarcely found their way to the seat of intellect. At length, laying her hand upon the hilt of my sword, with a faint smile, she said, "What! a sword! You should never come to see a lady with a sword;" and unbuckling it with her own hand, she laid it on the table.

"Now," proceeded she, taking up the lamp, and leading the way into a splendid room beyond--"now you must give me a proof of your love;" and she shut the door suddenly behind us with a quickness which almost made me start. Her whole conduct, her whole appearance was strange. That a girl of such high station should appear agitated at receiving in secret the first visit of one whom she had every right to look upon as a lover, was not surprising; but her eye wandered with a fearful sort of wildness, and her cheek was so deadly, deadly pale, that I scarcely ever thought to see such a hue in anything living. At the same time, the hand with which she held one of mine, as she led me on, confirmed its grasp with a tighter and a tighter clasp, till every slender burning finger seemed impressing itself on my flesh. "Have you a firm heart?" asked she at length, fixing her eyes upon me, and compressing her full beautiful lips, as if to master her own sensations.

I answered that I had; and, indeed, as the agitation of passion gave way to other feelings, called forth by her singular manner and behaviour, the natural unblenching courage of my race returned to my aid, and I was no longer the tremblingly empassioned boy that I entered her house.

"It is well!" said she. "Come hither, then!" and she led me towards what seemed a heap of cushions covered with a large sheet of linen. For a moment she paused before them, with her foot advanced, as if about to make another step forward, and her eye straining upon the motionless pile before her, as if it were some very horrible object; then, suddenly taking the edge of the cloth, she threw it back at once, discovering the dead body of a priest weltering in its gore. He seemed to have been a man of about thirty, both by his form and face, which was full, and unmarked by any lines of age. It was turned towards me, and had been slightly convulsed by the pang of death; but still, even in the cold, meaningless features, I thought I could perceive that look of an habitually dissolute mind, which stamps itself in ineffaceable characters; and there was a dark determined scowl still upon the brow of death, which, to my fancy, spoke of the remorseless violation of the most sacred duties. The limbs were contracted, and one of the hands clenched, as if there had been a momentary struggle before he was mastered to his fate; while the other hand was stretched out, with all the fingers wide extended, as while still striving to draw the last few agonizing breaths. His gown was gashed on the left side, and dripping with gore; and it is probable that the wound it covered went directly to his heart, from the great effusion of blood that had taken place.

It was a dreadful sight; and, after looking on it for a few moments in astonishment and horror, I turned my aching eyes towards the lovely girl that had conducted me to such a strange and awful exhibition. She, too, was gazing at it with that sort of fixed intensity of look, which told that her mind gathered there materials for strong and all-absorbing thoughts. "In the name of Heaven!" cried I, "who has done this?"

"I!" answered she, with a strange degree of calmness;--"I did it!"

"And what on earth could tempt you," I continued, "to so bloody and horrible a crime?"

"You shall hear," she replied. "That man was my confessor. He took advantage of his power over my mind--he won me to all that he wished--and then--he turned to another--fairer, perhaps, and equally weak. I discovered his treachery, but I heeded it the less, as I had seen you, and, for the first time, knew what love was; but I warned him never to approach me again, if he would escape that Spanish revenge whose power he ought to have known. He came, this very night--perhaps from the arms of another,--and he yet dared to talk to me of passion and of love! thinking me still weak enough to yield to him. Oh! with what patience I was endued not to slay him then! I bade him go forth, and never to approach me again. He became enraged--he threatened to betray me--to publish my shame--and he is--what he is!" There was a dreadful pause: she had worked herself up by the details to a pitch of almost frenzied rage; and, gazing upon the body of him that had wronged her with a flushed cheek and flashing eyes, she seemed as if she would have smote him again. "The story is told," cried she at length; "and now, if you love me, as you have said, you must carry him forth, and cast him into the great fosse of the city. Ha! you will not! You hate me!--you despise me! Then I must speak another language. You shall! Yes, you shall! or both you and I will join him in the grave!" and, drawing a poniard from her bosom, she placed herself between me and the door.

"And do you think me so great a coward," replied I, hastily, "to be frightened into doing what I disapprove, by a poniard in the hand of a woman? No, lady, no," I continued, more kindly, believing her, as I did, to be disordered in mind by the intensity of her feelings; "I pity you from my heart--I pity you for the base injuries you have suffered; and even, though I cannot but condemn the crime you have committed, I would do much, very much, to soothe, to calm, to heal your wounded spirit; but----"

I spoke long--gently--kindly to her. It reached her heart--it touched the better feelings of what might have been a fine, though exquisitely sensitive, mind; and, throwing away the poniard, she cast herself at my feet, where, clasping my knees, she wept till her agony of tears became perfectly fearful. I did everything I could to tranquillize her; I entreated, I persuaded, I reasoned, I even caressed. There was something so lovely, yet so terrible in it all--her face, her form, her agitation, the sweetness of her voice, the despairing, heart-broken expression of her eyes, that, in spite of her crime, I raised her from my feet, I held her in my arms, and I promised to do all that she would have me.

After a time she began to recover herself; and, gently disengaging herself from me, she gazed at me with a look of calm, powerful, painful regret, that I never can forget. "Count Louis," she said, "you must abhor me; and you have, alas! learned to do so at a moment when I have learned to love you the more. Your kindness has made me weep. It was what I needed,--it has cleared a cloud from my brain, and I now find how very, very guilty I am. Do not take me to your arms; I am unworthy they should touch me;--but fly from me, and from this place of horror, as speedily as you can, for I will not take advantage of the generous offer you make, to do that which I so ungenerously asked. I asked it in madness; for I feel that, within the last few hours, my reason has not been with me. It slept:--I have now wept; and it is awake to all the misery I have brought upon myself. Go--go--leave me; I will stay and meet the fate my crime deserves. But, oh! I cannot bear to think upon the dishonour and misery of my father's old age!" and again she wept as bitterly as before.

Again I applied myself to soothe her; and imprudently certainly, perhaps wrongly, insisted upon carrying away the evidence of her guilt, and disposing of it as she had at first demanded. But two short streets lay between the spot where we were and the old boundary of the city, over which it was easy to cast the body into the water below. At that hour I was not likely to meet with any one, as all the sober inhabitants of the town were by this time in their first sleep, and the guard had made its round some time before. I told her all this, and expressed my determination not to leave her in such dreadful circumstances; so that, seeing me resolved upon doing what I had proposed, the natural horror of death and shame overcame her first regret at the thought of implicating me, and she acquiesced.

As I approached the body for the purpose of taking it in my arms, I will own, a repulsive feeling of horror gathered about my heart, and a slight shudder passed over me. She saw it, and casting her beautiful arms round my neck, held me back with a melancholy shake of the head, saying, "No, no, no!" But I again expressed myself determined, and suddenly pressing her burning lips to mine, she let me go. "Pardon me!" said she; "it is the last I shall ever have, most generous of human beings." And turning away, she kneeled by her bed-side, hiding her face upon the clothes, while I raised the body of the priest in my arms, and bore it down stairs.

Being fortunately of a very strong and vigorous mould, and well hardened by athletic exercises, I could carry a very great weight, but never did I know till then, how much more ponderous and unwieldy a dead body is than a living one. I however gained the street with my burden; and with a beating heart, and anxious glaring eye proceeded as fast as I could towards the walls. Everything I saw caused me anxiety and alarm; the small fountain at the corner of the Calle del Sol made me start and almost drop the body; and each shadow that the moon cast across the street, cost me many a painful throb. At length, however, I reached the old rampart, where it looks out over the olive grounds, and advancing hurriedly forward, I gave a glance around to see that no one was there, and cast the corpse down into the fosse, which was full of water; I heard the plunge of the body and the rush of the agitated waters, and a shudder passed over me to think of thus consigning the frail tabernacle, that not long since had enshrined a sinful but immortal spirit, to a dark and nameless grave. All the weaknesses of our nature cling to the rites of sepulture, and at any time I should have felt, in so dismissing a dead body to unmourned oblivion, that I was violating the most sacred prejudices of our nature; but when I thought upon the how, and the wherefore, my blood felt chill, and I dared not look back to see the full completions of that night's dreadful deeds.

My heart was lightened, however, that it was now done, and I turned to proceed home, having had enough of adventure to serve me for a long while. Before I went, I gave an anxious glance around to see whether any one was watching me, but all seemed void and lonely. I then darted away as fast as I could, still concealing myself in the shadowy sides of the streets, and following a thousand turnings and windings to insure that my path was not tracked. At length, approaching the street wherein I lived, I looked round carefully on all sides, and seeing no one, darted up it, sprang forward, and pushed open the door of my lodging. At that moment a figure passed me coming the other way; it was the Chevalier de Montenero, and though he evidently saw me, he went on without remark. I closed the door carefully, groped my way up to my own chamber, and striking a light, examined my doublet, to see if it had received any stains from the gory burden I had carried. In spite of every precaution I had taken, it was wet with blood in three places, and I had much trouble in washing out the marks, though it was itself of murrey-coloured cloth, somewhat similar in hue.

Difficult is it to tell my feelings while engaged in this employment--the horror, the disgust, at each new stain I discovered, mingled with the painful anxiety to efface every trace which the blood of my fellow-being had left. Then to dispose of the water, whose sanguine colour kept glaring in my eye wherever I turned, as if I could see nothing but it, became the question; and I was obliged to open the casement, and pour it gently over the window-sill, without unclosing the jalousies, so as to permit its trickling down the front of the house, where I knew it must be evaporated before the next morning. This took me some time, as I did it by but very cautious degrees: but then, when it was done, all vestiges of the deed in which I had been engaged were effaced, and to my satisfaction I discovered, on examining every part of my apparel with the most painful minuteness, that all was free and clear.

Extinguishing my light, I now undressed and went to bed, but of course not to sleep. For hours and hours, the scenes in which I had that night taken part floated upon the blank darkness before my eyes, and filled me with horrible imaginations. A thousand times did I attempt to banish them, and give myself up to slumber, and a thousand times did they return in new and more horrible shapes; till the faint light of the morning began to shine through the openings of the blinds, when I fell into a disturbed and feverish sleep. It was no relief--it was no oblivion. The same dreadful scenes returned with their full original force, heightened and rendered still more terrific by a thousand wild accessories that uncontrolled fancy brought forward to support them. All was horror and despair; and I again woke, haggard and worn out, as the matin bell was sounding from the neighbouring convent: I tried it once more, and at length succeeded in obtaining a temporary forgetfulness.

CHAPTER X.

I was still in a most profound sleep, when I was woke by some one shaking me rudely by the arm; and starting up, I found my chamber full of the officers of justice. By my side stood an alguacil, and at my table, a sort of escribano was already taking a precise account of the state of the apartment, while in conjunction with him, various members of the Holy Brotherhood were examining without ceremony every article of my apparel.

For a moment or two, the surprise, mingled with the consciousness of what might be laid to my charge, confounded and bewildered me, and I gazed about upon all that was taking place with the stupid stare of one still half asleep. I soon, however, recovered myself, and hurriedly determined in my own mind the line of conduct that it was necessary to pursue, both for the purpose of saving myself, and shielding the unfortunate girl, of whose crime I doubted not that I should be accused.

The alguacil was proceeding, with a face in which he had concentrated all the stray beams of transmitted authority, to question me in a very high tone respecting my occupations of the foregoing night; when I cut him short by demanding what he and his myrmidons did in my apartment, and warning him, that if he expected to extort money from me by such a display, he was labouring in vain. The worthy officer expressed himself as much offended at this insinuation as if it had been true, and informed me that he had come to arrest me on the charge of having the night before murdered in cold blood one Father Acevido, and cast him into the fosse below the old wall. He farther added, that a messenger had been sent for the corregidor, who was at a small town not far off, and that he was expected in an hour.

"Well, then," replied I, boldly, "wake me when he comes, and make as little noise as possible at present," and I turned round on my other side, as if to address myself to sleep. My real purpose, however, was twofold: to gain time for thought, and to avoid all questions from the alguacil, till I had learned upon what grounds I was accused.

But in this I was defeated by Father Francis, who interfered with the best intentions in the world, and advancing, addressed me in French, whereupon the alguacil instantly stopped him, declaring he would not have any conversation in a foreign tongue.

"Houssaye!" cried I, turning to the old soldier, and pointing to the alguacil, while I spoke out in Spanish,--"if that fellow meddles any more kick him down stairs. And now, my good father, what were you about to say?"

This conduct, impudent as it was, I well knew was the only thing that could save me from being questioned and cross-examined by the inferior officers before the arrival of the corregidor. If I answered, I might embarrass myself in my after-defence, and if I refused to answer, my contumacy would be construed into guilt; all that remained, therefore, was to treat the alguacils with a degree of scorn which would check their interrogation in its very commencement, and which was in some degree justified by the well-known corruption and mercenary character of the inferior officers of the Spanish police. This proceeding seemed to have the full effect which I intended; for the pompous official not only ceased his questions, but at the hint of being kicked, suffered Father Francis to go on, judging very wisely, that, however justice might afterwards avenge him, his posteriors would at all events suffer in the meantime.

"My dear Louis," said the good priest, "you had better rise and clear yourself from the accusation of these men. Every one in this house knows your innocence; but here is an officer of the real hacienda without, who swears that he saw the murderer enter this house, and we have all suffered ourselves to be examined previous to your having been disturbed. Rise, then, and when you have dressed yourself, permit him to see that you are not the person, and probably by answering the questions of these people, you may save yourself from being dragged before the corregidor, like a culprit."

I replied with the same bold tone which I had at first assumed, and still speaking aloud in Spanish, "In regard to answering any questions put to me by these knaves, who are but as the skirts of the robe of office, I shall certainly not demean myself so far; but, to whatever the corregidor chooses to demand, I will reply instantly, for I am sure that he will not countenance a plot of this kind, which, beyond all doubt, has been contrived to extort money from a stranger; I will rise, however, as you seem to wish it, and then all the world may look at me as long as they will."

I accordingly rose and dressed myself, putting on, though I own it was not without much reluctance, the same murrey-coloured suit I had worn the night before. As soon as I was dressed, the officer of the real hacienda was called in, and immediately pointed me out, saying, "That is the man!" in so positive a tone, that it required all the resolution I possessed to demand, with a contemptuous smile, "Pray, sir, how much is it you expect to extort from me, by averring such a notorious falsehood?--Take notice, if it be above half a rial, you shall not have it."

"If you were to give me all that you possess, young gentleman," answered the man, calmly and civilly, "I would still aver the same thing--that you are the man who cast the dead body of Father Acevido into the fosse last night, while I was on duty, seeing that no contraband things were brought into the city. I tracked you through the streets till you entered this house, and I took good care to remark your person so as to identify it anywhere."

The man was so clear in his statement, and I knew it to be so true, that the blood mounted up into my face, in spite of every effort I could make to maintain my air of scornful indignation.

"Ha, ha! you colour!" said the alguacil; "what do you say to that, my young don?"

"I say," replied I, turning upon him fiercely, "that this man's story has been well contrived, and that he tells it coolly; but, depend on it, my good friend, when I have cleared myself of this, my remembrance and thanks shall light upon your shoulders in the most tangible form I can discover. But now, take me to the corregidor; only, while I am gone, let some honest person stay and watch these gentry who are fingering my apparel, or they will save Senor Escribano the trouble of making a very long catalogue."

A crowd of persons were round the door, gossiping with an alguacil, who had been left there as a sort of guard; and the moment I was brought out, the noise they were making very much increased with the vociferous delight which all vulgar minds experience on beholding criminals. It is a strange, devilish propensity that in human nature: the child loves to torture the fly or the worm, the serf runs to see the victim struggling at the gallows, or writhing on the wheel; and it is in the child and the vulgar that human nature shines out in its original metal, unsilvered over by the false hue of education. Those who have best defended man, attribute his passion for scenes of blood and horror to the renewed feeling which he thence derives of his own security. And is there, then, no way of showing him not cruel, but by proving him base? Must he ever be vilely selfish, if he is not savagely brutal?

The populace roared, as I came forth, with such a shout as we may suppose those refined tigers the Romans bestowed on the devoted gladiator when he entered the arena. I felt certain the sounds must reach another person, to whose bosom they would convey greater pangs than even to mine; and though I could not pause to observe anything minutely, as I was hurried on, I glanced my eye up towards the window on the other side of the way, and I am sure I saw a female hand rest on one of the bars of the jalousie.