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Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 9

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Title: Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 9

Author: Various


        
Release date: April 14, 2011 [eBook #35867]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD," VOLUME 9 ***




Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









 TALES
 FROM
 "BLACKWOOD"

 Contents of this Volume

 _Rosaura: A Tale of Madrid_

 _Adventure in the North-West Territory_

 _Harry Bolton's Curacy_

 _The Florida Pirate_

 _The Pandour and his Princess_

 _The Beauty Draught_

 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON




TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD."




ROSAURA: A TALE OF MADRID,

_MAGA._ MAY 1847.


In the year 1833 there dwelt in Madrid a certain student, who went by
the name of El Rubio, or the Red. Not by his acquaintances and intimates
alone was he thus designated, but by all the various classes of idlers
with whom the Spanish capital abounds; by the listless loiterers at the
coffeehouse doors, by the lounging gossips of the Puerta del Sol, and by
the cloaked saunterers who, when the siesta is over, pace the alleys of
the Retiro, puffing their beloved havanas, retailing the latest news,
discussing the chances of a change of ministry, or the most recent and
interesting scandalous anecdote current in that gallant metropolis. It
would be wrong to infer, from his somewhat ambiguous appellation, that
the student's skin had the copper hue of a Pawnee or an Osage, or his
hair the ruddy tint usually deemed detrimental and unbecoming. The name
implied no sneer--it was given and taken as a compliment; and Federico
was at least as proud of it as of the abundant golden curls to which he
owed it, and that flowed in waving luxuriance down his graceful neck,
and even to his well-formed shoulders.

In southern climes, where the ardent sun embrowns the children of the
soil, fair locks and eyes of azure are prized in proportion to their
rarity. No wonder, then, that Federico found favour in the sight of the
dark-browed and inflammable Madrilenas. Many were the tender glances
darted at him from beneath veil and mantilla, as he took his evening
stroll upon the Prado; oftentimes, when he passed along the street,
white and slender fingers, protruded through half-closed _jalousies_,
dropped upon his handsome head a shower of fragrant jasmin blossoms.
Amongst the dames and damsels who thus signified their favour and
partiality, not a few--so it is certified by the veracious authority
whence we derive this history--dwelt in stately mansions, and went
abroad in brave equipage, drawn by prancing steeds and comely mules, all
glittering with trappings of silk and gold. These, it may be thought,
condescended over-much thus to notice an humble student. But the
love-breathing daughters of Castile reck little of rank and station; and
Federico, by all personal endowments, well deserved the distinction he
obtained. Poor hidalgo though he was, no count or duke, or blue-blooded
grandee, from Cadiz to Corunna, bore himself better, or had more the
mien of a well-born and thoroughbred _caballero_. None more gallantly
wore the broad-leafed sombrero, none more gracefully draped the ample
cloak; and all Spain might have been searched in vain to match the
bright and joyous glance of the student's dark-blue eye. Excepting on
the coast, and in certain districts where Mohammedan forefathers have
bequeathed their oriental physiognomy and tall slender frame to their
Christian descendants, Spaniards are rarely of very lofty stature.
Federico was from the flat and arid province of La Mancha, where, as in
compensation for the unproductiveness of the parched soil, handsome men
and beauteous women abound. Of the middle height, his figure was
symmetrical, elastic, and muscular, formed for feats of agility and
strength; his step was light, but firm; his countenance manly,--the
expression of his regular and agreeable features denoted a passionate
nature and lofty character. Like most of his countrymen, he was quickly
roused, but easy to appease. Generosity and forbearance were prominent
amongst his good qualities; and he had nobly displayed them in more than
one encounter with antagonists whose feebleness placed them at his mercy
and rendered them unworthy of his wrath. For in the use of arms, as in
all manly exercises, Federico was an adept; and there were few men in
Spain who would not have found in him a formidable and dangerous
adversary.

Strange to tell of so young a man, and of a Spaniard, in one respect our
student appeared passionless. He met the advances of his female admirers
with the utmost coldness--seemed, indeed, to avoid the society of the
fair sex, threw love-letters into the fire, unread and unanswered,
neglected invitations, went to no rendezvous. Favours which other
men would gladly have purchased with years of life, he disdainfully
rejected. The wrinkled duennas, who under various pretexts brought him
tender messages and tempting assignations, met, instead of the golden
guerdon with which such Mercuries are usually rewarded, harsh rebuffs
and cutting sarcasm at the hands of the stoic of two-and-twenty. And
with so much scorn did this Manchegan Joseph repel on one occasion the
amorous attentions of a lady of birth and station, that her indiscreet
love was changed into bitter hate, and Federico narrowly escaped
a dagger-stab and a premature death. From that day he was more
inaccessible than ever, not only to women, but to men. Gradually he
withdrew from intercourse with his former associates, and was seldom
seen in the streets or public places, but sat at home, buried amongst
books, and diligently studying, with the intention, he was heard to
declare, of going to Ciudad Real, and passing his examination as
advocate in the royal courts. And thus, little by little, it happened
with Federico as it does with most persons who neglect and forget the
world. The world forgot him. His old intimates--joyous, light-hearted
lads, revelling in the enjoyments and dissipation of the capital--voted
him a spoil-sport and a pedant, and thought of him no more: friends,
in the true sense of the word, he had none; and so, after a very short
time, the list of visitors to the gloomy old apartment in which the
eccentric youth mused and studied was reduced to one man, and that a
very odd one, but whom Federico loved, because he in some sort owed him
his life.

This second hero of our tale was one of those strange characters to be
met with in Spain only. Don Geronimo Regato was a little wizened old
creature, blind of an eye, and with a very ugly face, whose life had
been a series of extraordinary adventures and bustling incidents. He had
served his country in the most opposite capacities. In 1808, he fought
the French in the streets of Madrid; two years later, he headed a
guerilla band in the wild passes of the Sierra Morena; another two
years, and he took the oath to the constitution of Cadiz, and was seen
at Wellington's headquarters as colonel of the Spanish line, and
delegate from the Cortes. In 1814, he changed his colours, and was
noted, after the return of Ferdinand VII., as a stanch Royalist. But
variety was his motto; and the revolution of 1820 saw him in the ranks
of the Liberals, to whom he continued faithful until their cause was
ruined and hopeless. That was the signal, with this Talleyrand on a
small scale, for another _vuelta casaca_: once more he turned his coat;
and as an earnest of penitence for past offences, opened to the Royalist
troops the gates of a small Estremaduran fortress. Notwithstanding this
act of tardy allegiance, he was thrown into prison at Madrid, and
owed it entirely to the intercession and good offices of an old
school-fellow, the influential Father Cyrillo, that his neck was not
brought into unpleasant contact with the iron hoop of the _garrote_.
Either warned by this narrow escape, or because the comparatively
tranquil state of Spain afforded no scope for his restless activity,
since 1823 this political Proteus had lived in retirement, apparently
eschewing plots and intrigues; although he was frequently seen in the
very highest circles of the capital, where his great experience, his
conversational powers and social qualities sufficiently accounted for
the welcome he at all times met.

Returning late one night from a tertulia at the house of Ferdinand's
prime minister, Don Geronimo heard the clash of steel and sound of a
scuffle, and, hurrying to the spot, saw a young man defending himself
against the attack of two bravos. Forthwith Regato set himself to shout
out words of command, as if he had a whole regiment at his back, and
the ruffians, thinking the patrol was upon them, instantly took to
flight. Federico was the person assailed; and although he boldly
asserted, and doubtless fully believed, that, left to himself, he would
speedily have defeated his cowardly opponents, he was still not
altogether sorry to be relieved from such odds by the old gentleman's
timely arrival and ingenious stratagem. This was the origin of his
acquaintance with Regato. From that night forward they visited each
other, and soon Geronimo took particular pleasure in the society of the
handsome youth, whose earnestness and vigour of mind, he was heard
cynically to remark, were refreshing to contemplate in a century when
the actions of most men made them resemble beasts and apes, rather than
beings formed in the image of their Creator. The young student, for his
part, found much to interest him in his new friend, the only person who
now varied the monotony of his solitude. He listened eagerly to Regato's
discourse, as he alternately poured out his stores of knowledge and
experience, and broke into a vein of keen and bitter sarcasm on the men,
parties, and circumstances of distracted and unhappy Spain. Federico
enthusiastically loved his country, and his proud eyes often filled with
tears when the old man placed its former greatness in striking contrast
with its present degradation. In spite of all the veerings and
weathercock variations of his political life, Regato was at heart a
Liberal. He set forth in glowing colours the evils and tyranny of
Ferdinand's government, expatiated on the barbarous executions of Riego,
Torrijos, and other martyrs to freedom's cause, and exposed the
corruption and villany of the men who retained their country in the
bonds of slavery and fanaticism; until Federico's cheeks glowed, and his
heart beat quick with patriotic indignation, and he felt that he too,
when the battle-hour should strike, would joyfully draw his sword and
lose his life for the liberation of the land he loved so well. At times
the student would take down his guitar, and sing, with closed doors
and windows--for Ferdinand's spies were a quick-eared legion--the
spirit-stirring Hymn of the Constitution, or the wild Tragala--that
Spanish Marseillaise, to whose exciting notes rivers of blood have
flowed. And then old Regato beat time with his hand, and his solitary
eye gleamed like a ball of fire, whilst he mingled his hoarse and
suppressed bass with Federico's mellow tenor.

Notwithstanding their vast difference of age and character, and although
the one was but commencing, whilst the other had nearly run, the up-hill
race of life, the more these two men saw of each other the stronger grew
their sympathy and friendship. Don Geronimo's visits to the student
became more and more frequent; and often, forgetful or careless of the
time, they would sit talking till far into the night. It seemed a
relief to Regato to disburden his heart and mind of their innermost
secrets; and he rejoiced to have found a man to whose honour, truth,
and secresy he felt he could safely intrust them. Federico repaid his
confidence with one equally unlimited. He not only told his friend the
history of his short life from infancy upwards, but he made him his
father confessor, informed him of the progress of his studies, confided
to him his doubts and hopes, his religious creed and political
aspirations, and even his connection with some of the secret orders and
societies, of which, at that period, notwithstanding the vigilance of
the police, a multitude existed in Spain.

"And can it be, my young friend," said Geronimo one evening, when a
brief pause succeeded to some of the fiery Federico's vehement political
diatribes--"can it be," he said, fixing his penetrating eye upon the
flushed and impassioned countenance of the student, "that you have
reached your present age and never loved woman?"

"Pshaw!" replied the student, "you have asked the question before, and I
have answered it."

"But 'tis incomprehensible and out of nature," cried the old Don. "Why
have you a heart in your bosom, blood in your veins, strong limbs, and
bright eyes?"

"Was all that given me that I might love woman?" retorted Federico, with
a merry laugh.

"Certainly: what is life worth, without love to sweeten it? Nothing,
worse than nothing. It is that gentle sympathy of hearts, that strange
fever of the soul, those sweet hopes and joyous transports, and tremors
scarce less pleasing, that render life endurable, and reconcile man to
the vileness of mortality. The nearest approach to paradise on earth is
found in bright eyes that beam for us alone--in gentle lips that murmur
to our ears words of pure tenderness and unselfish affection."

"By the Virgin!" cried Federico, "I am neither of wood nor stone. Yes,
there are creatures of heavenly beauty whom I _could_ love. But I am
like the Moorish Prince of Granada, who was too proud to eat common
food, and fed on gold. The metal was over-hard for his royal stomach,
and so he starved."

"Which means that what you could have, you don't like, and what you
would like, you can't get."

"Possible," replied Federico, smiling. "I strike high."

"And why not? To dare is often to succeed. For the bold and the prudent
no aim is too lofty. But tell me more."

"Nonsense!" cried the student. "I did but jest. It occurred to me that
this very day I saw a lady whose fair face I shall not easily forget.
She was richly dressed, and sat in an open carriage, drawn by
magnificent horses."

"What colour was the carriage?"

"Brown, lined with purple velvet. The arms on the panels were supported
by coroneted griffins; and on the luxurious cushions my goddess
reclined, in a robe of rose-coloured satin. A black lace mantilla
floated over her alabaster shoulders, further veiled by a cloud
of glossy ebon hair; and her eyes, friend Geronimo, her beauteous
eyes--they were soft and heavenly as a spring day in the almond groves
of Valencia."

"You are poetical," said Regato. "A good sign. Federico, you are in
love; but, by our Lady, you are audacious in your choice."

"Do you know her?" eagerly exclaimed Federico.

"Did she appear to notice you?" inquired Geronimo, leaving the question
unanswered.

"Paralysed by her exceeding beauty," replied the student, "I stood dumb
and motionless in the carriage-way, and was nearly run over. I sprang
aside, but just in time. She observed me and smiled: I almost think she
blushed. One thing I am sure of--she could not help seeing that her
wondrous beauty had turned my head."

"And that is all?" said Regato, slyly.

"What more could there be?" cried the young lawyer, indignantly. "Would
you have such an angel throw flowers at me, or appoint a rendezvous?
When the carriage turned out of the street towards the Prado, she
looked back. Holy Mother of Sorrows! even at that distance, the sunshine
of those eyes scorched my very heart!--But this is folly, sheer folly!
Next week I go to Ciudad Real, and amongst dusty deeds and dry folios I
shall soon forget the eyes and their owner."

Senor Regato assumed a thoughtful countenance, look a large pinch of
snuff, and lit a fresh cigar. After three or four puffs, emitted through
his nostrils with the delectation of a veteran smoker, he broke silence.

"You will not go to Ciudad Real."

"And why not?" cried Federico.

"Because, if I am not greatly mistaken, you will remain here."

"Strange if I do!" laughed the student.

"Less so, perhaps, than you imagine. Would you go if the rose-coloured
lady bid you stay? What if she sent a tender billet to the young
woman-hater, and said, 'Come and love me, if you have the heart and
courage of a man.' I think I see you then, though ten thousand devils
barred the way. Ciudad Real and the royal courts would soon be
forgotten."

"Perhaps," replied Federico. "But you tantalise me with
impossibilities."

Don Geronimo put on his hat, took his young friend's hand, and said,
with great gravity, "Nothing is impossible. And as regards love, nought
in this world can withstand it--no bolt, or lock, or bar, or rank, or
power. Bear that in mind, and be of good courage, if you again fall in
with her of the rose-coloured robe. I should not wonder if you saw her
this very night. Be happy whilst you may, whilst youth and beauty last.
They quickly pass, and never return; and in love be adventurous and
bold, like a true Spaniard and gallant gentleman. Daring wins the day."

He departed. Federico remained alone. With a smile at his friend's
advice, the young man sat down to study. But he soon started up, and
gazed like one in a dream at the massive volumes encumbering his table.
He knew not how it happened, but the well-known letters of the alphabet
seemed changed into inexplicable hieroglyphics. The simplest passages
were wholly unintelligible; the paragraphs were all rose-coloured;
black locks and brilliant eyes twined and sparkled through the quaint
arabesques and angular capitals that commenced each chapter of the
code, confusing and dazzling his brain. At last he angrily slammed the
parchment-bound volume, muttered a curse on his own folly, then laughed
aloud at the recollection of that comical old fellow, Geronimo Regato,
and went to bed. There he found little rest. When he closed his eyes,
the slender form of the incognita glided before them. Her white hand,
extended from beneath her mantilla, beckoned him to follow; nay, he
felt the pressure of the tiny fingers, her warm breath upon his cheek,
her velvet lips gently laid to his. And when he started from his sleep,
it was to fancy the rustle of a dress, and a sweet low voice that
timidly uttered his name. So passed the night, and only towards daybreak
did he sink into a sounder and more refreshing slumber. But when he
arose, he found, to his consternation, that she who had haunted his
dreams was equally present to his waking imagination. The fascinating
image of the beautiful stranger had established itself in his heart, and
Federico felt that all efforts to dislodge it would be as fruitless as
painful.

"If I believed in sorcery," he soliloquised, "I should think that old
rogue Geronimo had cast a charm over me. He predicted that she would
visit me this night, and truly she has done so, and here remains.
Whether it be for the best, I greatly doubt."

Musing on the fair apparition that thus pertinaciously intruded upon
him, the student dressed himself. It was late, and to atone for lost
time, he resolved to remain at home, and study hard the whole day. But
somehow or other, exactly at the same hour as on the previous one, he
found himself in the Calle Alcala; and scarcely was he there, when the
brown carriage and the splendid horses came rattling by. And there, upon
the purple cushions, sat, more beautiful than ever, the divinity who
for the last twenty-four hours had monopolised so large a share of his
thoughts. He gazed at her with rapture, and involuntarily bowed his
head, as to a being not of the earth. She smiled: her look had something
inquiring and mysterious; then, as if by accident, she placed her hand
upon the edge of the carriage, and let a flower fall. Almost before it
reached the ground, Federico caught and concealed it in his bosom, as
though it had been some precious jewel which all would seek to tear
from him. It was an almond blossom, a symbol of love and hope. Like a
criminal, he hurried away, lest his prize should be reclaimed, when he
suddenly found himself face to face with Geronimo, who gravely took off
his hat and greeted his friend.

"How goes it?" said the old Don, his widowed eye twinkling significantly
as he spoke. "How have you slept? Did the lady visit you or not?"

"You saw her!" cried Federico, imploringly. "For heaven's sake, her
name?"

"Bah!" replied Geronimo; "I saw nothing. But if it be she who sits in
yonder carriage, beware, young man! 'Tis dangerous jesting with giants,
who can crush us like straws beneath their finger. Your life is in
danger," he continued in a whisper; "forget this folly. There are plenty
of handsome faces in the world. Throw away the silly flower that peeps
from your vest, and be off to Ciudad Real, where scores of pretty girls
await you."

He turned to depart; Federico detained him.

"Let me go," said Geronimo: "I am in haste. I will call upon you
presently, and you shall hear more."

But, notwithstanding his promise, and although Federico remained all day
at home, impatiently expecting him, Geronimo came not. Never had the
student been so out of temper. He bitterly reproached himself as a
dreamer, a fool, an idiot: and yet there he remained, his thoughts fixed
upon one object, his eyes riveted on the almond blossom, which he had
placed in water, and whose graceful cup, now fully open, emitted a
delicate perfume. And as he gazed, fancy played her wildest pranks
with the enamoured youth. Small fairy-like creatures glided and danced
between the dusty stamina of the flower. At times, its leaves seemed
partly to close, and from out the contracted aperture, the lady of his
thoughts smiled sweetly upon him. Then the welcome vision vanished, and
was succeeded by stern frowning faces of men, armed from head to heel,
who levelled daggers at his heart.

"By St Jago!" the bewildered student at last exclaimed, "this is too
much. When will it end? What ails me? Have I so long withstood the
fascinations of the black-eyed traitresses, to be thus at last entrapped
and unmanned? Geronimo was right; at daybreak I start for Ciudad Real.
I will think no more of that perilous syren." He plucked the almond
blossom from its vase. "And this flower," he pensively murmured, "has
touched her hand, perhaps her lips! Oh! were it possible that she loves
me!" As he spoke, he pressed the flower so impetuously to his mouth that
its tender leaves were crushed and tarnished. He laughed scornfully.
"Thus is it," he exclaimed, "with woman's love; as fair and as fragile
as this poor blossom. Begone, then! Wither, and become dust, thou
perishable emblem of frailty!" Approaching the open window, he was about
to throw away the flower, when something flew into the room, struck his
breast, and rolled upon the ground. Federico started back, and his eye
fell upon the clock that regulated his studies. The hands were on the
stroke of midnight, and for a moment, in his then excited state, a
feeling of superstitious fear stole over him. The next instant he was
again at the window, straining his eyes through the gloom. He could see
nothing. The night was dark: a few large stars twinkled in the sable
canopy, the jasmin bushes in his balcony rustled in the breeze, and
brushed their cool leaves against his heated temples. "Who is there?" he
cried. His question was unanswered. Closing the _jalousies_, he took a
light and sought about the room till he perceived something white under
a table. It was a paper wrapped round a small roll of wood, and secured
by a silken thread. Trembling with eagerness, he detached the scroll.
Upon it were traced a few lines in a woman's delicate handwriting. "If
you are willing," so ran the missive, "to encounter some risk for an
interview with her who writes this, you will repair, to-morrow evening
at nine o'clock, to the western door of the church of St James. One will
meet you there in whom you may confide, if he asks you what flower you
love best."

"And though death were in the path," exclaimed Federico with vehement
passion--"though a thousand swords opposed me, and King Ferdinand
himself--" He paused at that name, with the habitual caution of a
Manchegan. "I will go," he resumed, in a calmer but equally decided
tone. "I will go; and though certain to be stabbed at her feet, I still
would go."

Lazily, to the impetuous student's thinking, did the long hours loiter
till that of his rendezvous arrived. Tormented by a thousand doubts and
anxieties, not the least of these sprang from the probability that the
assignation came not whence he hoped, and was, perhaps, the work of some
mischievous jester, to send him on a fool's errand to the distant church
of St James. Above all things, he wished to see his friend Geronimo; but
although he passed the day in invoking his presence and heaping curses
on his head, that personage did not appear. Evening came; the sun went
down behind the gardens of Buen Retiro; at last it was quite dark.
Federico wrapped himself in his cloak, pressed his hat over his brows,
concealed in the breast of his coat one of those knives whose strong
keen-pointed blade is so terrible a weapon in a Spaniard's hand, and,
crossing the Plaza Mayor, glided swiftly through streets and lanes,
until, exactly as the clock of St James's church struck nine, he stood
beneath the massive arches of the western portico. All was still as the
grave. The dark enclosure of a convent arose at a short distance, and
from a small high window a solitary ray of light fell upon the painted
figure of the Virgin that stood in its grated niche on the church wall.

His back against the stone parapet, in the darkest corner of the
portico, Federico posted himself, silent and motionless. He had not long
waited, when he heard the sound of footsteps upon the rough pavement.
They came nearer: a shadow crossed the front of the arched gateway
and was merged in the gloom, as its owner, muttering indistinctly to
himself, entered the portico. It was a man, closely muffled in a dark
cloak. To judge from his high and pointed hat, he belonged to the lower
class of the people; a wild black beard, a moment visible in the light
from the convent window, was all of his physiognomy discernible by the
student. He might be anything--a Gallego, a muleteer, or a robber.

After a moment, Federico made a slight noise, and advanced a step from
his corner. "Who is there?" cried the stranger.--"Who is there?" he
repeated. "Answer, in God's name. What do you here at this hour of the
night?"

"Who questions me?" boldly demanded the young man; and at the same time
he approached the speaker.

For a moment the two men gazed suspiciously at each other; then the
stranger again spoke. "Night and solitude enjoin prudence, senor,"
said he; "and so, keep your distance. What brings you to this gloomy
church-door? At this hour such gay cavaliers are oftener found in the
Prado or the Delicias, plucking flowers for their mistresses."

"I love flowers," replied Federico, "but I also love solitude."

"And what flower, my gallant young gentleman, do you best love?"

"Enough! enough!" joyfully exclaimed the student. "'Tis you I seek: I
am ready to follow."

Without reply, the stranger produced a long black cloth.

"What is that?" said Federico, who vigilantly observed his movements.

"To blindfold you."

"Why?"

"Senor, that you may not see whither I conduct you."

"Not so!" cried the student, suspiciously. "I will follow, but with open
eyes."

The Gallego threw the skirt of his large cloak over his left shoulder,
touched his pointed hat by way of salutation, and said courteously,
"_Buenas noches, senor_. May you sleep well, and live a thousand years."

"Stop!" cried Federico; "you are mad. Whither away?"

"Home."

"Without me?"

"Without you, senor. The truth is, you are wanted blind, or not at all."

The result of the colloquy that ensued was, that the Gallego twisted
his cloth thrice round the student's eyes, ears, and nose, and led him
carefully down a street and round sundry corners and turnings, till at
last he deposited him in a carriage, which instantly set off at a rapid
pace. After a tolerably long drive, by no means a pleasant one for our
adventurer, whose guide held his hands firmly in his--probably to
prevent his removing the bandage--the coach stopped, the two men got
out, and Federico was again conducted for some distance on foot. He knew
that he was still in Madrid, for he walked over pavement, and, in spite
of the thick cloth that impeded his hearing, he could distinguish the
distant sound of carriages and hum of life. Presently a door creaked,
and he apparently entered a garden, for there was a smell of flowers
and a rustling of leaves; then he ascended a staircase, and was
conducted through cool lofty apartments, and through doors which seemed
to open and shut of themselves. Suddenly his companion let go his hand.
Federico stood for a minute in silent expectation, then, groping around
him with extended arms, he said in a low voice, "Am I at my journey's
end? Answer!" But nobody replied.

By one decided pull, the student removed the bandage from his eyes, and
gazed around him in wonder and bewilderment. He was alone in a spacious
and magnificent apartment, whose walls were tapestried with striped blue
and white satin, and whose carved ceiling was richly gilt and decorated.
The tall Venetian mirrors, the costly furniture, the beautifully fine
Indian matting, everything in the room, in short, convinced him that
he was in the favoured abode of wealth, and rank, and luxury. A lamp,
suspended by silver chains, shed a soft light over the apartment.
Federico's position was a doubtful, probably a dangerous one; but love
emboldened him, and he felt the truth of a saying of Geronimo's, that
courage grows with peril. Happen what might, there he was, and he knew
no fear. The only perceptible exit from the room was by the large
folding-doors through which he had entered. He tried them--they were
fastened. His mother-wit suggested to him that his retreat had perhaps
been thus cut off that he might seek another outlet. He did so, and
presently perceived hinges under the tapestry. A silver handle protruded
from the wall; he grasped it, a door opened, and a cry of astonishment
and delight burst from the student. Beaming with loveliness, a blush
upon her cheek, a soft smile upon her rosy lips, the lady of his
thoughts stood before him.

For a moment the pair gazed at each other in silence, their looks
telling more eloquently than any words the love that filled their
hearts. But soon Federico started from his brief trance, threw himself
at the feet of the incognita, and, seizing her hand, pressed it ardently
to his lips, murmuring the while, in low and passionate accents, such
broken and rapturous sentences as only lovers speak and love alone can
comprehend. The lady stood over him, her graceful form slightly bowed,
her large lustrous eyes alternately fixed upon the kneeling youth and
roving anxiously round the apartment.

"Don Federico," she said, in tones whose sweetness thrilled his blood,
"may the Holy Virgin forgive my unmaidenly boldness. I have yielded to
an impulse stronger than my reason--to the desire of seeing you, of
hearing----"

"That I love you," interrupted Federico--"that I adore you from the
first hour I beheld you,--that I will die at your feet if you refuse
me hope!"

She bent forward, and laid her small rosy hand upon his throbbing
forehead. The touch was electric, the fiery glow of passion flashed in
her glance. "Light of my eyes!" she whispered, "it were vain to deny
that my heart is thine. But our love is a flower on the precipice's
brink."

"I fear not the fall," Federico impetuously exclaimed.

"Dare you risk everything?"

"For your love, everything!" was the enthusiastic reply.

"Listen, then, to the difficulties that beset us, and say if they are
surmountable."

The maiden paused, started, grew pale.

"Hark!" she exclaimed--"what is that? He comes! Be still! be silent!"
With wild and terrified haste she seized Federico's hand, dragged him
across the room, and opened a door. The student felt a burning kiss upon
his lips, and, before he knew where he was, the door was shut, and he
was in total darkness. All that had happened since he entered the house
had occurred so rapidly, was so mysterious and startling, that he was
utterly bewildered. For a moment he thought himself betrayed, groped
round his prison, which was a narrow closet, found the door, and,
grasping his stiletto, was about to force his way through all
opposition, when he suddenly heard heavy steps on the other side
of the tapestried screen. Motionless, he listened.

"Bring lights!" said a deep commanding voice; "the lamp burns dim as in
a bridal chamber."

"It anticipates its office," replied another male voice, with a laugh.
"Is not your wedding-day fixed?"

"Not yet; in the course of next week, perhaps," answered the first
speaker, striding up and down the apartment.

"You are in small haste," returned his companion, "to enjoy what all
envy you. Never did I behold beauty more divine and captivating."

"Beautiful she certainly is," was the reply; "but what is woman's
beauty! The vision of a day; snow, sullied and dispelled in a night."

"You are in exceeding good humour," said the friend of this morose and
moralising bridegroom.

A pause ensued, during which Federico's heart beat so strongly that he
thought its throbbings must surely be audible through the slight barrier
separating him from the speakers. A servant brought lights, and a
slender bright ray shot through a small opening in the tapestry,
previously unobserved by the student. Applying his eye to the crevice,
he obtained a view of the apartment, and of the persons whose
conversation he had overheard. One of these wore a uniform glittering
with embroidery; the other was dressed in black, with several stars and
orders on his breast. Both were in the middle period of life: the one in
uniform was the youngest and most agreeable looking; the dark features
of the other were of a sombre and unpleasing cast.

The servant left the room, and the man in black suspended his walk and
paused opposite his friend.

"You had something to communicate?" he said, in a suppressed voice.

"Are we secure from listeners?" asked the officer, in French.

"Entirely; and doubly so if we speak French. Rosaura herself, did she
overhear us, would be none the wiser."

"Count," said the soldier, "I sincerely wish you joy of this marriage."

"A thousand thanks! But with equal sincerity I tell you that I am
heartily weary of such congratulations. In marrying, one gives and
takes. I give Rosaura my name and rank, titles and dignities, honours
and privileges."

"And you take your lovely ward and a rich estate. A fair exchange,
Excellency. I can only say that the world wonders at the delay of so
suitable a union, and even inclines to the belief that a certain
disinclination----"

"The world is greatly mistaken," interrupted the Count. "I ardently love
Rosaura, and I have his Majesty's consent to the marriage. But what a
fool men take me for, if they suppose----" he stopped short, and tossed
his head with a scornful smile.

"Well?" said the officer.

"Solve the riddle yourself."

"I understand! Your position is uneasy, the future dark, the decisive
moment at hand. With one's feet on a volcano, one is little disposed to
enjoy a honeymoon."

"But when the mine explodes, and one is tossed into the air, it is
pleasant to fall in the soft lap of love, there to forget one's wounds."

"Bravo! But what if the lap refuse to receive the luckless engineer?"

"_Amigo!_" replied the Count--"I thought you knew me better. Under all
circumstances, Rosaura remains mine. For myself have I trained and
nurtured this fair and delicate plant, and to me, as the gardener, it
belongs."

"She loves you, then?"

"Loves me? What a question! Of course she does. She has grown up with
the idea that she is to be my wife. Her heart is pure and unblemished as
a diamond: it shall be my care to keep it so."

"You fear rivals?"

"Fear!" repeated the Count, a smile flitting over his dark countenance.
"But we trifle precious time. What have you to tell me?"

"Something important to our cause," replied the officer, drawing nearer
to his companion. "But first, how goes it yonder?"

He pointed with his finger in the direction of the closet. Federico
instinctively started back, but again applied his eye to the loophole on
hearing the Count's answer. "I have just come thence," he said, "and
must soon return. The hand of death is upon him--in vain would he parry
the blow. Still the struggle is a hard one; he persists in discrediting
his danger, and will abandon none of his habits. But the remorseless
tyrant is there, soon to claim him for his own."

"Then we must take our measures without delay," said the officer.

"They are already taken," was his companion's quiet answer.

"Your colleagues are agreed?"

"Fully agreed."

"And now?"

"Read that," said the Count, taking a large folded paper from a
portfolio, and spreading it before his friend, who devoured its contents
with every demonstration of extreme surprise.

"His handwriting! his signature!" he cried. "A revocation, annihilating
the shameless intrigues and machinations of years! Now, Heaven be
praised, our country and religion--the faith, honour, and dignity of
Spain are rescued! How was it obtained? How possible? My noble friend,
you are indeed a great statesman!"

"Take this priceless document," calmly replied the Count; "convey it to
your master. Only in his hands is it entirely safe. The future welfare
of Spain, the salvation of us all, is suspended to its seal. That I
obtained it," he continued, his voice sinking to a whisper, "is the work
of Providence. During the last two days he has had spasms and fainting
fits that have weakened his mind and energies. The secret is well kept,
and without the palace gates nought is known of these dangerous
symptoms. In such moments of agony and depression, the weary soul
recalls the past, and trembles for the future. Then, in vivid colours, I
placed before him the confusion and unhappiness, and infernal mischief,
to which his deplorable decision must give rise; I urged the injustice
he had committed, the sin that would lie at his door; and showed how,
almost before his eyes had closed, the work he had achieved at peril to
his soul would sink and crumble in an ocean of blood and tears. Alcudia
supported me; the others chimed in; this document was ready, and----he
signed."

"And now we have got it," cried the officer, triumphantly, "we will hold
it fast with hands and teeth. How long, think you, may he still live?"

"Castillo says not more than two days, and that he will hardly regain
the full use of his intellects." The eyes of the conspirators met; for a
moment they gazed at each other, and then broke into a smile.

"Well," said the officer, "I came commissioned to assure you special
favour and high reward, but, by my honour as a soldier, no gain or
recompense can worthily requite such service as yours."

"For me little can be done," replied the Count. "My desires tend to a
peaceful existence in the arms of my young wife, far removed from cares
of state. Such is the reward I promise myself. Let your acts be speedy
and decided, for it might well happen that----" his brow contracted into
deeper folds, and his voice assumed a discordant harshness--"I have
decimated the ranks of the scoundrels, but enough yet remain to give
much trouble. Take sure measures, and muster your resources. You will
need them all."

"Fear not," replied the confident soldier. "We, too, have been active,
and have good and steady friends. At a word, the Realista volunteers and
the trusty Agraviados fly to their arms. Romagosa, Caraval, Erro,
Gonzalez, and the venerable Cyrillo, still live. The Guards are for us;
so are the civil authorities and captains-general of eleven provinces.
Let the moment come, and you will see that, with this document in our
hand, all is done. Confidence for confidence," he continued. "Read this
list of names. It contains those of our most approved friends, and will
reassure you as to the chances of the future."

He handed a paper to the Count, who, barely looking at it, said
thoughtfully--

"Leave it with me till to-morrow. At the critical moment it will be of
immense weight with many waverers. 'Tis late; in a few minutes I must go
out. Place me at the feet of your gracious master, and tell him he will
have no more faithful subject than his humble slave."

"Will you see him?" said the officer, gently. His companion shook his
head.

"'Twere not wise," he replied. "The time is not yet come. When it
arrives, I shall be the first to bend knee before him. Be watchful,
prudent, and prompt. Yet one word. You have confided somewhat in that
fellow Regato. Trust him not too far. I deem him a traitor. Let him be
proved such, and he shall not escape the rope he has long deserved. And
now, farewell!"

The two men parted, and, as the Count returned from the door, Federico
heard a rustling of silks that materially increased the rapidity of his
heart's pulsations.

"My fair bride!" gallantly exclaimed his Excellency, "I am enchanted to
see you. How lovely you look, Rosaura! and how deeply I regret that
important affairs leave me but a few moments to devote to you."

"It would seem," said the lady, with cold severity, "that your
Excellency has converted my poor apartment into an audience-chamber."

"A thousand pardons, dear Rosaura," was the reply. "A particular friend
craved a short interview."

"It is late," said the lady, pointedly. "I wish your Excellency a
good-night."

"What!" cried the Count, impatiently. "You dismiss me thus?"

"I am indisposed to-night."

"You are a cruel tyrant, Rosaura."

"I, Excellency? They say worse things of you."

"Who, and what?"

"No matter. May your Excellency live a thousand years."

"With you, Rosaura," replied the Count, assuming an air of tenderness
which, as Federico thought, sat supremely ill upon him, and endeavouring
to take her hand. She drew it quickly back.

"_Veremos, Excelencia._ We shall see."

"The devil take the Excellency!" cried the Count, losing all
self-command, and stamping angrily with his foot. Rosaura curtsied low.

"You forget my rights over you, Rosaura. I came to tell you that in a
few days, as I hope, my dearest wishes will be accomplished."

"We shall see, Excellency," repeated the provoking beauty.

The Count stepped up to her, and said, with his sullen smile, "You
rejoice not at it, Rosaura?"

"No," was her laconic reply.

"You love me not?"

"Love _you_, Excellency? a great statesman like you! Certainly not,
Excellency."

"I grieve to hear it, my beautiful bride; but, fortunately, love often
comes with marriage. You shall learn to love me, Rosaura. Our existence
shall be a happy and envied one. You detest state affairs: I will leave
them and devote myself solely to you. Far from the capital, we will lead
a pastoral life, amidst myrtles and meadows, flocks and shepherds, in
all the sweet tranquillity of a terrestrial paradise."

Whether sketched in jest or in earnest, this picture of rustic felicity
had evidently few charms for Rosaura, at least in the companionship
proposed. Suddenly she stepped up to the Count, took his hand, looked
full into his dark serious countenance, and laughed aloud and most
musically.

"What do I hear, Excellency," she exclaimed; "_you_ in myrtle groves and
smiling meadows--_you_ leading a shepherd's tranquil life! Oh, ye
Saints! _he_ a shepherd in the Alpuxarras. Ah! the flocks would fly and
scatter themselves when they beheld the gloomy lines upon your brow.
Where are sheep to be found who would be tended by that ensanguined
hand? Where could _you_ find repose? Is there a place free from the
echoes of the curses that martyred Liberals have heaped upon you? Where
is the domestic hearth around which would not range themselves the
spectres of the wretches who, at your command, have been blotted from
the book of life. Count, I shudder at the thought! Holy Mother of God!
is that the happy future you would compel me to share? No, no,
never!--though the garrote were to encircle my neck, as it did that of
the unhappy lady at Granada, who refused to betray her husband, and whom
you sent to the scaffold in his stead! Has she never appeared to your
Excellency, cold and pale, and with sightless eyes? For Quito's
treasures would I not behold her--her and the whole ghastly train;
hundreds, ay hundreds of them, in the long, black-bordered shrouds, and
the bare-footed friars with their fearful _misericordia_! Mercy, mercy,
Excellency! with me would come the evil spirits, and a thousand----but,
good-night, good-night, Excellency."

With a graceful movement of hand and head she glided from the room. The
Count attempted not to detain her. He stood motionless, his hand thrust
into his breast, and followed her with his eyes in mute astonishment.

"The silly child!" he at last murmured. "But how lovely she is! I, whom
all fear--even HE," he emphatically added--"I almost quail before her
mad petulance. Well, well!" he continued after a pause, "the priest
first, and discipline afterwards. A man who has bowed and broken so many
stubborn spirits, will hardly be vanquished by the humours of a wilful
girl. Good-night, my lovely bride. 'We shall see,' you said; and
assuredly we _will_ see."

He took his hat, and was about to leave the room, when, by an
inadvertent movement, Federico let fall his poniard. The Count was quick
of hearing, and the noise, slight as it was, drew his attention. He
turned sharply towards the spot where the student was concealed.

"What was that?" he cried. "Something fell in the closet. Have we
listeners here?"

For an instant he hesitated; then, taking one of the massive silver
candlesticks, he stepped briskly to the closet, and was almost knocked
down by the door, which Federico pushed violently open. The waxlights
fell to the ground; like a winged shadow, the student sprang past the
astonished Count, reached the door before the latter recovered from his
alarm, and would doubtless have got clear off, had he not, in hurry and
ignorance, turned the wrong handle. The Count grasped his coat-skirt,
and pulled him back.

"Scoundrel!" he cried. "What do you here?"

For sole reply, Federico seized his assailant by the throat, and a
struggle began, which, although speedily decided in favour of the
active student, was destined to have most important results. The Count
was vigorous, and defended himself well. He had little opportunity of
calling out, closely grappled as he was, but he dealt his antagonist
more than one heavy blow. At last Federico dashed him to the ground, and
disappeared from the room, leaving behind him one of his coat-skirts,
torn off in the contest. In falling, the Count's head struck against a
table, and he lay for a few seconds stunned by the shock. Recovering
himself, he sprang to his feet, foaming with rage, his dark visage black
with shame and anger. "Seize him!" he cried, hurrying down the corridor.
Twenty servants flew to obey the order. But it was too late. The student
passed like a fire-flash before the porter, and made good his escape
from the house. "Follow him!" shouted the Count--"a hundred ounces for
his capture!" And, stimulated by this princely reward, the eager
domestics ran, like hounds after a deer, on the track of the student,
who soon heard the shouts of his enemies, and the shrill whistle of the
_serenos_, around and on all sides of him.

Although panting from his brief but violent struggle with the Count,
Federico traversed with extreme swiftness several streets and squares,
until want of breath at last compelled him to a moment's pause. He
looked around, and observed the locality. Before him lay the massive
buildings of the royal palace, favoured by whose shadow he continued his
flight, now up-hill. But the numbers of his pursuers gave them a great
advantage; and, to his dismay, he found himself so closely and
accurately followed, that capture appeared inevitable.

"Had I but my knife," he exclaimed aloud, pausing in despair, "I would
keep them off or die! Fool that I have been! Sentries on all sides! They
have taken alarm! What can I do?"

"Go to Ciudad Real, if not too late," said a man, wrapped in a cloak,
and wearing a small three-cornered hat, who suddenly stepped from behind
a massive stone column, close to where the student stood.

Federico at once recognised the speaker.

"For God's sake, Geronimo!" he cried, "assist me in this strait. If they
catch me, I am lost. And hark! yonder they come! I hear the baying of
the menial pack. On all sides the way is barred!"

Geronimo seized Federico's hand, and hurried him behind the pillar.
"There is only one chance," he said; "muffle yourself in my cloak, take
my hat, assume a stoop, and walk slowly, like an old man."

"What is your plan?" cried the student.

"Ask no questions. Do as I bid you. Do you see yonder door?"

"Of the palace?"

"Go in there."

"Into the palace?"

"Of course. Look neither right nor left; cross the first court to the
great portal. There await me. Quick, quick--they come!" And he pushed
him away.

Not without doubt and disquietude did Federico obey the orders of the
old man, who displayed, in this conjuncture, a promptitude and decision
rare at his age. But the student had no alternative. Wrapped in Regato's
cloak, and feigning a feeble gait, he passed slowly and unquestioned
before the soldiers of the royal guard. This impunity in a palace where
the strictest watch and ward were usually kept, was an enigma to
Federico; and he was still more puzzled, when, whilst waiting at the
portal, several persons, shrouded like himself in dark cloaks, passed
before him, greeting him as they went with a muttered "_buenas noches_"
and disappeared in the corridors of the palace. At last came Geronimo.
He had provided himself in the interval with another cloak. His
appearance was an immense relief to the student.

"Are they gone?" said Federico. "May I venture out?"

"Thank the saints that you are here!" replied Geronimo. "And now, tell
me what has happened."

Federico told his adventures; and old Regato listened to the narrative
with marks of the strongest interest. When he heard what the Count had
said of him and of his probable fate, he laughed heartily. "Bah!" said
he; "threatened men live long. I have had hotter broth cooked for me,
and cooled it with my breath. I hope to die in my bed like a good
Christian; and as for my chance of a rope, I would not change with his
Excellency. The infernal schemer! I'll pay him off now. _Madre de todas
gracias!_ had we but the list of the conspirators, what a blow might be
struck!"

"The list!" repeated Federico. "Stay, let me remember!" and, plunging
his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a torn paper. "When I threw the
man down, this remained sticking between my waistcoat and neckcloth,
where he had grappled me. I noticed it when I got outside, and thrust it
into my pocket."

Without listening to this explanation, Geronimo seized the paper, and,
by the light of a lamp under the portal, examined it with eager
curiosity. At sight of its contents, a savage joy sparkled in his eye.

"Ah, _maldito_!" he exclaimed with a laugh of triumph; "we have you now.
Federico, the rose-coloured lady is ten times more surely yours than if
you had remained in the closet and his Excellency had not discovered
you. Follow, and be silent. Whatever happens, not a word till I bid you;
then speak boldly, and tell what you know."

Through winding corridors, up and down stairs, along galleries where
sentries stood like statues, Geronimo led the way, until he reached a
room whose door was opened by a gigantic lackey in the gaudy royal
livery. Federico, who followed close upon his heels, suddenly found
himself in the presence of a number of men, for the most part elderly
and of grave respectable aspect, who stood in small knots about the
apartment, or sat at tables on which were wine and refreshments,
conversing in a low tone. Amongst these a hum of interest arose on
Regato's entrance; and under cover of the attention he attracted, his
companion passed unnoticed.

It at once flashed upon Federico, that he had penetrated into that
notorious camarilla or secret council of King Ferdinand VII., so much
spoken of, so often cursed and scoffed at, so greatly feared and justly
hated. This was the cringing and pernicious conclave of whose vile
proceedings so many tales were told; these were the men, of all ranks
and classes, who poured into the jealous despot's ear the venom of
calumny and falsehood; these the spies and traitors who, by secret and
insidious denunciations, brought sudden arrest and unmerited punishment
upon their innocent fellow-citizens, and who kept the King advised of
all that passed in Madrid, from the amorous intrigues of a grocer's
wife, to the political ones concerted in the cabinet of the Infante Don
Carlos.

The student's first uneasiness at finding himself upon such new and
perilous ground, vanished when he saw that he was wholly unheeded. He
remembered to have heard that persons once admitted to the camarilla,
and honoured by the King's confidence, were at liberty to return when
they thought fit, at short or long intervals; and thus it might well
happen that some of the members were unknown to each other. And on that
night, those illicit counsellors of majesty were evidently pre-occupied
with some pressing and important matter. They crowded round Regato, took
his arm, seized him by the button, whispered so eagerly, and questioned
him so fast, that the little man lost all patience.

"Hands off, gentlemen!" he cried. "Which of you will buy me a new coat
when you have torn mine? 'Tis true that this morning our gracious lord
the King was very ill: but I hear that he is now better; and by the
grace of our blessed Lady, he will rejoice his humble and loving slaves,
and dispel their deep anxiety, by the sunshine of his presence."

The words had scarce left Geronimo's lips, when the opening of a
side-door proved the signal for a respectful silence in the apartment.
The whole assembly bowed profoundly, and preserved that posture,
although no cause was yet apparent for such extraordinary greeting. At
last one showed itself, in the person of a man who tottered slowly and
feebly into the room, supported on the arms of two attendants, his livid
and bloated countenance distorted by a smile as painful to behold as if
compelled by thumbscrews. The face of the new comer, who nodded in reply
to the humble salutation of all present, might once have been handsome,
but it could never have been intellectual or prepossessing, and now it
was hideously cadaverous and ghastly. The features were those
characterising a well-known family, world-renowned for the high places
it has filled, rather than for the virtues or abilities of its members.
The eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, the straight, scanty black
hair shaded a brow blue and transparent from disease; the tall person
and once well-formed limbs were swollen and unwieldy. The sick man's
dress would have suited some plain burgher taking his ease in his
summer-house: it consisted of a light nankeen jacket, a white neckcloth
knotted loosely round the throat, linen trousers, and large shoes. He
seemed scarcely able to set foot to ground, and the agony each step
occasioned him betrayed itself in spasmodic twitchings of the nerves and
muscles. Still there was a violent effort of the will to conceal the
pangs that racked the enfeebled frame; a fruitless attempt to hide, by
the assumption of smiling ease and gracious condescension, the approach
of that equalising hour when human greatness and human misery sink to
one level.

The sick man propped himself against a table, beside which stood an
easy-chair, and with an affable wave of his hand, addressed the company.

"Good evening, senores!" he said: "we have felt ourselves somewhat
unwell, and our careful physician Castillo, as also our trusty Grijalva,
was solicitous on our account. But we would not put off this meeting. We
love to meet our good friends, and are not to be kept from them by
slight bodily inconvenience. Men fancy us more ailing than we are. You
can refute such reports. What say you, Mexas--and you, Salcedo? Is our
aspect so very sickly? We know that many build hopes upon our death; but
they are mistaken, and by Our Lady, they shall be disappointed."

"God preserve our gracious lord a thousand years!" exclaimed several
voices.

"An example should be made," said the man appealed to as Salcedo, "of
the traitors who dare spread lying reports concerning the royal health."

"'Tis too true," observed another, "that such rumours are used to the
most criminal ends."

"We will sit down," said the sick monarch. And with the assistance of
his attendants, he deposited his exhausted person in the elbow-chair.
"Drink, my friends, and tell me the news. Give me a cigar, good
Castillo. Senor Regato, how goes it? what is new in our fair city of
Madrid?"

"Little is heard," replied Geronimo, "save lamentations for the
indisposition of our beloved master."

"The good people!" exclaimed Ferdinand. "We will have care of their
happiness."

"And yet," said a little old man with a countenance of repulsive
ugliness, "there be reprobates who laugh whilst all true and faithful
subjects weep. There is my neighbour, the merchant Alvaro. Yesterday he
married his daughter to a young nobleman, Don Francisco Palavar, who
claims relationship with the Marquis of Santa Cruz. The wedding-guests
were numerous; they sang and danced, and rejoiced beyond measure. Senor
Alvaro, said I, are you not ashamed to be so joyous at such a time?
'Friend,' was his answer, 'let the times wag--they are certainly bad
enough, but must soon change. All things have an end. We rejoice in
hopes of a better future.'"

"The wretch!" exclaimed another of the camarilla. "I know him well; he
was always a negro."

"A knave grown grey in the sins of the Exaltados," cried a third.

"He must be looked to," said the sick King. "Salcedo, what have you to
tell?"

"I have gathered intelligence," replied Salcedo, "from an equerry of a
certain illustrious personage." He paused and looked meaningly at the
King, whose brow contracted, and whose lips muttered a well-known name.
"The equerry," Salcedo said, "tattled of great bustle and many visits at
his master's palace. For days past its courtyard had been filled with
carriages, bringing generals, ministers, dignitaries of the church, and
many officers, chiefly of the Royal Guard." On hearing this, a feverish
and uneasy flush reddened Ferdinand's pale countenance, and his dim eyes
glared angrily.

"I know them," he said, "the old conspirators, the Catalan volunteers,
the Agraviados. Why have I not heard this sooner? But I will take order
with them. Ha, Tadeo!--you there? Why has this been kept from me?"

Uttering these last words, the King looked directly at the spot where
Federico stood. So, at least, it seemed to the student, who, much
confused, and apprehensive of discovery, averted his eyes from the royal
gaze. But his embarrassment was exchanged for consternation, when he
beheld, in the person addressed by Ferdinand as Tadeo his recent
antagonist, the affianced of Rosaura. The Count, who stood at his elbow,
gave him but one look, but that one comprised everything--astonishment,
anger, hatred, confidence of power, and a fixed determination of
revenge. A chill came over the poor student, and he debated in his mind
whether to rush from the room, or to fall at the King's feet and reveal
all he knew. His first surprise over, and seeing that Don Tadeo took no
further notice of him, he thought it wisest to follow Geronimo's
directions and remain quiet.

"My gracious liege," said Tadeo to the King, with his usual gloomy
decision of manner, "it was unnecessary to importune your majesty by
such reports, seeing that they are merely lying devices of the
evil-disposed. And even were it true that many visits are paid to that
palace, its master has right and reason to receive them, without----"

By an impatient gesture, the King interrupted the speaker.

"It needs but to name the visitors," said Regato, with a quick sharp
glance at Tadeo. "Eguia is one of them; San Juan, O'Donnel, Moreno,
Caraval, are others."

"Has it not been remarked," said Mexas, with a sarcastic smile, "that in
the apartments of a certain illustrious lady, meetings are also held, to
which repair the Dukes of San Lorenzo and Fernando, Martinez de la Rosa,
Cambronero, and many others? What can be said against that?"

A dead silence followed this bold remark: all knew well who the
illustrious lady was who thus assembled round her the leaders of the
Liberals. Suddenly the ominous pause was broken by the voice of
Federico, to whom Regato had made a sign, significant although barely
perceptible.

"Don Tadeo," cried the audacious student, his mellow manly tones ringing
through the apartment, "is a traitor to his King. This very night he
delivered an all-important document to an agent of the Infante Don
Carlos."

The words were an electric shock to the camarilla. The King started, and
showed symptoms of extraordinary agitation. "What is that? Who says
that?" he cried, rising from his chair with the vigour of sudden
excitement. "Who knows of the document? where is it? Seize him--he shall
explain--confess!"

"Seize the scoundrel," cried Tadeo, "who has dared intrude himself
hither."

"My guards! my guards!" cried the King, his eyes rolling wildly, his
features frightfully convulsed. "Where is the paper? Tadeo, I _will_
have it back! Ha! what is this! mercy! blessed Virgin, mer----!" The
word was unfinished; and Ferdinand, doubly tortured by bodily pain and
mental anguish, fell back into the arms of his physician.

"The King is dead!" exclaimed Tadeo. "Help here!"

The camarilla crowded round Ferdinand, who lay without sense or motion.
"What is it, Senor Castillo?" said Tadeo. The physician let fall his
patient's wrist.

"A sudden paroxysm, your Excellency," he replied in a low voice. "It was
to be apprehended--all is over!"

The Count turned away, and his eye fell upon Federico, who, seeing
resistance useless, stood passive in the custody of several of the
camarilla. With a vindictive frown, Tadeo pulled open the student's
cloak, and pointed to his skirtless coat.

"You cannot deny it," he said. "The proof of your guilt is in my
possession. Who is the fellow?"

Geronimo Regato stepped forward and stared in the student's face.

"What!" cried he, "is not that Don Federico, the young advocate,
well-known in the coffee-houses as a virulent Exaltado, a determined
scoffer, a propagator of atrocious doctrines?"

"I thought as much," said the Count. "None but such an unprincipled
scoundrel would dare to act the spy in the very palace. Call the guard,
and away with him to prison. Let this man be securely ironed," he added,
to the soldiers who now entered; "and let none have speech of him."

The order was promptly obeyed. A very brief space elapsed before
Federico found himself in a narrow dungeon, stretched on damp straw,
with manacles on hands and feet. In total darkness, and seated
despondingly upon his comfortless couch, the events of the evening
appeared to him like some frightful nightmare. But in vain did he rub
his eyes and try to awake from his imaginary sleep; the terrible reality
forced itself upon him. He thought of Rosaura, the original cause of his
misfortunes, and almost doubted whether she were indeed a woman, or
some demon in angel's form, sent to lure him to destruction. Of
Geronimo, too, he thought with feelings of inexpressible bitterness. He,
the friend in whom he had placed such implicit reliance, to betray him
thus; for his own advantage, doubtless, and to draw his own head out of
the noose! There were none, then, to whom he could now look for succour.
The King was dead; his successor, the apostolical ruler, the partisan
and defender of the Inquisition, whose name, for years past, had been
the rallying-cry of the disaffected, owed his crown to the powerful
Tadeo whom the student had offended and ill-treated, whose love he had
dared to cross, whose revenge he must now encounter. Federico felt that
his fate was sealed. Already he heard, in imagination, the clank of
ponderous fetters in the dismal halls of the Inquisition; already he saw
the terrible machines--the screws and weights, the ladder and iron
couch, and felt the burning sulphur, as it was dropped hissing upon
his naked flesh by the masked and pitiless executioner. He thought
of Arguelles, the Divine, whom he had seen an animated corpse, his
limbs crushed and distorted by similar tortures; and in spite of his
natural courage, a shudder came over him as he heard the bars of his
dungeon-door withdrawn, and the heavy bolts shot back into their
sockets. The next instant he closed his eyes, dazzled by a glare of
light.

When he reopened them, the Count or Tadeo--whichever was his most
fitting appellation--stood before him. With the courage of pride and
despair, Federico boldly met his searching gaze. For some moments they
looked at each other in silence, broken at last by Tadeo.

"I come to question you," he said: "answer truly, and your captivity
may be very brief. Deceive me, and your life shall be yet shorter.
Your crimes shall meet their just reward."

"I am guilty of no crime," retorted Federico. "I am the victim of
circumstances."

"And what are they?" eagerly inquired the Count.

Federico was silent.

"Do you know me, senor?" said the Count.

"No," was the reply.

"Beware, then, lest you learn to know me too well. What did you,
concealed in yonder closet? Where is the paper you robbed me of? Who
admitted you into the house? Do you belong to a secret society? Were you
sent as a spy? A dagger was found in the closet: did you come to
assassinate me?"

He paused after each question, but Federico answered none of them,
save the last, to which he replied by a stern negative. "You had best
confess," resumed Tadeo. "If you are no political offender, if no
criminal project led you where I found you, I pledge my word, senor--and
I pledge it only to what I can and will perform--you shall at once be
released."

"I can say but this," replied the prisoner--"it was not my object to
overhear you. An accident conducted me where you discovered me, and
I heartily regret that a casual noise betrayed my presence."

"Is that all you will say?"

"All."

"You know not with whom you deal," cried the Count. Then, lowering his
voice, and with a smile that he strove to render amiable, "It was,
perhaps, a love-affair," he said. "Young man, which of Dona Rosaura's
handmaidens did you seek? Who introduced you into that apartment? Tell
me this--satisfy me on a point that concerns myself personally--and not
only will I forget all, but remain your debtor."

Whilst thus he spoke, the Count's features expressed very different
sentiments from those announced by his smooth and placable speech. In
their convulsive workings, and in the savage fire of his eyes, jealousy
and hatred were plainly to be read; he looked like a tiger about to
spring upon its prey.

"Senor," said Federico, contemptuously, "you waste time. If a lady did
introduce me into your house, rest assured I am not base enough to
reveal her name. From me you get no further answer. Do with me as you
will. In this unhappy land, might is above right."

"Wretch!" exclaimed the Count, fiercely advancing upon his undaunted
captive, "you have betrayed yourself. I will destroy you, knave, like
an insect. A lady conceal you! What audacious slander is this?" He
struggled with his rage, and, mastering himself, resumed: "It has been
proved that you are the spy of a dangerous and treasonable association.
Where is the paper you stole?"

"I have no paper," replied Federico, "and will answer no more questions.
I am in your power; do your worst."

The Count stepped to the dungeon door. Two men entered. Whilst one of
them searched Federico, closely examining each pocket and fold of his
dress, but without discovering the much-coveted document, the other
listened respectfully to the Count, who gave him instructions in a low
voice. His last words, which reached the ear of the student, were not
calculated to reassure him as to the future. "Be it so," said Don Tadeo.
"The necessary warrant shall at once be made out, and then--despatch."
And with a vindictive glance at his prisoner, he left the prison.

It was some consolation to the unfortunate Federico, when again in
dismal solitude, and with the prospect of a cruel death before his eyes,
to reflect on the firmness he had shown, and on the agony of jealous
doubt he had inflicted on his rival. In his defenceless and desperate
circumstances, such revenge was doubly sweet; and for a while he dwelt
on it with pleasure. Then his thoughts took other direction, and an
active and excited imagination transported him from that gloomy cell to
the chamber of the beautiful cause of his misfortunes. She knelt before
a crucifix, and wept and prayed for him. He heard her breathe his name,
and invoke the saints to his assistance; and in a transport of love and
gratitude he extended his arms to clasp her to his heart. They were
rudely checked by the chain that linked them to the wall. And now pale
spectres flitted through the gloom, and grinned at him with their
skeleton mouths, and murmured in his ear that he must die, and never
again see her whose kiss was yet hot upon his lips. And the last ominous
words and deadly look of his foe recurred to him, chasing all hope. Who
would miss him, the humble and friendless student? who inquire where or
how he had met his fate? Far greater than he, the wealthy, the titled,
the powerful, had met the fate he anticipated, at hangman's hands, in
the dark and silent recesses of Spanish dungeons. To the long list
of illustrious victims, he, an insignificant one, would be added
unnoticed. And the remembrance of those who had preceded him, ennobling
an ignominious death, gave Federico courage. "Yes!" he exclaimed aloud,
"I will die as so many great and good men have died before me! Would
that I had done service to my poor oppressed country, something to
deserve the tyrant's hate! But for thee, Rosaura, will I gladly perish,
and to thee only shall my last sigh be given."

His words yet echoed in the dungeon, when he heard steps at the door,
and its fastenings again withdrawn. This time he doubted not it was his
death-warrant and the executioner. Nerving himself to endure the worst,
he gazed sternly and steadily at his visitors.

"That is he," said the turnkey, to a tall, sullen-looking man.

"Take off his chains," was the answer; "and you, senor, follow me."

"Quick with your work," cried Federico. "Call your aids. I am prepared."

"Silence and follow!" harshly replied the stranger. "Lucky for you if
you are prepared for all."

Without the dungeon stood a third man, muffled in a short mantle.
Federico shuddered. "Another of the hangman brood!" he murmured. "Lead
on, I fear thee not!" The man followed without a word. After traversing
several corridors, they ascended a lofty staircase. Behind each door
Federico fancied a torture chamber or a garrote, but none of them
revealed what he expected. At last his conductor paused.

"Are you ready," he said, "to appear before your Supreme Judge?"

"I am ready," Federico solemnly replied.

"Then enter here."

A door opened, the student set foot across the threshold, and hardly
restrained a cry of surprise. Instead of the garrote, instead of racks
and torturers, he beheld a gorgeous saloon, brilliantly lighted up with
a profusion of wax tapers. Five or six men of distinguished mien and
elegant appearance, with stars and orders upon their breasts, were
grouped round a large carved chair, and looked curiously and expectantly
at Federico. But he scarcely observed them. Even on a lady of great
beauty and majestic aspect, who sat in the chair, wrapped in a costly
mantle of embroidered velvet, his attention was fixed but for an
instant, for behind her stood another lady, somewhat pale and
anxious-looking, but who yet bore so strong a resemblance to the cause
of his sufferings, to her of the rose-coloured robe, to Rosaura herself,
that all the blood in his veins rushed to his heart. Her name hovered on
his lips, and, forgetting everything but love and newly-revived hope, he
was about to spring forward and throw himself at her feet, when the
lady in the chair addressed him:

"Remain there, senor," she said, with a smile and gracious movement of
her head, as if she divined the impulse to which the impetuous student
so nearly yielded. "You have had strange adventures, I am told, within
the last few hours. They will terminate happily for you, if you tell the
whole truth, and relate without reserve all that has occurred. Where
have you passed this night? What took you to the house in which you were
found hidden? What heard you there?"

"Senora," replied Federico, respectfully but firmly, "I have already
preferred death to the revelation of a secret that is not mine. My
resolution is unchanged. I can answer no questions."

The lady cast a friendly and approving glance at the steadfast youth.

"Now, by Our Lady!" she said, turning to the gentlemen around her, "this
is a chivalrous fidelity, right pleasant to behold in these unchivalrous
days. I doubt not, young sir, that the lady of your affections will know
how to repay it. But here are great interests at stake, and your excuse
may not avail. You must relate all, truly and without reserve. And to
remove your scruples, know that the secret you have so bravely kept is
no longer one for any here present. Proceed!"

A look from Rosaura confirmed this assurance, and without further
hesitation Federico told his adventures, and repeated the dialogue he
had heard from the closet. At times the listeners seemed surprised; at
times they smiled, or looked significantly at each other, and spoke
together in brief whispers. Twice had the student to tell his tale, and
his words were taken down by one of the gentlemen present. That done,
the lady rose quickly from her chair, laid a hand upon his shoulder,
and, fixing her keen bright eyes searchingly upon his face, pointed to
the deposition.

"Can you swear to that?" she cried. "Is it all true? Before God and his
saints, did all pass as you have said? No word too much or too little?
Saw you the document with your own eyes? _Santa Madre!_ Is it possible?
Surely it cannot be; and yet--my friends, what say you? What think you,
Duke of San Fernando, and you, Marquis of Santa Cruz? What says his
Grace of San Lorenzo, and our discreet friend, Martinez de la Rosa? No,
I need not fear, whilst thus surrounded by the best and wisest in the
land. Cambronero, advise us. How may we defeat the machinations of our
crafty foes?"

The gentleman who had written down the deposition, raised his head, and
Federico recognised the features of one renowned throughout Spain as a
wise counsellor and learned lawyer. With surprise and respect the
student gazed at the distinguished and illustrious persons he had just
heard named.

"Much depends," said Cambronero, "on his Majesty's health. If unhappily
he departs this life without regaining consciousness, we must recover
the surreptitiously obtained document at point of sword. No other course
will then be open to us. But if, by God's gracious mercy, the King's
senses return, not a moment must be lost in obtaining from his hand a
revocation of the act. He must be told everything; he must be shown how
his confidence has been abused, and what base advantage has been taken
of a momentary weakness. He must hear the witnesses whom Heaven has
raised up for your Majesty."

"Ha!" cried the lady, with an impatient and energetic gesture, "you are
right, Cambronero; we must act! All that can be done, Christina will do.
They shall not triumph by weakness of hers! Don Fernando still lives,
can yet retract. He shall hear how they have laboured to bring shame
upon his name; shall learn the perfidy of those who have environed him
with their snares! I go to tell him."

The Queen left the room. "To me it seems, senores," said Cambronero, a
quiet smile playing on his shrewd features, "that things have happened
for the best, and that the result of all this is not doubtful, provided
only the king be not already dead. The Apostolicals have been active.
Their creatures have worked their way into the cabinet and the
camarilla. The guards, the captains-general, and many officers of state
are long since gained over. In all cases, on King Ferdinand's death, a
war is inevitable. The succession to the throne is a Gordian knot, to be
cut only by the sword. The Infante will never yield his claim, or admit
as valid the abrogation of the ancient Salic law.[A] And doubtless the
crown would be his, were not the people and the spirit of the times
opposed to him. He is retrograde; the Spain of to-day is and must be
progressive. The nation is uneasy; it hates despotic government; it
ferments from north to south, from Portugal to the Mediterranean; but
that fermentation would lack a rallying point without the decree which
commands all to cling to Christina and her children, and repel the
Infante. The partisans of Carlos have striven to obtain by craft what
they could not hope to conquer by the strong hand, and they have
succeeded in making a dying monarch revoke in a moment of delirium or
imbecility that all-important act. The revocation is in the hands of the
Infante; the Salic law is once more the law of the land, and Christina's
children are in their turn disinherited. And if it be impossible to
restore the King to consciousness, I fear----"

[Footnote A: By the Pragmatic Sanction, promulgated during the first
pregnancy of Christina, in May 1830.]

"What?" cried the Marquis of Santa Cruz.

"That we are on the eve of a great revolution."

"Hush!" said the Duke of San Lorenzo, looking anxiously around him.
"These are dangerous words, my friend." And his eye fell upon the
handsome countenance of Martinez de la Rosa, who smiled thoughtfully.

"Call it reform, Cambronero," he said; "wise progress of the times,
moderate, cautious, adapted to the circumstances; not rash, reckless,
sweeping revolution."

The lawyer cast a keen glance at the former minister of the Cortes.

"Reform!" he cried. "Ay, certainly; but what reform? Does Senor de la
Rosa mean such reform as he helped to bring about? I bid him beware:
these are no times for trifling. Here we stand, but a few paces from the
deathbed of a powerful prince. He fettered this revolution or reform;
but, senores, it was only for a while and in appearance. Like the mole,
it has laboured and advanced, surely and unseen. Happy for our king if
he expire before the vanity of his efforts, and the inutility of the
bloodshed and misery they have occasioned, are demonstrated; before he
learns that a principle never dies, though all the artillery of the
world be brought to bear upon it. History judges the dead; nations judge
the living. Let us so act that we may stand with honour before both
tribunals."

"The subject leads us too far," said the poet and minister, rising from
his chair and glancing at Federico, who, struck and delighted by
Cambronero's words, gazed at him with expanded brow and flashing eyes.
"Let us beware of kindling fanaticism: coolness and prudence are
becoming to men, and, God knows, we need both."

He took Cambronero's arm, and led him to the other end of the spacious
apartment. The noblemen followed, and the conversation was resumed in a
lower tone. So enthralling had been the interest with which Federico had
listened to the words of these influential Liberals, that for an instant
he had neglected Rosaura, who stood nearly concealed behind the swelling
cushions and high gilt back of the throne-like chair. Her beautiful face
wore an anxious, inquiring expression, which seemed to reproach him with
forgetting her; but as he drew near, she smiled, and rays of love and
hope broke from beneath her long dark lashes. And under the magic
influence of those beaming eyes, Federico's doubts and fears vanished
like frost before the mid-day sun, and were replaced by a transport of
blissful emotion.

"Rosaura!" he exclaimed, "what unspeakable joy is this! Strange, indeed,
have been the events of the night! The wonders of Arabian tales are
realised. A moment ago I awaited death in a dungeon; and behold, I am in
a king's chamber, and at your feet, Rosaura. Explain these things,
adored mistress of my heart! How do we thus meet? How came you hither?"

"With our friend, Geronimo Regato," replied the lady.

"The traitor!" indignantly exclaimed Federico. "No thanks to him if I
escape with life."

"Judge not so hastily," cried Rosaura: "you know not all you owe Regato.
From him I first heard your name. He was my confidant; he knew my
aversion to the detested man, who considered me already his own. My
father, of an old family, although not of the highest nobility, was
President of the Burgos Tribunal, and by commercial transactions, in the
time of the Constitution, he acquired great wealth. My hated suitor is
also sprung from the people. My father was his friend, and at one time
had to thank his influence for escape from persecution. Out of gratitude
he promised him my hand, and, dying a year ago, left him my guardian. In
that capacity he administered my estates, and had me in his power. But,
thanks to the Virgin, I am at last free from his odious control."

She gazed tenderly at Federico, and held out her hand, which he covered
with kisses. But she hastily withdrew it, on becoming aware that their
proceedings were observed by the group of politicians.

"Is this the time and place?" she said, with a smile of sweet confusion
and arch reproach. "And yet, Federico, best beloved, why should I feign
indifference, or conceal that my heart is wholly yours?"

"Angel!" cried the enraptured student, trembling with ecstasy.

"Hush!" whispered Rosaura. "Cambronero looks and laughs at us. Hear me,
Federico. The decisive moment approaches; but I fear it not--I love and
hope. It was Geronimo, disguised as a Gallego, who brought you to my
abode; Geronimo hates him whom we hate; he knew me as a child, was my
father's friend, and loves us both. He spoke to me of you long before I
saw you; he told me the hour of your walks in the Prado. At the first
glance I recognised you."

"And where is that singular man?" Federico inquired.

"I know not, but doubtless at no great distance. This night, a few hours
ago, I lay sleepless on my pillow, anxious for your fate, when a
carriage stopped at the door. It was surrounded with guards and
torch-bearers, and I was told that my presence was instantly required at
the palace. My alarm at so untimely a summons was dissipated by the
arrival of Geronimo. 'Fear nothing,' he said: 'the hour of happiness is
at hand. He whom you hate is vanquished. Federico is his conqueror.'"

"I his conqueror!" cried the student. And then, recalling all that had
occurred, "Strange destiny!" he continued. "Yes, I now see that the
secret intrigues of a dangerous and powerful man have been revealed by
my means. But who is he? I in vain conjecture."

"You do not know him?" cried Rosaura, greatly astonished--"not
know----?" She suddenly paused, for at that moment the door burst open,
and the Queen entered the room, in extreme haste and violent agitation.

"His Majesty is recovered," she exclaimed, her voice shrill and
quivering with contending emotions; "his swoon is over, God's grace be
thanked. I have spoken, my noble friends, and not in vain. The King will
himself hear the witnesses. These young people must come with me. Call
Geronimo Regato. Remain here, Cambronero, and all of you: I must see you
again, I need your counsel--desert me not!"

"When your Majesty next honours us with your presence," said Cambronero,
bowing low, and raising his voice, "it will be as Queen-Regent of
Spain."

Regato entered the room, and Federico rubbed his eyes in fresh
astonishment. It was the same man in the dark mantle who had followed
him from his dungeon to the Queen's audience chamber, and whom he had
taken for an executioner. Gradually the mysteries of the night
unravelled themselves. He understood that if Regato had accused him, it
had been to avert suspicion from himself, and that he might work more
effectually for both, by revealing to the Queen or to Cambronero what he
had learned from Federico, and by placing before them the list of the
conspirators. Musing upon this, and each moment more convinced of
Geronimo's wisdom and good faith, he followed the Queen, who, with rapid
step, led him and Rosaura through a suite of splendid apartments.
Stopping before a door, she turned to the student.

"Speak fearlessly," she said: "suppress no word of truth, and reckon on
my favour and protection."

Federico bowed. The door turned noiselessly on its hinges, and the Queen
paused a moment as in anger and surprise, whilst a dark glow flushed her
excited and passionate countenance. From the door a view was commanded
of the whole apartment, which was dimly lighted, and occupied by several
persons, standing in a half-circle, round a bed placed near a marble
chimney-piece. Upon this bed, propped by cushions into a half-sitting
posture, lay Ferdinand VII., his suffering features and livid complexion
looking ghastly and spectral in the faint light, and contrasted with the
snow-white linen of his pillow. A black-robed priest knelt at his feet,
and mumbled the prayer for the dying; Castillo the physician held his
arm, and reckoned the slow throbs of the feeble pulse. At the bedside
sat a lady, her hands folded on the velvet counterpane, her large dark
eyes glancing uneasily, almost fiercely, around the room--her
countenance by no means that of a sorrowing and resigned mourner.

"The document!" groaned the sick man, with painful effort; "the
document, where is it? To your hands I intrusted it; from you I claim it
back. Produce it instantly."

"My gracious sovereign," replied the person addressed--and at the sound
of that sinister voice, Federico felt Rosaura's hand tremble in his--"my
gracious sovereign, that paper, that weighty and important document,
signed after wise and long deliberation, cannot thus lightly be revoked
by a momentary impulse."

"Where is it?" interrupted the King, angrily.

"In the safest keeping."

"In the hands of the Infante," cried the Queen, entering the room, and
approaching the bed.

"Traitor!" exclaimed Ferdinand, making a violent but fruitless effort to
raise himself. "Is it thus you repay my confidence?"

"Hear me, gracious sir," cried Tadeo; but his tongue faltered, and he
turned deadly pale, for just then he perceived Rosaura, Federico, and
Regato standing at the door.

"Hear these," said the Queen, placing her arm affectionately round her
suffering husband, and bowing her head over him, whilst tears, real or
feigned, of sympathy or passion, fell fast from her eyes. "They have
betrayed you, Sire; they have abused your confidence; they have
conspired against me, against you, against your innocent children.
Approach, Don Federico; speak freely and fearlessly. You are under the
safeguard of your King, who demands of you the entire truth."

"Enough!" said Ferdinand; "I have read the young man's deposition. Look
at it, sir," he added, to Tadeo, pointing to the paper, "and deny it if
you can."

Tadeo obeyed; as he read, his hand visibly shook, and at last he dropped
the paper, and sank upon his knees.

"I cannot deny it," he said, in a troubled voice, "but let your majesty
hear my justification. I implore permission to explain my conduct."

The little lady who sat beside the King's bed sprang to her feet, her
countenance flaming with wrath, and rushed upon the kneeling man.
Unbridled rage flashed from her eyes, and distorted each feature of her
face.

"Traitor!" she cried, "where is the document? what have you done with
it? You stole it, to deliver to men as vile and base as yourself!
Traitor, produce it!"

"Madam!" exclaimed the astonished object of this furious apostrophe.

His remonstrance was cut short, for, quick as lightning, the
ungovernable Infanta raised her hand, and let it fall upon his face with
such vigour and good-will that the minister, unprepared for so unwomanly
an assault, staggered backwards, and narrowly avoided a fall.

"Carlotta!" cried the Queen, seizing her sister's arm, and restraining
her from further violence.

"The villain! the traitor!" shrieked the Infanta, in tones that
resounded through the palace.

"Away with him from my sight!" cried Ferdinand, his voice growing
fainter as he spoke. "The Queen, whom I appoint Regent during my
illness, will decide upon his fate. I myself strip him of all offices
and honours. Away with him, and for ever! You are no longer my minister,
TADEO CALOMARDE. Oh, God! what a bitter deception! He too! He too! By
all the saints, he shall rue it. His treachery is my death-stroke!"

The King sank back like a corpse upon his cushions, but presently
recovered himself, and with all speed, before the assembled ministers,
the extorted decree was annulled, the Pragmatic Sanction again declared
in full force, and the Queen nominated Regent. Whilst this took place,
Federico, unheeded in the bustle of such important business, remained
like one entranced. It was Calomarde, then, the man whose ruthless hand
had been so pitilessly stretched forth over the suffering land--it was
the all-powerful minister, the curse of Spain, the butcher of the noble
Torrijos and his unhappy companions, whom he, the insignificant student,
had cast down from his high state! The giant had succumbed before the
pigmy; the virtual ruler of the kingdom had fallen by the agency of one
whom, a day previously, he might with impunity have annihilated. Events
so extraordinary and of such rapid occurrence were hard to comprehend;
and Federico had scarcely convinced himself of their reality, when he
received, a few hours afterwards, a summons to the Queen's presence.

The morning sun shone into the royal apartment, revealing the traces of
a sleepless night and recent agitation upon the handsome features of the
newly-made Regent. She received the student with a smile, and placed
Rosaura's hand in his.

"Fear nothing from Calomarde," she said. "He has fled his well-merited
punishment. Those sent for his arrest sought him in vain. You are under
my protection, Rosaura--and you also, Don Federico. You have established
a lasting claim upon my gratitude, and my friendship shall never fail
you."

It does not appear how long these fair promises were borne in mind by a
queen whose word, since that time, has been far oftener pledged than
redeemed. Perhaps she thought she had acquitted herself of all
obligations when, three months later, she honoured with her presence the
nuptials of Federico and Rosaura, and with her own hand twined a costly
wreath of brilliants through the sable ringlets of the beautiful bride.
And perhaps the young couple neither needed nor desired further marks of
her favour, for they withdrew from Madrid to reside in happy retirement
upon Rosaura's estates. Geronimo Regato went with them; and for a while
was their welcome guest. But his old habits were too confirmed to be
eradicated, even by the influence of those he loved best. The atmosphere
of a court, the excitement of political intrigue, were essential to his
existence, and he soon returned to the capital. There, under a very
different name from that by which he has here been designated, he played
an important part in the stirring epoch that succeeded the death of
Ferdinand the Well-beloved.




 ADVENTURE IN THE NORTH-WEST
 TERRITORY.

[_MAGA._ SEPTEMBER 1821.]


After residing nearly a year in one of the most distant posts of the
North-west Company, and conducting the fur trade there, I began to look
forward to my return to Montreal. I waited with the greatest impatience
for the arrival of the period which was to terminate my banishment, and
restore me to society. I was nearly three thousand miles distant from
any settlements, and my only companions were two young men, clerks of
the establishment, whose characters, and limited acquirements, rendered
them very uninteresting associates. My situation was one of considerable
responsibility. A great number of Canadians, in the service of the
Company, resided at the post, and were under my control; but I found it
a very difficult matter to keep them in a state of due subordination,
and to prevent them from quarrelling and fighting with the detached
parties of Indians that occasionally visited us for the purpose of
trading. Interest and personal safety alike required that we should be
on friendly terms with the natives; and I spent many anxious hours in
endeavouring to promote mutual peace and good-humour.

Our post was situated upon the banks of a small lake, about sixteen
miles broad. This lake discharged itself by means of a river into
another of much greater dimensions, and thick forests covered every part
of the neighbouring country.

One afternoon I took my gun, and strolled out in search of game. Though
it was now the beginning of spring, the lake was still frozen completely
across, the cold of the preceding winter having been very intense. I
soon fell in with a flock of wild ducks, but before I could get a shot
at them, they began to fly towards the middle of the lake; however, I
followed them fearlessly over the ice, in the expectation that they
would soon alight. The weather was mild, though rather blowy. Detached
black clouds moved rapidly along the face of Heaven in immense masses,
and the sun blazed forth in unobscured splendour at one moment, and was
completely shrouded from the eye the next. I was so intent on the
pursuit of my game that I hastened forwards almost unconsciously, my
progress being much facilitated by a thin layer of snow which covered
the ice, and rendered the footing tolerably secure. At last I fired at
the ducks, and killed one and wounded another. I immediately picked up
the first, but its companion, having only been winged, began to leap
away before I caught hold of it. I followed, but had not advanced more
than twenty yards, when, to my astonishment, I found that the ice was in
many places covered with water to the depth of several inches. I stopped
short full of alarm, and irresolute what to do. It was evident that a
thaw had already commenced, and as I well knew with what rapidity the
ice broke up when once affected by a change of temperature, I became
alive to all the dangers of my situation, and almost shuddered at the
thought of moving from the spot on which I stood.

The weather had grown calm and hazy, and the sky was very black and
lowering. Large flakes of snow soon began to fall languidly and
perpendicularly through the air; and after a little time, these were
accompanied by a thick shower of sleety rain, which gradually became so
dense that I could not discern the shore. I strained my eyes to catch a
glance of some living object, but a dreary and motionless expanse
stretched around me on every side, and the appalling silence that
prevailed was sometimes interrupted by the receding cries of the wounded
bird. All nature seemed to be awaiting some terrible event. I listened
in fearful suspense, though I knew not what I expected to hear. I soon
distinguished a distant thundering noise, which gradually became
stronger, and appeared to approach the place where I stood. Repeated
explosions, and hollow murmurings of irregular loudness, were succeeded
by a tremendous sound, like that of rocks bursting asunder. The ice
trembled beneath my feet, and the next moment it was disunited by a vast
chasm, which opened itself within a few yards of me. The water of the
lake rushed upwards through the gap with foaming fury, and began to
flood the surface all around.

I started backwards, and ran, as I conceived, towards the shore; but my
progress was soon stopped by one of those weak parts of the ice called
_air-holes_. While walking cautiously round it, my mind grew somewhat
composed, and I resolved not to advance any farther until I had fixed
upon some way of regulating my course; but I found this to be
impossible. I vainly endeavoured to discern land, and the moaning of the
wind among the distant forests alone indicated that there was any at all
near me. Strong and irregular blasts, loaded with snow and sleet, swept
wildly along, involving everything in obscurity, and bewildering my
steps with malignant influence. I sometimes fancied I saw the spot where
our post was situated, and even the trees and houses upon it; but the
next moment a gust of wind would whirl away the fantastic-shaped fogs
that had produced the agreeable illusion, and reduce me to actionless
despair. I fired my gun repeatedly, in the hope that the report
would bring some one to my assistance; however, the shores alone
acknowledged, by feeble echoes, that the sound had reached them.

The storm increased in violence, and at intervals the sound of the ice
breaking up rolled upon my ear like distant thunder, and seemed to
mutter appalling threats. Alarm and fatigue made me dizzy, and I threw
down my gun and rushed forwards in the face of the drifting showers,
which were now so thick as to affect my respiration. I soon lost all
sense of fear, and began to feel a sort of frantic delight in struggling
against the careering blasts. I hurried on, sometimes running along the
brink of a circular opening in the ice, and sometimes leaping across
frightful chasms--all the while unconscious of having any object in
view. The ice everywhere creaked under my feet, and I knew that death
awaited me, whether I fled away or remained on the same spot. I felt
as one would do, if forced by some persecuting fiend to range over the
surface of a black and shoreless ocean; and aware, that whenever his
tormentor withdrew his sustaining power, he would sink down and be
suffocated among the billows that struggled beneath him.

At last night came on, and, exhausted by fatigue and mental excitement,
I wrapped myself in my cloak, and lay down upon the ice. It was so dark
that I could not have moved one step without running the risk of falling
into the lake. I almost wished that the drowsiness produced by intense
cold would begin to affect me; but I did not feel in the slightest
degree chilled, and the temperature of the air was in reality above
freezing. I had lain only a few minutes when I heard the howl of a wolf.
The sound was indescribably delightful to my ear, and I started up with
the intention of hastening to the spot from whence it seemed to proceed;
but, hopeless as my situation then was, my heart shrunk within me when I
contemplated the dangers I would encounter in making such an attempt. My
courage failed, and I resumed my former position, and listened to the
undulations of the water as they undermined and beat against the lower
part of the ice on which I lay.

About midnight the storm ceased, and most of the clouds gradually
forsook the sky, while the rising moon dispelled the darkness that had
previously prevailed. However, a thick haze covered the heavens, and
rendered her light dim and ghastly, and similar to that shed during an
eclipse. A succession of noises had continued with little interruption
for several hours, and at last the ice beneath me began to move. I
started up, and, on looking around, saw that the whole surface of the
lake was in a state of agitation. My eyes became dim, and I stretched
out my arms to catch hold of some object, and felt as if all created
things were passing away. The hissing, grinding, and crashing, produced
by the different masses of ice coming into collision, were tremendous.
Large fragments sometimes got wedged together, and impeded the progress
of those behind them, which being pushed forward by others still farther
back, were forced upon the top of the first, and fantastic-shaped
pyramids and towers could be indistinctly seen rising among the mists of
night, and momentarily changing their forms, and finally disorganising
themselves with magical rapidity and fearful tumult. At other times, an
immense mass of ice would start up into a perpendicular position, and
continue gleaming in the moonshine for a little period, and then vanish
like a spectre among the abyss of waters beneath it. The piece of ice on
which I had first taken my position happened to be very large and thick,
but other fragments were soon forced above it, and formed a mound six or
seven feet high, on the top of which I stood, contemplating the awful
scene around me, and feeling as if I no longer had the least connection
with the world, or retained anything human or earthly in my composition.

The wind, which was pretty strong, drove the ice down the lake very
fast. My alarms and anxieties had gradually become less intense, and I
was several times overcome by a sort of stupor, during the continuance
of which, imagination and reality combined their distracting influence.
At one time I fancied that the snow still drifted as violently as ever,
and that I distinguished, through its hazy medium, a band of Indian
chiefs walking past me upon the surface of the lake. Their steps were
noiseless, and they went along with wan and dejected looks and downcast
eyes, and paid no attention to my exclamations and entreaties for
relief. At another, I thought I was floating in the middle of the ocean,
and that a blazing sun flamed in the cloudless sky, and made the ice
which supported me melt so fast that I heard streams of water pouring
from its sides, and felt myself every moment descending towards the
surface of the billows. I was usually wakened from such dreams by some
noise or violent concussion, but always relapsed into them whenever the
cause of disturbance ceased to operate.

The longest and last of these slumbers was broken by a terrible shock
which my ice island received, and which threw me from my seat, and
nearly precipitated me into the lake. On regaining my former position,
and looking round, I perceived, to my joy and astonishment, that I was
in a river. The water between me and the shore was still frozen over,
and was about thirty yards wide, consequently the fragment of ice on
which I stood could not approach any nearer than this. After a moment of
irresolution, I leaped upon the frozen surface, and began to run towards
the bank of the river. My feet seemed scarcely to touch the ice, so
great was my terror lest it should give way beneath me; but I reached
the shore in safety, and dropped down completely exhausted by fatigue
and agitation.

It was now broad daylight, but I neither saw animals nor human beings,
nor any vestiges of them. Thick forests covered the banks of the river,
and extended back as far as my eye could reach. I feared to penetrate
them, lest I should get bewildered in their recesses, and accordingly
walked along the edge of the stream. It was not long before I discovered
a column of smoke rising among the trees. I immediately directed my
steps towards the spot, and, on reaching it, found a party seated round
a fire.

They received me with an air of indifference and unconcern, not very
agreeable or encouraging to one in my destitute condition. However, I
placed myself in their circle, and tried to discover to what tribe they
belonged, by addressing them in the different Indian languages with
which I was acquainted. I soon made myself intelligible, and related the
circumstances that had brought me so unexpectedly among them. At the
conclusion of my narrative, the men pulled their tomahawk pipes from
their mouths, and looked at each other with incredulous smiles. I did
not make any attempt to convince them of the truth of what I said,
knowing it would be vain to do so, but asked for something to eat. After
some deliberation, they gave me a small quantity of pemican, but with
an unwillingness that did not evince such a spirit of hospitality as I
had usually met with among Indians.

The party consisted of three men, two women, and a couple of children,
all of whom sat or lay near the fire in absolute idleness; and their
minds seemed to be as unoccupied as their bodies, for nothing resembling
conversation ever passed between them. The weather was dreary and
comfortless. A thick small rain, such as usually falls in North America
during a thaw, filled the air, and the wigwam under which we sat
afforded but an imperfect shelter from it. I passed the time in the most
gloomy and desponding reflections. I saw no means by which I could
return to the trading-post, and the behaviour of the Indians made me
doubt if they would be inclined to grant me that support and protection
without which I could not long exist. One man gazed upon me so
constantly and steadily that his scrutiny annoyed me, and attracted my
particular attention. He appeared to be the youngest of the party, and
was very reserved and unprepossessing in his aspect, and seemed to know
me, but I could not recollect of ever having seen him before.

In the afternoon the rain ceased, and the Indians began to prepare for
travelling. When they had accoutred themselves, they all rose from the
ground without speaking a word, and walked away, one man taking the
lead. I perceived that they did not intend that I should be of the
party, but I followed them immediately, and, addressing myself to the
person who preceded the others, told him that I must accompany them, as
I neither could live in the woods alone nor knew in what part of the
country I was. He stopped and surveyed me from head to foot, saying,
"Where is your gun? where is your knife? where is your tomahawk?" I
replied, that I had lost them among the ice. "My friend," returned he,
"don't make the Great Spirit angry by saying what is not. That man knows
who you are," pointing to the Indian who had observed me so closely. "We
all know who you are. You have come to trade with us, and I suppose your
companions have concealed themselves at a distance, lest the appearance
of a number of white men should intimidate us. They are right.
Experience has taught us to fear white men; but their art, not their
strength, makes us tremble. Go away; we do not wish to have any
transactions with you. We are not to be betrayed or overpowered by
liquid fire,[B] or anything else you can offer us. None of us shall harm
you. I have spoken the truth, for I have not two mouths."

[Footnote B: Spirituous liquors.]

When he had finished this oration, he remained silent, and I felt at a
loss what to reply. At last I repeated my story, and endeavoured to
convince him that I neither had any companions nor was at all in a
situation to trade with his people, or do them the slightest injury. He
listened calmly to my arguments, and seemed to think there was some
weight in them; and the young man already mentioned stepped forward and
said, "Let the stranger go with us: the bones of my father cry out
against our leaving him behind. I am young, but I dare to advise. Listen
for once to the counsels of Thakakawerente." The first speaker then
waved his hand, as a signal that I should follow them, and the whole
party proceeded in the same order as before.

Our leader pushed forward, apparently without the least hesitation,
though, accustomed as I was to the woods, I could not discover the
slightest trace of a footpath. He sometimes slackened his pace for a few
moments, and looked thoughtfully at the trees, and then advanced as fast
as before. None of the party spoke a word, and the rustling of the dry
leaves under their feet was the only sound that disturbed the silence of
the forest. Though freed from the fear of perishing for want, I could
not reflect upon my situation without uneasiness and alarm; and my
chance of being able to return to the post seemed to diminish every step
I took. I felt excessively fatigued, not having enjoyed any natural or
composed sleep the preceding night, and the roughness of the ground over
which we passed added to my weariness in an intolerable degree; but I
could not venture to rest by the way, lest I should lose sight of the
Indians for ever.

Soon after sunset we stopped for the night, and the men set about
erecting a wigwam, while the women kindled a fire. One of our party had
killed a small deer in the course of our journey, and he immediately
proceeded to skin the animal, that a portion of it might be dressed for
supper. When the venison was ready, they all sat down and partook of it,
and a liberal allowance was handed to me; but the same silence prevailed
that had hitherto been observed among them, and the comforts of a
plentiful repast after a long journey did not appear in the least degree
to promote social communication. The meal being finished, the men filled
their pipes with odoriferous herbs, and began to smoke in the most
sedate manner, and the women prepared beds by spreading skins upon the
ground. The composed demeanour of the party harmonised well with the
silence and gloominess of the night; and it seemed that the awful
solitude of the forests in which they lived, and the sublime and
enduring forms under which nature continually presented herself to their
eyes, had impressed them with a sense of their own insignificance, and
of the transitoriness of their daily occupations and enjoyments, and
rendered them thoughtful, taciturn, and unsusceptible. I seated myself
at the root of a large tree near the wigwam, and continued observing
its inmates, till, overcome by fatigue, I sank into a deep sleep.

About midnight I was awakened by some one pulling my hand, and, on
looking up, I perceived the Indian who had opposed my accompanying them,
and whose name was Outalisso, standing beside me. He put his finger on
his lips, by way of enjoining silence, and motioned that I should rise
and follow him. I obeyed, and he led me behind a large tree which grew
at a little distance from the wigwam, and said, in a low voice, "Listen
to me, my friend.--I told you that you would receive no harm from us;
and shall I belie my words? Thakakawerente, who requested that you might
be allowed to follow our steps, says that his father was murdered by a
party of people under your command, about nine moons ago. This may be
true, and you at the same time may be guiltless; for we cannot always
control those who are placed under our authority. He tells me that the
spirit of the old man has twice appeared to him in his dreams to-night,
desiring him to put you to death. He has gone to repose himself again,
and if his father visits him a third time during sleep, he will
certainly kill you whenever he awakes. You must therefore hasten away,
if you wish to live any longer." "What can I do?" cried I; "death awaits
me whether I remain here or fly from Thakakawerente. It is impossible
for me to reach home alone." "Be patient," returned Outalisso, "and I
will try to save you. Not far from hence, the roots of a large oak,
which has been blown down by the wind, stretch high into the air, and
may be seen at a great distance. You must go there, and wait till I come
to you. Keep the mossy side of the trees on your left hand, and you will
find the place without any difficulty."

Outalisso motioned me to hurry away, and I departed with a palpitating
heart, and plunged into the recesses of the forest, and regulated my
course in the manner he directed. The moon was rising, and I could see
to a considerable distance around. The rustling of the dry leaves among
my feet often made me think that some one walked close behind me, and I
scarcely dared to look back, lest I should see an uplifted tomahawk
descending upon my head. I sometimes fancied I observed Thakakawerente
lurking among the brushwood, and stopped short till imagination conjured
up his form in a different part of the forest, and rendered me
irresolute which phantom I should endeavour to avoid.

I reached the tree sooner than I expected: it lay along the ground, and
its immense roots projected from the trunk, at right angles, to the
height of twelve or fourteen feet, their interstices being so filled
with earth that it was impossible to see through them.

I sat down, and found the agitation of my spirits gradually subside
under the tranquillising influence of the scene. Not a breath of wind
shook the trees, the leafless and delicately-fibred boughs of which,
when viewed against the cloudless sky, seemed like a sable network
spread overhead. The nests which the birds had made the preceding summer
still remained among the branches, silent, deserted, and unsheltered,
making the loneliness of the forest, as it were, visible to the mind;
while a withered leaf sometimes dropped slowly down--a sad memorial of
the departed glories of the vegetable world. A small rivulet ran within
a little distance of me, but its course was so concealed by long grass
that I would have been aware of its existence by the murmuring of its
waters only, had it not glittered dazzlingly in the moonshine at one
spot, while flowing over a large smooth stone. When I looked into the
recesses of the forest, I saw the trees ranged before each other like
colossal pillars, and gradually blending their stems together, until
they formed a dark and undefined mass. In some places, a scathed trunk,
whitened with the moss of successive centuries, stood erect in spectral
grandeur, like a being whom immense age and associations, riveted to
long-past times, had isolated from the sympathies of his fellow-mortals.
As the moon gradually rose on the arch of heaven, her light fell at
different angles, and the aspect of the woods was continually changing.
New and grander groups of trees came into view, and mighty oaks and
chestnuts seemed to stalk forward, with majestic slowness, from the
surrounding obscurity, and, after a time, to give place to a succession
of others, by retiring amidst the darkness from which they had at first
emerged. Tremors of awe began to pervade my frame, and I almost expected
that the tones of some superhuman voice would break the appalling
silence that prevailed in the wilderness around me.

My mind, by degrees, became so calm that I dropped into a half-slumber,
during which I had a distinct perception where I was, but totally
forgot the circumstances connected with my situation. A slight noise at
length startled me, and I awaked full of terror, but could not conceive
why I should feel such alarm, until recollection made the form of
Thakakawerente flash upon my mind. I saw a number of indistinct forms
moving backwards and forwards a little way from me, and heard something
beating gently upon the ground. A small cloud floated before the moon,
and I waited with breathless impatience till it passed away, and allowed
her full radiance to reach the earth. I then discovered that five deer
had come to drink at the rivulet, and that the noise of them striking
their fore-feet against its banks had aroused me. They stood gazing at
me with an aspect so meek and beautiful that they almost seemed to
incorporate with the moonlight, but, after a little time, they started
away, and disappeared among the mazes of the forest.

When I surveyed the heavens, I perceived, by the alteration which had
taken place in their appearance, that I had slept a considerable time.
The moon had begun to descend towards the horizon; a new succession of
stars glittered upon the sky; the respective positions of the different
constellations were changed; and one of the planets which had been
conspicuous from its dazzling lustre a few hours before, had set, and
was no longer distinguishable. It was overpowering to think that all
these changes had been effected without noise, tumult, or confusion,
and that worlds performed their revolutions, and travelled through the
boundlessness of space, with a silence too profound to awaken an echo in
the noiseless depths of the forest, or disturb the slumbers of a feeble
human being.

I waited impatiently for the appearance of Outalisso, who had not
informed me at what hour I might expect to see him. The stars now
twinkled feebly amidst the faint glow of dawn that began to light the
eastern horizon, and the setting moon appeared behind some pines, and
threw a rich yellow radiance upon their dark-green boughs. Gentle
rustlings among the trees, and low chirpings, announced that the birds
began to feel the influence of approaching day; and I sometimes observed
a solitary wolf stealing cautiously along in the distance. While
engaged in contemplating the scene, I suddenly thought I saw an Indian
a little way off. I could not ascertain whether or not it was Outalisso,
but, fearing it might be Thakakawerente, whom I dreaded to encounter in
my unarmed state, I retired from the roots of the tree, and concealed
myself among some brushwood.

I remained there for some time, but did not perceive any one near me;
and thinking that I had been deceived by fancy, I resolved to return to
my former station, and accordingly set out towards the great tree, but
shortly became alarmed at neither reaching it nor seeing it so soon as I
expected. I turned back in much agitation, and endeavoured to retrace my
steps to the brushwood, but all in vain. I examined the most remarkable
trees around me, without being able to recollect of having seen one of
them before. I perceived that I had lost myself. The moment I became
aware of this, my faculties and perceptions seemed to desert me one
after another, and at last I was conscious of being in existence only by
the feeling of chaotic and insupportable hopelessness which remained;
but after a little time, all my intellectual powers returned with
increased vigour and acuteness, and appeared to vie with each other in
giving me a vivid sense of the horrors of my situation. My soul seemed
incapable of affording play to the tumultuous crowd of feelings that
struggled to manifest themselves. I hurried wildly from one place to
another, calling on Outalisso and Thakakawerente by turns. The horrible
silence that prevailed was more distracting than a thousand deafening
noises would have been. I staggered about in a state of dizzy
perturbation. My ears began to ring with unearthly sounds, and every
object became distorted and terrific. The trees seemed to start from
their places, and rush past each other, intermingling their branches
with furious violence and horrible crashings, while the moon careered
along the sky, and the stars hurried backwards and forwards with eddying
and impetuous motions.

I tried in vain for a long time to compose myself, and to bring my
feelings under due subordination. The remembrance of the past was
obliterated and renewed by fits and starts; but at best, my recollection
of anything that had occurred to me previous to the breaking-up of the
ice upon the lake, was shadowy, dim, and unsatisfactory, and I felt as
if the former part of my life had been spent in another world. I lay
down among the withered leaves, and covered my face with my hands, that
I might avoid the mental distraction occasioned by the sight of external
objects. I began to reflect that I could not possibly have as yet
wandered far from the great tree, and that if I called upon Outalisso at
intervals, he might perhaps hear me and come to my relief. Consoled by
the idea, I gradually became quiet and resigned.

I soon began to make the woods resound with the name of Outalisso; but
in the course of the day a tempest of wind arose, and raged with so much
noise that I could hardly hear my own voice. A dense mist filled the
air, and involved everything in such obscurity that the sphere of my
vision did not extend beyond five or six yards. The fog was in continual
agitation, rolling along in volumes, ascending and descending, bursting
open and closing again, and assuming strange and transitory forms. Every
time the blast received an accession of force, I heard a confused
roaring and crashing at a distance, which gradually increased in
strength and distinctness, till it reached that part of the forest
that stretched around me. Then the trees began to creak and groan
incessantly, their boughs were shattered against each other, fibres of
wood whirled through the air in every direction, and showers of withered
leaves, caught up and swept along by the wind, met and mingled with
them, and rendered the confusion still more distracting. I stood still
in one spot, looking fearfully from side to side, in the prospect of
being crushed to death by some immense mass of falling timber, for the
trees around me, when viewed through the distorting medium of the fog,
often appeared to have lost their perpendicularity, and to be bending
towards the earth, although they only waved in the wind. At last I crept
under the trunk of an oak that lay along the ground, resolving to remain
there until the tempest should abate.

A short time before sunset the wind had ceased, the mists were
dissipated, and a portion of the blue sky appeared directly above me.
Encouraged by these favourable appearances, I ventured from my place of
refuge, and began to think of making another attempt to regain the great
tree, when I heard the report of a rifle. I was so petrified with joy
and surprise that I had no power to call out till the firing was
repeated. I then shouted "Outalisso!" several times, and soon saw him
advancing towards me.

"Why are you not at the place I appointed?" cried he; "I feared you had
lost yourself, and discharged my gun as a signal. But all danger is
past. Thakakawerente is dead--I killed him." There was some blood on
Outalisso's dress, but he looked so calm and careless that I hesitated
to believe what he told me.

"I do not deceive you," said he, "and I will tell you how Thakakawerente
came by his death. He awaked soon after midnight, and not finding you in
the camp, suspected that I had told you that he intended to kill you. He
taxed me with having done so, and I scorned to deny it. His anger made
him forget the truth, and he said I had betrayed my trust, and at the
same time struck me on the face. Now, you know, an Indian never forgives
a blow, or an accusation such as he uttered. I buried my tomahawk in his
head. His friends lay asleep in the wigwam, and I dragged away his body
to some distance, and covered it with leaves, and then concealed myself
till I saw them set out on their journey, which they soon did, doubtless
supposing that Thakakawerente and I had gone on before. I have been at
the great tree since morning, but the mist and the tempest prevented me
from seeking you till now. Be satisfied, you shall see the corpse of
Thakakawerente. Follow me!"

Outalisso now began to proceed rapidly through the forest, and I walked
behind him without uttering a word. We soon reached the spot where the
Indians had slept the preceding night, and found the wigwam remaining,
and likewise several embers of fire. My companion immediately fanned
them into a state of brightness, and then collected some pieces of dry
wood that lay around, and piled them upon the charcoal. The whole soon
burst into a blaze, and we both sat down within its influence, Outalisso
at the same time presenting me with a quantity of pemican, which proved
very acceptable, as I had eaten nothing for more than twenty hours.

After we had reposed ourselves a little, Outalisso rose up and motioned
that I should accompany him. He conducted me to a small pile of
brushwood and dry leaves, part of which he immediately removed, and
I saw the corpse of Thakakawerente stretched beneath. I shrank back,
shuddering with horror, but he pulled me forwards, and said I must
assist him in conveying the body to the fire. Seeing me still unwilling,
he took it up in his arms, and, hurrying away, deposited it in the
wigwam. I followed him, and asked what he meant by doing so. "Are you
ignorant of our customs?" said he. "When an Indian dies, all his
property must be buried with him. He who takes anything that belonged to
a dead person, will receive a curse from the Great Spirit in addition.
After I had killed Thakakawerente, I took up his tomahawk by mistake,
and carried it away with me. I must now restore it, and also cover him
with earth lest his bones should whiten in the sun."

Outalisso now proceeded to arrange the dress of the dead man, and
likewise stuck the tomahawk in his girdle. He next went a little way
into the forest for the purpose of collecting some bark to put in the
bottom of the grave, and I was left alone.

The night was dark, dim, and dreary, and the fire blazed feebly and
irregularly. A superstitious awe stole over me, and I dared hardly look
around, though I sometimes cast an almost involuntary glance at the
corpse, which had a wild and fearful appearance. Thakakawerente lay upon
his back, and his long, lank, black hair was spread confusedly upon his
breast and neck. His half-open eyes still retained a glassy lustre, and
his teeth were firmly set against each other. Large dashes of blood
stained his vest, and his clenched hands and contracted limbs showed
what struggles had preceded death. When the flickering light of the fire
happened to fall upon him, I almost fancied that he began to move, and
would have started away had not a depressing dread chained me to the
spot; but the sound of Outalisso's axe in some degree dissipated the
fears that chilled my heart, and I spent the time in listening to the
regular recurrence of its strokes, until he came back with an armful of
bark.

I assisted him in burying Thakakawerente under the shade of a tall
walnut-tree; and when we had accomplished this, we returned to the fire,
and waited till moonlight would enable us to pursue our journey.
Outalisso had willingly agreed to conduct me home, for he wished to
change his abode for a season, lest Thakakawerente's relations should
discover his guilt, and execute vengeance upon him.

We set out about an hour after midnight, and travelled through the woods
till dawn, when we came in sight of the river, on the banks of which I
had first fallen in with the Indians. In the course of the day Outalisso
procured a canoe, and we paddled up the stream, and next morning reached
the trading-post on the side of the lake.




HARRY BOLTON'S CURACY.

[_MAGA._ FEBRUARY 1851.]


One of the greatest enjoyments which are likely to fall to the lot
of a man in middle life, is to spend a week or so with the old
school-and-college companion whom he has not seen since the graver
page of life has been turned over for both parties. It is as unlike
any ordinary visit-making as possible. It is one of the very few
instances in which the complimentary dialogue between the guest and his
entertainer comes to have a real force and meaning. One has to unlearn,
for this special occasion, the art so necessary in ordinary society, of
interpreting terms by their contraries. And in fact it is difficult, at
first, for one who has been used for some years to a social atmosphere
whose warmth is mainly artificial, to breathe freely in the natural
sunshine of an old friend's company; just as a native Londoner is said
sometimes to pine away, when removed into the fresh air of the country.
We are so used to consider the shake of the hand, and the "Very glad to
see you," of the hundred and one people who ask us to dinner, as merely
a polite and poetical form of expressing, "You certainly are a bore;
but as you are here, I must make the best of you"--that it costs us an
effort to comprehend that "How are you, old fellow?" does, in the
present case, imply a _bona fide_ hope that we are as sound in health
and heart, if not as young, as formerly. And especially when a man's
pursuits have led him a good deal into the world, and many of his warmer
feelings have been, insensibly perhaps, chilled by the contact, the
heartiness of his reception by some old college friend who has led a
simple life, the squire of his paternal acres, or the occupant of a
country parsonage, and has gained and lost less by the polishing process
of society, will come upon him with a strangeness almost reproachful.
But once fairly fixed within the hospitable walls, the natural tone is
recognised, and proves contagious; the formal encrustations of years
melt in the first hour of after-dinner chat, and the heart is opened to
feelings and language which it had persuaded itself were long forgotten.
And when the end of your three weeks' holiday arrives at last, which you
cannot persuade yourself has been more than three days (though you seem
to have lived over again the best half of your life in the time), you
have so far forgotten the conventional rules of good-breeding, that when
your friend says to you on the last evening, "Must you really go? Can't
you stay till Monday?" you actually take him at his word, and begin to
cast about in your mind for some possible excuse for stealing another
couple of days or so, though you have heard the same expression from the
master of every house where you have happened to visit, and never
dreamt of understanding it in any other than its civilised (_i. e.,
non-natural_) sense--as a hint to fix a day for going, and stick to it,
that your entertainer may "know the worst."

I was heartily glad, therefore, when at last I found that there was
nothing to prevent me from paying a visit (long promised, and long
looked forward to, but against which, I began to think, gods and men
had conspired) to my old and true friend Lumley. I dare say he has
a Christian name; indeed, I have no reason to doubt it, and, on the
strength of an initial not very decipherable, prefixed to the L in his
signature, I have never hesitated to address him, "J. Lumley, Esq.;"
but I know him as Long Lumley, and so does every man who, like myself,
remembers him at Oxford; and as Long Lumley do all his cotemporaries
know him best, and esteem him accordingly; and he must excuse me if I
immortalise him to the public, in spite of godfathers and godmothers,
by that more familiar appellation. A cousin was with him at college, a
miserable sneaking fellow, who was known as "Little Lumley;" and if, as
I suspect, they were both Johns or Jameses, it is quite desirable to
distinguish them unmistakably; for though the other _has_ the best
shooting in the country, I would not be suspected of spending even the
first week of September inside such a fellow's gates.

But Long Lumley was and is of a very different stamp; six feet three,
and every inch a gentleman. I wish he was not, of late years, quite so
fond of farming: a man who can shoot, ride, and translate an ode of
Horace as he can, ought to have a soul above turnips. It is almost the
only point on which we are diametrically opposed in tastes and habits.
We nearly fell out about it the very first morning after my arrival.

Breakfast was over--a somewhat late one in honour of the supposed
fatigues of yesterday's journey, and it became necessary to arrange
proceedings for the day. What a false politeness it is, which makes
a host responsible for his guests' amusement! and how often, in
consequence, are they compelled to do, with grimaces of forced
satisfaction, the very thing they would not! However, Lumley and myself
were too old friends to have any scruples of delicacy on that point. I
had been eyeing him for some minutes while he was fastening on a pair of
formidable high-lows, and was not taken by surprise when the proposal
came out, "Now, old fellow, will you come and have a look at my farm?"

"Can't I see it from the window?"

"Stuff! come, I must show you my sheep: I assure you they are considered
about the best in this neighbourhood."

"Well, then, I'll taste the mutton any day you like, and give you my
honest opinion."

"Don't be an ass now, but get your hat and come along; it's going to be
a lovely day; and we'll just take a turn over the farm--there's a new
thrashing-machine I want to show you, too, and then back here to lunch."

"Seriously, then, Lumley, I won't do anything of the kind. I do you the
justice to believe, that you asked me here to enjoy myself; and that I
am quite ready to do in any fairly rational manner; and I flatter myself
I am in nowise particular; but as to going bogging myself among turnips,
or staring into the faces and poking the ribs of shorthorns and
south-downs--why, as an old friend, you'll excuse me."

"Hem! there's no accounting for tastes," said Lumley, in a
half-disappointed tone.

"No," said I, "there certainly is not."

"Well, then," said he--he never lost his good-humour--"what shall we do?
I'll tell you--you remember Harry Bolton? rather your junior, but you
must have known him well, because he was quite in our set from the
first--to be sure, didn't you spill him out of a tandem at Abingdon
corner? Well, he is living now about nine miles from here, and we'll
drive over and see him. I meant to write to ask him to dine here, and
this will save the trouble."

"With all my heart," said I; "I never saw him since I left Oxford. I
fancied I heard of his getting into some mess--involved in some way,
was he not?"

"Not involved exactly; but he certainly did make himself scarce from a
very nice house and curacy which he had when he first left Oxford, and
buried himself alive for I don't know how long, and all for the very
queerest reason, or rather without any reason at all. Did you never
hear of it?"

"No; only some vague rumour, as I said just now."

"You never heard, then, how he came into this neighbourhood? Have the
dog-cart round in ten minutes, Sam, and we dine at seven. Now, get
yourself in marching order, and I'll tell you the whole story as we go
along."

He did so, but it was so interrupted by continual expostulations with
his horse, and remarks upon the country through which we were driving,
that it will be at least as intelligible if I tell it in my own words;
especially as I had many of the most graphic passages from Bolton's own
lips afterwards.

It was before he left Oxford, I think, that Bolton lost his father, and
was thrown pretty much upon his own resources. A physician with a large
family, however good his practice, seldom leaves much behind him; and
poor Harry found himself, after spending a handsome allowance and
something more, left to begin life on his own account, with a degree,
a good many bills, and a few hundreds, quite insufficient to pay them.
However, he was not the sort of man to look upon the dark side of
things; and no heir, long expectant, and just stepping into his
thousands per annum, carried away from the university a lighter heart
and a merrier face than Harry Bolton. He got ordained in due course;
and though not exactly the material out of which one would prefer to
cut a country curate, still he threw off, with his sporting coats and
many-coloured waist-coats, most of the habits thereto belonging, and
less suited to his profession. To live upon a curate's stipend he found
more difficult; and being a fair scholar, and having plenty of friends
and connections, he announced his intention of "driving," as he called
it, a pair of pupils, whom he might train up in so much Latin and
Greek, and other elements of general knowledge (including, perhaps,
a little shooting and gig-driving), as they might require for their
matriculations. The desired youths were soon found; and Harry entered
upon this new employment with considerable ardour, and a very honest
intention of doing his best. How the Latin and Greek prospered is a
point in some degree obscure to present historians; but all the pupils
were unanimous in declaring the wine to be unexceptionable, and their
preceptor's dogs and shooting first-rate; in fact, he sustained, with
them as with the public generally, the reputation of being one of the
heartiest and best fellows in the world. From the poorest among his
parishioners, to whom he was charitable above his means, but who felt
almost more than his gifts the manner of his giving, to the squire ten
miles off, who met his pleasant face and smile once a-year at a dinner
party, all spoke well of Harry Bolton. No wonder that his pupils looked
upon him as the very paragon of tutors, and found their path of learning
strewed with unexpected flowers. How many scholars he made is still
unknown; but he made many friends: with the uncalculating gratitude
of youth, all remembered the pleasant companion when they might have
forgotten the hard-working instructor: and frequent were the tokens of
such remembrance, varying with the tastes of the senders, which reached
the little parsonage by the Oxford coach, from those who successively
assumed the _toga virilis_, and became (university) _men_. Collars of
brawn and cases of claret were indeed but perishable memorials; but
there came also whips extravagantly mounted, and tomes of orthodox
divinity in the soberest bindings, all bearing inscriptions more or
less classical, from his "_quondam alumni_." The first-named delicacies
were duly passed on, with Harry's compliments, to grace more fittingly
the tables of some of his hospitable entertainers; and, in an equally
unselfish spirit, he seldom sat down alone to any of his literary
dainties, but kept them in honourable state on his most conspicuous
book-shelf, for the use and behoof of any friend who might wish to enjoy
them.

But here I am anticipating. For some time the pupilising went on pretty
smoothly. Two or three couple of youths were fairly launched upon the
university, and nothing particularly untoward had occurred to ruffle the
curate's good-humour or injure his reputation. There had been no attempt
at elopement with the cook or housemaid (Bolton's precaution had secured
ugly ones); no poaching on Sir Thomas's favourite preserve, though
close at hand, and sportsmen of eighteen are not over nice in their
distinctions: a tall Irishman had been with him, summer vacations and
all, for nearly two years, and had _not_ made love to either of the
squire's undeniably pretty daughters. In short, the pupils were less of
a bore than Harry had supposed it possible, and, in some cases, very
agreeable companions to enliven the occasional dulness of a country
parish.

But somehow or other, in one chief point which he had aimed at, he found
himself disappointed. In counting so many additional hundreds to his
scanty income, Harry Bolton had fancied he was going to make himself
a rich man. He was not avaricious, or even selfish--far from it; but
he wanted to be independent; there were visions, perhaps, flitting
indistinctly before him, of a time when he might tire of a solitary
home, and resign into some fair and gentle hand the reins of the liberty
he was so fond of boasting as a bachelor. He did not grudge his time or
labour; he had cast off much of his old habit of idleness, and took a
real interest in his pupils; still he had expected some of the results
to himself would take the tangible shape of pounds shillings and pence.
But though the cheques came duly in at Midsummer and Christmas, the
balance at his banker's increased but very slowly; in short, he found
that the additional expenses, necessary and unnecessary, entailed upon
him by the change in his establishment, nearly counterbalanced the
additional income. Not to speak of such ordinary matters as butchers'
and bakers' and wine-merchants' bills--for his table was always most
liberal, now that he had to entertain others, as it had been simple and
economical while alone--indeed the hospitality of the neighbourhood had
then made his housekeeping almost a sinecure; but, independently of
this, Harry had been led to extend his expenses--he said unavoidably--in
other directions. A rough pony had hitherto contented him to gallop into
the neighbouring town for letters, and to carry him and his valise to
the dinner-parties even of his most aristocratic entertainers. But now,
inasmuch as sometimes an hospitable invitation extended itself to
"the young men," he had felt in duty bound, for his and their joint
accommodation, to replace the pony by a showy-looking mare, and to
invest the legal sum of nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence
in the purchase of a dog-cart. As an almost necessary consequence, the
boy "Jim" gave way to a grown-up groom, who did rather less work for
considerably more wages, hissing and whistling over the said mare and
dog-cart in the most knowing manner, and condescending, though with some
scruples of conscience, to clean boots and knives. Harry's reminiscences
of his more sporting days were yet fresh enough for him to make a point
of seeing his turn-out "look as it ought to do." Jim and the pony, and
all their accoutrements, were rough, and useful, and cheap, and made no
pretensions to be otherwise. Now, things were changed, and saddlery and
harness of the best (there was no economy, as Harry observed, in buying
a poor article) found their place among the bills at Christmas. In
short, he was led into a maze of new wants, individually trifling, but
collectively sufficient to tell upon his yearly expenditure; and he was
beginning gravely to attempt to solve that universal problem--the asses'
bridge, which the wisest domestic economists stick fast at year after
year--"where the deuce all the money goes to?"--when circumstances
occurred which put all such useless inquiries out of his head, and
indeed put his debtor and creditor transactions on a much more primitive
footing.

In the final settlement of the accounts of one of his pupils, who was
leaving him for the university, some misunderstanding arose between
himself and the father. The sum in question was but a few pounds; but
the objection was put forward in a manner which Bolton considered as
reflecting upon his own straightforward and liberal dealing; and it so
happened that the young man had, from circumstances, been indebted
in an unusual degree to his kindness. He therefore, I have no doubt,
took the matter up warmly; for those who remember him as I do, can well
imagine how his blood would boil at anything he considered mean or
unhandsome. It ended in his insisting on the whole amount--a hundred or
so--respecting which the difference had arisen, being paid in to the
treasurer of the county hospital instead of to himself; and he vowed
silently, but determinedly, to renounce pupilising thenceforth for
ever. In vain did some of his best friends persuade him to change his
resolution; he kept two who were with him at the time for a few months,
when they also were to enter college; but he steadily refused any other
offers: he sold off at once all his superfluous luxuries, and, as soon
as practicable, gave up his curacy, and quitted the neighbourhood, to
the general regret of all who knew him, and to the astonishment of all
but the very few who were in the secret.

When Bolton's friends next heard of him, he was living in a remote
district of H----shire, on an income necessarily very small; for it
could have been scarcely more than the proceeds of his curacy; and
curacies in that part of the country were then but a wretched provision
for any man--especially for one accustomed as he had been to good living
and good society. However, he was not much troubled with the latter
in his present position; not to speak of the fact that his nearest
conversible neighbour lived seven miles off. Wherever parsons are mostly
poor, and many of them ill-educated, they are not thought much of,
either by farmers or gentlemen. And as it did not suit Harry's tastes to
enjoy his pipe and pot in the society of the first, as his predecessor
had done with much contentment, nor yet to wait for the arrival of the
one landed proprietor in the parish before he commenced the morning
service, he was voted by the overseers and churchwardens to be "mighty
set up," and by the squire to be "a d--d unmannerly fellow." Both,
indeed, soon found out that they were wrong; and the farmers had the
grace to confess it, and came, in course of time, to believe it possible
for a curate to be a gentleman without being proud, and that it was at
least as well for him to be visiting the sick and poor, and overlooking
the parish school, and able to give a little good advice to themselves
in matters of difficulty, as to be boosing in their company at the Crown
and Thistle. And, in course of time, those rough but honest people
came to respect him almost as much perhaps, in their way, as his more
enlightened neighbours had done in his former position. It must have
been a great change, however, to a man like Bolton, used to good
society, fond of it, and readily welcomed in it, as he had always been.
No doubt he felt it; yet he declared that, after the first few weeks, he
never was happier in his life. His gun was given up, as an indulgence
too expensive, but there was excellent trout-fishing for miles on both
sides of his cottage; and, though a sport to which he had no great
liking in his earlier days, he now took to it vigorously as the only
amusement at hand, and became no unworthy disciple of honest Isaac. The
worst effect of this new life of isolation was, that he became somewhat
negligent in his habits; took to smoking a great deal, and made his
tobacconist's account a good deal longer than his tailor's. He had still
many old friends and connections at a distance, with whom he might have
spent half the year if he had pleased; but, in his first pique with the
world in general, he had fixed himself purposely as far out of their
reach as possible; travelling was expensive (railways as yet were not);
assistance in his clerical duties was not easily obtained; and so,
partly from choice, and partly from necessity, his new life became one
of almost utter isolation.

Of course there were occasions when he found it necessary to visit the
neighbouring market-town--if it could be called neighbouring when it was
twelve miles off. The main road lay about a mile from Harry's little
cottage, and a coach, passing daily, would usually deposit him safely in
the High Street in the course of the forenoon--allowing an hour for
waiting for it at the crossing (it was always after its time), and about
two more, if the roads were not unusually heavy, for getting over the
distance. It was not a very luxurious style of travelling; and Harry
often preferred to walk in one day, and return the next. It was on
one of these rare visits that a soaking rain discouraged him from
setting out for home on foot, and give the Regulator the unusually full
complement of one inside and one outside passenger. On the box was our
friend Harry, inside a rather precise-looking personage, whose costume,
as far as a large cloak allowed it to be seen, looked somewhat more
clerical than the Curate's, the latter being clad in a smart upper
benjamin of the landlord's of the Swan, finished round the throat with a
very gay shawl of his daughter's, both forced upon him in consideration
of the weather; for Harry, though by no means a frequent, was a highly
favoured guest, and they would sooner have kept him in No. 1 for a week
gratis, than have allowed him to turn out in the rain without due
protection.

Slower than usual that day was the Regulator's progress through the mud
and against the wind, and briefer than usual its driver's replies to
Harry's good-humoured attempts at conversation.

"Whom have we inside, do you know, Haines?"

"Well, I reckon it's what you'd call a hopposition coach like," grunted
out Joe Haines.

"Eh? I don't exactly understand."

"Why, I mean a Methodist bishop, or summat o' that sort. You see there
was a great opening of the Independent College here o' Tuesday, and
there was a lot o' them gentry about the town, looking too good to live.
I druv' five on 'em down yesterday, and they gev' me a shilling and a
fourpenny amongst the whole lot. Oh! I loves them sort, don't I just?"
and Joe gave his near wheeler a cut, illustrative of his affection. It
was a longer speech than he had made all the way, and he relapsed into a
gloomy silence.

The wind was driving right into their teeth, and the evening closing
fast, and they were passing the last milestone to the turning without
any farther attempt at conversation, when there came first an ominous
crack from under their feet, then a jolt, an unsteady wavering motion
for a few seconds, when, with scarcely time for an exclamation, the
coach toppled over on one side, and Bolton found himself reclining on
the portly person of Mr Joseph Haines, who, in his turn, was saved from
contusions by a friendly heap of mud by the roadside. Beyond a broken
axle, however, no damage was done. The horses were glad of any
opportunity to stand still. Bolton got up, shook himself, and laughed.
Joe Haines was proceeding to philosophise rather strongly on the
accident, not exactly after the manner of Job or Seneca, when the inside
passenger, putting his head out of the only practicable window, begged
him to spare his oaths, and help him out of his prison.

The stranger was soon extricated, and the horses taken out; and the
driver, requesting his passengers to await his return, set off to seek
assistance at the nearest cottage. As to the coach itself proceeding
farther until partially repaired, that was evidently out of the
question; and so Harry observed to his companion, who did not appear
very knowing in such matters.

"And how far may we be from S----, sir?" inquired he, upon receiving
this not very agreeable intelligence.

"Fifteen miles at least," replied Bolton.

"Indeed! so far, and is there no place near where I could procure a
conveyance of any kind? I have an engagement there I particularly wished
to keep to-morrow."

"Really, I fear not; this is quite an out-of-the-way place: the driver
can tell you better than I can, but I know the neighbourhood pretty
well, and think you would have to send back to the Swan at B---- for
horses."

"It is very unfortunate, and it is past nine already; what is the
nearest place, sir, where I could get decent accommodation for the
night?"

"Why, the nearest place," said Harry, hesitatingly, "is the 'Crown and
Thistle,' about three miles off, but I can't say much for the
accommodation. Wo-ho,"--one of the horses, tired at last of standing in
the drizzling rain, was showing symptoms of an immediate return to his
stable. The stranger merely gave vent to a dissatisfied "Humph!" and
they stood silently awaiting the approach of a light along the road,
which betokened Joe's return with assistance. The coach was soon
righted, and set up against the side of a bank; and Mr Haines, having
given charge to one of his aids-extraordinary to keep watch by it till
dawn with a light, both to prevent accidents and abstraction of the
luggage, announced his intention of returning with the horses to B----,
offering to his inside passenger the choice of a ride back, or taking a
nap in the coach till morning. "_You_ won't be long getting home, Mr
Bolton, anyhow,"--and the pronoun was emphasised, to show that even this
sympathy was little extended to his fellow-traveller.

"No, Joe, I must say you have been pretty considerate: as you _were_ to
break down, you could hardly have arranged it more handily for me. Just
look me out my little carpet-bag, and I suppose you'll expect an extra
shilling for your performance to-night, eh?"

Joe gave a hoarse laugh, and proceeded to rummage the boot; and Harry
took advantage of the opportunity to whisper a few inquiries about his
fellow-passenger.

"Well, I be pretty sure, sir, it's a Dr Bates, as preached at the
opening on Tuesday. There was two or three black-coats came with him to
the yard afore we started; he's quite a top-sawyer among 'em, and can
hold on for two hours good, best pace, they tell me. He's gev' out to
preach over at S---- to-morrow morning. I see'd the printed bills stuck
all over town to-day."

To-morrow was Sunday; and Bolton thought of a certain manuscript, not
quite finished, lying on his desk at home. He glanced again at the
stranger, and possibly, in the orthodoxy of his heart, did not feel
particularly grieved at the disappointment probably in store for the
itching ears of the S---- non-conformists.

"Well, good-night, Haines," said he. But seeing his late companion still
standing in the road, looking rather helpless, and hesitating to leave
him altogether to the tender mercies of the coachman, "I am walking in
the direction of the village inn," he continued, "and if I can show you
the way, I shall be very glad to do so. I dare say I can also find some
one to fetch your luggage."

"Thank you, sir," said the other. "I cannot do better than follow your
example;" and he at once selected and shouldered, with some activity for
a man obviously on the wrong side of forty, a carpet-bag of more
cumbersome dimensions than Bolton's; and they strode down the road
together, nearly in darkness, and with the rain still falling.

They had nearly reached the curate's humble cottage, without much
further conversation, when the stranger repeated his inquiries as to the
distance to the inn, and the probability of his obtaining there any
tolerable accommodation. "A _clean_ bed," he said, "would content him;
was he likely to find one?"

A struggle had been going on, from the time they left the coach, between
Harry Bolton's good-nature, and what he thought his due dignity. Every
word his fellow-passenger had uttered had convinced him, more and more,
that he was a man of education and good sense, to say the least; a
totally different being from the class of whom Jabez Green, who
expounded at Mount Pisgah in his own parish on Sundays, and did a little
shoemaking and poaching on week-days, formed a specimen ever before his
eyes; and if it had not seemed a ludicrous misapplication of hospitality
to have entertained the great gun of schism within the lares of the
"_persona ecclesia_" he would long ago have offered the very respectable
and mild-mannered gentleman, dropped by an unlucky accident almost at
his door, at least a good fire and a pair of clean sheets for the night.
Sleep at the Crown and Thistle!--why, on consideration, it was scarcely
creditable to himself to send him there. The landlord was one of the
most disreputable fellows in the parish, and, by ten o'clock on a
Saturday night, was usually so drunk as to be more likely to refuse a
guest any accommodation at all, than to take any extra pains for him.
And the dirt, and the noise, and the etceteras! No, Dr Bates had better
have stuck to the inside of the coach than have tried the Crown and
Thistle. But where else was he to go? There was a good spare bedroom, no
doubt, at Barby farm, within half a mile; but it had not been occupied
since Harry had slept in it himself on his first arrival in the parish,
and then it took a week's notice to move the piles of wool and cheese,
and have it duly aired. The stranger coughed, Harry grew desperate, and
spoke out.

"We are close to my little place now, sir. I think I can offer you what
you will hardly find at the inn--a clean room and a well-aired bed; and
it seems a mere act of common civility to beg you to accept it."

With many thanks, but with the natural politeness and ease with which a
gentleman receives from another the courtesy which he is always ready to
offer himself, the hospitable invitation was at once freely accepted:
and in five minutes they had passed the little gate, and were awaiting
the opening of the door.

This service was performed by the whole available force of Harry's
establishment. One active little elderly woman, who was there on
resident and permanent duty, in all capacities, assisted on this
occasion by Samuel Shears, parish clerk, sexton, barber, bird-fancier,
fishing-tackle maker, &c. &c. &c.; and acting gardener, valet, butler,
and footman, when required, to the reverend the curate. Loud was the
welcome he received from both. "Had he walked through all the rain,
sure_ly_! The coach was very late then; they'd 'most given him up: no,
Sam hadn't, 'cause of service to-morrow;" when their volubility was
somewhat checked by the sight of his companion; and the old lady's face
underwent no very favourable change when informed she must prepare a
second bed.

"Walk in, pray, and warm yourself--that room--Sam, take these bags;" and
Harry stepped aside into the kitchen, to negotiate with his housekeeper
for the stranger's accommodation; a matter not to be effected but by
some little tact; for Molly, like servants of higher pretensions, did
not like being put out of her way, by people "coming tramping in," as
she said, at all hours of the night; and if Bolton had replied to her
close inquiries, as to who and whence the new guest was, with the
statement that he was a stray Methodist preacher, it is probable that
Molly, who had lived with clergymen since she was a child, and would
sooner have missed her dinner than "her church," would have resigned her
keys of office at once in high disgust.

"The gentleman will sleep in my room, of course, Molly, and I shall have
my things put into the other;--anything will do for supper--bread and
cheese, Molly, quite well--toast a little, will you? Poor man, he seems
to have a cough."

"Toasted cheese an't good for a cough."

"No; to be sure not. Well, you can fry a little bacon, and a few eggs,
you know."

"There an't no eggs. I don't know what's come to the 'ens: they behaves
'orrid, they does."

"Well, anything, anything, Molly. I'm very tired, and I don't care what
it is: we shall both be very glad to get to bed."

"Lor, I dare say you be tired, sir," said Molly, somewhat pacified.
"You've had a very wet ride, to be sure; lawk-a-me, why this coat might
be a-wringed out." And she hastened to relieve her master of some of his
outer wrappings, and supply him with a warm dressing-gown and slippers,
in which he soon joined his guest in the little parlour; and having
introduced him to the room he was to occupy for the night, left him
also to make himself comfortable.

If Harry Bolton did not repent of his hospitality, which would have been
very unlike him, yet, upon consideration, he certainly felt he was
acting the good Samaritan somewhat more literally than he had ever
expected to do.

"What on earth shall I do with him to-morrow, I should like to know?"
was the first question that suggested itself--much more readily than did
the answer. He could not be expected to go to church, perhaps; but would
he stay quietly at home? or walk off to assist the very reverend Jabez
at Mount Pisgah? As to his keeping his appointment at S----, that, at
least, was out of the question; and, after all, there seemed so much
good sense and feeling of propriety about the traveller, that it was
most probable--at least Harry thought so--that he would not in any way
offend against the rules of the household which he had entered under
such circumstances.

So the curate brushed the clinging rain from his hair, and the cloud
from his brow, with one and the same motion, and relapsed into his usual
state of good-humour. Supper came in, and he and his guest sat down
opposite to each other, and prepared to discuss old Molly's simple
cookery. Really, now that one could look at him well, the man was very
presentable in person as well as in manner. Harry said grace in a very
few words, and the other's "Amen" was audible and unexceptionable;
reverent, and not nasal. He had a capital appetite; it was said to be
characteristic of his calling, but in that point Harry fully kept pace
with him; and the conversation was not, for the present, a very lively
one. Sam came in at last to take away.

"Sam," said the curate, in a half-aside, "_is_ there a bottle of
port?--here's the key."

"La! sir, you bid me take it down to old Nan, you know; and it wor the
last bottle, I tell'd you then."

"Ha! so I did, so I did. Did she like it, Sam?"

"Like it?" said Sam, opening his eyes, "I warrant her!"

"Well, Sam, I hope it did her good;--never mind. You must fare as I do,
I am afraid," said he to the other. "Bring out the whisky-jar, Sam."

Bolton mixed himself a glass without further preface or apology; and his
neighbour, with the remark that it could not be much amiss after a
wetting, very moderately followed his example.

"And now," said Bolton, rummaging in a little cupboard behind him, "I
hope you don't dislike the smell of tobacco. I'm rather too fond of it
myself. My weakness is a pipe: I could find you a cigar, perhaps, if you
are ever--"

"Thank you, I never do smoke; but pray do not mind me: I was at a German
university for a year and a half, and that is a pretty fair
apprenticeship to cloud-raising."

Took a doctor's degree there, no doubt, thought Harry; but it served
excellently as an opening for general conversation; and two pipes had
been consumed, and Molly had twice informed the gentlemen that the beds
were all ready, and that Sam was waiting to know if there were any
orders for to-morrow, before Harry remembered that he had a sermon still
to finish, and that it was verging upon Sunday morning--so intelligent
and agreeable had been the discourse of the stranger.

"If you please, sir," said the clerk, putting his head in at the door,
"the rain is a-coming down like nothing, and that great hole over the
pulpit ben't mended yet. Master Brooks promised me it should be done
afore to-night; but he's never seen to it."

"That Brooks is the very--but, there, it can't be helped to-night, Sam,
at all events," said Bolton, rather ashamed that the defects of his
parochial administration should be exposed, as it were, to the enemy. "I
must speak to him about it myself."

"I clapped a couple of sods over it as well as I could, sir," said the
persevering Sam; "and I don't think much wet can come in to hurt, like.
Will this gentleman 'ficiate to-morrow?" (this was in a loud
confidential whisper) "'cause the t'other surplice an't--"

"Don't bother now--there's a good fellow," said Harry, considerably
annoyed, as he shut the door in the face of his astonished subordinate,
who was generally privileged to gossip as much as he pleased. He covered
his embarrassment by showing his visitor at once to his room, and then
sat down to complete his own preparations for the next day's duties.

The rain was as busily falling in the morning as if it had only
just begun, instead of having been at it all night. Harry had been
more than usually scrupulous in his dress; but when they met at the
breakfast-table, his guest's clerical _tout ensemble_ beat him hollow.
After a rather silent meal, in which both, as if by tacit consent,
avoided all allusion to subjects connected with the day and its duties,
Bolton mustered his courage, as they rose from table, to say--"My
service is at eleven, and I shall have rather a wet walk; you, perhaps,
are not disposed to accompany me?"

"By all means," said the stranger, bowing; "I am quite ready;--is it
time to set out?" And in a few minutes they were picking their way, side
by side, down the little miry lane.

The church, it must be confessed, was not a comely edifice. Its
architectural pretensions must originally have been of the humblest
order; and now, damp and dilapidated, it was one of the many which, in
those days, were a disgrace to any Christian community. There was the
hole in the roof, immediately over the curate's head, imperfectly
stopped by Sam's extempore repairs; and very wretched and comfortless
did the few who composed the congregation look, as they came dripping
in, and dispersed themselves among the crumbling pews. The service
proceeded, and none showed such reverent attention as the stranger; and
being placed in the rectorial pew, immediately opposite the clerk, the
distinct though subdued tone of his responses was so audible, and so
disturbed that functionary (who had that part of the service usually
pretty much to himself, and had come to consider it as in some sort his
exclusive privilege), that he made some terrible blunders in the hard
verses in the Psalms, and occasionally looked round upon his rival, on
these latter occasions especially, with unmistakable indignation.

The service concluded, Bolton found his guest awaiting him in the porch;
and some ten minutes' sharp walking, with few remarks, except in
admiration of the pertinacity of the rain, brought them home again to
the cottage. A plain early dinner was discussed: there was no afternoon
service; and the curate had just stepped into his kitchen to listen to
some petition from a parishioner, when the stranger took the opportunity
of retiring to his own apartment, and did not reappear until summoned to
tea.

Bolton's visit to the kitchen had interrupted a most animated debate.
In that lower house of his little commonwealth the new arrival had been
a fruitful topic of discussion. The speakers were three: Molly, Sam,
and Binns the wheelwright, who had looked in, as he said, on a little
business with the parson. Molly, as has been said, was a rigid
churchwoman. Her notions of her duty in that capacity might not have
been unexceptionable, but they were, so far as the Sunday went, as
follows: Church in the morning and afternoon, if practicable; as much
reading as her eyes--not quite what they used to be--could comfortably
manage; pudding for dinner, and tea and gossip in the evening. If fine,
a walk would have come among the day's arrangements; but with the rain
coming down as it did, and after having rather puzzled herself with a
sermon upon the origin of evil, the sudden, and in a degree mysterious,
visit of a strange gentleman--where visitors of any kind were so
rare--became invaluable as a topic of interesting--for aught we know,
of profitable--discourse. Sam Shears dined with her always on this
day, and was allowed, not without scruples, to have his pipe in the
chimney-corner; in consideration of which indulgence, he felt it his
duty to make himself as agreeable as possible; and inasmuch as his
stock-stories respecting enormous perch caught, or gifted starlings
educated by him, Samuel Shears, had long ceased to interest--indeed had
never much interested--his fair listener here, though they still went
down, with variations, at the Crown and Thistle, he was reduced very
often, in the absence of anything of modern interest stirring in the
neighbouring town of S----, to keep up his credit as a "rare good
companion," by entering into politics--for which study, next to
divinity, Molly had a decided taste--talking about reforms and
revolutions in a manner that Molly declared made her "creep," and
varying this pleasurable excitement by gloomy forebodings with regard
to"Rooshia and Prooshia."

On this particular evening, however, the subject of debate was of a
domestic nature, and Molly and the clerk had taken opposite sides: Binns
arriving opportunely to be appealed to by both, and being a man of few
words, who shook his head with great gravity, and usually gave a nod of
encouragement to the last speaker. Molly, after her first indignation
at the intrusion of a wet stranger, without notice, at ten o'clock of
a Saturday night, had been so softened by the courteous address and
bearing of the enemy, that she had gradually admitted him at least to a
neutrality; and when Sam Shears had in confidence hinted that he "hadn't
quite made up his mind about un," her woman's kindness of heart, or her
spirit of contradiction, rushed forth as to the rescue of a friend.

"I wonder at you, Sam," said she; "you've had heddication enough to know
a gentleman when you sees him; and you'd ought to have more respect for
the cloth."

"Cloth! There now," replied Sam, "that's just it; I an't so sure about
his cloth, as you call it."

"Why, what ever do you mean, Sam Shears?"

"I mean," rejoined Sam, boldly, though he felt that Molly's fiercest
glance was upon him, and almost choked himself in the endeavour to hide
himself in a cloud of his own creating--"I mean, I don't think as he's
a regular parson. If he had been, you see, he'd have took some of the
duty. Besides," continued the official, reassured by Binns' respectful
attention, "we had a little talk while we was a-waiting for master
after church--I offered him a humbereller, you see--and I just asked
whereabouts his church was, and he looked queerish at me, and said he
hadn't no church, not exactly; and then I begged his pardon, and said
I thought he was a clergyman; and he said, so he was, but somehow he
seemed to put me off, as it might be." Binns nodded.

"To be sure," said Molly; "and 'twas like your manners, Sam, to go
questioning of him in that way."

"Bless you, I was as civil as could be; however, I say again, I 'as my
doubts: he'd a quakerish-looking coat too, such as I never see'd on a
regular college parson. He's the very moral of a new Irvingite
preacher."

"And what's their doctrines, Sam?" asked Molly, whose theological
curiosity was irresistibly excited.

"Why," said the clerk, after a puff or two to collect his thoughts,
"they believes in transmigration."

Binns made a gesture of awe and abjuration.

"Stuff!" said Molly, "that's popery: nor you don't suppose, Sam, that
master would have anybody of that sort in his house--eh, Mr Binns?"

The benefit of that gentleman's opinion was lost to both parties, for it
was at that juncture "master" himself entered, and having discussed his
communication, which related to a sick wife, bid him call again in the
morning, and the wheelwright took his leave.

"And now, Shears," said the curate, "(don't put your pipe behind you,
man; do you suppose I have not smelt it this half-hour--I wish you would
buy better tobacco)--you must be off to S---- to-morrow at daylight, and
order a chaise to be here, for this gentleman, by nine o'clock at the
latest. Do you understand, now?"

"Yes, sir, yes. I'll be sure to go. And what name shall I say, sir?"

"Name, eh! oh, it doesn't matter. Say for me, of course. And look here:
there will be five shillings for you if the chaise is here in time. Ay,
you may well make a bow; I told the gentleman it was too much for you."

"I'm very much obliged to you both," said Sam, slily, "I'm sure, sir;
I'll be off at cock-crow."

"There, Sam Shears," said Molly, as soon as they had the kitchen
to themselves again, "did you ever hear of one of your new
what-d'ye-call-ums ordering a chaise to go ranting about in, I
should like to know? What have you got to say now?"

"I say," said Sam, "as he's a gentleman, and no mistake."

The evening passed away very quietly in the little parlour. The
favourable impression made upon Bolton by his guest's manners and
conversation was certainly deepened by their further intercourse: but
the position seemed felt by both parties to be an awkward one; and when
his departure early on the following morning was proposed, Bolton of
course made no effort to detain him. Both employed most of the evening
in reading; and one or two remarks made by the stranger, as he made his
selection from the curate's library, proved at least his acquaintance
with the works which it contained, though nothing escaped him, as he
wiped the dust from some of Harry's presentation volumes, which could
indicate either his agreement or disagreement with the sound divines
he was handling, and his clever criticisms were rather those of the
bibliographer than the theologian. At last he seemed to bury himself in
a volume of old South, and carried it off with him early to his chamber.

The morning came, and eight o'clock brought breakfast, and half-past
eight the chaise, with Sam Shears fast asleep inside of it. The curate
and his guest parted with mutual good-will, and with a short but warm
acknowledgment, on the part of the latter, of the hospitality he had
received. Sam was not forgotten; he received the promised gratuity with
many bows, and did not put his hat on again until the chaise had fairly
turned the corner.

"Uncommon nice gentleman that, sir, to be sure," said he to his master,
with whom he seldom missed the chance of a little conversation, if he
could help it--and Bolton was generally good-natured enough to indulge
him--"uncommon nice gentleman; what a thousand pities it is he should be
a Methody!"

"A _what_!" inquired the curate, turning round upon him in ludicrous
dismay.

"A Methody preacher, sir," said Sam, boldly; for Harry's countenance
quite confirmed his suspicions. "Oh! I know all about it, sir; but it
ain't of no account with me, sir, you know, not none whatever,"--and he
redoubled his negatives with a confidential mysteriousness which made
Harry inclined to kick him. "I met Joe Haines, as drives the Regulator,
this morning, and he asked me very particular about you, you see, sir,
and how you got home o' Saturday night; and then I told him as how this
gentleman came with you; and when he heard as he'd been staying here
all day yesterday, how he did laugh, to be sure; and then he told
me----"

"I'll tell you something, Sam, too. You had much better mind your own
business, and not trouble yourself to talk to Joe Haines, or anybody
else, about what goes on in my house."

There was no mistaking the fact that his master was angry; and as such a
thing had very seldom happened within Sam's experience, it was a result
of which he stood considerably in awe; and he hastened, with some
confusion, to apologise, and to resume his praises of the "very nice
gentleman, whatever he was,"--"And as you say, sir, that's no business
of mine: I'm sure I should be most happy to wait upon him at any time,
sir----"

But Bolton had retired, and shut the door of his little sitting-room in
an unmistakable manner. So Sam was obliged to soliloquise the rest of
his apologies, which began to be very sincere, as he consoled himself by
gazing at the two half-crowns which had come into his possession so
easily. "Of course; if so be as he's a gentleman, what matters? That's
what I say: that's what I said to master: that's what I said to
Molly:--hallo! hey?--if this here half-crown ain't a smasher!"

'Twas too true: it rung upon the flag-stone like an unadulterated piece
of lead.

"What's the matter now, Sam?" said Mrs Molly who heard the sound, and
met his blank face in the passage.

"I told you what he was," said Sam--"look here!" Molly examined the
unfortunate coin with every wish to give it the benefit of a doubt,
but was obliged finally to pronounce against it. She had to listen,
also, to the story which Sam had heard from Joe Haines; and though
she clung pertinaciously to her previously-formed conclusions in the
stranger's favour, Sam had now decidedly the best of the argument,
which he clinched at last with what he considered an unanswerable
proposition--"If you says as he's a parson and a gentleman, will you
give me two-and-sixpence for this here half-crown?"

Weeks passed on, and other events wore out the interest of the
stranger's visit, even in those dull localities. Binns' wife had
a baby; and another piece of the church roof fell in, and nearly
carried Brooks the churchwarden with it, as he was mounted on a ladder
estimating its repairs--for there was an archdeacon's visitation coming
on, and not even the vulcanised conscience of a parish functionary could
be brought to pronounce, on oath, its present state of repair to be good
and sufficient. And Harry received an invitation to dine with the said
archdeacon, who was a good kind of man on the whole--that is, his good
qualities would not very well bear taking to pieces--but he rather
patronised the younger clergy in his neighbourhood, provided that they
were young men of tolerable family, and good address, and not, as he
expressed it, _ultra_ in any way. It so happened, that he was almost
the only acquaintance that Harry had made in the neighbourhood. He had
written to request his interference in enforcing the repair of the
church; and as that was a compliment seldom paid to his official
dignity, the archdeacon had actually driven over thirteen miles to
inspect the place personally; and, arriving quite unexpectedly, had
caught the curate just sallying forth equipped for fishing--an art to
which he himself occasionally condescended--for even archdeacons do
unbend. And very soon ascertaining that there was no tendency to an
objectionable _ultra_, of any kind, in our hero, and that he was in fact
rather an eligible rear-rank man for a dinner-table, he had made a
mental memorandum of the fact, and, in consequence, had twice favoured
him with an invitation, which Harry, according to his present humour,
had declined. On this occasion, however--as a third refusal would have
seemed ungracious--he had determined to go; and, with some compunction
at the expense (he had thought nothing at Oxford of a hunter, and a
"team" to cover, at about five guineas for the day), he found himself in
a hired gig at the archdeacon's door, a little before the dinner hour on
the day appointed. None of the guests were as yet assembled. His host,
however, met him in the drawing-room, and presented him, with
considerable cordiality, to his lady and her daughters.

"It was very good indeed of Mr Bolton to come so far to see us," said
the archdeacon. "Indeed, I am particularly glad you came to-day,"
continued he, with a sort of pompous kindness, "for I have the bishop
staying here, and I wished you to meet him."

Harry was interrupted in his acknowledgments by the entrance of two men
of the expected party: the Honourable and Reverend Mr Luttridge, a young
man, who eyed his brother curate, on his introduction, with what he
intended for a critical and interrogative glance, but which had by
no means the effect upon that party which he intended; and another
archdeacon, or dean, or some such dignitary, who made Bolton a very low
bow indeed; and, turning his back upon him forthwith, began to discourse
with the other two upon the business of the last Petit Sessions. A
discussion upon some point of magisterial law was interrupted by a
burst of shrill and hearty laughter from the younger of the Misses
Archdeacons--a fat merry girl, with whom Harry had struck up an
acquaintance instantly--_that_ was a point he never failed in; and
although the other two gentlemen looked rather astonished, and turned
round again to resume their argument, the father--she was his favourite
daughter, and ludicrously like him--was delighted to see her amused,
and insisted upon knowing what the fun was between them. Some absurd
remark of Harry's was repeated, as well as her continued merriment would
allow her; and the archdeacon, after a preparatory shaking of his sides,
had just burst into a stentorian "ha-ha," when the drawing-room door
again opened, and the Bishop of F---- was most audibly announced.

Every one tried to look deferential, of course; and the two gentlemen in
front of Harry separated, and took open order to receive his lordship.
Everybody recovered their propriety, in fact, in an instant, except Miss
Harriet, to whom a bishop was no treat at all--not to be compared with
an amusing young curate. She kept her eyes fixed upon Harry Bolton--she
thought he was going to faint. Could it be possible?--oh! there was no
doubt about it. Schismatic Doctor Bates, or Bishop of F----, there he
was!--there was the man he had walked home in the rain with!

Harry's quondam guest walked forward with an easy grace, which
contrasted strikingly with the stiff dignity of his subordinates. He
shook hands politely with Mr Luttridge, and returned the greeting of
his companion somewhat more warmly. The archdeacon was preparing to
introduce Bolton, without noticing his embarrassment, when the bishop
anticipated the introductory speech by saying, as he held out his hand,
"Mr Bolton and I are old friends--may I not say so?"

A man of less self-possession than our friend the curate might have been
put quite at his ease by the kind tone and manner, and warm grasp of the
hand. "Certainly," was his reply, "your lordship and myself _have_ met
under rather different circumstances."

The archdeacon's respectable face expressed considerable astonishment,
as well it might; and the other two gentlemen began to eye his
lordship's "old friend" with interested and inquisitive glances.

"My dear archdeacon," said the bishop, laughing, "pardon my
mystification; this is the friend with whom I spent a day or two on my
last visit to this neighbourhood, when you really thought you had lost
me altogether; though, if you had told me I was to have the pleasure of
meeting him at your table to-day, I might, perhaps, have let you into
the secret."

"But, my dear Bolton," said the host--he had dropped the Mr at once, and
for ever--"why did you not tell me that you knew his lordship?--eh?"

Harry laughed, and got a little confused again; but the bishop answered
the question for him, before he had time to frame an intelligible reply.

"Oh, that's a long story; but it was no mystery of Mr Bolton's, be
assured. I am afraid, indeed, it will tell rather better for him than
for me; but I promise you the explanation, some day," continued the
bishop, good-humouredly, "when we have nothing better to talk about."
The archdeacon took the hint, and turned the conversation. Another guest
or two joined the party; dinner succeeded, and passed off much as such
affairs usually do. The bishop, although he did not address much of his
conversation directly to Bolton, took care to make him feel at his ease;
and Mr Luttridge, who sat next to him, became remarkably friendly--was
quite surprised that he had not heard of him before, being, in fact,
quite a near neighbour--only nine miles--nothing at all in that part of
the country--should ride over to call on him one of the first days he
could spare--and, in fact, said what became him to the bishop's friend
and _protege_.

Whatever curiosity might have been felt on the subject by the rest of
the company, it was not until they had taken their departure that the
bishop thought proper to explain to Bolton and the archdeacon the
circumstances which had led to his paying an incognito visit to the
former. He had only lately been appointed to the diocese, and was
therefore personally known to but few of his clergy. The archdeacon and
himself, however, were old college acquaintances, and he had accepted
an invitation to spend a few days with him, at the time of his casual
meeting with Harry Bolton. Being averse at all times to any kind of
ceremony or etiquette, which he could reasonably dispense with, it had
been arranged that the archdeacon's carriage should meet him at B----,
to which place his own had conveyed him. Upon his arrival in the town
somewhat before the hour appointed, he had, according to his custom,
walked out quietly to make himself acquainted with the localities, and
had unconsciously passed some hours in exploring some ruins at a little
distance. Meanwhile, the archdeacon, not so punctual as his diocesan,
drove up to the hotel door in hot haste, considerably too late for his
appointment, and was saluted with the unpleasant information that his
lordship had been there, and was gone on these two hours,--for his
previous orders had been duly obeyed, and the episcopal equipage, with a
portly gentleman inside, who sustained the dignity of his position as
chaplain very carefully, had really rolled away on its road homeward.
The archdeacon doubted, but mine host was positive; and strengthened his
position by the assertion that his lordship had said he was going to
Bircham rectory, a piece of intelligence picked up from the servants,
with exactly enough truth in it to do mischief. Off went the archdeacon
again, annoyed at his own dilatoriness; and great was his consternation
on reaching home to find no bishop; and great was the bishop's surprise,
on returning at last to the hotel, to find no archdeacon; and great the
confusion throughout the King's Arms; the landlord throwing the blame
upon the waiters, and the waiters upon each other. Post-horses to S----,
which was within a short three miles of the archdeacon's rectory, were
ordered at once. But, alas! after many delays and apologies, none were
to be had; almost every quadruped in the town was engaged in taking
parties home from the opening of the Independent College. The bishop was
not a man to make difficulties; so, leaving his only remaining servant
to await any remedial measures which the archdeacon might take when he
discovered his error, and to give an intelligible account of his
movements, he himself, without mentioning his intention to any other
person, walked down to the coach-office at the Swan, paid his fare, and
became an inside passenger by the Regulator.

Of course, when the archdeacon discovered his mistake, no time was lost
in procuring fresh horses, and sending back the carriage to B----, in
the hope that his lordship might still be forthcoming; but it brought
back to the anxious expectants at the rectory only a servant and a
portmanteau; and as they did not pass the spot where the accident
occurred, and all inquiries made at S---- only resulted in the
intelligence that "there had been an upset, that no one was hurt, and
that the passengers had walked home," they made up their minds to await
some accurate information as to his lordship's whereabouts from himself,
when he relieved his friends from their uncomfortable suspense by
making his appearance personally at breakfast on the Monday morning;
though, to punish, as he jokingly said, the archdeacon, for leaving him
in such a predicament, he would tell them nothing more than that he had
spent the Sunday very pleasantly with a friend.

Much amusement ensued at the bishop's details of his visit, though he
good-naturedly avoided any allusions that could possibly be embarrassing
to his late host. Bolton had accepted the offer of a bed, and it was
late before they separated for the night. Before he took his leave on
the following morning, the bishop, to his surprise, announced his
intention of paying him a second visit. "I think, Mr Bolton," said he,
"that, having intruded upon you once in disguise, as I may say, I am
bound to come and preach for you some Sunday, if it be only to clear my
own character in the eyes of your parishioners" (for Harry had
confessed, to the exceeding amusement of all parties, his own and his
clerk's suspicions). "So, if you please, and if my good friend here will
accompany me, we will drive over to you next Sunday morning; and I'll
try," continued the bishop slily, "if I cannot get Mr Churchwarden
Brooks to put your church a little to rights for you."

The morning arrived, and the archdeacon and the bishop. A proud woman
had Molly been from the moment the announcement was made to her of the
intended honour; and the luncheon which she had prepared was,
considering her limited resources, something extraordinary. But when his
lordship alighted, and, catching a sight of her eager face in the
passage, called to her by name, and addressed her kindly--and she
recognised the features of the unknown guest, whom Sam had so
irreverently slandered--the good old woman, between shame and
gratification, was quite overcome, and was wholly unable to recover her
self-possession throughout the day. During the whole of the service, she
looked at the bishop instead of the prayer-book, made responses at
random, and was only saved by the good-natured interference of his
lordship's own man from totally ruining the luncheon. Of course, the
church was crowded; the sermon was plain and impressive: and when, after
service, the whole of the rustic congregation, collected in the
church-yard to see as much as they could of a personage few of them had
ever seen before, formed a lane respectfully, with their hats off, for
him to pass to the gate, the bishop, taking off his hat and claiming
their attention for a few moments, spoke a few words, homely and
audible, approving their behaviour during the service, and representing
to them the advantages they might derive from the residence among them
of an exemplary minister, such as he believed they had at present, and
such as he would endeavour to provide them with in the possible event
of his removal. And when afterwards he begged to be introduced to the
churchwarden, and, taking him familiarly by the arm, walked with him
round the building, pointed out indispensable repairs, and, without any
word of reproof, explained to him the harm done by injudicious patching,
and put into his hands a liberal contribution towards the expenses--it
might have seemed quite wonderful to those who either overrate or
underrate poor human nature, how much more popular a notion, and how
much better understood a bishop was in that remote village from that
time forth. The landlord of the Crown and Thistle was quite surprised at
the change that had come over Mr Brooks. He used to be rather a popular
orator on club nights and other convivial occasions, taking that
economical view of church dignitaries and their salaries which, by an
amusing euphemism, is called "liberal" in politics; but subsequently to
this occasion he seldom joined in these discussions, was seen less
frequently by degrees in the taproom of the Crown and Thistle, and more
regularly at church; and once, when hard pressed for an opinion by some
of his former supporters, was asserted to have told them that the Crown
and Thistle took more money out of people's pockets than ever the
bishops did.

Harry had anticipated much amusement from Sam Shears' confusion, when he
should encounter, in his full canonicals, the bishop of the diocese in
the person of the apocryphal Dr Bates; but whatever that worthy's secret
discomfiture might have been, he carried it off wonderfully well, and
met his lordship in the vestry with a lurking smile in his humble
obeisance, as if he had all along penetrated the mystery of his
incognito. With Molly in the kitchen, indeed, he had for some evenings a
hard time of it; but a threat of absenting himself altogether, which he
ventured in some fear of being taken at his word, had the effect of
moderating her tone of triumph. Before the Bishop left, he called Sam
aside, and presented him with a substantial token of remembrance; when
Sam took the opportunity of producing, with many prefaces of apology,
the condemned half-crown, which had fretted in his pocket ever since.

"Please your lordship's worship and reverence," said Sam, "this here
ain't a _very_ good half-crown; at least, I can't pass it noways down
here. I dare say as your lordship's worship might pass it away easy
enough among your friends, but--"

"Here, here," said the bishop, laughing heartily, "here's another for
you, by all means, my man; but pray excuse my having anything more to do
with the bad one."

Again the bishop parted from his entertainer with many expressions of
regard, and an invitation to spend some time with him at his palace,
which Bolton did much to his satisfaction; and received from him so
much valuable advice and paternal kindness, that he always considered
the snug living with which, some months afterwards, he was presented,
one of the least of his obligations.

       *       *       *       *       *

"And that's how Harry Bolton came to be a neighbour of mine," concluded
Long Lumley; "and a nice place he has here, and a capital neighbour he
is."

We discussed the whole story over Lumley's wine after dinner the next
day, when the Hon. and Rev. Mr Luttridge, who had since married the
bishop's niece, and was said to have been a disappointed expectant of
the living given to Bolton, made one of our party.

"A very odd man, certainly, the bishop is," was that gentleman's remark;
"very strange, you know, to go poking about the country in that kind of
way. Scarcely the thing, in fact, I must say."

"Upon my honour," said Lumley, "you parsons ought to be better judges of
what is or is not 'the thing' for a bishop, than I can be; but if the
Bishop of F---- is an odd man, I know, if I had the making of bishops,
I'd look out for a match for him."




THE FLORIDA PIRATE.

[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1821.]


A series of misfortunes had unexpectedly thrown me upon a foreign land,
and entirely deprived me of the means of subsistence. I knew not where
to apply for relief, or how to avoid the alarming evils that threatened
me on every side. I was on one of the Bahama islands. I could not enjoy
the temporary asylum I then possessed longer than two days, without
involving myself in debts which I was unable to pay, and consequently
bringing my person under the power of individuals, who, I was inclined
to suspect, had nothing humane or generous in their characters. I
wandered along the seashore, sometimes shuddering at the dreariness of
my prospects, and sometimes trembling lest the horrors of want should
urge me to obtain the necessaries of life by concealing from others that
I was in absolute poverty.

When about a mile distant from the small town where I lodged, my
attention was attracted by a schooner lying at anchor behind a
projecting point of land. I knew that vessels did not usually moor in
such a situation, and inquired at a fisherman, whom I met on the beach,
if he could tell me what the schooner did there? "I am not quite sure,"
returned he, "but I rather suspect she's a pirate. Those on board of her
are mostly blacks, and they seem very anxious to keep out of sight. Had
she been a fair trader, she would have come into the harbour at once."

This information startled me a good deal. I became excessively agitated
without knowing the reason; and felt an anxious desire to repress some
idea that had, as it were, arisen in my mind, without my being conscious
of its existence.

I left my informant, and seated myself under a cliff. Half of the sun
had disappeared below the horizon. I watched his descending orb, and
wished I could retard the flight of time, when I reflected, that, after
the lapse of two days, I should perhaps be destitute of an asylum, and
perishing from want. "Something must be done," I exclaimed, starting up:
"If these are pirates, I will join them. My profession will enable me to
render them valuable services. I shall be guilty of no crime in doing
so;--the law of nature compels me to violate the laws of man." I looked
anxiously towards the schooner, which lay within half a mile of the
shore, in hopes that I should see her boat approaching, and thus find
means of speaking with the person who commanded her.

I waited upwards of an hour, but could not discover that those on board
made any preparations for coming ashore. It was now dark, and the beach
was silent and deserted. I found a small boat lying upon the sand; and,
having pushed her off, I cautiously embarked, and began to row towards
the schooner--but, after a few strokes of the oars, my resolution almost
failed. I shuddered at the idea of forming a league with the outcasts of
society, and rendering myself amenable to the laws of every civilised
nation. The gloom of the night, the calmness of the ocean, and the
brightness of the sky, seemed to urge me to reflect upon what I was
doing. I did reflect--I looked towards the town--a sense of the
wretchedness of my condition struck irresistibly upon my mind, and I
pushed furiously forward.

When I had got within a short distance of the schooner, one of her crew
called out, "Avast, avast! whom have we here?" On reaching the side of
the vessel, I said I wished to see the captain. "What do you want with
him?" demanded the same voice. "I must speak with him alone," answered
I. The questioner retired to the stern, and I heard the sound of people
talking, as if in consultation, for a little time. I was then desired to
come on board; and, the moment I stepped upon deck, a negro led me
towards a man who stood near the helm.

He was very tall and athletic, and of a jet black, and wore only a shirt
and white trousers. His face had a bold and contemplative expression,
and he wanted his right hand. "I presume you are the commander of this
vessel," said I. He nodded impatiently. "I understand you are going upon
an expedition."--"I don't care what you understand--to your business,
master," returned he, haughtily. "I know you are pirates," continued I,
"and it is my wish to accompany you in the capacity of a medical
attendant." He surveyed me with a look of astonishment, that seemed to
demand an avowal of the motives that had prompted me to make such a
proposal. "You surely will not decline my offer," said I, "for you must
be aware that I am able to render you very essential services. I have
been unfortunate every way, and----" "O, you be unfortunate! and seek
relief from a black man--from a negro!" interrupted he, with a scornful
laugh. "Well, stay on board; you cannot leave this vessel again.
Remember, we are not to be betrayed." "But I have something on shore
that I wish to carry along with me." "I will send one of my men for it,"
replied he, "to-morrow morning at dawn."

He walked coolly away to the bows of the vessel, and began to give some
orders to the seamen, who formed a very numerous body. Most of them were
loitering together on the forecastle, and smoking cigars, and they all
seemed to be blacks. French and English were spoken indiscriminately
among them; and their conversation was incessant and vociferous, and
intermingled with disgusting execrations. Several disputes took place,
in the course of which the parties struck each other, and wrestled
together; but their companions neither endeavoured to separate them, nor
paid any attention to the affrays. They appeared to have a set of jests,
the spirit of which was intelligible to themselves alone; for they
frequently gave way to violent laughter, when their conversation, taken
in a literal sense, expressed nothing that could excite mirth.

When it was near midnight, the captain, whose name was Manuel, conducted
me to the cabin, and made many inquiries, which evidently had for their
object to discover if I really was what I professed to be. His doubts
being removed, he pointed to a berth, and told me I might occupy it
whenever I chose, and went upon deck again. I extinguished the light,
and lay down in bed. The enthusiasm of desperation, and the pride of
deciding with boldness and alacrity, had now subsided, and I could
calmly reflect upon what I had done. My anticipations respecting the
life I was now to lead were gloomy and revolting. I scarcely dared to
look forward to the termination of the enterprise in which I had
embarked; but, when I considered what would have been my fate had I
remained on shore, I could not condemn my choice. Contempt, abject
poverty, and the horrors of want, were the evils I fled from--tyranny,
danger, and an ignominious death, formed those towards which I was
perhaps hastening.

Next morning, Captain Manuel desired me to write an order for my
portmanteau, that he might send one of his men to bring it on board. I
obeyed him, and also enclosed the sum I owed the persons with whom I had
resided. Shortly after the messenger returned the crew began to heave up
the anchor; and we soon put to sea with a light wind, and gradually
receded from the shores of the island.

I breakfasted 

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