The Heroine. Barrett Eaton Stannard

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СКАЧАТЬ 'I come in the ancient armour of my family, to perform my promise of recounting to you the melancholy memoirs of my life.'

      'My lord,' said I, 'rise and be seated. Cherubina knows how to appreciate the honour that Montmorenci confers.'

      He bowed; and having laid by his spear, shield, and helmet, he placed himself beside me on the sofa, and began his heart-rending history.

      'All was dark. The hurricane howled, the hail rattled, and the thunder rolled. Nature was convulsed, and the traveller inconvenienced.

      'In the province of Languedoc stood the Gothic Castle of Montmorenci. Before it ran the Garonne, and behind it rose the Pyrenees, whose summits exhibiting awful forms, seen and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy fir, that swept downward to their base.

      'My lads, are your carbines charged, and your daggers sharpened?' whispered Rinaldo, with his plume of black feathers, to the banditti, in their long cloaks.

      'If they an't,' said Bernardo, 'by St. Jago, we might load our carbines with the hail, and sharpen our daggers against this confounded north-wind.'

      'The wind is east-south-east,' said Ugo.

      'At this moment the bell of Montmorenci Castle tolled one. The sound vibrated through the long corridors, the spiral staircases, the suites of tapestried apartments, and the ears of the personage who has the honour to address you. Much alarmed, I started from my couch, which was of exquisite workmanship; the coverlet of flowered gold, and the canopy of white velvet painted over with jonquils and butterflies, by Michael Angelo. But conceive my horror when I beheld my chamber filled with banditti!

      'Snatching my sword, I flew to a corner, where my coat of mail lay heapt. The bravos rushed upon me; but I fought and dressed, and dressed and fought, till I had perfectly completed my unpleasing toilette.

      'I then stood alone, firm, dignified, collected, and only fifteen years of age.

      Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,

      Than twenty of their swords. —

      'To describe the horror of the contest that followed, were beyond the pen of an Anacreon. In short, I fought till my silver skin was laced with my golden blood; while the bullets flew round me, thick as hail,

      And whistled as they went for want of thought.

      'At length my sword broke, so I set sail for England.

      'As I first touched foot on her chalky beach; Hail! exclaimed I, happy land, thrice hail! Take to thy fostering bosom the destitute Montmorenci – Montmorenci, once the first and richest of the Gallic nobility – Montmorenci, whom wretches drove from his hereditary territories, for loyalty to his monarch, and opposition to the atrocities of exterminators and revolutionists.

      'Nine days and nights I wandered through the country, the rivulet my beverage, and the berry my repast: the turf my couch, and the sky my canopy.'

      'Ah!' interrupted I, 'how much you must have missed the canopy of white velvet painted over with jonquils and butterflies!'

      'Extremely,' said he, 'for during sixteen long years, I had not a roof over my head. – I was an itinerant beggar!

      'One summer's day, the cattle lay panting under the broad umbrage; the sun had burst into an immoderate fit of splendour, and the struggling brook chided the matted grass for obstructing it. I sat under a hedge, and began eating wild strawberries; when lo! a form, flexile as the flame ascending from a censer, and undulating with the sighs of a dying vestal, flitted inaudible by me, nor crushed the daisies as it trod. What a divinity! she was fresh as the Anadyomene of Apelles, and beautiful as the Gnidus of Praxitiles, or the Helen of Zeuxis. Her eyes dipt in Heaven's own hue.' —

      'Sir,' said I, 'you need not mind her eyes: I dare say they were blue enough. But pray who was this immortal doll of your's?'

      'Who!' cried he. 'Why who but – shall I speak it? Who but – the Lady Cherubina De Willoughby!!!'

      'I!'

      'You!'

      'Ah! Montmorenci!'

      'Ah! Cherubina! I followed you with cautious steps,' continued he, 'till I traced you into your – you had a garden, had you not?'

      'Yes.'

      'Into your garden. I thought ten thousand flowerets would have leapt from their beds to offer you a nosegay. But the age of gallantry is past, that of merchants, placemen, and fortune-hunters has succeeded, and the glory of Cupid is extinguished for ever!

      'You disappeared, I uttered incoherent sentences, and next morning resumed my station at a corner of the garden.'

      'At which corner?' asked I.

      'Why really,' said he, 'I cannot explain; for the place was then new to me, and the ground was covered with snow.'

      'With snow!' cried I. 'Why I thought you were eating wild strawberries only the day before.'

      'I!' said he. 'Sure you mistake.'

      'I declare most solemnly you told me so,' cried I.

      'Why then,' said he, 'curse me if I did.'

      'Sir,' said I. 'I must remark that your manners – '

      'Bless me!' cried he, 'yes, I did say so, sure enough, and I did eat wild strawberries too; but they were preserved wild strawberries. I had got a small crock of them from an oyster woman, who was opening oysters in a meadow, for a hysterical butcher; and her knife having snapt in two, I lent her my sword; so, out of gratitude, she made me a present of the preserves. By the bye, they were mouldy.

      'One morning, as I sat at the side of the road, asking alms, some provincial players passed by me. I accosted them, and offered my services. In short, they took me with them; I performed, was applauded; and at length my fame reached London, where I have now been acting some years, with much success; anxious as I am, to realize a little money, that I may return, in disguise, to my native country, and petition Napoleon to restore my forfeited estates.

      'Such, fair lady, such is my round, unvarnished tale.

      'But wherefore,' cried he, starting from his seat; 'wherefore talk of the past? Oh! let me tell you of the present and of the future. Oh! let me tell you, how dearly, how devotedly I love you!'

      'Love me!' cried I, giving such a start as the nature of the case required. 'My lord, this is so – really now so – '

      'Pardon this abrupt avowal of my unhappy passion,' said he, flinging himself at my feet. 'Fain would I have let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on my damask cheek; but, oh! who could resist the maddening sight of so much beauty?'

      I remained silent, and with the elegant embarrassment of modesty, cast my blue eyes to the ground. I never looked so lovely.

      'But I go!' cried he, springing on his feet. 'I fly from you for ever! No more shall Cherubina be persecuted with my hopeless love. But Cherubina, the hills and the vallies shall echo, and the songsters of the grove shall articulate Cherubina. I will shake the leaves of the forest with my sighs, and make the stream so briny with my tears, that the turbot shall swim into it, and the sea-weed grow upon its banks!'

      'Ah, do not!' said СКАЧАТЬ