The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ smiling. “I read your nature differently. I can trace, even in the flashing of your eye this instant, the ambition of a bold and energetic spirit, and that when the moment came you would embrace the losing cause, with all its perils, rather than stand by tyranny, in all its strength. Besides, remember, this is not the compact under which you entered the service, although it might, under certain peculiar circumstances, appeal to your sense of duty. An army is not – at least it ought not to be – a ‘gendarmerie.’ Go forth to battle against the enemies of your country, carry the flag of your Vaterland into the plains of France, plant the double eagle once more in the Place da Carrousel, – even aggressive war has its glorious compensations in deeds of chivalry and heroism – But here is the Princesse,” said the Abbé, rising, and advancing courteously towards her.

      “The Abbé D’Esmonde!” cried Kate, with an expression of delight, as she held ont her hand, which the priest pressed to his lips with all the gallantry of a courtier. “How pleasant to see the face of a friend in this strange land!” said she. “Abbé, this is my brother Frank, of whom you have heard me talk so often.”

      “We are acquaintances already,” said D’Esmonde, passing his arm within the soldier’s; “and albeit our coats are not of the same color, I think many of our principles are.”

      A few moments saw him seated between the brother and sister on the sofa, recounting the circumstances of his journey, and detailing, for Kate’s amusement, the latest news of Florence.

      “Lady Hester is much better in health and spirits, too,” said the Abbé; “the disastrous circumstances of fortune would seem to have taken a better turn; at least, it is probable that Sir Stafford’s losses will be comparatively slight. I believe her satisfaction on this head arises entirely from feeling that no imputation of altered position can now be alleged as the reason for her change of religion.”

      “And has she done this?” asked Kate, with a degree of anxiety; for she well knew on what feeble grounds Lady Hester’s convictions were usually built..

      “Not publicly; she waits for her arrival at Rome, to make her confession at the shrine of St. John of Lateran. Her doubts, however, have all been solved, – her reconciliation is perfect.”

      “Is she happy? Has she found peace of mind at last?” asked Kate, timidly.

      “On this point I can speak with confidence,” said D’Esmonde, warmly; and at once entered into a description of the pleasurable impulse a new train of thoughts and impressions had given to the exhausted energies of a “fine lady’s” life. It was so far true, indeed, that for some days back she had never known a moment of ennui. Surrounded by sacred emblems and a hundred devices of religious association, she appeared to herself as if acting a little poem of life, wherein a mass of amiable qualities, of which she knew nothing before, were all developing themselves before her. And what between meritorious charities, saintly intercessions, visits to shrines, and decorations of altars, she had not an instant unoccupied; it was one unceasing round of employment; and with prayers, bouquets, lamps, confessions, candles, and penances, the day was even too short for its duties.

      The little villa of La Rocca was now a holy edifice. The drawing-room had become an oratory; a hollow-cheeked “Seminariste,” from Como, had taken the place of the Maestro di Casa. The pages wore a robe like acolytes, and even Albert Jekyl began to fear that a costume was in preparation for himself, from certain measurements that he had observed taken with regard to his figure.

      “My time is up,” said Frank, hastily, as he arose to go away.

      “You are not about to leave me, Frank?” said Kate.

      “Yes, I must; my leave was only till four o’clock, as the Field-Marshal’s note might have shown you; but I believe you threw it into the fire before you finished it.”

      “Did I, really? I remember nothing of that. But, stay, and I will write to him. I ‘ll say that I have detained you.”

      “But the service, Kate dearest! My sergeant – my over-lieutenant – my captain – what will they say? I may have to pass three days in irons for the disobedience.”

      “Modern chivalry has a dash of the treadmill through it,” said D’Esmonde, sarcastically; and the boy’s cheek flushed as he heard it. The priest, however, had already turned away, and, walking into the recess of a window, left the brother and sister free to talk unmolested.

      “I scarcely like him, Kate,” whispered Frank.

      “You scarcely know him yet,” she said, with a smile. “But when can you come again to me, – to-morrow^ early?”

      “I fear not We have a parade and a field-inspection, and then ‘rapport’ at noon.”

      “Leave it to me, then, dear Frank,” said she, kissing him; “I must try if I cannot succeed with the ‘Field’ better than you have done.”

      “There’s the recall-bugle,” cried the boy, in terror; and, snatching up his cap, he bounded from the room at once.

      “A severe service, – at least, one of rigid discipline,” said D’Esmonde, with a compassionating expression of voice. “It is hard to say whether it works for good or evil, repressing the development of every generous impulse, as certainly as it restrains the impetuous passions of youth.”

      “True,” said Kate, pointedly; “there would seem something of priestcraft in their régime. The individual is nothing, the service everything.”

      “Your simile lacks the great element, – force of resemblance, Madame,” said D’Esmonde, with a half smile. “The soldier has not, like the priest, a grand sustaining hope, a glorious object before him. He knows little or nothing of the cause in which his sword is drawn; his sympathies may even be against his duty. The very boy who has just left us, – noble-hearted fellow that he is, – what strange wild notions of liberty has he imbibed! how opposite are all his speculations to the stern calls of the duty he has sworn to discharge!”

      “And does he dare – ”

      “Nay, Madame, there was no indiscretion on his part; my humble walk in life has taught me that if I am excluded from all participation in the emotions which sway my fellow-men, I may at least study them as they arise, watch them in their infancy, and trace them to their fruit of good or evil. Do not fancy, dear lady, that it is behind the grating of the confessional only that we read men’s secrets. As the physician gains his knowledge of anatomy from the lifeless body, so do we learn the complex structure of the human heart in the deathlike stillness of the cell, with the penitent before us. But yet all the knowledge thus gained is but a step to something further. It is while reading the tangled story of the heart, – its struggles, its efforts, the striving after good here, the inevitable fall back to evil there, the poor, weak attempt at virtue, the vigorous energy of vice, – it is hearing this sad tale from day to day, learning, in what are called the purest natures, how deep the well of corruption lies, and that not one generous thought, one noble aspiration, or one holy desire rises unalloyed by some base admixture of worldly motive. It is thus armed we go forth into the world, to fight against the wiles and seductions of life. How can we be deceived by the blandishments that seduce others? What avail to us those pretentious displays of self-devotion, those sacrifices of wealth, those proud acts of munificence which astonish the world, but of whose secret springs we are conversant? What wonder, then, if I have read the artless nature of a boy like that, or see in him the springs of an ambition he knows not of himself? Nay, it would be no rash boast to say that I have deciphered more complicated inscriptions than those upon his heart I have traced some upon his sister’s!” The last three words he uttered with a slow and deep enunciation, leaving a pause between СКАЧАТЬ