Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ why, they have been in poverty this many a year. My brother Terry tells me that the Kelletts had n’t above two hundred a year, and that latterly they lost even this.”

      “Well, it is a come-down in the world, anyhow,” said Hawkshaw, sighing, “and I must say she bears it well.”

      “If she only feels it as little as she appears to do everything else, the sacrifice doesn’t cost her much,” said the lady, tartly. “I told her she was to come here last Sunday and take charge of the children; she never came; and when I questioned her as to the reason, she only smiled and said, ‘She never thought of it; in fact, she was too happy to be alone on that day to think of anything.’ And here she comes now, nearly an hour late.” And, as she spoke, a weary step ascended the steps to the door, and an uncertain, faltering hand raised the knocker.

      “It is nigh eleven o’clock, Miss Kellett,” said Mrs. Hawkshaw, as she met her on the stairs.

      “Indeed – I am so sorry – I must have forgotten – I don’t think I knew the hour,” said the other, stammeringly.

      “Your hour is ten, Miss Kellett.”

      “I think so.”

      “How is your father, Miss Kellett?” asked the alderman, abruptly, and not sorry to interpose at the juncture.

      “He is well, sir, and seems very happy,” said she, gratefully, while her eyes lighted up with pleasure.

      “Give him my regards,” said Hawkshaw, good-naturedly, and passed down the stairs; while his wife coldly added, —

      “The children are waiting for you,” and disappeared.

      With what determined energy did she address herself now to her task, – how resolutely devote her whole mind to her duty. She read and heard and corrected and amended with all the intense anxiety of one eager to discharge her trust honestly and well. She did her very utmost to bring her faculties to bear upon every detail of her task; and it was only when one of the girls asked who was he whose name she had been writing over and over again in her copy-book, that she forgot her self-imposed restraint, and in a fervor of delight at the question, replied, “I ‘ll tell you, Mary, who Savonarola was.”

      In all the vigor of true narrative power, the especial gift of those minds where the play of fancy is only the adornment of the reasoning faculty, she gave a rapid sketch of the prophet priest, his zeal, his courage, and his martyrdom; with that captivating fascination which is the firstborn of true enthusiasm, she awakened their interest so deeply that they listened to all she said as to a romance whose hero had won their sympathies, and even dimly followed her as she told them that such men as this stood out from time to time in the world’s history like great beacons blazing on a rocky eminence, to guide and warn their fellow-men. That in their own age characters of this stamp were either undervalued or actually depreciated and condemned, was but the common lot of humanity; their own great destinies raised them very often above the sympathies of ordinary life, and men caught eagerly at the blemishes of those so vastly greater than themselves, – hence all the disesteem they met with from contemporaries.

      “And are there none like this now, Miss Bella?” asked one of the girls; “or is it that in our country such are not to be met with?”

      “They are of every land and of every age; ay, and of every station! Country, time, birth have no prerogative. At one moment the great light of the earth has been the noblest born in his nation, at another a peasant, – miles apart in all the accidents of fortune, brothers by the stamp which makes genius a tie of family. To-morrow you shall hear of one, the noblest-hearted man in all England, and yet whose daily toil was the vulgar life of an exciseman. This great man’s nature is known to us, teaching men a higher lesson than all that his genius has bequeathed us.”

      In the willingness with which they listened to her, Bella found fresh support for her enthusiasm. If, therefore, there was this solace to the irksome nature of her task, it rendered that task itself more and more wearisome and distasteful. Her round of duty led her amongst many who did not care for these things; some heard them with apathy, others with even mockery. How often does it happen in life that feelings which if freely expanded had spread themselves broadly over the objects of the world, become by repression compressed into principles!

      This was the case with her; the more opposition thwarted, the more resolutely was she bent on carrying out her notions. All her reading tended to this direction, all her speculation, all her thought.

      “There must be men amongst us even now,” said she, “to whom this great prerogative of guidance is given; superior minds who feel the greatness of their mission, and, perhaps, know how necessary it is to veil their very ascendancy, that they may exercise it more safely and more widely. What concession may they not be making to vulgar prejudice, what submission to this or that ordinance of society? How many a devious path must they tread to reach that goal that the world will not let them strive for more directly; and, worse than all, through what a sea of misrepresentation, and even calumny, must they wade? How must they endure the odious imputations of selfishness, of pride, of hard-heartedness, nay, perhaps, of even crime? And all this without the recognition of as much as one who knows their purpose and acknowledges their desert.”

      CHAPTER VII. AN ARRIVAL AT MIDNIGHT

      Night had just closed in over the Lake of Como; and if the character of the scene in daylight had been such as to suggest ideas of dramatic effect, still more was this the case as darkness wrapped the whole landscape, leaving the great Alps barely traceable against the starry sky, while faintly glimmering lights dotted the dark shores from villa and palace, and soft sounds of music floated lazily on the night air, only broken by the plashing stroke of some gondolier as he stole across the lake.

      The Villa d’Este was a-glitter with light. The great saloon which opened on the water blazed with lamps; the terraces were illuminated with many-colored lanterns; solitary candles glimmered from the windows of many a lonely chamber; and even through the dark copses and leafy parterres some lamp twinkled, to show the path to those who preferred the scented night air to the crowded and brilliant assemblage within doors. The votaries of hydropathy are rarely victims of grave malady. They are generally either the exhausted sons and daughters of fashionable dissipation, the worn-out denizens of great cities, or the tired slaves of exciting professions, – the men of politics, of literature, or of law. To such as these, a life of easy indolence, the absence of all constraint, the freedom which comes of mixing with a society where not one face is known to them, are the chief charms; and, with that, the privilege of condescending to amusements and intimacies of which, in their more regular course of life, they had not even stooped to partake. To English people this latter element was no inconsiderable feature of pleasure. Strictly defined as all the ranks of society are in their own country, – marshalled in classes so rigidly that none may move out of the place to which birth has assigned him, – they feel a certain expansion in this novel liberty, perhaps the one sole new sensation of which their natures are susceptible. It was in the enjoyment of this freedom that a considerable party were now assembled in the great saloons of the villa. There were Russians and Austrians of high rank, conspicuous for their quiet and stately courtesy; a noisy Frenchman or two; a few pale, thoughtful-looking Italians, men whose noble foreheads seem to promise so much, but whose actual lives appear to evidence so little; a crowd of Americans, as distinctive and as marked as though theirs had been a nationality stamped with centuries of transmission; and, lastly, there were the English, already presented to our reader in an early chapter, – Lady Lackington and her friend Lady Grace, – having, in a caprice of a moment, descended to see “what the whole thing was like.”

      “No presentations, my Lord, none whatever,” said Lady Lackington, as she arranged the folds of her dress, on assuming a very distinguished position in the room. СКАЧАТЬ