One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ bad soldier. At least, so I have heard. But it was not of that I spoke. What are we to do now? You told me that they were a day behind, and now they are right on the road before us. They must have changed their route. What must we do?"

      "Why, we must turn back," answered the dwarf, calmly; "and then at Dreux seek out the maître des postes, leave these slow brutes behind us, and on to Paris with all the speed we can."

      "But should there be no horses?" said the youth, "as was the case at La Fleche; what must we do then?"

      "Oh, beyond all doubt, we shall find horses there," the dwarf replied; "and if the post be broken up, we can but apply to the master of relais, whose horses will take us on for fifteen leagues, while these tired brutes will scarce carry us to Dreux: better go with beasts that have dragged a cart, than halt half way on the road."^[2]

      The youth paused and pondered; and though his intention was at first directed to the exertions of the servants with the carriage, yet the moment after, his glance began to stray abstractedly over the forest; and it is more than probable that his thoughts wandered much farther than the mere trifling embarrassment in which he found himself; for his brow became clouded and melancholy, his lip quivered, and his eye, which was now again straining vacantly upon the grass, seemed as if it would willingly have harboured a tear. The dwarf gazed at him earnestly with his quick black eyes, while the habitual sneer upon his lip seemed mingled with other feelings, which somewhat changed its character, but rendered it not less dark and keen. Whatever were his own thoughts, however, he seemed perfectly to comprehend that his young lord's mind had run beyond the situation of the moment. "You are sorry you undertook it at all!" he said, keeping his eyes still fixed upon the face of the other.

      "Out, knave!" cried Leonard de Monte, turning sharply upon him. "Out! Did you ever know me hesitate in a pursuit that I had once determined, or regret a deed when once it was done? Firm in myself, I am firm to myself, and, whether good or ill happens, I never regret. No, no; think you that I am such a fool or such a child as to start from the first trifling obstacle? To whimper, because I am forced to lie on a hard bed, or fly off indignant because some saucy serving-man breaks his jest upon the page? No, no! I was thinking of my father's house, and of a picture there which some skilful hand had painted of just such a scene as this. There was the little sparkling stream, and there a sweet and tranquil grassy bank like that, with the bright sunshine--even as it does now--streaming through the bushes, and touching the rounded turf with gold. Often, very often, have I stood and gazed upon that landscape, and my fancy has rendered the dull canvass instinct with life. I have dreamed that I could see through those groves, or climb the hill, and wander amongst the rocks; and in infancy--that time of happy hearts--imagination, as I stood and looked, has shaped me out a little paradise in such a scene as that. The palace and its cold splendour has faded away around me, and I have fancied myself wandering in the midst of Nature's beauties, with beings as bright and as ideal as my dream: and now, Bartholo--and now--what are all those visions now?"

      The dwarf cast his eyes to the ground, and for a moment, a single moment, the cynical smile passed away from his lip. "You," he said--"you have made your fate! You have sought the bitter well from which you are forced to drink. You have chosen sorrow, and the way to sorrow; for the love of any human thing is but the high road thither, and you must tread it to the end."

      "How now, sir!" cried the youth, proudly tossing back his head; "school'st thou me?"

      "Nay, I school you not," answered the dwarf; "and less than all sought to offend you. I would have given you consolation. I would have said that you, for a great prize, had played a stake as weighty:--I mean that knowingly, willingly, you had risked happiness for love; and, seemingly having lost, are sorrowful; but still you have the satisfaction of knowing that your fate has been your own deliberate act."

      "Would not that make it all the more painful, thou bitter medicine?" asked the youth.

      "Not so!" answered the dwarf, "not so! Think, what must be his feelings who is born to disappointment and to scorn; whose heart may be as fine as that which beats in the bosom of the lordliest warrior in the land, and yet whose birthright is contempt, and degradation, and slight; whose mind may be as bright as that of prelate, or of lawgiver, and yet whose doom is to be despised and neglected? Think what must be his feelings, who has no refuge from disappointment, but in the hardness of despair; who has no warfare to wage against insult, but by hurling back contempt and defiance!"

      "I am sorry for thee, from my heart," answered the youth. "Indeed, I am sorry for thee."

      "Your pity I can bear," replied the dwarf, "because I believe it is of a nobler kind; but the pity of this base degraded world is poison to every wound in my heart. No more of myself, however," he added, resuming at once his usual look; "I have spoken too long about myself already. I cannot change my state, were I to reason on it till the sun grew old and weary of shining; but you can do much to change yours; and, in honesty, it were better to try a new plan, for this is a bad one."

      "Care not thou for that," replied the other; "its wisdom or its folly rests upon me. Thou canst not say that there is either sin or crime therein; and till then, be silent."

      "You spoke of your father's house," still persevered the dwarf. "Why not return thither, where now, since your uncle's death, peace, and repose, and a princely fortune await you?"

      "Return thither!" replied the youth, with a sigh. "Return thither! and for what? to find the voices I used to love silent; the forms that used to cheer it gone; to see in every chamber a memorial of the dead, and in each well-known object a new source for tears. Oh, no! I loved that place once with love far beyond that which we give in general to inanimate things; but it was because the living, and the good, and the kind, were mingled up with every scene and every object; but now they are gone: the fairy spell is broken; the rich gold turned dross; and no place of all the earth is so painful in my sight as that--my father's house."

      "Nevertheless," urged the dwarf somewhat anxiously; but the other went on: "But that is not all, Bartholo," he said, "that is not all; though that were fully enough. No, when I last saw my father's halls my bosom was as light as air, and all the thoughts that filled it were as the summer dreams of some sunny, happy child. Since then how many a bitter lesson have I learned; how changed is the aspect of life, and fate, and the world!--No, no! The sunshine that shone in my father's halls is gone for ever--the sunshine of a happy heart; and I will carry back with me a new star to light them, or never see them more."

      "Nevertheless," repeated the dwarf, "nevertheless--"

      "No more in that tone!" interrupted the youth, "let me hear no more! My resolutions are fixed beyond change. My fate is upon the die in my hand, and I will cast it boldly, let the chance be what it will. Say no more! for no more will I hear! Quick! hasten those laggards with the horses, and let us begone: each word of opposition but makes me the more eager to run my course to the end."

      The dwarfs lip curled into a more bitter smile than ever, but he made no reply; and proceeded to obey the orders he had received to hasten the preparations for departure. Those preparations were soon concluded; for while the conversation detailed above had been proceeding, the servants, with the aid of the horses, had dragged the carriage out of the brake. With some difficulty, and some danger of overturning it, it was at length brought to the high road. Leonard de Monte entered; and, wrapping himself in a large cloak, cast himself back with an air of gloomy thought. The rest mounted their horses, and, as fast as the nature of the rude vehicle, and the state of the roads would permit, the little cavalcade wound away towards Dreux, leaving the forest once more to silence and solitude.

      CHAPTER VII.

      In one of the old houses between СКАЧАТЬ