Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

where the geranium and jasmine perfumed the air, and the sweet tropical moon smiled down upon their love, and nought brake the charmed stillness save her loved one's voice, and the plashing of the quiet waves as they lapped the shores; while ever and anon the evening chant of the fishermen-" Ave, Maria Santissima"was borne over the waters. And yet another scene: She stands by her father's dying bed; disease has scarcely left the poor brokenhearted old man any voice, but he musters up the remnant to curse his child.

"O father, forgive me!-per l'amore di Dios -have mercy upon me! I have sinned; but I am sufficiently punished."

"Nathalie"-and the tones are feeble and broken-“Nathalie, you have broken my heart! you have brought down my hairs with sorrow to the grave! Care and sorrow shall be your portion till you die-till you die."

The old man sinks back dead, and the erring deceived daughter is left all alone in the home of her fathers.

Slowly as these scenes died away Nathalie raised her head to find herself once more in the land of the stranger, in the hired room, with all the cold, unsympathetic details of utter strangeDess staring her in the face. The voice of the faithful William broke upon her ear.

somehow or other, and he could have blamed himself for the folly: he felt that the influence of the wonderful actress at his theatre was stealing a march on his heart. He tried to reason himself out of his folly, to persuade himself that it was merely a pardonable interest that he took in the lonely woman's welfare. But it was all in vain; as well may mortal man essay to lure back Fortune, when she has once taken flight, as resist the pleadings of that young Love, who knocks, ah! so gently, at the door of the heart; and Lawrence Hilton found that the pity he had first entertained was fast turning into that warmer affection to which it is so nigh akinthat he was beginning to get into that state in which a man looks eagerly forward to the next meeting, and sighs when the meeting is over, "Ah! would that it would longer last!" He could not help acknowledging to himself that he had taken an interest in this woman's career, that he had run more imminent risk to serve her; (for it was just a chance, the mere turn of a die, that she proved a success and took London by storm; she might have ruined his fame for ever, and that in one night). And he could not deny that, when this woman's dark, dreamy eyes were bent upon him, a thrill of delicious feeling ran through his every nerve; that when he spoke in answer to her commonest question "Nothing more to-night, thank you," said his voice trembled and sank. But then he she; and the deluded youth went down-stairs reasoned with himself, The end of all honouragain, to muse over the instability and vanity able love is marriage; and how could he justify of human wishes, as he smoked his pipe out. his conduct if he married this stranger and took I daresay my poor young friend got wiser in her to his home? might he not have reason to time, and directed his attentions where there was curse his folly for ever after? It was the same a better chance of their being received; at least, old argument after all—Inclination versus Duty. I know that the daughter of William's senior" Conscience, you counsel well; Fiend, you clerk, Araminta, might be seen hanging on the counsel well;" and it fares hard in matters like arm of a young man very like William, at the this, that Inclination does not get the best of it, places of public resort, and that very shortly after, and drive Duty from the field, with flying the senior clerk's consent to the nuptials made colours. And thus it was with Lawrence Hilton, William the happiest and most important of after much inward cogitation and many a sleepmen. And here he and his father and mother less night, determined that he would rest in may vanish from the scene, for your novelist is suspense no longer, but ask Caroline Brabazon an arbitrary master, and banishes from his to be his wife, and assist him in the managewritings all such persons as he has no further ment of the "Thespian." It puzzled him still, need of, in the most summary way. And surely though, how he was to manage with his sisters; for well he knew that not the faintest suspicion of his meaning had ever entered their simple heads. They had often chaffed him, it is true, about his not getting married, and had declared that "No woman on earth is good enough for you, Larry;" but they, nevertheless, did not imagine that their dear brother would live always single, and had learnt to expect the advent of a wife with exemplary patience. But if a thunderbolt had fallen in their midst they could not have been more astonished when Lawrence announced at dinner that he had determined on asking the new actress to be his wife. "Of course I have thought all about it," he went on," and I don't hesitate to say that I believe this woman as good as gold. Trouble and sorrow she may have seen, but that makes her none the worse."

[ocr errors]

"If these shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended."

Think but that the writer's pen has slumbered.
Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus," you
know; and so,

"Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend."

A much more serious love affair than either the infatuated clerk's or the weak young viscount's was that of Lawrence Hilton, the manager, whose heart no earthly woman was supposed capable of touching, and who had hitherto pursued his path untroubled by the stings of Cupid's arrows, and his fancy disturbed by no thoughts of the "impossible she." But a Exactly," said Hetty: "but the next ques

change was coming over the spirit of his dream,

[ocr errors]

tion, Larry, is, Will she have you?"

"Ay! there's the rub," laughed their brother. | "Well, I can but try: 'Nothing venture, nothing win,' you know, and I am not a bad idea of a husband, if money and a decent home can make one."

"Dear Larry, you know best," they said; "all we can pray is, that God may bless you and make your marriage a happy one for both of you."

And there the matter dropped for the nonce, and Hilton cast about for an opportunity of declaring his love. The time soon came. Every Sunday, as I have said before, Nathalie dined at Lawrence Hilton's house, at Bayswater: sometimes the only stranger at the table, sometimes with other guests of theatrical or literary celebrity-sometimes a prima donna, sometimes the editor of a well-known paper, and sometimes a right-reverend divine; for the fame of these Sunday dinners had spread far and wide amongst that numerous class of diners-out, "who take no heed for the morrow what they shall eat," in real earnest, for they always have a dinner ready for them a week beforehand, and need not moil or toil for the wherewithal to sustain their life, or for drink that maketh glad the heart of man. Hilton, on the "better the day the better the deed" principle, had selected a Sunday for the proposal; and after dinner the sisters had made a pretence of going from the room awhile, that they might leave a clear field for their brother. The old man slept fast in his favourite chair, and so it fell that Lawrence Hilton and the woman he loved were alone. She had been playing one of Mozart's sonatas to them, ere the two sisters had left, and the tender regretful melody still filled the room, like delicate perfume, and played changes on the ear of the listener.

"Will you come out on the balcony with me, Madame Brabazon?" said Hilton, at length; "and of your charity allow me to smoke my cigar."

Nathalie assented, wondering a little what was to follow-probably some theatrical matter, she thought. It was a night calculated to make the most matter-of-fact man somewhat sentimental and inclined to making rhymes: it was a night in which it would be impossible for two people of strong passions and poetic feeling, like Lawrence and Nathalie, to remain long without becoming confidential: it was such a night as forms the lovely conclusion to a noble play, in which the Italian lovers, Lorenzo and Jessica, linger out in the open air, under the deep blue sky, and cap verses. "In such a night did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, and with an unthrift love did run from Venice as far as Belmont." Night sat brooding in dark majesty over the distant city, whose myriad lamps sparkled like stars amid the gloom; and the yellow harvest-moon looked down upon all the misery and want, the splendour and the gaiety of the modern Babylon.

"Does not a night like this exercise a grand influence over one?" said Nathalie, as she leaned against the balcony. "It seems to rebuke

all human passions, and to say 'Peace, be still," to the storm of human feeling. I feel, in a night like this, as if I might be happy again." She sighed deeply, and Hilton got more deeply in love every moment.

"But why are you so miserable, when you have everything at your feet, the town madly fond of your acting, and fortune ready to wait upon you ?"

"You cannot understand, Mr. Hilton, what it is to suffer as I have. To me, all this success, all this praise brings no real happiness. It is but the excitement that I crave-something to make me forget myself."

[ocr errors]

It would be presumptuous in me to ask, I suppose," said Hilton gently, "what this sorrow is; but you may rest assured that I pity you from my heart; nay, more than pity you; I- Well, I suppose the whole truth must come out-I love you, fondly, and have loved you for a very long time! It is for you to choose, dear one, whether you will make me happy or not. I have a home, a comfortable home, which you may share if you will; and I have never talked to living woman before as I talk to you now. I offer you all the love of which my stern nature is capable. I am no boy, to waste time in long rhapsodies; but my love is none the less warm for that. Tell me, shall it be so ?"

He waited for his answer quietly, calmly; and he had not long to wait. There was a tearful tremble in Nathalie's voice, as she replied: "Mr. Hilton, it cannot be. God knows how much I value your kindness and thought of me; but I must tell you that it must not be! In the first place, when you hear the story of my life, you will say with me that I am not free to marry-that I am not worthy of such a noble heart as yours; and, in the second, I dare not bring misery and woe, as I am fated to, on a happy home like yours. Pity me, Lawrence Hilton, pity me! but for heaven's sake crush all feeling of love for me out of your heart! I am not worthy your regard.”

Hilton was no boy, as he said, to go off into a fit of raving at his disappointment. He bore the blow like a man, though his fine face quivered for a moment, like the face of a man who has gotten a death-wound. He did love this woman dearly, and it was very hard to give her up.

"Now, Lawrence Hilton, light another cigar, and I will tell you the story of my life: whether I am more sinned against than sinning' is for you to judge."

And there, in the silence of the beautiful night, under the pale moon, Nathalie related the whole of her life of misery to the manager, concealing nothing, not even Grantley's name; and as the story of her wrongs proceeded, Lawrence Hilton's face grew set as stone, and what sounded very much like a curse was wrung from bis lips.

"Ah! no wonder you acted the 'Wife's Trials' so well. It was your own story, after all. Pardon me for interrupting you!"

At last the dismal recitation was finished, and

Nathalie waited like a criminal for the manager's | Alas! alas! I fain would comfort borrow reply.

"I would say that it makes not the slightest difference to me, Nathalie, that you have been deceived by a villain: it increases my pity and love for you tenfold. Oh, Nathalie, reconsider your determination! I will be a true and leal husband to you: and think better of this dreadful idea of revenge! Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord."""

From any ray of hope which lights the gloom : The heart has omens, and mine are of sorrow:

What near and nearer looms? What is to come?

TRYING AND FAILING.

BY MRS. ABDY.

Why is your voice so faint and low? why is your cheek so pale?

Why tell me that you fear to try, because you fear to fail?

List to my parting words, dear friend, and oft those

words recall

For an instant the woman's better nature almost overcame her. The trial was a sore one. On one side was peace and happiness, a loving husband, and a quiet home. On the other lay the dark, uncertain future, with no star save the baleful light of revenge to guide her on the way. And then, supposing that her vengeance was fully satisfied, supposing that Grantley and his wife, and all her foes, might be humbled to the dust, what was there beyond-a shameful, lonely""Tis better far to try and fail, than not to try at all!" death, without a friend to smooth her pillow or shrive the parting soul! But her plan with Della Croce-ah! there lay the incentive. No, she must not yield thus tamely her revenge, and allow Grantley undisturbed happiness. Her mind was made up. Soothingly she placed her hand on Lawrence Hilton's shoulder.

"My noble benefactor! I have thought of it: it may not be-not that I do not like you. If there were any love remaining in my wretched bosom, that surely would be yours: but, as to marrying you, it cannot be, believe me. I shall be happy, so happy! to hear that you have been married to some fair girl, who can appreciate you, and make your life happy. As for me, I will never forget your kindness; and, when I dare pray, you will be the object of that prayer!" In her simple southern way she took Hilton's hand in hers, and covered it with kisses, breathing out Italian words of endearment, as was her manner when excited. "Try and forget that such a wretched being ever Crossed your path!"

Hilton finished his cigar, and sent the stump hissing down into the shrubbery.

"Away goes my hope into darkness, like that bit of weed! And now I think we will go in again. The night is getting chilly, and my sisters are waiting for us."

[blocks in formation]

Say, who would dwell supinely on the drear and bar

ren plain,

Nor strive the breezy summit of the pleasant hills to gain?

Sweet birds shall cheer their upward path, sweet flowers enchant their sight,

Even though perchance they strive in vain to reach the topmost height.

[blocks in formation]

A WEEK AT THE GARIBALDIAN HEAD-QUARTERS.

(Notes from an Excursion to the Italian Tyrol, in July, 1866).

1. FROM BRESCIA TO STORO. July 20: We start from Brescia about midday: the road at first is dusty-and hot, but not without scenes worth remembering; and we enjoy a grand view of Lake Garda from the hill above Salo. Leaving the Lake we pass through Preseglie and Vobano; and at a later hour we stop at Vestone, which is cool and inviting, and more than half-way to head-quarters.

Here we refresh ourselves in the square, and here we begin more closely to come in contact with the interest of the campaign; for our attention is attracted by half-a-dozen or more Garibaldians in and around the Albergo, whose pale and exhausted faces seem those of men going to the rear, as sick or wounded, but who, we find to our surprise, are on their way to the front. They are men just dismissed from the hospital in Brescia, to which wounds and sickness had sent them. Convalescent but not restored to vigour, healed but still enfeebled, they are pushing on to rejoin their regiments. D soon engages them in an animated conversation. They might have been forwarded in waggons, and spared the fatigue of a long march beneath a sun, which we, though driving, found extremely trying but there had been some neglect or mistake, and, sooner than wait for conveyances, these men had shouldered their muskets and knapsacks, and taken patiently to the road. This does not look like "shirking or "skulking." And these are not your untried recruits, inexperienced, and enthusiastic, proud of their right to the red shirt, and singing through the streets of Naples or Florence. These are men who have tasted the monotonous fatigue of a campaign, and heard the whiz of shot fired in earnest-nay, more, who have endured wounds and sickness, and known the inside of the hospital. Yet, spent and enfeebled, their only thought is "forward" again. However, Dgoes off to the Syndic, and soon coming back, half urges, half orders the men to wait for the conveyance which the said authority has promised shall be forthcoming.

[ocr errors]

We take to our carriage, and continue to follow the course of the rapid, sonorous, and romantic Chiese. We are already among the hills, the extreme spurs of the Tyrolese Alps; and these descending shades veil the fresh and charming scenery that begins to surround us. Some of us are musical, and the "Hymne de Guerre" resounds through the night, followed up by other songs, one of the most successful of which is a set of stanzas, sung to Suono la Tromba." But in time silence ensues, and we travel on in that semi-conscious state which is neither sleep nor waking. A sudden stop

[ocr errors]

wakes me up with a start. What is it? Where are we now? I am conscious of something leaden-coloured and vague, dimly towering on the right-mysterious enough in itself, but rendered still more so by two dim, muffled figures, which stand motionless at its base. Other figures rise out of the darkness, and one comes forward. Now I can make out a large white building, the dark, lofty door of which faces the road: two sentinels, in their cloaks or blankets, stand leaning on their muskets; the vast door seems to rise behind them ad libitum.

"Tedeschi," says R- in answer to my inquiries, "Prigioniêre."

The place is Anfo; this is the church, and in it are some two hundred Austrian prisoners under guard, the garrison, we understand, of the small fort Ampola, which surrendered yesterday.

On again. Once more we are challenged by a sentry, and roused to consciousness by the sudden stopping of the carriage. The moon is now up; but this time it is at first still more difficult to comprehend "the situation;" for on the left white lines go zigzagging up some almost perpendicular ascent. On the right a dazzling mass of silver seems to hang suspended below, and to ripple up under the very wheels of the carriage; while, in the distance, its lustrous sheen meets blackness thick and palpable, against which a red spark gleams, but whether a star, just topping the far horizon, or some less celestial beam within arm's-length, defies conjecture.

"Rocca d'Anfo," murmurs R—, and the name and its associations interpret the scene around.

This above is Anfo's rock, with its miniature Gibraltar; that below Lake Idro, secluded, mountain-locked. The greater part of its surface the moon turns into silver, giving to the shadows of the mountains on the opposite shore a solid, tangible blackness, in the midst of which burns the vigilant red light.

[ocr errors]

"Cannonière," suggests R- blinking drowsily at the far-off gleam-the light of a gunboat out on the lake.

A weird silence seems to reign over these silent waters, these silent rocks. You must throw back your head till your neck aches before the eye can catch the fort itself, in which those ascending, winding walls culminate. Embrasures and bastions, on a somewhat small scale, but apparently of solid masonry, cling to and mingle with the cliffs. But now all is dim and unsubstantial, ghost-like whiteness, ghostlike shadows. A sentry seems to move along one overhanging terrace; but one ongs for the flash of a bayonet or the boom of a gun; or,

better still, the garish, but "business"
eye of
day to tell us this is real. But, as morning
dawned, would not these aërial walls, those
moonlit waters fade too? We seem to gaze
upon them on sufferance, and in involuntary
silence. A word too loud, and all will vanish
like the Lurley water-nymph, or a broken
dream. All is so still, so lonely, so white!
Haunted mountains, an elfin castle, an en-
chanted lake!

II.-STORO.

Round the square, and up against the houses, are stalls and extemporized booths of every kind; some occupied by camp-followers, others by natives of the country. Here, across a few rough planks, a Tyrolese is selling pane and biseto, each as brown as his own sunburnt features. Next to him another shouts at intervals "Cafè! cafè! calda!" He has quite an elaborate set-out: metal urn, portable fire, and china, magnificent to behold. Milk he has not, but a row of longnecked bottles contains rum and cognac, as well as various spirits peculiar to the country. From one of these he will pour your choice, with great urbanity, into your cup of excellent coffee, &c., Oh! to be here, and not to be an artist; to all for duè soldi (one penny). Close by a wide have no faculty of reproducing in striking out- open door gives a view of some shed or coachlines and vivid colours the strange life all house, now occupied by two mighty casks, one around! And yet, here the artist might long of which has its stains dyed with ruby red wander, with delighted eyes, before he could streaks. The proprietor does not fail to adverdecide what to select, what to begin with, what tise his liquor: a voice from within shouts, to pass over; for here the picturesque reigns "Vino buono et birra" (wine from Asti and redundant and supreme. The "piece" is put beer from Chiavenna). Hard-by is a stall coon in perfection. Scenery, costumes, and cha- vered with little piles of stationery (note-paper, racters are equally striking, equally harmonious. envelopes, sealing-wax, ink, pencils, &c.), most And how well this at least might be put on the extensively patronized, too, for the Garibaldian stage, this scene that I survey from a window of is a letter-writing animal; and you may see the little albergo, in which we have found nar-him at every corner, in and out of the houses, row but sufficient quarters. Beneath is a inditing his private despatches to those at home. square, irregular in shape, and not large, but Half-round the corner you can get eggs, sarvery suitable for the main action of the piece. dines, sausages, cheese, butter, potatoes; and on On the tall old houses round it, the gables and that same corner, a few feet above this stall, huge oak beams have an Elizabethan look; but "Piazza Garibaldi," in large letters, covers, but rude frescoes and carvings, on stone and wood, not completely, the name which the square was give them another character. There is a large known by under the Austrian rule. But these old-fashioned fountain in one corner, with an sutlers are, after all, mere supernumeraries. immense round basin, into which splashes from Soldiers are, of course, all about the place. a stone-pipe the clear, cold water that courses The "Camicha rossa" abounds in single dots, or down from the cliffs. The back-ground is inost in groups; blue volunteer-bersagliere, now and appropriate. The principal church rises in the then a "Cantiniere," in her scarlet jacket and midst of a little piazza of its own, whose bright blue skirt; officers' horses held by terraced wall overlooks the larger square; peasants, some in fustian, some in their national its old picturesque campanile rises high costume-most picturesque, and now, alas! in air, and is seen against a still loftier range most rarely seen. of precipitous rocks, which form the background of the whole scene. They are of great height, with a few trees here and there in their deep clifts and half-way up, but still high above the town, is a grassy ledge or shelf, and on it one little chalet. From this ledge, not many days back, a body of Austrians were firing down into the town, till a party of volunteers climbed to a higher point and promptly dislodged them. The perspective and distance are equally effective, for the other end of the square rises rapidly, and narrows into a long street that winds up round to the church, with so steep an ascent, that it is paved in successive levels, like long, low steps; but at present it has the appearance of being covered with a carpet, of red and of greyish blue; for about half a battalion of Garibaldians (part of the 7th, I think) are extended there in successive layers. They are momently expecting to march, and in the meantime lie so thick in the shade of the tall houses and walls, that you must pick your way through and over them with careful eye, and many an apologetic "Perdono!"

Waggons frequently pass through the square, some marked "Treno borghese," and "Voluntari Italiani ;" and laden, some with loaves, cheeses, or blankets, others with biscuits, winekegs, sacks of flour, or other commissariat properties. Some are drawn by mules, others by bullocks, large, handsome, and white, or what is sometimes called cream-coloured. The passage of these carts is often attended with unbounded excitement and ejaculation; for the streets are narrow, the square crowded, the oxen sometimes fond of backing, and, if expostulated with too vehemently, apt to kneel down, and finally to lie at full-length; then, of course, there is a block, and a motley train accumulates behind, till the shouts of " Avanti grow more and more frenzied, and a hundred epithets of fell purport, but euphonious sound, are poured upon the maledetta bestia, who calmly reclines beneath his yoke, having probably dragged down his yoke-fellow with him. But more leading characters cross the scene at times; mounted officers on their way to the "Quartier-generale," which is just out of sight

« AnteriorContinuar »