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Title: The twelve adventurers, and other stories

Author: Charlotte Brontë

Editor: C. W. Hatfield
        Clement King Shorter

Release date: June 18, 2024 [eBook #73858]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Hodder and Stoughton

Credits: Lauren Prichard


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWELVE ADVENTURERS, AND OTHER STORIES ***

    THE TWELVE ADVENTURERS
    AND OTHER STORIES


Transcriber’s Note:

Every attempt has been made to preserve the original formatting,
along with inconsistent spelling, hyphenation, and italicization.
However, footnotes have been changed to endnotes or renumbered and
moved closer to their anchor, and some obvious typographical errors
have been corrected; see the Errata for a complete list.

New original cover art, which features a pencil drawing by Charlotte
Brontë of an unknown woman, included with this eBook is granted to
the public domain.




    _The Twelve Adventurers
    and Other Stories ❦ ❦ ❦

    By CHARLOTTE BRONTË

    Hodder and Stoughton
    Limited London_

    Made and Printed in Great Britain
    T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD., Printers, Edinburgh




NOTE

IT would be quite easy to maintain that these twelve fragments which
come to us from the childhood of Charlotte Brontë should not be perpetuated
for the public in the printed page. They were written between the
ages of twelve and twenty-one, and it was certainly never for a moment
contemplated by the author that they would ever see the light. They
were handed to me in a little house in Banagher in Ireland, nearly
thirty years ago, by the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, the husband of
Charlotte Brontë, who in a letter before me explains that they would
have been burnt had I not come upon the scene. The ever-increasing
fame of Charlotte Brontë in the intervening years has gone on side
by side with an immense literature devoted to child psychology. It
is as a contribution to that science that I have been frequently
exhorted to publish them. A natural indolence would have prevented
this had not my friend, Mr. C. W. Hatfield, come to the rescue by
diligently transcribing the minute handwriting and preparing the
volume with certain useful notes for publication.

CLEMENT SHORTER.

_August_ 1925.


CONTENTS

    *THE TWELVE ADVENTURERS  .  .  .  .  .   1
    AN ADVENTURE IN IRELAND  .  .  .  .  .  19
    *THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS .  .  .  .  25
    THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT .  .  45
    ALBION AND MARINA  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  75
    *THE RIVALS  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  95
    THE FAIRY GIFT  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 105
    *LOVE AND JEALOUSY .  .  .  .  .  .  . 121
    *NAPOLEON AND THE SPECTRE   .  .  .  . 137
    *THE TRAGEDY AND THE ESSAY  .  .  .  . 145
    *A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK .  .  .  . 161
    *MINA LAURY—I   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 181
    *MINA LAURY—II  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 193

_The stories marked with an asterisk (*) are now published for the
first time._



    I AM alone; it is the dead of night;
        I am not gone to rest, because my mind
    Is too much raised for sleep. The silent light
        Of the dim taper streams its unseen wind,
    And quite as voiceless, on the hearth, burns bright
        The ruddy ember: now no ear can find
    A sound, however faint, to break the lull
    Of which the shadowy realm of dreams is full.
    CHARLOTTE BRONTË




THE TWELVE ADVENTURERS

‘THE Twelve Adventurers’ is the first of two stories in the earliest
of Charlotte Brontë’s manuscripts, and was written by her when she
was only twelve years of age.

Her early admiration for the hero of the story, the ‘Great Duke,’
was first noted by Mrs. Gaskell in _The Life of Charlotte Brontë_,
1857, vol. i. p. 94, where she says:

    All that related to him (the Duke of Wellington) belonged to
    the heroic age. Did Charlotte want a knight-errant, or a
    devoted lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles Wellesley,
    came ready to her hand. There is hardly one of her prose
    writings at this time in which…their ‘august father’ does
    not appear as a sort of Jupiter Tonans, or Deus ex Machinâ.

The country ‘discovered’ by the twelve adventurers became the scene
of nearly all the stories written by Charlotte Brontë during the
following eleven years. Originally named ‘The Country of the Genii,’
the fairies deserted it after Charlotte’s school-days at Roe Head
(1831-1832), and the country was re-named ‘The Kingdom of Angria.’
The ‘great city’ became ‘The Glass Town’ or ‘Verreopolis,’ which
was afterwards changed to ‘Verdopolis,’ the chief city of Angria.

C. W. H.




CHAPTER I

THE COUNTRY OF THE GENII

THERE is a tradition that some thousands of years ago twelve men
from Britain, of a most gigantic size, and twelve men from Gaul,
came over to the country of the genii, and while here were continually
at war with each other; and, after remaining many years, returned
again to Britain and Gaul. In the inhabited parts of the genii countries
there are now no vestiges of them, though it is said there have been
found some colossal skeletons in that wild, barren sand, the evil
desert.

I have read a book called _The Travels of Captain Parnell_, out of
which the following is an extract:

    About four in the afternoon I saw a dark red cloud arise
    in the east, which gradually grew larger till it covered the
    whole sky. As the cloud spread the wind rose and blew a
    tremendous hurricane. The sand of the desert began to
    move and rolled like the waves of the sea. As soon as I saw
    this I threw myself on my face and stopped my breath, for
    I knew that this was a tornado or whirlwind. I remained
    in this situation for three minutes; at the end of that time
    I ventured to look up. The whirlwind had passed over and
    had not hurt me, but close by lay my poor camel quite dead.
    At this sight I could not forbear weeping; but my attention
    was soon diverted by another object. About one
    hundred yards further off lay an immense skeleton. I
    immediately ran up to it and examined it closely. While
    I was gazing at the long ghastly figure which lay stretched
    upon the sand before me the thought came into my mind
    that it might be the skeleton of one of those ancient Britons
    who, tradition tells us, came from their own country to this
    evil land, and here miserably perished. While I was pursuing
    this train of meditation, I observed that it was bound
    with a long chain of rusty iron. Suddenly the iron clanked
    and the bones strove to rise, but a huge mountain of sand
    overwhelmed the skeleton with a tremendous crash, and
    when the dust which had hid the sun and enveloped everything
    in darkness cleared away, not a mark could be distinguished to
    show the future traveller where the bones
    had lain.

Now, if this account be true—and I see no reason why we should suppose
it is not—I think we may fairly conclude that these skeletons are
evil genii chained in these deserts by the fairy Maimoune.[1]

1 Maimoune, a fairy, daughter of Damriel, King or head of a legion
of genies.—_Arabian Nights Entertainments_.—C. W. H.

There are several other traditions, but they are all so obscure that
no reliance is to be placed on them.




CHAPTER II

THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

In the year 1798 the _Invincible_, 74 guns, set sail with a fair
wind from England; her crew, twelve men, every one healthy and stout
and in the best temper. Their names were as follows:—

    Marcus O’Donell,
    Ferdinand Cortez,
    Felix de Rothsay,
    Eugene Cameron,
    Harold FitzGeorge,
    Henry Clinton,
    Francis Stewart,
    Ronald Tragnain,
    Ernest Fortescue,
    Gustavus Dumally,
    Frederick Brunswick
    (Duke of York), and
    Arthur Wellesley.

Well, as I said before, we set sail with a fair wind from England
on the 1st of March 1798. On the 15th we came in sight of Spain.
On the 16th we landed, bought a supply of provisions, and set sail
again on the 20th. On the 25th, about noon, Henry Clinton, who was
in the shrouds, cried out that he saw the Oxeye.

In a minute we were all on deck and gazing eagerly and fearfully
towards the mountain over which we saw hanging in the sky the ominous
speck. Instantly the sails were furled, the ship tacked about, and
the boat was made ready for launching in our last extremity.

Thus having made everything ready, we retired to the cabin, and every
one looked as sheepish as possible and noway inclined to meet our
fate like men. Some of us began to cry; but we waited a long time
and heard no sound of the wind, and the cloud did not increase in
size.

At last Marcus O’Donell exclaimed: ‘I wish it would either go backward
or forward.’

At this Stewart reproved him, and Ferdinand gave him a box on the
ear. O’Donell returned the compliment; but just then we heard the
sound of the wind, and Ronald shouted out:

‘The cloud is as big as me!’

Brunswick pulled Ronald away from the window, and ordered him to
hold his tongue. Ronald said he would not and began to sing. Felix
de Rothsay put his hand over Ronald’s mouth. Harold FitzGeorge got
Rothsay behind the throat. Ernest Fortescue held his fist in O’Donell’s
face, and Marcus floored Ernest. Cameron kicked Clinton to the other
end of the cabin; and Stewart shouted so loud for them to be quiet
that he made the greatest noise of any.

But suddenly they were all silenced by a fierce flash of lightning
and a loud peal of thunder. The wind rose and the planks of our ship
cracked. Another flash of lightning, brighter and more terrible than
the first, split our mainmast and carried away our foretop-sail;
and now the flashes of lightning grew terrific and the thunder roared
tremendously. The rain poured down in torrents, and the gusts of
wind were most loud and terrible. The hearts of the stoutest men
in our company now quailed, and even the chief doctor was afraid.

At last the storm ceased, but we found it had driven us-quite out
of our course, and we knew not where we were.

On the 30th, Gustavus Dumally who was on deck cried out: ‘LAND!’

At this we were all extremely rejoiced. On the 31st we reached it,
and found it was the island of Trinidad.

We refitted our ship and got in a store of provisions and water,
and set sail once more on the 5th of May. It would be endless to
describe all our adventures in the South Atlantic Ocean. Suffice
it to say that after many storms, in which we were driven quite out
of our course and knew not in what part of the world we were, we
at last discovered land.

We sailed along the coast for some time to find a good landing-place.
We at last found one.

We landed on the 2nd of June 1793. We moored our battered ship in
a small harbour and advanced up into the country. To our great surprise
we found it cultivated. Grain of a peculiar sort grew in great abundance,
and there were large plantations of palm-trees, and likewise an immense
number of almond-trees. There were also many olives and large enclosures
of rice.

We were greatly surprised at these marks of the land being inhabited.
It seemed to be part of an immense continent.

After we had travelled about two miles we saw at a distance twenty
men well armed. We immediately prepared for battle, having each of
us a pistol, sword, and bayonet. We stood still and they came near.
They seemed greatly surprised at us, and we heard one of them say:
‘What strange people!’

The Chief then said: ‘Who are you?’

Wellesley answered: ‘We were cast up on your shores by a storm and
require shelter.’

They said: ‘You shall not have any.’

‘We will take it, then!’

We prepared for battle; they did the same.

It was a very fierce encounter, but we conquered: killed ten, took
the Chief prisoner, wounded five, and the remaining four retreated.’

The Chief was quite black and very tall; he had a fine countenance
and the finest eyes I ever saw. We asked him what his name was, but
he would not speak. We asked him the name of his country, and he
said: ‘Ashantee.’

Next morning a party of twelve men came to our tents bringing with
them a ransom for their Chief, and likewise a proposition of peace
from their King. This we accepted, as it was on terms most advantageous
to ourselves.

Immediately after the treaty of peace was concluded we set about
building a city. The situation was in the middle of a large plain,
bounded on the north by high mountains, on the south by the sea,
on the east by gloomy forests, and on the west by evil deserts.

About a month after we had begun our city the following adventure
happened to us:—

One evening when all were assembled in the great tent, and most of
us sitting round the fire which blazed in the middle, listening to
the storm which raged without, a dead silence prevailed. None of
us felt inclined to speak, still less to laugh, and the wine-cups
stood upon the round table filled to the brim. In the midst of this
silence we heard the sound of a trumpet which seemed to come from
the desert. The next moment a peal of thunder rolled through the
sky, which seemed to shake the earth to its centre.

By this time we were all on our legs, and filled with terror, which
was changed to desperation by another blast of the terrible trumpet.
We all rushed out of the tent with a shout, not of courage, but fear;
and then we saw a sight so terribly grand that even now when I think
of it, at the distance of forty years from that dismal night, my
limbs tremble and my blood is chilled with fear. High up in the clouds
was a tall and terrible giant. In his right hand he held a trumpet;
in his left two darts pointed with fire. On a thunder cloud which
rolled before him his shield rested. On his forehead was written:
‘The Genius of the Storm.’ On he strode over the black clouds which
rolled beneath his feet and regardless of the fierce lightning which
flashed around him.

The hoarse voice of the storm was hushed, and a gentler light than
the fire of the elements spread itself over the face of the now cloudless
sky. The calm moon shone forth in the midst of the firmament, and
the little stars seemed rejoicing in their brightness. The giant
had descended to the earth, and approaching the place where we stood
trembling he made three circles in the air with his flaming scimitar,
and then lifted his hand to strike. Just then we heard a loud voice
saying: ‘Genius, I command thee to forbear!’

We looked round and saw a figure so tall that the Genius seemed to
be but a diminutive dwarf. It cast one joyful glance on us and disappeared.




CHAPTER III

THE DESERT

The building of our city went on prosperously. The Hall of Justice
was finished, the fortifications were completed, the Grand Inn was
begun, the Great Tower was ended.

One night when we were assembled in the Hall of Justice, Arthur Wellesley,
at that time a common trumpeter, suddenly exclaimed, while we were
talking of our happiness:

‘Does not the King of the Blacks view our prosperity with other eyes
than ours? Would not the best way be to send immediately to England,
tell them of the new world we have discovered and of the riches that
are in it; and do you not think they would send us an army?’

Francis Stewart immediately rose and said: ‘Young man, think before
you speak! How could we send to England? Who would be found hardy
enough to traverse again the Atlantic? Do you not remember the storm
which drove us on the shores of Trinidad?’

Arthur Wellesley answered: ‘It is with all due deference that I venture
to contradict the opinions of older and more experienced men than
I am; and it is after much consideration that I have ventured to
say what I have said. Well do I remember that storm which forced
us to seek refuge amongst foreigners. I am not so rash as to suppose
that we of ourselves could cross the ocean on the damaged and leaky
vessel we possess, or that we could build another in time to avert
the danger which I fear is coming. But in what a short time have
we built the city we are now in! How long has it taken to rear the
Grand Hall where we now are? Have not those marble pillars and that
solemn dome been built by supernatural power? If you view the city
from this Gothic window and see the beams of the morn gilding the
battlements of the mighty towers, and the pillars of the splendid
palaces which have been reared in a few months, can you doubt that
magic has been used in their construction?’

Here he paused. We were all convinced that the genii had helped us
to build our town. He went on:

‘Now, if the genii have built us our city, will they not likewise
help us to call our countrymen to defend what they have built against
the assaults of the enemy?’

He stopped again, for the roof shook and the hall was filled with
smoke. The ground opened, and we heard a voice saying:

‘When the sun appears above the forests of the east be ye all on
the border of the evil desert, for if ye fail I will crush you to
atoms.’

The voice ceased, the ground closed, and the smoke cleared away.
There was no time for us to consult; the desert lay ten miles off,
and it was now midnight. We immediately set off with the Duke of
York at our head. We reached the desert about 4 A.M., and there we
stopped. Far off to the east the long black line of gloomy forests
skirted the horizon. To the north the Mountains of the Moon seemed
a misty girdle to the plain of Dahomey; to the south the ocean guarded
the coasts of Africa; before us to the west lay the desert.

In a few minutes we saw a dense vapour rise from the sands, which
gradually collecting took the form of a Genius larger than any of
the giants. It advanced towards us and cried with a loud voice: ‘Follow
me!’

We obeyed and entered the desert.

After we had travelled a long time, about noon the Genius told us
to look around. We were now about the middle of the desert. Nothing
was to be seen far or near but vast plains of sand under a burning
sun and cloudless sky. We were dreadfully fatigued and begged the
Genius to allow us to stop a little, but he immediately ordered us
to proceed. We therefore began our march again and travelled a long
way, till the sun went down and the pale moon was rising in the east.
Also a few stars might now be dimly seen, but still the sands were
burning hot, and our feet were very much swollen.

At last the Genius ordered us to halt and lie down. We soon fell
asleep. We had slept about an hour when the Genius awoke us and ordered
us to proceed.

The moon had now risen and shone brightly in the midst of the sky—brighter
far than it ever does in our country. The night-wind had somewhat
cooled the sands of the desert, so that we walked with more ease
than before; but now a mist arose which covered the whole plain.
Through it we thought we could discern a dim light. We now likewise
heard sounds of music at a great distance.

As the mist cleared away the light grew more distinct till it burst
upon us in almost insufferable splendour. Out of the barren desert
arose a palace of diamonds, the pillars of which were ruby and emerald
illuminated with lamps too bright to look upon. The Genius led us
into a hall of sapphire in which were thrones of gold. On the thrones
sat the Princes of the Genii. In the midst of the hall hung a lamp
like the sun. Around it stood genii and fairies whose robes were
of beaten gold sparkling with diamonds. As soon as their chiefs saw
us they sprang up from their thrones, one of them seizing Arthur
Wellesley and exclaiming: ‘This is the Duke of Wellington!’

Arthur Wellesley asked her why she called him the Duke of Wellington.

The Genius answered: ‘A prince will arise who shall be as a thorn
in the side of England, and the desolator of Europe. Terrible shall
be the struggle between that chieftain and you! It will last many
years, and the conqueror shall gain eternal honour and glory. So
likewise shall the vanquished; and though he shall die in exile his
name shall never be remembered by his countrymen but with feelings
of enthusiasm. The renown of the victory shall reach the ends of
the earth; Kings and Emperors shall honour him; Europe shall rejoice
in its deliverer; and though in his lifetime fools will envy him,
he shall overcome. At his death renown shall cover him, and his name
shall be everlasting!’

When the Genius finished speaking we heard the sound of music far
off, which drew nearer and nearer till it seemed within the hall.
Then all the fairies and genii joined in one grand chorus which rose
rolling to the mighty dome and pillars of the genii palace, and reached
among the vaults and dungeons beneath; then gradually dying away
it at last ceased entirely.

As the music went off the palace slowly disappeared, and we found
ourselves alone in the midst of the desert. The sun had just begun
to enlighten the world, and the moon might be dimly seen; but all
below there was sand as far as our eyes could reach. We knew not
which way to go, and we were ready to faint with hunger; but on once
more looking round we saw lying on the sands some dates and palm-wine.
Of this we made our breakfast, and then began again to think of our
journey, when suddenly there appeared a beaten track in the desert,
which we followed.

About noon, when the sun was at its meridian, and we felt weary and
faint with the heat, a grove of palm-trees appeared in sight towards
which we ran; and after we had rested awhile under its shade, and
refreshed ourselves with its fruit, we resumed our march; and that
same night to our inexpressible joy we entered the gates of our beautiful
city and slept beneath the shadow of its roofs.




CHAPTER IV

NEWS FROM HOME

The next morning we were awakened by the sound of trumpets and great
war-drums, and on looking towards the mountains we saw descending
to the plain an immense army of Ashantees. We were all thrown into
the utmost consternation except Arthur Wellesley, who advised us
to look to the great guns and man the walls, never doubting that
genii would come to our help if we ourselves could not beat them
off by the help of the cannon and rockets.

This advice we immediately followed, while the Ashantees came on
like a torrent, sweeping everything, burning the palm-trees, and
laying waste the rice-fields.

When they came up to the walls of our city they set up a terrible
yell, the meaning of which was that we should be consumed from the
face of the earth, and that our city should vanish away; for as it
came by magic it should go by the same. Our answer to this insolent
speech was a peal of thunder from the mouth of our cannon. Two fell
dead, and the rest set off towards the mountains with amazing swiftness,
followed by a triumphant shout from their conquerors.

They came back in the afternoon and in the most submissive terms
asked for their dead. We granted their request, and in return they
allowed us to witness the funeral.

A few days after, on the 21st of September, Ronald, running into
the Halls of Justice where we all were, shouted out that there was
a ship from England. The Duke of York immediately sent Arthur Wellesley
to ascertain the truth of this.

When he arrived at the seashore he found all the crew, consisting
of fifty men, had landed. He then examined the state of the ship,
and found it was almost a complete wreck. He asked the men a few
questions and they seemed greatly surprised to find him here, and
asked him how he contrived to live in such a country. He told them
to follow him.

When he brought them to the Halls of Justice, the Duke of York asked
them to relate their story. They cried: ‘We were driven on your shore
by a storm, and we request shelter.’

The Duke of York answered: ‘Fellow-Englishmen, we rejoice that you
were driven on our part of the coast, and you shall have shelter
if we can give it.’

Accordingly they remained with us about a fortnight, for at the end
of that time the genii had fitted out their ship again, when they
set sail for England accompanied by Arthur Wellesley.

For about ten years after this we remained at war with the blacks,
and then made peace; after which, for about ten years more, nothing
happened worth mentioning.

On the 16th of May 1816, a voice passed through the city saying:
‘Set a watch on the tower which looks towards the south, for to-morrow
a conqueror shall enter your gates!’

The Duke of York immediately despatched Henry Clinton to the highest
tower in the city. About noon Clinton cried out:

‘I see something at a great distance upon the Atlantic.’

We all of us ran to the watch-tower, and on looking towards the ocean
we could discern a dark object upon the verge of the horizon which
as it neared the shore we saw plainly was a fleet. At last it anchored
and the men began to land.

First came seventy-two regiments of horsemen, next, three of infantry,
then several high officers. The latter seemed to be the staff of
some great general; and last of all came the general himself, who
had the bearing of Arthur Wellesley.

After he had marshalled the regiments he ordered them to march, and
we saw them enter the gates of the city. When they arrived at the
tower they stopped, and we heard the general say:

‘Hill, you may stop here with the army while I go to the Palace of
Justice, as I suppose they are all there if they be yet in the land
of the living. And, Beresford, you must come with me.’

‘No, no, we are here, Arthur, almost terrified out of our wits for
fear you shall burn the tower and sack the city!’ exclaimed the Duke
of York as we descended from our hiding-place.

‘What! Are you all here, and not one of you slain in battle or dead
in the hospital?’ said His Grace as he sprang from his war-horse
and we shook hands with him two at a time. ‘But come, my brave fellows,
let us go to the Grand Inn, and in Fernando Hall we will talk of
what we have done and suffered since we last met.’

‘Please, your Grace, in what part of the town is the army to be quartered?’
said one of the staff.

‘Oh, never you fear for the army, Murry; we are not amongst Spaniards.
Let them follow me.’

‘The army is to follow His Grace the Duke of Wellington,’ said Murry.

‘His Grace the Duke of Wellington!’ we all exclaimed at once in great
surprise.

‘Yes,—His Grace the Duke of Wellington,’ said another of the staff.
‘I don’t know who you are, but he is one of the most noble generals,
the conqueror of Bonaparte and the deliverer of Europe.’

‘Then the genii don’t always tell lies,’ said Marcus; ‘and I’m very
glad of it, for I always thought, Duke, you would return to us with
more glory than you had when you went away from us.’

By this time we had arrived at the Grand Inn, which was a most superior
building and large enough to accommodate twenty thousand men. We
were soon seated in the hall and listening to Beresford as he related
to us how Europe had been set free from the iron chain of a despot,
and how the mighty victory had been achieved with which all the civilised
world had rung; of the splendid triumphs which had taken place on
that glorious occasion; and how all the high sovereigns of Europe
had honoured England with their presence on that grand occasion.
Longer could we have listened and more could he have told had we
not heard the sound of the midnight bell which reminded us that it
was time to retire to rest.

Some days after this the Duke of York expressed a wish to return
to his own country, and one of the ships with about twenty men was
appointed to convey him there.

There were now in the city fifteen thousand men, and we determined
to elect a King. Accordingly a council of the whole nation was summoned
for the 14th of June 1816. On that day they all assembled in the
Palace of Justice. Around the throne sat Marcus O’Donell, Ferdinand
Cortez, Henry Clinton, Gustavus Dumally, Harold FitzGeorge, and the
Duke of Wellington and his staff.

An intense anxiety pervaded the council to know who would be proposed
as King, for not a man of us knew, and no hints had been thrown out.
At length the great entrance was closed, and Cortez proclaimed the
whole nation to be present. Stewart then rose and said:

‘I propose the most noble Field-Marshal Arthur, Duke of Wellington,
as a fit and proper person to sit on the throne of these realms.’

Immediately a loud shout burst forth from the multitude, and the
hall rang: ‘Long live our most noble Duke of Wellington!’ and almost
immediately afterwards a profound silence prevailed in the house.
He said: ‘Fellow-soldiers, I will defend what you have committed
to my care.’

Then, bowing to the council, he retired amidst thundering sounds
of enthusiastic joy.

    C. BRONTË,
    _April 2nd_, 1829.
    (Aged 12.)




AN ADVENTURE IN IRELAND

THIS is the second of the two stories in Charlotte Brontë’s earliest
manuscript. It was included by Mr. Clement Shorter in _Charlotte
Brontë and Her Circle_, 1896, pp. 64-66, and in the enlarged edition
of that work, entitled _The Brontës: Life and Letters_, 1908, vol.
i. pp. 74-76. It is now reprinted for the first time.

C. W. H.




AN ADVENTURE IN IRELAND

DURING my travels in the south of Ireland the following adventure
happened to me. One evening in the month of August, after a long
walk, I was ascending the mountain which overlooks the village of
Cahin, when I suddenly came in sight of a fine old castle. It was
built upon a rock, and behind it was a large wood, and before it
was a river. Over the river there was a bridge, which formed the
approach to the castle.

When I arrived at the bridge I stood still awhile to enjoy the prospect
around me: far below was the wide sheet of still water in which the
reflection of the pale moon was not disturbed by the smallest wave;
in the valley was the cluster of cabins which is known by the appellation
of Cahin; and beyond these were the mountains of Killala. Over all,
the grey robe of twilight was now stealing with silent and scarcely
perceptible advances. No sound except the hum of the distant village
and the sweet song of the nightingales in the wood behind me broke
upon the stillness of the scene.

While I was contemplating this beautiful prospect a gentleman, whom
I had not before observed, accosted me with ‘Good evening, sir; are
you a stranger in these parts?’

I replied that I was. He then asked me where I was going to stop
for the night; I answered that I intended to sleep somewhere in the
village.

‘I am afraid you will find very bad accommodation there,’ said the
gentleman; ‘but if you will take up your quarters with me at the
castle, you are welcome.’

I thanked him for his kind offer, and accepted it.

When we arrived at the castle I was shown into a large parlour, in
which was an old lady sitting in an armchair by the fireside, knitting.
On the rug lay a very pretty tortoiseshell cat. As soon as mentioned,
the old lady rose; and when Mr. O’Callaghan (for that, I learned,
was his name) told her who I was, she said in the most cordial tone
that I was welcome, and asked me to sit down.

In the course of conversation I learned that she was Mr. O’Callaghan’s
mother, and that his father had been dead about a year.

We had sat about an hour, when supper was announced, and after supper
Mr. O’Callaghan asked me if I should like to retire for the night.
I answered in the affirmative, and a little boy was commissioned
to show me to my apartment. It was a snug, clean, and comfortable
little old-fashioned room at the top of the castle. As soon as we
had entered, the boy, who appeared to be a shrewd, good-tempered
little fellow, said with a shrug of the shoulder: ‘If it was going
to bed I was, it shouldn’t be here that you’d catch me.’

‘Why?’ said I.

‘Because,’ replied the boy, ‘they say that the ould masther’s ghost
has been seen sitting on that there chair.’

‘And have you seen him?’

‘No; but I’ve heard him washing his hands in that basin often and
often.’

‘What is your name, my little fellow?’

‘Dennis Mulready, please, your honour.’

‘Well, good night to you.’

‘Good night, masther; and may the saints keep you from all fairies
and brownies,’ said Dennis as he left the room.

As soon as I had laid down I began to think of what the boy had been
telling me, and I confess I felt a strange kind of fear, and once
or twice I even thought I could discern something white through the
darkness which surrounded me. At length, by the help of reason, I
succeeded in mastering these, what some would call idle fancies,
and fell asleep.

I had slept about an hour when a strange sound awoke me, and I saw
looking through my curtains a skeleton wrapped in a white sheet.
I was overcome with terror and tried to scream, but my tongue was
paralysed and my whole frame shook with fear. In a deep hollow voice
it said to me:

‘Arise, that I may show thee this world’s wonders,’ and in an instant
I found myself encompassed with clouds and darkness. But soon the
roar of mighty waters fell upon my ear, and I saw some clouds of
spray arising from high falls that rolled in awful majesty down tremendous
precipices, and then foamed and thundered in the gulf beneath as
if they had taken up their unquiet abode in some giant’s cauldron.

But soon the scene changed, and I found myself in the mines of Cracone.
There were high pillars and stately arches, whose glittering splendour
was never excelled by the brightest fairy palaces. There were not
many lamps; only those of a few poor miners, whose rough visages
formed a striking contrast to the dazzling figures and grandeur which
surrounded them. But in the midst of all this magnificence I felt
an indescribable sense of fear and terror; for the sea raged above
us, and by the awful and tumultuous noises of roaring winds and dashing
waves it seemed as if the storm was violent. And now the mossy pillars
groaned beneath the pressure of the ocean, and the glittering arches
seemed about to be overwhelmed. When I heard the rushing waters and
saw a mighty flood rolling towards me I gave a loud shriek of terror.

The scene vanished and I found myself in a wide desert full of barren
rocks and high mountains. As I was approaching one of the rocks,
in which there was a large cave, my foot stumbled and I fell. Just
then I heard a deep growl, and saw by the unearthly light of his
own fiery eyes a royal lion rousing himself from his kingly slumbers.
His terrible eye was fixed upon me, and the desert rang and the rocks
echoed with the tremendous roar of fierce delight which he uttered
as he sprang towards me.

‘Well, masther, it’s been a windy night, though it’s fine now,’ said
Dennis, as he drew the window curtain and let the bright rays of
the morning sun into the little old-fashioned room at the top of
O’Callaghan Castle.

    C. BRONTË,
    _April 28th_, 1829.




THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS

THE original manuscript of this story is in the possession of Mr.
T. J. Wise.

It appears to be the first manuscript which Charlotte Brontë attempted
to complete in the form of a book, _i.e._ with a title-page and Preface.
The title-page is written in capital letters resembling printing,
and the Preface in the young authoress’s ordinary writing.

The story contains the earliest known poem by Charlotte Brontë.

I am indebted to Mr. T. J. Wise for the loan of the original manuscript,
thus enabling me to correct and complete a copy of the story in my
keeping, and to present an accurate text.

The story was written by Charlotte Brontë at the age of thirteen
years.                                 C. W. H.




    THE SEARCH AFTER
    HAPPINESS

    A TALE BY
    CHARLOTTE
    BRONTË

    PRINTED BY HERSELF
    AND
    SOLD BY
    NOBODY &c. &c.

    AUGUST
    THE
    SEVENTEENTH
    EIGHTEEN HUNDRED
    AND
    TWENTY-NINE




PREFACE

THE persons meant by the Chief of the City and his sons are the Duke
of Wellington, the Marquis of Douro, and Lord Wellesley.

The city is the Glass Town.

Henry O’Donell and Alexander Delancy are Captain Tarry-not-at-home
and Monsieur Like-to-live-in-lonely-places.

    CHARLOTTE BRONTË,
    _August the 17th_, 1829.




CHAPTER I

CHARACTER OF O’DONELL—CAUSE OF HIS TRAVELS

NOT many years ago there lived in a certain city a person of the
name of Henry O’Donell. In figure he was tall, of a dark complexion,
and searching black eye. His mind was strong and unbending, his disposition
unsociable, and though respected by many he was loved by few.

The city where he resided was very great and magnificent. It was
governed by a warrior, a mighty man of valour, whose deeds had resounded
to the ends of the earth.

This soldier had two sons, who were at that time of the separate
ages of six and seven years.

Henry O’Donell was a nobleman of great consequence in the city, and
a peculiar favourite with the governor, before whose glance his stern
mind would bow; and at his command O’Donell’s self-will would be
overcome.

While playing with the young princes he would forget his usual sullenness
of demeanour, the days of his childhood returned upon him, and he
would be as merry as the youngest, who was gay indeed.

One day, at Court, a quarrel ensued between him and another noble.
Words came to blows, and O’Donell struck his opponent a violent blow
on the left cheek. At this the military King started up and commanded
O’Donell to apologise. This he immediately did, but from that hour
of dissent a spell seemed to have been cast over him, and he resolved
to quit the city.

The evening before he put this resolution into practice he had an
interview with the King, and returned quite an altered man. Before,
he seemed stern and intractable; now, he was only meditative and
sorrowful. As he was passing the inner court of the palace he perceived
the two young princes at play. He called them, and they came running
to him.

‘I am going far from this city, and shall, most likely, never see
you again,’ said O’Donell.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I cannot tell.’

‘Then why do you go away from us? Why do you go from your own house
and lands, from this great and splendid city, to you know not where?’

‘Because I am not happy here.’

‘And if you are not happy here, where you have everything for which
you can wish, do you expect to be happy when you are dying of hunger
or thirst in a desert, or longing for the society of men when you
are thousands of miles from any human being?’

‘How do you know that that will be my case?’

‘It is very likely that it will.’

‘And if it is I am determined to go.’

‘Take this then, that you may sometimes remember us when you dwell
with only the wild beasts of the desert, or the great eagle of the
mountain,’ said they, as they each gave him a curling lock of their
hair.

‘Yes, I will take it, my princes, and I shall remember you, and the
mighty warrior King, your father, even when the Angel of Death has
stretched forth his bony arm against me, and I am within the confines
of his dreary kingdom, the cold, damp grave,’ replied O’Donell, as
the tears rushed to his eyes; and he once more embraced the little
princes, and then quitted them, it might be, for ever.




CHAPTER II

ABOUT MEETING DELANCY—COMING TO THE OLD CASTLE—ENTERING THE NEW
WORLD—DESCRIPTION

The dawn of the next morning found O’Donell on the summit of a high
mountain which overlooked the city. He had stopped to take a farewell
view of the place of his nativity. All along the eastern horizon
there was a rich glowing light, which, as it rose, gradually melted
into the pale blue of the sky, in which, just over the light, there
was still visible the silver crescent of the moon. Ina short time
the sun began to rise in golden glory, casting his splendid radiance
over all the face of nature, and illuminating the magnificent city;
in the midst of which, towering in silent grandeur, there appeared
the palace where dwelt the mighty Prince of that great and beautiful
city, all around the brazen gates and massive walls of which there
flowed the majestic stream of the Guadima, whose banks were bordered
by splendid palaces and magnificent gardens. Behind these, stretching
for many a league, were fruitful plains and forests, whose shade
seemed almost impenetrable to a single ray of light; while in the
distance blue mountains were seen raising their heads to the sky
and forming a misty girdle to the plains of Dahomey. On the whole
of this grand and beautiful prospect O’Donell’s gaze was long and
fixed; but his last look was to the palace of the King, and a tear
stood in his eye as he said earnestly:

‘May he be preserved from all evil! May good attend him; and may
the chief genii spread their broad shield of protection over him
all the time of his sojourn in this wearisome world!’

Then, turning round, he began to descend the mountain. He pursued
his way till the sun began to wax hot; when he stopped, and, sitting
down, he took out some provisions which he had brought with him,
and which consisted of a few biscuits and dates.

While he was eating, a tall man came up and accosted him. O’Donell
requested him to sit beside him, and offered him a biscuit. This
he refused, and, taking one out of a small bag which he carried,
he sat down, and they began to talk. In the course of conversation,
O’Donell: learned that this man’s name was Alexander Delancy, that
he was a native of France, and that he was engaged in the same pursuit
with himself, _i.e._ the search of happiness. They talked for a long
time, and, at last, agreed to travel together. Then, rising, they
pursued their journey.

Towards nightfall they lay down in the open air, and slept soundly
till morning, when they again set off; and thus they continued till
the third day, when, about two hours after noon, they approached
an old castle, which they entered; and, as they were examining it,
they discovered a subterraneous passage which they could not see
the end of.

‘Let us follow where this passage leads us, and, perhaps, we may
find happiness here,’ said O’Donell.

Delancy agreed, and the two stepped into the opening. Immediately
a great stone was rolled to the mouth of the passage, with a noise
like thunder, which shut out all but a single ray of daylight.

‘What is that?’ exclaimed O’Donell.

‘I cannot tell,’ replied Delancy; ‘but, never mind, I suppose it
is only some Genius playing tricks.’

‘Well, it may be so,’ returned O’Donell; and they proceeded on their
way.

After travelling for a long time—as near as they could reckon about
two days—they perceived a silvery streak of light on the walls of
the passage, something like the light of the moon. In a short time
they came to the end of the passage, and, leaping out of the opening
which formed, they entered a new world.

They were, at first, so much bewildered by the different objects
which struck their senses that they almost fainted; but, at length
recovering, they had time to see everything around them. They were
upon the top of a rock which was more than a thousand fathoms high.
All beneath them were liquid mountains tossed to and fro with horrible
confusion, roaring and raging with a tremendous noise, and crowned
with waves of foam. All above them was a mighty firmament, in one
part covered with black clouds from which darted: huge and terrible
sheets of lightning. In another part an immense globe of light, like
silver, was hanging in the sky; and several smaller globes, which
sparkled exceedingly, surrounded it.

In a short time, the tempest, which was dreadful beyond description,
ceased; the dark, black clouds cleared away; the silver globes vanished,
and another globe, whose light was of a gold colour, appeared. It
was far larger than the former, and, in a little time, it became
so intensely bright, that they could no longer gaze on it; so, after
looking around them for some time, they rose and pursued their journey.

They had travelled a long way when they came to an immense forest,
the trees of which bore a large fruit of a deep purple colour, of
which they tasted and found that it was fit for food. They journeyed
in this forest for three days, and on the third day they entered
a valley, or rather a deep glen, surrounded on each side by tremendous
rocks whose tops were lost in the clouds. In this glen they continued
for some time, and at last came in sight of a mountain which rose
so high that they could not see the summit, though the sky was quite
clear. At the foot of the mountain there flowed a river of pure water,
bordered by trees which had flowers of a beautiful rose colour. Except
these trees nothing was to be seen but black forests and huge rocks
rising out of a wilderness which bore the terrible aspect of devastation,
and which stretched as far as the eye could reach. In this desolate
land no sound was to be heard, not even the cry of the eagle or the
scream of the curlew; but a silence like the silence of the grave
reigned over all the face of nature, unbroken except by the murmur
of the river as it slowly wound its course through the desert.




CHAPTER III

COMING TO THE CAVE—MANNER OF LIFE ARRIVAL OF THE OLD MAN

After they had contemplated this scene for some time, O’Donell exclaimed:
‘Alexander, let us abide here. What need have we to travel farther?
Let us make this our place of rest.’

‘We will,’ replied Delancy. ‘And this shall be our abode,’ added
he, pointing to a cave at the foot of the mountains.

‘It shall,’ returned O’Donell, as they entered it.

In this country they remained for many long years, and passed their
time in a manner which made them completely happy. Sometimes they
would sit upon a high rock, and listen to the hoarse thunder rolling
through the sky and making the mountains to echo and the desert to
ring with its awful voice. Sometimes they would watch the lightning
darting across black clouds and shivering huge fragments of rock
in its terrible passage. Sometimes they would witness the great,
glorious orb of gold sink behind the far distant mountains which
girded the horizon, and then watch the advance of grey twilight,
and the little stars coming forth in beauty, and the silver moon
rising in her splendour, till the cold dews of night began to fall;
and then they would retire to their beds in the cave with hearts
full of joy and thankfulness.

One evening they were seated in this cave by a large blazing fire
of turf which cast its lurid light to the high arched roof and illuminated
the tall and stately pillars, cut by the hand of nature out of the
stony rock, with a cheerful red glare that appeared strange in this
desolate land, which no fires had ever before visited, except those
fierce flames of death which flash from the heavens when robed in
the dreadful majesty of thunder. They were seated in this cave then,
listening to the howling night-wind as it swept in mournful cadences
through the trees of the forest which encircled the foot of the mountain
and bordered the stream which flowed round it. They were quite silent,
and their thoughts were occupied by those that were afar off, and
whom it was their fate most likely never more to behold.

O’Donell was thinking of his noble master and his young princes;
of the thousands of miles which intervened between him and them;
and the sad, silent tear gushed forth as he ruminated on the happiness
of those times, when his master frowned not, when the gloom of care
gave place to the smile of friendship, when he would talk to him
and laugh with him, and be to him, not as a brother,—no, no, but
as a mighty warrior, who, relaxing from his haughtiness, would now
and then converse with his high officers in a strain of vivacity
and playful humour not to be equalled. Next he viewed him in his
mind’s eye at the head of his army. He heard, in the ears of his
imagination, the buzz of expectation, of hope, and supposition which
hummed round him as his penetrating eye, with a still keenness of
expression, was fixed on the distant ranks of the enemy. Then he
heard his authoritative voice exclaim: ‘Onward, brave sons of freedom!
Onward to the battle!’ And, lastly, his parting words to him: ‘In
prosperity or in misery, in sorrow or in joy, in populous cities
or in desolate wildernesses, my prayer shall go with you!’ darted
across his mind with such painful distinctness, that he at length
gave way to his uncontrollable grief at the thought that he should
never behold his beloved and mighty commander more; and burst into
a flood of tears.

‘What is the matter, Henry?’ exclaimed Delancy.

‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ was the reply; and they were resuming their
tacit thinking, when a voice was heard outside the cavern, which
broke strangely upon the desolate silence and that land which for
thousands of years had heard no sound save the howling of the wind
through the forest, the echoing of the thunder among mountains, or
the solitary murmuring of the river; if we except the presence of
O’Donell and Delancy.

‘Listen!’ cried Alexander; ‘listen! What is that?’

‘It is the sound of a man’s voice,’ replied Henry; and then snatching
up a burning torch he rushed to the mouth of the cave, followed by
Delancy. When they had got there they saw the figure of a very old
man sitting on the damp, wet ground, moaning and complaining bitterly.
They went up to him. At their approach he rose and said:

‘Are you human or supernatural beings?’

They assured him that they were human. He went on:

‘Then why have you taken up your abode in this land of the grave?’

O’Donell answered that he would relate to him all the particulars
if he would take shelter for the night with them. The old man consented,
and when they were all assembled round the cheerful fire, O’Donell
fulfilled his promise; and then requested the old man to tell them
how he came to be travelling there. He complied, and began as follows:—




CHAPTER IV

OLD MAN’S TALE

I was the son of a respectable merchant in Moussoul. My father intended
to bring me up to his own trade, but I was idle and did not like
it. One day, as I was playing in the street, a very old man came
up to me and asked me if I would go with him. I asked him where he
was going. He replied that if I would go with him he would show me
very wonderful things. This raised my curiosity and I consented.
He immediately took me by the hand and hurried me out of the city
of Moussoul so quickly that my breath was almost stopped, and it
seemed as if we glided along in the air, for I could hear no sound
of any footsteps. We continued on our course for a long time, till
we came to a glen surrounded by very high mountains. How we passed
over these mountains I could never tell. In the middle of the glen
there was a small fountain of very clear water. My conductor directed
me to drink of it. This I did and immediately I found myself in a
palace, the glory of which far exceeds any description which I can
give. The tall, stately pillars, reaching from heaven to earth, were
formed of the finest, purest diamonds; the pavement sparkling with
gold and precious stones; and the mighty dome, made solemn and awful
by its stupendous magnitude, was of a single emerald. In the midst
of this grand and magnificent palace was a lamp like the sun, the
radiance of which made all the palace to flash and glitter with an
almost fearful grandeur. The ruby sent forth a streak of crimson
light, the topaz gold, the sapphire intensest purple, and the dome
poured a flood of deep, clear splendour which overcame all the other
gaudy lights by its mild, triumphant glory. In this palace were thousands
and tens of thousands of fairies and genii, some of whom flitted
lightly among the blazing lamps to the sound of unearthly music,
which died and swelled in a stream of wild grandeur, suited to the
words they sang:—

    In this fairy land of light
        No mortals e’er have been;
    And the dreadful grandeur of this sight
        By them hath not been seen.
    It would strike them shuddering to the earth
        Like the flash from a thunder-cloud;
    It would quench their light and joyous mirth
        And fit them for the shroud.
    The rising of our palaces
        Like visions of the deep,
    And the glory of their structure,
        No mortal voice can speak.

                _Chorus:_

        The music of our songs,
            And our mighty trumpet’s swell,
        And the sounding of our silver harps,
            No mortal tongue can tell.

    Of us they know but little,
        Save when the storm doth rise,
    And the mighty waves are tossing
        Against the archèd skies.
    Then oft they see us striding
        O’er the billow’s snow-white foam,
    Or hear us speak in thunder
        When we stand, in grandeur lone,
    On the darkest of the mighty clouds
        Which veil the pearly moon,
    Around us lightning flashing,
        Night’s blackness to illume.

                _Chorus:_

        The music of our songs,
            And our mighty trumpet’s swell,
        And the sounding of our silver harps,
            No mortal tongue can tell.

When they had finished there was a dead silence for about half an
hour; and then the palace began slowly and gradually to vanish, till
it disappeared entirely, and I found myself in the glen surrounded
by high mountains, and the fountain, illuminated by the cold light
of the moon, springing up in the middle of the valley; and standing
close by was the old man who had conducted me to this enchanted place.
He turned round and I could see that his countenance had an expression
of strange severity which I had not before observed.

‘Follow me,’ he said.

I obeyed, and we began to ascend the mountain. It is needless to
trouble you with a repetition of my adventures. Suffice it to say
that after two months’ time we arrived at a large temple. We entered
it. The interior as well as the outside had a very gloomy and ominous
aspect, being entirely built of black marble. The old man suddenly
seized me and dragged me to an altar at the upper end of the temple;
then, forcing me down on my knees, he made me swear that I would
be his servant for ever. This promise I faithfully kept, notwithstanding
the dreadful scenes of magic of which every day of my life I was
forced to be a witness. One day he told me he would discharge me
from the oath I had taken, and commanded me to leave his service.
I obeyed, and, after wandering about the world for many years, I,
one evening, laid myself down on a little bank by the roadside, intending
to pass the night there. Suddenly, I found myself raised in the air
by invisible hands. In a short time I lost sight of the earth, and
continued on my course through the clouds till I became insensible;
and, when I recovered from my swoon, I found myself lying outside
this cave. What may be my future destiny I know not.




CHAPTER V

DEPARTURE OF THE OLD MAN—DISAPPEARANCE OF DELANCY—TRANSPORTATION
OF O’DONELL HIS ARRIVAL AT THE CITY—HIS ARRIVAL AT THE PALACE, AND
HIS INTERVIEW WITH HIS CHIEF HE FINDS DELANCY

When the old man had finished his tale, O’Donell and Delancy thanked
him for the relation, adding at the same time that they had never
heard anything half so wonderful. Then, as it was very late, they
all retired to rest. Next morning, O’Donell awoke very early, and,
looking round the cave, he perceived the bed of leaves on which the
old man had lain to be empty. Then rising he went out of the cave.

The sky was covered with red, fiery clouds, except those in the east
whose edges were tinged with the bright rays of the morning sun as
they strove to hide its glory with their dark veil of vapours, now
all beauty and radiance by the golden lines of light which streaked
their gloomy surface beneath this storm-portending sky; and, far
off, to the westward rose two tremendous rocks whose summits were
enveloped with black clouds rolling one above another with an awful
magnificence well-suited to the land of wilderness and mountain which
they canopied.

Gliding along in the air between these two rocks was a chariot of
light. In the chariot sat a figure the expression of whose countenance
was that of the old man, armed with the majesty and might of a spirit.

O’Donell stood at the mouth of the cave watching it till it vanished,
and then, calling Delancy, he related the circumstance to him.

Some years after this, Alexander went out one morning in search of
the fruit on which they subsisted. Noon came, and he had not returned;
evening, and still no tidings of him. O’Donell began to be alarmed
and set out in search of him, but could nowhere find him. One whole
day he spent in wandering about the rocks and mountains, and in the
evening he came back to his cave weary and faint with hunger and
thirst. Days, weeks, months, passed away, and no Delancy appeared.
O’Donell might now be said to be truly miserable. He would sit on
a rock for hours together and cry out: ‘Alexander! Alexander!’ but
receive no answer but the distant echoing of his voice among the
rocks. Sometimes he fancied it was another person answering him,
and he would listen earnestly till it died away. Then, sinking into
utter despair again, he would sit till the dews of night began to
fall, when he would retire to his cave to pass the night in anguish,
broken slumbers, or in thinking of his beloved comrade, whom he could
never see more. In one of these dreadful intervals he took up a small
parcel. Opening it, he saw lying before him two locks of soft, curly
hair, shining like burnished gold. He gazed on them for a little
time, and thought of the words of those who gave them to him:

‘Take this then, that you may remember us when you dwell with only
the wild beasts of the desert, or the great eagle of the mountain.’

He burst into a flood of tears. He wrung his hands in sorrow, and
in the anguish of the moment he wished that he could once more see
them and the mighty warrior King, their father, if it cost him his
life.

Just at that instant a loud clap of thunder shook the roof of the
cave. A sound like the rushing of wind was heard, and a mighty Genius
stood before him.

‘I know thy wish,’ cried he with a loud and terrible voice, ‘and
I will grant it. In two months’ time thou returnest to the castle,
whence thou camest hither, and surrenderest thyself into my power!’

O’Donell promised that he would; and instantly he found himself at
the door of the old castle, and in the land of his birth.

He pursued his journey for three days, and on the third day he arrived
at the mountain which overlooked the city. It was a beautiful evening
in the month of September, and the full moon was shedding her tranquil
light on all the face of nature. The city was lying in its splendour
and magnificence surrounded by the broad stream of the Guadima. The
palace was majestically towering in the midst of it, and all its
pillars and battlements seemed in the calm light of the moon as if
they were transformed into silver by the touch of a fairy’s wand.

O’Donell stayed not long to contemplate this beautiful scene, but,
descending the mountain, he soon crossed the fertile plain which
led to the city, and, entering the gates, he quickly arrived at the
palace. Without speaking to any one, he entered the inner court of
the palace by a secret way with which he was acquainted, and then
going up a flight of steps and crossing a long gallery he arrived
at the King’s private apartments. The door was half open. He looked
in and beheld two very handsome young men sitting together and reading.
He instantly recognised them, and was going to step forward, when
the door opened and the Great Duke entered. O’Donell could contain
himself no longer, and, rushing in, he threw himself at the feet
of His Grace.

‘O’Donell! is this you?’ exclaimed the Duke.

‘It is, my most noble master!’ answered O’Donell, almost choking
with joy. The young princes instantly embraced him, while he almost
smothered them with caresses.

After awhile they became tranquil, and then O’Donell, at the request
of the Duke, related all his adventures since he parted with them,
not omitting the condition on which he was now in the palace.

When he had ended a loud voice was heard saying that he was free
from his promise and might spend the rest of his days in his native
city.

Some time after this, as O’Donell was walking in the streets, he
met a gentleman whom he thought he had seen before, but could not
recollect where or under what circumstances. After a little conversation
he discovered that he was Alexander Delancy, that he was now a rich
merchant in the city of Paris, and high in favour with the Emperor
Napoleon. As may be supposed they both were equally delighted at
the discovery. They ever after lived happily in their separate cities;
and so ends my little tale.

    C. BRONTË,
    _August 17th_, 1829.




THE ADVENTURES OF ERNEST ALEMBERT

FIRST printed, from the original manuscript, in 1896, in an edition
limited to thirty copies for private circulation only. Edited by
Thomas J. Wise. This volume contains facsimiles of two pages of the
manuscript. Reprinted in _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_,
edited by W. Robertson Nicoll, M.A., and Thomas J. Wise, vol. ii.,
1896, pp. 47-79.

In the Preface to the privately printed volume we are informed by
Mr. Wise, that—

    The manuscript of ‘The Adventures of Ernest Alembert’
    consists of sixteen octavo pages, measuring 7 1/4 by 4 1/2 inches,
    stitched in a wrapper of coarse brown paper, with the following
    title written in Charlotte’s hand upon the front: ‘The
    Adventures of Ernest Alembert. A Tale by C. Brontë. May 25,
    1880.’ The book is written in a free running hand, far more
    readily deciphered than the minute characters employed in the
    majority of these early books. Unlike most of these it has no
    title-page save that on the wrapper, but a large portion of the
    final page is occupied by an inscription, after the manner of a
    colophon.

C. W. H.




    THE ADVENTURES
    OF
    ERNEST ALEMBERT

    A TALE
    BY
    C. BRONTË

    May 25, 1830.




CHAPTER I

MANY years ago there lived in a certain country a youth named Ernest
Alembert. He came of an ancient and noble race: but one of his ancestors
having been beheaded in consequence of a suspicion of high treason,
the family since that time had gradually decayed, until at length
the only remaining branch of it was this young man of whom I write.

His abode was a small cottage situated in the midst of a little garden,
and overshadowed by the majestic ruins of his ancestral castle. The
porch of his hut, adorned by the twisting clematis and jessamine,
fronted the rising sun, and here in the cool summer mornings he would
often sit and watch its broad orb slowly appearing above the blue
distant mountains. The eminence on which his cottage was built formed
one side of a wide valley, watered by a stream whose hoarse voice
was softened into a gentle murmur ere it reached the summit of a
hill. The opposing rocks which guarded the vale on the other side
were covered by a wood of young ash and sycamore trees, whose branching
foliage, clothing them in a robe of living green, hid their rugged
aspect, save where some huge fragment, all grey and moss-grown, jutted
far over the valley, affording a fine contrast to the leafy luxuriant
branch which perhaps rested on the projection, and imparting an appearance
of picturesque wildness and variety to the scene. The valley itself
was sprinkled with tall shady elms and poplars, that shaded the soft
verdant turf ornamented by cowslips, violets, daisies, golden cups,
and a thousand other sweet flowers, which shed abroad their perfumes
when the morning and evening summer dews, or the rains of spring,
descend softly and silently to the earth. On the borders of the stream
a few weeping willows stood dipping their long branches into the
water, where their graceful forms were clearly reflected. Through
an opening in the vale this noisy river was observed gradually expanding
and smoothing until at last it became a wide lake, in calm weather
a glassy unruffled mirror for all the clouds and stars of heaven
to behold themselves in as they sailed through the spangled or dappled
firmament. Beyond this lake arose high hills, at noonday almost
indistinguishable from the blue sky, but at sunset glowing in the
richest purple, like a sapphire barrier to the dim horizon.

One evening in autumn as Ernest sat by his blazing fire and listened
to the wind which roared past his dwelling, shaking the little casement
till the leaves of the wild vine which curled around it fell rustling
to the earth, he heard suddenly the latchet of his door raised. A
man clothed in a dark mantle, with long hair, and a beard of raven
blackness, entered. At sight of this singular figure he started up,
and the stranger immediately accosted him as follows:

‘My name is Rufus Warner. I come from a great distance, and having
been overtaken by darkness in the valley I looked about for some
roof where I might pass the night. At length I espied a light streaming
through this window. I made the best of my way to it, and now I request
shelter from you.’

Ernest, after gazing a moment at him, complied with his demand. He
closed the door, and they both seated themselves by the fire. They
sat thus for some time without interchanging a word, the stranger
with his eyes intently fixed on the ascending flame, apparently quite
inattentive to any other object; and Ernest as intently viewing him,
and revolving in his mind who he might be—the cause of his strange
attire—his long beard—his unbroken taciturnity—not unmixed with a
feeling of awe allied to fear at the presence of a being of whose
nature he was totally ignorant, and who, for aught he knew, might
be the harbinger of no good to his humble dwelling. Dim, dreamlike
reminiscences passed slowly across his mind concerning tales of spirits
who, in various shapes; had appeared to men shortly before their
deaths, as if to prepare them for the ghostly society with which
they would soon have to mingle.

At length, to relieve himself of these almost insupportable thoughts,
he ventured to accost his mysterious guest by inquiring whence he
came.

‘From a rich and fruitful land,’ replied the stranger, ‘where the
trees bear without ceasing, and earth casts up flowers which sparkle
like jewels, the sun shines for ever, and the moon and stars are
not quenched even at noonday; where the rocks lose themselves in
the skies, and the tops of the mountains are invisible by reason
of the firmament which rests upon them.’

The answer, uttered in a hollow and hoarse voice, convinced Ernest
of the truth of his surmises; but a charm seemed to have been cast
upon him which prevented him from being overcome by terror, and he
replied as follows:

‘If what you say is true, I should like exceedingly to follow you
into your country instead of remaining here, where I am often chilled
by frost and icy winds, and saddened by the absence of the cheering
warmth of the sun.’

‘If thou wilt go, thou mayst,’ replied the stranger; and Ernest,
under the influence of a secret fascination, consented.

‘To-morrow, by daybreak, we will set out,’ said his guest; and then,
as the night was far advanced, they both retired to their straw couches,
after partaking of a simple supper which Ernest had hastily provided.




CHAPTER II

The rising dawn found Ernest and his unknown guide wending their
way down the long valley. It was a still, gloomy October morning.
The sky was obscured by grey clouds, and the cold wind which whistled
among the yellow withered leaves of the wood that covered the rocks
blew occasionally some mizzling drops of rain into the faces of the
two travellers. The distant prospect of the lake and mountains was
hidden by a veil of mist, and when the sun rose above them his presence
was only revealed by a whitish light gleaming through the thin watery
atmosphere. The only sounds which fell on the ear were the howling
of the blast in the caverned sides of the valley, and the melancholy
murmuring of the stream as its waves beat against the rugged stones
which obstructed its passage.

They proceeded along in a straight course till they came to the borders
of the lake, where the guide stopped, saying: ‘We must now cross
this water.’ Ernest gazed at him a moment, and then said:

‘How can we? We have no boat, and I lack the power to swim for so
long a time as it would require to cross this lake.’

No sooner had he uttered these words than a light gale arose which
ruffled and agitated the quiet surface of the lake. Presently a tiny
skiff appeared gliding over the waves, and in a few minutes reached
the bank whereon they stood. The stranger quickly sprang into the
bark, and Ernest, though filled with terror at the conviction that
he was now in the hands of a supernatural being, felt himself compelled
by a strong impulse to follow whither he was led. No sooner were
they seated than a large white sail unfurled seemingly of its own
accord, and in a few moments they found themselves nearing the opposite
shore, so lightly and swiftly this fairy vessel had borne them over
the lake.

No sooner had they touched the bank with their feet than a huge billow
like a mountain swept over the water. Immediately the swelling waves
subsided, the rising foam vanished, and a great calm fell on the
bosom of the lake. At the same moment Ernest felt his fear pass away,
and it was succeeded by a feeling of courage against danger, mingled
with a certain curiosity to see what was to come. After they had
travelled a great distance they came to a wide moor that stretched
to the verge of the horizon. This was perfectly level, save at one
spot where tall black rocks were seen raising their heads towards
the sky. About evening they reached these rocks, when they stopped
and sat down to rest themselves. The scene was now grand and awful
in the extreme. Around lay the dark desert heath, unenlivened by
a single streak of verdure; its beautiful pink flowers were withered,
and their fragrance had vanished. The mellow hum of the bee was no
longer heard about them, for he had gathered his honey and was gone.
Above rose the tremendous precipices whose vast shadows blackened
all that portion of the moor, and deepened the frown upon the unpropitious
face of nature. At intervals from the summit of the rocks shrill
screams, uttered by some bird of prey which had built its nest upon
them, swept through the arch of heaven in which wild clouds were
careering to and fro as if torn by a horrible tempest. The sun had
long since sunk to rest, and the full moon, like a broad shield dyed
with blood, now ascended the stormy sky. A mournful halo surrounded
her, and through that warning veil she looked from her place in the
firmament, her glorious light dimmed and obscured, till the earth
only knew by a faint ruddy tint that her white-robed handmaiden beheld
her. All the attendant train of stars shone solemnly among the clouds,
and by their abated splendour acknowledged the presence of their
peerless queen.

After having viewed the scene some time the stranger rose, and beckoned
Ernest to follow him. This he did, until he came to a particular
part of the rocks where was seen a profound cavern. This the stranger
entered, and Ernest felt himself impelled to enter too. The track
seemed to incline downwards, and as they went deeper and deeper they
soon lost sight of the upper world, and not a ray of light appeared
to illumine the thick darkness around them. At length a faint grey
dawn became visible, and at the same instant a warm and gentle breeze
stole past them which softened the cold raw air of the cave. Anon
they began to behold branches of trees waving above them, and saw
that they trod upon a smooth and velvety turf. In a short time, by
the aid of the increasing light, they perceived that they were in
a deep gloomy forest, which, as they advanced, gradually thinned
into a pleasant shady wood, becoming more beautiful as they passed
on, until at last it assumed the appearance of a delightful grove.
From this they soon emerged into an open and graceful country. A
wide plain was stretched before them, covered with the most enchanting
verdure. Graceful trees sprang out of the earth bearing delicious
fruits of a perfect transparency; others rose to a great height,
casting down their branches laden with white blossoms, and dark flourishing
leaves. Crystal fountains, that fell with a murmuring noise, were
seen glittering through bowers of roses and tall lilies. The melody
of a thousand birds was heard from groves of myrtle and laurel which
bordered a river whose waters glided through the plain. Arching rocks
of diamond and amethyst, up which plants of immortal verdure crept,
sparkled in the light and lent variety to the lovely prospect. The
plain was bounded by hills, some of which rose majestically to the
heavens, covered with vines and pomegranates, while others only gently
swelled upon the sight, and then sank into calm and peaceful valleys.
Over all this scene hung an atmosphere of crystal clearness. Not
one fleecy cloud sullied the radiant sky; not one wreath of mist
floated over the brows of the distant mountains. The whole land lay
in stainless purity, arrayed in a robe of spiritual and unearthly
light.

When Ernest emerged from the wood, this view, bursting at once upon
his eyes, completely overpowered him. For a long time he stood speechless,
gazing intently upon it. His mind seemed to be elevated and enlarged
by the resplendency of the vision. All his senses were delighted:
his hearing by the combination of sweet sounds which poured upon
it, his sight by the harmonious blending of every colour and scene,
and his smell by the fragrant perfume of each flower which bloomed
in these everlasting fields. At length, in ecstatic admiration, he
hastened to thank his conductor for bringing him thither, but when
he turned the stranger had gone. The forest through which he came
had vanished also, and in its stead was a vast ocean whose extent
seemed altogether boundless. Ernest, now more than ever filled with
astonishment, remained for a while alternating between fear and wonder;
then, rousing himself, he uttered the name of his guide aloud. But
his voice was only answered by a faint echo. After this he walked
a considerable distance into the country without meeting with one
visible being either human or supernatural. In a few hours he had
traversed the plain and reached the acclivities which bordered it,
and then entered a wide and mountainous land totally different from
that which he had left. He wandered among the rocks heedless whither
he went until twilight fell, when he longed to return, but was entirely
unable to detect the way. No signs appeared of the plain he had quitted,
save that on the southern horizon a beautiful light lingered long
after sunset, and occasionally, as the wind rose, faint melodious
sounds were heard floating fitfully by.

After a while, when the night had closed in, Ernest came to the brow
of a lofty precipice. Overcome with fatigue he cast himself upon
the ground and began to gaze into the profound depth beneath him.
As he lay a deathlike stillness fell upon the earth. No voice was
heard in the gloomy region, the air was untracked by any wing. No
footstep crushed the desolate sands. Echo whispered not in the caverned
rocks, and even the winds seemed to have held their breath. At length
he perceived in the tremendous gulf a thick vapour slowly rising.
It gradually expanded, until the chasm was filled with a dense cloud
swaying to and fro as if moved by an invisible power. Then he heard
a dull hollow noise like water roaring in subterraneous caves. By
degrees the cloud rose and enlarged, sweeping round him till all
things vanished from his sight, and he found himself encircled by
its curling mist. Then he heard music; subdued and harmonious, resembling
the soft breathings of flutes and dulcimers. This was suddenly broken
by a flood of warlike melody rolling from golden trumpets and great
harps of silver, which now suddenly gleamed upon him as the curtain
of clouds rent and the whole scene was revealed. A pavement of sapphire
sparkled, from which flashes of radiant purple light proceeded, mingling
with the glory of an emerald dome that proudly arched a palace whose
pillars were the purest diamond. Vases of agate and porphyry sent
up wreaths of refined incense formed of the united fragrance of a
thousand flowers. Beings of immortal beauty and splendour stood in
shining ranks around a throne of ruby guarded by golden lions, and
sounds so sweet and enchanting swelled on his ear that Ernest, overwhelmed
with the too powerful magnificence, sank senseless on the bright
pavement. When he recovered from his swoon he found himself no longer
surrounded by the gorgeous splendour of the fairy palace, but reposing
in a wood whose branches were just moved by a fresh moaning wind.
The first sunbeams penetrating the green umbrage lighted up the dewdrops
which glistened on tender blades of grass, or trembled in the cups
of the wild flowers which bordered a little woodland well. When Ernest
opened his eyes he beheld standing close to him a man whom he presently
recognised to be his guide. He started up, and the stranger addressed
him as follows:

‘I am a fairy. You have been, and still are, in the land of fairies.
Some wonders you have seen; many more you shall see if you choose
to follow me still.’

Ernest consented. The fairy immediately stepped into the well, and
he felt compelled to do the same. They sank gradually downwards.
By degrees the water changed into mists and vapours; the forms of
clouds were dimly seen floating around. These increased until at
length they were wholly enveloped in their folds. In a short time
they seemed to land, and Ernest felt his feet resting on a solid
substance. Suddenly the clouds were dissipated, and he found himself
in a lovely and enchanting island encircled by a boundless expanse
of water. The trees in the island were beautiful: rose laurels and
flowering myrtles, creeping pomegranates, clematis and vines, intermixed
with majestic cypresses and groves of young elms and poplars. The
fairy led him to a natural bower of lofty trees whose thick branches
mingling above formed a shady retreat from the sun, which now glowed
in meridian splendour. This bower was on a green bank of the isle,
embroidered with every kind of sweet and refreshing flower. The sky
was perfectly free from clouds, but a milky haze softened the intense
brilliancy of the blue and gave a more unbroken calmness to the air.
The lake lay in glassy smoothness. From its depths arose a sound
of subdued music, a breath of harmony which just waved the blue
water-lilies lying among their dark green leaves upon its surface.
While Ernest reposed on the green turf and viewed this delightful
prospect, he saw a vision of beauty pass before him. First he heard
the melody of a horn, which seemed to come from dim mountains that
appeared to the east. It rose again nearer, and a majestic stag of
radiant whiteness, with branching and beaming golden horns, bounded
suddenly into sight, pursued by a train of fairies mounted upon
winged steeds, caparisoned so magnificently that rays of light shot
from them, and the whole air was illumined with their glory. They
flew across the lake swifter than wind. The water rose sparkling and
foaming about them, agitated and roaring as if by a storm. When they
had disappeared Ernest turned towards the fairy, who still continued
with him, and expressed his admiration of the beautiful scene which
had just vanished. The fairy replied that it was but a shadow compared
with the things infinitely more grand and magnificent which were still
reserved for him to behold. Ernest at these words replied that he felt
extremely impatient for the time to come when he might see them. His
conductor arose, and commanded Alembert to follow. This he did, and
they proceeded to enter a dark and thick wood which grew on the banks
of the island. They journeyed here for several miles, and at length
emerged into an open glade of the forest, where was a rock formed
like a small temple, on the summit of which, covered with grass and
various kinds of flowers, grew several young poplars and other trees.
This curious edifice the fairy entered alone. After remaining some
time he reappeared, and approaching Ernest bade him look up. Alembert
instantly complied, and, as he did so, beheld a chariot, which shone
as the clouds that the sun glorifies at his setting, descending from
the skies. It was drawn by two swans, larger than the fabulous roc,
whose magnificent necks, arched like a rainbow, were surrounded by a
bright halo reflected from the intense radiancy and whiteness of their
plumage. Their expanded wings lightened the earth under them, and, as
they drew nearer, their insufferable splendour so dazzled the senses of
Ernest that he sank in a state of utter exhaustion to the ground.

His conductor then touched him with a small silver wand, and immediately
a strange stupor came ever him, which in a few minutes rendered him
perfectly insensible. When he awoke from this swoon he found himself
in an exceedingly wide and lofty apartment, whose vast walls were
formed of black marble. Its huge gloomy dome was illumined by pale
lamps that glimmered like stars through a curtain of clouds. Only
one window was visible, and that, of an immense size, and arched
like those of an ancient Gothic cathedral, was veiled by ample black
drapery. In the midst arose a colossal statue, whose lifted hands
were clasped in strong supplication, and whose upraised eyes and
fixed features betokened excessive anguish. It was rendered distinctly
visible by the light of the tapers which burned around. As Ernest
gazed on this mysterious room he felt a sensation of extreme awe,
such as he had never before experienced. He knew that he was in a
world of spirits. The scene before him appeared like a dim dream.
Nothing was clear, for a visionary mist hovered over all things,
that imparted a sense of impenetrable obscurity to his mental as
well as his bodily eyesight.

After continuing awhile in this state, amidst the most profound silence,
he heard the sweet soft tones of an æolian harp stealing through
the tall pillared arches. The subdued melody rose and filled the
air with mournful music as the wind began to moan around the dome.
By degrees these sounds sank to rest, and the deathly stillness returned
with a more chilling and oppressive power. It continued for a long
period until its unbroken solemnity became supernatural and insupportable.
Ernest struck the ground with his foot, but the blow produced no
sound. He strove to speak, but his voice gave forth no utterance.
At that instant a crashing peal of thunder burst. The wild air roared
round the mighty building, which shook and trembled to its centre.
Then, as the wind arose, the music swelled again, mingling its majestic
floods of sound with the thunder that now pealed unceasingly. The
unearthly tones that rolled along the blast exceeded everything that
any mortal had heard before, and Ernest was nigh overwhelmed by the
awe which their weird majesty inspired.

Suddenly the fairy who had been his guide appeared, and approaching
the window beckoned him to come near. Ernest obeyed, and on looking
out his eyes were bewildered by the scene which presented itself
to his view. Nothing was visible beneath but billowy clouds, black
as midnight, rolling around a tower a thousand feet in height, on
whose terrible summit he stood. Long he gazed intently on the wild
vapours tossed to and fro like waves in a storm. At times they lay
in dense gloom and darkness, then globes or flashes of fire illumined
them with sudden light.

At length the thunder and the wind ceased, the clouds slowly dispersed,
and a growing brightness shone upon them. Beyond the horizon, through
the dismal piles of mist fast fading away, a fair vision gleamed
which filled Alembert: with wonder and delight. A beautiful city
appeared, whose lovely hues charmed the eye with their mild attractive
splendour. Its palaces, arches, pillars, and temples all smiled in
their own gentle radiance, and a clear wide stream (transformed by
the distance into a silver thread) which circled its crystal walls
was spanned by a bright rainbow, through whose arch it flowed into
a broad, expanse of green hills, woods, and valleys, enamelled by
a thousand flowers that sent up their united fragrance so high that
even the atmosphere around the summit of the lofty tower was faintly
perfumed by it.

‘That city,’ said the guide, ‘is the abode of our fairy king, whose
palace you may see rising above those long groves near the southern
gates.’

Ernest looked in the direction indicated, but beheld only a star
of light, for the palace was formed of certain materials too brilliant
for any but the eyes of fairies to behold. He continued some time
at the window, until the prospect beneath, as twilight shed her dim
influence over it, began to fade. Slowly the stars looked forth one
by one from the sky’s deepening azure, and the full moon as she ascended
the east gradually paled the bright orange-dye which glowed in the
western heavens. The murmur of the aerial city died away. Only at
intervals was heard the voice of the giant harp breaking the stillness
of eventide, and its wild mournful melody as it floated on the balmy
breeze served but to enhance the calm, sacred, and mysterious feeling
of that peaceful hour.

‘We must now depart,’ said the fairy, turning suddenly to Alembert,
and at the same instant the latter found himself upon the very summit
of the tower. His conductor then, without warning, pushed him from
the dizzy eminence into the void beneath.

Ernest gave a loud shriek of terror, but his fear was instantly dispelled
by a delightful sensation which followed. He seemed to sink gently
and slowly downwards, borne on a soft gale which now fanned his cheek,
and guided by invisible beings who appeared to check the velocity
of his fall, and to moderate his descent into a quiet and easy transition
to the regions of the earth.

After a while he alighted in the fairy city, still attended by his
conductor. They proceeded along a magnificent street, paved with
the rarest gems, gorgeously sparkling in the moonlight, until they
arrived at a majestic palace of lapis lazuli whose golden gates rolled
back at their approach, and admitted them to a wide hall floored
with the purest alabaster, richly carved and figured, and lighted
by silver lamps perfumed with the most costly odours.

Ernest was now grown weary, and the fairy led him into another apartment
more beautiful than the first. Here was a splendid couch overhung
by a canopy adorned with emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, and rubies,
whose excessive brilliancy illuminated all the room. On this couch
Alembert flung himself joyfully down to rest. In a few moments a
profound slumber closed his eyelids, and his sleep continued undisturbed
until break of day, when he was awakened by the sweet singing of
birds. He arose, and on looking forth from his casement beheld an
immense garden filled with the sweetest flowers, and with rare plants
unknown among mortals. Long rows of lofty trees, bearing fruit that
sparkled like precious stones, shaded green walks strewn with fallen
blossoms. On their fresh verdant branches sat innumerable birds,
clothed in rich and resplendent plumage, who filled the air with
delightful and harmonious warbling.

Ernest was astonished at beholding no appearance of the city, but
continued for some time listening to the enchanting music of the
birds, enjoying the fragrant perfume of the blossoms, and the dark
grandeur of the majestic trees that surrounded him. This contemplation
was at length interrupted by his conductor, who now appeared in the
apartment. Without speaking, his guide led him from the chamber,
and when they reached the open air bade him by a sign to look around.
Ernest obeyed, and in place of the palace he saw a high bower formed
of trees whose flowers were more lovely than the finest roses, and
sweeter than lilies or camellias. The prospect then suddenly changed,
and a deep glen, embosomed in hills whose sides were wooded and
rock-strewn, took the place of the garden. A deep, clear-watered river
flowed past them. Into this the fairy plunged, and Ernest, forced by
an overmastering spell, followed him. For a long time they sank slowly
down and nought was visible save the waters that swallowed them.

At length, leagues beneath, a new realm dawned upon Ernest’s astonished
sight. Their speed now accelerated, and soon they arrived at the
abode of a fairy king. The palace was brilliant as a liquid diamond.
A great fountain rushing upwards from the earth parted into a thousand
arches and pillars, through whose transparent surfaces appeared a
quantity of emeralds, rubies, and other gems which the fountain continually
cast up. The palace roof was formed of the frozen spray that proceeded
like a vapour from the living arches ever in motion. This, congealed
into round lucid drops, assumed the appearance of a lofty dome, from
which descended other pillars of a larger size that seemed to support
it. Over the summit of the dome was suspended in the air a sun of
insufferable brightness, and from within gleamed a hundred stars
sparkling with supernatural splendour.

By reason of the translucent nature of the edifice the interior was
perfectly visible, and Ernest saw the fairy king seated on a glittering
and revolving throne. He was surrounded by attendants, one of whom
held a diamond cup filled with the honeydew of wild flowers. Others
played sweetly upon silver harps and lutes, or sang in more melodious
tones than the nightingale or skylark.

It would be impossible to relate all the marvellous adventures that
befel Alembert whilst he abode in the land of Faery. He saw their
midnight revels in many a wild glen, and witnessed how they feasted
in the greenwood beneath the solemn moon. He viewed their pleasures
and their pageants, and learned the spells by which they drew the
lonely traveller into their enchanted circlet. Often he watched their
sports by the ‘beached margin of the sea,’ and saw the rolling billows
rest calmly under the magic influence of their incantations. He heard
and felt the sweet witchery of their songs chanted at unearthly banquets,
and when the sound swelled until it reached the starlit sky the revolving
worlds arrested their mighty courses and stood still in the charmed
heavens to attend. But this life in time grew wearying and insupportable.
He longed once more to dwell among humankind, to hear again the language
of mortals, and to tread upon the old green grass-covered turf, under
the shade of the earthly trees he loved so well. At length the fairies
perceived that the yearning to return was filling the bosom of Alembert,
and that his heart was straining with the desire for home. This desire
they appreciated, for they knew well that no mortal born of mortals
could for long endure the light and fleeting glories of the land
of Fays. Thus it was that they determined to relinquish him, and
to bestow upon him the crown of his hopes. The following tells the
manner in which they gave fulfilment to his wish.




CHAPTER III

It was a fair and mild evening in the decline of summer, when all
the elfin courts assembled within a dell, one of those privileged
spots which the pinching frosts and snows of winter are unable to
deprive of their everlasting green array. The soft velvet turf served
them for seats, and the profusion of sweet flowers with which it
was embroidered shed around a refreshing perfume. The lily canopy
was raised, and the glittering table was covered with crystal goblets
brimming with nectarous dew. The song of a lark now hymning his vespers
in the cloud-wrapped dome was all their music, and as its tones fell
on the silent earth they diffused a holy calm on all. Before the
festival began a fairy rose and advanced towards Alembert, who reposed
on the ground a little apart. Approaching him, he presented him with
a goblet, and bade him drink the contents. Ernest obeyed, and scarcely
had he done so when a strange stupor seized him, which slowly overpowered
all his senses. In a short time he sank into a profound slumber.

When he recovered from his stupor he found himself at the entrance
to a wide green vale, bounded by high hills, whose sides were clothed
with pleasant woods, which descended to their feet, and here and
there advanced a considerable way into the valley. At intervals enormous
rocks were scattered, whose rugged and moss-grown forms added a touch
of romance to the delightful scene. Nor were there wanting pleasant
groves, whose cool green shades offered welcome shelter to the toiling
and travel-wearied pilgrim. It was sunset, and not one purple cloud
was visible in all the radiant sky. The west swam in an ocean of
golden light that bathed the heavens in glory, and poured its reflected
splendour over half the world. Eastward a long line of sober red
appeared, gradually growing softer and paler towards the point of
sunrise. Above, all was a clear bright silvery blue, deepening at
the zenith, and faintly tinged with grey as it receded from the gorgeous
west. Beneath this sky the earth glowed with tints whose warm and
mellow richness could not have been surpassed by the loveliest scenes
in Italy. Hills, rocks, and trees shone invested in a lustrous halo
of beauty. The vale flowed with light, and a hundred flowers stirred
among their leaves as the sun shed its last beams over them. Long
Ernest lingered, gazing entranced upon the sight. He knew that this
was no delusive vision, and that no mystery hung upon its spell.
As he stood a sound stole past him like the music of a harp. He trembled,
fearing he was still held in the power of supernatural beings. The
sound swelled, and, gathering in volume, swept solemnly down the
wild glen, awakening low sweet echoes among the frowning rocks which
specked the lovely woods in which It was embosomed.

Soon, however, Ernest’s fear was dissipated, for he heard the music
accompanied by a human voice. He moved forward a step or two, and
then bent eagerly towards the spot whence the tones issued, striving
to catch the burthen of the uttered tones. This at length he did,
and this is the song that fell upon his ears:—

    Proudly the sun has sunk to rest
        Behind yon dim and distant hill;
    The busy noise of day has ceased,
        A holy calm the air doth fill.

    That softening haze which veils the light
        Of sunset in the gorgeous sky,
    Is dusk, grey harbinger of night,
        Now gliding onward silently.

    No sound rings through the solemn vale
        Save murmurs of those tall dark trees,
    Which raise eternally their wail,
        Bending beneath the twilight breeze.

    And my harp peals the woods among
        When vesper lifts its quiet eye,
    Commingling with each night-bird’s song
        That chants its vigils pensively.

    And here I sit, until night’s noon
        Hath gemmed the heavens with many a star,
    And sing beneath the wandering moon
        Who comes, high journeying, from afar.

    Oh! sweet to me is that still hour
        When frown the shades of night around,
    Deepening the gloom of forest bower;
        Filling the air with awe profound.

    I hush my harp, and hush my song,
        Low kneeling ’neath the lofty sky,
    I hark the nightingale prolong
        Her strain of wondrous melody,

    Forth gushing like a mountain rill,
        So rich, so deep, so clear and free;
    She pours it forth o’er dale and hill,
        O’er rock and river, lake and tree,

    Till morn comes, and, with rosy hand,
        Unbars the golden gates of day;
    Then, as at touch of magic wand,
        The earth is clad in fair array.

    Then from its couch the skylark springs;
        The trembling drops of glittering dew
    Are scattered, as with vigorous wings
        It mounts the glorious arch of blue.

Before the strain ceased the hues of sunset had begun to fade away,
yet sufficient light remained for Ernest to perceive a man of ancient
and venerable aspect seated at the mouth of a deep cavern, under
the shade of an immense oak, whose massive limbs and dense foliage
stood in dark relief against the sky. Every leaf and twig was dimly
pencilled on the silvery blue, the outline of the trunk and larger
branches alone being clearly visible. The stranger was clad in a
long white robe and dark mantle which partly enveloped his person,
and then, falling downwards, swept the ground in picturesque and
magnificent folds. His robe was confined by a black girdle, down
to which his snowy beard flowed in profusion, and formed a fine contrast
to his mantle and belt. His right hand rested upon a harp, whose
chords he now and then swept with his left, causing a few sweet transitory
notes to issue therefrom, which rose and swelled in an uncertain
cadence and then died away in the distance. As Ernest approached,
the harper raised his head, and demanded his name. When Alembert
had answered this question to the old man’s satisfaction, he requested
permission to seat himself beside him for a few moments that he might
rest. The harper instantly complied, and after a short pause asked
him whence he came, and whither he went, and the reason of his being
in so unfrequented and lonely a spot at such an unaccustomed hour.
Ernest in reply related the whole of his adventures, and by the time
he had completed their recital night had closed in, and the moon
had risen. His host now arose and invited him to lodge for that night
within his cave. Alembert gladly consented, and together they proceeded
to enter. When they were seated at their frugal supper of fruits
and herbs, Ernest in his turn begged the old man to recount the
circumstances of his own life. To this request he gave a ready assent,
and proceeded to unfold the following story:—

‘You have told me that your latter years have been spent among fairies.
I likewise abode for a time with supernatural beings, but theirs
was a less gentle nature than those whom you have described. When
yet: very young I became embued with the spirit of adventure, and
determined to go out and seek my fortune in the world. The quarter
of the globe which I fixed upon as the first scene of my wanderings
was Asia, and accordingly I embarked myself on board a ship bound
for Odessa. In a few days we set sail, and after a prosperous voyage
arrived at that part of the Russian dominions. From thence I proceeded
to Tcherkask, where I halted a few days, and then went on to Good-Gard,
a mountain in the Caucasus. Here I decided to venture upon crossing
that stupendous range alone. Upon communicating my intentions to
some of the natives, they solemnly warned me against such an enterprise,
assuring me that many powerful genii held their courts among the
snows of Elbruz and Kasbec. These words I disregarded, and as soon
as extreme fatigue would permit me I began to ascend the Good-Gard
road. With great difficulty I proceeded along this road for several
days, until I reached the towering Elbruz. During the whole of my
journey this mountain had been partly hidden from me by the minor
hills that surrounded it, but upon emerging from a gorge in the last
of these a full view of its tremendous magnitude burst upon my sight.
It was a fair and sunny afternoon in autumn when I first beheld the
sublime vision. The mountain was separated from me only by a lovely
green valley, through which a branch of the Aragua [2] wound its
silent course. Never shall I forget that inspiring scene. The mountain
towered before me, the grandeur of its radiant summit majestically
cleaving the skies; its yawning abysses and clefts sufficiently wide
to engulf a city; and its immovable aspect firm as if its base were
fixed beyond the seas. As I gazed, suddenly the mountain trembled,
the top rent asunder, and a huge grim spirit rose from the horrible
chasm thus produced. He raised his head to heaven, and uttered a
cry which shook all Georgia. At this mystic appearance I sank to
the ground insensible. When I recovered from my swoon I found myself
in a vast cave, illuminated only by an opening at the top, through
which one ray of light streamed in. On looking round I perceived
an iron door fitted in the side of the cave. This, with much difficulty,
I opened, and found beyond a narrow passage tending downwards. I
entered, and continued for several hours to follow whither it led.
At length I heard in the distance a dull noise like the roaring of
the sea, and after a while found myself borne upon the bosom of a
rushing wave. I was hurried through the waters without fear or injury,
whilst strange and ghastly scenes saluted my wondering eyes. Anon
I was walking at the bottom of the ocean. A thousand huge monsters
lay there, glaring with fixed and solemn eyes through the tenebrous
gloom. I saw the kraken with its hundred arms, the great whale, the
sea bear, and others unknown to dwellers upon the earth. Voiceless
they glided through the regions of eternal silence, and the black
billows broke far above them in the midst of loneliness and solitude.
Unutterable were the feelings with which I viewed the foundation
of the everlasting hills, and beheld the trackless pathways of the
unfathomed sea. Lustrous gems glittered on every side; groves of
coral begirt each rock; myriads of pearls gleamed constantly around;
and the loveliest shells shone below me, to be crushed at each movement
of my feet. Slowly I advanced until I espied a cavern, which opened
before me. This I entered. Instantly a wave rose behind me and swept
me swiftly down an abyss which led beneath the arches of a magnificent
palace, larger and grander than any that can be boasted of in the
lands which rise above the ocean’s surface. There I saw, coiled in
his own vast halls, that mystic snake known among ancient Scalds
by the name of Jormandugar. He it is who holds the earth girdled
in his toils. For many days I sojourned here, and beheld sights of
which no mortal tongue can tell. After a season: I returned to the
cave in Elbruz, whence I was taken by the spirit who had brought
me thither. Since then I have wandered in many regions of the earth,
mingled with the peoples of many lands, and seen the myriad wonders
of the world. At length, compelled by age, I have retired to this
valley, where I have now dwelt in happiness and peace for twenty
years.’

2 ‘Lines to the River Aragua’ is the title of a poem by Charlotte
Brontë which is mentioned by Mrs. Gaskell in _The Life of Charlotte
Brontë_, 1857, vol. i. p. 94.—C. W. H.

Here the old man ended his recital. Ernest thanked him for his narrative,
adding that he likewise longed to spend the remainder of his days
in that same lovely glen. The old man approved of his design, and
for many years they two dwelt together in perfect harmony, tranquillity,
and peace.

    C. BRONTË,
    _May 25th_, 1830.




ALBION AND MARINA

THIS is Charlotte Brontë’s first love story. It was printed by permission
of Mr. Clement Shorter, the owner of the  copyright of all the unpublished
Brontë manuscripts, in the  Brontë Society Publications, Part xxx.,
1920, and is now reprinted for the first time.

C. W. H.




    ALBION AND
    MARINA

    A
    TALE BY
    LORD
    WELLESLEY

    PRINCIPAL PART POSSESSING FACT
    FOR ITS FOUNDATION.

    PUBLISHED
    AND SOLD BY SERGEANT
    TREE
    AND ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS IN THE CHIEF GLASS TOWN,
    PARIS, &C.




PREFACE

I HAVE written this tale out of malignity for the injuries that have
lately been offered to me. Many parts, especially the former, were
composed under a mysterious influence that I cannot account for.

My reader will easily recognise the characters through the thin veil
which I have thrown over them. I have considerably flattered Lady
Zelvia Ellrington. She is not nearly so handsome as I have represented
her, and she strove far more vigorously to oust some one from another
person’s good graces than I say. But her endeavours failed. Albion
has hitherto stood firm. What he will do I cannot even pretend to
guess; but I think that Marina’s incomparable superiority will prevail
over her Frenchified rival, who, as all the world knows, is a miller,
jockey, talker, blue-stocking, charioteer, and beldam united in one…

The conclusion is wholly destitute of any foundation in truth, and
I did it out of revenge. Albion and Marina are both alive and well
for aught I know.

One thing, however, will certainly break my heart, and that is the
admission of any scandal against Tree (the publisher); but I hope
my readers will pardon me for it, as I promise to make amends with
usury the next time I write a book.

    C. WELLESLEY,
    _October 12th_, 1880.

I wrote this in four hours.—C. B.




CHAPTER I

ALBION

THERE is a certain sweet little pastoral village in the south of
England with which I am better acquainted than most men. The scenery
around it possesses no distinguishing characteristic of romantic
grandeur or wildness that might figure to advantage in a novel, to
which high title this brief narrative sets up no pretensions.

Neither rugged lofty rocks, nor mountains dimly huge, mark with frowns
the undisturbed face of nature; but little peaceful valleys, low
hills crowned with wood, murmuring cascades and streamlets, richly
cultivated fields, farmhouses, cottages, and a wide river, form all
the scenic features. And every hamlet has one or more great men.

This had one and he was ‘na sheep-shanks.’

Every ear in the world had heard of his fame, and every tongue could
bear testimony to it. I shall name him the Duke of Strathelleraye,
and by that name the village was likewise denominated.

For more than thirty miles around every inch of ground belonged to
him and every man was his retainer.

The magnificent villa, or rather palace, of this noble, stood on
an eminence, surrounded by a vast park and the embowering shade of
an ancient wood, proudly seeming to claim the allegiance of all the
countryside.

The mind, achievements, and character of its great possessor, must
not, _can_ not, be depicted by a pen so feeble as mine; for though
I could call filial love and devoted admiration to my aid, yet both
would be utterly ineffective.

Though the duke seldom himself came among his attached vassals, being
detained elsewhere by important avocations, yet his lady the duchess
resided in the castle constantly. Of her I can only say that she
was like an earthly angel. Her mind was composed of charity, beneficence,
gentleness, and sweetness. All, both old and young, loved her; and
the blessings of those that were ready to perish came upon her evermore.

His Grace had also two sons, who often visited Strathelleraye.

Of the youngest, Lord Cornelius, everything is said when I inform
the reader that he was seventeen years of age, grave, sententious,
stoical, rather haughty and sarcastic, of a fine countenance though
somewhat swarthy; that he had long thick hair black as the hoody’s
wing; and liked nothing so well as to sit in moody silence musing
over the vanity of human affairs, or improving and expanding his
mind by the abstruse study of the higher branches of mathematics,
and that sublime science astronomy.

The eldest son, Albion, Marquis of Tagus, is the hero of my present
tale. He had entered his nineteenth year; his stature was lofty;
his form equal in the magnificence of its proportions to that of
Apollo Belvedere. The bright wealth and curls of his rich brown hair
waved over a forehead of the purest marble in the placidity of its
unveined whiteness. His nose and mouth were cast in the most perfect
mould. But saw I never anything to equal his eye! Oh! I could have
stood riveted with the chains of admiration gazing for hours upon
it! What clearness, depth, and lucid transparency in those large
orbs of radiant brown! And the fascination of his smile was irresistible,
though seldom did that sunshine of the mind break through the thoughtful
and almost melancholy expression of his noble features. He was a
soldier, captain in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, and all his
attitudes and actions were full of martial grace. His mental faculties
were in exact keeping with such an exterior, being of the highest
order; and though not like his younger brother, wholly given up to
study, yet he was well versed in the ancient languages, and deeply
read in the Greek and Roman classics, in addition to the best works
in the British, German, and Italian tongues.

Such was my hero. The only blot I was ever able to discover in his
character was that of a slight fierceness or impetuosity of temper
which sometimes carried him beyond bounds, though at the slightest
look or word of command from his father he instantly bridled his
passion and became perfectly calm.

No wonder the duke should be, as he was, proud of such a son.




CHAPTER II

MARINA

About two miles from the castle there stood a pretty house, entirely
hid from view by a thick forest, in a glade of which it was situated.

Behind it was a smooth lawn fringed with odoriferous shrubs, and
before it a tasteful flower garden.

This was the abode of Sir Alured Angus, a Scotchman, who was physician
to His Grace, and though of gentlemanly manners and demeanour, yet
harsh, stern, and somewhat querulous in countenance and disposition.

He was a widower, and had but one child, a daughter, whom I shall
call Marina, which nearly resembles her true name.

No wild rose blooming in solitude, or bluebell peering from an old
wall, ever equalled in loveliness this flower of the forest. The
hue of her cheek would excel the most delicate tint of the former,
even when its bud is just opening to the breath of summer, and the
clear azure of her eyes would cause the latter to appear dull as
a dusky hyacinth. Also, the silken tresses of her hazel hair straying
in light ringlets down a neck and forehead of snow seemed more elegant
than the young tendrils of a vine. Her dress was almost Quaker-like
in its simplicity. Pure white or vernal green were the colours she
constantly wore, without any jewels save one row of pearls round
her neck. She never stirred beyond the precincts of the wooded and
pleasant green lane which skirted a long cornfield near the house.
There on warm summer evenings she would ramble and linger listening
to the woodlark’s song, and occasionally join her own more harmonious
voice to its delightful warblings.

When the gloomy days and nights of autumn and winter did not permit
these walks she amused herself with drawing (for which she had an
exact taste), playing on the harp, reading the best English, French,
and Italian works (all which languages she understood) in her father’s
extensive library, and sometimes a little light needlework.

Thus in a state of almost perfect seclusion (for seldom had she even
Sir Alured’s company, as he generally resided in London) she was
quite happy, and reflected with innocent wonder on those who could
find pleasure in the noisy delights of what is called ‘fashionable
society.’

One day, as Lady Strathelleraye was walking in the wood she met Marina,
and on learning who she was, being charmed with her beauty and sweet
manners, invited her to go on the morrow to the castle. She did so,
and there met the Marquis of Tagus. _He_ was even more surprised
and pleased with her than the duchess, and when she was gone he asked
his mother many questions about her, all of which she answered to
his satisfaction.

For some time afterwards he appeared listless and abstracted. The
reader will readily perceive that he had, to use a cant phrase, ‘fallen
in love.’

Lord Cornelius, his brother, warned him of the folly of doing so;
but instead of listening to his sage admonitions he first strove
to laugh, and then frowning at him commanded silence.

In a few days he paid a visit to Oakwood House (Sir Alured’s mansion),
and after that became more gloomy than before.

His father observed this, and one day as they were sitting alone
remarked it to Albion, adding that he was fully acquainted with the
reason.

Albion reddened but made no answer.

‘I am not, my son,’ continued the duke, ‘opposed to your wishes,
though certainly there is a considerable difference of rank between
yourself and Marina Angus, but that difference is compensated by
the many admirable qualities she possesses.’

On hearing these words, Arthur,—Albion, I mean,—started up, and throwing
himself at his father’s feet, poured forth his thanks in terms of
glowing gratitude, while his fine features, flushed with excitation,
spoke even more eloquently than his eloquent words.

‘Rise, Albion!’ said the duke; ‘you are worthy of her and she of
you; but both are yet too young. Some years must elapse before your
union takes place; therefore exert your patience, my son.’

Albion’s joy was slightly damped by this news, but his thankfulness
and filial obedience as well as love forced him to acquiesce, and
immediately after he quitted the room and took his way to Oakwood
House.

There he related the circumstance to Marina, who, though she blushed
incredulously, yet in truth felt as much gladness and as great a
relief from doubt almost amounting to despair as himself.




CHAPTER III

GLASS TOWN

A few months afterwards the Duke of Strathelleraye determined to
visit that wonder of the world, the great city of Africa: the Glass
Town, of whose splendour, magnificence, and extent, strength and
riches, occasional tidings came from afar, wafted by breezes of the
ocean to Merry England.

But to most of the inhabitants of that little isle it bore the character
of a dream or gorgeous fiction. They were unable to comprehend how
mere human beings could construct fabrics of such a marvellous size
and grandeur as many of the public buildings were represented to
be; and as to the ‘Tower of all the Nations,’ few believed in its
existence. It seemed as the cities of old: Nineveh or Babylon with
the temples of their gods, Ninus or Jupiter Belus, and their halls
of Astarté and Semalt. These most people believe to be magnified
by the dim haze of intervening ages, and the exaggerating page of
history through which medium we behold them.

The duke, as he had received many invitations from the Glass Townians,
who were impatient to behold one whose renown had spread so far,
and who likewise possessed vast dominions near the African coast,
informed his lady, the Marquis of Tagus, and Lord Cornelius, that
in a month’s time he should take his departure with them, and that
he should expect them all to be prepared at that period, adding that
when they returned Marina Angus should be created Marchioness of
Tagus.

Though it was a bitter trial to Albion to part with one to whom he
was now so entirely devoted, yet, comforted by the last part of his
father’s speech, he obeyed without murmuring.

On the last evening of his stay in Strathelleraye he took a sad farewell
of Marina, who wept as if hopeless; but suddenly restraining her
griefs she looked up, with her beautiful eyes irradiated by a smile
that like a ray of light illumined the crystal tears, and whispered:

‘I shall be happy when you return.’

Then they parted; and Albion during his voyage over the wide ocean
often thought for comfort on her last words.

It is a common superstition that the words uttered by a friend on
separating are prophetic, and these certainly portended nothing but
peace.




CHAPTER IV

LITERARY AMBITIONS

In due course of time they arrived at the Glass Town, and were welcomed
with enthusiastic cordiality.

After the duke had visited his kingdom he returned to the chief metropolis
and established his residence there at Salamanca Palace.

The Marquis of Tagus from the noble beauty of his person attracted
considerable attention wherever he went, and in a short period he
had won and attached many faithful friends of the highest rank and
abilities.

From his love of elegant literature and the fine arts in general,
painters and poets were soon among his warmest admirers. He himself
possessed a most sublime genius, but as yet its full extent was unknown
to him.

One day as he was meditating alone on the world of waters that rolled
between him and the fair Marina, he determined to put his feelings
on paper in a tangible shape that he might hereafter show them to
her when anticipation had given place to fruition. He took his pen,
and in about a quarter of an hour had completed a brief poem of exquisite
beauty. The attempt pleased him and soothed the anguish that lingered
in his heart. It likewise gave him an insight into the astonishing
faculties of his own mind; and a longing for immortality, an ambition
of glory, seized him.

He was a devoted worshipper of the divine works that the Grecian
tragedians have left for all succeeding ages to marvel at, particularly
those of Sophocles the Majestic; and his mind was deeply embued with
the spirit of their eagle-like flights into higher regions than that
of earth or even Parnassus.

Being now sensible in a degree of his lofty powers, he determined,
like Milton, to write somewhat that the traditionary muses would
not willingly let die, and accordingly commenced a tragedy entitled:
‘Necropolis, or the City of the Dead.’ Here was set forth in a strain
of the grandest mind the mysteries of ancient Egyptian worship; and
he has acknowledged to me that he felt his being absorbed while he
wrote it, even by the words himself had made.

Sublime is this surprising production! It is indeed, in the words
of an eminent writer (Captain Tree), ‘a noble instance of the almost
perfectibility of human intellect’; but there hovers over it a feeling
of tender melancholy, for the image of Marina haunted his thoughts,
and Amalthea, his heroine, is but an impersonation of her.

This tragedy wreathed the laurels of fame round his brow, and his
after-productions, each of which seemed to excel the other, added
new wreaths to those which already beautified his temples.

I cannot follow him in the splendour of his literary career, nor
even mention so much as the titles of his various works. Suffice
it to say he became one of the greatest poets of the age; and one
of the chief motives that influenced him in his exertions for renown
was to render himself worthy to possess such a treasure as Marina.
She in whatever he was employed was never out of his thoughts, and
none had he as yet beheld among all the ladies of the Glass Town,—though
rich, titled, and handsome strove by innumerable arts to gain his
favour,—whom he could even compare with her.




CHAPTER V

LADY ZELVIA ELLRINGTON

One evening Albion was invited to the house of Earl Cruachan, where
was a large party assembled. Among the guests was one lady apparently
about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. In figure she was very
tall, and both it and her face were of a perfectly Roman cast. Her
features were regularly and finely formed, her full and brilliant
eyes jetty black, as were the luxuriant tresses of her richly-curled
hair. Her dark glowing complexion was set off by a robe of crimson
velvet trimmed with ermine, and a nodding plume of black ostrich
feathers added to the imposing dignity of her appearance.

Albion, notwithstanding her unusual comeliness, hardly noticed her
till Earl Cruachan rose and introduced her to him as the Lady Zelvia
Ellrington.

She was the most learned and noted woman in Glass Town, and he was
pleased with this opportunity of seeing her.

For some time she entertained him with a discourse of the most lively
eloquence, and indeed Madame de Staël herself could not have gone
beyond Lady Zelvia in the conversational talent; and on this occasion
she exerted herself to the utmost, as she was in the presence of
so distinguished a man, and one whom she seemed ambitious to please.

At length one of the guests asked her to favour the company with
a song and tune on the grand piano. At first she refused, but on
Albion seconding the request rose, and taking from the drawing-room
table a small volume of poems opened it at one by the Marquis of
Tagus. She then set it to a fine air and sang as follows, while she
skilfully accompanied her voice upon the instrument:—

    I think of thee when the moonbeams play
        On the placid water’s face;
    For thus thy blue eyes’ lustrous ray
        Shone with resembling grace.

    I think of thee when the snowy swan
        Glides calmly down the stream;
    Its plumes the breezes scarcely fan,
        Awed by their radiant gleam.

    For thus I’ve seen the loud winds hush
        To pass thy beauty by,
    With soft caress and playful rush
        ’Mid thy bright tresses fly.

    And I have seen the wild birds sail
        In rings thy head above,
    While thou hast stood like lily pale
        Unknowing of their love.

    Oh! for the day when once again
        Mine eyes shall gaze on thee;
    But an ocean vast, a sounding main,
        An ever howling sea,
            Roll on between
            With their billows green,
        High tost tempestuously.

This song had been composed by Albion soon after his arrival at the
Glass Town. The person addressed was Marina. The full rich tones
of Lady Zelvia’s voice did ample justice to the subject, and he expressed
his sense of the honour she had done him in appropriate terms.

When she had finished the company departed, for it was then rather
late.




CHAPTER VI

THE SPIRIT OF MARINA

As Albion pursued his way homewards alone he began insensibly to
meditate on the majestic charms of Lady Zelvia Ellrington, and to
compare them with the gentler ones of Marina Angus. At first he could
hardly tell which to give the preference to, for though he still
almost idolised Marina, yet an absence of four years had considerably
deadened his remembrance of her person.

While he was thus employed he heard a soft but mournful voice whisper
‘Albion!’

He turned hastily round, and saw the form of the identical Marina
at a little distance distinctly visible by the moonlight.

‘Marina! My dearest Marina!’ he exclaimed, springing towards her,
while joy unutterable filled his heart; ‘how did you come here? Have
the angels in Heaven brought you?’

So saying he stretched out his hand, but she eluded his grasp, and
slowly gliding away, said: ‘Do not forget me; I shall be happy when
you return.’

Then the apparition vanished. It seemed to have appeared merely to
assert her superiority over her rival, and indeed the moment Albion
beheld her beauty he felt that it was peerless.

But now wonder and perplexity took possession of his mind. He could
not account for this vision except by the common solution of supernatural
agency, and that ancient creed’ his enlightened understanding had
hitherto rejected until it was forced upon him by this extraordinary
incident.

One thing there was, however, the interpretation of which he thought
he could not mistake, and that was the repetition of her last words:
‘I shall be happy when you return.’ It showed that she was still
alive, and that which he had seen could not be her wraith. However,
he made a memorandum of the day and hour, namely, the 18th of June
1815, twelve o’clock at night.

From this time the natural melancholy turn of his disposition increased,
for the dread of her death before he should return was constantly
before him, and the ardency of his adoration and desire to see her
again redoubled.

At length, not being able any longer to bear his misery he revealed
it to his father; and the duke, touched with his grief and the fidelity
of his attachment, gave him full permission to visit England and
bring back Marina with him to Africa.




CHAPTER VII

ALBION’S RETURN

I need not trouble the reader with a minute detail of the circumstances
of Albion’s voyage, but shall pass on to what happened after he arrived
in England.

It was a fair evening in September 1815 when he reached Strathelleraye.

Without waiting to enter the halls of his fathers he proceeded immediately
to Oakwood House. As he approached it he almost sickened when for
an instant the thought that she might be no more passed across his
mind, but summoning hope to his aid and resting on her golden anchor
he passed up the lawn and gained the glass doors of the drawing-room.

As he drew near a sweet symphony of harp music swelled on his ear.
His heart bounded within him at the sound. He knew that no fingers
but hers could create those melodious tones with which now blended
the harmony of a sweet and sad but well-known voice. He lifted the
vine branch that shaded the door and beheld Marina, more beautiful
he thought than ever, seated at her harp sweeping with her slender
fingers the quivering chords.

Without being observed by her, as she had her face turned from him,
he entered, and sitting down leaned his head on his hand and, closing
his eyes, listened with feelings of overwhelming transport to the
following words:—

    Long my anxious ear hath listened
        For the step that ne’er returned;
    And my tearful eye hath glistened,
        And my heart hath daily burned,
                                But now I rest.

    Nature’s self seemed clothed in mourning;
        Even the star-like woodland flower,
    With its leaflets fair, adorning
        The pathway to the forest-bower,
                                Drooped its head.

    From the cavern of the mountain,
        From the groves that crown the hill,
    From the stream, and from the fountain,
        Sounds prophetic murmured still,
                                Betokening grief.

    Boding winds came fitful, sighing,
        Through the tall and leafy trees;
    Birds of omen, wildly crying,
        Sent their calls upon the breeze
                                Wailing round me.

    At each sound I paled and trembled,
        At each step I raised my head,
    Hearkening if it his resembled,
        Or if news that he was dead
                                Were come from far.

    All my days were days of weeping;
        Thoughts of grim despair were stirred;
    Time on leaden feet seemed creeping;
        Long heart-sickness, hope deferred
                                Cankered my heart.

Here the music and singing suddenly ceased.

Albion raised his head. All was darkness except where the silver
moonbeams showed a desolate and ruined apartment instead of the elegant
parlour that a few minutes before had gladdened his sight.

No trace of Marina was visible, no harp or other instrument of harmony,
and the cold lunar light streamed through a void space instead of
the glass door. He sprang up and called aloud: ‘Marina! Marina!’
But only an echo as of empty rooms answered. Almost distracted he
rushed into the open air. A child was standing alone at the garden
gate, who advanced towards him and said: ‘I will lead you to Marina
Angus; she has removed from that house to another.’

Albion followed the child till they came to a long row of tall dark
trees leading to a churchyard, which they entered, and the child
vanished, leaving Albion beside a white marble tombstone on which
was chiselled:—

            MARINA ANGUS
              She died
          18th of June 1815
                at
            12 o’clock
             midnight.

When Albion had read this he felt a pang of horrible anguish wring
his heart and convulse his whole frame. With a loud groan he fell
across the tomb and lay there senseless a long time, till at length
he was waked from the death-like trance to behold the spirit of Marina,
which stood beside him for a moment, and then murmuring, ‘Albion,
I am happy, for I am at peace,’ disappeared!

For a few days he lingered round her tomb, and then quitted Strathelleraye,
where he was never again heard of.



The reason of Marina’s death I shall briefly relate. Four years after
Albion’s departure tidings came to the village that he was dead.
The news broke Marina’s faithful heart. The day after, she was no
more.

    C. B.,
    _October 12th_, 1830.




THE RIVALS




    THE RIVALS

    A SHORT DRAMA WRITTEN BY
    CHARLOTTE BRONTË
    AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN YEARS.

    DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

    LORD ARTHUR.

    _The Rivals:_
    MARIAN.
    LADY ZENOBIA ELLRINGTON.

These characters will be easily recognised under their assumed names
in the story entitled ‘Albion and Marina,’ pp. 75-94.




THE RIVALS

SCENE—_A thick forest, under the trees of which_ LADY ZENOBIA ELLRINGTON
_is reposing, dressed in her usual attire of a crimson-velvet robe
and black plumes. She speaks_:

    ’Tis eve: how that rich sunlight streameth through
    The unwoven arches of this sylvan roof!
    How their long, lustrous lines of light illume,
    With trembling radiance, all the agèd boles
    Of elms majestic as the lofty columns
    That proudly rear their tall forms to the dome
    Of old cathedral or imperial palace!
    Yea, they are grander than the mightiest shafts
    That e’er by hand of man were fashioned forth
    Their holy, solemn temples to uphold;
    And sweeter far than the harmonious peals
    Of choral thunder, that in music roll
    Through vaulted isles, are the low forest sounds
    Murmuring around: of wind and stirrèd leaf,
    And warbled song of nightingale or lark
    Whose swelling cadences and dying falls
    And whelming gushes of rich melody
    Attune to meditation, all serene,
    The weary spirit; and draw forth still thoughts
    Of happy scenes half veilèd by the mists
    Of bygone times. Yea, that calm influence
    Hath soothed the billowy troubles of my heart
    Till scarce one sad thought rises, though I sit
    Beneath these trees, utterly desolate.
    But no, not utterly, for still one friend
    I fain would hope remains to brighten yet
    My mournful journey through this vale of tears;
    And, while he shines, all other, lesser lights
    May wane and fade unnoticed from the sky.
    But more than friend, e’en he can never be:
                                [_Heaves a deep sigh._
    That thought is sorrowful, but yet I’ll hope.
    What is my rival? Nought but a weak girl,
    Ungifted with the state and majesty
    That mark superior minds. Her eyes gleam not
    Like windows to a soul of loftiness;
    She hath not raven locks that lightly wave
    Over a brow whose calm placidity
    Might emulate the white and polished marble.
                                [_A white dove flutters by._
    Ha! what art thou, fair creature? It hath vanished
    Down that long vista of low-drooping trees.
    How gracefully its pinions waved! Methinks
    It was the spirit of this solitude.
    List! I hear footsteps; and the rustling leaves
    Proclaim the approach of some corporeal being.
        [_A young girl advances up the vista, dressed in
            green, with a garland of flowers wreathed
            in the curls of her hazel hair. She comes
            towards_ LADY ZENOBIA, _and says_:

                        GIRL.
    Lady, methinks I erst have seen thy face.
    Art thou not that Zenobia, she whose name
    Renown hath come e’en to this fair retreat?

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    Aye, maiden, thou hast rightly guessed. But how
    Didst recognise me?

                        GIRL.
    In Verreopolis
    I saw thee walking in those gardens fair
    That like a rich, embroidered belt surround
    That mighty city; and one bade me look
    At her whose genius had illumined bright
    Her age, and country, with undying splendour.
    The majesty of thy imperial form,
    The fire and sweetness of thy radiant eye,
    Alike conspired to impress thine image
    Upon my memory; and thus it is
    That now I know thee as thou sittest there
    Queen-like, beneath the over-shadowing boughs
    Of that huge oak-tree, monarch of this wood.

        LADY ELLRINGTON [_smiling graciously_].
    Who art thou, maiden?

                        GIRL.
                            Marian is my name.

        LADY ELLRINGTON [_starting up: aside_].
    Ha! my rival! [_Sternly_] What dost thou here
        alone?

                    MARIAN [_aside_].
    How her tone changed! [_Aloud_] My favourite
        cushat-dove,
    Whose plumes are whiter than new-fallen snow,
    Hath wandered, heedless, from my vigilant care.
    I saw it gleaming through these dusky trees,
    Fair as a star, while soft it glided by:
    So have I come to find and lure it back.

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    Are all thy affections centred in a bird?
    For thus thou speakest, as though nought were worthy
    Of thought or care saving a silly dove!

                        MARIAN.
    Nay, lady, I’ve a father, and mayhap
    Others whom gratitude or tenderest ties,
    If such there be, bind my heart closer to.

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    But birds and flowers and such trifles vain
    Seem most to attract thy love, if I may form
    A judgment from thy locks elaborate curled
    And wreathed around with woven garlandry,
    And from thy whining speech, all redolent
    With tone of most affected sentiment.
            [_She seizes MARIAN, and exclaims with
                a violent gesture:_
    Wretch, I could kill thee!

                        MARIAN.
                            Why, what have I done?
    How have I wronged thee? Surely thou ’rt distraught!

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    How hast thou wronged me? Where didst weave
    the net
    Whose cunning meshes have entangled round
    The mightiest heart that e’er in mortal breast
    Did beat responsive unto human feeling?

                        MARIAN.
    The net? What net? I wove no net; she’s frantic!

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    Dull, simple creature! Canst not understand?

                        MARIAN.
    Truly, I cannot. ’Tis to me a problem,
    An unsolved riddle, an enigma dark.

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    I’ll tell thee, then. But, hark! What voice is that?

                VOICE [_from the forest_].
    Marian, where art thou? I have found a rose
    Fair as thyself. Come hither, and I’ll place it
    With the blue violets on thine ivory brow.

                        MARIAN.
    He calls me; I must go; restrain me not.

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    Nay! I will hold thee firmly as grim death.
    Thou need’st not struggle, for my grasp is strong.
    Thou shalt not go: Lord Arthur shall come here,
    And I will gain the rose despite of thee!
    Now for my hour of triumph: here he comes.
        [LORD ARTHUR _advances from among the trees,
            exclaiming on seeing_ LADY ELLRINGTON.

                    LORD ARTHUR.
    Zenobia! How com’st thou here? What ails thee?
    Thy cheek is flushed as with a fever glow;
    Thine eyes flash strangest radiance; and thy frame
    Trembles like to the wind-stirred aspen-tree!

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    Give me the rose, Lord Arthur, for methinks
    I merit it more than my girlish rival;
    I pray thee now grant my request, and place
    That rose upon my forehead, not on hers;
    Then will I serve thee all my after-days
    As thy poor handmaid, as thy humblest slave,
    Happy to kiss the dust beneath thy tread,
    To kneel submissive in thy lordly presence.
    Oh! turn thine eyes from her and look on me
    As I kneel here imploring at thy feet,
    Supremely blest if but a single glance
    Could tell me that thou art not wholly deaf
    To my petition, earnestly preferred.

                    LORD ARTHUR.
    Lady, thou’rt surely mad! Depart, and hush
    These importunate cries. They are not worthy
    Of the great name which thou hast fairly earned.

                    LADY ELLRINGTON.
    Give me that rose, and I to thee will cleave
    Till death. Hear me, and give it me, Lord Arthur!

        LORD ARTHUR [_after a few minutes’ deliberation_].
    Here, take the flower, and keep it for my sake.
        [MARIAN _utters a suppressed scream, and sinks
            to the ground_.

            LADY ELLRINGTON [_assisting her to rise_].
    Now I have triumphed! But I’ll not exult;
    Yet know, henceforth, I’m thy superior.
    Farewell, my lord; I thank thee for thy preference!
            [_She plunges into the wood and disappears._

                    LORD ARTHUR.
    Fear nothing, Marian, for a fading flower
    Is not symbolical of constancy.
    But take this sign; [_Gives her his diamond ring_]
        enduring adamant
    Betokens well affection that will live
    Long as life animates my faithful heart.
    Now let us go; for, see, the deepening shades
    Of twilight darken our lone forest-path;
    And, lo! thy dove comes gliding through the murk,
    Fair wanderer, back to its loved mistress’ care!
    Luna will light us on our journey home:
    For, see, her lamp shines radiant in the sky,
    And her bright beams will pierce the thickest boughs.
                        [_Exeunt, and curtain falls._

From an unpublished manuscript by Charlotte Brontë, entitled ‘Visits
in Verreopolis,’ vol. i., completed December 11th, 1880.




THE FAIRY GIFT

UNDER the title of ‘The Four Wishes’ this story was first printed
by Mr. Clement Shorter in April 1918, in an edition limited to twenty
copies for private circulation only.

It was published, with three illustrations, in the _Strand Magazine_,
December 1918, pp. 461-466.

The title of ‘The Fairy Gift’ was given to the story by Charlotte
Brontë.

C. W. H.




THE FAIRY GIFT

ONE cold evening in December 17—, while I was yet but a day labourer,
though not even at that time wholly without some aspirations after
fame and some intimations of future greatness, I was sitting alone
by my cottage fire engaged in ambitious reveries of _l’avenir_, and
amusing myself with wild and extravagant imaginations. A thousand
evanescent wishes flitted through my mind, one of which was scarcely
formed when another succeeded it; then a third, equally transitory,
and so on.

While I was thus employed with building castles in the air my frail
edifices were suddenly dissipated by an emphatic ‘Hem!’ I started,
and raised my head. Nothing was visible, and, after a few minutes,
supposing it to be only fancy, I resumed my occupation of weaving
the web of waking visions. Again the ‘Hem!’ was heard; again I looked
up, when lo! sitting in the opposite chair I beheld the diminutive
figure of a man dressed all in green. With a pretty considerable
fluster I demanded his business, and how he had contrived to enter
the house without my knowledge.

‘I am a fairy,’ he replied, in a shrill voice; ‘but fear nothing;
my intentions are not mischievous. On the contrary, I intend to gift
you with the power of obtaining four wishes, provided that you wish
them at different times; and if you should happen to find the fruition
of my theme not equal to your anticipations, still you are at liberty
to cast it aside, which you must do before another wish is granted.’

When he had concluded this information he gave me a ring, telling
me that by the potency of the spell with which it was invested my
desires would prove immediately successful.

I expressed my gratitude for this gift in the warmest terms, and
then inquired how I should dispose of the ring when I had four times
arrived at the possession of that which I might wish.

‘Come with it at midnight to the little valley in the uplands, a
mile hence,’ said he, ‘and there you will be rid of it when it becomes
useless.’

With these words he vanished from my sight. I stood for some minutes
incredulous of the reality of that which I had witnessed, until at
last I was convinced by the green-coloured ring set in gold that
sparkled in my hand.

By some strange influence I had been preserved from any feeling of
fear during my conversation with the fairy, but now I began to feel
certain doubts and misgivings as to the propriety of having any dealings
with supernatural beings. These, however, I soon quelled, and began
forthwith to consider what should be the nature of my first wish.
After some deliberation I found the desire for beauty was uppermost
in my mind, and therefore formed a wish that next morning when I
arose I should find myself possessed of surpassing loveliness.

That night my dreams were filled with anticipations of future grandeur,
but the gay visions which my sleeping fancy called into being were
dispelled by the first sounds of morning.

I awoke lightsome and refreshed, and springing out of bed glanced
half-doubtingly into the small looking-glass which decorated the
wall of my apartment, to ascertain if any change for the better had
been wrought in me since the preceding night.

Never shall I forget the thrill of delighted surprise which passed
through me when I beheld my altered appearance. There I stood, tall,
slender, and graceful as a young poplar tree, all my limbs moulded
in the most perfect and elegant symmetry, my complexion of the purest
red and white, my eyes blue and brilliant, swimming in liquid radiance
under the narrow dark arches of two exquisitely-formed eyebrows,
my mouth of winning sweetness, and, lastly, my hair clustering in
rich black curls over a forehead smooth as ivory.

In short, I have never yet heard or read of any beauty that could
at all equal the splendour of comeliness with which I was at that
moment invested.

I stood for a long time gazing at myself in a trance of admiration
while happiness such as I had never known before overflowed my heart.
That day happened to be Sunday, and accordingly I put on my best
clothes and proceeded forthwith towards the church. The service had
just commenced when I arrived, and as I walked up the aisle to my
pew I felt that the eyes of the whole assembly were upon me, and
that proud consciousness gave an elasticity to my gait which added
stateliness and majesty to my other innumerable graces. Among those
who viewed me most attentively was Lady Beatrice Ducie. This personage
was the widow of Lord Ducie, owner of the chief part of the village
where I resided and nearly all the surrounding land for many miles,
who, when he died, left her the whole of his immense estates. She
was without children and perfectly at liberty to marry whomsoever
she might chance to fix her heart on, and therefore, though her ladyship
had passed the meridian of life, was besides fat and ugly, and into
the bargain had the reputation of being a witch, I cherished hopes
that she might take a liking for me, seeing I was so very handsome;
and by making me her spouse raise me at once from indigence to the
highest pitch of luxury and affluence.

These were my ambitious meditations as I slowly retraced my steps
homeward.

In the afternoon I again attended church, and again Lady Ducie favoured
me with many smiles and glances expressive of her admiration. At
length my approaching good fortune was placed beyond a doubt, for
while I was standing in the porch after service was over she happened
to pass, and inclining her head towards me, said: ‘Come to my house
to-morrow at four o’clock.’? I only answered by a low bow and then
hastened back to my cottage.

On Monday afternoon I dressed myself in my best, and putting a Christmas
rose in the buttonhole of my coat, hastened to the appointed rendezvous.

When I entered the avenue of Ducie Castle a footman in rich livery
stopped me and requested me to follow him. I complied, and we proceeded
down a long walk to a bower of evergreens, where sat her ladyship
in a pensive posture. Her stout, lusty figure was arrayed in a robe
of purest white muslin, elegantly embroidered. On her head she wore
an elaborately curled wig, among which borrowed tresses was twined
a wreath of artificial flowers, and her brawny shoulders were enveloped
in a costly Indian shawl. At my approach she arose and saluted me.
I returned the compliment, and when we were seated, and the footman
had withdrawn, business summarily commenced by her tendering me the
possession of her hand and heart, both which offers, of course, I
willingly accepted.

Three weeks after, we were married in the parish church by special
licence, amidst the rejoicings of her numerous tenantry, to whom
a sumptuous entertainment was that day given.

I now entered upon a new scene of life. Every object which met my
eyes spoke of opulence and grandeur. Every meal of which I partook
seemed to me a luxurious feast. As I wandered through the vast halls
and magnificent apartments of my new residence I felt my heart dilating
with gratified pride at the thought that they were my own.

Towards the obsequious domestics that thronged around me I behaved
with the utmost respect and deference, being impelled thereto by
a feeling of awe inspired by their superior breeding and splendid
appearance.

I was now constantly encompassed by visitors from among those who moved
in the highest circles of society. My time was passed in the enjoyment
of all sorts of pleasures; balls, concerts, and dinners were given
almost every day at the castle in honour of our wedding. My evenings
were spent in hearing music, or seeing dancing and gormandising; my
days in excursions over the country, either on horseback or in a
carriage.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, I was not happy. The rooms were so
numerous that I was often lost in my own house, and sometimes got
into awkward predicaments in attempting to find some particular apartment.
Our high-bred guests despised me for my clownish manners and deportment.
I was forced to bear patiently the most humiliating jokes and sneers
from noble lips. My own servants insulted me with impunity; and,
finally, my wife’s temper showed itself every day more and more in
the most hideous light. She became terribly jealous, and would hardly
suffer me to go out of her sight a moment. In short, before the end
of three months I sincerely wished myself separated from her and
reduced again to the situation of a plain and coarse but honest and
contented ploughboy.

This separation was occasioned by the following incident sooner than
I expected. At a party which we gave one evening there chanced to
be present a young lady named Cecilia Standon. She possessed no mean
share of beauty, and had besides the most graceful demeanour I ever
saw. Her manner was kind, gentle, and obliging, without any of that
haughty superciliousness which so annoyed me in others of my fashionable
acquaintances. If I made a foolish observation or transgressed against
the rules of politeness she did not give vent to her contempt in
a laugh or suppressed titter, but informed me in a whisper what I
ought to have done, and instructed me how to do it.

When she was gone I remarked to my wife what a kind and excellent
lady Miss Cecilia Standon was. ‘Yes,’ exclaimed she, reddening, ‘every
one can please you but me. Don’t think to elude my vigilance, I saw
you talking and laughing with her, you low-born creature whom I raised
from obscurity to splendour. And yet not one spark of gratitude do
you feel towards me. But I will have my revenge.’ So saying she left
me to meditate alone on what that revenge might be.

The same night, as I lay in bed restless, I heard suddenly a noise
of footsteps outside the chamber door. Compelled by irresistible
curiosity, I rose and opened it without making any sound. My surprise
was great on beholding the figure of my wife stealing along on tiptoe
with her back towards me, and a lighted candle in her hand. Anxious
to know what could be her motive for walking about the house at this
time of night I followed softly, taking care to time my steps so
as to coincide with hers.

After proceeding along many passages and galleries which I had never
before seen, we descended a very long staircase that led us underneath
the coal and wine cellars to a damp, subterraneous vault. Here she
stopped and deposited the candle on the ground. I shrank instinctively,
for the purpose of concealment, behind a massive stone pillar which
upheld the arched roof on one side.

The rumours which I had often heard of her being a witch passed with
painful distinctness across my mind, and I trembled violently. Presently
she knelt with folded hands and began to mutter some indistinguishable
words in a strange tone. Flames now darted out of the earth, and
huge smouldering clouds of smoke rolled over the slimy walls, concealing
their hideousness from the eye.

At length the dead silence that had hitherto reigned unbroken was
dissipated by a tremendous cry which shook the house to its centre,
and I saw six black, indefinable figures gliding through the darkness
bearing a funeral bier on which lay arranged, as I had seen her the
previous evening, the form of Cecilia Standon. Her dark eyes were
closed, and their long lashes lay motionless on a cheek pale as marble.
She was quite stiff and dead.

At this appalling sight I could restrain myself no longer, and uttering
a loud shriek I sprang from behind the pillar. My wife saw me. She
started from her kneeling position, and rushed furiously towards
where I stood, exclaiming in tones rendered tremulous by excessive
fury: ‘Wretch, wretch, what demon has lured thee hither to thy fate?’
With these words she seized me by the throat and attempted to strangle
me.

I screamed and struggled in vain. Life was ebbing apace when suddenly
she loosened her grasp, tottered, and fell dead.

When I was sufficiently recovered from the effects of her infernal
grip to look around I saw by the light of the candle a little man
in a green coat striding over her and flourishing a bloody dagger
in the air. In his sharp, wild physiognomy I immediately recognised
the fairy who six months ago had given me the ring.

That was the occasion of my present situation. He had stabbed my
wife through the heart, and thus afforded me opportune relief at
the moment when I so much needed it.

After tendering him my most ardent thanks for his kindness I ventured
to ask what we should do with the dead body.

‘Leave that to me,’ he replied. ‘But now as the day is dawning, and
I must soon be gone, do you wish to return to your former rank of
a happy, honest labourer, being deprived of the beauty which has
been the source of so much trouble to you, or will you remain as
you are? Decide quickly, for my time is limited.’

I replied unhesitatingly, ‘Let me return to my former rank,’ and
no sooner were the words out of my mouth than I found myself standing
alone at the porch of my humble cottage, plain and coarse as ever,
without any remains of the extreme comeliness with which I had been
so lately invested.

I cast a glance at the tall towers of Ducie Castle which appeared
in the distance faintly illuminated by the light reflected from rosy
clouds hovering over the eastern horizon, and then, stooping as I
passed beneath the lowly lintel, once more crossed the threshold
of my parental hut.

A day or two after, while I was sitting at breakfast; a neighbour
entered and, after inquiring how I did, etc., asked me where I had
been for the last half year. Seeing it necessary to dissemble, I
answered that I had been on a visit to a relation who lived at a
great distance. This satisfied him, and I then inquired if anything
had happened in the village since my departure.

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘a little while after you were gone Lady Ducie married
the handsomest young man that was ever seen, but nobody knew where
he came from, and most people thought he was a fairy; and now about
four days ago Lady Ducie, her husband, and Lord Standon’s eldest
daughter all vanished in the same night and have never been heard
of since, though the strictest search has been made after them. Yesterday
her ladyship’s brother came and took possession of the estate, and
he is trying to hush up the matter as much as he can.’

This intelligence gave me no small degree of satisfaction, as I was
now certain that none of the villagers had any suspicion of my dealings
with the fairy.

But to proceed. I had yet liberty to make three more wishes; and,
after much consideration, being convinced of the vanity of desiring
such a transitory thing as my first, I fixed upon ‘superior talent’
as the aim of my second wish; and no sooner had I done so than I
felt an expansion, as it were, of soul within me.

Everything appeared to my mental vision in a new light. High thoughts
elevated my mind, and abstruse meditations racked my brain continually.
But you shall presently hear the upshot of this sudden éclaircissement.

One day I was sent to a neighbouring market town, by one Mr. Tenderden,
a gentleman of some consequence in our village, for the purpose of
buying several articles in glass and china.

When I had made my purchases I directed them to be packed up in straw,
and then with the basket on my back trudged off homeward. But ere
I was half-way night overtook me. There was no moon, and the darkness
was also much increased by a small mizzling rain. Cold and drenched
to the skin, I arrived at The Rising Sun, a little wayside inn, which
lay in my route.

On opening the door my eyes were agreeably saluted by the light of
a bright warm fire, round which sat about half a dozen of my acquaintance.

After calling for a drop of something to warm me, and carefully depositing
the basket of glass on the ground, I seated myself amongst them.
They were engaged in a discussion as to whether a monarchical or
republican form of government was the best. The chief champion of
the republican side was Bob Sylvester, a blacksmith by trade, and
of the largest loquacity of any man I ever saw. He was proud of his
argumentative talents, but by dint of my fairy gift I soon silenced
him, amid cheers from both sides of the house.

Bob was a man of hot temper, and not calculated for lying down quietly
under a defeat. He therefore rose and challenged me to single combat.
I accepted, and a regular battle ensued. After some hard hits he
closed in furiously, and-dealt me a tremendous left-handed blow.
I staggered, reeled, and fell insensible. The last thing I remember
was a horrible crash as if the house was tumbling in about my ears.

When I recovered my senses I was laid in bed in my own house, all cut,
bruised, and bloody. I was soon given to understand that the basket of
glass was broken, and Mr. Tenderden, being a miserly, hard-hearted man,
made me stand to the loss, which was upwards of five pounds.

When I was able to walk about again I determined to get rid of my
ring forthwith in the manner the fairy had pointed out, seeing that
it brought me nothing but ill-luck.

It was a fine clear night in October when I reached the little valley
in the uplands before mentioned. There was a gentle frost, and the
stars were twinkling with the lustre of diamonds in a sky of deep
and cloudless azure. A chill breeze whistled dreamily in the gusty
passes of the hills that surrounded the vale, but I wrapped my cloak
around me and standing in a sheltered nook boldly awaited the event.

After about half an hour of dead silence I heard a sound as of many
voices weeping and lamenting at a distance. This continued for some
time until it was interrupted by another voice, seemingly close at
hand. I started at the contiguity of the sound, and looked on every
side, but nothing was visible. Still the strain kept rising and drawing
nearer. At length the following words, sung in a melancholy though
harmonious tone, became distinctly audible:—

    Hearken, O Mortal! to the wail
        Which round the wandering night-winds fling,
    Soft-sighing ’neath the moonbeams pale,
        How low! how old! its murmuring!

    No other voice, no other tone,
        Disturbs the silence deep;
    All, saving that prophetic moan,
        Are hushed in quiet sleep.

    The moon and each small lustrous star,
        That journey through the boundless sky,
    Seem, as their radiance from afar
        Falls on the still earth silently,

    To weep the fresh descending dew
        That decks with gems the world:
    Sweet teardrops of the glorious blue
        Above us wide unfurled.

    But, hark! again the sighing wail
        Upon the rising breeze doth swell.
    Oh! hasten from this haunted vale,
        Mournful as a funeral knell!

    For here, when gloomy midnight reigns,
        The fairies form their ring,
    And, unto wild unearthly strains,
        In measured cadence sing.

    No human eye their sports may see,
        No human tongue their deeds reveal;
    The sweetness of their melody
        The ear of man may never feel.

    But now the elfin horn resounds,
        No longer mayst thou stay;
    Near and more near the music sounds,
        Then, Mortal, haste away!

Here I certainly heard the music of a very sweet and mellow horn.
At that instant the ring which I held in my hand melted and became
like a drop of dew, which trickled down my fingers and falling on
the dead leaves spread around, vanished.

Having now no further business I immediately quitted the valley and
returned home…

Being very tired and sleepy I retired to bed. As I have no doubt
my reader is by this time in much the same state, I bid him good-bye.

    CHARLOTTE BRONTË,
    _December 18th_, 1830.

From _Visits in Verreopolis_, vol. II. chap. ii., by the Honourable
Charles Albert Florian, Lord Wellesley, aged ten years. Published
by Sergeant Bud. The tale is related by, and is a passage from the
early life of, Captain Bud, the father of the fictitious publisher.—C.
W. H.




LOVE AND JEALOUSY




NO title was given by Charlotte Brontë to this story, which was probably
intended as a sequel to the short drama printed on pp. 95-104.

The original manuscript has been divided into two parts, one sheet
of four pages having been removed and certain words erased (see footnotes
on pages 126 and 129), apparently in an attempt to make it appear
as two separate and complete manuscripts. The missing words have
been obtained from a transcript made before the manuscript was mutilated.

C. W. H.




LOVE AND JEALOUSY

IN the autumn of the year 1831, being weary of study, and the melancholy
solitude of the vast streets and mighty commercial marts of our great
Babel, and being fatigued with the ever-resounding thunder of the
sea, with the din of a thousand self-moving engines, with the dissonant
cries of all nations, kindreds, and tongues, congregated together
in the gigantic emporium of commerce, of arts, of God-like wisdom,
of boundless learning, and of superhuman knowledge; being dazzled
with continually beholding the glory, the power, the riches, dominion,
and radiant beauty of the city which sitteth like a queen upon the
waters; in one word, being tired of Verdopolis and all its magnificence,
I determined on a trip into the country.

Accordingly, the day after this resolution was formed, I rose with
the sun, collected a few essential articles of dress, etc., packed
them neatly in a light knapsack, arranged my apartment, partook of
a wholesome repast, and then, after locking the door and delivering
the key to my landlady, I set out with a light heart and joyous step.

After three days of continued travel I arrived on the banks of a
wide and profound river winding through a vast valley embosomed in
hills whose robe of rich and flowery verdure was broken only by the
long shadow of groves, and here and there by clustering herds and
flocks lying, white as snow, in the green hollows between the mountains.
It was the evening of a calm summer day when I reached this enchanting
spot. The only sounds now audible were the songs of shepherds, swelling
and dying at intervals, and the murmur of gliding waves. I neither
knew nor cared where I was. My bodily faculties of eye and ear were
absorbed in the contemplation of this delightful scene, and, wandering
unheedingly along, I left the guidance of the river and entered a
wood, invited by the warbling of a hundred forest minstrels. Soon
I perceived the narrow, tangled woodpath to widen, and gradually
it assumed the appearance of a green shady alley. Occasionally bowers
of roses and myrtles appeared by the pathside, with soft banks of
moss for the weary to repose on. Notwithstanding these indications
of individual property, curiosity and the allurements of music and
cool shade led me forwards. At length I entered a glade in the wood,
in the midst of which was a small but exquisitely beautiful marble
edifice of pure and dazzling whiteness. On the broad steps of the
portico two figures were reclining, at sight of whom I instantly
stepped behind a low, wide-spreading fig-tree, where I could hear
and see all that passed without fear of detection. One was a youth
of lofty stature and remarkably graceful demeanour, attired in a
rich purple vest and mantle, with closely fitting white pantaloons
of white woven silk, displaying to advantage the magnificent proportions
of his form. A richly adorned belt was girt tightly round his waist
from which depended a scimitar whose golden hilt, and scabbard of
the finest Damascus steel, glittered with gems of inestimable value.
His steel-barred cap, crested with tall, snowy plumes, lay beside
him, its absence revealing more clearly the rich curls of dark, glossy
hair clustering round a countenance distinguished by the noble beauty
of its features, but still more by the radiant fire of genius and
intellect visible in the intense brightness of his large, dark, and
lustrous eyes.

The other form was that of a very young and slender girl, whose complexion
was delicately, almost transparently, fair. Her cheeks were tinted
with a rich, soft crimson, her features moulded in the utmost perfection
of loveliness; while the clear light of her brilliant hazel eyes,
and the soft waving of her auburn ringlets, gave additional charms
to what seemed already infinitely too beautiful for this earth. Her
dress was a white robe of the finest texture the Indian loom can
produce. The only ornaments she wore were a long chain which encircled
her neck twice and hung lower than her waist, composed of alternate
beads of the finest emeralds and gold; and a slight gold ring on
the third finger of her left hand, which, together with a small crescent
of pearls glistening on her forehead (which is always worn by the
noble matrons of Verdopolis), betokened that she had entered the
path of wedded life. With a sweet vivacity in her look and manner
the young bride was addressing her lord thus when I first came in
sight of the peerless pair:

‘No, no, my lord; if I sing the song you shall choose it. Now, once
more, what shall I sing? The moon is risen, and, if your decision
is not prompt, I will not sing at all!’

[126] To this he answered: ‘Well, if I am threatened with the entire
loss of the pleasure if I defer my choice, I will have that sweet
song which I overheard you singing the evening before I left Scotland.’
[3]

3 The last four words in this sentence have been erased from the
MS.—C. W. H.

With a smiling blush she took a little ivory lyre, and, in a voice
of the most touching melody, sang the following stanzas:—

    He is gone, and all grandeur has fled from the mountain;
    All beauty departed from stream and from fountain;
                A dark veil is hung
            O’er the bright sky of gladness,
                And, where birds sweetly sung,
            There’s a murmur of sadness;
        The wind sings with a warning tone
            Through many a shadowy tree;
        I hear, in every passing moan,
            The voice of destiny.

    Then, O Lord of the Waters! the Great and All-seeing!
    Preserve in Thy mercy his safety and being;
                May he trust in Thy might
            When the dark storm is howling,
                And the blackness of night
            Over Heaven is scowling;
        But may the sea flow glidingly
            With gentle summer waves;
        And silent may all tempests lie
            Chained in Æolian caves!

    Yet, though ere he returnest long years will have vanished,
    Sweet hope from my bosom shall never be banished:
                I will think of the time
            When his step, lightly bounding,
                Shall be heard on the rock
            Where the cataract is sounding;
        When the banner of his father’s host
            Shall be unfurled on high,
        To welcome back the pride and boast
            Of England’s chivalry!

    Yet tears will flow forth while of hope I am singing;
    Still despair her dark shadow is over me flinging;
                But, when he’s far away,
            I will pluck the wild flower
                On bank and on brae
            At the still, moonlight hour;
        And I will twine for him a wreath
            Low in the fairy’s dell;
        Methought I heard the night-wind breathe
            That solemn word: ‘Farewell!’ [4]

4 The above poem appears to have been composed more than twelve months
before the story in which it appears. In _The Red Cross Knight and
Other Poems_, 1917 (a little book printed for private circulation
only, in an edition limited to thirty copies), the poem was printed
for Mr. T. J. Wise from a manuscript dated July 1831.—C. W. H.

When the lady had concluded her song I stepped from my place of
concealment, and was instantly perceived by the noble youth (whom, of
course, every reader will have recognised as the Marquis of Douro).

He gave me a courteous welcome, and invited me to proceed with him
to his country palace, as it was now wearing late. I willingly accepted
the invitation, and, in a short time, we arrived there.

It is a truly noble structure, built in the purest style of Grecian
architecture, situated in the midst of a vast park, embosomed in
richly wooded hills, perfumed with orange and citron groves, and
watered by a branch of the Gambia, almost equal in sight to the parent
stream.

The magnificence of the interior is equal to that of the outside.
There is an air of regal state and splendour throughout all the lofty
domed apartments which strikes the spectator with awe for the lord
of so imposing a residence. The marquis has a particular pride in
the knowledge that he is the owner of one of the most splendid, select,
and extensive libraries now in the possession of any individual.
His picture and statue galleries likewise contain many of the finest
works, both of the ancient and modern masters, particularly the latter,
of whom the marquis is a most generous and munificent patron. In
his cabinet of curiosities I observed a beautiful casket of wrought
gold. At my request he opened it and produced the contents, viz.
a manuscript copy of that rare work, ‘The Autobiography of Captain
Leaf.’ It was written on a roll of vellum, but much discoloured and
rendered nearly illegible by time. To my eager inquiries respecting
the manner in which he had obtained so inestimable a treasure, he
replied, with a smile:

‘That question I must decline to answer. It is a secret with which
I alone am acquainted.’

I likewise noticed a brace of pistols, most exquisitely wrought and
highly finished. He told me they were the _chef-d’œuvre_ of Darrow,
the best manufacturer of firearms in the universe. I counted one
hundred gold and silver medals, which had been presented to this
youthful but all-accomplished nobleman by different literary and
scientific establishments. They were all contained in a truly splendid
gold vase awarded to him last year by the Academy of Modern Athenians
(as that learned body somewhat presumptuously chooses to style itself)
as being the composer of the best epigram in Greek. Above this was
suspended a silver bow and quiver, the first prize given by the Royal
Society of Archers, together with a bit, bridle, spurs, and stirrups,
all of fine gold, obtained from the Honourable Community of Equestrians.
Near these lay several withered wreaths of myrtle, laurel, etc.,
etc., won by him as conqueror in the great African Biennial Games.
On a rich stand of polished ebony were ranged twenty-three beautiful
vases of marble, alabaster, etc., all richly carved in basso-relievo,
remarkable for classic elegance of form, design, and execution. Some
of these were filled with cameos, others with ancient coins, and
others again bore branches of scarlet and white coral, pearls, gems
of various sorts, fossils, etc. But what interested me more than
all these trophies of victory and specimens of art and nature, costly,
beautiful, and almost invaluable as they were, was a little figure
of Apollo, about six inches in height, curiously carved in white
agate, holding a lyre in his hand, and placed on a pedestal of the
same valuable material, on which was the following inscription:—

    In our day we beheld the god of Archery, Eloquence, and
    Verse, shrined in an infinitely fairer form than that worn
    by the ancient Apollo, and giving far more glorious proofs
    of his divinity than the day-god ever vouchsafed to the
    inhabitants of the old Pagan world. Zenobia Ellrington
    implores Arthur Augustus Wellesley to accept this small
    memorial, and consider it as a token that, though forsaken
    and despised by him whose good opinion and friendship
    she valued more than life, she yet bears no malice.

There was a secret contained in this inscription which I could not
fathom. I had never before heard of any misunderstanding between
his lordship and Lady Zenobia, nor did public appearances warrant
a suspicion of its existence. Long after, however, the following
circumstances came to my knowledge. The channel through which they
reached me cannot be doubted, but I am not at liberty to mention
names.

One evening about dusk, as the Marquis of Douro was returning from a
shooting excursion into the country, he heard suddenly a rustling noise
in a deep ditch on the roadside.[5] He was preparing his fowling-piece
for a shot when the form of Lady Ellrington started up before him. Her
head was bare, her tall person was enveloped in the tattered remnants
of a dark velvet mantle. Her dishevelled hair hung in wild elf-locks
over her face, neck, and shoulders, almost concealing her features,
which were emaciated and pale as death. He stepped back a few paces,
startled at the sudden and ghastly apparition. She threw herself on her
knees before him, exclaiming in wild, maniacal accents:

‘My lord, tell me truly, sincerely, ingenuously, where you have been.
I heard that you had left Verdopolis, and I followed you on foot
five hundred miles. Then my strength failed me, and I lay down in
this place, as I thought, to die. But it was doomed I should see
you once more before I became an inhabitant of the grave. Answer
me, my lord: Have you seen that wretch Marian Hume? Have you spoken
to her? Viper! Viper! Oh, that I could sheathe this weapon in her
heart!’

5 The first twelve words in this sentence have been erased from the
MS.—C. W. H.

Here she stopped for want of breath, and, drawing a long, sharp,
glittering knife from under her cloak, brandished it wildly in the
air. The marquis looked at her steadily, and, without attempting
to disarm her, answered with great composure:

‘You have asked me a strange question, Lady Zenobia; but, before
I attempt to answer, you had better come with me to our encampment.
I will order a tent to be prepared for you where you may pass the
night in safety, and, to-morrow, when you are a little recruited
by rest and refreshment, we will discuss this matter soberly.’[6]

6 It is the custom in Verdopolis, where perhaps forty or so noblemen,
with their attendants, go to shoot or hunt wild beasts or birds in
the desolate and uninhabited Mountains of the Moon, to form a sort
of camp for their mutual protection and defence. These camps sometimes
contain upwards of a hundred individuals.—_Note by Author_.

Her rage Was now exhausted by its own vehemence, and she replied
with more calmness than she had hitherto evinced:

‘My lord, believe me, I am deputed by Heaven to warn you of a great
danger into which you are about to fall. If you persist in your intention
of uniting yourself to Marian Hume you will become a murderer and
a suicide. I cannot explain myself more clearly; but ponder carefully
on my words until I see you again.’

Then, bowing her forehead to the ground in an attitude of adoration,
she kissed his feet, muttering at the same time some unintelligible
words. At that moment a loud rushing, like the sound of a whirlpool,
became audible, and Lady Zenobia was swept away by some invisible
power before the marquis could extend his arms to arrest her progress,
or frame an answer to her mysterious address. He paced slowly forward,
lost in deep reflection on what he had heard and seen. The moon had
risen over the black, barren mountains ere he reached the camp. He
gazed for awhile on her pure, undimmed lustre, comparing it to the
loveliness of one far away, and then, entering his tent, wrapped
himself in his hunter’s cloak, and lay down to unquiet sleep.

Months rolled away, and the mystery remained unravelled. Lady Zenobia
Ellrington appeared as usual in that dazzling circle of which she was
ever a distinguished ornament. There was no trace of wandering fire in
her eyes which might lead a careful observer to imagine that her mind
was unsteady. Her voice was more subdued and her looks pale, and it
was remarked by some that she avoided all (even the most commonplace)
conversation with the marquis.

In the meantime the Duke of Wellington had consented to his son’s
union with the beautiful, virtuous, and accomplished, but untitled,
Marian Hume.

Vast and splendid preparations were making for the approaching bridal,
when just at this critical juncture news arrived of the Great Rebellion
headed by Alexander Rogue. The intelligence fell with the suddenness
and violence of a thunderbolt. Unequivocal symptoms of dissatisfaction
began to appear at the same time among the lower orders in Verdopolis.
The workmen at the principal mills and furnaces struck for an advance
of wages, and, the masters refusing to comply with their exorbitant
demands, they all turned out simultaneously. Shortly after, Colonel
Grenville, one of the great millowners, was shot. His assassins being
quickly discovered and delivered up to justice were interrogated by
torture, but they remained inflexible, not a single satisfactory
answer being elicited from them. The police were now doubled. Bands
of soldiers were stationed in the more suspicious parts of the city,
and orders were issued that no citizen should walk abroad unarmed.
In this state of affairs Parliament was summoned to consult on the
best measures to be taken. On the first night of its sitting the
house was crowded to excess. All the members attended, and above a
thousand ladies of the first rank appeared in the gallery. A settled
expression of gloom and anxiety was visible in every countenance.
They sat for some time gazing at ache other in the silence of seeming
despair. At length the Marquis of Douro rose and ascended the tribune.
It was on this memorable night he pronounced that celebrated oration
which will be delivered to posterity as a finished specimen of the
sublimest eloquence. The souls of all who heard him were thrilled with
conflicting emotions. Some of the ladies in the gallery fainted and
were carried out. My limits will not permit me to transcribe the whole
of this speech, and to attempt an abridgment would be profanation.
I will, however, present the reader with the conclusion. It was as
follows:—

    I will call upon you, my countrymen, to rouse yourselves
    to action. There is a latent flame of rebellion smouldering
    in our city, which blood alone can quench: the hot blood
    of ourselves and our enemies freely poured forth! We
    daily see in our streets men whose brows were once open
    as the day, but which are now wrinkled with dark dissatisfaction,
    and the light of whose eyes, formerly free as
    sunshine, is now dimmed by restless suspicion. Our upright
    merchants are ever threatened with fears of assassination
    from those dependants who, in time past, loved,
    honoured, and reverenced them as fathers. Our peaceful
    citizens cannot pass their thresholds in safety unless laden
    with weapons of war, the continual dread of death haunting
    their footsteps wherever they turn. And who has
    produced this awful change? What agency of hell has
    affected, what master-spirit of crime, what prince of sin,
    what Beelzebub of black iniquity, has been at work in
    this Kingdom? I will answer that fearful question:
    ALEXANDER ROGUE! Arm for the battle, then, fellow-countrymen;
    be not faint-hearted, but trust in the justice of
    your cause as your banner of protection, and let your war-shout
    in the onslaught ever be: ‘God defend the right!’

When the marquis had concluded this harangue, he left the house amidst
long and loud thunders of applause, and proceeded to one of the shady
groves planted on the banks of the Guadima. Here he walked for some
time inhaling the fresh night-wind, which acquired additional coolness
as it swept over the broad rapid river, and was just beginning to
recover from the strong excitement into which his enthusiasm had
thrown him when he felt his arm suddenly grasped from behind, and
turning round beheld Lady Zenobia Ellrington standing beside him,
with the same wild, unnatural expression of countenance which had
before convulsed her features among the dark hills of Gibbel Kumri.

‘My lord,’ she muttered, in a low, energetic tone, ‘your eloquence,
your noble genius has again driven me to desperation. I am no longer
mistress of myself, and if you do not consent to be mine, and mine
alone, I will kill myself where I stand.’

‘Lady Ellrington,’ said the marquis coldly, withdrawing his hand
from her grasp, ‘this conduct is unworthy of your character. I must
beg that you will cease to use the language of a madwoman, for I
do assure you, my lady, these deep stratagems will have no effect
upon me.’

She now threw herself at his feet, exclaiming in a voice almost stifled
with ungovernable emotion:

‘Oh! do not kill me with such cold, cruel disdain. Only consent to
follow me, and you will be convinced that you ought not to be united
to one so utterly unworthy of you as Marian Hume.’

The marquis, moved by her tears and entreaties, at length consented
to accompany her. She led him a considerable distance from the city
to a subterranean grotto, where was a fire burning on a brazen altar.
She threw a certain powder into the flame, and immediately they were
transported through the air to an apartment at the summit of a lofty
tower. At one end of this room was a vast mirror, and at the other
a drawn curtain, behind which a most brilliant light was visible.

‘You are now,’ said Lady Ellrington, ‘in the sacred presence of one
whose counsel, I am sure, you, my lord, will never slight.’

At this moment the curtain was removed, and the astonished marquis
beheld Crashie, the divine and infallible, seated on his golden throne,
and surrounded by those mysterious rays of light which ever emanate
from him.

‘My son,’ said he, with an august smile, and in a voice of awful
harmony, ‘fate and inexorable destiny have decreed that in the hour
you are united to the maiden of your choice, the angel Azazel shall
smite you both, and convey your disembodied souls over the swift-flowing
and impassable river of death. Hearken to the counsels of wisdom,
and do not, in the madness of self-will, destroy yourself and Marian
Hume by refusing the offered hand of one who, from the moment of
your birth, was doomed by the prophetic stars of heaven to be your
partner and support through the dark, unexplored wilderness of future
life.’

He ceased. The combat betwixt true love and duty raged for a few
seconds in the marquis’s heart, and sent his life-blood in a tumult
of agony and despair burning to his cheek and brow. At length duty
prevailed, and, with a strong effort, he said in a firm, unfaltering
voice:

‘Son of Wisdom! I will war no longer against the high decree of heaven,
and here I swear by the eternal—’

The rash oath was checked in the moment of its utterance by some
friendly spirit who whispered in his ear:

‘There is magic. Beware!’

At the same time Crashie’s venerable form faded away, and in its
stead appeared the evil genius, Danhasch,[7] in all the naked hideousness
of his real deformity. The demon soon vanished with a wild howl of
rage, and the marquis found himself again in the grove with Lady
Ellrington.

7 Danhasch, son of Schemhourasch, a genie rebellious to God (_Arabian
Nights Entertainments_).—C. W. H.

She implored him on her knees to forgive an attempt which love alone
had dictated, but he turned from her with a smile of bitter contempt
and disdain, and hastened to his father’s palace.

About a week after this event the nuptials of Arthur Augustus, Marquis
of Douro, and Marian Hume were solemnized with unprecedented pomp
and splendour. Lady Ellrington, when she thus saw that all her hopes
were lost in despair, fell into deep melancholy, and while in this
state she amused herself with carving the little image before mentioned.
After a long time she slowly recovered, and the marquis, convinced
that her extravagances had arisen from a disordered brain, consented
to honour her with his friendship once more.



I continued upwards of two months at the Marquis of Douro’s palace,
and then returned to Verdopolis, equally delighted with my noble
host and his fair, amiable bride.

_August 20th_, 1882.




NAPOLEON AND THE SPECTRE

THIS story was printed by Mr. Clement Shorter in February 1919, in
an edition limited to twenty-five copies for private circulation
only. Extracts from it were printed in _Poet-Lore_, vol. ix., Autumn
Number, 1897. The complete story is now published for the first time.

In the Introduction by Mr. Shorter in the privately printed pamphlet
we are informed that the story is supposed to be ‘told at an inn
by a traveller whose name is not given, but who is described as a
dapper little man, dressed in brown coat and waistcoat and cream-coloured
continuations.’

I venture to copy the following further extract from Mr. Shorter’s
Introduction to the story:—

    The identity of the ghost is revealed by Napoleon’s exclamation
    when he is recovering from his somnambulistic trance,
    ‘Where in the world is Piche?’ Piche is General Pichegru,
    who, when Napoleon was first consul, joined in a plot to
    assassinate him. The plot was discovered and Pichegru was arrested
    and imprisoned; but before the day fixed for his trial ‘he was
    found dead in his cell with his black silk cravat twisted tightly
    round his neck by means of a stick.’

    Whether he was strangled at the instigation of Napoleon, as
    has been asserted by some historians, is not clear; but Charlotte
    Brontë apparently believed in Napoleon’s guilt, and in the story
    causes the ghost of his victim to haunt him.

C. W. H.




NAPOLEON AND THE SPECTRE

WELL, as I was saying, the Emperor got into bed.

‘Chevalier,’ says he to his valet, ‘let down those window-curtains,
and shut the casement before you leave the room.’

Chevalier did as he was told, and then, taking up his candlestick,
departed.

In a few minutes the Emperor felt his pillow becoming rather hard,
and he got up to shake it. As he did so a slight rustling noise was
heard near the bed-head. His Majesty listened, but all was silent
as he lay down again.

Scarcely had he settled into a peaceful attitude of repose, when
he was disturbed by a sensation of thirst. Lifting himself on his
elbow, he took a glass of lemonade from the small stand which was
placed beside him. He refreshed himself by a deep draught. As he
returned the goblet to its station a deep groan burst from a kind
of closet in one corner of the apartment.

‘Who’s there?’ cried the Emperor, seizing his pistols. ‘Speak, or
I’ll blow your brains out.’

This threat produced no other effect than a short, sharp laugh, and
a dead silence followed.

The Emperor started from his couch, and, hastily throwing on a
_robe-de-chambre_ which hung over the back of a chair, stepped
courageously to the haunted closet. As he opened the door something
rustled. He sprang forward sword in hand. No soul or even substance
appeared, and the rustling, it was evident, proceeded from the falling
of a cloak, which had been suspended by a peg from the door.

Half ashamed of himself he returned to bed.

Just as he was about once more to close his eyes, the light of the
three wax tapers, which burned in a silver branch over the mantelpiece,
was suddenly darkened. He looked up. A black, opaque shadow obscured
it. Sweating with terror, the Emperor put out his hand to seize the
bell-rope, but some invisible being snatched it rudely from his grasp,
and at the same instant the ominous shade vanished.

‘Pooh!’ exclaimed Napoleon, ‘it was but an ocular delusion.’

‘Was it?’ whispered a hollow voice, in deep mysterious tones, close
to his ear. ‘Was it a delusion, Emperor of France? No! all thou hast
heard and seen is sad forewarning reality. Rise, lifter of the Eagle
Standard! Awake, swayer of the Lily Sceptre! Follow me, Napoleon,
and thou shalt see more.’

As the voice ceased, a form dawned on his astonished sight. It was
that of a tall, thin man, dressed in a blue surtout edged with gold
lace. It wore a black cravat very tightly round its neck, and confined
by two little sticks placed behind each ear. The countenance was
livid; the tongue protruded from between the teeth, and the eyes
all glazed and bloodshot started with frightful prominence from their
sockets.

‘Mon Dieu!’ exclaimed the Emperor, ‘what do I see? Spectre, whence
cometh thou?’

The apparition spoke not, but gliding forward beckoned Napoleon with
uplifted finger to follow.

Controlled by a mysterious influence, which deprived him of the capability
of either thinking or acting for himself, he obeyed in silence.

The solid wall of the apartment fell open as they approached, and,
when both had passed through, it closed behind them with a noise
like thunder.

They would now have been in total darkness had it not been for a
dim light which shone round the ghost and revealed the damp walls
of a long, vaulted passage. Down this they proceeded with mute rapidity.
Ere long a cool, refreshing breeze, which rushed wailing up the vault
and caused the Emperor to wrap his loose nightdress closer round,
announced their approach to the open air.

This they soon reached, and Nap found himself in one of the principal
streets of Paris.

‘Worthy Spirit,’ said he, shivering in the chill night air, ‘permit
me to return and put on some additional clothing. I will be with
you again presently.’

‘Forward,’ replied his companion sternly.

He felt compelled, in spite of the rising indignation which almost
choked him, to obey.

On they went through the deserted streets till they arrived at a
lofty house built on the banks of the Seine. Here the Spectre stopped,
the gates rolled back to receive them, and they entered a large marble
hall which was partly concealed by a curtain drawn across, through
the half transparent folds of which a bright light might be seen
burning with dazzling lustre. A row of fine female figures, richly
attired, stood before this screen. They wore on their heads garlands
of the most beautiful flowers, but their faces were concealed by
ghastly masks representing death’s-heads.

‘What is all this mummery?’ cried the Emperor, making an effort to
shake off the mental shackles by which he was so unwillingly restrained,
‘Where am I, and why have I been brought here?’

‘Silence,’ said the guide, lolling out still further his black and
bloody tongue. ‘Silence, if thou wouldst escape instant death.’

The Emperor would have replied, his natural courage overcoming the
temporary awe to which he had at first been subjected, but just then
a strain of wild, supernatural music swelled behind the huge curtain,
which waved to and fro, and bellied slowly out as if agitated by
some internal commotion or battle of waving winds. At the same moment
an overpowering mixture of the scents of mortal corruption, blent
with the richest Eastern odours, stole through the haunted hall.

A murmur of many voices was now heard at a distance, and something
grasped his arm eagerly from behind.

He turned hastily round. His eyes met the well-known countenance
of Marie Louise.

‘What! are you in this infernal place, too?’ said he. ‘What has brought
you here?’

‘Will your Majesty permit me to ask the same question of yourself?’
said the Empress, smiling.

He made no reply; astonishment prevented him. No curtain now intervened
between him and the light. It had been removed as if by magic, and
a splendid chandelier appeared suspended over his head. Throngs of
ladies, richly dressed, but without death’s-head masks, stood round,
and a due proportion of gay cavaliers was mingled with them. Music
was still sounding, but it was seen to proceed from a band of mortal
musicians stationed in an orchestra near at hand. The air was yet
redolent of incense, but it was incense unblended with stench.

‘Mon Dieu!’ cried the Emperor, ‘how is all this come about? Where
in the world is Piche?’

‘Piche?’ replied the Empress. ‘What does your Majesty mean? Had you
not better leave the apartment and retire to rest?’

‘Leave the apartment? Why, where am I?’

‘In my private drawing-room, surrounded by a few particular persons
of the Court whom I had invited this evening to a ball. You entered
a few minutes since in your nightdress with your eyes fixed and wide
open. I suppose from the astonishment you now testify that you were
walking in your sleep.’

The Emperor immediately fell into a fit of catalepsy, in which he
continued during the whole of that night and the greater part of
next day.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

From the manuscript of the ‘Green Dwarf,’ an unpublished story which
was commenced on July 10th, 1833, and completed on September 2nd,
1833.—C. W. H.




THE TRAGEDY AND THE ESSAY




    THE TRAGEDY AND THE ESSAY
    FROM THE MANUSCRIPT ENTITLED

    ARTHURIANA, OR
    ODDS AND ENDS

    BEING
    A MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTION
    OF PIECES

    IN

    PROSE AND VERSE,

    BY

    LORD CHARLES A. F.
    WELLESLEY.

    Commenced September 27th, 1833.

    Finished November 20th, 1833.




THE TRAGEDY AND THE ESSAY

ONE wet and rainy afternoon Arthur was sitting alone in his room.
The unfavourable weather, united to a severe headache the consequence
of certain vigils of the previous night, indisposed him for serious
study, and he sat toasting his feet at a bright fire and languidly
turning over Vernet’s splendid views of the scenery round Verdopolis.

While thus employed, or rather indis-employed, in the vain endeavour
to kill time, a servant entered and announced: ‘Mr. Hamilton.’

‘Show him in,’ said Arthur with alacrity, glad of anything which
might be likely to divert the tedious ennui which oppressed him.

As the young architect, who it is well known is one of my brother’s
numerous toadies, appeared at the door, he rose and, offering him
his hand, said with that winning air of condescension which has gained
for him the hearts of the rising geniuses in Verdopolis:

‘Well, Edwin, how are you this suicidal day?’

‘Quite well, my lord, I thank you. I trust I find your lordship the
same?’

As they seated themselves on a sofa the marquis replied:

‘I cannot say that I am very brisk this afternoon, I have a slight
headache…’

A brief silence followed of which Arthur seemed impatient, and he
broke it by saying:

‘Now tell me, Edwin, what was your motive for coming to see me this
dull day. I’m mistaken if you had not some particular reason.’

‘Why, my lord,’ replied the architect, blushing and looking down
with an embarrassed air, ‘I can’t deny that I have.’

‘What is it, then?’ replied my brother eagerly. ‘Have you been striking
out some plan for a new public building? If so, let me see it directly.’

‘No, my lord; my employment lately has been of another kind to that
to which you allude. I have been wooing—’

‘Wooing!’ interrupted the marquis. ‘What! you are going to be married,
are you? Humph! I see it all now. On my conscience, it’s a perfect
miracle how such a bashful fellow as you ever summoned courage to
pop the question! But pray, what is the fair lady’s name?’

‘Melpomene, the muse of tears!’ replied the modest Hamilton, blushing
to the temples as he spoke. ‘In short, I’ve ventured hither to show
your lordship a tragedy which I have written, called “Petus and Aria.”’

At these words the spirit of criticism began to sparkle in Arthur’s
eye and the smile of sarcasm to curl his lip. Poor Hamilton shrunk
together as he saw his patron gazing on him with that-cool, keen,
composed aspect of contempt which he sometimes assumed in order to
torture the wretches dependent on his favour.

‘A tragedy!’ he began. ‘Produce it by all means. But first tell me,
Edwin, is it constructed in the Grecian or Gothic style of architecture?
Or perhaps you may have invented a kind of composite order out of
your own head?’

‘Eh, my lord?’ murmured his hapless victim.

‘Petus and Aria,’ continued the unrelenting monster; ‘the former
was, I believe, a somewhat timid and henpecked gentleman, whom for
his arrant poltroonery I have always looked upon with supreme contempt;
and the latter a strapping virago that showed herself particularly
anxious to get her husband out of the world which he dishonoured.
Queer materials these for a tragedy!’

To his observations Hamilton’s only answer was a look of imploring
agony. Its silent eloquence, however, touched Arthur more nearly
than words would have done. He smiled and said in a more encouraging
tone than he had hitherto used:

‘Come, Edwin, dismiss that miserable expression from your face and
let us see this notable play.’

With a trembling hand the architect drew the manuscript from his
pocket and presented it to my brother. Half an hour of profound silence
ensued, during which he continued to endure all the torments of suspense.
At length the marquis laid it down, and the single word ‘Admirable!’
which escaped from his lips at once relieved Hamilton from a host
of fears.

‘Are you in earnest, my lord?’ asked he.

‘Perfectly so; and as a proof of it I advise you to offer this play
without loss of time to Mr. Price of the Theatre Royal. I will write
a few lines in favour of it to him, and I do not doubt but that my
recommendation will be sufficient to secure you handsome treatment
in that quarter.’

A fortnight passed. Rumours began to be rife through Verdopolis that
Mr. Hamilton the architect, whose skill had long advanced him to
the rank of rival to the celebrated Turner, had laid down the compasses
and taken up the pen. Ere long these reports were confirmed by the
appearance one Wednesday morning of Price’s bill of fare, containing
the following announcement:—

    This evening will be performed at the Theatre Royal
    PETUS AND ARIA,
    an entirely new tragedy by Edwin Hamilton, Esq.,
    under the patronage of the Marquis of Douro.
    The character of Aria to be performed by Mrs. Siddons;
    that of Petus by Garry David.

That night Price had reason to lick his lips with satisfaction. Never
before was there such a crowded house: pit, box, and gallery overflowed;
and the manager after all expenses were paid netted a clear profit
of five hundred pounds.

It was on this occasion that I took my station among the branches
of the mighty golden chandelier which hangs from the centre of the
dome; and from thence obtained a bird’s-eye view of the whole magnificent
scene.

Certainly there are few sights more animated and inspiring than a
crowded theatre. The brilliant lights, the ceaseless hum of voices,
the busy and visionary stage, all conspire to raise indescribable
feelings in the soul. More than a thousand of the loveliest women
on earth sparkled in the dress circle, where the waving of plumes,
the rustling of robes, and the light-bright eyes were perfectly dazzling.
Among these my eyes singled out Lady Zenobia Ellrington. I noticed
her particularly, because she seldom visits the theatre. There she
sat robed in gorgeous purple, a star-light band of jewels gleaming
among her rich raven locks. Lord Ellrington stood beside her in his
usual plain black attire, and wearing a white cravat in the centre
of which shone a single diamond. From my elevated station I beheld
the entrance of Mr. Hamilton. The Marquis of Douro preceded him,
accompanied by a beautiful girl in a white dress and green sash without
any ornament on her head except a profusion of chestnut curls which,
clustering in the most luxuriant ringlets, obliged her every now
and then to raise her small hand in order to put them back from her
snowy forehead and laughing blue eyes, which they almost concealed.
I need not say that this was the marchioness.

Who shall describe the tumultuous rush of feelings which rose in
Edwin’s bosom as he glanced hurriedly round at the vast assembly
on which his fate this night depended. His eyes wildly wandered from
the rough tenants of the gallery to the glittering population of
the boxes, and finally fixed themselves on the mighty green curtain
which still hung before the stage. The few moments that elapsed before
its removal seemed to him an hour, but at last the tinkle of the
prompter’s bell sounded and at once it was gathered to the ceiling.

The prologue (which had been furnished by Arthur) was received
with thunders of applause, amidst which arose one solitary note of
disapprobation. All eyes turned on the utterer of this presumptuous
squeal, which was a small deformed thing of the ape kind dressed in a
green coat, and bearing the name of Captain Andrew.

‘Knock him down!’ was the general cry of the gods in the gallery;
which mandate was presently executed by my friend, John Bud, who
stood near. The first scene now came on, in the course of which Mrs.
Siddons displayed all her finest powers and even excelled herself.
Peals of applause again shook the theatre to its foundations. Hamilton
was scarcely able to contain the joy and gratitude which this intoxicating
success excited. His cheeks glowed, his eye sparkled, and his frame
trembled all over. His transports, however, were soon about to receive
a fearful check. At the commencement of the second act Petus rushed
into the tent of Camilus, exclaiming: ‘General, we breathe the air
of death. Our plot is smoked!’

‘Well,’ cried Lord Lofty, who with a bevy of puppies like himself
occupied a box at no great distance; ‘Well, sir, and if your Pipe
is smoked, can’t you light another?’

The laughter of some of the audience was raised by this sally of
miserable wit, which from what followed seemed to have been a preconcerted
signal for an indiscriminate attack on the tragedy. The thread of
approval being once broken it appeared impossible to reunite it.
Hisses, groans, and peals of laughter now rose at the finest passages.
The gods, who are ever ready to join in a tumult, without nicely
inquiring into the cause, yelled aloud for the instant condemnation
of the whole concern. Lofty and his gang joined them clamourosly
in this demand, and at length the uproar rose to such a pitch that
Mr. Price was compelled to come forward to the footlights and declare
that since the audience disapproved of the play he consented to withdraw
it.

‘All hope of fame is gone and I desire to live no longer,’ said Hamilton,
turning on the marquis his corpse-like countenance.

‘Courage, Edwin,’ replied the latter. ‘It is part of my creed that
there is no wound too deep to receive relief from the divine balsam
of revenge. I know who is your principal foe, and if I live you shall
enjoy the remedy in perfection.’



It was a bright and lovely afternoon in the midst of autumn. The
saloons of Waterloo Palace were thrown open for the admission of
all the rank and fashion of Verdopolis. The doors of the great library
were likewise unfolded, and there a knot of _bel-esprits_, the very
flower of Africa’s geniuses, had gathered round a large open bow-window
through which might be seen the extensive pleasure-grounds where
groups of the brighter children of fashion roamed idly about or reposed
under the shade of sequestered bowers. Of course my brother and Lady
Zenobia Ellrington formed the nucleus round which this literary party
had assembled. While they were conversing Lord Lofty entered and
took his station near them. He could not actually join their party,
because, though a man of considerable talent, he had never written
a book, painted a picture, or moulded a statue; and it is an understood
regulation of this chosen band that none but genuine authors and
artists shall have the privilege of entering into their high and
exclusive society. While he listened to the noble sentiment, the
brilliant wit, the exhaustless knowledge, and the varied information
which, clothed in the purest language and uttered in the soft subdued
tones which perfect refinement dictates, formed a conversazione of
such fascinating brilliancy as he had never heard before, undefined
longings arose in his heart to become a more immediate partaker of
the feast of reason and the flow of soul he witnessed. At this moment
the Marchioness of Douro, who, seated on a low footstool at the feet
of her husband and Lady Ellrington, had been gazing up at them with
her large blue eyes full of wonder and delight, suddenly exclaimed
in her usual artless manner: ‘I wish I had written a book!’

‘And so do I,’ was the response that immediately burst from Lofty’s
lips. The marquis smiled at the characteristic simplicity of Marian’s
aspiration; but he turned with a more serious air to Lofty, and said:

‘Well, and what is there to hinder you from writing as many books
as you like?’

‘Nothing, my lord, except that I have not the genius.’

‘Pshaw! nonsense! you can do anything you choose!’

‘Are you in earnest, Douro?’

‘In earnest? Yes, that I am: I never was more so in my life.’

‘Well, then, I really do think I’ll turn author.’

‘That’s right, Fred. I’ll breakfast with you to-morrow morning, and
we’ll talk the matter over at our leisure.’

Next day Arthur was punctual to his appointment. On entering the
breakfast-room he found Lord Frederic seated in a morning gown of
green and silver brocade with slippers to correspond, and on the
table beside him lay a quire of paper and an inkstand of elaborate
workmanship with golden pens, etc. The smile with which he viewed
these preparations would have undeceived any other than Lofty, whose
faculties were rendered, however, so obtuse by conceit that he conceived
it to be merely a token of approbation.

After the first cup or two of chocolate had been discussed the marquis
entered upon business by saying: ‘Well, Fred, do you continue in
the same mind I left you in last night?’

‘Certainly, my lord; I am even confirmed in my determination to become
an author. The only thing that puzzles me is on what subject to exercise
that genius which you flatter me I possess.’

After a moment’s silence and apparent consideration, Arthur said:

‘Of course you would desire something original. Talent like yours
would not be content to follow in any beaten path.’

‘Surely. In fact, I have determined that no hackneyed theme shall
receive immortality from my pen. Now, Douro, could you not help me
to one that has never been touched on before?’

‘I think I could; but before I mention it let me briefly define to
you the meaning of originality. It consists in raising from obscurity
some theme, topic, employment, or existence which has never been
thought of by the great mass of men, or thought of only to be despised;
in pouring around it the light of genius, proving its claim to admiration
by subtlety of logic, clothing it with all the bright tones of a
lively imagination, and presenting it thus adorned to the astonished
world. I counsel you, Fred, to take for your subject the unjustly
condemned art of the laundress. Write an essay on it divided into
three parts, viz.: washing, starching, and ironing. In the first,
summon up all your learning. Go back to the old times of Homer when
princesses bleached linen in the gardens of Adcinous. Trace the art
through the ramifications of ages and nations down to the present
day. Expatiate upon the purity of the employment; give it an allegorical
meaning, and conclude by saying that it excels all others in dignity
and honour. Let the second be a dissertation on the process of making
starch. Point out the grain which is most proper for it, and launch
a thundering anathema against all adulterators of the genuine article.
In the third, discourse most excellent music on the different kinds
of irons, as box-irons, flat-irons, and Italian irons, and mind you
give them the preference over such machines as mangles and calenders.
Do all this and I think I can promise you as the reward of your labours
renown of such a nature and extent as would satisfy the ambition
of most men.’

‘My lord,’ replied Lofty, ‘by this disinterested and noble counsel
you have conferred on me an eternal obligation. I will follow up
the hint you have given, and by so doing I hope to produce somewhat
that the gracious public will not willingly let die.’

From that day Lord Lofty became an altered man. He was no longer
the free, dashing, gallant young nobleman whose handsome exterior
and high-bred manners endeared him to the fair sex, and whose superiority
both mental and personal had entitled him to the rank of viceroy
in the world of fashion, subject only to those two mighty monarchs,
Douro and Ellrington. Seldom now was either ballroom, race ground,
parliament house, rotunda, or ring honoured with his presence. Day
and night he immersed himself in the solitude of his study and gave
access to none but my brother, who urged him unrelentingly to the
completion of the task which he had assigned him. Sometimes, indeed,
the unhappy gull ventured forth to his old haunts, but so changed
was he become in dress, language, and behaviour as scarcely to be
recognised by his most intimate friends. A shabby black coat was
generally wrapped round him; shoes trodden down at the heels garnished
his feet; and the fair hair which formerly was his greatest pride,
and which he usually wore arranged in clustering curls, now hung
neglected in elf-locks round a countenance that for consumptive paleness
and attenuation might have been envied by the veriest tea-taster
in existence. His conversation was in unison with his appearance,
whining, sickly, pedantic, and filled with that disgusting species
of affectation peculiar to literary coxcombs. The consequence of
this was that those who had been accustomed to consider his acquaintance
as an honour and a matter of boasting now grew ashamed to be seen
in company with him. When he entered a drawing-room the ladies turned
aside their heads, and the gentlemen regarded him with a glance of
undisguised contempt. Not a hand was stretched out to welcome him;
not a voice repeated his name except in atone of derision. These
things, however, he neither saw nor regarded. Fenced by a triple
shield of self-conceit, the scorn of women and the disgust of men
moved him no more than hailstones would a rock.

After some months of incessant labour he at length one evening announced
to the marquis that his work was completed.

‘Wait till to-morrow, Fred,’ replied that faithful friend. ‘I will
then accompany you to Sergeant Tree’s, and you shall taste the first
sweets of authorship.’

That night and the first hours of morning seemed to Lofty an age.
As soon as breakfast was over he stationed himself at the window
and continued impatiently looking out for Arthur’s appearance. At
length about eleven o’clock a.m. he perceived him advancing with
his usual stately tread up the street. Flinging open the sash he
jumped out and ran to meet him. As they walked towards the great
bookseller’s the marquis mentioned that he had invited a few friends
to meet him there that morning, as he wished them to be spectators
of Lofty’s triumph. The latter bowed and expressed his gratitude
for what he considered to be another instance of my brother’s attachment
to him. They now entered the shop. Above a hundred men of the highest
rank were assembled there, including Castlereagh, Molyneux, Aberford,
Beauclerk, Sidney, Russell, Howard, Morpeth, etc., and by himself,
leaning against a pillar, was Hamilton the architect, his pale face
and his usually downcast eyes glowing with uncommon ardour behind
the marble slab which, supported on Ionic columns, forms the counter.
Sergeant Tree was seated in an elevated armchair. To him Lofty immediately
advanced and, presenting his manuscript, said in a loud and pompous
tone of voice:

‘Look at that, sir, and tell me what you will give me for it.’

Tree took out his spectacles, placed them with all imaginable
tranquillity, and after reading the title-page and glancing over the
body of the work returned it coolly to the washerwoman, saying in his
quiet business-like manner: ‘This, my lord, is not in my way. You have
probably mistaken me for Mrs. Bleachum, the washerwoman.’

A peal of laughter from the noble bystanders accompanied these words.
Lofty stood motionless a moment as if transfixed, then turned to
the marquis with a look of speechless agony. Instead of the cloud
of sympathetic sorrow he had expected to see brooding on his friend’s
brow his eyes fell on a countenance illumined by a smile of arch,
cold, triumphant, deep and devilish meaning. It pierced at once the
thick veil of infatuation that obscured his-mental vision, and suddenly
the light of truth burst on him with almost annihilating splendour.
While he stood more like a statue than a living man Arthur advanced
and said in a low and soft voice, but so distinct as to be heard
by all present:

‘Well, Frederic, don’t you think a rejected essay is almost as agreeable
as a condemned tragedy?’

    C. BRONTË,
    _October 6th_, 1833.




A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK

CHARLOTTE BRONTË was eighteen years of age when she wrote these
descriptions of the principal characters in her stories. ‘The land
of the Genii’ had become ‘The Kingdom of Angria’; the Duke of Wellington
was almost forgotten; and her early hero, the Marquis of Douro, had
received various other titles, including that of Duke of Zamorna,
and had been elected King of Angria. He had developed a character
totally different from that of the studious and ingenuous youth of
Charlotte Brontë’s earlier stories.

At this time his first wife, Marian Hume, is supposed to have been
dead several years, and he is married to Mary Henrietta, the daughter
of his Prime Minister—Alexander Percy, Viscount Ellrington and Earl
of Northangerland.

Alexander Percy (sometimes called Alexander Rogue) was originally
a pirate, and was one of the creations of Charlotte’s brother, Patrick
Branwell Brontë, when very young. On pp. 175-179 of _A Bibliography
of the Writings in Prose and Verse of the Members of the Brontë Family_,
1917, by Thomas J. Wise, is printed a poem of one hundred and twenty-eight
lines entitled ‘The Rover.’ This is a poem by Patrick Branwell Brontë
descriptive of one of Alexander Percy’s adventures when he was a
pirate. It was from this character that Branwell Brontë took the
pseudonyms of ‘Northangerland’ and ‘Alexander Percy,’ which he continued
to use until the end of his life.

The first wife of Northangerland also is dead at this time, and he
is married to Lady Zenobia Ellrington, who in earlier stories (‘Albion
and Marina,’ ‘The Rivals,’ and ‘Love and Jealousy’) was the rival
of Marian Hume for the affections of the Marquis of Douro.

General Thornton is the guardian of the young Lord Wellesley, the
supposed author of the manuscript in which ‘A Peep into a Picture
Book’ was found.

C. W. H.



    A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK

    FROM THE MANUSCRIPT ENTITLED

    CORNER DISHES

    BEING
    A SMALL COLLECTION OF
    MIXED AND UNSUBSTANTIAL
    TRIFLES
    IN PROSE AND
    VERSE

    BY

    LORD CHARLES ALBERT
    FLORIAN WELLESLEY.

    Begun May 28th, 1834.

    Finished June 16th, 1834.




A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK

IT is a fine, warm, sultry day, just after dinner. I am at Thornton
Hotel. The General is enjoying his customary nap; and while the serene
evening sunshine reposes on his bland features and unruffled brow,
an atmosphere of calm seems to pervade the apartment.

What shall I do to amuse myself? I dare not stir lest he should awake;
and any disturbance of his slumbers at this moment might be productive
of serious consequences to me: no circumstance would more effectually
sour my landlord’s ordinarily bland temperament. Hark! There is a
slight, light snore, most musical, most melancholy: he is firmly
locked in the chains of the drowsy god.

At the opposite end of the room three large volumes that look like
picture books lie on a sideboard; their green watered-silk quarto
covers and gilt backs are tempting, and I will make an effort to
gain possession of them. Softly, softly: there, I have thrown down
a silver fruit knife and a piece of orange peel! He stirs! I must
pause awhile or he will certainly awake. Hem! the worthy gentleman
settles down to his former tranquillity; the incipient frown which
contracted his forehead is past away; and the rest of a good conscience,
the calm of a mental and corporeal healthiness, sleeps there again.

With zephyr-step and bosomed breath I glide onward to the sideboard,
I seize my prize, and being once more safely established in my chair
I open the volumes to see if the profit be equivalent to the pains.

Eureka! Eureka! ‘Tree’s Portrait Gallery of the Aristocracy of Africa’!
Why, here is cent. per cent. indeed! The very thing; the beau-ideal
of provision for an after-dinner’s amusement! However languid and
unfitted for exertion, the veriest gourmand could not turn with disgust
from such placid entertainment as is here prepared for him; the sleepiest
eye might wander unwearied over the silent visions that here follow
each other in a succession so dreamy and voiceless.

I am no gourmand after dinner; I am as active as before; but just
now the pleasure of hanging over forms that speak without sound,
of gazing into motionless eyes that search your very heart, is more
attractive to me than sprightlier employments.

The second volume is nearest to my hand, and I will raise first from
the shadow of gossamer paper, waving as I turn it like a web of woven
air, the spirit whosoever it be, male or female, crowned or coroneted,
that animates its frontispiece.

A mighty phantom has answered my spell: an awful shape clouds the
magic mirror! Reader, before me I behold the earthly tabernacle of
Northangerland’s unsounded soul! There he stands: what a vessel to
be moulded from the coarse clay of mortality! What a plant to spring
from the rank soil of human existence! And the vessel is without
flaw: polished, fresh, and bright from the last process of the maker.
The flower has sprung up to mature beauty, but not a leaf is curled,
not a blossom faded. This portrait was taken ere the lights and shadows
of twenty-five summers had fallen across the wondrous labyrinth of
Percy’s path through life. At this moment a gleam of sunlight, real
deep gold in hue, comes through the kindled window-panes, and falls
richly and serenely on the picture. It is a softened glory, for the
sun is far west and its amber rays shed inexpressible tranquillity
wherever they descend. How sweetly they sleep on that brow! and on
those Ionic features! Percy! Percy! never was humanity fashioned
in a fairer mould. The eye follows delighted all those classic lines
of face and form: not one unseemly curvature or angle to disturb
the general effect of so much refined regularity; all appears carved
in ivory. The grossness of flesh and blood will not suit its statuesque
exactness and speckless polish. A feeling of fascination comes over
me while I gaze on that Phidian nose defined with such beautiful
precision; that chin and mouth chiselled to such elaborate perfection;
that high, pale forehead, not bald as now, but yet not shadowed with
curls, for the clustering hair is parted back, gathered in abundant
wreaths on the temples and leaving the brow free for all the gloom
and glory of a mind that has no parallel to play over the expanse
of living marble which its absence reveals. The expression in this
picture is somewhat pensive, composed, free from sarcasm except the
fixed sneer of the-lip and the strange deadly glitter of the eye
whose glance—a mixture of the keenest scorn and deepest thought—curdles
the spectator’s blood to ice. In my opinion this head embodies the
most vivid ideas we can conceive of Lucifer, the rebellious archangel:
there is such a total absence of human feeling and sympathy; such
a cold frozen pride; such a fathomless power of intellect; such passionless
yet perfect beauty—not breathing and burning, full of tightening
blood and fiery thought and feeling like that of some others whom
our readers will recollect,—but severely studied, faultlessly refined,
as cold and hard and polished and perfect as the most priceless brilliant.
And in his eye there is a shade of something, words cannot express
what. The sight may catch, but not fix it. A gleam, scarcely human,
dark and fiend-like, it steals away under the lash, quivers sometimes
with the mysterious tremor of a northern light, fixes stedfastly
on some luckless bystander, who shrinks from the supernatural aspect,
and then is all at once quenched. Once that marvellous light fell
on me; and long after I beheld it vanish its memory haunted me like
a spirit. The sensation which it excited was very singular. I felt
as if he could read my soul; and strange to tell there was no fear
lest he should find sinful thoughts and recollections there, but
a harassing dread lest anything good might arise which would awake
the tremendous power of sarcasm that I saw lurking in every feature
of his face. Northangerland has a black drop in his veins that flows
through every vessel, taints every limb, stagnates round his heart,
and there in the very citadel of life the albinous blood of the patrician
is the bitterest, rankest gall. Let us leave him in that shape, ‘bright
with beauty, dark with crime.’ He has sailed over many seas, wandered
in many lands; just so with that look buried in profound meditation
I can imagine him pacing the silent quarter-deck of his own _Red
Rover_, his eyes fixed on the sullen sea that moans round him on
every side, watching the mighty plunges of the waves rushing on as
if they had an aim in their journey, as if they would bound on before
his gallant ship, and were seeking the land she sought with emulous
intent to outstrip the wanderer of their green wilderness, and to
teach her that ocean would not brook her haughty defiance. Farewell,
Percy!

I turn the leaves and behold—his countess!

Hum! hum! I am not on very good terms with this celebrated lady,
as all the world knows; yet plain truth compels me to confess that
she is a very fine woman, a superb daughter of Verdopolis; and Frederick
de Lisle has done her justice; so has Edward Findan. A mere blue
ought not to be so handsome. What eyes! What raven hair! What an
imposing contour of form and countenance!

She is perfectly grand in her velvet robes, dark plume, and crown-like
turban. The lady of Ellrington House, the wife of Northangerland,
the prima donna of the Angrian Court, the most learned woman of her
age, the modern Cleopatra, the Verdopolitan de Staël: in a word,
Zenobia Percy! Who would think that that grand form of feminine majesty
could launch out into the unbridled excesses of passion in which
her ladyship not unfrequently indulges? There is fire in her eyes,
and command on her brow; and some touch of a pride that would spurn
restraint in the curl of her rich lip. But all is so tempered with
womanly dignity that it would seem as if neither fire nor pride nor
imperiousness could awaken the towering fits of ungoverned and frantic
rage that often deform her beauty. Her hands, look at them, they
are well formed and small, white and sparkling with rings; is it
natural that such hands should inflict the blows that sometimes tingle
from them? I think not; but my scarlet ears and aching bones have
more than once borne incontestable witness how the case stands! The
truth is her fingers though slender are long and like those of Zamorna,
and like his they possess more vigour than their fragile structure
would seem to indicate. She can spar, I verily believe, with her
own husband, one of the best boxers on record, though now a little
disabled by a tormenting complaint from long-continued exertion.
Her employment, however, as here represented is of a higher order
than pugilistic achievement. She leans on a large clasped volume,
another of equal size lies open before her, and: one taper forefinger
directs the spectator’s attention to the page while her eye looks
into his with an earnest and solemn air as if she were warning him
of the mighty treasures contained in the maxims of ancient lore to
which she points. As I turn from this pictured representation of
the countess I must say she is a noble creature both in mind and
body, though full of the blackest defects: a flawed diamond; a magnificent
landscape trenched with drains; virgin gold basely adulterated with
brass; a beautiful intellectual woman, but an infidel.

The next portrait is that of His Grace the Duke of Fidena. I feel
as if awaking from a feverish dream, a distempered vision of troubled
grandeur and stormy glory, as I raise my eyes from the lord and lady
of Pandemonium, from Sin and Satan, and let them fall on Prince John,
the Royal Philosopher. How grave! what severe virtue! what deep and
far-sought and well-treasured wisdom! what inflexible uprightness!
Integrity that Death could not turn from the path of right; Firmness
that would stoop to the block rather than yield one jot of its just,
mature, righteous resolution; Truth from which the agonies of the
wheel would be powerless to wring a word of equivocation; and to
speak verity, Pride that could no more be thawed than the icebergs
of Greenland or the snows of his own Highland hills. There is a look
too of prejudice in his rather stern forehead, a something which
tells us that Fidena could be an unforgiving, almost a vindictive,
enemy, if stubbornly opposed or wantonly insulted. An air of reserve,
of stiffness, which warns us that the son of Alexander,—all good,
wise, and just, as he is,—lays emphasis on the forms of Courts, the
usages of high circles. He will brook no breach of them, however
trivial, in those under his authority. That cold eye and aristocratic
mien say that jealousy would be quickly aroused by any mingling of
ranks, any inroads of plebeians on the rights of patricians, any
removing of landmarks or undermining of old institutions. He looks
chill, almost forbidding. Something like a cold feeling of restraint
creeps over us whilst we gaze: the virtues pictured in his stately
features seem of that high and holy order which almost exempt their
possessor from sympathy with mankind. Thoughts of martyrs or patriots,
a zealous but stern prophet chosen in evil times to denounce judgment,
not to proclaim mercy, recur to our minds. Yet John is not altogether
what he appears; or rather he is that and more too. I have seen him
in private life in moments of relaxation when surrounded by his family
and one or two bosom friends. Nothing in such circumstances can be
more fascinating than his winning, easy manner, his calm cheerfulness,
his pleasing, philosophical gravity of aspect and demeanour. For
hours I have watched him while he sat on a sofa with his lovely wife
beside him, and the beautiful Marchioness of Douro sitting at his
feet; and heard the benignant simplicity with which he poured out
the stores of his varied and extensive erudition, answering so kindly
and familiarly each question of the fair listeners, mingling an air
of conjugal tenderness in his manner to his wife, and earnest melancholy
gentleness in that to Marian such as always characterized his treatment
of her. Poor thing! she looked on him as her only friend,—her brother,
her adviser, her unerring oracle; with the warm devotedness that
marked her disposition she followed his advice as if it had been
the precept of inspired revelation. Fidena could not err; he could
neither think nor act wrongly: he was perfect. Those who thought
him too proud were very much mistaken. _She_ never found him so.
Nobody had milder and softer manners; nobody spoke more pleasantly.
Thus she would talk; then blush with anger if any one contradicted
her too exclusively favourable opinion. Prince John, I believe, regarded
Marian as a delicate flower planted in a stormy situation; as a lovely,
fragile being that needed his careful protection; and that protection
he would have extended to her at the hazard of life itself. To the
last he tried to support her. Many lone days he spent in watching
and cheering her during her final lingering sickness; but all the
kindness, all the tenderness in the world were insufficient to raise
that blighted lily so long as the sunshine of those eyes which had
been her idolatry was withered; and so long as the music of that
voice she had loved so fondly and truly sounded too far off to be
heard. Fidena was in the house when she died. He had left the chamber
but a few minutes before Zamorna entered it. On quitting the bedside,
as he hung over his adopted sister for the last time, a single large
tear, the only one anguish, bodily or mental, ever wrung from the
exalted soul of the Christian philosopher, dropped on the little
worn hand he held in his; and he muttered half aloud: ‘Would to God
I had possessed this treasure; it should not thus have been thrown
away.’

Marian’s portrait comes next to Fidena. Every one know what it is
like: the small delicate features, dark blue eyes full of wild and
tender enthusiasm, beautiful curls, and frail-looking form, are familiar
to all; so I need not pause on a more elaborate detail.

After her the frank face of General Thornton looks out on the gazer
with a hearty, welcoming aspect. You almost hear his doric accents
exclaiming: ‘Well, how do you do, this evening? Fine, summer weather!
I’m taking a bit of a stroll to Girnington Hall. Will ye come with
me and see how the cattle thrive?’ Honest, honest Thornton! there
are few men so worthy as thyself in the world. Thou hast been wronged,
vilely and shamefully wronged; yet not a shadow of discontent in
that smooth, broad brow, with its dashing swirl of hair, intimates
that thou art an ill-used man. Never did a word of complaint fall
from those fresh-coloured, well-formed lips. Hearty execrations have
often poured from them, but not a single whine. Thornton bears a
resemblance to Prince John; faint indeed and rather uncertain as
to its locality, but still sufficient to point out their relationship.
The complexions of both are fair and northern; the eyes are of similar
colour: a clear and lively grey; and the nose not unlike in contour.
Their forms, however, are very different, the general’s being middle-sized
and somewhat stout, the duke’s tall, thin, and stately. But their
minds! There the great distinction lies; no wonder they hate each
other! Fire and flint could no more amalgamate than them.

Lady Maria Sneachy, a real, dazzling, brilliant, smiling beauty!
What large, imperial eyes; what a magnificent neck and brow; and
how haughtily she lifts her fair head with its weight of glancing
black ringlets! She seems to scorn the earth which her small foot
presses, and to look round in supreme contempt of beggarly man and
all his trifling concerns. He may gaze at her, worship her, but let
him aspire no higher. The laugh of satire that can burst from those
lips is cutting to the last degree. I have seen many a wretch writhing
under it, and pitied the despair with which he turned away from the
royal coquette to seek happiness in a less splendid and less disdainful
form. People say that Maria has found her tamer now. I know not how
that is, but I think the King of Angria is too well satisfied with
his present Queen, who fits herself to him and all his proud strange
ways more perfectly every day, to choose even so grand a successor
as Maria Sneachy would be.

Augustus, Marquis of Rosendale—young Highland Red-Deer! Fidena may
be proud of his son. I never saw a child who better merited the epithet,
‘handsome,’ than does this juvenile prince. All his limbs and features
are so round and regular. Look at those fleshy, plump arms naked
to the shoulder; on that fair and florid face with its fearless blue
eye, and the curly grace of his plentiful light hair; on that bold
white forehead which will be bared yet to the mountain winds of his
fatherland when he fronts them in the storm of the chase, and to
the keener gales of war when he follows the sound of the trumpet
and charges either to the rescue or ruin of that banner whose orb
is rising, but which ere then will be in its glowing noontide. Prince
John should watch Augustus; let him not follow his young god-father
in infancy or he will do it hereafter in manhood.

Here the second volume closes. I now take up the first.

Fire! Light! What have we here? Zamorna’s self, blazing in the frontispiece
like the sun on his own standard. De Lisle has given him to us in
full regimentals—plumed, epauletted, and sabred (I wish the last
were literally true, by-the-bye!). All his usual insufferableness
or irresistibleness, or whatever the ladies choose to call it, surrounding
him like an atmosphere, he stands as if a thunderbolt could neither
blast the light of his eyes nor dash the effrontery of his brow.
Keen, glorious being! tempered and bright and sharp and rapid as
the scimitar at his side when whirled by the delicate yet vigorous
hand that now grasps the bridle of a horse to all appearance as viciously
beautiful as himself. O Zamorna! what eyes those are glancing under
the deep shadow of that raven crest! They bode no good. Man nor woman
could ever gather more than a troubled, fitful happiness from their
kindest light, Satan gave them their glory to deepen the midnight
gloom that always follows where their lustre has fallen most lovingly.
This, indeed, is something different from Percy. All here is passion
and fire unquenchable. Impetuous sin, stormy pride, diving and soaring
enthusiasm, war and poetry, are kindling their fires in all his veins,
and his wild blood boils from his heart and back again like a torrent
of new-sprung lava. Young duke? Young demon! I have looked at you
till words seemed to issue from your lips in those fine electric
tones, as clear and profound as the silver chords of a harp, which
steal affections like a charm. I think I see him bending his head
to speak to the Countess Zenobia or the Princess Maria or Lady Julia
or perhaps Queen Henrietta, while he whispers words that touch the
heart like a ‘melody that’s sweetly played in tune.’ A low wind rises
and sighs slowly onward. Suddenly his plumes rustle; their haughty
shadow sweeps over his forehead; the eye,—the full, dark, refulgent
eye,—lightens most gloriously; his curls are all stirred; smiles
dawn on his lip. Suddenly he lifts his head, flings back the feathers,
and clusters of bright hair, and, while he stands erect and god-like,
his regards (as the French say) bent on the lady, whoever it be,
who by this time is of course seriously debating whether he be man
or angel, a momentary play of indescribable expression round the
mouth, and elevation of the eyebrows, tell how the stream of thought
runs at that moment; the mind which so noble a form enshrines! Detestable
wretch!—I hate him!

But just opposite, separated only by a transparent sheet of silver
paper, there is something different: his wife, his own matchless
Henrietta! She looks at him with serene eyes as if the dew of placid
thought could be shed on him by the influence of those large, clear
stars. It reminds me of moonlight descending on troubled waters.
I wish the parallel held good all the way, and that she was as far
beyond the reach of sorrows arising from her husband’s insatiable
ambition and fiery impetuosity as Dian is above the lash of the restless
deep. But it is not so: her destiny is linked with his; and however
strange the great river of Zamorna’s fate may flow; however awful
the rapids over which it may rush; however cold and barren the banks
of its channel; however wild, however darkly beached and stormily
billowed the ocean into which it may finally plunge, Mary’s must
follow. Fair creature! I could weep to think of it. For her sake,
I hope a bright futurity for her lord; pity that the shadow of grief
should ever fall where the light of such beauty shines. Every one
knows how like the duchess is to her father: his very image cast
in a softer—it could not be a more refined—mould. They are precisely
similar, even to the very delicacy of their hands. As Byron says,
her features have all the statuesque repose, the calm classic grace,
that dwells on the Earl’s. She, however, has one advantage over him:
the stealing, pensive brilliancy of her hazel eyes, and the peaceful
sweetness of her mouth, impart a harmony to the whole which the satanic
sneer fixed on the corresponding features of Northangerland’s face
totally destroys. The original paintings of these two engraved portraits,
namely, Zamorna’s and his lady’s, hang in the grand refectory at
Wellesley House. Five hundred guineas was the sum paid for each.
They are de Lisle’s, and rank amongst his most splendid _chefs-d’œuvre_.
I know of no parallels to them, except those of Percy and Zenobia
in the central saloon at Ellrington Hall. Search all the world from
Iceland to Australia, and you will not find four human beings, male
and female, to compare with them.

Hector Mirabeau Montmorency, Esq.! These features are somewhat stern
to gaze on after such a continuation of the beautiful. They are far,
however, from being harsh and disagreeable. A great deal of stuff was
written some years ago about the exaggerated and grotesque character of
this gentleman’s physiognomy. I remember several libellous assertions
to that effect in the long since exploded catch-penny of Captain Tree’s
denominated: ‘The Foundling.’[8] But, indeed, where all the rest was a
compound of the grossest falsehood, where Lord and Lady Ellrington, Mr.
Sydney, the Duke of Wellington, the whole concern of the Philosopher’s
Island,—tutors, masters of colleges, students and all,—were hashed up
into one wild farrago of bombast, fustian and lies, why should the
Lord of Derrinane escape more than others? It is not to be wondered at
that this same work, which gave a detailed account of Zenobia Percy’s
declaring in solemn soliloquy that she hated her husband—abhorred,
loathed, detested her own Alexander—which afterwards showed her
daring him in the most insolent language to his fate, glorifying the
young Marquis of Douro, and anathematizing _him_; and which, to crown
all, made Percy offer to commit an act that certainly was more than
excusable—almost justifiable after such provocation,—namely, the final
settling of so shrewish and shameless a wife, introduced a third
person to prevent the deed, and made his interference successful.
The volume which contained all this, I say, should excite but small
accession of wonder by the few lines that describe Montmorency as
a broad, low man, bandy-legged, squinting, his head covered with a
shock of shaggy black hair, and his eyes of the consistency of boiled
gooseberries: green, glassy, and ghost-like. The fact is Hector is
a tall, well-proportioned, robust figure, with red hair, a florid
complexion, an expression of eye which indicates good humour, powerful
talent, and no small degree of ferocity. His countenance is certainly
not so femininely elegant as that of Northangerland, nor so fierily
magnificent as that of Zamorna, but it is the countenance of a
gentleman and a Glass-towner, not of a brownie and a bear.

8 ‘The Foundling: A Tale of Our Own Times,’ by Captain Tree, is an
unpublished story containing about thirty-five thousand words, which
was commenced by Charlotte Brontë on May 31st, 1833, and completed
on June 27th, 1823. The manuscript is described, and facsimiles of
two pages of the manuscript are given, by Mr. T. J. Wise in his book,
_A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of the Members
of the Brontë Family_, published in 1917.—C. W. H.

Hist! Thornton is awakening!

‘Heigho, Charles, what are ye about there?’

‘Looking at pictures.’

‘Looking at pictures? Aye, that ye are with a vengeance! Do ye see
what you’ve done? Daubed your hands with ink, and then rubbed them
over every other portrait in the book. Well, child, thou dost try
my patience! Take away your fingers this minute. There! he’s drawn
a scrawl across Lady Julia Sydney’s bonny face and spoiled the handsomest
lass in the book! Leave the room and get me _The Cook’s Guide_: you
shall learn a page of recipes for this business before ever you have
a morsel of supper. Poor Julia! she’s fairly changed into a blackamoor;
and there’s John with an ink mark across his forehead that makes
him frown like death. Faith, that was a lucky hit! I’ve a’most a
good mind to forgive you for it; but I willn’t either: there’s a
hundred pounds thrown away, and I won’t have such work.’

All this was very true. While examining the portraits I had been
jotting down the few remarks here contained. The ink had been communicated
by the pen to my fingers, and by them to each leaf as I turned it
over. If crime can be expiated by punishment, however, my sin was
soon washed away. Till ten o’clock that night I was engaged in lifting
up my voice over the pathetic pages of _The Cook’s Guide, or, Every
Man his own Housekeeper_—(I think that is the title of the abomination);
and, let me assure the reader, such a penalty as this might be the
guerdon of graver guilt.

    C. BRONTË,
    _May 30th_, 1834.




MINA LAURY

I

FROM the first part of the manuscript entitled ‘Passing Events,’
completed by Charlotte Brontë on her twentieth birthday, April 21st,
1836.

C. W. H.




MINA LAURY

I

THE Cross of Rivaulx![9] Is that a name familiar to my readers? I
rather think not. Listen, then. It is a green, delightful, and quiet
place, half way between Angria and the foot of the Sydenham Hills,
under the frown of Hawkscliffe, and on the edge of its royal forest.
You see a fair house whose sash-windows are set in ivy grown thick
and kept in trim order. Over the front door there is a little porch
of trellis-work, all the summer covered with a succession of verdant
leaves and pink roses: globes, buds, and full-blown blossoms. Within
this in fine weather the door is constantly open and reveals a passage
terminating in a staircase of low white steps traced up the middle
by a brilliant carpet. There are no decided grounds laid out about
the Cross of Rivaulx; but a lawn-like greenness surrounds it, and
the last remnants of Hawkscliffe shade it in the form of many wild-rose
trees and a few lofty elms. You look in vain for anything like a
wall or gate to shut it in. The only landmark consists in an old
obelisk with moss and wild-flowers at its base and a half-obliterated
crucifix sculptured on its side. Well, this is no very presuming
place, but on a June evening not seldom have I seen a figure whom
every eye in Angria might recognise stride out of the domestic gloom
of that little hall and stand in pleasant leisure under the porch
whose flowers and leaves were disturbed by the contact of his curls.
It is but a lodge to the mighty towers of Hawkscliffe, which being
five miles distant buried in the chase are of less convenient access.
The day is breezeless, quite still and warm. The sun far declined,
for afternoon is just melting into evening, sheds a deep amber light.
A cheerful air surrounds the mansion, whose windows are up, its door
as usual hospitably apart; and the broad passage reverberates with
a lively conversational hum from the rooms which open upon it. The
day is of that perfectly mild, sunny kind that by an irresistible
influence draws people out into the balmy air; and see, there are
two gentlemen lounging easily in the porch sipping coffee from the
cups they have brought from the drawing-room, and a third has stretched
himself on the soft moss in the shadow of the obelisk. But for these
figures the landscape would be one of exquisite repose. They break
the enchantment of sun, sky, pleasant home, and waveless trees. Their
dress is military: they are officers from Angria, from the headquarters
of Zamorna’s grand army. Two at least are of this description. The
other, reclining on the grass, a slight figure in black, wears a
civil dress. That is Mr. Warner, the Home Secretary. Another person
was standing by him, whom I should not have omitted to describe.
It was a fine girl dressed in rich black satin with ornaments like
those of a bandit’s wife, in which a whole fortune seemed to have
been expended; but no wonder, for they had doubtless been the gifts
of a king! In her ears (she was not too refined for the barbaric
magnificence of earrings) hung two long clear drops red as fire and
suffused with a purple tint that showed them to be the true oriental
ruby. Bright, delicate links of gold circled her neck again and again;
and a cross of gems lay on her breast, the centre stone of which
was a locket enclosing a ringlet of dark brown hair. With that little
soft curl she would not have parted for a kingdom.

9 The name of Rivaulx was probably obtained from Rivaulx Abbey (now
in ruins), founded in 1131 for the Cistercians. It is in the N. Riding
of Yorkshire, in Rye Dale, at the foot of the Hambleton Hills.—C.
W. H.

Warner’s eyes were fixed with interest on Miss Laury as she stood
over him, a model of beautiful vigour and glowing health, a kind
of military erectness in her form so elegantly built, and in the
manner in which her neck sprung from her bust and was placed with
graceful uprightness on her falling shoulders. Her waist too falling
in behind, and her fine slender foot supporting her in a regulated
position, plainly indicated familiarity from her childhood with the
sergeants’ drill.

All the afternoon she had been entertaining: her exalted guests,—the
two in the porch were no other than Lord Hartford and Enara,[10]
and conversing with them frankly and cheerfully, but with a total
absence of levity, a dash of seriousness, an habitual intentness
of purpose that had more than once attracted to her the admiring
glance of the Home Secretary. These and Lord Arundel were the only
friends she had in the world. Female acquaintance she never sought,
nor if she had sought would she have found them. And so sagacious,
clever, and earnest was she in all she said and did that the haughty
aristocrats did not hesitate to communicate with her often on matters
of first-rate importance. Mr. Warner was now talking to her about
himself.

10 General Henri Fernando de Euara, known in the army as ‘The Tiger.’—C.
W. H.

‘My dear madam,’ he was saying in his imperious but still dulcet
tone, ‘it is unreasonable that you should remain thus exposed to
danger. I am your friend; yes, madam, your true friend. Why do you
not hear me and attend to my representations of the case? Angria
is an unsafe place for you; you ought to leave it.’

The lady shook her head: ‘Never till my master compels me; his land
is my land.’

‘But—but, Miss Laury, you know that our army has no warrant from
the Almighty of conquest. This invasion may be successful, at least
for a time, and then what becomes of you? When the duke’s nation
is wrestling with destruction, his glory sunk in deep waters, and
himself diving desperately to recover it, can he waste a thought
or a moment on a woman? You will be at the tender mercies of Quashia,[11]
and of Sheik Medina,—I mean of the detestable renegade Gordon,—before
you are aware.’

11 Quashia Quamina Kashna, an African chief.—C. W. H.

Mina smiled. ‘I am resolved,’ said she. ‘My master himself shall
not force me to leave him. You know I am hardened, Warner; shame
and reproach have no effect on me. I do not care for being called a
camp-follower. In peace and pleasure all the ladies in Africa would
be at the duke’s beck; in war and suffering he shall not lack one
poor peasant girl. Why, sir, I’ve nothing else to exist for; I’ve no
other interest in life. Just to stand by His Grace and watch him and
anticipate his wishes, or when I cannot do that to execute them like
lightning when they are signified; to wait on him when he is sick or
wounded, to hear his groans and bear his heartrending animal-patience
in enduring pain; to breathe if I can my own inexhaustible health and
energy into him; and oh! if it were practicable, to take his fever
and agony, to guard his interests, to take on my shoulders power from
him that galls me with its weight; to fill gaps in his mighty train
of service that nobody else would dare to step into; to do all that,
sir, is to fulfil the destiny I was born to. I know I am of no repute
among society at large, because I have devoted myself so wholly to one
man. And I know that he very seldom troubles himself to think of what
I do; and has never and can never appreciate the unusual feelings of
subservience, the total self-sacrifice I offer at his shrine. But then
he gives me my reward, and that an abundant one. Mr. Warner, when I
was at Fort Adrian and had all the yoke of governing the garrison and
military household I used to rejoice in my responsibility and to feel
firmer the heavier the weight was assigned me to support. And when my
master came over, as he often did, to take one of his general surveys,
or on a hunting expedition with some of you, his officers, I had such
delights in ordering the banquets and entertainments and in seeing the
fires kindled up and chandeliers lighted in those dark halls, knowing
for whom the feast was made ready; and it gave me a feeling of ecstasy
to hear my young master’s voice as he spoke to you or Arundel or to
that stately Hartford, and to see him moving about secure and powerful
in his own stronghold, to know what true hearts he had about him,
assured as I was that his generals and ministers were men of steel,
and that his vassals under my rule were trusty as the very ramparts
they garrisoned. The last summer evening that he came here the sun and
flowers and quietness brightened his noble features with such happiness
I could tell his heart was at rest, for as he lay in the shade where
you are now I heard him hum the airs he long ago played on his guitar
at Mornington. I was rewarded then to feel that the house I kept was
pleasant enough to make him forget Angria, and recur to home. The west,
the sweet west, is both his home and mine.’

Mina paused and looked solemnly at the sun now softened in its shine
and hanging exceedingly low. In a moment her eyes fell again on Warner.
They seemed to have absorbed radiance from what they had gazed on.
Light like an arrow-point glanced in them as she said:

‘This is my time to follow. Ill not be robbed of those hours of blissful
danger when I may be continually with him. My kind, noble master
never likes to see my tears, and I will weep before him night and
day till he grants what I wish. I am not afraid of danger. I have
strong nerves. I don’t wish to fight like an Amazon; and fatigue
I never felt. I will die or be with him.’

‘What has fired your eyes so suddenly, Miss Laury?’ asked Lord Hartford,
now advancing with Enara from their canopy of roses.

‘The duke, the duke,’ muttered Henri Fernando; ‘she won’t leave him,
I’ll be sworn.’

‘I can’t, general,’ said Mina.

‘No,’ answered the Italian; ‘and nobody shall force you. You shall
have your own way, madam, whether it be right or wrong.’

Before Miss Laury could answer a voice from within the mansion spoke
her name.

‘It is my lord!’ she exclaimed, and ran over the sward, through the
porch, along the passage, to a summer parlour whose walls were painted
a fine pale red, its mouldings burnished gilding, and its window-curtains
artistical draperies of dark blue silk covered with gold waves and
flowers. Here Zamorna sat alone. He had been writing. One or two
letters, folded, sealed, and inscribed with western directions, lay
on the table beside him. His gloves and cambric handkerchief with
a crown wrought upon it in black hair appeared on his desk. He had
not uncovered since entering the house three hours since; and either
the weight of his dragoon helmet or the gloom of its impending plumes
or else some inward feeling had clouded his face with a strange darkness.
Mina closed the door and softly drew near. Without speaking or asking
leave she began to busy herself in unclasping the heavy helmet. The
duke smiled faintly as her little fingers played about his chin and
luxuriant whiskers, and then, the load of brass and sable plumage
being removed, as they arranged the pressed masses of glossy brown
ringlets and touched with soft cool contact his feverish brow. Absorbed
in the grateful task she hardly felt that His Majesty’s arm had encircled
her waist, and yet she did feel it too and would have thought herself
presumptuous to shrink from the endearment. She took it as a slave
ought to take the caress of a Sultan, and obeying the gentle effort
of his hand slowly sank on to the sofa by her master’s side.

‘My little physician,’ said he, meeting her adoring but anxious upward
gaze with the full light of his countenance, ‘you look at me as if
you thought I was not well. Feel my pulse.’

She folded that offered hand, white, supple, and soft with youth
and delicate nature, in both her own, and whether Zamorna’s pulse
beat rapidly or not his handmaid’s did as she felt the slender grasping
fingers of the monarch laid quietly in hers. He did not wait for
the report, but took his hand away again, and laying it on her raven
curls said:

‘So, Mina, you won’t leave me though I never did you any good in
the world? Warner says you are resolved to continue in the scene
of war.’

‘To continue by your side, my lord.’

‘But what shall I do with you, Mina? Where shall I put you? My little
girl, what will the army say when they hear of your presence? You
have read history? Recollect that it was Darius who carried his concubines
to the field, not Alexander! The world will say: “Zamorna attends
to his own pleasures and cares not how his men suffer.”’

Mina writhed at these words as if the iron had entered into her soul.
A vivid burning flush crimsoned her cheek, and tears of shame and
bitter self-reproach gushed at once into her bright black eyes. Zamorna
was touched acutely.

‘Nay, my little girl,’ said he, redoubling his caresses and speaking
in his most soothing tone, ‘never weep about it. It grieves me to
hurt your feelings, but you desire an impossibility, and I must use
strong language to convince you that I cannot grant it.’

‘Oh, don’t refuse me again,’ sobbed Miss Laury. ‘I’ll bear all infamy
and contempt to be allowed to follow you, my lord. My lord, I’ve
served you for many years most faithfully, and I seldom ask a favour
of you. Don’t reject the first request of the kind I have ever made.’

The duke shook his head, and the meeting of his lips, too placid
for the firm compression, told that he was not to be moved.

‘If you should receive a wound, if you should fall sick,’ continued
Mina, ‘what can surgeons and physicians do for you? They cannot watch
you and wait on you and worship you like me, and you do not seem
well now. The bloom is so faded on your complexion, and the flesh
is wasted round your eyes. Do not look so calmly resolved: let me
go!’

Zamorna withdrew his arm from her waist. ‘I must be displeased before
you cease to importune me,’ said he. ‘Mina, look at that letter.
Read the direction,’ pointing to one he had been writing. She obeyed.
It was addressed to, ‘Her Royal Highness, Mary Henrietta, Duchess
of Zamorna.’

‘Must I pay no attention to the feelings of that lady?’ pursued the
duke, whom the duties of war and the conflict of some internal emotions
seemed to render peculiarly stern. ‘Her public claims must be respected
whether I love her or not.’

Miss Laury shrunk into herself. Not another word did she venture
to breathe. An unconscious wish of wild intensity filled her that
she were dead and buried, and insensible to the shame that overwhelmed
her. She saw Zamorna’s finger with the ring on it still pointing
to that awful name, a name that raised no impulse of hatred: far
too high and blessed did the exalted lady seem for that; but only
bitter humiliation and self-abasement. She stole from her master’s
side feeling that she had no more right to sit there than a fawn
has to share the den of a royal lion; and murmuring that she was
very sorry for her folly, was about to glide in dismay and despair
from the room. But the duke rising up arrested her, and bending his
lofty stature over her as she crouched before him folded her again
in his arms. His countenance relaxed not a moment from its sternness,
nor did the gloom leave his magnificent but worn features as he said:

‘I will make no apologies for what I have said, because I know, Mina,
that as I hold you now you feel fully recompensed for my severity.
Before I depart I will speak to you one word of comfort which you
may remember when I am far away and perhaps dead. My dear girl! I
know and appreciate all you have done, all you have resigned, and
all you have endured, for my sake. I repay you for it with one coin:
with what alone to you will be of greater worth than worlds without
it. I give you such true and fond love as a master can give to the
fairest and loveliest vassal that ever was bound to him in feudal
allegiance. You may never feel the touch of Zamorna’s lips again.
There, Mina!’ And fervently and almost fiercely he pressed his lips
to her forehead. ‘Go to your chamber; to-morrow you must leave for
the west.’

‘Obedient till death,’ was Miss Laury’s answer as she closed the
door and disappeared.

  •       •       •       •       •       •       •

    C. BRONTË,
    _April 21st_, 1836.




MINA LAURY

II

FROM the final portion of an untitled manuscript which was completed
on January 17th, 1838.

C. W. H.




MINA LAURY

II

MISS LAURY was sitting after breakfast in a small library. Her desk
lay before her and two large ruled quartos filled with items and
figures which she seemed to be comparing. Behind her chair stood a
tall, well-made, soldierly young man with light hair. His dress was
plain and gentlemanly; the epaulette, on one shoulder, alone indicated
that he occupied an official capacity. He watched with a fixed look
of attention the movements of the small finger which ascended in
rapid calculation the long columns of accounts. It was strange to see
the absorption of mind expressed in Miss Laury’s face, the gravity
of her smooth white brow shaded with drooping curls, the scarcely
perceptible and unsmiling movement of her lips, though those lips in
their rosy sweetness seemed formed only for smiles. An hour or more
lapsed in this employment, the room meantime continuing in profound
silence broken only by an occasional observation addressed by Miss
Laury to the gentleman behind her concerning the legitimacy of some
item or the absence of some stray farthing wanted to complete the
accuracy of the sum total. In this balancing of the books she displayed
a most business-like sharpness and strictness. The slightest fault
was detected and remarked on in few words, but with quick searching
glance. However, the accountant had evidently been accustomed to
her surveillance, for on the whole his books were a specimen of
arithmetical correctness.

‘Very well,’ said Miss Laury, as she closed the volumes, ‘your accounts
do you credit, Mr. O’Neill. You may tell His Grace that all is quite
right. Your memoranda tally with my own exactly.’

Mr. O’Neill bowed.

‘Thank you, madam. This will bear me out against Lord Hartford. His
lordship lectured me severely last time he came to inspect Fort Adrian.’

‘What about?’ asked Miss Laury, turning aside her face to hide the
deepening of colour which overspread it at the mention of Lord Hartford’s
name.

‘I can hardly tell you, madam; but his lordship was in a savage temper.
Nothing could please him. He found fault with everything and everybody.
I thought he scarcely appeared himself, and that has been the opinion
of many lately.’

Miss Laury gently shook her head.

‘You shall not say so, Ryan,’ she replied in a soft tone of reproof.
‘Lord Hartford has a great many things to think about, and he is
naturally rather stern. You ought to bear with his tempers.’

‘Necessity has no law, madam,’ replied O’Neill with a smile, ‘and
I _must_ bear with them. But his lordship is not a popular man in
the army. He orders the lash so unsparingly. We like the Earl of
Arundel ten times better.’

‘Ah,’ said Miss Laury, smiling, ‘you and I are Westerns, Mr. O’Neill:
Irish,—and we favour our countrymen. But Hartford is a gallant commander.
His men can always trust him. Do not let us be partial.’

Mr. O’Neill bowed in deference to her opinion, but smiled at the
same time, as if he doubted its justice. Taking up his books he seemed
about to leave the room. Before he did so, however, he turned and
said:

‘The duke wished me to inform you, madam, that he would probably
be here about four or five o’clock in the afternoon.’

‘To-day?’ asked Miss Laury in an accent of surprise.

‘Yes, madam.’

She mused a moment, then said quickly: ‘Very well, sir.’

Mr. O’Neill now took his leave.

For a long time after the door had closed Miss Laury sat, with her
head on her hand, lost in a tumultuous flush of ideas and anticipations
awakened by that simple sentence: ‘The duke will be here to-day.’

The striking of a timepiece aroused her. She remembered that twenty
tasks awaited her direction. Always active, always employed, it was
not her custom to waste many hours in dreaming. She rose, closed
her desk, and left the quiet library for busier scenes.

Four o’clock came, and Miss Laury’s foot was heard on the staircase
descending from her chamber. She crossed the large light passage—an
apparition of feminine elegance and beauty. The robe of black satin
became at once the slender form, which it enveloped in full and shining
folds, and her bright blooming complexion, which it set off by the
contrast of colour. Glittering through her curls there was a band
of fine diamonds, and drops of the same pure gems trembled from her
small ears. These ornaments, so regal in their nature, had been the
gift of royalty, and were worn now chiefly for the associations of
soft and happy moments which their gleam might be supposed to convey.
She entered the drawing-room and stood by the window. From thence
appeared one glimpse of the highroad visible through the thickening
shades of Rivaulx. Even that was now almost concealed by the frozen
mist in which the approach of twilight was wrapped. All was very
quiet both in the house and in the wood. A carriage drew near; she
heard the sound. She saw it shoot through the fog; but it was not
Zamorna. No; the driving was neither the driving of Jehu the son
of Nimshi, nor that of Jehu’s postillions. She had not gazed a minute
before her experienced eye discerned that there was something wrong
with the horses.’ The harness had got entangled or they were frightened.
The coachman had lost control over them: they were plunging violently.
She rang the bell. A servant entered. She ordered immediate assistance
to be despatched to the carriage on the road. Two grooms presently
hurried down the drive to execute her commands, but before they could
reach the spot one of the horses, in its gambols, had slipped on
the icy road and fallen. The others grew more unmanageable, and presently
the carriage lay overturned on the roadside. One of Miss Laury’s
messengers came back. She threw up the window that she might communicate
with him more readily.

‘Any accident?’ she asked; ‘anybody hurt?’

‘I hope not much, madam.’

‘Who is in the carriage?’

‘Only one lady, and she seems to have fainted. She looked very white
when I opened the door. What is to be done, madam?’

Miss Laury answered directly: ‘Bring her into the house. Let the
horses be taken to the stables. And the servants: how many are there?’

‘Three, madam: two postillions and a footman.’

‘Do you know the liveries?’

‘Can’t say, madam. Postillions in grey and white, footman in plain
clothes. Horses frightened at a drove of Sydenham oxen, they say:
very spirited nags.’

‘Well, you have my orders: bring the lady in directly, and make the
others comfortable.’

‘Yes, madam.’

The groom touched his hat and departed. Miss Laury shut her window.
It was very cold. Not many minutes elapsed before the lady in the
arms of her own servants was slowly brought up the lawn and ushered
into the drawing-room.

‘Lay her on the sofa,’ said Miss Laury.

She was obeyed. The lady’s travelling-cloak was carefully removed
and a thin figure became apparent in a dark silk dress. The cushions
of down scarcely sank under the pressure, it was so slight.

Her swoon was now passing off. The genial warmth of the fire which
shone full on her revived her. Opening her eyes she looked up at
Miss Laury, who was now bending close over her and wetting her lips
with some cordial. Recognizing a stranger she shyly turned her glance
aside and asked for her servants.

‘They are in the house, madam, and perfectly safe. But you cannot
pursue your journey at present: the carriage is much broken.’

The lady lay silent. She looked keenly round the room, and seeing
the perfect elegance of its arrangement, the cheerful and tranquil
glow of its hearth-light, she appeared to grow more composed. Turning
a little on the cushions which supported her, and by no means looking
at Miss Laury, but straight the other way, she said:

‘To whom am I indebted for this kindness? Where am I?’

‘In a hospitable country, madam; the Angrians never turn their backs
on strangers.’

‘I know I am in Angria,’ she said quickly, ‘but where? What is the
name of the house? Who are you?’

Miss Laury coloured slightly; it seemed as if there was some undefined
reluctance to give her real name.

‘I am only the housekeeper,’ she said. ‘This is a shooting-lodge
belonging to a great Angrian proprietor.’

‘Who?’ asked the lady, who was not to be put off by indirect answers.

Again Miss Laury hesitated. She replied hastily:

‘A gentleman of Western extraction: a distant branch of the great
Pakenhams. So at least the family records say; but they have been
long naturalized in the Kast.’

‘I never heard of them,’ replied the lady. ‘Pakenham! That is not
an Angrian name?’

‘Perhaps, madam, you are not particularly acquainted with this part
of the country?’

‘I know Hawkscliffe,’ said the lady, ‘and your house is on the very
borders, within the Royal Liberties; is it not?’

‘Yes, madam. It stood there before the great duke bought up the forest
manor, and His Majesty allowed my master to retain this lodge and
the privilege of sporting in the chase.’

‘Well, and you are Mr. Pakenham’s housekeeper?’

‘Yes, madam.’

The lady surveyed Miss Laury with another furtive side-glance of
her large majestic eyes. Those eyes lingered upon the diamond earrings,
the bandeau of brilliants that flashed from between the clusters
of raven curls; then passed over the sweet face, the exquisite figure
of the young housekeeper, and finally were reverted to the wall with
an expression that spoke volumes. Miss Laury could have torn the
dazzling pendants from her ears. She was bitterly stung.

In her turn she gazed on her guest. The lady was but a young creature,
though so high and commanding in her demeanour. She had very small
and feminine features, handsome eyes, a neck of delicate curve, and
fair, long, and graceful little snowy aristocratic hands, and sandalled
feet to match. It would have been difficult to tell her rank by her
dress. None of those dazzling witnesses appeared which had betrayed
Miss Laury. Any gentleman’s wife might have worn the gown of dark-blue
silk, the tinted gloves of Parisian kid, and the fairy sandals of
black satin in which she was attired.

‘May I have a room to myself?’ she asked, again turning her eyes
with something of a smile toward Miss Laury.

‘Certainly, madam; I wish to make you comfortable. Can you walk upstairs?’

‘Oh, yes!’

She rose from her couch, and leaning on Miss Laury’s arm in a way
that showed she had been used to that sort of support, they both
glided from the room. Having seen her fair but haughty guest carefully
laid on a stately crimson bed in a quiet and spacious chamber; having
seen her head sink with all its curls into the pillow of down, her
large shy eyes close under their smooth eyelids, and her little slender
hands fold on her breast in an attitude of perfect repose, Miss Laury
prepared to leave her. She stirred.

‘Come back a moment,’ she said. She was obeyed; there was something
in her tone of voice which exacted obedience. ‘I don’t know who you
are;’ she said, ‘but I am very much obliged to you for your kindness.
If my manners are displeasing, forgive me; I mean no incivility.
I suppose you will wish to know my name: it is Mrs. Irving; my husband
is a minister in the northern kirk; I come from Sneachiesland. Now
you may go!’

Miss Laury did go. Mrs. Irving had testified incredulity respecting
her story, and now she reciprocated that incredulity. Both ladies
were lost in their own mystification.

Five o’clock now struck. It was nearly dark. A servant with a taper
was lighting up the chandeliers in the large dining-room where a
table spread for dinner received the kindling lamplight upon a starry
service of silver. It was likewise magnificently flashed back from
a splendid sideboard all arranged in readiness to receive the great,
the expected guest. Tolerably punctual in keeping an appointment
when he meant to keep it at all, Zamorna entered the house as the
fairy-like voice of a musical clock in the passage struck out its
symphony to the pendulum. The opening of the front door, a bitter
rush of the night-wind and then the sudden close, and the step advancing
forwards, were the signals of his arrival.

Miss Laury was in the dining-room looking round and giving the last
touch to all things. She just met her master as he entered. His cold
lip pressed to her forehead and his colder hand clasping hers brought
the sensation which it was her custom of weeks and months to wait
for; and to consider when attained the ample recompense for all delay,
all toil, all suffering.

‘I am frozen, Mina,’ said he; ‘I came on horseback for the last four
miles; and the night is like Canada.’

Chafing his icy hand to animation between her own warm supple palms,
she answered by the speechless but expressive look of joy, satisfaction,
idolatry, which filled and overflowed her eyes.

‘What can I do for you, my lord?’ were her first words as he stood
by the fire rubbing his hands cheerily over the blaze. He laughed.

‘Put your arms round my neck, Mina, and kiss my cheeks as warm and
blooming as your own.’

It gave her a pang to resist the impulse that urged her to take him
at his word; but she put it by, and only diffidently drew near the
armchair into which he had now thrown himself, and began to smooth
and separate the curls which were matted on his temples. She noticed
as the first smile of salutation subsided a gloom succeeded on her
master’s brow, which, however he spoke or laughed, afterwards remained
a settled characteristic of his countenance.

‘What visitors are in the house?’ he asked; ‘I saw the groom rubbing
down four black horses before the stables as I came in. They are
not of the Hawkscliffe stud, I think?’

‘No, my lord. A carriage was overturned at the lawn gates about an
hour since, and as the lady who was in it was taken out insensible
I ordered her to be brought up here, and her servants accommodated
for the night.’

‘And do you know who the lady is?’ continued His Grace; ‘the horses
are good: first-rate.’

‘She says her name is Mrs. Irving, and that she is the wife of a
Presbyterian minister in the north, but—’

‘You hardly believe her?’ interrupted the duke.

‘No,’ returned Miss Laury; ‘I must say I took her for a lady of rank.
She has something highly aristocratic about her manners and aspect,
and she appeared to know a good deal about Angria.’

‘What is she like?’ asked Zamorna; ‘young or old, handsome or ugly?’

‘She is young, slender, not so tall as I am, and I should say rather
elegant than handsome; very pale, cold in her demeanour; she has
a small mouth and chin, and a long fair neck.’

‘Humph! A trifle like Lady Stuartville,’ replied His Majesty. ‘I
should not wonder if it is the countess; but I’ll know. Perhaps you
did not say to whom the house belonged, Mina?’

‘I said,’ replied Mina, smiling, ‘that the owner of the house was
a great Angrian proprietor, a lineal descendant of the Western Pakenhams,
and that I was his housekeeper.’

‘She would not believe you! Give me your hand, Mina. You are not
so old as I am.’

‘Yes, my lord; I was born on the same day, an hour after Your Grace.’

‘So I have heard, but it must be a mistake; you don’t look twenty,
and I am twenty-five. Look at me, Mina, straight, and don’t blush!’

Mina tried to look, but she could not do it without blushing. She
coloured to the temples.

‘Pshaw!’ said His Grace, pushing: her away, ‘my acquaintance of ten
years cannot meet my eye unshrinkingly! Have you lost that ring I
once gave you, Mina?’

‘Which ring, my lord? You have given me many.’

‘That which I said had the essence of your whole heart and mind engraven
in the stone as a motto.’

‘FIDELITY?’ asked Miss Laury; and she held out her hand with a graven
emerald on the forefinger.

‘Right!’ was the reply; ‘is it your motto still?’ And with one of
his jealous glances, he seemed trying to read her conscience. Miss
Laury at once saw that late transactions were not a secret confined
between herself and Lord Hartford. She saw His Grace was unhinged
and strongly inclined to be savage. She stood and watched him with
a sad, fearful gaze.

‘Well,’ she said, turning away after a long pause, ‘if Your Grace
is angry with me I’ve very little to care about in this world.’

The entrance of servants with the dinner prevented Zamorna’s answer.
As he took his place at the head of the table, he said to the man
who stood behind him:

‘Give Mr. Pakenham’s compliments to Mrs. Irving, and say that he
will be happy to see her at his table if she will honour him so far
as to be present there.’

The footman vanished. He returned in five minutes.

‘Mrs. Irving is too much tired to avail herself of Mr. Pakenham’s
kind invitation at present, but she will be happy to join him at
tea.’

‘Very well,’ said Zamorna. Then looking round: ‘Where is Miss Laury?’

Mina was in the act of gliding from the room, but she stopped mechanically
at his call.

‘Am I to dine alone?’ he asked.

‘Does Your Grace wish me to attend you?’

He answered by rising and leading her to her seat. He then resumed
his own, and dinner commenced. It was not until after the cloth was
withdrawn and the servants had retired that the duke, whilst he sipped
his single glass of champagne, recommenced the conversation he had
before unpleasantly entered upon.

‘Come here,’ he said, drawing a chair close to his side.

Mina never hesitated, never delayed through bashfulness or any other
feeling to comply with his orders.

‘Now,’ he continued, leaning his head towards hers and placing his
hand on her shoulder, ‘are you happy, Mina? Do you want anything?’

‘Nothing, my lord.’ She spoke truly; all that was capable of yielding
her happiness on this side of eternity was at that moment within
her reach. The room was full of calm. The lamps burnt as if they
were listening. The fire sent up no flickering flame, but diffused
a broad, still, glowing light over all the room. Zamorna touched
her; his form and features filled her eye; his voice her ear; his
presence her whole heart; she was soothed to perfect happiness.

‘My Fidelity!’ pursued that musical voice, ‘if thou hast any favour
to ask, now is the time. I’m all concession: as yielding as a lady’s
glove. Come, Mina, what is thy petition? and thy request even to
the half of my kingdom shall be granted!’

‘Nothing,’ again murmured Miss Laury. ‘Oh, my lord, nothing! What
can I want?’

‘Nothing?’ he repeated. ‘What! No reward for ten years of faith and
love and devotion; no reward for the companionship in six-months’
exile; no recompense to the little hand that has so often smoothed
my pillow in sickness, to the sweet lips that have many a time in
cool and dewy health been pressed to a brow of fever; none to the
dark Milesian eyes that ‘once grew dim with watching through endless
nights by my bed of delirium? Need I speak of the sweetness and fortitude
that cheered sufferings known only to thee and me? of the devotion
that gave me bread when thou wert dying of hunger? and that scarcely
more than a year since! For all this and much more, must there be
no reward?’

‘I have had it,’ said Miss Laury. ‘I have it now.’

‘But,’ continued the duke, ‘what if I have devised something worthy
of your acceptance? Look up now and listen to me.’

She did look up, but she speedily looked down again. Her master’s
eye was insupportable; it burned absolutely with infernal fire! ‘What
is he going to say?’ murmured Miss Laury to herself. She trembled.

‘I say, love,’ pursued the individual, drawing her a little closer
to him, ‘I will give you as a reward a husband. Don’t start, now!
And that husband shall be a nobleman; and that nobleman is called
Lord Hartford! Now, stand up and let me look at you.’

He opened his arms and Miss Laury sprang erect like a loosened bow.

‘Your Grace is anticipated,’ she said. ‘That offer has been made
me before. Lord Hartford did it himself three days ago.’

‘And what did you say? Speak the truth now: subterfuge won’t avail
you.’

‘What did I say? I don’t know; it little signifies; you have rewarded
me, my lord, but I cannot bear this: I feel sick.’

With a deep, short sob, she turned white, and fell close by the duke,
her head against his foot.

This was the first time in her life that Mina Laury had fainted,
but strong health availed nothing against the deadly struggle which
convulsed every feeling in her nature when she heard her master’s
announcement. She believed him to be perfectly sincere. She thought
he was tired of her and she could not endure it.

I suppose Zamorna’s first feeling when she fell was horror; and his
next I am tolerably certain was intense gratification. People say
I am not in earnest when I abuse him, or else I would here insert
half a page of deserved vituperation—deserved and heartfelt as it
is, I will merely relate his conduct without note or comment.

He took a wax taper from the table and held it over Miss Laury. Here
could be no dissimulation. She was white as marble and still as stone.
In truth then she did intensely love him, with a devotion that left
no room in her thoughts for one shadow of an alien image. Do not
think, reader, that Zamorna meant to be so generous as to bestow
Miss Laury on Lord Hartford. No; he was but testing the attachment
which a thousand proofs daily given ought long ago to have convinced
him was undying.

While he yet gazed she began to recover. Her eyelids stirred and
then slowly dawned from beneath the large black orbs that scarcely
met his before they filled to overflowing with sorrow. Not a gleam
of anger, not a whisper of reproach. Her lips and eyes spoke together
no other language than the simple words: ‘I cannot leave you!’:

She rose feebly and with effort. The duke stretched out his hand
to assist her. He held to her lips the scarcely tasted wine.

‘Mina,’ he said, ‘are you collected enough to hear me?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Then listen. I would much sooner give half, aye, the whole of my
estates to Lord Hartford, than yourself! What I said just now was
only to try you.’

Miss Laury raised her eyes and sighed like one awakening from some
hideous dream, but she could not speak.

‘Would I,’ continued the duke, ‘would I resign the possession of
my first love to any hands but my own? I would far rather see her
in her coffin; and I would lay you there as still, as white, and
much more lifeless than you were stretched just now at my feet before
I would for threat, for entreaty, for purchase, give to another a
glance of your eyes or a smile from your lips. I know you adore me
now, Mina; for you could not feign that agitation, and therefore
I will tell you what proof I gave yesterday of my regard for you.
Hartford mentioned your name in my presence, and I avenged the profanation
by a shot which sent him to his bed little better than a corpse.’

Miss Laury shuddered, but so dark and profound are the mysteries
of human nature, ever allying vice with virtue, that I fear this
bloody proof of her master’s love brought to her heart more rapture
than horror. She said not a word, for now Zamorna’s arms were again
folded round her, and again he was soothing her to tranquillity by
endearments and caresses that far away removed all thought of the
world, all past pangs of shame, all cold doubts, all weariness, all
heart-sickness resulting from hope long deferred. He had told her
that she was his first love, and now she seemed tempted to believe
that she was his only love. Strong-minded beyond her sex; active,
energetic, and accomplished in all other points of view, here she
was as weak as a child. She lost her identity; her very life was
swallowed up in that of another.

There came a knock to the door. Zamorna rose and opened it. His valet
stood without.

‘Might I speak with Your Grace in the anteroom?’ asked Monsieur Rosier
in somewhat of a hurried tone. The duke followed him out.

‘What do you want with me, sir? Anything the matter?’

‘I was walking through the passage two minutes since when I heard
a step on the stairs: a light step as if of a very small foot. I
turned, and there was a lady coming down.’

‘Well, did you know her?’

‘I did. I stood in the shade, screened by a pillar, and she passed
very near without observing me. I saw her distinctly, and it was—’

‘Who, sir?’

‘The duchess!’

There was a pause which was closed by a clear and remarkably prolonged
whistle from the duke. He took a leisurely turn through the room.

‘Mrs. Irving, the wife of a minister in the north! A satirical hit
at myself! What can have brought her? Anxiety about her invaluable
husband! Could not bear any longer without him: obliged to set off
to see what he was doing. It’s as well Rosier told me, however. What
shall I do? I must not be angry; she can’t do with that sort of thing
just now.’

Ceasing his soliloquy, the duke turned again to his valet:

‘Which room did Her Grace go into?’

‘The drawing-room, my lord. She’s there now.’

Zamorna left the room.

Softly unclosing the drawing-room door he perceived the lady by the
hearth. Her back was towards him, but there could be no mistake.
The whole turn of form, the style of dress, the curled auburn head:
all were attributes but of one person. He closed the door as noiselessly
as he had opened it and stole forwards. Her attention was absorbed
in a book she had picked up. As he stood unobserved behind her he
could see that her eyes rested on the flyleaf, where was written
in his own hand:

    Holy St. Cyprian! thy waters stray
        With still and solemn tone;
    And fast my bright hours pass away
    And somewhat throws a shadow grey,
    Even as twilight closes day,
        Upon thy waters lone.

    Farewell! If I might come again,
        Young as I was and free,
    And feel once more in every vein
    The fire of that first passion reign
    Which sorrow could not quench nor pain,
        I’d soon return to thee;
    But while thy billows seek the main.
        That never more may be!

This was dated ‘Mornington, 1829.’

The duchess felt a hand press her shoulder and she looked up. The
force of attraction had its natural results and she clung to what
she saw.

‘Adrian! Adrian!’ was all her lips would utter.

‘Mary! Mary!’ replied the duke, allowing her to hang about him; ‘what
brought you here? Are you running away: eloping in my absence?’

‘Adrian, why did you leave me? You said you would come back in a
week, and it is eight days since you left me; do come home!’

‘So you actually have set off in search of a husband,’ said Zamorna,
laughing heartily; ‘and been overturned and obliged to take shelter
in Pakenham’s shooting-box!’

‘Why are you here, Adrian?’ enquired the duchess, who was far too
much in earnest to join in his laugh. ‘Who is Pakenham? and who is
that person who calls herself his housekeeper? And why do you let
any one live so near Hawkscliffe without ever telling me?’

‘I forgot to tell you,’ said His Grace; ‘I’ve other things to think
about when those bright eyes are looking up to me! As to Pakenham,
to tell you the truth he is a sort of left-hand cousin of your own,
being son to the old admiral, my uncle, in the south. And his housekeeper
is his sister. _Voilà tout_. Kiss me now.’

The duchess did kiss him, but it was with a heavy sigh. The cloud
of jealous anxiety hung on her brow undissipated.

‘Adrian, my heart aches still. Why have you been staying so long
in Angria? Oh, you don’t care for me! You have never thought how
miserably I have been longing for your return, Adrian!’ She stopped
and cried.

‘Mary, recollect yourself,’ said His Grace. ‘I cannot be always at
your feet. You were not so weak when we were first married. You let
me leave you often then without any jealous remonstrance.’

‘I did not know you so well at that time,’ said Mary; ‘and if my
mind is weakened, all its strength has gone away in tears and terrors
for you. I am neither so handsome nor so cheerful as I once was.
But you ought to forgive my decay, because you have caused it.’

‘Low spirits,’ returned Zamorna; ‘looking on the dark side of matters.
God bless me! the wicked is caught in his own net! Mary, never again
reproach yourself with loss of beauty till I give the hint first.
Believe me now, in that and every other respect you are just what
I wish you to be. You cannot fade any more than marble can, at least
not in my eyes. And as for your devotion and tenderness, though I
chide its excess sometimes, because it wastes and bleaches you almost
to a shadow, yet it forms the very firmest chain that binds me to
you. Now, cheer up! To-night you shall go to Hawkscliffe: it is only
five miles off. To-morrow I will be at the castle before dawn; the
carriage shall be ready; I will put you in, myself beside you; off
we go straight to Verdopolis; and there for the next three months
I will tire you of my company, morning, noon, and night! Now what
can I promise more?’

By dint of subterfuge and laughter the individual at last succeeded
in getting all things settled to his mind.

The duchess went to Hawkscliffe that night, and keeping his promise
for once Zamorna accompanied her to Verdopolis next morning.

  •       •       •       •       •       •       •

For a long space of time, ‘Good-bye, reader!’ I have done my best
to please you; and though I know that through feebleness, dulness,
and iteration my work terminates rather in failure than in triumph,
yet you are sure to forgive, for I have done my best!

    C. BRONTË,
    _Haworth_,
    _January 17th_, 1838.



THE END




ERRATA.

The following obvious typographical errors have been corrected:

On page 126: Added missing closing quote after _Scotland.’





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