Kitabı oku: «Adela Cathcart, Volume 2», sayfa 6
"It took me a few idle minutes only," said the curate. "But my foolish brother, who has a child's fancy for horrid things, took a fancy to that; and so he won't let my sins be forgotten. But I will take away the taste of it with another of Heine's, seeing we have fallen upon him. I should never have dreamed of introducing him here. It was Miss Cathcart's first song that opened the vein, I believe."
"I am the guilty person," said Adela; "and I fear I am not sorry for my sins—the consequences have been too pleasant. Do go on, Mr. Armstrong."
He repeated:
"Peace
"High in the heavens the sun was glowing;
Around him the white clouds, like waves, were flowing;
The sea was very still and grey.
Dreamily thinking as I lay,
Close by the gliding vessel's wheel,
A sleepless slumber did o'er me steal;
And I saw the Christ, the healer of woe,
In white and waving garments go;
Walking in giant form went he
Over the land and sea.
High in the heaven he towered his head,
And his hands in blessing forth he spread
Over the land and sea.
And for a heart, O wonder meet!
In his breast the sun did throb and beat;
In his breast, for a heart to the only One,
Shone the red, the flaming sun.
The flaming red sunheart of the Lord
Forth its gracious life-beams poured;
Its fair and love-benignant light
Softly shone, with warming might,
Over the land and sea.
"Sounds of solemn bells that go
Through the still air to and fro,
Draw, like swans, in a rosy band,
The gliding ship to the grassy land,
Where a mighty city, towered and high,
Breaks and jags the line of the sky.
"Oh, wonder of peach, how still was the town!
The hollow tumult had all gone down
Of the bustling and babbling trades.
Men and women, and youths and maids,
White clothes wearing,
Palm branches bearing,
Walked through the clean and echoing streets;
And when one with another meets,
They look at each other with eyes that tell
That they understand each other well;
And, trembling with love and sweet restraint,
Each kisses the other upon the brow,
And looks above, like a hoping saint,
To the holy, healing sunheart's glow;
Which atoning all, its red blood streams
Downward in still outwelling beams;
Till, threefold blessed, they call aloud,
The single hearts of a happy crowd.
Praised be Jesus Christ!"
"You will like that better," concluded the curate, again addressing Mrs. Cathcart.
"Fanciful," she answered. "I don't like fancies about sacred things."
"I fear, however," replied he, "that most of our serious thoughts about sacred things are little better than fancies."
"Sing that other of his about the flowers, and I promise you never to mention his name in this company again," said Harry.
"Very well, I will, on that condition," answered Ralph.
"In the sunny summer morning
Into the garden I come;
The flowers are whispering and speaking,
But I, I wander dumb.
"The flowers are whispering and speaking,
And they gaze at my visage wan:
'You must not be cross with our sister,
You melancholy man!'"
"Is that all?" said Adela.
"Yes, that's all," answered the singer.
"But we cannot let you off with that only," she said.
"What an awful night it is!" interrupted the colonel, rising and going to the window to peep out. "Between me and the lamp, the air looks solid with driving snow."
"Sing one of your winter songs, Ralph," said the curate's wife. "This is surely stormy enough for one of your Scotch winters that you are so proud of."
Thus adjured, Mr. Armstrong sang:
"A morning clear, with frosty light
From sunbeams late and low;
They shine upon the snow so white,
And shine back from the snow.
"From icy spears a drop will run—
Not fall: at afternoon,
It shines a diamond for the sun,
An opal for the moon.
"And when the bright sad sun is low
Behind the mountain-dome,
A twilight wind will come, and blow
All round the children's home;
"And waft about the powdery snow,
As night's dim footsteps pass;
But waiting, in its grave below,
Green lies the summer-grass."
"Now it seems to me," said the colonel, "though I am no authority in such matters, that it is just in such weather as this, that we don't need songs of that sort. They are not very exhilarating."
"There is truth in that," replied Mr. Armstrong. "I think it is in winter chiefly that we want songs of summer, as the Jews sang—if not the songs of Zion, yet of Zion, in a strange land. Indeed most of our songs are of this sort."
"Then sing one of your own summer songs."
"No, my dear; I would rather not. I don't altogether like them. Besides, if Harry could sing that Tryst of Schiller's, it would bring back the feeling of the summer better than any brooding over the remembrances of it could do."
"Did you translate that too?" I asked.
"Yes. As I told you, at one time of my life translating was a constant recreation to me. I have had many half-successes, some of which you have heard. I think this one better."
"What is the name of it?"
"It is 'Die Erwartung'—The Waiting, literally, or Expectation. But the Scotch word Tryst (Rendezvous) is a better name for a poem, though English. It is often curious how a literal rendering, even when it gives quite the meaning, will not do, because of the different ranks of the two words in their respective languages."
"I have heard you say," said Harry, "that the principles of the translation of lyrics have yet to be explored."
"Yes. But what I have just said, applies nearly as much to prose as to the verse.—Sing, Harry. You know it well enough."
"Part is in recitative,"
"So it is. Go on."
"To enter into the poem, you must suppose a lover waiting in an arbour for his lady-love. First come two recited lines of expectation; then two more, in quite a different measure, of disappointment; and then a long-lined song of meditation; until expectation is again aroused, to be again disappointed—and so on through the poem.
"THE TRYST
"That was the wicket a-shaking!
That was its clang as it fell!
No, 'twas but the night-wind waking,
And the poplars' answering swell.
Put on thy beauty, foliage-vaulted roof,
To greet her entrance, radiant all with grace;
Ye branches weave a holy tent, star-proof;
With lovely darkness, silent, her embrace;
Sweet, wandering airs, creep through the leafy woof,
And toy and gambol round her rosy face,
When with its load of beauty, lightly borne,
Glides in the fairy foot, and brings my morn.
Hush! I hear timid, yet daring
Steps that are almost a race!
No, a bird—some terror scaring—
Started from its roosting place.
Quench thy sunk torch, Hyperion. Night, appear!
Dim, ghostly Night, lone loveliness entrancing!
Spread, purple blossoms, round us, in a sphere;
Twin, lattice-boughs, the mystery enhancing;
Love's joy would die, if more than two were here—
She shuns the daybeam indiscreetly glancing.
Eve's star alone—no envious tell-tale she—
Gazes unblamed, from far across the sea.
Hark! distant voices, that lightly
Ripple the silence deep!
No; the swans that, circling nightly,
Through the silver waters sweep.
Around me wavers an harmonious flow;
The fountain's fall swells in delicious rushes;
The flower beneath the west wind's kiss bends low;
A trembling joy from each to all outgushes.
Grape-clusters beckon; peaches luring glow,
Behind dark leaves hiding their crimson blushes;
The winds, cooled with the sighs of flowers asleep,
Light waves of odour o'er my forehead sweep.
Hear I not echoing footfalls,
Hither along the pleached walk?
No; the over-ripened fruit falls
Heavy-swollen, from off its stalk.
Dull is the eye of day that flamed so bright;
In gentle death, its colours all are dim;
Unfolding fearless in the fair half light,
The flower-cups ope, that all day closed their brim;
Calm lifts the moon her clear face on the night;
Dissolved in masses faint, Earth's features swim;
Each grace withdraws the soft relaxing zone—
Beauty unrobed shines full on me alone.
See I not, there, a white shimmer?—
Something with pale silken shine?
No; it is the column's glimmer,
'Gainst the gloomy hedge of pine.
O longing heart! no more thyself delight
With shadow-forms—a sweet deceiving pleasure;
Filling thy arms but as the vault of night
Infoldeth darkness without hope or measure.
O lead the living beauty to my sight,
That living love her loveliness may treasure!
Let but her shadow fall across my eyes,
And straight my dreams exulting truths will rise!
And soft as, when, purple and golden,
The clouds of the evening descend,
So had she drawn nigh unbeholden,
And wakened with kisses her friend."
Never had song a stranger accompaniment than this song; for the air was full of fierce noises near and afar. Again the colonel went to the window. When he drew back the curtains, at Adela's request, and pulled up the blind, you might have fancied the dark wind full of snowy Banshees, fleeting and flickering by, and uttering strange ghostly cries of warning. The friends crowded into the bay-window, and stared out into the night with a kind of happy awe. They pressed their brows against the panes, in the vain hope of seeing where there was no light. Every now and then the wind would rush up against the window in fierce attack, as if the creatures that rode by upon the blast had seen the row of white faces, and it angered them to be thus stared at, and they rode their airy steeds full tilt against the thin rampart of glass that protected the human weaklings from becoming the spoil of their terrors.
While every one was silent with the intensity of this outlook, and with the awe of such an uproar of wild things without souls, there came a loud knock at the door, which was close to the window where they stood. Even the old colonel, whose nerves were as hard as piano-wires, started back and cried "God bless me!" The doctor, too, started, and began mechanically to button his coat, but said nothing. Adela gave a little suppressed scream, and ashamed of the weakness, crept away to her sofa-corner.
The servant entered, saying that Dr. Armstrong's man wanted to see him. Harry went into the passage, which was just outside the drawing-room, and the company overheard the following conversation, every word.
"Well, William?"
"There's a man come after you from Cropstone Farm, sir. His missus is took sudden."
"What?—It's not the old lady then? It's the young mistress?"
"Yes; she's in labour, sir; leastways she was—he's been three hours on the road. I reckon it's all over by this time.—You won't go, sir! It's morally unpossible."
"Won't go! It's morally impossible not. You knew I would go.—That's the mare outside."
"No, sir. It's Tilter."
"Then you did think I wouldn't go! You knew well enough Tilter's no use for a job like this. The mare's my only chance."
"I beg your pardon, sir. I did not think you would go."
"Home with you, as hard as Tilter can drive—confound him!—And bring the mare instantly. She's had her supper?"
"I left her munching, sir."
"Don't let her drink. I'll give her a quart of ale at Job Timpson's."
"You won't go that way, surely, sir?"
"It's the nearest; and the snow can't be very deep yet."
"I've brought your boots and breeches, sir."
"All right."
The man hurried out, and Harry was heard to run up stairs to his brother's room. The friends stared at each other in some perturbation. Presently Harry re-entered, in the articles last mentioned, saying—
"Ralph, have you an old shooting-coat you could lend me?"
"I should think so, Harry. I'll fetch you one."
Now at length the looks of the circle found some expression in the words of the colonel:
"Mr. Armstrong, I am an old soldier, and I trust I know what duty is. The only question is, Can this be done?"
"Colonel, no man can tell what can or cannot be done till he tries. I think it can."
The colonel held out his hand—his sole reply.
The schoolmaster and his wife ventured to expostulate. To them Harry made fun of the danger. Adela had come from the corner to which she had retreated, and joined the group. She laid her hand on Harry's arm, and he saw that she was pale as death.
"Don't go," she said.
As if to enforce her words, the street-door, which, I suppose, William had not shut properly, burst open with a bang against the wall, and the wind went shrieking through the house, as if in triumph at having forced an entrance.
"The woman is in labour," said Harry in reply to Adela, forgetting, in the stern reality both for the poor woman and himself, that girls of Adela's age and social position are not accustomed to hear such facts so plainly expressed, from a man's lips. Adela, however, simply accepted the fact, and replied:
"But you will be too late anyhow."
"Perhaps just in time," he answered, as his brother entered with a coat over his arm.
"Ralph," he went on, with a laugh, "they are trying to persuade me not to go."
"It is a tempting of Providence," said Mrs. Bloomfield.
"Harry, my boy," said the curate solemnly, "I would rather have you brought home dead to-morrow, than see you sitting by that fire five minutes after your mare comes. But you'll put on a great-coat?"
"No, thank you. I shall do much better without one. How comical I shall look in Farmer Prisphig's Sunday clothes! I'm not going to be lost this storm, Mrs. Bloomfield; for I second-see myself at this moment, sitting by the farmer's kitchen fire, in certain habiliments a world too wide for my unshrunk shanks, but doing my best to be worthy of them by the attention I am paying to my supper."
Here he stooped to Lizzie and whispered in her ear:
"Don't let them make a fuss about my going. There is really no particular danger. And I don't want my patient there frightened and thrown back, you know."
Mrs. Armstrong nodded a promise. In a moment more, Harry had changed his coat; for the storm had swept away ceremony at least. Lizzie ran and brought him a glass of wine; but he begged for a glass of milk instead, and was soon supplied; after which he buttoned up his coat, tightened the straps of his spurs, which had been brought slack on his boots, put on one of a thick pair of gloves which he found in his brother's coat, bade them all good night, drew on the other glove, and stood prepared to go.
Did he or did he not see Adela's eyes gazing out of her pale face with an expression of admiring apprehension, as she stood bending forward, and looking up at the strong man about to fight the storm, and all ready to meet it? I don't know. I only put it to his conscience.
In a moment more, the knock came again—the only sign, for no one could hear the mare's hoofs in the wind and snow. With one glance and one good night, he hurried out. The wind once more, for a brief moment, held an infernal carnival in the house. They crowded to the window—saw a dim form heave up on horseback, and presently vanish. All space lay beyond; but, for them, he was swallowed up by the jaws of the darkness. They knew no more. A flash of pride in his brother shot from Ralph's eyes, as, with restrained excitement, for which he sought some outlet, he walked towards the piano. His wife looked at Ralph with the same light of pride, tempered by thankfulness; for she knew, if he had been sent for, he would have gone all the same as Harry; but then he was not such a horseman as his brother. The fact was, he had neither seat nor hands, though no end of pluck.
"He will have to turn back," said the colonel. "He can't reach Cropstone Farm to-night. It lies right across the moor. It is impossible."
"Impossible things are always being done," said the curate, "else the world would have been all moor by this time."
"The wind is dead against him," said the schoolmaster.
"Better in front than in flank," said the colonel. "It won't blow him out of the saddle."
Adela had crept back to her corner, where she sat shading her eyes, and listening. I saw that her face was very pale. Lizzie joined her, and began talking to her.
I had not much fear for Harry, for I could not believe that his hour was come yet. I had great confidence in him and his mare. And I believed in the God that made Harry and the mare, and the storm too, through which he had sent them to the aid of one who was doing her part to keep his world going.
But now Mr. Armstrong had found a vent for his excitement in another of his winter songs, which might be very well for his mood, though it was not altogether suited to that of some of the rest of us. He sang—
"Oh wildly wild the winter-blast
Is whirling round the snow;
The wintry storms are up at last,
And care not how they go.
In wreaths and mists, the frozen white
Is torn into the air;
It pictures, in the dreary light,
An ocean in despair.
Come, darkness! rouse the fancy more;
Storm! wake the silent sea;
Till, roaring in the tempest-roar,
It rave to ecstasy;
And death-like figures, long and white,
Sweep through the driving spray;
And, fading in the ghastly night,
Cry faintly far away."
I saw Adela shudder. Presently she asked her papa whether it was not time to go home. Mrs. Armstrong proposed that she should stay all night; but she evidently wished to go. It would be rather perilous work to drive down the hill with the wind behind, in such a night, but a servant was sent to hasten the carriage notwithstanding. The colonel and Percy and I ran along side of it, ready to render any assistance that might be necessary; and, although we all said we had never been out in such an uproar of the elements, we reached home in safety.
As Adela bade us good night in the hall, I certainly felt very uneasy as to the effects of the night's adventures upon her—she looked so pale and wretched.
She did not come down to breakfast.
But she appeared at lunch, nothing the worse, and in very good spirits.
If I did not think that this had something to do with another fact I have come to the knowledge of since, I don't know that the particulars of the evening need have been related so minutely. The other fact was this: that in the grey dawn of the morning, by which time the snow had ceased, though the wind still blew, Adela saw from her window a weary rider and wearier horse pass the house, going up the street. The heads of both were sunk low. You might have thought the poor mare was looking for something she had lost last night in the snow; and perhaps it was not all fatigue with Harry Armstrong. Perhaps he was giving thanks that he had saved two lives instead of losing his own. He was not so absorbed, however, but that he looked up at the house as he passed, and I believe he saw the blind of her window drop back into its place.
But how did she come to be looking out just at the moment?
If a lady has not slept all night, and has looked out of window ninety-nine times before, it is not very wonderful that at the hundredth time she should see what she was looking for; that is, if the object desired has not been lost in the snow, or drowned in a moorland pit; neither of which had happened to Harry Armstrong. Nor is it unlikely that, after seeing what she has watched for, she will fall too fast asleep to be roused by the breakfast bell.
CHAPTER V.
PERCY AND HIS MOTHER
At luncheon, the colonel said—
"Well, Adela, you will be glad to know that our hero of last night returned quite safe this morning."
"I am glad to know it, papa."
"He is one of the right sort, that young fellow. Duty is the first thing with him."
"Perhaps duty may not have been his only motive," said Mrs. Cathcart, coldly. "It was too good an opportunity to be lost."
Adela seemed to understand her, for she blushed—but not with embarrassment alone, for the fire that made her cheek glow red, flashed in flames from her eyes.
"Some people, aunt," she said, trying to follow the cold tone in which Mrs. Cathcart had spoken, "have not the faculty for the perception of the noble and self-denying. Their own lives are so habitually elevated, that they see nothing remarkable in the devotion of others."
"Well, I do see nothing remarkable in it," returned the aunt, in a tone that indicated she hardly knew what to make of Adela's sarcasm. "Mr. Armstrong would have been liable to an action at law if he had refused to go. And then to come into the drawing-room in his boots and spurs, and change his coat before ladies!—It was all just of a piece with the coarse speech he made to you when you were simple enough to ask him not to go. I can't think what you admire about the man, I am sure."
Adela rose and left the room.
"You are too hard on Mr. Armstrong," said the colonel
"Perhaps I am, Colonel; but I have my reasons. If you will be blind to your daughter's interests, that is only the more reason why I should keep my eyes open to them."
So saying, Mrs. Cathcart rose, and followed her niece—out of the room, but no farther, I will venture to say. Fierce as the aunt was, there had been that in the niece's eyes, as she went, which I do not believe the vulgar courage of the aunt could have faced.
I concluded that Mrs. Cathcart had discovered Adela's restlessness the night before; had very possibly peeped into her room; and, as her windows looked in the same direction, might have seen Harry riding home from his selfish task in the cold grey morning; for scheming can destroy the rest of some women as perfectly as loving can destroy the rest of others. She might have made the observation, too, that Adela had lain as still as a bird unhatched, after that apparition of weariness had passed.
The colonel again sank into an uncomfortable mood. He had loved his dead brother very dearly, and had set his heart on marrying Adela to Percy. Besides there was quite enough of worldliness left in the heart of the honourable old soldier, to make him feel that a country practitioner, of very moderate means, was not to be justified in aspiring to the hand of his daughter. Moreover, he could hardly endure the thought of his daughter's marriage at all, for he had not a little of the old man's jealousy in him; and the notion of Percy being her husband was the only form in which the thought could present itself, that was in the least degree endurable to him. Yet he could not help admiring Harry; and until his thoughts had been turned into their present channel by Mrs. Cathcart's remarks, he had felt that that lady was unjust to the doctor. But to think that his line, for he had no son, should merge into that of the Armstrongs, who were of somewhat dubious descent in his eyes, and Scotch, too—though, by the way, his own line was Scotch, a few hundred years back—was sufficient to cause him very considerable uneasiness—pain would be the more correct word.
I have, for many pages, said very little about Percy; simply because there has been very little to say about him. He was always present at our readings, but did not appear to take any interest in them. He would generally lie on a couch, and stare either at Adela or the fire till he fell asleep. If he did not succeed in getting to sleep, he would show manifest signs of being bored. No doubt he considered the whole affair a piece of sentimental humbug. And during the day I saw very little of him. He had hunted once or twice, on one of his uncle's horses: they had scarcely seen the hounds this season. But that was a bore, no doubt. He went skating occasionally, and had once tried to get Adela to accompany him; but she would not. These amusements, with a few scattered hours of snipe-shooting, composed his Christmas enjoyments; the intervals being filled up with yawning, teasing the dogs, growling at his mother and the cold, and sleeping "the innocent sleep."
Whether he had any real regard for Adela, I could not quite satisfy myself—I mean real by the standard and on the scale of his own being; for of course, as compared with the love of men like the Armstrongs, the attachment of a lad like Percy could hardly be considered real at all. But even that, as I say, I could not clearly find out. His jealousy seemed rather the jealousy of what was his, or ought to be his, than any more profound or tragical feeling. But he evidently disliked the doctor—and the curate, too, whether for his own sake or for the doctor's, is of little consequence.
In the course of this forenoon, I came upon Master Percy in the kitchen garden. He had set an old shutter against one of the walls for a target, and was peppering away at it with a revolver; apparently quite satisfied if he succeeded in hitting the same panel twice running, at twelve paces. Guessing at the nonsense that was in his head, I sauntered up to him and watched his practice for a while. He pulled the trigger with a jerk that threw the muzzle up half an inch every time he fired, else I don't believe he would have hit the board at all. But he held his breath before-hand, till he was red in the face, because he had heard that, in firing at a mark, pistol-shooters did not even breathe, to avoid the influence of the motion of the chest upon the aim.
"Ah!" I said, "pretty well. But you should see Mr. Henry Armstrong shoot."
Whereupon Mr. Percy Cathcart deliberately damned Mr. Henry Armstrong, expressly and by name. I pretended not to have heard him, and, continuing to regard the said condemned as still alive and comfortable, went on:
"Just ask him, the next time you find him at home, to let you see him drive a nail with three pistol-bullets."
He threw the pistol from him, exploded himself, like a shell, in twenty different fragments of oaths, and left me the kitchen garden and the pistol, which latter I took a little practice with myself, for the sake of emptying two of the chambers still charged. Whether Henry Armstrong even knew how to fire a pistol, I did not know; but I dare say he was a first-rate shot, if I only had known it. I sent the pistol up to Mr. Percy's room by the hand of Mr. Beeves; but I never heard him practising any more.
The next night the curate was to read us another story. The time arrived, and with it all our company, except Harry. Indeed it was a marvel that he had been able to attend so often as he had attended. I presume the severe weather had by this time added to his sick-list.
Although I fear the chief end of our readings was not so fully attained as hitherto, or, in other words, that Adela did not enjoy the evening so much as usual, I will yet record all with my usual faithfulness.
The curate and his wife were a little late, and when they arrived, they found us waiting for them in music. As soon as they entered, Adela rose from the piano.
"Do go on, Miss Cathcart," said the curate.
"I had just finished," she replied.
"Then, if you will allow me, I will sing a song first, which I think will act as an antidote to those sentimental ones which we had at my house, and of which Mrs. Cathcart did not approve."
"Thank you," said everybody, Mrs. Cathcart included.
Whereupon the curate sang:
"I am content. In trumpet-tones,
My song, let people know.
And many a mighty man, with throne
And sceptre, is not so.
And if he is, I joyful cry,
Why then, he's just the same as I.
The Mogul's gold, the Sultan's show—
His bliss, supreme too soon,
Who, lord of all the world below,
Looked up unto the moon—
I would not pick it up—all that
Is only fit for laughing at.
My motto is—Content with this.
Gold-place—I prize not such.
That which I have, my measure is;
Wise men desire not much.
Men wish and wish, and have their will,
And wish again, as hungry still.
And gold and honour are besides
A very brittle glass;
And Time, in his unresting tides,
Makes all things change and pass;
Turns riches to a beggar's dole;
Sets glory's race an infant's goal.
Be noble—that is more than wealth;
Do right—that's more than place;
Then in the spirit there is health,
And gladness in the face;
Then thou art with thyself at one,
And, no man hating, fearest none.
I am content. In trumpet-tones,
My song, let people know.
And many a mighty man, with throne
And sceptre, is not so.
And if he is, I joyful cry,
Why then, he's just the same as I."
"Is that one of your own, Mr. Armstrong?" asked the colonel.
"It is, like most of those you have heard from me and my brother, only a translation."
"I am no judge of poetry, but it seems to me that if he was content, he need not say so much about it."
"There is something in what you say. But there was no show-off in Claudius, I think. He was a most simple-hearted, amiable man, to all appearance. A man of business, too—manager of a bank at Altona, in the beginning of the present century. But as I have not given a favourable impression of him, allow me to repeat a little bit of innocent humour of his—a cradle song—which I like fully better than the other."
"Most certainly; it is only fair," answered the colonel.
"Sleep, baby boy, sleep sweet, secure;
Thou art thy father's miniature;
That art thou, though thy father goes
And swears that thou hast not his nose.
A moment gone, he looked at thee,
My little budding rose,
And said—No doubt there's much of me,
But he has not my nose.
I think myself, it is too small,
But it is his nose after all;
For if thy nose his nose be not,
Whence came the nose that thou hast got?
Sleep, baby, sleep; don't half-way doze:
To tease me—that's his part.
No matter if you've not his nose,
So be you've got his heart!"
