No wonder that Otmar stood before her, doubly dazzled with her beauty as a woman, and her majesty as a queen—bewildered that she, whom he had presumed to love, and for whom, in spite of himself, his heart yet beat wildly, should be his sovereign, and that he should stand thus in her presence.
"Ah! is it you, sir—you, doubly my rescuer from evil!" said Maria Theresa, rising from her chair, and advancing a few steps towards him. "Welcome, to accept your Monarch's inmost thanks!" And she stretched out her hand, which, although totally unpractised in the etiquette of courts, Otmar, by an instinctive impulse, knelt down to kiss.
"Rise, sir!" she continued. "Were my gratitude alone to speak, it were for me, your Queen, to kneel and kiss the hand that a second time has, through God's providence, been the instrument of my deliverance from peril."
Otmar rose from his knees, a deep blush overspreading his handsome countenance. The young Queen seemed to gaze upon him for a moment with satisfaction; and then, waving her hand to her female attendant to retire, she again addressed him.
"What can I do to serve you, sir?" she said—"you, who have thus twice served me at the peril of your life. I am but a poor and a powerless Queen," she continued, with a faint smile: "but a grateful heart may still find means to recompense"——
"To live and die in your majesty's defence, is all your poor servant, who has but done his duty to his Queen, although unknowingly, has to desire," was the young noble's reply.
"Nay, sir, we have too many obligations towards you," said the Queen, "to allow ourselves to be quit thus. Can I do naught to serve you in return?" she pursued, with a less dignified and more familiar tone. "You must not allow so great a weight of thanks to lie upon my heart. Take pity on me!"
Otmar could with difficulty find words to speak. The tumult of his feelings almost overpowered him, as he began to forget the queen in the beautiful and loved woman before him. But he struggled with the impetuous dictates of his heart.
"Madam!" he said, commanding himself, "I am a poor noble, left alone in this wide world, almost without a friend, since my poor father's death, which left me with involved fortunes, and without a prospect for the future; and I was careless of life, until—until I had seen—your majesty," he continued with emotion, whilst the blush upon the cheek of the young Queen showed her perception that the homage paid was as much to the woman as the monarch. "And now my only wish, as I have said, is to die in your service and defence."
"Die! God forbid!" said Maria Theresa, with a woman's ready tear starting to her eye. "Live, sir! and, if you will, to fight in our cause. Enter the army. Rank shall be granted you. Your advancement shall be cared for. Live to be again the friend and champion of the poor persecuted Queen, who needs friends indeed, when all are set against her."
"Say not so, madam," interrupted Otmar, with fervour. "Have we not, one and all, sworn to give our life and life's blood in your cause?"
"Yes," said the Queen, her tears now fully flowing, at the recollection of the late scene of wild enthusiasm. "I have found friends among my faithful, and my true—my gallant, noble Hungarians. Think you I did not mark you, sir—you, who were the first to shout, 'For Maria Theresa we will die!' Think you that my heart did not feel that you were, perhaps, a third time, my friend in need? But I have enemies still. Calumny, I am aware, miscolours my simplest actions. My very feelings may be misinterpreted, my very tears, at this moment, in your presence, misconstrued. Who can know what is the worth of friends better than those who suffer from such odious attacks of enemies as I have suffered?" And Maria Theresa clasped her hands before her eyes.
Otmar once more sank down at her feet deeply affected.
"But I must away with this weakness!" said the Queen, struggling torecover from her agitation, and dashing away her tears with her fingers.
As she saw Otmar kneeling before her, his fine features fixed upon her with the liveliest expression of pity and admiration, his handsome figure bent to do homage to her loveliness and worth, her woman's feelings had the mastery of her feelings as a queen, and, smiling upon him with a smile, which shone all the more brightly through her tears—that smile, with the power and fascination of which none knew better how to fetter hearts than Maria Theresa—she hastily detached from her shoulders a string of diamonds, and passed them over the young man's neck.
"This is no recompense, to reward your services with matters of sordid value, sir," she said. "This is no gift to enable you to retrieve, however slightly, your fallen fortunes. This is the chain of honour which I bestow upon my champion and knight; for such you shall be in the eyes of the world. Here, in Maria Theresa's chamber, you are to her the deliverer and friend."
"Madam! my life, my heart, and soul are yours!" stammered the young man, no longer able to control his feelings, under circumstances which made him forget for a moment that distance which the sovereign herself seemed to have overleapt.
Again Maria Theresa blushed slightly. In spite of her strong understanding, her virtue, and her worth, she was not above those feelings of coquetry which, joined to her admiration of beauty, often, especially at an after period of her life, gave handle to the many unjust calumnies of her traducers.
"Rise once more, my noble knight!" said the young Queen, with another smile; "for we have dubbed you such. We will attach you to our especial service, since such is your desire, and find a place for you in our suite; although it be but badly paid in our state of disastrous fortune. But I know you heed not that. I see it in that look, that would reproach me for such a thought. You shall remain with us until you join our army," she added with a sigh, "to fight in our cause."
"This honour, madam"—stammered Otmar, rising.
"Is not without its perils and its pains, good youth," continued Maria Theresa. "You will have to combat envy, jealousy, ill-will within; for such is the life of courts. Alas! I know it but too well. Without, you may have often wearisome and dangerous services."
"None can be felt as such when it is you—your Majesty I serve," said the young man with enthusiasm.
"I will—I do believe you, sir," replied the Queen. "I have said it once, and I repeat it. Yours is the true nobility of heart. Ah! were they all so—they who serve me and call themselves my friends! But enough of this! Let your first service be to direct the search of our agents to the discovery of the disguised enemies who made that bold attempt last night to secure my person during my evening stroll—my poor moments of liberty! Ah! France, I recognise there your treacherous designs! You did not know who were your adversaries?"
"Madam," answered the young man, "I should recognise again the voice of him who was my principal assailant; and who, if I mistake not, has already crossed his sword with mine. But I know him not."
"I would not punish when I can forgive," said Maria Theresa, with a sigh. "But the discovery of these complotters on my liberty, perhaps my life, is necessary for the safety of my realm."
"If my zeal avail aught," said Otmar warmly, "their life shall pay their treachery."
"No bloodshed, no bloodshed, as you love me, good youth!" said the Queen, shuddering. "Blood enough is shed upon the battle-field for me and mine. And who knows how far such blood should lie upon the conscience of a miserable queen?—how far the Almighty will write it to her dread account at the last great day of reckoning?" And, with that nobility of feeling peculiar to Maria Theresa, she sank her head downwards in gloomy thought. For a time she thus remained, as if forgetful of the presence of the young noble; at lengthshe again raised her head, cleared away the gloom upon her features with a faint smile, and once more extending her hand, said—"Now leave us, sir, but to return shortly hither. Already they may cry scandal that I should have talked to one of such good mien so long. But go not," she continued, as Otmar moved towards the door, "until I have told you how my heart was pained, that the search of those who sought to discover you, after the skirmish of last evening, was useless—how anxiously I prayed, in the darkness of the night, that no ill might have befallen my young, champion—how my very soul was gratified to see him in the crowd before me, to know that he was safe! You must not think your Queen heartless and ungrateful, sir. Now, go!"
With a wave of the hand, Maria Theresa dismissed from her presence the young noble, who staggered from the chamber in a tempest of tumultuous emotions.
In a small room on the first floor of the old house occupied by the Jew druggist, sat Otmar once more, on the evening of the important day which had decided the fortunes of Maria Theresa. He had returned to the temporary home from which he had been so inhospitably driven, in order to direct the removal of his scanty baggage, and the few relics that reminded him of happier times, and the brighter days of his childhood, and which, during the day, his old attendant had collected together.
The room was wainscoted with blackened oak, the sombre shades of which were unrelieved by any ornament; and at a table, near the heavy casement-window, a part of which was open, rather to admit the fading light of day into the dark apartment than the autumn air of the chill evening, sat the young noble, tracing slowly the lines of a letter, which he seemed to compose with difficulty, and not without many a hesitation and many a heavy sigh.
Upon a packed portmanteau, in the middle of the room, sat Farkas, puffing from a short pipe small clouds of smoke, which issued in regular but uneasy jerks from beneath his thick overhanging moustache. From time to time he nodded his head impatiently, with a sideward movement, and murmured between his teeth, without interrupting his employment, words that accompanied his intermittent puffs, like the distant rumbling which follows the smoke of the cannon on the far-off battle-field.
"Teremtette!" he muttered angrily. "I shall not be easy until I am quit of this den of the old hyena, who has turned my lord out of doors like a gipsy beggar-boy—and why? The foul fiend only knows. I should like to wring the old ruffian's neck for him, like a carrion-crow,eb adta!"
At length the young noble threw down his pen.
"It is done!" he exclaimed with a sigh. "I have written to the old advocate at Buda to send me the papers I require. I must not think on my own fortunes. My father's honour must be saved; and my own beggary shall be signed before I leave this country."
"Too honest by half to such rascals as those villanous cheating money-lenders, whoever they may be,eb adta!" muttered Farkas again unheard, with a vexed shrug of the shoulders.
"Is all prepared?" said Otmar, turning to his attendant.
"There is nothing but what I can take upon my own shoulders," answered the old man with a sigh;"and they are broad enough to bear twice the weight." And rising from his temporary seat, he jerked it on to his back. Then seizing up another small valise in his hand, he stood ready for departure.
"Enter the first inn, and there await my orders, whether they have room to lodge us or no; as is not probable in the confusion of the town," said Otmar. "I trust that I may yet find us other and better quarters for another night; and we can seek a home for once under nature's roof, without much detriment to our bones."
"What his lord can bear, can old Farkas also," was the attendant's sturdy answer, and he left the room.
"Farewell then," said Otmar, gazing around him. "Farewell, my poor chamber, the depositary of so many hopes and aspirations, regrets, sad thoughts, and air-built castles. Visions, bright visions of beauty and of love, have illumined thy dark walls; and they, too, have flown—flown before a stern reality, which proclaimed them folly, madness—ay, madness! They are gone for ever! But shall they not be followed by dreams of glory, of renown, of smiles from her beaming eyes to thank her champion—her friend? Yes—me, too, she has called her friend. Farewell, then, my poor chamber! Thou hast witnessed little but my wretchedness, and yet I regret thee; for her spirit—hers—the beautiful, the bright, the unknown—still hovers around thee. Fare-thee-well!"
Otmar prepared to depart; but he was still lingering to send around him a last look upon those bare walls which he had thus apostrophized, when hasty steps were heard to mount the stair, and Farkas abruptly re-entered the room.
"Quick, quick!" cried the old man. "I saw him coming up the street—him, you know—that outlandish rascal, whom you fought by the inn on the roadside, because he would have spoken ill of our Queen—God preserve her!—the same who, if your doubts prove true, was the villain who tore that cursed slip in your attila last night—the foul fiend confound him,eb adta! I thought I had a stronger arm—old fool that I was! Quick, quick!" And seizing Otmar's arm, he dragged him to the open window.
"It is he!" exclaimed the young noble, looking out; "the same tall form and insolent gait. Ah! he is entering the house. Hark! he is mounting the stair. God be praised, he falls into my very hands!"
In truth, footsteps were evidently ascending the staircase. Otmar and his old attendant paused to listen with palpitating interest. The next moment the door of the Jew's apartment, on the other side of the passage, was heard to open, and a voice to exclaim, "Hello! old fox, where have you hid yourself? Out of your hole, I say! I have to speak with you." Then the door closed, and all was still.
"It is the same voice!" exclaimed Otmar again. "It is he who made that foul attempt upon her liberty. Villain!" And half-drawing his sabre, he rushed towards the door of the room.
"Down with him! down with the rascal,teremtette!" cried Farkas, following his master in excitement.
"No, no!" said Otmar, checking his own first impulse, and catching the old man's arm. "He is a traitor and a spy! It is not for me to punish; it is for the country's laws. She bids me seek to discover him. Providence has thrown him into my hands, and enabled me to obey her behest. She would condemn me were I to take vengeance into my own hands."
"What!" cried Farkas, violently. "My lord has his enemy face to face, and hesitates to defy him to the death!"
"Peace, old man!" exclaimed Otmar; "you know not what you say. Ah! I see it all now," he continued. "He is the agent of her enemies, and is in collusion with our doctor landlord. It is here their villainous schemes are hatched."
"True! It was he—it must have been he," said Farkas in his turn, "who sat with the rascally old thief, when I entered his room the night before the last."
"Hear me, Farkas," continued the young noble. "I must away to the castle. Maria Theresa may still bethere. All shall be revealed. Watch you, at some distance, in the street, that he leave not the house or escape us."
"Better split the cowardly villain's skull at once,teremtette!" cried the old man once more, indignantly.
"Peace, I say!" said Otmar. "Follow me, and stealthily." And with these words he left the room, followed down the stairs by his grumbling attendant, who still muttered many an angry "teremtette!" between his lips, unable to comprehend the hesitation of his young master, when so good an opportunity was before him of taking revenge upon "such a villainous scoundrel" as the spy.
Scarcely had they quitted the apartment, when an angle of the wainscoting, forming the door of a partially concealed closet, opened; and the form of the Jew money-lender—pale, trembling, and with haggard eyes—staggered into the room.
"Jehovah! We are lost—irretreviably lost!" he exclaimed with a choked husky voice. "Cavaliere! Cavaliere!" and he hastened, as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him, to the door. But, in spite of his agony and his alarm, his usual habits of caution, and perhaps of self-appropriation also, did not forsake him, and with the words, "That paper the young fellow wrote may tell us more!" he turned back, shuffled to the table, snatched up the letter, which Otmar had forgotten in his hurry, and then gained his room, where, seated, with gloomy and discontented brow, the Italian spy waited him.
"Diavolo!Where have you been hiding, Bandini? I need your aid," exclaimed the cavaliere, as he entered. "All is ruined, if still stronger measures be not taken. My grand expedition of last night, which might have secured all at a blow, has utterly failed, through the interference of a rash young fool, who has twice crossed my path to baffle me. I myself am wounded,"—and he pointed to a bandage, partly concealed by a scarf thrown over his shoulder—"still confused, from a blow dealt upon my head by some meddling ruffian. The curses of hell blight their arms, one and all! Those traitors, too, the Hungarians, have broken every promise, to shoutVivat!to that woman; because she shed before them a few maudlin tears. Weak fools! weak fools! and that they call enthusiasm! They promise her supplies of men and money. My schemes are ruined—my services all naught—your hopes of reward utterly gone, Master Bandini—utterly gone, do you hear?—if some greatcoup-de-mainbe not yet tried. There! look not so pale and frightened, man, with that ugly wo-begone face of yours. There are yet means that may be used."
"But we are lost—lost!" stammered the Jew, shaking in every limb, and struggling in vain to speak.
"Lost! Not yet!" replied the Italian scornfully "whilst I have yet a head to scheme, and a bold heart to execute."
"We are lost, I tell you. All is discovered. We are betrayed!" cried the Jew. "That young fellow—in yonder room—alas! he knows all. We must fly—conceal ourselves."
"How now, man?" exclaimed the cavaliere, in his turn springing up in alarm.
"I had driven him from the house, at your desire," stammered Bandini, panting for breath; "but he returned to seek his baggage. They had both been absent, master and man; and I had thought to look after my own poor goods and chattels in the room"—
"Or to that which you could lay your hands upon, old thief—I know you. But proceed! What means this tale?" said the spy.
"Jehovah knows you speak not true!" continued the Jew. "But they came back suddenly and unawares. I feared they might think evil of me, if they found me there; and I concealed myself in the closet. I heard all!"
"All!—all what? Speak, man!" exclaimed the Italian furiously.
"He is the same—the same of whom you spoke just now," pursued the old man, trembling. "He who wounded you last night. He recognised you as you entered. He knows all. He is gone up to the castle to betray us. Oh! I am a lost man—a lost man!" and the Jew wrung his hands bitterly.
"Betrayed!" cried the spy—"gone, to the castle! Ten thousand devils drag him down to hell! Which way did he go? What did you hear? Speak, man!—speak, I tell you." And he shook the old man violently by the collar.
"He will probably mount to it by the shorter ascent, along the Jews' street," gasped forth Bandini with difficulty.
"And is there no quicker way?" exclaimed the Italian hurriedly.
"By the lane opposite," stammered the Jew breathlessly. "Turn to the left—mount the crooked street—you will find yourself opposite to the garden, behind my old friend Zachariah's house. On passing through it, you are at the upper end of the Jews' street, and near the castle plain."
"There is no time to be lost!" cried the spy, flinging his hat upon his head. "My pistols are primed and loaded," he continued, feeling in an inner pocket of his coat. "I shall be there before him. He must die. The same passage will favour my escape. Ah! it is you rascal of a Jew, villainous miser, who are the cause of all! Dearly shall you repay me this!" And seizing the old money-lender by the throat, he nearly throttled him, and, when he was almost black in the face, flung him with violence into a corner of the room.
As the Italian disappeared, the old man raised himself, with difficulty, from the ground.
"And such is the poor Jew's reward," he muttered, "from these Christian dogs, for all his losses, and his sacrifices, and his perils! What is to be done? If he kill the youth, I have still to fear his wrath. If he come not in time, we are undone. Every way is danger. Shall I myself turn informer? It is late—very late in the day—but yet it may be tried. Can I glean nothing from this paper that may sound like fresh and genuine information? What have we here?" he continued, rapidly scanning parts of Otmar's letter with his eye, and murmuring its contents to himself. "'I leave the country'—'But my father's honour must be covered'—'Send the papers ceding the estates'—'I am resolved to sign, although it be my utter ruin'—The name?—'Otmar, Baron Bartori.'—Merciful Jehovah!" burst forth the Jew. "It is he! It is my young man—and I knew it not—he, whose sign-manual is to convey to me the estates, in return for my poor moneys lent: and, if he sign not, the heritage goes to the next male heir; and I am frustrated of my dues. But he will be killed—die without signing. I am a ruined man—a ruined man!" And the money-lender clasped his hands in despair. "No, no—he must not die. Caracalli! Caracalli! touch him not! touch him not! He must not die, ere I have his precious sign-manual. Save him! save him! Jehovah! what shall I do? Caracalli! Caracalli!" And thus madly shouting after the Italian, the Jew rushed from his room in a frenzy of despair.
In addition to the great and winding carriage-road which leads up to the summit of the hill on which stands the castle of Presburg, there is a shorter passage to it, by a narrow tortuous street, lined with old falling houses, and paved at intervals with terrace-like stone steps to aid the steep ascent. To this street, in former times, the Israelites residing in the city were restricted as a dwelling-place, incurring heavy fine and imprisonment by daring, either openly or under a feigned name, to infringe this severe rule: and even at the present day, although this restriction has been removed, it is almost entirely occupied, either from habit or from choice, by petty and most doubtful traders of the same persuasion, and is still known under the name of the Jews' Quarter. The upper end of this steep and winding lane is terminated, between high walls, by a large old gateway, opening into the castle plain. And under this gateway it was, that the Italian spy awaited his victim. He had contrived to evade the vigilance of Farkas, by darting up a lane immediately fronting the St Michael's gate, and now, having ascertained, by a few hasty words interchanged with the Jew Zachariah, that no one answering the description of the young noble had been seen to pass, he felt assured, that, by his haste in pursuing the shorter cut from behind, he had gained an advance upon him.
The night was fast closing in, andthe Italian felt himself secure from observation in the dark recess in which he lurked behind the gate. Aware that by a deed of assassinating alone he could save himself from the consequences of a revelation which not only ruined all his schemes, but placed his life at stake, he grasped a pistol in his hand, and waited firmly, with calmness which showed his long acquaintance with deeds of hazard and of crime.
He had stood some time, counting with impatience the moments, until he began to fear that the young noble had taken the longer road, when at last the sound of footsteps struck upon his ear. Looking out from the corner of the gateway in which he had concealed himself, he could plainly see, at some little distance, the form of a man, resembling that of his expected victim, mounting the stone steps of the lane between the row of walls; and he drew back, cocked his pistol, and prepared to fire at him as he passed. Presently hastier footsteps—those of a running man—sounded nearer. Had he been perceived? Was his purpose divined? Was his victim about to rush upon him? These thoughts had scarcely time to pass rapidly through his brain, when a dark form hurried round the angle of the gateway. The Italian's hand was on the lock. He fired.
A terrific cry, and then a groan, followed the explosion. A body fell. The Italian bent forward. At his feet lay the form of his associate, the miserable Jew.
"Kill him not—the sign-manual"—were the only last words that faintly met the ear of the assassin, before the blood rushed up in torrents into the mouth of the unhappy man, and choked his voice for ever.
Before the spy had a moment's time to recover from his surprise at the unexpected deed he had done, another cry of "Murder! murder!" was shouted close beside him, by a man who had run up. A strong hand grasped his arm. It was that of his intended victim.
"Assassin!" cried Otmar. "Ah! it is again he! God's will be done!"
"Mille diavoli!Have at thee yet!" exclaimed the Italian, struggling to disengage himself with a strong effort, and staggering back.
Succeeding in the attempt, he drew his sword. The weapons of the two men were immediately crossed. Both fought with desperation. Already a wound on Otmar's arm had rather excited his energies than disabled him, when a crowd was seen approaching rapidly from the direction of the castle. Some persons detached themselves from it, and ran forward, attracted by the previous cry of "murder," and the clash of arms. The cavaliere felt that he was lost, if he made not a fearful effort to disengage himself at once from his antagonist, and made a violent lunge at Otmar. The active young noble swerved aside. The sword passed him unscathed, and the next moment his sabre descended on to the Italian's head. With a fearful curse, the spy staggered, reeled backward, and fell to the ground.
When the persons from the castle hurried up, they found the young noble standing by his prostrate foe, and leaning upon his sabre—his cheek already pale from the loss of the blood which streamed from his wound. Before, in the confusion, much explanation could be asked or given, others of the approaching party had come up: at an order issued, a sedan chair, borne by eight men, was set down under the gateway; a female form issued from it, and, in spite of the opposition of those about her, Maria Theresa advanced through the crowd.
"What has happened? Who disturbs the peace?" she exclaimed, coming forward with that courage she evinced on all emergencies.
"Retire, I beseech you, to your chair, madam, and allow yourself to be carried on," said the young Prince Kaunitz, who formed one of the suite. "This is no sight for a woman, and a queen." And he interposed his person between his sovereign and the bodies of the Italian and the Jew.
"Permit me, prince," said Maria Theresa, waving him aside; for she had now caught sight of the pale face of Otmar, brightly illumined by the lighted torches which some of her attendants bore to light her on her way, upon her evening transit from the castle to the primate's summer palace.
"You, my young champion, here!" she cried, with tones of evident anxiety, stepping forward. "What has happened? In God's name, what is this? You are not hurt, sir?"
"Only a scratch, so please your majesty," replied Otmar; "and happy and proud I am that I should have gained it in your service."
"Tell me what has passed? How do I find you here? Who is this man?" continued the young Queen, glancing slightly at the form of the prostrate Italian.
"It is the same villain who has already dared to lay his hand upon the sacred person of your majesty," said the young noble proudly. "Chance led me to his discovery. I was hurrying to seek my Queen, to obey her orders. The wretch—I know not how—was beforehand with me. He would have waylaid me, as I must suppose. Another, who passed me at the moment, was his victim. I attacked him; and there he lies. I know no more."
"And who is that poor man?" said Maria Theresa, pointing to the body of the Jew.
Some of her attendants raised up the corpse.
"I recognise him," said Otmar. "He was the accomplice of that fellow. God's justice has fallen on him by the hand of his own confederate. But how, is still to me a mystery."
"The other still lives," exclaimed the voices of some, who had now lifted up the form of the Italian.
"Let him be conveyed to the castle," commanded the Queen. "Every inquiry shall be instituted in this affair. Let justice take its course upon the spy and traitor."
The Italian was conveyed away.
"But you are hurt, noble youth. Your cheek grows paler still," cried Maria Theresa. "Help there! Bring water! quick! He may be dying."
"It is nothing!" said Otmar, with sinking voice and failing senses. "A little faintness! I shall be better soon. A smile from you will repay all!"
His head whirled, and he fell back into the arms of the bystanders.
In spite of the alarm of the young Queen, a deep blush overspread her countenance at these last words.
"Ah! should it be so!" she murmured to herself; and, after casting a long look upon the form of the handsome youth before her, she bent her head to the earth.
Water was quickly brought from a neighbouring house. In spite of the increasing crowd attracted to the spot, Maria Theresa disdained not to bathe with her own hands the temples of the fainting man. Snatching a perfumed handkerchief from the hand of Kaunitz, she bound it tightly on the young noble's arm. In a short time, he once more opened his eyes. Water was given him to drink; and he again was able to stand, weakly, on his feet.
"You—my Queen. You have deigned—to look upon your poor subject-to tend him"—he stammered faintly, as his eyes fell upon the lovely face before him. "You—the noble—the beautiful—the beloved"—
"Hush! hush, sir," interposed the young Queen hurriedly. "You must not speak now. Your brain wanders. You shall be conveyed to the castle, and tended there. As soon as you are fully recovered, a post is ready for you with the army. You must leave us forthwith. Be brave, be gallant, be noble, as you have ever shown yourself; and, perhaps, hereafter"—
She checked herself; with a sigh, and turned away her face.
"Yes—away from here! I must away," said Otmar. "The army, the battle-field, glory, renown, must be my only thoughts." And, sinking his head on his heart, he murmured lowly—
"Moriamur pro Rege Nostro."
It is well known in history, that the rising of the Hungarian saved the falling fortunes of Maria Theresa. The enthusiasm of this sensitive and energetic people, once awakened, knew no bounds. All the country nobles, with their followers, took up arms. Croatia alone supplied twelvethousand men. Immense sums of money, to support the army, were offered by the clergy; and, out of the most distant provinces, sprang up, as the soldiers sown by the teeth of Cadmus from the earth, those countless savage hordes, who under the name of Pandours carried terror into every part of Europe. From the moment of the "insurrection," as it is called, of the Hungarian nobility, the aspect of affairs began to change. The Elector of Bavaria, who, to the grief of Maria Theresa, had received the imperial crown of Germany, so long in the possession of the House of Hapsburg, chiefly by the influence of French intrigues, under the name of Charles the Seventh, was driven from his States. England and Holland were won over to the cause of the persecuted Queen; and both, especially the former, lent her large sums. The whole British nation was interested in her favour. The English nobility, instigated by the Duchess of Marlborough, offered her a subscription collected to the amount of a hundred thousand pounds; but this sum Maria Theresa nobly refused, accepting nothing that was not granted to her by the nation in Parliament assembled. By the valour of Hungarian arms, the French were at length driven out of Bohemia; and what still more contributed to the peace shortly after obtained from a great portion of the Queen's enemies, was the result of the bloody field of Hanau, which turned out entirely to the advantage of Maria Theresa and her noble allies, and at which half of thenoblesseof France was either killed or wounded.
It was shortly after this great battle, in which so many bold spirits fell on either side, that a catafalk was erected at the upper end of the middle aisle belonging to the glorious Gothic Church of St Stephen's in Vienna. The service for the dead had been performed with pomp. The priests had retired from the aisle. But still, upon the steps, covered with black cloth, and illumined from above by many wax-lights, knelt two personages. The one was a female, dressed in deep mourning, who appeared to be praying fervently. A group of attendants, both male and female, in the attire of the court mourning of the day, stood at a little distance from her. The other was an old man, in a well-worn hussar dress, who had thrown himself forward on to the upper step, upon another side of the catafalk, and had buried his face in his hands. At length the female rose, gave a last look at that dark mass, which concealed a coffin, and, within, a corpse; and then, drawing her veil over her face, moved slowly towards a side-door, followed by her attendants, with a respect paid only to a royal personage. A crowd of beggars surrounded the door, where an Imperial carriage waited; and distributing the contents of a heavy purse among them, the lady said, with broken voice,
"Pray for the soul of Otmar, Baron Bartori, who died in battle for his Queen."
In an age of utilitarian philosophy and materialism, we are proud to stand forth as the champion of he Invisible World.MagaandMagicare words which we cannot dissociate from one another, either in sound or in affection. The first was the mistress of our youth—our literary mother—our guide and instructress in the paths of Toryism, good-fellowship, and honour. Fain would we hope that, in maturer years, we have rendered back to the eldest-born of Buchanan some portion of the deep debt of gratitude which from our childhood upwards we have incurred. We have ever striven to comport ourselves in sublunary matters as beseemeth one who has sat at the feet of Christopher, imbibed the ethical lore of a Tickler, and received the sublimest of peptic precepts and dietetic instruction from the matchless lips of an Odoherty. Her creed is ours, and no other—the bold, the true, and the unwavering—and when we die, bewept, as we trust we shall be by many a youth and maiden of the next generation, we shall ask no better epitaph for our monument than that selected by poor John Keats, though with the alteration of a single word—"Here lieth one whose name is writ in Maga."
Magic, however—not Maga—is the theme of our present article; nor do we scruple at the very outset to proclaim ourselves a devout and fervent believer in almost every known kind of diablerie, necromancy, and witchcraft. We are aware that in the present day such confessions are very rare, and that when made by some reluctant follower of the occult faith, they are always accompanied with pusillanimous qualifications, and weak excuses for adherence to opinions which, in one shape or another, pervade the population of Christendom, and pass for current truth throughout the extensive realm of Heathenesse. So much the better. We like a fair field and no auxiliaries; and we are here to do battle for the memory and fair fame of Michael Scott, Doctor Faustus, and the renowned Cornelius Agrippa.
Sooth to say, we were born and bred long before Peter Parley had superseded the Fairy Tales, and poisoned the budding faculties of the infancy of these realms with his confounded philosophical nonsense, and his endless editions ofCopernicus made Easy. Our nurserymaid, a hizzie from the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, was a confirmed and noted believer in dreams, omens, tatie-bogles, and sundry other kinds of apparitions. Her mother was, we believe, the most noted spaewife of the district; and it was popularly understood that she had escaped at least three times, in semblance of an enormous hare, from the pursuit of the Laird of Lockhart's grews. Such at least was the explanation which Lizzy Lindsay gave, before being admitted as an inmate of our household, of the malignant persecution which doomed her for three consecutive Sundays to a rather isolated, but prominent seat in the Kirk of Dolphington Parish: nor did our worthy Lady-mother see any reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement. For was it not most natural that the daughter—however comely—and Lizzy was as strapping a lass as ever danced at a kirn—of a woman who had the evil reputation of divining surreptitious fortunes by means of the sediment of a tea-cup—of prophesying future sweethearts in exchange for hoarded sixpences—and of milking dry her neighbours' cows by aid of cantrips and an enchanted hair rope—was it not most natural, we say, that the daughter of the witch should have been looked upon with a suspicious eye by the minister, who used annually to preach four sermons in vituperation of Her of Endor, and by the Elders, whose forefathers had turned out doggedly for the Covenant, and among whom still circulated strange and fantastic tales of bodily apparitions of the Evil One to the fugitives in the muir and the wilderness—of hideous shapes, whichdisturbed the gathered conventicle by the sides of the lonely burn—of spells, which made the buff-coats of their adversaries impenetrable as adamant to leaden bullet or the sweep of the Cameronian steel?
Upon these testimonials, and a strong affidavit from Lizzy, that in every other earthly matter she was innocent of the slightest peccadillo, the Lily of Lanark was installed as mistress and governante of the Nursery. We were then in the days of teething, and sorely tormented with our gums, which neither for knob of poker, nor handle of kitchen-fork—the ancient Caledonian corals—would surrender their budding ornaments. We believe, therefore, that Lizzy Lindsay erred not materially from the path of truth when she signalized us as "the maist fractious bairn that ever broke a woman's heart." Night and day did we yell, with Satanic energy, from the excruciating molar pain, and little sympathy did our tears awaken in our pillow, as we lay in fevered anguish on the exuberant bosom of our guardian. Fortunately for us, in these days Daffy's Elixir was a thing unknown, else no doubt we should have received an early introduction to dram-drinking by means of the soft carminative. The fertile genius of Lizzy suggested a better spell for allaying our infant sorrows. Whenever we indulged in a more than ordinary implacable fit of screeching, she threatened us with the apparition of "the Boo-man," a hideous spectre which was then supposed to perambulate the nurseries in the shape of Napoleon-Bonaparte. In a very short while, no Saracen child ever became dumber when threatened by its mother with a visit from the Melech-Ric, than we did at the proposed coming of the dark and sanguinary phantom. For many years afterwards we believed as sincerely in the existence of this anthropophagus as in our own; and very nearly became a Bauldy for life, from having been surprised on one occasion, whilst surreptitiously investigating the contents of a jampot, by the descent of a climbing-boy into the nursery, and the terrors of his telegraphic boo! As we grew up, our nascent intellect received still more supernatural services from the legendary lore of Lizzy. She taught us the occult and mysterious meaning of those singular soot-flakes which wave upon the ribs of a remarkably ill-pokered fire—the dark significance which may be drawn from the spluttering and cabbaging of a candle—and the misfortunes sure to follow the mismanagement of the sacred salt. Often, too, her talk was of the boding death-watch—the owl which flapped its wings at the window of the dying—and the White Dove that flitted noiselessly from the room at the fearful, and then to us incomprehensible moment of dissolution. As Hallowe'en approached, she told us of the mystic hempseed, of the figure which stalled behind the enterprising navigator of the stacks, and that awful detention of the worsted clue, which has made the heart of many a rustic maiden leap hurriedly towards her throat, when in the dead of night, and beneath the influence of a waning moon, she has dared to pry into the secrets of futurity, and, lover-seeking, has dropped the ball into the chasm of the deserted kiln.
Such being the groundwork of our mystic education, it is little wonder that we turned our novel knowledge of the alphabet to account, by pouncing with intense eagerness upon every work of supernatural fiction upon which we possibly could lay our hands. We speak not now of Jack the Giant-killer, of the aspiring hero of the Beanstalk, or the appropriator of the Seven-leagued boots. These were well enough in their way; but not, in our diseased opinion, sufficiently practical. We liked the fairies better. For many a day we indulged in the hope that we might yet become possessed of a pot of that miraculous unguent, which, when applied to the eye, has the virtue of disclosing the whole secrets of the Invisible World. We looked with a kind of holy awe upon the emerald rings of the greensward, and would have given worlds to be present at the hour when the sloping side of the mountain is opened, and from a great ball, all sparkling with a thousand prismatic stalactites, ride forth, to the sound of flute and recorder, the squadrons of the Elfin Chivalry. Well do we remember the thrill of horror which pervaded our being when we first readof the Great Spectre of Glenmore, the Headless Fiend that haunts the black solitudes of the Rothemurchus Forest, whom to see is madness, and to meet is inexorable death! Much did we acquire in these days of the natural history of Wraiths and Corpse-candles-of Phantom Funerals encountered on their way to the kirkyard by some belated peasant, who, marveling at the strange array at such an hour, turns aside to let the grim procession pass, and beholds the visionary mourners—his own friends—sweep past, without sound of footfall or glance of recognition, bearing upon their shoulders a melancholy burden, wherein, he knows, is stretched the wan Eidolon of himself! No wonder that he takes to his bed that night, nor leaves it until the final journey.
Not for worlds would we have left the Grange house, which was then our summer residence, after nightfall, and, skirting the hill by the old deserted burial-ground, venture down the little glen, gloomy with the shade of hazels—cross the burn by the bridge above the Caldron pool—and finally gaze upon the loch all tranquil in the glory of the stars! Not all the fish that ever struggled on a night-line-and there were prime two-pounders, and no end of eels, in the loch—would have tempted us to so terrible a journey. For just below the bridge, where the rocks shot down precipitously into the black water, and the big patches of foam went slowly swirling round—there, we say, in some hideous den, heaven knows how deep, lurked the hateful Water-Kelpy, whose yell might be heard, during a spate, above the roar of the thundering stream, and who, if he did not lure and drown the cat-witted tailor of the district, was, to say the least of it, the most maligned and slandered individual of his race. Even in broad day we never liked that place. It had a mischievous and uncanny look; nor could you ever entirely divest yourself of the idea that there was something at the bottom of the pool. Bad as was the burn, the loch was a great deal worse. For here, at no very remote period, the fiend had emerged from its depths in the shape of a black steed, gentle and mild-eyed to look upon, and pacing up to three children, not ten minutes before dismissed from the thraldom of the dominie, had mutely but irresistibly volunteered the accommodation of an extempore ride. And so, stepping on with his burden across the gowans—which never grew more, and never will grow, where the infernal hoof was planted—the demon horse arrived at the margin of the loch where the bank is broken and the water deep, and with a neigh of triumph bounded in, not from that day to this were the bodies of the victims found. Moreover, yonder at the stunted thorn-trees is the spot where poor Mary Walker drowned herself and her innocent and unchristened bairn; and they say that, at midnight when all is quiet, you will hear the wailing of a female voice, as if the spirit of the murdered infant were bewailing its lost estate; and that a white figure may be seen wringing its hands in agony, as it flits backwards and forwards along the range of the solitary loch. Therefore, though the black beetle is an irresistible bait, we never threw a fly at night on the surface of the Haunted Tarn.
Penny Encyclopædias, although Lord Brougham had advanced considerably towards manhood, were not then the fashion. Information for the people was not yet collected into hebdomadal tracts; and those who coveted the fruit of the tree of knowledge were left to pursue their horticultural researches at their own free will. In the days of which we write, the two leading weekly serials were the "Tales of Terror" and "The Terrific Register," to both of which we regularly subscribed. To our present taste—somewhat, we hope, improved since then—the latter seems a vulgar publication. It was neither more nor less than arifacciamentoof the most heinous and exaggerated murders, by steel, fire, and poison, which could be culled from the records of ancient and modern villany. It was, in short, the quintessence of theNewgate Calendar, powerful enough to corrupt a nation; as a proof of which—we mention it with regret—the servant lad who ten years ago purloined it from our library, has since been transported for life. We even dare to back it, for pernicious results, against the moral influence which has been since exercised by theauthors of Oliver Twist and Jack Sheppard, to both of whom the penal colonies have incurred a debt of lasting gratitude. It is true that, in point of sentiment, these gentlemen have the advantage of the Editor of The Terrific Register, but he beats them hollow in the broad delinquency of his facts. But in the Tales of Terror we possessed a real supernatural treasure. Every horrible legend of demon, ghost, goule, gnome, salamandrine, and fire-king, which the corrupted taste of Germany had hatched, was contained in this precious repository. It was illustrated also, as we well remember, by woodcuts of the most appalling description, which used to haunt us in our sleep long after we had stolen to our bed at half-past eleven punctually, in order that we might be drenched in slumber before the chiming of the midnight hour—at which signal, according to the demonologists, the gates of Hades are opened wide, and the defunct usurer returns to mourn and gibber above the hiding-place of his buried gold.
Gradually, however, we waxed more bold; and by dint of constant study familiarized ourselves so much with the subject, that we not only ceased to fear, but absolutely longed for a personal acquaintance with an apparition. The History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which shortly afterwards fell into our hands, inspired us with the ambition of becoming a practical magician, and we thirsted for a knowledge of the Cabala. We had already done a little business in the way of turnip lanterns, the favourite necromantic implements of the ingenuous Scottish youth—hideous in the whiteness of their vegetable teeth, and not unappalling when dexterously placed upon the edge of the kirk-yard wall. Electric shocks conveyed by means of the door-handles, phosphoric writings on the wall, and the mystery of spontaneous bells, were our next chemical amusements; nor did we desist from this branch of practice until we had received a most sound castigation, at the recollection of which our bones still ache, from a crusty old tutor whose couch we had strewn, not with roses, but with chopped horse-hair.
We are old enough to recollect the first representation ofDer Freischutz, and it is an era in our dramatic reminiscences. Previously to that, we had seen a Vampire appear upon the boards of the Edinburgh stage, and after an extravagant consumption of victims throughout the course of three acts, fall thunder-smitten by an indigo bolt through a deep and yawning trap-door. But Zamiel, as then represented by Mr Lynch, completely distanced the Blood-sucker. With feelings of intensest awe, we beheld the mysterious preparations in the Wolf's Glen—the circle of skull and bone—the magic ring of light blue that flickered round it—the brazier with the two kneeling figures beside it—the owl on the blasted tree, which opened its eyes and flapped its wings with true demoniacal perseverance—and the awful shapes that appeared at the casting of every bullet! But when, as the last of them was thrown from the mould, a crash of thunder pealed along the stage, and lurid lightnings glared from either wing—when the cataract was converted into blood, and the ferocious form of Lynch stood forth as the Infernal Hunter, discharging, after the manner of such beings, two rifles at once—our enthusiasm utterly overcame us; we gave vent to an exulting cheer, and were conducted from the boxes in a state of temporary insanity.
We pass over our classical studies. We were no great dab at Virgil, but we relished Apuleius exceedingly, and considerably petrified the Rector, by giving up, as the subject of our private reading, "Wierus de Prœstigiis Demonum." Our favourite philosopher was Sir Kenelm Digby, whose notions upon sympathy and antipathy we thought remarkably rational; so much so, that up to the present time, we recognise no other treatment for a cut finger than a submersion of the bloody rag in vitriol and water, and a careful unction of the knife. We lost our degree in medicine by citing as a case in point the wonderful cure of Telephus by the application of oxide of iron, which we held to be no specific at all, except as obtained from the spear of Achilles. This dogma, coupled with our obstinate adherence to the occult doctrines of Van Helmont, the only medical writer whose works we ever perused with the slightestsatisfaction, was too much for the bigoted examinators. We were recommended to go abroad and study homœopathy. We did so, and we swear by Hahnemann.
It is now some years since we received our first inkling of mesmeric revelation. Since then, we have read almost every work which has appeared upon the subject; and we scruple not to say that we are a profound believer in all of its varied mysteries. In it we recognise a natural explanation of all our earlier studies; and we hail with sincere delight the progress of a science which reconciles us to magic without the necessity of interposing a diabolic agency. The miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, as related by Philostratus, become very commonplace performances when viewed by the light of mesmerism. The veriest bungler who ever practised the passes can explain to you the nature of that secret intelligence which enabled theclair-voyantphilosopher, then at Ephesus, to communicate the murder of Domitian to his friends at the moment it took place at Rome. Second-sight has ceased to be a marvel: the preternatural powers, long supposed to be confined to Skye, Uist, and Benbecula, are now demonstrated to be universal, and are exhibited on the platform by scores of urchins picked up at random from the gutter. Even the Arabian Nights have become probable. Any perambulating mesmeriser can show you scores of strapping, fellows, reduced by a single wave of his hand to the unhappy condition of the young Prince whose lower extremities were stone. Comus was nothing more than a common Professor of the science; and Hermotimus a silly blockhead, who could not wake himself from his trance in time to prevent his wife from consigning him to the funeral pile.
The practical utility of the science is no less prodigious. Is it nothing, think you, if you have suffered a compound fracture of the leg, so bad that amputation is indispensable, to be relieved from all the horrors of the operation, from the sickening sight of the basins, the bandages, and the saw—to feel yourself sinking into a delicious slumber at the wave of the surgeon's hand, and to wake up ten minutes afterwards an unsuffering uniped, and as fresh as the Marquis of Anglesea? Is it nothing, when that back-grinder of yours gives you such intolerable agony that the very maid-servants in the attics cannot sleep o'nights because of your unmitigated roaring—is it nothing to avoid the terrible necessity of a conscious Tusculan disputation with Nasmith or Spence—to settle down for a few moments into a state of unconsciousness, and to revive with your masticators in such a condition as to defy the resistance of a navy biscuit? Or, if you are a stingy person and repugnant to postage, do you think it is no advantage to get gratis information about your friends in India through the medium of your eldest son, who, though apparently sitting like a senseless booby in your armchair, is at this moment invisibly present in the mess-room at Hyderabad, and will express, if you ask him, his wonder at the extreme voracity with which Uncle David devours his curry? Why, in that boy you possess an inestimable treasure! You may send him to Paris at a moment's notice for a state of the French funds—he will be at St Petersburg and back again in the twinkling of an eye—and if our own sight is failing, you have nothing to do but to clap the last number of the Magazine below him, and he will straightway regale your heart with the contents of the leading article.
There is a great deal of romance about Mesmerism. We have nowhere read a more touching story than that of the two consumptive sisters who were thrown into the Magic trance about the end of autumn, who lay folded in each other's arms—pale lilies—throughout the whole of the dreary winter, and awoke to life and renovated health in the joyous month of May, when the leaves were green, the flowers in bud, and the lambkins frolicking on the meadow! Read you ever any thing in novels so touching and pathetic as this? Nor is the case once recounted to us by a friend of our own, a noted mesmerizer, one whit less marvellous. In the ardent prosecution of his art, he had cast his glamour upon a fair Parisian damsel of the name ofLeontine—we believe she was a laundress—and daily held conference with the dormant Delphic girl. On one occasion he left her, wrapt in the profoundest sleep, in his chamber, and proceeded to perambulate the Boulevards on his own secular affairs. On returning, he found poor Leontine suffused in tears; deep and stifling sobs disturbed her utterance, nor was it until the charmer had soothed her with a few additional passes, that she could falter out the tender reproach—"Why did you not bring me some bonbons on the shop where you eat those three ice-creams?" Our friend had not walked alone through Paris. The spirit of the loving Leontine was invisibly clinging to his arm.
Now, although we make it an invariable rule to believe every thing which we read or hear, we were not a little desirous to behold with our own eyes an exhibition of these marvellous phenomena. But somehow or other, whilst the papers told us of Mesmeric miracles performed in every other part of the world, Edinburgh remained without a prophet. Either the Thessalian influence had not extended so far, or the Scottish frame was unsusceptible to the subtle fluid of the conjuror. One or two rumours reached us of young ladies who had become spellbound; but on inquiring more minutely into the circumstances, we found that there was an officer in each case, and we therefore were inclined to think that the symptoms might be naturally accounted for. There was, however, no want of curiosity on the part of the public. The new science had made a great noise in the world, and was the theme of conversation at every tea-table. Various attempts at mesmerization were made, but without success. We ourselves tried it; but after looking steadfastly for about twenty minutes into a pair of laughing blue eyes, we were compelled to own that the power was not in us, and that all the fascination had been exercised on the other side. Nobody had succeeded, if we except a little cousin of ours—rather addicted to fibbing—who averred that she had thrown a cockatoo into a deep and mysterious slumber.
Great, therefore, was our joy, and great was the public excitement, when at length a genuine professor of the art vouchsafed to favour us with a visit. He was one of those intelligent and patriotic men who go lecturing from town to town, inspired thereto by no other consideration than an ardour for the cause of science. The number of them is absolutely amazing. Throughout the whole winter, which is popularly called the lecturing season, the dead walls of every large city in the empire are covered with placards, announcing that Mr Tomlinson will have the honour of delivering six lectures upon Syria, or that Mr. Whackingham, the famous Timbuctoo traveller, will describe the interior of Africa. They are even clannish in their subjects. The Joneses are generally in pay of the League, and hold forth upon the iniquity of the Corn-duties. The Smiths, with laudable impartiality, are divided between slavery and liberation, and lectureproorcon, as the humour or opportunity may serve. The Macgillicuddies support the Seceding interest, and deliver facers in the teeth of all establishments whatsoever. The Robinsons are phrenological, the Browns chemical, and the Bletheringtons are great on the subject of universal education for the people. To each and all of these interesting courses you may obtain admittance for the expenditure of a trifling sum, and imbibe, in exchange for your shilling or half-crown, a considerable allowance of strong and full-flavoured information. Always ardent in the cause of science, we never, if we can help it, miss one of these seducing soirees: and we invariably find, that whatever may have been the heterodoxy of our former opinion, we become a convert through the powerful arguments of these peripatetic apostles of science.
Our new Xavier belonged to what is called the mesmerico-phrenological school. He was a man of bumps as well as passes—a disciple alike of German Spurzheim and of English Elliotson. His placard was a modest one. It set forth, as usual; the disinterested nature of his journey, which was to expound to the intelligent citizens of Edinburgh a few of the great truths of mesmerism, illustrated by a series of experiments. He studiouslydisclaimed all connexion with preternatural art, and ventured to assure every visitor, that, so far as he was concerned, no advantage should be taken of their attendance at hisSeancein any future stage of their existence. This distinct pledge removed from our minds any little scruple which we otherwise might have felt. We became convinced that the lecturer was far too much of a gentleman to take advantage of our weakness, and report us to the Powers of Evil; and accordingly, on the appointed night, after a bottle or so of fortifying port, we took our way to the exhibition-room, where Isis was at last to be revealed to our adoring eyes.
We selected and paid for a front seat, and located ourselves in the neighbourhood of a very smart bonnet, which had mesmerically attracted our eye. Around us were several faces well known in the northern metropolis, some of them wearing an expression of dull credulity, and others with a sneer of marked derision on the lip. On looking at the platform, we were not altogether surprised at the earliness of the latter demonstration. There was no apparatus there beyond a few chairs; but around a sort of semicircular screen were suspended a series of the most singular portraits we ever had the fortune to behold. One head was graced with a mouth big enough to contain a haggis, and a coronal of erected hair like a hearth-brush surmounting it left no doubt in our mind that it was intended for a representation of Terror. It was enough, as a young Indian officer afterwards remarked, to have made a Chimpanzee miscarry. Joy was the exact portraiture of a person undergoing the punishment of death by means of tickling. We should not like to have met Benevolence in a dark lane: he looked confoundedly like a fellow who would have eased you of your last copper, and knocked you down into the bargain. As for Amativeness, he seemed to us the perfect incarnation of hydrophobia. In fact, out of some two dozen passions, the only presentable personage was Self-esteem, a prettyish red-haired girl, with an expression of fun about the eyes.
In a short time the lecturer made his appearance. To do him justice, he did not look at all like a conjuror, nor did he use any of those becoming accessories which threw an air of picturesque dignity around the wizard of the middle ages. We could not say of him as of Lord Gifford,
"His shoes were mark'd with cross and spell,Upon his breast pentacle;His zone, of virgin parchment thin,Or, as some tell, of dead-man's skin,Bore many a planetary sign,Combust, and retrograde, and trine."
On the contrary, he was simply attired in a black coat and tweed terminations; and his attendant imps consisted of half a dozen young gentlemen, who might possibly, by dint of active exertion, have been made cleaner, and whose free-and-easy manner, as they scrambled towards their chairs, elicited some hilarious expressions from the more distant portion of the audience.
The introductory portion of the lecture appeared to us a fair specimen of Birmingham rhetoric. There was a great deal in it about mysterious agencies, invisible fluids, connexion of mind and matter, outer and inner man, and suchlike phrases, all of which sounded very deep and unintelligible—so much so indeed, that we suspected certain passages of it to have been culled with little alteration from the emporium of Sartor Resartus. Meanwhile the satellites upon the platform amused themselves by grimacing at each other, and exchanging a series of telegraphic gestures, which proved that they were all deep adepts in the art of masonry as practised by the youth of the Lawnmarket. The exposition might have lasted about a quarter of an hour, when sundry shufflings of the feet gave a hint to the lecturer that he had better stop discoursing, and proceed incontinently to experiment. He therefore turned to the imps, who straightway desisted from mowing, and remained mute and motionless before the eye of the mighty master. Seizing one of them by the hands, the operator looked steadfastly in his face. A dull film seemed to gather over the orbs of the gaping urchin—his jaw fell—his toes quivered—a few spasmodic jerks of the elbows showed that his whole frame was becomingLeyden, jar of animal electricity—his arms dropped fecklessly down—few waves across the forehead, and the Lazarillo of Dunedin was transported to the Invisible World!
Muttered exclamations—for the sanctity of the scene was too great to admit of ruffing—were now heard throughout the room. "Did you ever?"—"By Jove, there's a go!"—"Lord save us! but that's fearsome!"—"I say, Bob, d'ye no see him winking?" and other similar ejaculations caught our ear. Presently the operator abandoned his first victim, and advanced towards another, with the look of a rattlesnake, who, having bolted one rabbit, is determined to exterminate the warren. The second gutter-blood succumbed. His resistance to the mesmeric agency was even weaker than the other's: and, indeed, to judge from the rapidity of his execution, the marvellous fluid was now pouring in cataracts from the magic fingers of the adept. In a very few seconds the whole of the lads were as fast asleep as dormice.
Leaving them in their chairs, like so many slumbering Cupids, the lecturer next proceeded to favour us with a dissertation upon the functions of the brain. Cries of "Get on!"—"Gar them speak!"—"We ken a' aboot it!" assured him at once of the temper and the acquired information of the Modem Athenians; so, turning round once more, he pitched upon Lazarillo as a subject. So far as our memory will serve us, the following is a fair report of the colloquy.
"Are you asleep, my little boy?"
"I should think sae!"
"Do you feel comfortable?"
"No that ill. What was ye speering for?"
"Ha! a cautious boy! You observe, ladies and gentlemen, how remarkably the natural character is developed during the operation of the mesmeric trance. An English boy, I assure you, would have given me a very different reply. Let us now proceed to another test. You see, I take him by the hand, and at the same time introduce this piece of lump sugar into my own mouth. Remark how instantaneously the muscles of his face are affected. My little fellow, what is that you are eating?"
"Sweeties."
"Where did you get them?"
"What's yeer bizziness?"
"Well, well—we must not irritate him. Let us now change the experiment—how do you like this?"
"Fich!—proots!—Ye nastie fellie, if ye pit saut in ma mooth, I'll hit ye a duff in the muns!"
"How! I do not understand you!"
"A dad in the haffits."
Here a benevolent gentleman, with a bald head and spectacles, was kind enough to act as interpreter, and explained to the scientific Anglican the meaning of the minatory term.
"Ha! our young friend is becoming a little restive. We must alter his frame of mind. Observe, ladies and gentlemen, I shall now touch the organ of Benevolence."
With an alacrity which utterly dumbfoundered us, the young hope of the Crosscauseway now sprung to his feet. His hands were precipitately plunged into the inmost recesses of his corduroys.
"Puir man! puir man!" he exclaimed with a deep expression of sympathy, "ye're looking far frae weel! Ay, ay! a wife and saxteen weans at hame, and you just oot o' the hospital!—Hech-how! but this is a weary warld. Hae—it's no muckle I can gie ye, but tak it a'—tak it a'!"
So saying, he drew forth from his pockets a miscellaneous handful of slate-pencil, twine, stucco-bowls, and, if we mistake not, gib—a condiment much prized by the rising generation of the metropolis—all of which he deposited, as from a cornucopia, at the feet of the delighted lecturer.
A loud hum of admiration arose from the back-benches. Charity is a popular virtue, as you may learn at the theatre, from the tumultuous applause of the gallery whenever the hero of the melodrama chucks a purse at the head of some unfortunate starveling. Two old ladies in our neighbourhood began to whimper; and one of them publicly expressed her intention of rewarding with half-a-crown the good intentions of the munificent Lazarillo, so soon as the lecture was over. This seemed to inspire him with a fresh accession ofbenevolence; for, the organ being still excited, he made another desperate attempt, and this time fished up a brass button.
"Let us now," said the magician, "excite the counter organ of Secretiveness; and, in order to give this experiment its full effect, I shall also irritate the kindred organs of Acquisitiveness and Caution."
To our great disgust, Lazarillo instantly threw off the character of Howard, and appeared in that of David Haggart. He was evidently mentally prowling with an associate in the vicinity of a stall bedecked with tempting viands, irresistible to the inner Adam of the boy.
"I say, Tam! did ye ever see sic speldrings? Eh, man—but they'd be grand chowin! What'n rock!—and thae bonnie red-cheekit aipples! Whisht-ye, man—bide back in the close-head, or auld Kirsty will see ye! Na—she's no lookin' now. Gang ye ahint her, and cry oot that ye see a mad dowg, and I'll make a spang at the stall! That's yeer sort! I've gotten a hantle o' them. Stick them into ma pouches for fear they tumble oot, and we'll rin doon to the King's Park and hide them at the auld dyke!"
"This boy," said the operator, "evidently imagines himself to be engaged in an act of larceny. Such is the wonderful power of mesmerism, and such and so varied is the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the human frame. What we call man is a shell of virtue and of vice. In the same brain are contained the virtues of an Aristides, and the coarse malignity of a Nero. I could now, ladies and gentlemen, very easily procure from this lad the restitution of his imaginary spoils, by simply exciting the organ of Justice, which at once would prompt him to a full and candid confession. But I shall prefer to develop the experiment, by slightly awakening the powerful functions of Terror, an organ which we dare not trifle with, as the consequences are sometimes calamitous. I think, however, from the peculiar construction of this boy's head, that we may safely make the attempt. Mark the transition."
The hair of Lazarillo bristled.
"Gosh, Tam! are ye sure naebody seed us! Wha's that wi' the white breeks comin' down the close? Rin, man, rin—as sure's death it's the poliss! O Lord! what will become o' ma puir mither gin they grup me! O man—let's in! let's in! The door's fast steekit—Mercy—mercy—mercy—! Tak' yeer knuckles oot o' ma neck, and I'll gie ye the hale o' them back. It wasna me, it was Tam that did it! Ye're no gaun to tak us up to the office for sic a thing as that?—O dear me—dear me—dear me!" and the voice of Lazarillo died away in almost inarticulate moaning.
This scene had so affected the nerves of our fair neighbour in the bonnet, that, out of common civility, we felt ourselves compelled to offer a little consolation. In the mean time, the stern operator continued to aggravate the terrors of poor Lazarillo, whose cup of agony was full even to the brim, and who now fancied himself in the dock, tried, and found guilty, and awaiting with fear and tribulation the tremendous sentence of the law.
"O, ma lord, will ye no hae mercy on us? As true as I'm stannin' here, it's the first time I ever stealt ony thing. O whaur's mither? Is that her greeting outside? O, ma lord, what are ye puttin' on that black hat for? Ye daurna hang us surely for a wheen wizzened speldrings!—O dear—O dear! Is there naebody will say a word for me? O mercy—mercy! Wae's me—wae's me! To be hangit by the neck till I'm deid, and me no fifteen year auld!"
"We shall now," said the operator, "conduct our young friend to the scaffold"—
"Stop, sir!" cried the benevolent gentleman in the spectacles—"I insist that we shall have no more of this. Are you aware, sir, that you are answerable for the intellects of that unhappy boy? Who knows but that the cruel excitement he has already undergone may have had the effect of rendering him a maniac for life? I protest against any further exhibition of this nature, which is absolutely harrowing to my own feelings and to those of all around me. What if the boy should die?"