First Commissioner.—Lumps it in, sir! Lump in a charitable donation!
Second and Third Commissioner.—Oh-oh-oh-h-h!
First Commissioner.—Reverend sir, and gentlemen, officers of this parish, we are under the necessity of admonishing you that this is a most improper proceeding: and you are hereby duly admonished accordingly. Make a record, Mr. Milky.
Mr. Milky(writing). The clergyman and church-wardens of the village of Hm-ra-m-m- gravely admonished. Hm-m-m-m.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Is that all, gentlemen?
The Commissioners.—That is all, sir; and we wish you a good morning.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—A very good morning to you, gentlemen.
“What in the name of all that is wonderful, Mr. Bluenose,” said the Reverend Doctor Folliott, as he walked out of the inn, “what in the name of all that is wonderful, can those fellows mean? They have come here in a chaise and four, to make a fuss about a pound per annum, which, after all, they leave as it was: I wonder who pays them for their trouble, and how much.”
Mr. Appletwig.—The public pay for it, sir. It is a job of the learned friend whom you admire so much. It makes away with public money in salaries, and private money in lawsuits, and does no particle of good to any living soul.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Ay, ay, Mr. Appletwig; that is just the sort of public service to be looked for from the learned friend. Oh, the learned friend! the learned friend! He is the evil genius of everything that falls in his way.
The Reverend Doctor walked off to Crotchet Castle, to narrate his misadventures, and exhale his budget of grievances on Mr. Mac Quedy, whom he considered a ringleader of the march of mind.
Οἰ μέν ἔπειτ’ ἀναβάτες ἐπέπλον ὑγρὰ κέλευθα.Mounting the bark, they cleft the watery ways.—Homer.
Οἰ μέν ἔπειτ’ ἀναβάτες ἐπέπλον ὑγρὰ κέλευθα.
Mounting the bark, they cleft the watery ways.—Homer.
Fourbeautiful cabined pinnaces, one for the ladies, one for the gentlemen, one for kitchen and servants, one for a dining-room and band of music, weighed anchor, on a fine July morning, from below Crotchet Castle, and were towed merrily, by strong trotting horses, against the stream of the Thames. They passed from the district of chalk, successively into the districts of clay, of sand-rock, of oolite, and so forth. Sometimes they dined in their floating dining-room, sometimes in tents, which they pitched on the dry, smooth-shaven green of a newly-mown meadow: sometimes they left their vessels to see sights in the vicinity; sometimes they passed a day or two in a comfortable inn.
At Oxford, they walked about to see the curiosities of architecture, painted windows, and undisturbed libraries. The Reverend Doctor Folliott laid a wager with Mr. Crotchet “that in all their perlustrations they would not find a man reading,” and won it. “Ay,” said the reverend gentleman, “this is still a seat of learning, on the principle of—once a captain, always a captain. We may well ask, in these great reservoirs of books whereof no man ever draws a sluice,Quorsum pertinuit stipere Platona Menandro? What is done here for the classics? Reprinting German editions on better paper. A great boast, verily! What for mathematics? What for metaphysics? What for history? What for anything worth knowing? This was a seat of learning in the days of Friar Bacon. But the Friar is gone, and his learning with him. Nothing of him is left but the immortal nose, which, when his brazen head had tumbled to pieces, crying “Time’s Past,” was the only palpable fragment among its minutely pulverised atoms, and which is still resplendent over the portals of its cognominal college. That nose, sir, is the only thing to which I shall take off my hat, in all this Babylon of buried literature.
Mr. Crotchet.—But, doctor, it is something to have a great reservoir of learning, at which some may draw if they please.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—But, here, good care is taken that nobody shall please. If even a small drop from the sacred fountain, πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς, as Callimachus has it, were carried off by any one, it would be evidence of something to hope for. But the system of dissuasion from all good learning is brought here to a pitch of perfection that baffles the keenest aspirant. I run over to myself the names of the scholars of Germany, a glorious catalogue: but ask for those of Oxford,—Where are they? The echoes of their courts, as vacant as their heads, will answer, Where are they? The tree shall be known by its fruit: and seeing that this great tree, with all its specious seeming, brings forth no fruit, I do denounce it as a barren fig.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—I shall set you right on this point. We do nothing without motives. If learning get nothing but honour, and very little of that; and if the good things of this world, which ought to be the rewards of learning, become the mere gifts of self-interested patronage; you must not wonder if, in the finishing of education, the science which takes precedence of all others, should be the science of currying favour.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Very true, sir. Education is well finished, for all worldly purposes, when the head is brought into the state whereinto I am accustomed to bring a marrow-bone, when it has been set before me on a toast, with a white napkin wrapped round it. Nothing trundles along the high road of preferment so trimly as a well-biassed sconce, picked clean within and polished without;totus teres atque rotundus. The perfection of the finishing lies in the bias, which keeps it trundling in the given direction. There is good and sufficient reason for the fig being barren, but it is not therefore the less a barren fig.
At Godstow, they gathered hazel on the grave of Rosamond; and, proceeding on their voyage, fell into a discussion on legendary histories.
Lady Clarinda.—History is but a tiresome thing in itself: it becomes more agreeable the more romance is mixed up with it. The great enchanter has made me learn many things which I should never have dreamed of studying, if they had not come to me in the form of amusement.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—What enchanter is that? There are two enchanters: he of the north, and he of the south.
Mr. Trillo.—Rossini!
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Ay, there is another enchanter. But I mean the great enchanter of Covent Garden: he who, for more than a quarter of a century, has produced two pantomimes a year, to the delight of children of all ages; including myself at all ages. That is the enchanter for me. I am for the pantomimes. All the northern enchanter’s romances put together would not furnish materials for half the Southern enchanter’s pantomimes.
Lady Clarinda.—Surely you do not class literature with pantomime?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—In these cases, I do. They are both one, with a slight difference. The one is the literature of pantomime, the other is the pantomime of literature. There is the same variety of character, the same diversity of story, the same copiousness of incident, the same research into costume, the same display of heraldry, falconry, minstrelsy, scenery, monkery, witchery, devilry, robbery, poachery, piracy, fishery, gipsy-astrology, demonology, architecture, fortification, castrametation, navigation; the same running base of love and battle. The main difference is, that the one set of amusing fictions is told in music and action; the other in all the worst dialects of the English language. As to any sentence worth remembering, any moral or political truth, anything having a tendency, however remote, to make men wiser or better, to make them think, to make them ever think of thinking; they are both precisely alikenuspiam,nequaquam,nullibi,nullimodis.
Lady Clarinda.—Very amusing, however.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Very amusing, very amusing.
Mr. Chainmail.—My quarrel with the northern enchanter is, that he has grossly misrepresented the twelfth century.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—He has misrepresented everything, or he would not have been very amusing. Sober truth is but dull matter to the reading rabble. The angler, who puts not on his hook the bait that best pleases the fish, may sit all day on the bank without catching a gudgeon.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—But how do you mean that he has misrepresented the twelfth century? By exhibiting some of its knights and ladies in the colours of refinement and virtue, seeing that they were all no better than ruffians, and something else that shall be nameless?
Mr. Chainmail.—By no means. By depicting them as much worse than they were, not, as you suppose, much better. No one would infer from his pictures that theirs was a much better state of society than this which we live in.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—No, nor was it. It was a period of brutality, ignorance, fanaticism, and tyranny; when the land was covered with castles, and every castle contained a gang of banditti, headed by a titled robber, who levied contributions with fire and sword; plundering, torturing, ravishing, burying his captives in loathsome dungeons, and broiling them on gridirons, to force from them the surrender of every particle of treasure which he suspected them of possessing; and fighting every now and then with the neighbouring lords, his conterminal bandits, for the right of marauding on the boundaries. This was the twelfth century, as depicted by all contemporary historians and poets.
Mr. Chainmail.—No, sir. Weigh the evidence of specific facts; you will find more good than evil. Who was England’s greatest hero—the mirror of chivalry, the pattern of honour, the fountain of generosity, the model to all succeeding ages of military glory? Richard the First. There is a king of the twelfth century. What was the first step of liberty? Magna Charta. That was the best thing ever done by lords. There are lords of the twelfth century. You must remember, too, that these lords were petty princes, and made war on each other as legitimately as the heads of larger communities did or do. For their system of revenue, it was, to be sure, more rough and summary than that which has succeeded it, but it was certainly less searching and less productive. And as to the people, I content myself with these great points: that every man was armed, every man was a good archer, every man could and would fight effectively, with sword or pike, or even with oaken cudgel; no man would live quietly without beef and ale if he had them not; he fought till he either got them, or was put out of condition to want them. They were not, and could not be, subjected to that powerful pressure of all the other classes of society, combined by gunpowder, steam, andfiscality, which has brought them to that dismal degradation in which we see them now. And there are the people of the twelfth century.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—As to your king, the enchanter has done him ample justice, even in your own view. As to your lords and their ladies, he has drawn them too favourably, given them too many of the false colours of chivalry, thrown too attractive a light on their abominable doings. As to the people, he keeps them so much in the background, that he can hardly be said to have represented them at all, much less misrepresented them, which indeed he could scarcely do, seeing that, by your own showing, they were all thieves, ready to knock down any man for what they could not come by honestly.
Mr. Chainmail.—No, sir. They could come honestly by beef and ale, while they were left to their simple industry. When oppression interfered with them in that, then they stood on the defensive, and fought for what they were not permitted to come by quietly.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—If A., being aggrieved by B., knocks down C., do you call that standing on the defensive?
Mr. Chainmail.—That depends on who or what C. is.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Gentlemen, you will never settle this controversy till you have first settled what is good for man in this world; the great question,de finibus, which has puzzled all philosophers. If the enchanter has represented the twelfth century too brightly for one, and too darkly for the other of you, I should say, as an impartial man, he has represented it fairly. My quarrel with him is, that his works contain nothing worth quoting; and a book that furnishes no quotations, isme judice, no book—it is a plaything. There is no question about the amusement,—amusement of multitudes; but if he who amuses us most is to be our enchanter κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, then my enchanter is the enchanter of Covent Garden.
Continuant nostre routte, navigasmes par trois jourssans rien descouvrir.—Rabelais.
Continuant nostre routte, navigasmes par trois jourssans rien descouvrir.—Rabelais.
“Thereis a beautiful structure,” said Mr. Chainmail, as they glided by Lechlade church; “a subject for the pencil, Captain. It is a question worth asking, Mr. Mac Quedy, whether the religious spirit which reared these edifices, and connected with them everywhere an asylum for misfortune, and a provision for poverty, was not better than the commercial spirit, which has turned all the business of modern life into schemes of profit and processes of fraud and extortion. I do not see, in all your boasted improvements, any compensation for the religious charity of the twelfth century. I do not see any compensation for that kindly feeling which, within their own little communities, bound the several classes of society together, while full scope was left for the development of natural character, wherein individuals differed as conspicuously as in costume. Now, we all wear one conventional dress, one conventional face; we have no bond of union but pecuniary interest; we talk anything that comes uppermost for talking’s sake, and without expecting to be believed; we have no nature, no simplicity, no picturesqueness: everything about us is as artificial and as complicated as our steam-machinery: our poetry is a kaleidoscope of false imagery, expressing no real feeling, portraying no real existence. I do not see any compensation for the poetry of the twelfth century.”
Mr. Mac Quedy.—I wonder to hear you, Mr. Chainmail, talking of the religious charity of a set of lazy monks and beggarly friars, who were much more occupied with taking than giving; of whom those who were in earnest did nothing but make themselves and everybody about them miserable with fastings and penances, and other such trash; and those who were not, did nothing but guzzle and royster, and, having no wives of their own, took very unbecoming liberties with those of honester men. And as to your poetry of the twelfth century, it is not good for much.
Mr. Chainmail.—It has, at any rate, what ours wants, truth to nature and simplicity of diction.
The poetry, which was addressed to the people of the dark ages, pleased in proportion to the truth with which it depicted familiar images, and to their natural connection with the time and place to which they were assigned. In the poetry of our enlightened times, the characteristics of all seasons, soils, and climates may be blended together with much benefit to the author’s fame as an original genius. The cowslip of a civic poet is always in blossom, his fern is always in full feather; he gathers the celandine, the primrose, the heath-flower, the jasmine, and the chrysanthemum all on the same day and from the same spot; his nightingale sings all the year round, his moon is always full, his cygnet is as white as his swan, his cedar is as tremulous as his aspen, and his poplar as embowering as his beech. Thus all nature marches with the march of mind; but among barbarians, instead of mead and wine, and the best seat by the fire, the reward of such a genius would have been to be summarily turned out of doors in the snow, to meditate on the difference between day and night and between December and July. It is an age of liberality, indeed, when not to know an oak from a burdock is no disqualification for sylvan minstrelsy. I am for truth and simplicity.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Let him who loves them read Greek: Greek, Greek, Greek.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—If he can, sir.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Very true, sir; if he can. Here is the Captain who can. But I think he must have finished his education at some very rigid college, where a quotation or any other overt act showing acquaintance with classical literature was visited with a severe penalty. For my part, I make it my boast that I was not to be so subdued. I could not be abated of a single quotation by all the bumpers in which I was fined.
In this manner they glided over the face of the waters, discussing everything and settling nothing. Mr. Mac Quedy and the Reverend Doctor Folliott had many digladiations on political economy: wherein, each in his own view, Doctor Folliott demolished Mr. Mac Quedy’s science, and Mr. Mac Quedy demolished Dr. Folliott’s objections.
We would print these dialogues if we thought anyone would read them; but the world is not yet ripe for thishaute sagesse Pantagrueline. We must therefore content ourselves with anéchantillonof one of the Reverend Doctor’s perorations.
“You have given the name of a science to what is yet an imperfect inquiry, and the upshot of your so-called science is this: that you increase the wealth of a nation by increasing in it the quantity of things which are produced by labour: no matter what they are, no matter how produced, no matter how distributed. The greater the quantity of labour that has gone to the production of the quantity of things in a community, the richer is the community. That is your doctrine. Now, I say, if this be so, riches are not the object for a community to aim at. I say the nation is best off, in relation to other nations, which has the greatest quantity of the common necessaries of life distributed among the greatest number of persons; which has the greatest number of honest hearts and stout arms united in a common interest, willing to offend no one, but ready to fight in defence of their own community against all the rest of the world, because they have something in it worth fighting for. The moment you admit that one class of things, without any reference to what they respectively cost, is better worth having than another; that a smaller commercial value, with one mode of distribution, is better than a greater commercial value, with another mode of distribution; the whole of that curious fabric of postulates and dogmas, which you call the science of political economy, and which I callpoliticæ æconomiæ inscientia, tumbles to pieces.”
Mr. Toogood agreed with Mr. Chainmail against Mr. Mac Quedy, that the existing state of society was worse than that of the twelfth century; but he agreed with Mr. Mac Quedy against Mr. Chainmail, that it was in progress to something much better than either—to which “something much better” Mr. Toogood and Mr. Mac Quedy attached two very different meanings.
Mr. Chainmail fought with Doctor Folliott, the battle of the romantic against the classical in poetry; and Mr. Skionar contended with Mr. Mac Quedy for intuition and synthesis, against analysis and induction in philosophy.
Mr. Philpot would lie along for hours, listening to the gurgling of the water round the prow, and would occasionally edify the company with speculations on the great changes that would be effected in the world by the steam-navigation of rivers: sketching the course of a steamboat up and down some mighty stream which civilisation had either never visited, or long since deserted; the Missouri and the Columbia, the Oroonoko and the Amazon, the Nile and the Niger, the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Oxus and the Indus, the Ganges and the Hoangho; under the over canopying forests of the new, or by the long-silent ruins of the ancient, world; through the shapeless mounds of Babylon, or the gigantic temples of Thebes.
Mr. Trillo went on with the composition of his opera, and took the opinions of the young ladies on every step in its progress; occasionally regaling the company with specimens; and wondering at the blindness of Mr. Mac Quedy, who could not, or would not, see that an opera in perfection, being the union of all the beautiful arts—music, painting, dancing, poetry—exhibiting female beauty in its most attractive aspects, and in its most becoming costume—was, according to the well-known precept,Ingenuas didicisse, etc., the most efficient instrument of civilisation, and ought to take precedence of all other pursuits in the minds of true philanthropists. The Reverend Doctor Folliott, on these occasions, never failed to say a word or two on Mr. Trillo’s side, derived from the practice of the Athenians, and from the combination, in their theatre, of all the beautiful arts, in a degree of perfection unknown to the modern world.
Leaving Lechlade, they entered the canal that connects the Thames with the Severn; ascended by many locks; passed by a tunnel, three miles long, through the bowels of Sapperton Hill; agreed unanimously that the greatest pleasure derivable from visiting a cavern of any sort was that of getting out of it; descended by many locks again through the valley of Stroud into the Severn; continued their navigation into the Ellesmere canal; moored their pinnaces in the Vale of Llangollen by the aqueduct of Pontycysyllty; and determined to pass some days in inspecting the scenery, before commencing their homeward voyage.
The Captain omitted no opportunity of pressing his suit on Lady Clarinda, but could never draw from her any reply but the same doctrines of worldly wisdom, delivered in a tone ofbadinage, mixed with a certain kindness of manner that induced him to hope she was not in earnest.
But the morning after they had anchored under the hills of the Dee—whether the lady had reflected more seriously than usual, or was somewhat less in good humour than usual, or the Captain was more pressing than usual—she said to him: “It must not be, Captain Fitzchrome; ‘the course of true love never did run smooth:’ my father must keep his borough, and I must have a town house and a country house, and an opera box, and a carriage. It is not well for either of us that we should flirt any longer: ‘I must be cruel only to be kind.’ Be satisfied with the assurance that you alone, of all men, have ever broken my rest. To be sure, it was only for about three nights in all; but that is too much.”
The Captain hadle cœur navré. He took his portfolio under his arm, made up the littlevaliseof a pedestrian, and, without saying a word to anyone, wandered off at random among the mountains.
After the lapse of a day or two, the Captain was missed, and everyone marvelled what was become of him. Mr. Philpot thought he must have been exploring a river, and fallen in and got drowned in the process. Mr. Firedamp had no doubt he had been crossing a mountain bog, and had been suddenly deprived of life by the exhalations of marsh miasmata. Mr. Henbane deemed it probable that he had been tempted in some wood by the large black brilliant berries of theAtropa Belladonna, or Deadly Nightshade; and lamented that he had not been by, to administer an infallible antidote. Mr. Eavesdrop hoped the particulars of his fate would be ascertained; and asked if anyone present could help him to any authentic anecdotes of their departed friend. The Reverend Doctor Folliott proposed that an inquiry should be instituted as to whether the march of intellect had reached that neighbourhood, as, if so, the Captain had probably been made a subject for science. Mr. Mac Quedy said it was no such great matter to ascertain the precise mode in which the surplus population was diminished by one. Mr. Toogood asseverated that there was no such thing as surplus population, and that the land, properly managed, would maintain twenty times its present inhabitants; and hereupon they fell into a disputation.
Lady Clarinda did not doubt that the Captain had gone away designedly; she missed him more than she could have anticipated, and wished she had at least postponed her last piece of cruelty till the completion of their homeward voyage.
“Base is the slave that pays.”—Ancient Pistol.
“Base is the slave that pays.”—Ancient Pistol.
TheCaptain was neither drowned nor poisoned, neither miasmatised nor anatomised. But, before we proceed to account for him, we must look back to a young lady, of whom some little notice was taken in the first chapter; and who, though she has since been out of sight, has never with us been out of mind: Miss Susannah Touchandgo, the forsaken of the junior Crotchet, whom we left an inmate of a solitary farm, in one of the deep valleys under the cloud-capt summits of Meirion, comforting her wounded spirit with air and exercise, rustic cheer, music, painting, and poetry, and the prattle of the little Ap Llymrys.
One evening, after an interval of anxious expectation, the farmer, returning from market brought for her two letters, of which the contents were these:
“Dotandcarryonetown,State of Apodidraskiana.“April1, 18..“My dear Child,“I am anxious to learn what are your present position, intention, and prospects. The fairies who dropped gold in your shoe, on the morning when I ceased to be a respectable man in London, will soon find a talismanic channel for transmitting you a stocking full of dollars, which will fit the shoe as well as the foot of Cinderella fitted her slipper. I am happy to say I am again become a respectable man. It was always my ambition to be a respectable man, and I am a very respectable man here, in this new township of a new state, where I have purchased five thousand acres of land, at two dollars an acre, hard cash, and established a very flourishing bank. The notes of Touchandgo and Company, soft cash, are now the exclusive currency of all this vicinity. This is the land in which all men flourish; but there are three classes of men who flourish especially,—methodist preachers, slave-drivers, and paper-money manufacturers; and as one of the latter, I have just painted the word BANK on a fine slab of maple, which was green and growing when I arrived, and have discounted for the settlers, in my own currency, sundry bills, which are to be paid when the proceeds of the crop they have just sown shall return from New Orleans; so that my notes are the representatives of vegetation that is to be, and I am accordingly a capitalist of the first magnitude. The people here know very well that I ran away from London; but the most of them have run away from some place or other; and they have a great respect for me, because they think I ran away with something worth taking, which few of them had the luck or the wit to do. This gives them confidence in my resources, at the same time that, as there is nothing portable in the settlement except my own notes, they have no fear that I shall run away with them. They know I am thoroughly conversant with the principles of banking, and as they have plenty of industry, no lack of sharpness, and abundance of land, they wanted nothing but capital to organise a flourishing settlement; and this capital I have manufactured to the extent required, at the expense of a small importation of pens, ink, and paper, and two or three inimitable copper plates. I have abundance here of all good things, a good conscience included; for I really cannot see that I have done any wrong. This was my position: I owed half a million of money; and I had a trifle in my pocket. It was clear that this trifle could never find its way to the right owner. The question was, whether I should keep it, and live like a gentleman; or hand it over to lawyers and commissioners of bankruptcy, and die like a dog on a dunghill. If I could have thought that the said lawyers, etc., had a better title to it than myself, I might have hesitated; but, as such title was not apparent to my satisfaction, I decided the question in my own favour, the right owners, as I have already said, being out of the question altogether. I have always taken scientific views of morals and politics, a habit from which I derive much comfort under existing circumstances.“I hope you adhere to your music, though I cannot hope again to accompany your harp with my flute. My lastandantemovement was toofortefor those whom it took by surprise. Let not yourallegro vivacebe damped by young Crotchet’s desertion, which, though I have not heard it, I take for granted. He is, like myself, a scientific politician, and has an eye as keen as a needle to his own interest. He has had good luck so far, and is gorgeous in the spoils of many gulls; but I think the Polar Basin and Walrus Company will be too much for him yet. There has been a splendid outlay on credit, and he is the only man, of the original parties concerned, of whom his Majesty’s sheriffs could give any account.“I will not ask you to come here. There is no husband for you. The men smoke, drink, and fight, and break more of their own heads than of girls’ hearts. Those among them who are musical, sing nothing but psalms. They are excellent fellows in their way, but you would not like them.“Au reste, here are no rents, no taxes, no poor-rates, no tithes, no church establishment, no routs, no clubs, no rotten boroughs, no operas, no concerts, no theatres, no beggars, no thieves, no king, no lords, no ladies, and only one gentleman, videlicet, your loving father,“Timothy Touchandgo.“P.S.—I send you one of my notes; I can afford to part with it. If you are accused of receiving money from me, you may pay it over to my assignees. Robthetill continues to be my factotum; I say no more of him in this place: he will give you an account of himself.”“Dotandcarryonetown,etc.“Dear Miss,“Mr. Touchandgo will have told you of our arrival here, of our setting up a bank, and so forth. We came here in a tilted waggon, which served us for parlour, kitchen, and all. We soon got up a log-house; and, unluckily, we as soon got it down again, for the first fire we made in it burned down house and all. However, our second experiment was more fortunate; and we are pretty well lodged in a house of three rooms on a floor; I should say the floor, for there is but one.“This new state is free to hold slaves; all the new states have not this privilege: Mr. Touchandgo has bought some, and they are building him a villa. Mr. Touchandgo is in a thriving way, but he is not happy here: he longs for parties and concerts, and a seat in Congress. He thinks it very hard that he cannot buy one with his own coinage, as he used to do in England. Besides, he is afraid of the Regulators, who, if they do not like a man’s character, wait upon him and flog him, doubling the dose at stated intervals, till he takes himself off. He does not like this system of administering justice: though I think he has nothing to fear from it. He has the character of having money, which is the best of all characters here, as at home. He lets his old English prejudices influence his opinions of his new neighbours; but, I assure you, they have many virtues. Though they do keep slaves, they are all ready to fight for their own liberty; and I should not like to be an enemy within reach of one of their rifles. When I say enemy, I include bailiff in the term. One was shot not long ago. There was a trial; the jury gave two dollars damages; the judge said they must find guilty or not guilty; but the counsel for the defendant (they would not call him prisoner) offered to fight the judge upon the point: and as this was said literally, not metaphorically, and the counsel was a stout fellow, the judge gave in. The two dollars damages were not paid after all; for the defendant challenged the foreman to box for double or quits, and the foreman was beaten. The folks in New York made a great outcry about it, but here it was considered all as it should be. So you see, Miss, justice, liberty, and everything else of that kind, are different in different places, just as suits the convenience of those who have the sword in their own hands. Hoping to hear of your health and happiness, I remain,“Dear Miss, your dutiful servant,“Roderick Robthetill.”
“Dotandcarryonetown,State of Apodidraskiana.“April1, 18..
“My dear Child,
“I am anxious to learn what are your present position, intention, and prospects. The fairies who dropped gold in your shoe, on the morning when I ceased to be a respectable man in London, will soon find a talismanic channel for transmitting you a stocking full of dollars, which will fit the shoe as well as the foot of Cinderella fitted her slipper. I am happy to say I am again become a respectable man. It was always my ambition to be a respectable man, and I am a very respectable man here, in this new township of a new state, where I have purchased five thousand acres of land, at two dollars an acre, hard cash, and established a very flourishing bank. The notes of Touchandgo and Company, soft cash, are now the exclusive currency of all this vicinity. This is the land in which all men flourish; but there are three classes of men who flourish especially,—methodist preachers, slave-drivers, and paper-money manufacturers; and as one of the latter, I have just painted the word BANK on a fine slab of maple, which was green and growing when I arrived, and have discounted for the settlers, in my own currency, sundry bills, which are to be paid when the proceeds of the crop they have just sown shall return from New Orleans; so that my notes are the representatives of vegetation that is to be, and I am accordingly a capitalist of the first magnitude. The people here know very well that I ran away from London; but the most of them have run away from some place or other; and they have a great respect for me, because they think I ran away with something worth taking, which few of them had the luck or the wit to do. This gives them confidence in my resources, at the same time that, as there is nothing portable in the settlement except my own notes, they have no fear that I shall run away with them. They know I am thoroughly conversant with the principles of banking, and as they have plenty of industry, no lack of sharpness, and abundance of land, they wanted nothing but capital to organise a flourishing settlement; and this capital I have manufactured to the extent required, at the expense of a small importation of pens, ink, and paper, and two or three inimitable copper plates. I have abundance here of all good things, a good conscience included; for I really cannot see that I have done any wrong. This was my position: I owed half a million of money; and I had a trifle in my pocket. It was clear that this trifle could never find its way to the right owner. The question was, whether I should keep it, and live like a gentleman; or hand it over to lawyers and commissioners of bankruptcy, and die like a dog on a dunghill. If I could have thought that the said lawyers, etc., had a better title to it than myself, I might have hesitated; but, as such title was not apparent to my satisfaction, I decided the question in my own favour, the right owners, as I have already said, being out of the question altogether. I have always taken scientific views of morals and politics, a habit from which I derive much comfort under existing circumstances.
“I hope you adhere to your music, though I cannot hope again to accompany your harp with my flute. My lastandantemovement was toofortefor those whom it took by surprise. Let not yourallegro vivacebe damped by young Crotchet’s desertion, which, though I have not heard it, I take for granted. He is, like myself, a scientific politician, and has an eye as keen as a needle to his own interest. He has had good luck so far, and is gorgeous in the spoils of many gulls; but I think the Polar Basin and Walrus Company will be too much for him yet. There has been a splendid outlay on credit, and he is the only man, of the original parties concerned, of whom his Majesty’s sheriffs could give any account.
“I will not ask you to come here. There is no husband for you. The men smoke, drink, and fight, and break more of their own heads than of girls’ hearts. Those among them who are musical, sing nothing but psalms. They are excellent fellows in their way, but you would not like them.
“Au reste, here are no rents, no taxes, no poor-rates, no tithes, no church establishment, no routs, no clubs, no rotten boroughs, no operas, no concerts, no theatres, no beggars, no thieves, no king, no lords, no ladies, and only one gentleman, videlicet, your loving father,
“Timothy Touchandgo.
“P.S.—I send you one of my notes; I can afford to part with it. If you are accused of receiving money from me, you may pay it over to my assignees. Robthetill continues to be my factotum; I say no more of him in this place: he will give you an account of himself.”
“Dotandcarryonetown,etc.
“Dear Miss,
“Mr. Touchandgo will have told you of our arrival here, of our setting up a bank, and so forth. We came here in a tilted waggon, which served us for parlour, kitchen, and all. We soon got up a log-house; and, unluckily, we as soon got it down again, for the first fire we made in it burned down house and all. However, our second experiment was more fortunate; and we are pretty well lodged in a house of three rooms on a floor; I should say the floor, for there is but one.
“This new state is free to hold slaves; all the new states have not this privilege: Mr. Touchandgo has bought some, and they are building him a villa. Mr. Touchandgo is in a thriving way, but he is not happy here: he longs for parties and concerts, and a seat in Congress. He thinks it very hard that he cannot buy one with his own coinage, as he used to do in England. Besides, he is afraid of the Regulators, who, if they do not like a man’s character, wait upon him and flog him, doubling the dose at stated intervals, till he takes himself off. He does not like this system of administering justice: though I think he has nothing to fear from it. He has the character of having money, which is the best of all characters here, as at home. He lets his old English prejudices influence his opinions of his new neighbours; but, I assure you, they have many virtues. Though they do keep slaves, they are all ready to fight for their own liberty; and I should not like to be an enemy within reach of one of their rifles. When I say enemy, I include bailiff in the term. One was shot not long ago. There was a trial; the jury gave two dollars damages; the judge said they must find guilty or not guilty; but the counsel for the defendant (they would not call him prisoner) offered to fight the judge upon the point: and as this was said literally, not metaphorically, and the counsel was a stout fellow, the judge gave in. The two dollars damages were not paid after all; for the defendant challenged the foreman to box for double or quits, and the foreman was beaten. The folks in New York made a great outcry about it, but here it was considered all as it should be. So you see, Miss, justice, liberty, and everything else of that kind, are different in different places, just as suits the convenience of those who have the sword in their own hands. Hoping to hear of your health and happiness, I remain,
“Dear Miss, your dutiful servant,“Roderick Robthetill.”
Miss Touchandgo replied as follows to the first of these letters:
“My Dear Father,“I am sure you have the best of hearts, and I have no doubt you have acted with the best intentions. My lover, or, I should rather say, my fortune’s lover, has indeed forsaken me. I cannot say I did not feel it; indeed, I cried very much; and the altered looks of people who used to be so delighted to see me, really annoyed me so, that I determined to change the scene altogether. I have come into Wales, and am boarding with a farmer and his wife. Their stock of English is very small; but I managed to agree with them, and they have four of the sweetest children I ever saw, to whom I teach all I know, and I manage to pick up some Welsh. I have puzzled out a little song, which I think very pretty; I have translated it into English, and I send it you, with the original air. You shall play it on your flute at eight o’clock every Saturday evening, and I will play and sing it at the same time, and I will fancy that I hear my dear papa accompanying me.“The people in London said very unkind things of you: they hurt me very much at the time; but now I am out of their way, I do not seem to think their opinion of much consequence. I am sure, when I recollect, at leisure, everything I have seen and heard among them, I cannot make out what they do that is so virtuous, as to set them up for judges of morals. And I am sure they never speak the truth about anything, and there is no sincerity in either their love or their friendship. An old Welsh bard here, who wears a waistcoat embroidered with leeks, and is called the Green Bard of Cadeir Idris, says the Scotch would be the best people in the world, if there was nobody but themselves to give them a character: and so I think would the Londoners. I hate the very thought of them, for I do believe they would have broken my heart, if I had not got out of their way. Now I shall write you another letter very soon, and describe to you the country, and the people, and the children, and how I amuse myself, and everything that I think you will like to hear about: and when I seal this letter, I shall drop a kiss on the cover.“Your loving daughter,“Susannah Touchandgo.“P.S.—Tell Mr. Robthetill I will write to him in a day or two. This is the little song I spoke of:“Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,My heart is gone, far, far from me;And ever on its track will fleeMy thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea.“Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,The swallow wanders fast and free;Oh, happy bird! were I like thee,I, too, would fly beyond the sea.“Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,Are kindly hearts and social glee:But here for me they may not be;My heart is gone beyond the sea.”
“My Dear Father,
“I am sure you have the best of hearts, and I have no doubt you have acted with the best intentions. My lover, or, I should rather say, my fortune’s lover, has indeed forsaken me. I cannot say I did not feel it; indeed, I cried very much; and the altered looks of people who used to be so delighted to see me, really annoyed me so, that I determined to change the scene altogether. I have come into Wales, and am boarding with a farmer and his wife. Their stock of English is very small; but I managed to agree with them, and they have four of the sweetest children I ever saw, to whom I teach all I know, and I manage to pick up some Welsh. I have puzzled out a little song, which I think very pretty; I have translated it into English, and I send it you, with the original air. You shall play it on your flute at eight o’clock every Saturday evening, and I will play and sing it at the same time, and I will fancy that I hear my dear papa accompanying me.
“The people in London said very unkind things of you: they hurt me very much at the time; but now I am out of their way, I do not seem to think their opinion of much consequence. I am sure, when I recollect, at leisure, everything I have seen and heard among them, I cannot make out what they do that is so virtuous, as to set them up for judges of morals. And I am sure they never speak the truth about anything, and there is no sincerity in either their love or their friendship. An old Welsh bard here, who wears a waistcoat embroidered with leeks, and is called the Green Bard of Cadeir Idris, says the Scotch would be the best people in the world, if there was nobody but themselves to give them a character: and so I think would the Londoners. I hate the very thought of them, for I do believe they would have broken my heart, if I had not got out of their way. Now I shall write you another letter very soon, and describe to you the country, and the people, and the children, and how I amuse myself, and everything that I think you will like to hear about: and when I seal this letter, I shall drop a kiss on the cover.
“Your loving daughter,
“Susannah Touchandgo.
“P.S.—Tell Mr. Robthetill I will write to him in a day or two. This is the little song I spoke of:
“Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,My heart is gone, far, far from me;And ever on its track will fleeMy thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea.
“Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,The swallow wanders fast and free;Oh, happy bird! were I like thee,I, too, would fly beyond the sea.
“Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,Are kindly hearts and social glee:But here for me they may not be;My heart is gone beyond the sea.”
‘Ως ἡδὺ τῴ μισοῦτι τοὺς φαύλους πρόπους’Ερημία.How sweet to minds that love not sordid waysIs solitude!—Menander.
‘Ως ἡδὺ τῴ μισοῦτι τοὺς φαύλους πρόπους’Ερημία.
How sweet to minds that love not sordid waysIs solitude!—Menander.
TheCaptain wandered despondingly up and down hill for several days, passing many hours of each in sitting on rocks; making, almost mechanically, sketches of waterfalls, and mountain pools; taking care, nevertheless, to be always before nightfall in a comfortable inn, where, being a temperate man, he whiled away the evening with making a bottle of sherry into negus. His rambles brought him at length into the interior of Merionethshire, the land of all that is beautiful in nature, and all that is lovely in woman.
Here, in a secluded village, he found a little inn, of small pretension and much comfort. He felt so satisfied with his quarters, and discovered every day so much variety in the scenes of the surrounding mountains, that his inclination to proceed farther diminished progressively.
It is one thing to follow the high road through a country, with every principally remarkable object carefully noted down in a book, taking, as therein directed, a guide, at particular points, to the more recondite sights: it is another to sit down on one chosen spot, especially when the choice is unpremeditated, and from thence, by a series of explorations, to come day by day on unanticipated scenes. The latter process has many advantages over the former; it is free from the disappointment which attends excited expectation, when imagination has outstripped reality, and from the accidents that mar the scheme of the tourist’s single day, when the valleys may be drenched with rain, or the mountains shrouded with mist.
The Captain was one morning preparing to sally forth on his usual exploration, when he heard a voice without, inquiring for a guide to the ruined castle. The voice seemed familiar to him, and going forth into the gateway, he recognised Mr. Chainmail. After greetings and inquiries for the absent: “You vanished very abruptly, Captain,” said Mr. Chainmail, “from our party on the canal.”
Captain Fitzchrome.—To tell you the truth, I had a particular reason for trying the effect of absence from a part of that party.
Mr. Chainmail.—I surmised as much: at the same time, the unusual melancholy of an in general most vivacious young lady made me wonder at your having acted so precipitately. The lady’s heart is yours, if there be truth in signs.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Hearts are not now what they were in the days of the old song: “Will love be controlled by advice?”
Mr. Chainmail.—Very true; hearts, heads, and arms have all degenerated, most sadly. We can no more feel the high impassioned love of the ages, which some people have the impudence to call dark, than we can wield King Richard’s battleaxe, bend Robin Hood’s bow, or flourish the oaken graft of the Pindar of Wakefield. Still we have our tastes and feelings, though they deserve not the name of passions; and some of us may pluck up spirit to try to carry a point, when we reflect that we have to contend with men no better than ourselves.
Captain Fitzchrome.—We do not now break lances for ladies.
Mr. Chainmail.—No; nor even bulrushes. We jingle purses for them, flourish paper-money banners, and tilt with scrolls of parchment.
Captain Fitzchrome.—In which sort of tilting I have been thrown from the saddle. I presume it was not love that led you from the flotilla?
Mr. Chainmail.—By no means. I was tempted by the sight of an old tower, not to leave this land of ruined castles, without having collected a few hints for the adornment of my baronial hall.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I understand you liveen famillewith your domestics. You will have more difficulty in finding a lady who would adopt your fashion of living, than one who would prefer you to a richer man.
Mr. Chainmail.—Very true. I have tried the experiment on several as guests; but once was enough for them: so, I suppose, I shall die a bachelor.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I see, like some others of my friends, you will give up anything except your hobby.
Mr. Chainmail.—I will give up anything but my baronial hall.
Captain Fitzchrome.—You will never find a wife for your purpose, unless in the daughter of some old-fashioned farmer.
Mr. Chainmail.—No, I thank you. I must have a lady of gentle blood; I shall not marry below my own condition: I am too much of a herald; I have too much of the twelfth century in me for that.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Why, then your chance is not much better than mine. A well-born beauty would scarcely be better pleased with your baronial hall than with my more humble offer of love in a cottage. She must have a town-house, and an opera-box, and roll about the streets in a carriage; especially if her father has a rotten borough, for the sake of which he sells his daughter, that he may continue to sell his country. But you were inquiring for a guide to the ruined castle in this vicinity; I know the way and will conduct you.
The proposal pleased Mr. Chainmail, and they set forth on their expedition.
Or vieni, Amore, e quà meco t’assetta.Orlando Innamorato.
Or vieni, Amore, e quà meco t’assetta.
Orlando Innamorato.
Mr. Chainmail.—Would it not be a fine thing, Captain, you being picturesque, and I poetical; you being for the lights and shadows of the present, and I for those of the past; if we were to go together over the ground which was travelled in the twelfth century by Giraldus de Barri, when he accompanied Archbishop Baldwin to preach the crusade?
Captain Fitzchrome.—Nothing, in my present frame of mind, could be more agreeable to me.
Mr. Chainmail.—We would provide ourselves with hisItinerarium; compare what has been, with what is; contemplate in their decay the castles and abbeys, which he saw in their strength and splendour; and, while you were sketching their remains, I would dispassionately inquire what has been gained by the change.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Be it so.
But the scheme was no sooner arranged, than the Captain was summoned to London by a letter on business, which he did not expect to detain him long. Mr. Chainmail, who, like the Captain, was fascinated with the inn and the scenery, determined to await his companion’s return; and, having furnished him with a list of books, which he was to bring with him from London, took leave of him, and began to pass his days like the heroes of Ariosto, who
—tutto il giorno, al bel oprar intenti,Saliron balze, e traversar torrenti.
—tutto il giorno, al bel oprar intenti,Saliron balze, e traversar torrenti.
One day Mr. Chainmail traced upwards the course of a mountain stream to a spot where a small waterfall threw itself over a slab of perpendicular rock, which seemed to bar his farther progress. On a nearer view, he discovered a flight of steps, roughly hewn in the rock, on one side of the fall. Ascending these steps, he entered a narrow winding pass, between high and naked rocks, that afforded only space for a rough footpath, carved on one side, at some height above the torrent.
The pass opened on a lake, from which the stream issued, and which lay like a dark mirror, set in a gigantic frame of mountain precipices. Fragments of rock lay scattered on the edge of the lake, some half-buried in the water: Mr. Chainmail scrambled some way over these fragments, till the base of a rock sinking abruptly in the water, effectually barred his progress. He sat down on a large smooth stone; the faint murmur of the stream he had quitted, the occasional flapping of the wings of the heron, and at long intervals, the solitary springing of a trout, were the only sounds that came to his ear. The sun shone brightly half-way down the opposite rocks, presenting, on their irregular faces, strong masses of light and shade. Suddenly he heard the dash of a paddle, and, turning his eyes, saw a solitary and beautiful girl gliding over the lake in a coracle: she was proceeding from the vicinity of the point he had quitted, towards the upper end of the lake. Her apparel was rustic, but there was in its style something morerecherchée, in its arrangement something more of elegance and precision, than was common to the mountain peasant girl. It had more of thecontadinaof the opera, than of the genuine mountaineer; so at least thought Mr. Chainmail; but she passed so rapidly, and took him so much by surprise, that he had little opportunity for accurate observation. He saw her land, at the farther extremity, and disappear among the rocks: he rose from his seat, returned to the mouth of the pass, stepped from stone to stone across the stream, and attempted to pass round by the other side of the lake; but there again the abruptly sinking precipice closed his way.
Day after day he haunted the spot, but never saw again either the damsel or the coracle. At length, marvelling at himself for being so solicitous about the apparition of a peasant girl in a coracle, who could not, by any possibility, be anything to him, he resumed his explorations in another direction.
One day he wandered to the ruined castle, on the sea-shore, which was not very distant from his inn; and sitting on the rock, near the base of the ruin, was calling up the forms of past ages on the wall of an ivied tower, when on its summit appeared a female figure, whom he recognised in an instant for his nymph of the coracle. The folds of the blue gown pressed by the sea-breeze against one of the most symmetrical of figures, the black feather of the black hat, and the ringleted hair beneath it fluttering in the wind; the apparent peril of her position, on the edge of the mouldering wall, from whose immediate base the rock went down perpendicularly to the sea, presented a singularly interesting combination to the eye of the young antiquary.
Mr. Chainmail had to pass half round the castle, on the land side, before he could reach the entrance: he coasted the dry and bramble-grown moat, crossed the unguarded bridge, passed the unportcullised arch of the gateway, entered the castle court, ascertained the tower, ascended the broken stairs, and stood on the ivied wall. But the nymph of the place was gone. He searched the ruins within and without, but he found not what he sought: he haunted the castle day after day, as he had done the lake, but the damsel appeared no more.
The stars of midnight shall be dearTo her, and she shall lean her earIn many a secret place,Where rivulets dance their wayward round,And beauty, born of murmuring sound,Shall pass into her face.—Wordsworth.
The stars of midnight shall be dearTo her, and she shall lean her earIn many a secret place,Where rivulets dance their wayward round,And beauty, born of murmuring sound,Shall pass into her face.—Wordsworth.
Miss Susannah Touchandgohad read the four great poets of Italy, and many of the best writers of France. About the time of her father’s downfall, accident threw into her wayLes Réveries du Promeneur Solitaire; and from the impression which these made on her, she carried with her into retirement all the works of Rousseau. In the midst of that startling light, which the conduct of old friends on a sudden reverse of fortune throws on a young and inexperienced mind, the doctrines of the philosopher of Geneva struck with double force upon her sympathies: she imbibed the sweet poison, as somebody calls it, of his writings, even to a love of truth; which, every wise man knows, ought to be left to those who can get anything by it. The society of children, the beauties of nature, the solitude of the mountains, became her consolation, and, by degrees, her delight. The gay society from which she had been excluded, remained on her memory only as a disagreeable dream. She imbibed her new monitor’s ideas of simplicity of dress, assimilating her own with that of the peasant-girls in the neighbourhood: the black hat, the blue gown, the black stockings, the shoes, tied on the instep.
Pride was, perhaps, at the bottom of the change: she was willing to impose in some measure on herself, by marking a contemptuous indifference to the characteristics of the class of society from which she had fallen.
And with the food of pride sustained her soulIn solitude.
And with the food of pride sustained her soulIn solitude.
It is true that she somewhat modified the forms of her rustic dress: to the black hat she added a black feather, to the blue gown she added a tippet, and a waistband fastened in front with a silver buckle; she wore her black stockings very smooth and tight on her ankles, and tied her shoes in tasteful bows, with the nicest possible ribbon. In this apparel, to which, in winter, she added a scarlet cloak, she made dreadful havoc among the rustic mountaineers, many of whom proposed to “keep company” with her in the Cambrian fashion, an honour which, to their great surprise, she always declined. Among these, Harry Ap-Heather, whose father rented an extensive sheepwalk, and had a thousand she-lambs wandering in the mountains, was the most strenuous in his suit, and the most pathetic in his lamentations for her cruelty.
Miss Susannah often wandered among the mountains alone, even to some distance from the farmhouse. Sometimes she descended into the bottom of the dingles, to the black rocky beds of the torrents, and dreamed away hours at the feet of the cataracts. One spot in particular, from which she had at first shrunk with terror, became by degrees her favourite haunt. A path turning and returning at acute angles, led down a steep wood-covered slope to the edge of a chasm, where a pool, or resting-place of a torrent, lay far below. A cataract fell in a single sheet into the pool; the pool boiled and bubbled at the base of the fall, but through the greater part of its extent, lay calm, deep, and black, as if the cataract had plunged through it to an unimaginable depth, without disturbing its eternal repose. At the opposite extremity of the pool, the rocks almost met at their summits, the trees of the opposite banks intermingled their leaves, and another cataract plunged from the pool into a chasm, on which the sunbeams never gleamed. High above, on both sides, the steep woody slopes of the dingle soared into the sky; and from a fissure in the rock, on which the little path terminated, a single gnarled and twisted oak stretched itself over the pool, forming a fork with its boughs at a short distance from the rock. Miss Susannah often sat on the rock, with her feet resting on this tree; in time, she made her seat on the tree itself, with her feet hanging over the abyss; and at length, she accustomed herself to lie along upon its trunk, with her side on the mossy bole of the fork, and an arm round one of the branches. From this position a portion of the sky and the woods was reflected in the pool, which, from its bank, was but a mass of darkness. The first time she reclined in this manner, her heart beat audibly; in time she lay down as calmly as on the mountain heather; the perception of the sublime was probably heightened by an intermingled sense of danger; and perhaps that indifference to life, which early disappointment forces upon sensitive minds, was necessary to the first experiment. There was, in the novelty and strangeness of the position, an excitement which never wholly passed away, but which became gradually subordinate to the influence, at once tranquillising and elevating, of the mingled eternity of motion, sound, and solitude.
One sultry noon, she descended into this retreat with a mind more than usually disturbed by reflections on the past. She lay in her favourite position, sometimes gazing on the cataract; looking sometimes up the steep sylvan acclivities, into the narrow space of the cloudless ether; sometimes down into the abyss of the pool, and the deep bright-blue reflections that opened another immensity below her. The distressing recollections of the morning, the world and all its littlenesses, faded from her thoughts like a dream; but her wounded and wearied spirit drank in too deeply the tranquillising power of the place, and she dropped asleep upon the tree like a ship-boy on the mast.
At this moment Mr. Chainmail emerged into daylight, on a projection of the opposite rock, having struck down through the woods in search of unsophisticated scenery. The scene he discovered filled him with delight: he seated himself on the rock, and fell into one of his romantic reveries; when suddenly the semblance of a black hat and feather caught his eye among the foliage of the projecting oak. He started up, shifted his position, and got a glimpse of a blue gown. It was his lady of the lake, his enchantress of the ruined castle, divided from him by a barrier which, at a few yards below, he could almost overleap, yet unapproachable but by a circuit perhaps of many hours. He watched with intense anxiety. To listen if she breathed was out of the question: the noses of a dean and chapter would have been soundless in the roar of the torrent. From her extreme stillness, she appeared to sleep: yet what creature, not desperate, would go wilfully to sleep in such a place? Was she asleep, then? Nay, was she alive? She was as motionless as death. Had she been murdered, thrown from above, and caught in the tree? She lay too regularly and too composedly for such a supposition. She was asleep, then, and, in all probability, her waking would be fatal. He shifted his position. Below the pool two beetle-browed rocks nearly overarched the chasm, leaving just such a space at the summit as was within the possibility of a leap; the torrent roared below in a fearful gulf. He paused some time on the brink, measuring the practicability and the danger, and casting every now and then an anxious glance to his sleeping beauty. In one of these glances he saw a slight movement of the blue gown, and, in a moment after, the black hat and feather dropped into the pool. Reflection was lost for a moment, and, by a sudden impulse, he bounded over the chasm.
He stood above the projecting oak; the unknown beauty lay like the nymph of the scene; her long black hair, which the fall of her hat had disengaged from its fastenings, drooping through the boughs: he saw that the first thing to be done, was to prevent her throwing her feet off the trunk, in the first movements of waking. He sat down on the rock, and placed his feet on the stem, securing her ankles between his own: one of her arms was round a branch of the fork, the other lay loosely on her side. The hand of this arm he endeavoured to reach, by leaning forward from his seat; he approximated, but could not touch it: after several tantalising efforts, he gave up the point in despair. He did not attempt to wake her, because he feared it might have bad consequences, and he resigned himself to expect the moment of her natural waking, determined not to stir from his post, if she should sleep till midnight.
In this period of forced inaction, he could contemplate at leisure the features and form of his charmer. She was not one of the slender beauties of romance; she was as plump as a partridge; her cheeks were two roses, not absolutely damask, yet verging thereupon; her lips twin-cherries, of equal size; her nose regular, and almost Grecian; her forehead high, and delicately fair; her eyebrows symmetrically arched; her eyelashes, long, black, and silky, fitly corresponding with the beautiful tresses that hung among the leaves of the oak, like clusters of wandering grapes. Her eyes were yet to be seen; but how could he doubt that their opening would be the rising of the sun, when all that surrounded their fringy portals was radiant as “the forehead of the morning sky?”
Da ydyw’r gwaith, rhaid d’we’yd y gwir,Ar fryniau Sir Meirionydd;Golwg oer o’r gwaela gawnMae hi etto yn llawn llawenydd.Though Meirion’s rocks, and hills of heath,Repel the distant sight,Yet where, than those bleak hills beneath,Is found more true delight?
Da ydyw’r gwaith, rhaid d’we’yd y gwir,Ar fryniau Sir Meirionydd;Golwg oer o’r gwaela gawnMae hi etto yn llawn llawenydd.
Though Meirion’s rocks, and hills of heath,Repel the distant sight,Yet where, than those bleak hills beneath,Is found more true delight?
Atlength the young lady awoke. She was startled at the sudden sight of the stranger, and somewhat terrified at the first perception of her position. But she soon recovered her self-possession, and, extending her hand to the offered hand of Mr. Chainmail, she raised herself up on the tree, and stepped on the rocky bank.
Mr. Chainmail solicited permission to attend her to her home, which the young lady graciously conceded. They emerged from the woody dingle, traversed an open heath, wound along a mountain road by the shore of a lake, descended to the deep bed of another stream, crossed it by a series of stepping-stones, ascended to some height on the opposite side, and followed upwards the line of the stream, till the banks opened into a spacious amphitheatre, where stood, in its fields and meadows, the farmhouse of Ap-Llymry.
During this walk, they had kept up a pretty animated conversation. The lady had lost her hat, and, as she turned towards Mr. Chainmail, in speaking to him, there was no envious projection of brim to intercept the beams of those radiant eyes he had been so anxious to see unclosed. There was in them a mixture of softness and brilliancy, the perfection of the beauty of female eyes, such as some men have passed through life without seeing, and such as no man ever saw, in any pair of eyes, but once; such as can never be seen and forgotten. Young Crotchet had seen it; he had not forgotten it; but he had trampled on its memory, as the renegade tramples on the emblems of a faith which his interest only, and not his heart or his reason, has rejected.
Her hair streamed over her shoulders; the loss of the black feather had left nothing but the rustic costume, the blue gown, the black stockings, and the ribbon-tied shoes. Her voice had that full soft volume of melody which gives to common speech the fascination of music. Mr. Chainmail could not reconcile the dress of the damsel with her conversation and manners. He threw out a remote question or two, with the hope of solving the riddle, but, receiving no reply, he became satisfied that she was not disposed to be communicative respecting herself, and, fearing to offend her, fell upon other topics. They talked of the scenes of the mountains, of the dingle, the ruined castle, the solitary lake. She told him, that lake lay under the mountains behind her home, and the coracle and the pass at the extremity, saved a long circuit to the nearest village, whither she sometimes went to inquire for letters.
Mr. Chainmail felt curious to know from whom these letters might be; and he again threw out two or three fishing questions, to which, as before, he obtained no answer.
The only living biped they met in their walk was the unfortunate Harry Ap-Heather, with whom they fell in by the stepping-stones, who, seeing the girl of his heart hanging on another man’s arm, and, concluding at once that they were “keeping company,” fixed on her a mingled look of surprise, reproach, and tribulation; and, unable to control his feelings under the sudden shock, burst into a flood of tears, and blubbered till the rocks re-echoed.
They left him mingling his tears with the stream, and his lamentations with its murmurs. Mr. Chainmail inquired who that strange creature might be, and what was the matter with him. The young lady answered, that he was a very worthy young man, to whom she had been the innocent cause of much unhappiness.
“I pity him sincerely,” said Mr. Chainmail and, nevertheless, he could scarcely restrain his laughter at the exceedingly original figure which the unfortunate rustic lover had presented by the stepping-stones.
The children ran out to meet their dear Miss Susan, jumped all round her, and asked what was become of her hat. Ap-Llymry came out in great haste, and invited Mr. Chainmail to walk in and dine: Mr. Chainmail did not wait to be asked twice. In a few minutes the whole party, Miss Susan and Mr. Chainmail, Mr. and Mrs. Ap-Llymry, and progeny, were seated over a clean homespun table cloth, ornamented with fowls and bacon, a pyramid of potatoes, another of cabbage, which Ap-Llymry said “was poiled with the pacon, and as coot as marrow,” a bowl of milk for the children, and an immense brown jug of foaming ale, with which Ap-Llymry seemed to delight in filling the horn of his new guest.
Shall we describe the spacious apartment, which was at once kitchen, hall, and dining-room,—the large dark rafters, the pendent bacon and onions, the strong old oaken furniture, the bright and trimly-arranged utensils? Shall we describe the cut of Ap-Llymry’s coat, the colour and tie of his neckcloth, the number of buttons at his knees,—the structure of Mrs. Ap-Llymry’s cap, having lappets over the ears, which were united under the chin, setting forth especially whether the bond of union were a pin or a ribbon? We shall leave this tempting field of interesting expatiation to those whose brains are high-pressure steam-engines for spinning prose by the furlong, to be trumpeted in paid-for paragraphs in the quack’s corner of newspapers: modern literature having attained the honourable distinction of sharing, with blacking and Macassar oil, the space which used to be monopolised by razor-strops and the lottery; whereby that very enlightened community, the reading public, is tricked into the perusal of much exemplary nonsense; though the few who see through the trickery have no reason to complain, since as “good wine needs no bush,” so,ex vi oppositi, these bushes of venal panegyric point out very clearly that the things they celebrate are not worth reading.
The party dined very comfortably in a corner most remote from the fire: and Mr. Chainmail very soon found his head swimming with two or three horns of ale, of a potency to which even he was unaccustomed. After dinner Ap-Llymry made him finish a bottle of mead, which he willingly accepted, both as an excuse to remain and as a drink of the dark ages, which he had no doubt was a genuine brewage from uncorrupted tradition.
In the meantime, as soon as the cloth was removed, the children had brought out Miss Susannah’s harp. She began, without affectation, to play and sing to the children, as was her custom of an afternoon, first in their own language, and their national melodies, then in English; but she was soon interrupted by a general call of little voices for “Ouf! di giorno.” She complied with the request, and sang the ballad from Paër’sCamilla: “Un dì carco il mulinaro.” The children were very familiar with every syllable of this ballad, which had been often fully explained to them. They danced in a circle with the burden of every verse, shouting out the chorus with good articulation and joyous energy; and at the end of the second stanza, where the traveller has his nose pinched by his grandmother’s ghost, every nose in the party was nipped by a pair of little fingers. Mr. Chainmail, who was not prepared for the process, came in for a very energetic tweak from a chubby girl that sprang suddenly on his knees for the purpose, and made the roof ring with her laughter.
So passed the time till evening, when Mr. Chainmail moved to depart. But it turned out on inquiry that he was some miles from his inn, that the way was intricate, and that he must not make any difficulty about accepting the farmer’s hospitality till morning. The evening set in with rain: the fire was found agreeable; they drew around it. The young lady made tea; and afterwards, from time to time, at Mr. Chainmail’s special request, delighted his ear with passages of ancient music. Then came a supper of lake trout, fried on the spot, and thrown, smoking hot, from the pan to the plate. Then came a brewage, which the farmer called his nightcap, of which he insisted on Mr. Chainmail’s taking his full share. After which the gentleman remembered nothing till he awoke, the next morning, to the pleasant consciousness that he was under the same roof with one of the most fascinating creatures under the canopy of heaven.
Ποίας δ’ ἀποσπασθεῖσα φύτλυς’Ορέων κευθμῶνας ἔχει σκιοέντων;Sprung from what line, adorns the maidThese, valleys deep in mountain-shade?Pind.Pyth.IX
Ποίας δ’ ἀποσπασθεῖσα φύτλυς’Ορέων κευθμῶνας ἔχει σκιοέντων;
Sprung from what line, adorns the maidThese, valleys deep in mountain-shade?
Pind.Pyth.IX
Mr. Chainmailforgot the Captain and the route of Giraldus de Barri. He became suddenly satisfied that the ruined castle in his present neighbourhood was the best possible specimen of its class, and that it was needless to carry his researches further.
He visited the farm daily: found himself always welcome; flattered himself that the young lady saw him with pleasure, and dragged a heavier chain at every new parting from Miss Susan, as the children called his nymph of the mountains. What might be her second name, he had vainly endeavoured to discover.
Mr. Chainmail was in love: but the determination he had long before formed and fixed in his mind, to marry only a lady of gentle blood, without a blot in her escutcheon, repressed the declarations of passion which were often rising to his lips. In the meantime he left no means untried to pluck out the heart of her mystery.
The young lady soon divined his passion, and penetrated his prejudices. She began to look on him with favourable eyes; but she feared her name and parentage would present an insuperable barrier to his feudal pride.
Things were in this state when the Captain returned, and unpacked his maps and books in the parlour of the inn.
Mr. Chainmail.—Really, Captain, I find so many objects of attraction in this neighbourhood, that I would gladly postpone our purpose.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Undoubtedly this neighbourhood has many attractions; but there is something very inviting in the scheme you laid down.
Mr. Chainmail.—No doubt there is something very tempting in the route of Giraldus de Barri. But there are better things in this vicinity even than that. To tell you the truth, Captain, I have fallen in love.
Captain Fitzchrome.—What! while I have been away?
Mr. Chainmail.—Even so.
Captain Fitzchrome.—The plunge must have been very sudden, if you are already over head and ears.
Mr. Chainmail.—As deep as Llyn-y-dreiddiad-vrawd.
Captain Fitzchrome.—And what may that be?
Mr. Chainmail.—A pool not far off: a resting-place of a mountain stream which is said to have no bottom. There is a tradition connected with it; and here is a ballad on it, at your service.
LLYN-Y-DREIDDIAD-VRAWD.THE POOL OF THE DIVING FRIAR.Gwenwynwyn withdrew from the feasts of his hall:He slept very little, he prayed not at all:He pondered, and wandered, and studied alone;And sought, night and day, the philosopher’s stone.He found it at length, and he made its first proofBy turning to gold all the lead of his roof:Then he bought some magnanimous heroes, all fire,Who lived but to smite and be smitten for hire.With these on the plains like a torrent he broke;He filled the whole country with flame and with smoke;He killed all the swine, and he broached all the wine;He drove off the sheep, and the beeves, and the kine;He took castles and towns; he cut short limbs and lives;He made orphans and widows of children and wives:This course many years he triumphantly ran,And did mischief enough to be called a great man.When, at last, he had gained all for which he held striven,He bethought him of buying a passport to heaven;Good and great as he was, yet he did not well know,How soon, or which way, his great spirit might go.He sought the grey friars, who beside a wild stream,Refected their frames on a primitive scheme;The gravest and wisest Gwenwynwyn found out,All lonely and ghostly, and angling for trout.Below the white dash of a mighty cascade,Where a pool of the stream a deep resting-place made,And rock-rooted oaks stretched their branches on high,The friar stood musing, and throwing his fly.To him said Gwenwynwyn, “Hold, father, here’s store,For the good of the church, and the good of the poor;”Then he gave him the stone; but, ere more he could speak,Wrath came on the friar, so holy and meek.He had stretched forth his hand to receive the red gold,And he thought himself mocked by Gwenwynwyn the Bold;And in scorn of the gift, and in rage at the giver,He jerked it immediately into the river.Gwenwynwyn, aghast, not a syllable spake;The philosopher’s stone made a duck and a drake;Two systems of circles a moment were seen,And the stream smoothed them off, as they never had been.Gwenwynwyn regained, and uplifted his voice,“Oh friar, grey friar, full rash was thy choice;The stone, the good stone, which away thou hast thrown,Was the stone of all stones, the philosopher’s stone.”The friar looked pale, when his error he knew;The friar looked red, and the friar looked blue;And heels over head, from the point of a rock,He plunged, without stopping to pull off his frock.He dived very deep, but he dived all in vain,The prize he had slighted he found not again;Many times did the friar his diving renew,And deeper and deeper the river still grew.Gwenwynwyn gazed long, of his senses in doubt,To see the grey friar a diver so stout;Then sadly and slowly his castle he sought,And left the friar diving, like dabchick distraught.Gwenwynwyn fell sick with alarm and despite,Died, and went to the devil, the very same night;The magnanimous heroes he held in his paySacked his castle, and marched with the plunder away.No knell on the silence of midnight was rolledFor the flight of the soul of Gwenwynwyn the Bold.The brethren, unfeed, let the mighty ghost pass,Without praying a prayer, or intoning a mass.The friar haunted ever beside the dark stream;The philosopher’s stone was his thought and his dream:And day after day, ever head under heelsHe dived all the time he could spare from his meals.He dived, and he dived, to the end of his days,As the peasants oft witnessed with fear and amaze.The mad friar’s diving-place long was their theme,And no plummet can fathom that pool of the stream.And still, when light clouds on the midnight winds ride,If by moonlight you stray on the lone river-side,The ghost of the friar may be seen diving there,With head in the water, and heels in the air.
LLYN-Y-DREIDDIAD-VRAWD.THE POOL OF THE DIVING FRIAR.
Gwenwynwyn withdrew from the feasts of his hall:He slept very little, he prayed not at all:He pondered, and wandered, and studied alone;And sought, night and day, the philosopher’s stone.
He found it at length, and he made its first proofBy turning to gold all the lead of his roof:Then he bought some magnanimous heroes, all fire,Who lived but to smite and be smitten for hire.
With these on the plains like a torrent he broke;He filled the whole country with flame and with smoke;He killed all the swine, and he broached all the wine;He drove off the sheep, and the beeves, and the kine;
He took castles and towns; he cut short limbs and lives;He made orphans and widows of children and wives:This course many years he triumphantly ran,And did mischief enough to be called a great man.
When, at last, he had gained all for which he held striven,He bethought him of buying a passport to heaven;Good and great as he was, yet he did not well know,How soon, or which way, his great spirit might go.
He sought the grey friars, who beside a wild stream,Refected their frames on a primitive scheme;The gravest and wisest Gwenwynwyn found out,All lonely and ghostly, and angling for trout.
Below the white dash of a mighty cascade,Where a pool of the stream a deep resting-place made,And rock-rooted oaks stretched their branches on high,The friar stood musing, and throwing his fly.
To him said Gwenwynwyn, “Hold, father, here’s store,For the good of the church, and the good of the poor;”Then he gave him the stone; but, ere more he could speak,Wrath came on the friar, so holy and meek.
He had stretched forth his hand to receive the red gold,And he thought himself mocked by Gwenwynwyn the Bold;And in scorn of the gift, and in rage at the giver,He jerked it immediately into the river.
Gwenwynwyn, aghast, not a syllable spake;The philosopher’s stone made a duck and a drake;Two systems of circles a moment were seen,And the stream smoothed them off, as they never had been.
Gwenwynwyn regained, and uplifted his voice,“Oh friar, grey friar, full rash was thy choice;The stone, the good stone, which away thou hast thrown,Was the stone of all stones, the philosopher’s stone.”
The friar looked pale, when his error he knew;The friar looked red, and the friar looked blue;And heels over head, from the point of a rock,He plunged, without stopping to pull off his frock.
He dived very deep, but he dived all in vain,The prize he had slighted he found not again;Many times did the friar his diving renew,And deeper and deeper the river still grew.
Gwenwynwyn gazed long, of his senses in doubt,To see the grey friar a diver so stout;Then sadly and slowly his castle he sought,And left the friar diving, like dabchick distraught.
Gwenwynwyn fell sick with alarm and despite,Died, and went to the devil, the very same night;The magnanimous heroes he held in his paySacked his castle, and marched with the plunder away.
No knell on the silence of midnight was rolledFor the flight of the soul of Gwenwynwyn the Bold.The brethren, unfeed, let the mighty ghost pass,Without praying a prayer, or intoning a mass.
The friar haunted ever beside the dark stream;The philosopher’s stone was his thought and his dream:And day after day, ever head under heelsHe dived all the time he could spare from his meals.
He dived, and he dived, to the end of his days,As the peasants oft witnessed with fear and amaze.The mad friar’s diving-place long was their theme,And no plummet can fathom that pool of the stream.
And still, when light clouds on the midnight winds ride,If by moonlight you stray on the lone river-side,The ghost of the friar may be seen diving there,With head in the water, and heels in the air.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Well, your ballad is very pleasant: you shall show me the scene, and I will sketch it; but just now I am more interested about your love. What heroine of the twelfth century has risen from the ruins of the old castle, and looked down on you from the ivied battlements?
Mr. Chainmail.—You are nearer the mark than you suppose. Even from those battlements a heroine of the twelfth century has looked down on me.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Oh! some vision of an ideal beauty. I suppose the whole will end in another tradition and a ballad.
Mr. Chainmail.—Genuine flesh and blood; as genuine as Lady Clarinda. I will tell you the story.
Mr. Chainmail narrated his adventures.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Then you seem to have found what you wished. Chance has thrown in your way what none of the gods would have ventured to promise you.
Mr. Chainmail.—Yes, but I know nothing of her birth and parentage. She tells me nothing of herself, and I have no right to question her directly.
Captain Fitzchrome.—She appears to be expressly destined for the light of your baronial hall. Introduce me in this case, two heads are better than one.
Mr. Chainmail.—No, I thank you. Leave me to manage my chance of a prize, and keep you to your own chance of a—
Captain Fitzchrome.—Blank. As you please. Well, I will pitch my tent here, till I have filled my portfolio, and shall be glad of as much of your company as you can spare from more attractive society.
Matters went on pretty smoothly for several days, when an unlucky newspaper threw all into confusion. Mr. Chainmail received newspapers by the post, which came in three times a week. One morning, over their half-finished breakfast, the Captain had read half a newspaper very complacently, when suddenly he started up in a frenzy, hurled over the breakfast table, and, bouncing from the apartment, knocked down Harry Ap Heather, who was coming in at the door to challenge his supposed rival to a boxing-match.
Harry sprang up, in a double rage, and intercepted Mr. Chainmail’s pursuit of the Captain, placing himself in the doorway, in a pugilistic attitude. Mr. Chainmail, not being disposed for this mode of combat, stepped back into the parlour, took the poker in his right hand, and displacing the loose bottom of a large elbow chair, threw it over his left arm as a shield. Harry, not liking the aspect of the enemy in this imposing attitude, retreated with backward steps into the kitchen, and tumbled over a cur, which immediately fastened on his rear.