"To the Earl of Gowrie, our dear Son, with love and affectionate greeting:
"Son,--Your letter of the 16th of August, by the hands of a trusty messenger, reached us with speed; and seeing that there are therein contained things of weight, anent which your mind is disquieted till you shall hear from us, I write at once to let you know the mind of your granduncle and myself. Having proved yourself on all occasions wise and prudent, even beyond your years, you do well to write freely of your purposes to those who have your love and interest much at heart, notwithstanding that you are now of an age both to judge and act for yourself without control. We doubt not, my dear son, that you show your discretion in the choice you have made, and that the lady Julia, of whom you write, is worthy of all commendation. We might have wished you in such a matter to choose one known to us all, and with whose friends we might have dealt in the ordinary way; but, as you have made your choice, and love beareth hardly contradiction, we are glad to find that she is one of your own countrywomen, of suitable rank, and well nurtured, and also that she hath resisted stoutly all lures to defection in a land of idolatry and well nigh heathenism. It is comfortable, too, to find that you are not so hurried on by rash and intemperate affections as to propose to wed this lady at once, but inclined rather to wait till she has been brought amongst your own friends, and has sought, if not recovered, the lands which you say are her due: not that we need heed much whether she come to you, my son, with a rich dowry or not, so that the other qualities be suitable; but we are glad to find that both you and she are inclined to act with discretion rather than hasty passion. Thus you will understand that I have conceived a good opinion both of her heart and her understanding, not only by what you write, which might be warped by the love of a young man, but by her own acts, which speak in her praise. You may, therefore, kiss her for me, as her dear mother, and tell her that she shall have under my roof the care and kindness which is shown to her other children by your fond parent,
"Dorothea Gowrie."
"Post Scriptum.--I trust that your coming will be speedy, for it is now many years since mine eyes beheld my son. Sir John Hume marries your sister Beatrice, who is now in attendance upon the Queen's Majesty. I have written to tell him he hath my consent, and put this letter within his in one packet, not knowing where you may be when the messenger reaches Padua."
Without answering Sir John Hume, Gowrie gently took Julia in his arms, and kissed her lips, saying, "I am commissioned, dear love, to give you this kiss for one who is ready and well pleased to receive you as a daughter."
"I wish dear Beatrice were here, with all my heart," said Sir John Hume, "then such tokens might become the fashion.--In Heaven's name what are you staring at, dearly beloved Rhind? Did you never hear of a kiss being sent in a letter before? and if the Countess of Gowrie chooses to do such duty to her fair future daughter-in-law by deputy, not being able to perform it herself at a thousand miles' distance, who could she choose better for the office than her own son?--But come, Gowrie, your mad-pated fellow has told you doubtless that you have black neighbours near; and you have now to choose whether you will set out to-night or wait till morning. Look, there is a star beginning to glimmer up there. The evening is warm and fair, and we can reach Voghera before the gates close. What say you, fair lady?"
"Oh, let us go," answered Julia. "I shall not feel in safety till I have left this land behind me."
"Come, then, let us to horse at once," said Gowrie. "We can go on with some of the men; and the rest can follow with the baggage after. Methinks they wont subject doublets and cloaks to the holy office, so that we can leave them in safety."
The plan was no sooner proposed than executed. The host's bill was paid, the horses saddled, and the three gentlemen of the party, with Julia and the girl who had been hired to accompany her, set out just as the sun had sunk below the horizon. The stars looked out clear and bright upon their path, and with a glad heart Julia passed an old tower, even then deserted, which marked the boundary of the territories of Piacenza and Voghera, then, as now, under distinct and separate rule. Her spirits rose; and though she had been somewhat silent during the first few miles of the ride, she now questioned Sir John Hume, who was on her right hand, regarding all he had seen at Padua. He answered gaily and lightly, evading her questions, for he did not like to tell her that the house which had been so long her home had been completely pillaged on the day that she fled from Padua. She soon saw that he was unwilling to satisfy her; and fancy filled up but too truly the mere vague outline that he gave. With regard to her poor old servant Tita, however, she was determined to hear more; and there the young gentleman had less scruple in affording her every information.
"Oh, as to dearly beloved Tita," he said, "she has done exceedingly well. She fairly and boldly encountered and defeated all the old women in black gowns that the university could send against her. She bullied the professors, rated the inquisitor, and nearly scratched the eyes out of the faces of the officers. She told old Martinelli to his beard, that if people had not suspected him of unlawful studies he never would have tried to cast the imputation upon others; and as to her old lord and young lady, they had much less to do with evil spirits than others she could mention, who, people said, kept books written with blood, and used to raise up the image of a child out of a pot of boiling water. The old fool got frightened out of his wits, and made his exit from the house as fast as possible, not knowing what she would charge him with next, and fearing that part of the storm which he had helped to raise might fall upon himself. Every one after was afraid to meddle with bold Tita, and she remained mistress of the field. She is now very comfortably established in a small house by the market-place, and is looked upon with great reverence as one of the heroes of Padua."
"It is really strange how men can be so mad and foolish," said the earl. "Spirits must be very weak and powerless to submit themselves to the sway of feeble old men, or half-crazed old women."
"Or have a very strange taste in female beauty," rejoined Hume, "to fall in love with wrinkles, gray hair, and more beard than is becoming on a lady's chin; but these events promise to raise a grand scholastic dispute in Padua, for already the parties are arraying themselves for and against the existence of magic at all. Antonelli has announced a lecture on the non-existence of magic, and when one of the doctors hinted that such an opinion was heretical, he turned the tables upon the persecutors, by giving the two parties the names of magicians and anti-magicians, so that Martinelli and his faction are now universally known by the title of the magicians, much to their horror and confusion."
"But we have the warrant of Scripture," said Mr. Rhind, gravely, "for asserting that magic has really existed. Balaam, the son of Balak, when he was called to curse the children of Israel, distinctly spoke of it as an art which he himself practised."
"Are you sure it was not Balaam's ass?" asked Sir John Hume, laughing; "I am sure no one would practise it in the present day but an ass. I don't know what they did then."
Mr. Rhind, however, though silenced, was not satisfied. He had listened to the whole conversation with great attention; and combining what he then heard with words which had at times dropped from both the earl and Julia, he perceived the nature of the charge against her, and felt sadly oppressed in mind thereby. It is true he had seen nothing in her but beauty, sweetness, and rational devotion; he had discovered that she always carried with her a Bible in the English tongue; but still fully impressed, as most men were in his day, with a belief that such a thing as magic really existed, he felt grieved and uneasy on account of his pupil's long intimacy with Manucci, who, he now found, had been accused of practising unlawful arts. He tried on the following morning, by what he thought skilful questions, to extract more information from Sir John Hume; but he was, by nature, so simple, that Hume foiled him at every turn by a repartee, and the same night, eager to hurry on towards Scotland by longer and more rapid journeys than Julia could undertake, the young knight left his companions to follow, and hastened on towards France, leaving Mr. Rhind to brood over his own conclusions with bitterness and apprehension.
It may seem perhaps a paradox to say that expectation is enjoyment. Nevertheless it is so on this earth. Fruition is for heaven. With the accomplishment of every desire, there is so much of disappointment mingled, that it cannot be really called enjoyment, for fancy always exercises itself upon the future; and when we obtain the hard reality for which we wished, the charms with which imagination decorated it are gone. Did we but state the case to ourselves as it truly is, whenever we conceive any of the manifold desires which lead us on from step to step through life, the proposition would be totally different from that which man for ever puts before his own mind, and we should take one step towards undeceiving ourselves. We continually say, "if I could attain such an object, I should bequite contented." But what man ought to say to himself is, "I believe this or that acquisition would give me happiness." He would soon find that it did not do so; and the never ceasing recurrence of the lesson might, in the end, teach him to ask what was the source of his disappointment?--Was it that other circumstances in his own fate were so altered, even while he pursued the path of endeavour, as to render attainment no longer satisfactory?--was it that the object sought was intrinsically different when attained from that which he had reasonably believed it to be while pursuing it?--or was it that his fancy had gilded it with charms not its own, and that he had voluntarily and blindly persuaded himself that it was brighter and more excellent than it was? Perhaps the answer, yes, might be returned to all these questions; but yet I fear the chief burden of deceit would rest with imagination, and that man would ever find he had judged of the future without sufficient grounds, and had suffered desire to stimulate hope, and hope to cheat expectation. Yet, perhaps, if he would but turn back and look behind, when disappointment and success had been obtained together, he would find that the pleasures tasted in the pursuit, especially at the time when fruition was drawing nearer and nearer, would, in the sum, make up the amount of enjoyment which he had anticipated in possession. I will go to a certain town, says man, and there I will spend this sum in my purse, in buying things which are necessary to my comfort and satisfaction. He travels on the road. He spends his money here, he spends his money there; and when he arrives, he finds that he has not sufficient to purchase one-half of what he proposed to buy. Yet he enjoyed himself by the way, and has no cause to complain.
If we thus decorate, as I have stated a few sentences ago, the object of desire with charms not its own, we may well say that we enjoy in anticipation even while the pursuit continues, and more especially do so where success seems to us certain, though remote. In the case of Lord Gowrie it was truly so. He looked to his union with Julia as a consummation of happiness; and he longed for the passing of the time till she should be his own for ever; but yet the days were very bright which he passed beside her in the interval. Hope went on before them and they followed; but they gathered many a flower by the way. Bound by his promise, he knew that a certain interval must elapse before their fate could be inseparably united. There was no use in hastening their movements. There was no object in hurrying on towards his native land. He felt inclined to linger amongst fair scenes, and in a climate where winter comes slowly and departs soon, by the side of her he loved, with little restraint but what his own feeling of right imposed upon him, with a sense of deep happiness in the present, and expectation to brighten the hereafter.
In Piedmont and Savoy, all danger was at an end; for while the southern and eastern parts of Italy were still under that system of tyranny and superstition which strove to control the thoughts as well as the actions of men, the states bordering on France had cast off the bondage in a considerable degree, and the power of the most cruel and arbitrary tribunal that ever was founded by man was no longer recognised.
Still there was something due to opinion, especially to the opinion of those he reverenced and loved. Doubts might naturally arise if he halted without any reasonable motive by the way; if he detained her who was to be his bride before she was his bride, in any lengthened sojourn, almost alone with him, in distant lands. They went slowly, therefore; but they still proceeded. They stopped sometimes during a whole day for rest; and for that purpose they chose the most beautiful scenes they could find--scenes which harmonised with the feelings of their own hearts. It would have been too much to expect that two beings, loving as they loved, should ride post through the most beautiful parts of Europe. Their journeys, too, were slow and short. They sought to enjoy everything worth enjoying that presented itself. They loved to see, and to comment, and to delight--to pour into each other's bosoms every thought as it arose, and to blend, as it were, their minds together as their hearts were already blended. For the deeds that were enacted round them--and there were many at that time of surpassing interest--they cared very little. What was to them what princes or potentates said or did? What was to them the shifting scenes of policy or war? They had a world apart within themselves, in which every feeling and every thought was centred. As they approached the mountains of Savoy, however, they heard some rumours of military movements, which caused alarm in the mind of Mr. Rhind. He was a very peaceable man, and somewhat timid; but Lord Gowrie treated the matter lightly, and Julia seemed hardly to comprehend that there was any danger to unwarlike persons in the strife of monarchs. Their progress, however, was rendered even slower than before, by other circumstances. Mountains to climb presented themselves at every step; roads were bad and dangerous, towns became few, and accommodation difficult to be procured. The art of the engineer had not at that time triumphed over the barriers which nature had placed between land and land, and the first fall of snow, though scanty, had added to the difficulties of the way.
The modern reader would derive little amusement or instruction from a detailed account of the passage of the Alps, in the reign of Elizabeth. Suffice it, that after a long and fatiguing day's journey, the party of Lord Gowrie arrived, towards sunset, at the small town of Barraux. Julia was weary and exhausted, Mr. Rhind was hungry and low-spirited, and nothing was to be obtained at the inn, in the way of food, but some brown bread and some small fish out of the Isere. Nevertheless, youth and hope and love made a great difference between the two younger and the elder of the travellers. The tendency, I fear, of all the experience of age, is selfish; and it is strange that the nearer we approach towards the period of quitting earth, the more we prize its comforts. True, indeed, there are some who preserve the finer things of the unworn fresh heart even unto the end; but, of all the many trials to which man's soul is subject in this state of probation, I cannot but think that a tendency to that apathy for what is great and fine, and to that concentration of the mind upon the body which are incident to old age and long experience of life, is amongst the greatest. Mr. Rhind could not enjoy at all, though the scene around him, as the reader who may have wandered that way will know, was full of objects both to soothe and to elevate. He consoled himself with the wine, which was very good, while Julia and Gowrie wandered up to the base of the old castle on the hill, to get one last look of the beautiful soft valley through which the Isere wanders on, with gentle cultivated hills hemming it round, and blue gigantic mountains towering up beyond, while the sun, set to them, still tipped the peaks with purple and with gold.
They returned slowly to their light supper, which was preparing during their absence, and shortly after, Julia retired to rest. Mr. Rhind was not long ere he left the room also; but it was a large old rambling house, which had formerly been a priory of the suppressed order of the Temple, standing near the centre of the little bourg--I think the reader can see it still--and Mr. Rhind could not find his room. He came back, and disturbed the earl in a reverie, to ask which it was; and the landlord had to be summoned to show him. If Gowrie was sleepy before, the inclination to slumber had now passed away; and he sat for some time longer in meditation. The landlord looked in at length; and remembering that he was keeping up a race of people devoted to early hours, he rose, got a taper, and retired to his own chamber. Then setting down the light, he looked around, and again fell into a fit of thought.
There are times when--we know not why--the spirit of the mind, if I may use a strange term, seems completely to triumph over the mere corporal part of our nature, to conquer its sensations, to make light of its necessities, to overcome its habitual resistance almost without an effort--times when soul seems to possess the whole, when every faculty is subdued to thought. Vain is it to struggle against it--vain to say I will read, I will sport, I will sleep. Thought replies, no; and for the time we are her slave. Such was the case with Gowrie that night; and though he gazed round the chamber as I have said, what it contained made merely an impression upon the eye, which reached not the mind within.
It was a large, wide, old-fashioned chamber, the walls of which had no hangings, although two wide pieces of a tapestry, with which the whole room had probably formerly been decorated, were drawn across the windows. On one side of the room was a large bed, almost lost in the extent of the floor, and having curtains of a dingy green hue, and of a silk stuff, the manufacture of which had even then long passed away, formerly called cendal. There was a small round table in the middle of the room, a mirror in a black oak frame standing forth from the wall, supported by two iron bars, a washing-table in the corner, and two or three chairs. That was all that it contained; and, as I have said, it was very large and very gloomy. Nevertheless, although the year was approaching winter, there was something close and oppressive in the atmosphere. It felt as if the windows had not been opened for many a year. Gowrie did not remark it, but sat down at the table and fell into thought again. He remained thus for more than an hour. I have called it thought, but yet it was of that trance-like character wherein all things seem more like impressions than ideas, when dead affections rise up from the tomb of memory in the shape of living existences, and from the future the shadows of unborn events, clad in the forms of actual realities, present themselves for warning or encouragement. There is no continuity, there is no arrangement, there is no operation of the intellect. Mind sits as a spectator while the pageant passes, called up before our eyes by some unnamed power.--What?
Who can say? There are things within us and without us that we know not of--that the hardest handed metaphysician has never been able to grasp.
In the midst of such fits the body will sometimes renew the struggle, and strive to regain its power, especially if anything affects it strongly. The earl seemed to feel the oppressive closeness of the room. He rose, went to the window near the bed, pulled down the tapestry, and threw open the rattling small-paned casement. It looked to the east; and the bright moon, within a few days of the full, peeped in from above the Alps, pouring a long line of splendour over the floor. He knew not, indeed, that he had moved. The external eye might see the casement and the moon, and the faint line of mountains flooded with silver light; but the mind saw not. It had other visions; and leaning his arms upon the bar on which played the part of the casement that opened, he remained buried in the same reverie. Its tone was melancholy--not exactly sad, but of that high grave stern cast which seems to rob the things of earth of all their unreal brightness, stripping off the gilding and the gauds, and leaving the hard leaden forms alone, while another light than that of the world's day spreads around, as if streaming from a higher sphere, and showing all the emptiness and the nakedness of the illusions of the earth.
How long he had remained thus I know not, and he himself did not know, but something--what he could never tell--made him suddenly turn round.
How shall I tell what followed? Was it an illusion of the fancy? Was it a dream? Was it a reality?--Who shall say? But there before him was a face and form well known, though never seen in life. It was that of a tall dark pale man, with traces of sickness on his face, a bloody dagger in his hand, and marks of gore upon his arm. His portrait hung in the earl's palace at Perth, though with a more glowing cheek, and in unspotted robes. But there he stood before him now, as if the grave had given up its dead, his father's father, the slayer of the hapless Rizzio. There was the same haggard look, the same ashy cheek, the same rolling eye with which he had sunk into a seat in the presence of his queen when the dreadful deed was done, and the full horror of the act was poured upon his conscience. There the same gasping movement of the lips with which he called for water to allay the burning thirst which was never to be quenched but by the cold cup of death. A pale hazy light spread around him, and he seemed to raise his hand with a menacing gesture. He spoke, or Gowrie thought he spoke, in tones low and stern, "Shall the blood of Douglas and of Ruthven mingle once more?" he said. "Shall the child of him who denied all participation in the act he prompted, and left his betrayed friend to perish in a distant land, unite her fate to the heir of him who was destroyed! Beware, boy, beware! Upon the children's children the blood of the slain shall call for vengeance; and the unborn of the dark hour shall seek a fatal retribution!"
As he spoke, the earl's head seemed to become giddy with awe and surprise, the figure vanished, all that the room contained became indistinct; and when Lord Gowrie again opened his eyes, he found himself lying across the bed with his clothes on, and with the morning light streaming brightly through the casement.
The landlord of the inn at Barraux had been up before any of his guests; and anxious to show that his larder was not always so ill provided as it had been the night before, he had contrived to procure materials for a very substantial breakfast, to strengthen the travellers for their day's journey. It was well dressed, too, after the fashions of that day, and good Mr. Rhind did ample justice to its merits both by eating and lauding it, gaily declaring that the morning made up for the evening, and that, according to the popish superstition, the landlord might claim the merit of some works of supererogation over and above those necessary to atone for the sins of the night before.
Gowrie himself was in no very jesting mood. He made, it is true, every effort to shake off the impression produced upon his mind by the strange events lately passed. It was a dream, he thought--an idle dream, or else a hallucination. He had been very much fatigued, had obtained but small refreshment, and yet he had sat up thinking, wasting time which would have been better employed in repose. Over fatigued, he had dropped asleep without knowing it, had fallen upon the bed, and imagination, set free from all restraint, had conjured up appearances strangely connected with the previous subject of his thoughts. He strove to eat, to talk, to jest playfully as usual, but he was not very successful in the attempt, and the demeanour of his fair Julia soon put a stop to the effort. She was exceedingly thoughtful, grave, almost sad. She eat little, spoke less, and when the horses were brought round to the door, mounted with a deep sigh.
After they had ridden some little way, the earl asked, in a low tone, if anything had disturbed her.
"Nothing of importance," she answered, glancing her eye towards Mr. Rhind, who was riding near; "but I will tell you more very soon."
She spoke so low that their worthy companion did not hear what she said; but even if he had heard, it is probable that he would not have altered his position in the cavalcade, for Mr. Rhind was a very slow man at taking a hint, and seemed to have no conception that his former pupil might sometimes find the society of her he loved pleasanter without ear-witnesses. A favourable hill, however, afforded, about half an hour afterwards, as they rode on towards Chamberry, the opportunity that the lovers desired. Mr. Rhind was not fond of riding fast, either up hill or down. He had conscientious scruples as to spurring his horse, and never used a whip when he could help it. Thus, when the cavalcade began the ascent, he suffered his beast to drop slowly behind, and in the end took out a little vellum-covered volume from his pocket, and began to read.
"Now, dearest Julia, let us quicken our pace," whispered Gowrie. "We shall be at the top of the hill very soon, and Rhind will rejoin us some half league after we have reached the bottom of the descent." The lady shook her rein. The horses sprang on. The servants, more discreet than Mr. Rhind, followed at an easy trot, and by the time that Gowrie and Julia had reached a spot about one third of the whole distance from the top of the hill, they found themselves some two or three hundred yards before any of their attendants.
"Now tell me, dearest," said the young earl, "what is it has made you so grave and sad this morning? There is no one within ear-shot."
"It is nothing, really nothing," replied Julia. "You will think it very ridiculous, I fear, when I say that the only cause of my being grave, if I have been so, was an idle dream; but I love to tell you all, Gowrie, to have no thought hidden from you."
"Ever, ever do so," replied the earl, warmly; "but what was this dream, love? I fear it must have disturbed your rest, and you much needed repose."
"I must have been asleep some time," she answered; "but indeed, Gowrie, it was a thing of no moment--merely a dream--and yet if I tell you, it may make you grave and sad too."
"Nay, now you excite my curiosity the more," replied her lover. "Pray tell me all, dear girl."
"Well," she answered, with a faint smile, "I was very tired, and glad to lie down to rest. The little maid we hired at Borgonovo, who slept in the same room, was very weary too, so that her fingers would hardly do their office in unlacing my bodice. How soon she was asleep I do not know, for the moment my head rested on the pillow my eyes were closed in slumber. I cannot tell how long I slept quietly and undisturbed; but then I seemed to wake. The room was the same. The aspect of all things round me was unchanged; but there was a light in the chamber, and at the distance of about a pace from my bedside I saw a standing figure of a man, distinct and clear, but yet so thin and shadowy, that it seemed as if every part were penetrated with the light in the midst of which he stood--a coloured shadow resting on the pale blue glare."
"What was he like? Who was he?" demanded Lord Gowrie, eagerly.
"He was very pale," answered Julia, "with a face that seemed to express suffering and sorrow more than strong passions. His hair, cut short in the front, was jetty black, mingled here and there with gray, and falling in dark masses of large curls behind. He was tall, about your own height, Gowrie, and seemingly powerful in form, but with the shoulders a little bowed, as if worn by sickness. He was dressed in armour, but the head was bare; and a cloak was cast over his arm, concealing his right hand. His eyes were bright and flashing; and the face and upper part of the body seemed more real and corporeal than the lower limbs, which I could hardly see. There was a small scar upon his face, between the mouth and the cheek, as if----"
"The same," murmured Lord Gowrie, "the same! Did he not speak?"
"Oh, yes," answered Julia, "he seemed to speak, or I dreamed it. He stood gazing at me long indeed in silence, while I lay trembling with fear. I tried to ask him what he did there--what he wanted. I tried to rouse the house--to wake the maid who was sleeping near me; but my tongue seemed tied, no sounds proceeded from my lips, and I strove in vain to rise in bed. In the meantime he stood silent, gazing at me; and at last he said twice, 'Poor thing! poor thing! Do you not know,' he asked, 'that the blood of Morton and the blood of Ruthven can never be mingled together till the gore that the one shed and the other falsely denied is fully avenged?--Beware! beware! Hurry not on your own fate. Pause! Refrain till the blow has fallen, let it fall where it will----.' Do not look so gloomy, Gowrie--it was but a dream, for the agony of mind I suffered broke the spell, and with a low scream I started up. The maid woke instantly, and as I looked round I found that all was darkness. The poor girl asked what was the matter, and I told her then, as I have just said to you, that it was only a dream. I asked her, however, if she had seen the doors closely locked. She assured me that she had, and got out of bed to see, when she found that it was so, and all was fast and safe. My rest had been disturbed, however, and I did not sleep again for some time, which is perhaps what made me somewhat dull and heavy; but still it was but a dream."
"A very strange one," answered Lord Gowrie, and fell into a fit of thought. His meditations, however, were less of Julia's dream than of what his own conduct ought to be. He felt unwilling to alarm her, or to create any doubts or suspicions in her bosom as to the course before them; but yet her frank confidence required return; and he felt that after she had told him all, he ought to withhold from her nothing.
In the meantime she rode on by his side, with the tresses of her glossy hair somewhat shaken by the exercise, falling here and there on her beautiful face. The dark eyes were bent down with the long eyelashes resting on her cheek, as if she would not interrupt his meditations by a look; but at length the earl said, "This is a strange dream, indeed, dear Julia; and the occurrence is the more strange, inasmuch as something very similar happened to me last night also."
Julia started, and looked up. "Oh, what?" she exclaimed.
"The selfsame person appeared to me likewise," replied her lover. "I know him well by your description, too accurate to be mistaken; but that which is perhaps the most strange of all is, that to me he appeared as I have never seen him represented, but as I have heard him described, and to you, who have neither seen him nor his picture, exactly as his portrait stands in my gallery at Perth."
"But what did he say to you? What was the import of your dream?" asked Julia.
"I am not so certain it was a dream," replied Lord Gowrie; "would that I were; but his warning to me was very similar to that addressed to yourself. You have told me all, dear Julia, and I must not withhold anything from you; but still, while speaking with perfect confidence to each other, we must not let anything like superstitious fears affect our conduct or turn us from our course. Your heart and mine, dear girl, are inseparably linked for weal and woe. God grant, for thy sake, that the happiness may predominate; but I feel that neither could know what happiness is were we ever to part."
"Oh, no, no!" murmured Julia, in a low tone, letting the reins fall upon her horse's neck, and clasping her hands together, while her head bowed down as if something oppressed her almost to fainting--"Oh, no, no! That hour were death."
Gowrie soothed her by assurances of eternal love, and then proceeded to tell her all that had occurred to him during the preceding night. He spoke of it, too, as of a delusion of the imagination; but Julia fell into thought which lasted several minutes after he had done. At length she looked up with a brighter glance. "If you remember," she said, "the night before last we were looking over together those papers concerning my birth, and we spoke much of my father and your ancestor who slew the unhappy Rizzio. The subject rested long in my mind; and perhaps on you also it had no slight effect. Do you not think, Gowrie, that in passing through the scenes we have lately traversed, with things exciting the imagination at every step, weary and exhausted too, fancy was likely to reproduce for us, in sleepy or drowsy hours, the phantoms which had haunted us throughout the day?"
"Perhaps so," answered her lover, glad to catch at any solution of a mystery so dark and painful--"perhaps so, my Julia; and yet these dreams are very like realities sometimes. The people in my land--in our land--are given much to superstition, and I would far rather imagine that I had yielded to those impressions implanted in us during youth, than believe that such a warning should in our case be requisite or given."
"But do you believe, Gowrie, that such a thing is now permitted as that the spirits of the dead should revisit earth in the forms which they bore while living?" Julia asked, gravely, and then added, "he who was my instructor from my earliest years had no faith in such events."
"Much has been said, much ever will be said," answered Gowrie, "upon that, in regard to which little can ever be known on this side of the grave. Philosophy, my Julia, says one thing, and something in man's own breast ever says another. Our knowledge tells us that we can never see that which has no substance, that we cannot hear that which has no voice. The spirit within says, 'There are means of communication between me and my unimprisoned brethren. The eye is my servant in my communication with earthly things, the ear is but the portico of the audience chamber of the mind, where the voices of earth are heard; but for things not of earth there is another sight, another hearing. The sovereign mind communicates with them direct, and not through her ministers.'"
He spoke gravely, for the subject was one of those in regard to which we are inclined to apply the aids of philosophy to confirm opinions formed already without their help. Few persons in the world, and very few, indeed, in Scotland, at that time, were without faith in dreams and apparitions; and what is, indeed, very strange, those who were the most sceptical of the truths of revealed religion, were often the most credulous of the tales of superstition.
Julia, however, saw that he was sad, and she made every effort to conquer the gloom which her strange dream had cast upon her own mind; for there can be no doubt that it had made its impression--not, indeed, that she received it as a real warning from another world, for her mind had been differently tutored in early years; but still it had filled her thoughts with gloomy images, and she had given way to them more than was customary with her. Now, however, she strove to resume her natural cheerfulness, and quietly, easily, with that simple art which nature teaches to a kind heart, led the conversation away, without any abrupt transition, from the subject which seemed to give pain to him she loved.
They were now at the bottom of the hill; and although they had ridden more rapidly down than was perhaps very prudent, they drew in their horses' reins when they reached the level ground, in order to let Mr. Rhind rejoin them. He was riding slowly along, still reading; but a sound, which startled the whole party, and their horses also, soon caused him to quicken his pace, in order to get to Lord Gowrie's side again. 'Tis a strange power which strong minds have over weak ones. By circumstances, power and authority may be placed in the hands of the weak, and they may exercise them till the exercise becomes habitual; but in every moment of difficulty or danger, the strong mind assumes the sway, and the weaker one takes refuge under its shelter. Mr. Rhind had known Lord Gowrie from his infancy, had received rule over him when he was a boy, had been placed with him to guide him when he was a youth. He hardly looked upon him as more even now; he hardly comprehended that his tutorship was finished; but the instant that a peril presented itself, or an embarrassment occurred, instead of protecting and guiding, he sought protection and guidance from his former pupil.
I left the reader waiting for a sound, or at least for some description of that sound which startled the whole party. It was that of a cannon-shot, not very far distant either; and before Mr. Rhind could reach the young earl's side, or any one could ask any questions, another and another succeeded, till the number reached to four-and-twenty.
"Good gracious, my dear lord, we have got into the midst of the hostile armies," exclaimed Mr. Rhind.
"The king must have made more rapid progress than I expected," replied Lord Gowrie, in a calm, quiet tone. "Those guns must be from Montmeillant or Chamberry."
"From Montmeillant, my lord," said Austin Jute, who had ridden up. "The sounds come from the east."
"But the wind blows down the valley," answered the earl. "What shall we do, dear Julia? Are you afraid?"
"What is the choice?" she asked.
"To go on by Chamberry and the Pont Beauvoisin to Lyons, or retread our steps towards Grenoble, and take the longer way. It is evident that a part of the King of France's army is before us; but we cannot tell what is taking place on the Grenoble road."
"May I go on and reconnoitre, my lord?" said Austin Jute. "I can bring you back information, and perhaps a pass. They say it is better to be at the end of a feast than at the beginning of a fray, and perhaps it may be so; but I like a little bit of the fray, too, provided it last not too long."
"That may be the best plan," said his master. "Tie something white round your arm, and prick on; we will follow slowly."
Before this scheme could be executed, however, a party of some eight or ten horsemen came dashing round the rocky turn of the road, and cantered down into the meadow which lay on the bank of the stream, before they saw the party of the young earl. They were all in arms except two, and evidently belonged to one or other of the contending forces. The next moment, however, the eyes of one of those who bore no defensive armour rested on the group under the hill; and turning his rein suddenly thither, followed by all his companions, he was soon in front of the party of travellers, and shouting in a loud, but gay and jesting tone, "Stand, give the word!"
The system of warfare carried on in Scotland, at the time we speak of, was not of the most civilized character--generally a war of partisans, which is always a bloody war. Mr. Rhind had known no other; and, consequently, he was in a state of most exceeding alarm. Julia was much less so, for the tranquil air of the young earl showed her at once that nothing was to be feared. The earl's servants, too, who, with their master, had seen a good deal of the world, seemed perfectly quiet and at their ease; and Austin Jute whispered in a low tone to one of the men, "By my fay, that is a splendid horse the fellow is riding, somewhat heavy about the shoulder and the legs, but a noble beast in a charge, I'll be bound."
"Remain quietly here," said the earl, addressing those who surrounded him. "I will go forward and speak with this gentleman. Stay here, dear Julia; there is not the slightest danger."
The person whom he approached, and who had reined in his horse, after calling to the strangers to stand and give the word, was a man of the middle age, or perhaps a little more, for he had certainly, by ten years at least, passed that important division where the allotted life of man separates itself into two halves. Oh, thirty-five, thirty-five, thou art an important epoch, and well might be, to every man who thinks, a moment of warning and apprehension. Up to that period, in the ordinary course of events, everything has been acquisition and the development of different powers. Thenceforward all is decay--slow, gradual, imperceptible, perhaps, at first, but sure, stealthy, and increasing with frightful rapidity. The stranger might be forty-six or forty-seven years of age, but he looked a good deal older. His beard and moustachios were very gray, especially on the left side; his face was wrinkled a good deal at the corners of the eyes; and his very handsome forehead--the only truly handsome part of his face--was wrinkled also, with an expression rather of quiet and dignified gravity than with age. His other features were by no means good; the mouth sensual, though good-humoured; the nose aquiline, and somewhat depressed at the point; and the eyes twinkling and keen, with an expression of somewhat reckless merriment. There was a very peculiar satyr-like turn of the eyebrow, too, which was gray and bushy, with a thick tuft about the centre, where it ran up into a peak from the nose. The dress of this officer--for officer he certainly appeared to be--was of very plain materials, consisting of a brown cloth suit, with no ornament whatever, except a gold chain round his neck. Above his pourpoint he wore a sort of sleeveless coat, or rather small mantle with arm-holes, trimmed with sable fur; and the fraise round his neck was of plain linen, and so small as to be quite out of the fashion of the times. His leather gloves extended to his elbow, and his large coarse heavy boots came in front higher than the knee. There were pistol holders at his saddle-bow, a long heavy sword by his side, and the whole figure was surmounted by a broad-brimmed hat, with a tall white plume of feathers, which kept waving about in the wind.
"Who are you, sir?" he said, in French, as the earl approached him, "and whither are you going? Are you aware that you are within the limits of the camp besieging Montmeillant?"
"I was not, indeed," replied the earl; "but being peaceably disposed, and having no connexion with either party in the hostilities which I understand are going on, I suppose there will not be any difficulty in passing by the Pont Beauvoisin into France?"
"Upon my life, I cannot tell that," replied the other. "It will much depend upon what is your country, what is your business, and whence you came from last."
"I have come from Italy," replied the young earl, "passing quietly through Piedmont; and my business----"
"Stay, stay," said the stranger. "You have come through Piedmont, have you? Now that is not the country, of all others, from which France courts visitors just now. Have you seen the Duke of Savoy lately?"
"I never saw him in my life," replied the earl, "unless I see him now."
"Oh, no," said the stranger, "that you certainly do not. By your speech I should take you for an Englishman. Is it so? If it be, pass, in God's name, for if I tried to stop you, I should have my good sister Elizabeth coming over to chastise me with her large fan. Ventre Saint Gris! it does not do to enrage the island lioness."
"No, sire," replied the earl, "I am not one of her majesty's subjects, being a native of a neighbouring country called Scotland."
"Ha, ha!" cried the other, laughing. "What, one of the flock of my dearly beloved cousin, King James? Heaven bless his most sagacious majesty. How went it with him when last you heard?"
"Right well, sire," replied the earl; "but it is some time since I heard any news except referring to my own private affairs."
"May I crave your name and business, good sir?" said the King of France, who, while he had been speaking with Gowrie, had been eyeing the young nobleman's little troop. "'Tis somewhat late to travel for mere pleasure, especially with ladies in one's company."
"Business I have, unfortunately, none," answered the young earl, gravely, "except to make my way back as fast as possible to my own land, with my fair cousin, who takes advantage of my escort even at this late season, seeing that she otherwise might not meet with an opportunity for some time. My name, sire, is John Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie."
"Ha! noble lord," said Henry, with a less constrained air. "I have heard of you before,--an intimate of my old friend Beza's, if I mistake not. You passed through France some five or six years ago on your way to Padua, at least some one of your name did so."
"The same, sire," answered the earl; "I trust it will be your gracious pleasure to afford me a pass and safe conduct."
"Assuredly," answered the king, with a gay and laughing air; "but you must come and dine with me, cousin, if it be but for the service that your name will do me."
"I know not how it can benefit your majesty," said Gowrie, anxious to proceed as rapidly as possible.
"As a terror to favourites," replied Henry, with a meaning look. "The name of Ruthven, methinks, should keep them in great awe. But I will take no refusal. You and your fair cousin too, and any gentleman who may be of your party, must come and partake of a soldier's dinner in his tent. I left the king behind at Lyons; and, on my life, I like the old trade better than the new. Ay, and even found more peace of mind, cousin, when I had daily to fight for my breakfast, than when I sit down in a palace, surrounded by men, some hungry for my treasures, and some thirsty for my blood."
"As the season is drawing towards a close," replied Lord Gowrie, without actually venturing to decline the king's invitation, "I am anxious, sire, to proceed as rapidly as possible towards England."
"Fie, man!" exclaimed the king; "have I not said I will take no refusal? Why, if I let you pass without some sign of hospitality, your cousin and mine, worthy King James, the northern Solomon--though his descent from David might be less honourable than clear--would think that I had some ill-will to his high wisdom. And now I will ride back with you. You, Monsieur de Chales, ride on to Rosni. Tell him I will come to-morrow, unless he has taken the place in order to prevent me. He is as jealous of his king as a spoilt woman. Come, my Lord Gowrie, introduce me to this fair cousin of yours. We have wanted gallantry to keep her waiting so long."
Thus saying, he spurred on, accompanied by the young earl, who, obliged to give way, resolved to assume something of the king's own humour, and said at once, as they rode up, "Sire, allow me to present to you my cousin, the Lady Julia Douglas. Julia, this is that great king of whom you have heard; who not only conquered his own throne, but the affection of his own people; the one by the sword of war, the other by the sword of justice."
"I kiss your hand, fair lady," said the king. "The Lady Julia Douglas! What, one of the bleeding hearts? I trust, my lord count, that her heart is safe in your keeping."
"In which case your majesty will not try to steal it from me," answered the young earl, to whom Henry's character for somewhat vehement gallantry was not unknown.
"No, no; honour amongst thieves," answered the king. "Were I an officer of Cupid's court I might stop you, having taken you in the very act of carrying off your booty; but being merely a poor pickpocket myself, I am not justified in interfering. Come, let us forward," he continued, seeing that the colour had risen somewhat high in Julia's cheek; and turning his horse, he rode on in the direction of Chamberry.
A young lover is always like a miser with a jewel of great price. He may feel certain of the strength of the bolts and bars which secure his treasure; he may be confident that it is safe; but yet he never feels entirely at his ease, when he knows that robbers are abroad; and undoubtedly Gowrie was somewhat less than pleased to see the gallant attentions of the king to his fair promised bride as they rode along. Henry saw his uneasiness, and was amused, though the earl concealed it well; and with some good-humoured malice--for I believe in this instance it was no more--the monarch strove to persuade his two young guests that they might well spend a few days with him in Chamberry. "You," he said, turning to the earl--"you, sprung from a race of soldiers, and who have probably been in arms yourself, can you make up your mind to leave a spot where high deeds are being performed?"
"I feel myself obliged to do so," replied the young earl, adding, with a smile, to point his double meaning, "If there were nothing else, this lady's presence would, of course, hurry my departure from the scenes in which your majesty takes so much delight."
"Parbleau! there is no danger," cried the king. "Our camp is filled with ladies. The town of Chamberry is in our hands. 'Tis but the citadel holds out for honour; and Madame de Rosni gives a ball in the city this very night.--What say you, fair lady? Will you not stay and grace her entertainment?"
"It must be as a prisoner if I do, sire," replied Julia; "for duty calls me on to Scotland as fast as possible, and, to tell truth in no very courtly fashion, inclination too."
"On my life," cried the king, laughing, "you must be both disciples of Rosni's. That hard-headed Huguenot will speak his mind however unpalatable; and I find that the Scotch are as blunt, though they cannot be more honest. Well, well," he continued, with a sigh, "as you will not consent to cheer us by an importation of fresh thoughts and fresh faces, I must even let you go, although I do believe I should be justified in treating you both as rebels, and shutting you up as prisoners, the one in the camp, and the other in the old Carthusian convent, to do penance for your offence--I acting as father confessor of course."
Julia looked anxiously to Gowrie, who replied, with a laugh, "That would be a breach of the law of nations, sire. Francis the First suffered his enemy, Charles the emperor, to pass unscathed; and as your majesty deigns to call me cousin, good faith, I will only treat with you as crown to crown."
"I call many a man cousin who is less so than yourself," replied the king, seeing that he could not succeed in detaining them. "If I remember right, your grandmother, or great-grandmother, was sister to Mary Queen of France, and to Henry, the excellent King of England, eighth of that name, who had an admirable expedient for ridding himself of troublesome wives. Upon my life, I wish it were an inheritance of kings. Parbleau! it would be a more valuable privilege than that of curing the evil by our touch, which they say we kings possess. I would rather touch my own sore and cure it, than that of the lame beggars who crowd about the cathedral doors at Rheims."
"Methinks your majesty would not use it even if you did possess it," said Julia.
"Why not, fair lady?" cried Henry, quickly, for the subject was one which always excited him.
"I mean the sharp touch which King Henry used to cure the ill of which you speak," replied Julia.
"No, perhaps not that," said Henry, musing. "I am not cruel; and I do not love such sharp remedies even with hard, iron-tempered men. I have a notion, too, that ladies' necks were made for other things than to bear an axe--to bear gay jewels and bright glittering chains, I mean. That same fondness of the axe you speak of, especially in the case of women, seems a particular characteristic of the Tudor race. Thank God, it has not come hither. I do not think I should like the practice, even on the worst of women; and by my faith, the dagger and the bowl, which we have been rather fond of here in former years, is not to my taste either. If I were to choose, I would rather be the victim than the executioner. God deliver me from being either!"
There was something in the conversation, and the course which it had taken, which brought a fit of deep thought upon Henry; and for the next twenty minutes he said little or nothing; then looking up, he pointed forward with his hand, saying, "There is fair Chamberry; but it is some miles distant yet; and as you must needs go forward to-night--which, after all, is perhaps better--I will send on to bid them have my homely dinner ready, and a few spoonfuls more pottage than is ordinarily supplied to the king's table. I can tell you, cousin, the kings of France are almost sure to find their way to Abraham's bosom, for there is much more of Lazarus than of Dives in their condition on this earth. Things are rather better now, thanks to Rosni; but in times past I have often wanted a dinner, and even now, as you may see, and will see, I am neither clothed in purple and fine linen, nor fare sumptuously every day."