ELLA CORBYN.

THE EMIGRANT’S SONG.Ho for the deep where the sea-bird sings!Ho for the bowers where his merry voice rings!Ho for the billows where the storm-king dwells!Ho for the winding of the merry-maids’ shells!Ho for the storm where the lightning’s flash!Ho for the fury of the merry waves’ dash!The spray and the roar and the thunder’s crash!Ho for the breeze that shall cling to the mast!Ho for the day when the storms shall be past!Then hail to the home that the outcast sighs for!Hail to the liberty the patriot dies for!Hail to the great who will ne’er cast scorn to us!Hail to the land where the free shall be born to us!But alas for the friends that we leave far away!And alas for the tears when there breaks another day!Alas for the wo that shall bow the hoary heads!And alas for the home where another step treads!Alas for the murmuring hill-side rills!And alas for the shadow on the ever-green hills!Alas for the weeping of the purple-crowned vine!And alas for the glory of the golden-rimmed wine!Farewell to the land where our forefather’s sleep!And we’ll hie to our rest on the wide-spread deep.Farewell to the vine, to the home, and the tears!And we’ll dream of the land where the good ship steers!

THE EMIGRANT’S SONG.

Ho for the deep where the sea-bird sings!Ho for the bowers where his merry voice rings!Ho for the billows where the storm-king dwells!Ho for the winding of the merry-maids’ shells!Ho for the storm where the lightning’s flash!Ho for the fury of the merry waves’ dash!The spray and the roar and the thunder’s crash!Ho for the breeze that shall cling to the mast!Ho for the day when the storms shall be past!Then hail to the home that the outcast sighs for!Hail to the liberty the patriot dies for!Hail to the great who will ne’er cast scorn to us!Hail to the land where the free shall be born to us!But alas for the friends that we leave far away!And alas for the tears when there breaks another day!Alas for the wo that shall bow the hoary heads!And alas for the home where another step treads!Alas for the murmuring hill-side rills!And alas for the shadow on the ever-green hills!Alas for the weeping of the purple-crowned vine!And alas for the glory of the golden-rimmed wine!Farewell to the land where our forefather’s sleep!And we’ll hie to our rest on the wide-spread deep.Farewell to the vine, to the home, and the tears!And we’ll dream of the land where the good ship steers!

Ho for the deep where the sea-bird sings!

Ho for the bowers where his merry voice rings!

Ho for the billows where the storm-king dwells!

Ho for the winding of the merry-maids’ shells!

Ho for the storm where the lightning’s flash!

Ho for the fury of the merry waves’ dash!

The spray and the roar and the thunder’s crash!

Ho for the breeze that shall cling to the mast!

Ho for the day when the storms shall be past!

Then hail to the home that the outcast sighs for!

Hail to the liberty the patriot dies for!

Hail to the great who will ne’er cast scorn to us!

Hail to the land where the free shall be born to us!

But alas for the friends that we leave far away!

And alas for the tears when there breaks another day!

Alas for the wo that shall bow the hoary heads!

And alas for the home where another step treads!

Alas for the murmuring hill-side rills!

And alas for the shadow on the ever-green hills!

Alas for the weeping of the purple-crowned vine!

And alas for the glory of the golden-rimmed wine!

Farewell to the land where our forefather’s sleep!

And we’ll hie to our rest on the wide-spread deep.

Farewell to the vine, to the home, and the tears!

And we’ll dream of the land where the good ship steers!

As the last sound died away upon the water, the singer caught sight of me, and the fair girl beside me, and disappeared from the deck. The listeners, as they dispersed to their several meditations, took up the words of the song; each one whatever best suited his feelings at the time. It was strange to read the various echoes as they rebounded spontaneously from the hearts of the emigrants. When the air of the song was forgotten the words were not, and each sang or mumbled them to music of his own—sometimes wild and pretty, sometimes discordant enough. One would long for

“The deep where the sea-bird sings,”

and I knew he had not many regrets for what he left behind. Another, a drunken wretch, yelled

“For the fury of the merry waves’ dash,The spray and the roar and the thunder’s crash.”

“For the fury of the merry waves’ dash,

The spray and the roar and the thunder’s crash.”

An old man, as he stole away, uttered a plaintive moan

“For the home that the outcast sighs for;”

and I thought I could read in his furrowed face traces of a life of penury and suffering. He was going with a lightened heart, transplanted in his decaying age. But by far the greater part dwelt upon the memory of their forsaken homes and kindred; their thoughts were gazing afar upon “the shadow on the ever-green hills.” Ere long they had nearly all disappeared, gone to their crowded chamber to be rocked asleep. Only a few women remained beneath the suspended lantern, seated by the mast. The one I had noticed weeping, had not raised her head during all this time. When she did raise it, she looked up to heaven and her face shone with religious fervor. The tears still flowed as she breathed her heart-felt prayer. I could see every movement of her lips, and I alone perhaps, of all who saw, could tell the source of every tear that flowed. I felt awed, unconscious of myself. My whole being seemed merged in the intensity of hers. A supplication sprang unbidden to my lips for the paralytic mother, for the gray-haired father, in their utter, utter loneliness; for it was Mary with her baby on her bosom. She spoke calmly, slowly, solemnly.

“THE WOMAN’S PRAYER.Let us bow, lowly now, ere we seek forgetfulnessIn the blest balm of rest, of trial-worn spirit’s fretfulness,Let us call, first of all, pity on our parents’ age,For they’re chastened, for they’re hastened on their ending pilgrimage.O be mild to them, child to them, gentle son of Bethlehem!Never suffer that their rougher path bring sooner death to them!O remember that December passes cheerlessly away—Let their sorrow, on the morrow, mind thee of its Christmas day!And leave us not, grieve us not, Father of the wandering!Care for us, spare for us, now while time is squandering!We are going, far, unknowing, strangers into stranger land—But with thee only we’re not lonely, resting in thy hollow hand!”

“THE WOMAN’S PRAYER.

Let us bow, lowly now, ere we seek forgetfulnessIn the blest balm of rest, of trial-worn spirit’s fretfulness,Let us call, first of all, pity on our parents’ age,For they’re chastened, for they’re hastened on their ending pilgrimage.O be mild to them, child to them, gentle son of Bethlehem!Never suffer that their rougher path bring sooner death to them!O remember that December passes cheerlessly away—Let their sorrow, on the morrow, mind thee of its Christmas day!And leave us not, grieve us not, Father of the wandering!Care for us, spare for us, now while time is squandering!We are going, far, unknowing, strangers into stranger land—But with thee only we’re not lonely, resting in thy hollow hand!”

Let us bow, lowly now, ere we seek forgetfulness

In the blest balm of rest, of trial-worn spirit’s fretfulness,

Let us call, first of all, pity on our parents’ age,

For they’re chastened, for they’re hastened on their ending pilgrimage.

O be mild to them, child to them, gentle son of Bethlehem!

Never suffer that their rougher path bring sooner death to them!

O remember that December passes cheerlessly away—

Let their sorrow, on the morrow, mind thee of its Christmas day!

And leave us not, grieve us not, Father of the wandering!

Care for us, spare for us, now while time is squandering!

We are going, far, unknowing, strangers into stranger land—

But with thee only we’re not lonely, resting in thy hollow hand!”

This was the woman’s prayer—and I devoutly responded “Amen,” as I wiped my eyes and went below. I thought of the poor old man, the helpless mother, Tommy, the bower, all, and I became unconsciously an actor in the scene before me, as I prayed—

“O remember that December passes cheerlessly away!Let their sorrow, on the morrow, mind thee of its Christmas day!”

“O remember that December passes cheerlessly away!

Let their sorrow, on the morrow, mind thee of its Christmas day!”

The next day Roderick did not appear upon the deck; in truth there were very few who did. After indulging him a few days, which I charged to account of sea-sickness, and still not seeing him, I found my way into the steerage, and found the poor fellow more sick in mind than in body. He had spent the greater part of his money in trying to drown his grief; and now that he thought he had nearly succeeded, he looked none the better for the success. That face, he said, so likehers, he could not escape from now; he must remain near it for days, weeks. He could almost curse the ill-favored steamship, whose delay had not only doomed him to the crowded steerage of the packet, but to weeks of torture he could not escape from. He would not appear at all upon deck, and the air of the between-decks was almost poisonous. In a few days he was confined to his berth with a burning fever. I had confided to Miss Thornton every thing, except the history of Ella, which I disguised in such a way as not to diminish her sympathies for the invalid. One day, to my great astonishment, she had, with her father, gone to minister to him, and spoke with gladness of the better condition she had left him in. He talked to her very tenderly of Ella. They went, she and her kind father, to visit him every day. I saw how the fire was consuming him, and endeavored to interpose. I told Mr. Thornton every thing, all; but they did not see his condition as I did. Whenever I would go, strange! he would always beg me not to let them delay coming; but he was so exhausted with fever, that I attributed this wonderful change, rather to imbecility or delirium, than to a change of resolution. Poor Mary was always by her brother’s side: even her poor babe lay neglected for him. More than a fortnight he lay in this miserable condition; yet I was more than sorry when I felt in his pulse the returning slow beat of health, and saw his eye calm into quiet enjoyment of the congratulations which poured in upon him. I was shocked. It is true a mountain of misery was moved away, but hisreason was gone. Miss Thornton went once again to visit him, only once: and I shall never forget her look of agony and self-reproach as she returned rather hastily to her room. I never knew what passed at that interview. Perhaps she saw for the first time, that while she deemed she was soothing his misery by her presence, she had fed it to madness. He rapidly recovered and seemed happy, for he always smiled when he asked me why the captain kept Ella locked up in the cabin and sent her tender messages—which I dared not give. The last I ever saw of him was in New York, when I was about to leave the ship. A young man came aboard as we hauled up to the wharf, and I knew from the portrait I had seenin the cottage in Germany, that it was Karl Wagner. He soon found them; and the last I saw of poor Roderick, as I went ashore, he was unfolding to the astonished Karl a scheme he had to get Ella away from the captain, whilst poor Mary hung upon her husband’s arm, her heart bursting with joy and grief.

——

Be it remembered that Roderick, in speaking to me on the Mount of Heidelberg Castle, said—“Her father was an Englishman.” It was true. He was the younger son of a noble English house, though Ella lived until her twentieth year unconscious of the fact. She knew he was an Englishman, she knew he had been a soldier, but of his family she knew nothing. Better far had it been for her had she remained forever in ignorance of every circumstance of her ancestral distinction, or had she had some other instructor than he who craftily sowed the seeds of pride and discontent, that he might reap a glowing harvest of the charms of a lovely woman, to her soul’s utter desolation. By night and by stealth, like the Evil One, did he sow tares among the richest grain, among a perfect luxuriance of womanly virtues; by day, too, like the husbandman when the time of the harvest comes, did he pluck up weed and fruit, did he trample on pride and virtue, and cast them forth together to wither under the scorching solstice of remorse and shame. He tore away the flower and left the stem to die. Poor, poor Ella! the only jewel of both soul’s and body’s inheritance was charmed away—what wonder then that both should droop in poverty, or that, making common friendship from common desolation, these mutual foes, the only ones religion ever made, should compromise to each other the loss of both health and principle, in fatal reconciliation and despair!

The father of Ella Corbyn, an officer in the British army, was disabled in action during the Peninsular war, and after the peace of 1815, retired to the continent, where he married the beautiful Katrina Klaus, supported himself and Katrina many years on his half-pay, until about the period of Ella’s birth, when he and the half-pay departed together. His daughter, of course, had no recollection of him, and never possessed more than the one single article of his property, a miniature on ivory, of a lady, young, but by no means beautiful. She never knew who it was; her mother could not tell her when she first gave it into little Ella’s tiny hands, but supposed it was some one of Mr. Corbyn’s family, probably a sister—and so the matter rested for the while. The neighbors could tell her scarcely any thing of her father; they had seen him when he first came into the neighborhood, but his marriage with his beautiful wife, and subsequent removal to a neighboring village, followed so quickly, that they could give no account of him, nor further description than that of his personal appearance. Of the circumstances attending his death all they knew was, that two strangers stopped one afternoon at the public-house, that Mr. Corbyn spent part of the evening with them and went home early; the next morning he was shot in a duel, but the old captain who stood his friend in the affair, thought it no business of his to inquire what the difficulty was about. He left no property of any value, and his widow supported herself and Ella on her little patrimony four years longer, when she, too, died and left the child a helpless orphan. This was the time for her uncle, the priest, to come to her assistance. He took her into his care and provided for her early education by consigning her to the Sisters of Charity in Cologne. Here she remained five years; and when her good uncle, deeming that he could, with better justice to his finances, superintend her further progress at home, took her back, she displayed so much ability and judgment that she soon reigned, a little queen, over his modest household.

Ella was in truth a lovely child. In her earlier days, when she played alone by the road-side, before the priest’s lawn, not a stranger passed but stopped to take a second look at that bright, spiritual little face, gazing half-smilingly, half-pensively, half-hidden beneath dark ribbons of straying locks. Her complexion was exceedingly fair, not blonde; her features, not classical, werepetitsand regular; her face sufficiently full, but playful every where—a pretty child: but from almost infancy the striking characteristic of her face wassoul; never did it appear inanimate, never did it lack character—even in her sleep the marked corners of the softly-closed lips and little, dimpled brow, betokened self-possession; but when she smiled, a perfect sunshine of thought and feeling overspread her countenance, and she was irresistibly beautiful. As might be expected, the five years’ tuition she had enjoyed had developed the intellectuality of her beauty apace with the cultivation of her mind, and wherever and whenever a childish passion lay suppressed by growing religious principle, its disappearance gave place upon her countenance to the sublime, triumphant sentiment that crushed it. Mr. Klaus, or as he was termed by his parishioners, Father Klaus, was passably skilled in music; and under his systematic instruction Ella soon became the most accomplished vocalist in his country-choir. The old Count Reisach had, in church, frequently heard and appreciated the superior qualities of her voice, and after a few Sundays, called at the parsonage to pay his compliments in person to the young singer whom fame had already made so conspicuous. Little Ella, when summoned into the presence of the count, made her courtesy modestly but not diffidently, and he, charmed with the graces of her person and behavior, took pains immediately to win upon her confidence, so that she soon sang to him all her prettiest songs; whilst Father Klaus sat smiling by, perfectly happy in the joy of his triumph. When the old nobleman arose to depart, he stood with his hand upon the child’s glossy head, and declared he neversawsuch a singer; then, as he turned up to his gaze that little face so beaming with beauty and intelligence, he promised by the faith of his knighthood that next Sunday should see her talent well rewarded. Next Sunday afternoon arrived a large case for Ella. How she danced to see it opened! and when it was opened, how she danced and clapped her hands around one of the prettiest harps that ever was seen! This was an era in her life. Every day would see her and her uncle before the parlor window blundering over the harp-strings, often in vain attempts to puzzle out an accompaniment. It was a new instrument to him as well as to her. Time, however, and perseverance can conquer all things, and ere two months were past, Ella might be seen every evening seated beneath a linden that shaded the cottage door, gracefully sweeping her harp in accompaniment of the wildest songs of her Fatherland; anon would she lift her melting eyes to heaven as she touched the trembling chords to the softer melody of a Virgin’s evening hymn. The old priest would be absorbed in his breviary, as he paced the graveled walk; he had long since given up the race, and the little scholar had left him immeasurably behind. It was not wonderful that Ella became the admired of all the country around even at that early age: but she bore her honors so becomingly, with so much modesty and simplicity, that—wonderful to say—there was not one among her companions who did not love her. She was so gentle and so good.

In theBower of Castle Mount, I said that Roderick told me that Father Klaus was aware of the growing attachment between him and Ella, almost as soon as themselves. In this, two circumstances may seem strange—first, that she, educated, accomplished, admired, courted, should fancy a poor, plain, hardy country-lad like Roderick; and secondly, that her uncle should approve and encourage her in such a fancy. Roderick’s family was very humble, scarcely above a peasant’s condition; but in this regard she placed herself upon a perfect equality with him, and never gave the matter much consideration. The truth is, she had loved him with a childish love before she knew that there existed any other. The first summer after she returned from Cologne, regularly every Saturday afternoon or festival eve, would he come to help her gather flowers for the altar. This office of decking the altar is only performed by the hands of virgins, and when one enters into the state of matrimony she no longer takes her place among the servants of the sanctuary. Our young pair (he was but four years older than she) would wander off to the woods together, and Roderick would climb the highest rocks for moss, or some stray flower blooming alone; and carry the heavy basket. At times he would strip off his shoes, and, Paul and Virginia-like, stagger with his beloved burden across the streams. When evening approached, he would mock the squirrels, the partridges, the wood-robins and the katy-dids, and put the whole forest in tune before its time, to Ella’s ineffable delight. Often, when he had doffed his jacket and thrown it down for her to sit upon, would he recline upon his arm, his hat drawn over his brow, pensive and melancholy; and sometimes a tear would trickle down, as the truth forced itself upon him, that, despite their intimacy, fortune, and fortune only, had placed an insurmountable barrier between him and the idol of his thoughts and dreams. He would beg her to love him, and she would readily answer that she did love him.

“Better than all the other boys?”

“Yes, better than all the other boys.”

Still he was not satisfied. He felt that she did not mean the same kind of love that he did; he was doubtful even if she knew any thing about it. How should he ascertain? He could not ask her if she would marry him: no, that would be breaking the ice of a new and unfathomable current, and he might lose the tenure of the ground he then possessed; besides, he felt a secret, indefinable shame, and could not proffer the words. He looked very wo-begone. Ah! he had it at last.

He did not meanlike, he meant, did shelovehim better than all the other boys?

Yes, she loved him better; she said so before.

The secret of his new discovery was burning; he blushed. At last it came.

Did she love him better than all thegirls?

The poor boy was breathless.

Yes, she thought she loved him better than all thegirls?

The mighty weight had turned out a feather; he knew no more than he did before. Many a time did the poor fellow try to hit the mark from afar off, but always with the same success. He persevered with the same affectionate devotion, her very slave; and it was not until several years after, when he became assured of more than one suitor’s rejection, that he summoned courage to address her plainly, and received an answer to his heart’s content.

That Father Klaus approved the betrothal of Roderick and his niece, may not seem wonderful. He knew him to be the son of pious parents, a boy of good principle and good capacity. He had often seen at his father’s house, pasteboard horses, cows, cottages, and even pencil sketches, that he amused himself with, when once recovering from a severe illness. When the boy recovered he frequently brought into request his newly-discovered capacity, and improved very much in his rough sketching. He had no idea of prosecuting his ability any further. All this was not lost on the priest, who felt assured that he could command the necessary influence to enter Roderick in the academy of Heidelberg, and enable him to become the master of an honorable and lucrative art. He knew that capacity is more unfailing, and possesses more resources than wealth; he knew Roderick’s substantial worth and undoubted probity, and felt that he had neither right nor inclination to thwart his niece’s predilection.

It was during one of these flower-hunting excursions that Roderick and Ella first conceived the idea of weaving the bower on the Castle Mount. They were accustomed frequently to extend their rambling to the ruined castle, in the old garden of which a variety of flowers were still cultivated by the guardian of the place; and by the time they had clambered up to the terrace on their return, were fain to sit down and repose awhile. They soon began to feel a partiality for the place; and no wonder, for there was not so fine a view, even to childhood’s eyes, to be found in the whole country. Their childish hands there twined the bower whose strange demolition I, in after years, witnessed. There they spent many of their happiest hours; there they first plighted their troth; there they renewed it over and over again; and there poor Roderick first saw the—beginning of the end.

It were useless to attempt to say how proud the poor boy was of his betrothed, and of her accomplishments. The fact that he never felt a pang of jealousy during four long years, frequently under most trying circumstances, that his trust in his beloved never for a moment wavered till his heart was wrung, and his brain was crazed that eventful evening at the bower, loudly testifies to his ingenuousness, and the priest’s correct estimate of the man. A neighboring Curé, who had in former years been a fellow-student of Father Klaus in Italy, frequently rode over to spend half a day. On such occasions Ella was entertained with metaphysical disquisitions, which, unknown to her entertainers, her deep, psychological nature eagerly drank in, in draughts as great as her capacity would admit. To their theological discussions she was a silent, attentive listener; subjects which her uncle never upon any other occasion spoke of in her presence, were argued with an earnestness that made him forgetful of the indirect injury they might work upon her mind. She began to propound questions to herself, and to attempt the solution of them, of herself. She remembered many delicate cases of morality determined by learned heads; pondered over the principles upon which those decisions were based; constructed new cases for the application of similar principles; in short, became a blundering casuist before she knew it. A new light was dawning upon her mind; she saw, for the first time, that laws can be stretched to very tension, and not broken. She did not reflect that principle is firm as a rock, and lasting and unchanging as eternity itself—that there is no going and returning there. She knew not that he who ranges about to strain the utmost limits of law, has wandered far from the moral centre of gravity—principle. She knew not that we do not always stand guiltless in the forum of our own conscience, though no other living being dare censure us, even in his inmost mind. The world may judge a man for what he does and dares; he alone, for what he doesnot fear. Ella was precisely in that unfortunate state of mind, in which one knows just too much or too little; in which a certain degree of knowledge necessarily requires more to prevent its running astray. There is a degree of pride which renders one ridiculous, contemptible; a greater degree checks its manifestation—governs it. One is vanity; the other despises vanity. Such a relation did Ella’s science bear to true philosophy as vanity does to pride;—and she played with it. One must, one will destroy the other. Had her uncle known her infatuation, one word would have dispelled every shadow of it.

Oftentimes the college friends would turn their conversation to days long past, to reminiscences of their sojourn in Italy. The lore of classic and romantic associations of that wonderful country; the graphic illustrations of life, and scenes, and elegance, and delights, in that delicious clime, enchanted their young listener. Dissertations on the political changes there enacting; surmises of changes impending, necessarily drew forth a detail of social, historic and scenic minutiæ, that expanded her young mind to poetic conceptions; distance lent its enchantment to the view, and her rich fancy glowed with the beauty of its imaginings. A longing, secret and subtle at first, then craving and irrepressible, to taste the sweets of forbidden fruit, took possession of her. She was betrothed at that time; she knew that with Roderick she could not enjoy those pleasures; she ought and did know that this longing would breed discontent;—hence the subtle manner of its entering on possession of her heart. Long she repelled it; principle forbade it; her reasonings were very nice; and lax as she may have become speculatively, she nourished a high-minded honor that would have done credit to any child of Adam. Soon she thought it no harm to enjoy the victory she had, with so great an effort, gained over herself; frequently she did so. Then her sophistry came to the attack; she might have regrets in secret, she thought, and they might not be at all detrimental to her husband’s happiness; hers would be the only loss, the only pain, if pain there were;—and she let her longing take its way. Still, she loved her betrothed as much as ever, none the less on that account; it is true she became a shade more thoughtful, not quite so light-hearted as she was, but she did not notice any change. If her heart lost any of its feeling, her harp did not. She took it more rarely; her touch was bolder, and still more delicate; a beautiful originality undulated more in her modulations, and she played more without the words than she ever did before. Her spirit was more self-dependent. There was something of the wild energy of insidious despair.

About this time the younger Reisach was summoned from England to attend his father, who was very ill. Soon the good old count died, and his heir entered upon the title and estates, in a manner so becoming and consistent with filial affliction, that every one said the young count was quite equal to the old one. The rougher field sports he had been accustomed to in England were now abandoned, and he lent his mind to the more quiet and refined German tastes. Study, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, divided his attention; he aimed at conciliating and winning all, the little as well as the great, and no undue ostentation had place in the details of his establishment. Regular and attentive at church, he gained the confidence and esteem of pastor as well as flock. Refined and delicate in his speech, no virtuous peasant-girl shrunk from his attention whenever he thought proper to bestow it. To thereunionsat the mansion the Curé had a standing invitation; and in return, the young nobleman strolled out upon many a welcome call at the parsonage. It would be harsh, it would be unjust, to say that Count Frederick commenced his attentions there with any deliberate design of wrong. Ella’s harp and voice were frequently brought into request for his passing entertainment, and he was not sparing of his eulogiums upon them. He soon began to experience deeper and more lasting sensations than the momentary pleasure she intended; no one could do otherwise. In his presence Ella conversed little, but that little was full of refinement, of thought and taste. He felt it difficult to smother his feelings or restrain them; and although he strictly maintained the distinction in their conditions, in his intercourse with her, and knew that a violent death must await all his more tender sentiments toward her, still he was unwilling to deprive himself of the pleasure he enjoyed in her presence. He was deeply in love with her, and he knew it; yet supposed that, like many other impressions he had experienced, it would soon pass away, that he might as well enjoy it whilst it lasted;—no one would ever be the wiser in the end.

It was before, and about this time, that Roderick and Ella were accustomed to spend their hours, and almost days together, at the bower. She had grown into womanhood, had entered into her twentieth year; and it was on her last birth-day, that she and Roderick had knelt before her uncle, to receive his blessing on their betrothal. Roderick had finished his course in the academy, and had already acquired his quota, both of fame and money, in painting. Ella sincerely loved him; and despite the admiration she felt for the young count, would have been supremely happy could she have been promised the realization of her imaginary enjoyments by his side. She loved him more when in his presence than when away. Absence threw no enchantment around him; it was in the sunshine of his tenderness and devotion that she felt the full glow of her affection for him; at other times she would feel the chilly mingling of her regrets. Had they been married then, they would have been very happy.

I said, Count Frederick deemed his love for Ella to be harmless, and that he felt no scruples in giving full play to it. It was only when, in his frequent rides, he caught a glimpse of the lovers enjoying their honest happiness under their own vine and fig-tree, as one might say, that the demon of envy, then of jealousy, took possession of him. There are few who can look unmoved on the unalloyed happiness of others, nor feel one pang of envy; that can see the appropriation by another of a secretly-coveted object, even an object one has no right or title to, or expectation of, and feel no sting of jealousy. Thus was it with Count Frederick: from the window of a mansion he frequently visited in Heidelberg, he could look right up to the bower. In the recess of that window he frequently sat; and with glass in hand, following with his eye every movement of the doomed pair, he conjured up a host of demons to torment him. He knew that her faith was given to another; he was aware and resolved that he could not marry her; yet, the long and constant dwelling of his thoughts upon her, the enlistment of his feelings and affections for her, seemed, in his disordered mind, to invest him with an indefinable title; he felt the outrage done to it, and casting full rein to both anger and passion, vowed to wreak his vengeance on what he thenceforward dreamed to be his mistress, and her lover.

Alone, and in secret, did he plot his plans to circumvent them. Lost now to every feeling of shame and honor, he repelled no scheme, however base, that presented itself; and though the better and more manly exercise of his faculties drooped and withered under his scorching passion, a deeper, deadlier cunning than he ever knew before, sweltered and forged unceasingly the most crafty implements for his hellish purpose. He would trust not an iota to the assistance of other hands, but assumed the whole burden of contriving and executing upon himself. Not a breath did he breathe of his infamous design to human ears. His demeanor in public possessed all the semblance of urbanity and good feeling that he once felt; but his interior Vulcan reposed not from his craft. Every piece of information that he could unsuspectingly acquire concerning either poor Roderick or Ella, he stored up and revolved in his aristocratic mind, digesting it with his moral venom, as a viper would revolve and masticate with poison its loath-some morsel. He learned from many sources, partially from herself, the particulars of Ella’s history, as far as was known; and contrasting several portions with certain circumstances that had fallen under his observation when in England, was astonished at the result of his machinations, which now doubled upon himself, to involve him too in their fatal entanglement. Thus far he had stood apart, aloof, as it were, upon a height above his contemplated victims. His baser passions had thrown aside the drapery of virtue and honor which once veiled the lovely woman from the gaze of rude thought, and he could look down upon her very graces as an object of his intended prey; but when the artful interlocking of his web and woof turned up to his astonished eyes, in gathered forms, the whole and real picture of his contemplated deed; when his study brought to light the astounding fact that Ella could claim close kindred with the proudest titles of the British peerage, his craven spirit of profligacy slunk away, for the time awed, but not quelled, by the air of reverence, and veneration that breathed upon it. At its return, elevated, softened, warmed, but not purified, by its admixture of romance, he felt his sternest anger giving way, his haughtiest pride tottering, his very soul melting into admiration and love; he reeled from his position aloof, and writhed a whole burnt offering among the other victims to his passion. His subtle ingenuity soon brought to the crucible the extraordinary change in his sentiments toward the unconscious girl, and the analysis did not dispel the new charm that enveloped her. He saw it was perfectly natural, and the only fruit of his discovery was a resolution to bring the charm to operate upon her own mind—it would open the avenue to a secret discontent with her present position, unfold a vast and snare-beset field to the vagaries of a romantic imagination, and bring her feelings to a sympathetic appreciation of the fellowship of caste that existed between her and himself.

Full of this dark resolve, Count Frederick went forth alone one afternoon. He had designedly employed the unsuspecting Roderick to restore some old paintings that had accumulated the dust of ages. They were in a studio in town. There Roderick had labored busily all the day, and when evening drew near he was still detained by some management of the count, in order to give his lordship the opportunity for his coveted interview with Ella. He had learned at what hour she would probably be at the appointed rendezvous, and timed his evening excursion accordingly. It was a beautiful afternoon in April. From the castle heights, the sun was seen slowly creeping down the skies of France, and the changing tints of the glittering clouds, were gorgeously reflected by the distant waters of the Rhine, and the intermediate mirrors of the Neckar. Villages, hamlets, cottages, spread over the plain, rolled their black smoke in heavy volumes against the green mountains, about whose feet the lights and shadows already had begun to sketch fantastic tableaux. How naturally did the words of the Mantuan poet’s pastoral seem to spring to Count Frederick’s lips, as he stood within a few paces of the bower, gazing abroad upon the scene, observed by the startled inmate, and feigning not to observe again. Ella understood perfectly well the words of the text, and as they were feelingly and eloquently poured forth, as though spontaneously, by the handsome youth, as he threw himself upon the turf, lost her surprise in the appropriate beauty of the poet’s effusion—

Hic tamen hac mecum poteris requiescere nocte,Frondes super virides; sunt nobis mitia poma,Castaneæque molles, et pressi copia lactis.Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,Majoresque codunt altis de montibus umbrae.

Hic tamen hac mecum poteris requiescere nocte,

Frondes super virides; sunt nobis mitia poma,

Castaneæque molles, et pressi copia lactis.

Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,

Majoresque codunt altis de montibus umbrae.

The last two lines he rapturously repeated several times, then turning his eyes, as though perchance toward the bower, he hastily arose, and in a moment stood blandly before Ella, apologizing for his intrusion, and in the same breath requesting the favor of one of her pastoral songs. She challenged him for a repetition of the verses, and he uttered them in so off-hand, theatrical a way, that they both burst into a laugh. The ice was broken. Never before had he so far descended from his dignity in her presence. There and alone with him, she felt the charm of this novelty, and bandied words with him willingly, for she supposed that Roderick would soon come, and she thought it would be fine to pique his jealousy a little, only to reward it the better afterward with the sweetness of perfect tranquillity. He gradually drew forth from her own lips what little she knew of her father’s history and family, and artfully beguiled away the key to her enjoyments and her regrets. He had been intimate, very intimate, he told her, with a nobleman in England, whom he now knew must be her uncle. The identity of her father’s history, even to his fall in a duel, with that of a brother of Lord B.; the same name, even a perceptible resemblance of Ella to him, rendered his assurance doubly sure. Then followed many particulars which completely set Ella’s willing mind at rest in regard to the nobility of her parentage.

So far, all was well. As he anticipated, the disclosure was to her astounding and pleasing at the same time. The shadows of incredulity that for a moment hovered before the citadel of her happiness, flitted away before the march of pleasurable emotions. Her first feelings were those of gratitude, and in the liveliness of her satisfaction, as he poured into her ears the minuter details of her family history, she could have smiled almost any thing, looked almost any reward for him who bore her the welcome tidings. She divined the emotion that quivered on his lip, fathomed the eloquence that sparkled in his eye, suffusing his whole face with its light, and trembled, trembled like an aspen, with momentary terror: but, as his glowing speech expatiated on the time-honored and world-worshiped glory and privileges of thenoblesse, the spirit of high-toned chivalry that begot, that chose, that ever ornamented the knightly order of Christendom, her terrors flew to the winds, and left her trembling frame a play-thing in the frenzied hands of wilder discord than her bosom had ever known. She no longer shunned his gaze; their eyes met again and again; a shadow, as of a dream, passed over her faculties; phantoms of law and duty and religion sprang up, to clamor for their rights; hastily she breathed an acquiescence, and then spurned them away as phantoms, as disturbers of the serenity of her soul. For the first time in all her life she felt the thrill of passion; the sorcerer beheld it, and closer and closer did he wind his web around them both, until, convulsed by the mighty battery within, he leaped from his seat, folded her resistless form in her arms, imprinted one passionate kiss upon her lips, and disappeared down the precipice.

When she recovered a little self-possession, her mind soon comprehended all; she felt and knew that passion had taken possession of her, and that love was gone; but never for a moment did she advert to any fault of her own. If conscience arose, she hastily repressed it, and despite what she inmostlyfelt, declared in her own mind that she could not see, measuring by laws of right and possession, wherein she had transgressed. Then stepped in pride. She transgressed! Oh! that one idea condemns the cause. She, who never had sinned, even in thought, against womanly decorum! yet, though her face burned with indignation at the thought, it was her own unerring conscience that accused, and against which she turned in so virtuous a scorn. Poor Ella! the great sin was already done. The loose rein she had given to her ideas, had permitted the birth, the growth, themanifestationof what she felt, consequently the encouragement of Count Frederick’s excited passion. What would strict principle have done? Trembled, and crushed the serpent in the egg. It had glided in and twined itself around her bosom so gently and unconsciously that she scarcely felt its presence; so brilliant and changing were its deadly eyes in their repose, so yielding its soft and graceful neck, that, trusting to its tameness, she nursed its strength and venom there. At once she felt a tightening of the coils. Who, but one willfully deceived, would not have felt death! She did not; she saw no death, but felt she could not cast her visitant aside, felt that she might have to struggle on and bear her burden triumphantly along. What harm if no positive evil came of it? It was her own burden; might she not bear it if she could? Thus she beguiled her better reason; she did not reflect that whosoever loveth danger shall perish in it.

The reaction from the state of excitement she had been in, was powerful, and she was just recovering from it, when Roderick came and found her at the bower, “pensive and melancholy,” as he termed it; and, since they could not enjoy the evening together, tenderly and affectionately led her home. This was the first night of Roderick’s grief and Ella’s unhappiness. One great effort would then have shaken off her enemy forever, and restored the serenity of her mind; but she did not see the necessity, the obligation; it could be done at any time. Her pillow was bedewed with her tears, but she attributed them to the agitation of her feelings. All night, that one moment of delirium was prolonged to hours in rapturous dreams. She awoke weary and pale. She was not responsible for her dreams, she reasoned; probably she was not; but I would not answer for the pleasure of them, for whenever her broken slumbers were dispelled by consciousness, through the night, she acknowledged the unlawfulness of dwelling upon that pleasure then, and she courted sleep as a means to enjoyment in irresponsibility. Her harp lay untouched all day. Her daylight reveries were but shadows of her midnight dreams; more she did not dare. To her uncle’s somewhat anxious inquiries she replied, that she had perspired so, all night;—it was true. The next evening was quite as charming as the preceding one. There was no reason why she should not take her accustomed stroll to the bower; it was her castle, as it were; she had built it, and it was her almost daily haunt; she saw no obligation to discontinue her visits there; if any one came, it would be his intrusion, not hers. Besides, if she did not meet Roderick there, he would be hurt, and probably suspect her of growing indifference. Step by step had she advanced so far in blinding herself, as to be deceived by such a transparency; in the days of her innocence it would have shocked her. Her very duty to her betrothed she converted into a pretext to betray him. Still, call her not traitress. Like one who begins to believe his oft-told lie to be the truth, a penalty for his deceit, she more than half trusted her shallow sophistry. No human power now, no stand of honor or pride, can save her now; she has let the enemy within the citadel to parley, and whilst she prates in whispered, cowering tones, of future peace or victory, he quietly possesses himself of every avenue and stronghold, and nothing less than power divine can lend the least effective aid. Will she ask it? Well would she wish to do so, but the mighty effort of instantaneous renunciation (the only condition for God’s help) is too great; and with an ungrounded, forlorn, despairing hope, she still thinks some impossibilitymaycome to pass, to save her soul. She went earlier than usual, and long sat trembling in her accustomed seat. When at last Count Frederick appeared, she was not surprised; but an unaccountable dread seized her, and she would have fled, had he not gently detained her. She stopped; he saw all at a glance, he knew every thought that was agitating her mind; he understood her sudden impulse, that it was a last effort of expiring virtue, and he understood, too, that he possessed the power to overrule it. He knew it was an issue of life or death, and that either way, he held the hat in his hand. Neither spoke. He stood, holding the unresisting arm, gazed on her shrinking form, her imploring eyes, her lips parted in sudden terror, upon her every feature yielding in despair to the agony of a struggle for her very soul; the loud beating of her heart struck upon his ear with unearthly sound; he thought of the affrighted lamb before the altar, felt that in his hand gleamed the keen knife his beautiful victim shrank from; his eyes drank in her exceeding loveliness, his heart melted, and he burst into tears. He sat upon the bench, half turned from her, his elbow resting on the trellis, and his face buried in his handkerchief, overcome by the storm of his feelings. At this moment, the better nature in both, had a strong game. There is something fearful to behold when a strong man bends his head to tears. When a woman weeps, it is the drops from a fleeting cloud, an April shower, or, at times, the ceaseless pouring of a settled rain—a deluge; but there is the flash, and the storm, and the fitful blast that groans and yaws, and bursts through all control. No woman can pass on and not feel the cloak of her human sympathy draw close around her, as if to impel her to go forth and pour the unction of her tenderness upon the troubled heart. And there Ella stood beside him; one hand lay gently on his quivering shoulder, whilst the other pushed back the scattered curls from his noble brow. Oh, what a powerful language there is in the human heart, without words! In all this interview, since first they met, neither had spoken a word. It was a pantomime in real life; yet, what terrible converse they had held! Neither had ever, in all their lives, spoken to the other one word of love; and such a scene!

“I intended,” said he, at length, as he pressed her hand to his lips; “I intended to beg your forgiveness for my extreme rudeness on yesterday. I was overcome, beside myself; and now, when I would utter the words of my supplication, they stick in my throat. I am tossed like a leaf, before you; and here I sit trembling like a child, beneath your touch. I feel in my inmost heart the sweetness of your sympathy. I go, and but for the treasure of that sweetness my heart would wither in its desolation. I dare not speak to you of love, for your troth is another’s. At least, in mercy, vouchsafe to me one glimpse of the Elysium denied me!” He folded her once more to his heart; indistinctly she heard in spasmodic whispers:life—soul—dearest—and he was gone. The nobler nature was triumphant; and Ella, overcome by his generosity and her now unquenchable love, wept long and bitterly. She turned from side to side in her loneliness, gazed into the heavens, upon the wide landscape, until the tears blinded her. Then she bent her head upon the trellis where he had leaned; her dark hair hung in loose locks upon the branching vines, and she moaned in very bitterness.

That night she thought of Roderick, and for a moment compared him with Count Frederick. What a contrast! His very name, his only inheritance from his forefathers, was essentially plebeian, rustic. Ackerman! Roderick Ackerman, the husbandman! She had never thought of that before! She, the daughter of a noble house, could never bear that name! Her dreams were not those of pleasure only, for Roderick stood all night, a horrid phantom, between her impatient love and its unlawful object. Next morning she did not quiet her mind with the reflection, that she was not responsible for her dreams; and her midnight dreams, pleasure and displeasure, were her daylight reveries.

Roderick’s society still possessed a singular charm for her. In his presence she became more like her former self. She still loved him with a calm, settled love, which nothing on earth could ever destroy. When he turned his mournful gaze toward her, there was so much of tenderness and truth, so much of ill-concealed anxiety and trust, that tears of anguish and of pity would gather upon her eyelids, and she would turn her head, to brush them away unseen. There was no selfishness in her love for him; it was virtuous and sincere, unshaken; yet, in his absence her thoughts continually recurred to the all-absorbing passion that possessed her. Day after day would she go to the bower, but she found no pretext now, in duty to Roderick, for she always returned before it was time for him to be there, and he never knew she went. He said to me on the mount, when relating this portion of his history—“She never went to the bower any more.” Count Frederick did not come again. He secluded himself at home more closely than ever—and let us not trespass upon the sanctuary of a penitent heart. Poor Ella might have been seen day after day, as evening drew near, wandering alone over the hill, watching, with intense anxiety, the path which Count Frederick would take in case heshouldgo out upon his evening walk. A mournful, restless spirit of solitude she seemed, ever wending her silent way among the evening shadows, never venturing upon the sun-lit green. At last her daring steps would turn toward the manor, and she would take its circuit, on her way to the bower. Once she passed, muffled and trembling, through the very lawn. O! could she have seen herself as others would have seen her, she would have sunk into the earth for very shame. How strange—that he who had been the ruthless tempter, in heart and mind the fell destroyer, should now, whilst retiring in virtuous seclusion, become the tempted! How strange, how passing strange—that she, poor victim, should become tempter, persecutor! Yet so it was: and such is man.—And such is woman—when she falls.

One day, from his chamber window he beheld her retreating form slowly disappearing in a little copse near the manor. The whole truth flashed like lightning on his mind: that he was not the only tempter; that not with him lay the damning guilt he had supposed; that he was sought; that she could be gained. The whirlwind of passion came again. The reflection that he had too unjustly accused himself, stifled every breath of remorse; and he went forth, in heart a demon, worse than ever. He soon gained her, and heaven-attesting vows were exchanged of never-dying love. All that was honorable and fair for man to do he promised. Their interviews thenceforward were frequent and clandestine; her health was failing in a perpetual struggle, and matters were drawing to a crisis. She never told her uncle what was done; she feared, she felt in her own heart, that it was not honest love. Count Frederick, I said, had promised all that was honorable for man to do; that promise he did not intend to keep. The more he thought over it, the more fully was he persuaded that she was not sanguine of its observance. After a lengthy consideration his plot was laid, and he appointed a time with Ella for an interview at the bower. It was Roderick’s eventful evening, the one he alluded to when he said: “I could not resist a moment’s visit to the bower, for, since pleasure there seemed henceforth to be forbidden fruit to me, I longed for a moment, even of its pain.” They were both punctual to the appointment. Count Frederick was paler than usual; she noticed his agitation, and he, to cover it, took out his Virgil and read her several beautiful passages. He turned to the Æneiad, and wrought upon her mind and her sympathies with the loves and sorrows, the struggles and the fall, of the queenly Dido. She caught the incendium, and as he repeated over and over, with increasing gusto, the more inflammatory passages, in the words of the poet, like Dido herself she sat “pendesque iterum narrantis ab ore.” At last, as he closed the book, he gazed intently on her, trembling with the very burden of his task. He took her hand; she smiled.

“Ella,” said he, “dost thou love me?”

She took the book, and marked a passage with her pencil. He read:

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