text: Talk:The Messenger (Bedford-Jones and Robertson)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:The True History of a Little Ragamuffin 1866.pdf/15

THE TRUE HISTORY OF A LITTLE RAGAMUFFIN. his nose stood out in a way that was terrible to witness. "You shall never have a pot or can out of thy house again - may I drop dead if you do I" was the threat he was constantly using, rolling his glaring eyes up toward the ceiling as he spoke. But he never kept his oath. The very worst defaulter was never refused after a second, or, at the outside, a third application; and it would only have been what he was always asking for if, one fine morning, Death had taken him by the heels and laid him flat along the cobble-stones of our alley.


text: Talk:Nodaswana

title: Talk:Nodaswana


text:
Nodaswana

ODS” he was called, not because he was particularly sleepy, but rather as an abbreviation for the only name which he had ever known, his Indian appellation of Nodsawana. Maybe he got the name without christening. When the Nez Perces got a white boy, they didn't go much on formality.

When Sandy Smith first saw him, he was about three years old and was in trouble. He was about as dirty as any member of the tribe which harbored him, and save for occasional light spots, where his skin accidentally broke through the crust, and save for his top shock of straw-colored hair, it would have been rather difficult to recognize him as white. He was standing outside a teepee at a safe distance—where things couldn't be thrown at him—gritting his teeth, sobbing, and kneading his eyes with two very dirty, very pudgy fists.

Sandy had been on a kind of vacation, the kind that suited him best. By selling some timber-land in the Olympics and reinvesting in a mining-claim, he stood in a pretty fair way to get rich. That is, almost everybody in the district thought so. So he'd been making a little trip over into Idaho. But that hasn't much to do with Nods. Coming back to him—Sandy happened to ride through this camp just at the time when Nods was feeling pretty bad.

If the angel Trouble had a job on hand, he must have felt like pulling a gun when Sandy Smith came around; because that was Sandy's weak point. Couldn't bear to see anybody, let alone a child, in sorrow.

Seeing Nods crying, out in front of the teepee, Sandy pulled up his horse, swung over into the side of his saddle, and took a look at such an amazing thing as a little white boy in an Indian village a hundred or so miles from anywhere; and, naturally, Nods reciprocated the attention.

The pudgy fists came away about a foot from the tear-stained face and then stopped. The eyes, which looked just like gentian flowers, opened wide, and Nods sized Sandy up for all he was worth. Then, either because he hadn't forgotten white folks, or because there was something about Sandy that went to his baby heart, he twisted his face into a smile that was like a big burst of sunshine over a rain-swept meadow.

Now all this time Sandy had been watching him with kind of a paralyzed look. When Nods gave him that smile, he couldn't help giving it back. Sandy's face, with its long, straggling mustache, was one of the set, steady kind that seldom changed; but if any one ever saw him laugh, it was sure to be a surprise. It was so unexpected, and made you think there were things in Sandy that you never knew about before.

Nods saw this, and without delay trudged up alongside the pony and held up both hands. Wanted to be taken up and away from that village; to go some place with some one who had a kind word instead of a kick for him. Sandy fairly fell off his horse, dropped down on his knees, and put his big, long arms around Nods and that's how it began. How Sandy and Nods became acquainted.

Nods gave a sigh big enough for a full-grown man, and, soon as he could get room, put his two little arms around Sandy's neck, snuggled his face right up against Sandy's, and held it there. And from that on Sandy could have died for him. It wasn't anything he was used to. He had, in his time, loved and been loved by lots of things, but not by a small chap like this. A pardner's grip, a pony's nicker, a burro's muzzling, or a dog's tongue licking your hand, are all things that send the heart along a little faster; but there isn't anything in all the great, wide world that will send it off into a gallop and bring the tears racing into your eyes like two baby arms around your neck. It's about the only thing that makes you want to cry and laugh at the same time—cry because the arms are so weak, and laugh because you are big enough to take care of them.

So Sandy was crying and laughing, when he felt something looking at him, turned round, and saw three or four blanketed bucks. But in all the crowd there wasn't anything white. They didn't look as though they liked Sandy much. And he, being of the border, frowned back, and let them know he didn't have a heap more affection for them. He straightened up all of his big six-feet height and stood, giving them back scowl for scowl. Nods looked from the bucks to Sandy, and then anchored himself around Sandy's legs, which was his way of showing that he didn't want to be left behind.

A powwow brought out the fact that this youngster had been left with an old squaw by a man who claimed to be his daddy. Said he was coming back in a week, but a year had slid off into the nowhere. This squaw was too old to do much camp work; but she wasn't too old to think a heap of Nodsawana. And probably about all the kindness the little shaver ever knew in all that year had been from her. The old woman, being not much use, had to subsist off the camp pickings, so there may have been times when both she and Nods went pretty hungry. It was easier for her to stand abuse, though, than it was for Nods. She was more used to it, having lived longer.

The minute Sandy showed signs of wanting Nods, the chief valued him highly. It took a day and a night's trading to get him, but Sandy won out, being the kind of fellow that never quits. Once or twice he decided he'd end the difficulty by going to war with the whole Nez Perces nation, grabbing Nods and riding off, trusting to God and his Winchester to pull him through.

As he was getting ready to go and Nods was waiting, Sandy heard a kind of moaning noise in the teepee where Nods lived, so took a look inside. There, with her blanket over her head and rocking to and fro with her hands clenched in front of her, was Nod's foster-mother. All the time that the trading was going on, no one had paid any attention to her. She didn't count. Nods bossed this job, too. He acted as if he had forgotten something besides the bow and arrows, and about three yards of string, which he had already brought out in the way of baggage. He crawled between Sandy's legs, where the latter stood in the door of the teepee, put his arms around the old woman's neck, and she made one quick grab, and held him close to her breast. Some folks have an idea squaws aren't like other women when you get clear down below their outer skin. Well, they are. Sandy was up against it again, because he understood how she felt.

Then he argued with himself in this fashion: “Although I do know how to care for mules and dogs, I ain't much up on kids. Onc't when I made a shirt out of buckskin for a kid, it took me six months. This old dame would be mighty handy. So she's in the play. She's goin' to be Nod's little nursery maid, because he likes her; even if she is a hundred and fifty years old.”

The chief didn't care. It meant one mouth less to feed, and saved somebody from knocking her on the head. And she, poor wretch, divided between affection for her tribe, distrust of the white man, and love for Nods, finally gave in to the latter, and went along.

Well, in the course of time, they all landed in Canada Gulch, and settled down into the happiest little party you ever saw. Before they came, the only pardner Sandy had was a three-legged dog. Before they came, an eight-by-ten shack had been big enough. Now all this was changed.

Sandy had the finest cabin on the gulch. The biggest in all the district. Had three rooms and a big porch, and some store furniture. Quit using tin plates and tin cups and tin spoons. Swore off on tin, and got so that real china, a half-inch thick, the real, fine kind they use in restaurants in big cities, wasn't any too good. Had chairs inside instead of sawed-off logs, or stools, or benches, such as most everybody else in that country uses. Hired men to help build this palace. And Nods was the busiest one of the lot, lugging sticks and politely offering folks a drink of water.

In less than a year everything looked different. First—and that was the most wonderful thing of ail—the old squaw, whom Sandy named Rebecky, got so that she was clean. Used to have at least three or four beautiful dresses, which Sandy bought for her in Seattle. No pale, weak-looking things, the kind some women like; but pretty, red ones, with big, yellow dots all over them, or right bright yellow ones with purple stripes. But she never got out of the moccasin habit. Couldn't get shoes on her, anyway.

This thing of getting clean is like getting religion. If you get it right, you get it all over. So it was there. Nods was 'most always clean, unless he had a lot of work to do down around the claim, or digging ditches for himself, or some of those other farming things that boys of his age always have to do. Sandy remembered how flowers helped the look of his place up in the Olympics, and this new cabin had plenty of them. Flowers 'most everywhere, which Nods liked and used to water, or when he thought they would look better somewhere else, pulled up and replanted.

Nods brought an addition into the family, not being satisfied with loafing around with the dog and Rebecky. It was a shaggy little burro. He called it Pete, although Sandy thought Jane would be more appropriate, because it wasn't a “Pete” kind of burro.

Sandy, wanting to give Nods an “eddication,” used to come in at night and laboriously teach him his A B C's, until the little yellow head would get the droops, and the eyes would lose their velvety brightness. Then any one passing the cabin would see the glow of a pipe, and, if he took the trouble to walk up the path between the sweet-smelling flowers, he would find a big, lank man sitting on a bench in the darkness of his porch, looking far out over the hills and the lights of other cabins, and either telling stories or holding tight a tired little boy who had gone asleep—very fast asleep. 'Most always at their feet was curled a three-legged dog, ready to fight for them both if harm offered. If you looked farther, where the lamp shone through the cabin door, you would probably see a bent old squaw, squatted on the floor, making something out of beads. When there's money enough to buy them, a squaw never gets completely out of the bead habit, and, if Nods and Sandy could have lugged all the things that Rebecky made for them, they would have been mighty strong. But into her ugly designs she wove her heart. And she won't have to go to an Indian heaven for that!

When one is happier than ever before in all his life, and has everything he wants, and all the love he has starved for through all the years, the heels of Time's moccasins are greased. Then Time is young and travels fast. The fellow who first pictured him as a slow, dragging old man, with a gait like a turtle, and toting a scythe, must have known him only in trouble. That's when he goes slow. Two years, which didn't seem more than an hour long, had passed over before Time went slow in Canada Gulch, then stopped and made each day a month, each week an age, and a lifetime a pack too heavy for the shoulders.

Sandy had a piece of pipe to mend, and came up to the cabin, on the point of the hill, when he heard steps. He turned round inquiringly to see a man as big as himself. And he wasn't the sort of man you like. One of those bull-necked, thick-lipped, coarse-looking fellows, who leers instead of smiles, and brags when he talks.

“I've come to get my boy—the one you call Nods,” he said.

The wrench dropped from Sandy's clay-covered hands. A minute before the birds had sung, the flowers bloomed, and the sun shone. Now the birds were voiceless, the posies without color, and the sun had slipped from sight. It was very still, and all the world was unreal and full of bloom. A blow in Sandy's face would have brought instant response, but this stranger, in a dozen words, had hit full in the heart, so that it almost stopped beating, and, for the first time in all his life, Sandy trembled and was afraid, and couldn't strike back. He looked at the stranger, at the cabin, and then up into the sky. It didn't seem that God could be so unkind!

This was something he had never thought of. He swallowed several times before he could get speech, then said, in a dazed way: “Your boy? Nods your boy? And you've come for him? Come for him? For Nods? To take him away from me—to take Nods?”

The man didn't really know Sandy, you see, or he wouldn't have broken it so confidently. Most men would have sooner gone against a Kansas cyclone, or a nest of rattlers, or a band of Apaches, than to stir up Sandy Smith. But this fellow didn't know him, and, to tell the truth, for once Sandy was taken off his feet.

Nobody knows what would have happened next, but just then, around the corner of the cabin, with the dog and Pete following, came Nods, talking to Rebecky. The stranger turned, took a look at the squaw, knew her, and triumphantly waved his hand at her. “I can prove it,” he said. “She knows it. I left him with her three years ago—over in Idaho. She'll tell you so. She has to tell you—it's the truth.”

Sandy turned and looked at Rebecky, and she looked at this stranger. But her face never changed a muscle. They all looked at her quite a while; then Sandy woke up. For the first time he was rough with her. He made three quick steps, leaned over and grabbed her so tightly by the arm that she winced, in spite of her Indian blood, and said:

“Rebecky, for God's sake, tell me! Did ye ever see this man before?”

Everything was quiet for what seemed another long time. The man grinned at her, as if pleased over all the trouble he was making, and she looked him straight in the eyes, and, as she looked, her eyes changed. Instead of having a quiet, contented look, like happy old folk have, they grew narrow and black and sharp and young. Then she turned to Sandy:

“Heap lie. Never saw this white man before.” Without waiting to say more, she stooped over Nods, who had stood curiously looking at all of them, fiercely gathered him into her arms, and trudged through the cabin door.

“You see, you're mistaken, stranger Sandy drawled gently, with a big sigh of relief. “She don't know you. You cain't have the boy.”

The stranger began to argue, in a peaceable sort of way, and he and Sandy sat down on a log. Then Sandy heard something “slip-slipping” over the grass behind him, and turned round in time to see Rebecky with a hunting-knife, about ready to end the stranger's claim on Nods, or anything else in the world. She was all Indian again, and was there to kill. Sandy grabbed her, and, although she was withered, old, bent, and small, and he a giant in strength, it was about all he could do to hold her off. She fought like a wildcat trying to get at this intruder.

Sandy got the knife away from her and turned to the man.

The fellow sneered, and said: “Put the knife into her, why don't you? She's nothin' but a lyin' old squaw.”

That started Sandy to boiling, and he moved toward him with that kind of a stealthy, deadly way that panthers have when slipping up on something. The fellow saw he had gone too far, and began to back off.

“Now you hike, and be damned quick,” Sandy said between his teeth, “or I'll put it in you clear up to the hilt.”

The stranger ran away, but in this last move Sandy had practically admitted his own defeat. Had practically admitted that he knew the man was within his rights. Otherwise, why Rebecky's denial, and then her attempt to decide the question at the point of the knife? That was convincing.

He turned into the cabin, an old, old man; dropped on his knees over Nods, who was looking at a picture-book, gathered him into his arms, and sobbed in the way a fellow of that kind does when he goes all to pieces—the big, dry, shaky kind, where the heart jumps and jerks, and tries to hammer its way out of the body. Sandy knew that Trouble had ridden over the trails to tear from him the thing that he loved more than the world—little Nods. And Nods looked up, and traced with his chubby finger a rivulet, saying wonderingly: “Daddy Sands, there's a little sluice right down through the clay on your face.”

The next day the sheriff came—alone. He knew Sandy, and loved him, and dreaded the trip. He knew that to bring a posse would mean a fight in which many men would die. He knew that old Sandy Smith, unless influenced by reason alone, would unflinchingly fight a regiment of officers to hold the thing he loved. But Sandy and the sheriff were friends, so it didn't come to that.

“Sandy, old friend,” he said, when Sandy had shut down the hydraulic's roaring mouth. “Sandy, God knows I hate this trip. I'd rather not be sheriff than to have to tell you. But you've got to give the boy to his father. The man's got the proof and the order of court for his child. You might kill me, or a dozen other better men who come after, but you can't kill the law. You know that! It's the one thing that follows a man in open fight, and is unwhipable.”

So it was that the big tamaracks moaned that night, and the flowers around the cabin drooped, while in company with them an old squaw moaned upon the floor, and a bent, wearied, heart-stricken old man sat on the door-step with his fingers clutched through his hair—robbed—desolated and alone. And away over across a ridge, in a dirty little shack, on a worthless claim purchased for a song, a big, coarse man brutally cuffed a tired little boy for sobbing and gloated over a triumph. Nods had gone from Sandy's life.

'Most all the boys on the gulch knew Nods and Sandy, and, naturally, couldn't help liking them. In a few days they got to know Nod's father, and couldn't help disliking him. Nod's father's life wasn't worth much about that time, and even now, 'most any day, he's liable to meet with an accident—a very curious accident. There are bullets cast that want but slight excuse to speed.

Of course, Sandy and Rebecky knew, within a day or so, where Nods had been taken. There was just one ridge—a low divide—between Canada Gulch and Poor Man's Gulch, where Nods' father had taken his claim. But it was several days before either Sandy or Rebecky tried to see the boy.

In the meantime, Sandy didn't work. He was kinder to Rebecky than usual, because he knew how the old woman suffered. He thought more of her for it, because it was perfectly natural that he should love anything which had loved Nods. He wandered aimlessly around the cabin, or out among the flowers, where Nods had dug holes. He gulped when he picked up the little A B C books, and when he was alone, out under the big, sympathizing trees, had long talks with the Lord, begging Him to show the way so the little feet might patter into the cabin again. He didn't need to pray for their pattering into his heart; that was open, and sore with desolation.

Then his thoughts took a new turn, and he was the grim Sandy that men feared. Rebecky understood, and she, too, feared. Perhaps it wasn't fear she felt, but rather the old call of the Indian blood. But, anyway, on the morning when Sandy dragged down the dusty Winchester from the wall, oiled it up, and filled the chambers, she showed sense. He was just starting from the door with it in the crook of his arm, his eyes fixed toward the other gulch, when she stopped him, and said in Indian, which they sometimes used when talking together: “Not that way, brother. It would do the boy no good, nor bring him back to you and me. Peace-pipes and the Great Spirit can make smooth rough trail.” He didn't resist when she took the rifle from his hands, and stood quietly thinking, as cartridge after cartridge was ejected by her hand, to rattle, unheeded, on the cabin floor.

Sandy finally went down across the gulch and up to the brow of the opposite hill, where he could look on that other cabin. He was hungry for a sight of his boy. On the door-step, dirty, unkempt, and dejected, sat little Nods, while at his feet, cowering in fear of something, sat a three-legged dog, which had already found the way across the hills.

Nod's father didn't seem to like the dog's presence. He was puttering around at something, when Sandy, sprawled on top of the ridge and peering over, first saw him, then he came over to Nods, shook him, and, when the dog bristled, gave him a kick. The dog wanted to fight, but the man beat him off to a safe distance, while Nods apparently cried. Nods' father then slapped him.

And the man came pretty near going out of the game about that minute. On top of the ridge, a long, red-haired fellow had shut his teeth, pulled a heavy Colt's from his pocket, and was taking very careful aim. Things he drew a bead on didn't live long, as a rule. Then he decided the distance was too far. Decided something else, also; and that was that he would go down and kill this brute, if it cost him his own life, his hope of the hereafter, and Nods. That boy should never be cuffed again. He would see to that, he muttered, as he crashed down into the clearing.

The man started to say something, but got a good square look into Sandy's flaming eyes, and decided this wasn't his hour to talk. Nods looked up, and with cries of “Daddy Sands! Dear Daddy Sands! I knew you'd come. I knew you would find me,” rushed frantically over and clasped his arms tightly around Sandy's legs. For once he was not taken into arms. For once there was no reply.

Sandy had an errand to perform. He wasn't the quiet Sandy of the last two years, but the old Sandy of the Geronimo and other border days. He had a mission.

And Nods' father read it and grew white, and lost his defiant grin. There in front of him stood Death. Just waiting a few minutes to do its work. And it would be done—the glint of the white-hot steel shone in the eyes, and told him so.

The Lord mayn't always work things out the way we like best, but, somehow or another, if you're on the square, He seems to run things pretty well, after all. Keeps us from doing a heap of things we shouldn't do. Now, about this time the Lord noticed that Sandy was going to make a mighty big mistake, so took a hand.

“Daddy Sands,” a little voice said, “why don't you take me in your arms? I do so want your arms!” Sandy, naturally, couldn't kill a man and hold Nods at the same time, and when he grabbed up the boy, the Lord, having interrupted at the right minute, kind of took him out of his madness, and led him into sanity. The red things quit floating around in front of his eyes. His brain, so weary and so tired for all the sleepless nights since Nods had gone, grew clear again, and he saw what a big mistake he was about to make.

Sandy finally put Nods down on the ground. When he did so, he saw three black-and-blue welts on the bare skin, where the unbuttoned blouse was open. Well—he would have a little satisfaction for that, anyway. He made one quick jump to where the man stood, his arm shot out with terrific force, and Nods' father fairly flew into the air.

Before he could realize what had happened, Sandy was on him, one hand on his throat and the other battering his face.

“I came here to kill you,” he rasped between his teeth. “You've been beating Nods. Take this as a promise that I'm coming here now every day, and if ever I find another mark on him, by God, I'll tear your heart out of your body, as sure as my name's Smith!”

It seemed there wouldn't be any necessity for a return trip, the way Sandy's arm was working. His blood was boiling again, and the desire to kill so strong that, unless the Lord had interfered again, it would have ended differently. It must have been the Lord who put it into Nods' father's mouth to say: “Let me go! Let me go! If you want the kid so bad, why don't you buy him?”

Sandy's fingers released their hold. Buy Nods? Buy Nods? He had never thought of that before. It seemed so incomprehensible that anybody would offer to sell anything as dear as Nods; that of all the ways he had contemplated in these last weary days, this had been the one way overlooked.

Slowly he climbed to his feet, and Nods' father, shrinking and battered and cowed, but hopeful for his craven, worthless life, also arose. Cupidity was in the man's every look. He was reaching the very end for which he came, and for which—alone—he had claimed the boy. This was his chance.

“Give me your claim,” he said, “and I'll deed you all my right, now and forever—to him.”

“It's done!” said Sandy, without a moment's hesitation. His claim, the richest in all this land, the thing that could produce the gold which would buy a king's ransom, could go as a ransom for this boy. Gold? What was gold? Nothing! A paltry metal, which, though all of it in the world were within his reach, couldn't pay for one clasp of those little arms that again hugged him around his feet, and were soon after transferred to his sun-tanned throat.

They went into the cabin, where Sandy, on a sheet of paper, wrote:

They signed it in several places, Sandy wanting to make dead sure, and Martin, who was mighty pleased at the deal, being perfectly willing.

There had been a time when a paying claim, a big cabin, a heap of furniture, and a field of flowers, would have seemed just about all in life that Sandy wanted. But the boys on the gulch know, and will tell you that all these things were passed up like a pawn and without thought, when on the following day Sandy and his family rode away.

They got up to that point you can see on the very brow of the hill, where the trail dips off toward the sunrise, the morning after. In the lead was Sandy Smith, holding Nods on the pommel of his saddle. Next came two pack-ponies with an outfit, another pony with old Rebecky, and then Pete, on whose back was packed a big basket, in which a three-legged dog could ride.

Right up on that point they stopped and looked back, most of us hope and believe without regret, on the cabin, and the claim, and the flowers. Somehow it was like the thing you remember out of the Bible, long after you've forgotten the words; perhaps you know the place—where a man named Joseph and a woman named Mary, and a tender, smiling little boy, rode off and out into the big world, with none but God to care for them, and right sure in the knowledge that He looks after His own.

The man's arms closed round the little boy, the old woman behind was happy, and old Pete and the three-legged dog were willing to go along after, knowing that green pastures can be found for all things which are faithful to the end.

title: Nodaswana


text:
Munsey's Magazine/Volume 93/Issue 3/The Tiger Lily

OU are wondering what brought me here," Narcissus said across the dining table to a stranger who, he perceived, was taking a thrilling interest in him. "I will tell you. I am looking for a woman."

There was an impressive pause.

"Indeed!" the stranger commented respectfully. "Your wife?"

"She is not my wife," replied Narcissus, "nor, of necessity, is she some other man's. I came here to look for her. I thought she would be here, but I cannot find her. It's very expensive and extremely annoying."

The stranger was more than interested—he was curious.

"Perhaps she is here," he suggested gently. "I may have seen her, if you haven't. Could you describe the type of woman to me?"

"Describe her?" said Narcissus, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "Certainly! She's the soulless tiger lily type—half fragrant flower, half ravening beast; scented superficialities heaped upon a yawning sepulcher of greed; the canker at the soul of all society; the cancerous growth that seems to be ever on the increase; the vampire woman—" He broke off and leaned forward, his eyes dilating, and fixed them upon a man and woman who had just come into the dining room. "There she is," he whispered. "Look!"

The stranger turned his head and beheld a magnificently beautiful and triumphantly soulless woman, with an unobtrusive and unhappy-looking man.

"At last!" exclaimed Narcissus, keeping his glowing eyes on her. "The very woman I've been trying to run down! I will watch her every movement, listen to her every word, dog her footsteps, scratch up an acquaintance, wind myself into her confidence, dissect the woman's soul—her mechanism, I mean—to its very depths!"

"Are you a detective hunting down a criminal?" the other man inquired.

"No," said Narcissus. "I'm a dramatist hunting down a temperamental type."

"What a pity," said the visitor, who had a sense of humor, "that I'm not an interviewer after all!"

Narcissus colored with vexation. He had been certain that this conversation would meet his eyes next morning in the Daily Vulture. He rose with dignity.

"What an intense relief to talk to somebody who doesn't want to make a little money out of one's remarks!" he said.

It was not for nothing that his friends had christened him Narcissus. The first time that he looked into a mirror he had fallen in love with his reflection, and he had never fallen out of love with it since then.

He went into the drawing-room to await the coming of the Tiger Lily, as he called her in his mind, and to alleviate his irritation with a cigar.

He had not very long to wait before she came, drawing in her wake the unobtrusive man. Narcissus laid his head against the oriental cushions of the lounge in a particularly pretty pose, and watched the two under his long lashes.

"He is certainly her husband," commented Narcissus. "He looks so unhappy!"

The unobtrusive man reminded him of the keeper of a first prize exhibit at a dog show. He seemed perpetually conscious of his exhibit, his responsibility toward it, and his own insignificance compared to it.

"I am the keeper," his whole manner expressed. "I am only the keeper; but my duties are not so light."

"Yes, she is certainly his wife," Narcissus said to himself, "because she takes no pains to please him."

She was rather like a tiger lily to look at, too. Her beauty was of the rustling and self-advertising type; her satisfaction in herself was as good as a printed catalogue of her admirers. Her hair was reddish gold, turned back from a round, pale face. Her eyes were amber brown and her mouth was crimson. Narcissus leaned back, and his eyes foraged in her soul. If she was a tiger lily, then he was pulling her petals brutally.

"How she loves herself!" he commented. "How she adores her beauty, her dresses, her ornaments, her dinner! It must be a pleasure to her to blow her nose. A bourgeois act, but it draws attention to the hands, the rings, and the laced handkerchief."

Yes, she was no better than a magnificent pet dog, well combed, well washed, well fed, and with the same conviction that people lived to take her out and put food before her.

His curiosity about her was immense. Did she imagine, then, that she had a soul, or was she content to be no better than a prize exhibit? If the latter, seeing that her feelings and desires were of such paramount importance to her, why did the one need of a soul remain unquestioned? A common type, he repeated to himself, Heaven knows how common, and—how utterly inscrutable!

What was the creature? Was she woman, animal, or devil? Were the rudiments of immorality in her? Was her happiness the uncouth mirth of a mindless thing? Was her sadness the seeking of her nature for a spirit, or a passion of sulkiness, perhaps, because she could not feel? Narcissus would have liked to break her to pieces, as a child breaks a mechanical toy to find out how it goes. He made up his mind to speak to her, question her, cross-examine her, torment her, to find out if she could really feel.

Just then the woman moved to the mantelpiece. Her keeper, as Narcissus called him, followed her, and looked at her with a strange, appealing sadness in his eyes.

"He adores her," thought Narcissus immediately. "Does he know what he's adoring? Does he adore her because her soullessness has called out an unselfishness in him which a good woman might never have awakened? Or does he adore her because she represents the unattainable to him—because he knows she can never love him?"

The man made a little movement toward her—it might have been to arrange a fold of lace, or to touch her cheek for a moment. He caught his sleeve in a string of jewels that she wore. The string snapped, and the stones fell in a little tinkling shower.

The Tiger Lily burst into a passion. Her eyes flashed, her cheeks flamed, she showed her teeth.

"You stupid creature!" she cried. "You're always doing something abominably clumsy!"

"That proves conclusively that he is her husband," thought Narcissus. "It proves, also, that she has no soul. She shows the utter lack of dignity and self-control of a mere animal."

He crossed the room to where the Tiger Lily and her husband were searching for the jewels on the rug.

"May I be allowed to help?" he said.

The husband was glad to find some one to talk to who would take a more lenient view of his clumsiness. The woman was glad to find some one else on whom to vent her passionate irritation.

"There were thirty amethysts in the chain," she kept on repeating, "and I've only found twenty-eight."

Narcissus was fortunate enough to discover the twenty-ninth; but nobody could find the thirtieth. The Tiger Lily was the first to give up the hunt.

"I shall leave you to it," she said to her husband with vindictiveness, "and you must look till you do find it!"

Narcissus and her husband were left searching on the rug. The man gave the dramatist a strange, appealing look out of his grave, tired eyes.

"Heavens!" thought Narcissus. "How she has made him suffer! How she deserves to suffer, too!"

Aloud he said to the man:

"She is very beautiful."

The husband flushed, as if he had been praised himself.

"It was stupid of me to break her chain," he said hurriedly. He looked at Narcissus again. "It is her one passion, collecting jewels. I have given her most of them." He paused. "But I can't give her as many as I should like."

They continued their search.

"A man," the husband added, "can do so little for a woman. She gives him everything. What can he give her?" For a moment Narcissus was too much amazed to reply. "You are tired," he said at length. "Let me go on looking. I won't steal her amethyst," he continued, smiling. "If I have the good luck to find it, I'll bring it back to her."

The woman's husband shook hands with him.

"I should be more than grateful," he said. He took out his card. "We have a suite on the third floor."

By dint of exhaustive searching Narcissus found the amethyst lodged in a crack of the floor. He determined to return it to the Tiger Lily in person.

next morning Narcissus went up in the lift to the suite of rooms on the third floor. As it happened, the woman's husband was not at home.

"He has gone out," she said, "to see if he can buy another amethyst to match the set."

Narcissus held out the palm of his hand.

"There is no need for that," he said. "I found it."

She pounced at it as a cat pounces at a sparrow.

"Where did you find it?" she cried. She looked as if she could have kissed him, and Narcissus was man enough not to feel displeased. "It was a particularly dark stone. The deeper the color, you know, the more valuable the amethyst. I have some more that I will show you." She went into the next room and came back with a case of jewels in her hand. "Look!" she cried, as she poured them out upon the table.

"They would provide a feast for the whole of London's poor," Narcissus said, observing her, "and they have only bought one piece of womanhood!"

"My husband gave them to me," she replied, smiling.

"You will make him bankrupt," Narcissus warned her. A look of intense vexation crossed her face.

"What, again? Has he been talking to you?" she exclaimed. "Sometimes he's so bad tempered I was afraid that there was something wrong. It would be too awful. What one goes through!"

"What he goes through, and for what!"

"I can't help it," said the Tiger Lily, with complacence, "if he's so weak about me. I only admire things in shop windows. I never ask outright for them, and then he goes and brings them home at once."

"Are all these jewels his?"

"Not all," she answered, smiling contentedly.

"Other men's?" Narcissus asked.

"Well, yes—and one man in particular." She sighed briefly. "It was very sad—he died."

"You mean he took his life?" Narcissus asked.

"How did you know?" she asked, with her eyes round.

"Because I know what women like you do to men," he answered, watching her. "You maddened him, took everything from him, gave him nothing back, and ruined him. Then he shot himself."

"You must be very clever," she said with the foolish simplicity of a mindless child, "to know all that! I was very sorry about it; but men are so silly—they get desperate about me, and there's no reason for that."

"None, I agree," Narcissus said.

She looked angry for a moment.

"You're not serious," she said.

"On the contrary, I am. Men get desperate about you, trying to find something—anything—a soul, a heart, in you. They stake their last cent on discovering it. When they learn that there is something so terrible on God's kind earth as a woman who can't feel pity or love, they lose their minds."

She stared at him with her mouth open. He realized that some animal instinct warned her that she ought to be offended.

"Tiger Lily," said Narcissus gently, "there's a question about you that I should like to decide."

She knitted her brows in a frown. She was curious about him, flattered by his curiosity, vexed and completely baffled.

"Yes?" she said. "What?"

"I told you just now," he went on, "that you were incapable of love or pity. I am certain about the pity—I should like to be more sure about the love."

She shrugged her shoulders and turned down her lips.

"Love?" she repeated with a note of interrogative contempt.

"Your husband—" Narcissus began.

"Oh, my husband!" she said. "He gives me everything I want. He's very good to me."

"Thank you," Narcissus said, "for your definition of love. You love a man for what you get from him?"

"Oh, well," she replied, laughing coquettishly.

Narcissus rose to go. She followed, like an animal.

"But you'll come back?" she asked in her helpless voice. "You'll come back again?" "Yes, I'll come back," Narcissus told her. "Your mechanism interests me. It's really ludicrously simple, so much so that it seems intricate."

began to go there very often. He was beginning to master the woman's mechanism. Sometimes the Tiger Lily's husband was there, sometimes he was not. When he was there, the three talked on general subjects. When he was not, Narcissus talked to the woman of nothing but herself.

"I often wonder where you'll go when you die," he said. "Heaven is a place for people who have used their brains and souls. Hell is a place for people who have not used them, or have misused them. You couldn't possibly be sent to heaven; but it wouldn't be fair to send you to hell for having failed to use your brain and soul. You can't use what you haven't got. I used to believe in a dogs' heaven. You might go there. No, hardly, because dogs desire to have souls—one can see it in their eyes—and you don't. A soul's the one thing you have no use for, as Americans say. It's very puzzling!"

Narcissus was the one man who had baffled the Tiger Lily. He gave her the impression that he was completely callous to her. His indifference stung her. She told him as much.

"Some day you may thank me," he replied.

"Why should I thank you, or any man, for anything you like to do for me?" she said with a vixenish note in her voice. "I don't ask you to do it."

"Not particularly," he answered, "seeing that your whole personality is a definition of the verb to ask, to beg. You live on other people, their money, their love, their lives, because you have nothing of your own at all. It's not your fault, I suppose; but it's curious that it never occurs to you to be ashamed, or to want to give them something back."

She rose and came toward him, trying to subdue him, with a kind of malevolent passion, to her way of thinking, or not thinking; but she could not speak. She was filled with rage, because she felt suddenly, before Narcissus, that she was ignorant.

"Don't paw me," said Narcissus. "I think you were going to stroke my head, or cuff it—I'm not sure which. I particularly dislike my head being touched."

"You're hurting me!" she almost screamed. "You've no right to. I never have been hurt!"

"Have I the good luck to hurt you?" he said eagerly. "I am always clever, but this is a stroke of genius. What does it feel like to feel pain for the first time in your life?"

Suddenly a burst of anger—was it anger?—came over him, and he seized hold of her.

"You'd like me to kiss you," he said, looking close into her eyes. "Do you know what I should like to do? To prick you with a dagger!"

"You would like to kiss me," she cried, tears of fury in her eyes, "but you're afraid of confessing it!"

"Tears!" exclaimed Narcissus, examining them. "Are they, too, the first of their kind? What extraordinary good luck for me! What a stroke of inspiration! But take them back now. They are easy for you to make, so they will be as easy to take back. Tears are ugly; they inflame the eyes. I can't look; I cannot bear to look at anything unsightly."

He went away. During his absence he thought that he would let the Tiger Lily fall in love with him, would encourage her to do so. He had begun to make her sensible to pain. This was in itself a triumph. Suffering, he said to himself, is the seed of the soul. He had sown the seed himself. Now he would have the inexpressible satisfaction of nursing it through prolonged pain into actual existence.

Besides, he had grown fond of the Tiger Lily's husband. The poor fellow was unhappy, and Narcissus wanted to do something to help him. He wanted to awaken in his friend's wife the capacity, not for taking, but for giving love. Besides, his vampire woman play would be the rage of London.

The Tiger Lily began to grow thinner. A new look, which was not languor, but a kind of fire, crept into her eyes. Narcissus lost no opportunity of her companionship. He seemed to court it, even to pursue her. With the look of gratification in her eyes, there came a curious approach to wistfulness.

"You are beginning to feel ignorant," he said to her. "What a blessed thing! The consciousness of ignorance is the beginning of all wisdom."

Then he would show her the letters he received, asking for autographs, asking for sittings at a photographer's. He would show her letters from other women, telling him that he was "simply too sweet to look at," and inviting him to lunch. She began to grow a little humble, and she was certainly much thinner. Narcissus told her that it did not suit her. She was a type of splendid flesh, he said. When she lost that, her personality would become a cipher.

One day he went up to the Tiger Lily's flat for tea. Her husband had gone out, and she was alone. Narcissus brought out a letter.

"I have written you this," he said, handing it to her.

She tore the envelope open. Narcissus had composed a love letter to her, couched in burning terms of adoration. Her whole face changed as she read it. Then she got up and came toward him, holding it.

"You really wrote this, meaning it for me?" she said in a whisper, coming toward him.

They were standing by the fireplace. Narcissus snatched the letter from her suddenly, tore it into pieces, and flung them in the grate. Then he watched her carefully.

"Oh!" she cried, kneeling down before the fire, her head down over the bars. "You couldn't be so cruel!"

She raked among the ashes for the scraps.

"Don't be a fool," Narcissus said. "You'll get your fingers black."

Suddenly she gave a cry.

"My head, my hair! What is it? Quick!"

"Heavens!" cried Narcissus. "It's your combs!"

She began to scream horribly.

"My head's on fire! It's burning—burning! Oh, be quick!"

He was spellbound with horror. He even wrung his hands.

Then he remembered to throw a rug over her head. He pressed it down over her head and face, and heard her cries and sobs stifled through the folds, while her hands fought madly at his wrists. His heart beat till he felt strangled, his legs trembled beneath him. At last he took the rug away, staring aghast at her, himself the embodiment of horror.

She put her hands up to her head.

"Oh, oh, it's coming off, it's coming off!" she sobbed like a child. "Look there, look there!"

With indescribable dismay Narcissus saw her hold out her hands full of great bunches of the marvelous hair.

The door opened, and her husband came into the room. She ran toward him, screaming dreadfully.

"I am all burned!" she cried. "My beautiful, beautiful hair!"

was ten days before Narcissus could persuade himself to call upon the Tiger Lily, to inquire for her in person. He had sent her notes, expressing himself anxious for her recovery from the shock that she had had; and to these she invariably replied that she was not sufficiently recovered to see any one.

At last she wrote that she would "love to see him" if he would only come and not expect too much. The last half of the sentence was underlined.

Narcissus trembled when the drawing-room door opened and he heard the Tiger Lily's voice asking him to come in. He felt like a man who enters an operating theater for the first time. A feeling of faintness and distaste stole over him. His voice was weak when he spoke.

The blinds were drawn down in the room, and she sat with her back to the light. She rose, with a kind of tremor expressed in the action. She was wearing a large shady hat. He noticed how beautifully she was dressed, and that she wore more jewels than before.

"You are—better?" Narcissus said in a weak voice. "You are not changed?" he meant to say.

"Quite well," she said, but by her voice he knew that she was changed. Suddenly she burst out: "Why don't you look at me?"

"Look!" he repeated with a voice of fear. "I am looking." He brought his eyes around slowly to her face. There was nothing altered there. "Your hair!" he exclaimed involuntarily. "You have as much as ever. It has grown?"

She laughed mysteriously and bitterly.

"A switch!" he said to himself. Aloud he went on: "Your husband?"

"He is very good to me," she said.

"Still very good to you!" echoed Narcissus.

He scrutinized her closely.

"Why do you wear a hat when you are indoors?"

"Oh, because—because it's becoming," the Tiger Lily said flippantly.

Her hat seemed to fascinate him. He could not remove his eyes from it.

"Take it off," he continued.

"I don't want to," she answered.

"Take it off," he repeated with growing insistency.

He made a step toward her. Her eyes met his with an animal's appeal for mercy. She began to remove the hat.

"You are doing your hair differently," he went on. "It is all down over your eyes. It is vulgar, done that way. It spoils you. Put it back!"

"No, no—I like it best this way," she said, retreating from him.

He put his hand out and brushed it back from her brow.

"My God!" he said. "Your face is burned, too!"

He took a step toward the door.

"You said I was exquisite," she cried. "It's not so bad. Look at me once again!"

"In—in a minute," he answered.

"Men loved me for my beauty," she cried. "Won't they ever love me for my face again?"

Narcissus was silent, standing with his back still turned to her. Then they both saw that the door was open, and that the Tiger Lily's husband was standing there, looking at both of them.

She ran to him, putting out her arms.

"Won't anybody love me for my face?" she said.

Neither of the men said anything; but her husband bent and kissed her neck, while she threw her arms about him, sobbing like a little child.

"Wouldn't it do—if some one loved you for yourself?" he said.

Then Narcissus shut the door and went away very softly.


text: Talk:Munsey's Magazine/Volume 93/Issue 3/The Tiger Lily


text:
Author:John Jones (b. c. 1770)

Periodicals

 * Naval Chronicle, ed.
 * European Magazine, ed.

Other works

 * Hawthorne Cottage

title: Author:John Jones (b. c. 1770)


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/3

CLERMONT.

CHAP. I.

descending to the breakfast parlour, she found her father already there; he stood with his back to the door, and so deeply engaged in contemplating a large picture, that he did not hear her enter. Madeline approached him softly, and could not help being struck with horror on perceiving the picture was a representation of the mur-


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/4

 der of Abel. It was fancy, no doubt, which at that moment made her imagine, in the features of the agonized and affrighted Cain, there was a resemblance to her father's. A slight noise she made roused him; and, starting, he turned with evident confusion to her. He had scarcely recovered from it, when the Marquis entered the room. Contrary to his usual custom, he had forsaken his bed at an early hour, anxious, by every attention in his power, to make amends to his son for his long neglect.

After the usual salutations were over,—"I was sorry to hear (said he, as they seated themselves at the table), that your rest was disturbed last night; Lafroy informed me of the noise which alarmed you; I can no otherways account for it, than by supposing some ill-minded person resides in my family who wishes to overthrow its tranquillity by exciting superstitious fears. I have heard more than once of such tricks being played in other houses, by people who imagined


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/5

 they should reap advantage from the general confusion that was the consequence of them. If one is practised here, I will if possible detect it: this very morning I am determined to examine the chamber, to try if there is any other entrance to it than by the gallery; though that examination will be attended with the utmost pain, as I have never visited it since the death of my Philippe."

Lord St. Julian informed him he had secured the key for that purpose. As soon as breakfast was over, they accordingly repaired to it, accompanied by Madeline. The door was closed immediately on their entrance; and while the Marquis, overcome by afflicting recollections, sat almost motionless on the bed, the tapestry was raised, and the wall critically inspected, but without discovering any other crevices in it than those which time had made.

Tis strange (cried the Marquis, after the fruitless examination was over), I cannot


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/6

 now possibly conjecture from whence the noise could have proceeded:—what did it sound like?"

"Like the groans, or rather yells, of excruciating distress (replied St. Julian); never before did sounds so horrible pierce my ear."

"I shall place some of the servants I can depend on in the gallery as a watch upon this door to-night; and if any villainy is practised, I think (said the Marquis), by that means it will be detected. Though this room (continued he) affects, it also pleases me; it seems to me a place peculiarly consecrated to my Philippe, as since his death it never has been inhabited, nor never shall whilst I live. Will you indulge me by remaining a little longer in it with me?"

St. Julian and Madeline instantly seated themselves.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/7

 After some further conversation, the Marquis requested to hear the particulars of his son's life.

St. Julian seemed somewhat embarrassed: after a little hesitation, however, he gave the desired recital. But how great was the astonishment of Madeline to find it differ essentially from the one he had given her; every circumstance relative to his brother was now suppressed.

On finding his expectations of fortune blasted, he had set out for Italy, he said, with an intention of cultivating a taste for painting; trusting, from that source, he should be enabled at least to derive a support. "I had not proceeded far on my journey (continued he), ere an accident introduced me to the hospitable Lord Dunlere": he then gave the same account of that nobleman to the Marquis that he had already done to Madeline; and concluded by saying, he had lost his wife, and her father, in consequence


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/8

 of their grief for the premature death of his lovely sister-in-law: after which he had forsaken their habitations, unable to bear the scene of his former joys, and retired, changing his name, to a lonely cottage, amidst some of the most wild and romantic mountains of Dauphine.

The Marquis was affected by the sufferings of his son; but at the same time pleased to hear he had been united to a woman of rank and virtue: it gratified his pride to find the heiress of his fortunes could boast on every side of illustrious connexions.

But how different were the feelings of Madeline from his, on hearing this second narrative from her father: she was shocked to find so great a difference between the one he had given her, and the one he had given the Marquis. "Ah, why (cried she to herself) conceal the generosity of his noble brother!—Yet, perhaps (continued she, after some


text: User:SnowyCinema/P/All Kneeling

title: User:SnowyCinema/P/All Kneeling


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/9

 some minutes' reflection), he only forbore mentioning him, from a fear of awaking painful emotions in the Marquis's breast."

Soothed by this idea, the composure of her mind was returning, when again it was disturbed by the Marquis's suddenly enquiring on what part of the Alps the habitation in which Lord Dunlere had lived was situated, and by the agitation her father betrayed at the question: in faltering accents he answered it, and the Marquis instantly exclaimed—

"Oh, God! it was there my Philippe fell!—You resided with Lord Dunlere at that time (continued he, after the pause of a moment), and you heard perhaps of the murder?"

"A rumour of it (replied St. Julian), but without knowing the sufferer's name."

"You knew not then, till lately, that the vengeance of Heaven had overtaken me: the offended Majesty of Heaven could not indeed have inflicted any punishment upon me half so severe as that of depriving me of


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/10

 my son. Oh, Philippe! lovely and beloved! days, years have elapsed since your death,—but without witnessing any diminution of my grief!—Had I received your last sigh—had I paid the last sad duties to your remains, its poignancy I think would have been abated: but far from your kindred you fell!—and never will the tomb of your forefathers receive you."

"You have heard, perhaps (continued the Marquis), from your vicinity to the spot, where he fell—that the body could never be found. At the time he received his death wound, he was on his way to Italy, and had stopped for the night at a little obscure inn; from whence, tempted by the sublimity of the scene, he had wandered to an adjoining mountain, to pass an hour or two, attended by a favourite servant: both were unarmed; and the moment he was attacked, the servant fled for assistance; but, alas! ere he returned with it, the murdered and the murderer were gone. No doubt the body was dragged into some recess, a prey


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/11

 for the ravenous wolves which infest that part of the country; and even now, perhaps, his bones, unburied, lie bleaching in the mountain blast. Oh! never may my eyes be closed till they have seen vengeance fall upon the head of his murderer! accursed may he be! may his days be without comfort—his nights without repose!—and may his pangs, if possible, be more intolerable than those he has inflicted on my soul!"

"Perhaps (cried Madeline, in a faint voice), he does not live."

"Suggest not such an idea again (exclaimed the Marquis, with a kind of savage fury in his countenance); the hope of yet bringing him to punishment has hitherto, more than any other circumstance, supported me amidst my sufferings; to relinquish that hope, would be to relinquish almost all that could console me.—Still then will I retain it; still then will I trust, O God! that some heaven-directed hand shall point out the murderer of my son."


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/12

 The Marquis and the Count sat on the same side, and Madeline directly opposite to them. As her grandfather uttered the last words, she withdrew her eyes from his for the purpose of stealing a glance at her father; but as she was turning to him, they were suddenly arrested by a sight which struck her with horror.

She beheld a hand thrust through the tapestry behind him, extended and pointing to him. Shrieking aloud, she started from her seat, and, with a desperate resolution, was flying to the wall in order to examine it, when her strength and senses suddenly receded, and she fell fainting on the floor.

Alarmed by her too evident terror and illness, St. Julian flew to her assistance; whilst the Marquis, scarcely less affected than her father, rung the bell with violence. Some of the servants immediately hastened to the room; and restoratives being procured,


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/13

 Madeline soon revived. The moment she opened her eyes, she raised her languid head from the shoulder of her father, and turned them to the spot from whence she had seen the dreadful hand extended. But it was gone; and she then begged to be carried to her chamber.

St. Julian would not permit any one to continue in it with her but himself. He had some secret reasons for wishing no one at present to listen to their conversation. He tried to sooth, he tried to tranquillize her, but without effect; and he besought her to acquaint him with the cause of her illness.

Unwilling to tell a falsehood, yet unable to declare the truth—"Oh! my father (cried she, bathing his hands with tears as she pressed them between her's), ask me no farther questions on the subject; place the same confidence in me now you have hitherto done, and believe that your Made-


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/14

 line will never have any concealments from which you can disapprove: you seem ill yourself," observing his pale and haggard looks.

"At my being disordered (cried he), you cannot wonder after what has passed."

"Passed!" repeated Madeline, recoiling with horror at the idea of his having seen the hand.

"Yes (replied St. Julian), after what has passed,—after being cursed by my father."

"Cursed!" cried Madeline aghast.

"Did you not hear him curse me?"

"No, surely not (answered Madeline); I heard him curse, butshe paused—she hesitated.

"But whom?" demanded St. Julian impatiently.

"The murderer of his son," replied Madeline in a faint voice, and turning her eyes from her father.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/15

 St. Julian groaned; he clasped his hands upon his breast and traversed the apartment.

"True (cried he, suddenly stopping, and flinging himself upon a chair); true, it was not me he cursed. I believe my reason is disordered by the sudden change in my situation. Ah! would to heaven (said he in a half-stifled voice), since so long delayed, that change had never taken place!"

"Would to heaven it never had!" said Madeline.

"Oh! my child (resumed St. Julian, rising and embracing her), you have no reason to join in that wish; the Castle of Montmorenci can lead you to no dreadful retrospections, can awaken no torturing recollections in your breast."

"Alas! my father (replied Madeline), if it has that effect upon your mind, mine must necessarily be disturbed: she whom you nurtured with tenderness, the child of


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/16

 your bosom, cannot, without the most agonizing sorrow, behold your distress."

At this moment a servant rapped at the door to announce dinner. Madeline declared herself unable either to go down or take any refreshment at present. But she promised her father she would exert herself to be able to attend him and the Marquis in the evening, and reluctantly he left her.

But how vain were the efforts she made to fulfil the promise she had given to her father; as well might she have attempted to still the wild waves of the ocean as the agitations of her breast, proceeding as they did from her newly-revived suspicions concerning him.

She hesitated whether she should disclose them or not. "Shall I throw myself at his feet (cried she, traversing her chamber with hasty steps), and entreat him to confirm my


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/17

 horrors, or dissipate my fears? Ah! what rapture to think he could do the latter!—but, alas! his unguarded expressions, the mysterious circumstances that have happened since our arrival at the castle, leave me little reason to imagine he can."

Absorbed by the dreadful ideas which had taken possession of her mind, Madeline heeded not the passing minutes, and was surprised by her father in a situation that made him start as he entered her apartment.

Never indeed was anguish more strongly depictured than by her; her hair, dishevelled, fell partly on a bosom whose tumultuous throbs indicated the disorder of her heart; and the wildness of her eyes declared the agitation that had mantled her cheeks with a feverish glow.

"Madeline (said her father as he approached her), is it thus you have kept your promise with me?"


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/18

 She sighed.

"Your countenance (resumed he in a solemn voice, and taking her hand), renders concealment with you impossible; I shall not therefore ask what has disordered you, for your looks have informed me."

Madeline involuntarily averted her head.

"Yes (continued he), I know your present ideas. But, Oh, Madeline! reflect on the tenor of my conduct, on the precepts I instilled into your mind, and then think whether you have done me justice or injustice in harbouring them?"

Madeline withdrew her hands, and covered her face.

"I forgive you, however (proceeded St. Julian), from my soul I forgive you. I know a strange combination of circumstances excited your suspicions—circumstance which I may yet perhaps satisfactorily account for:


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/19

 at any rate, be assured, at some period, perhaps not far distant, I will elucidate all the mysteries of my life, explain my reasons for sinking to the Marquis, and not to you, my intimacy with my brother."

"Oh! my father (cried Madeline, throwing herself at his feet), how can I ever sufficiently evince my gratitude for your forgiveness—a forgiveness which cannot be followed by my own. True, a strange combination of circumstances led me into error; but nothing can now justify me in my own opinion for it. Ah! never can I reflect without horror, that there were moments in which I doubted your integrity,—ah! never can I think myself punished enough for doing so; though my feelings, in consequence of such doubts, were such as almost to annihilate existence. You say you forgive me; but ah! my father, can I hope that you will ever look upon me again without internal resentment?"

"Without a trace of it shall I regard you (cried he, raising her from the ground): had our situations been reversed, I make no


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/20

 doubt I should just have thought as you did: let us now endeavour to banish all that is disagreeable from our recollections."

"With ecstasy (said Madeline). Oh! never, my father, shall my faith in your virtues be again shaken. Ah! happy should I now be, could I be reconciled to myself. Your words have removed a mountain from my breast; and all the horrors of doubt and suspicion are over."

"My happiness depends on your's (said St. Julian); the best proof, therefore, you can give me of your regard, is by endeavouring to recover your spirits."

"Every effort then shall be made (replied Madeline); and efforts in a right cause are generally successful."

Her father then led her to the apartment where the Marquis sat, who expressed much pleasure at seeing her better.


text:
Author:Thomas Smith

 * Thomas Smith (1817-1906), Scottish missionary and mathematician
 * Thomas Smith (fl. 18302-1840s), British land agent
 * Thomas Smith (1872-1924), American surgeon

title: Author:Thomas Smith


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/21

CHAP. II.

they were drinking their coffee, Madeline was agreeably surprised by hearing there was a connexion between her family and that of her departed benefactress:—the


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/22

 father of Viola's husband was a near relation of the Marquis and next heir to his titles if he died without issue.

"As soon as I discovered I had a son in existence (said the Marquis), I wrote to Monsieur D'Alembert, whose chateau is about four leagues from this, acquainting him with the joyful event, and requesting his immediate presence, well convinced, from the generosity of his disposition, that he would rather rejoice than grieve at the discovery, though the means of destroying his prospect of my title and fortunes. I received a letter from him, breathing the warmest congratulations; and assuring me he would instantly have obeyed my summons, had not domestic calamity interposed to prevent his doing so. A dispatch had just arrived from his son, he continued, informing him of the illness of Madame D'Alembert."

"Her illness!" cried Madeline, turning pale.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/23

 "Yes (resumed the Marquis), an illness which threatened to end in a decline, and for which she was ordered directly to Bareges, whither Monsieur D'Alembert determined on accompanying her and his son."

Madeline, though inexpressibly shocked, was not surprised to hear this account of Madame D'Alembert, whose health she had long beheld declining. Almost confident, from the character of young D'Alembert, that he would not pay those attentions her situation required, Madeline could not forbear giving vent to her feelings, and exclaimed with energy—"Would to God I was now with her! would to God I was now permitted to pay to the daughter the debt of gratitude I owed the parent!"

"Impossible (cried the Marquis); Madame D'Alembert, accompanied as she is, cannot require additional attendance: besides, your presence in the castle is absolutely requisite, as an entertainment is already planned, and will be given in a few days,


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/24

 in honour of you and your father, at which you must preside. Of the travellers we shall receive the earliest intelligence, as Monsieur D'Alembert promised to write immediately on their arriving at Bareges: let this promise therefore contribute to quiet your mind."

Madeline bowed, and endeavoured to appear composed; but her heart swelled with sorrow at the idea of being separated from her friend, at a time when her attentions would have been so acceptable, perhaps necessary; and with difficulty she suppressed her tears.

When coffee was over, the Marquis and St. Julian sat down to chess, and Madeline withdrew to the court, from whence she was soon tempted to wander into the forest.

It was now the still, the dewy hour of eve, an hour in which she particularly loved to walk; and she proceeded, thinking of the


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/25

 happy period in which she had wandered, devoid of care, through the wild-wood walks surrounding her native valley; and sighing at the idea, that felicity such as she then experienced would never, never more return.

Unheeding whither or how far she went, she rambled on till her progress was unexpectedly stopped by the monumental pillar of Lord Philippe.

A kind of awful fear now took possession of her; a fear, which the idea of the distance she had wandered from the chateau, the lateness of the present hour, and the deep gloom surrounding her, inspired; a

led to the pillar, around which clustered


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/26

 The yellow radiance, diffused over the tall trees and the antique turrets of the castle, at her first setting out, was now entirely withdrawn, and scarcely a star-light ray penetrated to the spot on which she stood; whilst a breeze swept through the forest with a hollow murmur, that to her ear sounded like the lamentings of a troubled spirit.

The dreadful fate of him to whom the pillar was dedicated, rushed upon her recollection; and, shuddering, she was moving from it, when a deep groan arrested her steps. She paused,—she trembled; the surrounding trees faintly rustled; a figure slowly emerged from them, and gliding by her, gave as it passed a look at once tender and mournful—a look which presented to her view the exact features of de Sevignie.

"Oh, God! (cried she, recollecting the likeness between him and the picture of Lord Philippe), is it de Sevignie I saw, or the spirit of the murdered Philippe?"


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/27

 The pale and hollow cheek presented to her view, the melancholy eye that beamed upon her, inclined her to believe the latter; and while a cold perspiration burst from every pore at the idea of having seen a supernatural being, she fled trembling up the long avenue that led from the pillar: at its termination she paused, uncertain which way to go, for the paths were here wild and entangled; but as she despairingly struck her breast from a fear of not finding her way, she beheld a light suddenly glimmering through the trees: from the castle she knew this must proceed; darting forward therefore, and still keeping it in view, she soon found herself at home.

She stopped for a few minutes in the hall in order to regain her breath and some degree of composure; she then repaired to the parlour where she found the gentlemen just rising from chess. In answer to their enquiries as to where she had been, she briefly replied, rambling about, but did not inform them how far or whither. Her paleness


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/28

 struck both the Marquis and St. Julian; both however imputed it to her grief for the illness of Madame D'Alembert.

On retiring to her chamber, Madeline was not sorry to find some of the servants stationed outside the chamber next to her's, for the purpose of apprising the Marquis and his son if there was any return of the noise that had alarmed the family the preceding night. Her spirits weakened by the idea of having seen a being of the other world she could ill have borne total solitude. Unable to sleep, she stood a considerable time at the window, contemplating that part of the forest where she had been terrified; yet without shuddering she could not look upon those trees, beneath whose covert she imagined the troubled spirit of Lord Philippe wandered.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/29

CHAP. III.

noise this night disturbed the tranquillity of the castle; and the terror which had marked the countenances of the domestics began to vanish.

The Marquis had mentioned to Madeline his intention of giving an entertainment in honour of her and his Son; and prepara-


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/30

 tions were now making for it—preparations which were unexpectedly interrupted by a letter from Monsieur D'Alembert, containing the melancholy intelligence of the death of his daughter-in-law on her way to Bareges.

Though this event was communicated in the most cautious manner to Madeline by her father, the shock it gave her nearly deprived her of her senses. Unwilling to distress him by the sight of her grief, yet unable at present to stem it, she requested permission to retire to her chamber; a request which he instantly complied with, from a hope that the unrestrained indulgence of her sorrow would abate its violence, and contribute to the restoration of her tranquillity.

In the solitude of her chamber she gave free vent to it. "But is not this a selfish sorrow? (she exclaimed, whilst tears trickled down her pale cheeks); do I not weep alone


text: The Commonweal/Volume 1/Number 2/East-End Workers—II


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/31

 for the loss which the death of my friend will prove to me? for am I not convinced that death to her was a passport to unutterable felicity,—to that glorious world, where the cares, the disappointments that embitter this, can never obtrude—where all is happiness,—and where the kindred spirit of a Parent welcomed her pure and disembodied soul to that happiness.

These ideas, however, had not power to mitigate her feelings. Besides the tears she shed for the loss, the irreparable loss she sustained by the death of her friend, she wept from a fear, which the account she had received of the disposition of D'Alembert inspired, namely, that his wife had not in her dying moments received those attentions that sooth the last struggles of nature; she feared that no


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/32

 "Would to heaven! (she said) I had continued a little longer with her; it would have comforted me to have known that the kindnesses, the attentions, the nameless little offices of love, which soften the pangs of sickness and of death, had been paid to her."

From her melancholy meditations she was roused by a knock at the chamber-door. She started; hastily rose, and opening it, beheld her father.

"I hope, my dear Madeline (cried he, taking her hand) that the long and free indulgence of your grief has lightened your heart, and enabled you to make exertions against a sorrow, not only useless, but injurious. I hope (continued he, observing her trickling tears), that in the grave of your friend you have not buried all consideration for your father's peace—a father, who can know no happiness but what is derived from witnessing your's."


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/33

 "Oh, my father (exclaimed Madeline, unspeakably affected by his words), every exertion you desire I will make."

Ever taught to consider her promise as sacred, she no longer gave way to her grief, and soon recovered, though not her cheerfulness, her composure.

The death of Madame D'Alembert caused the doors of the castle to be again barred against company, and an almost uninterrupted stillness once more reigned within it. Madeline rather rejoiced at than regretted the total solitude in which she lived; the spirits, the hopes, the expectations which would once have inclined her to gaiety, were fled, and she no longer wished to see or to be seen.

Nor did her father appear less pleased with his seclusion from the world; a deeper gloom than Madeline had ever before observed upon it, now almost continually clouded his


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/34

 brow. His wanderings from the castle became frequent; and were often prolonged till the curiosity of his father, and the fears of his daughter, were excited.

Tortured by beholding his increasing melancholy, Madeline was often tempted to implore him to reveal its source, from a hope that she might then be able to offer some consolation; but whenever she felt herself on the point of doing so, the solemn promise she had given her departed friend of never attempting to raise the veil which concealed the former events of his life, recurred to her recollection, and made her shrink back appalled from the idea.

"But has he not promised (she would then cry, endeavouring to strengthen her resolution), has he not promised, since his arrival at the castle, that he would himself raise that veil, and elucidate every mystery; Oh! let me then terminate my incertitude, my


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/35

 my suspense, by now imploring him to fulfil his promise."

Still however, whenever her lips opened for that purpose, a secret dread would again close them; and she was soon convinced that she could not summon resolution to urge the disclosure she so ardently desired.

About a fortnight after they had received the intelligence of Madame D'Alembert's death, a letter arrived from the elder D'Alembert, acquainting the Marquis with his intention of being at the castle that day. He arrived a short time before dinner, and paid his compliments to his newly-discovered relatives with the utmost warmth and affection. The prejudice Madeline had conceived against the son extended to the father; and, notwithstanding the warmth of his manner, she saw, or fancied she saw (which had just the same effect upon her mind), in his countenance a dissatisfaction that denoted his not feeling what he professed;


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/36

 his eye, she thought, often fastened upon her father with a malignant expression, as if the soul that animated it inwardly cursed the man who had stepped between him and the fortunes of Montmorenci.

After the first compliments were over, taking the hand of Madeline, he assured her that nothing but business of the most perplexing nature could have prevented his son from accompanying him to the chateau. "He is impatient (continued he) to be introduced to his amiable relations; above all, he is impatient for an opportunity of expressing to you his heartfelt gratitude for the attentions you paid to his wife."

The heart of Madeline was too full to permit her to speak: she bowed, and hastily averted her head to wipe away the tears which fell to the memory of the unhappy Viola.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/37

 Her father, perceiving her emotions, led her to a seat, and changed the discourse.

D'Alembert now informed them that his daughter (of whom Madeline had before heard the Marquis slightly speak) was at the Chateau de Merville with her brother. "In about a month I hope and expect (continued he), they will join me here."

"I hope so too (said the Marquis); for I think it is the want of society that lowers the spirits, and hurts the bloom of Madeline."

"Ah! (thought Madeline) 'tis not the society I am now debarred from, but the society I have lost, which deadens my cheerfulness, and fades my cheek."

"I shall insist (resumed the Marquis) on her father's taking her in the course of the winter to Paris; 'tis time for her to be introduced to the circles her rank entitles her to associate with."


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/38

 D'Alembert by a bow silently assented to what the Marquis said.

From this period Madeline had but few opportunities of indulging her love for solitude; D'Alembert either was, or pretended to be, so delighted with her society, that he could not for any length of time endure her absence. Complaisance compelled her to humour a relation advanced in life, and also the guest of her grandfather; but the interruption he gave to her favourite inclinations, together with the extravagant eulogiums he bestowed upon her person and all she said or did, heightened, if possible, the dislike she had conceived against him from their first interview—a dislike, however, which she did not reveal; yet not without uneasiness could she hear her father declare he thought him a man worthy of esteem.

With the utmost pain she thought of the approaching visit from his son and daughter. "Ah! never (said she to herself), ah! never,


text:
Author:Charles Wilfred Mowbray

Works

 * “East-End Workers—II” in The Commonweal, Volume 1, Number 2 (Mar. 1885)

title: Author:Charles Wilfred Mowbray


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/39

 without shuddering, without horror, shall I be able to look upon the man whose ill conduct I have reason to think occasioned the death of my beloved friend."

Within a week of the time she expected him, as she was walking one morning in that part of the forest which immediately surrounded the castle she beheld her father and D'Alembert at a little distance from her, apparently engaged in a deep and interesting discourse. Their eyes encountered her's almost at the moment she saw them; they instantly stopped; and, after conversing together for about another minute, D'Alembert entered the court, and her father advanced to her: the gloom on his brow was somewhat lessened, and a languid smile faintly illumined his features.

"Madeline (said he, taking her hand, and walking on with her), D'Alembert and I have been talking of you."

"Of me!" cried Madeline.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/40

 "Yes, we have been sketching out a plan of felicity for you."

Madeline sighed, and looked earnestly at her father.

"A plan (resumed he) which I trust will meet your approbation."

"Explain yourself, my dearest father (cried Madeline), I am all impatience."

"To be explicit then (said St. Julian), D'Alembert has proposed an union between you and his son."

"Between me and his son! (repeated Madeline, involuntarily drawing her hand from her father's, and starting back a few paces)—between me and his son!—and you approved of the proposal!—Oh! my father, is this the felicity you planned for me?—sooner, ten thousand times sooner, would I immure myself for ever within the walls of a cloister, than become the wife of D'Alembert."

"Compose yourself (said St. Julian), you have no cause for the violent emotions you


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/41

 betray. You have always, I hope, found me, in every sense of the word, a parent: you should therefore have restrained your apprehensions, by being convinced I never would urge you to an act directly contrary to your inclinations. But whilst I give this assurance, I also declare that I will not, by rejecting every overture which may be made for your hand, sanction your attachment to an object who ought long since to have been forgotten."

"I solemnly declare (cried Madeline, clasping her hands together), that my repugnance to the union you have proposed, proceeds not entirely from the attachment you allude to."

"From what other cause (demanded St. Julian), can it proceed? you cannot have conceived a dislike against a man you never saw."

Tis true (replied Madeline), I know not the person of D'Alembert, but, I am acquainted with his character." She then briefly related all she had heard concerning


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/42

 him from Floretta and Agatha, the favourite and confidential servants of the Countess de Merville.

"I am shocked, I am astonished (cried St. Julian), at what you tell me; and with you I can readily believe, that the knowledge of his depravity accelerated the death of the mother, and occasioned that of the daughter."

"But had I never been informed of that depravity (resumed Madeline), I should have conceived an unconquerable dislike against him for his indelicacy in proposing for me so soon after his wife's death, and without being in the least degree acquainted with me."

"I own that part of his conduct appeared reprehensible to me (said St. Julian), and I gave my opinion of it to his father. He attempted to justify it by saying, that it was natural so young a man, and one of so domestic a turn as his son, should soon make another choice."


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/43

 "But why let that choice devolve upon an object he had never beheld?" asked Madeline.

"Because a prepossession had been excited in her favour by the eulogiums of his wife; and he entreated his father to hasten to the castle, in order to pave the way for his addresses," St. Julian replied.

"Oh, my father (cried Madeline), I trust you will not delay declaring my utter repugnance to those addresses."

"Depend on me, my love (he said), for taking the earliest opportunity of informing D'Alembert they never can be successful: your grandfather, I hope, will be equally inclined to let you reject them."

"My grandfather! (repeated Madeline); was he then consulted on the subject?"

"So I understand from D'Alembert, and that he highly approved of the projected alliance: he wishes to have the fortunes of the family united."

"The fortunes of the family! (Madeline repeated); and are such the considerations


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/44

 that sway the great world?—Ah! no wonder, if the union of fortunes, not of hearts, is alone considered, that misery, vice, and dissipation from such connexions should ensue."

"I am almost convinced (resumed St. Julian), that the Marquis will not attempt to control your inclinations. But, my dear Madeline, though all idea of a connexion between you and D'Alembert shall on my part be relinquished, from a conviction that it never could promote your happiness, do not flatter yourself that, if a proposal came from an unexceptionable character, I would sanction a second rejection: 'tis not, be assured, from a vain pride of desiring an illustrious name to be continued to posterity, that I wish you to be married—no, 'tis from a wish of ensuring you protection when I shall be no longer able to extend it. I long to lodge my treasure in safe and honourable hands, ere I visit that country, from whose bourn I never shall return."


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/45

 The words of her father opened a new source of disquietude to Madeline, who had flattered herself that her attachment to a single life would never be opposed: and still she tried to sooth her uneasiness by thinking, notwithstanding what he said, her father would never exert an arbitrary power over her.

They continued to walk till dinner time. At table Madeline turned with disgust from D'Alembert, whose looks expressed the utmost exultation. She withdrew almost immediately after dinner, and repaired to the garden, where she continued a considerable time uninterrupted, and deeply meditating on the conversation of the morning. At length she beheld D'Alembert approaching; and the alteration of his countenance convinced her that her father had communicated her sentiments to him.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/46

 She would have passed him in silence, but he prevented her by catching her hand.

"I came hither, Madam (said he in a sullen voice), on purpose to converse with you; I cannot therefore let you depart abruptly."

"Well, Sir (cried Madeline), I am ready to hear whatever you wish to say."

"But will you promise not to hear without regarding it?" demanded he in a gentler tone than he had before used.

"I never make promises I am not certain of fulfilling," replied Madeline.

Tis impossible (said he) to express the mortification, the disappointment, I feel in consequence of your rejection of the proposals which I made this morning; proposals approved by your father, and also sanctioned by the Marquis. Surely (he continued), you should not have rejected them, without being assured that their acceptance never could have contributed to your happiness;


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/47

 an assurance it is impossible you can have from your total ignorance of my son."

"Hopes which cannot be realized, cannot be too soon suppressed," exclaimed Madeline.

"And why, without knowing him, can you be so determined on destroying his hopes? (asked D'Alembert). Only see him—only hear him,—and then reject, if then you can disapprove."

"Was your son (said Madeline) all that the most romantic imagination can conceive of perfection, I would reject him."

"You would!" exclaimed D'Alembert, dropping her hand.

"I would," repeated Madeline.

"Did you ever hear aught against him?" demanded he, again catching her hand, and looking steadily upon her.

"Even supposing any thing could be alleged against him (replied Madeline, wishing to evade this question), in the family of his wife and mother-in-law, was it likely,


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/48

 do you think I should hear any thing to his prejudice?"

Tis evident (said D'Alembert, after musing a few minutes), that your heart is pre-engaged; nothing else could account for your absolute rejection of a man you never saw."

"Nothing else," repeated Madeline involuntarily, and looking in his face.

"No! confess, therefore that what I say, is true."

"Well (cried Madeline), if I do confess that my heart is devoted to another, will you drop all solicitation for your son?"

"No, never," exclaimed he in a furious voice, and with an inflamed countenance.

Madeline now attempted to free her hand. "I insist, Sir (said she), upon your releasing me immediately."

"I will, if you first promise to let my son plead his own cause on coming to the castle."

"Never," cried Madeline with vehemence, and struggling to disengage herself.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/49

 "Are you then indeed inflexible? does that soft bosom really hide an obdurate heart? can no pity influence you to compassionate the pangs my son will feel when he hears of your rejection?"

"I never can feel pity for the pangs of disappointed avarice and ambition (replied Madeline); and avarice and ambition, I am convinced, alone influence your son's addresses to me; for how can he love or admire an object whose virtues he never knew, whose form he never saw? Your persecution, Sir, has forced me to be explicit: drop it, if you wish me to conceal my opinion."

"Insolent girl!" cried D'Alembert, flinging away her hand, and stamping on the ground.

A kind of terror pervaded the breast of Madeline at his violence; and she was hurrying to the castle when he overtook, and again stopped her.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/50

 "Insolent girl! (he repeated, grasping her hand, and looking at her with a fiend-like countenance); but such is the effect which unexpected elevation ever has upon little minds, raised from a cottage to a palace. Your head grows giddy, and you think you may with impunity look down upon the rest of mankind with contempt; you imagine there's nothing to fear;—but beware of indulging such an idea, lest too late you should find it erroneous. The pinnacle of greatness upon which you stand, already totters: beware lest by your conduct you provoke the breath which can in a moment overthrow it."

So saying, he once more flung her hand from him; and, turning into another path, left her abruptly, so much thunderstruck by his words, that for a few minutes she had not power to move. At length recovering her faculties, she condemned herself for weakness in permitting his expressions to affect her; expressions which she could only impute to


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/51

 malice and resentment for her rejection of his son. "He wished (said she), by alarming me, to be revenged in some degree, or else he imagined me weak, and hoped, by raising bugbears to my view, to terrify me to his purpose."

Her contempt and dislike were both increased by these ideas; and she resolved never more, if possible, to avoid it, to listen to his particular conversation.

She hastened to the castle, and in the gallery adjoining her chamber, met her father. "Well (asked he), has D'Alembert declared his disappointment to you? he sought you I know for the purpose of doing so."

"He has (replied Madeline); and I sincerely hope for the last time." She then enquired how her grandfather bore the rejection of his relative.

"As I expected (answered St. Julian); he declared his readiness to relinquish any alliance that accorded not with your inclination."


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/52

 Madeline, without repeating all D'Alembert had said, now acknowledged that she felt herself too much agitated, in consequence of his conversation, to be able to mingle in society again that evening. Her father accordingly promised to apologize for her absence below stairs; and the remainder of the evening she passed alone.


text:
Sharrow v. Brown

Certiorari denied. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.

Reported below: 447 F. 2d 94.

title: Sharrow v. Brown


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/53

CHAP. IV.

ensuing day Madeline was again teased with the importunities of D'Alembert: in vain she assured him her resolution was unalterable, in vain declared, that if his son came to the castle but for the purpose of addressing her, as he intimated, she would confine herself to her chamber. He still continued to persecute her.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/54

 Finding her own arguments ineffectual, she spoke to her father to try his influence. He accordingly remonstrated with D'Alembert; and requested him, in rather a peremptory manner, to drop a subject so unpleasing.

In consequence of this request, she was unmolested with any solicitation the next day; but whenever her eyes encountered D'Alembert, an involuntary terror pervaded her heart at beholding the dark and malignant glances with which he regarded her: she strove, but in vain, to reason herself out of it; and felt, without knowing why, as if she was in his power.

When the hour for rest arrived, she dismissed her attendant; but she, instead of repairing to bed, took up a book, with a hope of being enabled, through its means, to amuse and compose her thoughts. They were too much disturbed, however, to permit this


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/55

 hope to be realised, and she soon threw it aside.

"Unconscious of any crime, unacquainted with D'Alembert almost till the present day, what (she asked herself, trying to reason away her terror), have I to fear from him? nothing on my own account.—(She paused; she mused for a few minutes). But my father—(she trembled, and started)—I know not the mysteries of his life! D'Alembert may not be equally ignorant, and through his heart perhaps intends to aim at mine." The recollected threat of D'Alembert rendered this idea but too probable; and agonies which no tongue could express directly seized her soul.

For some minutes the powers of articulation were suspended. At length, with a deep sigh and uplifted hands, she implored the protection of Heaven. "Trusting in that protection (cried she), which can defeat


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/56

 the malice of the most vile, Oh! let me again endeavour to regain some composure; let me also endeavour not to be too ready in anticipating evil."

She felt still disinclined to sleep, yet gladly would she have closed her eyes upon the gloom of her chamber—a gloom, rendered more awful by the profound stillness of the castle, and which was calculated to inspire ideas not easily to be resisted in the present state of her mind.

In short, imaginary horrors soon began to succeed the real ones that had lately agitated her; yet scarcely was she infected by them ere she blushed from a conviction of weakness, and resolved on going to bed. She began to undress, though with a trembling hand; nor could refrain from starting as the low murmurs of the wind (which now, in the decline of autumn, frequently growled through the forest, and


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/57

 shook the old battlements of the castle) sounded through her chamber.

She had not proceeded far in undressing, when she was suddenly alarmed by the shaking of the tapestry which hung behind the table at which she stood. Appalled, she started back; yet at the next instant was returning, under the idea of its having only been agitated by the wind, when again she saw it raised, and could then perfectly distinguish a human form behind it: with a wild and piercing shriek she instantly fled to the door; but ere her trembling hand could withdraw the rusty bolt, she was rudely seized.

Hopeless of mercy, she attempted not to supplicate it, but closed her eyes, unwilling to behold her executioner; for that a ruffian had secreted himself in her apartment, for the purpose of robbery and murder, she could not doubt.


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/58

 From agonies, which only those who have been in a situation of equal danger can imagine or describe, she was soon however relieved by the voice of D'Alembert.

"Madeline (he cried, as he supported her upon his breast), revive; I come not to injure, but to entreat."

"Oh, heavens! (said she, opening her eyes, and wildly gazing on him), do I hear, do I behold aright?"

"Be composed (exclaimed he), I again entreat you; you have nothing to fear."

"Nothing to fear! (repeated Madeline as she disengaged herself from him), if I have nothing to fear, I have at least much to be offended at. Whence this intrusion, Sir?—Is it right, is it honourable, to steal like a midnight assassin to my chamber?"

"You yourself have compelled me to this conduct (he replied); you refused to hear me, and consequently forced me to devise a scheme to make you listen"


text: Page:The Percy Anecdotes - Volume 7.djvu/10


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/59

 "To make me listen! (repeated Madeline with haughtiness); no, Sir,—no scheme, no stratagem shall effect that purpose. Begone! (cried she, laying her hand upon the door) if you wish to avoid the punishment your temerity deserves."

"Suppress this haughtiness (said he, seizing her hands, and dragging her from the door ere she had power to open it); believe me, like your threats, it is unavailing. Hear me you must—hear me you shall: nay, more, you shall comply with what I desire."

"Never!" exclaimed Madeline in a resolute voice, and struggling to free herself.

"Then you shall tremble for the safety of a father," cried D'Alembert.

Madeline trembled; her heart grew cold; she ceased her struggles, and looked with mingled terror and melancholy upon him.

"Yes; I repeat (said he), you shall tremble for the safety of a father: I am the minister of fate to him; and only your accept-


text:
Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/60

 ance of the proposals of my son can save him from that which now hangs over him."

"What fate that is not happy can he have provoked?" asked Madeline in a faint voice.

"I will not shock your ear (he replied), by divulging to you the one he merits; be satisfied, however, that all I know concerning him, and with the most important events of his life I am acquainted, shall be carefully concealed, if you swear solemnly, swear this minute to accept the hand of my son."

"No, (cried Madeline, after a moment's consideration, during which an idea struck her, that his insinuations against her father might be false, invented merely for the purpose of terrifying her into a promise which could not afterwards be cancelled), I will not swear; I will not take an oath my soul revolts against fulfilling."

"You are determined then," said D'Alembert with a forced calmness, while an ashy paleness stole upon his cheek.