Evenings in the Pyrenées; comprising the stories of wanderers from many lands. Edited and arranged by S. Bunbury

Preface

. In presenting this volume of Stories to the public, I feel called upon to say a word to my own little world — the circle of partial friends and readers whose approbation has been all the fame I ever desired. They will, perhaps, in vain seek to recognise my style of writing in them. I have no wish to appear but as the Editor. In some instances their authors received the emoluments of their productions before these reached my

PREFACE.

. hands. There have been other cases in which they might have said to me, as the Albanian chief did to Lord Byron — " I wish you to love me, but not to pay me." One word more — at least a few more — not to my private, but to my public friends — the Critics ; for friends they have always been to me — though unknown and myste rious ones. I know not why, but no Critic — I never saw one, I think, in my life — ever thought me worthy of an assault, save one, about half a century ago, who compared me both to Mr. Cobbett, and to a Parrot. Poor man ! being an anonymous scribbler, he never guessed that I was only a woman ! This mistake can exist no longer : and, in truth, my chivalrous reviewers have always been so gentle, that I beheve one of them would feel as much compunction in raising a pen against me, as Robert Burns did when crushing the daisy with his ploughshare.

PREFACE.

. IX I do truly declare this my conviction, because I do not wish it to be thought that I had my Book criticised before it was printed, in order to escape their censures, when my only object was to save them trouble. I had no other motive, as will be plain from the truthfulness of the critiques ; for, as all my friends at Madame Parado's knew, I am no advocate for puffing, in any shape ; and a brother-scribe gave me a fore warning lecture on the dishonesty of puffing one's-self; so I set down the criticisms good, bad, or indifferent, just as they were pronounced. Of course I shall still be most sensible of any gentle Critic's favouring breath ; but I suppose I must be satisfied, if the public voice reiterates the verdicts pronounced around the hospitable hearth of the amiable Madame Parado.

CONTENTS. PACK Introductory Address xv Evening the First .... 1 La Donzelle ; or The Hunter of the Pyrenees and the Fair Bearnaise. Evening the Second .... 55 Hedwig. A Simple Swedish Story. By the Count de B . Evening the Third .... 85 The Courier's Story of Mademoiselle Geraldine. Evening the Fourth . . . . 162 The Wolf-Fight. A Tale of Brittany. Evening the Fifth . . . . 192 Souvenirs of the Veteran of the Empire. A French Story. Evening the Sixth .... 213 The Heiress of Morelands. An Irish Story. ILLUSTRATIONS. The Engravings in this work are executed by Mr. Edward Palmer's Patent Glyphographic Process. Artist. Page. Frontispiece. — Senhor Jose and the Veteran Me Gahey. La Donzelle. Head-piece ..... Jones. 3 Meeting of Lucile and Elise . . Oliver. 15 Hedwig. Head-piece ..... Anelay. 55 Wood of Births Jones. 70 The Courier's Story.

Courier and Geraldine . . . Hulme. 85 Geraldine's Arrival at her Grandfather's Hulme. 93 Chamber of Mourning . . . Hulme. 156 The "Wolf-Fight. Head-piece ...... Anelay. 162 The Fight Anelay. 184 Souvenirs of the Veteran. Head-piece Anelay. 193 Death of Eugene .... Anelay. 207 The Heiress of Morelands. Head-piece Anelay. 209 The Abduction .... Jones. 241 The Denouement .... Jones. Gentle Reader, have you ever read an erudite book called "Rides in the Pyrenees?" "No." Alack a-day ! how am I then to acquaint you with the origin of these Stories of which I style myself the Editor, although in truth I have been the translator also 1 Since I wrote the above question I have, most truly* sat in a perplexing cogitation. The pen was suspended, for that little negative had placed me at a full stop. I knew not how to go on.

Suddenly my genius came brigUtly to my side, and solved the difficulty ; whispering in my ear, " Why not presume that all the world has read your book, and if you will, has liked it too ?" Excellent sprite ! I thank thee ! I seize the sugges tion ; after all one of tUe most Uarmless of an author's presumptions ; since without inflicting the penalty of a perusal on any human being, it renders him perfectly satisfied with himself, with the state of Uterature, with the public— sUall we say with the publishers ? — this is always a doubtful case. However, acting on this presumption, I shall get myself out of a difficulty, which I am always glad to do as quickly as possible : and concluding that you, most gentle readers, have, as one of my critics grace fully said, accompanied myself and my pony " word for word, step for step," during my sweet Pyrenean rides, I will only recal to your memories the following paragrapU, taken from the already printed pages that stole out into this book-ladeu world, when I had ceased to gaze on its material beauties and wonders, or to revel in day-dreams that were unbroken by any vision of the horrors of authorship.

" There are many pleasant little excursions to be made about Bagneres ; but what I found almost plea santer, from their novelty, was, the singular little re unions that took place almost every evening in the house of my simple, good-humoured landlady. " It was an apartment that opened directly upon the street, and being very accessible, was unceremoniously entered, not only by her lodgers, who dropped in to enjoy the benefits of the fire, which, though the even ings were very cold, (the mornings being very warm,) were not yet introduced elsewhere — but also by many variously conditioned beings, who, however de trop in other places, seemed sure of a welcome to the wide hearth of the amiable Madame Parado. " There I sometimes saw the shivering, half-starved Spanish Abbe, who, driven from his own land, house ess, homeless moneyless,— allowed the Cathedral Priests some hours longer repose, by rising at "the point of day," when its bell tolled to teU all sleepers it was time to pray : and made up for his lost repose by dosing half the day, and all tlie evening in the chimney corner. * s>p * * * * * " Then there was the military Commandant, with his bluff manner, and stories of bombast and wonder (and yet a man of reading and talent too).

And the sturdy "Veteran of the Empire," who could prove that "the Emperor" never lost a battle, not even that of Waterloo, though the deceived EngUsh people thought so. — And there was the voluble Frenchwoman, whose voice was worse to me than the military din that sometimes roared in my ear ; and there was the pretty wife of the French Colonel, who occupied the first suite of our apartments. Senhor Jose', myself, and my first Spanish acquaintance, introductory address. who helped me to find out my habitation, were often mingled up in these various ingredients." So ends the extract from my "Rides;" but in addition to this charming coterie in Madame Parado's — I was going to write— kitchen — but the word would be terrible to read— do not blush for me, reader — yet I fear Madame's red cheeks would become redder than her crimson head-dress, were I to turn it into boudoir— so call it what you please— apartment, in France, is a good sort of nondescript term.

Well, in Madame Parado's apartment then, there were many other occasional dramatis personte, who, in the Ught manner and matter of my Pyrenean Rides, I ventured not to make more pubbc cUaracters than fate and fortune had already made them ; but whom I am now at Uberty to introduce. For having received their autho rization " to publisU or to burn" their contributions to my amusement on these evenings in the Pyrenees, exactly as my own judgment directs, and haviug, from a natural antipathy to conflagrations, determined on the former course, I am at liberty to talk about these un mentioned personages ; the author of that simple little story, " Hedwig," for example ; a fine mustachioed, and not very elderly gentleman, full of aristocratic bearing, and telling of the time when he had made his dinner of a few roasted chestnuts, whUe, as he stole them to his hungry lips, the fine Frenchman with whom he was that same evening to " assist" at a brilliant soiree, or bal masque', would pleasantly remark, " Ah ! vous aimez done les chataignes pour dessert."* Then there was the little IrisU authoress, with her droll adventures ; — a merry little old thing she was, and clever too, though she was all drab — drab-coloured clothes, bonnet and all — drab hair, drab eyes, com plexion — all was drab.

She told me she dressed in drab, because a gentleman, who had made a continental trip, desired her to take nothing with her when she set forth on her travels, but an overall dress of brown holland. Then there was a most important person, the Courier, Francisco, with whom, as related in my never-to-be forgotten Rides, I travelled to Paris, and whom I have met in almost every corner of the world where I have since been — even in Regent street the other day. He must be introduced into our Pyrenean evenings with his interesting story of the fair Geraldine. And there was another, I know not to what country he belonged, I asked no questions about him, for I thought him so uncommonly like the Duke of Welling ton, tUat I believe I fell into tUe habit of thinking he * Ah ! you like chestnuts for dessert.

XX introductory address. actually was so ; and whenever I made any mental reference to him, then, or since, I always called him " the Duke." Well, it was into this kit — I mean apartment — that I entered one evening with my companion, on returning from a very cold and uninteresting promenade on the Coustous, just to warm my fingers in the light of the blazing wood, for to get within reach of its heat required some resolution ; the poor Abbe being fast asleep in one corner, the Commandant puffing the smoke of his pipe up the chimney at the other, and the front screened by the Colonel's wife and her spoiled child, the Employe, and the Courier. A post beside a sleeping, or a smoking man, is nearly equally disagreeable ; so I was about to retreat, when one and all — with the exception of the Abbe, who only expressed his attempt at pohteness by something Uke a snore — sprung up to soUcit my advance ; the Com mandant affirming that he had a story to tell me which I would certainly put into my book, for he knew I would make a book on the Pyrenees.

" Tell me stories, and I shall see if they are worth making into a book," said I, at once approaching. " Oh ! it is about — about — a mysterious person I travelled with," said the sly Commandant, having now got me into a seat : and he nodded his head towards the Priest, and pointed his finger downwards to imply that he dare not pronounce the name of the mysterious person. " Ah ! if you mean a Mephistophiles story, it may be untold ;" I replied. " Leave it to tUe Germans ; one nation of Satanic story-tellers is enough : if you have had no more interesting fellow-traveller, I do not care to hear of your travels, and will not crowd you Uere this evening." The young Spaniard had been fumbling in the pocket of his waistcoat, and before the Commandant could reply, he drew out a pretty little bijou, known by the names of a gage a" amour — a love-token — a pensez-a-moi — or forget-me-not.

Madame, he thought, would prefer such a story as was connected with that gage d'amour which had been given to his sister when returning from Pau in the dihgence, by a female fellow-traveller. " Tell it, then," said the Commandant, in a com mandant's tone, "or Madame will retreat ; you see she is on the qui vive." The Employe rephed, "that he would relate the manner in which that little love-token came into his possession, but that thereby hung a tale, which he had written, because— because— he had in fact a taste for writing ; and as he should be « glorious" of Madame's approbation, he would read it, when he had verbally related the introductory part." We were all taken by surprise. " Well," said Senhor Jose', who had perhaps other subjects for meditation, " I will be a listener." " And I"—" and I "— " and I," said several voices.

"And Madame,"— cried tUe seldom-silent Command ant—" will, I know, be the editor ; and Monsieur 1' Abbe shall be the critic ! Bravo ! if ever I write may I have such another !" "No, no!" I interposed, fearful that finally it might devolve on me to utter the critic's snarl; "whoever among us is utterly unable to do anything else, shall criticise. " Well, do you not see the Abbe is fast asleep ?" " Yes ; but he cannot even criticise in his sleep : I mean those who will neither read the stories, nor write them — nor listen to tUem." " Oh! let me be the critic," said the Duke's resemblance. "Agreed!" we all said. And the young Spaniard turning round and round the little Forget-me-not, with a solemn look, lifted Uis very expressive eyes to the Duke's countenance, and gravely remarked, " that if he never read and never wrote stories, he thought he would listen to the one he was going to relate :" where upon the Duke assured him, "he liked a good story very much, and was most admirably adapted for a critic's office."

Thus, then, commenced my " Evenings in the Pyre nees ;" for, if it be true that one step leads to another, doubly true it is, that one Story leads to another. Of which saying my friends and readers will Uave a verifi cation in tUis Book. And I can assure tUem that the story of this gage d' amour is no fiction ; it occurred really, and word for word, almost as related. I had proof of this, and the little bijou is now in my writing case at Frankfort, being my reward — one of my rewards at least, for the trouble I have had in editing and arranging these variously told stories. So now, my part being acted, I retire, thankful, that all these stories being ready criticised, neither they, their unknown authors, nor their humble Editor, will have again to undergo that operation. " My two sisters are religieuses," said the employe', looking again at the bijou ; " it is a good provision for women without fortune.

My third was intended for such, also, by my father; but she is an esprit fort ; and after having been educated without charge in a convent, she would not take the vows. I was sent to bring her home. Poor girl, she was sadly frightened at the idea of the reception she might meet there. As we were in the diligence coming from Pau, I endeavoured to reassure her ; and to convince her that our affections would remain to her still. In her distress and my urgency, I took her hand, and pressed it between mine ; trying to look at her concealed face, and whispering assurances of unabated affection. A woman who had been sitting, unnoticed by us, in the upper corner of the vehicle, suddenly started forward, and, addressing herself to my sister, said, with some wildness of manner : — a " Do you believe him ?"

The girl not knowing what to make of the question, was silent ; and I perceived at once that I had been mistaken for a lover pleading for myself. " If you believe him," cried our strange fellow-traveller, " give him this," and she drew from her bosom this gage d'amour, broke it rudely from the little gold chain that secured it, and thrust it into my sister's hand, with the significant words, "My lover gave it me." She meant her to receive it as a warning. My simple sister, not understanding this, looked at the bijou for a moment, and returned it, only saying it was very pretty. " You will not have it !" the owner exclaimed, and raising her hand, flung it, as we all thought, from the window ; but it fell upon tUe seat, and wUen she had left us I found, and still keep it, in remembrance of the person, and the story I afterwards heard.

" When she had, as she thought, thrown it away, she drew out a long rosary, and putting one end in my sister's hand, said ' Prions Dieu !' and lay back with her eyes closed, as if in devotion. " It was the time of the pilgrimage to Betharram, and at that chapel she disappeared ; we went on from Lestelle to Argelez alone ; and at Argelez, as I had leave of absence to explore the charming Val d'Azun, I left the diligence also, and proceeded on foot through thai most lovely vale. Here I again met, and became acquainted with our rather singular fellow-traveller ; who is the heroine of the story I shall now read to you." £>torp ti)t first. LA DONZELLE,* OR THE HUNTER OF THE PYRENEES AND THE FAIR BEARNAISE. ILISE was left at an early age motherless, and the mistress of her father's house, who, unlike most persons in a similar situation, never married, or seemed to think of marrying again.

That house, situated in one of the sweetest pots of the sweet Val in, was of a description in a district whose in- ' a class, which in English )y the term small farm ers ; some of them very small indeed ; yet the * " The Bridesmaid," in Pyrenean parlance. a2 poverty so conspicuous in many other parts of the Pyrenees, is there comparatively unknown : the poor, who possess no land of their own, finding board, lodging, and pretty good wages in the houses of the farmers during the winter, when, shut up by the snow, they pursue the busy household labours always appropriated to that season. The numerous occupations of female life in the Pyre nees, might render Elise just wUat nature seemed to have meant her to be, a hardy, active, sensible young woman. Like her neighbours, she shared in all the la bours of the field, the flock, and the vineyard ; and walking by the way, sitting at her fire, or talking be neath the shadow of vine-wreathed chesnuts, she twirled her distaff, or phed her knitting needles, with the same constant, unremitting, regular assiduity.

Higher up in the sweet valley in which her beautifully situated, though very modest habitation, lay, or rather among the lovely mountains that bound it, and with their varied forms, their equally varied colourings, their Ughts and shadows, constitute its charms and interest, there, just on the slope of a mountain that over looked the white house of EUse with its verger, its or chard studded with large rocks, and carpetted with moss-Uke turf, stood a chaumiere, or, in plain EngUsh, a cabin, of a far meaner description : it was in fact only occupied by a shepherd who tended the flocks and fields of an inhabitant of Argelez, a man whose infirm health and easy circumstances rendered him a very unfrequent visitor in the mountains. This man, who kept what is called a magazin, or more modestly, a shop, in the town of Argelez, was left a widower about the same time as the father of EUse ; but he quickly found another wife, and his only child, Pierre Perigord, unhappily experienced the fate generally supposed to be that of a step-child.

Rendered unhappy at home, the boy was glad to be allowed to retreat to the mountain cot ; neglected by his father, he contrived to manage for himself, and became a hardy and active mountaineer. Through the day he chased the izzard and sought the sheep-prowhng bear ; his light foot crossed the glacier, and his bright, quick eye was the first to discern the haunts of the chasseurs' prey. Then, with a firm step and a light heart, he was often seen to descend the mountain path, bearing around his neck the lifeless izzard, or dragging in triumph with his young companions the slaughtered bear or wolf. And his spoils were always cast down at the door of Elise, at her hearth was a home for the wandering boy, and he told his adventures while she twirled her distaff or pursued her knitting. Elise was four years older tUan Pierre Perigord, and he regarded her perhaps with the love and confidence he might have felt for a mother, had he ever known that sacred relation.

During a part of the time I have to speak of, there was, however, another claimant on the love and tenderness of our busy and well-employed Elise. A little delicate cousin, left an orphan at four years of age, became her charge, when she herself was only twelve years old, and engrossed all the warm and deep affections which the nature of Elise possessed, though these were of an order to be felt by the objects of her love, rather than known to or observed by the persons of her common acquaintance. While a child herself she became as a mother and nurse to the younger orphan, whose deUcate health and timid disposition still more increased her claims on the tenderness of her guardian. After having been for eight years her charge or com panion, little Lucile, who in her twelfth year was still a pale, timid, and deUcate child, was removed from EUse in order to reside with an aunt who had fixed her abode at Pau ; and a family feud having occurred with the father of the latter, the separation proved a total one, and nearly all intercourse ended between Elise and her child.

For some time EUse remained rather restless and uneasy in the loneliness caused by the absence of the object of her cares ; the child had become almost necessary to her, and she felt the want of a love so long and affectionately shown to her. It is a dangerous thing for a woman to feel this void left in her affections, if an object capable of supplying it is thrown in her way. Pierre Perigord filled up gradually the blank that little Lucile had left, and by degrees Elise gave to him all the love that that child had possessed, and a thousand-fold over and above that amount. On his part Pierre never could teU, or even know, when, how, or why, he first came to think of EUse as his wife : it was a thought habitual as any of daily life ; he had never fancied a home wherein Elise did not pursue her busy labours, a hearth where she did not pile the faggots, and twirl her distaff in their blaze.

Yet time wore on, months and even years passed away, and Pierre did not think of hastening the nuptial day. Elise had passed her twenty-sixth year, and he his twenty-second, when it was somehow at last determined on. La corbeille de noces was ready, the rin» was bought, fitted on, and actually committed to the charge of the careful bride elect, when the conducteur of the diligence dropped at Argelez a little billet for Elise ; it came from her once dearest Lucile, to inform her of her aunt's visit to Les Eaux Bonnes, and to entreat she would contrive some mode of ge'tting her to Azun. EUse was very glad, and she showed as much joy as her habits usually permitted, at this opportune arrival of her cherished girl ; and Pierre, who was im mediately consulted on the occasion, readily agreed to take his pony over the mountain by the Col de Tortes for the purpose of conveying Lucile from Eaux Bonnes, to be the donzelle, or bridesmaid, of his fiance'e. It is the constant boast of Frenchmen that they pre eminently possess " complaisance pour les dames ;" but I believe, if the truth were known, the young chasseur feared that his complaisance would be a little too hardly taxed by the lady he had to convey over this rough and difficult pass ; for he had a tolerably distinct idea of Lucile as a delicate, pale-faced, timid girl, one less able to ford a mountain torrent, a less intrepid cavaliere, in short, altogether a more good-for-nothing sort of thing, than his own hardy, active EUse, and one therefore who might prove to him a troublesome charge, if not a wea risome burthen in making such a trajdt.

Arrived at Eaux Bonnes he put up the pony, and went to the house where he had Lucile' s address. He entered an apartment which a young woman had just entered before him. Pierre drew back on seeing her, looked rather awkward for a Frenchman, apologised, and said he sought Mademoiselle Lucile. " C'est moi," said the girl, smiling ; " are you Pierre?" Pierre Ueld his berret in his hand, and the boldness of the Pyrenean hunter was strangely overcome in the absence of all apparent danger : he really knew not what he did or what he said. Reared almost in solitude, accustomed only to see the hardy, weather-beaten women of his mountain district, whose complexions, soon withered, give them the aspect of premature age, and whose figures, and perhaps, as a natural consequence, whose minds, are rendered coarse and rude by the nature of the fives they lead ; Pierre felt himself gazing in stupid or awkward astonishment on the lovely girl in whose fair face and pretty figure he could trace no resemblance to his idea of the Uttle Lucile.

Lucile was of that description of beauty sometimes seen at Pau, never, I believe, among the females of the Hautes Pyrenees, where a blue, or even a grey eye is ex tremely rare. Her complexion was even brilUantly fair ; her colour not deep, yet glowing, her eyes, much of the colour of the forget-me-not, were only rendered suffi ciently dark by the shadow of the long dark brown lashes that increased the soft tenderness of expression which gave them their principal charm. Her dress, too, was so different from that of the women he was accustomed to, so unlike that of poor Elise ; it was that commonly seen at Pau, on Sundays and holidays. A handkerchief of pale transparent blue Barege, wound tightly round the head, but so as to display, rather than conceal, its contour, and even to indicate clearly the quantity of rich hair that formed a fine plaited circle at its back ; curiously and gracefully tied at one side, it falls in one long end at the other, reaching even to the neck, fringed with white, or exhibiting a handsome border.

Lucile had just returned from walking, and a large Barege shawl of pure unmixed white, was arranged over her pretty robe, with a simple grace, that would not perhaps be rivalled by a practised modiste. Pierre was not deficient in personal appearance ; his figure might seem more formed for agiUtythan strength, yet the latter had been well tried ; his features perhaps were rather sharp, but his large dark eyes were quick and bright ; the curling whiskers, and slightly-marked moustache, gave character to a countenance that was naturally expressive and animated ; the dark curls of his hair hung beneath the deep crimson berret, which being after the Pyrenean mode, worn low back on the head, displayed instead of concealing a fine, open, and intelli gent forehead ; then his dark jacket, not quite in the form of the sailor's, was made after a fashion more calculated for a really good figure ; and tfie red Bearnaise sash, and the light sandalled shoe, with its hempen sole for traversing the mountains, giving elasticity and lightness to a step already buoyant from youth and health, were parts of the costume of his country or his employment, which were not at all unbecoming to the young chasseur.

Yet Pierre Perigord felt that he was in the presence of one so much above him, that he scarcely dared to regard her ; one so unlike all he had ever been in society with, that he could recall no idea of a former acquaintance. What singular changes will a few years make ! But his embarrassment was far from affecting Lucile ; she thought it natural to the young mountaineer, and it caused her to chat more familiarly with him than she might have done had his manner been bolder, and she questioned him about Elise, and about sundry old remembrances connected with Azun and Argelez, not omitting in her inquiries the great old dog, on whose back her careful friend used to hold her for a ride in her early days, and the little foundling lambs, that they nursed in the or chard and \ineyard ; familiar thoughts to Pierre Peri gord, and a mode of discourse that soon familiarized him with the pretty speaker ; though the things, and scenes, and times of which she spoke had never been associated a in his mind with one thought of the sickly girl, for whom he had felt no great affection or interest ; and while he yet felt the effect of her beauty, he had ceased to consider her as a being of another sphere, when her aunt came in, and Lucile presented him as the fiance of her cousin Elise.