Historical romances

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PR 490O v.l

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

Book I. — Chapter I

Of the Hero's Birth and Parentage. Nothing can differ more from the End of Things than their Beginning.

Mt grandfather, Sir Arthur Devereux (peace be with his ashes!), was a noble old knight and cavalier, possessed of a property sufiSciently large to have maintained in full dignity half-a-dozen peers, — such as peers have been since the days of the First James. Nevertheless, my grandfather loved the equestrian order better than the patrician, rejected all offers of advancement, and left his posterity no titles but those to his estate.

Sir Arthur had two children by wedlock, both sons. At his death my father, the younger, bade adieu to the old hall and his only brother, prayed to the grim portraits of his ancestors to inspire him, and set out — to join as a volunteer the armies of that Louis afterwards surnamed le Grand. Of him I shall say but little ; the life of a soldier has only two events worth recording, — his first campaign and his last. My uncle did as his ancestors had done before him, and, cheap as the dignity had grown, went up to court to be knighted by Charles II. He was so delighted with what he saw of the metropolis that he forswore all intention of leaving, i4,_ took to

VOL. I. — 1

Sedley and Champagne, flirted with Nell Gwynne, lost double the value of his brother's portion at one sitting to the chivalrous Grammont, wrote a comedy corrected by Btherege, and took a wife recommended by Rochester. The wife brought him a child six months after marriage, and the infant was born on the same day the comedy was acted. Luckily for the honor of the house, my uncle shared the fate of Plimneus, King of Sicyon; and all the offspring he ever had (that is to say, the child and the play) " died as soon as they were born." My uncle was now only at a loss what to do with his wife, — that remaining treasure whose readiness to oblige him had been so miraculously evinced. She saved him the trouble of long cogitation, — an exercise of intellect to which he was never too ardently inclined. There was a gentleman of the court celebrated for his sedateness and solemnity; my aunt was piqued into emulating Orpheus, and six weeks after her confinement she put this rock into motion, — they eloped. . Poor gentleman! it must have been a severe trial of patience to a man never known before to transgress the very slowest of all possible walks, to have had two events of the most rapid nature happen to him in the same week: scarcely had he recovered the shock of being run away with by my aunt, before, terminating forever his vagrancies, he was run through by my uncle. The wits made an epigram upon the event; and my uncle, who was as bold as a lion at the point of a sword, was, to speak frankly, terribly disconcerted by the point of a jest. He retired to the country in a fit of disgust and gout. Here his natural goodness soon recovered the effects of the artificial atmosphere to which it had been exposed, and he solaced himself by righteously governing domains worthy of a prince, for the mortifications he had experienced in the dishonorable career of a courtier.

Hitherto I have spoken somewhat slightingly of my uncle, and in his dissipation he deserved it; for he was both too honest and too simple to shine in that galaxy of prostituted genius of which Charles II. was the centre. But in retirement he was no longer the same person; and I do not think that the elements of human nature could have furnished forth a more amiable character than Sir William Devereux presiding at Christmas over the merriment of his great hall.

Good old man! his very defects were what we loved best in him, — vanity was so mingled with good-nature that it became graceful, and we reverenced one the most, while we most smiled at the other.

One peculiarity had he, which the age he had lived in and his domestic history rendered natural enough, — namely, an exceeding distaste to the matrimonial state: early marriages were misery, imprudent marriages idiotism, and marriage, at the best, he was wont to say, with a kindling eye and a heightened color, — marriage, at the best, was the devil ! Yet it must not be supposed that Sir William Devereux was an ungallant man. On the contrary, never did the beau sexe have a humbler or more devoted servant. As nothing, in his estimation, was less becoming to a wise man than matrimony, so nothing was more ornamental than flirtation.

He had the old man's weakness, garrulity; and he told the wittiest stories in the world, without omitting anything in them but the point. This omission did not arise from the«want either of memory or of humor, but solely from a deficiency in the malice natural to all jesters. He could not persuade his lips to repeat a sarcasm hurting even the dead or the ungrateful; and when he came to the drop of gall which should have given zest to the story, the milk of human kindness broke its barrier, despite of himself, and washed it away. He was a fine wreck, a little prematurely broken by dissipation, but not perhaps the less interesting on that account; tall, and somewhat of. the jovial old English girth, with a face where good-nature and good living mingled their smiles and glow. He wore the garb of twenty years back, and was curiously particular in the choice of his silk stockings. Between you and me, he was not a little vain of his leg, and a compliment on that score was always sure of a gracious reception.

The solitude of my uncle's household was broken by an invasion of three boys, — none of the quietest; and their mother, who, the gentlest and saddest of womankind, seemed to follow them, the emblem of that primeval Silence from which all noise was born. These three boys were my two brothers and myself. My father, who had conceived a strong personal attachment for Louis Quatorze, never quitted his service, and the great king repaid him by orders and favors without number; he died of wounds received in battle, — a count and a marshal, full of renown, and destitute of money. He had married twice: his first wife, who died without issue, was a daughter of the noble house of La Tremouille; his second, our mother, was of a younger branch of the English race of Howard. Brought up in her native country, and influenced by a primitive and retired education, she never loved that gay land which her husband had adopted as his own. Upon his death, she hastened her return to England, and, refusing with somewhat of honorable pride the magnificent pension which Louis wished to settle upon the widow of his favorite, came to throw herself and her children upon those affections which she knew they were entitled to claim.

My uncle was unaffectedly rejoiced to receive us. To say nothing of his love for my father, and his pride at the honors the latter had won to their ancient house, the good gentleman was very well pleased with the idea of obtaining four new listeners, out of whom he might select an heir ; and he soon grew as fond of us as we were of him. At the time of our new settlement I had attained the age of twelve ; my second brother (we were twins) was born an hour after me ; my third was about fifteen months younger. I had never been the favorite of the three. In the first place, my brothers (my youngest, especially) were uncommonly handsome, and at most I was but tolerably good-looking; in the second place, my mind was considered as much inferior to theirs as my body. I was idle and dull, sullen and haughty ; the only wit I ever displayed was in sneering at my friends, and the only spirit in quarrelling with my twin brother, — ■ so said or so thought all who saw us in our childhood; and it follows, therefore, that I was either very unamiable or very much misunderstood.

But, to the astonishment of myself and my relations, my fate was now to be reversed, and I was no sooner settled at Devereux Court than I became evidently the object of Sir William's pre eminent attachment. The fact was, that I really liked both the knight and his stories better than my brothers did; and the very first time I had seen my uncle, I had commented on the beauty of his stocking, and envied the constitution of his leg: from such trifles spring affection! In truth, our attachment to each other so increased that we grew to be constantly together; and while my childish anticipations of the world made me love to listen to stories of courts and courtiers, my uncle returned the compliment, by declaring of my wit, as the angler declared of the river Lea, that one would find enough in it if one would but angle sufficiently long.

Nor was this all : my uncle and myself were exceedingly like the waters of Alpheus and Arethusa, — nothing was thrown into the one without being seen very shortly afterwards floating upon the other. Every witticism or legend Sir William imparted to me (and some, to say truth, were a little tinged with the licentiousness of the times he had lived in), I took the first opportunity of retailing, whatever might be the audience ; and few boys at the age of thirteen can boast of having so often as myself excited the laughter of the men and the blushes of the women. This circumstance, while it aggravated my own vanity, delighted my uncle's; and as I was always getting into scrapes on his account, so he was perpetually bound, by duty, to defend me from the charges of which he was the cause. No man defends another long without loving him the better for it; and, perhaps. Sir William Devereux and his eldest nephew were the only allies in the world who had no jealousy of each other.

DEVEEEUX.

CHAPTER IL

A Family Consultation. — A Priest, and an Era in Life.

" You are ruining the children, my dear Sir William," said my gentle mother one day , -when I had been particularly witty ; " and the Abbe Montreuil declares it absolutely necessary that they should go to school."

"To school!" said my uncle, who was caressing his right leg, as it layover his left knee, — "to school, madam! you are joking. What for, pray?"

" Instruction, my dear Sir William," replied my mother.

"Ah, ah! I forgot that; true, true! " said my uncle, despondingly ; and there was a pause. My mother counted her rosary, my uncle sank into a reverie, my twin brother pinched my leg under the table, to which I replied by a silent kick; and my youngest fixed his large, dark, speaking eyes upon a picture of the Holy Family, which hung opposite to him.

My uncle broke silence ; he did it with a start.

" Od's fish, madam" (my uncle dressed his oaths, like himself, a little after the example of Charles II.), — " od's fish, madam, I have thought of a better plan than that; they shall have instruction without going to school for it. "

"And how, Sir William?"

" I will instruct them myself, madam ; " and Sir William slapped the calf of the leg he was caressing.

My mother smiled.

"Ay, madam, you may smile, but I and my Lord Dorset were the best scholars of the age; you shall read my play."

" Do, mother," said I, " read the play. Shall I tell tier some of the jests in it, uncle ? "

My mother shook her head in anticipative horror, and taised her finger reprovingly. My uncle said nothing, but winked at me; I understood the signal, and was about to begin, when the door opened and the Abbd Montreuil entered. My uncle released his right leg, and my jest was cut off. Nobody ever inspired a more dim, religious awe than the Abbe Montreuil. The priest entered with a smile. My mother hailed the entrance of an ally.

"Father," said she, rising, "I have just represented to my good brother the necessity of sending my sons to school; he has proposed an alternative which I will leave you to discuss with him."

"And what is it?" said Montreuil, sliding into a tehair, and patting Gerald's head with a benignant air.

" To educate them himself," answered my mother, with a sort of satirical gravity. My uncle moved uneasily in his seat, as if, for the first time, he saw something ridiculous in the proposal.

The smile, immediately fading from the thin lips of the priest, gave way to an expression of respectful approbation. "An admirable plan," said he, slowly, " but liable to some little exceptions, which Sir Williailk. will allow me to point out."

My mother called to us, and we left the room with h6r. The next time we saw my uncle, the priest's reasonings had prevailed. The following week we all three went to school. My father had been a Catholic, my mother was of the same creed, and consequently we were brought up in that unpopular faith. But my uncle, whose religion had been sadly undermined at court, was a terrible caviller at the holy mysteries of Catholicism; and while his friends termed him a Protestant, his enemies hinted, falsely enough, that he was a sceptic. When Montreuil first followed us to Devereux Court, many and bitter were the little jests my worthy uncle had provided for his reception; and he would shake his head with a notable archness whenever he heard our reverential description of the expected guest. But, somehow or other, no sooner had he seen the priest, than all his purposed railleries deserted him. Not a single witticism came to his assistance, and the calm smooth face of the ecclesiastic seemed to operate upon the fierce resolves of the facetious knight in the same manner as the human eye is supposed to awe into impotence the malignant intentions of the ignobler animals. Yet nothing could be blander than the demeanor of the Abb6 Montreuil, — nothing more worldly, in their urbanity, than his manner and address. His garb was as little clerical as possible, his conversation rather familiar than formal, and he invariably listened to every syllable the good knight uttered, with a countenance and mien of the most attentive respect.

What then was the charm by which this singular man never failed to obtain an ascendancy, in some measure allied with fear, over all in whose company he was thrown ? That was a secret my uncle never could solve, and which only in later life I myself was able to discover. It was partly by the magic of an extraordinary and powerful mind, partly by an expression of manner, if I may use such a phrase, that seemed to sneer most when most it affected to respect; and partly by an air like that of a man never exactly at his ease : not that he was shy, or ungraceful, or even taciturn, — no! it was an indescribable embarrassment, resembling that of one playing a part, familiar to him, indeed, but somewhat distasteful. This embarrassment, however, was sufficient to be contagious, and to confuse that dignity in others which, strangely enough, never forsook himself.

He was of low origin, but his address and appearance did not betray his birth. Pride suited his mien better than familiarity; and his countenance, rigid, thoughtful, and cold, even through smiles, in expression was strikingly commanding. In person he was slightly above the middle standard; and had not the texture of his frame been remarkably hard, wiry, and muscular, the total absence of all superfluous flesh would have given the lean gauntness of his figure an appearance of almost spectral emaciation. In reality, his age did not exceed twenty-eight years; but his high, broad forehead was already so marked with line and furrow, his air was so staid and quiet, his figure so destitute of the roundness and elasticity of youth, that his appearance always impressed the beholder with the involuntary idea of a man considerably more advanced in life. Abstemious to habitual penance , and regular to mechanical exactness in his frequent and severe devotions, he was as little inwardly addicted to the pleasures and pursuits of youth as he was externally possessed of its freshness and its bloom,

Nor was gravity with him that unmeaning veil to imbecility which Eochefoucauld has so happily called " the mystery of the body." The variety and depth of his learning fully sustained the respect which his demeanor insensibly created. To say nothing of his

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Best Image Available lore in the dead tongues, he possessed a knowledge of the principal European languages besides his own, — namely, English, Italian, German, and Spanish, — not less accurate and little less fluent than that of a native ; and he had not only gained the key to these various coffers of intellectual wealth, but he had also possessed himself of their treasures. He had been educated at St. Omer; and, young as he was, he had already acquired no inconsiderable reputation among his brethren of that illustrious and celebrated Order of Jesus which ha^^ produced some of the worst and some of the best me that the Christian world has ever known, — which h in its successful zeal for knowledge, and the circulatme of mental light, bequeathed a vast debt of gratitude lposterity; but which, unhappily encouraging certain scholastic doctrines, that by a mind at once subtle and vicious can be easily perverted into the sanction of the most dangerous and systematized immorality, has already drawn upon its professors an almost universal odium.

So highly established was the good name of Montreuil, that when, three years prior to the time of which I now speak, he had been elected to the office he held in our family, it was scarcely deemed a less fortunate occurrence for us to gain so learned and so pious a preceptor than it was for him to acquire a situation of such trust and confidence in the household of a Marshal of France, and the especial favorite of Louis XIV.

It was pleasant enough to mark the gradual ascendancy he gained over my uncle, and the timorous dislike which the good knight entertained for him, yet struggled to conceal. Perhaps that was the only time in his life in which Sir William Devereux was a hypocrite.

Enough of the priest at present, — I return to his charge. To school we went. Our parting with our uncle was quite pathetic, — mine in especial. " Hark ye, Sir Count," whispered he (I bore my father's title), — " hark ye, don't mind what the old priest tells you; your real man of wit never wants the musty lessons of schools in order to make a figure in the world. Don't cramp your genius, my boy; read over my play, and honest George Etherege's ' Man of Mode ; ' they '11 keep your spirits alive, after dozing over those old pages *• which Homer (good soul!) dozed over before. God bless ^■^lu, my child; write to me, — no one, not even your +r^ ther, shall see your letters; and — and be sure, my £^j fellow, that you don't fag too hard. The glass of i -Tjis the best book, and one's natural wit the only g^]y<aaond that can write legibly on it." y Such were my uncle's parting admonitions ; it must oe confessed that, coupled with the dramatic gifts alluded to, they were likely to be of infinite service to the debutant for academical honors. In fact, Sir William Devereux was deeply impregnated with the notion of his time, that ability and inspiration were the same thing, and that, unless you were thoroughly idle, you could not be thoroughly a genius. I verily believe that he thought wisdom got its gems, as Abu Zeid al Hassan ' declares some Chinese philosophers thought oysters got their pearls, — namely, by gwping I

I In his Commentary on the Account of China by Two Travellers,

Chapter III

A Change in Conduct and in Character. — Our evil Passions will sometimes produce good Effects ; and, on the contrary, an Alteration for the better in Manners wiU, not unfrequently, have amongst its Causes a little Corruption of Mind ; for the Feelings are so blended that, in suppressing those disagreeable to others, we often suppress those which are amiable in themselves.

Mt twin brother, Gerald, was a tall, strong, handsome boy, blessed with a great love for the orthodox academical studies, and extraordinary quickness of ability. Nevertheless, he was indolent by nature, — in things which were contrary to his taste, — fond of pleasure, and amidst all his personal courage ran a certain vein of irresolution, which rendered it easy for a cool and determined mind to awe or to persuade him. I cannot help thinking, too, that, clever as he was, there was something commonplace in the cleverness; and that his talent was of that mechanical yet quick nature which makes wonderful boys, but mediocre men. In any other family he would have been considered the beauty ; in ours he was thought the genius.

My youngest brother, Aubrey , was of a very different disposition of mind and frame of body: thoughtful, gentle, susceptible, acute; with an uncertain bravery, like a woman's , and a taste for reading that varied with the caprice of every hour. He was the beauty of the three, and my mother's favorite. Never, indeed, have I seen the countenance of man so perfect, so glowingly yet delicately handsome, as that of Aubrey Devereux.

Locks, soft, glossy, and twining into ringlets, fell in dark profusion over a brow whiter than marble; his eyes were black and tender, as a Georgian girl's; his lips, his teeth, the contour of his face, were all cast in the same feminine and faultless mould ; his hands would have shamed those of Madame de la Tisseur, whose lover offered six thousand marks to any European who could wear her glove ; and his figure would have made Titania give up her Henchman, and the King of the Fairies be anything but pleased with the exchange.

Such were my two brothers, — or, rather (so far as the internal qualities are concerned) , such they seemed to me : for it is a singular fact that we never judge of our near kindred so well as we judge of others ; and I appeal to any one, whether, of all people by whom he has been mistaken, he has not been most often mistaken by those with whom he was brought up.

I had always loved Aubrey, but they had not suffered him to love me ; and we had been so little together that we had in common none of those childish remembrances which serve, more powerfully than all else in later life, to cement and soften affection. In fact, I was the scapegoat of the family. What I must have been in early childhood, I cannot tell; but before I was ten years old, I was the object of all the despondency and evil forebodings of my relations. My father said I laughed at la gloire et le grand monarque, the very first time he attempted to explain to me the value of the one and the greatness of the other. The countess said I had neither my father's eye nor her own smile ; that I was slow at my letters, and quick with my tongue; and throughout the whole house nothing was so favorite a topic as the extent of my rudeness, and the venom of my repartee. Montreuil, on his entrance into our family, not only fell in with, but favored and fostered the reigning humor against me, — whether from that divide et impera system which was so grateful to his temper, or from the mere love of meddling and intrigue, which in him, as in Alberoni, attached itself equally to petty as to large circles, was not then clearly apparent; it was only certain that he fomented the dissensions and widened the breach between my brothers and myself. Alas! after all, I believe my sole crime was my candor. I had a spirit of frankness, which no fear could tame, and my vengeance for any infantine punishment was in speaking veraciously of my punishers. Never tell me of the pang of falsehood to the slandered ; nothing is so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth !

As I grew older, I saw my power, and indulged it; and, being scolded for sarcasm, I was flattered into believing I had wit; so I punned and jested, lampooned and satirized, till I was as much a torment to others as I was tormented myself. The secret of all this was that I was unhappy. Nobody loved me. I felt it to my heart of hearts. I was conscious of injustice, and the sense of it made me bitter. Our feelings, especially in youth, resemble that leaf which, in some old traveller, is described as expanding itself to warmth, but, when chilled, not only shrinking and closing, but presenting to the spectator thorns which had lain concealed upon the opposite side of it before.

With my brother Gerald I had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. He was much stouter, taller, and stronger than myself; and, far from conceding to me that respect which I imagined my priority of birth entitled me to claim, he took every opportunity to deride my pretensions, and to vindicate the cause of the superior strength ind vigor which constituted his own. It would have lone your heart good to have seen us cuff one another, we did it with such zeal. There is nothing in human passion like a good brotherly hatred! My mother said, with the most feeling earnestness, that she used to feel us fighting even before our birth ; we certainly lost no time directly after it. Both my parents were secretly vexed that T had come into the world an hour sooner than my brother; and Gerald himself looked upon it as a sort of juggle, — a kind of jockeyship by which he had lost the prerogative of birthright. This very early rankled in his heart; and he was so much a greater favorite than myself, that, instead of rooting out so unfortunate a feeling on his part, my good parents made no scruple of openly lamenting my seniority. I believe the real cause of our being taken from the domestic instructions of the abb^ (who was an admirable teacher) and sent to school, was solely to prevent my uncle deciding everything in my favor. Montreuil, however, accompanied us to our academy, and remained with us during the three years in which we were perfecting ourselves in the blessings of education.

At the end of the second year, a prize was instituted for the best proficient at a very severe examination ; two months before it took place we went home for a few days. After dinner my uncle asked me to walk with him in the park. I did so: we strolled along to the margin of a rivulet which ornamented the grounds. There my uncle, for the first time, broke silence.

" Morton," said he, looking down at his left leg, — " Morton, let me see, thou art now of a reasonable age, — fourteen at the least. "

"Fifteen, if it please you, sir," paid I, ejeyating my stature as much as I was able.

" Humph ! my boy ; and a pretty time of life it is, too. Your brother Gerald is taller than you by two inches."

" But I can beat him for all that, uncle," said I, coloring, and clinching my fist.

My uncle pulled down his right ruffle. " 'Gad so, Morton, you 're a brave fellow," said he; "but I wish you .were less of a hero and more of a scholar. I wish you could beat him in Greek as well as in boxing. I will tell you what Old Eowley said ; " and my uncle occupied the next quarter of an hour with a story. The story opened the good old gentleman's heart, — my laughter opened it still more. " Hark ye, sirrah! " said he, pausing abruptly, and grasping my hand with a vigorous effort of love and muscle, — " hark ye, sirrah: I love you, — 'sdeath, I do. I love you better than, both your brothers, and that crab of a priest into thebargain ; but I am grieved to the heart to hear what I do of you. They tell me you are the idlest boy in theschool, — that you are always beating your brother Gerald, and making a scurrilous jest of your mother ormyself."

" Who says so? who dares say so? " said I, with an, emphasis that would have startled a less hearty man, than Sir William Devereux. "They lie, uncle; by my soul, they do. Idle I am, — quarrelsome with my brother I confess myself; but jesting at you or my mother, — never, never! No, no; you, too, who have been so kind to me , — the only one who ever was ! No, no ; do not think I could be such a wretch ! " and as I said this the tears gushed from my eyes.