The conspirators; or, The romance of military life ...

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>7

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

CHAPTER II. How fares Joanna^ that wild-hearted maid?

Wordsworth.

Beyond the first peep of daylight, Joanna was not allowed to rest in peace. The grand anniversary set all the household in motion, and dreadful to her ears was the note of preparation for the festival. But Ignatia arose at the first summons.

*^ Soon as the sun along the skies Had sent his ruddy hght^ And fairies hid in cowsHp leaves Till wished approach of night.

The matin bell with shrilly sound

Re-echoed through the air ; A troop of holy friars did

For Jesus' mass prepare,"

VOL. II. B

The sound of a chapeJ-bell was a voice to whose call Ignatia was never disobedient ; but she had some difficulty in making Joanna conform to her example. As soon as their simple toilet was completed, they offered up their orisons in Saint Meinrad's chapel, and then commenced their descent of Mount Etzel towards the alpine valley of the Sil.

The approach to this place of reverence is

at once grand and soothing : the mountains of

Glaris, of all imaginable shapes, presenting the

> most impressive views.

*^ 'Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine Between interminable tracts of pine, A temple stands which holds an awful shrine, Einsiedeln's fane !"*

The green open valley of the Sil is of the most pastoral character, dotted with numerous wooden huts, and well stocked with small cattle, whose many tinkling bells now made ungrateful music to Joanna's ear. She had sufficient recollection of the preceding day's mischances to deter her from any further approach to familiarity with

* Wordsworth.

the gregarious tribes, but she made amends to herself for this forbearance by chattering to every biped — man, woman, or child — whom they overtook, or by whom they were overtaken, breaking in without ceremony on the attention of her fellow-pilgrims, however deeply they might appear wrapt in meditation.

On their arrival at Einsiedeln, nothing could exceed Joanna's delight at the picturesque multitude that filled the square behind the huge convent and its gorgeous church. There were thousands of pilgrims from all parts of Switzerland, habited in the various costumes of the several cantons, among whom the females of Lucerne were distinguished by their superior beauty, both of person and dress. There were booths filled with glittering religious ornaments, gold and silver crosses and crucifixes, beads of all colours and materials, waxen images sparkling with tinsel dresses, gilded missals, saints carved in ivory or bone, painted prints of cherubim and seraphim, and crowds of devotees murmuring about them, intermingled with the curious, the idle, the amorous, the grotesque,

B 2 young and old of many nations, altogether dazzling and confusing the roving eyes of Joanna.

Among the thousands whom piety or curiosity had thus collected, not only from all parts of Switzerland, but from distant countries, her looks would occasionally follow with more prolonged interest some group of German students, who were to be seen here in considerable numbers, and might readily be distinguished by their highcrowned broad-brimmed straw hats, open shirts, and bare necks. They strutted about with rather an affected air of fierceness, and many of them were handsome youths.

Joanna, all hght-hearted as she was, half envied the lovely Lucernoises, with their fine faces shaded by large flat hats streaming with a profusion of particoloured ribbons, and their graceful shapes set off by a richly embroidered costume, when she observed how much they seemed to attract the notice of those vapouring youno^ Germans.

One of the German youths in particular, the only one who did not stare at the Lucernoises, found favour in Joanna's eyes, but merely for a moment. He was a very pallid and very interesting-looking person, of a countenance more thoughtful and less assuming than those of his companions ; but his eyes had a peculiarly earnest and brilliant expression. Joanna drew her sister's notice to him, and even Ignatia was struck with his physiognomy. But the youth, though he looked at them, was quite regardless of the sweetness with which they condescended to glance at him. He was evidently abstracted.

Joanna turned away peevishly and said, " Now that I have examined him again, I perceive that he is not worth looking at/'

" How^ can you say that V asked Ignatia ; '' I never saw so remarkable a countenance ; but I am not sure, indeed, that it pleases me.\'

Ignatia continued to make the best of her way with her sister, who was guided almost uncon- , sciously towards the church. At last the two damsels found themselves borne along into the interior of the building by a crowd of votaries, with whom they prostrated themselves before the far-famed shrine of Our Ladv of the Hermits.

As the hour appointed for High Mass had b THE ROYALIST.

not yet arrived, Joanna then persuaded Tgnatia to return into the square, which they effected with some difficulty. They had not been long winning their way from booth to booth, when the ratthng of a cabriolet, and the press of the crowd to make room for it, drawing their attention, they discovered that it was no other than the antique vehicle 6f their family priest, Father Xavier, the imposer of Joanna's pedestrian penance ; and within it was the ponderous owner, accompanied by bashful Boyardo.

It immediately occurred to Joanna that she might play off a little moderate tour of revenge upon the worthy Father Confessor and his modest companion. She therefore kept her eye on the cabriolet till she saw it stop at the inn of the White Cross; and then she suggested to Ignatia the propriety of paying their respects to the Father before he entered the church. Ignatia was rather surprised at Joanna's thus courting the probability of a meeting with Monsieur Boyardo, after yesterday's adventure on the banks of the Linth. She, however, acquiesced.

After some little difficulty in getting through the crowd assembled near the inn-door, they made good their entrance, and, turning into the first room they saw, they found themselves in the august presence of the hostess of the White Cross, who received them with a stateliness that implied a due sense of her great importance on that gala-day, and of the dignity of her headdress, which w^as a huge white cocked-hat, of stiff plaited linen, worn on the very top of the head, over an expanse of powdered hair, and folded like the wings of a butterfly at roost on a full-blown white poppy. A long queue, formed of various flowers ingeniously knotted together like the tail of a boy'*s kite, flowed blooming down her back more than half-way to her heels.

She graciously complied with the desire of the young lady-peasants to be admitted to the priest of JNIollis, and ordered a waiter, a French acquisition, of whom she was almost as proud as he was of himself, to show them the way. He bounded up a short flight of stairs, stood on the landing-place, chattering down civil encouragements at them to follow ; and, when they had mounted, he invited them to do him the honour to enter a room, of which the door was open.

It was a large apartment, furnished with a few chairs, benches, and long tables, all of the commonest material, and full of persons of both sexes, as many of whom were taking refreshments as had been able to procure seats at the tables, while the rest were standing in groups and conversing with noisy animation.

The sisters hesitated, and Ignatia would have proposed a retreat from so numerous an assembly, whose eyes were all directed to them at once, when Joanna descried the Abbe, and exclaimed, joyfully, " There he is, Ignatia!''

The priest greeted them with much cordiality. Monsieur Boyardo did not happen to be present when they entered; nor does it appear that he was yet aware that the young ladies had left Mollis, as he had not ventured to drop a syllable to any body which might lead to an explanation of the reason of their having assumed peasants' dresses the day before.

'' I trust, daughter Joanna," said the priest now adopting a grave air, " that you have atoned by this devout pilgrimage for all your offences, levities, irregular desires, and inconsideration."

*^ Really, my ghostly father/' replied his fair penitent, '' I have a scruple: I fear that my pilgrimage has not been conducted with all the requisite decorum. The angel of evil put many idle vagaries into my imagination yesterday, and I shall not think that I have accomplished the good work of penance, unless I mortify my love of ease by going home on foot, instead of returning with my sister, as it has been arranged, in the carriage of my aunt Beyer, who is, or will be, here. As, however, the ascent to Mount Etzel is very toilsome to a female so little accustomed as myself to walking pilgrimages, and might endanger my health after yesterday ""s fatigue, I pray your indulgence so far as that you will allow me the use of your cabriolet only that one league, as I know it is your annual custom to accompany the procession of the fathers of Saint Meinrad's chapel on foot after High Mass on their return to Mount Etzel. I shall then be seven leagues from home, where, with the blessing of Our Lady of the Hermits and your fatherly prayers, 1 hope to arrive in good time.'^

B 5

'' My daughter/' replied the priest, " you have spoken well. Monsieur Boyardo, our sedate young friend, whose horse I have borrowed to-day, shall take you in my cabriolet as far as the inn on Mount Etzel ; after which you may wait to join some of the many pious females who are here from Mollis. The company of inferiors of your own sex will at once be a protection and a graceful act of humility on your part. You may set out immediately after High Mass, my daughter/'

'^ Thanks, good father,'' rejoined Joanna, " but I have yet a scruple. Though I long to be present at the splendid sacrifice, I feel that I am unworthy to be its witness. I would therefore perform a further act of mortification, by absenting myself from it, and returning at once to Mount Etzel, there to wait for the worthy company that you recommend. The good-nature of the discreet Monsieur Boyardo will not, I am sure, let him refuse me the kindness of escorting me to the mount immediately, though it will prevent his attending at the celebration of High Mass."

" Truly, my good daughter/' said the priest, ^^ your sudden piety is edifying, and can be nothing less than a miracle worked through the grace of the penance I imposed upon you for the redemption of your soul from the father of deceits. Let it be, then, as you desire, if I can gain Monsieur Boyardo's consent to the arrangement.''

'^ Leave that trouble to me, sir,'' said Joanna, and then whispered to Ignatia, " Do not look so grave and so perplexed, my dear little sister saint : I am not going to lay siege to the heart of your bashful Boyardo ; and if I were, you have so many lovers, that you might spare me one."

Ignatia, indeed, was not quite at ease, and did not know what to make of the matter; but Joanna lost no time in sending a message for Monsieur Boyardo, who was in the stable seeing his horse fed, and who was glad to escape, at any rate, from the confusion with which he felt overwhelmed on coming into the room, as he thought at the priest's summons only, and finding there the two ladies whom he most dreaded to encounter together.

He no sooner was made to comprehend the proposed arrangement, than he readily consented to give his service, inwardly congratulating himself on making his peace so cheaply; and away he went with his pilgrim-naiad as speedily as possible. But scarcely had they got out of Einsiedeln, before Joanna told him that it would be a shocking cruelty to distress the horse unnecessarily, and that, as the way was all up hill, he must get down and walk. The obedient Boyardo somewhat unwillingly descended, having committed the reins and whip into her hands, and Joanna took care to keep the horse at the stretch of his walk, sometimes pushing him to an amble, so that it was much as bashful Boyardo could do to keep up. With a red-hot face and exhausted lungs, he at length beheld the inn of Mount Etzel, and was about to hand his fair charge out of the cabriolet, when she adroitly laid the whip on the horse's back, which set him off at a good round trot, leaving Boyardo rooted to the spot, gaping after her in speechless amazement.

Joanna took his astonishment for granted, and was too busy in urging the horse onward to

turn her head to look after him.

*^ O'er rough and smooth she whips along. And never looks behind.

And sings a solitary song.

That whistles in the wind."

The song she sung, or rather chanted, was not

locally inappropriate. It was

Beside the Lake of Wallenstadt

I saw a damsel fair and young ; Beneath an ash-crowned rock she sate.

And thus the Maid of Glaris sung.

On Etzel's Mount Saint Meinrad's hands

His hut remotely reared.

Where now the painted chapel stands

That bears his name revered.

In vain he made that lonely peak

His home among the clouds ; Rude Etzel's Mount, so bare and bleak.

Was soon the goal of crowds.

Repentant sinners thither came.

His blessing to implore ; He blessed them in his Master's name.

And bade them sin no more.

Nor dead to Nature's yearnings then With mortals he conferred ;

The voice and social helps of men His human feelings stirred.

Yet, having vowed to stand apart, Unpropped by human aids.

He plunged into the deeper heart Of black Einsiedeln's shades.

And there again his patient hands An humble dwelling raised.

Where now Our Lady's Chapel stands : (Her holy name be praised !)

A sparkling well refreshed the place Where shines her altar now ;

(Whose pure unfailing fount of grace Rewards the pilgrim's vow.)

That crystal spring his drink supplied ;

Its cresses were his food.

With berries that the mountains hide.

Saint Meinrad knelt, one early morn.

Beside the crystal fount ; He heard a raven's croak forlorn

He heard a raven's dismal cry

At every bead he told ; ^^ Now, God be praised ! for I shall die,"

Said he, ^^ ere I grow old/'

He looked about, nor long he searched.

Making the Cross's Sign, Before he saw two ravens, perched

Above him on a pine.

Saint Meinrad knelt upon the floor

That eve within his cell.

When angry sounds besieged his door ;

He knew their meanino: well.

He crossed his breast and thanked the Lord

Who died upon the Rood ; He calmly then the door unbarred.

And there two ruffians stood.

They rushed upon the sacred man.

Who meekly met his doom ; About the floor his life-blood ran.

Exhaling sweet perfume.

A golden chalice (used to hold

The host, the spirit's health) They seized, and crucifix of gold.

Their victim's only wealth.

16 THE HOYALIST.

The ravens came and flapped their wings

O'er each assassin's head ; Then^ struck with inward shudderings.

The ghastly wretches fled.

In vain they fled to caverned rocks.

And sought the lonehest gulf Where, ever, crouched the nursing fox.

Or lurked the grim she-wolf.

In vain the white-furred mountain-hare

They startled in their flight, And roused the chamois from his lair On Schindeleggi's height.

In vain they tried the otter's den.

Among the owls so shrill.

Aye followed by those ravens twain. Bewildered with heav'n's wrath.

To right, to left, they turned in vain ; The ravens crossed their path.

They crossed them with denouncing shrieks ;

They doomed them with their eye ; Their feathers brushed their bloodless cheeks.

So closely swooped they by.

THE ROYALIST. IJ

In vain thoy left those wild retreats.

And tried the peopled town; Throuofh all the thron<2: of Zurich's streets

The ravens chased them down.

They flew at them with piercing shrieks^ They tore them with their claws.

They bit them with their horny beaks. Till they confessed the cause ;

Till they confessed tlieir mortal guilt.

And, guarded, forth were led ; And for the saintly blood they spilt

The cruel ruffians bled.

When she thought herself beyond the risk of being overtaken if pursued, she slackened her pace, and jogged carelessly on till she passed the village of Galganen, and came to a lone cottage, where an old man lived who had formerly been for many years her father's servant ; and him she now designed to employ as her charioteer for the rest of the w^ay to Mollis. He was sunning himself, seated on a bench at his own door ; and right gladly he heard the voice of his wild young mistress : but it was a long time before he could understand what was required of him ; for, with all his experience of the maiden'^s pranks, he could not at all guess how she happened to be in such rude attire, and sole occupant of a cabriolet ; and she took no pains to enlighten him, but rather puzzled him the more by her careless and impatient answers to his questions.

" Be quick, be quick,^' she said at last ; " I will tell you all about it as we go along.*^*^

Vainly did the old man request her to alight, and let him refresh the horse ; pleading, too, that all his household, like the rest of the world on that day, were gone to Einsiedeln, and that he could not well leave the place till some of them returned. Joanna had her own reasons for not desiring to wait for back-comers from Einsiedeln, and was insisting, with all her pretty imperiousness, on his immediate obedience, when she was startled by the appearance, from within the house, of a third person, who took his stand at the door, and gazed at her as a devotee micrht gaze on a Madonna, so respectful, though so fixed, was his look.

Hitherto Uttle has been said of the features of Joanna, which were really uncommonly lovely ;

her form^ too, was full of beauty, but somewhat stately and majestic. Yet was her beauty nothing compared with that of the man who thus strangely appeared before her. She felt at once that it was so, and was humbled in his presence, in spite of his deferential look, which reminded her of some archangel that she had seen in a dream. It was several moments before she regained her self-possession, but she then said :

" Pierre, I thought you told me that you were alone here.*^**

'' Not so,^' said Pierre. '' I told you that all my people, Janette, and Prudence, and little Jules, were gone to the festival ; but, as to this gentleman, he is a wayfarer, who has done me the favour to rest an hour under my roof, and who is going, as you are, quite the other way.'^

" I am going through Mollis," interrupted the stranger, addressing Pierre ; ^' and, as it seems a little inconvenient to you, my old friend, to leave home, I should be too happy if the lady would condescend to accept my service.''^

Pierre stared, and seemed bewildered. Any young lady but Joanna would have been alarmed by such a proposition from a stranger; but her courage was restored ; the tone of the man's voice was as satisfactory to her as his manner : and his marvellous comeliness had highly excited her curiosity.

^' Pierre/' said she, " he addressed you as an old friend : you are, then, acquainted with this gentleman."

'' I have seen him before,'*'' answered Pierre. '' But do you know him well enough to recommend him as your substitute on this occasion, for my arms are dropping off with weariness.**'

" Oh, yes,"" replied the stupid old man, '' he understands horses, and will take you very safely without asking you to show him the way." "-' Well, then, since he is so good — " Very little more was said : the stranger took the reins, and mounted. Joanna almost hid herself in the left corner of the carriage ; and the driver performed his part with a quiet, steady hand, without ever turning his head, or addressing one syllable to the young lady, who sate wondering at her own position, now half-frightened at her temerity, now inclined to Jaugh, and now again checked into a softer mood of seriousness, as she glanced at the exquisite outline of the stranger's profile. Then she was half provoked at his not looking at her at all : it was strange, as he had gazed at her so intently at first.

They had almost arrived at Mollis, when the driver, for the first time since he had assumed his office, turned to her and asked her further pleasure, now that they were so near the town. He might have supposed, perhaps, that she would prefer that he should quit her there, and so avoid any inquiry or remark upon his presence in her company. Perhaps, too, she understood his question in that sense, and did, for an instant, wish to dismiss him thus, and so escape one, and that the gravest, of the inconveniences of her preposterous conduct. But Joanna, with all her heedlessness, was not without moral firmness and dignity of feeling : after the shortest consideration, she resolved on the correct course, and said hastily, and with a decision that would have seemed free from embarrassment but for her deep blush.

^' No, no ; be so good, sir^ as to drive on to — my father's — I will point out the house/^

He smiled, as if in approval of her direction, and proceeded ; and presently, at her signal, he stopped before a handsome detached dwelling in the suburbs of the town.

The arrival of a carriage had attracted the notice of a servant, who hastened out immediately. He recognized the cabriolet of the venerable parish priest, and was in much wonderment at beholding one of his young mistresses with a person whom he had never seen before, and who was quite unlike a priest, and was a very much handsomer young gentleman than he had ever seen at Mollis or any where else.

Joanna requested the stranger to wait for a few moments, that she might explain her obHgation to him to her father, who would, undoubtedly, hasten to offer his thanks. But this he decUned with the most delicate politeness, (so, at least, thought the young lady) and, alighting, he handed her out, while the servant stood at the horse^^s head. He then took off his cap, made his bow, ^' shook his ambrosial curls,'' and departed, stick in hand and wallet on back, like a heathen god in disguise.

Here was a difficulty considerably lessened for Joanna. The introduction of the stranger would have been perplexing ; the singularity of his beauty and the nobleness of his air might have induced a suspicion that there was something more than mere whim in her frolics of the morning, and that it was something more than chance that led to such a result of a penitential pilgrimage as her return home in so unusual a manner, and in such remarkable company.

Joanna was, as yet, too quick of impulse to have much forethought, but she was by no means incapable of afterthought. The greatest of all her many follies of this day had been the last : and^ during the drive from Galganen, she feared that she had committed herself beyond the patience, and possibly the confidence, of the most indulgent of fathers. But the considerate stranger had delivered her from the worst part of the difficulty : he had disappeared. She had only now to tell her father, after relating her previous delinquencies, for which she was sure of forgiveness (if not of encouragement, which was more probable, for she was his spoiled child) that their quondam servitor, old Pierre, being unable to leave his home, had provided a person known to him to protect her. Here were no maiden aunts to encounter, no elderly inquisitive female cousins : her sole aunt, Madame Beyer, who also resided near Mollis, was absent, as we have seen, at Einsiedeln.

Monsieur Hoffmann had been many years a widower, so that his two girls could hardly be said to have ever had the advantage of a mother's care. Ignatia was two-and-twenty, and Joanna nineteen ; and they had been for some time emancipated from the superintendence of a governess. They had a brother twenty-four years of age, a lieutenant in the French army, into which he had been introduced as a conscript at eighteen. He was now in Germany.

The coast was pretty clear, then, for Joanna, who lost no time in repairing to Monsieur Hoffmann's study, and presenting herself before her parent.

^^ What ! back already ? very good ; where are the rest ?'^ and he gave her a cordial kiss of welcome.

" I am come back alone, father."

" Alone ! how ? why ? what does this mean ? what is the matter ?**'

" Do not be uneasy, dear father ; there is nothing the matter; all is well; hsten, for I have a long story, or rather many little stories, to tell you ; and I am half ashamed, but I know you will forgive me."*'

" I will forgive you any thing but a long story.'^

" Well, then, I will make it short.'*'*

Here she gave a rapid sketch of her odd proceedings ; and by the time she had got to Galganen, Monsieur Hoffmann was in an ecstasy of delight, though he had often tried to look wise and severe, as she lightly and vividly enumerated her fooleries. At Galganen her fluency seemed to fail her; but she shuffled over that delicate ground, and fairly landed herself at home.

Monsieur Hoffmann, though in the main a good, easy man, as well as somewhat of an oddity, and not over-tenacious of forms, was no foolj

VOL. II. c

He had observed his daughter's embarrassment when she entered on the subject of this new acquaintance, whom she had so conveniently found at Galganen, and so unceremoniously accepted as her escort to Mollis ; and he thought she might have done well enough without him ; and this was just the only part of the story that seemed to him rather beyond a joke,

^' Where is this person, Joanna?^' said he. '' Is he in the kitchen ?''

^^ Oh dear no, sir,'' she replied quickly; " in the kitchen ! what should he do there ?''

^' Why, as he was Pierre^s substitute, I should have supposed that to be the proper place for him.''

^' My dear father, you would not have thought so if you had seen him.''

" How, then, is he a gentleman ?"

'^ No doubt whatever of that.''

'' What is he like? how was he dressed?"

'' Oh, I do not judge by his dress/' returned Joanna, " for that was simple enough : and he carried," she added with some hesitation, " the rest of his travelling wardrobe, I suppose, in a bag suspended on a stick over his shoulder."

" Oh, a German student, no doubt, or an artist. But where is he ? You quite forgot yourself when you accepted him as your escort. I ought, in common courtesy, to say something to him in acknowledgment of his civility, though I wish you had not accepted it.''

Joanna explained how he had declined troubling him, and had gone away.

" He is gone to the inn to get his dinner. You must want your's, poor child. I will see after him by-and-bye,"' observed Monsieur Hoffmann, hastening to ring the bell, and to order food to be got ready. '' Now, go, my dear unwise child, and change your dress.''

Joanna was well pleased to obey his bidding ; and, in little more than half an hour, she came down to the eating-room, where she found her father, who had dined long before, and who now walked about the room in a silent reverie.

When she had dined, and the servant had withdrawn, he sat down, and was still silent. Joanna was not as courageous as usual ; she was uneasy at her father'^s taciturnity ; yet it was a

c 2 good while before she ventured to say, " Father,

you are very angry with me.'^'

" Angry ! not at all, child," said Monsieur

Hofrman ; " but the strange gentleman treated

you with respect, you say ?"

" With perfect respect : why should he not?'' " Your dress — he could not have known that

you were a gentleman's daughter— our friend

the Abbe Xavier was an ass to prescribe such a

penance and such a costume, to a daughter of mine/'

" Oh, as to that," rephed Joanna, ^Hhe stranger could be under no mistake, for he heard my conversation with Pierre, which must have convinced him that I was in masquerade. Besides, I do not think that he is a sort of person who would have been impertinent, even if he had mistaken me for a country girl. Bashful Boyardo, indeed, might have had less scruple."

'' Never mind him^'''' said Monsieur Hoffmann. ^' But this strange gentleman — what did he say to you ?"