Clermont

Front matter

CLERMONT.

A TALE.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

Chapter I.

CLERMONT.

CHAP. I.

Far retired Among the windings of a woody vale, By solitude and deep surrounding shades, But more by bashful modesty conceal'd, Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn Which virtue sunk to poverty would meet From giddy passion and low-minded pride. >>Thomson

In a retired part of the province of Dauphiny stood the cottage of Clermont; its remote obscurity was well suited to the mental solitude of its tenant, and its neat simplicity corresponded with his refined taste. Fifteen years he had been an inhabitant of it; and from the elegance of his manners and the dignity of his mein, his rustic neighbours, were of opinion that he had once seen better days. To this impression, however, he studiously avoided giving any sanction; nay, it was evident he wished by every means in his power, to discourage the idea of opulence or greatness having ever been his portion.

His chief employment consisted in superintending a little farm, from which his principal support appeared to be derived, and his highest amusement and pleasure in studying the works of nature, and cultivating the mind of his daughter; who, with an elderly female servant whom he had hired after his arrival at the cottage, were the only human beings that shared with him the fruits of his retirement.

Madeline, but two years old at that period, could consequently recollect nothing previous to it; but, from the striking difference between her father and the surrounding rustics, she could not help adopting their opinion of him, and thinking that he had once moved in a circle very different from that in which he was then placed.

She more than once hinted this opinion, and enquired of her father the cause of their retirement, and whether they had no relatives, no friends, in that great world from which they were secluded? but she never received any satisfactory answer. The agitation he always betrayed at those enquiries, made her at last resolve to suppress a curiosity so painful to his feelings. It however confirmed her belief of his having experienced severe misfortunes; and from this conviction, she redoubled her attention, trusting that, if she could not obliterate, she might at least soften their remembrance.

But to do so in reality, was, alas! beyond her power. 'Tis true, he sometimes forced himself to wear the semblance of cheerfulness, although his heart was ever a stranger to it; oppressed by a sorrow which the boasted efficacy of time, the solicitude of filial attention, or the tenderness of sympathy could not mitigate;—a sorrow, which anticipated the work of time, had already faded his cheek and furrowed his brow, though yet in what might be termed the prime of man's life, not having attained his fortieth year; and sometimes so far overcame him, as to render him unable to bear even the society of his daughter, his only earthly comfort. At those periods he always wandered to the wildest and most sequestered spot that he could find in the neighbourhood of his residence.

'mid . . . . . thorns and mire; . . . . . . all forlorn, To muse at last, amid the ghostly gloom Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cloistered cells, To walk with spectres thro' the midnight shade, And to the screaming owl's accursed song, Attune the dreadful workings of his heart.

Though one of his chief sources of pleasure (as I have already said) was derived from the culture of his daughter's mind, he was often tempted to forego this gratification by reflecting on the inutility of accomplishments to her, who, like the desert rose, seemed born to waste her sweetness in obscurity. The task, however, was too delightful to be relinquished; and he at last rejoiced that he had persevered in it; for, as he carefully guarded her against all refinements which could render her dissatisfied with her humble station, he found that the expansion of her mind, by opening new sources of amusement, increased her happiness: he cultivated to the highest perfection that taste which the

Source divine of ever-flowing love, And his unmeasur'd goodness, not content With every food of life to nourish man, Implants within his heart to make, By kind illusions of the wand'ring sense, all beauty to his eye, And music to his ear; with which well pleased he scans The goodly prospect, and with inward smiles, Treads the gay verdure of the painted plains,

Beholds the azure canopy of heaven, And living lamps that over-arch his head With more than regal splendour.

Never did a pupil render the toils of an instructor less difficult than did Madeline those of her father; and as she grew up, her perfect knowledge of the historian's record, and just conception of the poet's beauty, rendered her a companion well qualified to diversify his lonely hours.

She possessed besides an exquisite taste for drawing and music, and accompanied the soft melody of her lute with a voice which, though not strong, was inexpressibly sweet; melodious as that which the rapt poet at the visionary hour of twilight sometimes thinks he hears

chanting from the wood-crown'd hill, the deep'ning dale, or inmost sylvan glade.

The liveliness of her fancy was equal to the strength of her understanding, and often raised a visionary paradise around her; soft- ness and animation were happily blended in her disposition; and with equal delight she could enjoy the gaiety of innocent mirth and the lonely hour of solitude: feeling and precept had early taught her pity for the woes of others; and with cheerfulness she could tax either convenience or comfort to supply the claims of poverty. To her person Nature had not been less liberal than to her mind; by her prodigality to both, it seemed indeed as if she had been anxious to make amends for the deficiency of fortune.

She was tall and delicately made; nor was the symmetry of her features inferior to that of her bodily form: but it was not to this symmetry that they owed their most attractive charm,—it was derived from the fascinating sweetness diffused over them. Her eyes, large and of the darkest hazel, ever true to the varying emotions of her soul, languished beneath their long silken lashes with all the softness of sensibility, and sparkled with all the fire of animation; her hair, a rich auburn, added luxuriance to her beauty, and by a natural curl, gave an expression of the greatest innocence to her face; the palest blush of health just tinted her dimpled, fair, and beautifully rounded cheek; and her mouth, adorned by smiles, appeared like the half-blown rose when moistened with the dews of early morn.

Such was Madeline Clermont, who, ignorant of the great world, neither practised its follies, sighed for its pleasures, or dreaded its vices; her highest wish was gratified when she could steal from the brow of her father its usual sadness, and render him for a moment forgetful of his sorrows.

Their house stood on a little eminence, in a deep, romantic, and verdant valley, which wound to a considerable extent between cultivated hills, where the vine spread her treasures to the sun, and the husbandman often gathered a luxuriant harvest; woods of variegated verdure stretched up many of their steep ascent, and the summit of one of the highest was crowned with the ruins of a once noble castle, the residence, according to tradition, of some of the ancient Counts of Dauphiny. This shattered pile, the record of departed greatness and the power of time, was carefully shunned by the peasant after sun-set, for the village legends were swelled with an account of the horrid noises, and still more horrid sights, heard and beheld within its dreary walls: but though feared by superstition, it was the favourite haunt of taste and sensibility; and thither, as the last beams of the sun glimmered o'er the scene, Clermont and Madeline often wandered; they loved to explore its grass-grown court and winding avenues, and picture to themselves the scenes that had once passed to all appearance within them: they also frequently ascended to its broken battlements, covered with wild vegetation, where the birds of night held their unmolested reign, startling by their melancholy cries those persons whom chance or necessity conducted near the spot, from thence to feast on the delicious prospect beneath; whilst the breeze sighed amongst the surrounding trees, (whose ponderous trunks and matted branches declared them long inhabitants of the soil) as if the genius of the pile still haunted their recesses and mourned its desolation. The hills were completely surrounded by a chain of mountains, bleak, barren, and desolate, except in the summer months, when the shepherd led thither his little flock to crop the sweet herbage that then grew amongst their interstices.

A narrow river run through the valley, whose calm current was in many places interrupted by projections of rocks, which served as rude bridges for the villagers to pass from one side to the other; numerous herds enlivened its banks, along which a low brushwood crept, intermingled with a few tall trees, weeping willows, and sweet-smelling shrubs, which formed em- bowered seats for the solitary angler. A number of neat cottages were scattered about the vale; and it was delightful of a fine evening to behold their young inhabitants dancing to pastoral music on the little grassy lawns before them;—

Like fairy elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side, Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees; while over head the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course, they on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music, charm his ear.

The cottage of Clermont was embosomed in a small grove, through which a broad grassy path, enclosed by a rude paling, led from the valley to the house; o'er the door honeysuckle and wild roses, during the summer, formed a kind of portico, and half shaded its latticed windows; its interior was as simple as its exterior, and it was ornamented, as Madeline grew up, by her fanciful drawings. Midway up the hill that rose at the rear of his cottage, Clermont had continued his garden, as the space which lay between it and his dwelling was too narrow to yield sufficient vegetables for his family, small as it was; a silvery stream descended from this hill that gave fertility to the flowers which Madeline cultivated; and immediately above the garden it projected into craggy points of rock, which allured thither, by the fragrant herbs that grew about them, not only the industrious bee, but the wild and adventurous goat; and though the garden, its fences being readily overleaped, sometimes suffered from having the latter in its vicinity, Clermont could not think of driving away a neighbour, whose appearance on the heights added to the romantic and picturesque scenery of the spot. On the southern side of the hill lay a small vineyard belonging to Clermont, which he diligently cultivated.

Unchequered by incident, unruffled by discontent, the days of Madeline glided away till she had attained her seventeenth year; at which period their calm current was interrupted.

Chapter II.

CHAP. II.

Oft let me hear thy soothing voice Low whisp'ring thro' the shade. Barbauld

It was in a fine autumnal evening that Clermont, seized with one of his usual fits of melancholy, abruptly withdrew from the cottage, and left Madeline to amuse herself as fancy might direct. Habit had failed of its usual effect upon her mind; for, on every return of her father's dejection, she felt as much distressed as if she had never before witnessed it. To endeavour to alleviate this distress, she now walked out and pursued her course along the margin of the river till she reached the old castle, o'er which the last beams of the sun now glimmered; its gloom rather invited than deterred her from entering it: passing, therefore, through its dreary courts, she ascended a flight of half broken stairs that led directly to a large chamber which opened to a kind of rude balcony that stretched along one wing of the building. This was a favourite seat of Madeline's. The landscape seen through the intervening trees which rose before it never satiated her eye; upon every view some new beauty, some new charm, if possible more lovely than the last, was discovered by her.

The solemn shades surrounding her, o'er which the dusky hue of twilight was now beginning to steal, and the profound stillness of the air, only interrupted by the faint warbling of retiring birds, or the yet fainter sighing of the breeze among the trees, now and then intermingled with the hum of distant voices, by degrees calmed the painful emotions of Madeline's mind, and she became again, if not cheerful, at least composed.

"How sweet, how soothing (cried she) is this tranquil hour to the afflicted heart! it seems to give a respite to its cares, as it does to those of labour. How delightful to gaze upon the glories by which it is attended! to listen to the soft breeze that seems to die away amongst the waving trees, and the low carol of the peasant hastening to his cottage to enjoy the meal sweetened by contentment, and earned by industry."

Occupied by ideas similar to those which she had expressed, Madeline was almost abstracted from the scene which had inspired them, when her attention was suddenly awakened by an oboe from the valley; nothing could be more congenial to her present feelings than its melody, and she listened with exquisite delight; her spirits alternately rising, alternately sinking, as the sounds swelled with grandeur on the air, and tremblingly died away, till only their faint echo amongst the mountains could be distinguished: at last they ceased entirely; but, as if unwilling to relinquish the pleasure they had given her, she immediately began singing the beautiful air she had been listening to, and with which she was well acquainted. She however soon ceased, imagining that she heard a low voice beneath the balcony repeating her words. Somewhat startled, she hastily arose, and looked over it; but no object was visible, and all again was silence. Her fancy, she was then convinced, had deceived her, and her composure returned in consequence of that idea; but the night being now far advanced, she delayed no longer quitting the castle.

The next evening her father again left her to herself. Slinging her lute across her arm, with which she was wont to amuse herself in her moments of solitude, she again proceeded to the castle, and sought her favourite seat; but scarcely had she gained it, ere the following lines, penciled on a smooth white stone that had once formed part of a supporting pillar to the door of the chamber through which she had passed, caught her eye, and filled her breast with inexpressible surprise.

The Lines.

Midst grass-grown courts, the "ivy mantled tower," Where legends say afflicted spirits mourn O'er the sad records of departed power,— I restless watch for dewy eve's return:

For then the chantress of the woodland vale Awakes the echoes of the dreary pile, With sounds that o'er my tortur'd soul prevail, And all its cares and agonies beguile.

The evening star, the pale moon's silver ray, I raptur'd hail, that gives her to my gaze: Her form, her smile, harmonious as her lay,— The mild expression of her angel face.

Should this weak record of ill-fated love E'er meet her eye,—ah, may one tender tear Be shed for him, whom fate forbade to prove His ardent passion or his truth sincere!

Ah! may she pity then, compassion is his claim, 'Tis all he dares to ask—'Tis all he hopes to gain.

The moment Madeline had read those lines, she recollected the voice which she fancied she had heard the preceding evening, and was convinced her ear had not then deceived her.

A stranger, she was sure, had visited the ruins, for to none of the inhabitants of the valley, all the rough and illiterate children of industry, could she ascribe them; neither could she avoid believing them addressed to herself; not from any conscious superiority of charms over the rest of the village maids, but from a conviction that they never visited the castle, on account of the superstitious dread they entertained of it.

An idea that the person who wrote the lines might be loitering about the ruins, now struck her; and she instantly determined to quit them. Scarcely had she done so, when she heard the sound of a step in the adjoining chamber; she hastily bent forward, and looking through the little arch which led to the balcony, she perceived a man gliding from the opposite door into an obscure corner of the room; there was just sufficient light within to enable her to perceive he was a stranger: her heart beat quick; she trembled, and shrinking back, regretted the thoughtless temerity which had exposed her to danger, by tempting her to visit the lonely pile at such an hour.

That it was the author of the little sonnet she beheld, she could not doubt; but the tender sentiments it expressed could not inspire her with sufficient courage to bear the idea of throwing herself entirely into his power, which, by attempting to leave the castle, she must do, her only passage being through its innermost recesses; she deemed it safer therefore to continue in her present situation, where there was a chance of not being observed, and of obtaining assistance by crying out if she should find it necessary, either till she was assured the stranger had departed, or that some hope of protection presented itself to her view.

Eagerly she listened for some sound from the valley, that might inspire this hope, but in vain; by the silence which reigned over it, interrupted only by the barking of cottage dogs, as if they bayed the moon, she was at length convinced that care and industry had already retired to repose.

The late hour to which her father prolonged his nocturnal rambles, and the timidity of their servant, gave her little reason to hope deliverance through their means: scarcely suffering herself to breathe, she continued a long time in a state of greater agony than she had ever before experienced. At last she heard a step; but her almost fainting spirits were soon recalled by a conviction that it was not approaching her; and in the next minute she caught a glimpse of a figure (the same she was sure she had seen in the chamber) descending a winding path near the balcony. Her strength and courage immediately returned, and with a quickness that scarcely permitted her to touch the ground, she left the castle, and reached the valley by a different path from that which the stranger had taken. She had scarcely quitted it, when a sudden rustling among the trees behind her induced her to look back, and she perceived him slowly emerging from the midst of them. The speed of Madeline was now if possible increased, and, faint and breathless, she gained the enclosure before her father's cottage. As she fastened the little gate, she paused and leaned over it, but almost instantly retreated from it to the house, discovering the stranger to be within a few yards of it.

Her father was not yet returned; and the maid, busied in preparing the supper table, took no notice of her agitation. The idea of security soon restored Madeline's composure; she then resolved not to acquaint her father with the incident that had alarmed her, least it should agitate, and render him uneasy, if at any future time chance prevented her returning home as soon as he expected. She also determined not to visit the castle again till she was convinced the stranger had forsaken it, nor even then at so late an hour as she had hitherto done; to know who he was, to have a perfect view of him, she could not help wishing.

The next morning, immediately after breakfast, when her father withdrew to the vineyard, Jaqueline, the servant, entered the room; she was a faithful creature, much attached to Clermont and Madeline from the number of years she had lived with them, and now appeared with a face full of importance.

"Lord, Mam'selle, (cried she) I have been wanting to speak to you this long time; I have something to tell you that will so surprise you! I dare say, if you lived to be an hundred, and were all that time guessing, you would not find it out."

"Very likely (said Madeline, taking up her work); so do you save me the useless trouble of trying to do so."

"Why this morning (began Jaqueline) before the sun was risen, I went down to the river to get a pail of water, and there I saw the most handsomest young man I ever beheld in my days."

Madeline dropped her work, and fastened her eyes eagerly upon Jaqueline's face.

"Claude Dubois and Josephe le Mure, though counted so handsome, and to be sure they are the best looking young men in the village, (resumed Jaqueline) are not to be compared to him. So, as I was saying, I found him standing by the river looking so earnestly at this cottage, as if there was something or somebody in it he wanted to discover. God bless my soul, says I to myself, if he should be looking at it with any bad intent!—for you know, Mam'selle, there are people wicked enough to go about the world trying to do mischief; so I laid the pail upon the bank, and, thinks I, I will try to discover what he wants, or what he means; but how to begin to speak to him, I did not know; for though I did not feel afraid, I felt some how or other an awe of him: he saved me the trouble however of inventing an excuse for speaking to him, by asking me whether I lived in the house he had seen me come out of. So after I had answered him, I was just going to beg in return he would tell me why he stood looking at it, for all the world as if he wanted to take its length and breadth and all its dimensions, when Margarette Duval, going to market with some kids, came up to me for the price of a new hat which I had desired her to buy me the next time she went there, and whilst I was untying my glove to take out my money, away he marched, notwithstanding he saw I was going to speak to him when she came up."

"Perhaps you said something about him to Margarette," said Madeline.

"Nothing that could offend him, I am sure, (cried Jaqueline); I only said, when she asked, as I was taking out my money, whether that handsome gentleman near me was a sweetheart of my young lady? 'heaven knows who he is; he may be a sweetheart of yours or mine as well as of hers, for ought I know.' I must confess, indeed, she stared at him with all the eyes in her head, which perhaps drove him away; for I am sure my words could not: this I took care to tell her, after he was gone, was a piece of very bad manners. Before I came home (proceeded Jaqueline), I met some neighbours, to whom I described him, in order to find out if they knew any thing about him; but they were quite ignorant of any such person; it is evident, therefore, that he does not lodge in this valley, or he would be known to its inhabitants."

'Tis strange, thought Madeline, that visiting it as he does, he should not be known to any of them.

"I was all in a flutter till I told you about him (said Jaqueline); and should be glad to know whether you would have my master also told, that in case of any bad design against the house, he may be upon his guard."

"I think I may venture to say there is no bad design formed against it (exclaimed Madeline); consequently there is no occasion to speak to him on the subject."

"Very well, Mam'selle (answered Jaqueline); I am sure you have more wisdom and discretion than I have, notwithstanding I am the oldest; I shall therefore do as you please."

Madeline resumed her work as Jaqueline quitted the room; but not with her wonted diligence did she pursue it; her eyes continually wandered from it to the valley, where, however, they met no object to which they had not been accustomed.

In the evening her father invited her to walk; this invitation she accepted with pleasure; nor was her satisfaction diminished on finding that he proceeded in the direction to the castle.

Chapter III.

CHAP. III.

fine block|ppoem|Each lonely scene shall thee restore,

For thee the tear be duly shed;

Belov'd till life can charm no more,

They had nearly reached the castle, when Clermont, recollecting some business he had to settle with a cottager who lived at the opposite side of the river, or rather brook, for it scarcely deserved a better appellation, desired Madeline to stop where she was, and, promising to return in a few minutes, crossed over to him.

A little above the spot on which her father left her, hid from it by intervening trees, was a low rock overshadowed by willows, upon which Madeline loved to sit, and watch the gambols of the summer flies upon the water, and those of its speckled inhabitants. Somewhat fatigued by her walk, she determined to go thither, and there wait the return of her father.

As she passed the castle, she turned her eyes towards it, but all around was awful uninterrupted solitude. The stranger she concluded had departed: but how great was her surprise when, on advancing a few steps further, she beheld him, the same she was convinced of whom she had a transient view the preceding evening,—the same, she had no doubt, that Jaqueline had described to her in the morning,—seated on the rock, retouching a landscape laid against a book, and which, by the distant view Madeline had of it, appeared to be one of the surrounding scenes.

His attention was so much engrossed, that the light step of Madeline did not disturb him; and she paused—paused to contemplate an object who, though unknown, had strongly interested her.

He appeared of the first order of fine forms; and to all the graces of person and bloom of youth, united a countenance open, manly, and intelligent, but overcast by a shade of melancholy, which seemed to declare him acquainted with misfortune, and from nature and self experience formed to sympathize with every child of sorrow; his hat lay beside him, and the breeze had wafted aside his dark hair from his forehead, and discovered his polished brows, where, according to the words of the poet, "sate young simplicity;" in his eyes, as he sometimes raised them from the paper, was a fine expression, at once indicative of refinement and sensibility; and as Madeline gazed on them, she involuntarily said to herself, one glance from those benignant eyes last night, would at once have dissipated every terror.

As if riveted to the spot by a magic spell, she stood immovable, till roused by the voice of her father calling her at a distance. She started, and as she turned to obey the summons, she caught those eyes she had just been admiring, the consciousness of which perhaps occasioned the blush that instantly mantled her cheeks and an agitation that scarcely permitted her to walk: yet was her emotion faint to that which (though she but glanced at him) she saw the stranger betray when disturbed by the voice of her father; he looked towards her, starting from his seat; the paper he held dropped from his hand, and wildly, yet delightedly, he gazed on her.

She met her father on the spot where they had parted, and informed him, though not in a very articulate voice, of the motive which had made her quit it; her agitation was too great to escape his observation, and he enquired if any thing had frightened her? No, said she, nothing. Clermont therefore imputed it to the haste she had made to meet him. As they had walked a good way, he now proposed that they should return home, to which she did not object; but never had she been so silent, so absent before, since of an age to be his companion as she was at this time with her father.

On arriving at the cottage, they found supper already prepared, to which they immediately sat down: they had scarcely finished, however, when one of the young villagers rushed into the room, and with a trembling voice and pale face, besought Clermont, for the sake of heaven and his own soul, to come out and give his assistance to a poor gentleman whom he and his brother, returning from their daily labour to their cottage, had found lying bleeding and senseless, as they supposed, in consequence of a fall, at the foot of the hill upon which the castle stood. 'Tis surely the stranger, thought Madeline, and instantly her colour changed.

"Do you know him?" asked Clermont, rising as he spoke.

"No," replied the young peasant. Nevertheless he and his brother had carried him to their mother's cottage, who had laid him upon her best bed, and was then trying to bring him to himself. "But (added he) except his wounds are dressed, she can be of little service to him."

I have already said, that studying the works of nature was a favourite amusement of Clermont, and from that study and reading, he had learned the healing property of many simples, which he carefully gathered and administered with success to the external as well as internal complaints of his poor neighbours: to him the young peasant had therefore come without hesitation to solicit relief and assistance for the wounded stranger.