HOPES and Fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down: on what?--a fathomless abyss!--YOUNG.
MIDNIGHT--and intense frost! There they were--houseless and
breadless--the two fugitives, in the heart of that beautiful forest which
has rung to the horns of many a royal chase. The soldier, whose youth
had been inured to hardships, and to the conquests which our mother-wit
wrings from the stepdame Nature, had made a fire by the friction of two
pieces of dry wood; such wood was hard to be found, for the snow whitened
the level ground, and lay deep in the hollows; and when it was
discovered, the fuel was slow to burn; however, the fire blazed red at
last. On a little mound, shaded by a semicircle of huge trees, sat the
Outlaws of Human Reason. They cowered over the blaze opposite to each
other, and the glare crimsoned their features. And each in his heart
longed to rid himself of his mad neighbour; and each felt the awe of
solitude,--the dread of sleep beside a comrade whose soul had lost God's
light!
"Ho!" said the warrior, breaking a silence that had been long kept, "this
is cold work at the best, and hunger pinches me; I almost regret the
prison."
"I do not feel the cold," said Cesarini, "and I do not care for hunger: I
am revelling only in the sense of liberty!"
"Try and sleep," quoth the soldier, with a coaxing and, sinister softness
of voice; "we will take it by turns to watch."
"I cannot sleep,--take you the first turn."
"Hark ye, sir!" said the soldier sullenly; "I must not have my commands
disputed; now we are free, we are no longer equal: I am heir to the
crowns of France and Navarre. Sleep, I say!"
"And what Prince or Potentate, King or Kaiser," cried Cesarini, catching
the quick contagion of the fit that had seized his comrade, "can dictate
to the monarch of Earth and Air, the Elements and the music-breathing
Stars? I am Cesarini the Bard! and the huntsman Orion halts in his chase
above to listen to my lyre! Be stilled, rude man!--thou scarest away the
angels, whose breath even now was rushing through my hair!"
"It is too horrible!" cried the grim man of blood, shivering; "my enemies
are relentless, and give me a madman for a jailer!"
"Ha! a madman!" exclaimed Cesarini, springing to his feet, and glaring at
the soldier with eyes that caught and rivalled the blaze of the fire.
"And who are you?--what devil from the deep hell, that art leagued with
my persecutors against me?"
With the instinct of his old calling and valour, the soldier also rose
when he saw the movement of his companion; and his fierce features worked
with rage and fear.
"Avaunt!" said he, waving his arm; "we banish thee from our presence!
This is our palace!--and our guards are at hand!" pointing to the still
and skeleton trees that grouped round in ghastly bareness. "Begone!"
At that moment they heard at a distance the deep barking of a dog, and
each cried simultaneously, "They are after me!--betrayed!" The soldier
sprang at the throat of Cesarini; but the Italian, at the same instant,
caught a half-burned brand from the fire, and dashed the blazing end in
the face of his assailant. The soldier uttered a cry of pain, and
recoiled back, blinded and dismayed. Cesarini, whose madness, when
fairly roused, was of the most deadly nature, again raised his weapon,
and probably nothing but death could have separated the foes; but again
the bay of the dog was heard, and Cesarini, answering the sound by a wild
yell, threw down the brand, and fled away through the forest with
inconceivable swiftness. He hurried on through bush and dell,--and the
boughs tore his garments and mangled his flesh,--but stopped not his
progress till he fell at last on the ground, breathless and exhausted,
and heard from some far-off clock the second hour of morning. He had
left the forest; a farmhouse stood before him, and the whitened roofs of
scattered cottages sloped to the tranquil sky. The witness of man--the
social tranquil sky and the reasoning man--operated like a charm upon the
senses which recent excitement had more than usually disturbed. The
unhappy wretch gazed at the peaceful abodes, and sighed heavily; then,
rising from the earth, he crept into one of the sheds that adjoined the
farmhouse, and throwing himself on some straw, slept sound and quietly
till daylight, and the voices of peasants in the shed awakened him.
He rose refreshed, calm, and, for ordinary purposes, sufficiently sane to
prevent suspicion of his disease. He approached the startled peasants,
and representing himself as a traveller who had lost his way in the night
and amidst the forest, begged for food and water. Though his garments
were torn, they were new and of good fashion; his voice was mild; his
whole appearance and address those of one of some station--and the French
peasant is a hospitable fellow. Cesarini refreshed and rested himself an
hour or two at the farm, and then resumed his wanderings; he offered no
money, for the rules of the asylum forbade money to its inmates,--he had
none with him; but none was expected from him, and they bade him farewell
as kindly as if he had bought their blessings. He then began to consider
where he was to take refuge, and how provide for himself; the feeling of
liberty braced, and for a time restored, his intellect.
Fortunately, he had on his person, besides some rings of trifling cost, a
watch of no inconsiderable value, the sale of which might support him, in
such obscure and humble quarter as he could alone venture to inhabit, for
several weeks, perhaps months. This thought made him cheerful and
elated; he walked lustily on, shunning the high road. The day was clear,
the sun bright, the air full of racy health. Oh, what soft raptures
swelled the heart of the wanderer, as he gazed around him! The Poet and
the Freeman alike stirred within his shattered heart! He paused to
contemplate the berries of the icy trees, to listen to the sharp glee of
the blackbird; and once--when he found beneath a hedge a cold, scentless
group of hardy violets--he laughed aloud in his joy. In that laughter
there was no madness, no danger; but when as he journeyed on, he passed
through a little hamlet, and saw the children at play upon the ground,
and heard from the open door of a cabin the sound of rustic music, then
indeed he paused abruptly; the past gathered over him: _he knew that
which he had been, that which he was now_!--an awful memory! a dread
revelation! And, covering his face with his hands, he wept aloud. In
those tears were the peril and method of madness. He woke from them to
think of his youth, his hopes, of Florence, of revenge! Lumley Lord
Vargrave! better, from that hour, to encounter the tiger in his lair than
find thyself alone with that miserable man!