It was with a proud consciousness of having well fulfilled his mission
that Billy Traynor once more bent his steps towards Massa. Besides
providing himself with books of travel and maps of the regions they were
about to visit, he had ransacked Genoa for weapons, and accoutrements,
and horse-gear. Well knowing the youth's taste for the costly and the
splendid, he had suffered himself to be seduced into the purchase of a
gorgeously embroidered saddle mounting, and a rich bridle, in Mexican
taste; a pair of splendidly mounted pistols, chased in gold and studded
with large turquoises, with a Damascus sabre, the hilt of which was a
miracle of fine workmanship, were also amongst his acquisitions; and
poor Billy fed his imagination with the thought of all the delight these
objects were certain to produce. In this way he never wearied admiring
them; and a dozen times a day would he unpack them, just to gratify his
mind by picturing the enjoyment they were to afford.
“How well you are lookin', my dear boy!” cried he, as he burst into the
youth's room, and threw his arms around him; “'tis like ten years off
my life to see you so fresh and so hearty. Is it the prospect of
the glorious time before us that has given this new spring to your
existence?”
“More likely it is the pleasure I feel in seeing you back again,” said
Massy; and his cheek grew crimson as he spoke.
“'Tis too good you are to me,--too good,” said Billy, and his eyes ran
over in tears, while he turned away his head to hide his emotion; “but
sure it is part of yourself I do be growing every day I live. At first
I could n't bear the thought of going away to live in exile, in a
wilderness, as one may say; but now that I see your heart set upon
it, and that your vigor and strength comes back just by the mere
anticipation of it, I'm downright delighted with the plan.”
“Indeed!” said the youth, dreamily.
“To be sure I am,” resumed Billy; “and I do be thinking there 's a kind
of poethry in carrying away into the solitary pine forest minds stored
with classic lore, to be able to read one's Horace beside the gushing
stream that flows on nameless and unknown, and con over ould Herodotus
amidst adventures stranger than ever he told himself.”
“It might be a happy life,” said the other, slowly, almost moodily.
“Ay, and it will be,” said Billy, confidently. “Think of yourself,
mounted on that saddle on a wild prairie horse, galloping free as the
wind itself over the wide savannas, with a drove of rushing buffaloes in
career before you, and so eager in pursuit that you won't stop to bring
down the scarlet-winged bustard that swings on the branch above you.
There they go, plungin' and snortin', the mad devils, with a force that
would sweep a fortress before them; and here are we after them, makin'
the dark woods echo again with our wild yells. That's what will warm
up our blood, till we 'll not be afeard to meet an army of dragoons
themselves. Them pistols once belonged to Cariatoké, a chief from Scio;
and that blade--a real Damascus--was worn by an Aga of the Janissaries.
Isn't it a picture?”
The youth poised the sword in his hand, and laid it down without a word;
while Billy continued to stare at him with an expression of intensest
amazement.
“Is it that you don't care for it all now, that your mind is changed,
and that you don't wish for the life we were talkin' over these three
weeks? Say so at once, my own darlin', and here I am, ready and willin'
never to think more of it. Only tell me what's passin' in your heart; I
ask no more.”
“I scarcely know it myself,” said the youth. “I feel as though in a
dream, and know not what is real and what fiction.”
“How have you passed your time? What were you doin' while I was away?”
“Dreaming, I believe,” said the other, with a sigh. “Some embers of my
old ambition warmed up into a flame once more, and I fancied that there
was that in me that by toil and labor might yet win upwards; and that,
if so, this mere life of action would but bring repining and regret, and
that I should feel as one who chose the meaner casket of fate, when both
were within my reach.”
“So you were at work again in the studio?”
“I have been finishing the arm of the Faun in that pavilion outside the
town.” A flush of crimson covered his face as he spoke, which Billy as
quickly noticed, but misinterpreted.
“Ay, and they praised you, I 'll be bound. They said it was the work of
one whose genius would place him with the great ones of art, and that he
who could do this while scarcely more than a boy, might, in riper years,
be the great name of his century. Did they not tell you so?”
“No; not that, not that,” said the other, slowly.
“Then they bade you go on, and strive and labor hard to develop into
life the seeds of that glorious gift that was in you?”
“Nor that,” sighed the youth, heavily, while a faint spot of crimson
burned on one cheek, and a feverish lustre lit up his eye.
“They did n't dispraise what you done, did they?” broke in Billy. “They
could not, if they wanted to do it; but sure there's nobody would have
the cruel heart to blight the ripenin' bud of genius,--to throw gloom
over a spirit that has to struggle against its own misgivin's?”
“You wrong them, my dear friend; their words were all kindness and
affection. They gave me hope, and encouragement too. They fancy that I
have in me what will one day grow into fame itself; and even you, Billy,
in your most sanguine hopes, have never dreamed of greater success for
me than they have predicted in the calm of a moonlit saunter.”
“May the saints in heaven reward them for it!” said Billy, and in his
clasped hands and uplifted eyes was all the fervor of a prayer. “They
have my best blessin' for their goodness,” muttered he to himself.
“And so I am again a sculptor!” said Massy, rising and walking the
room. “Upon this career my whole heart and soul are henceforth to be
concentrated; my fame, my happiness are to be those of the artist. From
this day and this hour let every thought of what--not what I once was,
but what I had hoped to be, be banished from my heart. I am Sebastian
Greppi. Never let another name escape your lips to me. I will not, even
for a second, turn from the path in which my own exertions are to
win the goal. Let the faraway land of my infancy, its traditions, its
associations, be but dreams for evermore. Forwards! forwards!” cried he,
passionately; “not a glance, not a look, towards the past.”
Billy stared with admiration at the youth, over whose features a glow
of enthusiasm was now diffused, and in broken, unconnected words spoke
encouragement and good cheer.
“I know well,” said the youth, “how this same stubborn pride must be
rooted out, how these false, deceitful visions of a stand and a
station that I am never to attain must give place to nobler and
higher aspirations; and you, my dearest friend, must aid me in all
this,--unceasingly, unwearyingly reminding me that to myself alone must
I look for anything; and that if I would have a country, a name, or a
home, it is by the toil of this head and these hands they are to be won.
My plan is this,” said he, eagerly seizing the other's arm, and speaking
with immense rapidity: “A life not alone of labor, but of the simplest;
not a luxury, not an indulgence; our daily meals the humblest, our
dress the commonest, nothing that to provide shall demand a moment's
forethought or care; no wants that shall turn our thoughts from this
great object, no care for the requirements that others need. Thus
mastering small ambitions and petty desires, we shall concentrate all
our faculties on our art; and even the humblest may thus outstrip those
whose higher gifts reject such discipline.”
“You 'll not live longer under the Duke's patronage, then?” said
Traynor.
“Not an hour. I return to that garden no more. There's a cottage on the
mountain road to Serravezza will suit us well: it stands alone and on an
eminence, with a view over the plain and the sea beyond. You can see it
from the door,--there, to the left of the olive wood, lower down than
the old ruin. We 'll live there, Billy, and we 'll make of that mean
spot a hallowed one, where young enthusiasts in art will come, years
hence, when we have passed away, to see the humble home Sebastian lived
in,--to sit upon the grassy seat where he once sat, when dreaming of the
mighty triumphs that have made him glorious.” A wild burst of mocking
laughter rung from the boy's lips as he said this; but its accents were
less in derision of the boast than a species of hysterical ecstasy at
the vision he had conjured up.
“And why would n't it be so?” exclaimed Billy, ardently,--“why would n't
you be great and illustrious?”
The moment of excitement was now over, and the youth stood pale, silent,
and almost sickly in appearance; great drops of perspiration, too, stood
on his forehead, and his quivering lips were bloodless.
“These visions are like meteor streaks,” said he, falteringly; “they
leave the sky blacker than they found it! But come along, let us to
work, and we 'll soon forget mere speculation.”
Of the life they now led each day exactly resembled the other. Rising
early, the youth was in his studio at dawn; the faithful Billy, seated
near, read for him while he worked. Watching, with a tact that only
affection ever bestows, each changeful mood of the youth's mind, Traynor
varied the topics with the varying humors of the other, and thus little
of actual conversation took place between them, though their minds
journeyed along together. To eke out subsistence, even humble as theirs,
the young sculptor was obliged to make small busts and figures for sale,
and Billy disposed of them at Lucca and Pisa, making short excursions to
these cities as need required.
The toil of the day over, they wandered out towards the seashore, taking
the path which led through the olive road by the garden of the villa. At
times the youth would steal away a moment from his companion, and
enter the little park, with every avenue of which he was familiar;
and although Billy noticed his absence, he strictly abstained from the
slightest allusion to it. As he delayed longer and longer to return,
Traynor maintained the same reserve, and thus there grew up gradually a
secret between them,--a mystery that neither ventured to approach. With
a delicacy that seemed an instinct in his humble nature, Billy would now
and then feign occupation or fatigue to excuse himself from the evening
stroll, and thus leave the youth free to wander as he wished; till at
length it became a settled habit between them to separate at nightfall,
to meet only on the morrow. These nights were spent in walking the
garden around the villa, lingering stealthily amid the trees to watch
the room where she was sitting, to catch a momentary glimpse of her
figure as it passed the window, to hear perchance a few faint accents of
her voice. Hours long would he so watch in the silent night, his whole
soul steeped in a delicious dream wherein her image moved, and came and
went, with every passing fancy. In the calm moonlight he would try to
trace her footsteps in the gravel walk that led to the studio, and,
lingering near them, whisper to her words of love.
One night, as he loitered thus, he thought he was perceived, for as
he suddenly emerged from a dark alley into a broad space where the
moonlight fell strongly, he saw a figure on a terrace above him,
but without being able to recognize to whom it belonged. Timidly and
fearfully he retired within the shade, and crept noiselessly away,
shocked at the very thought of discovery. The next day he found a small
bouquet of fresh flowers on the rustic seat beneath the window. At first
he scarcely dared to touch it; but with a sudden flash of hope that it
had been destined for himself, he pressed the flowers to his lips, and
hid them in his bosom. Each night now the same present attracted him to
the same place, and thus at once within his heart was lighted a flame
of hope that illuminated all his being, making his whole life a glorious
episode, and filling all the long hours of the day with thoughts of her
who thus could think of him.
Life has its triumphant moments, its dream of entrancing, ecstatic
delight, when suocess has crowned a hard-fought struggle, or when
the meed of other men's praise comes showered on us. The triumphs of
heroism, of intellect, of noble endurance; the trials of temptation met
and conquered; the glorious victory over self-interest,--are all great
and ennobling sensations; but what are they all compared with the first
consciousness of being loved, of being to another the ideal we have made
of her? To this, nothing the world can give is equal. From the moment
we have felt it, life changes around us. Its crosses are but barriers
opposed to our strong will, that to assail and storm is a duty. Then
comes a heroism in meeting the every-day troubles of existence, as
though we were soldiers in a good and holy cause. No longer unseen or
unmarked in the great ocean of life, we feel that there is an eye
ever turned towards us, a heart ever throbbing with our own; that our
triumphs are its triumphs,--our sorrows its sorrows. Apart from all the
intercourse with the world, with its changeful good and evil, we feel
that we have a treasure that dangers cannot approach; we know that in
our heart of hearts a blessed mystery is locked up,--a well of pure
thoughts that can calm down the most fevered hour of life's anxieties.
So the youth felt, and, feeling so, was happy.