Italy may be considered as the very focus and parent of superstitious
credulity. The materials which Hector had furnished, after all
the interrogations of the donzella, were slight compared with the
superstructure which was presently erected on them. My grotto was
said to be the appropriated haunt where a thousand devils held their
infernal sabbath. The terrified imagination of the rustics, listening
with a temper horribly distracted between curiosity and alarm, created
to itself fictitious howlings and shrieks, and saw pale and sulphureous
flames dancing upon the surface of the stream. Poor Hector was early
the victim of their cruel and untamed ignorance; they believed that
the peculiarity of his complexion rendered him a singularly agreeable
intercessor between me and my infernal familiars. The colour of Charon
was similar to that of my confidential attendant; and he, like Hector,
fell under the calumnious misconstructions of the affrighted villagers.
Conspicuously noble, affectionate and useful as he was, the jaundiced
eye of superstition metamorphosed him into a devil. The storms of
thunder and lightning to which the climate in which I resided is
particularly subject acquired new terror from the ill fame which now
pursued the name of Monsieur Boismorand. At those times the shapeless
form of monsters vomiting smoke and flames were visible to the
neighbourhood, sometimes scudding along the blue tops of the distant
hills, and at others, with audaciousness incredible, brushing even
at the elbow of the almost lifeless clowns and dairy-maids, and then
suddenly dissolving into air, their place no longer marked but by the
noisome and deadly stench they left behind. All the misfortunes of the
district were imputed to me, the mortality of cattle, the convulsions
and death of children, and the pale and lingering decay of persons
recently advanced to an age of puberty. Innocent and blameless was my
conduct to all around us; often was I forward and eager for the relief
of the poor and afflicted; never was I the author of the slightest
inconvenience or prejudice to any. Yet nothing merely human could be
hated in the degree in which I was hated; few were daring and intrepid
enough to repeat the very name I bore; and, when it was inadvertently
pronounced, it produced through the whole extent of the astonished
circle an involuntary and supernatural shudder.
Agostino, the first lover who had made an impression on the heart of
Hector’s donzella, was, as I afterwards found, a fellow of a gloomy
and ferocious disposition, a true Italian _spadaccino_, determined
that none should perpetrate an affront against him with impunity, but
should expiate, in some refined and cruel vengeance, the levity by
which they had been so unfortunate as to give birth to his hatred.
He by no means relished or approved the liberal and good-humoured
sentiments of the donzella; often had they inflicted on him the
darkest torments of jealousy; nor had he failed, at least in one
preceding instance, to make his rival the victim of his resentment.
The donzella however went on in her career; she was light of heart,
gay in temper, and careless of consequences. She had always hitherto
succeeded, by playful blandishments, or more serious demonstrations of
contrition, in mollifying the temper of her brute; and every pardon she
received operated with her as a new permission to offend. She did not
sufficiently consider that she was thus continually raising to a higher
pitch the frenzy of his malice. Hector in the mean time was utterly
unconscious and ignorant of the perilous situation in which he stood;
while, to the apprehension of Agostino, the giving him a negro for a
rival, whom his pride regarded as belonging to an inferior species of
beings, and his devout ignorance likened to the leader of the infernal
squadrons, was the last and most intolerable insult.
His malice was ingenious and subtle. He disdained the vulgar revenge
of stabbing his antagonist in the dark, and supposing that his
enmity could be gorged by a blow. When the venom of his nature was
thoroughly put in motion, nothing could restore it to quietness and
tranquillity but some mighty stroke, to excite the wonder of every
bystander, and that should leave behind it a track of desolation,
never to be filled up again and erased. He heard therefore with unsated
appetite and eager joy the tale of necromancy and infernal machination
repeated to him from Hector by the donzella. The impression which the
narrative produced upon him was a mixed sentiment of transport at the
apprehension of such an instrument of vengeance and of palpitating
hatred; superstition teaching him to believe and to view with
abhorrence that which he desired to render tenfold more an object of
faith and aversion to his neighbours. He struck an auspicious and
august alliance between his revenge and his religion; his religion
exciting him to exterminate that, the destruction of which would
produce inexpressible gratification to his revenge. The darkness of
his spirit led him to proceed with double caution and vigilance in his
correspondence with the donzella. He discovered nothing to her of the
dark project which was engendering in his mind; and only betrayed so
much of his superstitious feelings and fears as, by giving new emotion,
might stimulate her to gratify his curiosity and her own by a detection
of further particulars. He was assiduous in the underhand and sinister
propagation of the tale, to which he did not fail to give his own
colouring and affix his own feelings. He was desirous that the train
should be laid in silence, and that the explosion he designed should
be free from all pre-signification of the event. Thus an individual,
of whose animosity I had no apprehension, and the meanness of whose
appearance would probably have made me neglect all precaution against
him, gave method and direction to an evil, of which however, upon a
review, I am not inclined to doubt I should have been the victim, if
the enmity and industry of this individual had been wholly withdrawn.
The mischief was long in preparation, before I received in any way the
slightest intimation of the predicament in which I stood. The first
circumstance at all calculated to excite alarm in my mind, was the
singular manner in which I found myself regarded, if I entered any of
the neighbouring villages, or met the rustics and their dames, as I
strayed along the roads or the fields. They fled my approach, deserted
the streets, and carefully shut themselves up in their houses, till I
had passed. Where it was impossible to avoid me, they bowed themselves
to the earth in the most submissive guise before me, while the most
lively terror was painted in their countenances, dreading lest they
should excite the resentment of a tremendous and inexorable foe. These
tokens however were far from inspiring me with a conception of the
truth. They perplexed, they astonished, they distressed me. Sore as I
was with my recent afflictions, my mind was but too fully prepared for
anticipations of evil. I had suffered from suspicions, I had suffered
from calumnious imputations, I had suffered from the malignant effects
of popular rumour. Had I yielded my confidence to any person but such a
one as Hector, it is probable my suspicions would have turned on that
side. But my reliance on him was not less than that which Alexander
the Great yielded to Philip the physician: I knew his rectitude, his
simplicity, his fidelity, and the singleness of his heart; and I could
not harbour the shadow of a doubt respecting him. My reliance was
of that entire and perfect sort, which did not express itself by a
recollection of the physical possibility and an acquittal founded in
deliberation, but by a total vacancy of doubt, or of retrospect that
way directed, just such as the state of my mind would have appeared, if
the thing had been naturally impossible.
I was not however ignorant and raw enough to be deceived by the
exterior of homage I have described; I sufficiently knew that what I
beheld was the offspring of hatred. To feel one’s self hated is in all
instances a painful and humiliating state of the human mind. To me
it was especially so. I was not formed to retaliate this species of
injury; I could not hate in my turn. I was formed to love. I could not
look upon my species with dark and gloomy contemplations; I was prompt
to admire their virtues, and perhaps even too prompt to extenuate
their errors. It may, I believe, be laid down as a rule, that they who
cannot hate can least endure to be made objects of hatred. Fettered
however as I now was, by the tenderest consideration for the health and
tranquillity of Marguerite, I thought it best to temporise and submit
in silence. My principal anxiety was to hide these symptoms from the
notice of my family. This I could not completely effect; some of them
were too glaring and obtrusive, entirely to escape the observation
of my daughters in their walks. But the filial forbearance they felt
towards their mother led them implicitly and without any concerted plan
to concur with me in my exertions for her quiet.
The animosity of Agostino was restless and inextinguishable. His
plans did not terminate in exciting against me a secret and covered
abhorrence; they aimed at nothing less than my utter destruction. The
next exertion of the conspiracy which was engendering against me was of
a tragical nature.
It happened one night, after all my family was retired to rest, and
I was myself sunk into a slumber, that I was suddenly alarmed at the
report of a musket, which seemed to be fired almost under the window
of my chamber. This was a very singular circumstance, and calculated
to convey an impression of danger. I leaped from my bed, and ran to
the window. The night was extremely dark, and every thing seemed
perfectly quiet. Presently I discerned a glimmering light, like that
of a lantern, which however appeared to be gradually retiring to a
greater distance. I was not thus satisfied, but determined to hasten
down stairs, and investigate the cause of the disturbance. Marguerite,
who had heard the firing of the musket as well as myself, now called me
to her, and entreated me not to expose myself to unnecessary danger.
In compliance with her remonstrances I promised, though unwillingly,
not to go out into the court or upon the lawn, but to content myself
with examining the state of every part of the house. When I came to
the staircase and the hall, I found that the alarm had communicated to
almost every person in the family, who presently assembled round me.
We patroled the house, but found every thing in the situation in which
it had been left, and nowhere any appearance of violence. I opened
several of the windows, but all was darkness and silence. Having thus
far satisfied myself, I listened with a degree of amusement to the
conjectures and sage remarks of several of the servants, a rank of
society who may usually be found to derive a degree of enjoyment from
incidents of this sort, which, for the moment, strikingly tend to
level all artificial distinctions, and confer on every one the liberty
of uttering his reflections without apprehension or constraint. I did
not however feel myself entirely easy; the circumstance which had just
occurred, combined with the forebodings which had lately impressed me,
had filled me with undefinable terror and alarm. Hector would willingly
have gone over the grounds contiguous to the house, to see if he could
discover any thing that related to or could explain the incident; but I
had promised Marguerite that I would search no further, and the temper
of my mind would not suffer me to expose another to a danger, which I
abstained from encountering in my own person. It was more than an hour
before the conclave in which we were assembled broke up, and every
one retired, fatigued with attention, and prepared to fall into the
soundest sleep. My dreams were uneasy and disturbed; my mind was in a
tumult of imaginary calamities; and I passed the greater part of the
night in a state of singular anxiety.
In the morning I was scarcely sunk into a refreshing slumber, before
I was suddenly roused from sleep by a repetition of shrieks of
astonishment and distress. I put on my clothes as quickly as I could,
and hastened towards the spot from which the sounds appeared to
proceed. The first object I beheld was the little boy of ten years’
old, whom Charon had a short time before dragged out of the river,
stretched along upon the lifeless body of this faithful and generous
animal. The musket, the report of which had alarmed us the night
before, had no doubt been aimed against Charon, and the greater part
of its contents appeared to be lodged in his body. As no further sound
had succeeded the firing, he had probably been killed on the spot.
He was at a small distance from the house, near a private footpath,
where he had been found in the morning by the lad whose life he had
recently preserved. The poor boy had not at first understood what
had happened to his benefactor, but only thought him asleep, and,
prompted by affection for the generous creature, had quietly sat down
by him till he should awake. He had not sat long however, before he
discerned about him the marks of blood. He put his hand to the wound;
the animal stirred not. He passed to his head; he saw his eyes fiery
and starting, and his lips distorted. He endeavoured to awake him, as
one would awake a human being to whom some mischief had happened of
which he was not aware. All his efforts were fruitless. He found his
body motionless, and his joints stiff in death. The apprehension of
what had occurred then suddenly flashed on his mind. He burst out into
shrieks of astonishment and anguish. Hector was the first person who
caught the sound, and hastened to the spot; I immediately followed. The
poor negro, who, in the innocence of his heart was uninitiated in the
proud distinctions by which civilised man is taught to place so vast a
barrier between the human nature and the brute, was struck speechless
with sorrow and amazement. He recognised the dead being before him for
his fellow-creature. He recollected in him his friend, his companion,
his intimate acquaintance, between whom and himself there had for some
time passed an uninterrupted reciprocation of acts of kindness and
assistance.
A morose and fastidious reader perhaps will ask me why I lay so great
a stress upon so petty and insignificant an incident as the death of
a dog. It might have been little to other persons; it was not little
to us. Let the reader recollect his ingenuity in procuring aid for
his dying master, his gratitude to the person by whom that aid was
afforded, and his unconquerable antipathy to his master’s murderer.
These are not common traits. There are many men whose premature fate
has been the most unrelentingly avenged, that in moral and useful
qualities could not have stood the comparison with my generous Charon.
It surely was no common cause for regret, that a creature who had
distinguished himself by a conduct so peculiarly admirable, should
have encountered so premature and unmerited a fate. His conduct the
reader may in some degree comprehend and appreciate; but I should in
vain attempt to delineate those admirable qualities in this faithful
domestic, which do not fall within the province of narrative, and which
to have justly appreciated you must have been personally and familiarly
acquainted with him. Beside, ours was a family of love. As we were
affectionately attached to each other, so we never admitted a servant
under our roof, who did not prove himself by his conduct utterly
unworthy, to whom we did not extend a share of that friendship and
affection, which seemed to be the right of every one that dwelt in our
family. Feeling does not stay to calculate with weights and a balance
the importance and magnitude of every object that excites it; it flows
impetuously from the heart, without consulting the cooler responses of
the understanding.
There was another circumstance which rendered the catastrophe of this
generous animal of great moment to us. It was a clear proof that
there was somewhere a strong animosity at work against his master. It
was impossible he could himself have provoked his fate. Never was a
creature more gentle and inoffensive. Though his bulk was great, and
his strength uncommon, the energies he possessed were always employed
in acts of justice and beneficence, never in acts of aggression. But if
a hatred were at work so busy and fierce as to prompt an action like
this, how were we to estimate it? What was its source, and whither did
it tend? These were very interesting and serious considerations. We
however dwelt for some time longer in the centre of general antipathy
and abhorrence, without being able in the smallest degree to explain
to ourselves what we saw. As we knew not in what we had offended, we
were unable to atone for our fault, or even to guard ourselves against
the repetition of it; nor were we by any means prepared to comprehend
the extent of our danger. Happily Marguerite, whose health was now
in a rapid decline, was least exposed to the observation of this new
mischief; though she felt enough of it to confirm her in the sentiment,
that she had nothing fortunate and happy to look forward to in the
small remainder of her existence. There was indeed one idea perpetually
present to her, which rendered the impression of ordinary occurrences
extremely feeble upon her mind:--Charles, Charles, wandering alone
in the world, unknowing and unknown, without a friend, a relative, a
counsellor, or a protector, without money and without a name! This
melancholy image followed her wherever she went, haunted her nightly
in her dreams, attended her in all her occupations, filled all her
intervals of leisure; and, though she laid it down as a law to herself
never to repeat his beloved name in my presence, she could think of
nothing else.