He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find
The loftiest peak most wrapped in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.
They had been domiciled in the castle for several days when Miss Vyvyan
said,
"As I am to take care of the commissariat department out of doors, Ada,
I think it would be well for me to go down to the beach and bring up all
the provisions I can, while we have such fine weather, as we think the
winter may be very long here, so if you consider it a good plan I will
fill another storeroom."
"We will all go down, Anna," replied Mrs. Carleton. "We have been here
five days now, and I hope the tide may have removed much that was
distressing to see there."
When the ladies reached the beach it was as Mrs. Carleton had supposed,
all the corpses had floated away, but the whole beach and the shore far
up from the sea was still strewn with wreckage. They worked very
diligently, making piles of many things that might be useful, little
Cora trotting about as busily as her companions, and helping as far as
she knew how. It was scarcely ten o'clock, but the ladies had been out
in the sun for some time lifting and carrying heavy burdens, an
occupation which was as fatiguing to them as it was novel. So that they
might rest a little while, and get all the sea breeze that there was on
that still day, they went out on to a mass of high rocks, which
projected into the ocean and formed a cove on each side.
Scarcely had they seated themselves, when they saw a gentleman climbing
up from one of the coves below and coming toward them. He was a young
man perhaps twenty-seven years of age. As he approached them, they
noticed that his appearance was that of a gentleman of rank, his every
movement was full of grace and high breeding, his figure was slender and
under the middle size, and his face exceedingly handsome and refined.
His bright chestnut colored hair was long and fell in waving masses on
his shoulders. He wore a small beard of the same hue, his dress was very
rich and elaborate, after the fashion of the time, and when he spoke,
his voice and courtly manner, told that he was what his appearance
indicated. As soon as he came near to them, he bowed low, and made a
gesture with one hand, as if raising his hat, but he was bareheaded.
"Ladies," he began, "pardon me for intruding upon you, but for the love
of heaven give me a cup of water, it is many days since I moistened my
lips, I have been shipwrecked on your coast."
The ladies were on their feet in an instant. Mrs. Carleton running to a
birch tree a few yards back from the beach, and breaking off a piece of
bark, deftly bent it into a cup, which she handed to Miss Vyvyan to fill
from the same pond that had supplied them with water the first day they
were thrown upon the island. Refreshed by the draught the stranger tried
to thank them, but speech and strength failed him, and tottering a few
paces toward the land, he fell down insensible beside a fissure in one
of the rocks. The ladies went to him.
"His hands are as cold as if he were dead, Ada," said Miss Vyvyan. "What
will it be best to do?"
"What did you do for me, when you first tried to help me?" replied Mrs.
Carleton.
"I tried to get you warm."
"Well, then, we must do that."
At these words, they simultaneously took off the outside wraps they
wore, and laid them over him, and hastened about among the wreckage,
until they had a good supply of warm rugs and coverings.
"Where did you get those hot stones that you placed at my feet," said
Mrs. Carleton?
"I made a fire and heated them."
Then we will make a fire and do the same thing.
They covered the poor fellow over, and put hot stones to his feet, and
he seemed to be sleeping. In the meantime they prepared some light food
for him. They sat in silence near by, waiting to see what they could do,
should he return to consciousness. They observed the color coming back
to his face, and a bright pink spot burned on each cheek.
"I fear," said Mrs. Carleton, "fever is setting in. I will make
something with the fruit we brought down, that will quench his thirst."
The child seemed to echo the thoughts of her companions, seeing them
anxiously engaged in ministering to the sufferer. She began gathering up
anything that she thought pretty, and laid it by his side. Presently she
went to him with a few wild flowers, which she had picked from the
crevices of the rocks and among the shore grass close by. She observed
the ladies spoke in low tones to each other and moved about very
quietly. She knew there was some cause for this, for, young as she was,
she had already an idea of illness and suffering, and her little heart
was full of pity for others. She stood looking at him as he lay asleep
before her, waiting with her wild flowers, until the time should come
for her to give them to him. "Poorest, poorest," she repeated, at the
same time stroking his hair with her baby hand. That was her own word,
and her own way of showing sympathy and pity. The little one's
vocabulary was, at this period of her life, very limited, but equally
significant of all that she saw and felt. She possessed no extraneous
babble. The only words she was capable of uttering came from her heart;
hence they fell upon her hearers with all the beauty and strength of
truth. "Poorest, poorest," she again repeated; "dorn seep; papa dorn
seep, too."
At the child's last sentence, a shudder quivered through Mrs.
Carleton's frame, and a still whiter shade passed over the already pale
face. She clasped her little one close to her and bowed down upon its
head. She did not utter a sound. Her silence said more than any words
could have done, for hers was a sorrow that had no speech.
After a restful sleep, the young man awoke, and sitting up among the
many rugs and coverings by which he was surrounded, he looked about in
every direction, and appeared to be endeavoring to realize his true
position. He saw the high tower of the castle rising so near to him
among the trees; he saw the ladies and the child, but he did not feel
quite sure of the truth of all he saw until Mrs. Carleton put a cup into
his hand and said,
"This is a fever drink; will you take some? I have just made it from
fruit, the same as we make it in Virginia."
"Thank you," he said. "I know what it is. I am a Virginian. I sailed
from that colony in the ship Sir Walter Raleigh. Who has been so kind as
to bring me all these rugs," he continued.
"We did," replied Mrs. Carleton, looking in the direction of Miss
Vyvyan, who with the child stood near them.
"What, with your own hands? I regret to have caused you so much trouble;
although I am grateful to you in the extreme, I would have preferred you
to have given orders to some of your servants. It is not seemly that
ladies such you are should wait upon me; it is not consistent with the
chivalry of a gentleman."
"I understand your feelings on this subject," said Mrs. Carleton, "for
I, too, am a Virginian; but we have no servants now, and my friend and I
are glad that we can be useful. It is five days since your ship was
wrecked, therefore we know that you must have suffered greatly. Pray do
not be disturbed by seeing us doing what little we can to save you from
perishing; let me assure you that we are very happy to do our utmost."
The young man bowed, his cheeks still wore the bright flush of fever
which heightened the intensity of his soft brown eyes, that beamed with
gratitude.
"Do you say that you are a Virginian?" he inquired, addressing Mrs.
Carleton.
"Yes," she answered; "we were in the Sir Walter Raleigh, too; that is to
say, my husband and child with myself, but I never saw any of the
passengers. I remained in my cabin all the time we were at sea."
"I recollect you, now," he said. "I saw Colonel Carleton lift you and
your child into a boat when our ship went ashore."
"Were you acquainted with Colonel Carleton?" she inquired. "He was my
husband."
"We were not acquainted until we met on board, but during the several
weeks we were at sea we passed all the time together. You say he _was_
your husband. Is it possible that generous-hearted man is lost?"
Mrs. Carleton made an inclination with her head.
"Forgive me," he said, "my conversation has caused you pain."
"Please continue," she replied, "tell me all you know about him."
"I witnessed many of his acts of kindness during our voyage, and
received kindness from him at what I suppose was the last moment of his
life. The boat you were in was full and I urged him to get into another
one, but he refused, saying, 'I can swim and you cannot.' At the same
moment he took hold of me and dropped me into the boat as easily as if I
were a child. You know how tall and powerful he was. The next instant
your boat was capsized and I saw Colonel Carleton leap into the sea and
swim toward you. His hand was almost upon your arm, when an enormous
wave swept him out of sight. The same wave capsized our boat, and the
next one threw me into the cove below. I might have got away before, but
part of a broken mast lay across my chest and I was entangled hand and
foot by the rigging. I could neither move nor call aloud. I heard voices
more than once, the voices of ladies. I believe it was your voice and
that of your friend, for I never knew my ear to deceive me. I saw
corpses lying all around me. The tide took them away and brought them
back again many times while I was there. All one night a dead hand lay
across my throat, but I could not disengage my hands to remove it. I had
no fever; I was conscious of everything. The tide was higher than usual
this morning. It lifted the mast and I crawled from under it."
He appeared to suffer much from exhaustion and lay down again upon the
rugs, and closing his eyes remained silent. After a little rest, he
again sat up and resumed his conversation with Mrs. Carleton.
"I have a great love of music," he began. "I left the colony of Virginia
with the intention of going to London, to perfect my study of that
divine art, under the direction of Orlando Gibbons. He is very young to
be a composer, but he is already of much renown."
For some time he continued to speak fluently on the subject of music, a
subject of which the ladies perceived he was a complete master. As he
talked, he became full of enthusiasm, and that wondrous light which
belongs to genius alone illumined his beautiful, eyes and his whole soul
spoke through them.
"Ah, my madrigals," said he, "they will yet be sung to His Majesty, King
James. My symphonies I shall submit to Orlando Gibbons, then I shall
hear them played by a full orchestra, the world will hear, then justice
will be accorded to me, the great masters will be my judges, genius such
as theirs allows them to be generous and true in their opinions of other
men. They will see me as I am. They will not condemn what they cannot
understand. They will not call my life useless, because my tastes, my
talents and my whole being compel me to be different from those among
whom I live. I cannot help it, and I would not if I could."
An expression of mental pain passed over his face as he thus proceeded.
"Why did my uncle call my life and my work useless? It is hard to be
misunderstood. If I can create out of my own brain something that is
pure and beautiful, that gives happiness, that draws coarse natures away
from their coarseness, to feelings more elevated, that can bring to some
an ecstasy of delight, to others a sweet calm. If I follow a pursuit
which injures no human being, no living creature, why am I to endure
displeasure? Is it more manly, more noble to hunt the poor, panting deer
till it falls gasping on the ground, and then to save its life for the
purpose of chasing it again for sport? Is it more noble to ride races
till the horses drop down dead? Tell me, do such pursuits elevate or
brutalize?"
Taking a roll of paper from his breast, he handed it to Mrs. Carleton,
saying, "I have a symphony here which I composed since I left my home;
would you like to look at it? I wish my twin brother Ronald could see
this; he understands me, and he will understand my music, although since
his accident, his hand can no longer obey his will; yet he will read my
symphony, aye, more, he will play it in his soul. With it you will find
a song also, the words and music are both mine; when you have read it,
will you hand it to your friend?"
Mrs. Carleton took the roll of music into her hand, but observing that
the writing was almost obliterated from having been so long wet with sea
water, she passed it to Miss Vyvyan, who sat a little farther off,
desiring to spare him the pain of seeing that his composition was
destroyed. The many pages of music were entirely illegible, with the
exception of part of the refrain of the song, the words of which ran
thus:--
Bury me deep,
Where the surges sweep,
And the heaving billows moan.
At the bottom was the name "Ralph." The following part of the signature
was destroyed.
As Anna read over the words of the song, she could not help feeling that
they might be prophetic of what was very near. She folded the paper
together and returned it to him.
"Is that your signature?" she asked.
"Yes, that is my name," he replied. "Do you like music," he continued.
"I do," she said.
"How much do you like it?"
"I like it to such a degree," she replied, "that I think life is not
life without music."
"Ah, that is what I think," he said. "But I am exhausted. Ladies, will
you pardon me if I sleep a little while? I want to get back my strength,
that I may be able to wait upon you both, and make all the return in my
power for your great kindness to me."
He soon fell into a restless, broken sleep, constantly murmuring to
himself incoherently.
"Anna," said Mrs. Carleton, "he is very ill, and it is almost sunset,
and quite impossible for us to take him up to the castle. We must make
some shelter here for him; the breeze already comes in from the sea
much cooler, and the night will be cold." The ladies picked up loose
stones and planks and everything they could move, and formed a low wall
around him, making a place of shelter as large as a small room. They
then drew up a portion of a sail and laid it partially across for a
roof. He still slept, but as they looked at him, they saw the fever was
rapidly increasing; a still brighter flush was on his cheeks; his lips
were parched, and his breathing distressingly short and oppressed.
"What can we do?" said Mrs. Carleton. "See there, Anna! The sun has gone
behind the hill to the west of the castle; it will soon be dark. It
would be terrible to leave him here to perish, for he needs great care,
beside the wolves may come, and he is too ill to defend himself. Do tell
me what you think it best to do?"
"One of us must watch by him to-night, Ada," replied Miss Vyvyan, "and
if he should be better to-morrow, we may be able to get him up to the
castle. I must be the one to watch. Little Cora could not pass the night
without you, and even if she could, you are not well enough yet to be
out in the night air. Let me go up and get a few things such as he may
require. I will be back very quickly."
When Miss Vyvyan entered the castle, the sun had set, and a dull gray
hue had settled upon every room. How dreary for poor Ada, she thought to
herself, here almost alone, with the death of her husband so recent, and
so vividly brought before her to-day. She at once thought of kindling a
fire as the only means she had of taking away some of the gloominess of
the place. She did so, and then spread a supper table as temptingly as
she could with the only food they had at command, and hastened back
again to the beach.
"He still sleeps," said Mrs. Carleton, "but his fever is very high. It
distresses me to leave you here, Anna, and I would not, but for little
Cora's sake."
"I understand you," replied Anna; "I shall always understand you. We are
not mistresses of our own destiny; we have to do what we can, not what
we wish. I know all that you would do if you could."
As Mrs. Carleton took the child in her arms and turned her steps toward
the castle, the moon rose slowly from the sea and made a long, golden,
glimmering path from the horizon to the shore. It was the harvest moon,
which was almost at the full. The night was light and still, with the
exception of the sound of the waves, which broke upon the beach below in
one long, continuous moan.
Anna watched beside her charge, sometimes moistening his parched lips,
sometimes arranging his improvised pillow, and listening to every sound
both near and distant, with that quick, discriminating sense of hearing
which we acquire from watching over those we love, and which she had
learned during the last illness of her mother. The night was now far
advanced. Close beside her came the quick, hard breathing, and the
indistinct murmuring of the sufferer.
From down below, still arose the mournful tones of the heavily rolling
waves, and from the forest came the howling of the wolves, but she could
hear they were not near; and resolved if they should approach to scare
them away, by setting light to a pile of wood which Mrs. Carleton had
laid together for that purpose.
As she sat there on the ground and realized her situation, a feeling
almost of terror came over her. During the past few years, she had gone
through the discipline of a long lifetime. This night, the past and
present seemed to combine to crush out the remnant of courage that had
been left to her. She buried her face in her hands and rocked to and
fro, struggling with her feeling, struggling with destiny, and
struggling to call back some of her former self; that as her day, so her
strength might be.
At that moment, Ralph awoke; he turned his face on his pillow, and
regarding her with great earnestness, he said, "Where is Ronald, my
brother? I want him here now."
Anna went nearer to him and, looking at the flushed face and the
brilliant, restless eyes, saw that he was delirious.
"Ronald," he repeated. "Are you there?"
"Perhaps he is near you," said Anna, wishing to solace him.
"That is well," he answered. "I will play my new composition to him."
He immediately began to move his hands over the rugs which covered him,
as if he were playing the organ.
"Ah," said he, "that is the chord I sought,--thank heaven.--Listen to
this.--Hark, hear this resolution. Now do you see what that chord leads
up to?--How is that harmonic progression?--How does this sound?--I shall
have a double suspension there.--Ah, that is good.--Hark; now can you
hear the melody running through the minor?--Yes, the violoncellos come
in there,--so it must be.--More ink; quick, quick,--there is so much to
write and so little time."
He sank down again, exhausted, and fell into a deep sleep. After an hour
he again awoke, the flush had left his cheek; he was very calm, and had
perfectly regained his senses.
"I have been dreaming of my brother Ronald," he said. "I thought he was
here. Can you tell me what time it is?"
"I think," replied Anna, "by the position of the moon, it must be an
hour past midnight."
"I have been ill," he said, "but I feel better, much better; almost well
again. I want to thank you ladies for so much kind care of me; both Mrs.
Carleton and you, but I do not know what to call you. I did not hear
your name."
"I do not wish you to thank me now," said Anna, "because you are too
weak to talk at present, but I will tell you my name. It is Anna
Vyvyan."
"Vyvyan," he repeated. "I know that name; I will tell you all about it
to-morrow--I feel faint.--There is a great oppression at my
heart.--Those timbers crushed my chest.--I cannot breathe.--Raise me
up."
Anna knelt on the ground beside him and raised him up as he desired.
"Yes," he said, "tired, tired."
The next moment a wonderful far-away look of rapture came over his
beautiful face, and then a pale shadow such as might be caused by the
passing flight of a bird;--his head fell upon her shoulder;--he was
dead. Anna laid his lifeless body gently down and watched beside it
through the silent hours of the night, gazing from time to time at the
finely-formed features. They had a fascination for her, and she could
not dispossess her mind of the thought that she had seen them before.
The first few streaks of dawn came creeping over land and sea, and the
sun arose and shed a shimmering light on the surrounding islands, the
forest and the misty mountain tops. With daylight, the howling of the
wolves ceased, and the only signs of life were the sea gulls that
floated about near the shore or ran screaming along the beach devouring
their prey, and a pair of eagles which constantly hovered near and
swooped down close to where the dead man was lying. Anna covered the
cold, pale face and went nearer to protect it from any attack.
The sun had not long risen when Mrs. Carleton with little Cora left the
castle.
Anna heard their voices, and went to meet them. "I must be careful how I
speak," she said, addressing Mrs. Carleton, "for I feel sure Cora
understands much more than she can find language to express, but I have
to tell you that ever since about an hour after midnight I have been all
alone. He sleeps."
The ladies gave the child some shells to play with, and went to where
his body lay. They drew the sail over the low wall which they had made
around him and completely covered in the little room.
"That will keep any eagles or wolves away while daylight lasts," said
Mrs. Carleton, "but we must bury the poor fellow's body before night.
The thought of having it devoured or mutilated when it is in our power
to prevent it, is more than either of us could bear, for in addition to
the forlorn state that we found him in, his genius and his gentle
breeding made both of us take an interest in him. Beside, his being a
Virginian, and the last person to speak with Dudley, gave him a claim on
my friendship."
They went up to the castle and did not return until just before sunset,
when they brought with them many beautiful wild flowers, which, as we
have said, abounded on the island. They also gathered branches of the
fragrant fir balsam, with which they lined the fissure in the rock on
which Ralph's body was lying. Folding around the latter a robe of rich
brocade, they lowered it tenderly into the tomb that nature had wrought.
As Anna laid the face cloth over the marble features, she started back.
The resemblance which had attracted and held her attention during the
night, had come out vividly since the morning. The likeness was to her
own mother, and was as marked as if Ralph had been her son. They covered
his silken winding-sheet with flowers until the sepulchre was filled,
then they laid flat stones across his resting place, and began to build
a cairn over all. They continued building until the sun went down,
little Cora bringing stones in her baby hands and placing them with the
same precision that she saw her mother and Miss Vyvyan were doing.
"We have made everything secure now, Anna," said Mrs. Carleton, "but we
will come again to-morrow and add more stones to the cairn, and every
time we come to the beach we will do the same. Will you take charge of
the manuscript? We do not know what the future may bring. He wished his
brother Ronald to see it, and we may, perhaps, some day have it in our
power to carry out his wish. Now we will go back to the castle, for I
see you are in great need of rest."