"Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me:
I am sick in displeasure to him; and whatsoever comes athwart
his affection, ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross
this marriage?"
_Much ado about nothing._
A few days after the conversation detailed in the preceding chapter,
there was ushered into the office of the advocate at Montreal a
gentleman, who announced himself as Montigny, Seigneur of Mainville.
He was tall, and of a distinguished aspect, and had scarcely accepted
of the advocate's invitation to be seated, when, like a man impatient
to be done with a disagreeable business, he began:
"I have a son, sir, and you, as I believe, a ward, an orphan girl;"
pronouncing with a mixture of pity and contempt the last two words.
The advocate observed this depreciatory intonation, and throwing
himself backwards in his large easy chair, repeated: "An orphan
girl," at the same time putting a half angry, half comical expression
into his countenance, and perpetrating a pun in what followed:
"Yes, many of your Canadian noblesse would bless themselves to have
been her father. The poor fellow, it is well he is not here to have
overheard you. An orphan girl: true, as you say, I have an orphan
girl,--or one that passes for such; a girl I love, a ward, a
charming child, yonder at Stillyside. Were I disposed to praise
her I might say she is the Mountain's maid; the Dryad of its woods,
a grace, a goddess, fairer than Diana, and far purer, for one may
guess the fool Diana made of that poor boy, Endymion. But what
concerning my ward, sir, my most immaculate lady?"
"Would you forbid my son access to her?" enquired the seigneur.
"Ah! you wish for an injunction;" said the advocate; "show me cause.
I have, sir--as you seem aware--a ward dwelling yonder at my seat
at Stillyside;--a place I sometimes visit; a sort of shrine, a kind
of hermitage or chapel, wherein two devotees, two nun-like, holy
women consume the hours; leading there, pious, penitential lives,
making each day a sort of hallowed tide, and every eve a vigil."
"You are humorous," replied the seigneur. "Excuse me, I am sorry,
but it were best that I should speak plainly. I would not wish to
see your ward dishonored."
"Dishonored! not a seigneur, nor a seigneur's son dare dream of
such a consummation, nor, daring so to dream, could compass it,"
cried the advocate, growing crimson. "Yet this is kind of you;" he
added, bowing as if deeply grateful;--"and yet," he continued,
"there can be no fear of an offence: is not your son a clergyman?
for, if he be, and they confess to him anything worse than to have
admitted him to their confidence--why, sir, he shall be allowed to
enter, and shrive them when he chooses;" and after a momentary
silence, "Fie! fie!" he resumed, rolling in his chair; "'the fool
hath said in his heart there is no God,' and the wise man of
Mainville, who has been all his life looking for purity in a
petticoat, says 'there is no virtue in woman.' But I say, both
these oracles are in the wrong; there is not only a Divinity, but
there are women too who are virtuous. This is a clumsy jest, sir.
My ward be dishonored by your son? Yes, when the diamond can be
cut with a feather. Monsieur Montigny, a tempest is as harmless as
a breath, when that tempest is being hurled against the rock; a
breath is even as effectual as is a tempest, when that breath is
puffed against the dust. So buzzing blandishments of sighing fops,
may blow the frail flowerets from weak, wanton natures; whilst
vehement vows of otherwise most honorable men, though urged as
strongly as the northern blast, are in vain against the marble
front of virtue. I am marble to your wishes."
"You weigh your danger as little as you do your language," observed
the seigneur. "Will you permit a trespasser, a tempter within your
grounds; a wolf, a fox, a bear within your fold?"
The advocate shrugged his shoulders and replied: "No, heaven
forbid;--and Stillyside is to me as an outer court of heaven,
wherein my ward dwells as a sort of semi-solitary angel."
"Yet angels fell, and so may she fall," interjected the seigneur
quickly.
"They did, and without a tempter, too, Monsieur Montigny," returned
the advocate, quietly; then added: "the height of heaven turned
the heads of the angels giddy."
"Girls are giddy," remarked the seigneur gravely.
"Boys are more frequently foolish," drily retorted the advocate:
"and often coming to girls for kisses, go away with cuffs. I hope
your son has neither sought for the one nor yet received the other.
But what is this son, Monsieur Montigny, that you would have me
believe to be so formidable? Is he another Lucifer, couched at my
Ward's ear, as his dark prototype once squatted at that of Eve? Or
is he Lothario alive again? Is he Leander, and are the Ottawa's
jaws a western Hellespont, with my ward and Stillyside, for Hero
and her tower?"
"Your verandah," remarked the seigneur, "is not higher than was
Hero's tower, although, I trust, your ward's virtue may be more
exalted than was Hero's. But are you aware, sir, that already my
son has had her company, alone, at midnight, on your grounds; all
others retired; she alone watching, with Claude Montigny and the
broad, full moon?"
"An actionable moon," exclaimed the lawyer, "and a decided case of
lunacy against the lovers. But, alas, sir, in this respect we have
all been sinners in our youth, and all grown wondrous righteous
with our years. Have we not ourselves, when we were young,--ay,
and upon inclement winter nights too, courted brown peasant girls
beneath both stars and moon? What if the nights were cold, the
blood was warm; and now with these volcanic veins of ours grown
cool, why, we may walk on the quenched crater of concupiscence,
and who dares challenge us, and say, ha, ha! smut clings to you,
gentlemen; you have the smell of fire upon you. No, sir, no; we
are fumigated, ventilated, scented, powdered, purged as with hyssop.
Pish! he must be truly an Ethiop, whom time cannot whiten; a very
leopard, who will not part with his spots, since the sun himself
shall lose _his_ some day, purged in his own fires."
"I repeat, sir, your ward is in danger," said the seigneur doggedly.
"Not at all. Is the diamond in danger when it is put into the
crucible; is the gold deteriorated when it is being deterged from
dross?" was responded.
"Infatuated man, would you open the door to the seducer?" asked
the seigneur, growing angry with the contumelious lawyer.
"Seducer!" said the advocate, affecting to be shocked: "that is a
huge stone to throw at your own son: and remember; is not every
man's frame a glass house, whereat the soul that inhabits it should
invite no stone throwing from the little red catapult of a neighbour's
tongue? Beware, beware; have mercy, Monsieur Montigny. 'All flesh
is grass,' the Prophet proclaims; but I assert, 'All flesh is
glass.'"
"A woman's reputation is as brittle," was the seigneur's ready
repartee; "therefore warn off my son from Stillyside."
"But should he not regard me, sir, what then?"
"Brandish the law over him, your chosen weapon," answered the
seigneur.
The lawyer suddenly looked grave, and, affecting to be offended,
demanded sternly: "Monsieur Montigny, am I a mere mechanic to do
your bidding? Brandish the law indeed! Is, then, the law but an
ordinary cudgel, to thwack the shoulders with or beat the brains
out? The law, sir, is a sacred weapon, not to be lightly taken up,
neither to be profanely applied to paltry uses, any more than we
would take the tempered razor to pick a bone, or pare our cheese
with. Brandish the law! The man that can talk of brandishing the
law would brandish a piece of the true cross, sir, if he had it;
he would drink, sir, from his mother's skull, and with his father's
thigh-bones play at shinty. What is the law? What less is it than
the will and force of all employed for one; the savage sense of
justice, disciplined and drilled till it can move in regular array,
invincibly, to conquer wrong; surely too vast an engine to be
employed on trifles. Who wants a wheel to break a butterfly upon;
or, to crush a worm who calls for a pavior's rammer? Monsieur
Montigny, listen. Mercy is Heaven's first attribute, and the
executioner is the State's meanest, as well as last, servant; shall
I, then, stoop to this, who may aspire to that? Shall I wield a
whip of legal scorpions before your son, should he seek to re-enter
Stillyside? Would you have me, as once Heaven's cherubim stood at
the gates of Paradise, with fiery swords turning all ways, to hinder
its ejected tenants from breaking back into the garden,--would you
have me, I say, stand at my gates at Stillyside, and, meeting young
Montigny, flourish in his face a fist full of fasces, in the form
of threatened pains and penalties? No; your suit, sir, is denied:
you take nothing by your motion."
"Dare you deny," retorted the seigneur, loudly, and with a look of
coming triumph; "dare you deny that you are privy to their intimacy;
will you assert that you--yourself unseen--have not witnessed my
son in secret, midnight conversation with your ward at Stillyside;
there overheard them interchanging vows of endless love, and dealing
declarations of devotedness unto each other;--I ask you; did you
not hear and see these doings, and, even when you did at length
surprise the pair, did you not by failing to condemn their folly,
give it your silent sanction?"
"Something of this I did," said the advocate coolly, "for I remembered
some rather liberal breathings of my own when I was young,--and
youth will have its fling,--nay, do not bite your lip, but listen.
Monsieur Montigny, thus far we have met guile with guile. Just like
two wily fencers, both of us, waiting to spy our advantage, have
still witheld the lunge, until, at last, you, having grown desperate,
have rushed into the close. Yet, do not let your anger overbear
discretion. The heated iron hisses when it is plunged into the
trough, but shall we hiss at each other like geese or serpents?
Shall we quarrel, deny the undeniable, try to undo the accomplished
deed? What is done is done, and not Omnipotence itself, sir, could
undo it."
"But we may hinder further evil," observed the seigneur.
"Ay? Would you keep out the lightning by high builded walls?"
demanded the advocate, "for you are as likely to accomplish that,
as to keep lovers from each other. No, let them alone, for they
are as climbing Titans towards their wishes' skies; despising
guardians' gates and fathers' fences, just as much as did Briareus
and his crew disdain its rugged sides, and risk their necks up
steep Olympus, when they were making war on Jove. You cannot bar
them. The sun may be debarred from attics, and frost may be kept
out of cellars, but, Monsieur Montigny, the mutually enamoured can
never be permanently parted. Sir, no more."
"Enamoured he, and she at length dishonoured," cried the seigneur,
disregarding the injunction.
"Her honour is its own sufficient guardian," was responded.
"Have regard, sir, to your future peace," was urged.
"Peace, sir, like silence, never comes for calling for," rejoined
the advocate.
"Impracticable man, have you no fear?" demanded the foiled Montigny
upbraidingly.
"None for my ward; I hope you have as little for your son," said
the lawyer sarcastically.
"Your ward invites my son, by sitting upon the verandah at midnight,
to attract him when he passes by, as the Hebrew woman, Tamar, once
sat to decoy the foolish Judah. Do you deny this? I have learned
all, all," outburst the indignant seigneur.
"Do I deny it?" cried the advocate, the blood, in anger, rushing
to his face. "Dare you affirm it? Monsieur, if you mean seriously
to asperse my ward, I say, prepare;--not for the action of the
law,--no, no, I hate the law, when it is cited for myself,--but
for the action of an old man's arm. Sir, I have been a swordsman
in my youth, and though the lank skeleton of my skill at fence is
buried in disuse, it moves now in the grave of this right hand,
that so long has wielded only the quiet quill. I do not bid you
quail; not I,--but, by the angry devil of the duel, you answer me,
either sword point to sword point; or from the pointing pistol,
that shall speak both sharp and decisive, and the dotting bullet,
perhaps, put a period to your proud life's scrawl. But no; I am
grown too old to have recourse to violence. Away, go, go; but, mind
you, do not breathe this calumny into a human ear,--no, not into
the air. Shame, shame! you are no noble minded man, to villify my
ward and your own son; whom, if I accounted to be as strangely base
as you have shown yourself to be, and have depicted him, I would
forbid to tread within my gates, and hound him from my door at
Stillyside."
"Words only anger you," said the astonished and half daunted
seigneur.
"Such words as yours have been:" was replied. "What! do you expect
to strike upon a bank where bees have settled, yet not be stung;
or dream to be allowed to draw the bare hand, clasping down a sword,
but not be wounded?"
"What shall I say, yet not offend you?" soothingly enquired Montigny.
"Say what you will," the advocate continued: "what can be worse
than what you have said already?"
"Hear me," said the seigneur, in the manner of one who is going to
make a confidential proposal: "Either remove your ward, and
receive a compensation for her absence, or quickly marry her, and
I will provide her with a dower."
"Now you are indeed a generous gentleman," said the advocate,
smiling; "You must have built churches, surely, or founded hospitals,
and always have dealt out dollars liberally to the deserving. But
you are wealthy, and can do these things without being impoverished.
It is fortunate that you are wealthy, for I shall accept of no
paltry sum. Only imagine, to have to banish her; to quench, or to
remove, the very beam that fills my life with light. You must be
liberal, if you would have me exile her Come, sign me a bond for
what I shall demand."
"You are in haste," observed the seigneur, somewhat startled at
the advocate catching so readily at the bait; but the latter was
ready with his reply:
"Because your son may now be at Stillyside, and, whilst we are
haggling, may carry off my ward,--or I might change my mind," he
answered.
"And I, too, may change mine," was the rejoinder.
"Why, then, we are quits;" observed the advocate carelessly, and
as if all parley were at an end; "we are as we were, and, for the
young ones, they are as they were; but if I know the force of
youthful blood, you, with all your endeavours, will not be able
long to keep them apart."
"What is your price for her expatriation?" demanded the seigneur
sullenly, as if coming to terms; and the advocate replied:
"No, marry her, marry her; we will have her married. We either
marry her or do nothing in this business, sir, which, after all,
were, perhaps, best left to those who have most interest in it;--but
if you think differently, be it yours to find the money, I will
find the match:--and let it be understood, that you find her a
dowry which would be fitting for a seigneur's daughter; or else,
without a dowry, I shall not scruple to give her to a seigneur's
son. Why are you silent?"
The proud, perplexed parent made no answer, but secretly groaned
in his dilemma, and at length exclaimed: "Insatiate old man, have
you no son, the thought of which may teach you to be just towards
me and mine? What do I ask of you? Little,--or what would cost you
little, yet you ask a fortune of me; and to enrich, too, one, whom,
as a punishment, I have reason rather to desire should always be
poor. Do not deny it; she has ensnared my son. It is impossible,
that he who has roamed over half the world, and has yet come home
uncaptivated, though in his travels he has met the fairest and the
richest, can have been caught at the mere passing by your farm of
Stillyside, can at a glance have been so smitten as to meditate
this marriage. No, he has been decoyed, seduced. You might as well
declare that a young eagle would not return to its nest, but plunge
into some casually discovered coop, and roost there, as aver that,
without some irregular influence, Claude Montigny would seek your
ward in marriage. If she marry him, she will marry a beggar: not
an acre of mine shall he inherit, not a dollar of mine will he
receive. Give her a dowry? Give her a dukedom. No, sir; I will
not buy brass from you at the price of gold; I will not subsidize
you to avoid your ward." And, with the words, he bowed himself out
of the room, and the advocate, casting himself backwards in his
easy chair, laughing, exclaimed: "Was ever such a proposition
started?--started! yes; and shall eventually be carried. It is not
what we do, but it is the motive that induced the deed, that gives
the color to it. She shall be Madam Montigny, in spite of old
Montigny's self; and for her dowry, (which I asked Montigny to
provide, only that it might be returned to him through his son),
I'll mortgage my old brains to procure it for her."