“Be it so,” answered the high-souled Trevylyan; “the same consolation

awaits us in action as in repose. We sedulously pursue what we deem to

be true glory. We are maligned; but our soul acquits us. Could it do

more in the scandal and the prejudice that assail us in private life?

You are silent; but note how much deeper should be the comfort, how much

loftier the self-esteem; for if calumny attack us in a wilful obscurity,

what have we done to refute the calumny? How have we served our species?

Have we ‘scorned delight and loved laborious days’? Have we made the

utmost of the ‘talent’ confided to our care? Have we done those

good deeds to our race upon which we can retire,--an ‘Estate of

Beneficence,’--from the malice of the world, and feel that our deeds

are our defenders? This is the consolation of virtuous actions; is it so

of--even a virtuous--indolence?”

“You speak as a preacher,” said Vane,--“I merely as a calculator; you of

virtue in affliction, I of a life in ease.”

“Well, then, if the consciousness of perpetual endeavour to advance our

race be not alone happier than the life of ease, let us see what this

vaunted ease really is. Tell me, is it not another name for _ennui_?

This state of quiescence, this objectless, dreamless torpor, this

transition _du lit a la table, de la table au lit_,--what more dreary

and monotonous existence can you devise? Is it pleasure in this

inglorious existence to think that you are serving pleasure? Is it

freedom to be the slave to self? For I hold,” continued Trevylyan,

“that this jargon of ‘consulting happiness,’ this cant of living for

ourselves, is but a mean as well as a false philosophy. Why this eternal

reference to self? Is self alone to be consulted? Is even our happiness,

did it truly consist in repose, really the great end of life? I doubt if

we cannot ascend higher. I doubt if we cannot say with a great moralist,

‘If virtue be not estimable in itself, we can see nothing estimable in

following it for the sake of a bargain.’ But, in fact, repose is the

poorest of all delusions; the very act of recurring to self brings about

us all those ills of self from which, in the turmoil of the world, we

can escape. We become hypochondriacs. Our very health grows an object

of painful possession. We are so desirous to be well (for what is

retirement without health?) that we are ever fancying ourselves ill;

and, like the man in the ‘Spectator,’ we weigh ourselves daily, and live

but by grains and scruples. Retirement is happy only for the poet, for

to him it is _not_ retirement. He secedes from one world but to gain

another, and he finds not _ennui_ in seclusion: why? Not because

seclusion hath _repose_, but because it hath _occupation_. In one word,

then, I say of action and of indolence, grant the same ills to both, and

to action there is the readier escape or the nobler consolation.”

Vane shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, my dear friend,” said he, tapping his

snuff-box with benevolent superiority, “you are much younger than I am!”

But these conversations, which Trevylyan and Vane often held

together, dull as I fear this specimen must seem to the reader, had an

inexpressible charm for Gertrude. She loved the lofty and generous vein

of philosophy which Trevylyan embraced, and which, while it suited his

ardent nature, contrasted a demeanour commonly hard and cold to all

but herself. And young and tender as she was, his ambition infused its

spirit into her fine imagination, and that passion for enterprise which

belongs inseparably to romance. She loved to muse over his future lot,

and in fancy to share its toils and to exult in its triumphs. And

if sometimes she asked herself whether a career of action might not

estrange him from her, she had but to turn her gaze upon his watchful

eye,--and lo, he was by her side or at her feet!

CHAPTER VI. GORCUM.--THE TOUR OF THE VIRTUES: A PHILOSOPHER’S TALE.

IT was a bright and cheery morning as they glided by Gorcum. The boats

pulling to the shore full of fishermen and peasants in their national

costume; the breeze freshly rippling the waters; the lightness of the

blue sky; the loud and laughing voices from the boats,--all contributed

to raise the spirit, and fill it with that indescribable gladness which

is the physical sense of life.

The tower of the church, with its long windows and its round dial, rose

against the clear sky; and on a bench under a green bush facing the

water sat a jolly Hollander, refreshing the breezes with the fumes of

his national weed.

“How little it requires to make a journey pleasant, when the companions

are our friends!” said Gertrude, as they sailed along. “Nothing can be

duller than these banks, nothing more delightful than this voyage.”

“Yet what tries the affections of people for each other so severely as

a journey together?” said Vane. “That perpetual companionship from which

there is no escaping; that confinement, in all our moments of ill-humour

and listlessness, with persons who want us to look amused--ah, it is a

severe ordeal for friendship to pass through! A post-chaise must have

jolted many an intimacy to death.”

“You speak feelingly, dear father,” said Gertrude, laughing; “and, I

suspect, with a slight desire to be sarcastic upon us. Yet, seriously,

I should think that travel must be like life, and that good persons must

be always agreeable companions to each other.”

“Good persons, my Gertrude!” answered Vane, with a smile. “Alas! I

fear the good weary each other quite as much as the bad. What say

you, Trevylyan,--would Virtue be a pleasant companion from Paris

to Petersburg? Ah, I see you intend to be on Gertrude’s side of the

question. Well now, if I tell you a story, since stories are so much the

fashion with you, in which you shall find that the Virtues themselves

actually made the experiment of a tour, will you promise to attend to

the moral?”

“Oh, dear father, anything for a story,” cried Gertrude; “especially

from you, who have not told us one all the way. Come, listen, Albert;

nay, listen to your new rival.”

And, pleased to see the vivacity of the invalid, Vane began as

follows:--

THE TOUR OF THE VIRTUES:

A PHILOSOPHER’S TALE.

ONCE upon a time, several of the Virtues, weary of living forever with

the Bishop of Norwich, resolved to make a little excursion; accordingly,

though they knew everything on earth was very ill prepared to receive

them, they thought they might safely venture on a tour from Westminster

Bridge to Richmond. The day was fine, the wind in their favour, and as

to entertainment,--why, there seemed, according to Gertrude, to be no

possibility of any disagreement among the Virtues.

They took a boat at Westminster stairs; and just as they were about to

push off, a poor woman, all in rags, with a child in her arms, implored

their compassion. Charity put her hand into her reticule and took out

a shilling. Justice, turning round to look after the luggage, saw the

folly which Charity was about to commit. “Heavens!” cried Justice,

seizing poor Charity by the arm, “what are you doing? Have you never

read Political Economy? Don’t you know that indiscriminate almsgiving

is only the encouragement to Idleness, the mother of Vice? You a Virtue,

indeed! I’m ashamed of you. Get along with you, good woman;--yet stay,

there is a ticket for soup at the Mendicity Society; they’ll see if

you’re a proper object of compassion.” But Charity is quicker than

Justice, and slipping her hand behind her, the poor woman got the

shilling and the ticket for soup too. Economy and Generosity saw the

double gift. “What waste!” cried Economy, frowning; “what! a ticket and

a shilling? _either_ would have sufficed.”

“Either!” said Generosity, “fie! Charity should have given the poor

creature half-a-crown, and Justice a dozen tickets!” So the next ten

minutes were consumed in a quarrel between the four Virtues, which would

have lasted all the way to Richmond, if Courage had not advised them to

get on shore and fight it out. Upon this, the Virtues suddenly perceived

they had a little forgotten themselves, and Generosity offering the

first apology, they made it up, and went on very agreeably for the next

mile or two.

The day now grew a little overcast, and a shower seemed at hand.

Prudence, who had on a new bonnet, suggested the propriety of putting to

shore for half an hour; Courage was for braving the rain; but, as most

of the Virtues are ladies, Prudence carried it. Just as they were about

to land, another boat cut in before them very uncivilly, and gave theirs

such a shake that Charity was all but overboard. The company on board

the uncivil boat, who evidently thought the Virtues extremely low

persons, for they had nothing very fashionable about their exterior,

burst out laughing at Charity’s discomposure, especially as a

large basket full of buns, which Charity carried with her for any

hungry-looking children she might encounter at Richmond, fell pounce

into the water. Courage was all on fire; he twisted his mustache, and

would have made an onset on the enemy, if, to his great indignation,

Meekness had not forestalled him, by stepping mildly into the hostile

boat and offering both cheeks to the foe. This was too much even for the

incivility of the boatmen; they made their excuses to the Virtues, and

Courage, who is no bully, thought himself bound discontentedly to accept

them. But oh! if you had seen how Courage used Meekness afterwards, you

could not have believed it possible that one Virtue could be so enraged

with another. This quarrel between the two threw a damp on the party;

and they proceeded on their voyage, when the shower was over, with

anything but cordiality. I spare you the little squabbles that took

place in the general conversation,--how Economy found fault with all the

villas by the way, and Temperance expressed becoming indignation at the

luxuries of the City barge. They arrived at Richmond, and Temperance

was appointed to order the dinner; meanwhile Hospitality, walking in the

garden, fell in with a large party of Irishmen, and asked them to join

the repast.

Imagine the long faces of Economy and Prudence, when they saw the

addition to the company! Hospitality was all spirits; he rubbed his

hands and called for champagne with the tone of a younger brother.

Temperance soon grew scandalized, and Modesty herself coloured at some

of the jokes; but Hospitality, who was now half seas over, called the

one a milksop, and swore at the other as a prude. Away went the hours;

it was time to return, and they made down to the water-side, thoroughly

out of temper with one another, Economy and Generosity quarrelling all

the way about the bill and the waiters. To make up the sum of their

mortification, they passed a boat where all the company were in the best

possible spirits, laughing and whooping like mad; and discovered

these jolly companions to be two or three agreeable Vices, who had put

themselves under the management of Good Temper.

“So you see, Gertrude, that even the Virtues may fall at loggerheads

with each other, and pass a very sad time of it, if they happen to be

of opposite dispositions, and have forgotten to take Good Temper with

them.”

“Ah,” said Gertrude, “but you have overloaded your boat; too many

Virtues might contradict one another, but not a few.”

“Voila ce que veux dire,” said Vane; “but listen to the sequel of my

tale, which now takes a new moral.”

At the end of the voyage, and after a long, sulky silence, Prudence

said, with a thoughtful air, “My dear friends, I have been thinking that

as long as we keep so entirely together, never mixing with the rest of

the world, we shall waste our lives in quarrelling amongst ourselves and

run the risk of being still less liked and sought after than we already

are. You know that we are none of us popular; every one is quite

contented to see us represented in a vaudeville, or described in an

essay. Charity, indeed, has her name often taken in vain at a bazaar

or a subscription; and the miser as often talks of the duty he owes to

_me_, when he sends the stranger from his door or his grandson to jail:

but still we only resemble so many wild beasts, whom everybody likes

to see but nobody cares to possess. Now, I propose that we should all

separate and take up our abode with some mortal or other for a year,

with the power of changing at the end of that time should we not feel

ourselves comfortable,--that is, should we not find that we do all the

good we intend; let us try the experiment, and on this day twelvemonths

let us all meet under the largest oak in Windsor Forest, and recount

what has befallen us.” Prudence ceased, as she always does when she has

said enough; and, delighted at the project, the Virtues agreed to

adopt it on the spot. They were enchanted at the idea of setting up for

themselves, and each not doubting his or her success,--for Economy in

her heart thought Generosity no Virtue at all, and Meekness looked on

Courage as little better than a heathen.

Generosity, being the most eager and active of all the Virtues, set off

first on his journey. Justice followed, and kept up with him, though at

a more even pace. Charity never heard a sigh, or saw a squalid face, but

she stayed to cheer and console the sufferer,--a kindness which somewhat

retarded her progress.

Courage espied a travelling carriage, with a man and his wife in it

quarrelling most conjugally, and he civilly begged he might be permitted

to occupy the vacant seat opposite the lady. Economy still lingered,

inquiring for the cheapest inns. Poor Modesty looked round and sighed,

on finding herself so near to London, where she was almost wholly

unknown; but resolved to bend her course thither for two reasons:

first, for the novelty of the thing; and, secondly, not liking to expose

herself to any risks by a journey on the Continent. Prudence, though

the first to project, was the last to execute; and therefore resolved to

remain where she was for that night, and take daylight for her travels.

The year rolled on, and the Virtues, punctual to the appointment, met

under the oak-tree; they all came nearly at the same time, excepting

Economy, who had got into a return post-chaise, the horses to which,

having been forty miles in the course of the morning, had foundered by

the way, and retarded her journey till night set in. The Virtues looked

sad and sorrowful, as people are wont to do after a long and fruitless

journey; and, somehow or other, such was the wearing effect of their

intercourse with the world, that they appeared wonderfully diminished in

size.

“Ah, my dear Generosity,” said Prudence, with a sigh, “as you were

the first to set out on your travels, pray let us hear your adventures

first.”

“You must know, my dear sisters,” said Generosity, “that I had not gone

many miles from you before I came to a small country town, in which a

marching regiment was quartered, and at an open window I beheld, leaning

over a gentleman’s chair, the most beautiful creature imagination ever

pictured; her eyes shone out like two suns of perfect happiness, and she

was almost cheerful enough to have passed for Good Temper herself. The

gentleman over whose chair she leaned was her husband; they had been

married six weeks; he was a lieutenant with one hundred pounds a

year besides his pay. Greatly affected by their poverty, I instantly

determined, without a second thought, to ensconce myself in the heart

of this charming girl. During the first hour in my new residence I made

many wise reflections such as--that Love never was so perfect as when

accompanied by Poverty; what a vulgar error it was to call the unmarried

state ‘Single _Blessedness_;’ how wrong it was of us Virtues never to

have tried the marriage bond; and what a falsehood it was to say that

husbands neglected their wives, for never was there anything in nature

so devoted as the love of a husband--six weeks married!

“The next morning, before breakfast, as the charming Fanny was

waiting for her husband, who had not yet finished his toilet, a poor,

wretched-looking object appeared at the window, tearing her hair and

wringing her hands; her husband had that morning been dragged to prison,

and her seven children had fought for the last mouldy crust. Prompted

by me, Fanny, without inquiring further into the matter, drew from her

silken purse a five-pound note, and gave it to the beggar, who departed

more amazed than grateful. Soon after, the lieutenant appeared. ‘What

the devil, another bill!’ muttered he, as he tore the yellow wafer from

a large, square, folded, bluish piece of paper. ‘Oh, ah! confound the

fellow, _he_ must be paid. I must trouble you, Fanny, for fifteen pounds

to pay this saddler’s bill.’

“‘Fifteen pounds, love?’ stammered Fanny, blushing.

“‘Yes, dearest, the fifteen pounds I gave you yesterday.’

“‘I have only ten pounds,’ said Fanny, hesitatingly; ‘for such a poor,

wretched-looking creature was here just now, that I was obliged to give

her five pounds.’

“‘Five pounds? good Heavens!’ exclaimed the astonished husband; ‘I shall

have no more money this three weeks.’ He frowned, he bit his lips, nay,

he even wrung his hands, and walked up and down the room; worse still,

he broke forth with--‘Surely, madam, you did not suppose, when you

married a lieutenant in a marching regiment, that he could afford to

indulge in the whim of giving five pounds to every mendicant who held

out her hand to you? You did not, I say, madam, imagine’--but the

bridegroom was interrupted by the convulsive sobs of his wife: it was

their first quarrel, they were but six weeks married; he looked at

her for one moment sternly, the next he was at her feet. ‘Forgive me,

dearest Fanny,--forgive me, for I cannot forgive myself. I was too great

a wretch to say what I did; and do believe, my own Fanny, that while

I may be too poor to indulge you in it, I do from my heart admire so

noble, so disinterested, a generosity.’ Not a little proud did I feel

to have been the cause of this exemplary husband’s admiration for his

amiable wife, and sincerely did I rejoice at having taken up my abode

with these _poor_ people. But not to tire you, my dear sisters, with the

minutiae of detail, I shall briefly say that things did not long remain

in this delightful position; for before many months had elapsed, poor

Fanny had to bear with her husband’s increased and more frequent

storms of passion, unfollowed by any halcyon and honeymoon suings for

forgiveness: for at my instigation every shilling went; and when there

were no more to go, her trinkets and even her clothes followed. The

lieutenant became a complete brute, and even allowed his unbridled

tongue to call me--me, sisters, _me_!--‘heartless Extravagance.’ His

despicable brother-officers and their gossiping wives were no better;

for they did nothing but animadvert upon my Fanny’s ostentation and

absurdity, for by such names had they the impertinence to call _me_.

Thus grieved to the soul to find myself the cause of all poor Fanny’s

misfortunes, I resolved at the end of the year to leave her, being

thoroughly convinced that, however amiable and praiseworthy I might be

in myself, I was totally unfit to be bosom friend and adviser to the

wife of a lieutenant in a marching regiment, with only one hundred

pounds a year besides his pay.”

The Virtues groaned their sympathy with the unfortunate Fanny; and

Prudence, turning to Justice, said, “I long to hear what you have been

doing, for I am certain you cannot have occasioned harm to any one.”

Justice shook her head and said: “Alas! I find that there are times and

places when even I do better not to appear, as a short account of my

adventures will prove to you. No sooner had I left you than I instantly

repaired to India, and took up my abode with a Brahmin. I was much

shocked by the dreadful inequalities of condition that reigned in

the several castes, and I longed to relieve the poor Pariah from his

ignominious destiny; accordingly I set seriously to work on reform.

I insisted upon the iniquity of abandoning men from their birth to an

irremediable state of contempt, from which no virtue could exalt them.

The Brahmins looked upon my Brahmin with ineffable horror. They called

_me_ the most wicked of vices; they saw no distinction between Justice

and Atheism. I uprooted their society--that was sufficient crime. But

the worst was, that the Pariahs themselves regarded me with suspicion;

they thought it unnatural in a Brahmin to care for a Pariah! And one

called me ‘Madness,’ another, ‘Ambition,’ and a third, ‘The Desire to

innovate.’ My poor Brahmin led a miserable life of it; when one day,

after observing, at my dictation, that he thought a Pariah’s life as

much entitled to respect as a cow’s, he was hurried away by the priests

and secretly broiled on the altar as a fitting reward for his sacrilege.

I fled hither in great tribulation, persuaded that in some countries

even Justice may do harm.”

“As for me,” said Charity, not waiting to be asked, “I grieve to say

that I was silly enough to take up my abode with an old lady in Dublin,

who never knew what discretion was, and always acted from impulse;

my instigation was irresistible, and the money she gave in her drives

through the suburbs of Dublin was so lavishly spent that it kept all

the rascals of the city in idleness and whiskey. I found, to my great

horror, that I was a main cause of a terrible epidemic, and that to give

alms without discretion was to spread poverty without help. I left the

city when my year was out, and as ill-luck would have it, just at the

time when I was most wanted.”

“And oh,” cried Hospitality, “I went to Ireland also. I fixed my abode

with a squireen; I ruined him in a year, and only left him because he

had no longer a hovel to keep me in.”

“As for myself,” said Temperance, “I entered the breast of an English

legislator, and he brought in a bill against ale-houses; the consequence

was, that the labourers took to gin; and I have been forced to confess

that Temperance may be too zealous when she dictates too vehemently to

others.”

“Well,” said Courage, keeping more in the background than he had ever

done before, and looking rather ashamed of himself, “that travelling

carriage I got into belonged to a German general and his wife, who were

returning to their own country. Growing very cold as we proceeded, she

wrapped me up in a polonaise; but the cold increasing, I inadvertently

crept into her bosom. Once there I could not get out, and from

thenceforward the poor general had considerably the worst of it.

She became so provoking that I wondered how he could refrain from an

explosion. To do him justice, he did at last threaten to get out of the

carriage; upon which, roused by me, she collared him--and conquered.

When he got to his own district, things grew worse, for if any

_aide-de-camp_ offended her she insisted that he might be publicly

reprimanded; and should the poor general refuse she would with her own

hands confer a caning upon the delinquent. The additional force she had

gained in me was too much odds against the poor general, and he died of

a broken heart, six months after my _liaison_ with his wife. She after

this became so dreaded and detested, that a conspiracy was formed to

poison her; this daunted even me, so I left her without delay,--_et me

voici_!”

“Humph,” said Meekness, with an air of triumph, “I, at least, have been

more successful than you. On seeing much in the papers of the cruelties

practised by the Turks on the Greeks, I thought my presence would enable

the poor sufferers to bear their misfortunes calmly. I went to Greece,

then, at a moment when a well-planned and practicable scheme of

emancipating themselves from the Turkish yoke was arousing their youth.

Without confining myself to one individual, I flitted from breast

to breast; I meekened the whole nation; my remonstrances against the

insurrection succeeded, and I had the satisfaction of leaving a

whole people ready to be killed or strangled with the most Christian

resignation in the world.”

The Virtues, who had been a little cheered by the opening

self-complacence of Meekness, would not, to her great astonishment,

allow that she had succeeded a whit more happily than her sisters, and

called next upon Modesty for her confession.

“You know,” said that amiable young lady, “that I went to London in

search of a situation. I spent three months of the twelve in going from

house to house, but I could not get a single person to receive me.

The ladies declared that they never saw so old-fashioned a gawkey, and

civilly recommended me to their abigails; the abigails turned me

round with a stare, and then pushed me down to the kitchen and the fat

scullion-maids, who assured me that, ‘in the respectable families they

had the honour to live in, they had never even heard of my name.’ One

young housemaid, just from the country, did indeed receive me with some

sort of civility; but she very soon lost me in the servants’ hall. I

now took refuge with the other sex, as the least uncourteous. I was

fortunate enough to find a young gentleman of remarkable talents, who

welcomed me with open arms. He was full of learning, gentleness, and

honesty. I had only one rival,--Ambition. We both contended for an

absolute empire over him. Whatever Ambition suggested, I damped. Did

Ambition urge him to begin a book, I persuaded him it was not worth

publication. Did he get up, full of knowledge, and instigated by my

rival, to make a speech (for he was in parliament), I shocked him with

the sense of his assurance, I made his voice droop and his accents

falter. At last, with an indignant sigh, my rival left him; he retired

into the country, took orders, and renounced a career he had fondly

hoped would be serviceable to others; but finding I did not suffice for

his happiness, and piqued at his melancholy, I left him before the end

of the year, and he has since taken to drinking!”

The eyes of the Virtues were all turned to Prudence. She was their last

hope. “I am just where I set out,” said that discreet Virtue; “I have

done neither good nor harm. To avoid temptation I went and lived with a

hermit to whom I soon found that I could be of no use beyond warning him

not to overboil his peas and lentils, not to leave his door open when

a storm threatened, and not to fill his pitcher too full at the

neighbouring spring. I am thus the only one of you that never did harm;

but only because I am the only one of you that never had an opportunity

of doing it! In a word,” continued Prudence, thoughtfully,--“in a word,

my friends, circumstances are necessary to the Virtues themselves. Had,

for instance, Economy changed with Generosity, and gone to the poor

lieutenant’s wife, and had I lodged with the Irish squireen instead of

Hospitality, what misfortunes would have been saved to both! Alas! I

perceive we lose all our efficacy when we are misplaced; and _then_,

though in reality Virtues, we operate as Vices. Circumstances must be

favourable to our exertions, and harmonious with our nature; and we

lose our very divinity unless Wisdom direct our footsteps to the home we

should inhabit and the dispositions we should govern.”

The story was ended, and the travellers began to dispute about its

moral. Here let us leave them.

CHAPTER VII. COLOGNE.--THE TRACES OF THE ROMAN YOKE.--THE CHURCH OF ST.

MARIA.--TREVYLYAN’S REFLECTIONS ON THE MONASTIC LIFE.--THE TOMB OF THE

THREE KINGS.--AN EVENING EXCURSION ON THE RHINE.

ROME--magnificent Rome! wherever the pilgrim wends, the traces of thy

dominion greet his eyes. Still in the heart of the bold German race is

graven the print of the eagle’s claws; and amidst the haunted regions of

the Rhine we pause to wonder at the great monuments of the Italian yoke.

At Cologne our travellers rested for some days. They were in the city

to which the camp of Marcus Agrippa had given birth; that spot had

resounded with the armed tread of the legions of Trajan. In that city,

Vitellius, Sylvanus, were proclaimed emperors. By that church did the

latter receive his death.

As they passed round the door they saw some peasants loitering on the

sacred ground; and when they noted the delicate cheek of Gertrude they

uttered their salutations with more than common respect. Where they then

were the building swept round in a circular form; and at its base it is

supposed by tradition to retain something of the ancient Roman masonry.

Just before them rose the spire of a plain and unadorned church,

singularly contrasting the pomp of the old with the simplicity of the

innovating creed.

The church of St. Maria occupies the site of the Roman Capitol, and the

place retains the Roman name; and still something in the aspect of the

people betrays the hereditary blood.

Gertrude, whose nature was strongly impressed with _the venerating

character_, was fond of visiting the old Gothic churches, which, with so

eloquent a moral, unite the living with the dead.

“Pause for a moment,” said Trevylyan, before they entered the church of

St. Maria. “What recollections crowd upon us! On the site of the Roman

Capitol a Christian church and a convent are erected! By whom? The

mother of Charles Martel,--the Conqueror of the Saracen, the arch-hero

of Christendom itself! And to these scenes and calm retreats, to the

cloisters of the convent once belonging to this church, fled the bruised

spirit of a royal sufferer,-the victim of Richelieu,--the unfortunate

and ambitious Mary de Medicis. Alas! the cell and the convent are but a

vain emblem of that desire to fly to God which belongs to Distress; the

solitude soothes, but the monotony recalls, regret. And for my own part

in my frequent tours through Catholic countries, I never saw the still

walls in which monastic vanity hoped to shut out the world, but a

melancholy came over me! What hearts at war with themselves! what

unceasing regrets! what pinings after the past! what long and beautiful

years devoted to a moral grave, by a momentary rashness, an impulse, a

disappointment! But in these churches the lesson is more impressive and

less sad. The weary heart has ceased to ache; the burning pulses are

still; the troubled spirit has flown to the only rest which is not a

deceit. Power and love, hope and fear, avarice, ambition,--they are

quenched at last! Death is the only monastery, the tomb is the only

cell.”

“Your passion is ever for active life,” said Gertrude. “You allow no

charm to solitude, and contemplation to you seems torture. If any great

sorrow ever come upon you, you will never retire to seclusion as its

balm. You will plunge into the world, and lose your individual existence

in the universal rush of life.”

“Ah, talk not of sorrow!” said Trevylyan, wildly. “Let us enter the

church.”

They went afterwards to the celebrated cathedral, which is considered

one of the noblest of the architectural triumphs of Germany; but it is

yet more worthy of notice from the Pilgrim of Romance than the searcher

after antiquity, for here, behind the grand altar, is the Tomb of the

Three Kings of Cologne,--the three worshippers whom tradition humbled to

our Saviour. Legend is rife with a thousand tales of the relics of this

tomb. The Three Kings of Cologne are the tutelary names of that golden

superstition which has often more votaries than the religion itself from

which it springs and to Gertrude the simple story of Lucille sufficed

to make her for the moment credulous of the sanctity of the spot. Behind

the tomb three Gothic windows cast their “dim, religious light” over the

tessellated pavement and along the Ionic pillars. They found some of

the more credulous believers in the authenticity of the relics kneeling

before the tomb, and they arrested their steps, fearful to disturb the

superstition which is never without something of sanctity when contented

with prayer and forgetful of persecution. The bones of the Magi are

still supposed to consecrate the tomb, and on the higher part of

the monument the artist has delineated their adoration to the infant

Saviour.

That evening came on with a still and tranquil beauty, and as the sun

hastened to its close they launched their boat for an hour or two’s

excursion upon the Rhine. Gertrude was in that happy mood when the quiet

of nature is enjoyed like a bath for the soul, and the presence of

him she so idolized deepened that stillness into a more delicious and

subduing calm. Little did she dream as the boat glided over the water,

and the towers of Cologne rose in the blue air of evening, how few were

those hours that divided her from the tomb! But, in looking back to the

life of one we have loved, how dear is the thought that the latter days

were the days of light, that the cloud never chilled the beauty of the

setting sun, and that if the years of existence were brief, all that

existence has most tender, most sacred, was crowded into that space!

Nothing dark, then, or bitter, rests with our remembrance of the lost:

_we_ are the mourners, but pity is not for the mourned,--our grief is

purely selfish; when we turn to its object, the hues of happiness are

round it, and that very love which is the parent of our woe was the

consolation, the triumph, of the departed!

The majestic Rhine was calm as a lake; the splashing of the oar only

broke the stillness, and after a long pause in their conversation,

Gertrude, putting her hand on Trevylyan’s arm, reminded him of a

promised story: for he too had moods of abstraction, from which, in her

turn, she loved to lure him; and his voice to her had become a sort of

want.

“Let it be,” said she, “a tale suited to the hour; no fierce

tradition,--nay, no grotesque fable, but of the tenderer dye of

superstition. Let it be of love, of woman’s love,--of the love that

defies the grave: for surely even after death it lives; and heaven would

scarcely be heaven if memory were banished from its blessings.”

“I recollect,” said Trevylyan, after a slight pause, “a short German

legend, the simplicity of which touched me much when I heard it; but,”

added he, with a slight smile, “so much more faithful appears in the

legend the love of the woman than that of the man, that _I_ at least

ought scarcely to recite it.”

“Nay,” said Gertrude, tenderly, “the fault of the inconstant only

heightens our gratitude to the faithful.”

CHAPTER VIII. THE SOUL IN PURGATORY; OR LOVE STRONGER THAN DEATH.

THE angels strung their harps in heaven, and their music went up like

a stream of odours to the pavilions of the Most High; but the harp

of Seralim was sweeter than that of his fellows, and the Voice of

the Invisible One (for the angels themselves know not the glories of

Jehovah--only far in the depths of heaven they see one Unsleeping Eye

watching forever over Creation) was heard saying,--

“Ask a gift for the love that burns in thy song, and it shall be given

thee.” And Seralim answered,--

“There is in that place which men call Purgatory, and which is the

escape from hell, but the painful porch of heaven, many souls that adore

Thee, and yet are punished justly for their sins; grant me the boon to

visit them at times, and solace their suffering by the hymns of the harp

that is consecrated to Thee!”

And the Voice answered,--

“Thy prayer is heard, O gentlest of the angels! and it seems good to Him

who chastises but from love. Go! Thou hast thy will.”

Then the angel sang the praises of God; and when the song was done he

rose from his azure throne at the right hand of Gabriel, and, spreading

his rainbow wings, he flew to that melancholy orb which, nearest to

earth, echoes with the shrieks of souls that by torture become pure.

There the unhappy ones see from afar the bright courts they are

hereafter to obtain, and the shapes of glorious beings, who, fresh from

these Fountains of Immortality, walk amidst the gardens of Paradise,

and feel that their happiness hath no morrow; and this thought consoles

amidst their torments, and makes the true difference between Purgatory

and Hell.

Then the angel folded his wings, and entering the crystal gates, sat

down upon a blasted rock and struck his divine lyre, and a peace fell

over the wretched; the demon ceased to torture and the victim to wail.

As sleep to the mourners of earth was the song of the angel to the

souls of the purifying star: one only voice amidst the general stillness

seemed not lulled by the angel; it was the voice of a woman, and it

continued to cry out with a sharp cry,--

“Oh, Adenheim, Adenheim! mourn not for the lost!”

The angel struck chord after chord, till his most skilful melodies were

exhausted; but still the solitary voice, unheeding--unconscious of--the

sweetest harp of the angel choir, cried out,--

“Oh, Adenheim, Adenheim! mourn not for the lost!”

Then Seralim’s interest was aroused, and approaching the spot whence the

voice came, he saw the spirit of a young and beautiful girl chained to

a rock, and the demons lying idly by. And Seralim said to the demons,

“Doth the song lull ye thus to rest?”

And they answered, “Her care for another is bitterer than all our

torments; therefore are we idle.”

Then the angel approached the spirit, and said in a voice which stilled

her cry--for in what state do we outlive sympathy?--“Wherefore, O

daughter of earth, wherefore wailest thou with the same plaintive wail;

and why doth the harp that soothes the most guilty of thy companions

fail in its melody with thee?”

“O radiant stranger,” answered the poor spirit, “thou speakest to one

who on earth loved God’s creature more than God; therefore is she thus

justly sentenced. But I know that my poor Adenheim mourns ceaselessly

for me, and the thought of his sorrow is more intolerable to me than all

that the demons can inflict.”

“And how knowest thou that he laments thee?” asked the angel.

“Because I know with what agony I should have mourned for _him_,”

replied the spirit, simply.

The divine nature of the angel was touched; for love is the nature of

the sons of heaven. “And how,” said he, “can I minister to thy sorrow?”

A transport seemed to agitate the spirit, and she lifted up her mistlike

and impalpable arms, and cried,--

“Give me--oh, give me to return to earth, but for one little hour,

that I may visit my Adenheim; and that, concealing from him my present

sufferings, I may comfort him in his own.”

“Alas!” said the angel, turning away his eyes,--for angels may not weep

in the sight of others,--“I could, indeed, grant thee this boon, but

thou knowest not the penalty. For the souls in Purgatory may return to

Earth, but heavy is the sentence that awaits their return. In a word,

for one hour on earth thou must add a thousand years to the torture of

thy confinement here!”

“Is that all?” cried the spirit. “Willingly then will I brave the doom.

Ah, surely they love not in heaven, or thou wouldst know, O Celestial

Visitant; that one hour of consolation to the one we love is worth a

thousand ages of torture to ourselves! Let me comfort and convince my

Adenheim; no matter what becomes of me.”

Then the angel looked on high, and he saw in far distant regions, which

in that orb none else could discern, the rays that parted from the

all-guarding Eye; and heard the VOICE of the Eternal One bidding him

act as his pity whispered. He looked on the spirit, and her shadowy arms

stretched pleadingly towards him; he uttered the word that loosens the

bars of the gate of Purgatory; and lo, the spirit had re-entered the

human world.

It was night in the halls of the lord of Adenheim, and he sat at the

head of his glittering board. Loud and long was the laugh, and merry

the jest that echoed round; and the laugh and the jest of the lord of

Adenheim were louder and merrier than all. And by his right side sat a

beautiful lady; and ever and anon he turned from others to whisper soft

vows in her ear.

“And oh,” said the bright dame of Falkenberg, “thy words what ladye can

believe? Didst thou not utter the same oaths, and promise the same love,

to Ida, the fair daughter of Loden, and now but three little months have

closed upon her grave?”

“By my halidom,” quoth the young lord of Adenheim, “thou dost thy beauty

marvellous injustice. Ida! Nay, thou mockest me; _I_ love the daughter

of Loden! Why, how then should I be worthy thee? A few gay words, a few

passing smiles,--behold all the love Adenheim ever bore to Ida. Was

it my fault if the poor fool misconstrued such common courtesy? Nay,

dearest lady, this heart is virgin to thee.”

“And what!” said the lady of Falkenberg, as she suffered the arm of

Adenheim to encircle her slender waist, “didst thou not grieve for her

loss?”

“Why, verily, yes, for the first week; but in thy bright eyes I found

ready consolation.”

At this moment, the lord of Adenheim thought he heard a deep sigh behind

him; he turned, but saw nothing, save a slight mist that gradually faded

away, and vanished in the distance. Where was the necessity for Ida to

reveal herself?

.......

“And thou didst not, then, do thine errand to thy lover?” said Seralim,

as the spirit of the wronged Ida returned to Purgatory.

“Bid the demons recommence their torture,” was poor Ida’s answer.

“And was it for this that thou added a thousand years to thy doom?”

“Alas!” answered Ida, “after the single hour I have endured on Earth,

there seems to be but little terrible in a thousand fresh years of

Purgatory!”*

* This story is principally borrowed from a foreign soil. It

seemed to the author worthy of being transferred to an English

one, although he fears that much of its singular beauty in the

original has been lost by the way.

“What! is the story ended?” asked Gertrude.

“Yes.”

“Nay, surely the thousand years were not added to poor Ida’s doom; and

Seralim bore her back with him to Heaven?”

“The legend saith no more. The writer was contented to show us the

perpetuity of woman’s love--”

“And its reward,” added Vane.

“It was not _I_ who drew that last conclusion, Albert,” whispered

Gertrude.

CHAPTER IX. THE SCENERY OF THE RHINE ANALOGOUS TO THE GERMAN LITERARY

GENIUS.--THE DRACHENFELS.

ON leaving Cologne, the stream winds round among banks that do not yet

fulfil the promise of the Rhine; but they increase in interest as you

leave Surdt and Godorf. The peculiar character of the river does not,

however, really appear, until by degrees the Seven Mountains, and “THE

CASTLED CRAG OF DRACHENFELS” above them all, break upon the eye. Around

Nieder Cassel and Rheidt the vines lie thick and clustering; and, by the

shore, you see from place to place the islands stretching their green

length along, and breaking the exulting tide. Village rises upon

village, and viewed from the distance as you sail, the pastoral errors

that enamoured us of the village life crowd thick and fast upon us.

So still do these hamlets seem, so sheltered from the passions of the

world,--as if the passions were not like winds, only felt where they

breathe, and invisible save by their effects! Leaping into the broad

bosom of the Rhine come many a stream and rivulet upon either side.

Spire upon spire rises and sinks as you sail on. Mountain and city,

the solitary island, the castled steep, like the dreams of ambition,

suddenly appear, proudly swell, and dimly fade away.

“You begin now,” said Trevylyan, “to understand the character of

the German literature. The Rhine is an emblem of its luxuriance, its

fertility, its romance. The best commentary to the German genius is a

visit to the German scenery. The mighty gloom of the Hartz, the feudal

towers that look over vines and deep valleys on the legendary Rhine;

the gigantic remains of antique power, profusely scattered over plain,

mount, and forest; the thousand mixed recollections that hallow the

ground; the stately Roman, the stalwart Goth, the chivalry of the feudal

age, and the dim brotherhood of the ideal world, have here alike their

record and their remembrance. And over such scenes wanders the young

German student. Instead of the pomp and luxury of the English traveller,

the thousand devices to cheat the way, he has but his volume in his

hand, his knapsack at his back. From such scenes he draws and hives

all that various store which after years ripen to invention. Hence

the florid mixture of the German muse,--the classic, the romantic, the

contemplative, the philosophic, and the superstitious; each the result

of actual meditation over different scenes; each the produce of separate

but confused recollections. As the Rhine flows, so flows the national

genius, by mountain and valley, the wildest solitude, the sudden spires

of ancient cities, the mouldered castle, the stately monastery, the

humble cot,--grandeur and homeliness, history and superstition, truth

and fable, succeeding one another so as to blend into a whole.

“But,” added Trevylyan, a moment afterwards, “the Ideal is passing

slowly away from the German mind; a spirit for the more active and the

more material literature is springing up amongst them. The revolution

of mind gathers on, preceding stormy events; and the memories that

led their grandsires to contemplate will urge the youth of the next

generation to dare and to act.” *

* Is not this prediction already fulfilled?--1849.

Thus conversing, they continued their voyage, with a fair wave and

beneath a lucid sky.

The vessel now glided beside the Seven Mountains and the Drachenfels.

The sun, slowly setting, cast his yellow beams over the smooth waters.

At the foot of the mountains lay a village deeply sequestered in shade;

and above, the Ruin of the Drachenfels caught the richest beams of the

sun. Yet thus alone, though lofty, the ray cheered not the gloom that

hung over the giant rock: it stood on high, like some great name on

which the light of glory may shine, but which is associated with a

certain melancholy, from the solitude to which its very height above the

level of the herd condemned its owner!

CHAPTER X. THE LEGEND OF ROLAND.--THE ADVENTURES OF NYMPHALIN ON THE

ISLAND OF NONNEWERTH.--HER SONG.--THE DECAY OF THE FAIRY-FAITH IN

ENGLAND.

ON the shore opposite the Drachenfels stand the Ruins of

Rolandseck,--they are the shattered crown of a lofty and perpendicular

mountain, consecrated to the memory of the brave Roland; below, the

trees of an island to which the lady of Roland retired, rise thick and

verdant from the smooth tide.

Nothing can exceed the eloquent and wild grandeur of the whole scene.

That spot is the pride and beauty of the Rhine.

The legend that consecrates the tower and the island is briefly told; it

belongs to a class so common to the Romaunts of Germany. Roland goes to

the wars. A false report of his death reaches his betrothed. She retires

to the convent in the isle of Nonnewerth, and takes the irrevocable

veil. Roland returns home, flushed with glory and hope, to find that

the very fidelity of his affianced had placed an eternal barrier between

them. He built the castle that bears his name, and which overlooks the

monastery, and dwelt there till his death,--happy in the power at least

to gaze, even to the last, upon those walls which held the treasure he

had lost.

The willows droop in mournful luxuriance along the island, and harmonize

with the memory that, through the desert of a thousand years, love still

keeps green and fresh. Nor hath it permitted even those additions of

fiction which, like mosses, gather by time over the truth that they

adorn, yet adorning conceal, to mar the simple tenderness of the legend.

All was still in the island of Nonnewerth; the lights shone through the

trees from the house that contained our travellers. On one smooth spot

where the islet shelves into the Rhine met the wandering fairies.

“Oh, Pipalee! how beautiful!” cried Nymphalin, as she stood enraptured

by the wave, a star-beam shining on her, with her yellow hair “dancing

its ringlets in the whistling wind.” “For the first time since our

departure I do not miss the green fields of England.”

“Hist!” said Pipalee, under her breath; “I hear fairy steps,--they must

be the steps of strangers.”

“Let us retreat into this thicket of weeds,” said Nymphalin, somewhat

alarmed; “the good lord treasurer is already asleep there.” They whisked

into what to them was a forest, for the reeds were two feet high, and

there sure enough they found the lord treasurer stretched beneath a

bulrush, with his pipe beside him, for since he had been in Germany he

had taken to smoking; and indeed wild thyme, properly dried, makes very

good tobacco for a fairy. They also found Nip and Trip sitting very

close together, Nip playing with her hair, which was exceedingly

beautiful.

“What do you do here?” said Pipalee, shortly; for she was rather an old

maid, and did not like fairies to be too close to each other.

“Watching my lord’s slumber,” said Nip.

“Pshaw!” said Pipalee.

“Nay,” quoth Trip, blushing like a sea-shell; “there is no harm in

_that_, I’m sure.”

“Hush!” said the queen, peeping through the reeds.

And now forth from the green bosom of the earth came a tiny train;

slowly, two by two, hand in hand, they swept from a small aperture,

shadowed with fragrant herbs, and formed themselves into a ring: then

came other fairies, laden with dainties, and presently two beautiful

white mushrooms sprang up, on which the viands were placed, and lo,

there was a banquet! Oh, how merry they were! what gentle peals of

laughter, loud as a virgin’s sigh! what jests! what songs! Happy race!

if mortals could see you as often as I do, in the soft nights of summer,

they would never be at a loss for entertainment. But as our English

fairies looked on, they saw that these foreign elves were of a different

race from themselves: they were taller and less handsome, their hair was

darker, they wore mustaches, and had something of a fiercer air. Poor

Nymphalin was a little frightened; but presently soft music was heard

floating along, something like the sound we suddenly hear of a still

night when a light breeze steals through rushes, or wakes a ripple in

some shallow brook dancing over pebbles. And lo, from the aperture of

the earth came forth a fay, superbly dressed, and of a noble presence.

The queen started back, Pipalee rubbed her eyes, Trip looked over

Pipalee’s shoulder, and Nip, pinching her arm, cried out amazed, “By the

last new star, that is Prince von Fayzenheim!”

Poor Nymphalin gazed again, and her little heart beat under her

bee’s-wing bodice as if it would break. The prince had a melancholy air,

and he sat apart from the banquet, gazing abstractedly on the Rhine.

“Ah!” whispered Nymphalin to herself, “does he think of me?”

Presently the prince drew forth a little flute hollowed from a small

reed, and began to play a mournful air. Nymphalin listened with delight;

it was one he had learned in her dominions.

When the air was over, the prince rose, and approaching the banqueters,

despatched them on different errands; one to visit the dwarf of the

Drachenfels, another to look after the grave of Musaeus, and a whole

detachment to puzzle the students of Heidelberg. A few launched

themselves upon willow leaves on the Rhine to cruise about in the

starlight, and an other band set out a hunting after the gray-legged

moth. The prince was left alone; and now Nymphalin, seeing the coast

clear, wrapped herself up in a cloak made out of a withered leaf; and

only letting her eyes glow out from the hood, she glided from the reeds,

and the prince turning round, saw a dark fairy figure by his side. He

drew back, a little startled, and placed his hand on his sword, when

Nymphalin circling round him, sang the following words:--

THE FAIRY’S REPROACH.

I. By the glow-worm’s lamp in the dewy brake;

By the gossamer’s airy net;

By the shifting skin of the faithless snake,

Oh, teach me to forget:

For none, ah none

Can teach so well that human spell

As thou, false one!

II. By the fairy dance on the greensward smooth;

By the winds of the gentle west;

By the loving stars, when their soft looks soothe

The waves on their mother’s breast,

Teach me thy lore!

By which, like withered flowers,

The leaves of buried Hours

Blossom no more!

III. By the tent in the violet’s bell;

By the may on the scented bough;

By the lone green isle where my sisters dwell;

And thine own forgotten vow,

Teach me to live,

Nor feed on thoughts that pine

For love so false as thine!

Teach me thy lore,

And one thou lov’st no more

Will bless thee and forgive!

“Surely,” said Fayzenheim, faltering, “surely I know that voice!”

And Nymphalin’s cloak dropped off her shoulder. “My English fairy!” and

Fayzenheim knelt beside her.

I wish you had seen the fay kneel, for you would have sworn it was so

like a human lover that you would never have sneered at love afterwards.

Love is so fairy-like a part of us, that even a fairy cannot make it

differently from us,--that is to say, when we love truly.

There was great joy in the island that night among the elves. They

conducted Nymphalin to their palace within the earth, and feasted her

sumptuously; and Nip told their adventures with so much spirit that

he enchanted the merry foreigners. But Fayzenheim talked apart to

Nymphalin, and told her how he was lord of that island, and how he had

been obliged to return to his dominions by the law of his tribe, which

allowed him to be absent only a certain time in every year. “But, my

queen, I always intended to revisit thee next spring.”

“Thou need’st not have left us so abruptly,” said Nymphalin, blushing.

“But do _thou_ never leave me!” said the ardent fairy; “be mine, and let

our nuptials be celebrated on these shores. Wouldst thou sigh for thy

green island? No! for _there_ the fairy altars are deserted, the faith

is gone from the land; thou art among the last of an unhonoured and

expiring race. Thy mortal poets are dumb, and Fancy, which was thy

priestess, sleeps hushed in her last repose. New and hard creeds have

succeeded to the fairy lore. Who steals through the starlit boughs on

the nights of June to watch the roundels of thy tribe? The wheels of

commerce, the din of trade, have silenced to mortal ear the music of thy

subjects’ harps! And the noisy habitations of men, harsher than their

dreaming sires, are gathering round the dell and vale where thy co-mates

linger: a few years, and where will be the green solitudes of England?”

The queen sighed, and the prince, perceiving that he was listened to,

continued,--

“Who, in thy native shores, among the children of men, now claims the

fairy’s care? What cradle wouldst thou tend? On what maid wouldst thou

shower thy rosy gifts? What barb wouldst thou haunt in his dreams? Poesy

is fled the island, why shouldst thou linger behind? Time hath brought

dull customs, that laugh at thy gentle being. Puck is buried in the

harebell, he hath left no offspring, and none mourn for his loss; for

night, which is the fairy season, is busy and garish as the day. What

hearth is desolate after the curfew? What house bathed in stillness

at the hour in which thy revels commence? Thine empire among men hath

passed from thee, and thy race are vanishing from the crowded soil; for,

despite our diviner nature, our existence is linked with man’s. Their

neglect is our disease, their forgetfulness our death. Leave then those

dull, yet troubled scenes, that are closing round the fairy rings of thy

native isle. These mountains, this herbage, these gliding waves, these

mouldering ruins, these starred rivulets, be they, O beautiful fairy!

thy new domain. Yet in these lands our worship lingers; still can we

fill the thought of the young bard, and mingle with his yearnings

after the Beautiful, the Unseen. Hither come the pilgrims of the world,

anxious only to gather from these scenes the legends of Us; ages will

pass away ere the Rhine shall be desecrated of our haunting presence.

Come then, my queen, let this palace be thine own, and the moon that

glances over the shattered towers of the Dragon Rock witness our

nuptials and our vows!”

In such words the fairy prince courted the young queen, and while she

sighed at their truth she yielded to their charm. Oh, still may there be

one spot on the earth where the fairy feet may press the legendary soil!

still be there one land where the faith of The Bright Invisible hallows

and inspires! Still glide thou, O majestic and solemn Rhine, among

shades and valleys, from which the wisdom of belief can call the

creations of the younger world!

CHAPTER XI. WHEREIN THE READER IS MADE SPECTATOR WITH THE ENGLISH

FAIRIES OF THE SCENES AND BEINGS THAT ARE BENEATH THE EARTH.

DURING the heat of next day’s noon, Fayzenheim took the English visitors

through the cool caverns that wind amidst the mountains of the Rhine.

There, a thousand wonders awaited the eyes of the fairy queen. I speak

not of the Gothic arch and aisle into which the hollow earth forms

itself, or the stream that rushes with a mighty voice through the dark

chasm, or the silver columns that shoot aloft, worked by the gnomes from

the mines of the mountains of Taunus; but of the strange inhabitants

that from time to time they came upon. They found in one solitary

cell, lined with dried moss, two misshapen elves, of a larger size than

common, with a plebeian working-day aspect, who were chatting noisily

together, and making a pair of boots: these were the Hausmannen or

domestic elves, that dance into tradesmen’s houses of a night, and play

all sorts of undignified tricks. They were very civil to the queen,

for they are good-natured creatures on the whole, and once had many

relations in Scotland. They then, following the course of a noisy

rivulet, came to a hole from which the sharp head of a fox peeped out.

The queen was frightened. “Oh, come on,” said the fox, encouragingly, “I

am one of the fairy race, and many are the gambols we of the brute-elves

play in the German world of romance.” “Indeed, Mr. Fox,” said the

prince, “you only speak the truth; and how is Mr. Bruin?” “Quite well,

my prince, but tired of his seclusion; for indeed our race can do

little or nothing now in the world; and lie here in our old age,

telling stories of the past, and recalling the exploits we did in our

youth,--which, madam, you may see in all the fairy histories in the

prince’s library.”

“Your own love adventures, for instance, Master Fox,” said the prince.

The fox snarled angrily, and drew in his head.

“You have displeased your friend,” said Nymphalin.

“Yes; he likes no allusions to the amorous follies of his youth. Did you

ever hear of his rivalry with the dog for the cat’s good graces?”

“No; that must be very amusing.”

“Well, my queen, when we rest by and by, I will relate to you the

history of the fox’s wooing.”

The next place they came to was a vast Runic cavern, covered with dark

inscriptions of a forgotten tongue; and sitting on a huge stone they

found a dwarf with long yellow hair, his head leaning on his breast, and

absorbed in meditation. “This is a spirit of a wise and powerful race,”

whispered Fayzenheim, “that has often battled with the fairies; but he

is of the kindly tribe.”

Then the dwarf lifted his head with a mournful air; and gazed upon the

bright shapes before him, lighted by the pine torches that the prince’s

attendants carried.

“And what dost thou muse upon, O descendant of the race of Laurin?” said

the prince.

“Upon TIME!” answered the dwarf, gloomily. “I see a River, and its waves

are black, flowing from the clouds, and none knoweth its source. It

rolls deeply on, aye and evermore, through a green valley, which it

slowly swallows up, washing away tower and town, and vanquishing all

things; and the name of the River is TIME.”

Then the dwarf’s head sank on his bosom, and he spoke no more.

The fairies proceeded. “Above us,” said the prince, “rises one of the

loftiest mountains of the Rhine; for mountains are the Dwarf’s home.

When the Great Spirit of all made earth, he saw that the hollows of the

rocks and hills were tenantless, and yet that a mighty kingdom and great

palaces were hid within them,--a dread and dark solitude, but lighted at

times from the starry eyes of many jewels; and there was the treasure of

the human world--gold and silver--and great heaps of gems, and a soil

of metals. So God made a race for this vast empire, and gifted them with

the power of thought, and the soul of exceeding wisdom, so that they

want not the merriment and enterprise of the outer world; but musing

in these dark caves is their delight. Their existence rolls away in the

luxury of thought; only from time to time they appear in the world, and

betoken woe or weal to men,--according to their nature, for they are

divided into two tribes, the benevolent and the wrathful.” While the

prince spoke, they saw glaring upon them from a ledge in the upper rock

a grisly face with a long matted beard. The prince gathered himself up,

and frowned at the evil dwarf, for such it was; but with a wild laugh

the face abruptly disappeared, and the echo of the laugh rang with a

ghastly sound through the long hollows of the earth.

The queen clung to Fayzenheim’s arm. “Fear not, my queen,” said he. “The

evil race have no power over our light and aerial nature; with men only

they war; and he whom we have seen was, in the old ages of the world,

one of the deadliest visitors to mankind.”

But now they came winding by a passage to a beautiful recess in the

mountain empire; it was of a circular shape of amazing height; in the

midst of it played a natural fountain of sparkling waters, and around it

were columns of massive granite, rising in countless vistas, till lost

in the distant shade. Jewels were scattered round, and brightly played

the fairy torches on the gem, the fountain, and the pale silver, that

gleamed at frequent intervals from the rocks. “Here let us rest,” said

the gallant fairy, clapping his hands; “what, ho! music and the feast.”

So the feast was spread by the fountain’s side; and the courtiers

scattered rose-leaves, which they had brought with them, for the prince

and his visitor; and amidst the dark kingdom of the dwarfs broke

the delicate sound of fairy lutes. “We have not these evil beings in

England,” said the queen, as low as she could speak; “they rouse my

fear, but my interest also. Tell me, dear prince, of what nature was the

intercourse of the evil dwarf with man?”

“You know,” answered the prince, “that to every species of living thing

there is something in common; the vast chain of sympathy runs through

all creation. By that which they have in common with the beast of the

field or the bird of the air, men govern the inferior tribes; they

appeal to the common passions of fear and emulation when they tame the

wild steed, to the common desire of greed and gain when they snare

the fishes of the stream, or allure the wolves to the pitfall by the

bleating of the lamb. In their turn, in the older ages of the world, it

was by the passions which men had in common with the demon race that the

fiends commanded or allured them. The dwarf whom you saw, being of that

race which is characterized by the ambition of power and the desire

of hoarding, appealed then in his intercourse with men to the same

characteristics in their own bosoms,--to ambition or to avarice. And

thus were his victims made! But, not now, dearest Nymphalin,” continued

the prince, with a more lively air,--“not now will we speak of those

gloomy beings. Ho, there! cease the music, and come hither all of ye,

to listen to a faithful and homely history of the Dog, the Cat, the

Griffin, and the Fox.”

CHAPTER XII. THE WOOING OF MASTER FOX.*

* In the excursions of the fairies, it is the object of the author

to bring before the reader a rapid phantasmagoria of the various

beings that belong to the German superstitions, so that the work

may thus describe the outer and the inner world of the land of

the Rhine. The tale of the Fox’s Wooing has been composed to

give the English reader an idea of a species of novel not

naturalized amongst us, though frequent among the legends of our

Irish neighbours; in which the brutes are the only characters

drawn,--drawn too with shades of distinction as nice and subtle

as if they were the creatures of the civilized world.

You are aware, my dear Nymphalin, that in the time of which I am about

to speak there was no particular enmity between the various species of

brutes; the dog and the hare chatted very agreeably together, and

all the world knows that the wolf, unacquainted with mutton, had

a particular affection for the lamb. In these happy days, two most

respectable cats, of very old family, had an only daughter. Never was

kitten more amiable or more seducing; as she grew up she manifested so

many charms, that in a little while she became noted as the greatest

beauty in the neighbourhood. Need I to you, dearest Nymphalin, describe

her perfection? Suffice it to say that her skin was of the most delicate

tortoiseshell, that her paws were smoother than velvet, that her

whiskers were twelve inches long at the least, and that her eyes had a

gentleness altogether astonishing in a cat. But if the young beauty

had suitors in plenty during the lives of monsieur and madame, you may

suppose the number was not diminished when, at the age of two years and

a half, she was left an orphan, and sole heiress to all the hereditary

property. In fine, she was the richest marriage in the whole country.

Without troubling you, dearest queen, with the adventures of the rest of

her lovers, with their suit and their rejection, I come at once to the

two rivals most sanguine of success,--the dog and the fox.

Now the dog was a handsome, honest, straightforward, affectionate

fellow. “For my part,” said he, “I don’t wonder at my cousin’s refusing

Bruin the bear, and Gauntgrim the wolf: to be sure they give themselves

great airs, and call themselves ‘_noble_,’ but what then? Bruin is

always in the sulks, and Gauntgrim always in a passion; a cat of any

sensibility would lead a miserable life with them. As for me, I am very

good-tempered when I’m not put out, and I have no fault except that of

being angry if disturbed at my meals. I am young and good-looking, fond

of play and amusement, and altogether as agreeable a husband as a cat

could find in a summer’s day. If she marries me, well and good; she

may have her property settled on herself: if not, I shall bear her no

malice; and I hope I sha’n’t be too much in love to forget that there

are other cats in the world.”

With that the dog threw his tail over his back, and set off to his

mistress with a gay face on the matter.

Now the fox heard the dog talking thus to himself, for the fox was

always peeping about, in holes and corners, and he burst out a laughing

when the dog was out of sight.

“Ho, ho, my fine fellow!” said he; “not so fast, if you please: you’ve

got the fox for a rival, let me tell you.”

The fox, as you very well know, is a beast that can never do anything

without a manoeuvre; and as, from his cunning, he was generally very

lucky in anything he undertook, he did not doubt for a moment that he

should put the dog’s nose out of joint. Reynard was aware that in

love one should always, if possible, be the first in the field; and he

therefore resolved to get the start of the dog and arrive before him

at the cat’s residence. But this was no easy matter; for though Reynard

could run faster than the dog for a little way, he was no match for

him in a journey of some distance. “However,” said Reynard, “those

good-natured creatures are never very wise; and I think I know already

what will make him bait on his way.”

With that, the fox trotted pretty fast by a short cut in the woods, and

getting before the dog, laid himself down by a hole in the earth, and

began to howl most piteously.

The dog, hearing the noise, was very much alarmed. “See now,” said he,

“if the poor fox has not got himself into some scrape! Those cunning

creatures are always in mischief; thank Heaven, it never comes into my

head to be cunning!” And the good-natured animal ran off as hard as he

could to see what was the matter with the fox.

“Oh, dear!” cried Reynard; “what shall I do? What shall I do? My poor

little sister has fallen into this hole, and I can’t get her out; she’ll

certainly be smothered.” And the fox burst out a howling more piteously

than before.

“But, my dear Reynard,” quoth the dog, very simply, “why don’t you go in

after your sister?”

“Ah, you may well ask that,” said the fox; “but, in trying to get in,

don’t you perceive that I have sprained my back and can’t stir? Oh,

dear! what shall I do if my poor little sister is smothered!”

“Pray don’t vex yourself,” said the dog; “I’ll get her out in an

instant.” And with that he forced himself with great difficulty into the

hole.

Now, no sooner did the fox see that the dog was fairly in, than he

rolled a great stone to the mouth of the hole and fitted it so tight,

that the dog, not being able to turn round and scratch against it with

his forepaws, was made a close prisoner.

“Ha, ha!” cried Reynard, laughing outside; “amuse yourself with my poor

little sister, while I go and make your compliments to Mademoiselle the

Cat.”

With that Reynard set off at an easy pace, never troubling his head

what became of the poor dog. When he arrived in the neighbourhood of the

beautiful cat’s mansion, he resolved to pay a visit to a friend of his,

an old magpie that lived in a tree and was well acquainted with all the

news of the place. “For,” thought Reynard, “I may as well know the blind

side of my mistress that is to be, and get round it at once.”

The magpie received the fox with great cordiality, and inquired what

brought him so great a distance from home.

“Upon my word,” said the fox, “nothing so much as the pleasure of seeing

your ladyship and hearing those agreeable anecdotes you tell with so

charming a grace; but to let you into a secret--be sure it don’t go

further--”

“On the word of a magpie,” interrupted the bird.

“Pardon me for doubting you,” continued the fox; “I should have

recollected that a pie was a proverb for discretion. But, as I was

saying, you know her Majesty the lioness?”

“Surely,” said the magpie, bridling.

“Well; she was pleased to fall in--that is to say--to--to--take a

caprice to your humble servant, and the lion grew so jealous that I

thought it prudent to decamp. A jealous lion is no joke, let me assure

your ladyship. But mum’s the word.”

So great a piece of news delighted the magpie. She could not but repay

it in kind, by all the news in her budget. She told the fox all the

scandal about Bruin and Gauntgrim, and she then fell to work on the poor

young cat. She did not spare her foibles, you may be quite sure. The

fox listened with great attention, and he learned enough to convince

him that however much the magpie might exaggerate, the cat was very

susceptible to flattery, and had a great deal of imagination.

When the magpie had finished she said, “But it must be very unfortunate

for you to be banished from so magnificent a court as that of the lion?”

“As to that,” answered the fox, “I console myself for my exile with a

present his Majesty made me on parting, as a reward for my anxiety for

his honour and domestic tranquillity; namely, three hairs from the fifth

leg of the amoronthologosphorus. Only think of that, ma’am!”

“The what?” cried the pie, cocking down her left ear.

“The amoronthologosphorus.”

“La!” said the magpie; “and what is that very long word, my dear

Reynard?”

“The amoronthologosphorus is a beast that lives on the other side of

the river Cylinx; it has five legs, and on the fifth leg there are three

hairs, and whoever has those three hairs can be young and beautiful

forever.”

“Bless me! I wish you would let me see them,” said the pie, holding out

her claw.

“Would that I could oblige you, ma’am; but it’s as much as my life’s

worth to show them to any but the lady I marry. In fact, they only have

an effect on the fair sex, as you may see by myself, whose poor person

they utterly fail to improve: they are, therefore, intended for a

marriage present, and his Majesty the lion thus generously atoned to

me for relinquishing the tenderness of his queen. One must confess that

there was a great deal of delicacy in the gift. But you’ll be sure not

to mention it.”

“A magpie gossip indeed!” quoth the old blab.

The fox then wished the magpie good night, and retired to a hole to

sleep off the fatigues of the day, before he presented himself to the

beautiful young cat.

The next morning, Heaven knows how! it was all over the place that

Reynard the fox had been banished from court for the favour shown him by

her Majesty, and that the lion had bribed his departure with three

hairs that would make any lady whom the fox married young and beautiful

forever.

The cat was the first to learn the news, and she became all curiosity to

see so interesting a stranger, possessed of “qualifications” which, in

the language of the day, “would render any animal happy!” She was not

long without obtaining her wish. As she was taking a walk in the wood

the fox contrived to encounter her. You may be sure that he made her his

best bow; and he flattered the poor cat with so courtly an air that she

saw nothing surprising in the love of the lioness.

Meanwhile let us see what became of his rival, the dog.

“Ah, the poor creature!” said Nymphalin; “it is easy to guess that he

need not be buried alive to lose all chance of marrying the heiress.”

“Wait till the end,” answered Fayzenheim.

When the dog found that he was thus entrapped, he gave himself up for

lost. In vain he kicked with his hind-legs against the stone,--he only

succeeded in bruising his paws; and at length he was forced to lie down,

with his tongue out of his mouth, and quite exhausted. “However,” said

he, after he had taken breath, “it won’t do to be starved here, without

doing my best to escape; and if I can’t get out one way, let me see if

there is not a hole at the other end.” Thus saying, his courage, which

stood him in lieu of cunning, returned, and he proceeded on in the same

straightforward way in which he always conducted himself. At first the

path was exceedingly narrow, and he hurt his sides very much against

the rough stones that projected from the earth; but by degrees the way

became broader, and he now went on with considerable ease to himself,

till he arrived in a large cavern, where he saw an immense griffin

sitting on his tail, and smoking a huge pipe.

The dog was by no means pleased at meeting so suddenly a creature that

had only to open his mouth to swallow him up at a morsel; however,

he put a bold face on the danger, and walking respectfully up to the

griffin, said, “Sir, I should be very much obliged to you if you would

inform me the way out of these holes into the upper world.”

The griffin took the pipe out of his mouth, and looked at the dog very

sternly.

“Ho, wretch!” said he, “how comest thou hither? I suppose thou wantest

to steal my treasure; but I know how to treat such vagabonds as you, and

I shall certainly eat you up.

“You can do that if you choose,” said the dog; “but it would be very

unhandsome conduct in an animal so much bigger than myself. For my own

part, I never attack any dog that is not of equal size,--I should be

ashamed of myself if I did. And as to your treasure, the character I

bear for honesty is too well known to merit such a suspicion.”

“Upon my word,” said the griffin, who could not help smiling for the

life of him, “you have a singularly free mode of expressing yourself.

And how, I say, came you hither?”

Then the dog, who did not know what a lie was, told the griffin his

whole history,--how he had set off to pay his court to the cat, and how

Reynard the fox had entrapped him into the hole.

When he had finished, the griffin said to him, “I see, my friend, that

you know how to speak the truth; I am in want of just such a servant as

you will make me, therefore stay with me and keep watch over my treasure

when I sleep.”

“Two words to that,” said the dog. “You have hurt my feelings very much

by suspecting my honesty, and I would much sooner go back into the wood

and be avenged on that scoundrel the fox, than serve a master who has so

ill an opinion of me. I pray you, therefore, to dismiss me, and to put

me in the right way to my cousin the cat.”

“I am not a griffin of many words,” answered the master of the cavern,

“and I give you your choice,--be my servant or be my breakfast; it is

just the same to me. I give you time to decide till I have smoked out my

pipe.”

The poor dog did not take so long to consider. “It is true,” thought he,

“that it is a great misfortune to live in a cave with a griffin of

so unpleasant a countenance; but, probably, if I serve him well and

faithfully, he’ll take pity on me some day, and let me go back to earth,

and prove to my cousin what a rogue the fox is; and as to the rest,

though I would sell my life as dear as I could, it is impossible to

fight a griffin with a mouth of so monstrous a size.” In short, he

decided to stay with the griffin.

“Shake a paw on it,” quoth the grim smoker; and the dog shook paws.

“And now,” said the griffin, “I will tell you what you are to do. Look

here,” and moving his tail, he showed the dog a great heap of gold and

silver, in a hole in the ground, that he had covered with the folds of

his tail; and also, what the dog thought more valuable, a great heap of

bones of very tempting appearance. “Now,” said the griffin, “during the

day I can take very good care of these myself; but at night it is very

necessary that I should go to sleep, so when I sleep you must watch over

them instead of me.”

“Very well,” said the dog. “As to the gold and silver, I have no

objection; but I would much rather that you would lock up the bones, for

I’m often hungry of a night, and--”

“Hold your tongue,” said the griffin.

“But, sir,” said the dog, after a short silence, “surely nobody ever

comes into so retired a situation! Who are the thieves, if I may make

bold to ask?”

“Know,” answered the griffin, “that there are a great many serpents in

this neighbourhood. They are always trying to steal my treasure; and if

they catch me napping, they, not contented with theft, would do their

best to sting me to death. So that I am almost worn out for want of

sleep.”

“Ah,” quoth the dog, who was fond of a good night’s rest, “I don’t envy

you your treasure, sir.”

At night, the griffin, who had a great deal of penetration, and saw that

he might depend on the dog, lay down to sleep in another corner of the

cave; and the dog, shaking himself well, so as to be quite awake, took

watch over the treasure. His mouth watered exceedingly at the bones, and

he could not help smelling them now and then; but he said to himself, “A

bargain’s a bargain, and since I have promised to serve the griffin, I

must serve him as an honest dog ought to serve.”

In the middle of the night he saw a great snake creeping in by the side

of the cave; but the dog set up so loud a bark that the griffin awoke,

and the snake crept away as fast as he could. Then the griffin was very

much pleased, and he gave the dog one of the bones to amuse himself

with; and every night the dog watched the treasure, and acquitted

himself so well that not a snake, at last, dared to make its

appearance,--so the griffin enjoyed an excellent night’s rest.

The dog now found himself much more comfortable than he expected. The

griffin regularly gave him one of the bones for supper; and, pleased

with his fidelity, made himself as agreeable a master as a griffin

could be. Still, however, the dog was secretly very anxious to return

to earth; for having nothing to do during the day but to doze on the

ground, he dreamed perpetually of his cousin the cat’s charms, and, in

fancy, he gave the rascal Reynard as hearty a worry as a fox may well

have the honour of receiving from a dog’s paws. He awoke panting; alas!

he could not realize his dreams.

One night, as he was watching as usual over the treasure, he was greatly

surprised to see a beautiful little black and white dog enter the

cave; and it came fawning to our honest friend, wagging its tail with

pleasure.

“Ah, little one,” said our dog, whom, to distinguish, I will call the

watch-dog, “you had better make the best of your way back again. See,

there is a great griffin asleep in the other corner of the cave, and if

he wakes, he will either eat you up or make you his servant, as he has

made me.”

“I know what you would tell me,” says the little dog; “and I have come

down here to deliver you. The stone is now gone from the mouth of the

cave, and you have nothing to do but to go back with me. Come, brother,

come.”

The dog was very much excited by this address. “Don’t ask me, my dear

little friend,” said he; “you must be aware that I should be too happy

to escape out of this cold cave, and roll on the soft turf once more:

but if I leave my master, the griffin, those cursed serpents, who are

always on the watch, will come in and steal his treasure,--nay, perhaps,

sting him to death.” Then the little dog came up to the watch-dog, and

remonstrated with him greatly, and licked him caressingly on both sides

of his face; and, taking him by the ear, endeavoured to draw him from

the treasure: but the dog would not stir a step, though his heart sorely

pressed him. At length the little dog, finding it all in vain, said,

“Well, then, if I must leave, good-by; but I have become so hungry in

coming down all this way after you, that I wish you would give me one

of those bones; they smell very pleasantly, and one out of so many could

never be missed.”

“Alas!” said the watchdog, with tears in his eyes, “how unlucky I am to

have eaten up the bone my master gave me, otherwise you should have had

it and welcome. But I can’t give you one of these, because my master has

made me promise to watch over them all, and I have given him my paw

on it. I am sure a dog of your respectable appearance will say nothing

further on the subject.”

Then the little dog answered pettishly, “Pooh, what nonsense you

talk! surely a great griffin can’t miss a little bone fit for me?” and

nestling his nose under the watch-dog, he tried forthwith to bring up

one of the bones.

On this the watch-dog grew angry, and, though with much reluctance, he

seized the little dog by the nape of the neck and threw him off, but

without hurting him. Suddenly the little dog changed into a monstrous

serpent, bigger even than the griffin himself, and the watch-dog barked

with all his might. The griffin rose in a great hurry, and the serpent

sprang upon him ere he was well awake. I wish, dearest Nymphalin, you

could have seen the battle between the griffin and the serpent,--how

they coiled and twisted, and bit and darted their fiery tongues at each

other. At length the serpent got uppermost, and was about to plunge his

tongue into that part of the griffin which is unprotected by his scales,

when the dog, seizing him by the tail, bit him so sharply that he could

not help turning round to kill his new assailant, and the griffin,

taking advantage of the opportunity, caught the serpent by the throat

with both claws, and fairly strangled him. As soon as the griffin had

recovered from the nervousness of the conflict, he heaped all manner

of caresses on the dog for saving his life. The dog told him the whole

story, and the griffin then explained that the dead snake was the king

of the serpents, who had the power to change himself into any shape he

pleased. “If he had tempted you,” said he, “to leave the treasure but

for one moment, or to have given him any part of it, ay, but a single

bone, he would have crushed you in an instant, and stung me to death

ere I could have waked; but none, no, not the most venomous thing in

creation, has power to hurt the honest!”

“That has always been my belief,” answered the dog; “and now, sir, you

had better go to sleep again and leave the rest to me.”

“Nay,” answered the griffin, “I have no longer need of a servant; for

now that the king of the serpents is dead, the rest will never molest

me. It was only to satisfy his avarice that his subjects dared to brave

the den of the griffin.”

Upon hearing this the dog was exceedingly delighted; and raising himself

on his hind paws, he begged the griffin most movingly to let him return

to earth, to visit his mistress the cat, and worry his rival the fox.

“You do not serve an ungrateful master,” answered the griffin. “You

shall return, and I will teach you all the craft of our race, which is

much craftier than the race of that pettifogger the fox, so that you may

be able to cope with your rival.”

“Ah, excuse me,” said the dog, hastily, “I am equally obliged to you;

but I fancy honesty is a match for cunning any day, and I think myself a

great deal safer in being a dog of honour than if I knew all the tricks

in the world.”

“Well,” said the griffin, a little piqued at the dog’s bluntness, “do as

you please; I wish you all possible success.”

Then the griffin opened a secret door in the side of the cabin, and

the dog saw a broad path that led at once into the wood. He thanked

the griffin with all his heart, and ran wagging his tail into the open

moonlight. “Ah, ah, master fox,” said he, “there’s no trap for an honest

dog that has not two doors to it, cunning as you think yourself.”

With that he curled his tail gallantly over his left leg, and set off

on a long trot to the cat’s house. When he was within sight of it, he

stopped to refresh himself by a pool of water, and who should be there

but our friend the magpie.

“And what do _you_ want, friend?” said she, rather disdainfully, for the

dog looked somewhat out of case after his journey.

“I am going to see my cousin the cat,” answered he.

“_Your cousin_! marry come up,” said the magpie; “don’t you know she is

going to be married to Reynard the fox? This is not a time for her to

receive the visits of a brute like you.”

These words put the dog in such a passion that he very nearly bit the

magpie for her uncivil mode of communicating such bad news. However, he

curbed his temper, and, without answering her, went at once to the cat’s

residence.

The cat was sitting at the window, and no sooner did the dog see her

than he fairly lost his heart; never had he seen so charming a cat

before. He advanced, wagging his tail, and with his most insinuating

air, when the cat, getting up, clapped the window in his face, and lo!

Reynard the fox appeared in her stead.

“Come out, thou rascal!” said the dog, showing his teeth; “come out,

I challenge thee to single combat; I have not forgiven thy malice, and

thou seest that I am no longer shut up in the cave, and unable to punish

thee for thy wickedness.”

“Go home, silly one!” answered the fox, sneering; “thou hast no business

here, and as for fighting thee--bah!” Then the fox left the window and

disappeared. But the dog, thoroughly enraged, scratched lustily at the

door, and made such a noise, that presently the cat herself came to the

window.

“How now!” said she, angrily; “what means all this rudeness? Who are

you, and what do you want at my house?”

“Oh, my dear cousin,” said the dog, “do not speak so severely. Know that

I have come here on purpose to pay you a visit; and, whatever you do,

let me beseech you not to listen to that villain Reynard,--you have no

conception what a rogue he is!”

“What!” said the cat, blushing; “do you dare to abuse your betters in

this fashion? I see you have a design on me. Go, this instant, or--”

“Enough, madam,” said the dog, proudly; “you need not speak twice to

me,--farewell.”

And he turned away very slowly, and went under a tree, where he took up

his lodgings for the night. But the next morning there was an amazing

commotion in the neighbourhood; a stranger, of a very different style of

travelling from that of the dog, had arrived at the dead of the night,

and fixed his abode in a large cavern hollowed out of a steep rock. The

noise he had made in flying through the air was so great that it had

awakened every bird and beast in the parish; and Reynard, whose bad

conscience never suffered him to sleep very soundly, putting his head

out of the window, perceived, to his great alarm, that the stranger was

nothing less than a monstrous griffin.

Now the griffins are the richest beasts in the world; and that’s the

reason they keep so close under ground. Whenever it does happen that

they pay a visit above, it is not a thing to be easily forgotten.

The magpie was all agitation. What could the griffin possibly want

there? She resolved to take a peep at the cavern, and accordingly she

hopped timorously up the rock, and pretended to be picking up sticks for

her nest.

“Holla, ma’am!” cried a very rough voice, and she saw the griffin

putting his head out of the cavern. “Holla! you are the very lady I want

to see; you know all the people about here, eh?”

“All the best company, your lordship, I certainly do,” answered the

magpie, dropping a courtesy.

Upon this the griffin walked out; and smoking his pipe leisurely in the

open air, in order to set the pie at her ease, continued,--

“Are there any respectable beasts of good families settled in this

neighbourhood?”

“Oh, most elegant society, I assure your lordship,” cried the pie. “I

have lived here myself these ten years, and the great heiress, the cat

yonder, attracts a vast number of strangers.”

“Humph! heiress, indeed! much you know about heiresses!” said the

griffin. “There is only one heiress in the world, and that’s my

daughter.”

“Bless me! has your lordship a family? I beg you a thousand pardons; but

I only saw your lordship’s own equipage last night, and did not know you

brought any one with you.”

“My daughter went first, and was safely lodged before I arrived. She did

not disturb you, I dare say, as I did; for she sails along like a swan:

but I have got the gout in my left claw, and that’s the reason I puff

and groan so in taking a journey.”

“Shall I drop in upon Miss Griffin, and see how she is after her

journey?” said the pie, advancing.

“I thank you, no. I don’t intend her to be seen while I stay here,--it

unsettles her; and I’m afraid of the young beasts running away with her

if they once heard how handsome she was: she’s the living picture of me,

but she’s monstrous giddy! Not that I should care much if she did go off

with a beast of degree, were I not obliged to pay her portion, which is

prodigious; and I don’t like parting with money, ma’am, when I’ve once

got it. Ho, ho, ho!”

“You are too witty, my lord. But if you refused your consent?” said the

pie, anxious to know the whole family history of so grand a seigneur.

“I should have to pay the dowry all the same. It was left her by her

uncle the dragon. But don’t let this go any further.”

“Your lordship may depend on my secrecy. I wish your lordship a very

good morning.”

Away flew the pie, and she did not stop till she got to the cat’s house.

The cat and the fox were at breakfast, and the fox had his paw on his

heart. “Beautiful scene!” cried the pie; the cat coloured, and bade the

pie take a seat.

Then off went the pie’s tongue, glib, glib, glib, chatter, chatter,

chatter. She related to them the whole story of the griffin and his

daughter, and a great deal more besides, that the griffin had never told

her.

The cat listened attentively. Another young heiress in the neighbourhood

might be a formidable rival. “But is this griffiness handsome?” said

she.

“Handsome!” cried the pie; “oh, if you could have seen the father!--such

a mouth, such eyes, such a complexion; and he declares she’s the living

picture of himself! But what do you say, Mr. Reynard,--you, who have

been so much in the world, have, perhaps, seen the young lady?”

“Why, I can’t say I have,” answered the fox, waking from a revery;

“but she must be wonderfully rich. I dare say that fool the dog will be

making up to her.”

“Ah, by the way,” said the pie, “what a fuss he made at your door

yesterday; why would you not admit him, my dear?”

“Oh,” said the cat, demurely, “Mr. Reynard says that he is a dog of very

bad character, quite a fortune-hunter; and hiding the most dangerous

disposition to bite under an appearance of good nature. I hope he won’t

be quarrelsome with you, dear Reynard!”

“With me? Oh, the poor wretch, no!--he might bluster a little; but he

knows that if I’m once angry I’m a devil at biting;--one should not

boast of oneself.”

In the evening Reynard felt a strange desire to go and see the griffin

smoking his pipe; but what could he do? There was the dog under the

opposite tree evidently watching for him, and Reynard had no wish to

prove himself that devil at biting which he declared he was. At last he

resolved to have recourse to stratagem to get rid of the dog.

A young buck of a rabbit, a sort of provincial fop, had looked in upon

his cousin the cat, to pay her his respects, and Reynard, taking him

aside, said, “You see that shabby-looking dog under the tree? He has

behaved very ill to your cousin the cat, and you certainly ought

to challenge him. Forgive my boldness, nothing but respect for your

character induces me to take so great a liberty; you know I would

chastise the rascal myself, but what a scandal it would make! If I were

already married to your cousin, it would be a different thing. But you

know what a story that cursed magpie would hatch out of it!”

The rabbit looked very foolish; he assured the fox he was no match for

the dog; that he was very fond of his cousin, to be sure! but he saw

no necessity to interfere with her domestic affairs; and, in short, he

tried all he possibly could to get out of the scrape; but the fox so

artfully played on his vanity, so earnestly assured him that the dog was

the biggest coward in the world and would make a humble apology, and so

eloquently represented to him the glory he would obtain for manifesting

so much spirit, that at length the rabbit was persuaded to go out and

deliver the challenge.

“I’ll be your second,” said the fox; “and the great field on the other

side the wood, two miles hence, shall be the place of battle: there we

shall be out of observation. You go first, I’ll follow in half an hour;

and I say, hark!--in case he does accept the challenge, and you feel the

least afraid, I’ll be in the field, and take it off your paws with the

utmost pleasure; rely on _me_, my dear sir!”

Away went the rabbit. The dog was a little astonished at the temerity

of the poor creature; but on hearing that the fox was to be present,

willingly consented to repair to the place of conflict. This readiness

the rabbit did not at all relish; he went very slowly to the field,

and seeing no fox there, his heart misgave him; and while the dog was

putting his nose to the ground to try if he could track the coming of

the fox, the rabbit slipped into a burrow, and left the dog to walk back

again.

Meanwhile the fox was already at the rock; he walked very soft-footedly,

and looked about with extreme caution, for he had a vague notion that a

griffin-papa would not be very civil to foxes.

Now there were two holes in the rock,--one below, one above, an upper

story and an under; and while the fox was peering about, he saw a great

claw from the upper rock beckoning to him.

“Ah, ah!” said the fox, “that’s the wanton young griffiness, I’ll

swear.”

He approached, and a voice said,--

“Charming Mr. Reynard, do you not think you could deliver an unfortunate

griffiness from a barbarous confinement in this rock?”

“Oh, heavens!” cried the fox, tenderly, “what a beautiful voice! and,

ah, my poor heart, what a lovely claw! Is it possible that I hear the

daughter of my lord, the great griffin?”

“Hush, flatterer! not so loud, if you please. My father is taking an

evening stroll, and is very quick of hearing. He has tied me up by

my poor wings in the cavern, for he is mightily afraid of some beast

running away with me. You know I have all my fortune settled on myself.”

“Talk not of fortune,” said the fox; “but how can I deliver you? Shall I

enter and gnaw the cord?”

“Alas!” answered the griffiness, “it is an immense chain I am bound

with. However, you may come in and talk more at your ease.”

The fox peeped cautiously all round, and seeing no sign of the griffin,

he entered the lower cave and stole upstairs to the upper story; but as

he went on, he saw immense piles of jewels and gold, and all sorts of

treasure, so that the old griffin might well have laughed at the

poor cat being called an heiress. The fox was greatly pleased at such

indisputable signs of wealth, and he entered the upper cave, resolved to

be transported with the charms of the griffiness.

There was, however, a great chasm between the landing-place and the spot

where the young lady was chained, and he found it impossible to pass;

the cavern was very dark, but he saw enough of the figure of the

griffiness to perceive, in spite of her petticoat, that she was the

image of her father, and the most hideous heiress that the earth ever

saw!

However, he swallowed his disgust, and poured forth such a heap of

compliments that the griffiness appeared entirely won.

He implored her to fly with him the first moment she was unchained.

“That is impossible,” said she; “for my father never unchains me except

in his presence, and then I cannot stir out of his sight.”

“The wretch!” cried Reynard, “what is to be done?”

“Why, there is only one thing I know of,” answered the griffiness,

“which is this: I always make his soup for him, and if I could mix

something in it that would put him fast to sleep before he had time to

chain me up again I might slip down and carry off all the treasure below

on my back.”

“Charming!” exclaimed Reynard; “what invention! what wit! I will go and

get some poppies directly.”

“Alas!” said the griffiness, “poppies have no effect upon griffins. The

only thing that can ever put my father fast to sleep is a nice young cat

boiled up in his soup; it is astonishing what a charm that has upon him!

But where to get a cat?--it must be a maiden cat too!”

Reynard was a little startled at so singular an opiate. “But,” thought

he, “griffins are not like the rest of the world, and so rich an heiress

is not to be won by ordinary means.”

“I do know a cat,--a maiden cat,” said he, after a short pause; “but

I feel a little repugnance at the thought of having her boiled in the

griffin’s soup. Would not a dog do as well?”

“Ah, base thing!” said the griffiness, appearing to weep; “you are in

love with the cat, I see it; go and marry her, poor dwarf that she is,

and leave me to die of grief.”

In vain the fox protested that he did not care a straw for the cat;

nothing could now appease the griffiness but his positive assurance that

come what would poor puss should be brought to the cave and boiled for

the griffin’s soup.

“But how will you get her here?” said the griffiness.

“Ah, leave that to me,” said Reynard. “Only put a basket out of the

window and draw it up by a cord; the moment it arrives at the window, be

sure to clap your claw on the cat at once, for she is terribly active.”

“Tush!” answered the heiress; “a pretty griffiness I should be if I did

not know how to catch a cat!”

“But this must be when your father is out?” said Reynard.

“Certainly; he takes a stroll every evening at sunset.”

“Let it be to-morrow, then,” said Reynard, impatient for the treasure.

This being arranged, Reynard thought it time to decamp. He stole down

the stairs again, and tried to filch some of the treasure by the way;

but it was too heavy for him to carry, and he was forced to acknowledge

to himself that it was impossible to get the treasure without taking the

griffiness (whose back seemed prodigiously strong) into the bargain.

He returned home to the cat, and when he entered her house, and saw how

ordinary everything looked after the jewels in the griffin’s cave, he

quite wondered how he had ever thought the cat had the least pretensions

to good looks. However, he concealed his wicked design, and his mistress

thought he had never appeared so amiable.

“Only guess,” said he, “where I have been!--to our new neighbour the

griffin; a most charming person, thoroughly affable, and quite the air

of the court. As for that silly magpie, the griffin saw her character at

once; and it was all a hoax about his daughter,--he has no daughter at

all. You know, my dear, hoaxing is a fashionable amusement among the

great. He says he has heard of nothing but your beauty, and on my

telling him we were going to be married, he has insisted upon giving a

great ball and supper in honour of the event. In fact, he is a gallant

old fellow, and dying to see you. Of course, I was obliged to accept the

invitation.”

“You could not do otherwise,” said the unsuspecting young creature, who,

as I before said, was very susceptible to flattery.

“And only think how delicate his attentions are,” said the fox. “As he

is very badly lodged for a beast of his rank, and his treasure takes up

the whole of the ground floor, he is forced to give the _fete_ in the

upper story, so he hangs out a basket for his guests, and draws them up

with his own claw. How condescending! But the great _are_ so amiable!”

The cat, brought up in seclusion, was all delight at the idea of seeing

such high life, and the lovers talked of nothing else all the next

day,--when Reynard, towards evening, putting his head out of the window,

saw his old friend the dog lying as usual and watching him very grimly.

“Ah, that cursed creature! I had quite forgotten him; what is to be

done now? He would make no bones of me if he once saw me set foot out of

doors.”

With that, the fox began to cast in his head how he should get rid

of his rival, and at length he resolved on a very notable project; he

desired the cat to set out first, and wait for him at a turn in the road

a little way off. “For,” said he, “if we go together we shall certainly

be insulted by the dog; and he will know that in the presence of a lady,

the custom of a beast of my fashion will not suffer me to avenge the

affront. But when I am alone, the creature is such a coward that he will

not dare say his soul’s his own; leave the door open and I’ll follow

immediately.”

The cat’s mind was so completely poisoned against her cousin that she

implicitly believed this account of his character; and accordingly, with

many recommendations to her lover not to sully his dignity by getting

into any sort of quarrel with the dog, she set off first.

The dog went up to her very humbly, and begged her to allow him to say a

few words to her; but she received him so haughtily, that his spirit was

up; and he walked back to the tree more than ever enraged against his

rival. But what was his joy when he saw that the cat had left the door

open! “Now, wretch,” thought he, “you cannot escape me!” So he walked

briskly in at the back door. He was greatly surprised to find Reynard

lying down in the straw, panting as if his heart would break, and

rolling his eyes in the pangs of death.

“Ah, friend,” said the fox, with a faltering voice, “you are avenged,

my hour is come; I am just going to give up the ghost: put your paw upon

mine, and say you forgive me.”

Despite his anger, the generous dog could not set tooth on a dying foe.

“You have served me a shabby trick,” said he; “you have left me to

starve in a hole, and you have evidently maligned me with my cousin:

certainly I meant to be avenged on you; but if you are really dying,

that alters the affair.”

“Oh, oh!” groaned the fox, very bitterly; “I am past help; the poor cat

is gone for Doctor Ape, but he’ll never come in time. What a thing it

is to have a bad conscience on one’s death-bed! But wait till the cat

returns, and I’ll do you full justice with her before I die.”

The good-natured dog was much moved at seeing his mortal enemy in such a

state, and endeavoured as well as he could to console him.

“Oh, oh!” said the fox; “I am so parched in the throat, I am burning;”

and he hung his tongue out of his mouth, and rolled his eyes more

fearfully than ever.

“Is there no water here?” said the dog, looking round.

“Alas, no!--yet stay! yes, now I think of it, there is some in that

little hole in the wall; but how to get at it! It is so high that I

can’t, in my poor weak state, climb up to it; and I dare not ask such a

favour of one I have injured so much.”

“Don’t talk of it,” said the dog: “but the hole’s very small, I could

not put my nose through it.”

“No; but if you just climb up on that stone, and thrust your paw into

the hole, you can dip it into the water, and so cool my poor parched

mouth. Oh, what a thing it is to have a bad conscience!”

The dog sprang upon the stone, and, getting on his hind legs, thrust his

front paw into the hole; when suddenly Reynard pulled a string that he

had concealed under the straw, and the dog found his paw caught tight to

the wall in a running noose.

“Ah, rascal!” said he, turning round; but the fox leaped up gayly from

the straw, and fastening the string with his teeth to a nail in the

other end of the wall, walked out, crying, “Good-by, my dear friend;

have a care how you believe hereafter in sudden conversions!” So he left

the dog on his hind legs to take care of the house.

Reynard found the cat waiting for him where he had appointed, and they

walked lovingly together till they came to the cave. It was now dark,

and they saw the basket waiting below; the fox assisted the poor cat

into it. “There is only room for one,” said he, “you must go first!” Up

rose the basket; the fox heard a piteous mew, and no more.

“So much for the griffin’s soup!” thought he.

He waited patiently for some time, when the griffiness, waving her claw

from the window, said cheerfully, “All’s right, my dear Reynard; my papa

has finished his soup, and sleeps as sound as a rock! All the noise in

the world would not wake him now, till he has slept off the boiled cat,

which won’t be these twelve hours. Come and assist me in packing up the

treasure; I should be sorry to leave a single diamond behind.”

“So should I,” quoth the fox. “Stay, I’ll come round by the lower

hole: why, the door’s shut! pray, beautiful griffiness, open it to thy

impatient adorer.”

“Alas, my father has hid the key! I never know where he places it. You

must come up by the basket; see, I will lower it for you.”

The fox was a little loth to trust himself in the same conveyance that

had taken his mistress to be boiled; but the most cautious grow rash

when money’s to be gained, and avarice can trap even a fox. So he put

himself as comfortably as he could into the basket, and up he went in an

instant. It rested, however, just before it reached the window, and the

fox felt, with a slight shudder, the claw of the griffiness stroking his

back.

“Oh, what a beautiful coat!” quoth she, caressingly.

“You are too kind,” said the fox; “but you can feel it more at your

leisure when I am once up. Make haste, I beseech you.”

“Oh, what a beautiful bushy tail! Never did I feel such a tail.”

“It is entirely at your service, sweet griffiness,” said the fox; “but

pray let me in. Why lose an instant?”

“No, never did I feel such a tail! No wonder you are so successful with

the ladies.”

“Ah, beloved griffiness, my tail is yours to eternity, but you pinch it

a little too hard.”

Scarcely had he said this, when down dropped the basket, but not with

the fox in it; he found himself caught by the tail, and dangling half

way down the rock, by the help of the very same sort of pulley wherewith

he had snared the dog. I leave you to guess his consternation; he yelped

out as loud as he could,--for it hurts a fox exceedingly to be hanged by

his tail with his head downwards,--when the door of the rock opened, and

out stalked the griffin himself, smoking his pipe, with a vast crowd of

all the fashionable beasts in the neighbourhood.

“Oho, brother,” said the bear, laughing fit to kill himself; “who ever

saw a fox hanged by the tail before?”

“You’ll have need of a physician,” quoth Doctor Ape.

“A pretty match, indeed; a griffiness for such a creature as you!” said

the goat, strutting by him.

The fox grinned with pain, and said nothing. But that which hurt him

most was the compassion of a dull fool of a donkey, who assured him with

great gravity that he saw nothing at all to laugh at in his situation!

“At all events,” said the fox, at last, “cheated, gulled, betrayed as

I am, I have played the same trick to the dog. Go and laugh at him,

gentlemen; he deserves it as much as I can, I assure you.”

“Pardon me,” said the griffin, taking the pipe out of his mouth; “one

never laughs at the honest.”

“And see,” said the bear, “here he is.”

And indeed the dog had, after much effort, gnawed the string in two, and

extricated his paw; the scent of the fox had enabled him to track

his footsteps, and here he arrived, burning for vengeance and finding

himself already avenged.

But his first thought was for his dear cousin. “Ah, where is she?” he

cried movingly; “without doubt that villain Reynard has served her some

scurvy trick.”

“I fear so indeed, my old friend,” answered the griffin; “but don’t

grieve,--after all, she was nothing particular. You shall marry my

daughter the griffiness, and succeed to all the treasure; ay, and all

the bones that you once guarded so faithfully.”

“Talk not to me,” said the faithful dog. “I want none of your treasure;

and, though I don’t mean to be rude, your griffiness may go to the

devil. I will run over the world, but I will find my dear cousin.”

“See her then,” said the griffin; and the beautiful cat, more beautiful

than ever, rushed out of the cavern, and threw herself into the dog’s

paws.

A pleasant scene this for the fox! He had skill enough in the female

heart to know that it may excuse many little infidelities, but to be

boiled alive for a griffin’s soup--no, the offence was inexpiable.

“You understand me, Mr. Reynard,” said the griffin, “I have no daughter,

and it was me you made love to. Knowing what sort of a creature a magpie

is, I amused myself with hoaxing her,--the fashionable amusement at

court, you know.”

The fox made a mighty struggle, and leaped on the ground, leaving his

tail behind him. It did not grow again in a hurry.

“See,” said the griffin, as the beasts all laughed at the figure Reynard

made running into the wood, “the dog beats the fox with the ladies,

after all; and cunning as he is in everything else, the fox is the last

creature that should ever think of making love!”

“Charming!” cried Nymphalin, clasping her hands; “it is just the sort of

story I like.”

“And I suppose, sir,” said Nip, pertly, “that the dog and the cat lived

very happily ever afterwards? Indeed the nuptial felicity of a dog and

cat is proverbial!”

“I dare say they lived much the same as any other married couple,”

answered the prince.

CHAPTER XIII. THE TOMB OF A FATHER OF MANY CHILDREN.

THE feast being now ended, as well as the story, the fairies wound their

way homeward by a different path, till at length a red steady light

glowed through the long basaltic arches upon them, like the Demon

Hunters’ fires in the Forest of Pines.

The prince sobered in his pace. “You approach,” said he, in a grave

tone, “the greatest of our temples; you will witness the tomb of a

mighty founder of our race!” An awe crept over the queen, in spite of

herself. Tracking the fires in silence, they came to a vast space, in

the midst of which was a long gray block of stone, such as the traveller

finds amidst the dread silence of Egyptian Thebes.

And on this stone lay the gigantic figure of a man,--dead, but not

death-like, for invisible spells had preserved the flesh and the long

hair for untold ages; and beside him lay a rude instrument of music, and

at his feet was a sword and a hunter’s spear; and above, the rock wound,

hollowed and roofless, to the upper air, and daylight came through,

sickened and pale, beneath red fires that burned everlastingly around

him, on such simple altars as belong to a savage race. But the place was

not solitary, for many motionless but not lifeless shapes sat on large

blocks of stone beside the tomb. There was the wizard, wrapped in his

long black mantle, and his face covered with his hands; there was

the uncouth and deformed dwarf, gibbering to himself; there sat the

household elf; there glowered from a gloomy rent in the wall, with

glittering eyes and shining scale, the enormous dragon of the North. An

aged crone in rags, leaning on a staff, and gazing malignantly on the

visitors, with bleared but fiery eyes, stood opposite the tomb of the

gigantic dead. And now the fairies themselves completed the group! But

all was dumb and unutterably silent,--the silence that floats over

some antique city of the desert, when, for the first time for a hundred

centuries, a living foot enters its desolate remains; the silence that

belongs to the dust of eld,--deep, solemn, palpable, and sinking into

the heart with a leaden and death-like weight. Even the English fairy

spoke not; she held her breath, and gazing on the tomb, she saw, in rude

vast characters,--

THE TEUTON.

“_We_ are all that remain of his religion!” said the prince, as they

turned from the dread temple.

CHAPTER XIV. THE FAIRY’S CAVE, AND THE FAIRY’S WISH.

IT was evening; and the fairies were dancing beneath the twilight star.

“And why art thou sad, my violet?” said the prince; “for thine eyes seek

the ground!”

“Now that I have found thee,” answered the queen, “and now that I feel

what happy love is to a fairy, I sigh over that love which I have lately

witnessed among mortals, but the bud of whose happiness already conceals

the worm. For well didst thou say, my prince, that we are linked with a

mysterious affinity to mankind, and whatever is pure and gentle amongst

them speaks at once to our sympathy, and commands our vigils.”

“And most of all,” said the German fairy, “are they who love under our

watch; for love is the golden chain that binds all in the universe: love

lights up alike the star and the glow-worm; and wherever there is

love in men’s lot, lies the secret affinity with men, and with things

divine.”

“But with the human race,” said Nymphalin, “there is no love that

outlasts the hour, for either death ends, or custom alters. When the

blossom comes to fruit, it is plucked and seen no more; and therefore,

when I behold true love sentenced to an early grave, I comfort myself

that I shall not at least behold the beauty dimmed, and the softness of

the heart hardened into stone. Yet, my prince, while still the pulse

can beat, and the warm blood flow, in that beautiful form which I have

watched over of late, let me not desert her; still let my influence keep

the sky fair, and the breezes pure; still let me drive the vapour from

the moon, and the clouds from the faces of the stars; still let me fill

her dreams with tender and brilliant images, and glass in the mirror

of sleep the happiest visions of fairy-land; still let me pour over her

eyes that magic, which suffers them to see no fault in one in whom she

has garnered up her soul! And as death comes slowly on, still let me

rob the spectre of its terror, and the grave of its sting; so that, all

gently and unconscious to herself, life may glide into the Great Ocean

where the shadows lie, and the spirit without guile may be severed from

its mansion without pain!”

The wish of the fairy was fulfilled.

CHAPTER XV. THE BANKS OF THE RHINE.--FROM THE DRACHENFELS TO BROHL.--AN

INCIDENT THAT SUFFICES IN THIS TALE FOR AN EPOCH.

FROM the Drachenfels commences the true glory of the Rhine; and once

more Gertrude’s eyes conquered the languor that crept gradually over

them as she gazed on the banks around.

Fair blew the breeze, and freshly curled the waters; and Gertrude did

not feel the vulture that had fixed its talons within her breast. The

Rhine widens, like a broad lake, between the Drachenfels and Unkel;

villages are scattered over the extended plain on the left; on the right

is the Isle of Werth and the houses of Oberwinter; the hills are covered

with vines; and still Gertrude turned back with a lingering gaze to the

lofty crest of the Seven Hills.

On, on--and the spires of Unkel rose above a curve in the banks, and

on the opposite shore stretched those wondrous basaltic columns which

extend to the middle of the river, and when the Rhine runs low, you

may see them like an engulfed city beneath the waves. You then view the

ruins of Okkenfels, and hear the voice of the pastoral Gasbach pouring

its waters into the Rhine. From amidst the clefts of the rocks the vine

peeps luxuriantly forth, and gives a richness and colouring to what

Nature, left to herself, intended for the stern.

“But turn your eye backward to the right,” said Trevylyan; “those banks

were formerly the special haunt of the bold robbers of the Rhine, and

from amidst the entangled brakes that then covered the ragged cliffs

they rushed upon their prey. In the gloomy canvas of those feudal days

what vigorous and mighty images were crowded! A robber’s life amidst

these mountains, and beside this mountain stream, must have been the

very poetry of the spot carried into action.”

They rested at Brohl, a small town between two mountains. On the summit

of one you see the gray remains of Rheinech. There is something weird

and preternatural about the aspect of this place; its soil betrays signs

that in the former ages (from which even tradition is fast fading away)

some volcano here exhausted its fires. The stratum of the earth is black

and pitchy, and the springs beneath it are of a dark and graveolent

water. Here the stream of the Brohlbach falls into the Rhine, and in

a valley rich with oak and pine, and full of caverns, which are not

without their traditionary inmates, stands the castle of Schweppenbourg,

which our party failed not to visit.

Gertrude felt fatigued on their return, and Trevylyan sat by her in the

little inn, while Vane went forth, with the curiosity of science, to

examine the strata of the soil.

They conversed in the frankness of their plighted troth upon those

topics which are only for lovers: upon the bright chapter in the history

of their love; their first meeting; their first impressions; the little

incidents in their present journey,--incidents noticed by themselves

alone; that life _within_ life which two persons know together,--which

one knows not without the other, which ceases to both the instant they

are divided.