Produced by David Widger
ROLAND CASHEL
By Charles James Lever.
With Illustrations By Phiz,
In Two Volumes. Vol. I.
Boston: Little, Brown, And Company. 1907.
To G. P. B. JAMES, Esq.
Dear James,--You, once upon a time, dedicated to me a tale of deep and
thrilling interest Let me now inscribe to you this volume on the plea
of that classic authority who, in the interchange of armour, “gave Brass
for Gold.”
It is, however, far less to repay the obligation of a debt by giving you
a “Roland”--not for your “Oliver,” but your “Stepmother”--than for the
pleasure of recording one “Fact” in a bulky tome of Fiction, that I now
write your name at the head of this page,--that fact being, the warm
memory I cherish of all our pleasant hours of intercourse, and the
sincere value I place upon the honor of your friendship.
Yours, in all esteem and affection,
CHARLES LEVER.
Palazzo Ximenes, Florence, Oct 20, 1849.
PREFACE.
I first thought of this story--I should say I planned it, if the
expression were not misleading--when living at the Lake of Como. There,
in a lovely little villa--the “Cima”--on the border of the lake, with
that glorious blending of Alpine scenery and garden-like luxuriance
around me, and little or none of interruption or intercourse, I had
abundant time to make acquaintance with my characters and follow
them into innumerable situations, and through adventures far more
extraordinary and exciting than I dared afterwards to recount.
I do not know how it may be with other story-tellers, but I have to own
for myself that the personages of a novel gain over at times a degree
of interest very little inferior to that inspired by living and real
people, and that this is especially the case when I have found myself in
some secluded spot and seeing little of the world. To such an ascendancy
has this deception attained, that more than once I have found myself
trying to explain why this person should have done that, and by what
impulse that other was led into something else. In fact, I have
found that there are conditions of the mind in which purely imaginary
creations assume the characters of actual people, and act positively as
though they were independent of the will that invented them.
Of the strange manner in which imagination can thus assume the mastery,
and for a while at least have command over the mind, I cannot give a
stronger instance within my own experience than the mode in which this
story was first conceived.
When I began I intended that the action should be carried on in the
land where the tale opened. The scene on every side of me had shed its
influence, the air was weighty with the perfume of the lime and the
orange. To days of dazzling brilliancy there succeeded nights of
tropical splendor; with stars of almost preternatural magnitude
streaking the calm lake with long lines of light. To people a scene
like this with the sort of characters that might befit it, was rather a
matter of necessity with me than choice, and it was then that Maritaña
revealed herself to me with a charm of loveliness I have never been able
to repicture. It was there I bethought me of those passionate natures
in which climate and soil and vegetation reproduce themselves, glowing,
ardent, and voluptuous as they are. It was there my fancy loved to stray
among the changeful incidents of lives of wild adventure and wilder
passion; and to imagine the strange discords that could be evoked
between the traits of a land that recalled Paradise and the natures that
were only angelic in the fall.
I cannot trust to my memory to remind me of the sort of tale I meaned to
write. I know there was to have been a perfect avalanche of adventure on
land and on sea. I know that through a stormy period of daily peril and
excitement, the traits of the Northern temperament in Roland himself
were to have asserted their superiority over his more impulsive
comrades; I know he was to have won that girl's love against a rivalry
that set life in the issue; and I have a vague impression of how such a
character might come by action and experience to develop such traits as
make men the rulers of their fellows.
Several of the situations occur to me, but not a single clew to the
story. There are even now scenes before me of prairie life and lonely
rides in passes of the Pampas; of homes where the civilized man had
never seen a brother nor heard a native tongue. It is in vain I endeavor
to recall anything like a connected narrative. All that I can well
remember is the great hold the characters had taken in my mind; how they
peopled the landscape around me, and followed me wherever I went.
This was in autumn. As winter drew nigh we moved into an Italian
city, much frequented by foreigners, and especially the resort of our
countrymen. The new life of this place and the interest they excited,
so totally unlike all that I had left at my little villa, effected a
complete revolution in my thoughts, utterly routing the belief I had
indulged in as to the characters of my story, and the incidents in which
they displayed themselves. Up to this all my efforts had been, as it
were, to refresh my mind as to a variety of events and people I had once
known, and to try if I could not recall certain situations which had
interested me. Now the spell was broken, all the charm of the illusion
gone, and I awoke to the dreary consciousness of my creatures being mere
shadows, and their actions as unreal as themselves.
There is a sort of intellectual bankruptcy in such awakenings; and
I know of few things so discouraging as this sudden revulsion from
dream-land to the cold _terra firma_ of unadorned fact.
There was little in the city we now lived in to harmonize with
“romance.” It was, in fact, all that realism could accomplish with the
aids of every taste and passion of modern society. That this life of
present-day dissipation should be enacted in scenes where every palace
and every street, every monument, and indeed every name recalled a
glorious past, may not impossibly have heightened the enjoyment of the
drama, but most unquestionably it vulgarized the actors.
Instead of the Orinoco and its lands of feathery palms, I had now
before me the Arno and its gay crowds of loungers, the endless tide of
equipages, and the strong pulse-beat of an existence that even, in the
highways of life, denotes passion and emotion.
What I had of a plan was lost to me from that hour. I was again in the
whirlpool of active existence, and the world around me was deep--triple
deep--in all cases of loving and hating, and plotting and gambling, of
intriguing, countermining, and betraying, as very polite people would
know how to do: occupations to watch, which inspire an intensity of
interest unknown in any other condition of existence.
Out of these impressions thus enforced came all the characters of my
story. Not one was a portrait, though in each and all were traits taken
from life. If I suffered myself on one single occasion to amass too many
of the characteristics of an individual into a sketch, it was in
the picture of the beau of Drumcondera; but there I was drawing from
recollection and not able to correct, as I should otherwise have done,
what might seem too close adherence to a model. I have been told that in
the character of Linton I have exaggerated wickedness beyond all belief.
I am sorry to reply that I made but a faint copy of him who suggested
that personage, and who lives and walks the stage of life as I write.
One or two persons--not more--who know him whose traits furnished the
picture, are well aware that I have neither overdrawn my sketch, nor
exaggerated my drawing.
The Kennyfeck young ladies--I am anxious to say--are not from life, nor
is Lady Kilgoff, though I have heard surmises to the contrary.
These are all the explanations and excuses that occur to me I have
to make of this story. Its graver faults are not within the pale of
apology; and for these I only ask indulgence,--the same indulgence that
has never been denied me.
CHARLES LEVER.
Trieste, 1872.
ROLAND CASHEL.
CHAPTER I. DON PEDRO'S GUESTS.
And thus they lived ye merrie yeare,
For they were a jollie crewe
Of pleasante laddes that knewe no feare,
And--as little of honestie too.
Ballade of Capt. Pike.
Our tale opens on a gorgeous night of Midsummer, at an era so little
remote that to name the precise year could have no interest for the
reader, and in a region which seemed to combine all that is delightful
in climate with whatever is luxuriant and splendid in vegetation. It
was upon the bank of a small river, a tributary of the Oronoco, not
very distant from the picturesque city of Barcelonetta, that a
beautiful villa stood, the elegance of whose architecture and the lavish
magnificence of whose decorations were alike evidence that neither taste
nor wealth were wanting to its proprietor.
In this land, where Nature had been so prodigal of her gifts, the
luxurious appointments of this princely abode seemed to partake of the
character of a fairy palace; and the admixture of objects of high art,
the treasures of Italian galleries and Spanish collections, with the
more vivid realities of the scene, favored this illusion. The fortunate
owner of this paradise was a certain Pedro Rica, who, for something like
fourteen years, had been a resident of Columbia. A widower, with an
only child, then an infant of scarce a year old, he had arrived in that
country, seeking, as he said, by new scenes and new associations, to
erase, so far as might be, the painful memory of his late bereavement.
While he gave it to be understood that he was a Spaniard by birth, some
averred that he was a Mexican; others, that he was a Texan; and one or
two alleged that he was an American of the States,--an assumption that
the ease and fluency of his English went far to corroborate. Of whatever
nation he came, certain it is that a mystery hung over both his native
land and his history; and as he showed little disposition to enlighten
the world on these subjects, as is usual in such cases, his neighbors
took their revenge by inventing a hundred stories about him, each one
only worse than the other. At one time it was said that his wealth was
acquired by piracy; at another, that he absconded from a Texan city,
with a large sum belonging to the government; forgery, breach of trust,
were among the commonest allegations; and the most charitable only
averred that he made his money in the slave-trade.
It is but fair to say that the sole foundation for these various rumors
lay in the stern distance of his manner, and the cold, almost repulsive,
austerity with which he declined all acquaintance with the neighborhood.
These traits, added to the voluptuous splendor of a retinue and a style
of living infinitely above all around, gradually estranged from him
the few who attempted to form an intimacy, and left him to live--as
it seemed he preferred--a life of solitary magnificence; an object of
affected pity to many, but of real envy to all.
As his daughter grew up, he was accustomed to visit the sea-coast each
summer for some weeks, and from these absences he now usually returned
with one or two acquaintances, for the most part officers of the
Columbian navy, with whom he had formed an intimacy at the seaside. Such
acquaintanceship seemed to increase from year to year, till at last
each autumn saw the “Villa de las Noches Entretenidas,” “of the pleasant
nights” crowded with guests, whose wild orgies were in strange contrast
to the former stillness and quietude within those walls.
A more motley and discordant assemblage it would be hard to conceive,
consisting as they did of adventurers from every land of Europe,--the
wild and reckless outcast of every clime and country, the beggared
speculator, the ruined gambler, the duellist with blood upon his hand,
the defaulter with shame upon his forehead; all that good morals reject,
and the law pursues, mingled with others whose faults went no further
than waste or improvidence, or the more venial sin that they came poor
into the world, and were stamped “Adventurers” from the cradle.
A service that never exercised too nice a scrutiny into the habits of
its followers, and whose buccaneer life had all the freedom of piracy,
with the assumption of a recognized class, offered no mean attraction
to the lover of enterprise; and certainly, if the standard of morals was
low, that of daring, reckless adventure was the very opposite.
Amid this pleasant company we must now ask pardon for introducing our
reader, with this saving assurance, that he shall not have long to
commune with such companionship. It was, as we have said, a summer's
night. A sky all glittering with stars spread its dark blue canopy over
a scene where, amid the banana, the manioc, and the plantain, flowers of
every bright hue were blooming, and fountains gushing; while, through an
atmosphere tremulous with the song of the mocking-bird, fire-flies were
glancing and glittering.
In the deep piazza before the villa was now assembled a numerous party
of men disposed in every attitude of lounging, ease, and abandonment;
they seemed, though perhaps after very different estimates, to be
enjoying the delicious balm and freshness of the night air. They were of
various ages; and although the greater number showed by their dress that
they belonged to the naval service, other signs, not less distinctive,
pronounced that they were drawn from classes of life as varied as they
were numerous; while, here and there, a caballero might be seen attired
in the picturesque costume of the Caraccas, his many colored scarf and
plumed hat aiding, in no inconsiderable degree, the picturesque effect
of a scene Salvator might have painted.
Not only beneath the piazza itself, but on the marble steps, and even
beneath them again, on the close-shaven turf, the party lay, sated as it
were with splendor, and recruiting strength for new dissipations. Some
sat talking in low and whispering voices, as if unwilling, even by a
sound, to break the stilly calm. Others, in perfect silence, seemed to
drink in the soothing influence of that tranquil moment, or smoked
the cigarettos in dreamy indolence; while at intervals, from the leafy
groves, a merry laugh, or the tinkling of a guitar, would mingle with
the bubbling murmur of the fountains, making the very stillness yet more
still as they ceased. Behind the piazza, and opening by several large
windows upon it, could be seen a splendid saloon, resplendent with
wax-lights, and still displaying on the loaded table the remnants of
a sumptuous repast, amid which vessels of gold and vases of flowers
appeared. Here, yet lingered two or three guests,--spirits who set no
store on an entertainment if it did not degenerate into debauch.
A broad alley, flanked by tall hedges of the prickly pear, led from the
villa to a little mound, on which a chestnut-tree stood, the patriarch
of the wood; a splendid tree it was, and worthy of a better destiny than
it now fulfilled, as, lighted up by several lanterns suspended from
the branches, it spread its shade over a large table where a party were
playing at “Monte.”
Even without the suggestive aid of the large heaps of gold beside each
player, and piled in the middle of the table, the grave and steadfast
faces of some, the excited look of others, and the painful intensity of
interest in all, showed that the play was high. Still, although such was
the case, and while the players were men whose hot blood and reckless
lives did but little dispose them to put the curb upon their tempers,
not a word was spoken aloud; nor did a gesture or a look betray the
terrible vacillations of hope and fear the changeful fortune of the game
engendered. Standing near the table, but not mingling in the play, stood
Don Pedro himself, his sallow and melancholy features fixed upon the
game, with an expression that might mean sorrow or deep anxiety, it were
difficult to say which.
Beside him, at a small table littered with papers and writing
materials, sat his steward, or intendant, a German named Geizheimer,
a beetle-browed, white-cheeked, thick-lipped fellow, whose aquiline
features and guttural accents told that lending money at enormous
interest was no uncongenial occupation. Such was his present, and indeed
almost his only duty; for, while Don Pedro seldom or never played,
gaming was the invariable occupation of the guests, whose means to
support it were freely supplied by the steward; the borrowers either
passing a simple note for repayment, or, when the sum was a heavy one,
mortgaging their share in the next prize they should capture. Other
contracts, it was rumored, were occasionally resorted to, but of such we
shall speak anon.
At a short distance from the table, but sufficiently near to observe the
game, stood one on whom nothing short of the passion of play could
have prevented every eye being bent. But so it was; she stood alone and
unmarked, while all the interest was concentrated upon the game. Dressed
in a white tunic, or chemise, fastened round the waist by a gold girdle,
stood Maritaña Rica, her large and lustrous black eyes eagerly turned to
where two youths were standing intensely occupied by the play. Her neck,
arms, and shoulders were bare, in Mexican fashion, and even the mantilla
she wore over her head was less as a protection than as a necessary
accompaniment of a costume which certainly is of the simplest kind.
Except the chemise, she had no other garment, save a jupe of thin
lama-wool, beautifully embroidered and studded with precious stones;
this terminated below the middle of the leg, displaying an ankle and
foot no Grecian statue ever surpassed in beauty.
If the deep brown of her skin almost conveyed the reproach--and such
it is--of Indian blood, a passing glance at the delicate outline of her
features, and, in particular, of her mouth, at once contradicted the
suspicion. The lips were beautifully arched, and, although plump and
rounded, had none of the fulness of the degraded race. These were now
slightly parted, displaying teeth of surprising whiteness, and imparting
in the whole expression a character of speaking animation. Although not
yet sixteen, her figure had all the graceful development of womanhood,
without having entirely lost a certain air of fawn-like elasticity,
which, from time to time, her gestures of impatience displayed.
The two young men on whom her interest seemed fixed, were playing in
partnership, and, in their highly wrought passion, never once looked up
from the board. One, somewhat taller and older by a few years, appeared
to exercise the guidance of their play; and it was easy to see, in the
swollen and knotted veins of his forehead, in the clinched hands, and
in the tremulous lip, the passionate nature of a confirmed gambler. The
younger, whose dress of green velvet, slashed and braided in Mexican
taste, and whose wide-leaved sombrero was decorated with a long sash
of light blue silk, whose deep gold fringe hung upon his shoulder, was
evidently one less enamoured of play, and more than once busied himself
in arranging the details of his costume, of which he seemed somewhat
vain. It was in one of these moments that his eyes met those of Maritaña
fixed steadfastly upon him, and, fascinated by her unmoved stare, he
felt his cheek grow hot, and, whether from a sense of shame or a
still more tender motive, the blush spread over his face and forehead.
Maritaña looked steadily, almost sternly, at him, and then, with a
slight toss of her head, so slight that none save he who had watched her
intently could read its scornful import, she turned away. The youth
did not wait a moment, but, slipping from his place, followed along the
alley he had seen her take.
He who remained, unconscious of his friend's departure, continued to
mutter about the chances of the game, and speculate on the amount he
would dare to hazard. “She is against us every time, Roland!” said he,
in a low, half-whispering voice. “Fortune will not smile, woo her how
we may! Speak, _amigo mio_, shall we risk all?” As he spoke, he began
counting the piles of glittering gold before him, but his hand trembled,
and the pieces clung to his moist fingers, so that he was too late for
the deal.
“Sixteen hundred,” muttered he to himself. “Ten--twenty--thirty.”
“The bank loses!” cried the croupier, announcing the game.
“Loses!” screamed the young man, in an accent whose piercing agony
startled the whole board,--“loses! because it was the only time I had
no wager. See, Roland, see how true it is; there is a curse upon us.”
He seized the arm of the person at his side, and clinched it with a
convulsive energy as he spoke.
“_Saperlote!_ my young friend; you 'll never change luck by tearing
my old uniform,” growled out a rugged-looking German skipper, who,
commanding a small privateer, affected the rank and style of a naval
officer.
“Oh, is it you, Hans?” said the youth, carelessly; “I thought it had
been one of our own fellows. Only think the bank should lose, because I
made no stake; see now, watch this. Halt!” cried he to the dealer, in
a voice that at once arrested his hand. “You give one no time, sir,
to decide upon his game,” said he, with a savage irascibility, which
continued bad luck had carried to the highest pitch. “Players who risk
their two or three crowns may not object; but, if a man desires to make
a heavy stake; it is but common courtesy to wait a moment. A
thousand doubloons, the red queen--fifteen hundred,” added he,
quickly,--“fifteen, and thirty-five--or eight.” So saying, he pushed
with both hands the great heap of gold pieces into the middle of the
table; and then, with eyes bloodshot and glaring, he watched each card
that fell from the banker's fingers. When the first row of cards were
dealt, all was in his favor, and, as the banker took up the second pack,
a long-suppressed sigh broke from the gambler's bosom. It seemed, at
length, as if fortune had grown weary of persecuting him.
“Come, Enrique,” said a handsomely dressed and fine-looking man, who
stood opposite to him, “luck has turned at last; there is nothing but
the queen of spades against you!”
As if by some magic spell he had called the card, the words were not out
when it dropped upon the table. A cry of mingled amazement and horror
burst from the players, whose natures would seem to recognize some
superstitious influence in such marked casualties. As for Enrique, he
stood perfectly still and silent; a horrible smile, the ghastly evidence
of an hysterical effort, sat upon his rigid features, and at length two
or three heavy drops of blood trickled from his nostril and fell upon
his shirt.
“Where's Roland?” said he, in a faint whisper, to a young man behind
him.
“I saw him with Maritaña, walking towards the three fountains.”
Enrique's pallid cheek grew scarlet, and, rudely pushing his way through
the crowd, he disappeared from view.
“There goes a man in a good humor to board a prize,” said one of
the bystanders, coolly, and the play proceeded without a moment's
interruption.
With his broad-leaved hat drawn down upon his brows, and his head sunk
upon his bosom, he traversed the winding walks with the step of one who
knew their every turning; at last he reached a lonely and unfrequented
part of the garden, where the path, leading for some distance along the
margin of a small lake, suddenly turned off towards a flower terrace,
the midst of which “the three fountains” stood.
Instead of taking the shortest way to the spot, Enrique left the walk
and entered a grove of trees, through whose thick shade be proceeded
silently and cautiously. The air was calm and motionless, and none
save one who had received the education of a prairie hunter could have
followed that track so noiselessly. By degrees the wood became open, and
his progress more circumspect, when he suddenly halted.
Directly in front of him, not twenty paces from where he stood, was the
terrace, over which, in the stilly night air, the fountain threw a
light spray-like shower, rustling, as it fell upon the leaves, with a
murmuring sound. Lower down, was a little basin surrounded by a border
of white marble, and beside this two figures were now standing, whom,
by the clear starlight, he could easily recognize to be Roland and
Maritaña.
The former, with folded arms, and head bent down as if in thought,
leaned against a tree, while Maritaña stood beside the fountain,
moving her foot to and fro in the clear water, and, as though entirely
engrossed by her childish pastime, never bestowed a look upon her
companion. At last she ceased suddenly, and turning abruptly round, so
as to stand full in front of him, said, “Well, senhor, am I to hope
our pleasant interview is ended, or am I still to hear more of your
complaints,--those gentle remonstrances which sound, to my ears at
least, more wearisome than words of downright anger?”
“You have not heard me patiently,” said the youth, advancing towards
her, while the slightly shaken tones of his voice contrasted strangely
with the assured and haughty accents in which he spoke.
“Patiently!” echoed she, with a scornful laugh. “And where was this same
goodly gift to be learned? Among the pleasant company we have quitted,
senhor? whose friendships of a night are celebrated by a brawl on
the morrow! From the most exemplary crew of the 'Esmeralda,' and, in
particular, the worthy lieutenant, Don Roland da Castel, who, if report
speaks truly, husbands the virtue so rigidly that he cannot spare the
smallest portion to expend upon his friends?”
“If my thrift had extended to other matters,” said the youth, bitterly,
“mayhap I should not have to listen to language like this?”
“What say you, sir?” cried the girl, passionately, as she stamped upon
the ground with a gesture of violent anger. “Do you affect to say that
it matters to me whether you stood there as loaded with gold as on the
morning you brought back that Mexican prize, and played the hero with
such martial modesty; or as poor--as poor--as bad luck at cards can
make you? If I loved you, I 'd have as little care for one event as the
other!”
“You certainly thought more favorably of me then than now, Maritaña!”
said Roland, diffidently.
“I know not why you say so!”
“At least you accepted my hand in betrothal--”
“Stay!” cried she, impetuously. “Did I not tell you then, before the
assembled witnesses--before my father--what a mockery this same ceremony
was; that its whole aim and object was to take advantage of that
disgraceful law that can make an unmarried girl a widow, to inherit
the fortune of one she never would have accepted as her husband. Speak,
sir!--and say, did I not tell you this, and more too, that such a bridal
ceremony brought little fortune to the bridegroom; for that already
I had been thrice a widowed bride? Nay, more, you heard me swear as
solemnly, that while I regarded the act as one of deep profanation,
I felt in nowise bound by it. It is idle, then, to speak of our
betrothal!”
“It is true, Maritaña, you said all this; although, perhaps, you had not
now remembered it, had not some other succeeded to that place in your
regard--”
“There, there!” cried she, stopping him impatiently. “I will not listen
again to the bead-roll of your jealousies. People must have loved very
little, or too much, to endure that kind of torture. Besides, why tell
me of these things? You are, they say, a most accomplished hunter, and
can answer me,--if, when in chase of an antelope, a jaguar joins the
sport, you do not turn upon him at once, the worthier and nobler enemy,
and thus, as it were, protect what had been your prey.”
The youth seemed stung to the quick by this pitiless sarcasm; and,
although he made no reply, his hands, convulsively clutched, bespoke
the torrent of agitation within him. “You are right, Maritaña!” said be,
after a pause. “It is idle to talk of our betrothal,--I release you.”
“Release _me!_” said she, laughing contemptuously; “this is a task I
always perform for myself, senhor, and by the shortest method, as
thus.” As she spoke, she struggled to tear from her finger a ring which
resisted all her efforts. At last, by a violent wrench, she succeeded,
and holding it up for a second, till the large diamond glittered like
a star, she threw it into the still fountain at her feet “There, _amigo
mio_, I release you,--never was freedom more willingly accorded!”
“Never was there a slave more weary of his servitude!” said the youth,
bitterly. “If Don Pedro Rica but tear his accursed bond, I should feel
myself my own again.”
“He will scarce refuse you, sir, if the rumor be correct that says
you have lost eleven thousand doubloons at play. The wealthy conqueror
stands on very different ground from _the_ ruined gambler. Go to him
at once! Ask back the paper! Tell him you have neither a heart nor a
fortune to bestow upon his daughter! That, as a gambler, fettered by the
lust for play, you have lost all soul for those hazardous enterprises
that win a girl's love and a father's consent.”
She waited for a moment, that he might reply; and then, impatient,
perhaps, at his silence, added, “I did not think, senhor, you esteemed
yourself so rich a prize! Be of good cheer, however! They who are less
cognizant of your deserts will be more eager to secure them.”
With these slighting words she turned away. Roland advanced as if to
follow her, but with a contemptuous gesture of the hand she waved him
back, and he stood like one spell-bound, gazing after her, till she
disappeared in the dark distance.