FOREWARNED
It was a pleasant life that we led in the fine old castle at Edeldorf.
Victor was always an enthusiast in field-sports, and since his return
from the war he devoted himself to the pursuit of wild animals more
assiduously than ever. This was no less a measure of prudence than of
inclination on the part of my friend. An inveterate Nimrod seldom
busies himself much with politics, and as the antecedents of the De
Rohans had somewhat compromised that patriotic family in the eyes of the
Government, its present representative was looked on less unfavourably
in the character of a young thoughtless sportsman, than he would have
been as a disaffected man brooding in solitude, and reserving his
energies for more dangerous occupations.
Moreover, to one who loved the fresh breath of morning and the crack of
the rifle, Edeldorf was a perfect paradise. Within a ride of two hours
its hills furnished many a pair of antlers for the castle hall, and the
wild boar whetted his tusks upon the stem of many a fine old forest tree
in its deep woodlands. An occasional wolf and a possible bear or two
enhanced the interest of the chase; and when the Count quitted his home
at early morning, belted and equipped for his work, he could promise
himself a day of as varied enjoyment as the keenest sportsman could
desire.
I was getting rapidly better, but still unable to accompany my friend on
these active expeditions. I am not sure that I longed very eagerly to
participate in their delights. As I got stronger, I think I felt less
inclined to break my habits of convalescence and helplessness--a
helplessness that made me very dependent on Valerie de Rohan.
I was awaking from a pleasant dream of evening skies and perfumed
orange-groves and soft music, with a dim vision of floating hair and
muslin dresses, when Victor, with a lighted candle in his hand, entered
my apartment--a habit he had acquired in boyhood, and which he continued
through life--to bid me "Good-morning," and favour me with his
anticipations of his day's amusement.
"I wish you were well enough to come with me, Vere," said he, as he
peered out into the dark morning, not yet streaked with the faintest
vestige of dawn. "There is nothing like shooting, after all; war is a
mistake, Vere, and an uncomfortable process into the bargain; but
shooting, I find, gives one quite as much excitement, and has the
advantage of being compatible with a comfortable dwelling and plenty to
eat every day. I have changed my note, Vere, and I say _Vive la
chasse!_ now."
"Did you wake me to tell me that?" I yawned out, as I warded the light
of the candle from my sleepy eyes, "or do you wish me to get out of my
warm bed this cold morning and hold a discussion with you on the
comparative attraction of shooting men and beasts? The former is
perhaps the more exciting, but the latter the more innocent."
Victor laughed. "You lazy, cold Englander!" he replied; "I woke you as
I always do when I anticipate a pleasant day, that I may tell you all I
expect to do. In the first place, I shall have a delightful ride up to
the hills; I wish you could accompany me. A cigar before dawn, after a
cup of coffee, is worth all the smoking of the rest of the twenty-four
hours put together. I shall gallop the whole way, and a gallop counts
for something in a day's happiness. Confess _that_, at least, you cold,
unimpassioned mortal."
I pointed to my wounded leg, and smiled.
"Oh! you will soon be able to get on horseback, and then we two must
scamper about across the country once more, as we used to do when we
were boys," resumed Victor; "in the meantime, Valerie will take care of
you, and you must get well as quick as you can. What a charming ride it
is up to the hills: I shall get there in two hours at the outside, for
Caspar goes like the wind; then to-day we mean to beat the woods at the
farthest extremity of the Waldenberg, where my poor father shot the
famous straight-horned stag years and years ago. There are several wild
boar in the ravine at the bottom, and it was only the season before last
that Vocqsal shot a bear within twenty yards of the waterfall."
"By the bye," I interrupted him, "are bears and boars and red-deer the
only game you have in view? or are there not other attractions as
fascinating as shooting, in the direction of the Waldenberg?"
It was a random shaft, but it hit the mark; Victor positively blushed,
and I could not help thinking as I watched him, what a handsome fellow
he was. A finer specimen of manly beauty you would hardly wish to see
than the young Count de Rohan, as he stood there in his green
shooting-dress, with his powder-horn slung across his shoulder, and his
hunting-knife at his waist. Victor was now in the full glow of youthful
manhood, tall, active, and muscular, with a symmetry of frame that,
while it was eminently graceful, qualified him admirably for athletic
exercises, and a bearing that can best be described by the emphatic term
"high-bred." There was a woman's beauty in his soft blue eyes and silky
hair of the richest brown, but his marked features, straight, determined
eyebrows, and dark, heavy moustaches, redeemed the countenance,
notwithstanding its bright winning expression, from the charge of
effeminacy. Perhaps, after all, the greatest charm about him was his
air of complete enjoyment and utter forgetfulness of self. Every
thought of his mind seemed to pass across his handsome face; and to
judge by appearances, the thoughts were of the pleasantest description,
and now he absolutely blushed as he hurried on without taking any notice
of my remark--
"If I can bring Valerie back a bear-skin for her sledge, I shall be
quite satisfied; and I will tell you all about my _chasse_ and my day's
adventures over a cigar when I return. Meantime, my dear fellow, take
care of yourself, order all my carriages and horses, if they are of the
slightest use to you, and farewell, or rather _au revoir_."
I heard him humming his favourite waltz as he strode along the gallery
(by the way, the very Ghost's Gallery of our childish adventure), and in
another minute his horse's hoofs were clattering away at a gallop into
the darkness. Whilst I turned round in bed with a weary yawn, and after
patting Bold's head--a compliment which that faithful animal returned by
a low growl, for the old dog, though true and stanch as ever, was
getting very savage now,--I composed myself to cheat a few more hours of
convalescence in sleep. What a contrast to my friend! Weary, wounded,
and disappointed, I seemed to have lived my life out, and to have
nothing more now to hope or to fear. I had failed in ambition, I had
made shipwreck in love. I was grey and old in heart, though as yet
young in years; whilst Victor, at the same age as myself, had all his
future before him, glowing with the sunshine of good health, good
spirits, and prosperity. Let us follow the child of fortune as he
gallops over the plain, the cool breath of morning fanning his brow and
lifting his clustering hair.
To a man who is fond of riding--and what Hungarian is not?--there is no
country so fascinating as his own native plains, where he can gallop on
mile after mile, hour after hour, over a flat surface, unbroken even by
a molehill, and on a light sandy soil, just so soft as to afford his
horse a pleasant easy footing, but not deep enough to distress him.
Although I could never myself appreciate the ecstatic pleasures of a
gallop, or comprehend why there should be a charm about a horse that is
not possessed by the cow, the giraffe, the hippopotamus, or any other
animal of the larger order of mammalia, I am not so prejudiced as to be
unaware that in this respect I am an exception to the general run of my
countrymen. Now, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that there are men
whose whole thoughts and wishes centre themselves in this distinguished
quadruped; who grudge not to ruin their wives and families for his
society; and who, like the Roman Emperor, make the horse the very
high-priest of their domestic hearth. To such I would recommend a
gallop on a hard-puller over the plains of Hungary. Let him go! There
is nothing to stop him for forty miles; and if you cannot bring him to
reason in about a minute and a half, you must for ever forfeit your
claim to be enrolled amongst the worshipful company of Hippodami to
which it seems the noblest ambition of aspiring youth to belong. A
deacon of the craft was my friend Victor; and I really believe he
enjoyed a pleasure totally unknown to the walking biped, as he urged
Caspar along at speed, his fine figure swaying and yielding to every
motion of the horse, with a pliancy that, we are informed by those who
pique themselves on such matters, can only be acquired by long years of
practice superinduced on a natural, or, as they would term it,
"heaven-born," aptitude to excel in the godlike art.
So Victor galloped on like Mazeppa, till the dawn "had dappled into
day"; and save to light a fresh cigar, gave Caspar no breathing-time
till the sun was above the horizon, and the dew-drops on the acacias
glittered like diamonds in the morning light. As he quitted the plains
at last, and dropped his rein on his horse's neck, while he walked him
slowly up the stony road that led to the Waldenberg, he caught sight of
a female figure almost in the shadow of the wood, the flutter of whose
dress seemed to communicate a corresponding tremor to Victor's heart.
The healthy glow paled on his cheek, and his pulses beat fitfully as he
urged poor Caspar once more into a gallop against the hill, none the
less energetically that for nearly a mile a turn in the road hid the
object of interest from his sight. What a crowd of thoughts, hopes,
doubts, and fears passed through his mind during that long mile of
uncertainty, which, had they resolved themselves into words, would have
taken the following form:--"Can she have really come here to meet me,
after all? Who else would be on the Waldenberg at this early hour?
What can have happened?--is it possible that she has walked all this way
on purpose to see me alone, if only for five minutes, before our
_chasse_ begins? Then she loves me, after all!--and yet she told me
herself she was so volatile, so capricious. No, it is impossible!--she
won't risk so much for me. And yet it is--it must be! It is just her
figure, her walk,--how well I know them. I have mistrusted, I have
misjudged her; she is, after all, true, loving, and devoted. Oh! I
will make her such amends." Alas! poor Victor; the lady to whom you are
vowing so deep a fidelity--to whom you are so happy to think you owe so
much for her presence on the wild Waldenberg--is at this moment drinking
chocolate in a comfortable dressing-room by a warm stove at least ten
miles off; and though you might, and doubtless would, think her
extremely lovely in that snowy _robe de chambre_, with its
cherry-coloured ribbons, I question whether you would approve of the
utter indifference which her countenance displays to all sublunary
things, yourself included, with the exception of that very dubious
French novel on her knee, which she is perusing or rather devouring with
more than masculine avidity. Better draw rein at once, and ride back to
Edeldorf, for one hundred yards more will undeceive you at the turn
round that old oak-tree; and it is no wonder that you pull up in utter
discomfiture, and exclaim aloud in your own Hungarian, and in tones of
bitter disgust--"Psha! it's only a Zingynie, after all."
"_Only_ a Zingynie, Count de Rohan!" replied a dark majestic old woman,
with a frown on her fine countenance and a flash in her dark eye, as she
placed herself across the road and confronted the astonished horseman;
"_only_ your father's friend and your own; _only_ an interpreter of
futurity, who has come to warn you ere it be too late. Turn back, Victor
de Rohan, to your own halls at Edeldorf. I have read your horoscope, and
it is not good for you to go on."
Victor had by this time recovered his good-humour; he forced a few
florins into the woman's unwilling hand. "Promise me a good day's sport,
mother!" he said, laughingly, "and let me go. I ought to be there
already."
"Turn back, my child, turn back," said the gipsy; "I will save you if I
can. Do you know that there is danger for you on the Waldenberg? Do
you know that I--I, who have held you in my arms when you were a baby,
have walked a-foot all the way from the Banat on purpose to warn you?
Do you think I know not why you ride here day after day, that you may
shoot God's wild animals with that bad old man? Is it purely for love
of sport, Victor de Rohan? Answer me that!"
He waxed impatient, and drew his reins rudely from the woman's grasp.
"Give your advice when it is asked, mother," said he, "and do not delay
me any longer. If you want food and shelter, go down to Edeldorf. I
can waste no more time with a chattering old woman here."
She was furious; she flung the money he had given her down beneath his
horse's feet. Tears rose to her eyes, and her hand shook with passion
as she pointed with outstretched arm in the direction of the Waldenberg.
"Ay, go on," said she, "go on, and neglect the gipsy's warning till it
is too late. Oh! you are a nobleman and a soldier, and you know best; a
man of honour, too, and you will go _there_. Listen to me once for all,
Victor de Rohan, for I loved you as a baby, and I would save you even
now, if I could. I slept by the waters of the Danube, and I saw in a
vision the child I had fondled in my arms full-grown and handsome, and
arrived at man's estate. He was dressed as you are now, with powder-horn
and hunting-knife slung over his broad shoulders, and the rifle that he
set such store by was in his hand. He spoke kindly and smilingly as was
his wont, not angrily as you did now. He was mounted on a good horse,
and I was proud to watch him ride gallantly away with St. Hubert's
blessing and my own. Again I saw him, but this time not alone. There
was a fair and lovely woman by his side, dressed in white, and he hung
his head, and walked listlessly and slowly, as though his limbs were
fettered and he was sore and sick at heart. I could not bear to think
the boy I had loved was no longer free; and when he turned his face
towards me it was pale and sorrowful, and there was suffering on his
brow. Then my dream changed, and I saw the Waldenberg, with its rugged
peaks and its waving woods, and the roar of the waterfall sounded
strange and ominous in my ears; and there were clouds gathering in the
sky, and the eagle screamed as he swept by on the blast, and the rain
plashed down in large heavy drops, and every drop seemed to fall chill
upon my heart. Then I sat me down, weary and sorrowful, and I heard the
measured tread of men, and four noble-looking foresters passed by me,
bearing a body covered with a cloak upon their shoulders, and one said
to the other, 'Alas for our master! is it not St. Hubert's day?' But a
corner of the cloak fell from the face of him they carried, and I knew
the pale features, damp with death, and the rich brown hair falling limp
across the brow--it was the corpse of him whom I had loved as a baby and
watched over as a man, and I groaned in my misery and awoke. Oh, my boy,
my young handsome De Rohan, turn, then, back from the Waldenberg, for
the old Zingynie's sake."
"Nonsense, mother," replied Victor, impatiently; "St. Hubert's day is
past; I cannot help your bad dreams, or stay here to prate about them
all day. Farewell! and let me go." He turned his horse's head from her
as he spoke, and went off at a gallop.
The old gipsy woman looked after him long and wistfully, as the clatter
of his horse's hoofs died away on the stony causeway; she sat down by
the roadside, buried her face in her cloak, and wept bitterly and
passionately; then she rose, picked up the money that lay neglected on
the ground, and took her way down the hill, walking slow and dejected,
like one who is hopelessly and grievously disappointed, and ever and
anon muttering to herself, in words that seemed to form something
between a curse and a prayer.