G. P. R. James

“ Helen was deceived, and looked up with some degree of curiosity, brushing back the dark ringlets from her clear fair brow. "Will you promise me, Helen," I asked, "by all you hold most sacred, never to reveal my secret so long as I am in life?"
"Had you not better make some other person the depositary of so serious a trust?" she answered, half afraid, half curious still.--"Think, Count Louis, I am but a poor inexperienced girl--tell it to Father Francis, he will both respect your secret and counsel you as to your actions." ”

“ In each other land men betray one another; Be thou then the mountain's child. IV. Hark! what the courtier vows to his king, To serve him whatever befal; But if evil luck dark misfortune should bring, The courtier turns sooner than all. Tread then the mountain, brother, brother! Tread then the mountain wild! In court, crowd, and city, men cheat one another; Be thou then the mountain's child. "He says true! By Saint Jago, he says true!" cried Garcias, who had been listening as well as myself. "Thank God, for being born a mountaineer!" ”

“ I could but lose my life--and life to me had not that value which it possesses with the happy and the prosperous. I would have sold it dear, nevertheless, and was well prepared to do so, for I was armed with dagger, sword, and pistol; so that, setting the object to be gained by murdering me, which could but be my clothes, with the risk and bloodshed of the attempt, I judged myself very secure, though I found clearly that I was plunging deeper and deeper every moment among those sinks of vice, iniquity, and horror, with which some part of every great city is sure to be contaminated. ”

“ It is astonishing how chilly the words of age fall upon the glowing enthusiasm of youth. As we go on through life, doubtless we gather all the same cold truths; but it is by degrees, not all at once, as when the freezing experience of many years is poured forth, like a sudden fall of snow upon our hearts. Lucky, most lucky is it, that we cannot believe the lessons which the old would teach us; for certainly if we were as wise when we come into life as we are when we go out of it, there would be nothing great, and very little good, done in the world ”

“ It may be asked what was my object in thus seeking for Helen, when I knew, when I felt that my union with her was impossible--when at the very thought her brother's spirit seemed to rise up before me, and, with the same ghastly look which he had worn in death, bid me forget such hopes for ever. Why did I seek her? No one that has loved will ever ask. I sought her for the bright brief happiness which the presence of the loved still gives, after every expectation is crushed and withered. ”

“ I know not; and still my own heart condemned me, and branded me with the name of murderer.
It seemed long, long ere Garcias came back; for to those who despair, as well as to those who hope, each minute lingers out an age. When he came, he brought the news that the body had been removed before he had arrived at the spot; and that, by creeping on behind the trees, he had caught a glimpse of the persons that bore it, who were evidently proceeding towards the château.
As he spoke, I covered my eyes with my hands, as if to shut out the view of Helen's first sight of her brother's corpse. ”

“ I see myself surrounded by the best and dearest friends of Monsieur le Comte; and yet I am bold to say that there is not one noble gentleman amongst them who has a warmer love for his person, or a greater regard for his dignity and honour, than myself. Did I see that dignity in danger, did I see that honour touched, by his remaining in inactivity, my voice should be the first for war; but while both are in security, nothing shall ever make me counsel him to a measure by which both are hazarded. ”

“ The gloom of the old vestibule, the channeled marble of the grand staircase, the immense oaken door of my mother's apartments, all called up remembrances of the sweet past; and I hurried on, gathering recollections, till I entered the embroidery-room, where I had sprung a thousand times to her arms in my early boyhood.
The only person that I found there was Helen. She had risen on hearing my step, and what was passing in her mind I know not, but the blood rushed up through her beautiful clear skin till it covered her whole forehead and her temples with a hue like the rose ”

“ Farewell, Monsieur le Comte! I doubt not we shall meet again. Do not forget me till then: and ever believe that a warm and grateful heart, however rude, may dwell in the bosom even of a Spanish smuggler; and that if this arm, or this sword, ever can serve you, you may command it. Are you too proud to accept that horse you ride, as a present from one who is under many a debt of gratitude to your house? ”

“ I instantly sent off my six servants to Meaux, keeping with me Combalet de Carignan, his companion Jacques Mocqueur, Garcias, and Achilles, with the full intention of bidding adieu to Paris the next morning, and putting as many leagues as possible between myself and his eminence of Richelieu, before the hour he had named. Time was when I should have waited his leisure with the palpitating heart of hope, and now I prepared to gallop away from him with somewhat more speed than dignity. The tempora mutantur et nos mutamur goes but a little way to tell the marvels that a month can do. ”

“ But judge of my surprise when, on entering the court-yard, I found the whole place in confusion and dismay; men mounting in haste, women screaming at leisure, dogs barking, horses neighing, and asses braying; and on my addressing myself to an elderly gentleman with a long nose, for all the world like a sausage of Bigorre, asking him, with a sweet respectful smile, if he could show me to my lord the young count, he bestowed a buffet on my cheek, which had even a greater effect than the buffet which Moses gave the rock, for it brought fire as well as water out of my eyes both at once. ”

“ The only incentives I had, were idleness, youth, and a passion for adventure; but these were quite sufficient to carry me headlong on, upon the first mad scheme that opened to my view. Every one, I believe, feels, or must have felt, sensations somewhat similar, when the heart's wild spirit seems rioting to be free, and hurrying on reason, and thought, and virtue tumultuously along the mad course of passion, till each is trodden down in turn beneath the feet of the follies that come after. What I sought I hardly know. It was not vice--it was adventure. ”

“ Many a memory and many a regret were busy about my heart, conjuring up dreams, and hopes, and wishes passed away--the throng of all those bright things we leave behind with early youth and never shall meet again, if it be not in a world beyond the tomb. All the sounds of earth sunk into repose, so that I could hear even the soft murmur of the Meuse, and the sighing of the summer-breeze wandering through the embrazures of the citadel. The cares, the labours, the anxieties, and all the grievous realities of life, seemed laid in slumber with the day that nursed them ”

“ Round about, the mountains rose up on every side, seeming to shelter it from a world, and not a breath of wind rippled the surface of the water, so that the reflections of the high snowy peaks of the hills above, the dark rocks that dipped themselves in its waves, and the gloomy pines that skirted it to the east, were all seen looking up like ghosts from below, while ever and anon a light evening cloud skimming over the sky found there its reflection too, and was seen gliding over the bosom of the calm expanse. ”

“ You, a murderer, and an infidel!--are you superstitious? But draw, and directly, for I would not kill you like a dog. Think of the noble Prince you have just slain--think of the unhappy Bagnols, the proofs of whose innocence and your treason are now upon my person."
"Ha!" cried he, suddenly drawing his sword, "have at you then. You know too much! At all events, 'tis time that one should die." ”

“ After having gone some way up the valley, looking back every ten steps towards the château, as if she had imposed on herself the task of walking a certain distance, and would be glad when it was over, Helen at length seated herself on a piece of rock, under the shade of an old oak, that started out across the stream; and there, with her head bent over the running waters, she offered one of the loveliest pictures my eyes ever beheld. She was, as I have said, in the spring of womanhood. Time had not laid his withering touch upon a single grace, or a single beauty ”

“ In those young days, life was to me so bright a plaything, all the wheels of existence moved so easily, there was so much beauty in the world, so much delight in being, that my most enthusiastic gratitude was sure to follow such a service as that I had received. Readily did I assent to my mother's proposal, that she should accompany me to Lourdes to offer our thanks--not as with the world in general, in mere empty words, as unsubstantial as the air that bears them, but by some more lasting mark of our gratitude. ”

“ I did as he bade me, and we rode out of the court together, taking our way onward towards Lourdes. As we went, the Chevalier threw back his hat from his face, and with one of those beaming smiles that sometimes lighted up his whole countenance, bestowed the highest praises on my conduct.
"Believe me, my dear Louis," said he, "such is the way to pass tranquilly through life: for with courage, and skill, and moderation, such as you have shown to-day, bad men will be afraid to be your enemies, and good men will be proud to be your friends." ”

“ It gave me some pain to hear that Achilles had now positively informed Arnault that my hand had slain his son. Helen could never be mine; I felt it but too bitterly, as the dreams which the astrologer's prediction had suggested died away in my bosom--and yet I shrank from the idea of her knowing, that he whom she had loved was the murderer of her brother. I could not, however, blame Achilles for what he had done. The name of Helen had never been mentioned between us ”

“ Glad to escape so soon, I flew out into the park in search of my beautiful Helen. It was now a fine day in the beginning of May, as warm as summer--as bright, as lovely. Nature was in her very freshest robe of green: the air was full of sweetness and balm; and as I went, a lark rose up before my steps, and mounting high in the sunshine, hung afar speck upon its quivering wings, making the whole air thrill with its melodious happiness. I love the lark above all other birds. ”

“ At that moment the figure of a man broke at once through the boughs upon us. Helen turned, and, confused and ashamed at any one having seen her so clasped in my arms, fled instinctively like lightning, while the intruder advanced upon me in a menacing attitude.--It was Jean Baptiste Arnault; and with a flushed cheek and a raised stick he came quickly upon me, exclaiming, "Villain, you have seduced my sister, and, by the God above, your nobility shall not protect you!" ”

“ My Helen had beauty, I knew too well. Wealth, I had heard attributed to her; and rank, the Prince had promised to obtain. Oh man, man! thou art a strange, weak being; and thy boasted reason is but a glorious vanity, which serves thee little till thy passions have left thee, and then conducts thee to a grave!
Hope, in my breast but a drowning swimmer, clung to a straw--to worse--a bubble.
I followed the Countess de Soissons from the tower, thoughtful and dreamy; and I believe the old man Vanoni was somewhat pleased to witness the effect that his words had wrought upon me ”

“ I know what youth and idleness may do with many a one, even with the best dispositions? I warned you for your own good, and I am not a man who values any of this earth's empty bubbles so highly as not to say my mind when I am sure that it is right. But hear me still:--humble as I am in station, I have one or two friends of a higher class, and I can give you a letter to the new corregidor of Saragossa, who will easily obtain you rank in the Spanish armies, if you choose to employ yourself in war, which I know is the only occupation that you nobles of France can hold. ”

“ Doubt is to my mind what the darkness of night is to a ghost-frightened school-boy--I go on gazing anxiously about me on every side, conjuring up a thousand ideal spectres, and distorting every dim object that I see into the likeness of some fearful phantom of the imagination. Nor can all the reasoning in my power divest my mind of the credulity with which I listen either to hope or to apprehension: though I well know that apprehension is to sorrow what hope is to joy--a sort of avant courier, who greatly magnifies the importance of the personage whom he precedes. ”

“ Every one stared, and no one more than the Marquis himself; but rising from the council-table, I whispered to Varicarville to keep the same subject under discussion till I returned; and flying across the courts of the arsenal, I mounted to my own chamber. "Achilles," cried I, as soon as I entered, "the Marquis de Villa Franca is here in the arsenal; are you still resolved to restore him the diamonds?" ”

“ The weak youth, of whose passion for her I had been made an unwitting confidant, with evidently high-birth and proud connections, stood ready to unite himself to the daughter of the low procureur of Lourdes, and give her that rank and station which I doubted not that Arnault coveted. Helen, I was sure, would never consent; and yet I teased myself with the dread, fancying all that perseverance and the persuasions and commands of a parent might do against an almost hopeless love. ”