S. Baring-Gould

“ She saw the love of Alonzo kindled, and Alonzo she had identified with Martin. She—she herself was Preciosa. Had she not worn that dress, rattled that tambourine, danced the same steps? The curtain fell; the first act was over, and the hum of voices rose. But Eve heard nothing. Mr. Coyshe endeavoured to engage her in conversation, but in vain. She was in a trance, lifted above the earth in ecstasy. She was Preciosa, she lived under a Spanish sun. This was her world, this real life. No other world was possible henceforth, no other life endurable. ”

“ Barbara thought of Jasper and her father, Eve only of herself.
When Jasper was gone, Mr. Jordan put his hand to his head. ‘I do not understand, I cannot think,’ he said, with a vacant look in his eyes. ‘You say one thing, and he another.’
‘Pardon me, dearest papa, we both say the same, that the pixy was nothing but a real boy of flesh and blood, but—there, let us think and talk of something else.’
‘Take care!’ said Mr. Jordan gloomily; ‘take care! There are spirits where the wise see shadows; the eye of the fool sees farther than the eye of the sage. ”

“ He is so wise and so assured. I cannot die and leave you alone. I wake up in the night bathed in a sweat of fear, thinking of you, fearing for you. I imagine all sorts of things. Do you not wish to go to Lanherne? Then take Mr. Coyshe. He will make you a good husband. I shall be at ease when you are provided for. I cannot die—and I believe I am nearer death than you or Barbara, or even the doctor, supposes—I cannot die, and leave you here alone, unprotected. O Eve! if you love me do as I ask. You must either go to Lanherne or take Mr. Coyshe. ”

“ Coyshe. ‘Let us thoroughly understand each other. I am a poor man. Excuse me, Miss Jordan, if I talk in a practical manner. You are long and clear headed, so—but I need not tell you that—so am I. We can comprehend each other, and for a moment lay aside that veil of romance and poetry which invests an engagement.’
Barbara bowed.
‘An atmosphere surrounds a matrimonial alliance; let us puff it away for a moment and look at the bare facts. Seen from a poetic standpoint, marriage is the union of two loving hearts, the rapture of two souls discovering each other. ”

“ The light was extinguished in the lantern and the light was beaten out of the brothers. Jasper looked into the poor boy’s face—a scornful smile still lingered on the lips.
Apparently he had discovered his brother’s body and then had tried to drag it away down the steep slope towards the old mine, in the hopes of hiding there and finding that Martin was stunned, not dead; but in the darkness he had stumbled over another precipice or slidden down a run of shale and been shot with his burden over a rock. Again the sad procession was formed. ”

“ Now, Eve, the way is clear. You shall run away from home as did your mother, and you shall run away with me. Remember, I am your natural protector.’
‘I cannot—I cannot indeed.’ Eve shrank back.
‘I swear you shall,’ said Martin impetuously. ‘It may seem strange that I, who am in personal danger myself, should consider you: but such is my nature—I never regard self when I can do an heroic action. I say, Eve, you shall go with me. I am a man with a governing will, to which all must stoop. You have trifled with the doctor and with me. I hate that man though I have never seen him. ”

“ What was she to say and do?
‘Come back with me,’ said Barbara, drawing her sister’s hand through her arm. ‘Now, then, Eve, there must be no secrets with me. You have no mother; I stand to you in the place of mother and sister in one. Was that Jasper?’
Eve’s hand quivered on her sister’s arm; in a faint voice she answered, ‘Yes, Barbara.’ Had Miss Jordan looked round she would have seen her sister’s face crimson with shame. But Barbara turned her eyes away to the far-off pearly range of Cornish mountains, sighed, and said nothing. ”

“ The boy swung his bow in the moonlight, and above the raging of the wind rang out the squeal of the instrument. Eve looked at him, scared. He seemed some goblin perched on the stone, trying with his magic fiddle to work a spell on all who heard its tones. The boy satisfied himself that his violin was in order, and then put it once more in its case, and cast it over his back.
‘How is Jasper?’ he shouted; but the man gave him no answer.
‘Half-an-hour! Half an eternity to me,’ growled the man. ‘However, one is doomed to sacrifice self for others. I will take him to your house and leave him there. ”

“ Oh! there are not many men like Martin. He is a king of men. Imagine an old town, with ancient houses and a church tower behind, and the moon shining on it, and in the moonlight Martin in velvet, with a hat in which is a white feather, and his violin, under a window, thinking you are there, and singing Deh, vieni alla finestra. Do you know the tune? Listen.’ The boy took his fiddle, and touching the strings with his fingers, as though playing a mandolin, he sang that sweet minstrel song.
Eve’s blue eyes opened wonderingly, this was all so strange and incomprehensible to her. ”

“ It is a great mystery, but love is divine, and divine things are perceived and believed by the heart, though beyond the reason.’
‘So,’ said Eve, smiling, and with her blue eyes filling, ‘my dear, dear Barbara, once so prosaic and so practical, is becoming an idealist and poetical.’
‘Wherever unselfish love reigns, there is poetry,’ said Jasper; ‘the sweetest of the songs of life is the song of self-sacrificing love. Barbara never was prosaic. She was always an idealist; but, my dear Eve, the heart needs culture to see and distinguish true poetry from false sentiment. ”

“ Steadily looking into his sparkling eyes, Barbara repeated the words he had muttered and cried in his sleep, ‘De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine. Si iniquitates observaveris, quis sustinebit?’
Then, as in a dissolving view on a sheet one scene changes into another, so in his wild eyes the expression of rage shifted to one of fear; he dropped the stick, and Jasper, who at that moment entered, took it and laid it beyond his reach.
Mr. Jordan fell back on his pillow and moaned, and put his hands over his brow, and beat his temples with his palms. ”

“ When, after the lapse of some while spent in fruitless search, Barbara arrived at the Raven Rock, she was not alone—two or three of the farm labourers and Joseph the policeman were with her. Jane had found her sweetheart on his way to Morwell to visit her. The light of the fire on the Rock, illumining the air above the trees, had attracted the notice of one of the workmen, and now the entire party came on to the Rock as Mr. Jordan had finished his confession, and Jasper, sick at heart, horror-stricken, stood back, speechless, not able to speak. ”

“ Have you considered what the temptations must be that beset a young man who has been roughly handled at home, maltreated by his father, reared without love—a young man with a soul bounding with hopes, ambition, love of life, with a heart for pleasure, all which are beaten back and trampled down by the man who ought to direct them? Can you not understand how a lad who has been thwarted in every way, without a mother to soothe him in trouble, and encourage him in good, driven desperate by a father’s harshness, may break away and transgress? ”

“ Then Jasper went down by way of the wood with the men scrambling, falling, bursting through the brakes; some cursing when slashed across the face by an oak bough or torn through cloth and skin by a braid of bramble. They were quite invisible to Barbara, and to each other. They went downward: fast they could not go, fearing at every moment to fall over a face of rock; groping, struggling as with snakes, in the coils of wood; slipping, falling, scrambling to their feet again, calling each other, becoming bewildered, losing their direction. ”

“ Beech also abounded with their clean stems, and the soil beneath them bare of weed, and here and there a feathery birch with erect silver stem struggled up in the overgrowth to the light. The wood was full of foxgloves, spires of pink dappled bells, and of purple columbine. Wild roses grew wherever a rock allowed them to wreath in sunshine and burst into abundant bloom over its face. Eve carried her straw hat on her arm, hung by its blue ribands. She needed its shelter in the wood no more than in her father’s hall. ”

“ Since then Barbara had sought every opportunity of disabusing his mind of such an idea. And now, this night, she had poured out her heart at his feet, and shown him hatred, not love.
Jasper’s life had been one of self-denial. There had been little joy in it. Anxieties had beset him from early childhood; solicitude for his brother, care not to offend his father. By nature he had a very loving heart, but he had grown up with none to love save his brother, who had cruelly abused his love. A joyous manhood never ensues on a joyless boyhood. ”

“ Consider how beautiful Eve is. It is quite impossible for a man to see her and not love her. I do not myself know what love is, but I have read about it, and I have fancied to myself what it is—a kind of madness that comes on one, and obscures the judgment. I do not believe that Mr. Jasper had any thought of Eve at first, but little by little she won him. You know, papa, how she has run after him, like a kitten ”

“ She under-valued Jane’s abilities. She knew her to be a common-minded girl, fond of talking, but she made no allowance for that natural inquisitiveness which is the seedleaf of intelligence. The savage who cannot count beyond the fingers of one hand is a master of cunning. There is this difference between men and beasts. The latter bite and destroy the weakly of their race; men attack, rend, and trample on the noblest of their species.
Mr. Jordan knew that Jasper and Eve had gone together for a long journey, and that Barbara sat up awaiting their return. ”

“ The audacity and impudence of the young surgeon took the power to reply from her.
‘You have not given me that fiddle,’ said Coyshe.
‘I am not sure you will carry it carefully,’ answered Barbara; nevertheless she resigned it to him. ‘When you part from me let the boy have it. I will not ride into Morwell cumbered with it.’
‘A doctor,’ said Coyshe, ‘if he is to succeed in his profession, must be endowed with instinct as well as science. A cat does not know what ails it, but it knows when it is out of sorts; instinct teaches it to swallow a blade of grass. ”

“ He groaned and cried out as Watt raised him in his arms. Martin looked at Eve, appealing for sympathy. He was a martyr, a guiltless sufferer, and not spared even by his brother.
‘I think, Martin,’ said Jasper, ‘that if you were well wrapped in blankets you might still go in the boat.’
‘You seem vastly eager to be rid of me,’ answered Martin peevishly, ‘but, I tell you, I will not go. I’m not going to jeopardise my life on the river in the fogs and heavy dews to relieve you from anxiety. How utterly and unreasonably selfish you are! If there be one vice which is despicable, it is selfishness. ”

“ Barbara said nothing. Jasper waited, expecting some word of praise.
‘Tell me candidly what you thought of him,’ said Jasper.
‘I do not like to do so. I did form an opinion of him, but—it was not favourable.’
‘You saw him for too short a time to be able to judge,’ said the young man. ‘It never does to condemn a man off-hand without knowing his circumstances. Do you know, Miss Jordan, that saying of St. Paul about premature judgments? He bids us not judge men, for the Great Day will reveal the secrets of all hearts, and then—what is his conclusion? ”

“ Coyshe arrived.
‘What a very beautiful daughter you have got!’ said Coyshe; ‘one that is only to be seen in pictures. A man despairs of beholding such loveliness in actual life, and see, here, at the limit of the world, the vision flashes on one! Not much like you, Squire, not much like her sister; looks as if she belonged to another breed.’
Jasper Babb looked round startled at the audacity and rudeness of the surgeon. Mr. Jordan was not offended; he seemed indeed flattered. He was very proud of Eve. ”

“ Jasper looked admiringly at her.
‘Are you not afraid of a sunstroke, Miss Eve?’
‘O dear no! The sun cannot harm me. I love him so passionately. O Mr. Jasper! I wish sometimes I lived far away in another country where there are no wet days and grey skies and muggy atmospheres, and where the hedges do not drip, and the lanes do not stand ankle deep in mud, and the old walls exude moisture indoors, and one’s pretty shoes do not go mouldy if not wiped over daily. ”