Melmar

“ Livingstone of Norlaw is not a common person—she is as good as we are, if she is not as rich,” cried Joanna. “I like her! I would rather see her than a dozen fine ladies, and, Desirée, you ought to stand up for her, too. If you think Norlaw is no’ as good as Melmar, it’s because you’re not of this country and don’t know—that is all.” ”

“ And as he thought of it, the French household at Melmar, with its fancies, its agitations, its romantic plans and troubles of feeling, looked more and more to Cosmo discordant and inharmonious with the time; and he himself jarred like a chord out of tune upon this calm of the house and the Sabbath; jarred strangely, possessed as he was by an irritated and injured self-consciousness—that bitter sensation of wrong and disappointment, which somehow seemed to separate Cosmo from every thing innocent and peaceful in the world. ”

“ And Cosmo hurried on through the narrow paths to Melmar, his heart a-flame with a young man’s resentment, and impatience, and love. He scarcely could tell what it was which excited him so entirely. Not, certainly, the vagabond Pierrot, or any fears for Marie; not even the displeasure of his mother. He would not acknowledge to himself the eager, jealous fears which hurried him through those flowery bye-ways where the blossoms of the hawthorn had fallen in showers like summer snow, and the wild roses were rich in the hedgerows. ”

“ It was too much for Madame Roche.
“Mamma, listen,” whispered Desirée, soothingly. “Ah, mamma, you might force mine—I should always obey you—but you can not force Huntley’s heart—he does not care for me; bah, that is nothing!—but there is one whom he cares for—one whom he has come home for—Katie, whom they all love! Mamma, you were right! he is noble, he is generous; but what is Melmar to Huntley? ”

“ He, too, looked over the woods of Melmar as his brother had done, but with feelings very different—for no impulse of acquisition quickened in the breast of Cosmo. He thought of them as the burden of a romance, the chorus of a ballad—the inheritance to which the long lost Mary must return; and while the Mistress stocked his new portmanteau, and made ready his traveling wardrobe, the lad was hunting everywhere{193} with ungrateful pertinacity for scraps of information to guide him in this search which his mother had not the most distant idea was the real motive of his journey. ”

“ Look not at any one, think not of any one, till you have seen this noble Huntley; it is the only return you can give—nay, my little one! it is all I can do to prove that I am not ungrateful. This Melmar, which I had lost and won without knowing it, will be between Marie and you when I die. You can not give it all back to your kinsman, but he will think that half which your sister has doubly made up, my child, when I put into his hand the hand of my Desirée; and we shall all love each other, and be good and happy, like a fairy tale. ”

“ For my own pleasure, my own comfort, a selfish mother, must I sacrifice my child?”
“Mamma,” cried Desirée, with breathless vehemence, “I love Marie—I would give my life for her; but if Pierrot comes to Melmar, I will go. It is true—I remember him—I will not live with Pierrot in one house.”
Madame Roche clasped her hands once more, and cast up her eyes with a gesture of despair. “What can I do—what am I to do? I am a woman alone—I have no one to advise me,” she cried, pacing softly about the room, with her clasped hands and eyes full of trouble. Cosmo’s heart was quite moved with her distress. ”

“ Though the tears are in her eyes, and grief in her face, she is still the beautiful old lady whom Cosmo Livingstone loved to watch from his window in St. Ouen. Time himself, the universal conqueror, can never take from Mary of Melmar that gift which surrounded her with love in her youth, and which has lighted all her troubled life like a fairy lamp. The sweet soft cheek{382} where even wrinkles are lovely, the beautiful old eyes which even in their tears can not choose but smile, the footstep so light, yet so firm, which still might ring “like siller bells,” though its way is heavy. ”

“ Pausing to look at it, as neither Joanna nor Patricia did, on the rustic bridge which crossed the Tyne, and led from this woodland path into the smooth lawn and properly arranged trees of “the private grounds,” Melmar appeared only a large square house, pretentious, yet homely, built entirely for living in, and not for looking at. If Nature, with her trees, and grass, and bits of garden land, softening the angles and filling in the gaps, had done her best to make it seemly, the house was completely innocent of aiding in any such attempt. ”

“ Huntley, papa,” said Katie, decidedly.
“That may be, my dear; but still, I suppose he’s just like other folk, looking after his own interest, without meaning any particular harm to any body, unless they come in his way. Oh, human nature!” said the minister; “the most of us are just like that, Katie, though we seldom can see it; but there can be little doubt that Melmar was greatly incensed against poor Norlaw, who was nobody’s enemy but his own.” ”

“ Joanna was not remarkably amiable in her present development, but she could appreciate excellence in others.
“And she’s beautiful, too—don’t you think so?” said Joanna; “not pretty, like Patricia, nor bonnie, like Katie Logan—but beautiful. I wish I could bring her to Melmar—I wish Oswald could see her—and I’ll do any thing in the world rather than let Desirée go to anybody’s house like any other governess. Isn’t it a shame? A delicate little lady like her has to go and teach little brats of children, and me that am strong and big, and could do lots of things—I never have any thing to do! ”

“ It was not her fault—but I was very fond of Desirée. Tell her I teach in a school now, and am very happy—they even say I’m clever,” continued the girl, with a laugh, “which I never was at Melmar; and mamma is stronger, and we’re all as well as we can be. You need not laugh, Cosmo Livingstone, it’s true!” cried Joanna, with sudden vehemence, growing offended once more; “papa may have done wrong whiles, but he’s very good to us; and no one shall dare throw a stone at him while I’m living. You can tell Desirée.” ”

“ This papa, whom Joanna had no hesitation about bearding in his own den, could not surely be such an ogre after all. He was not an ogre. You could not have supposed, to look at him, that any exaltation of enmity, any heroic sentiment of revenge, could lodge within the breast of Mr. Huntley, of Melmar. He was a tall man, with a high, narrow head, and reddish grizzled hair. A man with plenty of forehead, making up in height for its want of breadth. ”

“ He only knew that they meant offense, and smiled and showed his white teeth in admiration of the malice which he only guessed at.
“I go to my castle, my chateau, my fortune,” he said; “where I shall have pleasure in repaying your hospitality. I shall be a good host. I shall make myself popular. Pierrot of Melmar will be known everywhere—it is not often that your dull coteries are refreshed by the coming of a gentleman from my country. But I am too impatient to linger longer than politeness demands. I have the honor to bid you very good morning. I go to my Marie.” ”

“ My little Desirée is in Scotland. They think much of her where she is. It is all very strange; she is in a house which once was home to me when I was young. I think it strange my child should be there.”
“Desirée?” repeated Cosmo, gazing at his beautiful old lady with awakened curiosity. He remembered so well the pretty little figure whose bearing, different as they were otherwise, was like that of Madame Roche. He looked in her face, anxious, but unable, to trace any resemblance. Desirée! Could it be Joanna’s Desirée—the heroine of the broken windows—she who was at Melmar? ”

“ Ah, how touching! how beautiful!—and you, my young hero!—and this Huntley, this one who thinks himself the heir—he, too, is generous, noble, without selfishness—I know it! Oh, my{294} child, what shall I do for him? Alas, Marie! She is my eldest child, and she is married already—I never grieved for it enough till now.”
“There is no need, madame,” said Cosmo, to whom these little sentences came like so many little shooting arrows, pricking him into a disappointed and vexed resentment. “Huntley needs nothing to make him amends for what is simply justice. Melmar is not his, but yours.” ”

“ Now, as we were thus strolling about the Morai, the old chronicler elucidating its mysteries, we suddenly spied Pani and the pilgrims approaching the image of Doleema; his child leading the guide.
"This," began Pani, pointing to the idol of stone, "is the holy god Ananna who lives in the sap of this green and flourishing tree."
"Thou meanest not, surely, this stone image we behold?" said Divino.
"I mean the tree," said the guide. "It is no stone image."
"Strange," muttered the chief; "were it not a guide that spoke, I would deny it. As it is, I hold my peace." ”

“ Again I tell thee, I will do anything—yes, anything that Pierre commands—for, though outer ill do lower upon us, still, deep within, thou wilt be careful, very careful with me, Pierre?'
'Thou art made of that fine, unshared stuff of which God makes his seraphim. But thy divine devotedness to me, is met by mine to thee. Well mayest thou trust me, Isabel; and whatever strangest thing I may yet propose to thee, thy confidence,—will it not bear me out? Surely thou wilt not hesitate to plunge, when I plunge first;—already have I plunged! ”

“ Now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried Aleema.
"Think not of him, sweet Yillah," I cried. "Look on me. Am I not white like yourself? Behold, though since quitting Oroolia the sun has dyed my cheek, am I not even as you? Am I brown like the dusky Aleema? They snatched you away from your isle in the sea, too early for you to remember me there. But you have not been forgotten by me, sweetest Yillah. Ha! ha! ”

“ Her elephantine bulk was houdahed with a castellated poop like the leaning tower of Pisa. Poor Israel, standing on the top of this poop, spy-glass at his eye, looked more an astronomer than a mariner, having to do, not with the mountains of the billows, but the mountains in the moon. Galileo on Fiesole. She was originally a single-decked ship, that is, carried her armament on one gun-deck; but cutting ports below, in her after part, Paul rammed out there six old eighteen-pounders, whose rusty muzzles peered just above the water-line, like a parcel of dirty mulattoes from a cellar-way. ”

“ Melville is very insistent upon and rather envious of that unlimited leisure. A picture of a mermaid swinging in a hammock of woven seaweed, with what bishops call a "latter-day" novel in one hand and a sixteen candle-power phosphorescent fish in the other, may jar upon one's preconceptions, but it is certainly far more in accordance with the picture of the abyss she printed on his mind. Everywhere Change works her will on things. Everywhere, and even among the immortals, Modernity spreads. ”

“ Of our sufferings, as of our talents, others sometimes are the better judges. But stop me! force me backward to my story! Yet methinks that now thou knowest all;—no, not entirely all. Thou dost not know what planned and winnowed motive I did have in writing thee; nor does poor Bell know that; for poor Bell was too delirious to have planned and winnowed motives then. The impulse in me called thee, not poor Bell. God called thee, Pierre, not poor Bell. ”

“ Israel, clinging midway along the boom, soon found himself divided from the Ariel by a space impossible to be leaped. Meantime, suspecting foul play, Paul set every sail; but the stranger, having already the advantage, contrived to make good her escape, though perseveringly chased by the cheated conqueror.
In the confusion, no eye had observed our hero’s spring. But, as the vessels separated more, an officer of the strange ship spying a man on the boom, and taking him for one of his own men, demanded what he did there. ”

“ Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak, presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose shadow, every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain: a silent phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen.
At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth, and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her arms in a caress; saying, "Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?" And at last, when it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the whole valley in gloom; Aleema would say, "Arise Yillah ”

“ At this juncture, the prize shifting her position so that she headed away, and to leeward of the Ariel, thrust her long spanker-boom diagonally over the latter’s quarter; when Israel, who was standing close by, instinctively caught hold of it—­just as he had grasped the jib-boom of the Serapis—­and, at the same moment, hearing the call to take possession, in the valiant excitement of the occasion, he leaped upon the spar, and made a rush for the stranger’s deck, thinking, of course, that he would be immediately followed by the regular boarders. But the sails of the strange ship suddenly filled ”

“ Meldrum and the gleam of France had not found at Folkestone my old resources and pastimes. Mrs. Meldrum, much edified by my report of the performances, as she called them, in my studio, had told me that to her knowledge Flora would soon be on the straw: she had cut from her capital such fine fat slices that there was almost nothing more left to swallow. Perched on her breezy cliff the good lady dazzled me as usual by her universal light: she knew so much more about everything and everybody than I could ever squeeze out of my colour-tubes. ”