Bondservant

“ May be not so, entirely, yet I am sure you are as sinless as woman can be—but listen to me, Lucy—you know that I am a bondman's son—that I fled from bondage—and that ten years of roving freedom, had not made me free. All this you know, but you do not know that I am the Genoese galleyman who cheated the chapman's dame at the fair of Winchcombe. ”

“ The paper dropt from her hands. "This comes from my cousin Francesco," said Bondelmonti; "others are in the samesituation. Those who have not been ransomed, he has thrown into the most loathsome dungeons, and starves and tortures them to quicken their appetite for freedom. Shall such a one reign?"
"No," cried Euthanasia, her cheek burning with indignation, and her lips quivering with excessive pity; "No, he shall not reign; he were unworthy to live, if it be not to repent. Bondelmonti, here is my hand; do with me what you please; let his life be saved ”

“ The unexpected supplication startled the astonished De Boteler, and a loud threat marked his displeasure at the interruption. Silence was again shouted by the hall keepers.
"Prisoner," resumed De Boteler, assuming a tone of severity, "you are forgiven; but upon this condition, that you renounce your freedom, and become my bondman."
"Become a bondman!" cried the smith, disappointed and mortified at the alternative: "Stephen, I would sooner die."
"Silence, knave!" said the baron; "let the man answer for himself." ”

“ Bonaventure, “be a man never so wicked and miserable a sinner, you have the soft compassion of a mother for him, and never leave him until you have reconciled him to his judge.” One instance of which peculiar protection of sinners is recorded from father Crassett, who with much solemnity states, that “a soldier, hardened by his occupation, had not only renounced Christ, but given himself up wholly to the devil and the most vicious courses, though, as he did not also renounce the Virgin, he in a time of much necessity fervently prayed for her intercession.” ”

“ Boone at Brandan, where I sang at the time Mr. Ormesby's trial filled the papers, I felt I must tell him part of my discovery. Had the trial not ended as it did he would have consulted with Lawyer Dixon. Afterwards, though I hated Lane the more, I pledged Mr. Boone to secrecy, [Pg 269] and kept silent until, when I could bear the load no longer, I told my trouble to Père Louis. 'If you only desire vengeance it would be better to burn the book; but if you can save innocent men from persecution and prevent the triumph of the wicked, silence would be a sin,' he said. ”

“ Let the bondman be freed, and the land properly parcelled out, and then we can talk about what kings there are to be besides Richard. But I'll tell you, Master Jack Straw, or whatever your name is, that if I cannot read and write like you, I will have a word in the matter as well as yourself—I will have all the lawyers hanged, for one thing: there is so much trickery in the law, that we shall never be sure of whatever is granted, while the men of law can have a crook in it. ”

“ This is just the straggling story of Bonnard, the old professor, who observes the world, interested in women, Benedictine chronicles, the Arc de Triomphe, cats and the love affairs of fourteenth-century queens. The old gentleman watches over the granddaughter of one whom he loved but never married. He behaves quite quixotically, protects her against a schoolmistress who ill treats her; at last he kidnaps her to make her happy, and all ends well in spite of a little tragedy when the girl marries and old Bonnard sells his books to give her a dowry. ”

“ She summoned the servant-girl, who looked much more hurried and scared than before, and who vanished with the order to go and tell Mademoiselle Alexandre that Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard, Member of the Institute, was waiting to see her in the parlour.
Mademoiselle Prefere had barely time to confide in me that she had the most profound respect for all decisions of the Institute—whatever they might be—when Jeanne appeared, out of breath, red as a poppy, with her eyes very wide open, and her arms dangling helplessly at her sides—charming in her artless awkwardness. ”

“ Bond and his wife and daughter had passed the remainder of the night planning what they would do next.
"Nothing worse could have befallen me," said Mr. Bond, "than the return of this boy. I would rather that this house had tumbled in on us, and killed us all as we stood there. When I return my inheritance to George Acton, I become a beggar. What we have wasted, is twice as much as we ever had, and nothing will be left for us."
"Oh," said his wife, "then we must sell our jewels and our carriages, and I must again walk to the theatres, like other ordinary people. I shall never survive it!" ”

“ I cried; “ten years imprisonment for having saved an innocent child.”
“That is the law!” answered Monsieur de Gabry. “You see, my dear Monsieur Bonnard, I happen to know the Code pretty well—not because I ever studied law as a profession, but because, as mayor of Lusance, I was obliged to teach myself something about it in order to be able to give information to my subordinates. Mouche is a rascal; that woman Prefere is a vile hussy; and you are a...Well! I really cannot find a word strong enough to signify what you are!” ”

“ Hope for the best, and prepare"—
"For what, sir?" inquired Miss Bond, gaspingly.
"For any—anything—that is my plan. Unfortunately, the only way to deal with the world, so as to meet it on equal terms, is to think every man a rogue. It is a deeply painful view to take of human nature, and it agonizes me to do so. Let me, however, entreat you to bear up"—
"Against what, sir?" said Sarah Bond abruptly, and almost fiercely, for now Mr. Cramp's face was reduced to its original size, and she had collected her ideas. ”

“ The servant seemed to be of the same opinion, for he looked at me in a way that seemed to signify, “Monsieur Bonnard is doting”—and he leaned down over the balustrade of the stairway to see if I was not going to do something extraordinary before I got to the bottom. But I descended the stairs rationally enough; and then he drew back his head in disappointment.
On returning home I was informed that Monsieur Gelis was waiting for me in the parlour. (This young man has become a constant visitor. His judgement is at fault at times; but his mind is not at all commonplace.) ”

“ Therese marched to the door as if advancing upon the enemy. My excellent housekeeper becomes more inhospitable the older she grows. Every stranger is an object of suspicion to her. According to her own assertion, this disposition is the result of a long experience with human nature. I had not the time to consider whether the same experience on the part of another experimenter would produce the same results. Maitre Mouche was waiting to see me in the ante-room. ”

“ But as I went forth, the spirit came upon me, and I vowed that I would not give rest to my feet until the bondman's fetters should be broken! And they shall be broken! A spirit has been roused that they reck not of—a spirit that will neither slumber nor sleep until he, whose first breath was drawn beneath the thatch of the villein-hut, shall be as free to come and to go as he whose first pillow was of the cygnet's down!—and no man shall say to him, what dost thou?"
But it was not merely Holgrave that the monk was now addressing ”

“ Bond. If you are the object of an innocent glee, it is better to join in the merry laugh, rather than to don a severe and offended dignity. It is quite a funny thought, though, that, amid such pitiless peltings you should escape with not even the slightest impression upon your fleshless bones! well, there's some comfort in being fat, you have that to console you. He doesn't look as if he ever needed to be consoled, but I can tell you that even Mr. Bond is not wholly exempt from the annoyances and trials of life! ”

“ I answered ruefully. "All the gophers in the country have collected around my grain and wells. As they fall in after every hearty meal of wheat, we have been drinking them. You are just in time for breakfast, and I'll be glad of your company. One overlooks a good deal when things are going well, but the sordid monotony of these surroundings palls on one now and then."
"You are not the only man who feels it," said the trooper, while a temporary shadow crossed his face. "You have been to Bonaventure too often, Ormesby. ”

“ Bond sits beside his center-table with his legs crossed and his eyes fixed upon the portrait. He wonders what Betty Lathrop would advise him to do about the poor girl if she could speak. He hears a great deal about spiritual manifestations and communications, but he has no faith in them, and even if he had he wouldn't be guilty of disturbing a departed soul unless for something of great moment. ”

“ The protection of a bondman is as far as he throws his sickle. [168] Whoever shall have connexion with a bondwoman without consent of her lord, let him pay twelve pence to the bondwoman's lord for each connexion. ”

“ I am free—that man is free—" pointing to Holgrave, "and we are all free—all sworn brothers; and no one shall dare," raising his voice, "to brand, with such a name, a mother's son among us! You have received fair warning, and leave to go: retire now—instantly, if you are wise! Clear a passage there for my Lord de Boteler's steward! There is now room for you to pass—your retainers are waiting without—and now take the man you call a bondman, and away with you all. What! you will not lay hold of him? Take him, I say!" elevating his voice—"seize the villein, and drag him back to his bondage! ”

“ And now there came in Buck and Lamb and the other bondsmen and convicts--though no longer either bondsmen or convict-servants if they could live through this dreadful night--for they were useless upstairs any longer. With them came the mastiffs who had replaced those poisoned; fierce beasts, who seemed to scent the Indians they were trained to fight and whose eyes glared savagely at the windows to which they ran, while they stooped their great heads to the bodies of the dead ones lying inside the sill and sniffed at their already fast congealing blood. ”

“ My dear Bondelmonti, you are the oldest of my friends, you were the friend of my father, I trust much to your judgement; I confide greatly in the sense of right which nature has implanted in my own heart; I hope no false view, no veiled passion, misleads me now, when most I desire to act well, justly towards others, and towards myself: the catastrophe is in the hands of that irresistible Power which guides us all ”

“ Bond sat a long time thinking of all this; yes, very long, for an hour and a half was a great while for her to sit still of a morning. She thought she might as well creep up softly, and see if Rose were waking. She knocks gently—no answer; they still sleep, she [Pg 183] must waken them. She opens the door—there is no one there but herself; the clothes have all gone from their pegs, and a note lies upon the table.
Mrs. Bond takes her spectacles from their leathern case, and her hand trembles as she breaks the seal. ”

“ Each one dreams the dream of life in his own way. I have dreamed it in my library; and when the hour shall come in which I must leave this world, may it please God to take me from my ladder—from before my shelves of books!...
“Well, well! it is really himself, pardieu! How are you, Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard? And where have you been travelling to all this time, over the country, while I was waiting for you at the station with my cabriolet? You missed me when the train came in, and I was driving back, quite disappointed, to Lusance. ”

“ And in saying this, Monsieur Bonnard, I am supposing that the historian has positive evidence before him, whereas in reality he feels confidence only in such or such a witness for sympathetic reasons. History is not a science; it is an art, and one can succeed in that art only through the exercise of his faculty of imagination.”
Monsieur Gelis reminds me very much at this moment of a certain young fool whom I heard talking wildly one day in the garden of the Luxembourg, under the statue of Marguerite of Navarre. ”

“ I was very much interested, you know, in that thesis of yours;—but some domestic arrangements have been keeping me so busy lately that I quite forgot this was the day on which you were to sustain it.”
Mademoiselle Jeanne made her appearance very opportunely, as if in order to suggest to him something about the nature of those very domestic arrangements. The giddy girl burst into the City of Books like a fresh breeze, crying at the top of her voice that her room was a perfect little wonder; then she became very red indeed on seeing Monsieur Gelis there. But none of us can escape our destiny. ”

“ The police will tell you, as they told Bonaventure, that in these days of steam and steel and yoked lightning a man may get lost and be found again; but that when he stays lost, and is neither dead nor mad, it is because he wants to be lost. So where was to be the gain in finding ’Thanase alive? Oh, much, indeed, to Bonaventure! The star of a new hope shot up into his starless sky when that thought came, and in that star trembled that which he had not all these weary months of search dared see even with fancy’s eye,—the image of Zoséphine! ”

“ I am an Englishman, Rancher Ormesby, and, needless to say, so are you. We are not a superfluously civil people, and certain national characteristics betray you. I fancy we shall be better acquainted, and, that being so, feel prompted to tell you a story which, after what passed at Bonaventure, you perhaps have a right to know. ”