1 Serv. Here's a strange alteration!
2 Serv. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him.—Coriolanus.
In passing the Splugen, Morton journeyed chiefly in the night, making a wide detour over the crusted snow to avoid the station at the summit. By day, he found some safe retreat where he could rest and sleep in tolerable ease and warmth. His night progress was, for the most part, on a broad, clear road, very different from that rugged path by the Cardinel, where, some forty-seven years before, the avalanches cut through Macdonald's columns, and swept men and horses to bottomless ruin.
The sky was still clouded; but there was a full moon behind the clouds, and the mountains reflected its light, from their vast surfaces of snow. He could hear any approaching foot from a great distance, for there was nothing to break the stillness but the hollow fall of torrents, and the whisper and moan of winds through ravines and gorges.
On the third night, he was descending the defiles that lead from Campo Dolcino to Chiavenna. He passed Chiavenna, and soon a new scene opened upon him. The Alps were behind him, cliff and chasm, torrent and ravine, and the icy sheen of glaciers. Italy received him, robed in her "fatal gift of beauty;" in the midst of her shame, radiant as in her day of honor; breathing still of history, and art, and poetry.
Standing on the heights behind Colico, he saw the Lake of Como stretching southward, its banks studded with villas, its hills green with the chestnut and the laurel, the fig, pomegranate, and vine. But, to the north, the sheer cliffs rose like a battlement, and, higher yet, towered cold white peaks, aloof in stern and lofty desolation.
Reality will now and then make fancy blush for herself. The Easter illumination of St. Peter's may match the wildest dream of the Arabian Nights; and this scene on the Lake of Como, with the sunset upon it, may outvie the highest wrought counterfeit of Claude or Salvator, or both combined. The world, much abused as she is, does her part. She is profuse of beauties; but, in the midst of them, one still drags with him his own work-day identity. Go where he will, his old Adam still hangs about him; and the spell-breaking sense that he is himself and no other scatters every charm that Art and Nature would cast over him.
Morton, poor devil, had other matters to think of than scenery. Hunger and danger are a cure for the most rabid love of landscape. His bread and bacon had given out, and the phantom of an Austrian sbirro rode him like a nightmare. Mustering his best recollections of geography, he came to the belief that he was either on the Lake of Como, or, as seemed to him much more likely, on the lake farther eastward, that of Garda. One thing was certain: he was on a great route of travel. His best course, as he thought, was to watch for the chance of a meeting with some American or English tourist, to whom he could make his case known; and meanwhile, though a worse actor never appeared on any stage, to pass himself off, if he could, as a beggar.
He passed a night on the hills above Colico, and happily for him, above the malaria; woke half famished from his miserably broken sleep, and wearily walked on his way, wondering if, in support of his character, he could ever find grace to say, "Datemi qualche cosa." There was something in the idea of thus sneaking through a country that grated on him with peculiar discomfort; and to have headed the forlorn hope of a storming party would have been less trying to his nerve.
The thought how to content the cravings of his hunger soon absorbed all other thoughts. Looking about him, he saw a small white house, standing alone on the road by the shore of the lake; and over the door he could read from afar the sign, "Spaccio di Vino." Famine got the better of caution. He approached warily, ensconced himself behind an old wall, and, quite unseen, began his observations. The house was but a few rods off, on the other side of the road. An old wayfarer sat in the porch, busy in breakfasting on curds, pressed hard like a cheese, a slice of very black and solid-looking bread serving him for a plate. In a few moments, the landlord, a freckled-faced Italian, came to the door, and began to chat with his customer. Morton took a coin from his pocket, walked forth from his hiding-place, and was approaching, still unnoticed, when he was startled by the sound of a horse's tread, on the road beyond the house. A single glance at the rider told him that there was no danger, and made his heart beat with sudden hope.
"Il signor Inglese," remarked the host to his friend.—"Buon' giorno, eccellenza, buon' giorno,"—lifting his white night cap, and bowing with a great flourish.
The young man touched his hat with a careless smile, and half-turning his horse, asked,—
"Padrone, has my man passed this way?"
He had, to Morton's eye, rather the easy manner of a well-bred American, than the more distant bearing common with an English gentleman.
"Eccellenza, si," replied the padrone,—"he passed a quarter of an hour ago, with the birds your excellency has shot."
The young man rode on, passing Morton, as he stood by the roadside.
"I have seen that face before," said the latter to himself—"in a dream, for what I know, but I have seen it."
It was a frank and open face, manly, yet full of kindliness, not without a tinge of melancholy.
"Come of it what will," thought the fugitive, "I will speak to him."
He walked after the retiring horseman, and when an angle of the road concealed him from the inn, quickened his pace almost to a run. But at that moment the Englishman struck into a sharp trot, and disappeared over the ridge of a hill. Morton soon gained sight of him again, and kept him in view for about a mile, when he saw him enter the gateway belonging to a small villa, between the road and the water. It was a very pretty spot; the grounds terraced to the edge of the lake; with laurels, cypresses, box hedges, a fountain or two, an artificial grotto, and a superb diorama of water and mountains.
Morton stood waiting at the gate. At length he saw a female domestic, evidently Italian, passing through the shrubbery before the house, and disappearing behind it. In a few minutes more, a solemn personage appeared at the door, whom he would have known at a mile's distance for an old English servant. He stood looking with great gravity out upon the grounds. Morton approached, and accosting him in Italian, asked to see his master.
John was not a proficient in the tongue of Ariosto and Dante. Indeed, in his intercourse with the natives, he had seen occasion for one phrase alone, and that a somewhat pithy and repellant one,—Andate al diavolo.
He glared with supreme and savage scorn on the tatterdemalion stranger, and uttered his talismanic words,—
"Andarty al devillio!"
Morton changed his tactics; and, looking fixedly at the human mastiff, said in English,—
"Go to your master, sir, and tell him that I wish to speak with him."
The Saxon words and the tone of authority coming from one whom he had taken for a vagrant beggar, astonished the old man beyond utterance. He stared for a moment,—turned to obey,—then turned back again,—
"Mr. Wentworth is at breakfast, sir."
The last monosyllable was spoken in a doubtful tone, the speaker being perplexed between respect for the tone and language of the stranger, and contempt for his vagabond attire.
"Then bring me pen, ink, and paper—I will write to him."
And pushing past the servant, he seated himself on a chair in the hall.
John went for the articles required, first glancing around to see what items of plunder might be within the intruder's reach. Morton in his absence opened several books which lay upon a table; and in one of them he saw, pencilled on the fly leaf, the name of the owner, Robert Wentworth.
The pen, ink, and paper arriving, he wrote as follows, John meanwhile keeping a vigilant guard over him:—
Sir: I am a native of the United States, who, for the past four years, have been a prisoner in the Castle of Ehrenberg, confined for no offence, political or otherwise, but on a groundless suspicion. I escaped by the assistance of a soldier in the garrison, and have made my way thus far in the dress of a peasant. I am anxious to reach Genoa, or some other port beyond the power of Austria, but am embarrassed and endangered by my ignorance of the routes and the state of the country. Information on these points, and the means of communicating with an American consul, are the only aid of which I am in necessity; and I take the liberty of applying to you in the hope of obtaining it. By giving it, you will oblige me in a matter of life and death. The people of the country cannot be trusted; but I may rely securely on the generosity of an English gentleman.
Your obedient servant,
VASSALL MORTON.
He sealed the note, and gave it to the old servant. The latter mounted the stairs, and reappearing in a few moments, said, in his former doubtful tone, "Please to walk up."
Morton followed him to the door of a small room looking upon the lake. Near the window stood the young man whom he had seen at the inn, with the note open in his hand. Morton entered, inclining his head slightly. The other returned his salutation, looked at him for an instant without speaking, and then, coming forward, gave him his hand, and bade him welcome with the utmost frankness.
Astonished, and half overcome, Morton could only stammer his acknowledgments for such a reception of one who came with no passport but his own word.
"O," said Wentworth, smiling, "when I meet an honest man, I know him by instinct, as Falstaff knew the true prince. Sit down; I am glad to see you; and shall be still more glad if I can help you."
The old servant received some whispered directions, and left the room. Morton gave a short outline of his story, to which his host listened with unequivocal signs of interest.
"I wish," said Wentworth, "that you were the only innocent victim of Austrian despotism. It is a monstrous infamy, built on fraud and force, but too refined, too artificial, too complicated to endure."
"Bullets and cold steel are the medicines for it," said Morton.
Here the servant reappeared.
"Here, at all events, you are safe. Stay with me to-day, and I think I can promise you that in a few days more you may stand on the deck of an American frigate. If you will go with John, he will help you to get rid of that villanous disguise."
Morton followed the old man into an adjoining room, where he found a bath, a suit of clothes, and the various appliances of the toilet prepared for him. And here he was left alone to indulge his reflections and revolutionize his outward man.
Meanwhile Wentworth sat musing by the window: "His face haunts me; and yet, for my life, I cannot remember where I have seen him before. I would stake all on his truth and honor. That firm lip and undespairing eye are a history in themselves. Strange—the difference between man and man. How should I have borne such suffering? Why, gone mad, I suppose, or destroyed myself. One sorrow—no, nor a hundred—would never unman him, and make him dream away his life, watching the sun rise and set, here by the Lake of Como. I scarcely know why, but my heart warms towards him like an old friend. Cost what it may, I will not leave him till he is out of danger."
He was still musing in this strain, when Morton returned, a changed man in person and in mind. It seemed as if, in casting off his squalid livery of misery and peril, a burden of care had fallen with it; as if the sullen cloud that had brooded over him so long had been pierced at length by a gladdening beam of sunlight, and the sombre landscape were smiling again with pristine light and promise. His buoyant and defiant spirit resumed its native tone; and a strange confidence sprang up within him, as if a desperate crisis of his destiny had been safely passed.
Wentworth saw the change at a glance.
"Why, man, I see freedom in your eye already. But sit down; 'it's ill talking between a full man and a fasting,' and you must be half starved."
Morton was so, in truth. He seated himself at the table, and addressed himself to the repast provided for him with the keenness of a mountain trapper, while his entertainer played with his knife and fork to keep him in countenance.
"Do you know," said Wentworth, at length—"I am sure I have seen you before."
"And I have seen you—I could swear to it; and yet I do not know where."
"Were you ever in England?"
"Only for a few days."
"I was once in America."
"When?"
"In 1839. I was at Boston in March of that year."
Morton shook his head. "I remember that time perfectly. I was in New Orleans in March, and afterwards in Texas."
"From Boston I went westward—up the Missouri and out upon the prairies."
Morton paused a moment in doubt; then sprang to his feet with a joyful exclamation,—
"The prairies! Have you forgotten the Big Horn Branch of the Yellow Stone, and the camp under the old cottonwood trees!"
Wentworth leaped up, and grasped both his guest's hands.
"Forgotten! No; I shall never forget the morning when you came over to us with that tall, half-breed fellow, in a Canadian capote."
"Yes,—Antoine Le Rouge."
"We should have starved if you had not found us, and perhaps lost our scalps into the bargain."
"The Rickarees had made a clean sweep of your horses."
"Not a hoof was left to us. Our four Canadians were scared to death; I was ill; not one of us was fit for service but Ireton; and we had not three days' provision. If you had not given us your spare mules and horses, and seen us safe to Fort Cass, the wolves would have made a supper of some of us."
"And do you remember," said Morton, "after we broke up camp that morning, how the Rickaree devils came galloping at us down the hill, and thought they could ride over us, and how we fought them all the forenoon, lying on our faces behind the pack saddles and baggage?"
"I remember it as if it were yesterday. I can hear the crack of the rifles now, and the yelling of those bloodthirsty vagabonds."
"It is strange," pursued Wentworth, "that I did not recognize you at once. I have thought of you a thousand times; but it is eight years since we met, and you are very much changed. Besides we were together only two days. And yet I can hardly forgive myself."
"Any wandering trapper would have done as much for you as I did; or, if he had not, he would have deserved a cudgelling. What has become of the young man, or boy, rather, who was with you?"
"You mean Ireton. Dead, poor fellow—dead."
"I am very sorry. He was the coolest of us all in the fight. He had a singular face, but a very handsome one. I can recall it distinctly at this moment."
Wentworth took a miniature from a desk, opened it, and placed it before Morton.
"These are his features," said the latter, "but this is the portrait of a lady."
"His sister—his twin sister. Dead too!"
There was a change, as he spoke, in his voice and manner, so marked that Morton forbore to pursue the subject farther. He studied the picture in silence. It was a young and beautiful face, delicate, yet full of fire; and by some subtilty of his craft, the artist had given to the eyes an expression which reminded him of the restless glances which he had seen a caged falcon at the Garden of Plants cast upwards at the sky, into which he was debarred from soaring.
In a few moments, Wentworth spoke in his accustomed tone.
"The point first to be thought of, is to get you out of this predicament. I have a man who took to his bed this morning, and is at present shaking in an ague fit. He is of about your age, height, and complexion; and by wearing his dress, you could travel under his passport. I am not at all a suspected person, and if my friend will pass for a few days as my servant, I do not doubt that we shall reach Genoa without interruption."
Morton warmly expressed his gratitude, but protested against Wentworth's undertaking the journey on his account.
"O, I am going to Genoa for my pleasure, and shall be glad of your company. The steamer for Como touches here this afternoon. 'Dull not device by coldness and delay;' we will go on board, and be in Milan to-morrow."
They conversed for an hour, when Morton withdrew to adjust his new disguise. Wentworth followed him with his eye as he disappeared; then sank into the musing mood which had grown habitual to him.
"When I saw him last,"—so his thoughts shaped themselves,—"my drama was opening; and now it is played out—light and darkness, smiles and tears—and the curtain is dropped forever. When I saw him last, I was gathering the prairie flowers and dedicating them to her,—though she did not suspect it,—and dreaming of her by camp fires and in night watches."
The miniature still lay on the table. He drew it towards him and gazed on it fixedly:—
"Mine for a space, and now—gone—vanished like a dream. You were a meteor between earth and sky, with a light that flickered and blazed and darkened, but a warmth constant and unchanged. Of all who admired the brightness of that erratic star, how few could know what gladness it shed around it, what desolation it has left behind!"
He gazed on the picture till his eyes grew dim; then sat for a few moments, listless and abstracted; then rose, with an effort, and bent his mind to the task before him.