University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

As You Like It.

It was long before I again awoke to any distinct
consciousness of my situation, or even of my
personal identity. Senseless, indeed, I was not—
if by that word is meant the utter oblivion of all
external things, the total absence of thought, even
in its most dreamy form, the entire suspension of
every mental faculty, such as we occasionally
experience in that deep and unrefreshing slumber
which follows extreme exertion and consequent
lassitude both of mind and body.

Widely different from this was the state in
which I lay, as I have been since informed, for the

space of seven days and as many nights. During
this time I was tormented by an unskilful chirurgeon,
who nevertheless succeeded in extracting
two bullets which had lodged in different parts of
my frame—was transported from St. Benedict
aux Layes to St. Germains, a distance of many
leagues, over rough and perilous roads, in such
rude vehicles as could be pressed into service—
was nearly captured in several instances by Guerilla
bands of the Frondeurs—and was at length,
after much danger and actual suffering, deposited
in my own quiet lodgings, at the pretty town
which was at that period the abode of the court.

During the whole of this time, although entirely
incapable of recognising individuals, or even of
comprehending what had befallen me, I was keenly
sensible of pain,and,even worse than pain—if such
a seeming paradox can be understood—of my own
insensibility. There was a dizzy swimming consciousness
in my mind, a knowledge that all was
not right with me, and a constant struggle, as it
were, to arouse myself from the unnatural stupor
which I could perceive to have fallen upon me.
At times I would catch a glance of unforgotten
faces, and hear the sounds of familiar voices—at
times the words would reach my understanding,
and I could discover myself to be the subject of

discourse; but ere I could concentrate my thoughts,
or fix the floating fancies, the impressions themselves
would pass away. At times it seemed as
though I were communing with persons whom,
even in my mental aberration, I knew to be no
longer dwellers on earth; yet, whenever I would
endeavour to reflect, to argue my senses into reason,
or to deduce effects from causes, all became
at once a whirling chaos, a deep unfathomable
void. Then would events which had occurred
long years before mingle in strange and horrible
confusion with the scenes and deeds of yesterday:
—yet was there a method in my madness—a connecting
link between each terrible delusion—a
continuous thread in every delirious dream. Now
I was fighting hand to hand in that last charge on
the red field of Marston, when Cromwell's iron-sides
retrieved the half-lost fight—now was I
gazing on the slaughtered body of my father, out-stretched,
as when I saw it last, upon his own extinguished
hearth, the thin gray hairs clotted with
blood, and the sword, faithless in his utmost need,
shivered in his lifeless grasp—now I was struggling
in the eddies of the wintry Marne, the sullen waters
gurgling above my head; yet still in every scene
one form was present, one countenance for ever
stamped upon my soul—now pale as death, with
eyelids closed, and with dishevelled hair, as when I
bore her in my arms on the morning of our eventful
meeting—now smiling sadly through her tears—
now radiant with the happiness of hope—now cold,
distorted, sprinkled with gouts of blood! Rather,
a thousand times rather, would I brave the most
abhorred realities, than again pass through that
fearful twilight of the mind, that dark struggle between
reason and madness, those “doubts more
dreadful than despair.” Fever and delirium were
at work with my enfeebled body and shattered
spirit; while, through all, and over all, the consciousness
of real misery, remembered when its
cause was all forgotten—waking or sleeping, night
or day—hag-rode my senses, a companion as inseparable
as the dark avengers of Orestes.

Never shall I forget the morning on which the
clouds were rolled away from my eyes—on which
reason began to dawn faintly at first, but with a
gradual and increasing light—on which I became
aware, first of the visible objects around me, then
of my own existence, of my own desolation.

The earliest sensations of the change were exquisite:
a freedom from pain—a calm voluptuous
languor—an absence of all excitement—a perception
of sweet sounds, and of the blessed daylight.
It was, I believe, a casual strain of music beneath

my windows, the chance melody of some wandering
Switzer, an exile, like myself, from his far
father-land, that aroused me from the lethargic
sleep in which I had been plunged. I unclosed
my eyes, aimlessly and unconscious of myself; and
the mild radiance of the early morning fell, tempered
by a veil of sea-green silk that had been
drawn across the casements, full upon their dazzled
balls. I shrunk back and closed them for an instant,
dizzied and drunk with the excess of light,
although in truth it was hardly more than a summer's
evening twilight that found its way into that
shaded chamber; cautiously I opened them again,
and, avoiding the quarter from which the unusual
brightness had before annoyed me, suffered them
to wander carelessly around the well-known room.
They had not, however, roved far or for a long
time over their little circle, before they rested upon
objects which, had they been presented to me at a
time when I had less reason to doubt the accuracy
of my senses, would have tempted me to question
their reality at the least, if not my own sanity.

It was, indeed, my own humble home—my
limbs were stretched on the same lowly couch—
the same carved rafters were above my head—
around me the same well-remembered hangings of
Cordovan leather, quaintly embossed and gilded—

the same narrow casements, with their diamond
panes and heavy freestone transoms—the same
grotesquely sculptured arch of oak yawning above
the ample hearth. There hung my Milan corslet,
an honorary gift of the unhappy Charles!—there
my plumed morion and trusty petronel!—there the
good sword which I had wielded to no purpose
against the iron veterans of the Parliament, never
to be unsheathed again, or wielded in a less noble
cause!—there stood the brass-bound chest, which
had conveyed the relics of my shipwrecked fortunes
from the land of my fathers—above it the
tattered standard I had rescued in the last skirmish
of the cavaliers from a stern fanatic, who
lost his trophy and his life together!—and there,
upon the oaken trivet, with its crimson velvet
binding and its clasps of massive silver—there lay
my mother's Bible! Dreamily, and as yet but
half-awakened, I surveyed these familiar objects
with that indefinite sense of pleasure which attaches
to the humblest abode we have hallowed
with the name of home; when suddenly a brighter
gleam shot through an opening of the ill-adjusted
curtain, and fell in a line of rich lustre on the opposite
wall; my eye, as it became accustomed to the
increase of light, followed the moving beam. It
rested on a picture—a bright, glorious, almost
breathing portrait—it was the portrait of my
mother. Oh, what a charm there dwells about
that holiest of names—a mother! The pale and
somewhat melancholy face, the dark and liquid
eye, the braided hair, the faded flowers in the hand,
—it was the same dear picture which I had compared
a thousand times with the still more dear
original, rendered, as it were, immortal by the rich
pencil and unfading colours of Antonio Vandyke.
Before I had found time to wonder at its being
there, fresh cause for wonderment flashed on me;
for, below the picture, there lay extended on the
oaken floor a superb English bloodhound—of enormous
size and muscle, jet-black, except a tawny
spot on either side his brow, and a broad patch
of the same hue upon his chest; his head was
couched between his lion-like paws, which themselves
were half-concealed by the long sweeping
ears that marked his breed. Faint as I was and
feeble, I recognised the noble brute at once—old
Hector, the choicest leader of my father's staghounds.
I made an effort to arise, still doubtful
whether the objects before me were not the coinage
of my distempered fancy; but hardly had I
set my foot on the uncarpeted floor, before a
strange sense of sickness seized me—my head
grew dizzy—my eyes swam round, and were obscured.
I had misjudged my own powers, and
the weakness still remaining upon me, after the
fever which had given it birth had departed,
conquered both mind and body—I had fainted.

I did not, however, on this occasion continue
senseless for any length of time; the last sound
which caught my ears, ere my mind was utterly
bewildered, was a slight rustle, as of a person
rising, from a more distant corner of the chamber,
to which my attention had not as yet been called;
and although my subsequent dizziness prevented
me from discovering the figure of him who had
caused the noise, I did not on that account the
less profit by his exertions in my behalf.

It was but a moment ere I became sensible of a
grateful coolness on my brow, and of a strong aromatic
perfume; then I felt the pressure of a hand,
which, though hard in its texture, yet moved tenderly
over me, trembling as it were with the exertions
it made to be more delicate and gentle than
nature had intended, as it chafed my hands and
bathed my burning temples. Just as I was becoming
fully master of myself, though my eyes
were still closed, a long low whine rose upon my
ear, accompanied by the peculiar sound of a dog's
tail striking the floor as it is wagged heavily to
and fro in some strong emotion of the animal. At

once I raised my head, and saw—although I could
not for a while believe my senses—the face of
one whom I had long considered as numbered
with the dead—whom I had seen borne out of his
saddle and trodden down, as I imagined, beneath
the hoofs of a routed army—an old and faithful,
though an humble friend—my father's foster-brother,
and my own most trusty follower—old Martin
Lydford! Years have now passed away since
that hour of recognition—years have passed away
since I laid his bones beneath the very yew-tree
which he himself had designated—in the remote
and rural churchyard of his English birthplace;
yet never have I ceased to bear the old man's
countenance engraved on the very tablets of my
heart, as when it met my bewildered gaze on that
unforgotten morning. He was an aged man even
then, though many years younger than his patrician
foster-brother: his hair and heavy eyebrows,
as well as the thick short mustache upon
his upper-lip, were white as the driven snow;
though his strong decided features were still richly
coloured with the hale and healthful tints that
might have well beseemed a man some dozen
years his junior. Pleasure and anxiety were
struggling for the mastery in his lineaments; but
when he perceived that I had recognised him, the
more powerful emotion conquered; the firm muscles
about his mouth worked convulsively. I could
see his bare neck swell and choke, as it were, with
the violence of his struggles to repress the exhibition
of feelings which his habitual self-restraint
had taught him to hold womanish and trifling: but
it would not do; the big tears gushed thick and
scalding from his aged eyelids, he threw his arms
about my neck, and as his gray head sunk upon
my shoulder, he lifted up his voice—to use the
simple and affecting words of Holy Writ—he lifted
up his voice, and wept!

“My master,” he sobbed out at length, “my
dear, dear master—have I then found you once
again? Never—oh never will I quit you more!
Promise me—promise your old faithful follower,
that he shall never quit you. Old I am, indeed,
and wellnigh worthless; yet well, I wot, can love
and prompt devotion supply the place of strength—
ay, and of youth itself. Let me but be about your
person, and I will bear your banner in the field,
where greener limbs and hotter hearts would flinch
from charging. Never did vassal follow lord as I
will follow thee; never did woman wait upon her
lover's eye as I will wait on thine, my master and
my son!”

Weak as I was from the effects of my long confinement,
the old man's vehemence, and the violent
excitement it produced on my shattered nerves,
were almost overpowering. I sunk back upon my
pillow exhausted for the moment, but with a calm
and painless exhaustion.

“Fool, fool that I am!” he cried, “I have slain
him with my madness.”

“Fear not, Good Martin—fear not,” I faltered
forth—“I shall be well anon—'tis nothing.”

But the sudden revulsion had been, in truth, too
much for me, and, despite the utmost attentions of
the old man, I again relapsed into insensibility;
nor did I awaken from it till the blood was flowing
freely from a vein which had been opened in my
unwounded arm. As I was gradually returning
to my senses, I saw, through my half-closed eyelids,
a tall figure standing beside my pallet, supporting
in one hand my arm, while with the other
he replaced the lancet he had just been using in a
small case at his belt. His features were strange
to me, but, by his dress and accountrements, exhibiting
a ludicrous blending of the mediciner and martialist—the
boots, cuirass, and long rapier dangling
from his thigh belonging as clearly to the latter, as
did the dark uncurled periwig, broad linen band,
and chirurgical apparatus to the former, character

—I knew him at once for the surgeon of the regiment.
Around him were collected a group of
noble-looking men, all clad in the half-armour of
the day, and wearing the scarfs of white and gold
which had been assumed by the court-faction, in
opposition to the blue colours of the Frondeurs.
In several of these I recognised familiar faces; but
it was with absolute astonishment that I discovered
in the principal personage no less a character than
our general-in-chief—the gallant Prince of Condé.

“Good, good!” were the first words I heard
uttered by the strange figure at my side—“he revives;
the danger is past, and in another week,
your highness, we will set this gallant in the
saddle.”

“Pray God you may—pray God you may,” replied
the prince, “for we are short of men and
officers already; and if this news be true, that
Turenne has declared against us—and if he march
to aid these cursed Frondeurs, as they say he will,
with twenty thousand Switzers from the Rhine—
ay, or with half the number—we shall be hardly
set to hold our own. Besides, De Charmi tells us
wonders of this Mornington—a pupil of hot-headed
Rupert, and better than his tutor in a charge.
Tête gris, we have no such overstock of leaders
that we can spare a good one; but, silence!—he

awakes! How fare you, sir?” he continued, perceiving
that I looked about me; “how fare you
now? We thank you for your gallantry, young
sir, and shall rejoice to see you once again at the
head of those brave fellows you have brought up
to us so happily.”

“I hear your highness's words,” I answered,
“but hardly catch their meaning. Am I then at
St. Germains—and are the troops come up? Methinks
I led them not—I pray your pardon—but
I am somewhat forgetful!”

“You are, sir, at St. Germains—for which we
thank your valour and your skill. What you had
so successfully begun, De Charmi as successfully
accomplished—your division is attached to our
command. You must recover quickly—once more
on foot, and we shall find you work enough to warm
you! And now, sir, we shall leave you—Monsieur
le Médecin here frowns on us even now for trespassing
so long on his dominion. To horse, fair
sirs, to horse—and let us see if Noirmoutier will
drive us, as he boasts to have done yesterday.
Allons! to horse!”

And with his glittering cortège the gay prince
passed onward, equally prepared to fight or to intrigue,
in that strange spirit of levity which was
no less the characteristic of these civil wars of

France than stern fanaticism had been that of the
more sanguinary struggles in my native land.
The surgeon lingered behind for a moment to
whisper some directions to old Martin, who, with
affectionate pertinacity, had constituted himself at
once my squire of the body and sick-nurse—poured
some dark-coloured fluid into a goblet of tisanne
which stood beside my pillow—pressed my hand
with an assurance that I should be a new man on
the morrow, and left the chamber. I could hear
the scabbard of his rapier rattling on every step as
he descended, and the clatter of his horse's hoofs
as he galloped away to join the general and his
mercurial train, probably with the avowed intention
of balancing the cure of one wounded man by
putting a dozen others hors de combat. After they
had all departed, my head at once became more
clear—my memory of events returned in nearly
its accustomed power, and with my memory an
all-engrossing desire to learn my fate—the fate of
Isabel.

“Martin,” I whispered, in a low hoarse note,
“come hither! I know that they have charged
you to keep me in ignorance and in quiet; but
I—I charge you, by the love you bear me—as you
would wish to see brighter and better days in company
with me—I charge you, tell me all! How

came I hither?—how long since?—where is the
Lady Isabel?”

“God be merciful to him!” I heard the old man
mutter to himself; “the fit is on him again; the
fever has settled on his brain.”

I saw at once that he knew nothing of what had
passed—I saw at once that Isabel was lost to me.
Yet, sudden as was the shock, I was calm—I was
determined to be calm—I was determined to live—
to recover speedily, that speedily I might devote
myself to the rescue of her for whom alone I cared
to live at all.

“You think me mad,” I continued, after a moment's
pause, and in more composed and natural
tones; “but it is not so. Listen to my words attentively,
and fulfil my bidding! Nay,” I cried,
with a raised voice, as I saw him about to interrupt
me with some trite caution—“nay, I will
speak! I have been ill!—I know it—desperately
ill, and wellnigh frantic!—but now my pulse is
steady, my head cool, my senses perfect. I see
my mother's picture, which you, I know not how,
must have brought hither—I see old Hector, who
has likewise followed you; lastly, I see and know
yourself, whom I have long thought dead—my
oldest, my truest, and my only friend! Judge
now if I be mad, or fever-stricken. You know

that I am neither. Then choose whether to obey my
bidding, and to be, what I have ever deemed you,
my second father, or to give up the man whom you
have followed from his childhood upward—to betray
me, at my utmost need, to utter misery—
hopeless despair!”

“Say not—oh, say not,” he cried, “such heart-rending
words! Obey? I will obey you to the
death! To your death and mine own I will obey
you—doubt me not, only doubt me not, and I will
obey you ever—ever!”

“Then hear me—I am wedded—wedded, though
none know it but the priests who made us one—
and He from whom naught can be hidden. I was
compelled to leave her, while I went on this accursed
mission—I returned—I found them tearing
her from the asylum to which she was committed.
I fell, pierced with these fatal wounds—I know no
more! Whether she be lost to me for ever—immured
from my love in that dark prison-house,
from which no mortal arm can win her; or
severed from me by the violence of ruffians, from
whose power my own good blade may rescue her—
I know not—but I will know—though all the leeches
—all the monarchs upon earth forbid it! I must
know, and shortly; or madness will relieve my
misery! Speak out, old man, and truly: hast thou

heard aught, or canst conjecture aught of this? I
charge thee speak!”

“Nothing—be Heaven my witness—nothing!”

“Thou knowest De Charmi—him who, I doubt
not, bore me hither—hath he said naught—nor
hinted?—what, nothing?—Go, then, and speedily
—tell him that I would speak with him this night—
this very night—let him not say thee nay!—tell
him, an he refuse, that he shall pay the penalty of
his refusal, on the same hour that Harry Mornington
shall leave the bed of sickness! And, hark thee—
seek out the subaltern who was about my person
on that accursed night—do this—speedily do this,
and secretly—so wilt thou perform more to further
my well-being than all the leeches in the universe.
Away!—but hold—give me to drink—I will
lie down and try to sleep—so shall my mind be
keener and my body stronger, when they have
room for action!”

He handed the goblet to my grasp—and, with
the thirst of lingering fever and of strong excitement,
I drained it to the very dregs. It must
have contained some powerful and soothing opiate;
for scarcely had I removed it from my lips, before
a strange voluptuous dizziness seemed to steep all
my senses in forgetfulness. First I lost my sorrows
and my fierce anxiety; then I sunk into a

sweet dreamy state of happiness—a rich confusion
of luxurious thoughts and blissful fantasies—my
ears were filled, as it seemed, even to intoxication,
with angelic harmonies; my nostrils with super-human
perfumes; my vision was bathed in a flood
of lustrous but undazzling radiance: one by one
these delicious sensations seemed to glide away
from me, yet left no void behind—all vanished,
and I was buried, for the first time in many days,
in the deep repose of unconscious and oblivious
slumber.