University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

Edgeworth.

I SAID that we conquered, and so in truth we
did; but, so desperate was the resistance of the
enemy, so strong his disposition to rally on every
vantage-ground, and so evident his unwillingness
to be dispossessed of the position from which he
had been forced only at the sword's point, that
not until a very late hour in the evening was
I permitted to sheath my weapon and turn my
horse's head homeward. Indeed, I observed more
than once, after I had joined D'Harcourt's division,

subsequently to the retreat of the duke, a strange
pertinacity in his manner of directing me to lead
the cavalry against remote points, and a heartless
unwillingness to suffer me to return to the camp,
although I felt assured that he must have gathered
something of the causes which existed, independent
of two or three undressed scratches, to render
me anxious and eager to hear the sounds of the
recall. At about six in the afternoon, his trumpet
sounded to collect the infantry, some of whom had
pressed too hotly forward in pursuit: but my toils
were not ended; and it was not till nearly eight
of the clock that I assumed the responsibility of
drawing off my two regiments of cavalry, leaving
Lorraine in full and direct retreat upon Maubeuge.
This I should have done, had I attended
to the promptings of my hot blood, some hours
before, and had I not been conscious of having
already, in several points, stretched my military
powers to the utmost, in order to render them subservient
to my own purposes. I was, moreover,
aware that I had in D'Harcourt a jealous and
observant enemy; one who would not hesitate to
do me the last disservice with Mazarin or Condé,
should he find a fitting chance; and who had
already, as I well believed, sought for such an
opportunity in hinting at the necessity of my leaving
the field, as a consequence of the trivial wounds
I had received in the commencement of the action.

It was therefore with a constancy of purpose,
which I confess myself to have estimated at the
time as scarcely inferior to Roman self-denial, that
I checked every rising murmur, every expression
of dissatisfaction, at the needlessly protracted requisition
for my services. So well, indeed, did I
succeed in assuming the guise of frank and fearless
alacrity, that I had a speedy opportunity of
gaining a slight confirmation of my suspicions from
the evident chagrin of the commander at my self-possession
and activity; nay, I am almost convinced
that he hoped to force me by his unreasonable
commands into open mutiny! Nor was he,
indeed, without cause both to fear and hate me.
He knew that it was in my power, and probably
doubted not that it was in my purpose, to expose his
obstinacy and false measures, while in the trenches
at Cambrai. He further knew that his escape from
the archduke then, and his brilliant victory now,
were owing—the first entirely, and the latter in a
high degree—to my advice and action. I was
determined, therefore, that, cost me what it might
to keep down my almost choking passions, I would
not now mar my bright hopes in the very moment
of fruition; that I would not, by a childish eagerness

to snatch the prize too soon, suffer it again to
be dashed untasted from my lip: and, although I
say it of myself, I do feel that it was no slight victory
of principle over impulse in a man situated
as I then was, to plod along in the dull and hard
routine of duty.

It was not only love—burning, passionate love
—that urged me at every instant to defy the hoary
dotard, and to gallop back on the spur to our
encampment, but doubt and agonizing anxiety.
Probable it was—indeed most probable—that Isabel
had reached the camp in safety; no force,
that I had heard of, lay in the direction I had
indicated—the men whom I had ordered to protect
her person with their lives were bold and
often-tried adherents. Still, what lover ever paused
to reckon probabilities? It was enough that she
might have again been carried off, that the villain
Chateaufort, whose power and malignity, so
long as he should draw the breath of life, I had
learned almost to fear, that he who had so often
stricken at the root of my heart's happiness, might
have again effected his own escape and my utter
ruin.

Never, in the whole course of my life, before or
since, have I endured a tenth part of the torments
which I felt that day. While the period of my

happiness was seen but in a dim perspective, I
could philosophize, I could be tame and patient, as
the old and feeble-minded, who dignify their want
of energy to do or to resist by the high name of
patience. But now, now, with the cup actually
courting my grasp, to be unable to secure it—to
feel that a thousand thirsty enemies might be even
now winning it from my uncertain hold; to think
that I might well return home full of ardent hope
and joyous expectation; to find the home desolate—
the hope but a dream—the expectation frustrated,
and for ever! To endure all this, as I endured it,
manfully and without repining, is indeed a task
which none could hope to execute, but those
who have by long self-discipline rendered their
passions the ministers, the slaves, the weapons of
their intellect. I felt that by delay I might—by
precipitation I must lose her; and for once, if my
calculations were sound, they were also fortunate.

It was, as I have said, wellnigh eight of the
clock when, drawing off my regiments, I mounted
a fresh horse, the third I had tired out since the
dawn, and galloped at a furious rate across the
now lonely battle-field.

It is a mournful, ay, and a self-debasing sight, a
recent battle-field. The cold and senseless dead—
charger, and he who reined him—outstretched side

by side, in the long sleep that knows no earthly
waking! The miserable wounded wretches,
groaning and struggling in their great agony!
The very instruments of music, and the standards,
that lent their paltry aid to make this havoc wear
a glorious seeming, broken and voiceless, torn
and gory! The very weapons, mute ministers of
all this carnage, still reeking with that red witness,
though no longer wielded by the strong hand, at
the bidding of the high heart! If a man can look
unmoved on such a sight, assisted by the consciousness
that he himself has edged the blade of the
immortal Azrael,—that his intellect has been perverted,
his hand turned aside from its legitimate
purposes of benevolence and mutual good,
to the destruction, the temporal, ay, and perchance
the eternal destruction of his fellow-sinners—if
he can look upon this sight, can grapple with this
thought, and doing so feel nothing, or feel proud,
he is no man! Oh, conquerors! conquerors! ye
have been called the scourges of a God; but it
is at the instigation of a DEVIL!

As I rode fiercely across the weltering field,
such were my self-accusing reveries, I felt the sin
of murder on my soul. For what had I or mine
of accusation against these, that I should wield the
blade of extermination, weaponing, as it were, the

will of others against men innocent to me! I felt
as though some deep and sudden desolation would
be hurled upon my head for the deed. I fancied,
in the feeble wailings that loaded the slaughter-tainted
air, the muttering of the vengeful thunder!
“Never, never again,” I cried aloud, in the vehemence
of my over-excited spirit—“never again, O
Sword! shalt thou leap from thy scabbard, save to
do battle for the feeble, and to strike against the
tyrant! Never shalt thou blaze in the van of
battle, unless it be on English ground, and in the
cause of England! Thy fight is fought; thy prize
is won! Grant it—oh grant it, Thou whom I have
on this day so grievously offended—grant it, Eternal
Ruler and Creator, that not in HER I may be
punished for this foul commission!”

“Stand, ho! Stand, or I shoot!” I was interrupted
in my wild soliloquy by the fierce challenge
of a sleepy sentinel, and the rattle of his
heavy arquebuse, as he levelled it upon the rest.

“A friend, ho! A friend and officer. The
word is Victory. Good-night!” And, without
checking or swerving from my gallop, I dashed
past the astounded soldier without heeding the
salute with which he atoned for the abruptness of
his challenge. But the incident brought down my
spirit from its soarings, to that which was immediately

before me, without shrinking from or shunning
the thoughts that had suggested themselves.
I soon was able to appease them by the reflection
that, if the victims were innocent of individual
wrong, they were not so in lending themselves as
tools and instruments of havoc to the guilty great,
to the ambitious and needy adventurer—that rebellion
against a lawful ruler, and without a lawful
cause, is sin—that I, whatever might be the morbid
self-accusations of the moment, had been striving
in the cause which I deemed honest; and was,
if guilty, guilty of misapprehension only, not of
stubbornness or wilful wrong.

The scene, too, harmonized with my change
of feeling; it was now bright and pleasant. The
month was that sweetest of the year, young
April; and as the winter had been of unusual
severity and gloom, so had the opening of the
spring been early and most genial. The woods
were bursting into the tender verdure peculiar
to the season; the herbage was already deep
and richly fragrant. The country through which
I rode was undulating, and of exceeding beauty;
and over all a brilliant moon was pouring that
flood of sweet and tranquil lustre which, so much
lovelier than the glare of the pervading daylight,
softens every asperity of nature, and, making

its very shadows soft and hazy, acts as a gauzy
veil to the features of a faded beauty, concealing
all that is unlovely, and charming the eye in proportion
as it excites the fancy.

No painter's glance or poet's heart could have
selected a more lovely or romantic spot than that
which chance had selected for our rude encampment.
It was a long and gentle hill, subsiding
greenly and softly into a wide stretch of fertile
meadow-land, through which a broad rivulet lingered,
as though its nymph were enamoured of
some neighbouring faun or sylvan, and were therefore
loath to quit his beautiful abodes. A shadowy
wood on either hand, and frequent clumps of forest-trees—still
bare and leafless, or at the most in early
bud, but interspersed with the fresh foliage of the
willow and the hazel—spotting the hill-side, gave a
park-like air to the untrimmed scenery. Along the
summit of the hill, and through the imperfect
screen of the woodland, hundreds of white tents
were glimmering in the moonlight; while here and
there the rays flashed back in keen reflection from
the armour of some passing sentinel, or were contrasted
by the ruddy glow of some terrestrial fire.
The sounds, too, which floated on the night-air,
were blended and harmonized into sweetness by
the effect of distance; the hum of conversation,

the merry laugh, the quaint song of the campaigner—hoarse,
doubtless, and indelicate upon a
nearer hearing—came pleasantly on the ear, and
were mingled with the hooting of the owls, crying
to each other, like answered sentinels, from their
wind-rocked fortresses; and with the remoter barking
of the household dog.

It is the peculiarity of such a scene and time to
soften and subdue the soul, to win it from the storm
and strife of humanity, to attune it to holier
thoughts, to render it pensive, affectionate, and
melancholy; and, if its effects upon my spirit were
not precisely these, they were not, at least, widely
or incongruously different. From bitter anxiety
concerning the future, and jealous doubtings of my
own purity of deed and purpose, I fell into a confiding
and a peaceful mood of hope! I slackened
my pace; not that I was less eager to join my
loved one, but that the rush of the horse, the current
of air created by his speed, the very sounds of
his swift motion, were painful and uncongenial.
Still, I did not, as may be well believed, linger or
hesitate upon the road; and, as I began to ascend
the first pitch of the hill, I struck into a light canter,
that brought me speedily to one of the entrances
in the breastwork nearest to my pavilion,
and guarded by the faithful Switzers of D'Erlach.

I did not pause to enter into converse with the officer
of the night, beyond the exchange of military
watch-words, but rode at once in the direction of
my quarters, while again I became anxious almost
to suffocation. I felt as though every vein in my
body was filled to bursting, as though every pore
were alive, and tingling with fierce excitement.
Again I drove the spurs into my horse's flank,
and dashed forward, flinging the cut turf far behind
me; and startling the carousers round many
a watch-fire as I careered along, resolved on gaining
an instant solution to my hopes or terrors.

I reached my tent; with mere anxiety I trembled
to a degree which to describe would be absurd and
useless. All was silent and dark; not so much as a
groom was there to receive my horse, or a sentinel
pacing his nightly rounds. I sprang from the saddle,
secured the reins of my charger to the stem of
a young oak-tree, which grew before the entrance
of my pavilion, and, with a staggering and uncertain
gait, as of one under the influence of wine, I
reeled into my dwelling-place. It was a plain
campaigner's tent, merely affording a shelter from
the inclemency of winter, and almost wholly unprovided
with the comforts even of a soldier's life.
It was, however, divided into two compartments;

the outer of which I had allotted to my faithful
adherent, while retaining the inner chamber, if it
may so be called, for my own purposes.

As I rushed through the opening which served
for a door, the first object that caught my eye was
the form of Lydford, leaning in an erect position
against the tent-pole, but buried in the deepest
slumber. The ghastly light of a lantern, kindled,
as it would seem, in order to furnish a light for the
match of the heavy arquebuse which he still grasped,
as though he were a sentinel on duty, flickered
over his snowy hair, bronzed features, and glittering
armour; while the regular and heavy breathings
of the veteran showed that his present sleep
was but an involuntary tribute rendered by the
spirit to over-wearied and exhausted nature. Somewhat
reassured by this sight—for it was evident
that the old man had posted himself there to secure
the privacy or safety of some inmate, until my return,
although his strength had been inferior to the
task—somewhat reassured in spirit, and relieved
from my wild doubts, I stole into the interior of
the tent. Before me was a picture that would
have tasked and been superior to the powers of
the mightiest master that ever limned the human
form divine. Through a wide aperture in the
canvass roof the calm soft moonlight streamed

down gloriously, filling the small apartment with
a sweet and mellow radiance; but it was upon
my pallet-bed that the broadest pensile of light
was flung, and upon the calm angelic features of
her who lay there, forgetful of all her sufferings,
of all her sorrows. She was dressed, as I had
seen her on that morning, in a plain robe of spotless
white, the close corsage splendidly setting
forth the symmetry of her person, and the long
train falling carelessly over the edge of the couch.
There was, however, one guardian, one vigilant
and faithful guardian, watching over the safety of
her whom he had so much contributed to rescue—
the bloodhound Hector. Erect upon his haunches,
he sat beside the bed, his head reaching far above
the level of the pillow on which Isabel reposed,
and his bright eyes glancing in the moonlight like
coals of fire, as he rolled them to and fro in search
of foeman or intruder. It was indeed a lovely
group. Her beautifully chiselled features; the
snowy lids closed, and the long lashes pencilling
her pallid but transparent cheek; the profusion of
sunny hair—freed from the restraint of the novicial
head-dress which they had compelled her to assume,
and which now lay beneath my feet—glancing
like threads of gold among its own dark shadows;
her bosom rising and falling in the deep security
of innocence; and, above all, that still and almost
terrible expression, that absence of all intellectual
expression, that likeness to a longer and a colder
sleep, which has often pressed so chillingly on my
heart, while gazing on the slumbering countenance
of one I love. Her left hand fell easily across her
lap, and the right was cast around the muscular
and shaggy neck of the dark hound, as though she
had sunk into repose while in the act of caressing
her canine preserver.

There has always been to me a reluctance,
almost a fear, to awaken any person, even a child,
from placid and sweet-seeming slumber. Like
taking mortal life, it is the destroying of that which,
with all his glorious intellect, all his sublime endurance,
all his godlike intellect, man never can
restore! It is the breaking of a dam, behind whose
happy barriers the wild mill-stream of human
thoughts and actions is suffered for a while to
linger in unvexed and motionless tranquillity! It
is the calling forth of the spirit from total absence
of volition, from the insensibility of wo, or, perhaps,
from the abysses of imagined happiness, to
care, and toil, and sorrow, to the blending of all
that is most sweet and most bitter, most low and
most sublime, most vicious or degraded, and most

high and holy, to that blending which men call
life!

We know not, we never shall know, what bright
hopes we may have severed, what pleasing visions
we may have interrupted; visions a thousand times
fairer than reality! We know not whether we
may have cut short the converse of the sainted
mother, come from the land of the departed to
pour strange teachings into the ears of that sleeping
child, whom she no longer meets, save thus in
the still midnight! We know not whether aught
that we can offer can equal, nay, compare with, the
imaginary luxuries of that state, which a single
touch of ours, a word, a kiss, a breath more deeply
drawn than common, will scatter to the winds of
heaven!

Always, from my childhood upward, have I
felt thus; always have I loved, yet feared, to gaze
upon the calm unruffled sleeper—always have I
shunned to sever those mysterious chains. And
never, perhaps, were these sensations more vivid
in my breast than now, as I stood watching, no
longer in anxiety or bitterness, but in hope and
rapture, till the time would come when she, who
was my world, should raise her curtained lids and
know me. Nor was it on myself alone that this

strange influence was manifest; the very dog, the
dumb irrational dog, ever wont to greet my coming
by his joyous yelpings and his high bounds into the
air, now sat as quietly by the couch-side as though
he knew that his slightest motion must arouse the
lovely creature over whose rest he, and he only,
had watched in self-denying faithfulness. Only by
a slight motion of his feathery tail, and by a bland
and smiling expression of his up-turned eye, did he
now indicate his joy at my approach; and as I
stood gazing on the lineaments of my long-lost
bride, he also turned his head, as though he too
felt pleasure in the sight.

Long I stood motionless, and holding in my
very breath, lest it should arouse her, though at
the same time I would have given worlds, had I
possessed them, that she might be awakened. But
longer might I have stood watching, had not a
single motion of the sleeper decided me. I saw a
bright beaming smile steal gradually over those fair
features, animating them as does the first ray of
sunlight the face of nature, meaningless before and
dull. Her lips parted, and in accents of the most
silvery music, she murmured forth my name. I
could contain myself no longer. Respectfully, purely
as I would bend before the shrine of my patron
saint, I bowed over the low pallet; lightly I

touched her lips with mine—lightly as the dew
falls upon the flower; yet she sprang from her
trance as though the sovereign thunder had rolled
above us!

“Harry!” she cried, recognising me at a glance;
“beloved Harry, is it—is it indeed you?”

“My own, own angel!” I clasped her to my
heart; her arms were about my neck; our bosoms
beat together; our lips were mingled in one first
long delicious kiss. If ever the rapture of a moment
may repay the misery of months or years, it
is of a moment such as this.

Side by side we sat for hours, my arm encompassing
her fairy waist, her head, with all its unbound
tresses, leaning upon my iron shoulder.
We had no note of time—no care for persons.
We were united—united, as we trusted, never
again to part! And what—oh what did it reck
us of the strife of monarchs or the fate of empires!
Our monarch was the bright imbodyment of old
Praxiteles, the Grecian Eros of unmingled beauty;
our empire—with all its mine of treasures, all its
unfathomed depths—our empire was the heart—
the human heart.

But as there is nothing permanent here—nothing
enduring, nothing that hath not its appointed end—
so was our dream of love brought to its conclusion

—suddenly and rudely snapped asunder. There
was a clatter of armed footsteps in the vestibule
—a dash of weapons, and the jarring tone of
angry voices. I heard old Lydford's mingling
fiercely with the tumult. “Fear nothing, sweetest
one,” I cried; “I will return to you upon the instant.
For my sake, fear nothing, Isabel.”

“Let me then follow: for without you I fear all
and every thing; but with you nothing!”

But the brawl grew louder, and I caught the
dull sound of a blow!

“It cannot be, beloved. I must forth, and alone!
but in ten seconds' space I will return. Bless
you—adieu!”

I snatched my sheathed rapier from the table,
and, placing it under my arm, rushed forth. The
faithful hound gazed wistfully after me with a
short surly growl, but never offered to move from
the feet of Isabel, to whom he had attached himself,
as if knowing that his master valued her at a rate
a thousand times higher than the universe, with all
that it contained.