University of Virginia Library

4. IV.
THE WINE-CELLAR.

SIR ROHAN was awakened at morning by the
sound of gay voices on the lawn so long
consecrated to silence, and so frequently the
battle-ground of the Ghost.

Having performed an unusually elaborate toilet,
he paused at an open balcony window in the upper
hall, and looked out. The lawn was not
large, but, after descending a few terraces, quite
even, green, and bordered with azalia-bushes,
snowy camellias, purple rhododendrons in their
glory, and, where the full wealth of a southern
sun lay, a few superb ferns and rosy oleanders;
the whole enclosed and sheltered from the Atlantic
blasts by mighty firs, dropping their boughs
with rings of shadow low upon the sward. A
grape-vine clambered from branch to branch of
these, weaving a natural trellis, and hanging

great bunches of dewy beryl and emerald on the
sombre green of its support. Here Sir Rohan
had spent the prime of many mornings, striving
to weary thought and seeking inspiration for
his work while training blossom and tending
root; and here the Ghost had always followed
him, at first with gentle enticing and sad blandishments,
and then with sudden intimations of
terror and the whole armory of her ghastly
array. Now, near the foot of the lawn, Miriam,
having twisted a wreath of the flaming azalias
in her black hair one long lock of which already
streamed over her white dress, was throwing
clusters of the unused blossoms at St. Denys,
who repaid her warmly, while after every missile
she tossed a laugh. Just as she had raised her
hands both of them full of the blazing flowers, a
sudden exclamation from St. Denys checked her,
and turning swiftly, she saw Sir Rohan at the window
above. Slightly abashed at proving herself
a romp before this grave, quiet man, she dropped
half her trophies and stood irresolute a second,
winding the loose tress about her fingers; then,
glancing up, she laughed again, threw the remainder
of her brilliant store at Sir Rohan, and
spreading her dress in either hand, swept him a
broad courtesy.

How the face changes, thought Sir Rohan.
What variety of expression! It is like a star
on troubled waters when the tide comes in.
“St. Denys deserves the happiness he finds in
his child,” he said, and returning her greeting,
he soon joined them at the table.

After breakfast, St. Denys determining to
walk to the post-town, Sir Rohan, wrapped in
a long cloak, the invariable garb of his wanderings,
accompanied him, — leaving Miriam, as she
desired, in the tumult caused by the disarray
of the drawing-room; where, on returning a
few hours later, they found her, still revelling
in the confusion, in close communion with Mrs.
Redruth, and a bosom friend of half the maids.
All the shutters were open, and floods of unwonted
sunshine filled the room till every mote
was alchemized to gold.

“Another Danaë!” said Sir Rohan, as she stood
surrounded and transfigured in the radiance.

“A very dusty Jove,” returned St. Denys. “It
is the way of womankind, however, sir. Since
they cannot revenge their wrongs by conquering

and routing us from the face of creation, they
wreak the exuberant spite on every unfortunate
speck and grain of the grand primal element,
dirt, in their domains; and an atmospherical
stampede of dust, like the present, is their delight.
A savage onslaught on the unpleasant
material supposed to have entered into the composition
of man is instinct in the feminine nature!”

“And all the people shall say Amen,” said
Miriam, soberly.

“I thought you had important affairs to detain
you, young woman.”

“So I had, papa. How could one go out
when the noise and bustle inside had such attractions?
And besides — ”

“Besides what?”

“I wanted to make friends with some women,”
after a pause and coaxingly.

“And have you succeeded?”

“Yes.”

“By a primitive Freemasonry. And have you
had enough housework?”

“Not quite, papa.”

“Satisfy yourself, by all means. I shall lie

down, and as we ride this afternoon, perhaps
two more strokes of a besom and one fling of a
duster will be sufficient stimuli for a heartier banquet
of scrubbing-brushes and mops, by and by.”

“Take care, papa,” she cried, sweeping threateningly
down upon them. “The first stroke
besoms you and Sir Rohan where the other
nuisances go!” Upon which the two gentlemen
beat a cowardly retreat, St. Denys to his apartment
and Sir Rohan to his painting.

Shortly before luncheon, Mr. Redruth passed
through the hall, with a large key in his hand.

“Where are you going, Mr. Redruth?” sang
Miriam.

“To the wine-cellar, my lady.”

“I am not my lady, remember. But may I
go with you?” And without pausing for a reply,
she followed him.

“It is a place hardly fit for ladies — ”

“As fit for ladies as gentlemen,” she retorted.
“Is it so very much worse than the rest of the
house?”

“Ah, Miss, it is a sad, sad house,” said the
old man, shaking his head. A sudden disposition

to inquire about Sir Rohan seized Miriam, but,
a nice honor restraining her, she followed Redruth
silently along various steps and passages,
till he unlocked a door at the head of one last
flight, lighted a candle, and went down. Here,
also, great cobwebs hung in flaunting sheets, the
dampness had generated a blue mould upon the
narrow walls of the stairway, and large fungi
grew rankly in the interstices of the flags. As
they proceeded, the roof vaulted above in massive
arches hewn from the rock, with broad groins
and a single row of immense pillars; they were
under the main foundation of the house. Here
lay a pile of broken bottles; there, a heap of
puff-balls that Redruth had torn yesterday from
the path; further along, the walls gave back a
frosty glisten to the rush-light, covered as they
were with crystalline incrustations that seemed
to have exuded from the rock and settled from
the air; and in the last recesses, behind doors
heavy with chains, were bins full of curiously-shaped
flasks bearing fantastic seals; and great
casks, piled one upon another, whose heads, once
cabalistically labelled in redolent warehouses, were
now netted and wreathed in the dusty gossamer
of the spider. It was a new place to Miriam,
for in her well-ordered home she had never
sought, nor would have found, one similar. If
she had thought at all about it, she had fancied
the wine on St. Denys's table was supplied in
much the same manner as the three fish always
to be found in St. Neot's well, or as some modern
magician draws finest liquors from walls and
tables where none ever existed before, and where
we may suppose no great provision remains. On
one side, in among the rarest Medoc, were hoards
of claret that had long lost its mingled flavor
and lay lifeless in dingy sarcophagi; while its
fragrant kindred, exquisite Château Margaux,
delicatest St. Emilion, and sweet wine of Roses
from the Abbey of Ile, gathered a softer fire
and richer purple in slumbering through the
slow feuilles of their balmy dreams. Not far
away lay the treasures of the Côte d'Or, and
of Champagne.

“All these, Sir Rohan laid in nearly twenty
years ago,” said Redruth, “but they are losing
now. Will you try them, Miss Miriam?”

“I came down to see, not to taste,” she answered.

“Here is the most perfect wine in the world!”
he said, drawing a bottle from its layer of white
sand. “At least, they say it is. I 'll show you
one, soon, far finer, to my fancy. Yet none but
that can equal the softness and strength of this.
How racy it is, clearing the heart like a laugh,
and yet how light, never leaving a fume in the
brain; vinous, too, as if the very life and soul
of the grape had been expressed into each vintage,
and the vine would never blossom again.
So full of perfume is it, that I wonder so small
a space should contain such exhaustless odors,
and half believe, at each bottle I uncork, that
the King, upon his throne hundreds of miles
away, will scent it slipping along the wind, and
demand it! And what a crimson stain it has
in the glass! — a glass as thin as air you should
drink it from, Miss Miriam. If I were one of
the heathen gods, I would turn the great hollow
heavens into a drinking-cup, and wringing it full
of the juices of the Côte d'Or, would sip and
sleep through eternities.”

“Perhaps that is what one of the Indian gods
does do, — I think they call him Brahma,” said
Miriam. “But I 've read that the ancients

drank from murrhine cups, which shed an almost
imperceptible fragrance through the draught.”

“Ah! and these same ancients, I 've heard
say, worshipped something called Bacchus. The
poor things, I suppose, had never heard of Burgundy.”

“Is that the name of this wine, Mr. Redruth?”
asked Miriam, touching the little bundle of virtues
daintily with her finger.

“That is one name, just as all the imperial
family have a family name; but the Emperor
himself has a name separate, and this is a very
pretty one, — it is called Romanée Conti.”

“All your wines have pretty names, I think.
Do you know any that have n't?”

“Let me see. There is Schloss Johannisberger;
that 's not so pretty.”

“I don't know. Schloss is as pleasant as
Castle, and the syllables jingle well. Yes, I
think that is.”

“There 's Marcobrunner — Montefiascone —
Amontillado.”

“No, indeed, Mr. Redruth, they are as musical
as brooks.”

“O, there 's Szeghi, a Tokay liqueur.”

“And that has a savage sound which I like.”

“Indeed then, Miss Miriam, they all must
have sweet sounds. I hardly think so fine a
thing could be ill-named,” said the old connoisseur,
with a sigh of pleasure, as he replaced the
bottle.

On the other side were stored lively Rhenish,
that might have been reposing unmoved some
half-century; beyond them, dry Spanish and
white wines; and in a still warmer nook, but
half disclosed in the dim light, luscious liqueurs
of the Levant, and rich muscadines of the south.

“Here,” said Redruth, “is wine that I brought
from Xeres myself, when Sir Rohan bought the
French wines. You have been in Spain, Miss
Miriam? No? Then you never saw the Tent
grape, which is purple all through; nor the
great vats, with steps to climb them, where they
keep the Val de Peñas; nor the giant tanks at
Alicant; nor yet the vine-dressers of Catalonia,
swinging over precipices by slender cords, that
they may tend the priceless vintage of some
cranny no bigger than a grave. You would like
the country where these Lagrimas come from.
Tears, — they are not pressed from the unwilling

bunches, but wept down by large white grapes
that can well afford to be so bountiful. I do
not know which were best, the laughing of
Champagne, or the weeping of Malaga.”

They were now in the last arch, whose thick
draperies blinked through the unaccustomed rays,
and swung heavily at the breath of the speaker
while he busied himself in the ancient stores and
stooping among the tressels, with the candle, sent
fantastic shadows to dance up the dusky stone,
still startling Miriam as the clinging webs now
and then brushed her cheek.

“All the wine in this corner,” said he, “could
not be bought with gold. It keeps. There are
a dozen kinds, placed here by another Sir Rohan,
a hundred years ago. This is Rousillon, or
Masdeu they call it up stairs, which means
God's Farm; and it is that, indeed. Knights
templar and monks have grown it. A color
like a violet it owned, when new. Canary is
this; it should have the smell of a pine-apple.
Do you fancy pines, Miss Miriam? You shall
have them at dessert to-day, for liking so well
to hear about my wines.”

“Virtue is its own reward, Mr. Redruth.

“Here is Madeira. If fire could be oily in
the mouth and a cordial to the stomach, and
yet have so delicious an odor that when swallowing
it you felt like one prolonged nose down
to your finger-tips, why, then fire were old Madeira.”

Just above Mr. Redruth's head stood jars of
sweet Cypress, and a carabas of Shiraz wine.
“It is as sparkling and transparent as rockwater,”
said Mr. Redruth, pointing at the last.
“I often wonder what kind of grape can have
so clear a juice.”

“I can tell you, Mr. Redruth, for I have seen
it.”

“Miss Miriam!” he exclaimed, with delight.

“O yes. They grow among some old ruins,
and they are immense, gold-colored, and translucent,
and are called royal grapes.”

“Thank you, young lady. I did not think
to learn anything of you, when you tripped
down behind me, just now. I 'm not very fond
of young persons; but see! you said, a moment
since, virtue was its own reward, and here it
is. The wine I told you of is there; and after
I have taken off the dinner wines, I shall come

back and toast your eyes, pretty one. That beside
it is Johannisberger, whose name you like
so much; and next is Riesling, that grew at
Strasburg, where there is a fine spire, I think, —
the finest in the world, I think, — that tapers
off and lingers in the air as you will find the
aroma of White Hermitage linger in your
throat!” And taking a flask of Tokay from
beneath an anthiel of the same, he left it in her
hands as if in compensation for his absence
while going to decant the wines for which he
had come. “Some call this the king of wines,”
he said; “but it 's not my king, as I told you.”

As he went down the arches, followed by
his shadows, now bringing the rondure of big
empty tuns into light, and now filling the hollow
vaults with deeper gloom, Miriam's glances pursued
him, and she puzzled herself fancying what
contentment he could find crawling in and out,
day after day, among barrels and bins, and
hoping to die no better. Then she remembered
the little flask of consolation that had been left
with her, and turned it idly in her hands, although
in the darkness hardly to be seen.

Not a year before, in that delicious season

when October and November mingle their warm
and cool hues in softest shading, making for us
the Indian summer, she remembered to have
wandered, one morning, through a vineyard of
Tokay. The vines, somewhat shrivelled and
brown, yet still bending with the affluent weight
of their sumptuous and shining clusters, which
nestled among the sere leaves as if in broad,
golden salvers; the dews, not yet all exhaled,
sliding from side to side, and as they hid in the
heart of the bloom-bathed bunches, imparting to
them one last flavor of morning, and sunshine,
and sweet south winds; the lusty gatherers, with
brimming corbeilles borne on their heads lightly
as crowns and just supported by the caryatid
curve of a sun-bronzed arm; the rosy faces of
frolicsome girls, as they peered through alleys of
the vintage treasures; the great, grooved tables,
heaped like altars of Bacchus with purple abundance,
even the pearly piles glowing in rich shadows;
and the merry Hungarian peasants, whose
white and naked feet vainly strove to conquer
the exuberant and spirting crimson. She remembered
the little brown thief, with his wide,
sherry-colored eyes, his mouth and hands full
of the gray stolen fruit; the scarlet-winged bird
who swung in the sun beside her; the promise
of distant snow, low in the air, that would soon
lay its white morsels among the dark bunches
left to gather the juice of the completed seasons;
the stream braiding its remote banks with
the light and gloom of creek and inlet; and the
sailing shadow of a cloud sweeping over bending
fields of yellow grain, and falling fainter
and fainter, till between far blue hills that
reared opposing relics of barbarous fastnesses it
became only like the visible breath of the wind
itself. All this was the tribute of the last vintage,
but how many seasons had faded since
that morning whose sunshine a hundred years
ago had been clouded into the wine of the flask
she held, drawing with them all the gay workers
of that day! Grief and gray-haired winter
and frosty death had succeeded their smiling
summer, and they mouldered in mountain-graves,
with the vintagers of the Cæsars, — yet their
wine lived. An Emperor had supped from the
kindred of this flask, lifting its silvery lustre to
sway with an oily, indolent lusciousness between
his eye and the sparkling lights, amidst ravishing
music and beauty that made the night perfect,
— and this had slept in what silent seclusion
in the darkest recesses of a dismal cellar.
What seas had rocked this wine till it clarified
itself by tumult, what tropical fervors had filled
it with spicy sweets, what large-starred Indian
nights had wafted its ship through zones of
frankincense and myrrh, with all the airs of
Paradise, and in what tempestuous expanses had
it ploughed when the waves rose like columns
of green fire, knitting their white fans above
the highest mast. Other flasks of the same
growth might be lying on ocean-floors beside the
drinking-cup of the gods; but this had ended
all wandering, beneath the foundations of a forsaken
manor. Still it amassed further richness,
as the hair of the Enchanted Beauty grew to
her feet. It had royal company, too, in its
sleeping palace; and she recalled the names with
which Redruth had entertained her. There was
Homer's Nectar, still borne by rocky Scio as
when the blind poet climbed its hills, feasting
his grand eyes with the imagination of the sea.
There was Vino d'Oro, made where the rustle
of the cedars of Lebanon reached it, and through
whose gardens perhaps Solomon himself had
walked at cool of day. There was the wine of
Hannibal's camp; and the wine of the Holy
Spirit, such as mellowed in the great tun of
Heidelberg, watched by grotesque sprites and demons
perched atop, growing almost in the shadow
of a Spire more perfect than the one which Redruth
fancied, inasmuch as free offerings have a
sweeter savor than extortions, and this rose and
melted into heaven wreathed with a softer beauty
than niche or pinnacle or buttress could bestow,
bathed in the æsthetic adoration of that noble
people who, without the aid of majesty or sanctity,
could give farm and homestead and time
to build up and complete this monument in air;
and there was the Sang des Suisses, — the Wine
of Blood, — a wine whose soil the life of heroes
had moistened, and low on whose horizon lay the
purple and silver phantoms of the Alps. She
looked toward the obscure quarter of the creaming
Ay, and thought of some possible rencontre
of the famous sovereigns of the four great kingdoms
of the world, who had each their vineyard
on the hill-side there. There was the Lacryma
Christi which alchemized the crust of a volcano
into juices that, she had heard St. Denys say,
the Roman Horace sipped as rare Falernian; and
certainly Charlemagne had known the name and
flavor of some among those Rhenish wines. Did
not those Rhenish wines where now the candle
flickered, make all beautiful landscapes possible in
this dark and chilly cellar? Did they not bring
the broad river and roll it through the gloom,
between castle-crowned shores over whose sides
clambered and tossed in sunny breezes multitudes
of cool, whispering leaves, where feudal ruins,
whose beacon-fires had once bounded from roof
to roof, bright signals of incursion or attack, now
crumbled amidst the eternal youth of luxuriant
vegetation, hung their embrasures with imperial
draperies, and housed in the cells of wall and
corridor the purple swarms of harvest? Was
not the chorus of the savage barons still to be
heard, and the clang of their drinking-glasses?
Were not the fair faces of sad-eyed nuns to be
seen down the green vistas of tendril and vine?
And under the palest moon did not the water-sprites
weave misty fountains and long falls of
spray in its arrowy middle current? Were they
not the chrism of poetry and history and romance,
and did not their names sing, as it were,
to themselves? Fine company, too, were those
island wines, that had exchanged their throne-like
hill-sides rising on the far view of the mariner
like clouds, and ever serenely taking the dash
and turbulence of mid-ocean, for the wooden tressels
beneath them now; their hedges of wild-rose
and myrtle and pomegranate for the dust and
films of this cellar; and for the darkness of this
present shelter, the steep look-out from their
island citadels, across boundless reaches of summer
seas. If I drink of this Tokay, thought
Miriam, I drink sunshine, and the grape, and
Hungary and a certain wild freedom of its untamable
atmosphere. What long voyages a-sea,
and what silence and rest and perfect calm. But
shall I taste them in it — if all these made a
wine, would its flavor be that of Tokay? I would
drink it then, indeed, but I may not like this —
and while she mused, the flask, so lightly held,
slipped from her hands and shivered on the flag.
The costly liqueur ran slowly down the channels
of the pavement, while Miriam stood aghast at
the unpremeditated libation. Suddenly a strange
perfume rose in clouds, wrapping her, and still
curling upward and around. Softest summer
and richest fragrance diffused through the damp
and wintry vaults, and all the wealth of Araby
the Blest seemed dripping from the air and lying
at her feet. As she moved, her garments shook
out sweetest gales, and the arches swelled to the
pillared vastness of some incense-shrouded temple.
While lamenting the catastrophe, she heard
the voice of Redruth approaching.

“So it tempted you too much. You could n't
wait for me!” he said.

Miriam was silent till he comprehended her
misdeed. “I am so sorry!” she said then.

“O, it was priceless!” he exclaimed with a
pang, stooping over the fragments.

“You should n't have bewitched me, then!”
retorted Miriam, twice nettled.

“Well, well, Miss, you 're sorry, or you
would n't be so sharp.”

“I shall break everything in the house, if I
don't go away soon.”

“Better you should, than go away.”

“Why, Mr. Redruth! I thought you would
be provoked.”

“It was yours, and if you like it better on

the floor, you 're welcome. It 's a shame to
see good wine wasted, though, and this was the
cream of the earth. Other wines are best grown
on light sands from which they can draw no juice,
or nourishment; — the sun and the air, the wind
and the rain, feed them with pulp and sweetness:
but the old Earth herself, Miss Miriam,
gives its charm to Tokay, — draws its roots into
her bosom, distils all her aromatic gums in pungent
essences along its ducts, teaches it her secret.
Yet I was not going to pledge you in it,
but in a wine paler than amber, rarer than
Tokay; in White Hermitage.”

“Why in that, Mr. Redruth?”

“Because it has a sweet association in my
mind with youth and beauty, and a love whose
mystery I never learned. Shall I tell you?”
He paused a moment, as if reflecting. Miriam's
nice honor deserted. “It is not a score of years
since Sir Rohan brought home with him, one
day, a young lady handsome and stately-stepping
as yourself,” he continued. “Hardly my
master's equal I might think, — though seeing
her so little, and she so quiet before folk, it was
not easy to judge. The noon they came — it

was just about this season of the year — Sir Rohan
passed down here with me; the great door
yonder was open, and had filled the cellar with
warm twilight. I was showing him the wines
he had sent me to buy in Spain, when we heard
a little rustle, and she had followed close behind
him. I showed no more bargains that day, but
at the mouth of this arch they pledged each
other in White Hermitage. It was a pretty picture,
— my young master, so tall and gallant, with
all his glances on her, and she, tender and laughing
and blushing — ah! I shall not see one like
it again. They were here but a few days, and
on one or two of those were gone from dawn to
setting at some old ruins near, and then they
went away to the North. She wore a curious
ring that had been an heirloom in the family,
and that he himself used to wear before her.”

“Was this young lady Sir Rohan's wife?”

“I never heard that she was.”

“Poor child! what became of her?”

“I never saw her again, and who would dare
ask Sir Rohan a question?”

“I have asked him many.”

“Yet I would not advise you to ask him this.

Since the day he came back alone, he has been
what he is now.”

Saying which things, Mr. Redruth brought up
from a hidden recess a tiny bottle of White
Hermitage. “There were three bottles then,”
he added; “after this there will be only one.”

“But may we take it?”

“Of course we may! I never pass it but I
think of the gray-bearded Hermit on his stony
hill, setting the plants in every seam of the
rocks. If he had ever been a bad man, he
would have loathed the work that recalled hours
of sin; and he must have been a good man, for
he planted for posterity.”

“Does that follow?”

“O, you don't agree with me, you 're for a
quibble, you never drank Hermitage! But let
us go out where the odor of the spilled wine
will not mingle with it.”

At the mouth of the arch he drew two glasses
from the basket on his arm.

“Why do you bring them down here?” she
asked saucily.

“Because when I am in the small wines, I
sometimes get confused as to the kind I want,
and am obliged to taste.”

“I am afraid you have been down too long
when you get confused.”

“It may be, Miss Miriam, — it may be.”

“O, I beg pardon, Mr. Redruth! I was n't
in earnest.”

“No offence, young lady. But though I 'm so
fond of our wines, I seldom drink them, — not
too often; and no more does my master, or they
would have been gone long since; and I do not
think you were born when the last were laid
in.”

But it occurs to me here that, in the course of
my observation, I have never met an individual
who acknowledged that he had just been asleep,
that he entertained the least curiosity concerning
his acquaintance, that he was unfamiliar with the
ways of the world, or whose irascibility was not to
be highly excited by an allusion to the time when
he should have gained more experience. How,
then, could I find one who confesses that he takes
wine too often?

Hanging his candle in a hook, Redruth drew
the cork, and filled first Miriam's glass and then
his own.

“Hold it up to the light, Miss, and see the

shiver that sparkles through it at the breath of
the cold air. See how clear it is, — the chrysolite
of the Bible is not clearer; — brighter than the
gilding of the great mirrors up stairs, and fairer
than the shine of straw. See the delicate topaz
tint. It is the color of the sky just before an early
winter's sunset, — palest, most pellucid gold. How
thin and fine, — it looks as if the glass held only a
splendid vapor that any wind might blow about
in little flakes. Draw it nearer and take the perfume;
what a rich and bounteous bouquet! You
have the concentration of a whole garden of flowers,
each one sweeter than the other. Taste it,
and we need a word to say what the aroma is like.
Here 's to your brown eyes, Miss Miriam!”

“And may you be cup-taster to Prester John,
Mr. Redruth!”

It so happened that after he had been some
time busy at his easel, it occurred to Sir Rohan
to go on the same errand as Redruth, and see
what store for choice palates yet remained in the
cellar. In his preoccupied state of mind the open
door was unnoticed, and he descended till he came
to the heap of puff-balls which lay drying by the

path. He had long contracted a habit of looking
steadfastly ahead, and thus the scene, illuminated
by the swinging taper, which had first been enacted
in his own life, met his unobstructed view at
the other end of the cellar. Amazed, he dropped
his candle in the fungi, and paused to behold it.
Miriam, white-gowned and with loosened hair,
holding her sparkling glass to the light, like any
Bacchante, while Redruth dim in shadow, as the
dark figure of a cameo, projected her more brilliantly.
As he gazed, the fallen candle kindled the
withered growth beneath, which, flashing up, surrounded
him for an instant with a pillar of fire,
smothered again, and rolled on high a dense volume
of smoke.

The intoxicating effects of the fumes of burning
puff-balls are too well known to need comment;
and as Sir Rohan stood in a species of
bewilderment, he inhaled their delirious vapor,
still with his eyes on Miriam. Suddenly, while
she yet extended her arm, he saw a little house-adder
glide from a crevice of the stone, look about
alertly, slip down and coil like a bracelet round
her ivory wrist. He would have darted forward,
but all power of volition was torpid, though he

beheld faintly through the smoke the white face
of Redruth paralyzed with fear, and he waited
in an agony of agitation and alarm. Miriam,
for the first moment ghastly enough, in the next,
bent curiously forward, and inspected the venomous
little creature, that lifted its head till the
fangs danced before her eyes. Sir Rohan seemed
to see nothing that ensued; he only perceived
her in the instant of horror, for it was the very
device of the ring of his dream. In a breath he
comprehended that the Ghost had come to him
again; and as the little flames spread from the
fungi beneath him to those a step in advance, he
saw her, with her hard eyes piercing his, shaking
a web of fire betwixt him and Miriam. So, the
device of the ring his mother had worn, he had
worn, the Ghost had worn, Miriam was impersonating.
He felt the seconds of his delirament
stretching into hours, while the scene was as immovably
fixed before him as if carved on the rock.
Could the Ghost by any subtle chymistry thus
have transformed and brought the ring back to
him in the gigantesque, planted at the foundations
of his house, as it was of his life, to send thrills
through every wall, and to be remembered at
every draught? It was in vain to call reason to
his aid, or to remember that the power of the
Ghost had been growing less and less for years;
the intoxication he had breathed ruled him as imperiously
as ever she had done, and he could not
but abandon himself to the wildest extravagances
of imagination, while counting the separate snails
that arched their yellow backs, and tracked the
stones around this device, — which was multiplied,
by the patches of light cast from the swinging
taper, into a thousand Miriams, each one fascinated
by a glittering serpent, — counting the
bright-eyed toads who squatted above and gazed,
the white lizard and the gold beetle who emerged,
and stared, and hid themselves again. The current
of fresh air blowing down from the open door
half roused him; broken reflections of the scene
floated away on the dissipating smoke; he wondered
if men often lived so long as he was suffering;
— the atmosphere became clear again, and
he saw Miriam take the snake by the tail, give
it a sudden twist and toss upon the distant flags,
where with a sharp hiss it slid from sight, while
she looked into Redruth's face and laughed. He
found his relief before he saw her action.

“How quickly you did it, Miss Miriam!” he
heard Redruth say. “Why, I scarce saw the
thing before it was gone!”

The effect of the puff-balls was passing off, and,
tearing his limbs from their chain, he sped up the
stairs again. In a few moments, with her slow,
stately step, somewhat recalled from familiarity by
the accident, Miriam followed, leaving Redruth,
in astonishment that he could have dropped a
spark, to set open the great door and cleanse the
cellar, lest the smoke and spilled wine should corrupt
and ferment his treasures. And had one
looked in, a half-hour later, they had seen him
staying himself, in Sybaritic composure, with
flagons, and because there were no apples, comforting
himself again with flagons.