Читать книгу Gowrie; or, the King's Plot - G. P. R. James - Страница 17

The room was a little dingy room lined with black oak, carved into panels, with some degree of taste and ornament, the house having formerly belonged to higher personages than those who possessed it at the time; for Padua, even then, like all persons, places, and things, on the face of the earth, had seen its mutations; and Patavium had undergone, since the days of Livy, a thousand different changes, which had rendered fashionable parts of the city unfashionable, turned the houses of nobles into the residences of boors, converted Pagan temples into Christian churches, and, with greater propriety, had converted amphitheatres into slaughter-houses. Amongst later alterations, the house which had formerly been inhabited by one of the mercenary followers of Angelo, had descended to the station of an inn, at first well frequented and in high repute, but gradually sinking lower and lower, till it had now become a sort of lodging-house in ordinary for merchants who visited the town of Padua, and the poorer class of students, on their first arrival. The chamber, however, was lofty; the window which looked into the court, large, and opening all the way down the centre, which was then rare; and the coolness so desirable at that burning season was to be obtained there, which could not be found in many a larger and finer apartment in the city. In this room, with several flasks of fine wine before them, were seated, about half an hour after sunset, John, Earl of Gowrie, and his friend Sir John Hume. There were two wax tapers on the table, some plates of beautiful fruit, perfuming the whole air, and some cakes of a sweet kind of bread, for which Padua was then famous. The rays of the candles were quickly lost in the dark wainscoting around, but they threw sufficient light upon the table and its white cloth, and showed fully the expressions of the two young men's countenances. Both were still gay, and laugh and jest had gone on between them during the meal; but every now and then a look of deep thoughtfulness, almost amounting to melancholy, crossed the face of the earl, passing away again like the shadow of a flying cloud cast momentarily on a fine landscape. They had been speaking of many things while the servant of the earl and some of the people of the inn had been coming and going. The period of Lord Gowrie's sojourn at Padua as a scholar had been referred to, and the high academic honour which had been conferred upon him somewhat more than a year before, by his election to the office of rector, had been commented upon by Hume, who laughingly said, "If I had puzzled my dull brains for seven years, I never could have obtained or merited such a distinction, John."

It was one of Lord Gowrie's graver moments when his friend made this observation, and he replied gloomily, "Those who eat the fruit early, Hume, are left with bare boughs in the autumn. I was elected Lord Provost of Perth before I was fourteen; I fought in a lost battle at fifteen; and I was rector of this university before I was twenty. Blighted hopes, or early death, we often find the fate of those who taste the bitter stream of life so soon."

"Nonsense," replied his friend; "have you studied the sublime art of astrology to so little purpose? It is but that you are born under a fortunate star, and will go on in honour and success until the end."

"Small success at the field of Down," replied the earl; "for a more disastrous rout never befel brave men than there overtook Athol and Montrose."

"But great success to you," answered Hume, laughing; "for you escaped where many a brave man fell, and were pardoned without inquiry, when many were mulcted of half their goods--Still, still your fortunate star was on the ascendant; and the devil, the king, and the popish lords could not get the better of its influence; and now what brings you to Padua?"

"By and by," said the young earl--"we'll talk of that by and by. Tell me, first, all that has happened to you, according to your promise."

"My life, good faith, has been dull enough," replied Sir John Hume, "till within the last week, when I have had a little occupation for my thoughts besides dull problems and hard studies. Do you remember an old man with a gray beard, who used to wander about towards eventide, in a long black gown and a velvet cap? Manucci is his name, a Florentine, who has travelled much in different lands, speaks English like an Englishman, and French like a Frenchman, and used to look like Titian's portrait, only more meagre and somewhat less fresh and lusty."

Lord Gowrie had twice nodded his head in token that he knew the person spoken of; but Hume had still gone on describing, till at length the young earl said, almost impatiently, "Yes, yes, I know him well. What of him?"

"Poor man, he has been in sad trouble," replied his friend; "our reputation for magic here has risen somewhat too high for our security. We have had monitories from the holy office, warning our learned professors against permitting forbidden studies, and enjoining them strictly to seek out and deliver up to justice all those who practise black and damnable arts. Arnesi only laughed, and said that his was a black and white art, for that he dealt in pen and ink, but that he hoped the white would save the black part of the business. A number of the older signors, however, whose wits are rather on the wane, and who still fancy that everything they do not understand themselves is magic, took up the matter far more seriously, and laying their wise heads together in small conclave, determined they would seek out, and hand over to the tender mercies of those who roast the body to save the soul, every poor creature to whom suspicion could attach. Manucci had a long gray beard, a rusty black gown, but small reverence for the learned professors, paid no fees, kept himself apart in solitary studies, seldom spoke with anybody, and had a keen and spirit-searching eye. Here seemed a sorcerer at once, quite ready to their hand. Still such appearances, without proof, would not justify violence; but they judged that the search for proof would; and as I was passing the old man's door, near the Trevisogate, I saw the college beadle and three or four more officers making their way in against the resistance of the poor old woman who waits upon him, and who was assuring them with tears that her master was dying in his bed."

"Dying!" exclaimed Lord Gowrie, with a start.

"Well, I went in with them," continued Hume, not noticing his friend's exclamation; "and a pitiful sight I soon beheld."

"In the name of Heaven, what?" demanded the Earl of Gowrie, with a pale cheek and an eager eye; and then feeling how completely the whole expression of his countenance must have changed, he added, "I was much interested in that old man. I knew him well, loved him well, and was going on a long promise to see him this very night."

"Indeed!" said Hume, before he proceeded to finish his story, musing, as if some intricate problem was placed before him. "Ha! Well, as I was saying, I went in, following the officers--a few steps behind I might be, and then, when we came into the little back room, I saw a bed with a crucifix at the foot, and the old man lying on it, the image of death. His long beard was stretched upon the decently composed bed-clothes, hard to say which was the whitest; his left hand was folded quietly on his breast, and his right was stretched out over the side of the bed, with tightly pressed upon it the lips of the most beautiful girl I ever beheld in my life--with one sole exception," he added.

Lord Gowrie was evidently very uneasy. He played with the hilt of his rapier, clasping and unclasping his hands upon the sheath; he gazed eagerly in his friend's face, as if he would fain have interrupted him, but yet hesitated to do so.

"Well," continued Hume, "the officers at first seemed a little touched, but they are folks not easily moved, and the waters of pity soon subside with them, when agitated for a moment by the unwonted wind. One of them took him by the shoulder, and said, 'Come, signor, you must get up, and deliver all your papers. We are sent to examine everything, by the council of the university, which has strong reason to believe you guilty of magic and sorcery.'

"'My thoughts are there,' said the old man, meekly, pointing towards heaven; but the young girl by his bedside started up, and gazed at the officers with wild and frightened eyes. These men, now, were very zealous Christians; but they thought it a point of piety to interrupt a dying man's preparation to meet his Maker, and to hurry him away to death--for nothing else could have followed--before that preparation was complete."

The Earl of Gowrie bent his head upon his hands, covering his eyes with his fingers; but his friend could see that he shook violently, either with anger, apprehension, or some other strong emotion. He went on, however, saying, "I thought it best now to interfere, John, knowing that I am somewhat a favourite with the good officers of the university, being too dull or too light to be taken for a conjuror, and too free with my purse for a dealer in the things of darkness. I therefore stepped quietly forward, and representing that the old gentleman was evidently too ill to be moved, suggested that it would be better to make a preliminary examination of the papers, in which I offered to assist. I had some difficulty in prevailing; but at length it was agreed that all suspicious documents should be carried at once before the senate, and those that were plain and straightforward left, while one officer remained in the house, to prevent a man from escaping who could not stir a step. The search was somewhat curious, and certainly there were sundry writings of which I understood not one word; but I pressed the old man's hand, and told him in English to make his mind easy, asking for one word of explanation in regard to the strange tongues I had found there written. 'Some are Armenian,' he answered, 'some Syriac, and some Gaelic, which you, at least, should understand.' Happily I did, for one of the first papers examined was an old song of our own Highlands, describing the hunting of a stag. I could have laughed, had the matter not been serious, to see the puzzled faces of the learned doctors. The Armenian and Syriac they knew at least by the characters, and afraid of showing their brief extent of knowledge, they pronounced them all very innocent; but the Gaelic was in the high road to the Holy Inquisition, though written in the Latin character, when I begged to see the paper, and read aloud and laughed, and read and laughed, and read again, with as strong a twang of the old Erse as I could bring my mouth to utter. A dozen voices called for an explanation of the strange sounds I was pouring forth. On which I assured them that the fancied magic was but a poem in one of the languages of my own land, of which I would give a translation if they would lend an ear. You know that some such songs in the mountain tongue are not of the most cleanly. This was one which soon set the reverend doctors grinning, and I returned in triumph with messages of peace to the poor man's bedside."

"Did he die?" demanded the earl, in a tone subdued almost to a whisper by his eagerness.

"Nay, he is better," replied Hume; "for having saved his life in one way, I now bestirred myself to save it in another. I sat with him through that livelong night; I tried to cheer and comfort him, and finding from the beautiful creature who was the companion of my watch, that of late he had denied himself almost necessary sustenance, what with poverty, what with study, I sent for wine to my own house, and forced it upon him, till the flame of life rose up bright once more above the fresh-trimmed lamp."

A curious change had come over the young earl during the utterance of the last few sentences. "Now I will warrant," he said, with a laugh, strangely contrasting with the deep emotions he had lately displayed, "that the inflammable heart of John Hume has taken fire at this fair girl's bright eyes, and that they have led him every day to the small house near the Treviso gate?"

Hume gazed at him for a moment with a grave look; and then, moving his chair a little nearer, he laid his hand upon that of Gowrie. "I have gone every day," he said, "but not for those bright, dark eyes, for I have not forgotten a pair, blue as the twilight sky, that dwell at Perth; but I have gone out of pity to the old man--pity for the young girl--and affection for John Ruthven."

The earl gazed at him for a moment, then started up, and cast his arms around him, saying, "You have my secret, Hume; but how you learned it I know not; for until this hour it has rested in my own bosom, which I ever fancied the only sure casket for the treasure of one's own thoughts."

"Good faith, my noble lord," answered Hume, "there are other languages than words. Looks and acts, for those who mark them, speak as plainly as the best orator. Here, during the last year of your stay at Padua, each night you stole away in private to visit the house of an old man, learned, indeed, and doubtless full of mighty secrets in nature and art, known for an astrologer, and suspected of practices with things less full of light than the bright stars. Your devotion to knowledge no one doubted, but such regular attendance at her shrine seemed more than natural in a young man of twenty; and I sometimes doubted that you were wooing a fairer and a warmer lady than cool Dame Science. When you went away from this poor place, too, you were wondrous sad, and with a sadness different from that with which we part from the calm pleasures and dull tasks of youth to take part in the eager strifes of manhood. 'Twas a passionate sadness, not a thoughtful one. Well, when I saw her who must have been the companion of many of your hours of study in the old man's house, I easily discovered that they had not been cold ones; and as I knew that you proposed to return, for a time at least, to Italy, I studied, for your sake, to show all kindness to those whom you had loved. Nay, more, I ventured even to seek a confirmation of my fancies; throwing out your name in conversation, as we cast a gilded fly upon the water to see if the shining salmon will spring up to catch it. I said that, to my belief, it would not be long ere you returned to Italy."

"What did she say?--How did she look?" demanded Gowrie, eagerly.

"At the first mention of your name she sighed," replied Hume, "and her cheek turned a shade paler than before; but when I talked of your return, the retreating blood rallied back into her face with double force, conquering the paleness in its turn, and dying the whole with crimson."

"Indeed!" said Gowrie, thoughtfully. "It is strange! I knew not that it was so!"

"Not know it! Not know what, Gowrie?" exclaimed his friend.

"That there was one feeling in her heart towards me," answered the earl, "which would make her heart's pulse beat with a faster stroke, or vary the colour in her cheek a shade. You are mistaken, Hume, in thinking that she was the companion of the hours I spent at old Manucci's house. I seldom saw her; but gradually there came a passion into my heart, which made the chance of one of those rare, short interviews, attraction strong enough to lead me, night after night, to where they might be had. Not that I did not struggle against growing love, restraining myself by prudent worldly thoughts; and I would have quitted Padua sooner, but that my station as Lord Rector held me here. You, who know me, can well judge, I think, that while thus debating with my love in my own heart, I would not do that sweet girl such a wrong as by word or look to seek her love in return."

"You could not hide your own, Gowrie," replied Hume; "yours is not a nature that with a cold exterior can cover over the fiery heart within. Your actions you may rule, and do so often with great power; but your looks and tones refuse such rigid sway."

"It may be so--it may be so," said the earl; and he leaned his head upon his hand, and thought. "And so the old man is better?" continued the earl, after he had remained silent for a few minutes, during which his friend had not ceased to gaze at him without speaking.

"Better, but not well," answered Hume; "what he chiefly needed was strengthening food and wine; but he had a sore disease for which I know no cure--old age, I mean--all other things but that we may fend off or remedy; but that slow creeping sickness of old age may often be hurried, but never delayed. In short, his last attack has shaken him much. He sits up, however; and his appetite has returned. A superstitious notion too has aided to his recovery so far, even when at the worst. He told his grandchild that he was certain he should not die before the morrow of the Assumption."

Lord Gowrie laid his hand upon Sir John Hume's arm, saying, in a marked manner, "Because he expected to see me to-night; and I must go to him, Hume; but before I go, tell me, truly and sincerely, has your own heart remained firm against the beauties and the graces of this fair being with whom you have been so much?"

"See what a thing is love!" said Hume; "you cannot fancy that any one can escape the bow which has wounded you. Have I not said, Gowrie, that I have not forgotten the deep blue eyes in Perth, and never shall forget them? I am as constant as a fixed star."

"What, little Beatrice," exclaimed the earl, "of whom you brought me such a glowing picture two years ago? but she is still a mere child."

"You think her so, because she was one when you left her," answered Hume; "but let me tell you, Gowrie, when I saw her she was a woman, and rich in all a woman's graces. Your mother thought that it would be well to wait a year or two, but nothing now is wanting but your consent. We have stood even the trial of absence, and are both still of the same mind."

Lord Gowrie pressed his hand, replying at once, "My consent is yours, Hume, whenever you choose to claim it. It is strange," he continued, with a smile, "I can but think of Beatrice as the curly-headed child, who, seven years ago, wiped the blood and dust from my brow when I came back from the field of Downcastle. Hark! the clock is striking nine, I must set out."

"I will go with you nearly to the door," replied his friend; "and you had better have your man to wait for you. The streets of Padua have proved somewhat dangerous since you were here; and on the night of a high festival, the excellent Christians of this part of the world think it no crime to put a dagger in a friend's back, if they have saluted the blessed virgin as they passed the church."

"Well, call him in," replied Lord Gowrie; and having rung a small bell that stood upon the table, they were joined immediately by the earl's servant.

"Get your beaver and your cloak, Austin Jute," said the earl; "we are going out into the streets, and you must follow. Take broadsword and dagger too. I know you can use them well upon occasion. Have you them at hand?"

"A good workman never wants tools, my lord," replied the man; "and as to using them, Heaven send the opportunity, and I'll find the means. A man that threads a needle, ought to be able to stitch; and I who have hammered hot iron in my day, should be able to use it cold, though men say practice makes perfect, and I have had but little in your lordship's service. However, what is early learned is long retained; and a hand that is well acquainted with a cudgel remembers its use as well as the back that bears the beating."

The earl and his friend both laughed. "There, there," cried Sir John Hume, "in pity's name, good Austin, content yourself with ready-made proverbs, and do not eke them out with your own manufacture."

"All as old as the King of Spain's wine, worshipful sir," replied the man; "though all old things are not bad, a new doublet is better than a worn cloak, and proverbs, like lenten pie, may get musty by keeping. I shall have my pinking iron on before your worships are down the stairs; and God send you a safe journey to the bottom, as I shall not be there to take care of you."