Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845 - Various - Страница 3

About the period when the civil wars between the Republican and Royalist parties in England had terminated, after the execution of the unfortunate Charles I., in the utter defeat of his son at the battle of Worcester, and the dispersion of all the adherents to the royal cause, a small castellated mansion, not far from the eastern coast of England, was garrisoned by a party of the Parliamentary troops.

This mansion, which had belonged to a Royalist family who had fled the land, having been seized upon and confiscated by the Parliamentary commissioners employed in sequestrating the property of confirmed enemies of the commonwealth, had been converted into a sort of fortress or stronghold, the natural defences and isolated position of which, rendered it peculiarly adapted as a place of confinement for prisoners of war. Its situation, at the same time, so near the coast, gave it an additional advantage as a post of observation, whence measures might be taken for the interception of such Royalists, who, proscribed as obstinate malignants, might be led to this part of the country in their attempts to seek the means of escape.

Flanked on one side by the waters of the river, this isolated house was cut off on the other three by a broad ditch or moat, being thus entirely surrounded by water, except at one point the most remote from the river, where it communicated by a wooden bridge with a causeway, lined by an avenue of trees, which served as an approach, and traversed at some length a low level tract of land before it reached the higher and more hilly country. A similar tract of level, but of a more marshy and swampy description, stretched along the opposite bank of the river, terminating at some distance by a line of low well-wooded hills. Not far from the house, which stood thus alone, like a solitary bittern in a Dutch landscape, the river widened suddenly into a large expanse of water, called in this part of England a "broad," which was itself only separated from the sea by a narrow strip of low sand-banks, and sandy downs or deanes, as they are there termed, and extended thus along the shore to some distance, when again assuming the form of a river, it poured its waters into the German Ocean.

Of the more ancient part of this mansion, which boasted (it was never well known upon what authority) a Roman origin, only a large circular tower was left, which was attached somewhat awkwardly, like an ill-adjusted headpiece, on to the more modern building. Although constructed in the comparatively peaceful times of Henry VII.'s reign, the more modern house had been evidently built with some ideas of strength and defence, and in a demi-castellated form, various smaller additions having been made to it at subsequent and different periods, without any great observance of order or style.

Behind the main body of the house thus irregularly constructed, was a species of small inner-court or garden, enclosed between the old tower and the walls that connected it with the mansion on one side, and a wing of the building which extended to the side of the stream on the other; whilst opposite to the back of the house, which was now wholly unoccupied, and almost in a ruinous state, a strong and thick parapet skirted the river, and completed the parallelogram. – Formerly an opening in the centre of this parapet had evidently conducted by several steps to the water's edge, in order to facilitate the communications with boats on the river; but it had now been blocked up by a fresh mass of heavy brickwork and masonry, as if for the purpose of adding security to the place; and at the time we write, two culverins, mounted so as to be on a level with the top of the parapet, contributed to give to the spot the look of a fortified stronghold. The forms of flower-beds of prim shapes, the former decorations of the spot, might still be traced here and there in the now almost level and sandy surface of the coast, giving evidence that some pains had probably been originally bestowed upon this interior enclosure. But beyond these faint traces of flower-beds, nothing now remained of its better days but a few evergreens and other bushes, which, growing close by the parapet wall, had equally escaped the rude trampling of the unheeding soldiers, or the wanton devastations of some of the over-zealous of the day; men who looked upon all adornment of whatever kind, all appearance of gratification of a refined taste, however innocent, as sinful and condemnable. A vaulted passage traversed the wing of the building mentioned as stretching to the water's edge, and formed the usual and more direct communication between this sort of court and other parts of the establishment.

Late on a fine autumn afternoon of the year 1652, some little time after the battle of Worcester, a young man, musket on arm, paced up and down this inner court as sentinel. His dress, which partook of the military uniform of the times, without precisely belonging to any particular regiment, and the finer cloth of some parts of his attire, which was of a far finer texture than was customary upon the person of a common soldier, proved that he was one of the many volunteers who had enrolled themselves among the troops of the Parliamentary army, and probably of gentler birth than might be generally found employed in such humble military functions. Loose boots of so great a size towards their upper part, that each might have been imagined to contain, at least, half a calf-skin, mounted towards his large hose of plain but good material. A tuck or rapier of some length was girded round his loins; a corselet, with bandoleer slung around it, covered the front of his buff-coat; and a morion, destitute of all feather or ornament, concealed for the greater part his hair, closely clipped in compliance with the puritanical fashions of the times, the colour of which, however, might be divined by the fairness of the young mustache that curled lovingly about his upper lip.

Sometimes, as he paced backwards and forwards upon his lonesome watch, the eye of the young man rested for a while upon the dull swampy landscape, the chief beauty of which, at the moment, was a slight haze that hovered over stream and marsh, and stunted willow and distant hill, tinged with a golden hue from the slanting rays of the sun; the only living sights and sounds of which, were busy flights of gnats whirling up and down with drowsy hum; an occasional frog, that splashed from the opposite shore into the water with an uneasy croak; and one solitary fisherman, who, after having drawn up his boat among the rushes on the river's bank, near the opening upon the "broad," and left his line to float along the lazy stream, seemed to have lain down in his broad flat-bottomed punt, to sleep at his ease. Sometimes he paused to scrutinize more earnestly the heavy pile of the old tower, to guard all egress from which might be supposed, from his periodical examinations of its walls, to be the peculiar duty of his post. Sometimes again he gazed listlessly upon the marks of devastation, where the carved armorial bearings of the family to whom the mansion had belonged, had been hacked away from the walls of the building, and other symbols of nobility or religion had been wantonly mutilated or destroyed; and at such moments, an almost unconscious sigh would escape him, ill according with the tenets of the party which he evidently served. But most generally his attention was directed towards a low window in the first floor of the projecting wing, not very many feet above the level of the ground, in front of which a small wooden balcony, filled with flowers, showed that the occupant of the chamber to which it belonged was probably of the gentler sex, and of an age when such matters are still objects of tender and careful solicitude. At these times, evidences of impatience, almost amounting to pettishness, would appear in his uneasy gestures; and after a scrutiny of some duration, he would again turn away to resume his pacing, with a look of trouble and annoyance upon his brow. The handsome features of that fine face, however, were not formed to express grief, nor that clear bright eye sorrowful thought; yet, such were the circumstances of the times, that whenever disengaging them from associations connected with the balconied window, as his reflections reverted to himself and his own position, his countenance would fall, and his eye cloud over with an expression of sadness.

Gerald Clynton was of old family and noble birth. His father, Lord Clynton, had doated upon his wife with the fondest and most exclusive affection; and the birth of Gerald, his second son, having been the occasion of her death in childbed, the agonized husband, who was inconsolable for her loss, had never been able to look upon the child, and, in its infant years, had banished it altogether from his sight. The time arrived, however, when it became necessary to remove the little boy from the sole care of menials, and to commence the rudiments of his education; and at that period Mr Lyle, the brother of the deceased Lady Clynton, finding the aversion of the father towards the poor innocent cause of the mother's death still more strongly rooted by time, and his whole paternal affections centred and lavished upon his eldest born, had taken the child to his home, and, being himself childless, had treated, and as it were adopted, the boy as his own son.

Time crept on. The boy grew into the youth; the youth approached to the man; but still Lord Clynton evinced no interest in his young son – gave no demonstration of awakening affection. With time also crept on the angry and troubled clouds that arose upon the political horizon of the land. The storm at length burst forth. The fatal struggle commenced between the unfortunate Charles and his Parliament; and the civil wars broke out. A stanch Royalist, Lord Clynton joined with enthusiasm the cause of the monarch; while Mr Lyle, whose tenets were of the Presbyterian persuasion, and whose political opinions were entirely of that party, found himself enrolled in the ranks of the Parliamentary army, in which his name and fortune and his active, but stern, cold courage, gave him much influence.

Entirely deprived of the affections of a father, whom he never remembered to have seen, and on whom, with the usual levity of boyhood, he seldom or never bestowed a passing thought, Gerald Clynton, or Gerald Lyle, as he was constantly called after his uncle – and most people knew not that he bore any other name – naturally imbibed the opinions and sentiments of his protector; and, when the civil war was openly declared, followed him to the camp. The reflection never crossed him, that the unknown author of his being might be engaged in the ranks of the enemy; that his uncle and his father might chance to meet face to face upon the battle-field; that either his real parent, or the parent of his affections, might fall by the hand of the other. To do justice to the feelings of the youth, no idea of the kind had ever been suggested to him by his uncle, not a word mentioned of the political sentiments of his father. Colonel Lyle – for such became his rank in the Parliamentary army – was a man of firm adherence to his principles; and although a cold, hard man, in all things but his affection for his adopted son, too earnest and eager a supporter of the party for which he battled, to allow such a proselyte to what he considered the just and upright cause – such a follower in his own footsteps as his nephew – to escape him on account of any family considerations, which he stigmatized as "prejudices to be despised and set at nought in so holy a matter."

Enrolled as a volunteer in his uncle's regiment, Gerald had, in some of the scanty moments of peace and repose snatched between the quickly following phases of the struggle, found opportunities to cultivate the acquaintance of an old friend of his uncle's – an officer in the same regiment – or rather, it ought to be owned without reserve, the acquaintance of the fair daughter of that friend. In these troubled but precious moments it was, that Gerald's young heart first awakened to love; and when, upon the death of his uncle Colonel Lyle, who never recovered the wounds he had received upon the field of Naseby, old Lazarus Seaman received the command of the regiment, it was again the bright eyes of pretty Mistress Mildred that served as a loadstone to attach him to it, and to attract him to follow the troop which garrisoned the lone mansion upon the eastern coast of England; for Colonel Lazarus Seaman was the governor or commander of this impromptu sort of fortress; and Colonel Lazarus Seaman's daughter, his only and motherless child, quitted her father's side as little as possible. She it was who was the tenant of the room appertaining to that balconied window, and those bright and carefully-tended flowers, to which the eyes of Gerald now so often strayed, as he paced up and down the dull court, to perform the duties of sentinel.

Gerald's thoughts, however, as already intimated, were not placid, nor were they exclusively occupied by the object of his affections. They dwelt, from time to time, with grief upon his uncle, whose death had excited in him so many bitter regrets; and those sad recollections, in their turn, called forth in him other reflections of a new and painful nature. He recalled to mind how, in his dying moments, the self-elected father of his youth had summoned him to his side, and talked to him of that other father whom he had never known; how he had spoken, in broken accents, and with much remorse, of the possible hatred engendered between father and son; of his own regrets, now first clearly awakened in him, that he himself might have been the cause of such a consummation; and how then, with his last breath, he in vain endeavoured to murmur expressions of bitter repentance for some cruel wrong done, the nature of which no longer met the ear of the anxious listener, and was soon left for ever unexplained in the silence of death. These sad remembrances led to a train of thought of a most painful and harassing description. His position as a voluntary supporter of a cause repugnant to the principles of a father, whom, although unknown to him, it was his duty to honour and obey, and as affianced to the daughter of a man whose Republican principles were so decided, appeared to him involved with the most perplexing difficulties. New and conflicting feelings had arisen in the young man's breast. There was already within him a bitter struggle between love and duty – between long inculcated opinions and newly awakened emotions. As the one or the other feeling predominated, Gerald walked backwards and forwards with gloomy face, or turned to gaze upon the window, the closed casement of which seemed then to call forth from him gestures and words of a somewhat testy impatience.

"She knows that this is my hour for mounting guard, and yet she comes not to the window. She shows no sign of the least thought or care for me," he muttered angrily to himself, stamping more firmly and sharply as he recommenced his pacing, after a pause, in which he had eyed the window with bent brow and bitten lip. "But she does not love me," he added bitterly. "She has never loved me. She has never done otherwise than trifle with my affections – seeking for demonstrations of my love to feed her vanity, and then flinging them aside with the sick stomach of an over-pampered child. I am a fool to let myself be thus dragged at her skirts, in such tinselled leading-strings. No; I will loose myself from this thraldom. But what if she love another? More than once I have thought she looked with much complacency upon that young recruit – the new volunteer – that Maywood, I think they call him. Were it true, 'sdeath! I would slit his ears for him. God forgive me the oath!" Gerald asked no forgiveness for the revengeful thought.

He was still continuing his half-muttered soliloquy of jealousy and spite, when the click of a casement-hasp caught his lover's ear. In a moment, the angry expression of his brow was cleared away like a mist before the sun – a bright gleam of satisfaction illumed his countenance, as he looked eagerly and hastily towards the window of Mistress Mildred's chamber. The casement opened, and first appeared a fair hand, which, with a long tapering jug of blue and white Dutch porcelain, was bestrewing water upon the flowers in the little wooden balcony. Then there stood at the open window a youthful female form; but the head was bent down so low over the flowers – the damsel was so absorbed in her gentle occupation – she was of course so completely unaware of the presence of any person in the court below who might expect a greeting from her, that it was difficult at first to distinguish the features. A pure white, pinched, and plaited cap covered the bended head, but not, however, so entirely, as fully to contain or hide a profusion of dark brown hair, which perhaps, according to the fashion of the times, it should have done. Through the flowers, also, that partially obscured the long low window, might be distinguished part of a sad-coloured gown, the simplicity of which, in its make, could not conceal, as perhaps it ought to have done, the rounded outlines of a full but graceful form; while, at the same time, its dull hue was charmingly relieved – of course without any intention of coquetry – by a ruff and gorget of the most glittering purity, and, at the end of the long sleeves, by two small, delicate, white cuffs, which seemed to be playing a game of rivalry with the little hands for the palm of fairness.

As Gerald hemmed, and coughed, and shuffled with his feet impatiently, he imagined, for a moment, that one hasty glance of the eyes which bent over the flowers was directed into the court, and then averted with the quickness of lightning, but he was no doubt mistaken; for when the task of watering the plants was at an end, the head was only raised to watch the clouds for a very short space of time – sufficient time, however, to show two dark pencilled eyebrows placed over a pair of bright dark eyes, in that peculiar arch which gives a look of tormenting espièglerie to the expression, and in the blooming cheeks, full, but not too full for grace, two laughter-loving dimples, which imparted to a lovely countenance a joyous and fascinating character – and then was again withdrawn. The fair white hand again already rested upon the hasp of the casement, as if to close it, when Gerald, who had waited with renewed feelings of vexation the greeting of his lady-love, called in a low, but almost angry tone of voice, "Mildred! – Mistress Mildred!"

"Master Gerald Lyle, is it you? Who would have thought that you were there?" said pretty Mistress Mildred, again showing at the window her arch countenance, the expression of which seemed to be at most wicked variance with her prim attire.

"Methinks a friendly greeting were not ill bestowed upon an old acquaintance," muttered the young man in the same tone of testy impatience.

"Know you not," responded the damsel, with something of the canting whine adopted at the time, and in a semi-serious tone, to the genuineness of which her dimples very naughtily gave a direct lie – whatever their mistress might have intended – "Know you not, that such bowings of the head, and kissings of the hand, are but vain and worldly symbols and delusions."

"Trifle not with me, I beseech you, Mildred," said the vexed lover, "for my heart is sad and my mind is harassed. During the weary hours of my watch, I have longed for a smile from that sweet face – a glance from those bright eyes, as my only solace; and yet the hours passed by and you came not to your window, although I had let you know that it was my duty to keep this watch; and when you did come, you would have left again without a single word to me. This was unkind. And now you are there, you bend your brow upon me with an angry look. What have I done to offend you, Mildred? You cannot doubt my love, my truth."

"And what is there in my conduct or in my words that can justify Master Lyle in thus treating me as a trifler?" answered Mildred with a pouting air, avoiding any direct answer to all his other remarks. "Methinks I have every right to be offended at so unjust an accusation." But in spite of the gross offence, Mistress Mildred now seemed to have no thought of punishing it, by withdrawing from the window.

"I offend you! you know I would give the whole world, were it mine, to spare you one painful feeling," cried the young man. "It is you who wrong me, it is you who are unjust, and even now you seek to quarrel with me. But perhaps you wish to break the troth you have given me – perhaps your light heart has already offered its affections to another!"

"As you will, sir. Perhaps my light heart, as you are pleased to call it, would do well to seek some less morose and tetchy guardian," said the young lady, tossing up her head, and preparing again to close the windows.

But as her eye fell upon the despairing look and gestures of her lover, the arched eyebrow was unknit, and raised with an expression of comic vexation; a smile lurked for a moment in the dimples and corners of the pouting mouth; and then at last broke out into a fit of decided laughter.

After indulging a moment in her mirth, Mildred looked at the young man fondly and said, "Go to, Gerald! you show not the patient spirit of a Christian man; and even now your face wears such a frown, as methinks must have wrinkled the brow of the jealous blackamoor in those wicked stage-plays, of which my poor mother told me, before my father chid her for it, and bid her cease to speak of such vanities – fie now! out upon you! shall I throw you down my little mirror that you may see that face? Well! I am a naughty froward child. See there! I am sitting on the stool of penance, and I ask thee pardon."

"Forgive me also," cried Gerald, springing forward, his heart melting before the arch look of fondness that beamed down upon him. "Forgive me my pettish impatience with you, Mildred."

"Forgiveness of injuries is ordained unto us as our first of duties," rejoined Mildred with another demure look – which was all the wickeder for its demureness.

"But why came you not before, my Mildred?" said the lover, with a slight lingering tone of expostulation; "you know not the bitterness of those countless minutes of anxiety, and doubt, and eager waiting."

"I could not leave my father," replied Mildred more seriously; "although he knows and approves our attachment; he would have chid me had he been aware that I come to have speech of you from my window; and as it is, I have done wrong to come. Besides, he was weary, and bade me read to him, and I sat by his side, and read to him the Bible, until, in the midst of an exhortation to watch and pray, I heard a sound that he himself might have called an uplifting of the horn of Sion, and behold he was snoring in his chair; and then, in the naughtiness of my heart, I stole from his presence to come to my room – and – and – tend my flowers," she added with an arch smile.

"You thought of me then, and came, though late, to see me?" said Gerald eagerly.

"You? Did I not say my flowers, Master Gerald?" asked Mildred still laughing.

"Oh! mock me no longer, cruel girl! You know not all I have suffered during this tedious watch – all the doubts and fears with which my poor mind has been tortured. Did you know, you would console, not mock me, and one word would console all. Tell me you love me still."

"One word, you say – what shall it be?" said Mildred, raising her eyebrows as if to seek the word; and then, looking down upon him kindly, she added, "Ever."

"And you love none but me? you have no thought for any other?" continued the lover with an evident spice of jealousy still lurking in his mind.

"What! two words now?" said the laughing girl. "Are all lovers such arrant beggars? give them a penny and they ask a groat. Well! well! but one other, and that shall be the last. None" – and as Mildred spoke, she bent herself over the balcony to smile on Gerald, and rested one tiny hand, of course unconsciously, on the outer framework.

"Thanks, thanks, my dear, my pretty, my darling Mildred!" exclaimed the young man, and as he spoke, he sprang, musket on arm, upon a stone bench, which stood out from the wall immediately under Mistress Mildred's window, and endeavoured to snatch the white hand that just peeped so invitingly over the edge of the low wooden balcony.

"Out upon you, Master Sentinel," said the young lady, putting back her hand. "Is it thus you keep your watch? Another such step and I shall sound the alarm, and denounce you as a deserter to your post. Look ye! your prisoner will escape."

Gerald instinctively turned his head to the old tower behind him, as he stepped down again from the stone bench, with somewhat of that tail-between-the-legs look, which a spaniel wears when repulsed from his mistress's lap. But there was no one stirring. He shook his head reproachfully at the laughing girl.

"Nay! I did but remind you of your duty," said Mildred; "and you know my father sets much store by the capture of this prisoner, whom he supposes to be some one of rank and note; a fugitive from the dispersed army of the malignants; perhaps a friend of the young King of Scots, and, as such, aware of his retreat."

"I saw him as they brought him hither, after capturing him in an attempt to gain the coast," replied the young soldier. "He is an old cavalier, of a stately and goodly presence, although cast down by his ill fortune. But enough of this. Tell me, Mildred" – But here the ears of the young couple caught the sound of a distant bell as it came booming over the water of the broad.

"Hush! It is the curfew from the town," said Mildred. "The watch will now be changed. Back! back! They will be here directly. I must away."

"Already," cried Gerald with vexation. "But another word, Mildred – but one – some token of your love until we meet again."

"Impossible!" replied the fair girl. "How can you ask me for a token? It were very wrong in me to give you such. You ask too much." Then, as she was about to close the window, she exclaimed again, "This poor rose wants trimming sadly. Alack! these early frosts destroy all my poor plants;" and taking up her scissors, which hung from her girdle, she snipped at a withered leaf. Perhaps Mildred's pretty little hand trembled, for of course it was an accident – the unfortunate scissors, instead of cutting the withered leaf; closed upon the very prettiest rose upon the little tree – that rose happened to hang over the edge of the balcony, and so it came to pass that it fell at Gerald's feet.

Gerald seized it and pressed it, like all true lovers from time immemorial, to his lips.

"Thanks! darling girl," he cried.

"Thanks! for what?" rejoined Mistress Mildred, putting on a very lamentable air. "Now, don't suppose I have done this purposely. My poor rose! how you crush it and tumble it in your hand. How could I be so awkward!" and with these words the window was wholly closed.

Gerald still stood with his eyes fixed upon the window, when a noise, as if a sharp rustling among leaves, startled him. Immediately upon the alert, he looked cautiously around; but there was no one in the court. He walked hastily to the parapet wall and bent over it – all was still except the boat of the fisherman, which he had before observed. It had apparently been rowed to another part of the river about the mansion, as a better place for fishing, without having been observed by the inattentive sentinel, for it was now floating down the stream towards the opening into the broad. The fisherman again lay motionless at the bottom of the boat. Suddenly a thought seemed to cross the young soldier's brain, for he sprang to the bushes still left growing near the parapet wall, and searched hastily among the leaves. From the ground beneath their thick shelter he raised a small packet. His musket was already jerked into his right arm to fire an alarm, in order that the fisherman might be pursued, as suspected of attempting to establish a communication with the prisoner, when his eye fell upon the superscription of the packet. He stared for one moment with surprise; and then his colour changed, and he grew deadly pale. His eye hurried rapidly to the tower – an exclamation of bitter grief burst from his lips – and he stood aghast. At this moment the steps of the soldiers coming to relieve guard resounded along the vaulted passage communicating between the court and other parts of the mansion. At the sound the blood rushed back into Gerald's face, until it covered forehead and temples. He hastily replaced the packet in the hiding-place where he had discovered it, and stood with musket in arm, and in a state of ill-repressed agitation, awaiting the corporal and guard.

The young soldier who was now brought to relieve him from his post, was the same Mark Maywood of whom he had expressed his jealous doubts.

The usual ceremony of relieving guard was gone through; but although the words of order were few, these few words were communicated by Gerald in a brief angry tone, and received by the other young soldier with a cold frowning air. Between the two young men there appeared to exist feelings of an instinctive repulsion.

As he turned to leave the court, Gerald gave another anxious, eager look at the old tower, and glanced askance at the leafy hiding-place of the packet. Another troubled sigh burst from his heart; but whatever thoughts occupied him before passing under the vaulted passage, he raised his eyes to the well-known chamber casement, which was close by. He could evidently perceive Mildred's graceful form partly ensconced behind a hanging to her window. Was she watching his departure? No. It seemed to him as if her eyes were turned in the direction of the handsome young recruit – that detested Maywood. And he? Gerald looked round once more. He felt convinced that the young sentinel's eyes were fixed upon pretty Mistress Mildred's window. It was in a high state of agitation – a new fit of raging jealousy mingling with other painful and harassing emotions, that Gerald followed the corporal and soldiers from the court.