It was a severe night of early winter,—one of those stormy intervals in which Italy seems to assume all the rigors of some northern land, with an impetuosity derived from her own more excitable latitude. The rain beat against the windows with distinct and separate plashes, and the wind rattled and shook the strong walls with a violence that seemed irresistible.

In a large old room of a very old palace at Lucca, Alfred Layton walked to and fro, stopping every now and then to listen to some heightened effort of the gale without, and then resuming his lonely saunter. There were two large and richly ornamented fireplaces, and in one of them a small fire was burning, and close to this stood a table with a shaded lamp, and by these frail lights a little brightness was shed over this portion of the vast chamber, while the remainder was shrouded in deep shadow. As the fitful flashes of the wood-fire shone from time to time on the walls, little glimpses might be caught of a much-faded tapestry, representing some scenes from the “Æneid;” but on none of these did Layton turn an eye nor bestow a thought, for he was deep in sorrowful reflections of his own,—cares too heavy to admit of any passing distraction. He was alone, for Agincourt had gone to spend the day at the “Caprini,” whither Alfred would have accompanied him but for a letter which the morning's post had brought to his hands, and whose contents had overwhelmed him with sorrow.

It was from his mother, written from a sick-bed, and in a hand that betokened the most extreme debility. And oh! what intense expression there is in these weak and wavering lines, wherein the letters seemed to vibrate still with the tremulous motion of the fevered fingers!—what a deep significance do we attach to every word thus written! till at length, possessed of every syllable and every stop, we conjure up the scene where all was written, and feel as though we heard the hurried breathing of the sick-room. She had put off writing week after week, but now could defer no longer. It was upwards of two months since his father had left her to go to Dublin, and, from the day he went, she had never heard from him. A paragraph, however, in a morning paper, though not giving his name, unmistakably alluded to him as one who had grievously fallen from the high and honorable station he had once occupied, and spoke of the lamentable reverse that should show such a man in the dock of a police-court on the charge of insulting and libelling a public character in a ribald handbill. The prisoner was so hopelessly sunk in drunkenness, it added, that he was removed from the court, and the examination postponed.

By selling one by one the little articles of furniture she had, she contrived, hitherto, to eke out a wretched support, and it was only when at last these miserable resources had utterly failed her that she was driven to grieve her son with her sad story. Nor was the least touching part of her troubles that in which she spoke of her straits to avoid being considered an object of charity by her neighbors. The very fact of the rector having overpaid for a few books he had purchased made her discontinue to send him others, so sensitive had misery made her. And yet, strangely enough, there did not exist the same repugnance to accept of little favors and trifling kindnesses from the poor people about her, of whom she spoke with a deep and affectionate gratitude. Her whole heart was, however, full of one thought and one hope,—to see her dear son before she died. It was a last wish, and she felt as though indulging it had given her the energy which had prolonged her life. Doubts would cross her mind from time to time if it were possible for him to come; if he could be so far his own master as to be able to hasten to her; and even if doing so, he could be yet in time; but all these would give way before the strength of her hope.

“That I should see you beside my bed,—that you should hold my hand as I go hence,—will be happiness enough to requite me for much sorrow!” wrote she. “But if this may not be, and that we are to meet no more here, never forget that in my last prayer your name was mingled, and that when I entreated forgiveness for myself, I implored a blessing for you!”

“That letter was written on the Monday before; and where had he been on that same Monday evening?” asked he of himself. “How had he been occupied in those same hours when she was writing this? Yes, that evening he was seated beside May Leslie at the piano, while she played and sang for him. They had been talking of German songwriters, and she was recalling here and there such snatches of Uhland and Schiller as she could remember; while Clara, leaning over the back of his chair, was muttering the words when May forgot them, and in an accent the purest and truest. What a happy hour was that to him! and to her how wretched, how inexpressibly wretched, as, alone and friendless, she wrote those faint lines!”

Poor Layton felt very bitterly the thought that, while he was living in an easy enjoyment of life, his mother, whom he loved dearly, should be in deep want and suffering.

In the easy carelessness of a disposition inherited from his father, he had latterly been spending money far too freely. His constant visits to Marlia required a horse, and then, with all a poor man's dread to be thought poor, he was ten times more liberal to servants than was called for, and even too ready to join in whatever involved cost or expense. Latterly, too, he had lost at play; small sums, to be sure, but they were the small sums of a small exchequer, and they occurred every day, for at the game of pool poor Layton's ball was always the first on the retired list; and the terrible Mr. O'Shea, who observed a sort of reserve with Charles Heathcote, made no scruple of employing sharp practice with the tutor.

He emptied the contents of his purse on the table, and found that all his worldly wealth was a trifle over fifteen pounds, and of this he was indebted to Charles Heathcote some three or four,—the losses of his last evening at the “Caprini.” What was to be done? A journey to Ireland would cost fully the double of all he possessed, not to say that, once there, he would require means. So little was he given to habits of personal indulgence, that he had nothing—absolutely nothing—to dispose of save his watch, and that was of little value; a few books, indeed, he possessed, but their worth, even if he could obtain it, would have been of no service. With these embarrassing thoughts of his poverty came also others, scarcely less fraught with difficulty. How should he relieve himself of his charge of Lord Agincourt? There would be no time to write to his guardians and receive their reply. He could not leave the boy in Italy; nor dare he, without the consent of his relatives, take him back to England. How to meet these difficulties he knew not, and time was pressing,—every hour of moment to him. Was there one, even one, whose counsel he could ask, or whose assistance he could bespeak? He ran over the names of those around him, but against each, in turn, some insuperable objection presented itself. There possibly had been a time he might have had recourse to Sir William, frankly owning how he was circumstanced, and bespeaking his aid for the moment; but of late the old Baronet's manner towards him had been more cold and reserved than at first,—studiously courteous, it is true, but a courtesy that excluded intimacy. As to Charles, they had never been really friendly together, and yet there was a familiarity between them that made a better understanding more remote than ever.

While he revolved all these troubles in his head, he walked up and down his room with the feverish impatience of one to whom rest was torture. At last, even the house seemed too narrow for his restless spirit, and, taking his hat, he went out, careless of the swooping rain, nor mindful of the cold and cutting wind as it swept down from the last spur of the Apennines. As the chill rain drenched him, there seemed almost a sense of relief in the substitution of a bodily suffering to the fever that burned in his brain, and seeking out the bleakest part of the old ramparts, he stood breasting the storm, which had now increased to a perfect hurricane.

“The rain cannot beat upon one more friendless and forlorn,” muttered he, as he stood shivering there; the strange fascination of misery suggesting a sort of bastard heroism to his spirit. “The humblest peasant in that dreary Campagna has more of sympathy and kindness than I have. He has those poor as himself and powerless to aid, but willing to befriend him.” There was ever in his days of depression a fierce revolt in his nature against the position he occupied in the world. The acceptance on sufferance, the recognition accorded to his pupil being his only claim to attention, were painful wounds to a haughty temperament, and, with the ingenuity of a self-tormentor, he ascribed every reverse he met in life to his false position. He accepted it, no doubt, to be able to help those who had made such sacrifices for him, and yet even in this it was a failure. There lay his poor mother, dying of very want, in actual destitution, and he could not help—could not even be with her!

Though his wet clothes, now soaked with half-frozen drift, sent a deadly chill through him, the fever of his blood rendered him unconscious of it, and his burning brain seemed to defy the storm, while in the wild raging of the elements he caught up a sort of excitement that sustained him. For more than two hours he wandered about in that half-frenzied state, and at length, benumbed and exhausted, he turned homeward. To his surprise, he perceived, as he drew near, that the windows were all alight, and a red glow of a large wood-fire sent its mellow glare across the street; but greater was his astonishment on entering to see the tall figure of a man stretched at full length on three chairs before the fire, fast asleep, a carpet-bag and a travelling-cloak beside him.

Never was Layton less disposed to see a stranger and play the host to any one, and he shook the sleeper's shoulder in a fashion that speedily awoke him; who, starting up with a bound, cried out, “Well, Britisher, I must say this is a kinder droll way to welcome a friend.”

“Oh, Colonel, is it you?” said Layton. “Pray forgive my rudeness. But coming in as I did, without expecting any one, wet and somewhat tired—” He stopped and looked vacantly about him, as though not clearly remembering where he was.

Quackinboss had, however, been keenly examining him while he spoke, and marked in his wildly excited eyes and flushed cheeks the signs of some high excitement “You ain't noways right; you 're wet through and cold, besides,” said he, taking his hand in both his own. “Do you feel ill?”

“Yes; that is—I feel as if—I—had—lost my way,” muttered he, with long pauses between the words.

“There 's nothing like bed and a sound sleep for that,” said the other, gently; while, taking Layton's arm, he led him quietly along towards the half-open door of his bedroom. Passively surrendering himself to the other's care, Alfred made no resistance to all he dictated, and, removing his dripping clothes, he got into bed.

“It is here the most pain is now,” said he, placing his palm on his temple,—“here, and inside my head.”

“I wish I could talk to that servant of yours; he don't seem a very bright sort of creetur, but I could make him of use.” With this muttered remark, Quackinboss walked back into the sitting-room, where Layton's man was now extinguishing the lights and the fire. “You have to keep that fire in, I say—fire—great fire—hot water. Understand me?”

“'Strissimo! si,” said the Tuscan, bowing courteously.

“Well, then, do you fetch some lemons—lemons. You know lemons, don't you?”

A shrug was the unhappy reply.

“Lemong—lemong! You know them?”

“Limoni! oh si.” And he made the sign of squeezing them; and then, hastening out of the room, he speedily reappeared with lemons and other necessaries to concoct a drink.

“That's it,—bravo, that's it! Brew it right hot, my worthy fellow,” said Quackinboss, with a gesture that implied the water was to be boiled immediately. He now returned to Layton, whom he found sitting up in the bed, talking rapidly to himself, but with all the distinctness of one perfectly collected.

“By Marseilles I could reach Paris on Tuesday night, and London on Wednesday. Isn't there a daily packet for Genoa?” asked he, as Quackinboss entered.

“Well, I guess there's more than 's good of 'em,” drawled out the other; “ill-found, ill-manned, dirty craft as ever I put foot in!”

“Yes, but they leave every day, don't they?” asked Layton, impatiently.

“I ain't posted up in their doin's, nor I don't want to, that's a fact. We went ashore with a calm sea and a full moon, coming up from Civita-Vecchia—”

Layton burst into a laugh at the strange pronunciation,—a wild, unearthly sort of laugh that ended in a low, faint sigh, after which he lay back like one exhausted.

“I 'm a-goin' to take a little blood from you, I am!” said Quackinboss, producing a lancet which, from its shape and size, seemed more conversant with horse than human practice.

“I 'll not be bled! How am I to travel a journey of seven, eight, or ten days and nights, if I 'm bled?” cried the sick man, angrily.

“I 've got to bleed you, and I 'll do it!” said Quackinboss, as, taking ont his handkerchief, he tore a long strip, like a ribbon, from its border.

“Francesco—Francesco!” screamed out Layton, wildly, “take this man away; he has no right to be here. I 'll not endure it. Leave me—go—leave me!” screamed he, angrily.

There was that peculiar something about the look of Quackinboss that assured Francesco it would be as well not to meddle with him; and, like all his countrymen, he was quick to read an expression and profit by his knowledge. Even to the sick man, too, did the influence extend, and the determinate, purpose-like tone of his manner enforced obedience without even an effort.

“I was mystery-man for three years among the Choctaws,” said he, as he bound up Layton's arm, “and I 'll yield to no one livin' how to treat a swamp fever, and that's exactly what you 've got.” While the blood trickled from the open vein he continued to talk on in the same strain. “I 've seen a red man anoint hisself all over with oil, and set fire to it, and then another stood by with a great blanket to wrap him up afore he was more than singed, and it always succeeded in stoppin' the fever. It brought it out to the surface like. Howsomever, it's only an Indian's fixin', and I don't like it with a white man. How d' ye feel now,—better?”

A muttering, dissatisfied sound, but half articulate, seemed to say, “No better.”

“It ain't to be expected yet,” said Quackinboss. “Lie down, and be quiet a bit.”

Although the first effect of the bleeding seemed to calm the sufferer and arrest his fever, the symptoms of the malady came back in full force afterwards, and, ere day broke, he was raving wildly. At one moment he fancied he was at work in the laboratory with his father, and he ran over great calculations of mental arithmetic with a marvellous volubility; then he was back in his chambers at Trinity, but he could not find his books; they were gone—lost—no, not lost, he suddenly remembered that he had sold them—sold them to send a pittance to his poor sick mother. “It's a sad story, every part of it,” whispered he in Quackinboss's ear, while he clutched him closely with his hands. “It was a great man was lost, mark you; and in a great shipwreck even the fragments of the wreck work sad destruction, and, of course, none will say a word for him. But remember, sir, I am his son, and will not hear a syllable against him, from you nor any other.” From this he abruptly broke off to speak of O'Shea, and his late altercation with him. “I waited at home all the morning for him, and at last got a note to say that he had forgotten to tell me of an appointment he had made to ride out with Miss Leslie, but he 'll be punctual to the hour to-morrow. So it's better as it is, Colonel, for you 'll be here, and can act as my friend,—won't you? Your countrymen understand all these sort of things so well. And then, if I be called away suddenly to England, don't tell them,” whispered he, mysteriously,—“don't tell them at the villa whither I 've gone. They know nothing of me nor of my family; never heard of my ruined father, nor my poor, sick, destitute mother, dying of actual want,—think of that,—while I was playing the man of fortune here, affecting every extravagance,—yes, it was you yourself said so; I overheard you in the garden, asking why or how was it, with such ample means, I would become a tutor.”

It was not alone that these words were uttered in a calm and collected tone, but they actually recalled to the American a remark he had once made about Layton. “Well,” said he, as if some apology was called for, “it warn't any business of mine, but I was sorry to see it.”

“But you didn't know—you couldn't know,” cried the other, eagerly, “that I had no choice; my health was breaking. I had overworked my head; I could n't go on. Have you ever tried what it is to read ten hours a day? Answer me that.”

“No; but I've been afoot sixteen out of the twenty-four for weeks together, on an Indian trail; and that's considerable worse, I take it.”

“Who cares for mere fatigue of body?” said Layton, contemptuously.

“And who says it's mere fatigue of body?” rejoined the other, “when every sense a man has is strained and stretched to breakin', his ear to the earth, and his eyes rangin' over the swell of the prairies, till his brain aches with the strong effort; for, mark ye, Choctaws isn't Pawnees: they 're on you with a swoop, just like a white squall in the summer time.” There is no saying how far Quackinboss, notwithstanding all his boasted skill in physic, might have been tempted to talk on about a theme he loved so well, when he was suddenly admonished, by the expression of Layton's face, that the sick man was utterly unconscious of all around him. The countenance had assumed that peculiar stern and stolid gaze which is so markedly the characteristic of an affected brain.

“There,” muttered Quackinboss to himself, “I 've been a-talkin' all this time to a poor creetur as is ravin' mad; all I 've been doin' is to make him worse.”