Next morning's rayless sun found Louis passing from his hardly pressed pillow, to the prosecution of his appointed task for the day. Ignatius had laid before him new papers, of a totally different character from the former, and much more difficult to transcribe. As he continued to write, he heard the furious beating of a snow-storm against the windows, which, in this apartment, were not only grated but too high in the wall to allow of outward view. The heat of a well-filled stove excluded the encreased cold of the season; and the fierce The Sieur appeared at his former nocturnal hour, to receive what had been finished, and to leave other manuscripts to which he desired duplicates. Day after day Louis was kept close to his desk, and every night delivered to his unrelenting task-master the labour of the day. At the expiration of a week, the Sieur told him he should not see him again till the first of the ensuing month; but that he had a correspondence to leave with him, which he must completely transcribe into a regular series, by the time of his return. Louis received his orders in respectful silence, and when he was again left to his solitary toil, he found that his voluminous task was in the Sclavonian and Turkish characters. Neither of these languages had been parts of his studies; so he pursued his monotonous employment The sun rose, and the sun set; the weather, foul or fair; gloomy in storm, or gay with the scintillation of exhilarating frost, all found Louis de Montemar close at his desk. The iron-bound windows had never opened to the air; and the charcoal fumes which warmed the apartment, having no egress, hung in narcotic vapours on the vaulted roof. A heavy languor fell on its lonely inhabitant, and grew on him from day to day, till it left him hardly any other consciousness of being, than the faculty of moving, his now habituated hand, perpetually over the infinite reams of paper which lay before him. On the night of the 1st of February, according to his promise, Ignatius entered the prison-room of his unrelaxing secretary. The piles which were com "How is this?" cried he, eyeing Louis from head to foot, "you are ill." "Perhaps the confinement, Sir," re "No," said Ignatius, "your diligence has been too severe; you must have air and exercise. To-morrow you shall try their efficacy. I will send a respectable servant of my own, to attend you over the city." Louis thankfully embraced the proposal. The morrow's sun rose brilliant, as on the first morning he had hailed its beams from his chamber at Vienna. Louis dismissed a breakfast, for which he had no appetite; and with a spring of joy, he could not have conceived it possible to have experienced by merely stepping forth into the open air, he followed Martini, (the promised attendant from the Sieur,) out of the great gates of the Chateau. The man was an Italian, and possessed none of the taciturnity of his mysterious master. With the respect due to a Martini conducted him through the finest squares of the city, and along the most magnificent part of the suburbs towards the frozen Danube. It was now the hour of high gala. The noise and bustle of a countless multitude, passing and re-passing in a thousand different directions, soon summoned the concentrated senses of Louis to regard outward objects. The Delighted to see the attention of his charge at last arouzed, Martini allowed him, for some time, to gaze around in pleased amazement; then, resuming his Louis was particularly struck with the singular beauty of the animals which drew these carriages. They were evidently of the Arabian breed, slight of limb, and carrying their branching necks with the grace of an antelope. The peculiar airiness and freedom of their pace, suited well with the Eastern magnificence of their trappings. An equipage with four of these fine creatures had just engaged his attention, when he found himself hurried forward by a crowd of foot-passengers, rushing to meet a cavalcade which preceded the Empress. At the moment of general clamour, he thought The sight of the Duke, not merely recalled the enthusiastic feeling with which he originally regarded him, but presented to Louis the image of England, and all that it contained dear to his habits and to his heart! Tears rushed For the first time since his arrival at Vienna, did he allow his heart to speak even to himself, to acknowledge that he was unhappy! That he had exchanged the generous freedom of the home of his youth, for harsh imprisonment in a foreign land. That he had parted with relations, who loved and honoured him, to become dependent on a stranger, and bound to the toil of a slave! "Is such to be the purpose of my life?" said he to himself, as, with eyes blinded by emotion, he turned from the gay scene; "is such to be the oblivion of all that I took so much pains to acquire? Such, the grave of talents, my too partial relations cherished with so With these thoughts goading his fevered nerves, un-noting the way he went, he hurried from the Danube. By accident he took the path to the Chateau, and his guide, marvelling at the fitful humours of the young secretary, followed in silence. With a pulse in every vein, and feelings exasperated at the present, from immediate comparison with the past, and yearning for the moment of throwing himself into the arms of Wharton; as if that one embrace would re Hour passed over hour; Gerard knocked at the door, to announce that his solitary meal was prepared, but he knocked unheeded. At last, the deepening glooms of evening enclosing him in darkness, reminded him the day was past, and that his demanded task of the morning was yet to begin. Aware that the man, whom he was required to revere as "I will not endure it!" cried he, "why should I immure myself like a condemned wretch? Shut up in solitude, fastened to the duty of a machine; Without sound of human voice, but that of my hard task-master! Without breathing the free air of Heaven; unless accompanied with lackies! Is this a fate, chosen by the Baron de Ripperda for his son, his only son? It is mockery, and I will not endure it." The fever in his blood exaggerated to his perturbed mind every mysterious circumstance in his situation. He might be now the unconscious instrument of treason, or the cheated agent of political treachery. His father's confidence might All this seemed the strange effect of Louis having seen Duke Wharton. But much sprung from a distempered imagination, and disordered nerves; the consequence of loneliness, want of exercise, and long confinement in a deleterious atmosphere. However, the sudden appearance of Wharton was certainly the circumstance which at once awoke all his sensibilities to the perception of his changed state; of the liberty he had been persuaded to relinquish, of the liberty he might, perhaps, regain by the Duke's interference. The last idea was a vague one, but still it was visible; it had a shadowy existence between hope and despair, and Louis clasped at the delusive shade. A prey to these confused imaginations, he could not command either the desire As the old clock of the mansion struck ten, he was aroused from his moody position by a gleam of light. He looked up, and saw the Sieur Ignatius standing before him, with a lamp in his hand. Louis started, disordered, from his chair. "What is the meaning of this?" asked the Sieur, in a kindly voice; "I fear you are seriously ill." Louis, in attempting to speak, was agitated to suffocation. Ignatius fixed his eyes on his haggard countenance. "Your zeal has over-wrought your strength. Health is as necessary as will, to the completion of your duty. In these The unusual interest in his feelings, which this address intimated; and the perfect confidence in his will to perform, what he had not done, smote on the heart of Louis; and, embarrassed and miserable, he bowed in silence. "Sit down," continued the Sieur, evidently struck with the changed appearance of his charge; "I was improvident not to calculate on the ardour of your character, and give you orders to make pauses in your work, and take daily exercise in the garden. I ought to have thought on the garden before; for your walk of to-day without the walls, has already been productive of vexation. You have been seen, and to my great em "By the Duke of Wharton," returned Louis, with all the recollections of that moment flushing his cheek; "I saw him on the Danube." "And you saluted him first?" demanded Ignatius. "No;" answered Louis, "but I turned to a voice calling on my name through the crowd, and met the eyes of my friend." "And he recognised you, and you him?" "We did." "Mischief upon mischief!" ejaculated the Sieur, starting from his chair, and striding across the room in extraordinary discomposure. He turned suddenly upon Louis.—"So thoroughly did I believe you incapable of conduct so inconsistent with your awful engagements, that I have absolutely contradicted the mutual "Sir," said Louis, with the dignity of conscious probity answering a man who had so lately put his affirmation to a falsehood; "my office here is inconsistent with my awful engagements. I bound myself to the dedication of all my talents, all the energies of my mind and heart, to the service of my father's country, "This is new language Louis de Montemar! You have spoken with the Duke of Wharton. He knows all that you know: and he has put this complexion on the affair! well he knows how to sap and to overturn—and a fit agent for a father's ruin, he has found in the son of the Baron de Ripperda." As the terrible Ignatius delivered this, he approached close to Louis, and seiz "I can bear your scrutiny, Sir," said he, "were you to rip open my breast with the poniard your hand rests upon. It is not in me to betray any man. I have not spoken with Duke Wharton." "And you must not," returned the Sieur, recovering his presence of mind, and dropping his hand from the dagger's hilt he had unconsciously grasped; "you must avoid, avoid even the chance of his seeing you again. You are ill, and you are moody. You require air and action; and you shall have them: but henceforth they must be found in the garden of the Chateau. Be obedient to this necessity; and I will forget the phrenzied language, which, if not Wharton, some demon must have conjured, to betray your reason and your duty." "Sir," replied Louis, in great emotion; "I do not wish you to forget it. I wish you to answer me to all its points. For some time the lofty Ignatius regarded his pupil's almost convulsed features with a steady perusal of their varying expressions.—At last, putting his hand on the shoulder of Louis, he said in a calm voice; "Compose yourself; and listen to me. Hear from my lips, truths that must be your future guide in the destiny you have chosen; but to combat with the evils of which, you come totally unprovided. You have educated yourself for the service of your country.—You are full of ardour to engage in it. But how? Not as she directs; but as yourself chuses. You would fight her battles in the field of blood; you would fill her cars of triumph! But you disdain to watch for her in secret, to labour in obscurity for Louis believed that he now, indeed, listened to truth. But why did he, who could impress it so powerfully, why did he utter so mean a denial of the fact, as to affirm that the son of Baron de Ripperda was not in Vienna? The prompt intelligence of the Sieur's rapid glance, had seen the effect of this assertion on the mind of his pupil; and while he pursued his remarks on what had passed, he noticed the equivocation he had made, as a common style in diplomacy: "your being in the suburbs, and not in Vienna," said he, "afforded me the advantage of this ambiguity. Always hold in mind, that no advantage, however trivial, is contemptible to a negotiator. The smallest causes often produce the greatest effects. While Louis sighed to think, that subterfuge could ever be a duty, he was filled with ingenuous shame at the suspicions he had dared to proclaim; at the reproaches with which his impatient doubts, and personal feelings, had provoked him to insult the trusted friend of his father. The forbearance of the Sieur Ignatius, under this unexpected flood of impassioned violence, augmented the contrition of the disordered offender; and when he rose to withdraw, Louis could only say, "bear with me this night. I am incapable of speaking—almost of thinking—but bear with me! and to-morrow, you shall find that I have not listened in vain." |