A Love Story Part 36

"Look at that unfaded leaf! Henry. What a gentle breeze it was, that parted it from its fellows! To me it resembles a youthful soul, cut off in its prime, and wandering mateless in eternity."

Sir Henry only sighed.

The young rower silently pursued his course across the lake; running his boat aground, on a small pebbly strand near a white cottage.

Jumping nimbly from his seat, and fastening the boat to a large stone, the guide, followed by the brothers, shouted to the inmates of the cottage, and violently kicked at its frail door.

An upper window was opened, and the guardian of the echo--a valorous divine in a black night-cap--demanded their business. This was soon told.

The priest descended--struck a light--unbarred the door--and with the prospect of gain before him, fairly forgot that he had been aroused from a deep slumber.

They were soon ushered into the kitchen. An aged crone descended, and raking the charcoal embers, kindled a flame, by which the rower was enabled to light his pipe.

The young gentleman threw himself into an arm chair, and puffed away with true German phlegm. The old man bustled about, in order to obtain the necessary materials for loading an ancient cannon; and occupied himself for some minutes, in driving the charge into the barrel.

This business arranged, he led the way towards the beach; and aided by the old woman, pointed his warlike weapon. A short pause--it was fired!

Rebounding from hill to hill, the echo took its course, startling the peasant from his couch, and the wolf from his lair.

Again all was still;--then came its distant reverberation--a tone deep and subdued--dying away mournfully on the ear.

"How wonderfully fine!" said George, "but let us embark, for I feel quite chilled."

"I will run for the youngster," replied his brother. As he moved towards the cottage, the priest seized him by the collar of the coat, and held up the torch, by which he had fired the cannon.

"This echo is indeed a wonderful one! It has nineteen distinct repet.i.tions; the first twelve being heard from _this_ side of a valley, which, were it day, I would point out; the other seven, on the opposite side. Tradition tells us, that nineteen castles in ancient times, stood near the spot; that each of these laid claim to the echo; and that, as it pa.s.ses the ruin, where once dwelt Sigismund of the b.l.o.o.d.y Hand, the chief springs from the round ivied tower--waves his sword thrice, the drops of blood falling from its hilt as he does so--and proclaims aloud, that whosoever dare gainsay"--

"I am sorry to leave you," interrupted Sir Henry, as he shook him off, "particularly at this interesting part of the story; but it is late, and my brother feels unwell, and I wish to go to the cottage to call our guide."

Delme was pursued by the echo's elucidator, who being duly remunerated, allowed Sir Henry to accompany the guide towards the boat. George was not standing where he had left him. Delme stepped forward, and nearly fell over a prostrate body.

It was the motionless one of his brother.

He gave a shriek of anguish; flew towards the house, and in a moment, was again on the spot, bearing the priest's torch. He raised his brother's head. One hand was extended over the body, and fell to the earth like a clod of clay as it was.

He gazed on that loved face. In that gaze, how much was there to arrest his attention.

On those features, death had stamped his seal.

But there was a thought, which bore the ascendancy over this in Delme's mind. It was a thought which rose involuntarily,--one for which he could not _then_ account, and cannot now. For some seconds, it swayed his every emotion. He felt the conviction--deep, undefinable--that there was indeed a soul, to "shame the doctrine of the Sadducee."

He deemed that on those lineaments, this was the language forcibly engraven! The features were still and fixed:--the brow alone revealed a dying sense of pain.

The lips! how purple were they! and the eye, that erst flashed so freely:--the yellow film of death had dimmed its l.u.s.tre.

The legs were apart, and one of the feet was in the lake. Henry tried to chafe his brother's forehead.

In vain! in vain! he knew it was in vain!

He let the head fall, and buried his face in his hands.

He turned reproachfully, to gaze on that cloudless Heaven, where the moon, and the brilliant stars, and the falling meteor, seemed to hold a bright and giddy festival.

He clasped his hands in mute agony. For a brief moment--his dark eye seeming to invite His wrath--he dared to arraign the mercy of G.o.d, who had taken what he had made.

It was but for a moment he thus thought.

He had watched that light of life, until its existence was almost identified with his own. He had seen it flicker--had viewed it reillumed--blaze with increased brilliancy--fade--glimmer--and fade. Now!

where was it?

A bitter cry escaped! his limbs trembled convulsively, and could no longer support him.

He fell senseless beside his brother.

Chapter XI

The Student

"What is my being? _thou_ hast ceased to be."

Carl Obers was as enthusiastic a being as ever Germany sent forth. Brought up in a lone recess in the Hartz mountains, with neither superiors nor equals to commune with, he first entered the miniature world, as a student at Heidelberg.

His education had been miserably neglected. He had read much; but his reading had been without order and without system.

The deepest metaphysics, and the wildest romances had been devoured in succession; until the young man hardly knew which was the real, or which was the visionary world:--the one he actually lived in, or the one he was always brooding over:--where souls are bound together by mysterious and hidden links, and where men sell themselves to Satan;--the penalty merely being:--to walk through life, and throw no shadow.

Enrolled amongst a select corps of bruschen, warm and true; his ear was caught by the imposing jargon of patriotism; and his imagination dwelt on those high sounding words, "the rights of man;"--until he became the staunch advocate and unflinching votary of a state of things, which, for aught we know, _may_ exist in one of the planets, but which never can, and which never will exist on this earth of ours.

"What!" would exclaim our enthusiast, "have we not all our bodily and our mental, energies? Doth not dame Nature, in our birth, as in our death, deal out impartial justice? She may endow me with stronger limbs, than another:--our feelings as we grow up, may not be chained down to one servile monotony;--the lip of the precocious cynic"--this was addressed to a young matter of fact Englishman--"who sneers at my present animation, may not curl with a smile as often as my own; but let our powers of acting be equal,--our prerogatives the same."

Carl Obers, with his youth and his vivacity, carried his auditors--a little knot of beer drinking liberty-mongers--_with_ him, and _for_ him, in all he said; and the orator would look round, with conscious power, and considerable satisfaction; and flatter himself, that his specious arguments were as unanswerable, as they were then unanswered.

Many of our generation may remember the unparalleled enthusiasm, which, like an electric flash, spread over the civilised world; as Greece armed herself, to shake off her Moslem ruler.

It was one that few could help sharing.

To almost all, is Greece a magic word. Her romantic history--the legacies she has left us--our early recollections, identifying with her existence as a nation, all that is good and glorious;--no wonder these things should have shed a bright halo around her,--and have made each breast deeply sympathise with her in her unwonted struggle for freedom.

Carl Obers did not hear of this struggle with indifference. He at once determined to give Greece the benefit of his co-operation, and the aid of his slender means. He immediately commenced an active canva.s.s amongst his personal friends, in order to form a band of volunteers, who might be efficient, and worthy of the cause on which his heart was set.

He now first read an useful lesson from life's unrolled volume.

Many a voice, that had rung triumphantly the changes on liberty, was silent now, or deprecated the active attempt to establish it.