eyes dimmed with tears, and I know that, in my own
DEVEKEUX. 233
house, some one lias dared thus to insult its queen, ani
I to be still torpid and inactive, lest a dastard and
craven hand should avenge my assertion of your
honour and mine 1 "
"jSTo, Morton; after our marriage, whenever that
be, you will have nothing to apprehend from him on
the same ground as before ; my fear for you, too, will
not be what it is now; your honour will be bound in
mine, and nothing shall induce me to hazard it no,
not even your safety. I have every reason to believe
that, after that event, he will subject me no longer to
his insults how, indeed, can he, under your perpetual
protection ? or, for what cause should he attempt it, if
he could ? I shall be then yours only and ever yours
what hope could, therefore, then nerve his hardi-
hood, or instigate his intrusions ? Trust to me at that
time, and suffer me to nay, I repeat, promise me that
I may trust in you now ! "
What could I do ? I still combated her wish and
her request; but her steadiness and rigidity of purpose
made me, though reluctantly, yield to them at last.
So sincere, and so stern, indeed, appeared her resolu-
tion, that I feared, by refusal, that she would take the
rash oath that would separate us for ever. Added to
this, I felt in her that confidence which, I am apt to
believe, is far more akin to the latter stages of real
love, than jealousy and mistrust; and I could not
believe that either now, or, still less after our nuptials,
she would risk aught of honour, or the seemiugs of
honour, from a visionary and superstitious fear. In
234 DEVEREUX.
spite, therefore, of my keen and deep interest in the
thorough discovery of this mysterious persecutor; and,
still more, in the prevention of all future designs from
his audacity, I constrained myself to promise her that
I would on no account seek out the person I suspected,
or wilfully betray to him, by word or deed, my belief
of his identity with Barnard.
Though greatly dissatisfied with my self- compulsion,
I strove to reconcile myself to its idea. Indeed, there
was much in the peculiar circumstances of Isora
much in the freshness of her present affliction much
in the unfriended and utter destitution of her situation
that, while, on the one hand, it called forth her
pride, and made stubborn that temper which was na-
turally so gentle and so soft, on the other hand, made
me yield even to wishes that I thought unreasonable,
and consider rather the delicacy and deference due to
her condition, than insist upon the sacrifices which,
in more fortunate circumstances, I might have ima-
gined due to myself. Still more indisposed to resist
her wish and expose myself to its penalty was I, when
I considered her desire was the mere excess and caution
of her love, and when I felt that she spoke sincerely
when she declared that it was only for me that she was
the coward. Nevertheless, and despite all these con-
siderations, it was with a secret discontent that I took
my leave of her, and departed homeward.
I had just reached the end of the street where the
house was situated, when I saw there, very imperfectly,
for the night was extremely dark, the figure of a man
DEVEREUX. 235
entirely enveloped in a long cloak, such as was com-
monly worn by gallants, in affairs of secrecy or intrigue ;
and, in the pale light of a single lamp near which he
stood, something like the brilliance of gems glittered
on the large Spanish hat which overhung his brow.
I immediately recalled the description the woman had
given me of Barnard's dress, and the thought flashed
across me that it was he whom I beheld. " At all
events," thought I, "I may confirm my doubts, if I
may not communicate them, and I may watch over her
safety if I may not avenge her injuries." I therefore
took advanage of my knowledge of the neighbourhood,
passed the stranger with a quick step, and then, run-
ning rapidly, returned by a circuitous route to the
mouth of a narrow and dark street, which was exactly
opposite to Isora's house. Here I concealed myself by
a projecting porch, and I had not waited long before I
saw the dim form of the stranger walk slowly by the
house. He passed it three or four times, and each
time I thought though the darkness might well de-
ceive me that he looked up to the windows. He
made, however, no attempt at admission, and appeared
as if he had no other object than that of watching by
the house. Wearied and impatient at last, I came
from my concealment. " I may confirm my suspi-
cions," I repeated, recurring to my oath, and I walked
straight towards the stranger.
" Sir ! " I said, very calmly, " I am the last person
in the world to interfere with the amusements of any
other gentleman; but I humbly opine that no man
236 DEVEREUX.
can parade by this house, upon so very cold a night,
without giving just ground for suspicion to the friends
of its inhabitants. I happen to be among that happy
number; and I therefore, with all due humility and
respect, venture to request you to seek some other
spot for your nocturnal perambulations."
I made this speech purposely prolix, in order to
have time fully to reconnoitre the person of the one I
addressed. The dusk of the night, and the loose garb
of the stranger, certainly forbade any decided success
to this scrutiny ; but methought the figure seemed,
despite of my prepossessions, to want the stately height
and grand proportions of Gerald Devereux. I must
own, however, that the necessary inexactitude of my
survey rendered this idea without just foundation, and
did not by any means diminish my firm impression
that it was Gerald whom I beheld. While I spoke,
he retreated with a quick step, but made no answer ;
I pressed upon him he backed with a still quicker
step ; and when I had ended, he fairly turned round,
and made at full speed along the dark street in which
I had fixed my previous post of watch. I fled after
him, with a step as fleet as his own his cloak encum-
bered his flight I gained upon him sensibly he
turned a sharp corner threw me out, and entered into
a broad thoroughfare. As I sped after him, Bacchana-
lian voices burst upon my ear, and presently a large
band of those young men, who, under the name of
Mohawks, were wont to scour the town nightly, and,
sword in hand, to exercise their love of riot under the
DEVEREUX. 237
disguise of party zeal, became visible in the middle of
the street. Through them my fugitive dashed head-
long, and, profiting by their surprise, escaped un-
molested. I attempted to follow with equal speed,
but was less successful. " Hallo ! " cried the foremost
of the group, placing himself in my way.
" !No such haste ! Art Whig or Tory 1 Under
which king Bezonian, speak or die 1 ?"
" Have a care, sir," said I fiercely, drawing my
sword.
"Treason, treason!" cried the speaker, confronting
me with equal readiness. " Have a care, indeed have
atthee!"
" Ha !" cried another. " 'tis a Tory : 'tis the Secre-
tary's popish friend, Devereux pike him, pike him !"
I had already run my opponent through the sword
arm, and was in hopes that this act would intimidate
the rest, and allow my escape ; but at the sound of
my name and political bias, coupled with the drawn
blood of their confederate, the patriots rushed upon
me with that amiable fury generally characteristic of
all true lovers of their country. Two swords passed
through my body simultaneously, and I fell bleeding
and insensible to the ground. "When I recovered I
was in my own apartments, whither two of the gentler
Mohawks had conveyed me ; the surgeons were by my
bed-side ; I groaned audibly when I saw them. If
there is a thing in the world I hate, it is in any shape
the disciples of Hermes ; they always remind me of
that Indian people (the Padau, I think) mentioned by
238 DEVEKEUX.
Herodotus, who sustained themselves "by devouring the
sick. "All is well," said one, when my groan was
heard. " He will not die," said another. " At least
not till we have had more fees," said a third, more
candid than the rest. And thereupon they seized me
and hegan torturing my wounds anew, till I fainted
away with the pain. However, the next day I was
declared out of immediate danger ; and the first proof
I gave of my convalescence was to make Desmarais
discharge four surgeons out of five ; the remaining one
I thought my youth and constitution might enable me
to endure.
That very evening, as I was turning restlessly in my
bed, and muttering, with parched lips, the name of
" Isora," I saw by my side a figure covered from head
to foot in a long veil, and a voice, low, soft, but
thrilling through my heart like a new existence, mur-
mured, " She is here ! "
I forgot my wounds, I forgot my pain and my debility
I sprung upwards the stranger drew aside the veil
from her countenance, and I beheld Isora !
"Yes !" said she, in her own liquid and honied accents,
which fell like balm upon my wound, and my spirit,
" yes, she whom you have hitherto tended is come, in
her turn, to render some slight, but woman's services
to you. She has come to nurse, and to soothe, and to
pray for you, and to be, till you yourself discard her,
your handmaid and your slave ! "
I would have answered, but raising her finger to her
lips, she arose and vanished ; but from that hour my
DEVEREUX. 239
wound healed, my fever slaked, and whenever I
beheld her flitting round my bed, or watching over
me, or felt her cool fingers wiping the dew from my
brow, or took from her hand my medicine or my food,
in those moments, the blood seemed to make a new
struggle through my veins, and I felt palpably within
me a fresh and delicious life a life full of youth, and
passion, and hope, replace the vaguer and duller being
which I had hitherto borne.
There are some extraordinary incongruities in that
very mysterious thing sympathy. One would imagine
that, in a description of things most generally in-
teresting to all men, the most general interest would
be found ; nevertheless, I believe few persons would
hang breathless over the progressive history of a sick-
bed. Yet those gradual stages from danger to recovery,
how delightfully interesting they are to all who have
crawled from one to the other ! and who, at some
time or other in his journey through that land of
diseases civilised life has not taken that gentle
excursion ? "I would be ill any day for the pleasure
of getting well," said Fontenelle to me one morning
with his usual naivete; but who would not be ill for
the mere pleasure of being ill, if he could be tended
by her whom he most loves 1
I shall not therefore dwell upon that most delicious
period of my life my sick-bed, and my recovery from
it. I pass on to a certain evening in which I heard
from Isora's lips the whole of her history, save what
related to her knowledge of the real name of one
240 DEVEKEUX.
whose persecution constituted the little of romance
which had yet mingled with her innocent and pure
life. That evening how well I remember it ! we
were alone still weak and reduced, T lay upon the
sofa beside the window, which was partially open,
and the still air of an evening, in the first infancy of
spring, came fresh and fraught, as it were, with a
prediction of the glowing woods and the reviving
verdure, to my cheek. The stars, one by one, kindled,
as if born of Heaven and Twilight, into their nightly
being ; and, through the vapour and thick ether of the
dense city, streamed their most silent light, holy and
pure, and resembling that which the Divine Mercy
sheds upon the gross nature of mankind. But,
shadowy and calm, their rays fell full upon the face
of Isora, as she lay on the ground beside my couch,
and with one hand surrendered to my clasp, looked
upward till, as she felt my gaze, she turned her cheek
blushingly away. There was quiet around and above
us ; but beneath the window we heard at times the
sounds of the common earth, and then insensibly our
our hands knit into a closer clasp, and we felt them
thrill more palpably to our hearts ; ifor those sounds
reminded us both of our existence and of our separa-
tion from the great herd of our race !
What is love but a division from the world, and a
blending of two souls, two immortalities divested of
clay and ashes, into one ? it is a severing of a thousand
ties from whatever is harsh and selfish, in order to
knit them into a single and sacred bond ! "Who loves,
DEVEREUX. 241
hath attained the anchorite's secret ; and the hermitage
has become dearer than the world. respite from the
toil and the curse of our social and banded state, a
little interval art thou, suspended between two eter-
nities the Past and the Future a star that hovers
between the morning and the night, sending through
the vast abyss one solitary ray from heaven, but too
far and faint to illumine, while it hallows the earth !
There was nothing in Isora's tale which the reader
has not already learnt or conjectured. She had left
her Andalusian home in her early childhood, but she
remembered it well, and lingeringly dwelt over it, in
description. It was evident that little, in our colder
and less genial isle, had attracted her sympathy, or
wound itself into her affection. Nevertheless, I con-
ceive that her naturally dreamy and abstracted charac-
ter had received from her residence and her trials here
much of the vigour and the heroism which it now
possessed. Brought up alone, music, and books few,
though not ill-chosen, for Shakspeare was one, and the
one which had made upon her the most permanent
impression, and perhaps had coloured her temperament
with its latent, but rich hues of poetry constituted
her amusement and her studies.
But who knows not that a woman's heart finds its
fullest occupation within itself? There lies its real
study, and within that narrow orbit, the mirror of
enchanted thought reflects the whole range of earth.
Loneliness and meditation nursed the mood which
VOL. I. Q
242 DEVEREUX.
afterwards, with Isora, became love itself. But I do
not wish now so much to describe her character, as to
abridge her brief history. The first English stranger,
of the male sex, whom her father admitted to her
acquaintance, was Barnard. This man was, as I had
surmised, connected with him in certain political
intrigues, the exact nature of which she did not know.
I continue to call him by a name which Isora acknow-
ledged was fictitious. He had not, at first, by actual
declaration, betrayed to her his affections, though,
accompanied by a sort of fierceness which early revolted
her, they soon became visible. On the evening in
which I had found her stretched insensible in the
garden, and had myself made my first confession of
love, I learnt that he had divulged to her his passion
and real name ; that her rejection had thrown him
into a fierce despair that he had accompanied his
disclosure with the most terrible threats against me,
for whom he supposed himself rejected, and against
the safety of her father, whom, he said, a word of his
could betray ; that her knowledge of his power to
injure us? tis yes, Isora then loved me, and then
trembled for my safety ! had terrified and overcome
her and that in the very moment in which my horse's
hoofs were heard, and as the alternative of her non-
compliance, the rude suitor swore deadly and sore
vengeance against Alvarez and myself, she yielded to
the oath he prescribed to her an oath that she would
never reveal the secret he had betrayed to her, or sulTer
me to know who was my real rival.
DEVEREUX. 243
This was all that I could gather from her guarded
confidence ! he heard the oath, and vanished, and she
felt no more till she was in my arms ; then it was that
she saw in the love and vengeance of my rival a bar-
rier against our union ; and then it was that her
generous fear for me conquered her attachment, and
she renounced me. Their departure from the cottage,
so shortly afterwards, was at her father's choice, and afc
the instigation of Barnard, for the furtherance of their
political projects ; and it was from Barnard that the
money came which repaid my loan to Alvarez. The
same person, no doubt, poisoned her father against
me, for henceforth Alvarez never spoke of me with
that partiality he had previously felt. They repaired
to London ; her father was often absent, and often
engaged with men whom she had never seen before !
he was absorbed and uncommunicative, and she was still
ignorant of the nature of his schemings and designs.
At length, after an absence of several weeks, Barn-
ard re-appeared, and his visits became constant ; he
renewed his suit to her father as well as herself. Then
commenced that domestic persecution, so common in
this very tyrannical world, which makes us sicken to
bear, and which, had Isora been wholly a Spanish girl,
she, in all probability, would never have resisted : so
much of custom is there in the very air of a climate.
But she did resist it, partly because she loved me and
loved me more and more for our separation and
partly because she dreaded and abhorred the ferocious
and malignant passions of my rival, far beyond any
244 DEVEEEUX.
other misery with which fortune could threaten her.
"Your father, then, shall hang or starve !" said Bar-
nard, one day, in uncontrollable frenzy, and left her.
He did not appear again at the house. The Spaniard's
resources, fed, probably, alone by Barnard, failed.
From house to house they removed, till they were
reduced to that humble one in which I had found
them. There, Barnard again sought them ; there,
backed by the powerful advocate of want, he again
pressed his suit, and at that exact moment her father
was struck with the numbing curse of his disease.
" There and then," said Isora candidly, " I might have
yielded at last, for my poor father's sake, if you had
not saved me."
Once only (I have before recorded the time) did
Barnard visit her in the new abode I had provided for
her, and the day after our conversation on that event,
Isora watched and watched for me, and I did not
come. From the woman of the house she at last
learned the cause. " I forgot," she said timidly and
in conclusion, " I forgot womanhood, and modesty, and
reserve; I forgot the customs of your country, the
decencies of my own ; I forgot everything in this
world but you you suffering and in danger ; my very
sense of existence seemed to pass from me, and to be
supplied by a breathless, confused, and overwhelming
sense of impatient agony, which ceased not till I was
in your chamber, and by your side ! And and iio\v,
Morton, do not despise me for not having considered
more, and loved you less."
DEVEREUX. 245
" Despise you !" I murmured, and I threw my arms
around her, and drew her to my breast I felt her
heart beat against my own : those hearts spoke, though
our lips were silent, and in their language seemed to
say, " We are united now, and we will not part."
The starlight, shining with a mellow and deep still-
ness, was the only light by which we beheld each
other it shone, the witness and the sanction of that
internal voice, which we owned, but heard not. Our
lips drew closer and closer together, till they met ! and
in that kiss was the type and promise of the after
ritual which knit two spirits into one. Silence fell
around us like a curtain, and the eternal Night, with
her fresh dews and unclouded stars, looked alone upon
the compact of our hearts an emblem of the eternity,
the freshness, and the unearthly, though awful bright-
ness of the love which it hallowed and beheld !
BOOK III.
CHAPTEE I
Wherein the History makes great Progress, and is marked by one
important Event in Human Life.
SPINOSA is said to have loved, above all other amuse-
ments, to put flies into a spider's web ; and the strug-
gles of the imprisoned insects were wont to bear, in the
eyes of this grave philosopher, so facetious and hila-
rious an appearance, that he would stand and laugh
thereat until the tears " coursed one another down his
innocent nose." Now it so happeneth that Spinosa,
despite the general (and, in my most meek opinion, the
just) condemnation of his theoretical tenets,* was, in
character and in nature, according to the voices of all
who knew him, an exceedingly kind, humane, and
* One ought, however, to be very cautious before one condemns
a philosoper. The master's opinions are generally pure it is the
conclusions and corollaries of his disciples that "draw the honey
forth that drives men mad." Schlegel seems to have studied
Spinosa de fonte, and vindicates him very earnestly from the
charges brought against him atheism, &c. ED.
248 DEVEREUX.
benevolent "bipod ; and it doth, therefore, seem a little
strange unto us grave, sober members of the unphilo-
sophical Many, that the struggles and terrors of these
little winged creatures should strike the good subtleist
in a point of view so irresistiby ludicrous and delight-
ful. But, for my part, I believe that that most imagin-
ative and wild speculator beheld in the entangled flies
nothing more than a living simile an animated illus-
tration of his own beloved vision of Necessity ; and
that he is no more to be considered cruel for the
complacency with which he gazed upon those agonised
types of his system than is Lucan for dwelling, with a
poet's pleasure, upon the many ingenious ways with
which that Grand Inquisitor of Verse has contrived to
vary the simple operation of dying. To the bard, the
butchered soldier was only an epic ornament ; to the
philosopher, the murdered fly was only a metaphysical
illustration. For, without being a Fatalist, or a dis-
ciple of Baruch de Spinosa, I must confess that I
cannot conceive a greater resemblance to our human
and earthly state than the penal predicament of the
devoted flies. Suddenly do we find ourselves plunged
into that Vast Web the "World; and even as the
insect, when he first undergoeth a similar accident of
necessity, standeth amazed and still, and only, by little
and little, awakeneth to a full sense of his situation ;
so also at the first abashed and confounded, we remain
on the mesh we are urged upon, ignorant, as yet, of
the toils around us, and the sly, dark, immitigable foe,
that lieth in yonder nook, already feasting her iniagi-
DEVEREUX. 249
nation upon our destruction. Presently we revive
we stir we flutter and Fate, that foe the old arch-
spider, that hath no moderation in her maw now
fixeth one of her many eyes upon us, and giveth us a
partial glimpse of her laidly and grim aspect. We pause
in mute terror we gaze upon the ugly spectre, so imper-
fectly beheld the net ceases to tremble, and the wily
enemy draws gently back into her nook. Now we
begin to breathe again we sound the strange footing
on which we tread we move tenderly along it, and
again the grisly monster advances on us ; again we
pause the foe retires not, but remains still, and sur-
veyeth us ; we see every step is accompanied with
danger we look round and above in despair suddenly
we feel within us a new impulse and a new power !
we feel a vague sympathy with that unknown region
which spreads beyond this great net; that limitless
beyond hath a mystic affinity with a part of our own
frame we unconsciously extend our wings (for the soul
to us is as the wings to the fly ! ) we attempt to rise
to soar above this perilous snare, from which we are
unable to crawL The old spider watcheth us in self-
hugging quiet, and, looking up to our native air, we
think now shall we escape thee. Out on it ! "We
rise not a hair's breadth we have the icings, it is true,
but the feet are fettered. We strive desperately again
the whole web vibrates with the effort it will break
beneath our strength. Not a jot of it ! we cease we
are more entangled than ever ! wings feet frame
the foul slime is over all! where shall we turn? every
250 DEVEEEUX.
line of the web leads to tlie one den we know not
we care not we grow blind confused lost. The
eyes of our hideous foe gloat upon us she whetteth
her insatiate maw she leapeth towards us she fixeth
her fangs upon us and so endeth my parallel !
But what has this to do with my tale 1 ? Ay, Reader,
that is thy question ; and I will answer it by one of
mine. When thou hearest a man moralise and preach
of Fate, art thou not sure that he is going to tell thee
of some one of his peculiar misfortunes. Sorrow loves
a parable as much as mirth loves a jest. And thus
already and from afar, I prepare thee, at the com-
mencement of this, the third of these portions into