IT is impossible to deny that, except in hotels which are cosmopolitan, and adapted to the many wants of the rich English, life in Italy is hard business enough for the inexperienced traveller, who knows the strange country into which he has suddenly dropped rather by means of poetical legends than by the facts of actual existence. A country of vineyards and orange-groves, of everlasting verdure and sunshine, is indeed, in its way, a true enough description of one aspect of that many-sided country: but these words of course convey no intimation of the terrors of an Italian palace in the depth of winter, where everything is stone-cold, and the possibilities of artificial warmth are of the most limited description; where the idea of doors and windows closely fitting has never entered the primitive mind, and where the cardinal virtue of patience and endurance of necessary evils wraps the contented native sufferer like the cloak which he hugs round him. Yet, notwithstanding, even Lauderdale relaxed out of the settled gloom on his face when he went to the window of the great bare sitting-room, and gazed out upon the grand expanse of the Campagna, lighted up with morning sunshine. The silence of that depopulated plain, with its pathetic bits of ruin here and there—ruins, to be sure, identified and written down in books, but speaking for themselves with a more woeful and suggestive voice than can be uttered by any mere historical associations, through the very depths of their dumbness and loss of all distinction—went to the spectator’s heart. What they were or had been, what human hands had erected, or human hearts rejoiced in them, these lingering remains had ceased to tell; and it was only with that vagueness which is sadder than any story that they indicated a former forgotten existence, a past too far away to be deciphered now.
Lauderdale laid his hand on Colin’s shoulder, and drew him away. “Ay, ay,” he said, with an unusual thrill in his voice, “it’s grand to hear that yon’s Soracte, and thereaway is the Sabine country, and that’s Rome lying away among the clouds. It’s no Rome, callant; it’s a big kirk, or heathen temple, or whatever you like to call it. I’m no heeding about Rome. It’s the awfu’ presence of the dead, and the skies smiling at them—that’s a’ I see. Come away with me, and let’s see if there’s ony living creatures left. It’s an awfu’ thought to come into a man’s head in connexion with that bonnie innocent sky,” the philosopher continued, with a slight shudder, as he drew his charge with him down the chilly staircase; “but it’s aye bewildering to me to see the indifference of Nature. It’s terrible like as if she was a senseless heathen hersel’, and cared nothing about nobody. No that I’m asserting that to be the case; but it’s gruesome to look at her smiles and her wiles, as if she kent no better. I’m no addicted to little bairns in a general way,” said Lauderdale, drawing a long breath, as he emerged from the great door, and suddenly found himself in the midst of a group of ragged little picturesque savages; “but it’s aye a comfort to see that there’s still living creatures left in the world.”
“It is not for the living creatures, however, that people come to Italy,” said Colin. “Stop here, and have another look at the Campagna. I am not of your opinion about Nature. Sometimes tears themselves are less pathetic than a smile.”
“Where did you learn that, callant?” said his friend. “But there’s plenty of time for the Campagna, and I have aye an awfu’ interest in human folk. What do the little animals mean, raging like a set of little furies? Laddies, if you’ve quarrelled fight it out like men, instead of scolding like a parcel of fishwives,” said the indignant stranger, addressing himself to a knot of boys who were playing morra. When he found his remonstrance disregarded, Lauderdale seized what appeared to him the two ringleaders, and held them, one in each hand, with the apparent intention of knocking their heads together, entirely undisturbed by the outcries and struggles of his victims, as well as by the voluble explanations of the rest of the party. “It’s no use talking nonsense to me,” said the inexorable judge; “they shall either hold their tongues, the little cowardly wretches, or they shall fight.”
It was, luckily, at this moment that Alice Meredith made her appearance, going out to provide for the wants of her family like a careful little housewife. Her explanation filled Lauderdale with unbounded shame and dismay. “It’s an awful drawback no to understand the language,” said the philosopher, with a rush of burning colour to his face, for Lauderdale, like various other people, could not help entertaining an idea, in spite of his better knowledge, that English (or what he was pleased to call English), spoken with due force and emphasis, was sure in the end to be perfectly intelligible. Having received this painful lesson, he shrank out of sight with the utmost discomfiture, holding Colin fast, who betrayed an inclination to accompany Alice. “This will never do; we’ll have to put to our hands and learn,” said Colin’s guardian. “I never put much faith before in that Babel business. It’s awfu’ humbling to be made a fool of by a parcel of bairns.” Lauderdale did not recover this humiliating defeat during the lengthened survey which followed of the little town and its dependencies, where now and then they encountered the slight little figure of Alice walking alone, with a freedom permitted (and wondered at) to the Signorina Inglese, who thus declared her independence. They met her at the baker’s, where strings of biscuits, made in the shape of rings, hung like garlands about the door, and where the little Englishwoman was using all her powers of persuasion to seduce the master of the shop into the manufacture of pane Inglese, bread made with yeast instead of leaven; and they met her again in the dark vicinity of the trattoria, consulting with a dingy traiteur about dinner; though, fortunately for the success of the meal, the strangers were unaware that it was out of these dingy shades that their repast was to come.
Thus the two rambled about, recovering their spirits a little as the first glow of the Italian sunshine stole over them, and finding summer in the bright piazza, though winter and gloom lingered in the narrow streets. Last of all they entered the cathedral, which was a place the two friends approached with different feelings—Colin’s mind being full of the curiosity of a man who was himself to be a priest, and who felt to a certain degree that the future devotions and even government of his country was in his hands. He was consequently quick to observe, and even, notwithstanding the prejudices of education, not disinclined to learn, if anything worth learning was to be seen in the quiet country church, where at present nothing beyond the ordinary services were going on. Lauderdale, in whose mind a lively and animated army of prejudices was in full operation, though met and crossed at every turn by an equally lively belief in the truth of his fellow-creatures—which was a sad drawback to his philosophy—went into the Frascati Cathedral with a curious mixture of open criticism and concealed respect, not unusual in a Scotchman. He was even ashamed of himself for his own alacrity in taking off his hat, as if one place could be holier than another; yet, nevertheless, stowed his gaunt gigantic figure away behind the pillars, and did what he could to walk softly, lest he should disturb the devotions of one or two kneeling women, who, however, paused with perfect composure to look at the strangers without apparently being conscious of any interruption. As for Colin, he was inspecting the arrangements of the cathedral at his leisure, when a sudden exclamation from Lauderdale attracted his attention. He thought his friend had got into some new bewilderment, and hastened to join him, looking round first, with the helplessness of a speechless stranger in a foreign country, to see if there was anyone near who could explain for them in case of necessity. When, however, Colin had rejoined his companion, he found him standing rapt and silent before a tombstone covered with lettering, which was placed against the wall of the church. Lauderdale made a curious unsteady sign, pointing to it, as Colin approached. It was a pompous Latin inscription, recording imaginary grandeurs which had never existed, and bearing the names of three British kings who never reigned. Neither of the spectators who thus stood moved and speechless before it had been brought up with any Jacobite tendencies—indeed, Jacobite ideas had died out of all reality before either of them was born,—but Lauderdale, Whig and sceptic as he was, uttered hoarsely out of his throat the two words, “Prince Chairlie!” and then stood silent, gazing at the stone with its pompous Latin lies and its sorrowful human story, as if it had been not an extinct family, but something of his own blood and kindred which had lain underneath. Thus the two strangers went out, subdued and silenced, from their first sight-seeing. It was not in man, nor in Scotchman, to see the names and not remember all the wonderful vain devotion, all the blind heroic efforts that had been made for these extinct Stuarts; and, with a certain instinctive loyalty, reverential yet protesting, Colin and his friend turned away from Charles Edward’s grave.
“Well,” said Lauderdale, after a long pause, “they were little to brag of, either for wisdom or honesty, and no credit to us that I can see; but it comes over a man with an awfu’ strange sensation to fall suddenly without any warning on the grave of a race that was once in such active connexion with his own. ‘Jacobus III., Carolus III., Henricus IX.’—is that how it goes? It’s terrible real, that inscription, though it’s a’ a fiction. They might be a feckless race; but, for a’ that, it was awfu’ hard, when you think of it, upon Prince Chairlie. He was neither a fool nor a liar, so far as I ever heard—which is more than you can say for other members of the family; and he had to give way, and give up his birthright for thae miserable little wretches from Hanover. I dinna so much wonder, when I think of it, at the ’45. It was a pleasant alternative for a country, callant, to choose between a bit Dutch idiot that knew nothing, and the son of her auld kings. I’m no speaking of William of Orange—he’s awfu’ overrated, and a cold-blooded devil, but aye a kind of a man notwithstanding—but thae Hanover fellows— And so yon’s Prince Chairlie’s grave!”
Just then Meredith, who had come out to bask in the sunshine, came up to them, and took, as he had learned to do, by way of supporting himself, Lauderdale’s vigorous arm.
“I forgot to tell you,” he said, “that the Pretender’s grave was there. I never enter these churches of Antichrist if I can help it. Life is too short to be wasted even in looking on at the wiles of the destroyer. Oh that we could do something to deliver these dying souls!”
“I saw little of the wiles of the destroyer for my part,” said Lauderdale, abruptly; “and, as for the Pretender, there’s many pretenders, and it’s awfu’ hard to tell which is the true. I know no harm of Prince Chairlie, the little I do know of him. If it had been mysel’, I’m no free in my mind to say that I would have let go my father’s inheritance without striking a blow.”
“These are the ideas of the carnal mind,” said Meredith. “Oh, my friend, if you would but be more serious! Does not your arrival in this country suggest to you another arrival which cannot be long delayed—which indeed, for some of us at least, may happen any day,” the sick man continued, putting out his long thin hand to clasp that of Colin, who was on his other side. Lauderdale, who saw this gesture, started aside with a degree of violence which prevented the meeting of the two invalid hands.
“I know little about this country,” he said, almost with sullenness; “but I know still less about the other. It’s easy for you, callants, to speak. I’m real willing to make experiment of it, if that were possible,” he continued, softening; “but there’s no an ignorant soul hereabouts that is more ignorant than me.”
“Let us read together—let us consider it together,” said Meredith; “it is all set down very plain, you know. He that runneth may read. In all the world there is nothing so important. My friend, you took pains to understand about Italy—”
“And a bonnie business I made of it,” said Lauderdale; “deluded by the very bairns; set right by one that’s little more than a bairn, that little sister of yours; and now letting myself be drawn into discussions! I’m twenty years, or near it, older than you are,” he went on, “and I’ve walked with them that have gone away yonder, as far as flesh and blood would let me. I’m no misdoubting anything that’s written, callant, if that will satisfy you. It’s a’ an awfu’ darkness, with visions of white angels here and there; but the angels dinna belong to me. Whisht—whisht—I’m no profane; I’m wanting more—more than what’s written; and, as I cannot get that, I must even wait till I see for myself.—Here’s a grand spot for looking at your Campagna now,” he said, breaking abruptly off; but poor Meredith, who had so little time to spare, and whose words had to be in season and out of season, could not consent to follow, as a man without so great a mission might have done, the leading of his companion’s thoughts.
“The Campagna is very interesting,” he said, “but it is nothing to the safety of your soul. Oh, my dear friend!—and here is Campbell, too, who is not far from the kingdom of heaven. Promise me that you will come with me,” said the dying man. “I shall not be able to stay long with you. Promise me that you will come and join me there!” He put out his thin arm, and raised it towards the sky, which kept smiling in its sunny calm, and took no note of these outbursts of human passion. “I will wait for you at the golden gates,” the invalid went on, fixing his hollow eyes first on one and then on another. “You will be my joy and crown of rejoicing! You cannot refuse the prayer of a dying man.”
Colin, who was young, and upon whom the shadow of these golden gates was hovering, held out his hand this time, touched to the heart. “I am coming,” he said, softly, almost under his breath, but yet loud enough to catch the quick ear of Lauderdale, whose sudden movement displaced Meredith’s arm, which was clinging almost like a woman’s to his own.
“It’s no for man to make any such unfounded promises,” said Lauderdale, hoarsely; “though you read till your heart’s sick, there’s nothing written like that. It’s a’ imaginations, and yearnings, and dreams. I’m no saying that it cannot be, or that it will not be, but I tell you there’s no such thing written; and, as far as I ken, or you ken, it may be a’ delusion and disappointment. Whisht, whisht, callants! Dinna entice each other out of this world, where there’s aye plenty to do for the like of you. I’m saying, Silence, sir!” cried the philosopher, with sudden desperation. And then he became aware that he had withdrawn the support which Meredith stood so much in need of. “A sober-minded man like me should have other company than a couple of laddies, with their fancies,” he said, in a hurried, apologetic tone; “but, as long as we’re together, you may as well take the good of me,” he added, holding out his arm, with a rare, momentary smile. As for Meredith, for once in his life—partly because of a little more emotion than usual, partly because his weakness felt instantly the withdrawal of a support which had become habitual to him—he felt beyond a possibility of doubt that further words would be out of season just at that moment: and they resumed their way a little more silently than usual. The road, like other Italian roads, was marked by here and there a rude shrine in a niche in the wall, or a cross erected by the wayside—neither of which objects possessed in the smallest degree the recommendation of picturesqueness which sentimental travellers attribute to them; for the crosses were of the rudest construction, as rude as if meant for actual use, and the poor little niches, each with its red-eyed Madonna daubed on the wall, suggested no more idea of beauty than the most arbitrary symbol could have done. But Meredith’s soul awoke within him when he saw the looks with which Colin regarded those shabby emblems of religious feeling. The Protestant paused to regain his breath, and could keep silence no more.
“You look with interest at these devices of Antichrist,” said the sick man. “You think they promote a love of beauty, I suppose, or you think them picturesque. You don’t think how they ruin the souls of those who trust in them,” he said, eagerly and loudly; for they were passing another English party at that moment, and already the young missionary longed to accost them, and put his solemn questions about life and death to their (presumably) careless souls.
“They don’t appear to me at all picturesque,” said Colin; “and nobody looks at them that I can see except ourselves; so they can’t ruin many souls. But you and I don’t agree in all things, Meredith. The cross does not seem to me to come amiss anywhere. Perhaps the uglier and ruder it is it becomes the more suggestive,” the young man added, with a little emotion. “I should like to build a few crosses along our Scotch roads; if anybody was moved to pray, I can’t see what harm would be done; or, if anybody was surprised by a sudden thought, it might be all the better; even—one has heard of such a thing,” said Colin, whose heart was still a little out of its usual balance—“a stray gleam of sunshine might come out of it here and there. If I was rich like some of your Glasgow merchants, Lauderdale,” he said, laughing a little, “I think, instead of a few fine dinners, I’d build a cross somewhere. I don’t see that it would come amiss on a Scotch road—”
“I wish you would think of something else than Scotch roads,” said Meredith, with a little vexation; “when I speak of things that concern immortal souls, you answer me with something about Scotland. What is Scotland to the salvation of a fellow-creature? I would rather that Scotland, or England either, was sunk to the bottom of the sea than stand by and see a man dying in his sins.”
The two Scotchmen looked at each other as he spoke; they smiled to each other with a perfect community of feeling and motive, which conveyed another pang of irritation to the invalid who by nature had a spirit which insisted upon being first and best beloved.
“I think we had better go home,” he said abruptly, after a pause. “I know Scotch pretty well, but I can’t quite follow when you speak on these subjects. I want to have a talk with Maria about her brother, who used to be very religiously disposed. Poor fellow, he’s ill now, and I’ve got something for him,” said the young man. Here he paused, and drew forth from his pocket a sheet folded like a map, which he opened out carefully, looking first to see that there was nobody on the road. “They took them for maps at the dogana,” said Meredith; “and geography is not prohibited—to the English at least; but this is better than geography. I mean to send it to poor Antonio, who can read, poor fellow.” The map, which was no map, consisted of a large sheet of paper, intended apparently to be hung upon a wall, and containing the words, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” translated into Italian. It was not without a little triumph that Meredith exhibited this effort at clandestine instruction. “He has to lie in bed,” he said, with a softened inflection of his voice; “this will console him and bear him company. It is a map of his future inheritance,” the young missionary concluded, putting it back fondly into its deceitful folds;—and after this there was an uneasy pause, no one quite knowing what to say.
“You fight Antichrist with his own weapons, then,” said Colin, “and do evil that good may come,”—and Lauderdale added his comment almost in the same breath—
“That’s an awfu’ fruitful principle if you once adopt it,” he said; “there’s no telling where it may end. I would sooner leave the poor lad in God’s hands, as no doubt he is, than smuggle in light to him after that fashion. I’m no fond of maps that are no maps,” said the dissatisfied critic; by which time Colin had reloaded his guns, and was ready to fire.
“It is only a few words,” said Colin; “a man might keep such an utterance in his memory without any necessity for double dealing. Do you think, for all the good it will do your patient to look at that text, it is worth your while to risk him and yourself?”
“For myself I am perfectly indifferent,” said Meredith, glad of an opportunity to defend himself. “I hope I could take imprisonment joyfully for the saving of a soul.”
“Imprisonment would be death to you,” said Colin, with a touch of compunction, “and would make an end of all further possibilities of use. To be thrown into a stony Italian prison at this season—”
“Hush,” said Meredith; “for my Master’s sake could I not bear more than that? If not, I am not worthy to call myself a Christian. I am ready to be offered,” said the young enthusiast. “It would be an end beyond my hopes to die like my Lord for the salvation of my brother. Such a prophecy is no terror to me.”
“If you two would but hold your tongues for five minutes at a time,” said Lauderdale, with vexation, “it would be a comfort. No doubt you’re both ready enough to fling away your lives for any nonsensical idea that comes into your heads. But suppose we take the case of the other innocent callant, the Italian lad that a’ this martyrdom’s to be for. No to say that it’s awfu’ cheating—which my soul loathes,” said the emphatic Scotchman—“figure to yourselves a wheen senseless women maybe, or a wheen frightened priests, getting on the scent o’ this heresy of yours. I’m real reluctant to think that he would not get the same words, poor callant, in his ain books without being torn to pieces for the sake of a map that was not a map. It’s getting a wee chilly,” said the philosopher, “and there’s a fire to be had in the house if nothing else. Come in, callant, and no expose yourself; and you would put your grand map in the fire if you were to be guided by me.”
“With these words of consolation on it!” said Meredith, “Never, if it should cost me my life.”
“Nae fear of its costing you your life; but I wouldna use even the weapons of God after the devil’s manner of fighting,” said Lauderdale, with a little impatience. “Allowing you had a’ the charge of saving souls, as you call it, and the Almighty Himself took no trouble on the subject, I’m no for using the sword o’ the Spirit to give stabs in the dark.”
Just then, fortunately, there came a seasonable diversion, which stayed the answer on Meredith’s lips.
“Arthur, we are going to dine early,” said the voice of Alice just behind them; “the doctor said you were to dine early. Come and rest a little before dinner. I met some people just now who were talking of Mr. Campbell. They were wondering where he lived, and saying they had seen him somewhere. I told them you were with us,” the girl went on, with the air of a woman who might be Colin’s mother. “Will you please come home in case they should call?”
This unexpected intimation ended the ramble and the talk, which was of a kind rather different from the tourist talk which Colin had shortly to experience from the lips of his visitors, who were people who had seen him at Wodensbourne, and had been commissioned by the Franklands to look for him, and report upon his condition. Little Alice received the ample English visitors still with the air of being Colin’s mother, or mature protecting female friend, and talked to the young lady daughter, who was about half as old again as herself, with an indulgent elderly kindness which was beautiful to behold. There were a mother, father, daughter, and two sons, moving about in a compact body, all of whom were exceedingly curious about the quaint little brotherhood which, with Alice for its protecting angel, had taken possession of the upper floor of the Palazzo Savvielli. They were full of a flutter of talk about the places they had visited, and of questions as to whether their new acquaintances had been here or there. “I promised Matty to write, and I shall be sure to tell her I have seen you, and all about it,” the young lady said, playfully, not without a glance at Alice. Was it possible that this remark brought a little colour to Alice’s cheek, or was it a mere reflection from his own thoughts, throwing a momentary gleam across her unimpassioned face? Anyhow, it occurred to Colin that the little abstract Alice looked more like an ordinary girl of her years for the five minutes after the tourist party, leaving a wonderful silence and sense of relief behind them, had disappeared down the chilly stone stairs.