Part 4

'You give to words spoken at random an interpretation which was very far from my thoughts,' exclaimed the doctor, with an accent of reproach.

'It is the business of both of us to interpret,' coldly replied Monsieur Carigniez. 'You proceed from symptoms to the disease; I, on my part, go from signs to the crime; from suspicions to proof.'

The attorney here rose, and approaching d'Aubian, who during this scene had preserved a firm and composed demeanor: 'Sir,' said he to him, with grave politeness, 'have you any observations to make upon what you have just heard?'

'None, Sir,' replied the young man, in a tone in which strong emotion, with difficulty repressed, was perceptible. 'It is not for me to discuss the accusation of which I find myself the object, nor to endeavor to remove the error of Monsieur Gorsay. In my declaration I have spoken the truth; it is therefore needless to say more. I deem it beneath me to protest my innocence, which no one here present doubts.'

He cast an expressive look toward the bed of the old man, who only answered this appeal by a smile, in which shone forth the triumph of inextinguishable hatred and implacable revenge.

'He knows all!' said Arthur to himself; 'it is my death he wants; he shall be gratified, if to save my life the sacrifice of Lucia is required.'

At this moment two gen d'armes, who had just arrived from Reole, passed before the window, through which they cast an inquiring look. On seeing them Bonnemain experienced the instinctive terror with which the sight of agents of the law always inspires criminals. D'Aubian knit his brow, and slightly contracted his lips.

'Are these men here to take charge of my person?' inquired he of the king's attorney, with forced irony.

'I can give you a seat in my carriage,' replied the magistrate, whom the haughty countenance of the young accused inspired with a degree of involuntary respect.

'Will _they_ accompany us?' inquired Arthur, more occupied by the ignominy than the danger of his situation.

'Not if you swear to me that you will not attempt flight.'

Arthur smiled disdainfully: 'There are but two kinds of men who fly; the cowardly and the guilty; I am neither of these. You may therefore trust to my word of honor. And now allow me to beg of you one favor.'

'Proceed, Sir,' said the magistrate.

'Let us set forth immediately,' replied Arthur, eager to quit the place; for he dreaded lest Lucia, unexpectedly returning, might become the witness of a scene so fraught with danger to both.

'I am at your service,' replied the king's attorney, who had just closed his _procès verbal_, and whose presence in the house of Monsieur Gorsay was now no longer required. At a sign from the magistrate all present left the apartment. The two gen d'armes waited at the door. Physiognomists by profession, they placed themselves with one accord on each side of Bonnemain, in whose aspect they had simultaneously scented crime.

'Monsieur Magistrate,' cried out the galley-slave, 'tell these good gentlemen, if you please, that they are mistaken. As it is as plain as that two and two make four that I am innocent of this business, I hope you will set me at liberty at once. I have some work to do in the garden; and I cannot lose all day here like a sluggard.'

'Public opinion accuses you,' replied Monsieur Carigniez, 'and I am obliged to detain you temporarily. Should there be no proofs against you, you will be set at liberty in a few days.'

'Here is fine justice for you!' said the man of the galleys, when he saw d'Aubian enter the carriage and take his seat by the side of the king's attorney; 'the detected assassin rides in the carriage, while the innocent man goes on foot, between two gen d'armes. This is the way the rich always combine to trample upon the people! And you, comrades, have you no blood in your veins, that you let one of your brothers be dragged off to prison in this way?'

'You have neither brothers nor cousins here, hark you, Mister Juggler-of-watches!' cried out Piquet to him, with a knowing air.

'Vive la Republique! down with the Jesuits!' howled Bonnemain, who in his desire to excite a popular movement in his favor threw out in succession the two greatest stimulants he could think of.

No one stirred among the attendants; some hootings even were heard; and the galley-slave, forced to set out on his march under the escort of his two new guardians, became convinced that his fate excited very little sympathy among his old companions.

'Well, well,' said he to himself, with forced resignation, 'it would have been almost too much of a good thing to be let off at once; provided only the old man, who has been such a good fellow thus far, does not change his mind.'

The departure of the two suspected individuals had excited among the assembled peasants a commotion, the noise of which reached the apartment of Lucia. Half terrified at the outcries, she approached the window, and saw Arthur at the moment he ascended the carriage of the king's attorney.

'Where is Monsieur d'Aubian going?' asked she involuntarily of the physician who had rejoined her.

'To prison, probably,' replied Monsieur Mallet, fixing his eyes steadily upon her.

'To prison!' almost shrieked Lucia.

'Are you then ignorant that it was he who attempted the life of Monsieur Gorsay? Your husband has formally accused him.'

The poor wife, instead of making reply, gazed around her with an air of bewilderment; suddenly turning deadly pale, she closed her eyes, and fell backward into the arms of the doctor, who seemed prepared for this crisis; for without being discomposed, he laid her upon a sofa, and afforded her the succor her situation required.

'Curate,' said he to the old priest who at this moment entered the room, 'this young woman has now two confessors.'

PART TWO IN OUR NEXT.

STANZAS.

OH! ask not whither my heart hath flown, Nor who to that heart is dear; Though sweet the scenes that meet my view, My heart, oh! my heart is not here!

Though friends surround, and fortune smile, And love e'en the prospect cheer; Though pleasure's roses strew my path, Yet my heart, oh! my heart is not here!

But far o'er the blue wave's crested foam, Where the heather blooms so fair, And berries hang on the holly-bush, My heart, oh! my heart is there!

THE DEATH OF A GENTLE MAIDEN.

A PHANTASY: INSCRIBED TO B. T. D.

'NOW is done thy long day's work; Fold thy palms across thy breast, Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. Let them rave! Shadows of the silver birk Sweep the green that folds thy grave, Let them rave!' TENNYSON.

'TWAS Sabbath eve: on couch of rose-leaves lying, With all her undimmed loveliness around her, Silent, yet fast, a radiant ONE was dying; Fading most like the flowery wreaths that bound her With fragrance, vainly wasted. There had been A fitful dirge upon the cool air borne, That spake of parting. Sadly sweet was seen A hectic bloom upon the cheek of morn, That told of tears to be ere day was done. Dark pall-like clouds swept by till set of sun, Then folded their broad pinions, and reclined In sullen grandeur o'er the distant West, Like spectral forms in slumber. Every wind Had wailed itself to stillness, and a rest Voiceless and deep stole down upon the world. The STORM-FIEND slowly turned his sombre car, With drooping wing, and lurid banner furled, Toward his own rugged North, while from afar There came a sudden gleam, a golden ray, A strange, rich light, as from a young moon's birth, And shone o'er ONE, there passing fast away From the soft sky, and green, rejoicing earth!

Many a presence, dim and fair, Pale gleaming shapes of things, divine and rare, With tearful eyes and broken sounds of weeping, Beside that couch a mournful watch were keeping In that hushed eve. Gay Zephyr pensive stood, With plumes enfolded like a stricken flower's; And Echo from her cave in dark wild wood Held whisperings faint with groups of gentle hours, Making the silence yet more sad and still; And glowing sighs that dwell in rustling grass, And guardian spirits of each singing rill, Murmurs from vine-clad vale and sunny hill, Odors that from the rose's deep heart pass, When kissed by breeze of even, gathered there, Where that clear radiance quivered on the air, Melting to farewell showers. And there seemed A gush of music, dying far away, Soft, exquisite, and low, like that is dreamed By one who slumbereth at the close of day On Ocean's golden wave. A liquid tone, Like fall of distant waters, deep and lone, A silvery strain of many voices blending, Fell on my soul; and, thrilling cadence sending Far thro' the coming night, did float along, Profoundly sorrowful, this brief, wild parting song:

FARE thee well! We have heard the solemn chime, Pealing forth the flight of TIME. Sternly tolls its passing bell For thy latest funeral knell. From Earth's griefs, unquiet fears, Mournful memories, lingering tears, Mortal ill, and mortal wo, Thou art soon about to go! Fare thee well!

Brightness marked thy pathway here; Stars, and skies, far, blue, and clear, Gorgeous clouds and silvery haze Floating in the streaming rays; Love, and hope, and joyous mirth, Such as in young hearts have birth; Soon will be a lasting close! Come not breathings of repose? Fare thee well!

Fades the thronging dream of life Through the mist of mortal strife; Rends the veil that shrouds the real From the vast and lone ideal; Spectres wild, and quaint, and strange, Flitting gleam in hurried change O'er the Future's magic glass; They are passing--Thou wilt pass! Fare thee well!

Paler grows thy lustrous eye, As the light of sunset sky, Death-damps chill are on thy brow, White and cold as moon-lit snow. As a bird with wounded wing, Now thy heart is fluttering; Soon 't will rest, to beat no more-- Pang and thrill alike be o'er! Fare thee well!

In the shadowy dome of dreams Mournful light of Memory streams O'er the voiceless forms and still That the busy Past did fill. Far from wreck of wo and weeping, They in stormless peace are sleeping; There thy sisters long have gone, Thither _thou_ wilt soon be flown-- Fare thee well!

Music that ends not in tears, Love that knows no boding fears, Tones that falter not in sighs, Hearts in which no sorrow lies, Flowers, unfading, sweet, and fair, Sister! all await thee there! We shall miss thee; but away! Wearied one, no longer stay! Fare thee well!

'T was gone! That radiant train melted away Like last love-whispers of the broken-hearted; And with the purple gleam of closing day The gentle SPIRIT OF THE MONTH departed!

FOREST WALKS IN THE WEST.

BY THE 'HERMIT OF THE PRAIRIES.'

IT is strange that men should prefer to live in cities. If there were any pleasantness conceivable in the perpetual clamor and strife of tongues, or in sharpening one's face by frequent contact with the crowd, or in receiving a thousand ideas daily of which only one can be retained, the preference would not be so unaccountable. But much communion with men does not tend to soften the heart; and a multitude of ideas, like a surfeit of food, will not digest. How much more delightful to pass one's life in the country, where the multifarious noises and confusion of the town die away before they reach half way to him, and only the higher voices, the voices of the higher men, fall on his ear! At intervals, to continue the figure, one of these voices utters a thought which the heavens, or the earth, or the human mind has been ransacked to find; and he sits down in quiet to incorporate it with his own brain, without having his nerves jarred with the same thought repeated in an hundred different tones, and with a thousand modifications. All is tranquillity around him and within him. He is not hourly jostled by hardening avarice, or ambition, or self-idolatry, in any of its forms. He converses with himself, and the nobler spirits that have lived, or that do live; and if he is not a happier, and does not die a better man than the denizen of the metropolis, it must be that there is something radically defective in his nature. This thought is naturally suggested by the country through which I am passing. I don't know that interminable woods are a necessary accompaniment of rural life; but if they were, and when they are, it would be and is so much the better for those whose tastes, like mine, incline that way. Not exactly that I would live _in_ the woods, either, but yet not so _far_ from them that I could not sometimes lose myself in them.

Ohio, the State of 'the Beautiful River,' has as yet woodland enough to satisfy the most extravagant desire. I have been travelling many days along this untrodden highway; the giant trees almost constantly interlocking their branches over head, except when the enclosed ten-acre lot of stumps, and the block-house dwelling of some hardy emigrant break the monotony. And I expect it will be the same for several weeks to come, until I emerge into daylight on the borders of some prairie. I hope those weeks will be many; for it is really pleasant, plodding along with no company but these tall beeches and maples, and no conversation save such as the birds and I, each in our own language, hold with one another. I have learned some new movements in music too; for when the little choristers do me the honor to stop and examine my physical appearance, and when they express their surprise, or pleasure, or indignation, by interrogatory trills, or by angry chromatic passages of unimaginable rapidity, always accompanied by appropriate gesticulation, it would be exceedingly impolitic in me not to answer in numbers and melody. I am afraid they do not understand me; or else they doubt my word, when I assure them of the kindest treatment, if they will indulge me with a nearer view of their wings and eyes.

The mind is bewildered when it tries to think of the solitude that has reigned here; how in winter and summer, year after year, farther back than the imagination can reach, these trees have grown, wrestled with the whirlwind, and fallen; how those clouds have given their rain, the sun his light, and the flowers their fragrance, _alone_! Forms, colors, and sounds of beauty and sweetness have sprung up and lived here, when there was no eye or ear to receive them, and be made happy. Nature has put on her robe of grace; has breathed her pleasant odors on every breeze; has tenderly cherished her delicate plants; and has most beautifully decked herself, as though for the embrace of man. Truly may we ask, 'For whom were all these things made? If for man, why was this waste?' It cannot be; and certainly not for any inferior being. If it is mortifying to think that all things were not made to minister unto us; that we are but a part of the great machine, a principal, though not an indispensable one; that the happiness of birds and all animals is as important in the view of the Giver of Happiness, as ours; it is nevertheless pleasant to feel that we are connected with the lower orders of existences by a kind of fellow-feeling, in that we both partake of common pleasures, and that no bounty which has been given to one has not also been given to the other.

But this does not answer the question: 'What _were_ flowers, and trees, and running brooks made for?' It will not do to say, for the sole behoof of man; for then I might reiterate: 'Why this waste of centuries in profitless vegetation? The Greeks would give an answer without hesitation; and so would the poet. And since we have not even a conjecture to make, I am sure we cannot do better than to adopt a pleasant hypothesis, and firmly believe in the Spirit of Poetry; that trees were no more designed merely to live, prepare the way for their successors, and die, than man was to propagate _his_ species and die; but that flowers, trees, and all plants are in themselves, as possessing some sort of vitality, of sufficient importance in the scale of existences to render it supposable that a world might be made for, and inhabited only by plants, and that a world so inhabited would not be altogether useless, either. If this thought ever entered the heads of our pioneers and wood-cutters, habit has lamentably blunted their susceptibilities.

I have been building a pretty extensive castle in the air in these woods; such a castle as it seems to me I should like to live in. The embellishments of course are supplied by fancy, but the materials and situation are furnished by the condition of this pleasant family, who with the heartiest welcome have thrown open their door to me, while for an hour I repose in the shade. It seems to be a _very_ pleasant family. The head of it is a young man, perhaps a year or two older than myself, with the sparkle of health and contentment in his eye; a noble, manly form; and a face constantly full of exultation. He seems proud of his own strength, of his victory over thousands of mighty trees; proud of himself, and most of all, of his young wife. These two, together with a matron, who may be his mother, form the group. Their history is the history of thousands of families with whose rude tenements this vast Valley is sparsely dotted. They were born and fitted by early education for their situation in life, in the State of New York. They were betrothed three years ago, and have been married but half of one. After much consultation between the lovers, it was determined that he should seek a home in the wilds of the West. So he set out, not knowing whither he should go, and not following the guidance of any particular star; and he stopped by accident, he says, on this, the best tract of land between the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains; which is as much as to say, 'the best the sun shines on.' Having settled the boundaries of the farm to suit himself, he erected a shanty of bark, provided himself with a few of the most indispensable articles of food, and went whistling to work.

In the course of a few months, a space of several acres was cleared from the timber, which was burned as fast as cut down; a crop of wheat was put into the ground; and the walls of a house built up of hewn logs, so substantial as to be, if not bomb-proof, at least wind and age-proof. When winter came on, he left his new-founded city to take care of itself; marked the trees as he went out, that he might be able to find his way in again; cut down one here and there, so as to make the passage of a wagon imaginable; and departed for home. In the spring he was married; and with as many implements and necessaries of household and farm use as could be compressed into a reasonably small space, and stored away in their caravansary, and with as many domestic animals as could be expected, from their known peculiarities of disposition, to submit to be driven or led without opposition, he started on his 'move,' and introduced his mother and fair bride to their new home. Not 'fair' bride, exactly, but lovely. With a perfect form, one which in another sphere of life would have been admired as voluptuous; with the hue of health on her cheek, the light of innocence in her eye, and the smile of youth on her lips; the lovely bride, leaning on the strong arm of her husband, passed mile after mile through the shades of the forest, without casting 'one longing look behind;' entered into the house which had been constructed with more strength than skill for her; and set herself to work with a woman's tact to adorn the bare walls, and scatter over the barn-like dwelling the charms and comforts of _home_. She has succeeded in all her labors, and her husband has succeeded in all his. But after all, are not their position and prospects dreary enough? And is it not strange that both should be so happy, dwelling here, out of reach of the eyes and sympathies of the rest of the world?

It is strange; and so I sit myself down by the side of the young wife, look in the same direction that she looks, and try to make objects appear the same to my eyes that they do to her's. How great a difference in the picture is made by a little alteration in the position of the inspector! It is not strange _now_ that she should be happy; for her future is as bright as is ever set before mortal eyes. The harsh features of the landscape are covered with a soft and verdant carpet; golden wealth and peace smile in the distance; the inequalities and roughness of the road are as nothing, for her feet are strong and light; and if there are but two of them to journey together, those two hearts will be only the more closely knit to each other. It is on the whole such a prospect, that I do not wonder at her for being perfectly happy. And yet I was ready to exclaim, 'How preposterous to suppose that _she_ can be contented!' Or, if I was not ready to say so, it was only speculatively, and without exactly understanding how, that I admitted the possibility.

Now, speaking in grave, deliberate terms, what _do_ we mean by contentment? For my part, I cannot tell, precisely. But that particular prospect, to use the old figure, which is set before me, and becomes my future, is, Heaven knows, sufficiently cheerless and uninteresting. And yet, if I were asked to exchange it for any other in the world, I should be compelled to answer, _no_. Still, I am far from being contented. Not but that the present is well enough, because it receives its character from the future; but with the future itself I am dissatisfied. Dreary as my circumstances are, I would not alter them, nor the past; I would not undo any thing that has been done; but show me some road by which I can regain the position which I once occupied, or by which I can gain another position which I desire, and I despise the past and present, and am contented. That is to say, contentment has respect mainly to the future. This is a bungling and circuitous way of coming at a simple idea; but this truth explains to my mind some things concerning happiness; and among the rest, how it is that this beautiful young woman can be contented, perfectly satisfied, with her lot, in these forests. And how it is (which I have often wondered at) that men whose views are bounded by the limits of their own farm, can be as happy as those who take in at one glance a whole kingdom. And a blessed thing it is, much as those of the latter class may be disposed to sneer, that a few small objects, to the eye accustomed to look at them, can grow into sufficient magnitude and importance to become _the_ objects of life. And I would ask these scorners if they are not afraid that some higher class still will scorn _them_ too? for their pursuits and means of happiness, though large in their own eyes, may be as small to the sight of some being whose glance takes in the world, as the poor man's is to theirs. I am sure I don't know, if I could have my choice, whose lot I would prefer.