The Pilgrims of the Rhine
Page 24
Time went on. This quiet and simple history of humble affections tookits date in a stormy epoch of the world,--the dawning Revolution ofFrance. The family of Lucille had been little more than a year settledin their new residence when Dumouriez led his army into the Netherlands.But how meanwhile had that year passed for Lucille? I have said that herspirit was naturally high; that though so tender, she was not weak. Hervery pilgrimage to Cologne alone, and at the timid age of seventeen,proved that there was a strength in her nature no less than a devotionin her love. The sacrifice she had made brought its own reward.She believed St. Amand was happy, and she would not give way to theselfishness of grief; she had still duties to perform; she could stillcomfort her parents and cheer their age; she could still be all theworld to them: she felt this, and was consoled. Only once during theyear had she heard of Julie; she had been seen by a mutual friend atParis, gay, brilliant, courted, and admired; of St. Amand she heardnothing.
My tale, dear Gertrude, does not lead me through the harsh scenes ofwar. I do not tell you of the slaughter and the siege, and the bloodthat inundated those fair lands,--the great battlefield of Europe. Thepeople of the Netherlands in general were with the cause of Dumouriez,but the town in which Le Tisseur dwelt offered some faint resistance tohis arms. Le Tisseur himself, despite his age, girded on his sword; thetown was carried, and the fierce and licentious troops of the conquerorpoured, flushed with their easy victory, through its streets. LeTisseur's house was filled with drunken and rude troopers; Lucilleherself trembled in the fierce gripe of one of those dissolute soldiers,more bandit than soldier, whom the subtle Dumouriez had united to hisarmy, and by whose blood he so often saved that of his nobler band. Hershrieks, her cries, were vain, when suddenly the troopers gave way. "TheCaptain! brave Captain!" was shouted forth; the insolent soldier, felledby a powerful arm, sank senseless at the feet of Lucille, and a gloriousform, towering above its fellows,--even through its glittering garb,even in that dreadful hour, remembered at a glance by Lucille,--stoodat her side; her protector, her guardian! Thus once more she beheld St.Amand!
The house was cleared in an instant, the door barred. Shouts, groans,wild snatches of exulting song, the clang of arms, the tramp of horses,the hurrying footsteps, the deep music sounded loud, and blendedterribly without. Lucille heard them not,--she was on that breast whichnever should have deserted her.
Effectually to protect his friends, St. Amand took up his quarters attheir house; and for two days he was once more under the same roof asLucille. He never recurred voluntarily to Julie; he answered Lucille'stimid inquiry after her health briefly, and with coldness, but he spokewith all the enthusiasm of a long-pent and ardent spirit of the newprofession he had embraced. Glory seemed now to be his only mistress;and the vivid delusion of the first bright dreams of the Revolutionfilled his mind, broke from his tongue, and lighted up those dark eyeswhich Lucille had redeemed to day.
She saw him depart at the head of his troops; she saw his proud crestglancing in the sun; she saw his steed winding through the narrowstreet; she saw that his last glance reverted to her, where she stood atthe door; and, as he waved his adieu, she fancied that there was on hisface that look of deep and grateful tenderness which reminded her of theone bright epoch of her life.
She was right; St. Amand had long since in bitterness repented of atransient infatuation, had long since distinguished the true Florimelfrom the false, and felt that, in Julie, Lucille's wrongs were avenged.But in the hurry and heat of war he plunged that regret--the keenest ofall--which embodies the bitter words, "TOO LATE!"
Years passed away, and in the resumed tranquillity of Lucille's life thebrilliant apparition of St. Amand appeared as something dreamed of, notseen. The star of Napoleon had risen above the horizon; the romance ofhis early career had commenced; and the campaign of Egypt had been theherald of those brilliant and meteoric successes which flashed forthfrom the gloom of the Revolution of France.
You are aware, dear Gertrude, how many in the French as well as theEnglish troops returned home from Egypt blinded with the ophthalmia ofthat arid soil. Some of the young men in Lucille's town, who had joinedNapoleon's army, came back darkened by that fearful affliction, andLucille's alms and Lucille's aid and Lucille's sweet voice were everat hand for those poor sufferers, whose common misfortune touched sothrilling a chord of her heart.
Her father was now dead, and she had only her mother to cheer amidst theills of age. As one evening they sat at work together, Madame le Tisseursaid, after a pause,--
"I wish, dear Lucille, thou couldst be persuaded to marry Justin; heloves thee well, and now that thou art yet young, and hast many yearsbefore thee, thou shouldst remember that when I die thou wilt be alone."
"Ah, cease, dearest mother, I never can marry now; and as for love--oncetaught in the bitter school in which I have learned the knowledge ofmyself--I cannot be deceived again."
"My Lucille, you do not know yourself. Never was woman loved if Justindoes not love you; and never did lover feel with more real warmth howworthily he loved."
And this was true; and not of Justin alone, for Lucille's modestvirtues, her kindly temper, and a certain undulating and feminine grace,which accompanied all her movements, had secured her as many conquestsas if she had been beautiful. She had rejected all offers of marriagewith a shudder; without even the throb of a flattered vanity. Onememory, sadder, was also dearer to her than all things; and somethingsacred in its recollections made her deem it even a crime to think ofeffacing the past by a new affection.
"I believe," continued Madame le Tisseur, angrily, "that thou stillthinkest fondly of him from whom only in the world thou couldst haveexperienced ingratitude."
"Nay, Mother," said Lucille, with a blush and a slight sigh, "Eugene ismarried to another."
While thus conversing, they heard a gentle and timid knock at the door;the latch was lifted. "This," said the rough voice of a _commissionaire_of the town, "this, monsieur, is the house of Madame le Tisseur, and_voila mademoiselle_!" A tall figure, with a shade over his eyes, andwrapped in a long military cloak, stood in the room. A thrill shotacross Lucille's heart. He stretched out his arms. "Lucille," said thatmelancholy voice, which had made the music of her first youth, "whereart thou, Lucille? Alas! she does not recognize St. Amand."
Thus was it indeed. By a singular fatality, the burning suns and thesharp dust of the plains of Egypt had smitten the young soldier, inthe flush of his career, with a second--and this time with anirremediable--blindness! He had returned to France to find his hearthlonely. Julie was no more,--a sudden fever had cut her off in the midstof youth; and he had sought his way to Lucille's house, to see if onehope yet remained to him in the world!
And when, days afterwards, humbly and sadly he re-urged a former suit,did Lucille shut her heart to its prayer? Did her pride remember itswound; did she revert to his desertion; did she reply to the whisper ofher yearning love, "_Thou hast been before forsaken_"? That voice andthose darkened eyes pleaded to her with a pathos not to be resisted. "Iam once more necessary to him," was all her thought; "if I reject himwho will tend him?" In that thought was the motive of her conduct; inthat thought gushed back upon her soul all the springs of checked butunconquered, unconquerable love! In that thought, she stood beside himat the altar, and pledged, with a yet holier devotion than she mighthave felt of yore, the vow of her imperishable truth.
And Lucille found, in the future, a reward, which the common world couldnever comprehend. With his blindness returned all the feelings she hadfirst awakened in St. Amand's solitary heart; again he yearned for herstep, again he missed even a moment's absence from his side, again hervoice chased the shadow from his brow, and in her presence was a senseof shelter and of sunshine. He no longer sighed for the blessing he hadlost; he reconciled himself to fate, and entered into that serenity ofmood which mostly characterizes the blind.
Perhaps after we have seen the actual world, and experienced its hollowpleasures, we can resign ourselves the better to its
exclusion; andas the cloister, which repels the ardour of our hope, is sweet toour remembrance, so the darkness loses its terror when experience haswearied us with the glare and travail of the day. It was something, too,as they advanced in life, to feel the chains that bound him to Lucillestrengthening daily, and to cherish in his overflowing heart thesweetness of increasing gratitude; it was something that he could notsee years wrinkle that open brow, or dim the tenderness of that touchingsmile; it was something that to him she was beyond the reach of time,and preserved to the verge of a grave (which received them both withina few days of each other) in all the bloom of her unwithering affection,in all the freshness of a heart that never could grow old!