SHIRLEY.
You must know, Gentlemen, that there lived some years ago, in the city of Périgueux, an honest notary public, the descendant of a very ancient and broken-down family, and the occupant of one of those old weather-beaten tenements which remind you of the times of your great-grandfather. He was a man of an unoffending, quiet disposition; the father of a family, though not the head of it, — for in that family “the hen over-crowed the cock,” and the neighbours, when they spake of the notary, shrugged their shoulders, and exclaimed, “Poor fellow! his spurs want sharpening.” In fine, — you understand me, Gentlemen, — lie was hen-pecked.
Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it elsewhere, as was very natural for him to do; and at length discovered a place of rest, far beyond the cares and clamors of domestic life. This was a little café estaminet, a short way out of the city, whither he repaired every evening to smoke his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favorite game of domino. There he met the boon companions he most loved; heard all the floating chitchat of the day; laughed when he was in merry mood; found consolation when he was sad; and at all times gave vent to his opinions, without fear of being snubbed short by a flat contradiction.
Now, the notary’s bosom-friend was a dealer in claret and cognac, who lived about a league from the city, and always passed his evenings at the estaminet. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised from a full-blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a comic actor of some reputation in his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his good-humor, his love of cards, and a strong propensity to test the quality of his own liquors by comparing them with those sold at other places.
As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of the wine-dealer won insensibly upon the worthy notary; and before he was aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar-water, and addicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not unfrequently happened, that, after a long session at the estaminet, the two friends grew so urbane, that they would waste a full half-hour at the door in friendly dispute which should conduct the other home.
Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish, phlegmatic temperament of the wine-dealer, it soon began to play the very deuse with the more sensitive organization of the notary, and finally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost his appetite, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions of blue-devils haunted him by day, and by night strange faces peeped through his bed-curtains and the nightmare snorted in his ear. The worse he grew, the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smoked and tippled, — why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wife alternately stormed, remonstrated, entreated; but all in vain. She made the house too hot for him, — he retreated to the tavern; she broke his long-stemmed pipes upon the andirons, — he substituted a short-stemmed one, which, for safe keeping, he carried in his waistcoat-pocket.
Thus the unhappy notary ran gradually down at the heel. What with his bad habits and his domestic grievances, he became completely hipped. He imagined that he was going to die; and suffered in quick succession all the diseases that ever beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was an alarming sympton, — every uneasy feeling after dinner a sure prognostic of some mortal disease. In vain did his friends endeavour to reason, and then to laugh him out of his strange whims; for when did ever jest or reason cure a sick imagination? His only answer was, “Do let me alone; I know better than you what ails me.”
Well, Gentlemen, things were in this state, when, one afternoon in December, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with a cap on his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers, a cabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without aroused him from his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend the wine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked with a violent fever, and, growing worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest haste for the notary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was urgent, and admitted neither excuse nor delay; and the notary, tying a handkerchief round his face, and buttoning up to the chin, jumped into the cabriolet, and suffered himself, though not without some dismal presentiments and misgivings of heart, to be driven to the wine-dealer’s house.
When he arrived, he found every thing in the greatest confusion. On entering the house, he ran against the apothecary, who was coming down stairs, with a face as long as your arm; and a few steps farther he met the housekeeper — for the wine-dealer was an old bachelor — running up and down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should die without making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick friend, and found him tossing about in a paroxysm of fever, and calling aloud for a draught of cold water. The notary shook his head; he thought this a fatal symptom; for ten years back the wine-dealer had been suffering under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to have left him.
When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside, he stretched out his hand and exclaimed, —
“Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You see it is all over with me. You have arrived just in time to draw up that — that passport of mine. Ah, grand diable! how hot it is here! Water, — water, — water! Will nobody give me a drop of cold water?”
As the case was an urgent one, the notary made no delay in getting his papers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament of the wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the notary guiding the sick man’s hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom.
As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer grew worse and worse, and at length became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrases of the Credo and Paternoster with the shibboleth of the dram-shop and the card-table.
“Take care! take care! There, now — Credo in — Pop! ting-a-ling-ling! give me some of that. Cent-é-dize! Why, you old publican, this wine is poisoned, — I know your tricks I — Sanctam ecclesiam Catholicam — Well, well, we shall see. Imbecile! to have a tierce-major and a seven of hearts, and discard the seven! By St. Anthony, capot! You are lurched, — ha! ha! I told you so. I knew very well, — there, — there, — don’t interrupt me — Carnis resurrectionem et vitam eternam!”
With these words upon his lips, the poor wine-dealer expired. Meanwhile the notary sat cowering over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene that was passing before him, and now and then striving to keep up his courage by a glass of cognac. Already his fears were on the alert; and the idea of contagion flitted to and fro through his mind. In order to quiet these thoughts of evil import, he lighted his pipe, and began to prepare for returning home. At that moment the apothecary turned round to him and said, —
“Dreadful sickly time, this! The disorder seems to be spreading.”
“What disorder?” exclaimed the notary, with a movement of surprise.
“Two died yesterday, and three to-day,” continued the apothecary, without answering the question. “Very sickly time, Sir, — very.”
“But what disorder is it? What disease has carried off my friend here so suddenly?”
“What disease? Why, scarlet fever, to be sure.”
“And is it contagious?”
“Certainly!”
u Then I am a dead man!” exclaimed the notary, putting his pipe into his waistcoat-pocket, and beginning to walk up and down the room in despair. “I am a dead man! Now don’t deceive me, — don’t, will you? What — what are the symptoms?”
“A sharp burning pain in the right side,” said the apothecary.
“O, what a fool I was to come here!” In vain did the housekeeper and the apothecary strive to pacify him; — he was not a man to be reasoned with; he answered that he knew his own constitution better than they did, and insisted upon going home without delay. Unfortunately, the vehicle he came in had returned to the city; and the whole neighbourhood was abed and asleep. What was to be done? Nothing in the world but to take the apothecary’s horse, which stood hitched at the door, patiently waiting his master’s will.
Well, Gentlemen, as there was
no remedy, our notary mounted this raw-boned steed, and set forth upon his homeward journey. The night was cold and gusty, and the wind right in his teeth. Overhead the leaden clouds were beating to and fro, and through them the newly risen moon seemed to be tossing and drifting along like a cock-boat in the surf; now swallowed up in a huge billow of cloud, and now lifted upon its bosom and dashed with silvery spray. The trees by the road-side groaned with a sound of evil omen; and before him lay three mortal miles, beset with a thousand imaginary perils. Obedient to the whip and spur, the steed leaped forward by fits and starts, now dashing away in a tremendous gallop, and now relaxing into a long, hard trot; while the rider, filled with symptoms of disease and dire presentiments of death, urged him on, as if he were fleeing before the pestilence.
In this way, by dint of whistling and shouting, and beating right and left, one mile of the fatal three was safely passed. The apprehensions of the notary had so far subsided, that he even suffered the poor horse to walk up hill; but. these apprehensions were suddenly revived again with tenfold violence by a sharp pain in the right side, which seemed to pierce him like a needle.
“It is upon me at last!” groaned the fear-stricken man. “Heaven be merciful to me, the greatest of sinners! And must I die in a ditch, after all? He! get up, — get up!”
And away went horse and rider at full speed, — hurry-scurry, — up hill and down, — panting and blowing like a whirlwind. At every leap, the pain in the rider’s side seemed to increase. At first it was a little point like the prick of a needle, — then it spread to the size of a half-franc piece, — then covered a place as large as the palm of your hand. It gained upon him fast. The poor man groaned aloud in agony; faster and faster sped the horse over the frozen ground, — farther and farther spread the pain over his side. To complete the dismal picture, the storm commenced, — snow mingled with rain. But snow, and rain, and cold were naught to him; for, though his arms and legs were frozen to icicles, he felt it not; the fatal symptom was upon him; he was doomed to die, — not of cold, but of scarlet fever!
At length, he knew not how, more dead than alive, he reached the gate of the city. A band of ill-bred dogs, that were serenading at a corner of the street, seeing the notary dash by, joined in the hue and cry, and ran barking and yelping at his heels. It was now late at night, and only here and there a solitary lamp twinkled from an upper story. But on went the notary, down this street and up that, till at last he reached his own door. There was a light in his wife’s bed-chamber. The good woman came to the window, alarmed at such a knocking, and howling, -and clattering at her door so late at night; and the notary was too deeply absorbed in his own sorrows to observe that the lamp cast the shadow of two heads on the window-curtain.
“Let me in! let me in! Quick! quick!” he exclaimed, almost breathless from terror and fatigue.
“Who are you, that come to disturb a lone woman at this hour of the night?” cried a sharp voice from above. “Begone about your business, and let quiet people sleep.”
“O, diable, diable! Come down and let me in! I am your husband. Don’t you know my voice? Quick, I beseech you; for I am dying here in the street!”
After a few moments of delay and a few more words of parley, the door was opened, and the notary stalked into his domicil, pale and haggard in aspect, and as stiff and straight as a ghost. Cased from head to heel in an armor of ice, as the glare of the lamp feiï upon him, he looked like a knight-errant mailed in steel. But in one place his armor was broken. On his right side was a circular spot, as large as the crown of your hat, and about as black!
“My dear wife!” he exclaimed, with more tenderness than he had exhibited for many years, “reach me a chair. My hours are numbered. I am a dead man!”
Alarmed at these exclamations, his wife stripped off his overcoat. Something fell from beneath it, and was dashed to pieces on the hearth. It was the notary’s pipe! He placed his hand upon his side, and, lo! it was bare to the skin! Coat, waiscoat, and linen were burnt through and through, and there was a blister on his side as large over as your head!
The mystery was soon explained, symptom and all. The notary had put his pipe into his pocket, without knocking out the ashes! And so my story ends.
“Is that all?” asked the radical, when the story-teller had finished.
“That is all.”
“Well, what does your story prove?”
“That is more than I can tell. All I know is that the story is true.”
“And did he die?” said the nice little man in gosling-green.
“Yes; he died afterward,” replied the storyteller, rather annoyed by the question.
“And what did he die of?” continued gosling-green, following him up.
“What did he die of? why, he died — of a sudden!”
SPAIN.
THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN.
A l’issue de l’yver que le joly temps de primavère commence, et qu’on voit arbres verdoyer, fleurs espanouir, et qu’on oit les oisillons chanter en toute joie et doulceur, tant que les verts bocages retentissent de leurs sons et que cœurs tristes pensifs y dolens s’en esjouissent, s’émeuvent à délaisser deuil et toute tristesse, et se parforcent à valoir mieux.
LA PLAISANTE HISTOIRE DE GUERIN DE MONGLAVE.
SOFT-BREATHING Spring! how many pleasant thoughts, how many delightful recollections, does thy name awaken in the mind of a traveller! Whether he has followed thee by the banks of the Loire or the Guadalquivir, or traced thy footsteps slowly climbing the sunny slope of Alp or Apennine, the thought of thee shall summon up sweet visions of the past, and thy golden sunshine and soft vapory atmosphere become a portion of his day-dreams and of him. Sweet images of thee, and scenes that have oft inspired the poet’s song, shall mingle in his recollections of the past. The shooting of the tender leaf, — the sweetness and elasticity of the air, — the blue sky, — the fleet-drifting cloud, — and the flocks of wild fowl wheeling in long-drawn phalanx through the air, and screaming from their dizzy height, — all these shall pass like a dream before his imagination.
“And gently o’er his memory come at times A glimpse of joys that had their birth in thee, Like a brief strain of some forgotten tune.”
It was at the opening of this delightful season of the year that I passed through the South of France, and took the road of St. Jean de Luz for the Spanish frontier. I left Bordeaux amid all the noise and gayety of the last scene of Carnival. The streets and public walks of the city were full of merry groups in masks, — at every corner crowds were listening to the discordant music of the wandering ballad-singer; and grotesque figures, mounted on high stilts, and dressed in the garb of the peasants of the Landes of Gascony, were stalking up and down like so many long-legged cranes; others were amusing themselves with the tricks and grimaces of little monkeys, disguised like little men, bowing to the ladies, and figuring away in red coats and ruffles; and here and there a band of chimney-sweeps were staring in stupid wonder at the miracles of a showman’s box. In a word, all was so full of mirth and merrimake, that even beggary seemed to have forgotten that it was wretched, and gloried in the ragged masquerade of one poor holy-day.
To this scene of noise and gayety succeeded the silence and solitude of the Landes of Gascony. The road from Bordeaux to Bayonne winds along through immense pine-forests and sandy plains, spotted here and there with a dingy little hovel, and the silence is interrupted only by the dismal hollow roar of the wind among the melancholy and majestic pines. Occasionally, however, the way is enlivened by a market-town or a straggling village; and I still recollect the feelings of delight which I experienced, when, just after sunset, we passed through the romantic town of Roquefort, built upon the sides of the green valley of the Douze, which has scooped out a verdant hollow for it to nestle in, amid those barren tracts of sand.
On leaving Bayonne, the scene assumes a character of greater beauty and sublimity. To the vast forests of the Landes of Gascony succeeds a scene of picturesque beauty, delightful to t
he traveller’s eye. Before him rise the snowy Pyrenees, — a long line of undulating hills, —
“Bounded afar by peak aspiring bold,
Like giant capped with helm of burnished gold.”
To the left, as far as the eye can reach, stretch the delicious valleys of the Nive and Adour; and to the right the sea flashes along the pebbly margin of its silver beach, forming a thousand little bays and inlets, or comes tumbling in among the cliffs of a rock-bound coast, and beats against its massive barriers with a distant, hollow, continual roar.
Should these pages meet the eye of any solitary traveller who is journeying into Spain by the road I here speak of, I would advise him to travel from Bayonne to St. Jean de Luz on horseback. At the gate of Bayonne he will find a steed ready caparisoned for him, with a dark-eyed Basque girl for his companion and guide, who is to sit beside him upon the same horse. This style of travelling is, I believe, peculiar to the Basque provinces; at all events, I have seen it nowhere else. The saddle is constructed with a large frame-work extending on each side, and covered with cushions; and the traveller and his guide, being placed on the opposite extremities, serve as a balance to each other. We overtook many travellers mounted in this way, and I could not help thinking it a mode of travelling far preferable to being cooped up in a diligence. The Basque girls are generally beautiful; and there was one of these merry guides we met upon the road to Bidart, whose image haunts me still. She had large and expressive black eyes, teeth like pearls, a rich and sunburnt complexion, and hair of a glossy blackness, parted on the forehead, and falling down behind in a large braid, so long as almost to touch the ground with the little riband that confined it at the end. She wore the common dress of the peasantry of the South of France, and a large gypsy straw hat was thrown back over her shoulder, and tied by a riband about her neck. There was hardly a dusty traveller in the coach who did not envy her companion the seat he occupied beside her.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 191
