CHAPTER II. MASTER ADAM WARNER GROWS A MISER, AND BEHAVES SHAMEFULLY.
For two or three days nothing disturbed the outward monotony of therecluse's household. Apparently all had settled back as before theadvent of the young cavalier. But Sibyll's voice was not heard singing,as of old, when she passed the stairs to her father's room. She sat withhim in his work no less frequently and regularly than before; buther childish spirits no longer broke forth in idle talk or petulantmovements, vexing the good man from his absorption and his toils.The little cares and anxieties, which had formerly made up so much ofSibyll's day by forethought of provision for the morrow, were suspended;for the money transmitted to her by Alwyn in return for the emblazonedmanuscripts was sufficient to supply their modest wants for months tocome. Adam, more and more engrossed in his labours, did not appear toperceive the daintier plenty of his board, nor the purchase of somesmall comforts unknown for years. He only said one morning, "It isstrange, girl, that as that gathers in life (and he pointed to themodel), it seems already to provide, to my fantasy, the luxuries it willone day give to us all in truth. Methought my very bed last night seemedwondrous easy, and the coverings were warmer, for I woke not with thecold."
"Ah," thought the sweet daughter, smiling through moist eyes, "whilemy cares can smooth thy barren path through life, why should I cark andpine?"
Their solitude was now occasionally broken in the evenings by the visitsof Nicholas Alwyn. The young goldsmith was himself not ignorant of thesimpler mathematics; he had some talent for invention, and took pleasurein the construction of horologes, though, properly speaking, not apart of his trade. His excuse for his visits was the wish to profit byWarner's mechanical knowledge; but the student was so rapt in hisown pursuits, that he gave but little instruction to his visitor.Nevertheless Alwyn was satisfied, for he saw Sibyll. He saw her in themost attractive phase of her character,--the loving, patient, devoteddaughter; and the view of her household virtues affected more and morehis honest English heart. But, ever awkward and embarrassed, he gaveno vent to his feelings. To Sibyll he spoke little, and with formalconstraint; and the girl, unconscious of her conquest, was little lessindifferent to his visits than her abstracted father.
But all at once Adam woke to a sense of the change that had taken place;all at once he caught scent of gold, for his works were brought to apause for want of some finer and more costly materials than the coinsin his own possession (the remnant of Marmaduke's gift) enabled him topurchase. He had stolen out at dusk, unknown to Sibyll, and lavishedthe whole upon the model; but in vain! The model in itself was, indeed,completed; his invention had mastered the difficulty that it hadencountered. But Adam had complicated the contrivance by adding to itexperimental proofs of the agency it was intended to exercise. It wasnecessary in that age, if he were to convince others, to show morethan the principle of his engine,--he must show also something of itseffects; turn a mill without wind or water, or set in motion some mimicvehicle without other force than that the contrivance itself supplied.And here, at every step, new obstacles arose. It was the misfortuneto science in those days, not only that all books and mathematicalinstruments were enormously dear, but that the students, stillstruggling into light, through the glorious delusions of alchemy andmysticism, imagined that, even in simple practical operations, therewere peculiar virtues in virgin gold and certain precious stones. A linkin the process upon which Adam was engaged failed him; his ingenuity wasbaffled, his work stood still; and in poring again and again over thelearned manuscripts--alas! now lost--in which certain German doctorshad sought to explain the pregnant hints of Roger Bacon, he foundit inculcated that the axle of a certain wheel must be composed of adiamond. Now, in truth, it so happened that Adam's contrivance, which(even without the appliances which were added in illustration of thetheory) was infinitely more complicated than modern research has foundnecessary, did not even require the wheel in question, much less theabsent diamond; it happened, also, that his understanding, which, thoughso obtuse in common life, was in these matters astonishingly clear,could not trace any mathematical operations by which the diamond axlewould in the least correct the difficulty that had suddenly started up;and yet the accursed diamond began to haunt him,--the German authoritywas so positive on the point, and that authority had in many respectsbeen accurate. Nor was this all,--the diamond was to be no vulgardiamond; it was to be endowed, by talismanic skill, with certainproperties and virtues; it was to be for a certain number of hoursexposed to the rays of the full moon; it was to be washed in a primitiveand wondrous elixir, the making of which consumed no little of thefinest gold. This diamond was to be to the machine what the soul is tothe body,--a glorious, all-pervading, mysterious principle of activityand life. Such were the dreams that obscured the cradle of infantscience! And Adam, with all his reasoning powers, big lore in the hardtruths of mathematics, was but one of the giant children of the dawn.The magnificent phrases and solemn promises of the mystic Germans gotfirm hold of his fancy. Night and day, waking or sleeping, the diamond,basking in the silence of the full moon, sparkled before his eyes.Meanwhile all was at a stand. In the very last steps of his discovery hewas arrested. Then suddenly looking round for vulgar moneys to purchasethe precious gem, and the materials for the soluble elixir, he saw thatMONEY had been at work around him,--that he had been sleeping softlyand faring sumptuously. He was seized with a divine rage. How had Sibylldared to secrete from him this hoard; how presumed to waste uponthe base body what might have so profited the eternal mind? In hisrelentless ardour, in his sublime devotion and loyalty to his abstractidea, there was a devouring cruelty, of which this meek and gentlescholar was wholly unconscious. The grim iron model, like a Moloch,ate up all things,--health, life, love; and its jaws now opened forhis child. He rose from his bed,--it was daybreak,--he threw on hisdressing-robe, he strode into his daughter's room; the gray twilightcame through the comfortless, curtainless casement, deep sunk into thewall. Adam did not pause to notice that the poor child, though she hadprovoked his anger by refitting his dismal chamber, had spent nothing ingiving a less rugged frown to her own.
The scanty worm-worn furniture, the wretched pallet, the poor attirefolded decently beside,--nothing save that inexpressible purity andcleanliness which, in the lowliest hovel, a pure and maiden mind gathersround it; nothing to distinguish the room of her whose childhood hadpassed in courts from the but of the meanest daughter of drudgery andtoil! No,--he who had lavished the fortunes of his father and big childinto the grave of his idea--no--he saw nothing of this self-forgetfulpenury--the diamond danced before him! He approached the bed; and oh!the contrast of that dreary room and peasant pallet to the delicate,pure, enchanting loveliness of the sleeping inmate. The scanty coveringleft partially exposed the snow-white neck and rounded shoulder; theface was pillowed upon the arm, in an infantine grace; the face wasslightly flushed, and the fresh red lips parted into a smile,--for inher sleep the virgin dreamed,--a happy dream! It was a sight to havetouched a father's heart, to have stopped his footstep, and hushed hisbreath into prayer. And call not Adam hard--unnatural--that he was notthen, as men far more harsh than he--for the father at that moment wasnot in his breast, the human man was gone--he himself, like his model,was a machine of iron!--his life was his one idea!
"Wake, child, wake!" he said, in a loud but hollow voice. "Where is thegold thou hast hidden from me? Wake! confess!"
Roused from her gracious dreams thus savagely, Sibyll started, and sawthe eager, darkened face of her father. Its expression was peculiarand undefinable, for it was not threatening, angry, stern; there was avacancy in the eyes, a strain in the features, and yet a wild, intenseanimation lighting and pervading all,--it was as the face of one walkingin his sleep, and, at the first confusion of waking, Sibyll thoughtindeed that such was her father's state. But the impatience with whichhe shook the arm he grasped, and repeated, as he opened convulsivelyhis other hand, "The gold, Sibyll, the gold! Why didst thou hide itfrom me?" speedily convinced her that her father's
mind was under theinfluence of the prevailing malady that made all its weakness and allits strength.
"My poor father!" she said pityingly, "wilt thou not leave thyself themeans whereby to keep strength and health for thine high hopes? Ah,Father, thy Sibyll only hoarded her poor gains for thee!"
"The gold!" said Adam, mechanically, but in a softer voice,--"all--allthou hast! How didst thou get it,--how?"
"By the labours of these hands. Ah, do not frown on me!"
"Thou--the child of knightly fathers--thou labour!" said Adam, aninstinct of his former state of gentle-born and high-hearted youthflashing from his eyes. "It was wrong in thee!"
"Dost thou not labour too?"
"Ay, but for the world. Well, the gold!"
Sibyll rose, and modestly throwing over her form the old mantle whichlay on the pallet, passed to a corner of the room, and opening a chest,took from it the gipsire, and held it out to her father.
"If it please thee, dear and honoured sir, so be it; and Heaven prosperit in thy hands!"
Before Adam's clutch could close on the gipsire, a rude hand was laidon his shoulder, the gipsire was snatched from Sibyll, and the gaunt,half-clad form of old Madge interposed between the two.
"Eh, sir!" she said, in her shrill, cracked tone, "I thought when Iheard your door open, and your step hurrying down, you were after nogood deeds. Fie, master, fie! I have clung to you when all reviled, andwhen starvation within and foul words without made all my hire; for Iever thought you a good and mild man, though little better than starkwode. But, augh! to rob your child thus, to leave her to starve andpine! We old folks are used to it. Look round, look round! I rememberthis chamber, when ye first came to your father's hall. Saints ofheaven! There stood the brave bed all rustling with damask of silk; onthose stone walls once hung fine arras of the Flemings,--a marriage giftto my lady from Queen Margaret, and a mighty show to see, and good forthe soul's comforts, with Bible stories wrought on it. Eh, sir! don'tyou call to mind your namesake, Master Adam, in his brave scarlet hosen,and Madam Eve, in her bonny blue kirtle and laced courtpie? and now--nowlook round, I say, and see what you have brought your child to!"
"Hush! hush! Madge, bush!" cried Sibyll, while Adam gazed in evidentperturbation and awakening shame at the intruder, turning his eyes roundthe room as she spoke, and heaving from time to time short, deep sighs.
"But I will not hush," pursued the old woman; "I will say my say, forI love ye both, and I loved my poor mistress who is dead and gone. Ah,sir, groan! it does you good. And now when this sweet damsel is growingup, now when you should think of saving a marriage dower for her (for nomarriage where no pot boils), do you rend from her the little that shehas drudged to gain!--She! Oh, out on your heart! And for what,--forwhat, sir? For the neighbours to set fire to your father's house, andthe little ones to--"
"Forbear, woman!" cried Adam, in a voice of thunder; "forbear! Heavens!"And he waved his hand as he spoke, with so unexpected a majesty thatMadge was awed into sudden silence, and, darting a look of compassion atSibyll, she hobbled from the room. Adam stood motionless an instant;but when he felt his child's soft arms round his neck, when he heardher voice struggling against tears, praying him not to heed the foolishwords of the old servant,--to take--to take all, that it would be easyto gain more,--the ice of his philosophy melted at once; the man brokeforth, and, clasping Sibyll to his heart, and kissing her cheek, herlips, her hands, he faltered out, "No! no! forgive me! Forgive thy cruelfather! Much thought has maddened me, I think,--it has indeed! Poorchild, poor Sibyll," and he stroked her cheek gently, and with amovement of pathetic pity--"poor child, thou art pale, and so slight anddelicate! And this chamber--and thy loneliness--and--ah! my life hathbeen a curse to thee, yet I meant to bequeath it a boon to all!
"Father, dear father, speak not thus. You break my heart. Here, here,take the gold--or rather, for thou must not venture out to insult again,let me purchase with it what thou needest. Tell me, trust me--"
"No!" exclaimed Adam, with that hollow energy by which a man resolvesto impose restraint on himself; "I will not, for all that science everachieved,--I will not lay this shame on my soul! Spend this gold onthyself, trim this room, buy thee raiment,--all that thou needest,--Iorder, I command it! And hark thee, if thou gettest more, hide it fromme, hide it well; men's desires are foul tempters! I never knew, infollowing wisdom, that I had a vice. I wake and find myself a miser anda robber!"
And with these words he fled from the girl's chamber, gained his own,and locked the door.
The Last of the Barons — Complete Page 17
