A Love Story Part 13

Then, with head dizzy from its gladness, with heart unduly elate, has the Strada Teatro seen us, imperiously calling for the submissive caleche. Arrived in our chamber, how gravely did we close its shutters!

With what a feeling of satisfied enjoyment, did we court the downy freshness of the snow-white sheet!

Sweet and deep were our slumbers--for youth's spell was upon us, and our fifth l.u.s.tre had not _yet_ heralded us to serious thoughts and anxious cares.

Awoke by the officious valet, and remorseless friend, deemest though our debauch was felt? No! an effervescent draught of soda calmed us; we ate a blood orange, and smoked a cigar!

We often hear Malta abused. Byron is the stale authority; and every snub-nosed cynic turns up his prominent organ, and talks of "sirocco, sun, and sweat." Byron disliked it--he had cause. He was there at a bad season, and was suffering from an attack of bile. _We_ know of no place abroad, where the English eye will meet with so little to offend it, and so much to please and impress.

There is such a blending together of European, Asiatic, and African customs; there is such a variety in the costumes one meets; there is such grandeur in their palaces--such glory in their annals; such novelty in their manners and habits; such devotion in their religious observances; such simplicity and yet such beauty, in the dress of the women; and their wearers possess such fascinations; that we defy the most fastidious of critics, who has really resided there, to deny to Malta many of those attributes, with which he would invest that place, on whose beauty and agremens, he may prefer of all others to descant.

With the commonplace observer, its superb harbour, studded with gilded boats; its powerful fortifications, where art towers over nature, and where the eye looks up a rock, and catches a bristling battery; the glare of its scenery, with no foliage to cover the white stone;--all these, together with the different way in which the minutiae of life are transacted,--will call forth his attention, and demand his notice.

Art thou a poet, or a fancied warrior? What scene has been more replete with n.o.ble exploits? In whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s did the flame of chivalry burn brighter, than in those of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem? Not a name meets thee, that has not belonged to a hero! If thou grievest to find all dissimilar _but_ the name; yet mayest thou still muse, contemplative, over the tomb and ashes of him, whom thy mind has shadowed forth, as a n.o.ble light in a more romantic age.

Art thou a moralist, a thinking Christian? Thou mayest there trace--and the pursuit shall profit thee--the steps of the sainted apostle; he who was so signally called forth, to hear witness to the truth of ONE, whom he had erst reviled. Yon cordelier will show you the bay, where his vessel took refuge in its distress; and will tell you, that yon jagged rock first gave its dangerous welcome, to the bark of his patron saint.

Lovest thou music? hast loved? or been beloved? or both perchance?

Steal forth when night holds her starry court, and the guitars around are tinkling, as more than one rich voice deplores his mistress's cruelty, in hopes she may now relent. But see! _there_ is one, who puts in requisition neither music's spell, nor flattery's lay.

See! he approaches. His cloak wrapped around him, he cautiously treads the tranquil street.

He gains the portico--the signal is given. Who but an expectant maiden could hear one so slight?

Hark! a sound! cautiously the lattice opens--above him blushes the fair one! How brightly her dark eye flashes! how silver soft the tones of her voice!

The stern father--the querulous mother--the tricked duenna--all--all are slumbering. She leans forward, and her ear drinks in his honied words; as her head is supported by her snowy arm.

And now he whispers more pa.s.sionately. She answers not, but hides her face in her hands. She starts! she throws back her hair from her brow; she waves a white fazzolet, and is gone.

Not thus flies the lover. He crouches beneath the Ionic portico, his figure hardly discernible. A bolt--the last bolt is withdrawn. A form is dimly seen within--retiring, timid, repentant.

Sweet the task to calm that throbbing heart, or teach it to throb no more with fear!

But let him of melancholy mood, wander to the deserted village. A more fearful calamity has befallen it, than ever attended the soft shades, of the one conjured up by the poet.

_Here_ the demon Plague, with baneful wing, and pestilential influence, tarried for many days; till not one--no! not one soul of that village train--that did not join his bygone fathers.

Stray along its gra.s.s-grown roofless tenements! where _your_ echo alone breaks the silence, as it startles from its resting-place the slumbering owl--for who would dwell in abodes so marked for destruction? Stray there! think of the gentle contadina diffusing happiness around her!

_then_ think of her as she supports the youth she loves--as she clasps his faint form--and drinks in a poisonous contagion from his pallid lip.

Think of her as the disease seizes on its new victim--still attempting to prop up his head--to reach the cup, that may relieve his maddening thirst,--until, giddy and overpowered, she sinks at last; but--beside him!

Think of their dying together! _that_ at least is a solace.

Do not the scene and the thought draw a tear?

If your eye be dry, come--come away--_your_ step should not sound there!

The wind continued fair during the whole of the first day. Every trace of Valletta was soon lost; and the good barque Boston swept by the rocky coast of the island, where few human habitations meet the eye, swiftly and cheerily. The sea birds sported round the tall masts--the canvas bulged out bravely--the Captain forgot his sh.o.r.e griefs, and commenced a colloquy with Sir Henry. The sailors sung in chorus; whilst poor Acme,--we grieve to confess the fact, for never was a Mediterranean sea looked down on by brighter sun, or more cloudless sky,--retired to her cabin, supported by George, a prey to that unsentimental malady, sea sickness. The following day, the wind shifted some points; and the Captain judged it most prudent to forego his original intention of steering direct for Palermo; but to take advantage of the breeze, and adopt the pa.s.sage through the Faro of Messina.

Delme felt glad of this change; for Scylla and Charybdis to an Englishman, are as familiar as Whittington and his cat. For the first two days Acme continued unwell; and George, who already appeared improved by the sea air, never left her side.

Delme had therefore a dull time of it; which he strove to enliven by conversing, one after the other, with the Captain and his two mates.

From all of them, he learnt something; but from all he turned away, as they commenced discussing the comparative merits of the United States, and the old country; a subject he had neither the wish to enter on, nor fort.i.tude to prosecute. Not daunted, he attacked mate the third; and was led to infer better things, as the young gentleman commenced expatiating on the "purple sky," and "dark blue sea." This hope did not last long; for this lover of nature turned round to Sir Henry, and asked him in a nasal tw.a.n.g, if he preferred Cooper's or Mr. Scott's novels? Delme was not naturally a rude man, but as he turned away, he hummed something very like Yankee-doodle.

And then the moon got up; and Sir Henry felt lonely and sentimental. He leant over the vessel's side, and watched it pictured on the ocean, and quivering as the transient billow swept onwards. And he thought of home, and Emily. He thought of his brother, his heir,--if he died, the only male to inherit the ancient honours of his house,--married to a stranger, and--but Acme was too sweet a being, not to have already enlisted all his sympathies with her. And as if all these thoughts, like rays converged in a burning gla.s.s, did but tend to one object, the image of Julia Vernon suddenly rose before him.

He saw her beautiful as ever--gentleness in her eye--fascination in her smile!

And the air got cold--and he went to bed.

Chapter XIX.

A Dream and a Ghost Story.

"Touching this eye-creation; What is it to surprise us? Here we are Engendered out of nothing cognisable-- If this were not a wonder, nothing is; If this be wonderful, then all is so.

Man's grosser attributes can generate What _is_ not, and has never been at all; What should forbid his fancy to restore A being pa.s.s'd away? The wonder lies In the mind merely of the wondering man."

It was the fourth evening of the voyage. Hardly a breath fanned the sails, as the vessel slowly glided between the Calabrian and Sicilian coasts, approaching quite close to the former.

The party, seated on chairs placed on the deck, gazed in a spirit of placid enjoyment on one of those scenes, which the enthusiastic traveller often recals, as in his native clime, he pines for foreign lands, and for novel impressions. The sun was setting over the purple peaks of the Calabrian mountains, smiling in sunny gladness on deep ravines, whose echoes few human feet now woke, save those of simple peasant, or lawless bandit. Where the orb of day held its declining course, the sky wore a hue of burnished gold; its rich tint alone varied, by one fleecy violet cloud, whose outline of rounded beauty, was marked by a clear cincture of white,

On their right, beneath the mountain, lay the little village of Capo del Marte, a perfect specimen of Italian scenery.

Its sandy beach, against which the tide beat in dalliance--the chafed spray catching and reflecting the glories of the setting sun--ran smoothly up a slope of some thirty yards; beyond which, the orange trees, in their greenest foliage, chequered with their shade the white cottages scattered above them.

The busy hum of the fishermen on the coast--the splash of the casting net--and the drip of the oar--were appropriate accompaniments to the simple scene.

On the Sicilian side, a different view wooed attention. There, old Etna upreared his enc.u.mbered head, around which the smoke clung in dense majesty; and--not contemptible rivals of the declining deity--the moon's silvery crescent, and the evening star's quiet splendour, were bedecking the cloudless blue of the firmament.

Acme gazed enraptured on the scene--her long tresses hanging back on the chair, across which one hand was languidly thrown.

"Giorgio," said she, "do you see this beautiful bird close to the ship--swimming so steadily--its snowy plumage apparently unwet from its contact with the wave? To what can you compare it?"

"That bright-eyed gull, love!" replied he, "riding on the water as if all regardless that he is on the wide--wide sea--whose billows may so soon be lashed up to madness;--where may I find a resemblance more close, than my Acme's simplicity, which guides her through a troubled world, unknowing its treacheries, and happily ignorant of its dangers and its woes?"

"Ah!" said the blushing girl, "how poetical you are this evening; will you tell us a story, Giorgio?"

"_I_ will tell you one," said Delme, interrupting her. "Do you recollect old Featherstone, who had been in the civil service in India, and who lived so near Delme Park, George?"

"Perfectly," said his brother, "I remember I used to think him mad, because he always looked so melancholy, and used to send us word in the morning when he contemplated a visit; in order that all cats might be kept out of his way."