The Fortunes Of Glencore Part 39

A deep flush covered her face at these words, so palpably alluding to herself, and she tried to repeat her question.

"No," said he, "I cannot say I have ever studied: all that I have done is full of faults; but I feel the spring of better things within me.

Tell me, is this _your_ home?"

"Yes," said she, smiling faintly. "I live in the villa here with my aunt. She has purchased your statue, and wishes you to repair it, and then to engage in some other work for her. Let me a.s.sist you to rise; you seem very weak."

"I _am_ weak, and weary too," said he, staggering to a seat. "I have overworked myself, perhaps,--I scarcely know. Do not take away your hand."

"And you are, then, the Sebastian Greppi of whom Carrara is so proud?"

"They call me Sebastian Greppi; but I never heard that my name was spoken of with any honor."

"You are unjust to your own fame. We have often heard of you. See, here are two models taken from your works. They have been my studies for many a day. I have often wished to see you, and ask if my attempt were rightly begun. Then here is a hand."

"Let me model yours," said the youth, gazing steadfastly at the beautifully shaped one which rested on the chair beside him.

"Come with me to the villa, and I will present you to my aunt; she will be pleased to know you. There, lean on my arm, for I see you are very weak."

"Why are you so kind, so good to me?" said he, faintly, while a tear rose slowly to his eye.

He arose totteringly, and, taking her arm, walked slowly along at her side. As they went, she spoke kindly and encouragingly to him, praised what she had seen of his works, and said how frequently she had wished to know him, and enjoy the benefit of his counsels in art. "For I, too,"

said she, laughing, "would be a sculptor."

The youth stopped to gaze at her with a rapture he could not control.

That one of such a station, surrounded by all the appliances of a luxurious existence, could devote herself to the toil and labor of art, implied an amount of devotion and energy that at once elevated her in his esteem. She blushed deeply at his continued stare, and turned at last away.

"Oh, do not feel offended with me," cried he, pa.s.sionately. "If you but knew how your words have relighted within me the dying-out embers of an almost exhausted ambition,--if you but knew how my heart has gained courage and hope,--how light and brightness have shone in upon me after hours and days of gloom! It was but yesterday I had resolved to abandon this career forever. I was bent on a new life, in a new world beyond the seas. These few things that a faithful companion of mine had charged himself to dispose of, were to supply the means of the journey; and now I think of it no more. I shall remain here to work hard and study, and try to achieve what may one day be called good. You will sometimes deign to see what I am doing, to tell me if my efforts are on the road to success, to give me hope when I am weak-hearted, and courage when I am faint. I know and feel," said he, proudly, "that I am not devoid of what accomplishes success, for I can toil and toil, and throw my whole soul into my work; but for this I need, at least, one who shall watch me with an eye of interest, glorying when I win, sorrowing when I am defeated.--Where are we? What palace is this?" cried he, as they crossed a s.p.a.cious hall paved with porphyry and Sienna marble.

"This is my home," said the girl, "and this is its mistress."

Just as she spoke, she presented the youth to a lady, who, reclining on a sofa beside a window, gazed out towards the sea. She turned suddenly, and fixed her eyes on the stranger. With a wild start, she sprang up, and, staring eagerly at him, cried, "Who is this? Where does he come from?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: frontispiece]

The young girl told his name and what he was; but the words did not fall on listening ears, and the lady sat like one spell-bound, with eyes riveted on the youth's face.

"Am I like any one you have known, signora?" asked he, as he read the effect his presence had produced on her. "Do I recall some other features?"

"You do," said she, reddening painfully.

"And the memory is not of pleasure?" added the youth.

"Far, far from it; it is the saddest and cruelest of all my life,"

muttered she, half to herself. "What part of Italy are you from? Your accent is Southern."

"It is the accent of Naples, signora," said he, evading her question.

"And your mother, was she Neapolitan?"

"I know little of my birth, signora. It is a theme I would not be questioned on."

"And you are a sculptor?"

"The artist of the Faun, dearest aunt," broke in the girl, who watched with intense anxiety the changing expressions of the youth's features.

"Your voice even more than your features brings up the past," said the lady, as a deadly pallor spread over her own face, and her lips trembled as she spoke. "Will you not tell me something of your history?"

"When you have told me the reason for which you ask it, perhaps I may,"

said the youth, half sternly.

"There, there!" cried she, wildly, "in every tone, in every gesture, I trace this resemblance. Come nearer to me; let me see your hands."

"They are seamed and hardened with toil, lady," said the youth, as he showed them.

"And yet they look as if there was a time when they did not know labor,"

said she, eagerly.

An impatient gesture, as if he would not endure a continuance of this questioning, stopped her, and she said in a faint tone,--

"I ask your pardon for all this. My excuse and my apology are that your features have recalled a time of sorrow more vividly than any words could. Your voice, too, strengthens the illusion. It may be a mere pa.s.sing impression; I hope and pray it is. Come, Ida, come with me. Do not leave this, sir, till we speak with you again." So saying, she took her niece's arm and left the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII. NIGHT THOUGHTS

It was with a proud consciousness of having well fulfilled his mission that Billy Traynor once more bent his steps towards Ma.s.sa. Besides providing himself with books of travel and maps of the regions they were about to visit, he had ransacked Genoa for weapons, and accoutrements, and horse-gear. Well knowing the youth's taste for the costly and the splendid, he had suffered himself to be seduced into the purchase of a gorgeously embroidered saddle mounting, and a rich bridle, in Mexican taste; a pair of splendidly mounted pistols, chased in gold and studded with large turquoises, with a Damascus sabre, the hilt of which was a miracle of fine workmanship, were also amongst his acquisitions; and poor Billy fed his imagination with the thought of all the delight these objects were certain to produce. In this way he never wearied admiring them; and a dozen times a day would he unpack them, just to gratify his mind by picturing the enjoyment they were to afford.

"How well you are lookin', my dear boy!" cried he, as he burst into the youth's room, and threw his arms around him; "'tis like ten years off my life to see you so fresh and so hearty. Is it the prospect of the glorious time before us that has given this new spring to your existence?"

"More likely it is the pleasure I feel in seeing you back again," said Ma.s.sy; and his cheek grew crimson as he spoke.

"'Tis too good you are to me,--too good," said Billy, and his eyes ran over in tears, while he turned away his head to hide his emotion; "but sure it is part of yourself I do be growing every day I live. At first I could n't bear the thought of going away to live in exile, in a wilderness, as one may say; but now that I see your heart set upon it, and that your vigor and strength comes back just by the mere antic.i.p.ation of it, I'm downright delighted with the plan."

"Indeed!" said the youth, dreamily.

"To be sure I am," resumed Billy; "and I do be thinking there 's a kind of poethry in carrying away into the solitary pine forest minds stored with cla.s.sic lore, to be able to read one's Horace beside the gushing stream that flows on nameless and unknown, and con over ould Herodotus amidst adventures stranger than ever he told himself."

"It might be a happy life," said the other, slowly, almost moodily.

"Ay, and it will be," said Billy, confidently. "Think of yourself, mounted on that saddle on a wild prairie horse, galloping free as the wind itself over the wide savannas, with a drove of rushing buffaloes in career before you, and so eager in pursuit that you won't stop to bring down the scarlet-winged bustard that swings on the branch above you.

There they go, plungin' and snortin', the mad devils, with a force that would sweep a fortress before them; and here are we after them, makin'

the dark woods echo again with our wild yells. That's what will warm up our blood, till we 'll not be afeard to meet an army of dragoons themselves. Them pistols once belonged to Cariatoke, a chief from Scio; and that blade--a real Damascus--was worn by an Aga of the Janissaries.

Isn't it a picture?"

The youth poised the sword in his hand, and laid it down without a word; while Billy continued to stare at him with an expression of intensest amazement.

"Is it that you don't care for it all now, that your mind is changed, and that you don't wish for the life we were talkin' over these three weeks? Say so at once, my own darlin', and here I am, ready and willin'

never to think more of it. Only tell me what's pa.s.sin' in your heart; I ask no more."