Vassall Morton Part 35

He had, to Morton's eye, rather the easy manner of a well-bred American, than the more distant bearing common with an English gentleman.

"_Eccellenza, si,_" replied the padrone,--"he pa.s.sed a quarter of an hour ago, with the birds your excellency has shot."

The young man rode on, pa.s.sing Morton, as he stood by the roadside.

"I have seen that face before," said the latter to himself--"in a dream, for what I know, but I have seen it."

It was a frank and open face, manly, yet full of kindliness, not without a tinge of melancholy.

"Come of it what will," thought the fugitive, "I will speak to him."

He walked after the retiring horseman, and when an angle of the road concealed him from the inn, quickened his pace almost to a run. But at that moment the Englishman struck into a sharp trot, and disappeared over the ridge of a hill. Morton soon gained sight of him again, and kept him in view for about a mile, when he saw him enter the gateway belonging to a small villa, between the road and the water. It was a very pretty spot; the grounds terraced to the edge of the lake; with laurels, cypresses, box hedges, a fountain or two, an artificial grotto, and a superb diorama of water and mountains.

Morton stood waiting at the gate. At length he saw a female domestic, evidently Italian, pa.s.sing through the shrubbery before the house, and disappearing behind it. In a few minutes more, a solemn personage appeared at the door, whom he would have known at a mile's distance for an old English servant. He stood looking with great gravity out upon the grounds. Morton approached, and accosting him in Italian, asked to see his master.

John was not a proficient in the tongue of Ariosto and Dante. Indeed, in his intercourse with the natives, he had seen occasion for one phrase alone, and that a somewhat pithy and repellant one,--_Andate al diavolo_.

He glared with supreme and savage scorn on the tatterdemalion stranger, and uttered his talismanic words,--

"_Andarty al devillio!_"

Morton changed his tactics; and, looking fixedly at the human mastiff, said in English,--

"Go to your master, sir, and tell him that I wish to speak with him."

The Saxon words and the tone of authority coming from one whom he had taken for a vagrant beggar, astonished the old man beyond utterance.

He stared for a moment,--turned to obey,--then turned back again,--

"Mr. Wentworth is at breakfast, sir."

The last monosyllable was spoken in a doubtful tone, the speaker being perplexed between respect for the tone and language of the stranger, and contempt for his vagabond attire.

"Then bring me pen, ink, and paper--I will write to him."

And pushing past the servant, he seated himself on a chair in the hall.

John went for the articles required, first glancing around to see what items of plunder might be within the intruder's reach. Morton in his absence opened several books which lay upon a table; and in one of them he saw, pencilled on the fly leaf, the name of the owner, Robert Wentworth.

The pen, ink, and paper arriving, he wrote as follows, John meanwhile keeping a vigilant guard over him:--

Sir: I am a native of the United States, who, for the past four years, have been a prisoner in the Castle of Ehrenberg, confined for no offence, political or otherwise, but on a groundless suspicion. I escaped by the a.s.sistance of a soldier in the garrison, and have made my way thus far in the dress of a peasant. I am anxious to reach Genoa, or some other port beyond the power of Austria, but am embarra.s.sed and endangered by my ignorance of the routes and the state of the country. Information on these points, and the means of communicating with an American consul, are the only aid of which I am in necessity; and I take the liberty of applying to you in the hope of obtaining it. By giving it, you will oblige me in a matter of life and death. The people of the country cannot be trusted; but I may rely securely on the generosity of an English gentleman.

Your obedient servant, Va.s.sALL MORTON.

He sealed the note, and gave it to the old servant. The latter mounted the stairs, and reappearing in a few moments, said, in his former doubtful tone, "Please to walk up."

Morton followed him to the door of a small room looking upon the lake.

Near the window stood the young man whom he had seen at the inn, with the note open in his hand. Morton entered, inclining his head slightly. The other returned his salutation, looked at him for an instant without speaking, and then, coming forward, gave him his hand, and bade him welcome with the utmost frankness.

Astonished, and half overcome, Morton could only stammer his acknowledgments for such a reception of one who came with no pa.s.sport but his own word.

"O," said Wentworth, smiling, "when I meet an honest man, I know him by instinct, as Falstaff knew the true prince. Sit down; I am glad to see you; and shall be still more glad if I can help you."

The old servant received some whispered directions, and left the room.

Morton gave a short outline of his story, to which his host listened with unequivocal signs of interest.

"I wish," said Wentworth, "that you were the only innocent victim of Austrian despotism. It is a monstrous infamy, built on fraud and force, but too refined, too artificial, too complicated to endure."

"Bullets and cold steel are the medicines for it," said Morton.

Here the servant reappeared.

"Here, at all events, you are safe. Stay with me to-day, and I think I can promise you that in a few days more you may stand on the deck of an American frigate. If you will go with John, he will help you to get rid of that villanous disguise."

Morton followed the old man into an adjoining room, where he found a bath, a suit of clothes, and the various appliances of the toilet prepared for him. And here he was left alone to indulge his reflections and revolutionize his outward man.

Meanwhile Wentworth sat musing by the window: "His face haunts me; and yet, for my life, I cannot remember where I have seen him before. I would stake all on his truth and honor. That firm lip and undespairing eye are a history in themselves. Strange--the difference between man and man. How should I have borne such suffering? Why, gone mad, I suppose, or destroyed myself. One sorrow--no, nor a hundred--would never unman _him_, and make him dream away his life, watching the sun rise and set, here by the Lake of Como. I scarcely know why, but my heart warms towards him like an old friend. Cost what it may, I will not leave him till he is out of danger."

He was still musing in this strain, when Morton returned, a changed man in person and in mind. It seemed as if, in casting off his squalid livery of misery and peril, a burden of care had fallen with it; as if the sullen cloud that had brooded over him so long had been pierced at length by a gladdening beam of sunlight, and the sombre landscape were smiling again with pristine light and promise. His buoyant and defiant spirit resumed its native tone; and a strange confidence sprang up within him, as if a desperate crisis of his destiny had been safely pa.s.sed.

Wentworth saw the change at a glance.

"Why, man, I see freedom in your eye already. But sit down; 'it's ill talking between a full man and a fasting,' and you must be half starved."

Morton was so, in truth. He seated himself at the table, and addressed himself to the repast provided for him with the keenness of a mountain trapper, while his entertainer played with his knife and fork to keep him in countenance.

"Do you know," said Wentworth, at length--"I am sure I have seen you before."

"And I have seen you--I could swear to it; and yet I do not know where."

"Were you ever in England?"

"Only for a few days."

"I was once in America."

"When?"

"In 1839. I was at Boston in March of that year."

Morton shook his head. "I remember that time perfectly. I was in New Orleans in March, and afterwards in Texas."

"From Boston I went westward--up the Missouri and out upon the prairies."

Morton paused a moment in doubt; then sprang to his feet with a joyful exclamation,--

"The prairies! Have you forgotten the Big Horn Branch of the Yellow Stone, and the camp under the old cottonwood trees!"