G. P. R. James
The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066137328
Table of Contents
MAN-AT-ARMS;
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1855.
HENRY DE CERONS.
CHAPTER I.
It is difficult to discover what are the exact sources from which spring the thrilling feelings of joy and satisfaction with which we look back to the days of our early youth, and to the scenes in which our infancy was passed. It matters not, or at least very little, what are the pleasures to which we have addicted ourselves in after years, what are the delights that surround us, what are the enjoyments which Heaven has cast upon our lot. Whenever the mind, either as a voluntary act or from accidental associations, recalls, by the art of memory, the period of childhood, and the things which surrounded it, there comes over us a general gladdening sensation of pure and simple joys which we never taste again at any time of life. It must be, at least in part, that the delights of those days were framed in innocence and ignorance of evil, and that he who declared that of such as little children consisted the kingdom of heaven, has allotted to the babes of this world, in the brightness of their innocence, joys similar to those of the world beyond--joys that never cloy, and that leave no regret. What though some mortal tears will mix with those delights; what though the flesh must suffer, and the evil one will tempt; yet the allotted pleasures have a zest which not even novelty alone can give, and an imperishable purity in their nature which makes their remembrance sweeter than the fruition of other joys, and speaks their origin from heaven.
I love to dwell upon such memories, and to find likenesses for them in the course, the aspect, and the productions of the earth itself. I see the same sweetness and the same simplicity pervading the youth of all nature; and find in the sweet violet, the blue-eyed child of spring, an image of those early joys, pure, soft, and calm, and full of an odour that lasts upon the sense more than that of any other flower.
Thus it is, I suppose, and for these causes, that, in looking back upon the days of my youth, though those days were not as happy and as bright as they are to many people, I feel a sweet satisfaction which I knew not at the actual time; for those hours--as one who gives a diamond to a child--bestowed upon me a gift the value of which I knew not till many a year had passed away.
My first recollections refer to the period when I was about seven or eight years old, and to a sweet spot in the far south of France called Blancford, not far from the great city of Bordeaux. The chateau in which I dwelt had belonged for ages to my ancestors, and the little room in one of the turrets which was assigned to me, looked towards the setting sun over manifold beautiful green slopes and wooded banks, with now and then a broken, cliffy bit of yellow ground, that harmonized beautifully and richly with the warm tints of the spring and the autumn, and broke not less pleasantly the thick green of the mid year. Upon those banks, and trees, and slopes, the sunshine seemed to dwell with peculiar fondness; and thither came the bright and smiling showers of spring, and the rich, vision-like lights and shades of autumn. Gay hawking parties, and many a splendid cavalcade from the rich and important town in the neighbourhood, diversified the scenery during the bright part of the year, and towards the winter-time the beasts of the forest and the field used to resume their dwelling in the neighbouring woods, and afford sport and diversion to the inhabitants of the castle.
As I have said, that chateau had been for centuries the dwelling-place of my ancestors, ever since, indeed, the arm of Du Guesclin and the wisdom of Charles had expelled the English from the shores of France; but still that chateau was not mine, nor ever likely to be mine; for I was at that time a poor dependant upon the bounty of others, without wealth, rank, station, or fortune of any kind to give hope to my heart or energy to my effort.
The lord of that castle, my poor father's first cousin, had taken me out of compassion to his relation, a poor soldier of fortune, who married thoughtlessly and died young; and as he himself, a lover of pleasure--even of license, at the time he took me into his house, thought only of marriage as a remote evil, he treated me at first with so much kindness, that the foolish persons who surrounded us imagined that a time might come when I should be his heir. Nothing, indeed, was farther from his thoughts. He had always determined, and still held the resolution of wedding ultimately, in the hope of seeing his possessions descend to children of his own.
The accomplishment of this purpose was hastened by accidental circumstances, which placed it in his power to marry a beautiful and wealthy bride, whom he brought home to the chateau in great pomp, and the festivities which followed her arrival are among the first events which I distinctly remember.
Surrounded by friends, and with scarcely a wish ungratified, he might well consider himself a rich and happy man in the possession of one so fair as she was. But beauty was not the only quality which she brought to make him happy, nor riches the only dowry that was settled upon her head. Never did I see any one who combined more graces of person with more fine qualities of the heart; never any one who more merited the love of every one who approached her.
It was evident that she had heard of me before she came, and she greeted me with a warm and kindly smile, which went direct to my heart. She gazed upon me at the same time with a look of deep interest and scrutinizing inquiry, as if she thought to read my character in my face, or to divine what were the feelings with which I met her. Heaven knows that I had no feelings but those of sincere joy. I entertained not the slightest idea that her coming, could have any evil effect upon my fate; that it would in the least change my destiny or affect my happiness. Of course, I was utterly ignorant of such things at that period; the joy that was around me found a ready echo in a heart naturally joyous, and I laughed, and danced, and sang with the rest, more unthinking of the morrow than the bird upon the wing.
If the fair lady of Blancford gazed at me when first she came, my cousin's eyes rested upon me many a time when he saw me so gay and happy. I know not what it was, but it seemed as if my happiness displeased him. I have since learned to know that in the human heart there is often a great difference between remorse and repentance; and that, when we have done a fellow-creature wrong, when we have pained, injured, aggrieved--ay, even when we only entertain the purpose of doing so, we hate that being on account of the very arts for which we should hate ourselves.