Wrapped in these sanguine and joyous reveries, Glyndon, quitting the woods, found himself amidst cultivated fields and vineyards to which his footstep had not before wandered; and there stood, by the skirts of a green lane that reminded him of verdant England, a modest house—half cottage, half farm. The door was open, and he saw a girl at work with her distaff. She looked up, uttered a slight cry, and, tripping gayly into the lane to his side, he recognised the dark-eyed Fillide.
“Hist!” she said, archly putting her finger to her lip; “do not speak loud—my mother is asleep within; and I knew you would come to see me. It is kind!”
Glyndon, with a little embarrassment, accepted the compliment to his kindness, which he did not exactly deserve. “You have thought, then, of me, fair Fillide?”
“Yes,” answered the girl, colouring, but with that frank, bold ingenuousness, which characterises the females of Italy, especially of the lower class, and in the southern provinces—“oh, yes! I have thought of little else. Paolo said he knew you would visit me.”
“And what relation is Paolo to you?”
“None; but a good friend to us all. My brother is one of his band.”
“One of his band!—a robber?”
“We of the mountains do not call a mountaineer ‘a robber,’ signor.”
“I ask pardon. Do you not tremble sometimes for your brother’s life? The law—”
“Law never ventures into these defiles. Tremble for him! No. My father and grandsire were of the same calling. I often wish I were a man!”
“By these lips, I am enchanted that your wish cannot be realised.”
“Fie, signor! And do you really love me?”
“With my whole heart!”
“And I thee!” said the girl, with a candour that seemed innocent, as she suffered him to clasp her hand.
“But,” she added, “thou wilt soon leave us; and I—” She stopped short, and the tears stood in her eyes.
There was something dangerous in this, it must be confessed. Certainly Fillide had not the seraphic loveliness of Viola; but hers was a beauty that equally at least touched the senses. Perhaps Glyndon had never really loved Viola; perhaps the feelings with which she had inspired him were not of that ardent character which deserves the name of love. However that be, he thought, as he gazed on those dark eyes, that he had never loved before.
“And couldst thou not leave thy mountains?” he whispered, as he drew yet nearer to her.
“Dost thou ask me?” she said, retreating, and looking him steadfastly in the face. “Dost thou know what we daughters of the mountains are? You gay, smooth cavaliers of cities seldom mean what you speak. With you, love is amusement; with us, it is life. Leave these mountains! Well! I should not leave my nature.”
“Keep thy nature ever—it is a sweet one.”
“Yes, sweet while thou art true; stern, if thou art faithless. Shall I tell thee what I—what the girls of this country are? Daughters of men whom you call robbers, we aspire to be the companions of our lovers or our husbands. We love ardently; we own it boldly. We stand by your side in danger; we serve you as slaves in safety: we never change, and we resent change. You may reproach, strike us, trample us as a dog—we bear all without a murmur; betray us, and no tiger is more relentless. Be true, and our hearts reward you; be false, and our hands revenge! Dost thou love me now?”
During this speech the Italian’s countenance had most eloquently aided her words—by turns soft, frank, fierce—and at the last question she inclined her head humbly, and stood, as in fear of his reply, before him. The stern, brave, wild spirit, in which what seemed unfeminine was yet, if I may so say, still womanly, did not recoil, it rather captivated Glyndon. He answered readily, briefly, and freely, “Fillide—yes!”
Oh, “yes!” forsooth, Clarence Glyndon! Every light nature answers “yes” lightly to such a question from lips so rosy! Have a care—have a care! Why the deuce, Mejnour, do you leave your pupil of four-and-twenty to the mercy of these wild cats-a-mountain! Preach fast, and abstinence, and sublime renunciation of the cheats of the senses! Very well in you, sir, Heaven knows how many ages old; but at four-and-twenty, your Hierophant would have kept you out of Fillide’s way, or you would have had small taste for the Cabala.
And so they stood, and talked, and vowed, and whispered, till the girl’s mother made some noise within the house, and Fillide bounded back to the distaff, her finger once more on her lip.
“There is more magic in Fillide than in Mejnour,” said Glyndon to himself, walking gayly home; “yet on second thoughts, I know not if I quite so well like a character so ready for revenge. But he who has the real secret can baffle even the vengeance of a woman, and disarm all danger!”
Sirrah! dost thou even already meditate the possibility of treason? Oh, well said Zanoni, “to pour pure water into the muddy well does but disturb the mud.”
CHAPTER 4.VII.
Cernis, custodia qualis
Vestibulo sedeat? facies quae limina servet?
“Aeneid,” lib. vi. 574.
(See you what porter sits within the vestibule?—what face
watches at the threshold?)
And it is profound night. All is at rest within the old castle—all is breathless under the melancholy stars. Now is the time. Mejnour with his austere wisdom—Mejnour the enemy to love; Mejnour, whose eye will read thy heart, and refuse thee the promised secrets because the sunny face of Fillide disturbs the lifeless shadow that he calls repose—Mejnour comes to-morrow! Seize the night! Beware of fear! Never, or this hour! So, brave youth—brave despite all thy errors—so, with a steady pulse, thy hand unlocks once more the forbidden door.
He placed his lamp on the table beside the book, which still lay there opened; he turned over the leaves, but could not decipher their meaning till he came to the following passage:—
“When, then, the pupil is thus initiated and prepared, let him open the casement, light the lamps, and bathe his temples with the elixir. He must beware how he presume yet to quaff the volatile and fiery spirit. To taste till repeated inhalations have accustomed the frame gradually to the ecstatic liquid, is to know not life, but death.”
He could penetrate no farther into the instructions; the cipher again changed. He now looked steadily and earnestly round the chamber. The moonlight came quietly through the lattice as his hand opened it, and seemed, as it rested on the floor, and filled the walls, like the presence of some ghostly and mournful Power. He ranged the mystic lamps (nine in number) round the centre of the room, and lighted them one by one. A flame of silvery and azure tints sprung up from each, and lighted the apartment with a calm and yet most dazzling splendour; but presently this light grew more soft and dim, as a thin, grey cloud, like a mist, gradually spread over the room; and an icy thrill shot through the heart of the Englishman,