Chapter III (6)

The young female, who is the especial object of our interest, crouched at the base of the granite pillar where she had sought refuge, shuddering and sick with fear, amid this tumult of strife and terrible passions raging about her. She heard the shrieks and howling cries of the multitude as they struggled together, heard them tear up the pavement with curses, and felt the air tortured into unnatural currents as the heavy stones whirled fiercely over her head. Still she neither shrieked nor moved a limb, but clung with a shuddering clasp to the pillar, helpless and almost stupefied with terror. While the fight raged fiercest about her she remained unnoticed, for even there, amid that throng of men tugging at each other’s throats and wrangling like wild animals together, females were to be seen fighting and eager for strife—the most relentless among the throng. In this terrible mingling of sexes and strife of angry passions, a helpless and prostrate female, shrinking from a scene too horrible even for her imagination, might well have been overlooked. All were too fiercely occupied to offer her protection or insult. But as the scene of strife became more distant the dense crowd around her was scattered, and more than one of the rude persons who hang about the skirts of a riotous mob from idle curiosity or in hopes of plunder, observed the deathly stillness of her position. There was a delicacy in the small white hand and rounded arm which clung to the pillar, exposed by the falling drapery and flung out in beautiful relief upon the stone as if a limb of exquisite sculpture had been chiselled there. But the persons who gazed were too rude for thoughts of beauty though so strangely betrayed. A cluster of brilliants that blazed on one of the fingers, and the rich drapery that lay in a picturesque heap over her whole person, conveyed hopes of rich plunder, and many a covetous eye twinkled with expectation that when the crowd were drawn to a distance she might be left helpless and exposed to their rapacity. At last an artisan or mechanic of the lowest order ascended the steps where she had sought refuge, and, apparently heedless of her presence, sat down on the opposite side of the pillar, so near that his dusty leathern jerkin almost touched the arm still wound immovably around it. He now uncovered his head and wiped the perspiration from a low and disagreeable forehead with the sleeve of his jerkin, pushed back a mass of coarse hair that had fallen over his eyes, and was about replacing his cap, when a flash of sunshine fell upon the cluster of brilliants which gemmed one of the fingers just in a range with his eye. A look of coarse delight came to his repulsive features, a cunning avaricious joy disagreeable beyond description. He cast an eager look upon the throng, which was still great, and toyed with his cap, waving it up and down with both hands carelessly as if to cool his face when any person seemed especially regarding him. At last, when the general attention was drawn another way by a party of horsemen coming at a hard gallop down the street, he, as if by accident, held his cap so as to conceal his face from the multitude, and drew back slowly till the pillar half concealed him, then, softly removing the hand from its clasp on the stone, he drew the ring away quick as lightning, and grasping it in his rough palm allowed the little hand to fall down cold and lifeless upon the step.

“Plunder from the dead is free to the first comer,” he muttered, replacing his cap, “a woman completely killed or in a swoon is the same thing, and one or the other state belongs to this dainty lady, I take it.”

As he muttered these words, the plunderer sauntered with a heavy idle swagger down the steps, and would have mingled with the crowd, but at that moment an elderly man, evidently the servitor of some noble family, paused by the steps, glanced at the recumbent figure, and hastily inquired who the person was, and why no assistance had been rendered. The artisan, to whom he addressed himself as the nearest person, was suddenly taken with a decided and absorbing interest in the struggle that still raged farther down the street, and, when the question had been thrice repeated, only withdrew his attention long enough to declare that he was quite ignorant regarding the lady so strangely situated, and, in truth, had observed her for the first time when pointed out by the worshipful questioner.

The new comer ran hastily up the steps, flung back the mantle which had fallen over her face, and revealed the features of a young girl, pale as death, and lying cold and lifeless close to the pillar. A flood of rich chestnut-brown hair had broken loose, and the string of rough emeralds that had confined it lay broken and scattered among the folds of her dress. The man seemed to recognize those sweet features, for he turned pale, and an exclamation, almost of terror, broke from his lips. “She is dead!” he cried in a voice of keen emotion—“her hands are cold as ice. What shall I say to my poor lord—who will dare tell him?”

“Then she has taken leave within a short space of time,” muttered the artisan, who stood with his back toward the pillar, gazing intently afar off, as if he had some heavy stake which the contest would decide. “I can swear that her hand trembled as I pulled off the ring.”

“For the love of heaven, is there no one here who will call assistance!” exclaimed the new comer, kneeling down and raising the senseless lady with his arm.

“Can I do anything?” inquired the artisan, gruffly, as if aroused to a consciousness that the fainting lady required some attention.

“Thank you, good friend, yes—run, I beseech you for the nearest leech, or rather look out my Lord Dudley, who has just ridden by; say to him that a lady whose welfare is dear to him, has swooned in the street, and is in danger from the mob. Go, good man, go at once, or I fear me our blithesome lady will never smile again!”

“Nay,” said the artisan, who had fixed a greedy eye on the emeralds scattered over the lady’s dress. “As I may not know the Lord Dudley when he is found, had you not better leave the poor lady to me while you seek him out yourself; the more especially as you may see that her mouth is red again, and there is a tear breaking through the thick eye-lashes that were so black and still when you first uncovered her face. The air has done her good. Leave her to me, and by the time you come back with the gentleman you wot of she will be well again. Truly, my jerkin is none of the cleanest,” he added in reply to a glance which the other had cast on his mean raiment, “nor my face much to your liking, I see; but I shall not run off with your dainty trouble there, not being fool enough to cumber myself with anything of womankind, be she gentle or simple, so you can trust me.”

There was something in the artisan’s manner more than in his appearance—and that was suspicions enough, that rendered the person he addressed reluctant to trust a being so helpless to his charge. He hesitated and was deliberating how to act, when the multitude came rushing back to their old station near the church, shouting fiercely and uttering terrible imprecations on the Duke of Somerset, who had sent a large body of armed men up the Thames, who had landed at the foot of Westminster Bridge, resolute to support his artisans in the destruction of St. Margaret’s. It was the first charge of this party, as it joined the body of workmen, which still defended the passage up St. Margaret’s street, that sent the crowd rushing back upon the church. The small band of horsemen which had just passed, wheeled suddenly round and came back almost by compulsion, for their way was entirely blocked up by the populace, and behind were the Somerset men, urged to fierce resentment, and goading them on to madness.

The leader of this equestrian band—for it evidently belonged to neither of the contending parties—was a young and remarkably handsome man, who seemed entangled with the crowd by accident, and only desirous of continuing his morning ride in tranquillity. The magnificent trappings of his black charger—the jewelled buckle which fastened the plumes on his cap, leaving a fine open forehead and a mass of light curling hair exposed to view. The short cloak of dark green velvet bordered with gold—the slashed and pointed doublet and hose underneath, betrayed him as one of the brightest and most noble ornaments of the young King Edward’s court, and were all in striking contrast with the rude mob from which he was deliberately striving to extricate himself. He was followed by a number of retainers well mounted, and all wearing his family badge; yet it was not till they were forced to retrace their way and made some slight commotion in the crowd in wheeling their horses, that the tumultuous populace seemed to recognize them. But when the leader was known, those men not actively engaged in the fight, pressed back to give him way, and greeted him with uncovered heads—a few flung their caps in the air, calling out for those in advance to make room for the Lord Dudley; others took up the cry, and then went up a loud eager shout of

“A Warwick! a Warwick! room, room for a Warwick!” Thus sounding a defiance to the Somerset battle-cry, that rang so fiercely up from the distance.

This recognition by the mob seemed to annoy the object of their clamor beyond measure. He lifted his hand with an imperative motion, in a vain effort to silence their noisy greeting; but when he saw that this was mistaken for encouragement, and that his family name rang louder and with more joyous acclamation above all the tumult, he bent his noble head to the multitude with forced resignation, and strove more resolutely to retreat from a scene, which from many causes, filled him with anxiety and regret. More than once his high spirit was so chafed by the notice which he had unwillingly obtained, that nothing but compassion for the multitude seemed to prevent him giving a free rein to the noble beast which shook his head, champed angrily his tightened bit, and curveted with impatience among the mass of human beings that scarcely gave his hoofs free play upon the pavement.

The two men whom we left near the young female, who was just returning to animation, were interrupted in their discussion by these two sources of renewed commotion which we have just related, and when the cry of “a Warwick, a Warwick,” swept by, the last comer, who was still supporting the lady, started to his feet, placed a hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun, and looked earnestly over the sea of human heads rising and falling and flowing by, like the motion of a forest when the wind sweeps over it. All at once he uttered an exclamation of pleasure, and rushing down the steps, forced his way to the young horseman who was now almost opposite the place he had occupied. Pushing eagerly through the crowd which surrounded the struggling charger, he seized him by the bit, as the only means of attracting the rider’s attention in a scene where his voice was exerted in vain; but so great was the tumult that even this method proved ineffectual, and it was not till he had flung the beast almost upon his haunches that he was recognized by the anxious nobleman. The young man bent his head, for the eager face of his retainer startled him, though the words he would have uttered were swept away by the thousand fierce sounds that filled the air. At last, by the aid of gesture and such broken words as reached his master’s ear, the man made himself understood. The horseman started upright in his stirrups, cast a keen look toward the spot pointed out by his attendant, and, heedless of all former caution, plunged his spurs into the restless charger, which reared and plunged with a violence that sent the people back upon each other, and cleared a space of some yards about him. Regardless of consequences, the nobleman scarcely gave his horse time to recover himself, but urged him through the frightened crowd with an impetuosity that sent a shower of sparks about his hoofs when they struck upon the lower-most of the stone flags where the lady had taken shelter.

The young man sprang from his saddle, and pushing aside the artisan who still hung about her, took the now partially recovered lady in his arms, and in a voice of hurried and anxious affection inquired it she were hurt, and multiplied questions one upon another, mingling them with broken expressions of tenderness, which she could only answer by sobs and the profuse tears that rushed over her burning cheeks. She seemed entirely overcome with joy at his presence, and the intense shame arising from her extraordinary situation. All his questions only served to make her weep the more bitterly; but she clung nervously to his hand, trembling between the pleasure of his protection and the fear that he might condemn her, and besought him, in broken tones, to take her home, to forgive her, but, above all things, to help her away from the mob of coarse rough faces that were gazing upon her humiliation.

“Nay, compose yourself,” said Dudley, in those low and persuasive tones best calculated to allay her nervous excitement, “are you not safe with me? you are too feeble to move yet. In a little time I trust that we may pass in safety, but—”

“Forgive me, my lord,” interrupted the man who had informed his master of the lady’s plight. “If her ladyship can find strength to walk, had we not better remove her at once to a place of safety? It is yet possible to make our way round the corner, and so into the Park.”

The Lord Dudley looked upon the crowd and shook his head.

“See, my lord,” said the man still more earnestly, “the people are becoming more turbulent than ever—in less than five minutes the space between this and the church will be crowded full again.”

“I fear she is too weak for the attempt,” replied Dudley, looking down with tender anxiety into the sweet troubled face lifted with an expression of timid confidence to his.

“Oh, no, I am quite strong now; I can walk very well if you are with me,” said the young girl; but her pale and trembling lips belied the words as she turned her back to the people and strove with unsteady hands to gather the scattered masses of her hair beneath the hood, which scarcely served to conceal its rich beauty, dishevelled and loose as it was. “See, I am quite ready,” she added, wrapping the mantle about her, and gathering courage beneath the concealment of its folds, and clinging to the young nobleman’s arm she stood terrified, it is true, but willing to submit herself to his guidance.

“My poor bird, how it pants and trembles beneath my arm,” murmured Dudley. And amid all the annoyance of his position, his heart thrilled with a sense of the protection which it gave to the object of his love; but the feeling gave way to one of keen anxiety; for the populace were by this time assailed so fiercely by the Somerset men that it was giving way before them, and rapidly condensing itself around the Abbey, which threatened soon to become the scene of contention.

“What can be done? which way shall we go?” said Dudley, appealing to his attendant.

The man looked around and gravely shook his head. “I see no plan of escape unless we struggle through the crowd,” he replied despondingly, “and yet there is but your lordship and my humble self to protect the Lady Jane, and the press threatens to be great.”

The artisan who had made a show of holding Dudley’s horse, while he concealed the ring and as many of the jewels which had dropped from the lady’s hair as he could purloin during the short time that she had been left alone with him, in the sleeve of his jerkin—now slipped the bridle over his arm, and came up the steps so far as its length would permit.

“If I might advise, fair sir,” he said, doffing his cap, and concealing a large emerald that had before escaped him, with his foot, as he spoke. “If I might make bold to give an opinion, three stout men are enough to cover the retreat of one woman any day. Your gallant self and my worshipful friend here, to say nothing of the man before you, who lacks not both tough bone and sinew in a fair fight, and the noble horse, which I take it, is worth at least two men, having a fine knack, as I but now witnessed, of scattering a crowd with his hoofs. Well now, fair sir, supposing you mount this noble nag and push a way through the crowd, while my worshipful friend and humble self follow at his heels with the lady between us. Oh, this does not jump with the lady’s humor, I see,” continued the man without breaking the thread of his speech, as the Lady Jane drew closer to her companion and murmured in an affrighted voice, “no, no Dudley—keep you with me or I shall die with terror else.”

Dudley answered by a gentle pressure of the arm clinging to his, and the man went on, as we have said, regardless of the interruption.

“Well, if she does not fancy the cut of my face, perhaps the black charger there will have better taste. Shall I mount and clear a path for you? It is not often that I sit on a crimson saddle with housings of velvet and gold—but there is an old saying or a new one, it matters not which, that if you ‘put a beggar on horseback he will ride’—I must not say exactly where in the presence of this lady, but to such a journey a passage through this crowd of hooting scoundrels would be child’s play—shall I mount, fair sir? you see the fight is getting nearer and there will be hot work anon.”

As the man finished speaking, he dropped his sheepskin cap quite by accident, and displayed considerable awkwardness in picking it up again. For a person rather shabbily dressed he certainly was somewhat fastidious in replacing it jauntily on one side of his head; but in the process a large emerald was sent, with a dexterous movement of the fingers, flashing down the sleeve of his jerkin, which probably had some connection with this elaborate display of taste.

At any other time Dudley would have rebuked the fellow’s boldness, but he was too anxious for thoughts of station or dignity, and turning from the rude speaker to his attendant, he demanded earnestly if his plan were practicable. Before the person addressed could reply, an immense paving stone was hurled by his temple, and, tearing off the artisan’s cap in its progress, was dashed to pieces against the granite pillar which had so long sheltered the Lady Jane Saymore. A shriek burst from her pale lips, and every face in that little group turned white as death. After a moment the artisan took up his cap, and thrusting his hand through a hole cut in it by the stone, tried to convince himself and those about him, by a broad laugh, that he was a man of decided courage and not to be daunted by trifles that could drive the blood from a nobleman’s cheek; but his voice died in the miserable attempt, and he slunk down to the horse’s head again, for the moment subdued into silence.

“For the love of heaven, let us be gone,” said Lord Dudley, terrified by the danger which threatened the object of his love. “Mount, fellow; and if you clear a way for this lady, you shall have gold”—

Before he could finish the sentence, the artisan sprang to a seat on the gorgeous saddle, and striking his mutilated cap down upon his head with one hand, drew up the bridle, and shouting, “Make room for the noble Dudley—a Warwick, a Warwick,” plunged into the crowd.

Dudley threw his arm firmly round the Lady Jane, and directing his attendant to keep close on the other side, followed his strange conductor, who proved an excellent guide; for in his appeal now to the people in behalf of their favorite noble, now to the Somerset men as one of their number, he succeeded in forcing a passage for the party till they had almost reached the front of St. Margaret’s; but here their position became more dangerous than ever, for a detachment of the Somerset men, after a desperate struggle to force a passage through the body of people, had found the way across a corner of the park and along Prince’s street, almost within a stone’s throw of the church, before their movement was discovered by those resolute on its defence. It was in vain the artisan pleaded for a passage now, his voice was overwhelmed by the roar. He was raised considerably above the crowd, and was among the first to discover this new difficulty. He arose in the saddle, cast a crest-fallen look over the sea of human heads that surrounded him, then bending backwards, he addressed the young lord and his companion in a voice that was less steady than he would gladly have rendered it—

“To the church, my lord—to the church at once! The street is choked, as far as I can see—is choked up with Somerset men; but they are mistaken if they hope to reach St. Margaret’s; here are stout angry fellows enough to keep them at bay till Michaelmas. Seek shelter for the lady, fair Sir, before they all see as much as I do, for there will be bloody work there, or I am no reader of men’s faces.”

There was no time for parley or delay, the pale craven face of the artisan bore witness to the truth of what he said. Lord Dudley clasped his companion more firmly, and forced his way with almost supernatural strength toward the church. The artisan would gladly have sought the shelter which he had so wisely recommended to his noble companion; but the horse had become restive under a strange guidance, and before his head could be turned toward St. Margaret’s, the mob had discovered the Somerset workmen, and closed round him with a violence that rendered a change of direction impossible. It was in vain that he waved his cap, shouted Lord Dudley’s name, and craved a free passage. His voice was overwhelmed in the roar and rush of a conflict more dreadful than had been witnessed that day. The people saw the spoilers almost upon their consecrated ground, and they fought like lions to protect the sacred rest of their dead and the altar of their worship. It was a just cause, but the strife a terrible one indeed. So great was the press, that our artisan found the motion of his horse cramped and almost prevented. His limbs were crushed against the noble animal till the pain became almost insupportable. He would gladly have dismounted and have taken his chance with the throng, but so dense was the sea of human beings crowding upon him, that there was not an inch of space through which he might hope to reach the ground. So horse and rider were violently borne forward at the mercy of the crowd, and exposed to the shower of missiles that now darkened the air.

Meantime Dudley and his companions had reached the door of St. Margaret’s; but it was closed, and a company of armed men stood resolutely before it. The little band of workmen, which had kept its station there till within the last hour, had at length deserted their post, terrified by this guard of armed men added to the mob which they had so long braved. Despairing of escape they had clambered, each as he best might, up the gothic windows and rough stone work of the little church, and were now crouching in groups on the roof, and striving to conceal themselves behind the small turrets or steeples that surmounted its four corners, afraid of being detected by the populace, who were each moment becoming more and more exasperated by their brethren.

“In the name of heaven, good friends, allow me to find shelter for this lady within the church,” exclaimed Lord Dudley, as pale and fearfully agitated he turned in despair from the bolted door which he had reached in spite of the pikes presented by the self-constituted guard, “I am a friend to the people, and this lady”—

“Is his sister,” interrupted the attendant hastily, well knowing that her true title would harden the men’s hearts against her, though she was almost lifeless, and only kept from sinking at their feet by the strong arm of her noble protector.

“But, even our church may soon be no place of safety,” said one of the men, “a few minutes and this building where our parents worshipped—where our children were baptised—may be a heap of ruins like those of St. Mary. Our holy altar stones may be made into door steps for the Duke of Somerset’s fine palace—yes, our chancels sacked to yield stones to flag his wine-cellars, while the bones and sacred dust of our fathers are cast into the street, and scattered to the four winds of heaven.”

Dudley felt the gentle being, who clung to him for safety, tremble and shrink, as if this angry speech had been levelled at her alone.

“I know that the people have suffered some wrong,” he said, in a mild but unsteady voice, for he was painfully agitated, both by his late struggle with the crowd, and the torture which the man’s impetuous speech was inflicting on his gentle charge. “But let me beseech you, unclose the door, my—my poor sister is well nigh sinking to the earth with fatigue and terror.”

Still the men remained obstinate, not only refusing to open the door, but guarding it with a close row of levelled pikes. The sound of fierce strife, which now arose with appalling violence, within a few roods of the church, seemed to fill them with cold and stubborn bitterness. At last, when a loud and terrible cry swept over them—a cry of triumph from the Somerset men, mingled with a yell of defiance from the mob, in which Somerset, the Lord Protector’s name, was winged by shouts and curses through the dense air, the man who had spoken before turned almost menacingly on the young nobleman.

“Did I not tell you,” he exclaimed, “this is no place for a lady? If we cannot guard our dead, how can your charge be safe? Hear that shout—the Duke of Somerset is himself coming up from the river to reinforce his band of pillagers. A curse light upon his sacrilegious head for this day’s work—a curse on him and his!”

“Oh no, no; do not curse him!” exclaimed the Lady Jane, starting from Dudley’s arm, and flinging the hood back from her pale face with a wild impulse—“he does not know—he has not thought how dreadful all this is: you do not dream how kind he is. In pity—for sweet mercy’s sake, do not curse my father!”

“Her father,” exclaimed the men almost simultaneously, and with menacing looks; “her father!”

Lord Dudley drew the young girl back to his side, pulled the mantle almost roughly over her face, and turned sternly upon the men.

“Behold,” he said, with a flashing eye, “behold the effect of your cruel delay; my poor sister is driven stark mad at last.”

The speech, and the pale steadfast features of the young man, had the desired effect. The guard did not open the door, it is true, but their manner was more subdued, and they consulted in a low voice together.

“And if we unlock the church, what warrant have we that you are not a partisan of the Duke’s?” said the leader, glancing suspiciously at the young nobleman’s rich vestments; “you may be of his household, nay, his son, for aught we know.”

“You have the word of a Warwick, and this proof that the pledge is not given without right,” said the young man, flinging aside his velvet cloak, and displaying the family crest, set in brilliants, on his sword-hilt. “Now, sirs, let me pass! I have no share in this broil, and would gladly have escaped from it unknown.”

“Pass in, and heaven’s blessing go with you!” said the man, almost angrily striking up the line of weapons which his band still kept levelled.

He unlocked the heavy door, and while the dense mob shouted around him, eager to know why he acted thus for a stranger, he stood, with uncovered head, till the young nobleman had entered the church; then, he closed the door again with a half repeated blessing upon the lips that had been almost blistered with imprecations a few moments before. The solemn stillness and cool atmosphere, which pervaded that little church, fell like a breath from heaven on the three persons who entered it, weary and faint from the turmoil that raged without.

The blended hues of purple and gold and crimson, shed from the stained and diamond-shaped glass that filled the gothic windows, flooded the building with a dim mellow light, and slept, in a rich haze, among the funereal urns of snowy marble placed in the various niches, once occupied by images of Catholic worship. A shadowy light, such as beams from a mild sunset, lay upon the altar-stone, which gleamed out white and pure above the purple velvet that carpeted its steps. A baptismal fount of marble stood on the right hand filled with clear water; but in that rich light it seemed almost brimming with wine. Two censers of massive silver stood above the altar, but only as remnants of a discarded faith, for no incense had been kindled in their hearts since the divorce of the late Henry and Catherine of Arragon.

The whole church was pervaded with a beautiful quiet, such as might reign in the shadowy dwellings of paradise. Dudley yielded to its influence, and drew a deep breath, half in awe, half in thankfulness, as he gently placed the Lady Jane upon one of the steps of the altar, and sprinkled her pale face with the water which he dipped with his hand from the baptismal fount. He took off the mantle which she still unconsciously held tightly about her person, and gathering up the rich tresses of her hair as they fell upon the marble, made an awkward attempt to bind them round her head. The poor lady was conscious of his kindness, but so exhausted that she had no power to thank him. The very effort to unclose her eyes was an exertion too much for her languid state, and the soft light which fell over her like a rich sunset seemed lending beauty to a marble statue, so pale and deathlike were her features. When Dudley inquired with anxious tenderness after her welfare, from time to time, she answered him with a faint clasp of the hand which he took in his, and grateful tears gushed in bright drops through her closed lashes, and fell, one after another, like jewels upon the purple velvet beneath her cheek. At last she opened her eyes, a sweet and tender expression of pleasure came to her face, and one of the familiar smiles which Dudley loved so well sprang like sunlight to her reddening lips. She was yet bewildered and dreamy, but tranquillized by the one dear presence, and the holy quiet which brooded over the place of her rest. For a time she was unconscious of the tumult which still raged without, for the sounds came but faintly to that holy place, and seemed more like the heaving beat of a far off ocean than a strife of angry men, heated and drunken with bad passions.

All at once a shout so long, loud and fierce, that it filled that tranquil building like the howl of a demon, fell upon her ear. She started up with a full consciousness of all that had happened to her during the morning, and again sinking upon the steps of the altar buried her face between her hands, and held her breath with a feeling of terror such as she had never known before.

At that moment Dudley’s attendant, who had remained near the church door, came hurriedly toward his master with information that the Duke of Somerset had joined his men in person, and was now within a few paces of the church.

(To be continued.)

* * * * *

THE ZEPHYR.

BY JULIET H. LEWIS.

I sat by the casement; before me there
Lay a treasured thing, a long tress of hair,
And it moved my heart with a touching power—
’Twas the cherished gift of a parting hour.
The sun-shine lay ’mid its nut-brown fold
With a loving smile, as it did of old.
When the curl waved free in its careless grace,
Like a cloud in the sky, o’er the smiling face
Of the gentle girl that I loved so well—
A dimming tear on the bright lock fell
As thoughts of the loved one far away,
And the teeming past, on my sad heart lay.

A Zephyr, that all this time had play’d,
Like a laughing child, ’mid the rose tree’s shade,
Flew up, like a bird, to the casement there,
And bore off in triumph the lock of hair.
’Twas a cruel theft! and harsh words of blame,
Like a mountain stream, from my full heart came,
For the reckless deeds of the careless thing,
Ever hovering near on mischievous wing.
But the day before, he had entered my bower,
And scattered the leaves of its loveliest flower,
And bore off a letter that lay unread,
’Neath the scented buds, on a mossy bed,
To the brook hard by, who, with dimpled cheek
And a smothered laugh at the Zephyr’s freak,
Received the gift, and bounded on
As wild, and free, as a forest fawn,
To its hiding spots ’neath the greenwood shade,
Glancing back, through the leaves, where the young wind play’d.
“Now! Spirit of Air,” I cried, “gay breeze—
Are all thine acts as unkind as these?
Thy wings are unfettered—thy path is free—
Yet mine is the power to follow thee.”
Then thought sprang up on her weariless wing,
And tracked the wind, in imagining.
He stole the white plume from the thistle’s crest,
Which was light as down on the swan’s pure breast,
And with waving wing bore the prize away
To a happy group ’mid the flowers at play,
And fanning the cheek of each laughing boy,
With his cooling wing, waved the downy toy
Their bright heads above, and the careless band,
With eager eye, and with outstretched hand,
Ran away, in chase of the silvery thing
That the Zephyr bore on exulting wing.
Now slowly it floated their hands beneath—
Now upward it sprang on a stronger breath—
Now wafted afar—’twas a merry race
The Zephyr to lead, and the children in chase!
He left them behind, but bore along
Their glee-toned voices, in joyous song,
And each lone mother looked up and smiled,
As she caught the tones of her darling child,
And paused awhile from her toil, to bless
The heart, o’erflowing with happiness.

Then he went his way and on manhood’s brow
His cooling fingers are busy now,
He parts the dark hair from its resting place,
And prints a kiss on the anxious face,
And woos him to leave the dust and glare
Of the crowded town, for a spot more fair,
Where trees in blossom, and birds on wing,
Lead the rapt heart from each worldly thing.
But man heeds not, for his rest is sold,
And his heart bows down to the god of gold;
For the tempting Zephyr he “cares not a groat,”
He is eagerly reaching a “ten pound note,”
That ragged, and soiled on the counter doth lay,
But the Zephyr indignantly bears it away.
He toss’d it, he pull’d it, he twirled it around,
Now high in the air, and now low on the ground,
He moaned in derision, he whistled with glee,
Ah! never was Zephyr as merry as he,
Till at length, in his frolic, he entered a shed
Where a widow was praying for daily bread,
In the voice of faith, low, subdued and mild,
She prayed for food for her starving child:
Then the wind bowed down with its burden there,
And Heaven thus answered the widow’s prayer.
Then he entered the halls, where many a scene
Of joyous pleasure, and mirth had been—
He softly sighed o’er the festal board,
Where the jest had passed, and the red wine poured,
He swept the harp with his quivering wing,
And woke the tones of each mournful string,
While his murmuring voice, with its gentle chime,
Seemed singing a song of the olden time,
Or breathing a dirge o’er the gay hearts fled
To their silent homes ’mid the lowly dead.
He sighed through the banners that hung on high—
(Dimmed was their gorgeous blazonry,)
But they waved aloft, as they waved of old,
When the shout and song shook each heavy fold,
While the dust fell down in a darkening cloud—
And the moth was rocked in her silken shroud—
And the bat sprang forth from his loathsome nest,
’Mid the pennons there, an unseemly guest!

Then he went to the violet’s lonely bowers,
And gathered their breath, though he left the flowers,
And hastened on with the rich perfume
And a gladsome song, to the invalid’s room.
He hushed his voice as he entered there,
For holy and sad rose the sound of prayer,
With his wealth from the woods he wafted on,
And rushing memories of bright things gone
To the dying bore, while a low-breathed sigh,
Told of the Zephyr’s sympathy.
One tender act that he did that day,
Was a moment to pause where a stranger lay,
In an unknown land, with no loved one near
To breathe a sigh o’er his lowly bier,
Or moisten his grave with the tear-drops shed
From the mourning heart, o’er the loved and the dead.
Then mounting upward, on breezy wing,
To the white haw tree richly blossoming,
And, gathering its sweets with a gentle wave,
He spread them like snow o’er the stranger’s grave.
Green leaf, and bud, and starry flower,
Filled the rich air, like a lovely shower
Of bright things, sent from a fairy land,
And lay on the grave as though some kind hand
Had scattered, that silent heart above,
The sweets that in life it had learned to love.

But ’twere _vain_ to tell of his wanderings free
O’er leafy land, and o’er foaming sea—
How he swept round the palace, and played through the cot—
Passed “the highest, the lowest, the loneliest spot;”
How he wafted the purple of lordly pride,
And fluttered the rags of the beggar aside,
How he made of a spray-capped wave his steed,
And rode o’er the ocean with Jehu speed,
(’Till his charger tossed its snowy mane,
And sank to its native depths again,)
How he hastened the ship on her homeward way,
And scattered her track with the ocean’s spray.
’Twere vain to number the acts like these,
That were done that day, by the joyous Breeze—
While I could but mark that, what first seemed rude,
Was gentle, and tender, and kind, and good.
I followed him far on his wayward track,
And when, from wandering, I turned me back,
He whispered at parting, these words, methought,
To my hasty heart,—“_Judge not!_ judge not!”

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE.

BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC.

It is the fashion to consider Macbeth a spotless and noble soul, ensnared by the toils of the fiends, and pulled down from heaven to hell by the chance meeting of the weird sisters on the heath. There is a serious objection to this view. It makes machines of men. It takes from us the most obvious and sublime attribute of an immortal being, viz: free agency. If a high-minded and God-revering mortal is unprotected against the attacks of supernatural beings—if foul witches may watch for him in unguarded moments, and weave around his enchanted feet the fatal snares of crime and death, then are we truly a wretched race. But this is not Shakspeare’s creed. This is not the character of the tragedy. Macbeth was a villain. He had deliberately adopted vice as his god long before the fiends were permitted to patter with him. They come as a _consequence_ not as a _cause_ of wickedness. The withered and wild sisters on the blasted heath were conjured up by his own cherished weaknesses and _secret_ deeds.[4] They were the haggard and hellish impersonations of his own hidden thoughts and passions. He was not the pure, generous, heaven-adoring person he is represented. The germs of his guilt he had received into his heart by himself years before, and they lay shooting there in silence, only waiting the quickening beam of opportunity—waiting the first, feeblest temptation to start forth in all their force. He was one of those fair-_seeming_ men who pass for honest and noble. The world contains now, as then, many such. Many a man with an uplifted brow and a clear name, waits only _occasion_ to prove himself a scoundrel. It is such specious hypocrites that gather around them (as the smell of carrion does the hawk and vulture) the plotting witches who watch for power over the children of men. They had never tempted the pure good old King Duncan. He might have passed the blasted heath every day of his life, and these hags would never have dreamed of appearing to him. His soul was not prepared for their wiles. But that of Macbeth—as well as that of his stern wife—was corrupted by the whole tenor of their previous life.

Had there been left no evidence of this, I should still have asserted it. The innocent—the pure in heart—they who daily commune with their Maker—who acknowledge their weakness and danger when left to themselves—and implore humbly at his feet his all-sufficient aid—never fall victims to the accursed fiends, whether they appear in the deformity of Paddock and Graymalkin, or disguised under the fair temptations of life.

But Shakspeare has left proof enough in his tragedy. He meant to show, not (as is frequently asserted) the downfall of noble grandeur and unsuspecting innocence, but the destruction of a fair-showing, unsuspected villain—the wreck of a ship whose outward semblance was tall and imposing, but which was unseaworthy and destined to go down before the first gale.

In the first place, why does not _Banquo_ suffer from the fiends? He is with Macbeth when they appear. He even boldly addresses them, and at once—with the frank fearlessness of a noble and virtuous mind, conscious of its honesty, commands them, if they can read the future, to speak to _him_ also.

“Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear your favors, nor
your hate.”

Here is at once a man not to be tampered with. They promise _him_ also as well as Macbeth a dazzling future good—a posterity of kings—but it in no way changes his plans of life, or raises the least idea in his mind of crime or intrigue. Even when, according to the prediction of the witches, Macbeth instantly receives intelligence, of his being thane of Cawdor, Banquo’s _clear-seeing sense of right_, his innocence of nature takes the true and virtuous view of the affair, looks, at a glance, through all the complicated web of the sisters’ plots, and keeps himself unsoiled, unendangered by them.

_Banquo._ “But ’tis strange;
And often-times, to win us to _our harm_,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.”

And while he is making this just reflection, the obvious impulse of a mind not warped from the erectness of a moral and religious integrity and reverence, Macbeth soliloquizes with a kind of inexpressible anticipatory triumph.

“Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.”

And he then goes on, like a ready made, long-matured rascal as he is—like one whose mind had no habit of virtuous or religious contemplation, but which has always had a familiarity with evil and a tendency downward:

——“Why do I _yield_ to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,” etc.

The very moment his attention is directed to the subject of his becoming _king_, he conceives the idea of murdering the actual occupant of the throne, notwithstanding the fact that there are two sons living.

An innocent man, were he told he would become king of England, would not instantly set about murdering the queen. He would (supposing him to have faith in the prediction) say to himself, as indeed Macbeth does at one time:

“If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me, without
my stir.”

The very first page of the tragedy marks Macbeth for a villain even before he has made his appearance.

1. _Witch._ When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

2. _Witch._ When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won;

3. _Witch._ That will be ere set of sun.

1. _Witch._ Where the place?

2. _Witch._ Upon the heath.

3. _Witch._ _Then to meet with Macbeth._

Why have these fiendish women selected the gallant soldier as their victim? What gathers them about the “battle” that is raging near? _What_ but the _scent_ of _a sinful heart_?

But there are other proofs of an extrinsic nature, which settle the previous character of Lady Macbeth at the same time, and shows how ripe they both were for the fiends.

If a man’s true nature may be supposed to be known to any one it _is to his wife_. He may put on a smooth face before his best friend; he may write or speak virtuous sentiments to the public; he may give charitable donations, and follow the career of a flaming patriot or a meek saint, but the lady upon whom he has conferred with his name, the right of being with him continually, will be pretty able to tell how matters really are. I do not say that, because a wife abuses her husband and calls him names, he must necessarily be a rascal; but, as a general rule, the partner of his woes and joys has better opportunities of _knowing the man_ than almost any one else—at least, if she be a person of Lady Macbeth’s discrimination. Well then, see what his _lady_ says of him, to herself, on receiving his letter recounting the prediction of the weird sisters.

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promis’d:—yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way.”

That she should suppose him _too full of the milk of human kindness_ to do cruel actions is a skilful stroke in the delineation both of his nature and hers. However well she knew him, as he had been till then, an unprincipled man—even _she_ had never fathomed those depths of character, (for good or for evil common to all men, and equally unfathomed probably by himself,) which the subsequent events disclosed. Shakspeare somewhere else says, “It is not a year or so that shows us a man”—and it is an important truth, that we are not thoroughly known by our best friends, and do not know ourselves till late in life. This same person, so full of the milk of human kindness that she feared his “softer nature” could never be brought to the necessary resolution, no sooner finds himself once fairly compromised than his atrocities throw the cruelties of ordinary oppressors quite into the shade.

“Thou would’st be great;
Art not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it. What thou would’st highly
Thou would’st holily; would’st not play false,
And yet _would’st wrongly win_,” etc. etc.

This passage has been often misunderstood. “Without the _illness_” that should attend ambition—“what thou would’st highly thou would’st holily,” does not mean, thou art without the _vices_ which should attend ambition, and, what thou would’st highly—thou would’st in a _holy spirit_. It means, he is without the _courage_ to bear the risk and odium necessary to the successful carrying out of ambitious plans, although he is willing enough to be _guilty_ if he may not _appear_ to be so. “What he would highly,” he would also with an _appearance of holiness_. He loves the _mask_ of virtue, but he loves also the sweets of sin. He has thus far enjoyed the good opinion of the _world_. He cannot bear to throw aside the wreath which he has worn and which flatters his weakness and vanity. It is the _world_ which alone he thinks of. This is his only god. Of the Supreme Being, there is not a word; but of his inclination to assume the moral responsibility there is a distinct acknowledgment:

“Would’st not play false
And yet _would’st wrongly win_. ‘Thou’d’st have, great Glamis,’
That which cries, ‘_Thus thou must do if thou have it!_’
And that which thou dost _rather fear to do_,
Than _wishest should be undone_.”

Here we have Macbeth’s character. Here we have the secret of his goodness. It is _fear_ and _love of the world_.

Shakspeare meant to draw a very—very common character, only he has made it colossal. How many men in the common life of this day are irreproachable from the same considerations—fear and love of the world, joined to a certain dislike of the trouble, exertion and risk of wrong. (“If we should fail!”) That these are the moving springs of this seemingly noble and generous but really remorseless and impious character we see again from a remark of his own. After contemplating the murder for some time, he concludes to abandon the plan. Why? Because he will not incur the moral guilt? Because he has thoughts of his God, whose eye is on him, and who cannot but punish a crime? Because the commandment has been written, “Thou shalt do no murder?” Because the Deity himself has decreed “blood for blood?”

No. For reasons much more suited to his irreligious, infidel, worldly mind:

“We will proceed no further in this business!
He hath _honored_ me of late; and I have bought
_Golden opinions_ from all _sorts of people_,
Which should be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.”

These are his reasons for not wishing to proceed. Not a thought of his Maker—not an allusion to a future world. He expressly says, in another passage, if he could but be secure against detection _in this world_, he does not feel any apprehension respecting the other. He’ll “_jump the world to come_.”

No man, not corrupt by long previous backslidings either of thought or deed, would act as Macbeth acts. He grasps at the first idea of murder with the true zest of an assassin. All his struggles are only those of fear. The _first_ time he meets the king, his generous, grateful, and gracious master, he seems already to have arranged the murder in his mind, and his hypocrisy and cruelty do not waver an instant. He discovers the self-possession and plausible villany of a practised criminal, and this too before he sees his wife upon the subject. It almost seems as if they had spoken on this point before. When Duncan heaps him with thanks and rewards, he answers:

_Mac._ “The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness’ part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties
Are, to your throne and state, children and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honor.”

When the King says, as if in dark conformity to the witches’ prediction:

“from hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you,”

Macbeth, like a hungry leopard trembling with joy at seeing his victim take refuge in his very den, says, with an affectation of grateful submission:

_Mac._ “The rest is labor which is not used for you:
I’ll be myself the harbinger, and _make joyful_
_The hearing of my_ wife with your approach.”

And then _already_, to himself: