Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 405, July 1849

Not far from San Martino our traveller halted, to inquire his way at an "ovile," the shepherd's hut. It may not be unsatisfactory to describe the dwellings whose inhabitants are thus hospitable. The hut here spoken of was rude enough – a mass of stones in a circle of about twelve feet diameter, and eight feet high, with a conical roof made of sticks and reeds. The whole family had but one bed; a few ashes were burning in a hole in the ground; a bundle of clothes, some flat loaves of bread, and three or four pans, made up the inventory of goods. The shepherd was preparing to kill a lamb for his family, yet he offered to accompany the stranger, which he did, and went with him a distance of three miles. "After showing me the spot, and sharing a light meal, I offered him a trifle for his trouble; but he indignantly refused it, and, on leaving to return home, gave me an adieu with a fervent but courteous demeanour, which would have shamed many a mitred and coroneted head." We are not, however, to conclude that all the shepherd districts, however they may bear no reproach on the score of hospitality, are regions of innocence and virtue. We are told, on the authority of a Padre Angius, that the people of Bonorva are quarrelsome and vindictive; and a story is told of their envious character. A certain Don Pietrino Prunas was the owner of much cattle, and ninety-nine flocks of sheep; he was assassinated on the very day he had brought the number to a hundred, for no other reason than out of envy of his happiness. And here Mr Tyndale remarks, in a note, a French translator's carelessness. "Valery, in mentioning the circumstance, says that he was murdered 'le jour même où il atteignait sa centième année.'" The words professed to be translated are, "Padrone di 99 greggi di pecori, trucidato nel giorno istesso che ei doneva formarsi la centessima."

The reader will not expect to find accounts of many treasures of the fine arts in Sardinia. Convents and churches are, however, not without statues and pictures. Nor do the clergy or inmates of convents possess much knowledge on the subject. If a picture is pronounced a Michael Angelo, without doubt the possessors, with a charming simplicity, would inquire "who Michael Angelo was." We quote the following as worthy the notice of the Arundel Society, particularly as it is out of the general tourings of connoisseurs.

"The screen of the high altar (the church at Ardara) is covered with portraits of apostles, saints, and martyrs, apparently a work of the thirteenth or early part of the fourteenth century; and, notwithstanding the neglect and damp, the colours and gildings are still bright and untarnished. Many of them are exquisitely finished, with all the fineness of an Albert Durer and Holbein, and will vie with the best specimens of the early masters in the gallery of Dresden, or the Pinakothek at Munich."

Valery, the mis-translator just mentioned, is in ecstacy in his notice of these works. He considers them worthy the perpetuity which the graver alone can give them, and considers how great their reputation would be had they found a Lanzi, a d'Agincour, or a Cicognara.

We have now travelled with our agreeable, well-informed author over much country – wild, and partially cultivated; have speculated with him upon all things that attracted attention by the way; and, though the roads have been somewhat rough, we have kept our tempers pretty well – no light accomplishment for fellow-travellers; and our disputes have been rather amusing than serious. We now enter with him the capital of Sardinia – Cagliari. We shall not follow him, however, through the modern town, though there can be no better cicerone; nor look in at the museum, fearful of long detention; not even to examine the Phœnician curiosities, or discuss the identity in character, with them, of some seals found in the bogs of Ireland; or to speculate with Sir George Staunton as to their Chinese origin, and how they unaccountably found themselves, some in an Irish bog and some in excavated earth in Sardinia, and from thence into the museum at Cagliari. We are content to visit some Roman antiquities, and read inscriptions probably of the age of the Antonines, or of an earlier period. The monuments are sepulchral: one is of a very interesting character. It is of some architectural pretensions – in honour of an exemplary wife, who, like Alcestis, is said to have died for her husband. The prose tale, were it in existence, might have told, perhaps, how Pomptilla – for that is her name – attended her husband in a sickness, caught his fever, and died, while he recovered. The inscriptions are many. Some have been made out tolerably well: they are in Latin and Greek. One, in Greek, has so much tenderness, that, deeming it quite worthy the melancholy cadence of verse, we have been tempted to substitute our own translation for that of Mr Tyndale in prose, with which we are not quite satisfied.

Pomptilla, from thy dew-embalmèd earth,Which mournful homage of our love receives,May fairest lilies rise,Pale flow'rets of a sad funereal birth —And roses opening their scarce-blushing leaves,Of tenderest dyes,And violets, that from their languid eyes,Shed perfumed shower —And blessèd amaranth that never dies.O! be thyself a flower,Th' unsullied snow-drop – being and witness trueOf thy pure self, e'en to perpetual years —As erst a flow'ret fair Narcissus grew —And Hyacinthus all bedew'd with tears.For when, now in the tremulous hour of death,Her spouse Philippus near to Lethe drewHis unresisting lips and fainting breath,A woman's duteous vow she vow'd —And gently put aside his drooping head,And her firm presence to the waters bow'd,And drank the fatal stream instead.Such perfect union did stern Death divide,Th' unwilling husband and the willing wife —Willing to die, while he, now loathing life,Through the dear love of his devoted bride —Still lives, and weeps, and prays that he may die —That his releasèd spirit to hers may fly,And mingled evermore with hers abide.

In taking leave of our author, we confidently recommend the three volumes on Sardinia to the general reader – we say general reader, for, whatever be his taste or pursuit, he will find amusement and information. The work is a full work. If the reader be an antiquary, he will be gratified with deep research and historic lore; if an economist, he will have tabular detail and close statistics; an agriculturist, and would he emigrate from his own persecuted lands, he will learn the nature of soils, their capabilities, and how fair a field is offered for that importable and exportable commodity, his industry, so much wanted in Sardinia, and so little encouraged at home; if a sportsman, besides the use of the gun, which he knows already, he will be initiated into the mystery of tunny fishing, and, would he turn it to his profit, have license to dispose of his game. Nay, even the wide-awake shopkeeper may learn how to set up his "store" in Sassari or Cagliari, and what stock he had best take out. If he be a ne'er-do-well just returned from California, and surprised into the possession of a sackful of gold, Mr Tyndale will conduct him to the Barathra into which he may throw it, whether they be sea-fisheries or land-marshes; or into whose pockets he may deposit the wealth, whose burthen he is of course wearied in bearing, for the excitement of generosity in becoming a benefactor, or for the amusement of corrupting.

The work is indeed a "guide book," as well as much more, for it tells every one what he may do profitably or unprofitably in Sardinia – whether as traveller and private speculator, minding his own concerns; or as an enthusiastic disperser of ignorance, and renovator of the customs, manners, religion, and political condition of a people as unlike his own race and kindred as possible.

THE CAXTONS. – PART XIV

CHAPTER LXXX

There would have been nothing in what had chanced to justify the suspicions that tortured me, but for my impressions as to the character of Vivian.

Reader, hast thou not, in the easy, careless sociability of youth, formed acquaintance with some one, in whose more engaging or brilliant qualities thou hast – not lost that dislike to defects or vices which is natural to an age when, even while we err, we adore what is good, and glow with enthusiasm for the ennobling sentiment and the virtuous deed – no, happily, not lost dislike to what is bad, nor thy quick sense of it, – but conceived a keen interest in the struggle between the bad that revolted, and the good that attracted thee, in thy companion? Then, perhaps, thou hast lost sight of him for a time – suddenly thou hearest that he has done something out of the way of ordinary good or commonplace evil: And, in either – the good or the evil – thy mind runs rapidly back over its old reminiscences, and of either thou sayest, "How natural! – only So-and-so could have done this thing!"

Thus I felt respecting Vivian. The most remarkable qualities in his character were his keen power of calculation, and his unhesitating audacity – qualities that lead to fame or to infamy, according to the cultivation of the moral sense and the direction of the passions. Had I recognised those qualities in some agency apparently of good – and it seemed yet doubtful if Vivian were the agent – I should have cried, "It is he! and the better angel has triumphed!" With the same (alas! with a yet more impulsive) quickness, when the agency was of evil, and the agent equally dubious, I felt that the qualities revealed the man, and that the demon had prevailed.

Mile after mile, stage after stage, were passed, on the dreary, interminable, high north road. I narrated to my companion, more intelligibly than I had yet done, my causes for apprehension. The Captain at first listened eagerly, then checked me on the sudden. "There may be nothing in all this!" he cried. "Sir, we must be men here – have our heads cool, our reason clear: stop!" And, leaning back in the chaise, Roland refused further conversation, and, as the night advanced, seemed to sleep. I took pity on his fatigue, and devoured my heart in silence. At each stage we heard of the party of which we were in pursuit. At the first stage or two we were less than an hour behind; gradually, as we advanced, we lost ground, despite the most lavish liberality to the postboys. I supposed, at length, that the mere circumstance of changing, at each relay, the chaise as well as the horses, was the cause of our comparative slowness; and, on saying this to Roland, as we were changing horses, somewhere about midnight, he at once called up the master of the inn, and gave him his own price for permission to retain the chaise till the journey's end. This was so unlike Roland's ordinary thrift, whether dealing with my money or his own – so unjustified by the fortune of either – that I could not help muttering something in apology.

"Can you guess why I was a miser?" said Roland, calmly.

"A miser! – anything but that! Only prudent – military men often are so."

"I was a miser," repeated the Captain, with emphasis. "I began the habit first when my son was but a child. I thought him high-spirited, and with a taste for extravagance. 'Well,' said I to myself, 'I will save for him; boys will be boys.' Then, afterwards, when he was no more a child, (at least he began to have the vices of a man!) I said to myself, 'Patience, he may reform still; if not, I will save money that I may have power over his self-interest, since I have none over his heart. I will bribe him into honour!' And then – and then – God saw that I was very proud, and I was punished. Tell them to drive faster – faster – why, this is a snail's pace!"

All that night, all the next day, till towards the evening, we pursued our journey, without pause, or other food than a crust of bread and a glass of wine. But we now picked up the ground we had lost, and gained upon the carriage. The night had closed in when we arrived at the stage at which the route to Lord N – 's branched from the direct north road. And here, making our usual inquiry, my worst suspicions were confirmed. The carriage we pursued had changed horses an hour before, but had not taken the way to Lord N – 's; – continuing the direct road into Scotland. The people of the inn had not seen the lady in the carriage, for it was already dark, but the man-servant, (whose livery they described) had ordered the horses.

The last hope that, in spite of appearances, no treachery had been designed, here vanished. The Captain, at first, seemed more dismayed than myself, but he recovered more quickly. "We will continue the journey on horseback," he said; and hurried to the stables. All objections vanished at the sight of his gold. In five minutes we were in the saddle, with a postilion, also mounted, to accompany us. We did the next stage in little more than two-thirds of the time which we should have occupied in our former mode of travel – indeed, I found it hard to keep pace with Roland. We remounted; we were only twenty-five minutes behind the carriage. We felt confident that we should overtake it before it could reach the next town – the moon was up – we could see far before us – we rode at full speed. Milestone after milestone glided by, the carriage was not visible. We arrived at the post-town, or rather village; it contained but one posting-house. We were long in knocking up the ostlers – no carriage had arrived just before us; no carriage had passed the place since noon.

What mystery was this?

"Back, back, boy!" said Roland, with a soldier's quick wit, and spurring his jaded horse from the yard. "They will have taken a cross-road or by-lane. We shall track them by the hoofs of the horses or the print of the wheels."

Our postilion grumbled, and pointed to the panting sides of our horses. For answer, Roland opened his hand – full of gold. Away we went back through the dull sleeping village, back into the broad moonlit thoroughfare. We came to a cross-road to the right, but the track we pursued still led us straight on. We had measured back nearly half the way to the post-town at which we had last changed, when, lo! there emerged from a by-lane two postilions and their horses.

At that sight our companion, shouting loud, pushed on before us and hailed his fellows. A few words gave us the information we sought. A wheel had come off the carriage just by the turn of the road, and the young lady and her servants had taken refuge in a small inn not many yards down the lane. The man-servant had dismissed the postboys after they had baited their horses, saying they were to come again in the morning, and bring a blacksmith to repair the wheel.

"How came the wheel off?" asked Roland sternly.

"Why, sir, the linchpin was all rotted away, I suppose, and came out."

"Did the servant get off the dickey after you set out, and before the accident happened?"

"Why, yes. He said the wheels were catching fire, that they had not the patent axles, and he had forgot to have them oiled."

"And he looked at the wheels, and shortly afterwards the linchpin came out? – Eh?"

"Anon, sir!" said the postboy, staring; "why, and indeed so it was!"

"Come on, Pisistratus, we are in time; but pray God – pray God – that – " the Captain dashed his spur into the horse's sides, and the rest of his words was lost to me.

A few yards back from the causeway, a broad patch of green before it, stood the inn – a sullen, old-fashioned building of cold gray stone, looking livid in the moonlight, with black firs at one side, throwing over half of it a dismal shadow. So solitary! not a house, not a hut near it. If they who kept the inn were such that villany might reckon on their connivance, and innocence despair of their aid – there was no neighbourhood to alarm – no refuge at hand. The spot was well chosen.

The doors of the inn were closed; there was a light in the room below; but the outside shutters were drawn over the windows on the first floor. My uncle paused a moment, and said to the postilion —

"Do you know the back way to the premises?"

"No, sir; I doesn't often come by this way, and they be new folks that have taken the house – and I hear it don't prosper overmuch."

"Knock at the door – we will stand a little aside while you do so. If any one ask what you want – merely say you would speak to the servant – that you have found a purse; – here, hold up mine."

Roland and I had dismounted, and my uncle drew me close to the wall by the door. Observing that my impatience ill submitted to what seemed to me idle preliminaries,

"Hist!" whispered he; "if there be anything to conceal within, they will not answer the door till some one has reconnoitred: were they to see us, they would refuse to open. But seeing only the postboy, whom they will suppose at first to be one of those who brought the carriage – they will have no suspicion. Be ready to rush in the moment the door is unbarred."

My uncle's veteran experience did not deceive him. There was a long silence before any reply was made to the postboy's summons; the light passed to and fro rapidly across the window, as if persons were moving within. Roland made sign to the postboy to knock again; he did so twice – thrice – and at last, from an attic-window in the roof, a head obtruded, and a voice cried, "Who are you? – what do you want?"

"I'm the postboy at the Red Lion; I want to see the servant with the brown carriage; I have found this purse!"

"Oh, that's all – wait a bit."

The head disappeared; we crept along under the projecting eaves of the house; we heard the bar lifted from the door; the door itself cautiously opened; one spring and I stood within, and set my back to the door to admit Roland.

"Ho, help! – thieves! – help!" cried a loud voice, and I felt a hand gripe at my throat. I struck at random in the dark, and with effect, for my blow was followed by a groan and a curse.

Roland, meanwhile, had detected a ray through the chinks of a door in the hall, and, guided by it, found his way into the room at the window of which we had seen the light pass and go, while without. As he threw the door open, I bounded after him; and saw in a kind of parlour, two females – the one a stranger, no doubt the hostess, the other the treacherous Abigail. Their faces evinced their terror.

"Woman," I said, seizing the last, "where is Miss Trevanion?" Instead of replying, the woman set up a loud shriek. Another light now gleamed from the staircase, which immediately faced the door, and I heard a voice that I recognised as Peacock's, cry out, "Who's there? – what's the matter?"

I made a rush at the stairs. A burly form (that of the landlord, who had recovered from my blow) obstructed my way for a moment, to measure its length on the floor at the next. I was at the top of the stairs, Peacock recognised me, recoiled, and extinguished the light. Oaths, cries, and shrieks, now resounded through the dark. Amidst them all, I suddenly heard a voice exclaim, "Here, here! – help!" It was the voice of Fanny. I made my way to the right, whence the voice came, and received a violent blow. Fortunately, it fell on the arm which I extended, as men do who feel their way through the dark. It was not the right arm, and I seized and closed on my assailant. Roland now came up, a candle in his hand; and at that sight my antagonist, who was no other than Peacock, slipped from me, and made a rush at the stairs. But the Captain caught him with his grasp of iron. Fearing nothing for Roland in a contest with any single foe, and all my thoughts bent on the rescue of her whose voice again broke on my ear, I had already (before the light of the candle which Roland held went out in the struggle between himself and Peacock) caught sight of a door at the end of the passage, and thrown myself against it: it was locked, but it shook and groaned to my pressure.

"Hold back, whoever you are!" cried a voice from the room within, far different from that wail of distress which had guided my steps. "Hold back, at the peril of your life!"

The voice, the threat, redoubled my strength; the door flew from its fastenings. I stood in the room. I saw Fanny at my feet, clasping my hands; then, raising herself, she hung on my shoulder and murmured, "Saved!" Opposite to me, his face deformed by passion, his eyes literally blazing with savage fire, his nostrils distended, his lips apart, stood the man I have called Francis Vivian.

"Fanny – Miss Trevanion – what outrage – what villany is this? You have not met this man at your free choice, – oh speak!" Vivian sprang forward.

"Question no one but me. Unhand that lady, – she is my betrothed – shall be my wife."

"No, no, no, – don't believe him," cried Fanny; "I have been betrayed by my own servants – brought here, I know not how! I heard my father was ill; I was on my way to him: that man met me here, and dared to" —

"Miss Trevanion – yes, I dared to say I loved you."

"Protect me from him! – you will protect me from him!"

"No, madam!" said a voice behind me, in a deep tone, "it is I who claim the right to protect you from that man; it is I who now draw around you the arm of one sacred, even to him; it is I who, from this spot, launch upon his head – a father's curse. Violator of the hearth! Baffled ravisher! – go thy way to the doom which thou hast chosen for thyself. God will be merciful to me yet, and give me a grave before thy course find its close in the hulks – or at the gallows!"

A sickness came over me – a terror froze my veins – I reeled back, and leant for support against the wall. Roland had passed his arm round Fanny, and she, frail and trembling, clung to his broad heart, looking fearfully up to his face. And never in that face, ploughed by deep emotions, and dark with unutterable sorrows, had I seen an expression so grand in its wrath, so sublime in its despair. Following the direction of his eye, stern and fixed as the look of one who prophesies a destiny, and denounces a doom, I shivered as I gazed upon the son. His whole frame seemed collapsed and shrinking, as if already withered by the curse: a ghastly whiteness overspread the cheek, usually glowing with the dark bloom of Oriental youth; the knees knocked together; and, at last, with a faint exclamation of pain, like the cry of one who receives a death-blow, he bowed his face over his clasped hands, and so remained – still, but cowering.

Instinctively I advanced and placed myself between the father and the son, murmuring, "Spare him; see, his own heart crushes him down." Then stealing towards the son, I whispered, "Go, go; the crime was not committed, the curse can be recalled." But my words touched a wrong chord in that dark and rebellious nature. The young man withdrew his hands hastily from his face, and reared his front in passionate defiance.

Waving me aside, he cried, "Away! I acknowledge no authority over my actions and my fate; I allow no mediator between this lady and myself. Sir," he continued, gazing gloomily on his father – "sir, you forget our compact. Our ties were severed, your power over me annulled; I resigned the name you bear; to you I was, and am still, as the dead. I deny your right to step between me and the object dearer to me than life.

"Oh!" (and here he stretched forth his hands towards Fanny) – "oh! Miss Trevanion, do not refuse me one prayer, however you condemn me. Let me see you alone but for one moment; let me but prove to you that, guilty as I may have been, it was not from the base motives you will hear imputed to me – that it was not the heiress I sought to decoy, it was the woman I sought to win; oh! hear me" —

"No, no," murmured Fanny, clinging closer to Roland, "do not leave me. If, as it seems, he is your son, I forgive him; but let him go – I shudder at his very voice!"

"Would you have me, indeed, annihilate the very memory of the bond between us?" said Roland, in a hollow voice; "would you have me see in you only the vile thief, the lawless felon, – deliver you up to justice, or strike you to my feet. Let the memory still save you, and begone!"

Again I caught hold of the guilty son, and again he broke from my grasp.

"It is," he said, folding his arms deliberately on his breast, "it is for me to command in this house: all who are within it must submit to my orders. You, sir, who hold reputation, name, and honour at so high a price, how can you fail to see that you would rob them from the lady whom you would protect from the insult of my affection? How would the world receive the tale of your rescue of Miss Trevanion? how believe that – Oh pardon me, madam, – Miss Trevanion – Fanny – pardon me – I am mad; only hear me – alone – alone – and then if you too say 'Begone,' I submit without a murmur; I allow no arbiter but you."