Emmeline Part 53

The extreme eagerness with which the Baron de St. Alpin had wished to revisit his estate, gave way to the pleasures he found in travelling in such society; and as Lady Westhaven had never been farther South than Lyons, and Emmeline had never seen the Southern Provinces at all, it was determined on their arrival at that city to proceed to the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean before they went into Switzerland.

It was the finest season of the year and the loveliest weather imaginable. The party consulted therefore only pleasure on their way.

Sometimes they went no more than a single stage in a day, and employed the rest in viewing any place in it's neighbourhood worth their curiosity. They often left their carriages to walk, to saunter, to dine on the gra.s.s on provisions they had brought with them; and whenever a beautiful view or uncommon scene presented themselves, they stopped to admire them; and Bellozane drew sketches, which were put into Emmeline's _port feuille_.

As they were travelling between Ma.r.s.eilles and Toulon they entered a road bounded on each side by mountainous rocks, which sometimes receding, left between them small but richly cultivated vallies; and in other parts so nearly met each other, as to leave little more room than sufficed for the carriage to pa.s.s; while the turnings of the road were so angular and abrupt, that it seemed every moment to be carrying them into the bosom of the rock. Thro' this defile, as it was quite shady, they agreed to walk.

In some places huge ma.s.ses impended over them, of varied form and colour, without any vegetation but scattered mosses; in others, aromatic plants and low shrubs; the lavender, the thyme, the rosemary, the mountain sage, fringed the steep craggs, while a neighbouring aclivity was shaded with the taller growth of holly, phillyrea, and ever-green oak; and the next covered with the glowing purple of the Mediterranean heath. The summits of almost all, crowned with groves of fir, larch, and pine.

Emmeline in silent admiration beheld this beautiful and singular scene; and with the pleasure it gave her, a soft and melancholy sensation was mingled. She wanted to be alone in this delightful place, or with some one who could share, who could understand the satisfaction she felt.

She knew n.o.body but G.o.dolphin who had taste and enthusiasm enough to enjoy it.

Insensibly she left Lady Westhaven and the Chevalier behind her; and pa.s.sing his Lords.h.i.+p and the Baron, who were deeply engaged in a discourse about the military operations of the past war, she walked on with some quickness. Intent on the romantic wildness of the cliffs with which she was surrounded, and her mind a.s.sociating with these objects the idea of him on whom it now perpetually dwelt, she had brought G.o.dolphin before her, and was imagining what he would have said had he been with her; with what warmth he would enjoy, with what taste and spirit point out, the beauty of scenes so enchanting!

She had now left her companions at some distance; yet as she heard their voices swell in the breeze along the defile, she felt no apprehension.

In the narrowest part of it, where she saw only steep craggs and the sky, which their bending tops hardly admitted, she was stopped by a transparent stream, which bursting suddenly with some violence out of the rock, is received into a small reservoir of stone and then carried away in stone channels to a village at some distance.

While Emmeline stood contemplating this beautiful spring, she beheld, in an excavation in the rock close to it, two persons sitting on a bench, which had been rudely cut for the pa.s.senger to rest. One of them appeared to be a man about fifty; he wore a short, light coloured coat, a waistcoat that had once been of embroidered velvet; from his head, which was covered first with a red thrum night-cap, and then with a small hat, bound with tarnished lace, depended an immense _queue_; his face, tho' thin and of a mahogena darkness, seemed to express penetration and good humour; and Emmeline, who had at first been a little startled, was no longer under alarm; when he, on perceiving her near the entrance of the cavern, flew nimbly out of it, bowed to the ground, and pulling off most politely his thrum night-cap, enquired--'_Si Mademoiselle voudrez bien se reposer?_'[3]

Emmeline thanked him, and advanced towards the bench; from which a girl about seventeen, very brown but very pretty, had on her approach arisen, and put up into a kind of wallet the remains of the provisions they had been eating, which were only fruit and black bread. As soon as the old Frenchman perceived that Emmeline intended to sit down, he sprung before her, brushed down the seat with his cap, and then making several profound bows, a.s.sured '_Mademoiselle qu'elle pourroit s'a.s.seoir sans incommodite_.'[4]

The young woman, dressed like the _paisannes_ of the country, was modestly retiring; but Emmeline desired her to remain; and entering into conversation with her, found she was the daughter of the a.s.siduous old Frenchman, and that he was going with her to Toulon in hopes of procuring her a service.

The Baron and Lord Westhaven now approached, and laughingly reproached Emmeline for having deserted them. She told them she was enchanted with the seat she had found, and should wait there for the Chevalier and Lady Westhaven.

'I am only grieved,' said she, 'that I have disturbed from their humble supper these good people.'

The two gentlemen then spoke to the old Frenchman; whose countenance had something of keen intelligence and humble civility which prejudiced both in his favour.

'_Je vois bien_,' said he, addressing himself to Lord Westhaven,--'_je vois bien que j'ai l'honneur de parler a un Milor Anglais_.'[5]

'_Eh! comment?_' answered his Lords.h.i.+p--'_comment? tu connois donc bien les Anglais?_'[6]

'_Oh oui!--j'ai pa.s.se a leur service une partie de ma jeunesse.--Ils sont les meilleur maitres_--'[7]

'_Parle tu Anglais, mon ami?_'[8]

'Yes Milor, I speak little English. _Mais_,' continued he, relapsing into the volubility of his own language--'_Mais il y'a a peu pres dix neuf ans, depuis que mon maitre--mon pauvre maitre mouroit dans mes bras; helas!--s'i avoit vecu--car il etoit tout jeun--j'aurois pa.s.se ma vie entiere avec lui--j'aurois retournez avec lui en Angleterre--Ah c'est un pas charmant que cette Angleterre._'[9]

'You have been there then?'

He answered that he had been three times; and should have been happy had it pleased heaven to have ended his days there.

'The praise you bestow on our country, my friend,' said Lord Westhaven, 'is worth at least this piece _de six francs_, and the beauty _de cette jolie enfant_,[10] added he, turning towards the little _paisanne_, 'is interesting enough to induce me to enquire whether such a gift may not serve to purchase _quelques pet.i.tes amplettes a la ville_.'[11] He presented the young woman with another crown.

The old Frenchman seemed ready to thank his Lords.h.i.+p with his tears.

Without solicitation or ceremony, seeing that the gentlemen were disposed to listen to him, he began to relate his 'short and simple'

story.

Lady Westhaven and the Chevalier now arrived: but she sat down by Emmeline, and desired the old man to continue whatever he was saying.

'He has been praising our country,' said Lord Westhaven, 'and in return I am willing to hear the history of himself, which he seems very desirous of relating.'

'I was in the army,' said he, 'as we all are; till being taken with a pleurisy at Calais, and rendered long incapable of duty, I got my discharge, and hired myself as a travelling valet to a _Milor Anglais_.

With him (he was the best master in the world) I lived six years. I went with him to England when he came to his estate, and five years afterwards came back with him to France. He met with a misfortune in losing _une dame tres amiable_, and never was quite well afterwards. To drive away trouble, _pour se dissiper_, he went among a set of his own countrymen, and I believe _le chagrin_, and living too freely, gave him a terrible fever. _Une fievre ardente lui saisit a Milan, ses compagnons apparemment n'aimoit gueres les malades_;[12] for n.o.body came near him except a young surgeon who arrived there by accident, and hearing that an Englishman of fas.h.i.+on lay ill, charitably visited him. But it was too late: he had already been eleven days under the hands of an Italian physician, and when the English gentleman saw him he said he had only a few hours to live.

'He sat by him, however. But my poor master was senseless; 'till about an hour before he died he recovered his recollection.

'He ordered me to bring him two little boxes, which he always carried with him, and charged me to go to England with his body, and deliver those boxes to a person he named. He bade me give one of his watches, which was a very rich one, to his brother, and told _me_ to keep the other in memory of my master.

'Then he spoke to the stranger--"Sir," said he, "since you have the humanity to interest yourself for a person unknown to you, have the goodness to see that my servant is suffered to execute what I have directed, and put your seal on my effects. The money I have about me, my cloaths, and my common watch, I have given him. He knows what farther I would have done; I told him on the second day of my illness.

Baptist--you remember----"

'He tried to say something more; but in a few moments he died in my arms.

'With the a.s.sistance of the young English surgeon, I arranged every thing as my master directed. I went with his corps to England, and received a large present from his brother, whom, however, I did not see, because he was not in London. Then I returned to France.'

'Since you loved England so much,' enquired the Baron, '_puisque vous aimiez tant cet pas pourquoi ne pas y' rester?_'[13]

'_Ah, Monsieur! j'etois riche; et je brulez de partager mes richesse avec une jolie fille dont j'etois eperdument amoureux._'[14]

'_Eh bien?_'

'I married her, Monsieur; and for above two years we were the happiest people on earth. But we were very thoughtless. _Je ne scais comment cela se faisoit, mes espece Anglais, qui je croyais inepuisable se dissiperent peu a peu, et enfin il falloit songer a quelque provision pour ma femme et mes deux pet.i.tes filles._'[15]

'I returned therefore into the Limosin, of which province I was a native; but some of my family were dead, and the rest had neither power or inclination to a.s.sist their poor relations. The seigneur of the village had bought a post at Paris, and was about to quit his chateau.

He heard I was honest; and therefore, tho' he had very little to lose, he put me into it. I worked in the garden, and raised enough, with the little wages we had, to keep us. My wife learned to work, and my two little girls were healthy and happy.

'_Oui Messieurs, nous etions pauvre a la verite! mais nous etions tres contents!_[16] 'till about eight months ago; and then an epidemical distemper broke out in the village, and carried off my wife and my eldest daughter.

'_Oh, Therese! et toi ma pet.i.te Suzette, je te pleurs; encore amerement je te pleurs._'[17]

The poor Frenchman turned away and wept bitterly.

'_Je scais bien_,' continued he--'_je scais bien qu'il faut s'accoutumer a les souffrances!_[18] We might still have lived on, Madelon and me, at our ruinous chateau; but the possessor of it dying, his son sent us notice that he should pull it down (indeed it must soon have fallen) and ordered us to quit it.

'_Ainsi me voila, Messieurs, a cinquante ans, sans pain. Mais pour cela je ne m'embarra.s.se pas; si je pourrois bien placer ma pauvre Madelon tout ira bien!_'[19]

There was in this relation a touching simplicity which drew tears from Lady Westhaven and Emmeline. The whole party became interested for the father and the daughter, who had wept silently while he was relating their story.

'Can nothing be done for these poor creatures?' said Lady Westhaven.

'Certainly we will a.s.sist them,' answered her Lord.--'But let us enquire how we can best do it. _Tu t'appelles?_'[20] continued he, speaking to the Frenchman.

'_Baptiste La Fere--mais mon nomme de guerre, et de condition fut toujours Le Limosin._'[21]

'_Dites moi donc_,[22] Monsieur Le Limosin,' said his Lords.h.i.+p, 'what hopes have you of placing your daughter at Toulon?'