kings, ghosts, sea-nymphs, heroes, heroines, all beings, are made to act and speak in romance just as the exigencies of the plot demand; and yet it is intimated, in the same breath, that “it is all quite natural, just as it would be in real life!” in this story every one certainly acts as the writer pleases, but, so far as he knows, these boys behave as like boys under similar circumstances would behave. in this chapter, however, there is an exception, where a change from nature is necessary; and without a moment’s hesitation, they are made to throw off all restraint, and talk and act as befits the occasion. in a word, the boys are here no longer boys, but the noble beings of romance.
we do not pretend that any boys would carry on a conversation in their high-swelling strains, the narrative[326] being couched under such strains for a particular and well-meant purpose. the object being, throughout the story, to cast ridicule on all sorts of things, this freedom to write in whatever style is most pertinent to the matter under discussion is our prerogative, and we use it. in short, we act here on the principle, that a writer should be hampered by no conventionalities or restrictions that interfere with the plan of his story.
it seems to be a well-established principle, that love cannot be expressed in romance except in a poetic form. we do not believe this holds good in real life, yet, wishing this story to be accounted a romance, we have thought it well to abide by the rule in this instance. after a short deliberation, we have decided to write their passionate colloquy as though it were only prose; but the intelligent reader can easily read it as verse—in fact, if he chooses, he can set it all to music.
after digesting this preamble in connection with what goes before, the reader of mature years, if not entirely witless, will be able to grasp our meaning and discern our motive—or motives, for in this chapter the aim is to kill several birds with one stone. but the boys—for whom, after all, the story is written principally—had better skip this turgid preamble, because a boy always likes to believe a story is more or less true, and we should be grossly insulted if any one should insinuate that this story is true.
considered in this light, the chapter appears to be only a piece of foolishness, after all. but, in a measure, it may be considered logically also. for instance, there seems to be a “vein of reason” running through it all, and if the reader is on the watch, he will see that this “vein of reason” crops out frequently. after this preamble it opens very rationally.
“considered logically,” says the reader, “how could this henry, a veritable lover, stoop to play the fool, as he did? how could he do this, if he had any respect for his passion, or for the one whom he loved?”
considered logically, gentle reader, henry was a boy; his heart was sore from fancied slights; he was desperate; it occurred to him that, placed as he was, he might “view[327] the question from the other side!” furthermore, although he and stephen had conspired to torment marmaduke, it is plain that almost everything he said, he said extempore.
as for marmaduke, he had no sisters, was scarcely ever in the society of young ladies, and knew nothing of their ways.
“these are but sorry excuses,” sighs the reader, “unworthy of even a school-boy!”
very true. but they are the best that we can trump up, and therefore it would be better for you to consider this chapter as founded on the opposite of reason and logic.
marmaduke was anxious that he alone should be recognized as the liberator, for he wished to receive all the glory of rescuing the captive. with that intent he pressed nearer sauterelle, directing his followers, by an imperious wave of the hand, to disperse in search of the enemy, and, when found, to give them battle.
interpreted into language, that command would have run: hound down the mercenary crew, and spare them not! their evil deeds have brought this fate upon their heads!
the avenging party understood this, and, thirsting for blood and glory, they hurled themselves out of the apartment, whilst marmaduke turned his attention to the captive. he saw gratitude, admiration, even reverence, in the two blue eyes that looked at him. no fear of not being acknowledged as the rescuer-in-chief: henry would acknowledge him, and him only.
“ah, my deliverer!” he cried, in so-called french; “you have come to rescue me, to restore me to freedom! you have found my appeal for help, and these brave men are your followers?”
marmaduke tried hard to understand this, but was obliged to ask if the conversation could not be carried on in english.
“yes, yes, i can speak english,” came the reply. “the good priest has taught me english.”
at that instant a fierce combat was heard in an adjoining room, and horrisonous cries of rage and terror[328] filled the whole building. the hero knew at once that his followers had encountered, and were waging deadly contest with, the wicked jailers, and his heart swelled with emotion.
he was right; his followers had drawn their home-made weapons, and while charles, steve, and jim, personated these wicked jailers, will and george personated the gallant liberators. having had a rehearsal a few days previous, they now fought easily and systematically, and with such heroism and fury that victory must inevitably perch upon their standard. but, after all (and in this they were quite right), they fought as much with their lungs as with their arms, so that the din was tremendous. for full five minutes the combat raged without abatement. the gray light coming in through the open doorway cast a greenish and peculiar hue over our hero’s grand face, and he stood stock-still, collected but voiceless; while the other, wholly unprepared for such an uproar, longed to thrust his fingers into his ears, and pitied himself with all his heart as he thought of the racking headache that must soon seize him.
but finally they vanquished the enemy, and all except stephen, who had not yet turned priest, rushed into the presence of the hero and heroine, shouting wildly: “routed! worsted! slain!”
“all? are all slain? and is the battle past?”
“all; one and all; and we have won.”
“and so my freedom comes to me again!” cried sauterelle. “and i am free, free as the birds, for all his evil schemes are baffled now!”
then, as was right on such an occasion, sauterelle sank at our hero’s feet, and began in the “bursting heart” style, without which no such scene ought to be drawn: “oh, my deliverer, accept my thanks! through you i thus am freed! through you i once again shall see dear france,—dear france, that land of heroes!—heroes? ah! all are heroes here, in this, the land of liberty! oh, gallant men, you have done well!”
“ah, yes, ’tis for the brave to battle for the fair in every land,” our hero said, as though he, too, had fought.
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sauterelle still kneeled before our hero, expecting to be lifted up. but an immense, pyramidal head-dress, many inches high, which only steve could construct, towered upwards till almost on a level with our hero’s eyes, bewildering him.
“noble american, this is a rescue worthy of a prince!” sauterelle cried, suddenly rising and grasping our hero’s hands in a bear-like grip.
“your ladyship—”
“no, no! my title here is but an empty sound, so call me simply sauterelle.”
“sau-ter-elle hi-ron-delle. what sweet and pretty names!” our hero murmured softly, as sauterelle let go his hands.
“what is the name of him who sets me free?”
“fitz-williams is my name; my first name, marmaduke.”
our hero’s followers, still hot, exhausted, and bruised, but not particularly blood-stained, now rose and stole away, and presently another great uproar was heard from them. they had seized the impostor and were carrying it, or him, roughly along.
“here is the great chief villain and arch-plotter of them all! here is bél?tre scélérat himself!” they roared.
“bél?tre scélérat? how comes he here? i understood that he was far away,” our hero said, much puzzled.
they paused in doubt and consternation. then a flash of reason penetrated to their darkened intellect, and dimly conscious that some one had plotted too much, or not enough, they started into action and pressed tumultuously on with their captive.
“oh, for a sword, that i might pierce the monster’s heart!” our hero sighed, but sighed in vain.
at that instant, steve, now the priest, passed pompously through the room, and catching our hero’s last words, replied: “no, no! soil not thy hands with such a perjured wretch, nor soil thy sword. these soldiers here should pierce his ears, not thee,” wilfully mistaking the word heart for ears—or perhaps he did not understand english so well as his pupil. “brave men, go forth and hang this[330] captured knave from some great height, and leave him there to crumble into dust.”
our hero’s blood-thirsty followers lugged bél?tre scélérat out of the room and up the stairs with a haste that proved how well and strongly he was made, and remorselessly prepared to consign him to his ignominious fate.
then our hero and heroine again broke out into their poetry, the latter saying, “and now, my freedom is achieved. ah me! i almost now regret that we should leave these shores, this land of blessèd liberty, and travel back alone to our loved france! ah, in my hour of triumph am i sad? yes, woe is me, i am!—oh, marmaduke, there is no need of this! the priest is here, the bridegroom and the bride! oh marmaduke, there is no cause why i should go alone. ah, thou wilt soon be mine, and i shall soon be thine! thy husband,—wife, i mean. oh, marmaduke, dear marmaduke!”
as sauterelle ran on in this strain our hero grew pale and sick with dismay. was he to be made a sacrifice of thus? must the rescue of necessity lead to this? oh, it was too awful!
“a beauty here that would befit a queen; and, yes, i feel love springing in my heart! but should i marry? i, a boy, and this, the daughter of a duke? oh, that it might be so! as i have said, the french are more excitable than we. but am i not the rescuer-in-chief? in such a case as this, what should i do?”
a triumphant shout of sated vengeance now rang through the building. bél?tre scélérat was securely fastened, not exactly hanged, out of an upper window. a minute later the executioners came clattering noisily down stairs, then filed respectfully past our hero and heroine into another room, and took up a position where they were screened, but from which they could see and hear all that was going on. this action on their part was more conformable to human nature than to the laws of romance or the dignity of heroes.
a sidelong glance disclosed the fact that our hero’s face was of the hue of polished marble, and that large tears of heartfelt emotion were starting from his eyes, while[331] other tears were welling from the pores of his neck and forehead.
“père tortenson, père tortenson,” cried sauterelle. “is he not here? then go, some one, to look for him, and bring him here to me. the marriage may take place without delay.”
“dear sauterelle,” our hero said, “i feel i love thee well indeed, but yet i may not marry thee. thy friend, thy humble servant, guide, and helper, i will ever be; thy husband—ah!”
our hero’s grammar says mine and thine are used only in solemn style. our hero and heroine were aware of this—they were but paying tribute to the solemnity of the occasion.
“no! say not that! you own that you love me as i love thee. what is there then to come between us and our happiness? is it, alas! my title and my rank? think not of them; they shall be nought to us. my marmaduke, i’d lay them all aside for thee. or what is it? speak, marmaduke; i wait to hear thee speak.”
“alas, dear sauterelle,—if really i may call thee so,—i am not worthy thee. it is indeed thy title and thy rank. how couldst thou wed a non-commissioned officer like me?”
“perhaps you are the kidnapped heir of some great english lord.”
“oh, could it be? oh, would it were! then i thy equal—oh, say not that! no; do not torture me.”
“i understand it now,—my love is not returned,—you do not care for me.”
“love thee! indeed i love thee well—love thee, as boy never loved before—love thee, as i ne’er can love again!”
“oh, marmaduke! dear marmaduke! you cause me joy. my marmaduke, i’ll call again the priest.”
“thy father!—no, no! i dare not meet thy father!”
“dread not my father’s ire. he loves his child; his child loves thee. ah, thou art all mine own, for all that thou hast urged is but a paper wall.”
“dear sauterelle, i must admit i love thee well. to be thine own—oh, joy! but no; it cannot be. i have no wealth, no heritage at all. a wife is far from me.”
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“wealth? what is wealth to me? wealth is an idle word—non-entity—a gin—a snare—a clap-trap. how should we live? let no such thoughts occur to thee. though wealth is nought, ’tis true, my father hath it, and thou couldst have enough to live as princes live.”
“‘alas,’ you said, ‘perhaps my father lives no more.’”
“ah, then am i his heir, and all his riches ours. oh, marmaduke, why should you longer hesitate to take this step, or longer pause for foolish whims? then call again the priest. why loiters he?”
but our hero was not yet sensible of the duty that devolved upon him—he did not yet fully realize his position—he still hung back—and his poetical objections having been one by one confuted, he now had the excess of baseness to offer another.
“alas, i know not well thy foreign tongue. how couldst thou hear me always in my rough tongue, when thine, so sweet, so soft, so beautiful—”
“no! speak not so!” cried sauterelle. “i will not hear thee speak so! oh, slander not the language that is thine. and, ah!—thou art a ready youth, i see it in thine eye,—how sweet the task of teaching thee my polished mode of thought and speech! but yet, even as it is, we can converse quite easily! père tortenson, the time for marrying is here.”
“ah, that is truth!” our hero cried. “you speak my english quite as well as i!”
then, in a rational moment, he said rationally, “as you have said, dear sauterelle, we love each other well; but being still so young, so very young, we must not think of marriage yet a while. ’tis hard to part with thee,—our lot is doubly hard,—but fate is ever merciless. farewell, my love, we part.”
he tore himself away, as though he would have fled.
“’tis true that we are young,” said sauterelle. “our hearts are warm and young, not chilled and seared with age and woe. to leave me? no! it shall not be! thou must not go!”
“to love is either happiness or pain; to love, and to be loved again,—oh, this is ecstasy!”
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“oh, marmaduke, you thrill my heart with joy!”
“alas, dear sauterelle, that love and duty should thus clash! but, oh, i must not marry thee; i am so far beneath thee. dear sauterelle, thou wilt return to france and be the wife of some great prince, while i, alas! shall wear my life away in hopelessness and grief. and yet, oh sauterelle, i love thee so! i love thee so! i fear i yet shall yield to love, forgetting duty.”
then charles stepped out of his lurking-place, and said respectfully:
“forgive me, sir, that i should speak to you, but duty is not always what it seems. how can this helpless one return to france alone! a priest at hand, a marriage, sir, is duty in this case. your father’s house is near—live there till duke chaloupe hears of this rescue and this marriage. then duke chaloupe will send us funds for all to go to france.”
“oh, would that i could think that you are right! i should no longer hesitate.”
then, forgetting himself and his position, he fell back on prose. “why should not lady sauterelle and the priest return? are there no hoards of jewels and treasure here in this building, that would pay the passage, at least? scélérat, perhaps, has millions buried here, which can be found.”
“no he hasn’t,” said will, thrusting his head into the room. “not a cent. what did you expect the captive to do after the rescue? what were your ideas on that point?”
“alas,” groaned marmaduke, “i had none! i never thought what any of us would do immediately after the rescue; my thoughts were far ahead in the future. oh, if i had only sent that letter to the government!”
at that moment a person with majestic mien strode into the room, saying, “i come, i come; who calls père tortenson? is it a marriage, lovely sauterelle? if so, quite right. who is the honored bridegroom?”
as marmaduke’s chivalric notions of right and wrong still admonished him not to enter into marriage with a person of noble birth, he had the uprightness to resist the[334] feelings of his heart once more, though it cost him a hard struggle to do so.
then the other, casting on a tragic air, said, “alas for the decay of chivalry! in the old days it was not thus. then no weak whim of fancied right e’er came between two loving hearts.”
charles whispered to our hero’s followers, and then, having stepped into the room, they chorused, their voices, attuned by war and conquest, filling the place with harmony: “your duty, sir, is very plain, and we are grieved that we should have to point it out: a marriage, as you are. a few years hence, and you will be the mighty king of some great land.”
then marmaduke shone forth in all his native nobleness. he reverently took sauterelle’s hand in his own, but before giving the word to the priest he chanted: “in rank, in ti-tle, and in birth; in rich-es, age, and clime; in all things, thou surpassest me, o lovely sauterelle.”
“yea, even in height!” chimed in père tortenson.
“proceed, sir priest,” said marmaduke.
the plot was now, they supposed, at an end. it would be as well to consider its framers as boys again.
henry did not wish to prolong the scene, and he whispered to will: “this is as far as i dare go; but try to think of something—anything—to keep up the fun a little longer.”
stephen pretended to be fumbling in the pockets of his robe. turning to the sage, he whispered imploringly, “oh, george, can’t you ‘ventriloquism’ a little—ever so little?”
“the ghost!” george muttered. “let us bring in the ghost!”
“the ghost? my stars! we never settled how that was to be done!” steve said blankly.
“oh, steve, i wish you were free to play the spectre!” will sighed. “what was it that we intended the ghost to do, anyway?”
“oh, my gracious, i don’t know; i’m all a muddle!”
but the moments were slipping away very fast. marmaduke[335] heard their mutterings, though he did not understand them, and he was becoming uneasy.
“proceed with the ceremony,” he repeated.
