The Heir of Mondolfo (5 page)

She awoke not until the sun had risen high--it had risen above
the temples of Pastum,3 and the columns threw short shadows on the
ground. They were near her, unseen during night, and were now
revealed as the edifices that had attracted her the evening before.
They stood on a rugged plain, despoiled of all roof, their columns
and cornices encompassing a space of high and weed-grown grass; the
deep-blue sky canopied them and filled them with light and
cheerfulness. Viola looked on them with wonder and reverence; they
were temples to some god who still seemed to deify them with his
presence; he clothed them still with beauty, and what was called
their ruin might, in its picturesque wildness and sublime
loneliness, be more adapted to his nature than when, roofed and
gilded, they stood in pristine strength; and the silent worship of
air and happy animals might be more suited to him than the
concourse of the busy and heartless. The most benevolent of
spirit-gods seemed to inhabit that desert, weed-grown area; the
spirit of beauty flitted between those columns embrowned by time,
painted with strange color, and raised a genial atmosphere on the
deserted altar. Awe and devotion filled the heart of lonely Viola;
she raised her eyes and heart to Heaven in thanksgiving and
prayer-- not that her lips formed words, or her thoughts suggested
connected sentences, but the feeling of worship and gratitude
animated her; and, as the sunlight streamed through the succession
of columns, so--did joy, dove-shaped, fall on and illumine her
soul.

With such devotion as seldom before she had visited a
saint-dedicated church, she ascended the broken and rude steps of
the larger temple, and entered the plot that it in-closed. An inner
circuit of smaller columns formed a smaller area, which she
entered, and, sitting on a huge fragment of the broken cornice that
had fallen to the ground, she silently waited as if for some oracle
to visit her sense and guide her.

Thus sitting, she heard the near bark of a dog, followed by the
bleating of sheep, and she saw a little flock spread itself in the
field adjoining the farther temple. They were shepherded by a girl
clothed in rags, but the season required little covering; and these
poor people, moneyless, possessing only what their soil gives them,
are in the articles of clothing poor even to nakedness.

In inclement weather they wrap rudely-formed clothes of
undressed sheepskin around them---during the heats of summer they
do little more than throw aside these useless garments. The
shepherd-girl was probably about fifteen years of age; a large
black straw hat shaded her head from the intense rays of the sun;
her feet and legs were bare; and her petticoat, tucked up,
Diana-like, above one knee, gave a picturesque appearance to her
rags, which, bound at her waist by a girdle, bore some resemblance
to the costume of a Greek maiden. Rags have a costume of their own,
as fine in their way, in their contrast of rich colors and the
uncouth boldness of their drapery, as kingly robes. Viola
approached the shepherdess and quietly entered into conversation
with her; without making any appeal to her charity or feelings, she
asked the name of the place where she was, and her boy, awake and
joyous, soon attracted attention. The shepherd-girl was pretty,
and, above all, good-natured; she caressed the child, seemed
delighted to have found a companion for her solitude, and, when
Viola said that she was hungry, unloaded her scrip of roasted pine
nuts, boiled chestnuts, and coarse bread. Viola ate with joy and
gratitude. They remained together all day; the sun went down, the
glowing light of its setting faded, and the shepherdess would have
taken Viola home with her. But she dreaded a human dwelling, still
fearing that, wherever there appeared a possibility of shelter,
there her pursuers would seek her.

She gave a few small silver-pieces, part of what she had about
her when seized, to her new friend, and, bidding her bring
sufficient food for the next day, entreated her not to mention her
adventure to any one. The girl promised, and, with the assistance
of her dog, drove the flock toward their fold. Viola passed the
night within the area of the larger temple.

Not doubting the success of his plan, on the very evening that
followed its execution, Prince Mondolfo had gone to Naples. He
found his son at the Mondolfo Palace. Despising the state of a
court, and careless of the gaieties around him, Ludovico longed to
return to the cottage of Viola.

So, after the expiration of two days, he told his father that he
should ride over to Mondolfo, and return the following morning.
Fernando did not oppose him, but, two hours after his departure,
followed him, and arrived at the castle just after Ludovico,
leaving his attendants there, quitted it to proceed alone to his
cottage. The first person Prince Mondolfo saw was the chief of the
company who had had the charge of Viola. His story was soon told:
the unfavorable wind, the imprisonment in a room barricaded with
the utmost strength, her incomprehensible escape, and the vain
efforts that had subsequently been made to find her. Fernando
listened as if in a dream; convinced of the truth, he saw no clue
to guide him--no hope of recovering possession of his prisoner. He
foamed with rage, then endeavored to suppress as useless his
towering passion. He overwhelmed the bearer of the news with
execrations; sent out parties of men in pursuit in all directions,
promising every reward, and urging the utmost secrecy, and then,
left alone, paced his chamber in fury and dismay. His solitude was
of no long duration. Ludovico burst into his room, his countenance
lighted up with rage.

"Murderer!" he cried. "Where is my
Viola?"

Fernando remained speechless.

"Answer!" said Ludovico. "Speak with those lips
that pronounced her death-sentence--or raise against me that hand
from which her blood is scarcely washed--Oh, my Viola! thou and my
angel-child, descend with all thy sweetness into my heart, that
this hand write not parricide on my brow!"

Fernando attempted to speak.

"No!" shrieked the miserable Ludovico; "I will
not listen to her murderer. Yet--is she dead? I kneel--I call you
father--I appeal to that savage heart--I take in peace that hand
that often struck me, and now has dealt the death-blow--oh, tell
me, does she yet live?"

Fernando seized on this interval of calm to relate his story. He
told the simple truth; but could such a tale gain belief? It
awakened the wildest rage in poor Ludovico's heart. He doubted
not that Viola had been murdered; and, after every expression of
despair and hatred, he bade his father seek his heir among the
clods of the earth, for that such he should soon become, and rushed
from his presence.

He wandered to the cottage, he searched the country round, he
heard the tale of those who had witnessed any part of the carrying
off of his Viola. He went to Salerno. He heard the tale there told
with the most determined incredulity. It was the tale, he doubted
not, that his father forged to free himself from accusation, and to
throw an impenetrable veil over the destruction of Viola.

His quick imagination made out for itself the scene of her
death. The very house in which she had been confined had at the
extremity of it a tower jutting out over the sea; a river flowed at
its base, making its confluence with the ocean deep and dark. He
was convinced that the fatal scene had been acted there. He mounted
the tower; the higher room was windowless, the iron grates of the
windows had for some cause been recently taken out. He was
persuaded that Viola and her child had been thrown from that window
into the deep and gurgling waters below.

He resolved to die! In those days of simple Catholic faith,
suicide was contemplated with horror. But there were other means
almost as sure. He would go a pilgrim to the Holy Land, and fight
and die beneath the walls of Jerusalem. Rash and energetic, his
purpose was no sooner formed than he hastened to put it in
execution. He procured a pilgrim's weeds at Salerno, and at
midnight, advising none of his intentions, he left that city, and
proceeded southward. Alternate rage and grief swelled his heart.
Rage at length died away. She whose murderer he execrated was an
angel in Heaven, looking down on him, and he in the Holy Land would
win his right to join her. Tender grief dimmed his eyes. The
world's great theater closed before him-of all its trappings
his pilgrim's cloak was alone gorgeous, his pilgrim's staff
the only scepter--they were the symbols and signs of the power he
possessed beyond the earth, and the pledges of his union with
Viola. He bent his steps toward Brundusium.4 He walked on fast, as
if he grudged all space and time that lay between him and his goal.
Dawn awakened the earth and he proceeded on his way. The sun of
noon darted its ray upon him, but his march was uninterrupted. He
entered a pine wood, and, following the track of flocks, he heard
the murmurs of a fountain. Oppressed with thirst, he hastened
toward it. The water welled up from the ground and filled a natural
basin; flowers grew on its banks and looked on the waters
unreflected, for the stream paused not, but whirled round and
round, spending its superabundance in a small rivulet that, dancing
over stones and glancing in the sun, went on its way to its
eternity--the sea. The trees had retreated from the mountain, and
formed a circle about it; the grass was green and fresh, starred
with summer flowers. At one extremity was a silent pool that formed
a strange contrast with the fountain that, ever in motion, showed
no shape, and reflected only the color of the objects around it.
The pool reflected the scene with greater distinctness and beauty
than its real existence. The trees stood distinct, the ambient air
between, all grouped and pictured by the hand of a divine artist.
Ludovico drank from the fount, and then approached the pool. He
looked with half wonder on the scene depicted there. A bird now
flitted across in the air, and its form, feathers, and motion, were
shown in the waters. An ass emerged from among the trees, where in
vain it sought herb-age, and came to grass near these waters;
Ludovico saw it depicted therein, and then looked on the living
animal, almost appearing less real, less living, than its semblance
in the stream.

Under the trees from which the ass had come lay someone on the
ground, enveloped in a mantle, sleeping. Ludovico looked
carelessly--he hardly at first knew why his curiosity was roused;
then an eager thought, which he deemed madness, yet resolved to
gratify, carried him forward.

Rapidly he approached the sleeper, knelt down, and drew aside
the cloak, and saw Viola, her child within her arms, the warm
breath issued from her parted lips, her lovebeaming eyes hardly
veiled by the transparent lids, which soon were lifted up.

Ludovico and Viola, each too happy to feel the earth they trod,
returned to their cottage-their cottage dearer than any palace--yet
only half believing the excess of their own joy. By turns they
wept, and gazed on each other and their child, holding each
other's hands as if grasping reality and fearful it would
vanish.

Prince Mondolfo heard of their arrival. He had long suffered
keenly from the fear of losing his son. The dread of finding
himself childless, heirless, had tamed him. He feared the
world's censure, his sovereign's displeasure--perhaps worse
accusation and punishment. He yielded to fate. Not daring to appear
before his intended victim, he sent his confessor to mediate for
their forgiveness, and to entreat them to take up their abode at
Mondolfo. At first, little credit was given to these offers. They
loved their cottage, and had small inclination to risk happiness,
liberty, and life, for worthless luxury. The Prince, by patience
and perseverance, at length convinced them. Time softened painful
recollections; they paid him the duty of children, and cherished
and honored him in his old age; while he caressed his lovely
grandchild, he did not re-pine that the violet- girl should be the
mother of the heir of Mondolfo.

THE END

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