Having partaken of a slight refreshment, which the solitary domestic of the mansion set before him, Louis desired to be conducted to his bed-chamber. The man opened a door at the further extremity of the saloon, and the weary traveller followed into an apartment even more desolate than the one he had left. The dull cold light of a winter moon, shrouded in snow-clouds, gleamed through the mouldering remnants of what had once been damask curtains. These perishing relics of departed grandeur were all of furniture that presented itself to the eye of Louis, as he looked around for a place of rest. At last, in a distant recess deep in darkness, the candle he held in his hand shewed a mass of something[297] heaped together. He approached, and found his own travelling palliasse on the floor, and his baggage so disposed, as to supply the place of chair and table.

In recognizing even these poor necessaries to the repose he needed, Louis cast not a thought on the comforts he did not see, but thanking God for the good provided, stretched himself upon his hard bed, and soon was wrapped in balmy slumber.

After a night of profound sleep, the bright smile of the awakened sun played on his eye-lids, and starting from his pallet, with his usual morning-spring of joy he hailed the brilliancy of the opened day. In an apartment close to his chamber he found that luxury of the continent (which even this deserted mansion retained), a bath, and having enjoyed its refreshment, with spirits ready for whatever task might be assigned him, he prepared to meet again his mysterious visitor.

On re-entering the saloon, the gloomi[298]ness which had appalled him the preceding evening was no longer there; it had disappeared before the chaser of shadows, and he advanced to a window to see what evidence of neighbourhood would present itself without.

A view, as novel as it was gay and picturesque, burst upon his sight. Under the windows stretched a high balustraded terrace, with broad stone-steps leading down to a garden intersected with parterres and long vistas foliaged with glittering icicles. The ground was white with snow, which had been falling all night, and nothing having tracked the deserted walks, it lay in shining smoothness as far as the low wall which bounded the garden. Beyond the parapet, trees of loftier growth stretched their ample arms over a plain that banked the mighty waters of the Danube, now arrested by the mightier hand of winter into a vast substantial causeway.

At this early hour in the morning, and[299] on that long line of ice, whose limits were lost in the horizon, all Vienna and its surrounding country seemed assembled. Carriages of various forms and colours elevated on sledges, and filled by their owners of as various quality and habits, swept along in every direction. Men and women mounted on scates, darted past each other with the velocity of light; some with baskets of merchandize on their heads, and others, simply wrapped in their bear-skins, speeded forward on errands of business or of pleasure. Many of the sledged carriages took the direction of a beautiful island in the midst of the river. It was crowned with cedars, and every tree of perpetual green; they parted their verdant ranks to give place to a sloping glade, on whose smooth bosom stood a splendid but fantastic mansion. A thousand strains of music pierced the distant air, while the gay traineaux advanced in succession before its gilded colonades.[300] Louis gazed and listened. How different was this unexpected, this glittering scene, from the sombre-suited winters of Northumberland! There, the black and sterile rocks frowned horrible over the frozen stream, which lay in death-like stillness under their gloomy shade. But yet that awful pause of nature was dear to his contemplative and happy mind. It filled him with recollections of the gracious voice, which had spoken the world into existence from the sterner solitude of chaos! And then, when his mood for loneliness changed, he had only to quit his meditations amongst these caverns of cold and silence, to emerge at once into the warm, social circle of endearing kindred, and animating friends!

While, with a fixed eye, he was thus musing on the present and the past, Gerard entered the room, and placed a tray with breakfast on the table. Louis enquired for Senor Castanos. The man answered, he was engaged.[301] "With whom?"

"I do not know."

"Then I am not to expect him at breakfast?"

"He went out at sun-rise."

Louis asked no more questions, seeing that all around him were under the same law of la Trappe.

His lonely meal was soon dispatched; and as he found it impossible to fasten his attention to a book, or even to writing to the friends he loved, until he knew when he was to be removed from his strange situation; he left the table, and returned to his contemplations at the window. He was standing with folded arms, his eyes rambling over the ever-varying scene on the river, and sometimes wishing to be one in the animated groupe; when, hearing a step on the floor, he turned round, and beheld his expected visitor.

He wore the same enveloping dress as before, and, as before, shook aside the[302] overhanging plumes of his hat as he advanced into the room. Louis was recovered from the amazement into which the mystery of his new guardian\'s address had thrown him on their first interview; but he did not attempt to dispel the awe impressed by his deportment, and his relation as the Baron de Ripperda\'s friend; and, therefore, he greeted his re-appearance with a collected, but a profoundly respectful demeanor.

The Sieur Ignatius approached him.

"I need not enquire of your health this morning: you look well and cheerful; and these are signs of a constitution indispensable to the fulfilment of your future duties."

Louis answered with a grateful smile, that he had to thank Heaven for a vigorous frame, and for a destiny which, hitherto had not afforded him an excuse for being otherwise than cheerful.

"The cheerfulness of a life passed in retirement," observed Ignatius, "being[303] the effect of active amusements rather than of active duties, is habit and not principle; and must be re-moulded with stouter materials, to stand the buffets of the world. Louis, you are called from the happiness of self-enjoyment to that of self-neglect. You are called upon to toil for mankind."

"Point but the way, Sir!" cried Louis, in a subdued but earnest voice; "and I trust, you shall not find me turn from it."

"It is in all respects different from the one you have left. Fond old age, and female partiality, have hitherto smoothed your path. In the midst of this effeminacy, I know you have meditated on a manly life, on the career of fame, its triumphs, and its crown. But between the starting point and the goal, there is a wide abyss. The imagination of visionary youth overleaps it: but, in fact, it must be trod with strong unwearied feet; with wariness, privation, and danger."[304] The eyes of Louis, flashing the brave ardours of his heart, (and which he believed were now to be summoned into licenced exercise,) gave the only answer to the Sieur\'s remarks, but it was eloquent of the high expectations he had raised.

"Young man," continued his austere monitor, "I come to lay open this momentous pass to you; and, once entered, you are no longer your own. You belong to mankind: you are devoted to labour for them:—And, above all, to sacrifice the daintiness of a pampered body; the passions of your soul; the affections of your heart; to the service of the country, which was that of your ancestors, and to which your father is now restored."

"I am ready, Sir," exclaimed Louis, "to take my post, be it where it may, and I trust that I shall maintain it as becomes my father\'s son."

"At present," replied the Sieur, "it is within these walls."[305] Louis looked aghast. The animation of hope springing forward to military distinction, faded from his countenance.—"Within these walls!—How?—What can be done here?—I believed—I thought the army—"

This incoherent reply was suddenly arrested by the steady fixture of Ignatius\'s eyes. A pause ensued, doubly painful to Louis, on account of the shock his expectations had received, and because he had so weakly betrayed it. With the tint of shame displacing the paleness of disappointment, he stood before his father\'s friend, looking on the ground; at last the Sieur spoke.

"What army do you speak of?"

With encreased embarrassment, Louis replied: "the Spanish army; that which the Marquis Santa Cruz gave my uncle to understand was soon to march against Austria, to compel the Emperor to fulfil his broken treaties."

"And to meet that army in the heart[306] of the Austrian capital," said Ignatius, "you thought was the object of your present summons?"

Unable to speak, from a humiliating consciousness of absurdity, Louis coloured a deeper scarlet, and again cast his eyes to the ground.

"No," continued the Sieur, "there are ways of forcing sovereigns to do their duties, besides that which the sword commands. If it will sooth your disappointment, to think that you labour in one of these, believe what you wish, and rest satisfied."

"I am satisfied," returned Louis, "and ready to be confined within these walls, at whatever employment, and for whatever time, my father may chuse to dictate."

"Follow me."

As Ignatius pronounced this command, he opened the saloon door, and crossing the gallery, stopped before another door at its extremity. He unlocked it; and[307] Louis, who had obeyed his peremptory summons, followed him into a room furnished with an escritoire, and a large table covered with implements for writing.

"This, Louis de Montemar, is your post," cried the Sieur, closing the door and bolting it. "Here you must labour for Spain and your own destiny; and here," added he, in a decisive voice; "you must take an oath of inviolable secrecy, that neither bribery of wealth, honours, nor beauty; nor threats of ruin, torments, nor of death; shall ever induce you to betray what may be confided to you in this chamber."

Appalled at this demand, Louis did not answer. The Sieur examined his changing countenance.

"You cannot hesitate to give me this pledge of honour!"

"Honour does not need such a pledge," replied Louis, turning on him the assured look of conscious worth; "trust[308] me, and you shall find, that in no case where honour enjoins silence, death itself can compel me to speak."

Ignatius shook his head.—

"This will not do, in an affair like the present. When the interests of millions may hang upon a yea or nay; he, who has it in his power to pronounce either, must be bound on the perdition of his soul to utter that only which ensures the general safety."

He paused for an answer. But Louis remaining silent, as if still unconvinced, his stern monitor resumed with augmented asperity.

"I do not like this mincing nicety. It savours more of effeminate dreaming, than of manly intention to observe and to act. At a word, take the oath I proffer you; or, prepare to set out this night on your return to England; and to the absurd people who have taught you to pant for glory, and to start from its shadow."[309] The Sieur turned haughtily away.—The reasoning faculties of his pupil became confused. Was he doing right or wrong in resisting this demand? It called on him to stake his salvation on the preservation of secrets, of the nature of which he was entirely ignorant. It seemed to him more than just, that a stranger, however sanctioned, should, at so early a stage of acquaintance, expect that perfect reliance on his virtue, as would warrant a man in so awful a venture as that of vowing to adopt all that stranger might propose. But the authority with which he pronounced the sentence which should follow persisted refusal, struck Louis with astonishment. Who was he, that durst so fearlessly take on himself the responsibility of banishing, without appeal, and with disgrace, the son of the Bar............