Imogen was totally uninured to the contemplation of hypocrisy, and immediately yielded the most unreserved credit to these professions. Her joy was extreme at the change in the dispositions of Roderic, and her admiration of the irresistible charms of rect.i.tude pious and profound.
The praises bestowed upon her seemed distinguishing and sincere, and she drank them in with the most visible complacency. She expressed however an ingenuous diffidence of her capacity for the task of an instructor, and she intreated at any rate to be permitted to withdraw for a short time to dry up the tears of her disconsolate parents.
These difficulties were too obvious to create any embarra.s.sment to so consummate a deceiver. He described the danger of that vicious mistrust of our powers, that is the enemy of all generous and heroic action. He reminded his captive how recent were his purposes, and how many unforeseen incidents might be crowded into so eventful a moment. There were goblins, he said, ever ready to seduce the wanderer from his wished return; and he had been too much their prey not to have every thing to dread from the subtlety of their machinations. On the other hand, no character was suspended on the longer or shorter duration of the uneasiness of the parents of Imogen; and the joyful surprise they would ere long experience, might abundantly compensate for any temporary anxiety and solicitude. He told her of the worship and reverence that were due to the immortal G.o.ds. Could she imagine that the scene that had just pa.s.sed was produced for the mere honour and gratification of a virtuous character, than for the instruction of the ignorant, and the restoration of the wandering? Shall she be thus honoured, and shall this be her grat.i.tude?
Though the web of the sophistry woven by her betrayer might seem inextricable, though Imogen had no sentiments more predominant than the love of virtue, and the fear of the G.o.ds, yet her heart involuntarily resisted his persuasions, and she felt the yearnings of affection still active in her bosom towards those, to whom she owed her existence.
"And cannot you," cried the lovely maiden, "attend me in the short absense I demand? That would prevent every danger, and supersede every objection." "Ah, shepherdess," replied the magician, "this reluctance, these studied expedients imply diffidence and disobedience. But diffidence is much unworthy of the heart of Imogen. Your life has been marked with one tenour of piety. Do not then begin to disobey. Do not sully the unspotted whiteness of your character."
"This," rejoined Imogen, "is too much. This is mere savageness of virtue. Why in the act of persuading me do you bestow upon me those laboured commendations, which the very persuasions you employ are intended to prove that I little deserve? Is it necessary, Roderic, that your manners should be so strange and unaccountable, as to supply food for eternal jealousy and suspicion? And what must be that conduct, that inspires jealousy into a heart unguarded as mine? I talk of suspicion, but I scarcely know the meaning of the term. And yet there is in your carriage something precise, plausible and composed, that I have seldom observed in any other man. Oh, shepherd! you know not what you do, when you awake all these ideas in a maiden"s breast, when you thus confound things that heaven and earth put asunder."
"Ungenerous Imogen," replied the magician, "wherefore this? Do I claim any thing more of you than rect.i.tude demands, and your own bosom will another day approve? Am I not your better genius to guard you against the errors that might be prompted by too tender a heart? Beside, does the conduct of beings of a higher order depend upon my nod? Can I control the spheres, and call down celestial essences from their bright abodes? And will they be rendered subservient to the purposes of treachery and guilt?"
"Roderic here break we off our conference. Sure I am that your conduct is not dictated by a regard for my ease or my welfare. How unworthy then, as well as how unjust is the pretence? With respect to the supernatural scenes I have beheld, the question is more difficult. Of such I have heard from the mouth of the consecrated priests, but never till this day did I see them. At present however my mind is too much distracted, to be able to decide. I have already gone far enough; as far as my heart will permit me. I must now retire."
"One thing however I will add. From the resolutions you at first professed, and the impressions you appeared to feel, I had conceived the most sanguine hopes, and the sincerest pleasure. These are all now vanished. I cannot account for this. But your conduct is now as mysterious to my comprehension, as it was before disgusting to my judgment. I am bewildered in a maze of uncertainty. I am lost in unwelcome obscurity. May your resolutions and designs be better than my hopes! But ah, Roderic, for how much have you to answer, how deep must be your guilt, if all this be mummery, dissimulation, and hypocrisy!"
The magician perceived that it was in vain to urge the stratagem any further, and he retired from the presence of the shepherdess in silence.
If he had been able to distract her ingenuous mind between contending duties, he had not however succeeded in his princ.i.p.al object, that of undermining her virtue, and lessening her attachment to her parents and her lover. If Imogen were perplexed and confounded, Roderic was scarcely more happy. He looked back upon the scene with mortification and astonishment. It was difficult for him to determine where it had digressed from the auspicious appearances it had at first exhibited, and yet he found himself in the conclusion of it wide, very wide indeed, of the success of which he had aimed.
"To what purpose," exclaimed he, with a voice of anguish and rage, "have I inherited the most inexhaustible riches? To what purpose is the command which I boast over the goblins of the abyss, if one weak, simple, and uninstructed woman shall thus defy my arts? I call the hills my own. I mount upon the turrets of my castle, and as far as my eye can survey, the bending corn and the grazing herds belong to me. My palace is adorned with all that can sooth the wearied frame, or gratify the luxurious desire. Couches of purple, and services of gold, the most exquisite viands, and the blandishments of enticing beauty, charms of which the ruggedness of pastoral life has not so much as the idea, all these are circled within my walls. Beyond all this, I command myriads of spirits, invisible, and reputedly omnipotent. If I but stamp my foot, if I but wave this wand, they fly swifter than the wings of thought to my presence. One look of favour inspires them with tranquility and exultation; one frown of displeasure terrifies them into despair. I dispatch them far as the corners of the moon. At my bidding they engage in the most toilsome enterprises, and undertake the labour of revolving years. Oh impotence of power! oh mockery of state! what end can ye now serve but to teach me to be miserable? Power, the hands of which are chained and fettered in links of iron; state, which is bestowed only like a paper crown to adorn the brows of a baby, are the most cruel aggravations of disappointment, the most fearful insults upon the weak.
But shall I always obey the imperious mandate?"
"Yes, Roderic, thou shalt obey," exclaimed the inimical goblin, who at this moment burst through a condensed cloud, that had arisen unperceived in one corner of the apartment, and appeared before him. "In vain dost thou struggle with the links of destiny. In vain dost thou exert thyself to escape from the fillets that on every side surround thee. The greater and the more obstinate are thy efforts, the more closely art thou bound, and the more inextricably engaged. This is the situation in which I wished to see thee. Every pang it wrings from thy heart, every exclamation it forces from thy tongue, is solace to my thoughts, and music to my ears. And wert thou vain and weak enough to imagine, that riches would purchase thee every pleasure, that riches would furnish an inexhaustible source of enjoyment? Of all mortal possessions they are the most useless, mischievous, and baleful. The G.o.ds, when the G.o.ds are willing to perfect a character of depravity, in order to make vice consummately detestable, or to administer an exemplary punishment to distinguished wickedness, bestow upon that man, as the last of curses, and the most refined of tortures, extensive possessions and unbounded riches. Indulge to the mistaken pride which these inspire, and wrap thyself up in the littleness of thy heart.--But no, rise above them.
Suffer thy desires to wander into a larger and more dangerous field. Run with open eyes into the mouth of that destruction that gapes to devour thee! Why shouldst thou attend to the voice of destiny, to the immutable laws of the G.o.ds, and the curse that is suspended over thee? Be a man.
Bravely defy all that is most venerable, and all that is most unchangeable. Oh how I long for thy ruin! How my heart pants for the ill.u.s.trious hour in which thy _palaces shall be crumbled down to the dust of the balance, thy riches scattered, and thyself become an unpitied, necessitous, miserable vagabond_! In the mean time, remember, that riches like thine are not bestowed with u[n]reserving hand, that commerce is not permitted with the shadows of darkness, without some trifling fall to ill amid this immensity of uniform happiness. For this end I am commissioned from time to time to appear before thee in the midst of thy triumph, and to mingle with thy exultations the boding voice of prophetic woe."
Roderic did not listen to these bitter sarcasms without exhibiting every mark of fury and impatience. At length he commanded the spectre to depart, with a voice so fierce and stern as to terrify him into submission. For though the authority of the magician was not formidable enough to make him desist from persecuting him, yet the penalties he had frequently been able to inflict, inspired the goblin in spite of himself, with the fear of so potent an adversary. Still choaked however with agony and resentment, Roderic waved his wand, and summoned his favourite instrument and the prime minister of his pleasures, the goblin Medoro, to his presence. The moment he appeared the magician was relieved from that violent gust of pa.s.sion, which had held him motionless, a statue of horror, and throwing himself upon his couch, he burst into a flood of tears.
Medoro was the goblin that had appeared to Edwin in his return from the feast of the bards, and had brewed the fatal storm that had preceded the rape of Imogen. The figure of the spectre was uncouth, and his countenance was full of savage and shapeless deformity. Nor did his appearance bely his character. To all other beings, whether of the terrestrial or the invisible world, his temper was hard, impracticable and remorseless. To Rodogune alone, a similitude of minds, and a congenial ferocity of heart had attached him; and the attachment had descended to her son; though not equally dest.i.tute of every agreeable and every plausible quality. He therefore beheld the affliction of Roderic with sympathy and compa.s.sion.
"Wherefore," cried Medoro, modulating a voice, that nature had made up of dissonance and horror, into the most gentle and soothing accent of which it was capable, and hanging over his couch, "wherefore this sorrow? What is it that has seemed to mar a happiness so enviable? Art thou not possessed"--"Talk not to me of possessions," exclaimed Roderic, with a tone of frenzy, and starting from his posture, "I give them to the winds. I banish them from my thoughts for ever. Oh that the earth would open and swallow them up! Oh that unburdened from them all, I were free as the children of the vallies, and careless as the shepherd that carols to the rising day. I had not then been thus entangled in misfortune, thus every way closed in to remediless despair. I had not then been a monument of impotence and misery for the world to gaze at.
Ye are all combined against me! Under a specious, smiling countenance you all conceal a heart of gall. But your hypocrisy and your mummery shall serve you to little purpose. Point me, this instant point me, to a path for the gratification of my wishes, or dearly shall you rue the shallowness of your invention and the treachery of your professions."
Medoro was astonished at the vehemence of the pa.s.sion of Roderic, unusual even in a youth who had never been refused demands the most unreasonable, and who had been inured to see all the powers of nature bend to his will. "Is this," cried he, "a return for services so unwearied and sincere as mine? Foolish and ungrateful youth! Rut I will point you to a remedy. Had you not been blinded with fury and impatience, you would have seen that your situation was not yet irremediable, by means the most obviously in your power. Did I not at your birth bestow upon you a ring, that communicates to the wearer the power of a.s.suming what form he please? I gave it, in order to elude the curse of the malignant goblin, to subdue the most obdurate female, and to evade the most subtle adversary. The uses in which thou hast hitherto employed it have been idle and capricious, governed by whim, and dictated by the sallies of a sportive fancy. It is now first that an opportunity is offered to turn it to those purposes for which it was more immediately destined. Dost thou not now address an obdurate maid?
Is she not full of constancy and attachment for another? What avails it then to a heart, simple and unvitiated as hers, to offer the bribe of riches, and to lavish the incense of flattery and adulation. Attack her in her love. Appear to her in the form of him to whom she is most ardently attached. If Imogen is vulnerable, this is the quarter from which she must be approached. Thus far Roderic thou mayest try thy power; but if by this avenue thou canst not surprise her heart and overpower her virtue, be then wise. Recollect thy courage, strengthen thy resolution, and shake off for ever a capricious inclination, which interrupts the tenour of a life that might otherwise wear the uniform colour of happiness."
The information of a new measure for the furthering his darling pursuit, was a communication of the most reviving kind to the heart of Roderic.
The gloom and petulance that had collected upon his countenance were dissipated in a moment. His cheek caught anew the flush of expectation; his eye sparkled anew with the insolence of victory. His grat.i.tude to the propitious Medoro was now as immoderate as his displeasure had lately been unreasonable. He walked along the apartments with the stride of exultation and triumph. He forgot the pathetic exclamations he had lately uttered upon the impotence of power, and he was full of congratulation in the possession of that which he had treated with contempt. The moral lessons which it was his destiny to have from time to time poured into an unwilling ear were erased for ever. He exclaimed upon his own stupidity and want of invention, and he remembered not that vehemence of pa.s.sion, which had distracted his understanding, and drawn a cloud over all his ideas. It was not instantly that he could a.s.sume a sufficient degree of collectedness and composure to put into execution the scheme with which he was so highly delighted. Presently however the ebriety of unexpected hope dissipated, and he prepared for that scene which was to be regarded as the summit of his power, and the irrevocable crisis of his fate.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
BOOK THE FIFTH
THE GARDEN OF RODOGUNE DESCRIBED.--THE HOPES AND DANGER OF IMOGEN.--HER INCONSOLABLE DISTRESS.
Imogen, immediately after the interview that had so deeply perplexed her, returning to her apartment, had shut herself up in solitude. Her reflections were gloomy and unpleasing; the new obscurity that hung about them had not contributed to lighten their pressure. But though she was melancholy, her melancholy was of a different hue from that of her ravisher. If virtue can ever be deprived of those glorious distinctions that exclusively belong to her, it must be when she is precluded from the illuminations of duty, and is no longer able to discern the path in which she ought to tread. But even here, where distinction seems most annihilated, it yet remains. The cruel sensations of Imogen were not aggravated by despair, but heightened by hope. Through them all she was sustained by the consciousness of her rect.i.tude. The chearfulness of innocence supported her under every calamity.
She had not long remained alone before she was summoned to partake of that plainer repast, which in the economy of Roderic usually occupied the middle of the day, and preceded the sumptuous and splendid entertainment of the evening, by which the soul was instigated to prolong the indulgence of the table, and to throw the reins upon the neck of enjoyment. But Imogen, whose thoughts were dark, and whose mind brooded over a thousand sad ideas, was desirous of that solitude, which in the simplicity of pastoral life is ever at hand. She could not away with the freedom of society, and the levity of mirth. It was painful to her to have any witnesses of her new sensations, and she wished to remove herself for ever from the inspection of the officious and the inquisitive. In compliance with her humour a few viands were served to her in her own apartment. She was induced by the entreaties of her attendant, to call up a momentary smile upon her countenance, and to endeavour to partake of the refreshment that was offered her. But the effort was vain. It was the sunshine of an April day; her repast in spite of her was bedewed with tears, and she ate the bread of sorrow.
As soon as it was concluded, she was invited to a short excursion in the garden of the mansion. Unused to refusal, the natural mildness of her temper inclined to comply. She saw the necessity of not yielding herself up to pa.s.sive and unresisting melancholy. The natural serenity of innocence did not yet permit her to be insensible to the attractions of enjoyment; and the transient view she had had of the garden, as she pa.s.sed to the terrace, led her to expect from it, something that might sooth her pensive thoughts, and something that might divert her affliction.
The garden of Rodogune was an inclosure in a bottom glade, at the entrance of which, though nigh to the castle, and upon a lower ground, you wholly lost sight of the mansion, and every external object. But though these were excluded, the sorceress by her art had also excluded the appearance of limits and boundaries. The scene was not terminated by walls and espaliers, but by the entrance on either side of a wild, meandring wood. The side by which you were introduced was protected by trees of the thickest foliage; and the gate was masqued with a clump of hazels and alders, which permitted only two narrow pa.s.sages on either side. The eye was shut in, but the imagination was permitted to range in perfect freedom. Nor was this seeming confinement calculated to disgust; on the contrary you willingly believed that every charm and every grace was shut up in the circle, and you trembled lest the smallest outlet should take off from the richness of the scene. In entering you were struck with a sensation of coolness, that impervious shades, a bright and animated verdure, flowers scattered here and there in agreeable disorder, the prattling of the stream, and the song of a thousand birds, impressed as strongly upon the imagination, as the senses. But this did not appear the result of art. Every thing had the face of uncultivated luxuriance, and impenetrable solitude. You could not believe that you were not the first mortal that had ever found his way into the enchanting desert.
The scene however had been solely produced by the skill of Rodogune.
Erewhile the gra.s.s had appeared dry and parched; a few solitary and leafless trees had been scattered up and down; there was no gaiety of colours to relieve the eye; and not one drop of water to give freshness to the prospect. But with the operations of magic Rodogune had delighted to supersede the parsimony of nature. She caused the tree and the shrub to spring forth in the richest abundance; the st.u.r.diness of whose trunks, or the deepness of their verdure, cheated the eye with the semblance of the ripening hand of time. She sprinkled the turf, short, fine, and vivid, with flowers both native and exotic. She called forth a thousand fountains to enrich the scene. Sometimes they crept beneath the turf in almost imperceptible threads; sometimes they ran beside the alleys, or crossed them in sportive wantonness; and sometimes you might see them in broader and more limpid currents rolling over a smooth and spotted bed. Now they rose from the soil in foamy violence, and fell upon the chalk and pebbly ground beneath; and anon they formed themselves into the deeper bason [sic], whose calm and even surface reflected back the reeds and shrubs that were planted round. There was nothing strait and nothing level; the rule and the line had never entered the delicious spot; the irregularities of the soil, and the fantastic, gradual windings of the alleys, were calculated to give length to the pa.s.sage, and immensity to the scene.
From time to time you encountered tufts of trees closely planted, and that cast as brown a shade as the thickest forest. These were partly composed of wood of the most pliant texture, the extremities of whose branches, bending to the earth, took root a second time in her bosom.
Elsewhere the rasberry [sic], the rose, the lilac, and a thousand flowering shrubs, appeared in thickets without either regularity or symmetry, and contributed at once to adorn, and to give an air of rudeness and wildness to the prospect. Round the body of the trees, planted some at their root, and some upon the different parts of the trunk, crept the withy, the snakeweed, the ivy, and the hop, and intermingled with them the jessamine and the honeysuckle, in the most unbounded profusion. Their tendrils hung from the branches, and waved to the wind; and suggested to you the appearance of garlands scattered from tree to tree by the nymphs of the grove. All was inexpressible luxuriance, and a thousand different shades of verdure were placed, one upon another, in regular confusion, and attractive disorder. An exuberance of this sort was calculated in a vulgar scene to have checked the fertility of the plants, and to have given a sickly and withered appearance to their productions; but it was not so in the garden of Rodogune. There the cherry and the grape, the downy peach and the purple plum were half discovered amid the foliage of the hop, and the cl.u.s.ters of the woodbine. Beneath the delicious shade you wandered over beds of moss, undeformed with barren sands and intrusive weeds, and smooth as the level face of ocean when all the winds of heaven sleep.
Nor was this all. Inanimate and vegetable nature (and the observation had not escaped the penetration of Rodogune) adorn and arrange it as you will, infallibly suggests an idea of solitude, that communicates sadness to the mind. Accordingly your path was here beguiled with the warbling of a thousand birds, the full-toned blackbird, the mellow thrush, and the pensive nightingale. The sorceress had invited them to her retreat, by innumerable a.s.siduities and innumerable conveniences of food and residence, and had suffered no rude intrusion to disturb the sacredness of their haunts. Unused to molestation in all their pursuits, they now showed no terror of human approach, but flew, and hopped, and sung, and played among the branches and along the ground, in thoughtless security and wanton defiance.
For a few moments Imogen was immersed in the contemplation of the beauties of the place, and its delightful coolness and mingled fragrance were balm and softness to her wounded soul. The domestic who accompanied her, perceived her propensity to reflection and fell back to a small distance. The shepherdess, as soon as she found herself disengaged and alone, revolved with the utmost displeasure her present situation. "How happy," cried she, "are the virgins of the vale! To them every hour is winged with tranquility and pleasure. They laugh at sorrow; they trill the wild, unfettered lay, or wander, chearful and happy, with the faithful swain beneath the woodland shade. They fear no coming mischief; they know not the very meaning of an enemy. Innocent themselves, they apprehend not guilt and treachery in those around them. Nor have they reason. Simplicity and frankness are the unvaried character of the natives of the plain. Liberty, immortal, unvalued liberty, is the daughter of the mountains. We suspected not that deceit, insidiousness, and slavery were to be found beneath the sun. Ah, why was I selected from the rest to learn the fatal lesson! Unwished, unfortunate distinction! Was I, who am simple and undisguised as the light of day, who know not how to conceal one sentiment of my heart, or arm myself with the shield of vigilance and incredulity, was I fitted by nature for a scene like this? In the mean time have not the G.o.ds encouraged me by the most splendid appearance, and the most animating praises? I would not impeach their venerable counsels. But was this a time for applauses so seducing? How greatly have they perplexed, and how deeply distressed me! In what manner, alas! are they to be obeyed, and what am I to think of the professions of my ravisher? But, no; I dare not permit my purpose to be thus suspended. My danger here is too imminent. The deliverance of my own honour and the felicity of my parents are motives too sacred, not to annihilate every ambiguity and every doubt. Oh, that I could escape at once! Oh, that like the tender bird, that hops before me in my path, I could flit away along the trackless air! Why should the little birds that carol among the trees be the only beings in the domains of Roderic, that know the sweets of liberty? But it will not be. Still, still I am under the eye and guardianship of heaven. Wise are the ways of heaven, and I submit myself with reverence. Only do ye, propitious G.o.ds, support, sustain, deliver me! Never was frail and trembling mortal less prepared to encounter with machination, and to brave unheard of dangers.
How fearful are those I have already encountered; and how much have I to apprehend from what may yet remain! But if I am weak, the omnipotent support to which I look is strong. I will not give way to impious despondence. It has delivered, and it may yet deliver me."
By such virtuous and ingenuous reflections the shepherdess endeavoured to solace her distress, and to fortify her courage. Now by revolving her dangers she sought to prepare for their encounter; and now she dismissed the recollection as too depressing and too melancholy. The confinedness of the prospect, though rich infinitely beyond any thing she had yet seen, and though not naturally calculated to fatigue and disgust, was destructive of all its beauty in the eyes of Imogen. It presented to her too just an image of the thraldom, which was the subject of all her complaints. She desired to fling her eye through a wider prospect; and though unable even from the loftiest ground to discover the happy valley, she coveted the slender gratification of beholding the utmost boundaries of the magic circle, and extending her view as near as possible to her beloved home. She therefore advanced farther in the garden, and presently arrived at a clear and open brow, where a beautiful alcove was erected to catch the point of view, from which the surrounding objects appeared in the greatest variety, and with the happiest effect. She entered; and the domestic that attended her remained in a distant part of the garden.
Scarcely had Imogen seated herself, before she discovered, by a casual glance over the prospect, and at some distance, a youth, who seemed to advance with hasty steps towards the castle. At first she was tempted to turn away her eye with carelessness and inattention. There was however something in his figure, that led her, by a kind of fascination for which she could not account, to cast upon him a second glance and a third. He drew nearer. He leaped with an active bound over the fence that separated him from the garden. It was the form of Edwin. His hair hung carelessly about his shoulders. His shepherd"s pipe was slung in his belt. His clear and manly cheeks glowed with the warmth of the day, and the anxiety of love. He entered the alcove.
Had a ghost risen before Imogen, surrounded with all the horrors of the abyss, she could not have been struck with greater astonishment. As he advanced, she gazed in silence. She could not utter a word. Her very breath seemed suppressed. At length he entered, and for a moment she had voice enough to utter her surprise. "Gracious powers!" exclaimed she--"is it possible?--what is it that I see?--Edwin, beloved Edwin!"--and she sunk breathless upon her seat. The fict.i.tious shepherd approached her, folded her in his arms, and with repeated, burning kisses, which he had never before ventured to ravish from his disdainful captive, restored her to life and perception. The confusion of Imogen did not allow her to animadvert upon his freedoms. She had the utmost confidence in the person whose form he wore, and the guileless simplicity of pastoral life is accustomed to permit many undesigning liberties, and is slow to take the alarm, or to suspect a sinister purpose.
Roderic, anxious and timid respecting the success of his adventure, was backward to enter into conversation. Imogen, on the other hand, charmed with so unexpected an appearance, and presaging from it the most auspicious consequences, full of her situation and sufferings, and having a thousand things that pressed at once to be told, was eager and impatient to communicate them to her faithful shepherd. She was also desirous of learning by what undiscoverable means, by what happy fortune, he had been conducted to this impervious retreat, and at so critical a juncture.
"Edwin,--my gallant Edwin,--how came you hither?--Sure it was some propitious power,--some unseen angel,--that conducted you.--Oh, my friend,--I have been miserable,--perplexed--tortured--but it is now no more--I will not think of it--Thanks to the immortal G.o.ds, I have no occasion--no room--but for grat.i.tude.--Edwin--what have you done--and how did you escape the tempest?--Was it not a fearful storm?--But I ask you a thousand questions--and you do not answer me.--You seem abashed--uncertain--what is the meaning of this?--Did you not come to succour my distress?--Was it not pity for your poor--forlorn--desolate Imogen--that directed your steps?"
"Yes, loveliest of thy s.e.x," replied her betrayer. "I flew upon the wings of love. I was brought along by a celestial, impulsive guidance, which I followed I knew not why. Oh how gracious the condescension, how happy the obedience, how grateful the interview! Yes, Imogen, I was in despair. I was terrified at the concurring prodigies by which we were separated, and I feared never, never to behold that beauteous form again. Come then and let me clasp thee to my bosom. Oh, thou art sweeter than the incense-breathing rose, and brighter than the lily of the vale!"
For a moment, the affectionate and unsuspicious shepherdess received his caresses with complacence and pleasure. Suddenly however she recollected herself; instinctively and without reflection she repulsed the undue warmth of his attentions. "This," cried she, "is no time for fond indulgence, and careless dalliance--Fate is on the wing.--Our situation is arduous--and we are in the midst of enemies.--Every thing that surrounds us is full of danger--all is deceit and treachery--appearances are insidious--all is frightful suspense and headlong precipice.--The plotter of my ruin is as potent as he is--Ah! every hour is big with calamity and destruction--every moment that we stay here is in the last degree hazardous and decisive.--My keepers may be alarmed--Those eyes that never close may be summoned to attention--we may be hemmed in--prevented--Oh, Edwin, how fearful is this place--and how unhoped--how joyful to me--must be an escape.--I thought this hated seat had been impervious and impa.s.sable--Hark!--Did you not hear the sound of feet?--No--every thing is still--Let us go this way--Say, by what path did you come--Let us hasten our flight--let us make no delay--not look behind."
"Yes, Imogen," replied Roderic, detaining her, "we will escape--But this, my lovely maiden, is not the time--I am not yet prepared--We may remain here in security--already the shades of evening begin to draw.
Every thing is now busy and active. We cannot pa.s.s from hence without observation. In the silence of the night the attempt will be more practicable. And you, Imogen, are a heroine. The G.o.ds will watch over us. Silence and darkness have nothing in them at which innocence should be terrified. Till then let us reconcile ourselves to our situation. Let us endeavour, by secrecy and stilness, not to attract to us the attention of the enemies with which we are surrounded. Let us banish from them curiosity and suspicion. And let us trust in the G.o.ds, propitious to rect.i.tude, that they will look down with favour upon a design prompted by virtue and urged by oppression."
"Alas, Edwin," replied the shepherdess "it is with regret that I consent to remain one moment longer in this fatal spot. But I will submit to your direction, I will confide in your prudence; I will trust in your fidelity, and your zeal, for the deliverance I so ardently desire. Here however we cannot long remain undiscovered.--My absence will be suspicious.--I will return once again to the hated mansion.--You, my swain, must conceal yourself in the mazes of this friendly wilderness.
It shall not be long ere I come to you again.--With motives like mine to inspire ingenuity, I shall easily find a way to elude the strictest guard, and escape from the closest thraldom.--Say, my Edwin!--this stratagem shall suffice,--and you shall lead me in safety under the friendly cover of the night to liberty and innocence!"
"Yes," exclaimed Roderic, suddenly recollecting himself, "you may be a.s.sured that by me nothing shall be omitted, that can further your escape from this detested prison. The perils I have already incurred may well convince you of this. It has been through the most fearful dangers, ready every moment to be overwhelmed with omnipotent mischief, that I have reached you. I have approached by the most devious and undiscovered paths. Though the greatest hazards are to be encountered in the cause of innocence and honour, the conduct we should pursue is therefore ambiguous, and our success involved in uncertainty and darkness. Oh Imogen, I may now behold thee for the last time. The moment we sally from this retreat, I may be discovered by that enemy from whom we have so much to fear. I may be confined to all the wantonness of inventive torture, and that beauteous form, and the smiles of that bewitching countenance may be torn from these longing eyes for ever. But here, my shepherdess, we are safe. We may here secure ourselves from sudden intrusion, and a thousand means of concealment are here in our power.
This Imogen is the moment of our ascendancy, this little period is all our own. In a short time the precious hours will be elapsed, the invaluable instants will be run out. Oh, my love, fairest, most angelic of thy s.e.x, while they are yet ours, let us improve them."--He ceased; and his countenance glistened with the antic.i.p.ations of enjoyment, and his eyes emitted the sparkles of l.u.s.t.
But the imagination of Imogen was not sullied with the impressions of indecency, and the baseness of looser desires. She understood not the innuendos of Roderic, and she remarked not with an eager and inquisitive eye the distraction of his visage. She replied therefore only to the more obvious tendency of what he said. "And is this, Edwin, all the consolation you bring me? Ah how poor, how heartless, and how cold! If we accomplish not that flight upon which my hopes and wishes are suspended, what utility and what pleasure can we derive from this interview? It will then only be a bitter aggravation of all my trials, and all my miseries. If a prospect so unexpected and desirable terminate in no advantage, for what purpose was it opened before me? It will but render my sensations more poignant, and give a new refinement to the exquisiteness of despair.
"But no, my Edwin, let us not give way to despondence. The G.o.ds, my generous swain, the same G.o.ds that give luxuriance and felicity to the plain, and that have guided you through every hazard to this impervious spot, will a.s.suredly deliver us. Remember the lessons of the heaven-taught Druids. There is an innate dignity and omnipotence in virtue. She may be surrounded with variety of woes, but none of them shall approach her. The darts of calamity may a.s.sail her on every side, but she is invulnerable to them all. Before her majesty, the fierceness of all the tenants of the wood is disarmed, and the more untamed brutality of savage man is awed into mute obedience. She may not indeed put on the insolence of pride, and the fool-hardiness of presumption.
But wherever her duty calls, she may proceed fearless and unhurt. She may be attacked, but she cannot be wounded: she may be surprised, but she cannot be enslaved: she may be obscured for a moment, but it shall only be to burst forth again more ill.u.s.trious than ever.
"But you, Edwin, are much better acquainted with these things, and more able to instruct than I. They were ever the favourite subject of your attention. I have seen you with rooted eye fixed for hours in listening admiration of the sublime dictates of the h.o.a.ry Llewelyn.--It is little to learn, to understand, and to admire. A barren and ineffectual enthusiasm for the speculations of truth, was never respectable and was never venerable. Now, my swain, is the moment in which these sacred lessons are to be called into action, and in which, beyond all others, reputation is to be a.s.serted and character fixed. Leave not then to me the business of inciting and animating you. Be you my leader and protector."