The other nodded a cool a.s.sent.
My lord now filled his gla.s.s, drank it off, and refilled, with the air of a man nerving himself for a great undertaking,--and such was indeed the case. He was about to deliver himself of a sentiment, and the occasion was one to which Baynton could not lend his a.s.sistance.
"I have been thinking," said he, "that if that same estate we spoke of, Baynton,--that Welsh property, you know, and that thing in Ireland,--should fall in, I "d buy some statues and have a gallery!"
"Devilish costly work you"d find it," muttered Baynton.
"Well, I suppose it is,--not more so than a racing stable, after all."
"Perhaps not."
"Besides, I look upon that property--if it does ever come to me--as a kind of windfall; it was one of those pieces of fortune one could n"t have expected, you know." Then, turning towards the youth, as if to apologize for a discussion in which he could take no part, he said, "We were talking of a property which, by the eccentricity of its owner, may one day become mine."
"And which doubtless some other had calculated on inheriting," said the youth.
"Well, that may be very true; I never thought about that,--eh, Baynton?"
"Why should you?" was the short response.
"Gain and loss, loss and gain," muttered the youth, moodily, "are the laws of life."
"I say, Baynton, what a jolly moonlight there is out there in the garden! Would n"t it be a capital time this to see your model, eh?"
"If you are disposed to take the trouble," said the youth, rising, and blushing modestly; and the others stood up at the same moment.
Nothing pa.s.sed between them as they followed the young sculptor through many an intricate by-way and narrow lane, and at last reached the little stream on whose bank stood his studio.
"What have we here!" exclaimed Baynton as he saw it; "is this a little temple?"
"It is my workshop," said the boy, proudly, and produced the key to open the door.
Scarcely had he crossed the threshold, however, than his foot struck a roll of papers, and, stooping down, he caught up a large placard, headed, "Morte al Tiranno," in large capitals. Holding the sheet up to the moonlight, he saw that it contained a violent and sanguinary appeal to the wildest pa.s.sions of the Carbonari,--one of those savage exhortations to bloodshedding which were taken from the terrible annals of the French Revolution. Some of these bore the picture of the guillotine at top, others were headed with cross poniards.
"What are all these about?" asked Baynton, as he took up three or four of them in his hand; but the youth, overcome with terror, could make no answer.
"These are all _sans-culotte_ literature, I take it," said his Lordship; but the youth was stupefied and silent.
"Has there been any treachery at work here?" asked Baynton. "Is there a scheme to entrap you?"
The youth nodded a melancholy and slow a.s.sent.
"But why should you be obnoxious to these people? Have you any enemies amongst them?"
"I cannot tell," gloomily muttered the youth.
"And this is your statue?" said Baynton, as, opening a large shutter, he suffered a flood of moonlight to fall on the figure.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 242]
"Fine!--a work of great merit, Baynton," broke in his Lordship, whose apathy was at last overcome by admiration. But the youth stood regardless of their comments, his eyes bent upon the ground; nor did he heed them as they moved from side to side, examining the statue in all its details, and in words of high praise speaking their approval.
"I"ll buy this," muttered his Lordship. "I"ll give him an order, too, for another work,--leaving the subject to himself."
"A clever fellow, certainly," replied the other.
"Whom does he mean the figure to represent?"
"It is Alcibiades as he meets his death," broke in the youth; "he is summoned to the door as though to welcome a friend, and he falls pierced by a poisoned arrow,--there is but legend to warrant the fact. I cared little for the incident,--I was full of the man, as he contended with seven chariots in the Olympic games, and proudly rode the course with his glittering shield of ivory and gold, and his waving locks all perfumed. I thought of him in his gorgeous panoply, and his voluptuousness; lion-hearted and danger-seeking, pampering the very flesh he offered to the spears of the enemy. I pictured him to my mind, embellishing life with every charm, and daring death in every shape,--beautiful as Apollo, graceful as the bounding Mercury, bold as Achilles, the lion"s whelp, as aeschylus calls him. This," added he, in a tone of depression,--"this is but a sorry version of what my mind had conceived."
"I arrest you, Sebastiano Greppi," said a voice from behind; and suddenly three gendarmes surrounded the youth, who stood still and speechless with terror, while a mean-looking man in shabby black gathered up the printed proclamations that lay about, and commenced a search for others throughout the studio.
"Ask them will they take our bail for his appearance, Baynton," said my lord, eagerly.
"No use,--they "d only laugh at us," was the reply.
"Can we be of any service to you? Is there anything we can do?" asked his Lordship of the boy.
"You must not communicate with the prisoner, signore," cried the brigadier, "if you don"t wish to share his arrest."
"And this, doubtless," said the man in black, standing, and holding up the lantern to view the statue,--"this is the figure of Liberty we have heard of, pierced by the deadly arrow of Tyranny!"
"You hear them!" cried the boy, in wild indignation, addressing the Englishmen; "you hear how these wretches draw their infamous allegations! But this shall not serve them as a witness." And with a spring he seized a large wooden mallet from the floor, and dashed the model in pieces.
A cry of horror and rage burst from the bystanders, and as the Englishmen stooped in sorrow over the broken statue, the gendarmes secured the boy"s wrists with a stout cord, and led him away.
"Go after them, Baynton; tell them he is an Englishman, and that if he comes to harm they "ll hear of it!" cried my lord, eagerly; while he muttered in a lower tone, "I think we might knock these fellows over and liberate him at once, eh, Baynton?"
"No use if we did," replied the other; "they"d overpower us afterwards.
Come along to the inn; we"ll see about it in the morning."
CHAPTER XXIX. A COUNCIL OF STATE
It was a fine mellow evening of the late autumn as two men sat in a large and handsomely furnished chamber opening upon a vast garden. There was something in the dim half-light, the heavily perfumed air, rich with the odor of the orange and the lime, and the stillness, that imparted a sense of solemnity to the scene, where, indeed, few words were interchanged, and each seemed to ponder long after every syllable of the other.
We have no mysteries with our reader, and we hasten to say that one of these personages was the Chevalier Stubber,--confidential minister of the Duke of Ma.s.sa; the other was our old acquaintance Billy Traynor. If there was some faint resemblance in the fortunes of these two men, who, sprung from the humblest walks of life, had elevated themselves by their talents to a more exalted station, there all likeness between them ended. Each represented, in some of the very strongest characteristics, a nationality totally unlike that of the other: the Saxon, blunt, imperious, and decided; the Celt, subtle, quick-sighted, and suspicious, distrustful of all, save his own skill in a moment of difficulty.
"But you have not told me his real name yet," said the Chevalier, as he slowly smoked his cigar, and spoke with the half-listlessness of a careless inquirer.
"I know that, sir," said Billy, cautiously; "I don"t see any need of it."
"Nor your own, either," remarked the other.
"Nor even that, sir," responded Billy, calmly.
"It comes to this, then, my good friend," rejoined Stubber, "that, having got yourself into trouble, and having discovered, by the aid of a countryman, that a little frankness would serve you greatly, you prefer to preserve a mystery that I could easily penetrate if I cared for it, to speaking openly and freely, as a man might with one of his own."
"We have no mysteries, sir. We have family secrets that don"t regard any one but ourselves. My young ward, or pupil, whichever I ought to call him, has, maybe, his own reasons for leading a life of un.o.btrusive obscurity, and what one may term an umbrageous existence. It"s enough for me to know that, to respect it."