my tongue, the glorious battle,With completed victory rife,
And above the Cross's trophy
Tell the triumph of the strife,
How the world's Redeemer conquered
By surrendering of his life."
The Drummer's Daughter has crossed the sea,—has landed on the shores of Fatherland. She has even parted from her fellow-voyagers at the station whence the coach shall take her on to Chalons, that venerable town and well-beloved, where the lives whence her own sprung were born and blended. She is in the land of wonders, of meadows, vineyards, gardens, lakes, and rivers, and of cattle feeding on a thousand hills,—among the graves of millions of men, among the works of heroes and of martyrs, in the land of mighty towns, of palaces, of masters, and of slaves, where a great king is building the great palace which shall witness, centuries hence, the dire humiliation of his race.
Of all the crowds and companies that hurry to and fro from one end of the land to the other, Elizabeth seeks only two persons. It is not to her father's native town that she is drawn by the superior attraction. She passes Chalons in the moonlight. When the coach stops at the inn-door for a change of horses, she keeps her place, —she acts not with the quicker beating of her heart. She looks about her as they drive through the silent streets,—out on the moonlit landscape when they have passed the borders of the town; she sees the church-towers, and the old buildings, and the river whose windings she has heard described so often by the voices that once talked of love all along its borders. Chalons is dear to her; she looks back with tearful longing when the driver hurries on his horses as they pass into the open country. But she has no right to wait on her own pleasure,—to verify her parents' calculations when they talk together, by the fireside in Foray, of her journeying through Fatherland.
No,—each sunrise appoints him one more day of imprisonment and exile! Every sunset leaves him to one more night of cruel dreams which morning shall deride! And while this can be said, what has Chalons, or any other spot on earth, that it should lure her into rest?
The higher powers sometimes convey their messages and do their work after a prosaic fashion. It was no uncommon thing for a young girl in neat raiment to stand waiting admittance before the door of the Château Desperiers. Hospitality was called upon in those days not so often, perhaps, as benevolence; and for its charity the chateau had a reputation far and wide; the expectation of the poor perished only in fruition there.
Into the library of this ancient mansion Elizabeth Montier was ushered by the old gray servant. There she might wait the return of his mistress; at what hour the return should be anticipated he could not undertake to say. His counsel to the stranger was, that she had better return at a later hour; but when Elizabeth said it was impossible, that she had come from a great distance to see the lady of the place, and must await her return there, he led her without further parley to the library, and left her.
And from its lofty windows, at her leisure, she might now look down upon the prospect Prisoner Manuel had described. When she crossed the threshold of that room, she knew where she was; left alone, she looked around her. There he once had stood; there he had parted from Madeline Desperiers; from that last interview he had gone forth to long captivity! She stood by the lofty, narrow windows, to see what he had seen when standing before them,—that town the ancient Desperiers laid out for his tenants in the ancient days,—the church, the pond, the park,—the garden, so vast, and so astonishing for beauty, the gazer scarce believed her eyes. And she remembered beds of flowers under a prison-wall, and who that day looked on them.
He had said that the mistress of this grand domain was a soldier's daughter. He had said that she was a grand lady. A soldier's daughter had come here to hold an interview with her! A drummer's daughter, a girl from out the barracks and the prison of Foray, was here!—A strange light, so strange that it seemed not natural, broke from these reflections of Elizabeth, and illuminated the library. It fell on the great bookcases that were filled from floor to ceiling with books which cost a fortune, on the great easy-chairs black with age, on picture and on bust, on the old writing-stand, the more modern centre-table piled with newspapers and pamphlets, on the curious clock that told the hours with a "silverey voice." It fell, too, on a portrait that did not often greet the gaze even of such as found access into that room,—a portrait of him for whose sake she was here, having compassed land and sea.
When she first saw the picture, she was sitting in one of the chairs beside the table,—her eyes had taken cognizance of everything but that,—and of that became aware so strangely that she could not at first persuade herself of the nature of the mystery that took such hold of her and possessed her so wholly. A proud and glorious vision, it rose up before her, emerging from the shadows of the alcove where it stood. This was not Manuel, not the wan prisoner of Foray,—but her heart needed none to tell her it was the hero who had loved the lady of this château in the splendor of his manhood. She saw it, and saw nothing more,—the prescience of her soul was satisfied. As he was, she beheld him now;—was it safe for her to sit there gazing at that likeness?
The old servant, who now and then walked up and down the hall, perceiving that the stranger was sitting quiet, with her eyes generally in one direction, was satisfied that she should prove so patient with this long delay in his mistress's return. He knew not what occupied her eyes or thoughts,—fancied, may-be, that she was numbering the books of the library, or engaged in some equally diverting occupation.
At last came Madeline.
Learning from the servant in the hall that a young person waited her return, and had waited half the day, with a patience that was evidently proof against time, the lady proceeded at once to the library.
Elizabeth, who heard the arrival, and the approach, arose and stood, waiting the meeting. In her hand she held a paper scroll, the drawing of Foray, which she had brought to aid her in this interview.
It was, indeed, a royal person upon whom the eyes of the Drummer's Daughter fell,—a person whose dignity and grace held at a distance even those whom they attracted. Nothing short of reverence could have dictated the movement of any noble mind that had to do with her. She was the Sister of Mercy, whom the whole country round about knew for the most righteous Desperiers of them all. The noble line was ending nobly in her pure and lofty and most gracious womanhood. She was the star of society, if the "sweet influences" might only be bound,—no comet, no fiery splendor of intellect or passion, but a pure light that would still shine through all paling, and enter with its own distinct ray into the last absorption.
She approached to meet her guest with a kind and frank expression of regret that she should have been kept waiting so long.
Beholding her, remembering him, strong even through her sense of impotence, Elizabeth unrolled the pencilling of Foray. The moment during which she was thus occupied passed in silence; then she looked up and spoke, with the coldness in which her embarrassment and emotion sought disguise.
"I came here with a message,—on an errand," said she; "and I have come so far, that, finding myself really in this house, I did not like to leave it again till I had seen the lady I sought. I knew that it would give you pain, if you could know the whole."
"Tell me the whole," was the reply, spoken with evident and encouraging approval of the stranger's mode of address; and the lady sat down in the great chair on one side of the table. "Be seated; tell me your wish."
"It is to serve you," said Elizabeth, a little proudly. "I have not come to ask favor for myself or mine. I came across the sea for you and him."
She spoke now with vehemence, and as she spoke glanced at the portrait in the alcove. Quickly the eyes of Madeline Desperiers followed hers. How had this stranger managed to discover what
