Part 43 (2/2)

'Better had he kept his bed till death released him. I tell you it is not of such stuff as this adventurers are made. His very appearance would dash men with discouragement.'

'Bethink you what he has gone through, Pere; the sights and scenes of horror that have met his eyes--the daily carnage amid which he lived--himself, twice rescued from the scaffold, by what seems like a miracle--his days and nights of suffering in friendless misery too.

Remember, also, how little of hope there was to cheer him through all this. If ever there was one forlorn and dest.i.tute, it was he.'

'I think not of _him_, but of the cause he should have served,' said the Pere; 'and once more I say, this youth is unequal to ”the event.” His father had faults enough to have wrecked a dozen enterprises: he was rash, reckless, and unstable; but his rashness took the form of courage, and his very fickleness had a false air of versatility. Men regarded it as an element full of resources; but this sickly boy only recalls in his features every weakness of his race. What can we do with _him_?'

'Men have fought valiantly for royalties that offered less to their regard,' said Carrol.

'Ay, Carrol, when the throne is fixed, men will rally to maintain it, even though he who wears the crown be little worthy of their reverence; but when the question is to reestablish a fallen dynasty--to replace one branch by another, the individual becomes of immense importance; personal qualities a.s.sume then all the proportions of claims, and men calculate on the future by the promises of the present. Tell me frankly what could you augur for a cause of which this youth was to be the champion?'

Carrol did not break silence for some time; at length he said--

'You told me once, and I have never forgotten it, a remarkable story of Monsignor Saffi, the Bishop of Volterra-----'

'I know what you allude to--how the simple-minded bishop became the craftiest of cardinals. Ay, elevation will now and then work such miracles; but it is because they are miracles we are not to calculate on their recurrence.'

'I would not say that this is not the case to hope for a similar transformation. They who knew Fitzgerald in his better, stronger days, describe him as one capable of the most daring exploits, full of heroism and of a boundless ambition, fed by some mysterious sentiment that whispers within him that he was destined for high achievement. These are inspirations that usually only die with ourselves.

'When I look at him,' said the Pere sadly, 'I distrust them all.'

'You are not wont to be so easily discouraged.' 'Easily discouraged--easily discouraged! It is a strange reproach to bring against me,' said the Pere, with a calm collectedness; 'nor is that the character all Rome would give me. But why am I steadfast of purpose and firm of plan? Because, ere I engage in an enterprise, I weigh well the means of success, and canva.s.s all its agencies. The smallest stream that ever dashed down a mountain has strength in the impulse of its course, while if it meandered through a plain it had been a rivulet. This is a lesson we may reap profit from.'

Carrol did not answer, and Ma.s.soni, covering his face with his hands, seemed lost in deep thought; at last he said--

'What was your pretext to induce him to come back here?'

'To hear tidings of his family and kindred.'

'Did you intimate to him that they were of rank and station?'

'Yes, of the very highest.'

'How did the news affect him?'

'It was hard at first to convince him that they could be true. He had, besides, been so often tricked and deceived by false intelligence, and made the sport of craftier heads, that it was difficult to win his confidence; nor did I succeed until I told him certain facts about his early life, whose correctness he acknowledged.'

'I had imagined him most unlike what I see. If Charles Edward had left a daughter she might have resembled this.'

'Still that very resemblance is of great value.'

'What signifies that a thing may look like gold, when at the first touch of the chemist's test it blackens and betrays itself?'

'He may be more of a Stuart even than he looks. It is too rash to judge of him as we see him now.'

'Be it so,' said the Pere, with a sort of resignation; 'but if I have not lost my skill in reading temperament, this youth is not to our purpose. At all events,' resumed he, more rapidly, 'his Eminence need not see him yet. Enough when I say that the fatigues of the road have brought on some fever, and that he is confined to bed. Within a week, or even less, I shall be able to p.r.o.nounce if we may employ him. I have no mind to hear your news to-night; this disappointment has unmanned me; but to-morrow, Carrol, to-morrow the day will be all our own, and I all myself. And so good-night, and good rest.'

<script>