Sir John Constantine by Prosper Paleologus Constantine

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"Closer!" she whispered. As I bent closer, she nestled her face
against it. "_La macchia! . . . la macchia!_"

With that last breath, drawing in the scent of it, she laid her head
slowly back, and slept.

The Bavarelli took it for granted that I would bury her in the
graveyard, down the valley. But I consulted with Brother Polifilo.
I argued that every high mountain-top by its very nature came within
the definition of consecrated ground; and after a show of reluctance
he accepted the heresy, on condition I allowed him first to visit the
spot chosen and recite the prayer of consecration over it.

We laid her in the coffin that Brother Polifilo brought, and carried
her to the summit of the mountain overlooking the pass, where the
rock had allowed us to dig the shallowest of graves. Beside it, when
the coffin was covered, I said good-bye to the Bavarelli and
dismissed them down the hill. They understood that I had yet a word
to speak to the good monk.

"One thing remains," I said, and showed him the crown with the five
empty settings, and the one diamond yet glittering in its band.

"Help me to build a cairn," said I.

So he helped me. We built a tall cairn, and I laid the crown within
it.

The sun was setting as we laid the last stone in place. We walked in
silence down to the pass, and there I shook hands with him by the
little chapel, and received his blessing before setting my face
northwards.

I dare say that he stood for a long while, watching me as I descended
the curves of the road. But I never once looked back until I had
crossed the valley, far below. The great peak rose behind me; and it
seemed to me that on its summit a diamond shone amongst the stars.

POSTSCRIPT.

BY GERVASE ARUNDEL.

July 15 (St. Swithun's), 1761.

My nephew has asked me to write the few words necessary to conclude
this narrative.

The day after my brother's burial, the _Gauntlet_, in company with
General Paoli's gunboat, _Il Sampiero_, weighed and left the island
of Giraglia for Isola Rossa, where by agreement we were to wait one
calendar month before sailing for England.

The foregoing pages will sufficiently explain why the month passed
without my nephew's putting in an appearance. For my part, albeit my
arguments had been powerless to dissuade him from going to Genoa, I
never expected him to return, but consoled myself with the knowledge
that he had gone to his fate in a good cause, and in a spirit not
unworthy of his father.

We were highly indebted during our stay at Isola Rossa to the
General, who, being detained there by the business of his new
fortifications, exerted himself that we should not lack a single
comfort, and seemed to inspire a like solicitude in his subjects.
I call the Corsicans his subjects since (if the reflection may be
permitted) I never met a man who carried a more authentic air of
kingliness--and I am not forgetting my own dear brother-in-law.
Alive, these two men met face to face but once; and Priske, who
witnessed the meeting, yet understood but a bare word or two of what
was said, will have it that for dignity of bearing the General would
not compare with his master. The honest fellow may be right; for
certainly no one could speak with John Constantine and doubt that
here was one of a line of kings. Nevertheless to me
(a matter-of-fact man), Paoli appeared scarcely less imposing in
person, and withal bore himself with a businesslike calm which, in a
subtle way I cannot describe, seemed to tolerate the others, yet
suggest that, beside his own purpose, theirs were something unreal.
As an Englishman I should say that he felt the weight of public
opinion behind him all the while, without which in these days the
kingliest nature must miss something of gravity. Yet he has proved
more than once that no public man can be more quixotic, upon
occasion.

It distressed me to find that the Queen Emilia would have none of his
courtesies; as I think it distressed him, though he comported himself
perfectly. She rejected, and not too graciously, his offer to
restore her to her palace at Casalabriva and secure her there against
all enemies. From the first she had determined, failing her son's
return, to sail with us to England; and sail she did.

But from the first I doubted her reaching it alive. Her sufferings
had worn her out, and it is a matter of dispute between Dom Basilio
(who administered the last sacrament), and me whether or no her eyes
ever saw the home to which we carried her. They were open, and she
was certainly breathing, when we made the entrance of Helford river;
for we had lifted her couch upon deck and propped her that she might
catch the earliest glimpse of Constantine above the trees. They were
open when we dropped anchor, but she was as certainly dead. She lies
buried in the private chapel of the house, disused during my
brother-in-law's lifetime, but since restored and elaborately
decorated by our Trappist guests. A slab of rose-pink Corsican
granite covers her, and is inscribed with the words, "Orate pro anima
Emiliae, Corsicorum Reginae," the date of her death, and beneath it a
verse which I took to be from the Vulgate until Parson Grylls
quarrelled with Dom Basilio over it--

"CRAS AMET QVI NVNQVAM AMAVIT QVIQVE AMAVIT CRAS AMET."

As I have said, I had parted with all hope to see my nephew again:
and it but confirmed my despair when I received a letter from General
Paoli with news that the Prince Camillo had been assassinated; for
neither his sister nor Prosper had said word to me of the young man's
treachery, and I concluded that they had bound themselves to rescue
him, an unwilling prisoner. In our last brief leave-taking on the
island, Prosper had confided to me certain wishes of his concerning
the house at Constantine, and the disposal of his estate; wishes of
which I need only say here that they obliged me after a certain
interval to get his death "presumed" (as the phrase is), and for that
purpose to ride up to London and seek counsel with our lawyer, Mr.
Knox.

I arrived in London early in the second week of November, 1760--a
few days after the decease of our King George II.; and, my business
with Mr. Knox drawing to a conclusion, it came into my head to
procure a ticket and go visit the Prince's chamber, near the House of
Peers, where his Majesty's body lay in state. This was on the very
afternoon of the funeral, that would start for the Abbey after
nightfall, and at Westminster I found a throng already gathered in
the mud and murk. In the _chambre ardente_, which was hung with
purple, a score of silver lamps depended from the roof around a tall
purple canopy, under which the corpse reposed in its open coffin,
flanked with six immense silver candelabra. Between the candelabra
and at the head and foot of the coffin stood six gigantic soldiers of
the guard, rigid as statues, with bowed heads and arms reversed.
Only their eyes moved, and I dare say that I stared at them in
something like terror. Certainly a religious awe held me as the
pressure of the sightseers carried me forth from the doors again and
into the street, where I wedged myself into the crowd, and waited for
the procession. By this time a fog had rolled up from the river, and
the foot-guards who lined the road had begun to light their torches.
Behind them were drawn up the horse-guards, their officers erect in
saddle, with naked sabres and heavy scarves of crape. There amid the
sounds of minute guns, and of bells tolling I must have waited a full
hour before the procession came by--the fifes, the muffled drums, the
yeomen of the guard staggering with the great coffin, the
pall-bearers and peers walking two and two, with pages bearing their
heavy trains. All this I watched as it went by, and with a mind so
shaken that a hand from behind had plucked twice or thrice at my
elbow before I was aware that any one claimed my attention.
Then, turning with a moisture in my eyes--for the organ had begun to
sound within the abbey--I found myself staring past the torch of a
foot-guard and into the face of my nephew, risen from the dead!
He was haggard, unkempt in his hair and dress, and (I think) had been
fasting for a long while without being aware of his hunger. He drew
me back and away from the crowd; but when I had embraced him, it
seemed that to all my eager questions he had nothing to answer.

"I was starting for Cornwall, to-morrow," he said. "Shall we travel
together?" And then, as though painfully recollecting, he passed a
hand over his forehead and added, "I have walked half-way across
Europe. I am a good walker by this time."

"We will hire horses, to be sure," said I, finding nothing better to
say.

The age, the lines in his young face cut me to the heart, and I
longed to ask concerning the Princess, but dared not.

"Horses? Ah, yes, to be sure, I come back to riches. Nay, my dear
uncle, you are going to tell me that the estates are mortgaged deep
as ever--I know. But allow me to tell you there is all the world's
difference between poverty that is behindhand with its interest, and
poverty that has to trust God for its next meal."

At the eating-house to which I carried him he held out his scarred
palms to me across the table.

"They have worked my way for me from the Alps," said he. "I left my
crown there, and"--he laughed wearily--"I come back to find another
monarch in the act of laying aside a greater one. My God!
The vanity of it!"

He drank off a glass of wine. "Find me a bed, Uncle Gervase," said
he. "I feel that I can sleep the clock round."

We rode out of London next day. He started in a fret to be home, but
this impatience declined by the way, and by the time we crossed Tamar
had sunk to a lethargy. Sore was I to mark the dull gaze he lifted
(by habit) at the corner of the road where Constantine comes into
view; and sorer the morning after, when, having put gun into his hand
and packed him off with Diana, the old setter, at his heel, I met him
an hour later returning dejectedly to the house. For the next three
or four months he went listless as a man dragging a wounded limb.
But since spring brought back rod and angle, I think and pray that
the voice of running water (best medicine in Nature) begins to cure
him. He has written the foregoing narrative in a hot fit which,
while it lasted, more than once kept his lamp burning till daybreak;
and although the last chapter was no sooner finished than he flung
the whole away in disgust. I have hopes of him. I may even live to
see a child running about these silent terraces . . . But this, my
dearest wish, outruns all present indications; and if Prosper ever
marries again it will be as his father married, and not for love.[1]

By good fortune I am able to supply the reader with some later news
of two members of the expedition, Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock. It came
to me, early this summer, in the following letter:--

_To Gervase Arundel, Esq., of Constantine in Cornwall, England_.

"Venice.
Ash Wednesday (4.30 a.m.), 1761.

"Excellent Sir,

"I take up my pen, and lay aside the false nose I have been
wearing night and day for close on a week, to make a
communication which will doubtless interest you as it has
profoundly affected me. It will also interest your nephew and
his lady (whose hands I kiss) if they succeeded in effecting
their escape to England--where, failing news of them, I do
myself a frequent pleasure to picture them at rest upon the
quiet waters of domestic felicity. But I address myself rather
to you, whom (albeit on the briefest acquaintance) I shall ever
regard as the personification of stability and mild repose.
Heracleitus and his followers may prate of a world of flux; but
there are men to whom the recollections of their fellows ever
turn confidently, secure of finding them in the same place; and
of such, sir, you are the palmary example among my
acquaintance.

"On the circumstances of our retreat from Genoa I need not
dilate. We decamped--I and my brother _artistes_--to Pisa,
where, after an unsatisfactory season, we broke up our company
by mutual consent and went our various ways in search of
fortune. Mr. Badcock--by this time a pantaloon of considerable
promise and not to be sneezed at in senile parts where
affection or natural decay required, or at least excused, a
broken accent--threw in his lot with me: and we bent our steps
together upon this unique city, where for close upon twelve
months I have drawn a respectable salary as Director of Public
Festivities to the Sisterhood of the Conventual Body of Santa
Chiara. Nor is the post a sinecure; since these estimable
women, though themselves vowed against earthly delights,
possess a waterside garden which, periodically--and especially
in the week preceding Lent--they throw open to the public; a
practice from which they derive unselfish pleasure and a useful
advertisement.

"On Thursday last, the Giovedi Grasso, the Abbess had (in
consultation with me) provided an entertainment which not only
attracted the rank and fashion of Venice but (I will dare to
say) made them forget the exhaustion of the maddest day of
carnival with its bull-baiting and battles of _confetti_.
An hour before midnight all Venice had taken to its gondolas
and was being swept, with song and music, towards the Giudecca.
The lagoons swam with the reflections of a thousand moving
lanterns, and all their streaming ribbons of light converged
upon the bridge of Santa Chiara, beyond which, where the
gardens descended in stairways of marble to the water, I had
lined the banks with coloured lamps. Discreet narrow
water-alleys, less flauntingly lit, but with here and there a
caged nightingale singing in the boscage, intersected the
sisters' pleasure-grounds; but the main canal led around an
ample stretch of turf in the midst of which my workmen had
reared a stage for a masque of my composing, entitled _The Rape
of Helen_. Badcock, who was to enact the part of Menelaus, had
at my request attired himself early, for some few of my
nightingales were young birds and not to be depended on, and I
had an idea of concealing him in the shrubberies to supply a
_flauto obbligato_ while our guests arrived. I had interrupted
my instructions to despatch him on some small errand connected
with the coloured fires, and he had scarcely disappeared among
the laurels, when along the path came strolling two figures I
recognized as fellow-countrymen--the young Lord Algernon
Shafto, of the English embassy, and his mother's brother, the
Venerable John Kynaston Worley, Archdeacon of Wells.
Lord Algernon wore a domino. His uncle (I need scarcely say)
had made no innovation upon the laced hat and gaiters proper to
his archidiaconal rank--though it is likely enough that the
Venetians found this costume as eccentric as any in the throng.
He had arrived in the city a bare week before; and walked with
an arm paternally thrust in his nephew's, while he made
acquaintance with the luxurious frivolities of a Venetian
carnival.

"As they passed me I stooped to trim the peccant wick of one of
the many lamps disposed like glowworms along the path: but a
moment later their voices told me that my countrymen had found
a seat a few paces away, in an arbour whence, by the rays of a
paper lantern which overhung it, they could observe the
passers-by.

"'A wonderful nation,' the Archdeacon was saying, in that
resonant voice of which the well-connected among the Anglican
clergy (and their wives) alone possess the secret. 'I may tell
you, my dear lad, that this visit to Venice has been a dream of
my life, cherished though long deferred. I had not your
advantages when I was a young man. The Grand Tour was denied
me; and a country curacy with an increasing family promised to
remove the realization of my dream to the Greek Kalends.
But in all those years I never quite lost sight of it.
There is a bull-dog tenacity in us British: and still from time
to time I renewed the promise to myself that, should I survive
my dear wife--as I hoped to do--'

"Here, having trimmed my lantern, I straightened myself up to
find that Mr. Badcock had returned and was standing behind my
shoulder. To my amazement he was trembling like an aspen.

"'Hush!' said he, when I would have asked what ailed him.

"I listened. I suppose Lord Algernon responded with a polite
hope that Venice fulfilled his uncle's long expectation: but I
could not catch the words.

"'Entirely so,' was the reply. 'I may even say that it surpasses
them. Such an experience enlarges the mind, the--er--outlook.
And if a man of sixty can confess so much, how happy should you
be, my dear Algy, to have received these impressions at _your_
age! Yet, my dear lad, remember they are of value only when
received upon a previous basis of character. The ladies, for
instance, who own these delightful grounds . . . doubtless they
are devout, in their way, but in a way how far removed from
those God-fearing English traditions which one day, as a
landlord among your tenantry and to that extent responsible for
the welfare of dependent souls, it will be yours to foster!'

"Here, warned by a choking cry, I put out a hand to catch Mr.
Badcock by the sleeve of his pallium: but too late! With a wild
gesture he broke loose from me and plunged down the pergola
towards the arbour, at the entrance of which he flung himself
on his knees.

"'Oh, sir!' he panted, abasing himself and stretching forth both
hands to the archidiaconal gaiters. 'Oh, sir, have pity!
Teach me to be saved!'

"The Archdeacon (I will say) after the momentary shock rose to
the occasion like a sportsman. A glance sufficed to assure him
that the poor creature was in earnest, and with great presence
of mind he felt in his pocket for a visiting-card.

"'Certainly, my good fellow, certainly . . . if you will call on
me to-morrow at my lodgings . . . two doors from the
embassy. . . . Dear me, how provoking! Would you mind,
Algernon, lending me one of your cards? I remember now leaving
mine on the dressing-table.'

"He fished out a pencil, took the card his nephew proffered and,
having written down name and address, handed it to Badcock.

"'The door of grace, my friend, stands ever open to him who
knocks. . . . Shall we say at ten-thirty to-morrow morning?
Yes, yes, a very convenient hour for me, if you have no
objection? Farewell, then, until to-morrow!' With a
benedictory wave of the hand he linked arms with Lord Algernon
and strolled away down the walk.

"'Badcock,' said I, stepping forward and clapping a hand on his
shoulder. 'Hark to the gong calling you to the masque!'

"But the creature stood as in a trance. 'His signature!' he
answered in an awed whisper. 'The Archdeacon of Wells's own
signature, and upon Lord Algernon's card!'--and I declare to
you that he fell to kissing the pasteboard ecstatically.

"Well, he was past all reason. Luckily, having written it, I
had his part by rote; and so, snatching his Menelaus' wig and
beard, I ran towards the theatre.

"That, sir, is all my tale. The man is lost to me. He left
Venice yesterday in the Archdeacon's carriage, but in what
precise capacity--whether as valet, secretary, or courier--he
would not impart. He told me, however, that his salary was
sufficient, if not ample, and that he had undertaken as a
repentant sinner to make himself generally useful.
The Archdeacon, it appears, is collecting evidence in
particular of the horrors of a Continental Sabbath.

"Addio, sir! For me, I have now parted with the last of my
comrades, yet my resolution remains unshaken. On this sacred
soil, where so many before me have cultivated the Arts, I will
do more. I will make them pay. Meanwhile I beg you to accept
my sincere regards, and to believe me

"Your obliged, obedient servant,

"Phineas Fett."

William Priske has espoused Mrs. Nance, our good housekeeper; I
believe upon her own advice.

The Trappists (sixteen in number) yet dwell with us, and the left
wing of Constantine has been reserved for their use. They have
deserved our gratitude, though, out of respect for their rules, I
could never convey it to them in words. Indeed, it is but seldom
that I get speech even with Dom Basilio. Sometimes when his walk
leads him by the river-bank where I stand a-fishing he will seat
himself for a while and watch; and then I find a comfort in his
presence, as though we conversed together without help of speech.
Then also, though my reason disapprove of our guest's rigour, an
inward voice tells me that there is good in their religion, as
perchance there is good wherever men have found anchorage for their
souls.

I remember once listening in our summer-house, upon St. Swithun's
feast, while my dear brother-in-law disputed with Mr. Grylls upon
action and contemplation--which of them was the properer end of man.
I thought then that each of them, though they talked up and down and
at large, was in truth defending his own temperament: and, because I
loved them both, that neither needed defending. For my own part, the
small daily cares of Constantine have stolen away from me, not
altogether unhappily, the time of choosing, and I ask now but to
follow that counsel of the Apostle wherewith my master Walton closed
his book, and "Study to be Quiet."

G.A.

[1] Here--for it scarcely appears in the narrative--let me say that
my sister was an exemplary wife and, while fate spared her, a devoted
mother. I knew my brother-in-law for a great man, incapable of a
thought or action less than kingly, and I worshipped him (as Ben
Jonson would say) "on this side idolatry"; but if the Constantines
have a fault, it is that they demand too much of life, and exact it
somewhat too much as a matter of course. I have heard this fault
attributed to other great men.--G.A.

FINIS

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