第103章 MEDITATIONS.(2)

Daylight found me--and no wonder--still diverting myself with these charming speculations;which had for me,be it remembered,all the force of novelty.The sun chanced to rise that morning in a clear sky,and brilliantly for the time of year;and words fail me when I look back,and try to describe how delicately this single fact enhanced my pleasure!I sunned myself in the beams,which penetrated my barred window;and tasting the early freshness with a keen and insatiable appetite,I experienced to the full that peculiar aspiration after goodness which Providence allows such moments to awaken in us in youth;but rarely when time and the camp have blunted the sensibilities.

I had not yet arrived at the stage at which difficulties have to be reckoned up,and the chief drawback to the tumult of joy Ifelt took the shape of regret that my mother no longer lived to feel the emotions proper to the time,and to share in the prosperity which she had so often and so fondly imagined.

Nevertheless,I felt myself drawn closer to her.I recalled with the most tender feelings,and at greater leisure than had before been the case,her last days and words,and particularly the appeal she had uttered on mademoiselle's behalf.And I vowed,if it were possible,to pay a visit to her grave before leaving the neighbourhood,that I might there devote a few moments to the thought of the affection which had consecrated all women in my eyes.

I was presently interrupted in these reflections by a circumstance which proved in the end diverting enough,though far from reassuring at the first blush.It began in a dismal rattling of chains in the passage below and on the stairs outside my room;which were paved,like the rest of the building,with stone.I waited with impatience and some uneasiness to see what would come of this;and my surprise may be imagined when,the door being unlocked,gave entrance to a man in whom I recognised on the instant deaf Mathew--the villain whom I had last seen with Fresnoy in the house in the Rue Valois.Amazed at seeing him here,I sprang to my feet in fear of some treachery,and for a moment apprehended that the Provost-Marshal had basely given me over to Bruhl's custody.But a second glance informing me that the man was in irons--hence the noise I had heard--I sat down again to see what would happen.

It then appeared,that he merely brought me my breakfast,and was a prisoner in less fortunate circumstances than myself;but as he pretended not to recognise me,and placed the things before me in obdurate silence,and I had no power to make him hear,I failed to learn how he came to be in durance.The Provost-Marshal,however,came presently to visit me,and brought me in token that the good-fellowship of the evening still existed a pouch of the Queen's herb;which I accepted for politeness'sake rather than from any virtue I found in it.And from him I learned how the rascal came to be in his charge.