Lord Montagu's Page. G. P. R. James

turning sharply toward Tom. "I will be up at your house, sir, by five, and hope the young gentleman will let me go, for I am tired of this voyage."

      The following morning, at daybreak, the little craft got under way, bearing a letter in Clement Tournon's hand; and Edward Langdale remained alone in France.

CHAPTER VII.

       Table of Contents

      Oh, the calm lapses in the turbulent and turbid stream of life which Heaven sometimes graciously affords us—the short breathing-spaces in the race—the still pauses in the battle—how sweet, how comforting they are! Such a pause had fallen upon the city of Rochelle and all its inhabitants. True, there were individual griefs and sufferings: the door of the closet with the skeleton in it can never be altogether shut. But to the city generally, and to its denizens generally, there was a lull in the storm. It was nowhere more pleasantly felt than in the house of good old Clement Tournon. He was a calm—a very calm—man; had been so all his life. He had met with sorrows which had touched him deeply; but he had borne them calmly. He had known pleasures; but he had enjoyed them calmly. He had mingled with angry parties, and seen strife and blood-shed; but he had been calm through all; and that very calmness—which, by-the-way, is one of the most impressive qualities in regard to our fellow-men which any one can possess—had won for him great reverence upon the part of his neighbors.

      Young Edward Langdale, too, shared in the temporary tranquillity. "Sweet are the uses of adversity." It is a good text, and a true one also, if we use the adversity wisely; but sometimes we do not; and, although Master Ned had known more adversity than most youths of his age, we must acknowledge that he had found it all very severe, and had not had wisdom enough to discover honey in the stony rock. He had been hardened, sharpened, rendered stern, in the rough school through which he had passed. His character must have seemed to the reader somewhat harsh and remorseless; at least so I intended it to appear. But he had now suffered a long and heavy sickness: his frame was still feeble; his activity, for the time at least, was lost; and some traits in his character which seemed to have been smothered by coarser things revived and shone out. There was a latent poetry in his nature, a love and appreciation of all that was beautiful, a sense of harmony, and a delight in music, together with those strong affections which are so often combined with strength of character. These, in the body's feebleness, asserted their power. Strange how the corporeal and the mental wage such continual warfare upon each other! But even at times when the bodily force and the strong will had possessed the most perfect sway, and given him command and rule over men much older and higher than himself, those qualities of heart and mind, though latent, had acted unseen to win affection also.

      Six days after his arrival in Rochelle, the little saloon in Clement Tournon's house presented as calm and pleasant a scene as ever the eye rested upon. There was the old man himself, with his small velvet cap upon his head; and there was Master Ned, leaning back in a large chair, with the hue of returning health coming back into his cheek—always a pleasant sight; and there was beautiful Lucette, who had just been singing to the two, and who was now sitting on a low footstool, with her fair, delicate hand resting on the head of a lute. A beautiful silver lamp, with three burners—modelled from those graceful lamps which we see in the hands of the Tuscan peasantry—gave light to the chamber; for the wax tapers in two exquisitely-wrought candlesticks had been extinguished to save the eyes of Master Ned from the glare; and a water-pitcher and goblet, finely shaped from the antique and covered with grotesque figures, stood on a little table at the youth's left hand, to cool his lips, still dry and hot from his recent illness.

      The eyes of Edward Langdale were fixed upon those specimens of the old syndic's art, and he was expressing his admiration of the delicacy and fineness of the designs, when Lucette observed, quietly, "He has much more beautiful things than those, Master Ned. I wish, father, I might bring and show him the pyx that was sent from Rome."

      "Do so, my child," said Tournon. "And hark, Lucette——"

      He whispered a word in the young girl's ear, and she left the room, but returned in a minute or two, bringing with her two objects in soft leathern covers—one of which was a pyx, probably from the hands of Benvenuto Cellini.

      Edward took it from her hands and admired it greatly, gazing at the various curious arabesques with which it was decorated, and at the medallions displaying exquisitely-chiselled figures, while the old syndic untied the other cover, and took forth a large cup, or hanap, of pure gold, ornamented by a row of precious stones encircling it in a sort of garland, which again was supported by some beautiful sculptured figures. Master Ned rose feebly to lay the pyx upon the table, but the moment his eyes lighted on the cup he stood still, gazing at it as if sight had suspended every other faculty. "Good Heaven!" he exclaimed, at length, addressing the merchant, who was watching him closely: "where did you get that?"

      "I bought it some four years ago, when I was in England," answered Clement Tournon. "Something seems to surprise you. Did you ever see it before?"

      "See it!" exclaimed Master Ned. "Yes, often, my good friend—ay, several times every year, since I could see any thing, till just four years ago last Martinmas. Every birthday—every festival-day—it was brought forth; for it must be the same. Oh, yes! Is there not 'Edward Langdale' engraved on one side of the foot, and 'Buckley Hall' upon the other?"

      "There is," said the syndic; "and that is the very reason I told Lucette to bring it. I wished to ask you if you are any relation of those Langdales of Buckley Hall. Edward Langdale! The two names are the same."

      "They are, indeed," said Master Ned. "That cup is mine, my good friend: at least, it ought to be—it and much more which is now lost to me forever."

      "If it ought to be, it is thine still, my son," said the old syndic. "Now, God forbid that I should withhold the rightful property of another! But tell us how all this happened. Let me hear what you can recollect of your own life and fate. I know something of Buckley Hall, for it was in Huntingdon that I bought that cup. I would not purchase it at first, because I thought it was stolen—most likely from the court of King James, who was then at Royston; but the goldsmith who had it told me that he had bought it fairly from Master Richard Langdale, the owner, and showed me a receipt for the money. I would fain hear how all this happened."

      "Not to-night; not to-night," answered the youth. "The sight of that cup has shaken me much, my father; and to speak of those days would shake me still more in my weak state. To-morrow I shall be stronger, I trust; and then I will tell you all. I have often thought it would do me good if I were to talk over the whole of those sad things with some one; for they only seem to rankle and fester in the silence of my own bosom, and to make me reckless and ill-tempered. But I must get a little better and stronger first. Now I think I will go to bed."

      He turned to go, but then paused, and, taking up the cup, gazed at it earnestly for several minutes, saying, "I was just nine years old when my father had my name engraved on it and gave it to me on my birthday, bidding me never to fill it too full nor empty it too often."

      "Wise counsel," said the old man; "but, if it be thine, take it, my son. I am not a receiver of stolen goods."

      "No," said Edward Langdale. "You knew not that he who sold it had no right to do so; neither did he from whom you purchased it. Orphans are often wronged, Monsieur Tournon; but I ought not to have been wronged by him who wronged me. Well, to-morrow we will talk more of all these matters."

      A little after nightfall on the following day, the same three sat together in the same room. There had been no music, however, that evening; and Lucette was leaning her fair head upon the old merchant's knee. Edward Langdale was evidently stronger and better—though he said he had slept but little. Yet there was more color in his cheek and lips, and his face and air had more their usual character of bold decisive frankness, than on the preceding night.

      "Now I will tell you my whole story," he said, "beginning with my earliest recollections. Indeed, there is not much to tell, and it may be done very shortly."

      MASTER