Chap. V

Early the next morning the suffering party, their equipage being repaired enough to carry them to a town about five miles distant, proceeded thither, drawn by such horses as the peasants could furnish them with. The ladies had endured more from terror than from the water; but the children appeared to be restored; and as they went along, Madame de Rosenheim spoke of nothing but the gallantry and presence of mind that had been so fortunately exerted by the Chevalier D’Alonville. Madame D’Alberg said less; but appeared equally sensible of the obligations they all owed to the young stranger. The women were loquacious in his praise; and while they spoke of his merits, did not forget to dwell on his personal beauty. ‘Such a sweet young man!’ cried one of them! ‘Such a genteel pretty young man!’ echoed the other. Then ‘what an affectionate son! Poor dear gentleman, how he wept for his father! A good creature, I’ll answer for him.’ In making this eulogium on the living, these good women had lost all recollection of the dead; and the unfortunate almoner Heurthofen was as much forgotten as if he had been already buried seven years. He had never, indeed, been a great favourite in the family, though he had had lived in it some time. He was originally a dependant on a minister of state at Vienna, who, from an ancient attachment to his mother, or for some other reason, had educated him in France, the language of which country he spoke as well as his own; but his protector being displaced, his views of preferment had been disappointed. A situation of trust at the castle of Rosenheim, which his patron procured for him by his interest with the Baron, was, with a small annual stipend from the bounty of his first protector, thought an eligible post for him till something better occurred. Three years he had unwillingly submitted to bury, in the dull rotine of mere business in the Baron’s private establishment, talents which he thought entitled him to move in a very different 143sphere; when he was supposed to have ended his short career. The natural goodness of Madame de Rosenheim’s heart prompted her to think well of every body till they had given her some very good reasons to change her opinion. Heurthofen was not a man for whom she could feel much esteem; yet, as whatever his failings were, he had contrived to keep them from her observation, she contented herself with repressing the only fault she discovered in him, – a desire to govern and dictate in the absence of the Baron; and thought of him generally with her usual candour. His death therefore gave her very great concern, and more particularly as it seemed to have been owing to his having gone forward by her desire. Madame D’Alberg acquiesced in her mother’s expressions of pity; but with a degree of coldness, which seemed to say that she felt less for the death of Heurthofen than one would have supposed she would have done for that of a perfect stranger, perishing as it were, before her eyes. The spirits of the whole party revived on their reaching the town where it had been their intention to stop in their first day’s journey. There they prepared to pass the night. Madame de Rosenheim remarked with real uneasiness the looks of D’Alonville, who appeared absolutely sinking under the excessive fatigue of so many days of suffering and of exertion; and had just placed him by her at their early supper, and prevailed upon him to eat something, when one of the men-servants entered the room, and informed his lady, with more appearance of surprise than pleasure,^a that the almoner was alive, and coming up stairs. Heurthofen immediately entered, and was received by Madame de Rosenheim with great satisfaction. The rest of the party were silent, and listened to the narrative he gave of his escape, without seeming to take much interest in it; while the almoner, either from remarking this coldness, or because he really thought himself injured, continued to tell the miracles of his involuntary voyage, interlarding his narrative with the expressions of when I was thus abandoned – when thus I was left to struggle alone.^b – ‘In this distressed condition, without any hope of saving my life,’ said he, ‘I was carried down the stream, for some time, upon my horse. At length, collecting all my presence of mind, I imagined it would be best to abandon the animal, who was nearly exhausted. I disengaged myself then, and leaving him to his^c fate, as I had been before left to mine, I endeavoured by swimming, in which I was a tolerable proficient, to gain the shore; but the current into which I had thus inadvertently plunged, in obedience to your wishes, Madam, was too rapid for me; and imagine what were my sensations, when I heard the rush of waters, which I knew to be the torrent of a mill-stream!’ ‘It is singular,’ said Madame D’Alberg, ‘indeed, that, among this mighty rush of waters, you should distinguish the noise of a mill-stream from the stream you were struggling in.’ ‘Not at all, Madam,’ answered Heurthofen, ‘I was convinced I should be driven through the mill-race, and perhaps dashed to pieces. Succourless as I was, 144and enfeebled by having so long contended with the boiling torrent, I gave myself up for lost, when, as a last effort, I hallooed as loud as I could. Fortunately my voice was heard; a miller came forth with a lantern. He extended a pole towards me, on which I seized. With difficulty (for the man was less able than willing) I was dragged on shore. I mounted my horse.’ ‘Your horse!’ said Madame D’Alberg – ‘I thought he had been drowned in the first setting out.’ ‘No Madam,’ replied Heurthofen, ‘I did not say so; though he was left, it did not follow that he was drowned. He-he-swam ashore higher up; and was, I know not by whom, caught.’ ‘But would it not have been better,’ said Madame D’Alberg, ‘since you were so nearly exhausted, and had suffered so much – would it not have been better to have gone into the mill for refreshment?’ ‘I could not,’ replied Heurthofen, after a moment’s pause; ‘for no sooner had the man who had assisted me to the river’s boundary, and another who came to his aid, surveyed my figure, than they declared I was a spy; and they had some inclination to precipitate me again into the raging cataract!’ ‘A spy!’ cried Madame D’Alberg. ‘what extraordinary notions these people must have of spies, to imagine that one of them would proceed on his mission by water at such a time of night!’ ‘I cannot answer for their notions,’ said Heurthofen, ‘but I know, Madam, that owing to this absurd notion, I narrowly escaped greater inconveniences even than those I, had passed through.’ ‘Poor Heurthofen!’ said Madame de Rosenheim, who though she knew he was rodomontading, had compassion alike for his late escape and present confusion – ‘Poor Heurthofen! your perils do indeed seem to have been greater than ours.’ She good-naturedly wished to turn the conversation;²⁶ but her daughter was not disposed to let him off so easily. ‘Well, but inform us, Sir,’ said she, ‘since you have so far excited our curiosity, inform us if you please, how you got out of the hands of those injudicious persons.’ ‘I escaped them on horseback,’ replied Heurthofen, who had by this time recollected himself; ‘and making the best of my way from them, notwithstanding the impervious darkness of the night’ – ‘Nay, nay,’ cried the inexorable Madame D’Alberg, again interrupting him, ‘it was not so very dark neither; there was a moon, you know!’ ‘Nothing could be darker however,’ answered Heurthofen, ‘than were the woods into which I plunged.’ ‘To what purpose?’ enquired Madame D’Alberg. ‘In endeavouring to find my way back,’ replied he, ‘to the fatal place where I had left the coach, in the hope, feeble as I own it was, to save the family.’ ‘Ah! you were very kind indeed, Sir,’ answered the lady. ‘Fortunately for us, the Chevalier D’Alonville was near at hand, to whose activity and resolution we all owe our lives; which but for him would undoubtedly have been lost, before your plunging into woods and emerging out of boiling torrents would have permitted you to have come to our assistance.’ Heurthofen cast an angry and indignant look at D’Alonville; but what his mind suggested in answer to information evi 145dently unwelcome to him, he had not time to express; a servant at that moment entering the room, who said a person desired to speak to the Abbé Heurthofen. He was not much disposed to move; and enquired, rather peevishly, who could possibly have any business with him? The servant said the man looked like a miller; and Heurthofen, without farther hesitation, went down; Madame D’Alberg gravely remarking as he left the room, that she was afraid it might be one of the men who had mistaken him for a spy, and was now come in pursuit of him.