Richard Blackmore - Alice Lorraine - A Tale of the South Downs

The Ring, as of old, is a height of vantage for searching all the country round with a telescope on a breezy day. It is the salient point and foreland of a long ridge of naked hills, crowned with darker eminence by a circle of storm-huddled trees. But when the astrologer Agasicles made his principal night-haunt here, the Ring was not overhung with trees, but only outlined by them; and the rampart of the British camp (if such it were) was more distinct, and uninvaded by planters. So that here was the very place for a quiet sage to make his home, sweeping a long horizon and secure from interruption. To such a citadel of science, guarded by the fame of ghosts, even his daughter Artemise, or his trusty servant Memel, would scarce dare to follow him; much less any of the peasants, who, from the lowland, seeing a distant light, crossed themselves; for that fine old custom flourished still among them. Therefore, here his tent was pitched, and here he spent the nights in gazing, and often the days in computation, not for himself, but for his descendants; until his frame began to waste, and his great dark eyes grew pale with it.

Artemise, and all around the prince, had been alarmed of late by many little symptoms. He always had been rashly given to take no heed of his food or clothes; but now he went beyond all that, and would have no one take heed for him, or dare to speak of the matter much. Hence, without listening to any nonsense, all the women were sure of one thing – the prince was wearing himself away.

The country people who knew him, and loved him with a little mystery, said it was no wonder that he should worry himself, for being so long away from home, in manners, and in places also. “Sure it must be a trial for him; out all night in the damp and fog; and he no sense of breeches!”

There was much of truth in this, no doubt, as well as much outside it. Yet none of them could enter into his peculiar state of mind. So that he often reproached himself for having been rude, but could not help it. Every one made allowance for him, as Englishmen do for a foreigner, as being of a somewhat lower order, in many ways, in creation. Yet with a mixture of mind about it, they admired him more and more.

The largeness of his nature still was very conspicuous in this, – he never brought his telescope to bear on his own planet. His heart was reaching so far forward into future ages, that he strove to follow downwards nine or ten entails of stars. To know what was to become of all that were to be descended from him; a highly interesting, but also a deeply exhausting question. This perpetual effort told very hard upon his constitution, for nothing less than fatal worry could have so impaired his native grace and lofty courtesy.

Yet before his sudden end, a softer and more genial star was culminant one evening. When one’s time comes to be certain – whether by earthly senses, or by influence of heaven – of the buoyant balance turning, and the slender span outspun, tender thinkings, and kind wishes, flow to the good side of us. Through this power, the petty troubles, and the crooked views of life, and the ambition to make others better than we care to be, and every other little turn of wholesome self-deception – these drop off, and leave us sinking into a sense of having lived, and made a humble thing of it.

Whether this be so or not, upon the 18th day of June in the year 1611, Prince Agasicles came home rather hot, and very tired, and fain for a little sleep, if such there were, to wear out weariness. But still he had heavy work left for that night; as a mighty comet had lately appeared, and scared the earth abundantly; yet now he had two or three hours to spare, and they might as well be happy ones. Therefore he sent for his daughter to come, and see to his food and such like, and then to sit with him some few minutes, and to watch the sunset.

Artemise, still young and lovely, knew of course, from Eastern wisdom, that woman’s right is to do no wrong. So that she came at once when called, and felt as a mother ought to feel, that she multiplied her obedience vastly, by bringing all her children. Being in a soft state of mind, the old man was glad to see them all, and let them play with him as freely as childhood’s awe of white hair allowed. Then he laid his hand upon Roger, the heir of the house, and blessed him on his way to bed; and after that he took his supper, waited on by Artemise, who was very grateful for his kindness to her children. So that she brought him the right thing, exactly at the right moment, without overcrowding him; and then she poured him sparkling wine, and comforted his weary feet, and gave him a delicious pipe of Persian meconopsis, free from the bane of opium, yet more dreamy than tobacco. Also she sprinkled round him delicate attar of the Vervain (sprightlier and less oppressive than the scent of roses), until his white beard ceased to flutter, and the strong lines of his face relaxed into soft drowsiness.

Observing thence the proper time when sweet sleep was encroaching, and haste, and heat, and sudden temper were as far away as can be from a man of Eastern blood, Artemise, his daughter, touched him with the smile which he used to love, when she was two years old and upward; and his thoughts without his knowledge flew back to her mother.

“Father to me, father dearest,” she was whispering to him, in the native tongue which charms the old, as having lulled their cradles; “father to me, tell what trouble has together fallen on you in this cold and foreign land.”

Melody enough was still remaining, in the most melodious of all mortal languages, for a child to move a father into softer memories, at the sound of ancient music thus revived, and left to dwell.

“Child of my breast,” the prince replied, in the very best modern Hellenic, “a strong desire to sleep again hath overcome mine intellect.”

“Thus is it the more suited, father, for discourse with such as mine. Let your little one share the troubles of paternal wisdom.”

Suasion more than this was needed, and at every stage forthcoming, more skilfully than English words or even looks could render, ere ever the paternal wisdom might be coaxed to unfold itself; and even so it was not disposed to be altogether explicit.

“Ask me no more,” he said at last; “enough that I foresee great troubles overhanging this sad house.”

“Oh, father, when, and how, and what? How shall we get over them, and why should we encounter them? And will my husband or my children – ”

The prince put up one finger as if to say, “Ask one thing at a time,” the while he ceased not to revolve many and sad counsels in his venerable head; and in his gaze deep pity mingled with a father’s pride and love. Then he spoke three words in a language which she did not comprehend, but retained their sound, and learned before her death that they meant this – “Knowledge of trouble trebles it.”

“Now best-loved father,” she exclaimed, perceiving that his face was set to tell her very little, “behold how many helpless ones depend upon my knowledge of the evils I must shield them from. It is – nay, by your eyes – it is the little daughter whom you always cherished with such love and care, who now is the cause of a mind perplexed, as often she has been to you. Father, let not our affairs lay such burden on your mind, but spread them out and lighten it. Often, as our saying hath it, oftentimes the ear of folly is the purse for wisdom’s gems.”

“I hesitate not, I doubt no longer. I do not divide my mind in twain. The wisdom of them that come after me carries off and transcends mine own, as a mountain doth a half-peck basket. Wherefore, my daughter, Artemise, wife of the noble Englishman with whom she ran away from Caria, and mother of my five grandchildren, she is worthy to know all that I have learned from heaven; ay, and she shall know it all.”