Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
So Dorothy sat, and waited in vain. The last drops of the day trickled
down the side of the world, the night filled the crystal globe from its
bottom of rock to its cover of blue aether, and the red glow of the
furnace was all that lighted the place. She waited and waited in her
mind; but Caspar did not come. She began to feel miserable. The furnace
fire sank, and the rush of the water grew slower and slower, and ceased.
Caspar did not come. The fire sank lower and lower, its red eye dimmed,
darkened, went out. Still Caspar did not come. Faint fears began to
gather about poor Dorothy's heart. It was clear at last that there she
must be all the night long, and who could tell how far into the morning?
It was good the night was warm, but it would be very dreary. And then to
be fixed in one position for so long! The thought of it grew in misery
faster than the thing itself. The greater torment lies always in the
foreboding. She felt almost as if she were buried alive. Having their
hands tied even, is enough to drive strong men almost crazy. Nor, firm
of heart as she was, did no evils of a more undefined and less
resistible character claim a share in her fast-rising apprehensions; she
began to discover that she too was assailable by the terror of the
night, although she had not hitherto been aware of it, no one knowing
what may lie unhatched in his mind, waiting the concurrence of vital
conditions.
But Dorothy was better able to bear up under such assaults than
thousands who believe nothing of many a hideous marvel commonly accepted
in her day; and anyhow the unavoidable must be encountered, if not with
indifference, yet with what courage may be found responsive to the call
of the will. So, with all her energy, a larger store than she knew, she
braced herself to endure. As to any attempt to make herself heard, she
knew from the first that was of doubtful result, and now must certainly
be of no avail when all but the warders were asleep. But to spend the
night thus was a far less evil than to be discovered by the staring
domestics, and exposed to the open merriment of her friends, and the
hidden mockery of her enemies. As to Caspar, she was certain of his
silence. So she sat on, like the lady in Comus, 'in stony fetters fixed
and motionless;' only, as she said to herself, there was no attendant
spirit to summon Caspar, who alone could take the part of Sabrina, and
'unlock the clasping charm.' Little did Dorothy think, as in her dreary
imprisonment she recalled that marvellous embodiment of unified strength
and tenderness, as yet unacknowledged of its author, that it was the
work of the same detestable fanatic who wrote those appalling
'Animadversions, &c.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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