St. George and St. Michael, Volume 2MacDonald, George
History
St. George and St. Michael, Volume 2
MacDonald, George
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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