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    Transcriber’s Notes:

    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
    possible, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and
    punctuation. Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been
    made. They are listed at the end of the text. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. MELMOTH
  THE
  WANDERER:
  A
  TALE. BY THE AUTHOR OF “BERTRAM,” &c.

  IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. IV. EDINBURGH:
  PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY,
  AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. CHEAPSIDE,
  LONDON. 1820. MELMOTH. CHAPTER XXIII. If he to thee no answer give,
      I’ll give to thee a sign;
    A secret known to nought that live,
      Save but to me and mine. * * * * *

    Gone to be married.------

    SHAKESPEARE. “The whole of the next day was occupied by Donna Clara, to whom
letter-writing was a rare, troublesome, and momentous task, in reading
over and correcting her answer to her husband’s letter; in which
examination she found so much to correct, interline, alter, modify,
expunge, and new-model, that finally Donna Clara’s epistle very much
resembled the work she was now employed in, namely, that of
_overcasting_ a piece of tapestry wrought by her grandmother,
representing the meeting of king Solomon and the queen of Sheba. The new
work, instead of repairing, made fearful havock among the old; but Donna
Clara went on, like her countryman at Mr Peter’s puppet-show, playing
away (with her needle) in a perfect shower of back-strokes,
fore-strokes, side-thrusts, and counter-thrusts, till not a figure in
the tapestry could know himself again. The faded face of Solomon was
garnished with a florid beard of scarlet silk (which Fra Jose at first
told her she must rip out, as it made Solomon very little better than
Judas) that made him resemble a boiled scallop. The fardingale of the
queen of Sheba was expanded to an enormous hoop, of whose shrunk and
pallid wearer it might be truly said, “_Minima est pars sui_.” The dog
that, in the original tapestry, stood by the spurred and booted heel of
the oriental monarch, (who was clad in Spanish costume), by dint of a
few tufts of black and yellow satin, was converted into a tiger,--a
transformation which his grinning fangs rendered as authentic as heart
could wish. And the parrot perched on the queen’s shoulder, with the
help of a train of green and gold, which the ignorant mistook for her
majesty’s mantle, proved a very passable peacock.”

“As little trace of her original epistle did Donna Clara’s present one
bear, as did her elaborate overcasting to the original and painful
labours of her grandmother. In both, however, Donna Clara (who scorned
to flinch) went over the same ground with dim eye, and patient touch,
and inextinguishable and remorseless assiduity. The letter, such as it
was, was still sufficiently characteristic of the writer. Some passages
of it the reader shall be indulged with,--and we reckon on his gratitude
for not insisting on his perusal of the whole. The authentic copy, from
which we are favoured with the extracts, runs thus. * * * * * * * *

“Your daughter takes to her religion like mother’s milk; and well may
she do so, considering that the trunk of our family was planted in the
genuine soil of the Catholic church, and that every branch of of it must
flourish there or perish. For a Neophyte, (as Fra Jose wills me to word
it), she is as promising a sprout as one should wish to see flourishing
within the pale of the holy church;--and for a heathen, she is so
amenable, submissive, and of such maidenly suavity, that for the
comportment of her person, and the discreet and virtuous ordering of her
mind, I have no Christian mother to envy. Nay, I sometimes take pity on
them, when I see the lightness, the exceeding vain carriage, and the
unadvised eagerness to be wedded, of the best trained maidens of our
country. This our daughter hath nothing of, either in her outward
demeanour, or inward mind. She talks little, _therefore she cannot think
much_; and she dreams not of the light devices of love, and is therefore
well qualified for the marriage proposed unto her. * * * * * * * *

“One thing, dear spouse of my soul, I would have thee to take notice of,
and guard like the apple of thine eye,--our daughter is deranged, but
never, on thy discretion, mention this to Don Montilla, even though he
were the descendant in the right line of the Campeador, or of Gonsalvo
di Cordova. Her derangement will in no wise impede or contravene her
marriage,--for be it known to thee, it breaks out but at times, and at
such times, that the most jealous eye of man could not spy it, unless he
had a foretaught intimation of it. She hath strange fantasies swimming
in her brain, such as, that heretics and heathens shall not be
everlastingly damned--(God and the saints protect us!) --which must
clearly proceed from madness,--but which her Catholic husband, if ever
he comes to the knowledge of them, shall know how to expel, by aid of
the church, and conjugal authority. That thou may’st better know the
truth of what I hereby painfully certify, the saints and Fra Jose (who
will not let me tell a lie, because he in a manner holds my pen) can
witness, that about four days before we left Madrid, as we went to
church, and I was about, while ascending the steps, to dole alms to a
mendicant woman wrapt in a mantle, who held up a naked child for the
receiving of charity, your daughter twitched my sleeve, while she
whispered, ‘Madam, she cannot be mother to that child, for she is
covered, and her child is naked. If she were its mother, she would cover
her child, and not be comfortably wrapt herself.’ True it was, I found
afterwards the wretched woman had hired the child from its more wretched
mother, and my alms had paid the price of its hire for the day; but
still that not a whit disproved our daughter insane, inasmuch as it
showed her ignorant of the fashion and usages of the beggars of the
country, and did in some degree shew a doubt of the merit of alms-deeds,
which thou know’st none but heretics or madmen could deny. Other and
grievous proofs of her insanity doth she give daily; but not willing to
incumber you with ink, (which Fra Jose willeth me to call _atramentum_),
I will add but a few particulars to arouse your dormant faculties, which
may be wrapt in lethargic obliviousness by the anodyne of my somniferous
epistolation.”

“Reverend Father,” said Donna Clara, looking up to Fra Jose, who had
dictated the last line, “Don Francisco will know the last line not to be
mine--he heard it in one of your sermons.