The Pastor's Fire-Side Vol.2

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CHAP. I.

Next morning's rayless sun found Louis passing from his hardly pressed pillow, to the prosecution of his appointed task for the day. Ignatius had laid before him new papers, of a totally different character from the former, and much more difficult to transcribe.
As he continued to write, he heard the furious beating of a snow-storm against the windows, which, in this apartment, were not only grated but too high in the wall to allow of outward view. The heat of a well-filled stove excluded the encreased cold of the season; and the fierceness of the elements made him the less regret the exercise he must relinquish, or lose all hope of reducing the immense piles before him.
The Sieur appeared at his former nocturnal hour, to receive what had been finished, and to leave other manuscripts to which he desired duplicates. Day after day Louis was kept close to his desk, and every night delivered to his unrelenting task-master the labour of the day.
At the expiration of a week, the Sieur told him he should not see him again till the first of the ensuing month; but that he had a correspondence to leave with him, which he must completely transcribe into a regular series, by the time of his return. Louis received his orders in respectful silence, and when he was again left to his solitary toil, he found that his voluminous task was in the Sclavonian and Turkish characters. Neither of these languages had been parts of his studies; so he pursued his monotonous employment each succeeding day, from morning until midnight, without the accession of one new idea, or a moment's leisure for retrospection on former acquirements.
The sun rose, and the sun set; the weather, foul or fair; gloomy in storm, or gay with the scintillation of exhilarating frost, all found Louis de Montemar close at his desk. The iron-bound windows had never opened to the air; and the charcoal fumes which warmed the apartment, having no egress, hung in narcotic vapours on the vaulted roof. A heavy languor fell on its lonely inhabitant, and grew on him from day to day, till it left him hardly any other consciousness of being, than the faculty of moving, his now habituated hand, perpetually over the infinite reams of paper which lay before him.
On the night of the 1st of February, according to his promise, Ignatius entered the prison-room of his unrelaxing secretary. The piles which were completed, at last extorted from his unbending loftiness, an exclamation of admiration at such faultless execution and indefatigable perseverance. Louis's face no longer lighted up, as it was wont, at the voice of praise; but he bowed, though in silence. Had Ignatius spared a glance from the laborious heap to its unrepining artificer, that face would have told the tale his tongue had not uttered. The bloomy crimson of his cheek had perished under the withering breath of stoved confinement; and his eyes, before so luminous in health, so bright in youthful enjoyment, were sunk in languor under his darkening brows. So thoroughly was the Sieur absorbed in the business of his visit, he might not have observed these changes, had he not accidentally come in contact with the hand of his pupil in taking one of the packets. He started, as the touch seemed to scorch him.
"How is this?" cried he, eyeing Louis from head to foot, "you are ill."
"Perhaps the confinement, Sir," returned he, "may discompose me a little. But custom will enure me to it, and meanwhile it is of no consequence."

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