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he
thought a lifeless solitude; when, as a young bather, peeping from
a rock, is pushed into the sea, and forced to exert the powers of
which he was before only dreaming, so chance threw Castruccio from
his quiet nook into the wide sea of care, to sink or swim, as fate
or his own good strength might aid him.
    His father died. A malignant fever, brought by some trading
vessels from the Levant, raged in the town of Ancona, and Ruggieri
was one of its earliest victims. As soon as he was attacked, he
knew he must die, and he gazed upon his boy with deep tenderness
and care. To be cast so young on life, with a mind burning with
ardour, and adorned with every grace--the fair graces of youth, so
easily and so irretrievably tarnished! He had commanded him not to
come near him during his illness, which was exceedingly contagious:
but finding that Castruccio waited on him by stealth, he felt that
it was in vain to oppose; and, only intreating him to use every
imaginable precaution, they spent the last hours of Ruggieri's
life together. The fever was too violent to permit any regular
conversation; but the dying father exhorted him to remember his
former lessons, and lay them to his heart. "I have written a
letter," said he, "which you will deliver to Francesco de
Guinigi. He was one of my dearest friends, and of high birth and
fortune, in Lucca; but now, like me, he is an exile, and has taken
refuge at the town of Este in Lombardy. If he still preserves in
adversity that generosity which before so highly distinguished him,
you will less feel the loss of your father. Go to him, my
Castruccio, and be guided by his advice: he will direct you how you
can most usefully employ your time while an outcast from your
country. Listen to him with the same deference that you have always
shown to me, for he is one of the few wise men who exist in this
world, whose vanity and nothingness open upon me the more, now that
I am about to quit it."
    From time to time Ruggieri renewed his affectionate
exhortations. His parental tenderness did not desert him in his
last moments; and he died making a sign that in Heaven they should
again meet. Castruccio was overwhelmed by grief at his loss. But
grief was soon silenced by pain: he had inhaled the pestilential
air from the dying breath of his father, and was speedily like him
stretched on the bed of sickness. Yet not like him had he any
tender nurse, to watch his fever, and administer to his wants:
every one fled from the chance of death; and it was only the
excellent constitution of the boy that enabled him to recover.
    In a month after his father's death, himself in appearance
more dead than alive, he crawled out from his apartment to breathe
the enlivening air of the sea. A wind swept over it, and chilled
his frame, while the dusky sky filled him with despondency. But
this was a transient feeling: day by day he gained strength, and
with strength and health returned the buoyant spirits of youth. The
first lively feeling that he experienced, was an ardent desire to
remove from Ancona. During his illness he had bitterly felt the
absence of many whom he considered dear and firm friends. When he
was able to enquire for those whom he had inwardly reproached as
false, he found that they were dead. The pestilence had visited
them, and felled them to the ground, while he, bruised and half
broken, raised his head when the deadly visitation was over. These
disappointments and losses pressed on his soul; and he experienced
that feeling which deceives us at every age, that by change of
place, he could exchange his unhappy sensations for those of a more
genial nature. The rainy season had begun; but he would not delay
his departure; so, taking an agonizing farewell of the graves of
his friends, and of those of his beloved parents whom he could
never see more, he left Ancona.
    The beauty of the mountains and the picturesque views for a
while beguiled his thoughts. He passed through the country where
Asdrubal, the brother of