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diff --git a/3787.txt b/3787.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38988de --- /dev/null +++ b/3787.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5882 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Nature and Art, by Mrs. Inchbald, Edited by +Henry Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Nature and Art + + +Author: Mrs. Inchbald + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: July 24, 2007 [eBook #3787] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATURE AND ART*** + + +Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +NATURE AND ART + + +BY +MRS. INCHBALD. + +CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: +_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_. +1886. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Elizabeth Simpson was born on the 15th of October, 1753, one of the eight +children of a poor farmer, at Standingfield, near Bury St. Edmunds. Five +of the children were girls, who were all gifted with personal beauty. The +family was Roman Catholic. The mother had a delight in visits to the +Bury Theatre, and took, when she could, her children to the play. One of +her sons became an actor, and her daughter Elizabeth offered herself at +eighteen--her father then being dead--for engagement as an actress at the +Norwich Theatre. She had an impediment of speech, and she was not +engaged; but in the following year, leaving behind an affectionate letter +to her mother, she stole away from Standingfield, and made a bold plunge +into the unknown world of London, where she had friends, upon whose help +she relied. Her friends happened to be in Wales, and she had some +troubles to go through before she found a home in the house of a sister, +who had married a poor tailor. About two months after she had left +Standingfield she married, in London, Mr. Inchbald, an actor, who had +paid his addresses to her when she was at home, and who was also a Roman +Catholic. On the evening of the wedding day the bride, who had not yet +succeeded in obtaining an engagement, went to the play, and saw the +bridegroom play the part of Mr. Oakley in the "Jealous Wife." Mr. +Inchbald was thirty-seven years old, and had sons by a former marriage. +In September, 1772, Mrs. Inchbald tried her fortune on the stage by +playing Cordelia to her husband's Lear. Beauty alone could not assure +success. The impediment in speech made it impossible for Mrs. Inchbald +to succeed greatly as an actress. She was unable to realise her own +conceptions. At times she and her husband prospered so little that on +one day their dinner was of turnips, pulled and eaten in a field, and +sometimes there was no dinner at all. But better days presently +followed; first acquaintance of Mrs. Inchbald with Mrs. Siddons grew to a +strong friendship, and this extended to the other members of the Kemble +family. + +After seven years of happy but childless marriage, Mrs. Inchbald was left +a widow at the age of twenty-six. In after years, when devoting herself +to the baby of one of her landladies, she wrote to a friend,--"I shall +never again have patience with a mother who complains of anything but the +loss of her children; so no complaints when you see me again. Remember, +you have had two children, and I never had one." After her husband's +death, Mrs. Inchbald's beauty surrounded her with admirers, some of them +rich, but she did not marry again. To one of those who offered marriage, +she replied that her temper was so uncertain that nothing but blind +affection in a husband could bear with it. Yet she was patiently living +and fighting the world on a weekly salary of about thirty shillings, out +of which she helped her poorer sisters. When acting at Edinburgh she +spent on herself only eight shillings a week in board and lodging. It +was after her husband's death that Mrs. Inchbald finished a little novel, +called "A Simple Story," but it was not until twelve years afterwards +that she could get it published. She came to London again, and wrote +farces, which she could not get accepted; but she obtained an increase of +salary to three pounds a week by unwillingly consenting not only to act +in plays, but also to walk in pantomime. At last, in July, 1784, her +first farce, "The Mogul Tale," was acted. It brought her a hundred +guineas. Three years later her success as a writer had risen so far that +she obtained nine hundred pounds by a little piece called "Such Things +Are." She still lived sparingly, invested savings, and was liberal only +to the poor, and chiefly to her sisters and the poor members of her +family. She finished a sketch of her life in 1786, for which a +publisher, without seeing it, offered a thousand pounds. But there was +more satirical comment in it than she liked, and she resolved to do at +once what she would wish done at the point of death. She destroyed the +record. + +In 1791 Mrs. Inchbald published her "Simple Story." Her other tale, +"Nature and Art," followed in 1794, when Mrs. Inchbald's age was forty- +one. She had retired from the stage five years before, with an income of +fifty-eight pounds a year, all she called her own out of the independence +secured by her savings. She lived in cheap lodgings, and had sometimes +to wait altogether on herself; at one lodging "fetching up her own water +three pair of stairs, and dropping a few tears into the heedless stream, +as any other wounded deer might do." Later in life, she wrote to a +friend from a room in which she cooked, and ate, and also her saucepans +were cleaned:--"Thank God, I can say No. I say No to all the vanities of +the world, and perhaps soon shall have to say that I allow my poor infirm +sister a hundred a year. I have raised my allowance to eighty; but in +the rapid stride of her wants, and my obligation as a Christian to make +no selfish refusal to the poor, a few months, I foresee, must make the +sum a hundred." In 1816, when that sister died, and Mrs. Inchbald buried +the last of her immediate home relations--though she had still nephews to +find money for--she said it had been a consolation to her when sometimes +she cried with cold to think that her sister, who was less able to bear +privation, had her fire lighted for her before she rose, and her food +brought to her ready cooked. + +Even at fifty Mrs. Inchbald's beauty of face inspired admiration. The +beauty of the inner life increased with years. Lively and quick of +temper, impulsive, sensitive, she took into her heart all that was best +in the sentiments associated with the teaching of Rousseau and the dreams +of the French Revolution. Mrs. Inchbald spoke her mind most fully in +this little story, which is told with a dramatic sense of construction +that swiftly carries on the action to its close. She was no weak +sentimentalist, who hung out her feelings to view as an idle form of self- +indulgence. Most unselfishly she wrought her own life to the pattern in +her mind; even the little faults she could not conquer, she well knew. + +Mrs. Inchbald died at the age of sixty-eight, on the 1st of August, 1821, +a devout Roman Catholic, her thoughts in her last years looking +habitually through all disguises of convention up to Nature's God. + +H. M. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +At a time when the nobility of Britain were said, by the poet laureate, +to be the admirers and protectors of the arts, and were acknowledged by +the whole nation to be the patrons of music--William and Henry, youths +under twenty years of age, brothers, and the sons of a country shopkeeper +who had lately died insolvent, set out on foot for London, in the hope of +procuring by their industry a scanty subsistence. + +As they walked out of their native town, each with a small bundle at his +back, each observed the other drop several tears: but, upon the sudden +meeting of their eyes, they both smiled with a degree of disdain at the +weakness in which they had been caught. + +"I am sure," said William (the elder), "I don't know what makes me cry." + +"Nor I neither," said Henry; "for though we may never see this town +again, yet we leave nothing behind us to give us reason to lament." + +"No," replied William, "nor anybody who cares what becomes of us." + +"But I was thinking," said Henry, now weeping bitterly, "that, if my poor +father were alive, _he_ would care what was to become of us: he would not +have suffered us to begin this long journey without a few more shillings +in our pockets." + +At the end of this sentence, William, who had with some effort suppressed +his tears while his brother spoke, now uttered, with a voice almost +inarticulate,--"Don't say any more; don't talk any more about it. My +father used to tell us, that when he was gone we must take care of +ourselves: and so we must. I only wish," continued he, giving way to his +grief, "that I had never done anything to offend him while he was +living." + +"That is what I wish too," cried Henry. "If I had always been dutiful to +him while he was alive, I would not shed one tear for him now that he is +gone--but I would thank Heaven that he has escaped from his creditors." + +In conversation such as this, wherein their sorrow for their deceased +parent seemed less for his death than because he had not been so happy +when living as they ought to have made him; and wherein their own outcast +fortune was less the subject of their grief, than the reflection what +their father would have endured could he have beheld them in their +present situation;--in conversation such as this, they pursued their +journey till they arrived at that metropolis, which has received for +centuries past, from the provincial towns, the bold adventurer of every +denomination; has stamped his character with experience and example; and, +while it has bestowed on some coronets and mitres--on some the lasting +fame of genius--to others has dealt beggary, infamy, and untimely death. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +After three weeks passed in London, a year followed, during which William +and Henry never sat down to a dinner, or went into a bed, without hearts +glowing with thankfulness to that Providence who had bestowed on them +such unexpected blessings; for they no longer presumed to expect (what +still they hoped they deserved) a secure pittance in this world of +plenty. Their experience, since they came to town, had informed them +that to obtain a permanent livelihood is the good fortune but of a part +of those who are in want of it: and the precarious earning of +half-a-crown, or a shilling, in the neighbourhood where they lodged, by +an errand, or some such accidental means, was the sole support which they +at present enjoyed. + +They had sought for constant employment of various kinds, and even for +servants' places; but obstacles had always occurred to prevent their +success. If they applied for the situation of a clerk to a man of +extensive concerns, their qualifications were admitted; but there must be +security given for their fidelity;--they had friends, who would give them +a character, but who would give them nothing else. + +If they applied for the place even of a menial servant, they were too +clownish and awkward for the presence of the lady of the house;--and +once, when William (who had been educated at the free grammar-school of +the town in which he was born, and was an excellent scholar), hoping to +obtain the good opinion of a young clergyman whom he solicited for the +favour of waiting upon him, said submissively, "that he understood Greek +and Latin," he was rejected by the divine, "because he could not dress +hair." + +Weary of repeating their mean accomplishments of "honesty, sobriety, +humility," and on the precipice of reprobating such qualities,--which, +however beneficial to the soul, gave no hope of preservation to the +body,--they were prevented from this profanation by the fortunate +remembrance of one qualification, which Henry, the possessor, in all his +distress, had never till then called to his recollection; but which, as +soon as remembered and made known, changed the whole prospect of +wretchedness placed before the two brothers; and they never knew want +more. + +Reader--Henry could play upon the fiddle. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +No sooner was it publicly known that Henry could play most enchantingly +upon the violin, than he was invited into many companies where no other +accomplishment could have introduced him. His performance was so much +admired, that he had the honour of being admitted to several tavern +feasts, of which he had also the honour to partake without partaking of +the expense. He was soon addressed by persons of the very first rank and +fashion, and was once seen walking side by side with a peer. + +But yet, in the midst of this powerful occasion for rejoicing, Henry, +whose heart was particularly affectionate, had one grief which eclipsed +all the happiness of his new life;--his brother William could _not_ play +on the fiddle! consequently, his brother William, with whom he had shared +so much ill, could not share in his good fortune. + +One evening, Henry, coming home from a dinner and concert at the Crown +and Anchor found William, in a very gloomy and peevish humour, poring +over the orations of Cicero. Henry asked him several times "how he did," +and similar questions, marks of his kind disposition towards his beloved +brother: but all his endeavours, he perceived, could not soothe or soften +the sullen mind of William. At length, taking from his pocket a handful +of almonds, and some delicious fruit (which he had purloined from the +plenteous table, where his brother's wants had never been absent from his +thoughts), and laying them down before him, he exclaimed, with a +benevolent smile, "Do, William, let me teach you to play upon the +violin." + +William, full of the great orator whom he was then studying, and still +more alive to the impossibility that _his_ ear, attuned only to sense, +could ever descend from that elevation, to learn mere sounds--William +caught up the tempting presents which Henry had ventured his reputation +to obtain for him, and threw them all indignantly at the donor's head. + +Henry felt too powerfully his own superiority of fortune to resent this +ingratitude: he patiently picked up the repast, and laying it again upon +the table, placed by its side a bottle of claret, which he held fast by +the neck, while he assured his brother that, "although he had taken it +while the waiter's back was turned, yet it might be drank with a safe +conscience by them; for he had not himself tasted one drop at the feast, +on purpose that he might enjoy a glass with his brother at home, and +without wronging the company who had invited him." + +The affection Henry expressed as he said this, or the force of a bumper +of wine, which William had not seen since he left his father's house, had +such an effect in calming the displeasure he was cherishing, that, on his +brother offering him the glass, he took it; and he deigned even to eat of +his present. + +Henry, to convince him that he had stinted himself to obtain for him this +collation, sat down and partook of it. + +After a few glasses, he again ventured to say, "Do, brother William, let +me teach you to play on the violin." + +Again his offer was refused, though with less vehemence: at length they +both agreed that the attempt could not prosper. + +"Then," said Henry, "William, go down to Oxford or to Cambridge. There, +no doubt, they are as fond of learning as in this gay town they are of +music. You know you have as much talent for the one as I for the other: +do go to one of our universities, and see what dinners, what suppers, and +what friends you will find there." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +William _did_ go to one of those seats of learning, and would have +starved there, but for the affectionate remittances of Henry, who shortly +became so great a proficient in the art of music, as to have it in his +power not only to live in a very reputable manner himself, but to send +such supplies to his brother, as enabled him to pursue his studies. + +With some, the progress of fortune is rapid. Such is the case when, +either on merit or demerit, great patronage is bestowed. Henry's violin +had often charmed, to a welcome forgetfulness of his insignificance, an +effeminate lord; or warmed with ideas of honour the head of a duke, whose +heart could never be taught to feel its manly glow. Princes had flown to +the arms of their favourite fair ones with more rapturous delight, +softened by the masterly touches of his art: and these elevated +personages, ever grateful to those from whom they receive benefits, were +competitors in the desire of heaping favours upon him. But he, in all +his advantages, never once lost for a moment the hope of some advantage +for his brother William: and when at any time he was pressed by a patron +to demand a "token of his regard," he would constantly reply--"I have a +brother, a very learned man, if your lordship (your grace, or your royal +highness) would confer some small favour on him!" + +His lordship would reply, "He was so teased and harassed in his youth by +learned men, that he had ever since detested the whole fraternity." + +His grace would inquire, "if the learned man could play upon any +instrument." + +And his highness would ask "if he could sing." + +Rebuffs such as these poor Henry met with in all his applications for +William, till one fortunate evening, at the conclusion of a concert, a +great man shook him by the hand, and promised a living of five hundred a +year (the incumbent of which was upon his death-bed) to his brother, in +return for the entertainment that Henry had just afforded him. + +Henry wrote in haste to William, and began his letter thus: "My dear +brother, I am not sorry you did not learn to play upon the fiddle." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The incumbent of this living died--William underwent the customary +examinations, obtained successively the orders of deacon and priest; then +as early as possible came to town to take possession of the gift which +his brother's skill had acquired for him. + +William had a steady countenance, a stern brow, and a majestic walk; all +of which this new accession, this holy calling to religious vows, rather +increased than diminished. In the early part of his life, the violin of +his brother had rather irritated than soothed the morose disposition of +his nature: and though, since their departure from their native +habitation, it had frequently calmed the violent ragings of his hunger, it +had never been successful in appeasing the disturbed passions of a proud +and disdainful mind. + +As the painter views with delight and wonder the finished picture, +expressive testimony of his taste and genius; as the physician beholds +with pride and gladness the recovering invalid, whom his art has snatched +from the jaws of death; as the father gazes with rapture on his first +child, the creature to whom he has given life; so did Henry survey, with +transporting glory, his brother, dressed for the first time in +canonicals, to preach at his parish church. He viewed him from head to +foot--smiled--viewed again--pulled one side of his gown a little this +way, one end of his band a little that way; then stole behind him, +pretending to place the curls of his hair, but in reality to indulge and +to conceal tears of fraternal pride and joy. + +William was not without joy, neither was he wanting in love or gratitude +to his brother; but his pride was not completely satisfied. + +"I am the elder," thought he to himself, "and a man of literature, and +yet am I obliged to my younger brother, an illiterate man." Here he +suppressed every thought which could be a reproach to that brother. But +there remained an object of his former contempt, now become even +detestable to him; ungrateful man. The very agent of his elevation was +now so odious to him, that he could not cast his eyes upon the friendly +violin without instant emotions of disgust. + +In vain would Henry, at times, endeavour to subdue his haughtiness by a +tune on this wonderful machine. "You know I have no ear," William would +sternly say, in recompense for one of Henry's best solos. Yet was +William enraged at Henry's answer, when, after taking him to hear him +preach, he asked him, "how he liked his sermon," and Henry modestly +replied (in the technical phrase of his profession), "You know, brother, +I have no ear." + +Henry's renown in his profession daily increased; and, with his fame, his +friends. Possessing the virtues of humility and charity far above +William, who was the professed teacher of those virtues, his reverend +brother's disrespect for his vocation never once made him relax for a +moment in his anxiety to gain him advancement in the Church. In the +course of a few years, and in consequence of many fortuitous +circumstances, he had the gratification of procuring for him the +appointment to a deanery; and thus at once placed between them an +insurmountable barrier to all friendship, that was not the effect of +condescension on the part of the dean. + +William would now begin seriously to remonstrate with his brother "upon +his useless occupation," and would intimate "the degradation it was to +him to hear his frivolous talent spoken of in all companies." Henry +believed his brother to be much wiser than himself, and suffered shame +that he was not more worthy of such a relation. To console himself for +the familiar friend, whom he now perceived he had entirely lost, he +searched for one of a softer nature--he married. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +As Henry despaired of receiving his brother's approbation of his choice, +he never mentioned the event to him. But William, being told of it by a +third person, inquired of Henry, who confirmed the truth of the +intelligence, and acknowledged, that, in taking a wife, his sole view had +been to obtain a kind companion and friend, who would bear with his +failings and know how to esteem his few qualifications; therefore, he had +chosen one of his own rank in life, and who, having a taste for music, +and, as well as himself, an obligation to the art-- + +"And is it possible," cried the dean, "that what has been hinted to me is +true? Is it possible that you have married a public singer?" + +"She is as good as myself," returned Henry. "I did not wish her to be +better, for fear she should despise me." + +"As to despise," answered the dean, "Heaven forbid that we should despise +anyone, that would be acting unlike a Christian; but do you imagine I can +ever introduce her to my intended wife, who is a woman of family?" + +Henry had received in his life many insults from his brother; but, as he +was not a vain man, he generally thought his brother in the right, and +consequently submitted with patience; but, though he had little +self-love, he had for his wife an unbounded affection. On the present +occasion, therefore, he began to raise his voice, and even (in the coarse +expression of clownish anger) to lift his hand; but the sudden and +affecting recollection of what he had done for the dean--of the pains, +the toils, the hopes, and the fears he had experienced when soliciting +his preferment--this recollection overpowered his speech, weakened his +arm, and deprived him of every active force, but that of flying out of +his brother's house (in which they then were) as swift as lightning, +while the dean sat proudly contemplating "that he had done his duty." + +For several days Henry did not call, as was his custom, to see his +brother. William's marriage drew near, and he sent a formal card to +invite him on that day; but not having had the condescension to name his +sister-in-law in the invitation, Henry thought proper not to accept it, +and the joyful event was celebrated without his presence. But the ardour +of the bridegroom was not so vehement as to overcome every other +sensation--he missed his brother. That heartfelt cheerfulness with which +Henry had ever given him joy upon every happy occasion--even amidst all +the politer congratulations of his other friends--seemed to the dean +mournfully wanting. This derogation from his felicity he was resolved to +resent; and for a whole year these brothers, whom adversity had entwined +closely together, prosperity separated. + +Though Henry, on his marriage, paid so much attention to his brother's +prejudices as to take his wife from her public employment, this had not +so entirely removed the scruples of William as to permit him to think her +a worthy companion for Lady Clementina, the daughter of a poor Scotch +earl, whom he had chosen merely that he might be proud of her family, +and, in return, suffer that family to be ashamed of _his_. + +If Henry's wife were not fit company for Lady Clementina, it is to be +hoped that she was company for angels. She died within the first year of +her marriage, a faithful, an affectionate wife, and a mother. + +When William heard of her death, he felt a sudden shock, and a kind of +fleeting thought glanced across his mind, that + +"Had he known she had been so near her dissolution, she might have been +introduced to Lady Clementina, and he himself would have called her +sister." + +That is (if he had defined his fleeting idea), "They would have had no +objection to have met this poor woman for the _last time_, and would have +descended to the familiarity of kindred, in order to have wished her a +good journey to the other world." + +Or, is there in death something which so raises the abjectness of the +poor, that, on their approach to its sheltering abode, the arrogant +believer feels the equality he had before denied, and trembles? + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The wife of Henry had been dead near six weeks before the dean heard the +news. A month then elapsed in thoughts by himself, and consultations +with Lady Clementina, how he should conduct himself on this occurrence. +Her advice was, + +"That, as Henry was the younger, and by their stations, in every sense +the dean's inferior, Henry ought first to make overtures of +reconciliation." + +The dean answered, "He had no doubt of his brother's good will to him, +but that he had reason to think, from the knowledge of his temper, he +would be more likely to come to him upon an occasion to bestow comfort, +than to receive it. For instance, if I had suffered the misfortune of +losing your ladyship, my brother, I have no doubt, would have forgotten +his resentment, and--" + +She was offended that the loss of the vulgar wife of Henry should be +compared to the loss of her--she lamented her indiscretion in forming an +alliance with a family of no rank, and implored the dean to wait till his +brother should make some concession to him, before he renewed the +acquaintance. + +Though Lady Clementina had mentioned on this occasion her _indiscretion_, +she was of a prudent age--she was near forty--yet, possessing rather a +handsome face and person, she would not have impressed the spectator with +a supposition that she was near so old had she not constantly attempted +to appear much younger. Her dress was fantastically fashionable, her +manners affected all the various passions of youth, and her conversation +was perpetually embellished with accusations against her own +"heedlessness, thoughtlessness, carelessness, and childishness." + +There is, perhaps in each individual, one parent motive to every action, +good or bad. Be that as it may, it was evident, that with Lady +Clementina, all she said or did, all she thought or looked, had but one +foundation--vanity. If she were nice, or if she were negligent, vanity +was the cause of both; for she would contemplate with the highest degree +of self-complacency, "What such-a-one would say of her elegant +preciseness, or what such-a-one would think of her interesting neglect." + +If she complained she was ill, it was with the certainty that her languor +would be admired: if she boasted she was well, it was that the spectator +might admire her glowing health: if she laughed, it was because she +thought it made her look pretty: if she cried, it was because she thought +it made her look prettier still. If she scolded her servants, it was +from vanity, to show her knowledge superior to theirs: and she was kind +to them from the same motive, that her benevolence might excite their +admiration. Forward and impertinent in the company of her equals, from +the vanity of supposing herself above them, she was bashful even to +shamefacedness in the presence of her superiors, because her vanity told +her she engrossed all their observation. Through vanity she had no +memory, for she constantly forgot everything she heard others say, from +the minute attention which she paid to everything she said herself. + +She had become an old maid from vanity, believing no offer she received +worthy of her deserts; and when her power of farther conquest began to be +doubted, she married from vanity, to repair the character of her fading +charms. In a word, her vanity was of that magnitude, that she had no +conjecture but that she was humble in her own opinion; and it would have +been impossible to have convinced her that she thought well of herself, +because she thought so _well_, as to be assured that her own thoughts +undervalued her. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +That, which in a weak woman is called vanity, in a man of sense is termed +pride. Make one a degree stronger, or the other a degree weaker, and the +dean and his wife were infected with the self-same folly. Yet, let not +the reader suppose that this failing (however despicable) had erased from +either bosom all traces of humanity. They are human creatures who are +meant to be portrayed in this little book: and where is the human +creature who has not some good qualities to soften, if not to +counterbalance, his bad ones? + +The dean, with all his pride, could not wholly forget his brother, nor +eradicate from his remembrance the friend that he had been to him: he +resolved, therefore, in spite of his wife's advice, to make him some +overture, which he had no doubt Henry's good-nature would instantly +accept. The more he became acquainted with all the vain and selfish +propensities of Lady Clementina, the more he felt a returning affection +for his brother: but little did he suspect how much he loved him, till +(after sending to various places to inquire for him) he learned--that on +his wife's decease, unable to support her loss in the surrounding scene, +Henry had taken the child she brought him in his arms, shaken hands with +all his former friends--passing over his brother in the number--and set +sail in a vessel bound for Africa, with a party of Portuguese and some +few English adventurers, to people there the uninhabited part of an +extensive island. + +This was a resolution, in Henry's circumstances, worthy a mind of +singular sensibility: but William had not discerned, till then, that +every act of Henry's was of the same description; and more than all, his +every act towards him. He staggered when he heard the tidings; at first +thought them untrue; but quickly recollected, that Henry was capable of +surprising deeds! He recollected with a force which gave him torture, +the benevolence his brother had ever shown to him--the favours he had +heaped upon him--the insults he had patiently endured in requital! + +In the first emotion, which this intelligence gave the dean, he forgot +the dignity of his walk and gesture: he ran with frantic enthusiasm to +every corner of his deanery where the least vestige of what belonged to +Henry remained--he pressed close to his breast, with tender agony, a coat +of his, which by accident had been left there--he kissed and wept over a +walking-stick which Henry once had given him--he even took up with +delight a music book of his brother's--nor would his poor violin have +then excited anger. + +When his grief became more calm, he sat in deep and melancholy +meditation, calling to mind when and where he saw his brother last. The +recollection gave him fresh cause of regret. He remembered they had +parted on his refusing to suffer Lady Clementina to admit the +acquaintance of Henry's wife. Both Henry and his wife he now +contemplated beyond the reach of his pride; and he felt the meanness of +his former and the imbecility of his future haughtiness towards them. + +To add to his self-reproaches, his tormented memory presented to him the +exact countenance of his brother at their last interview, as it changed, +while he censured his marriage, and treated with disrespect the object of +his conjugal affection. He remembered the anger repressed, the tear +bursting forth, and the last glimpse he had of him, as he left his +presence, most likely for ever. + +In vain he now wished that he had followed him to the door--that he had +once shaken hands and owned his obligations to him before they had +parted. In vain he wished too, that, in this extreme agony of his mind, +he had such a friend to comfort him, as Henry had ever proved. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The avocations of an elevated life erase the deepest impressions. The +dean in a few months recovered from those which his brother's departure +first made upon him: and he would now at times even condemn, in anger, +Henry's having so hastily abandoned him and his native country, in +resentment, as he conceived, of a few misfortunes which his usual +fortitude should have taught him to have borne. Yet was he still +desirous of his return, and wrote two or three letters expressive of his +wish, which he anxiously endeavoured should reach him. But many years +having elapsed without any intelligence from him, and a report having +arrived that he, and all the party with whom he went, were slain by the +savage inhabitants of the island, William's despair of seeing his brother +again caused the desire to diminish; while attention and affection to a +still nearer and dearer relation than Henry had ever been to him, now +chiefly engaged his mind. + +Lady Clementina had brought him a son, on whom from his infancy, he +doated--and the boy, in riper years, possessing a handsome person and +evincing a quickness of parts, gratified the father's darling passion, +pride, as well as the mother's vanity. + +The dean had, beside this child, a domestic comfort highly gratifying to +his ambition: the bishop of --- became intimately acquainted with him +soon after his marriage, and from his daily visits had become, as it +were, a part of the family. This was much honour to the dean, not only +as the bishop was his superior in the Church, but was of that part of the +bench whose blood is ennobled by a race of ancestors, and to which all +wisdom on the plebeian side crouches in humble respect. + +Year after year rolled on in pride and grandeur; the bishop and the dean +passing their time in attending levees and in talking politics; Lady +Clementina passing hers in attending routs and in talking of _herself_, +till the son arrived at the age of thirteen. + +Young William passed _his_ time, from morning till night, with persons +who taught him to walk, to ride, to talk, to think like a man--a foolish +man, instead of a wise child, as nature designed him to be. + +This unfortunate youth was never permitted to have one conception of his +own--all were taught him--he was never once asked, "What he thought;" but +men were paid to tell "how to think." He was taught to revere such and +such persons, however unworthy of his reverence; to believe such and such +things, however unworthy of his credit: and to act so and so, on such and +such occasions, however unworthy of his feelings. + +Such were the lessons of the tutors assigned him by his father--those +masters whom his mother gave him did him less mischief; for though they +distorted his limbs and made his manners effeminate, they did not +interfere beyond the body. + +Mr. Norwynne (the family name of his father, and though but a school-boy, +he was called _Mister_) could talk on history, on politics, and on +religion; surprisingly to all who never listened to a parrot or +magpie--for he merely repeated what had been told to him without one +reflection upon the sense or probability of his report. He had been +praised for his memory; and to continue that praise, he was so anxious to +retain every sentence he had heard, or he had read, that the poor +creature had no time for one native idea, but could only re-deliver his +tutors' lessons to his father, and his father's to his tutors. But, +whatever he said or did, was the admiration of all who came to the house +of the dean, and who knew he was an only child. Indeed, considering the +labour that was taken to spoil him, he was rather a commendable youth; +for, with the pedantic folly of his teachers, the blind affection of his +father and mother, the obsequiousness of the servants, and flattery of +the visitors, it was some credit to him that he was not an idiot, or a +brute--though when he imitated the manners of a man, he had something of +the latter in his appearance; for he would grin and bow to a lady, catch +her fan in haste when it fell, and hand her to her coach, as thoroughly +void of all the sentiment which gives grace to such tricks, as a monkey. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +One morning in winter, just as the dean, his wife, and darling child, had +finished their breakfast at their house in London, a servant brought in a +letter to his master, and said "the man waited for an answer." + +"Who is the man?" cried the dean, with all that terrifying dignity with +which he never failed to address his inferiors, especially such as waited +on his person. + +The servant replied with a servility of tone equal to the haughty one of +his master, "he did not know; but that the man looked like a sailor, and +had a boy with him." + +"A begging letter, no doubt," cried Lady Clementina. + +"Take it back," said the dean, "and bid him send up word who he is, and +what is his errand." + +The servant went; and returning said, "He comes from on board a ship; his +captain sent him, and his errand is, he believes, to leave a boy he has +brought with him." + +"A boy!" cried the dean: "what have I to do with a boy? I expect no boy. +What boy? What age?" + +"He looks about twelve or thirteen," replied the servant. + +"He is mistaken in the house," said the dean. "Let me look at the letter +again." + +He did look at it, and saw plainly it was directed to himself. Upon a +second glance, he had so perfect a recollection of the hand, as to open +it instantaneously; and, after ordering the servant to withdraw, he read +the following:-- + + "ZOCOTORA ISLAND, _April_ 6. + + "My Dear Brother William,--It is a long time since we have seen one + another; but I hope not so long, that you have quite forgotten the + many happy days we once passed together. + + "I did not take my leave of you when I left England, because it would + have been too much for me. I had met with a great many sorrows just + at that time; one of which was, the misfortune of losing the use of my + right hand by a fall from my horse, which accident robbed me of most + of my friends; for I could no longer entertain them with my + performance as I used to do, and so I was ashamed to see them or you; + and that was the reason I came hither to try my fortune with some + other adventurers. + + "You have, I suppose, heard that the savages of the island put our + whole party to death. But it was my chance to escape their cruelty. I + was heart-broken for my comrades; yet upon the whole, I do not know + that the savages were much to blame--we had no business to invade + their territories! and if they had invaded England, we should have + done the same by them. My life was spared, because, having gained + some little strength in my hand during the voyage, I pleased their + king when I arrived there with playing on my violin. + + "They spared my child too, in pity to my lamentations, when they were + going to put him to death. Now, dear brother, before I say any more + to you concerning my child, I will first ask your pardon for any + offence I may have ever given you in all the time we lived so long + together. I know you have often found fault with me, and I dare say I + have been very often to blame; but I here solemnly declare that I + never did anything purposely to offend you, but mostly, all I could to + oblige you--and I can safely declare that I never bore you above a + quarter of an hour's resentment for anything you might say to me which + I thought harsh. + + "Now, dear William, after being in this island eleven years, the + weakness in my hand has unfortunately returned; and yet there being no + appearance of complaint, the uninformed islanders think it is all my + obstinacy, and that I _will not_ entertain them with my music, which + makes me say that I _cannot_; and they have imprisoned me, and + threaten to put my son to death if I persist in my stubbornness any + longer. + + "The anguish I feel in my mind takes away all hope of the recovery of + strength in my hand; and I have no doubt but that they intend in a few + days to put their horrid threat into execution. + + "Therefore, dear brother William, hearing in my prison of a most + uncommon circumstance, which is, that an English vessel is lying at a + small distance from the island, I have entrusted a faithful negro to + take my child to the ship, and deliver him to the captain, with a + request that he may be sent (with this letter) to you on the ship's + arrival in England. + + "Now my dear, dear brother William, in case the poor boy should live + to come to you, I have no doubt but you will receive him; yet excuse a + poor, fond father, if I say a word or two which I hope may prove in + his favour. + + "Pray, my dear brother, do not think it the child's fault, but mine, + that you will find him so ignorant--he has always shown a quickness + and a willingness to learn, and would, I dare say, if he had been + brought up under your care, have been by this time a good scholar, but + you know I am no scholar myself. Besides, not having any books here, + I have only been able to teach my child by talking to him, and in all + my conversations with him I have never taken much pains to instruct + him in the manners of my own country; thinking, that if ever he went + over, he would learn them soon enough; and if he never _did_ go over, + that it would be as well he knew nothing about them. + + "I have kept him also from the knowledge of everything which I have + thought pernicious in the conduct of the savages, except that I have + now and then pointed out a few of their faults, in order to give him a + true conception and a proper horror of them. At the same time I have + taught him to love, and to do good to his neighbour, whoever that + neighbour may be, and whatever may be his failings. Falsehood of + every kind I included in this precept as forbidden, for no one can + love his neighbour and deceive him. + + "I have instructed him too, to hold in contempt all frivolous vanity, + and all those indulgences which he was never likely to obtain. He has + learnt all that I have undertaken to teach him; but I am afraid you + will yet think he has learned too little. + + "Your wife, I fear, will be offended at his want of politeness, and + perhaps proper respect for a person of her rank: but indeed he is very + tractable, and can, without severity, be amended of all his faults; + and though you will find he has many, yet, pray, my dear brother + William, call to mind he has been a dutiful and an affectionate child + to me; and that had it pleased Heaven we had lived together for many + years to come, I verily believe I should never have experienced one + mark of his disobedience. + + "Farewell for ever, my dear, dear brother William--and if my poor, + kind, affectionate child should live to bring you this letter, + sometimes speak to him of me and let him know, that for twelve years + he was my sole comfort; and that, when I sent him from me, in order to + save his life, I laid down my head upon the floor of the cell in which + I was confined, and prayed that Heaven might end my days before the + morning." + +This was the conclusion of the letter, except four or five lines which +(with his name) were so much blotted, apparently with tears, that they +were illegible. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +While the dean was reading to himself this letter, his countenance +frequently changed, and once or twice the tears streamed from his eyes. +When it was finished, he exclaimed, + +"My brother has sent his child to me, and I will be a parent to him." He +was rushing towards the door, when Lady Clementina stopped him. + +"Is it proper, do you think, Mr. Dean, that all the servants in the house +should be witnesses to your meeting with your brother and your nephew in +the state in which they must be at present? Send for them into a private +apartment." + +"My brother!" cried the dean; "oh! that it _were_ my brother! The man is +merely a person from the ship, who has conducted his child hither." + +The bell was rung, money was sent to the man, and orders given that the +boy should be shown up immediately. + +While young Henry was walking up the stairs, the dean's wife was weighing +in her mind in what manner it would most redound to her honour to receive +him; for her vanity taught her to believe that the whole inquisitive +world pried into her conduct, even upon every family occurrence. + +Young William was wondering to himself what kind of an unpolished monster +his beggarly cousin would appear; and was contemplating how much the poor +youth would be surprised, and awed by his superiority. + +The dean felt no other sensation than an impatient desire of beholding +the child. + +The door opened--and the son of his brother Henry, of his benefactor, +entered. + +The habit he had on when he left his father, having been of slight +texture, was worn out by the length of the voyage, and he was in the +dress of a sailor-boy. Though about the same age with his cousin, he was +something taller: and though a strong family resemblance appeared between +the two youths, he was handsomer than William; and from a simplicity +spread over his countenance, a quick impatience in his eye--which denoted +anxious curiosity, and childish surprise at every new object which +presented itself--he appeared younger than his well-informed and well- +bred cousin. + +He walked into the room, not with a dictated obeisance, but with a +hurrying step, a half pleased, yet a half frightened look, an +instantaneous survey of every person present; not as demanding "what they +thought of him," but expressing almost as plainly as in direct words, +"what he thought of them." For all alarm in respect to his safety and +reception seemed now wholly forgotten, in the curiosity which the sudden +sight of strangers such as he had never seen in his life before, excited: +and as to _himself_, he did not appear to know there was such a person +existing: his whole faculties were absorbed in _others_. + +The dean's reception of him did honour to his sensibility and his +gratitude to his brother. After the first affectionate gaze, he ran to +him, took him in his arms, sat down, drew him to him, held him between +his knees, and repeatedly exclaimed, "I will repay to you all I owe to +your father." + +The boy, in return, hugged the dean round the neck, kissed him, and +exclaimed, + +"Oh! you _are_ my father--you have just such eyes, and such a +forehead--indeed you would be almost the same as he, if it were not for +that great white thing which grows upon your head!" + +Let the reader understand, that the dean, fondly attached to every +ornament of his dignified function, was never seen (unless caught in bed) +without an enormous wig. With this young Henry was enormously struck; +having never seen so unbecoming a decoration, either in the savage island +from whence he came, or on board the vessel in which he sailed. + +"Do you imagine," cried his uncle, laying his hand gently on the reverend +habiliment, "that this grows?" + +"What is on _my_ head grows," said young Henry, "and so does that which +is upon my father's." + +"But now you are come to Europe, Henry, you will see many persons with +such things as these, which they put on and take off." + +"Why do you wear such things?" + +"As a distinction between us and inferior people: they are worn to give +an importance to the wearer." + +"That's just as the savages do; they hang brass nails, wire, buttons, and +entrails of beasts all over them, to give them importance." + +The dean now led his nephew to Lady Clementina, and told him, "She was +his aunt, to whom he must behave with the utmost respect." + +"I will, I will," he replied, "for she, I see, is a person of importance +too; she has, very nearly, such a white thing upon her head as you have!" + +His aunt had not yet fixed in what manner it would be advisable to +behave; whether with intimidating grandeur, or with amiable tenderness. +While she was hesitating between both, she felt a kind of jealous +apprehension that her son was not so engaging either in his person or +address as his cousin; and therefore she said, + +"I hope, Dean, the arrival of this child will give you a still higher +sense of the happiness we enjoy in our own. What an instructive contrast +between the manners of the one and of the other!" + +"It is not the child's fault," returned the dean, "that he is not so +elegant in his manners as his cousin. Had William been bred in the same +place, he would have been as unpolished as this boy." + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said young William with a formal bow and a +sarcastic smile, "I assure you several of my tutors have told me, that I +appear to know many things as it were by instinct." + +Young Henry fixed his eyes upon his cousin, while, with steady +self-complacency, he delivered this speech, and no sooner was it +concluded than Henry cried out in a kind of wonder, + +"A little man! as I am alive, a little man! I did not know there were +such little men in this country! I never saw one in my life before!" + +"This is a boy," said the dean; "a boy not older than yourself." + +He put their hands together, and William gravely shook hands with his +cousin. + +"It _is_ a man," continued young Henry; then stroked his cousin's chin. +"No, no, I do not know whether it is or not." + +"I tell you again," said the dean, "he is a boy of your own age; you and +he are cousins, for I am his father." + +"How can that be?" said young Henry. "He called you _Sir_." + +"In this country," said the dean, "polite children do not call their +parents _father_ and _mother_." + +"Then don't they sometimes forget to love them as such?" asked Henry. + +His uncle became now impatient to interrogate him in every particular +concerning his father's state. Lady Clementina felt equal impatience to +know where the father was, whether he were coming to live with them, +wanted anything of them, and every circumstance in which her vanity was +interested. Explanations followed all these questions; but which, +exactly agreeing with what the elder Henry's letter has related, require +no recital here. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +That vanity which presided over every thought and deed of Lady Clementina +was the protector of young Henry within her house. It represented to her +how amiable her conduct would appear in the eye of the world should she +condescend to treat this destitute nephew as her own son; what envy such +heroic virtue would excite in the hearts of her particular friends, and +what grief in the bosoms of all those who did not like her. + +The dean was a man of no inconsiderable penetration. He understood the +thoughts which, upon this occasion, passed in the mind of his wife, and +in order to ensure her kind treatment of the boy, instead of reproaching +her for the cold manner in which she had at first received him, he +praised her tender and sympathetic heart for having shown him so much +kindness, and thus stimulated her vanity to be praised still more. + +William, the mother's own son, far from apprehending a rival in this +savage boy, was convinced of his own pre-eminence, and felt an affection +for him--though rather as a foil than as a cousin. He sported with his +ignorance upon all occasions, and even lay in wait for circumstances that +might expose it; while young Henry, strongly impressed with everything +which appeared new to him, expressed, without reserve, the sensations +which those novelties excited, wholly careless of the construction put on +his observations. + +He never appeared either offended or abashed when laughed at; but still +pursued his questions, and still discovered his wonder at many replies +made to him, though "simpleton," "poor silly boy," and "idiot," were +vociferated around him from his cousin, his aunt, and their constant +visitor the bishop. + +His uncle would frequently undertake to instruct him; so indeed would the +bishop; but Lady Clementina, her son, and the greatest part of her +companions, found something so irresistibly ridiculous in his remarks, +that nothing but immoderate laughter followed; they thought such folly +had even merit in the way of entertainment, and they wished him no wiser. + +Having been told that every morning, on first seeing his uncle, he was to +make a respectful bow; and coming into the dean's dressing-room just as +he was out of bed, his wig lying on the table, Henry appeared at a loss +which of the two he should bow to. At last he gave the preference to his +uncle, but afterwards bowed reverently to the wig. In this he did what +he conceived was proper, from the introduction which the dean, on his +first arrival, had given him to this venerable stranger; for, in reality, +Henry had a contempt for all finery, and had called even his aunt's +jewels, when they were first shown to him, "trumpery," asking "what they +were good for?" But being corrected in this disrespect, and informed of +their high value, he, like a good convert, gave up his reason to his +faith; and becoming, like all converts, over-zealous, he now believed +there was great worth in all gaudy appearances, and even respected the +earrings of Lady Clementina almost as much as he respected herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +It was to be lamented that when young Henry had been several months in +England, had been taught to read, and had, of course, in the society in +which he lived, seen much of the enlightened world, yet the natural +expectation of his improvement was by no means answered. + +Notwithstanding the sensibility, which upon various occasions he +manifested in the most captivating degree, notwithstanding the seeming +gentleness of his nature upon all occasions, there now appeared, in most +of his inquiries and remarks, a something which demonstrated either a +stupid or troublesome disposition; either dulness of conception, or an +obstinacy of perseverance in comments and in arguments which were +glaringly false. + +Observing his uncle one day offended with his coachman, and hearing him +say to him in a very angry tone, + +"You shall never drive me again"-- + +The moment the man quitted the room, Henry (with his eyes fixed in the +deepest contemplation) repeated five or six times, in a half whisper to +himself, + +"_You shall never drive me again_." + +"_You shall never drive me again_." + +The dean at last called to him. "What do you mean by thus repeating my +words?" + +"I am trying to find out what _you_ meant," said Henry. + +"What don't you know?" cried his enlightened cousin. "Richard is turned +away; he is never to get upon our coach-box again, never to drive any of +us more." + +"And was it pleasure to drive us, cousin? I am sure I have often pitied +him. It rained sometimes very hard when he was on the box; and sometimes +Lady Clementina has kept him a whole hour at the door all in the cold and +snow. Was that pleasure?" + +"No," replied young William. + +"Was it honour, cousin?" + +"No," exclaimed his cousin with a contemptuous smile. + +"Then why did my uncle say to him, as a punishment, 'he should never'"-- + +"Come hither, child," said the dean, "and let me instruct you; your +father's negligence has been inexcusable. There are in society," +continued the dean, "rich and poor; the poor are born to serve the rich." + +"And what are the rich born for?" + +"To be served by the poor." + +"But suppose the poor would not serve them?" + +"Then they must starve." + +"And so poor people are permitted to live only upon condition that they +wait upon the rich?" + +"Is that a hard condition; or if it were, they will be rewarded in a +better world than this?" + +"Is there a better world than this?" + +"Is it possible you do not know there is?" + +"I heard my father once say something about a world to come; but he +stopped short, and said I was too young to understand what he meant." + +"The world to come," returned the dean, "is where we shall go after +death; and there no distinction will be made between rich and poor--all +persons there will be equal." + +"Aye, now I see what makes it a better world than this. But cannot this +world try to be as good as that?" + +"In respect to placing all persons on a level, it is utterly impossible. +God has ordained it otherwise." + +"How! has God ordained a distinction to be made, and will not make any +Himself?" + +The dean did not proceed in his instructions. He now began to think his +brother in the right, and that the boy was too young, or too weak, to +comprehend the subject. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +In addition to his ignorant conversation upon many topics, young Henry +had an incorrigible misconception and misapplication of many _words_. His +father having had but few opportunities of discoursing with him, upon +account of his attendance at the court of the savages, and not having +books in the island, he had consequently many words to learn of this +country's language when he arrived in England. This task his retentive +memory made easy to him; but his childish inattention to their proper +signification still made his want of education conspicuous. + +He would call _compliments_, _lies_; _reserve_, he would call _pride_; +_stateliness_, _affectation_; and for the words _war_ and _battle_, he +constantly substituted the word _massacre_. + +"Sir," said William to his father one morning, as he entered the room, +"do you hear how the cannons are firing, and the bells ringing?" + +"Then I dare say," cried Henry, "there has been another massacre." + +The dean called to him in anger, "Will you never learn the right use of +words? You mean to say a battle." + +"Then what is a massacre?" cried the frightened, but still curious Henry. + +"A massacre," replied his uncle, "is when a number of people are slain--" + +"I thought," returned Henry, "soldiers had been people!" + +"You interrupted me," said the dean, "before I finished my sentence. +Certainly, both soldiers and sailors are people, but they engage to die +by their own free will and consent." + +"What! all of them?" + +"Most of them." + +"But the rest are massacred?" + +The dean answered, "The number who go to battle unwillingly, and by +force, are few; and for the others, they have previously sold their lives +to the state." + +"For what?" + +"For soldiers' and sailors' pay." + +"My father used to tell me, we must not take away our own lives; but he +forgot to tell me we might sell them for others to take away." + +"William," said the dean to his son, his patience tired with his nephew's +persevering nonsense, "explain to your cousin the difference between a +battle and a massacre." + +"A massacre," said William, rising from his seat, and fixing his eyes +alternately upon his father, his mother, and the bishop (all of whom were +present) for their approbation, rather than the person's to whom his +instructions were to be addressed--"a massacre," said William, "is when +human beings are slain, who have it not in their power to defend +themselves." + +"Dear cousin William," said Henry, "that must ever be the case with every +one who is killed." + +After a short hesitation, William replied: "In massacres people are put +to death for no crime, but merely because they are objects of suspicion." + +"But in battle," said Henry, "the persons put to death are not even +suspected." + +The bishop now condescended to end this disputation by saying +emphatically, + +"Consider, young savage, that in battle neither the infant, the aged, the +sick, nor infirm are involved, but only those in the full prime of health +and vigour." + +As this argument came from so great and reverend a man as the bishop, +Henry was obliged, by a frown from his uncle, to submit, as one refuted; +although he had an answer at the veriest tip of his tongue, which it was +torture to him not to utter. What he wished to say must ever remain a +secret. The church has its terrors as well as the law; and Henry was +awed by the dean's tremendous wig as much as Paternoster Row is awed by +the Attorney-General. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +If the dean had loved his wife but moderately, seeing all her faults +clearly as he did, he must frequently have quarrelled with her: if he had +loved her with tenderness, he must have treated her with a degree of +violence in the hope of amending her failings. But having neither +personal nor mental affection towards her sufficiently interesting to +give himself the trouble to contradict her will in anything, he passed +for one of the best husbands in the world. Lady Clementina went out when +she liked, stayed at home when she liked, dressed as she liked, and +talked as she liked without a word of disapprobation from her husband, +and all--because he cared nothing about her. + +Her vanity attributed this indulgence to inordinate affection; and +observers in general thought her happier in her marriage than the beloved +wife who bathes her pillow with tears by the side of an angry husband, +whose affection is so excessive that he unkindly upbraids her because she +is--less than perfection. + +The dean's wife was not so dispassionately considered by some of his +acquaintance as by himself; for they would now and then hint at her +foibles: but this great liberty she also conceived to be the effect of +most violent love, or most violent admiration: and such would have been +her construction had they commended her follies--had they totally +slighted, or had they beaten her. + +Amongst those acquaintances, the aforesaid bishop, by far the most +frequent visitor, did not come merely to lounge an idle hour, but he had +a more powerful motive; the desire of fame, and dread of being thought a +man receiving large emolument for unimportant service. + +The dean, if he did not procure him the renown he wished, still preserved +him from the apprehended censure. + +The elder William was to his negligent or ignorant superiors in the +church such as an apt boy at school is to the rich dunces--William +performed the prelates' tasks for them, and they rewarded him--not indeed +with toys or money, but with their countenance, their company, their +praise. And scarcely was there a sermon preached from the patrician part +of the bench, in which the dean did not fashion some periods, blot out +some uncouth phrases, render some obscure sentiments intelligible, and +was the certain person, when the work was printed, to correct the press. + +This honourable and right reverend bishop delighted in printing and +publishing his works; or rather the entire works of the dean, which +passed for his: and so degradingly did William, the shopkeeper's son, +think of his own homiest extraction, that he was blinded, even to the +loss of honour, by the lustre of this noble acquaintance; for, though in +other respects he was a man of integrity, yet, when the gratification of +his friend was in question, he was a liar; he not only disowned his +giving him aid in any of his publications, but he never published +anything in his own name without declaring to the world "that he had been +obliged for several hints on the subject, for many of the most judicious +corrections, and for those passages in page so and so (naming the most +eloquent parts of the work) to his noble and learned friend the bishop." + +The dean's wife being a fine lady--while her husband and his friend pored +over books or their own manuscripts at home, she ran from house to house, +from public amusement to public amusement; but much less for the pleasure +of _seeing_ than for that of being seen. Nor was it material to her +enjoyment whether she were observed, or welcomed, where she went, as she +never entertained the smallest doubt of either; but rested assured that +her presence roused curiosity and dispensed gladness all around. + +One morning she went forth to pay her visits, all smiles, such as she +thought captivating: she returned, all tears, such as she thought no less +endearing. + +Three ladies accompanied her home, entreating her to be patient under a +misfortune to which even kings are liable: namely, defamation. + +Young Henry, struck with compassion at grief of which he knew not the +cause, begged to know "what was the matter?" + +"Inhuman monsters, to treat a woman thus!" cried his aunt in a fury, +casting the corner of her eye into a looking-glass, to see how rage +became her. + +"But, comfort yourself," said one of her companions: "few people will +believe you merit the charge." + +"But few! if only one believe it, I shall call my reputation lost, and I +will shut myself up in some lonely hut, and for ever renounce all that is +dear to me!" + +"What! all your fine clothes?" said Henry, in amazement. + +"Of what importance will my best dresses be, when nobody would see them?" + +"You would see them yourself, dear aunt; and I am sure nobody admires +them more." + +"Now you speak of that," said she, "I do not think this gown I have on +becoming--I am sure I look--" + +The dean, with the bishop (to whom he had been reading a treatise just +going to the press, which was to be published in the name of the latter, +though written by the former), now entered, to inquire why they had been +sent for in such haste. + +"Oh, Dean! oh, my Lord Bishop!" she cried, resuming that grief which the +thoughts of her dress had for a time dispelled--"My reputation is +destroyed--a public print has accused me of playing deep at my own house, +and winning all the money." + +"The world will never reform," said the bishop: "all our labour, my +friend, is thrown away." + +"But is it possible," cried the dean, "that any one has dared to say this +of you?" + +"Here it is in print," said she, holding out a newspaper. + +The dean read the paragraph, and then exclaimed, "I can forgive a +falsehood _spoken_--the warmth of conversation may excuse it--but to +_write_ and _print_ an untruth is unpardonable, and I will prosecute this +publisher." + +"Still the falsehood will go down to posterity," said Lady Clementina; +"and after ages will think I was a gambler." + +"Comfort yourself, dear madam," said young Henry, wishing to console her: +"perhaps after ages may not hear of you; nor even the present age think +much about you." + +The bishop now exclaimed, after having taken the paper from the dean, and +read the paragraph, "It is a libel, a rank libel, and the author must be +punished." + +"Not only the author, but the publisher," said the dean. + +"Not only the publisher, but the printer," continued the bishop. + +"And must my name be bandied about by lawyers in a common court of +justice?" cried Lady Clementina. "How shocking to my delicacy!" + +"My lord, it is a pity we cannot try them by the ecclesiastical court," +said the dean, with a sigh. + +"Or by the India delinquent bill," said the bishop, with vexation. + +"So totally innocent as I am!" she vociferated with sobs. "Every one +knows I never touch a card at home, and this libel charges me with +playing at my own house; and though, whenever I do play, I own I am apt +to win, yet it is merely for my amusement." + +"Win or not win, play or not play," exclaimed both the churchmen, "this +is a libel--no doubt, no doubt, a libel." + +Poor Henry's confined knowledge of his native language tormented him so +much with curiosity upon this occasion, that he went softly up to his +uncle, and asked him in a whisper, "What is the meaning of the word +libel?" + +"A libel," replied the dean, in a raised voice, "is that which one person +publishes to the injury of another." + +"And what can the injured person do," asked Henry, "if the accusation +should chance to be true?" + +"Prosecute," replied the dean. + +"But, then, what does he do if the accusation be false?" + +"Prosecute likewise," answered the dean. + +"How, uncle! is it possible that the innocent behave just like the +guilty?" + +"There is no other way to act." + +"Why, then, if I were the innocent, I would do nothing at all sooner than +I would act like the guilty. I would not persecute--" + +"I said _prosecute_," cried the dean in anger. "Leave the room; you have +no comprehension." + +"Oh, yes, now I understand the difference of the two words; but they +sound so much alike, I did not at first observe the distinction. You +said, 'the innocent prosecute, but the _guilty persecute_.'" He bowed +(convinced as he thought) and left the room. + +After this modern star-chamber, which was left sitting, had agreed on its +mode of vengeance, and the writer of the libel was made acquainted with +his danger, he waited, in all humility, upon Lady Clementina, and assured +her, with every appearance of sincerity, + +"That she was not the person alluded to by the paragraph in question, but +that the initials which she had conceived to mark out her name, were, in +fact, meant to point out Lady Catherine Newland." + +"But, sir," cried Lady Clementina, "what could induce you to write such a +paragraph upon Lady Catherine? She _never_ plays." + +"We know that, madam, or we dared not to have attacked her. Though we +must circulate libels, madam, to gratify our numerous readers, yet no +people are more in fear of prosecutions than authors and editors; +therefore, unless we are deceived in our information, we always take care +to libel the innocent--we apprehend nothing from them--their own +characters support them--but the guilty are very tenacious; and what they +cannot secure by fair means, they will employ force to accomplish. Dear +madam, be assured I have too much regard for a wife and seven small +children, who are maintained by my industry alone, to have written +anything in the nature of a libel upon your ladyship." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +About this period the dean had just published a pamphlet in his own name, +and in which that of his friend the bishop was only mentioned with thanks +for hints, observations, and condescending encouragement to the author. + +This pamphlet glowed with the dean's love for his country; and such a +country as he described, it was impossible _not_ to love. "Salubrious +air, fertile fields, wood, water, corn, grass, sheep, oxen, fish, fowl, +fruit, and vegetables," were dispersed with the most prodigal hand; +"valiant men, virtuous women; statesmen wise and just; tradesmen +abounding in merchandise and money; husbandmen possessing peace, ease, +plenty; and all ranks liberty." This brilliant description, while the +dean read the work to his family, so charmed poor Henry, that he +repeatedly cried out, + +"I am glad I came to this country." + +But it so happened that a few days after, Lady Clementina, in order to +render the delicacy of her taste admired, could eat of no one dish upon +the table, but found fault with them all. The dean at length said to +her, + +"Indeed, you are too nice; reflect upon the hundreds of poor creatures +who have not a morsel or a drop of anything to subsist upon, except bread +and water; and even of the first a scanty allowance, but for which they +are obliged to toil six days in the week, from sun to sun." + +"Pray, uncle," cried Henry, "in what country do these poor people live?" + +"In this country," replied the dean. + +Henry rose from his chair, ran to the chimney-piece, took up his uncle's +pamphlet, and said, "I don't remember your mentioning them here." + +"Perhaps I have not," answered the dean, coolly. + +Still Henry turned over each leaf of the book, but he could meet only +with luxurious details of "the fruits of the earth, the beasts of the +field, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea." + +"Why, here is provision enough for all the people," said Henry; "why +should they want? why do not they go and take some of these things?" + +"They must not," said the dean, "unless they were their own." + +"What, uncle! does no part of the earth, nor anything which the earth +produces, belong to the poor?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Why did not you say so, then, in your pamphlet?" + +"Because it is what everybody knows." + +"Oh, then, what you have said in your pamphlet is only what--nobody +knows." + +There appeared to the dean, in the delivery of this sentence, a satirical +acrimony, which his irritability as an author could but ill forgive. + +An author, it is said, has more acute feelings in respect to his works +than any artist in the world besides. + +Henry had some cause, on the present occasion, to think this observation +just; for no sooner had he spoken the foregoing words, than his uncle +took him by the hand out of the room, and, leading him to his study, +there he enumerated his various faults; and having told him "it was for +all those, too long permitted with impunity, and not merely for the +_present_ impertinence, that he meant to punish him," ordered him to +close confinement in his chamber for a week. + +In the meantime, the dean's pamphlet (less hurt by Henry's critique than +_he_ had been) was proceeding to the tenth edition, and the author +acquiring literary reputation beyond what he had ever conferred on his +friend the bishop. + +The style, the energy, the eloquence of the work was echoed by every +reader who could afford to buy it--some few enlightened ones excepted, +who chiefly admired the author's _invention_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +The dean, in the good humour which the rapid sale of his book produced, +once more took his nephew to his bosom; and although the ignorance of +young Henry upon the late occasions had offended him very highly, yet +that self-same ignorance, evinced a short time after upon a different +subject, struck his uncle as productive of a most rare and exalted +virtue. + +Henry had frequently, in his conversation, betrayed the total want of all +knowledge in respect to religion or futurity, and the dean for this +reason delayed taking him to church, till he had previously given him +instructions _wherefore_ he went. + +A leisure morning arrived, on which he took his nephew to his study, and +implanted in his youthful mind the first unconfused idea of the Creator +of the universe! + +The dean was eloquent, Henry was all attention; his understanding, +expanded by time to the conception of a God--and not warped by custom +from the sensations which a just notion of that God inspires--dwelt with +delight and wonder on the information given him--lessons which, instilled +into the head of a senseless infant, too often produce, throughout his +remaining life, an impious indifference to the truths revealed. + +Yet, with all that astonished, that respectful sensibility which Henry +showed on this great occasion, he still expressed his opinion, and put +questions to the dean, with his usual simplicity, till he felt himself +convinced. + +"What!" cried he--after being informed of the attributes inseparable from +the Supreme Being, and having received the injunction to offer prayers to +Him night and morning--"What! am I permitted to speak to Power Divine?" + +"At all times," replied the dean. + +"How! whenever I like?" + +"Whenever you like," returned the dean. + +"I durst not," cried Henry, "make so free with the bishop, nor dare any +of his attendants." + +"The bishop," said the dean, "is the servant of God, and therefore must +be treated with respect." + +"With more respect than his Master?" asked Henry. + +The dean not replying immediately to this question, Henry, in the +rapidity of inquiry, ran on to another:-- + +"But what am I to say when I speak to the Almighty?" + +"First, thank Him for the favours He has bestowed on you." + +"What favours?" + +"You amaze me," cried the dean, "by your question. Do not you live in +ease, in plenty, and happiness?" + +"And do the poor and the unhappy thank Him too, uncle?" + +"No doubt; every human being glorifies Him, for having been made a +rational creature." + +"And does my aunt and all her card-parties glorify Him for that?" + +The dean again made no reply, and Henry went on to other questions, till +his uncle had fully instructed him as to the nature and the form of +_prayer_; and now, putting into his hands a book, he pointed out to him a +few short prayers, which he wished him to address to Heaven in his +presence. + +Whilst Henry bent his knees, as his uncle had directed, he trembled, +turned pale, and held, for a slight support, on the chair placed before +him. + +His uncle went to him, and asked him "What was the matter." + +"Oh!" cried Henry, "when I first came to your door with my poor father's +letter, I shook for fear you would not look upon me; and I cannot help +feeling even more now than I did then." + +The dean embraced him with warmth--gave him confidence--and retired to +the other side of the study, to observe his whole demeanour on this new +occasion. + +As he beheld his features varying between the passions of humble fear and +fervent hope, his face sometimes glowing with the rapture of +thanksgiving, and sometimes with the blushes of contrition, he thus +exclaimed apart:-- + +"This is the true education on which to found the principles of religion. +The favour conferred by Heaven in granting the freedom of petitions to +its throne, can never be conceived with proper force but by those whose +most tedious moments during their infancy were _not_ passed in prayer. +Unthinking governors of childhood! to insult the Deity with a form of +worship in which the mind has no share; nay, worse, has repugnance, and +by the thoughtless habits of youth, prevent, even in age, devotion." + +Henry's attention was so firmly fixed that he forgot there was a +spectator of his fervour; nor did he hear young William enter the chamber +and even speak to his father. + +At length closing his book and rising from his knees, he approached his +uncle and cousin, with a sedateness in his air, which gave the latter a +very false opinion of the state of his youthful companion's mind. + +"So, Mr. Henry," cried William, "you have been obliged, at last, to say +your prayers." + +The dean informed his son "that to Henry it was no punishment to pray." + +"He is the strangest boy I ever knew!" said William, inadvertently. + +"To be sure," said Henry, "I was frightened when I first knelt; but when +I came to the words, _Father_, _which art in Heaven_, they gave me +courage; for I know how merciful and kind a _father_ is, beyond any one +else." + +The dean again embraced his nephew, let fall a tear to his poor brother +Henry's misfortunes; and admonished the youth to show himself equally +submissive to other instructions, as he had done to those which inculcate +piety. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +The interim between youth and manhood was passed by young William and +young Henry in studious application to literature; some casual mistakes +in our customs and manners on the part of Henry; some too close +adherences to them on the side of William. + +Their different characters, when boys, were preserved when they became +men: Henry still retained that natural simplicity which his early destiny +had given him; he wondered still at many things he saw and heard, and at +times would venture to give his opinion, contradict, and even act in +opposition to persons whom long experience and the approbation of the +world had placed in situations which claimed his implicit reverence and +submission. + +Unchanged in all his boyish graces, young William, now a man, was never +known to infringe upon the statutes of good-breeding; even though +sincerity, his own free will, duty to his neighbour, with many other +plebeian virtues and privileges, were the sacrifice. + +William inherited all the pride and ambition of the dean--Henry, all his +father's humility. And yet, so various and extensive is the acceptation +of the word pride, that, on some occasions, Henry was proud even beyond +his cousin. He thought it far beneath his dignity ever to honour, or +contemplate with awe, any human being in whom he saw numerous failings. +Nor would he, to ingratiate himself into the favour of a man above him, +stoop to one servility, such as the haughty William daily practised. + +"I know I am called proud," one day said William to Henry. + +"Dear cousin," replied Henry, "it must be only, then, by those who do not +know you; for to me you appear the humblest creature in the world." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"I am certain of it; or would you always give up your opinion to that of +persons in a superior state, however inferior in their understanding? +Would else their weak judgment immediately change yours, though, before, +you had been decided on the opposite side? Now, indeed, cousin, I have +more pride than you; for I never will stoop to act or to speak contrary +to my feelings." + +"Then you will never be a great man." + +"Nor ever desire it, if I must first be a mean one." + +There was in the reputation of these two young men another mistake, which +the common retailers of character committed. Henry was said to be wholly +negligent, while William was reputed to be extremely attentive to the +other sex. William, indeed, was gallant, was amorous, and indulged his +inclination to the libertine society of women; but Henry it was who +_loved_ them. He admired them at a reverential distance, and felt so +tender an affection for the virtuous female, that it shocked him to +behold, much more to associate with, the depraved and vicious. + +In the advantages of person Henry was still superior to William; and yet +the latter had no common share of those attractions which captivate weak, +thoughtless, or unskilful minds. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +About the time that Henry and William quitted college, and had arrived at +their twentieth year, the dean purchased a small estate in a village near +to the country residence of Lord and Lady Bendham; and, in the total want +of society, the dean's family were frequently honoured with invitations +from the great house. + +Lord Bendham, besides a good estate, possessed the office of a lord of +the bed-chamber to his Majesty. Historians do not ascribe much +importance to the situation, or to the talents of nobles in this +department, nor shall this little history. A lord of the bed-chamber is +a personage well known in courts, and in all capitals where courts +reside; with this advantage to the inquirer, that in becoming acquainted +with one of those noble characters, he becomes acquainted with all the +remainder; not only with those of the same kingdom, but those of foreign +nations; for, in whatever land, in whatever climate, a lord of the bed- +chamber must necessarily be the self-same creature: one wholly made up of +observance, of obedience, of dependence, and of imitation--a borrowed +character--a character formed by reflection. + +The wife of this illustrious peer, as well as himself, took her hue, like +the chameleon, from surrounding objects: her manners were not governed by +her mind but were solely directed by external circumstances. At court, +humble, resigned, patient, attentive: at balls, masquerades, +gaming-tables, and routs, gay, sprightly, and flippant; at her country +seat, reserved, austere, arrogant, and gloomy. + +Though in town her timid eye in presence of certain personages would +scarcely uplift its trembling lid, so much she felt her own +insignificance, yet, in the country, till Lady Clementina arrived, there +was not one being of consequence enough to share in her acquaintance; and +she paid back to her inferiors there all the humiliating slights, all the +mortifications, which in London she received from those to whom _she_ was +inferior. + +Whether in town or country, it is but justice to acknowledge that in her +own person she was strictly chaste; but in the country she extended that +chastity even to the persons of others; and the young woman who lost her +virtue in the village of Anfield had better have lost her life. Some few +were now and then found hanging or drowned, while no other cause could be +assigned for their despair than an imputation on the discretion of their +character, and dread of the harsh purity of Lady Bendham. She would +remind the parish priest of the punishment allotted for female dishonour, +and by her influence had caused many an unhappy girl to do public penance +in their own or the neighbouring churches. + +But this country rigour in town she could dispense withal; and, like +other ladies of virtue, she there visited and received into her house the +acknowledged mistresses of any man in elevated life. It was not, +therefore, the crime, but the rank which the criminal held in society, +that drew down Lady Bendham's vengeance. She even carried her +distinction of classes in female error to such a very nice point that the +adulterous concubine of an elder brother was her most intimate +acquaintance, whilst the less guilty unmarried mistress of the younger +she would not sully her lips to exchange a word with. + +Lord and Lady Bendham's birth, education, talents, and propensities, +being much on the same scale of eminence, they would have been a very +happy pair, had not one great misfortune intervened--the lady never bore +her lord a child, while every cottage of the village was crammed with +half-starved children, whose father from week to week, from year to year, +exerted his manly youth, and wasted his strength in vain, to protect them +from hunger; whose mother mourned over her new-born infant as a little +wretch, sent into the world to deprive the rest of what already was too +scanty for them; in the castle, which owned every cottage and all the +surrounding land, and where one single day of feasting would have +nourished for a mouth all the poor inhabitants of the parish, not one +child was given to partake of the plenty. The curse of barrenness was on +the family of the lord of the manor, the curse of fruitfulness upon the +famished poor. + +This lord and lady, with an ample fortune, both by inheritance and their +sovereign's favour, had never yet the economy to be exempt from debts; +still, over their splendid, their profuse table, they could contrive and +plan excellent schemes "how the poor might live most comfortably with a +little better management." + +The wages of a labouring man, with a wife and half a dozen small +children, Lady Bendham thought quite sufficient if they would only learn +a little economy. + +"You know, my lord, those people never want to dress--shoes and +stockings, a coat and waistcoat, a gown and a cap, a petticoat and a +handkerchief, are all they want--fire, to be sure, in winter--then all +the rest is merely for provision." + +"I'll get a pen and ink," said young Henry, one day, when he had the +honour of being at their table, "and see what the _rest_ amounts to." + +"No, no accounts," cried my lord, "no summing up; but if you were to +calculate, you must add to the receipts of the poor my gift at +Christmas--last year, during the frost, no less than a hundred pounds." + +"How benevolent!" exclaimed the dean. + +"How prudent!" exclaimed Henry. + +"What do you mean by prudent?" asked Lord Bendham. "Explain your +meaning." + +"No, my lord," replied the dean, "do not ask for an explanation: this +youth is wholly unacquainted with our customs, and, though a man in +stature, is but a child in intellects. Henry, have I not often cautioned +you--" + +"Whatever his thoughts are upon the subject," cried Lord Bendham, "I +desire to know them." + +"Why, then, my lord," answered Henry, "I thought it was prudent in you to +give a little, lest the poor, driven to despair, should take all." + +"And if they had, they would have been hanged." + +"Hanging, my lord, our history, or some tradition, says, was formerly +adopted as a mild punishment, in place of starving." + +"I am sure," cried Lady Bendham (who seldom spoke directly to the +argument before her), "I am sure they ought to think themselves much +obliged to us." + +"That is the greatest hardship of all," cried Henry. + +"What, sir?" exclaimed the earl. + +"I beg your pardon--my uncle looks displeased--I am very ignorant--I did +not receive my first education in this country--and I find I think so +differently from every one else, that I am ashamed to utter my +sentiments." + +"Never mind, young man," answered Lord Bendham; "we shall excuse your +ignorance for once. Only inform us what it was you just now called _the +greatest hardship of all_." + +"It was, my lord, that what the poor receive to keep them from perishing +should pass under the name of _gifts_ and _bounty_. Health, strength, +and the will to earn a moderate subsistence, ought to be every man's +security from obligation." + +"I think a hundred pounds a great deal of money," cried Lady Bendham; +"and I hope my lord will never give it again." + +"I hope so too," cried Henry; "for if my lord would only be so good as to +speak a few words for the poor as a senator, he might possibly for the +future keep his hundred pounds, and yet they never want it." + +Lord Bendham had the good nature only to smile at Henry's simplicity, +whispering to himself, "I had rather keep my--" his last word was lost in +the whisper. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +In the country--where the sensible heart is still more susceptible of +impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other men's wit +to invent, forms schemes for its own amusement--our youths both fell in +love: if passions, that were pursued on the most opposite principles, can +receive the same appellation. William, well versed in all the licentious +theory, thought himself in love, because he perceived a tumultuous +impulse cause his heart to beat while his fancy fixed on a certain object +whose presence agitated yet more his breast. + +Henry thought himself not in love, because, while he listened to William +on the subject, he found their sensations did not in the least agree. + +William owned to Henry that he loved Agnes, the daughter of a cottager in +the village, and hoped to make her his mistress. + +Henry felt that his tender regard for Rebecca, the daughter of the curate +of the parish, did not inspire him even with the boldness to acquaint her +with his sentiments, much less to meditate one design that might tend to +her dishonour. + +While William was cautiously planning how to meet in private, and +accomplish the seduction of the object of his passion, Henry was +endeavouring to fortify the object of _his_ choice with every virtue. He +never read a book from which he received improvement that he did not +carry it to Rebecca--never heard a circumstance which might assist +towards her moral instruction that he did not haste to tell it her; and +once when William boasted + +"He knew he was beloved by Agnes;" + +Henry said, with equal triumph, "he had not dared to take the means to +learn, nor had Rebecca dared to give one instance of her partiality." + +Rebecca was the youngest, and by far the least handsome daughter of four, +to whom the Reverend Mr. Rymer, a widower, was father. The other sisters +were accounted beauties; and she, from her comparative want of personal +charms, having been less beloved by her parents, and less caressed by +those who visited them, than the rest, had for some time past sought +other resources of happiness than the affection, praise, and indulgence +of her fellow-creatures. The parsonage house in which this family lived +was the forlorn remains of an ancient abbey: it had in later times been +the habitation of a rich and learned rector, by whom, at his decease, a +library was bequeathed for the use of every succeeding resident. Rebecca, +left alone in this huge ruinous abode, while her sisters were paying +stated visits in search of admiration, passed her solitary hours in +reading. She not merely read--she thought: the choicest English books +from this excellent library taught her to _think_; and reflection +fashioned her mind to bear the slights, the mortifications of neglect, +with a patient dejection, rather than with an indignant or a peevish +spirit. + +This resignation to injury and contumely gave to her perfect symmetry of +person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon her face a placid +sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which no wise connoisseur in +female charms would have exchanged for all the sparkling eyes and florid +tints of her vain and vulgar sisters. Henry's soul was so enamoured of +her gentle deportment, that in his sight she appeared beautiful; while +she, with an understanding competent to judge of his worth, was so +greatly surprised, so prodigiously astonished at the distinction, the +attention, the many offices of civility paid her by him, in preference to +her idolised sisters, that her gratitude for such unexpected favours had +sometimes (even in his presence, and in that of her family) nearly +drowned her eyes with tears. Yet they were only trifles, in which Henry +had the opportunity or the power to give her testimony of his +regard--trifles, often more grateful to the sensible mind than efforts of +high importance; and by which the proficient in the human heart will +accurately trace a passion wholly concealed from the dull eye of the +unskilled observer. + +The first cause of amazement to Rebecca in the manners of Henry was, that +he talked with _her_ as well as with her sisters; no visitor else had +done so. In appointing a morning's or an evening's walk, he proposed +_her_ going with the rest; no one had ever required her company before. +When he called and she was absent, he asked where she was; no one had +ever missed her before. She thanked him most sincerely, and soon +perceived that, at those times when he was present, company was more +pleasing even than books. + +Her astonishment, her gratitude, did not stop here. Henry proceeded in +attention; he soon selected her from her sister to tell her the news of +the day, answered her observations the first; once gave her a sprig of +myrtle from his bosom in preference to another who had praised its +beauty; and once--never-to-be-forgotten kindness--sheltered her from a +hasty shower with his _parapluie_, while he lamented to her drenched +companions, + +"That he had but _one_ to offer." + +From a man whose understanding and person they admire, how dear, how +impressive on the female heart is every trait of tenderness! Till now, +Rebecca had experienced none; not even of the parental kind: and merely +from the overflowings of a kind nature (not in return for affection) had +she ever loved her father and her sisters. Sometimes, repulsed by their +severity, she transferred the fulness of an affectionate heart upon +birds, or the brute creation: but now, her alienated mind was recalled +and softened by a sensation that made her long to complain of the burthen +it imposed. Those obligations which exact silence are a heavy weight to +the grateful; and Rebecca longed to tell Henry "that even the forfeit of +her life would be too little to express the full sense she had of the +respect he paid to her." But as modesty forbade not only every kind of +declaration, but every insinuation purporting what she felt, she wept +through sleepless nights from a load of suppressed explanation; yet still +she would not have exchanged this trouble for all the beauty of her +sisters. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Old John and Hannah Primrose, a prudent hardy couple, who, by many years +of peculiar labour and peculiar abstinence, were the least poor of all +the neighbouring cottagers, had an only child (who has been named before) +called Agnes: and this cottage girl was reckoned, in spite of the beauty +of the elder Miss Rymers, by far the prettiest female in the village. + +Reader of superior rank, if the passions which rage in the bosom of the +inferior class of human kind are beneath your sympathy, throw aside this +little history, for Rebecca Rymer and Agnes Primrose are its heroines. + +But you, unprejudiced reader, whose liberal observations are not confined +to stations, but who consider all mankind alike deserving your +investigation; who believe that there exists, in some, knowledge without +the advantage of instruction; refinement of sentiment independent of +elegant society; honourable pride of heart without dignity of blood; and +genius destitute of art to render it conspicuous--you will, perhaps, +venture to read on, in hopes that the remainder of this story may deserve +your attention, just as the wild herb of the forest, equally with the +cultivated plant in the garden, claims the attention of the botanist. + +Young William saw in young Agnes even more beauty than was beheld by +others; and on those days when he felt no inclination to ride, to shoot, +or to hunt, he would contrive, by some secret device, the means to meet +with her alone, and give her tokens (if not of his love) at least of his +admiration of her beauty, and of the pleasure he enjoyed in her company. + +Agnes listened, with a kind of delirious enchantment, to all her elevated +and eloquent admirer uttered; and in return for his praises of her +charms, and his equivocal replies in respect to his designs towards her, +she gave to him her most undisguised thoughts, and her whole enraptured +heart. + +This harmless intercourse (as she believed it) had not lasted many weeks +before she loved him: she even confessed she did, every time that any +unwonted mark of attention from him struck with unexpected force her +infatuated senses. + +It has been said by a celebrated writer, upon the affection subsisting +between the two sexes, "that there are many persons who, if they had +never heard of the passion of love, would never have felt it." Might it +not with equal truth be added, that there are many more, who, having +heard of it, and believing most firmly that they feel it, are +nevertheless mistaken? Neither of these cases was the lot of Agnes. She +experienced the sentiment before she ever heard it named in the sense +with which it had possessed her--joined with numerous other sentiments; +for genuine love, however rated as the chief passion of the human heart, +is but a poor dependent, a retainer upon other passions; admiration, +gratitude, respect, esteem, pride in the object. Divest the boasted +sensation of these, and it is not more than the impression of a twelve- +month, by courtesy, or vulgar error, termed love. + +Agnes was formed by the rarest structure of the human frame, and destined +by the tenderest thrillings of the human soul, to inspire and to +experience real love: but her nice taste, her delicate thoughts, were so +refined beyond the sphere of her own station in society, that nature +would have produced this prodigy of attraction in vain, had not one of +superior education and manners assailed her affections; and had she been +accustomed to the conversation of men in William's rank of life, she had, +perhaps, treated William's addresses with indifference; but, in comparing +him with her familiar acquaintance, he was a miracle! His unremitting +attention seemed the condescension of an elevated being, to whom she +looked up with reverence, with admiration, with awe, with pride, with +sense of obligation--and all those various passions which constitute +true, and never-to-be-eradicated, love. + +But in vain she felt and even avowed with her lips what every look, every +gesture, had long denoted; William, with discontent, sometimes with +anger, upbraided her for her false professions, and vowed, "that while +one tender proof, which he fervently besought, was wanting, she did but +aggravate his misery by less endearments." + +Agnes had been taught the full estimation of female virtue; and if her +nature could have detested any one creature in a state of wretchedness, +it would have been the woman who had lost her honour; yet, for William, +what would not Agnes forfeit? The dignity, the peace, the serenity, the +innocence of her own mind, love soon encouraged her to fancy she could +easily forego; and this same overpowering influence at times so forcibly +possessed her, that she even felt a momentary transport in the +contemplation "of so precious a sacrifice to him." But then she loved +her parents, and their happiness she could not prevail with herself to +barter even for _his_. She wished he would demand some other pledge of +her attachment to him; for there was none but this, her ruin in no other +shape, that she would deny at his request. While thus she deliberated, +she prepared for her fall. + +Bred up with strict observance both of his moral and religious character, +William did not dare to tell an unequivocal lie even to his inferiors; he +never promised Agnes he would marry her; nay, even he paid so much +respect to the forms of truth, that no sooner was it evident that he had +obtained her heart, her whole soul entire--so that loss of innocence +would be less terrifying than separation from him--no sooner did he +perceive this, than he candidly told her he "could never make her his +wife." At the same time he lamented "the difference of their births, and +the duty he owed his parents' hopes," in terms so pathetic to her partial +ear, that she thought him a greater object of compassion in his +attachment even than herself; and was now urged by pity to remove the +cause of his complainings. + +One evening Henry accidentally passed the lonely spot where William and +she constantly met; he observed his cousin's impassioned eye, and her +affectionate yet fearful glance. William, he saw, took delight in the +agitation of mind, in the strong apprehension mixed with the love of +Agnes. This convinced Henry that either he or himself was not in love; +for his heart told him he would not have beheld such emotions of +tenderness, mingled with such marks of sorrow, upon the countenance of +Rebecca, for the wealth of the universe. + +The first time he was alone with William after this, he mentioned his +observation on Agnes's apparent affliction, and asked "why her grief was +the result of their stolen meetings." + +"Because," replied Williams, "her professions are unlimited, while her +manners are reserved; and I accuse her of loving me with unkind +moderation, while I love her to distraction." + +"You design to marry her, then?" + +"How can you degrade me by the supposition?" + +"Would it degrade you more to marry her than to make her your companion? +To talk with her for hours in preference to all other company? To wish +to be endeared to her by still closer ties?" + +"But all this is not raising her to the rank of my wife." + +"It is still raising her to that rank for which wives alone were +allotted." + +"You talk wildly! I tell you I love her; but not enough, I hope, to +marry her." + +"But too much, I hope, to undo her?" + +"That must be her own free choice--I make use of no unwarrantable +methods." + +"What are the warrantable ones?" + +"I mean, I have made her no false promises; offered no pretended +settlement; vowed no eternal constancy." + +"But you have told her you love her; and, from that confession, has she +not reason to expect every protection which even promises could secure?" + +"I cannot answer for her expectations; but I know if she should make me +as happy as I ask, and I should then forsake her, I shall not break my +word." + +"Still she will be deceived, for you will falsify your looks." + +"Do you think she depends on my looks?" + +"I have read in some book, _Looks are the lover's sole dependence_." + +"I have no objection to her interpreting mine in her favour; but then for +the consequences she will have herself, and only herself, to blame." + +"Oh! Heaven!" + +"What makes you exclaim so vehemently?" + +"A forcible idea of the bitterness of that calamity which inflicts self- +reproach! Oh, rather deceive her; leave her the consolation to reproach +_you_ rather than _herself_." + +"My honour will not suffer me." + +"Exert your honour, and never see her more." + +"I cannot live without her." + +"Then live with her by the laws of your country, and make her and +yourself both happy." + +"Am I to make my father and my mother miserable? They would disown me +for such a step." + +"Your mother, perhaps, might be offended, but your father could not. +Remember the sermon he preached but last Sunday, upon--_the shortness of +this life_--_contempt of all riches and worldly honours in balance with a +quiet conscience_; and the assurance he gave us, _that the greatest +happiness enjoyed upon earth was to be found under a humble roof_, _with +heaven in prospect_." + +"My father is a very good man," said William; "and yet, instead of being +satisfied with a humble roof, he looks impatiently forward to a bishop's +palace." + +"He is so very good, then," said Henry, "that perhaps, seeing the dangers +to which men in exalted stations are exposed, he has such extreme +philanthropy, and so little self-love, he would rather that _himself_ +should brave those perils incidental to wealth and grandeur than any +other person." + +"You are not yet civilised," said William; "and to argue with you is but +to instruct, without gaining instruction." + +"I know, sir," replied Henry, "that you are studying the law most +assiduously, and indulge flattering hopes of rising to eminence in your +profession: but let me hint to you--that though you may be perfect in the +knowledge how to administer the commandments of men, unless you keep in +view the precepts of God, your judgment, like mine, will be fallible." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +The dean's family passed this first summer at the new-purchased estate so +pleasantly, that they left it with regret when winter called them to +their house in town. + +But if some felt concern in quitting the village of Anfield, others who +were left behind felt the deepest anguish. Those were not the poor--for +rigid attention to the religion and morals of people in poverty, and +total neglect of their bodily wants, was the dean's practice. He forced +them to attend church every Sabbath; but whether they had a dinner on +their return was too gross and temporal an inquiry for his spiritual +fervour. Good of the soul was all he aimed at; and this pious +undertaking, besides his diligence as a pastor, required all his exertion +as a magistrate--for to be very poor and very honest, very oppressed yet +very thankful, is a degree of sainted excellence not often to be +attained, without the aid of zealous men to frighten into virtue. + +Those, then, who alone felt sorrow at the dean's departure were two young +women, whose parents, exempt from indigence, preserved them from +suffering under his unpitying piety, but whose discretion had not +protected them from the bewitching smiles of his nephew, and the seducing +wiles of his son. + +The first morning that Rebecca rose and knew Henry was gone till the +following summer, she wished she could have laid down again and slept +away the whole long interval. Her sisters' peevishness, her father's +austerity, she foresaw, would be insupportable now that she had +experienced Henry's kindness, and he was no longer near to fortify her +patience. She sighed--she wept--she was unhappy. + +But if Rebecca awoke with a dejected mind and an aching heart, what were +the sorrows of Agnes? The only child of doating parents, she never had +been taught the necessity of resignation--untutored, unread, unused to +reflect, but knowing how to feel; what were her sufferings when, on +waking, she called to mind that "William was gone," and with him gone all +that excess of happiness which his presence had bestowed, and for which +she had exchanged her future tranquillity? + +Loss of tranquillity even Rebecca had to bemoan: Agnes had still more--the +loss of innocence! + +Hal William remained in the village, shame, even conscience, perhaps, +might have been silenced; but, separated from her betrayer, parted from +the joys of guilt, and left only to its sorrows, every sting which quick +sensibility could sharpen, to torture her, was transfixed in her heart. +First came the recollection of a cold farewell from the man whose love +she had hoped her yielding passion had for ever won; next, flashed on her +thoughts her violated person; next, the crime incurred; then her cruelty +to her parents; and, last of all, the horrors of detection. + +She knew that as yet, by wariness, care, and contrivance, her meetings +with William had been unsuspected; but, in this agony of mind, her fears +fore-boded an informer who would defy all caution; who would stigmatise +her with a name--dear and desired by every virtuous female--abhorrent to +the blushing harlot--the name of mother. + +That Agnes, thus impressed, could rise from her bed, meet her parents and +her neighbours with her usual smile of vivacity, and voice of mirth, was +impossible: to leave her bed at all, to creep downstairs, and reply in a +faint, broken voice to questions asked, were, in her state of mind, +mighty efforts; and they were all to which her struggles could attain for +many weeks. + +William had promised to write to her while he was away: he kept his word; +but not till the end of two months did she receive a letter. Fear for +his health, apprehension of his death during this cruel interim, caused +an agony of suspense, which, by representing him to her distracted fancy +in a state of suffering, made him, if possible, still dearer to her. In +the excruciating anguish of uncertainty, she walked with trembling steps +through all weathers (when she could steal half a day while her parents +were employed in labour abroad) to the post town, at six miles' distance, +to inquire for his long-expected, long-wished-for letter. + +When at last it was given to her, that moment of consolation seemed to +repay her for the whole time of agonising terror she had endured. "He is +alive!" she said, "and I have suffered nothing." + +She hastily put this token of his health and his remembrance of her into +her bosom, rich as an empress with a new-acquired dominion. The way from +home, which she had trod with heavy pace, in the fear of renewed +disappointment, she skimmed along on her return swift as a doe: the cold +did not pierce, neither did the rain wet her. Many a time she put her +hand upon the prize she possessed, to find if it were safe: once, on the +road, she took it from her bosom, curiously viewed the seal and the +direction, then replacing it, did not move her fingers from their fast +grip till she arrived at her own house. + +Her father and her mother were still absent. She drew a chair, and +placing it near to the only window in the room, seated herself with +ceremonious order; then gently drew forth her treasure, laid it on her +knee, and with a smile that almost amounted to a laugh of gladness, once +more inspected the outward part, before she would trust herself with the +excessive joy of looking within. + +At length the seal was broken--but the contents still a secret. Poor +Agnes had learned to write as some youths learn Latin: so short a time +had been allowed for the acquirement, and so little expert had been her +master, that it took her generally a week to write a letter of ten lines, +and a month to read one of twenty. But this being a letter on which her +mind was deeply engaged, her whole imagination aided her slender +literature, and at the end of a fortnight she had made out every word. +They were these-- + + "Dr. Agnes,--I hope you have been well since we parted--I have been + very well myself; but I have been teased with a great deal of + business, which has not given me time to write to you before. I have + been called to the bar, which engages every spare moment; but I hope + it will not prevent my coming down to Anfield with my father in the + summer. + + "I am, Dr. Agnes, + "With gratitude for all the favours you + have conferred on me, + "Yours, &c. + "W. N." + +To have beheld the illiterate Agnes trying for two weeks, day and night, +to find out the exact words of this letter, would have struck the +spectator with amazement, had he also understood the right, the delicate, +the nicely proper sensations with which she was affected by every +sentence it contained. + +She wished it had been kinder, even for his sake who wrote it; because +she thought so well of him, and desired still to think so well, that she +was sorry at any faults which rendered him less worthy of her good +opinion. The cold civility of his letter had this effect--her clear, her +acute judgment felt it a kind of prevarication to _promise to write and +then write nothing that was hoped for_. But, enthralled by the magic of +her passion, she shortly found excuses for the man she loved, at the +expense of her own condemnation. + +"He has only the fault of inconstancy," she cried; "and that has been +caused by _my_ change of conduct. Had I been virtuous still, he had +still been affectionate." Bitter reflection! + +Yet there was a sentence in the letter, that, worse than all the +tenderness left out, wounded her sensibility; and she could not read the +line, _gratitude for all the favours conferred on me_, without turning +pale with horror, then kindling with indignation at the commonplace +thanks, which insultingly reminded her of her innocence given in exchange +for unmeaning acknowledgments. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +Absence is said to increase strong and virtuous love, but to destroy that +which is weak and sensual. In the parallel between young William and +young Henry, this was the case; for Henry's real love increased, while +William's turbulent passion declined in separation: yet had the latter +not so much abated that he did not perceive a sensation, like a sudden +shock of sorrow, on a proposal made him by his father, of entering the +marriage state with a young woman, the dependent niece of Lady Bendham; +who, as the dean informed him, had signified her lord's and her own +approbation of his becoming their nephew. + +At the first moment William received this intimation from his father, his +heart revolted with disgust from the object, and he instantly thought +upon Agnes with more affection than he had done for many weeks before. +This was from the comparison between her and his proposed wife; for he +had frequently seen Miss Sedgeley at Lord Bendham's, but had never seen +in her whole person or manners the least attraction to excite his love. +He pictured to himself an unpleasant home, with a companion so little +suited to his taste, and felt a pang of conscience, as well as of +attachment, in the thought of giving up for ever his poor Agnes. + +But these reflections, these feelings, lasted only for the moment. No +sooner had the dean explained why the marriage was desirable, recited +what great connections and what great patronage it would confer upon +their family, than William listened with eagerness, and both his love and +his conscience were, if not wholly quieted, at least for the present +hushed. + +Immediately after the dean had expressed to Lord and Lady Bendham his +son's "sense of the honour and the happiness conferred on him, by their +condescension in admitting him a member of their noble family," Miss +Sedgeley received from her aunt nearly the same shock as William had done +from his father. _For she_ (placed in the exact circumstance of her +intended husband) _had frequently seen the dean's son at Lord Bendham's_, +_but had never see in his whole person or manners the least attraction to +excite her love_. _She pictured to herself an unpleasant home_, _with a +companion so little suited to her taste_; and at this moment she felt a +more than usual partiality to the dean's nephew, finding the secret hope +she had long indulged of winning his affections so near being thwarted. + +But Miss Sedgeley was too much subjected to the power of her uncle and +aunt to have a will of her own, at least, to dare to utter it. She +received the commands of Lady Bendham with her accustomed submission, +while all the consolation for the grief they gave her was, "that she +resolved to make a very bad wife." + +"I shall not care a pin for my husband," said she to herself; "and so I +will dress and visit, and do just as I like; he dare not be unkind +because of my aunt. Besides, now I think again, it is not so +disagreeable to marry _him_ as if I were obliged to marry into any other +family, because I shall see his cousin Henry as often, if not oftener +than ever." + +For Miss Sedgeley--whose person he did not like, and with her mind thus +disposed--William began to force himself to shake off every little +remaining affection, even all pity, for the unfortunate, the beautiful, +the sensible, the doating Agnes; and determined to place in a situation +to look down with scorn upon her sorrows, this weak, this unprincipled +woman. + +Connections, interest, honours, were powerful advocates. His private +happiness William deemed trivial compared to public opinion; and to be +under obligations to a peer, his wife's relation, gave greater renown in +his servile mind than all the advantages which might accrue from his own +intrinsic independent worth. + +In the usual routine of pretended regard and real indifference--sometimes +disgust--between parties allied by what is falsely termed _prudence_, the +intended union of Mr. Norwynne with Miss Sedgeley proceeded in all due +form; and at their country seats at Anfield, during the summer, their +nuptials were appointed to be celebrated. + +William was now introduced into all Lord Bendham's courtly circles. His +worldly soul was entranced in glare and show; he thought of nothing but +places, pensions, titles, retinues; and steadfast, alert, unshaken in the +pursuit of honours, neglected not the lesser means of rising to +preferment--his own endowments. But in this round of attention to +pleasures and to study, he no more complained to Agnes of "excess of +business." Cruel as she had once thought that letter in which he thus +apologised for slighting her, she at last began to think it was wondrous +kind, for he never found time to send her another. Yet she had studied +with all her most anxious care to write him an answer; such a one as +might not lessen her understanding, which he had often praised, in his +esteem. + +Ah, William! even with less anxiety your beating, ambitious heart panted +for the admiration of an attentive auditory, when you first ventured to +harangue in public! With far less hope and fear (great as yours were) +did you first address a crowded court, and thirst for its approbation on +your efforts, than Agnes sighed for your approbation when she took a pen +and awkwardly scrawled over a sheet of paper. Near twenty times she +began, but to a gentleman--and one she loved like William--what could she +dare to say? Yet she had enough to tell, if shame had not interposed, or +if remaining confidence in his affection had but encouraged her. + +Overwhelmed by the first, and deprived of the last, her hand shook, her +head drooped, and she dared not communicate what she knew must inevitably +render her letter unpleasing, and still more depreciate her in his +regard, as the occasion of encumbrance, and of injury to his moral +reputation. + +Her free, her liberal, her venturous spirit subdued, intimidated by the +force of affection, she only wrote-- + + "SIR,--I am sorry you have so much to do, and should be ashamed if you + put it off to write to me. I have not been at all well this winter. I + never before passed such a one in all my life, and I hope you will + never know such a one yourself in regard to not being happy. I should + be sorry if you did--think I would rather go through it again myself + than you should. I long for the summer, the fields are so green, and + everything so pleasant at that time of the year. I always do long for + the summer, but I think never so much in my life as for this that is + coming; though sometimes I wish that last summer had never come. + Perhaps you wish so too; and that this summer would not come either. + + "Hope you will excuse all faults, as I never learnt but one month. + + "Your obedient humble servant, + "A. P." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Summer arrived, and lords and ladies, who had partaken of all the +dissipation of the town, whom opera-houses, gaming-houses, and various +other houses had detained whole nights from their peaceful home, were now +poured forth from the metropolis, to imbibe the wholesome air of the +farmer and peasant, and disseminate, in return, moral and religious +principles. + +Among the rest, Lord and Lady Bendham, strenuous opposers of vice in the +poor, and gentle supporters of it in the rich, never played at cards, or +had concerts on a Sunday, in the village, where the poor were spies--_he_, +there, never gamed, nor drank, except in private, and _she_ banished from +her doors every woman of sullied character. Yet poverty and idiotism are +not the same. The poor can hear, can talk, sometimes can reflect; +servants will tell their equals how they live in town; listeners will +smile and shake their heads; and thus hypocrisy, instead of cultivating, +destroys every seed of moral virtue. + +The arrival of Lord Bendham's family at Anfield announced to the village +that the dean's would quickly follow. Rebecca's heart bounded with joy +at the prospect. Poor Agnes felt a sinking, a foreboding tremor, that +wholly interrupted the joy of _her_ expectations. She had not heard from +William for five tedious months. She did not know whether he loved or +despised, whether he thought of or had forgotten her. Her reason argued +against the hope that he loved her; yet hope still subsisted. She would +not abandon herself to despair while there was doubt. She "had +frequently been deceived by the appearance of circumstances; and perhaps +he might come all kindness--perhaps, even not like her the less for that +indisposition which had changed her bloom to paleness, and the sparkling +of her eyes to a pensive languor." + +Henry's sensations, on his return to Anfield, were the self-same as +Rebecca's were; sympathy in thought, sympathy in affection, sympathy in +virtue made them so. As he approached near the little village, he felt +more light than usual. He had committed no trespass there, dreaded no +person's reproach or inquiries; but his arrival might prove, at least to +one object, the cause of rejoicing. + +William's sensations were the reverse of these. In spite of his +ambition, and the flattering view of one day accomplishing all to which +it aspired, he often, as they proceeded on their journey, envied the +gaiety of Henry, and felt an inward monitor that told him "he must first +act like Henry, to be as happy." + +His intended marriage was still, to the families of both parties (except +to the heads of the houses), a profound secret. Neither the servants, +nor even Henry, had received the slightest intimation of the designed +alliance; and this to William was matter of some comfort. + +When men submit to act in contradiction to their principles, nothing is +so precious as a secret. In their estimation, to have their conduct +_known_ is the essential mischief. While it is hid, they fancy the sin +but half committed; and to the moiety of a crime they reconcile their +feelings, till, in progression, the whole, when disclosed, appears +trivial. He designed that Agnes should receive the news from himself by +degrees, and in such a manner as to console her, or at least to silence +her complaints; and with the wish to soften the regret which he still +felt on the prudent necessity of yielding her wholly up when his marriage +should take place, he promised to himself some intervening hours of +private meetings, which he hoped would produce satiety. + +While Henry flew to Mr. Rymer's house with a conscience clear, and a face +enlightened with gladness--while he met Rebecca with open-hearted +friendship and frankness, which charmed her soul to peaceful +happiness--William skulked around the cottage of Agnes, dreading +detection; and when, towards midnight, he found the means to obtain the +company of the sad inhabitant, he grew so impatient at her tears and +sobs, at the delicacy with which she withheld her caresses, that he burst +into bitter upbraidings at her coyness, and at length (without +discovering the cause of her peculiar agitation and reserve) abruptly +left her vowing "never to see her more." + +As he turned away, his heart even congratulated him "that he had made so +discreet a use of his momentary disappointment, as thus to shake her off +at once without further explanation or excuse." + +She, ignorant and illiterate as she was, knew enough of her own heart to +judge of his, and to know that such violent affections and expressions, +above all, such a sudden, heart-breaking manner of departure, were not +the effects of love, nor even of humanity. She felt herself debased by a +ruffian--yet still, having loved him when she thought him a far different +character, the blackest proof of the deception could not cause a +sentiment formed whilst she was deceived. + +She passed the remainder of the night in anguish: but with the cheerful +morning some cheery thoughts consoled her. She thought "perhaps William +by this time had found himself to blame; had conceived the cause of her +grief and her distant behaviour, and had pitied her." + +The next evening she waited, with anxious heart, for the signal that had +called her out the foregoing night. In vain she watched, counted the +hours, and the stars, and listened to the nightly stillness of the fields +around: they were not disturbed by the tread of her lover. Daylight +came; the sun rose in its splendour: William had not been near her, and +it shone upon none so miserable as Agnes. + +She now considered his word, "never to see her more," as solemnly passed: +she heard anew the impressive, the implacable tone in which the sentence +was pronounced; and could look back on no late token of affection on +which to found the slightest hope that he would recall it. + +Still, reluctant to despair--in the extremity of grief, in the extremity +of fear for an approaching crisis which must speedily arrive, she (after +a few days had elapsed) trusted a neighbouring peasant with a letter to +deliver to Mr. Norwynne in private. + +This letter, unlike the last, was dictated without the hope to please: no +pains were taken with the style, no care in the formation of the letters: +the words flowed from necessity; strong necessity guided her hand. + + "SIR,--I beg your pardon--pray don't forsake me all at once--see me + one time more--I have something to tell you--it is what I dare tell + nobody else--and what I am ashamed to tell you--yet pray give me a + word of advice--what to do I don't know--I then will part, if you + please, never to trouble you, never any more--but hope to part + friends--pray do, if you please--and see me one time more. + + "Your obedient, + "A. P." + +These incorrect, inelegant lines produced this immediate reply + + "TO AGNES PRIMROSE. + + "I have often told you, that my honour is as dear to me as my life: my + word is a part of that honour--you heard me say _I would never see you + again_. I shall keep my word." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +When the dean's family had been at Anfield about a month--one misty +morning, such as portends a sultry day, as Henry was walking swiftly +through a thick wood, on the skirts of the parish, he suddenly started on +hearing a distant groan, expressive, as he thought, both of bodily and +mental pain. He stopped to hear it repeated, that he might pursue the +sound. He heard it again; and though now but in murmurs, yet, as the +tone implied excessive grief, he directed his course to that part of the +wood from which it came. + +As he advanced, in spite of the thick fog, he discerned the appearance of +a female stealing away on his approach. His eye was fixed on this +object; and regardless where he placed his feet, he soon shrunk back with +horror, on perceiving they had nearly trod upon a new-born infant, lying +on the ground!--a lovely male child, entered on a world where not one +preparation had been made to receive him. + +"Ah!" cried Henry, forgetting the person who had fled, and with a smile +of compassion on the helpless infant, "I am glad I have found you--you +give more joy to me than you have done to your hapless parents. Poor +dear," continued he, while he took off his coat to wrap it in, "I will +take care of you while I live--I will beg for you, rather than you shall +want; but first, I will carry you to those who can, at present, do more +for you than myself." + +Thus Henry said and thought, while he enclosed the child carefully in his +coat, and took it in his arms. But proceeding to walk his way with it, +an unlucky query struck him, _where he should go_. + +"I must not take it to the dean's," he cried, "because Lady Clementina +will suspect it is not nobly, and my uncle will suspect it is not +lawfully, born. Nor must I take it to Lord Bendham's for the self-same +reason, though, could it call Lady Bendham mother, this whole village, +nay, the whole country round, would ring with rejoicings for its birth. +How strange!" continued he, "that we should make so little of human +creatures, that one sent among us, wholly independent of his own high +value, becomes a curse instead of a blessing by the mere accident of +circumstances." + +He now, after walking out of the wood, peeped through the folds of his +coat to look again at his charge. He started, turned pale, and trembled +to behold what, in the surprise of first seeing the child, had escaped +his observation. Around its little throat was a cord entwined by a +slipping noose, and drawn half way--as if the trembling hand of the +murderer had revolted from its dreadful office, and he or she had heft +the infant to pine away in nakedness and hunger, rather than see it die. + +Again Henry wished himself joy of the treasure he had found; and more +fervently than before; for he had not only preserved one fellow-creature +from death, but another from murder. + +Once more he looked at his charge, and was transported to observe, upon +its serene brow and sleepy eye, no traces of the dangers it had passed--no +trait of shame either for itself or its parents--no discomposure at the +unwelcome reception it was likely to encounter from a proud world! He +now slipped the fatal string from its neck; and by this affectionate +disturbance causing the child to cry, he ran (but he scarcely knew +whither) to convey it to a better nurse. + +He at length found himself at the door of his dear Rebecca--for so very +happy Henry felt at the good luck which had befallen him, that he longed +to bestow a part of the blessing upon her he loved. + +He sent for her privately out of the house to speak to him. When she +came, "Rebecca," said he (looking around that no one observed him), +"Rebecca, I have brought you something you will like." + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"You know, Rebecca, that you love deserted birds, strayed kittens, and +motherless lambs. I have brought something more pitiable than any of +these. Go, get a cap and a little gown, and then I will give it you." + +"A gown!" exclaimed Rebecca. "If you have brought me a monkey, much as I +should esteem any present from _you_, indeed I cannot touch it." + +"A monkey!" repeated Henry, almost in anger: then changing the tone of +his voice, exclaimed in triumph, + +"It is a child!" + +On this he gave it a gentle pinch, that its cry might confirm the +pleasing truth he spoke. + +"A child!" repeated Rebecca in amaze. + +"Yes, and indeed I found it." + +"Found it!" + +"Indeed I did. The mother, I fear, had just forsaken it." + +"Inhuman creature!" + +"Nay, hold, Rebecca! I am sure you will pity her when you see her +child--you then will know she must have loved it--and you will consider +how much she certainly had suffered before she left it to perish in a +wood." + +"Cruel!" once more exclaimed Rebecca. + +"Oh! Rebecca, perhaps, had she possessed a home of her own she would +have given it the best place in it; had she possessed money, she would +have dressed it with the nicest care; or had she been accustomed to +disgrace, she would have gloried in calling it hers! But now, as it is, +it is sent to us--to you and me, Rebecca--to take care of." + +Rebecca, soothed by Henry's compassionate eloquence, held out her arms +and received the important parcel; and, as she kindly looked in upon the +little stranger, + +"Now, are not you much obliged to me," said Henry, "for having brought it +to you? I know no one but yourself to whom I would have trusted it with +pleasure." + +"Much obliged to you," repeated Rebecca, with a very serious face, "if I +did but know what to do with it--where to put it--where to hide it from +my father and sisters." + +"Oh! anywhere," returned Henry. "It is very good--it will not cry. +Besides, in one of the distant, unfrequented rooms of your old abbey, +through the thick walls and long gallery, an infant's cry cannot pass. +Yet, pray be cautious how you conceal it; for if it should be discovered +by your father or sisters, they will take it from you, prosecute the +wretched mother, and send the child to the parish." + +"I will do all I can to prevent them," said Rebecca; "and I think I call +to mind a part of the house where it _must_ be safe. I know, too, I can +take milk from the dairy, and bread from the pantry, without their being +missed, or my father much the poorer. But if--" That instant they were +interrupted by the appearance of the stern curate at a little distance. +Henry was obliged to run swiftly away, while Rebecca returned by stealth +into the house with her innocent burthen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +There is a word in the vocabulary more bitter, more direful in its +import, than all the rest. Reader, if poverty, if disgrace, if bodily +pain, even if slighted love be your unhappy fate, kneel and bless Heaven +for its beneficent influence, so that you are not tortured with the +anguish of--_remorse_. + +Deep contrition for past offences had long been the punishment of unhappy +Agnes; but, till the day she brought her child into the world, _remorse_ +had been averted. From that day, life became an insupportable load, for +all reflection was torture! To think, merely to think, was to suffer +excruciating agony; yet, never before was _thought_ so intrusive--it +haunted her in every spot, in all discourse or company: sleep was no +shelter--she never slept but her racking dreams told her--"she had slain +her infant." + +They presented to her view the naked innocent whom she had longed to +press to her bosom, while she lifted up her hand against its life. They +laid before her the piteous babe whom her eyeballs strained to behold +once more, while her feet hurried her away for ever. + +Often had Agnes, by the winter's fire, listened to tales of ghosts--of +the unceasing sting of a guilty conscience; often had she shuddered at +the recital of murders; often had she wept over the story of the innocent +put to death, and stood aghast that the human mind could premeditate the +heinous crime of assassination. + +From the tenderest passion the most savage impulse may arise: in the deep +recesses of fondness, sometimes is implanted the root of cruelty; and +from loving William with unbounded lawless affection, she found herself +depraved so as to become the very object which could most of all excite +her own horror! + +Still, at delirious intervals, that passion, which, like a fatal +talisman, had enchanted her whole soul, held out the delusive prospect +that "William might yet relent;" for, though she had for ever discarded +the hope of peace, she could not force herself to think but that, again +blest with his society, she should, at least for the time that he was +present with her, taste the sweet cup of "forgetfulness of the past," for +which she so ardently thirsted. + +"Should he return to me," she thought in those paroxysms of delusion, "I +would to _him_ unbosom all my guilt; and as a remote, a kind of unwary +accomplice in my crime, his sense, his arguments, ever ready in making +light of my sins, might afford a respite to my troubled conscience." + +While thus she unwittingly thought, and sometimes watched through the +night, starting with convulsed rapture at every sound, because it might +possibly be the harbinger of him, _he_ was busied in carefully looking +over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined +bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!--he +sometimes thought on thee--he could not witness the folly, the weakness, +the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently +comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating +sentences fell from her lips, he remembered with a sigh thy candour--that +open sincerity which dwelt upon thy tongue, and seemed to vie with thy +undisguised features, to charm the listener even beyond the spectator. +While Miss Sedgeley eagerly grasped at all the gifts he offered, he could +not but call to mind "that Agnes's declining hand was always closed, and +her looks forbidding, every time he proffered such disrespectful tokens +of his love." He recollected the softness which beamed from her eyes, +the blush on her face at his approach, while he could never discern one +glance of tenderness from the niece of Lord Bendham: and the artificial +bloom on her cheeks was nearly as disgusting as the ill-conducted +artifice with which she attempted gentleness and love. + +But all these impediments were only observed as trials of his +fortitude--his prudence could overcome his aversion, and thus he valued +himself upon his manly firmness. + +'Twas now, that William being rid, by the peevishness of Agnes, most +honourably of all future ties to her, and the day of his marriage with +Miss Sedgeley being fixed, that Henry, with the rest of the house, learnt +what to them was news. The first dart of Henry's eye upon his cousin, +when, in his presence, he was told of the intended union, caused a +reddening on the face of the latter: he always fancied Henry saw his +thoughts; and he knew that Henry in return would give him _his_. On the +present occasion, no sooner were they alone, and Henry began to utter +them, than William charged him--"Not to dare to proceed; for that, too +long accustomed to trifle, the time was come when serious matters could +alone employ his time; and when men of approved sense must take place of +friends and confidants like him." + +Henry replied, "The love, the sincerity of friends, I thought, were their +best qualities: these I possess." + +"But you do not possess knowledge." + +"If that be knowledge which has of late estranged you from all who bear +you a sincere affection; which imprints every day more and more upon your +features the marks of gloomy inquietude; am I not happier in my +ignorance?" + +"Do not torment me with your ineffectual reasoning." + +"I called at the cottage of poor Agnes the other day," returned Henry: +"her father and mother were taking their homely meal alone; and when I +asked for their daughter, they wept and said--Agnes was not the girl she +had been." + +William cast his eyes on the floor. + +Henry proceeded--"They said a sickness, which they feared would bring her +to the grave, had preyed upon her for some time past. They had procured +a doctor: but no remedy was found, and they feared the worst." + +"What worst!" cried William (now recovered from the effect of the sudden +intelligence, and attempting a smile). "Do they think she will die? And +do you think it will be for love? We do not hear of these deaths often, +Henry." + +"And if _she_ die, who will hear of _that_? No one but those interested +to conceal the cause: and thus it is, that dying for love becomes a +phenomenon." + +Henry would have pursued the discourse farther; but William, impatient on +all disputes, except where his argument was the better one, retired from +the controversy, crying out, "I know my duty, and want no instructor." + +It would be unjust to William to say he did not feel for this reported +illness of Agnes--he felt, during that whole evening, and part of the +next morning--but business, pleasures, new occupations, and new schemes +of future success, crowded to dissipate all unwelcome reflections; and he +trusted to her youth, her health, her animal spirits, and, above all, to +the folly of the gossips' story of _dying for love_, as a surety for her +life, and a safeguard for his conscience. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +The child of William and Agnes was secreted, by Rebecca, in a distant +chamber belonging to the dreary parsonage, near to which scarcely any +part of the family ever went. There she administered to all its wants, +visited it every hour of the day, and at intervals during the night +viewed almost with the joy of a mother its health, its promised life--and +in a short the found she loved her little gift better than anything on +earth, except the giver. + +Henry called the next morning, and the next, and many succeeding times, +in hopes of an opportunity to speak alone with Rebecca, to inquire +concerning her charge, and consult when and how he could privately +relieve her from her trust; as he now meant to procure a nurse for wages. +In vain he called or lurked around the house; for near five weeks all the +conversation he could obtain with her was in the company of her sisters, +who, beginning to observe his preference, his marked attention to her, +and the languid, half-smothered transport with which she received it, +indulged their envy and resentment at the contempt shown to their charms, +by watching her steps when he was away, and her every look and whisper +while he was present. + +For five weeks, then, he was continually thwarted in his expectation of +meeting her alone: and at the end of that period the whole design he had +to accomplish by such a meeting was rendered abortive. + +Though Rebecca had with strictest caution locked the door of the room in +which the child was hid, and covered each crevice, and every aperture +through which sound might more easily proceed; though she had surrounded +the infant's head with pillows, to obstruct all noise from his crying; +yet one unlucky night, the strength of his voice increasing with his age, +he was heard by the maid, who slept the nearest to that part of the +house. + +Not meaning to injure her young mistress, the servant next morning simply +related to the family what sounds had struck her ear during the night, +and whence they proceeded. At first she was ridiculed "for supposing +herself awake when in reality she must be dreaming." But steadfastly +persisting in what she had said, and Rebecca's blushes, confusion, and +eagerness to prove the maid mistaken, giving suspicion to her charitable +sisters, they watched her the very next time she went by stealth to +supply the office of a mother; and breaking abruptly on her while feeding +and caressing the infant, they instantly concluded it was her _own_; +seized it, and, in spite of her entreaties, carried it down to their +father. + +That account which Henry had given Rebecca "of his having found the +child," and which her own sincerity, joined to the faith she had in his +word, made her receive as truth, she now felt would be heard by the +present auditors with contempt, even with indignation, as a falsehood. +Her affright is easier conceived than described. + +Accused, and forced by her sisters along with the child before the +curate, his attention to their representation, his crimson face, knit +brow, and thundering voice, struck with terror her very soul: innocence +is not always a protection against fear--sometimes less bold than guilt. + +In her father and sisters she saw, she knew the suspicions, partial, +cruel, boisterous natures by whom she was to be judged; and timid, +gentle, oppressed, she fell trembling on her knees, and could only +articulate, + +"Forgive me." + +The curate would not listen to this supplication till she had replied to +this question, "Whose child is this?" + +She replied, "I do not know." + +Questioned louder, and with more violence still, "how the child came +there, wherefore her affection for it, and whose it was," she felt the +improbability of the truth still more forcibly than before, and dreaded +some immediate peril from her father's rage, should she dare to relate an +apparent lie. She paused to think upon a more probable tale than the +real one; and as she hesitated, shook in every limb--while her father +exclaimed, + +"I understand the cause of this terror; it confirms your sisters' fears, +and your own shame. From your infancy I have predicted that some fatal +catastrophe would befall you. I never loved you like my other children--I +never had the cause: you were always unlike the rest--and I knew your +fate would be calamitous; but the very worst of my forebodings did not +come to this--so young, so guilty, and so artful! Tell me this instant, +are you married?" + +Rebecca answered, "No." + +The sisters lifted up their hands! + +The father continued--"Vile creature, I thought as much. Still I will +know the father of this child." + +She cast up her eyes to Heaven, and firmly vowed she "did not know +herself--nor who the mother was." + +"This is not to be borne!" exclaimed the curate in fury. "Persist in +this, and you shall never see my face again. Both your child and you +I'll turn out of my house instantly, unless you confess your crime, and +own the father." + +Curious to know this secret, the sisters went up to Rebecca with seeming +kindness, and "conjured her to spare her father still greater grief, and +her own and her child's public infamy, by acknowledging herself its +mother, and naming the man who had undone her." + +Emboldened by this insult from her own sex, Rebecca now began to declare +the simple truth. But no sooner had she said that "the child was +presented to her care by a young man who had found it," than her sisters +burst into laughter, and her father into redoubled rage. + +Once more the women offered their advice--"to confess and be forgiven." + +Once more the father raved. + +Beguiled by solicitations, and terrified by threats, like women formerly +accused of witchcraft, and other wretches put to the torture, she thought +her present sufferings worse than any that could possibly succeed; and +felt inclined to confess a falsehood, at which her virtue shrunk, to +obtain a momentary respite from reproach; she felt inclined to take the +mother's share of the infant, but was at a loss to whom to give the +father's. She thought that Henry had entailed on himself the best right +to the charge; but she loved him, and could not bear the thought of +accusing him falsely. + +While, with agitation in the extreme, she thus deliberated, the +proposition again was put, + +"Whether she would trust to the mercy of her father by confessing, or +draw down his immediate vengeance by denying her guilt?" + +She made choice of the former--and with tears and sobs "owned herself the +mother of the boy." + +But still--"Who is the father?" + +Again she shrunk from the question, and fervently implored "to be spared +on that point." + +Her petition was rejected with vehemence; and the curate's rage increased +till she acknowledged, + +"Henry was the father." + +"I thought so," exclaimed all her sisters at the same time. + +"Villain!" cried the curate. "The dean shall know, before this hour is +expired, the baseness of the nephew whom he supports upon charity; he +shall know the misery, the grief, the shame he has brought on me, and how +unworthy he is of his protection." + +"Oh! have mercy on him!" cried Rebecca, as she still knelt to her father: +"do not ruin him with his uncle, for he is the best of human beings." + +"Ay, ay, we always saw how much she loved him," cried her sisters. + +"Wicked, unfortunate girl!" said the clergyman (his rage now subsiding, +and tears supplying its place), "you have brought a scandal upon us all: +your sisters' reputation will be stamped with the colour of yours--my +good name will suffer: but that is trivial--your soul is lost to virtue, +to religion, to shame--" + +"No, _indeed_!" cried Rebecca: "if you will but believe me." + +"Do not I believe you? Have you not confessed?" + +"You will not pretend to unsay what you have said," cried her eldest +sister: "that would be making things worse." + +"Go, go out of my sight!" said her father. "Take your child with you to +your chamber, and never let me see either of you again. I do not turn +you out of my doors to-day, because I gave you my word I would not, if +you revealed your shame; but by to-morrow I will provide some place for +your reception, where neither I, nor any of your relations, shall ever +see or hear of you again." + +Rebecca made an effort to cling around her father, and once more to +declare her innocence: but her sisters interposed, and she was taken, +with her reputed son, to the chamber where the curate had sentenced her +to remain, till she quitted his house for ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +The curate, in the disorder of his mind, scarcely felt the ground he trod +as he hastened to the dean's house to complain of his wrongs. His name +procured him immediate admittance into the library, and the moment the +dean appeared the curate burst into tears. The cause being required of +such "very singular marks of grief," Mr. Rymer described himself "as +having been a few moments ago the happiest of parents; but that his peace +and that of his whole family had been destroyed by Mr. Henry Norwynne, +the dean's nephew." + +He now entered into a minute recital of Henry's frequent visits there, +and of all which had occurred in his house that morning, from the +suspicion that a child was concealed under his roof, to the confession +made by his youngest daughter of her fall from virtue, and of her +betrayer's name. + +The dean was astonished, shocked, and roused to anger: he vented +reproaches and menaces on his nephew; and "blessing himself in a virtuous +son, whose wisdom and counsel were his only solace in every care," sent +for William to communicate with him on this unhappy subject. + +William came, all obedience, and heard with marks of amazement and +indignation the account of such black villainy! In perfect sympathy with +Mr. Rymer and his father, he allowed "no punishment could be too great +for the seducer of innocence, the selfish invader of a whole family's +repose." + +Nor did William here speak what he did not think--he merely forgot his +own conduct; or if he did recall it to his mind, it was with some fair +interpretations in his own behalf; such as self-love ever supplies to +those who wish to cheat intruding conscience. + +Young Henry being sent for to appear before this triumvirate, he came +with a light step and a cheerful face. But, on the charge against him +being exhibited, his countenance changed--yet only to the expression of +surprise! He boldly asserted his innocence, plainly told the real fact, +and with a deportment so perfectly unembarrassed, that nothing but the +asseverations of the curate, "that his daughter had confessed the whole," +could have rendered the story Henry told suspected; although some of the +incidents he related were of no common kind. But Mr. Rymer's charge was +an objection to his veracity too potent to be overcome; and the dean +exclaimed in anger-- + +"We want not your avowal of your guilt--the mother's evidence is +testimony sufficient." + +"The virtuous Rebecca is not a mother," said Henry, with firmness. + +William here, like Rebecca's sisters, took Henry aside, and warned him +not to "add to his offence by denying what was proved against him." + +But Henry's spirit was too manly, his affection too sincere, not to +vindicate the chastity of her he loved, even at his own peril. He again +and again protested "she was virtuous." + +"Let her instantly be sent for," said the dean, "and this madman +confronted with her." Then adding, that as he wished everything might be +conducted with secrecy, he would not employ his clerk on the unhappy +occasion: he desired William to draw up the form of an oath, which he +would administer as soon as she arrived. + +A man and horse were immediately despatched to bring Rebecca: William +drew up an affidavit as his father had directed him--in _Rebecca's name +solemnly protesting she was a mother_, _and Henry the father of her +child_. And now, the dean, suppressing till she came the warmth of his +displeasure, spoke thus calmly to Henry:-- + +"Even supposing that your improbable tale of having found this child, and +all your declarations in respect to it were true, still you would be +greatly criminal. What plea can you make for not having immediately +revealed the circumstance to me or some other proper person, that the +real mother might have been detected and punished for her design of +murder?" + +"In that, perhaps, I was to blame," returned Henry: "but whoever the +mother was, I pitied her." + +"Compassion on such an occasion was unplaced," said the dean. + +"Was I wrong, sir, to pity the child?" + +"No." + +"Then how could I feel for _that_, and yet divest myself of all feeling +for its mother?" + +"Its mother!" exclaimed William, in anger: "she ought to have been +immediately pursued, apprehended, and committed to prison." + +"It struck me, cousin William," replied Henry, "that the father was more +deserving of a prison: the poor woman had abandoned only one--the man, in +all likelihood, had forsaken _two_ pitiable creatures." + +William was pouring execrations "on the villain if such there could be," +when Rebecca was announced. + +Her eyes were half closed with weeping; deep confusion overspread her +face; and her tottering limbs could hardly support her to the awful +chamber where the dean, her father, and William sat in judgment, whilst +her beloved Henry stood arraigned as a culprit, by her false evidence. + +Upon her entrance, her father first addressed her, and said in a stern, +threatening, yet feeling tone, "Unhappy girl, answer me before all +present--Have you, or have you not, owned yourself a mother?" + +She replied, stealing a fearful look at Henry, "I have." + +"And have you not," asked the dean, "owned that Henry Norwynne is the +father of your child?" + +She seemed as if she wished to expostulate. + +The curate raised his voice--"Have you or have you not?" + +"I have," she faintly replied. + +"Then here," cried the dean to William, "read that paper to her, and take +the Bible." + +William read the paper, which in her name declared a momentous falsehood: +he then held the book in form, while she looked like one distracted--wrung +her hands, and was near sinking to the earth. + +At the moment when the book was lifted up to her lips to kiss, Henry +rushed to her--"Stop!" he cried, "Rebecca! do not wound your future +peace. I plainly see under what prejudices you have been accused, under +what fears you have fallen. But do not be terrified into the commission +of a crime which hereafter will distract your delicate conscience. My +requesting you of your father for my wife will satisfy his scruples, +prevent your oath--and here I make the demand." + +"He at length confesses! Surprising audacity! Complicated villainy!" +exclaimed the dean; then added, "Henry Norwynne, your first guilt is so +enormous; your second, in steadfastly denying it, so base, this last +conduct so audacious; that from the present hour you must never dare to +call me relation, or to consider my house as your home." + +William, in unison with his father, exclaimed, "Indeed, Henry, your +actions merit this punishment." + +Henry answered with firmness, "Inflict what punishment you please." + +"With the dean's permission, then," said the curate, "you must marry my +daughter." + +Henry started--"Do you pronounce that as a punishment? It would be the +greatest blessing Providence could bestow. But how are we to live? My +uncle is too much offended ever to be my friend again; and in this +country, persons of a certain class are so educated, they cannot exist +without the assistance, or what is called the patronage, of others: when +that is withheld, they steal or starve. Heaven protect Rebecca from such +misfortune! Sir (to the curate), do you but consent to support her only +a year or two longer, and in that time I will learn some occupation, that +shall raise me to the eminence of maintaining both her and myself without +one obligation, or one inconvenience, to a single being." + +Rebecca exclaimed, "Oh! you have saved me from such a weight of sin, that +my future life would be too happy passed as your slave." + +"No, my dear Rebecca, return to your father's house, return to slavery +but for a few years more, and the rest of your life I will make free." + +"And can you forgive me?" + +"I can love you; and in that is comprised everything that is kind." + +The curate, who, bating a few passions and a few prejudices, was a man of +some worth and feeling, and felt, in the midst of her distress, though +the result of supposed crimes, that he loved this neglected daughter +better than he had before conceived; and he now agreed "to take her home +for a time, provided she were relieved from the child, and the matter so +hushed up, that it might draw no imputation upon the characters of his +other daughters." + +The dean did not degrade his consequence by consultations of this nature: +but, having penetrated (as he imagined) into the very bottom of this +intricate story, and issued his mandate against Henry, as a mark that he +took no farther concern in the matter, he proudly walked out of the room +without uttering another word. + +William as proudly and silently followed. + +The curate was inclined to adopt the manners of such great examples: but +self-interest, some affection to Rebecca, and concern for the character +of his family, made him wish to talk a little more with Henry, who new +repeated what he had said respecting his marriage with Rebecca, and +promised "to come the very next day in secret, and deliver her from the +care of the infant, and the suspicion that would attend her nursing it." + +"But, above all," said the curate, "procure your uncle's pardon; for +without that, without his protection, or the protection of some other +rich man, to marry, to obey God's ordinance, _increase and multiply_ is +to want food for yourselves and your offspring." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +Though this unfortunate occurrence in the curate's family was, according +to his own phrase, "to be hushed up," yet certain persons of his, of the +dean's, and of Lord Bendham's house, immediately heard and talked of it. +Among these, Lady Bendham was most of all shocked and offended: she said +she "never could bear to hear Mr. Rymer either pray or preach again; he +had not conducted himself with proper dignity either as a clergyman or a +father; he should have imitated the dean's example in respect to Henry, +and have turned his daughter out of doors." + +Lord Bendham was less severe on the seduced, but had no mercy on the +seducer--"a vicious youth, without one accomplishment to endear vice." +For vice, Lord Bendham thought (with certain philosophers), might be most +exquisitely pleasing, in a pleasing garb. "But this youth sinned without +elegance, without one particle of wit, or an atom of good breeding." + +Lady Clementina would not permit the subject to be mentioned a second +time in her hearing--extreme delicacy in woman she knew was bewitching; +and the delicacy she displayed on this occasion went so far that she +"could not even intercede with the dean to forgive his nephew, because +the topic was too gross for her lips to name even in the ear of her +husband." + +Miss Sedgeley, though on the very eve of her bridal day with William, +felt so tender a regard for Henry, that often she thought Rebecca happier +in disgrace and poverty, blest with the love of him, than she was likely +to be in the possession of friends and fortune with his cousin. + +Had Henry been of a nature to suspect others of evil, or had he felt a +confidence in his own worth, such a passion as this young woman's would +soon have disclosed its existence: but he, regardless of any attractions +of Miss Sedgeley, equally supposed he had none in her eyes; and thus, +fortunately for the peace of all parties, this prepossession ever +remained a secret except to herself. + +So little did William conceive that his clownish cousin could rival him +in the affections of a woman of fashion, that he even slightly solicited +his father "that Henry might not be banished from the house, at least +till after the following day, when the great festival of his marriage was +to be celebrated." + +But the dean refused, and reminded his son, "that he was bound both by +his moral and religious character, in the eyes of God, and still more, in +the eyes of men, to show lasting resentment of iniquity like his." + +William acquiesced, and immediately delivered to his cousin the dean's +"wishes for his amendment," and a letter of recommendation procured from +Lord Bendham, to introduce him on board a man-of-war; where, he was told, +"he might hope to meet with preferment, according to his merit, as a +sailor and a gentleman." + +Henry pressed William's hand on parting, wished him happy in his +marriage, and supplicated, as the only favour he would implore, an +interview with his uncle, to thank him for all his former kindness, and +to see him for the last time. + +William repeated this petition to his father, but with so little energy, +that the dean did not grant it. He felt himself, he said, compelled to +resent that reprobate character in which Henry had appeared; and he +feared "lest the remembrance of his last parting from his brother might, +on taking a formal leave of that brother's son, reduce him to some tokens +of weakness, that would ill become his dignity and just displeasure." + +He sent him his blessing, with money to convey him to the ship, and Henry +quitted his uncle's house in a flood of tears, to seek first a new +protectress for his little foundling, and then to seek his fortune. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +The wedding-day of Mr. William Norwynne with Miss Caroline Sedgeley +arrived; and, on that day, the bells of every parish surrounding that in +which they lived joined with their own, in celebration of the blissful +union. Flowers were strewn before the new-married pair, and favours and +ale made many a heart more gladsome than that of either bridegroom or +bride. + +Upon this day of ringing and rejoicing the bells were not muffled, nor +was conversation on the subject withheld from the ear of Agnes! She +heard like her neighbours; and sitting on the side of her bed in her +little chamber, suffered, under the cottage roof, as much affliction as +ever visited a palace. + +Tyrants, who have embrued their hands in the blood of myriads of their +fellow-creatures, can call their murders "religion, justice, attention to +the good of mankind." Poor Agnes knew no sophistry to calm _her_ sense +of guilt: she felt herself a harlot and a murderer; a slighted, a +deserted wretch, bereft of all she loved in this world, all she could +hope for in the next. + +She complained bitterly of illness, nor could the entreaties of her +father and mother prevail on her to share in the sports of this general +holiday. As none of her humble visitors suspected the cause of her more +than ordinary indisposition, they endeavoured to divert it with an +account of everything they had seen at church--"what the bride wore; how +joyful the bridegroom looked;"--and all the seeming signs of that +complete happiness which they conceived was for certain tasted. + +Agnes, who, before this event, had at moments suppressed the agonising +sting of self-condemnation in the faint prospect of her lover one day +restored, on this memorable occasion lost every glimpse of hope, and was +weighed to the earth with an accumulation of despair. + +Where is the degree in which the sinner stops? Unhappy Agnes! the first +time you permitted indecorous familiarity from a man who made you no +promise, who gave you no hope of becoming his wife, who professed nothing +beyond those fervent, though slender, affections which attach the rake to +the wanton; the first time you interpreted his kind looks and ardent +prayers into tenderness and constancy; the first time you descended from +the character of purity, you rushed imperceptibly on the blackest crimes. +The more sincerely you loved, the more you plunged in danger: from one +ungoverned passion proceeded a second and a third. In the fervency of +affection you yielded up your virtue! In the excess of fear, you stained +your conscience by the intended murder of your child! And now, in the +violence of grief, you meditate--what?--to put an end to your existence +by your own hand! + +After casting her thoughts around, anxious to find some bud of comfort on +which to fix her longing eye; she beheld, in the total loss of William, +nothing but a wide waste, an extensive plain of anguish. "How am I to be +sustained through this dreary journey of life?" she exclaimed. Upon this +question she felt, more poignantly than ever, her loss of innocence: +innocence would have been her support, but, in place of this best prop to +the afflicted, guilt flashed on her memory every time she flew for aid to +reflection. + +At length, from horrible rumination, a momentary alleviation came: "but +one more step in wickedness," she triumphantly said, "and all my shame, +all my sufferings are over." She congratulated herself upon the lucky +thought; when, but an instant after, the tears trickled down her face for +the sorrow her death, her sinful death, would bring to her poor and +beloved parents. She then thought upon the probability of a sigh it +might draw from William; and, the pride, the pleasure of that little +tribute, counterpoised every struggle on the side of life. + +As she saw the sun decline, "When you rise again," she thought, "when you +peep bright to-morrow morning into this little room to call me up, I +shall not be here to open my eyes upon a hateful day--I shall no more +regret that you have waked me!--I shall be sound asleep, never to wake +again in this wretched world--not even the voice of William would then +awake me." + +While she found herself resolved, and evening just come on, she hurried +out of the house, and hastened to the fatal wood; the scene of her +dishonour--the scene of intended murder--and now the meditated scene of +suicide. + +As she walked along between the close-set tree, she saw, at a little +distance, the spot where William first made love to her; and where at +every appointment he used to wait her coming. She darted her eye away +from this place with horror; but, after a few moments of emotion, she +walked slowly up to it--shed tears, and pressed with her trembling lips +that tree, against which she was accustomed to lean while he talked with +her. She felt an inclination to make this the spot to die in; but her +preconcerted, and the less frightful death, of leaping into a pool on the +other side of the wood, induced her to go onwards. + +Presently, she came near the place where _her_ child, and _William's_, +was exposed to perish. Here she started with a sense of the most +atrocious guilt; and her whole frame shook with the dread of an +approaching, an omnipotent Judge, to sentence her for murder. + +She halted, appalled, aghast, undetermined whether to exist longer +beneath the pressure of a criminal conscience, or die that very hour, and +meet her final condemnation. + +She proceeded a few steps farther, and beheld the very ivy-bush close to +which her infant lay when she left him exposed; and now, from this minute +recollection, all the mother rising in her soul, she saw, as it were, her +babe again in its deserted state; and bursting into tears of bitterest +contrition and compassion, she cried--"As I was merciless to _thee_, my +child, thy father has been pitiless to _me_! As I abandoned _thee_ to +die with cold and hunger, he has forsaken, and has driven _me_ to die by +self-slaughter." + +She now fixed her eager eyes on the distant pond, and walked more nimbly +than before, to rid herself of her agonising sensations. + +Just as she had nearly reached the wished-for brink, she heard a +footstep, and saw, by the glimmering of a clouded moon, a man +approaching. She turned out of her path, for fear her intentions should +be guessed at, and opposed; but still, as she walked another way, her eye +was wishfully bent towards the water that was to obliterate her love and +her remorse--obliterate, forever, William and his child. + +It was now that Henry, who, to prevent scandal, had stolen at that still +hour of night to rid the curate of the incumbrance so irksome to him, and +take the foundling to a woman whom he had hired for the charge--it was +now that Henry came up, with the child of Agnes in his arms, carefully +covered all over from the night's dew. + +"Agnes, is it you?" cried Henry, at a little distance. "Where are you +going thus late?" + +"Home, sir," said she, and rushed among the trees. + +"Stop, Agnes," he cried; "I want to bid you farewell; to-morrow I am +going to leave this part of the country for a long time; so God bless +you, Agnes." + +Saying this, he stretched out his arm to shake her by the hand. + +Her poor heart, trusting that his blessing, for want of more potent +offerings, might, perhaps, at this tremendous crisis ascend to Heaven in +her behalf, she stopped, returned, and put out her hand to take his. + +"Softly!" said he; "don't wake my child; this spot has been a place of +danger to him, for underneath this very ivy-bush it was that I found +him." + +"Found what?" cried Agnes, with a voice elevated to a tremulous scream. + +"I will not tell you the story," replied Henry; "for no one I have ever +yet told of it would believe me." + +"I will believe you--I will believe you," she repeated with tones yet +more impressive. + +"Why, then," said Henry, "only five weeks ago--" + +"Ah!" shrieked Agnes. + +"What do you mean?" said Henry. + +"Go on," she articulated, in the same voice. + +"Why, then, as I was passing this very place, I wish I may never speak +truth again, if I did not find" (here he pulled aside the warm rug in +which the infant was wrapped) "this beautiful child." + +"With a cord?--" + +"A cord was round its neck." + +"'Tis mine--the child is mine--'tis mine--my child--I am the mother and +the murderer--I fixed the cord, while the ground shook under me--while +flashes of fire darted before my eyes!--while my heart was bursting with +despair and horror! But I stopped short--I did not draw the noose--I had +a moment of strength, and I ran away. I left him living--he is living +now--escaped from my hands--and I am no longer ashamed, but overcome with +joy that he is mine! I bless you, my dear, my dear, for saving his +life--for giving him to me again--for preserving _my_ life, as well as my +child's." + +Here she took her infant, pressed it to her lips and to her bosom; then +bent to the ground, clasped Henry's knees, and wept upon his feet. + +He could not for a moment doubt the truth of what she said; her powerful +yet broken accents, her convulsive embraces of the child, even more than +her declaration, convinced him she was its mother. + +"Good Heaven!" cried Henry, "and this is my cousin William's child!" + +"But your cousin does not know it," said she; "I never told him--he was +not kind enough to embolden me; therefore do not blame _him_ for _my_ +sin; he did not know of my wicked designs--he did not encourage me--" + +"But he forsook you, Agnes." + +"He never said he would not. He always told me he could not marry me." + +"Did he tell you so at his first private meeting?" + +"No." + +"Nor at the second?" + +"No; nor yet at the third." + +"When was it he told you so?" + +"I forget the exact time; but I remember it was on that very evening when +I confessed to him--" + +"What?" + +"That he had won my heart." + +"Why did you confess it?" + +"Because he asked me and said it would make him happy if I would say so." + +"Cruel! dishonourable!" + +"Nay, do not blame him; he cannot help _not_ loving me, no more than I +can help _loving_ him." + +Henry rubbed his eyes. + +"Bless me, you weep! I always heard that you were brought up in a savage +country; but I suppose it is a mistake; it was your cousin William." + +"Will not you apply to him for the support of your child?" asked Henry. + +"If I thought he would not be angry." + +"Angry! I will write to him on the subject if you will give me leave." + +"But do not say it is by my desire. Do not say I wish to trouble him. I +would sooner beg than be a trouble to him." + +"Why are you so delicate?" + +"It is for my own sake; I wish him not to hate me." + +"Then, thus you may secure his respect. I will write to him, and let him +know all the circumstances of your case. I will plead for his compassion +on his child, but assure him that no conduct of his will ever induce you +to declare (except only to me, who knew of your previous acquaintance) +who is the father." + +To this she consented; but when Henry offered to take from her the +infant, and carry him to the nurse he had engaged, to this she would not +consent. + +"Do you mean, then, to acknowledge him yours?" Henry asked. + +"Nothing shall force me to part from him again. I will keep him, and let +my neighbours judge of me as they please." + +Here Henry caught at a hope he feared to name before. "You will then +have no objection," said he, "to clear an unhappy girl to a few friends, +with whom her character has suffered by becoming, at my request, his +nurse?" + +"I will clear any one, so that I do not accuse the father." + +"You give me leave, then, in your name, to tell the whole story to some +particular friends, my cousin William's part in it alone excepted?" + +"I do." + +Henry now exclaimed, "God bless you!" with greater fervour than when he +spoke it before; and he now hoped the night was nearly gone, that the +time might be so much the shorter before Rebecca should be reinstated in +the esteem of her father, and of all those who had misjudged her. + +"God bless _you_!" said Agnes, still more fervently, as she walked with +unguided steps towards her home; for her eyes never wandered from the +precious object which caused her unexpected return. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +Henry rose early in the morning, and flew to the curate's house, with +more than even his usual thirst of justice, to clear injured innocence, +to redeem from shame her whom he loved. With eager haste he told that he +had found the mother, whose fall from virtue Rebecca, overcome by +confusion and threats, had taken on herself. + +Rebecca rejoiced, but her sisters shook their heads, and even the father +seemed to doubt. + +Confident in the truth of his story, Henry persisted so boldly in his +affirmations, that if Mr. Rymer did not entirely believe what he said, he +secretly hoped that the dean and other people might; therefore he began +to imagine he could possibly cast from _his_ family the present stigma, +whether or no it belonged to any other. + +No sooner was Henry gone than Mr. Rymer waited on the dean to report what +he had heard; and he frankly attributed his daughter's false confession +to the compulsive methods he had adopted in charging her with the +offence. Upon this statement, Henry's love to her was also a solution of +his seemingly inconsistent conduct on that singular occasion. + +The dean immediately said, "I will put the matter beyond all doubt; for I +will this moment send for the present reputed mother; and if she +acknowledges the child, I will instantly commit her to prison for the +attempt of putting it to death." + +The curate applauded the dean's sagacity; a warrant was issued, and Agnes +brought prisoner before the grandfather of her child. + +She appeared astonished at the peril in which she found herself. +Confused, also, with a thousand inexpressible sensations which the dean's +presence inspired, she seemed to prevaricate in all she uttered. Accused +of this prevarication, she was still more disconcerted; said, and unsaid; +confessed herself the mother of the infant, but declared she did not +know, then owned she _did_ know, the name of the man who had undone her, +but would never utter it. At length she cast herself on her knees before +the father of her betrayer, and supplicated "he would not punish her with +severity, as she most penitently confessed her fault, so far as is +related to herself." + +While Mr. and Mrs. Norwynne, just entered on the honeymoon, were sitting +side by side enjoying with peace and with honour conjugal society, poor +Agnes, threatened, reviled, and sinking to the dust, was hearing from the +mouth of William's father the enormity of those crimes to which his son +had been accessory. She saw the mittimus written that was to convey her +into a prison--saw herself delivered once more into the hands of +constables, before her resolution left her, of concealing the name of +William in her story. She now, overcome with affright, and thinking she +should expose him still more in a public court, if hereafter on her trial +she should be obliged to name him--she now humbly asked the dean to hear +a few words she had to say in private, where she promised she "would +speak nothing but the truth." + +This was impossible, he said--"No private confessions before a +magistrate! All must be done openly." + +She urged again and again the same request: it was denied more +peremptorily than at first. On which she said--"Then, sir, forgive me, +since you force me to it, if I speak before Mr. Rymer and these men what +I would for ever have kept a secret if I could. One of your family is my +child's father." + +"Any of my servants?" cried the dean. + +"No." + +"My nephew?" + +"No; one who is nearer still." + +"Come this way," said the dean; "I _will_ speak to you in private." + +It was not that the dean, as a magistrate, distributed partial decrees of +pretended justice--he was rigidly faithful to his trust: he would not +inflict punishment on the innocent, nor let the guilty escape; but in all +particulars of refined or coarse treatment he would alleviate or +aggravate according to the rank of the offender. He could not feel that +a secret was of equal importance to a poor as to a rich person; and while +Agnes gave no intimation but that her delicacy rose from fears for +herself, she did not so forcibly impress him with an opinion that it was +a case which had weighty cause for a private conference as when she +boldly said, "a part of _his_ family, very near to him, was concerned in +her tale." + +The final result of their conversation in an adjoining room was--a charge +from the dean, in the words of Mr. Rymer, "to hush the affair up," and +his promise that the infant should be immediately taken from her, and +that "she should have no more trouble with it." + +"I have no trouble with it," replied Agnes: "my child is now all my +comfort, and I cannot part from it." + +"Why, you inconsistent woman, did you not attempt to murder it?" + +"That was before I had nursed it." + +"'Tis necessary you should give it up: it must be sent some miles away; +and then the whole circumstance will be soon forgotten." + +"_I_ shall never forget it." + +"No matter; you must give up the child. Do not some of our first women +of quality part with their children?" + +"Women of quality have other things to love--I have nothing else." + +"And would you occasion my son and his new-made bride the shame and the +uneasiness--" + +Here Agnes burst into a flood of tears; and being angrily asked by the +dean "why she blubbered so--" + +"_I_ have had shame and uneasiness," she replied, wringing her hands. + +"And you deserve them: they are the sure attendants of crimes such as +yours. If you allured and entrapped a young man like my son--" + +"I am the youngest by five years," said Agnes. + +"Well, well, repent," returned the dean; "repent, and resign your child. +Repent, and you may yet marry an honest man who knows nothing of the +matter." + +"And repent too?" asked Agnes. + +Not the insufferable ignorance of young Henry, when he first came to +England, was more vexatious or provoking to the dean than the rustic +simplicity of poor Agnes's uncultured replies. He at last, in an +offended and determined manner, told her--"That if she would resign the +child, and keep the father's name a secret, not only the child should be +taken care of, but she herself might, perhaps, receive some favours; but +if she persisted in her imprudent folly, she must expect no consideration +on her own account; nor should she be allowed, for the maintenance of the +boy, a sixpence beyond the stated sum for a poor man's unlawful +offspring." Agnes, resolving not to be separated from her infant, bowed +resignation to this last decree; and, terrified at the loud words and +angry looks of the dean, after being regularly discharged, stole to her +home, where the smiles of her infant, and the caresses she lavished on +it, repaid her for the sorrows she had just suffered for its sake. + +Let it here be observed that the dean, on suffering Agnes to depart +without putting in force the law against her as he had threatened, did +nothing, as it were, _behind the curtain_. He openly and candidly owned, +on his return to Mr. Rymer, his clerk, and the two constables who were +attending, "that an affair of some little gallantry, in which he was +extremely sorry to say his son was rather too nearly involved, required, +in consideration of his recent marriage, and an excellent young woman's +(his bride's) happiness, that what had occurred should not be publicly +talked of; therefore he had thought proper only to reprimand the hussy, +and send her about her business." + +The curate assured the dean, "that upon this, and upon all other +occasions, which should, would, or _could_ occur, he owed to his +judgment, as his superior, implicit obedience." + +The clerk and the two constables most properly said, "his honour was a +gentleman, and of course must know better how to act than they." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +The pleasure of a mother which Agnes experienced did not make her +insensible to the sorrow of a daughter. + +Her parents had received the stranger child, along with a fabricated tale +she told "of its appertaining to another," without the smallest +suspicion; but, by the secret diligence of the curate, and the nimble +tongues of his elder daughters, the report of all that had passed on the +subject of this unfortunate infant soon circulated through the village; +and Agnes in a few weeks had seen her parents pine away in grief and +shame at her loss of virtue. + +She perceived the neighbours avoid, or openly sneer at _her_; but that +was little--she saw them slight her aged father and mother upon her +account; and she now took the resolution rather to perish for want in +another part of the country than live where she was known, and so entail +an infamy upon the few who loved her. She slightly hoped, too, that by +disappearing from the town and neighbourhood some little reward might be +allowed her for her banishment by the dean's family. In that she was +deceived. No sooner was she gone, indeed, than her guilt was forgotten; +but with her guilt her wants. The dean and his family rejoiced at her +and her child's departure; but as this mode she had chosen chanced to be +no specified condition in the terms proposed to her, they did not think +they were bound to pay her for it; and while she was too fearful and +bashful to solicit the dean, and too proud (forlorn as she was) to +supplicate his son, they both concluded she "wanted for nothing;" for to +be poor, and too delicate to complain, they deemed incompatible. + +To heighten the sense of her degraded, friendless situation, she knew +that Henry had not been unmindful of his promise to her, but that he had +applied to his cousin in her and his child's behalf; for he had +acquainted her that William's answer was--"all obligations on _his_ part +were now undertaken by his father; for that, Agnes having chosen (in a +fit of malignity upon his marriage) to apprise the dean of their former +intercourse, such conduct had for ever cancelled all attention due from +him to her, or to her child, beyond what its bare maintenance exacted." + +In vain had Henry explained to him, by a second application, the +predicament in which poor Agnes was involved before she consented to +reveal her secret to his father. William was happy in an excuse to rid +himself of a burthen, and he seemed to believe, what he wished to be +true--that she had forfeited all claim to his farther notice. + +Henry informed her of this unkind reception of his efforts in her favour +in as gentle terms as possible, for she excited his deepest compassion. +Perhaps our _own_ misfortunes are the cause of our pity for others, even +more than _their_ ills; and Henry's present sorrows had softened his +heart to peculiar sympathy in woe. He had unhappily found that the +ardour which had hurried him to vindicate the reputation of Rebecca was +likely to deprive him of the blessing of her ever becoming his proved an +offender instead of his wife; for the dean, chagrined that his son was at +length nephew, submitted to the temptation of punishing the latter, while +he forgave the former. He sent for Henry, and having coldly +congratulated him on his and Rebecca's innocence, represented to him the +impropriety of marrying the daughter of a poor curate, and laid his +commands on him, "never to harbour such an intention more." Henry found +this restriction so severe that he would not promise obedience; but on +his next attempt to visit Rebecca he met a positive repulse from her +father, who signified to him, "that the dean had forbidden him to permit +their farther acquaintance;" and the curate declared "that, for his own +part, he had no will, judgment, or faculties, but that he submitted in +all things to the superior clergy." + +At the very time young Henry had received the proposal from Mr. Rymer of +his immediate union with his daughter, and the dean had made no objection +Henry waived the happiness for the time present, and had given a reason +why he wished it postponed. The reason he then gave had its weight; but +he had another concealed, of yet more import. Much as he loved, and +looked forward with rapture to that time when every morning, every +evening, and all the day, he should have the delight of Rebecca's +society, still there was one other wish nearer his heart than this one +desire which for years had been foremost in his thoughts, and which not +even love could eradicate. He longed, he pined to know what fate had +befallen his father. Provided he were living, he could conceive no joy +so great as that of seeing him! If he were dead, he was anxious to pay +the tribute of filial piety he owed, by satisfying his affectionate +curiosity in every circumstance of the sad event. + +While a boy he had frequently expressed these sentiments to both his +uncle and his cousin; sometimes they apprised him of the total +improbability of accomplishing his wishes; at other times, when they saw +the disappointment weigh heavy on his mind, they bade him "wait till he +was a man before he could hope to put his designs in execution." He did +wait. But on the very day he arrived at the age of twenty-one, he made a +vow--"that to gain intelligence of his father should be the first +important act of his free will." + +Previously to this time he had made all the inquiries possible, whether +any new adventure to that part of Africa in which he was bred was likely +to be undertaken. Of this there appeared to be no prospect till the +intended expedition to Sierra Leone was announced, and which favoured his +hope of being able to procure a passage, among those adventurers, so near +to the island on which his father was (or had been) prisoner, as to +obtain an opportunity of visiting it by stealth. + +Fearing contention, or the being dissuaded from his plans if he +communicated them, he not only formed them in private, but he kept them +secretly; and, his imagination filled with the kindness, the tenderness, +the excess of fondness he had experienced from his father, beyond any +other person in the world, he had thought with delight on the separation +from all his other kindred, to pay his duty to him, or to his revered +memory. Of late, indeed, there had been an object introduced to his +acquaintance, from whom it was bitter to part; but his designs had been +planned and firmly fixed before he knew Rebecca; nor could he have tasted +contentment even with her at the expense of his piety to his father. + +In the last interview he had with the dean, Henry, perceiving that his +disposition towards him was not less harsh than when a few days before he +had ordered him on board a vessel, found this the proper time to declare +his intentions of accompanying the fleet to Sierra Leone. His uncle +expressed surprise, but immediately gave him a sum of money in addition +to that he had sent him before, and as much as he thought might defray +his expenses; and, as he gave it, by his willingness, his look, and his +accent, he seemed to say, "I foresee this is the last you will ever +require." + +Young William, though a very dutiful son, was amazed when he heard of +Henry's project, as "the serious and settled resolution of a man." + +Lady Clementina, Lord and Lady Bendham, and twenty others, "wished him a +successful voyage," and thought no more about him. + +It was for Rebecca alone to feel the loss of Henry; it was for a mind +like hers alone to know his worth; nor did this last proof of it, the +quitting her for one who claimed by every tie a preference, lessen him in +her esteem. When, by a message from him, she became acquainted with his +design, much as it interfered with her happiness, she valued him the more +for this observance of his duty; the more regretted his loss, and the +more anxiously prayed for his return--a return which he, in the following +letter, written just before his departure, taught her to hope for with +augmented impatience. + + "MY DEAR REBECCA, + + "I do not tell you I am sorry to part from you--you know I am--and you + know all I have suffered since your father denied me permission to see + you. + + "But perhaps you do not know the hopes I enjoy, and which bestow on me + a degree of peace; and those I am eager to tell you. + + "I hope, Rebecca, to see you again; I hope to return to England, and + overcome every obstacle to our marriage; and then, in whatever station + we are placed, I shall consider myself as happy as it is possible to + be in this world. I feel a conviction that you would be happy also. + + "Some persons, I know, estimate happiness by fine houses, gardens, and + parks; others by pictures, horses, money, and various things wholly + remote from their own species; but when I wish to ascertain the real + felicity of any rational man, I always inquire _whom he has to love_. + If I find he has nobody, or does not love those he has, even in the + midst of all his profusion of finery and grandeur, I pronounce him a + being in deep adversity. In loving you, I am happier than my cousin + William; even though I am obliged to leave you for a time. + + "Do not be afraid you should grow old before I return; age can never + alter you in my regard. It is your gentle nature, your unaffected + manners, your easy cheerfulness, your clear understanding, the + sincerity of all your words and actions which have gained my heart; + and while you preserve charms like these, you will be dearer to me + with white hairs and a wrinkled face than any of your sex, who, not + possessing all these qualities, possess the form and features of + perfect beauty. + + "You will esteem me, too, I trust, though I should return on crutches + with my poor father, whom I may be obliged to maintain by daily + labour. + + "I shall employ all my time, during my absence, in the study of some + art which may enable me to support you both, provided Heaven will + bestow two such blessings on me. In the cheering thought that it will + be so, and in that only, I have the courage, my dear, dear Rebecca, to + say to you + + "Farewell! H. NORWYNNE." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +Before Henry could receive a reply to his letter, the fleet in which he +sailed put to sea. + +By his absence, not only Rebecca was deprived of the friend she loved, +but poor Agnes lost a kind and compassionate adviser. The loss of her +parents, too, she had to mourn; for they both sickened, and both died, in +a short time after; and now wholly friendless in her little exile, where +she could only hope for toleration, not being known, she was contending +with suspicion, rebuffs, disappointments, and various other ills, which +might have made the most rigorous of her Anfield persecutors feel +compassion for her, could they have witnessed the throbs of her heart, +and all the deep wounds there imprinted. + +Still, there are few persons whom Providence afflicts beyond the limits +of _all_ consolation; few cast so low as not to feel pride on _certain_ +occasions; and Agnes felt a comfort and a dignity in the thought, that +she had both a mind and a body capable of sustaining every hardship, +which her destiny might inflict, rather than submit to the disgrace of +soliciting William's charity a second time. + +This determination was put to a variety of trials. In vain she offered +herself to the strangers of the village in which she was accidentally +cast as a servant; her child, her dejected looks, her broken sentences, a +wildness in her eye, a kind of bold despair which at times overspread her +features, her imperfect story who and what she was, prejudiced all those +to whom she applied; and, after thus travelling to several small towns +and hamlets, the only employer she could obtain was a farmer; and the +only employment to tend and feed his cattle while his men were in the +harvest, tilling the ground, or at some other labour which required at +the time peculiar expedition. + +Though Agnes was born of peasants, yet, having been the only child of +industrious parents, she had been nursed with a tenderness and delicacy +ill suited to her present occupation; but she endured it with patience; +and the most laborious part would have seemed light could she have +dismissed the reflection--what it was that had reduced her to such a +state. + +Soon her tender hands became hard and rough, her fair skin burnt and +yellow; so that when, on a Sunday, she has looked in the glass, she has +started back as if it were some other face she saw instead of her own. +But this loss of beauty gave her no regret--while William did not see +her, it was indifferent to her, whether she were beautiful or hideous. On +the features of her child only, she now looked with joy; there, she +fancied she saw William at every glance, and, in the fond imagination, +felt at times every happiness short of seeing him. + +By herding with the brute creation, she and her child were allowed to +live together; and this was a state she preferred to the society of human +creatures, who would have separated her from what she loved so tenderly. +Anxious to retain a service in which she possessed such a blessing, care +and attention to her humble office caused her master to prolong her stay +through all the winter; then, during the spring, she tended his yeaning +sheep; in the summer, watched them as they grazed; and thus season after +season passed, till her young son could afford her assistance in her +daily work. + +He now could charm her with his conversation as well as with his looks: a +thousand times in the transports of parental love she has pressed him to +her bosom, and thought, with an agony of horror, upon her criminal, her +mad intent to destroy what was now so dear, so necessary to her +existence. + +Still the boy grew up more and more like his father. In one resemblance +alone he failed; he loved Agnes with an affection totally distinct from +the pitiful and childish gratification of his own self-love; he never +would quit her side for all the tempting offers of toys or money; never +would eat of rarities given to him till Agnes took a part; never crossed +her will, however contradictory to his own; never saw her smile that he +did not laugh; nor did she ever weep, but he wept too. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +From the mean subject of oxen, sheep, and peasants, we return to +personages; i.e., persons of rank and fortune. The bishop, who was +introduced in the foregoing pages, but who has occupied a very small +space there, is now mentioned again, merely that the reader may know he +is at present in the same state as his writings--dying; and that his +friend, the dean, is talked of as the most likely successor to his +dignified office. + +The dean, most assuredly, had a strong friendship for the bishop, and +now, most assuredly, wished him to recover; and yet, when he reflected on +the success of his pamphlet a few years past, and of many which he had +written since on the very same subject, he could not but think "that he +had more righteous pretensions to fill the vacant seat of his much +beloved and reverend friend (should fate ordain it to be vacated) than +any other man;" and he knew that it would not take one moment from that +friend's remaining life, should he exert himself, with all due +management, to obtain the elevated station when be should he no more. + +In presupposing the death of a friend, the dean, like many other virtuous +men, "always supposed him going to a better place." With perfect +resignation, therefore, he waited whatever change might happen to the +bishop, ready to receive him with open arms if he recovered, or equally +ready, in case of his dissolution, to receive his dignities. + +Lady Clementina displayed her sensibility and feeling for the sick +prelate by the extravagance of hysteric fits; except at those times when +she talked seriously with her husband upon the injustice which she +thought would be done to him, and to his many pamphlets and sermons, if +he did not immediately rise to episcopal honour. + +"Surely, dean," said she, "should you be disappointed upon this occasion, +you will write no more books for the good of your country?" + +"Yes, I will," he replied; "but the next book I write for the good of my +country shall be very different, nay the very reverse of those I have +already written." + +"How, dean! would you show yourself changed?" + +"No, but I will show that my country is changed." + +"What! since you produced your last work; only six weeks ago!" + +"Great changes may occur in six days," replied the dean, with a +threatening accent; "and if I find things _have_ taken a new and improper +turn, I will be the first to expose it." + +"But before you act in this manner, my dear, surely you will wait--" + +"I will wait until the see is disposed of to another," said he. + +He did wait: the bishop died. The dean was promoted to the see of ---, +and wrote a folio on the prosperity of our happy country. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +While the bishop and his son were sailing before prosperous gales on the +ocean of life, young Henry was contending with adverse winds, and many +other perils, on the watery ocean; yet still, his distresses and dangers +were less than those which Agnes had to encounter upon land. The sea +threatens an untimely death; the shore menaces calamities from which +death is a refuge. + +The affections she had already experienced could just admit of +aggravation: the addition occurred. + +Had the good farmer, who made her the companion of his flocks and herds, +lived till now, till now she might have been secure from the annoyance of +human kind; but, thrown once more upon society, she was unfit to sustain +the conflict of decorum against depravity. Her master, her patron, her +preserver, was dead; and hardly as she had earned the pittance she +received from him, she found that it surpassed her power to obtain the +like again. Her doubtful character, her capacious mind, her unmethodical +manners, were still badly suited to the nice precision of a country +housewife; and as the prudent mistress of a family sneered at her +pretensions, she, in her turn, scorned the narrow-minded mistress of a +family. + +In her inquiries how to gain her bread free from the cutting reproaches +of discretion, she was informed "that London was the only private corner, +where guilt could be secreted undisturbed; and the only public place +where, in open day, it might triumphantly stalk, attended by a chain of +audacious admirers." + +There was a charm to the ear of Agnes in the name of London, which +thrilled through her soul. William lived in London; and she thought +that, while she retired to some dark cellar with her offences, he +probably would ride in state with his, and she at humble distance might +sometimes catch a glance at him. + +As difficult as to eradicate insanity from a mind once possessed, so +difficult it is to erase from the lover's breast the deep impression of a +_real_ affection. Coercion may prevail for a short interval, still love +will rage again. Not all the ignominy which Agnes experienced in the +place where she now was without a home--not the hunger which she at times +suffered, and even at times saw her child endure--not every inducement +for going to London, or motive for quitting her present desolate station, +had the weight to affect her choice so much as--in London, she should +live nearer William; in the present spot she could never hope to see him +again, but there she might chance to pass him in the streets; she might +pass his house every day unobserved--might inquire about him of his +inferior neighbours, who would be unsuspicious of the cause of her +curiosity. For these gratifications, she should imbibe new fortitude; +for these she could bear all hardships which London threatened; and for +these, she at length undertook a three weeks' journey to that perilous +town on foot, cheering, as she walked along, her innocent and wearied +companion. + +William--in your luxurious dwelling, possessed of coffers filled with +gold, relations, friends, clients, joyful around you, delicious viands +and rich wines upon your sumptuous board, voluptuousness displayed in +every apartment of your habitation--contemplate, for a moment, Agnes, +your first love, with her son, your first and only child, walking through +frost and snow to London, with a foreboding fear on the mother that, when +arrived, they both may perish for the want of a friend. + +But no sooner did Agnes find herself within the smoke of the metropolis +than the old charm was renewed; and scarcely had she refreshed her child +at the poor inn at which she stopped than she inquired how far it was to +that part of the town where William, she knew, resided? + +She received for answer, "about two miles." + +Upon this information, she thought that she would keep in reserve, till +some new sorrow befell her, the consolation of passing his door +(perchance of seeing him) which must ever be an alleviation of her grief. +It was not long before she had occasion for more substantial comfort. She +soon found she was not likely to obtain a service here, more than in the +country. Some objected that she could not make caps and gowns; some that +she could not preserve and pickle; some, that she was too young; some, +that she was too pretty; and all declined accepting her, till at last a +citizen's wife, on condition of her receiving but half the wages usually +given, took her as a servant of all work. + +In romances, and in some plays, there are scenes of dark and unwholesome +mines, wherein the labourer works, during the brightest day, by the aid +of artificial light. There are in London kitchens equally dismal though +not quite so much exposed to damp and noxious vapours. In one of these, +underground, hidden from the cheerful light of the sun, poor Agnes was +doomed to toil from morning till night, subjected to the command of a +dissatisfied mistress; who, not estimating as she ought the misery +incurred by serving her, constantly threatened her servants "with a +dismission;" at which the unthinking wretches would tremble merely from +the sound of the words; for to have reflected--to have considered what +their purport was--"to be released from a dungeon, relieved from +continual upbraidings, and vile drudgery," must have been a subject of +rejoicing; and yet, because these good tidings were delivered as a +menace, custom had made the hearer fearful of the consequence. So, death +being described to children as a disaster, even poverty and shame will +start from it with affright; whereas, had it been pictured with its +benign aspect, it would have been feared but by few, and many, many would +welcome it with gladness. + +All the care of Agnes to please, her fear of offending, her toilsome +days, her patience, her submission, could not prevail on her she served +to retain her one hour after, by chance, she had heard "that she was the +mother of a child; that she wished it should be kept a secret; and that +she stole out now and then to visit him." + +Agnes, with swimming eyes and an almost breaking heart, left a +place--where to have lived one hour would have plunged any fine lady in +the deepest grief. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +Agnes was driven from service to service--her deficiency in the knowledge +of a mere drudge, or her lost character, pursued her wherever she went--at +length, becoming wholly destitute, she gladly accepted a place where the +latter misfortune was not of the least impediment. + +In one of these habitations, where continual misery is dressed in +continual smiles; where extreme of poverty is concealed by extreme of +finery; where wine dispenses mirth only by dispensing forgetfulness; and +where female beauty is so cheap, so complying, that, while it inveigles, +it disgusts the man of pleasure: in one of those houses, to attend upon +its wretched inhabitants, Agnes was hired. Her feelings of rectitude +submitted to those of hunger; her principles of virtue (which the loss of +virtue had not destroyed) received a shock when she engaged to be the +abettor of vice, from which her delicacy, morality, and religion shrunk; +but persons of honour and of reputation would not employ her: was she +then to perish? That, perhaps, was easy to resolve; but she had a child +to leave behind! a child, from whom to part for a day was a torment. Yet, +before she submitted to a situation which filled her mind with a kind of +loathing horror, often she paced up and down the street in which William +lived, looked wistfully at his house, and sometimes, lost to all her +finer feelings of independent pride, thought of sending a short petition +to him; but, at the idea of a repulse, and of that frowning brow which +she knew William _could_ dart on her petitions, she preferred death, or +the most degrading life, to the trial. + +It was long since that misfortune and dishonour had made her callous to +the good or ill opinion of all the world, except _his_; and the fear of +drawing upon her his increased contempt was still, at the crisis of +applying, so powerful, that she found she dared not hazard a reproof from +him even in the person of his father, whose rigour she had already more +than once experienced, in the frequent harsh messages conveyed to her +with the poor stipend for her boy. + +Awed by the rigid and pious character of the new bishop, the growing +reputation, and rising honours of his son, she mistook the appearance of +moral excellence for moral excellence itself, and felt her own +unworthiness even to become the supplicant of those great men. + +Day after day she watched those parts of the town through which William's +chariot was accustomed to drive; but to see the _carriage_ was all to +which she aspired; a feeling, not to be described, forced her to cast her +eyes upon the earth as it drew near to her; and when it had passed, she +beat her breast, and wept that she had not seen _him_. + +Impressed with the superiority of others, and her own abject and +disgustful state, she cried, "Let me herd with those who won't despise +me; let me only see faces whereon I can look without confusion and +terror; let me associate with wretches like myself, rather than force my +shame before those who are so good they can but scorn and hate me." + +With a mind thus languishing for sympathy in disgrace, she entered a +servant in the house just now described. There disregarding the fatal +proverb against "_evil communications_," she had not the firmness to be +an exception to the general rule. That pliant disposition, which had +yielded to the licentious love of William, stooped to still baser +prostitution in company still more depraved. + +At first she shuddered at those practices she saw, at those conversations +she heard, and blest herself that poverty, not inclination, had caused +her to be a witness of such profligacy, and had condemned her in this +vile abode to be a servant, rather than in the lower rank of mistress. +Use softened those horrors every day; at length self-defence, the fear of +ridicule, and the hope of favour, induced her to adopt that very conduct +from which her heart revolted. + +In her sorrowful countenance and fading charms there yet remained +attraction for many visitors; and she now submitted to the mercenary +profanations of love, more odious, as her mind had been subdued by its +most captivating, most endearing joys. + +While incessant regret whispered to her "that she ought to have endured +every calamity rather than this," she thus questioned her nice sense of +wrong, "Why, why respect myself, since no other respects me? Why set a +value on my own feelings when no one else does?" + +Degraded in her own judgment, she doubted her own understanding when it +sometimes told her she had deserved better treatment; for she felt +herself a fool in comparison with her learned seducer and the rest who +despised her. "And why," she continued, "should I ungratefully persist +to contemn women who alone are so kind as to accept me for a companion? +Why refuse conformity to their customs, since none of my sex besides will +admit me to their society a partaker of virtuous habits?" + +In speculation these arguments appeared reasonable, and she pursued their +dictates; but in the practice of the life in which she plunged she proved +the fallacy of the system, and at times tore her hair with frantic +sorrow, that she had not continued in the mid-way of guilt, and so +preserved some portion of self-approbation, to recompense her in a small +degree, for the total loss of the esteem of all the reputable world. + +But she had gone too far to recede. Could she now have recalled her +innocence, even that remnant she brought with her to London, experience +would have taught her to have given up her child, lived apart from him, +and once more with the brute creation, rather than to have mingled with +her present society. Now, alas! the time for flying was past; all +prudent choice was over, even all reflection was gone for ever, or only +admitted on compulsion, when it imperiously forced its way amidst the +scenes of tumultuous mirth or licentious passion, of distracted riot, +shameless effrontery, and wild intoxication, when it _would_ force its +way, even through the walls of a brothel. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + + +Is there a reader so little experienced in the human heart, so forgetful +of his own, as not to feel the possibility of the following fact? + +A series of uncommon calamities had been for many years the lot of the +elder Henry; a succession of prosperous events had fallen to the share of +his brother William. The one was the envy, while the other had the +compassion, of all who thought about them. For the last twenty years, +William had lived in affluence, bordering upon splendour, his friends, +his fame, his fortune, daily increasing, while Henry throughout that very +period had, by degrees, lost all he loved on earth, and was now existing +apart from civilised society; and yet, during those twenty years, where +William knew one happy moment, Henry tasted hundreds. + +That the state of the mind, and not outward circumstances, is the nice +point on which happiness depends is but a trite remark; but that +intellectual power should have the force to render a man discontented in +extraordinary prosperity, such as that of the present bishop, or +contented in his brother's extreme of adversity, requires illustration. + +The first great affliction to Henry was his brother's ingratitude; but +reasoning on the frailty of man's nature, and the force of man's +temptations, he found excuses for William, which made him support the +treatment he had received with more tranquillity than William's proud +mind supported his brother's marriage. + +Henry's indulgent disposition made him less angry with William than +William was with him. + +The next affliction Henry suffered was the loss of his beloved wife. That +was a grief which time and change of objects gradually alleviated; while +William's wife was to him a permanent grief, her puerile mind, her +talking vanity, her affected virtues, soured his domestic comfort, and, +in time, he had suffered more painful moments from her society than his +brother had experienced, even from the death of her he loved. + +In their children, indeed, William was the happier; his son was a pride +and pleasure to him, while Henry never thought upon _his_ without +lamenting his loss with bitterest anguish. But if the elder brother had +in one instance the advantage, still Henry had a resource to overbalance +this article. Henry, as he lay imprisoned in his dungeon, and when, his +punishment being remitted, he was again allowed to wander, and seek his +subsistence where he would, in all his tedious walks and solitary resting- +places, during all his lonely days and mournful nights, had _this +resource_ to console him-- + +"I never did an injury to any one; never was harsh, severe, unkind, +deceitful. I did not merely confine myself to do my neighbour no harm; I +strove to do him service." + +This was the resource that cheered his sinking heart amidst gloomy +deserts and a barbarous people, lulled him to peaceful slumber in the hut +of a savage hunter, and in the hearing of the lion's roar, at times +impressed him with a sense of happiness, and made him contemplate with a +longing hope the retribution of a future world. + +The bishop, with all his comforts, had no comfort like this; he had _his_ +solitary reflections too, but they were of a tendency the reverse of +these. "I used my brother ill," was a secret thought of most powerful +influence. It kept him waking upon his safe and commodious bed; was sure +to recur with every misfortune by which he was threatened to make his +fears still stronger, and came with invidious stabs, upon every +successful event, to take from him a part of his joy. In a word, it was +_conscience_ which made Henry's years pass happier than William's. + +But though, comparatively with his brother, William was the less happy +man, yet his self-reproach was not of such magnitude, for an offence of +that atrocious nature as to banish from his breast a certain degree of +happiness, a sensibility to the smiles of fortune; nor was Henry's self- +acquittal of such exquisite kind as to chase away the feeling of his +desolate condition. + +As he fished or hunted for his daily dinner, many a time in full view of +his prey, a sudden burst of sorrow at his fate, a sudden longing for some +dear associate, for some friend to share his thoughts, for some kind +shoulder on which to lean his head, for some companion to partake of his +repast, would make him instantaneously desist from his pursuit, cast him +on the ground in a fit of anguish, till a shower of tears and his +_conscience_ came to his relief. + +It was, after an exile of more than twenty-three years, when, on one +sultry morning, after pleasant dreams during the night, Henry had waked +with more than usual perception of his misery, that, sitting upon the +beach, his wishes and his looks all bent on the sea towards his native +land, he thought he saw a sail swelling before an unexpected breeze. + +"Sure I am dreaming still!" he cried. "This is the very vessel I last +night saw in my sleep! Oh! what cruel mockery that my eyes should so +deceive me!" + +Yet, though he doubted, he leaped upon his feet in transport, held up his +hands, stretched at their length, in a kind of ecstatic joy, and, as the +glorious sight approached, was near rushing into the sea to hail and meet +it. + +For awhile hope and fear kept him in a state bordering on distraction. + +Now he saw the ship making for the shore, and tears flowed for the +grateful prospect. Now it made for another point, and he vented shrieks +and groans from the disappointment. + +It was at those moments, while hope and fear thus possessed him, that the +horrors of his abode appeared more than ever frightful. Inevitable +afflictions must be borne; but that calamity which admits the expectation +of relief, and then denies it, is insupportable. + +After a few minutes passed in dreadful uncertainty, which enhanced the +wished-for happiness, the ship evidently drew near the land; a boat was +launched from her, and while Henry, now upon his knees, wept and prayed +fervently for the event, a youth sprang from the barge on the strand, +rushed towards him, and falling on his neck, then at his feet, exclaimed, +"My father! oh, my father!" + +William! dean! bishop! what are your honours, what your riches, what all +your possessions, compared to the happiness, the transport bestowed by +this one sentence, on your poor brother Henry? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + +The crosses at land, and the perilous events at sea, had made it now two +years since young Henry first took the vow of a man no longer dependent +on the will of another, to seek his father. His fatigues, his dangers, +were well recompensed. Instead of weeping over a silent grave, he had +the inexpressible joy to receive a parent's blessing for his labours. +Yet, the elder Henry, though living, was so changed in person, that his +son would scarcely have known him in any other than the favourite spot, +which the younger (keeping in memory every incident of his former life) +knew his father had always chosen for his morning contemplations; and +where, previously to his coming to England, he had many a time kept him +company. It was to that particular corner of the island that the captain +of the ship had generously ordered they should steer, out of the general +route, to gratify the filial tenderness he expressed. But scarcely had +the interview between the father and the son taken place, than a band of +natives, whom the appearance of the vessel had called from the woods and +hills, came to attack the invaders. The elder Henry had no friend with +whom he wished to shake hands at his departure; the old negro servant who +had assisted in young Henry's escape was dead; and he experienced the +excessive joy of bidding adieu to the place, without one regret for all +he left behind. + +On the night of that day, whose morning had been marked by peculiar +sadness at the louring prospect of many exiled years to come, he slept on +board an English vessel, with Englishmen his companions, and his son, his +beloved son--who was still more dear to him for that mind which had +planned and executed his rescue--this son, his attentive servant, and +most affectionate friend. + +Though many a year passed, and many a rough encounter was destined to the +lot of the two Henrys before they saw the shores of Europe, yet to them, +to live or to die together was happiness enough: even young Henry for a +time asked for no greater blessing--but, the first glow of filial ardour +over, he called to mind, "Rebecca lived in England;" and every exertion +which love, founded on the highest reverence and esteem, could dictate, +he employed to expedite a voyage, the end of which would be crowned by +the sight of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + + +The contrast of the state of happiness between the two brothers was +nearly resembled by that of the two cousins--the riches of young William +did not render him happy, nor did the poverty of young Henry doom him to +misery. His affectionate heart, as he had described in his letter to +Rebecca, loved _persons_ rather than _things_; and he would not have +exchanged the society of his father, nor the prospect of her hand and +heart, for all the wealth and splendour of which his cousin William was +the master. + +He was right. Young William, though he viewed with contempt Henry's +inferior state, was far less happy than he. His marriage had been the +very counterpart of his father's; and having no child to create affection +to his home, his study was the only relief from that domestic incumbrance +called his wife; and though, by unremitting application there (joined to +the influence of the potent relations of the woman he hated), he at +length arrived at the summit of his ambitious desires, still they poorly +repaid him for the sacrifice he had made in early life of every tender +disposition. + +Striding through a list of rapid advancements in the profession of the +law, at the age of thirty-eight he found himself raised to a preferment +such as rarely falls to the share of a man of his short experience--he +found himself invested with a judge's robe; and, gratified by the exalted +office, curbed more than ever that aversion which her want of charms or +sympathy had produced against the partner of his honours. + +While William had thus been daily rising in fortune's favour, poor Agnes +had been daily sinking deeper and deeper under fortune's frowns: till at +last she became a midnight wanderer through the streets of London, +soliciting, or rudely demanding, money of the passing stranger. +Sometimes, hunted by the watch, she affrighted fled from street to +street, from portico to portico; and once, unknowing in her fear which +way she hurried, she found her trembling knees had sunk, and her wearied +head was reclined against the stately pillars that guarded William's +door. + +At the sudden recollection where she was, a swell of passion, composed of +horror, of anger, of despair, and love, gave reanimated strength to her +failing limbs; and, regardless of her pursuer's steps, she ran to the +centre of the street, and, looking up to the windows of the mansion, +cried, "Ah! there he sleeps in quiet, in peace, in ease--he does not even +dream of me--he does not care how the cold pierces, or how the people +persecute me! He does not thank me for all the lavish love I have borne +him and his child! His heart is so hard, he does not even recollect that +it was he who brought me to ruin." + +Had these miseries, common to the unhappy prostitute, been alone the +punishment of Agnes--had her crimes and sufferings ended in distress like +this, her story had not perhaps been selected for a public recital; for +it had been no other than the customary history of thousands of her sex. +But Agnes had a destiny yet more fatal. Unhappily, she was endowed with +a mind so sensibly alive to every joy, and every sorrow, to every mark of +kindness, every token of severity, so liable to excess in passion, that, +once perverted, there was no degree of error from which it would revolt. + +Taught by the conversation of the dissolute poor, with whom she now +associated, or by her own observation on the worldly reward of elevated +villainy, she began to suspect "that dishonesty was only held a sin to +secure the property of the rich; and that, to take from those who did not +want, by the art of stealing, was less guilt, than to take from those who +did want, by the power of the law." + +By false yet seducing opinions such as these, her reason estranged from +every moral and religious tie, her necessities urgent, she reluctantly +accepted the proposal to mix with a band of practised sharpers and +robbers, and became an accomplice in negotiating bills forged on a +country banker. + +But though ingenious in arguments to excuse the deed before its +commission, in the act she had ever the dread of some incontrovertible +statement on the other side of the question. Intimidated by this +apprehension, she was the veriest bungler in her vile profession--and on +the alarm of being detected, while every one of her confederates escaped +and absconded, she alone was seized--was arrested for issuing notes they +had fabricated, and committed to the provincial jail, about fifty miles +from London, where the crime had been perpetrated, to take her trial +for--life or death. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + + +The day at length is come on which Agnes shall have a sight of her +beloved William! She who has watched for hours near his door, to procure +a glimpse of him going out, or returning home; who has walked miles to +see his chariot pass: she now will behold him, and he will see her by +command of the laws of their country. Those laws, which will deal with +rigour towards her, are in this one instance still indulgent. + +The time of the assizes, at the county town in which she is imprisoned, +is arrived--the prisoners are demanded at the shire-hall--the jail doors +are opened--they go in sad procession--the trumpet sounds--it speaks the +arrival of the judge--and that judge is William! + +The day previous to her trial, Agnes had read, in the printed calendar of +the prisoners, his name as the learned justice before whom she was to +appear. For a moment she forgot her perilous state in the excess of joy +which the still unconquerable love she bore to him permitted her to taste +even on the brink of the grave! After-reflection made her check those +worldly transports, as unfit for the present solemn occasion. But alas! +to her, earth and William were so closely united that, till she forsook +the one, she could never cease to think, without the contending passions +of hope, of fear, of joy, of love, of shame, and of despair, on the +other. + +Now fear took place of her first immoderate joy--she feared that, +although much changed in person since he had seen her, and her real name +now added to many an _alias_--yet she feared that same well-known glance +of the eye, turn of the action, or accent of speech, might recall her to +his remembrance; and at that idea shame overcame all her other +sensations--for still she retained pride, in respect to _his_ opinion, to +wish him not to know Agnes was that wretch she felt she was! Once a ray +of hope beamed on her, "that if he knew her, he recognised her, he might +possibly befriend her cause;" and life bestowed through William's +friendship seemed a precious object! But again, that rigorous honour she +had often heard him boast, that firmness to his word, of which she had +fatal experience, taught her to know, he would not for any unproper +compassion, any unmanly weakness, forfeit his oath of impartial justice. + +In meditations such as these she passed the sleepless night. When, in +the morning, she was brought to the bar, and her guilty hand held up +before the righteous judgment seat of William--imagination could not form +two figures, or two situations more incompatible with the existence of +former familiarity, than the judge and the culprit--and yet, these very +persons had passed together the most blissful moments that either ever +tasted! Those hours of tender dalliance were now present to _her_ mind. +_His_ thoughts were more nobly employed in his high office; nor could the +haggard face, hollow eye, desponding countenance, and meagre person of +the poor prisoner, once call to his memory, though her name was uttered +among a list of others which she had assumed, his former youthful, lovely +Agnes! + +She heard herself arraigned with trembling limbs and downcast looks; and +many witnesses had appeared against her before she ventured to lift her +eyes up to her awful judge. She then gave one fearful glance, and +discovered William, unpitying but beloved William, in every feature! It +was a face she had been used to look on with delight, and a kind of +absent smile of gladness now beamed on her poor wan visage. + +When every witness on the part of the prosecutor had been examined, the +judge addressed himself to her--"What defence have you to make?" + +It was William spoke to Agnes! The sound was sweet; the voice was mild, +was soft, compassionate, encouraging! It almost charmed her to a love of +life!--not such a voice as when William last addressed her; when he left +her undone and pregnant, vowing never to see or speak to her more. + +She could have hung upon the present words for ever! She did not call to +mind that this gentleness was the effect of practice, the art of his +occupation: which, at times, is but a copy, by the unfeeling, from his +benevolent brethren of the bench. In the present judge, tenderness was +not designed for the consolation of the culprit, but for the approbation +of the auditors. + +There were no spectators, Agnes, by your side when last he parted from +you: if there had, the awful William had been awed to marks of pity. + +Stunned with the enchantment of that well-known tongue directed to her, +she stood like one just petrified--all vital power seemed suspended. + +Again he put the question, and with these additional sentences, tenderly +and emphatically delivered--"Recollect yourself. Have you no witnesses? +No proof in your behalf?" + +A dead silence followed these questions. + +He then mildly, but forcibly, added--"What have you to say?" + +Here a flood of tears burst from her eyes, which she fixed earnestly upon +him, as if pleading for mercy, while she faintly articulated, + +"Nothing, my lord." + +After a short pause, he asked her, in the same forcible but benevolent +tone-- + +"Have you no one to speak to your character?" The prisoner answered-- + +A second gush of tears followed this reply, for she called to mind by +_whom_ her character had first been blasted. + +He summed up the evidence; and every time he was compelled to press hard +upon the proofs against her she shrunk, and seemed to stagger with the +deadly blow; writhed under the weight of _his_ minute justice, more than +from the prospect of a shameful death. + +The jury consulted but a few minutes. The verdict was-- + +"Guilty." + +She heard it with composure. + +But when William placed the fatal velvet on his head, and rose to +pronounce her sentence, she started with a kind of convulsive motion; +retreated a step or two back, and, lifting up her hands, with a scream +exclaimed-- + +"Oh! not from _you_!" + +The piercing shriek which accompanied these words prevented their being +heard by part of the audience; and those who heard them thought little of +their meaning, more than that they expressed her fear of dying. + +Serene and dignified, as if no such exclamation had been uttered, William +delivered the fatal speech, ending with, "Dead, dead, dead." + +She fainted as he closed the period, and was carried back to prison in a +swoon; while he adjourned the court to go to dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + + +If, unaffected by the scene he had witnessed, William sat down to dinner +with an appetite, let not the reader conceive that the most distant +suspicion had struck his mind of his ever having seen, much less +familiarly known, the poor offender whom he had just condemned. Still +this forgetfulness did not proceed from the want of memory for Agnes. In +every peevish or heavy hour passed with his wife, he was sure to think of +her: yet it was self-love, rather than love of _her_, that gave rise to +these thoughts: he felt the lack of female sympathy and tenderness to +soften the fatigue of studious labour; to sooth a sullen, a morose +disposition--he felt he wanted comfort for himself, but never once +considered what were the wants of Agnes. + +In the chagrin of a barren bed, he sometimes thought, too, even on the +child that Agnes bore him; but whether it were male or female, whether a +beggar in the streets, or dead--various and important public occupations +forbade him to waste time to inquire. Yet the poor, the widow, and the +orphan, frequently shared William's ostentatious bounty. He was the +president of many excellent charities, gave largely, and sometimes +instituted benevolent societies for the unhappy; for he delighted to load +the poor with obligations, and the rich with praise. + +There are persons like him, who love to do every good but that which +their immediate duty requires. There are servants who will serve every +one more cheerfully than their masters; there are men who will distribute +money liberally to all except their creditors; and there are wives who +will love all mankind better than their husbands. Duty is a familiar +word which has little effect upon an ordinary mind; and as ordinary minds +make a vast majority, we have acts of generosity, valour, self-denial, +and bounty, where smaller pains would constitute greater virtues. Had +William followed the _common_ dictates of charity; had he adopted private +pity, instead of public munificence; had he cast an eye at home before he +sought abroad for objects of compassion, Agnes had been preserved from an +ignominious death, and he had been preserved from--_Remorse_--the +tortures of which he for the first time proved, on reading a printed +sheet of paper, accidentally thrown in his way, a few days after he had +left the town in which he had condemned her to die. + + "_March the_ 12th, 179- + + "The last dying words, speech, and confession; birth, parentage, and + education; life, character, and behaviour, of Agnes Primrose, who was + executed this morning, between the hours of ten and twelve, pursuant + to the sentence passed upon her by the Honourable Justice Norwynne. + + "AGNES PRIMROSE was born of honest parents, in the village of Anfield, + in the county of ---" [William started at the name of the village and + county]; "but being led astray by the arts and flattery of seducing + man, she fell from the paths of virtue, and took to bad company, which + instilled into her young heart all their evil ways, and at length + brought her to this untimely end. So she hopes her death will be a + warning to all young persons of her own sex, how they listen to the + praises and courtship of young men, especially of those who are their + betters; for they only court to deceive. But the said Agnes freely + forgives all persons who have done her injury, or given her sorrow, + from the young man who first won her heart to the jury who found her + guilty, and the judge who condemned her to death. + + "And she acknowledges the justice of her sentence, not only in respect + of the crime for which she suffers, but in regard to many other + heinous sins of which she has been guilty, more especially that of + once attempting to commit a murder upon her own helpless child, for + which guilt she now considers the vengeance of God has overtaken her, + to which she is patiently resigned, and departs in peace and charity + with all the world, praying the Lord to have mercy on her parting + soul." + + "POSTSCRIPT TO THE CONFESSION. + + "So great was this unhappy woman's terror of death, and the awful + judgment that was to follow, that when sentence was pronounced upon + her, she fell into a swoon, from that into convulsions, from which she + never entirely recovered, but was delirious to the time of her + execution, except that short interval in which she made her confession + to the clergyman who attended her. She has left one child, a youth + about sixteen, who has never forsaken his mother during all the time + of her imprisonment, but waited on her with true filial duty; and no + sooner was her fatal sentence passed than he began to droop, and now + lies dangerously ill near the prison from which she is released by + death. During the loss of her senses, the said Agnes Primrose raved + continually on this child; and, asking for pen, ink, and paper, wrote + an incoherent petition to the judge recommending the youth to his + protection and mercy. But notwithstanding this insanity, she behaved + with composure and resignation when the fatal morning arrived in which + she was to be launched into eternity. She prayed devoutly during the + last hour, and seemed to have her whole mind fixed on the world to + which she was going. A crowd of spectators followed her to the fatal + spot, most of whom returned weeping at the recollection of the + fervency with which she prayed, and the impression which her dreadful + state seemed to make upon her." + +No sooner had the name of "Anfield" struck William than a thousand +reflections and remembrances flashed on his mind to give him full +conviction whom it was he had judged and sentenced. He recollected the +sad remains of Agnes, such as he once had known her; and now he wondered +how his thoughts could have been absent from an object so pitiable, so +worthy of his attention, as not to give him even a suspicion who she was, +either from her name, or from her person, during the whole trial! + +But wonder, astonishment, horror, and every other sensation was absorbed +by--_Remorse_:--it wounded, it stabbed, it rent his hard heart, as it +would do a tender one. It havocked on his firm inflexible mind, as it +would on a weak and pliant brain! Spirit of Agnes! look down, and behold +all your wrongs revenged! William feels--_Remorse_. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + + +A few momentary cessations from the pangs of a guilty conscience were +given to William, as soon as he had despatched a messenger to the jail in +which Agnes had been communed, to inquire after the son she had left +behind, and to give orders that immediate care should be taken of him. He +likewise charged the messenger to bring back the petition she had +addressed to him during her supposed insanity; for he now experienced no +trivial consolation in the thought that he might possibly have it in his +power to grant her a request. + +The messenger returned with the written paper, which had been considered +by the persons to whom she had intrusted it, as the distracted dictates +of an insane mind; but proved to William, beyond a doubt, that she was +perfectly in her senses. + + "TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE NORWYNNE. + + "MY LORD,--I am Agnes Primrose, the daughter of John and Hannah + Primrose, of Anfield. My father and mother lived by the hill at the + side of the little brook where you used to fish, and so first saw me. + + "Pray, my lord, have mercy on my sorrows; pity me for the first time, + and spare my life. I know I have done wrong. I know it is + presumption in me to dare to apply to you, such a wicked and mean + wretch as I am; but, my lord, you once condescended to take notice of + me; and though I have been very wicked since that time, yet if you + would be so merciful as to spare my life, I promise to amend it for + the future. But if you think it proper I should die, I will be + resigned; but then I hope, I beg, I supplicate, that you will grant my + other petition. Pray, pray, my lord, if you cannot pardon me, be + merciful to the child I leave behind. What he will do when I am gone, + I don't know, for I have been the only friend he has had ever since he + was born. He was born, my lord, about sixteen years ago, at Anfield, + one summer a morning, and carried by your cousin, Mr. Henry Norwynne, + to Mr. Rymer's, the curate there; and I swore whose child he was + before the dean, and I did not take a false oath. Indeed, indeed, my + lord, I did not. + + "I will say no more for fear this should not come safe to your hand, + for the people treat me as if I were mad; so I will say no more, only + this, that, whether I live or die, I forgive everybody, and I hope + everybody will forgive me. And I pray that God will take pity on my + son, if you refuse; but I hope you will not refuse. + + "AGNES PRIMROSE." + +William rejoiced, as he laid down the petition, that she had asked a +favour he could bestow; and hoped by his protection of the son to +redress, in some degree, the wrongs he had done the mother. He instantly +sent for the messenger into his apartment, and impatiently asked, "If he +had seen the boy, and given proper directions for his care." + +"I have given directions, sir, for his funeral." + +"How!" cried William. + +"He pined away ever since his mother was confined, and died two days +after her execution." + +Robbed, by this news, of his only gleam of consolation--in the +consciousness of having done a mortal injury for which he never now by +any means could atone, he saw all his honours, all his riches, all his +proud selfish triumphs fade before him! They seemed like airy nothings, +which in rapture he would exchange for the peace of a tranquil +conscience! + +He envied Agnes the death to which he first exposed, then condemned, her. +He envied her even the life she struggled through from his neglect, and +felt that his future days would be far less happy than her former +existence. He calculated with precision. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + + +The progressive rise of William and fall of Agnes had now occupied nearly +the term of eighteen years. Added to these, another year elapsed before +the younger Henry completed the errand on which his heart was fixed, and +returned to England. Shipwreck, imprisonment, and other ills to which +the poor and unfriended traveller is peculiarly exposed, detained the +father and son in various remote regions until the present period; and, +for the last fifteen years, denied them the means of all correspondence +with their own country. + +The elder Henry was now past sixty years of age, and the younger almost +beyond the prime of life. Still length of time had not diminished, but +rather had increased, their anxious longings for their native home. + +The sorrows, disappointments, and fatigues, which, throughout these +tedious years, were endured by the two Henrys, are of that dull +monotonous kind of suffering better omitted than described--mere +repetitions of the exile's woe, that shall give place to the transporting +joy of return from banishment! Yet, often as the younger had reckoned, +with impatient wishes, the hours which were passed distant from her he +loved, no sooner was his disastrous voyage at an end, no sooner had his +feet trod upon the shore of Britain, than a thousand wounding fears made +him almost doubt whether it were happiness or misery he had obtained by +his arrival. If Rebecca were living, he knew it must be happiness; for +his heart dwelt with confidence on her faith, her unchanging sentiments. +"But death might possibly have ravished from his hopes what no mortal +power could have done." And thus the lover creates a rival in every ill, +rather than suffer his fears to remain inanimate. + +The elder Henry had less to fear or to hope than his son; yet he both +feared and hoped with a sensibility that gave him great anxiety. He +hoped his brother would receive him with kindness, after his long +absence, and once more take his son cordially to his favour. He longed +impatiently to behold his brother; to see his nephew; nay, in the ardour +of the renewed affection he just now felt, he thought even a distant view +of Lady Clementina would be grateful to his sight! But still, well +remembering the pomp, the state, the pride of William, he could not rely +on _his_ affection, so much he knew that it depended on external +circumstances to excite or to extinguish his love. Not that he feared an +absolute repulsion from his brother; but he feared, what, to a delicate +mind, is still worse--reserved manners, cold looks, absent sentences, and +all that cruel retinue of indifference with which those who are beloved +so often wound the bosom that adores them. + +By inquiring of their countrymen (whom they met as they approached to the +end of their voyage), concerning their relation the dean, the two Henrys +learned that he was well, and had for some years past been exalted to the +bishopric of ---. This news gave them joy, while it increased their fear +of not receiving an affectionate welcome. + +The younger Henry, on his landing, wrote immediately to his uncle, +acquainting him with his father's arrival in the most abject state of +poverty; he addressed his letter to the bishop's country residence, where +he knew, as it was the summer season, he would certainly be. He and his +father then set off on foot towards that residence--a palace! + +The bishop's palace was not situated above fifty miles from the port +where they had landed; and at a small inn about three miles from the +bishop's they proposed (as the letter to him intimated) to wait for his +answer before they intruded into his presence. + +As they walked on their solitary journey, it was some small consolation +that no creature knew them. + +"To be poor and ragged, father," the younger smilingly said, "is no +disgrace, no shame, thank Heaven, where the object is not known." + +"True, my son," replied Henry; "and perhaps I feel myself much happier +now, unknowing and unknown to all but you, than I shall in the presence +of my fortunate brother and his family; for there, confusion at my ill +success through life may give me greater pain than even my misfortunes +have inflicted." + +After uttering this reflection which had preyed upon his mind, he sat +down on the road side to rest his agitated limbs before he could proceed +farther. His son reasoned with him--gave him courage; and now his hopes +preponderated, till, after two days' journey, on arriving at the inn +where an answer from the bishop was expected, no letter, no message had +been left. + +"He means to renounce us," said Henry, trembling, and whispering to his +son. + +Without disclosing to the people of the house who they were, or from whom +the letter or the message they inquired for was to have come, they +retired, and consulted what steps they were now to pursue. + +Previously to his writing to the bishop, the younger Henry's heart, all +his inclinations, had swayed him towards a visit to the village in which +was his uncle's former country-seat, the beloved village of Anfield, but +respect to him and duty to his father had made him check those wishes; +now they revived again, and, with the image of Rebecca before his eyes, +he warmly entreated his father to go with him to Anfield, at present only +thirty miles distant, and thence write once more; then again wait the +will of his uncle. + +The father consented to this proposal, even glad to postpone the visit to +his dignified brother. + +After a scanty repast, such as they had been long inured to, they quitted +the inn, and took the road towards Anfield. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + + +It was about five in the afternoon of a summer's day, that Henry and his +son left the sign of the Mermaid to pursue their third day's journey: the +young man's spirits elated with the prospect of the reception he should +meet from Rebecca: the elder dejected at not having received a speedy +welcome from his brother. + +The road which led to Anfield by the shortest course of necessity took +our travellers within sight of the bishop's palace. The turrets appeared +at a distance; and on the sudden turn round the corner of a large +plantation, the whole magnificent structure was at once exhibited before +his brother's astonished eyes. He was struck with the grandeur of the +habitation; and, totally forgetting all the unkind, the contemptuous +treatment he had ever received from its owner (like the same Henry in his +earlier years), smiled with a kind of transport "that William was so +great a man." + +After this first joyous sensation was over, "Let us go a little nearer, +my son," said he; "no one will see us, I hope; or, if they should, you +can run and conceal yourself; and not a creature will know me; even my +brother would not know me thus altered; and I wish to take a little +farther view of his fine house, and all his pleasure grounds." + +Young Henry, though impatient to be gone, would not object to his +father's desire. They walked forward between a shady grove and a purling +rivulet, snuffed in odours from the jessamine banks, and listened to the +melody of an adjoining aviary. + +The allurements of the spot seemed to enchain the elder Henry, and he at +length sauntered to the very avenue of the dwelling; but, just as he had +set his daring yet trembling feet upon the turf which led to the palace +gates, he suddenly stopped, on hearing, as he thought, the village clock +strike seven, which reminded him that evening drew on, and it was time to +go. He listened again, when he and his son, both together, said, "It is +the toll of the bell before some funeral." + +The signals of death, while they humble the rich, inspire the poor with +pride. The passing bell gave Henry a momentary sense of equality; and he +courageously stepped forward to the first winding of the avenue. + +He started back at the sight which presented itself. + +A hearse--mourning coaches--mutes--plumed horses--with every other token +of the person's importance who was going to be committed to the earth. + +Scarcely had his terrified eyes been thus unexpectedly struck, when a +coffin borne by six men issued from the gates, and was deposited in the +waiting receptacle; while gentlemen in mourning went into the different +coaches. + +A standard-bearer now appeared with an escutcheon, on which the keys and +mitre were displayed. Young Henry, upon this, pathetically exclaimed, +"My uncle! it is my uncle's funeral!" + +Henry, his father, burst into tears. + +The procession moved along. + +The two Henrys, the only real mourners in the train, followed at a little +distance--in rags, but in tears. + +The elder Henry's heart was nearly bursting; he longed to clasp the dear +remains of his brother without the dread of being spurned for his +presumption. He now could no longer remember him either as the dean or +bishop; but, leaping over that whole interval of pride and arrogance, +called only to his memory William, such as he knew him when they lived at +home together, together walked to London, and there together almost +perished for want. + +They arrived at the church; and, while the coffin was placing in the +dreary vault, the weeping brother crept slowly after to the hideous spot. +His reflections now fixed on a different point. "Is this possible?" said +he to himself. "Is this the dean, whom I ever feared? Is this the +bishop, of whom within the present hour I stood in awe? Is this William, +whose every glance struck me with his superiority? Alas, my brother! and +is this horrid abode the reward for all your aspiring efforts? Are these +sepulchral trappings the only testimonies of your greatness which you +exhibit to me on my return? Did you foresee an end like this, while you +treated me, and many more of your youthful companions, with haughtiness +and contempt; while you thought it becoming of your dignity to shun and +despise us? Where is the difference now between my departed wife and +you? Or, if there be a difference, she, perchance, has the advantage. +Ah, my poor brother! for distinction in the other world, I trust, some of +your anxious labours have been employed; for you are now of less +importance in this than when you and I first left our native town, and +hoped for nothing greater than to be suffered to exist." + +On their quitting the church, they inquired of the bystanders the +immediate cause of the bishop's death, and heard he had been suddenly +carried off by a raging fever. + +Young Henry inquired "if Lady Clementina was at the palace, or Mr. +Norwynne?" + +"The latter is there," he was answered by a poor woman; "but Lady +Clementina has been dead these four years." + +"Dead! dead!" cried young Henry. "That worldly woman! quitted this world +for ever!" + +"Yes," answered the stranger; "she caught cold by wearing a new-fashioned +dress that did not half cover her, wasted all away, and died the +miserablest object you ever heard of." + +The person who gave this melancholy intelligence concluded it with a +hearty laugh, which would have surprised the two hearers if they had not +before observed that amongst all the village crowd that attended to see +this solemn show not one afflicted countenance appeared, not one dejected +look, not one watery eye. The pastor was scarcely known to his flock; it +was in London that his meridian lay, at the levee of ministers, at the +table of peers, at the drawing-rooms of the great; and now his neglected +parishioners paid his indifference in kind. + +The ceremony over, and the mourning suite departed, the spectators +dispersed with gibes and jeering faces from the sad spot; while the +Henrys, with heavy hearts, retraced their steps back towards the palace. +In their way, at the crossing of a stile, they met a poor labourer +returning from his day's work, who, looking earnestly at the throng of +persons who were leaving the churchyard, said to the elder Henry--"Pray, +master, what are all them folk gathered together about? What's the +matter there?" + +"There has been a funeral," replied Henry. + +"Oh, zooks! what! a burying!--ay, now I see it is; and I warrant of our +old bishop--I heard he was main ill. It is he they have been putting +into the ground! is not it?" + +"Yes," said Henry. + +"Why, then, so much the better." + +"The better!" cried Henry. + +"Yes, master; though I should be loth to be where he is now." + +Henry started--"He was your pastor, man!" + +"Ha! ha! ha! I should be sorry that my master's sheep, that are feeding +yonder, should have no better pastor--the fox would soon get them all." + +"You surely did not know him!" + +"Not much, I can't say I did; for he was above speaking to poor folks, +unless they did any mischief--and then he was sure to take notice of +them." + +"I believe he meant well," said Henry. + +"As to what he meant, God only knows; but I know what he _did_." + +"And what did he?" + +"Nothing at all for the poor." + +"If any of them applied to him, no doubt--" + +"Oh! they knew better than all that comes to; for if they asked for +anything, he was sure to have them sent to Bridewell, or the workhouse. +He used to say, '_The workhouse was a fine place for a poor man_--_the +food good enough_, _and enough of it_;' yet he kept a dainty table +himself. His dogs, too, fared better than we poor. He was vastly tender +and good to all his horses and dogs, I _will_ say that for him; and to +all brute beasts: he would not suffer them to be either starved or +struck--but he had no compassion for his fellow-creatures." + +"I am sensible you do him wrong." + +"That _he_ is the best judge of by this time. He has sent many a poor +man to the house of correction; and now 'tis well if he has not got a +place there himself. Ha, ha, ha!" + +The man was walking away, when Henry called to him--"Pray can you tell me +if the bishop's son be at the palace?" + +"Oh, yes! you'll find master there treading in the old man's shoes, as +proud as Lucifer." + +"Has he any children?" + +"No, thank God! There's been enow of the name; and after the son is +gone, I hope we shall have no more of the breed." + +"Is Mrs. Norwynne, the son's wife, at the palace?" + +"What, master! did not you know what's become of her?" + +"Any accident?--" + +"Ha, ha, ha! yes. I can't help laughing--why, master, she made a +mistake, and went to another man's bed--and so her husband and she were +parted--and she has married the other man." + +"Indeed!" cried Henry, amazed. + +"Ay, indeed; but if it had been my wife or yours, the bishop would have +made her do penance in a white sheet; but as it was a lady, why, it was +all very well--and any one of us, that had been known to talk about it, +would have been sent to Bridewell straight. But we _did_ talk, +notwithstanding." + +The malicious joy with which the peasant told this story made Henry +believe (more than all the complaints the man uttered) that there had +been want of charity and Christian deportment in the whole conduct of the +bishop's family. He almost wished himself back on his savage island, +where brotherly love could not be less than it appeared to be in this +civilised country. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + + +As Henry and his son, after parting from the poor labourer, approached +the late bishop's palace, all the charms of its magnificence, its +situation, which, but a few hours before, had captivated the elder +Henry's mind, were vanished; and, from the mournful ceremony he had since +been witness of, he now viewed this noble edifice but as a heap of +rubbish piled together to fascinate weak understandings, and to make even +the wise and religious man, at times, forget why he was sent into this +world. + +Instead of presenting themselves to their nephew and cousin, they both +felt an unconquerable reluctance to enter under the superb, the +melancholy, roof. A bank, a hedge, a tree, a hill, seemed, at this +juncture, a pleasanter shelter, and each felt himself happy in being a +harmless wanderer on the face of the earth rather than living in +splendour, while the wants, the revilings of the hungry and the naked +were crying to Heaven for vengeance. + +They gave a heartfelt sigh to the vanity of the rich and the powerful; +and pursued a path where they hoped to meet with virtue and happiness. + +They arrived at Anfield. + +Possessed by apprehensions, which his uncle's funeral had served to +increase, young Henry, as he entered the well-known village, feared every +sound he heard would convey information of Rebecca's death. He saw the +parsonage house at a distance, but dreaded to approach it, lest Rebecca +should no longer be an inhabitant. His father indulged him in the wish +to take a short survey of the village, and rather learn by indirect +means, by observation, his fate, than hear it all at once from the lips +of some blunt relater. + +Anfield had undergone great changes since Henry left it. He found some +cottages built where formerly there were none; and some were no more +where he had frequently called, and held short conversations with the +poor who dwelt in them. Amongst the latter number was the house of the +parents of Agnes--fallen to the ground! He wondered to himself where +that poor family had taken up their abode. Henry, in a kinder world! + +He once again cast a look at the old parsonage house: his inquisitive eye +informed him there no alteration had taken place externally; but he +feared what change might be within. + +At length he obtained the courage to enter the churchyard in his way to +it. As he slowly and tremblingly moved along, he stopped to read here +and there a gravestone; as mild, instructive conveyers of intelligence, +to which he could attend with more resignation, than to any other +reporter. + +The second stone he came to he found was erected _To the memory of the +Reverend Thomas Rymer_, Rebecca's father. He instantly called to mind +all that poor curate's quick sensibility of wrong towards _himself_; his +unbridled rage in consequence; and smiled to think; how trivial now +appeared all for which he gave way to such excess of passion! + +But, shocked at the death of one so near to her he loved, he now feared +to read on; and cast his eyes from the tombs accidentally to the church. +Through the window of the chancel, his sight was struck with a tall +monument of large dimensions, raised since his departure, and adorned +with the finest sculpture. His curiosity was excited--he drew near, and +he could distinguish (followed by elegant poetic praise) "_To the memory +of John Lord Viscount Bendham_." + +Notwithstanding the solemn, melancholy, anxious bent of Henry's mind, he +could not read these words, and behold this costly fabric, without +indulging a momentary fit of indignant laughter. + +"Are sculpture and poetry thus debased," he cried, "to perpetuate the +memory of a man whose best advantage is to be forgotten; whose no one +action merits record, but as an example to be shunned?" + +An elderly woman, leaning on her staff, now passed along the lane by the +side of the church. The younger Henry accosted her, and ventured to +inquire "where the daughters of Mr. Rymer, since his death, were gone to +live?" + +"We live," she returned, "in that small cottage across the clover field." + +Henry looked again, and thought he had mistaken the word _we_; for he +felt assured that he had no knowledge of the person to whom he spoke. + +But she knew him, and, after a pause, cried--"Ah! Mr. Henry, you are +welcome back. I am heartily glad to see you, and my poor sister Rebecca +will go out of her wits with joy." + +"Is Rebecca living, and will be glad to see me?" he eagerly asked, while +tears of rapture trickled down his face. "Father," he continued in his +ecstasy, "we are now come home to be completely happy; and I feel as if +all the years I have been away were but a short week; and as if all the +dangers I have passed had been light as air. But is it possible," he +cried to his kind informer, "that you are one of Rebecca's sisters?" + +Well might he ask; for, instead of the blooming woman of seven-and-twenty +he had left her, her colour was gone, her teeth impaired, her voice +broken. She was near fifty. + +"Yes, I am one of Mr. Rymer's daughters," she replied. + +"But which?" said Henry. + +"The eldest, and once called the prettiest," she returned: "though now +people tell me I am altered; yet I cannot say I see it myself." + +"And are you all living?" Henry inquired. + +"All but one: she married and died. The other three, on my father's +death, agreed to live together, and knit or spin for our support. So we +took that small cottage, and furnished it with some of the parsonage +furniture, as you shall see; and kindly welcome I am sure you will be to +all it affords, though that is but little." + +As she was saying this, she led him through the clover field towards the +cottage. His heart rebounded with joy that Rebecca was there: yet, as he +walked he shuddered at the impression which he feared the first sight of +her would make. He feared, what he imagined (till he had seen this +change in her sister) he should never heed. He feared Rebecca would look +no longer young. He was not yet so far master over all his sensual +propensities as, when the trial came, to think he could behold her look +like her sister, and not give some evidence of his disappointment. + +His fears were vain. On entering the gate of their little garden, +Rebecca rushed from the house to meet them: just the same Rebecca as +ever. + +It was her mind, which beaming on her face, and actuating her every +motion, had ever constituted all her charms: it was her mind which had +gained her Henry's affection. That mind had undergone no change; and she +was the self-same woman he had left her. + +He was entranced with joy. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + + +The fare which the Henrys partook at the cottage of the female Rymers was +such as the sister had described--mean, and even scanty; but this did not +in the least diminish the happiness they received in meeting, for the +first time since their arrival in England, human beings who were glad to +see them. + +At a stinted repast of milk and vegetables, by the glimmering light of a +little brushwood on the hearth, they yet could feel themselves +comparatively blest, while they listened to the recital of afflictions +which had befallen persons around that very neighbourhood, for whom every +delicious viand had been procured to gratify the taste, every art devised +to delight the other senses. + +It was by the side of this glimmering fire that Rebecca and her sisters +told the story of poor Agnes's fate, and of the thorn it had for ever +planted in William's bosom--of his reported sleepless, perturbed nights; +and his gloomy, or half-distracted days; when in the fullness of +_remorse_, he has complained--"of a guilty conscience! of the weariness +attached to a continued prosperity! the misery of wanting an object of +affection." + +They told of Lord Bendham's death from the effects of intemperance; from +a mass of blood infected by high-seasoned dishes, mixed with copious +draughts of wine--repletion of food and liquor, not less fatal to the +existence of the rich than the want of common sustenance to the lives of +the poor. + +They told of Lady Bendham's ruin, since her lord's death, by gaming. They +told, "that now she suffered beyond the pain of common indigence by the +cutting triumph of those whom she had formerly despised." + +They related (what has been told before) the divorce of William, and the +marriage of his wife with a libertine; the decease of Lady Clementina, +occasioned by that incorrigible vanity which even old age could not +subdue. + +After numerous other examples had been recited of the dangers, the evils +that riches draw upon their owner; the elder Henry rose from his chair, +and embracing Rebecca and his son, said--"How much indebted are we to +Providence, my children, who, while it inflicts poverty, bestows peace of +mind; and in return for the trivial grief we meet in this world, holds +out to our longing hopes the reward of the next!" + +Not only resigned, but happy in their station, with hearts made cheerful +rather than dejected by attentive meditation, Henry and his son planned +the means of their future support, independent of their kinsman +William--nor only of him, but of every person and thing but their own +industry. + +"While I have health and strength," cried the old man, and his son's +looks acquiesced in all the father said, "I will not take from any one in +affluence what only belongs to the widow, the fatherless, and the infirm; +for to such alone, by Christian laws--however custom may subvert them--the +overplus of the rich is due." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + + +By forming a humble scheme for their remaining life, a scheme depending +upon their _own_ exertions alone, on no light promises of pretended +friends, and on no sanguine hopes of certain success, but with prudent +apprehension, with fortitude against disappointment, Henry, his son, and +Rebecca (now his daughter), found themselves, at the end of one year, in +the enjoyment of every comfort with such distinguished minds knew how to +taste. + +Exempt both from patronage and from control--healthy--alive to every +fruition with which Nature blesses the world; dead to all out of their +power to attain, the works of art--susceptible of those passions with +endear human creatures one to another, insensible to those which separate +man from man--they found themselves the thankful inhabitants of a small +house, or hut, placed on the borders of the sea. + +Each morning wakes the father and the son to cheerful labour in fishing, +or the tending of a garden, the produce of which they carry to the next +market town. The evening sends them back to their home in joy: where +Rebecca meets them at the door, affectionately boasts of the warm meal +that is ready, and heightens the charm of conversation with her taste and +judgment. + +It was after a supper of roots from their garden, poultry that Rebecca's +hand had reared, and a jug brewed by young Henry, that the following +discourse took place. + +"My son," said the elder Henry, "where under Heaven shall three persons +be met together happy as we three are? It is the want of industry, or +the want of reflection, which makes the poor dissatisfied. Labour gives +a value to rest which the idle can never taste; and reflection gives to +the mind a degree of content which the unthinking never can know." + +"I once," replied the younger Henry, "considered poverty a curse; but +after my thoughts became enlarged, and I had associated for years with +the rich, and now mix with the poor, my opinion has undergone a total +change; for I have seen, and have enjoyed, more real pleasure at work +with my fellow-labourers, and in this cottage, than ever I beheld, or +experienced, during my abode at my uncle's; during all my intercourse +with the fashionable and the powerful of this world." + +"The worst is," said Rebecca, "the poor have not always enough." + +"Who has enough?" asked her husband. "Had my uncle? No: he hoped for +more; and in all his writings sacrificed his duty to his avarice. Had +his son enough, when he yielded up his honour, his domestic peace, to +gratify his ambition? Had Lady Bendham enough, when she staked all she +had, in the hope of becoming richer? Were we, my Rebecca, of +discontented minds, we have now too little. But conscious, from +observation and experience, that the rich are not so happy as ourselves, +we rejoice in our lot." + +The tear of joy which stole from her eye expressed, more than his words, +a state of happiness. + +He continued: "I remember, when I first came a boy to England, the poor +excited my compassion; but now that my judgment is matured, I pity the +rich. I know that in this opulent kingdom there are nearly as many +persons perishing through intemperance as starving with hunger; there are +as many miserable in the lassitude of having nothing to do as there are +of those bowed down to the earth with hard labour; there are more persons +who draw upon themselves calamity by following their own will than there +are who experience it by obeying the will of another. Add to this, that +the rich are so much afraid of dying they have no comfort in living." + +"There the poor have another advantage," said Rebecca; "for they may defy +not only death, but every loss by sea or land, as they have nothing to +lose." + +"Besides," added the elder Henry, "there is a certain joy of the most +gratifying kind that the human mind is capable of tasting, peculiar to +the poor, and of which the rich can but seldom experience the delight." + +"What can that be?" cried Rebecca. + +"A kind word, a benevolent smile, one token of esteem from the person +whom we consider as our superior." + +To which Rebecca replied, "And the rarity of obtaining such a token is +what increases the honour." + +"Certainly," returned young Henry, "and yet those in poverty, ungrateful +as they are, murmur against that Government from which they receive the +blessing." + +"But this is the fault of education, of early prejudice," said the elder +Henry. "Our children observe us pay respect, even reverence, to the +wealthy, while we slight or despise the poor. The impression thus made +on their minds in youth is indelible during the more advanced periods of +life; and they continue to pine after riches, and lament under poverty: +nor is the seeming folly wholly destitute of reason; for human beings are +not yet so deeply sunk in voluptuous gratification, or childish vanity, +as to place delight in any attainment which has not for its end the love +or admiration of their fellow-beings." + +"Let the poor, then," cried the younger Henry, "no more be their own +persecutors--no longer pay homage to wealth--instantaneously the whole +idolatrous worship will cease--the idol will be broken!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATURE AND ART*** + + +******* This file should be named 3787.txt or 3787.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/8/3787 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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