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diff --git a/old/naart10.txt b/old/naart10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1fb2cbb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/naart10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6163 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Nature and Art, by Mrs Inchbald + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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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. + + + +NATURE AND ART. + + + +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 huger, 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 stranger, 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 Etext of Nature and Art, by Mrs Inchbald + diff --git a/old/naart10.zip b/old/naart10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d656b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/naart10.zip |