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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Eugene Aram, Book 3, by Bulwer-Lytton
+#39 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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+
+Title: Eugene Aram, Book 3.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7611]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 29, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE ARAM, BOOK 3, BY LYTTON ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+                             EUGENE ARAM
+
+                       By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+
+
+                               BOOK III.
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+        FRAUD AND VIOLENCE ENTER EVEN GRASSDALE.--PETER'S NEWS.
+                --THE LOVERS' WALK.--THE REAPPEARANCE.
+
+                   AUF.--"Whence comest thou--what wouldst thou?"
+                                      --Coriolanus.
+
+One evening Aram and Madeline were passing through the village in their
+accustomed walk, when Peter Dealtry sallied forth from The Spotted Dog,
+and hurried up to the lovers with a countenance full of importance, and a
+little ruffled by fear.
+
+"Oh, Sir, Sir,--(Miss, your servant!)--have you heard the news? Two
+houses at Checkington, (a small town some miles distant from Grassdale,)
+were forcibly entered last night,--robbed, your honour, robbed. Squire
+Tibson was tied to his bed, his bureau rifled, himself shockingly
+confused on the head; and the maidservant Sally--her sister lived with
+me, a very good girl she was,--was locked up in the--the--the--I beg
+pardon, Miss--was locked up in the cupboard. As to the other house, they
+carried off all the plate. There were no less than four men, all masked,
+your honour, and armed with pistols. What if they should come here! such
+a thing was never heard of before in these parts. But, Sir,--but, Miss,--
+do not be afraid, do not ye now, for I may say with the Psalmist,
+
+                   'But wicked men shall drink the dregs
+                      Which they in wrath shall wring,
+                   For I will lift my voice, and make
+                      Them flee while I do sing!'"
+
+"You could not find a more effectual method of putting them to flight,
+Peter," said Madeline smiling; "but go and talk to my uncle. I know we
+have a whole magazine of blunderbusses and guns at home: they may be
+useful now. But you are well provided in case of attack. Have you not the
+Corporal's famous cat Jacobina,--surely a match for fifty robbers?"
+
+"Ay, Miss, on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief, perhaps she
+may; but really it is no jesting matter. Them ere robbers flourish like a
+green bay tree, for a space at least, and it is 'nation bad sport for us
+poor lambs till they be cut down and withered like grass. But your house,
+Mr. Aram, is very lonesome like; it is out of reach of all your
+neighbours. Hadn't you better, Sir, take up your lodgings at the Squire's
+for the present?"
+
+Madeline pressed Aram's arm, and looked up fearfully in his face. "Why,
+my good friend," said he to Dealtry, "robbers will have little to gain in
+my house, unless they are given to learned pursuits. It would be
+something new, Peter, to see a gang of housebreakers making off with a
+telescope, or a pair of globes, or a great folio covered with dust."
+
+"Ay, your honour, but they may be the more savage for being
+disappointed."
+
+"Well, well, Peter, we will see," replied Aram impatiently; "meanwhile we
+may meet you again at the hall. Good evening for the present."
+
+"Do, dearest Eugene, do, for Heaven's sake," said Madeline, with tears in
+her eyes, as they, now turning from Dealtry, directed their steps towards
+the quiet valley, at the end of which the Student's house was situated,
+and which was now more than ever Madeline's favourite walk, "do, dearest
+Eugene, come up to the Manor-house till these wretches are apprehended.
+Consider how open your house is to attack; and surely there can be no
+necessity to remain in it now."
+
+Aram's calm brow darkened for a moment. "What! dearest," said he, "can
+you be affected by the foolish fears of yon dotard? How do we know as
+yet, whether this improbable story have any foundation in truth. At all
+events, it is evidently exaggerated. Perhaps an invasion of the poultry-
+yard, in which some hungry fox was the real offender, may be the true
+origin of this terrible tale. Nay, love, nay, do not look thus
+reproachfully; it will be time enough for us when we have sifted the
+grounds of alarm to take our precautions; meanwhile, do not blame me if
+in your presence I cannot admit fear. Oh Madeline, dear, dear Madeline,
+could you know, could you dream, how different life has become to me
+since I knew you! Formerly, I will frankly own to you, that dark and
+boding apprehensions were wont to lie heavy at my heart; the cloud was
+more familiar to me than the sunshine. But now I have grown a child, and
+can see around me nothing but hope; my life was winter--your love has
+breathed it into spring."
+
+"And yet, Eugene--yet--" "Yet what, my Madeline?"
+
+"There are still moments when I have no power over your thoughts; moments
+when you break away from me; when you mutter to yourself feelings in
+which I have no share, and which seem to steal the consciousness from
+your eye and the colour from your lip."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said Aram quickly; "what! you watch me so closely?"
+
+"Can you wonder that I do?" said Madeline, with an earnest tenderness in
+her voice.
+
+"You must not then, you must not," returned her lover, almost fiercely;
+"I cannot bear too nice and sudden a scrutiny; consider how long I have
+clung to a stern and solitary independence of thought, which allows no
+watch, and forbids account of itself to any one. Leave it to time and
+your love to win their inevitable way. Ask not too much from me now. And
+mark, mark, I pray you, whenever, in spite of myself, these moods you
+refer to darken over me, heed not, listen not--Leave me! solitude is
+their only cure! promise me this, love--promise."
+
+"It is a harsh request, Eugene, and I do not think I will grant you so
+complete a monopoly of thought;" answered Madeline, playfully, yet half
+in earnest.
+
+"Madeline," said Aram, with a deep solemnity of manner, "I ask a request
+on which my very love for you depends. From the depths of my soul, I
+implore you to grant it; yea, to the very letter."
+
+"Why, why, this is--"began Madeline, when encountering the full, the
+dark, the inscrutable gaze of her strange lover, she broke off in a
+sudden fear, which she could not analyse; and only added in a low and
+subdued voice, "I promise to obey you."
+
+As if a weight were lifted from his heart, Aram now brightened at once
+into himself in his happiest mood. He poured forth a torrent of grateful
+confidence, of buoyant love, that soon swept from the remembrance of the
+blushing and enchanted Madeline, the momentary fear, the sudden
+chillness, which his look had involuntarily stricken into her mind. And
+as they now wound along the most lonely part of that wild valley, his arm
+twined round her waist, and his low but silver voice pouring magic into
+the very air she breathed--she felt perhaps a more entire and unruffled
+sentiment of present, and a more credulous persuasion of future,
+happiness, than she had ever experienced before. And Aram himself dwelt
+with a more lively and detailed fulness, than he was wont, on the
+prospects they were to share, and the security and peace which retirement
+would instill into their mode of life.
+
+"Is it not," said he, with a lofty triumph that we shall look from our
+retreat upon the shifting passions, and the hollow loves of the distant
+world? We can have no petty object, no vain allurement to distract the
+unity of our affection: we must be all in all to each other; for what
+else can there be to engross our thoughts, and occupy our feelings here?
+
+"If, my beautiful love, you have selected one whom the world might deem a
+strange choice for youth and loveliness like yours; you have, at least,
+selected one who can have no idol but yourself. The poets tell you, and
+rightly, that solitude is the fit sphere for love; but how few are the
+lovers whom solitude does not fatigue! they rush into retirement, with
+souls unprepared for its stern joys and its unvarying tranquillity: they
+weary of each other, because the solitude itself to which they fled,
+palls upon and oppresses them. But to me, the freedom which low minds
+call obscurity, is the aliment of life; I do not enter the temples of
+Nature as the stranger, but the priest: nothing can ever tire me of the
+lone and august altars, on which I sacrificed my youth: and now, what
+Nature, what Wisdom once were to me--no, no, more, immeasurably more than
+these, you are! Oh, Madeline! methinks there is nothing under Heaven like
+the feeling which puts us apart from all that agitates, and fevers, and
+degrades the herd of men; which grants us to control the tenour of our
+future life, because it annihilates our dependence upon others, and,
+while the rest of earth are hurried on, blind and unconscious, by the
+hand of Fate, leaves us the sole lords of our destiny; and able, from the
+Past, which we have governed, to become the Prophets of our Future!"
+
+At this moment Madeline uttered a faint shriek, and clung trembling to
+Aram's arm. Amazed, and roused from his enthusiasm, he looked up, and on
+seeing the cause of her alarm, seemed himself transfixed, as by a sudden
+terror, to the earth.
+
+But a few paces distant, standing amidst the long and rank fern that grew
+on either side of their path, quite motionless, and looking on the pair
+with a sarcastic smile, stood the ominous stranger, whom the second
+chapter of our first volume introduced to the reader.
+
+For one instant Aram seemed utterly appalled and overcome; his cheek grew
+the colour of death; and Madeline felt his heart beat with a loud, a
+fearful force beneath the breast to which she clung. But his was not the
+nature any earthly dread could long abash. He whispered to Madeline to
+come on; and slowly, and with his usual firm but gliding step, continued
+his way.
+
+"Good evening, Eugene Aram," said the stranger; and as he spoke, he
+touched his hat slightly to Madeline.
+
+"I thank you," replied the Student, in a calm voice; "do you want aught
+with me?"
+
+"Humph!--yes, if it so please you?"
+
+"Pardon me, dear Madeline," said Aram softly, and disengaging himself
+from her, "but for one moment."
+
+He advanced to the stranger, and Madeline could not but note that, as
+Aram accosted him, his brow fell, and his manner seemed violent and
+agitated; but she could not hear the words of either; nor did the
+conference last above a minute. The stranger bowed, and turning away,
+soon vanished among the shrubs. Aram regained the side of his mistress.
+
+"Who," cried she eagerly, "is that fearful man? What is his business?
+What his name?"
+
+"He is a man whom I knew well some fourteen years ago," replied Aram
+coldly, and with ease; "I did not then lead quite so lonely a life, and
+we were thrown much together. Since that time, he has been in unfortunate
+circumstances--rejoined the army--he was in early life a soldier, and had
+been disbanded--entered into business, and failed; in short, he has
+partaken of those vicissitudes inseparable from the life of one driven to
+seek the world. When he travelled this road some months ago, he
+accidentally heard of my residence in the neighbourhood, and naturally
+sought me. Poor as I am, I was of some assistance to him. His route
+brings him hither again, and he again seeks me: I suppose too that I must
+again aid him."
+
+"And is that indeed all," said Madeline, breathing more freely; "well,
+poor man, if he be your friend, he must be inoffensive--I have done him
+wrong. And does he want money? I have some to give him--here Eugene!" And
+the simple-hearted girl put her purse into Aram's hand.
+
+"No, dearest," said he, shrinking back; "no, we shall not require your
+contribution; I can easily spare him enough for the present. But let us
+turn back, it grows chill."
+
+"And why did he leave us, Eugene?"
+
+"Because I desired him to visit me at home an hour hence."
+
+"An hour! then you will not sup with us to-night?"
+
+"No, not this night, dearest."
+
+The conversation now ceased; Madeline in vain endeavoured to renew it.
+Aram, though without relapsing into any of his absorbed reveries,
+answered her only in monosyllables. They arrived at the Manor-house, and
+Aram at the garden gate took leave of her for the night, and hastened
+backward towards his home. Madeline, after watching his form through the
+deepening shadows until it disappeared, entered the house with a listless
+step; a nameless and thrilling presentiment crept to her heart; and she
+could have sate down and wept, though without a cause.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+              THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN ARAM AND THE STRANGER.
+
+                   The spirits I have raised abandon me,
+                   The spells which I have studied baffle me.
+                                --Manfred.
+
+Meanwhile Aram strode rapidly through the village, and not till he had
+regained the solitary valley did he relax his step.
+
+The evening had already deepened into night. Along the sere and
+melancholy wood, the autumnal winds crept, with a lowly, but gathering
+moan. Where the water held its course, a damp and ghostly mist clogged
+the air, but the skies were calm, and chequered only by a few clouds,
+that swept in long, white, spectral streaks, over the solemn stars. Now
+and then, the bat wheeled swiftly round, almost touching the figure of
+the Student, as he walked musingly onward. And the owl [Note: That
+species called the short-eared owl.] that before the month waned many
+days, would be seen no more in that region, came heavily from the trees,
+like a guilty thought that deserts its shade. It was one of those nights,
+half dim, half glorious, which mark the early decline of the year. Nature
+seemed restless and instinct with change; there were those signs in the
+atmosphere which leave the most experienced in doubt, whether the morning
+may rise in storm or sunshine. And in this particular period, the skiey
+influences seem to tincture the animal life with their own mysterious and
+wayward spirit of change. The birds desert their summer haunts; an
+unaccountable inquietude pervades the brute creation; even men in this
+unsettled season have considered themselves, more (than at others)
+stirred by the motion and whisperings of their genius. And every creature
+that flows upon the tide of the Universal Life of Things, feels upon the
+ruffled surface, the mighty and solemn change, which is at work within
+its depths.
+
+And now Aram had nearly threaded the valley, and his own abode became
+visible on the opening plain, when the stranger emerged from the trees to
+the right, and suddenly stood before the Student. "I tarried for you
+here, Aram," said he, "instead of seeking you at home, at the time you
+fixed; for there are certain private reasons which make it prudent I
+should keep as much as possible among the owls, and it was therefore
+safer, if not more pleasant, to lie here amidst the fern, than to make
+myself merry in the village yonder."
+
+"And what," said Aram, "again brings you hither? Did you not say, when
+you visited me some months since, that you were about to settle in a
+different part of the country, with a relation?"
+
+"And so I intended; but Fate, as you would say, or the Devil, as I
+should, ordered it otherwise. I had not long left you, when I fell in
+with some old friends, bold spirits and true; the brave outlaws of the
+road and the field. Shall I have any shame in confessing that I preferred
+their society, a society not unfamiliar to me, to the dull and solitary
+life that I might have led in tending my old bed-ridden relation in
+Wales, who after all, may live these twenty years, and at the end can
+scarce leave me enough for a week's ill luck at the hazard-table? In a
+word, I joined my gallant friends, and entrusted myself to their
+guidance. Since then, we have cruised around the country, regaled
+ourselves cheerily, frightened the timid, silenced the fractious, and by
+the help of your fate, or my devil, have found ourselves by accident,
+brought to exhibit our valour in this very district, honoured by the
+dwelling-place of my learned friend, Eugene Aram."
+
+"Trifle not with me, Houseman," said Aram sternly; "I scarcely yet
+understand you. Do you mean to imply, that yourself, and the lawless
+associates you say you have joined, are lying out now for plunder in
+these parts?"
+
+"You say it: perhaps you heard of our exploits last night, some four
+miles hence?"
+
+"Ha! was that villainy yours?"
+
+"Villainy!" repeated Houseman, in a tone of sullen offence. "Come, Master
+Aram, these words must not pass between you and me, friends of such date,
+and on such a footing."
+
+"Talk not of the past," replied Aram with a livid lip, "and call not
+those whom Destiny once, in despite of Nature, drove down her dark tide
+in a momentary companionship, by the name of friends. Friends we are not;
+but while we live, there is a tie between us stronger than that of
+friendship."
+
+"You speak truth and wisdom," said Houseman, sneeringly; "for my part, I
+care not what you call us, friends or foes."
+
+"Foes, foes!" exclaimed Aram abruptly, "not that. Has life no medium in
+its ties?--pooh--pooh! not foes; we may not be foes to each other."
+
+"It were foolish, at least at present," said Houseman carelessly.
+
+"Look you, Houseman," continued Aram drawing his comrade from the path
+into a wilder part of the scene, and, as he spoke, his words were couched
+in a more low and inward voice than heretofore. "Look you, I cannot live
+and have my life darkened thus by your presence. Is not the world wide
+enough for us both? Why haunt each other? what have you to gain from me?
+Can the thoughts that my sight recalls to you be brighter, or more
+peaceful, than those which start upon me, when I gaze on you? Does not a
+ghastly air, a charnel breath, hover about us both? Why perversely incur
+a torture it is so easy to avoid? Leave me--leave these scenes. All earth
+spreads before you--choose your pursuits, and your resting place
+elsewhere, but grudge me not this little spot."
+
+"I have no wish to disturb you, Eugene Aram, but I must live; and in
+order to live I must obey my companions; if I deserted them, it would be
+to starve. They will not linger long in this district; a week, it may be;
+a fortnight, at most; then, like the Indian animal, they will strip the
+leaves, and desert the tree. In a word, after we have swept the country,
+we are gone."
+
+"Houseman, Houseman!" said Aram passionately, and frowning till his brows
+almost hid his eyes, but that part of the orb which they did not hide,
+seemed as living fire; "I now implore, but I can threaten--beware!--
+silence, I say;" (and he stamped his foot violently on the ground, as he
+saw Houseman about to interrupt him;) "listen to me throughout--Speak not
+to me of tarrying here--speak not of days, of weeks--every hour of which
+would sound upon my ear like a death-knell. Dream not of a sojourn in
+these tranquil shades, upon an errand of dread and violence--the minions
+of the law aroused against you, girt with the chances of apprehension and
+a shameful death--" "And a full confession of my past sins," interrupted
+Houseman, laughing wildly.
+
+"Fiend! devil!" cried Aram, grasping his comrade by the throat, and
+shaking him with a vehemence that Houseman, though a man of great
+strength and sinew, impotently attempted to resist.
+
+"Breathe but another word of such import; dare to menace me with the
+vengeance of such a thing as thou, and, by the God above us, I will lay
+thee dead at my feet!"
+
+"Release my throat, or you will commit murder," gasped Houseman with
+difficulty, and growing already black in the face.
+
+Aram suddenly relinquished his gripe, and walked away with a hurried
+step, muttering to himself. He then returned to the side of Houseman,
+whose flesh still quivered either with rage or fear, and, his own self-
+possession completely restored, stood gazing upon him with folded arms,
+and his usual deep and passionless composure of countenance; and
+Houseman, if he could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrink
+from, his eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance from
+each other, both silent, and yet with something unutterably fearful in
+their silence.
+
+"Houseman," said Aram at length, in a calm, yet a hollow voice, "it may
+be that I was wrong; but there lives no man on earth, save you, who could
+thus stir my blood,--nor you with ease. And know, when you menace me,
+that it is not your menace that subdues or shakes my spirit; but that
+which robs my veins of their even tenor is that you should deem your
+menace could have such power, or that you,--that any man,--should
+arrogate to himself the thought that he could, by the prospect of
+whatsoever danger, humble the soul and curb the will of Eugene Aram. And
+now I am calm; say what you will, I cannot be vexed again."
+
+"I have done," replied Houseman coldly; "I have nothing to say;
+farewell!" and he moved away among the trees.
+
+"Stay," cried Aram in some agitation; "stay; we must not part thus. Look
+you, Houseman, you say you would starve should you leave your present
+associates. That may not be; quit them this night,--this moment: leave
+the neighbourhood, and the little in my power is at your will."
+
+"As to that," said Houseman drily, "what is in your power is, I fear me,
+so little as not to counterbalance the advantages I should lose in
+quitting my companions. I expect to net some three hundreds before I
+leave these parts."
+
+"Some three hundreds!" repeated Aram recoiling; "that were indeed beyond
+me. I told you when we last met that it is only by an annual payment I
+draw the little wealth I have."
+
+"I remember it. I do not ask you for money, Eugene Aram; these hands can
+maintain me," replied Houseman, smiling grimly. "I told you at once the
+sum I expected to receive somewhere, in order to prove that you need not
+vex your benevolent heart to afford me relief. I knew well the sum I
+named was out of your power, unless indeed it be part of the marriage
+portion you are about to receive with your bride. Fie, Aram! what,
+secrets from your old friend! You see I pick up the news of the place
+without your confidence."
+
+Again Aram's face worked, and his lip quivered; but he conquered his
+passion with a surprising self-command, and answered mildly, "I do not
+know, Houseman, whether I shall receive any marriage portion whatsoever:
+If I do, I am willing to make some arrangement by which I could engage
+you to molest me no more. But it yet wants several days to my marriage;
+quit the neighbourhood now, and a month hence let us meet again. Whatever
+at that time may be my resources, you shall frankly know them."
+
+"It cannot be," said Houseman; "I quit not these districts without a
+certain sum, not in hope, but possession. But why interfere with me? I
+seek not my hoards in your coffer. Why so anxious that I should not
+breathe the same air as yourself?"
+
+"It matters not," replied Aram, with a deep and ghastly voice; "but when
+you are near me, I feel as if I were with the dead; it is a spectre that
+I would exorcise in ridding me of your presence. Yet this is not what I
+now speak of. You are engaged, according to your own lips, in lawless and
+midnight schemes, in which you may, (and the tide of chances runs towards
+that bourne,) be seized by the hand of Justice."
+
+"Ho," said Houseman, sullenly, "and was it not for saying that you feared
+this, and its probable consequences, that you well-nigh stifled me, but
+now?--so truth may be said one moment with impunity, and the next at
+peril of life! These are the subtleties of you wise schoolmen, I suppose.
+Your Aristotles, and your Zenos, your Platos, and your Epicurus's, teach
+you notable distinctions, truly!"
+
+"Peace!" said Aram; "are we at all times ourselves? Are the passions
+never our masters? You maddened me into anger; behold, I am now calm: the
+subjects discussed between myself and you, are of life and death; let us
+approach them with our senses collected and prepared. What, Houseman, are
+you bent upon your own destruction, as well as mine, that you persevere
+in courses which must end in a death of shame?"
+
+"What else can I do? I will not work, and I cannot live like you in a
+lone wilderness on a crust of bread. Nor is my name like yours, mouthed
+by the praise of honest men: my character is marked; those who once knew
+me, shun now. I have no resource for society, (for I cannot face myself
+alone,) but in the fellowship of men like myself, whom the world has
+thrust from its pale. I have no resource for bread, save in the pursuits
+that are branded by justice, and accompanied with snares and danger. What
+would you have me do?"
+
+"Is it not better," said Aram, "to enjoy peace and safety upon a small
+but certain pittance, than to live thus from hand to mouth? vibrating
+from wealth to famine, and the rope around your neck, sleeping and awake?
+Seek your relation; in that quarter, you yourself said your character was
+not branded: live with him, and know the quiet of easy days, and I
+promise you, that if aught be in my power to make your lot more suitable
+to your wants, so long as you lead the life of honest men, it shall be
+freely yours. Is not this better, Houseman, than a short and sleepless
+career of dread?"
+
+"Aram," answered Houseman, "are you, in truth, calm enough to hear me
+speak? I warn you, that if again you forget yourself, and lay hands on
+me--" "Threaten not, threaten not," interrupted Aram, "but proceed; all
+within me is now still and cold as ice. Proceed without fear of scruple."
+
+"Be it so; we do not love one another: you have affected contempt for me--
+and I--I--no matter--I am not a stone or stick, that I should not feel.
+You have scorned me--you have outraged me--you have not assumed towards
+me even the decent hypocrisies of prudence--yet now you would ask of me,
+the conduct, the sympathy, the forbearance, the concession of friendship.
+You wish that I should quit these scenes, where, to my judgment, a
+certain advantage waits me, solely that I may lighten your breast of its
+selfish fears. You dread the dangers that await me on your own account.
+And in my apprehension, you forebode your own doom. You ask me, nay, not
+ask, you would command, you would awe me to sacrifice my will and wishes,
+in order to soothe your anxieties, and strengthen your own safety. Mark
+me! Eugene Aram, I have been treated as a tool, and I will not be
+governed as a friend. I will not stir from the vicinity of your home,
+till my designs be fulfilled,--I enjoy, I hug myself in your torments. I
+exult in the terror with which you will hear of each new enterprise, each
+new daring, each new triumph of myself and my gallant comrades. And now I
+am avenged for the affront you put upon me."
+
+Though Aram trembled, with suppressed passions, from limb to limb, his
+voice was still calm, and his lip even wore a smile as he answered,--"I
+was prepared for this, Houseman, you utter nothing that surprises or
+appalls me. You hate me; it is natural; men united as we are, rarely look
+on each other with a friendly or a pitying eye. But Houseman; I know
+you!--you are a man of vehement passions, but interest with you is yet
+stronger than passion. If not, our conference is over. Go--and do your
+worst."
+
+"You are right, most learned scholar; I can fetter the tiger within, in
+his deadliest rage, by a golden chain."
+
+"Well, then, Houseman, it is not your interest to betray me--my
+destruction is your own."
+
+"I grant it; but if I am apprehended, and to be hung for robbery?"
+
+"It will be no longer an object to you, to care for my safety. Assuredly,
+I comprehend this. But my interest induces me to wish that you be removed
+from the peril of apprehension, and your interest replies, that if you
+can obtain equal advantages in security, you would forego advantages
+accompanied by peril. Say what we will, wander as we will, it is to this
+point that we must return at last."
+
+"Nothing can be clearer; and were you a rich man, Eugene Aram, or could
+you obtain your bride's dowry (no doubt a respectable sum) in advance,
+the arrangement might at once be settled."
+
+Aram gasped for breath, and as usual with him in emotion, made several
+strides forward, muttering rapidly, and indistinctly to himself, and then
+returned.
+
+"Even were this possible, it would be but a short reprieve; I could not
+trust you; the sum would be spent, and I again in the state to which you
+have compelled me now; but without the means again to relieve myself. No,
+no! if the blow must fall, be it so one day as another."
+
+"As you will," said Houseman; 'but--' Just at that moment, a long shrill
+whistle sounded below, as from the water. Houseman paused abruptly--"That
+signal is from my comrades; I must away. Hark, again! Farewell, Aram."
+
+"Farewell, if it must be so," said Aram, in a tone of dogged sullenness;
+"but to-morrow, should you know of any means by which I could feel
+secure, beyond the security of your own word, from your future
+molestation, I might--yet how?"
+
+"To-morrow," said Houseman, "I cannot answer for myself; it is not always
+that I can leave my comrades; a natural jealousy makes them suspicious of
+the absence of their friends. Yet hold; the night after to-morrow, the
+Sabbath night, most virtuous Aram, I can meet you--but not here--some
+miles hence. You know the foot of the Devil's Crag, by the waterfall; it
+is a spot quiet and shaded enough in all conscience for our interview;
+and I will tell you a secret I would trust to no other man--(hark,
+again!)--it is close by our present lurking-place. Meet me there!--it
+would, indeed, be pleasanter to hold our conference under shelter--but
+just at present, I would rather not trust myself beneath any honest man's
+roof in this neighbourhood. Adieu! on Sunday night, one hour before mid-
+night."
+
+The robber, for such then he was, waved his hand, and hurried away in the
+direction from which the signal seemed to come.
+
+Aram gazed after him, but with vacant eyes; and remained for several
+minutes rooted to the spot, as if the very life had left him.
+
+"The Sabbath night!" said he, at length, moving slowly on; "and I must
+spin forth my existence in trouble and fear till then--till then! what
+remedy can I then invent? It is clear that I can have no dependance on
+his word, if won; and I have not even aught wherewith to buy it. But
+courage, courage, my heart; and work thou, my busy brain! Ye have never
+failed me yet!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+     FRESH ALARM IN THE VILLAGE.--LESTER'S VISIT TO ARAM.--A TRAIT
+     OF DELICATE KINDNESS IN THE STUDENT.--MADELINE.--HER PRONENESS
+         TO CONFIDE.--THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN LESTER AND ARAM.
+               --THE PERSONS BY WHOM IT IS INTERRUPTED.
+
+                Not my own fears, nor the prophetic soul
+                Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
+                Can yet the lease of my true love controul.
+                         --Shakspeare: Sonnets.
+
+                Commend me to their love, and I am proud, say,
+                That my occasions have found time to use them
+                Toward a supply of money; let the request
+                Be fifty talents.
+                         --Timon Of Athens.
+
+The next morning the whole village was alive and bustling with terror and
+consternation. Another, and a yet more daring robbery, had been committed
+in the neighbourhood, and the police of the county town had been
+summoned, and were now busy in search of the offenders. Aram had been
+early disturbed by the officious anxiety of some of his neighbours; and
+it wanted yet some hours of noon, when Lester himself came to seek and
+consult with the Student.
+
+Aram was alone in his large and gloomy chamber, surrounded, as usual,
+by his books, but not as usual engaged in their contents. With his face
+leaning on his hand, and his eyes gazing on a dull fire, that crept
+heavily upward through the damp fuel, he sate by his hearth, listless,
+but wrapt in thought.
+
+"Well, my friend," said Lester, displacing the books from one of the
+chairs, and drawing the seat near the Student's--"you have ere this heard
+the news, and indeed in a county so quiet as ours, these outrages appear
+the more fearful, from their being so unlooked for. We must set a guard
+in the village, Aram, and you must leave this defenceless hermitage and
+come down to us; not for your own sake,--but consider you will be an
+additional safeguard to Madeline. You will lock up the house, dismiss
+your poor old governante to her friends in the village, and walk back
+with me at once to the hall."
+
+Aram turned uneasily in his chair.
+
+"I feel your kindness," said he after a pause, "but I cannot accept it--
+Madeline," he stopped short at that name, and added in an altered voice;
+"no, I will be one of the watch, Lester; I will look to her--to your--
+safety; but I cannot sleep under another roof. I am superstitious, Lester
+--superstitious. I have made a vow, a foolish one perhaps, but I dare not
+break it. And my vow binds me, save on indispensable and urgent
+necessity, not to pass a night any where but in my own home."
+
+"But there is necessity."
+
+"My conscience says not," said Aram smiling: "peace, my good friend, we
+cannot conquer men's foibles, or wrestle with men's scruples."
+
+Lester in vain attempted to shake Aram's resolution on this head; he
+found him immoveable, and gave up the effort in despair.
+
+"Well," said he, "at all events we have set up a watch, and can spare you
+a couple of defenders. They shall reconnoitre in the neighbourhood of
+your house, if you persevere in your determination, and this will serve
+in some slight measure to satisfy poor Madeline."
+
+"Be it so," replied Aram; "and dear Madeline herself, is she so alarmed?"
+
+And now in spite of all the more wearing and haggard thoughts that preyed
+upon his breast, and the dangers by which he conceived himself beset, the
+Student's face, as he listened with eager attention to every word that
+Lester uttered concerning his niece, testified how alive he yet was to
+the least incident that related to Madeline, and how easily her innocent
+and peaceful remembrance could allure him from himself.
+
+"This room," said Lester, looking round, "will be, I conclude, after
+Madeline's own heart; but will you always suffer her here? students do
+not sometimes like even the gentlest interruption."
+
+"I have not forgotten that Madeline's comfort requires some more cheerful
+retreat than this," said Aram, with a melancholy expression of
+countenance. "Follow me, Lester; I meant this for a little surprise to
+her. But Heaven only knows if I shall ever show it to herself?"
+
+"Why? what doubt of that can even your boding temper discover?"
+
+"We are as the wanderers in the desert," answered Aram, "who are taught
+wisely to distrust their own senses: that which they gaze upon as the
+waters of existence, is often but a faithless vapour that would lure them
+to destruction."
+
+In thus speaking he had traversed the room, and, opening a door, showed a
+small chamber with which it communicated, and which Aram had fitted up
+with evident, and not ungraceful care. Every article of furniture that
+Madeline might most fancy, he had sent for from the neighbouring town.
+And some of the lighter and more attractive books that he possessed, were
+ranged around on shelves, above which were vases, intended for flowers;
+the window opened upon a little plot that had been lately broken up into
+a small garden, and was already intersected with walks, and rich with
+shrubs.
+
+There was something in this chamber that so entirely contrasted the one
+it adjoined, something so light, and cheerful, and even gay in its
+decoration and its tout ensemble, that Lester uttered an exclamation of
+delight and surprise. And indeed it did appear to him touching, that this
+austere scholar, so wrapt in thought, and so inattentive to the common
+forms of life, should have manifested this tender and delicate
+consideration. In another it would have been nothing, but in Aram, it was
+a trait, that brought involuntary tears to the eyes of the good Lester.
+Aram observed them: he walked hastily away to the window, and sighed
+heavily; this did not escape his friend's notice, and after commenting on
+the attractions of the little room--Lester said: "You seem oppressed in
+spirits, Eugene: can any thing have chanced to disturb you, beyond, at
+least, these alarms which are enough to agitate the nerves of the
+hardiest of us?"
+
+"No," said Aram; "I had no sleep last night, and my health is easily
+affected, and with my health my mind; but let us go to Madeline; the
+sight of her will revive me."
+
+They then strolled down to the Manor-house, and met by the way a band of
+the younger heroes of the village, who had volunteered to act as a
+patrole, and who were now marshalled by Peter Dealtry, in a fit of heroic
+enthusiasm.
+
+Although it was broad daylight, and, consequently, there was little cause
+of immediate alarm, the worthy publican carried on his shoulder a musket
+on full cock; and each moment he kept peeping about, as if not only every
+bush, but every blade of grass contained an ambuscade, ready to spring up
+the instant he was off his guard. By his side the redoubted Jacobina, who
+had transferred to her new master, the attachment she had originally
+possessed for the Corporal, trotted peeringly along, her tail
+perpendicularly cocked, and her ears moving to and fro, with a most
+incomparable air of vigilant sagacity. The cautious Peter every now and
+then checked her ardour, as she was about to quicken her step, and
+enliven the march by the gambols better adapted to serener times.
+
+"Soho, Jacobina, soho! gently, girl, gently; thou little knowest the
+dangers that may beset thee. Come up, my good fellows, come to the
+Spotted Dog; I will tap a barrel on purpose for you; and we will settle
+the plan of defence for the night. Jacobina, come in, I say, come in,--
+
+              "'Lest, like a lion, they thee tear,
+                And rend in pieces small;
+                While there is none to succour thee,
+                And rid thee out of thrall.'
+
+What ho, there! Oh! I beg your honour's pardon! Your servant, Mr. Aram."
+
+"What, patroling already?" said the squire; "your men will be tired
+before they are wanted; reserve their ardour for the night."
+
+"Oh, your Honour, I have only been beating up for recruits; and we are
+going to consult a bit at home. Ah! what a pity the Corporal isn't here:
+he would have been a tower of strength unto the righteous. But
+howsomever, I do my best to supply his place--Jacobina, child, be still:
+I can't say as I knows the musket-sarvice, your honour; but I fancy's as
+how, like Joe Roarjug, the Methodist, we can do it extemporaneous-like at
+a pinch."
+
+"A bold heart, Peter, is the best preparation," said the squire.
+
+"And," quoth Peter quickly, "what saith the worshipful Mister Sternhold,
+in the 45th psalm, 5th verse,--
+
+'Go forth with godly speed, in meekness, truth, and might,
+And thy right hand shall thee instruct in works of dreadful might.'"
+
+Peter quoted these verses, especially the last, with a truculent frown,
+and a brandishing of the musket, that surprisingly encouraged the hearts
+of his little armament; and with a general murmur of enthusiasm, the
+warlike band marched off to The Spotted Dog.
+
+Lester and his companion found Madeline and Ellinor standing at the
+window of the hall; and Madeline's light step was the first that sprang
+forward to welcome their return: even the face of the Student brightened,
+when he saw the kindling eye, the parted lip, the buoyant form, from
+which the pure and innocent gladness she felt on seeing him broke forth.
+
+There was a remarkable trustingness, if I may so speak, in Madeline's
+disposition. Thoughtful and grave as she was, by nature, she was yet ever
+inclined to the more sanguine colourings of life; she never turned to the
+future with fear--a placid sentiment of Hope slept at her heart--she was
+one who surrendered herself with a fond and implicit faith to the
+guidance of all she loved; and to the chances of life. It was a sweet
+indolence of the mind, which made one of her most beautiful traits of
+character; there is something so unselfish in tempers reluctant to
+despond. You see that such persons are not occupied with their own
+existence; they are not fretting the calm of the present life, with the
+egotisms of care, and conjecture, and calculation: if they learn anxiety,
+it is for another; but in the heart of that other, how entire is their
+trust!
+
+It was this disposition in Madeline which perpetually charmed, and yet
+perpetually wrung, the soul of her wild lover; and as she now delightedly
+hung upon his arm, uttering her joy at seeing him safe, and presently
+forgetting that there ever had been cause for alarm, his heart was filled
+with the most gloomy sense of horror and desolation. "What," thought he,
+"if this poor, unconscious girl could dream that at this moment I am
+girded with peril, from which I see no ultimate escape? Delay it as I
+will, it seems as if the blow must come at last. What, if she could think
+how fearful is my interest in these outrages, that in all probability, if
+their authors are detected, there is one who will drag me into their
+ruin; that I am given over, bound and blinded, into the hands of another;
+and that other, a man steeled to mercy, and withheld from my destruction
+by a thread--a thread that a blow on himself would snap. Great God!
+wherever I turn, I see despair! And she--she clings to me; and beholding
+me, thinks the whole earth is filled with hope!"
+
+While these thoughts darkened his mind, Madeline drew him onward into the
+more sequestered walks of the garden, to show him some flowers she had
+transplanted. And when an hour afterwards he returned to the hall, so
+soothing had been the influence of her looks and words upon Aram, that if
+he had not forgotten the situation in which he stood, he had at least
+calmed himself to regard with a steady eye the chances of escape.
+
+The meal of the day passed as cheerfully as usual, and when Aram and his
+host were left over their abstemious potations, the former proposed a
+walk before the evening deepened. Lester readily consented, and they
+sauntered into the fields. The Squire soon perceived that something was
+on Aram's mind, of which he felt evident embarrassment in ridding
+himself: at length the Student said rather abruptly: "My dear friend, I
+am but a bad beggar, and therefore let me get over my request as
+expeditiously as possible. You said to me once that you intended
+bestowing some dowry upon Madeline; a dowry I would and could willingly
+dispense with; but should you of that sum be now able to spare me some
+portion as a loan,--should you have some three hundred pounds with which
+you could accommodate me.--" "Say no more, Eugene, say no more,"
+interrupted the Squire,--"you can have double that amount. Your
+preparations for your approaching marriage, I ought to have foreseen,
+must have occasioned you some inconvenience; you can have six hundred
+pounds from me to-morrow."
+
+Aram's eyes brightened. "It is too much, too much, my generous friend,"
+said he; "the half suffices--but, but, a debt of old standing presses me
+urgently, and to-morrow, or rather Monday morning, is the time fixed for
+payment."
+
+"Consider it arranged," said Lester, putting his hand on Aram's arm, and
+then leaning on it gently, he added, "And now that we are on this
+subject, let me tell you what I intended as a gift to you, and my dear
+Madeline; it is but small, but my estates are rigidly entailed on Walter,
+and of poor value in themselves, and it is half the savings of many
+years."
+
+The Squire then named a sum, which, however small it may seem to our
+reader, was not considered a despicable portion for the daughter of a
+small country squire at that day, and was in reality, a generous
+sacrifice for one whose whole income was scarcely, at the most, seven
+hundred a year. The sum mentioned doubled that now to be lent, and which
+was of course a part of it; an equal portion was reserved for Ellinor.
+
+"And to tell you the truth," said the Squire, "you must give me some
+little time for the remainder--for not thinking some months ago it would
+be so soon wanted, I laid out eighteen hundred pounds, in the purchase of
+Winclose Farm, six of which, (the remainder of your share,) I can pay off
+at the end of the year; the other twelve, Ellinor's portion, will remain
+a mortgage on the farm itself. And between us," added the Squire, "I do
+hope that I need be in no hurry respecting her, dear girl. When Walter
+returns, I trust matters may be arranged, in a manner, and through a
+channel, that would gratify the most cherished wish of my heart. I am
+convinced that Ellinor is exactly suited to him; and, unless he should
+lose his senses for some one else in the course of his travels, I trust
+that he will not be long returned before he will make the same discovery.
+I think of writing to him very shortly after your marriage, and making
+him promise, at all events, to revisit us at Christmas. Ah! Eugene, we
+shall be a happy party, then, I trust. And be assured, that we shall beat
+up your quarters, and put your hospitality, and Madeline's housewifery to
+the test."
+
+Therewith the good Squire ran on for some minutes in the warmth of his
+heart, dilating on the fireside prospects before them, and rallying the
+Student on those secluded habits, which he promised him he should no
+longer indulge with impunity.
+
+"But it is growing dark," said he, awakening from the theme which had
+carried him away, "and by this time Peter and our patrole will be at the
+hall. I told them to look up in the evening, in order to appoint their
+several duties and stations--let us turn back. Indeed, Aram, I can assure
+you, that I, for my own part, have some strong reasons to take
+precautions against any attack; for besides the old family plate, (though
+that's not much,) I have,--you know the bureau in the parlour to the left
+of the hall--well, I have in that bureau three hundred guineas, which I
+have not as yet been able to take to safe hands at--, and which, by the
+way, will be your's to-morrow. So, you see, it would be no light
+misfortune to me to be robbed."
+
+"Hist!" said Aram, stopping short, "I think I heard steps on the other
+side of the hedge."
+
+The Squire listened, but heard nothing; the senses of his companion were,
+however, remarkably acute, more especially that of hearing.
+
+"There is certainly some one; nay, I catch the steps of two persons,"
+whispered he to Lester. "Let us come round the hedge by the gap below."
+
+They both quickened their pace, and gaining the other side of the hedge,
+did indeed perceive two men in carters' frocks, strolling on towards the
+village.
+
+"They are strangers too," said the Squire suspiciously, "not Grassdale
+men. Humph! could they have overheard us, think you?"
+
+"If men whose business it is to overhear their neighbours--yes; but not
+if they be honest men," answered Aram, in one of those shrewd remarks
+which he often uttered, and which seemed almost incompatible with the
+tenor of the quiet and abstruse pursuits that he had adopted, and that
+generally deaden the mind to worldly wisdom.
+
+They had now approached the strangers, who, however, appeared mere rustic
+clowns, and who pulled off their hats with the wonted obeisance of their
+tribe.
+
+"Hollo, my men," said the Squire, assuming his magisterial air, for the
+mildest Squire in Christendom can play the Bashaw, when he remembers he
+is a Justice of the Peace. "Hollo! what are you doing here this time of
+day? you are not after any good, I fear."
+
+"We ax pardon, your honour," said the elder clown, in the peculiar accent
+of the country, "but we be come from Gladsmuir; and be going to work at
+Squire Nixon's at Mow-hall, on Monday; so as I has a brother living on
+the green afore the Squire's, we be a-going to sleep there to-night and
+spend the Sunday, your honour."
+
+"Humph! humph! What's your name?"
+
+"Joe Wood, your honour, and this here chap is, Will Hutchings."
+
+"Well, well, go along with you," said the Squire: "And mind what you are
+about. I should not be surprised if you snare one of Squire Nixon's hares
+by the way."
+
+"Oh, well and indeed, your honour."--"Go along, go along," said the
+Squire, and away went the men.
+
+"They seem honest bumpkins enough," observed Lester.
+
+"It would have pleased me better," said Aram, "had the speaker of the two
+particularized less; and you observed that he seemed eager not to let his
+companion speak; that is a little suspicious."
+
+"Shall I call them back?" asked the Squire.
+
+"Why it is scarcely worth while," said Aram; "perhaps I over refine. And
+now I look again at them, they seem really what they affect to be. No, it
+is useless to molest the poor wretches any more. There is something,
+Lester, humbling to human pride in a rustic's life. It grates against the
+heart to think of the tone in which we unconsciously permit ourselves to
+address him. We see in him humanity in its simple state; it is a sad
+thought to feel that we despise it; that all we respect in our species is
+what has been created by art; the gaudy dress, the glittering equipage,
+or even the cultivated intellect; the mere and naked material of Nature,
+we eye with indifference or trample on with disdain. Poor child of toil,
+from the grey dawn to the setting sun, one long task!--no idea elicited--
+no thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him the machine of
+others--the serf of the hard soil! And then too, mark how we scowl upon
+his scanty holidays, how we hedge in his mirth with laws, and turn his
+hilarity into crime! We make the whole of the gay world, wherein we walk
+and take our pleasure, to him a place of snares and perils. If he leave
+his labour for an instant, in that instant how many temptations spring up
+to him! And yet we have no mercy for his errors; the gaol--the transport-
+ship--the gallows; those are our sole lecture-books, and our only
+methods of expostulation--ah, fie on the disparities of the world! They
+cripple the heart, they blind the sense, they concentrate the thousand
+links between man and man, into the two basest of earthly ties--
+servility, and pride. Methinks the devils laugh out when they hear us
+tell the boor that his soul is as glorious and eternal as our own; and
+yet when in the grinding drudgery of his life, not a spark of that soul
+can be called forth; when it sleeps, walled around in its lumpish clay,
+from the cradle to the grave, without a dream to stir the deadness of its
+torpor."
+
+"And yet, Aram," said Lester, "the Lords of science have their ills.
+Exalt the soul as you will, you cannot raise it above pain. Better,
+perhaps, to let it sleep, when in waking it looks only upon a world of
+trial."
+
+"You say well, you say well," said Aram smiting his heart, "and I
+suffered a foolish sentiment to carry me beyond the sober boundaries of
+our daily sense."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+      MILITARY PREPARATIONS.--THE COMMANDER AND HIS MAN.--ARAM IS
+            PERSUADED TO PASS THE NIGHT AT THE MANOR-HOUSE.
+
+           Falstaff.--"Bid my Lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end.
+           . . I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts
+           in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads."
+                    --Henry IV.
+
+They had scarcely reached the Manor-house, before the rain, which the
+clouds had portended throughout the whole day, began to descend in
+torrents, and to use the strong expression of the Roman poet--the night
+rushed down, black and sudden, over the face of the earth.
+
+The new watch were not by any means the hardy and experienced soldiery,
+by whom rain and darkness are unheeded. They looked with great dismay
+upon the character of the night in which their campaign was to commence.
+The valorous Peter, who had sustained his own courage by repeated
+applications to a little bottle, which he never failed to carry about him
+in all the more bustling and enterprising occasions of life, endeavoured,
+but with partial success, to maintain the ardour of his band. Seated in
+the servants' hall of the Manor-house, in a large arm-chair, Jacobina on
+his knee, and his trusty musket, which, to the great terror of the
+womankind, had never been uncocked throughout the day, still grasped in
+his right hand, while the stock was grounded on the floor; he indulged in
+martial harangues, plentifully interlarded with plagiarisms from the
+worshipful translations of Messrs. Sternhold and Hopkins, and psalmodic
+versions of a more doubtful authorship. And when at the hour of ten,
+which was the appointed time, he led his warlike force, which consisted
+of six rustics, armed with sticks of incredible thickness, three guns,
+one pistol, a broadsword, and a pitchfork, (a weapon likely to be more
+effectively used than all the rest put together;) when at the hour of ten
+he led them up to the room above, where they were to be passed in review
+before the critical eye of the Squire, with Jacobina leading the on-
+guard, you could not fancy a prettier picture for a hero in a little way,
+than mine host of the Spotted Dog.
+
+His hat was fastened tight on his brows by a blue pocket-handkerchief; he
+wore a spencer of a light brown drugget, a world too loose, above a
+leather jerkin; his breeches of corduroy, were met all of a sudden half
+way up the thigh, by a detachment of Hessians, formerly in the service of
+the Corporal, and bought some time since by Peter Dealtry to wear when
+employed in shooting snipes for the Squire, to whom he occasionally
+performed the office of game-keeper; suspended round his wrist by a bit
+of black ribbon, was his constable's baton; he shouldered his musket
+gallantly, and he carried his person as erect as if the least deflexion
+from its perpendicularity were to cost him his life. One may judge of the
+revolution that had taken place in the village, when so peaceable a man
+as Peter Dealtry was thus metamorphosed into a commander-in-chief. The
+rest of the regiment hung sheepishly back; each trying to get as near to
+the door, and as far from the ladies, as possible. But Peter having made
+up his mind, that a hero should only look straight forward, did not
+condescend to turn round, to perceive the irregularity of his line.
+Secure in his own existence, he stood truculently forth, facing the
+Squire, and prepared to receive his plaudits.
+
+Madeline and Aram sat apart at one corner of the hearth, and Ellinor
+leaned over the chair of the former; the mirth that she struggled to
+suppress from being audible, mantling over her arch face and laughing
+eyes; while the Squire, taking the pipe from his mouth, turned round on
+his easy chair, and nodded complacently to the little corps, and the
+great commander.
+
+"We are all ready now, your honour," said Peter, in a voice that did not
+seem to belong to his body, so big did it sound, "all hot, all eager."
+
+"Why you yourself are a host, Peter," said Ellinor with affected gravity;
+"your sight alone would frighten an army of robbers: who could have
+thought you could assume so military an air? The Corporal himself was
+never so upright!"
+
+"I have practised my present attitude all the day, Miss," said Peter,
+proudly, "and I believe I may now say as Mr. Sternhold says or sings, in
+the twenty-sixth Psalm, verse twelfth.
+
+                'My foot is stayed for all assays,
+                  It standeth well and right,
+                Wherefore to God--will I give praise
+                  In all the people's sight!'
+
+Jacobina, behave yourself, child. I don't think, your honour, that we
+miss the Corporal so much as I fancied at first, for we all does very
+well without him."
+
+"Indeed you are a most worthy substitute, Peter; and now, Nell, just
+reach me my hat and cloak; I will set you at your posts: you will have an
+ugly night of it."
+
+"Very indeed, your honour," cried all the army, speaking for the first
+time.
+
+"Silence--order--discipline," said Peter gruffly. "March!"
+
+But instead of marching across the hall, the recruits huddled up one
+after the other, like a flock of geese, whom Jacobina might be supposed
+to have set in motion, and each scraping to the ladies, as they shuffled,
+sneaked, bundled, and bustled out at the door.
+
+"We are well guarded now, Madeline," said Ellinor; "I fancy we may go to
+sleep as safely as if there were not a housebreaker in the world."
+
+"Why," said Madeline, "let us trust they will be more efficient than they
+seem, though I cannot persuade myself that we shall really need them. One
+might almost as well conceive a tiger in our arbour, as a robber in
+Grassdale. But dear, dear Eugene, do not--do not leave us this night;
+Walter's room is ready for you, and if it were only to walk across that
+valley in such weather, it would be cruel to leave us. Let me beseech
+you; come, you cannot, you dare not refuse me such a favour."
+
+Aram pleaded his vow, but it was overruled; Madeline proved herself a
+most exquisite casuist in setting it aside. One by one his objections
+were broken down; and how, as he gazed into those eyes, could he keep any
+resolution, that Madeline wished him to break! The power she possessed
+over him seemed exactly in proportion to his impregnability to every one
+else. The surface on which the diamond cuts its easy way, will yield to
+no more ignoble instrument; it is easy to shatter it, but by only one
+substance can it be impressed. And in this instance Aram had but one
+secret and strong cause to prevent his yielding to Madeline's wishes;--if
+he remained at the house this night, how could he well avoid a similar
+compliance the next? And on the next was his interview with Houseman.
+This reason was not, however, strong enough to enable him to resist
+Madeline's soft entreaties; he trusted to the time to furnish him with
+excuses, and when Lester returned, Madeline with a triumphant air
+informed him that Aram had consented to be their guest for the night."
+
+"Your influence is indeed greater than mine," said Lester, wringing his
+hat as the delicate fingers of Ellinor loosened his cloak; "yet one can
+scarcely think our friend sacrifices much in concession, after proving
+the weather without. I should pity our poor patrole most exceedingly, if
+I were not thoroughly assured that within two hours every one of them
+will have quietly slunk home; and even Peter himself, when he has
+exhausted his bottle, will be the first to set the example. However, I
+have stationed two of the men near our house, and the rest at equal
+distances along the village."
+
+"Do you really think they will go home, Sir?" said Ellinor, in a little
+alarm; "why they would be worse than I thought them, if they were driven
+to bed by the rain. I knew they could not stand a pistol, but a shower,
+however hard, I did imagine would scarcely quench their valour."
+
+"Never mind, girl," said Lester, gaily chucking her under the chin, "we
+are quite strong enough now to resist them. You see Madeline has grown as
+brave as a lioness--Come, girls, come, let's have supper, and stir up the
+fire. And, Nell, where are my slippers?"
+
+And thus on the little family scene, the cheerful wood fire flickering
+against the polished wainscot; the supper table arranged, the Squire
+drawing his oak chair towards it, Ellinor mixing his negus; and Aram and
+Madeline, though three times summoned to the table, and having three
+times answered to the summons, still lingering apart by the hearth--let
+us drop the curtain.
+
+We have only, ere we close our chapter, to observe, that when Lester
+conducted Aram to his chamber he placed in his hands an order payable at
+the county town, for three hundred pounds. "The rest," he said in a
+whisper, "is below, where I mentioned; and there in my secret drawer it
+had better rest till the morning."
+
+The good Squire then, putting his finger to his lip, hurried away, to
+avoid the thanks, which, indeed, however he might feel them, Aram was no
+dexterous adept in expressing.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+           THE SISTERS ALONE.--THE GOSSIP OF LOVE.--AN ALARM
+                           --AND AN EVENT.
+
+                   Juliet.--My true love is grown to such excess,
+                   I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.
+                                --Romeo and Juliet.
+
+                   Eros.--Oh, a man in arms;
+                   His weapon drawn, too!
+                                --The False One.
+
+It was a custom with the two sisters, when they repaired to their chamber
+for the night, to sit conversing, sometimes even for hours, before they
+finally retired to bed. This indeed was the usual time for their little
+confidences, and their mutual dilations over those hopes and plans for
+the future, which always occupy the larger share of the thoughts and
+conversation of the young. I do not know any thing in the world more
+lovely than such conferences between two beings who have no secrets to
+relate but what arise, all fresh, from the springs of a guiltless heart,-
+-those pure and beautiful mysteries of an unsullied nature which warm us
+to hear; and we think with a sort of wonder when we feel how arid
+experience has made ourselves, that so much of the dew and sparkle of
+existence still linger in the nooks and valleys, which are as yet virgin
+of the sun and of mankind.
+
+The sisters this night were more than commonly indifferent to sleep.
+Madeline sate by the small but bright hearth of the chamber, in her night
+dress, and Ellinor, who was much prouder of her sister's beauty than her
+own, was employed in knotting up the long and lustrous hair which fell in
+rich luxuriance over Madeline's throat and shoulders.
+
+"There certainly never was such beautiful hair!" said Ellinor admiringly;
+"and, let me see,--yes,--on Thursday fortnight I may be dressing it,
+perhaps, for the last time--heigho!"
+
+"Don't flatter yourself that you are so near the end of your troublesome
+duties," said Madeline, with her pretty smile, which had been much
+brighter and more frequent of late than it was formerly wont to be, so
+that Lester had remarked "That Madeline really appeared to have become
+the lighter and gayer of the two."
+
+"You will often come to stay with us for weeks together, at least till--
+till you have a double right to be mistress here. Ah! my poor hair,--you
+need not pull it so hard."
+
+"Be quiet, then," said Ellinor, half laughing, and wholly blushing.
+
+"Trust me, I have not been in love myself without learning its signs; and
+I venture to prophesy that within six months you will come to consult me
+whether or not,--for there is a great deal to be said on both sides of
+the question,--you can make up your mind to sacrifice your own wishes,
+and marry Walter Lester. Ah!--gently, gently. Nell--" "Promise to be
+quiet."
+
+"I will--I will; but you began it."
+
+As Ellinor now finished her task, and kissed her sister's forehead, she
+sighed deeply.
+
+"Happy Walter!" said Madeline.
+
+"I was not sighing for Walter, but for you."
+
+"For me?--impossible! I cannot imagine any part of my future life that
+can cost you a sigh. Ah! that I were more worthy of my happiness."
+
+"Well, then," said Ellinor, "I sighed for myself;--I sighed to think we
+should so soon be parted, and that the continuance of your society would
+then depend not on our mutual love, but the will of another."
+
+"What, Ellinor, and can you suppose that Eugene,--my Eugene,--would not
+welcome you as warmly as myself? Ah! you misjudge him; I know you have
+not yet perceived how tender a heart lies beneath all that melancholy and
+reserve."
+
+"I feel, indeed," said Ellinor warmly, "as if it were impossible that one
+whom you love should not be all that is good and noble; yet if this
+reserve of his should increase, as is at least possible, with increasing
+years; if our society should become again, as it once was, distasteful to
+him, should I not lose you, Madeline?"
+
+"But his reserve cannot increase: do you not perceive how much it is
+softened already? Ah! be assured that I will charm it away."
+
+"But what is the cause of the melancholy that even now, at times,
+evidently preys upon him?--has he never revealed it to you?"
+
+"It is merely the early and long habit of solitude and study, Ellinor,"
+replied Madeline; "and shall I own to you I would scarcely wish that
+away; his tenderness itself seems linked with his melancholy. It is like
+a sad but gentle music, that brings tears into our eyes, but which we
+would not change for gayer airs for the world."
+
+"Well, I must own," said Ellinor, reluctantly, "that I no longer wonder
+at your infatuation; I can no longer chide you as I once did; there is,
+assuredly, something in his voice, his look, which irresistibly sinks
+into the heart. And there are moments when, what with his eyes and
+forehead, his countenance seems more beautiful, more impressive, than any
+I ever beheld. Perhaps, too, for you, it is better, that your lover
+should be no longer in the first flush of youth. Your nature seems to
+require something to venerate, as well as to love. And I have ever
+observed at prayers, that you seem more especially rapt and carried
+beyond yourself, in those passages which call peculiarly for worship and
+adoration."
+
+"Yes, dearest," said Madeline fervently, "I own that Eugene is of all
+beings, not only of all whom I ever knew, but of whom I ever dreamed, or
+imagined, the one that I am most fitted to love and to appreciate. His
+wisdom, but more than that, the lofty tenor of his mind, calls forth all
+that is highest and best in my own nature. I feel exalted when I listen
+to him;--and yet, how gentle, with all that nobleness! And to think that
+he should descend to love me, and so to love me. It is as if a star were
+to leave its sphere!"
+
+"Hark! one o'clock," said Ellinor, as the deep voice of the clock told
+the first hour of morning. "Heavens! how much louder the winds rave. And
+how the heavy sleet drives against the window! Our poor watch without!
+but you may be sure my uncle was right, and they are safe at home by this
+time; nor is it likely, I should think, that even robbers would be abroad
+in such weather!"
+
+"I have heard," said Madeline, "that robbers generally choose these dark,
+stormy nights for their designs, but I confess I don't feel much alarm,
+and he is in the house. Draw nearer to the fire, Ellinor; is it not
+pleasant to see how serenely it burns, while the storm howls without! it
+is like my Eugene's soul, luminous, and lone, amidst the roar and
+darkness of this unquiet world!"
+
+"There spoke himself," said Ellinor smiling to perceive how invariably
+women, who love, imitate the tone of the beloved one. And Madeline felt
+it, and smiled too.
+
+"Hist!" said Ellinor abruptly, "did you not hear a low, grating noise
+below? Ah! the winds now prevent your catching the sound; but hush,
+hush!--now the wind pauses,--there it is again!"
+
+"Yes, I hear it," said Madeline, turning pale, "it seems in the little
+parlour; a continued, harsh, but very low, noise. Good heavens! it seems
+at the window below."
+
+"It is like a file," whispered Ellinor: "perhaps--" "You are right," said
+Madeline, suddenly rising, "it is a file, and at the bars my father had
+fixed against the window yesterday. Let us go down, and alarm the house."
+
+"No, no; for God's sake, don't be so rash," cried Ellinor, losing all
+presence of mind: "hark! the sound ceases, there is a louder noise below,
+--and steps. Let us lock the door."
+
+But Madeline was of that fine and high order of spirit which rises in
+proportion to danger, and calming her sister as well as she could, till
+she found her attempts wholly ineffectual, she seized the light with a
+steady hand, opened the door, and Ellinor still clinging to her, passed
+the landing-place, and hastened to her father's room; he slept at the
+opposite corner of the staircase. Aram's chamber was at the extreme end
+of the house. Before she reached the door of Lester's apartment, the
+noise below grew loud and distinct--a scuffle--voices--curses--and now--
+the sound of a pistol!--in a moment more the whole house was stirring.
+Lester in his night robe, his broadsword in his hand, and his long grey
+hair floating behind, was the first to appear; the servants, old and
+young, male and female, now came thronging simultaneously round; and in a
+general body, Lester several paces at their head, his daughters following
+next to him, they rushed to the apartment whence the noise, now suddenly
+stilled, had proceeded.
+
+The window was opened, evidently by force; an instrument like a wedge was
+fixed in the bureau containing Lester's money, and seemed to have been
+left there, as if the person using it had been disturbed before the
+design for which it was introduced had been accomplished, and, (the only
+evidence of life,) Aram stood, dressed, in the centre of the room, a
+pistol in his left hand, a sword in his right; a bludgeon severed in two
+lay at his feet, and on the floor within two yards of him, towards the
+window, drops of blood yet warm, showed that the pistol had not been
+discharged in vain.
+
+"And is it you, my brave friend, that I have to thank for our safety?"
+cried Lester in great emotion.
+
+"You, Eugene!" repeated Madeline, sinking on his breast.
+
+"But thanks hereafter," continued Lester; "let us now to the pursuit,--
+perhaps the villain may have perished beneath your bullet?"
+
+"Ha!" muttered Aram, who had hitherto seemed unconscious of all around
+him; so fixed had been his eye, so colourless his cheek, so motionless
+his posture. "Ha! say you so?--think you I have slain him?--no, it cannot
+be--the ball did not slay, I saw him stagger; but he rallied--not so one
+who receives a mortal wound!--ha! ha!--there is blood, you say, that is
+true; but what then!--it is not the first wound that kills, you must
+strike again--pooh, pooh, what is a little blood!"
+
+While he was thus muttering, Lester and the more active of the servants
+had already sallied through the window, but the night was so intensely
+dark that they could not penetrate a step beyond them. Lester returned,
+therefore, in a few moments; and met Aram's dark eye fixed upon him with
+an unutterable expression of anxiety.
+
+"You have found no one," said he, "no dying man?--Ha!--well--well--well!
+they must both have escaped; the night must favour them."
+
+"Do you fancy the villain was severely wounded?"
+
+"Not so--I trust not so; he seemed able to--But stop--oh God!--stop!--
+your foot is dabbling in blood--blood shed by me,--off! off!"
+
+Lester moved aside with a quick abhorrence, as he saw that his feet were
+indeed smearing the blood over the polished and slippery surface of the
+oak boards, and in moving he stumbled against a dark lantern in which the
+light still burnt, and which the robbers in their flight had left.
+
+"Yes," said Aram observing it. "It was by that--their own light that I
+saw them--saw their faces--and--and--(bursting into a loud, wild laugh)
+they were both strangers!"
+
+"Ah, I thought so, I knew so," said Lester plucking the instrument from
+the bureau. "I knew they could be no Grassdale men. What, did you fancy,
+they could be? But--bless me, Madeline--what ho! help!--Aram, she has
+fainted at your feet."
+
+And it was indeed true and remarkable, that so utter had been the
+absorption of Aram's mind, that he had been insensible not only to the
+entrance of Madeline, but even that she had thrown herself on his breast.
+And she, overcome by her feelings, had slid to the ground from that
+momentary resting-place, in a swoon which Lester, in the general tumult
+and confusion, was now the first to perceive.
+
+At this exclamation, at the sound of Madeline's name, the blood rushed
+back from Aram's heart, where it had gathered, icy and curdling; and,
+awakened thoroughly and at once to himself, he knelt down, and weaving
+his arms around her, supported her head on his breast, and called upon
+her with the most passionate and moving exclamations.
+
+But when the faint bloom retinged her cheek, and her lips stirred, he
+printed a long kiss on that cheek--on those lips, and surrendered his
+post to Ellinor; who, blushingly gathering the robe over the beautiful
+breast from which it had been slightly drawn; now entreated all, save the
+women of the house, to withdraw till her sister was restored.
+
+Lester, eager to hear what his guest could relate, therefore took Aram to
+his own apartment, where the particulars were briefly told.
+
+Suspecting, which indeed was the chief reason that excused him to himself
+in yielding to Madeline's request, that the men Lester and himself had
+encountered in their evening walk, might be other than they seemed, and
+that they might have well overheard Lester's communication, as to the sum
+in his house, and the place where it was stored; he had not undressed
+himself, but kept the door of his room open to listen if any thing
+stirred. The keen sense of hearing, which we have before remarked him to
+possess, enabled him to catch the sound of the file at the bars, even
+before Ellinor, notwithstanding the distance of his own chamber from the
+place, and seizing the sword which had been left in his room, (the pistol
+was his own) he had descended to the room below.
+
+"What!" said Lester, "and without a light?"
+
+"The darkness is familiar to me," said Aram. "I could walk by the edge of
+a precipice in the darkest night without one false step, if I had but
+once passed it before. I did not gain the room, however, till the window
+had been forced; and by the light of a dark lantern which one of them
+held, I perceived two men standing by the bureau--the rest you can
+imagine; my victory was easy, for the bludgeon, with which one of them
+aimed at me, gave way at once to the edge of your good sword, and my
+pistol delivered me of the other.--There ends the history."
+
+Lester overwhelmed him with thanks and praises, but Aram, glad to escape
+them, hurried away to see after Madeline, whom he now met on the landing-
+place, leaning on Ellinor's arm and still pale.
+
+She gave him her hand, which he for one moment pressed passionately to
+his lips, but dropped, the next, with an altered and chilled air. And
+hastily observing he would not now detain her from a rest which she must
+so much require, he turned away and descended the stairs. Some of the
+servants were grouped around the place of encounter; he entered the room,
+and again started at the sight of the blood.
+
+"Bring water," said he fiercely: "will you let the stagnant gore ooze and
+rot into the boards, to startle the eye, and still the heart with its
+filthy, and unutterable stain--water, I say! water!"
+
+They hurried to obey him, and Lester coming into the room to see the
+window reclosed by the help of boards found the Student bending over the
+servants as they performed their reluctant task, and rating them with a
+raised and harsh voice for the hastiness with which he accused them of
+seeking to slur it over.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+     ARAM ALONE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.--HIS SOLILOQUY AND PROJECT.--
+                  SCENE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MADELINE.
+
+                                      Luce non grata fruor;
+                   Trepidante semper corde, non mortis metu
+                   Sed--
+                                --Seneca: Octavia, act i.
+
+The two men servants of the house remained up the rest of the night; but
+it was not till the morning had progressed far beyond the usual time of
+rising in the fresh shades of Grassdale, that Madeline and Ellinor became
+visible; even Lester left his bed an hour later than his wont; and
+knocking at Aram's door, found the Student was already abroad, while it
+was evident that his bed had not been pressed during the whole of the
+night. Lester descended into the garden, and was there met by Peter
+Dealtry, and a detachment of the band; who, as common sense and Lester
+had predicted, were indeed, at a very early period of the watch, driven
+to their respective homes. They were now seriously concerned for their
+unmanliness, which they passed off as well as they could upon their
+conviction "that nobody at Grassdale could ever really be robbed;" and
+promised with sincere contrition, that they would be most excellent
+guards for the future. Peter was, in sooth, singularly chop-fallen; and
+could only defend himself by an incoherent mutter, from which the Squire
+turned somewhat impatiently, when he heard, louder than the rest, the
+words "seventy-seventh psalm, seventeenth verse,
+
+"The clouds that were both thick and black,
+
+                    Did rain full plenteously."
+
+
+Leaving the Squire to the edification of the pious host, let us follow
+the steps of Aram, who at the early dawn had quitted his sleepless
+chamber, and, though the clouds at that time still poured down in a dull
+and heavy sleet, wandered away, whither he neither knew, nor heeded. He
+was now hurrying, with unabated speed, though with no purposed bourne or
+object, over the chain of mountains that backed the green and lovely
+valleys, among which his home was cast.
+
+"Yes!" said he, at last halting abruptly, with a desperate resolution
+stamped on his countenance, "yes! I will so determine. If, after this
+interview, I feel that I cannot command and bind Houseman's perpetual
+secrecy, I will surrender Madeline at once. She has loved me generously
+and trustingly. I will not link her life with one that may be called
+hence in any hour, and to so dread an account. Neither shall the grey
+hairs of Lester be brought with the sorrow of my shame, to a dishonoured
+and untimely grave. And after the outrage of last night, the daring
+outrage, how can I calculate on the safety of a day? though Houseman was
+not present, though I can scarce believe that he knew or at least abetted
+the attack; yet they were assuredly of his gang: had one been seized, the
+clue might have traced to his detection--and he detected, what should I
+have to dread! No, Madeline! no; not while this sword hangs over me, will
+I subject thee to share the horror of my fate!"
+
+This resolution, which was certainly generous, and yet no more than
+honest, Aram had no sooner arrived at, than he dismissed, at once, by one
+of those efforts which powerful minds can command, all the weak and
+vacillating thoughts that might interfere with the sternness of his
+determination. He seemed to breathe more freely, and the haggard wanness
+of his brow, relaxed at least from the workings that, but the moment
+before, distorted its wonted serenity, with a maniac wildness.
+
+He pursued his desultory way now with a calmer step.
+
+"What a night!" said he, again breaking into the low murmur in which he
+was accustomed to hold commune with himself. "Had Houseman been one of
+the ruffians! a shot might have freed me, and without a crime, for ever!
+And till the light flashed on their brows, I thought the smaller man bore
+his aspect. Ha, out, tempting thought! out on thee!" he cried aloud, and
+stamping with his foot, then recalled by his own vehemence, he cast a
+jealous and hurried glance round him, though at that moment his step was
+on the very height of the mountains, where not even the solitary
+shepherd, save in search of some more daring straggler of the flock, ever
+brushed the dew from the cragged, yet fragrant soil. "Yet," he said, in a
+lower voice, and again sinking into the sombre depths of his reverie, "it
+is a tempting, a wondrously tempting thought. And it struck athwart me,
+like a flash of lightning when this hand was at his throat--a tighter
+strain, another moment, and Eugene Aram had not had an enemy, a witness
+against him left in the world. Ha! are the dead no foes then? Are the
+dead no witnesses?" Here he relapsed into utter silence, but his gestures
+continued wild, and his eyes wandered round, with a bloodshot and unquiet
+glare. "Enough," at length he said calmly; and with the manner of one
+'who has rolled a stone from his heart;' [Note: Eastern saying.] "enough!
+I will not so sully myself; unless all other hope of self-preservation be
+extinct. And why despond? the plan I have thought of seems well-laid,
+wise, consummate at all points. Let me consider--forfeited the moment he
+enters England--not given till he has left it--paid periodically, and of
+such extent as to supply his wants, preserve him from crime, and forbid
+the possibility of extorting more: all this sounds well; and if not
+feasible at last, why farewell Madeline, and I myself leave this land for
+ever. Come what will to me--death in its vilest shape--let not the stroke
+fall on that breast. And if it be," he continued, his face lighting up,
+"if it be, as it may yet, that I can chain this hell-hound, why, even
+then, the instant that Madeline is mine, I will fly these scenes; I will
+seek a yet obscurer and remoter corner of earth: I will choose another
+name--Fool! why did I not so before? But matters it? What is writ is
+writ. Who can struggle with the invisible and giant hand, that launched
+the world itself into motion; and at whose predecree we hold the dark
+boon of life and death?"
+
+It was not till evening that Aram, utterly worn out and exhausted, found
+himself in the neighbourhood of Lester's house. The sun had only broken
+forth at its setting; and it now glittered from its western pyre over the
+dripping hedges, and spread a brief, but magic glow along the rich
+landscape around; the changing woods clad in the thousand dies of Autumn;
+the scattered and peaceful cottages, with their long wreaths of smoke
+curling upward, and the grey and venerable walls of the Manor-house, with
+the Church hard by, and the delicate spire, which, mixing itself with
+heaven, is at once the most touching and solemn emblem of the Faith to
+which it is devoted. It was a sabbath eve; and from the spot on which
+Aram stood, he might discern many a rustic train trooping slowly up the
+green village lane towards the Church; and the deep bell which summoned
+to the last service of the day now swung its voice far over the sunlit
+and tranquil scene.
+
+But it was not the setting sun, nor the autumnal landscape, nor the voice
+of the holy bell that now arrested the step of Aram. At a little distance
+before him, leaning over a gate, and seemingly waiting till the ceasing
+of the bell should announce the time to enter the sacred mansion, he
+beheld the figure of Madeline Lester. Her head, at the moment, was
+averted from him, as if she were looking after Ellinor and her uncle, who
+were in the churchyard among a little group of their homely neighbours;
+and he was half in doubt whether to shun her presence, when she suddenly
+turned round, and seeing him, uttered an exclamation of joy. It was now
+too late for avoidance; and calling to his aid that mastery over his
+features, which, in ordinary times, few more eminently possessed, he
+approached his beautiful mistress with a smile as serene, if not as
+glowing, as her own. But she had already opened the gate, and bounding
+forward, met him half way.
+
+"Ah, truant, truant," said she, the whole day absent, without inquiry or
+farewell! After this, when shall I believe that thou really lovest me?
+
+"But," continued Madeline, gazing on his countenance, which bore witness,
+in its present languor, to the fierce emotions which had lately raged
+within, "but, heavens! dearest, how pale you look; you are fatigued; give
+me your hand, Eugene,--it is parched and dry. Come into the house;--you
+must need rest and refreshment."
+
+"I am better here, my Madeline,--the air and the sun revive me: let us
+rest by the stile yonder. But you were going to Church? and the bell has
+ceased."
+
+"I could attend, I fear, little to the prayers now," said Madeline,
+"unless you feel well enough and will come to Church with me."
+
+"To Church!" said Aram, with a half shudder, "no; my thoughts are in no
+mood for prayer."
+
+"Then you shall give your thoughts to me and I, in return, will pray for
+you before I rest."
+
+And so saying, Madeline, with her usual innocent frankness of manner,
+wound her arm in his, and they walked onward towards the stile Aram had
+pointed out. It was a little rustic stile, with chesnut-trees hanging
+over it on either side. It stands to this day, and I have pleased myself
+with finding Walter Lester's initials, and Madeline's also, with the date
+of the year, carved in half-worn letters on the wood, probably by the
+hand of the former.
+
+They now rested at this spot. All around them was still and solitary; the
+groups of peasants had entered the Church, and nothing of life, save the
+cattle grazing in the distant fields, or the thrush starting from the wet
+bushes, was visible. The winds were lulled to rest, and, though somewhat
+of the chill of autumn floated on the air, it only bore a balm to the
+harassed brow and fevered veins of the Student; and Madeline!--she felt
+nothing but his presence. It was exactly what we picture to ourselves of
+a sabbath eve, unutterably serene and soft, and borrowing from the very
+melancholy of the declining year an impressive, yet a mild solemnity.
+
+There are seasons, often in the most dark or turbulent periods of our
+life, when, why we know not, we are suddenly called from ourselves, by
+the remembrances of early childhood: something touches the electric
+chain, and, lo! a host of shadowy and sweet recollections steal upon us.
+The wheel rests, the oar is suspended, we are snatched from the labour
+and travail of present life; we are born again, and live anew. As the
+secret page in which the characters once written seem for ever effaced,
+but which, if breathed upon, gives them again into view; so the memory
+can revive the images invisible for years: but while we gaze, the breath
+recedes from the surface, and all one moment so vivid, with the next
+moment has become once more a blank!
+
+"It is singular," said Aram, "but often as I have paused at this spot,
+and gazed upon this landscape, a likeness to the scenes of my childish
+life, which it now seems to me to present, never occurred to me before.
+Yes, yonder, in that cottage, with the sycamores in front, and the
+orchard extending behind, till its boundary, as we now stand, seems lost
+among the woodland, I could fancy that I looked upon my father's home.
+The clump of trees that lies yonder to the right could cheat me readily
+to the belief that I saw the little grove in which, enamoured with the
+first passion of study, I was wont to pore over the thrice-read book
+through the long summer days;--a boy,--a thoughtful boy; yet, oh! how
+happy! What worlds appeared then to me, to open in every page! how
+exhaustless I thought the treasures and the hopes of life! and beautiful
+on the mountain tops seemed to me the steps of Knowledge! I did not dream
+of all that the musing and lonely passion that I nursed was to entail
+upon me. There, in the clefts of the valley, or the ridges of the hill,
+or the fragrant course of the stream, I began already to win its history
+from the herb or flower; I saw nothing, that I did not long to unravel
+its secrets; all that the earth nourished ministered to one desire:--and
+what of low or sordid did there mingle with that desire? The petty
+avarice, the mean ambition, the debasing love, even the heat, the anger,
+the fickleness, the caprice of other men, did they allure or bow down my
+nature from its steep and solitary eyrie? I lived but to feed my mind;
+wisdom was my thirst, my dream, my aliment, my sole fount and sustenance
+of life. And have I not sown the whirlwind and reaped the wind? The glory
+of my youth is gone, my veins are chilled, my frame is bowed, my heart is
+gnawed with cares, my nerves are unstrung as a loosened bow: and what,
+after all, is my gain? Oh, God! what is my gain?"
+
+"Eugene, dear, dear Eugene!" murmured Madeline soothingly, and wrestling
+with her tears, "is not your gain great? is it no triumph that you stand,
+while yet young, almost alone in the world, for success in all that you
+have attempted?"
+
+"And what," exclaimed Aram, breaking in upon her, "what is this world
+which we ransack, but a stupendous charnel-house? Every thing that we
+deem most lovely, ask its origin?--Decay! When we rifle nature, and
+collect wisdom, are we not like the hags of old, culling simples from the
+rank grave, and extracting sorceries from the rotting bones of the dead?
+Every thing around us is fathered by corruption, battened by corruption,
+and into corruption returns at last. Corruption is at once the womb and
+grave of Nature, and the very beauty on which we gaze and hang,--the
+cloud, and the tree, and the swarming waters,--all are one vast panorama
+of death! But it did not always seem to me thus; and even now I speak
+with a heated pulse and a dizzy brain. Come, Madeline, let us change the
+theme."
+
+And dismissing at once from his language, and perhaps, as he proceeded,
+also from his mind, all of its former gloom, except such as might shade,
+but not embitter, the natural tenderness of remembrance, Aram now
+related, with that vividness of diction, which, though we feel we can
+very inadequately convey its effect, characterised his conversation, and
+gave something of poetic interest to all he uttered; those reminiscences
+which belong to childhood, and which all of us take delight to hear from
+the lips of any one we love.
+
+It was while on this theme that the lights which the deepening twilight
+had now made necessary, became visible in the Church, streaming afar
+through its large oriel window, and brightening the dark firs that
+overshadowed the graves around: and just at that moment the organ, (a
+gift from a rich rector, and the boast of the neighbouring country,)
+stole upon the silence with its swelling and solemn note. There was
+something in the strain of this sudden music that was so kindred with the
+holy repose of the scene, and which chimed so exactly to the chord that
+now vibrated in Aram's mind, that it struck upon him at once with an
+irresistible power. He paused abruptly "as if an angel spoke!" that sound
+so peculiarly adapted to express sacred and unearthly emotion none who
+have ever mourned or sinned can hear, at an unlooked for moment, without
+a certain sentiment, that either subdues, or elevates, or awes. But he,--
+he was a boy once more!--he was again in the village church of his native
+place: his father, with his silver hair, stood again beside him! there
+was his mother, pointing to him the holy verse; there the half arch, half
+reverent face of his little sister, (she died young!)--there the upward
+eye and hushed countenance of the preacher who had first raised his mind
+to knowledge, and supplied its food,--all, all lived, moved, breathed,
+again before him,--all, as when he was young and guiltless, and at peace;
+hope and the future one word!
+
+He bowed his head lower and lower; the hardness and hypocrisies of pride,
+the sense of danger and of horror, that, in agitating, still supported,
+the mind of this resolute and scheming man, at once forsook him. Madeline
+felt his tears drop fast and burning on her hand, and the next moment,
+overcome by the relief it afforded to a heart preyed upon by fiery and
+dread secrets, which it could not reveal, and a frame exhausted by the
+long and extreme tension of all its powers, he laid his head upon that
+faithful bosom, and wept aloud.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+     ARAM'S SECRET EXPEDITION.--A SCENE WORTHY THE ACTORS.--ARAM'S
+     ADDRESS AND POWERS OF PERSUASION OR HYPOCRISY.--THEIR RESULT.
+          --A FEARFUL NIGHT.--ARAM'S SOLITARY RIDE HOMEWARD.
+            --WHOM HE MEETS BY THE WAY, AND WHAT HE SEES.
+
+                   Macbeth. Now o'er the one half world
+                             Nature seems dead.
+
+                   Donalbain.   Our separated fortune
+                             Shall keep us both the safer.
+
+                   Old Man. Hours dreadful and things strange.
+                                      --Macbeth.
+
+"And you must really go to _____ to pay your importunate creditor this
+very evening. Sunday is a bad day for such matters; but as you pay him by
+an order, it does not much signify; and I can well understand your
+impatience to feel discharged of the debt. But it is already late; and if
+it must be so, you had better start."
+
+"True," said Aram to the above remark of Lester's, as the two stood
+together without the door; "but do you feel quite secure and guarded
+against any renewed attack?"
+
+"Why, unless they bring a regiment, yes! I have put a body of our patrole
+on a service where they can scarce be inefficient, viz. I have stationed
+them in the house, instead of without; and I shall myself bear them
+company through the greater part of the night: to-morrow I shall remove
+all that I possess of value to--(the county town) including those unlucky
+guineas, which you will not ease me of."
+
+"The order you have kindly given me will amply satisfy my purpose,"
+answered Aram: "And so, there has been no clue to these robberies
+discovered throughout the day?"
+
+"None: to-morrow, the magistrates are to meet at--, and concert measures:
+it is absolutely impossible, but that we should detect the villains in a
+few days, viz. if they remain in these parts. I hope to heaven you will
+not meet them this evening."
+
+"I shall go well armed," answered Aram, "and the horse you lend me is
+fleet and strong. And now farewell for the present; I shall probably not
+return to Grassdale this night, or if I do, it will be at so late an
+hour, that I shall seek my own domicile without disturbing you."
+
+"No, no; you had better remain in the town, and not return till morning,"
+said the Squire; "and now let us come to the stables."
+
+To obviate all chance of suspicion as to the real place of his
+destination, Aram deliberately rode to the town he had mentioned, as the
+one in which his pretended creditor expected him. He put up at an inn,
+walked forth as if to visit some one in the town, returned, remounted,
+and by a circuitous route, came into the neighbourhood of the place in
+which he was to meet Houseman: then turning into a long and dense chain
+of wood, he fastened his horse to a tree, and looking to the priming of
+his pistols, which he carried under his riding-cloak, proceeded to the
+spot on foot.
+
+The night was still, and not wholly dark; for the clouds lay scattered
+though dense, and suffered many stars to gleam through the heavy air; the
+moon herself was abroad, but on her decline, and looked forth with a man
+and saddened aspect, as she travelled from cloud to cloud. It has been
+the necessary course of our narrative, to pourtray Aram, more often than
+to give an exact notion of his character we could have altogether wished,
+in his weaker moments; but whenever he stood in the actual presence of
+danger, his whole soul was in arms to cope with it worthily: courage,
+sagacity, even cunning, all awakened to the encounter; and the mind which
+his life had so austerely cultivated repaid him in the urgent season,
+with its acute address, and unswerving hardihood. The Devil's Crag, as it
+was popularly called, was a spot consecrated by many a wild tradition,
+which would not, perhaps, be wholly out of character with the dark thread
+of this tale, were we in accordance with certain of our brethren, who
+seem to think a novel like a bundle of wood, the more faggots it contains
+the greater its value, allowed by the rapidity of our narrative to relate
+them.
+
+The same stream which lent so soft an attraction to the valleys of
+Grassdale, here assumed a different character; broad, black, and rushing,
+it whirled along a course, overhung by shagged and abrupt banks. On the
+opposite side to that by which Aram now pursued his path, an almost
+perpendicular mountain was covered with gigantic pine and fir, that might
+have reminded a German wanderer of the darkest recesses of the Hartz; and
+seemed, indeed, no unworthy haunt for the weird huntsman, or the forest
+fiend. Over this wood the moon now shimmered, with the pale and feeble
+light we have already described; and only threw into a more sombre shade
+the motionless and gloomy foliage. Of all the offspring of the forest,
+the Fir bears, perhaps, the most saddening and desolate aspect. Its long
+branches, without absolute leaf or blossom; its dead, dark, eternal hue,
+which the winter seems to wither not, nor the spring to revive, have, I
+know not what of a mystic and unnatural life. Around all woodland, there
+is that horror umbrarum which becomes more remarkably solemn and awing
+amidst the silence and depth of night: but this is yet more especially
+the characteristic of that sullen evergreen. Perhaps, too, this effect is
+increased by the sterile and dreary soil, on which, when in groves, it is
+generally found; and its very hardiness, the very pertinacity with which
+it draws its strange unfluctuating life, from the sternest wastes and
+most reluctant strata, enhance, unconsciously, the unwelcome effect it is
+calculated to create upon the mind. At this place, too, the waters that
+dashed beneath gave yet additional wildness to the rank verdure of the
+wood, and contributed, by their rushing darkness partially broken by the
+stars, and the hoarse roar of their chafed course, a yet more grim and
+savage sublimity to the scene.
+
+Winding a narrow path, (for the whole country was as familiar as a garden
+to his footstep) that led through the tall wet herbage, almost along the
+perilous brink of the stream, Aram was now aware, by the increased and
+deafening sound of the waters, that the appointed spot was nearly gained;
+and presently the glimmering and imperfect light of the skies, revealed
+the dim shape of a gigantic rock, that rose abruptly from the middle of
+the stream; and which, rude, barren, vast, as it really was, seemed now,
+by the uncertainty of night, like some monstrous and deformed creature of
+the waters, suddenly emerging from their vexed and dreary depths. This
+was the far-famed Crag, which had borrowed from tradition its evil and
+ominous name. And now, the stream, bending round with a broad and sudden
+swoop, showed at a little distance, ghostly and indistinct through the
+darkness, the mighty Waterfall, whose roar had been his guide. Only in
+one streak a-down the giant cataract, the stars were reflected; and this
+long train of broken light glittered preternaturally forth through the
+rugged crags and the sombre verdure, that wrapped either side of the
+waterfall in utter and rayless gloom.
+
+Nothing could exceed the forlorn and terrific grandeur of the spot; the
+roar of the waters supplied to the ear what the night forbade to the eye.
+Incessant and eternal they thundered down into the gulf; and then
+shooting over that fearful basin, and forming another, but a mimic fall,
+dashed on, till they were opposed by the sullen and abrupt crag below;
+and besieging its base with a renewed roar, sent their foamy and angry
+spray half way up the hoar ascent.
+
+At this stern and dreary spot, well suited for such conferences as Aram
+and Houseman alone could hold; and which, whatever was the original
+secret that linked the two men thus strangely, seemed of necessity to
+partake of a desperate and lawless character, with danger for its main
+topic, and death itself for its colouring, Aram now paused, and with an
+eye accustomed to the darkness, looked around for his companion.
+
+He did not wait long: from the profound shadow that girded the space
+immediately around the fall, Houseman now emerged and joined the Student.
+The stunning noise of the cataract in the place where they met, forbade
+any attempt to converse; and they walked on by the course of the stream,
+to gain a spot less in reach of the deafening shout of the mountain giant
+as he rushed with his banded waters, upon the valley like a foe.
+
+It was noticeable that as they proceeded, Aram walked on with an
+unsuspicious and careless demeanour; but Houseman pointing out the way
+with his hand, not leading it, kept a little behind Aram, and watched his
+motions with a vigilant and wary eye. The Student, who had diverged from
+the path at Houseman's direction, now paused at a place where the matted
+bushes seemed to forbid any farther progress; and said, for the first
+time breaking the silence, "We cannot proceed; shall this be the place of
+our conference?"
+
+"No," said Houseman, "we had better pierce the bushes. I know the way,
+but will not lead it."
+
+"And wherefore?"
+
+"The mark of your gripe is still on my throat," replied Houseman,
+significantly; "you know as well as I, that it is not always safe to have
+a friend lagging behind."
+
+"Let us rest here, then," said Aram, calmly, the darkness veiling any
+alteration of his countenance, which his comrade's suspicion might have
+created.
+
+"Yet it were much better," said Houseman, doubtingly, "could we gain the
+cave below."
+
+"The cave!" said Aram, starting, as if the word had a sound of fear.
+
+"Ay, ay: but not St. Robert's," said Houseman; and the grin of his teeth
+was visible through the dullness of the shade. "But come, give me your
+hand, and I will venture to conduct you through the thicket:--that is
+your left hand," observed Houseman with a sharp and angry suspicion in
+his tone; "give me the right."
+
+"As you will," said Aram in a subdued, yet meaning voice, that seemed to
+come from his heart; and thrilled, for an instant, to the bones of him
+who heard it; "as you will; but for fourteen years I have not given this
+right hand, in pledge of fellowship, to living man; you alone deserve the
+courtesy--there!"
+
+Houseman hesitated, before he took the hand now extended to him.
+
+"Pshaw!" said he, as if indignant at himself, "what! scruples at a
+shadow! Come," (grasping the hand) "that's well--so, so; now we are in
+the thicket--tread firm--this way--hold," continued Houseman, under his
+breath, as suspicion anew seemed to cross him; "hold! we can see each
+other's face not even dimly now: but in this hand, my right is free, I
+have a knife that has done good service ere this; and if I feel cause to
+suspect that you meditate to play me false, I bury it in your heart; do
+you heed me?"
+
+"Fool!" said Aram, scornfully, "I should dread you dead yet more than
+living."
+
+Houseman made no answer; but continued to grope on through the path in
+the thicket, which he evidently knew well; though even in daylight, so
+thick were the trees, and so artfully had their boughs been left to cover
+the track, no path could have been discovered by one unacquainted with
+the clue.
+
+They had now walked on for some minutes, and of late their steps had been
+threading a rugged, and somewhat precipitous descent: all this while, the
+pulse of the hand Houseman held, beat with as steadfast and calm a throb,
+as in the most quiet mood of learned meditation; although Aram could not
+but be conscious that a mere accident, a slip of the foot, an
+entanglement in the briars, might awaken the irritable fears of his
+ruffian comrade, and bring the knife to his breast. But this was not that
+form of death that could shake the nerves of Aram; nor, though arming his
+whole soul to ward off one danger, was he well sensible of another, that
+might have seemed equally near and probable, to a less collected and
+energetic nature. Houseman now halted, again put aside the boughs,
+proceeded a few steps, and by a certain dampness and oppression in the
+air, Aram rightly conjectured himself in the cavern Houseman had spoken
+of.
+
+"We are landed now," said Houseman, "but wait, I will strike a light; I
+do not love darkness, even with another sort of companion than the one I
+have now the honour to entertain!"
+
+In a few moments a light was produced, and placed aloft on a crag in the
+cavern; but the ray it gave was feeble and dull, and left all beyond the
+immediate spot in which they stood, in a darkness little less Cimmerian
+than before.
+
+"'Fore Gad, it is cold," said Houseman shivering, "but I have taken care,
+you see, to provide for a friend's comfort;" so saying, he approached a
+bundle of dry sticks and leaves, piled at one corner of the cave, applied
+the light to the fuel, and presently, the fire rose crackling, breaking
+into a thousand sparks, and freeing itself gradually from the clouds of
+smoke in which it was enveloped. It now mounted into a ruddy and cheering
+flame, and the warm glow played picturesquely upon the grey sides of the
+cavern, which was of a rugged shape, and small dimensions, and cast its
+reddening light over the forms of the two men.
+
+Houseman stood close to the flame, spreading his hands over it, and a
+sort of grim complacency stealing along features singularly ill-favoured,
+and sinister in their expression, as he felt the animal luxury of the
+warmth.
+
+Across his middle was a broad leathern belt, containing a brace of large
+horse pistols, and the knife, or rather dagger, with which he had menaced
+Aram, an instrument sharpened on both sides, and nearly a foot in length.
+Altogether, what with his muscular breadth of figure, his hard and rugged
+features, his weapons, and a certain reckless, bravo air which
+indescribably marked his attitude and bearing, it was not well possible
+to imagine a fitter habitant for that grim cave, or one from whom men of
+peace, like Eugene Aram, might have seemed to derive more reasonable
+cause of alarm.
+
+The Scholar stood at a little distance, waiting till his companion was
+entirely prepared for the conference, and his pale and lofty features,
+hushed in their usual deep, but at such a moment, almost preternatural
+repose. He stood leaning with folded arms against the rude wall; the
+light reflected upon his dark garments, with the graceful riding-cloak of
+the day half falling from his shoulder, and revealing also the pistols in
+his belt, and the sword, which, though commonly worn at that time, by all
+pretending to superiority above the lower and trading orders, Aram
+usually waived as a distinction, but now carried as a defence. And
+nothing could be more striking, than the contrast between the ruffian
+form of his companion, and the delicate and chiselled beauty of the
+Student's features, with their air of mournful intelligence and serene
+command, and the slender, though nervous symmetry of his frame.
+
+"Houseman," said Aram, now advancing, as his comrade turned his face from
+the flame, towards him; "before we enter on the main subject of our
+proposed commune--tell me, were you engaged on the attempt last night
+upon Lester's house?"
+
+"By the Fiend, no!" answered Houseman, nor did I learn it till this
+morning; it was unpremeditated till within a few hours of the time, by
+the two fools who alone planned it. The fact is, that myself and the
+greater part of our little band, were engaged some miles off, in the
+western part of the county. Two--our general--spies, had been, of their
+own accord, into your neighbourhood, to reconnoitre. They marked Lester's
+house during the day, and gathered, (as I can say by experience it was
+easy to do) from unsuspected inquiry in the village, for they wore a
+clown's dress, several particulars which induced them to think it
+contained what might repay the trouble of breaking into it. And walking
+along the fields, they overheard the good master of the house tell one of
+his neighbours of a large sum at home; nay, even describe the place where
+it was kept: that determined them;--they feared, (as the old man indeed
+observed,) that the sum might be removed the next day; they had noted the
+house sufficiently to profit by the description given: they resolved,
+then, of themselves, for it was too late to reckon on our assistance, to
+break into the room in which the money was kept--though from the aroused
+vigilance of the frightened hamlet and the force within the house, they
+resolved to attempt no farther booty. They reckoned on the violence of
+the storm, and the darkness of the night to prevent their being heard or
+seen; they were mistaken--the house was alarmed, they were no sooner in
+the luckless room, than--"Well, I know the rest; was the one wounded
+dangerously hurt?"
+
+"Oh, he will recover, he will recover; our men are no chickens. But I own
+I thought it natural that you might suspect me of sharing in the attack;
+and though, as I have said before, I do not love you, I have no wish to
+embroil matters so far as an outrage on the house of your father-in-law,
+might be reasonably expected to do:--at all events, while the gate to an
+amicable compromise between us is still open."
+
+"I am satisfied on this head," said Aram, "and I can now treat with you
+in a spirit of less distrustful precaution than before. I tell you,
+Houseman, that the terms are no longer at your control; you must leave
+this part of the country, and that forthwith, or you inevitably perish.
+The whole population is alarmed, and the most vigilant of the London
+Police have been already sent for. Life is sweet to you, as to us all,
+and I cannot imagine you so mad, as to incur not the risk, but the
+certainty, of losing it. You can no longer therefore, hold the threat of
+your presence over my head. Besides, were you able to do so, I at least
+have the power, which you seem to have forgotten, of freeing myself from
+it. Am I chained to yonder valleys? have I not the facility of quitting
+them at any moment I will? of seeking a hiding-place, which might baffle,
+not only your vigilance to discover me, but that of the Law? True, my
+approaching marriage puts some clog upon my wing, but you know that I, of
+all men, am not likely to be the slave of passion. And what ties are
+strong enough to arrest the steps of him who flies from a fearful death?
+Am I using sophistry here, Houseman? Have I not reason on my side?"
+
+"What you say is true enough," said Houseman reluctantly; "I do not
+gainsay it. But I know you have not sought me, in this spot, and at this
+hour, for the purpose of denying my claims: the desire of compromise
+alone can have brought you hither."
+
+"You speak well," said Aram, preserving the admirable coolness of his
+manner; and continuing the deep and sagacious hypocrisy by which he
+sought to baffle the dogged covetousness and keen sense of interest with
+which he had to contend. "It is not easy for either of us to deceive the
+other. We are men, whose perceptions a life of danger, has sharpened upon
+all points; I speak to you frankly, for disguise is unavailing. Though I
+can fly from your reach--though I can desert my present home and my
+intended bride, I would fain think I have free and secure choice to
+preserve that exact path and scene of life which I have chalked out for
+myself: I would fain be rid of all apprehension from you. There are two
+ways only by which this security can be won: the first is through your
+death;--nay, start not, nor put your hand on your pistol; you have not
+now cause to fear me. Had I chosen that method of escape, I could have
+effected it long since: When, months ago, you slept under my roof--ay,
+slept--what should have hindered me from stabbing you during the slumber?
+Two nights since, when my blood was up, and the fury upon me, what should
+have prevented me tightening the grasp that you so resent, and laying you
+breathless at my feet? Nay, now, though you keep your eye fixed on my
+motions, and your hand upon your weapon, you would be no match for a
+desperate and resolved man, who might as well perish in conflict with
+you, as by the protracted accomplishment of your threats. Your ball might
+fail--(even now I see your hand trembles)--mine, if I so will it, is
+certain death. No, Houseman, it would be as vain for your eye to scan the
+dark pool into whose breast you cataract casts its waters, as for your
+intellect to pierce the depths of my mind and motives. Your murder,
+though in self-defence, would lay a weight upon my soul, which would sink
+it for ever: I should see, in your death, new chances of detection spread
+themselves before me: the terrors of the dead are not to be bought or
+awed into silence; I should pass from one peril into another; and the
+law's dread vengeance might fall upon me, through the last peril, even
+yet more surely than through the first. Be composed, then, on this point!
+From my hand, unless you urge it madly upon yourself, you are wholly
+safe. Let us turn to my second method of attaining security. It lies, not
+in your momentary cessation from persecutions; not in your absence from
+this spot alone; you must quit the country--you must never return to it--
+your home must be cast, and your very grave dug in a foreign soil. Are
+you prepared for this? If not, I can say no more; and I again cast myself
+passive into the arms of Fate."
+
+"You ask," said Houseman, whose fears were allayed by Aram's address,
+though, at the same time, his dissolute and desperate nature was subdued
+and tamed in spite of himself, by the very composure of the loftier mind
+with which it was brought in contact: "You ask," said he, "no trifling
+favour of a man--to desert his country for ever; but I am no dreamer, to
+love one spot better than another. I should, perhaps, prefer a foreign
+clime, as the safer and the freer from old recollections, if I could live
+in it as a man who loves the relish of life should do. Show me the
+advantages I am to gain by exile, and farewell to the pale cliffs of
+England for ever!"
+
+"Your demand is just," answered Aram; "listen, then. I am willing to coin
+all my poor wealth, save alone the barest pittance wherewith to sustain
+life; nay, more, I am prepared also to melt down the whole of my possible
+expectations from others, into the form of an annuity to yourself. But
+mark, it will be taken out of my hands, so that you can have no power
+over me to alter the conditions with which it will be saddled. It will be
+so vested that it shall commence the moment you touch a foreign clime;
+and wholly and for ever cease the moment you set foot on any part of
+English ground; or, mark also, at the moment of my death. I shall then
+know that no farther hope from me can induce you to risk this income;
+for, as I should have spent my all in attaining it, you cannot even
+meditate the design of extorting more. I shall know that you will not
+menace my life; for my death would be the destruction of your fortunes.
+We shall live thus separate and secure from each other; you will have
+only cause to hope for my safety; and I shall have no reason to shudder
+at yours. Through one channel alone could I then fear; namely, that in
+dying, you should enjoy the fruitless vengeance of criminating me. But
+this chance I must patiently endure: you, if older, are more robust and
+hardy than myself--your life will probably be longer than mine; and, even
+were it otherwise, why should we destroy one another? At my death-bed I
+will solemnly swear to respect your secret; why not on your part, I say
+not swear, but resolve, to respect mine? We cannot love one another; but
+why hate with a gratuitous and demon vengeance? No, Houseman, however
+circumstances may have darkened or steeled your heart, it is touched with
+humanity yet--you will have owed to me the bread of a secure and easy
+existence--you will feel that I have stripped myself, even to penury, to
+purchase the comforts I cheerfully resign to you--you will remember that,
+instead of the sacrifices enjoined by this alternative, I might have
+sought only to counteract your threats, by attempting a life that you
+strove to make a snare and torture to my own. You will remember this; and
+you will not grudge me the austere and gloomy solitude in which I seek to
+forget, or the one solace with which I, perhaps vainly, endeavour to
+cheer my passage to a quiet grave. No, Houseman, no; dislike, hate,
+menace me as you will, I still feel I shall have no cause to dread the
+mere wantonness of your revenge."
+
+These words, aided by a tone of voice, and an expression of countenance
+that gave them perhaps their chief effect, took even the hardened nature
+of Houseman by surprise; he was affected by an emotion which he could not
+have believed it possible the man who till then had galled him by the
+humbling sense of inferiority, could have created. He extended his hand
+to Aram.
+
+"By--," he exclaimed, with an oath which we spare the reader, "you are
+right! you have made me as helpless in your hands, as an infant. I accept
+your offer--if I were to refuse it, I should be driven to the same
+courses I now pursue. But look you; I know not what may be the amount of
+the annuity you can raise. I shall not, however, require more than will
+satisfy wants, which, if not so scanty as your own, are not at least very
+extravagant or very refined. As for the rest, if there be any surplus, in
+God's name keep it for yourself, and rest assured that, so far as I am
+concerned, you shall be molested no more."
+
+"No, Houseman," said Aram, with a half smile, "you shall have all I first
+mentioned; that is, all beyond what nature craves, honourably and fully.
+Man's best resolutions are weak: if you knew I possessed aught to spare,
+a fancied want, a momentary extravagance might tempt you to demand it.
+Let us put ourselves beyond the possible reach of temptation. But do not
+flatter youself by the hope that the income will be magnificent. My own
+annuity is but trifling, and the half of the dowry I expect from my
+future father-in-law, is all that I can at present obtain. The whole of
+that dowry is insignificant as a sum. But if this does not suffice for
+you, I must beg or borrow elsewhere."
+
+"This, after all, is a pleasanter way of settling business," said
+Houseman, "than by threats and anger. And now I will tell you exactly the
+sum on which, if I could receive it yearly, I could live without looking
+beyond the pale of the Law for more--on which I could cheerfully renounce
+England, and commence 'the honest man.' But then, hark you, I must have
+half settled on my little daughter."
+
+"What! have you a child?" said Aram eagerly, and well pleased to find an
+additional security for his own safety.
+
+"Ay, a little girl, my only one, in her eighth year; she lives with her
+grandmother, for she is motherless, and that girl must not be left quite
+penniless should I be summoned hence before my time. Some twelve years
+hence--as poor Jane promises to be pretty--she may be married off my
+hands, but her childhood must not be left to the chances of beggary or
+shame."
+
+"Doubtless not, doubtless not. Who shall say now that we ever outlive
+feeling?" said Aram, "Half the annuity shall be settled upon her, should
+she survive you; but on the same conditions, ceasing when I die, or the
+instant of your return to England. And now, name the sum that you deem
+sufficing."
+
+"Why," said Houseman, counting on his fingers, and muttering "twenty--
+fifty--wine and the creature cheap abroad--humph! a hundred for living,
+and half as much for pleasure. Come, Aram, one hundred and fifty guineas
+per annum, English money, will do for a foreign life--you see I am easily
+satisfied."
+
+"Be it so," said Aram, "I will engage by one means or another to procure
+it. For this purpose I shall set out for London to-morrow; I will not
+lose a moment in seeing the necessary settlement made as we have
+specified. But meanwhile, you must engage to leave this neighbourhood,
+and if possible, cause your comrades to do the same, although you will
+not hesitate, for the sake of your own safety, immediately to separate
+from them."
+
+"Now that we are on good terms," replied Houseman, "I will not scruple to
+oblige you in these particulars. My comrades intend to quit the country
+before to-morrow; nay, half are already gone; by daybreak I myself will
+be some miles hence, and separated from each of them. Let us meet in
+London after the business is completed, and there conclude our last
+interview on earth."
+
+"What will be your address?"
+
+"In Lambeth there is a narrow alley that leads to the water-side, called
+Peveril Lane. The last house to the right, towards the river, is my usual
+lodging; a safe resting-place at all times, and for all men."
+
+"There then will I seek you. And now, Houseman, fare-you-well! As you
+remember your word to me, may life flow smooth for your child."
+
+"Eugene Aram," said Houseman, "there is about you something against which
+the fiercer devil within me would rise in vain. I have read that the
+tiger can be awed by the human eye, and you compell me into submission by
+a spell equally unaccountable. You are a singular man, and it seems to me
+a riddle, how we could ever have been thus connected; or how--but we will
+not rip up the past, it is an ugly sight, and the fire is just out. Those
+stories do not do for the dark. But to return;--were it only for the sake
+of my child, you might depend upon me now; better too an arrangement of
+this sort, than if I had a larger sum in hand which I might be tempted to
+fling away, and in looking for more, run my neck into a halter, and leave
+poor Jane upon charity. But come, it is almost dark again, and no doubt
+you wish to be stirring: stay, I will lead you back, and put you on the
+right track, lest you stumble on my friends."
+
+"Is this cavern one of their haunts?" said Aram.
+
+"Sometimes: but they sleep the other side of the Devil's Crag to-night.
+Nothing like a change of quarters for longevity--eh?"
+
+"And they easily spare you."
+
+"Yes, if it be only on rare occasions, and on the plea of family
+business. Now then, your hand, as before. Jesu! how it rains--lightning
+too--I could look with less fear on a naked sword, than those red,
+forked, blinding flashes--Hark! thunder."
+
+The night had now, indeed, suddenly changed its aspect; the rain
+descended in torrents, even more impetuously than on the former night,
+while the thunder burst over their very heads, as they wound upward
+through the brake. With every instant, the lightning broke from the riven
+chasm of the blackness that seemed suspended as in a solid substance
+above, brightened the whole heaven into one livid and terrific flame, and
+showed to the two men the faces of each other, rendered deathlike and
+ghastly by the glare. Houseman was evidently affected by the fear that
+sometimes seizes even the sturdiest criminals, when exposed to those more
+fearful phenomena of the Heavens, which seem to humble into nothing the
+power and the wrath of man. His teeth chattered, and he muttered broken
+words about the peril of wandering near trees when the lightning was of
+that forked character, accelerating his pace at every sentence, and
+sometimes interrupting himself with an ejaculation, half oath, half
+prayer, or a congratulation that the rain at least diminished the danger.
+They soon cleared the thicket, and a few minutes brought them once more
+to the banks of the stream, and the increased roar of the cataract. No
+earthly scene perhaps could surpass the appalling sublimity of that which
+they beheld;--every instant the lightning, which became more and more
+frequent, converting the black waters into billows of living fire, or
+wreathing itself in lurid spires around the huge crag that now rose in
+sight; and again, as the thunder rolled onward, darting its vain fury
+upon the rushing cataract, and the tortured breast of the gulf that raved
+below low. And the sounds that filled the air were even more fraught with
+terror and menace than the scene;--the waving, the groans, the crash of
+the pines on the hill, the impetuous force of the rain upon the whirling
+river, and the everlasting roar of the cataract, answered anon by the yet
+more aweful voice that burst above it from the clouds.
+
+They halted while yet sufficiently distant from the cataract to be heard
+by each other. "My path," said Aram, as the lightning now paused upon the
+scene, and seemed literally to wrap in a lurid shroud the dark figure of
+the Student, as he stood, with his hand calmly raised, and his cheek
+pale, but dauntless and composed; "My path now lies yonder: in a week we
+shall meet again."
+
+"By the fiend," said Houseman, shuddering, "I would not, for a full
+hundred, ride alone through the moor you will pass. There stands a gibbet
+by the road, on which a parricide was hanged in chains. Pray Heaven this
+night be no omen of the success of our present compact!"
+
+"A steady heart, Houseman," answered Aram, striking into the separate
+path, "is its own omen."
+
+The Student soon gained the spot in which he had left his horse; the
+animal had not attempted to break the bridle, but stood trembling from
+limb to limb, and testified by a quick short neigh the satisfaction with
+which it hailed the approach of its master, and found itself no longer
+alone.
+
+Aram remounted, and hastened once more into the main road. He scarcely
+felt the rain, though the fierce wind drove it right against his path; he
+scarcely marked the lightning, though at times it seemed to dart its
+arrows on his very form; his heart was absorbed in the success of his
+schemes.
+
+"Let the storm without howl on," thought he, "that within hath a respite
+at last. Amidst the winds and rains I can breathe more freely than I have
+done on the smoothest summer day. By the charm of a deeper mind and a
+subtler tongue, I have then conquered this desperate foe; I have silenced
+this inveterate spy: and, Heaven be praised, he too has human ties; and
+by those ties I hold him! Now, then, I hasten to London--I arrange this
+annuity--see that the law tightens every cord of the compact; and when
+all is done, and this dangerous man fairly departed on his exile, I
+return to Madeline, and devote to her a life no longer the vassal of
+accident and the hour: but I have been taught caution. Secure as my own
+prudence may have made me from farther apprehension of Houseman, I will
+yet place myself wholly beyond his power: I will still consummate my
+former purpose, adopt a new name, and seek a new retreat; Madeline may
+not know the real cause; but this brain is not barren of excuse. Ah!" as
+drawing his cloak closer round him, he felt the purse hid within his
+breast which contained the order he had obtained from Lester; "Ah! this
+will now add its quota to purchase, not a momentary relief, but the
+stipend of perpetual silence. I have passed through the ordeal easier
+than I had hoped for. Had the devil at his heart been more difficult to
+lay, so necessary is his absence, that I must have purchased it at any
+cost. Courage, Eugene Aram! thy mind, for which thou hast lived, and for
+which thou hast hazarded thy soul--if soul and mind be distinct from each
+other--thy mind can support thee yet through every peril: not till thou
+art stricken into idiotcy, shalt thou behold thyself defenceless. How
+cheerfully," muttered he, after a momentary pause, "how cheerfully, for
+safety, and to breathe with a quiet heart, the air of Madeline's
+presence, shall I rid myself of all save enough to defy want. And want
+can never now come to me, as of old. He who knows the sources of every
+science from which wealth is wrought holds even wealth at his will."
+
+Breaking at every interval into these soliloquies, Aram continued to
+breast the storm until he had won half his journey, and had come upon a
+long and bleak moor, which was the entrance to that beautiful line of
+country in which the valleys around Grassdale are embosomed: faster and
+faster came the rain; and though the thunder-clouds were now behind, they
+yet followed loweringly, in their black array, the path of the lonely
+horseman.
+
+But now he heard the sound of hoofs making towards him; he drew his horse
+on one side of the road, and at that instant a broad flash of lightning
+illumining the space around, he beheld four horsemen speeding along at a
+rapid gallop; they were armed, and conversing loudly--their oaths were
+heard jarringly and distinctly amidst all the more solemn and terrific
+sounds of the night. They came on, sweeping by the Student, whose hand
+was on his pistol, for he recognised in one of the riders the man who had
+escaped unwounded from Lester's house. He and his comrades were
+evidently, then, Houseman's desperate associates; and they too, though
+they were borne too rapidly by Aram to be able to rein in their horses on
+the spot, had seen the solitary traveller, and already wheeled round, and
+called upon him to halt!
+
+The lightning was again gone, and the darkness snatched the robbers and
+their intended victim from the sight of each other. But Aram had not lost
+a moment; fast fled his horse across the moor, and when, with the next
+flash, he looked back, he saw the ruffians, unwilling even for booty to
+encounter the horrors of the night, had followed him but a few paces, and
+again turned round; still he dashed on, and had now nearly passed the
+moor; the thunder rolled fainter and fainter from behind, and the
+lightning only broke forth at prolonged intervals, when suddenly, after a
+pause of unusual duration, it brought the whole scene into a light, if
+less intolerable, even more livid than before. The horse, that had
+hitherto sped on without start or stumble, now recoiled in abrupt
+affright; and the horseman, looking up at the cause, beheld the Gibbet of
+which Houseman had spoken immediately fronting his path, with its ghastly
+tenant waving to and fro, as the winds rattled through the parched and
+arid bones; and the inexpressible grin of the skull fixed, as in mockery,
+upon his countenance.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE ARAM, BOOK 3, BY LYTTON ***
+
+********* This file should be named 7611.txt or 7611.zip **********
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