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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Eugene Aram, Book 4, by Bulwer-Lytton
+#40 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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+
+Title: Eugene Aram, Book 4.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7612]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 29, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE ARAM, BOOK 4, BY LYTTON ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+                             EUGENE ARAM
+
+                       By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+
+
+                               BOOK IV.
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+        IN WHICH WE RETURN TO WALTER.--HIS DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO
+            MR. PERTINAX FILLGRAVE.--THE CORPORAL'S ADVICE,
+                      AND THE CORPORAL'S VICTORY.
+
+                Let a Physician be ever so excellent,
+                there will be those that censure him.
+                         --Gil Blas.
+
+We left Walter in a situation of that critical nature, that it would be
+inhuman to delay our return to him any longer. The blow by which he had
+been felled, stunned him for an instant; but his frame was of no common
+strength and hardihood, and the imminent peril in which he was placed,
+served to recall him from the momentary insensibility. On recovering
+himself, he felt that the ruffians were dragging him towards the hedge,
+and the thought flashed upon him that their object was murder. Nerved by
+this idea, he collected his strength, and suddenly wresting himself from
+the grasp of one of the ruffians who had seized him by the collar, he had
+already gained his knee, and now his feet, when a second blow once more
+deprived him of sense.
+
+When a dim and struggling consciousness recurred to him; he found that
+the villains had dragged him to the opposite side of the hedge and were
+deliberately robbing him. He was on the point of renewing an useless and
+dangerous struggle, when one of the ruffians said, "I think he stirs, I
+had better draw my knife across his throat."
+
+"Pooh, no!" replied another voice, "never kill if it can be helped: trust
+me 'tis an ugly thing to think of afterwards. Besides, what use is it? A
+robbery, in these parts, is done and forgotten; but a murder rouses the
+whole country."
+
+"Damnation, man! why, the deed's done already, he's as dead as a door-
+nail."
+
+"Dead!" said the other in a startled voice; "no, no!" and leaning down,
+the ruffian placed his hand on Walter's heart. The unfortunate traveller
+felt his flesh creep as the hand touched him, but prudently abstained
+from motion or exclamation. He thought, however, as with dizzy and half-
+shut eyes he caught the shadowy and dusk outline of the face that bent
+over him, so closely that he felt the breath of its lips, that it was one
+that he had seen before; and as the man now rose, and the wan light of
+the skies gave a somewhat clearer view of his features, the supposition
+was heightened, though not absolutely confirmed. But Walter had no
+farther power to observe his plunderers: again his brain reeled; the dark
+trees, the grim shadows of human forms, swam before his glazing eye; and
+he sunk once more into a profound insensibility.
+
+Meanwhile, the doughty Corporal had at the first sight of his master's
+fall, halted abruptly at the spot to which his steed had carried him; and
+coming rapidly to the conclusion that three men were best encountered at
+a distance, he fired his two pistols, and without staying to see if they
+took effect, which, indeed, they did not, galloped down the precipitous
+hill with as much despatch, as if it had been the last stage to "Lunnun."
+
+"My poor young master!" muttered he: "But if the worst comes to the
+worst, the chief part of the money's in the saddle-bags any how; and so,
+messieurs thieves, you're bit--baugh!"
+
+The Corporal was not long in reaching the town, and alarming the loungers
+at the inn-door. A posse comitatus was soon formed; and, armed as if they
+were to have encountered all the robbers between Hounslow and the
+Apennine, a band of heroes, with the Corporal, who had first deliberately
+reloaded his pistols, at their head, set off to succour "the poor
+gentleman what was already murdered."
+
+They had not got far before they found Walter's horse, which had luckily
+broke from the robbers, and was now quietly regaling himself on a patch
+of grass by the roadside. "He can get his supper, the beast," grunted the
+Corporal, thinking of his own; and bid one of the party try to catch the
+animal, which, however, would have declined all such proffers, had not a
+long neigh of recognition from the roman nose of the Corporal's steed,
+striking familiarly on the straggler's ear, called it forthwith, to the
+Corporal's side; and (while the two chargers exchanged greeting) the
+Corporal seized its rein.
+
+When they came to the spot from which the robbers had made their sally,
+all was still and tranquil; no Walter was to be seen: the Corporal
+cautiously dismounted, and searched about with as much minuteness as if
+he were looking for a pin; but the host of the inn at which the
+travellers had dined the day before, stumbled at once on the right track.
+Gouts of blood on the white chalky soil directed him to the hedge, and
+creeping through a small and recent gap, he discovered the yet breathing
+body of the young traveller.
+
+Walter was now conducted with much care to the inn; a Surgeon was already
+in attendance; for having heard that a gentleman had been murdered
+without his knowledge, Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave had rushed from his house,
+and placed himself on the road, that the poor creature might not, at
+least, be buried without his assistance. So eager was he to begin, that
+he scarce suffered the unfortunate Walter to be taken within, before he
+whipped out his instruments, and set to work with the smack of an
+amateur.
+
+Although the Surgeon declared his patient to be in the greatest possible
+danger, the sagacious Corporal, who thought himself more privileged to
+know about wounds than any man of peace, by profession, however
+destructive by practice, could possibly be, had himself examined those
+his master had received, before he went down to taste his long-delayed
+supper; and he now confidently assured the landlord, and the rest of the
+good company in the kitchen, that the blows on the head had been mere
+fly-bites, and that his master would be as well as ever in a week at the
+farthest.
+
+And, indeed, when Walter the very next morning woke from the stupor,
+rather than sleep, he had undergone, he felt himself surprisingly better
+than the Surgeon, producing his probe, hastened to assure him he possibly
+could be.
+
+By the help of Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, Walter was detained several days
+in the town; nor is it wholly improbable, but that for the dexterity of
+the Corporal, he might be in the town to this day; not, indeed in the
+comfortable shelter of the old-fashioned inn, but in the colder quarters
+of a certain green spot, in which, despite of its rural attractions, few
+persons are willing to fix a permanent habitation.
+
+Luckily, however, one evening, the Corporal, who had been, to say truth,
+very regular in his attendance on his master; for, bating the
+selfishness, consequent, perhaps, on his knowledge of the world, Jacob
+Bunting was a good-natured man on the whole, and liked his master as well
+as he did any thing, always excepting Jacobina, and board-wages; one
+evening, we say, the Corporal coming into Walter's apartment, found him
+sitting up in his bed, with a very melancholy and dejected expression of
+countenance.
+
+"And well, Sir, what does the Doctor say?" asked the Corporal, drawing
+aside the curtains.
+
+"Ah, Bunting, I fancy it's all over with me!"
+
+"The Lord forbid, Sir! you're a-jesting, surely?"
+
+"Jesting! my good fellow, ah! just get me that phial."
+
+"The filthy stuff!" said the Corporal, with a wry face; "Well, Sir, if I
+had had the dressing of you--been half way to Yorkshire by this. Man's a
+worm; and when a doctor gets un on his hook, he is sure to angle for the
+devil with the bait--augh!"
+
+"What! you really think that damned fellow, Fillgrave, is keeping me on
+in this way?"
+
+"Is he a fool, to give up three phials a day, 4s. 6d. item, ditto,
+ditto?" cried the Corporal, as if astonished at the question; "but don't
+you feel yourself getting a deal better every day? Don't you feel all
+this ere stuff revive you?"
+
+No, indeed, I was amazingly better the first day than I am now; I
+progress from worse to worse. Ah! Bunting, if Peter Dealtry were here, he
+might help me to an appropriate epitaph: as it is, I suppose I shall be
+very simply labelled. Fillgrave will do the whole business, and put it
+down in his bill--item, nine draughts--item, one epitaph.
+
+"Lord-a-mercy, your honour," said the Corporal, drawing out a little red-
+spotted pocket-handkerchief; "how can--jest so?--it's quite moving."
+
+"I wish we were moving!" sighed the patient.
+
+"And so we might be," cried the Corporal; "so we might, if you'd pluck up
+a bit. Just let me look at your honour's head; I knows what a confusion
+is better nor any of 'em."
+
+The Corporal having obtained permission, now removed the bandages
+wherewith the Doctor had bound his intended sacrifice to Pluto, and after
+peering into the wounds for about a minute, he thrust out his under lip,
+with a contemptuous, "Pshaugh! augh! And how long," said he, "does Master
+Fillgrave say you be to be under his hands,--augh!"
+
+"He gives me hopes that I may be taken out an airing very gently, (yes,
+hearses always go very gently!) in about three weeks!"
+
+The Corporal started, and broke into a long whistle. He then grinned from
+ear to ear, snapped his fingers, and said, "Man of the world, Sir,--man
+of the world every inch of him!"
+
+"He seems resolved that I shall be a man of another world," said Walter.
+
+"Tell ye what, Sir--take my advice--your honour knows I be no fool--throw
+off them ere wrappers; let me put on scrap of plaister--pitch phials to
+devil--order out horses to-morrow, and when you've been in the air half
+an hour, won't know yourself again!"
+
+"Bunting! the horses out to-morrow?--faith, I don't think I could walk
+across the room."
+
+"Just try, your honour."
+
+"Ah! I'm very weak, very weak--my dressing-gown and slippers--your arm,
+Bunting--well, upon my honour, I walk very stoutly, eh? I should not have
+thought this! leave go: why I really get on without your assistance!"
+
+"Walk as well as ever you did."
+
+"Now I'm out of bed, I don't think I shall go back again to it."
+
+"Would not, if I was your honour."
+
+"And after so much exercise, I really fancy I've a sort of an appetite."
+
+"Like a beefsteak?"
+
+"Nothing better."
+
+"Pint of wine?"
+
+"Why that would be too much--eh?"
+
+"Not it."
+
+"Go, then, my good Bunting; go and make haste--stop, I say that d--d
+fellow--" "Good sign to swear," interrupted the Corporal; "swore twice
+within last five minutes--famous symptom!"
+
+"Do you choose to hear me? That d--d fellow, Fillgrave, is coming back in
+an hour to bleed me: do you mount guard--refuse to let him in--pay him
+his bill--you have the money. And harkye, don't be rude to the rascal."
+
+"Rude, your honour! not I--been in the Forty-second--knows discipline--
+only rude to the privates!"
+
+The Corporal, having seen his master conduct himself respectably toward
+the viands with which he supplied him--having set his room to rights,
+brought him the candles, borrowed him a book, and left him for the
+present in extremely good spirits, and prepared for the flight of the
+morrow; the Corporal, I say, now lighting his pipe, stationed himself at
+the door of the inn, and waited for Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave. Presently the
+Doctor, who was a little thin man, came bustling across the street, and
+was about, with a familiar "Good evening," to pass by the Corporal, when
+that worthy, dropping his pipe, said respectfully, "Beg pardon, Sir--want
+to speak to you--a little favour. Will your honour walk in the back-
+parlour?"
+
+"Oh! another patient," thought the Doctor; "these soldiers are careless
+fellows--often get into scrapes. Yes, friend, I'm at your service."
+
+The Corporal showed the man of phials into the back-parlour, and, hemming
+thrice, looked sheepish, as if in doubt how to begin. It was the Doctor's
+business to encourage the bashful.
+
+"Well, my good man," said he, brushing off, with the arm of his coat,
+some dust that had settled on his inexpressibles, "so you want to consult
+me?"
+
+"Indeed, your honour, I do; but--feel a little awkward in doing so--a
+stranger and all."
+
+"Pooh!--medical men are never strangers. I am the friend of every man who
+requires my assistance."
+
+"Augh!--and I do require your honour's assistance very sadly."
+
+"Well--well--speak out. Any thing of long standing?"
+
+"Why, only since we have been here, Sir."
+
+"Oh, that's all! Well."
+
+"Your honour's so good--that--won't scruple in telling you all. You sees
+as how we were robbed--master at least was--had some little in my
+pockets--but we poor servants are never too rich. You seems such a kind
+gentleman--so attentive to master--though you must have felt how
+disinterested it was to 'tend a man what had been robbed--that I have no
+hesitation in making bold to ask you to lend us a few guineas, just to
+help us out with the bill here,--bother!"
+
+"Fellow!" said the Doctor, rising, "I don't know what you mean; but I'd
+have you to learn that I am not to be cheated out of my time and
+property. I shall insist upon being paid my bill instantly, before I
+dress your master's wound once more."
+
+"Augh!" said the Corporal, who was delighted to find the Doctor come so
+immediately into the snare;--"won't be so cruel surely,--why, you'll
+leave us without a shiner to pay my host here."
+
+"Nonsense!--Your master, if he's a gentleman, can write home for money."
+
+"Ah, Sir, all very well to say so;--but, between you and me and the bed-
+post--young master's quarrelled with old master--old master won't give
+him a rap,--so I'm sure, since your honour's a friend to every man who
+requires your assistance--noble saying, Sir!--you won't refuse us a few
+guineas;--and as for your bill--why--" "Sir, you're an impudent
+vagabond!" cried the Doctor, as red as a rose-draught, and flinging out
+of the room; "and I warn you, that I shall bring in my bill, and expect
+to be paid within ten minutes."
+
+The Doctor waited for no answer--he hurried home, scratched off his
+account, and flew back with it in as much haste as if his patient had
+been a month longer under his care, and was consequently on the brink of
+that happier world, where, since the inhabitants are immortal, it is very
+evident that doctors, as being useless, are never admitted.
+
+The Corporal met him as before.
+
+"There, Sir," cried the Doctor, breathlessly, and then putting his arms
+akimbo, "take that to your master, and desire him to pay me instantly."
+
+"Augh! and shall do no such thing."
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"No, for shall pay you myself. Where's your wee stamp--eh?"
+
+And with great composure the Corporal drew out a well-filled purse, and
+discharged the bill. The Doctor was so thunderstricken, that he pocketed
+the money without uttering a word. He consoled himself, however, with the
+belief that Walter, whom he had tamed into a becoming hypochondria, would
+be sure to send for him the next morning. Alas, for mortal expectations!
+--the next morning Walter was once more on the road.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+       NEW TRACES OF THE FATE OF GEOFFREY LESTER.--WALTER AND THE
+        CORPORAL PROCEED ON A FRESH EXPEDITION.--THE CORPORAL IS
+        ESPECIALLY SAGACIOUS ON THE OLD TOPIC OF THE WORLD.--HIS
+       OPINIONS ON THE MEN WHO CLAIM 'KNOWLEDGE THEREOF.--ON THE
+      ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY A VALET.--ON THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESSFUL
+      LOVE.--ON VIRTUE AND THE CONSTITUTION.--ON QUALITIES TO BE
+                  DESIRED IN A MISTRESS,--A LANDSCAPE.
+
+                This way of talking of his very much enlivens the
+                conversation among us of a more sedate turn.
+                         --Spectator, No. 3.
+
+Walter found, while he made search himself, that it was no easy matter,
+in so large a county as Yorkshire, to obtain even the preliminary
+particulars, viz. the place of residence, and the name of the Colonel
+from India whose dying gift his father had left the house of the worthy
+Courtland, to claim and receive. But the moment he committed the inquiry
+to the care of an active and intelligent lawyer, the case seemed to
+brighten up prodigiously; and Walter was shortly informed that a Colonel
+Elmore, who had been in India, had died in the year 17--; that by a
+reference to his will it appeared that he had left to Daniel Clarke the
+sum of a thousand pounds, and the house in which he resided before his
+death, the latter being merely leasehold at a high rent, was specified in
+the will to be of small value: it was situated in the outskirts of
+Knaresborough. It was also discovered that a Mr. Jonas Elmore, the only
+surviving executor of the will, and a distant relation of the deceased
+Colonel's, lived about fifty miles from York, and could, in all
+probability, better than any one, afford Walter those farther particulars
+of which he was so desirous to be informed. Walter immediately proposed
+to his lawyer to accompany him to this gentleman's house; but it so
+happened that the lawyer could not, for three or four days, leave his
+business at York, and Walter, exceedingly impatient to proceed on the
+intelligence thus granted him, and disliking the meagre information
+obtained from letters, when a personal interview could be obtained,
+resolved himself to repair to Mr. Jonas Elmore's without farther delay;
+and behold, therefore, our worthy Corporal and his master again mounted,
+and commencing a new journey.
+
+The Corporal, always fond of adventure, was in high spirits.
+
+"See, Sir," said he to his master, patting with great affection the neck
+of his steed, "See, Sir, how brisk the creturs are; what a deal of good
+their long rest at York city's done'em. Ah, your honour, what a fine town
+that ere be!--yet," added the Corporal, with an air of great superiority,
+"it gives you no notion of Lunnun, like--on the faith of a man, no!"
+
+"Well, Bunting, perhaps we may be in London within a month hence."
+
+"And afore we gets there, your honour,--no offence,--but should like to
+give you some advice; 'tis ticklish place, that Lunnun, and though you be
+by no manner of means deficient in genus, yet, Sir, you be young, and I
+be--" "Old,--true, Bunting," added Walter very gravely.
+
+"Augh--bother! old, Sir, old, Sir!--A man in the prime of life,--hair
+coal black, (bating a few grey ones that have had, since twenty--care,
+and military service, Sir,)--carriage straight,--teeth strong,--not an
+ail in the world, bating the rheumatics--is not old, Sir,--not by no
+manner of means,--baugh!"
+
+"You are very right, Bunting; when I said old, I meant experienced. I
+assure you I shall be very grateful for your advice; and suppose, while
+we walk our horses up this hill, you begin lecture the first. London's a
+fruitful subject. All you can say on it won't be soon exhausted."
+
+"Ah, may well say that," replied the Corporal, exceedingly flattered with
+the permission he had obtained, "and any thing my poor wit can suggest,
+quite at your honour's sarvice--ehem!--hem! You must know by Lunnun, I
+means the world, and by the world means Lunnun,--know one--know t'other.
+But 'tis not them as affects to be most knowing as be so at bottom.
+Begging your honour's pardon, I thinks gentlefolks what lives only with
+gentlefolks, and call themselves men of the world, be often no wiser nor
+Pagan creturs, and live in a gentile darkness."
+
+"The true knowledge of the world," said Walter, "is only then for the
+Corporals of the Forty-second,--eh, Bunting?"
+
+"As to that, Sir," quoth the Corporal, "'tis not being of this calling or
+of that calling that helps one on; 'tis an inborn sort of genus the
+talent of obsarving, and growing wise by obsarving. One picks up crumb
+here, crumb there: but if one has not good digestion, Lord, what
+sinnifies a feast?--Healthy man thrives on a 'tatoe, sickly looks pale on
+a haunch. You sees, your honour, as I said afore, I was own sarvant to
+Colonel Dysart; he was a Lord's nephy, a very gay gentleman, and great
+hand with the ladies,--not a man more in the world;--so I had the
+opportunity of larning what's what among the best set; at his honour's
+expense, too,--augh! To my mind, Sir, there is not a place from which a
+man has a better view of things than the bit carpet behind a gentleman's
+chair. The gentleman eats, and talks, and swears, and jests, and plays
+cards and makes love, and tries to cheat, and is cheated, and his man
+stands behind with his eyes and ears open,--augh!"
+
+"One should go to service to learn diplomacy, I see," said Walter,
+greatly amused.
+
+"Does not know what 'plomacy be, Sir, but knows it would be better for
+many a young master nor all the Colleges;--would not be so many bubbles
+if my Lord could take a turn now and then with John. A-well, Sir!--how I
+used to laugh in my sleeve like, when I saw my master, who was thought
+the knowingest gentleman about Court, taken in every day smack afore my
+face. There was one lady whom he had tried hard, as he thought, to get
+away from her husband; and he used to be so mighty pleased at every
+glance from her brown eyes--and be d--d to them!--and so careful the
+husband should not see--so pluming himself on his discretion here, and
+his conquest there,--when, Lord bless you, it was all settled 'twixt man
+and wife aforehand! And while the Colonel laughed at the cuckold, the
+cuckold laughed at the dupe. For you sees, Sir, as how the Colonel was a
+rich man, and the jewels as he bought for the lady went half into the
+husband's pocket--he! he!--That's the way of the world, Sir,--that's the
+way of the world!"
+
+"Upon my word, you draw a very bad picture of the world: you colour
+highly; and, by the way, I observe that whenever you find any man
+committing a roguish action, instead of calling him a scoundrel, you show
+those great teeth of yours, and chuckle out 'A man of the world! a man of
+the world!"'
+
+"To be sure, your honour; the proper name, too. 'Tis your green-horns who
+fly into a passion, and use hard words. You see, Sir, there's one thing
+we larn afore all other things in the world--to butter bread. Knowledge
+of others, means only the knowledge which side bread's buttered. In
+short, Sir, the wiser grow, the more take care of oursels. Some persons
+make a mistake, and, in trying to take care of themsels, run neck into
+halter--baugh! they are not rascals--they are would-be men of the world.
+Others be more prudent, (for, as I said afore, Sir, discretion is a pair
+of stirrups;) they be the true men of the world."
+
+"I should have thought," said Walter, "that the knowledge of the world
+might be that knowledge which preserves us from being cheated, but not
+that which enables us to cheat."
+
+"Augh!" quoth the Corporal, with that sort of smile with which you see an
+old philosopher put down a sounding error from the lips of a young
+disciple who flatters himself he has uttered something prodigiously
+fine,--"Augh! and did not I tell you, t'other day, to look at the
+professions, your honour? What would a laryer be if he did not know how
+to cheat a witness and humbug a jury?--knows he is lying,--why is he
+lying? for love of his fees, or his fame like, which gets fees;--Augh! is
+not that cheating others?--The doctor, too, Master Fillgrave, for
+instance?--" "Say no more of doctors; I abandon them to your satire,
+without a word."
+
+"The lying knaves! Don't they say one's well when one's ill--ill when
+one's well?--profess to know what don't know?--thrust solemn phizzes into
+every abomination, as if larning lay hid in a--? and all for their
+neighbours' money, or their own reputation, which makes money--augh! In
+short, Sir--look where will, impossible to see so much cheating allowed,
+praised, encouraged, and feel very angry with a cheat who has only made a
+mistake. But when I sees a man butter his bread carefully--knife steady--
+butter thick, and hungry fellows looking on and licking chops--mothers
+stopping their brats--'See, child--respectable man--how thick his
+bread's buttered!--pull off your hat to him:'--When I sees that, my heart
+warms: there's the true man of the world--augh!"
+
+"Well, Bunting," said Walter, laughing, "though you are thus lenient to
+those unfortunate gentlemen whom others call rogues, and thus laudatory
+of gentlemen who are at best discreetly selfish, I suppose you admit the
+possibility of virtue, and your heart warms as much when you see a man of
+worth as when you see a man of the world?"
+
+"Why, you knows, your honour," answered the Corporal, "so far as vartue's
+concerned, there's a deal in constitution; but as for knowledge of the
+world, one gets it oneself!"
+
+"I don't wonder, Bunting--as your opinion of women is much the same as
+your opinion of men--that you are still unmarried."
+
+"Augh! but your honour mistakes!--I am no mice-and-trope. Men are neither
+one thing nor t'other--neither good nor bad. A prudent parson has nothing
+to fear from 'em--nor a foolish one any thing to gain--baugh! As to the
+women creturs, your honour, as I said, vartue's a deal in the
+constitution. Would not ask what a lassie's mind be--nor what her
+eddycation;--but see what her habits be, that's all--habits and
+constitution all one--play into one another's hands."
+
+"And what sort of signs, Bunting, would you mostly esteem in a lady?"
+
+"First place, Sir--woman I'd marry, must not mope when alone!--must be
+able to 'muse herself; must be easily 'mused. That's a great sign, Sir,
+of an innocent mind, to be tickled with straws. Besides, employments
+keeps 'em out of harm's way. Second place, should obsarve, if she was
+very fond of places, your honour--sorry to move--that's a sure sign she
+won't tire easily; but that if she like you now from fancy, she'll like
+you by and by from custom. Thirdly, your honour, she should not be avarse
+to dress--a leaning that way shows she has a desire to please: people who
+don't care about pleasing, always sullen. Fourthly, she must bear to be
+crossed--I'd be quite sure that she might be contradicted, without
+mumping or storming;--'cause then, you knows, your honour, if she wanted
+any thing expensive--need not give it--augh! Fifthly, must not be over
+religious, your honour; they pyehouse she-creturs always thinks themsels
+so much better nor we men;--don't understand our language and ways, your
+honour: they wants us not only to belave, but to tremble--bother!"
+
+"I like your description well enough, on the whole," said Walter, "and
+when I look out for a wife, I shall come to you for advice."
+
+"Your honour may have it already--Miss Ellinor's jist the thing."
+
+Walter turned away his head, and told Bunting, with great show of
+indignation, not to be a fool.
+
+The Corporal, who was not quite certain of his ground here, but who knew
+that Madeline, at all events, was going to be married to Aram, and deemed
+it, therefore, quite useless to waste any praise upon her, thought that a
+few random shots of eulogium were worth throwing away on a chance, and
+consequently continued.
+
+"Augh, your honour--'tis not 'cause I have eyes, that I be's a fool. Miss
+Ellinor and your honour be only cousins, to be sure; but more like
+brother and sister, nor any thing else. Howsomever, she's a rare cretur,
+whoever gets her. has a face that puts one in good-humour with the world,
+if one sees it first thing in the morning--'tis as good as the sun in
+July--augh! But, as I was saying, your honour--'bout the women-creturs in
+general--" "Enough of them, Bunting; let us suppose you have been so
+fortunate as to find one to suit you--how would you woo her? Of course,
+there are certain secrets of courtship, which you will not hesitate to
+impart to one, who, like me, wants such assistance from art--much more
+than you can do, who are so bountifully favoured by Nature."
+
+"As to Nature," replied the Corporal, with considerable modesty, for he
+never disputed the truth of the compliment--"'tis not 'cause a man be six
+feet without's shoes, that he's any nearer to lady's heart. Sir, I will
+own to you, howsomever it makes 'gainst your honour and myself, for that
+matter--that don't think one is a bit more lucky with the ladies for
+being so handsome! 'Tis all very well with them ere willing ones, your
+honour--caught at a glance; but as for the better sort, one's beauty's
+all bother! Why, Sir, when we see some of the most fortunatest men among
+she-creturs--what poor little minnikens they be! One's a dwarf--another
+knock-kneed--a third squints--and a fourth might be shown for a hape!
+Neither, Sir, is it your soft, insinivating, die-away youths, as seem at
+first so seductive; they do very well for lovers, your honour; but then
+it's always rejected ones! Neither, your honour, does the art of
+succeeding with the ladies 'quire all those finniken, nimini-pinimi's,
+flourishes, and maxims, and saws, which the Colonel, my old master, and
+the great gentlefolks, as be knowing, call the art of love--baugh! The
+whole science, Sir, consists in these two rules--'Ask soon, and ask
+often.'"
+
+"There seems no great difficulty in them, Bunting."
+
+"Not to us who has gumption, Sir; but then there is summut in the manner
+of axing--one can't be too hot--can't flatter too much--and, above all,
+one must never take a refusal. There, Sir, now--if you takes my advice--
+may break the peace of all the husbands in Lunnun--bother--whaugh!"
+
+"My uncle little knows what a praiseworthy tutor he has secured me in
+you, Bunting," said Walter, laughing: "And now, while the road is so
+good, let us make the most of it."
+
+As they had set out late in the day, and the Corporal was fearful of
+another attack from a hedge, he resolved, that about evening, one of the
+horses should be seized with a sudden lameness, (which he effected by
+slily inserting a stone between the shoe and the hoof,) that required
+immediate attention and a night's rest; so that it was not till the early
+noon of the next day that our travellers entered the village in which Mr.
+Jonas Elmore resided.
+
+It was a soft, tranquil day, though one of the very last in October; for
+the reader will remember that Time had not stood still during Walter's
+submission to the care of Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, and his subsequent
+journey and researches.
+
+The sun-light rested on a broad patch of green heath, covered with furze,
+and around it were scattered the cottages and farm-houses of the little
+village. On the other side, as Walter descended the gentle hill that led
+into this remote hamlet, wide and flat meadows, interspersed with several
+fresh and shaded ponds, stretched away towards a belt of rich woodland
+gorgeous with the melancholy pomp by which the "regal year" seeks to veil
+its decay. Among these meadows you might now see groups of cattle quietly
+grazing, or standing half hid in the still and sheltered pools. Still
+farther, crossing to the woods, a solitary sportsman walked careless on,
+surrounded by some half a dozen spaniels, and the shrill small tongue of
+one younger straggler of the canine crew, who had broke indecorously from
+the rest, and already entered the wood, might be just heard, softened
+down by the distance, into a wild, cheery sound, that animated, without
+disturbing, the serenity of the scene.
+
+"After all," said Walter aloud, "the scholar was right--there is nothing
+like the country!"
+
+              "'Oh, happiness of sweet retired content,
+                To be at once secure and innocent!'"
+
+"Be them Verses in the Psalms, Sir?" said the Corporal, who was close
+behind.
+
+"No, Bunting; but they were written by one who, if I recollect right, set
+the Psalms to verse:--[Denham.] I hope they meet with your approbation?"
+
+"Indeed, Sir, and no--since they ben't in the Psalms, one has no right to
+think about 'em at all."
+
+"And why, Mr. Critic?"
+
+"'Cause what's the use of security, if one's innocent, and does not mean
+to take advantage of it--baugh! One does not lock the door for nothing,
+your honour!"
+
+"You shall enlarge on that honest doctrine of yours another time;
+meanwhile, call that shepherd, and ask the way to Mr. Elmore's."
+
+The Corporal obeyed, and found that a clump of trees, at the farther
+corner of the waste land, was the grove that surrounded Mr. Elmore's
+house; a short canter across the heath brought them to a white gate, and
+having passed this, a comfortable brick mansion of moderate size stood
+before them.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+        A SCHOLAR, BUT OF A DIFFERENT MOULD FROM THE STUDENT OF
+      GRASSDALE.--NEW PARTICULARS CONCERNING GEOFFREY LESTER.--THE
+                          JOURNEY RECOMMENCED.
+
+Upon inquiring for Mr. Elmore, Walter was shown into a handsome
+library, that appeared well-stocked with books, of that good, old-
+fashioned size and solidity, which are now fast passing from the world,
+or at least shrinking into old shops and public collections. The time may
+come, when the mouldering remains of a folio will attract as much
+philosophical astonishment as the bones of the mammoth. For behold, the
+deluge of writers hath produced a new world of small octavo! and in the
+next generation, thanks to the popular libraries, we shall only vibrate
+between the duodecimo and the diamond edition. Nay, we foresee the time
+when a very handsome collection may be carried about in one's waistcoat-
+pocket, and a whole library of the British Classics be neatly arranged in
+a well-compacted snuff-box.
+
+In a few minutes Mr. Elmore made his appearance; he was a short, well-
+built man, about the age of fifty. Contrary to the established mode, he
+wore no wig, and was very bald; except at the sides of the head, and a
+little circular island of hair in the centre. But this defect was
+rendered the less visible by a profusion of powder. He was dressed with
+evident care and precision; a snuff-coloured coat was adorned with a
+respectable profusion of gold lace; his breeches were of plum-coloured
+satin; his salmon-coloured stockings, scrupulously drawn up, displayed a
+very handsome calf; and a pair of steel buckles in his high-heeled and
+square-toed shoes, were polished into a lustre which almost rivalled the
+splendour of diamonds. Mr. Jonas Elmore was a beau, a wit, and a scholar
+of the old school. He abounded in jests, in quotations, in smart sayings,
+and pertinent anecdotes: but, withal, his classical learning, (out of the
+classics he knew little enough,) was at once elegant, but wearisome;
+pedantic, but profound.
+
+To this gentleman Walter presented a letter of introduction which he had
+obtained from a distinguished clergyman in York. Mr. Elmore received it
+with a profound salutation--"Aha, from my friend, Dr. Hebraist," said he,
+glancing at the seal, "a most worthy man, and a ripe scholar. I presume
+at once, Sir, from his introduction, that you yourself have cultivated
+the literas humaniores. Pray sit down--ay--I see, you take up a book, an
+excellent symptom; it gives me an immediate insight into your character.
+But you have chanced, Sir, on light reading,--one of the Greek novels, I
+think,--you must not judge of my studies by such a specimen."
+
+"Nevertheless, Sir, it does not seem to my unskilful eye very easy
+Greek."
+
+"Pretty well, Sir; barbarous, but amusing,--pray continue it. The
+triumphal entry of Paulus Emilius is not ill told. I confess, that I
+think novels might be made much higher works than they have been yet.
+Doubtless, you remember what Aristotle says concerning Painters and
+Sculptors, 'that they teach and recommend virtue in a more efficacious
+and powerful manner, than Philosophers by their dry precepts, and are
+more capable of amending the vicious, than the best moral lessons without
+such aid.' But how much more, Sir, can a good novelist do this, than the
+best sculptor or painter in the world! Every one can be charmed by a fine
+novel, few by a fine painting. 'Indocti rationem artis intelligunt,
+indocti voluptatem.' A happy sentence that in Quinctilian, Sir, is it
+not? But, bless me, I am forgetting the letter of my good friend Dr.
+Hebraist. The charms of your conversation carry me away. And indeed I
+have seldom the happiness to meet a gentleman so well-informed as
+yourself. I confess, Sir, I confess that I still retain the tastes of my
+boyhood; the Muses cradled my childhood, they now smooth the pillow of my
+footstool--Quem tu, Melpomene, are not yet subject to gout, dira podagra:
+By the way, how is the worthy Doctor since his attack?--Ah, see now, if
+you have not still, by your delightful converse, kept me from his letter-
+-yet, positively I need no introduction to you, Apollo has already
+presented you to me. And as for the Doctor's letter, I will read it after
+dinner; for as Seneca--" "I beg your pardon a thousand times, Sir," said
+Walter, who began to despair of ever coming to the matter which seemed
+lost sight of beneath this battery of erudition, "but you will find by
+Dr. Hebraist's letter, that it is only on business of the utmost
+importance that I have presumed to break in upon the learned leisure of
+Mr. Jonas Elmore."
+
+"Business!" replied Mr. Elmore, producing his spectacles, and
+deliberately placing them athwart his nose,
+
+           "'His mane edictum, post prandia Callirhoen, etc.
+
+"Business in the morning, and the ladies after dinner. Well, Sir, I will
+yield to you in the one, and you must yield to me in the other: I will
+open the letter, and you shall dine here, and be introduced to Mrs.
+Elmore;--What is your opinion of the modern method of folding letters? I-
+-but I see you are impatient." Here Mr. Elmore at length broke the seal;
+and to Walter's great joy fairly read the contents within.
+
+"Oh! I see, I see!" he said, refolding the epistle, and placing it in his
+pocket-book; "my friend, Dr. Hebraist, says you are anxious to be
+informed whether Mr. Clarke ever received the legacy of my poor cousin,
+Colonel Elmore; and if so, any tidings I can give you of Mr. Clarke
+himself; or any clue to discover him will be highly acceptable. I gather,
+Sir, from my friend's letter, that this is the substance of your business
+with me, caput negotii;--although, like Timanthes, the painter, he leaves
+more to be understood than is described, 'intelligitur plus quam
+pingitur,' as Pliny has it."
+
+"Sir," said Walter, drawing his chair close to Mr. Elmore, and his
+anxiety forcing itself to his countenance, "that is indeed the substance
+of my business with you; and so important will be any information you can
+give me that I shall esteem it a--" "Not a very great favour, eh?--not
+very great?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, a very great obligation."
+
+"I hope not, Sir; for what says Tacitus--that profound reader of the
+human heart,--'beneficia eo usque loeta sunt,' favours easily rapaid
+beget affection--favours beyond return engender hatred. But, Sir, a truce
+to trifling;" and here Mr. Elmore composed his countenance, and changed,-
+-which he could do at will, so that the change was not expected to last
+long--the pedant for the man of business.
+
+"Mr. Clarke did receive his legacy: the lease of the house at
+Knaresborough was also sold by his desire, and produced the sum of seven
+hundred and fifty pounds; which being added to the farther sum of a
+thousand pounds, which was bequeathed to him, amounted to seventeen
+hundred and fifty pounds. It so happened, that my cousin had possessed
+some very valuable jewels, which were bequeathed to myself. I, Sir,
+studious, and a cultivator of the Muse, had no love and no use for these
+baubles; I preferred barbaric gold to barbaric pearl; and knowing that
+Clarke had been in India, from whence these jewels had been brought, I
+showed them to him, and consulted his knowledge on these matters, as to
+the best method of obtaining a sale. He offered to purchase them of me,
+under the impression that he could turn them to a profitable speculation
+in London. Accordingly we came to terms: I sold the greater part of them
+to him for a sum a little exceeding a thousand pounds. He was pleased
+with his bargain; and came to borrow the rest of me, in order to look at
+them more considerately at home, and determine whether or not he should
+buy them also. Well, Sir, (but here comes the remarkable part of the
+story,) about three days after this last event, Mr. Clarke and my jewels
+both disappeared in rather a strange and abrupt manner. In the middle of
+the night he left his lodging at Knaresborough, and never returned;
+neither himself nor my jewels were ever heard of more!"
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Walter, greatly agitated; "what was supposed to be
+the cause of his disappearance?"
+
+"That," replied Elmore, "was never positively traced. It excited great
+surprise and great conjecture at the time. Advertisements and handbills
+were circulated throughout the country, but in vain. Mr. Clarke was
+evidently a man of eccentric habits, of a hasty temper, and a wandering
+manner of life; yet it is scarcely probable that he took this sudden
+manner of leaving the country either from whim or some secret but honest
+motive never divulged. The fact is, that he owed a few debts in the town-
+-that he had my jewels in his possession, and as (pardon me for saying
+this, since you take an interest in him,) his connections were entirely
+unknown in these parts, and his character not very highly estimated,--
+(whether from his manner, or his conversation, or some undefined and
+vague rumours, I cannot say)--it was considered by no means improbable
+that he had decamped with his property in this sudden manner in order to
+save himself that trouble of settling accounts which a more seemly and
+public method of departure might have rendered necessary. A man of the
+name of Houseman, with whom he was acquainted, (a resident in
+Knaresborough,) declared that Clarke had borrowed rather a considerable
+sum from him, and did not scruple openly to accuse him of the evident
+design to avoid repayment. A few more dark but utterly groundless
+conjectures were afloat; and since the closest search--the minutest
+inquiry was employed without any result, the supposition that he might
+have been robbed and murdered was strongly entertained for some time; but
+as his body was never found, nor suspicion directed against any
+particular person, these conjectures insensibly died away; and being so
+complete a stranger to these parts, the very circumstance of his
+disappearance was not likely to occupy, for very long, the attention of
+that old gossip the Public, who, even in the remotest parts, has a
+thousand topics to fill up her time and talk. And now, Sir, I think you
+know as much of the particulars of the case as any one in these parts can
+inform you."
+
+We may imagine the various sensations which this unsatisfactory
+intelligence caused in the adventurous son of the lost wanderer. He
+continued to throw out additional guesses, and to make farther inquiries
+concerning a tale which seemed to him so mysterious, but without effect;
+and he had the mortification to perceive, that the shrewd Jonas was, in
+his own mind, fully convinced that the permanent disappearance of Clark
+was accounted for only by the most dishonest motives.
+
+"And," added Elmore, I am confirmed in this belief by discovering
+afterwards from a tradesman in York who had seen my cousin's jewels--that
+those I had trusted to Mr. Clarke's hands were more valuable than I had
+imagined them, and therefore it was probably worth his while to make off
+with them as quietly as possible. He went on foot, leaving his horse, a
+sorry nag, to settle with me and the other claimants.
+
+                "I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurae!"
+
+"Heavens!" thought Walter, sinking back in his chair sickened and
+disheartened, "what a parent, if the opinions of all men who knew him be
+true, do I thus zealously seek to recover!"
+
+The good-natured Elmore, perceiving the unwelcome and painful impression
+his account had produced on his young guest, now exerted himself to
+remove, or at least to lessen it; and turning the conversation into a
+classical channel, which with him was the Lethe to all cares, he soon
+forgot that Clarke had ever existed, in expatiating on the unappreciated
+excellences of Propertius, who, to his mind, was the most tender of all
+elegiac poets, solely because he was the most learned. Fortunately this
+vein of conversation, however tedious to Walter, preserved him from the
+necessity of rejoinder, and left him to the quiet enjoyment of his own
+gloomy and restless reflections.
+
+At length the time touched upon dinner; Elmore, starting up, adjourned to
+the drawing-room, in order to present the handsome stranger to the
+placens uxor--the pleasing wife, whom, in passing through the hall, he
+eulogized with an amazing felicity of diction.
+
+The object of these praises was a tall, meagre lady, in a yellow dress
+carried up to the chin, and who added a slight squint to the charms of
+red hair, ill concealed by powder, and the dignity of a prodigiously high
+nose. "There is nothing, Sir," said Elmore, "nothing, believe me, like
+matrimonial felicity. Julia, my dear, I trust the chickens will not be
+overdone."
+
+"Indeed, Mr. Elmore, I cannot tell; I did not boil them."
+
+"Sir," said Elmore, turning to his guest, I do not know whether you will
+agree with me, but I think a slight tendency to gourmandism is absolutely
+necessary to complete the character of a truly classical mind. So many
+beautiful touches are there in the ancient poets--so many delicate
+allusions in history and in anecdote relating to the gratification of the
+palate, that if a man have no correspondent sympathy with the illustrious
+epicures of old, he is rendered incapable of enjoying the most beautiful
+passages, that--Come, Sir, the dinner is served:
+
+           "'Nutrimus lautis mollissima corpora mensis.'"
+
+As they crossed the hall to the dining-room, a young lady, whom Elmore
+hastily announced as his only daughter, appeared descending the stairs,
+having evidently retired for the purpose of re-arranging her attire for
+the conquest of the stranger. There was something in Miss Elmore that
+reminded Walter of Ellinor, and, as the likeness struck him, he felt, by
+the sudden and involuntary sigh it occasioned, how much the image of his
+cousin had lately gained ground upon his heart.
+
+Nothing of any note occurred during dinner, until the appearance of the
+second course, when Elmore, throwing himself back with an air of content,
+that signified the first edge of his appetite was blunted, observed, Sir,
+the second course I always opine to be the more dignified and rational
+part of a repast--
+
+           "'Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit.'"
+      [That which is now reason, at first was but desire.]
+
+"Ah! Mr. Elmore," said the lady, glancing towards a brace of very fine
+pigeons, "I cannot tell you how vexed I am at a mistake of the
+gardener's: you remember my poor pet pigeons, so attached to each other--
+would not mix with the rest--quite an inseparable friendship, Mr. Lester
+--well, they were killed by mistake, for a couple of vulgar pigeons. Ah!
+I could not touch a bit of them for the world."
+
+"My love," said Elmore, pausing, and with great solemnity, "hear how
+beautiful a consolation is afforded to you in Valerius Maximus:--'Ubi
+idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, aliquando praestat morte jungi
+quam vitae distrahi;' which being interpreted, means, that wherever, as in
+the case of your pigeons, a thoroughly high and sincere affection exists,
+it is sometimes better to be joined in death than divided in life.--Give
+me half the fatter one, if you please, Julia."
+
+"Sir," said Elmore, when the ladies withdrew, "I cannot tell you how
+pleased I am to meet with a gentleman so deeply imbued with classic lore.
+I remember, several years ago, before my poor cousin died, it was my lot,
+when I visited him at Knaresborough, to hold some delightful
+conversations on learned matters with a very rising young scholar who
+then resided at Knaresborough,--Eugene Aram. Conversations as difficult
+to obtain as delightful to remember, for he was exceedingly reserved."
+
+"Aram!" repeated Walter.
+
+"What, you know him then?--and where does he live now?"
+
+"In--, very near my uncle's residence. He is certainly a remarkable man."
+
+"Yes, indeed he promised to become so. At the time I refer to, he was
+poor to penury, and haughty as poor; but it was wonderful to note the
+iron energy with which he pursued his progress to learning. Never did I
+see a youth,--at that time he was no more,--so devoted to knowledge for
+itself.
+
+           'Doctrin‘ pretium triste magister habet.'"
+
+"Methinks," added Elmore, "I can see him now, stealing away from the
+haunts of men,
+
+           'With even step and musing gait,'--
+
+across the quiet fields, or into the woods, whence he was certain not to
+re-appear till night-fall. Ah! he was a strange and solitary being, but
+full of genius, and promise of bright things hereafter. I have often
+heard since of his fame as a scholar, but could never learn where he
+lived or what was now his mode of life. Is he yet married?"
+
+"Not yet, I believe; but he is not now so absolutely poor as you describe
+him to have been then, though certainly far from rich."
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember that he received a legacy from a relation shortly
+before he left Knaresborough. He had very delicate health at that time:
+has he grown stronger with increasing years?"
+
+"He does not complain of ill health. And pray, was he then of the same
+austere and blameless habits of life that he now professes?"
+
+"Nothing could be so faultless as his character appeared; the passions of
+youth--(ah! I was a wild fellow at his age,) never seemed to venture near
+one.
+
+           'Quem casto erudit docta Minerva sinu.'
+
+Well, I am surprised he has not married. We scholars, Sir, fall in love
+with abstractions, and fancy the first woman we see is--Sir, let us drink
+the ladies."
+
+The next day Walter, having resolved to set out for Knaresborough,
+directed his course towards that town; he thought it yet possible that he
+might, by strict personal inquiry, continue the clue that Elmore's
+account had, to present appearance, broken. The pursuit in which he was
+engaged, combined, perhaps, with the early disappointment to his
+affections, had given a grave and solemn tone to a mind naturally ardent
+and elastic. His character acquired an earnestness and a dignity from
+late events; and all that once had been hope within him, deepened into
+thought. As now, on a gloomy and clouded day he pursued his course along
+a bleak and melancholy road, his mind was filled with that dark
+presentiment--that shadow from the coming event, which superstition
+believes the herald of the more tragic discoveries, or the more fearful
+incidents of life; he felt steeled, and prepared for some dread
+denouement,--to a journey to which the hand of Providence seemed to
+conduct his steps; and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all
+beyond the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve with
+which, in the tragic representations of life, we await the drawing up of
+the curtain before the last act, which contains the catastrophe--that
+while we long, we half shudder to behold.
+
+Meanwhile, in following the adventures of Walter Lester, we have greatly
+outstript the progress of events of Grassdale, and thither we now return.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+        ARAM'S DEPARTURE.--MADELINE.--EXAGGERATION OF SENTIMENT
+      NATURAL IN LOVE.--MADELINE'S LETTER.--WALTER'S.--THE WALK.--
+        TWO VERY DIFFERENT PERSONS, YET BOTH INMATES OF THE SAME
+     COUNTRY VILLAGE.--THE HUMOURS OF LIFE, AND ITS DARK PASSIONS,
+                ARE FOUND IN JUXTA-POSITION EVERYWHERE.
+
+             Her thoughts as pure as the chaste morning's breath,
+             When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away,
+             Were clothed in words.
+                         --Sir J. Suckling--Detraction Execrated
+
+"You positively leave us then to-day, Eugene?" said the Squire.
+
+"Indeed," answered Aram, "I hear from my creditor, (now no longer so,
+thanks to you,) that my relation is so dangerously ill, that if I have
+any wish to see her alive, I have not an hour to lose. It is the last
+surviving relative I have in the world."
+
+"I can say no more, then," rejoined the Squire shrugging his shoulders:
+"When do you expect to return?"
+
+"At least, ere the day fixed for the wedding," answered Aram, with a
+grave and melancholy smile.
+
+"Well, can you find time, think you, to call at the lodging in which my
+nephew proposed to take up his abode,--my old lodging;--I will give you
+the address,--and inquire if Walter has been heard of there: I confess
+that I feel considerable alarm on his account. Since that short and
+hurried letter which I read to you, I have heard nothing of him."
+
+"You may rely on my seeing him if in London, and faithfully reporting to
+you all that I can learn towards removing your anxiety."
+
+"I do not doubt it; no heart is so kind as yours, Eugene. You will not
+depart without receiving the additional sum you are entitled to claim
+from me, since you think it may be useful to you in London, should you
+find a favourable opportunity of increasing your annuity. And now I will
+no longer detain you from taking your leave of Madeline."
+
+The plausible story which Aram had invented of the illness and
+approaching death of his last living relation, was readily believed by
+the simple family to whom it was told; and Madeline herself checked her
+tears that she might not, for his sake, sadden a departure that seemed
+inevitable. Aram accordingly repaired to London that day,--the one that
+followed the night which witnessed his fearful visit to the "Devil's
+Crag."
+
+It is precisely at this part of my history that I love to pause for a
+moment; a sort of breathing interval between the cloud that has been long
+gathering, and the storm that is about to burst. And this interval is not
+without its fleeting gleam of quiet and holy sunshine.
+
+It was Madeline's first absence from her lover since their vows had
+plighted them to each other; and that first absence, when softened by so
+many hopes as smiled upon her, is perhaps one of the most touching
+passages in the history of a woman's love. It is marvellous how many
+things, unheeded before, suddenly become dear. She then feels what a
+power of consecration there was in the mere presence of the one beloved;
+the spot he touched, the book he read, have become a part of him--are no
+longer inanimate--are inspired, and have a being and a voice. And the
+heart, too, soothed in discovering so many new treasures, and opening so
+delightful a world of memory, is not yet acquainted with that weariness--
+that sense of exhaustion and solitude which are the true pains of
+absence, and belong to the absence not of hope but regret.
+
+"You are cheerful, dear Madeline," said Ellinor, "though you did not
+think it possible, and he not here!"
+
+"I am occupied," replied Madeline, "in discovering how much I loved him."
+
+We do wrong when we censure a certain exaggeration in the sentiments of
+those who love. True passion is necessarily heightened by its very ardour
+to an elevation that seems extravagant only to those who cannot feel it.
+The lofty language of a hero is a part of his character; without that
+largeness of idea he had not been a hero. With love, it is the same as
+with glory: what common minds would call natural in sentiment, merely
+because it is homely, is not natural, except to tamed affections. That is
+a very poor, nay, a very coarse, love, in which the imagination makes not
+the greater part. And the Frenchman, who censured the love of his
+mistress because it was so mixed with the imagination, quarrelled with
+the body, for the soul which inspired and preserved it.
+
+Yet we do not say that Madeline was so possessed by the confidence of her
+love, that she did not admit the intrusion of a single doubt or fear;
+when she recalled the frequent gloom and moody fitfulness of her lover--
+his strange and mysterious communings with self--the sorrow which, at
+times, as on that Sabbath eve when he wept upon her bosom, appeared
+suddenly to come upon a nature so calm and stately, and without a visible
+cause; when she recalled all these symptoms of a heart not now at rest,
+it was not possible for her to reject altogether a certain vague and
+dreary apprehension. Nor did she herself, although to Ellinor she so
+affected, ascribe this cloudiness and caprice of mood merely to the
+result of a solitary and meditative life; she attributed them to the
+influence of an early grief, perhaps linked with the affections, and did
+not doubt but that one day or another she should learn its secret. As for
+remorse--the memory of any former sin--a life so austerely blameless, a
+disposition so prompt to the activity of good, and so enamoured of its
+beauty--a mind so cultivated, a temper so gentle, and a heart so easily
+moved--all would have forbidden, to natures far more suspicious than
+Madeline's, the conception of such a thought. And so, with a patient
+gladness, though not without some mixture of anxiety, she suffered
+herself to glide onward to a future, which, come cloud, come shine, was,
+she believed at least, to be shared with him.
+
+On looking over the various papers from which I have woven this tale, I
+find a letter from Madeline to Aram, dated at this time. The characters,
+traced in the delicate and fair Italian hand coveted at that period, are
+fading, and, in one part, wholly obliterated by time; but there seems to
+me so much of what is genuine in the heart's beautiful romance in this
+effusion, that I will lay it before the reader without adding or altering
+a word.
+
+"Thank you, thank you, dearest Eugene! I have received, then, the first
+letter you ever wrote me. I cannot tell you how strange it seemed to me,
+and how agitated I felt on seeing it, more so, I think, than if it had
+been yourself who had returned. However, when the first delight of
+reading it faded away, I found that it had not made me so happy as it
+ought to have done--as I thought at first it had done. You seem sad and
+melancholy; a certain nameless gloom appears to me to hang over your
+whole letter. It affects my spirits--why I know not--and my tears fall
+even while I read the assurances of your unaltered, unalterable love--and
+yet this assurance your Madeline--vain girl!--never for a moment
+disbelieves. I have often read and often heard of the distrust and
+jealousy that accompany love; but I think that such a love must be a
+vulgar and low sentiment. To me there seems a religion in love, and its
+very foundation is in faith. You say, dearest, that the noise and stir of
+the great city oppress and weary you even more than you had expected. You
+say those harsh faces, in which business, and care, and avarice, and
+ambition write their lineaments, are wholly unfamiliar to you;--you turn
+aside to avoid them,--you wrap yourself up in your solitary feelings of
+aversion to those you see, and you call upon those not present--upon your
+Madeline! and would that your Madeline were with you! It seems to me--
+perhaps you will smile when I say this--that I alone can understand you--
+I alone can read your heart and your emotions;--and oh! dearest Eugene,
+that I could read also enough of your past history to know all that has
+cast so habitual a shadow over that lofty heart and that calm and
+profound nature! You smile when I ask you--but sometimes you sigh,--and
+the sigh pleases and soothes me better than the smile.
+
+"We have heard nothing more of Walter, and my father begins at times to
+be seriously alarmed about him. Your account, too, corroborates that
+alarm. It is strange that he has not yet visited London, and that you can
+obtain no clue of him. He is evidently still in search of his lost
+parent, and following some obscure and uncertain track. Poor Walter! God
+speed him! The singular fate of his father, and the many conjectures
+respecting him, have, I believe, preyed on Walter's mind more than he
+acknowledged. Ellinor found a paper in his closet, where we had occasion
+to search the other day for something belonging to my father, which was
+scribbled with all the various fragments of guess or information
+concerning my uncle, obtained from time to time, and interspersed with
+some remarks by Walter himself, that affected me strangely. It seems to
+have been from early childhood the one desire of my cousin to discover
+his father's fate. Perhaps the discovery may be already made;--perhaps my
+long-lost uncle may yet be present at our wedding.
+
+"You ask me, Eugene, if I still pursue my botanical researches. Sometimes
+I do; but the flower now has no fragrance--and the herb no secret, that I
+care for; and astronomy, which you had just begun to teach me, pleases me
+more;--the flowers charm me when you are present; but the stars speak to
+me of you in absence. Perhaps it would not be so, had I loved a being
+less exalted than you. Every one, even my father, even Ellinor, smile
+when they observe how incessantly I think of you--how utterly you have
+become all in all to me. I could not tell this to you, though I write it:
+is it not strange that letters should be more faithful than the tongue?
+And even your letter, mournful as it is, seems to me kinder, and dearer,
+and more full of yourself, than with all the magic of your language, and
+the silver sweetness of your voice, your spoken words are. I walked by
+your house yesterday; the windows were closed--there was a strange air of
+lifelessness and dejection about it. Do you remember the evening in which
+I first entered that house? Do you--or rather is there one hour in which
+it is not present to you? For me, I live in the past,--it is the present-
+-(which is without you,) in which I have no life. I passed into the
+little garden, that with your own hands you have planted for me, and
+filled with flowers. Ellinor was with me, and she saw my lips move. She
+asked me what I was saying to myself. I would not tell her--I was praying
+for you, my kind, my beloved Eugene. I was praying for the happiness of
+your future years--praying that I might requite your love. Whenever I
+feel the most, I am the most inclined to prayer. Sorrow, joy, tenderness,
+all emotion, lift up my heart to God. And what a delicious overflow of
+the heart is prayer! When I am with you--and I feel that you love me--my
+happiness would be painful, if there were no God whom I might bless for
+its excess. Do those, who believe not, love?--have they deep emotions?--
+can they feel truly--devotedly? Why, when I talk thus to you--do you
+always answer me with that chilling and mournful smile? You would make
+religion only the creation of reason--as well might you make love the
+same--what is either, unless you let it spring also from the feelings?
+
+"When--when--when will you return? I think I love you now more than ever.
+I think I have more courage to tell you so. So many things I have to say-
+-so many events to relate. For what is not an event to US? the least
+incident that has happened to either--the very fading of a flower, if you
+have worn it, is a whole history to me.
+
+"Adieu, God bless you--God reward you--God keep your heart with Him,
+dearest, dearest Eugene. And may you every day know better and better how
+utterly you are loved by your
+
+"Madeline."
+
+The epistle to which Lester referred as received from Walter, was one
+written on the day of his escape from Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, a short
+note, rather than letter, which ran as follows.
+
+
+"My dear Uncle,
+"I have met with an accident which confined me to my bed;--a rencontre,
+indeed, with the Knights of the Road--nothing serious, (so do not be
+alarmed!) though the Doctor would fain have made it so. I am just about
+to recommence my journey, but not towards London; on the contrary,
+northward.
+
+"I have, partly through the information of your old friend Mr. Courtland,
+partly by accident, found what I hope may prove a clue to the fate of my
+father. I am now departing to put this hope to the issue. More I would
+fain say; but lest the expectation should prove fallacious, I will not
+dwell on circumstances which would in that case only create in you a
+disappointment similar to my own. Only this take with you, that my
+father's proverbial good luck seems to have visited him since your latest
+news of his fate; a legacy, though not a large one, awaited his return to
+England from India; but see if I am not growing prolix already--I must
+break off in order to reserve you the pleasure (may it be so!) of a full
+surprise!
+
+"God bless you, my dear Uncle! I write in spirits and hope; kindest love
+to all at home.
+
+"Walter Lester.
+
+"P. S. Tell Ellinor that my bitterest misfortune in the adventure I have
+referred to, was to be robbed of her purse. Will she knit me another? By
+the way, I encountered Sir Peter Hales; such an open-hearted, generous
+fellow as you said! 'thereby hangs a tale.'"
+
+This letter, which provoked all the curiosity of our little circle, made
+them anxiously look forward to every post for additional explanation, but
+that explanation came not. And they were forced to console themselves
+with the evident exhilaration under which Walter wrote, and the probable
+supposition that he delayed farther information until it could be ample
+and satisfactory.--"Knights of the Road," quoth Lester one day, "I wonder
+if they were any of the gang that have just visited us. Well, but poor
+boy! he does not say whether he has any money left; yet if he were short
+of the gold, he would be very unlike his father, (or his uncle for that
+matter,) had he forgotten to enlarge on that subject, however brief upon
+others."
+
+"Probably," said Ellinor, "the Corporal carried the main sum about him in
+those well-stuffed saddle-bags, and it was only the purse that Walter had
+about his person that was stolen; and it is probable that the Corporal
+might have escaped, as he mentions nothing about that excellent
+personage."
+
+"A shrewd guess, Nell: but pray, why should Walter carry the purse about
+him so carefully? Ah, you blush: well, will you knit him another?"
+
+"Pshaw, Papa! Good b'ye, I am going to gather you a nosegay."
+
+But Ellinor was seized with a sudden fit of industry, and somehow or
+other she grew fonder of knitting than ever.
+
+The neighbourhood was now tranquil and at peace; the nightly depredators
+that had infested the green valleys of Grassdale were heard of no more;
+it seemed a sudden incursion of fraud and crime, which was too unnatural
+to the character of the spot invaded to do more than to terrify and to
+disappear. The truditur dies die; the serene steps of one calm day
+chasing another returned, and the past alarm was only remembered as a
+tempting subject of gossip to the villagers, and (at the Hall) a theme of
+eulogium on the courage of Eugene Aram.
+
+"It is a lovely day," said Lester to his daughters, as they sate at the
+window; "come, girls, get your bonnets, and let us take a walk into the
+village."
+
+"And meet the postman," said Ellinor, archly.
+
+"Yes," rejoined Madeline in the same vein, but in a whisper that Lester
+might not hear, "for who knows but that we may have a letter from
+Walter?"
+
+How prettily sounds such raillery on virgin lips. No, no; nothing on
+earth is so lovely as the confidence between two happy sisters, who have
+no secrets but those of a guileless love to reveal!
+
+As they strolled into the village, they were met by Peter Dealtry, who
+was slowly riding home on a large ass which carried himself and his
+panniers to the neighbouring market in a more quiet and luxurious
+indolence of action than would the harsher motions of the equine species.
+
+"A fine day, Peter: and what news at market?" said Lester.
+
+"Corn high,--hay dear, your honour," replied the clerk.
+
+"Ah, I suppose so; a good time to sell ours, Peter;--we must see about it
+on Saturday. But, pray, have you heard any thing from the Corporal since
+his departure?"
+
+"Not I, your honour, not I; though I think as he might have given us a
+line, if it was only to thank me for my care of his cat, but--
+
+           'Them as comes to go to roam,
+           Thinks slight of they as stays at home.'"
+
+"A notable distich, Peter; your own composition, I warrant."
+
+"Mine! Lord love your honour, I has no genus, but I has memory; and when
+them ere beautiful lines of poetry-like comes into my head, they stays
+there, and stays till they pops out at my tongue like a bottle of ginger-
+beer. I do loves poetry, Sir, 'specially the sacred."
+
+"We know it,--we know it."
+
+"For there be summut in it," continued the clerk, "which smooths a man's
+heart like a clothes-brush, wipes away the dust and dirt, and sets all
+the nap right; and I thinks as how 'tis what a clerk of the parish ought
+to study, your honour."
+
+"Nothing better; you speak like an oracle."
+
+"Now, Sir, there be the Corporal, honest man, what thinks himself mighty
+clever,--but he has no soul for varse. Lord love ye, to see the faces he
+makes when I tells him a hymn or so; 'tis quite wicked, your honour,--for
+that's what the heathen did, as you well know, Sir.
+
+              "'And when I does discourse of things
+                Most holy, to their tribe;
+                What does they do?--they mocks at me,
+                And makes my harp a gibe.'
+
+"'Tis not what I calls pretty, Miss Ellinor."
+
+"Certainly not, Peter; I wonder, with your talents for verse, you never
+indulge in a little satire against such perverse taste."
+
+"Satire! what's that? Oh, I knows; what they writes in elections. Why,
+Miss, mayhap--" here Peter paused, and winked significantly--"but the
+Corporal's a passionate man, you knows: but I could so sting him--Aha!
+we'll see, we'll see.--Do you know, your honour," here Peter altered his
+air to one of serious importance, as if about to impart a most sagacious
+conjecture, "I thinks there be one reason why the Corporal has not
+written to me."
+
+"And what's that, Peter?"
+
+"Cause, your honour, he's ashamed of his writing: I fancy as how his
+spelling is no better than it should be--but mum's the word. You sees,
+your honour, the Corporal's got a tarn for conversation-like--he be a
+mighty fine talker surely! but he be shy of the pen--'tis not every man
+what talks biggest what's the best schollard at bottom. Why, there's the
+newspaper I saw in the market, (for I always sees the newspaper once a
+week,) says as how some of them great speakers in the Parliament House,
+are no better than ninnies when they gets upon paper; and that's the
+Corporal's case, I sispect: I suppose as how they can't spell all them
+ere long words they make use on. For my part, I thinks there be mortal
+desate (deceit) like in that ere public speaking; for I knows how far a
+loud voice and a bold face goes, even in buying a cow, your honour; and
+I'm afraid the country's greatly bubbled in that ere partiklar; for if a
+man can't write down clearly what he means for to say, I does not thinks
+as how he knows what he means when he goes for to speak!"
+
+This speech--quite a moral exposition from Peter, and, doubtless,
+inspired by his visit to market--for what wisdom cannot come from
+intercourse?--our good publican delivered with especial solemnity,
+giving a huge thump on the sides of his ass as he concluded.
+
+"Upon my word, Peter," said Lester, laughing, "you have grown quite a
+Solomon; and, instead of a clerk, you ought to be a Justice of Peace, at
+the least: and, indeed, I must say that I think you shine more in the
+capacity of a lecturer than in that of a soldier."
+
+"'Tis not for a clerk of the parish to have too great a knack at the
+weapons of the flesh," said Peter, sanctimoniously, and turning aside to
+conceal a slight confusion at the unlucky reminiscence of his warlike
+exploits; "But lauk, Sir, even as to that, why we has frightened all the
+robbers away. What would you have us do more?"
+
+"Upon my word, Peter, you say right; and now, good day. Your wife's well,
+I hope? and Jacobina--is not that the cat's name?--in high health and
+favour."
+
+"Hem, hem!--why, to be sure, the cat's a good cat; but she steals Goody
+Truman's cream as she sets for butter reg'larly every night."
+
+"Oh! you must cure her of that," said Lester, smiling, "I hope that's the
+worst fault."
+
+"Why, your gardiner do say," replied Peter, reluctantly, "as how she goes
+arter the pheasants in Copse-hole."
+
+"The deuce!" cried the Squire; "that will never do: she must be shot,
+Peter, she must be shot. My pheasants! my best preserves! and poor Goody
+Truman's cream, too! a perfect devil. Look to it, Peter; if I hear any
+complaints again, Jacobina is done for--What are you laughing at, Nell?"
+
+"Well, go thy ways, Peter, for a shrewd man and a clever man; it is not
+every one who could so suddenly have elicited my father's compassion for
+Goody Truman's cream."
+
+"Pooh!" said the Squire, "a pheasant's a serious thing, child; but you
+women don't understand matters."
+
+They had now crossed through the village into the fields, and were slowly
+sauntering by
+
+           "Hedge-row elms on hillocks green,"
+
+when, seated under a stunted pollard, they came suddenly on the ill-
+favoured person of Dame Darkmans: she sat bent (with her elbows on her
+knees, and her hands supporting her chin,) looking up to the clear
+autumnal sky; and as they approached, she did not stir, or testify by
+sign or glance that she even perceived them.
+
+There is a certain kind-hearted sociality of temper that you see
+sometimes among country gentlemen, especially not of the highest rank,
+who knowing, and looked up to by, every one immediately around them,
+acquire the habit of accosting all they meet--a habit as painful for them
+to break, as it was painful for poor Rousseau to be asked 'how he did' by
+an applewoman. And the kind old Squire could not pass even Goody
+Darkmans, (coming thus abruptly upon her,) without a salutation.
+
+"All alone, Dame, enjoying the fine weather--that's right--And how fares
+it with you?"
+
+The old woman turned round her dark and bleared eyes, but without moving
+limb or posture. "'Tis well-nigh winter now: 'tis not easy for poor folks
+to fare well at this time o' year. Where be we to get the firewood, and
+the clothing, and the dry bread, carse it! and the drop o' stuff that's
+to keep out the cold. Ah, it's fine for you to ask how we does, and the
+days shortening, and the air sharpening."
+
+"Well, Dame, shall I send to--for a warm cloak for you?" said Madeline.
+
+"Ho! thankye, young leddy--thankye kindly, and I'll wear it at your
+widding, for they says you be going to git married to the larned man
+yander. Wish ye well, ma'am, wish ye well."
+
+And the old hag grinned as she uttered this benediction, that sounded on
+her lips like the Lord's Prayer on a witch's; which converts the devotion
+to a crime, and the prayer to a curse.
+
+"Ye're very winsome, young lady," she continued, eyeing Madeline's tall
+and rounded figure from head to foot. "Yes, very--but I was as bonny as
+you once, and if you lives--mind that--fair and happy as you stand now,
+you'll be as withered, and foul-faced, and wretched as me--ha! ha! I
+loves to look on young folk, and think o' that. But mayhap ye won't live
+to be old--more's the pity, for ye might be a widow and childless, and a
+lone 'oman, as I be; if you were to see sixty: an' wouldn't that be
+nice?--ha! ha!--much pleasure ye'd have in the fine weather then, and in
+people's fine speeches, eh?"
+
+"Come, Dame," said Lester, with a cloud on his benign brow, "this talk is
+ungrateful to me, and disrespectful to Miss Lester; it is not the way to-
+-" "Hout!" interrupted the old woman; "I begs pardon, Sir, if I offended-
+-I begs pardon, young lady, 'tis my way, poor old soul that I be. And you
+meant me kindly, and I would not be uncivil, now you are a-going to give
+me a bonny cloak,--and what colour shall it be?"
+
+"Why, what colour would you like best, Dame--red?"
+
+"Red!--no!--like a gypsy-quean, indeed! Besides, they all has red cloaks
+in the village, yonder. No; a handsome dark grey--or a gay, cheersome
+black, an' then I'll dance in mourning at your wedding, young lady; and
+that's what ye'll like. But what ha'ye done with the merry bridegroom,
+Ma'am? Gone away, I hear. Ah, ye'll have a happy life on it, with a
+gentleman like him. I never seed him laugh once. Why does not ye hire me
+as your sarvant--would not I be a favourite thin! I'd stand on the
+thrishold, and give ye good morrow every day. Oh! it does me a deal of
+good to say a blessing to them as be younger and gayer than me. Madge
+Darkman's blessing!--Och! what a thing to wish for!"
+
+"Well, good day, mother," said Lester, moving on.
+
+"Stay a bit, stay a bit, Sir;--has ye any commands, Miss, yonder, at
+Master Aram's? His old 'oman's a gossip of mine--we were young togither--
+and the lads did not know which to like the best. So we often meets, and
+talks of the old times. I be going up there now.--Och! I hope I shall be
+asked to the widding. And what a nice month to wid in; Novimber--
+Novimber, that's the merry month for me! But 'tis cold--bitter cold, too.
+Well, good day--good day. Ay," continued the hag, as Lester and the
+sisters moved on, "ye all goes and throws niver a look behind. Ye
+despises the poor in your hearts. But the poor will have their day. Och!
+an' I wish ye were dead--dead--dead, an' I dancing in my bonny black
+cloak about your graves;--for an't all mine dead--cold--cold--rotting,
+and one kind and rich man might ha' saved them all."
+
+Thus mumbling, the wretched creature looked after the father and his
+daughters, as they wound onward, till her dim eyes caught them no longer;
+and then, drawing her rags round her, she rose, and struck into the
+opposite path that led to Aram's house.
+
+"I hope that hag will be no constant visitor at your future residence,
+Madeline," said the younger sister; "it would be like a blight on the
+air."
+
+"And if we could remove her from the parish," said Lester, "it would be a
+happy day for the village. Yet, strange as it may seem, so great is her
+power over them all, that there is never a marriage, nor a christening in
+the village, from which she is absent--they dread her spite and foul
+tongue enough, to make them even ask humbly for her presence."
+
+"And the hag seems to know that her bad qualities are a good policy, and
+obtain more respect than amiability would do," said Ellinor. "I think
+there is some design in all she utters."
+
+"I don't know how it is, but the words and sight of that woman have
+struck a damp into my heart," said Madeline, musingly.
+
+"It would be wonderful if they had not, child," said Lester, soothingly;
+and he changed the conversation to other topics.
+
+As concluding their walk, they re-entered the village, they encountered
+that most welcome of all visitants to a country village, the postman--a
+tall, thin pedestrian, famous for swiftness of foot, with a cheerful
+face, a swinging gait, and Lester's bag slung over his shoulder. Our
+little party quickened their pace--one letter--for Madeline--Aram's
+handwriting. Happy blush--bright smile! Ah! no meeting ever gives the
+delight that a letter can inspire in the short absences of a first love
+"And none for me," said Lester, in a disappointed tone, and Ellinor's
+hand hung more heavily on his arm, and her step moved slower. "It is very
+strange in Walter; but I am more angry than alarmed."
+
+"Be sure," said Ellinor, after a pause, "that it is not his fault.
+Something may have happened to him. Good Heavens! if he has been attacked
+again--those fearful highwaymen!"
+
+"Nay," said Lester, "the most probable supposition after all is, that he
+will not write until his expectations are realized or destroyed. Natural
+enough, too; it is what I should have done, if I had been in his place."
+
+"Natural," said Ellinor, who now attacked where she before defended--
+"Natural not to give us one line, to say he is well and safe--natural; I
+could not have been so remiss!"
+
+"Ay, child, you women are so fond of writing,--'tis not so with us,
+especially when we are moving about: it is always--'Well, I must write
+to-morrow--well, I must write when this is settled--well, I must write
+when I arrive at such a place;'--and, meanwhile, time slips on, till
+perhaps we get ashamed of writing at all. I heard a great man say once,
+that 'Men must have something effeminate about them to be good
+correspondents;' and 'faith, I think it's true enough on the whole."
+
+"I wonder if Madeline thinks so?" said Ellinor, enviously glancing at her
+sister's absorption, as, lingering a little behind, she devoured the
+contents of her letter.
+
+"He is coming home immediately, dear father; perhaps he may be here to-
+morrow," cried Madeline abruptly; "think of that, Ellinor! Ah! and he
+writes in spirits!"--and the poor girl clapped her hands delightedly, as
+the colour danced joyously over her cheek and neck.
+
+"I am glad to hear it," quoth Lester; "we shall have him at last beat
+even Ellinor in gaiety!"
+
+"That may easily be," sighed Ellinor to herself, as she glided past them
+into the house, and sought her own chamber.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+     A REFLECTION NEW AND STRANGE.--THE STREETS OF LONDON.--A GREAT
+       MAN'S LIBRARY.--A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE STUDENT AND AN
+               ACQUAINTANCE OF THE READER'S.--ITS RESULT.
+
+                   Rollo. Ask for thyself.
+                   Lat. What more can concern me than this?
+                                --The Tragedy of Rollo.
+
+It was an evening in the declining autumn of 1758; some public ceremony
+had occurred during the day, and the crowd, which it had assembled was
+only now gradually lessening, as the shadows darkened along the streets.
+Through this crowd, self-absorbed as usual--with them--not one of them--
+Eugene Aram slowly wound his uncompanioned way. What an incalculable
+field of dread and sombre contemplation is opened to every man who, with
+his heart disengaged from himself, and his eyes accustomed to the sharp
+observance of his tribe, walks through the streets of a great city! What
+a world of dark and troublous secrets in the breast of every one who
+hurries by you! Goethe has said somewhere, that each of us, the best as
+the worst, hides within him something--some feeling, some remembrance
+that, if known, would make you hate him. No doubt the saying is
+exaggerated; but still, what a gloomy and profound sublimity in the
+idea!--what a new insight it gives into the hearts of the common herd!--
+with what a strange interest it may inspire us for the humblest, the
+tritest passenger that shoulders us in the great thoroughfare of life!
+One of the greatest pleasures in the world is to walk alone, and at
+night, (while they are yet crowded,) through the long lamplit streets of
+this huge metropolis. There, even more than in the silence of woods and
+fields, seems to me the source of endless, various meditation.
+
+There was that in Aram's person which irresistibly commanded attention.
+The earnest composure of his countenance, its thoughtful paleness, the
+long hair falling back, the peculiar and estranged air of his whole
+figure, accompanied as it was, by a mildness of expression, and that
+lofty abstraction which characterises one who is a brooder over his own
+heart--a ponderer and a soothsayer to his own dreams;--all these arrested
+from time to time the second gaze of the passenger, and forced on him the
+impression, simple as was the dress, and unpretending as was the gait of
+the stranger, that in indulging that second gaze, he was in all
+probability satisfying the curiosity which makes us love to fix our
+regard upon any remarkable man.
+
+At length Aram turned from the more crowded streets, and in a short time
+paused before one of the most princely houses in London. It was
+surrounded by a spacious court-yard, and over the porch, the arms of the
+owner, with the coronet and supporters, were raised in stone.
+
+"Is Lord--within?" asked Aram of the bluff porter who appeared at the
+gate.
+
+"My Lord is at dinner," replied the porter, thinking the answer quite
+sufficient, and about to reclose the gate upon the unseasonable visitor.
+
+"I am glad to find he is at home," rejoined Aram, gliding past the
+servant, with an air of quiet and unconscious command, and passing the
+court-yard to the main building.
+
+At the door of the house, to which you ascended by a flight of stone
+steps, the valet of the nobleman--the only nobleman introduced in our
+tale, and consequently the same whom we have presented to our reader in
+the earlier part of this work, happened to be lounging and enjoying the
+smoke of the evening air. High-bred, prudent, and sagacious, Lord--knew
+well how often great men, especially in public life, obtain odium for the
+rudeness of their domestics, and all those, especially about himself, had
+been consequently tutored into the habits of universal courtesy and
+deference, to the lowest stranger, as well as to the highest guest. And
+trifling as this may seem, it was an act of morality as well as of
+prudence. Few can guess what pain may be saved to poor and proud men of
+merit by a similar precaution. The valet, therefore, replied to Aram's
+inquiry with great politeness; he recollected the name and repute of
+Aram, and as the Earl, taking delight in the company of men of letters,
+was generally easy of access to all such--the great man's great man
+instantly conducted the Student to the Earl's library, and informing him
+that his Lordship had not yet left the dining-room, where he was
+entertaining a large party, assured him that he should be informed of
+Aram's visit the moment he did so.
+
+Lord--was still in office: sundry boxes were scattered on the floor;
+papers, that seemed countless, lay strewed over the immense library-
+table; but here and there were books of a more seductive character than
+those of business, in which the mark lately set, and the pencilled note
+still fresh, showed the fondness with which men of cultivated minds,
+though engaged in official pursuits, will turn, in the momentary
+intervals of more arid and toilsome life, to those lighter studies which
+perhaps they in reality the most enjoy.
+
+One of these books, a volume of Shaftesbury, Aram carefully took up; it
+opened of its own accord in that most beautiful and profound passage
+which contains perhaps the justest sarcasm, to which that ingenious and
+graceful reasoner has given vent.
+
+"The very spirit of Faction, for the greatest part, seems to be no other
+than the abuse or irregularity of that social love and common affection
+which is natural to mankind--for the opposite of sociableness, is
+selfishness, and of all characters, the thorough selfish one--is the
+least forward in taking party. The men of this sort are, in this respect,
+true men of moderation. They are secure of their temper, and possess
+themselves too well to be in danger of entering warmly into any cause, or
+engaging deeply with any side or faction."
+
+On the margin of the page was the following note, in the handwriting of
+Lord--.
+
+"Generosity hurries a man into party--philosophy keeps him aloof from it;
+the Emperor Julian says in his epistle to Themistius, 'If you should form
+only three or four philosophers, you would contribute more essentially to
+the happiness of mankind than many kings united.' Yet, if all men were
+philosophers, I doubt whether, though more men would be virtuous, there
+would be so many instances of an extraordinary virtue. The violent
+passions produce dazzling irregularities."
+
+The Student was still engaged with this note when the Earl entered the
+room. As the door through which he passed was behind Aram, and he trod
+with a soft step, he was not perceived by the Scholar till he had reached
+him, and, looking over Aram's shoulder, the Earl said:--"You will dispute
+the truth of my remark, will you not? Profound calm is the element in
+which you would place all the virtues."
+
+"Not all, my Lord," answered Aram, rising, as the Earl now shook him by
+the hand, and expressed his delight at seeing the Student again. Though
+the sagacious nobleman had no sooner heard the Student's name, than, in
+his own heart, he was convinced that Aram had sought him for the purpose
+of soliciting a renewal of the offers he had formerly refused; he
+resolved to leave his visitor to open the subject himself, and appeared
+courteously to consider the visit as a matter of course, made without any
+other object than the renewal of the mutual pleasure of intercourse.
+
+"I am afraid, my Lord," said Aram, "that you are engaged. My visit can be
+paid to-morrow if--" "Indeed," said the Earl interrupting him, and
+drawing a chair to the table, "I have no engagements which should deprive
+me of the pleasure of your company. A few friends have indeed dined with
+me, but as they are now with Lady--, I do not think they will greatly
+miss me; besides, an occasional absence is readily forgiven in us happy
+men of office--we, who have the honour of exciting the envy of all
+England, for being made magnificently wretched."
+
+"I am glad you allow so much, my Lord," said Aram smiling, "I could not
+have said more. Ambition only makes a favourite to make an ingrate;--she
+has lavished her honours on Lord--, and see how he speaks of her bounty?"
+
+"Nay," said the Earl, "I spoke wantonly, and stand corrected. I have no
+reason to complain of the course I have chosen. Ambition, like any other
+passion, gives us unhappy moments; but it gives us also an animated life.
+In its pursuit, the minor evils of the world are not felt; little
+crosses, little vexations do not disturb us. Like men who walk in sleep,
+we are absorbed in one powerful dream, and do not even know the obstacles
+in our way, or the dangers that surround us: in a word, we have no
+private life. All that is merely domestic, the anxiety and the loss which
+fret other men, which blight the happiness of other men, are not felt by
+us: we are wholly public;--so that if we lose much comfort, we escape
+much care."
+
+The Earl broke off for a moment; and then turning the subject, inquired
+after the Lesters, and making some general and vague observations about
+that family, came purposely to a pause.
+
+Aram broke it:--"My Lord," said he, with a slight, but not ungraceful,
+embarrassment, "I fear that, in the course of your political life, you
+must have made one observation, that he who promises to-day, will be
+called upon to perform to-morrow. No man who has any thing to bestow, can
+ever promise with impunity. Some time since, you tendered me offers that
+would have dazzled more ardent natures than mine; and which I might have
+advanced some claim to philosophy in refusing. I do not now come to ask a
+renewal of those offers. Public life, and the haunts of men, are as
+hateful as ever to my pursuits: but I come, frankly and candidly, to
+throw myself on that generosity, which proffered to me then so large a
+bounty. Certain circumstances have taken from me the small pittance which
+supplied my wants;--I require only the power to pursue my quiet and
+obscure career of study--your Lordship can afford me that power: it is
+not against custom for the Government to grant some small annuity to men
+of letters--your Lordship's interest could obtain for me this favour. Let
+me add, however, that I can offer nothing in return! Party politics--
+Sectarian interests--are for ever dead to me: even my common studies are
+of small general utility to mankind--I am conscious of this--would it
+were otherwise!--Once I hoped it would be--but--" Aram here turned deadly
+pale, gasped for breath, mastered his emotion, and proceeded--"I have no
+great claim, then, to this bounty, beyond that which all poor cultivators
+of the abstruse sciences can advance. It is well for a country that those
+sciences should be cultivated; they are not of a nature which is ever
+lucrative to the possessor--not of a nature that can often be left, like
+lighter literature, to the fair favour of the public--they call, perhaps,
+more than any species of intellectual culture, for the protection of a
+government; and though in me would be a poor selection, the principle
+would still be served, and the example furnish precedent for nobler
+instances hereafter. I have said all, my Lord!"
+
+Nothing, perhaps, more affects a man of some sympathy with those who
+cultivate letters, than the pecuniary claims of one who can advance them
+with justice, and who advances them also with dignity. If the meanest,
+the most pitiable, the most heart-sickening object in the world, is the
+man of letters, sunk into the habitual beggar, practising the tricks,
+incurring the rebuke, glorying in the shame, of the mingled mendicant and
+swindler;--what, on the other hand, so touches, so subdues us, as the
+first, and only petition, of one whose intellect dignifies our whole
+kind; and who prefers it with a certain haughtiness in his very modesty;
+because, in asking a favour to himself, he may be only asking the power
+to enlighten the world?
+
+"Say no more, Sir," said the Earl, affected deeply, and giving gracefully
+way to the feeling; "the affair is settled. Consider it utterly so. Name
+only the amount of the annuity you desire."
+
+With some hesitation Aram named a sum so moderate, so trivial, that the
+Minister, accustomed as he was to the claims of younger sons and widowed
+dowagers--accustomed to the hungry cravings of petitioners without merit,
+who considered birth the only just title to the right of exactions from
+the public--was literally startled by the contrast. "More than this,"
+added Aram, "I do not require, and would decline to accept. We have some
+right to claim existence from the administrators of the common stock--
+none to claim affluence."
+
+"Would to Heaven!" said the Earl, smiling, "that all claimants were like
+you: pension lists would not then call for indignation; and ministers
+would not blush to support the justice of the favours they conferred. But
+are you still firm in rejecting a more public career, with all its
+deserved emoluments and just honours? The offer I made you once, I renew
+with increased avidity now."
+
+"'Despiciam dites,'" answered Aram, "and, thanks to you, I may add,
+'despiciamque famem.'"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+       THE THAMES AT NIGHT.--A THOUGHT.--THE STUDENT RE-SEEKS THE
+           RUFFIAN.--A HUMAN FEELING EVEN IN THE WORST SOIL.
+
+                          Clem. 'Tis our last interview!
+                          Stat. Pray Heav'n it be.
+                                      --Clemanthes.
+
+On leaving Lord _____'s, Aram proceeded, with a lighter and more rapid
+step, towards a less courtly quarter of the metropolis.
+
+He had found, on arriving in London, that in order to secure the annual
+sum promised to Houseman, it had been necessary to strip himself even of
+the small stipend he had hoped to retain. And hence his visit, and hence
+his petition to Lord--. He now bent his way to the spot in which Houseman
+had appointed their meeting. To the fastidious reader these details of
+pecuniary matters, so trivial in themselves, may be a little wearisome,
+and may seem a little undignified; but we are writing a romance of real
+life, and the reader must take what is homely with what may be more epic-
+-the pettiness and the wants of the daily world, with its loftier sorrows
+and its grander crimes. Besides, who knows how darkly just may be that
+moral which shows us a nature originally high, a soul once all a-thirst
+for truth, bowed (by what events?) to the manoeuvres and the lies of the
+worldly hypocrite?
+
+The night had now closed in, and its darkness was only relieved by the
+wan lamps that vista'd the streets, and a few dim stars that struggled
+through the reeking haze that curtained the great city. Aram had now
+gained one of the bridges 'that arch the royal Thames,' and, in no time
+dead to scenic attraction, he there paused for a moment, and looked along
+the dark river that rushed below.
+
+Oh, God! how many wild and stormy hearts have stilled themselves on that
+spot, for one dread instant of thought--of calculation--of resolve--one
+instant the last of life! Look at night along the course of that stately
+river, how gloriously it seems to mock the passions of them that dwell
+beside it;--Unchanged--unchanging--all around it quick death, and
+troubled life; itself smiling up to the grey stars, and singing from its
+deep heart as it bounds along. Beside it is the Senate, proud of its
+solemn triflers, and there the cloistered Tomb, in which as the loftiest
+honour, some handful of the fiercest of the strugglers may gain
+forgetfulness and a grave! There is no moral to a great city like the
+River that washes its walls.
+
+There was something in the view before him, that suggested reflections
+similar to these, to the strange and mysterious breast of the lingering
+Student. A solemn dejection crept over him, a warning voice sounded on
+his ear, the fearful Genius within him was aroused, and even in the
+moment when his triumph seemed complete and his safety secured, he felt
+it only as
+
+           "The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below."
+
+The mist obscured and saddened the few lights scattered on either side
+the water. And a deep and gloomy quiet brooded round;
+
+               "The very houses seemed asleep,
+                And all that mighty heart was lying still."
+
+Arousing himself from his short and sombre reverie, Aram resumed his way,
+and threading some of the smaller streets on the opposite side of the
+water, arrived at last in the street in which he was to seek Houseman.
+
+It was a narrow and dark lane, and seemed altogether of a suspicious and
+disreputable locality. One or two samples of the lowest description of
+alehouses broke the dark silence of the spot;--from them streamed the
+only lights which assisted the single lamp that burned at the entrance of
+the alley; and bursts of drunken laughter and obscene merriment broke out
+every now and then from these wretched theatres of Pleasure As Aram
+passed one of them, a crowd of the lowest order of ruffian and harlot
+issued noisily from the door, and suddenly obstructed his way; through
+this vile press reeking with the stamp and odour of the most repellent
+character of vice was the lofty and cold Student to force his path! The
+darkness, his quick step, his downcast head, favoured his escape through
+the unhallowed throng, and he now stood opposite the door of a small and
+narrow house. A ponderous knocker adorned the door, which seemed of
+uncommon strength, being thickly studded with large nails. He knocked
+twice before his summons was answered, and then a voice from within,
+cried, "Who's there? What want you?"
+
+"I seek one called Houseman."
+
+No answer was returned--some moments elapsed. Again the Student knocked,
+and presently he heard the voice of Houseman himself call out, "Who's
+there--Joe the Cracksman?"
+
+"Richard Houseman, it is I," answered Aram, in a deep tone, and
+suppressing the natural feelings of loathing and abhorrence.
+
+Houseman uttered a quick exclamation; the door was hastily unbarred All
+within was utterly dark; but Aram felt with a thrill of repugnance, the
+gripe of his strange acquaintance on his hand.
+
+"Ha! it is you!--Come in, come in!--let me lead you. Have a care--cling
+to the wall--the right hand--now then--stay. So--so"--(opening the door
+of a room, in which a single candle, wellnigh in its socket, broke on the
+previous darkness;) "here we are! here we are! And, how goes it--eh!"
+
+Houseman, now bustling about, did the honours of his apartment with a
+sort of complacent hospitality. He drew two rough wooden chairs, that in
+some late merriment seemed to have been upset, and lay, cumbering the
+unwashed and carpetless floor, in a position exactly contrary to that
+destined them by their maker;--he drew these chairs near a table strewed
+with drinking horns, half-emptied bottles, and a pack of cards. Dingy
+caricatures of the large coarse fashion of the day, decorated the walls;
+and carelessly thrown on another table, lay a pair of huge horse-pistols,
+an immense shovel hat, a false moustache, a rouge-pot, and a riding-whip.
+All this the Student comprehended with a rapid glance--his lip quivered
+for a moment--whether with shame or scorn of himself, and then throwing
+himself on the chair Houseman had set for him, he said, "I have come to
+discharge my part of our agreement."
+
+"You are most welcome," replied Houseman, with that tone of coarse, yet
+flippant jocularity, which afforded to the mien and manner of Aram a
+still stronger contrast than his more unrelieved brutality.
+
+"There," said Aram, giving him a paper; "there you will perceive that the
+sum mentioned is secured to you, the moment you quit this country. When
+shall that be? Let me entreat haste."
+
+"Your prayer shall be granted. Before day-break to-morrow, I will be on
+the road."
+
+Aram's face brightened.
+
+"There is my hand upon it," said Houseman, earnestly. "You may now rest
+assured that you are free of me for life. Go home--marry--enjoy your
+existence--as I have done. Within four days, if the wind set fair, I am
+in France."
+
+"My business is done; I will believe you," said Aram, frankly, and
+rising.
+
+"You may," answered Houseman. "Stay--I will light you to the door. Devil
+and death--how the d--d candle flickers."
+
+Across the gloomy passage, as the candle now flared--and now was dulled--
+by quick fits and starts,--Houseman, after this brief conference,
+reconducted the Student. And as Aram turned from the door, he flung his
+arms wildly aloft, and exclaimed in the voice of one, from whose heart a
+load is lifted--"Now, now, for Madeline. I breathe freely at last."
+
+Meanwhile, Houseman turned musingly back, and regained his room,
+muttering, "Yes--yes--my business here is also done! Competence and
+safety abroad--after all, what a bugbear is this conscience!--fourteen
+years have rolled away--and lo! nothing discovered! nothing known! And
+easy circumstances--the very consequence of the deed--wait the remainder
+of my days:--my child, too--my Jane--shall not want--shall not be a
+beggar nor a harlot."
+
+So musing, Houseman threw himself contentedly on the chair, and the last
+flicker of the expiring light, as it played upward on his rugged
+countenance--rested on one of those self-hugging smiles, with which a
+sanguine man contemplates a satisfactory future.
+
+He had not been long alone, before the door opened; and a woman with a
+light in her hand appeared. She was evidently intoxicated, and approached
+Houseman with a reeling and unsteady step.
+
+"How now, Bess? drunk as usual. Get to bed, you she shark, go!"
+
+"Tush, man, tush! don't talk to your betters," said the woman, sinking
+into a chair; and her situation, disgusting as it was, could not conceal
+the rare, though somewhat coarse beauty of her face and person.
+
+Even Houseman, (his heart being opened, as it were, by the cheering
+prospects of which his soliloquy had indulged the contemplation,) was
+sensible of the effect of the mere physical attraction, and drawing his
+chair closer to her, he said in a tone less harsh than usual.
+
+"Come, Bess, come, you must correct that d--d habit of yours; perhaps I
+may make a lady of you after all. What if I were to let you take a trip
+with me to France, old girl, eh? and let you set off that handsome face,
+for you are devilish handsome, and that's the truth of it, with some of
+the French gewgaws you women love. What if. I were? would you be a good
+girl, eh?"
+
+"I think I would, Dick,--I think I would," replied the woman, showing a
+set of teeth as white as ivory, with pleasure partly at the flattery,
+partly at the proposition: "you are a good fellow, Dick, that you are."
+
+"Humph!" said Houseman, whose hard, shrewd mind was not easily cajoled,
+"but what's that paper in your bosom, Bess? a love-letter, I'll swear."
+
+"'Tis to you then; came to you this morning, only somehow or other, I
+forgot to give it you till now!"
+
+"Ha! a letter to me?" said Houseman, seizing the epistle in question.
+"Hem! the Knaresbro' postmark--my mother-in-law's crabbed hand, too! what
+can the old crone want?"
+
+He opened the letter, and hastily scanning its contents, started up.
+
+"Mercy, mercy!" cried he, "my child is ill, dying. I may never see her
+again,--my only child,--the only thing that loves me,--that does not
+loath me as a villain!"
+
+"Heyday, Dicky!" said the woman, clinging to him, "don't take on so, who
+so fond of you as me?--what's a brat like that!"
+
+"Curse on you, hag!" exclaimed Houseman, dashing her to the ground with a
+rude brutality, "you love me! Pah! My child,--my little Jane,--my pretty
+Jane,--my merry Jane,--my innocent Jane--I will seek her instantly--
+instantly; what's money? what's ease,--if--if--" And the father, wretch,
+ruffian as he was, stung to the core of that last redeeming feeling of
+his dissolute nature, struck his breast with his clenched hand, and
+rushed from the room--from the house.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+           MADELINE, HER HOPES.--A MILD AUTUMN CHARACTERISED.
+                      --A LANDSCAPE.--A RETURN.
+
+                   'Tis late, and cold--stir up the fire,
+                   Sit close, and draw the table nigher;
+                   Be merry and drink wine that's old,
+                   A hearty medicine 'gainst a cold,
+                   Welcome--welcome shall fly round!
+                   --Beaumont and Fletcher: Song in the Lover's Progress.
+
+As when the Great Poet,--
+
+                   Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
+                   In that obscure sojourn; while, in his flight
+                   Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
+                   He sang of chaos, and eternal night:--
+
+As when, revisiting the "Holy Light, offspring of heaven first-born," the
+sense of freshness and glory breaks upon him, and kindles into the solemn
+joyfulness of adjuring song: so rises the mind from the contemplation of
+the gloom and guilt of life, "the utter and the middle darkness," to some
+pure and bright redemption of our nature--some creature of "the starry
+threshold," "the regions mild of calm and serene air." Never was a nature
+more beautiful and soft than that of Madeline Lester--never a nature more
+inclined to live "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men
+call earth"--to commune with its own high and chaste creations of
+thought--to make a world out of the emotions which this world knows not--
+a paradise, which sin, and suspicion, and fear, had never yet invaded--
+where God might recognise no evil, and Angels forebode no change.
+
+Aram's return was now daily, nay, even hourly expected. Nothing disturbed
+the soft, though thoughtful serenity, with which his betrothed relied
+upon the future. Aram's letters had been more deeply impressed with the
+evidence of love, than even his spoken vows: those letters had diffused
+not so much an agitated joy, as a full and mellow light of happiness over
+her heart. Every thing, even Nature, seemed inclined to smile with
+approbation on her hopes. The autumn had never, in the memory of man,
+worn so lovely a garment: the balmy and freshening warmth, which
+sometimes characterises that period of the year, was not broken, as yet,
+by the chilling winds, or the sullen mists, which speak to us so
+mournfully of the change that is creeping over the beautiful world. The
+summer visitants among the feathered tribe yet lingered in flocks,
+showing no intention of departure; and their song--but above all, the
+song of the sky-lark--which, to the old English poet, was what the
+nightingale is to the Eastern--seemed even to grow more cheerful as the
+sun shortened his daily task;--the very mulberry-tree, and the rich
+boughs of the horse chesnut, retained something of their verdure; and the
+thousand glories of the woodland around Grassdale were still chequered
+with the golden hues that herald, but beautify Decay. Still, no news had
+been received of Walter: and this was the only source of anxiety that
+troubled the domestic happiness of the Manor-house. But the Squire
+continued to remember, that in youth he himself had been but a negligent
+correspondent; and the anxiety he felt, assumed rather the character of
+anger at Walter's forgetfulness, than of fear for his safety. There were
+moments when Ellinor silently mourned and pined; but she loved her sister
+not less even than her cousin; and in the prospect of Madeline's
+happiness, did not too often question the future respecting her own.
+
+One evening, the sisters were sitting at their work by the window of the
+little parlour, and talking over various matters of which the Great
+World, strange as it may seem, never made a part.
+
+They conversed in a low tone, for Lester sat by the hearth in which a
+wood fire had been just kindled, and appeared to have fallen into an
+afternoon slumber. The sun was sinking to repose, and the whole landscape
+lay before them bathed in light, till a cloud passing overhead, darkened
+the heavens just immediately above them, and one of those beautiful sun
+showers, that rather characterize the spring than autumn, began to fall;
+the rain was rather sharp, and descended with a pleasant and freshening
+noise through the boughs, all shining in the sun light; it did not,
+however, last long, and presently there sprang up the glorious rainbow,
+and the voices of the birds, which a minute before were mute, burst into
+a general chorus, the last hymn of the declining day. The sparkling drops
+fell fast and gratefully from the trees, and over the whole scene there
+breathed an inexpressible sense of gladness--
+
+                "The odour and the harmony of eve."
+
+"How beautiful!" said Ellinor, pausing from her work--"Ah, see the
+squirrel, is that our pet one? he is coming close to the window, poor
+fellow! Stay, I will get him some bread."
+
+"Hush!" said Madeline, half rising, and turning quite pale, "Do you hear
+a step without?"
+
+"Only the dripping of the boughs," answered Ellinor.
+
+"No--no--it is he--it is he!" cried Madeline, the blood rushing back
+vividly to her cheeks, "I know his step!"
+
+And--yes--winding round the house till he stood opposite the window, the
+sisters now beheld Eugene Aram; the diamond rain glittered on the locks
+of his long hair; his cheeks were flushed by exercise, or more probably
+the joy of return; a smile, in which there was no shade or sadness,
+played over his features, which caught also a fictitious semblance of
+gladness from the rays of the setting sun which fell full upon them.
+
+"My Madeline, my love, my Madeline!" broke from his lips.
+
+"You are returned--thank God--thank God--safe--well?"
+
+"And happy!" added Aram, with a deep meaning in the tone of his voice.
+
+"Hey day, hey day!" cried the Squire, starting up, "what's this? bless
+me, Eugene!--wet through too, seemingly! Nell, run and open the door--
+more wood on the fire--the pheasants for supper--and stay, girl, stay--
+there's the key of the cellar--the twenty-one port--you know it. Ah! ah!
+God willing, Eugene Aram shall not complain of his welcome back to
+Grassdale!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     AFFECTION: ITS GODLIKE NATURE.--THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN ARAM
+               AND MADELINE.--THE FATALIST FORGETS FATE.
+
+                   Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
+                   And manage it against despairing thoughts.
+                                --Two Gentlemen of Verona.
+
+If there be any thing thoroughly lovely in the human heart, it is
+Affection! All that makes hope elevated, or fear generous, belongs to the
+capacity of loving. For my own part, I do not wonder, in looking over the
+thousand creeds and sects of men, that so many religionists have traced
+their theology,--that so many moralists have wrought their system from--
+Love. The errors thus originated have something in them that charms us
+even while we smile at the theology, or while we neglect the system. What
+a beautiful fabric would be human nature--what a divine guide would be
+human reason--if Love were indeed the stratum of the one, and the
+inspiration of the other! What a world of reasonings, not immediately
+obvious, did the sage of old open to our inquiry, when he said the
+pathetic was the truest part of the sublime. Aristides, the painter,
+created a picture in which an infant is represented sucking a mother
+wounded to the death, who, even in that agony, strives to prevent the
+child from injuring itself by imbibing the blood mingled with the milk.
+[Note: Intelligitur sentire mater et timere, ne mortuo lacte sanguinem
+lambat.] How many emotions, that might have made us permanently wiser and
+better, have we lost in losing that picture!
+
+Certainly, Love assumes a more touching and earnest semblance, when we
+find it in some retired and sequestered hollow of the world; when it is
+not mixed up with the daily frivolities and petty emotions of which a
+life passed in cities is so necessarily composed: we cannot but believe
+it a deeper and a more absorbing passion: perhaps we are not always right
+in the belief.
+
+Had one of that order of angels to whom a knowledge of the future, or the
+seraphic penetration into the hidden heart of man is forbidden, stayed
+his wings over the lovely valley in which the main scene of our history
+has been cast, no spectacle might have seemed to him more appropriate to
+that lovely spot, or more elevated in the character of its tenderness
+above the fierce and short-lived passions of the ordinary world, than the
+love that existed between Madeline and her betrothed. Their natures
+seemed so suited to each other! the solemn and undiurnal mood of the one
+was reflected back in hues so gentle, and yet so faithful, from the
+purer, but scarce less thoughtful character of the other! Their
+sympathies ran through the same channel, and mingled in a common fount;
+and whatever was dark and troubled in the breast of Aram, was now
+suffered not to appear. Since his return, his mood was brighter and more
+tranquil; and he seemed better fitted to appreciate and respond to the
+peculiar tenderness of Madeline's affection. There are some stars which,
+viewed by the naked eye, seem one, but in reality are two separate orbs
+revolving round each other, and drinking, each from each, a separate yet
+united existence: such stars seemed a type of them.
+
+Had anything been wanting to complete Madeline's happiness, the change in
+Aram supplied the want. The sudden starts, the abrupt changes of mood and
+countenance, that had formerly characterized him, were now scarcely, if
+ever, visible. He seemed to have resigned himself with confidence to the
+prospects of the future, and to have forsworn the haggard recollections
+of the past; he moved, and looked, and smiled like other men; he was
+alive to the little circumstances around him, and no longer absorbed in
+the contemplation of a separate and strange existence within himself.
+Some scattered fragments of his poetry bear the date of this time: they
+are chiefly addressed to Madeline, and, amidst the vows of love, a
+spirit, sometimes of a wild and bursting--sometimes of a profound and
+collected happiness, are visible. There is great beauty in many of these
+fragments, and they bear a stronger impress of heart--they breathe more
+of nature and truth, than the poetry that belongs of right to that time.
+
+And thus day rolled on day, till it was now the eve before their bridals.
+Aram had deemed it prudent to tell Lester, that he had sold his annuity,
+and that he had applied to the Earl for the pension which we have seen he
+had been promised. As to his supposed relation--the illness he had
+created he suffered now to cease; and indeed the approaching ceremony
+gave him a graceful excuse for turning the conversation away form any
+topics that did not relate to Madeline, or to that event.
+
+It was the eve before their marriage; Aram and Madeline were walking
+along the valley that led to the house of the former.
+
+"How fortunate it is!" said Madeline, "that our future residence will be
+so near my father's. I cannot tell you with what delight he looks forward
+to the pleasant circle we shall make. Indeed, I think he would scarce
+have consented to our wedding, if it had separated us from him."
+
+Aram stopped, and plucked a flower.
+
+"Ah! indeed, indeed, Madeline! Yet in the course of the various changes
+of life, how more than probable it is that we shall be divided from him--
+that we shall leave this spot."
+
+"It is possible, certainly; but not probable, is it, Eugene?"
+
+"Would it grieve thee irremediably, dearest, were it so?" rejoined Aram,
+evasively.
+
+"Irremediably! What could grieve me irremediably, that did not happen to
+you?"
+
+"Should, then, circumstances occur to induce us to leave this part of the
+country, for one yet more remote, you could submit cheerfully to the
+change?"
+
+"I should weep for my father--I should weep for Ellinor; but--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I should comfort myself in thinking that you would then be yet more to
+me than ever!"
+
+"Dearest!"
+
+"But why do you speak thus; only to try me? Ah! that is needless."
+
+"No, my Madeline; I have no doubt of your affection. When you loved such
+as me, I knew at once how blind, how devoted must be that love. You were
+not won through the usual avenues to a woman's heart; neither wit nor
+gaiety, nor youth nor beauty, did you behold in me. Whatever attracted
+you towards me, that which must have been sufficiently powerful to make
+you overlook these ordinary allurements, will be also sufficiently
+enduring to resist all ordinary changes. But listen, Madeline. Do not yet
+ask me wherefore; but I fear, that a certain fatality will constrain us
+to leave this spot, very shortly after our wedding."
+
+"How disappointed my poor father will be!" said Madeline, sighing.
+
+"Do not, on any account, mention this conversation to him, or to Ellinor;
+'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'"
+
+Madeline wondered, but said no more. There was a pause for some minutes.
+
+"Do you remember," observed Madeline, "that it was about here we met that
+strange man whom you had formerly known?"
+
+"Ha! was it?--Here, was it?"
+
+"What has become of him?"
+
+"He is abroad, I hope," said Aram, calmly. "Yes, let me think; by this
+time he must be in France. Dearest, let us rest here on this dry mossy
+bank for a little while;" and Aram drew his arm round her waist, and, his
+countenance brightening as if with some thought of increasing joy, he
+poured out anew those protestations of love, and those anticipations of
+the future, which befitted the eve of a morrow so full of auspicious
+promise.
+
+The heaven of their fate seemed calm and glowing, and Aram did not dream
+that the one small cloud of fear which was set within it, and which he
+alone beheld afar, and unprophetic of the storm, was charged with the
+thunderbolt of a doom, he had protracted, not escaped.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+      WALTER AND THE CORPORAL ON THE ROAD.--THE EVENING SETS IN.--
+     THE GIPSEY TENTS.--ADVENTURE WITH THE HORSEMAN.--THE CORPORAL
+             DISCOMFITED, AND THE ARRIVAL AT KNARESBOROUGH.
+
+                   Long had he wandered, when from far he sees
+                   A ruddy flame that gleamed betwixt the trees.
+                   . . . . Sir Gawaine prays him tell
+                   Where lies the road to princely Corduel.
+                                --The Knight of the Sword.
+
+"Well, Bunting, we are not far from our night's resting-place," said
+Walter, pointing to a milestone on the road.
+
+"The poor beast will be glad when we gets there, your honour," answered
+the Corporal, wiping his brows.
+
+"Which beast, Bunting?"
+
+"Augh!--now your honour's severe! I am glad to see you so merry."
+
+Walter sighed heavily; there sat no mirth at his heart at that moment.
+
+"Pray Sir," said the Corporal after a pause, "if not too bold, has your
+honour heard how they be doing at Grassdale?"
+
+"No, Bunting; I have not held any correspondence with my uncle since our
+departure. Once I wrote to him on setting off to Yorkshire, but I could
+give him no direction to write to me again. The fact is, that I have been
+so sanguine in this search, and from day to day I have been so led on in
+tracing a clue, which I fear is now broken, that I have constantly put
+off writing till I could communicate that certain intelligence which I
+flattered myself I should be able ere this to procure. However, if we are
+unsuccessful at Knaresbro' I shall write from that place a detailed
+account of our proceedings."
+
+"And I hopes you will say as how I have given your honour satisfaction."
+
+"Depend upon that."
+
+"Thank you Sir, thank you humbly; I would not like the Squire to think
+I'm ungrateful!--augh,--and mayhap I may have more cause to be grateful
+by and by, whenever the Squire, God bless him, in consideration of your
+honour's good offices, should let me have the bit cottage rent free."
+
+"A man of the world, Bunting; a man of the world!"
+
+"Your honour's mighty obleeging," said the Corporal, putting his hand to
+his hat; "I wonders," renewed he, after a short pause, "I wonders how
+poor neighbour Dealtry is. He was a sufferer last year; I should like to
+know how Peter be getting on--'tis a good creature."
+
+Somewhat surprised at this sudden sympathy on the part of the Corporal,
+for it was seldom that Bunting expressed kindness for any one, Walter
+replied,--
+
+"When I write, Bunting, I will not fail to inquire how Peter Dealtry is;-
+-does your kind heart suggest any other message to him?"
+
+"Only to ask arter Jacobina, poor thing; she might get herself into
+trouble if little Peter fell sick and neglected her like--augh. And I
+hopes as how Peter airs the bit cottage now and then; but the Squire, God
+bless him, will see to that, and the tato garden, I'm sure."
+
+"You may rely on that, Bunting," said Walter sinking into a reverie, from
+which he was shortly roused by the Corporal.
+
+"I'spose Miss Madeline be married afore now, your honour: well, pray
+Heaven she be happy with that ere larned man!"
+
+Walter's heart beat faster for a moment at this sudden remark, but he was
+pleased to find that the time when the thought of Madeline's marriage was
+accompanied with painful emotion was entirely gone by; the reflection
+however induced a new train of idea, and without replying to the
+Corporal, he sank into a deeper meditation than before.
+
+The shrewd Bunting saw that it was not a favourable moment for renewing
+the conversation; he therefore suffered his horse to fall back, and
+taking a quid from his tobacco-box, was soon as well entertained as his
+master. In this manner they rode on for about a couple of miles, the
+evening growing darker as they proceeded, when a green opening in the
+road brought them within view of a gipsy's encampment; the scene was so
+sudden and so picturesque, that it aroused the young traveller from his
+reverie, and as his tired horse walked slowly on, the bridle about its
+neck, he looked with an earnest eye on the vagrant settlement beside his
+path. The moon had just risen above a dark copse in the rear, and cast a
+broad, deep shadow along the green, without lessening the vivid effect of
+the fires which glowed and sparkled in the darker recess of the waste
+land, as the gloomy forms of the Egyptians were seen dimly cowering round
+the blaze. A scene of this sort is perhaps one of the most striking that
+the green lanes of Old England afford,--to me it has always an
+irresistible attraction, partly from its own claims, partly from those of
+association. When I was a mere boy, and bent on a solitary excursion over
+parts of England and Scotland, I saw something of that wild people,--
+though not perhaps so much as the ingenious George Hanger, to whose
+memoirs the reader may be referred, for some rather amusing pages on
+gipsy life. As Walter was still eyeing the encampment, he in return had
+not escaped the glance of an old crone, who came running hastily up to
+him, and begged permission to tell his fortune and to have her hand
+crossed with silver.
+
+Very few men under thirty ever sincerely refuse an offer of this sort.
+Nobody believes in these predictions, yet every one likes hearing them:
+and Walter, after faintly refusing the proposal twice, consented the
+third time; and drawing up his horse submitted his hand to the old lady.
+In the mean while, one of the younger urchins who had accompanied her had
+run to the encampments for a light, and now stood behind the old woman's
+shoulder, rearing on high a pine brand, which cast over the little group
+a red and weird-like glow.
+
+The reader must not imagine we are now about to call his credulity in aid
+to eke out any interest he may feel in our story; the old crone was but a
+vulgar gipsy, and she predicted to Walter the same fortune she always
+predicted to those who paid a shilling for the prophecy--an heiress with
+blue eyes--seven children--troubles about the epoch of forty-three,
+happily soon over--and a healthy old age with an easy death. Though
+Walter was not impressed with any reverential awe for these
+vaticinations, he yet could not refrain from inquiring, whether the
+journey on which he was at present bent was likely to prove successful in
+its object.
+
+"'Tis an ill night," said the old woman, lifting up her wild face and
+elfin locks with a mysterious air--"'Tis an ill night for them as seeks,
+and for them as asks.--He's about--"
+
+"He--who?"
+
+"No matter!--you may be successful, young Sir, yet wish you had not been
+so. The moon thus, and the wind there--promise that you will get your
+desires, and find them crosses."
+
+The Corporal had listened very attentively to these predictions, and was
+now about to thrust forth his own hand to the soothsayer, when from a
+cross road to the right came the sound of hoofs, and presently a horseman
+at full trot pulled up beside them.
+
+"Hark ye, old she Devil, or you, Sirs--is this the road to Knaresbro'?"
+
+The Gipsy drew back, and gazed on the countenance of the rider, on which
+the red glare of the pine-brand shone full.
+
+"To Knaresbro', Richard, the dare-devil? Ay, and what does the ramping
+bird want in the ould nest? Welcome back to Yorkshire, Richard, my ben
+cove!"
+
+"Ha!" said the rider, shading his eyes with his hand, as he returned the
+gaze of the Gipsy--"is it you, Bess Airlie: your welcome is like the
+owl's, and reads the wrong way. But I must not stop. This takes to
+Knaresbro' then?"
+
+"Straight as a dying man's curse to hell," replied the crone, in that
+metaphorical style in which all her tribe love to speak, and of which
+their proper language is indeed almost wholly composed.
+
+The horseman answered not, but spurred on.
+
+"Who is that?" asked Walter earnestly, as the old woman stretched her
+tawny neck after the rider.
+
+"An ould friend, Sir," replied the Egyptian, drily. "I have not seen him
+these fourteen years; but it is not Bess Airlie who is apt to forgit
+friend or foe. Well, Sir, shall I tell your honour's good luck?"--(Here
+she turned to the Corporal, who sat erect on his saddle with his hand on
+his holster)--"the colour of the lady's hair--and--"
+
+"Hold your tongue, you limb of Satan!" interrupted the Corporal fiercely,
+as if his whole tide of thought, so lately favourable to the Soothsayer,
+had undergone a deadly reversion. "Please your honour, it's getting late,
+we had better be jogging!"
+
+"You are right," said Walter spurring his jaded horse, and nodding his
+adieu to the Gipsy,--he was soon out of sight of the encampment.
+
+"Sir," said the Corporal joining his master, "that is a man as I have
+seed afore; I knowed his ugly face again in a crack--'tis the man what
+came to Grassdale arter Mr. Aram, and we saw arterwards the night we
+chanced on Sir Peter Thingumybob."
+
+"Bunting," said Walter, in a low voice, "I too have been trying to recal
+the face of that man, and I too am persuaded I have seen it before. A
+fearful suspicion, amounting almost to conviction, creeps over me, that
+the hour in which I last saw it was one when my life was in peril. In a
+word, I do believe that I beheld that face bending over me on the night
+when I lay under the hedge, and so nearly escaped murder! If I am right,
+it was, however, the mildest of the ruffians; the one who counselled his
+comrades against despatching me."
+
+The Corporal shuddered.
+
+"Pray, Sir!" said he, after a moment's pause, "do see if your pistols are
+primed--so--so. 'Tis not out o' nature that the man may have some
+'complices hereabout, and may think to way-lay us. The old Gipsy, too,
+what a face she had! depend on it, they are two of a trade--augh!--
+bother!--whaugh!"
+
+And the Corporal grunted his most significant grunt.
+
+"It is not at all unlikely, Bunting; and as we are now not far from
+Knaresbro', it will be prudent to ride on as fast as our horses will
+allow us. Keep up alongside."
+
+"Certainly--I'll purtect your honour," said the Corporal, getting on that
+side where the hedge being thinnest, an ambush was less likely to be
+laid. "I care more for your honour's safety than my own, or what a brute
+I should be--augh!"
+
+The master and man had trotted on for some little distance, when they
+perceived a dark object moving along by the grass on the side of the
+road. The Corporal's hair bristled--he uttered an oath, which by him was
+always intended for a prayer. Walter felt his breath grow a little thick
+as he watched the motions of the object so imperfectly beheld; presently,
+however, it grew into a man on horseback, trotting very slowly along the
+grass; and as they now neared him, they recognised the rider they had
+just seen, whom they might have imagined, from the pace at which he left
+them before, to have been considerably a-head of them.
+
+The horseman turned round as he saw them.
+
+"Pray, gentlemen," said he, in a tone of great and evident anxiety, "how
+far is it to Knaresbro'?"
+
+"Don't answer him, your honour!" whispered the Corporal.
+
+"Probably," replied Walter, unheeding this advice, "you know this road
+better than we do. It cannot however be above three or four miles hence."
+
+"Thank you, Sir,--it is long since I have been in these parts. I used to
+know the country, but they have made new roads and strange enclosures,
+and I now scarcely recognise any thing familiar. Curse on this brute!
+curse on it, I say!" repeated the horseman through his ground teeth in a
+tone of angry vehemence, "I never wanted to ride so quick before, and the
+beast has fallen as lame as a tree. This comes of trying to go faster
+than other folks.--Sir, are you a father?"
+
+This abrupt question, which was uttered in a sharp, strained voice, a
+little startled Walter. He replied shortly in the negative, and was about
+to spur onward, when the horseman continued--and there was something in
+his voice and manner that compelled attention: "And I am in doubt whether
+I have a child or not.--By G--! it is a bitter gnawing state of mind.--I
+may reach Knaresbro' to find my only daughter dead, Sir!--dead!"
+
+Despite of Walter's suspicions of the speaker, he could not but feel a
+thrill of sympathy at the visible distress with which these words were
+said.
+
+"I hope not," said he involuntarily.
+
+"Thank you, Sir," replied the Horseman, trying ineffectually to spur on
+his steed, which almost came down at the effort to proceed. "I have
+ridden thirty miles across the country at full speed, for they had no
+post-horses at the d--d place where I hired this brute. This was the only
+creature I could get for love or money; and now the devil only knows how
+important every moment may be.--While I speak, my child may breathe her
+last!--" and the man brought his clenched fist on the shoulder of his
+horse in mingled spite and rage.
+
+"All sham, your honour," whispered the Corporal.
+
+"Sir," cried the horseman, now raising his voice, "I need not have asked
+if you had been a father--if you had, you would have had compassion on me
+ere this,--you would have lent me your own horse."
+
+"The impudent rogue!" muttered the Corporal.
+
+"Sir," replied Walter, "it is not to the tale of every stranger that a
+man gives belief."
+
+"Belief!--ah, well, well, 'tis no matter," said the horseman, sullenly.
+"There was a time, man, when I would have forced what I now solicit; but
+my heart's gone. Ride on, Sir--ride on,--and the curse of--"
+
+"If," interrupted Walter, irresolutely--"if I could believe your
+statement:--but no. Mark me, Sir: I have reasons--fearful reasons, for
+imagining you mean this but as a snare!"
+
+"Ha!" said the horseman, deliberately, "have we met before?"
+
+"I believe so."
+
+"And you have had cause to complain of me? It may be--it may be: but were
+the grave before me, and if one lie would smite me into it, I solemnly
+swear that I now utter but the naked truth."
+
+"It would be folly to trust him, Bunting?" said Walter, turning round to
+his attendant.
+
+"Folly!--sheer madness--bother!"
+
+"If you are the man I take you for," said Walter, "you once lifted your
+voice against the murder, though you assisted in the robbery of a
+traveller:--that traveller was myself. I will remember the mercy--I will
+forget the outrage: and I will not believe that you have devised this
+tale as a snare. Take my horse, Sir; I will trust you."
+
+Houseman, for it was he, flung himself instantly from his saddle. "I
+don't ask God to bless you: a blessing in my mouth would be worse than a
+curse. But you will not repent this: you will not repent it!"
+
+Houseman said these few words with a palpable emotion; and it was more
+striking on account of the evident coarseness and hardened vulgarity of
+his nature. In a moment more he had mounted Walter's horse, and turning
+ere he sped on, inquired at what place at Knaresborough the horse should
+be sent. Walter directed him to the principal inn; and Houseman, waving
+his hand, and striking his spurs into the animal, wearied as it was, was
+out of sight in a moment.
+
+"Well, if ever I seed the like!" quoth the Corporal. "Lira, lira, la, la,
+la! lira, lara, la, la, la!--augh!--whaugh!--bother!"
+
+"So my good-nature does not please you, Bunting."
+
+"Oh, Sir, it does not sinnify: we shall have our throats cut--that's all.
+
+"What! you don't believe the story."
+
+"I? Bless your honour, I am no fool."
+
+"Bunting!"
+
+"Sir."
+
+"You forget yourself."
+
+"Augh!"
+
+"So you don't think I should have lent the horse?"
+
+"Sartainly not."
+
+"On occasions like these, every man ought to take care of himself?
+Prudence before generosity?"
+
+"Of a sartainty, Sir."
+
+"Dismount, then,--I want my horse. You may shift with the lame one."
+
+"Augh, Sir,--baugh!"
+
+"Rascal, dismount, I say!" said Walter angrily: for the Corporal was one
+of those men who aim at governing their masters; and his selfishness now
+irritated Walter as much as his impertinent tone of superior wisdom.
+
+The Corporal hesitated. He thought an ambuscade by the road of certain
+occurrence; and he was weighing the danger of riding a lame horse against
+his master's displeasure. Walter, perceiving he demurred, was seized with
+so violent a resentment, that he dashed up to the Corporal, and, grasping
+him by the collar, swung him, heavy as he was,--being wholly unprepared
+for such force,--to the ground.
+
+Without deigning to look at his condition, Walter mounted the sound
+horse, and throwing the bridle of the lame one over a bough, left the
+Corporal to follow at his leisure.
+
+There is not perhaps a more sore state of mind than that which we
+experience when we have committed an act we meant to be generous, and
+fear to be foolish.
+
+"Certainly," said Walter, soliloquizing, "certainly the man is a rascal:
+yet he was evidently sincere in his emotion. Certainly he was one of the
+men who robbed me; yet, if so, he was also the one who interceded for my
+life. If I should now have given strength to a villain;--if I should have
+assisted him to an outrage against myself! What more probable? Yet, on
+the other hand, if his story be true;--if his child be dying,--and if,
+through my means, he obtain a last interview with her! Well, well, let me
+hope so!"
+
+Here he was joined by the Corporal, who, angry as he was, judged it
+prudent to smother his rage for another opportunity; and by favoring his
+master with his company, to procure himself an ally immediately at hand,
+should his suspicions prove true. But for once, his knowledge of the
+world deceived him: no sign of living creature broke the loneliness of
+the way. By and by the lights of the town gleamed upon them; and, on
+reaching the inn, Walter found his horse had been already sent there,
+and, covered with dust and foam, was submitting itself to the tutelary
+hands of the hostler.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+      WALTER'S REFLECTIONS.--MINE HOST.--A GENTLE CHARACTER AND A
+       GREEN OLD AGE.--THE GARDEN, AND THAT WHICH IT TEACHETH.--A
+      DIALOGUE, WHEREIN NEW HINTS TOWARDS THE WISHED FOR DISCOVERY
+         ARE SUGGESTED.--THE CURATE.--A VISIT TO A SPOT OF DEEP
+                      INTEREST TO THE ADVENTURER.
+
+                   I made a posy while the day ran by,
+                   Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
+                   My life within this band.
+                                --George Herbert.
+
+
+                                 The time approaches,
+                   That will with due precision make us know,
+                   What--
+                                --Macbeth.
+
+The next morning Walter rose early, and descending into the court-yard of
+the inn, he there met with the landlord, who--a hoe in his hand,--was
+just about to enter a little gate that led into the garden. He held the
+gate open for Walter.
+
+"It is a fine morning, Sir; would you like to look into the garden," said
+mine host, with an inviting smile.
+
+Walter accepted the offer, and found himself in a large and well-stocked
+garden, laid out with much neatness and some taste; the Landlord halted
+by a parterre which required his attention, and Walter walked on in
+solitary reflection.
+
+The morning was serene and clear, but the frost mingled the freshness
+with an "eager and nipping air," and Walter unconsciously quickened his
+step as he paced to and fro the straight walk that bisected the garden,
+with his eyes on the ground, and his hat over his brows.
+
+Now then he had reached the place where the last trace of his father
+seemed to have vanished; in how wayward and strange a manner! If no
+further clue could be here discovered by the inquiry he purposed; at this
+spot would terminate his researches and his hopes. But the young heart of
+the traveller was buoyed up with expectation. Looking back to the events
+of the last few weeks, he thought he recognised the finger of Destiny
+guiding him from step to step, and now resting on the scene to which it
+had brought his feet. How singularly complete had been the train of
+circumstance, which, linking things seemingly most trifling--most
+dissimilar, had lengthened into one continuous chain of evidence! the
+trivial incident that led him to the saddler's shop; the accident that
+brought the whip that had been his father's, to his eye; the account from
+Courtland, which had conducted him to this remote part of the country;
+and now the narrative of Elmore leading him to the spot, at which all
+inquiry seemed as yet to pause! Had he been led hither only to hear
+repeated that strange tale of sudden and wanton disappearance--to find an
+abrupt wall, a blank and impenetrable barrier to a course, hitherto so
+continuously guided on? had he been the sport of Fate, and not its
+instrument? No; he was filled with a serious and profound conviction,
+that a discovery that he of all men was best entitled by the unalienable
+claims of blood and birth to achieve was reserved for him, and that this
+grand dream and nursed object of his childhood was now about to be
+embodied and attained. He could not but be sensible, too, that as he had
+proceeded on his high enterprise, his character had acquired a weight and
+a thoughtful seriousness, which was more fitted to the nature of that
+enterprise than akin to his earlier temper. This consciousness swelled
+his bosom with a profound and steady hope. When Fate selects her human
+agents, her dark and mysterious spirit is at work within them; she moulds
+their hearts, she exalts their energies, she shapes them to the part she
+has allotted them, and renders the mortal instrument worthy of the solemn
+end.
+
+Thus chewing the cud of his involved and deep reflection, the young
+adventurer paused at last opposite his host, who was still bending over
+his pleasant task, and every now and then, excited by the exercise and
+the fresh morning air, breaking into snatches of some old rustic song.
+The contrast in mood between himself and this!
+
+"Unvexed loiterer by the world's green ways" struck forcibly upon him.
+Mine host, too, was one whose appearance was better suited to his
+occupation than his profession. He might have told some three-and-sixty
+years, but it was a comely and green old age; his cheek was firm and
+ruddy, not with nightly cups, but the fresh witness of the morning
+breezes it was wont to court; his frame was robust, not corpulent; and
+his long grey hair, which fell almost to his shoulder, his clear blue
+eyes, and a pleasant curve in a mouth characterized by habitual good
+humour, completed a portrait that even many a dull observer would have
+paused to gaze upon. And indeed the good man enjoyed a certain kind of
+reputation for his comely looks and cheerful manner. His picture had even
+been taken by a young artist in the neighbourhood; nay, the likeness had
+been multiplied into engravings, somewhat rude and somewhat unfaithful,
+which might be seen occupying no inconspicuous or dusty corner in the
+principal printshop of the town: nor was mine host's character a
+contradiction to his looks. He had seen enough of life to be intelligent,
+and had judged it rightly enough to be kind. He had passed that line so
+nicely given to man's codes in those admirable pages which first added
+delicacy of tact to the strong sense of English composition. "We have
+just religion enough," it is said somewhere in the Spectator, "to make us
+hate, but not enough to make us love one another." Our good landlord,
+peace be with his ashes! had never halted at this limit. The country
+innkeeper might have furnished Goldsmith with a counterpart to his
+country curate; his house was equally hospitable to the poor--his heart
+equally tender, in a nature wiser than experience, to error, and equally
+open, in its warm simplicity, to distress. Peace be with thee--Our
+grandsire was thy patron--yet a patron thou didst not want. Merit in thy
+capacity is seldom bare of reward. The public want no indicators to a
+house like thine. And who requires a third person to tell him how to
+appreciate the value of good nature and good cheer?
+
+As Walter stood, and contemplated the old man bending over the sweet
+fresh earth, (and then, glancing round, saw the quiet garden stretching
+away on either side with its boundaries lost among the thick evergreen,)
+something of that grateful and moralizing stillness with which some
+country scene (the rura et silentium) generally inspires us, when we
+awake to its consciousness from the troubled dream of dark and unquiet
+thought, stole over his mind: and certain old lines which his uncle, who
+loved the soft and rustic morality that pervades the ancient race of
+English minstrels, had taught him, when a boy, came pleasantly into his
+recollection,
+
+           "With all, as in some rare-limn'd book, we see
+           Here painted lectures of God's sacred will.
+           The daisy teacheth lowliness of mind;
+           The camomile, we should be patient still;
+           The rue, our hate of Vice's poison ill;
+           The woodbine, that we should our friendship hold;
+           Our hope the savory in the bitterest cold."
+                    --[Henry Peacham.]
+
+The old man stopped from his work, as the musing figure of his guest
+darkened the prospect before him, and said:
+
+"A pleasant time, Sir, for the gardener!"
+
+"Ay, is it so ... you must miss the fruits and flowers of summer."
+
+"Well, Sir,--but we are now paying back the garden, for the good things
+it has given us.--It is like taking care of a friend in old age, who has
+been kind to us when he was young."
+
+Walter smiled at the quaint amiability of the idea.
+
+"'Tis a winning thing, Sir, a garden!--It brings us an object every day;
+and that's what I think a man ought to have if he wishes to lead a happy
+life."
+
+"It is true," said Walter; and mine host was encouraged to continue by
+the attention and affable countenance of the stranger, for he was a
+physiognomist in his way.
+
+"And then, Sir, we have no disappointment in these objects:--the soil is
+not ungrateful, as, they say, men are--though I have not often found them
+so, by the by. What we sow we reap. I have an old book, Sir, lying in my
+little parlour, all about fishing, and full of so many pretty sayings
+about a country life, and meditation, and so forth, that it does one as
+much good as a sermon to look into it. But to my mind, all those sayings
+are more applicable to a gardener's life than a fisherman's."
+
+"It is a less cruel life, certainly," said Walter.
+
+"Yes, Sir; and then the scenes one makes oneself, the flowers one plants
+with one's own hand, one enjoys more than all the beauties which don't
+owe us any thing; at least, so it seems to me. I have always been
+thankful to the accident that made me take to gardening."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"Why, Sir, you must know there was a great scholar, though he was but a
+youth then, living in this town some years ago, and he was very curious
+in plants and flowers and such like. I have heard the parson say, he knew
+more of those innocent matters than any man in this county. At that time
+I was not in so flourishing a way of business as I am at present. I kept
+a little inn in the outskirts of the town; and having formerly been a
+gamekeeper of my Lord--'s, I was in the habit of eking out my little
+profits by accompanying gentlemen in fishing or snipe-shooting. So, one
+day, Sir, I went out fishing with a strange gentleman from London, and,
+in a very quiet retired spot some miles off, he stopped and plucked some
+herbs that seemed to me common enough, but which he declared were most
+curious and rare things, and he carried them carefully away. I heard
+afterwards he was a great herbalist, I think they call it, but he was a
+very poor fisher. Well, Sir, I thought the next morning of Mr. Aram, our
+great scholar and botanist, and thought it would please him to know of
+these bits of grass: so I went and called upon him, and begged leave to
+go and show the spot to him. So we walked there, and certainly, Sir, of
+all the men that ever I saw, I never met one that wound round your heart
+like this same Eugene Aram. He was then exceedingly poor, but he never
+complained; and was much too proud for any one to dare to offer him
+relief. He lived quite alone, and usually avoided every one in his walks:
+but, Sir, there was something so engaging and patient in his manner, and
+his voice, and his pale, mild countenance, which, young as he was then,
+for he was not a year or two above twenty, was marked with sadness and
+melancholy, that it quite went to your heart when you met him or spoke to
+him.--Well, Sir, we walked to the place, and very much delighted he
+seemed with the green things I shewed him, and as I was always of a
+communicative temper, rather a gossip, Sir, my neighbours say, I made him
+smile now and then by my remarks. He seemed pleased with me, and talked
+to me going home about flowers, and gardening, and such like; and after
+that, when we came across one another, he would not shun me as he did
+others, but let me stop and talk to him; and then I asked his advice
+about a wee farm I thought of taking, and he told me many curious things
+which, sure enough, I found quite true, and brought me in afterwards a
+deal of money But we talked much about gardening, for I loved to hear him
+talk on those matters; and so, Sir, I was struck by all he said, and
+could not rest till I took to gardening myself, and ever since I have
+gone on, more pleased with it every day of my life. Indeed, Sir, I think
+these harmless pursuits make a man's heart better and kinder to his
+fellow-creatures; and I always take more pleasure in reading the Bible,
+specially the New Testament, after having spent the day in the garden.
+Ah! well, I should like to know, what has become of that poor gentleman."
+
+"I can relieve your honest heart about him. Mr. Aram is living in--, well
+off in the world, and universally liked; though he still keeps to his old
+habits of reserve."
+
+"Ay, indeed, Sir! I have not heard any thing that pleased me more this
+many a day."
+
+"Pray," said Walter, after a moment's pause, "do you remember the
+circumstance of a Mr. Clarke appearing in this town, and leaving it in a
+very abrupt and mysterious manner?"
+
+"Do I mind it, Sir? Yes, indeed. It made a great noise in Knaresbro'--
+there were many suspicions of foul play about it. For my part, I too had
+my thoughts, but that's neither here nor there;" and the old man
+recommenced weeding with great diligence.
+
+"My friend," said Walter, mastering his emotion; "you would serve me more
+deeply than I can express, if you would give me any information, any
+conjecture, respecting this--this Mr. Clarke. I have come hither, solely
+to make inquiry after his fate: in a word, he is--or was--a near relative
+of mine!"
+
+The old man looked wistfully in Walter's face. "Indeed," said he, slowly,
+"you are welcome, Sir, to all I know; but that is very little, or nothing
+rather. But will you turn up this walk, Sir? it's more retired. Did you
+ever hear of one Richard Houseman?"
+
+"Houseman! yes. He knew my poor--, I mean he knew Clarke; he said Clarke
+was in his debt when he left the town so suddenly."
+
+The old man shook his head mysteriously, and looked round. "I will tell
+you," said he, laying his hand on Walter's arm, and speaking in his ear--
+"I would not accuse any one wrongfully, but I have my doubts that
+Houseman murdered him."
+
+"Great God!" murmured Walter, clinging to a post for support. "Go on--
+heed me not--heed me not--for mercy's sake go on."
+
+"Nay, I know nothing certain--nothing certain, believe me," said the old
+man, shocked at the effect his words had produced: "it may be better than
+I think for, and my reasons are not very strong, but you shall hear them.
+
+"Mr. Clarke, you know, came to this town to receive a legacy--you know
+the particulars."
+
+Walter impatiently nodded assent.
+
+"Well, though he seemed in poor health, he was a lively careless man, who
+liked any company who would sit and tell stories, and drink o'nights; not
+a silly man exactly, but a weak one. Now of all the idle persons of this
+town, Richard Houseman was the most inclined to this way of life. He had
+been a soldier--had wandered a good deal about the world--was a bold,
+talking, reckless fellow--of a character thoroughly profligate; and there
+were many stories afloat about him, though none were clearly made out. In
+short, he was suspected of having occasionally taken to the high road;
+and a stranger who stopped once at my little inn, assured me privately,
+that though he could not positively swear to his person, he felt
+convinced that he had been stopped a year before on the London road by
+Houseman. Notwithstanding all this, as Houseman had some respectable
+connections in the town--among his relations, by the by, was Mr. Aram--as
+he was a thoroughly boon companion--a good shot--a bold rider--excellent
+at a song, and very cheerful and merry, he was not without as much
+company as he pleased; and the first night, he and Mr. Clarke came
+together, they grew mighty intimate; indeed, it seemed as if they had met
+before. On the night Mr. Clarke disappeared, I had been on an excursion
+with some gentlemen, and in consequence of the snow which had been heavy
+during the latter part of the day, I did not return to Knaresbro' till
+past midnight. In walking through the town, I perceived two men engaged
+in earnest conversation: one of them, I am sure, was Clarke; the other
+was wrapped up in a great coat, with the cape over his face, but the
+watchman had met the same man alone at an earlier hour, and putting aside
+the cape, perceived that it was Houseman. No one else was seen with
+Clarke after that hour."
+
+"But was not Houseman examined?"
+
+"Slightly; and deposed that he had been spending the night with Eugene
+Aram; that on leaving Aram's house, he met Clarke, and wondering that he
+the latter, an invalid, should be out at so late an hour, he walked some
+way with him, in order to learn the cause; but that Clarke seemed
+confused, and was reserved, and on his guard, and at last wished him
+good-b'ye abruptly, and turned away. That he, Houseman, had no doubt he
+left the town that night, with the intention of defrauding his creditors,
+and making off with some jewels he had borrowed from Mr. Elmore."
+
+"But, Aram? was this suspicious, nay, abandoned character--this Houseman,
+intimate with Aram?"
+
+"Not at all; but being distantly related, and Houseman being a familiar,
+pushing sort of a fellow, Aram could not, perhaps, always shake him off;
+and Aram allowed that Houseman had spent the evening with him."
+
+"And no suspicion rested on Aram?"
+
+The host turned round in amazement.--"Heavens above, no! One might as
+well suspect the lamb of eating the wolf!"
+
+But not thus thought Walter Lester; the wild words occasionally uttered
+by the Student--his lone habits--his frequent starts and colloquy with
+self, all of which had, even from the first, it has been seen, excited
+Walter's suspicion of former guilt, that had murdered the mind's
+wholesome sleep, now rushed with tenfold force upon his memory.
+
+"But no other circumstance transpired? Is this your whole ground for
+suspicion; the mere circumstance of Houseman's being last seen with
+Clarke?"
+
+"Consider also the dissolute and bold character of Houseman. Clarke
+evidently had his jewels and money with him--they were not left in the
+house. What a temptation to one who was more than suspected of having in
+the course of his life taken to plunder! Houseman shortly afterwards left
+the country. He has never returned to the town since, though his daughter
+lives here with his wife's mother, and has occasionally gone up to town
+to see him."
+
+"And Aram--he also left Knaresbro' soon after this mysterious event?"
+
+"Yes! an old Aunt at York, who had never assisted him during her life,
+died and bequeathed him a legacy, about a month afterwards. On receiving
+it, he naturally went to London--the best place for such clever
+scholars."
+
+"Ha! But are you sure that the aunt died?--that the legacy was left?
+Might this be no tale to give an excuse to the spending of money
+otherwise acquired?"
+
+Mine host looked almost with anger on Walter.
+
+"It is clear," said he, "you know nothing of Eugene Aram, or you would
+not speak thus. But I can satisfy your doubts on this head. I knew the
+old lady well, and my wife was at York when she died. Besides, every one
+here knows something of the will, for it was rather an eccentric one."
+
+Walter paused irresolutely. "Will you accompany me," he asked, "to the
+house in which Mr. Clarke lodged,--and indeed to any other place where it
+may be prudent to institute inquiry?"
+
+"Certainly, Sir, with the biggest pleasure," said mine host: "but you
+must first try my dame's butter and eggs. It is time to breakfast."
+
+We may suppose that Walter's simple meal was soon over; and growing
+impatient and restless to commence his inquiries, he descended from his
+solitary apartment to the little back-room behind the bar, in which he
+had, on the night before, seen mine host and his better-half at supper.
+It was a sung, small, wainscoated room; fishing-rods were neatly arranged
+against the wall, which was also decorated by a portrait of the landlord
+himself, two old Dutch pictures of fruit and game, a long, quaint-
+fashioned fowling-piece, and, opposite the fireplace, a noble stag's head
+and antlers. On the window-seat lay the Izaak Walton to which the old man
+had referred; the Family Bible, with its green baize cover, and the
+frequent marks peeping out from its venerable pages; and, close nestling
+to it, recalling that beautiful sentence, "suffer the little children to
+come unto me, and forbid them not," several of those little volumes with
+gay bindings, and marvellous contents of fay and giant, which delight the
+hearth-spelled urchin, and which were "the source of golden hours" to the
+old man's grandchildren, in their respite from "learning's little
+tenements,"
+
+           "Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound,
+           And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around."
+                    --[Shenstone's Schoolmistress.]
+
+Mine host was still employed by a huge brown loaf and some baked pike;
+and mine hostess, a quiet and serene old lady, was alternately regaling
+herself and a large brindled cat from a plate of "toasten cheer."
+
+While the old man was hastily concluding his repast, a little knock at
+the door was heard, and presently an elderly gentleman in black put his
+head into the room, and, perceiving the stranger, would have drawn back;
+but both landlady and landlord bustling up, entreated him to enter by the
+appellation of Mr. Summers. And then, as the gentleman smilingly yielded
+to the invitation, the landlady, turning to Walter, said: "Our clergyman,
+Sir: and though I say it afore his face, there is not a man who, if
+Christian vartues were considered, ought so soon to be a bishop."
+
+"Hush! my good lady," said Mr. Summers, laughing as he bowed to Walter.
+"You see, Sir, that it is no trifling advantage to a Knaresbro'
+reputation to have our hostess's good word. But, indeed," turning to the
+landlady, and assuming a grave and impressive air, "I have little mind
+for jesting now. You know poor Jane Houseman,--a mild, quiet, blue-eyed
+creature, she died at daybreak this morning! Her father had come from
+London expressly to see her: she died in his arms, and, I hear, he is
+almost in a state of frenzy."
+
+The host and hostess signified their commiseration. "Poor little girl!"
+said the latter, wiping her eyes; "her's was a hard fate, and she felt
+it, child as she was. Without the care of a mother,--and such a father!
+Yet he was fond of her."
+
+"My reason for calling on you was this," renewed the Clergyman,
+addressing the host: "you knew Houseman formerly; me he always shunned,
+and, I fancy, ridiculed. He is in distress now, and all that is
+forgotten. Will you seek him, and inquire if any thing in my power can
+afford him consolation? He may be poor: I can pay for the poor child's
+burial. I loved her; she was the best girl at Mrs. Summers' school."
+
+"Certainly, Sir, I will seek him," said the landlord, hesitating; and
+then, drawing the Clergyman aside, he informed him in a whisper of his
+engagement with Walter, and with the present pursuit and meditated
+inquiry of his guest; not forgetting to insinuate his suspicion of the
+guilt of the man whom he was now called upon to compassionate.
+
+The Clergyman mused a little, and then, approaching Walter, offered his
+services in the stead of the Publican in so frank and cordial a manner,
+that Walter at once accepted them.
+
+"Let us come now, then," said the good Curate--for he was but the
+Curate--seeing Walter's impatience; "and first we will go to the house in
+which Clarke lodged; I know it well."
+
+The two gentlemen now commenced their expedition. Summers was no
+contemptible antiquary; and he sought to beguile the nervous impatience
+of his companion by dilating on the attractions of the antient and
+memorable town to which his purpose had brought him;--
+
+"Remarkable," said the Curate, "alike in history and tradition: look
+yonder" (pointing above, as an opening in the road gave to view the
+frowning and beetled ruins of the shattered Castle); "you would be at
+some loss to recognize now the truth of old Leland's description of that
+once stout and gallant bulwark of the North, when he 'numbrid 11 or 12
+towres in the walles of the Castel, and one very fayre beside in the
+second area.' In that castle, the four knightly murderers of the haughty
+Becket (the Wolsey of his age) remained for a whole year, defying the
+weak justice of the times. There, too, the unfortunate Richard the
+Second,--the Stuart of the Plantagenets--passed some portion of his
+bitter imprisonment. And there, after the battle of Marston Moor, waved
+the banners of the loyalists against the soldiers of Lilburne. It was
+made yet more touchingly memorable at that time, as you may have heard,
+by an instance of filial piety. The town was greatly straitened for want
+of provisions; a youth, whose father was in the garrison, was accustomed
+nightly to get into the deep dry moat, climb up the glacis, and put
+provisions through a hole, where the father stood ready to receive them.
+He was perceived at length; the soldiers fired on him. He was taken
+prisoner, and sentenced to be hanged in sight of the besieged, in order
+to strike terror into those who might be similarly disposed to render
+assistance to the garrison. Fortunately, however, this disgrace was
+spared the memory of Lilburne and the republican arms. With great
+difficulty, a certain lady obtained his respite; and after the conquest
+of the place, and the departure of the troops, the adventurous son was
+released."
+
+"A fit subject for your local poets," said Walter, whom stories of this
+sort, from the nature of his own enterprise, especially affected.
+
+"Yes: but we boast but few minstrels since the young Aram left us. The
+castle then, once the residence of Pierce Gaveston,--of Hubert III.--and
+of John of Gaunt, was dismantled and destroyed. Many of the houses we
+shall pass have been built from its massive ruins. It is singular, by the
+way, that it was twice captured by men of the name of Lilburn, or
+Lilleburn, once in the reign of Edward II., once as I have related. On
+looking over historical records, we are surprised to find how often
+certain names have been fatal to certain spots; and this reminds me, by
+the way, that we boast the origin of the English Sibyl, the venerable
+Mother Shipton. The wild rock, at whose foot she is said to have been
+born, is worthy of the tradition."
+
+"You spoke just now," said Walter, who had not very patiently suffered
+the Curate thus to ride his hobby, "of Eugene Aram; you knew him well?"
+
+"Nay: he suffered not any to do that! He was a remarkable youth. I have
+noted him from his childhood upward, long before he came to Knaresbro',
+till on leaving this place, fourteen years back, I lost sight of him.--
+Strange, musing, solitary from a boy! but what accomplishment of learning
+he had reached! Never did I see one whom Nature so emphatically marked to
+be GREAT. I often wonder that his name has not long ere this been more
+universally noised abroad: whatever he attempted was stamped with such
+signal success. I have by me some scattered pieces of poetry when a boy;
+they were given me by his poor father, long since dead; and are full of a
+dim, shadowy anticipation of future fame. Perhaps, yet, before he dies,
+--he is still young,--the presentiment will be realized. You too know him,
+then?"
+
+"Yes! I have known him. Stay--dare I ask you a question, a fearful
+question? Did suspicion ever, in your mind, in the mind of any one, rest
+on Aram, as concerned in the mysterious disappearance of my--of Clarke?
+His acquaintance with Houseman who was suspected; Houseman's visit to
+Aram that night; his previous poverty--so extreme, if I hear rightly; his
+after riches--though they perhaps may be satisfactorily accounted for;
+his leaving this town so shortly after the disappearance I refer to;--
+these alone might not create suspicion in me, but I have seen the man in
+moments of reverie and abstraction, I have listened to strange and broken
+words, I have noted a sudden, keen, and angry susceptibility to any
+unmeant excitation of a less peaceful or less innocent remembrance. And
+there seems to me inexplicably to hang over his heart some gloomy
+recollection, which I cannot divest myself from imagining to be that of
+guilt."
+
+Walter spoke quickly, and in great though half suppressed excitement; the
+more kindled from observing that as he spoke, Summers changed
+countenance, and listened as with painful and uneasy attention.
+
+"I will tell you," said the Curate, after a short pause, (lowering his
+voice)--"I will tell you: Aram did undergo examination--I was present at
+it--but from his character and the respect universally felt for him, the
+examination was close and secret. He was not, mark me, suspected of the
+murder of the unfortunate Clarke, nor was any suspicion of murder
+generally entertained until all means of discovering Clarke were found
+wholly unavailing; but of sharing with Houseman, some part of the jewels
+with which Clarke was known to have left the town. This suspicion of
+robbery could not, however, be brought home, even to Houseman, and Aram
+was satisfactorily acquitted from the imputation. But in the minds of
+some present at that examination, a doubt lingered, and this doubt
+certainly deeply wounded a man so proud and susceptible. This, I believe,
+was the real reason of his quitting Knaresbro' almost immediately after
+that examination. And some of us, who felt for him and were convinced of
+his innocence, persuaded the others to hush up the circumstance of his
+examination, nor has it generally transpired, even to this day, when the
+whole business is well nigh forgot. But as to his subsequent improvement
+of circumstance, there is no doubt of his aunt's having left him a legacy
+sufficient to account for it."
+
+Walter bowed his head, and felt his suspicions waver, when the Curate
+renewed.
+
+"Yet it is but fair to tell you, who seem so deeply interested in the
+fate of Clarke, that since that period rumours have reached my ear that
+the woman at whose house Aram lodged has from time to time dropped words
+that require explanation--hints that she could tell a tale--that she
+knows more than men will readily believe--nay, once she was even reported
+to have said that the life of Eugene Aram was in her power."
+
+"Father of mercy! and did Inquiry sleep on words so calling for its
+liveliest examination?"
+
+"Not wholly--on their being brought to me, I went to the house, but found
+the woman, whose habits and character are low and worthless, was abrupt
+and insolent in her manner; and after in vain endeavouring to call forth
+some explanation of the words she was reported to have uttered, I left
+the house fully persuaded that she had only given vent to a meaningless
+boast, and that the idle words of a disorderly gossip could not be taken
+as evidence against a man of the blameless character and austere habits
+of Aram. Since, however, you have now re-awakened investigation, we will
+visit her before you leave the town; and it may be as well too, that
+Houseman should undergo a further investigation before we suffer him to
+depart."
+
+"I thank you! I thank you--I will not let slip one thread of this dark
+clue."
+
+"And now," said the Curate, pointing to a decent house, "we have reached
+the lodging Clarke occupied in the town!"
+
+An old man of respectable appearance opened the door, and welcomed the
+Curate and his companion with an air of cordial respect which attested
+the well-deserved popularity of the former.
+
+"We have come," said the Curate, "to ask you some questions respecting
+Daniel Clarke, whom you remember as your lodger. This gentleman is a
+relation of his, and interested deeply in his fate!"
+
+"What, Sir!" quoth the old man, "and have you, his relation, never heard
+of Mr. Clarke since he left the town? Strange!--this room, this very room
+was the one Mr. Clarke occupied, and next to this,--here--(opening a
+door) was his bed-chamber!"
+
+It was not without powerful emotion that Walter found himself thus within
+the apartment of his lost father. What a painful, what a gloomy, yet
+sacred interest every thing around instantly assumed! The old-fashioned
+and heavy chairs--the brown wainscot walls--the little cupboard recessed
+as it were to the right of the fire-place, and piled with morsels of
+Indian china and long taper wine glasses--the small window-panes set deep
+in the wall, giving a dim view of a bleak and melancholy-looking garden
+in the rear--yea, the very floor he trod--the very table on which he
+leant--the very hearth, dull and fireless as it was, opposite his gaze--
+all took a familiar meaning in his eye, and breathed a household voice
+into his ear. And when he entered the inner room, how, even to
+suffocation, were those strange, half sad, yet not all bitter emotions
+increased. There was the bed on which his father had rested on the night
+before--what? perhaps his murder! The bed, probably a relic from the
+castle, when its antique furniture was set up to public sale, was hung
+with faded tapestry, and above its dark and polished summit were
+hearselike and heavy trappings. Old commodes of rudely carved oak, a
+discoloured glass in a japan frame, a ponderous arm-chair of Elizabethan
+fashion, and covered with the same tapestry as the bed, altogether gave
+that uneasy and sepulchral impression to the mind so commonly produced by
+the relics of a mouldering and forgotten antiquity.
+
+"It looks cheerless, Sir," said the owner, "but then we have not had any
+regular lodger for years; it is just the same as when Mr. Clarke lived
+here. But bless you, Sir, he made the dull rooms look gay enough. He was
+a blithesome gentleman. He and his friends, Mr. Houseman especially, used
+to make the walls ring again when they were over their cups!"
+
+"It might have been better for Mr. Clarke," said the Curate, "had he
+chosen his comrades with more discretion. Houseman was not a creditable,
+perhaps not a safe companion."
+
+"That was no business of mine then," quoth the lodging-letter; "but it
+might be now, since I have been a married man!"
+
+The Curate smiled, "Perhaps you, Mr. Moor, bore a part in those revels?"
+
+"Why, indeed, Mr. Clarke would occasionally make me take a glass or so,
+Sir."
+
+"And you must then have heard the conversations that took place between
+Houseman and him? Did Mr. Clarke, ever, in those conversations, intimate
+an intention of leaving the town soon? and where, if so, did he talk of
+going?"
+
+"Oh! first to London. I have often heard him talk of going to London, and
+then taking a trip to see some relations of his in a distant part of the
+country. I remember his caressing a little boy of my brother's; you know
+Jack, Sir, not a little boy now, almost as tall as this gentleman. "Ah,"
+said he with a sort of sigh, "ah! I have a boy at home about this age,--
+when shall I see him again?"
+
+"When indeed!" thought Walter, turning away his face at this anecdote, to
+him so naturally affecting.
+
+"And the night that Clarke left you, were you aware of his absence?"
+
+"No! he went to his room at his usual hour, which was late, and the next
+morning I found his bed had not been slept in, and that he was gone--gone
+with all his jewels, money, and valuables; heavy luggage he had none. He
+was a cunning gentleman; he never loved paying a bill. He was greatly in
+debt in different parts of the town, though he had not been here long. He
+ordered everything and paid for nothing."
+
+Walter groaned. It was his father's character exactly; partly it might be
+from dishonest principles superadded to the earlier feelings of his
+nature; but partly also from that temperament at once careless and
+procrastinating, which, more often than vice, loses men the advantage of
+reputation.
+
+"Then in your own mind, and from your knowledge of him," renewed the
+Curate, "you would suppose that Clarke's disappearance was intentional;
+that though nothing has since been heard of him, none of the blacker
+rumours afloat were well founded?"
+
+"I confess, Sir, begging this gentleman's pardon who you say is a
+relation, I confess I see no reason to think otherwise."
+
+"Was Mr. Aram, Eugene Aram, ever a guest of Clarke's? Did you ever see
+them together?"
+
+"Never at this house. I fancy Houseman once presented Mr. Aram to Clarke;
+and that they may have met and conversed some two or three times, not
+more, I believe; they were scarcely congenial spirits, Sir."
+
+Walter having now recovered his self-possession, entered into the
+conversation; and endeavoured by as minute an examination as his
+ingenuity could suggest, to obtain some additional light upon the
+mysterious subject so deeply at his heart. Nothing, however, of any
+effectual import was obtained from the good man of the house. He had
+evidently persuaded himself that Clarke's disappearance was easily
+accounted for, and would scarcely lend attention to any other suggestion
+than that of Clarke's dishonesty. Nor did his recollection of the
+meetings between Houseman and Clarke furnish him with any thing worthy of
+narration. With a spirit somewhat damped and disappointed, Walter,
+accompanied by the Curate, recommenced his expedition.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+GRIEF IN A RUFFIAN.--THE CHAMBER OF EARLY DEATH.--A HOMELY YET MOMENTOUS
+    CONFESSION.--THE EARTH'S SECRETS.--THE CAVERN.--THE ACCUSATION.
+
+                           ALL is not well;
+           I doubt some foul play.
+           . . . . . . . . . . . .
+                           Foul deeds will rise,
+           Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
+                                                --Hamlet.
+
+As they passed through the street, they perceived three or four persons
+standing round the open door of a house of ordinary description, the
+windows of which were partially closed.
+
+"It is the house," said the curate, "in which Houseman's daughter died,
+--poor, poor child!  Yet why mourn for the young?  Better that the light
+cloud should fade away into heaven with the morning breath, than travel
+through the weary day to gather in darkness and end in storm."
+
+"Ah, sir!" said an old man, leaning on his stick and lifting his hat, in
+obeisance to the curate, "the father is within, and takes on bitterly. He
+drives them all away from the room, and sits moaning by the bedside, as
+if he was a going out of his mind. Won't your reverence go in to him a
+bit?"
+
+The curate looked at Walter inquiringly. "Perhaps," said the latter, "you
+had better go in: I will wait without."  While the curate hesitated, they
+heard a voice in the passage; and presently Houseman was seen at the far
+end, driving some women before him with vehement gesticulations.
+"I tell you, ye hell-hags," shrieked his harsh and now straining voice,
+"that ye suffered her to die!  Why did ye not send to London for
+physicians?  Am I not rich enough to buy my child's life at any price?
+By the living ___, I would have turned your very bodies into gold to have
+saved her!  But she's DEAD! and I ___  Out of my sight; out of my way!"
+And with his hands clenched, his brows knit, and his head uncovered,
+Houseman sallied forth from the door, and Walter recognized the traveller
+of the preceding night. He stopped abruptly as he saw the little knot
+without, and scowled round at each of them with a malignant and ferocious
+aspect. "Very well, it's very well, neighbors!"  said he at length, with
+a fierce laugh; "this is kind!  You have come to welcome Richard Houseman
+home, have ye?  Good, good!  Not to gloat at his distress?  Lord, no!
+Ye have no idle curiosity, no prying, searching, gossiping devil within
+ye that makes ye love to flock and gape and chatter when poor men suffer!
+This is all pure compassion; and Houseman, the good, gentle, peaceful,
+honest Houseman, you feel for him,--I know you do!  Hark ye, begone!
+Away, march, tramp, or--Ha, ha!  there they go, there they go!" laughing
+wildly again as the frightened neighbors shrank from the spot, leaving
+only Walter and the clergyman with the childless man.
+
+"Be comforted, Houseman!"  said Summers, soothingly; "it is a dreadful
+affliction that you have sustained. I knew your daughter well: you may
+have heard her speak of me. Let us in, and try what heavenly comfort
+there is in prayer."
+
+"Prayer!  pooh!  I am Richard Houseman!"
+
+"Lives there one man for whom prayer is unavailing?"
+
+"Out, canter, out!  My pretty Jane!  And she laid her head on my bosom,
+and looked up in my face, and so--died!"
+
+"Come," said the curate, placing his hand on Houseman's arm, "come."
+
+Before he could proceed, Houseman, who was muttering to himself, shook
+him off roughly, and hurried away up the street; but after he had gone a
+few paces, he turned back, and approaching the curate, said, in a more
+collected tone: "I pray you, sir, since you are a clergyman (I recollect
+your face, and I recollect Jane said you had been good to her),--I pray
+you go and say a few words over her. But stay,--don't bring in my name;
+you understand. I don't wish God to recollect that there lives such a man
+as he who now addresses you. Halloo! [shouting to the women] my hat, and
+stick too. Fal la! la!  fal la!--why should these things make us play the
+madman?  It is a fine day, sir; we shall have a late winter.
+
+"Curse the b___ , how long she is! Yet the hat was left below. But when a
+death is in the house, sir, it throws things into confusion: don't you
+find it so?"
+
+Here one of the women, pale, trembling, and tearful, brought the ruffian
+his hat; and placing it deliberately on his head, and bowing with a
+dreadful and convulsive attempt to smile, he walked slowly away and
+disappeared.
+
+"What strange mummers grief makes!"  said the curate. "It is an appalling
+spectacle when it thus wrings out feeling from a man of that mould!  But
+pardon me, my young friend; let me tarry here for a moment."
+
+"I will enter the house with you," said Walter. And the two men walked
+in, and in a few moments they stood within the chamber of death.
+
+The face of the deceased had not yet suffered the last withering change.
+Her young countenance was hushed and serene, and but for the fixedness of
+the smile, you might have thought the lips moved. So delicate, fair, and
+gentle were the features that it was scarcely possible to believe such a
+scion could spring from such a stock; and it seemed no longer wonderful
+that a thing so young, so innocent, so lovely, and so early blighted
+should have touched that reckless and dark nature which rejected all
+other invasion of the softer emotions. The curate wiped his eyes, and
+kneeling down prayed, if not for the dead (who, as our Church teaches,
+are beyond human intercession), perhaps for the father she had left on
+earth, more to be pitied of the two!  Nor to Walter was the scene without
+something more impressive and thrilling than its mere pathos alone. He,
+now standing beside the corpse of Houseman's child, was son to the man of
+whose murder Houseman had been suspected. The childless and the
+fatherless,--might there be no retribution here?
+
+When the curate's prayer was over, and he and Walter escaped from the
+incoherent blessings and complaints of the women of the house, they, with
+difficulty resisting the impression the scene had left upon their minds,
+once more resumed their errand.
+
+"This is no time," said Walter, musingly, "for an examination of
+Houseman; yet it must not be forgotten."
+
+The curate did not reply for some moments; and then, as an answer to the
+remark, observed that the conversation they anticipated with Aram's
+former hostess might throw some light on their researches. They now
+proceeded to another part of the town, and arrived at a lonely and
+desolate-looking house, which seemed to wear in its very appearance
+something strange, sad, and ominous. Some houses have an expression, as
+it were, in their outward aspect that sinks unaccountably into the
+heart,--a dim, oppressive eloquence which dispirits and affects. You say
+some story must be attached to those walls; some legendary interest, of a
+darker nature, ought to be associated with the mute stone and mortar; you
+feel a mingled awe and curiosity creep over you as you gaze. Such was the
+description of the house that the young adventurer now surveyed. It was
+of antique architecture, not uncommon in old towns; gable ends rose from
+the roof; dull, small, latticed panes were sunk deep in the gray,
+discolored wall; the pale, in part, was broken and jagged; and rank weeds
+sprang up in the neglected garden, through which they walked towards the
+porch. The door was open; they entered, and found an old woman of coarse
+appearance sitting by the fireside, and gazing on space with that vacant
+stare which so often characterizes the repose and relaxation of the
+uneducated poor. Walter felt an involuntary thrill of dislike come over
+him as he looked at the solitary inmate of the solitary house.
+
+"Hey day, sir!"  said she, in a grating voice, "and what now?  Oh! Mr.
+Summers, is it you?  You're welcome, sir!  I wishes I could offer you a
+glass of summut, but the bottle's dry--he!  he!" pointing, with a
+revolting grin, to an empty bottle that stood on a niche within the
+hearth. "I don't know how it is, sir, but I never wants to eat; but ah!
+'t is the liquor that does un good!"
+
+"You have lived a long time in this house?"  said the curate.
+
+"A long time,--some thirty years an' more."
+
+"You remember your lodger, Mr. Aram?"
+
+"A--well--yes!"
+
+"An excellent man--"
+
+"Humph."
+
+"A most admirable man!"
+
+"A-humph! he!--humph! that's neither here nor there."
+
+"Why, you don't seem to think as all the rest of the world does with
+regard to him?"
+
+"I knows what I knows."
+
+"Ah! by the by, you have some cock-and-a-bull story about him, I fancy,
+but you never could explain yourself,--it is merely for the love of
+seeming wise that you invented it, eh, Goody?"
+
+The old woman shook her head, and crossing her hands on her knee, replied
+with peculiar emphasis, but in a very low and whispered voice, "I could
+hang him!"
+
+"Pooh!"
+
+"Tell you I could!"
+
+"Well, let's have the story then!"
+
+"No, no!  I have not told it to ne'er a one yet, and I won't for nothing.
+What will you give me?  Make it worth my while."
+
+"Tell us all, honestly, fairly, and fully, and you shall have five golden
+guineas. There, Goody."
+
+Roused by this promise, the dame looked up with more of energy than she
+had yet shown, and muttered to herself, rocking her chair to and fro:
+"Aha! why not?  No fear now, both gone; can't now murder the poor old
+cretur, as the wretch once threatened. Five golden guineas,--five, did
+you say, sir, five?"
+
+"Ah!  and perhaps our bounty may not stop there," said the curate.
+
+Still the old woman hesitated, and still she muttered to herself; but
+after some further prelude, and some further enticement from the curate,
+the which we spare our reader, she came at length to the following
+narration:--
+
+"It was on the 7th of February, in the year '44,--yes, '44, about six
+o'clock in the evening, for I was a-washing in the kitchen,--when Mr.
+Aram called to me an' desired of me to make a fire upstairs, which I did;
+he then walked out. Some hours afterwards, it might be two in the
+morning, I was lying awake, for I was mighty bad with the toothache, when
+I heard a noise below, and two or three voices. On this I was greatly
+afeard, and got out o' bed, and opening the door, I saw Mr. Houseman and
+Mr. Clarke coming upstairs to Mr. Aram's room, and Mr. Aram followed
+them. They shut the door, and stayed there, it might be an hour. Well, I
+could not a think what could make so shy an' resarved a gentleman as Mr.
+Aram admit these 'ere wild madcaps like at that hour; an' I lay awake a
+thinking an' a thinking, till I heard the door open agin, an' I went to
+listen at the keyhole, an' Mr. Clarke said: 'It will soon be morning, and
+we must get off.'  They then all three left the house. But I could not
+sleep, an' I got up afore five o'clock; and about that hour Mr. Aram an'
+Mr. Houseman returned, and they both glowered at me as if they did not
+like to find me a stirring; an' Mr. Aram went into his room, and Houseman
+turned and frowned at me as black as night. Lord have mercy on me, I see
+him now!  An' I was sadly feared, an' I listened at the keyhole, an' I
+heard Houseman say: 'If the woman comes in, she'll tell.'
+
+"'What can she tell?' said Mr. Aram; 'poor simple thing, she knows
+nothing.'  With that, Houseman said, says he: 'If she tells that I am
+here, it will be enough; but however [with a shocking oath], we'll take
+an opportunity to shoot her.'
+
+"On that I was so frighted that I went away back to my own room, and did
+not stir till they had gone out, and then--"
+
+"What time was that?"
+
+"About seven o'clock. Well--You put me out! where was I?  Well, I went
+into Mr. Aram's, an' I seed they had been burning a fire, an' that all
+the ashes were taken out o' the grate; so I went an' looked at the
+rubbish behind the house, and there sure enough I seed the ashes, and
+among 'em several bits o' cloth and linen which seemed to belong to
+wearing apparel; and there, too, was a handkerchief which I had obsarved
+Houseman wear (for it was a very curious handkerchief, all spotted)
+many's the time, and there was blood on it, 'bout the size of a shilling.
+An' afterwards I seed Houseman, an' I showed him the handkerchief; and I
+said to him, 'What has come of Clarke?'  An' he frowned, and, looking at
+me, said, 'Hark ye, I know not what you mean; but as sure as the devil
+keeps watch for souls, I will shoot you through the head if you ever let
+that d---d tongue of yours let slip a single word about Clarke or me or
+Mr. Aram,--so look to yourself!
+
+"An' I was all scared, and trimbled from limb to limb; an' for two whole
+yearn afterwards (long arter Aram and Houseman were both gone) I never
+could so much as open my lips on the matter; and afore he went, Mr. Aram
+would sometimes look at me, not sternly-like, as the villain Houseman,
+but as if he would read to the bottom of my heart. Oh! I was as if you
+had taken a mountain off o' me when he an' Houseman left the town; for
+sure as the sun shines I believes, from what I have now said, that they
+two murdered Clarke on that same February night. An' now, Mr. Summers,
+I feels more easy than I has felt for many a long day; an' if I have not
+told it afore, it is because I thought of Houseman's frown and his horrid
+words; but summut of it would ooze out of my tongue now an' then, for
+it's a hard thing, sir, to know a secret o' that sort and be quiet and
+still about it; and, indeed, I was not the same cretur when I knew it as
+I was afore, for it made me take to anything rather than thinking; and
+that's the reason, sir, I lost the good crackter I used to have."
+
+Such, somewhat abridged from its "says he" and "says I," its involutions
+and its tautologies, was the story which Walter held his breath to hear.
+But events thicken, and the maze is nearly thridden.
+
+"Not a moment now should be lost," said the curate, as they left the
+house. "Let us at once proceed to a very able magistrate, to whom I can
+introduce you, and who lives a little way out of the town."
+
+"As you will," said Walter, in an altered and hollow voice. "I am as a
+man standing on an eminence, who views the whole scene he is to travel
+over, stretched before him, but is dizzy and bewildered by the height
+which he has reached. I know, I feel, that I am on the brink of fearful
+and dread discoveries; pray God that--But heed me not, sir, heed me not;
+let us on, on!"
+
+It was now approaching towards the evening; and as they walked on, having
+left the town, the sun poured his last beams on a group of persons that
+appeared hastily collecting and gathering round a spot, well known in the
+neighborhood of Knaresborough, called Thistle Hill.
+
+"Let us avoid the crowd," said the curate. "Yet what, I wonder, can be
+its cause?"  While he spoke, two peasants hurried by towards the throng.
+
+"What is the meaning of the crowd yonder?" asked the curate.
+
+"I don't know exactly, your honor, but I hears as how Jem Ninnings,
+digging for stone for the limekiln, have dug out a big wooden chest."
+
+A shout from the group broke in on the peasant's explanation,--a sudden
+simultaneous shout, but not of joy; something of dismay and horror seemed
+to breathe in the sound.
+
+Walter looked at the curate. An impulse, a sudden instinct, seemed to
+attract them involuntarily to the spot whence that sound arose; they
+quickened their pace, they made their way through the throng. A deep
+chest, that had been violently forced, stood before them; its contents
+had been dragged to day, and now lay on the sward--a bleached and
+mouldering skeleton!  Several of the bones were loose, and detached from
+the body. A general hubbub of voices from the spectators,--inquiry,
+guess, fear, wonder,--rang confusedly around.
+
+"Yes!" said one old man, with gray hair, leaning on a pickaxe, "it is now
+about fourteen years since the Jew pedlar disappeared. These are probably
+his bones,--he was supposed to have been murdered!"
+
+"Nay!" screeched a woman, drawing back a child who, all unalarmed, was
+about to touch the ghastly relics, "nay, the pedlar was heard of
+afterwards. I'll tell ye, ye may be sure these are the bones of Clarke,
+--Daniel Clarke,--whom the country was so stirred about when we were
+young!"
+
+"Right, dame, right!  It is Clarke's skeleton," was the simultaneous cry.
+And Walter, pressing forward, stood over the bones, and waved his hand as
+to guard them from further insult. His sudden appearance, his tall
+stature, his wild gesture, the horror, the paleness, the grief of his
+countenance, struck and appalled all present. He remained speechless, and
+a sudden silence succeeded the late clamor.
+
+"And what do you here, fools?" said a voice, abruptly. The spectators
+turned: a new comer had been added to the throng,--it was Richard
+Houseman. His dress loose and disarranged, his flushed cheeks and rolling
+eyes, betrayed the source of consolation to which he had flown from his
+domestic affliction. "What do ye here?"  said he, reeling forward. "Ha!
+human bones?  And whose may they be, think ye?"
+
+"They are Clarke's!" said the woman, who had first given rise to that
+supposition.
+
+"Yes, we think they are Daniel Clarke's,--he who disappeared some years
+ago!" cried two or three voices in concert. "Clarke's?"  repeated
+Houseman, stooping down and picking up a thigh-bone, which lay at a
+little distance from the rest; "Clarke's?  Ha! ha!  they are no more
+Clarke's than mine!"
+
+"Behold!" shouted Walter, in a voice that rang from cliff to plain; and
+springing forward, he seized Houseman with a giant's grasp,--"behold the
+murderer!"
+
+As if the avenging voice of Heaven had spoken, a thrilling, an electric
+conviction darted through the crowd. Each of the elder spectators
+remembered at once the person of Houseman, and the suspicion that had
+attached to his name.
+
+"Seize him! seize him!" burst forth from twenty voices. "Houseman is the
+murderer!"
+
+"Murderer!" faltered Houseman, trembling in the iron hands of Walter,--
+"murderer of whom?  I tell ye these are not Clarke's bones!"
+
+"Where then do they lie?"  cried his arrester.
+
+Pale, confused, conscience-stricken, the bewilderment of intoxication
+mingling with that of fear, Houseman turned a ghastly look around him,
+and, shrinking from the eyes of all, reading in the eyes of all his
+condemnation, he gasped out, "Search St. Robert's Cave, in the turn at
+the entrance!"
+
+"Away!" rang the deep voice of Walter, on the instant; "away!  To the
+cave, to the cave!"
+
+On the banks of the River Nid, whose waters keep an everlasting murmur to
+the crags and trees that overhang them, is a wild and dreary cavern,
+hollowed from a rock which, according to tradition, was formerly the
+hermitage of one of those early enthusiasts who made their solitude in
+the sternest recesses of earth, and from the austerest thoughts and the
+bitterest penance wrought their joyless offerings to the great Spirit of
+the lovely world. To this desolate spot, called, from the name of its
+once celebrated eremite, St. Robert's Cave, the crowd now swept,
+increasing its numbers as it advanced.
+
+The old man who had discovered the unknown remains, which were gathered
+up and made a part of the procession, led the way; Houseman, placed
+between two strong and active men, went next; and Walter followed behind,
+fixing his eyes mutely upon the ruffian. The curate had had the
+precaution to send on before for torches, for the wintry evening now
+darkened round them, and the light from the torch-bearers, who met them
+at the cavern, cast forth its red and lurid flare at the mouth of the
+chasm. One of these torches Walter himself seized, and his was the first
+step that entered the gloomy passage. At this place and time, Houseman,
+who till then, throughout their short journey, had seemed to have
+recovered a sort of dogged self-possession, recoiled, and the big drops
+of fear or agony fell fast from his brow. He was dragged forward forcibly
+into the cavern; and now as the space filled, and the torches flickered
+against the grim walls, glaring on faces which caught, from
+the deep and thrilling contagion of a common sentiment, one common
+expression, it was not well possible for the wildest imagination to
+conceive a scene better fitted for the unhallowed burial-place of the
+murdered dead.
+
+The eyes of all now turned upon Houseman; and he, after twice vainly
+endeavoring to speak, for the words died inarticulate and choked within
+him, advancing a few steps, pointed towards a spot on which, the next
+moment, fell the concentrated light of every torch. An indescribable and
+universal murmur, and then a breathless silence, ensued. On the spot
+which Houseman had indicated, with the head placed to the right, lay what
+once had been a human body!
+
+"Can you swear," said the priest, solemnly, as he turned to Houseman,
+"that these are the bones of Clarke?"
+
+"Before God, I can swear it!" replied Houseman, at length finding his
+voice.
+
+"MY FATHER!"  broke from Walter's lips as he sank upon his knees; and
+that exclamation completed the awe and horror which prevailed in the
+breasts of all present. Stung by a sense of the danger he had drawn upon
+himself, and despair and excitement restoring, in some measure, not only
+his natural hardihood, but his natural astuteness, Houseman, here
+mastering his emotions, and making that effort which he was afterwards
+enabled to follow up with an advantage to himself of which he could not
+then have dreamed,--Houseman, I say, cried aloud,
+
+"But I did not do the deed; I am not the murderer."
+
+"Speak out!  Whom do you accuse?"  said the curate. Drawing his breath
+hard, and setting his teeth as with some steeled determination, Houseman
+replied,--
+
+The murderer is Eugene Aram!"
+
+"Aram!"  shouted Walter, starting to his feet: "O God, thy hand hath
+directed me hither!"  And suddenly and at once sense left him, and he
+fell, as if a shot had pierced through his heart, beside the remains of
+that father whom he had thus mysteriously discovered.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE ARAM, BOOK 4, BY LYTTON ***
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