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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7612.txt b/7612.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ec434b --- /dev/null +++ b/7612.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4077 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Eugene Aram, Book 4, by Bulwer-Lytton +#40 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +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 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** 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 *** + +********* This file should be named 7612.txt or 7612.zip ********** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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