The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tales of My Time, Vol. II (of 3), by William Pitt Scargill

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tales of My Time, Vol. II (of 3), by William Pitt Scargill

TALES
OF
MY TIME.

CHAPTER X.

There are some whose lot it is to pace the dull and beaten round of daily life like a sort of moral turn-spit, unconscious of the stages by which they travel from the cradle to the tomb. To these the extraordinary accidents and romantic coincidences, which occasionally chequer and diversify the flat road of human existence in the history of other men, appear incredible as the Arabian Nights' Entertainment; yet Fiction, in her most fantastic mood, does not leave the common average of events farther behind than reality is continually doing. Zorilda's was no common fate, and it pursued her to the grave.

Rachel's schemes had prospered so entirely that, by the time that she and her young mistress reached the great northern line, no farther anxiety attended their progress, and they journied onwards without apprehension. They stopped in the first large town, and found no difficulty in procuring pecuniary supplies at the Bank. So far all proceeded smoothly; but the pale cheek, and smileless eye, bore witness to that grief which "doth not speak" but "whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break."

There is sorrow which lies too deep for the landscape or the breeze. Neither air nor scene can reach its dwelling; and the change of both, which proves a sovereign balm to light afflictions, brought no healing to Zorilda's heart. It had not been always thus. There was a time when her glad eye hailed the rising sun with answering ray; and her young spirit, all alive to the charms of undefined but sparkling anticipation, which dresses the future in bright ideal glories, could carol with the lark at early dawn. Alive, with more than common enthusiasm, to[Pg 3] the beauties of nature, every opening bud and blossom had once inspired joy; but the charm was broken, sunshine and spring only seemed now to mock her grief, while one exclusive torturing thought occupied every avenue of sense. Algernon was false—Algernon was unworthy—and the affection which could no longer flow in unresisted tide towards him, returned with all the overwhelming force of a back-water current into her bosom.

It is maintained by some writers that woman's love ought to cling blindly to its object, and survive every trial. A true and devoted attachment is indeed proof against every attack which can assail it from without. The female breast can endure the rudest shocks of adversity, and outlive the severest reverses of fortune—it can preserve its bloom within the walls of a prison, and its warmth amid Siberian snows—but it is a vulgar love which grasps at the empty casket, after the gem which it contained is thrown away. Zorilda's soul was incapable of harbouring any but pure and exalted sentiments, which when[Pg 4] driven from the cherished object on whom they rested, came back with oppressive weight upon her widowed breast.

After a day's journey, which had been rendered particularly fatiguing from bad horses, our travellers reached the town of——. They arrived late, and found that every room at the inn was occupied. There was no second, and upon inquiring for private lodgings, the landlady of the Greyhound assured them that it was quite vain to hope for a bed any where. Young Squire Macdonald had just come of age. He was eldest son to Sir Herbert, and heir to immense estates. The great house was undergoing repairs, and therefore a splendid ball, which it was impossible to give on the present joyful occasion at the family mansion, was to assemble all the surrounding gentry that night at the inn. The company was to be as numerous as possible, to secure popularity, and, "in fact," the landlady added, with a broad grin, "our powers of accommodation are the only limits to Sir Herbert's hospitality on this happy event."

What was to be done? Nothing in nature[Pg 5] could be less accordant with the feelings of Zorilda than the sound of mirth and revelry; but the night was dark, and she feared to proceed any farther. The next stage too was long, and lay over a dreary moor. The landlady also protested that she had not a horse in the stables which was not nearly "jaded to death."

"Only allow me to remain under the protection of your roof," said Zorilda, "I shall not require any care or attendance." "I am sure," replied the landlady, "I never was so puzzled in all my life. If it was my sister, I could neither promise her a bed or a mutton chop. Even now, while I stand talking, I assure you, Ma'am, that I am wanted in half a dozen different places."

"I am sure of it," answered Zorilda; "but I can do without a bed and mutton chop. Only take me in. Put me any where, but pray do not refuse me."

The landlady was mollified, and promised to do her best, but gave fair warning that that best would prove a sorry sort of welcome to weary travellers.

Zorilda drew her veil closely over her face, and wrapping Rachel's large cloak round her person descended from the carriage, and following the woman of the house through a long stone entry and up a wide stair-case, which were lighted up and decorated with laurel branches, was ushered into a miserable scrap of an apartment, if indeed such a cage might be dignified with the style of one. There was neither table nor chair in it, but both were to be brought in a few minutes.

"Here, Ma'am, is the only cranny that I have to offer you, and I am very sorry for it," said the landlady. "I should not have even this to give you but for an accident to one of our gutters, and you see this wall is ruined by the deluge of water that came down upon it. I sent to London for paper, which did not come in time, so here you perceive I have been obliged to knock up a few boards, in the greatest hurry you can imagine, into a sort of partition, which I have hung all over with drapery, on the other side, to hide the new timber. There are only a few gentlemen in the house, who are sitting at their wine below stairs; and before the company[Pg 7] assembles you could just step here into the ball-room, and I think you will say that it is well contrived and tasty."

"I am obliged to you," answered Zorilda, "and am sure that all your arrangements are made in the best manner, but I will take possession of my quarters, and only wish that they were farther removed from the gay revels which are soon to begin. This is a thin partition, I hope at least that it is secure.

"Oh! bless you, yes, Ma'am. You will see nothing of the company. I wish I could guard you as well from hearing them," answered the landlady, whose houshold cares now "called her hence;" and who added, as she tripped out of the room, "you will have little quiet or comfort, but you can lock your door on the inside, and when the hurry of supper is over, if I can, I will get you a mattress."

Zorilda cared little about want of comfort, but she wished herself far from the riotous scene in which the sense of hearing, if not of sight, was soon to be involved.

Rachel exerted herself to do as much for her[Pg 8] mistress' accommodation, as the case would admit. A small table and an arm-chair were provided, and "now, my dear child," said the kind hearted creature, "that I have at last seen you fairly seated, I will go and see if I cannot fetch you a cup of hot coffee, and a nice dry toast." Carriages arrived, and the company poured in like a torrent. A band of music began to play. Zorilda had never heard so full a harmony of instruments since she left her native country, and the effect was magical. The musicians gave a popular Spanish air, to which, when an infant of three years old, she had often danced with a little pair of castanets. The stores of memory seemed suddenly unlocked. Her nurse, her cottage, the grove of chestnuts, the kind visitor whom she called her father, all were pictured in her mind's eye with the most vivid colouring, and as if called by fairy wand from a world of shadows to live again on earth.

"Oh! why cannot I remember thee, beloved mother," she exclaimed, as opening her precious packet which lay folded in her bosom, she pressed[Pg 9] the lovely image to her breast; "but no sound of melody can, with mysterious power, strike upon that chord, and draw forth strains of 'linked sweetness.' I was too young when torn from this snowy pillow, to see, to feel the heavenly mildness of that eye, the tender pathos of that smile."

The rooms filled, and all the "laughter loving Gods" were busy in producing such a din, that Zorilda's head ached from an uproar so uncongenial with her spirits.

"Can this be pleasure?" said she, as she listened to the vapid jest, the unmeaning laugh, the idle listless talk, which, penetrating the thin screen that separated her from the throng, came upon her unwilling ear. "Yes, these are the joys of which Algernon used to tell me, and joys perhaps they might have seemed, if tasted in his society; but I resemble the blind who live within, and imagination, which is most active when things external are shut out, weaves her web of 'sweet and bitter fancies,' which are little accordant with the world's opinions."

Rachel returned, but desirous to pursue her[Pg 10] thoughts in solitude, Zorilda sent her to amuse herself with staring at all the fine dresses and equipages, which formed in her estimation, the most magnificent spectacle she had ever looked upon; and much did she wish if possible, to inspire her young mistress with a single spark of her own curiosity to witness so splendid a pageant.

Once more alone in her cell, Zorilda endeavoured to abstract her mind from the noisy scene. She took out her mother's diamond cross, and having kissed, she pinned it to her breast.

"I will wear you always," said she, "next my heart, but it shall be unseen. When I reach Drumcairn, I will have a ribband and suspend it round my neck. This bracelet, too. These are my jewels, and they are gems of more worth than Potosi's mines could furnish, or Golconda has ever sent forth."

She had laid aside her cloak and veil. Her beautiful hair, which was only restrained by a tortoise-shell comb from falling over her shoulders, curled in rich profusion over her ivory[Pg 11] throat and forehead. The air of evening had fanned a rose-bud tint upon her cheek, and a black silk dress which folded across the bosom, formed the simple costume of her, whom only the thickness of a half-inch board concealed from that mirthful multitude, over whom in mingling, she would have reigned queen paramount, in loveliness and grace.

Amongst the papers which lay before her, was the letter which she had picked up in the walk at Henbury, when she had been startled by a rustling in the bushes behind where she sat. The idea struck her as she now looked over it again, with relation to other parts of her history since developed, that a father's care might watch at distance over her destiny. He was an English nobleman, perhaps, nay probably, a married man, and withheld not only by a sense of the wrongs which he had inflicted, but, also by existing family interests, from revealing himself to his injured child. This conjecture was little soothing; on the contrary, a cold tremor ran through her frame at thoughts of him who basely deceived, and then deserted those to[Pg 12] whom he was bound by the most powerful ties of nature as well as moral obligation.

"Alas!" said she, "as my father, whoever, or wherever he may be, I owe him reverence; but may I be spared the necessity of paying a tribute which could never be animated by affection! Better remain the unknown, despised 'Who is she?' than obtain a name and place in society at the cost of incurring Heaven's displeasure by violating the first of earthly duties."

As she uttered these words within her heart, her eyes were raised upwards, and her hands clasped in a posture of supplication.

At this instant a heavy crash, as if one of the dancers had fallen with great force against the weak partition, levelled the frail screen, which went to pieces, and came in fragments to the ground.

What a scene was now unveiled! Zorilda narrowly escaped receiving on her head a piece of the timber, which laid the table at which she had been sitting prostrate at her feet, and together[Pg 13] with it, the now scattered contents of her sacred packet.

The male part of the assembly rushed simultaneously forward to offer assistance, while, terrified and amazed, our heroine started from her seat, the most beautiful object that had ever graced a ball-room, revealing too

One gathered up the loose sheets of the narrative; another found the bracelets; and a third, who had seized the miniature, glancing at it before he presented it to the owner, uttered an involuntary ejaculation, and stood like one transfixed; but instantaneously recovering his presence of mind, he advanced, and grasping the hand which was extended to receive the portrait, with frenzied fervour, restored the treasure trove, and darted out of the room. The words which he had spoken, though probably not caught by others in the confusion of the moment, reached Zorilda's ear, for her eyes were intently fixed on him whom she saw take up her picture from the[Pg 14] floor; and the exclamation, "Oh! my daughter!" reverberating through every nerve, she felt her knees refuse their office, and tottering backwards, she fell into the arm-chair, almost bereft of sense; yet dreading the effect of her emotion, and fearful of losing again any part of what she prized more than life itself, she seemed suddenly invigorated, and hastily folding her packet once more to her bosom, she waved her head gracefully in acknowledgment of gratitude for polite attention, and pressed towards the door, which was opened for her by one of the many who were only anxious to try who should be foremost in affording aid. Numberless arms were proffered to support her, but declined, and with such an air of sincerity, as forbade all farther solicitations.

The waiters who had heard the crash, came running from all parts of the house, and Rachel was not wanting in the train, who flew to inquire what had happened. Zorilda seized her arm, and desired to be shown immediately to the landlady's apartment. Thither she was conveyed, quite exhausted.

"I must leave this place," said she, "before the dawn of day. Offer any thing as a bribe for fresh horses, but procure me the means of quitting this inn before the company break up; here I cannot stay, and the repose which this dreadful uproar denies, may be found at no great distance. I am not well, and my brain will become disordered if I cannot find quiet. Dear Rachel use your best diligence."

Rachel left the room; and as there are few things which money cannot procure, an offer of double fare soon produced the promise of as fine a pair of horses as ever ran in harness, which it was now recollected could be had at break of day. Ere long, she returned with the news, and with a story to boot.

"Lord o' mercy, my dear, but I have had my own share of trouble since I left you here, less than half an hour ago. There is all the whole town, I believe, in a ferment about you. 'Who is she? Who is she?' says one: 'Who is she? Where does she come from? Where is she going?' says another. I thought they would tear me to pieces among them. 'Is[Pg 16] she a foreigner? Spanish, French, or Italian?' Now all along we forgot to settle what name you should bear, and it came into my head, that it would not be any way creditable to be without one, so when they let me speak, I answered fair and softly, that you were Miss Gordon, going home to your relations in Scotland; that you were in trouble about one of them lately dead, and wished to be as private as could be. I had fifty offers of carriages from both ladies and gentlemen, and one and all they say, that such a beauty as yourself they never beheld. One young gentleman followed after me, when I returned thanks, and refused the rest; and sure I was ready to sink into the earth with consternation when he called me by my own name, given me at my baptism fifty-two years ago. 'Rachel,' says he, as plain as you ever spoke the word: 'Rachel,' says he, 'your lady is not unknown to me. If I may have the honour of seeing her, but for a moment, I will give her a letter which she dropped in her way from the ball-room, and entreat her to accept my best services in any manner that may be most useful.'

"'Sir,' says I, 'you have the advantage of me, but I am much obliged, and will let my mistress know all you say;' so here's the message, and I am to take back your answer; but like a noodle, I forgot to ask whose compliments I was to bring you."

"Never mind, never mind;" answered Zorilda, in great agitation; "I do not know any body; nor will I see any person. Go back; request the gentleman to give you whatever letter of mine he has found, and decline all farther communication. Be civil, but firm, and bring me no farther offers of assistance, which I do not intend to accept."

Rachel saw that there was no use in attempting to alter this determination, and though she would have been well pleased to convey a more conciliatory reply, she thought it prudent to do as she was desired without farther comment. The young gentleman waited her return, and Rachel acquitted herself of her task, mitigating the severity of a refusal, by assuring him how grateful her Lady felt for his politeness.

"Give her back her letter then," said the[Pg 18] stranger, who, during the interval of Rachel's absence, had asked for a sheet of paper, and inclosed it with these words:

"For worlds I would not be thought an intruder by Zorilda, and I therefore submit to her decision, which I anticipate. The letter accidentally dropped in the hurry of her retreat is now restored—extraordinary coincidence—by its writer; and he who now returns it is no other than the unseen guardian, who has for some time past watched unperceived, and been the fortunate means of saving much disquiet to her, who, once seen, must be remembered for ever."

"Unaccountable, intricate, bewildering destiny!" exclaimed Zorilda. "Can it be possible? Have I met my father? Was it he who grasped my hand? Have I refused a parent's request; and is it he who returns the letter, which, by a mysterious allotment of Providence (for who but the infidel talks of chance) has been directed to his hand?"

"Put such a notion out of your head, my dear young lady," replied Rachel, who stood behind, and of whose presence Zorilda was[Pg 19] unconscious when she spoke aloud. "No, no; the young gentleman who gave me that letter for you might be your brother indeed, and not much older than yourself; but as to being your father, you need not perplex yourself on that score. You have enough to be unhappy about, my poor dear, without such fancies. If it was the poor gentleman who was taken sick, and came out of the ball-room ready to faint, and drank a glass of water, and ordered his carriage in the greatest hurry, and looked like one possessed of an evil spirit; if he was the person that gave me the letter, it would be quite a different affair, for though a very fine man, tall as a may-pole, and straight as an arrow, he could not be less than forty, and a Lord into the bargain—Lord, Lord—something beginning with——."

"Oh! no more guessing," interrupted Zorilda, "what have I to do with any one? Make no inquiry, I charge you, I know enough. Hasten my departure."

When Rachel disappeared to collect her luggage and pay the bill, Zorilda, still pondering on[Pg 20] the events of the evening, now conjectured, that the young unknown, to whom she was indebted for some unexplained benefit, must be the person against whose attempts to write to, or speak with her, Algernon had given her an impressive caution when he was going to Marchdale Court. "Alas!" said she, "he need not have feared a rival; but it is past. These feverish uncertainties will soon have an end; and my beloved friend, whose name is now my shield and safeguard, will discover some retreat in which I may hide my head and bury my sorrows."

The riot began to subside, the music ceased, the last carriage rolled from the door, and a silvery streak along the eastern horizon gave notice of the coming day, when Zorilda's post-chaise was ready to receive her.

"Since I have been delayed till after the departure of these people," said she, "I will make a little alteration in my route in hopes to get rid of them. You see this map, Rachel, look; we will turn into this road. It cannot make the difference of more than five or six miles; and here you see we shall come again into[Pg 21] the exact line of our journey when all this crowd of revellers will have reached their several homes." "You were always knowing in maps, and such like," answered Rachel. "I know nothing but to desire the post-boy to drive whichever way you bid me; only take care not to go into any bye place, where you will not find a chaise or horses to take you on."

"We will lie by for the day then at the next stage," replied Zorilda, "and perhaps it will be no harm to do so; at all events, Rachel, I am very ill. Come, let us be gone."

So saying, she hurried down stairs along the squalid scene of departed festivity, assailed at every step by an expiring lamp, or the remains of a wassail bowl, at which the servants had been liberally plied. Sick and weary, Zorilda threw herself into the carriage, and blessed the morning air, which breathed "wooingly" upon her senses, and dispelled the horrible atmosphere of the inn.

An officious hostler stood at the horses' heads to prove that their fire required to be restrained; but the fact was, that it was with[Pg 22] difficulty they could be urged from the door. Zorilda desired that they might not be pushed beyond their strength; and the postilion, making a virtue of necessity, assuring her at the same time that his "cattle" could easily go at the rate of ten miles an hour, condescended to let them go at the only pace of which they were capable, a snail-slow walk, by which, in course of time, they arrived at a house seven miles on the stage of fifteen which they had to go. Here the horses were to bait; and precisely as the driver flourished his whip, to bring his tired beasts up to the door with some sort of eclat, a heavy waggon, which had just descended a steep hill in the opposite direction, came in such violent contact with the wheels of Zorilda's chaise as to overturn it in an instant into a deep ditch by the road side.

The people of the house ran to assist the travellers; but Zorilda had fainted from the agony of a dislocated wrist, and it was some time before she could be extricated from her perilous situation. At length she was conveyed into the house, and laid upon a bed; while Rachel,[Pg 23] almost distracted with apprehension, implored every body whom she met to go for a surgeon. None was to be had nearer than the town which they had left in the morning, and the only expedient was to send off a man and horse, but there was no horse in the stable at this poor place, and all that remained was to dispatch the post-boy with one of his tired steeds back again. In the interim the dislocated joint might become inflamed, and the greatest difficulty occur in replacing it. Zorilda continued insensible; Rachel ran nearly frantic out of the house to way lay the passengers, if any were haply going the road, who could assist her in this distress. A horseman advanced.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Rachel; "I will tell him what has happened, and he will be a swifter messenger, if he will undertake the thing, than this looby and his jaded beast."

Running to meet the gentleman, who approached at a swinging trot, what was the poor woman's joyful surprise to recognise the young man who had restored the letter, and whom she[Pg 24] left only a few short hours preceding, at the inn where the ball had been given.

No time was lost, and even Rachel, loquacious as was her usual habit, was brief on this occasion. The stranger alighted in an instant, and only employing the precaution of charging Rachel on no account to divulge either to Miss Gordon, or to any one whomsoever, her previous acquaintance with him, flew to the apartment in which Zorilda, suffering tortures of pain, had just opened her eyes on the women who were rubbing her forehead, applying burnt feathers to her nostrils, and trying whatever other scanty means the place supplied, to restore animation. The young gentleman, whom the patient at once concluded to be a medical practitioner, immediately pulled the injured limb, and with a powerful and skilful effort replaced the joint. Then, calling for vinegar and spirits, he bathed the hand and arm, which he bound, and leaving Rachel to prepare for accompanying her mistress to his father's house, which was, he said close at hand, and from whence he would immediately despatch a carriage for her[Pg 25] conveyance thither. He re-mounted his horse with the rapidity of lightning, and disappeared in an instant.

Before it was possible to imagine that he could have ridden a mile and back again, he returned with the family coach, in which his sister had brought cushions, shawls, pillows, and all sorts of accommodation for the invalid, whose acute pain and fever, added to the tears of Rachel, induced her to submit without resistance. Zorilda suffered herself to be placed in the coach, and conveyed to Sir Godfrey Cecil's splendid abode, where, leaving her under medical care, we must digress for a little while to explain some circumstances connected with the family amongst whom, she was now introduced by the singular course of her fortunes.

CHAPTER XI.

Sir Godfrey Cecil derived De Lacy castle, with the immense estates which descended to him along with this noble remnant of feudal pride, through a long line of ancestors, whose gaunt effigies, clad in shining mail, lined the great baronial hall, whose banners waved upon his chapel walls, and whose proud escutcheons were engraved upon those last records of departed grandeur which still proclaim amid all the pomp of heraldry, that dust hath to dust returned.

Sir Godfrey had married early into the ancient house of the De Burgho's and as he pored with constantly renewed delight over the pages[Pg 27] of Froissart, it was his favourite boast that every name distinguished by that immortal chronicler, was allied to him or to his consort the Lady Grace. In fine there were few failures in the moral code for which, though himself a man of the correctest conduct, he could not have more easily found excuse, than for obscurity of birth.

Lady Grace paid the same devotion to hereditary honours, and the general bearing of her tastes and pursuits was in perfect accordance with those of her husband. She knew the quarterings of every shield, and there was not a crest throughout the land with the device and history of which Lady Grace Cecil was unacquainted. Sir Godfrey and his wife, therefore, lived in all the harmony of kind intercourse, and mutual appeal upon those subjects which interested them both most nearly; and were the best friends imaginable, till any accidental occurrence produced, or led to competition between the merits of a Cecil and De Burgho. Angry looks and taunting speech would then interrupt domestic harmony; but, as such conflicts did[Pg 28] not frequently happen, Sir Godfrey and Lady Grace might be fairly called a very happy couple. Making allowance for this single foible, they were deservedly entitled to the character which they held for all those qualities which ought to adorn exalted birth. They were people of lofty principle, unsullied honour, and boundless munificence.

It was Sir Godfrey's rule that station makes the man, and one of the first maxims which he endeavoured to impress on the minds of his children was, that every individual whose fortune it was to be greatly born, owed it to his pedigree not to disgrace the armorial bearings committed to his safe custody, by a mean thought or sordid action.

It was an apparent anomaly at De Lacy castle that, though known to be as proud as Lucifer, the affability of Sir Godfrey and his Lady was a continual topic of popular praise. The truth was, that they were real aristocrats. It was not the paltry distinction of a new title, nor the accidental acquisition of wealth, which they held in esteem. Poverty was no crime in their[Pg 29] eyes. Alfred, turning the old woman's cakes at the fire, was as truly great in their contemplation, as Alfred dressed in ermined robes, and seated on his kingly throne; but woe to the Parvenû who entered their presence, however studded over with stars and garters. They would give gold to the needy, pity and protection to the friendless, but honour was denied to all who could not boast of ancient descent, and he who was not able to trace his lineage to at least the time of William the Conqueror, had little chance of rendering himself a welcome visitor, at the proud baronial residence to which we have just introduced our readers.

Sir Godfrey and Lady Grace had an only son and daughter, and never were two young persons more deserving of parental tenderness than Clara and Lionel Cecil, who were at once "their father's pride and mother's joy." The difficulties which raised a barrier to sending their affections abroad, had the happy effect of concentrating them at home; and the mutual attachment of this interesting brother and sister was a source of unfailing delight to themselves, and of[Pg 30] admiration to all who witnessed its pleasing influence upon their manners and dispositions, to which were added the attractions of fine talent and external beauty.

We are often led to observe how puny are the efforts of little man, with all his free-will, to alter or disturb the general laws of providence. If pride, for instance, always engendered pride, and continued an increasing quality, this earthly theatre would soon be too small for the pretensions of an inflated few, but fortunately excess of every kind carries its antidote along with the bane, and re-action is frequently as favourable to the growth of moral excellence as direct example; hence a profligate father is not always permitted to entail a curse upon his offspring, who, disgusted by his evil courses, start into an opposite track themselves. The miser is often followed by a liberal son. The spendthrift succeeded by one of economical habits. An age of infidelity gives birth to a generation of believers; one of fanaticism, to rational inquiry, and thus while we are still invariably taught that motives alone constitute virtue in individual[Pg 31] character, we perceive that limits are set to the consequences of human vice; and all things are so ordered as to work together for good upon the great scale of creation. A striking confirmation of this remark was exhibited by the children of the house of Cecil, who, though they entertained the sincerest veneration and affection for their parents, were rather inclined to take the opposite extreme of family pride, and value too little that which they heard so much overrated every day.

Lionel Cecil enjoyed every advantage which wealth could impart, and repaid the care which was bestowed upon his education, by making a distinguished figure both at Eton and Oxford. To a noble exterior, and splendid abilities, he added all the lighter accomplishments, which shine in mixed society. Full of youthful manliness and grace, the natural gaiety of his spirits was tempered by such a gentleness of disposition, as served to soften, without enervating his character. Never having had a brother, Clara was the companion of his infant sports, and the friend of riper years. The most perfect confidence[Pg 32] subsisted between these amiable young people who were twins in affection, though Lionel was somewhat older than his sister.

Now it so happened that young Cecil made one of a shooting party, which our readers may remember at Thornton Abbey; and dined at Henbury, in company with the Marquis of Turnstock and a few others, invited thither by Algernon Hartland. The exquisite beauty of Zorilda, heightened by that shrinking timidity which shunned the admiration which it excited, had struck a lively impression on his feelings, which time had not effaced from memory. The little he had heard her speak, was addressed to Mr. Playfair, but the pathetic sweetness of her voice lived on his ear, as her image did in his heart. She looked unhappy, and Lionel would have given a diadem to know the subject of her sorrows, and remove it. As he gazed upon her perfections, he wished for those days of chivalry, of which his father loved to tell the gallant feats performed by his ancestors, and thought that no such lovely Lady as Zorilda, had ever smiled upon true knight in the olden time.

The inquiries which were prompted by curiosity, met with such reply as to stimulate romance in the moment of arresting hope. "Who is she?" "Nobody knows." What an answer for the only son, heir, and representative of the proudest family in England! "Whence comes she?" "From a gipsey camp. How she got there no one can tell."

Lionel was too honourable to cherish an idea of clandestine love, and too good to make his parents miserable. He must, therefore, banish the idle vision, and shake off the sudden fascination which entangled his heart. This determination was aided after his return to Oxford, by certain observations on the manner of young Hartland, whenever Lord Turnstock rallied him on the subject of Zorilda's beauty, which had not been carelessly remarked by the Marquess as circumstances proved in the sequel. From some indications which were exhibited on such occasions, Lionel concluded that an engagement already subsisted between Algernon and the charming Spaniard.

When this conviction stole upon his mind he[Pg 34] gave a sigh, and could not refrain from saying to himself, "How happy are those, who, free to follow the bent of inclination, may taste the sweets of mutual love unshackled by these bonds, these galling chains of feudal despotism!"

This sigh, however, was the last. Lionel resolved to hold no dalliance with his duty, and with a manly resolution he plucked from his breast the forbidden thought, and had forgotten the short-lived dream which, for a time, murdered his repose, when Lord Turnstock arrived from the Continent. Lionel had never liked him, and now less than ever; he spoke of his former friend and ally Hartland in terms of unmeasured hatred and contempt, and one evening let out in convivial openness, that he was planning a good trick to vex him, adding, in a careless way, "by the bye, can any one tell me of that Spanish girl, that handsome gipsey who lives at Hartland's house? I have some business to transact with her."

These words were repeated accidentally to Cecil by one of the party, who thought that he could perceive some connection between the[Pg 35] "good trick," and the Spanish gipsey. Cecil thought so too, and resolved, as far as he was able, to avert danger from Zorilda by giving her such warning as to put her effectually on her guard, till the arrival of her lover should place her in security.

With this generous design, Lionel set out on a visit of a few days to Thornton Abbey, having had the satisfaction of seeing Lord Turnstock unexpectedly called in another direction by the death of a relation, from whom he hoped for a legacy. Cecil justly surmised, that this would give a new turn to the Marquess' thoughts, for a short time at least, and afford him the desired opportunity of frustrating any scheme inimical to Zorilda's safety. When he reached the neighbourhood of Henbury he made himself acquainted with Zorilda's daily habits, and conveyed the letter before mentioned in the manner already described. Clara was the only person to whom he had ever spoken of Zorilda, with whom his late meeting at the ball was purely accidental; and for her sake, as well as his own, he now wished with scrupulous care to suppress[Pg 36] every hint of his having been the person who sent her a message through Rachel at the inn. Such intelligence might produce embarrassment on her part, and render her anxious to leave De Lacy castle before her health was sufficiently re-established to encounter a journey; and for himself, the slightest acknowledgment of former acquaintance with, or interest concerning Zorilda, would infallibly awaken alarm in the minds of Sir Godfrey and Lady Grace.

Secrecy being therefore determined upon, an able surgeon was immediately sent for, who found his patient extremely feverish. After bandaging the injured wrist, and administering a composing draught, he ordered perfect quiet, and took his leave, promising to pay an early visit on the following day. Nothing could surpass the kindness with which the sick stranger was treated by the whole family, and she had been nearly twelve hours under the roof before Lady Grace asked, "Who is she?"

"The name is a good one," replied Lady[Pg 37] Cecil. "Did you hear, my love, whether she is of the—-"

"Her maid, I believe," said Miss Cecil, hastily, "is no genealogist. She looks like an old heir-loom in the shape of a nurse, who has been more conversant with swaddling-clothes than coats of arms; but I am sure that Miss Gordon must be of a good stock, she is so pretty and so elegant."

"That is a fallacious test, as I have often told you," rejoined Lady Cecil. "To be sure it little signifies when we are merely called upon to relieve distress, what rank the sufferer holds in the Herald's Court. We reserve that inquiry for our friendships and alliances."

Clara being afraid of displeasing her mother by an ill-timed remark on the possibility of giving one's confidence, and affection too, without referring to her mother's favourite volume, entitled, "Norroy King at Arms," contented herself with assenting to the first branch of her proposition, while the latter was left undisputed, and went to inquire whether there was any thing that she could do for her guest.

On the surgeon's return next day Zorilda's fever had greatly increased, and the accident which she had met with only appeared its accelerating, not original cause. Her mind was the real seat of malady. The unkindness of Lady Marchdale, and the perfidy of her once beloved Algernon, preyed upon her innocent heart, while the occurrence of such strange events as she had lately experienced, confused her head. On the third day of her illness she became delirious, and raved incessantly of all that weighed upon her spirit, but so incoherently, that none who was ignorant of her story could draw any collected evidence from the wild and whirling words which she uttered. The name of Algernon, however, escaped her lips so often as to convince young Cecil, to whom his sister reported all she heard, that a deep attachment existed in Zorilda's breast, of which Lord Hautonville was the object.

"Alas!" said Lionel, "the sweet girl has little knowledge of the man to whom she has betrothed her guileless heart. Her pure mind arrays the image of its devotion in the colours of[Pg 39] her own glowing fancy, and represents the object of her love as he should be, not as he is. I would not have you, my Clara, married to Lord Hautonville though he wore a crown imperial, and could trace his pedigree through a forest, instead of a single tree."

"I neither love crowns nor pedigrees for myself," replied Clara; "but we must not let the artless Zorilda be deceived. We must devise means of snatching her from future misery, if you know the object of her regards to be unworthy of them."

"It is a delicate task," answered Cecil, "but she may perhaps have made discoveries, the pain of which now presses on her feeble frame. I have questioned her attendant, who is a niggard of her information, or ignorant of what I want to know. Yet still I can gather, that this lovely creature has been harshly treated by Lady Marchdale, whose aversion to the idea of her son's alliance with the friendless Zorilda, I conclude to be the cause of a manner so contrary to her former kindness. Perhaps the noble minded stranger may have set out upon this journey to[Pg 40] remove all solicitude from the minds of her benefactors, and make a sacrifice of her own inclination to her sense of honour and virtue; but what a man must he be, who, knowing himself in possession of Zorilda's affections, can thus basely desert her?"

"He may not know of the sacrifice," said Clara. "Upon proposing to the old nurse to write to Miss Gordon's friends, and inform them of her present situation, she conjured me to preserve an inviolable secrecy respecting her, alleging the probable speedy termination of her illness, and the fear of alarming her relations, as the pretext for silence; but so extraordinary was the poor woman's vehemence, so urgent her entreaty, that I could not help feeling that 'more was meant than met the ear.'"

A physician who was called concurred with surgeon Crump, that no danger of contagion was to be dreaded, and Clara took advantage of this assurance to bestow the tenderest care on her guest, frequently stealing from her own room at night, to take Rachel's post and send her to bed.

Zorilda's illness was both tedious and alarming, and several weeks elapsed before her medical attendants pronounced their patient convalescent. Such a time however arrived, and the benevolence which offered asylum to distress now met its full reward. The doctors, however, insisted particularly on the utmost caution, and to Zorilda's earnest prayer to be told how soon she might resume her journey, constantly replied, that as a relapse would probably be fatal, she owed it to her friends as well as to herself to avoid the risk of one. She was permitted however to leave her chamber, and enjoy the society of her kind hosts in an adjoining dressing-room, where she received the most friendly congratulations on her recovery. Sir Godfrey, who had not seen his fair ward till now, was fascinated by her beauty, which late illness had only rendered more touching: and whatever impression was made by Zorilda's exterior form, was confirmed by her manners and conversation. Gratitude called upon her for every exertion to repay such kindness as she had found, and ere many[Pg 42] days were past, that which at first was effort, became inclination.

Armed with the honourable determination to preserve his heart from all entanglement, under the full persuasion that Zorilda's was already attached to another object, Lionel gave himself freely up to the charms of an intercourse, rendered the more seductive from the supposed security of the case, and Zorilda's dressing-room became the scene of all that delicate attention and polished taste could devise for her amusement. Clara had her harp and guitar transported thither, and delighted her young friend by the sweetest music, when she feared that conversation might exhaust her, while Lionel came laden with fresh stores of books and fine prints with which to beguile the hours, which flew on golden pinion.

One day, on the return of Clara and her brother from attending Sir Godfrey and Lady Cecil in a visit of ceremony, Zorilda, who believing them all absent had been singing some of her softest melodies to the guitar, was surprised by her young friends, who stood for a[Pg 43] long time outside the door of her apartment, held in bondage there by the captivation of her plaintive voice. This discovery opened a new source of attraction, and Clara, who loved nothing in creation like Lionel, began to grow uneasy lest society so congenial, and becoming each day more and more ensnaring, should produce too much present gratification for his future repose.

"I almost wish the day of parting were arrived," said she, as she held her brother's arm in a stroll in the pleasure-grounds. "This Spanish Syren will become too necessary to us, and we shall not know how to live without her."

Lionel started, and seemed to feel the truth of Clara's apprehension, but instantly repressing the emotion which her remark had excited, he answered with an assumed firmness, which imposed upon his sister as well as himself,

"She would indeed be a dangerous visitor here, were not the certainty that her affections are pre-occupied a perfect safeguard against the sorcery of such loveliness and modesty as never before appeared in union with such various[Pg 44] talents. Zorilda is a wonder of nature, but I never look on her without repeating my lesson—that she belongs to another; that with Lady Hautonville I have no other bond than that which a singular coincidence of romantic circumstances has thrown in my way. She is a stranger here, and will depart hence, leaving, it may be, such a standard of female excellence in one's mind, as to increase the difficulties of falling in love elsewhere; but as I am in no haste to marry, and our good father has no crotchet in his head for me, you may set your anxieties to sleep, and let us not be over wise in our prudence."

Clara was satisfied and returned to Zorilda's dressing-room, lightened of a weight which had oppressed her.

The security which Lionel only imagined, was real in Zorilda's instance. Her soul was fortified by feelings of pain so deeply seated, that though the happiness of companionship, and the sympathy of kindness, such as she now experienced, had power to soothe, they had none to change her heart, which was sealed,[Pg 45] by her misfortunes, to every impression of a dangerous sort; while the total absence of vanity in her character, precluded all suspicion of that effect which she produced on others. Increasing strength extended the permission of indulgence, and the invalid was allowed to take the air.

The gardens and grounds around De Lacy castle were worthy of that sumptuous edifice, which stood in the midst of scenery rendered doubly delightful in Zorilda's eyes by her long confinement; and the enthusiastic admiration which she bestowed upon the surrounding landscape, flattered the pride of Sir Godfrey as much as it excited a tenderer interest in the mind of his son. Time rolled on, and Zorilda, who saw how genuine was the expression of sorrow in Clara's countenance, whenever she spoke of departure, had refrained from questioning her physician. Her hand was still too weak to hold a pen; and she had, for obvious reasons, declined all offers of informing her Scotch friends, through any other medium, of her situation. Nay, she even rejoiced, on one[Pg 46] account, that they were as ignorant of her present retreat as the family of Henbury, since, should the latter desire to pursue or recall her, what so natural as to apply for information concerning movements to the only persons with whom she had ever formed a bond of friendship?

But Zorilda was not insensible to the extraordinary appearance which her neglected condition must wear in the eyes of her hosts, who did frequently express their astonishment that no letters arrived for their guest. At length our heroine, struggling to overcome the reluctance with which she resolved on tearing herself from those whose truth and tenderness had won upon her heart, producing the fullest return of all that she had to give, imparted to Miss Cecil her fixed design to pursue her purpose, and set out in a few days for Scotland, adding,

"My beloved Clara will not endeavour to dissuade me any longer from doing what she would herself feel to be right and necessary, were our situations reversed; what must Sir Godfrey and Lady Cecil think of a deserted[Pg 47] wanderer, thus apparently bereft of all the natural ties that bind to house, to home, to kindred?"

"They have been prevented from wondering much upon this subject," answered Clara, "by my brother's care, and my own, to assure them that you are incapable of any but the highest and the best motives for concealment. That none but parents possess such rights as to make it strange that, in default of their claims, of which perhaps death may have deprived you, your silence respecting an accident which has blessed us with your society during a few short weeks, has spared the feelings of more distant relatives, who may expect with less solicitude than would be a father or a mother's portion. Am I right? And if I am, have we no claims to urge? Oh, Zorilda! I know not how to part with you."

"Dear generous being!" exclaimed Zorilda, embracing her friend. "Such confidence must and shall be requited. Yes, you shall one day be made acquainted with the mysterious circumstances."

At this moment, a tap at the dressing-room[Pg 48] door, was followed by the entrance of Lady Cecil, leaning on the arm of her son.

"I will ask Miss Gordon myself," said the former, as if in continuation of preceding discourse with Lionel.

"We were just talking, my dear, of your uncommon name, which I maintain is Spanish, and as you know that I am a bit of a genealogist, I have been puzzling my brain to recollect how it happened to fall amongst the Gordons. Now that you are able to speak without fatigue, you shall tell us all about it. I dare say that there is some romantic tale of other days which I shall delight to hear, though I much wonder that my excellent friend of Drumcairn—"

"Drumcairn! Good Heavens do you know the Gordons of Drumcairn?" interrupted Zorilda, whose sudden surprise sent a vivid blush into her cheeks, which was followed by the lily's hue.

"To be sure I do. The Gordons of Drumcairn? They were here last summer. Mr. Gordon is one of my oldest friends, one of the best families in Europe. How is he related to[Pg 49] you, my dear? I am so glad that I happened to mention Drumcairn!"

"Well, well, this is really quite a hit," answered Lady Cecil, "and I see that you are as much struck by the coincidence as I am. But how can all this be? You are not niece to my good friend; for, if I remember rightly, his brother left only two sons behind him. Then for his sisters; the elder, Janet, married a Mackensie; and the younger a Stuart. How do you stand, my dear, with respect to the Drumcairn branch? I am quite charmed to find out who you are, and you have the Gordon features too."

Zorilda never was formed for dissimulation of any kind, and, though she met a glance of transport from Clara's eye, and felt an answering gleam of joy from Lionel's countenance, she quickly dispelled both the one and the other by confessing the truth.

"The family of Drumcairn are not related to me at all, except by the tenderest friendship[Pg 50] on their parts towards a solitary orphan," replied Zorilda.

Lady Cecil drew back, and with less beaming aspect, looked steadily at her blushing guest.

"I beg your pardon, my young friend," said she, "perhaps I distress you; but I thought I knew every Gordon in the world," and with a half disdainful, half incredulous air, added, "perhaps it is better to inquire no farther; all people do not trouble their heads about relationship after my fashion, you have no taste for heraldry I suppose."

So saying, Lady Cecil rose from her chair to leave the room, when Zorilda caught her hand, and bursting into tears drew it towards her lips.

"Accept, oh, accept the most grateful tribute of a broken heart. I have no right to the name of Gordon, and never assumed it. You shall not be deceived as the base return for all your goodness. Dear Madam, I am, it is true, without a name, and know little of a science with which I have no concern; but I have a glowing sense of all I owe to your generous hospitality; and alas! I can only repay it by lowering[Pg 51] myself in your esteem. In two days I shall quit your princely abode, and may never have the happiness of beholding you again. Before I leave De Lacy castle Miss Cecil shall be put in possession of my sad, my romantic story."

Zorilda's emotion would scarcely permit her to utter these words. Lady Cecil appeared agitated also. She was naturally enough shocked by any appearance of deception in one whom she had harboured so long under the roof with her only daughter. Yet the purity and candour of Zorilda's whole deportment, seemed to repel all doubt. Again, she felt glad that one day more would conclude the adventure, and while she rejoiced in getting rid of one in whose station in society she was disappointed, she felt it a pity to spoil preceding kindness by a cold farewell.

Perhaps the most awkward and angry feeling in Lady Cecil's mind, arose at this instant from the recollection that she had laid herself open to a smile of ridicule, by her discovery of that strong likeness to the Gordon physiognomy, for which it now appeared there was no foundation.[Pg 52] In short, whatever were the combination, her feelings were not pleasant, and beckoning to her son, whose countenance betrayed the deep interest which he took in the scene, she slightly inclined her head, and left the room.

"I have lost your mother's favour," said Zorilda, as she leaned on the bosom of her weeping friend, "but I must not repine. "Who is she?" was the brand set on the frontlet which bound my infant brows, and it is indelible. Will Clara, too, cast me off, and hate me because I have none other to love and shelter me?"

"I would give my life for you," replied her friend, "and so would—" but, suddenly pausing, Zorilda entreated her to leave the apartment. "My time is short," added she, "and I must set all things in order for my departure. You shall have my narrative to-night, for I am resolved to go to-morrow; read it to your family, and return it to me before you retire to rest. I will avoid seeing Sir Godfrey and Lady Cecil again; my presence can only distress them; but my gratitude will only end with life, and memory, my Clara, will not be exercised in far[Pg 53] distant retrospects. My days will be few, and sorrowful: I feel it here (as she laid her hand upon her heart), and Zorilda will soon have passed away like an evening shadow."

A fond embrace was all the comfort which Clara could impart, and she withdrew with feelings of wonder, sympathy, and admiration, too big for expression.

Rachel received orders to prepare for the journey, and never felt less inclined to obey than upon this occasion. She could have spent the remnant of her days well pleased in the luxurious ease of De Lacy castle, and had been long indulging a secret hope that two people, so formed for each other as its young Lord and her gentle mistress, should one day conclude the romance which brought them together in the usual way, by a happy union. Rachel loved a novel, next to her tea, better than any earthly solace, and had found rich stores of literary food, as well as Congo, at the castle; but in all her reading she had never stumbled upon a single instance in which faithful love was not rewarded. Now, that Lionel[Pg 54] loved Zorilda was her firm persuasion, not only because Rachel could not imagine any one secure against the attractions of her mistress, but she had too much sagacity, not to interpret the thousand kind attentions which she received herself from Mr. Cecil, as well as the pleasure which he seemed to feel in talking of Zorilda's improved health and appearance.

But Rachel buried these happy thoughts in her own breast, as, though Zorilda's manners were of dove-like softness, there was a native dignity in her demeanour which repelled all attempt at vulgar familiarity; and Rachel had sufficient tact to know exactly how far she might go, and where it was prudent to stop. She had never ventured therefore upon the slightest allusion to her hopes, and now set about the performance of her task with silent reluctance, while Zorilda endeavoured to compose her thoughts, and throw together a few brief outlines of her story, from the time of her removal from the gipsey camp to Henbury, by way of supplement to the narrative communicated to her by Mr. Playfair.

Nothing was suppressed in her artless and[Pg 55] affecting sketch, except the attachment between her and Algernon. This was a sacred theme. She alleged no motives, therefore, for Lady Marchdale's changed regards, and only stated, that having been conscious of altered feelings towards her, she could no longer endure to be a burthen on the kindness of her former friends, and had consequently resolved on sparing them all farther solicitude on her account, though circumstances of a peculiar nature prevented her from revealing her intentions, or informing her late benefactors of her retreat, till her future way of life should have assumed some fixed shape and character.

On leaving Zorilda, Clara had quitted the house to indulge in a solitary ramble the grief with which she felt oppressed as she contemplated the approaching separation from one who had become so dear to her, and whom she was forced into the painful belief was likely to prove a source of misery to her brother. "Alas!" said she, soliloquizing as she wandered onwards, "he loves her, and the more devotedly, because his generous soul disdained to acknowledge danger[Pg 56] while honour imposed silence on his wishes. He will be silent still, but he will be unhappy."

While Clara pondered these melancholy forebodings, Lionel was seeking for her, and at length overtook his sister, pale and breathless, with a newspaper in his hand.

"Here, Clara," said he, "is something strange. It struck my father, who brought it just now to me. I felt little appetite for news, but feared to offend, if I refused to look at what excited his curiosity, and my attention was soon arrested. I am certain that I know all the actors in this horrible catastrophe, and that it is interwoven with Zorilda's fate."

"For obvious reasons of a delicate nature, we forbear from alluding openly to the noble individuals who are involved in the tragical circumstances at which we glanced in a former number. Subsequent information, we regret to say, from an authentic source, leaves no doubt as to the painful fact, that a young nobleman, Lord H., whose family has been recently exalted by[Pg 57] succession to the peerage, has shot a nobleman, with whom not long since he was considered as being closely lié, and who now lies dangerously ill at Brussels. The cause of this lamentable occurrence continues to be wrapped in the profoundest mystery, but immediately after the dreadful act, the unhappy perpetrator made a voluntary surrender of himself to the civil authorities, to abide his trial; and it is rumoured, that his noble parents, of whom he is the only child, have set out for the Netherlands, plunged in the severest affliction. As a little time must fully develop this dark transaction, we shall abstain from any comment upon it, under present circumstances."

"It is, indeed, a terrible story, if true; but what reference can it have to Zorilda?" asked Clara, eagerly.

"I see it plainly," answered Lionel. "The recent succession; the former intimate friendship, and present enmity; an only child; the letter H, which is given as an initial; every circumstance, in short, to my mind, points out Lord Hautonville as the unfortunate young[Pg 58] gentleman who has killed the Marquess of Turnstock."

"You may be wrong," said Clara, "and all these signs may belong to some other persons. What does my father say?"

"Oh, nothing. He has no suspicion at all about the matter, and is unacquainted with the actors in this tragedy altogether."

"No; I thought it better to conceal the entire from Zorilda, who, as she does not dine below stairs, will not be liable to hear any discussion which might alarm her. If the truth be as I suppose, nay, as some unaccountable internal evidence assures me it is, she will soon be made acquainted with the fatal particulars, but I wanted to consult you on the possibility of detaining her here, by informing the rulers of my conjecture."

"Dismiss the idea from your mind," said Clara: "The greatest kindness we can now show this dear girl, is to hasten her departure, or at least not retard it. The tide has turned;[Pg 59] my mother has infused her doubts into my father's mind, and they are both restlessly impatient till she is gone. I saw the whole train on fire before I left the house, though there hardly seemed time to have put the match to it; but it is evident that previous doubts only required the slightest grain of probability to decide the question against our sweet forlorn Zorilda, and her confession that she does not belong to the house of Gordon has ruined her. My only hope is in the effect which may be produced by the recital of her history, which we are to have this evening, and for which I am myself burning with impatience. Who can she be? and, who are the parents who could cast such a creature on the merciless world?"

"I long to know as much as you can do," answered Lionel; "and believe that you counsel prudently. We must let things work and wait the issue."

"She must go," replied Clara; "and it will be better for her—for us all, that she should do so. We must not censure those, who with more experience of life, and less enthusiasm than you[Pg 60] and I possess, are slower in deciding on merit. I would not have Zorilda stay for all the indulgence of her society to myself. She would be looked on with an evil eye, and watched with jealous apprehension."

"And would defy all scrutiny to detect one dissembled thought," said Lionel, with warmth.

"Yes; but we must not detain her here to be suspected. We must let her go to Drumcairn; and the attachment of the Gordons towards her will be better proof of her deserts than all that you and I could assert in her favour."

Lionel, seized with avidity on this view, which seemed to open into a new vista of hope, that sparkled in his eye. "Come," said he, "let us return. We must caution Rachel not to suffer a newspaper to fall in her mistress' way till she reaches the end of her journey. Alas! that journey! Oh Clara! we shall feel an aching void when she is gone!"

Clara and her friend passed the greater part[Pg 61] of the day together in mutual regrets at parting—professions of unalterable attachment, and promises of future correspondence. Lionel made but one attempt to interrupt the tête-à-tête; and then exhibited so much emotion, in spite of all his efforts at concealment, that Zorilda became embarrassed; and Clara, dreading some painful eclaircissement, prevailed on her brother, by a supplicating look, to leave the room.

When Lionel was gone, Zorilda, blushing violently, and taking Clara's hand, entreated her to grant the request which she was going to make.

"Your kind brother and you will be desirous to perform the duties of hospitality to the last hour; but you must indulge my wishes. I cannot see either of you in the morning. You will deliver the packet, which I am to entrust to your care this evening, into my hands here in this dressing-room before you go to bed; but I conjure you to prevent me from seeing any of your family after they have become acquainted with my history. I feel unspeakable pain at confiding the strange events of my life to your parents; but I am impelled by gratitude to[Pg 62] assure them, as far as I can, that they have not thrown away their charity upon an impostor. I feel it due also to myself to prove, that I am not willingly or needlessly a young female adventurer, assuming an air of mystery and romance to win upon curiosity or benevolence. Alas! I am truly what I seem. I may be spurned with contempt, but I will try and make myself believed. Promise—faithfully promise, that I shall see none but yourself after the reading of my narrative."

Clara felt the energy with which this petition was urged; and the quickness of her penetration unravelled the true cause of Zorilda's earnestness. Lionel's looks and manners, though guarded by the strictest care, betrayed those feelings which are never more powerfully expressed than when they most assiduously seek to avoid all expression. Zorilda had long resisted every demonstration; but there is a language which those who have felt the influence of a strong attachment within their own breasts, cannot, if they would, misunderstand; and Zorilda had been forced into a reluctant conviction, that[Pg 63] she was dear to Lionel. A conviction, the more painful, because he was, of all earthly beings, the man in whose breast it was most agonizing to her heart to plant a thorn. Lionel's was, in fact, of all human characters, that which, most resembling Zorilda's, would have drawn upon every sympathy of her nature, had not her pre-occupied affections been sealed to every sentiment which might shake their rooted hold. She had, it is true, too keen a sense of moral perfection not to perceive young Cecil's merit in its full extent. She had sometimes caught herself in making involuntary comparisons between Algernon and him. She had even started from herself, as she had once mentally exclaimed, "Oh did he but resemble Lionel!" The sentence was never finished, even in her heart; and the aspiration so pure that angels might have witnessed it, seemed, to the scrupulous sensibility of Zorilda's soul, a species of inconstancy towards the idol whom she had worshipped from earliest, happiest, purest infancy, for which she had found it difficult to forgive herself. Algernon existed no longer for her,[Pg 64] but his image was enshrined in her memory; and though he had ceased to be worthy of her love, she never dreamed of bestowing it upon another.

"Why did I refuse to tie myself by a vow?" would she sometimes say as she mused on the past, "but because the free-will offering of a broken heart is as certain as a sickly bond could make it."

But Zorilda began to perceive that Lionel loved her, and dreaded nothing so much as a disclosure of feelings which she could not repay in kind. She was therefore urgent in her entreaty to Clara, that she might be allowed to glide away unnoticed, and her friend easily promised for herself. The bitterness of a farewell, perhaps for ever, was too deeply felt, to make her anxious to pronounce it.

The evening hour arrived, and Zorilda put her packet into the hands of Miss Cecil, who hastened to the library where her father, mother, and brother were assembled. The narrative was read; the diamond cross examined, the miniature admired; the whole pondered;[Pg 65] but very different were the feelings which these interesting memoranda produced in the minds of the old and the young. Sir Godfrey and his Lady were evidently displeased, and though they did not refuse their pity, it was mingled with distrust.

"The story is very extraordinary," said Lady Cecil, "and may be correctly told; but there is something so undefined in the whole narration, that after all the mind is left in utter confusion. After all, we are not informed who she is, nor who her parents were; nor is there any elucidation of her conduct in quitting the asylum of her youth. There is a cloud hanging over her desertion of those tried friends and early benefactors, which requires clearing up."

"Yes," answered Sir Godfrey, "the nature of her offence must have been serious to call for a change of manner on the part of Lady Marchdale; and I confess that my opinion of this wandering damsel is not improved, though many charitable allowances may be made; but I fear there is something of the gipsey about her still. I do not like these heroines, and am[Pg 66] very glad that without committing an act of harshness, we shall get rid of her to-morrow. Clara, my love, you are young and enthusiastic. I know how much you have been feeling for this stranger, whose beauty has irresistibly inspired an interest in her favour, to which perhaps she is not justly entitled. Your mother very properly remarks that a cloud at present hangs over her character, and till we learn what reception she meets with at Drumcairn, whither she says that she is going, I must insist on your avoiding all sort of correspondence with this giddy girl. If the Gordons continue their friendship towards her, I shall have no objection to your writing to her now and then hereafter, if you wish it."

Clara sighed, and bowed her head in token of submission to parental authority; but Lionel, eager only to justify Zorilda, exclaimed, "What Sir! must a helpless stranger be condemned unheard? Cannot a case be easily imagined, which, far from imparting censure to the conduct of your guest, raises every feeling of admiration for the noble principle which governs[Pg 67] her every thought, as well as action? Suppose, for a moment that her uncommon attractions had inspired sentiments in the breast of Lord Hautonville, more powerful than those which knit the hearts of children at that early age when first the lovely little Spaniard was brought home to be his play-fellow, may it not be that the high minded Zorilda, fearing that those to whom she owed every thing might not approve a union which the cold maxims of worldly prudence calls unequal, has left the asylum of her youth—perhaps the scene of her fondest affections, to give an exalted proof of gratitude, by the sacrifice of all her earthly happiness. Such magnanimity would be in perfect accordance with all that I know of Miss Gordon's character."

"Upon my word, Mr. Lionel," replied Sir Godfrey, "you are apparently a practised advocate. Either you know more of Miss Gordon's affairs, or conjecture takes a wonderfully favourable turn for her acquittal." The name of Gordon was pronounced with emphasis, while Sir Godfrey's countenance wore an[Pg 68] expression of the most bitterly sarcastic scrutiny. Lionel coloured, and, hurried forward by his feelings, would instantly have betrayed all that he knew of Henbury and its inhabitants, if a beseeching look from Clara had not arrested the recital. Suddenly recovering himself, he told his father that the laws of the land required delinquency to be proved before guilt is imputed, and that he had done no more than suggest a probable case.

"A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind, they say," replied Sir Godfrey, with a sneer. "I suppose that your own heart is the storehouse of your probabilities. Lionel, this is not a subject to be trifled with. I must have some serious conversation with you, and desire that you will meet me here to-morrow after breakfast. In the meantime you may consult your pillow upon some topics connected with this letter, which I received to-day from the Duke of Kingsbury."

So saying, Sir Godfrey quitted the room, Lady Cecil retired, and Clara employed a moment's interval before she followed her mother,[Pg 69] in pressing the necessity of secrecy and discretion on Lionel's mind, and imploring him to recollect Zorilda's request that she might be suffered to depart on the following morrow without observation.

"I will open the last gate of the great avenue, nothing shall prevent me from taking our farewell look," said Lionel, "and so good night."

Clara having listened to a lecture from Lady Cecil on the folly of yielding to benevolent feelings, without considering consequences, and heard how severely she reproached herself for having permitted a nameless wanderer to sleep a night beneath her roof, hastened to her friend's apartment. Zorilda rose to meet her, and as Clara restored the packet, a long and tender embrace conveyed more eloquently than language is capable of doing, the impression which it had made upon her heart. Not a word was spoken, but a thousand promises of unalterable love were interchanged, in the tears which choked their utterance.

The earliest dawn, found Zorilda stealing[Pg 70] softly along the little velvet lawn which skirted Clara's garden, from which as she passed, she gathered a wild honeysuckle which seemed to have strayed over the paling on purpose to breathe its fragrant adieus at her feet.

"Balm of the wilderness! that floats upon the pilgrim's path! what desert too revolting, what solitude too dreary for thy errant charities? Emblem of the brief and honied dream of kindness here, too sweet for more than passing breath upon the gale, thy farewell shall exhale upon Zorilda's grateful bosom."

Thus apostrophizing the trailing wreath, she pulled one of its golden flowers, which, placing next her heart, and casting one fond, lingering look at the turrets of De Lacy, she reached the carriage, in which Rachel was already seated, and ordering the postilion to keep along a narrow green lane at the back of the castle, as if actuated by some hidden impulse to avoid the great avenue, the travellers gained the high road, at the distance of more than a mile from the principal entrance, where Lionel waited their approach, with feelings of sorrow and agitation[Pg 71] not to be described. He loitered for an hour amongst the cedars, which formed a dark screen round the porter's-lodge, before the truth struck upon his mind. Starting then, as if from sleep, he dashed across the park, and gaining the narrow lane by which Zorilda had left his father's lordly abode, he needed not to ask a question. The fresh traces of her recent departure told their own story; and a sensation of inexpressible agony followed the assurance that Zorilda was gone. The first impulse was to mount his horse, and pursue the lovely fugitive; but Clara's anxious eye had watched her friend's device, and seen her brother return from his fruitless endeavour to obtain a parting glimpse of her whose image was engraven in his inmost heart; and she hastened towards him.

"Beware, dearest Lionel," said his weeping sister; "intrude not on Zorilda's grief. She has effected her retreat in this manner to avoid giving and receiving pain; we must respect her purpose; remember what affliction is yet in store for this young martyr when she knows the horrible tidings of her lover's present situation."

Lionel shuddered involuntarily as Clara uttered the word "lover," and, suffering himself to be led by Clara's arm, accompanied her in sullen apathy towards the house.

"My father will expect you presently in the study. Have you looked at the letter which he gave you last night?" said Clara.

Lionel had never bestowed a thought upon it, and now feeling in his pocket, drew it out, and dashed it on the ground.

"I am in no humour to read letters; there! give it back to Sir Godfrey, I cannot keep his appointment now." Saying these words, he disengaged himself from his sister's hold, and would have turned into another walk, but she seized, and, forcibly detaining him, entreated earnestly for Zorilda's sake that he would be calm. "You may injure her by this violence," said Clara; "what, if my father, irritated by your altered temper, should accuse, and wound her gentle spirit by some rude charge of having practised on your affections?"

This argument had its effect. Lionel paused, and pressing Clara's hand, "Be ever thus," said[Pg 73] he, "my guardian angel; read this letter to me, I will be advised by you, and curb this impetuous nature." Clara opened and read a formal composition, announcing, with a good deal of the vieille cour pomp, that the duke and all his family were returned to the country, and anticipated with pleasure a renewal of intercourse with De Lacy castle. The concluding paragraph, in form of a postscript, ran thus:

"I assure you that I have heard your son's praises loudly rung since I had the good fortune to see you last, and beg that you will bring him with you, when you visit Beaumont."

"My father thinks largely of my vanity, it would seem," said Lionel; "what has this complimentary stuff to do with me? My head is not likely to be made giddy with this sort of thing."

"The Duke has daughters, and my poor father's eye, like that of the poet, 'in a fine frenzy-rolling,' glances from earth to heaven, and beholds the arms of Beaumont quartered with those of De Lacy," replied Clara.

"Poetry, indeed! for he will be solely indebted to his imagination for such a sight," answered[Pg 74] Lionel; "but I hope that he has more common sense than to buoy himself up with hope so absurd, upon the ground of this piece of frothy ceremony."

"We shall see," said Clara; and the event proved that she was right. Lionel repaired to his father's study, and found him pacing up and down the room, with knit brow, and hands behind his back, as if pondering some affair of weighty issue.

"Good morrow, Sir; you wished, I think, to see me here, and I am come to return the letter, which kindly informs us that we may have the notable privilege of leaving cards for the Duke of Kingsbury."

"Cease with your idle sarcasms, Lionel," said Sir Godfrey, "and sit down while you hear what I have to say. I shall not dwell long upon the past, nor sully an act of benevolence, by regretting that mine induced me to give temporary shelter to a houseless stranger. We are not gifted with second sight, and must be sometimes liable to err through the impossibility of foreseeing consequences. This female adventurer[Pg 75] has shared our bounty, and I will not grudge her the services which have been rendered, but rejoice that she is gone; and as you were yourself the person to suggest a reason fully sufficient to account for her elopement from Lord Marchdale's family, it is not my purpose, without knowledge of the facts, to injure the character of one who has probably no other reliance for support. It is enough for me, that if her noble host did really anticipate so horrible a degradation as an attachment on the part of their only son, towards the nameless foundling of Hazlewood-moor; it is quite, I repeat, sufficient for me to be assured that you possess sense enough to enter into their feelings, and perceive ground for such a change of manner towards the object of their alarm, as to make her either from honour or policy, resolve on removing herself from Henbury."

"Sir," answered Lionel, "I pretend not to combat your feelings, or those of Lord Marchdale, if he concurs in your sentiments. I must only declare against any participation in them myself, and assure you that I consider Lord[Pg 76] Hautonville much more honoured by, than honouring the lovely companion of his youth, by any attachment which may subsist between them."

"Silly, silly," said Sir Godfrey, with an impatient tone; "I thought such folly had been obsolete, and am sorry that a remnant of the old leaven should be found under my roof. But let Lord Marchdale and his son settle their own affairs; we need not meddle in them. My business with you at present is, I am happy to say, of a far different kind, and I must, by way of preface, inform you, my dear boy, that much of the comfort which your mother and I venture to look for during our future life, depends on your coinciding with our views for your welfare. To be brief, I have had it from undoubted authority, that no event could be half so agreeable to the Duke and Duchess of Kingsbury, as an alliance with De Lacy castle, nor can I wonder at this. The Duke has several children, and small means to provide for them suitably in life, while a union with my son would not only confer wealth upon his house, but bring accession[Pg 77] (Sir Godfrey drew up his shirt collar at both sides, as he spoke) of those honours which every sensible man desires to see added to his family escutcheon. In point of birth-right, I thank my stars, I do not yield to any dukedom in Great Britain. Lady Jessie and Lady Emmiline are charming persons; and I have, as I said before, solid foundation for believing——."

"Pardon me, Sir, for interrupting you," said Lionel; "I cannot allow you to proceed any farther in a speculation at which my mind revolts. I will endeavour to meet your wishes in all reasonable requirements, and hope that I shall never be tempted to bring dishonour on your house; but I cannot consent to barter my liberty for the indulgence of ambition, which, forgive me for saying, I despise. Were man created for no higher purpose than to serve as a block on which to hang armorial emblazonments, all his intellect, tastes, and affections are an affair of cumbrous supererogation; but if happiness be his aim and object, and if I cannot find mine in the Heralds' Office, I should certainly be a fool to seek it there. It could[Pg 78] never occur to my imagination to interpret a civil letter from the Duke, as you have done; but believe me, that were his Grace of Kingsbury to forget so far what is due to his own pride and his daughter's delicacy, as to make an unequivocal declaration in my favour, nothing could possibly be so repugnant to my feelings as to act upon such a hint."

Just as Sir Godfrey, whose angry eye boded no very soft answer, was going to reply, the footman announced his agent; and we may be allowed to hope that the intelligence which he had to communicate of having let some farms, which were out of lease, at an advance of several hundreds a year, had the good fortune to act on the Baronet's temper like oil on the troubled ocean's wave. Lionel was glad to adjourn; and would have been well pleased had it been sine die, but another conference was decreed by Sir Godfrey, the result of which we must leave in doubt to attend Zorilda to Drumcairn, where she arrived without farther accident or adventure.

As hills rise into height upon our approach,[Pg 79] from what in the distance had appeared a level plain, so did a thousand scruples occur to her mind in drawing near to the residence of her friend, which till then had never distressed her. Nothing but the journey thither had previously perplexed our heroine in the thought of seeking an asylum at Drumcairn; but she now questioned her title to the boon. She had not announced her purpose, and was an unexpected visitor; perhaps might prove an unwelcome intruder. She had few opportunities of corresponding with Mrs. Gordon, who might have forgotten her general invitation. Mr. Gordon, too, might not desire her company. Oppressed by such reflections, Zorilda ordered the postilion to halt at a little village within a mile of Drumcairn; and having alighted at a small neat quiet inn, she wrote a note to Mrs. Gordon.

As soon as possible, after sending it off, she was folded in the arms of that excellent woman, who flew to greet the travellers, accompanied by her husband, whose salutations were fully as sincere, if not quite so rapturous, as those of his partner.

The joy of this meeting was enhanced to Mrs. Gordon by the uneasiness which she had felt since a few lines from Lady Marchdale had mentioned Zorilda's departure, and made rather a haughty demand, whether she had not directed her flight towards Aberdeenshire. Mrs. Gordon had answered her sister's letter; and in much earnestness had begged for farther particulars of an event so unaccountable; but Lady Marchdale was too selfishly absorbed by her own cares to think of distant friends, and not a line from Henbury, though repeatedly solicited, had thrown light upon any thing which was passing there. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gordon had seen the newspaper paragraph to which allusion was made at De Lacy castle; but as they were only slightly acquainted with their nephew's associates, and knew still less of his habits of life, it so happened that they were never struck with any application of the direful circumstances which were related in the public prints; and even had suspicion attached to the story, the silence of the family at Henbury would have completely banished it.

A few short hours put the friends mutually in possession of all that either had to unfold. Zorilda's history made the liveliest impression on the kind hearts to which it was revealed; and was followed by a solemn proffer of the most affectionate adoption.

"Let me henceforward be the fond, though imperfect, representative of that mother whom you have lost, while I shall find in my beloved Zoé such a daughter as I have often vainly longed to press to my bosom," said Mrs. Gordon. Zorilda's heart was too full for the lips to speak, but she looked all that a sinking spirit could express.

Though dreading pursuit, Zorilda had cherished a secret hope, that on reaching Scotland she might hear of Henbury; and learn what effects had been produced there by her sudden disappearance. This hope had greater influence in supporting her exertions than she was aware of, till disappointment crushed every energy of her soul. She had reached the goal—she had arrived at that haven of rest which had long been the end and aim of her desires, and now[Pg 82] experienced the inefficacy of external things to restore peace to the lacerated heart. Nothing which the tenderest feeling could suggest was left undone, yet Zorilda drooped in spite of every effort to repay the kindness of those around her, by answering endeavours on her part.

Drumcairn was the very sum and centre of domestic bliss, and presented a scene of happiness and concord, which seemed to realize the beautiful vision of an earthly Elysium. The landscape without was wildly picturesque; and within, whatever was best, wisest, and most tasteful, lent its aid to diversify the social resources. How blessed could Zorilda have felt in such a home; and what a gem would she have added to its attractions were not the secret poison carrying on its latent destruction, and gradually undermining health and strength!

When the first agitation of meeting was over, Mrs. Gordon invited her young friend to assist her in the charitable labours which employed much of her time. Zorilda learned, in these pious exercises, that numbers of her fellow creatures[Pg 83] were as miserable as herself. She soon discovered that she was not the only houseless orphan; but that thousands wept the bereavement of parents, lovers, friends. Her mind at last began to taste a heavenly pleasure in her new occupations. To pour the balm of comfort into the wounded spirit; to teach the young to live, the sick and old to die, became her principal delight; and her days were chiefly dedicated to those duties of active goodness, in which the selfishness of sorrow gradually gives way to that peace which is ever sure to spring from the pure source of practical religion. She would often start from the recollections of past time, and rush to employment from the stings of memory.

Sometimes it grieved her that no word of soothing friendship found its way to her from De Lacy castle. A letter from Clara, to say that her affection had not suffered diminution from acquaintance with the events which she confided to her knowledge would have been a consolation; but Zorilda was making rapid progress in the belief that there is no trial of life[Pg 84] which is not sent for some purpose of mercy, and her beloved guide and instructress never failed to improve every opportunity of tracing divine goodness in the bitterest dispensations.

We will now leave the young saint pursuing her celestial path, while we travel back to look upon a very different scene.

CHAPTER XII.

The consternation of Lord and Lady Marchdale was unutterable, when, on awakening in the morning they learned that Lord Hautonville had taken flight, leaving only a verbal message to say, that sudden business had carried him to London, from whence he hoped speedily to return; and not a little was the vexation of this abrupt departure aggravated in the minds of his parents, by a persuasion that he had gone in quest of Zorilda.

What rage, anxiety, and confusion of counsels, succeeded, it is impossible to describe. At length, after a stormy discussion, embittered by much of mutual crimination, it was determined that the whole family should pack up for the metropolis; but as more elaborate preparations were[Pg 86] necessary for the elders than was required by their son, some days elapsed before Henbury was deserted by its inhabitants, who little thought as they drove through the outer gate, that they were destined to meet no more within its once cheerful precincts.

On reaching Marchdale-house, they learned that Lord Hautonville had been there, but was gone: and all the information which his parents could obtain respecting the object or motive of his short stay and hurried departure, was from the housekeeper, an utter stranger to the new comers, and one who appeared by no means overjoyed at the change. This woman reported that the young lord seemed to be in the greatest possible agitation, and that his sole care was to find the Marquess of Turnstock, for whom he made inquiry with vehement solicitude; but finding that his lordship had set out for the continent, Lord Hautonville left town immediately, Mrs. Hobson could not tell with what intent. It was some relief to the anxious parents to learn that Lord Turnstock was the object of their son's pursuit; and though it mortified them that he should absent himself[Pg 87] without giving the slightest intimation of his designs, and particularly at a period when his presence was more than ever necessary at home, they endeavoured to tranquillize their apprehensions, by the flattering unction which they laid to their hearts, that he had only followed his friend into the country upon some scheme of amusement.

Letters were dispatched to recall the truant, and the Earl and his Countess were involved directly in all the bustle of legal affairs and visits of etiquette. When the time had expired which ought in due course to have brought an answer from Lord Hautonville, the arrival of the post became a subject of restless inquiry, but no letter arrived; and as it often happens that the most obvious measures do not occur to our minds first in the order of time, several days elapsed before Lord Marchdale, applying in the right place, heard from the Marquess's banker that he was gone to Brussels.

During this interval Lord Hautonville, who had taken his friend Col. Clapham along with him, passed over to Ostend. On reaching Brussels he was maddened almost to fury by[Pg 88] finding that his enemy had gone upon an excursion, and would not return for a few days. Feeding on his meditated revenge, and suffering imagination to supply all the facts which were necessary to goad him to the rashest acts of desperation, every moment appeared a century, till Lord Turnstock unsuspectingly drove to the door of the Hotel de Belle Vue, where he was saluted, as soon as he alighted from his carriage, by a challenge from his quondam ally, delivered by the hands of Col. Clapham.

Lord Hautonville had had his suspicions so convincingly corroborated by the answers which he received to certain inquiries concerning the Marquess, that he did not condescend to enter into the slightest explanation relative to the nature of the supposed insult for which he sought revenge; and the latter, in utter ignorance of the cause of offence, could not suppress an involuntary smile, as he returned the challenge to Colonel Clapham, and desired him to tell his friend that it was not his custom to fight with madmen.

An answer so irritating, heightened by the sarcastic air with which it was accompanied, was[Pg 89] not calculated to appease; and as it lost nothing in its transit (the second feeling himself now nearly as much enraged as the principal), the message was conveyed in such exaggerated colours, as to deprive Lord Hautonville, for the moment of all self-control. He seized his pistols, rushed into the streets, arrived at the Hotel de Belle Vue, darted into the room where the Marquess was going to dine, and taking a deliberate aim, shot him through the body, without uttering a word. The Marquess fell, the report of a pistol brought numbers of people together; and before Colonel Clapham overtook his friend, he was a prisoner. Surgical aid was immediately obtained, the wounded man removed to bed, his wounds examined, dressed, and pronounced dangerous.

Returning reason made Lord Hautonville speedily sensible of the awful situation in which he had placed himself; rendered more horrible by the assurance that he had no foundation for his conjectures, and therefore not even the excuse of injurious treatment for the dreadful act which he had perpetrated.

Colonel Clapham's first care was to write to[Pg 90] England, and apprise the unhappy parents of their son's condition; advising the utmost secrecy respecting the circumstances of this tragical event, and their immediate presence in Brussels, accompanied by whatever confidential legal adviser they considered most likely to give a favourable turn to the aspect of affairs.

The agonies of despair into which Lord and Lady Marchdale were thrown by the dreadful intelligence, almost deprived them of life, and some days elapsed before the unfortunate pair recovered sufficient bodily strength to undertake their mournful expedition. This interval was long enough to put them in possession of the fact that Lord Hautonville's debts amounted to a much larger sum than he had any prospect of being enabled to repay; and several of them revealed the truth that he was a determined gambler, and lived amongst a set remarkable in every way for habits of such dissipation as lead to inevitable destruction.

But who shall attempt to pourtray the feelings of the miserable culprit, when informed by Colonel Clapham that his jealousy was groundless as it had been vindictive; and that the[Pg 91] marquess knew nothing whatsoever respecting the elopement of Zorilda. Grief, contrition, self-reproach, despair, took alternate possession of his soul, and he would have laid down millions to insure that life of which but a few hours before he was resolved, at the probable sacrifice of his own, on the cruel extermination.

The solitude of a prison is a powerful preacher to the human soul! Conscience now called up a grisly train of terrifying spectres; and a review of the past rose in hideous contrast with the fate which might have awaited him. Mr. Playfair's counsels, illustrated in the lovely singleness and purity of Zorilda's character, came upon his memory and made him tremble. What a difference between the beloved, the cherished heir of a noble house, and the forlorn captive, whose ignominious end was perhaps destined to pay the forfeit of a murderous deed. The cold dews of death stood now upon that brow on which pride and pleasure were wont to keep perpetual jubilee; and a livid paleness overspread that cheek so lately animated by the flush of enterprize.

Of what avail were resolutions now? The accounts from hour to hour, of the hapless victim's condition, though sufficiently fluctuating to keep the balance trembling between hope and fear, afforded little comfort. If a momentary ray cheered the prospect, it was extinguished in the next instant. Amendment was not progressive, and those transient gleams, which were quenched successively in thicker gloom, only added poignance to despair. In the visions of horror which haunted the mind of Algernon, thoughts of those afflicted parents who were on their way to the scene of sorrow and humiliation continually mingled; and, as if the cup of grief could not be full unless it overflowed, he was now enlightened, and could explain Zorilda's disappearance. He was now able to perceive in her secret departure, the same noble self-denying spirit which had always distinguished every action of her life; and to curse the ungoverned passion which had hurried him into irretrievable ruin. A sudden frenzy would seize his frame, when scenes of early mutual love, and childish innocence, glanced[Pg 93] across memory in the prison's darksome solitude, to torture his imagination—but more was still to be endured.

The marquess preserved his senses throughout the lingering agonies which he was doomed to suffer—the most earnest supplication for pardon on the one side, and assurance of forgiveness on the other, were interchanged too late for any purpose connected with this world's futurities. The horrors of suspense, operating on irritable nerves, and temper unsubdued, were too powerful for successful conflict against them; and Algernon Hartland, so lately the pride and boast of a noble house, consumed by fever and tortured by remorse, breathed his last, in the same hour which brought Lord and Lady Marchdale to the hotel which contained the victim of their son's infuriate jealousy, apparently languishing also on the confines of the tomb.

The veil of Timanthes must be drawn over feelings too terrible for description. The die was cast. "Take me to the prison. I will see my darling, and expire within his cell," said[Pg 94] the wretched mother, who would not listen to any attempt at dissuading her from the dreadful purpose of visiting the remains of her son. Colonel Clapham conducted her, and with preternatural firmness she hastened forward; but the sight which burst upon her senses, when she reached the dreary chamber in which he lay, was the last on which her tearless eyes ever rested. The mother's heart had received its death dart, and her whole soul appeared to undergo a sudden change. Not a cry escaped her. Kneeling calmly down by the bed-side, and pressing to her bosom the clay-cold hand of Algernon her beloved—once "beautiful and brave"—her countenance assumed an unwonted expression of heavenly peace. Her husband stood with folded arms, behind her, and groaned heavily. She looked round, and taking his hand also, laid it upon that of her departed child; then raising her eyes, she exclaimed with fervor, "Lord forgive me—Thy will be done!" After uttering which word, one short convulsive sigh set the spirit free.

Stunned and transfixed, the miserable[Pg 95] survivor bent over the bed of death, like one who had been petrified in that attitude, and scarcely preserved consciousness of the scene which surrounded him. At this awful moment, Mr. Playfair entered the chamber. That excellent man had accidentally met with a friend who prevailed on him to alter his original design of proceeding directly to Switzerland, and visit first the far-famed plain of Waterloo. No sooner had he arrived at Brussels, than the fearful tale which was in every mouth, met his ear. He quickly recognised the dramatis personæ in this horrible tragedy, and hastened to inform himself of all its particulars. The case admitted of no earthly comfort, and he wept with heartfelt bitterness over the misfortunes of those unhappy parents whom he followed to the prison.

"Vain titles of worldly greatness! how little is it in your power to confer happiness!" ejaculated this true friend, as he hastened after the sufferers. What a spectacle presented itself when he reached the gloomy pile, and gained the dismal scene of death just in time to hear[Pg 96] the pious aspiration which bore a mother's spirit to the eternal world! He knelt, and prayed aloud for heaven's mercy on him who stood, like the scathed oak of the forest, a sad monument of solitary existence, when the pelting of the pitiless storm has levelled all things else in desolation and destruction at its feet.

Lord Marchdale was removed insensible from the prison, and a shock of paralysis for a time shed the poppies of oblivion over his senses, and spared him for more tranquil days to come. Colonel Clapham, who was deeply affected, and began to reproach himself as the principal actor in the late catastrophe, now delivered into Mr. Playfair's hands two letters with which his poor friend had entrusted him the day before his death, when he felt his last hour drawing near. One was addressed to his parents, the other to Zorilda; and he desired that they might be safely conveyed when he should be no more.

"You will be the fittest medium for the performance of this charge. How can I appear again in the presence of those from whom I might have averted the calamity which bows[Pg 97] them broken-hearted to the earth? Oh, Mr. Playfair, had I not fanned the flame, which I might at least have endeavoured to extinguish; had I not used all my influence to provoke and aggravate the feelings of my poor friend, instead of trying to assuage them, how different might not have been the result? But I am punished as I deserve. His untimely end is my work, and I shall never cease during my life, to be haunted by his dying image, when he called upon the grim tyrant to terminate his misery, and relieve him from the anguish of anticipating an ignominious end."

Mr. Playfair did not fail to improve the feeling which had been awakened in Colonel Clapham's mind, not by laying flattering unction to his criminal conduct, but by encouraging such repentance for the past as should effectually guard, during the remainder of his life against its recurrence. While he continued to take advantage of the opportunity to impress wholesome truths upon a softened heart, a message was brought from Lord Turnstock's apartment to say that the physicians who had[Pg 98] just been holding consultation, were of opinion that a favourable crisis had taken place in the night; and it was the earnest desire of the marquess to have the joyful tidings communicated, without a moment's delay, to the prisoner. What indescribable rapture would the intelligence have imparted a little week before! Then might it have poured the balsam of returning health into the fevered veins—the balm of stillness into the agitated breast—and whispered peace to the withered spirit; but it came not till the dull cold ear was deaf to the voice of the charmer—till the heart had ceased to beat, and the weary pulses to flutter.

The mother and her son were laid in the same grave, and Mr. Playfair and Colonel Clapham attended the sad procession as chief mourners. It was a sight which struck upon all who witnessed it, and was not soon forgotten. Lord Marchdale continued in a doubtful state, and some time elapsed ere it was considered safe to move him. During this interval the favourable change in Lord Turnstock's condition was sufficiently confirmed to admit of his being visited by Colonel Clapham, who gradually prepared[Pg 99] his mind for the dreadful events which had occurred. Informed, at length, of the whole truth, he expressed an eager desire to see Mr. Playfair, who obeyed the summons with readiness, anxious on his part to turn present circumstances to account, and work a salutary impression on him, who of all people living had exercised the most destructive influence on the character of the departed.

The meeting was solemn and affecting. Though death seemed no longer in immediate prospect, the marquess was assured by his medical attendants that nothing short of the most patient temperance and long continued caution, could afford the slightest hope of restoration, and he therefore saw before him so much of uncertainty in the prospect as to furnish scope for deep reflection.

It occurred to Mr. Playfair, that no language which he could possibly employ, would be so efficacious in giving a right turn to meditation, as the last words of one who had lived long enough to retract every principle on which his actions had been governed, and he therefore[Pg 100] determined on seizing an opportunity which could never return, of making Algernon speak from the tomb. Well assured that those to whom the letters which he possessed were addressed, would approve such use of their contents, he drew the packet which was unsealed from his bosom, and read as follows:

"Alas! my parents; my soul sickens as I trace these empty titles, which seem but 'unreal mockery' when applied to you. 'How are the mighty fallen!' Oh! my father, my poor mother—here is the fulfilment of your prophetic vision. Here, in this damp and chilly cell, is the end of all your ambition. I feel as if you were now on your way to this place, but you will come too late. The vapour is dissolved, the bubble bursts; the halter and the block would present the only alternative for your unhappy son were life prolonged; but Heaven has heard the captive's prayer, and death approaches with friendly speed to save you from shame, and restrain the hand of Algernon from self-destruction.

"Horrible idea! yet it might have been so. The same ungovernable passions which raised the murderous blow against another's existence, might have urged to suicide under increasing temptation. Weep not for him who is taken from evil to come. My parents! had you been less aspiring, had you known that true happiness, but—forbear, my pen!—I leave no brethren to benefit by my dying counsels. My own impetuous temper, my own devouring selfishness, have been my bane. Try to forget that I have ever been. Recall that angel whom you have banished; she will speak peace to your troubled souls. Farewell, my dear father; and oh, my mother, may Heaven support you in this season of trial! prays your expiring

"First and last beloved, I dedicate to you this solemn pause between time and eternity. Life is ebbing fast. Oh! Zorilda, I die, and die for you. However unworthy of your regard, however wandering and irregular my course, you have still been the polar star[Pg 102] towards which my unsettled spirit ever returned, and no scheme for future happiness ever occupied my thoughts, of which you were not the soul and centre. While living in sin, I dreamed of a virtuous hereafter, when guided by you, I should reform and taste of quiet bliss.

"Arrogant delusion! I leaned presumptuously on that love which I was daily forfeiting, and dared to believe that Zorilda, whose soul was all purity, would still bestow her affection on one who had ceased to merit it. Alas! I know that you love me no longer. Why should I repine in this sad hour? No, while life continued, I could ill endure to relinquish the hold which I once possessed on that dear heart, and my selfish endeavour to bind you by a vow to refuse all besides, that of which I was myself undeserving, was justly punished by your refusal.

"Zorilda, beloved Zorilda! I feel my heart new opened, I see with other eyes, and despise the thing I have been; resolution can now avail me nothing in this world; but He who sees my tears of contrite humiliation, will hear the[Pg 103] suppliant's prayer, even in the eleventh hour. Farewell! If the memory of our fond attachment in happy youthful days, may shed kind influence on a last request, console I entreat you those unfortunate beings who are soon to be left childless. Bid them not grieve for me. I have requited their affection with ingratitude, and leave them nothing in my bereavement but a hollow sounding name, like those gorgeous plumes which wave their feathered honours on the hearse to mock the dead. Oh! 'had I served my God with half the zeal' that ministered to my guilty pleasures! but the past is buried with the years beyond the flood. I have your prayers, I know I have, unworthy as I am, and Zorilda's prayers will reach the throne of mercy.

"My sand is nearly run. The king of terrors beckons to me. A little while, a few brief moments, and I shall awake in the invisible world, from whose bourne none hath ever returned to unfold its mysteries. Strength fails. Cold dews creep over my frame. Think of me[Pg 104] sometimes. First and last beloved, farewell for ever."

When Mr. Playfair ceased to read, he found Lord Turnstock drowned in tears. His own flowed plenteously; and, taking the sick man's hand, "My Lord," said he, "let us not be ashamed, and call this weakness. There are tears which refresh the soul like dews of heaven. May yours be of this blessed nature! May you expiate past error, by seeking your future portion in a new course; and may our dear departed Hartland be the Mentor of your youth; the guide of your pilgrimage; the beacon of your way!"

"Will you henceforward be my friend?" answered the Marquess, with deep emotion. "I have learned a lesson, but impressions wear away, and vows made in pain are speedily forgotten. Let me be your pupil; direct me; warn me; counsel me."

The bond was sealed. Lord Marchdale was pronounced capable of undertaking a journey; and Mr. Playfair, who had surrendered all his[Pg 105] own plans to devote himself to the purposes of benevolence, accompanied the poor solitary Earl to England; but his chief concern was for Zorilda. "How shall I break these fatal tidings, without endangering her life?" was a question continually present to the mind of her friend.

The travellers arrived at Henbury, and Mr. Playfair felt as a man of humane and tender feeling would naturally do, in placing his charge in that whilom abode of quiet cheerfulness, where its unfortunate master had long enjoyed the happiness of domestic peace in private life, under the care of an old servant, who had passed her youthful days in his family. Lord Marchdale was spared such anguish, as more acute sensibility could not have survived by the nature of his malady. Naturally phlegmatic, disease now rendered him more than ordinarily torpid; and he used to forget at times not only the extent of his deprivation, but the manner. At such moments it was affecting to hear him address his wife and son as if they were present, or speak of them as if he expected their return from a ride or a walk. Influenced, too, by the[Pg 106] necromancy of association, he never passed by a shrub or flower, which had been planted by Zorilda's hand, without muttering the name of Zoé.

When Mr. Playfair had made all necessary arrangement for the bodily comfort of the invalid, he set out for Scotland, meditating sorrowfully as he proceeded, on the afflicting dispensations which it was his painful task to communicate at Drumcairn. Arrived at the same village where Zorilda had paused to consider of the reception which she was likely to receive, he wrote to Mr. Gordon, requesting a private interview at the inn. The dreadful particulars were soon unfolded; and Mr. Playfair discovered that his tale of woe was not altogether unexpected. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon had so repeatedly seen paragraphs in the public prints, touching on late events at Brussells with more or less obscurity, that their attention was at length awakened to some fancied coincidences with the Henbury family, and anxiety was daily on the increase, from Lady Marchdale's unusual silence. Her sister had written[Pg 107] over and over entreating a letter, but not a line was received in reply.

The extreme delicacy of Zorilda's health made all excitement hazardous; and though she secretly pined with solicitude to be informed of all that passed in her absence, she could not bear to make inquiry, and trusted to a voluntary mention of the next intelligence which might arrive, trying to force her mind into tranquillity, but in vain. Her cheek sometimes glowed with momentary bloom, and her eyes sparkled with a transient ray of light and brilliancy; but it was fever which lighted up these evanescent fires, consuming as they were vivid.

Her kind friends, who watched her tender frame with parental vigilance, and perceived the silent progress of the destroying angel, resolved on avoiding to impart their own apprehensions, or communicate the suspicions which began to alarm them, to Zorilda, who, in addition to her too evidently declining health, "has now to sustain," said Mr. Gordon, "a trying scene, which as yet she has neither had strength nor fortitude to encounter."

"Within the last two days," continued he, "she has received a disclosure of the deepest interest from the rich and powerful Earl of Pierrepoint, who turns out to be no other than Zorilda's father. I have brought his letter in my pocket, knowing how affectionately you participate in the concerns of our dear child."

"Zorilda, these lines come from a parent's hand. Will you receive them with feeling answering to that which now sues for your forgiveness, and dictates a request that you will name the earliest moment for an interview with one for whom you have had little reason to entertain any sentiment save that of aversion. Since we last met, when an involuntary exclamation on my part proclaimed the relation subsisting between you and me, I have lost an amiable and high-born partner, who, after the marriage of my two daughters, now advantageously settled, was the only remaining bar to my acknowledgment of you. Had I claimed you before, I must have revealed a part of my early history,[Pg 109] which might have injured others without benefiting you.

"Let me now taste the blessing of offering such expiation as is yet in my power, to the manes of that angel who was your mother. You will not withhold your aid in restoring the memory of her whose portrait you bear, whose living image you are, to the rights and privileges of a wife and mother, which can only be accomplished by your returning to the protection of your father's house, and assuming his name. In the eye of Heaven, as well as according to an accredited form of Christian ritual, my marriage, of which you are the sole pledge, was duly solemnized, and wanted only such circumstances to give it legality, as I basely took advantage of, to desert the wife of my bosom, and the child of my hopes. Urged to the unnatural deed by the unrelenting voice of worldly ambition, I lent myself to the views of family aggrandisement, and have been wretched all my life. United to another before the death of her whom I shall never cease to mourn, I could not adopt you as my legitimate offspring, without invalidating my[Pg 110] second engagement; and to have brought you forward as less than my lawful progeny, would have but added fresh insult to the wrongs which you had already experienced at my hands.

"Zorilda, beloved child, a father supplicates forgiveness at your feet. Will you refuse pardon to such a petitioner? I have sought you at De Lacy castle, and sought you as my daughter. If my penetration do not greatly err, there is one of that family to whom you are an object of no common interest. Should my suspicions prove correct, to what joy may I not yet look forward? I have already obtained my sovereign's permission to add a title to your name; and twenty thousand pounds are ready for my dear girl, when I may be called upon to bestow the hand of Lady Zorilda Fitzhugh on Lionel Cecil, the man in all England most worthy of her heart.

"This letter," said Mr. Gordon, "was immediately followed by one of the most enraptured[Pg 111] congratulations from Miss Cecil, who it appears has been hitherto obliged to neglect her friend in compliance with Sir Godfrey's commands. What a metamorphosis will not worldly consideration effect! The despised, the slighted Zorilda receives homage now from the proudest pair in Great Britain. Sir Godfrey and Lady Cecil condescend to add their testimony to the merits of her who was so lately shaken from their presence as unworthy of the least regard: and I agree with Lord Pierrepoint in foreseeing that ere long an alliance will be solicited. Oh; that I might live to witness a union which could not fail of being blessed! But what a tale have you to impart! Alas, Zorilda!—and my poor Eugenia too. However dissimilar the character of Lady Marchdale and my wife, a sister and a nephew are not to be relinquished without a cruel pang, in this case pointed with tenfold acuteness from the awful manner of their death. Come, we have a dreadful duty to perform, and must commence the task."

Mrs. Gordon, who had long anticipated some[Pg 112] unknown ill, was gradually informed of the terrible truth. Horror and astonishment at first forbid the relief of tears, and sent a frightful tremor through her frame; but tenderer feelings at length found vent, and a burst of natural sorrow came to her aid, and eased the suffocating oppression of her heart. Too habitually thoughtful of others' woe to indulge her own exclusively, this excellent woman after a short silence exclaimed, "Oh! may I join in the pious prayer of my dear departed sister, and say from the deep of my heart, 'Thy will be done!' This blow will fall heavily on my poor Zoé. It is to her that we should principally direct our attention, and as her father is to be here to-morrow, my counsel is to delay breaking this intelligence to her till after that so much dreaded interview. In the mean time I will talk to her of my own fears and ominous forebodings."

This advice was approved, and Mrs. Gordon subdued her own feelings sufficiently to visit Zorilda's bed-chamber, in which she had[Pg 113] requested permission to remain all day, with calmness, and even an appearance of tender cheerfulness, while she endeavoured to strengthen a mind which had so much in prospect to endure.

"You must give a filial welcome to your father, my love, and bless the Almighty, who has sent such a host of kindness and protection in an hour of greatest need. He was beloved by the mother whose loss you deplore, and if the temptations of wealth and power were too strong for his wavering virtue to conquer, remember that he is now making all the reparation which such a case as yours will admit, and your duty is not only to receive the penitent with full pardon, but open your heart to the gracious influence of parental affection."

"It is not the creature's part to murmur, I know, dearest friend," answered Zorilda; "but so mysteriously woven is the web of my fate, that I am not allowed to see and believe, but faith is continually called upon, and much as I desire to stand firmly in the optimist's creed, which you are always enforcing, I find my[Pg 114] rebellious spirit too frequently resisting conviction. I did indeed perceive how mercifully was this blessed asylum opened to me; when obliged to leave De Lacy castle I could not return to the home of my youth; but how can I rejoice now in any event which is likely to remove me from you and this peaceful retreat? How am I to bear the burthen of a sick and sorrowful soul in a world of gay smiles, enter upon a new sphere for which I am ill suited, encounter strangers whom I can never love, and give up those employments in which, by being suffered to do some little good, I learn submission to my own misfortunes? How can I leave this abode of rest, and cease to hear your dear voice? How shall I mingle in the scenes of what the world calls pleasure, with a breaking heart and failing health; or learn the joyless task of dressing my poor face in artificial gladness, while the asp is feeding on my life-blood? I have tried to pray, but I can only weep."

"Child of my adoption," answered Zorilda's sweet comforter, "be still and wait events. Is it nothing that your mother's fame is brought[Pg 115] out before mankind like 'unsmutched snow?' Nothing that the haughty souls of De Lacy yield to evidence, and recognise the daughter of proud Pierrepoint in the houseless adventurer, the wandering gipsey? Is there no balm in Clara's friendship, lately sealed, and now allowed to flow towards you?—no soothing in the still tenderer accents of——"

"I am ungrateful, hard, unthankful, I know I am, for many goods; yet could you look into this breast, and see all that passes there, you would pity more than censure me," replied Zorilda.

"And will that Being, whose penetrating glance reads the inmost soul, who knows all our frailty, all our weakness, pity less than I should do? Believe it not. You will not be tried beyond the bounds of mercy, though you know not how much is still to be endured. My mind misgives me, and this long silence of my sister's fills me with vague, yet sad prognostics; I dread the arrival of letters, and feel my mind almost superstitiously inclined to evil augury."

"How unlike you!" said Zorilda, "If you are scared by omens and portents, what wonder[Pg 116] that I should tremble; dearest friend, tell me your fears."

"They have no shape," answered Mrs. Gordon, "but come not the less affrightingly because they are undefined. When I contemplate the materials of which my family are composed, have I not continual reason to dread the consequences of ungoverned passion, self indulgence, and pride, now inflated by the prosperous gales of fortune? What may I not apprehend as the result of Algernon's violent temper, unaccustomed to restraint, and now let loose to tyrannize with wider scope, subduing all things to his purposes? My poor sister, too, so blind in her attachments, so precipitate in her aversions, so little calculated for the enlarged sphere of action to which she is called, so ill prepared to meet with disappointment, so soured by late occurrences; what comfort should I have in considering the elevation of those for whom I am so deeply interested, to a station which will only furnish increased temptation to err, and render every fault and failing more conspicuous, were it not for my firm trust in Him who rules our[Pg 117] destinies, and who alone is acquainted with the issue of events, after which we vainly strain our short sighted organs?"

"Forgive me," replied Zorilda, "for the indulgence of my morbid discontent. 'I will arise and go to my father,' I will try to follow, not presumptuously lead, the ordinances of Providence; you shall not find me deaf to your instructions. Dispose of me. The tide of strength is ebbing in my veins, and perhaps the mind partakes of the body's weakness, for I was not always thus, but in all things I will endeavour to obey your counsels; guide, direct me; tell me all that I shall say and do in this dread hour of meeting; yet if my father should prove an austere man, I am afraid that it will little avail me to con over my lesson."

Zorilda knew nothing of Mr. Playfair's arrival, and it was resolved to conceal his presence from her till after Lord Pierrepoint's visit.

The appointed hour drew near, and the flush of anxiety had lighted up that cheek on which the lily had lately begun to usurp the rose's dominion, and the blending of sorrow with[Pg 118] timid solicitude, imparted the most angelic expression to the countenance of her who now, with beating heart, heard her father's carriage wheels approach the door.

Lord Pierrepoint's exterior was highly favourable; tall, graceful, and still in the meridian of life, there was something singularly prepossessing in his appearance. To fine features, was added that charm of polished refinement without which no beauty can be attractive, and accompanied by which, no physiognomy can be destitute of power to please. A melodious voice, and insinuating gentleness of manner, finished the impression which Lord Pierrepoint's first abord never failed to make upon strangers, but who shall attempt to describe the effect of such a union of qualities in delightful contrast with all that her fears had suggested, on the tender heart of his lovely daughter? The scene of such a meeting can only be represented in the imagination. Feelings so electric, transitions so rapid, silence so eloquent, may be felt, but not pourtrayed.

Locked in each other's arms, one moment's[Pg 119] embrace seemed to annihilate an age of doubt, and banish from Zorilda's bosom every sentiment except that of filial love and admiration; while the father hung spell-bound over his treasure. Drawing her close to his breast, and then receding, as if

When the first strong instinctive emotions of nature had in some degree subsided, Lord Pierrepoint remarked, with much uneasiness, the delicacy of his daughter's complexion, which underwent a thousand aspects, mutable as the dolphin tints or the sun's varying hues upon the snows of Mont Blanc.

"I must lose no time in snatching my darling," said the fond parent, "from this northern climate. My Zorilda shall invoke the warmer beams and softer breezes of an Italian sky. We will prepare immediately for the voyage."

A deep hectic blush overspread Zorilda's face, as thoughts of leaving Drumcairn flashed across[Pg 120] her mind; but dreading to hurt her father's feelings, by seeming averse to any scheme proposed by his affection, she made no reply, except by a faint smile, like that transient glow which glances hastily through the misty curtain on the grey mountain's side, and is followed by a thicker veil, gathering as if to repel the bright intrusion. But associations of another kind arose in Lord Pierrepoint's mind, and pressing his daughter's hand, he added, "I do not mean to hurry you, my love. You are, I grieve to see, not equal to any great exertion. Farewell, dearest, I will return to-morrow, and we will then consult upon the answer which you wish me to give to Sir Godfrey Cecil."

So saying, he put a letter, of which the seal was broken, upon the table, kissed his dear girl's alabaster forehead, and hastened out of the room.

"All powerful force of nature?" exclaimed Zorilda, as she strained her eyes towards the door which had closed upon her father, "who could have believed this miracle? My heart follows him, and echoes every retiring footstep.[Pg 121] Is this the formidable being whose anticipated presence banished sleep from my eyelids, whose dreaded voice arrested every pulse, while yet it sounded only in the ear of fancy? What a transformation in an instant of time! I can scarcely believe in my own identity, as I reckon the hours till his return. Poor Sir Godfrey! Here is the world—the cold heartless world, which encumbers with help when there is no farther need of assistance. What have we here? No doubt a complimentary address. Perchance an invitation to De Lacy castle—but I must not forget that De Lacy's walls afforded me kind refuge in an hour of adversity." Zorilda sighed, as she slowly unfolded the following letter:

"Amongst the numberless congratulations which your Lordship may expect to receive on the joyful event of reunion with your charming daughter, none more sincere can be offered to your acceptance, than I have now the honour to present from De Lacy castle. We have the good fortune here to be acquainted with the[Pg 122] perfections which it is your Lordship's happy lot to possess in the Lady Zorilda Fitzhugh; and are therefore enabled to judge of your feelings in receiving such a child to your bosom, and restoring her to that exalted station in society which will henceforward be adorned by her talents and virtue. Lady Cecil and I have often said of our distinguished guest, that such a noble bearing bespoke high birth, and we are not mistaken.

"It will not surprise your Lordship to learn that younger eyes have been fascinated, and hearts impressed by attractions which even the aged cannot behold unmoved. You know my son's pretensions, and if you think them worthy of alliance with your Lordship's house, nothing shall be wanting on my part to facilitate an event so desirable to me as a union between our families. I have long been aware of my son's deep admiration of the Lady Zorilda, but so entirely averse is he to revealing his sentiments at the present juncture, that I risk his displeasure in making an avowal to which I am urged by the high sense that I entertain of those qualifications[Pg 123] which must render your daughter an object of universal competition.

"I have the honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship's sincere friend, and most obedient humble servant,

"Pompous treachery!" exclaimed Zorilda, as she folded the letter. "How grateful to his ear the tinkling bell of Ladyship, appended to this

"I hate this greedy haste which, fearful of forestalment, thus violates all delicacy, and would compromise the feelings of his pure and nobleminded son, to compass his proud ends—but we are going to Italy. Perhaps, too, this is for the best. If I must leave dear Drumcairn, at least it will be some recompense that I shall quit these harpies, who, like Sir Godfrey, hover round the well spread board, and force their unneeded praise where fortune smiles."

Mrs. Gordon's entrance interrupted this[Pg 124] soliloquy. "I left you, my dear one, to meet your trial alone, because my presence might have embarrassed your father."

"Yes he is my father. I feel the sacred bond drawn tight across my heart, which almost beat itself to death, like a poor bird against its prison wires, in terror of his approach. You say truly, my monitress, that we are for ever prone to take trouble at interest. Aye, and usurious interest too—we raise ghosts and then wonder that they haunt us. But my dear father talks of Italy, and thinks that her classic shores bear healing on their gales. Alas! he knows not how deep the mine—how industrious the sappers. The 'sweet South' can do nought for me. No breeze, however balmy, 'can minister unto the mind diseased.' I have a longer journey before me than to Nice or Pisa."

Mrs. Gordon had hitherto controlled her feelings, but, overcome by the prophetic melancholy which accompanied the last words of Zorilda, she burst into tears, and, covering her face with her hands, remained for some time unable to speak.

"Kindest, dearest friend," said Zorilda, "I meant only to familiarize your mind to what I feel must come to pass ere long—but I am always doing wrong. The idea of death is so welcome to me that I forget its sorrowful effect on others, and have grieved my best and dearest Mrs. Gordon. Oh think no more of my Cassandra propensities; let us speak of something else. I did not hear my father's carriage drive from your door. Surely he cannot still be here?"

"He is still here, my Zorilda, and listening to a tale of woe which concerns us all; but my child, Heaven has sent you support in this dear and newly found relation. May you rest on him as on a pillar of strength, and be enabled to stand firm under divine assistance! I too have been a Cassandra, but you must hear the dismal story from other lips. I cannot tell it to you."

"You have given me a clue," said Zorilda, who turned as pale as ashes, "which too fatally directs my imagination, though not perhaps through every winding of the labyrinth. Speak, oh speak! you need not fear to trust me; I can[Pg 126] bear to hear. Yes, I can bear to hear even that Algernon—my once loved——"

The words which Zorilda would have uttered died upon her lips, and she fell senseless at Mrs. Gordon's feet.

When she recovered recollection, she found herself laid on a sofa, while Mr. Playfair kneeled at her side, invoking heavenly mercy in her behalf. He had put every one out of the room, and took upon himself the task of preparing her for a full disclosure; but Zorilda's quick eye and mind anticipated the conclusion, and she was in possession of the whole ere it was designed that she should be informed of more than half the direful narrative.

Mr. Playfair did not give Algernon's letter till after imagination was so wrought upon, that even that dreadful document by realizing the horrors of the scene which it exhibited, prevented reason from deserting her throne to wander irretrievably into the wild regions of maniac desolation.

"It is done!" said Zorilda; "it is finished. Lord, thou wouldst have my whole heart, and it[Pg 127] is thine! 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and whom do I desire on earth beside thee.' I can say this now—Hah! killed by his hand! a murderer! But he is pardoned. Oh say not that forgiveness is impossible!

A violent shuddering came over her whole frame, from which suddenly starting up, she gazed round the room, and asked for Mrs. Gordon, who waited but the slightest movement in the apartment to open the door, and heedless of her own affliction, fly to the aid of sorrow yet greater than that which she suffered.

But there was now no longer any apparent weakness to combat—no excess of feeling to assuage—all was still.

"My friend," said Zorilda, in a firm voice, as she held her hand to Mrs. Gordon, "help me to shake off this lethargy. God has given me duties to perform. I must no longer be a useless torpid thing. Where is my father?"

Lord Pierrepoint had lingered to wait the event, and now stole softly into his daughter's apartment. Surprised and delighted by her unexpected fortitude, he determined to indulge every wish which she might express, in the hope by doing so to restore her soon to a sufficient measure of health and tranquillity for the undertaking which he meditated. "A warm climate will strengthen, and a gradual introduction to society, the charms of which are unknown to her, will do the rest," said he in a whisper.

"My father will not refuse his child's request," said Zorilda, who raised her beautiful eyes as he drew near the couch on which she leaned; "he will conduct me to the home of my youth. I have another father there, who needs my consolation. Shall I not offer him all that I have to bestow?"

"My Zorilda shall do every thing that may contribute to her peace," answered Lord Pierrepoint. "I will give immediate orders for the journey."

A gleam of short-lived irradiation shot across the pale cheek of Zorilda, who pressed her parent's hand in mute acknowledgment of his goodness, but Mrs. Gordon interposed.

"My Zorilda," said she, "has other claims upon her heart, and she will not neglect to fulfil them. Something is due to her poor friends at Drumcairn, and she will not desert them in this moment of heaviness. I too must share with her the task of watching and comforting my poor brother. Why not bring him here? The change of scene will assist our cares for him, and my Zoé will recover faster in the repose of this chamber than in the excitement of a journey, for the fatigues of which she is not strong enough at present."

Zorilda sighed in silence, when she perceived by the expression of her father's countenance how much he preferred this arrangement to her plan. Mr. Playfair warmly seconded the measure proposed by Mrs. Gordon, and offered to attend Lord Pierrepoint on the following day. They commenced their route at an early hour, promising to return as quickly as circumstances[Pg 130] would admit; bringing their invalid charge along with them to Scotland.

Zorilda's fervid bloom and tearless eye would have led an ignorant observer to believe that some secret source of joy poured the soft springs of consolation over her withered spirit, and that hope still fluttered in the distance. Hope and faith were indeed whispering peace, but they were not of this world; they were celestial visitants, and Mrs. Gordon was not deceived. Zorilda had forced her friend to bed, and entreated to be left in solitude herself. On entering her room in the morning, Mrs. Gordon, who had not slept, found her beloved adopted child already up, her head reclining on her hand, papers and writing implements scattered around.

"My mother," said she, "I have been busy making my will. You must take care of my poor pensioners. You will be my almoner. You know that I have a little fortune in bank. I am setting my house in order, and long to be gone."

Mrs. Gordon could not reply. Zorilda rose[Pg 131] and threw her arms affectionately round the neck of her who was truly a mother to her in tenderness. "I will not afflict you any more," said she, "by touching on these subjects which distress you. Yet were you to know how sweet are the thoughts of death, you would not grieve. It was you too who first imparted to my soul that strength in which I am now permitted to pass through the dark valley; you taught me to lean on the staff which is now sustaining my footsteps: and will you repent you of the good you have performed, and mourn over the happy work which you have accomplished?

"I cannot tell how it is, but I feel assured that the conflict will speedily be ended. How simple, how beautiful is the religion which teaches how to die! and how little does it resemble the eloquent declamations, the fine spun arguments, the perplexing subtleties, with which we puzzle comprehension and estrange the affections, while 'redolent of life' we waste our intellectual prime in the labyrinths of metaphysical lore, and talk ourselves far away from God. My mother, I am about to depart, and[Pg 132] shall soon be removed beyond the confines of sense. Pray for me, not that I should tarry here, but be received amidst the countless millions of the blessed."

Mrs. Gordon was called away upon urgent business, and Zorilda, having thrown on a cloak, glided secretly down the back stairs, and passing up a path lined with cypress, gained the church-yard, which had long been her favourite haunt. It was a romantic spot, in which she loved to listen to the sullen roar of the gathering storm, or the melancholy sighing of the sea breezes as they whistled through the long wiry grass which waved upon the walls of a ruined abbey overhung with ivy, that still outlived the wreck of time, and stood a monument of former days. An ancient yew tree, which tossed its old fantastic roots high in air, with flattened crown, over which the northern blast from Kinnaird's head swept nippingly, overshadowed a gloomy corner of this wild and desolate cemetery. Thither Zorilda bent her steps. Pausing as she approached the spot, the curlieu's plaintive wail struck upon her ear.

"Hah! that is my funeral knell! it is a gracious and a cheering sound; a requiem of welcome omen."

She turned round an angle of the old building, as she mused, and reaching her accustomed rocky seat, beneath the yew tree's matted roof, "This," said she, "shall be my resting place! Ocean! thou image of eternity! thy breath is balmy, and wafts freedom to my bosom. Here will I trace the simple memorial which shall mark my grave. Ambition! but for thee, how different had been my fate; but the pilot who guided my bark, can never err. I have required long discipline to teach me; but at last I see the heavenly scheme which comprehends a wider range than this poor nether sphere can supply. Why is it so difficult to justify the ways of God to man, but that we seek results on faith, which are furnished only in a higher scene. My father, I acknowledge my stubbornness and stupidity. Thou hast dealt with me[Pg 134] thus, that we might meet in the mansions of glory, where all tears shall be wiped away. What are the brief enjoyments of this fleeting world, when compared with the celestial communion of those who are purified in the furnace of affliction! Yes, we shall meet father, mother, Algernon! Oh! my burning brow; my beating heart. How I long for the green pastures and refreshing waters, which are promised to the weary pilgrim! Had I been what the world calls happy, I should have loved it too well, and built my tabernacle on its unstable sands. My God resolved to bring me home to more abiding felicity than I could have known below; there, I grow faint: this feeble outline is all that I can sketch, but Lionel shall finish it. That dear friend shall perform Zorilda's last earthly purpose, and place this memento where she lies. Oh that I were already laid beneath the verdant turf! but my tarrying will not be long—my strength is exhausted."

She made an effort to rise, but her bending limbs refused their office. Her eyes grew dim, and unable to recover herself, she fell back into[Pg 135] the arms of him, whose name she had just pronounced.

"Adored Zorilda! thy Lionel is here, and Clara is at this moment seeking her best beloved friend at Drumcairn. Oh speak! Raise those precious eye-lids, and look on one who is devoted to thee! Speak, oh say but one word, and relieve this agony of dread!"

She heard not; saw not; felt not. She had fallen asleep to wake no more, and at her feet the pencil lay, with which she had just traced an urn, veiled in clouds, through which the name of Zorilda was faintly discernible, and on its pedestal were engraved the words,

THE YOUNG REFORMERS.

PREFACE.

On calling lately at the house of a friend who was indisposed, I found him in his study wrapped in a dressing gown, and turning over, with pensive air, the leaves of a dust-brown manuscript, which lay open before him on the table.

"What have you got here? have you turned author, or are you revising and correcting for another?" said I, arresting the arm of my friend, as he was in the act of removing his papers.

"I have been," he replied, "looking over a cobwebbed memoir of my own life, which has been one of no ordinary vicissitude. It is a melancholy pleasure to retrace the path of existence through a faithful narrative of its events; and compare ourselves with ourselves in different stages of our progress. I have not glanced at this moth-eaten record for upwards of twenty years, and feel, after closing it, as if I had been[Pg 140] conversing with the dead; but let me place it on its shelf again, and we will talk on more agreeable subjects."

"Not till I have possession," said I, darting forwards and seizing the manuscript. An intimacy of long standing pleaded excuse for this abrupt measure. I took home my booty, read the memoir; and felt so deeply interested in a story which I knew to be true, that I entreated permission to give it to my printer. "I thought, at one time, of publishing it," replied my friend, "but afterwards relinquished the idea. The experience of one man never guides another. All people like to purchase their own; but provided you change every name of place or person which might inflict a wound in any breast, you may do as you please with my tale of other times."

I promised, and have performed, so let no Reader, who happens to have a taste either for genealogy or geography, seek acquaintance with any character or locality introduced in the following pages.

CHAPTER I.

"A bramble at the eye is larger than an oak at a distance," and thus every man is of importance in his own view; and imagines that he could communicate something of profit or pleasure by recounting the results of his individual experience. But the most remarkable adventures, as well as the sagest remarks, are forgotten, if they are merely the subjects of fire-side reminiscence; and people are deterred from making public the events of their own lives through the terror of imputed egotism, however well they may feel inclined to impart a benefit to their species. In this dilemma, between vanity and forgetfulness, much useful warning is withheld from the world, since all[Pg 142] agree that one fact is more valuable than volumes of theory.

This train of meditation was awakened by unpacking a case, in which a pile of journals, which I had kept from early youth, met my eye. Many a bitter recollection rose upon my mind, as I arranged them according to order; but coute qui coute, I resolved that I would collect my scattered memoranda, and attempt a sketch of my own history. The retrospect was painful; but if a single fellow-being might be instructed by a narrative of my errors, I felt that I should be rewarded; and even should no second person peruse these pages, a review of the past will be good for my own heart.

Inspired by these reflections, I begin by saying, who I am and whence I came. My name is Albert Fitzmaurice, and my birth-place the western extremity of a certain county in Ireland. My father was a clergyman of the Established Church, who, though born likewise in Ireland, was of English parentage, and received an Oxford education, which was a greater distinction in his day than it is at present, when the intercourse[Pg 143] between the Sister Kingdoms has softened down, or obliterated so many national differences amongst their inhabitants.

Charles Fitzmaurice, for that was my father's name, was an accomplished gentleman, according to that high standard which never varies in all the changes of time and taste. Amiable, classical, and refined, he sought a congenial partner to mitigate the horrors of the banishment to which he was doomed at eight and twenty by his ecclesiastical patron; and as the females of that period were distinguished from each other by varieties not entirely comprehended under the endorsement of "black, brown, and fair;" my father was fortunate enough to find a companion whose fine understanding and heavenly sweetness of disposition maintained a perpetual sunshine of the soul wherever she moved.

In the present artificial state of society, when rank and fortune are generally considered necessary to refinement, I shall encounter the curled lip and elevated eye-brow of disdain if I venture to assert that my parents were amongst the happiest[Pg 144] specimens of polished elegance, though they could neither boast of wealth nor title. There is a dignity of mind, which, borrowing nothing from the Proteus fashion of the day, rises gracefully in its own strength, and is suited to all times, because, proceeding from solid principles, it is not indebted to the changeful caprices of the passing hour. Surely that politeness which has its foundation in the heart, and which may be defined good nature sent to school, is the only genuine sort, permanent in its influence, and of universal application.

Such was the kind with which I was acquainted in the home of my early existence. As the shores appear to glide by the skimming bark in the sweet calm of a summer sky, while in reality they are fixed and immoveable, so did the suavity of parental affection temper discipline to such a degree, that commands put on the gentle aspect of request, which none but demons could have resisted; and retirement, which precluded any attempt at awkward imitation, imparted all that ease and self-possession, which are the essence of good society.

Situated in a wild and thinly peopled district, though in one of the most populous of all countries, this excellent pair began their wedded career on the humble pittance of five hundred per annum, which sum, however, it must be remembered, embraced a much wider proportion of comfort than the same income could at present procure. During many tranquil years my parents pursued "the noiseless tenor of their way," rich in each other's love, and happy because their mutual attachment was built on sympathy in virtue, which wears brighter instead of being destroyed by use. They lived, it is true, in what modern language styles the deepest obscurity; but really in the meridian light of truth and contentment. A numerous tribe of olive branches sprang around their table; and notwithstanding the straightened finances which supplied their wants, each addition to the family group was hailed with affection, which seemed to increase in fervor with every new direction of its course.

The chief delight of my father and mother consisted in bestowing upon their offspring[Pg 146] every advantage which their own acquirements, and whatever instruction they could attain at such a distance from the capital, enabled them to impart. An excellent library lent its aid to their efforts, but the quiet routine of a country life, in which each day certified of another, however pleasingly diversified for the actors in a domestic group, is too monotonous to interest such as may be strangers to those endearing relations which produce, in breasts that feel their influence, an unceasing supply of excitement; and therefore my readers (if readers I should have) will readily dispense with all the particulars of my childhood, and thank me for retarding their introduction to the parsonage of Glendruid, in the wilds of the west, till about the year ninety-seven, when I was a full grown youth of eighteen, tall, active, and manly. Truth compels me, in thus declaring how many summers I had numbered at the commencement of my story, to destroy in limine any romantic visions with which the fairer part of creation may be inspired, if any amongst them should deign to turn my title page in fond belief of meeting[Pg 147] with a youthful hero, under the not unnovel like appellation which I bear. It is true that I have been young, giddy, and adventurous; and if I am no longer the Albert of former days, it is because time will do his silent work without regard to the prayer of beauty, and hurry his victim forward unmindful of every entreaty preferred by either sex, to stay his merciless career. But to my tale.

All who have lived as long as I have done, will recollect that the epoch of which I write was one of violent commotion in the minds of Irishmen. The revolutionary spirit of France had crossed the seas, and while actively fermenting the population of my country, was as rapidly decomposing the substance of religion and morals. What was called a thirst of inquiry, a search after truth, liberality of opinion, unprejudiced reason, and many such misnomers, was in fact, a burning desire to demolish the entire structure of civilized institution, and send mankind again into the woods as hunters and shepherds, to emerge anew from the elements of natural society. Man differs not more from[Pg 148] the very antipodes of his own character in another person, than he does from himself in distant periods of his life, and I almost doubt my identity in retracing the days of my youth, when I was one of those who

Glendruid Glebe was situated in one of the wildest spots of earth; and the only old wood, though of dwarfish size, which the whole district for many miles could boast, embellished the precipitous sides of a ravine close to my father's dwelling, into which the Atlantic billows rushed as impetuously as if they sought asylum in our sheltered creek from some sea monster. The rocks which lined this mountain gash, were chafed into fretwork, resembling honey-comb by the constant friction of returning tides, and assumed a thousand fantastic forms along the shore as far as the eye could reach. Surrounded by these rugged masses, it was my delight, in childhood, to watch the seals as they lay basking in the sunshine upon our rocks, or[Pg 149] listen with charmed attention to the "sob of the wave," as it struggled through those stony syphons which had been perforated by the ocean waters. Seated under the blast-riven trunk of a stunted oak, I used to weave the web of future fate while yet a boy, and all my day-dreams were of happiness and virtue.

In the same nook, at a later period, did I plan the revolution of the state, and trampling, by anticipation, all institutions, human and divine, beneath my feet, revel in the wishes for success of anarchy and scepticism. Alas! what a vapour is man throughout his seven ages, when not governed by the spirit of God within his breast! How easy is the transition from good to evil, and how ingenious that sophistry which blends the most discordant elements into one favourite system!

Having briefly sketched the character of my parents, and set them down amid the Irish Alps, I must proceed to speak of two other families by whom our western wilderness was peopled, and who were unhappily the only near neighbours[Pg 150] of Glendruid, except a pair of ecclesiastics, hereafter to be described.

John Talbot Esq. was a gentleman of fortune, that is to say, according to an interpretation which would often be found to explain that title in Ireland, he possessed a large tract of territory in fee, and appeared the undisputed Lord of a widely spread though barren domain, while his revenues were so circumscribed, that had it not been for the high-ways and bye-ways of ocean, and a great subterranean vault in which tobacco, tea, and brandy, found convenient hiding place, all but the common necessaries of life would often have been wanting. He was a man of education, just enough to be as mischievous as possible in such a country as Ireland, where the materials of combustion are always at hand, and only require a breath to blow them. Mr. Talbot was not a scholar, and therefore perhaps it was that he held learning and science in the profoundest contempt. He read, however, all the publications of the day, and was well versed in the French school; while newspapers, pamphlets, and reviews, light, loose, and in constant[Pg 151] succession, supplied him with stores for the furtherance of his daily purpose in fanning discontent amongst the people.

His family had been originally Roman Catholic, but some intermarriage introduced property and Protestantism at the same time into one of its branches, of which he was the principal descendant, and he had never gone to mass, though, unfortunately, he was not nearer to church on that account. He was an infidel, and the bookcases at Ferney, a name which, through admiration of Voltaire, Mr. Talbot had superinduced on the ancient denomination of Kimahone, were filled with the voluminous works of this favourite author, to which were added those of his Gallic brethren, and the more recent trash of Godwin, Paine, Volney, Wolstoncroft, and such like, of indigenous growth. From these sources he drew his heavy artillery when required, but as I have stated, the lighter productions of each day's publication furnished abundant ammunition for a successful warfare against religion and loyalty in a weekly meeting at St. Patrick's cross, where a[Pg 152] few miserable huts, built on the confluence of four mountain tracks, were dignified by the style and title of town, and yclept Ballymaclashen.

One slated roof raised its head in solitary pre-eminence in the centre of these mud-walled tenements, and was commonly called from this distinguishing circumstance, the "slat-house." In front of this edifice was a pole, the perpendicular position of which was preserved by an immense cairn of rude stones piled round its base, as though it marked the grave of some renowned Milesian; and from this pole was suspended by a pair of rusty hooks, a board, on which was daubed an equestrian figure attired in patches of red and green, with a full bottomed wig, and cocked hat. In my childhood this warrior was said to represent "King George the Third a hoss back;" but in after time, though no change of costume had been carried into effect on the sign post, the same red man and white horse were ingeniously metamorphosed by the landlord into Buonaparte mounted on his charger. Underneath was[Pg 153] inscribed, "Lisaned to cell Bere, Ail, & Portur, as likewize pruf sperrets by Tim Carthy," while "entertenmant for Man and Hoss," flourished in a scroll at the bottom to allure the wayfarer who might stand in need of refreshment in crossing the moor of Ballymaclashen.

Amongst the meaner habitations of this wretched hamlet, two or three were distinguished from the rest by a thin lacquering of whitewash, which mottled the clayey surface of the walls into a ground which served to render legible the ill-spelt and apocryphal announcement, traced with a burnt stick, that "dry lodgen" might be found within; while a turf tied in a string, and fastened by a withy to the potato stalks, which formed the thatch of these miserable dwellings, informed travellers of humbler description that all the inspiration of that witching herb which affords stimulus in such variety of charm, was not confined to the elegant accommodations of Tim, but might be enjoyed with uncostly "means and appliances." Smile not, ye sleek and pampered sons of commerce, who gloat upon the wealth of nations, if[Pg 154] I proceed to shew that even the spirit of competition was not a stranger to the desert scene which I am describing. On one of these freckled fronts, was scrawled the following sentence, which I shall give in its original orthography, "Lady ha'punce tuck within and no questions axed."

For the explanation of this singular inscription, be it known, that a quantity of counterfeit copper had got into circulation, to the great alarm of the country dealers, who became so suspicious of Hibernia's effigy, that, seized with a panic, they refused for some time any thing less than a silver tender, and preferred running on a doubtful score with their customers, to risking their little property in exchange for a base coin of more easy attainment; but the dread of non-payment and avidity of gain, will submit to sacrifice, and the extraordinary advertisement to which I have alluded, was the device hit upon by Larry Connell, more crafty, and a bolder speculator than his fellows, for the purpose of inviting, in the true spirit of monopoly, all the consumers of his neighbourhood,[Pg 155] and securing an exclusive interest which he hoped might outlive the temporary inconvenience of this fraudulent medium of exchange. "Nothing venture, nothing have," was Larry's motto, and the event proved his sagacity, for all the "lady ha'punce" came to his cabin to be bartered for snuff or illicit whiskey, during a season, to his cost; but in process of time, when the base metal disappeared, gratitude and habit confirmed a preference for our liberal trader, who, like many of his betters, managed by a little splash and cunning, to acquire a character for generosity, while thinking of no interest except his own. Such is the race of man; varying in modes; in substance ever the same.

Well! Ballymaclashen would seem but an unprofitable theatre for the exertion of oratory; but Cæsar thought it better to be first in a village than second at Rome, and Mr. Talbot, who was of the same opinion, did not disdain to wear the bays which were placed on his brow, to crown him Anacharsis Cloots of the "Slat House." There he held his political orgies, and there unrivalled, uttered many a bold harangue to the[Pg 156] admiring multitude of red-haired, raw-boned, open-mouthed, and bare-legged peasants, who flocked from all the adjacent districts to hear arguments which there was no adversary to oppose; swallow statements which no one started up to contradict; and applaud declamations, one half at least of which they did not understand.

Paddy, however, is a quick intelligent animal, and as Mr. Talbot was largely gifted with natural eloquence, and studied to use language of a popular savour, seasoning the graver topics in his speeches with that dry humour which to Irish minds is an irresistible sauce piquante, his auditors were enabled to catch, and carry away, a good deal of the matter which he propounded, and returned to their homes discoursing all the way, with inflated spirits, of liberty and equality; the downfall of tithes; the destruction of kingly government; the partition and recovery of forfeited estates, with all the other themes of disaffection then afloat, in their own phraseology, and with much zeal in these subjects of discussion.

Mr. Talbot had a wife and family, who were all bitten by the mania of the day, and all practised according to sex and age, the doctrines which they had imbibed. The children were taught from their cradle to abhor an orange dye, as the livery of Satan, and I well remember that the first exhibition of prowess manifested by these youngsters, consisted in an attack with broad swords made of wood, on all the lilies of that hue, which could be found in the neighbouring gardens. A horse-leech which had been caught in a pool by a plough-boy, and brought as a curiosity to the young gentlemen, underwent a merciless auto da fe for the crime of being spotted with a proscribed colour; and an old woman narrowly escaped being ducked in an adjacent pond, for the offence of bringing a basket of fish to the door, in which the plaice appeared with forbidden tints. All this, and much more, was encouraged as wit, and while the children were in their infancy, the unfortunate servants, who were condemned to endure the effects of their undisciplined self-will and lawless fancies, were the only victims of that[Pg 158] misrule in which they were brought up; but as time advanced, and energies expanded, the nursery became an arena too confined for the exercise of freemen, and a mob of untutored democrats were now let loose upon the common, to talk of equal rights, and wield unequal power, and, like a second deluge of Goths and Vandals, issue forth the terror and the curse of all around, to barbarise the human race anew.

As the young Talbots grew to man's estate, the only practical evidence which they gave of sincerity in their professions, was discoverable in their love of low company, not preferred with the view, it must be added, of exerting any benevolence towards their inferiors, but for the pleasure of drilling, dictating to, and domineering over, all the slavish crew whom poverty and ignorance, hope or fear, induced to submit to the tyranny of their control.

Dogs, horses, fishing-rods, were soon disregarded for the more animating amusement of training soldiers for the field. At first a harmless host, armed with bulrushes, assembled on the green; but these innoxious weapons were[Pg 159] ere long exchanged for more destructive instruments, and the day-light parade gave place in time, to nocturnal meetings, to which the mystery of darkness and silence lent an irresistible attraction. Albinia Talbot, an Amazonian girl of sixteen, tall, masculine, and uncommonly handsome, furnished all her aid to these martial exercises, and attended her brothers in all their nightly excursions. Dressed in a green habit, and mounted on her pony, she would appear at the rendezvous, and by her presence add the charm of gallantry to that of prowess.

Albinia's adoption of the rebel politics and uniform, was the hinge upon which my obedience turned, and I resolved to be deterred no longer by any authority from following the bent of inclination. I had been strictly prohibited by my father from joining in any of the exploits of our young neighbours, of which he received information through some secret channel; and though strongly tempted by the love of adventure to transgress the order, I did not yield till my imagination was fired by the example of a beautiful female, who, imitating the[Pg 160] Semiramises and Hersilias of antiquity, laid aside the timidity of her sex, and spurning the distaff, rushed forth, inspired by patriotic ardour in her country's cause.

"What!" said I, "shall it be said that the young and lovely Albinia disdains inglorious ease, and braves the midnight blast, the fatigues of the field, and the risk of detection, while I am lying supinely taking my repose? Shall I be indifferent to the wrongs of that island which gave me birth, while this noble minded girl, regardless of self, devotes every energy to the freedom and happiness of a suffering people?"

The bonds of filial submission had long been gradually relaxing. I now determined on slipping the noose, and delivering myself at once from the restraint by which I had hitherto been withheld. I had been often solicited to accept a commission in "the regiment," which name the young Talbots gave to the rabble rout which they were dragooning into military array; but I had refused, much as I envied them, and wished to join in the enterprize. Albinia however, as I have said, turned the balance, and to[Pg 161] the next mountain muster I promised to go. While I live I shall never forget the rapture which, notwithstanding all the anxiety incident to concealment, and the dread of discovery, I felt at finding myself not only a spectator, but an actor in a scene so novel and inspiring, as broke upon my sight, on the first time of keeping my appointment.

I had several miles to ride to the place of meeting, at which, when arrived, I found some hundreds of fine young fellows assembled, who were regularly marshalled, and put through several evolutions (which they executed with astonishing precision) by a man who the Talbots informed me was a deserter, and in their service. The place selected for these clandestine meetings, was admirably calculated for the purpose, and presented a coup d'œil singularly picturesque as well as imposing. A mixed and confused remembrance of every thing romantic which I had ever read, occurred to my imagination as I approached the scene. Gil Blas, the Pretender, and a thousand other recollections rushed upon my memory, and poured such a[Pg 162] tide of the most delightful visions on my mind, that when united to a dream of Brutus, and the Scipios, with the more recent names of those who were now endangering life and property for their country's good, nothing was wanting to complete the enthusiasm with which I made a vow on the altar of liberty, that night, to devote my services to the goddess of popular adoration.

The spot on which I met my friends was deeply embosomed within a circular barrier of mountains, the outlines of which gracefully intersected each other, and seemed to close entirely round a small lake of water, pure and clear, but dark as Erebus. In the middle of this lake rose a little green island, beautifully tufted with elder, yew, and a few withered stumps of oak, which seemed to tell of better days.

This sequestered patch of earth appeared to have been a favourite haunt of various orders of worshippers, for a gigantic Cromlech reared its Druid head at no great distance from the remains of a ruined abbey, furnishing a powerful[Pg 163] contrast between the durability of its form and materials, unaltered in the lapse of ages, and the mouldering fragments which spoke the vanity of man's best efforts to perpetuate his fleeting fame.

From the main land to the island, a rude causeway of enormous stones, narrow, but of massy structure, was the via sacra by which thousands of poor pilgrims, led by the most benighted superstition, annually visited this vestige of monastic times. I had often heard of the striking effect produced by the reflection of St. John's fires from the lake, on the eve of that saintly vigil when the votaries of papal dominion used to assemble here and perform their religious rites; but what is always within our reach we generally neglect to seek, and so it was in the present instance.

As I drew near, the pale and tranquil moonbeams fell upon the commanding form of Albinia, who, standing on the Cromlech's height, and arrayed in her vestment of green, addressed the troop who were listening with devoted zeal, as though she had been another Joan of Arc, to[Pg 164] every word uttered by her lips. She had adorned her hat with a branch of the mountain ash, to the beautiful scarlet fruit of which Scotland has given the name of rowan berries; and such was the romance with which I gazed on her figure, that she seemed no other in that moment to my eyes, than the genius of Erin awakening from a tedious slumber to invoke the justice of Heaven on her beloved country. I wept as I mused on the scene of enchantment before me, while a projecting crag still kept me out of view, but the tears which I then shed, were the last that bedewed my cheeks for many a day. I was about to enter the labyrinth of that false philosophy which hardens the heart, and every remnant of tender feeling was attacked with such ridicule by my new advisers, who set their faces against sentiment of whatever kind, that, under their tuition, I quickly learned to despise all natural impulses of the human breast.

After pausing for a few minutes to contemplate the assembly, I left my screen, and appeared in full front of the band. I was[Pg 165] received with such welcome and applause as flattered my vanity to intoxication. No hero, ancient or modern, could have felt himself more elevated by the well-earned clang of triumph than I did at hearing my praises sounded by a mob of deluded peasants. Albinia appointed me immediately to a company in the corps; she seemed to act as generalissima on the occasion, and to exercise unlimited control over this rebel multitude, who looked upon her as inspired.

I was informed by my fair commandant, that she expected much from my skill, bravery, and judgment; and I resolved to repay the confidence thus reposed, by the most entire submission to my lovely chief, and the most perfect devotion to the cause which she supported. I longed for some distinguishing badge of favour, and would gladly have received a scarf, or glove, or even the rowan wreath, which would have turned to amaranth in my keeping, but I am obliged to confess that Albinia was not a gentle Dulcinea; abrupt almost to coarseness, she shook me rather roughly by the hand, and[Pg 166] presenting me a pistol and powder-horn, said, "There! I commit these to you, and as you see that as yet we are but slenderly provided with either arms or ammunition, I request you to make good use of what is now entrusted to your care."

Our regiment was composed, as I have mentioned, of some hundred fine brawny youths. They were all dressed in linen shirts which they wore over their ragged clothes. This garb had the double advantage of giving an air of uniformity, and also of being easily slipped off in case of a surprise, against the occurrence of which we endeavoured to guard, by always keeping a watch in the passes which led to our rendezvous. Our band were armed with clubs of white-thorn, elder, or whatever else they could procure. A few of them had old military belts and feathers, which served to mark the corporals and sergeants; the officers being supplied from the houses of Ferney and Painesville.

So infatuated was I by these martial exercises, that in spite of the repugnance which I knew my parents felt to an intimacy on my part with[Pg 167] the Lovetts and Talbots, I gave myself up to them; and, though by stealth, contrived to be a punctual attendant on the musters. A brisk correspondence, in which my brothers had been, as I discovered, employed long before I was called upon to join, existed between us and all the mauvais sujets in the country. Military tactics formed but a part of the schemes on foot. As an auxiliary branch of united Irishmen, we had our committees, secretaries, treasurers, and central offices, to which we communicated whatever information we had been enabled to collect, and which we considered likely to advance our schemes.

CHAPTER II.

Such was the state of affairs at the period of which I write, as touching our public functions; but the condition of private life remains to be unfolded; and as the inhabitants of Glendruid were not the leaders, but the led, I will begin with causes before I proceed to effects, and describe the situation of affairs at Painesville, formerly known by the appellation of Lovett-lodge, and exhibiting a complete pandemonium at the time in which my tale may be said to commence. Looking back on Mr. Lovett's family with the sobered views of forty-five, I must own that nothing could be more preposterously absurd than the inversion of all natural order in his house.

Mr. and Mrs. Lovett were pupils of that school which directly sprang from the French revolution, though they had not drank so deeply[Pg 169] of the poisoned chalice as to be openly professed advocates of irreligion or immorality. They were republicans; and held all the incompatible doctrines which contradict each other, and the unfortunate consequences of which are precisely as apparent under a single roof as in a nation. Of such nature were the dogmas of liberty and equality, so utterly at variance with the constitution of created things, that were they introduced by the divine fiat over the face of the whole globe in perfect balance at the moment of its formation, one generation could not pass away without witnessing the destruction of a state inconsistent with the unequal proportions of strength and intellect awarded by our Maker to his creatures, and therefore never designed to be continued amongst them.

The uproar of a democracy met the eye and ear on crossing the threshold of the door at Painesville, where eight children were permitted, from the earliest age, to exercise their several talents for disputation without the slightest restraint. Assertion passed for argument, roughness was styled sincerity, and contempt of all[Pg 170] authority was called the light of reason. When first I became acquainted with manners so dissimilar from those to which I had been used at Glendruid, I was struck with an unfavourable impression, and felt like one who is suddenly introduced from a purer atmosphere into one that is contaminated; but the moral and physical senses become alike accustomed to vitiated air, and we learn to breathe freely where suffocation seemed to threaten. I soon imbibed enough of the popular Malaria to be quite at home; and though conscious that paradoxes were imposed upon my understanding, against which the unbiassed mind revolted, I speedily adopted the nomenclature, and learned to call things by names which were foreign to their nature; right and wrong often changed places, and I became an adept in the language of "natural justice—tyranny of the laws—folly of legislation—wickedness of power—sovereignty of reason," and the disgusting farrago of a period now gone by, but which, though its grosser errors are disclaimed by the more judicious, has left much of its leaven behind.

At Painesville there was nothing but incessant discussion, replication, rejoinder, mooting of futile questions, and disrespectful contradiction. Talents were held to be the one thing needful; and though the heads of the family did not carry matters to such lengths as to pronounce that religion and morals were of no value, yet the whole bearing of conversation tended to loosen all existing ties with either the one or the other. Every subject was tried by the test of reason; not meaning the reason of the wise, the informed, the experienced—but of the young, the pert, and superficial. The rapid conclusions of ingenuity put to flight the sober maxims of truth and knowledge. Whatever was rendered venerable by the sanction of time was litigated, and brought to the bar anew, to be tried by a self impanelled jury. At Painesville it was decreed that, "relationship was a mere accident, which ought not to infringe on the liberty of the subject, by conveying any right. Children, it was argued, were not consulted as to their choice—they did not give consent to be brought into the world; consequently there[Pg 172] was no covenant. Nature declared for equality, in the inferior creation, as soon as animals acquired physical power to take care of themselves. Why should man be the only exception to a law thus general, and with superior endowments be excluded from the charter enjoyed by every other living creature?"

It is painful, even now, to retrace, at this distance of time, the dicta of a philosophy which has become nearly obsolete, and the very remembrance of which ought to be expunged; but I am giving the history of my own times; and facts which I must narrate require a retrospect of those modes of thinking which gave them birth. The intelligent reader, who is aware of the moral confusion which followed, upon the adoption of those principles introduced by the French revolution, will easily fill up the rough sketch which I have attempted of the Lovett family, and be enabled to anticipate, in idea, all the consequences exhibited in the minuter detail of their lives. Such a reader will easily guess, that on the part of the parents was presented a wild assumption of those[Pg 173] destructive principles which led to the dismemberment of that country from which they were unhappily imported; while the offspring, as might naturally be expected, found too much that was gratifying both to pride and vanity, in the lessons which they were taught, not to seize them with avidity; and Painesville accordingly exhibited a saturnalia where the rulers and the ruled exchanged places.

All was chaos and usurpation; Mr. and Mrs. Lovett boasted of the equality which reigned in their family, and rejected every idea of governing their children by means of parental discipline. Fear was decided to be a slavish sentiment, which was not allowed place amongst the motives which ought to actuate rational beings. "Man was born free, and judgment was given as the only guide of action. Affections were mere instincts unworthy of swaying the conduct; and duty was an imposition on the privileges of the human race."

The young people were not long in convincing their father and mother that the relation of equal fraternity, once substituted for that of[Pg 174] parent and child, it is no easy matter to retrace the path, and when the evils of misrule become intolerable from the numbers and the strength of those whom it influences, to exchange them for the blessings of legitimate control. The colt too long at large will not readily submit to bit and bridle; and that rider who would attempt to enforce the unwonted restraint, will soon be rendered practically sensible of his mistake.

At Painesville all the members of the family talked together, which seemed the only symptom of concert amongst them. They quoted Rousseau, D'Alembert, Gibbon, Hume, Volney, at every sentence. With these authors I was not acquainted, as they made no part of the study furniture at Glendruid; but, as I have said already, though conscience winced in the outset from doctrines so little in unison with those of home, I was an apt pupil, and speedily adopted a new system of thinking.

My two brothers, who were senior to me, had entered the University in the year that preceded that of the Irish rebellion; and though they never remained more than a few days at[Pg 175] each examination in the metropolis, yet my father's parochial duties frequently interfering with his power of accompanying them, these short visits in Dublin were sufficient to bring them acquainted with all that was in progress, such was the activity that characterized at that juncture the republican energies in Ireland.

The elder of these youths, whose name was Harold, was particularly amiable, and became the victim of designing men, who worked successfully on his generosity to draw him into their snares. He took up the theory of Godwin, and believed, with more sincerity than his master, in the infinite perfectibility of the human race. Ascribing all the evil which he beheld under the sun to the various corruptions of administration, and the venality of governors, benevolence was in fact the destroying angel of his mind; and he would gladly have prostrated princes in the dust, and overthrown their seats of empire, in order to secure "the people" in the enjoyment of every good.

Short-sighted politicians, who, rejecting the light of experience, fell into the error of[Pg 176] expecting universal order, out of particular derangement, and general virtue, as the result of individual crime! Harold's was a benign spirit, which wished well to every thing that breathed; but he was not proof against the seductions of the popular creed, and became completely entangled in speculations worthy of the source from which they emanated. His temper, which had been naturally sweet, and open as the morning breeze, changed to dark, sullen, and secretive. He had been, deservedly, a darling with the best of mothers, and her grief at his altered deportment may be more easily conceived than described. It was not that he designed, "as of malice prepense," to behave uncourteously, but his mind was absolutely absorbed. The amusements which had hitherto delighted, no longer afforded interest. His favourite dog—his garden—his collection of shells and minerals, were all neglected. Harold, who used to wander for miles along the sea-shore in quest of specimens with which to enrich his store, and who hastened to bring the fruits of his labour to that gentle being, the kindness of[Pg 177] whose smile might have warmed the breast of an anchorite, and whose ready participation in whatever gave pleasure to others rendered her in better times the beloved friend as well as mother of her children—lived now immured in his bed-chamber, the door of which he kept locked while he was within it, and the key was always put into his pocket when he left the house.

How he was employed no one could tell, as no trace of book, pen, ink, or writing was discoverable at those times when old Margaret, a faithful domestic who lived in my family during several years, had access to his apartment. One day, however, in sweeping the room, she discovered a small bit of paper which had been torn from a larger piece, and escaped the flames to which it had been probably destined. "Central Committee," "Western District," "French Forces," were the only words from which any surmise could be collected; and these were enough to alarm her, to whom they bore evident testimony of league in those treasonable plots which were threatening to involve the country[Pg 178] in civil discord, and endanger the lives and property of thousands.

Margaret, who was well acquainted with the anxious state of my mother's mind, took the fragment to her, and the latter, watching an opportunity to remark the effect which it might produce upon her son, fixed her eyes steadily upon him as he entered the room where she sat, saying, "Harold, is not this your hand-writing?"

"I am sure it is hard to tell; perhaps it may be," was my brother's reply; uttered so coldly, so carefully, as to baffle inquiry, and convince my mother that any further scrutiny would lead but to a more artful avoidance of the truth, as well as more cunning contrivance for future concealment. She therefore refrained from asking another question, but heaved a sigh as she quitted her seat to gain the sanctuary of her closet.

There had been a time when that sigh would have agonized the soul of Harold, could he have believed himself to be the cause of drawing it forth; but his affections were seared, and he saw[Pg 179] his mother turn from him with a breaking heart, undisturbed by the slightest emotion. My second brother possessed neither Harold's talents, nor my romance. He was more phlegmatic and common-place than any of the family. Yet he, too, was infected by the distemper of the times, and had his part assigned him, in which he was more useful than if he had been considered equal to higher purposes. He had ever been fond of shooting and fishing, and as these sports were continued as usual, he was not suspected of taking much concern in political matters, and was therefore employed as a safe ambassador, frequently leaving our once peaceful abode, loaded with despatches which were to be deposited in the ivied wall of a ruined castle, at some distance from Glendruid. All who met him supposed that lines, flies, and sandwiches, constituted the entire freight of a wicker basket which, strapped upon his back, was in reality the vehicle of a correspondence, the discovery of which would have doomed its authors to inevitable destruction. The plans thus carried on were, it is true, carefully wrapped in the[Pg 180] concealment of cypher, but a key is easily found to the most cunning contrivance of this kind; and in fact at a later period, our devices were all brought to light.

I have said that my father's circumstances were very limited, and I should not revert to a subject which involves the remembrance of privations as humiliating to pride as distasteful to sense, were it not to preserve a recollection of our real situation in the minds of such as may read my story, and furnish some excuse for the wanderings of youth, debarred as we were from the enjoyment of those advantages which depend upon wealth. Books we had, and a great many of them, but they had ceased to charm. The standard works of a former day were not in vogue; the new philosophy had extinguished the wisdom of antiquity, and reduced it to a dead letter, and the flippant apothegms of the day, whether applied to religion, morals, or politics, were accounted the only knowledge worth possessing.

I had no money to procure the modern publications, but the Talbots and Lovetts were[Pg 181] bountifully supplied, and always ready to lend. I devoured, therefore, with famished appetite, all that I could beg or borrow, and conveyed my treasure to that rocky recess which I have described, where, with industry worthy of a better object, I used to read whatever was recommended by my evil instructors. My poor father, who was an excellent scholar, found himself at length deserted in his study, from which his sons retired one by one, leaving this affectionate parent to mourn over the shipwreck of a sanguine spirit, which had delighted to anticipate with prophetic zeal the honours of his children, and wreathe their brows with academic glory; but a "killing frost" was preparing to nip the tender germ of hope, and destroy every shoot from which the chaplet of future fame might be derived.

Those who have never been parents cannot, I believe, form an adequate conception of the sorrow reserved for those who, after having passed one half of life in expectation, are doomed to spend the other in disappointment, and reap a blighted crop in return for devoted love and unslumbering solicitude.

We were no doubt unlucky in the society which chequered the domestic sameness of our home; not that intercourse with archangels would have deterred us in all probability from joining in the general frenzy, but our course was perhaps accelerated by the want of a stronger counteracting influence than any which opposed our progress. The adjoining parishes were under the superintendence of two clergymen, both intimates at Glendruid. They frequently visited at our house, and were good men, but in no way calculated to control the spirit of insubordination which was in movement, nor stem the torrent of that voluble disaffection which was always ready to pour forth abuse upon every thing really valuable and of sound repute.

Mr. Hill, who lived within a mile of Glendruid, and had the parish adjoining ours, was a gentleman in education, descent, and manners. He was at once genteel, moral, and zealous in the performance of what he believed to be his duty; but he was a weak man, a tête bornée, a formalist. Though his age did not exceed forty[Pg 183] years when I left home, he had a face so long-drawn that it looked as if the grand inquisitors had got hold of it, and put his features to the question. His countenance was solemn, but not from power or depth of mind, and presented the oddest mixture imaginable of gravity and imbecility. The physiognomy tallied exactly with the structure of his mind, which was a union of sounding sense, with the veriest impotence of reason which I have ever happened to witness.

Even at this distance of time, I can still fancy that I hear his long-winded harangues, and listen to his well-turned periods, unenlivened by a single ray of mental illumination, though uttered with grammatical accuracy, and the truest attention to accent and emphasis. Whether the conversation related to a mouse or a mammoth, the same laborious correctness of diction, the same flaccid sternness of expression, marked his dull observations on either the one or the other. If church matters were the subject of discussion, he would treat with equal gravity the divine right of tithes or the bleaching[Pg 184] of a surplice; and seemed quite incapable of seeing any gradation of sin between an atheist and a dissenter from the rubric of our English Prayer-book. He would no more have altered the shape of his band, than he would have changed his creed, and would have been nearly as much shocked by seeing the pulpit of his church transplanted to the opposite side of the building, as to have encountered a denial of the thirty-nine articles.

From such a man little aid to a sinking cause was to be expected, and I well remember the uneasiness of my father whenever Mr. Hill entered the lists of theological controversy, from the unfortunate hand which he made of an argument. There was enough of importance, however, in the bearing of the man, to prevent his being summarily put down, though every topic of human inquiry withered into nothing in his nerveless grasp. In short, he was a pompous nonentity, who, like an empty cart, made more noise than a full one; and a rumbling succession of sounds supplied the place of sense, covering the deficiency of his faculties from the[Pg 185] view of stupid people with whom he passed for an oracle. We of the new school resolved all the inflated emptiness of this good man into the absurdity of his profession, and, as is usual with the scoffing fraternity, visited on religion whatever lack of skill we discovered in her advocates.

Such was our clerical neighbour on one side, while on the other resided the Reverend Mr. Stockdale, a man in every way different from him already pourtrayed. Tall and muscular of frame, commanding in aspect, and powerful in understanding, but irritable of temper, Mr. Stockdale resented with vivacity the rapid inroads which a shallow but impetuous torrent of new fangled doctrines was daily making upon all the solid bulwarks of ancient authority. He was a person of strong intellect and great erudition; but the powers of his mind were precluded from assisting him in debate, through the impatience of his honest indignation; galled and provoked at the changes which he beheld working destruction all around, he was not calm enough to contend with a callow brood of[Pg 186] upstarts, who offered perpetual resistance, in every word which they uttered, to that creed established in unmolested sway within his breast, during a ministry of thirty years. During this long lapse of time not a doubt had troubled his repose, not a single adversary till now, had ever disputed the grounds of his faith.

When this excellent man made his appearance occasionally at Painesville or Ferney, he was attacked on all sides with rude disregard of his sacred calling, and though primed and loaded with ammunition, a moderate dose of which would have frittered the puny opponents arrayed against him to atoms, yet unluckily it was not ready for the conflict. Long disuse had rusted over a fine piece of ordnance; the cannon missed fire, and not only required to be rubbed up, but to be set to a lower level, to make it available. Thus it unfortunately happened that a set of reasoning coxcombs, who owed their apparent triumph to pertness and audacity, often seemed for a time masters of the field; and, silenced by the presumption of these tyro combatants, the worthy pastor was[Pg 187] frequently surprised into excitement of temper, and returned discomfited to his rectory-house, bewailing, as he regained the mountain fastness, the flood of infidelity which had burst upon the land, and his own incapacity to arrest its desolating progress.

The rebel crew were not slow to find out here again, that religion could not be of celestial origin, because Mr. Stockdale, pushed to extremity by the taunts of arrogance, was not endued with that unalterable coolness which the indifference of scepticism can assume at will. He could not always curb, as prudence dictated, the ebullitions of a holy zeal which lighted spontaneously into flame, when all that he possessed on earth, or desired in heaven, was assailed with wanton disrespect and indecency. He wore also a large cauliflower wig, a deep shovel hat, long waistcoat pockets descending to his knees, and leaned on a cane, with a head of battered gold. This costume served to sharpen our ridicule, and increase the vexation which awaited our friendly neighbour, whenever he quitted the protection of his upland dwelling.

At Glendruid I might ever behold the influence of piety in preserving the most beautiful equanimity of temper under the provocations which every hour produced; but I had been too well taught to give credit to any thing under the paternal roof. Parents in my day were held in contempt, as mere instruments by which being was conferred on another generation, and the opinion of a father or mother was so far from giving a bias to the conduct of their offspring, that their approval of any person, book, or sentiment, principle, or mode of action, was considered by us of the philosophic school as primâ facie evidence against whatever was so applauded.

The restricted society of our house received occasional addition likewise from the visits of two elderly ladies, who were first cousins of my father. The Misses Cresswell were frequent members of our family circle, and served to whet my genius as well as excite my spleen. They were women of real virtue and high principle, but doggedly tenacious. They thought together upon every matter of judgment, and[Pg 189] would not give up an iota upon any one subject of debate. I hated, and used to take delight in stirring them to opposition, by an assault on some of their favourite tenets. They piqued themselves on their orthodoxy, and were what is called high church; so high, that I detested steeples for their sakes. They lived in the "Black North," and were but slenderly provided for, yet ever employed in doing good; and nothing distressed my parents so much as to see them ill-treated.

The quaint wardrobe of these two old women, was another source of merriment. They seemed as if newly shaken out of lavender whenever they came to Glendruid, and I preferred the savour of garlick to the perfume of that fragrant herb, which was associated with the idea of my cousins Cresswell. I have been since reminded of my own unwarrantable prejudice, by hearing a friend of mine declare, that he could not endure the works of a celebrated author, because he always found a volume of them open on the table of his dentist, and the finest passages were[Pg 190] combined in his memory with some piercing pang or awkward chasm in his jaws.

My imagination had no such train of cause and effect to urge in defence of my rude conduct towards these my harmless relations, and as they are dead and gone they will know nothing of my repentance; but their blind deference to names and forms was to be lamented. Provided that a man wore lawn sleeves, it little mattered whether he was wise or foolish, learned or unlearned: he was a Bishop, and, according to their creed, whatever he uttered must necessarily be law and gospel. "My dear, the Reverend Mr. Smiler had it from his Lordship's own mouth," was an unanswerable reply to an objector against any fact related in the presence of these good souls.

One day I ventured to retort to this invincible argument, "And what care I for the bench of Bishops, if they talk nonsense? Many of them hide asses ears under their great wigs."

Such a speech was the acme of impropriety, and was repeated with uplifted hands and eyes:[Pg 191] my iniquity was then considered at its height, and every day furnishing new cause for animadversion, the visits of our cousins became at first less frequent, and were then discontinued.

My brother Charles and I rejoiced that we had frightened away the musty lavender bags, and should hear no more quotations from Saint Chrysostom. I have not yet mentioned my sisters, the number of whom was reduced by death from five to two. I had been deeply attached to Maria, the younger of those who remained; and till the demon of democracy chased every amiable feeling from my heart, we had lived in the most entire harmony and confidence. Notwithstanding the unceasing efforts of my brothers and me, to warp the minds of these dear girls, they resisted every evil impression. It was sufficient for them to know that their parents disapproved, to turn them from any temptation, however alluring; but their virtuous resolution obtained the character of "inflexible obstinacy, narrow bigotry," or some such equally unkind and inappropriate appellation.

Had it not been for the soothing tenderness[Pg 192] of their daughters, I know not how my unhappy father and mother could have sustained their accumulated afflictions. The loss of their children had weighed heavily on their spirits, but these trials, distressing as they were felt to be, were sent from Heaven, and did not agonize their disconsolate hearts like the disunion of those who were spared. They bowed with resignation to the will of Him who gives and takes away, and believed that every sorrow from the Almighty came on an errand of love, to warn or wean the souls of His creatures. It was the machinations of the foolish and the bad, that subdued their minds, and bent them down to the earth. The events which they saw occurring daily, confounded their penetration, but with patient, though broken spirits, they strove to await the end, baffled as they were in every attempt to avert or restrain the tide of opinion, which had become too strong for control.

CHAPTER III.

Such was the gloomy state of affairs at home; while abroad all was wrapped in a cloud of mysterious uncertainty. Day after day we met each other in melancholy estrangement. No joyous open countenance smiled upon the social board. No cheerful conversation seasoned the frugal repast. A deadly silence knew no interruption except from some endeavour at dry uninteresting common place, which, like a doubtful light that serves but to "render darkness visible," had the effect of saddening, rather than enlivening our domestic group. My father was afraid to trust himself with uttering a syllable which might lead to discourse upon exasperating topics, while grief appeared to choke my mother's voice. Her changing form proclaimed the undermining work which was going on within,[Pg 194] and sapping the vital holds of her constitution. Oh! and her unnatural sons were so insensible to her decline, that though witnessing its progress, we neither tried to mitigate the symptoms, nor to console, though it might not be permitted us to remedy. No length of life can abate the pain with which I cast my eyes back upon that angelic being; nor can the penance of self-reproach extract the sting which is fixed in my breast by the memory of ingratitude towards a matchless parent, now no more.

It was our custom to separate directly after dinner, each desirous to shorten a period of restraint, and pursue individual occupation or device. When the weather was fine, we were generally out of doors, and contrived to avoid the tea-table, family prayers, and "good night;" a parting wish now reduced to lifeless form by the absence of that affection which, where it grows, imparts and receives a new spring at each recurring assurance of its existence. Our evenings were sometimes employed in secretly furthering the United Irish Correspondence; at others in galloping over moorland[Pg 195] and mountain, according to appointment with our fellow conspirators, with whom we had clandestine meetings almost every day.

Every hour was big with rumour; and suspicion of treasonable designs began to fall on many of the higher classes. Informations poured continually into the castle of Dublin. The lower ranks were universally disaffected, while numbers of the gentry were paralyzed by vague and painful terrors of the coming explosion. The co-operation of the French was hoped for by one party, as it was dreaded by the other; and all believed that the first successful landing which was effected on our coasts, would prove the signal for a simultaneous rising of the people. Many were secretly departing from their homes to wait the issue in a place of safety. Others, unable to quit their local property, or desert their duty, were employed in using precautionary means to meet the threatened danger. Revolt and massacre were talked of. Servants were unfaithful to their masters. Tenants conspired against their landlords. The kind "good morrow" of the[Pg 196] passing rustic was converted into a sullen scowl; and all the friendly courtesy of intercourse between high and low was exchanged, at this awful juncture, for distrust on one side, and hatred on the other. Our moral condition resembled that in the physical world which precedes the horrible visitation of an earthquake—darkness and the silence of death pervaded the scene of former life and occupation; and imagination fabricated a thousand spectres still more terrific than those perils by which the loyal part of the community were really surrounded.

It was the evening of the 10th of February, 1798, when the weather, which had been unusually mild for the time of year, became suddenly tremendous. The sky lowered; and torrents of rain broke loose from the clouds, as if a water-spout had that moment burst over Glendruid. Such was the unremitting violence of this deluge that no one could quit the shelter of a roof, and the whole family found themselves in the unusual situation of being imprisoned for several hours together beneath its protection.

The consciousness of having done wrong[Pg 197] is as powerful a separatist in morals, as the principle of caloric in physics; and though confined within a space of not very wide dimensions, we contrived to keep aloof from each other. Sensible of the deep wounds which we had inflicted, my brothers and I had no inclination to encounter the reproach which we justly deserved, and therefore avoided giving an opportunity for accusation. Not as yet visited by remorse, we had no desire to make reparation, and therefore sought to escape the scrutiny which we resolved should not be satisfied.

The unceasing drench, however, which I have mentioned, prevented us from leaving the house, and we were at last obliged to assemble, not having any excuse to allege for resisting a summons to that effect. Tea being finished, and night closing fast upon the dejected circle, they drew their chairs involuntarily round a sullen fire, which none of the party appeared inclined to stir, lest a cheerful blaze might seem too strongly contrasted with the gloomy features on which it played. The wind began to rise, howling at first a piteous wail and moaning[Pg 198] through every crevice which gave it vent. After a solemn pause, it would then burst at intervals into gusts which threatened to sweep the earth and its inhabitants away.

What a being is man! This tempest, heightened at length to fury, was the first occurrence which roused within my breast the long unawakened sense of our deplorable state. There is something in a violent strife of elements which forces itself upon the most obdurate spirit, and strikes conviction of human weakness on the mind. As I glanced from time to time on the pale and agitated countenances around me, I felt oppressed by a sensation which was not easy to define. It was neither fear nor affection, but it was a mixture of repentance, with that desire of communion natural to most mortals under the influence of extraordinary excitement. The billows roared tremendously, and every dash of the sea against the dark and frowning cliffs which beetled over the flood, came rolling on like thunder. The convulsions of the country rendered the storm awfully impressive; the ear was held in fearful tension,[Pg 199] while uncertain sounds mingled in the blast like shouts of human voices, approaching and receding, rising and dying away again.

It was a dreadful night; but as no enemy advanced, and imagination seemed more busy than reality, in threatening danger, the family retired a little later than usual to their several apartments. When I reached mine, overcome by the struggle of feelings which too often slumbered, I threw myself into an old arm-chair near the head of my bed, and would have given more than I possessed, that tears such as I once could shed, had come to my relief, but tears would not flow.

"Good God," I exclaimed, "can this hardening of the heart—this stifling of natural sympathies—this close, secretive, frigid philosophy—be the road to happiness? Are those who have thrown off the ties of religion, and learned to contemn the commandments of their Creator, in the path of peace and virtue?"

These and other self-directed questions were put to my heart in the stillness of solitary examination, and the answer of conscience appalled[Pg 200] me. I prostrated myself on my knees, and I, who would not give my parents the satisfaction of thinking that I ever sent up a petition to heaven, now fell instinctively into the language of supplication, and broke into an agony of prayer. A few minutes more, and I firmly believe that I should have been found weeping on my mother's neck. How she would have clasped the penitent to her bosom! But in the very instant when I was rising from the ground, the door of my room was gently opened, and she who had little reason to love or care for me, urged by all that powerful impulse of maternal solicitude which never sleeps, put in her head to assure herself that her ungracious child was safely protected by the shelter of his chamber from the hurricane which denied her repose.

This unexpected apparition worked a sudden revolution in my feelings. Ashamed and mortified at having been caught in a posture of humiliation, my wretched pride regained its empire, and I rudely inquired of my mother what she wanted.

She closed the door, and my contrition was at an end; the yearnings of returning affection were given to the winds, and locking my door with an angry violence, which I intended should say, "I will not again suffer such intrusion," I extinguished my candle in a rage, and plunged into my bed, but not to rest. To sleep was not so easy; the storm increased every moment, and though I had never been wanting in the animal boldness called courage, I had a chill at heart that night as if the phials of Almighty wrath were pouring out upon a guilty world, and the judgment of God preparing punishment for the wicked.

In spite of all the sophistry with which my tongue had become familiar, conscience was not silenced, but forced the reluctant confession, that my associates and I were mischievously engaged in aiding a rebellion which would probably terminate in much bloodshed and misery, while true patriotism was the last motive that influenced our conduct. The fact was, that like all agitators we were impelled by motives as various as the several characters on which[Pg 202] they operated, and were kept together by an imaginary bond to which, for the convenience of compact, we gave a name very foreign from our real purposes, and in reality little connected with the welfare of our country. I knew even at the time when I was most closely leagued with the Talbots and Lovetts, that they were both selfish and violent. These young men governed the rest of our confederacy with despotic sway, to which, with all our boasted independence, we implicitly submitted.

Thus are we cajoled in every stage of our existence. Perpetually deceiving ourselves, we applaud or revile not the principle but its application, and the same conduct which is the theme of our reprobation becomes that of our praise and adoption, when happening to chime in with our prejudices or our wishes.

I was in a musing vein, and notwithstanding the riot of conflicting elements abroad, I lay pondering mournfully and restlessly, when my cogitations were interrupted by a gun. I started up, and by the time that I groped my way to the lobby, I found the whole family assembled.[Pg 203] My mother stood in a listening attitude, holding a little lamp, which she always kept burning at night, in her hand, and ere we had time to interchange a sentence, the sound of a second shot put an end to all uncertainty, and the only point left to conjecture was the cause of this firing. Some thought that we were going to be invaded by a rebel party, while others feared that a ship had foundered in the bay.

As the latter belief preponderated, it was suggested that we should instantly sally forth to the cliffs, and try whether it might not be possible to render assistance to the sufferers. Here was a crisis which broke through the reserve which had become habitual amongst us, by one of those forcible appeals to humanity that bear down whatever is not in unison with their own prompt and virtuous impulse. All memory of bitterness was now suspended in the common interest excited by the occasion.

Reader, have you ever known the unaccountable perverseness of a stubborn soul, in the pride of unsubdued passion, resolved to be miserable rather than abate a high spirit, though you[Pg 204] longed, with gasping impatience, for any event which, without your own intervention, might place you once more at ease with those whom you had offended? If you have, my sensations at this moment will not seem strange to you. I had not expressed any sorrow for the past, nor lowered my dignity by any promise of amendment for the future; yet here I was on a sudden, running to and fro, and talking familiarly with father, mother, brothers, and sisters, as if harmony had never been disturbed. Those, on the other hand, who have never experienced the perversion of mind of which I am giving a history, will find it difficult to comprehend how this hour of dismay and anxiety should have been the happiest which I had known for a long time, resembling what a man feels on the removal of a burthen which had pressed with intolerable weight on every muscle of his frame.

An old Scotchman, who had grown grey in our service, was one of the first who appeared in the group, and lighting a candle, which he put into the great stable-lanthorn, he called Harold, Charles, and me, to accompany him.[Pg 205] Away we flew, and many minutes did not elapse before we reached the steepest part of the headland which overhung our bay.

What a scene presented itself! The rain had ceased, but it blew a perfect hurricane; the scud drove furiously across the sky, while now and then the broken beams of an angry moon darted on the ocean a wild and scattered light from under dense masses of the blackest clouds, which sped athwart the heavens as if bent on some message of destruction; the waves rolled mountains high, and dashed with wild impetuosity upon the rocks, roaring in thunder as they approached the shore. Gun after gun was fired, but at such a distance that we despaired of being useful. We knew not how or whither to direct our efforts, but stood close together, trying to resist the force of the tempest, and endeavouring to catch any sound that might guide us to the scene of distress, when the shriek of a female voice, borne distinctly upon the blast, afforded dreadful assurance of shipwreck near at hand. The cries were repeated with increased agony, and were louder or fainter as the wind rose or fell.

With one accord we hurried down the rocks as fast as the irregular crags over which we had to scramble would permit. As we descended, a fearful scream of anguish met our ears, after which we heard no more. All but the raging of the storm then died away, and by the time that we reached the bottom of the cliff no sound of human woe mingled in the gale.

A poor fisherman and his family lived at a little distance in a cavity amongst the rocks, and thither we next directed our steps. I was the first to gain this miserable hut, the door of which I found wide open, swinging to and fro on its crazy hinges. We called aloud to Kelly, his wife, and sons, but received no answer. M'Farlane, the old Scotchman, proposed that we should go farther down along the shore to a little creek, in which Kelly's boat was usually moored. When arrived at the spot, there was no boat there. We hallooed again, but in vain; no living being seemed within hearing; all was silent save the winds and waves. As the tide was rapidly retiring we groped along the sands, holding the lanthorn close to the ground,[Pg 207] and searching, as carefully as its uncertain glimmer would allow, for any vestige of the wreck, which we concluded that day-light would but too fully exhibit.

While thus employed, Harold's foot struck against something soft which, on examination, proved to be a small spaniel with a collar round its neck. The poor animal was quite dead, and holding it up to the light, we read the name of Henry Talbot. The shock of this discovery was indescribable. A thousand vague, yet terrible surmises rushed upon my imagination, and before we were able to retrace our path to Kelly's hut, where we determined to wait the break of day, an oar over which I stumbled, and which we found branded at one end with the letters D. K. afforded awful conviction that a dreadful catastrophe had involved the unfortunate fisherman, and perhaps others, in a watery grave.

We took up the oar on our shoulders, and on reaching Kelly's cabin, which had been empty when we first visited it, we were not a little surprised to find his wife lying flat without signs of[Pg 208] life upon the clay floor. We raised her, and perceiving that she was not dead, placed her gently on the wretched trestle, which, covered with straw, and a blanket, served for a bed in this lowly habitation; and taking the candle from our lanthorn lighted a few dry sticks which were piled in a corner. We then removed poor Norah to the fire, took off her old water-soaked cloak, and began to rub her hands and feet with all our strength. We discovered a bundle of rushes too, which having been dipped in grease, serve the poor Irish in place of candles, and were glad to avail ourselves of their feeble aid, not only for presenting some sort of beacon to any vessel which might be nearing the rocks, but also to assist our search for any thing with which to moisten the lips of the dying woman.

At length I discovered a bottle which held a remainder drop of whisky, and seizing on this treasure, we hastened to try its life-restoring powers on our patient. While my brothers and I were thus busily occupied, M'Farlane drew from the corner cupboard, in which I had[Pg 209] found the bottle, a small bit of soiled paper folded up, on which, when opened, the following words appeared written in printing characters, apparently for the purpose of disguising the hand that traced them.

"Be sure not to fail us. You know the place, and the hour. A vessel will lie to, off the Bay. Let nothing tempt you to betray him. A better reward than money will crown fidelity. Finish the good work which you have begun. I depend also on Norah and the boys. If we succeed in getting him safely out of the country, all will be well. She will see him on board, which I am sorry for, as the weather is unpromising. We must land at the Black Point, after doing our job. This goes by a sure hand. Be prepared early; read, and burn.

"Hah, hah!" cried M'Farlane. "I see plainly enough now how it is. Here is a plot, and the plotters are taken in their own snare. A heavy judgment from Heaven is come upon them."

I sprang towards him, and snatched the paper[Pg 210] from his hand, anxious to prevent him from getting hold of information not intended for him; but he had read all the contents; and though there was neither name nor date to apprise us of the actors, it was plain enough that Kelly and his sons had been employed with their boat to convey some mysterious personage from the coast; while it was equally manifest that the writer of the billet, whoever he might be, and the female to whom he alluded, designed to return, after executing their trust, and placing their charge securely on board a vessel ready to steer, in all probability, for France or America.

M'Farlane could never be induced to take part in any of our schemes, and had lavished much useless advice to deter me and my brothers from joining in what he called "the wicked folly of the times." He was hence a person of whom we stood in some awe, and with whom we held very little communion, considering him, as we did, no better than a spy; and I felt exceedingly vexed and annoyed at his having been set on spelling and putting together these few dark words, which told sufficient to excite curiosity.

I turned and twisted the paper which had been crumpled up, and was probably reserved for lighting Kelly's pipe, in performing which office, the poor fellow seemed to think it would be time enough to obey the injunctions of his correspondent by destroying it. The words already noticed were written with pen and ink, but on minuter scrutiny, I deciphered on the outside, scrawled with a pencil, and nearly illegible, a sentence which was apparently designed as a postscript to the note.

"Take care, and let not a syllable escape your lips up the hill. Many matters now afloat, must be kept secret from that quarter."

What is the meaning, thought I to myself, of "up the hill?" and it instantly flashed across my mind, that Glendruid was the place indicated by this expression, and that I was one of those to be kept in the dark respecting all proceedings. We who had toiled early and late, sacrificed food and rest, frequently hazarded life and liberty; and spent every shilling which we could command, were to be treated as aliens, as enemies!

Is this gratitude? exclaimed I. I hastily resolved to separate myself immediately from men thus undeserving of confidence; such treachery was intolerable, and I longed for an opportunity of resenting it, though caution would be necessary, lest I might injure my cause with Albinia by renouncing all future league with her brothers. My resolution was not the result of good feeling, it was only the effervescence of sudden indignation, and events succeeded which prevented its practical steadiness from being brought to the test.

During the short interval in which I was engaged by these reflections, my brothers continued their efforts to revive the cold-stricken Norah. After many fruitless efforts, they at length accomplished their object. A few drops of the cordial whisky were swallowed, and in a little time she opened her eyes, which she rolled wildly round, and starting from her bed, shrieked aloud—

Her eyes lighting on our faces, not those of[Pg 213] her husband and children, she relapsed into another swoon, long and deep, from which we had great difficulty in recovering her.

At last she sat up, and clasped her sun-burned hands together in an agony of grief, rocking her body backwards and forwards to a piteous wail, which the Irish call Ullagone; the dirge music in which they mourn their dead. She gave no answer to our entreaties that she would try and compose herself. In vain did we inquire what had happened, and ask how we could possibly afford her any relief. She did not reply to a single question, but rolling her tearless eyes in their sockets, staring now at one of us, and then at another, but without appearing to take notice of any, the hapless creature continued her melancholy howl, beating her breast and tearing her hair.

At the expiration of an hour's ineffectual effort to obtain the slightest information from Norah, we determined on removing her from a scene so dreadful as that of her now lonely abode, leaving M'Farlane behind to watch the fire till our return. Just as we were going[Pg 214] to take Norah from her cabin, the sagacious Scotchman bethought him of an expedient which operated like magic on the wretched mourner. He recollected the national superstition, and exclaimed, in an expostulatory tone, "Oh then, is it like a fond wife or mother, to say, that you'd let their ghosts roam for ever and ever, without rest or quiet, rather than tell where we might look for the bodies, and bury 'em like Christians?"

This idea roused Norah's torpid senses. She started as if she had been shot, and would have rushed out of the house, if we had not fastened the door in the instant that she was about to dart through it.

"Yes, Norah," said the persevering Scot, "they will wander, and be unhappy, if you do not tell all you know, and let us try and find them, that they may be waked properly, and buried with their people."

"God bless you; God bless you;" reiterated the frenzied Norah; "Go to the Black Pint; och, 'tis the Black Pint."

"What took them to the Black Point at this unseasonable hour, and in such a storm?"

"No, that is impossible, Norah," said I; "you must not deceive those who would befriend you. Dan Kelly knew too well when it was coming on to blow hard. He would not venture his own life or that of his sons in such a night as this. It is no fishing time. Tell what you can of the affair and every help shall be given you."

"I knows nauthen, asthore. For the honour o' God, dear, ax me no more, for I can't tell any thin but only that they war strugglen home agin the tide, and were maken straight for Black Pint when a big wave (oh then, oh then, oh then!) hised away the boat and capsized it. There's no more to be tould, only my darlens is gone, holy Mary mark 'em to glory, and 'tis I that's dissolit to day." Norah wept bitterly[Pg 216] as she uttered these words. I besought her to tell me who, beside her husband and sons, had been buffeting the billows in the boat on that awful night.

"How does your honour think I can tell! 'Tis enough for me, that them that's gone, is gone. Oh! cuishla machree, Timsey, my darlen of all my darlens."

Mac Farlane, perceiving that I made no great way in my catechism, brought forward the little dog, which had lain by in a dark corner of the cabin, and carelessly turning it with his foot, said, in a soliloquizing manner, "Poor little brute! you are more lucky than your master. He is gone, to be sure, with the rest of 'em, and will be without christian burial too, while you will be laid in the ground as if you had a soul to be saved. I wonder, Mr. Albert, whether the party in the boat were lost before they reached the ship, or whether they ever were able to put the stranger on board." Norah had not till now seen either the oar or the dead dog, and fell into the most extravagant lamentations at sight of them. Terrified at finding[Pg 217] M'Farlane, as she now believed, in the secret, she fell on her knees, and in a tone of the most earnest supplication entreated that he would not divulge a single particular.

"Some of 'em may be alive yet. May be all wouldn't be drownded, and if they war, the sperrets o' the dead, Misther Mickfaarlin, would never laive you alone if you spaik. Oh! Sir, and the widdy's blessen on you, don't be villeefyen them that's gone. Laive 'em quite any way, for they've enough to trouble 'em without that."

"I wouldn't harm the dead, woman," said M'Farlane, "any more than you. 'Tis a pitiful case. Only tell his name, and her name who was with him, and your fortune is as good as made. If you speak truth, my master will send an account of it all to the castle o' Dublin, and you'll be sure of a purse o' gold that will keep you in comfort for the rest o' your life."

"I'll tell nauthen but what you know," replied the sobbing Norah; "and there's no use in axing me, for I'll die before I tells upon 'em. What do I want of cumfurt now? If money[Pg 218] would make tell-tales of any that lived in this cabin, as poor as it is, would'nt we be riden in a coche and six long ago fur spaiken plain, but though they're down in the salt sai, I'll not fret 'em, I'll hould my tongue, and Misther Mickfaarlin, if you war'nt a sassenah (no offence, Sir), you would'nt be the one to turn the harts o'the dead frum me. Oh then! oh then! a wee-nough Dan, and Tom, and Timsey asthore! If 'tis a thing that they braiks every bone in my body, or cuts out my tongue, they'll get no good o' me, for the sorra a word I'll spaik, no more than the dead himself."

No cunning of M'Farlane's could elicit farther, and though so strongly prompted by curiosity, which triumphed over every other feeling, that I had endeavoured myself to come at the bottom of the melancholy tale, I admired the noble devotedness of this affectionate woman, upon whom no sordid motive had the slightest influence. She would willingly have laid down her life, rather than betray the cause to which she had sworn fealty. Oh! how the generous heroism of poor Norah, and her enthusiastic[Pg 219] fidelity even to the shades of those who had been dear to her, put to shame all who, without a spark of disinterested zeal, first involved, and then abandoned a people, many of whom gave proofs like this of the tenderest and most unselfish attachment. Norah, suddenly recollecting that the removal of the dog might damp the spirit of investigation, seized a spade which stood in the hut against the wall, and turning up the clay floor within the hurdle which served as a partition between the outer division of her hut, and the interior where she slept, deposited the little animal, collar and all, filling the hole, and stamping the ground with her feet to make all smooth as it was before. In this labour of love towards the memory of the departed, her grief seemed forgotten in her anxiety to conceal whatever might injure any survivor whose cause her husband and children had espoused.

CHAPTER IV.

We succeeded at length in detaching Norah from the scene of her loss, and having left her in the care of my sisters, we repaired again with the dawn to the beach, which we diligently searched for miles along the shore, and found covered with mounds of oar-weed-timber, rope ends, and other indications of the last night's storm. A weather-beaten hat, which bore no mark to ascertain who had been its owner, was all that we picked up which told that human being had been on the seas that night.

The kindest attention was shewn at Glendruid to the unhappy Norah, and as she continued to persist in pleading ignorance of every thing beyond the misfortune which deprived her of all she loved on earth, she was spared[Pg 221] after the first examination. But the "hundred tongues of rumour," were soon unbound.

In the course of the following day, a report was industriously circulated that Albinia Talbot and Richard Lovett had gone off upon a matrimonial adventure to Gretna Green. The two families affected to be much displeased; and as their consternation was sincere, though not proceeding from the alledged cause, they were enabled to act their part with specious appearance. On pretence of being severely shocked by the event, access was denied to visitors both at Painesville and Ferney, so that all communication was suspended for the present moment. My father, however, though not in the habit of calling at either house, conceived himself called upon as a pastor to offer kind condolence, if he could do no more, and on the third day after the reported elopement, he set out on a ride over the mountain to try whether he might not be able to mitigate the wrath which he heard had been excited against the young people, and prevail with their[Pg 222] respective families to forgive an act which could not be recalled.

His road lay through Ballymaclashen, where there was a post office at M'Carthy's public house, which he was to pass, and calling for letters, he was presented with an enormous government packet, filled with printed proclamations, which were forwarded to him from the castle, with an official requisition to have them posted in the most conspicuous situations. These printed papers, minutely described by name, dress, and personal appearance, the very young man whom I knew to be my brother Harold's dearest friend and ally, offering a large reward for his apprehension, and stating that he was known to have taken refuge in our mountains, from whence it was supposed that he meant to escape across the seas. My father read the proclamation aloud at the chapel door, as well as that of the church, and ordered the old sexton to get some wafers and stick up the notices throughout this village. Imagining that this new circumstance might throw some light on[Pg 223] the story of the Gretna fugitives, he hastened his steed and pushed forward towards Ferney.

When arrived at Mr. Talbot's, he learned that on the preceding morning, before daylight, the whole family had set off to Dublin in the greatest speed to try and overtake their daughter. This intelligence was received from a cowherd, who seemed the only person left about the place, and my father having expressed his concern that any thing should have occurred to give pain to his neighbours, added a hope that the young gentlemen were all safe.

"We have been uneasy," said he, "lest any fatal accident had happened on Tuesday night, when Mr. Henry's dog, you know, was found at Glendruid. We all feared that he might have been in poor Dan Kelly's boat, when he and his sons were drowned."

"Och no! for what I know they're all safe enough," answered the cowherd: "Croppy follied Dick Lovett, who lost him as he was comen home, and the dog was swamped, they say, among the rocks."

"Good day to you then," said my father; "I[Pg 224] shall call and ask how the family at Painesville are this morning."

"You may spare yourself that throuble, Sir," rejoined Bat Higgins; "all the Lovetts are gone full cry afther the young couple to some place in Scotland; I think where they say that a blacksmidth is all as one as the clargy, and buckles the people as tight as the best of 'em."

As it was growing late, and the country had long been unquiet, my father, fearful of alarming my mother by being out after sunset, turned his horse into the homeward path, little pleased with the gruff, unceremonious manners of the cowherd, and pondered the altered style of the peasantry, and the mysterious departure of his neighbours, as he rode along. In passing again through Ballymaclashen he found that the proclamations were all torn down, in the short period of his absence. He inquired, but could not learn who had shown such disrespect to Government and to him; and observing a sullen uncivil deportment in the people, who neither touched their hats, nor said a courteous word as they had been wont to do, he thought it prudent[Pg 225] to advance without irritating them by farther interrogations; so, sighing as he ascended the heathy barrier which lay between the village and his once cheerful home, he ruminated, as he said, on his return, upon the evil days, which it was God's will that he should encounter, and prayed for a divine blessing to sustain him against whatever ills might be yet in store.

As he wound down a rocky pathway, lying between gigantic stones, loosely piled together so as to form a sort of rude wall on either side, a man suddenly glided from behind, and seized his horse's bridle. My father was unarmed, and supposing the person who stopped him to be one of a gang, determined on his destruction, believed his last moment to be at hand; but ere he had power to speak, the man, first looking affectionately at him, and next casting a hasty glance all round, to make sure that he was not observed, whispered softly the following words, as rapidly as possible:

"Plase your Riverence, dont be angry to me for stoppen ye. 'Tis to do ye a good turn, for myself does be in danger of limb and life while[Pg 226] I am spaiken; but sure 'twas you and yours that often kep me and mine from starvation, when we were all lien down togither, in the agee, and why would I see a hair of your Rivirence's head hurted if I could help myself? These are bad times, and your sons ought to take care o' themselves. May be they might be afther knowen more about the boat that was racked the other night, and consarnen them papers too, in your Rivirence's hand, than they ought to do for their own safety and yours. Take the warnen, and God bless your Honour's Rivirence, and never tell to man or mortial who tould you this much, though sure in the main time I tould you nothen at all that would bring any one into throuble. I'd scorn that any how!"

My father, as may be concluded, returned home in great agitation. We sat down to dinner, and immediately after the cloth was removed, he detailed the particulars which I have related in the presence of my mother and sisters; and[Pg 227] making a solemn appeal to our sincerity, calmly and affectingly called upon my brothers and me, by all that we held most sacred, to reveal truly and without prevarication, all that we knew respecting the events of Tuesday night. It happened, as I have already stated, that though deeply implicated in other matters, we were really ignorant of this sad story, and not thinking it necessary to volunteer in answering to any thing beyond the scope of the precise interrogatory, we replied with that degree of boldness and promptitude which bespeaks truth, that we were not acquainted with a single circumstance relating to the catastrophe of the storm, which was not equally known to all the country, and as to the proclamations, we had never heard of their contents till my father brought them home, and could not afford any clue to the discovery of the person sought for.

When we had given this assurance, my mother, in tears, threw her arms about our necks, and I shall never forget the thrilling tenderness with which she exclaimed, "My beloved children, let the dangers by which we are encompassed[Pg 228] be a bond of union amongst us—let the warnings of this day teach us wisdom—let domestic love bless our family circle—and let us pray earnestly for the protection of Him who can alone guard us through the perils which seem to beset our path. If happiness and peace be in store for us, will they not be doubly enjoyed in concert? If misfortune be our doom, what care or sorrow is not alleviated by sympathy?"

Alas! I suffered my mother's embrace. I did not repay it; and from the cold demeanour of Harold and Charles, it appeared that her maternal affection met with no kinder reception from them. We were metamorphosed by the spirit of the Times, and pride would not permit even a tacit acknowledgment that we had been in the wrong. A retractation of the opinion which had been adopted in our school would have been considered unpardonable weakness. My mother looked chilled to the heart. Her fond love was repelled, and the returned tide seemed almost to deprive her of breath. Yet she upbraided not, but shook her head in silence. My father said something to which I paid little[Pg 229] attention, and the group dispersed as was their usual custom.

The stimulus of late events began to wear off. Day after day glided by in gloomy stillness, rendered oppressive by the anxiety which was common to us all. The dark reports in circulation—the mysterious departure of the Talbots and Lovetts, perplexed us painfully. Yet, at the present juncture, to have indulged curiosity by taking such steps as might lead to information, was full of peril, and the restraint which we found it necessary to impose upon ourselves became intolerable. I had an additional torment to endure, which was exclusively my own, and I suffered the most intense mortification which wounded self-love could experience.

Jealousy was a strong feature of my character. I had attached myself with enthusiasm to Albinia Talbot, and now felt roused like a lion from its den, and could find no solace except in perpetually wandering along the shore, and gazing on the ocean, as if I expected that the waves of the sea would speak and divulge all that I desired to learn. A sort of invincible[Pg 230] attraction led me continually to the cliffs, there to muse on the faithless Albinia. It was certain that, under other circumstances than those in which I had been placed, she would not have been the goddess of my adoration. Her beauty was dazzling, but it wanted softness. She might have represented Bellona, and seemed formed to command—to conquer—but with the gentle graces of female loveliness Albinia had no relation. The limited circle however of my acquaintance afforded very slender means of comparison, and imagination supplied all that reality denied to decorate the object of my devotion with perfections which only exist in the Poet's dream.

I made verses, and used to "mar every tree" with writing love-songs in their bark. The name of Albinia had mounted on every breeze, and was returned by the echoes of our caverned beach. I had never, it is true, told my love, and had therefore no right to conclude that it was reciprocal; but youth is full of confidence and credulity. Albinia's manners were abrupt, but then she was a patriot, and her mind was[Pg 231] engrossed by the wrongs of her country. "When the public ferment subsides," thought I, "will be fit time for disclosing my sentiments. I shall then,

and no doubt be favourably received." In the mean time I excused all the coldness, rudeness, and undutifulness of my own conduct at home on the plea of this delirium of my brain. I dignified the exclusive surrender of my affection to Miss Talbot by the character of concentration, and rather piqued myself upon being savage to all beside.

"Great souls," said I, "disdain the paltry interchange of mere civility and benevolence. They soar above such tame observances, and refusing to be bound by the slavish ties of kindred—love and hate grandly."

How little did I then know of that ennobling passion, which softens and refines while it occupies the heart—or reflect that brutality to parents, and neglect of sisters, evinced the spurious nature of my attachment for Albinia![Pg 232] But could it be possible that this queen of my homage—this theme of my muse—this idol of my devotion; she who nerved my arm to anticipated deeds of glory—who absorbed my thoughts by day, and stole upon my nightly visions, had eloped with the unpoetical Richard Lovett, who had nothing but a handsome face and form to recommend him; Lovett, who had never held a "descant to the moon," nor breathed a "sonnet to a lady's eye-brow." Unheedful of my feelings, ungrateful for my worship, had Albinia laughed at my woes, and deceived my penetration?

Fevered by these questions which I could not solve, I used to seek the cooling zephyrs from the bay, and withdraw from the scrutinizing observation of my father and mother, who were, I remarked, at this time anxiously watching the post in expectation of letters; but I was too much engrossed by my own affairs to make inquiry, or feel any solicitude which did not come home to self.

It was just a fortnight after the fatal hurricane, when one grey and lowering morning I[Pg 233] sought my usual haunt, and hastened after breakfast to leave the house, and brood over my misfortunes in the solitude of my favourite cave, amongst the rocks. As I sat, more than commonly depressed, "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy," and like all selfish natures believing that my lot was marked by peculiar and unmerited severity—that I was decreed by fate, or providence, or whatever power ruled the destinies of men, to suffer more than any of my fellow beings; I wasted many precious moments in angry repinings, while a volume of Homer, which I never opened, lay at my side, to give me an air of occupation should I be surprised in my retreat. I gazed vacantly on the sea, and know not how long my reverie might have wrapped every sense in forgetfulness of passing time, if my attention had not been caught by some unusual appearance floating on the surface of the water. At first I took it for a mass of oar-weed, but as it approached the shore a vague apprehension crossed my mind that it was a human form; and, hastily descending the rocks, I watched with breathless[Pg 234] emotion till the tide washed it slowly into the creek, directly beneath my feet. What language is capable of conveying, even in the faintest degree, an idea of the horror which thrilled through my frame at the sight of Albinia Talbot so changed, so disfigured, that her dress alone proclaimed her identity!

I grew sick, and staggered unconsciously to a projecting point of the cliff, for support. My head seemed to turn round, my sight failed me; and fully a quarter of an hour elapsed before I recovered my senses sufficiently to make farther examination. At last I ventured once more to approach the body, round which the well known green habit, her beautiful hair, and the tangled sea weed, interlaced, to form Albinia's shroud. So terrible to the mind of man is the awful transformation wrought by death, that a cold dew crept over me as I attempted to clear away the sedge from features so lately lighted up by the fire of health and animation. Good God, what a spectacle was unfolded to my view!

But I will arrest the shocking description, and not press on any other memory than my[Pg 235] own that appalling recollection which will only be erased with my latest breath. As I took a half averted glance at the deceased object of my affection, I perceived a ribbon which passed round the neck, and to which some trinket appeared to be suspended. I disengaged the band with desperate resolution, and pulling it from the habit which adhered closely to poor Albinia's breast, drew out a small flat enameled case, which opened with a spring. A ring, swivel-seal, and little piece of folded paper, fell upon the ground. I hastily collected these reliques, and retiring from the water's edge, hid myself behind the rocks to examine them more attentively.

The ring was of gold, with a plait of hair, and the letter P. carefully concealed within a simple hoop. The seal was of a beautiful Irish amethyst, and finely engraved; its device, Hibernia dashing down a crown with one hand, and receiving a dagger from heaven with the other, while a harp, with some of its strings broken, stood by her. On unfolding the paper which had on one side two or three monograms, and an[Pg 236] alphabet in cipher, I read on the other the following words, in an unknown and apparently feigned hand writing: "I hope that you will not be mad enough to think of seeing me on board the——. The weather is threatening, and the sea-faring people expect a gale. I implore you to beware of risking your safety. I send you the key. Give the ring which accompanies it to Ladhor. You will forward the seal according to our arrangement. Farewell. I trust that ere long we shall meet again. Though clouds may occasionally obscure the horizon of our hopes, the cause in which we are engaged must finally triumph."

The whole mystery appeared now unravelled. The possession of that seal which I knew to be the one used in sealing the rebel despatches sent to France, marked a chief, and I had no doubt that it was consigned to Albinia's care by the person described in the late proclamation. I discovered him also to be no other than the friend of my eldest brother, by decyphering the name of Harold in the transposition of the letters which formed Ladhor. It also seemed[Pg 237] evident that the necessity for rapid flight had prevented my brother from either meeting or hearing from his friend, whom, by the bye, I had never seen, and who it would appear, had in some accidental manner met with Albinia, and entrusted her with these commissions, to be executed after his departure.

Here, then, was the melancholy truth, and the Gretna-green expedition was a mere feint, to cover the mournful reality, and prevent suspicion from attaching to the families of Ferney and Painesville. Whether Richard Lovett had been on board the boat or not, seemed uncertain, but whoever accompanied the ill-fated Albinia had probably shared her sorrowful fate. The object had plainly been to put a rebel leader safely out of the reach of those emissaries who were endeavouring to apprehend him, and those strenuous partizans in the cause of freedom had lost their lives in accomplishing the enterprize.

My jealousy was now for ever hushed to sleep. Alas! had I not been enabled to explain the conduct of her who had excited it, the sight[Pg 238] on which my eyes had rested, furnished an all-powerful remedy for the passion which had been an inmate of my bosom. I have since learned by experience, that the tenderest affection may survive, after the tomb has closed upon those beings most dear to our souls; but the hand of death, in common cases, deals gently with our sorrows, and casts a veil over the objects of whom he deprives us ere yet the living memory of the beloved form is impaired. No love could stand the test by which mine was now tried; nor outlive the shock which it had just sustained. No impression remained to mingle with my pity except that of horror and amazement. I lingered for some time, unable to remove myself from the scene which had nearly deprived me of power to exert a muscle. At length I wrapped up the enamel-case, and its contents, in my handkerchief, which, putting into my pocket, I resolved to keep secret. If I spoke of finding these things, I should be obliged to bring them forward at an inquest. I therefore determined to mention the body only, without farther particulars, and at a distant day I might contrive[Pg 239] some unsuspected mode of conveying the ring, which was his property, to Harold.

My next step was to place a great stone on the extremity of poor Albinia's outer garment, to secure the corpse from being carried out again to sea with the ebbing tide. After this precaution, I ran as quickly as I could; pale and faint; to tell my story at the house.

My father lost no time in taking measures for the usual form of inquiry, but no witnesses appeared to give additional information. "Accidental death" was returned by the coroner; and poor Albinia's earthly remains were attended to the grave by all the family of Glendruid, who, in this act of tender feeling towards the dead, forgot how little they had ever approved her living conduct. Norah was a principal figure in the melancholy procession, and bewailed her misfortunes afresh; but as nothing appeared to contradict the story of a clandestine union, the rumour still maintained its ground, and it was conjectured that the parties, desirous to elude pursuit, instead of proceeding[Pg 240] directly by land, intended to cross the bay, and make their way through bye roads to Dublin.

The political ferment was daily increasing, and indications of rebellion were continually alarming the well affected.

In about a week after the funeral of Albinia, a packet of letters arrived one morning by the bare-footed messenger who acted as post-boy at Glendruid. As my father had written to Mr. Talbot informing him of all that had happened, directing his letter to Dublin, on the chance of its reaching its destination, I thought it probable that the packet just arrived might be from my Ferney friends, and loitered accordingly in the room where we had breakfasted, hoping to hear some tidings of the absentees.

None being communicated, however, I stole away as usual to the sea side. My heart was dreadfully oppressed. Restless and aspiring by nature, I had no means of gratifying either my activity or my ambition. The transient dream of love which had filled my imagination, and furnished materials for many an air-built castle, which served to beguile the passing hours, had[Pg 241] vanished. The blank which my mind experienced was insupportable. I would willingly have done any thing to change the scene, and give a new current to my thoughts. I envied the weather-beaten ploughman who toiled for his daily bread, and would gladly have engaged in the most laborious occupation which might detach my memory from recent events. The spectre of Albinia, arrayed in all the horrors of the deep, was present everywhere; and the particulars of that frightful picture disturbed my sleep. I could not read; if I fixed my eyes but for a moment on a book, I found them wandering; and if I compelled myself to finish a page, I had no impression of its contents, on which the outward sense had only been employed, while attention strayed and resisted all control. Sadly and listlessly lounging in my rocky recess, I heard M'Farlane's voice calling my name. I started up, and advancing to meet him, was informed that my father and mother had gone to the Glyn, whither they desired that I should follow.

I felt little satisfaction in obeying this[Pg 242] summons, conscious as I was of not meriting any agreeable communication at the meeting, and always fearful of scrutiny into my conduct.

What misery is the portion of those who quit the path of duty! but I made no such comment then, though I practically experienced its truth, and writhed under its influence.

When I reached the rustic seat in the Glyn, where my parents awaited my coming, a mingled sensation of sullenness and shame produced awkwardness on my part, the pain of which I still remember. How beautiful the youthful glow of artlessness and affection! I could not look up, yet disdained to cast down my eyes, and attempting to brave feelings which I could not escape, sent round a furtive unmeaning glance, which dared not rest on any object, but spoke the perturbation of my soul, while it affected the ease of indifference. My mother's eyes were swollen with weeping, and my father's cheek was blanched with inward corrosion of heart.

"Albert," said he, "sit down, and listen to a determination which concerns you. Your[Pg 243] mother and I have resolved on accepting the kind offer of your uncle, who long since desired to have one of our sons sent to Quebec; but we declined the proposal. There was a time in which we fondly hoped to see our children provided for nearer home. None of you wished to engage in commerce, and your happiness"—here my poor father's voice faltered—"having ever been our dearest earthly object, you were indulged at the expense of worldly prudence, and I gratefully refused for you all, my brother's kind invitation. Your uncle remonstrated; censured my weakness; and foretold that a day of repentance would come. Such a day has arrived, but to propitiate a near and dear relation who felt wounded by the rejection of his services, appeared a difficult task. It was very doubtful too, whether in times like these, he would incur the hazard of taking into his house a person of your age, who might not be found easily trainable, and who might also, perhaps, carry along with him the unwelcome contagion of that fatal epidemic which is desolating Ireland. The matter, however, is accomplished;[Pg 244] your mother has succeeded; the lot falls on you, and we shall lose no time in making the necessary preparations for your departure to Liverpool, whence you are to embark for Canada. I do not give you any option. You have ceased to be a child, it is true, but you have acted too like a mischievous one to be allowed any farther latitude. We have no fortune. Our sons must depend upon their own exertions for independence. Though I fear that you care no longer for our affection, you will nevertheless have our prayers; and may He who alone can soften your heart make you sensible of your errors, and guide you in the paths of virtue."

My mother could not utter a word, but she held her hand to me; I took, and pressed it with some energy, but my sudden animation was caused by the joy of seeing a prospect opened for quitting home. This was truly emancipation, let it come in what form it might, as the breaking up of Painesville and Ferney had destroyed the local interests, which I had mistaken for a more comprehensive principle; and the tragical termination of my romance[Pg 245] with poor Albinia, had left a chasm impossible to be described. I hated the idea of being a merchant, but the distant evil merged in the present good. My fears for the future were undefined, while the rapture of leaving Glendruid was certain. Hope was soon busy in weaving a gay tissue of things to come. The deep affront which had been conveyed in the paper discovered by Macfarlane, rankled in my breast, and in fact had served to turn me from the party who had acted with such dissimulation as disgusted my self-love, though it had not the effect of converting me to better views.

My uncle was a stranger to me; I had never seen him, but he was accounted a sensible man. No doubt he was a modern philosopher, or if not, my eloquence would soon persuade him. America was a soil in which the tree of liberty already flourished. I should breathe an atmosphere of inspiration, I should detail with all the ardour of young enthusiasm those scenes which I left behind, and paint with raptured glow the noble struggle for freedom which was in progress. Unfettered, unconstrained, I should[Pg 246] revel in the wilds of intellectual expansion; and if catching fire from the reflection of my own fervor, I were to transgress the dull limits of mere fact, and embellish my story in a good cause, there would be no troublesome truth-teller at hand to shake his head at me. Listening crowds would admire, and my uncle, proud of his nephew, would encourage the exhibition of my powers. My fame would extend. It would soon be discovered that talents like mine were suited to higher purposes than penning consignments of cotton and indigo; and that my abilities were somewhat above the farrago of "sugars dull, rums looking up, pimento flat, coffees lively, tobacco smart," and all the vulgar gibberish of trade. I should first be my uncle's idol, next his heir, and conclude by performing a conspicuous part when I returned on the theatre of Europe.

These idle fantasies are tedious to record, but passed with such rapidity through my mind, that after a short pause, during which my silence was perhaps attributed to contrition for the past, I assured my parents of my entire willingness[Pg 247] to acquiesce in their plans; and arrangements were immediately commenced.

Time, which had crept slothfully with me, now trimmed his wing. My days were no longer spent in moping along the beach, nor my mind evaporized in fertile reverie; I was employed from sun-rise to sun-set, in examining maps, exploring Gazetteers, collecting whatever newspapers and magazines I could find to aid my future exploits in oratory, and making all the preparation within my slender means for my great Hegira.

CHAPTER V.

At length the welcome day arrived, "big with the fate of Cato and of Rome;" and on a brilliant dawn, the sun shining brightly as though in harmony with all mankind, did I bid adieu to the home of my youth. I was not so completely lost to every good feeling, as to take leave of my mother without emotion. I could not forgive my father for being a clergyman, nor my sisters for not adopting my political speculations, but my mother, that kindest of mothers, was fading sensibly away. Her sinking spirits and wasted form, bespoke a saddened soul; and when I felt her tears bedew my cheek, something like affection glowed at my heart, and I embraced her with a transient gleam of contrite tenderness.

Oh! could I have foreseen that I should never behold that face again, perhaps my obdurate[Pg 249] nature would have yielded to the softening influence of maternal love; but I broke through the scene, and hurried forward.

I was to cross the Bay, and embark in a little boat from the Black Point of stormy memory. Though I traversed the waters in the same direction which had been fatal to that unfortunate little band, not one of whom it was supposed had survived to relate the terrors of a night which had exchanged for them the warm realities of this busy world for the "cold obstruction" of death, my mind was too elate for reflection. Though I was bidding, perhaps, a last farewell to all that I once loved, the buoyancy of my spirit was more subdued by dread of any obstacle which might impede my flight than by thoughts so naturally calculated to awaken sorrowful remembrance. I pressed onwards with eager speed. Maria had slipped a packet into my hand as I pushed from the shore, and my brief supplies being all comprised in a small portmanteau and a bag, I was soon on board, and gazing with new-born transports on the receding landscape.

Such was my anxiety to quit the scene of early days, that I did not breathe freely till having shaken hands with my brothers, who accompanied me to the opposite side, I saw them splash their oars again, on their return to Glendruid. I then placed my luggage on the shoulders of a bare-legged youth, whom curiosity to see the landing, had attracted to the strand, and set out on foot for the little town, from whence I hoped to find speedy conveyance to the capital.

I walked fifteen miles on that day, and Irish miles are not of the shortest, nor the smoothest, but I felt as if they had been only so many yards. Arrived at the wretched tenement, styled, through courtesy, an inn, I asked for refreshment, and thought a tough fowl, with its accompaniment of rancid bacon, both barbarously dressed, and worse served up, the most delicious morsel I had ever tasted. Exhilarated by my repast, I became more gladsome every moment, and sallying forth into the miserable stable-yard of this obscure place, I collected round me a set of raggamuffins, who are always to be found idle and lounging in such situations, and beginning with a few[Pg 251] of the favourite watch-words of the time, delivered an harangue by way of experiment to the delighted rabble.

I talked with loud voice; expounded political doctrines; praised free trade, and free thinking; abused the Protestant ascendancy; assured the people, who only wanted employment, that they were groaning under a vicious administration; informed them, that though they were free to go to mass every Sunday, and receive every rite of their Church from the hands of their priests, they might, notwithstanding, rely on the fact, that they were suffering martyrdom from persecution on account of their faith, interspersing my oration with such palatable incitements to exertion for the recovery of rights which had, I maintained, been wrested from them by the hand of lawless strength, that my audience became frantic with applause; but I own that I was confounded by a practical illustration of my remarks on the shamefully unequal distribution of property, which now awaited me, and furnished the comment on my text. My new travelling cloak which I could ill replace, had disappeared while[Pg 252] I was addressing the mob. "Ungrateful miscreants," said I to the landlord, "only imagine such an act, at the very moment when I was wearing my lungs out in their cause!"

An old man, who had reached the inn on horseback, with his valise behind him, and enormous spatterdashes buttoned up his legs, just as I arrived, smiled complacently at me as he listened to this apostrophe, and stepping up, said with a kind, yet sarcastic air:

"Young gentleman, you should be proud of your eloquence, which has proved itself so fruitful. No doubt, as you have a coat, which in all likelihood the thief had not, he thought that you might dispense with your cloak, upon the principle of equalization which you had been propounding. If you will do me the favour of drinking tea with me this evening, I will try what I can do for the recovery of your property, through the aid of a few maxims very different from those which you would instil. I am a magistrate, and it is my duty to translate the little words meum and tuum for the poorest as well as the richest, who come within my jurisdiction."

I would fain have avoided the tea-drinking, but my cloak was not to be relinquished without an effort, and fearing to offend my new acquaintance by a rejection of his invitation, I accompanied him to a little shabby room, with sand-sprinkled floor, where a coarse apparatus of delft covered with all colours of the rainbow, was arranged on a small oak table, while a kettle, black as soot, was singing merrily on a turf fire.

As the reader may imagine, I was not asked to this tête-à-tête for the pleasure or profit which Mr. Vicars (for that was his name) expected to derive from my company. His benevolent purpose was to admonish me upon the folly of my conduct, which he did with excellent sense and discretion; and though his advice produced no beneficial result at the time when he gave it, I have often thought of his counsel since that accidental meeting. When the clock struck nine, I wished him good night, alleging my intention of being early on the road the next day, as a good excuse for retiring, and getting rid of a conversation for which I had no taste. Mr. Vicar's took from his pocket a little bible, and I[Pg 254] have not forgotten what he said as he put it into my hand.

"Young man, you profess your love of independence. Here is a volume, which if you will accept from me, and study with care, will secure you in the possession of that peace which 'the world can neither give nor take away.' Look round you at all the finest schemes of earthly contrivance. They are all rendered abortive without the co-operation of numbers. Of what use is the most ingenious invention, if people will not use it; or the best theory, if men will not reduce it to practice? There is the science of political economy, which is just beginning to emerge from darkness; you will find much evil, if I mistake not, grow hereafter out of the application of its principles, not because the wisdom of Smith and Turgot is no longer wisdom, but because the very best human scheme ever devised, carries its own infirmity along with it; and if England cannot prevail on all the countries of Europe to accord with her view's, and join in her reforms, it is in vain for her to set up for free trade. If she should do so, she will only[Pg 255] succeed so far as she is able to render the adoption of her principle general over the countries in commercial relation with her; but the guide which I give you, will pilot you through the roughest weather, and carry you safely into port, though all around were one universal wreck; here is the only real independence."

I thanked the worthy man for his good intentions, but declined his gift, saying, that as I was born of pious parents, I concluded I should find, when I opened my trunk, that spiritual food had been provided for me.

"Then," resumed Mr. Vicars, "I have only to hope that you may inwardly digest it, and so farewell."

My cloak was irretrievably gone, notwithstanding every effort made to regain it, and I resolved not to harangue the people in a stable-yard again on the equal partition of property, without better securing my own.

Before I went to bed, I broke the seal of the packet which my sister had given me at parting, but seeing that it contained a letter from my mother, which I concluded was a lecture,[Pg 256] accompanied only by a note in Maria's hand-writing, I folded them up again, not feeling in a humour for farther exhortation after the dose which I had received from the stranger. The ardour of the morning had been damped, and I was not too well pleased with the latter events of the day; however, a good night's sleep, I thought, would restore my temper, but I had horrible dreams. I saw Albinia's graceful form, her rowan berry wreath, and green habit just as they appeared when she addressed our troop from the Cromlech; I heard shouts of triumph, then a shriek of despair; now lights were flickering along the cliffs, and Kelly's boat next appeared in the act of sinking.

"Hang this web of tangled fancies, the fruit of that prosing man's strong tea," said I, as at break of dawn, I rose from my uneasy mattress.

A common country car, was the only vehicle I could procure, "the chay" being in the hands of a wheelwright five miles off; so ordering this humble conveyance to be tackled, and filled with straw, I desired my luggage to be stowed to the best advantage, which done, the[Pg 257] machine was driven on by a stout mountaineer, who sometimes walked, and sometimes sat on the shaft of his car, as circumstances invited. I varied my journey too in like manner, and enjoyed anew the ethereal atmosphere of liberty, when I found myself on the top of a high hill, snuffing the "unchartered air," and free from all human bondage.

"What are the gaudy trappings of wealth but so many shackles imposed by luxury! What the ceremonies of a court but fetters inflicted by tyrant fashion to restrain the will, and destroy mental energy!"

Thus did I reason while crossing the barren waste that lay over the broad heath-covered height, which my rustic charioteer assured me was the nearest short-cut to the great city. The morning was balmy, and the air breathed into my heart. The perfume of Nature was delicious; the song of innumerable birds exhilarated every sense, and I was in such harmony with all terrestrial things, that happiness seemed scarcely capable of increase. The pure, invigorating breezes, which played around[Pg 258] my head, appeared to minister a flattering unction to my pride, in giving fresh activity, and imparting added clearness to every faculty of my understanding. The vexations of the preceding day were forgotten, and the world seemed to lie before me glittering in the brightest perspective. I could have addressed a senate, led an army, or done any thing that depended on strength and elasticity, in that hour of inspiration.

But the path was rough, the way was wearisome, my horse grew tired; a few biscuits and water from the spring, afforded but scanty sustenance, and by the evening, as we descended to the beaten track of men, and saw the wide mail coach road stretching before us, the poor peasant, whose uncultivated intellect I had deplored, in comparing his untutored phrase with my own glow of fluent language, had now his moment of triumph. Calm and untired, he plodded over the craggy declivity; smoking his pipe with as little excitement as had accompanied his setting out, while my sand had run down, and I was exhausted with fatigue.[Pg 259] Unused to refinements of any kind, my poor driver knew no want beyond what the simplest accommodation might remove, while I had already learned that I was not travelling on a bowling-green, and that I was travelling in a carriage without springs.

As I approached the high-way, I began to feel something like a sense of shame creeping over me while I contemplated the possibility of meeting any one in my own condition of life. "It is never ungenteel to walk," thought I, and therefore, weary as I am, I will keep at a little distance from my unsightly equipage, and enter the little town at which we are to halt, on foot. Along the king's high road then, I made the best speed that I was able to do, lowered as was the tone of my spirits since first meeting the morning gale on the mountain top. My philosophy, too, had taken a more humble level, and much of my boldness had evaporated.

Proceeding slowly, and with fallen crest, I heard a rumbling noise, and turning round espied a rattling, tattered, post-chaise advance. As it gained upon me, I heard my name roared[Pg 260] from one of its broken windows, and stop! stop! shouted from another. Two young men stepped out—a joyous shake hands ensued. They belonged to our mountain muster, and were going up to College examinations. A few minutes settled the transfer of my luggage, and placed me between them. This was a delightful omen, in my mind, of prosperous fortune. All were pleased with the unexpected meeting, and the poor bony beasts that drew us were the only dissentients to the new arrangement. Their opposition was overruled however, and away we went.

Four delectable days were passed in Dublin, with these young men and their associates; but the sinews of pleasure, like those of war, reside in the purse, and mine was too ill provided for longer dalliance. I was obliged to sail most reluctantly, but not till I had laid in a store of sedition, bought all the cheap prints of the day, and established correspondences, by which I was to learn all the news from Ireland.

On reaching Liverpool, which was a new world to me, I went in quest of the gentleman[Pg 261] to whom I was consigned. I found him in a princely residence surrounded by all that wealth could purchase. Mr. Arnold received me with most friendly hospitality. He was a man of high character in his dealings, and regarded all things in this sublunary sphere with more or less respect as they were connected with commerce, which in his opinion was the summum bonum of earth. Considering, as he did, the Hibernian disturbances with the most profound contempt, he was more amused than shocked by details of our civil warfare; and seemed greatly diverted by my pompous accounts of marching and countermarching, attack, and defence. Any attempt at interrupting the established order of Church and State, was, in his eyes, the grossest absurdity, and to be put down, vi et armis, by the strong hand of power. He never troubled himself with history, and therefore was not aware of former revolution, or at least despised the Irish so entirely that he did not apprehend any resistance which millions of them could make. I used to burn with anger at hearing him say, "Sir, I would hang them every one, or, if I[Pg 262] could, I would tie a stone to the Island and sink it like a dog in the sea."

Numbers of people were flocking, about this time, to Liverpool for refuge. Some, through fear of the rebels, and many from dread of being considered such themselves, and treated accordingly. Mr. Arnold was a single man, and of convivial habits. His custom was to give the whole morning to business, and relax at four o'clock, with a few friends, at an excellent dinner, of which several of my countrymen were happy to partake, and pay for "solid pudding with empty praise;" and the most exaggerated descriptions of "hair-breadth scapes, and fights of flood and field," to the great diversion of their host. Some of these men had been obliged to fly with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, but such was the kind feeling excited for the refugees that they were received with the most liberal hospitality, not only by the wealthy traders, but into a society, which at that period could boast of being distinguished for literary taste, talents, and acquirement.

It was wonderful to observe the fascination in[Pg 263] which a company, composed of highly gifted and enlightened individuals, were often held by the dramatizing mountebanks, who came in droves amongst them; one of whom I particularly recollect, a coarse and vulgar man, but a master in the art of producing effect. His eye was quick as the lightning's flash, and could discern, with such celerity, the various expressions of countenance around, that he felt, with the rapidity of intuition, who, how, and when he was moving by his eloquence.

I remember his affecting a numerous audience one day by a story which furnished a good specimen of his manner. It was of a boy who had suffered death for treason. The particulars of his trial and execution were similar to other details, of which the orator had recounted so many, that attention ceased to hang upon his words, and he began to feel that eyes and ears were dropping off. When, suddenly rising from his chair, and pointing as if to the fatal tree, he exclaimed,

"Behold, my friends! see the accursed agents of despotism bearing that child to an ignominious[Pg 264] death! Look at the little ruffled collar which plays to the breeze on that innocent neck which is presently to feel the hangman's murderous gripe—and sigh over your fallen country!"

The "little ruffled shirt collar" achieved the desired end, and not a cheek in the room remained unbedewed, so well did this man understand the power of minute and incidental circumstances in working on the human soul.

Like grammar rules, which are amassed in the memory long before they are understood or applied, my observations were made, because I had leisure to look on, but without affording any salutary deductions till a far subsequent period. My youth, and the retirement in which I had lived, gave me perhaps an awkward air, and though treated with the utmost good nature, I was not brought forward, which wounded my vanity, and afforded me much more time than I wished, for meditation upon many subjects, though I had not then sense enough to turn the remarks which forced themselves on my view to my own advantage.

One conversation however struck me, and[Pg 265] inspired caution, absurd and wrong-headed as I was. A question was asked, in my presence, of the orator to whom I have just alluded, whether, in case that a certain insurrectionary attempt, instead of failing, had succeeded, the persons who had been principals in the design would have been rewarded with the chief situations, civil and military, under a new order of government. The answer imparted a new light to my mind.

"Pooh, pooh! Not at all. They thought so, and therefore worked hard in the cause; but they would neither have become consuls nor dictators I promise you. They were not half bold enough for popular esteem. These half-measure men are very useful; nay, indeed, necessary, in the commencement of a general revolution. While events are doubtful they serve to tranquillize the timid and restrain the impetuous, but when matters are ripe for action, these fair and softly folks are sacrificed, as a forlorn hope, to make way for those who come after, and rush to the battle when a breach is effected. When the people are in commotion no[Pg 266] gradual reform will satisfy. The mob, including all violent men of whatever class, do not desire to have grievances redressed; and are disappointed, like Lydia Languish in the play, when, instead of the dear ladder of ropes, chaise and four, and Gretna Green—the consent of parents and friends leaves nothing in prospect but a peaceable hum-drum marriage. Calm tempers, rational purposes, and moral systems, are very well for beginners and are valuable instruments. They cajole the unwary, and gain time for the desperate; but the advocates of tame projects will always be sent overboard as soon as they have performed their part. In fact they are nothing more than stepping-stones, and when the factions have, through their aid, safely forded the river, they are voted to be impediments to the free flow of the stream, and removed accordingly."

I was deeply attentive to this exposé, and forcibly impressed with the baseness of men who could requite the services of unsuspecting adherents with cold blooded treachery, using their best friends merely as scaffolding, to be[Pg 267] thrown aside on the completion of the building. The scrap of paper found by Macfarlane in Kelly's cottage recurred to my mind, and brought home (comparing small things with greater) a parallel to my remembrance in the conduct of the Talbots and Lovetts towards me and my brothers.

"All men who will not go to every length, are looked upon, I perceive," said I, "as mere tools, and thus do the cunning repay their partizans."

Disgusted and depressed, I sat ruminating at my fire side instead of retiring to rest. The truth was, that, piqued by the want of attention which I had experienced, I was out of humour, and mistook my chagrin for a fit of moral philosophy. In this mood I took my mother's letter, which, till then, remained unopened, broke the seal, and read as follows:

"Albert, I am going, with a sorrowful heart, to address to you the last lines which you will perhaps ever receive from my pen. I write them for your sake, not my own. My days are drawing to a close, and if you do not destroy[Pg 268] this paper, the words which it contains, deriving a sacredness of character from death, may hereafter inspire you with feelings which, while here, I have little hope to see impressed on your heart. Oh! Albert! my once dearly loved, I cannot tear you from this bosom, nor forget that you are my child!

"Though I shall not live to witness a change, I do not despair of its taking place, and if it be permitted to a departed spirit, after its separation, still to mingle in the dearest concerns of earth, mine will hover round my Albert's head, and mark every repentant throe which shall agitate his breast; for repentance will yet have its day, and a time will come, when, throwing off the coils which now entangle, you will think for yourself and be free. Your soul abhors restraint; yet you have only changed masters, in abandoning the mild legitimate control of your natural protectors for the despotic sway of self-constituted authority, and this you call liberty, and are the dupe of a sound, while in reality you are held under coercion the most enthralling.

"It is the cant of your party, that the world was benighted till now, and is at present emerging into day, from the obscurity of ignorance and barbarism. It is part of the same silly creed that man is capable of "infinite perfectibility," and is in the high road to attain it. It is not so; history supplies us with materials for a juster decision. Man, born to evil thoughts, and following mischief with a tendency inherent in an imperfect nature, will devise unholy schemes, and exercise selfish views in all periods of the world's existence; and one age is often employed in little more than overturning the institutions of that which preceded. In private life, the miser hoards; his son is probably a spendthrift; the third generation, perhaps, suffering by the errors of profusion, takes to amassing again, and so on. Nations are but larger families, still composed of men, imperfect, erring men; some better, some wiser, than the rest, but all liable to mistake, because all seeing through a glass darkly, and all unable to produce any plan in which evil is not a constituent ingredient. One government is established on[Pg 270] the basis of wisdom and virtue, while another is grounded on the brutal law of force. The former becomes corrupt through confidence in its stability; establishments foster indolence; indolence produces luxury, and luxury enervates and debases the species; the latter, resting securely in its power, casts its galling fetters on all who are so unfortunate as to be subject to its domination, and the demons of prerogative and infraction stay not their merciless career till despair inspires resistance, and the yoke is thrown off.

"Reform is wanting in both these instances; but, alas! it is always attempted by the young, the bold, the impetuous, and generally unprincipled; hence it is that improvement is not progressive. Bad passions mingle in, if they do not entirely actuate, new schemes. One man of more impudence or more courage than his fellows assumes to lead, and the multitude, who abhorred the wholesome restraint of the laws, follow the usurper with willing and slavish submission till fresh chains are forged more oppressive than those which had been discarded.

"Even admitting, what is far from being true, that all innovations were the fruit of genuine patriotism, and that common sense, which perceives error, the inventor of new projects is still prone to mistake, as the sparks fly upward. Old prejudices are assailed by youthful theories, in which imagination, which is more active than judgment, and feeling, which is more prompt than discretion, achieve the victory. Whatever are the evils of any given state of society, they operate on those individuals who compose it sufficiently to prevent the reformer from being always competent to rectify the abuses of which he complains; and here is another reason why old errors are so commonly only exchanged for new.

"Providence has so ordered, however, that in the great scheme all works together for good: discussion sharpens sagacity, opposition provokes research, heresy kindles devotion, war leads to peace, as storms purify and tranquillize the physical elements; but this is not our doing: this consequence is the ordinance of Him who[Pg 272] overrules our follies, our eccentricities, our vices; and, giving them free scope within a limited space, precludes them from affecting the balance of the universe by straying beyond the bounds originally prescribed to the exercise of their activity. As the miser is not more benevolent because another gives in charity what his avarice heaped together, neither is an atheist, nor a rebel, a virtuous member of society because the unbelief of the one, and the insubordination of the other, increases the piety or the loyalty of a looker-on. The good of which we are permitted to be the humble instruments comes from example; that which the Almighty works out of our vices proceeds from contrast. The effect of the former is to sanctify the means as well as the end, and bless him who teaches virtue to those around; that of the latter is to sacrifice the vehicle, though God may not suffer the brand which it rolls flaming along to consume aught but itself.

"Consider these things, my son. The world is not of yesterday. What you and your companions are fanning as the sparkling scintillations[Pg 273] of genius, now lighting on our globe for the first time to illumine its surface, are only the dying embers of a former age, revived but to perplex mankind with fitful glare. Quit your philanthropic delusions, and be assured, that however paradoxical such a maxim may sound in your ears, it is true, that he best loves all, who loves well a few; wide generalities are thin and diluted, whether in religion, politics, or affection, and the charities which profess to be universal are too frequently the offspring of laxity and indifference. It is the sunshine of domestic love which pours its gladdening ray to distant regions; it is the strong nerve of godlike duty which braces resolution for grand and comprehensive enterprize. My Albert, begin at home. Happiness and independence may be yours, if you do not reject the means of obtaining them.

"Farewell, my child. Despise not the words of truth because they are breathed by my voice addressed to you by my pen. Neither shall I long remain to molest you: a killing blight has passed over my soul, and scattered the sweet blossoms[Pg 274] of hope. But it is good for me to be afflicted. Before I was troubled I went wrong.

"May the Almighty bless you, my Albert; and should you ever discover that there is soothing in a mother's heart, ere mine has ceased to beat, knock, and it shall be opened to you.

CHAPTER VI.

A soul not entirely dead to all good feeling would have been touched by this letter. Mine was affected, but not in the degree required for any permanent good. I folded it up, resolving that I would answer it affectionately, and lay a foundation for better times to come. The morning, however, brought other occupation, and the letter was put into my trunk.

Mr. Arnold took me to breakfast with a gentleman who lived at Bootle, not far from Liverpool, and who had a son just preparing to sail for America. It was soon arranged that the young man and I should go together in the Washington, which was to weigh anchor in a few days; and my shipmate, whose name was Clarke, was invited by Mr. Arnold to return,[Pg 276] and dine at his house with us. This youth was about my own age, and we had not interchanged many sentences before I discovered, to my infinite satisfaction, that he was Irish, and a rebel. We cemented a league of the closest amity, mutually attracted by these sympathies, and became inseparable.

I now made the amende honorable to my powers of oratory for the abstinence which they had suffered since my arrival in England, by opening their sluices copiously on my new associate, who, I found, had drank more deeply by far than I had myself done at the poisoned stream, and was quite au fait in all the new doctrines. We discoursed of the persecuted people, of selfishness, and pride, tenacity to old systems, blind prejudices against improvement; abused the old and the experienced as incumbrances and impediments; talked of the clergy, who made traffic of superstition, and kept mind in bondage to serve their secular purposes; of learning as a dead weight on the active energies; and agreed that a democracy and an altar "to the unknown god" comprised our highest ideas[Pg 277] of government and religion. All were decreed to be knaves or dunces who dissented from our opinions, and were scoffed at accordingly. Precious specimen of that toleration which we boasted!

The ship in which we were to sail was delayed, but I rejoiced in any circumstances which protracted my stay in Liverpool, where I found many congenial spirits. Clarke introduced me to several of his acquaintances who were of our own stamp, and political sympathy being quite a sufficient bond to friendship, we became as intimate as brothers in a fortnight's intercourse. How gregarious are bad principles! Is it because vice is cowardly, and dares not stand alone, while virtue, in its boldness, finds independence? My mother's letter occasionally disturbed my peace, but each day weakened the impression, and increased the difficulty of an answer, which was at length postponed sine die.

The hour of departure arrived. Mr. Arnold had taken no interest in my choice of companions. His attentions, though full of kindness and civility, were rather of a mercantile than[Pg 278] friendly character. He had accepted me like a bill; I was indorsed and negotiated in form; now shipped, invoiced, consigned, and exported like a parcel of hardware. Accompanying me to the wharf, he recommended me to the captain's care, shook hands, wished me a pleasant passage, and, with all the alacrity of a haberdasher, whipped off to his counting-house.

A favouring breeze filled our sails, and we were soon launched on the broad Atlantic. In Europe if you praise a man, you are asked whether you have ever had a money-dealing with him. In India, on like occasion, the inquiry is, "Have you taken a voyage in his company?" To the former interrogatory I should have had no experience to assist my reply, my pecuniary transactions affording me small insight into human character; but I now learned that the Indian test was no bad criterion, and ere many hours elapsed after I left the river Mersey, I began to find that the concentration of a trading vessel brings many qualities into a focus, which had previously been too widely diffused to make one sensible of their existence.

Clarke, who had a keen look out after comfort in the most comfortable sense of that snuggest of English words, had made the most careful provision for mitigating the desagrémens incident to our situation. There was nothing wanted to complete his arrangements for the voyage. Captain Conroy was to supply my necessities by agreement with Mr. Arnold, but my friend Clarke, with a telescopic prescience of ship's fare, had laid in a store of luxuries which, adding the force of contrast to what of its own nature required none to render it abominable, certainly blackened my salt beef into as unpalatable a morsel as I had ever eaten. Clarke had brought new laid eggs, potted cream, sweetmeats of every description, and all varieties of pickles and sauces piquantes, while his well-fed goat chewed the cud contentedly below, and poultry of various sorts gabbled in their coops.

Had my purse been better furnished I should not have profited in this manner by its abundance, for I was a reckless swain, and when politics did not engross my mind, it was given to[Pg 280] poetry and romance, while the de quoi vivre seldom presented itself to my attention till urged by necessity; and as we are said to "take no note of time but from its loss," so I never thought of food till I was hungry. Thus, till I saw the delicate cates which were displayed by my messmate, I did not recollect that such things were, and the second thought which crossed my mind was, that they would be common property. "It would be so, were they mine, and of course it will be so, as matters stand," quoth I to myself; but I reckoned without my host, and received my first practical lesson on the difference between savings and doings.

I had hitherto seen Clarke either at his father's house or at the hospitable board of Mr. Arnold; but now that he drew upon his own resources, I found the case considerably altered. We talked politics, indeed, as usual, but my companion suppressed the tirades against worldliness, and calculation, with which he used to interlard his discourse; and muttered a hint that charity begins at home, and that liberality might be carried too far, upon a request for a[Pg 281] little goat's milk for a sick sailor. In short, a more narrow minded niggardly being could not exist than Clarke, and I was glad to have discovered his character au fond, before we touched terra firma.

During the voyage, I pleased myself afresh, with visions of the scene upon which I was soon to enter. My vexations in Liverpool did not extinguish my hope of being thought a shining light at Quebec. Vanity is an elastic quality and will bear many rebuffs. She, with ever ready unguents, poured soothing on the bitter waters of disappointment, and whispered that though I failed in Bœotia, I should flourish at Athens. Though Liverpool might be absorbed by vulgar traffic, the glorious field of America was in prospect, and there I should be more justly appreciated.

Youth stands many a shock ere it is discouraged, and ignorance is not easily foiled in its anticipations. I was all elate, and when we entered the St. Laurence upbraided time with taking a nap, so slowly did it appear to travel, till we cast anchor. My uncle, whose physiognomy[Pg 282] impressed me very favourably, gave me the kindest reception. In high spirits at finding myself on shore, I accompanied him to his house, which was pleasantly situated, and was speedily made acquainted with the map of the interior; but I must confess that I felt my vivacity somewhat checked at the sight of a room not more than twelve or fourteen feet square, furnished with a deal writing-desk painted oak colour, shelves divided into compartments alphabetically numbered, and a few rush-bottom chairs.

This I was informed was to be my sanctum, and I certainly did not fall in love with it, neither did I feel much overjoyed at hearing, that on the following day I was to be regularly installed in office, and introduced to ledgers and letter-books. My uncle's dinner hour was three o'clock, and as I went to prepare for our primitive repast, I laid my little plan for making a figure in our first tête-à-tête, and securing his good opinion. I meditated what I should say, and resolved to give him a highly interesting account of our Irish proceedings; but when the bell rang,[Pg 283] I was excessively mortified to find that a West Indian Captain was to be of our party.

Nothing could be more mal-a-propos. Since we were not to be alone, a few cheerful people would have been second best, but the number three, which is at all times and in all places considered unlucky in point of society, was peculiarly so upon the present occasion. I was totally excluded, and sat silently listening to the most tiresome discussion respecting freights and cargoes, unenlivened by a single remark in which I could participate. Captain Thompson was a square built stump of a man, who seemed to care very little about modes of government, provided that the carrying trade were not injured. He talked incessantly of crops and colonies, and my uncle, though evidently a man of superior intellect, seemed not averse to indulge his guest, by allowing him to start his own topics and dwell upon them as long as he liked.

When Marplot took his departure it was bedtime. Candles were called for, and as my uncle bid me good night, he added, "Albert, I fear[Pg 284] that this was a dull day for you, but I could not avoid asking Captain Thompson. He is a worthy man, and sails to-morrow, so I had no other opportunity of shewing him some civility." I was glad to hear that I should see no more of the Captain, and retired to my chamber with a heavy heart.

It is amazing how we deceive ourselves at a distance from the objects of our contemplation! But as we go on doing so to the end of our lives, it was no great wonder that my fancy had been engaged, at between eighteen and nineteen, in drawing pictures very unlike the truth. I was now in that land of strangers which, till the present moment, had been a region of imagination. The vague rapture which I had painted to myself in the novelty of a foreign clime had dissolved in air, and I found nothing to stimulate curiosity, or justify an excitement, which was now followed by the antagonist feeling of chill and dislike. The notions of young people are seldom of a negative kind, because while life is in its spring, pain has not taught them that its mere absence is a pleasure. All their ideas of good[Pg 285] are positive, and therefore the more vivid anticipation, the more certain is disappointment. In this sanguine temperament, I suppose that I expected to see the goddess of liberty seated on a triumphal car, and the Canadians running about delirious with freedom.

Whatever were the phantoms raised by my enthusiasm, the reality bore no resemblance to them; and I was surprised by the common-place manner in which the inhabitants of Quebec appeared to be employed in pursuing vulgar interests like other men. I read my mother's letter again, and passed a miserable night.

On meeting next morning, my uncle accosted me with much good nature, and after breakfast, conducting me to a very well furnished library, said, "Here, Albert, you will find a tolerable collection of the best standard works in all the European languages, and you need not forget your Greek and Latin, as I have got a capital edition of the Classics. I do not desire that you should, in becoming a merchant, cease to be a gentleman. You shall therefore have free[Pg 286] ingress here, as often as you like to look in upon your old friends."

"They would be new acquaintances, not old friends, Sir," answered I. "I have read very little of late, and scarcely know any of these authors who adorn your book shelves."

"And pray," said my uncle, "may I beg to ask what you do know. I should have thought that you were at home in literary matters. Your parents inform me that you had been designed for a learned profession."

"Why, Sir," replied I, "history and the belles lettres are very well when one has leisure for them, but matters have been ripening into action with us in Ireland. The march of mind has been making rapid progress, and is performing wonders amongst our brave and gifted people. It is not easy, as I am sure you will acknowledge, to sit down amid a heap of musty volumes, filled with antiquated learning, when the living energies of a nation invite our sympathies. The truth is, that politics have occupied my head and heart so entirely that I have thought of little else."

"The subject is one of deep interest and importance," answered my uncle; "though I am at a loss to know what a boy at your age, who is not in the army, can have to do with active measures, as much as it puzzles me to imagine how any but statesmen or journalists find employment in the science of government. All indeed may read the newspapers, and whoever considers the features of the present time with attention, has cause for inquietude. The age we live in is big with event, and many of its presages are alarming to a sober mind. But, my young friend, what have you to do with national affairs, and where did you discover that men may jump into political knowledge without reading, though remember I do not say in 'musty volumes.' I do not advocate mildew. I love a clean cover."

I felt a little annoyed by this half satirical, half jocular, mode of treatment, but throwing back my head and shoulders, with what I intended should be a dignified air, and express confidence in my strength, I replied, "The reign of authority you know, Sir, is past, and the[Pg 288] enfranchised mind, disdaining to be held in thrall by the shackles of prescription, has burst the fetters which retained it in captivity. Mysteries are abolished. We are not imposed on by sounds—we must have sense; we have banished the cumbrous machinery of learning, which, like the heavy horse of Prussia, served only to impede, not assist the operations of a campaign—precedent is out of date, monopoly is abolished. The unchartered intellect ranges at liberty, and we have thrown open the barriers; words no longer deceive—we study things; freedom has provided short cuts through the wearisome wastes of religion and morals—utility is our test; and men may worship the Deity as they please. Priestcraft is exposed, the altars of superstition are razed to the dust, and the temple of nature is held to be our only sanctuary. Religion is thus stripped of her mask, while morals have undergone a similar reform. The jargon of the old school is declared to be obsolete, and the absurd doctrine of restraint is superseded. The master spirits of France have also carried the genius of reform into the social[Pg 289] compact, and simplified our political views. The rubbish of antiquity is shovelled away. We no longer require folios of worm-eaten erudition to teach us, but justice, with her even scales, is accessible to all. It is the folly of learning which has obscured her decisions, and rendered that which is plain and straight forward crooked and complicated. We do not now inquire how our ancestors understood such and such points, for the mists of darkness are clearing away, and the human mind, borne upward by conscious strength, will rise into the glorious sunshine of liberty and become a law unto itself. What has a Cæsar or an Alexander to do with us? What need have we to wade through the jargon of the economists, and break down the soaring spirit to the low level of sordid calculation? Why should we revive the old fashioned stuff of national resources, balance of power, and such useless nonsense? Reason, Heaven descended, has resumed her sway, and man dares to be free."

A hearty fit of laughter, accompanied by "well done, bravo," somewhat disconcerted[Pg 290] me, and my uncle's reply when his merriment would allow him to speak, was not encouraging. "Come," said he, seeing me look confused, "I must remember that ridicule is not the test of truth, though we have heard the contrary. We will be serious. My idea of judgment is, that it depends on comparison, and facts are requisite to this process. I confess myself a sceptic as to the merit of many new inventions, and cannot avoid auguring ill of their consequences. Believe me, nephew, that some of the opinions which, unhappily for yourself, you have adopted, lead to every species of disorganization—but do not suppose that I mean to say, of either things or people, that they must necessarily be good because they are old. Let youthful genius bud forth and blossom. I love to see young intellect aspiring, and would do all in my power to assist its flight. Fancy, too, has its charms, and the flowers of eloquence are worthy of cultivation; but the wisdom of experience may be allowed its place, though these lighter graces have their play. Nature performs all things in season, and the swelling pride of spring is as[Pg 291] lovely in its own time as the ripened stores of autumn at a later period—but beware of what you are doing. These raw politicians will effect much harm, but no good. Only that you tell me you are no reader, I might ask whether you are acquainted with a verse in a certain volume which warns us against breaking yokes of wood and making in their stead yokes of iron?

"If you doubt," said I, "that the son of a clergyman has read the bible, may I not hope that it is because you approve that liberty of conscience which I uphold?"

"I uphold liberty of conscience, my young friend, perhaps, as much as you do," answered Mr. Fitzmaurice. "Let conscience be the supplicant, and I could trust freedom in her hands. 'In all that may become a man,' I would protect the exercise of free will, but your schemes are founded upon license, not liberty, and so far from imparting power, would soon circumscribe its energies within a straightened compass. One of your freemen would require shackles to be placed on many, ere scope and verge sufficient could be found for his restless activities. I tell[Pg 292] you, young man, that you must surrender a part of your natural liberty to preserve the rest, in every civilized state of society. Your modern republicans are playing a sad game."

"But, Sir, surely there is no magic in the word 'King:' kings may be fools, and where there is no monarchy of mind, idols of wood and stone are more convenient and less costly than those of flesh and blood." I spoke with vehemence, and met with a rebuke which my flippancy well deserved.

"Nephew, I cannot waste my time in talking nonsense. When you take the trouble of qualifying yourself for debate, I shall be happy to enter upon an argument with you. In the meantime you must excuse me if I decline what I consider 'vain jangling,' and assure you that I should no more dream of taking your present opinion on law and politics, than on a cargo of sugars; you must study the one, and the other, before I abide by your counsel."

My uncle spoke well, and delivered his sentiments with a calm force which overawed me. There was neither foaming at the mouth nor any[Pg 293] of the gesticulations to which I had been accustomed in our harangues of the "Slat house," where the principal orators were Mr. Talbot and Mr. Lovett. I felt abashed, yet trying to rally, I ventured to add something about intellect being given for individual exertion, and that grateful for the boon we should employ our own, and not trust to other people.

"I am not apt," replied my uncle, "to look for gratitude as the fruit of pertness; and as for authority, I shall take leave to prefer my oracles to yours. You refer to Paine and Volney; I have other standards, and I believe were the measure of our obsequiousness weighed, you might be found as implicit a subject to your rulers, as I am to mine; but come, Sir, tret and tare must have its day, and my political, poetical, and oratorical nephew must be nailed to the desk for the next three hours."

Though not an angry frown was scowled upon me, I felt that there was a sober firmness in the manner of these half playful words, which left me no option; so, like a sheep to the[Pg 294] slaughter, I was led away, and ordered to my post.

The conversation which I have detailed put the finishing stroke to all my castle-building, and brought my palmy hopes to the dust. My favourite creeds had not only been opposed, but in such a way as forbid any farther trial on my part to sustain them. The contempt with which my opinions were treated, irritated my temper, and galled my spirit, beyond expression. There was a something like pity in my uncle's eye under which I writhed and fretted a thousand times more than if I had been met with ferocious conflict, and been called upon to summon all my strength. I was humbled; my self-love was wounded, and a sullen despondency succeeded my presumptuous elevation.

Deprived of my old companions, and cut off from my former pursuits, I was denied the blessing of solitude, in which I might have mourned my fate without spectators. A few feet of that rocky precipice at Glendruid from which I used to chide the heavy hours, and wish[Pg 295] that every sail would bear me away, seemed now the Paradise of memory, and the whole world would I have given to transport myself once more to the craggy cliffs of my birth-place.

I was immured in an apartment or office in which six other desks ranged with mine, and as many clerks, who seemed not to possess a single idea beyond the bounds of their occupation, were seated in rank and file, as I took my station. While busied at home in forwarding insurrection, I used to associate familiarly with the neighbouring peasants, and never felt the dignity of a gentleman compromised in such intercourse. There was nothing lowering to pride in such communion, because the end appeared to ennoble the means, and the grandeur of the purpose in which all were concerned, gave a character to the actors which did not belong to them in a private capacity.

So I argued at least, but these men were mere accountants; little better than machines of wood, and divested of every pretension to the distinguishing type of gentleman. I could not bear[Pg 296] to hold the slightest fellowship with them, and after a cold salutation, which was answered by each with, "Good morrow, Sir," I was accustomed to take my seat close to a window which looked out upon an immense paved yard, surrounded by storehouses. A monstrous watchdog was sole tenant of this inclosure, and the entrance or departure through its gateway, of sledges filled with merchandise, the only variety which its dismal area presented.

What a scene to be contrasted daily with the magnificent expanse of ocean over which my eye was used to wander from my native shores! How different my present prison from the rocky caves in which I was wont to contemplate the sea's ebb and flow, soothed by the curlieu's wild wail, and refreshed by the fragrant breezes wafted from the heath-covered hills, or the gardens of the deep! The towers of La Trappe would have been a welcome prospect to my imagination in comparison with the destiny upon which I had fallen. "In that desert region of eternal silence," said I, "thought would at least be free,[Pg 297] and my wretchedness would be allowed repose."

Tears which had ceased to flow from tenderness of heart, now nightly moistened my pillow. I was without resource; the stimulus of activity no longer braced my nerves, and the excitement of vanity had ceased to operate on my spirits. I found my boasted patriotism beginning to flag for want of sympathy; and I had so long depended upon its animating influences, that I could not force my mind into any new occupation.

Those only who have felt the horrors of vacuity can enter into the sufferings which I endured. There is something more repugnant to the mind in being despised than hated, and more painful in the absence of every excitement than the presence of great misfortune. A thousand times did I form the resolution of snapping my chain, but whither should I fly; how subsist? To return home would have been, if possible, worse than to remain at Quebec, and I could not expect to be received, laden with the weight[Pg 298] of my uncle's displeasure. The only alternative was an endeavour to submit to my fate.

At first the effort was intolerable, and for some time attended with little success; but time was beginning to familiarize me to my situation, and I plodded for some hours of every day at my unwelcome task, more like an automaton than a sentient being, when all my former energy was revived by an accidental circumstance.

CHAPTER VII.

It may easily be imagined that with my feelings I had not much inclination for the society of my uncle. I did not, it is true, dare to offend, but I tried as much as possible to avoid him; and have often wondered since at the kindness of his forbearance. When the business of the day was over, it was my only comfort to take long walks, in which I enjoyed the luxury of ruminating unmolested on the events of my past life. I had been several months in America, when I asked permission to avail myself of two or three holidays in the counting-house, to visit the celebrated falls of La Chaudière. Leave was granted; and I set out by myself, carrying a small basket, containing such refreshment as might enable me to take the longest advantage of my furlough.

Having left the boat in which I was conveyed up the river, at a convenient distance, I quickly gained the deepest recesses of the dark massy woods that surround that beautiful cataract, to see which was my ostensible motive for this excursion; my real object was to give a free course to my sorrows, and obtain a short interval of undisturbed leisure, to consider whether there existed any practicable mode of relieving them. The grandeur of the pines, and the solemn cadence of the waters soothed my mind, and brought consolation, without suggesting a remedy for my unhappiness. In the depth of this leafy seclusion, I poured out my complaints, without dread of interruption, and repined aloud at the severity of my lot.

"Why," murmured I, "am I gifted with talents which must remain unexercised? Why endowed with activity which is to lie dormant? Why have birth, habits, and education, formed me for higher things, while I am condemned to the vulgar cares of loss and gain, in which I have no interest, and obliged to confine my understanding[Pg 301] to the sordid purposes of accumulating wealth, which is to line the coffers of another, and not even reward my labours by enriching me?"

Tired at length by self-directed questions such as these, which I could not answer to my satisfaction, I lay down under the shelter of a hut formed with stakes and covered with branches, which had been probably raised by some artist, who perhaps remained at the Chaudière, to take sketches, beyond the necessary time for seeing the water-fall.

Here I fell asleep, and dreamed of home. I thought that I had landed in the Bay, and had toiled my way over the cliffs to Kelly's cottage, where I found my mother pale and weeping, as she gazed on the ocean, and exclaimed, "Better is it to shed tears over the grave of those we love, than mourn the living!" The voice which seemed to pronounce these words was so faithfully echoed by memory, that I started up, and broke into a passionate invocation to my country: "Oh, my dear native skies! beloved Island[Pg 302] of the emerald's hue! nursery of freedom, land of the generous and the brave, when shall I revisit your coasts? Glendruid, thou lovely scene of infant joys, shall I ever look upon thy rocky shore again?"

As I uttered these words, a slight rustling amongst the leaves behind me caught my ear; but ere I had time to turn round, my arm was seized with an eager grasp, and my eyes were met by those of Henry Talbot. No language could convey the rapture and astonishment of this unexpected meeting. A second figure, which had been concealed by the thick foliage from my view, now advanced, and I perceived a youthful stranger, of the most prepossessing appearance.

Such was the agitation caused by this sudden, this unlooked for rencounter, that Talbot and I stood mute and breathless from emotion, and during some minutes were incapable of speaking. Such was the impetuosity of my feelings, that I was quite overwhelmed, and for a short space resisted the evidence of my senses, determined rather to believe that a vision had[Pg 303] appeared to my disordered fancy than that what I saw could indeed be true. At length we recovered from our surprise, and mutual inquiry quickly followed.

I now learned that the stranger who accompanied my Captain of the Mountain Muster, was the person for whose apprehension so much diligence had been employed, and such large rewards offered. So critical was his escape, that the violence of that storm under which he embarked, alone prevented the activity of his pursuers from being successful, and Kelly, whose secret services had often been useful, confiding in his skill, volunteered in conveying the fugitive to a vessel which lay off the bay hovering on the coast to receive him. Talbot had no design of accompanying the stranger's flight, but the melancholy catastrophe which occurred on the return of the boat towards the land, altered his purpose. He swam on shore, and aware of the consequences which would ensue from investigation, resolved to make his way to Dublin, travelling by night, and lying in concealment all day. From thence he easily contrived, with[Pg 304] the aid of people who were ready to abet every scheme that favoured the cause of rebellion, to procure a passage on board an American trader, and it so chanced that the young man who now stood before me, did not arrive till after Talbot had reached Quebec.

Ferney had been for some weeks the place of this young man's retreat before he left Ireland. He had suffered the greatest bodily fatigue, as well as agonizing uneasiness of mind, and even after he had taken refuge in the mountains, could not venture to rest his weary limbs in the same cavern for two successive nights. The last preceding his departure, had been passed in the rock-surrounded cottage of poor Kelly, and the following witnessed that sad catastrophe which it was supposed had engulphed its inhabitants, together with Albinia Talbot, who would not be deterred from the enterprize, her youngest brother, and Richard Lovett, in the depths of ocean!

The two friends whom it was my fortune to meet this day, were now preparing to return secretly to Ireland, and were to leave Quebec[Pg 305] on the next day. They obtained from me a promise of the most profound silence respecting our interview. We agreed to correspond, and I engaged their warmest interest in endeavouring to procure my liberation from a profession which was irksome to me beyond measure. The young stranger was deeply affected at sight of the seal and ring which I restored to him along with the case in which I found them.

The impression made by this interesting youth upon my mind was indelible. Brief as was my acquaintance with that ill fated, but highly gifted being, the memory of it will never be effaced from my heart, and even now, when my whole character has undergone a change, I recollect him with the same vivid enthusiasm which this romantic meeting inspired. He and I appeared to be drawn towards each other by some mutual attraction, which brought us at once into contact, while I observed that towards Talbot there was an involuntary restraint of manner which seemed to say, "leagued as we are by similar fortunes, and bound as I am in chains of gratitude, we cannot unite in the[Pg 306] bonds of friendship, so different are the materials of which we are formed."

Truth had placed her throne on that countenance, which wore a noble expression of mildness and sincerity. A natural grace marked every movement, while candour and moderation characterized every word which flowed from the lips of one, who in this transient glimpse, when I beheld him for the first moment in my life, infused into my soul such assurance of his worth, that I would have followed him to the limits of creation, and trusted more implicitly to a "yes" or "no" pronounced by his lips, than to all the oaths which could have been sworn upon a thousand altars. "Here," said I to myself, "is the effect of integrity. Here is the triumph of a single heart over all the arts and ingenuity of dissimulation."

I did not wonder now at my brother's devotion to such a leader, whose judgment only led him astray. My leave of absence drew to a close, and every moment was so precious to the fugitives as well as so dangerous while we lingered together, that taking a hasty farewell we[Pg 307] parted, with a promise to meet if possible at night on the heights of Montmorenci. I regained my boat in a state of spirits very unlike that in which I had left it. My mind was filled with bright hopes, and my uncle, mistaking my cheerfulness for the effect of beautiful scenery and healthful recreation, rejoiced benevolently in the indulgence which he had granted, while I encouraged the error that I might profit by it again.

The vessel in which my friends were to sail was delayed for some days by contrary winds. During this interval of anxiety they dared not appear abroad in day-light; but we held a nightly congress, and I gave myself much credit for the skill with which, as I imagined, I evaded all suspicion in my various contrivances for quitting our house after the doors and windows were barred and bolted, but I deceived myself, as I had often done before.

At length the parting scene approached, and my feelings were not to be envied when I bid farewell for ever to one who had taken complete possession of my mind, and who professed the[Pg 308] warmest attachment to me not only for Harold's sake but my own. He promised to see my family when he conveyed the ring to my brother, and I gazed on the sail which bore him away till it was lost in distance.

An aching void now succeeded, I became absent and abstracted, blotted the letters which I was desired to copy, made mistakes in the accounts which I was ordered to look over, and manifested in every way how far my thoughts were wandering from the work of my hands. One day I had been more careless than usual, and after committing several shameful blunders, was going as usual to ruminate in a solitary walk, when my uncle entered the room, and with an air of gravity which marked displeasure, addressed me in the following words:

"Albert, your nightly meetings with two young Irishmen on the heights of Montmorenci, are known to me. I am not a spy, but it is my duty to watch over your conduct while you remain under my charge. Take my advice. The choice is placed before you, between honourable independence and destruction. The puny[Pg 309] attempts of an undisciplined rabble, and their hot-headed leaders, will recoil upon the agitators who will not subvert the Empire, but be crushed themselves in ruin. Begin your reforms in the right way, each with himself, and you will find work enough to do, I promise you. We have more talent than principle, now-a-days; virtue is becoming a mere theatrical quality; modern patriotism is a scenic display; our liberality consists in profusion of words; and feelings are cultivated for the sake of a passive impression, not for practical use. The noble exertions, and still nobler privations arising from self-denial, which elevate man in the scale of existence, are rarely to be found, and will be more scarce, I fear, every day. The present fermentation will be suppressed, but there is a secret adversary silently, yet busily, at work in the minds of men, which will carry on its operations unseen, till all the mass is leavened, if the enemy be not exposed before the mischief is completed. Seek contentment and respectability where they may be found. I am going, if you will, to make trial of your ability in rather[Pg 310] a delicate business, and send you to Delaware, where I have reason to think that a man who has possessed himself of some property belonging to me, is hiding at present. He has stolen papers of great importance, and if on my explaining the particulars of your mission, you have a mind to undertake it, and acquit yourself satisfactorily, I shall be glad to reward your zeal. Perform the journey promptly and diligently, and it may be the earnest of future advantage to you. To-morrow morning every thing will be ready, and you will be provided with all the necessary instructions for your guidance."

I had taken leave of my friends, and as some time must elapse before I could benefit by their exertions to release me, I was glad of this temporary diversion to my thoughts, and with my usual self-conceit resolved immediately on making a great character for cleverness and dispatch, which might bring pecuniary recompense, and thus set me free. The person who had absconded, and taken some deeds of consequence belonging to my uncle away with him, owed him also a large sum of money. If successful[Pg 311] in recovering the booty, I might be presented with part of it for my pains. Overjoyed with this prospect, fancy set her loom again at work, and soon wove a golden tissue, which reanimated my hopes.

Transcriber's Note

Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical errors.

A Table of Contents was not included in the original text. This has been added.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF MY TIME, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tales of My Time, Vol. 2 (of 3)

TALES
OF
MY TIME.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

THE YOUNG REFORMERS.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

	Page
WHO IS SHE?
CHAPTER X.	1
CHAPTER XI.	26
CHAPTER XII.	85
THE YOUNG REFORMERS.	137
PREFACE.	139
CHAPTER I.	141
CHAPTER II.	168
CHAPTER III.	193
CHAPTER IV.	220
CHAPTER V.	248
CHAPTER VI.	275
CHAPTER VII.	33

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tales of My Time, Vol. 2 (of 3)

TALES OF MY TIME.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

THE YOUNG REFORMERS.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

TALES
OF
MY TIME.