Gerald thanked the good fortune that had sent him, at such a moment, a comrade of so drowsy and phlegmatic a nature. But it was in vain that he watched for some further indications of the usual results of Go-to-bed Godlamb's pious meditations. The eyeswouldstill preserve a most provoking rotundity; nay, more, they appeared determined, out of the most obstinate spirit of opposition, to assume at that moment a liveliness they never had been known to assume before, since they had opened on the light of day.
The old cavalier still paced the court, but nearer to the bushes than before. Impatient, also, at the loss of the precious moments as they hurried by, Gerald approached his comrade.
"You seem weary, friend," he said.
"Yea, verily," answered Godlamb Gideon through his nose. "My soul is weary with long watching; but if the flesh be weak, the spirit is still strong."
"Give way, comrade, give way," insinuated Gerald; "I will keep watch for both, and none shall be the wiser."
"Nay, but the labourer is worthy of his hire," snorted Gideon withmuch unction. "Odds pittikins, man," he blurted out immediately afterwards, in another and more natural tone, "would you have me in arrest again for sleeping on my post? That is to say," continued the Puritan soldier, casting up his eyes, and again resuming his canting whine, "verily and of a truth the hand of the scourger has been heavy upon me; the unjust have prevailed against me; but I will watch, that I fall not again into their toils."
Gerald turned away with impatient vexation. At that moment the old cavalier, who had taken advantage of the few words passing between the two sentinels, to approach the bushes unobserved, was bending down to possess himself of the packet. As Gerald turned he again drew back, his purpose unfulfilled.
Standing with his back to the other sentinel, Gerald now made a sign to the old man, with his finger placed upon his lips, to say not a word, but to repose his confidence in him. The prisoner started with surprise, and looked at the young soldier with a mixture of hope and doubt. Before making any further demonstration, Gerald again turned in his walk, to assure himself that Gideon observed nothing of this interchange of looks with the prisoner, and then again turning his back to him, placed his hand upon his heart with a look of fervour and truth, which would have been alone sufficient to inspire confidence in the old cavalier, and passing as near him as he could with prudence, murmured in a low tone, "Trust to me!" The old man again started; but there was more of pleasurable surprise, and less of doubt, in his expression. Gerald's heart beat wildly, as his father's eye beamed upon him for the first time with kindly and grateful feeling.
The young soldier again looked at his comrade. Gideon's eyes were now beginning to close, in the excess of his fervour over the pious page. Walking quietly to the protecting bushes, Gerald bent over the parapet as if to look into the stream, and plunging his arm at the same time into the leaves, felt for the packet. After a moment's fear and doubt, he touched it—he drew it forth. By a movement of his head, he saw the old man watching him with increasing agitation; but, giving him another look to re-assure him, Gerald rose from his posture, and was about to conceal the packet in his bandoleer, when it slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground. At the noise of the fall, Gideon's eyes again opened, and were lifted up with owl-like sagacity of expression. Gerald's foot was already upon the packet. Neither he nor the old cavalier dared to interchange a look. Gideon's eyes said, as plainly as eyes could speak, that they were not asleep, and had notbeenasleep, and never intended to go to sleep—in fact, were wonderfully wakeful. Aware that he could not remain motionless upon the spot where he stood, under the full stare of Gideon's eyes, Gerald let fall his musket, as if by accident, and then kneeling with his back to his fellow-sentinel, contrived adroitly to raise the packet at the same time with his musket, and to conceal it upon his person. The prisoner was following his movements with anxious eagerness.
Possessed of the precious document, Gerald now felt the impossibility of giving it into his father's hands, as long as the eyes of Godlamb Gideon were upon them. There appeared to him to be but one practicable manner of conveying the desired intelligence contained within it to the prisoner—namely, by examining himself the contents, in such a manner as not to excite the suspicions of his comrade, and then communicating them in low and broken sentences to his father.
Placed in such a position as not to be observed by Gideon, he took the packet from his bosom, and making the movement of breaking the fastening, looked imploringly at the old cavalier. The old man comprehended the glance, hesitated for a moment with a look of doubt, and then, clearing his brow with an expression of resolution, as if there were no other means, nodded his head stealthily to the young soldier, and moving to one of the stone benches fixed against the walls of the court, the furthest removed from the spot where Gideon stood, flung himself down upon it, and with his face buried between his hands, seemed absorbed in thought.
From one of the capacious pockets of his full hose, Gerald now produced a book—it was the Bible; for it was the fashion of the times among the Puritanical party to carry the holy book about the person. With a short humble prayer that he might not be thought to desecrate the sacred volume by applying it to a purpose of concealment for his father's sake, he placed upon its open pages the letter, which formed the only contents of the packet, after having first torn away and concealed, unobserved, the envelope, and then resumed his monotonous pacing up and down the court.
Gideon observed his comrade's seeming devotion, and appearing determined to outrival him in excess of zeal, applied himself more sedulously than ever to his book.
"Your friends are on the alert—a lugger lies off the coast ready for your escape," said Gerald in a low tone to the old cavalier, as he passed as near to him in his walk as discretion would permit.
Such was the sense of the commencement of the communication. The old man made a gentle inclination of his head, to show that he understood him, without raising it from between his hands. The young soldier looked at Gideon; Gideon had shifted his legs, and perched himself in an attitude bearing a more direct resemblance to that of a reposing crane than ever. Gerald again cast his eyes upon his open book—
"All is prepared for to-night," he continued to mutter, as he again slowly passed the seat of the prisoner. "Have the bars of your window been cut by the file already conveyed to you?"
The old man again bowed his head with an affirmative movement.
As Gerald turned once more, Go-to-bed Godlamb was nodding his head over his book, as if in very enthusiastic approval of its contents, but unfortunately with so much energy—that he jerked it up again into an upright posture—and immediately began staring straight before him with great vehemence.
Gerald bit his lips with vexation, and continued his walk. His eyes were seemingly employed upon the page before him—
"A boat will be brought without noise under the walls at twelve this night," continued the anxious son, repassing his father, where he sat. "You must descend from your window by your bed-clothes."
Gerald resumed his walk. Gideon was winking and blinking with much energy—
"The only difficulty is to elude the vigilance of the sentinel who shall have themidnight watch"—muttered Gerald, as he again came back past the prisoner.
The old man raised his head, and looked at him anxiously.
Gideon was again nodding, but with a lesser degree of enthusiasm, as Gerald turned himself that way. The young man quickened his step, and was soon once more by his father's side—
"Every means that lie inmypower shall be employed to favour your escape," whispered Gerald, with much emotion.
The prisoner gave him an enquiring glance, as if to ask his meaning—Gerald looked round—Godlamb was now snoring, after the fashion of a well-known farm-yard animal—not the one whose name he bore.
"God grant," continued the young man in much agitation, "that the lot fall to me to be the sentry on that watch—then all were well!"
"And who are you, young man," said the cavalier, "who thus interest yourself so warmly in my fate?"
Gerald could no longer command his feelings. He flung himself at the old man's feet.
"Father!" he exclaimed in smothered accents, "give me thy blessing."
"Your father! I!" cried the old cavalier; "you my son! you Gerald Clynton! no—no—Gerald Lyle, I should have said. Tell me not so."
"I am your son Gerald—Gerald Clynton—Oh, call me by that name!" exclaimed the kneeling young man in a choked voice; for the tears were starting into his eyes.
"Thou art no son of mine. I know thee not! Leave me!" said Lord Clynton, springing from his seat in bitter anger.
Go-to-bed Godlamb stirred uneasily upon his post. Gerald rose quicklyfrom his knees, trembling with agitation; for in spite of the violence of his emotion, he had sufficient presence of mind to look cautiously round at his sleeping comrade. Gideon's eyes were still closed over his book, in that profound mystery of devotion which was one of his most remarkable traits.
"My father!" cried Gerald imploringly to the old man, who now stood looking towards him with a harsh and stubborn expression of countenance, although the workings of emotion were faintly perceptible in the lineaments of his face.
Lord Clynton waved him impatiently away, and turned aside his head.
"Oh, repulse me not, my father!" cried Gerald with imploring looks. "Why am I still the proscribed son of your affections? What have I done, to be thus driven from your arms? Am I still—though innocent of all wrong—to pay so cruel a penalty for my unhappy birth?"
"Allude not to your mother!" exclaimed the old man passionately. "Defile not her memory even by a thought, base boy! Were she living still, she also would refuse to acknowledge her degenerate son."
"Great God! what have I done to merit this?" said the unhappy son, forgetting, in the agitation of his mind, the strict principles of the Puritanical party, which forbade as sinful this adjuration of the Deity—"I thought to save you, my father, from your cruel situation—I thought to aid your flight."
"Say rather," said the excited cavalier, giving way to his hot unreasonable temper, "to trample on the prisoner—to scoff at him, and triumph over him—to deliver him up to his enemies. What have I else to expect from the degenerate rebel to the religion of his fathers, his country, and his king. Go, boy—go, play the patriot at thy ease—reverse the tale of the Roman Brutus—and denounce thy father to the block!"
"Unjust! unkind!" said the young man, struggling with his tears, which now began to give place to feelings of indignation in him also. "But you have ever been so. You have driven me, an innocent babe, from your affections and your sight; and when now, first after long years, I beg a father's blessing—stretch forth my arm to earn a father's thanks—you spurn me from your feet, and heap unmerited obloquy upon my head."
"Unmerited!" echoed Lord Clynton. "Do you forget your disobedience? or do the convenient tenets of your hypocritical party permit you to erase the fifth commandment from the decalogue, and teach you that the honouring of your father is an idle observance, not to be weighed in the balance against the cause of the God of Israel and his people—so goes the phrase—does it not?"
"I understand you not," said Gerald. "In what have I refused to honour my father? whose face I see for the first time to-day—at least since I have thought and memory."
"In what?" exclaimed his father, with a bitter laugh, "said I not so? Honour and dishonour are in your new-fangled vocabulary but vain words, that you understand no longer. In what? If I, thy father—since to my shame I must be so—if I have been led by my overwhelming grief for that angel, who has long been at rest, to treat thee with wrong in thy childhood, my conscience has no longer a reproach to offer me; for my son has in return treated me with the bitterest scorn, and refused to come to those loving arms, which at last opened to receive him. In what? I have appealed to thee with the strongest appeal of a father's heart to join me in the true and joint cause of murdered royalty, and I find thee even now before me, with arms in thy hands, to aid the sacrilegious traitors to their king—may be to turn them with parricidal arm against thy father."
"Again I understand you not," repeated Gerald, gazing wistfully in his face. "Oh speak, explain—my father—this is a mystery to me!"
"Not understand me!" echoed Lord Clynton with scorn—"convenient phrase! convenient memory! You understood not perhaps those letters I addressed you, those letters in which I implored you to forget the past, and offered you a loving welcome to my heart. But you could dictate a letter to your uncle, in which you could upbraid me for my pastunkindness, and refuse to return. You understood not my urgent appeal to you to join the cause of truth and loyalty, and fight by your father's side. But you could dictate a second answer, worded with cold contempt, in which you could assert your rebellious right—degenerate boy!—to follow those principles you dared to my face to qualify as those of justice and religion."
"Letters!" repeated Gerald, astounded. "An appeal! I know of none—until my uncle's death I scarcely was aware I had a father to whom I owed a duty—I never heard that he followed another cause, but that which I was taught to believe the right."
"No letters! No appeal!" said his father, half in scornful mistrust, half in doubt.
"None—I protest to you, my father," replied the agitated youth. "Now—but only now—can I construe rightly the words my uncle uttered on his deathbed, which spoke of wrong he had done me and you."
"Can I believe all this?" said the passionate old cavalier, now evidently wavering in his wrath.
"As God lives," said Gerald; "that God whom I perhaps offend, that I thus call upon his name—that God who has said, 'Swear not at all.'" The old cavalier shrugged his shoulders at this evidence of the Puritanical education of his son. "I swear to you, that I know nothing of those matters."
Lord Clynton was evidently moved, although the rebellious spirit within still resisted the more affectionate promptings of his heart—
"Father, prove me," cried Gerald imploringly. "Let me live henceforth to serve you—let me die for you, if needs must be—let me save you from this prison—let me earn thy blessing—that blessing, which is my dearest treasure upon earth."
Gerald again bent down at the old man's feet. Lord Clynton still struggled with his feelings. There was still a contest in his heart between long-cherished anger, and newly-awakened confidence. Before either could again speak, the trampling of feet was once more heard along the vaulted passage. The agitated son rose quickly to his feet, and strove to repress his emotion. His father gave him one look; and that look he fondly construed into a look of kindness. In another moment the colonel entered the court, followed by two soldiers.
Gideon's poised leg fell to the ground; his eyes opened and stared out wonderfully. That troubled stare told, as if the eyes had had a tongue, that Go-to-bed Godlamb had been sleeping soundly on his post. Fortunately for the somnolent soldier, the sharp looks of Lazarus Seaman were not bent in his direction.
With a formal bow to his prisoner, Colonel Seaman informed him that the time allotted to him for exercise in the open air was past. With another formal inclination of the head, the old cavalier bowed to his jailer, and turned to mount the tower stair. He exchanged not another look with his son: but as he turned away, Gerald tried to read in his face a milder feeling.
"I will save him, or will die!" muttered Gerald to himself, as the party disappeared under the tower gateway. "I will force him to grant me that blessing he has refused me—I will earn it well;" and he determined in his mind that, come what might, he would find means to be appointed to the midnight watch.
Left alone upon his post in the inner court, Gerald resolved in his mind what could best be done for his father. Every thing was already inpreparation for the prisoner's escape, but the success or failure of the whole enterprise turned solely upon the connivance or opposition of the sentinel upon duty at the hour when the escape was to be effected. Gerald did not doubt, however, that should he himself not have the good fortune to be chosen for the midnight watch, he would not find much difficulty in persuading the comrade to whom it should fall, to exchange it with him for a more commodious hour. He felt that there could be none who would not gladly accept his offer, and thus be left to enjoy their night's rest, instead of enduring the fatigues of a tedious night watch. Of his own safety, of the dishonour, the punishment that awaited him for abetting in the escape of a prisoner of such importance, he thought not a moment. All such considerations were lost in his hopes of rescuing his father. But still, in the vague uncertainty that hung over the events of that important night, in the impatience of his mind to arrive quickly at that awful hour—that hour which was to decide so much joy or misery for him—Gerald scarcely knew how to conceal his feverish agitation. He was aware, however, how necessary it was to avoid betraying any feelings that might excite the least suspicion; and he determined to appear as cold and as unconcerned as possible.
There was another also, although at this moment a secondary torment, which added to his trouble of mind. He was unable to disengage his thoughts entirely from those feelings of bitter and scorching jealousy, which various little indications of coquetry, displayed by the evidently coquettish little Puritan damsel, and certain marks of desire to seek her presence, and parade under her window, evinced by the hated Maywood, had planted in his heart—and in a jealous and impatient temperament like Gerald's, such seed, once sown, quickly grew up with rank luxuriance, and spread on every side, imbibing sustenance from every element that approached it, living, in want of better nourishment, upon the very air itself. Perhaps the sight of Mistress Mildred for a moment at her window, a passing word, or merely a kind smile, might have poured balm upon the ulcer of jealousy, soothed the pain and closed the wound—at least for the time. But during his long watch Gerald looked at that well-known window in vain. There was not a symptom of the fair girl's presence in her chamber, and Gerald's fertile imagination—the true imagination of the jealous lover—suggested to him a thousand doubts and fears of Mildred's truth, ingeniously invented self-tortures, weapons forged to be turned against himself—all mere vague conjectures, but assuming in his eyes all the solidity and reality of truth. If she were not in her chamber, he argued, where could she be? Perhaps with her father: and her father was dictating a despatch to that Mark Maywood, who served him sometimes as secretary; and Mildred was gazing on him with pleasure; and he was raising his eyes from time to time to hers—or perhaps she was in the other gardens or alleys about the house, and that Maywood was following her at a distance, not unobserved; or perhaps she passed close by him, and he muttered words of admiration or even of love, and she then listened with complacency; or perhaps the handsome young recruit whispered in her ear to ask her when he could see her pretty face again; and she smiled on him and said, that when his watch should be beneath her window she would come. Madness! Gerald would pursue his vision no further. But although the clouds of the vision rolled away, they left a dark chilling mist of suspicion upon his mind that he could not, perhaps did not strive to, shake off.
Relieved from his guard, Gerald returned to the guard-room—his mind in that agony of suspense and dread respecting his father, the disquietudes of which his jealous doubts scarcely diverted for a moment, and only rendered more hard to bear. On his way he again passed the detested Maywood. As he approached he evidently saw the young soldier crumple in his hand a paper he was reading, and hide it hastily about him. This was no fancy, he repeated to himself; this was reality. He had seen the look of confusion and trouble upon Maywood's face, the haste with which he hid that paper at his approach. There was nolonger any doubt. His hated rival was in correspondence already with his faithless mistress; and the contents of that written paper, what could they be, if not an acquiescence in some demand, a rendezvous granted, a meeting at her window? With rage in his heart, Gerald again longed to spring upon his rival and tear that paper from his bosom. But again prudence prevailed over passion. He felt that the life of his father depended upon his caution—his father—his father, whom he alone perhaps could save, whose blessing was to be his recompense. Swearing to tear for ever from his heart the vain, coquettish, heartless girl upon whom his affections had been so ill disposed—for thus, in his passion, he qualified his lady-love—he crushed down within him the violence of his angry feelings, and determined to defer his revenge, defer it only, until those few hours should be passed, those hours which should witness his father's escape and ensure his father's safety—and then die willingly, if such should chance to be his fate, in securing his vengeance. Strange mixture of noble feelings and base passions! Where were now the stern, strictly religious principles of his uncle and instructor? The fierce nature of his hot blood prevailed for the time over the better culture of his education.
At length the hour arrived when the soldiers were mustered in the outer court, before the front of the mansion, and the names of those called over who were appointed to the different watches of the night. How anxiously and eagerly did Gerald's heart beat as the midnight watch in the tower-court was named! Was it by a gracious and happy chance upon himself that the lot would fall? The name was pronounced. It wasnothis own. The sentinel appointed to this post, the man upon whom depended the destiny of his father, was another. But still, in spite of the first pang of disappointment—for disappointment would arise within him, although the chances had been so greatly against him—hope again revived in his heart. The sentinel whose post he coveted, whom he had to seduce into an exchange, whose watch he was to contrive to take from him as a favour, was one of the most easy of the whole troop to deal with, the lazy, phlegmatic, somnolent Godlamb Gideon, he whose very nickname was an augury and a warrant of success, the wight yclept Go-to-bed Godlamb.
After waiting till the assembled soldiers had dispersed, and a proper time had elapsed before seeking Gideon, Gerald again returned to the outer court before the house, where he knew it was the habit of the indolent soldier to bask and doze upon a certain sheltered bench, in the last rays of the setting sun, absorbed, he himself would declare, in his devotions. And there, in truth, he found the man he sought. But, confusion! there was another by his side, and that other was the man who, among all, he would have the most avoided. It was Mark Maywood. He stood by the side of Gideon's reclining form, and was speaking with much earnestness to the phlegmatic soldier, whose widely-opened eyes seemed to express more animation than of wont. No time, however, was to be lost. The night was approaching, and it was necessary to come at once to an arrangement with the allotted sentinel of the midnight watch.
Overcoming his repugnance, and fully determined to act with caution, Gerald assumed an air of unconcern, and sauntered to the spot where sat Godlamb Gideon. After greeting sulkily the handsome young recruit, to whom Gerald's presence seemed in nowise pleasing, he commenced with affected indifference his attack upon the heavy soldier.
"You are ever zealous, friend, in the good work," he said.
"Yea, and of a truth these crumbs of comfort have a blessed and pleasant savour in my nostrils," replied Godlamb Gideon, pressing his book between his hands, turning up the whites of his eyes, and snuffing through his nose, as though that member were stuffed up by the pleasant savour of which he spoke.
"But have a care that your zeal be not overmuch," continued Gerald, "and that you faint not by the way from the heaviness of your burden. Methinks your cheek is already pale from exceeding watching and prayer."
"Verily I have fought the good fight, and I have run the good race, and peradventure the flesh faileth me," snorted the Puritan soldier.
"Your allotted post, then, falls heavy upon you" said Gerald, with an air of kind concern, "for you have the midnight watch, methinks. Indeed, I pity you, my good friend. Hear me. I will perform the duties of your part, and you shall rest this night from your labours; my mind is troubled, and I heed not the watching through the night. You will rise from your couch ready for new outpourings of spiritual thought, and refreshed"——
"As a giant refreshed with wine," interrupted Gideon with another snort: "yea, and so shall it be." Gerald's heart beat at what he considered an acceptance of his proposal; but Godlamb Gideon continued—"Thou art kind, and I thank thee no less that I refuse thy offer. Verily it would seem to be a gracious and an especial vouchsafing in my favour. For, behold, another hath released me from my task."
"Another!" cried Gerald with a tone of consternation that overcame his caution.
"Yea, this good youth hath proffered to relieve me of my heavy burden." Gideon pointed to Mark Maywood.
Gerald started with angry surprise. Maywood bit his lip, and turned his head aside.
"He has taken thy post!" said Gerald choking with rage.
Gideon nodded his heavy head.
The blood boiled in Gerald's veins and rushed into his cheek. He felt for a moment nearly suffocated with the violence of his passion. Since the young recruit had been anxious to obtain Gideon's weary post, there could be no doubt what was his purpose. There, and in the silence of the night, he would be able, under Mildred's window, to pour into her ear those words of love which he dared not openly profess. It was true, then, that Mildred had bid him try to obtain the post of sentinel in the inner court. That was their hour of rendezvous. Furious jealousy, joined to rage at losing that post, on which his father's whole fate depended, contributed to torture his mind. Not only would his detested rival find a favourable opportunity of holding converse with that faithless girl, but he would be there to prevent his father's escape—he, of all others—he, that fierce and violent Republican, that determined enemy of all adherents to the royal cause. If the vision of Maywood interchanging soft words with Mildred at her window tormented the unhappy lover, far more agonizing were the feelings that represented to him the stern young sentinel raising his musket upon his shoulder to arrest the escape of the old man—shooting him, perhaps, in his descent from the tower-window—bringing him bleeding to the earth. Horror! Convulsed with these accumulated feelings, he stood for a time speechless, struggling with his passions. When he looked again upon Maywood's face, that hated individual's eyes were bent on him with a stern but enquiring glance, and in evident discomposure. This very look was sufficient to confirm all the young lover's suspicions, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could control his passion. He mastered himself, however, sufficiently to meet the glance of Maywood without giving vent to his wrath, and, turning to Gideon, he called him aside.
The indolent soldier evidently rose unwillingly, but he followed Gerald to a little distance, grumbling something about an "interruption to the inward outpourings of the spirit."
"Hark ye, Master Gideon," said Gerald, when they had got to some distance from Mark, "you must not do me wrong in this. I own that my request is not wholly disinterested. You know that I love our colonel's daughter, that I am affianced to her. Her chamber looks into that court, and at midnight"——
"Now, out on thee, Master Lyle," drawled Godlamb, with an hypocritical upturning of his eyes. "Wouldst thou make my watch a pretext for ungodly chambering and profane love passages?"
"How now, fellow!" exclaimed the young man in wrath. "What mean you by this insolence?" and he grasped Gideon's collar with violence. But immediately afterwards repenting of his excitement, he continuedwith a calm tone although still in some irritation, "This is mere fooling, Gideon. I know you as you are—I know you to be a thorough hypocrite."
"Nay, but of a truth"—exclaimed the pacific Godlamb very sulkily.
"Hear me," interrupted Gerald. "It is not as you think—that Maywood loves her too. He also would keep the watch at midnight, in the hope to see her at the window—by chance, man, by chance—no otherwise; but I would hinder this, and"——
"Nay, but Master Maywood hath my word," again began Gideon.
"Nay, but Master Gideon slept whilom upon his post," continued Gerald, mimicking him. "And if Master Gideon be reported to his colonel, Master Gideon will have a week's arrest upon bread and water; but Master Gideon may do what he listeth."
"For the love of heaven," exclaimed Gideon, forgetting his Puritanical mask in his alarm; "you would not report me, comrade? S'wounds, you would not serve a poor fellow so scurvy a trick?"
"Upon one condition, then," replied Gerald. "Retract your word to that man; give me up your post at midnight; and I will be as silent as the grave."
"Lord have mercy upon us! Thou art as the cruel taskmasters of the children of Israel; and thy heart is hardened even as was Pharaoh's," whined Godlamb, again resuming his canting tone. "But be it even as thou wilt."
Gerald triumphed; the midnight watch was his; and with it his father's safety and his father's blessing.
They returned to the spot where Maywood still stood observing them, Gideon following in the rear, muttering something about "the hand of the ungodly being upon him."
"Speak, Gideon," said Gerald as they approached, "and thank your comrade here for his kindly proffered barter of hours; since it is I who take your post, you will not need his well-meant and disinterested civilities."
There was something of a sneer on Gerald's lip as he pronounced these words, which probably augmented the feelings of anger that now evidently flushed the usually cold face of Maywood and darkened his brow; for the latter appeared to tremble with suppressed passion as he advanced upon his rival with the words—
"How now, you, Master what's-your-name? What warrants you to interfere thus ill advisedly in my concerns? If this man has given up to me, at the midnight hour, the watch over that offshoot of a rotten and corrupted stem of tyranny, is it for you to stand between me and my purpose?"
"Your purpose is doubtless of the best, and truest, and worthiest," replied Gerald, with another flickering sneer upon his lip. "But this watch is mine now, by Master Gideon's consent, and these hours of the night I intend to devote to the watching of those whose security may need my care."
Mark Maywood bit his lip, and clenched his hands together in a vain effort to suppress his violent irritation.
"Hoity toity! Here's a coil about an old inveterate Amalekite!" said Gideon, in a mixture of his natural and assumed phraseology, prudently withdrawing at the same time to some distance from the angry young men, as if afraid lest an appeal to himself should involve him in the quarrel.
"Hark ye, sirrah," cried Maywood angrily, "I am not about to resign the right this man has yielded to me at the caprice of the first foolish fellow who chooses to cross my path, without making him repent his uncalled-for interference. What is it to me, this post? but browbeaten by a bullying boy, I never will be."
"Nor will I yield to a base and treacherous hypocrite like thee, Mark Maywood," exclaimed his angry antagonist.
The hands of both the young men were instantly upon their rapiers.
"By the mass, what are ye about?" exclaimed Gideon in alarm. "Trifle not with the carnal weapon! Would ye have us all in arrest before we can look about us? Forbear, men of wrath!"
But the phlegmatic Gideon kept at a prudent distance.
At these words other considerationsappeared suddenly to strike both the young men. In spite of their passion, both paused irresolute.
Gerald reflected that were he involved in a quarrel he would necessarily be prevented in any case, whether victorious over his adversary and then consigned to prison, or himself disabled, from forwarding his father's escape. His rival appeared actuated also by prudential motives, perhaps by the conscientious scruples of the party to which he belonged, perhaps by the thought of Mildred.
"This is truly ruffling and bawling like tavern hunters and drunkards," stammered Gerald, as if seeking an excuse for withdrawing from the fray. "But the time will come, Mark Maywood, when you shall not escape me."
"So be it, comrade," replied the other, again sheathing his half-drawn rapier. "I know you not; and can but barely divine your cause of enmity. But I will not fail you at the night-time. Till then let this suffice. The midnight watch is mine—mine by the first assent of yonder soldier to my proposal of exchange."
"No! Mine," again urged Gerald, "mine by his retractation of his prior consent, if such he gave."
"Come hither, comrade," cried Maywood to Gideon, who was suddenly absorbed once more in his devotions.
"Hear ye, Master Godlamb," said the other. But Go-to-bed Godlamb stirred not. He shrank from the appeal to himself.
"It is to me your post has been consigned, is it not so?" enquired the one.
"It is I who take it off your hands—speak," cried Gerald. "Remember, Gideon," he added with upraised finger.
"Speak, who is it?" said both at once. Gideon shuffled with his feet, and looked heavier and more embarrassed than ever; but as he caught sight of the warning finger, he absolutely shut his eyes in utter despair, and pointing at Gerald, with the words, "Verily, and of a truth, thou art the man," he hastened away as fast as his indolent nature would permit, "before he should fall into the toils of the angry Philistines," as he expressed it.
Gerald could not suppress a look of triumph. Whatever were Mark Maywood's feelings, he only expressed them by a dark scowl of disappointment, and then turned away without another word.
The night had closed in—that night of so vital importance to his father's destiny—and Gerald sat alone in a small lower room, his heart beating high with hope, that he should contribute to his father's rescue.
He was lost in thought, when a firm hand laid on his shoulder roused him from his abstracted state. He turned his head, and saw, to his surprise, Mark Maywood by his side. The young man wore a calmer, clearer brow, although his usual cold, stern, almost determined expression still pervaded it.
"Comrade," said Maywood with much appearance of frankness in his manner, "I have spoken roughly without cause; I crave your pardon."
Gerald heard this unexpected address with great astonishment; and, before he answered, paused in much embarrassment.
"Let us be frank," continued Mark. "Had we been so before, much ill will and evil blood might have been spared. I have only divined your feelings from my own. You have not seen the pretty daughter of our colonel with admiration. Nor have I."
Gerald started with again rising wrath, but his rival interrupted him.
"Bear with me for a while," he continued, "and hear me out. Youhave been here long. I am but a new-comer. You have the prior claim. Perhaps she returns your love. Had I known of this before—and as it is I have but guessed it, on witnessing your anxiety to hold this watch in the court, beneath her window—I had withdrawn, as is my duty. And now, comrade, I return to offer you the sacrifice of my newborn admiration, and at the same time my friendship."
"What you say seems fair and straightforward, Master Maywood," said Gerald, overcome by the frank manner of the young soldier, "and I thank you for this generosity and truth. My suspicions, then, did not deceive me? You love her, and you sought to see her to-night?"
"I did," said Maywood.
"And she, did she return your love? Did she herself accede to this meeting?"
Mark shook his head with a faint, doubtful smile, but gave no answer. Gerald's brow again grew gloomy, and he sank his head between his hands.
"Come! come! no more of this," pursued the other young soldier, with a cordiality of manner which Gerald had never before witnessed in his dark, stern aspect. "Let all be forgiven and forgotten. Come, pledge me in this one cup. These drinkings of toasts, as it is called, these pledgings over liquor are considered unseemly, and even ungodly by many; I know it well, but you cannot refuse to drink one cup with me, as earnest of our kindly feeling for the future."
For the first time Gerald now observed that Maywood bore under his arm a flagon of ale, and held in his left hand two cups of horn.
"I reject not your kindly feeling," answered Gerald; "but I am not wont to drink,"—and he repelled the cup which Maywood now filled for him.
"Nay! nay!" said Mark, sitting down by the table on which Gerald leant. "You wrong me by refusing this first offer of reconciliation. Come, comrade, this one."
Gerald took the cup of ale unwillingly, and only raised it to his lips. But Maywood shook his head at him—and Gerald, in compliance with his newly made friend's request, at last swallowed the contents.
"I am not used to these strong drinks," said Gerald, setting down the horn with evident distaste. "I like them not; but I have done this to show my willingness to meet you on friendly ground."
Maywood raised, in turn, his cup, but at the same moment calling to a dog that had followed him into the room, he said, "Down, Roger, down," and stooped to repulse it; immediately afterwards he raised the horn, and seemed to drain the ale to the last drop.
"One more, and then I will not urge you again," said Mark to Gerald, eyeing him with a sharp, enquiring look.
"No, no, not one," replied the young man with disgust. "Already this unusual drink has confused my head. I am accustomed to water only—such was my uncle's mode of educating me. It is strange how my brain turns with this fermented liquor. I have done wrong to drink it," and Gerald rubbed his heavy forehead, and strained his eyes. His powers of vision became more and more confused, and it was with difficulty that he could now see before him the face of Maywood, which to his intellect, disordered by the liquor, seemed to wear a strange expression of cunning, and triumphant contempt. He made an effort, however, to shake off this feeling and raise his sinking head, but in vain. A sensation of overpowering drowsiness crept over him more and more. The thought of his watch, however, was still uppermost in his mind, and he had yet power sufficient to reflect that there was still some time to midnight, and that a little slumber might restore him; and giving way to the oppressive sleep which came over him, he laid his head on the table, and was immediately lost to all sense of what was passing around him.
At first Gerald's sleep was heavy and complete. How long it remained so, he had no power to tell. At length, however, it became lighter, and grew more troubled and confused. Wild dreams began to course eachother through his brain—at first of an undefinable and fantastic nature—then they assumed a more definite shape. He dreamed of his father—that old, greyheaded cavalier, with his long white beard—and before him stood Lazarus Seaman, who accused him of absurd and imaginary crimes. And now they brought him into that open court—a file of soldiers were drawn up—their muskets were levelled at that old man's heart—Gerald struggled, and sought to spring between those deadly instruments and his doomed father, but his feet clove to the ground—he struggled in vain—the muskets were discharged, and his father fell weltering in his blood. With the last struggle of a convulsive nightmare, he started up, uttering a loud scream. It was but a frightful dream. And yet the noise of those fearful muskets—that discharge of artillery—still rang in his ears. As he opened his eyes, all was dark around him—the darkness of deep night. It was long before he could sufficiently recover his senses to remember what had passed; and when slowly the events of the day forced themselves upon his mind, his intellects seemed still confused and troubled. How strangely real now appeared the impression of that dream! It was with difficulty he could persuade himself that the firing had been imaginary; and even now there seemed a strange confusion of noise and voices around him; but that, surely, was the ringing in his head from the unusual draught he had taken.
Slowly his whole memory returned to him, and he recalled to himself that it was necessary for him to be ready to answer for Godlamb Gideon when that worthy's name was to be called over for the midnight watch. He staggered up unto his feet, and with difficulty found his way into the open air. As he gazed, with somewhat troubled brain, on the bright starlit sky, two or three soldiers hurried past them.
"Hark ye, comrade," he said to one, "how long is it yet to midnight?"
"Midnight! where have you been hiding yourself, comrade?" answered the man. "Midnight is long since past."
"Long since past!" screamed Gerald with frantic violence. "No! no! it is impossible—my post was at midnight in the tower court."
"Then you have escaped by wonderful interposition, friend, from the consequences of your absence; for I was there when the names were called, and 'present' was answered for the sentinel at the tower court."
"Father of mercy!" cried Gerald in despair. "What, then, has happened?"
"Happened!" echoed the soldier; "why, the prisoner has tried to escape! But didn't you hear the shots? They brought the old reprobate to the earth, of a surety."
Gerald uttered a loud groan and fell against the wall of the house; but in another moment he recovered himself by a desperate effort from a feeling of sickness and death, and repulsing violently the soldier who had come to his assistance, he rushed round the mansion with whirling brain and clenched teeth towards the tower court. His father had been killed—killed by his own folly. Rage, despair, contrition, self-horror, at having been so weak as to accept Maywood's proposal to drink that fatal drink which caused his deadly sleep, all tortured his heart, and drove him almost to madness. He could not doubt that it was that hated Maywood who had deceived him, drugged his liquour, cheated him into a sleep, in order to be present undisturbed at his rendezvous with Mildred; and now it was by his hand, by the hand of that villain, that his father had fallen.
All was commotion in the fortress. Gerald, as he rushed forward, heard the noise of voices and boats upon the water—the voice of Lazarus Seaman—now the men calling to each other. Horror-stricken, overwhelmed with despair, convulsed with rage, he bounded through the vaulted passage. In the moonlit court stood now but one figure alone—the sentinel, who was bending over the parapet, and seemed to be watching with interest the movement of the boats upon the water. With the rage of a tiger Gerald sprang upon him, and seized him by the collar with frenziedgripe. It was, indeed, Maywood—pale, agitated, and excited.
"Villain! traitor! assassin!" screamed Gerald madly, frantic with passion and despair, "you have betrayed that greyheaded old man; you have murdered him; but I will have revenge! He was my father, and it is you have killed him."
"Yourfather!" exclaimed the young sentinel in a voice choked by emotion. "He wasmine, and I have saved him."
Gerald released his hold and staggered back.
For a moment the young men stared at each other in bewildered surprise. Then all at once the truth flashed across them.
"Brother! brother!" burst simultaneously from their lips. "Gerald! Everard!" they exclaimed again; and Everard Clynton, flinging himself into his brother's arms, gave way to his suppressed agitation, and burst into a flood of tears. At this moment a distant sound of a gun came across the water; Everard sprang up and grasped his brother's arm.
"Hush!" he said, "three shots from the sea are the signal to me that he has escaped in safety to the vessel that awaits him."
Another boomed faintly across the broad. A pause of fearful interest followed, and then another. Once more the brothers fell into each others' arms.
In a few words Everard Clynton explained to his brother, how, after his father's capture, he had enlisted in the troop quartered in the fortress, in order to save him. How he had known from their friends without the means provided to effect his father's escape; how he, too, had sought, with desperation, the midnight watch upon which depended his father's delivery; and, finding himself overcome by his supposed rival, he had administered to him a sleeping draught in order to secure the post; how his pretended admiration for Mistress Mildred had been assumed in order to forward his views and colour his designs, by giving a pretext to his desire to obtain the post of sentry in the court; how Mildred had never given him any encouragement, Gerald's unreasonable jealousy having supplied the rest.
He had assisted his father to escape, and only long after his flight had given the alarm, and fired upon the water, pretending to call for a sudden pursuit.
Mark Maywood, however, was tried by a court-martial for negligence upon duty on the night of the prisoner's escape; but the constantly exhibited violence of the Republican principles which he had affected, as well as his zeal and exemplary good conduct since he had joined the troop, saved him in the colonel's eyes. He was acquitted. Shortly afterwards he disappeared altogether from the fortress, after an affectionate farewell to Gerald Clynton, who had the good fortune to receive, in due time, the assurance of his brother's safe escape to join his father in Flanders.
Not long afterwards, the death of Colonel Lazarus Seaman leaving his daughter an orphan, Gerald Clynton married pretty little Mistress Mildred, and, quitting the service, retired to Lyle-Court, the estate bequeathed to him by his uncle.
There is no doubt that pretty little Mistress Mildred's eyes were given to be coquettish in spite of themselves; but yet, notwithstanding sundry little symptoms of jealousy exhibited by Gerald, there is every reason to believe that he was as absurd and misled in his jealousy after as he was before his marriage, and that she made him a most excellent wife.
During the more peaceful times of the Protectorate, Gerald received news from time to time of the welfare of his father and his brother; and, upon the Restoration, he had the happiness of welcoming them to the English shores once more.
Although Lord Clynton always preserved a predilection for his elder son, yet he had somehow found out that Gerald bore an extraordinary resemblance to his deceased mother, and always treated him with the utmost love. He never forgot, also, the deep affection Gerald had displayed in his efforts to save him during that never-to-be-forgottenMidnight Watch.
We should take but a limited view of science if we supposed, that the laws of nature of which it is cognizant have for their object the continuance only and preservation of the several parts of the universe; they provide also for change, improvement, development, progression. By these laws not only are the same phenomena, the same things, perpetually reproduced, but new phenomena, new arrangements, new objects are being successively developed. In short, we are able to perceive, to a certain extent, that not only the world is preserved and renewed, but grows and is created according to great general laws, which are indeed no other than the great ideas of the Divine Mind.
The modern science of geology has more especially led us to extend our view of science in this direction. The discovery of those mute records of past changes which lay buried in the earth, has induced us to investigate with awakened curiosity those changes which are actually taking place before us in the broad day, and in our own generation; and the result has been a conviction, that in the activity of nature there was a provision made, not only for restoration from decay, and a perpetual renewal of the individuals of each species, but for successive transformations in the surface of the globe, fitting it for successive forms of vegetable and animal life. The plant that lives, and sows its seed, and dies, has not only provided for its own progeny; under many circumstances it prepares the soil for successors of a superior rank of vegetation—"Pioneers of vegetation," as Dr Macculloch calls them, "the lichens, and other analogous plants, seek their place where no others could exist; demanding no water, requiring no soil, careless alike of cold and heat, of the sun and of the storm; rootless, leafless, flowerless; clothing the naked rock, and forming additional soil for their successors." The whole tribe of corals, whose lives are sufficiently brief and sufficiently simple, are yet not permitted to die away from the scene, and leave it, as so many of us do, just as they found it; they build up such a mausoleum of their bones—(for what used to be considered as the shell of the animal, is now pronounced to be a sort of bony nucleus or skeleton)—that large islands are formed, and a corresponding displacement of the sea is occasioned. The little creatures heave up the ocean on us. The river that to the poet's eye flows on for ever in the same channel, "giving a kiss," and kisses only, to every pebble and every sedge "it overtaketh in its pilgrimage," is detected to be secretly scraping, abrading, cutting out the earth like a knife, and washing it away into the sea. On the other hand, the earthquake and the volcano, which were looked on as paroxysms and agonies of nature, are transformed in our imagination into the constant ministers of beneficent change, and of creative purposes; and the momentary violence they commit, is to be excused on the plea of the great and permanent good they effect. For it is they who build the hills and the mountains, whence flow the streams of abundance upon the earth, and which, instead of being the gigantic, melancholy ruins Bishop Burnet took them to be, are the palaces and storehouses of nature, which it is given in charge to these sons of Vulcan to construct and to repair from the ravages which the soft rains of heaven incessantly commit upon them.
Astronomy, too, notwithstanding the severe discipline she has undergone, has in these later times resumed all the boldness of her youth, and brought her stores of science to the construction of the most splendid cosmogony that ever attracted the faith of the learned. She has girt her long robe around her, and entered the lists with, and far outstripped, whatever is boldest in the speculations of the youngest of the sciences. The nebular hypothesis, though not yet entitled, as we think, to be considered other than an hypothesis, has assumed a shape and consistency which forbids an entire rejection of it, which enforces our respect, and which, at allevents, habituates the imagination to regard our planetary system as having probably been evolved, under the will of Providence, by the long operation of the established laws of matter.
It is quite a legitimate object of science, therefore, to view the laws of the physical world—whether they regard its mechanic movement, its chemistry, or its zoology—in their creative as well as reproductive functions; and it is the purpose of a work lately published, entitled "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," and which has drawn to itself considerable attention, to collect and arrange whatever hints or fragments of knowledge science affords, enabling us to bring the successive phenomena of creation under the formula of general laws. In this purpose it is impossible to find a shadow of blame, and the work will probably answer one good end, that of directing the studies of scientific men into paths but little or timidly explored. But unfortunately, what the author has collected as the results of science, are, in some instances, little else than the wild guess-work of speculation. He has no scruple whatever in imitating those early geographers, who, disliking the blank spaces of undiscovered regions, were in the habit in their charts
"Of placing elephants instead of towns."
Indeed, his book is an assemblage of all that is most venturous and most fanciful in modern speculation, in which the most conspicuous place is allotted to a modification of Lamarck's theory on the development of animal life.
The charge of an atheistic tendency, as it is the heaviest which can be made against a work, so it is the last which ought to be hazarded without sufficient cause. In general, owing to the very sacredness of the subject, we feel disposed, in all suspicious cases, to pass over in silence both accusation and defence; and if in the present instance we depart, for a moment, from this line of conduct, it is only to give expression to a conviction—which we share, we believe, with all who have both the interest of science and the interest of theology at heart—that the fair efforts of the scientific enquirer should never be impeded by needless objections of a theological character. What we mean is this: though a suspicion may cross the mind, that a writer does not hold the religious tenets which we should desire to see every where advocated; yet if we are persuaded, at the same time, that this laxity of faith has no real logical connexion with the scientific results with which he is occupied, we ought not to inflict onthemany portion of our suspicion or distrust. We shall always protest against confounding the legitimate attempts of science with the erroneous principles of certain schools of metaphysics, which may or may not be connected with them. If there is atheism in the world, we know whence it comes; we know well it is in a very different laboratory than that of the chemist that it has been distilled.
The unknown author before us, repeatedly protests against being numbered amongst atheistic philosophers; on our own part, we are thoroughly convinced that no formula of physical science could possibly interfere with a rational belief in the power and wisdom of God; what remains, then, but to treat his book purely in a scientific point of view?
To reduce to a system the acts of creation, or the development of the several forms of animal life, no more impeaches the authorship of creation, than to trace the laws by which the world is upheld and its phenomena perpetually renewed. The presumption naturally rises in the mind, that the same Great Being would adopt the same mode of action in both cases. If, for instance, the nebular hypothesis, to which we have already alluded, should be received as a scientific account of the proximate origin of our planetary system, this, as Mr Whewell has shown in his "Bridgewater Treatise," would serve only to enlighten and elevate our conception of the power of God. And indeed to a mind accustomed—as is every educated mind—to regard the operations of Deity as essentially differing from the limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human agent, it is distressing to be compelled to picture to itself the power of God as put forth inany other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in; it pains the imagination to be obliged to assimilate those operations, for a moment, to the brief energy of a human will, or the manipulations of a human hand. Does not the language even of a Christian poet, when he speaks of God aslaunchingfrom his ample palm the rolling planets into space, in some measure offend us? Do we not avoid as much as possible all such similitudes, as being derogatory to our notions of the Supreme?
There are still, indeed, some men of narrow prejudices who look upon every fresh attempt to reduce the phenomena of nature to general laws, and to limit those occasions on which it is necessary to conceive of a direct and separate interposition of divine power, as a fresh encroachment on the prerogatives of the Deity, or a concealed attack upon his very existence. And yet these very same men are daily appealing to such laws of the creation as have already been established, for their great proofs of the existence and the wisdom of God! Their imagination has remained utterly untutored by the little knowledge which they have rather learned to repeat than to apprehend. Whatever words they may utter, of subtle and high-sounding import, concerning the purely spiritual nature of the Divine Being, it is, in fact, aJupiter Tonansclad in human lineaments, and invested with human passions, that their heart is yearning after. Such objectors as these can only be beaten back, and chained down, by what some one has called the brute force of public opinion.
Some little time ago men of this class deemed it irreligious to speak of thelawsof the human mind; it savoured of necessity, of fatalism; they now applaud a Dr Chalmers when he writes his Bridgewater Treatise, to illustrate the attributes of God in the laws of the mental as well as the physical world.
No, there is nothing atheistic, nothing irreligious, in the attempt to conceive creation, as well as reproduction, carried on by universal laws. For what is the difference between individual isolated acts, and acts capable of being expressed in a general formula? This only, that in the second case the same act is repeated in constant sequence with other acts, and probably repeated in many places at the same time. The divine work is only multiplied. If the creation of a world should be proved to be as orderly and systematic as that of a plant, this may make worlds more common to the imagination, but it cannot make the power that creates them less marvellous.
But while we would reprove the narrowness of spirit that finds, in any of the discoveries of science, a source of disquietude for the interests of religion, we have here an observation to make of an opposite character, which we think of some importance, and which we shall again, in reviewing the theories of our author, have occasion to insist upon. It is undoubtedly true that there rises in the minds of every person at all tinctured with science, a presumption that every phenomenon we witness might be, if our knowledge enabled us, reduced under the expression of some general law; and that whatever changes are, or have been, produced in the world, might be traced to the interwoven operations of such laws. But however prevalent and justifiable such a presumption may be, we hold it no sound philosophy to give it so complete a preponderance as to debar the mind from contemplating the possibility of quite other and independent acts of divine power, the possibility of the abrupt introduction into our system of new facts, or series of facts, with their appropriate laws. The author before us, in his anxiety to explain, after a scientific manner, the introduction of life, and the various species of animals, into the globe, seems to have thought himself entitled to have recourse to the wildest hypothesis rather than to the immediate intervention of creative power; as if it were something altogether unphilosophical to suppose that there could be such a thing as a quite new development of that plastic energy. It is not even necessary that we should urge, that if a Creator exist, it is a most unwarrantable supposition to imagine that all his creative power has been exhausted. We say, even to an atheistic philosophy, that it is anunauthorized limitation that would forbid the mind to contemplate the possibility of the uprise, in time, of entirely new phenomena. Can any philosopher, of any school whatever, be justified in saying, that there shall be no new fact introduced into the universe?—that its laws cannot be added to? Why should he recoil from the introduction of any thing new? If he is one whose last formula stands thus,whatever is, is—this new fact will also fall, with others, into his formula. Of this, also, he can say,whatever is, is. There is, we repeat, a strong presumption in favour of a scientific sequence, of an unbroken order of events; but this presumption is not to authorize any hypothesis whatever in order to escape from the other alternative, an immediate intervention of creative power. This, also, is a probability which philosophy recognises, and in which a rational mind may choose to rest till science brings to him some definite result.
We are very far from intending to follow the author of theVestiges of the Natural History of the Creationthrough all the sciences along which his track has led him. We shall limit ourselves to what forms the most peculiar and startling portion of his work—to his theory of the origin and development of animal life.
But for the discoveries of geology a certain philosophy might have been content to say of the animal creation, that it was the law of nature that life should beget life—that reproduction, like nutrition, to which it has been assimilated, is a part of the definition of life—and that, as to a commencement of the various tribes of animals, we are no more bound to look for this than for the commencement of any other of the phenomena of nature. From the researches, however, of geology, it is evident that there was a time when this earth revolved around the sun a barren and untenanted globe—that there was a time when life did make its first appearance, and that in different epochs of the world's existence there have flourished very different species of animals than those which now inhabit it. Here, at all events, the imagination cannot gain that imperfect repose which it finds in the contemplation of an eternal series. It is a plain historical fact, that life had a beginning on this earth, and that from time to time new forms of life, new species of vegetables and animals, have been introduced upon the scene. Here are two great facts to be accounted for, or to be left standing out, unconnected in their origin with that interlinked series of events which creation elsewhere displays. Life reproduces life, the plant its seed, the animal its young, each after its kind, such is the law; but this law itself, when was it promulgated, or when and how did it come into force and operation?
For ourselves, in the present imperfect condition of our knowledge, we are satisfied with referring life, in all its countless forms, at once to the interposing will of the Creator. We listen, however, with curiosity and attention to any theory which the naturalist or physiologist may have to propose, so he proceed in the fair road of induction. There is nothing in the laws of life which forbids, but much, on the contrary, which invites, to the same pains-taking examination which has been bestowed, with more or less success, on other phenomena of nature.
But what is the resolution of this problem which the author of theVestigesproposes? Assuredly not one which indicates the boldness of advancing science, but one of those hardy conjectures which are permitted to arise only in the infancy of a science, and which show how clear the field is, hitherto, of certain knowledge—how open to the very wantonness of speculation. Very little has been done towards determining the laws of life, and therefore the space is still free to those busy dreamers, who are to science what constructors of Utopias are to history and politics. His solution is simple enough, and with good reason may it be simple, since it depends on nothing but the will of its framer. The germ of life—that primary cell with its granule, in which some physiologists have detected the first elementary form of life—he finds to be a product of chemistry. From this germ, cell, or animalcule, or whatever it may be called, has been developed, in succession, all the various forms of existence—each form having, at somepropitious moment, given birth to the form just above it, which again has not only propagated itself, but produced an offspring of a still higher grade in the scale of creation. Thus the introduction of life, and the various species of animals, is easily accounted for. "It has pleased Providence to arrange, that one species should give birth to another, till the second highest gave birth to man, who is the very highest."—(P. 234.) Under favourable skies, some remarkable baboon had, we presume, a family of Hottentots, whose facial angle, we believe, ranks them, with physiologists, next to the brute creation; these grew, and multiplied, and separated from the tribes of theSimiæ; under a system of improved diet, and perhaps by change of climate, they became first tawny, and then white, and at last rose into that Caucasian family of which we here, in England, boast ourselves to be distinguished members.
Such a solution as this most people will at once regard as utterly unworthy of serious consideration. Thisprogressive developmentis nowhere seen, and contradicts all that we do see; for no progeny, even amongst hybrids, was ever known to be of a superior order, in the animal creation, to both its parents. Such a proposed origin of the human race would be sufficient, with most of us, for its condemnation. "Give us at least," we exclaim, "a man to begin with—some savage and his squaw—some Iceland dwarf if you will, wrapt in his nutritious oils—something in the shape of humanity!" In short, it is a thing to be scoffed away, and deserving only of a niche in some futureHudibras. But although the theory is thus rash and absurd, and requires only to be stated to be scouted, the author, in his exposition of it, advances some propositions which are deserving of attention, and for this reason it is we propose to give to his arguments a brief examination.
The theory divides itself into two parts—the production of organic life from the inorganic world; and the progressive development of the several species from the first simple elementary forms of life.
Spontaneous, or, as our author calls it, aboriginal generation, is a doctrine neither new, nor without its supporters. But unfortunately for his purposes, the class of cases of spontaneous generation which appear to be at all trustworthy, are those in which the animalcule, or other creatures, have been produced either within living bodies, (entozoa,) or from the putrefaction of vegetable or animal life, the decay and dissolution of some previous organization. Herelifestill produceslife, thoughlikedoes not producelike. It is well known that, amongst some of the lower class of animals, as amongst certain of the polypi, reproduction is nothing more than a species of growth; abudsprouts out of the body, which, separating itself, becomes a new animal. With such an analogy before us, there appears nothing very improbable in the supposition thatentozoa, and other descriptions of living creatures, should be produced from the tissues of the higher animals, either on a separation of their component parts when they decay, or on a partial separation when the animal is inflicted with disease. We make no profession of faith on this subject; we content ourselves with observing, that this class of cases, where the evidence is strongest, and approaches nearest to conviction, lends no support whatever to our author's hypothesis, and provides him with no commencement of vital phenomena. Of cases where life has been produced by the operation of purely chemical laws on inorganic matter, there are certainly none which will satisfy a cautious enquirer.
If Mr Crosse or Mr Weekes produce a species of worm by the agency of electricity, it is impossible to say that the germ of life was not previously existing in the fluid through which the electricity passed. When lime is thrown upon a field, and clover springs up, it is the far more probable supposition that the seed was there, but owing to ungenial circumstances had not germinated; for no one who has mentioned this fact has ventured to say that the experiment would always succeed, and that lime thrown upon a certain description of soil would in all parts of the world produce clover. Not to add, that it would be strange indeed if such an instancewere solitary, and that other vegetation should not be produced by similar means.[3]
Vegetable and animal life, we ought here to mention, are considered by our author as both derived from the same elementary germ which branches out into the two great kingdoms of nature; so that it is of equal importance to him to find a case of spontaneous generation amongst the plants as amongst the animals. We must, therefore, extend the observation we made on a certain class of cases amongst animals, to an analagous class of supposed cases of spontaneous generation amongst vegetables. If that downy mould, for instance, which the good housewife finds upon her pots of jam, be considered as a vegetable, and be supposed to have grown without seed, it would be somewhat analagous to the entozoa amongst animals; it would be a vegetation produced by the decay of a previous vegetation.