CHAPTER LI.

… “Now, unfold the mystery.”

Thetrio of gentlemen proceeded to their task. The first epistle which was casually unfolded, exhibited but a few lines, wide asunder, and in their purport so unimportant, that Mr. Jackson flung the letter, spread open as it happened to be, on the top of the fire, and proceeded to take up a second. Lord L⸺, chancing to rest his eyes on the first while the heat was causing it to roll itself up, perceived, with some surprise, that the spaces between the lines, as well as all else that had appeared blank, was rapidly becoming, as by magic, covered with bright green characters. He snatched up the paper just as the devouring flame was about toenvelope it, and succeeded in saving all but a small part. The green writing was in the hand of Henry; and, to the utter astonishment of all the party, addressed to his father—so long supposed dead. The contents of the letter equally puzzled and confounded our secret committee, and decided them on comparing all the hitherto unexamined, because supposed to be unimportant, papers of Henry with those before them.

They were accordingly sent for, and the letters on both sides found to present, in black ink, what appeared to be but the idle, careless correspondence of two young messmates, while, on being submitted to the ordeal of heat, they were all found to contain, in green writing, which, as it cooled, gradually disappeared again, the strange and mysterious communications, for many years, of father and son. From these letters the following wonderful discoveries were collected. The captain of theprivateer, the murderer of the younger St. Aubin, was shown to be the elder St. Aubin—the father of the unfortunate Henry, who was thus proved to have died by the hand of a parent! The silent, heart-broken being, who had so tenderly watched Julia, and who, there can be little doubt, met her death by the explosion of the smuggler, it appeared from all the circumstances, was the ill-fated Maria, Mrs. Montgomery’s sister. She, it seems, as well as her depraved husband, had escaped from the wreck of the vessel in which they had both so many years since been supposed to be lost.

The vessel in question, it may be remembered, had specie on board. Some of the letters contained casual expressions, from which it might be gathered, that her foundering by night was not quite accidental. And one in particular, addressed by the elder St. Aubin to the younger, contained an account of his fortunateescape, as he termed it, with his black, as much of the money as could conveniently be carried, and his wife; and their landing on the coast of France. The money obtained by this very suspicious adventure seems, from many after-allusions, to have been the first setting up of the desperate St. Aubin, in his triple calling of pirate, privateer, and smuggler, carried on for so many years after, with various degrees of success.

The whole correspondence, from its commencement to its conclusion, proved that the St. Aubins, father and son, had, from Julia’s infancy, meditated, and ever since, step by step, proceeded with the plot for carrying her away, as soon as she should be of age. The spoils of her very large fortune, (rendered, by the death of Lady L⸺ and her infant son, unalienable,) they were ultimately to have divided, while the income of the Craigs would have been the presentreward of their diabolical labours. Their victim, poor Julia, was to have been kept abroad, in strict concealment—the wife, by compulsion, of Henry, till cruel treatment and horrible threats should compel her to declare herself married to him by her own free choice. He was to have corresponded, meanwhile, in her name, with her family; having, it appeared, for this purpose, actually practised, for years, the imitation of her handwriting. It was also found that he had possessed himself of impressions of her seals, duplicates of her keys, &c. On the subject of his being the intercepter of Fitz-Ullin’s proposals, and the writer of Julia’s supposed rejection, there was a letter of his, which exulted in the fact, and related his good fortune in having himself taken the precious epistle, as he termed it, from the postman, and having been inspired to suspect the truth on seeing it directed to Julia, in our hero’s hand. There could be no doubtthat Henry was also the author of all the other forged letters.

Parts of the correspondence contained expressions and allusions which proved that the elder St. Aubin was the person who, under the name of Lauson, and assisted with keys and vouchers provided by Henry, had stripped the Craigs of all its valuables. By the produce of these it appeared the necessary funds had been raised for carrying on the desperate design on Julia herself, shortly after attempted. It further appeared that, by a curious combination of circumstances, the St. Aubins had, since a short time before the memorable attempt on our hero’s life at the masquerade at Arandale, been acquainted with the real birth of Fitz-Ullin, then known as the poor Edmund Montgomery.

The circumstances were as follows. Jin of the Gins, (whose identity with the strolling beggar, who stole Edmund when a child, isnot, we trust, forgotten,) had, it seems, been so long in the employ of the elder St. Aubin as a confidential agent for the concealment and disposal of smuggled goods, and the conduct of various other transactions of a like nature, that she had, in her turn, confided to him the secret of our hero’s birth, for the purpose of consulting him as to whether the said secret was, or was not marketable. She had even offered to go shares with him, provided he would assist her in making something of the business. He had, of course, dissuaded her from taking any step that might risk discovery before the marriage of Julia to Henry should be effected, after which he promised to put her in the way of extorting a sum, either from the nurse and her son for keeping the secret, or from Lord Fitz-Ullin, the father, then living, and Edmund his rightful heir, for disclosing it. All this was explained in a letter from the outlaw to hisson, as an argument for redoubled vigilance in the watch the latter always kept over Julia and Edmund. In the elder St. Aubin’s next letter, his fears of the consequences of Julia’s attachment to our hero seem to have been much increased by some late accounts from Henry; for he even hints at how desirable it would be to rid themselves of all apprehension of danger from that quarter, and concludes by commanding his son to procure him a ticket to the Arandale masquerade, where, by approaching the parties in disguise, he should be enabled, he says, to judge himself of the urgency of the case. This epistle left no doubt that the elder St. Aubin had acted the part of the Indian juggler. Another letter contained allusions identifying him with the false pilot, who had attempted to run the Euphrasia aground at Leith.

In an early part of the correspondence the fate of poor Betsy Park was spoken of as havingbeen untimely; but so darkly that whether the dreadful apprehensions which cost poor David his life, were well or ill founded must remain for ever involved in mystery. One of the letters of the elder St. Aubin, however, was of a very suspicious tendency, as it expressed the most unbridled rage towards Henry for having committed any folly which might ultimately interfere with the perfect legality of his projected marriage with Julia; adding, with savage ferocity, that whatever step his own imprudence had made necessary must be taken without flinching. Those letters may appear, considering the subjects of which they treat, to have been imprudently written: but the precaution of the invisible ink seems by the correspondents to have been thought all sufficient. It must also be observed that the information now obtained is collected from scattered hints darkly enough given, but elucidated on the present occasion by a comparisonof both sides of the correspondence, a contingency scarcely to have been anticipated. That such letters, however, were not all regularly destroyed is only one proof more, added to the many already extant, of the glaring imprudence with which vicious proceedings of every description are almost invariably carried on.

Lord L⸺ expressed himself greatly shocked at those proofs of Henry’s depravity. “We certainly have before us,” rejoined Mr. Jackson, “melancholy evidence that he has, from a boy, lived the base tool of his desperate father, the convenient link of the outlaw with civilized society, the slave of a tyrant whom he could not love, yet, from the spell of habit unbroken from childhood, dared not resist. How he at last died by the hand of that parent, we have seen: and, that the blow by which he fell may be invested with its full portion of horror, we must remember that it was struck withthe intent to murder, though not to murder Henry.”

“To facilitate the retaking of his ship,” said Fitz-Ullin, “by the death of the only officer on board, was, I should think, all that the elder St. Aubin could have had in view by his wanton assassination, in cold blood, of a person he believed to be a stranger.”

Henry’s having no knowledge to whom the privateer belonged, when he went on board her as prize-master, was accounted for by an attention to dates, which showed that she had been entirely fitted out and manned, since he, Henry, had last gone to sea in the Euphrasia. Each shocking discovery had been discussed, as the letter or letters throwing light on each, had been severally perused. The final decision of the gentlemen was, that none of the circumstances should ever be mentioned to Mrs. Montgomery; and that even to Julia and Frances, the disgusting scene of guilt and miseryshould be but partially, and gradually laid open.

Lord L⸺ was the first to leave the library: the retrospect of past years always spread a shade over his brow, and occasioned him to seek the retirement of his own apartment. Fitz-Ullin was also hurrying away, when Mr. Jackson drew him back, and, with a countenance of the deepest melancholy, showed him a letter which he had, he said, succeeded in setting apart while examining the papers.

This letter contained allusions to the death of Lady L⸺, worded in a style which made it appear but too probable, that there has been some foul play.

The vengeance which the elder St. Aubin had long since sworn to accomplish, and, in its accomplishment, to render his wretched child his tool, is adverted to in evident connexion with other allusions to the immense fortune thus by the nature of certain settlements, securedbeyond contingency to a certain individual: expressions which, all circumstances considered, seemed scarcely to admit of other construction.

When Fitz-Ullin had finished the perusal of the lines pointed out to him, both gentlemen looked at each other for some seconds in silence. Mr. Jackson then, taking the letter from the hand of our hero, said solemnly, “With your approval, my Lord, I shall commit this paper to the flames: the surmise it suggests, is too horrible to be suffered to poison the future reflections of a bereft husband.

“If the crime which that surmise presents to the appalled imagination, has indeed been perpetrated, both the perpetrators already stand before a higher, and more unerring tribunal, than earth affords.” So saying, he flung the letter on the fire, and stood to see its last vestiges consumed.

“Precious is the return of that lost lookOf love.”… “Lighten’d glows each breast with rapture,Grateful now, too intense before!”

“Precious is the return of that lost lookOf love.”

“Precious is the return of that lost look

Of love.”

… “Lighten’d glows each breast with rapture,Grateful now, too intense before!”

… “Lighten’d glows each breast with rapture,

Grateful now, too intense before!”

Fitz-Ullin, at length released, sought our heroine from room to room. That unreserved communication of sentiment with her which had been looked forward to with such intoxicating delight, was now anticipated with a sobered feeling: it was now longed for as a balm to heal a sickened, and if, in his circumstances, that were possible, an almost saddened spirit.

Julia was not to be found in the house; he therefore wandered into the shrubbery, where,at the very paling gate at which they had parted on such miserable terms the evening before, he perceived her, and Frances with her. The latter, however, with a sportive air, disappeared at sight of our hero, who, the next moment, stood before Julia. Scarcely had one smile beamed on him, ere all that had almost forced the blissful explanation of the morning from its first place in his mind, was forgotten. This same smile, to Fitz-Ullin, who for so long had not had even a smile, seemed all sufficient; for the lovers now walked on in silence. By the time, however, that they had completed the round of the wood-walk, as it is called, and re-entered the shrubbery at the further end, they appeared not only to have recovered the use of speech, but to have become quite confidential, for they now held between them an open letter, which they seemed to be reading together. From an observation which our hero made as they finished the perusal ofthe letter, it was probably the one which he had in the morning promised to show Julia, and which had cost both so much misery.

“That letter,” he said, “I cannot view without shuddering. It has so long governed my fate, that I shall never learn to consider it what it really is, a mere unimportant scrap of paper, blotted and rendered foul by falsehood!” Every hour of their past lives was now reviewed; every word, every look, adverted to; and one little spellword found, which, now that it might be spoken, reconciled every contradiction, and solved every mystery. The light, in short, ofFirst Love, that brightest sunshine of the heart, was now flung back on the long perspective of years gone by, shedding its beams on the distant scene, and displaying, decked in their natural and pleasing colours, all those greenest spots on memory’s waste, which hopelessness had hitherto overshadowed,or treachery presented through its own false medium.

Such recapitulations, however, to all but the parties interested, might seem tedious; we shall not therefore go through all; yet, were they most natural in those, whose every feeling had been for so long put to the torture, by the cruelest misrepresentations of all that most concerned their happiness. It was no wonder that they were not satisfied by merely telling their understandings, with a sweeping clause, that all was just the contrary of what it had been, or rather of what it had appeared to be; they felt that they owed to themselves, as it were, the delight of reversing each individual picture, and that hearts so long inured to suffering, required to be soothed into a confidence in their own felicity, by dwelling for a time on its details.

The scene in the refreshment room was advertedto. “When you kindly spoke,” he said, “of the consolation I ought to derive from friendship, and of my disappointed hopes never having been well founded, how bitter were my feelings! I understood you to mean, coolly to inform me that, if I had ever entertained a hope of being acceptable to you, it was false and presumptuous! I almost felt resentment; for, shall I say it, Julia, I thought,” and he hesitated, “that you had not always treated me as—as honour and good feeling should have dictated to a woman, whose affections were engaged to another.”

“And I,” said Julia, colouring, “could not help thinking you very unkind and unfeeling, indeed, in rejecting, in the scornful and almost angry manner you did, my—all our friendship, and saying that the hope of being accepted by Lady Susan, (as I supposed,) was all that, in your eyes, had given value to existence!”

“Yes, Julia,” he said, “the hope I spokeof was, indeed, all that in my eyes gave value to existence!”

When they had thus discussed points of tenderer interest, and at length seated themselves in an arbour particularly well calculated for the reception of lovers, Edmund, after a short silence, said, rather suddenly, “What must you have thought, Julia, of my interference about Lord Surrel?”

“I was very much obliged,” she replied.

“Why, nothing could have justified me,” he continued, “but the belief, not only of your attachment, but of your engagement, and of my being the sole person to whom that engagement had been confided. Why, what could you have supposed when I requested a private interview, and commenced questioning you on such a subject?”

Julia did not reply; but she blushed, and looked away in so hurried a manner, that a sudden thought darted across the mind of Fitz-Ullin.He caught her hand, and looking in her face with the most curiously amused expression of countenance, said, “No, Julia, did you give my request the common interpretation?”

No reply from Julia; but the twisting away, or rather the trying to twist away of the hand, the deepening of the blush, the averting of the eyes, were confirmations all sufficient. Our hero could not help still smiling, while he tried to reconcile and to sooth. This, of course, offended more than it appeased, and the hand, though it had been kissed a thousand times, still manifested signs of being an unwilling captive. Fitz-Ullin was now obliged to apologize, so that all rational conversation was put an end to. Nay, he even knelt, and succeeded in making the other hand a prisoner; but notwithstanding all this humility of attitude, the countenance had, mixed with its absolute delight, a sort of triumph in the very fulness ofhis felicity, with which Julia could not yet bring herself to be quite as well pleased, as with that expression which she had often remarked on former occasions, when, by giving Edmund the hundredth part of a smile, she had made him look humbly happy. After a short pause, however, employed in making his peace as well as he might, he renewed the conversation by saying, “And what could you have thought, Julia, of my reiterated declarations, that mine were but the claims of a brother?” This was another of the subjects on which she could not reply, and he went on. “I believed you justly shocked at the idea that you were about to be addressed as a lover, by one who knew your melancholy secret; and that, too, so soon after the terrible death of poor Henry. I hastened to do away such a suspicion; for, if I had a selfish hope, it was a distant one of course, and one which I did not, at the time, distinctly confess, even to myself. Under thesame false impressions I viewed, with utter amazement, the composure of countenance, voice, and manner, which you maintained, when things were said by others which I heard with terror, from the supposition that the very sounds must be shocking to your ears. When, for instance, Mr. Jackson read aloud the account of the trial, which, necessarily included the circumstances of the murder. The day of the funeral too; in short, I was thrown out of every calculation. I had expected to endure much from seeing you shed tears for one who, even in death, I could have envied any testimony of your affection; I had armed myself for this trial, severe as it must have proved, but I was altogether unprepared to find the being I had loved for the tenderness of her nature, the innocence of her heart, totally without feeling, or a consummate actress, or worse, a creature capable of having formed, from mere levity, without even the excuse of a sincere thoughmisplaced attachment, an engagement, unsanctioned by a father, and imprudent in itself.

“That I should ever be able to win the love of one whose very friendship I had lost by declaring my attachment, one whom I now appeared to inspire with dread, was a thing quite hopeless. I saw, indeed, what were Lord L⸺’s flattering wishes. The very idea seemed to shake the powers of my mind, to darken my judgment, madden my passions, and harden my heart; for there were moments of bitterness, in which I asked myself, should I set your feelings at defiance, and avail myself of Lord L⸺’s authority to obtain you! The thought was of course rejected with disdain; but, its ever having crossed my imagination, was sufficient to prove, that I was no longer master of myself.”

“I wish, Edmund,” said Julia, when in the evening the lovers again directed their steps towards the shrubbery walk, “you would tellme what it was that caused your peculiar austerity of manner on board the Euphrasia.”

“Why, that is a question which I cannot very well answer, Julia,” said Fitz-Ullin, smiling and taking her hand. She persisted, however. “You must remember,” he said at length, “that I believed you perfectly acquainted with my sentiments. In the innocent friendship of your manner, therefore, I saw—what appeared to me, seeing through a false medium, the weakness, if I must say it, of a woman who could not altogether resign the admiration of, even a rejected lover. And, in a woman who was herself engaged, it seemed doubly cruel, to foster with smiles (that, to one who already loved, and believed his love known to her who smiled, must bewilder every sense; and that for the mere idle gratification of vanity,) an unfortunate passion which she could not return, which, in fact, she had already cast from her!”

“My own Julia!” he exclaimed, suddenly stopping short and taking both her hands, “you really look as much condemned as if I had brought this horrible accusation against your pure innocent self in due form; but,” he added, “you must consider that when we are very miserable, we are never very just to those who cause our suffering! Weak too as I thought your conduct, its effects were too much for my strength of mind: I felt that it was dangerous to be near you. In how different a light would all that imagination thus misconstrued have appeared, could I have suspected that it was generous pity for my supposed disappointment about Lady Susan which gave that dangerous softness to your manner, unchecked by any idea that my feelings towards yourself had ever been other than those of an adopted brother. And now, Julia, it is your turn to make confessions: do tell me what crowning of all my presumption was it, ofwhich you suspected me when, no later than last evening, your gentle nature was, at length, provoked to say, ‘What can you mean? What can you dare to mean?’” She appeared very unwilling to reply; he entreated her to tell him, at least, to what feelings of hers it was she thought he meant to allude. At length she stammered out, “I suppose—I thought—I—must have thought—you meant—my—my—regard for—for yourself.”

A delighted smile grew gradually over the features of Fitz-Ullin as he bent his head, trying to follow the downcast eyes, and catch the broken accents of the speaker. “But how then,” he whispered, “did you account for my not gladly, delightedly availing myself of—of—your—amiable condescension?”

What words Julia found, or whether she found any, in her opinion, sufficiently delicate by which to express that she had understood him to have apologized more than once fornot being able to return the secret affection he had discovered her to entertain for him, we cannot exactly say, for here the scene closes. No very serious misunderstanding, however, appears to have ensued, for the lovers returned to tea with perfectly happy faces, and, during that cheerful ceremony, Edmund’s delight assumed almost an extravagant cast, while Julia actually began to prefer his looking quite happy to that more humble expression of dependance on her sovereign will and pleasure for the slightest portion of his felicity, which used to gratify her so much.

The beginnings of love may be selfish, may be tyrannical, may require that vanity and thirst of power shall have due tribute paid them; but, when love is perfected, not only is vanity cast away, power and pride laid down, but self, that idol of the unoccupied heart, is forgotten, or valued only as contributing to the happiness of the being beloved! We speak,of course, of that early sunbeam of life’s morning,First Love: the description here given can never be applicable to the mixed nature of the later awakened sentiment, with its thousand necessary alloys: the selfishness called into play by self-defence, the doubts of the future, taught by experience of the past; with all the calculating insinuations of interest hinting the wisdom of training the heart’s tendrils to cling to convenience.

Let the plant be love, of course, says prudence; but why not place it in the comfortable south aspect of wealth and splendour?

… “Choicest flowers, of every hue,Spring forth where’er their fairy tread hath pass’d;And magic gardens bloom around regionsFitting for such loveliness! floating nearMusic’s sweetness vibrates, with hov’ring odour,Holding soft commune on the fields of air.”

… “Choicest flowers, of every hue,

Spring forth where’er their fairy tread hath pass’d;

And magic gardens bloom around regions

Fitting for such loveliness! floating near

Music’s sweetness vibrates, with hov’ring odour,

Holding soft commune on the fields of air.”

Inanswer to all Fitz-Ullin’s arguments and entreaties for an early day, Julia pleaded a due respect to her grandmother’s feelings. In compliment to these it was decided that the wedding should not take place for three months. But months flew past with the velocity of days, all nature glowed with tints never seen before; every bird sang a sweeter song than formerly; particularly a thrush which had its nest in a Portugal laurel, just behind the shady seat towhich the lovers strolled every evening. The very climate was improved: it was never either too hot or too cold, that is, in the opinion of Julia and Fitz-Ullin. The rest of the world, we believe, found the changes of weather much such as they generally are in this, by all but lovers, sadly abused climate of ours.

Previous to the expiration of the allotted three months, the Arandale family arrived at Lodore, together with the Marquis and Marchioness of H⸺, Lord and Lady Morven, shortly after, the Dowager Countess Fitz-Ullin, and lastly, Colonel Beaumont, now the accepted lover of Frances.

The weddings of both the sisters were solemnized on the same day by Mr. Jackson, in the same church in which he had baptized both, and pronounced over the then unknown Edmund, that memorable benediction, with which he bestowed on him the temporary appellation of Montgomery; a name under which, asMr. Jackson this day observed, our hero afterwards reaped so many laurels, that to have laid it aside for any title but that of Fitz-Ullin, would have been rather a resignation of glory, than an acquisition of splendour.

Lord and Lady Fitz-Ullin set out immediately for the Craigs, whither they were followed shortly by a large party of their friends. Even Mrs. Montgomery, (who had resolved never again to leave Lodore House,) sustained by the renovating influence of happiness, performed the journey, and did not suffer from the exertion.

The Jews who had possession of the Oswald estates, were obliged to resign them on the production of the title-deeds. Now, therefore, that every one but Gotterimo himself had reaped the benefits of his honesty, it was high time to think of rewarding him. Mrs. Smyth, by the liberality of her mistress and the savings of her long servitude, was enabled to give Alicea few hundreds. Lady Fitz-Ullin added a few more for her jewel-box, not forgetting the parcel of old letters by which it was accompanied. Lord Fitz-Ullin gave a suitable acknowledgement for the title-deeds of his wife’s estate, the Craigs, not forgetting the long lost happiness found in the bottom of the same old chest. And Lady Oswald, most willingly, paid a handsome reward for the discovery of the title-deeds of her son’s estates. Thus portioned, Alice was bestowed on our worthy little friend, who carried her forthwith to London. We are happy to add, that, from the credit which his upright mode of dealing gained him, his establishment became, in the course of time, one of the greatest in that great city.

“Land of the harp! the soul of music dwellsWith thee! thine every word, thy wildest thoughtIs poetry; thy fields, thy groves, thy streamsAre melody! Henceforward thou shalt bloomIn the bright summer of prosperity.Thy sovereign shall behold thee face to face,The eloquence of truth on thy fair browBeaming.—Oh, he never can forget its ray!On thy green shores, the heart’s own welcome dwells!There, an hundred thousand greetings wait him!There, an hundred thousand blessings greet him!”

“Land of the harp! the soul of music dwells

With thee! thine every word, thy wildest thought

Is poetry; thy fields, thy groves, thy streams

Are melody! Henceforward thou shalt bloom

In the bright summer of prosperity.

Thy sovereign shall behold thee face to face,

The eloquence of truth on thy fair brow

Beaming.—Oh, he never can forget its ray!

On thy green shores, the heart’s own welcome dwells!

There, an hundred thousand greetings wait him!

There, an hundred thousand blessings greet him!”

Afterthe visit we have already mentioned to the Craigs, a season in Town, and a quiet month or two at dear Lodore, Fitz-Ullin prevailed on Julia to accompany him to that gem of the ocean, the Emerald Isle, the land of his birth, for the purpose of visiting his extensive paternal estates in the beautiful county of ⸺.

Here, nature indeed had been bountiful; but her benign intentions had, hitherto, been defeated by an ill judged organization of the social system.

For six and twenty years, agents and middlemen had oppressed the hardy tenant of the soil; till, what had been courage, became fierceness; what had been humour, bitterness; and even native beauty of feature was veiled by the utterly hopeless expression, which hung on almost every countenance; while not the muscles of the face only, but the very limbs of naturally athletic men appeared relaxed. For the rewards of labour being insufficient to inspire industry, bodily fatigue was unsustained by mental energy, and the mere animal instinct of hunger remained the sole stimulus to exertion.

It had never entered the minds of this simple, almost wild people, to look to the government for justice or redress. The executivepower, in all its branches, was, and long had been, concentrated and personified in their imaginations under the loathed figure of a hangman; and him whom they considered as their natural protector, their landlord, leader, and hereditary chief, was out of the reach of hearing their complaints. It is not surprising, therefore, that the arrival of the happy couple, surrounded by all the splendour to which their rank and fortune entitled them, lending a ready ear to every tale of woe, and with the hand of benevolence open for the relief of every want, was viewed by all as the rising of the morning of hope, on a land long desolated by a dreary succession of stormy nights that knew no day between.

Fitz-Ullin was so forcibly struck by the marks which all around him bore, of private duties sacrificed to public ones, during the long and brilliant life of the late Earl, that his reflections and resolutions on the subject veryshortly became such as we may trace in a conversation which took place, a few evenings after his arrival at Ullin Castle. He was seated with his lovely Countess on the balcony of a high tower, from whence might be seen on every side, a large portion of the wide domains of his forefathers.

He had been indulging in the fond hope, justified by the then situation of Julia, that the future possessor of all he now beheld, would, ere long, enter life amid prospects delightful to the heart of a parent, and sheltered too, he trusted, under providence, from the rough blasts, which he had in infancy encountered; for Julia had promised him that she herself would nurture her own child, and never commit it to the hands of a stranger, to run the risk of enduring what its father had endured.

While these gentle thoughts dwelt in his mind, his eye accidentally rested on the smokethat stole from the lowly chimneys of some cottages, which, scattered at various intervals, lay concealed among the distant trees.

As busy fancy painted the rustic group around each fire-side, a something like self-reproach smote upon the heart of Fitz-Ullin.

“How often,” he exclaimed, giving audible utterance to his thoughts, “how often have I felt enthusiasm, amounting almost to a wild species of joy, when engaged in the work of war, and, of course, of destruction; and behold around me here, the labours of peace, the power of diffusing happiness to multitudes, lying neglected and forgotten.”

“Do not say the work of destruction!” interrupted Julia, eagerly: “it never was in your nature, Edmund, to take pleasure in destroying the very worst of enemies! Say rather the work, the glorious, the indispensable work of protection; for of what avail would it be tospread prosperity over the face of the land if we suffer the foe to come in and lay our labours waste?”

“True, Julia! most true!” replied Fitz-Ullin, delighted to have his favourite and habitual views of the subject thus revived. And as he spoke, he arose unconsciously, and, assuming a loftiness of carriage of which his figure was peculiarly susceptible, looked once more the hero—a character lately almost forgotten in that of the lover.

“Seen in this light,” he said, “our duty to our country is also one of the most sacred of those which we owe to our kindred and dependants, taken too on its greatest, its noblest scale! The reflections, however, which the scene before us has awakened, have had their use; they have reminded me that, in the pride of performing a selected task, gratifying to our ambition or our vanity, we must not neglect the manifold and unpretending dutieswhich surround our homes. You will allow,” he added, changing his manner from the grave to the sportive, “heroine as you are, Julia, that in the intervals of peace, at least, we ought to thatch the peasant’s hut, and see that he has grain to sow his fields—aye,” he continued, his voice and manner again becoming serious, “and a cheerful countenance when he reaps them, emanating from the consciousness that a liberal portion of all which the labour of his hands has caused the ground to bring forth shall be his own and his children’s. Nor is this more than just: large estates were small, indeed, in value to their luxurious possessor, did not the sweat of the brow of his fellow-creature render them productive.”

The impressions received by the mind of Fitz-Ullin on this evening were never effaced. In the course of promotion he became, as his father had been, Admiral Lord Fitz-Ullin, and,under that title, continued to reap, when called upon by the emergencies of the state, laurels as distinguished as any gained by his great predecessor; but his people at home were never forgotten. His sons and his daughters were born amongst them, and all the many silent blessings which fall from the hand of the resident landlord introduced into their dwellings. While as much of a long, blissful, and prosperous life as he could spare from his more active duties to his country, and his closer ties to his immediate family and dependants was devoted to the noble task of pleading the cause of the oppressed of his native land in the great assembly of his peers.

THE END.

Gunnell and Shearman, 13, Salisbury Square.

Transcriber’s NotesThe cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved. Volume II (PG e-text #56566) lists the errata for all three volumes; those corrections have been applied here.There is no Chapter XXX: the chapter numbering goes straight from XXIX to XXXI.

Transcriber’s Notes

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved. Volume II (PG e-text #56566) lists the errata for all three volumes; those corrections have been applied here.

There is no Chapter XXX: the chapter numbering goes straight from XXIX to XXXI.

In 3 vols. post 8vo. price 1l.11s.6d.

THE ARMENIANS; a Tale of Constantinople.

ByCharles Mac Farlane, Esq., Author of “Constantinople in 1828.”

In 3 vols. post 8vo. price 1l.11s.6d.

THE RIVALS—A Novel.

By the Author of theCollegians. Second Edition.

“We consign this work to the applause of the public, and to the unquestioned admiration of all lovers of excellent fiction.”—Literary Gazette.

In 3 vols. post 8vo. price 1l.11s.6d.

THE COLLEGIANS.—Second Edition.

“This is the most powerfully written Tale we have for some time met with.”—Literary Gazette.“The stern imbecility of the heart-broken gentleman may be compared, in effect and in touching beauty, to that most beautiful and impassioned scene in theAntiquary—the fisherman’s lamentation over his son; can praise go higher?”—Spectator.

“This is the most powerfully written Tale we have for some time met with.”—Literary Gazette.

“The stern imbecility of the heart-broken gentleman may be compared, in effect and in touching beauty, to that most beautiful and impassioned scene in theAntiquary—the fisherman’s lamentation over his son; can praise go higher?”—Spectator.

PRESENT STATE OF TURKEY.

Second Edition, 2 vols. 8vo. price 1l.11s.6d.plates.

CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1828.

ByCharles Mac Farlane, Esq., With an Appendix, containing Remarks and Observations, to the Autumn of 1829.

“Of all the Tourists whom the late demand has tempted to the press, Mr. Mac Farlane will, beyond comparison, most reward the reader. The main purport of his book is specifically adapted to the very points on which the curiosity of the moment is most alive. For the condition of this part of the Eastern world, of its politics, temper, and prominent interests, just at present, an authority so recent and so satisfactory as Mr. Mac Farlane, is a greater piece of good fortune than it would have been reasonable to expect.”—Edinburgh Review.

SUSPIRIUM SANCTORUM; or HOLY BREATHINGS. A Series of Morning and Evening Prayers.By a Lady.

A new and greatly enlarged Edition.

“The spirit which pervades these solemn addresses to the Almighty bespeaks such a sense and feeling of the blessed hopes and prospects of pure Christianity, as do great credit to the heart and understanding of the noble Author.”—Quarterly Theological Review.

In 2 beautiful vols. elegantly bound, price 1l.8s.

THE ANNUAL PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE,For 1830.

Printed under the sanction and from the communications of the nobility; with new Plates of the Arms, those of the Peers of England revised and corrected.By Edmund Lodge, Esq., Norroy King of Arms, &c.

In one large vol. 8vo. with 20 Plates price 21s.plain, 30s.coloured,

FLORAL EMBLEMS. ByHenry Phillips, F.L. and F.H.S. Author of “Pomarium Britannicum.”

PUBLIC OPINION.

Second Edition, One Volume, 8vo. price 12s.

The Rise, Progress, and Present State of PublicOpinionin Great Britain and other parts of the World. ByWilliam Alexander Mackinnon, Esq. F.R.S.

3 vols. post 8vo. price 1l.11s.6d.

HUNGARIAN TALES, written during a Residence in that country. By the Author of “the Lettre de Cachet.”

“These tales are manifestly the production of a gifted and cultivated mind. They are written with ease, freshness, and, where it is needed, force, and scarcely ever betray exuberance or affectation. Their object is partly, as is announced by the title and in the preface, to describe Hungary and the Hungarians:—the author is understood to be a lady, having passed some time recently in that part of Europe. They exhibit great knowledge of human nature combined with much delicacy and sweetness.”—London Magazine.

In 1 vol. 8vo. with full length Portrait, from a Drawing by Lady Lucy Clive, price 12s.

THE LIFE of EDWARD LORD HERBERT, of CHERBURY. Written by himself. Fourth Edition, continued till his Death. With LETTERS, written during his Residence at the French Court: now first published from the Originals.

In One Volume, 8vo. with Portrait, price 14s.

PRIVATE MEMOIRS of SIR KENELM DIGBY, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King Charles the First; written by himself, and including an account of his romantic Attachment to the beautiful but unfortunate Lady Venetia Stanley. Now first published from the original Manuscript, with an Introductory Memoir.

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