BY HENRY MACKENZIE.
More than forty years ago an English philosopher, whose works have since been read and admired by all Europe, resided at a little town in France. Some disappointments in his native country had first driven him abroad, and he was afterward induced to remain there from having found, in this retreat, where the connections even of nation and language were avoided, a perfect seclusion and retirement highly favorable to the development of abstract subjects, in which he excelled all the writers of his time.
Perhaps, in the structure of such a mind as Mr. ——’s, the finer and more delicate sensibilities are seldom known to have place, or, if originally implanted there, are in a great measure extinguished by the exertions of intense study and profound investigation. Hence the idea of philosophy and unfeelingness being united has become proverbial, and, in common language, the former word is often used to express the latter. Our philosopher had been censured by some as deficient in warmth and feeling; but the mildness of his manners has been allowedby all, and it is certain that, if he was not easily melted into compassion, it was at least not difficult to awaken his benevolence.
One morning, while he sat busied in those speculations which afterward astonished the world, an old female domestic, who served him for a housekeeper, brought him word that an elderly gentleman and his daughter had arrived in the village the preceding evening, on their way to some distant country, and that the father had been suddenly seized in the night with a dangerous disorder, which the people of the inn where they lodged feared would prove mortal; that she had been sent for, as having some knowledge of medicine, the village surgeon being then absent; and that it was truly piteous to see the good old man, who seemed not so much afflicted by his own distress as by that which it caused to his daughter. Her master laid aside the volume in his hand, and broke off the chain of ideas it had inspired. His nightgown was exchanged for a coat, and he followed hisgouvernanteto the sick man’s apartment.
It was the best in the inn where they lay, but a paltry one notwithstanding. Mr. —— was obliged to stoop as he entered it. It was floored with earth, and above were the joists not plastered, and hung with cobwebs. On a flock-bed, at one end, lay the old man he came to visit; at the foot of it sat his daughter. She was dressed in a clean white bedgown; her dark locks hung loosely over it as she bent forward, watching the languid looks of her father. Mr. —— and his housekeeper had stood some moments in the room without the young lady’s being sensible of their entering it.
“Mademoiselle!” said the old woman at last, in a soft tone.
She turned and showed one of the finest faces in the world. It was touched, not spoiled, with sorrow; and when she perceived a stranger, whom the old woman now introduced to her, a blush at first, and then the gentle ceremonial of native politeness, which the affliction of the time tempered but did not extinguish, crossed it for a moment and changed its expression. It was sweetness all, however, and our philosopher felt it strongly. It was not a time for words; he offered his services in a few sincere ones.
“Monsieur lies miserably ill here,” said thegouvernante; “if he could possibly be moved anywhere.”
“If he could be moved to our house,” said her master. He had a spare bed for a friend, and there was a garret room unoccupied, next to thegouvernante’s.
It was contrived accordingly. The scruples of the stranger, who could look scruples though he could not speak them, were overcome, and the bashful reluctance of his daughter gave way to her belief of its use to her father. The sick man was wrapped in blankets, and carried across the street to the English gentleman’s. The old woman helped his daughter to nurse him there. The surgeon, who arrived soon after, prescribed a little, and nature did much for him; in a week he was able to thank his benefactor.
By that time his host had learned the name and character of his guest. He was a Protestant clergyman of Switzerland, called La Roche, a widower, who had lately buried his wife, after a long and lingering illness, forwhich travelling had been prescribed, and was now returning home, after an ineffectual and melancholy journey, with his only child, the daughter we have mentioned.
He was a devout man, as became his profession. He possessed devotion in all its warmth, but with none of its asperity,—I mean that asperity which men, called devout, sometimes indulge in.
Mr. ——, though he felt no devotion, never quarrelled with it in others. Hisgouvernantejoined the old man and his daughter in the prayers and thanksgivings which they put up on his recovery; for she too was a heretic, in the phrase of the village. The philosopher walked out, with his long staff and his dog, and left them to their prayers and thanksgivings.
“My master,” said the old woman, “alas! he is not a Christian; but he is the best of unbelievers.”
“Not a Christian!” exclaimed Mademoiselle La Roche, “yet he saved my father! Heaven bless him for it! I would he were a Christian.”
“There is a pride in human knowledge, my child,” said her father, “which often blinds men to the sublime truths of revelation; hence opposers of Christianity are found among men of virtuous lives, as well as among those of dissipated and licentious characters. Nay, sometimes I have known the latter more easily converted to the true faith than the former, because the fume of passion is more easily dissipated than the mist of false theory and delusive speculation.”
“But Mr. ——,” said his daughter, “alas! my father, he shall be a Christian before he dies.” She was interruptedby the arrival of their landlord. He took her hand with an air of kindness. She drew it away from him in silence, threw down her eyes to the ground, and left the room.
“I have been thanking God,” said the good La Roche, “for my recovery.”
“That is right,” replied his landlord.
“I would not wish,” continued the old man hesitatingly, “to think otherwise. Did I not look up with gratitude to that Being, I should barely be satisfied with my recovery as a continuation of life, which, it may be, is not a real good. Alas! I may live to wish I had died, that you had left me to die, sir, instead of kindly relieving me,”—he clasped Mr ——’s hand,—“but, when I look on this renovated being as the gift of the Almighty, I feel a far different sentiment; my heart dilates with gratitude and love to him; it is prepared for doing his will, not as a duty, but as a pleasure, and regards every breach of it, not with disapprobation, but with horror.”
“You say right, my dear sir,” replied the philosopher, “but you are not yet re-established enough to talk much; you must take care of your health, and neither study nor preach for some time. I have been thinking over a scheme that struck me to-day when you mentioned your intended departure. I never was in Switzerland. I have a great mind to accompany your daughter and you into that country. I will help to take care of you by the road; for as I was your first physician, I hold myself responsible for your cure.”
La Roche’s eyes glistened at the proposal. His daughter was called in and told of it. She was equally pleasedwith her father, for they really loved their landlord,—not perhaps the less for his infidelity; at least, that circumstance mixed a sort of pity with their regard for him,—their souls were not of a mould for harsher feelings; hatred never dwelt in them.
They travelled by short stages; for the philosopher was as good as his word in taking care that the old man should not be fatigued. The party had time to be well acquainted with each other, and their friendship was increased by acquaintance. La Roche found a degree of simplicity and gentleness in his companion which is not always annexed to the character of a learned or a wise man. His daughter, who was prepared to be afraid of him, was equally undeceived. She found in him nothing of that self-importance which superior parts, or great cultivation of them, is apt to confer. He talked of everything but philosophy and religion; he seemed to enjoy every pleasure and amusement of ordinary life, and to be interested in the most common topics of discourse; when his knowledge of learning at any time appeared, it was delivered with the utmost plainness and without the least shadow of dogmatism.
On his part, he was charmed with the society of the good clergyman and his lovely daughter. He found in them the guileless manner of the earliest times, with the culture and accomplishment of the most refined ones; every better feeling warm and vivid, every ungentle one repressed or overcome. He was not addicted to love; but he felt himself happy in being the friend of Mademoiselle La Roche, and sometimes envied her father the possession of such a child.
After a journey of eleven days, they arrived at the dwelling of La Roche. It was situated in one of those valleys of the canton of Berne, where Nature seems to repose, as it were, in quiet, and has enclosed her retreat with mountains inaccessible. A stream, that spent its fury in the hills above, ran in front of the house, and a broken waterfall was seen through the wood that covered its sides; below it circled round a tufted plain, and formed a little lake in front of a village, at the end of which appeared the spire of La Roche’s church, rising above a clump of beeches.
Mr. —— enjoyed the beauty of the scene; but to his companions it recalled the memory of a wife and parent they had lost. The old man’s sorrow was silent; his daughter sobbed and wept. Her father took her hand, kissed it twice, pressed it to his bosom, threw up his eyes to heaven, and, having wiped off a tear that was just about to drop from each, began to point out to his guest some of the most striking objects which the prospect afforded. The philosopher interpreted all this, and he could but slightly censure the creed from which it arose.
They had not been long arrived when a number of La Roche’s parishioners, who had heard of his return, came to the house to see and welcome him. The honest folks were awkward, but sincere, in their professions of regard. They made some attempts at condolence; it was too delicate for their handling, but La Roche took it in good part. “It has pleased God,” said he; and they saw he had settled the matter with himself. Philosophy could not have done so much with a thousand words.
It was now evening, and the good peasants wereabout to depart, when a clock was heard to strike seven, and the hour was followed by a particular chime. The country folks, who had come to welcome their pastor, turned their looks toward him at the sound. He explained their meaning to his guest.
“That is the signal,” said he, “for our evening exercise. This is one of the nights of the week in which some of my parishioners are wont to join in it; a little rustic saloon serves for the chapel of our family and such of the good people as are with us. If you choose rather to walk out, I will furnish you with an attendant; or here are a few old books that may afford you some entertainment within.”
“By no means,” answered the philosopher; “I will attend Mademoiselle at her devotions.”
“She is our organist,” said La Roche. “Our neighborhood is the country of musical mechanism, and I have a small organ fitted up for the purpose of assisting our singing.”
“’Tis an additional inducement,” replied the other; and they walked into the room together.
At the end stood the organ mentioned by La Roche; before it was a curtain, which his daughter drew aside, and, placing herself on a seat within and drawing the curtain close so as to save her the awkwardness of an exhibition, began a voluntary, solemn and beautiful in the highest degree. Mr. —— was no musician, but he was not altogether insensible to music; and this fastened on his mind more strongly from its beauty being unexpected. The solemn prelude introduced a hymn, in which such of the audience as could sing immediatelyjoined. The words were mostly taken from holy writ; it spoke the praises of God, and his care of good men. Something was said of the death of the just, of such as die in the Lord. The organ was touched with a hand less firm; it paused; it ceased; and the sobbing of Mademoiselle La Roche was heard in its stead. Her father gave a sign for stopping the psalmody, and rose to pray. He was discomposed at first, and his voice faltered as he spoke; but his heart was in his words, and its warmth overcame his embarrassment. He addressed a Being whom he loved, and he spoke for those he loved. His parishioners caught the ardor of the good old man; even the philosopher felt himself moved, and forgot, for a moment, to think why he should not.
La Roche’s religion was that of sentiment, not theory, and his guest was averse from disputation; their discourse, therefore, did not lead to questions concerning the belief of either; yet would the old man sometimes speak of his, from the fulness of a heart impressed with its force and wishing to spread the pleasure he enjoyed in it. The ideas of a God and a Saviour were so congenial to his mind, that every emotion of it naturally awakened them. A philosopher might have called him an enthusiast; but, if he possessed the fervor of enthusiasts, he was guiltless of their bigotry. “Our Father, which art in heaven!” might the good man say, for he felt it, and all mankind were his brethren.
“You regret, my friend,” said he to Mr. ——, “when my daughter and I talk of the exquisite pleasure derived from music,—you regret your want of musical powers and musical feelings; it is a department of soul, yousay, which nature has almost denied you, which, from the effects you see it have on others, you are sure must be highly delightful. Why should not the same thing be said of religion? Trust me, I feel it in the same way,—an energy, an inspiration, which I would not lose for all the blessings of sense, or enjoyments of the world; yet, so far from lessening my relish of the pleasures of life, methinks I feel it heighten them all. The thought of receiving it from God adds the blessing of sentiment to that of sensation in every good thing I possess; and when calamities overtake me,—and I have had my share,—it confers a dignity on my affliction, so lifts me above the world. Man, I know, is but a worm; yet, methinks, I am then allied to God!”
It would have been inhuman in our philosopher to have clouded, even with a doubt, the sunshine of this belief. His discourse, indeed, was very remote from metaphysical disquisition or religious controversy. Of all men I ever knew, his ordinary conversation was the least tinctured with pedantry, or liable to dissertation. With La Roche and his daughter, it was perfectly familiar. The country round them, the manners of the villagers, the comparison of both with those of England, remarks on the works of favorite authors, on the sentiments they conveyed and the passions they excited, with many other topics in which there was an equality or alternate advantage among the speakers, were the subjects they talked on. Their hours, too, of riding and walking were many, in which Mr. ——, as a stranger, was shown the remarkable scenes and curiosities of the country. They would sometimes make little expeditionsto contemplate, in different attitudes, those astonishing mountains, the cliffs of which, covered with eternal snows, and sometimes shooting into fantastic shapes, form the termination of most of the Swiss prospects. Our philosopher asked many questions as to their natural history and productions. La Roche observed the sublimity of the ideas which the view of their stupendous summits, inaccessible to mortal foot, was calculated to inspire, which naturally, said he, leads the mind to that Being by whom their foundations were laid.
“They are not seen in Flanders,” said Mademoiselle with a sigh.
“That’s an odd remark,” said Mr. ——, smiling.
She blushed, and he inquired no further.
It was with regret he left a society in which he found himself so happy; but he settled with La Roche and his daughter a plan of correspondence, and they took his promise that, if ever he came within fifty leagues of their dwelling, he should travel those fifty leagues to visit them.
About three years after, our philosopher was on a visit at Geneva; the promise he made to La Roche and his daughter, on his former visit, was recalled to his mind by the view of that range of mountains on a part of which they had often looked together. There was a reproach, too, conveyed along with the recollection, for his having failed to write to either for several months past. The truth was, that indolence was the habit most natural to him, from which he was not easily roused by the claims of correspondence, either of his friends or of his enemies; when the latter drew their pens in controversy, they wereoften unanswered as well as the former. While he was hesitating about a visit to La Roche, which he wished to make, but found the effort rather too much for him, he received a letter from the old man, which had been forwarded to him from Paris, where he had then fixed his residence. It contained a gentle complaint of Mr. ——’s want of punctuality, but an assurance of continued gratitude for his former good offices; and, as a friend whom the writer considered interested in his family, it informed him of the approaching nuptials of Mademoiselle La Roche with a young man, a relation of her own, and formerly a pupil of her father’s, of the most amiable dispositions and respectable character. Attached from their earliest years, they had been separated by his joining one of the subsidiary regiments of the canton, then in the service of a foreign power. In this situation he had distinguished himself as much for courage and military skill as for the other endowments which he had cultivated at home. The time of his service was now expired, and they expected him to return in a few weeks, when the old man hoped, as he expressed it in his letter, to join their hands and see them happy before he died.
Our philosopher felt himself interested in this event; but he was not, perhaps, altogether so happy in the tidings of Mademoiselle La Roche’s marriage as her father supposed him. Not that he was ever a lover of the lady’s; but he thought her one of the most amiable women he had seen, and there was something in the idea of her being another’s forever that struck him, he knew not why, like a disappointment. After some little speculation on the matter, however, he could look on it as athing fitting if not quite agreeable, and determined on this visit to see his old friend and his daughter happy.
On the last day of his journey, different accidents had retarded his progress: he was benighted before he reached the quarter in which La Roche resided. His guide, however, was well acquainted with the road, and he found himself at last in view of the lake, which I have before described, in the neighborhood of La Roche’s dwelling. A light gleamed on the water, that seemed to proceed from the house; it moved slowly along as he proceeded up the side of the lake, and at last he saw it glimmer through the trees, and stop at some distance from the place where he then was. He supposed it some piece of bridal merriment, and pushed on his horse that he might be a spectator of the scene; but he was a good deal shocked, on approaching the spot, to find it proceed from the torch of a person clothed in the dress of an attendant on a funeral, and accompanied by several others who, like him, seemed to have been employed in the rites of sepulture.
On Mr. ——’s making inquiry who was the person they had been burying, one of them, with an accent more mournful than is common to their profession, answered,—
“Then you knew not Mademoiselle, sir? You never beheld a lovelier—”
“La Roche!” exclaimed he in reply.
“Alas! it was she indeed.”
The appearance of surprise and grief which his countenance assumed attracted the notice of the peasant with whom he talked. He came up closer to Mr. ——. “Iperceive, sir, you were acquainted with Mademoiselle La Roche.”
“Acquainted with her!—Good God!—when—how—where did she die? Where is her father?”
“She died, sir, of heart-break, I believe. The young gentleman to whom she was soon to have been married was killed in a duel by a French officer, his intimate companion, to whom, before their quarrel, he had often done the greatest favors. Her worthy father bears her death as he has often told us a Christian should; he is even so composed as to be now in his pulpit, ready to deliver a few exhortations to his parishioners, as is the custom with us on such occasions. Follow me, sir, and you shall hear him.”
He followed the man without answering.
The church was dimly lighted, except near the pulpit, where the venerable La Roche was seated. His people were now lifting up their voices in a psalm to that Being whom their pastor had taught them ever to bless and to revere. La Roche sat, his figure bending gently forward, his eyes half closed, lifted up in silent devotion. A lamp placed near him threw its light strong on his head, and marked the shadowy lines of age across the paleness of his brow, thinly covered with gray hairs.
The music ceased. La Roche sat for a moment, and nature wrung a few tears from him. His people were loud in their grief: Mr. —— was not less affected than they. La Roche arose.
“Father of mercies!” said he, “forgive these tears; assist thy servant to lift up his soul to thee, to lift to thee the souls of thy people. My friends, it is good so to do;at all seasons it is good; but in the days of our distress, what a privilege it is! Well saith the sacred book, ‘Trust in the Lord; at all times trust in the Lord!’ When every other support fails us, when the fountains of worldly comfort are dried up, let us then seek those living waters which flow from the throne of God. ’Tis only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a Supreme Being that our calamities can be borne in that manner which becomes a man. Human wisdom is here of little use; for, in proportion as it bestows comfort, it represses feeling, without which we may cease to be hurt by calamity, but we shall also cease to enjoy happiness. I will not bid you be insensible, my friends. I cannot, if I would.” His tears flowed afresh. “I feel too much myself, and I am not ashamed of my feelings; but therefore may I the more willingly be heard; therefore have I prayed God to give me strength to speak to you, to direct you to him, not with empty words, but with these tears, not from speculation, but from experience, that while you see me suffer you may know also my consolation. You behold the mourner of his only child, the last earthly stay and blessing of his declining years. Such a child too! It becomes not me to speak of her virtues; yet it is but gratitude to mention them, because they were exerted toward myself. Not many days ago you saw her young, beautiful, virtuous, and happy. Ye who are parents will judge of my felicity then; ye will judge of my affliction now. But I look toward him who struck me; I see the hand of a father amidst the chastenings of my God. Oh! could I make you feel what it is to pour out the heart, when it is pressed down with many sorrows,to pour it out with confidence to him in whose hands are life and death, on whose power awaits all that the first enjoys, and in contemplation of whom disappears all that the last can inflict. For we are not as those who die without hope; we know that our Redeemer liveth,—that we shall live with him, with our friends, his servants, in that blessed land where sorrow is unknown, and happiness is endless as it is perfect. Go, then, mourn not for me; I have not lost my child; but a little while, and we shall meet again, never to be separated. But ye are also my children: would ye that I should not grieve without comfort? So live as she lived, that, when your death cometh, it may be the death of the righteous, and your latter end like his.”
Such was the exhortation of La Roche: his audience answered it with their tears. The good old man had dried up his at the altar of the Lord: his countenance had lost its sadness and assumed the glow of faith and hope. Mr. —— followed him into his house. The inspiration of the pulpit was past; at sight of him, the scenes they had last met in rushed again on his mind; La Roche threw his arms around his neck, and watered it with his tears. The other was equally affected. They went together, in silence, into the parlor, where the evening service was wont to be performed. The curtains of the organ were open; La Roche started back at the sight.
“Oh! my friend!” said he, and his tears burst forth again.
Mr. —— had now recollected himself; he stepped forward, and drew the curtains close. The old man wipedoff his tears, and taking his friend’s hand, “You see my weakness,” said he, “’tis the weakness of humanity; but my comfort is not therefore lost.”
“I heard you,” said the other, “in the pulpit; I rejoice that such consolation is yours.”
“It is, my friend,” said he; “and I trust I shall ever hold it fast. If there are any who doubt our faith, let them think of what importance religion is to calamity, and forbear to weaken its force. If they cannot restore our happiness, let them not take away the solace of our affliction.”
Mr. ——’s heart was smitten, and I have heard him, long after, confess that there were moments when the remembrance overcame him even to weakness; when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophical discovery and the pride of literary fame, he recalled to his mind the venerable figure of the good La Roche, and wished that he had never doubted.
BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
What is to be thought of sudden death? It is remarkable that, in different conditions of society, it has been variously regarded as the consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, and on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. Cæsar the Dictator, at his last dinner-party (cæna), and the very evening before his assassination, being questioned as to the mode of death which, inhisopinion, might seem the most eligible, replied, “That which should be most sudden.” On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church, when breathing forth supplications, as if in some representative character for the whole human race prostrate before God, places such a death in the very van of horrors. “From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death,—Good Lord, deliver us.” Sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is the last of curses; and yet, by the noblest of Romans, it was treated as the first of blessings.In that difference, most readers will see little more than the difference between Christianity and Paganism. But there I hesitate. The Christian Church may be right in its estimate of sudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life,—as that whichseemsmost reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however, occur to me any direct Scriptural warrant for this earnest petition of the English Litany. It seems rather a petition indulged to human infirmity, than exacted from human piety. And, howeverthatmay be, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which elsemaywander, andhaswandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death (I mean the objective horror to him who contemplates such a death, not the subjective horror to him who suffers it), from the false disposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by an accident they have become words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. Butthatis unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not,habituallya drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowing special emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one of hishabitualtransgressions, will it be the morehabitual or the more a transgression, because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual transgression to be also a final one? Could the man have had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feature in his act of intemperance,—a feature of presumption and irreverence, as in one that by possibility felt himself drawing near to the presence of God. But this is no part of the case supposed. And the only new element in the man’s act is not any element of extra immorality, but simply of extra misfortune.
The other remark has reference to the meaning of the wordsudden. And it is a strong illustration of the duty which forever calls us to the stern valuation of words, that very possibly Cæsar and the Christian Church do not differ in the way supposed; that is, do not differ by any difference of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temper appropriate to death, but that they are contemplating different cases. Both contemplate a violent death, a Βιαθανατος—death that is Βιαιος: but the difference is that the Roman by the word “sudden” means anunlingeringdeath: whereas the Christian Litany by “sudden” means a deathwithout warning, consequently without any available summons to religious preparation. The poor mutineer, who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades, dies by a most sudden death in Cæsar’s sense: one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possiblynotone) groan, and all is over. But, in the sense of the Litany, his death is far from sudden; his offence, originally, his imprisonment, his trial, theinterval between his sentence and its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of his fate,—having all summoned him to meet it with solemn preparation.
Meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden death as a mere variety in the modes of dying, where death in some shape is inevitable,—a question which, equally in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be variously answered according to each man’s variety of temperament,—certainly, upon one aspect of sudden death there can be no opening for doubt, that of all agonies incident to man it is the most frightful, that of all martyrdoms it is the most freezing to human sensibilities,—namely, where it surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurried and inappreciable chance of evading it. Any effort, by which such an evasion can be accomplished, must be as sudden as the danger which it affronts. Eventhat, even the sickening necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain, self-baffled, and where the dreadful knell oftoolate is already sounding in the ears by anticipation,—even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one particular case, namely, where the agonizing appeal is made not exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience on behalf of another life besides your own, accidentally cast uponyourprotection. To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem comparatively venial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to fail in a case where Providence has suddenly thrown into your hands the final interests of another,—of a fellow-creature shudderingbetween the gates of life and death; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. The man is called upon, too probably, to die; but to die at the very moment when, by any momentary collapse, he is self-denounced as a murderer. He had but the twinkling of an eye for his effort, and that effort might, at the best, have been unavailing; but from this shadow of a chance, small or great, how if he has recoiled by a treasonablelâcheté? The effortmighthave been without hope; but to have risen to the level of that effort would have rescued him, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to his duties.
The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer lurking far down in the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. But potentially, and in shadowy outline, such a trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men’s natures,—muttering under ground in one world, to be realized perhaps in some other. Upon the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected at intervals, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to childhood, of meeting a lion, and, from languishing prostration in hope and vital energy, that constant sequel of lying down before him, publishes the secret frailty of human nature,—reveals its deep-seated Pariah falsehood to itself,—records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not one of us escapes that dream; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation, the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, inthis dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places of his own individual will; once again a snare is made ready for leading him into captivity to a luxury of ruin; again, as in aboriginal Paradise, the man falls from innocence; once again, by infinite iteration, the ancient Earth groans to God, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her child; “Nature, from her seat, sighing through all her works,” again “gives signs of woe that all is lost”; and again the countersign is repeated to the sorrowing heavens of the endless rebellion against God. Many people think that one man, the patriarch of our race, could not in his single person execute this rebellion for all his race. Perhaps they are wrong. But, even if not, perhaps in the world of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the original act. Our English rite of Confirmation, by which, in years of awakened reason, we take upon us the engagements contracted for us in our slumbering infancy,—how sublime a rite is that! The little postern gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently placed for a time within the glory of God’s countenance, suddenly rises to the clouds as a triumphal arch, through which, with banners displayed and martial pomps, we make our second entry as crusading soldiers militant for God, by personal choice and by sacramental oath. Each man says in effect, “Lo! I rebaptize myself; and that which once was sworn on my behalf, now I swear for myself.” Even so in dreams, perhaps, under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes for himself the aboriginal fall.
As I drew near to the Manchester post-office, I found that it was considerably past midnight; but to my great relief, as it was important for me to be in Westmoreland by the morning, I saw by the huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through the gloom of overhanging houses, that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time it was; but by some luck, very unusual in my experience, the mail was not even yet ready to start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in imitation of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole human race, and signalizing to the Christian and the heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he has planted his throne forever upon that virgin soil: henceforward claiming thejus dominiito the top of the atmosphere above it, and also the right of driving shafts to the centre of the earth below it; so that all people found after this warning, either aloft in the atmosphere, or in the shafts, or squatting on the soil, will be treated as trespassers,—that is, decapitated by their very faithful and obedient servant, the owner of the said bunting. Possibly my cloak might not have been respected, and thejus gentiummight have been cruelly violated in my person,—for in the dark, people commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality,—but it so happened that, on this night, there was no other outside passenger; and the crime, which else was but too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. By the way, I may as well mention at this point, since a circumstantial accuracy is essential to the effectof my narrative, that there was no other person of any description whatever about the mail—the guard, the coachman, and myself being allowed for—except only one,—a horrid creature of the class known to the world as insiders, but whom young Oxford called sometimes “Trojans,” in opposition to our Grecian selves, and sometimes “vermin.” A Turkish Effendi, who piques himself on good-breeding, will never mention by name a pig. Yet it is but too often that he has reason to mention this animal; since constantly, in the streets of Stamboul, he has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creature running between his legs. But under any excess of hurry he is always careful, out of respect to the company he is dining with, to suppress the odious name, and to call the wretch “that other creature,” as though all animal life beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, as Chrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) formed another and alien group on the outside of creation. Now I, who am an English Effendi, that think myself to understand good-breeding as well as any son of Othman, beg my reader’s pardon for having mentioned an insider by his gross natural name. I shall do so no more; and, if I should have occasion to glance at so painful a subject, I shall always call him “that other creature.” Let us hope, however, that no such distressing occasion will arise. But, by the way, an occasion arises at this moment; for the Reader will be sure to ask, when we come to the story, “Was this other creature present?” He wasnot; or more correctly, perhaps,itwas not. We dropped the creature—or the creature, by natural imbecility, dropped itself—withinthe first ten miles from Manchester. In the latter case, I wish to make a philosophic remark of a moral tendency. When I die, or when the reader dies, and by repute suppose of fever, it will never be known whether we died in reality of the fever or of the doctor. But this other creature, in the case of dropping out of the coach, will enjoy a coroner’s inquest; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. For I insist upon it, that the verdict of a coroner’s jury makes the best of epitaphs. It is brief, so that the public all find time to read; it is pithy, so that the surviving friends (if anycansurvive such a loss) remember it without fatigue; it is upon oath, so that rascals and Dr. Johnsons cannot pick holes in it. “Died through the visitation of intense stupidity, by impinging on a moonlight night against the off-hind wheel of the Glasgow mail! Deodand upon the said wheel—twopence.” What a simple lapidary inscription! Nobody much in the wrong but an off-wheel; and with few acquaintances; and if it were but rendered into choice Latin, though there would be a little bother in finding a Ciceronian word for “off-wheel,” Marcellus himself, that great master of sepulchral eloquence, could not show a better. Why I call this little remarkmoralis, from the compensation it points out. Here, by the supposition, is that other creature on the one side, the beast of the world; and he (or it) gets an epitaph. You and I, on the contrary, the pride of our friends, get none.
But why linger on the subject of vermin? Having mounted the box, I took a small quantity of laudanum, having already travelled two hundred and fifty miles,—namely, from a point seventy miles beyond London, upona simple breakfast. In the taking of laudanum there was nothing extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon me the special attention of my assessor on the box, the coachman. And inthatthere was nothing extraordinary. But by accident, and with great delight, it drew my attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point of size, and that he had but one eye. In fact, he had been foretold by Virgil as—
“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum.”
“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum.”
“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum.”
He answered in every point,—a monster he was,—dreadful, shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. But why shouldthatdelight me? Had he been one of the Calendars in the Arabian Nights, and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right hadIto exult in his misfortune? I didnotexult; I delighted in no man’s punishment, though it were even merited. But these personal distinctions identified in an instant an old friend of mine, whom I had known in the South for some years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. He was the man in all Europe that could best have undertaken to drive six-in-hand full gallop overAl Sirat,—that famous bridge of Mahomet across the bottomless gulf,—backing himself against the Prophet and twenty such fellows. I used to call himCyclops mastigophorus, Cyclops the whip-bearer, until I observed that his skill made whips useless, except to fetch off an impertinent fly from a leader’s head; upon which I changed his Grecian name to Cyclopsdiphrélates(Cyclops the charioteer). I, and others known to me, studied under him the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegantto be pedantic. And also take this remark from me, as agage d’amitié, that no word ever was orcanbe pedantic which, by supporting a distinction, supports the accuracy of logic; or which fills up a chasm for the understanding. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, I cannot say that I stood high in his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty (though, observe, not his discernment), that he could not see my merits. Perhaps we ought to excuse his absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye.Thatmade him blind to my merits. Irritating as this blindness was (surely it could not be envy!) he always courted my conversation, in which art I certainly had the whip-hand of him. On this occasion, great joy was at our meeting. But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommended northern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a suit-at-law pending at Lancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station, for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his lawsuit.
Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely, we’ve been waiting long enough. O, this procrastinating mail, and O, this procrastinating post-office! Can’t they take a lesson upon that subject fromme? Some people have calledmeprocrastinating. Now you are witness, reader, that I was in time forthem. But cantheylay their hands on their hearts, and say that they were in time for me? I, during my life, have often had to wait for the post-office; the post-office never waited a minute for me. What are they about? The guard tells me that there isa large extra accumulation of foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by war and by the packet service, when as yet nothing is done by steam. For anextrahour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. We can hear the flails going at this moment. But at last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard. Manchester, good by; we’ve lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office; which, however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which reallyissuch for the horses, to me secretly is an advantage, since it compels us to recover this last hour amongst the next eight or nine. Off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour; and at first I detect no changes in the energy or in the skill of Cyclops.
From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the capital of Westmoreland, were at this time seven stages of eleven miles each. The first five of these, dated from Manchester, terminated in Lancaster, which was therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester, and the same distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three terminated in Preston (called, by way of distinction from other towns of that name,proudPreston), at which place it was that the separate roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the north became confluent. Within these first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night’s adventure. During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops was mortal: he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep,—a thing whichI had never previously suspected. If a man is addicted to the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing. “O Cyclops!” I exclaimed more than once, “Cyclops, my friend; thou art mortal. Thou snorest.” Through this first eleven miles, however, he betrayed his infirmity—which I grieve to say he shared with the whole Pagan Pantheon—only by short stretches. On waking up, he made an apology for himself, which, instead of mending the matter, laid an ominous foundation for coming disasters. The summer assizes were now proceeding at Lancaster: in consequence of which, for three nights and three days, he had not lain down in a bed. During the day, he was waiting for his uncertain summons as a witness on the trial in which he was interested; or he was drinking with the other witnesses, under the vigilant surveillance of the attorneys. During the night, or that part of it when the least temptations existed to conviviality, he was driving. Throughout the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. In the second mile of the third stage, he surrendered himself finally and without a struggle to his perilous temptation. All his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. Seven atmospheres of sleep seemed resting upon him; and to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing “Love amongst the Roses” for the fiftieth or sixtieth time, without any invitation from Cyclops or me, and without applause for his poor labors, had moodily resigned himself to slumber,—not so deep doubtless as the coachman’s, but deep enough for mischief, and having,probably, no similar excuse. And thus at last, about ten miles from Preston, I found myself left in charge of his Majesty’s London and Glasgow mail, then running about eleven miles an hour.
What made this negligence less criminal than else it must have been thought, was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes. At that time all the law business of populous Liverpool, and of populous Manchester, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster. To break up this old traditional usage required a conflict with powerful established interests, a large system of new arrangements, and a new parliamentary statute. As things were at present, twice in the year so vast a body of business rolled northwards, from the southern quarter of the county, that a fortnight at least occupied the severe exertions of two judges for its despatch. The consequence of this was, that every horse available for such a service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and horses, the roads were all silent. Except exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a contested election, nothing like it was ordinarily witnessed in England.
On this occasion, the usual silence and solitude prevailed along the road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. And to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. I myself,though slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, had so far yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound revery. The month was August, in which lay my own birthday; a festival, to every thoughtful man, suggesting solemn and often sigh-born thoughts. The county was my own native county,—upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curse of labor in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies of men only as slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon no equal space of earth was, or ever had been, the same energy of human power put forth daily. At this particular season also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane of flight and pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, that swept to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting the county up and down, and regularly subsiding about sunset, united with the permanent distinction of Lancashire as the very metropolis and citadel of labor, to point the thoughts pathetically upon that counter-vision of rest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to their secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man’s heart are continually travelling. Obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight and the first timid tremblings of the dawn were now blending; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with aveil of equable transparency. Except the feet of our own horses, which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made little disturbance, there was no sound abroad. In the clouds and on the earth prevailed the same majestic peace; and in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in no such nonsense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must forever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread without feareverychamber in their father’s house, and to whom no door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed for an hour upon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth upwards to the sandals of God.
Suddenly from thoughts like these I was awakened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment; I listened in awe; but then it died away. Once roused, however, I could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years’ experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is, that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies, when the signal is flying foraction. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regardsthought,that in the first step towards the possibility of a misfortune, I see its total evolution; in the radix I see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion; in the first syllable of the dreadful sentence, I read already the last. It was not that I feared for ourselves. What could injureus? Our bulk and impetus charmed us against peril in any collision. And I had rode through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter as we looked back upon them, for any anxiety to rest uponourinterests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betraymewho trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our situation. We were on the wrong side of the road. But then the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong side; and two wrongs might make a right.Thatwas not likely. The same motive which had drawnusto the right-hand side of the road, namely, the soft beaten sand, as contrasted with the paved centre, would prove attractive to others. Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us would rely uponusfor quartering. All this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw, not discursively or by effort, but as by one flash of horrid intuition.
Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil whichmightbe gathering ahead, ah, reader! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, seemed to steal upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel washeard! A whisper it was,—a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off,—secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less inevitable. What could be done—who was it that could do it—to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses? What! could I not seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering coachman? You, reader, think that it would have been inyourpower to do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate of yourself. But, from the way in which the coachman’s hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. The guard subsequently found it impossible, after this danger had passed. Not the grasp only, but also the position of this Polyphemus, made the attempt impossible. You still think otherwise. See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel rider has kept the bit in his horse’s mouth for two centuries. Unbridle him, for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. Or stay, reader, unhorse me that marble emperor: knock me those marble feet from those marble stirrups of Charlemagne.
The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be? Was it industry in a taxed cart? Was it youthful gayety in a gig? Whoever it was, something must be attempted to warn them. Upon the other party rests the active responsibility, but uponus—and, woe is me! thatuswas my single self—rests the responsibility of warning. Yet, how should this be accomplished? Might I not seize the guard’s horn? Already, on the first thought, I was making my way over the roof to the guard’s seat. But this, from the foreign mail’s beingpiled upon the roof, was a difficult and even dangerous attempt, to one cramped by nearly three hundred miles of outside travelling. And, fortunately, before I had lost much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round an angle of the road, which opened upon us the stage where the collision must be accomplished, the parties that seemed summoned to the trial, and the impossibility of saving them by any communication with the guard.
Before us lay an avenue, straight as an arrow, six hundred yards, perhaps, in length; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the farther end of this Gothic aisle, a light, reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, and, by his side, a young lady. Ah, young sir! what are you about? If it is necessary that you should whisper your communications to this young lady,—though really I see nobody at this hour, and on this solitary road, likely to overhear your conversation,—is it, therefore, necessary that you should carry your lips forward to hers? The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. Between them and eternity, to all human calculation, there is but a minute and a half. What is it that I shall do? Strange it is, and, to a mere auditor of the tale, might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from theIliadto prompt the sole recourse that remained. But so it was. SuddenlyI remembered the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No, certainly: but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant; a shout would suffice, such as should carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people, and one gig horse. I shouted,—and the young man heard me not. A second time I shouted,—and now he heard me, for now he raised his head.
Here, then, all had been done that, by me,couldbe done: more onmypart was not possible. Mine had been the first step: the second was for the young man: the third was for God. If, said I, the stranger is a brave man, and if, indeed, he loves the young girl at his side,—or, loving her not, if he feels the obligation pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided to his protection,—he will at least make some effort to save her. Ifthatfails, he will not perish the more, or by a death more cruel, for having made it; and he will die as a brave man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm about the woman that he sought in vain to save. But if he makes no effort, shrinking, without a struggle, from his duty, he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less: and why not? Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in the world? No;lethim perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl, who now, upon the least shadow of failure inhim, must, by the fiercest of translations,—must, without time fora prayer,—must, within seventy seconds, stand before the judgment-seat of God.
But craven he was not: sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was his answer to the call. He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down: already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and already he was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah! what a vulgar thing does courage seem, when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling a day: ah! what a sublime thing does courage seem, when some fearful crisis on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some mountainous wave, from which, accordingly as he chooses his course, he describes two courses, and a voice says to him audibly, “This way lies hope; take the other way and mourn forever!” Yet, even then, amidst the raving of the seas and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to confront his situation,—is able to retire for a moment into solitude with God, and to seek all his counsel fromhim! For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element in the conflict before him. For five seconds more he sat immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. For five he sat with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for wisdom to guide him towards the better choice. Then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a sudden strain upon the reins, raising his horse’s forefeet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant the little equipage in a position nearly at right anglesto ours. Thus far his condition was not improved; except as a first step had been taken towards the possibility of a second. If no more were done, nothing was done; for the little carriage still occupied the very centre of our path, though in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too late: fifteen of the twenty seconds may still be unexhausted; and one almighty bound forward may avail to clear the ground. Hurry then, hurry! for the flying moments—theyhurry! O, hurry, hurry, my brave young man! for the cruel hoofs of our horses—theyalso hurry! Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. Fear not forhim, if human energy can suffice: faithful was he that drove, to his terrific duty; faithful was the horse tohiscommand. One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand by the stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature’s forefeet upon the crown or arching centre of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our over-towering shadow:thatwas evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part of the carriage—wasthatcertainly beyond the line of absolute ruin? What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? Light does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig.Thatmustthe young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed,—that all was finished as regarded any further effort ofhis. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps in his heart he was whispering, “Father, which art above, do thou finish in heaven what I on earth have attempted.” We ran past them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight. O, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit! Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig, which stood rather obliquely and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. The blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded terrifically. I rose in horror, to look upon the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated station I looked down, and looked back upon the scene, which in a moment told its tale, and wrote all its records on my heart forever.
The horse was planted immovably, with his forefeet upon the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party was alone untouched by the passion of death. The little cany carriage,—partly perhaps from the dreadful torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it,—as if it sympathized with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man sat like a rock. He stirred not at all. Buthiswas the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he darednot to look round; for he knew that if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady—
But the lady,—O heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, despairing! Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of the unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night,—from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight,—from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love,—suddenly as from the woods and fields,—suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation,—suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death the crownéd phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice.
The moments were numbered. In the twinkling of an eye our flying horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle; at right angles we wheeled into our former direction; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams forever.