The clouds had passed away from the sky, the stars shone out clear and bright, when Edgar Adelon, with his cousin Eda, Edward Dudley, and Helen, stood by the bed-side of Mr. Clive; but the clouds of sorrow had not yet passed from the minds of any there present: the star of Hope was hidden, though it might still be in the sky. There was a surgeon sitting by the sick man's side, with his hand upon the pulse, Helen's eyes were fixed eagerly upon the face of the man of healing, but after a moment or two he raised his look to hers, and shook his head gravely.
"It is of no use, my child," said Clive, in a low and feeble tone. "I am on the eve of the long departure. I feel death gaining upon me fast; life is at an end, and with it manifold cares, sorrows, and apprehensions. I am going, I trust, to a happier place, where none of these things can disturb me, and where your beloved mother has long been awaiting me. This feeling, this hope, would make my going very tranquil, were it not that even now all the tender yearnings of a father's heart for the welfare of his child are as strong upon me as ever, Helen. Oh! who can ever know till they have felt it, what fears, what hopes, what thoughts, and cares for the beloved ones, rush through a father's heart and brain at every moment of existence, and make his life one long care for them. I ought not to let them disturb me now, in this last solemn scene; but still, Helen, your fate is my anxiety, my only anxiety."
Helen wept; but Edgar Adelon once more came forward to the dying man's bed-side, and said, with an earnest, though low-toned voice, "Be not anxious, Mr. Clive; sweep that anxiety away. Helen is mine, as soon as ever she will. I am now, alas, my own master, to do as I think best. I am certain that this is best;" and he took Helen's hand, and kissed it. "But there may be anxieties even beyond that, Mr. Clive," he added. "You may think that though she be the wife of Edgar Adelon, she may yet be an unhappy wife; but here I vow, as solemnly as man can vow anything, that my whole existence shall be devoted to her happiness. If ever any of those things which men say disturb domestic tranquillity: a hasty word, an angry feeling, a discontented thought should occur, although my deep love now tells me they cannot, I will think of this moment; I will think of this promise; I will think of the fate of my own dear mother; and I will hasten to atone to Helen with all my heart. You know me, Mr. Clive; you know how I have loved her from boyhood; and I think you will not doubt that I shall love her to the end."
"I do not doubt you, Edgar," said Mr. Clive, very, very faintly. "I have watched and known you from a boy, as you say, and I know that your enthusiasms, in love or friendship, are not only warm, but enduring. Mine have been so too, but there has been too much vehemence with me. I doubt not your intentions in the least either; but I only doubt that others may interfere to forbid that which you are yourself thoroughly disposed to perform. You say that you are your own master: I know not what you mean."
Edgar shook his head sadly, and replied, "My father has gone where her father is going. We have been children together, and we shall be orphans together. In all things our fate will be united. She is mine; I am hers; and in heart and spirit, in love and truth, in hopes and fears, in joys and sorrows, on this earth and I trust in heaven, we shall be one."
"Amen!" said Mr. Clive; and raising his hand, as if in the act of giving a solemn benediction, his head sunk back on the pillow, and the spirit took its flight.
* * * * * * * * * *
There were many tears shed at Brandon House and Clive Grange; and on one day, followed by the same mourners, carried to the same burial ground, that of the old Priory, the representatives of the ancient and noble houses of Adelon and Clive were committed to the earth. They had died in the same faith in which they and their ancestors lived; and a Roman Catholic priest, as amiable and excellent as he whom it has been my painful task in these pages to depict was base and evil, solemnised the last rites of their church amongst the mouldering remains of ages past away.
Some months went by, and Eda Brandon and Helen Clive kept their mourning state at the Grange, while Edgar took up his abode at the lodge of Brandon Park, and surrounded with books, seemed to forget himself in deep study, except during those hours which he spent with her he loved.
Dudley was absent more than once, and remained absent for several weeks at a time; but Eda Brandon did not think his passion cooled, and she knew there was no cause to suppose so; for he was engaged in sweeping the last trace of the convict from his name, and recording the proofs of his innocence in such a manner that doubt or shame could never visit him. He had property to claim, too, and to receive, which removed all suspicion that he sought wealth rather than love in his marriage with Eda Brandon; and towards the autumn, about the same period of the year when he had first visited Brandon Park, his fate was united with hers, on the same day that Helen became the wife of Edgar Adelon.
To say that every trace of the events which had so chequered Dudley's early life with dark shadows was swept away, even in the intense joy of his union with her he loved, would be false, for there was a shade rested upon him; but perhaps, although his happiness was of a graver cast than it might have been had unvarying prosperity shone upon his whole career, it was not less deep, less full, less enduring.
Edgar Adelon's joy in his marriage with Helen Clive was brighter and more lively. People somewhat wondered that the benediction of the Romish church was not asked to his union with Helen Clive; but it speedily became rumoured that both had, a few days before, in a quiet and unostentatious manner, renounced the errors in which they had been brought up. Inquiry had produced conviction, and they acted with open minds and clear consciences, knowing that neither persuasion, nor sophistry, nor interest, had been allowed to have any effect; but that the simple study of that holy Word, which is closed in so many countries of the earth to those who seek the waters of life, had given them a knowledge of the truth, which none could take from them.
The fate of Mr. Filmer remained a mystery. He was never again seen in England; but Captain M----, while on his bridal tour through Italy, wrote to his friends at Brandon, that amongst the monks at Camaldoli he had caught sight of a face which he was convinced was that of Father Peter; and it is certain that, not long after, with money which came from that country, Daniel Connor set out for Rome, and joined himself to a religious community of the most severe and penitential rule.
Martin Oldkirk was well provided for by Dudley and Edgar Adelon; and though he remained a stern and somewhat thoughtful man, and retained a feeling of wrathful grief at the remembrance that words of his, perverted by the priest, should have been used to destroy the happiness of an innocent and beloved mistress, yet his heart was softened by prosperity and opened to enjoyment.
Norries is still living in Australia. It is supposed he might have obtained a full pardon some time ago, if he had thought fit to apply for it; but such was not the case; and contented where he is, he goes on seeing a new population growing up around him, to whom, from time to time, he communicates his own transcendental notions on political subjects; but he has gained experience from the past, and whatever he may seek himself, or teach others to aim at, he always inculcates the doctrine, that moral force is the only just means by which a triumph can be obtained over injustice or wrong.
"The axe, the sword, and the pike," he says, "belonged to ages when the physical triumphed over the intellectual. The age of reason and of mental power has begun, and truth and argument are the weapons with which the bad must be conquered, and the good armed for battle. The thunder of a nation's voice is worth the roar of a thousand cannon; and knowledge, and conscience, and right, are arms which no armies can withstand."
Footnote 1: This word is usually wrongly writtenærie, as if derived fromaerorair, but I am convinced it comes from the German wordey, an egg.
Footnote 2: These fish in the Murrumbidgee and other rivers sometimes reach the weight of a hundred or a hundred and twenty pounds. They are evidently genuine perch, although the colonists call them river cod.
Footnote 3: The little history of a life here referred to, may be given to the public at a future period, as it is neither uninteresting nor uninstructive; but, for various reasons, it must not be printed at present.