Its smile and happy laugh are lost to thee,Earth must his mother and his pillow be.W. G.Clark.
Its smile and happy laugh are lost to thee,Earth must his mother and his pillow be.
W. G.Clark.
Mother, now thy task is done,Now thy vigil ended;With the coming of the sun,Grief and joy are blended.Grief that thus thy flower of loveFrom its stem is riven;Joy that will bloom above,Midst the bowers of Heaven.Gone, as oft expires the lightOf thy nightly taper:Gone, as 'fore the sunshine bright,Early morning's vapor.Kiss its lips so mute and cold,Cold as chiselled marble,They will now to harp of goldGlad Hosannas warble.At the last they sweetly smiled,Told it not for gladness;Would'st thou now recall thy childTo a world of sadness?It is hard to gather up,Ties so rudely riven;But thou'lt find this bitter cupFor thy weal was given.Kiss again its hands so white,Kiss its marble forehead;Soon the grave will hide from sight,That thou only borrowed.Thou will meet thy child again,Where no death or sorrowBring their sad to-day of pain,And their dread to-morrow.
Mother, now thy task is done,Now thy vigil ended;With the coming of the sun,Grief and joy are blended.
Grief that thus thy flower of loveFrom its stem is riven;Joy that will bloom above,Midst the bowers of Heaven.
Gone, as oft expires the lightOf thy nightly taper:Gone, as 'fore the sunshine bright,Early morning's vapor.
Kiss its lips so mute and cold,Cold as chiselled marble,They will now to harp of goldGlad Hosannas warble.
At the last they sweetly smiled,Told it not for gladness;Would'st thou now recall thy childTo a world of sadness?
It is hard to gather up,Ties so rudely riven;But thou'lt find this bitter cupFor thy weal was given.
Kiss again its hands so white,Kiss its marble forehead;Soon the grave will hide from sight,That thou only borrowed.
Thou will meet thy child again,Where no death or sorrowBring their sad to-day of pain,And their dread to-morrow.
FOOTNOTES:[L]This poem, in an unfinished form, was published some months ago inSartain's Magazine. It has since been re-written for theInternational, and is now much more than before deserving of the applause with which it was received.
[L]This poem, in an unfinished form, was published some months ago inSartain's Magazine. It has since been re-written for theInternational, and is now much more than before deserving of the applause with which it was received.
[L]This poem, in an unfinished form, was published some months ago inSartain's Magazine. It has since been re-written for theInternational, and is now much more than before deserving of the applause with which it was received.
How the Brooklet was born; and lodged; and wandered off one rainy day.
How the Brooklet was born; and lodged; and wandered off one rainy day.
There was once a Brooklet born of a modest spring that circled through a smiling meadow. All the hours of the Spring, and the Summer, and the Autumn, kept she her musical round; greeting the sun at his rising, together with the meadow-larks which came to dip their beaks in the sparkling water-drops; and singing to the moon and stars all night, as she bore their features within her bosom, in grateful remembrance of their beauty. The laborer in the field hard by often came to visit her, and wet his honest, toil-browned brow with her cooling drops; and often, too, the laborer's daughter came at sunset time to sit by a mossy stone, with so lovely a face that the Brooklet, as she mirrored the features of the beautiful visitor, leaped about the pebbles with ripplings of admiration.
And so this Brooklet lived on, only ceasing her merry flow and circling journey when the bushes by her side became white with snow, and when the rabbits from the brushwood fence at her head came out to stand upon the slippery casing that the Brooklet often saw spreading over her, and shutting out the warm sunshine by day, and at nightfall blurring the radiance of moon and stars.
One stormy spring day the Brooklet seemed to rise higher among the twigs of the alder-bushes than ever before; the rain came down faster and heavier, and beat into her bosom, until her tiny waves were rough and sore with pain, and she was fain to nestle closer to the sedgy grass that now bent lowly to the pebbles at the roots. Growing higher every minute was the Brooklet; and frightened somewhat, and longing for the sunlight, or the laborer, and for the lovely daughter's face to cheer her up, she looked off over a track of country wider and greener than she had ever seen before. And so the Brooklet, all frightened as she was, said to herself, "I'll run along a bit into this country spot, so wide and green, and maybe I shall find the sunlight and the lovely face."
Faster came the rain; and so the Brooklet, leaping wildly over a rock whose top until then her eyes had never seen, went flowing on upon this country spot, so wide and green. The new sights coming in view at every bound quite made the Brooklet forget her terrors from the beating rain; she was pained no longer by the heavy drops, but soothed herself among the velvet grass; and turned between little flowers scarcely above the ground, and which, as she passed them, seemed to be as frightened by the wind and rain as herself had been before the meadow was left behind.
The Brooklet had thus run on until she saw the country spot so wide and green was well passed over, and trees and bushes, darker and thicker than she had ever known before, were close at hand. And while she thought of stopping in her way and going back, she heard not far before an echo of a sound most like unto her own; and so kept on to find it out. Clearer and louder increased the sound, as now through mouldy leaves and dark thickets, and under decayed logs and insect-burrowed moss, she kept a course, until presently, over a fallen tree, she saw a Brooklet, larger, wider, and evidently much older than herself, which, on her near approach, ran by the fallen tree's side, and said, "Good morning, sister: what is so delicate a being, as you seem to be, doing in this dark forest?"
The wanderer Brooklet became silent with wonder. She had never been addressed before, though often trying to talk with the laborer, and to the lovely face of her meadow acquaintance, without the slightest notice upon their part of the overtures.
"Good morning, sister, I say," was repeated over the fallen tree. "Where are you going at so slow a pace? Come over, and let us talk a bit."
"I cannot, for I am terribly frightened, and I've lost my way. I want to quit this dark place, and go where I can hear the lark again, and see the pretty face which used to look at mine when I was circling in yonder meadow, now, I fear, far, far behind."
"Larks and pretty faces, indeed! Why what a spooney sister, you are, to be sure. I'll show you more birds than ever you heard sing before, and prettier faces than ever you saw before."
"No, no, I must go back," replied the wanderer; "I have come too far already, and see, the rain has almost ceased."
"More's the pity for that," returned the other; "the faster it rains the faster I go, and that is what I want. I have left my family brooks a long time since, and I'm going on my travels to be somebody. I'm tired of my lonesome life among the meadows. I'm theambitious Brooklet. Come over, then, and go along; we'll travel the faster in company."
"I'm not ambitious; and as you may see, I cannot come."
"You're almost to the log top now. I'll kiss you soon," triumphed the ambitious Brooklet, circling gayly round a tuft of green.
It must have been the terrible rain, or the fright of her dark journeying place, that had taken her strength away:—the wandering Brooklet felt that it must be: for now her strength of will was almost gone. Nearer the log top came in view, until with a bound she swept its polished surface, and with a dash came over upon the ambitious Brooklet.
"Good! that's the way to do it; now we shall journey gayly on," said the latter, "I have lost much time in stopping here, and there are such rare sights ahead!"
The wanderer felt the oddest sensations she had ever known, and said, "Sister—ambitious sister—how much warmer than I are you!"
"Oh, you are young, I suppose—fresh fromthe icy spring. But journey on more southward yet, away from these dark trees, and you'll be warmer yet; come, I say."
"I like your feel; but then I shall be lost, I know I shall; and so I'll stay behind."
"You cannot; for, ambitious as I am, I want your help. See how much faster we travel together when your strength is joined to mine; and I'm the strongest, and you can't go back."
The wandering Brooklet looked fearfully around, and saw indeed that the log she had leaped was now fast fading away, and felt that her strength became less and less as the ambitious Brooklet clung closer to her side.
Presently they came in sight of a ledge of rocks. "Oh, this is rare indeed!" said the stronger sister Brooklet, "Let us pause a bit for breath, and then for a merry leap adown the valley of pines you see before."
The Brooklets stopped, and became stronger, and leaped over the rocks; the one with an exulting bound—the other carried tremblingly along.
The leap was a long one, and a hard one; for there were craggy rocks beneath, which they had not seen. And the ambitious Brooklet cried sharply and loudly—foaming in her rage as she went between the stony points, and quite forgetting her weaker sister in her pain. The latter was sorely injured too, and cut into little foam-bits; but she kept her wits about her, looking around everywhere for a place to rest. Soon she espied one—a little bowl of marshy ground, hemmed in by rocks, into which a straggling dropping from the chasm above slowly came.
"Here will I go and rest," she said. So waiting for the ambitious Brooklet to get far out of sight, she collected all her strength for a jump into the bowl, where the drops came sparkling in. There was no need for fear of the sister on before; her she heard going over rock after rock, crying and wailing in her craggy journey. Then the tired wanderer, with a violent effort of her exhausted strength, jumped a rock and fell panting into the marshy bowl.
How the Brooklet lived on in her new quarters; and how misfortune made her discontented.
How the Brooklet lived on in her new quarters; and how misfortune made her discontented.
The dropping of the water from the rocks above her new abode, was cold and grateful to the Brooklet in her fevered state. It made her think of the spring she came from; and so of the meadow; and the alder-bushes; and the lovely face a weary way off now she knew, and fenced away from her return by cruel jagged rocks.
Days passed by; and the sun came out all brightly. And the moon and stars were seen again; and larger and sweeter birds than she had heard before, now perched upon the trees about, warbling and chirruping from day-break to twilight. So the time passed on. The wanderer began to feel unsettled in her solitude. But there was no return by the path she came; still were the sharp rocks seen above; and still she felt a twinge of pain when thinking of her weary journey on that rainy day. Often too she thought of her ambitious sister, wondering where she was now and what she was about; and sometimes she almost fancied she would have been happier had she gone along. It was quite evident to herself that she was getting discontented.
There was one pleasure she prized much. Following in the train of the ambitious Brooklet had been a score of fishes, which, frightened by the leap upon the jagged rocks, had staid behind with the timid wanderer, until they became part of her family in the new retreat. Overlooking, and enjoying the gambols of these fish, the discontented Brooklet often amused herself. Observing how when the sun came slanting through the sides of the foliage about, they would dart out from their hiding-places in the old dead leaves at the feet of the Brooklet, and so jump up to greet the warming rays: or how, when a fly fell down from the overhanging boughs, and tried to swim away, they would jump to nab a bit of lunch, scrabbling and tugging as they went; or how, when the largest fish of all threw off his dignity, and played with them at hide and seek under the foot-deep bottom of mud, they would all shoot about her life-blood drops without regard to the angles of pain their fins would leave behind!
Thus the summer-time came on, and was passing by, when one day the Brooklet felt a shadow upon her, and looked up to see the cause—when high upon the rocks above, there stood a bright-eyed boy, with curling locks that blew about in golden beauty with the breeze. In his hand he held a little stick, which he turned over from time to time, and would take up and then lay it down, as if preparing for something wonderful. The curiosity of the Brooklet was aroused to know what he could mean, when presently she saw him sit upon the rock, and from the stick drop down upon her face a worm, which when the fishes saw they darted out to eat.
"It is a beautiful boy; and a kind boy," said the artless Brook unto herself; "and he has come to feed the little fishes with a worm. I have not seen one since I left my little meadow on that rainy day. How like the lovely face I used to see, is his which now looks down."
While thus the Brook was soliloquizing, a fish more cunning than the rest, had seized the worm within his mouth, and was swimming away to his favorite hole by an old willow stump to there complete a meal. He was just entering it, when the Brook saw him suddenly flash from her embrace, floundering and pulling as he went up, up through the air, unto the mossy bank above the rock from which fell the shadow of the boy. And now the Brook, more curious than ever, saw the face so like the laborer's daughter overspread with smiles as the tiny hands grasped the fish, and with a wrench tore out the worm from his gills, a piece ofwhich fell on the Brook athwart the shadow of the laugher.
"What a fine one!" said the boy, and started up;—started up to slip against a smooth worn stone, and fall over the rock into the Brook, close by the willow stump; the captive fish held tightly as he went, but slipping from the falling grasp into its welcome element once more.
The Brook had never felt so hard a blow before. The rain and hail were nothing to this. It made her splash and leap and swell against the rocky bank, until she could have called with pain.
How still the boy laid on her breast! his head against the willow stump, over which there trickled a tiny purple stream smaller than the spring-drops from the rock! How richly his golden locks floated upon the Brook! but how widely strained his bright blue eyes glaring at the sky and tree-tops above, and how he gasped from his mouth; a mouth so like the one the laborer had often prest in harvest-time to the Brook, when it was yet circling in the meadow! The Brook said to herself, "I will put some of my ripples into this mouth, as I have seen the laborer do; perhaps, like him, it will make his eye sparkle, and send him away again; for he lies heavy on my breast." And so the ripples went into the opened mouth by dozens; but the blue sky and tree-tops faded from his eyes, and the lips lost their bright color, and the purple trickling on the willow stump grew thick and settled into a dark pool.
All night the dead boy lay upon the breast of the Brook; and the fishes played around him, wondering what it was; and the little insects hopped over him at early sunlight; until the purple pool dried up, and only left a stain behind.
And soon the Brook heard the hum of voices sounding over the rocks, as she listened from her solitude; and soon more shadows fell upon her face. Then looking up she saw the laborer once again; and the Brook rejoiced to think perhaps she was going back again into her pleasant meadow. He had taken up the stick the boy had used; and was looking down below upon the Brook, as the face—the lovely face, with more of the old sorrow in it—of the laborer's daughter, raised itself above his shoulder.
"My brother!—drowned and dead!—and no more to come home alive to share his sister's home."
This the Brook heard, and the fishes swam away into their holes, as piercing, sorrowful human tones mingled with the passing breeze; and they struck deeper into the willow roots as a pair of brawny arms readied out and caught the dead boy, and carried him away.
The boy was gone, but the stain was there; and still a weight remained upon the Brook. For still day after day a shadow fell upon her, and the Brook looking up beheld the lovely but mournful face of the sorrowing sister, who would sit upon the mossy bank and sigh a sob; kissing a lock of golden hair the while. And heavier grew the weight on the breast of the Brook, as scalding tears fell from the rock above upon her face.
And now the Brook again became discontented: and thought of her ambitious sister; and what might have happened had she followed after on a weary round of travels. The old meadow and the alders were out of the question now: for the winter was coming on, and the laborer and the lovely face would no more come to her side; and if they did they would sing no more, but sigh and sob, and look so sad, as now, upon the mossy rock above.
The summer weather was long over; and the leaves were showering down, and had quite hidden the clouds and blue sky, and moon and stars from the sight of the Brook. The birds had ceased to sit and warble on the trees above. The breezes ceased their music, and instead were heard the hoarse notes of the Autumn wind.
How the Brooklet and the Mountain-Torrent met.
How the Brooklet and the Mountain-Torrent met.
One day the leaves thickened more than ever over the Brook, and, as she peeped between, she saw the clouds were heavier and darker than usual. The wind roared louder, and the trees which grew so high above her bent down their branches until they brushed her face with their trailing. And soon the rain began to fall in torrents; and it fell and fell all day; all night too. Then the Brook rejoiced to think the leaves which she had been angry with before for choking her, protected from the pattering strokes. And soon the Brook heard a sound, like that made by her ambitious sister in the spring-time;—nearer and nearer it came; through the trees; over the rocks; tearing, splashing, dashing, and foaming at a direful rate.
"It is my ambitious sister come for me. I'm glad," said the discontented Brook.
"Glad of what?" exclaimed a roaring voice, coming over the rock, and sweeping away the leaves as if they had been a mere handful; and covering up the ugly purple stain upon the willow stump. "Ain't I a famous fellow, though? When once my blood is up, can't I go on and frighten people? Can't I mine out the earth, and sweep along big trees like boats? Can't I tumble down the rocks that dare to stop my path? Can't I drown men and boys, and all the cattle in the land? I've swallowed a dozen haystacks for my breakfast, and killed the finest mill-dam over the world this morning. I said I would as soon as winter came, when they dammed me up last spring, so many miles away! Oh, such a mass of stone and timber which they put up to fret me in my path; and what a joke to think this solid mass is scattered through the land since yesternight, and I am free once more."
"This is not my ambitious sister! no indeed," murmured the Brook.
"Why here is a little Brook," continued the voice, "a dainty, prudish, modest Brook, collected in a hole to die! Come out, my fair one! I will wed thee, as I have wedded fifty thousand of your sex in my short day! Come out; no fear; if I am the Mountain-Torrent, I'm not so great a monster as they say, especially to hurt a modest Brook."
So saying the Mountain-Torrent caught up the shrinking Brook in his powerful embrace, and away they hurried through the very heart of the forest, miles and miles below.
"This, this is life indeed," said the wedded Brook, once more a wanderer over the land, as with a thousand other Brooks they travelled on for many hours with impetuous speed, making dreadful havoc everywhere they touched. Havoc among the farmers and the villagers, who fought them inch by inch, with sticks and trees, and mounds of stone and clay, all which they licked up and swallowed, as if they had been pebbles and clumps of leaves. Havoc with the Creeks upon the route, who dared to scorn their overtures, and wed the Torrent, willingly; for spurning the placid, humble Creeks one side, they tore along their paths, and vented their fury on the bridges overhead, bringing down in general destruction, turnpikes and railroads with their pressing weight of travel.
Havoc to themselves!
For, tearing on so madly, the Mountain-Torrent, after a while, perceived his strength to fail, and his endurance to give out. But still he hurried on, though feebly, in hopes to meet more Brooks, perhaps a Lake, and so recruit himself the while. The wedded Brook was wearied too—a little; not much; at first the Mountain-Torrent had held her tightly in embrace, and carried her along with scarcely an effort; but as he wearied himself, much of the toil was thrown upon the Brook, and she was compelled to help herself. On went the Torrent, weaker every step, until at last he stopped and said:
"Oh wedded Brook! my strength is gone; here must I pause; but you go on. Perhaps before long I shall meet you again. Go slowly; over the meadows and through the villages make me a path; I'll know which way you went."
And so they parted; and so the lonely Brook meandered on, and finding out a bubbling spring, was well recruited for the journey. As she went she heard, across a little knoll, a remembered voice, and stopped. "I know you, sister Brook," cried out the voice, "go on a bit and turn towards your left, and there I'll meet you."
And towards the left the lonely Brook met her ambitious sister. She was violent no more; but sober and sedate; calm as the evening sky reflected from her face.
"I'm the 'ambitious one,'" said she, "ambitious yet, though all my strength has departed. Here on this spot was I caught and fastened up. They darkened my daylight with that smoking monster yonder, and killed my peace of mind with such a horrid din and clang, I've not a morsel of energy left. I'm a factory slave; and so are you, too, for that matter, now! Don't start; it's not my fault—the way that you were going on, you would have brought up in the Pond below, where there is yet another smoking monster; only worse than this of mine. The Pond there is a horrid fellow; poisoning with some horrid purple dye: I've seen him often when I venture near the dam and look below."
"Sister, take courage," cried the other Brook. "I'm glad I met you. I'm ambitious too, for I was lately wedded to a glorious fellow, and have been on such a glorious tour: scampering over all the land. He calls himself the 'Mountain-Torrent.' He is now behind a mile or so, and may be down upon us before long, to free us from this distressing imprisonment you speak of."
The monster smoked on; and the clanging din about maddened all the air. Huge wheels went racking and rumbling under huge brick walls. And day by day, a minute at a time, some youthful faces, pale and shadowy, looked wistfully upon the landscape below. But little knew the monster, and the clanging din, and racking wheels; and little hoped the shadowy faces of what the Brooklets plotted at the very factory door.
How the Mountain-Torrent freed the Brooks; and their fate.
How the Mountain-Torrent freed the Brooks; and their fate.
The frost dropped on the Brooks, and once more blurred the moon and stars, and shut the sunlight out; and starred a thousand jewels on the mill-dam's brow; and sparkled a myriad icicles from the rumbling wheels. Far away into the country it spread a white mantle, and froze into the very heart of all the Ponds and Creeks above. And then the sun came out and shone so brightly; and then the clouds over-covered it, and the rain came pattering down as of the olden time, when first its peltings stung the meadow Brook and tempted her to roam. And higher swelled the Brooks behind their mill-dam prison, and sent more of their life-blood to refresh the poisoned Pond below.
"I am getting stronger; I am very strong to-day, sister Brook," said the ambitious one. "I think that with our efforts now united, we can push this mill-dam over and escape."
"Wait for my darling Mountain-Torrent. I hear him on his way; he follows after us. And see down yonder hill-side how he tears along; and hark! how gladly, as he sees us from his rocky bed, he roars a song of courage."
And the sister Brooks triumphed together as they saw the keepers of the smoking monster cease their clanging din, and rush for timbers to uphold the dam; and fly about with tools that were but baby toys for what was coming now.
"Bring trees; bring stones; bring everything," cried out the Brooks, as they saw the Mountain-Torrent come rushing nearer on, sweeping away the fences, and ploughing out a path more fitting for his travels than the brookside one he kept in view.
"Welcome, my fair ones," roared he, as with heavy timbers in his maw he caught the Brooks again in strong embrace, and dashing at the smoking monster, knocked him down at once. Down came the mill-dam with an earthquake noise; the din upon the air was not of clanging tools and hammer stroke; the wheels were racking and rumbling, not beneath brick walls, but over the rocks and ruined factories below; while the pale and shadowy faces looked no longer wistfully on the landscape, but madly rushed about to spread the tale of ruin through the land.
The same old thing! The same old journey over the country. The same old havoc as they went. But the strength of a thousand Brooks seemed given to the Mountain-Torrent as, looking miles away, he saw a wide expanse of water fringed with brown and bluish lines. "It is the Ocean, fair ones," cried he; "when your feeble sights shall see it, bless my power, for at length we reach a home no art of man can invade to fetter us or bind us down. Ten millions of our species mingle there; in small harmony it is true, but better fight among ourselves than ever thus to wage a war with man. Now too approaches the time of our revenge: we'll take his life; we'll sink his ships; we'll break his boasted wealth into uncounted atoms, and scatter it."
The Brooks trembled in the strong grasp of the Mountain-Torrent to hear the vehemence with which he spoke these threatening words; but lost their fears in greater astonishment, as now they neared the ocean waste, fringed with the lines of brown and blue of which he spoke.
"Why, sister, what a noise!" cried one of the Brooks, "our own is not to be heard."
"See what a dreadful wall appears to rise and fall as we approach," answered the other. And they both clung closer to the embrace of the Torrent as he crossed the beach they reached at last, and plunged, with sticks and stones and all, upon the wall of foam and sand, which parted as the Mountain-Torrent and the Brooks joined forces with oldOcean'ssolemn waste.
In an instant the meadow-born Brook writhed in pain, pressed on by thousands of Mountain-Torrents every way at once. She foamed and fought, and fought and foamed; under and over, up and below she plunged, but no escape; one weary work for ages yet to come!
"Revenge once more! Gather and rage! Dash to ruin ships and sailors!" growled a tone which made the writhing Brook tremble into a million foam-beads, as simultaneously a roaring Tempest clattered by with thunder and lightning in its train, while a clashing hiss, as of something rushing madly through the water, bade the Brook—the sea-slave Brook—look up.
No time for thought; for still the tone was heard, "Revenge once more! gather and rage! dash to ruin ship and sailors!" And still the tempest clattered, and still the hissing of the gallant ship's prow was heard cleaving the maddened waves. On, on! a dash; a crash; a march of maddening waves; a stunning tempest howl, and then the hiss was heard no more. But far and wide were hurried and mashed in one chaotic mass the fragments of the gallant ship.
"How wise he is; how true my Mountain-Torrent spoke," thought the frightened sea-slave Brook, as the clattering tempest, with thunder and lightning in its train, passed out of sight and hearing leagues beyond. "And now I'll rest me on this sandy beach, for this ambitious life is wearisome indeed."
And she nestled closely to a rock, and so crept into grateful rest. But as she lay, she looked beyond her sandy bed to see the lovely face of her early meadow life, when she was but a humble Brook. Pale and ghastly it lay upon a rounded stone; the hair floating out like fairy circles from the marked brow, and on the temple such a purple thickened stain as once had been upon the willow stump.
The Brook came by her side and watched her gently as she lay. Then going farther out, the Brook brought strings of sea-weed, and strung them gayly and softly round her form, and watched her thus again. "Here will I stay," thought the Brook, "and fancy I am still in the sunlight meadow before I wandered forth into ambitious company. There's nought but trouble and pain crossed my path since the rainy days of the latest spring-time. Here will I stay, and ever mourn that I listened to ambitious counselling."
A writer in the January number ofFraser's Magazine, at the conclusion of a tale crammed with the intensest horrors, presents us with one instance in which the architect of such machinery was foiled.
When the recital was finished, and the company were well-nigh breathless with its skilfully cumulative terror, cried Tremenheere—
"Humph! that is rather an uncomfortable story to go to bed upon."
And presently—
"You have been lately in Spain, Melton; what news from Seville?"
"Oh," replied Melton, "you must have heard of Don Juan de Muraña, of terrible memory?"
"Not we," said they.
"One gloomy evening Don Juan de Muraña was returning along the quay where the Golden Tower looks down upon the Guadalquivir, so lost in thought that it was some time before he perceived that his cigar had gone out, though he was one of the most determined smokers in Spain. He looked about him, and beheld on the other side of the broad river an individual whose brilliant cigar sparkled like a star of the first magnitude at every aspiration.
"Don Juan, who, thanks to the terror which he had inspired, was accustomed to see all the world obedient to his caprices, shouted to the smoker to come across the river and give him a light.
"The smoker, without taking that trouble, stretched out his arm towards the Don, and so effectually that it traversed the river like a bridge, and presented to Don Juan a glowing cigar, which smelt most abominably of sulphur.
"If Don Juan felt something like a rising shudder, he suppressed it, coolly lighted his own cigar at that of the smoker, and went on his way, singing,Los Toros a la puerta."
"But who was the smoker?"
"Who could he be, but the Prince of Darkness in person, who had laid a wager with Pluto that he would frighten Don Juan De Muraña, and went back to his place furious at having lost?
"If you would learn more of Don Juan de Muraña, how he went to his own funeral, and died at last in the odor of sanctity, read that most spirited series of letters,De Paris à Cadix, wherein Alexander Dumas has surpassed himself. And now, Good night!"
Occasionally in the life of man, as in the life of the world—History—or in the course of a stream towards the sea, come quiet lapses, sunny and calm, reflecting nothing but the still motionless objects around, or the blue sky and moving clouds above. Often too we find that this tranquil expanse of silent water follows quickly after some more rapid movement, comes close upon some spot where a dashing rapid has diversified the scene, or a cataract, in roar and confusion and sparkling terror, has broken the course of the stream.
Such a still pause, silent of action—if I may use the term—followed the events which I have related in the last chapter, extending over a period of nearly six months. Nothing happened worthy of any minute detail. Peace and tranquillity dwelt in the various households which I have noticed in the course of this story, enlivened in that of Sir Philip Hastings by the gay spirit of Emily Hastings, although somewhat shadowed by the sterner character of her father; and in the household of Mrs. Hazleton brightened by the light of hope, and the fair prospect of success in all her schemes which for a certain time continued to open before her.
Mr. Marlow only spent two days at her house, and then went away to London, but whatever effect her beauty might have produced upon him, his society, brief as it was, served but to confirm her feelings towards him, and before he left her, she had made up her mind fully and entirely, with her characteristic vigor and strength of resolution, that her marriage with Mr. Marlow was an event which must and should be. There was under this conviction, but not the less strong, not the less energetic, not the less vehement, for being concealed even from herself—a resolution that no sacrifice, no fear, no hesitation at any course, should stand in the way of her purpose. She did not anticipate many difficulties certainly; for Mr. Marlow clearly admired her; but the resolution was, that if difficulties should arise, she would overcome them at all cost. Hers was one of those characters of which the world makes its tragedies, having within itself passions too strong and deep to be frequently excited—as the more profound waters which rise into mountains when once in motion require a hurricane to still them—together with that energetic will, that fixed unbending determination, which like the outburst of a torrent from the hills, sweeps away all before it. But let it be ever remembered that her energies were exerted upon herself as well as upon others, not in checking passion, not in limiting desire, but in guarding scrupulously every external appearance, guiding every thought and act with careful art towards its destined object. Mrs. Hazleton suffered Mr. Marlow to be in London more than a month before she followed to conclude the mere matters of business between them. It cost her a great struggle with herself, but in that struggle she was successful, and when at length she went, she had several interviews with him. Circumstances—that great enemy of schemes, was against her. Sometimes lawyers were present at their interviews, sometimes impertinent friends; but Mrs. Hazleton did not much care: she trusted to the time he was speedily about to pass in the country, for the full effect, and in the meantime took care that nothing but the golden side of the shield should be presented to her knight.
The continent was at that time open to Englishmen for a short period, and Mr. Marlow expressed his determination of going to the Court of Versailles for a month or six weeks before he came down to take possession of Hartwell place, everything now having been settled between them in regard to business.
Mrs. Hazleton did not like his determination, yet she did not much fear the result; for Mr. Marlow was preëminently English, and never likely to weal a French woman. Still she resolved that he should see her under another aspect before he went. She was a great favorite of the Court of those days; her station, her wealth, her beauty, and her grace rendered her a brightness and an ornament wherever she came. She was invited to one of the more private though not less splendid assemblies at the Palace, and she contrived that Mr. Marlow should be invited also, though neither by nature or habit a courtier. She obtained the invitationfor him skilfully, saying to the Royal Personage of whom she asked it, that as he won a lawsuit against her, she wished to show him that she bore no malice. He went, and found her the brightest in the brilliant scene; the great and the proud, the handsome and the gay, all bending down and worshipping, all striving for a smile, and obtaining it but scantily. She smiled uponhim, however, not sufficiently to attract remark from others, but quite sufficiently to mark a strong distinction for his own eyes, if he had chosen to use them. He went away to France, and Mrs. Hazleton returned to the country; the winter passed with her in arranging his house for him; and, in so doing, she often had to write to him. His replies were always prompt, kind, and grateful; and at length came the spring, and the pleasant tidings that he was on his way back to his beloved England.
Alas for human expectation! Alas for the gay day-dream of youth—maturity—middle age—old age—for they have all their daydreams! Every passion which besets man from the cradle to the grave has its own visionary expectations. Each creature, each animal, from the tiger to the beetle, has its besetting insect, which preys upon it, gnaws it, irritates it, and so have all the ages of the soul and of the heart. Alas for human speculation of all kinds! Alas for every hope and aspiration! for those that are pure and high, but, growing out of earth, bear within themselves the bitter seeds of disappointment; and those that are dark or low produce the germ of the most poisonous hybrid, where disappointment is united with remorse.
Happy is the man that expecteth nothing, for verily he shall not be disappointed! It is a quaint old saying; and could philosophy ever stem the course of God's will, it would be one which, well followed, might secure to man some greater portion of mortal peace than he possesses. But to aspire was the ordinance of God; and, viewed rightly, the withering of the flowers upon each footstep we have taken upwards, is no discouragement; for if we shape our path aright, there is a wreath of bright blossoms crowning each craggy peak before us, as we ascend to snatch the garland of immortal glory, placed just beyond the last awful leap of death.
Mrs. Hazleton's aspirations, however, were all earthly. She thought of little beyond this life. She had never been taught so to think. There are some who are led astray from the path of noble daring, to others as difficult and more intricate, by some loud shout of passion on the right or on the left—and seek in vain to return; some who, misled by an apparent similarity in the course of two paths, although the finger post says, "Thus shalt thou go!" think that the way so plainly beaten, and so seemingly easy, must surely lead them to the same point. Others again never learn to read the right path from the wrong (and she was one), while others shut their eyes to all direction, fix their gaze upon the summit, and strain up, now amidst flowers and now amidst thorns, till they are cast back from the face of some steep precipice, to perish in the descent or at the foot.
Mrs. Hazleton's aspirations were all earthly; and that was the secret of her only want in beauty. That divine form, that resplendent face, beamed with every earthly grace: sparkled forth mind and intellect in every glance, but they were wanting in soul, in spirit, and in heart. Life was there, but the life of life, the intense flame of immortal, over-earthly intelligence, was wanting. She might be the grandest animal that ever was seen, the most bright and capable intellect that ever dealt with mortal things; but the fine golden chain which leads on the electric fire from intellectual eminence to spiritual preëminence, from mind to soul, from earth to heaven, was wanting, or had been broken. Her loveliness none could doubt, her charm of manner none could deny, her intellectual superiority all admitted, her womanly softness added a grace beyond them all; but there was one grace wanting—the grace of a high, holy soul, which, in those who have it, be they fair, be they ugly, pours forth as an emanation from every look and every action, and surrounds them with a cloud of radiance, faintly imaged by the artist's glory round a saint.
Alas for human aspirations! Alas for the expectations of this fair frail creature! How eagerly she thought of Mr. Marlow's return! how she had anticipated their meeting again! How she had calculated upon all that would be said and done during the next few weeks! The first news she received was that he had arrived, and with a few servants had taken possession of his new dwelling. She remained all day in her own house; she ordered no carriage; she took no walk: she tried to read; she played upon various instruments of music; she thought each instant he would come, at least for a few minutes, to thank her for all the care she had bestowed to make his habitation comfortable. The sun gilded the west; the melancholy moon rose up in solemn splendor; the hours passed by, and he came not.
The next morning, she heard that he had ridden over to the house of Sir Philip Hastings, and indignation warred with love in her bosom. She thought he must certainly come that day, and she resolved angrily to upbraid him for his want of courtesy. Luckily, however, for her, he did not come that day; and a sort of melancholy took possession of her. Luckily, I say; for when passion takes hold of a scheme it is generally sure to shake it to pieces, and that melancholy loosens the grasp of passion for a time. The next day he did come, and with an air so easy and unconscious of offence as almost to provoke her into vehemence again. He knew not what she felt—he had no idea of how he had been looked for. He was as ignorant that she had ever thought of him as a husband, as she was that he hadever compared her in his mind to his own mother.
He talked quietly, indifferently, of his having been over to the house of Sir Philip Hastings, adding merely—not as an excuse, but as a simple fact—that he had been unable to call there as he had promised before leaving the country. He dilated upon the kind reception he had met with from Lady Hastings, for Sir Philip was absent upon business; and he went on to dwell rather largely upon the exceeding beauty and great grace of Emily Hastings.
Oh how Mrs. Hazleton hated her! It requires but a few drops of poison to envenom a whole well.
He did worse: he proceeded to descant upon her character—upon the blended brightness and deep thought—upon the high-souled emotions and child-like sparkle of her disposition—upon the simplicity and complexity, upon the many-sided splendor of her character, which, like the cut diamond, reflected each ray of light in a thousand varied and dazzling hues. Oh how Mrs. Hazleton hated her—hated, because for the first time she began to fear. He had spoken to her in praise of another woman—with loud encomiums too, with a brightened eye, and a look which told her more than his words. These were signs not to be mistaken. They did not show in the least that he loved Emily Hastings, and that she knew right well; but they showed that he did not love her; and there was the poison in the cup.
So painful, so terrible was the sensation, that, with all her mastery over herself, she could not conceal the agony under which she writhed. She became silent, grave, fell into fits of thought, which clouded the broad brow, and made the fine-cut lip quiver. Mr. Marlow was surprised and grieved. He asked himself what could be the matter. Something had evidently made her sorrowful, and he could not trace the sorrow to its source; for she carefully avoided uttering one word in depreciation of Emily Hastings. In this she showed no woman's spirit. She could have stabbed her, had the girl been there in her presence; but she would not scratch her. Petty spite was too low for her, too small for the character of her mind. Hers was a heart capable of revenge, and would be satisfied with nothing less.
Mr. Marlow soothed her, spoke to her kindly, tenderly, tried to lead her mind away, to amuse, to entertain her. Oh, it was all gall and bitterness to her. He might have cursed, abused, insulted her, without, perhaps—diminishing her love—certainly without inflicting half the anguish that was caused by his gentle words. It is impossible to tell all the varied emotions that went on in her heart—at least for me. Shakspeare could have done it, but none less than Shakspeare. For a moment she knew not whether she loved or hated him; but she soon felt and knew it was love; and the hate, like lightning striking a rock, and glancing from the solid stone to rend a sapling, all turned away from him, to fall upon the head of poor unconscious Emily Hastings.
Though she could not recover from the blow she had received, yet she soon regained command over herself, conversed, smiled, banished absorbing thoughts, answered calmly, pertinently, even spoke in her own bright, brilliant way, with a few more figures and ornaments of speech than usual; for figures are things rather of the head than of the heart, and it was from the head that she was now speaking.
At length Mr. Marlow took his leave, and for the first time in life she was glad he was gone.
Mrs. Hazleton gave way to no burst of passion: she shed not a tear; she uttered no exclamation. That which was within her heart, was too intense for any such ordinary expression. She seated herself at a table, leaned her head upon her hand, and fixed her eyes upon one bright spot in the marquetry. There she sat for more than an entire hour, without a motion, and in the meantime what were the thoughts that passed through her brain? We have shown the feelings of her heart enough.
She formed plans; she determined her course; she looked around for means. Various persons suggested themselves to her mind as instruments. The three women, I have mentioned in a preceding chapter—the good sort of friends. But it was an agent she wanted, not a confidant. No, no, Mrs. Hazleton knew better than to have a confidant. She was her own best council-keeper, and she knew it. Nevertheless, these good ladies might serve to act in subordinate parts, and she assigned to each of them their position in her scheme with wonderful accuracy and skill. As she did so, however, she remembered that it was by the advice of Mrs. Warmington that she had brought Mr. Marlow to Hartwell Place; and in her heart's secret chamber she gave her fair friend a goodly benediction. She resolved to use her nevertheless—to use her as far as she could be serviceable; and she forgot not that she herself had been art and part in the scheme that had failed. She was not one to shelter herself from blame by casting the whole storm of disappointment upon another. She took her own full share. "If she was a fool so to advise," said Mrs. Hazleton, "'twas a greater fool to follow her advice."
She then turned to seek for the agent. No name presented itself but that of Shanks, the attorney; and she smiled bitterly when she thought of him. She recollected that Sir Philip Hastings had thrown him head-foremost down the steps of the terrace, and that was very satisfactory to her; for, although Mr. Shanks was a man who sometimes bore injuries very meekly, he never forgot them.
Nevertheless, she had somewhat a difficult part to play, for most agents have a desire of becoming confidants also, and that Mrs. Hazleton determined her attorney should not be. The task was to insinuate her purposes ratherthan to speak them—to act, without betraying the motive of action—to make another act, without committing herself by giving directions.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Hazleton arranged it all to her own satisfaction; and as she did so, amongst the apparently extinct ashes of former schemes, one small spark of hope began to glow, giving promise for the time to come. What did she propose? At first, nothing more than to drive Sir Philip Hastings and his family from the country, mingling the gratification of personal hatred with efforts for the accomplishment of her own purposes. It was a bold attempt, but Mrs. Hazleton had her plan; and she sat down and wrote for Mr. Shanks, the attorney.
Decorum came in with the house of Hanover. I know not whether men and women in England were more virtuous before—I think not—but they certainly were more frank in both their virtues and their vices. There were fewer of those vices of conventionality thrown around the human heart—fewer I mean to say of those cold restraints, those gilded chains of society, which, like the ornaments that ladies wear upon their necks and arms, seem like fetters; but, I fear me, restrain but little human action, curb not passion, and are to the strong will but as the green rushes round the limbs of the Hebrew giant. Decorum came into England with the house of Hanover; but I am speaking of a period before that, when ladies were less fearful of the tongue of scandal, when scandal itself was fearful of assailing virtue, when honesty of purpose and purity of heart could walk free in the broad day, and men did not venture to suppose evil acts perpetrated whenever, by a possibility, they could be committed.
Emily Hastings walked quietly along by the side of Mr. Marlow, through her father's park. There was no one with him, no keen matron's ear to listen to and weigh their words, no brother to pretend to accompany them, and either feel himself weary with the task or lighten it by seeking his own amusement apart. They were alone together, and they talked without restraint. Ye gods, how they did talk! The dear girl was in one of her brightest, gayest moods. There was nothing that did not move her fancy or become a servant to it. The clouds as they shot across the sky, the blue fixed hills in the distance, the red and yellow and green coloring of the young budding oaks, the dancing of The stream, the song of the bird, the whisper of the wind, the misty spring light which spread over the morning distance, all had illustrations for her thoughts. It seemed that day as if she could not speak without a figure—as if she revelled in the flowers of imagination, like a child tossing about the new mown grass in a hay-field. And he, with joyous sport, took pleasure in furnishing her at every moment with new material for the bounding play of fancy.
They had not known each other long; but there was something in the young man's manner—nay, let me go farther—in his character, which invited confidence, which besought the hearts around to throw off all strange disguise, and promised that he would take no base advantage of their openness. That something was perhaps his earnestness: one felt that he was true in all he said or did or looked: that his words were but his spoken feelings: his countenance a paper on which the heart at once recorded its sensations. But let me not be mistaken. Do not let it be supposed that when I say he was earnest, I mean that he was even grave. Oh no! Earnestness can exist as well in the merriest as in the soberest heart. One can be as earnest, as truthful, even as eager in joy or sport, as in sorrow or sternness. But he was earnest in all things, and it was this earnestness which probably found a way for him to so many dissimilar hearts.
Emily knew not at all what it was doing with hers; but she felt that he was one before whom she had no need to hide a thought: that if she were gay, she might be gay in safety: that if she were inclined to muse, she might muse on in peace.
Onward they walked, talking of every thing on earth but love. It was in the thoughts of neither. Emily knew nothing about it: the tranquil expanse of life had never for her been even rippled by the wing of passion. Marlow might know more; but for the time he was lost in the enjoyment of the moment. The little enemy might be carrying on the war against the fortress of each unconscious bosom; but if so, it was by the silent sap and mine, more potent far than the fierce assault or thundering cannonade—at least in this sort of warfare.
They were wending their way towards a gate, at the very extreme limit of the park, which opened upon a path leading by a much shorter way to Mr. Marlow's own dwelling than the road he usually pursued. He had that morning come to spend but an hour at the house of Sir Philip Hastings, and he had an engagement at his own house at noon. He had spent two hours instead of one with Emily and her mother, and therefore short paths were preferable to long ones for his purpose, Emily had offered to show him the way to the gate, and her company was sure to shorten the road, though it might lengthen the time it took to travel.
Now in describing the park of Sir Philip Hastings, I have said that there was a wide open space around the mansion; but I have also said, that at some distance the trees gathered thick and sombre. Those nearest the house gathered together in clumps, confusing the eye in a wilderness of hawthorns, and bushes, and evergreen oaks, while beyond appeared a dense mass of wood; and, through the scattered tufts of trees and thick woodland at the extreme of the park ran several paths traced by deer, and park-keepers, andcountry folk. Thus for various reasons some guidance was needful to Marlow on his way, and for more reasons still he was well pleased that the guide should be Emily Hastings. In the course of their walk, amongst many other subjects they spoke of Mrs. Hazleton, and Marlow expatiated warmly on her beauty, and grace, and kindness of heart. How different was the effect of all this upon Emily Hastings from that which his words in her praise had produced upon her of whom he spoke! Emily's heart was free. Emily had no schemes, no plans, no purposes. She knew not that there was one feeling in her bosom with which praise of Mrs. Hazleton could ever jar. She loved her well. Such eyes as hers are not practised in seeing into darkness. She had divined the Italian singer—perhaps by instinct, perhaps by some distinct trait, which occasionally will betray the most wily. But Mrs. Hazleton was a fellow-woman—a woman of great brightness and many fine qualities. Neither had she any superficial defects to indicate a baser metal or a harder within. If she was not all gold, she was doubly gilt.
Emily praised her too, warmed with the theme; and eagerly exclaimed, "She always seems to me like one of those dames of fairy tales, upon whom some enchanter has bestowed a charm that no one can resist. It is not her beauty; for I feel the same when I hear her voice and shut my eyes. It is not her conversation; for I feel the same when I look at her and she is silent. It seems to breathe from her presence like the odor of a flower. It is the same when she is grave as when she is gay."
"Aye, and when she is melancholy," replied Marlow. "I never felt it more powerfully than a few days ago when I spent an hour with her, and she was not only grave but sad."
"Melancholy!" exclaimed Emily. "I never saw her so. Grave I have seen her—thoughtful, silent—but never sad; and I do not know that she has not seemed more charming to me in those grave, stiller moods, than in more cheerful ones. Do you know that in looking at the beautiful statues which I have seen in London, I have often thought they might lose half their charm if they would move and speak? Thus, too, with Mrs. Hazleton; she seems to me even more lovely, more full of grace, in perfect stillness than at any other time. My father," she added, after a moment's pause, "is the only one who in her presence seems spell-proof."
Her words threw Marlow into a momentary fit of thought. "Why," he asked himself, "was Sir Philip Hastings spell-proof when all others were charmed?"
Men have a habit of depending much upon men's judgment, whether justly or unjustly I will not stop to inquire. They rely less upon woman's judgment in such matters; and yet women are amongst the keenest discerners—when they are unbiassed by passion. But are they often so? Perhaps it is from a conviction that men judge less frequently from impulse, decide more generally from cause, that this presumption of their accuracy exists. Woman—perhaps from seclusion, perhaps from nature—is more a creature of instincts than man. They are given her for defence where reason would act too slowly; and where they do act strongly, they are almost invariably right. Man goes through the slower process, and naturally relies more firmly on the result; for reason demonstrates where instinct leads blindfold. Marlow judged Sir Philip Hastings by himself, and fancied that he must have some cause for being spell-proof against the fascinations of Mrs. Hazleton. This roused the first doubt in his mind as to her being all that she seemed. He repelled the doubt as injurious, but it returned from time to time in after days, and at length gave him a clue to an intricate labyrinth.
The walk came to an end, too soon he thought. Emily pointed out the gate as soon as it appeared in sight, shook hands with him and returned homeward. He thought more of her after they had parted, than when she was with him. There are times when the most thoughtful do not think—when they enjoy. But now, every word, every look of her who had just left him, came back to memory. Not that he would admit to himself that there was the least touch of love in his feelings. Oh no! He had known her too short a time for such a serious passion as love to have any thing to do with his sensations. He only thought of her—mused—pondered—recalled all she had said and done, because she was so unlike any thing he had seen or heard of before—a something new—a something to be studied.
She was but a girl—a mere child, he said; and yet there was something more than childish grace in that light, but rounded form, where beauty was more than budding, but not quite blossomed, like a moss-rose in its loveliest state of loveliness. And her mind too; there was nothing childish in her thoughts except their playfulness. The morning dew-drops had not yet exhaled; but the day-star of the mind was well up in the sky.
She was one of those, on whom it is dangerous for a man afraid of love to meditate too long. She was one the effect of whose looks and words is not evanescent. That of mere beauty passes away. How many a face do we see and think it the loveliest in the world; yet shut the eyes an hour after, and try to recall the features—to paint them to the mind's eye. You cannot. But there are others that link themselves with every feeling of the heart, that twine themselves with constantly recurring thoughts, that never can be effaced—never forgotten—on which age or time, disease or death, may do its work without effecting one change in the reality embalmed in memory. Destroy the die, break the mould, you may; but the medal and the cast remain. Had Marlow lived a hundred years—had he never seen Emily Hastings again, not one line of her bright face, not one speaking look,would have passed from his memory. He could have painted a portrait of her had he been an artist. Did you ever gaze long at the sun, trying your eyes against the eagle's? If so, you have had the bright orb floating before your eyes the whole day after. And so it was with Marlow: throughout the long hours that followed, he had Emily Hastings ever before him. But yet he did not love her. Oh dear no, not in the least. Love he thought was very different from mere admiration. It was a plant of slower growth. He was no believer in love at first sight. He was an infidel as to Romeo and Juliet, and he had firmly resolved if ever he did fall in love, it should be done cautiously.
Poor man! he little knew how deep he was in already.
In the meanwhile, Emily walked onward. She was heart-whole at least. She had never dreamed of love. It had not been one of her studies. Her father had never presented the idea to her. Her mother had often talked of marriage, and marriages good and bad; but always put them in the light of alliances—compacts—negotiated treaties. Although Lady Hastings knew what love is as well as any one, and had felt it as deeply, yet she did not wish her daughter to be as romantic as she had been, and therefore the subject was avoided. Emily thought a good deal of Mr. Marlow, it is true. She thought him handsome, graceful, winning—one of the pleasantest companions she had ever known. She liked him better than any one she had ever seen; and his words rang in her ears long after they were spoken. But even imagination, wicked spinner of golden threads as she is, never drew one link between his fate and hers. The time had not yet come, if it was to come.
She walked on, however, through the wood; and just when she was emerging from the thicker part into the clumps and scattered trees, she saw a stranger before her, leaning against the stump of an old hawthorn, and seeming to suffer pain. He was young, handsome, well-dressed, and there was a gun lying at his feet. But as Emily drew nearer, she saw blood slowly trickling from his arm, and falling on the gray sand of the path.
She was not one to suffer shyness to curb humanity; and she exclaimed at once, with a look of alarm, "I am afraid you are hurt, sir. Had you not better come up to the house?"
The young man looked at her, fainted, and answered in a low tone, "The gun has gone off, caught by a branch, and has shattered my arm. I thought I could reach the cottage by the park gates, but I feel faint."
"Stay, stay a moment," cried Emily, "I will run to the hall and bring assistance—people to assist you upon a carriage."
"No, no!" answered the stranger quickly, "I cannot go there—I will not go there! The cottage is nearer," he continued more calmly; "I think with a little help I could reach it, if I could staunch the blood."
"Let me try," exclaimed Emily; and with ready zeal, she tied her handkerchief round his arm, not without a shaking hand indeed, but with firmness and some skill.
"Now lean upon me," she said, when she had done; "the cottage is indeed nearer, but you would have better tendance if you could reach the hall."
"No, no, the cottage," replied the stranger, "I shall do well there."
The cottage was perhaps two hundred yards nearer to the spot on which they stood than the hall; but there was an eagerness about the young man's refusal to go to the latter, which Emily remarked. Suspicion indeed was alive to her mind; but those were days when laws concerning game, which have every year been becoming less and less strict, were hardly less severe than in the time of William Rufus. Every day, in the country life which she led, she heard some tale of poaching or its punishment. The stranger had a gun with him; she had found him in her father's park; he was unwilling even in suffering and need of help to go up to the hall for succor; and she could not but fancy that for some frolic, perhaps some jest, or some wild whim, he had been trespassing upon the manor in pursuit of game. That he was an ordinary poacher she could not suppose; his dress, his appearance forbade such a supposition.
But there was something more.
In the young man's face—more in its expression than its features perhaps—more in certain marking lines and sudden glances than in the general whole—there was something familiar to her—something that seemed akin to her. He was handsomer than her father; of a more perfect though less lofty character of beauty; and yet there was a strange likeness, not constant, but flashing occasionally upon her brow, in what, when, she could hardly determine.
It roused another sort of sympathy from any she had felt before; and once more she asked him to go up to the hall.
"If you have been taking your sport," she said, "where perhaps you ought not, I am sure my father will look over it without a word, when he sees how you are hurt. Although people sometimes think he is stern and severe, that is all a mistake. He is kind and gentle, I assure you, when he does not feel that duty requires him to be rigid."
The stranger gave a quick start, and replied in a tone which would have been haughty and fierce, had not weakness subdued it, "I have been shooting only where I have a right to shoot. But I will not go up to the hall, till—but I dare say I can get down to the cottage without help, Mistress Emily. I have been accustomed to do without help in the world;" and he withdrew his arm from that which supported him. The next moment, however, he tottered, and seemed ready to fall, and Emily again hurried to help him. There were no more words spoken. She thought his mannersomewhat uncivil; she would not leave him, and the necessity for her kindness was soon apparent. Ere they were within a hundred yards of the cottage, he sunk slowly down. His face grew pale and death-like, and his eyes closed faintly as he lay upon the turf. Emily ran on like lightning to the cottage, and called out the old man who lived there. The old man called his son from the little garden, and with his and other help, carried the fainting man in.
"Ay, master John, master John," exclaimed the old cottager, as he laid him in his own bed; "one of your wild pranks, I warrant!"
His wife, his son, and he himself tended the young man with care; and a young boy was sent off for a surgeon.
Emily did not know what to do; but compassion kept her in the cottage till the stranger recovered his consciousness, and then after inquiring how he felt, she was about to withdraw, intending to send down further aid from the hall. But the stranger beckoned her faintly to come nearer, and said in tones of real gratitude, "Thank you a thousand times, Mistress Emily; I never thought to need such kindness at your hands. But now do me another, and say not a word to any one at the mansion of what has happened. It will be better for me, for you, for your father, that you should not speak of this business."
"Do not! do not! Mistress Emily!" cried the old man, who was standing near. "It will only make mischief and bring about evil."
He spoke evidently under strong apprehension, and Emily was much surprised, both to find that one quite a stranger to her knew her at once, and to find the old cottager, a long dependant upon her family, second so eagerly his strange injunction.
"I will say nothing unless questions are asked me," she replied; "then of course I must tell the truth."
"Better not," replied the young man gloomily.
"I cannot speak falsely," replied the beautiful girl, "I cannot deal doubly with my parents or any one," and she was turning away.
But the stranger besought her to stop one moment, and said, "I have not strength to explain all now; but I shall see you again, and then I will tell you why I have spoken as you think strangely. I shall see you again. In common charity you will come to ask if I am alive or dead. If you knew how near we are to each other, I am sure you would promise!"
"I can make no such promise," replied Emily; but the old cottager seemed eager to end the interview; and speaking for her, he exclaimed, "Oh, she will come, I am sure, Mistress Emily will come;" and hurried her away, seeing her back to the little gate in the park wall.
Mrs. Hazleton found Mr. Shanks, the attorney, the most difficult person to deal with whom she had ever met in her life. She had remarked that he was keen, active, intelligent, unscrupulous, confident in his own powers, bold as a lion in the wars of quill, parchment, and red tape; without fear, without hesitation, without remorse. There was nothing that he scrupled to do, nothing that he ever repented having done. She had fancied that the only difficulty which she could have to encounter was that of concealing from him, at least in a degree, the ultimate objects and designs which she herself had in view.
So shrewd people often deceive themselves as to the character of other shrewd people. The difficulty was quite different. It was a peculiar sort of stolidity on the part of Mr. Shanks, for which she was utterly unprepared.
Now the attorney was ready to do any thing on earth which his fair patroness wished. He would have perilled his name on the roll in her service; and was only eager to understand what were her desires, even without giving her the trouble of explaining them. Moreover, there was no point of law or equity, no manner of roguery or chicanery, no object of avarice, covetousness, or ambition, which he could not have comprehended at once. They were things within his own ken and scope, to which the intellect and resources of his mind were always open. But to other passions, to deeper, more remote motives and emotions, Mr. Shanks was as stolid as a door-post. It required to hew a way as it were to his perceptions, to tunnel his mind for the passage of a new conception.
The only passion which afforded the slightest cranny of an opening was revenge; and after having tried a dozen other ways of making him comprehend what she wished without committing herself, Mrs. Hazleton got him to understand that she thought Sir Philip Hastings had injured—at all events, that he had offended—her, and that she sought vengeance. From that moment all was easy. Mr. Shanks could understand the feeling, though not its extent. He would himself have given ten pounds out of his own pocket—the largest sum he had ever given in life for any thing but an advantage—to be revenged upon the same man for the insult he had received; and he could perceive that Mrs. Hazleton would go much further, without, indeed, being able to conceive, or even dream of, the extent to which she was prepared to go.
However, when he had once got the clue, he was prepared to run along the road with all celerity; and now she found him every thing she had expected. He was a man copious in resources, prolific of schemes. His imagination had exercised itself through life in devising crooked paths; but in this instance the road was straight-forward before him. He would rather it had been tortuous, it is true; but for the sake of his dear lady he was ready to follow even a plain path, and he explained to her that Sir Philip Hastings stood in a somewhat dangerous position.
He was proceeding to enter into the details, but Mrs. Hazleton interrupted him, and, to hissurprise, not only told him, but showed him, that she knew all the particulars.
"The only question is, Mr. Shanks," she said, "can you prove the marriage of his elder brother to this woman before the birth of the child?"
"We think we can, madam," replied the attorney, "we think we can. There is a very strong letter, and there has been evidently——"
He paused and hesitated, and Mrs. Hazleton demanded, "There has been what, Mr. Shanks?"
"There has been evidently a leaf torn out of the register," replied the lawyer.
There was something in his manner which made the lady gaze keenly in his face; but she would ask no questions on that subject, and she merely said, "Then why has not the case gone on, as it was put in your hands six months ago?"
"Why, you see, my dear madam," replied Shanks, "law is at best uncertain. One wants two or three great lawyers to make a case. Money was short; John and his mother had spent all last year's annuity. Barristers won't plead without fees, and besides——"