It is an awful thing to sit by the bed of sickness at any time; to see that strange and inexplicable thing, animal life, oppressed and beaten down like a crushed butterfly, waving its faint wings with the energy of suffering, but not the freedom of health; to mark the quick breathing, to gaze upon the anxious eye, to see the cheek, once florid, grown pale and ashy, the lip parched and dry, the thin nostril expanding for the insufficient breath, the hand suddenly blanched and grown meagre, the uneasy frame tossing with the dire combination of lassitude and restlessness; and to know that all these are signs of a spirit approaching that dread portal, which, if once passed, can never be passed again till the gates of life are thrown open for eternity!
It is an awful thing at any time! but when the being whom we see so situated is dear to our heart by the ties of kindred or of love, it is still more awful; and awful, trebly awful, is the scene, when the creature that lies weighed down by sickness before our eyes is both closely linked to our deepest feelings and tenderest natural affections, and yet loaded, even more than by the weight of malady, with faults and errors, and sins and crimes, which may render the dark passing of that fearful porch of death, the eternal separation from all who loved him on the earth.
The fire in Danemore Castle had burnt itself out. Part of the building had been saved, and remained uninjured. The servants had taken possession of it, and were using all means to prevent the fire from breaking out again. The greater part of the peasantry had returned to their homes, and few persons were seen in the park or on the terraces, but here and there a straggling group of idlers gathered together from the neighbouring country to gaze upon the scene of ruin and destruction.
He whom we have called throughout this book Henry Langford, had twice gone forth, at his father's desire, to see what was taking place without, and he now sat, in the cool grey of the dawn, beside the couch of the Earl, as he lay obtaining snatches of brief and troubled slumber. As Langford so sat, and gazed upon him, the natural feelings of a son's heart towards a father would have way. The blood of kindred stirred within him, and he felt that he was his son. But still as he gazed, the image of his dead mother rose up before his sight, and all the bitter wrongs that she had suffered made his heart sad, and brought the tears into his eyes.
He thought of her as he had known her in his youth, still exquisitely lovely, though touched by the withering hand of sorrow. He thought of her as he had known her in later days, fading rapidly away, like a flower broken and trampled under foot by some heedless passer-by. He thought of her as he had seen her on the bed of death, with every worldly hope at an end, and with no thought nor care but of the heaven to which her steps were bent, and of his own future fate and happiness on earth. Her words, almost the last which she ever spoke, still rang in his ears; the promise she had exacted from him, never to give up the endeavour to establish her honour and purity, and the injunction which she had likewise laid upon him, if his father ever did him injustice, to forgive and love him for her sake.
Henry felt that he did forgive him; but he felt, too, that there was another and a greater Judge whose forgiveness was needed; a judge not less merciful, indeed, but one not moved by human passions and affections; and as he thought of all that had been done by him to whom he owed his being--of all the dark deeds of other years--the fierce unruly passions which had remained unextinguished even to that very night, the scene of his father's suffering, the prospect of big death became awful, trebly awful to the eyes of his son.
The surgeon from the county town had been with Lord Danemore, had examined his wounds, and had pronounced that there was no immediate danger; but he had not in any degree assured the Earl's son that there was a prospect of his illness terminating favourably. He spoke as men are too apt to speak, with cautious consideration of his own reputation, more than with any regard for the feelings and anxieties of him to whom he spoke. Langford had gathered, however, that he judged unfavourably of his father's state. He dwelt upon the facts of the Earl being an old man--of his constitution, though strong, having been apparently severely tried in former years--of the event of all such wounds being uncertain--and of a great deal of fever having rapidly come on. He said nothing to mitigate these unfavourable circumstances, and Langford judged the worst. His feelings, then, when after the surgeon had left the Earl for a short time, and he sat beside him watching his fitful slumbers, were most painful; but they were destined to be more so ere long.
Scarcely had the sky grown yellow with the bright coming on of morning, when the trampling of many horses' feet below, and then the sound of persons ascending the stairs, called his attention. It had been the surgeon's express injunction that the Earl should be kept perfectly quiet; and as the sounds approached the chamber in which he lay, Langford started up and moved towards the door, in order to caution the new comers to make less noise. Before he reached it, however, that door opened, and five or six persons unceremoniously entered the chamber. The noise at once awoke the Earl, and, starting up on his arm, he exclaimed, "Who is there?"
"It is I, my lord; your lordship's very humble servant, Sir Thomas Waller," replied the first person who entered. "No sooner did I hear that your lordship's house had been attacked and set on fire, than I got on horseback with as many constables as I could gather together to come to your aid; and as my learned and worshipful friend and cousin, Justice Whistler, from London, the chief magistrate of police, happened to be lodging in my poor house at the time, I besought him to come over with me too."
"Whether in regard to the fire or in regard to the robbery," replied the Earl, cynically, "your coming is somewhat late; and as I am both wounded and in pain, and have the express orders of my surgeon to remain in perfect quiet, you will perhaps favour me by leaving me to repose; and another time, before you bring strangers into my room, do me the honour to inquire whether it is my pleasure to receive you;" so saying, he laid himself down again, and turned his back upon his unwished-for guests.
"This is a very extraordinary reception, indeed," said a portly, keen-faced personage, who had followed Sir Thomas into the room; "but, at all events, Sir Thomas, we must do our duty. My lord, I am sorry to trouble your repose."
"You must trouble it no longer, sir," said Langford, advancing towards him, "but have the goodness at once to quit the room."
The worshipful Justice Whistler--for he it was who had been speaking, calmly took a pair of spectacles out of his pocket, placed them on his nose, and gazed at Langford from head to foot.
"This is the young man, I take it, Sir Thomas," he said, turning to his companion; and, on a significant nod from Sir Thomas Waller, he proceeded, "You are the personage calling yourself Henry Langford, and stand charged, I find, with the wilful murder of Edward Lord Harold. On consulting with my good friend here on the subject last night, aided by the wisdom of Sir Matthew Scrope, I gave it as my decided opinion that you should be immediately committed to the county gaol, having been left too long already in circumstances which rendered it probable that the ends of justice might be defeated."
"What is this? what is this?" exclaimed the Earl, starting up.
"Nothing, my lord," replied the magistrate, "but that this young man stands committed upon a due warrant to that effect, placed in the hands of these officers behind me for execution."
"Do you know, sir," demanded the Earl, sternly--"do you know that he is my son?"
"We have heard something to that effect this night," rejoined the justice, in a sharp dry tone--he evidently having taken offence at the Earl's first salutation, and not having that reverence for his wealth and power which was felt by his neighbours in the country--"we have heard something to that effect this night; but as I observed to my good friend here, that only renders the matter more probable. That your lordship's illegitimate son----"
"He is not my illegitimate son, sir," replied the Earl; "he is my legitimate child, by my first wife."
"It is very awkward, certainly," answered the imperturbable Justice Whistler; "but, nevertheless, my lord, we cannot help it. The law must have its course; and, as I said before, the charge is but rendered the more probable by the fact of his being your unacknowledged son. To get an obtrusive heir out of the way is no slight inducement; but besides all that, there is quite proof sufficient to justify his committal long ago. Here they are seen to draw their swords upon each other. The one rides away slowly up to the moor; the other gets his horse and follows him at full speed, just as night is closing in. The one is killed upon the moor, and his horse returns all bloody. The other does not get back till late that night, and then is in an evident state of agitation. A pistol shot is heard in that direction at the very time he is there, and at the very spot to which he is seen riding. My lord, the matter is quite conclusive; and though doubtless unpleasant, the young gentleman must to prison!"
The Earl gazed wildly but earnestly in the face of his son, with feelings which those who have read the steps he had taken to bring about the very result that now fell upon him like a thunderbolt may well conceive.
"I have done this!" he exclaimed; "I have done this! Oh, my son, I am your murderer!" and he turned away his head with an aguish shudder passing all over his frame.
Langford, however, hastened to console him. "Oh, no!" he said, grasping the old man's hand--"Oh, no! While you thought me guilty, you justly used all means to punish the supposed murderer of your son, but----"
"You do not know," replied the Earl, with that withering expression of heartfelt anguish that nothing but remorse can give; "You do not know. I have pursued you like a fiend! Your blood will be Upon my head--my own child's blood!"
"Not so, my lord; not so." replied Langford, again. "The worst will be but a few days' imprisonment. You know my innocence; I know it too, and know that it can be proved with ease. That which gives me the greatest pain at this moment, is to be deprived of the opportunity of watching by and attending you till you shall have recovered from your wounds. It grieves me--it is dreadful to me--to leave you to the hands of menials. My lord, there will be one comfort to me--one consolation in prison, which, as the first favour I have ever asked you, you must grant me. There is a lady in this vicinity, kind, and gentle, and tender; your son's promised bride: Mistress Alice Herbert, I mean. Will you let me sit down and write her a few lines, beseeching her, during my enforced absence from my father's sick bed, to attend him as if she were his daughter? I know that it will be an office which she will love to fulfil, not more for my sake than for yours. Pray let me do so."
The Earl's eyes had been cast down, and the thick eyebrows had gathered heavily over them; but he did not speak, for the knowledge of all he had done lay weighty on his heart, and took away all utterance. Sir Thomas Waller, however, took upon himself to reply. "Your writing, young gentleman, would be useless," he said; "for I am sorry to tell you that Sir Walter--who, though a hasty and passionate man, and sometimes very disrespectful to persons fully equal to himself, is a very good man, and much liked in the country--was arrested yesterday evening at the suit of the noble Earl here. Indeed, he would have been arrested in the earlier part of the day, but the country people rose and rescued him."
"This, too!" exclaimed the Earl, setting his teeth; "I have done this! I have done this!"
"Your worthy lawyer, my lord," continued Sir Thomas, whose mind was one of those shallow ones that cannot comprehend any deep and powerful emotion, even when they see its workings before their eyes; "your worthy lawyer, my lord, Master Kinsight, was very roughly handled by the people, and is likely to die."
"Curse him!" said the Earl, in a low, deep voice; "curse him! He is one of the vile instruments, the ready tools of wrong."
"May I ask you, sir," interposed Langford, with no slight anxiety now thrilling in his bosom--"may I ask you, who seem to know the particulars of the whole affair, what has become of Mistress Alice Herbert, under these distressing circumstances?"
"She chose to go with her father, I was informed," replied the Knight; "I dare say Master Bolland made her pay dear for permission to do so. He is not a man to grant anything without a consideration."
"And has worthy, kind-hearted, noble Sir Walter Herbert," exclaimed Langford, with the anguish of his heart making itself apparent in every feature--"has he fallen into the hands of that well-known, that infamous knave and peculator, whose very existence as an officer of the law, even though in the lowest grade of degraded offices, is a disgrace to this free country, whose acts make the capital of England notorious for monstrous injustice, and for the daily infraction of every social law, of every moral feeling, and of every sacred right? Has he--has he--simple, unguarded, plain, and true! fallen into the hands of one whose whole soul is fraud, corruption, perjury, and baseness? Yet how can this be?" he continued, after a moment's pause; "I myself furnished the money to pay this debt. I do not comprehend it."
"I have done this, too. I have done this, too," replied the Earl, in a tone of profound despondency. "I refused to receive the money! I seized upon it as the property of a felon. Bitterly, bitterly do these things fall upon my head; bitterly, oh, how bitterly, is the punishment of all coming upon me!"
There was a deep silence, for Langford's heart was wrung, and he could give him no consolation. After a moment or two, however, the Earl started up in bed, exclaiming, "This--this at least can be amended. This--this at least can be repaired. Give me the pen and ink; quick!"
He was obeyed immediately, and with a trembling hand he wrote a full acquittal of all debt from Sir Walter Herbert to himself, principal and interest--costs and charges; nothing was omitted.
"There," he said, putting it in Langford's hands--"there is the first act of atonement which I have been able to accomplish. Take it, my son; take it. The writing those lines has given me the first happy moment I have known for years. Oh, misery of violent passions indulged! thou fiery curse that makest even gratification a torment! Had I but known--had I but known what it is to refrain! Stay," he continued, as Langford was taking the paper, "stay. These wounds and this weakness have made my hand shake, and such men as now stand by us, cunning lawyers and wise justices as they are, may hereafter swear that the writing is not mine. Here, Sir Thomas Waller; here, worthy Justice Whistler, favour me by placing to this act the testimony of your hands."
"But, my lord--" exclaimed Mr. Justice Whistler.
"But me no buts, sir," replied the Earl, fixing his keen feverish eyes upon him; "I know what you would say; I know what your lawyer-like seeking for a flaw would suggest: that no consideration has been given, and that therefore the deed will not be legal. But I tell you, sir, that a consideration has been given; that the money in full was paid into my hand this morning, and will be found in my library, if that library has escaped the flames. Sign, sir, sign! that is all you have to do. Witness that this is my act and deed!"
The two justices put their hands to the paper; and, to render Sir Thomas Waller but simple justice, he did so freely and willingly enough; not so exactly, worthy Mr. Justice Whistler, who showed no slight disinclination and hesitation in even witnessing an act which might take a fellow creature from out of the clutches of the law. Twice, when he had got his hand to the paper, he withdrew it, and paused for a moment in thought, longing apparently to find some excuse or some motive for refusal. At length, however, he signed it; and the Earl gave it to Langford, saying, "There, my son; take it, and use it for your friend's deliverance."
"I beg your pardon, my lord," said the justice, again interposing; "but this gentleman will have no opportunity of acting in the matter. You had better trust it to me."
"Wonderful impudence!" cried the Earl. "What! give meat to the harpies! Out upon it, man! do you think I would trust you with any feasible means of hurting your fellow creatures?"
"My lord," answered the justice, sharply, "if I am to judge by your own words lately used, your sarcasm is as much applicable to your lordship as myself."
"You say true, man; you say true," replied the Earl. "But though I be a wolf, I will not trust a wolf; I know you all too well. My son," he continued, turning to Langford, "are they really going to take thee from me at this painful hour?"
"I fear, my lord, that such is really their purpose," replied Langford. "I will not insult these gentlemen by saying that they know me to be innocent, though I must say that they seem very willingly blind to innocence. But they are resolved to carry the matter through to the last, and, therefore, it may be well to bring this scene, painful and terrible as it must be to you, to an end as soon as possible."
"Stay yet awhile--stay yet awhile," cried the Earl, grasping the hand that he held out to him; "I feel that it is terrible to see you go, for, perhaps, my son, we may never meet again. We may never meet in this world. We may never meet in the world to come, that dark and awful world towards which I am speeding quickly--quickly!"
"Oh, say not so," replied Langford; "I trust--nay, I hope--I am sure--that my innocence will so speedily be made manifest by one means or another, that in a very few days, perhaps a few hours, I shall again sit beside you, and I trust then to find you better."
The Earl shook his head. "Too late found," he said; "too early lost. I now feel how I could love you. I see your mother's spirit shining out of your eyes. I see that spirit, which pardoned and gave way but too much, looking mildly upon me, who wronged both her and you so deeply; but it is all in vain." And as he spoke, he pressed his hands over his eyes; and Langford, willing to spare him any further agitation, took that moment to make a sign to Justice Whistler, signifying that he was ready, and turned towards the door.
The Earl heard his step, however, and exclaimed, "Oh, not yet--not yet!" but Langford opened the door, and called Bertha with a loud voice.
The Frenchwoman came immediately, for she was sitting watching in the neighbouring chamber.
"Look to my father," said Langford; "you who were a witness of my mother's marriage--you, who owe my race so much--you----"
"You," she interrupted, "you would say, you who have repaid their kindness so ill----"
"No," answered Langford, "such was not my thought. You, who have had a share in all the turns of my wayward fate, look to my father, now on his couch of illness; look to him, tend him well, and if you feel that you have injured me or mine, make up for it now by keeping his mind as free from all anxiety as may be, by shutting out all that can agitate or alarm him, by speaking cheerfully and hopefully of my fate, and by teaching him that there is much yet to be done on earth, much yet to be gained from heaven. Take this paper also. You will see its value at once. Find somebody--if there be such a being on earth--in whom you can place implicit trust. Send him to seek out Sir Walter Herbert, who is in the hands of the notorious, infamous John Bolland. Let him give the paper to Sir Walter himself, requesting him, from me, to send for some lawyer of high repute in London, and not to act himself in the matter. Tell him--tell Alice--not to fear for me, for, being innocent, my innocence must appear. They may aid me if they find means; but, at all events, I am safe in my integrity. But above all things, be careful to whom you trust the paper."
"I will," she answered, "I will; but you will soon be able to follow out these things yourself. I know it; I feel sure of it."
"So do I," replied Langford; "but Alice and Sir Walter must not languish till then. Now, gentlemen, there but remains to crave a father's blessing, and then I am ready. I mean to use no threat towards you, Mr. Justice Whistler, but the time may come when the share you have had in this matter will be fully inquired into, and the legality of your proceedings investigated and ascertained."
"I will look to that, sir," replied the justice, with a calm and sneering nod; "I have taken care of myself in more difficult circumstances than these, and, doubtless, shall be able to do so still."
Langford made no reply, but re-entered the room where the Earl sat gazing upon the door, and listening to the sound of his voice.
The young gentleman advanced direct towards him, and knelt by the side of his bed. "My father," he said, "give me your blessing!"
The Earl turned away his head. "What, oh! what is my blessing worth?" he said; "but be it so. My blessing, the blessing of a father's fondest affection, be upon you. I have none now but you!"
"If you would render that blessing of effect," replied Langford, "remember that on your life and health my fate may greatly depend. Be careful, then; cast away from you every thought and every feeling that may injure or agitate you, and strive for life and health, if not for your own sake, for your son's. Now, gentlemen, I am ready."
The two justices and the constables accompanied him out of the room. "What think you of it?" asked Sir Thomas Waller, addressing his companion in a whisper as they went.
The London magistrate replied by a peculiar contortion of countenance, and then added, "We must make as good a case of it as we can, if it be but to bear ourselves harmless."
We must now leave that part of the country to which we have so constantly adhered during the preceding portion of this true history, and lead the gentle reader with us along a road which, perhaps, he may never have travelled before, but which, if he ever have, he will doubtless remember at once, from the description we are about to give.
Setting off in a line lying north-west from the little village of Moorhurst, and proceeding over the wild heath to which we have so often turned our steps, one road leads, after various turnings and meanderings, of which our ancestors were undoubtedly more fond than ourselves, as the reader already knows, to the county town. But in one of these turnings the road effects an object very different from the usual one, of merely going out of its way, and branches off into a country road, taking the direction of various small and remote towns.
Now, from the want of care and neatness with which this branch road was kept at that time, it would in all probability have presented a very much larger proportion of ruts and sand than the larger road from which it was derived, and would have required double the time to travel each individual mile along its course which was required upon its parent road, had it not been for one circumstance. That circumstance was an extraordinary development of a stratum of very-hard stone in that part of the country, which, taking the place of the sand, just a quarter of a mile from the spot where the two roads separated, afforded--or, rather, might have afforded--equal pleasure and admiration to Mr. M'Adam, the geologists, and all the members of the stonoclastic race, if the period we speak of had not been before geologists were discovered, and when Mr. M'Adam was yet unborn.
On it, if horses had been in the habit of going as fast as they do now, a carriage might have been drawn at any given rate of velocity, till after the road had passed through two or three small villages and towns, and a space of about twenty miles, when it again got into the sand, and then plunged like an eel--which it very much resembled in some other respects--into a deep mud.
This state, however, lasted not long; but, issuing like a bittern from the morass, the road took its flight over the hills, which were low wooded and well cultivated for about twenty miles further, and then began to assume a wilder and more barren aspect, till at length, when their summits were crossed, and at the distance of about sixty miles from Moorhurst, they presented on their northern side a wide range of rough, chill, rocky country, covered only by short brown turf from which the sheep had much ado to nibble a scanty subsistence, and decorated alone by fine hawthorns and hanging birches, except where, in the deeper dells, the oak and elm had sought and found a friendly shelter.
Forges and foundries, and manufactories of various kinds, have since blackened and enlivened that part of the country; but at the period which I speak of, the great demon of civilization had not gone forth, with a smoky chimney in one hand, and a steaming kettle in the other, equalizing and vulgarizing the whole earth; and a tract of about forty miles in length, and from ten to fifteen in breadth, was left upon the side of those hills, if not without any sign of man's habitation, at least without any sign of his arts, except, indeed, the patriarchal one of sheep-feeding. Here and there, in the nooks and dells, indeed, an old farm-house, which perhaps might boast a few acres of corn land around it, showed the dwelling-place of the great sheep farmer, who, riding over the hills adjacent, might generally say, "I am monarch of all I survey." But these had never been many; and the loneliness of the situation, an increasing taste for towns and luxuries, and various changes in the state of society, on which it is not worth while to dwell, had diminished the amount of inhabitants to even a smaller number than it had once contained. Two farms had often been joined in one; some of them were untenanted, and encroached upon by their neighbours; some of the few-houses that did exist were vacant, and some were tumbling down.
It is to a house in this district, about five miles from the spot where the road we have mentioned crossed it, that we must now bring the reader, begging him diligently to mark the outside of it, in the first place, seated as it is in a deep gap in the hills, sheltered on three sides by a grove of fine old elms, in the topmost branches of which innumerable rooks make the air musical with their sweet country-sounds: the house itself placed upon a high bank, its small windows overlooking a little stream below; and the other side turning towards its farm-yard, with a cart-road, indeed, leading up to it, but requiring both very strong horses and very strong carts to undertake the rough and perilous ascent.
This house was not one amongst the uninhabited ones which we have mentioned, for at the period whereof we speak--namely, but a few days after the events had taken place which we recorded in our last chapter--the farm-yard might be heard ringing with several voices, and more than one horse stamped in the stables. Leaving the house, however, let us speak of one of its inhabitants. About mid-day a solitary personage issued forth from the gates, took his way into the deepest part of the grove, and with his arms crossed upon his broad chest, walked slowly up and down, bending the bitter brow, and gnawing the dissatisfied lip, while his eyes were bent on the dry leaves of the past year, in which his feet left deep marks as he strode along. After thus wandering in the shade for some time, as if the gloomy shadow was congenial to his feelings, he raised his brow, and looked up, seeming to seek higher associations in the sky above. Whether the feelings within his breast did become more free and clear or not, he then turned his steps to the hill-side, and climbed high up, gazing over the wild, waste prospect below, and pausing every two or three minutes, as if endeavouring to fix more distinctly some particular spot. Yet his thoughts were neither of the scene on which his eyes rested, nor of the cultivated country beyond, nor of the towns and villages, the haunts and resting-places of busy man, but, on the contrary, they were fixed upon the deep, dark recesses of an erring human heart--on the troubled world of his own bosom--where, as in the world covered by the deluge, the dove of peace found no resting-place, so overwhelmed was the whole by the waves of sin and sorrow and remorse. Upon that turbulent ocean, too, floated the wrecks of many bright things past--high feelings, noble aspirations, manly generosity, steady friendship, warm affections--and over it spread dark clouds of doubt and suspicion, and morose discontent, springing from self-dissatisfaction and disappointment, and internal reproach.
Such was the state of mind of Franklin Gray as he strode along the hill-side, pondering the events of the last few weeks, and finding in all, matter of bitterness and regret. His feelings suffered some alteration, and turned to more material objects when he gained the summit of the hill. They did not exactly make themselves audible, but nevertheless to his own mind they clothed themselves in words, and the tenor of those words was somewhat to the following effect:--
"This is wild enough, and solitary enough, but nevertheless they will doubtless try to hunt me out here. So great an enterprise as this cannot, in this pitiful and servile land, pass without stirring up all the great tyrants of the soil to put down him who has dared to strip them of their ill-gotten wealth. Doubtless they will hunt me out even here; and by heaven I have a thousand minds to stay and dare them, and defend my mountains to the last. But then these fellows," he added, after some thought, "though brave and true in the moment of danger, now that we have divided the money, are all anxious to leave me, and hasten up to the great city, to spend it in rioting and luxury. Well, I must not blame them! I felt so once myself. But this land then must be no more for me; I must quit it, and take myself back again to those more ardent and free countries where I can roam at large, and where, with a strong hand and a stout heart, I can make the miser, and the extortioner, and the slave-master pay for his pitiful life at the price of gold. Yet this, indeed," he continued, "has been a glorious booty; what between gold and jewels, we have swept off a mighty sum, and my own share might well content me for the rest of my days. Why should I not cross the seas, and in some of those sweet valleys by the higher Rhine, pass through the calm close of a busy life in bright tranquillity."
And, as he thus thought, a vision of sweet and peaceful things, such as his heart had sometimes longed for but had never known, rose up before his eyes; and he pictured to himself sweet wanderings through fair scenes, with his beautiful Mona by his side, and his lovely boy growing up into proud manhood under his eye. But as he thought of Mona a sudden shadow came across him; it was a mood he struggled with, and would fain have conquered, but it was one unconquerable, for it was a part of his dark fierce nature; and after pausing gloomily for several minutes, and, casting his eyes down upon the ground, with his whole feelings changed in a moment by one gloomy thought, he burst forth aloud, "I love it not! She would not wrong me--I know she would not wrong me; but still she is too tender of him. If she give her heart's affections to another, if she even take from me the smallest portion of those feelings that once were mine alone, she leaves a gap, a vacancy, a break in that deep intense love which is enough, but not too much for love like mine. Shall I speak to her thereon? shall I tell her what I feel? Ay, and make her think me jealous," he answered, with a bitter sneer even at himself. "I jealous! jealous too of such a weak, pitiful, effeminate thing as that! No; she shall go on in her own way. She must have seen that I loved it not; she must have felt that it displeased me; and see it and feel it she shall still, but speak of it I will never. Doubtless she is there now, soothing him, tending his wounds, speaking to him sweet kindly words, and listening to his soft gratitude. I will go back and mar the sunshine;" and as he spoke, with a cloudy, moody air, he strode back again towards the house, passed through the farm-yard, and entered the door, which stood open.
Proceeding up a tall narrow stone staircase, he passed one of his men seated on one of the landing-places, at the last story but one, so as to prevent any one from ascending or descending without being seen. Franklin Gray was not one, even when the dark and debasing passions of jealousy and suspicion were roused within him, to commit a mean or a pitiful act; and he spoke loud to the man upon the stairs, and trod heavily up, so that his voice and his footsteps might give notice of his coming to those above.
When he reached the upper story, he opened a door before him, and entered a room, poorly and scantily furnished, where were two persons with whom the reader is already acquainted. The first--who sat near the door, with her small beautiful foot resting upon a rude stool, and her knee supporting an instrument of music, in shape much resembling a guitar--was that lovely being whom we have twice before had occasion to mention under the name of Mona, the wife of Franklin Gray. She was finishing a song when he entered--a sweet plaintive song, in the tongue of some distant land; and as he came into the room, her dark lustrous eyes grew still brighter, and were raised to his with a smiling and a happy look, as if she thought she was doing what would please him best, and that the well-known music would awaken some sweet thoughts in her husband's bosom. The stern unmoved gloom of his countenance pained but did not surprise her, for she was accustomed to his moody temper; and loving him at all times and in all states, attributed his ill-humour to things which had gone wrong in matters with which she had no concern.
The other person who tenanted that room was one whom we have lost sight of for some time. It was Edward, called Lord Harold, who now, very pale, and evidently but just recovering from severe sickness, leaned back upon his chair with his head resting on his arm, and the right side of the loose vest which he wore cut open and tied, so as to give greater ease and space to some wounded part beneath. So intently had he been listening to the music, that he scarcely heard the entrance of Franklin Gray, and a faint but expressive smile hung upon his pale lip, while the vacant gazing of his eye told that the melody had borne imagination on its wings afar, and that he was enjoying sweet fancies removed from all that surrounded him.
"I see," said Franklin Gray, looking earnestly at Mona, "that you have become his musician as well as nurse."
Mona started, and gazed inquiringly in her husband's face. "Did you not wish me to do so?" she said, with her sweet-toned voice and foreign accent; "did you not tell me to do everything I could to soothe him and restore him to health?"
"I did so," replied her husband; "and I see you do it willingly."
Mona gazed in his face with a bewildered look, as if she did not comprehend his meaning; for though his words were not ungentle, they were spoken in that tone which showed the feelings that prompted them to be bitterer than the expression. There succeeded a pause for one or two minutes; and Franklin Gray, moving across the room, cast himself into a chair near the window, and gazed out gloomily over the wide prospect that stretched afar beneath his eyes, diversified only by the slopes of the hills, without town or village, or hedgerow to mark man's habitation or his cultivating hand. As he sat there, he spoke not to any one, and the silence grew painful, till at length it was broken by Lord Harold, as we shall continue to call him.
"I am glad of an opportunity of speaking with you," he said, "for I want to know more precisely how I am situated. I have to thank you, I find--"
"For nothing, sir!" replied Franklin Gray; "I have done what I have done for my own pleasure and convenience, and you have to thank me for nothing."
"Such is perhaps the case, sir," replied Lord Harold, coolly; "at all events, you saved my life when I should otherwise undoubtedly have bled to death upon the moor. You have since treated me kindly and skilfully, have nearly cured a wound which might have proved fatal, and have tended me with much attention. At the same time, from various events which have occurred, from my being brought forth across the downs and placed in a coach which carried me hither, as well as from having seen at all times an ill-looking fellow with a pistol in his hand sitting at the foot of the next flight of steps, when I crossed from one room to the other, I am inclined to believe that you view me in some sort as a prisoner."
"Doubtless the ill-looking fellow, as you call him," replied Franklin Gray, with a bitter smile, "may find many of the fair and the gay, in his own rank of life, who would think him fully as good-looking as Edward, Lord Harold. However, sir, I gather from your discourse, that you wish to learn whether you are to consider yourself as a prisoner or not. Now, as you acknowledge that you owe me your life, I do not think you can consider it a hard case, even should I, for my own convenience, keep you a prisoner for a certain time."
"Yes, I have, sir," replied Lord Harold; "for I suppose there is scarcely any Englishman who does not feel that liberty is preferable to life."
"Then perhaps the best way of settling it," answered Franklin Gray, sternly, "would be to shoot you through the head, and thus leave the account between you and me as it stood before."
But as he spoke, Mona had advanced gently to his side, and laid her hand upon his arm. "Oh, set him free!" she said; "set him free as soon as he is able to depart."
"What is it to you, Mona?" demanded Franklin Gray, turning sharply upon her; "Why should you wish him to depart?"
"It is much to me, Franklin," she answered; "very much to me; and I do wish him to depart, for you have twice looked cold upon me since he has been here, which you never in your life did before, and anything which causes such a change I wish instantly away; for you know, Franklin, that your kind looks to me are like the sunshine of my own happy land--sunshine that I have left far behind."
Franklin Gray was somewhat moved, and seeing that he was so, she went on, saying, "Oh, set him free, my husband! and if it be needful, make him swear that he will never betray your abode. I will be answerable for it, he will keep his word."
Franklin Gray had been moved for a moment, and he had also thought of setting Lord Harold free, or of only detaining him till all was prepared for executing his own purpose of crossing the sea and seeking other lands; but the last few words which his wife uttered hardened his heart in a moment.
"You will be answerable!" he exclaimed. "What have you to do with being answerable for him? No; I will not set him free? If you choose to betray your husband, woman, and open the doors to him whom it is needful to detain, you can do it when you like. I shall neither watch nor stop you; but the consequence be upon your own head."
Thus saying, he turned upon his heel with a frowning brow, and hastily quitted the room, after which his steps might be heard slowly descending the stairs. Mona sunk down into the chair beside her, clasping her hands together, and fixing her eyes upon the ground with a look of despair; for they were the first harsh words, the first unkind and ungenerous expressions, which had ever dropped from the lips of him she loved, from the day on which she had sacrificed kindred, and home, and fortune, and her native land, to follow his uncertain footsteps through the world. As she sat there, with that look of deep despondency, Lord Harold could not but feel admiration of her exquisite beauty mingling even with the compassion which he felt; and there was something of that admiration apparent in his look and manner, as he slowly rose from his chair and crossing the room, took her hand in his, saying, "He treats you harshly, lady."
But Mona, suddenly recalled to recollection by that action and those words, started up, and drew her hand quickly from him, gazing upon him with a look of anger and indignation. "Treats me harshly:" she said; "It is false! He is kindness itself; and he is right too! What had I to do meddling with his purposes or his will? I have been sorry for you, young gentleman, and compassion has led me to do a foolish thing, but I will take care so to offend no more;" and thus speaking, she left him, and hurriedly sought her husband below.
She found him in a lower room, gazing forth as he had done above, but the expression of his countenance was more sad and less fierce than before. Mona advanced towards him, but he heeded her not; she laid her hand upon his arm, but he did not turn his head. She was a creature of noble impulses, however, and where her heart prompted she would not be repelled. The tears, indeed, sprang to her eyes and ran over her cheeks, but still she cast herself on her husband's bosom, saying, "I have done wrong, Franklin; I should not have interfered where you thought fit to act. I was sorry for the young man, and I thought that he might have friends and relations, and perhaps a wife, that loved him as I love you, and I wished you to send him back to his happy home on that account. But I was wrong to speak of it at all, and still more wrong to speak of it before him. Forgive me, Franklin; I will not offend again."
Franklin Gray pressed her to his heart, and kissed the tears off her cheek; and--although the seed of suspicion and doubt, once sown in a soil so congenial to it as his mind, can never, perhaps, be wholly eradicated, take what pains we will--yet he was anxious to feel as he had felt, somewhat ashamed of having given way to such bitterness towards her who was associated with all the better spirits of his heart's dark tabernacle, and grieved to see the grief of one who had brought the only real sweet sunshine on his path that he had known through life. He pressed her then to his bosom, he treated her gently and kindly, and once more, to her powerful gentleness, the fierce and lion-like spirit of her husband was softened and bowed down.
She had not said one word of the dark shade of jealousy which had shown itself in Franklin Gray's first words to her. She was far too wise to comment on it, or to attempt to do it away by any eloquence but those of acts. She saw it plainly, however; she felt that what in her breast was but pity, had been misunderstood by her husband; and from a certain vague expression on Lord Harold's face when last he spoke to her, she feared that, with him, man's vanity had once more misjudged woman's best feelings. She blamed herself, however, more than either: "I should have known," she thought, "that man cannot see into the heart;" and from that hour she went near the prisoner no more. She gave no cause for so abstaining, and she took care that the woman who accompanied her should provide for his comfort as far as might be. It is the meed of such conduct, however, almost always to pass unremarked; the recompense, the success is in our own hearts. Franklin Gray saw that she was less with the prisoner than before, but he did not see that she was never with him at all.