THE JUSTICE--THE DEPARTURE--THE EQUANIMITY OF THE CORPORAL IN
BEARING THE MISFORTUNES OF OTHER PEOPLE.--THE EXAMINATION; ITS
RESULT.--ARAM'S CONDUCT IN PRISON.--THE ELASTICITY OF OUR
HUMAN NATURE.--A VISIT FROM THE EARL.--WALTER'S
DETERMINATION.--MADELINE.
Bear me to prison, where I am committed.
--Measure for Measure.
On arriving at Sir--'s, a disappointment, for which, had they previously
conversed with the officers they might have been prepared, awaited them.
The fact was, that the justice had only endorsed the warrant sent from
Yorkshire; and after a very short colloquy, in which he expressed his
regret at the circumstance, his conviction that the charge would be
disproved, and a few other courteous common-places, he gave Aram to
understand that the matter now did not rest with him, but that it was to
Yorkshire that the officers were bound, and before Mr. Thornton, a
magistrate of that country, that the examination was to take place. "All
I can do," said the magistrate, "I have already done; but I wished for an
opportunity of informing you of it. I have written to my brother justice
at full length respecting your high character, and treating the habits
and rectitude of your life alone as a sufficient refutation of so
monstrous a charge."
For the first time a visible embarrassment came over the firm nerves of
the prisoner: he seemed to look with great uneasiness at the prospect of
this long and dreary journey, and for such an end. Perhaps, the very
notion of returning as a suspected criminal to that part of the country
where a portion of his youth had been passed, was sufficient to disquiet
and deject him. All this while his poor Madeline seemed actuated by a
spirit beyond herself; she would not be separated from his side--she held
his hand in hers--she whispered comfort and courage at the very moment
when her own heart most sank. The magistrate wiped his eyes when he saw a
creature so young, so beautiful, in circumstances so fearful, and bearing
up with an energy so little to be expected from her years and delicate
appearance. Aram said but little; he covered his face with his right hand
for a few moments, as if to hide a passing emotion, a sudden weakness.
When he removed it, all vestige of colour had died away; his face was
pale as that of one who has risen from the grave; but it was settled and
composed.
"It is a hard pang, Sir," said he, with a faint smile; "so many miles--so
many days--so long a deferment of knowing the best, or preparing to meet
the worst. But, be it so! I thank you, Sir,--I thank you all,--Lester,
Madeline, for your kindness; you two must now leave me; the brand is on
my name--the suspected man is no fit object for love or friendship!
Farewell!"
"We go with you!" said Madeline firmly, and in a very low voice.
Aram's eye sparkled, but he waved his hand impatiently.
"We go with you, my friend!" repeated Lester.
And so, indeed, not to dwell long on a painful scene, it was finally
settled. Lester and his two daughters that evening followed Aram to the
dark and fatal bourne to which he was bound.
It was in vain that Walter, seizing his uncle's hands, whispered,
"For Heaven's sake, do not be rash in your friendship! You have not yet
learnt all. I tell you, that there can be no doubt of his guilt!
Remember, it is a brother for whom you mourn! will you countenance his
murderer?"
Lester, despite himself, was struck by the earnestness with which his
nephew spoke, but the impression died away as the words ceased: so strong
and deep had been the fascination which Eugene Aram had exercised over
the hearts of all once drawn within the near circle of his attraction,
that had the charge of murder been made against himself, Lester could not
have repelled it with a more entire conviction of the innocence of the
accused. Still, however, the deep sincerity of his nephew's manner in
some measure served to soften his resentment towards him.
"No, no, boy!" said he, drawing away his hand, "Rowland Lester is not the
one to desert a friend in the day of darkness and the hour of need. Be
silent I say!--My brother, my poor brother, you tell me, has been
murdered. I will see justice done to him: but, Aram! Fie! fie! it is a
name that would whisper falsehood to the loudest accusation. Go, Walter!
go! I do not blame you!--you may be right--a murdered father is a dread
and awful memory to a son! What wonder that the thought warps your
judgment? But go! Eugene was to me both a guide and a blessing; a father
in wisdom, a son in love. I cannot look on his accuser's face without
anguish. Go! we shall meet again.--How! Go!"
"Enough, Sir!" said Walter, partly in anger, partly in sorrow--"Time be
the judge between us all!"
With those words he turned from the house, and proceeded on foot towards
a cottage half way between Grassdale and the Magistrate's house, at
which, previous to his return to the former place, he had prudently left
the Corporal--not willing to trust to that person's discretion, as to the
tales and scandal that he might propagate throughout the village on a
matter so painful and so dark.
Let the world wag as it will, there are some tempers which its
vicissitudes never reach. Nothing makes a picture of distress more sad
than the portrait of some individual sitting indifferently looking on in
the back-ground. This was a secret Hogarth knew well. Mark his deathbed
scenes:--Poverty and Vice worked up into horror--and the Physicians in
the corner wrangling for the fee!--or the child playing with the coffin-
-or the nurse filching what fortune, harsh, yet less harsh than humanity,
might have left. In the melancholy depth of humour that steeps both our
fancy and our heart in the immortal Romance of Cervantes (for, how
profoundly melancholy is it to be compelled by one gallant folly to laugh
at all that is gentle, and brave, and wise, and generous!) nothing grates
on us more than when--last scene of all, the poor Knight lies dead--his
exploits for ever over--for ever dumb his eloquent discourses: than when,
I say, we are told that, despite of his grief, even little Sancho did not
eat or drink the less:--these touches open to us the real world, it is
true; but it is not the best part of it. What a pensive thing is true
humour! Certain it was, that when Walter, full of contending emotions at
all he had witnessed,--harassed, tortured, yet also elevated, by his
feelings, stopped opposite the cottage door, and saw there the Corporal
sitting comfortably in the porch,--his vile modicum Sabini before him--
his pipe in his mouth, and a complacent expression of satisfaction
diffusing itself over features which shrewdness and selfishness had
marked for their own;--certain it was, that, at this sight Walter
experienced a more displeasing revulsion of feeling--a more entire
conviction of sadness--a more consummate disgust of this weary world and
the motley masquers that walk thereon, than all the tragic scenes he had
just witnessed had excited within him.
"And well, Sir," said the Corporal, slowly rising, "how did it go off?--
Wasn't the villain bash'd to the dust?--You've nabbed him safe, I hope?"
"Silence," said Walter, sternly, "prepare for our departure. The chaise
will be here forthwith; we return to Yorkshire this day. Ask me no more
now."
"A--well--baugh!" said the Corporal.
There was a long silence. Walter walked to and fro the road before the
cottage. The chaise arrived; the luggage was put in. Walter's foot was on
the step; but before the Corporal mounted the rumbling dickey, that
invaluable domestic hemmed thrice.
"And had you time, Sir, to think of poor Jacob, and look at the cottage,
and slip in a word to your uncle about the bit tato ground?"
We pass over the space of time, short in fact, long in suffering, that
elapsed, till the prisoner and his companions reached Knaresbro'. Aram's
conduct during this time was not only calm but cheerful. The stoical
doctrines he had affected through life, he on this trying interval called
into remarkable exertion. He it was who now supported the spirits of his
mistress and his friend; and though he no longer pretended to be sanguine
of acquittal--though again and again he urged upon them the gloomy fact--
first, how improbable it was that this course had been entered into
against him without strong presumption of guilt; and secondly, how little
less improbable it was, that at that distance of time he should be able
to procure evidence, or remember circumstances, sufficient on the instant
to set aside such presumption,--he yet dwelt partly on the hope of
ultimate proof of his innocence, and still more strongly on the firmness
of his own mind to bear, without shrinking, even the hardest fate.
"Do not," he said to Lester, "do not look on these trials of life only
with the eyes of the world. Reflect how poor and minute a segment in the
vast circle of eternity existence is at the best. Its sorrow and its
shame are but moments. Always in my brightest and youngest hours I have
wrapt my heart in the contemplation of an august futurity.
"'The soul, secure in its existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.'
"If I die even the death of the felon, it is beyond the power of fate to
separate us for long. It is but a pang, and we are united again for ever;
for ever in that far and shadowy clime, where the wicked cease from
troubling, and the weary are at rest.' Were it not for Madeline's dear
sake, I should long since have been over weary of the world. As it is,
the sooner, even by a violent and unjust fate, we leave a path begirt
with snares below and tempests above, the happier for that soul which
looks to its lot in this earth as the least part of its appointed doom."
In discourses like this, which the nature of his eloquence was peculiarly
calculated to render solemn and impressive, Aram strove to prepare his
friends for the worst, and perhaps to cheat, or to steel, himself. Ever
as he spoke thus, Lester or Ellinor broke on him with impatient
remonstrance; but Madeline, as if imbued with a deeper and more mournful
penetration into the future, listened in tearless and breathless
attention. She gazed upon him with a look that shared the thought he
expressed, though it read not (yet she dreamed so) the heart from which
it came. In the words of that beautiful poet, to whose true nature, so
full of unuttered tenderness--so fraught with the rich nobility of love-
-we have begun slowly to awaken,
"Her lip was silent, scarcely beat her heart.
Her eye alone proclaimed 'we will not part!'
Thy 'hope' may perish, or thy friends may flee.
Farewell to life--but not adieu to thee!"
--[Lara]
They arrived at noon at the house of Mr. Thornton, and Aram underwent his
examination. Though he denied most of the particulars in Houseman's
evidence, and expressly the charge of murder, his commitment was made
out; and that day he was removed by the officers, (Barker and Moor, who
had arrested him at Grassdale,) to York Castle, to await his trial at the
assizes.
The sensation which this extraordinary event created throughout the
country, was wholly unequalled. Not only in Yorkshire, and the county in
which he had of late resided, where his personal habits were known, but
even in the Metropolis, and amongst men of all classes in England, it
appears to have caused one mingled feeling of astonishment, horror, and
incredulity, which in our times has had no parallel in any criminal
prosecution. The peculiar turn of the prisoner--his genius--his learning-
-his moral life--the interest that by students had been for years
attached to his name--his approaching marriage--the length of time that
had elapsed since the crime had been committed--the singular and abrupt
manner, the wild and legendary spot, in which the skeleton of the lost
man had been discovered--the imperfect rumours--the dark and suspicious
evidence--all combined to make a tale of such marvellous incident, and
breeding such endless conjecture, that we cannot wonder to find it
afterwards received a place, not only in the temporary chronicles, but
even the most important and permanent histories of the period.
Previous to Walter's departure from Knaresbro' to Grassdale, and
immediately subsequent to the discovery at St. Robert's Cave, the
coroner's inquest had been held upon the bones so mysteriously and
suddenly brought to light. Upon the witness of the old woman at whose
house Aram had lodged, and upon that of Houseman, aided by some
circumstantial and less weighty evidence, had been issued that warrant on
which we have seen the prisoner apprehended.
With most men there was an intimate and indignant persuasion of Aram's
innocence; and at this day, in the county where he last resided, there
still lingers the same belief. Firm as his gospel faith, that conviction
rested in the mind of the worthy Lester; and he sought, by every means he
could devise, to soothe and cheer the confinement of his friend. In
prison, however (indeed after his examination--after Aram had made
himself thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstantial evidence which
identified Clarke with Geoffrey Lester, a story that till then he had
persuaded himself wholly to disbelieve) a change which, in the presence
of Madeline or her father, he vainly attempted wholly to conceal, and to
which, when alone, he surrendered himself with a gloomy abstraction--came
over his mood, and dashed him from the lofty height of Philosophy, from
which he had before looked down on the peril and the ills below.
Sometimes he would gaze on Lester with a strange and glassy eye, and
mutter inaudibly to himself, as if unaware of the old man's presence; at
others, he would shrink from Lester's proffered hand, and start abruptly
from his professions of unaltered, unalterable regard; sometimes he would
sit silently, and, with a changeless and stony countenance, look upon
Madeline as she now spoke in that exalted tone of consolation which had
passed away from himself; and when she had done, instead of replying to
her speech, he would say abruptly, "Ay, at the worst you love me, then--
love me better than any one on earth--say that, Madeline, again say
that!"
And Madeline's trembling lips obeyed the demand.
"Yes," he would renew, "this man, whom they accuse me of murdering,
this,--your uncle,--him you never saw since you were an infant, a mere
infant; him you could not love! What was he to you?--yet it is dreadful
to think of--dreadful, dreadful;" and then again his voice ceased; but
his lips moved convulsively, and his eyes seemed to speak meanings that
defied words. These alterations in his bearing, which belied his steady
and resolute character, astonished and dejected both Madeline and her
father. Sometimes they thought that his situation had shaken his reason,
or that the horrible suspicion of having murdered the uncle of his
intended wife, made him look upon themselves with a secret shudder, and
that they were mingled up in his mind by no unnatural, though unjust
confusion, with the causes of his present awful and uncertain state. With
the generality of the world, these two tender friends believed Houseman
the sole and real murderer, and fancied his charge against Aram was but
the last expedient of a villain to ward punishment from himself, by
imputing crime to another. Naturally, then, they frequently sought to
turn the conversation upon Houseman, and on the different circumstances
that had brought him acquainted with Aram; but on this ground the
prisoner seemed morbidly sensitive, and averse to detailed discussion.
His narration, however, such as it was, threw much light upon certain
matters on which Madeline and Lester were before anxious and inquisitive.
"Houseman is, in all ways," said he, with great and bitter vehemence,
"unredeemed, and beyond the calculations of an ordinary wickedness; we
knew each other from our relationship, but seldom met, and still more
rarely held long intercourse together. After we separated, when I left
Knaresbro', we did not meet for years. He sought me at Grassdale; he was
poor, and implored assistance; I gave him all within my power; he sought
me again, nay, more than once again, and finding me justly averse to
yielding to his extortionate demands, he then broached the purpose he has
now effected; he threatened--you hear me--you understand--he threatened
me with this charge--the murder of Daniel Clarke, by that name alone I
knew the deceased. The menace, and the known villainy of the man,
agitated me beyond expression. What was I? a being who lived without the
world--who knew not its ways--who desired only rest! The menace haunted
me--almost maddened! Your nephew has told you, you say, of broken words,
of escaping emotions, which he has noted, even to suspicion, in me; you
now behold the cause! Was it not sufficient? My life, nay more, my fame,
my marriage, Madeline's peace of mind, all depended on the uncertain fury
or craft of a wretch like this! The idea was with me night and day; to
avoid it, I resolved on a sacrifice; you may blame me, I was weak, yet I
thought then not unwise; to avoid it, I say I offered to bribe this man
to leave the country. I sold my pittance to oblige him to it. I bound him
thereto by the strongest ties. Nay, so disinterestedly, so truly did I
love Madeline, that I would not wed while I thought this danger could
burst upon me. I believed that, before my marriage day, Houseman had left
the country. It was not so, Fate ordered otherwise. It seems that
Houseman came to Knaresbro' to see his daughter; that suspicion, by a
sudden train of events, fell on him, perhaps justly; to skreen himself he
has sacrificed me. The tale seems plausible; perhaps the accuser may
triumph. But, Madeline, you now may account for much that may have
perplexed you before. Let me remember--ay--ay--I have dropped mysterious
words--have I not? have I not?--owning that danger was around me--owning
that a wild and terrific secret was heavy at my breast; nay, once,
walking with you the evening before, before the fatal day, I said that we
must prepare to seek some yet more secluded spot, some deeper retirement;
for, despite my precautions, despite the supposed absence of Houseman
from the country itself, a fevered and restless presentiment would at
some times intrude itself on me. All this is now accounted for, is it
not, Madeline? Speak, speak!"
"All, love all! Why do you look on me with that searching eye, that
frowning brow?"
"Did I? no, no, I have no frown for you; but peace, I am not what I ought
to be through this ordeal."
The above narration of Aram's did indeed account to Madeline for much
that had till then remained unexplained; the appearance of Houseman at
Grassdale,--the meeting between him and Aram on the evening she walked
with the latter, and questioned him of his ill-boding visitor; the
frequent abstraction and muttered hints of her lover; and as he had said,
his last declaration of the possible necessity of leaving Grassdale. Nor
was there any thing improbable, though it was rather in accordance with
the unworldly habits, than with the haughty character of Aram, that he
should seek, circumstanced as he was, to silence even the false accuser
of a plausible tale, that might well strike horror and bewilderment into
a man much more, to all seeming, fitted to grapple with the hard and
coarse realities of life, than the moody and secluded scholar. Be that as
it may, though Lester deplored, he did not blame this circumstance, which
after all had not transpired, nor seemed likely to transpire; and he
attributed the prisoner's aversion to enter farther on the matter, to the
natural dislike of so proud a man to refer to his own weakness, and to
dwell upon the manner in which, despite of that weakness, he had been
duped. This story Lester retailed to Walter, and it contributed to throw
a damp and uncertainty over those mixed and unquiet feelings with which
the latter waited for the coming trial. There were many moments when the
young man was tempted to regret that Aram had not escaped a trial which,
if he were proved guilty, would for ever blast the happiness of his
family; and which might, notwithstanding such a verdict, leave on
Walter's own mind an impression of the prisoner's innocence; and an
uneasy consciousness that he, through his investigations, had brought him
to that doom.
Walter remained in Yorkshire, seeing little of his family, of none indeed
but Lester; it was not to be expected that Madeline would see him, and
once only he caught the tearful eyes of Ellinor as she retreated from the
room he entered, and those eyes beamed kindness and pity, but something
also of reproach.
Time passed slowly and witheringly on: a man of the name of Terry having
been included in the suspicion, and indeed committed, it appeared that
the prosecutor could not procure witnesses by the customary time, and the
trial was postponed till the next assizes. As this man was however, never
brought up to trial, and appears no more, we have said nothing of him in
our narrative, until he thus became the instrument of a delay in the fate
of Eugene Aram. Time passed on, Winter, Spring, were gone, and the glory
and gloss of Summer were now lavished over the happy earth. In some
measure the usual calmness of his demeanour had returned to Aram; he had
mastered those moody fits we have referred to, which had so afflicted his
affectionate visitors; and he now seemed to prepare and buoy himself up
against that awful ordeal of life and death, which he was about so soon
to pass. Yet he,--the hermit of Nature, who--
"Each little herb
That grows on mountain bleak, or tangled forest,
Had learnt to name;"
--Remorse, by S. T. Coleridge
he could not feel, even through the bars and checks of a prison, the soft
summer air, 'the witchery of the soft blue sky;' he could not see the
leaves bud forth, and mellow into their darker verdure; he could not hear
the songs of the many-voiced birds; or listen to the dancing rain,
calling up beauty where it fell; or mark at night, through his high and
narrow casement, the stars aloof, and the sweet moon pouring in her
light, like God's pardon, even through the dungeon-gloom and the desolate
scenes where Mortality struggles with Despair; he could not catch,
obstructed as they were, these, the benigner influences of earth, and not
sicken and pant for his old and full communion with their ministry and
presence. Sometimes all around him was forgotten, the harsh cell, the
cheerless solitude, the approaching trial, the boding fear, the darkened
hope, even the spectre of a troubled and fierce remembrance,--all was
forgotten, and his spirit was abroad, and his step upon the mountain-top
once more.
In our estimate of the ills of life, we never sufficiently take into our
consideration the wonderful elasticity of our moral frame, the unlooked
for, the startling facility with which the human mind accommodates itself
to all change of circumstance, making an object and even a joy from the
hardest and seemingly the least redeemed conditions of fate. The man who
watched the spider in his cell, may have taken, at least, as much
interest in the watch, as when engaged in the most ardent and ambitious
objects of his former life; and he was but a type of his brethren; all in
similar circumstances would have found some similar occupation. Let any
man look over his past life, let him recall not moments, not hours of
agony, for to them Custom lends not her blessed magic; but let him single
out some lengthened period of physical or moral endurance; in hastily
reverting to it, it may seem at first, I grant, altogether wretched; a
series of days marked with the black stone,--the clouds without a star;--
but let him look more closely, it was not so during the time of
suffering; a thousand little things, in the bustle of life dormant and
unheeded, then started froth into notice, and became to him objects of
interest or diversion; the dreary present, once made familiar, glided
away from him, not less than if it had been all happiness; his mind dwelt
not on the dull intervals, but the stepping-stone it had created and
placed at each; and, by that moral dreaming which for ever goes on within
man's secret heart, he lived as little in the immediate world before him,
as in the most sanguine period of his youth, or the most scheming of his
maturity.
So wonderful in equalizing all states and all times in the varying tide
of life, are these two rulers yet levellers of mankind, Hope and Custom,
that the very idea of an eternal punishment includes that of an utter
alteration of the whole mechanism of the soul in its human state, and no
effort of an imagination, assisted by past experience, can conceive a
state of torture which custom can never blunt, and from which the
chainless and immaterial spirit can never be beguiled into even a
momentary escape.
Among the very few persons admitted to Aram's solitude, was Lord--That
nobleman was staying, on a visit, with a relation of his in the
neighbourhood, and he seized with an excited and mournful avidity, the
opportunity thus afforded him of seeing, once more, a character that had
so often forced itself on his speculation and surprise. He came to offer
not condolence, but respect; services, at such a moment, no individual
could render,--he gave however, what was within his power--advice,--and
pointed out to Aram the best counsel to engage, and the best method of
previous inquiry into particulars yet unexplored. He was astonished to
find Aram indifferent on these points, so important. The prisoner, it
would seem, had even then resolved on being his own counsel, and
conducting his own cause; the event proved that he did not rely in vain
on the power of his own eloquence and sagacity, though he might on their
result. As to the rest, he spoke with impatience, and the petulance of a
wronged man. "For the idle rumours of the world, I do not care," said he,
"let them condemn or acquit me as they will;--for my life, I might be
willing indeed, that it were spared,--I trust it may be, if not, I can
stand face to face with Death. I have now looked on him within these
walls long enough to have grown familiar with his terrors. But enough of
me; tell me, my Lord, something of the world without, I have grown eager
about it at last. I have been now so condemned to feed upon myself, that
I have become surfeited with the diet;"--and it was with great difficulty
that the Earl drew Aram back to speak of himself: he did so, even when
compelled to it, with so much qualification and reserve, mixed with some
evident anger at the thought of being sifted and examined--that his
visitor was forced finally to drop the subject, and not liking, nor
indeed able, at such a time, to converse on more indifferent themes, the
last interview he ever had with Aram terminated much more abruptly than
he had meant it. His opinion of the prisoner was not, however, shaken in
the least. I have seen a letter of his to a celebrated personage of the
day, in which, mentioning this interview, he concludes with saying,--"In
short, there is so much real dignity about the man, that adverse
circumstances increase it tenfold. Of his innocence I have not the
remotest doubt; but if he persist in being his own counsel, I tremble for
the result,--you know in such cases how much more valuable is practice
than genius. But the judge you will say is, in criminal causes, the
prisoner's counsel,--God grant he may here prove a successful one! I
repeat, were Aram condemned by five hundred juries, I could not believe
him guilty. No, the very essence of all human probabilities is against
it."
The Earl afterwards saw and conversed with Walter. He was much struck
with the conduct of the young Lester, and much impressed with a feeling
for a situation, so harassing and unhappy.
"Whatever be the result of the trial," said Walter, "I shall leave the
country the moment it is finally over. If the prisoner be condemned,
there is no hearth for me in my uncle's home; if not, my suspicions may
still remain, and the sight of each other be an equal bane to the accused
and to myself. A voluntary exile, and a life that may lead to
forgetfulness, are all that I covet.--I now find in my own person," he
added, with a faint smile, "how deeply Shakspeare had read the mysteries
of men's conduct. Hamlet, we are told, was naturally full of fire and
action. One dark discovery quells his spirit, unstrings his heart, and
stales to him for ever the uses of the world. I now comprehend the
change. It is bodied forth even in the humblest individual, who is met by
a similar fate--even in myself."
"Ay," said the Earl, "I do indeed remember you a wild, impetuous,
headstrong youth. I scarcely recognize your very appearance. The elastic
spring has left your step--there seems a fixed furrow in your brow. These
clouds of life are indeed no summer vapour, darkening one moment and gone
the next. But my young friend, let us hope the best. I firmly believe in
Aram's innocence--firmly!--more rootedly than I can express. The real
criminal will appear on the trial. All bitterness between you and Aram
must cease at his acquittal; you will be anxious to repair to him the
injustice of a natural suspicion: and he seems not one who could long
retain malice. All will be well, believe me."
"God send it!" said Walter, sighing deeply.
"But at the worst," continued the Earl, pressing his hand in parting, "if
you should persist in your resolution to leave the country, write to me,
and I can furnish you with an honourable and stirring occasion for doing
so.--Farewell."
While Time was thus advancing towards the fatal day, it was graving deep
ravages within the pure breast of Madeline Lester. She had borne up, as
we have seen, for some time, against the sudden blow that had shivered
her young hopes, and separated her by so awful a chasm from the side of
Aram; but as week after week, month after month rolled on, and he still
lay in prison, and the horrible suspense of ignominy and death still hung
over her, then gradually her courage began to fail, and her heart to
sink. Of all the conditions to which the heart is subject, suspense is
the one that most gnaws, and cankers into, the frame. One little month of
that suspense, when it involves death, we are told, in a very remarkable
work lately published by an eye-witness. [Note: See Mr. Wakefield's work
on 'The Punishment of Death.'] is sufficient to plough fixed lines and
furrows in the face of a convict of five-and-twenty--sufficient to dash
the brown hair with grey, and to bleach the grey to white. And this
suspense--suspense of this nature, for more than eight whole months, had
Madeline to endure!
About the end of the second month the effect upon her health grew
visible. Her colour, naturally delicate as the hues of the pink shell or
the youngest rose, faded into one marble whiteness, which again, as time
proceeded, flushed into that red and preternatural hectic, which once
settled, rarely yields its place but to the colours of the grave. Her
flesh shrank from its rounded and noble proportions. Deep hollows traced
themselves beneath eyes which yet grew even more lovely as they grew less
serenely bright. The blessed Sleep sunk not upon her brain with its
wonted and healing dews. Perturbed dreams, that towards dawn succeeded
the long and weary vigil of the night, shook her frame even more than the
anguish of the day. in these dreams one frightful vision--a crowd--a
scaffold--and the pale majestic face of her lover, darkened by
unutterable pangs of pride and sorrow, were for ever present before her.
Till now, she and Ellinor had always shared the same bed: this Madeline
would not now suffer. In vain Ellinor wept and pleaded. "No," said
Madeline, with a hollow voice; "at night I see him. My soul is alone with
his; but--but,"--and she burst into an agony of tears--"the most
dreadful thought is this, I cannot master my dreams. And sometimes I
start and wake, and find that in sleep I have believed him guilty. Nay, O
God! that his lips have proclaimed the guilt! And shall any living being-
-shall any but God, who reads not words but hearts, hear this hideous
falsehood--this ghastly mockery of the lying sleep? No, I must be alone!
The very stars should not hear what is forced from me in the madness of
my dreams."
But not in vain, or not excluded from her, was that elastic and consoling
spirit of which I have before spoken. As Aram recovered the tenor of his
self-possession, a more quiet and peaceful calm diffused itself over the
mind of Madeline. Her high and starry nature could comprehend those
sublime inspirations of comfort, which lift us from the lowest abyss of
this world to the contemplation of all that the yearning visions of
mankind have painted in another. She would sit, rapt and absorbed for
hours together, till these contemplations assumed the colour of a gentle
and soft insanity. "Come, dearest Madeline," Ellinor would say,--"Come,
you have thought enough; my poor father asks to see you."
"Hush!" Madeline answered. "Hush, I have been walking with Eugene in
heaven; and oh! there are green woods, and lulling waters above, as there
are on earth, and we see the stars quite near, and I cannot tell you how
happy their smile makes those who look upon them. And Eugene never starts
there, nor frowns, nor walks aside, nor looks on me with an estranged and
chilling look; but his face is as calm and bright as the face of an
angel;--and his voice!--it thrills amidst all the music which plays there
night and day--softer than their softest note. And we are married,
Ellinor, at last. We were married in heaven, and all the angels came to
the marriage! I am now so happy that we were not wed before! What! are
you weeping, Ellinor? Ah, we never weep in heaven! but we will all go
there again--all of us, hand in hand!"
These affecting hallucinations terrified them, lest they should settle
into a confirmed loss of reason; but perhaps without cause. They never
lasted long, and never occurred but after moods of abstraction of unusual
duration. To her they probably supplied what sleep does to others--a
relaxation and refreshment--an escape from the consciousness of life. And
indeed it might always be noted, that after such harmless aberrations of
the mind, Madeline seemed more collected and patient in thought, and for
the moment, even stronger in frame than before. Yet the body evidently
pined and languished, and each week made palpable decay in her vital
powers.
Every time Aram saw her, he was startled at the alteration; and kissing
her cheek, her lips, her temples, in an agony of grief, wondered that to
him alone it was forbidden to weep. Yet after all, when she was gone, and
he again alone, he could not but think death likely to prove to her the
most happy of earthly boons. He was not sanguine of acquittal, and even
in acquittal, a voice at his heart suggested insuperable barriers to
their union, which had not existed when it was first anticipated.
"Yes, let her die," he would say, "let her die; she at least is certain
of Heaven!" But the human infirmity clung around him, and notwithstanding
this seeming resolution in her absence, he did not mourn the less, he was
not stung the less, when he saw her again, and beheld a new character
from the hand of death graven upon her form. No; we may triumph over all
weakness, but that of the affections. Perhaps in this dreary and haggard
interval of time, these two persons loved each other more purely, more
strongly, more enthusiastically, than they had ever done at any former
period of their eventful history. Over the hardest stone, as over the
softest turf, the green moss will force its verdure and sustain its life!