before it was dark, and reach the place of her destination before
bed-time, unknown and unseen: but she was mistaken in her expectations:
for the roads had been rendered so rugged by the frost, that it was late
in the evening when the coach reached the spot whence she was to
commence her walk; and by the time she had eaten her slight repast, and
furnished herself with some necessaries to enable her to resist the
severity of the weather, she found that it was impossible for her to
reach her long-forsaken home before day-break.
Still she was resolved to go on:--to pass another day in suspense
concerning her father, and her future hopes of his pardon, was more
formidable to her than the terrors of undertaking a lonely and painful
walk. Perhaps too, Agnes was not sorry to have a tale of hardship to
narrate on her arrival at the house of her nurse, whom she meant to
employ as mediator between her and her offended parent.
His child, his penitent child, whom he had brought up with the utmost
tenderness, and screened with unremitting care from the ills of
life, returning, to implore his pity and forgiveness, on foot, and
unprotected, through all the dangers of lonely paths, and through the
horrors of a winter's night, must, she flattered herself, be a picture
too affecting for Fitzhenry to think upon without some commiseration;
and she hoped he would in time bestow on her his _forgiveness_;--to be
admitted to his presence, was a favour which she dared not presume
either to ask or expect.
But, in spite of the soothing expectation which she tried to encourage,
a dread of she knew not what took possession of her mind.--Every moment
she looked fearfully around her, and, as she beheld the wintry waste
spreading on every side, she felt awe-struck at the desolateness of her
situation. The sound of a human voice would, she thought, have been
rapture to her ear; but the next minute she believed that it would
have made her sink in terror to the ground.--"Alas!" she mournfully
exclaimed, "I was not always timid and irritable as I now feel;--but
then I was not always guilty:--O my child! would I were once more
innocent like thee!" So saying, in a paroxysm of grief she bounded
forward on her way, as if hoping to escape by speed from the misery of
recollection.
Agnes was now arrived at the beginning of a forest, about two miles in
length, and within three of her native place. Even in her happiest days
she never entered its solemn shade without feeling a sensation of
fearful awe; but now that she entered it, leafless as it was, a
wandering wretched outcast, a mother without the sacred name of wife,
and bearing in her arms the pledge of her infamy, her knees smote each
other, and, shuddering as if danger were before her, she audibly
implored the protection of Heaven.
At this instant she heard a noise, and, casting a startled glance into
the obscurity before her, she thought she saw something like a human
form running across the road. For a few moments she was motionless
with terror; but, judging from the swiftness with which the object
disappeared that she had inspired as much terror as she felt, she
ventured to pursue her course. She had not gone far when she again
beheld the cause of her fear; but hearing, as it moved, a noise like the
clanking of a chain, she concluded that it was some poor animal which
had been turned out to graze.
Still, as she gained on the object before her, she was convinced it was
a man that she beheld; and, as she heard the noise no longer, she
concluded that it had been the result of fancy only: but that, with
every other idea, was wholly absorbed in terror when she saw the figure
standing still, as if waiting for her approach.--"Yet why should I
fear?" she inwardly observed: "it may be a poor wanderer like myself,
who is desirous of a companion;--if so, I shall rejoice in such a
rencontre."
As this reflection passed her mind, she hastened towards the stranger,
when she saw him look hastily around him, start, as if he beheld at a
distance some object that alarmed him, and then, without taking any
notice of her, run on as fast as before. But what can express the horror
of Agnes when she again heard the clanking of a chain, and discovered
that it hung to the ankle of the stranger!--"Surely he must be a
felon," murmured Agnes:--"O my poor boy! perhaps we shall both be
murdered!--This suspense is not to be borne: I will follow him, and meet
my fate at once."--Then, summoning all her remaining strength, she
followed the alarming fugitive.
After she had walked nearly a mile further, and, as she did not
overtake him, had flattered herself that he had gone in a contrary
direction, she saw him seated on the ground, and, as before, turning his
head back with a sort of convulsive quickness; but as it was turned from
her, she was convinced that she was not the object which he was seeking.
Of her he took no notice; and her resolution of accosting him failing
when she approached, she walked hastily past, in hopes that she might
escape him entirely.
As she passed, she heard him talking and laughing to himself, and
thence concluded that he was not a felon, but a _lunatic_ escaped from
confinement. Horrible as this idea was, her fear was so far overcome
by pity, that she had a wish to return, and offer him some of the
refreshment which she had procured for herself and child, when she heard
him following her very fast, and was convinced by the sound, the
dreadful sound of his chain, that he was coming up to her.
The clanking of a fetter, when one knows that it is fastened round
the limbs of a fellow-creature, always calls forth in the soul, of
sensibility a sensation of horror: what then, at this moment, must have
been its effect on Agnes, who was trembling for her life, for that of
her child, and looking in vain for a protector around the still, solemn
waste! Breathless with apprehension, she stopped as the maniac gained
upon her, and, motionless and speechless, awaited the consequence of his
approach.
"Woman!" said he in a hoarse, hollow tone,--"Woman! do you see them? Do
you see them?"--"Sir! pray what did you say, sir?" cried Agnes in a tone
of respect, and curtsying as she spoke,--for what is so respectful as
fear?--"I can't see them," resumed he, not attending to her, "I have
escaped them! Rascals! cowards! I have escaped them!" and then he jumped
and clapped his hands for joy.
Agnes, relieved in some measure from her fears, and eager to gain the
poor wretch's favour, told him that she rejoiced at his escape from the
rascals, and hoped that they would not overtake him: but while she spoke
he seemed wholly inattentive, and, jumping as he walked, made his fetter
clank in horrid exultation.
The noise at length awoke the child, who, seeing a strange and
indistinct object before him, and hearing a sound so unusual, screamed
violently, and hid his face in his mother's bosom.
"Take it away! take it away!" exclaimed the maniac,--"I do not like
children."--Agnes, terrified at the thought of what might happen, tried
to sooth the trembling boy to rest, but in vain; the child still
screamed, and the angry agitation of the maniac increased.--"Strangle
it! strangle it!" he cried--"do it this moment, or----"
Agnes, almost frantic with terror, conjured the unconscious boy, if he
valued his life, to cease his cries; and then the next moment she
conjured the wretched man to spare her child: but, alas! she spoke to
those incapable of understanding her,--a child and a madman!--The
terrified boy still shrieked, the lunatic still threatened; and,
clenching his fist, seized the left arm of Agnes, who with the other
attempted to defend her infant from his fury; when, at the very moment
that his fate seemed inevitable, a sudden gale of wind shook the
leafless branches of the surrounding trees; and the madman, fancying
that the noise proceeded from his pursuers, ran off with his former
rapidity.
Immediately the child, relieved from the sight and the sound which
alarmed it, and exhausted by the violence of its cries, sunk into a
sound sleep on the throbbing bosom of its mother. But, alas! Agnes knew
that this was but a temporary escape:--the maniac might return, and
again the child might wake in terrors:--and scarcely had the thought
passed her mind when she saw him coming back; but, as he walked slowly,
the noise was not so great as before.
"I hate to hear children cry," said he as he approached.--"Mine is quiet
now," replied Agnes: then, recollecting that she had some food in her
pocket, she offered some to the stranger, in order to divert his
attention from the child. He snatched it from her hand instantly, and
devoured it with terrible voraciousness; but again he exclaimed, "I do
not like children;--if you trust them they will betray you:" and Agnes
offered him food again, as if to bribe him to spare her helpless
boy.--"I had a child once,--but she is dead, poor soul!" continued he,
taking Agnes by the arm, and leading her gently forward.--"And you loved
her very tenderly, I suppose?" said Agnes, thinking that the loss of his
child had occasioned his malady; but, instead of answering her, he went
on:--"They said that she ran away from me with a lover,--but I knew they
lied; she was good, and would not have deserted the father who doted on
her.--Besides, I saw her funeral myself.--Liars, rascals, as they
are!--Do not tell any one: I got away from them last night, and am now
going to visit her grave."
A death-like sickness, an apprehension so horrible as to deprive her
almost of sense, took possession of the soul of Agnes. She eagerly tried
to obtain a sight of the stranger's face, the features of which the
darkness had hitherto prevented her from distinguishing: she however
tried in vain, as his hat was pulled over his forehead, and his chin
rested on his bosom. But they had now nearly gained the end of the
forest, and day was just breaking; and Agnes, as soon as they entered
the open plain, seized the arm of the madman to force him to look
towards her,--for speak to him she could not. He felt, and perhaps
resented the importunate pressure of her hand--for he turned hastily
round--when, dreadful confirmation of her fears, Agnes beheld her
father!!!
It was indeed Fitzhenry, driven to madness by his daughter's desertion
and disgrace!!
After the elopement of Agnes, Fitzhenry entirely neglected his business,
and thought and talked of nothing but the misery which he experienced.
In vain did his friends represent to him the necessity of his making
amends, by increased diligence, for some alarming losses in trade which
he had lately sustained. She, for whom alone he toiled, had deserted
him--and ruin had no terrors for him.--"I was too proud of her," he used
mournfully to repeat,--"and Heaven has humbled me even in her by whom I
offended."
Month after month elapsed, and no intelligence of Agnes.--Fitzhenry's
dejection increased, and his affairs became more and more involved: at
length, absolute and irretrievable bankruptcy was become his portion,
when he learned, from authority not to be doubted, that Agnes was living
with Clifford as his acknowledged mistress.--This was the death-stroke
to his reason: and the only way in which his friends (relations he had
none, or only distant ones) could be of any further service to him was,
by procuring him admission into a private madhouse in the neighbourhood.
Of his recovery little hope was entertained.--The constant theme of his
ravings was his daughter;--sometimes he bewailed her as dead; at other
times he complained of her as ungrateful:--but so complete was the
overthrow which his reason had received, that he knew no one, and took
no notice of those whom friendship or curiosity led to his cell: yet he
was always meditating his escape; and, though ironed in consequence of
it, the night he met Agnes, he had, after incredible difficulty and
danger, effected his purpose.
But to return to Agnes, who, when she beheld in her insane companion her
injured father, the victim probably of her guilt, let fall her sleeping
child, and, sinking on the ground, extended her arms towards Fitzhenry,
articulating in a faint voice, "O God! My father!" then prostrating
herself at his feet, she clasped his knees in an agony too great for
utterance.
At the name of 'father,' the poor maniac started, and gazed on her
earnestly, with savage wildness, while his whole frame became convulsed;
then, rudely disengaging himself from her embrace, he ran from her a few
paces, and dashed himself on the ground in all the violence of phrensy.
He raved; he tore his hair; he screamed, and uttered the most dreadful
execrations; and, with his teeth shut and his hands clenched, he
repeated the word 'father,' and said the name was mockery to him.
Agnes, in mute and tearless despair, beheld the dreadful scene: in vain
did her affrighted child cling to her gown, and in its half-formed
accents entreat to be taken to her arms again: she saw, she heeded
nothing but her father; she was alive to nothing but her own guilt and
its consequences; and she awaited with horrid composure the cessation of
Fitzhenry's phrensy, or the direction of its fury towards her child.
At last, she saw him fall down exhausted and motionless, and tried to
hasten to him; but she was unable to move, and reason and life seemed at
once forsaking her, when Fitzhenry suddenly started up, and approached
her.--Uncertain as to his purpose, Agnes caught her child to her bosom,
and, falling again on her knees, turned on him her almost closing eyes;
but his countenance was mild,--and gently patting her forehead, on which
hung the damps of approaching insensibility, "Poor thing!" he cried, in
a tone of the utmost tenderness and compassion, "Poor thing!" and then
gazed on her with such inquiring and mournful looks, that tears once
more found their way and relieved her bursting brain, while seizing her
father's hand she pressed it with frantic emotion to her lips.
Fitzhenry looked at her with great kindness, and suffered her to hold
his hand;--then exclaimed, "Poor thing!--don't cry,--don't cry;--I can't
cry,--I have not cried for many years,--not since my child died.--For
she is dead, is she not?" looking earnestly at Agnes, who could only
answer by her tears.--"Come," said he, "come," taking hold of her arm,
then laughing wildly, "Poor thing! you will not leave me, will
you?"--"Leave you!" she replied: "Never:--I will live with you--die with
you."--"True, true," cried he, "she is dead, and we will go visit her
grave."--So saying, he dragged Agnes forward with great velocity; but
as it was along the path leading to the town, she made no resistance.
Indeed it was such a pleasure to her to see that though he knew her not,
the sight of her was welcome to her unhappy parent, that she sought to
avoid thinking of the future, and to be alive only to the present: she
tried also to forget that it was to his not knowing her that she owed
the looks of tenderness and pity which he bestowed on her, and that the
hand which now kindly held hers, would, if recollection returned, throw
her from him with just indignation.
But she was soon awakened to redoubled anguish, by hearing Fitzhenry, as
he looked behind him, exclaim, "They are coming! they are coming!" and
as he said this, he ran with frantic haste across the common. Agnes,
immediately looking behind her, saw three men pursuing her father at
full speed, and concluded that they were the keepers of the bedlam
whence he had escaped. Soon after, she saw the poor lunatic coming
towards her, and had scarcely time to lay her child gently on the
ground, before Fitzhenry threw himself in her arms, and implored her to
save him from his pursuers.
In an agony that mocks description, Agnes clasped him to her heart, and
awaited in trembling agitation the approach of the keepers.--"Hear me!
hear me!" she cried; "I conjure you to leave him to my care: He is my
father, and you may safely trust him with me."--"Your father!" replied
one of the men; "and what then, child? You could do nothing for him, and
you should be thankful to us, young woman, for taking him off your
hands.--So come along, master, come along," he continued, seizing
Fitzhenry, who could with difficulty be separated from Agnes,--while
another of the keepers, laughing as he beheld her wild anguish, said,
"We shall have the daughter as well as the father soon, I see, for I do
not believe there is a pin to choose between them."
But severe as the sufferings of Agnes were already, a still greater pang
awaited her. The keepers finding it a very difficult task to confine
Fitzhenry, threw him down, and tried by blows to terrify him into
acquiescence. At this outrage Agnes became frantic indeed, and followed
them with shrieks, entreaties, and reproaches; while the struggling
victim called on her to protect him, as they bore him by violence along,
till, exhausted with anguish and fatigue, she fell insensible on the
ground, and lost in a deep swoon the consciousness of her misery.
When she recovered her senses all was still around her, and she missed
her child. Then hastily rising, and looking round with renewed phrensy,
she saw it lying at some distance from her, and on taking it up she
found that it was in a deep sleep. The horrid apprehension immediately
rushed on her mind, that such a sleep in the midst of cold so severe was
the sure forerunner of death.
"Monster!" she exclaimed, "destroyer of thy child, as well as
father!--But perhaps it is not yet too late, and my curse is not
completed."--So saying, she ran, or rather flew, along the road; and
seeing a house at a distance she made towards it, and, bursting open the
door, beheld a cottager and his family at breakfast:--then, sinking on
her knees, and holding out to the woman of the house her sleeping boy,
"For the love of God," she cried, "look here! look here! Save him! O
save him!"
A mother appealing to the heart of a mother is rarely unsuccessful in
her appeal.--The cottager's wife was as eager to begin the recovery of
the child of Agnes as Agnes herself, and in a moment the whole family
was employed in its service; nor was it long before they were rewarded
for their humanity by its complete restoration.
The joy of Agnes was frantic as her grief had been.--She embraced them
all by turns, in a loud voice invoked blessings on their heads, and
promised, if she was ever rich, to make their fortune:--lastly, she
caught the still languid boy to her heart, and almost drowned it in her
tears.
In the cottager and his family a scene like this excited wonder as well
as emotion. He and his wife were good parents; they loved their
children,--would have been anxious during their illness, and would have
sorrowed for their loss: but to these violent expressions and actions,
the result of cultivated sensibility, they were wholly unaccustomed, and
could scarcely help imputing them to insanity,--an idea which the pale
cheek and wild look of Agnes strongly confirmed; nor did it lose
strength when Agnes, who in terror at her child's danger and joy for his
safety had forgotten even her father and his situation, suddenly
recollecting herself, exclaimed, "Have I dared to rejoice?--Wretch that
I am! Oh! no;--there is no joy for me!" The cottager and his wife, on
hearing these words, looked significantly at each other.
Agnes soon after started up, and, clasping her hands, cried out, "O my
father! my dear, dear father! thou art past cure; and despair must be my
portion."
"Oh! you are unhappy because your father is ill," observed the
cottager's wife; "but do not be so sorrowful on that account, he may
get better perhaps."
"Never, never," replied Agnes;--"yet who knows?"
"Aye; who knows indeed?" resumed the good woman. "But if not, you nurse
him yourself, I suppose; and it will be a comfort to you to know he has
every thing done for him that can be done."
Agnes sighed deeply.
"I lost my own father," continued she, "last winter, and a hard trial it
was, to be sure; but then it consoled me to think I made his end
comfortable. Besides, my conscience told me that, except here and there,
I had always done my duty by him, to the best of my knowledge."
Agnes started from her seat, and walked rapidly round the room.
"He smiled on me," resumed her kind hostess, wiping her eyes, "to the
last moment; and just before the breath left him, he said, 'Good child!
good child!' O! it must be a terrible thing to lose one's parents when
one has not done one's duty to them!"
At these words Agnes, contrasting her conduct and feelings with those of
this artless and innocent woman, was overcome with despair, and seizing
a knife that lay by her endeavoured to put an end to her existence; but
the cottager caught her hand in time to prevent the blow, and his wife
easily disarmed her, as her violence instantly changed into a sort of
stupor: then throwing herself back on the bed on which she was sitting,
she lay with her eyes fixt, and incapable of moving.
The cottager and his wife now broke forth into expressions of wonder and
horror at the crime which she was going to commit, and the latter taking
little Edward from the lap of her daughter, held it towards
Agnes:--"See," cried she, as the child stretched forth its little arms
to embrace her,--"unnatural mother! would you forsake your child?"
These words, assisted by the caresses of the child himself, roused Agnes
from her stupor.--"Forsake him! Never, never!" she faltered out: then,
snatching him to her bosom, she threw herself back on a pillow which the
good woman had placed under her head; and soon, to the great joy of the
compassionate family, both mother and child fell into a sound sleep. The
cottager then repaired to his daily labour, and his wife and children
began their household tasks; but ever and anon they cast a watchful
glance on their unhappy guest, dreading lest she should make a second
attempt on her life.
The sleep of both Agnes and her child was so long and heavy, that night
was closing in when the little boy awoke, and by his cries for food
broke the rest of his unhappy mother.
But consciousness returned not with returning sense;--Agnes looked
around her, astonished at her situation. At length, by slow degrees, the
dreadful scenes of the preceding night and her own rash attempt burst on
her recollection; she shuddered at the retrospect, and, clasping her
hands, together, remained for some moments in speechless prayer:--then
she arose; and, smiling mournfully at sight of her little Edward eating
voraciously the milk and bread that was set before him, she seated
herself at the table, and tried to partake of the coarse but wholesome
food provided for her. As she approached, she saw the cottager's wife
remove the knives. This circumstance forcibly recalled her rash action,
and drove away her returning appetite.--"You may trust me now," she
said; "I shrink with horror from my wicked attempt on my life, and
swear, in the face of Heaven, never to repeat it: no,--my only wish now
is, to live and to suffer."
Soon after, the cottager's wife made an excuse for bringing back a knife
to the table, to prove to Agnes her confidence in her word; but this
well-meant attention was lost on her,--she sat leaning on her elbow, and
wholly absorbed in her own meditations.
When it was completely night, Agnes arose to depart.--"My kind friends,"
said she, "who have so hospitably received and entertained a wretched
wanderer, believe me I shall never forget the obligations which I owe
you, though I can never hope to repay them; but accept this (taking her
last half-guinea from her pocket) as a pledge of my inclination to
reward your kindness. If I am ever rich you shall--" Here her voice
failed her, and she burst into tears.
This hesitation gave the virtuous people whom she addressed an
opportunity of rejecting her offers.--"What we did, we did because we
could not help it," said the cottager.--"You would not have had me see a
fellow-creature going to kill soul and body too, and not prevent it,
would you?"--"And as to saving the child," cried the wife, "am I not a
mother myself, and can I help feeling for a mother? Poor little thing!
it looked so piteous too, and felt so cold!"