Towards the end of a hot, calm day of June, a stranger arrived at Treby.
The variations of calm and wind are always remarkable at the seaside,
and are more particularly to be noticed on this occasion; since it was
the stillness of the elements that caused the arrival of the stranger.
During the whole day several vessels had been observed in the offing,
lying to for a wind, or making small way under press of sail. As evening
came on, the water beyond the bay lay calmer than ever; but a slight
breeze blew from shore, and these vessels, principally colliers, bore
down close under it, endeavouring by short tacks to procure a long one,
and at last to gain searoom to make the eastern headland of the bay. The
fishermen on shore watched the manœuvres of the different craft; and
even interchanged shouts with the sailors, as they lay lazily on the
beach. At length they were put in motion by a hail for a boat from a
small merchantman--the call was obeyed--the boat neared the vessel--a
gentleman descended into it--his portmanteau was handed after him--a few
strokes of the oar drove the boat on the beach, and the stranger leaped
out upon the sands.
The new comer gave a brief order, directing his slight luggage to be
carried to the best inn, and, paying the boatmen liberally, strolled
away to a more solitary part of the beach. "A gentleman," all the
spectators decided him to be--and such a designation served for a full
description of the new arrival to the villagers of Treby. But it were
better to say a few words to draw him from among a vast multitude who
might be similarly named, and to bestow individuality on the person in
question. It would be best so to present his appearance and manner to
the "mind's eye" of the reader, that if any met him by chance, he might
exclaim, "That is the man!" Yet there is no task more difficult than to
convey to another, by mere words, an image, however distinctly it is
impressed on our own minds. The individual expression and peculiar
traits which cause a man to be recognised among ten thousand of his
fellow-men, by one who has known him, though so palpable to the eye,
escape when we would find words whereby to delineate them.
There was something in the stranger that at once arrested attention--a
freedom, and a command of manner--self-possession joined to energy. It
might be difficult to guess his age, for his face had been exposed to
the bronzing influence of a tropical climate, and the smoothness of
youth was exchanged for the deeper lines of maturity, without anything
being as yet taken from the vigour of the limbs, or the perfection of
those portions of the frame and face, which so soon show marks of decay.
He might have reached the verge of thirty, but he could not be
older--and might be younger. His figure was active, sinewy, and
strong--upright as a soldier (indeed, a military air was diffused all
over his person); he was tall, and, to a certain degree, handsome; his
dark gray eyes were piercing as an eagle's, and his forehead high and
expansive, though somewhat distorted by various lines that spoke more of
passion than thought; yet his face was eminently intelligent; his mouth,
rather too large in its proportions, yet grew into beauty when he
smiled--indeed, the remarkable trait of his physiognomy was its great
variation--restless, and even fierce; the expression was often that of
passionate and unquiet thoughts; while at other times it was almost
bland from the apparent smoothness and graceful undulation of the lines.
It was singular, that when communing only with himself, storms appeared
to shake his muscles and disfigure the harmony of his countenance--and
that, when he addressed others, all was composed--full of meaning, and
yet of repose. His complexion, naturally of an olive tint, had grown red
and adust under the influence of climate--and often flushed from the
inroads of vehement feeling. You could not doubt at the instant of
seeing him, that many singular, perhaps tragical, incidents were
attached to his history--but conviction was enforced that he reversed
the line of Shakspeare, and was _less_ sinned against than sinning--or,
at least, that he had been the active machinator of his fate, not the
passive recipient of disappointment and sorrow. When he believed himself
to be unobserved, his face worked with a thousand contending emotions,
fiery glances shot from his eyes--he appeared to wince from sudden
anguish--to be transported by a rage that changed his beauty into utter
deformity: was he spoken to, all these tokens vanished on the
instant--dignified, calm, and even courteous; though cold, he would
persuade those whom he addressed that he was one of themselves--and not
a being transported by his own passions and actions into a sphere which
every other human being would have trembled to approach. A superficial
observer had pronounced him a good fellow, though a little too
stately--a wise man had been pleased by the intelligence and information
he displayed--the variety of his powers, and the ease with which he
brought forward the stores of his intellect to enlighten any topic of
discourse. An independent and a gallant spirit he surely had--what,
then, had touched it with destruction--shaken it to ruin, and made him,
while yet so young, abhorrent even to himself?
Such is an outline of the stranger of Treby; and his actions were in
conformity with the incongruities of his appearance--outwardly
unemployed and tranquil; inwardly torn by throes of the most tempestuous
and agonizing feelings. After landing he had strolled away, and was soon
out of sight; nor did he return till night, when he looked fatigued and
depressed. For form's sake--or for the sake of the bill at the inn--he
allowed food to be placed before him; but he neither ate nor drank--soon
he hurried to the solitude of his chamber--not to bed--he paced the room
for some hours; but as soon as all was still--when his watch and the
quiet stars told him that it was midnight, he left the house--he
wandered down to the beach--he threw himself upon the sands--and then
again he started up and strode along the verge of the tide--and then
sitting down, covering his face with his hands, remained motionless:
early dawn found him thus--but, on the first appearance of a fisherman,
he left the neighbourhood of the village, nor returned till the
afternoon--and now, when food was placed before him, he ate like one
half famished; but after the keen sensation of extreme hunger was
satisfied, he left the table and retired to his own room.
Taking a case of pistols from his portmanteau, he examined the weapons
with care, and, putting them in his pocket, walked out upon the sands.
The sun was fast descending in the sky, and he looked, with varying
glances, at it and at the blue sea, which slumbered peacefully, giving
forth scarcely any sound as it receded from the shore. Now he seemed
wistful--now impatient--now struck by bitterer pangs, that caused drops
of agony to gather on his brow. He spoke no word; but these were the
thoughts that hovered, though unexpressed, upon his lips: "Another day!
Another sun! Oh, never, never more for me shall day or sun exist.
Coward! Why fear to die? And do I fear? No! no! I fear nothing but this
pain--this unutterable anguish--this image of fell despair! If I could
feel secure that memory would cease when my brain lies scattered on the
earth, I should again feel joy before I die. Yet that is false. While I
live, and memory lives, and the knowledge of my crime still creeps
through every particle of my frame, I have a hell around me, even to the
last pulsation! For ever and for ever I see her, lost and dead at my
feet--I the cause--the murderer! My death shall atone. And yet even in
death the curse is on me--I cannot give back the breath of life to her
sweet pale lips! Oh fool! Oh villain! Haste to the last act; linger no
more, lest you grow mad, and fetters and stripes become your fitter
punishment than the death you covet!"
"Yet"--after a pause, his thoughts thus continued:--"not here, nor now:
there must be darkness on the earth before the deed is done! Hasten and
hide thyself, oh sun! Thou wilt never be cursed by the sight of my
living form again!"
Thus did the transport of passion embrace the universe in its grasp; and
the very sunlight seemed to have a pulse responsive to his own. The
bright orb sunk lower; and the little western promontory, with its
crowning spire, was thrown into bold relief against the glowing sky. As
if some new idea were awakened, the stranger proceeded along the sands,
towards the extremity of the headland. A short time before, unobserved
by him, the little orphan had tripped along, and, scaling the cliff, had
seated herself, as usual, beside her mother's grave.
The stranger proceeded slowly, and with irregular steps. He was waiting
till darkness should blind the eyes of day, which now appeared to gaze
on him with intolerable scrutiny, and to read his very soul, that
sickened and writhed with its burden of sin and sorrow. When out of the
immediate neighbourhood of the village, he threw himself upon a fragment
of rock, and--he could not be said to meditate--for that supposes some
sort of voluntary action of the mind--while to him might be applied the
figure of the poet, who represented himself as hunted by his own
thoughts--pursued by memory, and torn to pieces, as Actæon by his own
hounds. A troop of horrid recollections assailed his soul! there was no
shelter, no escape! various passions, by turns, fastened themselves upon
him--jealousy, disappointed love, rage, fear, and, last and worst,
remorse and despair. No bodily torture, invented by revengeful tyrant,
could produce agony equal to that which he had worked out for his own
mind. His better nature, and the powers of his intellect, served but to
sharpen and strike deeper the pangs of unavailing regret. Fool! He had
foreseen nothing of all this! He had fancied that he could bend the
course of fate to his own will; and that to desire with energy was to
ensure success. And to what had the immutable resolve to accomplish his
ends brought him? She was dead--the loveliest and best of created
beings: torn from the affections and the pleasures of life! from her
home, her child! He had seen her stretched dead at his feet: he had
heaped the earth upon her clay-cold form; and he the cause! he the
murderer!
Stung to intolerable anguish by these ideas, he felt hastily for his
pistols, and rising, pursued his way. Evening was closing in; yet he
could distinguish the winding path of the cliff; he ascended, opened the
little gate, and entered the churchyard. Oh! how he envied the
dead!--the guiltless dead, who had closed their eyes on this mortal
scene, surrounded by weeping friends, cheered by religious hope. All
that imaged innocence and repose appeared in his eyes so beautiful and
desirable; and how could he, the criminal, hope to rest like one of
these? A star or two came out in the heavens above, and the church spire
seemed almost to reach them, as it pointed upward. The dim, silent sea
was spread beneath: the dead slept around: scarcely did the tall grass
bend its head to the summer air. Soft, balmy peace possessed the scene.
With what thrilling sensations of self-enjoyment and gratitude to the
Creator, might the mind at ease drink in the tranquil loveliness of such
an hour. The stranger felt every nerve wakened to fresh anguish. His
brow contracted convulsively. "Shall I ever die!" he cried; "will not
the dead reject me!"
He looked round with the natural instinct that leads a human being, at
the moment of dissolution, to withdraw into a cave or corner, where
least to offend the eyes of the living by the loathsome form of death.
The ivied wall and paling, overhung by trees, formed a nook, whose
shadow at that hour was becoming deep. He approached the spot; for a
moment he stood looking afar: he knew not at what; and drew forth his
pistol, cocked it, and throwing himself on the grassy mound, raised the
mouth of the fatal instrument to his forehead. "Oh, go away! go away
from mamma!" were words that might have met his ear, but that every
sense was absorbed. As he drew the trigger, his arm was pulled; the ball
whizzed harmlessly by his ear: but the shock of the sound, the
unconsciousness that he had been touched at that moment--the belief that
the mortal wound was given, made him fall back; and, as he himself said
afterward, he fancied that he had uttered the scream he heard, which
had, indeed, proceeded from other lips.
In a few seconds he recovered himself. Yet so had he worked up his mind
to die; so impossible did it appear that his aim should fail him, that
in those few seconds the earth and all belonging to it had passed
away--and his first exclamation, as he started up, was, "Where am I?"
Something caught his gaze; a little white figure, which lay but a few
paces distant, and two eyes that gleamed on him--the horrible thought
darted into his head--had another instead of himself been the victim?
and he exclaimed in agony, "Gracious God! who are you?--speak! What have
I done!" Still more was he horror-struck when he saw that it was a
little child who lay before him--he raised her--but her eyes had glared
with terror, not death; she did not speak; but she was not wounded, and
he endeavoured to comfort and reassure her, till she, a little restored,
began to cry bitterly, and he felt, thankfully, that her tears were a
pledge that the worst consequences of her fright had passed away. He
lifted her from the ground, while she, in the midst of her tears, tried
to get him away from the grave he desecrated. The twilight scarcely
showed her features; but her surpassing fairness--her lovely countenance
and silken hair, so betokened a child of love and care, that he was more
the surprised to find her alone, at that hour, in the solitary
churchyard.
He soothed her gently, and asked, "How came you here? what could you be
doing so late so far from home?"
"I came to see mamma."
"To see mamma! Where? how? Your mother is not here."
"Yes she is; mamma is there;" and she pointed with her little finger to
the grave.
The stranger started up--there was something awful in this childish
simplicity and affection: he tried to read the inscription on the stone
near--he could just make out the name of Edwin Raby. "That is not your
mother's grave," he said.
"No; papa is there--mamma is here, next to him."
The man, just bent on self-destruction, with a conscience burning him to
the heart's core--all concentrated in the omnipotence of his own
sensations--shuddered at the tale of dereliction and misery these words
conveyed; he looked earnestly on the child, and was fascinated by her
angel look; she spoke with a pretty seriousness, shaking her head, her
lips trembling--her large eyes shining in brimming tears. "My poor
child," he said, "your name is Raby then?"
"Mamma used to call me Baby," she replied; "they call me Missy at
home--my name is Elizabeth."
"Well, dear Elizabeth, let me take you home; you cannot stay all night
with mamma."
"Oh, no; I was just going home when you frightened me."
"You must forget that; I will buy you a doll to make it up again, and
all sorts of toys; see, here is a pretty thing for you!" and he took the
chain of his watch, and threw it over her head; he wanted so to distract
her attention as to make her forget what had passed, and not to tell a
shocking story when she got home.
"But," she said, looking up into his face, "you will not be so naughty
again, and sit down where mamma is lying."
The stranger promised, and kissed her; and, taking her hand, they walked
together to the village; she prattled as she went, and he sometimes
listened to her stories of mamma, and answered, and sometimes thought
with wonder that he still lived--that the ocean's tide still broke at
his feet--and the stars still shone above; he felt angry and impatient
at the delay, as if it betokened a failing of purpose. They walked along
the sands, and stopped at last at Mrs. Baker's door. She was standing at
it, and exclaimed, "Here you are, Missy, at last! What have you been
doing with yourself? I declare I was quite frightened--it is long past
your bedtime."
"You must not scold her," said the stranger; "I detained her. But why do
you let her go out alone? it is not right."
"Lord, sir," she replied, "there is none hereabouts to do her a
harm--and she would not thank me if I kept her from going to see her
mamma, as she calls it. I have no one to spare to go with her; it's hard
enough on me to keep her on charity, as I do. But"--and her voice
changed as a thought flashed across her--"I beg your pardon, sir,
perhaps you come for Missy, and know all about her. I am sure I have
done all I can; it's a long time since her mamma died; and, but for me,
she must have gone to the parish. I hope you will judge that I have done
my duty towards her."
"You mistake," said the stranger; "I know nothing of this young lady,
nor of her parents, who, it would seem, are both dead. Of course she has
other relations?"
"That she has, and rich ones too," replied Mrs. Baker, "if one could but
find them out. It's hard upon me, who am a widow woman, with four
children of my own, to have other people's upon me--very hard, sir, as
you must allow; and often I think that I cannot answer it to myself,
taking the bread from my own children and grandchildren, to feed a
stranger. But, to be sure, Missy has rich relations, and some day they
will inquire for her; though come the tenth of next August, and it's a
year since her mother died, and no one has come to ask good or bad about
her, or Missy."
"Her father died also in this village?" asked the stranger.
"True enough," said the woman; "both father and mother died in this very
house, and lie up in the churchyard yonder. Come, Missy, don't cry;
that's an old story now, and it's no use fretting."
The poor child, who had hitherto listened in simple ignorance, began to
sob at this mention of her parents; and the stranger, shocked by the
woman's unfeeling tone, said, "I should like to hear more of this sad
story. Pray let the poor dear child be put to bed, and then, if you will
relate what you know of her parents, I dare say I can give you some
advice to enable you to discover her relations, and relieve you from the
burden of her maintenance."
"These are the first comfortable words I have heard a long time," said
Mrs. Baker. "Come, Missy, Nancy shall put you to bed; it's far past your
hour. Don't cry, dear; this kind gentleman will take you along with him,
to a fine house, among grand folks, and all our troubles will be over.
Be pleased, sir, to step into the parlour, and I will show you a letter
of the lady, and tell you all I know. I dare say, if you are going to
London, you will find out that Missy ought to be riding in her coach at
this very moment."
This was a golden idea of Mrs. Baker, and, in truth, went a little
beyond her anticipations; but she had got tired of her first dreams of
greatness, and feared that, in sad truth, the little orphan's relations
would entirely disown her; but it struck her that, if she could persuade
this strange gentleman that all she said was true, he might be induced
to take the little girl with him when he went away, and undertake the
task of restoring her to her father's family, by which means she at
least would be released from all further care on her account:--"Upon
this hint she spake."
She related how Mr. and Mrs. Raby had arrived with their almost infant
child--death already streaked the brow of the dying man; each day
threatened to be his last; yet he lived on. His sufferings were great;
and night and day his wife was at his side, waiting on him, watching
each turn of his eye, each change of complexion or of pulse. They were
poor, and had only one servant, hired at the village soon after their
arrival, when Mrs. Raby found herself unable to bestow adequate
attention on both husband and child; yet she did so much as evidently to
cause her to sink beneath her too great exertions. She was delicate and
fragile in appearance; but she never owned to being fatigued, or relaxed
in her attentions. Her voice was always attuned to cheerfulness, her
eyes beaming with tenderness: she, doubtless, wept in secret; but when
conversing with her husband, or playing with her child, a natural
vivacity animated her, that looked like hope; indeed, it was certain
that, in spite of every fatal symptom, she did not wholly despair. When
her husband declared himself better, and resumed for a day his task of
instructer to his little girl, she believed that his disorder had taken
a favourable turn, and would say, "Oh, Mrs. Baker, please God, he is
really better; doctors are not infallible; he may live!" And as she
spoke, her eyes swam in tears, while a smile lay like a sunbeam on her
features. She did not sink till her husband died, and even then
struggled, both with her grief and the wasting malady already at work
within her, with a fortitude a mother only could practise; for all her
exertions were for her dear child; and she could smile on her, a wintry
smile--yet sweet as if warmed by seraphic faith and love. She lingered
thus, hovering on the very limits of life and death; her heart warm and
affectionate, and hoping, and full of fire to the end, for her child's
sake, while she herself pined for the freedom of the grave, and to soar
from the cares and sorrows of a sordid world, to the heaven already open
to receive her. In homely phrase, Mrs. Baker dwelt upon this touching
mixture of maternal tenderness and soft languor, that would not mourn
for him she was so soon to join. The woman then described her sudden
death, and placed the fragment of her last letter before her auditor.
Deeply interested, the stranger began to read, when suddenly he became
ghastly pale, and, trembling all over, he asked, "To whom was this
letter addressed?"
"Ah, sir," replied Mrs. Baker, "would that I could tell, and all my
troubles would be over. Read on, sir, and you will see that Mrs. Raby
feels sure that the lady would have been a mother to poor Missy; but
who, or where she is, is past all my guessing."
The stranger strove to read on; but violent emotion, and the struggle to
hide what he felt, hindered him from taking in the meaning of a single
word. At length he told Mrs. Baker that, with her leave, he would take
the letter away, and read it at his leisure. He promised her his aid in
discovering Mrs. Raby's relatives, and assured her that there would be
small difficulty in so doing. He then retired, and Mrs. Baker exclaimed,
"Please God, this will prove a good day's work."
A voice from the grave had spoken to the stranger. It was not the dead
mother's voice--she, whatever her merits and sufferings had been, was to
him an image of the mind only--he had never known her. But her
benefactress, her hope and trust, who and where was she! Alithea! the
warm-hearted friend--the incomparable mother! She to whom all hearts in
distress turned, sure of relief--who went before the desires of the
necessitous; whose generous and free spirit made her emperess of all
hearts; who, while she lived, spread, as does the sun, radiance and
warmth around--her pulses were stilled; her powers cribbed up in the
grave. She was nothing now; and he had reduced to this nothing the
living frame of this glorious being.
The stranger read the letter again and again; again he writhed, as her
name appeared, traced by her friend's delicate hand, and the concluding
hope seemed the acme of his despair. She would indeed have been a mother
to the orphan--he remembered expressions that told him that she was
making diligent inquiry for her friend, whose luckless fate had not
reached her. Yes, it was his Alithea; he could not doubt. His? Fatal
mistake--his she had never been; and the wild resolve to make her such
had ended in death and ruin.
The stranger had taken the letter to his inn--but any roof seemed to
imprison and oppress him--again he sought relief in the open air, and
wandered far along the sands, with the speed of a misery that strove to
escape from itself. The whole night he spent thus--sometimes climbing
the jagged cliffs, then descending to the beach, and throwing himself
his length upon the sands. The tide ebbed and flowed--the roar of ocean
filled the lone night with sound--the owl flapped down from its home in
the rock, and hooted. Hour after hour passed--and, driven by a thousand
thoughts--tormented by the direst pangs of memory--still the stranger
hurried along the winding shores. Morning found him many miles from
Treby. He did not stop till the appearance of another village put a
limit to solitude, and he returned upon his steps.
Those who could guess his crime, could alone divine the combat of life
and death waging in his heart. He had, through accident and
forgetfulness, left his pistols on the table of his chamber at the inn,
or, in some of the wildest of the paroxysms of despair, they had ended
all. To die, he fondly hoped, was to destroy memory and to defeat
remorse; and yet there arose within his mind that feeling, mysterious
and inexplicable to common reason, which generates a desire to expiate
and to atone. Should he be the cause of good to the friendless orphan,
bequeathed so vainly to his victim, would not that, in some sort,
compensate for his crime? Would it not double it to have destroyed her,
and also the good of which she would have been the author? The very
finger of God pointed to this act, since the child's little hand had
arrested his arm at the fatal moment when he believed that no interval
of a second's duration intervened between him and the grave. Then, to
aid those dim religious misgivings, came the manly wish to protect the
oppressed and assist the helpless. The struggle was long and terrible.
Now he made up his mind that it was cowardice to postpone his
resolve--that to live was to stamp himself poltron and traitor. And now
again, he felt that the true cowardice was to die--to fly from the
consequences of his actions, and the burden of existence. He gazed upon
the dim waste of waters, as if from its misty skirt some vision would
arise to guide or to command. He cast his eyes upward to interrogate the
silent stars--the roaring of the tide appeared to assume an inorganic
voice, and to murmur hoarsely, "Live! miserable wretch! Dare you hope
for the repose which your victim enjoys? Know that the guilty are
unworthy to die--that is the reward of innocence!"
The cool air of morning chilled his brow, and the broad sun arose from
the eastern sea, as, pale and haggard, he retrod many a weary step
towards Treby. He was faint and weary. He had resolved to live yet a
little longer--till he had fulfilled some portion of his duty towards
the lovely orphan. So resolving, he felt as if he paid a part of the
penalty due. A soothing feeling, which resembled repentance, stole over
his heart, already rewarding him. How swiftly and audibly does the inner
voice of our nature speak, telling us when we do right. Besides, he
believed that to live was to suffer; to live, therefore, was in him a
virtue: and the exultation, the balmy intoxication which always follows
our first attempt to execute a virtuous resolve, crept over him, and
elevated his spirits, though body and soul were alike weary. Arriving at
Treby, he sought his bed. He slept peacefully; and it was the first
slumber he had enjoyed since he had torn himself from the spot where she
lay, whom he had loved so truly, even to the death to which he had
brought her.