"On the following day the journey was performed; and it had been
arranged that Gerard should rest on the subsequent one; the third being
fixed for his attendance in the House of Lords. Sir Boyvill had been
informed how sullenly (that was the word they used) the boy had received
the information conveyed him by his tutor. He would rather have been
excused saying a word himself to his son on the subject; but this
account, and the boy's request to see him, forced him to change his
purpose. He did not expect opposition; but he wished to give a right
turn to Gerard's expressions. The sort of cold distance that separation
and variance of feeling produced, rendered their intercourse little like
the tender interchange of parental and filial love.
"'Gerard, my boy,' Sir Boyvill began, 'we are both sufferers; and you,
like me, are not of a race tamely to endure injury. I would willingly
have risked my life to revenge the ruin brought on us; so I believe
would you, child as you are; but the skulking villain is safe from my
arm. The laws of his country cannot even pursue him; yet, what
reparation is left, I must endeavour to get.'
"Sir Boyvill showed tact in thus bringing forward only that party, whose
act none could do other than reprobate, and who was the object of
Gerard's liveliest hatred. His face lightened up with something of
pleasure--his eye flashed fire; to prove to the world the guilt and
violence of the wretch who had torn his mother from him was indeed a
task of duty and justice. A little more forbearance on his father's part
had wound him easily to his will: but the policy Sir Boyvill displayed
was involuntary, and his next words overturned all. 'Your miserable
mother,' he continued, 'must bear her share of infamy; and if she be not
wholly hardened, it will prove a sufficient punishment. When the events
of to-morrow reach her, she will begin to taste of the bitter cup she
has dealt out so largely to, others. It were folly to pretend to regret
that--I own that I rejoice.'
"Every idea now suffered revulsion, and the stream of feeling flowed
again in its old channels. What right had his father to speak thus of
the beloved and honoured parent he had so cruelly lost? His blood boiled
within him, and, despite childish fear and reverence, he said, 'If my
mother will grieve or be injured by my appearing to-morrow, I will not
go--I cannot.'
"'You are a fool to speak thus,' said his father, 'a galless animal,
without sense of pride or duty. Come, sir, no more of this. You owe me
obedience, and you must pay it on this occasion. You are only bid speak
the truth, and that you must speak. I had thought, notwithstanding your
youth, higher and more generous motives might be urged--a father's
honour vindicated--a mother's vileness punished.'
"'My mother is not vile!' cried Gerard, and there stopped; for a
thousand things restrain a child's tongue; inexperience, reverence,
ignorance of the effect his words may produce, terror at the mightiness
of the power with which he has to contend. After a pause, he muttered,
'I honour my mother; I will tell the whole world that she deserves
honour.'
"'Now, Gerard, on my soul,' cried Sir Boyvill, roused to anger, as
parents too easily are against their offspring when they show any will
of their own, while they expect to move them like puppets; 'on my soul,
my fine fellow, I could find it in my heart to knock you down. Enough of
this; I don't want to terrify you: be a good boy to-morrow, and I will
forgive all.'
"'Forgive me now, father,' cried the youth, bursting into tears;
'forgive me and spare me! I cannot obey you; I cannot do anything that
will grieve my mother; she loved me so much--I am sure she loves me
still--that I cannot do her a harm. I will not go to-morrow.'
"'This is most extraordinary,' said Sir Boyvill, controlling, as well as
he could, the rage swelling within him. 'And are you such an idiot as
not to know that your wretched mother has forfeited all claim to your
affection? and am I of so little worth in your eyes, I, your father, who
have a right to your obedience from the justice of my cause, not to
speak of parental authority, am I nothing? to receive no duty, expect no
service? I was, indeed, mistaken; I thought you were older than your
years, and had that touch of gentlemanly pride about you that would have
made you eager to avenge my injuries, to stand by me as a friend and
ally, compensating, as well as you could, for the wrongs done me by your
mother. I thought I had a son in whose veins my own blood flowed, who
would be ready to prove his true birth by siding with me. Are you stone,
or a baseborn thing, that you cannot even conceive what thing honour
is?'
"Gerard listened, he wept; the tears poured in torrents from his eyes;
but, as his father continued, and heaped many an opprobrious epithet on
him, a proud and sullen spirit was indeed awakened; he longed to
say--'Abuse me, strike me, but I will not yield!' Yet he did not speak;
he dried his eyes, and stood in silence before his parent, his face
darkening, and something ferocious gleaming in eyes hitherto so soft and
sorrowing. Sir Boyvill saw that he was far from making the impression he
desired; but he wished to avoid reiterated refusals to obey, and he
summed up at last with vague but violent threats of what would
ensue--exile from his home, penury, nay, starvation, the abhorrence of
the world, his own malediction; and, after having worked himself up into
a towering rage, and real detestation of the shivering, feeble, yet
determined child before him, he left him to consider and to be
vanquished.
"Far other thoughts occupied Gerard. 'I had thought,' he has told me,
'once or twice to throw myself into his arms, and pray for mercy; to
kneel at his feet and implore him to spare me; one kind word had made
the struggle intolerable, but no kind word did he say; and while he
stormed, it seemed to me as if my dear mother were singing as she was
used, while I gathered flowers and played beside her in the park, and I
thought of her, not of him; the words, "kick me out of doors," suggested
but the idea, "I shall be free, and I will find my mother." I feel
intensely now; but surely a boy's feelings are far wilder, far more
vehement than a man's; for I cannot now, violent as you think me, call
up one sensation so whirlwind-like as those that possessed me while my
father spoke!'
"Thus has Gerard described his emotions; his father ordered him to quit
the room, and he went to brood upon the fate impending over him. On the
morrow early he was bid prepare to attend the House of Lords. His father
did not appear; he thought that the boy was terrified, and would make no
further resistance. Gerard, indeed, obeyed in silence. He disdained to
argue with strangers and hirelings; he had an idea that if he openly
rebelled he might be carried by force, and his proud heart swelled at
the idea of compulsion. He got into the carriage, and, as he went, Mr.
Carter, who was with him, thought it advisable to explain the forms, and
give some instructions. Gerard listened with composure, nay, asked a
question or two concerning the preliminaries; he was told of the oath
that would be administered; and how the words he spoke after taking that
oath would be implicitly believed, and that he must be careful to say
nothing that was not strictly true. The colour, not an indignant blush,
but a suffusion as of pleasure, mantled over his cheeks as this was
explained.
"They arrived; they were conducted into some outer room to await the
call of the peers. What tortures the boy felt as strangers came up, some
to speak, and others to gaze; all of indignation, resolution, grief, and
more than manhood's struggles that tore his bosom during the annoying
delays that always protract this sort of scenes, none cared to scan. He
was there unresisting, apparently composed; if now his cheek flushed,
and now his lips withered into paleness; if now the sense of suffocation
rose in his throat, and now tears rushed into his eyes, as the image of
his sweet mother passed across his memory, none regarded, none cared.
When I have thought of the spasms and throes which his tender and
highwrought soul endured during this interval, I often wonder his
heart-strings did not crack, or his reason for ever unsettle; as it is,
he has not yet escaped the influence of that hour; it shadows his life
with eclipse, it comes whispering agony to him, when otherwise he might
forget. Some author has described the effect of misfortune on the
virtuous as the crushing of perfumes, so to force them to give forth
their fragrance. Gerard is all nobleness, all virtue, all tenderness; do
we owe any part of his excellence to this hour of anguish? If so, I may
be consoled; but I can never think of it without pain. He says himself,
'Yes! without these sharp goadings, I had not devoted my whole life to
clearing my mother's fame.' Is this devotion a good? As yet no apparent
benefit has sprung from it.
"At length he was addressed: 'Young gentleman, are you ready?' and he
was led into that stately chamber--fit for solemn and high
debate--thronged with the judges of his mother's cause. There was a
dimness in his eye--a tumult in his heart that confused him, while on
his appearance there was first a murmur, then a general hush. Each
regarded him with compassion as they discerned the marks of suffering in
his countenance. A few moments passed before he was addressed; and when
it was supposed that he had had time to collect himself, the proper
officer administered the oath, and then the barrister asked him some
slight questions, not to startle, but to lead back his memory by
insensible degrees to the necessary facts. The boy looked at him with
scorn--he tried to be calm, to elevate his voice; twice it faltered--the
third time he spoke slowly but distinctly: 'I have sworn to speak the
truth, and I am to be believed. My mother is innocent.'
"'But this is not the point, young gentleman,' interrupted his
interrogator; 'I only asked if you remembered your father's house in
Cumberland.'
"The boy replied more loudly, but with broken accents--'I have said all
I mean to say--you may murder me, but I will say no more--how dare you
entice me into injuring my mother?'
"At the word, uncontrollable tears burst forth, pouring in torrents down
his burning cheeks. He told me that he well remembers the feeling that
rose to his tongue, instigating him to cry shame on all present--but his
voice failed, his purpose was too mighty for his young heart; he sobbed
and wept; the more he tried to control the impulse, the more hysterical
the fit grew--he was taken from the bar, and the peers, moved by his
distress, came to a resolve that they would dispense with his
attendance, and be satisfied by hearing his account of the transaction
from those persons to whom he made it at the period when it occurred. I
will now mention, that the result of this judicial inquiry was, a decree
of divorce in Sir Boyvill's favour.
"Gerard, removed from the bar, and carried home, recovered his
composure--but he was silent--revolving the consequences which he
expected would ensue from disobedience. His father had menaced to turn
him out of doors, and he did not doubt but that this threat would be put
into execution, so that he was somewhat surprised that he was taken home
at all; perhaps they meant to send him to a place of exile of their own
choosing, perhaps to make the expulsion public and ignominious. The
powers of grown-up people appear so illimitable in a child's eyes, who
have no data whereby to discover the probable from the improbable. At
length the fear of confinement became paramount; he revolted from it;
his notion was to go and seek his mother--and his mind was quickly made
up to forestall their violence, and to run away.
"He was ordered to confine himself to his own room--his food was brought
to him--this looked like the confirmation of his fears. His heart
swelled high: 'They think to treat me like a child, but I will show
myself independent--wherever my mother is, she is better than they
all--if she is imprisoned, I will free her, or I will remain with her;
how glad she will be to see me--how happy shall we be again together! My
father may have all the rest of the world to himself, when I am with my
mother, in a cavern or a dungeon, I care not where.'
"Night came on--he went to bed--he even slept, and awoke terrified to
think that the opportune hour might be overpassed--daylight was dawning
faintly in the east; the clocks of London struck four--he was still in
time--every one in the house slept; he rose and dressed--he had nearly
ten guineas of his own, this was all his possession, he had counted them
the night before--he opened the door of his chamber--daylight was
struggling with darkness, and all was very still--he stepped out, he
descended the stairs, he got into the hall--every accustomed object
seemed new and strange at that early hour, and he looked with some
dismay at the bars and bolts of the house door--he feared making a
noise, and rousing some servant, still the thing must be attempted;
slowly and cautiously he pushed back the bolts, he lifted up the
chain--it fell from his hands with terrific clatter on the stone
pavement--his heart was in his mouth--he did not fear punishment, but he
feared ill success; he listened as well as his throbbing pulses
permitted--all was still--the key of the door was in the lock, it turned
easily at his touch, and in another moment the door was open; the fresh
air blew upon his cheeks--the deserted street was before him. He closed
the door after him, and with a sort of extra caution locked it on the
outside, and then took to his heels, throwing the key down a
neighbouring street. When out of sight of his home, he walked more
slowly, and began to think seriously of the course to pursue. To find
his mother!--all the world had been trying to find her, and had not
succeeded--but he believed that by some means she would hear of his
escape and come to him--but whither go in the first instance?--his heart
replied, to Cumberland, to Dromore--there he had lived with his
mother--there had he lost her--he felt assured that in its neighbourhood
he should again be restored to her.
"Travelling had given him some idea of distance, and of the modes of
getting from one place to another--he felt that it would be a task of
too great difficulty to attempt walking across England--he had no
carriage, he knew of no ship to take him, some conveyance he must get,
so he applied to a hackney coach. It was standing solitary in the middle
of the street, the driver asleep on the steps--the skeleton horses
hanging down their heads--with the peculiarly disconsolate look these
poor hacked animals have. Gerard, as the son of a wealthy man, was
accustomed to consider that he had a right to command those whom he
could pay--yet fear of discovery and being sent back to his father
filled him with unusual fears; he looked at the horses and the man--he
advanced nearer, but he was afraid to take the decisive step, till the
driver awaking, started up and shook himself, stared at the boy, and
seeing him well dressed--and he looked, too, older than his years, from
being tall--he asked, 'Do you want me, sir?'
"'Yes,' said Gerard, 'I want you to drive me.'
"'Get in, then. Where are you going?'
"'I am going a long way--to Dromore, that is in Cumberland--'
"The boy hesitated; it struck him that those miserable horses could not
carry him far. 'Then you want me to take you to the stage,' said the
man. 'It goes from Piccadilly--at five--we have no time to lose.'
"Gerard got in--on they jumbled--and arriving at the coach-office, saw
some half dozen stages ready to start. The name of Liverpool on one
struck the boy, by the familiar name. If he could get to Liverpool, it
were easy afterward even to walk to Dromore; so getting out of the
hackney coach, he went up to the coachman, who was mounting his box, and
asked, 'Will you take me to Liverpool?'
"'Yes, my fine fellow, if you can pay the fare.'
"'How much is it?' drawing out his purse.
"'Inside or outside?'
"From the moment he had addressed these men, and they began to talk of
money, Gerard, calling to mind the vast disbursements of gold coin he
had seen made by his father and the courier on their travels, began to
fear that his little stock would ill suffice to carry him so far; and
the first suggestion of prudence the little fellow ever experienced made
him now answer, 'Whichever costs least.'
"'Outside, then.'
"'Oh, I have that--I can pay you.'
"'Jump up, then, my lad--lend me your hand--here, by me--that's
right--all's well, you're just in the nick, we are off directly.'
"He cracked his whip, and away they flew; and as they went, Gerard felt
free, and going to his mother.
"Such, in these civilized times, are the facilities offered to the
execution of our wildest wishes! the consequences, the moral
consequences, are still the same, still require the same exertions to
overcome them; but we have no longer to fight with physical impediments.
If Gerard had begun his expedition from any other town, curiosity had
perhaps been excited; but in the vast, busy metropolis each one takes
care of himself, and few scrutinize the motives or means of others.
Perched up on the coach-box, Gerard had a few questions to answer--Was
he going home? did he live in Liverpool? but the name of Dromore was a
sufficing answer. The coachman had never heard of such a place; but it
was a gentleman's seat, and it was Gerard's home, and that was enough.
"Some day you must ask Gerard to relate to you his adventures during
this journey. They will come warmly and vividly from him; while mine, as
a mere reflex, must be tame. It is his mind I would describe; and I will
not pause to narrate the tantalizing cross-questioning that he underwent
from a Scotchman--nor the heart-heavings with which he heard allusions
made to the divorce case before the lords. A newspaper describing his
own conduct was in the hands of one of the passengers; he heard his
mother lightly alluded to. He would have leaped from the coach; but that
was to give up all. He pressed his hands to his ears--he scowled on
those around--his heart was on fire. Yet he had one consolation. He was
free. He was going to her--he resolved never to mingle with his
fellow-creatures more. Buried in some rural retreat with his mother, it
mattered little what the vulgar and the indifferent said about either.
"Some qualms did assail him. Should he find his dear mother? Where was
she? his childish imagination refused to paint her distant from
Dromore--his own removal from that mansion so soon after losing her,
associated her indelibly with the mountains, the ravines, the brawling
streams, and clustering woods of his natal county. She must be there. He
would drive away the man of violence who took her from him, and they
would be happy together.
"A day and a night brought him to Liverpool, and the coachman, hearing
whither he wished to go, deposited him in the stage for Lancaster on his
arrival. He went inside this time, and slept all the way. At Lancaster
he was recognised by several persons, and they wondered to see him
alone. He was annoyed at their recognition and questionings; and, though
it was night when he arrived, instantly set off to walk to Dromore.
"For two months from this time he lived wandering from cottage to
cottage, seeking his mother. The journey from Lancaster to Dromore he
performed as speedily as he well could. He did not enter the house--that
would be delivering himself up as a prisoner. By night he clambered the
park railings, and entered like a thief the demesnes where he had spent
his childhood. Each path was known to him, and almost every tree. Here
he sat with his mother; there they found the first violet of spring. His
pilgrimage was achieved; but where was she? His heart beat as he reached
the little gate whence they had issued on that fatal night. All the
grounds bore marks of neglect and the master's absence; and the lock of
this gate was spoiled; a sort of rough bolt had been substituted. Gerard
pushed it back. The rank grass had gathered thick on the threshold; but
it was the same spot. How well he remembered it!
"Two years only had since passed, he was still a child; yet to his own
fancy how much taller, how much more of a man he had become! Besides, he
now fancied himself master of his own actions--he had escaped from his
father; and he--who had threatened to turn him out of doors--would not
seek to possess himself of him again. He belonged to no one--he was
cared for by no one--by none but her whom he sought with firm, yet
anxious expectation. There he had seen her last--he stepped forward; he
followed the course of the lane--he came to where the road crossed
it--where the carriage drove up, where she had been torn from him.
"It was daybreak--a June morning; all was golden and still--a few birds
twittered, but the breeze was hushed, and he looked out on the extent of
country commanded from the spot where he stood, and saw only nature, the
rugged hills, the green corn-fields, the flowery meads, and the
umbrageous trees in deep repose. How different from the wild,
tempestuous night when she whom he sought was torn away; he could then
see only a few yards before him, now he could mark the devious windings
of the road, and, afar off, distinguish the hazy line of the ocean. He
sat down to reflect--what was he to do? in what nook of the wide expanse
was his mother hid? that some portion of the landscape he viewed
harboured her, was his fixed belief; a belief founded in inexperience
and fancy, but not the less deep-rooted. He meditated for some time, and
then walked forward--he remembered when he ran panting and screaming
along that road; he was a mere child then, and what was he now? a boy of
eleven; yet he looked back with disdain to the endeavours of two years
before.
"He walked along in the same direction that he had at that time pursued,
and soon found that he reached the turnpike-road to Lancaster. He turned
off, and went by the cross-road that leads to the wild and dreary plains
that form the coast. The inner range of picturesque hills, on the
declivity of which Dromore is situated, is not more than five miles from
the sea; but the shore itself is singularly blank and uninteresting,
varied only by sand-hills thrown up to the height of thirty or forty
feet, intersected by rivers, which at low water are fordable even on
foot; but which, when the tide is up, are dangerous to those who do not
know the right track, from the holes and ruts which render the bed of
the river uneven. In winter, indeed, at the period of spring tides, or
in stormy weather, with a west wind which drives the ocean towards the
shore, the passage is often exceedingly dangerous, and, except under the
direction of an experienced guide, fatal accidents occur.
"Gerard reached the borders of the ocean near one of these streams;
behind him rose his native mountains, range above range, divided by
tremendous gulfs, varied by the shadows of the clouds, and the gleams of
sunlight; close to him was the waste seashore; the ebbing tide gave a
dreary sluggish appearance to the ocean, and the river--a shallow, rapid
stream--emptied its slender pittance of mountain water noiselessly into
the lazy deep. It was a scene of singular desolation. On the other side
of the river, not far from the mouth, was a rude hut, unroofed, and
fallen to decay--erected, perhaps, as the abode of a guide; near it grew
a stunted tree, withered, moss-covered, spectre-like--the sand-hills lay
scattered around--the seagull screamed above, and skimmed over the
waste. Gerard sat down and wept--motherless--escaped from his angry
father; even to his young imagination, his fate seemed as drear and
gloomy as the scene around."