Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tanquam faciem honesti
video: quae, si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait
Plato) excitaret sapientia.--TULLY.
[“Son Marcus, you seethe form and as it were the face of Virtue: that
Wisdom, which if it could be perceived by the eyes, would (as Plato
saith) kindle absolute and marvellous affection.”]
It was almost dawn when Glendower returned to his home. Fearful of
disturbing his wife, he stole with mute steps to the damp and rugged
chamber, where the last son of a princely line, and the legitimate
owner of lands and halls which ducal rank might have envied, held his
miserable asylum. The first faint streaks of coming light broke through
the shutterless and shattered windows, and he saw that she reclined in
a deep sleep upon the chair beside their child’s couch. She would not go
to bed herself till Glendower returned, and she had sat up, watching and
praying, and listening for his footsteps, till, in the utter exhaustion
of debility and sickness, sleep had fallen upon her. Glendower bent over
her.
“Sleep,” said he, “sleep on! The wicked do not come to thee now. Thou
art in a world that has no fellowship with this,--a world from which
even happiness is not banished! Nor woe nor pain, nor memory of the
past nor despair of all before thee, make the characters of thy present
state! Thou forestallest the forgetfulness of the grave, and thy heart
concentrates all earth’s comfort in one word,--‘Oblivion! ‘Beautiful,
how beautiful thou art even yet! that smile, that momentary blush, years
have not conquered them. They are as when, my young bride, thou didst
lean first upon my bosom, and dream that sorrow was no more! And I have
brought thee unto this! These green walls make thy bridal chamber, yon
fragments of bread thy bridal board. Well! it is no matter! thou art on
thy way to a land where all things, even a breaking heart, are at rest.
I weep not; wherefore should I weep? Tears are not for the dead, but
their survivors. I would rather see thee drop inch by inch into the
grave, and smile as I beheld it, than save thee for an inheritance of
sin. What is there in this little and sordid life that we should strive
to hold it? What in this dreadful dream that we should fear to wake?”
And Glendower knelt beside his wife, and, despite his words, tears
flowed fast and gushingly down his cheeks; and wearied as he was, he
watched upon her slumbers, till they fell from the eyes to which his
presence was more joyous than the day.
It was a beautiful thing, even in sorrow, to see that couple, whom want
could not debase, nor misfortune, which makes even generosity selfish,
divorce! All that Fate had stripped from the poetry and graces of life,
had not shaken one leaf from the romance of their green and unwithered
affections! They were the very type of love in its holiest and most
enduring shape: their hearts had grown together; their being had flowed
through caves and deserts, and reflected the storms of an angry Heaven;
but its waters had indissolubly mingled into one! Young, gifted, noble,
and devoted, they were worthy victims of this blighting and bitter
world! Their garden was turned into a wilderness; but, like our first
parents, it was hand in hand that they took their solitary way! Evil
beset them, but they swerved not; the rains and the winds fell upon
their unsheltered beads, but they were not bowed; and through the mazes
and briers of this weary life, their bleeding footsteps strayed not,
for they had a clew! The mind seemed, as it were, to become visible and
external as the frame decayed, and to cover the body with something of
its own invulnerable power; so that whatever should have attacked the
mortal and frail part, fell upon that which, imperishable and divine,
resisted and subdued it!
It was unfortunate for Glendower that he never again met Wolfe: for
neither fanaticism of political faith, nor sternness of natural temper,
subdued in the republican the real benevolence and generosity which
redeemed and elevated his character; nor could any impulse of party zeal
have induced him, like Crauford, systematically to take advantage of
poverty in order to tempt to participation in his schemes. From a more
evil companion Glendower had not yet escaped: Crauford, by some means or
other, found out his abode, and lost no time in availing himself of the
discovery. In order fully to comprehend his unwearied persecution of
Glendower, it must constantly be remembered that to this persecution
he was bound by a necessity which, urgent, dark, and implicating life
itself, rendered him callous to every obstacle and unsusceptible of all
remorse. With the exquisite tact which he possessed, he never openly
recurred to his former proposal of fraud: he contented himself with
endeavouring to persuade Glendower to accept pecuniary assistance, but
in vain. The veil once torn from his character no craft could restore.
Through all his pretences and sevenfold hypocrisy Glendower penetrated
at once into his real motives: he was not to be duped by assurances of
friendship which he knew the very dissimilarities between their natures
rendered impossible. He had seen at the first, despite all allegations
to the contrary, that in the fraud Crauford had proposed, that person
could by no means be an uninfluenced and cold adviser. In after
conversations, Crauford, driven by the awful interest he had in
success from his usual consummateness of duplicity, betrayed in various
important minutiae how deeply he was implicated in the crime for which
he had argued; and not even the visible and progressive decay of his
wife and child could force the stern mind of Glendower into accepting
those wages of iniquity which he knew well were only offered as an
earnest or a snare.
There is a royalty in extreme suffering, when the mind falls not with
the fortunes, which no hardihood of vice can violate unabashed. Often
and often, humble and defeated through all his dissimulation, was
Crauford driven from the presence of the man whom it was his bitterest
punishment to fear most when most he affected to despise; and as often,
re-collecting his powers and fortifying himself in his experience of
human frailty when sufficiently tried, did he return to his attempts.
He waylaid the door and watched the paths of his intended prey. He knew
that the mind which even best repels temptation first urged hath
seldom power to resist the same suggestion, if daily--dropping,
unwearying--presenting itself in every form, obtruded in every hour,
losing its horror by custom, and finding in the rebellious bosom itself
its smoothest vizard and most alluring excuse. And it was, indeed, a
mighty and perilous trial to Glendower, when rushing from the presence
of his wife and child, when fainting under accumulated evils, when
almost delirious with sickening and heated thought, to hear at each
prompting of the wrung and excited nature, each heave of the black
fountain that in no mortal breast is utterly exhausted, one smooth,
soft, persuasive voice forever whispering, “Relief!”--relief, certain,
utter, instantaneous! the voice of one pledged never to relax an
effort or spare a pang, by a danger to himself, a danger of shame
and death,--the voice of one who never spoke but in friendship and
compassion, profound in craft, and a very sage in the disguises with
which language invests deeds. But VIRTUE has resources buried in itself,
which we know not till the invading hour calls them from their retreats.
Surrounded by hosts without, and when Nature itself, turned traitor, is
its most deadly enemy within, it assumes a new and a superhuman power,
which is greater than Nature itself. Whatever be its creed, whatever be
its sect, from whatever segment of the globe its orisons arise, Virtue
is God’s empire, and from His throne of thrones He will defend it.
Though cast into the distant earth, and struggling on the dim arena of a
human heart, all things above are spectators of its conflict or enlisted
in its cause. The angels have their charge over it; the banners of
archangels are on its side; and from sphere to sphere, through the
illimitable ether, and round the impenetrable darkness at the feet of
God, its triumph is hymned by harps which are strung to the glories of
the Creator!
One evening, when Crauford had joined Glendower in his solitary
wanderings, the dissembler renewed his attacks.
“But why not,” said he, “accept from my friendship what to my
benevolence you would deny? I couple with my offers, my prayers
rather, no conditions. How then do you, can you, reconcile it to your
conscience, to suffer your wife and child to perish before your eyes?”
“Man, man,” said Glendower, “tempt me no more: let them die! At present
the worst is death: what you offer me is dishonour.”
“Heavens, how uncharitable is this! Can you call the mere act of
accepting money from one who loves you dishonour?”
“It is in vain that you varnish your designs,” said Glendower, stopping
and fixing his eyes upon him. “Do you not think that cunning ever
betrays itself? In a thousand words, in a thousand looks which have
escaped you, but not me, I know that, if there be one being on this
earth whom you hate and would injure, that being is myself. Nay,
start not: listen to me patiently. I have sworn that it is the last
opportunity you shall have. I will not subject myself to farther
temptation: I am now sane; but there are things which may drive me mad,
and in madness you might conquer. You hate me it is out of the nature of
earthly things that you should not. But even were it otherwise, do you
think that I could believe you would come from your voluptuous home to
these miserable retreats; that, among the lairs of beggary and theft,
you would lie in wait to allure me to forsake poverty, without a
stronger motive than love for one who affects it not for you? I know
you: I have read your heart; I have penetrated into that stronger
motive; it is your own safety. In the system of atrocity you proposed
to me, you are the principal. You have already bared to me enough of
the extent to which that system reaches to convince me that a single
miscreant, however ingenious, cannot, unassisted, support it with
impunity. You want help: I am he in whom you have dared to believe that
you could find it. You are detected; now be undeceived!”
“Is it so?” said Crauford; and as he saw that it was no longer possible
to feign, the poison of his heart broke forth in its full venom. The
fiend rose from the reptile, and stood exposed in its natural shape.
Returning Glendower’s stern but lofty gaze with an eye to which all evil
passions lent their unholy fire, he repeated, “Is it so? then you are
more penetrating than I thought; but it is indifferent to me. It was for
your sake, not mine, most righteous man, that I wished you might have
a disguise to satisfy the modesty of your punctilios. It is all one to
Richard Crauford whether you go blindfold or with open eyes into his
snare. Go you must, and shall. Ay, frowns will not awe me. You have
desired the truth: you shall have it. You are right: I hate you,--hate
you with a soul whose force of hatred you cannot dream of. Your pride,
your stubbornness, your coldness of heart, which things that would stir
the blood of beggars cannot warm; your icy and passionless virtue,--I
hate, I hate all! You are right also, most wise inquisitor, in supposing
that in the scheme proposed to you, I am the principal: I am! You were
to be the tool, and shall. I have offered you mild inducements,--pleas
to soothe the technicalities of your conscience: you have rejected them;
be it so. Now choose between my first offer and the gibbet. Ay, the
gibbet! That night on which we made the appointment which shall not yet
be in vain,--on that night you stopped me in the street; you demanded
money; you robbed me; I will swear; I will prove it. Now, then, tremble,
man of morality: dupe of your own strength, you are in my power;
tremble! Yet in my safety is your escape: I am generous. I repeat my
original offer,--wealth, as great as you will demand, or--the gibbet,
the gibbet: do I speak loud enough? do you hear?”
“Poor fool!” said Glendower, laughing scornfully and moving away. But
when Crauford, partly in mockery, partly in menace, placed his hand upon
Glendower’s shoulder, as if to stop him, the touch seemed to change his
mood from scorn to fury; turning abruptly round, he seized the
villain’s throat with a giant’s strength, and cried out, while his whole
countenance worked beneath the tempestuous wrath within, “What if I
squeeze out thy poisonous life from thee this moment!” and then once
more bursting into a withering laughter, as he surveyed the terror which
he had excited, he added, “No, no: thou art too vile!” and, dashing the
hypocrite against the wall of a neighbouring house, he strode away.
Recovering himself slowly, and trembling with rage and fear, Crauford
gazed round, expecting yet to find he had sported too far with the
passions he had sought to control. When, however, he had fully satisfied
himself that Glendower was gone, all his wrathful and angry feelings
returned with redoubled force. But their most biting torture was the
consciousness of their impotence. For after the first paroxysm of rage
had subsided he saw, too clearly, that his threat could not be executed
without incurring the most imminent danger of discovery. High as his
character stood, it was possible that no charge against him might excite
suspicion, but a word might cause inquiry, and inquiry would be ruin.
Forced, therefore, to stomach his failure, his indignation, his shame,
his hatred, and his vengeance, his own heart became a punishment almost
adequate to his vices.
“But my foe will die,” said he, clinching his fist so firmly that the
nails almost brought blood from the palm; “he will starve, famish, and
see them--his wife, his child--perish first! I shall have my triumph,
though I shall not witness it. But now, away to my villa: there, at
least, will be some one whom I can mock and beat and trample, if I will!
Would--would--would that I were that very man, destitute as he is! His
neck, at least, is safe: if he dies, it will not be upon the gallows,
nor among the hootings of the mob! Oh, horror! horror! What are my
villa, my wine, my women, with that black thought ever following me like
a shadow? Who, who while an avalanche is sailing over him, who would sit
down to feast?”
Leaving this man to shun or be overtaken by Fate, we return to
Glendower. It is needless to say that Crauford visited him no more; and,
indeed, shortly afterwards Glendower again changed his home. But
every day and every hour brought new strength to the disease which
was creeping and burning through the veins of the devoted wife; and
Glendower, who saw on earth nothing before them but a jail, from which
as yet they had been miraculously delivered, repined not as he beheld
her approach to a gentler and benigner home. Often he sat, as she was
bending over their child, and gazed upon her cheek with an insane and
fearful joy at the characters which consumption had there engraved; but
when she turned towards him her fond eyes (those deep wells of love,
in which truth lay hid, and which neither languor nor disease could
exhaust), the unnatural hardness of his heart melted away, and he would
rush from the house, to give vent to an agony against which fortitude
and manhood were in vain.
There was no hope for their distress. His wife had, unknown to Glendower
(for she dreaded his pride), written several times to a relation, who,
though distant, was still the nearest in blood which fate had spared
her, but ineffectually; the scions of a large and illegitimate family,
which surrounded him, utterly prevented the success, and generally
interrupted the application, of any claimant on his riches but
themselves. Glendower, whose temper had ever kept him aloof from all but
the commonest acquaintances, knew no human being to apply to. Utterly
unable to avail himself of the mine which his knowledge and talents
should have proved; sick, and despondent at heart, and debarred by the
loftiness of honour, or rather principle that nothing could quell, from
any unlawful means of earning bread, which to most minds would have been
rendered excusable by the urgency of nature,--Glendower marked the days
drag on in dull and protracted despair, and envied every corpse that he
saw borne to the asylum in which all earth’s hopes seemed centred and
confined.