IN CONCLUSION.
Her marriage, which took place a few days after this painful rencounter,
banished all these vague fears and surmises, and made her the happy
bride of the man she loved.
It was conducted in a very quiet manner, and, after partaking of the
splendid _déjeuner_ prepared for the occasion, and receiving the
congratulations of the noble guests who honoured it with their presence,
she started with her husband in a private carriage for the north.
After a delightful tour of several weeks, she rejoined her father in
London, received her bridal visits, and, full of hope and happiness,
proceeded with him to take possession of the princely home that was to
be her future residence.
Great were the preparations made by the good folks of Hadstone, to
welcome their beloved pastor and his beautiful bride. The gardens and
meadows had been rifled of their June blossoms to strew the path from
the village to the park gates, where a triumphal arch of ever-greens
crossed the road, from which gay silken banners floated forth upon the
breeze, emblazoned with mottos of joyful welcome.
The road was lined with crowds of people in their holiday attire, to
hail the approach of the bridal party, and when the _cortège_ came in
sight, the air rang with deafening shouts and acclamations.
An elegant open carriage, drawn by four noble grey horses, contained the
bridal party. The Earl and Lawrence Rushmere, whom they had taken up at
Heath Farm, occupied the front seat. The old man had been provided with
a dress suitable for the occasion, and his fine patriarchal face was
lighted up with gratified pride and pleasure.
Lady Dorothy, dressed in a simple but elegant morning costume, was
seated beside her husband in the body of the equipage, and received the
congratulations of her rustic friends with smiles of undisguised
pleasure. A charming incarnation she was of youth and beauty. Mr. and
Mrs. Martin followed in a private carriage with the children.
If Gerard Fitzmorris was not a proud and happy man, his face belied him.
A public dinner was to be served in the park to the poor of the parish,
and parents and children were dressed in their best attire, their
smiling faces beaming with gladness.
The carriage drew up beneath the triumphal arch, and the Earl rose to
thank the people for the hearty welcome they had given to him and his
daughter.
He had scarcely raised his hat, and uttered the first sentence, when a
tall haggard looking man, bare-headed and covered with dust, rushed from
behind the arch to the door of the carriage, and fired a pistol with his
left hand at the Lady Dorothy, who, uttering a faint cry, sank
insensible into the arms of her husband.
All was now terror and confusion.
The Earl sprang from his seat to secure the assassin, amidst the groans
and execrations of the excited multitude.
With a fiendish laugh the ruffian discharged the contents of another
weapon into his own mouth, and fell a hideous corpse beneath the feet
of the horses. He was instantly dragged out of sight by several men in
the crowd, and the mangled remains conveyed to a neighbouring cottage.
The dreadful deed had been the work of a moment, and, pale and trembling
with the sudden shock, the Earl grasped convulsively the door of the
carriage. The sight of his daughter, her white dress stained with her
blood, seemed to recall him to consciousness. "Is she dead?" he gasped.
"No, my lord," said Dr. Davy, who had been examining the nature of the
injury she had received, and who now dismounted to assist the nobleman
into his carriage. "The wound is not a dangerous one. It was aimed at
the lady's heart, but at the moment the ruffian fired, she
providentially put up her arm to raise her veil, which has received the
ball of the assassin. The sooner we can convey her home the better."
Gerard's handkerchief had formed a temporary bandage to stop the
effusion of blood, and as he held his fair young wife in his arms his
face was as pale and rigid as her own. "How quickly," he thought, "does
sorrow tread in the footsteps of joy. How little of real happiness can
be expected in a world on which rests the curse of sin, the shadows of
the grave."
Dorothy did not recover from her fainting fit until after they reached
the Hall, and she had been conveyed to bed. Then followed the painful
operation of extracting the ball from her right arm, where it was lodged
about four inches above the elbow, and dressing and bandaging the wound,
which Dr. Davy assured the anxious father and husband, would only prove
a temporary inconvenience of a few weeks at the farthest.
Dorothy bore the operation without a murmur, placing her left hand in
that of her husband, and leaning her head upon his breast. When it was
over she was gently laid back upon her pillow, and given a composing
draught to induce sleep.
"Gerard," she whispered, "did you see that unhappy man?"
"No, my love."
"It was Gilbert Rushmere. Has he escaped?"
"From the punishment due to his crime? Yes."
"Thank God! I would not have him suffer death on my account. Oh, Gerard,
if you had seen his eyes--the look he gave, when he fired. It was not
Gilbert Rushmere but some demon in his shape."
"Hush, my precious wife. You must not talk and distress yourself. Your
wound, though not dangerous, may be rendered so, by want of rest and
excitement." But Dorothy was too much agitated to sleep.
"Did his poor father see him?"
"I think not. The whole thing was so sudden and unexpected, that
Rushmere was not conscious of it until after it was all over."
"Try and keep him from knowing who the assassin was. Tell him that it
was the act of a madman in the crowd."
"Dorothy, we must not do evil that good may come of it, or attempt to
cover crime by uttering an untruth. Leave the sinner to his God, and
speak of him no more."
"And the people, Gerard. You must not disappoint them of their dinner.
Tell them from me, that I shall soon be well. That I wish them all to be
happy. Ah, me!" and she closed her eyes and sighed heavily. "This is a
dismal ending to a day that dawned so pleasantly. That unhappy man. May
God have mercy upon him, and bring him to repentance." She spoke no
more, and to the infinite relief of her husband and Mrs. Martin, who had
constituted herself as nurse, soon dropped into a profound sleep.
This sad affair threw a great damp upon the joy of the people. Their gay
shouts were converted into sorrowful ejaculations. Though the roasted ox
was eaten--the barrels of strong ale drank--and the children did ample
justice to Mrs. Brand's excellent plum-pudding, they dispersed sadly and
sorrowfully, when the meal was ended.
Lady Dorothy awoke in a high fever, and for several days was considered
in imminent danger. This was not caused by the wound, the ball having
penetrated only an inch beneath the skin, but from the severe shock her
nervous system had sustained from witnessing a scene so terrible.
She still fancied herself in the carriage, surrounded by the gaping
crowd, and encountered the frenzied gaze of the maniac, as he aimed at
her the deadly weapon. Unconscious of his last desperate act, she would
cling to her husband, and cry out in a tone of agonized earnestness.
"He is mad! Don't kill him. Let him escape. I loved him once. I cannot
see him die."
As a natural antidote to this state of mental excitement, Gerard thought
it best, during a brief interval of composure, to reveal to her the
facts of the case, which calmed at once her agitation, by causing her to
shed tears. He suffered her to weep for some time without disturbing her
with any remark.
He had more than once experienced that the truth, however painful, is
more endurable, and fraught with less danger to the human frame, than a
state of suspense; that the natural elasticity of the mind, when the
worst is known, and nothing remains to hope or fear, reconciles us to a
blow that we cannot avert, and which becomes irrevocable as fate.
After lying quiet for some time, Dorothy opened her large black eyes,
and, looking earnestly in her husband's face, said in a low voice,
"Gerard, is there any harm in praying for the dead?"
"I should think not, darling. Nature herself prompts such prayers. Cold
must that heart be who can witness the death of a parent or friend, or
even of an enemy, without breathing an inward prayer for the salvation
of his soul. This impulse is almost instinctive in the human heart, and
few, I believe, could be found, except the hardened sinner, who have
not uttered such prayers, when bending over the loved and lost. At the
same time, sweet wife, I must add, that these prayers, however pious and
natural, cannot do any good to the dead, or change the sentence of a
just God. But they are of service to the living, in filling the soul
with a gentle charity, and bringing it into solemn communion with Him
who has extracted the sting from death, and risen victorious from the
grave."
"Ah," sighed Dorothy, "how thankful we ought to be that the future is
mercifully hidden from us. Who could endure all the trials of life, if
they could see them in advance? Our moments of gladness are often more
nearly allied to sorrow than those of grief. The terrible reverse is so
hard to bear." Gerard fondly kissed the pale, earnest speaker, and,
kneeling beside her bed, uttered a fervent prayer of thanksgiving that
it had pleased God to restore his dear young wife to reason.
In a few weeks she was able to sit up, and receive the visits of
sympathizing friends.
Little now remains for us to record of the eventful history of this
truly noble woman.
The fortune she inherited from her grandmother was entirely devoted to
charitable purposes. She caused to be erected at Storby an hospital for
the sick, and a house of refuge for infirm and ship-wrecked mariners.
She built a comfortable almshouse for aged and destitute widows, and a
school and asylum for orphan children, whom she made her especial care.
Her chief delight was in doing good, and contributing to the happiness
of others, in which charitable occupation she enjoyed the hearty
co-operation of a man, well worthy of being the husband and bosom
friend of such an excellent wife.
Lady Dorothy became the mother of four noble promising boys, and one
lovely girl named after her mother, Alice. The Earl, and her
foster-father, who shared her home, lived to see her sons grow up to
men, and to mingle their tears with hers, over the grave of her only
daughter, who died in her innocent childhood.
The portrait of the soldier of the Covenant had been removed from Heath
Farm, and placed among the pictures of the Earl's ancestors; and old
Rushmere would rub his hands while contemplating it, and declare "that
old Sir Lawrence was now in his proper place."
Dorothy had named her second son Lawrence Rushmere, after her
foster-father, and the boy was the especial pet and darling of the
venerable patriarch.
"Edward, and Gerard, and Thomas might be fine lads," he said, "but they
were none of them, so clever and handsome as his own Larry."
The Earl erected a beautiful monument over the grave of his unfortunate
countess, and resisted all Dorothy's earnest entreaties to cut down the
melancholy yew that kept the sunbeams from visiting her mother's grave.
"The spot is holy ground, my Dorothy. The mournful tree, a fit emblem
for love like ours, which was cradled in sorrow, and whose constancy
survives the grave. There, too, I hope to sleep in peace, by the side of
the beloved."
THE END.
Transcriber's Note: A number of paragraph ending periods were
missing and have been corrected. The word cooly is now coolly.