"Why," said I, as I hasted forward, "is my fortune so abundant in
unforeseen occurrences? Is every man who leaves his cottage and the
impressions of his infancy behind him ushered into such a world of
revolutions and perils as have trammelled my steps? or is my scene
indebted for variety and change to my propensity to look into other
people's concerns, and to make their sorrows and their joys mine?
"To indulge an adventurous spirit, I left the precincts of the
barn-door, enlisted in the service of a stranger, and encountered a
thousand dangers to my virtue under the disastrous influence of Welbeck.
Afterwards my life was set at hazard in the cause of Wallace, and now am
I loaded with the province of protecting the helpless Eliza Hadwin and
the unfortunate Clemenza. My wishes are fervent, and my powers shall not
be inactive in their defence; but how slender are these powers!
"In the offers of the unknown lady there is, indeed, some consolation
for Clemenza. It must be my business to lay before my friend Stevens the
particulars of what has befallen me, and to entreat his directions how
this disconsolate girl may be most effectually succoured. It may be wise
to take her from her present abode, and place her under some chaste and
humane guardianship, where she may gradually lose remembrance of her
dead infant and her specious betrayer. The barrier that severs her from
Welbeck must be high as heaven and insuperable as necessity.
"But, soft! Talked she not of Welbeck? Said she not that he was in
prison and was sick? Poor wretch! I thought thy course was at an end;
that the penalty of guilt no longer weighed down thy heart; that thy
misdeeds and thy remorses were buried in a common and obscure grave; but
it seems thou art still alive.
"Is it rational to cherish the hope of thy restoration to innocence and
peace? Thou art no obdurate criminal; hadst thou less virtue, thy
compunctions would be less keen. Wert thou deaf to the voice of duty,
thy wanderings into guilt and folly would be less fertile of anguish.
The time will perhaps come, when the measure of thy transgressions and
calamities will overflow, and the folly of thy choice will be too
conspicuous to escape thy discernment. Surely, even for such
transgressors as thou, there is a salutary power in the precepts of
truth and the lessons of experience.
"But thou art imprisoned and art sick. This, perhaps, is the crisis of
thy destiny. Indigence and dishonour were the evils to shun which thy
integrity and peace of mind have been lightly forfeited. Thou hast found
that the price was given in vain; that the hollow and deceitful
enjoyments of opulence and dignity were not worth the purchase; and
that, frivolous and unsubstantial as they are, the only path that leads
to them is that of honesty and diligence. Thou art in prison and art
sick; and there is none to cheer thy hour with offices of kindness, or
uphold thy fainting courage by the suggestions of good counsel. For such
as thou the world has no compassion. Mankind will pursue thee to the
grave with execrations. Their cruelty will be justified or palliated,
since they know thee not. They are unacquainted with the goadings of thy
conscience and the bitter retributions which thou art daily suffering.
They are full of their own wrongs, and think only of those tokens of
exultation and complacency which thou wast studious of assuming in thy
intercourse with them. It is I only that thoroughly know thee and can
rightly estimate thy claims to compassion.
"I have somewhat partaken of thy kindness, and thou meritest some
gratitude at my hands. Shall I not visit and endeavour to console thee
in thy distress? Let me, at least, ascertain thy condition, and be the
instrument in repairing the wrongs which thou hast inflicted. Let me
gain, from the contemplation of thy misery, new motives to sincerity and
rectitude."
While occupied by these reflections, I entered the city. The thoughts
which engrossed my mind related to Welbeck. It is not my custom to defer
till to-morrow what can be done to-day. The destiny of man frequently
hangs upon the lapse of a minute. "I will stop," said I, "at the prison;
and, since the moment of my arrival may not be indifferent, I will go
thither with all possible haste." I did not content myself with walking,
but, regardless of the comments of passengers, hurried along the way at
full speed.
Having inquired for Welbeck, I was conducted through a dark room,
crowded with beds, to a staircase. Never before had I been in a prison.
Never had I smelt so noisome an odour, or surveyed faces so begrimed
with filth and misery. The walls and floors were alike squalid and
detestable. It seemed that in this house existence would be bereaved of
all its attractions; and yet those faces, which could be seen through
the obscurity that encompassed them, were either void of care or
distorted with mirth.
"This," said I, as I followed my conductor, "is the residence of
Welbeck. What contrasts are these to the repose and splendour, pictured
walls, glossy hangings, gilded sofas, mirrors that occupied from ceiling
to floor, carpets of Tauris, and the spotless and transcendent
brilliancy of coverlets and napkins, in thy former dwelling! Here
brawling and the shuffling of rude feet are eternal. The air is loaded
with the exhalations of disease and the fumes of debauchery. Thou art
cooped up in airless space, and, perhaps, compelled to share thy narrow
cell with some stupid ruffian. Formerly, the breezes were courted by thy
lofty windows. Aromatic shrubs were scattered on thy hearth. Menials,
splendid in apparel, showed their faces with diffidence in thy
apartment, trod lightly on thy marble floor, and suffered not the
sanctity of silence to be troubled by a whisper. Thy lamp shot its rays
through the transparency of alabaster, and thy fragrant lymph flowed
from vases of porcelain. Such were formerly the decorations of thy
hall, the embellishments of thy existence; but now--alas!----"
We reached a chamber in the second story. My conductor knocked at the
door. No one answered. Repeated knocks were unheard or unnoticed by the
person within. At length, lifting a latch, we entered together.
The prisoner lay upon the bed, with his face turned from the door. I
advanced softly, making a sign to the keeper to withdraw. Welbeck was
not asleep, but merely buried in reverie. I was unwilling to disturb his
musing, and stood with my eyes fixed upon his form. He appeared
unconscious that any one had entered.
At length, uttering a deep sigh, he changed his posture, and perceived
me in my motionless and gazing attitude. Recollect in what circumstances
we had last parted. Welbeck had, no doubt, carried away with him from
that interview a firm belief that I should speedily die. His prognostic,
however, was fated to be contradicted.
His first emotions were those of surprise. These gave place to
mortification and rage. After eyeing me for some time, he averted his
glances, and that effort which is made to dissipate some obstacle to
breathing showed me that his sensations were of the most excruciating
kind. He laid his head upon the pillow, and sunk into his former musing.
He disdained, or was unable, to utter a syllable of welcome or contempt.
In the opportunity that had been afforded me to view his countenance, I
had observed tokens of a kind very different from those which used to be
visible. The gloomy and malignant were more conspicuous. Health had
forsaken his cheeks, and taken along with it those flexible parts which
formerly enabled him to cover his secret torments and insidious purposes
beneath a veil of benevolence and cheerfulness. "Alas!" said I, loud
enough for him to hear me, "here is a monument of ruin. Despair and
mischievous passions are too deeply rooted in this heart for me to tear
them away."
These expressions did not escape his notice. He turned once more and
cast sullen looks upon me. There was somewhat in his eyes that made me
shudder. They denoted that his reverie was not that of grief, but of
madness. I continued, in a less steadfast voice than before:--
"Unhappy Clemenza! I have performed thy message. I have visited him that
is sick and in prison. Thou hadst cause for anguish and terror, even
greater cause than thou imaginedst. Would to God that thou wouldst be
contented with the report which I shall make; that thy misguided
tenderness would consent to leave him to his destiny, would suffer him
to die alone; but that is a forbearance which no eloquence that I
possess will induce thee to practise. Thou must come, and witness for
thyself."
In speaking thus, I was far from foreseeing the effects which would be
produced on the mind of Welbeck. I was far from intending to instil into
him a belief that Clemenza was near at hand, and was preparing to enter
his apartment; yet no other images but these would, perhaps, have roused
him from his lethargy, and awakened that attention which I wished to
awaken. He started up, and gazed fearfully at the door.
"What!" he cried. "What! Is she here? Ye powers, that have scattered
woes in my path, spare me the sight of her! But from this agony I will
rescue myself. The moment she appears I will pluck out these eyes and
dash them at her feet."
So saying, he gazed with augmented eagerness upon the door. His hands
were lifted to his head, as if ready to execute his frantic purpose. I
seized his arm and besought him to lay aside his terror, for that
Clemenza was far distant. She had no intention, and besides was unable,
to visit him.
"Then I am respited. I breathe again. No; keep her from a prison. Drag
her to the wheel or to the scaffold; mangle her with stripes; torture
her with famine; strangle her child before her face, and cast it to the
hungry dogs that are howling at the gate; but--keep her from a prison.
Never let her enter these doors." There he stopped; his eyes being fixed
on the floor, and his thoughts once more buried in reverie. I
resumed:--
"She is occupied with other griefs than those connected with the fate of
Welbeck. She is not unmindful of you; she knows you to be sick and in
prison; and I came to do for you whatever office your condition might
require, and I came at her suggestion. She, alas! has full employment
for her tears in watering the grave of her child."
He started. "What! dead? Say you that the child is dead?"
"It is dead. I witnessed its death. I saw it expire in the arms of its
mother; that mother whom I formerly met under your roof blooming and
gay, but whom calamity has tarnished and withered. I saw her in the
raiment of poverty, under an accursed roof: desolate; alone; unsolaced
by the countenance or sympathy of human beings; approached only by those
who mock at her distress, set snares for her innocence, and push her to
infamy. I saw her leaning over the face of her dying babe."
Welbeck put his hands to his head, and exclaimed, "Curses on thy lips,
infernal messenger! Chant elsewhere thy rueful ditty! Vanish! if thou
wouldst not feel in thy heart fangs red with blood less guilty than
thine."
Till this moment the uproar in Welbeck's mind appeared to hinder him
from distinctly recognising his visitant. Now it seemed as if the
incidents of our last interview suddenly sprung up in his remembrance.
"What! This is the villain that rifled my cabinet, the maker of my
poverty and of all the evils which it has since engendered! That has led
me to a prison! Execrable fool! you are the author of the scene that you
describe, and of horrors without number and name. To whatever crimes I
have been urged since that interview, and the fit of madness that made
you destroy my property, they spring from your act; they flowed from
necessity, which, had you held your hand at that fateful moment, would
never have existed.
"How dare you thrust yourself upon my privacy? Why am I not alone? Fly!
and let my miseries want, at least, the aggravation of beholding their
author. My eyes loathe the sight of thee! My heart would suffocate thee
with its own bitterness! Begone!"
"I know not," I answered, "why innocence should tremble at the ravings
of a lunatic; why it should be overwhelmed by unmerited reproaches! Why
it should not deplore the errors of its foe, labour to correct those
errors, and----"
"Thank thy fate, youth, that my hands are tied up by my scorn; thank thy
fate that no weapon is within reach. Much has passed since I saw thee,
and I am a new man. I am no longer inconstant and cowardly. I have no
motives but contempt to hinder me from expiating the wrongs which thou
hast done me in thy blood. I disdain to take thy life. Go; and let thy
fidelity, at least, to the confidence which I have placed in thee, be
inviolate. Thou hast done me harm enough, but canst do, if thou wilt,
still more. Thou canst betray the secrets that are lodged in thy bosom,
and rob me of the comfort of reflecting that my guilt is known but to
one among the living."
This suggestion made me pause, and look back upon the past. I had
confided this man's tale to you. The secrecy on which he so fondly
leaned was at an end. Had I acted culpably or not?
But why should I ruminate, with anguish and doubt, upon the past? The
future was within my power, and the road of my duty was too plain to be
mistaken. I would disclose to Welbeck the truth, and cheerfully
encounter every consequence. I would summon my friend to my aid, and
take his counsel in the critical emergency in which I was placed. I
ought not to rely upon myself alone in my efforts to benefit this being,
when another was so near whose discernment and benevolence, and
knowledge of mankind, and power of affording relief, were far superior
to mine.
Influenced by these thoughts, I left the apartment without speaking;
and, procuring pen and paper, despatched to you the billet which brought
about our meeting.