_The Narrative is interrupted by the Arrival of a Letter from old Morgan
of Glen Morgan._
It is not always the greatest misfortune, that can befal the listener to
a long story, if the teller shall chance to be called off in the middle
of it. This was just now the case with Robert De Lancaster, who had
advanced in his narrative but a very few years on this side of the
Trojan war, when the arrival of the servant, whom he had dispatched with
his letter of congratulation to old Morgan of Glen-Morgan, cut him short
in his progress, and it probably required as much philosophy on his part
to command his patience, as it did on Wilson’s to conceal his pleasure.
However this might be, De Lancaster upon the receipt of Morgan’s answer
to his letter, came to an immediate pause in his story, and leaving
about three thousand years of his pedigree as yet unaccounted for, read
as follows--
“Dear Sir,
“Your servant duly delivered your kind letter, informing me, that
my daughter Mrs. Philip De Lancaster was safely delivered of a son;
an event, which I hope will afford much consolation to you, and be
the happy means of delivering down to future generations a name,
which from time immemorial has been highly respectable in these
parts.
“To my name as one of the sponsors at the christening you have an
undoubted right, and I am flattered that you enforce it; but of my
personal attendance upon that solemnity there is I fear but little
chance; for I am a victim to the gout, and though the snow, which
now lies on the hills, may disappear before the month is out, I
cannot expect my pains will be in the like melting mood: but He,
who is the disposer of all things, will dispose even of such a
wretched insignificant as I am.
“Alas! my good brother-in-law, I am not like you a healthy, gay and
social man; I am gloomy, sullen and uncomfortable; hypochondriac by
nature, and splenetic by vexation and disease: I will not say that
I repent that ever I was a father; that would be wrong; but I do
say, that, being a father, I repent of my unfitness, and am
conscious of my errors.
“One only child, whom we jointly call our daughter, was all that
Providence entrusted to me: her mother died when she was an
infant, and I never ventured on a second marriage. I did not seek
for teachers to instruct me how to educate my child: I took that
task upon myself, and was her only master: I coveted not to
accomplish her as a fine lady; I studied to implant good principles
in her heart, and make her an honest, honourable woman. I suspect
my discipline was too rigid, for I totally overlooked amusement,
and fixed a melancholy upon her spirit, accompanied with so
absolute a submission to my dictates, that she seemed to think and
act without any will or option of her own.
“When you tendered to me your alliance, I embraced it with ardour;
for I held your character then, as I do to this day, in the highest
honour and respect. Had ambition been my ruling passion, I could
have looked up to nothing in point of family of superior dignity;
had avarice been my vice, how could I have gratified it more than
by marrying my daughter to the only son and heir of De Lancaster?
Your son was comely, courteous, unassuming, and though perhaps not
prominently marked with any brilliant gleams of genius, yet
certainly in moral purity no young man bore a more unblemished
character. I recommended the connection to my daughter--warmly,
anxiously recommended it--Implicitly, without appeal, in a concern
the most material she accorded to my wish, and answered at the
altar to the awful question there repeated as compliantly as she
did, when I first proposed it to her.
“Now, sir, when I disclose to you that this too duteous creature
had conceived a passion, which under the terror of my authority
she had not courage to discover, judge what my sorrow and remorse
must be. I have, though unintentionally, made a wreck of her peace,
and endangered that of your son. I may have brought into your
family a wife without a heart for her husband, and a mother, (which
Heaven avert!) without natural affection for her offspring.
“Thus I have laid the sorrows of my soul before you, and beseech
you, that, with the candour and benignity, which are natural to
you, you would look upon my child, and without revealing my secret
to your son, influence him to be mild with her, in her present
situation more especially; and this I am confident will engage her
gratitude, though I dare not promise if will gain her love.
“I was about to conclude with my love and blessing to the mother
and her babe, but upon reading over what in the confusion of my
thoughts I have so ill put together, I find I have omitted to tell
you, who the young man is, of whom I have been speaking. His name
is Jones, a gentleman by birth, but destitute of fortune. He was
ensign, and on a recruiting party at Denbigh, where I noticed him
for his modest manners and engaging person; having withal known his
father Colonel Jones, and served with him in the same regiment when
I was in the army, I invited this youth to make my house his
quarters, became very fond of him, and furnished him with means to
purchase a lieutenancy. I have nothing to charge him with; his
conduct towards my daughter was honourable in the extreme, and I am
informed that it was his punctilious delicacy towards me as his
patron, that occasioned him to secede, when she probably would have
summoned resolution to have laid the state of her heart before me;
which had she done, if I know myself, I know she would have had her
lover, and Jones would have had my estate.
I have the honour to be,
Dear Sir, &c. &c.
JOHN MORGAN.”
The perusal of this melancholy letter made a deep impression on the
feeling heart of De Lancaster: he pondered on its contents for some
time, and began to arrange his thoughts for answering it in a
consolatory manner. When he had written a few lines, he laid down his
pen, and said within himself--How much better might all this be stated
face to face in person than upon paper! He is ill, poor man, and unable
to come to me; I am in health, and will go to him; he cannot fail to
take my visit kindly, and the face of a friend is cheering, when the
spirits are depressed. I will act towards him, as I, in his
circumstances, should wish and expect him to act towards me. It is but
about four hours drive, and I can be home the next morning: if the roads
are passable, ’twill be a pleasant jaunt, for the weather is now fine,
and promises a fair day to-morrow.
Having settled this point to his kind heart’s content, the good man rang
his bell, and summoned his servant, who had been to Glen-Morgan, to make
his report of the roads.
Were they practicable for the coach to pass with safety? The coach
might pass in perfect safety, for though the snow laid on the
mountains, the road was clear, and he saw no danger. The report was
satisfactory; the servant was dismissed, and the coachman summoned: upon
enquiry made as to matters within his department, every thing thereunto
appertaining, horses and carriage, were ready for the start. Cecilia was
now called into council, and the important project was announced to her:
It occasioned some surprise to her at first on account of its uncommon
spirit and vivacity, but she gave it no opposition, nor even moved the
previous question--The kindness of the motive, and care for her dear
father’s safety, occupied her gentle thoughts:--Were the roads safe, and
would he go alone? The roads were safe, and as he wished to have some
private talk with his brother Morgan upon family affairs, he would go
alone, and return to her on the next day.
It was resolved: the grand affair was settled: the solemn fiat was
announced; the note of preparation was sounded through all the lower
regions of the castle, and echoed through the range of stables--Our
master goes to-morrow to Glen-Morgan, and will stay out a whole night!
When tidings of this extraordinary event were announced to Colonel
Wilson, he was in the common parlour, and had sate down to chess with
Mr. Philip De Lancaster, who took much content in that narcotic game, of
which however he scarce understood a single principle. Going to
Glen-Morgan, cried Wilson! this is news indeed: I am astonished.--I am
cheque-mated, said Philip; I cannot move a man.--By Heavens! but I am
moved with pleasure and surprise, exclaimed Wilson, to hear that your
good father meditates a visit to Glen-Morgan.--It is not above twenty
miles, said the other, and the coach is easy; he may sleep in it all the
way.--The devil he may, rejoined Wilson: You might as well expect the
coachman to fall asleep.--That is not impossible, said Philip, he is
very fat and drowsy. But now I think of it, I’ll go and angle for some
perch: I shall like to send my father-in-law a few fish of my own
catching.
Do so, cried Wilson: you can stand still and catch them.--With these
words he stumped out of the room, and turning into the library, where De
Lancaster was sitting--I come to congratulate you, said he, as he
entered, upon the resolution you have taken. It will warm the heart of
my old friend Morgan to be flattered with a visit from the man in all
the world he most esteems and honours.
If it will give him any pleasure, I shall not regret my pains.
It will, be assured, repeated Wilson. I have a letter from him by your
messenger full of sighs and groans: I don’t much heed them; for it is
his humour to deal in the dolefuls, and set himself off in the worst
light he can possibly devise: for instance, he tells me here, that his
temper, which was always execrable, is now worse than ever; and that he
is grown so touchy, that even the parson won’t trust himself to a hit at
backgammon with him. This is about as true as the account he gives of
his house-keeping, which I know is liberal to excess, but which he
represents as rascally in the extreme; pretending to say, that through
mere covetousness he has made a potatoe garden of his pleasure ground,
turned his coach-horses into the straw yard, and lowered the quality of
his Welch ale, till his servants are in mutiny, and his parishioners
consulting about hanging him in effigy.
Is all this true? De Lancaster asked.
Not any of it, Wilson replied. His poor neighbours are more disposed to
worship him in effigy, than to hang him. He may have planted his grounds
with potatoes, and turned his idle horses out to fodder, for I dare say
this hard winter has made havoc of his stores, as he tells me that he is
screwing up his farmers in revenge for their want of mercy to their
necessitous neighbours; but as for his covetousness, I give no credit to
that; on the contrary I happen to know that he has just now paid down
the purchase money of a company for a young officer in the line, in no
degree related to him, or indeed connected with him.
Is Jones the name of that young officer?
It is.
Gallant, glorious old man! How I reverence him for the action! How I
honour him for his benignity! I would go to do him service, or to give
him pleasure, though I were to walk thither on foot.
I perceive you know something of this Jones.
If you do perceive it, you will not need to be informed of it by me: and
now as I also perceive you are in the secret of my visit, I hope you
will consent to accompany me to-morrow, and then Cecilia’s mind will be
at rest.
To put her mind at rest, said Wilson, where would I not go? How
willingly then shall I accompany you upon a friendly errand to a worthy
man like Morgan!
Agreed! cried De Lancaster, and now I am in good humour with myself for
thinking and resolving on this visit.
Let me profit by your good humour then, rejoined the colonel with a
smile, and let me hear the remainder of your genealogy; for we have
turned our backs upon the Trojan war, and are drawing near to modern
history, when, according to your doctrine, truth becomes darkened, and
we get into the regions of deception; which I shall not be sorry for, as
I confess there is ever more amusement for me in a harmless pleasant
fiction, than in a dry uninteresting matter of fact.
What answer De Lancaster gave to this appeal will be found in the
following chapter.