communicated with the castle flew open. He screened himself behind a
pillar, from whence he beheld Father John proceeding with a solemn air
towards the altar, followed by the Prince, carried by three servants
in an arm chair, and apparently in the last stage of mortal existence.
Glorvina then appeared wrapt in a long veil and supported on the arm of
a stranger, whose figure and air was lofty and noble, but whose face was
concealed by the recumbent attitude of his head, which drooped towards
that of his apparently feeble companion, as if in the act of addressing
her. This singular procession advanced to the altar; the chair of
the Prince re posed at his feet. The priest stood at the sacred
table--Glorvina and her companion knelt at its steps. The last red beams
of the evening sun shone through a stormy cloud on the votarists all
was awfully silent; a pause solemn and affecting ensued; then the priest
began to celebrate the marriage rites; but the first words had not died
on his lips, when a figure, pale and ghastly, rushed forward, wildly
exclaiming, “Stop, I charge you, stop! you know not what you do! it is a
sacrilege!” and breathless and faint the seeming maniac sunk at the feet
of the bride.
A convulsive shriek burst from the lips of Glorvina. She raised her
eyes to heaven, then fixed them on her unfortunate lover, and dropped
lifeless into his arms--a pause of indiscribable emotion succeeded. The
Prince, aghast, gazed on the hapless pair; thus seemingly entwined in
the embrace of death. The priest transfixed with pity and amazement
let fall the sacred volume from his hands. Emotions of an indescribable
nature mingled in the countenance of the bridegroom. The priest was the
first to dissolve the spell, and to recover a comparative presence of
mind; he descended from the altar and endeavoured to raise and extricate
the lifeless Glorvina from the arms of her unhappy lover, but the effort
was vain. Clasping her to his heart closer than ever, the almost frantic
M-------- exclaimed, “She is mine! mine in the eye of heaven! and no
human power can part us!”
“Merciful providence!” exclaimed the bridegroom faintly, and sunk on the
shoulders of the priest. The voice pierced to the heart of his rival; he
raised his eyes, fell lifeless against the railing of the altar, faintly
uttering, “God of Omnipotence! my father!” Glorvina released from the
nerveless clasp of her lover, sunk on her knees between the father
and the son, alternately fixed her wild regard on both, then suddenly
turning them on the now apparently expiring Prince, she sprang forward,
and throwing her arms round his neck, frantically cried, “It is my
father they will destroy and sobbing convulsively, sunk, overcome, on
his shoulder.”
The Prince pressed her to his heart, and looking round with a ghastly
and inquiring glance for the explanation of that mystery no one had the
power to unravel, and by which all seemed overwhelmed. At last, with an
effort of expiring strength, he raised himself in his seat, entwined his
arm round his child, and intimated by his eloquent looks, that he wished
the mysterious father and his rival son to approach. The priest led the
former towards him: the latter sprang to his feet, and hid his head
in his mantle: all the native dignity of his character now seemed to
irradiate the countenance of the Prince of Inismore; his eyes sparkled
with a transient beam of their former fire; and the retreating powers
of life seemed for a moment to rush through his exhausted veins with all
their pristine vigour. With a deep and hollow voice he said: “I find
I have been deceived, and my child, I fear, is to become the victim of
this deception. Speak, mysterious strangers, who have taught me at once
to _love_ and to _fear_ you--what, and who are you? and to what purpose
have you mutually, but apparently unknown to each other, stolen on our
seclusion, and thus combined to embitter my last hours, by threatening
the destruction of my child?”
A long and solemn pause ensued, which was at last interrupted by the
Earl of M. With a firm and collected air he replied: “That youth who
kneels at your feet, is my son; but till this moment I was ignorant that
he was known to you: I was equally unaware of those claims which he has
now made on the heart of your daughter. If he has deceived you he also,
has deceived his father! For myself, if imposition can be extenuated,
mine merits forgiveness, for it was founded on honourable and virtuous
motives. To restore to you the blessings of independence; to raise your
daughter to that rank in life, her birth, her virtues, and her talents
merit; and to obtain your assistance in dissipating the ignorance,
improving the state, and ameliorating the condition of those poor
unhappy compatriots, who, living immediately within your own sphere of
action, are influenced by your example, and would best be actuated by
your counsel. Such were the wishes of my heart; but _prejudice_, the
enemy of all human virtue and human felicity, forbade their execution.
My first overtures of amity were treated with scorn; my first offers of
service rejected with disdain; and my crime was that in a distant age an
ancestor of mine, by the fortune of war, had possessed himself of those
domains, which, in a more distant age, a remoter ancestor of yours won
by similar means.
“Thus denied the open declaration of my good intents, I stooped to the
assumption of a fictitious character; and he who as a hereditary enemy
was forbid your house, as an unknown and unfortunate stranger, under
affected circumstances of peculiar danger, was received to your
protection, and soon to your heart as its dearest friend. The influence
I obtained over your mind, I used to the salutary purpose of awakening
it to a train of ideas more liberal than the prejudices of education had
hitherto suffered it to cherish; and the services I had it in my power
to render you, the fervour of your gratitude so far over-rated, as to
induce you to repay them by the most precious of all donations--your
child. But for the wonderful and most unexpected incident which has now
crossed your designs, your daughter had been by this the wife of the
Earl of M.”
With a strong convulsion of expiring nature, the Prince started from his
chair; gazed for a moment on the Earl with a fixed and eager look and
again sunk on his seat; it was the last convulsive throe of life roused
into existence by the last violent feeling of mortal emotion. With an
indefinable expression, he directed his eyes alternately from the father
to the son, then sunk back and closed them: the younger M. clasped his
hand, and bathed it with tears; his daughter, who hung over him, gazed
intently on his face, and though she tremblingly watched the extinction
of that life in which her own was wrapped up, her air was wild, her eye
beamless, her cheek pale; grief and amazement seemed to have bereft her
of her senses, but her feelings had lost nothing of their poignancy: the
Earl of M. leaned on the back of the Prince’s chair, his face covered
with his hand: the priest held his right hand, and wept like an infant:
among the attendants there was not one appeared with a dry eye.
After a long and affecting pause, the Prince heaved a deep sigh, and
raised his eyes to the crucifix which hung over the altar: the effusions
of a departing and pious soul murmured on his lips, but the powers of
utterance were gone; every mortal passion was fled, save that which
flutters with the last pulse of life in the heart of a doating father,
parental solicitude and parental love. Religion claimed his last sense
of duty, nature his last impulse of feeling; he fixed his last gaze
on the face of his daughter; he raised himself with a dying effort to
receive her last kiss: she fell on his bosom, their arms interlaced.
In this attitude he expired.
Glorvina, in the arms of the attendants, was conveyed lifeless to the
castle. The body of the Prince was carried to the great hall, and there
laid on a bier. The Earl of M. walked by the side of the body, and his
almost lifeless son, supported by the arm of the priest (who himself
stood in need of assistance,) slowly followed.
The elder M. had loved the venerable Prince as a brother and a friend:
the younger as a father. In their common regret for the object of their
mutual affection, heightened by that sadly affecting scene they had just
witnessed, they lost for an interval a sense of that extraordinary and
delicate situation in which they now stood related towards each other;
they hung on either side in a mournful silence over the deceased object
of their friendly affliction; while the concourse of poor peasants, whom
the return of the Prince brought in joyful emotion to the castle, now
crowded into the hall, uttering those vehement exclamations of sorrow
and amazement so consonant to the impassioned energy of their national
character. To still the violence of their emotions, the priest kneeling
at the foot of the bier began a prayer for the soul of the deceased. All
who were present knelt around him: all was awful, solemn, and still.
At that moment Glorvina appeared; she had rushed from the arms of
her attendants; her strength was resistless, for it was the energy of
madness; her senses were fled.
A dead silence ensued; for the emotion of the priest would not suffer
him to proceed. Regardless of the prostrate throng, she glided up the
hall to the bier, and gazing earnestly on her father, smiled sadly,
and waved her hand; then kissing his cheek, she threw her veil over his
face, and putting her finger on her lip, as if to impose silence, softly
exclaimed, “Hush! he does not suffer now! he sleeps! it was I who lulled
him to repose with the song his heart loves!” and then kneeling beside
him, in a voice scarcely human, she breathed out a soul-rending air she
had been accustomed to sing to her father from her earliest infancy.
The silence of compassion, of horror, which breathed around, was alone
interrupted by her song of grief, while no eye save hers was dry.
Abruptly breaking off her plaintive strains, she drew the veil from her
father’s face, and suddenly averting her gaze from his livid features,
it wandered from the Earl of M. to his son; while with a piercing shriek
she exclaimed, “Which of you murdered my father?” then looking tenderly
on the younger M. (whose eyes not less wild than her own had followed
her every motion,) she softly added, “It was not you, my love!” and with
a loud convulsive laugh she fell lifeless into the priest’s arms, who
was the first who had the presence of mind to think of removing the
still lovely maniac. The rival father and his unhappy son withdrew at
the same moment; and when the priest (having disposed of his unfortunate
charge) returned to seek them, he found them both in the same apartment,
but at a considerable distance from each other, both buried in silent
emotion--both labouring under the violence of their respective
feelings. The priest attempted some words expressive of consolation to
the younger M. who seemed most the victim of uncontrollable affliction;
but with a firm manner the earl interrupted him:--“My good friend,”
said he, “this is no time for words; nature and feeling claim their
prerogative, and are not to be denied. Your venerable friend is no more,
but he has ceased to suffer: the afflicted and angelic being, whose
affecting sorrows so recently wrung our hearts with agony, has still, I
trust, many years of felicity and health in store to compensate for her
early trials; from henceforth I shall consider her as the child of my
adoption. For myself, the motives by which my apparently extraordinary
conduct was governed were pure and disinterested; though the means
by which I endeavoured to effect my laudable purpose were perhaps not
strictly justifiable in the eye of rigid, undeviating integrity. For
this young man!” he paused, and fixing his eyes on his son till they
filled with tears, the strongest emotions agitating his frame; Mr. M.
rushed forward, and fell on his father’s breast. The earl pressed him to
his heart, and putting his hands in those of Father John, he said, “To
your care and tenderness I commend my child; and from you,” he added,
addressing his son, “I shall expect the developement of that mystery,
which is as yet dark and unfathomable. Remain here till we fully
understand each other. I depart to night for M-------- house. It is
reserved for you to assist this worthy man in the last solemn office
of friendship and humanity. It is reserved for you to watch over
and cherish that suffering angel, for whose future happiness we both
mutually stand accountable.” With these words Lord M. again embraced
his almost lifeless son, and pressing the hand of the priest withdrew.
Father John followed him; but importunities were fruitless; his horses
were ordered, and having put a bank-note of considerable amount into his
hands to defray the funeral expenses, he departed from Inismore.
In the course of four days, the remains of the Prince were consigned
to the tomb. Glorvina’s health and fine constitution were already
prevailing over her disorder and acute sensibility; her senses were
gradually returning, and only appeared subject to wander when a sense
of her recent suffering struck on her heart. The old nurse was the first
who ventured to mention to her that her unhappy lover was in the house;
but though she appeared struck and deeply affected by the intelligence,
she never mentioned his name.
Meantime Mr. M., owing to his recent sufferings of mind and body,
was seized with a slow fever and confined for many days to his bed.
A physician of eminence in the country had taken up his residence at
Inismore, and a courier daily passed between the castle and M--------
house, with his reports of the health of the two patients to the Earl.
In a fortnight they were both so far recovered, as to remove from their
respective bedrooms to an adjoining apartment. The benevolent priest,
who day and night had watched over them, undertook to prepare Glorvina
for the reception of Mr. M. whose life seemed to hang upon the
restoration of hers. When she heard that he was still in the castle,
and had just escaped from the jaws of death, she shuddered and changed
colour; and with a faint voice inquired for his father. When she learnt
he had left the castle on the night when she had last seen him, she
seemed to feel much satisfaction, and said, “What an extraordinary
circumstance! What a mystery!--the father and the son!” She paused, and
a faint hectic coloured her pale cheek; then added, “unfortunate and
imprudent young man! Will his father forgive and receive him?”
“He is dearer than ever to his father’s heart,” said the priest,
“the first use he made of his returning health, was to write to his
inestimable parent, confessing without the least reservation every
incident of his late extraordinary adventure.”
“And when does he leave the castle!” inarticulately demanded Glorvina.
“That rests with you,” replied the priest.
She turned aside her head and sighed heavily then bursting into tears,
flung her arms affectionately round her beloved preceptor, and cried, “I
have now no father but you--act for me as such.” The priest pressed her
to his heart, and, drawing a letter from his bosom, said, “This is from
one who pants to become your father in the strictest sense of the word;
it is from Lord M., but though addressed to his son, it is equally
intended for your perusal. That son, that friend, that lover, whose life
and happiness now rests in your hands, in all the powerful emotions of
hope, doubt, anxiety, and expectation, now waits to be admitted to your
presence.”
Glorvina, gasping for breath, caught hold of the priest’s arm, then
sunk back upon her seat, and covered her face with her hands. The
priest withdrew, and in a few minutes returned, leading in the agitated
invalid; then placing the hands of the almost lifeless Glorvina in his,
retired. He felt the mutual delicacy of their situation, and forbore to
heighten it by his presence.
Two hours had elapsed before the venerable priest again sought the two
objects dearest to his heart; he found Glorvina overwhelmed with soft
emotion, her cheek covered with blushes, and her hand clasped in that of
the interesting invalid, whose flushing colour and animated eyes spoke
the return of health and happiness; not indeed confirmed, but fed by
sanguine hope; such hope as the heart of a mourning child could give to
the object of her heart’s first passion, in that era of filial grief,
when sorrow is mellowed by reason, and soothed by religion into a tender
but not ungracious melancholy. The good priest embraced and blessed them
alternately, then, seated between them, read aloud the letter of Lord M.
TO THE HON. HORATIO M.
Since human happiness, like every other feeling of the human heart,
loses its poignancy by reiteration, its fragrance with its bloom; let me
not (while the first fallen dew of pleasure hangs fresh upon the flower
of your existence) seize on those precious moments which _Hope_, rescued
from the fangs of despondency, and bliss, succeeding to affliction,
claim as their own. Brief be the detail which intrudes on the hour of
newborn joy, and short the narrative which holds captive the attention,
while the heart, involved in its own enjoyments, denies its interest.
It is now unnecessary for me fully to explain all the motives which led
me to appear at the castle of Inismore in a fictitious character. Deeply
interested for a people whose national character I had hitherto viewed
through the false medium of prejudice; anxious to make it my study in a
situation, and under circumstances, which as an English landholder,
as the Earl of M------, was denied me, and to turn the stream of my
acquired information to that channel which would tend to the promotion
of the happiness and welfare of those whose destiny, in some measure,
was consigned to my guidance:--solicitous to triumph over the hereditary
prejudices of my hereditary enemy; to seduce him into amity, and force
him to _esteem_ the man he _hated_; while he unconsciously became his
accessary in promoting the welfare of those of his humble compatriots
who dwelt within the sphere of our mutual observation. Such were
the _motives_ which principally guided my late apparently romantic
adventure; would that the _means_ had been equally laudable.
Received into the mansion of the generous but incautious Prince, as a
proscribed and unfortunate wanderer, I owed my reception to his humanity
rather than his prudence; and when I told him that I threw my life
into his power, his _honour_ became bound for its security, though his
principles condemned the conduct which he believed had effected its just
forfeiture.
For some months, in two succeeding summers, I contrived to perpetuate,
with plausive details, the mystery I had forged; and to confirm the
interest I had been so fortunate at first to awaken into an ardent
friendship, which became as reciprocal as it was disinterested. Yet
it was still _my_ destiny to be loved identically as myself; as myself
adventitiously to be _hated_. And the name of the Earl of M--------
was forbidden to be mentioned in the presence of the Prince, while he
frequently confessed that the happiest of his hours were passed in Lord
M--------‘s society.
Thus singularly situated, I dared not hazard a revelation of my real
character, lest I should lose by the discovery all those precious
immunities with which my fictitious one had endowed me.
But while it was my good fortune thus warmly to ingratiate myself with
the father, can I pass over in silence my prouder triumph in that
filial interest I awakened in the heart of his daughter. Her tender
commiseration for my supposed misfortunes; the persevering goodness with
which she endeavoured to rescue me from those erroneous principles she
believed the efficient cause of sufferings, and which I appeared to
sacrifice to her better reason. The flattering interest she took in my
conversation; the eagerness with which she received those instructions
it was my supreme pleasure to bestow on her; and the solicitude she
incessantly expressed for my fancied doubtful fate; awakened my heart’s
tenderest regard and liveliest gratitude. But though I admired her
genius and adored her virtues, the sentiment she inspired never for a
moment lost its character of parental affection; and even when I formed
the determination, the accomplishment of which you so unexpectedly, so
providentially frustrated, the gratification of any selfish wish, the
compliance with any passionate impulse, held no influence over the
determination. No, it was only dictated by motives pure as the object
that inspired them; it was the wish of snatching this lovely blossom
from the desert where she bloomed unseen, of raising her to that circle
in society her birth entitled her to, and her graces were calculated to
adorn; of confirming my amity with her father by the tenderest unity
of interests and affection; of giving her a legally sanctioned claim on
that part of her hereditary property which the suspected villany of my
steward had robbed her of; and of retributing the parent through the
medium of the child.
Had I had a son to offer her, I had not offered her myself; but my
eldest was already engaged, and for the worldly welfare of my second an
alliance at once brilliant and opulent was necessary; for, dazzled by
his real or supposed talents, I viewed his future destiny through the
medium of parental ambition, and thought only of those means by which he
might become great, without considering the more important necessity of
his becoming happy. Yet, well aware of the phlegmatic indifference of
the one, and the romantic imprudence of the other, I denied them my
confidence, until the final issue of the adventure would render its
revelation necessary. Nor did I suspect the possibility of their
learning it by any other means; for the one never visited Ireland, and
the other, as the son of Lord M--------, would find no admittance to the
castle of Inismore.
When a fixed determination succeeded to some months of wavering
indecision, I wrote to Glorvina, with whom I had been in habits of
epistolary correspondence, distantly touching on a subject I yet
considered with timidity, and faintly demanding her sanction of my
wishes before I unfolded them to her father, which I assured her I would
not do until I could claim her openly in my own character.
In the interim, however, I received a letter from her, written previous
to her receipt of mine. It began thus:--“In those happy moments of
boundless confidence, when the pupil and the child hung upon the
instructive accents of the friend and the father, you have often said
to me, ‘I am not altogether what I seem; I am not only _grateful_, but I
possess a power stronger than words of convincing those to whom I owe
so much of my gratitude; and should the hour of affliction ever reach
_thee_, Glorvina, call on me as the friend who would fly from the
remotest corner of the earth to serve, to _save_ thee.’
“_The hour of affliction is arrived--I call upon you!_” She then
described the disordered state of her father’s affairs, and painted
his sufferings with all the eloquence of filial sorrow, requesting my
advice, and flatteringly lamenting the destiny which placed us at such a
distance from each other.
It is needless to add, that I determined to answer this letter in
person, and I only waited to embrace my loved and long estranged son on
my arrival in Ireland. When I set out for Inismore I found the castle
deserted, and learned, (with indescribable emotions of pity and
indignation,) that the Prince and his daughter were the inhabitants of a
_prison_. I flew to this sad receptacle of suffering virtue, and
effected the liberation of the Prince. There _was_ a time when the
haughty spirit of this proud chieftain would have revolted against the
idea of owing a pecuniary obligation to any man: but those only who have
laboured under a long and continued series of mental and bodily
affliction, can tell how the mind’s strength is to be subdued, the
energies of pride softened, and the delicacy of refined feelings
blunted, by the pressure of reiterated suffering, of harassing and
incessant disappointment. While the surprise of the Prince equalled his
emotion, he exclaimed in the vehemence of his gratitude--“Teach me at
least how to thank you, since to repay you is impossible.” Glorvina was
at that moment weeping on my shoulder, her hands were clasped in mine,
and her humid eyes beamed on me all the grateful feelings of her warm
and susceptible soul. I gazed on her for a moment,--she cast down her
eyes, and I thought pressed my hand; thus encouraged I ventured to say
to the Prince, “You talk in exaggerated terms of the little service I
have done you,--would indeed it had been sufficient to embolden me to
make that request which now trembles on my lips.”
I paused--the Prince eagerly replied, “there is nothing you can ask I am
not anxious and ready to comply with.”