"Full many a miserable year hath passed:
She knows him as one dead, or worse than dead:
And many a change her varied life hath known;
But her heart none."
MATURIN.
Since her interview with the angler, which was interrupted by the
appearance of Fanshawe, Ellen Langton's hitherto calm and peaceful mind
had been in a state of insufferable doubt and dismay. She was imperatively
called upon--at least, she so conceived--to break through the rules which
nature and education impose upon her sex, to quit the protection of those
whose desire for her welfare was true and strong, and to trust herself,
for what purpose she scarcely knew, to a stranger, from whom the
instinctive purity of her mind would involuntarily have shrunk, under
whatever circumstances she had met him. The letter which she had received
from the hands of the angler had seemed to her inexperience to prove
beyond a doubt that the bearer was the friend of her father, and
authorized by him, if her duty and affection were stronger than her fears,
to guide her to his retreat. The letter spoke vaguely of losses and
misfortunes, and of a necessity for concealment on her father's part, and
secrecy on hers; and, to the credit of Ellen's not very romantic
understanding, it must be acknowledged that the mystery of the plot had
nearly prevented its success. She did not, indeed, doubt that the letter
was from her father's hand; for every line and stroke, and even many of
its phrases, were familiar to her. Her apprehension was, that his
misfortunes, of what nature soever they were, had affected his intellect,
and that, under such an influence, he had commanded her to take a step
which nothing less than such a command could justify. Ellen did not,
however, remain long in this opinion; for when she reperused the letter,
and considered the firm, regular characters, and the style,--calm and
cold, even in requesting such a sacrifice,--she felt that there was
nothing like insanity here. In fine, she came gradually to the belief that
there were strong reasons, though incomprehensible by her, for the secrecy
that her father had enjoined.
Having arrived at this conviction, her decision lay plain before her. Her
affection for Mr. Langton was not, indeed,--nor was it possible,--so
strong as that she would have felt for a parent who had watched over her
from her infancy. Neither was the conception she had unavoidably formed of
his character such as to promise that in him she would find an equivalent
for all she must sacrifice. On the contrary, her gentle nature and loving
heart, which otherwise would have rejoiced in a new object of affection,
now shrank with something like dread from the idea of meeting her
father,--stately, cold, and stern as she could not but imagine him. A
sense of duty was therefore Ellen's only support in resolving to tread
the dark path that lay before her.
Had there been any person of her own sex in whom Ellen felt confidence,
there is little doubt that she would so far have disobeyed her father's
letter as to communicate its contents, and take counsel as to her
proceedings. But Mrs. Melmoth was the only female--excepting, indeed, the
maid-servant--to whom it was possible to make the communication; and,
though Ellen at first thought of such a step, her timidity, and her
knowledge of the lady's character, did not permit her to venture upon it.
She next reviewed her acquaintances of the other sex; and Dr. Melmoth
first presented himself, as in every respect but one, an unexceptionable
confidant. But the single exception was equivalent to many. The maiden,
with the highest opinion of the doctor's learning and talents, had
sufficient penetration to know, that, in the ways of the world, she was
herself the better skilled of the two. For a moment she thought of Edward
Walcott; but he was light and wild, and, which her delicacy made an
insurmountable objection, there was an untold love between them. Her
thoughts finally centred on Fanshawe. In his judgment, young and
inexperienced though he was, she would have placed a firm trust; and his
zeal, from whatever cause it arose, she could not doubt.
If, in the short time allowed her for reflection, an opportunity had
occurred for consulting him, she would, in all probability, have taken
advantage of it. But the terms on which they had parted the preceding
evening had afforded him no reason to hope for her confidence; and he felt
that there were others who had a better right to it than himself. He did
not, therefore, throw himself in her way; and poor Ellen was consequently
left without an adviser.
The determination that resulted from her own unassisted wisdom has been
seen. When discovered by Dr. Melmoth at Hugh Crombie's inn, she was wholly
prepared for flight, and, but for the intervention of the storm, would,
ere then, have been far away.
The firmness of resolve that had impelled a timid maiden upon such a step
was not likely to be broken by one defeat; and Ellen, accordingly,
confident that the stranger would make a second attempt, determined that
no effort on her part should be wanting to its success. On reaching her
chamber, therefore, instead of retiring to rest (of which, from her
sleepless thoughts of the preceding night, she stood greatly in need), she
sat watching for the abatement of the storm. Her meditations were now
calmer than at any time since her first meeting with the angler. She felt
as if her fate was decided. The stain had fallen upon her reputation: she
was no longer the same pure being in the opinion of those whose
approbation she most valued.
One obstacle to her flight--and, to a woman's mind, a most powerful
one--had thus been removed. Dark and intricate as was the way, it was
easier now to proceed than to pause; and her desperate and forlorn
situation gave her a strength which hitherto she had not felt.
At every cessation in the torrent of rain that beat against the house,
Ellen flew to the window, expecting to see the stranger form beneath it.
But the clouds would again thicken, and the storm recommence with its
former violence; and she began to fear that the approach of morning would
compel her to meet the now dreaded face of Dr. Melmoth. At length,
however, a strong and steady wind, supplying the place of the fitful gusts
of the preceding part of the night, broke and scattered the clouds from
the broad expanse of the sky. The moon, commencing her late voyage not
long before the sun, was now visible, setting forth like a lonely ship
from the dark line of the horizon, and touching at many a little silver
cloud the islands of that aerial deep. Ellen felt that now the time was
come; and, with a calmness wonderful to herself, she prepared for her
final departure.
She had not long to wait ere she saw, between the vacancies of the trees,
the angler advancing along the shady avenue that led to the principal
entrance of Dr. Melmoth's dwelling. He had no need to summon her either by
word or signal; for she had descended, emerged from the door, and stood
before him, while he was yet at some distance from the house.
"You have watched well," he observed in a low, strange tone. "As saith the
Scripture, 'Many daughters have done virtuously; but thou excellest them
all.'"
He took her arm; and they hastened down the avenue. Then, leaving Hugh
Crombie's inn on their right, they found its master in a spot so shaded
that the moonbeams could not enlighten it. He held by the bridle two
horses, one of which the angler assisted Ellen to mount. Then, turning to
the landlord he pressed a purse into his hand; but Hugh drew back, and it
fell to the ground.
"No! this would not have tempted me; nor will it reward me," he said. "If
you have gold to spare, there are some that need it more than I."
"I understand you, mine host. I shall take thought for them; and enough
will remain for you and me," replied his comrade. "I have seen the day
when such a purse would not have slipped between your fingers. Well, be it
so. And now, Hugh, my old friend, a shake of your hand; for we are seeing
our last of each other."
"Pray Heaven it be so! though I wish you no ill," said the landlord,
giving his hand.
He then seemed about to approach Ellen, who had been unable to distinguish
the words of this brief conversation; but his comrade prevented him.
"There is no time to lose," he observed. "The moon is growing pale
already, and we should have been many a mile beyond the valley ere this."
He mounted as he spoke; and, guiding Ellen's rein till they reached the
road, they dashed away.
It was now that she felt herself completely in his power; and with that
consciousness there came a sudden change of feeling, and an altered view
of her conduct. A thousand reasons forced themselves upon her mind,
seeming to prove that she had been deceived; while the motives, so
powerful with her but a moment before, had either vanished from her memory
or lost all their efficacy. Her companion, who gazed searchingly into her
face, where the moonlight, coming down between the pines, allowed him to
read its expression, probably discerned somewhat of the state of her
thoughts.
"Do you repent so soon?" he inquired. "We have a weary way before us.
Faint not ere we have well entered upon it."
"I have left dear friends behind me, and am going I know not whither,"
replied Ellen, tremblingly.
"You have a faithful guide," he observed, turning away his head, and
speaking in the tone of one who endeavors to smother a laugh.
Ellen had no heart to continue the conversation; and they rode on in
silence, and through a wild and gloomy scene. The wind roared heavily
through the forest, and the trees shed their raindrops upon the
travellers. The road, at all times rough, was now broken into deep
gullies, through which streams went murmuring down to mingle with the
river. The pale moonlight combined with the gray of the morning to give a
ghastly and unsubstantial appearance to every object.
The difficulties of the road had been so much increased by the storm, that
the purple eastern clouds gave notice of the near approach of the sun just
as the travellers reached the little lonesome cottage which Ellen
remembered to have visited several months before. On arriving opposite to
it, her companion checked his horse, and gazed with a wild earnestness at
the wretched habitation. Then, stifling a groan that would not altogether
be repressed, he was about to pass on; but at that moment the cottage-door
opened, and a woman, whose sour, unpleasant countenance Ellen recognized,
came hastily forth. She seemed not to heed the travellers; but the angler,
his voice thrilling and quivering with indescribable emotion, addressed
her.
"Woman, whither do you go?" he inquired.
She started, but, after a momentary pause, replied, "There is one within
at the point of death. She struggles fearfully; and I cannot endure to
watch alone by her bedside. If you are Christians, come in with me."
Ellen's companion leaped hastily from his horse, assisted her also to
dismount, and followed the woman into the cottage, having first thrown the
bridles of the horses carelessly over the branch of a tree. Ellen trembled
at the awful scene she would be compelled to witness; but, when death was
so near at hand, it was more terrible to stand alone in the dim morning
light than even to watch the parting of soul and body. She therefore
entered the cottage.
Her guide, his face muffled in his cloak, had taken his stand at a
Distance from the death-bed, in a part of the room which neither the
increasing daylight nor the dim rays of a solitary lamp had yet
enlightened. At Ellen's entrance, the dying woman lay still, and
apparently calm, except that a plaintive, half-articulate sound
occasionally wandered through her lips.
"Hush! For mercy's sake, silence!" whispered the other woman to the
strangers. "There is good hope now that she will die a peaceable death;
but, if she is disturbed, the boldest of us will not dare to stand by her
bedside."
The whisper by which her sister endeavored to preserve quiet perhaps
reached the ears of the dying female; for she now raised herself in bed,
slowly, but with a strength superior to what her situation promised. Her
face was ghastly and wild, from long illness, approaching death, and
disturbed intellect; and a disembodied spirit could scarcely be a more
fearful object than one whose soul was just struggling forth. Her sister,
approaching with the soft and stealing step appropriate to the chamber of
sickness and death, attempted to replace the covering around her, and to
compose her again upon the pillow. "Lie down and sleep, sister," she said;
"and, when the day breaks, I will waken you. Methinks your breath comes
freer already. A little more slumber, and to-morrow you will be well."
"My illness is gone: I am well," said the dying-woman, gasping for breath.
"I wander where the fresh breeze comes sweetly over my face; but a close
and stifled air has choked my lungs."
"Yet a little while, and you will no longer draw your breath in pain,"
observed her sister, again replacing the bedclothes, which she continued
to throw off.
"My husband is with me," murmured the widow. "He walks by my side, and
speaks to me as in old times; but his words come faintly on my ear. Cheer
me and comfort me, my husband; for there is a terror in those dim,
motionless eyes, and in that shadowy voice."
As she spoke thus, she seemed to gaze upon some object that stood by her
bedside; and the eyes of those who witnessed this scene could not but
follow the direction of hers. They observed that the dying woman's own
shadow was marked upon the wall, receiving a tremulous motion from the
fitful rays of the lamp, and from her own convulsive efforts. "My husband
stands gazing on me," she said again; "but my son,--where is he? And, as I
ask, the father turns away his face. Where is our son? For his sake, I
have longed to come to this land of rest. For him I have sorrowed many
years. Will he not comfort me now?"
At these words the stranger made a few hasty steps towards the bed; but,
ere he reached it, he conquered the impulse that drew him thither, and,
shrouding his face more deeply in his cloak, returned to his former
position. The dying woman, in the mean time, had thrown herself back upon
the bed; and her sobbing and wailing, imaginary as was their cause, were
inexpressibly affecting.
"Take me back to earth," she said; "for its griefs have followed me
hither."
The stranger advanced, and, seizing the lamp, knelt down by the bedside,
throwing the light full upon his pale and convulsed features.
"Mother, here is your son!" he exclaimed.
At that unforgotten voice, the darkness burst away at once from her soul.
She arose in bed, her eyes and her whole countenance beaming with joy, and
threw her arms about his neck. A multitude of words seemed struggling for
utterance; but they gave place to a low moaning sound, and then to the
silence of death. The one moment of happiness, that recompensed years of
sorrow, had been her last. Her son laid the lifeless form upon the pillow,
and gazed with fixed eyes on his mother's face.
As he looked, the expression of enthusiastic joy that parting life had
left upon the features faded gradually away; and the countenance, though
no longer wild, assumed the sadness which it had worn through a long
course of grief and pain. On beholding this natural consequence of death,
the thought, perhaps, occurred to him, that her soul, no longer dependent
on the imperfect means of intercourse possessed by mortals, had communed
with his own, and become acquainted with all its guilt and misery. He
started from the bedside, and covered his face with his hands, as if to
hide it from those dead eyes.
Such a scene as has been described could not but have a powerful effect
upon any one who retained aught of humanity; and the grief of the son,
whose natural feelings had been blunted, but not destroyed, by an evil
life, was much more violent than his outward demeanor would have
expressed. But his deep repentance for the misery he had brought upon his
parent did not produce in him a resolution to do wrong no more. The sudden
consciousness of accumulated guilt made him desperate. He felt as if no
one had thenceforth a claim to justice or compassion at his hands, when
his neglect and cruelty had poisoned his mother's life, and hastened her
death.
Thus it was that the Devil wrought with him to his own destruction,
reversing the salutary effect which his mother would have died exultingly
to produce upon his mind. He now turned to Ellen Langton with a demeanor
singularly calm and composed.
"We must resume our journey," he said, in his usual tone of voice. "The
sun is on the point of rising, though but little light finds its way into
this hovel."
Ellen's previous suspicions as to the character of her companion had now
become certainty so far as to convince her that she was in the power of a
lawless and guilty man; though what fate he intended for her she was
unable to conjecture. An open opposition to his will, however, could not
be ventured upon; especially as she discovered, on looking round the
apartment, that, with the exception of the corpse, they were alone.
"Will you not attend your mother's funeral?" she asked, trembling, and
conscious that he would discover her fears.
"The dead must bury their dead," he replied. "I have brought my mother to
her grave,--and what can a son do more? This purse, however, will serve to
lay her in the earth, and leave something for the old hag. Whither is she
gone?" interrupted he, casting a glance round the room in search of the
old woman. "Nay, then, we must speedily to horse. I know her of old."
Thus saying, he threw the purse upon the table, and, without trusting
himself to look again towards the dead, conducted Ellen out of the
cottage. The first rays of the sun at that moment gilded the tallest trees
of the forest.
On looking towards the spot were the horses had stood, Ellen thought that
Providence, in answer to her prayers, had taken care for her deliverance.
They were no longer there,--a circumstance easily accounted for by the
haste with which the bridles had been thrown over the branch of the tree.
Her companion, however, imputed it to another cause.
"The hag! She would sell her own flesh and blood by weight and measure,"
he muttered to himself. "This is some plot of hers, I know well."
He put his hand to his forehead for a moment's space, seeming to reflect
on the course most advisable to be pursued. Ellen, perhaps unwisely,
interposed.
"Would it not be well to return?" she asked, timidly. "There is now no
hope of escaping; but I might yet reach home undiscovered."
"Return!" repeated her guide, with a look and smile from which she turned
away her face. "Have you forgotten your father and his misfortunes? No,
no, sweet Ellen: it is too late for such thoughts as these."
He took her hand, and led her towards the forest, in the rear of the
cottage. She would fain have resisted; but they were all alone, and the
attempt must have been both fruitless and dangerous. She therefore trod
with him a path so devious, so faintly traced, and so overgrown with
bushes and young trees, that only a most accurate acquaintance in his
early days could have enabled her guide to retain it. To him, however, it
seemed so perfectly familiar, that he was not once compelled to pause,
though the numerous windings soon deprived Ellen of all knowledge of the
situation of the cottage. They descended a steep hill, and, proceeding
parallel to the river,--as Ellen judged by its rushing sound,--at length
found themselves at what proved to be the termination of their walk.
Ellen now recollected a remark of Edward Walcott's respecting the wild and
rude scenery through which the river here kept its way; and, in less
agitating circumstances, her pleasure and admiration would have been
great. They stood beneath a precipice, so high that the loftiest pine-tops
(and many of them seemed to soar to heaven) scarcely surmounted it. This
line of rock has a considerable extent, at unequal heights, and with many
interruptions, along the course of the river; and it seems probable that,
at some former period, it was the boundary of the waters, though they are
now confined within far less ambitious limits. The inferior portion of the
crag, beneath which Ellen and her guide were standing, varies so far from
the perpendicular as not to be inaccessible by a careful footstep. But
only one person has been known to attempt the ascent of the superior half,
and only one the descent; yet, steep as is the height, trees and bushes of
various kinds have clung to the rock, wherever their roots could gain the
slightest hold; thus seeming to prefer the scanty and difficult
nourishment of the cliff to a more luxurious life in the rich interval
that extends from its base to the river. But, whether or no these hardy
vegetables have voluntarily chosen their rude resting-place, the cliff is
indebted to them for much of the beauty that tempers its sublimity. When
the eye is pained and wearied by the bold nakedness of the rock, it rests
with pleasure on the cheerful foliage of the birch, or upon the darker
green of the funereal pine. Just at the termination of the accessible
portion of the crag, these trees are so numerous, and their foliage so
dense, that they completely shroud from view a considerable excavation,
formed, probably, hundreds of years since, by the fall of a portion of the
rock. The detached fragment still lies at a little distance from the base,
gray and moss-grown, but corresponding, in its general outline, to the
cavity from which it was rent.
But the most singular and beautiful object in all this scene is a tiny
fount of crystal water, that gushes forth from the high, smooth forehead
of the cliff. Its perpendicular descent is of many feet; after which it
finds its way, with a sweet diminutive murmur, to the level ground.
It is not easy to conceive whence the barren rock procures even the small
supply of water that is necessary to the existence of this stream; it is
as unaccountable as the gush of gentle feeling which sometimes proceeds
from the hardest heart: but there it continues to flow and fall,
undiminished and unincreased. The stream is so slender, that the gentlest
breeze suffices to disturb its descent, and to scatter its pure sweet
waters over the face of the cliff. But in that deep forest there is seldom
a breath of wind; so that, plashing continually upon one spot, the fount
has worn its own little channel of white sand, by which it finds its way
to the river. Alas that the Naiades have lost their old authority! for
what a deity of tiny loveliness must once have presided here!
Ellen's companion paused not to gaze either upon the loveliness or the
sublimity of this scene, but, assisting her where it was requisite, began
the steep and difficult ascent of the lower part of the cliff. The
maiden's ingenuity in vain endeavored to assign reasons for this movement;
but when they reached the tuft of trees, which, as has been noticed, grew
at the ultimate point where mortal footstep might safely tread, she
perceived through their thick branches the recess in the rock. Here they
entered; and her guide pointed to a mossy seat, in the formation of which,
to judge from its regularity, art had probably a share.
"Here you may remain in safety," he observed, "till I obtain the means of
proceeding. In this spot you need fear no intruder; but it will be
dangerous to venture beyond its bounds."
The meaning glance that accompanied these words intimated to poor Ellen,
that, in warning her against danger, he alluded to the vengeance with
which he would visit any attempt to escape. To leave her thus alone,
trusting to the influence of such a threat, was a bold, yet a necessary
and by no means a hopeless measure. On Ellen it produced the desired
effect; and she sat in the cave as motionless, for a time, as if she had
herself been a part of the rock. In other circumstances this shady recess
would have been a delightful retreat during the sultry warmth of a
summer's day. The dewy coolness of the rock kept the air always fresh and
the sunbeams never thrust themselves so as to dissipate the mellow
twilight through the green trees with which the chamber was curtained.
Ellen's sleeplessness and agitation for many preceding hours had perhaps
deadened her feelings; for she now felt a sort of indifference creeping
upon her, an inability to realize the evils of her situation, at the same
time that she was perfectly aware of them all. This torpor of mind
increased, till her eyelids began to grow heavy and the cave and trees to
swim before her sight. In a few moments more she would probably have been
in dreamless slumber; but, rousing herself by a strong effort, she looked
round the narrow limits of the cave in search of objects to excite her
worn-out mind.
She now perceived, wherever the smooth rock afforded place for them, the
initials, or the full-length names of former visitants of the cave. What
wanderer on mountain-tops or in deep solitudes has not felt the influence
of these records of humanity, telling him, when such a conviction is
soothing to his heart, that he is not alone in the world? It was singular,
that, when her own mysterious situation had almost lost its power to
engage her thoughts, Ellen perused these barren memorials with a certain
degree of interest. She went on repeating them aloud, and starting at the
sound of her own voice, till at length, as one name passed through her
lips, she paused, and then, leaning her forehead against the letters,
burst into tears. It was the name of Edward Walcott; and it struck upon
her heart, arousing her to a full sense of her present misfortunes and
dangers, and, more painful still, of her past happiness. Her tears had,
however, a soothing, and at the same time a strengthening effect upon her
mind; for, when their gush was over, she raised her head, and began to
meditate on the means of escape. She wondered at the species of
fascination that had kept her, as if chained to the rock, so long, when
there was, in reality, nothing to bar her pathway. She determined, late as
it was, to attempt her own deliverance, and for that purpose began slowly
and cautiously to emerge from the cave.
Peeping out from among the trees, she looked and listened with most
painful anxiety to discover if any living thing were in that seeming
solitude, or if any sound disturbed the heavy stillness. But she saw only
Nature in her wildest forms, and heard only the plash and murmur (almost
inaudible, because continual) of the little waterfall, and the quick,
short throbbing of her own heart, against which she pressed her hand as if
to hush it. Gathering courage, therefore, she began to descend; and,
starting often at the loose stones that even her light footstep displaced
and sent rattling down, she at length reached the base of the crag in
safety. She then made a few steps in the direction, as nearly as she could
judge, by which she arrived at the spot, but paused, with a sudden
revulsion of the blood to her heart, as her guide emerged from behind a
projecting part of the rock. He approached her deliberately, an ironical
smile writhing his features into a most disagreeable expression; while in
his eyes there was something that seemed a wild, fierce joy. By a species
of sophistry, of which oppressors often make use, he had brought himself
to believe that he was now the injured one, and that Ellen, by her
distrust of him, had fairly subjected herself to whatever evil it
consisted with his will and power to inflict upon her. Her only
restraining influence over him, the consciousness, in his own mind, that
he possessed her confidence, was now done away. Ellen, as well as her
enemy, felt that this was the case. She knew not what to dread; but she
was well aware that danger was at hand, and that, in the deep wilderness,
there was none to help her, except that Being with whose inscrutable
purposes it might consist to allow the wicked to triumph for a season, and
the innocent to be brought low.
"Are you so soon weary of this quiet retreat?" demanded her guide,
continuing to wear the same sneering smile. "Or has your anxiety for your
father induced you to set forth alone in quest of the afflicted old man?"
"Oh, if I were but with him!" exclaimed Ellen. "But this place is lonely
and fearful; and I cannot endure to remain here."
"Lonely, is it, sweet Ellen?" he rejoined; "am I not with you? Yes, it is
lonely,--lonely as guilt could wish. Cry aloud, Ellen, and spare not.
Shriek, and see if there be any among these rocks and woods to hearken to
you!"
"There is, there is One," exclaimed Ellen, shuddering, and affrighted at
the fearful meaning of his countenance. "He is here! He is there!" And she
pointed to heaven.
"It may be so, dearest," he replied. "But if there be an Ear that hears,
and an Eye that sees all the evil of the earth, yet the Arm is slow to
avenge. Else why do I stand before you a living man?"
"His vengeance may be delayed for a time, but not forever," she answered,
gathering a desperate courage from the extremity of her fear.
"You say true, lovely Ellen; and I have done enough, erenow, to insure its
heaviest weight. There is a pass, when evil deeds can add nothing to
guilt, nor good ones take anything from it."
"Think of your mother,--of her sorrow through life, and perhaps even after
death," Ellen began to say. But, as she spoke these words, the expression
of his face was changed, becoming suddenly so dark and fiend-like, that
she clasped her hands, and fell on her knees before him.
"I have thought of my mother," he replied, speaking very low, and putting
his face close to hers. "I remember the neglect, the wrong, the lingering
and miserable death, that she received at my hands. By what claim can
either man or woman henceforth expect mercy from me? If God will help you,
be it so; but by those words you have turned my heart to stone."
At this period of their conversation, when Ellen's peril seemed most
imminent, the attention of both was attracted by a fragment of rock,
which, falling from the summit of the crag, struck very near them. Ellen
started from her knees, and, with her false guide, gazed eagerly
upward,--he in the fear of interruption, she in the hope of deliverance.