PRIDE AND HIS PRISONERS
[Illustration: A Terrible Danger.
_Page 230._]
PRIDE AND HIS
PRISONERS BY
A. L. O. E.
LONDON, EDINBURGH,
AND NEW YORK
THOMAS NELSON
AND SONS
_CONTENTS_
_I._ _The Haunted Dwelling_ 5
_II._ _Resisted, yet Returning_ 16
_III._ _Snares_ 26
_IV._ _A Glance into the Cottage_ 33
_V._ _Both Sides_ 43
_VI._ _The Visit to the Hall_ 51
_VII._ _A Misadventure_ 60
_VIII._ _A Brother’s Effort_ 75
_IX._ _Disappointment_ 88
_X._ _On the Watch_ 96
_XI._ _The Quarrel_ 102
_XII._ _The Unexpected Guest_ 111
_XIII._ _The Friend’s Mission_ 119
_XIV._ _A Fatal Step_ 128
_XV._ _The Deserted Home_ 140
_XVI._ _Pleading_ 147
_XVII._ _Conscience Asleep_ 157
_XVIII._ _The Magazine_ 162
_XIX._ _Expectation_ 170
_XX._ _A Sunny Morn_ 178
_XXI._ _The Ascent_ 187
_XXII._ _In the Clouds_ 193
_XXIII._ _Regrets_ 201
_XXIV._ _Soaring above Pride_ 208
_XXV._ _A Broken Chain_ 217
_XXVI._ _The Awful Crisis_ 222
_XXVII._ _Tidings_ 234
_XXVIII._ _The Wheel Turns_ 242
_XXIX._ _Two Words_ 252
_XXX._ _The Spirit Laid_ 263
_LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS_
_A Terrible Danger_ _Frontispiece_
_Her greeting to Dr. and Miss Bardon was
most gracious and cordial_ 57
_Tearing the Manuscript_ 107
_An Unwelcome Surprise_ 168
PRIDE AND HIS PRISONERS.
CHAPTER I.
THE HAUNTED DWELLING.
“He who envies now thy state,
Who now is plotting how he may seduce
Thee also from obedience; that with him,
Bereaved of happiness, thou mayst partake
His punishment,—eternal misery!”
MILTON.
Bright and joyous was the aspect of nature on a spring morning in the
beautiful county of Somersetshire. The budding green on the trees was yet
so light, that, like a transparent veil, it showed the outlines of every
twig; but on the lowlier hedges it lay like a rich mantle of foliage,
and clusters of primroses nestled below, while the air was perfumed with
violets. Already was heard the hum of some adventurous bee in search of
early sweets, the distant low of cattle from the pasture, the mellow note
of the cuckoo from the grove,—every sight and sound told of enjoyment on
that sunny Sabbath morn.
Yet let me make an exception. There was one spot which reserved to itself
the unenviable privilege of looking gloomy all the year round. Nettleby
Tower, a venerable edifice, stood on the highest summit of a hill, like
some stern guardian of the fair country that smiled around it. The
tower had been raised in the time of the Normans, and had then been the
robber-hold of a succession of fierce barons, who, from their strong
position, had defied the power of king or law. The iron age had passed
away. The moat had been dried, and the useless portcullis had rusted over
the gate. The loop-holes, whence archers had pointed their shafts, were
half filled up with the rubbish accumulated by time. Lichens had mantled
the grey stone till its original hue was almost undistinguishable; silent
and deserted was the courtyard which had so often echoed to the clatter
of hoofs, or the ringing clank of armour.
Silent and deserted—yes! It was not time alone that had wrought the
desolation. Nettleby Tower had stood a siege in the time of the
Commonwealth, and the marks of bullets might still be traced on its
walls; but the injuries which had been inflicted by the slow march of
centuries, or the more rapid visitation of war, were slight compared to
those which had been wrought by litigation and family dissension. The
property had been for years the subject of a vexatious lawsuit, which
had half ruined the unsuccessful party, and the present owner of Nettleby
Tower had not cared to take personal possession of the gloomy pile.
Perhaps Mr. Auger knew that the feeling of the neighbourhood would be
against him, as the sympathies of all would be enlisted on the side of
the descendant of that ancient family which had for centuries dwelt in
the Tower, who had been deprived of his birthright by the will of a proud
and intemperate father.
The old fortress had thus been suffered to fall into decay. Grass grew in
the courtyard; the wallflower clung to the battlements; the winter snow
and the summer rain made their way through the broken casements, and no
hand had removed the mass of wreck which lay where a furious storm had
thrown down one of the ancient chimneys. Parties of tourists occasionally
visited the gloomy place, trod the long, dreary corridors, and heard
from a wrinkled woman accounts of the moth-eaten tapestry, and the
time-darkened family portraits that grimly frowned from the walls. They
heard tales of the last Mr. Bardon, the proud owner of the pile; how he
had been wont to sit long and late over his bottle, carousing with jovial
companions, till the hall resounded with their oaths and their songs;
and how, more than thirty years back, he had disinherited his only son
for marrying a farmer’s daughter. Then the old woman would, after slowly
showing the way up the worn stone steps which led round and round till
they opened on the summit of the tower, direct her listener’s attention
to a small grey speck in the wide-spreading landscape below, and tell
them that Dr. Bardon lived there in needy circumstances, in actual sight
of the place where, if every man had his right, he would now be dwelling
as his fathers had dwelt. And the visitors would sigh, shake their heads,
and moralize on the strange changes in human fortunes.
The old woman who showed strangers over Nettleby Tower lived in a cottage
hard by; neither she nor any other person was ever to be found in the old
halls after the sun had set. The place had the repute of being haunted,
and was left after dark to the sole possession of the rooks, the owls,
and the bats. I must tax the faith of my readers to believe that the old
tower _was_ actually haunted; not by the ghosts of the dead, but by the
spirits of evil that are ever moving amongst the living. I must attempt
with a bold hand to draw aside the mysterious veil which divides the
invisible from the visible world, and though I must invoke imagination to
my aid, it is imagination fluttering on the confines of truth. Bear with
me, then, while I personify the spirits of Pride and Intemperance, and
represent them as lingering yet in the pile in which for centuries they
had borne sway over human hearts.
Standing on the battlements of the grey tower, behold two dim, but
gigantic forms, like dark clouds, that to the eye of fancy have assumed
a mortal shape. The little rock-plant that has found a cradle between
the crumbling stones bends not beneath their weight,—and yet how many
deep-rooted hopes have they crushed! Their unsubstantial shapes cast no
shadow on the wall, and yet have darkened myriads of homes! The natural
sense cannot recognise their presence; the eye beholds them not, the
human ear cannot catch the low thunder of their speech; and yet there
they stand, terrible _realities_,—known, like the invisible plague, by
their effects upon those whom they destroy!
There is a wild light in the eyes of Intemperance, not caught from the
glad sunbeams that are bathing the world in glory; it is like a red
meteor playing over some deep morass, and though there is often mirth
in his tone, it is such mirth as jars upon the shuddering soul like
the laugh of a raving maniac! Pride is of more lofty stature than his
companion, perhaps of yet darker hue, and his voice is lower and deeper.
His features are stamped with the impress of all that piety abhors and
conscience shrinks from, for we behold him without his veil. Human
infirmity may devise soft names for cherished sins, and even invest them
with a specious glory which deceives the dazzled eye; but who could
endure to see in all their bare deformity those two arch soul-destroyers,
Intemperance and Pride?
“Nay, it was I who wrought this ruin!” exclaimed the former, stretching
his shadowy hand over the desolated dwelling. “Think you that had Hugh
Bardon possessed his senses unclouded by my spell, he would ever have
driven forth from his home his own—his only son?”
“Was it not I,” replied Pride, “who ever stood beside him, counting up
the long line of his ancestry, inflaming his soul with legends of the
past, making him look upon his own blood as something different from that
which flows in the veins of ordinary mortals, till he learned to regard a
union with one of lower rank as a crime beyond forgiveness?”
“I,” cried Intemperance, “intoxicated his brain”—
“I,” interrupted Pride, “intoxicated his spirit. You fill your deep cup
with fermented beverage; the fermentation which I cause is within the
soul, and it varies according to the different natures that receive it.
There is the _vinous_ fermentation, that which man calls high spirit, and
the world hails with applause, whether it sparkle up into courage, or
effervesce into hasty resentment. There is the _acid_ fermentation; the
sourness of a spirit brooding over wrongs and disappointments, irritated
against its fellow-man, and regarding his acts with suspicion. This the
world views with a kind of compassionate scorn, or perhaps tolerates
as something that may occasionally correct the insipidity of social
intercourse. And there is the third, the last stage of fermentation, when
hating and hated of all, wrapt up in his own self-worship, and poisoning
the atmosphere around with the exhalations of rebellion and unbelief, my
slave becomes, even to his fellow-bondsmen, an object of aversion and
disgust. Such was my power over the spirit of Hugh Bardon. I quenched the
parent’s yearning over his son; I kept watch even by his bed of death;
and when holy words of warning were spoken, I made him turn a deaf ear to
the charmer, and hardened his soul to destruction!”
“I yield this point to you,” said Intemperance, “I grant that your black
badge was rivetted on the miserable Bardon even more firmly than mine.
And yet, what are your scattered conquests to those which I hourly
achieve! Do I not drive my thousands and tens of thousands down the steep
descent of folly, misery, disgrace, till they perish in the gulf of ruin?
Count the gin-palaces dedicated to me in this professedly Christian land;
are they not crowded with my victims? Who can boast a power to injure
that is to be compared to mine?”
“Your power is great,” replied Pride, “but it is a power that has limits,
nay, limits that become narrower and narrower as civilization and
religion gain ground. You have been driven from many a stately abode,
where once Intemperance was a welcome guest, and have to cower amongst
the lowest of the low, and seek your slaves amongst the vilest of the
vile. Seest thou yon church,” continued Pride, pointing to the spire of a
small, but beautiful edifice, embowered amongst elms and beeches; “hast
thou ever dared so much as to touch one clod of the turf on which falls
the shadow of that building?”
“It is, as you well know, forbidden ground,” replied Intemperance.
“To you—to you, but not to me!” exclaimed Pride, his form dilating with
exultation. “I enter it unseen with the worshippers, my voice blends
with the hymn of praise; nay, I sometimes mount the pulpit with the
preacher,[1] and while a rapt audience hang upon his words, infuse my
secret poison into his soul! When offerings are collected for the poor,
how much of the silver and the gold is tarnished and tainted by my
breath! The very monuments raised to the dead often bear the print of my
touch; I fix the escutcheon, write the false epitaph, and hang my banner
boldly even over the Christian’s tomb!”
“Your power also has limits,” quoth Intemperance. “There is an antidote
in the inspired Book for every poison that you can instil.”
“I know it, I know it,” exclaimed Pride, “and marks it not the extent
of my influence and the depth of the deceptions that I practise, that
against no spirit, except that of Idolatry, are so many warnings given in
that Book as against the spirit of Pride? For every denunciation against
Intemperance, how many may be found against me! Not only religion and
morality are your mortal opponents, but self-interest and self-respect
unite to weaken the might of Intemperance; _I_ have but one foe that I
fear, one that singles me out for conflict! As David with his sling to
Goliath, so to Pride is the Spirit of the Gospel!”
“How is it, then,” inquired Intemperance, “that so many believers in the
Gospel fall under your sway?”
“It is because I have so many arts, such subtle devices, I can change
myself into so many different shapes; I steal in so softly that I waken
not the sentinel Conscience to give an alarm to the soul! _You_ throw one
broad net into the sea where you see a shoal within your reach; _I_ angle
for my prey with skill, hiding my hook with the bait most suited to the
taste of each of my victims. _You_ pursue your quarry openly before man;
_I_ dig the deep hidden pit-fall for mine. _You_ disgust even those whom
you enslave; _I_ assume forms that rather please than offend. Sometimes I
am ‘a pardonable weakness,’ sometimes ‘a natural instinct,’ sometimes,”
and here Pride curled his lip with a mocking smile, “I am welcomed as a
generous virtue!”
“It is in this shape,” said Intemperance angrily, “that you have
sometimes even taken a part against me! You have taught my slaves to
despise and break from my yoke!”
“Pass over that,” replied Pride; “or balance against it the many times
when I have done you a service, encouraging men to be _mighty to mingle
strong drink_.”
“Nay, you must acknowledge,” said Intemperance, “that we now seldom work
together.”
“We have different spheres,” answered Pride. “You keep multitudes from
ever even attempting to enter the fold; I put my manacles upon tens of
thousands who deem that they already have entered. I doubt whether there
be one goodly dwelling amongst all those that dot yonder wide prospect,
where one, if not all of the inmates, wears not my invisible band round
the arm.”
“You will except the pastor’s, at least,” said Intemperance. “Yonder, on
the path that leads to the school, I see his gentle daughter. She has
warned many against me; and with her words, her persuasions, her prayers,
has driven me from more than one home. I shrink from the glance of that
soft, dark eye, as if it carried the power of Ithuriel’s spear. Ida seems
to me to be purity itself; upon her, at least, you can have no hold.”
“Were we nearer,” laughed the malignant spirit, “you would see my
dark badge on the saint! Since her childhood I have been striving and
struggling to make Ida Aumerle my own. Sometimes she has snapped my
chain, and I am ofttimes in fear that she will break away from my bondage
for ever. But methinks I have a firm hold over her now.”
“Her pride must be spiritual pride,” observed Intemperance.
“Not so,” replied his evil companion; “I tried that spell, but my efforts
failed. While with sweet voice and winning persuasion Ida is now guiding
her class to Truth, and warning her little flock against us both, would
you wish to hearken to the story of the maiden, and hear all that I have
done to win entrance into a heart which the grace of God has cleansed?”
“Tell me her history,” said Intemperance; “she seems to me like the
snowdrop that lifts its head above the sod, pure as a flake from the
skies.”
“Even the snowdrop has its roots in the earth,” was the sardonic answer
of Pride.
[1] “What a beautiful sermon you gave us to-day!” exclaimed a lady to
her pastor. “The devil told me the very same thing while I was in the
pulpit,” was his quaint, but comprehensive reply.