THE HOUSEHOLD WRECK.

'To be weak,' we need not the great archangel's voice to tell us,

'_is to be miserable_.' All weakness is suffering and humiliation,

no matter for its mode or its subject. Beyond all other weakness,

therefore, and by a sad prerogative, as more miserable than what is

most miserable in all, that capital weakness of man which regards the

_tenure_ of his enjoyments and his power to protect, even for a

moment, the crown of flowers--flowers, at the best, how frail and few!

--which sometimes settles upon his haughty brow. There is no end, there

never will be an end, of the lamentations which ascend from earth and

the rebellious heart of her children, upon this huge opprobrium of

human pride--the everlasting mutabilities of all which man can grasp by

his power or by his aspirations, the fragility of all which he

inherits, and the hollowness visible amid the very raptures of

enjoyment to every eye which looks for a moment underneath the

draperies of the shadowy _present_, the hollowness, the blank

treachery of hollowness, upon which all the pomps and vanities of life

ultimately repose. This trite but unwearying theme, this impassioned

common-place of humanity, is the subject in every age of variation

without end, from the poet, the rhetorician, the fabulist, the

moralist, the divine, and the philosopher. All, amidst the sad vanity

of their sighs and groans, labor to put on record and to establish this

monotonous complaint, which needs not other record or evidence than

those very sighs and groans. What is life? Darkness and formless

vacancy for a beginning, or something beyond all beginning--then next a

dim lotos of human consciousness, finding itself afloat upon the bosom

of waters without a shore--then a few sunny smiles and many tears--a

little love and infinite strife--whisperings from paradise and fierce

mockeries from the anarchy of chaos--dust and ashes--and once more

darkness circling round, as if from the beginning, and in this way

rounding or making an island of our fantastic existence,--_that_

is human life; _that_ the inevitable amount of man's laughter and

his tears--of what he suffers and he does--of his motions this way and

that way--to the right or to the left--backwards or forwards--of all

his seeming realities and all his absolute negations--his shadowy

pomps and his pompous shadows--of whatsoever he thinks, finds, makes

or mars, creates or animates, loves, hates, or in dread hope

anticipates;--so it is, so it has been, so it will be, for ever and

ever.

Yet in the lowest deep there still yawns a lower deep; and in the vast

halls of man's frailty, there are separate and more gloomy chambers of

a frailty more exquisite and consummate. We account it frailty that

threescore years and ten make the upshot of man's pleasurable

existence, and that, far before that time is reached, his beauty and

his power have fallen among weeds and forgetfulness. But there is a

frailty, by comparison with which this ordinary flux of the human race

seems to have a vast duration. Cases there are, and those not rare, in

which a single week, a day, an hour sweeps away all vestiges and

landmarks of a memorable felicity; in which the ruin travels faster

than the flying showers upon the mountain-side, faster 'than a musician

scatters sounds;' in which 'it was' and 'it is not' are words of the

self-same tongue, in the self-same minute; in which the sun that at

noon beheld all sound and prosperous, long before its setting hour

looks out upon a total wreck, and sometimes upon the total abolition of

any fugitive memorial that there ever had been a vessel to be wrecked,

or a wreck to be obliterated.

These cases, though here spoken of rhetorically, are of daily

occurrence; and, though they may seem few by comparison with the

infinite millions of the species, they are many indeed, if they be

reckoned absolutely for themselves; and throughout the limits of a

whole nation, not a day passes over us but many families are robbed of

their heads, or even swallowed up in ruin themselves, or their course

turned out of the sunny beams into a dark wilderness. Shipwrecks and

nightly conflagrations are sometimes, and especially among some

nations, wholesale calamities; battles yet more so; earthquakes, the

famine, the pestilence, though rarer, are visitations yet wider in

their desolation. Sickness and commercial ill-luck, if narrower, are

more frequent scourges. And most of all, or with most darkness in its

train, comes the sickness of the brain--lunacy--which, visiting nearly

one thousand in every million, must, in every populous nation, make

many ruins in each particular day. 'Babylon in ruins,' says a great

author, 'is not so sad a sight as a human soul overthrown by lunacy.'

But there is a sadder even than _that_,--the sight of a family-ruin

wrought by crime is even more appalling. Forgery, breaches of trust,

embezzlement, of private or public funds--(a crime sadly on the

increase since the example of Fauntleroy, and the suggestion of its

great feasibility first made by him)--these enormities, followed too

often, and countersigned for their final result to the future happiness

of families, by the appalling catastrophe of suicide, must naturally,

in every wealthy nation, or wherever property and the modes of property

are much developed, constitute the vast majority of all that come under

the review of public justice. Any of these is sufficient to make

shipwreck of all peace and comfort for a family; and often, indeed, it

happens that the desolation is accomplished within the course of one

revolving sun; often the whole dire catastrophe, together with its

total consequences, is both accomplished and made known to those whom

it chiefly concerns within one and the same hour. The mighty Juggernaut

of social life, moving onwards with its everlasting thunders, pauses

not for a moment to spare--to pity--to look aside, but rushes forward

for ever, impassive as the marble in the quarry--caring not for whom it

destroys, for the how many, or for the results, direct and indirect,

whether many or few. The increasing grandeur and magnitude of the

social system, the more it multiplies and extends its victims, the more

it conceals them; and for the very same reason: just as in the Roman

amphitheatres, when they grew to the magnitude of mighty cities, (in

some instances accommodating four hundred thousand spectators, in many

a fifth part of that amount,) births and deaths became ordinary events,

which, in a small modern theatre, are rare and memorable; and exactly

as these prodigious accidents multiplied, _pari passu_, they were

disregarded and easily concealed: for curiosity was no longer excited;

the sensation attached to them was little or none.

From these terrific tragedies, which, like monsoons or tornadoes,

accomplish the work of years in an hour, not merely an impressive

lesson is derived, sometimes, perhaps, a warning, but also (and this is

of universal application) some consolation. Whatever may have been the

misfortunes or the sorrows of a man's life, he is still privileged to

regard himself and his friends as amongst the fortunate by comparison,

in so far as he has escaped these wholesale storms, either as an actor

in producing them, or a contributor to their violence--or even more

innocently, (though oftentimes not less miserably)--as a participator

in the instant ruin, or in the long arrears of suffering which they

entail.

The following story falls within the class of hasty tragedies, and

sudden desolations here described. The reader is assured that every

incident is strictly true: nothing, in that respect, has been altered;

nor, indeed, anywhere except in the conversations, of which, though the

results and general outline are known, the separate details have

necessarily been lost under the agitating circumstances which produced

them. It has been judged right and delicate to conceal the name of the

great city, and therefore of the nation in which these events occurred,

chiefly out of consideration for the descendants of one person

concerned in the narrative: otherwise, it might not have been

requisite: for it is proper to mention, that every person directly a

party to the case has been long laid in the grave: all of them, with

one solitary exception, upwards of fifty years.

* * * * *

It was early spring in the year 17--; the day was the 6th of April; and

the weather, which had been of a wintry fierceness for the preceding

six or seven weeks--cold indeed beyond anything known for many years,

gloomy for ever, and broken by continual storms--was now by a Swedish

transformation all at once bright, genial, heavenly. So sudden and so

early a prelusion of summer, it was generally feared, could not last.

But that only made every body the more eager to lose no hour of an

enjoyment that might prove so fleeting. It seemed as if the whole

population of the place, a population among the most numerous in

Christendom, had been composed of hybernating animals suddenly awakened

by the balmy sunshine from their long winter's torpor. Through every

hour of the golden morning the streets were resonant with female

parties of young and old, the timid and the bold, nay, even of the most

delicate valetudinarians, now first tempted to lay aside their wintry

clothing together with their fireside habits, whilst the whole rural

environs of our vast city, the woodlands, and the interminable meadows

began daily to re-echo the glad voices of the young and jovial awaking

once again, like the birds and the flowers, and universal nature, to

the luxurious happiness of this most delightful season.

Happiness do I say? Yes, happiness; happiness to me above all others.

For I also in those days was among the young and the gay; I was

healthy; I was strong; I was prosperous in a worldly sense! I owed no

man a shilling; feared no man's face; shunned no man's presence. I held

a respectable station in society; I was myself, let me venture to say

it, respected generally for my personal qualities, apart from any

advantages I might draw from fortune or inheritance; I had reason to

think myself popular amongst the very slender circle of my

acquaintance; and finally, which perhaps was the crowning grace to all

these elements of happiness, I suffered not from the presence of

_ennui_, nor ever feared to suffer: for my temperament was

constitutionally ardent; I had a powerful animal sensibility; and I

knew the one great secret for maintaining its equipoise, viz., by

powerful daily exercise; and thus I lived in the light and presence,

or, (if I should not be suspected of seeking rhetorical expressions, I

would say,) in one eternal solstice of unclouded hope.

These, you will say, were blessings; these were golden elements of

felicity. They were so; and yet, with the single exception of my

healthy frame and firm animal organization, I feel that I have

mentioned hitherto nothing but what by comparison might be thought of a

vulgar quality. All the other advantages that I have enumerated, had

they been yet wanting, might have been acquired; had they been

forfeited, might have been reconquered; had they been even

irretrievably lost, might, by a philosophic effort, have been dispensed

with; compensations might have been found for any of them, many

equivalents, or if not, consolations at least, for their absence. But

now it remains to speak of other blessings too mighty to be valued, not

merely as transcending in rank and dignity all other constituents of

happiness, but for a reason far sadder than that--because, once lost,

they were incapable of restoration, and because not to be dispensed

with; blessings in which 'either we must live or have no life:' lights

to the darkness of our paths and to the infirmity of our steps--which,

once extinguished, never more on this side the gates of Paradise can

any man hope to see re-illumined for himself. Amongst these I may

mention an intellect, whether powerful or not in itself, at any rate

most elaborately cultivated; and, to say the truth, I had little other

business before me in this life than to pursue this lofty and

delightful task. I may add, as a blessing, not in the same

_positive_ sense as that which I have just mentioned, because not

of a nature to contribute so hourly to the employment of the thoughts,

but yet in this sense equal, that the absence of either would have been

an equal affliction,--namely, a conscience void of all offence. It was

little indeed that I, drawn by no necessities of situation into

temptations of that nature, had done no injury to any man. That was

fortunate; but I could not much value myself upon what was so much an

accident of my situation. Something, however, I might pretend to beyond

this _negative_ merit; for I had originally a benign nature; and,

as I advanced in years and thoughtfulness, the gratitude which

possessed me for my own exceeding happiness led me to do that by

principle and system which I had already done upon blind impulse; and

thus upon a double argument I was incapable of turning away from the

prayer of the afflicted, whatever had been the sacrifice to myself.

Hardly, perhaps, could it have been said in a sufficient sense at that

time that I was a religious man: yet, undoubtedly, I had all the

foundations within me upon which religion might hereafter have grown.

My heart overflowed with thankfulness to Providence: I had a natural

tone of unaffected piety; and thus far, at least, I might have been

called a religious man, that in the simplicity of truth I could have

exclaimed,

'O, Abner, I fear God, and I fear none beside.'

But wherefore seek to delay ascending by a natural climax to that final

consummation and perfect crown of my felicity--that almighty blessing

which ratified their value to all the rest? Wherefore, oh! wherefore do

I shrink in miserable weakness from--what? Is it from reviving, from

calling up again into fierce and insufferable light the images and

features of a long-buried happiness? That would be a natural shrinking

and a reasonable weakness. But how escape from reviving, whether I give

it utterance or not, that which is for ever vividly before me? What

need to call into artificial light that which, whether sleeping or

waking, by night or by day, for eight-and-thirty years has seemed by

its miserable splendor to scorch my brain? Wherefore shrink from giving

language, simple vocal utterance, to that burden of anguish which by so

long an endurance has lost no atom of its weight, nor can gain any most

surely by the loudest publication? Need there can be none, after this,

to say that the priceless blessing, which I have left to the final

place in this ascending review, was the companion of my life--my

darling and youthful wife. Oh! dovelike woman! fated in an hour the

most defenceless to meet with the ravening vulture,--lamb fallen

amongst wolves,--trembling--fluttering fawn, whose path was inevitably

to be crossed by the bloody tiger;--angel, whose most innocent heart

fitted thee for too early a flight from this impure planet; if indeed

it were a necessity that thou shouldst find no rest for thy footing

except amidst thy native heavens, if indeed to leave what was not

worthy of thee were a destiny not to be evaded--a summons not to be put

by,--yet why, why, again and again I demand--why was it also necessary

that this, thy departure, so full of wo to me, should also to thyself

be heralded by the pangs of martyrdom? Sainted love, if, like the

ancient children of the Hebrews, like Meshech and Abednego, thou wert

called by divine command, whilst yet almost a child, to walk, and to

walk alone, through the fiery furnace,--wherefore then couldst not

thou, like that Meshech and that Abednego, walk unsinged by the

dreadful torment, and come forth unharmed? Why, if the sacrifice were

to be total, was it necessary to reach it by so dire a struggle? and if

the cup, the bitter cup, of final separation from those that were the

light of thy eyes and the pulse of thy heart might not be put aside,--

yet wherefore was it that thou mightest not drink it up in the natural

peace which belongs to a sinless heart?

But these are murmurings, you will say, rebellious murmurings against

the proclamations of God. Not so: I have long since submitted myself,

resigned myself, nay, even reconciled myself, perhaps, to the great

wreck of my life, in so far as it was the will of God, and according to

the weakness of my imperfect nature. But my wrath still rises, like a

towering flame, against all the earthly instruments of this ruin; I am

still at times as unresigned as ever to this tragedy, in so far as it

was the work of human malice. Vengeance, as a mission for _me_, as

a task for _my_ hands in particular, is no longer possible; the

thunderbolts of retribution have been long since launched by other

hands; and yet still it happens that at times I do--I must--I shall

perhaps to the hour of death, rise in maniac fury, and seek, in the

very impotence of vindictive madness, groping as it were in blindness

of heart, for that tiger from hell-gates that tore away my darling from

my heart. Let me pause, and interrupt this painful strain, to say a

word or two upon what she was--and how far worthy of a love more

honorable to her (that was possible) and deeper (but that was not

possible) than mine. When first I saw her, she--my Agnes--was merely a

child, not much (if anything) above sixteen. But, as in perfect

womanhood she retained a most childlike expression of countenance, so

even then in absolute childhood she put forward the blossoms and the

dignity of a woman. Never yet did my eye light upon creature that was

born of woman, nor could it enter my heart to conceive one, possessing

a figure more matchless in its proportions, more statuesque, and more

deliberately and advisedly to be characterized by no adequate word but

the word _magnificent_, (a word too often and lightly abused.) In

reality, speaking of women, I have seen many beautiful figures, but

hardly one except Agnes that could, without hyperbole, be styled truly

and memorably magnificent. Though in the first order of tall women,

yet, being full in person, and with a symmetry that was absolutely

faultless, she seemed to the random sight as little above the ordinary

height. Possibly from the dignity of her person, assisted by the

dignity of her movements, a stranger would have been disposed to call

her at a distance a woman of _commanding_ presence; but never,

after he had approached near enough to behold her face. Every thought

of artifice, of practised effect, or of haughty pretension, fled before

the childlike innocence, the sweet feminine timidity, and the more than

cherub loveliness of that countenance, which yet in its lineaments was

noble, whilst its expression was purely gentle and confiding. A shade

of pensiveness there was about her; but _that_ was in her manners,

scarcely ever in her features; and the exquisite fairness of her

complexion, enriched by the very sweetest and most delicate bloom that

ever I have beheld, should rather have allied it to a tone of

cheerfulness. Looking at this noble creature, as I first looked at her,

when yet upon the early threshold of womanhood

'With household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin liberty'

you might have supposed her some Hebe or young Aurora of the dawn. When

you saw only her superb figure, and its promise of womanly development,

with the measured dignity of her step, you might for a moment have

fancied her some imperial Medea of the Athenian stage--some Volumnia

from Rome,

'Or ruling bandit's wife amidst the Grecian isles.'

But catch one glance from her angelic countenance--and then combining

the face and the person, you would have dismissed all such fancies, and

have pronounced her a Pandora or an Eve, expressly accomplished and

held forth by nature as an exemplary model or ideal pattern for the

future female sex:--

'A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,

To warm, to comfort, to command:

And yet a spirit too, and bright

With something of an angel light.'

To this superb young woman, such as I have here sketched her, I

surrendered my heart for ever, almost from my first opportunity of

seeing her: for so natural and without disguise was her character, and

so winning the simplicity of her manners, due in part to her own native

dignity of mind, and in part to the deep solitude in which she had been

reared, that little penetration was required to put me in possession of

all her thoughts; and to win her love, not very much more than to let

her see, as see she could not avoid, in connection with that chivalrous

homage which at any rate was due to her sex and her sexual perfections,

a love for herself on my part, which was in its nature as exalted a

passion and as profoundly rooted as any merely human affection can ever

yet have been.

On the seventeenth birthday of Agnes we were married. Oh! calendar of

everlasting months--months that, like the mighty rivers, shall flow on

for ever, immortal as thou, Nile, or Danube, Euphrates, or St.

Lawrence! and ye, summer and winter, day and night, wherefore do you

bring round continually your signs, and seasons, and revolving hours,

that still point and barb the anguish of local recollections, telling

me of this and that celestial morning that never shall return, and of

too blessed expectations, travelling like yourselves through a heavenly

zodiac of changes, till at once and for ever they sank into the grave!

Often do I think of seeking for some quiet cell either in the Tropics

or in Arctic latitudes, where the changes of the year, and the external

signs corresponding to them, express themselves by no features like

those in which the same seasons are invested under our temperate

climes: so that, if knowing, we cannot at least feel the identity of

their revolutions. We were married, I have said, on the birthday--the

seventeenth birthday--of Agnes; and pretty nearly on her eighteenth it

was that she placed me at the summit of my happiness, whilst for

herself she thus completed the circle of her relations to this life's

duties, by presenting me with a son. Of this child, knowing how

wearisome to strangers is the fond exultation of parents, I shall

simply say, that he inherited his mother's beauty; the same touching

loveliness and innocence of expression, the same chiselled nose, mouth,

and chin, the same exquisite auburn hair. In many other features, not

of person merely, but also of mind and manners, as they gradually began

to open before me, this child deepened my love to him by recalling the

image of his mother; and what other image was there that I so much

wished to keep before me, whether waking or asleep? At the time to

which I am now coming but too rapidly, this child, still our only one,

and unusually premature, was within four months of completing his third

year; consequently Agnes was at that time in her twenty-first year; and

I may here add, with respect to myself, that I was in my twenty-sixth.

But, before I come to that period of wo, let me say one word on the

temper of mind which so fluent and serene a current of prosperity may

be thought to have generated. Too common a course I know it is, when

the stream of life flows with absolute tranquillity, and ruffled by no

menace of a breeze--the azure overhead never dimmed by a passing cloud,

that in such circumstances the blood stagnates: life, from excess and

plethora of sweets, becomes insipid: the spirit of action droops: and

it is oftentimes found at such seasons that slight annoyances and

molestations, or even misfortunes in a lower key, are not wholly

undesirable, as means of stimulating the lazy energies, and disturbing

a slumber which is, or soon will be, morbid in its character. I have

known myself cases not a few, where, by the very nicest gradations, and

by steps too silent and insensible for daily notice, the utmost harmony

and reciprocal love had shaded down into fretfulness and petulance,

purely from too easy a life, and because all nobler agitations that

might have ruffled the sensations occasionally, and all distresses even

on the narrowest scale that might have re-awakened the solicitudes of

love, by opening necessities for sympathy, for counsel, or for mutual

aid, had been shut out by foresight too elaborate, or by prosperity too

cloying. But all this, had it otherwise been possible with my

particular mind, and at my early age, was utterly precluded by one

remarkable peculiarity in my temper. Whether it were that I derived

from nature some jealousy and suspicion of all happiness which seems

too perfect and unalloyed--[a spirit of restless distrust, which in

ancient times often led men to throw valuable gems into the sea, in the

hope of thus propitiating the dire deity of misfortune, by voluntarily

breaking the fearful chain of prosperity, and led some of them to weep

and groan when the gems thus sacrificed were afterwards brought back to

their hand by simple fishermen, who had recovered them in the

intestines of fishes--a portentous omen, which was interpreted into a

sorrowful indication that the deity thus answered the propitiatory

appeal, and made solemn proclamation that he had rejected it]--

whether, I say, it were this spirit of jealousy awaked in me by too

steady and too profound a felicity--or whether it were that great

overthrows and calamities have some mysterious power to send forward a

dim misgiving of their advancing footsteps, and really and indeed,

'That in to-day already walks to-morrow;'

or whether it were partly, as I have already put the case in my first

supposition, a natural instinct of distrust, but irritated and

enlivened by a particular shock of superstitious alarm; which, or

whether any of these causes it were that kept me apprehensive, and on

the watch for disastrous change, I will not here undertake to

determine. Too certain it is that I was so. I never ridded myself of an

over-mastering and brooding sense, shadowy and vague, a dim abiding

feeling (that sometimes was and sometimes was not exalted into a

conscious presentiment) of some great calamity travelling towards me;

not perhaps immediately impending--perhaps even at a great distance;

but already--dating from some secret hour--already in motion upon some

remote line of approach. This feeling I could not assuage by sharing it

with Agnes. No motive could be strong enough for persuading me to

communicate so gloomy a thought with one who, considering her extreme

healthiness, was but too remarkably prone to pensive, if not to

sorrowful, contemplations. And thus the obligation which I felt to

silence and reserve, strengthened the morbid impression I had received;

whilst the remarkable incident I have adverted to served powerfully to

rivet the superstitious chain which was continually gathering round me.

The incident was this--and before I repeat it, let me pledge my word of

honor, that I report to you the bare facts of the case, without

exaggeration, and in the simplicity of truth:--There was at that time

resident in the great city, which is the scene of my narrative, a

woman, from some part of Hungary, who pretended to the gift of looking

into futurity. She had made herself known advantageously in several of

the greatest cities of Europe, under the designation of the Hungarian

Prophetess; and very extraordinary instances were cited amongst the

highest circles of her success in the art which she professed. So ample

were the pecuniary tributes which she levied upon the hopes and the

fears, or the simple curiosity of the aristocracy, that she was thus

able to display not unfrequently a disinterestedness and a generosity,

which seemed native to her disposition, amongst the humbler classes of

her applicants; for she rejected no addresses that were made to her,

provided only they were not expressed in levity or scorn, but with

sincerity, and in a spirit of confiding respect. It happened, on one

occasion, when a nursery-servant of ours was waiting in her anteroom

for the purpose of taking her turn in consulting the prophetess

professionally, that she had witnessed a scene of consternation and

unaffected maternal grief in this Hungarian lady upon the sudden

seizure of her son, a child of four or five years old, by a spasmodic

inflammation of the throat (since called croup) peculiar to children,

and in those days not very well understood by medical men. The poor

Hungarian, who had lived chiefly in warm, or at least not damp,

climates, and had never so much as heard of this complaint, was almost

wild with alarm at the rapid increase of the symptoms which attend the

paroxysms, and especially of that loud and distressing sound which

marks the impeded respiration. Great, therefore, was her joy and

gratitude on finding from our servant that she had herself been in

attendance more than once upon cases of the same nature, but very much

more violent,--and that, consequently, she was well qualified to

suggest and to superintend all the measures of instant necessity, such

as the hot-bath, the peculiar medicines, &c., which are almost sure of

success when applied in an early stage. Staying to give her assistance

until a considerable improvement had taken place in the child, our

servant then hurried home to her mistress. Agnes, it may be imagined,

dispatched her back with such further and more precise directions as in

a very short time availed to re-establish the child in convalescence.

These practical services, and the messages of maternal sympathy

repeatedly conveyed from Agnes, had completely won the heart of the

grateful Hungarian, and she announced her intention of calling with her

little boy, to make her personal acknowledgments for the kindness which

had been shown to her. She did so, and we were as much impressed by the

sultana-like style of her Oriental beauty, as she, on her part, was

touched and captivated by the youthful loveliness of my angelic wife.

After sitting for above an hour, during which time she talked with a

simplicity and good feeling that struck us as remarkable in a person

professing an art usually connected with so much of conscious fraud,

she rose to take her leave. I must mention that she had previously had

our little boy sitting on her knee, and had at intervals thrown a hasty

glance upon the palms of his hands. On parting, Agnes, with her usual

frankness, held out her hand. The Hungarian took it with an air of sad

solemnity, pressed it fervently, and said:--'Lady, it is my part in

this life to look behind the curtain of fate; and oftentimes I see such

sights in futurity--some near, some far off--as willingly I would

_not_ see. For you, young and charming lady, looking like that

angel which you are, no destiny can be equal to your deserts. Yet

sometimes, true it is, God sees not as man sees; and he ordains, after

his unfathomable counsels, to the heavenly-minded a portion in heaven,

and to the children whom he loves a rest and a haven not built with

hands. Something that I have seen dimly warns me to look no farther.

Yet, if you desire it, I will do my office, and I will read for you

with truth the lines of fate as they are written upon your hands.'

Agnes was a little startled, or even shocked, by this solemn address;

but, in a minute or so, a mixed feeling--one half of which was

curiosity, and the other half a light-hearted mockery of her own

mysterious awe in the presence of what she had been taught to view as

either fraud or insanity--prompted her playfully to insist upon the

fullest application of the Hungarian's art to her own case; nay, she

would have the hands of our little Francis read and interpreted as well

as her own, and she desired to hear the full professional judgment

delivered without suppression or softening of its harshest awards. She

laughed whilst she said all this; but she also trembled a little. The

Hungarian first took the hand of our young child, and perused it with a

long and steady scrutiny. She said nothing, but sighed heavily as she

resigned it. She then took the hand of Agnes--looked bewildered and

aghast--then gazed piteously from Agnes to her child--and at last,

bursting into tears, began to move steadily out of the room. I followed

her hastily, and remonstrated upon this conduct, by pointing her

attention to the obvious truth--that these mysterious suppressions and

insinuations, which left all shadowy and indistinct, were far more

alarming than the most definite denunciations. Her answer yet rings in

my ear:--'Why should I make myself odious to you and to your innocent

wife? Messenger of evil I am, and have been to many; but evil I will

not prophecy to her. Watch and pray! Much may be done by effectual

prayer. Human means, fleshly arms, are vain. There is an enemy in the

house of life,' [here she quitted her palmistry for the language of

astrology;] 'there is a frightful danger at hand, both for your wife

and your child. Already on that dark ocean, over which we are all

sailing, I can see dimly the point at which the enemy's course shall

cross your wife's. There is but little interval remaining--not many

hours. All is finished; all is accomplished; and already he is almost

up with the darlings of your heart. Be vigilant, be vigilant, and yet

look not to yourself, but to Heaven, for deliverance.'

This woman was not an impostor: she spoke and uttered her oracles under

a wild sense of possession by some superior being, and of mystic

compulsion to say what she would have willingly left unsaid; and never

yet, before or since, have I seen the light of sadness settle with so

solemn an expression into human eyes as when she dropped my wife's

hand, and refused to deliver that burden of prophetic wo with which she

believed herself to be inspired.

The prophetess departed; and what mood of mind did she leave behind her

in Agnes and myself? Naturally there was a little drooping of spirits

at first; the solemnity and the heart-felt sincerity of fear and grief

which marked her demeanor, made it impossible, at the moment when we

were just fresh from their natural influences, that we should recoil

into our ordinary spirits. But with the inevitable elasticity of youth

and youthful gaiety we soon did so; we could not attempt to persuade

ourselves that there had been any conscious fraud or any attempt at

scenical effect in the Hungarian's conduct. She had no motive for

deceiving us; she had refused all offerings of money, and her whole

visit had evidently been made under an overflow of the most grateful

feelings for the attentions shown to her child. We acquitted her,

therefore, of sinister intentions; and with our feelings of jealousy,

feelings in which we had been educated, towards everything that tended

to superstition, we soon agreed to think her some gentle maniac or sad

enthusiast, suffering under some form of morbid melancholy. Forty-eight

hours, with two nights' sleep, sufficed to restore the wonted

equilibrium of our spirits; and that interval brought us onwards to the

6th of April--the day on which, as I have already said, my story

properly commences.

On that day, on that lovely 6th of April, such as I have described it,

that 6th of April, about nine o'clock in the morning, we were seated at

breakfast near the open window--we, that is, Agnes, myself, and little

Francis; the freshness of morning spirits rested upon us; the golden

light of the morning sun illuminated the room; incense was floating

through the air from the gorgeous flowers within and without the house;

there in youthful happiness we sat gathered together, a family of love,

and there we never sat again. Never again were we three gathered

together, nor ever shall be, so long as the sun and its golden light--

the morning and the evening--the earth and its flowers endure.

Often have I occupied myself in recalling every circumstance the most

trivial of this the final morning of what merits to be called my life.

Eleven o'clock, I remember, was striking when Agnes came into my study,

and said that she would go into the city, (for we lived in a quite

rural suburb,) that she would execute some trifling commissions which

she had received from a friend in the country, and would be at home

again between one and two for a stroll which we had agreed to take in

the neighboring meadows. About twenty minutes after this she again came

into my study dressed for going abroad; for such was my admiration of

her, that I had a fancy--fancy it must have been, and yet still I felt

it to be real--that under every change she looked best; if she put on a

shawl, then a shawl became the most feminine of ornaments; if she laid

aside her shawl and her bonnet, then how nymph-like she seemed in her

undisguised and unadorned beauty! Full-dress seemed for the time to be

best, as bringing forward into relief the splendor of her person, and

allowing the exposure of her arms; a simple morning-dress, again,

seemed better still, as fitted to call out the childlike innocence of

her face, by confining the attention to that. But all these are

feelings of fond and blind affection, hanging with rapture over the

object of something too like idolatry. God knows, if that be a sin, I

was but too profound a sinner; yet sin it never was, sin it could not

be, to adore a beauty such as thine, my Agnes. Neither was it her

beauty by itself, and that only, which I sought at such times to

admire; there was a peculiar sort of double relation in which she stood

at moments of pleasurable expectation and excitement, since our little

Francis had become of an age to join our party, which made some aspects

of her character trebly interesting. She was a wife--and wife to one

whom she looked up to as her superior in understanding and in knowledge

of the world, whom, therefore, she leaned to for protection. On the

other hand, she was also a mother. Whilst, therefore, to her child she

supported the matronly part of guide, and the air of an experienced

person; to me she wore, ingenuously and without disguise, the part of a

child herself, with all the giddy hopes and unchastised imaginings of

that buoyant age. This double character, one aspect of which looks

towards her husband and one to her children, sits most gracefully upon

many a young wife whose heart is pure and innocent; and the collision

between the two separate parts imposed by duty on the one hand, by

extreme youth on the other, the one telling her that she is a

responsible head of a family and the depository of her husband's honor

in its tenderest and most vital interests, the other telling her,

through the liveliest language of animal sensibility, and through the

very pulses of her blood, that she is herself a child; this collision

gives an inexpressible charm to the whole demeanor of many a young

married woman, making her other fascinations more touching to her

husband, and deepening the admiration she excites; and the more so, as

it is a collision which cannot exist except among the very innocent.

Years, at any rate, will irresistibly remove this peculiar charm, and

gradually replace it by the graces of the matronly character. But in

Agnes this change had not yet been effected, partly from nature, and

partly from the extreme seclusion of her life. Hitherto she still

retained the unaffected expression of her childlike nature; and so

lovely in my eyes was this perfect exhibition of natural feminine

character, that she rarely or never went out alone upon any little

errand to town which might require her to rely upon her own good sense

and courage, that she did not previously come to exhibit herself before

me. Partly this was desired by me in that lover-like feeling of

admiration already explained, which leads one to court the sight of a

beloved object under every change of dress, and under all effects of

novelty. Partly it was the interest I took in that exhibition of sweet

timidity, and almost childish apprehensiveness, half disguised or

imperfectly acknowledged by herself, which (in the way I have just

explained) so touchingly contrasted with (and for that very reason so

touchingly drew forth) her matronly character. But I hear some objector

say at this point, ought not this very timidity, founded (as in part at

least it was) upon inexperience and conscious inability to face the

dangers of the world, to have suggested reasons for not leaving her to

her own protection? And does it not argue, on my part, an arrogant or

too blind a confidence in the durability of my happiness, as though

charmed against assaults, and liable to no shocks of sudden revolution?

I reply that, from the very constitution of society, and the tone of

manners in the city which we inhabited, there seemed to be a moral

impossibility that any dangers of consequence should meet her in the

course of those brief absences from my protection, which only were

possible; that even to herself any dangers, of a nature to be

anticipated under the known circumstances of the case, seemed almost

imaginary; that even _she_ acknowledged a propriety in being

trained, by slight and brief separations from my guardianship, to face

more boldly those cases of longer separation and of more absolute

consignment to her own resources which circumstances might arise to

create necessarily, and perhaps abruptly. And it is evident that, had

she been the wife of any man engaged in the duties of a profession, she

might have been summoned from the very first, and without the

possibility of any such gradual training, to the necessity of relying

almost singly upon her own courage and discretion. For the other

question, whether I did not depend too blindly and presumptuously upon

my good luck in not at least affording her my protection so long as

nothing occurred to make it impossible? I may reply, most truly, that

all my feelings ran naturally in the very opposite channel. So far from

confiding too much in my luck, in the present instance I was engaged in

a task of writing upon some points of business which could not admit of

further delay; but now, and at all times, I had a secret aversion to

seeing so gentle a creature thrown even for an hour upon her own

resources, though in situations which scarcely seemed to admit of any

occasion for taxing those resources; and often I have felt anger

towards myself for what appeared to be an irrational or effeminate

timidity, and have struggled with my own mind upon occasions like the

present, when I knew that I could not have acknowledged my tremors to a

friend without something like shame, and a fear to excite his ridicule.

No; if in anything I ran into excess, it was in this very point of

anxiety as to all that regarded my wife's security. Her good sense, her

prudence, her courage, (for courage she had in the midst of her

timidity,) her dignity of manner, the more impressive from the

childlike character of her countenance, all should have combined to

reassure me, and yet they did not. I was still anxious for her safety

to an irrational extent; and to sum up the whole in a most weighty line

of Shakspeare, I lived under the constant presence of a feeling which

only that great observer of human nature (so far as I am aware) has

ever noticed, viz., that merely the excess of my happiness made me

jealous of its ability to last, and in that extent less capable of

enjoying it; that in fact the prelibation of my tears, as a homage to

its fragility, was drawn forth by my very sense that my felicity was

too exquisite; or, in the words of the great master

'I wept to have' [absolutely, by anticipation, shed tears in

possessing] 'what I so feared to lose.'

Thus end my explanations, and I now pursue my narrative: Agnes, as I

have said, came into my room again before leaving the house--we

conversed for five minutes--we parted--she went out--her last words

being that she would return at half-past one o'clock; and not long

after that time, if ever mimic bells--bells of rejoicing, or bells of

mourning, are heard in desert spaces of the air, and (as some have

said) in unreal worlds, that mock our own, and repeat, for ridicule,

the vain and unprofitable motions of man, then too surely, about this

hour, began to toll the funeral knell of my earthly happiness--its

final hour had sounded.

* * * * *

One o'clock had arrived; fifteen minutes after, I strolled into the

garden, and began to look over the little garden-gate in expectation of

every moment descrying Agnes in the distance. Half an hour passed, and

for ten minutes more I was tolerably quiet. From this time till half-

past two I became constantly more agitated--_agitated,_ perhaps,

is too strong a word--but I was restless and anxious beyond what I

should have chosen to acknowledge. Still I kept arguing, What is half

an hour? what is an hour? A thousand things might have occurred to

cause that delay, without needing to suppose any accident; or, if an

accident, why not a very trifling one? She may have slightly hurt her

foot--she may have slightly sprained her ankle. 'Oh, doubtless,' I

exclaimed to myself, 'it will be a mere trifle, or perhaps nothing at

all.' But I remember that, even whilst I was saying this, I took my hat

and walked with nervous haste into the little quiet lane upon which our

garden-gate opened. The lane led by a few turnings, and after a course

of about five hundred yards, into a broad high-road, which even at that

day had begun to assume the character of a street, and allowed an

unobstructed range of view in the direction of the city for at least a

mile. Here I stationed myself, for the air was so clear that I could

distinguish dress and figure to a much greater distance than usual.

Even on such a day, however, the remote distance was hazy and

indistinct, and at any other season I should have been diverted with

the various mistakes I made. From occasional combinations of color,

modified by light and shade, and of course powerfully assisted by the

creative state of the eye under this nervous apprehensiveness, I

continued to shape into images of Agnes forms without end, that upon

nearer approach presented the most grotesque contrasts to her

impressive appearance. But I had ceased even to comprehend the

ludicrous; my agitation was now so overruling and engrossing that I

lost even my intellectual sense of it; and now first I understood

practically and feelingly the anguish of hope alternating with

disappointment, as it may be supposed to act upon the poor shipwrecked

seaman, alone and upon a desolate coast, straining his sight for ever

to the fickle element which has betrayed him, but which only can

deliver him, and with his eyes still tracing in the far distance,

'Ships, dim-discover'd, dropping from the clouds,'--

which a brief interval of suspense still for ever disperses into hollow

pageants of air or vapor. One deception melted away only to be

succeeded by another; still I fancied that at last to a certainty I

could descry the tall figure of Agnes, her gipsy hat, and even the

peculiar elegance of her walk. Often I went so far as to laugh at

myself, and even to tax my recent fears with unmanliness and

effeminacy, on recollecting the audible throbbings of my heart, and the

nervous palpitations which had besieged me; but these symptoms, whether

effeminate or not, began to come back tumultuously under the gloomy

doubts that succeeded almost before I had uttered this self-reproach.

Still I found myself mocked and deluded with false hopes; yet still I

renewed my quick walk, and the intensity of my watch for that radiant

form that was fated never more to be seen returning from the cruel

city.

It was nearly half-past three, and therefore close upon two hours

beyond the time fixed by Agnes for her return, when I became absolutely

incapable of supporting the further torture of suspense, and I suddenly

took the resolution of returning home and concerting with my female

servants some energetic measures, though _what_ I could hardly say,

on behalf of their mistress. On entering the garden-gate I met our

little child Francis, who unconsciously inflicted a pang upon me which

he neither could have meditated nor have understood. I passed him at

his play, perhaps even unaware of his presence, but he recalled me to

that perception by crying aloud that he had just seen his mamma.

'When--where?' I asked convulsively.

'Up stairs in her bedroom,' was his instantaneous answer.

His manner was such as forbade me to suppose that he could be joking;

and, as it was barely possible (though, for reasons well known to me,

in the highest degree improbable) that Agnes might have returned by a

by-path, which, leading through a dangerous and disreputable suburb,

would not have coincided at any one point with the public road where I

had been keeping my station. I sprang forward into the house, up

stairs, and in rapid succession into every room where it was likely

that she might be found; but everywhere there was a dead silence,

disturbed only by myself, for, in my growing confusion of thought, I

believe that I rang the bell violently in every room I entered. No such

summons, however, was needed, for the servants, two of whom at the

least were most faithful creatures, and devotedly attached to their

young mistress, stood ready of themselves to come and make inquiries of

me as soon as they became aware of the alarming fact, that I had

returned without her.

Until this moment, though having some private reasons for surprise that

she should have failed to come into the house for a minute or two at

the hour prefixed, in order to make some promised domestic arrangements

for the day, they had taken it for granted that she must have met with

me at some distance from home--and that either the extreme beauty of

the day had beguiled her of all petty household recollections, or (as a

conjecture more in harmony with past experiences) that my impatience

and solicitations had persuaded her to lay aside her own plans for the

moment at the risk of some little domestic inconvenience. Now, however,

in a single instant vanished _every_ mode of accounting for their

mistress's absence; and the consternation of our looks communicated

contagiously, by the most unerring of all languages, from each to the

other what thoughts were uppermost in our panic-stricken hearts. If to

any person it should seem that our alarm was disproportioned to the

occasion, and not justified at least by anything as yet made known to

us, let that person consider the weight due to the two following facts:

First, that from the recency of our settlement in this neighborhood,

and from the extreme seclusion of my wife's previous life at a vast

distance from the metropolis, she had positively no friends on her list

of visitors who resided in this great capital; secondly, and far above

all beside, let him remember the awful denunciations, so unexpectedly

tallying with this alarming and mysterious absence, of the Hungarian

prophetess; these had been slighted--almost dismissed from our

thoughts; but now in sudden reaction they came back upon us with a

frightful power to lacerate and to sting--the shadowy outline of a

spiritual agency, such as that which could at all predict the events,

combining in one mysterious effect, with the shadowy outline of those

very predictions. The power, that could have predicted, was as dim and

as hard to grasp as was the precise nature of the evil that had been

predicted.

An icy terror froze my blood at this moment when I looked at the

significant glances, too easily understood by me, that were exchanged

between the servants. My mouth had been for the last two hours growing

more and more parched, so that at present, from mere want of moisture,

I could not separate my lips to speak. One of the women saw the vain

efforts I was making, and hastily brought me a glass of water. With the

first recovery of speech, I asked them what little Francis had meant by

saying that he had seen his mother in her bedroom. Their reply was,

that they were as much at a loss to discover his meaning as I was; that

he had made the same assertion to them, and with so much earnestness,

that they had, all in succession, gone up stairs to look for her, and

with the fullest expectation of finding her. This was a mystery which

remained such to the very last; there was no doubt whatsoever that the

child believed himself to have seen his mother; that he could not have

seen her in her human bodily presence, there is as little doubt as

there is, alas! that in this world he never _did_ see her again.

The poor child constantly adhered to his story, and with a

circumstantiality far beyond all power of invention that could be

presumed in an artless infant. Every attempt at puzzling him or

entangling him in contradictions by means of cross-examination was but

labor thrown away; though indeed, it is true enough that for those

attempts, as will soon be seen, there was but a brief interval allowed.

Not dwelling upon this subject at present, I turned to Hannah--a woman

who held the nominal office of cook in our little establishment, but

whose real duties had been much more about her mistress's person--and

with a searching look of appeal I asked her whether, in this moment of

trial, when (as she might see) I was not so perfectly master of myself

as perhaps always to depend upon seeing what was best to be done, she

would consent to accompany me into the city, and take upon herself

those obvious considerations of policy or prudence which might but too

easily escape my mind, darkened, and likely to be darkened, as to its

power of discernment by the hurricane of affliction now too probably at

hand. She answered my appeal with the fervor I expected from what I had

already known of her character. She was a woman of a strong, fiery,

perhaps I might say of heroic mind, supported by a courage that was

absolutely indomitable, and by a strength of bodily frame very unusual

in a woman, and beyond the promise even of her person. She had suffered

as deep a wrench in her own affections as a human being can suffer; she

had lost her one sole child, a fair-haired boy of most striking beauty

and interesting disposition, at the age of seventeen, and by the worst

of all possible fates; he lived (as we did at that time) in a large

commercial city overflowing with profligacy, and with temptations of

every order; he had been led astray; culpable he had been, but by very

much the least culpable of the set into which accident had thrown him,

as regarded acts and probable intentions; and as regarded palliations

from childish years, from total inexperience, or any other alleviating

circumstances that could be urged, having everything to plead--and of

all his accomplices the only one who had anything to plead. Interest,

however, he had little or none; and whilst some hoary villains of the

party, who happened to be more powerfully befriended, were finally

allowed to escape with a punishment little more than nominal, he and

two others were selected as sacrifices to the offended laws. They

suffered capitally. All three behaved well; but the poor boy in

particular, with a courage, a resignation, and a meekness, so

distinguished and beyond his years as to attract the admiration and the

liveliest sympathy of the public universally. If strangers could feel

in that way, if the mere hardened executioner could be melted at the

final scene,--it may be judged to what a fierce and terrific height

would ascend the affliction of a doating mother, constitutionally too

fervid in her affections. I have heard an official person declare, that

the spectacle of her desolation and frantic anguish was the most

frightful thing he had ever witnessed, and so harrowing to the

feelings, that all who could by their rank venture upon such an

irregularity, absented themselves during the critical period from the

office which corresponded with the government; for, as I have said, the

affair took place in a large provincial city, at a great distance from

the capital. All who knew this woman, or who were witnesses to the

alteration which one fortnight had wrought in her person as well as her

demeanor, fancied it impossible that she could continue to live; or

that, if she did, it must be through the giving way of her reason. They

proved, however, to be mistaken; or, at least, if (as some thought) her

reason did suffer in some degree, this result showed itself in the

inequality of her temper, in moody fits of abstraction, and the morbid

energy of her manner at times under the absence of all adequate

external excitement, rather than in any positive and apparent

hallucinations of thought. The charm which had mainly carried off the

instant danger to her faculties, was doubtless the intense sympathy

which she met with. And in these offices of consolation my wife stood

foremost. For, and that was fortunate, she had found herself able,

without violence to her own sincerest opinions in the case, to offer

precisely that form of sympathy which was most soothing to the angry

irritation of the poor mother; not only had she shown a _direct_

interest in the boy, and not a mere interest of _reflection_ from

that which she took in the mother, and had expressed it by visits to

his dungeon, and by every sort of attention to his comforts which his

case called for, or the prison regulations allowed; not only had she

wept with the distracted woman as if for a brother of her own; but,

which went farther than all the rest in softening the mother's heart,

she had loudly and indignantly proclaimed her belief in the boy's

innocence, and in the same tone her sense of the crying injustice

committed as to the selection of the victims, and the proportion of the

punishment awarded. Others, in the language of a great poet,

'Had pitied _her,_ and not her grief;'

they had either not been able to see, or, from carelessness, had

neglected to see, any peculiar wrong done to her in the matter which

occasioned her grief,--but had simply felt compassion for her as for

one summoned, in a regular course of providential and human

dispensation, to face an affliction, heavy in itself, but not heavy

from any special defect of equity. Consequently their very sympathy,

being so much built upon the assumption that an only child had offended

to the extent implied in his sentence, oftentimes clothed itself in

expressions which she felt to be not consolations but insults, and, in

fact, so many justifications of those whom it relieved her overcharged

heart to regard as the very worst of enemies. Agnes, on the other hand,

took the very same view of the case as herself; and, though otherwise

the gentlest of all gentle creatures, yet here, from the generous

fervor of her reverence for justice, and her abhorrence of oppression,

she gave herself no trouble to moderate the energy of her language: nor

did I, on my part, feeling that substantially she was in the right,

think it of importance to dispute about the exact degrees of the wrong

done or the indignation due to it. In this way it happened naturally

enough that at one and the same time, though little contemplating

either of these results, Agnes had done a prodigious service to the

poor desolate mother by breaking the force of her misery, as well as by

arming the active agencies of indignation against the depressing ones

of solitary grief, and for herself had won a most grateful and devoted

friend, who would have gone through fire and water to serve her, and

was thenceforwards most anxious for some opportunity to testify how

deep had been her sense of the goodness shown to her by her benign

young mistress, and how incapable of suffering abatement by time. It

remains to add, which I have slightly noticed before, that this woman

was of unusual personal strength: her bodily frame matched with her

intellectual: and I notice this _now_ with the more emphasis,

because I am coming rapidly upon ground where it will be seen that this

one qualification was of more summary importance to us--did us more

'yeoman's service' at a crisis the most awful--than other qualities of

greater name and pretension. _Hannah_ was this woman's Christian

name; and her name and her memory are to me amongst the most hallowed

of my earthly recollections.

One of her two fellow-servants, known technically amongst us as the

'parlor maid,' was also, but not equally, attached to her mistress; and

merely because her nature, less powerfully formed and endowed, did not

allow her to entertain or to comprehend any service equally fervid of

passion or of impassioned action. She, however, was good, affectionate,

and worthy to be trusted. But a third there was, a nursery maid, and

therefore more naturally and more immediately standing within the

confidence of her mistress--her I could not trust: her I suspected. But

of that hereafter. Meantime, Hannah, she upon whom I leaned as upon a

staff in all which respected her mistress, ran up stairs, after I had

spoken and received her answer, in order hastily to dress and prepare

herself for going out along with me to the city. I did not ask her to

be quick in her movements: I knew there was no need: and, whilst she

was absent, I took up, in one of my fretful movements of nervousness, a

book which was lying upon a side-table: the book fell open of itself at

a particular page; and in that, perhaps, there was nothing

extraordinary, for it was a little portable edition of _Paradise

Lost_; and the page was one which I must naturally have turned to

many a time: for to Agnes I had read all the great masters of

literature, especially those of modern times; so that few people knew

the high classics more familiarly: and as to the passage in question,

from its divine beauty I had read it aloud to her, perhaps, on fifty

separate occasions. All this I mention to take away any appearance of a

vulgar attempt to create omens; but still, in the very act of

confessing the simple truth, and thus weakening the marvellous

character of the anecdote, I must notice it as a strange instance of

the '_Sortes Miltonianæ_,'--that precisely at such a moment as

this I should find thrown in my way, should feel tempted to take up,

and should open, a volume containing such a passage as the following:

and observe, moreover, that although the volume, _once being taken

up_, would naturally open where it had been most frequently read,

there were, however, many passages which had been read _as_

frequently--or more so. The particular passage upon which I opened at

this moment was that most beautiful one in which the fatal morning

separation is described between Adam and his bride--that separation so

pregnant with wo, which eventually proved the occasion of the mortal

transgression--the last scene between our first parents at which both

were innocent and both were happy--although the superior intellect

already felt, and, in the slight altercation preceding this separation,

had already expressed a dim misgiving of some coming change: these are

the words, and in depth of pathos they have rarely been approached:--

'Oft he to her his charge of quick return

Repeated; she to him as oft engag'd

To be returned by noon amid the bow'r,

And all things in best order to invite

Noon-tide repast, or afternoon's repose.

Oh much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve!

Of thy presumed return, event perverse!

Thou never from that hour in Paradise

Found'st either sweet repast, or sound repose.'

'_My_ Eve!' I exclaimed, 'partner in _my_ paradise, where art thou?

_Much failing_ thou wilt not be found, nor _much deceived_; innocent in

any case thou art; but, alas! too surely by this time _hapless_, and

the victim of some diabolic wickedness.' Thus I murmured to myself;

thus I ejaculated; thus I apostrophized my Agnes; then again came a

stormier mood. I could not sit still; I could not stand in quiet; I

threw the book from me with violence against the wall; I began to hurry

backwards and forwards in a short uneasy walk, when suddenly a sound, a

step; it was the sound of the garden-gate opening, followed by a hasty

tread. Whose tread? Not for a moment could it be fancied the oread step

which belonged to that daughter of the hills--my wife, my Agnes; no, it

was the dull massy tread of a man: and immediately there came a loud

blow upon the door, and in the next moment, the bell having been found,

a furious peal of ringing. Oh coward heart! not for a lease of

immortality could I have gone forwards myself. My breath failed me; an

interval came in which respiration seemed to be stifled--the blood to

halt in its current; and then and there I recognised in myself the

force and living truth of that Scriptural description of a heart

consciously beset by evil without escape: 'Susannah _sighed_.' Yes, a

long, long sigh--a deep, deep sigh--that is, the natural language by

which the over-charged heart utters forth the wo that else would break

it. I sighed--oh how profoundly! But that did not give me power to

move. Who will go to the door? I whispered audibly. Who is at the door?

was the inaudible whisper of my heart. Then might be seen the

characteristic differences of the three women. That one, whom I

suspected, I heard raising an upper window to look out and reconnoitre.

The affectionate Rachael, on the other hand, ran eagerly down stairs;

but Hannah, half dressed, even her bosom exposed, passed her like a

storm; and before I heard any sound of opening a door, I saw from the

spot where I stood the door already wide open, and a man in the costume

of a policeman. All that he said I could not hear; but this I heard--

that I was wanted at the police office, and had better come off without

delay. He seemed then to get a glimpse of me, and to make an effort

towards coming nearer; but I slunk away, and left to Hannah the task of

drawing from him any circumstances which he might know. But apparently

there was not much to tell, or rather, said I, there is too much, the

_much_ absorbs the _many_; some one mighty evil transcends and quells

all particulars. At length the door was closed, and the man was gone.

Hannah crept slowly along the passage, and looked in hesitatingly. Her

very movements and stealthy pace testified that she had heard nothing

which, even by comparison, she could think good news. 'Tell me not now,

Hannah,' I said; 'wait till we are in the open air.' She went up stairs

again. How short seemed the time till she descended! how I longed for

further respite! 'Hannah!' I said at length when we were fairly moving

upon the road, 'Hannah! I am too sure you have nothing good to tell.

But now tell me the worst, and let that be in the fewest words

possible.'

'Sir,' she said, 'we had better wait until we reach the office; for

really I could not understand the man. He says that my mistress is

detained upon some charge; but _what_, I could not at all make

out. He was a man that knew something of you, Sir, I believe, and he

wished to be civil, and kept saying, "Oh! I dare say it will turn out

nothing at all, many such charges are made idly and carelessly, and

some maliciously." "But what charges?" I cried, and then he wanted to

speak privately to you. But I told him that of all persons he must not

speak to you, if he had anything painful to tell; for that you were too

much disturbed already, and had been for some hours, out of anxiety and

terror about my mistress, to bear much more. So, when he heard that, he

was less willing to speak freely than before. He might prove wrong, he

said; he might give offence; things might turn out far otherwise than

according to first appearances; for his part, he could not believe

anything amiss of so sweet a lady. And after all, it would be better to

wait till we reached the office.'

Thus much then was clear--Agnes was under some accusation. This was

already worse than the worst I had anticipated. 'And then,' said I,

thinking aloud to Hannah, 'one of two things is apparent to me; either

the accusation is one of pure hellish malice, without a color of

probability or the shadow of a foundation, and that way, alas! I am

driven in my fears by that Hungarian woman's prophecy; or, which but

for my desponding heart I should be more inclined to think, the charge

has grown out of my poor wife's rustic ignorance as to the usages then

recently established by law with regard to the kind of money that could

be legally tendered. This, however, was a suggestion that did not tend

to alleviate my anxiety; and my nervousness had mounted to a painful,

almost to a disabling degree, by the time we reached the office.

Already on our road thither some parties had passed us who were

conversing with eagerness upon the case: so much we collected from the

many and ardent expressions about 'the lady's beauty,' though the rest

of such words as we could catch were ill calculated to relieve my

suspense. This, then, at least, was certain--that my poor timid Agnes

had already been exhibited before a tumultuous crowd; that her name and

reputation had gone forth as a subject of discussion for the public;

and that the domestic seclusion and privacy within which it was her

matronly privilege to move had already undergone a rude violation.

The office, and all the purlieus of the office, were occupied by a

dense crowd. That, perhaps, was always the case, more or less, at this

time of day; but at present the crowd was manifestly possessed by a

more than ordinary interest; and there was a unity in this possessing

interest; all were talking on the same subject, the case in which Agnes

had so recently appeared in some character or other; and by this time

it became but too certain in the character of an accused person. Pity

was the prevailing sentiment amongst the mob; but the opinions varied

much as to the probable criminality of the prisoner. I made my way into

the office. The presiding magistrates had all retired for the

afternoon, and would not reassemble until eight o'clock in the evening.

Some clerks only or officers of the court remained, who were too much

harassed by applications for various forms and papers connected with

the routine of public business, and by other official duties which

required signatures or attestations, to find much leisure for answering

individual questions. Some, however, listened with a marked air of

attention to my earnest request for the circumstantial details of the

case, but finally referred me to a vast folio volume, in which were

entered all the charges, of whatever nature, involving any serious

tendency--in fact, all that exceeded a misdemeanor--in the regular

chronological succession according to which they came before the

magistrate. Here, in this vast calendar of guilt and misery, amidst the

_aliases_ or cant designations of ruffians, prostitutes, felons,

stood the description, at full length, Christian and surnames all

properly registered, of my Agnes--of her whose very name had always

sounded to my ears like the very echo of mountain innocence, purity,

and pastoral simplicity. Here in another column stood the name and

residence of her accuser. I shall call him _Barratt_, for that was

amongst his names, and a name by which he had at one period of his

infamous life been known to the public, though not his principal name,

or the one which he had thought fit to assume at this era. James

Barratt, then, as I shall here call him, was a haberdasher--keeping a

large and conspicuous shop in a very crowded and what was then

considered a fashionable part of the city. The charge was plain and

short. Did I live to read it? It accused Agnes M---- of having on that

morning secreted in her muff, and feloniously carried away, a valuable

piece of Mechlin lace, the property of James Barratt. And the result of

the first examination was thus communicated in a separate column,

written in red ink--'Remanded to the second day after to-morrow for

final examination.' Everything in this sin-polluted register was in

manuscript; but at night the records of each day were regularly

transferred to a printed journal, enlarged by comments and explanatory

descriptions from some one of the clerks, whose province it was to

furnish this intelligence to the public journals. On that same night,

therefore, would go forth to the world such an account of the case, and

such a description of my wife's person, as would inevitably summon to

the next exhibition of her misery, as by special invitation and

advertisement, the whole world of this vast metropolis--the idle, the

curious, the brutal, the hardened amateur in spectacles of wo, and the

benign philanthropist who frequents such scenes with the purpose of

carrying alleviation to their afflictions. All alike, whatever might be

their motives or the spirit of their actions, would rush (as to some

grand festival of curiosity and sentimental luxury) to this public

martyrdom of my innocent wife.

Meantime, what was the first thing to be done? Manifestly, to see

Agnes: her account of the affair might suggest the steps to be taken.

Prudence, therefore, at any rate, prescribed this course; and my heart

would not have tolerated any other. I applied, therefore, at once, for

information as to the proper mode of effecting this purpose without

delay. What was my horror at learning that, by a recent regulation of

all the police-offices, under the direction of the public minister who

presided over that department of the national administration, no person

could be admitted to an interview with any accused party during the

progress of the official examinations; or, in fact, until the final

committal of the prisoner for trial. This rule was supposed to be

attended by great public advantages, and had rarely been relaxed--

never, indeed, without a special interposition of the police minister

authorizing its suspension. But was the exclusion absolute and

universal? Might not, at least, a female servant, simply as the bearer

of such articles as were indispensable to female delicacy and comfort,

have access to her mistress? No; the exclusion was total and

unconditional. To argue the point was manifestly idle; the subordinate

officers had no discretion in the matter; nor, in fact, had any other

official person, whatever were his rank, except the supreme one; and to

him I neither had any obvious means of introduction, nor (in case of

obtaining such an introduction) any chance of success; for the spirit

of the rule, I foresaw it would be answered, applied with especial

force to cases like the present.

Mere human feelings of pity, sympathy with my too visible agitation,

superadded to something of perhaps reverence for the blighting misery

that was now opening its artillery upon me--for misery has a privilege,

and everywhere is felt to be a holy thing--had combined to procure for

me some attention and some indulgence hitherto. Answers had been given

with precision, explanations made at length, and anxiety shown to

satisfy my inquiries. But this could not last; the inexorable

necessities of public business coming back in a torrent upon the

official people after this momentary interruption, forbade them to

indulge any further consideration for an individual case, and I saw

that I must not stay any longer. I was rapidly coming to be regarded as

a hinderance to the movement of public affairs; and the recollection

that I might again have occasion for some appeal to these men in their

official characters, admonished me not to abuse my privilege of the

moment. After returning thanks, therefore, for the disposition shown to

oblige me, I retired.

Slowly did I and Hannah retrace our steps. Hannah sustained, in the

tone of her spirits, by the extremity of her anger, a mood of feeling

which I did not share. Indignation was to her in the stead of

consolation and hope. I, for my part, could not seek even a momentary

shelter from my tempestuous affliction in that temper of mind. The man

who could accuse my Agnes, and accuse her of such a crime, I felt to be

a monster; and in my thoughts he was already doomed to a bloody

atonement (atonement! alas! what atonement!) whenever the time arrived

that _her_ cause would not be prejudiced, or the current of public

feeling made to turn in his favor by investing him with the semblance

of an injured or suffering person. So much was settled in my thoughts

with the stern serenity of a decree issuing from a judgment-seat. But

that gave no relief, no shadow of relief, to the misery which was now

consuming me. Here was an end, in one hour, to the happiness of a life.

In one hour it had given way, root and branch--had melted like so much

frost-work, or a pageant of vapory exhalations. In a moment, in the

twinkling of an eye, and yet for ever and ever, I comprehended the

total ruin of my situation. The case, as others might think, was yet in

suspense; and there was room enough for very rational hopes, especially

where there was an absolute certainty of innocence. Total freedom from

all doubt on that point seemed to justify almost more than hopes. This

might be said, and most people would have been more or less consoled by

it. I was not. I felt as certain, as irredeemably, as hopelessly

certain of the final results as though I had seen the record in the

books of Heaven. 'Hope nothing,' I said to myself; 'think not of hope

in this world, but think only how best to walk steadily, and not to

reel like a creature wanting discourse of reason, or incapable of

religious hopes under the burden which it has pleased God to impose,

and which in this life cannot be shaken off. The countenance of man is

made to look upward and to the skies. Thither also point henceforwards

your heart and your thoughts. Never again let your thoughts travel

earthwards. Settle them on the heavens, to which your Agnes is already

summoned. The call is clear, and not to be mistaken. Little in

_her_ fate now depends upon you, or upon anything that man can do.

Look, therefore, to yourself; see that you make not shipwreck of your

heavenly freight because your earthly freight is lost; and miss not, by

any acts of wild and presumptuous despair, that final reunion with your

Agnes, which can only be descried through vistas that open through the

heavens.'

Such were the thoughts, thoughts often made audible, which came

spontaneously like oracles from afar, as I strode homewards with Hannah

by my side. Her, meantime, I seemed to hear; for at times I seemed and

I intended to answer her. But answer her I did not; for not ten words

of all that she said did I really and consciously hear. How I went

through that night is more entirely a blank in my memory, more entirely

a chapter of chaos and the confusion of chaos, than any other passage

the most impressive in my life. If I even slumbered for a moment, as at

intervals I did sometimes, though never sitting down, but standing or

pacing about throughout the night, and if in this way I attained a

momentary respite from self-consciousness, no sooner had I reached this

enviable state of oblivion, than some internal sting of irritation

_as_ rapidly dispersed the whole fickle fabric of sleep; and as if

the momentary trance--this fugitive beguilement of my wo--had been

conceded by a demon's subtle malice only with the purpose of barbing

the pang, by thus forcing it into a stronger relief through the

insidious peace preceding it. It is a well known and most familiar

experience to all the sons and daughters of affliction, that under no

circumstances is the piercing, lancinating torment of a recent calamity

felt so keenly as in the first moments of awaking in the morning from

the night's slumbers. Just at the very instant when the clouds of

sleep, and the whole fantastic illusions of dreaminess are dispersing,

just as the realities of life are re-assuming their steadfast forms--

re-shaping themselves--and settling anew into those fixed relations

which they are to preserve throughout the waking hours; in that

particular crisis of transition from the unreal to the real, the wo

which besieges the brain and the life-springs at the heart rushes in

afresh amongst the other crowd of realities, and has at the moment of

restoration literally the force and liveliness of a new birth--the very

same pang, and no whit feebler, as that which belonged to it when it

was first made known. From the total hush of oblivion which had buried

it and sealed it up, as it were, during the sleeping hours, it starts

into sudden life on our first awaking, and is to all intents and

purposes a new and not an old affliction--one which brings with it the

old original shock which attended its first annunciation.

That night--that first night of separation from my wife--_how_ it

passed, I know not; I know only _that_ it passed, I being in our

common bed-chamber, that holiest of all temples that are consecrated to

human attachments, whenever the heart is pure of man and woman, and the

love is strong--I being in that bedchamber, once the temple now the

sepulchre of our happiness,--I there, and my wife--my innocent wife--in

a dungeon. As the morning light began to break, somebody knocked at the

door; it was Hannah: she took my hand--misery levels all feeble

distinctions of station, sex, age--she noticed my excessive

feverishness, and gravely remonstrated with me upon the necessity there

was that I should maintain as much health as possible for the sake of

'others,' if not for myself. She then brought me some tea, which

refreshed me greatly; for I had tasted nothing at all beyond a little

water since the preceding morning's breakfast. This refreshment seemed

to relax and thaw the stiff frozen state of cheerless, rayless despair

in which I had passed the night; I became susceptible of consolation--

that consolation which lies involved in kindness and gentleness of

manner--if not susceptible more than before of any positive hope. I sat

down; and, having no witnesses to my weakness but this kind and

faithful woman, I wept, and I found a relief in tears; and she, with

the ready sympathy of woman, wept along with me. All at once she

ventured upon the circumstances (so far as she had been able to collect

them from the reports of those who had been present at the examination)

of our calamity. There was little indeed either to excite or to gratify

any interest or curiosity separate from the _personal_ interest

inevitably connected with a case to which there were two such parties

as a brutal, sensual, degraded ruffian, on one side in character of

accuser, and on the other as defendant, a meek angel of a woman, timid

and fainting from the horrors of her situation, and under the

licentious gaze of the crowd--yet, at the same time, bold in conscious

innocence, and in the very teeth of the suspicions which beset her,

winning the good opinion, as well as the good wishes of all who saw

her. There had been at this first examination little for her to say

beyond the assigning her name, age, and place of abode; and here it was

fortunate that her own excellent good sense concurred with her perfect

integrity and intuitive hatred of all indirect or crooked courses in

prompting her to an undisguised statement of the simple truth, without

a momentary hesitation or attempt either at evasion or suppression.

With equally good intentions in similar situations many a woman has

seriously injured her cause by slight evasions of the entire truth,

where nevertheless her only purpose has been the natural and ingenuous

one of seeking to save the reputation untainted of a name which she

felt to have been confided to her keeping. The purpose was an honorable

one, but erroneously pursued. Agnes fell into no such error. She

answered calmly, simply, and truly, to every question put by the

magistrates; and beyond _that_ there was little opportunity for

her to speak; the whole business of this preliminary examination being

confined to the deposition of the accuser as to the circumstances under

which he alleged the act of felonious appropriation to have taken

place. These circumstances were perfectly uninteresting, considered in

themselves; but amongst them was one which to us had the most shocking

interest, from the absolute proof thus furnished of a deep-laid plot

against Agnes. But for this one circumstance there would have been a

possibility that the whole had originated in error--error growing out

of and acting upon a nature originally suspicious, and confirmed

perhaps by an unfortunate experience. And in proportion as that was

possible, the chances increased that the accuser might, as the

examinations advanced, and the winning character of the accused party

began to develop itself, begin to see his error, and to retract his own

over-hasty suspicions. But now we saw at a glance that for this hope

there was no countenance whatever, since one solitary circumstance

sufficed to establish a conspiracy. The deposition bore--that the lace

had been secreted and afterwards detected in a muff; now it was a fact

as well known to both of us as the fact of Agnes having gone out at

all--that she had laid aside her winter's dress for the first time on

this genial sunny day. Muff she had not at the time, nor could have had

appropriately from the style of her costume in other respects. What was

the effect upon us of this remarkable discovery! Of course there died

at once the hope of any abandonment by the prosecutor of his purpose;

because here was proof of a predetermined plot. This hope died at once;

but then, as it was one which never had presented itself to my mind, I

lost nothing by which I had ever been solaced. On the other hand, it

will be obvious that a new hope at the same time arose to take its

place, viz., the reasonable one that by this single detection, if once

established, we might raise a strong presumption of conspiracy, and

moreover that, as a leading fact or clue, it might serve to guide us in

detecting others. Hannah was sanguine in this expectation; and for a

moment her hopes were contagiously exciting to mine. But the hideous

despondency which in my mind had settled upon the whole affair from the

very first, the superstitious presentiment I had of a total blight

brooding over the entire harvest of my life and its promises, (tracing

itself originally, I am almost ashamed to own, up to that prediction of

the Hungarian woman)--denied me steady light, anything--all in short

but a wandering ray of hope. It was right, of course, nay,

indispensable, that the circumstance of the muff should be strongly

insisted upon at the next examination, pressed against the prosecutor,

and sifted to the uttermost. An able lawyer would turn this to a

triumphant account; and it would be admirable as a means of pre-

engaging the good opinion as well as the sympathies of the public in

behalf of the prisoner. But, for its final effect--my conviction

remained, not to be shaken, that all would be useless; that our doom

had gone forth, and was irrevocable.