"A stranger,--an exile. Misfortune appeals not to woman's heart
unalleviated. He threw himself on my protection; and where the feelings
own no taint, their purity is not sullied,--even in a lady's
bedchamber!"
A glance of insulted pride passed over her beautifully-formed features.
It was but for a moment. The agony of her spirit soon drank up the
slender rill her feelings had gushed forth, and she stood withered and
drooping before the angry frown of her father.
"Surely, 'tis not the rebel Tyrone that my daughter harbours in the
privacy of her chamber? Speak!--Nay, then hast thou indeed brought an
old man's grey hairs to the grave in sorrow! Treason!--Oh, that I have
lived for this,--and my own flesh and blood hath done it. Out of my
sight, unnatural monster. Dare not to crawl again across my path, lest I
kill thee!"
"O my father! I am indeed innocent." She again threw herself at his
feet, but he spurned her from him as though he loathed her beyond
endurance. Boiling and maddened with rage at the presumption of this
daring rebel, Holt, forgetful of his own danger, seized the light. He
burst open the secret door; but what was his astonishment on beholding,
not the hated form of Tyrone, but the officer of justice himself,
gagged, pinioned, and deprived of his outer dress. The cap and mantle of
Tyrone, by his side, told too plainly of the daring and dangerous
exploit by which his escape had been effected.
The outlaw, soon after his enlargement, finding that the cause he had
espoused was hopeless, and that matters were at the last extremity in
his own fate, and that of his unhappy country,--fearful, too, of drawing
the innocent Constance and her father into the deep vortex of his own
ruin,--made all haste to the capital, where, through the powerful
interest excited in his behalf, aided by his well-known valour and the
influence he was known to possess amongst his countrymen, he received a
free pardon from the Queen.
Yet his thoughts lingered on the remembrance of her to whose heroic and
confiding spirit he owed his safety. Never had his proud bosom been so
enthralled. Though nurtured in camps, amid the din of arms, and the
shout of the battle, yet his knowledge of the female heart was almost
intuitive. He had loved more than once, but in every case the attachment
ended unhappily, terminating either by the death of the object or by
some calamity his own evil fate had unavoidably brought upon its victim.
Though fearful the same operation of his destiny would ensue, and that
misery and misfortune would still follow the current of his affections,
yet he resolved to behold once more the maiden he loved with an ardour
almost surpassing his own belief.
One cold dull morning, towards the wane of the year, when the heavy
drops lay long on the rank herbage; no sunbeam yet loitering through the
damp chill atmosphere, but the sky one wide and unvarying expanse--a sea
of cloud--here and there a black scud passing over, like a dim bark
sweeping across the bosom of that "waveless deep," a stranger stood by a
low wicket near the mansion of Grislehurst. He looked wistfully at the
gloomy windows, unlighted by a single reflection from without, like the
rayless night of his own soul:--they were mostly closed. A mysterious
and unusual stillness prevailed. The brown leaves fluttered about,
unswept from the dreary avenues. Decayed branches obstructed the paths;
and every object wore a look of wretchedness and dilapidation. The only
sign of occupancy and life was one grey wreath of smoke, curling heavily
from its vent, as if oppressed with the gloom by which it was
surrounded. The melancholy note of the redbreast was the only living
sound, as the bird came hopping towards him with its usual air of
familiarity and respect. Enveloped in a military cloak, and in his cap a
dark feather drooping gently over his proud features, the stranger
slowly approached the house: a side-door stood partly open. He entered.
A narrow passage led into the hall. No embers brightened the huge
chimney. The table showed no relics of the feast,--no tokens of the past
night's revel. The deer's antlers still hung over the master's place at
the board, but the oaken chair was gone. Dust and desertion had played
strange antics in these "high places." The busy spider had wreathed her
dingy festoons in mockery over the pomp she degraded.
He listened, but there was no sound, save the last faint echo of his
footstep. Turning towards the staircase, a beautiful spaniel, a sort of
privileged favourite of Constance, came, with a deep growl, as if to
warn away the intruder. But the sagacious animal suddenly fawned upon
him, and with a low whine ascended the stairs, looking back wistfully,
as though inviting him to follow.
Scarcely knowing why, or bestowing one thought on the nature of his
intrusion, he ascended. The place seemed familiar to him. He entered a
narrow gallery, where he paused, overcome by some sudden and
overwhelming emotion. The dog stood too, looking back with a low and
sorrowful whine. With a sudden effort he grappled with and shook off the
dark spirit that threatened to overpower him. A low murmur was heard
apparently from a chamber at no great distance. Without reflecting a
moment on the impropriety of his situation, he hastily approached the
door. His guide, with a look of almost irresistible persuasion, implored
him to enter.
It was the chamber of Constance. A female was kneeling by the bed, too
much absorbed to be conscious of his approach: she was in the attitude
of prayer. He recognised the old nurse,--her eye glistening in the
fervour of devotion, whilst pouring forth, to her FATHER in secret, the
agony of soul that words are too feeble to express.
Bending over the bed, as if for the support of some frail victim of
disease, he beheld the lord of the mansion. His look was wild and
haggard;--no moisture floated over his eyeballs: they were glazed and
motionless; arid as the hot desert,--no refreshing rain dropped from
their burning orbs, dimmed with the shadows of despair.
Stretched on the bed, her pale cheek resting on the bosom of her father,
lay the yet beauteous form of Constance Holt. A hectic flush at times
passed across her features. Her lip, shrunk and parched with the fever
that consumed her, was moistened by an attendant with unremitting and
unwearied assiduity; her eye often rose in tenderness on her parent, as
if anxious to impart to him the consolation she enjoyed.
"Oh, I am happy, my father!" Here a sudden change was visible,--some
chord of sorrow was touched, and it vibrated to her soul.
Her father spoke not.
"I _have_ loved!--Oh, faithfully. But, now--let me die without a murmur
to Thee, or one wish but Thy will, and I am happy!" She raised her soft
and streaming eyes towards the throne of that Mercy she addressed. The
cloud passed, but she sank back on her pillow, exhausted with the
conflict. Her father bent over her in silent terror, anticipating the
last struggle. Suddenly he exclaimed, as if to call back the yet
lingering spirit:--
"Live, my Constance! Could I save thee, thou blighted bud--blighted by
my"--His lip grew pale; he struck his forehead, and a groan like the
last expiring throe of nature escaped him.
"Would the destroyer of my peace were here!--'Tis too late--or I would
not now forbid thy love. But he was a traitor, a rebel--else"----
Constance gradually revived from her insensibility. A sudden flash from
the departing spirit seemed to have animated her--a new and vehement
energy, which strangely contrasted with her weak and debilitated frame.
"I have seen him," she cried. "Oh, methought his form passed before
me;--but it is gone!" She looked eagerly round the apartment; other eyes
involuntarily followed,--but no living object could be distinguished
through the chill and oppressive gloom that brooded over that chamber of
death.
"It was a vision--a shadowy messenger from the tomb. Yet, once more if I
might see him--ere I die." A deep sob, succeeded by a rapid gush of
tears, relieved her; but it told of the powerful and all-pervading
passion not yet extinguished in her breast.
"We shall meet!" again she raised her eyes towards that throne to which
the sigh of the sufferer never ascended in vain.
"Yes, my own--my loved Constance, now!" cried the stranger, rushing from
his concealment. He clasped her in his arms. A gleam, like sunlight
across the wave, shot athwart the shadow that was gathering on her eye.
It seemed the forerunner of a change. The anxious father forbore to
speak, but he looked on his daughter with an agony that seemed to
threaten either reason or existence. Constance gazed on her lover, but
her eye gradually became more dim. Her band relaxed in his grasp, yet
her features wore a look of serenity and happiness.
"O most merciful Father! Thou hast heard my prayer, through Him whose
merits have found me a place in that glory to which I come. Be merciful
to him whose love is true as mine own, and faithful unto death. Tyrone,
we meet again!--Oh, how have I prayed for thee!" Her eyes seemed to
brighten even in this world with the glories of another.
"Farewell!--I hear the hymns of yon ransomed ones around the throne.
They beckon my spirit from these dark places of sorrow. Now--farewell!"
She cast one look towards her lover: it was the last glimpse of earth.
The next moment her gaze was on the brightness of that world whence
sorrow and sighing flee away. So sudden was the transition, that the
first smile of the disembodied spirit seemed to linger on the abode she
had left, like the evening cloud, reflecting the glories of another sky,
ere it fades for ever into the darkness and solitude of night.
[Illustration: HOGHTON TOWER.
_Drawn by G. Pickering. Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]