“His long rambles by the shore
On winter evenings when the roar
Of the near waves came sadly grand
Through the dark, up the drowned sand.
TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.
“And she is happy? does she see unmoved
The days in which she might have lived and loved
Slip without bringing bliss slowly away,
One after one, to-morrow like to-day?”
ISEULT OF BRITTANY.
“You heard from Gwyneth this morning, dear,” said Captain Duncan to
his sister one evening, as they sat together after tea. They had been
in their new home about two years.
“Yes, here is the letter.”
“Hurstdene Vicarage.
“DEAR HILARY,
“You know how little I wished to come here, but George
thought it right, and so we came; and the old place is so
changed that it is not so very painful; only the date above
looks like old times, and reminds me, more than any thing
else, of the past. It is a fine large house, but I hope all
future vicars will be rich, or I do not know what they will
do. Isabel complains of it as cramped and small, however; it
was too small to ask nurse and baby here, so my boy is at
home. She considers it unhealthy too!
“The church is finished quite. It would not have been, but
for ‘my lord’s’ perseverance and purse; and as Isabel’s
extravagant plans were abandoned, it looks very nice. The
graves at the east end are fresh and well-cared for; that
dear old spot! You may guess how I went there first; and the
seat under the lime-tree is carefully painted, and a date
cut on it, of the day before we left Hurstdene. Why?
“I asked James who had done that? He did not know, but old
Martin told me it was Mr. Huyton of ‘the Ferns’――again I ask
why? He is still abroad, poor man! and oh! poor, _poor_
Dora! she is much the same, yet they fancy there are
dawnings of intellect sometimes. I have seen her companion,
Miss Lightfoot; I am not allowed to see her. Lady Margaret,
you know, lives at the Abbey. Poor Mr. Barham is so changed;
he looks humbled and heart-broken.
“After all, Hilary, real sorrow may be a great blessing; and
can those who have never known grief――a grief they were not
ashamed to feel and acknowledge, can they know how to feel
for others? I think not.
“Lord D. went round with me, and visited all the old people;
they seemed quite glad to see me again, and asked, oh! so
many questions about you all. The curate is very good and
attentive; I don’t fancy they see much of the vicar; I
wonder why I ever supposed him such a devoted clergyman; yet
he seems always immersed in business, desperately occupied.
I believe it is _system_ he wants; I am sure our parish at
Ufford is much better managed; but then with two such heads
as ‘my lord’s,’ and Mr. Barton’s, no wonder.
“Things have certainly got wrong somehow. Isabel would have
made a better wife to a peer than a priest, and there can
not be a doubt but that George would have been a better
clergyman than his brother; though to fill his own station
better than Lord D. does would be quite impossible. I must
not write any more, he is calling me to walk――”
Maurice listened in silence to this letter, and after some meditation,
he observed,
“How happy Gwyneth is!”
Just then Nest entered the room.
“How it blows,” she observed, as she sat down; “and it is so dark; I
looked out just now, to try and catch a glimpse of the sea, but every
thing was as black as pitch; and, oh, such a roar of waves!”
“Just the night for me to visit the South Point Station,” observed
Maurice, rising; “and it is time I was gone, too; but this pleasant
fire and good tea make one lazy, Nest.”
“Must you ride all along those cliffs to-night, Maurice?――it is such a
storm!” observed Hilary.
She had not yet become accustomed to the night-work, so as to see him
depart without anxiety.
“Oh, that’s nothing!” said he, as he put on his great pilot coat; “and
this is a fine night for smugglers: suppose I were to intercept a
cargo to-night.”
The horse was brought round, and his sisters both went to the door to
see him mount. They stood within the shelter of the porch, shading a
candle as well as they could from the draft, while its flickering
streams of light fell on exterior objects, forming grotesque shadows
and strange contrasts, and then losing themselves in the dark
back-ground.
Maurice kissed them both, and bade them go to bed, then mounted and
trotted off over the hill.
They listened till the horse-hoofs had died on the ear, then they
turned together to the house.
“Let me stay with you to-night, Hilary――do,” said Nest, coaxingly; “it
will be so melancholy for you to sit here all alone, and listen to the
great roar of the waves.”
Hilary smiled an assent, and they sat down together.
It was not quite nine o’clock when Maurice left them; but as they
could not expect him back for more than a couple of hours, Mrs.
Hepburn did not intend that her younger sister, who was now growing
into a tall girl of thirteen, somewhat delicate and fragile, should
remain watching till nearly midnight. It was true that she herself
felt unusually nervous and uncomfortable to-night, but these were
foolish tremors, to which it would not do to give way; and Nest’s
health must not be sacrificed to her own idle fancies; she resolved
that no persuasion should induce her to prolong their joint vigil.
The wildness of the night seemed to have affected even Nest’s spirits;
instead of chatting in her usual lively manner, she was almost silent,
only now and then exclaiming as a louder burst of wind seemed to roll
over the house, or a heavier wave dashed against the rocks below.
Hilary had learned to love the deep roar, the hollow murmur, and the
angry rush of the ocean-wave; they spoke to her of other times, in a
strange language which was intelligible only to the finer feelings.
What the connection was between their voices and the memory of the
lost one, she could not have explained; but she never heard the one
without musing on the other; and now her heart had traveled away to
by-gone hours, as she sat by the fire, until roused by the clock
striking ten, she begged Nest to go to bed.
But Nest still remonstrated, and entreated to stay; and to beguile the
time, began asking questions of their old home, and leading Hilary to
talk of her childhood; and so the minutes flew by, until it was really
time to look for Maurice home; and Hilary again urged Nest to retire;
Maurice would be vexed to find her up so late.
Still Nest said, no, he would not; he would not mind it for once; she
must let her sit up, and when he came home they would have a little
comfortable supper together.
While they were discussing this point, the younger, with a decided
disinclination to leave her sister, and the elder almost equally
unwilling to let her go, they heard, during a lull, the sound of a
horse approaching at a rapid pace.
“It is Maurice!” said Hilary.
“No, that is not his riding; he went out on Acorn, and he never
gallops him so hard,” replied Nest, listening.
Hilary looked uneasy; ever since the one great shock she had received,
her nerves were as easily agitated as a compass-needle, and though
like it, too equally balanced to be moved from the center of rest,
still they
“Turned at the touch of joy or woe,
And turning, trembled too.”
“It is perhaps some messenger come to fetch Maurice,” said the
quick-witted Nest, who saw that her sister was uneasy; “for he is
certainly coming here.”
As she spoke the sounds approached quite close, and in another minute
they had stopped at the gate. The sisters ran out, and threw open the
door; a stranger was there, who advanced, and touched his cap to the
ladies.
“Please, madam, I bring a note from the captain, and am to take back
an answer.”
“Nothing the matter?” asked Hilary, breathless, scanning the
messenger’s countenance, as she took the note.
“Nothing with the captain,” was the answer.
And Hilary, retreating to the light, opened the twisted paper and
read――
“DEAR HILARY――
“Don’t be frightened; I want some linen for a man who has
been hurt here: some for _him_, some for his _bed_, he has
nothing! the messenger can tell you about the facts. I must
stay and take care of him to-night. I hope you will not
mind.
“Yours, M. D.”
“I will get what Captain Duncan wants, immediately,” said Mrs.
Hepburn; “come in and sit down while I do it.” She put the note into
Nest’s hands, saying, “Ask for an explanation, dear,” and hurried up
stairs.
The man, while he gladly spread his hands to the parlor fire, and
refused to sit down on the chairs, which looked too refined for his
society, told Miss Duncan that a yacht had appeared off the coast in
the morning, and that the preventive men, after watching it for some
time, saw a boat put off for the shore, with only one person in her.
As there was a heavy ground-swell, and the landing was extremely
dangerous, although the sea at the time, a hundred yards from the
shore, was like glass, they signaled the boat not to approach. Whether
the signals were unseen or unintelligible, they could not tell; the
boat made for the beach, immediately below the preventive station. As
might be expected, no sooner did she come within the influence of the
rolling sea, than she was caught on the crest of a wave, thrown
violently on the shore, capsized, stove, and the gentleman, for such
he was, was dashed into the surf, from which he was with difficulty
rescued by the coast-guard men, half-drowned, with a broken arm, and
other terrible injuries to his head and person. He had been carried
into a small public-house hard by, and after some hours they had
succeeded in obtaining a doctor to dress his wounds; the remote part
of the coast making it a matter of great difficulty to procure help of
any kind, until the fortunate arrival of the captain, who had told
them what to do, and was now with the wounded man.
“And who is he?” exclaimed Nest.
“Nobody knows, miss; the yacht had been cruising about a while, but
when the gale rose so heavily, she was obliged to stand off, and was
out of sight before night-fall. The coast is so dangerous, you see,
miss, she would be obliged to run for shelter to some better harbor,
or keep out to sea for more room. It would never do to be knocking
about here in these long dark nights.”
“And you don’t think they were smugglers, then?” said Nest, whose
ideas of romance were all running in that line, and who was little
interested in a matter-of-fact gentleman.
He assured her they had no suspicions of the sort; and Hilary coming
down at the moment with the requisite articles, the man mounted, and
rode off without delay. Nest had been both right and wrong; it was her
brother’s horse, though he was not the rider.
The sisters agreed now to go to bed at once, as Maurice was not coming
home till morning; and when Nest had repeated the story she had heard,
in every variety of way which her fancy could suggest, she allowed her
sister to go to sleep.
As soon as breakfast was over, the next morning, as the day was fair,
Hilary resolved to drive over to the station at South Point, and see
whether any thing more was required for the sufferer there. Nest
begged to go too; full of excitement and interest on the occasion.
It was a very lonely place; the small public house, into which the
stranger had been carried, stood low down on the beach, beneath high,
beetling rocks, above which was the preventive station, and it seemed
only fit to be the resort of fishers, or men of the same class. Mrs.
Hepburn and her sister, on entering found only the hostess below, and
desiring Nest to remain with her, the elder made her way up the steep,
ladder-like steps to a room above, where her brother was nursing the
sick man.
The door and the window were both open, and the pleasant breeze
streamed in with the morning sunbeams, which fell on Hilary as she
stood contemplating the couple within the room. Her brother was
sitting beside the bed, holding the hand of his patient, but his back
was to the door.
Supported by pillows, and evidently laboring for breath, the sick man
lay with his face toward her; but as his eyes were closed, he was not
aware of her presence. The flush of fever was on his cheek, the
contraction of pain on his brow; his countenance seemed the home of
sad unquiet thoughts; a thick curled beard and moustache of dark
auburn concealed the lower part of his face, while a bandage across
his forehead gave a more ghastly expression to his sunken eyes. Yet
even in those worn and pain-struck features, she thought she
recognized a something familiar, a something which sent her memory
back to her girlhood and her forest-home. He slowly opened his eyes,
and said, in a low, feeble voice――
“Maurice, I should like to see――Hilary!” added he, in a tone of wild
surprise, starting from his pillows, as his eyes fell on her. The
effort was too much, he sank back, overpowered by weakness, while
shadows of agony and terror seemed to cross his face.
“My mind wanders,” said he, placing his hand over his brow; “Maurice,
I thought I saw your sister――just as she was in the forest――the first
time we met.”
No wonder he was thus deluded; for as she stood there, with the glow
on her cheek from the fresh morning air, with her brown hair smoothly
parted on her forehead, her simple bonnet, and plain black dress, she
looked so calm, so youthful, so like the Hilary of his happiest hours,
he could hardly suppose her a reality; could years have made so little
change in her, so much in himself?
She approached, and placed her fingers on the only hand he had at
liberty; the other lay helpless by his side.
“It is I, myself,” said she, in her low, gentle voice. “Do not be
disturbed, Mr. Huyton.”
She saw it all at once; it was the friend of his youth, the very man
who had so deeply injured him, that Maurice had been nursing all
night.
“Are _you_ come too?” said he, in a broken voice, as he fixed his
dark, glowing eyes on her; “are you come to see me die? Angel, whom I
have so deeply injured; whose sad path in life I have made still
sadder! Are you come to bless or to curse me with your presence? Can
you forgive me now?”
“Forgive! ah yes――as I would be forgiven――long, long ago I forgave!”
“What a wretch I have been; yet I thought I loved you! and it _was_
love, earnest, real love, till your rejection turned it into
bitterness. Oh, if I had but listened to your pleading; yielded to
your mild remonstrances. Maurice, tell her that I have repented.”
“Hilary will believe it, I am sure, Charles,” replied Maurice; “do not
exhaust yourself by emotion.”
“Let me talk, my end is near. Listen. I was wild, frantic with grief
and remorse; horror-stricken at the wreck I had made of Dora’s
happiness, vainly repenting when too late――when――ah Hilary! forgive
me――when, as you were once more free, I found myself fettered to
her――poor thing! Miserable, I wandered from country to country――till I
met with one who taught me better, a true minister of the Gospel, who
taught me better, and sent me home to my duty――too long neglected. I
intended to do right――I meant to try and remedy, so far as I could,
the miserable past; my first step was to see Maurice, and ask his
pardon. I came here, and now I am dying――it is the only thing which
can really repair my crimes. To hear him speak forgiveness has been my
best comfort. Now let me die!”
Hilary’s tears fell fast over the hand she held in hers.
“Must he die, Maurice?” whispered she.
Captain Duncan shook his head sadly.
Charles again opened his eyes, which he had closed as sharp pains shot
through him. The cold drops of agony which stood on his forehead his
friend wiped gently away.
“Yes, I must die,” whispered he again to Hilary; “I know it; this pain
will only cease when mortification begins. I must die; and I am
thankful for it. I do not deserve it; a long life of penitence and
sorrow would have been my fitting fate; I have no right even to ask
for a speedy release. But for you, for others, it is better I should
go; if I could only repair my mad folly, my savage wickedness; if I
could only, in giving Dora liberty, give her back the reason I
frightened away; oh, I would suffer twenty times more pain, could I
restore her to you, Maurice, as she was.”
“God’s will be done!” said Maurice, gravely; “He gave, He took away!
Since she has been your wife, Charles, she has ceased to be the Dora
of my fancy.”
“You are weeping for me Hilary――how many tears I have made you shed. I
do not deserve one gentle thought: it was in mercy, undeserved mercy,
you were sent here, that I might hear you say you forgive me.”
“I do, indeed, from my soul.”
“And if _you_ do, you, who might have felt resentment――a fellow
mortal――I hope――I trust――I believe the Most High will hear my
penitence――and for that dear love which died for us all――” his voice
failed him again, in a fit of agonizing pain, terrible to see.
The injuries had been principally internal, and during the hours which
had passed before medical aid was procured, inflammation had
commenced, which it was now evident must end in death.
“Leave me,” said he, when he again had power to speak; “leave me,
Hilary, I do not deserve to give you pain; you suffer in seeing me
suffer.”
“No, let me stay,” she said, calmly; “let me nurse you.”
“Leave me; I once loved you better than life, than duty, than Heaven;
but I have struggled with a passion, wrong in its excess, criminal in
the husband of another. I have learned to govern it――to subdue it; but
do not come between me and better thoughts, do not drag me back to
earthly feelings. Let me voluntarily renounce the dearest, sweetest
thing on earth; let me prove my sincerity to myself. Leave me!”
She rose, and though she longed to linger there, she passed from the
bed-side, after one soft pressure of his feverish fingers.
“Farewell, till we meet above,” said she, and went from the room. She
did not, however, leave the house; but as soon as she went down
stairs, she sent off Nest and the servant, who had driven them, over
to the town to find the parish priest, and beg him to visit the dying
man.
Whatever friendship could suggest to soothe his pain, or pastoral
prayer and counsel could afford to support and guide him aright, was
granted him. But it was not till toward the afternoon, that the fierce
pain subsided, and he became calm. Then they knew that death was
rapidly advancing.
In the gray twilight, Hilary and Maurice returned home together,
leaving the friend and companion of their youth a quiet corpse. After
years of disappointment, anger, remorse, and repentance, he slept in
peace.
Hilary cried quietly nearly the whole drive home; she could not help
it. It was not only painful regret, or sorrow for the dead; but old
thoughts had been revived, old feelings, buried happiness, vanished
hopes, the gay visions of youth, all seemed suddenly awakened at this
painful meeting. And it is an awful thing to stand by the bed of one
whose wild passions, ungoverned temper, and wasted youth, have brought
on disappointment and death, even though we may hope they have ended
in true penitence and faith. We may hope, but we must tremble too!
Mr. Barham was sitting one afternoon with his youngest daughter, who
was amusing herself, with childish pleasure, over some brilliant
flowers, when the second post came in, and brought him a letter from
Maurice.
Captain Duncan wrote him for directions as to the corpse of his
son-in-law. His yacht had come into harbor the day after the storm,
and the captain suggested that they should carry the deceased owner
round to Bristol, as to the nearest port to “the Ferns,” from whence
the corpse could be transferred, according to Mr. Barham’s pleasure.
They waited his orders, as the guardian of Charles Huyton’s widow.
The letter contained the detail of his sad and yet hopeful end. It
dropped from Mr. Barham’s hands after he had read it, and crossing his
arms on the desk before him, he laid down his head and groaned aloud.
The manly, feeling tone of the letter, and all the sad thoughts it had
called up, oppressed him deeply.
His daughter looking up and seeing his emotion, went close to his
chair, and stroking his head as a child might do, she said, in a
fondling voice:
“Poor papa! poor papa! what is the matter?”
This completely overpowered him, he sobbed like a boy.
“Don’t cry, papa――yes, do――I wish I could, too: I never cry now――I
have no tears left――if I could only cry, the great weight on my head
might go.”
Then, in her childish way, she took the letter he had dropped, and
said: “I think I will read it too.”
She did so, for her father was too much overwhelmed to think.
“Father,” said she, “I think――I remember――did I dream it, or was it
true, that I once married Charles Huyton――that I was called his wife?”
Her tone was altered, it was her own voice; her father raised his head
in amazement, and looked at her. Strange gleams of thought flitted
across her face, like lights and shadows on a still ocean; memory and
mind were struggling with the dull torpor of disease. Her brain was
awaking! she slowly read again the touching words of Maurice Duncan;
she looked on his name at the conclusion of the letter. She
thought――she felt――she remembered the past.
“He was my husband,” said she.
“He was, dear child,” replied her father, trembling.
“Why did he leave me?” said she, dreamily; he feared her intellect was
fading again.
“You have been ill, my darling, we have been nursing you long,” said
he, drawing her down toward him.
“Stop, let me think;” she put her hand to her forehead; “he is dead
they say――dead――poor Charles!――and did not see me first. I am his
widow then――” again her mind appeared in her working countenance. “Ah,
I remember all now; he did not love _me_, he loved Hilary Duncan, and
there was Maurice who loved me――and we parted! poor Maurice――and he
was with him when he died――oh, papa――”
She threw herself on the ground at his feet, and laying her head
against his knee, she shed the first tears she had wept for years. Her
father kissed and caressed her fondly, making her tears flow faster
and faster, until she had wept away the mist from her mind, the torpor
from her faculties, and was reasonable, rational, and quiet.
Extreme exhaustion ensued; but by incessant care, and the most
skillful treatment, her strength slowly returned, and with her
strength came perfect memory and command of her faculties.
Slowly she learned to appreciate her position, to interest herself in
her property, to assume her station as the mistress of “the Ferns,”
the widow of Charles Huyton; and when a year had passed away there
remained no traces of her illness, except the steadiness and gravity
which now marked her manners, in striking contrast with her girlish
habits.
* * * * *
“Hilary, dear,” said Dora Duncan one day to her sister-in-law, as they
strolled together under the old lime-trees at “the Ferns,” while Nest,
a tall, graceful young woman, was playing with her little nephew,
Maurice, “Hilary, why are you not happy?”
“Happy! I am, content, peaceful, happy, as one can be in this world,
dear Dora.”
“But you have none to love you _best_,” said Dora.
“I have enough: you, Maurice, my sisters, and the children; I am rich
in love, and loving hearts.”
“And do they satisfy you?”
“No, I should be sorry if they did. Nothing of this world can, in
itself: it is only as it partakes of the nature of Heaven, that it can
fill the soul. But, Dora, the one whom I loved best in this world is
at peace, his longing for perfection is satisfied, his hunger for
righteousness is filled now; no sorrow can touch him, no pain, no
trouble more; and I shall join him, I trust, at last. What else have I
to wish for now?”
“Still, Hilary, it seems sad.”
“Who, going through the vale of misery, use it for a well, and the
pools are filled with water,” continued Hilary; “do you remember what
follows, Dora? My best treasure is safe, and for the rest, though I
can joy and weep with you all, I can not attach my heart to earth
again. But does my gravity distress you?”
“Oh no, no, no! you are not sad to look at, you are all love, and
peace, and sympathy; what should we do without you?”
“That is my happiness, so far as earth is concerned, to love and to
serve here below, in the hope that in my home above I may serve and
love forever.”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note
Words may have inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have
been left unchanged unless indicated below. Paragraphs end without
punctuation when followed by a quotation by the same character.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, reversed,
upside down, or partially printed letters, were corrected. Final
stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were
added. Duplicate words or letters at line endings or page breaks
were removed.
Added omitted words:
“Hilary, [I] love you.
whether he [had] done more good than harm
Spelling corrections:
be greater that [than] she could bear;
rested against Hillary’s [Hilary’s] shoulder
with the tea equippage [equipage]
wishes with resgard [regard] to
She was a very pleasing young women [woman]
glanced at her fatherr [father]
delighted so [to] see her
which, on opening, diclosed [disclosed]
These [There] is a tact
it was one with which no cotemporary [contemporary] love
party at the Vicarge [Vicarage]
observed Hillary [Hilary]
retain the love is [it] does not return
That soft touch overpowed [overpowered] Gwyneth
Had the marrige [marriage] really taken place
thrilled through her fame [frame]