EXHIBITING AN INTERVIEW, WHICH, IT IS TO BE HOPED, WILL INTEREST THE
CURIOSITY OF THE READER.
The mind of the delicate Aurelia was strangely agitated by the
intelligence which she received with her pocket-book from Dolly.
Confounded as she was by the nature of her situation, she at once
perceived that she could not, with any regard to the dictates of
gratitude, refuse complying with the request of Sir Launcelot; but, in
the first hurry of her emotion, she directed Dolly to beg, in her name,
that she might be excused for wearing a mask at the interview which he
desired, as she had particular reasons, which concerned her peace, for
retaining that disguise. Our adventurer submitted to this preliminary
with a good grace, as he had nothing in view but the injunction of his
order, and the duties of humanity; and he was admitted without further
preamble.
When he entered the room, he could not help being struck with the
presence of Aurelia. Her stature was improved since he had seen her; her
shape was exquisitely formed; and she received him with an air of
dignity, which impressed him with a very sublime idea of her person and
character. She was no less affected at the sight of our adventurer, who,
though cased in armour, appeared with his head uncovered; and the
exercise of travelling had thrown such a glow of health and vivacity on
his features, which were naturally elegant and expressive, that we will
venture to say, there was not in all England a couple that excelled this
amiable pair in personal beauty and accomplishments. Aurelia shone with
all the fabled graces of nymph or goddess; and to Sir Launcelot might be
applied what the divine poet Ariosto says of the Prince Zerbino:
Natura il fece e poi ruppe la stampa
When Nature stamp’d him, she the die destroy’d.
Our adventurer having made his obeisance to this supposed Miss Meadows,
told her, with an air of pleasantry, that although he thought himself
highly honoured in being admitted to her presence, and allowed to pay his
respects to her, as superior beings are adored, unseen; yet his pleasure
would receive a very considerable addition, if she would be pleased to
withdraw that invidious veil, that he might have a glimpse of the
divinity which it concealed. Aurelia immediately took off her mask,
saying with a faltering accent, “I cannot be so ungrateful as to deny
such a small favour to a gentleman who has laid me under the most
important obligations.”
The unexpected apparition of Miss Aurelia Darnel, beaming with all the
emanations of ripened beauty, blushing with all the graces of the most
lovely confusion, could not but produce a violent effect upon the mind of
Sir Launcelot Greaves. He was, indeed, overwhelmed with a mingled
transport of astonishment, admiration, affection, and awe. The colour
vanished from his cheeks, and he stood gazing upon her, in silence, with
the most emphatic expression of countenance.
Aurelia was infected by his disorder. She began to tremble, and the
roses fluctuated on her face. “I cannot forget,” said she, “that I owe
my life to the courage and humanity of Sir Launcelot Greaves, and that he
at the same time rescued from the most dreadful death a dear and
venerable parent.”--“Would to Heaven she still survived!” cried our
adventurer, with great emotion. “She was the friend of my youth, the
kind patroness of my felicity! My guardian angel forsook me when she
expired! Her last injunctions are deep engraver on my heart!”
While he pronounced these words, she lifted her handkerchief to her fair
eyes, and, after some pause, proceeded in a tremulous tone, “I hope, sir,
--I hope you have--I should be sorry--Pardon me, sir, I cannot reflect
upon such an interesting subject unmoved”--Here she fetched a deep sigh,
that was accompanied by a flood of tears; while the knight continued to
bend his eyes upon her with the utmost eagerness of attention.
Having recollected herself a little, she endeavoured to shift the
conversation: “You have been abroad since I had the pleasure to see you
--I hope you were agreeably amused in your travels.”--“No, madam,” said
our hero, drooping his head; “I have been unfortunate.” When she, with
the most enchanting sweetness of benevolence, expressed her concern to
hear he had been unhappy, and her hope that his misfortunes were not past
remedy; he lifted up his eyes, and fixing them upon her again, with a
look of tender dejection, “Cut off,” said he, “from the possession of
what my soul held most dear, I wished for death, and was visited by
distraction. I have been abandoned by my reason--my youth is for ever
blasted.”
The tender heart of Aurelia could bear no more--her knees began to
totter, the lustre vanished from her eyes, and she fainted in the arms of
her attendant. Sir Launcelot, aroused by this circumstance, assisted
Dolly in seating her mistress on a couch, where she soon recovered, and
saw the knight on his knees before her. “I am still happy,” said he, “in
being able to move your compassion, though I have been held unworthy of
your esteem.”--“Do me justice,” she replied; “my best esteem has been
always inseparably connected with the character of Sir Launcelot
Greaves.”--“Is it possible?” cried our hero; “then surely I have no
reason to complain. If I have moved your compassion, and possess your
esteem, I am but one degree short of supreme happiness--that, however, is
a gigantic step. O Miss Darnel! when I remember that dear, that
melancholy moment.”--So saying he gently touched her hand, in order to
press it to his lips, and perceived on her finger the very individual
ring which he had presented in her mother’s presence, as an interchanged
testimony of plighted faith. Starting at the well-known object, the
sight of which conjured up a strange confusion of ideas, “This,” said he,
“was once the pledge of something still more cordial than esteem.”
Aurelia, blushing at this remark, while her eyes lightened with unusual
vivacity, replied, in a severer tone, “Sir, you best know how it lost its
original signification.”--“By Heaven! I do not, madam!” exclaimed our
adventurer. “With me it was ever held a sacred idea throned within my
heart, cherished with such fervency of regard, with such reverence of
affection, as the devout anchorite more unreasonably pays to those
sainted reliques that constitute the object of his adoration.”--“And,
like those reliques,” answered Miss Darnel, “I have been insensible of my
votary’s devotion. A saint I must have been, or something more, to know
the sentiments of your heart by inspiration.”
“Did I forbear,” said he, “to express, to repeat, to enforce the dictates
of the purest passion that ever warmed the human breast, until I was
denied access, and formally discarded by that cruel dismission?”--“I must
beg your pardon, sir,” cried Aurelia, interrupting him hastily, “I know
not what you mean.”--“That fatal sentence,” said he, “if not pronounced
by your own lips, at least written by your own fair hand, which drove me
out an exile for ever from the paradise of your affection.”--“I would
not,” she replied, “do Sir Launcelot Greaves the injury to suppose him
capable of imposition; but you talk of things to which I am an utter
stranger. I have a right, sir, to demand of your honour, that you will
not impute to me your breaking off a connexion, which--I would--rather
wish--had never”----“Heaven and earth! what do I hear?” cried our
impatient knight; “have I not the baleful letter to produce? What else
but Miss Darnel’s explicit and express declaration could have destroyed
the sweetest hope that ever cheered my soul; could have obliged me to
resign all claim to that felicity for which alone I wished to live; could
have filled my bosom with unutterable sorrow and despair; could have even
divested me of reason, and driven me from the society of men, a poor,
forlorn, wandering lunatic, such as you see me now prostrate at your
feet; all the blossoms of my youth withered, all the honours of my family
decayed?”
Aurelia looking wishfully at her lover, “Sir,” said she, “you overwhelm
me with amazement and anxiety! you are imposed upon, if you have received
any such letter. You are deceived, if you thought Aurelia Darnel could
be so insensible, ungrateful, and--inconstant.”
This last word she pronounced with some hesitation, and a downcast look,
while her face underwent a total suffusion, and the knight’s heart began
to palpitate with all the violence of emotion. He eagerly imprinted a
kiss upon her hand, exclaiming, in interrupted phrase, “Can it be
possible?--Heaven grant--Sure this is no illusion!--O madam!--shall I
call you my Aurelia? My heart is bursting with a thousand fond thoughts
and presages. You shall see that dire paper which has been the source of
all my woes--it is the constant companion of my travels--last night I
nourished my chagrin with the perusal of its horrid contents.”
Aurelia expressed great impatience to view the cruel forgery, for such
she assured him it must be. But he could not gratify her desire, till
the arrival of his servant with the portmanteau. In the meantime, tea
was called. The lovers were seated. He looked and languished; she
flushed and faltered. All was doubt and delirium, fondness and flutter.
Their mutual disorder communicated itself to the kind-hearted
sympathising Dolly, who had been witness to the interview, and deeply
affected at the disclosure of the scene. Unspeakable was her surprise,
when she found her mistress, Miss Meadows, was no other than the
celebrated Aurelia Darnel, whose eulogium she had heard so eloquently
pronounced by her sweetheart, Mr. Thomas Clarke; a discovery which still
more endeared her lady to her affection. She had wept plentifully at the
progress of their mutual explanation, and was now so disconcerted, that
she scarce knew the meaning of the orders she had received. She set the
kettle on the table, and placed the tea-board on the fire. Her
confusion, by attracting the notice of her mistress, helped to relieve
her from her own embarrassing situation. She, with her own delicate
hands, rectified the mistake of Dolly, who still continued to sob, and
said, “Yau may think, my Leady Darnel, as haw I’aive yeaten hool-cheese;
but it y’an’t soa. I’se think, vor mai peart, as how I’aive bean
bewitched.”
Sir Launcelot could not help smiling at the simplicity of Dolly, whose
goodness of heart and attachment Aurelia did not fail to extol, as soon
as her back was turned. It was in consequence of this commendation,
that, the next time she entered the room, our adventurer, for the first
time, considered her face, and seemed to be struck with her features. He
asked her some questions, which she could not answer to his satisfaction;
applauded her regard for her lady, and assured her of his friendship and
protection. He now begged to know the cause that obliged his Aurelia to
travel at such a rate, and in such an equipage; and she informed him of
those particulars which we have already communicated to our reader.
Sir Launcelot glowed with resentment, when he understood how his dear
Aurelia had been oppressed by her perfidious and cruel guardian. He bit
his nether lip, rolled his eyes around, started from his seat, and
striding across the room, “I remember,” said he, “the dying words of her
who now is a saint in heaven: ‘That violent man, my brother-in-law, who
is Aurelia’s sole guardian, will thwart her wishes with every obstacle
that brutal resentment and implacable malice can contrive.’ What
followed, it would ill become me to repeat. But she concluded with these
words: ‘The rest we must leave to the dispensations of Providence.’ Was
it not Providence that sent me hither to guard and protect the injured
Aurelia?” Then turning to Miss Darnel, whose eyes streamed with tears,
he added, “Yes, divine creature! Heaven, careful of your safety, and in
compassion to my sufferings, hath guided me hither, in this mysterious
manner, that I might defend you from violence, and enjoy this transition
from madness to deliberation, from despair to felicity.”
So saying, he approached this amiable mourner, this fragrant flower of
beauty, glittering with the dew-drops of the morning; this sweetest, and
gentlest, loveliest ornament of human nature. He gazed upon her with
looks of love ineffable; he sat down by her; he pressed her soft hand in
his; he began to fear that all he saw was the flattering vision of a
distempered brain; he looked and sighed, and, turning up his eyes to
heaven, breathed, in broken murmurs, the chaste raptures of his soul.
The tenderness of this communication was too painful to be long endured.
Aurelia industriously interposed other subjects of discourse, that his
attention might not be dangerously overcharged, and the afternoon passed
insensibly away.
Though he had determined, in his own mind, never more to quit this idol
of his soul, they had not yet concerted any plan of conduct, when their
happiness was all at once interrupted by a repetition of cries, denoting
horror; and a servant coming in, said he believed some rogues were
murdering a traveller on the highway. The supposition of such distress
operated like gunpowder on the disposition of our adventurer, who,
without considering the situation of Aurelia, and indeed without seeing,
or being capable to think on her or any other subject for the time being,
ran directly to the stable, and, mounting the first horse which he found
saddled, issued out in the twilight, having no other weapon but his
sword.
He rode full speed to the spot whence the cries seemed to proceed; but
they sounded more remote as he advanced. Nevertheless, he followed them
to a considerable distance from the road, over fields, ditches, and
hedges; and at last came so near, that he could plainly distinguish the
voice of his own squire, Timothy Crabshaw, bellowing for mercy, with
hideous vociferation. Stimulated by this recognition, he redoubled his
career in the dark, till at length his horse plunged into a hole, the
nature of which he could not comprehend; but he found it impracticable to
disengage him. It was with some difficulty that he himself clambered
over a ruined wall, and regained the open ground. Here he groped about,
in the utmost impatience of anxiety, ignorant of the place, mad with
vexation for the fate of his unfortunate squire, and between whiles
invaded with a pang of concern for Aurelia, left among strangers,
unguarded, and alarmed.
In the midst of this emotion, he bethought himself of hallooing aloud,
that, in case he should be in the neighbourhood of any inhabited place,
he might be heard and assisted. He accordingly practised this expedient,
which was not altogether without effect; for he was immediately answered
by an old friend, no other than his own steed Bronzomarte, who, hearing
his master’s voice, neighed strenuously at a small distance. The knight,
being well acquainted with the sound, heard it with astonishment, and,
advancing in the right direction, found his noble charger fastened to a
tree. He forthwith untied and mounted him; then, laying the reins upon
his neck, allowed him to choose his own path, in which he began to travel
with equal steadiness and expedition. They had not proceeded far, when
the knight’s ears were again saluted by the cries of Crabshaw; which
Bronzomarte no sooner heard, than he pricked up his ears, neighed, and
quickened his pace, as if he had been sensible of the squire’s distress,
and hastened to his relief. Sir Launcelot, notwithstanding his own
disquiet, could not help observing and admiring this generous sensibility
of his horse. He began to think himself some hero of romance, mounted
upon a winged steed, inspired with reason, directed by some humane
enchanter, who pitied virtue in distress. All circumstances considered,
it is no wonder that the commotion in the mind of our adventurer produced
some such delirium. All night he continued the chase; the voice, which
was repeated at intervals, still retreating before him, till the morning
began to appear in the east, when, by divers piteous groans, he was
directed to the corner of a wood, where he beheld his miserable squire
stretched upon the grass, and Gilbert feeding by him altogether
unconcerned, the helmet and the lance suspended at the saddle-bow, and
the portmanteau safely fixed upon the crupper.
The knight, riding up to Crabshaw, with equal surprise and concern, asked
what had brought him there? and Timothy, after some pause, during which
he surveyed his master with a rueful aspect, answered, “The devil.”--“One
would imagine, indeed, you had some such conveyance,” said Sir Launcelot.
“I have followed your cries since last evening, I know not how nor
whither, and never could come up with you till this moment. But, say,
what damage have you sustained, that you lie in that wretched posture,
and groan so dismally?” “I can’t guess,” replied the squire, “if it
bean’t that mai hoole carcase is drilled into oilet hools, and my flesh
pinched into a jelly.”--“How! wherefore!” cried the knight; “who were the
miscreants that treated you in such a barbarous manner? Do you know the
ruffians?”--“I know nothing at all,” answered the peevish squire, “but
that I was tormented by vive houndred and vifty thousand legions of
devils, and there’s an end oon’t.”--“Well, you must have a little
patience, Crabshaw--there’s a salve for every sore.”--“Yaw mought as well
tell ma, for every zow there’s a zirreverence.”--“For a man in your
condition, methinks you talk very much at your ease--try if you can get
up and mount Gilbert, that you may be conveyed to some place where you
can have proper assistance.--So--well done--cheerly!”
Timothy actually made an effort to rise, but fell down again, and uttered
a dismal yell. Then his master exhorted him to take advantage of a park
wall, by which he lay, and raise himself gradually upon it. Crabshaw,
eyeing him askance, said, by way of reproach, for his not alighting and
assisting him in person, “Thatch your house with t--d, and you’ll have
more teachers than reachers.”--Having pronounced this inelegant adage, he
made shift to stand upon his legs; and now, the knight lending a hand,
was mounted upon Gilbert, though not without a world of ohs! and ahs! and
other ejaculations of pain and impatience.
As they jogged on together, our adventurer endeavoured to learn the
particulars of the disaster which had befallen the squire; but all the
information he could obtain, amounted to a very imperfect sketch of the
adventure. By dint of a thousand interrogations, he understood, that
Crabshaw had been, in the preceding evening, encountered by three persons
on horseback, with Venetian masks on their faces, which he mistook for
their natural features, and was terrified accordingly. That they not
only presented pistols to his breast, and led his horse out of the
highway; but pricked him with goads, and pinched him, from time to time,
till he screamed with the torture. That he was led through unfrequented
places across the country, sometimes at an easy trot, sometimes at full
gallop, and tormented all night by those hideous demons, who vanished at
daybreak, and left him lying on the spot where he was found by his
master.
This was a mystery which our hero could by no means unriddle. It was the
more unaccountable, as the squire had not been robbed of his money,
horses, and baggage. He was even disposed to believe that Crabshaw’s
brain was disordered, and the whole account he had given no more than a
mere chimera. This opinion, however, he could no longer retain, when he
arrived at an inn on the post-road, and found, upon examination, that
Timothy’s lower extremities were covered with blood, and all the rest of
his body speckled with livid marks of contusion. But he was still more
chagrined when the landlord informed him, that he was thirty miles
distant from the place where he had left Aurelia, and that his way lay
through cross-roads, which were almost impassable at that season of the
year. Alarmed at this intelligence, he gave directions that his squire
should be immediately conveyed to bed in a comfortable chamber, as he
complained more and more; and, indeed, was seized with a fever,
occasioned by the fatigue, the pain, and terror he had undergone. A
neighbouring apothecary being called, and giving it as his opinion that
he could not for some days be in a condition to travel, his master
deposited a sum of money in his hands, desiring he might be properly
attended till he should hear further. Then mounting Bronzomarte, he set
out with a guide for the place he had left, not without a thousand fears
and perplexities, arising from the reflection of having left the jewel of
his heart with such precipitation.