“The rending of the heart’s last cord
Was in that sound!”
“Young, as spring’s first opening rose bud lovely
And helpless as autumn’s last; blooming alone
On a leafless stalk, bent beneath the shower,
And trembling in the wintry blast.”
The Euphrasia, according to the expectation announced in the papers,
arrived in Plymouth Sound. She had on board a number of prisoners, taken
out of two prizes she had lately captured, but which had been so much
disabled, that it had been impossible to prevent their going to the
bottom. Lady Oswald, who had taken up her residence at Stonehouse for the
purpose of being near a great sea-port, and having thus opportunities of
sometimes seeing her son, on understanding that the vessel was out in
the Sound, but was to sail again immediately, went on board in a shore
boat.
Fitz-Ullin had communicated with the Admiral, and had received orders
(all the prison-ships being full) to proceed to Leith, and dispose of his
prisoners there.
Lady Oswald had been long wishing to visit Scotland for the purpose of
making enquiries respecting the property which she thought ought to be
her son’s. Dread of the expenses of the journey, and the want of any
friend to assist her in an undertaking almost hopeless, had hitherto
delayed her project. This was, therefore, just the thing for her; she
could now go to Edinburgh free of expense, and in the society of her
best friend; that nephew, whose liberality was the sole support both
of herself and her son. Her son too would thus be with her. Such an
opportunity was not to be lost! Her wishes were of course acceded to by
Fitz-Ullin, and a ship’s boat sent ashore for her maid, and such apparel
as might be necessary for the voyage. In a few hours the Euphrasia
sailed. That night, a little before twelve, she fell in with a kind of
armed smuggler, evidently bound for the coast of France. The smuggler
refused to come to, or answer signals, and even attempted to make sail;
a temerity which obliged the frigate to fire on a little vessel, that
should have suffered herself to have been captured without making any
resistance.
A few carronades, of course, overwhelmed the smuggler. Her crew
immediately took to their boats, which they had lowered down on the first
alarm.
As the thunder of the frigate’s guns had subsided, all sound concluded
in the last faint reverberation of a cry of distress, from apparently a
single female voice, on board the else forsaken vessel. The smuggler was
already, to all appearance, on fire at one end. Fitz-Ullin perceiving
this, and hearing or fancying the cry, obeyed an involuntary impulse, and
leaped into one of the boats manning to pursue the fugitives, and ordered
it alongside the burning vessel.
“They have not boats enough for all,” he said, “and have left some
wretches behind to perish.” The next moment he was on board, followed
but by a couple of sailors, who were bold enough not to be deterred by
the volumes of portentous smoke. Assisted by these two men, he searched
the upper deck, calling out frequently that there was a boat alongside.
No one answered, the smuggler seemed wholly deserted, and the sailors
urged the necessity of returning to the boat. Fitz-Ullin bid them do so,
but not feeling quite satisfied while they were getting over the side he
ran below. To his infinite surprise the door of the cabin was fast. He
forced it. All was darkness, though the fire was increasing rapidly at
the other end of the ship.
Something that lay on the cabin floor impeded the opening of the door.
He stooped, and found it to be the body of one, apparently lifeless,
for there was neither breath nor motion. He raised it: from the dress
and its lightness, it seemed that of a very young lad. Life, however,
might be but suspended, not extinct; he determined therefore to convey
the unconscious object of his charitable solicitude, into the boat.
The fire was fast approaching, and the smoke, in consequence, becoming
suffocating. Fitz-Ullin hurried on deck, carrying the body with him:
while cautiously descending to the boat in waiting, he fancied he
could feel a scarcely perceptible heaving motion, swell the bosom of
his hitherto lifeless burden, as though it were beginning to breathe.
Arrived in the boat, he laid the body with great care, partly on the
bench beside him, supporting the shoulders and head across his knees;
and, intending to chafe the temples, drew off a tight cloth cap, such
as cabin boys wear; when, a profusion of long hair, which, but for its
fairness, had not been discernible, so dark was the night, fell over his
arm. Almost at the same moment, the flames of the burning vessel which
had hitherto been darting singly through volleys of thick smoke, burst
into an universal blaze! and, in its fierce glare, the mild features and
sparkling hair of Julia, lay displayed before the astonished Fitz-Ullin,
her head resting on his arm! The news of her having been carried off from
Lodore had not reached him, so that his amazement was complete. To say
he could not speak, would be but imperfectly to describe him; he could
not think! if he had any idea, it was an undefined one, that he either
dreamed or was deranged. Julia’s eyes opened. For a few moments, they
had no speculation in them: she looked stedfastly in his face. Then
her features lit up suddenly, with a wildness of joy, of fear, and of
confidence, so strangely blended, that it was almost like insanity. She
caught at the hand that supported her with both of hers, clung to it,
and, with the most piteous earnestness of entreaty, cried, “What is it?
What is it? Oh, what is it all?”
He tried in the gentlest manner, both to calm her excessive agitation,
and to make her understand that she had been just taken out of the
burning vessel they were now leaving behind them, pointing towards it, as
he spoke. She looked at it, first with little visible perception of what
it meant; then, covering her eyes a moment, she seemed to think; then,
starting, and looking all around, she said, “But where is she? Did she
not come out of it too?” Fitz-Ullin explained to her, that the vessel
was evidently deserted by every one else, when he found her locked up
in the cabin. “She was in the cabin with me!” said Julia, with alarming
wildness of manner; then, clasping her hands, she cried vehemently, “Come
back for her! Come back for her! oh, come back!”
Fitz-Ullin, for reply, pointed again to the mass of devouring flames
which floated on the water, enlightening its dark surface to a
considerable distance. Julia involuntarily stretched her arms over the
side of the boat, towards the terrific object, as though she could thus
assist, and remained fixed in an agony of helpless horror, unconscious of
her own attitude, rendered peculiarly conspicuous by the powerful light
which necessarily fell on her uplifted countenance, and the palms, and
points of the fingers of her outstretched hands; whilst her figure, in
the dark boat-cloak in which Fitz-Ullin had wrapped it, was lost to view.
In a few seconds, the condensed body of fire, with an explosion like
thunder, parted in ten thousand pieces, each and all, resembling so many
flaming torches, flew upwards, and passing each other through the dark
atmosphere in circling arches, descended again to the surface of the
water, gleamed there half a moment, and became extinct. Pitchy darkness
succeeded to the unnatural glare, which had lit up the scene but a moment
before, for no vestige of the conflagration remained.
Poor Julia fortunately found, for her horror-stricken and terrified
feelings, the only relief of which they were susceptible, in a passion of
tears, as profusely shed as those of a child.
She clung to Fitz-Ullin with an alarming convulsiveness of grasp. In his
endeavours to sooth and calm her, and the bewilderment of his exaggerated
fears, for the possible consequences of the state in which she was, he,
from time to time, addressed to her incoherently, all the endearing
expressions he had habitually used towards her in her childhood, calling
her, in low breathings that no other ear could hear, his own beloved one,
his own darling Julia, his own precious one, thus as it were enforcing
each entreaty to her, to check the excessive trembling to which she had
given way, and which, as it seemed rather to increase than diminish,
alarmed him so much, that the arm with which it was necessary to support
her, drew her, as each verbal persuasion to still her tremor failed,
closer to the bosom in which she herself seemed to seek a shelter; while
she, unknowing what she did, pressed his hand with both of hers to her
heart, still beating tumultuously from the horrors of the scarcely past
scene, and her sobs, for the few seconds it still took to reach the ship,
continued audible and convulsive.
A scene of so much emotion was, fortunately, shrouded by the total
darkness that prevailed.
Fitz-Ullin carried her himself up the side of the Euphrasia, and to the
cabin of Lady Oswald; where, with the assistance of that lady and her
maid, he laid her on a sofa, still wrapped in the already mentioned
boat-cloak.
The consciousness of light and witnesses calmed in some degree her
agitation, or at least checked those demonstrations of it into which she
had hitherto been betrayed. She became passive, and lay, for a time,
motionless and silent, with her eyes closed. Fitz-Ullin knelt beside
her, and watched her countenance with an expression of the most serious
solicitude. Lady Oswald, after the first stare of amazement, offered
every kind attention in assiduous silence; only from time to time
looking the wonder which would have been expressed on any occasion less
surprising: so that our heroine was received, to all appearance, with
as much composure as though she had been expected. She shewed tokens
of life, only by gently waving from her every offered restorative.
She wished for stillness; she wished to yield to a consolatory feeling
which had already, notwithstanding all the horrors she had so lately
both witnessed and escaped, stolen over her heart; for who can, under
any circumstances, receive proofs of affection from those they love,
and not experience consolation? She felt that she was still dear to
Fitz-Ullin; and though, apparently, scarcely alive, became capable of
a train of reasoning on the subject. Her friendship, then, was not, as
she had feared, valueless in his eyes! The brother-like affection he had
always had for her was regaining its ascendancy. As a sister, she should
once more become the first object of his tenderness, the source of his
happiness, and she would be happy—yet she sighed. Lady Oswald seized the
opportunity of entreating her to take some restorative. She was obliged
to open her eyes, obliged to raise herself, and in so doing, to withdraw
the hand Fitz-Ullin had till then retained. He stood up, assisted Lady
Oswald, and spoke to her ladyship, which he had not done before. The
spell was broken! Julia spoke too; she thanked Lady Oswald languidly.
She had no leisure to be surprised in her turn, at seeing her ladyship
where she was. She tried to express to our hero her gratitude for her
preservation. He begged she would not speak of his merely accidental
service; requesting her to remember, that he could not be aware to whom
he was rendering his assistance, whether welcome or unwelcome.
“Unwelcome!” she repeated. He had spoken with unnecessary strength of
emphasis. Even Lady Oswald looked surprised.
A short silence followed; when Julia, again raising herself, began to
express uneasiness about the fears and anxiety of her friends at Lodore;
giving at the same time a hurried and incoherent account of how she
had been carried away from thence. Lady Oswald naturally expressed her
wonder, as to who could have been the author of so daring an outrage.
Julia, looking down, said, she herself was at a loss whom to suspect. She
would have added, that the only person to whom she could have attributed
such an outrage, she had not once seen, or heard of, during the whole
transaction; and that, therefore, it was that she was at a loss. But a
natural feeling of modesty made her hesitate and blush. Fitz-Ullin viewed
her with a searching look, which gave her uneasiness, though she could
not comprehend its meaning. There was severity in his eye when he first
fixed it upon her; yet, there was pity ere he removed it. During her
whole recital, the gloom of his brow had deepened every moment; yet he
did not express the deep resentment that might have been expected against
the perpetrators of such a violence. At one time, after a long reverie,
he made a very irrelevant remark: observing, that Mr. St. Aubin had been
to blame, in not joining before the Euphrasia sailed; for that his being
too late, could not have been accidental.