Now, then, he found the advantage of the dissensions with each other

which he had either sown or mellowed in our breasts. He came to turn

those wrathful thoughts which when he last saw me I had expressed

towards you to the favor and success of his design. He found my mind

strangely altered, but he affected to applaud the change. He questioned

me respecting my uncle’s health, and I told him what had really

occurred; namely, that my uncle had on the preceding day read over to me

some part of a will which he had just made, and in which the vast bulk

of his property was bequeathed to you. At this news Montreuil must have

perceived at once the necessity of winning my consent to his project;

for, since I had seen the actual testament, no fraudulent transfer of

the property therein bequeathed could take place without my knowledge

that some fraud had been recurred to. Montreuil knew me well; he knew

that avarice, that pleasure, that ambition, were powerless words with

me, producing no effect and affording no temptation: but he knew that

passion, jealousy, spiritual terrors, were the springs that moved every

part and nerve of my moral being. The two former, then, he now put into

action; the last he held back in reserve. He spoke to me no further upon

the subject he had then at heart; not a word further on the disposition

of the estates: he spoke to me only of Isora and of you; he aroused, by

hint and insinuation, the new sleep into which all those emotions--the

furies of the heart--had been for a moment lulled. He told me he had

lately seen Isora; he dwelt glowingly on her beauty; he commended my

heroism in resigning her to a brother whose love for her was little in

comparison to mine, who had, in reality, never loved _me_,--whose jests

and irony had been levelled no less at myself than at others. He painted

your person and your mind, in contrast to my own, in colors so covertly

depreciating as to irritate more and more that vanity with which

jealousy is so woven, and from which, perhaps (a Titan son of so feeble

a parent), it is born. He hung lingeringly over all the treasure that

you would enjoy and that I--I, the first discoverer, had so nobly and so

generously relinquished.

“Relinquished!” I cried, “no, I was driven from it; I left it not while

a hope of possessing it remained.” The priest affected astonishment.

“How! was I sure of that? I had, it is true, wooed Isora; but would

she, even if she had felt no preference for Morton, would she have

surrendered the heir to a princely wealth for the humble love of

the younger son? I did not know women: with them all love was either

wantonness, custom, or pride; it was the last principle that swayed

Isora. Had I sought to enlist it on my side? Not at all. Again, I had

only striven to detach Isora from Morton; had I ever attempted the much

easier task of detaching Morton from Isora? No, never;” and Montreuil

repeated his panegyric on my generous surrender of my rights. I

interrupted him; I had not surrendered: I never would surrender while a

hope remained. But, where was that hope, and how was it to be realized?

After much artful prelude, the priest explained. He proposed to use

every means to array against your union with Isora all motives of

ambition, interest, and aggrandizement. “I know Morton’s character,”

said he, “to its very depths. His chief virtue is honour; his chief

principle is ambition. He will not attempt to win this girl otherwise

than by marriage; for the very reasons that would induce most men to

attempt it, namely, her unfriended state, her poverty, her confidence in

him, and her love, or that semblance of love which he believes to be the

passion itself. This virtue,--I call it so, though it is none, for there

is no virtue out of religion,--this virtue, then, will place before him

only two plans of conduct, either to marry her or to forsake her. Now,

then, if we can bring his ambition, that great lever of his conduct, in

opposition to the first alternative, only the last remains: I say that

we _can_ employ that engine in your behalf; leave it to me, and I will

do so. Then, Aubrey, in the moment of her pique, her resentment, her

outraged vanity, at being thus left, you shall appear; not as you have

hitherto done in menace and terror, but soft, subdued, with looks all

love, with vows all penitence; vindicating all your past vehemence by

the excess of your passion, and promising all future tenderness by the

influence of the same motive, the motive which to a woman pardons every

error and hallows every crime. Then will she contrast your love with

your brother’s: then will the scale fall from her eyes; then will

she see what hitherto she has been blinded to, that your brother, to

yourself, is a satyr to Hyperion; then will she blush and falter, and

hide her cheek in your bosom.” “Hold, hold!” I cried “do with me what

you will; counsel, and I will act!”

Here again the manuscript was defaced by a sudden burst of execration

upon Montreuil, followed by ravings that gradually blackened into the

most gloomy and incoherent outpourings of madness; at length the history

proceeded.

“You wrote to ask me to sound our uncle on the subject of your intended

marriage. Montreuil drew up my answer; and I constrained myself, despite

my revived hatred to you, to transcribe its expressions of affection. My

uncle wrote to you also; and we strengthened his dislike to the step

you had proposed, by hints from myself disrespectful to Isora, and an

anonymous communication dated from London and to the same purport. All

this while I knew not that Isora had been in your house; your answer

to my letter seemed to imply that you would not disobey my uncle.

Montreuil, who was still lurking in the neighbourhood and who at night

privately met or sought me, affected exultation at the incipient success

of his advice. He pretended to receive perpetual intelligence of your

motions and conduct, and he informed me now that Isora had come to your

house on hearing of your wound; that you had not (agreeably,

Montreuil added to his view of your character) taken advantage of her

indiscretion; that immediately on receiving your uncle’s and my own

letters, you had separated yourself from her; and, that though you

still visited her, it was apparently with a view of breaking off all

connection by gradual and gentle steps; at all events, you had taken no

measures towards marriage.

“Now, then,” said Montreuil, “for one finishing stroke, and the prize is

yours. Your uncle cannot, you find, live long: could he but be persuaded

to leave his property to Gerald or to you, with only a trifling legacy

(comparatively speaking) to Morton, that worldly-minded and enterprising

person would be utterly prevented from marrying a penniless and unknown

foreigner. Nothing but his own high prospects, so utterly above the

necessity of fortune in a wife, can excuse such a measure now, even to

his own mind; if therefore, we can effect this transfer of property,

and in the meanwhile prevent Morton from marrying, your rival is gone

forever, and with his brilliant advantages of wealth will also vanish

his merits in the eyes of Isora. Do not be startled at this thought:

there is no crime in it; I, your confessor, your tutor, the servant

of the Church, am the last person to counsel, to hint even, at what is

criminal; but the end sanctifies all means. By transferring this vast

property, you do not only insure your object, but you advance the great

cause of Kings, the Church, and of the Religion which presides over

both. Wealth, in Morton’s possession, will be useless to this cause,

perhaps pernicious: in your hands or in Gerald’s, it will be of

inestimable service. Wealth produced from the public should be applied

to the uses of the public, yea, even though a petty injury to one

individual be the price.”

Thus, and in this manner, did Montreuil prepare my mind for the step he

meditated; but I was not yet ripe for it. So inconsistent is guilt, that

I could commit murder, wrong, almost all villany that passion dictated,

but I was struck aghast by the thought of fraud. Montreuil perceived

that I was not yet wholly his, and his next plan was to remove me from

a spot where I might check his measures. He persuaded me to travel for a

few weeks. “On your return,” said he, “consider Isora yours; meanwhile,

let change of scene beguile suspense.” I was passive in his hands, and I

went whither he directed.

Let me be brief here on the black fraud that ensued. Among the other

arts of Jean Desmarais, was that of copying exactly any handwriting. He

was then in London, in your service. Montrenil sent for him to come to

the neighbourhood of Devereux Court. Meanwhile, the priest had procured

from the notary who had drawn up, and who now possessed, the will of my

unsuspecting uncle, that document. The notary had been long known

to, and sometimes politically employed by, Montreuil, for he was

half-brother to that Oswald, whom I have before mentioned as the early

comrade of the priest and Desmarais. This circumstance, it is probable,

first induced Montreuil to contemplate the plan of a substituted will.

Before Desmarais arrived, in order to copy those parts of the will which

my uncle’s humour had led him to write in his own hand, you, alarmed

by a letter from my uncle, came to the Court, and on the same day Sir

William (taken ill the preceding evening) died. Between that day and the

one on which the funeral occurred the will was copied by Desmarais; only

Gerald’s name was substituted for yours, and the forty thousand pounds

left to him--a sum equal to that bestowed on myself--was cut down into a

legacy of twenty thousand pounds to you. Less than this Montreuil dared

not insert as the bequest to you: and it is possible that the same

regard to probabilities prevented all mention of himself in the

substituted will. This was all the alteration made. My uncle’s writing

was copied exactly; and, save the departure from his apparent intentions

in your favour, I believe not a particle in the effected fraud was

calculated to excite suspicion. Immediately on the reading of the will,

Montreuil repaired to me and confessed what had taken place.

“Aubrey,” he said, “I have done this for your sake partly; but I

have had a much higher end in view than even your happiness or my

affectionate wishes to promote it. I live solely for one object,--the

aggrandizement of that holy order to which I belong; the schemes of that

order are devoted only to the interests of Heaven, and by serving them

I serve Heaven itself. Aubrey, child of my adoption and of my earthly

hopes, those schemes require carnal instruments, and work, even through

Mammon, unto the goal of righteousness. What I have done is just before

God and man. I have wrested a weapon from the hand of an enemy, and

placed it in the hand of an ally. I have not touched one atom of this

wealth, though, with the same ease with which I have transferred it from

Morton to Gerald, I might have made my own private fortune. I have not

touched one atom of it; nor for you, whom I love more than any living

being, have I done what my heart dictated. I might have caused the

inheritance to pass to you. I have not done so. Why? Because then I

should have consulted a selfish desire at the expense of the interests

of mankind. Gerald is fitter to be the tool those interests require than

you are. Gerald I have made that tool. You, too, I have spared the pangs

which your conscience, so peculiarly, so morbidly acute, might suffer

at being selected as the instrument of a seeming wrong to Morton.

All required of you is silence. If your wants ever ask more than your

legacy, you have, as I have, a claim to that wealth which your pleasure

allows Gerald to possess. Meanwhile, let us secure to you that treasure

dearer to you than gold.”

If Montreuil did not quite blind me by speeches of this nature, my

engrossing, absorbing passion required little to make it cling to any

hope of its fruition. I assented, therefore, though not without

many previous struggles, to Montreuil’s project, or rather to its

concealment; nay, I wrote some time after, at his desire and his

dictation, a letter to you, stating feigned reasons for my uncle’s

alteration of former intentions, and exonerating Gerald from all

connivance in that alteration, or abetment in the fraud you professed

that it was your open belief had been committed. This was due to Gerald;

for at that time, and for aught I know, at the present, he was perfectly

unconscious by what means he had attained his fortune: he believed

that your love for Isora had given my uncle offence, and hence your

disinheritance; and Montreuil took effectual care to exasperate him

against you, by dwelling on the malice which your suspicions and your

proceedings against him so glaringly testified. Whether Montreuil really

thought you would give over all intention of marrying Isora upon your

reverse of fortune, which is likely enough from his estimate of

your character; or whether he only wished by any means to obtain my

acquiescence in a measure important to his views, I know not, but he

never left me, nor ever ceased to sustain my fevered and unhallowed

hopes, from the hour in which he first communicated to me the fraudulent

substitution of the will till we repaired together to London. This we

did not do so long as he could detain me in the country by assurances

that I should ruin all by appearing before Isora until you had entirely

deserted her.

Morton, hitherto I have written as if my veins were filled with water,

instead of the raging fire that flows through them until it reaches my

brain, and there it stops, and eats away all things,--even memory,

that once seemed eternal! Now I feel as I approach the consummation

of--ha--of what--ay, of what? Brother, did you ever, when you thought

yourself quite alone, at night, not a breath stirring,--did you ever

raise your eyes, and see exactly opposite to you a devil?--a dread

thing, that moves not, speaks not, but glares upon you with a fixed,

dead, unrelenting eye?--that thing is before me now and witnesses every

word I write. But it deters me not! no, nor terrifies me. I have said

that I would fulfil this task, and I have nearly done it; though

at times the gray cavern yawned, and I saw its rugged walls

stretch--stretch away, on either side, until they reached hell; and

there I beheld--but I will not tell you till we meet there! Now I am

calm again: read on.

We could not discover Isora nor her home: perhaps the priest took care

that it should be so; for, at that time, what with his devilish whispers

and my own heart, I often scarcely knew what I was or what I desired;

and I sat for hours and gazed upon the air, and it seemed so soft and

still that I longed to make an opening in my forehead that it might

enter there, and so cool and quiet the dull, throbbing, scorching

anguish that lay like molten lead in my brain; at length we found the

house. “To-morrow,” said the Abbe, and he shed tears over me,--for there

were times when that hard man did feel,--“to-morrow, my child, thou

shalt see her; but be soft and calm.” To-morrow came; but Montreuil was

pale, paler than I had ever seen him, and he gazed upon me and said,

“Not to-day, Son, not to-day; she has gone out, and will not return till

nightfall.” My brother, the evening came, and with it came Desmarais; he

came in terror and alarm. “The villain Oswald,” he said, “has betrayed

all; he drew me aside and told me so. ‘Hark ye, Jean,’ he whispered,

‘hark ye: your master has my brother’s written confession and the real

will; but I have provided for your safety, and if he pleases it, for

Montreuil’s. The packet is not to be opened till the seventh day; fly

before then. But I know,” added Desmarais, “where the packet is placed;”

and he took Montreuil aside, and for a while I heard not what they said;

but I did overhear Desmarais at last, and I learned that it was your

_bridal night_.

What felt I then? The same tempestuous fury,--the same whirlwind and

storm of heart that I had felt before, at the mere anticipation of such

an event? No; I felt a bright ray of joy flash through me. Yes, joy; but

it was that joy which a conqueror feels when he knows his mortal foe is

in his power and when he dooms that enemy to death. “They shall perish,

and on this night,” I said inly. “I have sworn it; I swore to Isora

that the bridal couch should be stained with blood, and I will keep

the oath!” I approached the pair; they were discussing the means for

obtaining the packet. Montreuil urged Desmarais to purloin it from the

place where you had deposited it, and then to abscond; but to this plan

Desmarais was vehemently opposed. He insisted that there would be no

possible chance of his escape from a search so scrutinizing as that

which would necessarily ensue, and he evidently resolved not _alone_

to incur the danger of the theft. “The Count,” said he, “saw that I was

present when he put away the packet. Suspicion will fall solely on me.

Whither should I fly? No: I will serve you with my talents, but not with

my life.” “Wretch,” said Montreuil, “if that packet is opened, thy life

is already gone.” “Yes,” said Desmarais; “but we may yet purloin the

papers, and throw the guilt upon some other quarter. What if I admit you

when the Count is abroad? What if you steal the packet, and carry away

other articles of more seeming value? What, too, if you wound me in the

arm or the breast, and I coin some terrible tale of robbers, and of

my resistance, could we not manage then to throw suspicion upon common

housebreakers,--nay, could we not throw it upon Oswald himself? Let us

silence that traitor by death, and who shall contradict our tale?

No danger shall attend this plan. I will give you the key of the

escritoire: the theft will not be the work of a moment.” Montreuil at

first demurred to this proposal, but Desmarais was, I repeat, resolved

not to incur the danger of the theft alone; the stake was great, and it

was not in Montreuil’s nature to shrink from peril, when once it became

necessary to confront it. “Be it so,” he said, at last, “though the

scheme is full of difficulty and of danger: be it so. We have not a day

to lose. To-morrow the Count will place the document in some place of

greater safety, and unknown to us: the deed shall be done to-night.

Procure the key of the escritoire; admit me this night; I will steal

disguised into the chamber; I will commit the act from which you, who

alone could commit it with safety, shrink. Instruct me exactly as to the

place where the articles you speak of are placed. I will abstract

them also. See that if the Count wake, he has no weapon at hand.

Wound yourself, as you say, in some place not dangerous to life, and

to-morrow, or within an hour after my escape, tell what tale you will.

I will go, meanwhile, at once to Oswald; I will either bribe his

silence--ay, and his immediate absence from England--or he shall die. A

death that secures our own self-preservation is excusable in the reading

of all law, divine or human.” I heard, but they deemed me insensible:

they had already begun to grow unheeding of my presence. Montreuil saw

me, and his countenance grew soft. “I know all,” I said, as I caught

his eye which looked on me in pity, “I know all: they are married.

Enough!--with my hope ceases my love: care not for me.”

Montreuil embraced and spoke to me in kindness and in praise. He assured

me that you had kept your wedding so close a secret that he knew it

not, nor did even Desmarais, till the evening before,--till after he

had proposed that I should visit Isora that very day. I know not, I care

not, whether he was sincere in this. In whatever way one line in the

dread scroll of his conduct be read, the scroll was written in guile,

and in blood was it sealed. I appeared not to notice Montreuil or his

accomplice any more. The latter left the house first. Montreuil stole

forth, as he thought, unobserved; he was masked, and in complete

disguise. I, too, went forth. I hastened to a shop where such things

were procured; I purchased a mask and cloak similar to the priest’s.

I had heard Montreuil agree with Desmarais that the door of the house

should be left ajar, in order to give greater facility to the escape of

the former; I repaired to the house in time to see Montreuil enter it.

A strange, sharp sort of cunning, which I had never known before, ran

through the dark confusion of my mind. I waited for a minute, till it

was likely that Montreuil had gained your chamber; I then pushed open

the door, and ascended the stairs. I met no one; the moonlight fell

around me, and its rays seemed to me like ghosts, pale and shrouded, and

gazing upon me with wan and lustreless eyes. I know not how I found your

chamber, but it was the only one I entered. I stood in the same room

with Isora and yourself: ye lay in sleep; Isora’s face--O God! I know no

more--no more of that night of horror--save that I fled from the house

reeking with blood,--a murderer,--and the murderer of Isora!

Then came a long, long dream. I was in a sea of blood,--blood-red was

the sky, and one still, solitary star that gleamed far away with a

sickly and wan light was the only spot, above and around, which was not

of the same intolerable dye. And I thought my eyelids were cut off, as

those of the Roman consul are said to have been, and I had nothing to

shield my eyes from that crimson light, and the rolling waters of that

unnatural sea. And the red air burned through my eyes into my brain, and

then that also, methought, became blood; and all memory,--all images

of memory,--all idea,--wore a material shape and a material colour, and

were blood too. Everything was unutterably silent, except when my own

shrieks rang over the shoreless ocean, as I drifted on. At last I fixed

my eyes--the eyes which I might never close--upon that pale and single

star; and after I had gazed a little while, the star seemed to change

slowly--slowly--until it grew like the pale face of that murdered girl,

and then it vanished utterly, and _all_ was blood!

This vision was sometimes broken, sometimes varied by others, but it

always returned; and when at last I completely woke from it, I was in

Italy, in a convent. Montreuil had lost no time in removing me from

England. But once, shortly after my recovery, for I was mad for many

months, he visited me, and he saw what a wreck I had become. He pitied

me; and when I told him I longed above all things for liberty--for the

green earth and the fresh air, and a removal from that gloomy abode--he

opened the convent gates and blessed me, and bade me go forth. “All I

require of you,” said he, “is a promise. If it be understood that you

live, you will be persecuted by inquiries and questions which will

terminate in a conviction of your crime: let it therefore be reported in

England that you are dead. Consent to the report, and promise never to

quit Italy nor to see Morton Devereux.”

I promised; and that promise I have kept: but I promised not that I

would never reveal to you, in writing, the black tale which I have

now recorded. May it reach you! There is one in this vicinity who has

undertaken to bear it to you: he says he has known misery; and when he

said so, his voice sounded in my ear like yours; and I looked upon him,

and thought his features were cast somewhat in the same mould as your

own; so I have trusted him. I have now told all. I have wrenched the

secret from my heart in agony and with fear. I have told all: though

things which I believe are fiends have started forth from the grim walls

around to forbid it; though dark wings have swept by me, and talons,

as of a bird, have attempted to tear away the paper on which I write;

though eyes, whose light was never drunk from earth, have glared on me;

and mocking voices and horrible laughter have made my flesh creep,

and thrilled through the marrow of my bones,--I have told all; I have

finished my last labour in this world, and I will now lie down and die.

AUBREY DEVEREUX.

The paper dropped from my hands. Whatever I had felt in reading it, I

had not flinched once from the task. From the first word even to the

last, I had gone through the dreadful tale, nor uttered a syllable, nor

moved a limb. And now as I rose, though I had found the being who to me

had withered this world into one impassable desert; though I had found

the unrelenting foe and the escaped murderer of Isora, the object of the

execration and vindictiveness of years,--not one single throb of wrath,

not one single sentiment of vengeance, was in my breast. I passed

at once to the bedside of my brother: he was awake, but still and

calm,--the calm and stillness of exhausted nature. I knelt down quietly

beside him. I took his hand, and I shrank not from the touch, though by

that hand the only woman I ever loved had perished.

“Look up, Aubrey!” said I, struggling with tears which, despite of my

most earnest effort, came over me; “look up: all is forgiven. Who on

earth shall withhold pardon from a crime which on earth has been so

awfully punished? Look up, Aubrey; I am your brother, and I forgive you.

You are right: my childhood was harsh and fierce; and had you feared me

less you might have confided in me, and you would not have sinned and

suffered as you have done now. Fear me no longer. Look up, Aubrey, it is

Morton who calls you. Why do you not speak? My brother, my brother,--a

word, a single word, I implore you.”

For one moment did Aubrey raise his eyes, one moment did he meet mine.

His lips quivered wildly: I heard the death-rattle; he sank back, and

his hand dropped from my clasp. My words had snapped asunder the last

chord of life. Merciful Heaven! I thank Thee that those words were the

words of pardon!

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THE HISTORY MAKES A GREAT STRIDE TOWARDS THE FINAL

CATASTROPHE.--THE RETURN TO ENGLAND, AND THE VISIT TO A DEVOTEE.

AT night, and in the thrilling forms of the Catholic ritual, was Aubrey

Devereux consigned to earth. After that ceremony I could linger no

longer in the vicinity of the hermitage. I took leave of the Abbot and

richly endowed his convent in return for the protection it had afforded

to the anchorite, and the Masses which had been said for his soul.

Before I left Anselmo, I questioned him if any friend to the Hermit

had ever, during his seclusion, held any communication with the Abbot

respecting him. Anselmo, after a little hesitation, confessed that a

man, a Frenchman, seemingly of no high rank, had several times visited

the convent, as if to scrutinize the habits and life of the anchorite;

he had declared himself commissioned by the Hermit’s relations to make

inquiry of him from time to time; but he had given the Abbot no clew to

discover himself, though Anselmo had especially hinted at the expediency

of being acquainted with some quarter to which he could direct any

information of change in the Hermit’s habits or health. This man had

been last at the convent about two months before the present date; but

one of the brothers declared that he had seen him in the vicinity of the

well on the very day on which the Hermit died. The description of this

stranger was essentially different from that which would have been given

of Montreuil, but I imagined that if not the Abbe himself, the stranger

was one in his confidence or his employ.

I now repaired to Rome, where I made the most extensive though guarded

inquiries after Montreuil, and at length I learned that he was lying

concealed, or rather unnoticed, in England, under a disguised name;

having, by friends or by money, obtained therein a tacit connivance,

though not an open pardon. No sooner did I learn this intelligence,

than I resolved forthwith to depart to that country. I crossed the Alps,

traversed France, and took ship at Calais for Dover.

Behold me, then, upon the swift seas bent upon a double

purpose,--reconciliation with a brother whom I had wronged, and

vengeance,--no, not vengeance, but _justice_ against the criminal I

had discovered. No! it was not revenge: it was no infuriate, no unholy

desire of inflicting punishment upon a personal foe which possessed me;

it was a steady, calm, unwavering resolution, to obtain justice against

the profound and systematized guilt of a villain who had been the bane

of all who had come within his contact, that nerved my arm and engrossed

my heart. Bear witness, Heaven, I am not a vindictive man! I have, it is

true, been extreme in hatred as in love; but I have ever had the power

to control myself from yielding to its impulse. When the full persuasion

of Gerald’s crime reigned within me, I had thralled my emotion; I had

curbed it within the circle of my own heart, though there, thus pent and

self-consuming, it was an agony and a torture; I had resisted the voice

of that blood which cried from the earth against a murderer, and which

had consigned the solemn charge of justice to my hands. Year after year

I had nursed an unappeased desire; nor ever when it stung the most,

suffered it to become an actual revenge. I had knelt in tears and in

softness by Aubrey’s bed; I had poured forth my pardon over him; I had

felt, while I did so,--no, not so much sternness as would have slain a

worm. By his hand had the murderous stroke been dealt; on his soul was

the crimson stain of that blood which had flowed through the veins of

the gentlest and the most innocent of God’s creatures; and yet the blow

was unavenged and the crime forgiven. For him there was a palliative, or

even a gloomy but an unanswerable excuse. In the confession which had so

terribly solved the mystery of my life, the seeds of that curse, which

had grown at last into MADNESS, might be discovered even in the first

dawn of Aubrey’s existence. The latent poison might be detected in

the morbid fever of his young devotion, in his jealous cravings of

affection, in the first flush of his ill-omened love,--even before

rivalship and wrath began. Then, too, his guilt had not been regularly

organized into one cold and deliberate system: it broke forth in

impetuous starts, in frantic paroxysms; it was often wrestled with,

though by a feeble mind; it was often conquered by a tender though a

fitful temper; it might not have rushed into the last and most awful

crime, but for the damning instigation and the atrocious craft of one,

who (Aubrey rightly said) could wield and mould the unhappy victim

at his will. Might not, did I say? Nay, but for Montreuil’s accursed

influence, had I not Aubrey’s own word that that crime never _would

have_ been committed? He had resolved to stifle his love,--his heart had

already melted to Isora and to me,--he had already tasted the sweets of

a virtuous resolution, and conquered the first bitterness of opposition

to his passion. Why should not the resolution thus auspiciously begun

have been mellowed into effect? Why should not the grateful and awful

remembrance of the crime he had escaped continue to preserve him from

meditating crime anew? And (oh, thought, which, while I now write,

steals over me and brings with it an unutterable horde of emotions!) but

for that all-tainting, all-withering influence, Aubrey’s soul might at

this moment have been pure from murder and Isora--the living Isora--by

my side!

What wonder, as these thoughts came over me, that sense, feeling,

reason, gradually shrank and hardened into one stern resolve? I looked

as from a height over the whole conduct of Montreuil. I saw him in our

early infancy with no definite motive (beyond the general policy of

intrigue), no fixed design, which might somewhat have lessened the

callousness of the crime, not only fomenting dissensions in the hearts

of brothers; not only turning the season of warm affections, and yet of

unopened passion, into strife and rancour, but seizing upon the inherent

and reigning vice of our bosoms, which he should have seized to crush,

in order only by that master-vice to weave our characters, and sway

our conduct to his will, whenever a cool-blooded and merciless policy

required us to be of that will the minions and the tools. Thus had

he taken hold of the diseased jealousy of Aubrey, and by that handle,

joined to the latent spring of superstition, guided him on his wretched

course of misery and guilt. Thus, by a moral irresolution in Gerald had

he bowed him also to his purposes, and by an infantine animosity between

that brother and myself, held us both in a state of mutual hatred which

I shuddered to recall. Readily could I now perceive that my charges or

my suspicions against Gerald, which, in ordinary circumstances, he might

have dispassionately come forward to disprove, had been represented to

him by Montreuil in the light of groundless and wilful insults; and thus

he had been led to scorn that full and cool explanation which, if it

had not elucidated the mystery of my afflictions, would have removed the

false suspicion of guilt from himself and the real guilt of wrath and

animosity from me.

The crime of the forged will, and the outrage to the dead and to myself,

was a link in his woven guilt which I regarded the least. I looked

rather to the black and the consummate craft by which Aubrey had been

implicated in that sin; and my indignation became mixed with horror when

I saw Montreuil working to that end of fraud by the instigation not

only of a guilty and unlawful passion, but of the yet more unnatural and

terrific engine of _frenzy_,--of a maniac’s despair. Over the peace, the

happiness, the honour, the virtue of a whole family, through fraud and

through blood, this priest had marched onward to the goal of his icy and

heartless ambition, unrelenting and unrepenting; “but not,” I said, as I

clenched my hand till the nails met in the flesh, “not forever unchecked

and unrequited!”

But in what manner was justice to be obtained? A public court of law?

What! drag forward the deep dishonour of my house, the gloomy and

convulsive history of my departed brother, his crime and his insanity?

What! bring that history, connected as it was with the fate of Isora,

before the curious and the insolent gaze of the babbling world? Bare

that awful record to the jests, to the scrutiny, the marvel and the

pity, of that most coarse of all tribunals,--an English court of law?

and that most torturing of all exposures,--the vulgar comments of an

English public? Could I do this? Yea, in the sternness of my soul,

I felt that I could submit even to that humiliation, if no other way

presented itself by which I could arrive at justice. _Was_ there no

other way?--at that question conjecture paused: I formed no scheme, or

rather, I formed a hundred and rejected them all; my mind settled, at

last, into an indistinct, unquestioned, but prophetic resolution, that,

whenever my path crossed Montreuil’s, it should be to his destruction. I

asked not how, nor when, the blow was to be dealt; I felt only a solemn

and exultant certainty that, whether it borrowed the sword of the

law, or the weapon of private justice, _mine_ should be the hand which

brought retribution to the ashes of the dead and the agony of the

survivor.

So soon as my mind had subsided into this determination, I suffered my

thoughts to dwell upon subjects less sternly agitating. Fondly did I

look forward to a meeting with Gerald, and a reconciliation of all our

early and most frivolous disputes. As an atonement for the injustice my

suspicions had done him, I resolved not to reclaim my inheritance.

My fortune was already ample; and all that I cared to possess of the

hereditary estates were the ruins of the old house and the copses of the

surrounding park: these Gerald would in all likelihood easily yield

to me; and with the natural sanguineness of my temperament, I already

planned the reconstruction of the ancient building, and the method of

that solitary life in which I resolved that the remainder of my years

should be spent.

Turning from this train of thought, I recurred to the mysterious and

sudden disappearance of Oswald: _that_ I was now easily able to account

for. There could be no doubt but that Montreuil had (immediately after

the murder), as he declared he would, induced Oswald to quit England,

and preserve silence, either by bribery or by threats. And when I

recalled the impression which the man had made upon me,--an impression

certainly not favourable to the elevation or the rigid honesty of his

mind,--I could not but imagine that one or the other of these means

Montreuil found far from difficult of success. The delirious fever into

which the wounds and the scene of that night had thrown me, and the

long interval that consequently elapsed before inquiry was directed to

Oswald, gave him every opportunity and indulgence in absenting himself

from the country, and it was not improbable that he had accompanied

Aubrey to Italy.

Here I paused, in deep acknowledgment of the truth of Aubrey’s

assertion, that “under similar circumstances I might perhaps have been

equally guilty.” My passions had indeed been “intense and fierce as his

own;” and there was a dread coincidence in the state of mind into which

each of us had been thrown by the event of that night, which made the

epoch of a desolated existence to both of us; if mine had been but

a passing delirium, and his a confirmed and lasting disease of the

intellect, the causes of our malady had been widely different. He had

been the criminal; I, only the sufferer.

Thus, as I leaned over the deck and the waves bore me homeward, after so

many years and vicissitudes, did the shadows of thought and memory flit

across me. How seemingly apart, yet how closely linked, had been the

great events in my wandering and wild life! My early acquaintance with

Bolingbroke, whom for more than nine years I had not seen, and who, at

a superficial glance, would seem to have exercised influence over my

public rather than my private life,--how secretly, yet how powerfully,

had that circumstance led even to the very thoughts which now possessed

me, and to the very object on which I was now bound. But for that

circumstance I might not have learned of the retreat of Don Diego

d’Alvarez in his last illness; I might never have renewed my love to

Isora; and whatever had been her fate, destitution and poverty

would have been a less misfortune than her union with me. But for my

friendship for Bolingbroke, I might not have visited France, nor

gained the favour of the Regent, nor the ill offices of Dubois, nor the

protection and kindness of the Czar. I might never have been ambassador

at the court of------, nor met with Bezoni, nor sought an asylum for

a spirit sated with pomp and thirsting for truth, at the foot of the

Apennines, nor read that history (which, indeed, might then never

have occurred) that now rankled at my heart, urging my movements and

colouring my desires. Thus, by the finest but the strongest meshes had

the thread of my political honours been woven with that of my private

afflictions. And thus, even at the licentious festivals of the Regent of

France, or the lifeless parade of the court of------, the dark stream of

events had flowed onward beneath my feet, bearing me insensibly to that

very spot of time from which I now surveyed the past and looked upon the

mist and shadows of the future.

Adverse winds made the little voyage across the Channel a business of

four days. On the evening of the last we landed at Dover. Within thirty

miles of that town was my mother’s retreat; and I resolved, before I

sought a reconciliation with Gerald or justice against Montreuil, to

visit her seclusion. Accordingly, the next day I repaired to her abode.

What a contrast is there between the lives of human beings! Considering

the beginning and the end of all mortal careers are the same, how

wonderfully is the interval varied! Some, the weeds of the world, dashed

from shore to shore,--all vicissitude, enterprise, strife, disquiet;

others, the world’s lichen, rooted to some peaceful rock, growing,

flourishing, withering on the same spot,--scarce a feeling expressed,

scarce a sentiment called forth, scarce a tithe of the properties of

their very nature expanded into action.

There was an air of quiet and stillness in the red quadrangular

building, as my carriage stopped at its porch, which struck upon me,

like a breathing reproach to those who sought the abode of peace with

feelings opposed to the spirit of the place. A small projecting porch

was covered with ivy, and thence issued an aged portress in answer to my

summons.

“The Countess Devereux,” said she, “is now the superior of this society

[convent they called it not], and rarely admits any stranger.”

I gave in my claim to admission, and was ushered into a small parlour:

all there, too, was still,--the brown oak wainscoting, the huge chairs,

the few antique portraits, the _uninhabited_ aspect of the chamber,--all

were silently eloquent of quietude, but a quietude comfortless and

sombre. At length my mother appeared. I sprang forward: my childhood was

before me,--years, care, change were forgotten,--I was a boy again,--I

sprang forward, and was in my mother’s embrace! It was long before,

recovering myself, I noted how lifeless and chill was that embrace, but

I did so at last, and my enthusiasm withered at once.

We sat down together, and conversed long and uninterruptedly, but our

conversation was like that of acquaintances, not the fondest and closest

of all relations (for I need scarcely add that I told her not of my

meeting with Aubrey, nor undeceived her with respect to the date of his

death). Every monastic recluse that I had hitherto seen, even in the

most seeming content with retirement, had loved to converse of the

exterior world, and had betrayed an interest in its events: for my

mother only, worldly objects and interests seemed utterly dead. She

expressed little surprise to see me,--little surprise at my alteration;

she only said that my mien was improved, and that I reminded her of my

father: she testified no anxiety to hear of my travels or my adventures;

she testified even no willingness to speak of herself; she described to

me the life of one day, and then said that the history of ten years was

told. A close cap confined all the locks for whose rich luxuriance and

golden hue she had once been noted,--for here they were not the victim

of a vow, as in a nunnery they would have been,--and her dress was

plain, simple, and unadorned. Save these alterations of attire, none

were visible in her exterior: the torpor of her life seemed to have

paralyzed even time; the bloom yet dwelt in her unwrinkled cheek; the

mouth had not fallen; the faultless features were faultless still. But

there was a deeper stillness than ever breathing through this frame: it

was as if the soul had been lulled to sleep; her mien was lifeless;

her voice was lifeless; her gesture was lifeless; the impression she

produced was like that of entering some chamber which has not been

entered before for a century. She consented to my request to stay with

her all the day: a bed was prepared for me; and at sunrise the next

morning I was folded once more in the chilling mechanism of her embrace,

and dismissed on my journey to the metropolis.

CHAPTER VI.

THE RETREAT OF A CELEBRATED MAN, AND A VISIT TO A GREAT POET.

I ARRIVED in town, and drove at once to Gerald’s house. It was not

difficult to find it, for in my young day it had been the residence of

the Duke of------; and wealthy as I knew was the owner of the Devereux

lands, I was somewhat startled at the extent and the magnificence of his

palace. To my inexpressible disappointment, I found that Gerald had left

London a day or two before my arrival on a visit to a nobleman nearly

connected with our family, and residing in the same county as that in

which Devereux Court was situated. Since the fire, which had destroyed

all of the old house but the one tower which I had considered as

peculiarly my own, Gerald, I heard, had always, in visiting his estates,

taken up his abode at the mansion of one or other of his neighbours; and

to Lord ------‘s house I now resolved to repair. My journey was delayed

for a day or two, by accidentally seeing at the door of the hotel,

to which I drove from Gerald’s house, the favourite servant of Lord

Bolingbroke.

This circumstance revived in me, at once, all my attachment to that

personage, and hearing he was at his country house, within a few miles

from town, I resolved the next morning to visit him. It was not only

that I contemplated with an eager yet a melancholy interest an interview

with one whose blazing career I had long watched, and whose letters

(for during the years we had been parted he wrote to me often) seemed to

testify the same satiety of the triumphs and gauds of ambition which had

brought something of wisdom to myself; it was not only that I wished to

commune with that Bolingbroke in retirement whom I had known the oracle

of statesmen and the pride of courts; nor even that I loved the man,

and was eager once more to embrace him. A fiercer and more active motive

urged me to visit one whose knowledge of all men and application of

their various utilities were so remarkable, and who even in his present

peace and retirement would not improbably be acquainted with the abode

of that unquiet and plotting ecclesiastic whom I now panted to discover,

and whom Bolingbroke had of old often guided or employed.

When my carriage stopped at the statesman’s door, I was informed that

Lord Bolingbroke was at his farm. Farm! how oddly did that word sound

in my ear, coupled as it was with the name of one so brilliant and so

restless!

I asked the servant to direct me where I should find him, and, following

the directions, I proceeded to the search alone. It was a day towards

the close of autumn, bright, soft, clear, and calm as the decline of a

vigorous and genial age. I walked slowly through a field robbed of its

golden grain, and as I entered another I saw the object of my search. He

had seemingly just given orders to a person in a labourer’s dress, who

was quitting him, and with downcast eyes he was approaching towards me.

I noted how slow and even was the pace which, once stately, yet rapid

and irregular, had betrayed the haughty but wild character of his mind.

He paused often, as if in thought, and I observed that once he

stopped longer than usual, and seemed to gaze wistfully on the ground.

Afterwards (when I had joined him) we passed that spot, and I remarked,

with a secret smile, that it contained one of those little mounds in

which that busy and herded tribe of the insect race, which have been

held out to man’s social state at once as a mockery and a model, held

their populous home. There seemed a latent moral in the pause and watch

of the disappointed statesman by that mound, which afforded a clew to

the nature of his reflections.

He did not see me till I was close before him, and had called him by his

name, nor did he at first recognize me, for my garb was foreign, and my

upper lip unshaven; and, as I said before, years had strangely altered

me; but when he did, he testified all the cordiality I had anticipated.

I linked my arm in his, and we walked to and fro for hours, talking of

all that had passed since and before our parting, and feeling our hearts

warm to each other as we talked.

“The last time I saw you,” said he, “how widely did our hopes and

objects differ! Yours from my own: you seemingly had the vantage-ground,

but it was an artificial eminence, and my level state, though it

appeared less tempting, was more secure. I had just been disgraced by

a misguided and ungrateful prince. I had already gone into a retirement

where my only honours were proportioned to my fortitude in bearing

condemnation, and my only flatterer was the hope of finding a companion

and a Mentor in myself. You, my friend, parted with life before you; and

you only relinquished the pursuit of Fortune at one court, to meet her

advances at another. Nearly ten years have flown since that time: my

situation is but little changed; I am returned, it is true, to my native

soil, but not to a soil more indulgent to ambition and exertion than the

scene of my exile. My sphere of action is still shut from me: _my mind

is still banished_.* You return young in years, but full of successes.

Have they brought you happiness, Devereux? or have you yet a temper to

envy my content?”

* I need scarcely remind the reader that Lord Bolingbroke, though he had

received a full pardon, was forbidden to resume his seat in the House of

Lords.--ED.

“Alas!” said I, “who can bear too close a search beneath the mask and

robe? Talk not of me now. It is ungracious for the fortunate to

repine; and I reserve whatever may disquiet me within for your future

consolation and advice. At present speak to me of yourself: you are

happy, then?”

“I am!” said Bolingbroke, emphatically. “Life seems to me to possess two

treasures: one glittering and precarious; the other of less rich a show,

but of a more solid value. The one is Power, the other Virtue; and there

is this main difference between the two,--Power is intrusted to us as a

loan ever required again, and with a terrible arrear of interest; Virtue

obtained by us as a _boon_ which we can only lose through our own folly,

when once it is acquired. In my youth I was caught by the former; hence

my errors and my misfortunes! In my declining years I have sought the

latter; hence my palliatives and my consolation. But you have not seen

my home, and _all_ its attractions,” added Bolingbroke, with a smile

which reminded me of his former self. “I will show them to you.” And we

turned our steps to the house.

As we walked thither I wondered to find how little melancholy was the

change Bolingbroke had undergone. Ten years, which bring man from his

prime to his decay, had indeed left their trace upon his stately form,

and the still unrivalled beauty of his noble features; but the manner

gained all that the form had lost. In his days of more noisy greatness,

there had been something artificial and unquiet in the sparkling

alternations he had loved to adopt. He had been too fond of changing

wisdom by a quick turn into wit,--too fond of the affectation of

bordering the serious with the gay, business with pleasure. If this had

not taken from the polish of his manner, it had diminished its dignity

and given it the air of being assumed and insincere. Now all was

quiet, earnest, and impressive; there was tenderness even in what was

melancholy: and if there yet lingered the affectation of blending the

classic character with his own, the character was more noble and the

affectation more unseen. But this manner was only the faint mirror of a

mind which, retaining much of its former mould, had been embellished and

exalted by adversity, and which if it banished not its former faculties,

had acquired a thousand new virtues to redeem them.

“You see,” said my companion, pointing to the walls of the hall, which

we had now entered, “the subject which at present occupies the greater

part of my attention. I am meditating how to make the hall most

illustrative of its owner’s pursuits. You see the desire of improving,

of creating, and of associating the improvement and the creation with

ourselves, follows us banished men even to our seclusion. I think of

having those walls painted with the implements of husbandry, and through

pictures of spades and ploughshares to express my employments and

testify my content in them.”

“Cincinnatus is a better model than Aristippus: confess it,” said I,

smiling. “But if the senators come hither to summon you to power, will

you resemble the Roman, not only in being found at your plough, but in

your reluctance to leave it, and your eagerness to return?”

“What shall I say to you?” replied Bolingbroke. “Will you play the cynic

if I answer _no_? We _should not_ boast of despising power, when of use

to others, but of being contented to live without it. This is the end of

my philosophy! But let me present you to one whom I value more now than

I valued power at any time.”

As he said this, Bolingbroke threw open the door of an apartment, and

introduced me to a lady with whom he had found that domestic happiness

denied him in his first marriage. The niece of Madame de Maintenon, this

most charming woman possessed all her aunt’s wit, and far more than

all her aunt’s beauty.* She was in weak health; but her vivacity was

extreme, and her conversation just what should be the conversation of a

woman who shines without striving for it.

* T am not ashamed to say to you that I admire her more every hour of my

life.--Letter from Lord Bolingbroke to Swift.

Bolingbroke loved her to the last; and perhaps it is just to a man

so celebrated for his gallantries to add that this beautiful and

accomplished woman seems to have admired and esteemed as much as she

loved him.--ED.

The business on which I was bound only allowed me to stay two days with

Bolingbroke, and this I stated at first, lest he should have dragged me

over his farm.

“Well,” said my host, after vainly endeavouring to induce me to promise

a longer stay, “if you can only give us two days, I must write and

excuse myself to a great man with whom I was to dine to-day. Yet, if it

were not so inhospitable, I should like much to carry you with me to his

house; for I own that I wish you to see my companions, and to learn that

if I still consult the oracles, they are less for the predictions of

fortune than as the inspirations of the god.”

“Ah!” said Lady Bolingbroke, who spoke in French, “I know whom you

allude to. Give him my homage, and assure him, when he next visits us,

we will appoint six _dames du palais_ to receive and pet him.”

Upon this I insisted upon accompanying Bolingbroke to the house of so

fortunate a being, and he consented to my wish with feigned reluctance,

but evident pleasure.

“And who,” said I to Lady Bolingbroke, “is the happy object of so much

respect?”

Lady Bolingbroke answered, laughing, that nothing was so pleasant as

suspense, and that it would be cruel in her to deprive me of it; and we

conversed with so much zest that it was not till Bolingbroke had left

the room for some moments that I observed he was not present. I took the

opportunity to remark that I was rejoiced to find him so happy and with

such just cause for happiness.

“He is happy, though at times he is restless. How, chained to this oar,

can he be otherwise?” answered Lady Bolingbroke, with a sigh; “but his

friends,” she added, “who most enjoy his retirement, must yet lament it.

His genius is not wasted here, it is true: where could it be wasted?

But who does not feel that it is employed in too confined a sphere? And

yet--” and I saw a tear start to her eye--“I, at least, ought not to

repine. I should lose the best part of my happiness if there was nothing

I could console him for.”

“Believe me,” said I, “I have known Bolingbroke in the zenith of his

success; but never knew him so worthy of congratulation as now!”

“Is that flattery to him or to me?” said Lady Bolingbroke, smiling

archly, for her smiles were quick successors to her tears.

“_Detur digniori_!” answered I; “but you must allow that, though it is

a fine thing to have all that the world can give, it is still better to

gain something that the world cannot take away?”

“Are you also a philosopher?” cried Lady Bolingbroke, gayly. “Ah, poor

me! In my youth, my portion was the cloister;* in my later years I am

banished to _the porch_! You have no conception, Monsieur Devereux, what

wise faces and profound maxims we have here, especially as all who come

to visit my lord think it necessary to quote Tully, and talk of solitude

as if it were a heaven! _Les pauvres bons gens_! they seem a little

surprised when Henry receives them smilingly, begs them to construe the

Latin, gives them good wine, and sends them back to London with faces

half the length they were on their arrival. _Mais voici, Monsieur, le

fermier philosophe!_”

* She was brought up at St. Cyr.--ED.

And Bolingbroke entering, I took my leave of this lively and interesting

lady and entered his carriage.

As soon as we were seated, he pressed me for my reasons for refusing to

prolong my visit. As I thought they would be more opportune after the

excursion of the day was over, and as, in truth, I was not eager to

relate them, I begged to defer the narration till our return to his

house at night, and then I directed the conversation into a new channel.

“My chief companion,” said Bolingbroke, after describing to me his

course of life, “is the man you are about to visit. He has his

frailties and infirmities,--and in saying that, I only imply that he

is human,--but he is wise, reflective, generous, and affectionate; add

these qualities to a dazzling wit, and a genius deep, if not sublime,

and what wonder that we forget something of vanity and something of

fretfulness,--effects rather of the frame than of the mind. The wonder

only is that, with a body the victim to every disease, crippled and

imbecile from the cradle, his frailties should not be more numerous,

and his care, his thoughts, and attentions not wholly limited to his

own complaints. For the sickly are almost of necessity selfish; and that

mind must have a vast share of benevolence which can always retain

the softness of charity and love for others, when pain and disease

constitute the morbid links that perpetually bind it to self. If this

great character is my chief companion, my chief correspondent is not

less distinguished; in a word, no longer to keep you in suspense, Pope

is my companion and Swift my correspondent.”

“You are fortunate, but so also are they. Your letter informed me of

Swift’s honourable exile in Ireland: how does he bear it?”

“Too feelingly: his disappointments turn his blood to acid. He said,

characteristically enough, in one of his letters, that in fishing once

when he was a little boy, he felt a great fish at the end of his line,

which he drew up almost to the ground, but it dropped in, and the

disappointment, he adds, vexes him to this day, and he believes it to

be the type of all his future disappointments:* it is wonderful how

reluctantly a very active mind sinks into rest.”

* In this letter Swift adds, “I should be ashamed to say this if you

[Lord Bolingbroke] had not a spirit fitter to bear your own misfortunes

than I have to think of them;” and this is true. Nothing can be more

striking, or more honourable to Lord Bolingbroke, than the contrast

between Swift’s letters and that nobleman’s upon the subject of their

mutual disappointments. I especially note the contrast, because it has

been so grievously the cant of Lord Bolingbroke’s decriers to represent

his affection for retirement as hollow, and his resignation in adversity

as a boast rather than a fact. Now I will challenge any one _thoroughly_

and dispassionately to examine what is left to us of the life of this

great man, and after having done so, to select from all modern history

an example of one who, in the prime of life and height of ambition,

ever passed from a very active and exciting career into retirement

and disgrace, and bore the change--long, bitter, and permanent as it

was--with a greater and more thoroughly sustained magnanimity than did

Lord Bolingbroke. He has been reproached for taking part in political

contests in the midst of his praises and “affected enjoyment” of

retirement; and this, made matter of reproach, is exactly the subject on

which he seems to me the _most_ worthy of praise. For, putting aside

all motives for action, on the purity of which men are generally

incredulous, as a hatred to ill government (an antipathy wonderfully

strong in wise men, and wonderfully weak in fools), the honest

impulse of the citizen, and the better and higher sentiment, to which

Bolingbroke appeared peculiarly alive, of affection to mankind,--putting

these utterly aside,--it must be owned that resignation is the more

noble in proportion as it is the less passive; that retirement is only a

morbid selfishness if it prohibit exertions for others; that it is only

really dignified and noble when it is the shade whence issue the oracles

that are to instruct mankind; and that retirement of this nature is the

sole seclusion which a good and wise man will covet or commend. The very

philosophy which makes such a man seek the _quiet_, makes him eschew the

_inutility_ of the hermitage. Very little praiseworthy to me would have

seemed Lord Bolingbroke among his haymakers and ploughmen, if among

haymakers and ploughmen he had looked with an indifferent eye upon a

profligate Minister and a venal parliament; very little interest in my

eyes would have attached itself to his beans and vetches, had beans and

vetches caused him to forget that if he was happier in a farm, he could

be more useful in a senate, and made him forego, in the sphere of a

bailiff, all care for re-entering that of a legislator.--ED.

“Yet why should retirement be rest? Do you recollect in the first

conversation we ever had together, we talked of Cowley? Do you recollect

how justly, and even sublimely, he has said, ‘Cogitation is that which

distinguishes the solitude of a God from that of a wild beast’?”

“It is finely said,” answered Bolingbroke; “but Swift was born not for

cogitation but action; for turbulent times, not for calm. He ceases to

be great directly he is still; and his bitterness at every vexation is

so great that I have often thought, in listening to him, of the Abbe de

Cyran, who, attempting to throw nutshells out of the bars of his window,

and constantly failing in the attempt, exclaimed in a paroxysm of rage,

‘Thus does Providence delight in frustrating my designs!’”

“But you are fallen from a far greater height of hope than Swift could

ever have attained: you bear this change well, but not _I hope_ without

a struggle.”

“You are right,--_not_ without a struggle; while corruption thrives, I

will not be silent; while bad men govern, I will not be still.”

In conversation of this sort passed the time, till we arrived at Pope’s

villa.

We found the poet in his study,--indued, as some of his pictures

represent him, in a long gown and a velvet cap. He received Bolingbroke

with great tenderness, and being, as he said, in robuster health than he

had enjoyed for months, he insisted on carrying us to his grotto. I

know nothing more common to poets than a pride in what belongs to their

houses; and perhaps to a man not ill-natured, there are few things more

pleasant than indulging the little weaknesses of those we admire. We sat

down in a small temple made entirely of shells; and whether it was that

the Creative Genius gave an undue charm to the place, I know not: but as

the murmur of a rill, glassy as the Blandusian fountain, was caught, and

re-given from side to side by a perpetual echo, and through an arcade

of trees, whose leaves, ever and anon, fell startingly to the ground

beneath the light touch of the autumn air; as you saw the sails on the

river pass and vanish, like the cares which breathe over the smooth

glass of wisdom, but may not linger to dim it, it was not difficult

to invest the place, humble as it was, with a classic interest, or

to recall the loved retreats of the Roman bards, without smiling too

fastidiously at the contrast.

“Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen,

Within thy airy shell,

By slow Meander’s margin green,

Or by the violet embroidered vale

Where the lovelorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;

Sweet Echo, dost thou shun those haunts of yore,

And in the dim caves of a northern shore

Delight to dwell!”

“Let the compliment to you, Pope,” said Bolingbroke, “atone for the

profanation of weaving three wretched lines of mine with those most

musical notes of Milton.”

“Ah!” said Pope, “would that you could give me a fitting inscription for

my fount and grotto! The only one I can remember is hackneyed, and yet

it has spoilt me, I fear, for all others.

“‘Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis

Dormio dum blandae sentio murmur aquae;

Parce meum, quisquis tanges cava marmora, somnum

Rumpere; sive bibas, sive lavere, tace.’”*

* Thus very inadequately translated by Pope (see his Letter to Edward

Blount, Esq., descriptive of his grotto):--

“Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep,

And to the murmur of these waters sleep:

Ah, spare my slumbers; gently tread the cave,

And drink in silence, or in silence lave.”

It is, however, quite impossible to convey to an unlearned reader the

exquisite and spirit-like beauty of the Latin verses.--ED.

“We cannot hope to match it,” said Bolingbroke, “though you know I value

myself on these things. But tell me your news of Gay: is he growing

wiser?”

“Not a whit; he is forever a dupe to the _spes credula_; always talking

of buying an annuity, that he may be independent, and always spending as

fast as he earns, that he may appear munificent.”

“Poor Gay! but he is a common example of the improvidence of his tribe,

while you are an exception. Yet mark, Devereux, the inconsistency of

Pope’s thrift and carelessness: he sends a parcel of fruit to some

ladies with this note, ‘Take care of the papers that wrap the apples,

and return them safely; they are the only copies I have of one part of

the Iliad.’ Thus, you see, our economist saves his paper, and hazards

his epic!”

Pope, who is always flattered by an allusion to his negligence of fame,

smiled slightly and answered, “What man, alas, ever profits by the

lessons of his friends? How many exact rules has our good Dean of St.

Patrick laid down for both of us; how angrily still does he chide us for

our want of prudence and our love of good living! I intend, in answer to

his charges on the latter score, though I vouch, as I well may, for our

temperance, to give him the reply of the sage to the foolish courtier--”

“What was that?” asked Bolingbroke.

“Why, the courtier saw the sage picking out the best dishes at table.

‘How,’ said he with a sneer, ‘are sages such epicures?’--‘Do you think,

Sir,’ replied the wise man, reaching over the table to help himself, ‘do

you think, Sir, that the Creator made the good things of this world only

for fools?’”

“How the Dean will pish and pull his wig when he reads your

illustration,” said Bolingbroke, laughing. “We shall never agree in our

reasonings on that part of philosophy. Swift loves to go out of his way

to find privation or distress, and has no notion of Epicurean wisdom;

for my part, I think the use of knowledge is to make us happier. I would

compare the mind to the beautiful statue of Love by Praxiteles. When its

eyes were bandaged the countenance seemed grave and sad, but the moment

you removed the bandage the most serene and enchanting smile diffused

itself over the whole face.”

So passed the morning till the hour of dinner, and this repast was

served with an elegance and luxury which the sons of Apollo seldom

command.* As the evening closed, our conversation fell upon friendship,

and the increasing disposition towards it which comes with increasing

years. “Whilst my mind,” said Bolingbroke, “shrinks more and more from

the world, and feels in its independence less yearning to external

objects, the ideas of friendship return oftener,--they busy me, they

warm me more. Is it that we grow more tender as the moment of our great

separation approaches? or is it that they who are to live together in

another state (for friendship exists not but for the good) begin to

feel more strongly that divine sympathy which is to be the great bond of

their future society?” **

* Pope seems to have been rather capricious in this respect; but in

general he must be considered open to the sarcasm of displaying the

bounteous host to those who did not want a dinner, and the niggard to

those who did.--ED.

** This beautiful sentiment is to be found, with very slight alteration,

in a letter from Bolingbroke to Swift.--ED.

While Bolingbroke was thus speaking, and Pope listened with all the love

and reverence which he evidently bore to his friend stamped upon his

worn but expressive countenance, I inly said, “Surely, the love between

minds like these should live and last without the changes that ordinary

affections feel! Who would not mourn for the strength of all human ties,

if hereafter these are broken, and asperity succeed to friendship,

or aversion to esteem? _I_, a wanderer, without heir to my memory and

wealth, shall pass away, and my hasty and unmellowed fame will moulder

with my clay; but will the names of those whom I now behold ever fall

languidly on the ears of a future race, and will there not forever be

some sympathy with their friendship, softer and warmer than admiration

for their fame?”

We left our celebrated host about two hours before midnight, and

returned to Dawley.

On our road thither I questioned Bolingbroke respecting Montreuil, and

I found that, as I had surmised, he was able to give me some information

of that arch-schemer. Gerald’s money and hereditary influence had

procured tacit connivance at the Jesuit’s residence in England, and

Montreuil had for some years led a quiet and unoffending life in close

retirement. “Lately, however,” said Bolingbroke, “I have learned that

the old spirit has revived, and I accidentally heard three days ago,

when conversing with one well informed on state matters, that this

most pure administration has discovered some plot or plots with which

Montreuil is connected; I believe he will be apprehended in a few days.”

“And where lurks he?”

“He was, I heard, last seen in the neighbourhood of your brother’s

property at Devereux Court, and I imagine it probable that he is still

in that neighbourhood.”

This intelligence made me resolve to leave Dawley even earlier than

I had intended, and I signified to Lord Bolingbroke my intention of

quitting him by sunrise the next morning. He endeavoured in vain to

combat my resolution. I was too fearful lest Montreuil, hearing of

his danger from the state, might baffle my vengeance by seeking some

impenetrable asylum, to wish to subject my meeting with him and with

Gerald, whose co-operation I desired, to any unnecessary delay. I took

leave of my host therefore that night, and ordered my carriage to be in

readiness by the first dawn of morning.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PLOT APPROACHES ITS DENOUEMENT.

ALTHOUGH the details of my last chapter have somewhat retarded the

progress of that _denouement_ with which this volume is destined to

close, yet I do not think the destined reader will regret lingering

over a scene in which, after years of restless enterprise and exile, he

beholds the asylum which fortune had prepared for the most extraordinary

character with which I have adorned these pages.

It was before daybreak that I commenced my journey. The shutters of the

house were as yet closed; the gray mists rising slowly from the earth,

and the cattle couched beneath the trees, the cold but breezeless

freshness of the morning, the silence of the unawakened birds, all gave

an inexpressible stillness and quiet to the scene. The horses slowly

ascended a little eminence, and I looked from the window of the carriage

on the peaceful retreat I had left. I sighed as I did so, and a sick

sensation, coupled with the thought of Isora, came chill upon my heart.

No man happily placed in this social world can guess the feelings of

envy with which a wanderer like me, without tie or home, and for whom

the roving eagerness of youth is over, surveys those sheltered spots

in which the breast garners up all domestic bonds, its household and

holiest delights; the companioned hearth, the smile of infancy, and,

dearer than all, the eye that glasses our purest, our tenderest, our

most secret thoughts; these--oh, none who enjoy them know how they for

whom they are not have pined and mourned for them!

I had not travelled many hours, when, upon the loneliest part of the

road, my carriage, which had borne me without an accident from Rome to

London, broke down. The postilions said there was a small inn about a

mile from the spot; thither I repaired: a blacksmith was sent for, and

I found the accident to the carriage would require several hours to

repair. No solitary chaise did the inn afford; but the landlord, who was

a freeholder and a huntsman, boasted one valuable and swift horse, which

he declared was fit for an emperor or a highwayman. I was too impatient

of delay not to grasp at this intelligence. I gave mine host whatever he

demanded for the loan of his steed, transferred my pistols to an immense

pair of holsters, which adorned a high demi-pique saddle, wherewith

he obliged me, and, within an hour from the date of the accident,

recommenced my journey.

The evening closed, as I became aware of the presence of a

fellow-traveller. He was, like myself, on horseback. He wore a short,

dark gray cloak, a long wig of a raven hue, and a large hat, which,

flapping over his face, conspired, with the increasing darkness, to

allow me a very imperfect survey of his features. Twice or thrice he had

passed me, and always with some salutation, indicative of a desire for

further acquaintance; but my mood is not naturally too much inclined to

miscellaneous society, and I was at that time peculiarly covetous of

my own companionship. I had, therefore, given but a brief answer to

the horseman’s courtesy, and had ridden away from him with a very

unceremonious abruptness. At length, when he had come up to me for the

fourth time, and for the fourth time had accosted me, my ear caught

something in the tones of his voice which did not seem to me wholly

unfamiliar. I regarded him with more attention than I had as yet done,

and replied to him more civilly and at length. Apparently encouraged by

this relaxation from my reserve, the man speedily resumed.

“Your horse, Sir,” said he, “is a fine animal, but he seems jaded: you

have ridden far to-day, I’ll venture to guess.”

“I have, Sir; but the town where I shall pass the night is not above

four miles distant, I believe.”

“Hum--ha!--you sleep at D-----, then?” said the horseman, inquisitively.

A suspicion came across me; we were then entering a very lonely road,

and one notoriously infested with highwaymen. My fellow equestrian’s

company might have some sinister meaning in it. I looked to my holsters,

and leisurely taking out one of my pistols, saw to its priming, and

returned it to its depository. The horseman noted the motion, and he

moved his horse rather uneasily, and I thought timidly, to the other

side of the road.

“You travel well armed, Sir,” said he, after a pause.

“It is a necessary precaution, Sir,” answered I, composedly, “in a road

one is not familiar with, and with companions one has never had the

happiness to meet before.”

“Ahem!--ahem!--_Parbleu_, Monsieur le Comte, you allude to me; but I

warrant this is not the first time we have met.”

“Ha!” said I, riding closer to my fellow traveller, “you know me, then,

and we _have_ met before. I thought I recognized your voice, but I

cannot remember when or where I last heard it.”

“Oh, Count, I believe it was only by accident that we commenced

acquaintanceship, and only by accident, you see, do we now resume it.

But I perceive that I intrude on your solitude. Farewell, Count, and a

pleasant night at your inn.”

“Not so fast, Sir,” said I, laying firm hand on my companion’s shoulder,

“I know you now, and I thank Providence that I have found you. Marie

Oswald, it is not lightly that I will part with you!”

“With all my heart, Sir, with all my heart. But, _morbleu_! Monsieur le

Comte, do take your hand from my shoulder: I am a nervous man, and your

pistols are loaded, and perhaps you are choleric and hasty. I assure you

I am far from wishing to part with you abruptly, for I have watched you

for the last two days in order to enjoy the honour of this interview.”

“Indeed! your wish will save both of us a world of trouble. I believe

you may serve me effectually; if so, you will find me more desirous and

more able than ever to show my gratitude.”

“Sir, you are too good,” quoth Mr. Oswald, with an air far more

respectful than he had yet shown me. “Let us make to your inn, and there

I shall be most happy to receive your commands.” So saying, Marie pushed

on his horse, and I urged my own to the same expedition.

“But tell me,” said I, as we rode on, “why you have wished to meet

me?--me whom you so cruelly deserted and forsook?”

“Oh, _parbleu_, spare me there! it was not I who deserted you: I was

compelled to fly; death, murder, on one side; safety, money, and a snug

place in Italy, as a lay-brother of the Institute on the other! What

could I do?--you were ill in bed, not likely to recover, not able to

protect me in my present peril, in a state that in all probability never

would require my services for the future. Oh, Monsieur le Comte, it

was not desertion,--that is a cruel word,--it was self-preservation and

common prudence.”

“Well,” said I, complaisantly, “you apply words better than I applied

them. And how long have you been returned to England?”

“Some few weeks, Count, not more. I was in London when you arrived; I

heard of that event; I immediately repaired to your hotel; you were gone

to my Lord Bolingbroke’s; I followed you thither; you had left Dawley

when I arrived there; I learned your route and followed you. _Parbleu_

and _morbleu_! I find you, and you take me for a highwayman!”

“Pardon my mistake: the clearest-sighted men are subject to commit

such errors, and the most innocent to suffer by them. So Montreuil

_persuaded_ you to leave England; did he also persuade you to return?”

“No: I was charged by the Institute with messages to him and others. But

we are near the town, Count, let us defer our conversation till then.”

We entered D-----, put up our horses, called for an apartment,--to which

summons Oswald added another for wine,--and then the virtuous Marie

commenced his explanations. I was deeply anxious to ascertain whether

Gerald had ever been made acquainted with the fraud by which he had

obtained possession of the estates of Devereux; and I found that, from

Desmarais, Oswald had learned all that had occurred to Gerald

since Marie had left England. From Oswald’s prolix communication, I

ascertained that Gerald was, during the whole of the interval between my

uncle’s death and my departure from England, utterly unacquainted with

the fraud of the will. He readily believed that my uncle had found

good reason for altering his intentions with respect to me; and my

law proceedings, and violent conduct towards himself, only excited

his indignation, not aroused his suspicions. During this time he lived

entirely in the country, indulging the rural hospitality and the rustic

sports which he especially affected, and secretly but deeply involved

with Montreuil in political intrigues. All this time the Abbe made no

further use of him than to borrow whatever sums he required for his

purposes. Isora’s death, and the confused story of the document given

me by Oswald, Montreuil had interpreted to Gerald according to the

interpretation of the world; namely, he had thrown the suspicion upon

Oswald, as a common villain, who had taken advantage of my credulity

about the will, introduced himself into the house on that pretence,

attempted the robbery of the most valuable articles therein,--which,

indeed, he had succeeded in abstracting, and who, on my awaking and

contesting with him and his accomplice, had, in self-defence, inflicted

the wounds which had ended in my delirium and Isora’s death. This part

of my tale Montreuil never contradicted, and Gerald believed it to

the present day. The affair of 1715 occurred; the government, aware of

Gerald’s practices, had anticipated his design of joining the rebels;

he was imprisoned; no act of overt guilt on his part was proved, or at

least brought forward; and the government not being willing, perhaps, to

proceed to violent measures against a very young man, and the head of

a very powerful house, connected with more than thirty branches of the

English hereditary nobility, he received his acquittal just before Sir

William Wyndham and some other suspected Tories received their own.

Prior to the breaking out of that rebellion, and on the eve of

Montreuil’s departure for Scotland, the priest summoned Desmarais, whom,

it will be remembered, I had previously dismissed, and whom Montreuil

had since employed in various errands, and informed him that he had

obtained for his services the same post under Gerald which the Fatalist

had filled under me. Soon after the failure of the rebellion, Devereux

Court was destroyed by accidental fire; and Montreuil, who had come

over in disguise, in order to renew his attacks on my brother’s coffers

(attacks to which Gerald yielded very sullenly, and with many assurances

that he would no more incur the danger of political and seditious

projects), now advised Gerald to go up to London, and, in order to avoid

the suspicion of the government, to mix freely in the gayeties of the

court. Gerald readily consented; for, though internally convinced that

the charms of the metropolis were not equal to those of the country,

yet he liked change, and Devereux Court being destroyed, he shuddered a

little at the idea of rebuilding so enormous a pile. Before Gerald left

the old tower (_my tower_) which was alone spared by the flames, and at

which he had resided, though without his household, rather than quit

a place where there was such “excellent shooting,” Montreuil said to

Desmarais, “This ungrateful _seigneur de village_ already shows himself

the niggard; he must know what _we_ know,--that is our only sure hold of

him,--but he must not know it yet;” and he proceeded to observe that

it was for the hotbeds of courtly luxury to mellow and hasten an

opportunity for the disclosure. He instructed Desmarais to see that

Gerald (whom even a valet, at least one so artful as Desmarais, might

easily influence) partook to excess of every pleasure,--at least of

every pleasure which a gentleman might without derogation to his dignity

enjoy. Gerald went to town, and very soon became all that Montreuil

desired.

Montreuil came again to England; his great project, Alberoni’s project,

had failed. Banished France and Spain, and excluded Italy, he was

desirous of obtaining an asylum in England, until he could negotiate a

return to Paris. For the first of these purposes (the asylum) interest

was requisite; for the latter (the negotiation) money was desirable.

He came to seek both these necessaries in Gerald Devereux. Gerald had

already arrived at that prosperous state when money is not lightly given

away. A dispute arose; and Montreuil raised the veil, and showed the

heir on what terms his estates were held.

Rightly Montreuil had read the human heart! So long as Gerald lived in

the country, and tasted not the full enjoyments of his great wealth,

it would have been highly perilous to have made this disclosure; for,

though Gerald had no great love for me, and was bold enough to run any

danger, yet he was neither a Desmarais nor a Montreuil. He was that most

capricious thing, a man of honour; and at that day he would instantly

have given up the estate to me, and Montreuil and the philosopher to the

hangman. But, after two or three years of every luxury that wealth

could purchase; after living in those circles, too, where wealth is the

highest possible merit, and public opinion, therefore, only honours the

rich, fortune became far more valuable and the conscience far less nice.

Living at Devereux Court, Gerald had only L30,000 a year; living in

London, he had all that L30,000 a year can purchase: a very great

difference this indeed! Honour is a fine bulwark against a small force;

but, unbacked by other principle, it is seldom well manned enough to

resist a large one. When, therefore, Montreuil showed Gerald that he

could lose his estate in an instant; that the world would never give

him credit for innocence, when guilt would have conferred on him such

advantages; that he would therefore part with all those _et eoetera_

which, now in the very prime of life, made his whole idea of human

enjoyments; that he would no longer be the rich, the powerful, the

honoured, the magnificent, the envied, the idolized lord of thousands,

but would sink at once into a younger brother, dependent on the man

he most hated for his very subsistence,--since his debts would greatly

exceed his portion,--and an object through life of contemptuous pity

or of covert suspicion; that all this change could happen at a word of

Montreuil’s, what wonder that he should be staggered,--should hesitate

and yield? Montreuil obtained, then, whatever sums he required; and

through Gerald’s influence, pecuniary and political, procured from

the minister a tacit permission for him to remain in England, under

an assumed name and in close retirement. Since then, Montreuil (though

secretly involved in treasonable practices) had appeared to busy himself

solely in negotiating a pardon at Paris. Gerald had lived the life of a

man who, if he has parted with peace of conscience, will make the best

of the bargain by procuring every kind of pleasure in exchange; and _le

petit_ Jean Desmarais, useful to both priest and spendthrift, had

passed his time very agreeably,--laughing at his employers, studying

philosophy, and filling his pockets; for I need scarcely add that Gerald

forgave him without much difficulty for his share in the forgery. A man,

as Oswald shrewdly observed, is seldom inexorable to those crimes by

which he has profited. “And where lurks Montreuil now?” I asked; “in the

neighbourhood of Devereux Court?”

Oswald looked at me with some surprise. “How learned you that, Sir?

It is true. He lives quietly and privately in that vicinity. The woods

around the house, the caves in the beach, and the little isle opposite

the castle, afford him in turn an asylum; and the convenience with which

correspondence with France can be there carried on makes the scene of

his retirement peculiarly adapted to his purpose.”

I now began to question Oswald respecting himself; for I was not warmly

inclined to place implicit trust in the services of a man who had before

shown himself at once mercenary and timid. There was little cant or

disguise about that gentleman; he made few pretences to virtues which

he did not possess; and he seemed now, both by wine and familiarity,

peculiarly disposed to be frank. It was he who in Italy (among various

other and less private commissions) had been appointed by Montreuil to

watch over Aubrey; on my brother’s death he had hastened to England, not

only to apprise Montreuil of that event, but charged with some especial

orders to him from certain members of the Institute. He had found

Montreuil busy, restless, intriguing, even in seclusion, and cheered by

a recent promise, from Fleuri himself, that he should speedily obtain

pardon and recall. It was, at this part of Oswald’s story, easy to

perceive the causes of his renewed confidence in me. Montreuil, engaged

in new plans and schemes, at once complicated and vast, paid but a

slight attention to the wrecks of his past projects. Aubrey dead, myself

abroad, Gerald at his command,--he perceived, in our house, no cause

for caution or alarm. This, apparently, rendered him less careful of

retaining the venal services of Oswald than his knowledge of character

should have made him; and when that gentleman, then in London,

accidentally heard of my sudden arrival in this country, he at once

perceived how much more to his interest it would be to serve me than to

maintain an ill-remunerated fidelity to Montreuil. In fact, as I have

since learned, the priest’s discretion was less to blame than I then

imagined; for Oswald was of a remarkably impudent, profligate, and

spendthrift turn; and his demands for money were considerably greater

than the value of his services; or perhaps, as Montreuil thought, when

Aubrey no longer lived, than the consequence of his silence. When,

therefore, I spoke seriously to my new ally of my desire of wreaking

ultimate justice on the crimes of Montreuil, I found that his zeal was

far from being chilled by my determination,--nay, the very cowardice

of the man made him ferocious; and the moment he resolved to betray

Montreuil, his fears for the priest’s vengeance made him eager

to destroy where he betrayed. I am not addicted to unnecessary

procrastination. Of the unexpected evidence I had found I was most eager

to avail myself. I saw at once how considerably Oswald’s testimony would

lessen any difficulty I might have in an explanation with Gerald, as

well as in bringing Montreuil to justice: and the former measure seemed

to me necessary to insure, or at least to expedite, the latter. I

proposed, therefore, to Oswald, that he should immediately accompany

me to the house in which Gerald was then a visitor; the honest Marie,

conditioning only for another bottle, which he termed a travelling

comforter, readily acceded to my wish. I immediately procured a chaise

and horses; and in less than two hours from the time we entered the inn

we were on the road to Gerald. What an impulse to the wheel of destiny

had the event of that one day given!

At another time, I might have gleaned amusement from the shrewd roguery

of my companion, but he found me then but a dull listener. I served him,

in truth, as men of his stamp are ordinarily served: so soon as I had

extracted from him whatever was meet for present use, I favoured him

with little further attention. He had exhausted all the communications

it was necessary for me to know; so, in the midst of a long story about

Italy, Jesuits, and the wisdom of Marie Oswald, I affected to fall

asleep; my companion soon followed my example in earnest, and left me to

meditate, undisturbed, over all that I had heard, and over the schemes

now the most promising of success. I soon taught myself to look with a

lenient eye on Gerald’s after-connivance in Montreuil’s forgery; and I

felt that I owed to my surviving brother so large an arrear of affection

for the long injustice I had rendered him that I was almost pleased

to find something set upon the opposite score. All men, perhaps, would

rather forgive than be forgiven. I resolved, therefore, to affect

ignorance of Gerald’s knowledge of the forgery; and, even should he

confess it, to exert all my art to steal from the confession its shame.

From this train of reflection my mind soon directed itself to one far

fiercer and more intense; and I felt my heart pause, as if congealing

into marble, when I thought of Montreuil and anticipated justice.

It was nearly noon on the following day when we arrived at Lord------‘s

house. We found that Gerald had left it the day before, for the

enjoyment of the field-sports at Devereux Court, and thither we

instantly proceeded.

It has often seemed to me that if there be, as certain ancient

philosophers fabled, one certain figure pervading all nature, human and

universal, it is _the circle_. Round, in one vast monotony, one eternal

gyration, roll the orbs of space. Thus moves the spirit of creative

life, kindling, progressing, maturing, decaying, perishing, reviving and

rolling again, and so onward forever through the same course; and thus

even would seem to revolve the mysterious mechanism of human events

and actions. Age, ere it returns to “the second childishness, the

mere oblivion” from which it passes to the grave, returns also to the

memories and the thoughts of youth: its buried loves arise; its past

friendships rekindle. The wheels of the tired machine are past

the meridian, and the arch through which they now decline has a

correspondent likeness to the opposing segment through which they had

borne upward in eagerness and triumph. Thus it is, too, that we bear

within us an irresistible attraction to our earliest home. Thus it is

that we say, “It matters not where our midcourse is run, but we will

_die_ in the place where we were born,--in the point of space whence

_began_ the circle, there also shall _it end_!” This is the grand

orbit through which Mortality passes only once; but the same figure may

pervade all through which it moves on its journey to the grave. Thus,

one peculiar day of the round year has been to some an era, always

colouring life with an event. Thus, to others, some peculiar place has

been the theatre of strange action, influencing all existence, whenever,

in the recurrence of destiny, that place has been revisited. Thus was

it said by an arch-sorcerer of old, whose labours yet exist,--though

perhaps, at the moment I write, there are not three living beings who

know of their existence,--that there breathes not that man who would

not find, did he minutely investigate the events of life, that, in some

fixed and distinct spot or hour or person, there lived, though shrouded

and obscure, the pervading demon of his fate; and whenever, in their

several paths, the two circles of being touched, that moment made the

unnoticed epoch of coming prosperity or evil. I remember well that this

bewildering yet not unsolemn reflection, or rather fancy, was in my

mind, as, after the absence of many years, I saw myself hastening to the

home of my boyhood, and cherishing the fiery hope of there avenging the

doom of that love which I had there conceived. Deeply, and in silence,

did I brood over the dark shapes which my thoughts engendered; and I

woke not from my revery, till, as the gray of the evening closed around

us, we entered the domains of Devereux Court. The road was rough and

stony, and the horses moved slowly on. How familiar was everything

before me! The old pollards which lay scattered in dense groups on

either side, and which had lived on from heir to heir, secure in the

little temptation they afforded to cupidity, seemed to greet me with

a silent but intelligible welcome. Their leaves fell around us in the

autumn air, and the branches as they waved towards me seemed to say,

“Thou art returned, and thy change is like our own: the green leaves of

_thy_ heart have fallen from thee one by one; like us thou survivest,

but thou art desolate!” The hoarse cry of the rooks, gathering to their

rest, came fraught with the music of young associations on my ear. Many

a time in the laughing spring had I lain in these groves, watching, in

the young brood of those citizens of air, a mark for my childish skill

and careless disregard of life. We acquire mercy as we acquire thought:

I would not _now_ have harmed one of those sable creatures for a king’s

ransom!

As we cleared the more wooded belt of the park, and entered the smooth

space, on which the trees stood alone and at rarer intervals, while the

red clouds, still tinged with the hues of the departed sun, hovered

on the far and upland landscape,--like Hope flushing over Futurity,--a

mellowed yet rapid murmur, distinct from the more distant dashing of the

sea, broke abruptly upon my ear. It was the voice of that brook whose

banks had been the dearest haunt of my childhood; and now, as it burst

thus suddenly upon me, I longed to be alone, that I might have bowed

down my head and wept as if it had been the welcome of a living thing!

At once, and as by a word, the hardened lava, the congealed stream of

the soul’s Etna, was uplifted from my memory, and the bowers and

palaces of old, the world of a gone day, lay before me! With how wild an

enthusiasm had I apostrophized that stream on the day in which I first

resolved to leave its tranquil regions and fragrant margin for the

tempest and tumult of the world. On that same eve, too, had Aubrey and I

taken sweet counsel together; on that same eve had we sworn to protect,

to love, and to cherish one another!--AND NOW!--I saw the very mound

on which we had sat,--a solitary deer made it his couch, and, as the

carriage approached, the deer rose, and then I saw that he had been

wounded, perhaps in some contest with his tribe, and that he could

scarcely stir from the spot. I turned my face away, and the remains

of my ancestral house rose gradually in view. That house was indeed

changed; a wide and black heap of ruins spread around; the vast hall,

with its oaken rafters and huge hearth, was no more,--I missed _that_,

and I cared not for the rest. The long galleries, the superb chambers,

the scenes of revelry or of pomp, were like the court companions

who amuse, yet attach us not; but the hall, the old hall,--the old,

hospitable hall,--had been as a friend in all seasons, and to all

comers, and its mirth had been as open to all as the heart of its last

owner! My eyes wandered from the place where it had been, and the tall,

lone, gray tower, consecrated to my ill-fated namesake, and in which my

own apartments had been situated, rose like the last of a warrior band,

stern, gaunt, and solitary, over the ruins around.

The carriage now passed more rapidly over the neglected road, and wound

where the ruins, cleared on either side, permitted access to the tower.

In two minutes more I was in the same chamber with my only surviving

brother. Oh, why--why can I not dwell upon that scene, that embrace,

that reconciliation?--alas! the wound is not yet scarred over.

I found Gerald, at first, haughty and sullen; he expected my reproaches

and defiance,--against them he was hardened; he was not prepared for my

prayers for our future friendship, and my grief for our past enmity, and

he melted at once!

But let me hasten over this. I had well-nigh forgot that, at the close

of my history, I should find one remembrance so endearing, and one

pang so keen. Rapidly I sketched to Gerald the ill fate of Aubrey; but

lingeringly did I dwell upon Montreuil’s organized and most baneful

influence over him, and over us all; and I endeavoured to arouse in

Gerald some sympathy with my own deep indignation against that villain.

I succeeded so far as to make him declare that he was scarcely less

desirous of justice than myself; but there was an embarrassment in

his tone of which I was at no loss to perceive the cause. To accuse

Montreuil publicly of his forgery might ultimately bring to light

Gerald’s latter knowledge of the fraud. I hastened to say that there

was now no necessity to submit to a court of justice a scrutiny into our

private, gloomy, and eventful records. No, from Oswald’s communications

I had learned enough to prove that Bolingbroke had been truly informed,

and that Montreuil had still, and within the few last weeks, been deeply

involved in schemes of treason, full proof of which could be adduced,

far more than sufficient to insure his death by the public executioner.

Upon this charge I proposed at the nearest town (the memorable seaport

of------) to accuse him, and to obtain a warrant for his immediate

apprehension; upon this charge I proposed alone to proceed against him,

and by it alone to take justice upon his more domestic crimes.

My brother yielded at last his consent to my suggestions. “I

understand,” said I, “that Montreuil lurks in the neighbourhood of these

ruins, or in the opposite islet. Know you if he has made his asylum in

either at this present time?”

“No, my brother,” answered Gerald, “but I have reason to believe that

he is in our immediate vicinity, for I received a letter from him three

days ago, when at Lord------‘s, urging a request that I would give him a

meeting here, at my earliest leisure, previous to his leaving England.”

“Has he really then obtained permission to return to France?”

“Yes,” replied Gerald, “he informed me in this letter that he had just

received intelligence of his pardon.”

“May it fit him the better,” said I, with a stern smile, “for a more

lasting condemnation. But if this be true we have not a moment to lose:

a man so habitually vigilant and astute will speedily learn my visit

hither, and forfeit even his appointment with you, should he, which is

likely enough, entertain any suspicion of our reconciliation with each

other; moreover, he may hear that the government have discovered

his designs, and may instantly secure the means of flight. Let me,

therefore, immediately repair to------, and obtain a warrant against

him, as well as officers to assist our search. In the meanwhile you

shall remain here, and detain him, should he visit you; but where is

the accomplice?--let us seize _him_ instantly, for I conclude he is with

you.”

“What, Desmarais?” rejoined Gerald. “Yes, he is the only servant,

besides the old portress, which these poor ruins will allow me to

entertain in the same dwelling with myself; the rest of my suite are

left behind at Lord------‘s. But Desmarais is not now within; he went

out about two hours ago.”

“Ha!” said I, “in all likelihood to meet the priest; shall we wait his

return, and extort some information of Montreuil’s lurking-hole?”

Before Gerald could answer, we heard a noise without, and presently

I distinguished the bland tones of the hypocritical Fatalist, in soft

expostulation with the triumphant voice of Mr. Marie Oswald. I hastened

out, and discovered that the lay-brother, whom I left in the chaise,

having caught a glimpse of the valet gliding among the ruins, had

recognized, seized, and by the help of the postilions, dragged him

to the door of the tower. The moment Desmarais saw me he ceased to

struggle: he met my eye with a steady but not disrespectful firmness;

he changed not even the habitual hue of his countenance,--he remained

perfectly still in the hands of his arresters; and if there was any

vestige of his mind discoverable in his sallow features and glittering

eye, it was not the sign of fear, or confusion, or even surprise; but a

ready promptness to meet danger, coupled, perhaps, with a little doubt

whether to defy or to seek first to diminish it.

Long did I gaze upon him,--struggling with internal rage and loathing,

the mingled contempt and desire of destruction with which we gaze

upon the erect aspect of some small but venomous and courageous

reptile,--long did I gaze upon him before I calmed and collected my

voice to speak:

“So I have _thee_ at last! First comes the base tool, and that will I

first break, before I lop off the guiding hand.”

“So please Monsieur my Lord the Count,” answered Desmarais, bowing to

the ground, “the tool is a file, and it would be useless to bite against

it.”

“We will see that,” said I, drawing my sword; “prepare to die!” and I

pointed the blade to his throat with so sudden and menacing a gesture

that his eyes closed involuntarily, and the blood left his thin cheek as

white as ashes: but he shrank not.

“If Monsieur,” said he, with a sort of smile, “will kill his poor,

old, faithful servant, let him strike. Fate is not to be resisted; and

prayers are useless!”

“Oswald,” said I, “release your prisoner; wait here, and keep strict

watch. Jean Desmarais, follow me!”

I ascended the stairs, and Desmarais followed. “Now,” I said, when he

was alone with Gerald and myself, “your days are numbered: you will

fall; not by my hand, but by that of the executioner. Not only your

forgery, but your robbery, your abetment of murder, are known to me;

your present lord, with an indignation equal to my own, surrenders you

to justice. Have you aught to urge, not in defence--for to that I will

not listen--but in atonement? _Can_ you now commit any act which

will cause me to forego justice on those which you _have_ committed?”

Desmarais hesitated. “Speak,” said I. He raised his eyes to mine with an

inquisitive and wistful look.

“Monsieur,” said the wretch, with his obsequious smile, “Monsieur has

travelled, has shone, has succeeded; Monsieur must have made enemies:

let him name them, and his poor, old, _faithful_ servant will do his

best to become the humble instrument of their _fate_!”

Gerald drew himself aside, and shuddered. Perhaps till then he had not

been fully aware how slyly murder, as well as fraud, can lurk beneath

urbane tones and laced ruffles.

“I have no enemy,” said I, “but one; and the hangman will do my office

upon him; but point out to me the exact spot where at this moment he is

concealed, and you shall have full leave to quit this country forever.

That enemy is Julian Montreuil!”

“Ah, ah!” said Desmarais, musingly, and in a tone very different from

that in which he usually spoke; “must it be so, indeed? For twenty years

of youth and manhood I have clung to that man, and woven my destiny

with his, because I believed him born under the star which shines on

statesmen and pontiffs. Does dread Necessity now impel me to betray

him?--him, the only man I ever loved. So--so--so! Count Devereux, strike

me to the core: I will _not_ betray Bertrand Collinot!”

“Mysterious heart of man!” I exclaimed inly, as I gazed upon the low

brow, the malignant eye, the crafty lip of this wretch, who still

retained one generous and noble sentiment at the bottom of so base a

breast. But if it sprang there, it only sprang to wither!

“As thou wilt,” said I; “remember, death is the alternative. By thy

birth-star, Jean Desmarais, I should question whether perfidy be not

_better luck_ than hanging: but time speeds; farewell; I shall meet thee

on thy day of trial.”

I turned to the door to summon Oswald to his prisoner. Desmarais roused

himself from the revery in which he appeared to have sunk.

“Why do I doubt?” said he, slowly. “Were the alternative his, would he

not hang me as he would hang his dog if it went mad and menaced danger?

My very noble and merciful master,” continued the Fatalist, turning to

me, and relapsing into his customary manner, “it is enough! I can refuse

nothing to a gentleman who has such insinuating manners. Montreuil _may

be_ in your power this night; but that rests solely with me. If I speak

not, a few hours will place him irrevocably beyond your reach. If I

betray him to you, will Monsieur swear that I shall have my pardon for

past _errors_?”

“On condition of leaving England,” I answered, for slight was my

comparative desire of justice against Desmarais; and since I had agreed

with Gerald not to bring our domestic records to the glare of day,

justice against Desmarais was not easy of attainment; while, on the

other hand, so precarious seemed the chance of discovering Montreuil

before he left England, without certain intelligence of his movements,

that I was willing to forego any less ardent feeling, for the speedy

gratification of that which made the sole surviving passion of my

existence.

“Be it so,” rejoined Desmarais; “there is better wine in France! And

Monsieur my present master, Monsieur Gerald, will you too pardon your

poor Desmarais for his proof of the great attachment he always bore to

you?”

“Away, wretch!” cried Gerald, shrinking back; “your villany taints the

very air!”

Desmarais lifted his eyes to heaven, with a look of appealing innocence;

but I was wearied with this odious farce.

“The condition is made,” said I: “remember, it only holds good if

Montreuil’s person is placed in our power. Now explain.”

“This night, then,” answered Desmarais, “Montreuil proposes to leave

England by means of a French privateer, or pirate, if that word please

you better. Exactly at the hour of twelve, he will meet some of the

sailors upon the seashore, by the Castle Cave; thence they proceed in

boats to the islet, off which the pirate’s vessel awaits them. If you

would seize Montreuil, you must provide a force adequate to conquer the

companions he will meet. The rest is with you; my part is fulfilled.”

“Remember! I repeat if this be one of thy inventions, thou wilt hang.”

“I have said what is true,” said Desmarais, bitterly; “and were not life

so very pleasant to me, I would sooner have met the rack.”

I made no reply; but, summoning Oswald, surrendered Desmarais to his

charge. I then held a hasty consultation with Gerald, whose mind,

however, obscured by feelings of gloomy humiliation, and stunned perhaps

by the sudden and close following order of events, gave me but little

assistance in my projects. I observed his feelings with great pain;

but that was no moment for wrestling with them. I saw that I could not

depend upon his vigorous co-operation; and that even if Montreuil sought

him, he might want the presence of mind and the energy to detain my

enemy. I changed therefore the arrangement we had first proposed.

“I will remain here,” said I, “and I will instruct the old portress to

admit to me any one who seeks audience with you. Meanwhile, Oswald and

yourself, if you will forgive, and grant my request to that purport,

will repair to------, and informing the magistrate of our intelligence,

procure such armed assistance as may give battle to the pirates, should

that be necessary, and succeed in securing Montreuil; the assistance

may be indispensable; at all events, it will be prudent to secure it:

perhaps for Oswald alone, the magistrates would not use that zeal and

expedition which a word _of yours_ can command.”

“Of mine?” said Gerald, “say rather of yours; you are the lord of these

broad lands!”

“Never, my dearest brother, shall they pass to me from their present

owner: but let us hasten now to execute justice; we will talk afterwards

of friendship.”

I then sought Oswald, who, if a physical coward, was morally a ready,

bustling, and prompt man; and I felt that I could rely more upon him

than I could at that moment upon Gerald. I released him therefore of his

charge, and made Desmarais a close prisoner in the inner apartment of

the tower. I then gave Oswald the most earnest injunctions to procure

the assistance we might require, and to return with it as expeditiously

as possible; and cheered by the warmth and decision of his answer, I

saw him depart with Gerald, and felt my heart beat high with the

anticipation of midnight and retribution.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CATASTROPHE.

IT happened unfortunately that the mission to------was indispensable.

The slender accommodation of the tower forbade Gerald the use of his

customary attendants, and the neighbouring villagers were too few in

number, and too ill provided with weapons, to encounter men cradled in

the very lap of danger; moreover, it was requisite, above all things,

that no rumour or suspicion of our intended project should obtain wind,

and, by reaching Montreuil’s ears, give him some safer opportunity

of escape. I had no doubt of the sincerity of the Fatalist’s

communications, and if I had, the subsequent conversation I held with

him, when Gerald and Oswald were gone, would have been sufficient to

remove it. He was evidently deeply stung by the reflection of his own

treachery, and, singularly enough, with Montreuil seemed to perish all

his worldly hopes and aspirations. Desmarais, I found, was a man of much

higher ambition than I had imagined; and he had linked himself closely

to Montreuil, because, from the genius and the resolution of the priest,

he had drawn the most sanguine auguries of his future power. As the

night advanced, he grew visibly anxious; and, having fully satisfied

myself that I might count indisputably upon his intelligence, I once

more left him to his meditations, and, alone in the outer chamber, I

collected myself for the coming event. I had fully hoped that Montreuil

would have repaired to the tower in search of Gerald, and this was the

strongest reason which had induced me to remain behind: but time waned;

he came not, and at length it grew so late that I began to tremble lest

the assistance from------should not arrive in time.

It struck the first quarter after eleven: in less than an hour my enemy

would be either in my power or beyond its reach; still Gerald and our

allies came not; my suspense grew intolerable, my pulse raged with

fever; I could not stay for two seconds in the same spot; a hundred

times had I drawn my sword, and looked eagerly along its bright blade.

“Once,” thought I, as I looked, “thou didst cross the blade of my mortal

foe, and to my danger rather than victory; years have brought skill to

the hand which then guided thee, and in the red path of battle thou hast

never waved in vain. Be stained but once more with human blood, and I

will prize every drop of that blood beyond all the triumphs thou hast

brought me!” Yes, it had been with a fiery and intense delight that

I had learned that Montreuil would have companions to his flight in

lawless and hardened men, who would never yield him a prisoner without

striking for his rescue; and I knew enough of the courageous and proud

temper of my purposed victim to feel assured that, priest as he was, he

would not hesitate to avail himself of the weapons of his confederates

or to aid them with his own. Then would it be lawful to oppose violence

to his resistance, and with my own hand to deal the death-blow of

retribution. Still as these thoughts flashed over me my heart grew

harder, and my blood rolled more burningly through my veins. “They come

not; Gerald returns not,” I said, as my eye dwelt on the clock, and

saw the minutes creep one after the other: “it matters not; HE at least

shall not escape!--were he girt by a million, I would single him from

the herd; one stroke of this right hand is all that I ask of life, then

let them avenge him if they will.” Thus resolved, and despairing at last

of the return of Gerald, I left the tower, locked the outer door, as a

still further security against my prisoner’s escape, and repaired with

silent but swift strides to the beach by the Castle Cave. It wanted

about half an hour to midnight: the night was still and breathless; a

dim mist spread from sea to sky, through which the stars gleamed forth

heavily, and at distant intervals. The moon was abroad, but the vapours

that surrounded her gave a watery and sicklied dulness to her light, and

whereever in the niches and hollows of the cliff the shadows fell, all

was utterly dark and unbroken by the smallest ray; only along the near

waves of the sea and the whiter parts of the level sand were objects

easily discernible. I strode to and fro for a few minutes before the

Castle Cave; I saw no one, and I seated myself in stern vigilance upon

a stone, in a worn recess of the rock, and close by the mouth of the

Castle Cave. The spot where I sat was wrapped in total darkness, and I

felt assured that I might wait my own time for disclosing myself. I had

not been many minutes at my place of watch before I saw the figure of a

man approach from the left; he moved with rapid steps, and once when he

passed along a place where the wan light of the skies was less obscured

I saw enough of his form and air to recognize Montreuil. He neared the

cave; he paused; he was within a few paces of me; I was about to rise,

when another figure suddenly glided from the mouth of the cave itself.

“Ha!” cried the latter, “it is Bertrand Collinot: Fate be lauded!”

Had a voice from the grave struck my ear, it would have scarcely amazed

me more than that which I now heard. Could I believe my senses? the

voice was that of Desmarais, whom I had left locked within the inner

chamber of the tower! “Fly,” he resumed, “fly instantly; you have not a

moment to lose: already the stern Morton waits thee; already the hounds

of justice are on thy track; tarry not for the pirates, but begone at

once.”

“You rave, man! What mean you? the boats will be here immediately. While

you yet speak methinks I can descry them on the sea. Something of this

I dreaded when, some hours ago, I caught a glimpse of Gerald on the road

to------. I saw not the face of his companion; but I would not trust

myself in the tower: yet I must await the boats; flight is indeed

requisite, but _they_ make the only means by which flight is safe!”

“Pray, then, thou who believest, pray that they may come soon, or thou

diest and I with thee! Morton is returned,--is reconciled to his weak

brother. Gerald and Oswald are away to------for men to seize and drag

thee to a public death. I was arrested,--threatened; but one way to

avoid prison and cord was shown me. Curse me, Bertrand, for I embraced

it. I told them thou wouldst fly to-night, and with whom. They locked me

in the inner chamber of the tower; Morton kept guard without. At length

I heard him leave the room; I heard him descend the stairs, and lock

the gate of the tower. Ha! ha! little dreamed he of the wit of Jean

Desmarais! _Thy_ friend must scorn bolt and bar, Bertrand Collinot. They

had not searched me: I used my instruments; thou knowest that with those

instruments I could glide through stone walls!--I opened the door; I was

in the outer room; I lifted the trap door which old Sir William had

had boarded over, and which thou hadst so artfully and imperceptibly

replaced, when thou wantedst secret intercourse with thy pupils; I sped

along the passage, came to the iron door, touched the spring thou hadst

inserted in the plate which the old knight had placed over the key-hole,

and have come to repair my coward treachery, to save and to fly with

thee. But while I speak we tread on a precipice. Morton has left the

house, and is even now perhaps in search of thee.”

“Ha! I care not if he be,” said Montreuil, in a low but haughty tone.

“Priest though I am, I have not assumed the garb, without assuming also

the weapon, of the layman. Even now I have my hand upon the same sword

which shone under the banners of Mar; and which once, but for my foolish

mercy, would have rid me forever of this private foe.”

“Unsheath it now, Julian Montreuil!” said I, coming from my retreat, and

confronting the pair.

Montreuil recoiled several paces. At that instant a shot boomed along

the waters.

“Haste, haste!” cried Desmarais, hurrying to the waves, as a boat, now

winding the cliff, became darkly visible: “haste, Bertrand, here are

Bonjean and his men; but they are pursued!”

Once did Montreuil turn, as if to fly; but my sword was at his breast,

and, stamping fiercely on the ground, he drew his rapier and parried and

returned my assault; but he retreated rapidly towards the water while

he struck; and wild and loud came the voices from the boat, which now

touched the shore.

“Come--come--come--the officers are upon us; we can wait not a moment!”

and Montreuil, as he heard the cries, mingled with oaths and curses, yet

quickened his pace towards the quarter whence they came. His steps were

tracked by his blood: twice had my sword passed through his flesh; but

twice had it failed my vengeance, and avoided a mortal part. A second

boat, filled also with the pirates, followed the first; but then another

and a larger vessel bore black and fast over the water; the rush and cry

of men were heard on land; again and nearer a shot broke over the heavy

air,--another and another,--a continued fire. The strand was now crowded

with the officers of justice. The vessel beyond forbade escape to the

opposite islet. There was no hope for the pirates but in contest, or

in dispersion among the cliffs or woods on the shore. They formed their

resolution at once, and stood prepared and firm, partly on their boats,

partly on the beach around them. Though the officers were far more

numerous, the strife--fierce, desperate, and hand to hand seemed equally

sustained. Montreuil, as he retreated before me, bore back into the

general _melee_, and, as the press thickened, we were for some moments

separated. It was at this time that I caught a glimpse of Gerald; _he_

seemed also then to espy me, and made eagerly towards me. Suddenly he

was snatched from my view. The fray relaxed; the officers, evidently

worsted, retreated towards the land, and the pirates appeared once more

to entertain the hope of making their escape by water. Probably they

thought that the darkness of the night might enable them to baffle the

pursuit of the adverse vessel, which now lay expectant and passive on

the wave. However this be, they made simultaneously to their boats, and

among their numbers I descried Montreuil. I set my teeth with a calm and

prophetic wrath. But three strokes did my good blade make through that

throng before I was by his side; he had at that instant his hold upon

the boat’s edge, and he stood knee-deep in the dashing waters. I laid my

grasp upon his shoulder, and my cheek touched his own as I hissed in

his ear, “I am with thee yet!” He turned fiercely; he strove in vain to

shake off my grasp. The boat pushed away, and his last hope of escape

was over. At this moment the moon broke away from the mist, and we

saw each other plainly, and face to face. There was a ghastly but

set despair in Montreuil’s lofty and proud countenance, which changed

gradually to a fiercer aspect, as he met my gaze. Once more, foot to

foot and hand to hand, we engaged; the increased light of the skies

rendered the contest more that of skill than it had hitherto been,

and Montreuil seemed to collect all his energies, and to fight with a

steadier and a cooler determination. Nevertheless the combat was short.

Once my antagonist had the imprudence to raise his arm and expose his

body to my thrust: his sword grazed my cheek,--I shall bear the scar to

my grave,--mine passed twice through his breast, and he fell, bathed in

his blood, at my feet.

“Lift him!” I said, to the men who now crowded round. They did so, and

he unclosed his eyes, and glared upon me as the death-pang convulsed his

features, and gathered in foam to his lips. But his thoughts were not

upon his destroyer, nor upon the wrongs he had committed, nor upon any

solitary being in the linked society which he had injured.

“Order of Jesus,” he muttered, “had I but lived three months longer,

I--”

So died Julian Montreuil.

CONCLUSION.

MONTREUIL was not the only victim in the brief combat of that night;

several of the pirates and their pursuers perished, and among the bodies

we found Gerald. He had been pierced, by a shot, through the brain,

and was perfectly lifeless when his body was discovered. By a sort of

retribution, it seems that my unhappy brother received his death-wound

from a shot, fired (probably at random) by Desmarais; and thus the

instrument of the fraud he had tacitly subscribed to became the minister

of his death. Nay, the retribution seemed even to extend to the very

method by which Desmarais had escaped; and, as the reader has perceived,

the subterranean communication which had been secretly reopened to

deceive my uncle made the path which had guided Gerald’s murderer to the

scene which afterwards ensued. The delay of the officers had been owing

to private intelligence, previously received by the magistrate to whom

Gerald had applied, of the number and force of the pirates, and his

waiting in consequence for a military reinforcement to the party to be

despatched against them. Those of the pirates who escaped the conflict

escaped also the pursuit of the hostile vessel; they reached the islet,

and gained their captain’s ship. A few shots between the two vessels

were idly exchanged, and the illicit adventurers reached the French

shore in safety. With them escaped Desmarais, and of him, from that hour

to this, I have heard nothing: so capriciously plays Time with villains!

Marie Oswald has lately taken unto himself a noted inn on the North

Road, a place eminently calculated for the display of his various

talents; he has also taken unto himself a WIFE, of whose tongue and

temper he has been known already to complain with no Socratic meekness;

and we may therefore opine that his misdeeds have not altogether escaped

their fitting share of condemnation.

Succeeding at once, by the death of my poor brother, to the DEVEREUX

estates, I am still employed in rebuilding, on a yet more costly scale,

my ancestral mansion. So eager and impatient is my desire for the

completion of my undertaking that I allow rest neither by night nor day,

and half of the work will be done by torchlight. With the success of

this project terminates my last scheme of Ambition.

Here, then, at the age of thirty-four, I conclude the history of my

life. Whether in the star which, as I now write, shines in upon me, and

which a romance, still unsubdued, has often dreamed to be the bright

prophet of my fate, something of future adventure, suffering, or

excitement is yet predestined to me; or whether life will muse itself

away in the solitudes which surround the home of my past childhood and

the scene of my present retreat,--creates within me but slight food

for anticipation or conjecture. I have exhausted the sources of those

feelings which flow, whether through the channels of anxiety or of hope,

towards the future; and the restlessness of my manhood, having attained

its last object, has done the labour of time, and bequeathed to me the

indifference of age.

If love exists for me no longer, I know well that the memory of that

which has been is to me far more than a living love is to others; and

perhaps there is no passion so full of tender, of soft, and of hallowing

associations as the love which is stamped by death. If I have borne

much, and my spirit has worked out its earthly end in travail and in

tears, yet I would not forego the lessons which my life has bequeathed

me, even though they be deeply blended with sadness and regret. No! were

I asked what best dignifies the present and consecrates the past; what

enables us alone to draw a just moral from the tale of life; what sheds

the purest light upon our reason; what gives the firmest strength to

our religion; and, whether our remaining years pass in seclusion or in

action, is best fitted to soften the heart of man, and to elevate the

soul to God,--I would answer, with Lassus, “it is EXPERIENCE!”

End of Project Gutenberg’s Devereux, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton