A succession of various weather, at last brought the frigate, which
contained Louis de Montemar, and his faithful Lorenzo, in sight of the
British coast. He was returning to it, after an absence of little more
than two years, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief!" In the
morning of his youth, he bore in his bosom the experience of age. But
it was not with a bent spirit, nor a wearied courage.
"I am bruised," said he to himself; "but not broken. I have yet, bonds
of duty to the world, and I will not shrink from my task."
But he felt this inward assurance spring and grow, exactly in
proportion as he drew nearer to the coast where he had imbibed the
first aliments of all that was greatly emulous in his mind; where his
heart had first known the glows of dear domestic tenderness; where, in
short, he first knew a home.
"Since I left it," cried he, "I have never found another!" and, as he
stood on the deck of the vessel, he thought the glittering summits of
the cliff's he descried at a distance, shone on him like the welcoming
smiles of a mother.
He landed. Portsmouth did not detain him long; nor any town, nor
any track he passed over; while the rapid vehicle in which he threw
himself, conveyed him with all the eagerness of his wishes towards
Northumberland.
It was the season of the year when the family of Lindisfarne were
usually removed to Morewick-hall. Though the summer was far advanced,
in the southern climate he had left; in the colder latitudes of England
he found snow on the mountains, and ice in the vallies. The leafless
woods shook their glittering branches in the keen blast, and the heavy
clouds, teeming with a hail-storm, burst, and darkened the road.
Louis would not think of the orange groves, and gales laden with balm
and fragrance, he had so lately left behind; but he did not check the
remembrance, because he regretted the change.
There were memories attached to it, which he wished not to cling too
closely to his heart, when he should first press to his returning
bosom, the venerable form of him, who had blessed him when he last
crossed the top of that hill!--
As soon as the well-known pinnacles of Morewick-hall, appeared over
the woods at the bottom of the valley, he called to the postilion to
proceed slower. He was alone. For he could not approach that house,
with any witness of his emotion. But the man had no sooner obeyed his
directions, and was winding down the hill with a leisurely pace, than
Louis felt the agitation of his mind encreased by the slowness that
permitted recollection to crowd his thoughts with images. He changed
his commands, and the driver set off on the spur towards the gates of
Morewick.
Many an apprehension was in his bosom. Many a wringing reflection. How
had he left that place? How did he return? And what would be the pangs
of meeting, after the wreck of so many hopes!--
He was taking counsel of his manhood, to sustain with firmness the
questions which must summon the shadows, whose _torturing substance_ he
had endured without a receding nerve;--when his carriage entered the
gates of Morewick Park. Lost in self-recollection, it was only by the
jerk of the horses in stopping before the mansion, that Louis knew he
was arrived. The carriage door was opened. In that land of hospitality,
the house-door also stood at large. He sprang from his vehicle into
the hall. Servants were entering it from different avenues; but he
passed through them all, and knew nothing of what he saw or did, till
he found himself at the feet of his revered uncle.
He was clasped in the arms of his aunt; and Alice bathed his hand with
her happy tears.
It was many minutes before a word was spoken. But every heart knew each
other's language, and the folded hands of Mr. Athelstone, as he stood
over his nephew, told to all who looked on him, that his grateful soul
was then at the feet of his God.
The embrace with which Louis strained his aunt to his bosom, recalled
her passing senses to recollection; and, throwing her arms round his
neck, she wept there, almost to suffocation. While the Pastor, with
eyes no less the witnesses of a joy that has not words, assisted his
nephew to bear her to the settee, Louis put the venerable hand to his
lips. The last time he so pressed it, he was possessed of a father whom
he loved and honoured!--That father was now no more; and the pride with
which he then dwelt on his name, was extinguished for ever! He would
not allow the swelling sluices of his heart to give way, or even to
intimate what was labouring there, by pressing that hand to his bosom!
"Dearest Louis!" cried Alice, who was the first to speak;--for her
mother sat on the sofa with her arms still on the neck of her nephew,
and gazing with anguish on his face:--"Dearest Louis!" cried her
daughter, in a voice as plaintive as her mother's looks; "Oh, how you
are changed!"
"Not in heart, Alice!" said he, turning his eyes tenderly upon her.
"Ah! that voice, is still his own!" cried Mrs. Coningsby, throwing
herself upon his bosom, and weeping afresh. "Yes, Catherine;" said the
Pastor, regarding the agitated groupe, with all the tenderness of his
sainted spirit. "A veil has fallen over the lustre of that beauty you
used to prize so much! but it is a veil only; the light of heaven is
still behind it!"
It was not until this day of emotion was quite over; and that both Mrs.
Coningsby and Alice had given their hands to the kneeling obeisance of
Lorenzo, with rather the welcome of kindred than of superiors; and the
calming solitude of night had schooled every heart to the necessity of,
at least, assuming tranquillity, that the little circle at Morewick
could fully feel the happiness of re-union.
Before Louis quitted his chamber next morning, the usual domestic
groupe were assembled in the breakfast room. Mr. Athelstone, with pious
gratitude, remarked to Mrs. Coningsby on the trying circumstances of
his nephew's yet early life; and exulted in the integrity with which
he had passed so fiery an ordeal.
"Yes," returned she, "many begin their contest when he has finished
his. But he has not escaped the marks!" and she shuddered while she
wiped the starting tear from her eye.
"Man's contest," rejoined the Pastor, "is not finished till he grounds
his arms in the grave. That our nephew has so soon commenced his
combat; that he has so bravely resisted what has overcome more veteran
spirits; is a sign that much remains for him to do. The soldiers of
our heavenly captain, are not taught in vain: they must struggle and
conquer until the end; and then they will receive their rest and their
reward!"
"Hitherto," replied Mrs. Coningsby, with almost audible sobs, "his
discipline has been severe indeed! but altered as he is, never did I
behold affliction so dignified. His eyes, in their brightest happiness,
never looked so lovely as last night, in the wordless anguish of his
soul."
"And yet, Catherine, you lament his bloom!"
"No, Mr. Athelstone, it is the cause of its loss, that fills me with
regret."
"But I do;" cried Alice, "I lament the loss of all that was my former
Louis! his light, ethereal step,--his look of radiance,--and his voice
of such soul-entrancing gladness!--But now, his movements are slow; his
cheek is wan and faded; and his voice is so full of pity, I could weep
whenever he speaks."
"Give him time, my child," returned the Pastor; "the hand of recent
sorrow is yet heavy on him. He must yield his tribute to Nature. Suffer
him now, and Nature will reward us with an ample restoration of all his
delighting powers."
Louis's entrance checked the reply of Alice. And now he was welcomed to
the dear domestic breakfast table, with smiles, instead of the tears
which on the foregoing night, lingered in every eye until the hour of
retirement.
During the meal Mr. Athelstone made the conversation cheerful, by
turning it on general subjects, and particularly enlarging on Sir
Anthony's improved manner of life. He had thrown aside all his old,
reprehensible habits, and preferring the occasional society of his
niece Cornelia, (who, in consequence of the gout flying about him, was
now with him at Cheltenham,) his days passed in the equable current of
domestic comfort and social respectability.
While the Pastor pursued this discourse, and Louis listened to him with
evident pleasure, Alice contemplated her cousin's face and figure;
and at last wondered within herself, how she could have thought him
so greatly altered. If any change had taken place in his figure, it
unquestionably was to its advantage. A certain martial dignity was
added to its former pliant grace. It was now a form where _every god
had seemed to have set his seal_ to shape the perfect man;--before,
it was that of a beautiful youth,--the dawn of this checquered, but
resplendent day!
If this were the case, it must then be his black garments, which had at
first struck her with some melancholy idea of a change in his person as
well as face! she scanned that face with equal scrutiny. To her poetic
fancy, his still matchless smile played under the soft moon-light of
his now pensive eyes, like the shadowed, yet scintillating wave of her
native stream.
At the moment this romantic image crossed her mind, she descried a spot
of a deeper hue than the rest, and of the form and tint of a faded
leaf, upon his cheek.
"Dear Louis!" said she, pressing affectionately to his side, and
putting her finger on the place; "what mark is that?--It was not there
when you left us?"
All her cousin's wonted bloom suffused that pale cheek, and obliterated
the mark, as she uttered the question. It was the remains of the wound
he had received there, in defending the life of Don Ferdinand.
"Do not enquire of all things, sweet Alice!" returned he, as he pressed
her hand to his lips.
But he said it with an accent and a look so fraught with tenderness,
and a something implied besides, that Ferdinand immediately occurred
to her mind, though she knew not why, and casting down her eyes with a
blush; she again thought within herself:--
"How could I think that Louis was altered?"
Before the expiration of a week, he had communicated to the different
members of the little circle, all that respectively most interested
each. But it was only when alone with his revered uncle, that he laid
open the undisguised history of all that had befallen him in his
father's calamities and his own; the undisguised confession of his
trials, his disappointments, and the present unnatural torpor of his
soul.
The Pastor, with the gentleness of affection, and a knowledge that knew
when to probe, to render the cure more radical, entered on all these
discussions with wisdom and truth. He shewed Louis how mistaken had
been his early conceptions of human nature; how idolatrous had been his
estimation of beings, formed of the same dust and ashes as himself.
"I told you this from the first, my child!" said he; "and though your
lips accorded, your spirit would not believe. But it is the error of
most of us. We garnish finite man with the perfections of the infinite
God. We fall down and worship the image we have made. We pray to it,
we rest on it. But we soon find our trust is in a piece of clay. It
has ears, and hears not; eyes, and sees not; and hands that cannot
help!--Yes, Louis, all earthly idols are little more than blocks of
wood; which might have been secure staves to hold us on our way; but
when elevated to shrines, we find them things of naught. Now, my
son, if we view all that are born of woman as erring creatures like
ourselves; and accordingly love and assist, pardon and sustain them; we
shall support, and be supported, through this travelling pilgrimage,
till we at last lay down our heads in the grave, at peace with all
mankind. But, on the reverse, when we look for perfection, and meet
error, we are shocked; we resent and abhor; we do not forgive, we will
not excuse; and they become our enemies from despair, whom the tender
charities of a Christian spirit might have preserved as friends, and in
time, persuaded to the hope of unerring purity!"
Louis acknowledged the truth of these observations. He had erred under
them all, excepting that, of not knowing how to pardon; and there,
his heart bore witness to itself, that he could forgive the hand that
stabbed him.
"Yes, Sir;" replied he, "I know that in striving after excellence; to
bear, and to forbear, is the duty of men on earth. Perfect virtue will
be his happiness in Heaven."
"You sigh, very heavily, my dear Louis;" replied Mr. Athelstone, "while
you acknowledge this!--But so right a judgement at so early an age, is
cheaply purchased by the _sweet uses of adversity_!--you know I told
you, in my first letter on the beginning of your misfortunes; that, may
be you were only entered into a cloud, which would shed forth a gentle
shower to refresh your virtues--and the event has proved it." "But not
with gentle showers!" replied Louis with a smile of anguish.
"No, my child," answered the Pastor, tenderly regarding him; "but had
you not required it, they would not have been so heavy."
"I believe it, Sir!" replied Louis rising from his chair, "I was proud,
and I was ambitious. The world reigned in my heart, when you thought it
possessed by a better principle. I was ignorant of my own state, till
I was made to see my own likeness in a mirror--But we will not speak
further on it!" cried he, interrupting himself,--"It is over,--quite
over;--buried deep, deep--beneath the walls of Tetuan!"
Louis had touched a string that made every chord in his heart vibrate;
and, he quitted the venerable presence, to recover composure in the
recollections of solitude.