The horse was fleet that carried Louis that dreary night, without star,
or guide of any kind, over the lonely heaths which lay between Alnwick,
and the little bye road which led through Warkworth to Morewick hall.
But he knew every dell and dingle in that near neighbourhood; and
without once going out of the direct track, soon found himself under
the tall elms of the avenue, which now groaned in the blast around the
old walls that sheltered his outlawed friend.
The porter, whom he had aroused at the lodge gate, followed to take
his horse. But the bell at the great door was rung twice, before there
was any appearance of its being answered. At last he heard voices,
as if in consultation within the door. He rung a third time. They
receded; and in a few minutes, a window was cautiously opened above his
head. He could not see objects in the darkness, but he looked up, and
impatiently demanded to be admitted.
"It is my master!" exclaimed Lorenzo; and quitting the window, hurried
down stairs. The door was instantly opened by him; while immediately
behind, a little within the hall, stood Mr. Athelstone.
At sight of him, Louis felt that the object of his haste must be
no more. The shaft of death seemed struck into his own soul, as he
desperately stepped forward, Mr. Athelstone clasped him in his arms.
"Then all is over!" burst from his sealed lips.
The Pastor drew him into a room, and Lorenzo followed with a lamp.
Louis stood so calm, so unshaken, under the belief that his friend was
dead, that the affectionate Italian gazed at him with surprise. But
Mr. Athelstone read under that fixed endurance, a sensibility to the
shock he had anticipated, which made the good man only too eager to
unfold his better tidings.
"Does my presence, my dear nephew," said he, grasping his marbled hand;
"only speak of death? Your friend's fever has left him; and his wound
has begun to cicatrize."
Louis had armed himself to bear the stroke of consummate grief; but
this turn of joy being beyond his hopes, was also beyond his manhood,
and with his first step towards the parlour door, he staggered and
fell. But an insensibility which is the effect of happiness, is as
mists before the sun. A few minutes recalled him to perception; and
the blissful tears which flowed from his eyes, bathed the hand of the
venerable messenger of such good tidings.
"They are full of peace to me!" cried Louis. "They ought to be so,"
replied Mr. Athelstone. And then his nephew listened with a chastized
anxiety, while the pious man explained his own presence at Morewick;
and that his first meeting with Cornelia, confirmed his suspicions that
Duke Wharton was this secret and cherished guest.
"I went to him," continued the Pastor, "to arouze his spirit from the
deleterious slumber of this world, ere he should sink into that sleep
which might prove eternal. At the first sight of me, he knew me; and
by that knowledge was confirmed in his own belief, that he was under
a roof which belonged to you. I confess to you, Louis, that though
I had suspected it, I receded a step, when I found that it was the
treacherous Wharton! When I knew that by granting him this protection,
you laid yourself open to the condign punishment he might escape! He
who had cozened you of your friendship; who had rifled you of your
father's honours and life."
"My uncle!" exclaimed Louis interrupting him.
Mr. Athelstone put forth his hand with a sign, that he wished to be
heard to the end; and then he benignly resumed:--
"But I went forward; and repeated those blessed words of the giver of
all pardon:--
"Peace be to this house, and grace to all who dwell within it!
"When I drew near, the Duke stretched out his hand to me. "Mr.
Athelstone, (said he) you do not visit the pillow of an impenitent. But
where is my friend?" And he looked as if he thought you were behind me."
"And he looked in vain!" exclaimed Louis.
"But your spirit entered with your uncle!" replied the Pastor, laying
his hand gently on the bent head of his nephew. "And a better spirit,
my child: that which, as a minister of Christ, I derived from his
holy word!" The succeeding two hours I passed by the bedside of the
Duke of Wharton; and when I left him, that resplendent countenance of
his was lit with a new light; the effulgence of heaven shone on it,
and pressing my hand to his lips, he called me his father! his better
father!--"For you have poured on me, (said he,) not the unction which
gives temporal, but that which dispenses eternal life!"
Two similar hours were now passed between Louis and his uncle. During
that time, all was communicated, which the former had learnt from
Santa Cruz relative to Duke Wharton; and Mr. Athelstone unfolded to
his nephew what the sealed papers in Cornelia's possession contained,
and which, as a full avowal to his Christian confessor, the Duke had
permitted the Pastor to read.
The night that followed Wharton's first conference with Mr.
Athelstone, was succeeded by a comfortable sleep. And then it was,
that on the ensuing morning, before he would venture to partake the
holiest rite of the Christian church, with the Pastor, and his still
hovering attendant, Cornelia, he entreated both, to break those seals,
and read the contents. The packet that was addressed to de Montemar,
did not contain the later circumstances which Santa Cruz had mentioned,
for those particulars it referred Louis to that mutual friend. But the
narrative generally and briefly explained his antecedent conduct with
regard to Ripperda and his son; and ended with affirming the spotless
fidelity of the former, both to the sovereigns of Austria and of Spain,
until he passed from Europe into Barbary. His concluding farewell to
Louis was short, but to the soul; yet, still the usual spirit of the
writer prevailed, to cloathe his last words in the cheerful garb of
verse--and he wrote:
"Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the invidious foe, my fame pursue!
The world I served, and only injured you!"
The second paper was to the secretary of state in London; declaring on
the word of a dying man, that he only suspected, under whose protection
he was.
That he believed, none of all who attended him in his asylum, but the
one romantic friend who brought him there, knew they were harbouring an
outlawed man. He therefore wrote this, on the truth of an accountable
being, ready to be called into the presence of his Creator; to
exonerate all, and every one, who had granted him protection in these
his last hours, from any implication of disloyalty against the existing
government of England: though, with his last breath, he would say,
"_Long live King James!_" "Cornelia," continued the Pastor, "has been
an unwearied watch in his apartment. She is now reposing with her maid,
in a room adjoining to his, while he sleeps; and this is his third
night of undisturbed rest."
To invade those hours of genial slumber, was the last thing to which
Louis could have been brought to consent. But neither he, nor his
uncle, felt any thing dormitive in their faculties, while conversing on
a subject so dear to both their hearts; to the one, a restored friend;
to the other, a redeemed fellow creature.
During these precious vigils, Mr. Athelstone learnt from his nephew,
the true object of the Marquis Santa Cruz's visit to England. It was
not merely a private mission to the Spanish embassador in London; but
to give his personal sanction to the attachment of his son to Alice;
and to use his influence with the Pastor and Mrs. Coningsby, to accord
their consent to the marriage.
"Which we shall readily grant," replied his uncle, "for the hearts
the Almighty hath joined together in innocence and virtue, let no man
put asunder! And that He has done so by an awful covenant between
the Marquis's family and ours, is distinctly marked by the mutually
shedding of their blood for each other, in the terrible fields of
Barbary."
Mr. Athelstone dwelt with the tenderness of a parent, on the fading
health of Lady Marcella; and while he eulogized her benevolent care
of Louis during his wounded state at Ceuta, he could not refrain from
expressing a regret that so much active virtue should be intended for
the living tomb of a convent.
"And yet," added the venerable man, "there are excellent divines of
our own church, who tell us, that a vestal life is an angel's life.
Being unmingled with the world, it is ready to converse with God; and,
by not feeling the warmth of indulged nature, it flames out with holy
fires, till it burns like the seraphim; the most ecstasied order of
beatified spirits!"
"Is that your sentiment, Sir?" inquired Louis, looking down; and
quelling the palpitation of his heart.
"No, Louis; my opinion of an angel's life, both on earth, and in
heaven, is, that it must be one of ministry. And that cannot be
fulfilled, by retiring to a solitude beyond the stars; or immuring
one's-self below them, in monasteries and loneliness."
"Then, to covet one, likely to be so immured," replied Louis, with a
mournful smile, "is not a very mortal sin!"
This remark put his uncle to painful silence. He understood its import,
though he had never before suspected the possibility of its existence.
The moment he heard it, he wondered that he should not have foreseen
the birth of such a sentiment, in such a character as Louis, for
such a mind as Lady Marcella's. And, in the moment of apprehending
this affection, being also aware, that it was awakened only for
disappointment, he paused, and fixed his benign eyes on his nephew. The
venerable man, had in early youth, once known to love, and to resign
its object; and, now remembering something of the pangs he had so long
forgotten, he exclaimed, "alas! alas! I was not prepared for this!"
Louis took his hand with the enthusiasm of a manly heart re-illumining
his momentarily saddened countenance.
"But I am, my uncle!" said he, "and when she, who alone I ever truly
loved, has indeed uttered the fatal vow; I will do my best, to
reconcile your plan of ministry, with that of Bishop Taylor's celibacy:
and, so tread in the steps of my revered Pastor, to the end of my days!"
He put his uncle's hand to his lips, to conceal the sigh that would
have ended the sentence.
Mr. Athelstone thought it best to pass immediately from a subject on
which hope could have no footing; and he proposed, that as heaven had
seen it good to spare the life of Duke Wharton, their next object was
to preserve him from the knowledge of the government, until he were
sufficiently recovered to pass beyond seas. To effect this concealment
with the least mystery, he recommended entrusting the Marchioness and
her family with what had happened. Don Garcia, the physician, would
be bound to keep the secret, on account of the Duke's power in the
Spanish court; and then he might be removed to Lindisfarne, as part
of the travelling suite. In that remote place, he would be attended
by Don Garcia; and might await his convalescence without much alarm
for his personal safety. Louis highly approved of these suggestions;
and settled, that as soon as he had seen Wharton in the morning, he
would return to Alnwick, and make the necessary arrangements with the
Marchioness.
Towards dawn, the Pastor dropt asleep in his great chair, and Louis
was left to his meditations. He too well remembered the distressed,
and almost reproachful looks, with which the mother of Marcella had
regarded him, when he so quiescently permitted her daughter to hurry
forward to the danger of her health; and also, the uncomplaining
perseverance of Marcella, for the two first days; and the unselfed,
and almost indignant firmness with which she bore the third. There was
something in these remembrances, which, while they overpowered him with
regretful shame at his seeming ingratitude, yet awakened a countless
train of recollections that flowed like balm into his soul. With his
lips, he foreswore all hope of Marcella; but there was a subtle
something in the bottom of his heart, that would not allow him to feel
that he must absolutely seek the resignation he professed.
He ruminated on the consolations he had received at her hands when
he lay in sickness and in sorrow; on the gentle virtues, which, like
silent rills, only betraying their hidden course by a brighter green
above, shewed their foundation in the beautiful composure of her
character. Her tender cares had been as unremitting as efficient; and
made her influence be felt throughout his whole soul, even as the
atmosphere that surrounded him; soft, balmy, and inspiring!
Louis knew not that he loved her, till he believed he took his last
leave of her, on the steps of the altar in the chapel of Ceuta. He knew
not how he loved her, till the burthen of his friend's delinquency was
taken from his heart; and its first spring was to pour the rapture of
the conviction into her pure bosom. He would not, however, acknowledge
to himself, that he thought she loved him. But he felt it in every
nerve of his body, in the dearest recesses of his soul, in every
heaven-directed aspiration of his grateful spirit.
"And, in heaven alone," cried he, "will it be mutually imparted, and
enjoyed!"