A DIALOGUE AND AN ALARM.--A STUDENT’S HOUSE.
“A fellow by the hand of Nature marked,
Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame.”
--Shakspeare.--King John.
“He is a scholar, if a man may trust
The liberal voice of Fame, in her report.
Myself was once a student, and indeed
Fed with the self-same humour he is now.”
--Ben Jonson.--Every Man in his Humour.
The two sisters pursued their walk along a scene which might well be
favoured by their selection. No sooner had they crossed the stile, than
the village seemed vanished into earth; so quiet, so lonely, so far from
the evidence of life was the landscape through which they passed. On
their right, sloped a green and silent hill, shutting out all view
beyond itself, save the deepening and twilight sky; to the left, and
immediately along their road lay fragments of stone, covered with moss,
or shadowed by wild shrubs, that here and there, gathered into copses,
or breaking abruptly away from the rich sod, left frequent spaces
through which you caught long vistas of forestland, or the brooklet
gliding in a noisy and rocky course, and breaking into a thousand
tiny waterfalls, or mimic eddies. So secluded was the scene, and so
unwitnessing of cultivation, that you would not have believed that a
human habitation could be at hand, and this air of perfect solitude and
quiet gave an additional charm to the spot.
“But I assure you,” said Ellinor, earnestly continuing a conversation
they had begun, “I assure you I was not mistaken, I saw it as plainly as
I see you.”
“What, in the breast pocket?”
“Yes, as he drew out his handkerchief, I saw the barrel of the pistol
quite distinctly.”
“Indeed, I think we had better tell my father as soon as we get home;
it may be as well to be on our guard, though robbery, I believe, has not
been heard of in Grassdale for these twenty years.”
“Yet for what purpose, save that of evil, could he in these peaceable
times and this peaceable country, carry fire arms about him. And what a
countenance! Did you note the shy, and yet ferocious eye, like that of
some animal, that longs, yet fears to spring upon you.”
“Upon my word, Ellinor,” said Madeline, smiling, “you are not very
merciful to strangers. After all, the man might have provided himself
with the pistol which you saw as a natural precaution; reflect that, as
a stranger, he may well not know how safe this district usually is, and
he may have come from London, in the neighbourhood of which they say
robberies have been frequent of late. As to his looks, they are I own
unpardonable; for so much ugliness there can be no excuse. Had the man
been as handsome as our cousin Walter, you would not perhaps have been
so uncharitable in your fears at the pistol.”
“Nonsense, Madeline,” said Ellinor, blushing, and turning away her
face;--there was a moment’s pause, which the younger sister broke.
“We do not seem,” said she, “to make much progress in the friendship of
our singular neighbour. I never knew my father court any one so much as
he has courted Mr. Aram, and yet, you see how seldom he calls upon us;
nay, I often think that he seeks to shun us; no great compliment to our
attractions, Madeline.”
“I regret his want of sociability, for his own sake,” said Madeline,
“for he seems melancholy as well as thoughtful, and he leads so secluded
a life, that I cannot but think my father’s conversation and society, if
he would but encourage it, might afford some relief to his solitude.”
“And he always seems,” observed Ellinor, “to take pleasure in my
father’s conversation, as who would not? how his countenance lights up
when he converses! it is a pleasure to watch it. I think him positively
handsome when he speaks.”
“Oh, more than handsome!” said Madeline, with enthusiasm, “with that
high, pale brow, and those deep, unfathomable eyes!”
Ellinor smiled, and it was now Madeline’s turn to blush.
“Well,” said the former, “there is something about him that fills one
with an indescribable interest; and his manner, if cold at times, is yet
always so gentle.”
“And to hear him converse,” said Madeline, “it is like music. His
thoughts, his very words, seem so different from the language and ideas
of others. What a pity that he should ever be silent!”
“There is one peculiarity about his gloom, it never inspires one
with distrust,” said Ellinor; “if I had observed him in the same
circumstances as that ill-omened traveller, I should have had no
apprehension.”
“Ah! that traveller still runs in your head. If we were to meet him in
this spot.”
“Heaven forbid!” cried Ellinor, turning hastily round in alarm--and, lo!
as if her sister had been a prophet, she saw the very person in question
at some little distance behind them, and walking on with rapid strides.
She uttered a faint shriek of surprise and terror, and Madeline, looking
back at the sound, immediately participated in her alarm. The spot
looked so desolate and lonely, and the imagination of both had been
already so worked upon by Ellinor’s fears, and their conjectures
respecting the ill-boding weapon she had witnessed, that a thousand
apprehensions of outrage and murder crowded at once upon the minds of
the two sisters. Without, however, giving vent in words to their alarm,
they, as by an involuntary and simultaneous suggestion, quickened their
pace, every moment stealing a glance behind, to watch the progress of
the suspected robber. They thought that he also seemed to accelerate his
movements; and this observation increased their terror, and would appear
indeed to give it some more rational ground. At length, as by a sudden
turn of the road they lost sight of the dreaded stranger, their alarm
suggested to them but one resolution, and they fairly fled on as fast as
the fear which actuated, would allow, them. The nearest, and indeed the
only house in that direction, was Aram’s, but they both imagined if they
could come within sight of that, they should be safe. They looked back
at every interval; now they did not see their fancied pursuer--now he
emerged again into view--now--yes--he also was running.
“Faster, faster, Madeline, for God’s sake! he is gaining upon us!” cried
Ellinor: the path grew more wild, and the trees more thick and frequent;
at every cluster that marked their progress they saw the Stranger
closer and closer; at length, a sudden break,--a sudden turn in the
landscape;--a broad plain burst upon them, and in the midst of it the
Student’s solitary abode!
“Thank God, we are safe!” cried Madeline. She turned once more to look
for the Stranger; in so doing, her foot struck against a fragment of
stone, and she fell with great violence to the ground. She endeavoured
to rise, but found herself, at first, unable to stir from the spot.
In this state she looked, however, back, and saw the Traveller at
some little distance. But he also halted, and after a moment’s seeming
deliberation, turned aside, and was lost among the bushes.
With great difficulty Ellinor now assisted Madeline to rise; her ancle
was violently sprained, and she could not put her foot to the ground;
but though she had evinced so much dread at the apparition of the
stranger, she now testified an almost equal degree of fortitude in
bearing pain.
“I am not much hurt, Ellinor,” she said, faintly smiling, to encourage
her sister, who supported her in speechless alarm: “but what is to be
done? I cannot use this foot; how shall we get home?”
“Thank God, if you are not much hurt!” said poor Ellinor, almost crying,
“lean on me--heavier--pray. Only try and reach the house, and we can
then stay there till Mr. Aram sends home for the carriage.”
“But what will he think? how strange it will seem!” said Madeline,
the colour once more visiting her cheek, which a moment since had been
blanched as pale as death.
“Is this a time for scruples and ceremony?” said Ellinor. “Come! I
entreat you, come; if you linger thus, the man may take courage and
attack us yet. There! that’s right! Is the pain very great?”
“I do not mind the pain,” murmured Madeline; “but if he should think we
intrude? His habits are so reserved--so secluded; indeed I fear--”
“Intrude!” interrupted Ellinor. “Do you think so ill of him?--Do you
suppose that, hermit as he is, he has lost common humanity? But lean
more on me, dearest; you do not know how strong I am!”
Thus alternately chiding, caressing, and encouraging her sister, Ellinor
led on the sufferer, till they had crossed the plain, though with
slowness and labour, and stood before the porch of the Recluse’s house.
They had looked back from time to time, but the cause of so much alarm
appeared no more. This they deemed a sufficient evidence of the justice
of their apprehensions.
Madeline would even now fain have detained her sister’s hand from the
bell that hung without the porch half imbedded in ivy; but Ellinor,
out of patience--as she well might be--with her sister’s unseasonable
prudence, refused any longer delay. So singularly still and solitary
was the plain around the house, that the sound of the bell breaking the
silence, had in it something startling, and appeared in its sudden and
shrill voice, a profanation to the deep tranquillity of the spot.
They did not wait long--a step was heard within--the door was slowly
unbarred, and the Student himself stood before them.
He was a man who might, perhaps, have numbered some five and thirty
years; but at a hasty glance, he would have seemed considerably younger.
He was above the ordinary stature; though a gentle, and not ungraceful
bend in the neck rather than the shoulders, somewhat curtailed his
proper advantages of height. His frame was thin and slender, but well
knit and fair proportioned. Nature had originally cast his form in
an athletic mould; but sedentary habits, and the wear of mind, seemed
somewhat to have impaired her gifts. His cheek was pale and delicate;
yet it was rather the delicacy of thought than of weak health. His hair,
which was long, and of a rich and deep brown, was worn back from his
face and temples, and left a broad high majestic forehead utterly
unrelieved and bare; and on the brow there was not a single wrinkle, it
was as smooth as it might have been some fifteen years ago. There was
a singular calmness, and, so to speak, profundity, of thought, eloquent
upon its clear expanse, which suggested the idea of one who had passed
his life rather in contemplation than emotion. It was a face that a
physiognomist would have loved to look upon, so much did it speak both
of the refinement and the dignity of intellect.
Such was the person--if pictures convey a faithful resemblance--of a
man, certainly the most eminent in his day for various and profound
learning, and a genius wholly self-taught, yet never contented to repose
upon the wonderful stores it had laboriously accumulated.
He now stood before the two girls, silent, and evidently surprised; and
it would scarce have been an unworthy subject for a picture--that
ivied porch--that still spot--Madeline’s reclining and subdued form and
downcast eyes--the eager face of Ellinor, about to narrate the nature
and cause of their intrusion--and the pale Student himself, thus
suddenly aroused from his solitary meditations, and converted into the
protector of beauty.
No sooner did Aram gather from Ellinor the outline of their story, and
of Madeline’s accident, than his countenance and manner testified the
liveliest and most eager sympathy. Madeline was inexpressibly touched
and surprised at the kindly and respectful earnestness with which this
recluse scholar--usually so cold and abstracted in mood--assisted and
led her into the house: the sympathy he expressed for her pain--the
sincerity of his tone--the compassion of his eyes--and as those
dark--and to use her own thought--unfathomable orbs bent admiringly and
yet so gently upon her, Madeline, even in spite of her pain, felt an
indescribable, a delicious thrill at her heart, which in the presence of
no one else had she ever experienced before.
Aram now summoned the only domestic his house possessed, who appeared in
the form of an old woman, whom he seemed to have selected from the whole
neighbourhood as the person most in keeping with the rigid seclusion he
preserved. She was exceedingly deaf, and was a proverb in the village
for her extreme taciturnity. Poor old Margaret; she was a widow, and had
lost ten children by early deaths. There was a time when her gaiety had
been as noticeable as her reserve was now. In spite of her infirmity,
she was not slow in comprehending the accident Madeline had met with;
and she busied herself with a promptness that shewed her misfortunes
had not deadened her natural kindness of disposition, in preparing
fomentations and bandages for the wounded foot.
Meanwhile Aram, having no person to send in his stead, undertook to seek
the manor-house, and bring back the old family coach, which had dozed
inactively in its shelter for the last six months, to convey the
sufferer home.
“No, Mr. Aram,” said Madeline, colouring; “pray do not go yourself:
consider, the man may still be loitering on the road. He is armed--good
Heavens, if he should meet you!”
“Fear not, Madam,” said Aram, with a faint smile. “I also keep arms,
even in this obscure and safe retreat; and to satisfy you, I will not
neglect to carry them with me.”
“As he spoke, he took from the wainscoat, from which they hung, a brace
of large horse pistols, slung them round him by a leather belt, and
flinging over his person, to conceal weapons so alarming to any less
dangerous passenger he might encounter, the long cloak then usually worn
in inclement seasons, as an outer garment, he turned to depart.
“But are they loaded?” asked Ellinor.
Aram answered briefly, in the affirmative. It was somewhat singular,
but the sisters did not then remark it, that a man so peaceable in
his pursuits, and seemingly possessed of no valuables that could tempt
cupidity, should in that spot, where crime was never heard of, use such
habitual precaution.
When the door closed upon him, and while the old woman, relieved with
a light hand and soothing lotions, which she had shewn some skill in
preparing, the anguish of the sprain, Madeline cast glances of interest
and curiosity around the apartment into which she had had the rare good
fortune to obtain admittance.
The house had belonged to a family of some note, whose heirs had
outstripped their fortunes. It had been long deserted and uninhabited;
and when Aram settled in those parts, the proprietor was too glad to
get rid of the incumbrance of an empty house, at a nominal rent. The
solitude of the place had been the main attraction to Aram; and as he
possessed what would be considered a very extensive assortment of books,
even for a library of these days, he required a larger apartment than
he would have been able to obtain in an abode more compact and more
suitable to his fortunes and mode of living.
The room in which the sisters now found themselves was the most spacious
in the house, and was indeed of considerable dimensions. It contained in
front one large window, jutting from the wall. Opposite was an antique
and high mantelpiece of black oak. The rest of the room was walled from
the floor to the roof with books; volumes of all languages, and it might
even be said, without much exaggeration, upon all sciences, were strewed
around, on the chairs, the tables, or the floor. By the window stood the
Student’s desk, and a large old-fashioned chair of oak. A few papers,
filled with astronomical calculations, lay on the desk, and these were
all the witnesses of the result of study. Indeed Aram does not appear
to have been a man much inclined to reproduce the learning he
acquired;--what he wrote was in very small proportion to what he had
read.
So high and grave was the reputation he had acquired, that the retreat
and sanctum of so many learned hours would have been interesting, even
to one who could not appreciate learning; but to Madeline, with her
peculiar disposition and traits of mind, we may readily conceive that
the room presented a powerful and pleasing charm. As the elder sister
looked round in silence, Ellinor attempted to draw the old woman into
conversation. She would fain have elicited some particulars of the
habits and daily life of the recluse; but the deafness of their
attendant was so obstinate and hopeless, that she was forced to give up
the attempt in despair. “I fear,” said she at last, her good-nature so
far overcome by impatience as not to forbid a slight yawn; “I fear we
shall have a dull time of it till my father arrives. Just consider,
the fat black mares, never too fast, can only creep along that broken
path,--for road there is none: it will be quite night before the coach
arrives.”
“I am sorry, dear Ellinor, my awkwardness should occasion you so stupid
an evening,” answered Madeline.
“Oh,” cried Ellinor, throwing her arms around her sister’s neck, “it is
not for myself I spoke; and indeed I am delighted to think we have got
into this wizard’s den, and seen the instruments of his art. But I do so
trust Mr. Aram will not meet that terrible man.”
“Nay,” said the prouder Madeline, “he is armed, and it is but one man. I
feel too high a respect for him to allow myself much fear.”
“But these bookmen are not often heroes,” remarked Ellinor, laughing.
“For shame,” said Madeline, the colour mounting to her forehead. “Do you
not remember how, last summer, Eugene Aram rescued Dame Grenfeld’s child
from the bull, though at the literal peril of his own life? And who
but Eugene Aram, when the floods in the year before swept along the low
lands by Fairleigh, went day after day to rescue the persons, or even
to save the goods of those poor people; at a time too, when the boldest
villagers would not hazard themselves across the waters?--But bless me,
Ellinor, what is the matter? you turn pale, you tremble.’
“Hush!” said Ellinor under her breath, and, putting her finger to her
mouth, she rose and stole lightly to the window; she had observed the
figure of a man pass by, and now, as she gained the window, she saw him
halt by the porch, and recognised the formidable Stranger. Presently the
bell sounded, and the old woman, familiar with its shrill sound, rose
from her kneeling position beside the sufferer to attend to the summons.
Ellinor sprang forward and detained her: the poor old woman stared at
her in amazement, wholly unable to comprehend her abrupt gestures
and her rapid language. It was with considerable difficulty and after
repeated efforts, that she at length impressed the dulled sense of the
crone with the nature of their alarm, and the expediency of refusing
admittance to the Stranger. Meanwhile, the bell had rung again,--again,
and the third time with a prolonged violence which testified the
impatience of the applicant. As soon as the good dame had satisfied
herself as to Ellinor’s meaning, she could no longer be accused of
unreasonable taciturnity; she wrung her hands and poured forth a volley
of lamentations and fears, which effectually relieved Ellinor from the
dread of her unheeding the admonition. Satisfied at having done thus
much, Ellinor now herself hastened to the door and secured the ingress
with an additional bolt, and then, as the thought flashed upon her,
returned to the old woman and made her, with an easier effort than
before, now that her senses were sharpened by fear, comprehend the
necessity of securing the back entrance also; both hastened away to
effect this precaution, and Madeline, who herself desired Ellinor to
accompany the old woman, was left alone. She kept her eyes fixed on
the window with a strange sentiment of dread at being thus left in so
helpless a situation; and though a door of no ordinary dimensions and
doubly locked interposed between herself and the intruder, she expected
in breathless terror, every instant, to see the form of the ruffian
burst into the apartment. As she thus sat and looked, she shudderingly
saw the man, tired perhaps of repeating a summons so ineffectual, come
to the window and look pryingly within: their eyes met; Madeline had
not the power to shriek. Would he break through the window? that was her
only idea, and it deprived her of words, almost of sense. He gazed upon
her evident terror for a moment with a grim smile of contempt; he then
knocked at the window, and his voice broke harshly on a silence yet more
dreadful than the interruption.
“Ho, ho! so there is some life stirring! I beg pardon, Madam, is Mr.
Aram--Eugene Aram, within?”
“No,” said Madeline faintly, and then, sensible that her voice did not
reach him, she reiterated the answer in a louder tone. The man, as if
satisfied, made a rude inclination of his head and withdrew from the
window. Ellinor now returned, and with difficulty Madeline found words
to explain to her what had passed. It will be conceived that the two
young ladies watched the arrival of their father with no lukewarm
expectation; the stranger however appeared no more; and in about an
hour, to their inexpressible joy, they heard the rumbling sound of the
old coach as it rolled towards the house. This time there was no delay
in unbarring the door.