THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE STUDENT.--A SUMMER SCENE--ARAM’S
CONVERSATION WITH WALTER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLOQUY WITH
HIMSELF.
“The soft season, the firmament serene,
The loun illuminate air, and firth amene
The silver-scalit fishes on the grete
O’er-thwart clear streams sprinkillond for the heat,”
--Gawin Douglas.
“Ilia subter
Caecum vulnus habes; sed lato balteus auro
Praetegit.”
--Persius.
Several days elapsed before the family of the manor-house encountered
Aram again. The old woman came once or twice to present the inquiries
of her master as to Miss Lester’s accident; but Aram himself did not
appear. This want to interest certainly offended Madeline, although she
still drew upon herself Walter’s displeasure, by disputing and resenting
the unfavourable strictures on the scholar, in which that young
gentleman delighted to indulge. By degrees, however, as the days passed
without maturing the acquaintance which Walter had disapproved, the
youth relaxed in his attacks, and seemed to yield to the remonstrances
of his uncle. Lester had, indeed, conceived an especial inclination
towards the recluse. Any man of reflection, who has lived for some
time alone, and who suddenly meets with one who calls forth in him, and
without labour or contradiction, the thoughts which have sprung up in
his solitude, scarcely felt in their growth, will comprehend the new
zest, the awakening, as it were, of the mind, which Lester found in the
conversation of Eugene Aram. His solitary walk (for his nephew had the
separate pursuits of youth) appeared to him more dull than before; and
he longed to renew an intercourse which had given to the monotony of his
life both variety and relief. He called twice upon Aram, but the student
was, or affected to be, from home; and an invitation he sent him, though
couched in friendly terms, was, but with great semblance of kindness,
refused.
“See, Walter,” said Lester, disconcerted, as he finished reading the
refusal--“see what your rudeness has effected. I am quite convinced that
Aram (evidently a man of susceptible as well as retired mind) observed
the coldness of your manner towards him, and that thus you have deprived
me of the only society which, in this country of boors and savages, gave
me any gratification.”
Walter replied apologetically, but his uncle turned away with a greater
appearance of anger than his placid features were wont to exhibit; and
Walter, cursing the innocent cause of his uncle’s displeasure towards
him, took up his fishing-rod and went out alone, in no happy or
exhilarated mood.
It was waxing towards eve--an hour especially lovely in the month of
June, and not without reason favoured by the angler. Walter sauntered
across the rich and fragrant fields, and came soon into a sheltered
valley, through which the brooklet wound its shadowy way. Along the
margin the grass sprung up long and matted, and profuse with a thousand
weeds and flowers--the children of the teeming June. Here the ivy-leaved
bell-flower, and not far from it the common enchanter’s night-shade,
the silver weed, and the water-aven; and by the hedges that now and then
neared the water, the guelder-rose, and the white briony, overrunning
the thicket with its emerald leaves and luxuriant flowers. And here and
there, silvering the bushes, the elder offered its snowy tribute to the
summer. All the insect youth were abroad, with their bright wings and
glancing motion; and from the lower depths of the bushes the blackbird
darted across, or higher and unseen the first cuckoo of the eve began
its continuous and mellow note. All this cheeriness and gloss of life,
which enamour us with the few bright days of the English summer, make
the poetry in an angler’s life, and convert every idler at heart into a
moralist, and not a gloomy one, for the time.
Softened by the quiet beauty and voluptuousness around him, Walter’s
thoughts assumed a more gentle dye, and he broke out into the old lines:
“Sweet day, so soft, so calm, so bright; The bridal of the earth and
sky,” as he dipped his line into the current, and drew it across the
shadowy hollows beneath the bank. The river-gods were not, however, in
a favourable mood, and after waiting in vain for some time, in a spot in
which he was usually successful, he proceeded slowly along the margin
of the brooklet, crushing the reeds at every step, into that fresh and
delicious odour, which furnished Bacon with one of his most beautiful
comparisons.
He thought, as he proceeded, that beneath a tree that overhung the
waters in the narrowest part of their channel, he heard a voice, and as
he approached he recognised it as Aram’s; a curve in the stream brought
him close by the spot, and he saw the student half reclined beneath the
tree, and muttering, but at broken intervals, to himself.
The words were so scattered, that Walter did not trace their clue; but
involuntarily he stopped short, within a few feet of the soliloquist:
and Aram, suddenly turning round, beheld him. A fierce and abrupt change
broke over the scholar’s countenance; his cheek grew now pale, now
flushed; and his brows knit over his flashing and dark eyes with an
intent anger, that was the more withering, from its contrast to the
usual calmness of his features. Walter drew back, but Aram stalking
directly up to him, gazed into his face, as if he would read his very
soul.
“What! eaves-dropping?” said he, with a ghastly smile. “You overheard
me, did you? Well, well, what said I?--what said I?” Then pausing, and
noting that Walter did not reply, he stamped his foot violently, and
grinding his teeth, repeated in a smothered tone “Boy! what said I?”
“Mr. Aram,” said Walter, “you forget yourself; I am not one to play
the listener, more especially to the learned ravings of a man who can
conceal nothing I care to know. Accident brought me hither.”
“What! surely--surely I spoke aloud, did I not?--did I not?”
“You did, but so incoherently and indistinctly, that I did not profit
by your indiscretion. I cannot plagiarise, I assure you, from any
scholastic designs you might have been giving vent to.”
Aram looked on him for a moment, and then breathing heavily, turned
away.
“Pardon me,” he said; “I am a poor half-crazed man; much study has
unnerved me; I should never live but with my own thoughts; forgive me,
Sir, I pray you.”
Touched by the sudden contrition of Aram’s manner, Walter forgot, not
only his present displeasure, but his general dislike; he stretched
forth his hand to the Student, and hastened to assure him of his ready
forgiveness. Aram sighed deeply as he pressed the young man’s hand, and
Walter saw, with surprise and emotion, that his eyes were filled with
tears.
“Ah!” said Aram, gently shaking his head, “it is a hard life we bookmen
lead. Not for us is the bright face of noon-day or the smile of woman,
the gay unbending of the heart, the neighing steed, and the shrill
trump; the pride, pomp, and circumstance of life. Our enjoyments are few
and calm; our labour constant; but that is it not, Sir?--that is it not?
the body avenges its own neglect. We grow old before our time; we wither
up; the sap of youth shrinks from our veins; there is no bound in our
step. We look about us with dimmed eyes, and our breath grows short and
thick, and pains and coughs, and shooting aches come upon us at night;
it is a bitter life--a bitter life--a joyless life. I would I had never
commenced it. And yet the harsh world scowls upon us: our nerves are
broken, and they wonder we are querulous; our blood curdles, and they
ask why we are not gay; our brain grows dizzy and indistinct, (as
with me just now,) and, shrugging their shoulders, they whisper their
neighbours that we are mad. I wish I had worked at the plough, and known
sleep, and loved mirth--and--and not been what I am.”
As the Student uttered the last sentence, he bowed down his head, and a
few tears stole silently down his cheek. Walter was greatly affected--it
took him by surprise; nothing in Aram’s ordinary demeanour betrayed any
facility to emotion; and he conveyed to all the idea of a man, if not
proud, at least cold.
“You do not suffer bodily pain, I trust?” asked Walter, soothingly.
“Pain does not conquer me,” said Aram, slowly recovering himself. “I
am not melted by that which I would fain despise. Young man, I wronged
you--you have forgiven me. Well, well, we will say no more on that head;
it is past and pardoned. Your father has been kind to me, and I have
not returned his advances; you shall tell him why. I have lived thirteen
years by myself, and I have contracted strange ways and many humours
not common to the world--you have seen an example of this. Judge for
yourself if I be fit for the smoothness, and confidence, and ease
of social intercourse; I am not fit, I feel it! I am doomed to be
alone--tell your father this--tell him to suffer me to live so! I am
grateful for his goodness--I know his motives--but have a certain pride
of mind; I cannot bear sufferance--I loath indulgence. Nay, interrupt me
not, I beseech you. Look round on Nature--behold the only company
that humbles me not--except the dead whose souls speak to us from the
immortality of books. These herbs at your feet, I know their secrets--I
watch the mechanism of their life; the winds--they have taught me their
language; the stars--I have unravelled their mysteries; and these, the
creatures and ministers of God--these I offend not by my mood--to them
I utter my thoughts, and break forth into my dreams, without reserve and
without fear. But men disturb me--I have nothing to learn from them--I
have no wish to confide in them; they cripple the wild liberty which
has become to me a second nature. What its shell is to the tortoise,
solitude has become to me--my protection; nay, my life!”
“But,” said Walter, “with us, at least, you would not have to dread
restraint; you might come when you would; be silent or converse,
according to your will.”
Aram smiled faintly, but made no immediate reply.
“So, you have been angling!” he said, after a short pause, and as if
willing to change the thread of conversation. “Fie! It is a treacherous
pursuit; it encourages man’s worst propensities--cruelty and deceit.”
“I should have thought a lover of Nature would have been more indulgent
to a pastime which introduces us to her most quiet retreats.”
“And cannot Nature alone tempt you without need of such allurements?
What! that crisped and winding stream, with flowers on its very
tide--the water-violet and the water-lily--these silent brakes--the cool
of the gathering evening--the still and luxuriance of the universal life
around you; are not these enough of themselves to tempt you forth? if
not, go to--your excuse is hypocrisy.”
“I am used to these scenes,” replied Walter; “I am weary of the thoughts
they produce in me, and long for any diversion or excitement.”
“Ay, ay, young man! The mind is restless at your age--have a care.
Perhaps you long to visit the world--to quit these obscure haunts which
you are fatigued in admiring?”
“It may be so,” said Walter, with a slight sigh. “I should at least like
to visit our great capital, and note the contrast; I should come back, I
imagine, with a greater zest to these scenes.”
Aram laughed. “My friend,” said he, “when men have once plunged into the
great sea of human toil and passion, they soon wash away all love and
zest for innocent enjoyments. What once was a soft retirement,
will become the most intolerable monotony; the gaming of social
existence--the feverish and desperate chances of honour and wealth,
upon which the men of cities set their hearts, render all pursuits
less exciting, utterly insipid and dull. The brook and the
angle--ha!--ha!--these are not occupations for men who have once battled
with the world.”
“I can forego them, then, without regret;” said Walter, with the
sanguineness of his years. Aram looked upon him wistfully; the bright
eye, the healthy cheek, and vigorous frame of the youth, suited with his
desire to seek the conflict of his kind, and gave a naturalness to his
ambition, which was not without interest, even to the recluse.
“Poor boy!” said he, mournfully, “how gallantly the ship leaves the
port; how worn and battered it will return!”
When they parted, Walter returned slowly homewards, filled with pity
towards the singular man whom he had seen so strangely overpowered;
and wondering how suddenly his mind had lost its former rancour to the
Student. Yet there mingled even with these kindly feelings, a little
displeasure at the superior tone which Aram had unconsciously adopted
towards him; and to which, from any one, the high spirit of the young
man was not readily willing to submit.
Meanwhile, the Student continued his path along the water side, and
as, with his gliding step and musing air, he roamed onward, it was
impossible to imagine a form more suited to the deep tranquillity of the
scene. Even the wild birds seemed to feel, by a sort of instinct, that
in him there was no cause for fear; and did not stir from the turf that
neighboured, or the spray that overhung, his path.
“So,” said he, soliloquizing, but not without casting frequent and
jealous glances round him, and in a murmur so indistinct as would have
been inaudible even to a listener--“so, I was not overheard,--well, I
must cure myself of this habit; our thoughts, like nuns, ought not to go
abroad without a veil. Ay, this tone will not betray me, I will
preserve its tenor, for I can scarcely altogether renounce my sole
confidant--SELF; and thought seems more clear when uttered even thus.
‘Tis a fine youth! full of the impulse and daring of his years; I was
never so young at heart. I was--nay, what matters it? Who is answerable
for his nature? Who can say, ‘I controlled all the circumstances which
made me what I am?’ Madeline,--Heavens! did I bring on myself this
temptation? Have I not fenced it from me throughout all my youth, when
my brain did at moments forsake me, and the veins did bound? And now,
when the yellow hastens on the green of life; now, for the first
time, this emotion--this weakness--and for whom? One I have lived
with--known--beneath whose eyes I have passed through all the fine
gradations, from liking to love, from love to passion? No;--one, whom
I have seen but little; who, it is true, arrested my eye at the first
glance it caught of her two years since, but with whom till within the
last few weeks I have scarcely spoken! Her voice rings on my ear, her
look dwells on my heart; when I sleep, she is with me; when I wake, I
am haunted by her image. Strange, strange! Is love then, after all, the
sudden passion which in every age poetry has termed it, though till now
my reason has disbelieved the notion?... And now, what is the question?
To resist, or to yield. Her father invites me, courts me; and I stand
aloof! Will this strength, this forbearance, last?--Shall I encourage my
mind to this decision?” Here Aram paused abruptly, and then renewed:
“It is true! I ought to weave my lot with none. Memory sets me apart
and alone in the world; it seems unnatural to me, a thought of dread--to
bring another being to my solitude, to set an everlasting watch on my
uprisings and my downsittings; to invite eyes to my face when I sleep at
nights, and ears to every word that may start unbidden from my lips. But
if the watch be the watch of love--away! does love endure for ever? He
who trusts to woman, trusts to the type of change. Affection may turn to
hatred, fondness to loathing, anxiety to dread; and, at the best, woman
is weak, she is the minion to her impulses. Enough, I will steel my
soul,--shut up the avenues of sense,--brand with the scathing-iron these
yet green and soft emotions of lingering youth,--and freeze and chain
and curdle up feeling, and heart, and manhood, into ice and age!”