“Perhaps you can give me the dates, Sir,” said Walter, somewhat cast

down from his elation.

“Ay! I’ll see, I’ll see, after dinner; the commonness of the name has

its disadvantages now. Poor Geoffrey!--I dare say there are fifty tombs,

to the memory of fifty Clarkes, between this and York. But come, Sir,

there’s the dinner-bell.”

Whatever might have been the maladies entailed upon the portly frame

of Mr. Courtland by the vegetable life of the departed trees, a want of

appetite was not among the number. Whenever a man is not abstinent from

rule, or from early habit, as in the case of Aram, Solitude makes its

votaries particularly fond of their dinner. They have no other event

wherewith to mark their day--they think over it, they anticipate it,

they nourish its soft idea with their imagination; if they do look

forward to any thing else more than dinner, it is--supper!

Mr. Courtland deliberately pinned the napkin to his waistcoat, ordered

all the windows to be thrown open, and set to work like the good Canon

in Gil Blas. He still retained enough of his former self, to preserve an

excellent cook; so far at least as the excellence of a she-artist goes;

and though most of his viands were of the plainest, who does not

know what skill it requires to produce an unexceptionable roast, or a

blameless boil? Talk of good professed cooks, indeed! they are plentiful

as blackberries: it is the good, plain cook, who is the rarity!

Half a tureen of strong soup; three pounds, at least, of stewed carp;

all the under part of a sirloin of beef; three quarters of a tongue;

the moiety of a chicken; six pancakes and a tartlet, having severally

disappeared down the jaws of the invalid,

“Et cuncta terrarum subacta

Praeter atrocem animum Catonis,”

[And everything of earth subdued,

except the resolute mind of Cato.]

he still called for two deviled biscuits and an anchovy!

When these were gone, he had the wine set on a little table by the

window, and declared that the air seemed closer than ever. Walter was

no longer surprised at the singular nature of the nonhypochondriac’s

complaint.

Walter declined the bed that Mr. Courtland offered him--though his host

kindly assured him that it had no curtains, and that there was not a

shutter to the house--upon the plea of starting the next morning at

daybreak, and his consequent unwillingness to disturb the regular

establishment of the invalid: and Courtland, who was still an excellent,

hospitable, friendly man, suffered his friend’s nephew to depart with

regret. He supplied him, however, by a reference to an old note-book,

with the date of the year, and even month, in which he had been favoured

by a visit from Mr. Clarke, who, it seemed, had also changed his

Christian name from Geoffrey, to one beginning with D--; but whether

it was David or Daniel the host remembered not. In parting with Walter,

Courtland shook his head, and observed:--“Entre nous, Sir, I fear this

may be a wildgoose chase. Your father was too facetious to confine

himself to fact--excuse me, Sir--and perhaps the Colonel and the legacy

were merely inventions--pour passer le temps--there was only one reason

indeed, that made me fully believe the story.”

“What was that, Sir?” asked Walter, blushing deeply, at the universality

of that estimation his father had obtained.

“Excuse me, my young friend.”

“Nay, Sir, let me press you.”

“Why, then, Mr. Geoffrey Lester did not ask me to lend him any money.”

The next morning, instead of repairing to the gaieties of the

metropolis, Walter had, upon this slight and dubious clue, altered

his journey northward, and with an unquiet yet sanguine spirit,

the adventurous son commenced his search after the fate of a father

evidently so unworthy of the anxiety he had excited.

CHAPTER VIII.

WALTER’S MEDITATIONS.--THE CORPORAL’S GRIEF AND ANGER.--THE

CORPORAL PERSONALLY DESCRIBED.--AN EXPLANATION WITH HIS

MASTER.--THE CORPORAL OPENS HIMSELF TO THE YOUNG TRAVELLER.--

HIS OPINIONS ON LOVE;--ON THE WORLD;--ON THE PLEASURE AND

RESPECTABILITY OF CHEATING;--ON LADIES--AND A PARTICULAR CLASS

OF LADIES;--ON AUTHORS;--ON THE VALUE OF WORDS;--ON FIGHTING;

--WITH SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS OF EQUAL DELECTATION AND

IMPROVEMENT.--AN UNEXPECTED EVENT.

Quale per incertam Lunam sub luce maligna

Est iter.

--Virgil.

[Even as a journey by the upropitious light

of the uncertain moon.]

The road prescribed to our travellers by the change in their destination

led them back over a considerable portion of the ground they had already

traversed, and since the Corporal took care that they should remain some

hours in the place where they dined, night fell upon them as they found

themselves in the midst of the same long and dreary stage in which they

had encountered Sir Peter Hales and the two suspected highwaymen.

Walter’s mind was full of the project on which he was bent. The reader

can fully comprehend how vivid must have been his emotions at thus

chancing on what might prove a clue to the mystery that hung over

his father’s fate; and sanguinely did he now indulge those intense

meditations with which the imaginative minds of the young always

brood over every more favourite idea, until they exalt the hope into a

passion. Every thing connected with this strange and roving parent,

had possessed for the breast of his son, not only an anxious, but so

to speak, indulgent interest. The judgment of a young man is always

inclined to sympathize with the wilder and more enterprising order of

spirits; and Walter had been at no loss for secret excuses wherewith to

defend the irregular life and reckless habits of his parent. Amidst all

his father’s evident and utter want of principle, Walter clung with a

natural and self-deceptive partiality to the few traits of courage or

generosity which relieved, if they did not redeem, his character; traits

which, with a character of that stamp, are so often, though always so

unprofitably blended, and which generally cease with the commencement

of age. He now felt elated by the conviction, as he had always been

inspired by the hope, that it was to be his lot to discover one whom

he still believed living, and whom he trusted to find amended. The same

intimate persuasion of the “good luck” of Geoffrey Lester, which all who

had known him appeared to entertain, was felt even in a more credulous

and earnest degree by his son. Walter gave way now, indeed, to a variety

of conjectures as to the motives which could have induced his father to

persist in the concealment of his fate after his return to England; but

such of those conjectures as, if the more rational, were also the more

despondent, he speedily and resolutely dismissed. Sometimes he thought

that his father, on learning the death of the wife he had abandoned,

might have been possessed with a remorse which rendered him unwilling to

disclose himself to the rest of his family, and a feeling that the main

tie of home was broken; sometimes he thought that the wanderer had been

disappointed in his expected legacy, and dreading the attacks of his

creditors, or unwilling to throw himself once more on the generosity

of his brother, had again suddenly quitted England and entered on

some enterprise or occupation abroad. It was also possible, to one

so reckless and changeful, that even, after receiving the legacy, a

proposition from some wild comrade might have hurried him away on any

continental project on the mere impulse of the moment, for the impulse

of the moment had always been the guide of his life; and once abroad he

might have returned to India, and in new connections forgotten the

old ties at home. Letters from abroad too, miscarry; and it was

not improbable that the wanderer might have written repeatedly,

and receiving no answer to his communications, imagined that the

dissoluteness of his life had deprived him of the affections of

his family, and, deserving so well to have the proffer of renewed

intercourse rejected, believed that it actually was so. These, and

a hundred similar conjectures, found favour in the eyes of the young

traveller; but the chances of a fatal accident, or sudden death,

he pertinaciously refused at present to include in the number of

probabilities. Had his father been seized with a mortal illness on the

road, was it not likely that he would, in the remorse occasioned in

the hardiest by approaching death, have written to his brother, and

recommending his child to his care, have apprised him of the addition

to his fortune? Walter then did not meditate embarrassing his present

journey by those researches among the dead, which the worthy Courtland

had so considerately recommended to his prudence: should his expedition,

contrary to his hopes, prove wholly unsuccessful, it might then be well

to retrace his steps and adopt the suggestion. But what man, at the

age of twenty-one, ever took much precaution on the darker side of a

question on which his heart was interested?

With what pleasure, escaping from conjecture to a more ultimate

conclusion--did he, in recalling those words, in which his father had

more than hinted to Courtland of his future amendment, contemplate

recovering a parent made wise by years and sober by misfortunes, and

restoring him to a hearth of tranquil virtues and peaceful enjoyments!

He imaged to himself a scene of that domestic happiness, which is so

perfect in our dreams, because in our dreams monotony is always

excluded from the picture. And, in this creation of Fancy, the form

of Ellinor--his bright-eyed and gentle cousin, was not the least

conspicuous. Since his altercation with Madeline, the love he had once

thought so ineffaceable, had faded into a dim and sullen hue; and, in

proportion as the image of Madeline grew indistinct, that of her sister

became more brilliant. Often, now, as he rode slowly onward, in the

quiet of the deepening night, and the mellow stars softening all on

which they shone, he pressed the little token of Ellinor’s affection to

his heart, and wondered that it was only within the last few days he had

discovered that her eyes were more beautiful than Madeline’s, and her

smile more touching. Meanwhile the redoubted Corporal, who was by no

means pleased with the change in his master’s plans, lingered behind,

whistling the most melancholy tune in his collection. No young lady,

anticipative of balls or coronets, had ever felt more complacent

satisfaction in a journey to London than that which had cheered the

athletic breast of the veteran on finding himself, at last, within

one day’s gentle march of the metropolis. And no young lady, suddenly

summoned back in the first flush of her debut, by an unseasonable fit of

gout or economy in papa, ever felt more irreparably aggrieved than now

did the dejected Corporal. His master had not yet even acquainted him

with the cause of the countermarch; and, in his own heart, he believed

it nothing but the wanton levity and unpardonable fickleness “common

to all them ere boys afore they have seen the world.” He certainly

considered himself a singularly ill-used and injured man, and drawing

himself up to his full height, as if it were a matter with which Heaven

should be acquainted at the earliest possible opportunity, he indulged,

as we before said, in the melancholy consolation of a whistled

death-dirge, occasionally interrupted by a long-drawn interlude half

sigh, half snuffle of his favourite augh--baugh.

And here, we remember, that we have not as yet given to our reader

a fitting portrait of the Corporal on horseback. Perhaps no better

opportunity than the present may occur; and perhaps, also, Corporal

Bunting, as well as Melrose Abbey, may seem a yet more interesting

picture when viewed by the pale moonlight.

The Corporal then wore on his head a small cocked hat, which had

formerly belonged to the Colonel of the Forty-second--the prints of

my uncle Toby may serve to suggest its shape;--it had once boasted a

feather--that was gone; but the gold lace, though tarnished, and the

cockade, though battered, still remained. From under this shade the

profile of the Corporal assumed a particular aspect of heroism: though

a good-looking man on the main, it was his air, height, and complexion,

which made him so; and a side view, unlike Lucian’s one-eyed prince, was

not the most favourable point in which his features could be regarded.

His eyes, which were small and shrewd, were half hid by a pair of thick

shaggy brows, which, while he whistled, he moved to and fro, as a horse

moves his ears when he gives warning that he intends to shy; his nose

was straight--so far so good--but then it did not go far enough; for

though it seemed no despicable proboscis in front, somehow or another

it appeared exceedingly short in profile; to make up for this, the

upper lip was of a length the more striking from being exceedingly

straight;--it had learned to hold itself upright, and make the most of

its length as well as its master! his under lip, alone protruded in the

act of whistling, served yet more markedly to throw the nose into the

background; and, as for the chin--talk of the upper lip being long

indeed!--the chin would have made two of it; such a chin! so long, so

broad, so massive, had it been put on a dish might have passed, without

discredit, for a round of beef! it looked yet larger than it was from

the exceeding tightness of the stiff black-leather stock below, which

forced forth all the flesh it encountered into another chin,--a remove

to the round. The hat, being somewhat too small for the Corporal,

and being cocked knowingly in front, left the hinder half of the head

exposed. And the hair, carried into a club according to the fashion,

lay thick, and of a grizzled black, on the brawny shoulders below. The

veteran was dressed in a blue coat, originally a frock; but the skirts,

having once, to the imminent peril of the place they guarded, caught

fire, as the Corporal stood basking himself at Peter Dealtry’s, had

been so far amputated, as to leave only the stump of a tail, which just

covered, and no more, that part which neither Art in bipeds nor Nature

in quadrupeds loves to leave wholly exposed. And that part, ah,

how ample! had Liston seen it, he would have hid for ever his

diminished--opposite to head!--No wonder the Corporal had been so

annoyed by the parcel of the previous day, a coat so short, and a--; but

no matter, pass we to the rest! It was not only in its skirts that this

wicked coat was deficient; the Corporal, who had within the last

few years thriven lustily in the inactive serenity of Grassdale, had

outgrown it prodigiously across the chest and girth; nevertheless he

managed to button it up. And thus the muscular proportions of the wearer

bursting forth in all quarters, gave him the ludicrous appearance of a

gigantic schoolboy. His wrists, and large sinewy hands, both employed

at the bridle of his hard-mouthed charger, were markedly visible; for it

was the Corporal’s custom whenever he came into an obscure part of

the road, carefully to take off, and prudently to pocket, a pair

of scrupulously clean white leather gloves which smartened up his

appearance prodigiously in passing through the towns in their route.

His breeches were of yellow buckskin, and ineffably tight; his stockings

were of grey worsted, and a pair of laced boots, that reached the ascent

of a very mountainous calf, but declined any farther progress, completed

his attire.

Fancy then this figure, seated with laborious and unswerving

perpendicularity on a demi-pique saddle, ornamented with a huge pair of

well-stuffed saddle-bags, and holsters revealing the stocks of a brace

of immense pistols, the horse with its obstinate mouth thrust out, and

the bridle drawn as tight as a bowstring! its ears laid sullenly down,

as if, like the Corporal, it complained of going to Yorkshire, and its

long thick tail, not set up in a comely and well-educated arch, but

hanging sheepishly down, as if resolved that its buttocks should at

least be better covered than its master’s!

And now, reader, it is not our fault if you cannot form some conception

of the physical perfections of the Corporal and his steed.

The reverie of the contemplative Bunting was interrupted by the voice of

his master calling upon him to approach.

“Well, well!” muttered he, “the younker can’t expect one as close at

his heels as if we were trotting into Lunnon, which we might be at this

time, sure enough, if he had not been so damned flighty,--augh!”

“Bunting, I say, do you hear?”

“Yes, your honour, yes; this ere horse is so ‘nation sluggish.”

“Sluggish! why I thought he was too much the reverse, Bunting? I thought

he was one rather requiring the bridle than the spur.”

“Augh! your honour, he’s slow when he should not, and fast when he

should not; changes his mind from pure whim, or pure spite; new to the

world, your honour, that’s all; a different thing if properly broke.

There be a many like him!”

“You mean to be personal, Mr. Bunting,” said Walter, laughing at the

evident ill-humour of his attendant.

“Augh! indeed and no!--I daren’t--a poor man like me--go for to presume

to be parsonal,--unless I get hold of a poorer!”

“Why, Bunting, you do not mean to say that you would be so ungenerous as

to affront a man because he was poorer than you?--fie!”

“Whaugh, your honour! and is not that the very reason why I’d affront

him? surely it is not my betters I should affront; that would be ill

bred, your honour,--quite want of discipline.”

“But we owe it to our great Commander,” said Walter, “to love all men.”

“Augh! Sir, that’s very good maxim,--none better--but shows ignorance of

the world, Sir--great!”

“Bunting, your way of thinking is quite disgraceful. Do you know, Sir,

that it is the Bible you were speaking of?”

“Augh, Sir! but the Bible was addressed to them Jew creturs! How

somever, it’s an excellent book for the poor; keeps ‘em in order,

favours discipline,--none more so.” “Hold your tongue. I called you,

Bunting, because I think I heard you say you had once been at York. Do

you know what towns we shall pass on our road thither?”

“Not I, your honour; it’s a mighty long way.--What would the Squire

think?--just at Lunnon, too. Could have learnt the whole road, Sir, inns

all, if you had but gone on to Lunnon first. Howsomever, young gentlemen

will be hasty,--no confidence in those older, and who are experienced

in the world. I knows what I knows,” and the Corporal recommenced his

whistle.

“Why, Bunting, you seem quite discontented at my change of journey. Are

you tired of riding, or were you very eager to get to town?”

“Augh! Sir; I was only thinking of what best for your honour,--I!--‘tis

not for me to like or dislike. Howsomever, the horses, poor creturs,

must want rest for some days. Them dumb animals can’t go on for ever,

bumpety, bumpety, as your honour and I do.--Whaugh!” “It is very true,

Bunting, and I have had some thoughts of sending you home again with the

horses, and travelling post.”

“Eh!” grunted the Corporal, opening his eyes; “hopes your honour ben’t

serious.”

“Why if you continue to look so serious, I must be serious too; you

understand, Bunting?”

“Augh--and that’s all, your honour,” cried the Corporal, brightening up,

“shall look merry enough to-morrow, when one’s in, as it were, like, to

the change of road. But you see, Sir, it took me by surprise. Said I to

myself, says I, it is an odd thing for you, Jacob Bunting, on the faith

of a man, it is! to go tramp here, tramp there, without knowing why or

wherefore, as if you was still a private in the Forty-second, ‘stead of

a retired Corporal. You see, your honour, my pride was a hurt; but it’s

all over now;--only spites those beneath me,--I knows the world at my

time o’ life.”

“Well, Bunting, when you learn the reason of my change of plan, you’ll

be perfectly satisfied that I do quite right. In a word, you know that

my father has been long missing; I have found a clue by which I yet hope

to trace him. This is the reason of my journey to Yorkshire.”

“Augh!” said the Corporal, “and a very good reason: you’re a most

excellent son, Sir;--and Lunnon so nigh!”

“The thought of London seems to have bewitched you; did you expect to

find the streets of gold since you were there last?”

“A--well Sir; I hears they be greatly improved.”

“Pshaw! you talk of knowing the world, Bunting, and yet you pant to

enter it with all the inexperience of a boy. Why even I could set you an

example.”

“‘Tis ‘cause I knows the world,” said the Corporal, exceedingly nettled,

“that I wants to get back to it. I have heard of some spoonies as never

kist a girl, but never heard of any one who had kist a girl once, that

did not long to be at it again.”

“And I suppose, Mr. Profligate, it is that longing which makes you so

hot for London?”

“There have been worse longings nor that,” quoth the Corporal gravely.

“Perhaps you meditate marrying one of the London belles; an

heiress--eh?”

“Can’t but say,” said the Corporal very solemnly, “but that might be

‘ticed to marry a fortin, if so be she was young, pretty, good-tempered,

and fell desperately in love with me,--best quality of all.”

“You’re a modest fellow.”

“Why, the longer a man lives, the more knows his value; would not sell

myself a bargain now, whatever might at twenty-one!”

“At that rate you would be beyond all price at seventy,” said Walter:

“but now tell me, Bunting, were you ever in love,--really and honestly

in love?”

“Indeed, your honour,” said the Corporal, “I have been over head and

ears; but that was afore I learnt to swim. Love’s very like bathing.

At first we go souse to the bottom, but if we’re not drowned, then we

gather pluck, grow calm, strike out gently, and make a deal pleasanter

thing of it afore we’ve done. I’ll tell you, Sir, what I thinks of love:

‘twixt you and me, Sir, ‘tis not that great thing in life, boys and

girls want to make it out to be; if ‘twere one’s dinner, that would be

summut, for one can’t do without that; but lauk, Sir, Love’s all in the

fancy. One does not eat it, nor drink it; and as for the rest,--why it’s

bother!”

“Bunting, you’re a beast,” said Walter in a rage, for though the

Corporal had come off with a slight rebuke for his sneer at religion,

we grieve to say that an attack on the sacredness of love seemed a crime

beyond all toleration to the theologian of twenty-one.

The Corporal bowed, and thrust his tongue in his cheek.

There was a pause of some moments.

“And what,” said Walter, for his spirits were raised, and he liked

recurring to the quaint shrewdness of the Corporal, “and what, after

all, is the great charm of the world, that you so much wish to return to

it?”

“Augh!” replied the Corporal, “‘tis a pleasant thing to look about

un with all one’s eyes open; rogue here, rogue there--keeps one

alive;--life in Lunnon, life in a village--all the difference ‘twixt

healthy walk, and a doze in arm-chair; by the faith of a man, ‘tis!”

“What! it is pleasant to have rascals about one?”

“Surely yes,” returned the Corporal drily; “what so delightful like as

to feel one’s cliverness and ‘bility all set an end--bristling up like a

porkypine; nothing makes a man tread so light, feel so proud, breathe so

briskly, as the knowledge that he’s all his wits about him, that he’s a

match for any one, that the Divil himself could not take him in. Augh!

that’s what I calls the use of an immortal soul--bother!”

Walter laughed.

“And to feel one is likely to be cheated is the pleasantest way of

passing one’s time in town, Bunting, eh?”

“Augh! and in cheating too!” answered the Corporal; “‘cause you sees,

Sir, there be two ways o’ living; one to cheat,--one to be cheated. ‘Tis

pleasant enough to be cheated for a little while, as the younkers

are, and as you’ll be, your honour; but that’s a pleasure don’t last

long--t’other lasts all your life; dare say your honour’s often heard

rich gentlemen say to their sons, ‘you ought, for your own happiness’

sake, like, my lad, to have summut to do--ought to have some profession,

be you niver so rich,’--very true, your honour, and what does that mean?

why it means that ‘stead of being idle and cheated, the boy ought to be

busy and cheat--augh!”

“Must a man who follows a profession, necessarily cheat, then?”

“Baugh! can your honour ask that? Does not the Lawyer cheat? and the

Doctor cheat? and the Parson cheat, more than any? and that’s the reason

they all takes so much int’rest in their profession--bother!”

“But the soldier? you say nothing of him.”

“Why, the soldier,” said the Corporal, with dignity, “the private

soldier, poor fellow, is only cheated; but when he comes for to get for

to be as high as a corp’ral, or a sargent, he comes for to get to

bully others, and to cheat. Augh! then ‘tis not for the privates to

cheat,--that would be ‘sumpton indeed, save us!”

“The General, then, cheats more than any, I suppose?”

“‘Course, your honour; he talks to the world ‘bout honour an’ glory, and

love of his Country, and sich like--augh! that’s proper cheating!”

“You’re a bitter fellow, Mr. Bunting: and pray, what do you think of the

Ladies--‘are they as bad as the men?’”

“Ladies--augh! when they’re married--yes! but of all them ere creturs,

I respects the kept Ladies, the most--on the faith of a man, I do! Gad!

how well they knows the world--one quite invies the she rogues; they

beats the wives hollow! Augh! and your honour should see how they fawns

and flatters, and butters up a man, and makes him think they loves him

like winkey, all the time they ruins him. They kisses money out of the

miser, and sits in their satins, while the wife, ‘drot her, sulks in a

gingham. Oh, they be cliver creturs, and they’ll do what they likes with

old Nick, when they gets there, for ‘tis the old gentlemen they cozens

the best; and then,” continued the Corporal, waxing more and more

loquacious, for his appetite in talking grew with that it fed on,--“then

there be another set o’ queer folks you’ll see in Lunnon, Sir, that is,

if you falls in with ‘em,--hang all together, quite in a clink. I

seed lots on ‘em when lived with the Colonel--Colonel Dysart, you

knows--augh?”

“And what are they?”

“Rum ones, your honour; what they calls Authors.”

“Authors! what the deuce had you or the Colonel to do with Authors?”

“Augh! then, the Colonel was a very fine gentleman, what the larned

calls a my-seen-ass, wrote little songs himself, ‘crossticks, you knows,

your honour: once he made a play--‘cause why, he lived with an actress!”

“A very good reason, indeed, for emulating Shakespear; and did the play

succeed?”

“Fancy it did, your honour; for the Colonel was a dab with the

scissors.”

“Scissors! the pen, you mean?”

“No! that’s what the dirty Authors make plays with; a Lord and a

Colonel, my-seen-asses, always takes the scissors.”

“How?”

“Why the Colonel’s Lady--had lots of plays--and she marked a scene

here--a jest there--a line in one place--a sentiment in t’ other--and

the Colonel sate by with a great paper book--cut ‘em out, pasted them in

book. Augh! but the Colonel pleased the town mightily.”

“Well, so he saw a great many authors; and did not they please you?”

“Why they be so damned quarrelsome,” said the Corporal, “wringle,

wrangle, wrongle, snap, growl, scratch; that’s not what a man of the

world does; man of the world niver quarrels; then, too, these creturs

always fancy you forgets that their father was a clargyman; they always

thinks more of their family, like, than their writings; and if they

does not get money when they wants it, they bristles up and cries, ‘not

treated like a gentleman, by God!’ Yet, after all, they’ve a deal

of kindness in ‘em, if you knows how to manage ‘em--augh! but,

cat-kindness, paw today, claw to-morrow. And then they always marries

young, the poor things, and have a power of children, and live on the

fame and forten they are to get one of these days; for, my eye! they be

the most sanguinest folks alive!”

“Why, Bunting, what an observer you have been! who could ever have

imagined that you had made yourself master of so many varieties in men!”

“Augh! your honour, I had nothing to do when I was the Colonel’s valley,

but to take notes to ladies and make use of my eyes. Always a ‘flective

man.”

“It is odd that, with all your abilities, you did not provide better for

yourself.”

“‘Twas not my fault,” said the Corporal, quickly; “but somehow, do what

will--‘tis not always the cliverest as foresees the best. But I be young

yet, your honour!”

Walter stared at the Corporal and laughed outright: the Corporal was

exceedingly piqued.

“Augh! mayhap you thinks, Sir, that ‘cause not so young as you, not

young at all; but, what’s forty, or fifty, or fifty-five, in public

life? never hear much of men afore then. ‘Tis the autumn that reaps,

spring sows, augh!--bother!”

“Very true and very poetical. I see you did not live among authors for

nothing.”

“I knows summut of language, your honour,” quoth the Corporal

pedantically.

“It is evident.”

“For, to be a man of the world, Sir, must know all the ins and outs of

speechifying; ‘tis words, Sir, that makes another man’s mare go your

road. Augh! that must have been a cliver man as invented language;

wonders who ‘twas--mayhap Moses, your honour?”

“Never mind who it was,” said Walter gravely; “use the gift discreetly.”

“Umph!” said the Corporal--“yes, your honour,” renewed he after a pause.

“It be a marvel to think on how much a man does in the way of cheating,

as has the gift of the gab. Wants a Missis, talks her over--wants your

purse, talks you out on it--wants a place, talks himself into it.--What

makes the Parson? words!--the lawyer? words--the Parliament-man?

words!--words can ruin a country, in the Big House--words save souls,

in the Pulpits--words make even them ere authors, poor creturs, in every

man’s mouth.--Augh! Sir, take note of the words, and the things will

take care of themselves--bother!”

“Your reflections amaze me, Bunting,” said Walter smiling; “but

the night begins to close in; I trust we shall not meet with any

misadventure.”

“‘Tis an ugsome bit of road!” said the Corporal, looking round him.

“The pistols?”

“Primed and loaded, your honour.”

“After all, Bunting, a little skirmish would be no bad

sport--eh?--especially to an old soldier like you.”

“Augh, baugh! ‘tis no pleasant work, fighting, without pay, at least;

‘tis not like love and eating, your honour, the better for being, what

they calls, ‘gratis!’”

“Yet I have heard you talk of the pleasure of fighting; not for pay,

Bunting, but for your King and Country!”

“Augh! and that’s when I wanted to cheat the poor creturs at Grassdale,

your honour; don’t take the liberty to talk stuff to my master!”

They continued thus to beguile the way, till Walter again sank into

a reverie, while the Corporal, who began more and more to dislike the

aspect of the ground they had entered on, still rode by his side.

The road was heavy, and wound down the long hill which had stricken so

much dismay into the Corporal’s stout heart on the previous day, when he

had beheld its commencement at the extremity of the town, where but for

him they had not dined. They were now little more than a mile from the

said town, the whole of the way was taken up by this hill, and the

road, very different from the smoothened declivities of the present day,

seemed to have been cut down the very steepest part of its centre; loose

stones, and deep ruts encreased the difficulty of the descent, and it

was with a slow pace and a guarded rein that both our travellers now

continued their journey. On the left side of the road was a thick and

lofty hedge; to the right, a wild, bare, savage heath, sloped downward,

and just afforded a glimpse of the spires and chimneys of the town,

at which the Corporal was already supping in idea! That incomparable

personage was, however, abruptly recalled to the present instant, by a

most violent stumble on the part of his hard-mouthed, Romannosed horse.

The horse was all but down, and the Corporal all but over.

“Damn it,” said the Corporal, slowly recovering his perpendicularity,

“and the way to Lunnon was as smooth as a bowling-green!”

Ere this rueful exclamation was well out of the Corporal’s mouth, a

bullet whizzed past him from the hedge; it went so close to his ear,

that but for that lucky stumble, Jacob Bunting had been as the grass of

the field, which flourisheth one moment and is cut down the next!

Startled by the sound, the Corporal’s horse made off full tear down the

hill, and carried him several paces beyond his master, ere he had power

to stop its career. But Walter reining up his better managed steed,

looked round for the enemy, nor looked in vain.

Three men started from the hedge with a simultaneous shout. Walter

fired, but without effect; ere he could lay hand on the second pistol,

his bridle was seized, and a violent blow from a long double-handed

bludgeon, brought him to the ground.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

FRAUD AND VIOLENCE ENTER EVEN GRASSDALE.--PETER’S NEWS.

--THE LOVERS’ WALK.--THE REAPPEARANCE.

AUF.--“Whence comest thou--what wouldst thou?”

--Coriolanus.

One evening Aram and Madeline were passing through the village in their

accustomed walk, when Peter Dealtry sallied forth from The Spotted Dog,

and hurried up to the lovers with a countenance full of importance, and

a little ruffled by fear.

“Oh, Sir, Sir,--(Miss, your servant!)--have you heard the news? Two

houses at Checkington, (a small town some miles distant from Grassdale,)

were forcibly entered last night,--robbed, your honour, robbed. Squire

Tibson was tied to his bed, his bureau rifled, himself shockingly

confused on the head; and the maidservant Sally--her sister lived with

me, a very good girl she was,--was locked up in the--the--the--I beg

pardon, Miss--was locked up in the cupboard. As to the other house, they

carried off all the plate. There were no less than four men, all masked,

your honour, and armed with pistols. What if they should come here!

such a thing was never heard of before in these parts. But, Sir,--but,

Miss,--do not be afraid, do not ye now, for I may say with the Psalmist,

‘But wicked men shall drink the dregs

Which they in wrath shall wring,

For I will lift my voice, and make

Them flee while I do sing!’”

“You could not find a more effectual method of putting them to flight,

Peter,” said Madeline smiling; “but go and talk to my uncle. I know we

have a whole magazine of blunderbusses and guns at home: they may be

useful now. But you are well provided in case of attack. Have you not

the Corporal’s famous cat Jacobina,--surely a match for fifty robbers?”

“Ay, Miss, on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief, perhaps she

may; but really it is no jesting matter. Them ere robbers flourish like

a green bay tree, for a space at least, and it is ‘nation bad sport for

us poor lambs till they be cut down and withered like grass. But your

house, Mr. Aram, is very lonesome like; it is out of reach of all

your neighbours. Hadn’t you better, Sir, take up your lodgings at the

Squire’s for the present?”

Madeline pressed Aram’s arm, and looked up fearfully in his face. “Why,

my good friend,” said he to Dealtry, “robbers will have little to gain

in my house, unless they are given to learned pursuits. It would be

something new, Peter, to see a gang of housebreakers making off with a

telescope, or a pair of globes, or a great folio covered with dust.”

“Ay, your honour, but they may be the more savage for being

disappointed.”

“Well, well, Peter, we will see,” replied Aram impatiently; “meanwhile

we may meet you again at the hall. Good evening for the present.”

“Do, dearest Eugene, do, for Heaven’s sake,” said Madeline, with tears

in her eyes, as they, now turning from Dealtry, directed their steps

towards the quiet valley, at the end of which the Student’s house was

situated, and which was now more than ever Madeline’s favourite walk,

“do, dearest Eugene, come up to the Manor-house till these wretches are

apprehended. Consider how open your house is to attack; and surely there

can be no necessity to remain in it now.”

Aram’s calm brow darkened for a moment. “What! dearest,” said he, “can

you be affected by the foolish fears of yon dotard? How do we know as

yet, whether this improbable story have any foundation in truth. At

all events, it is evidently exaggerated. Perhaps an invasion of the

poultry-yard, in which some hungry fox was the real offender, may be

the true origin of this terrible tale. Nay, love, nay, do not look thus

reproachfully; it will be time enough for us when we have sifted the

grounds of alarm to take our precautions; meanwhile, do not blame me if

in your presence I cannot admit fear. Oh Madeline, dear, dear Madeline,

could you know, could you dream, how different life has become to me

since I knew you! Formerly, I will frankly own to you, that dark and

boding apprehensions were wont to lie heavy at my heart; the cloud was

more familiar to me than the sunshine. But now I have grown a child, and

can see around me nothing but hope; my life was winter--your love has

breathed it into spring.”

“And yet, Eugene--yet--” “Yet what, my Madeline?”

“There are still moments when I have no power over your thoughts;

moments when you break away from me; when you mutter to yourself

feelings in which I have no share, and which seem to steal the

consciousness from your eye and the colour from your lip.”

“Ah, indeed!” said Aram quickly; “what! you watch me so closely?”

“Can you wonder that I do?” said Madeline, with an earnest tenderness in

her voice.

“You must not then, you must not,” returned her lover, almost fiercely;

“I cannot bear too nice and sudden a scrutiny; consider how long I have

clung to a stern and solitary independence of thought, which allows no

watch, and forbids account of itself to any one. Leave it to time and

your love to win their inevitable way. Ask not too much from me now. And

mark, mark, I pray you, whenever, in spite of myself, these moods you

refer to darken over me, heed not, listen not--Leave me! solitude is

their only cure! promise me this, love--promise.”

“It is a harsh request, Eugene, and I do not think I will grant you so

complete a monopoly of thought;” answered Madeline, playfully, yet half

in earnest.

“Madeline,” said Aram, with a deep solemnity of manner, “I ask a request

on which my very love for you depends. From the depths of my soul, I

implore you to grant it; yea, to the very letter.”

“Why, why, this is--” began Madeline, when encountering the full, the

dark, the inscrutable gaze of her strange lover, she broke off in a

sudden fear, which she could not analyse; and only added in a low and

subdued voice, “I promise to obey you.”

As if a weight were lifted from his heart, Aram now brightened at once

into himself in his happiest mood. He poured forth a torrent of grateful

confidence, of buoyant love, that soon swept from the remembrance of

the blushing and enchanted Madeline, the momentary fear, the sudden

chillness, which his look had involuntarily stricken into her mind. And

as they now wound along the most lonely part of that wild valley, his

arm twined round her waist, and his low but silver voice pouring magic

into the very air she breathed--she felt perhaps a more entire and

unruffled sentiment of present, and a more credulous persuasion of

future, happiness, than she had ever experienced before. And Aram

himself dwelt with a more lively and detailed fulness, than he was wont,

on the prospects they were to share, and the security and peace which

retirement would instill into their mode of life.

“Is it not,” said he, with a lofty triumph that we shall look from our

retreat upon the shifting passions, and the hollow loves of the distant

world? We can have no petty object, no vain allurement to distract the

unity of our affection: we must be all in all to each other; for what

else can there be to engross our thoughts, and occupy our feelings here?

“If, my beautiful love, you have selected one whom the world might

deem a strange choice for youth and loveliness like yours; you have, at

least, selected one who can have no idol but yourself. The poets tell

you, and rightly, that solitude is the fit sphere for love; but how

few are the lovers whom solitude does not fatigue! they rush into

retirement, with souls unprepared for its stern joys and its unvarying

tranquillity: they weary of each other, because the solitude itself to

which they fled, palls upon and oppresses them. But to me, the freedom

which low minds call obscurity, is the aliment of life; I do not enter

the temples of Nature as the stranger, but the priest: nothing can ever

tire me of the lone and august altars, on which I sacrificed my youth:

and now, what Nature, what Wisdom once were to me--no, no, more,

immeasurably more than these, you are! Oh, Madeline! methinks there is

nothing under Heaven like the feeling which puts us apart from all that

agitates, and fevers, and degrades the herd of men; which grants us

to control the tenour of our future life, because it annihilates our

dependence upon others, and, while the rest of earth are hurried on,

blind and unconscious, by the hand of Fate, leaves us the sole lords of

our destiny; and able, from the Past, which we have governed, to become

the Prophets of our Future!”

At this moment Madeline uttered a faint shriek, and clung trembling to

Aram’s arm. Amazed, and roused from his enthusiasm, he looked up, and on

seeing the cause of her alarm, seemed himself transfixed, as by a sudden

terror, to the earth.

But a few paces distant, standing amidst the long and rank fern that

grew on either side of their path, quite motionless, and looking on the

pair with a sarcastic smile, stood the ominous stranger, whom the second

chapter of our first volume introduced to the reader.

For one instant Aram seemed utterly appalled and overcome; his cheek

grew the colour of death; and Madeline felt his heart beat with a loud,

a fearful force beneath the breast to which she clung. But his was not

the nature any earthly dread could long abash. He whispered to Madeline

to come on; and slowly, and with his usual firm but gliding step,

continued his way.

“Good evening, Eugene Aram,” said the stranger; and as he spoke, he

touched his hat slightly to Madeline.

“I thank you,” replied the Student, in a calm voice; “do you want aught

with me?”

“Humph!--yes, if it so please you?”

“Pardon me, dear Madeline,” said Aram softly, and disengaging himself

from her, “but for one moment.”

He advanced to the stranger, and Madeline could not but note that, as

Aram accosted him, his brow fell, and his manner seemed violent and

agitated; but she could not hear the words of either; nor did the

conference last above a minute. The stranger bowed, and turning away,

soon vanished among the shrubs. Aram regained the side of his mistress.

“Who,” cried she eagerly, “is that fearful man? What is his business?

What his name?”

“He is a man whom I knew well some fourteen years ago,” replied Aram

coldly, and with ease; “I did not then lead quite so lonely a life,

and we were thrown much together. Since that time, he has been in

unfortunate circumstances--rejoined the army--he was in early life a

soldier, and had been disbanded--entered into business, and failed; in

short, he has partaken of those vicissitudes inseparable from the life

of one driven to seek the world. When he travelled this road some months

ago, he accidentally heard of my residence in the neighbourhood, and

naturally sought me. Poor as I am, I was of some assistance to him. His

route brings him hither again, and he again seeks me: I suppose too that

I must again aid him.”

“And is that indeed all,” said Madeline, breathing more freely; “well,

poor man, if he be your friend, he must be inoffensive--I have done him

wrong. And does he want money? I have some to give him--here Eugene!”

And the simple-hearted girl put her purse into Aram’s hand.

“No, dearest,” said he, shrinking back; “no, we shall not require your

contribution; I can easily spare him enough for the present. But let us

turn back, it grows chill.”

“And why did he leave us, Eugene?”

“Because I desired him to visit me at home an hour hence.”

“An hour! then you will not sup with us to-night?”

“No, not this night, dearest.”

The conversation now ceased; Madeline in vain endeavoured to renew

it. Aram, though without relapsing into any of his absorbed reveries,

answered her only in monosyllables. They arrived at the Manor-house, and

Aram at the garden gate took leave of her for the night, and hastened

backward towards his home. Madeline, after watching his form through

the deepening shadows until it disappeared, entered the house with a

listless step; a nameless and thrilling presentiment crept to her heart;

and she could have sate down and wept, though without a cause.

CHAPTER II.

THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN ARAM AND THE STRANGER.

The spirits I have raised abandon me,

The spells which I have studied baffle me.

--Manfred.

Meanwhile Aram strode rapidly through the village, and not till he had

regained the solitary valley did he relax his step.

The evening had already deepened into night. Along the sere and

melancholy wood, the autumnal winds crept, with a lowly, but gathering

moan. Where the water held its course, a damp and ghostly mist clogged

the air, but the skies were calm, and chequered only by a few clouds,

that swept in long, white, spectral streaks, over the solemn stars. Now

and then, the bat wheeled swiftly round, almost touching the figure

of the Student, as he walked musingly onward. And the owl [Note: That

species called the short-eared owl.] that before the month waned many

days, would be seen no more in that region, came heavily from the

trees, like a guilty thought that deserts its shade. It was one of those

nights, half dim, half glorious, which mark the early decline of the

year. Nature seemed restless and instinct with change; there were those

signs in the atmosphere which leave the most experienced in doubt,

whether the morning may rise in storm or sunshine. And in this

particular period, the skiey influences seem to tincture the animal life

with their own mysterious and wayward spirit of change. The birds desert

their summer haunts; an unaccountable inquietude pervades the brute

creation; even men in this unsettled season have considered themselves,

more (than at others) stirred by the motion and whisperings of their

genius. And every creature that flows upon the tide of the Universal

Life of Things, feels upon the ruffled surface, the mighty and solemn

change, which is at work within its depths.

And now Aram had nearly threaded the valley, and his own abode became

visible on the opening plain, when the stranger emerged from the trees

to the right, and suddenly stood before the Student. “I tarried for you

here, Aram,” said he, “instead of seeking you at home, at the time you

fixed; for there are certain private reasons which make it prudent I

should keep as much as possible among the owls, and it was therefore

safer, if not more pleasant, to lie here amidst the fern, than to make

myself merry in the village yonder.”

“And what,” said Aram, “again brings you hither? Did you not say, when

you visited me some months since, that you were about to settle in a

different part of the country, with a relation?”

“And so I intended; but Fate, as you would say, or the Devil, as I

should, ordered it otherwise. I had not long left you, when I fell in

with some old friends, bold spirits and true; the brave outlaws of

the road and the field. Shall I have any shame in confessing that I

preferred their society, a society not unfamiliar to me, to the dull

and solitary life that I might have led in tending my old bed-ridden

relation in Wales, who after all, may live these twenty years, and

at the end can scarce leave me enough for a week’s ill luck at the

hazard-table? In a word, I joined my gallant friends, and entrusted

myself to their guidance. Since then, we have cruised around the

country, regaled ourselves cheerily, frightened the timid, silenced

the fractious, and by the help of your fate, or my devil, have found

ourselves by accident, brought to exhibit our valour in this very

district, honoured by the dwelling-place of my learned friend, Eugene

Aram.”

“Trifle not with me, Houseman,” said Aram sternly; “I scarcely yet

understand you. Do you mean to imply, that yourself, and the lawless

associates you say you have joined, are lying out now for plunder in

these parts?”

“You say it: perhaps you heard of our exploits last night, some four

miles hence?”

“Ha! was that villainy yours?”

“Villainy!” repeated Houseman, in a tone of sullen offence. “Come,

Master Aram, these words must not pass between you and me, friends of

such date, and on such a footing.”

“Talk not of the past,” replied Aram with a livid lip, “and call not

those whom Destiny once, in despite of Nature, drove down her dark tide

in a momentary companionship, by the name of friends. Friends we are

not; but while we live, there is a tie between us stronger than that of

friendship.”

“You speak truth and wisdom,” said Houseman, sneeringly; “for my part, I

care not what you call us, friends or foes.”

“Foes, foes!” exclaimed Aram abruptly, “not that. Has life no medium in

its ties?--pooh--pooh! not foes; we may not be foes to each other.”

“It were foolish, at least at present,” said Houseman carelessly.

“Look you, Houseman,” continued Aram drawing his comrade from the

path into a wilder part of the scene, and, as he spoke, his words were

couched in a more low and inward voice than heretofore. “Look you, I

cannot live and have my life darkened thus by your presence. Is not the

world wide enough for us both? Why haunt each other? what have you to

gain from me? Can the thoughts that my sight recalls to you be brighter,

or more peaceful, than those which start upon me, when I gaze on you?

Does not a ghastly air, a charnel breath, hover about us both? Why

perversely incur a torture it is so easy to avoid? Leave me--leave these

scenes. All earth spreads before you--choose your pursuits, and your

resting place elsewhere, but grudge me not this little spot.”

“I have no wish to disturb you, Eugene Aram, but I must live; and in

order to live I must obey my companions; if I deserted them, it would

be to starve. They will not linger long in this district; a week, it may

be; a fortnight, at most; then, like the Indian animal, they will strip

the leaves, and desert the tree. In a word, after we have swept the

country, we are gone.”

“Houseman, Houseman!” said Aram passionately, and frowning till his

brows almost hid his eyes, but that part of the orb which they did

not hide, seemed as living fire; “I now implore, but I can

threaten--beware!--silence, I say;” (and he stamped his foot violently

on the ground, as he saw Houseman about to interrupt him;) “listen to

me throughout--Speak not to me of tarrying here--speak not of days, of

weeks--every hour of which would sound upon my ear like a death-knell.

Dream not of a sojourn in these tranquil shades, upon an errand of dread

and violence--the minions of the law aroused against you, girt with the

chances of apprehension and a shameful death--” “And a full confession

of my past sins,” interrupted Houseman, laughing wildly.

“Fiend! devil!” cried Aram, grasping his comrade by the throat, and

shaking him with a vehemence that Houseman, though a man of great

strength and sinew, impotently attempted to resist.

“Breathe but another word of such import; dare to menace me with the

vengeance of such a thing as thou, and, by the God above us, I will lay

thee dead at my feet!”

“Release my throat, or you will commit murder,” gasped Houseman with

difficulty, and growing already black in the face.

Aram suddenly relinquished his gripe, and walked away with a hurried

step, muttering to himself. He then returned to the side of Houseman,

whose flesh still quivered either with rage or fear, and, his own

self-possession completely restored, stood gazing upon him with folded

arms, and his usual deep and passionless composure of countenance; and

Houseman, if he could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrink

from, his eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance from

each other, both silent, and yet with something unutterably fearful in

their silence.

“Houseman,” said Aram at length, in a calm, yet a hollow voice, “it

may be that I was wrong; but there lives no man on earth, save you, who

could thus stir my blood,--nor you with ease. And know, when you menace

me, that it is not your menace that subdues or shakes my spirit; but

that which robs my veins of their even tenor is that you should deem

your menace could have such power, or that you,--that any man,--should

arrogate to himself the thought that he could, by the prospect of

whatsoever danger, humble the soul and curb the will of Eugene Aram. And

now I am calm; say what you will, I cannot be vexed again.”

“I have done,” replied Houseman coldly; “I have nothing to say;

farewell!” and he moved away among the trees.

“Stay,” cried Aram in some agitation; “stay; we must not part thus. Look

you, Houseman, you say you would starve should you leave your present

associates. That may not be; quit them this night,--this moment: leave

the neighbourhood, and the little in my power is at your will.”

“As to that,” said Houseman drily, “what is in your power is, I fear

me, so little as not to counterbalance the advantages I should lose in

quitting my companions. I expect to net some three hundreds before I

leave these parts.”

“Some three hundreds!” repeated Aram recoiling; “that were indeed beyond

me. I told you when we last met that it is only by an annual payment I

draw the little wealth I have.”

“I remember it. I do not ask you for money, Eugene Aram; these hands can

maintain me,” replied Houseman, smiling grimly. “I told you at once the

sum I expected to receive somewhere, in order to prove that you need

not vex your benevolent heart to afford me relief. I knew well the sum

I named was out of your power, unless indeed it be part of the marriage

portion you are about to receive with your bride. Fie, Aram! what,

secrets from your old friend! You see I pick up the news of the place

without your confidence.”

Again Aram’s face worked, and his lip quivered; but he conquered his

passion with a surprising self-command, and answered mildly, “I do not

know, Houseman, whether I shall receive any marriage portion whatsoever:

If I do, I am willing to make some arrangement by which I could engage

you to molest me no more. But it yet wants several days to my marriage;

quit the neighbourhood now, and a month hence let us meet again.

Whatever at that time may be my resources, you shall frankly know them.”

“It cannot be,” said Houseman; “I quit not these districts without a

certain sum, not in hope, but possession. But why interfere with me?

I seek not my hoards in your coffer. Why so anxious that I should not

breathe the same air as yourself?”

“It matters not,” replied Aram, with a deep and ghastly voice; “but when

you are near me, I feel as if I were with the dead; it is a spectre that

I would exorcise in ridding me of your presence. Yet this is not what

I now speak of. You are engaged, according to your own lips, in lawless

and midnight schemes, in which you may, (and the tide of chances runs

towards that bourne,) be seized by the hand of Justice.”

“Ho,” said Houseman, sullenly, “and was it not for saying that you

feared this, and its probable consequences, that you well-nigh stifled

me, but now?--so truth may be said one moment with impunity, and the

next at peril of life! These are the subtleties of you wise schoolmen,

I suppose. Your Aristotles, and your Zenos, your Platos, and your

Epicurus’s, teach you notable distinctions, truly!”

“Peace!” said Aram; “are we at all times ourselves? Are the passions

never our masters? You maddened me into anger; behold, I am now calm:

the subjects discussed between myself and you, are of life and death;

let us approach them with our senses collected and prepared. What,

Houseman, are you bent upon your own destruction, as well as mine, that

you persevere in courses which must end in a death of shame?”

“What else can I do? I will not work, and I cannot live like you in a

lone wilderness on a crust of bread. Nor is my name like yours, mouthed

by the praise of honest men: my character is marked; those who once knew

me, shun now. I have no resource for society, (for I cannot face myself

alone,) but in the fellowship of men like myself, whom the world has

thrust from its pale. I have no resource for bread, save in the pursuits

that are branded by justice, and accompanied with snares and danger.

What would you have me do?”

“Is it not better,” said Aram, “to enjoy peace and safety upon a small

but certain pittance, than to live thus from hand to mouth? vibrating

from wealth to famine, and the rope around your neck, sleeping and

awake? Seek your relation; in that quarter, you yourself said your

character was not branded: live with him, and know the quiet of easy

days, and I promise you, that if aught be in my power to make your lot

more suitable to your wants, so long as you lead the life of honest men,

it shall be freely yours. Is not this better, Houseman, than a short and

sleepless career of dread?”

“Aram,” answered Houseman, “are you, in truth, calm enough to hear me

speak? I warn you, that if again you forget yourself, and lay hands on

me--” “Threaten not, threaten not,” interrupted Aram, “but proceed;

all within me is now still and cold as ice. Proceed without fear of

scruple.”

“Be it so; we do not love one another: you have affected contempt for

me--and I--I--no matter--I am not a stone or stick, that I should not

feel. You have scorned me--you have outraged me--you have not assumed

towards me even the decent hypocrisies of prudence--yet now you would

ask of me, the conduct, the sympathy, the forbearance, the concession

of friendship. You wish that I should quit these scenes, where, to my

judgment, a certain advantage waits me, solely that I may lighten your

breast of its selfish fears. You dread the dangers that await me on your

own account. And in my apprehension, you forebode your own doom. You ask

me, nay, not ask, you would command, you would awe me to sacrifice my

will and wishes, in order to soothe your anxieties, and strengthen your

own safety. Mark me! Eugene Aram, I have been treated as a tool, and I

will not be governed as a friend. I will not stir from the vicinity of

your home, till my designs be fulfilled,--I enjoy, I hug myself in your

torments. I exult in the terror with which you will hear of each new

enterprise, each new daring, each new triumph of myself and my gallant

comrades. And now I am avenged for the affront you put upon me.”

Though Aram trembled, with suppressed passions, from limb to limb, his

voice was still calm, and his lip even wore a smile as he answered,--“I

was prepared for this, Houseman, you utter nothing that surprises or

appalls me. You hate me; it is natural; men united as we are, rarely

look on each other with a friendly or a pitying eye. But Houseman; I

know you!--you are a man of vehement passions, but interest with you is

yet stronger than passion. If not, our conference is over. Go--and do

your worst.”

“You are right, most learned scholar; I can fetter the tiger within, in

his deadliest rage, by a golden chain.”

“Well, then, Houseman, it is not your interest to betray me--my

destruction is your own.”

“I grant it; but if I am apprehended, and to be hung for robbery?”

“It will be no longer an object to you, to care for my safety.

Assuredly, I comprehend this. But my interest induces me to wish

that you be removed from the peril of apprehension, and your interest

replies, that if you can obtain equal advantages in security, you would

forego advantages accompanied by peril. Say what we will, wander as we

will, it is to this point that we must return at last.”

“Nothing can be clearer; and were you a rich man, Eugene Aram, or could

you obtain your bride’s dowry (no doubt a respectable sum) in advance,

the arrangement might at once be settled.”

Aram gasped for breath, and as usual with him in emotion, made several

strides forward, muttering rapidly, and indistinctly to himself, and

then returned.

“Even were this possible, it would be but a short reprieve; I could not

trust you; the sum would be spent, and I again in the state to which you

have compelled me now; but without the means again to relieve myself.

No, no! if the blow must fall, be it so one day as another.”

“As you will,” said Houseman; ‘but--’ Just at that moment, a long

shrill whistle sounded below, as from the water. Houseman paused

abruptly--“That signal is from my comrades; I must away. Hark, again!

Farewell, Aram.”

“Farewell, if it must be so,” said Aram, in a tone of dogged sullenness;

“but to-morrow, should you know of any means by which I could feel

secure, beyond the security of your own word, from your future

molestation, I might--yet how?”

“To-morrow,” said Houseman, “I cannot answer for myself; it is not

always that I can leave my comrades; a natural jealousy makes them

suspicious of the absence of their friends. Yet hold; the night after

to-morrow, the Sabbath night, most virtuous Aram, I can meet you--but

not here--some miles hence. You know the foot of the Devil’s Crag, by

the waterfall; it is a spot quiet and shaded enough in all conscience

for our interview; and I will tell you a secret I would trust to no

other man--(hark, again!)--it is close by our present lurking-place.

Meet me there!--it would, indeed, be pleasanter to hold our conference

under shelter--but just at present, I would rather not trust myself

beneath any honest man’s roof in this neighbourhood. Adieu! on Sunday

night, one hour before mid-night.”

The robber, for such then he was, waved his hand, and hurried away in

the direction from which the signal seemed to come.

Aram gazed after him, but with vacant eyes; and remained for several

minutes rooted to the spot, as if the very life had left him.

“The Sabbath night!” said he, at length, moving slowly on; “and I must

spin forth my existence in trouble and fear till then--till then! what

remedy can I then invent? It is clear that I can have no dependance on

his word, if won; and I have not even aught wherewith to buy it. But

courage, courage, my heart; and work thou, my busy brain! Ye have never

failed me yet!”

CHAPTER III.

FRESH ALARM IN THE VILLAGE.--LESTER’S VISIT TO ARAM.--A TRAIT

OF DELICATE KINDNESS IN THE STUDENT.--MADELINE.--HER PRONENESS

TO CONFIDE.--THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN LESTER AND ARAM.

--THE PERSONS BY WHOM IT IS INTERRUPTED.

Not my own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,

Can yet the lease of my true love controul.

--Shakspeare: Sonnets.

Commend me to their love, and I am proud, say,

That my occasions have found time to use them

Toward a supply of money; let the request

Be fifty talents.

--Timon Of Athens.

The next morning the whole village was alive and bustling with terror

and consternation. Another, and a yet more daring robbery, had been

committed in the neighbourhood, and the police of the county town had

been summoned, and were now busy in search of the offenders. Aram had

been early disturbed by the officious anxiety of some of his neighbours;

and it wanted yet some hours of noon, when Lester himself came to seek

and consult with the Student.

Aram was alone in his large and gloomy chamber, surrounded, as usual,

by his books, but not as usual engaged in their contents. With his face

leaning on his hand, and his eyes gazing on a dull fire, that crept

heavily upward through the damp fuel, he sate by his hearth, listless,

but wrapt in thought.

“Well, my friend,” said Lester, displacing the books from one of the

chairs, and drawing the seat near the Student’s--“you have ere this

heard the news, and indeed in a county so quiet as ours, these outrages

appear the more fearful, from their being so unlooked for. We must set

a guard in the village, Aram, and you must leave this defenceless

hermitage and come down to us; not for your own sake,--but consider you

will be an additional safeguard to Madeline. You will lock up the house,

dismiss your poor old governante to her friends in the village, and walk

back with me at once to the hall.”

Aram turned uneasily in his chair.

“I feel your kindness,” said he after a pause, “but I cannot accept

it--Madeline,” he stopped short at that name, and added in an altered

voice; “no, I will be one of the watch, Lester; I will look to her--to

your--safety; but I cannot sleep under another roof. I am superstitious,

Lester--superstitious. I have made a vow, a foolish one perhaps, but I

dare not break it. And my vow binds me, save on indispensable and urgent

necessity, not to pass a night any where but in my own home.”

“But there is necessity.”

“My conscience says not,” said Aram smiling: “peace, my good friend, we

cannot conquer men’s foibles, or wrestle with men’s scruples.”

Lester in vain attempted to shake Aram’s resolution on this head; he

found him immoveable, and gave up the effort in despair.

“Well,” said he, “at all events we have set up a watch, and can spare

you a couple of defenders. They shall reconnoitre in the neighbourhood

of your house, if you persevere in your determination, and this will

serve in some slight measure to satisfy poor Madeline.”

“Be it so,” replied Aram; “and dear Madeline herself, is she so

alarmed?”

And now in spite of all the more wearing and haggard thoughts that

preyed upon his breast, and the dangers by which he conceived himself

beset, the Student’s face, as he listened with eager attention to every

word that Lester uttered concerning his niece, testified how alive he

yet was to the least incident that related to Madeline, and how easily

her innocent and peaceful remembrance could allure him from himself.

“This room,” said Lester, looking round, “will be, I conclude, after

Madeline’s own heart; but will you always suffer her here? students do

not sometimes like even the gentlest interruption.”

“I have not forgotten that Madeline’s comfort requires some more

cheerful retreat than this,” said Aram, with a melancholy expression of

countenance. “Follow me, Lester; I meant this for a little surprise to

her. But Heaven only knows if I shall ever show it to herself?”

“Why? what doubt of that can even your boding temper discover?”

“We are as the wanderers in the desert,” answered Aram, “who are taught

wisely to distrust their own senses: that which they gaze upon as the

waters of existence, is often but a faithless vapour that would lure

them to destruction.”

In thus speaking he had traversed the room, and, opening a door, showed

a small chamber with which it communicated, and which Aram had fitted up

with evident, and not ungraceful care. Every article of furniture that

Madeline might most fancy, he had sent for from the neighbouring town.

And some of the lighter and more attractive books that he possessed,

were ranged around on shelves, above which were vases, intended for

flowers; the window opened upon a little plot that had been lately

broken up into a small garden, and was already intersected with walks,

and rich with shrubs.

There was something in this chamber that so entirely contrasted the

one it adjoined, something so light, and cheerful, and even gay in its

decoration and its tout ensemble, that Lester uttered an exclamation

of delight and surprise. And indeed it did appear to him touching, that

this austere scholar, so wrapt in thought, and so inattentive to the

common forms of life, should have manifested this tender and delicate

consideration. In another it would have been nothing, but in Aram, it

was a trait, that brought involuntary tears to the eyes of the good

Lester. Aram observed them: he walked hastily away to the window, and

sighed heavily; this did not escape his friend’s notice, and after

commenting on the attractions of the little room--Lester said: “You seem

oppressed in spirits, Eugene: can any thing have chanced to disturb you,

beyond, at least, these alarms which are enough to agitate the nerves of

the hardiest of us?”

“No,” said Aram; “I had no sleep last night, and my health is easily

affected, and with my health my mind; but let us go to Madeline; the

sight of her will revive me.”

They then strolled down to the Manor-house, and met by the way a band

of the younger heroes of the village, who had volunteered to act as

a patrole, and who were now marshalled by Peter Dealtry, in a fit of

heroic enthusiasm.

Although it was broad daylight, and, consequently, there was little

cause of immediate alarm, the worthy publican carried on his shoulder

a musket on full cock; and each moment he kept peeping about, as if not

only every bush, but every blade of grass contained an ambuscade, ready

to spring up the instant he was off his guard. By his side the redoubted

Jacobina, who had transferred to her new master, the attachment she had

originally possessed for the Corporal, trotted peeringly along, her

tail perpendicularly cocked, and her ears moving to and fro, with a most

incomparable air of vigilant sagacity. The cautious Peter every now

and then checked her ardour, as she was about to quicken her step, and

enliven the march by the gambols better adapted to serener times.

“Soho, Jacobina, soho! gently, girl, gently; thou little knowest the

dangers that may beset thee. Come up, my good fellows, come to the

Spotted Dog; I will tap a barrel on purpose for you; and we will settle

the plan of defence for the night. Jacobina, come in, I say, come in,--

“‘Lest, like a lion, they thee tear,

And rend in pieces small;

While there is none to succour thee,

And rid thee out of thrall.’

What ho, there! Oh! I beg your honour’s pardon! Your servant, Mr. Aram.”

“What, patroling already?” said the squire; “your men will be tired

before they are wanted; reserve their ardour for the night.”

“Oh, your Honour, I have only been beating up for recruits; and we are

going to consult a bit at home. Ah! what a pity the Corporal isn’t

here: he would have been a tower of strength unto the righteous. But

howsomever, I do my best to supply his place--Jacobina, child, be still:

I can’t say as I knows the musket-sarvice, your honour; but I fancy’s as

how, like Joe Roarjug, the Methodist, we can do it extemporaneous-like

at a pinch.”

“A bold heart, Peter, is the best preparation,” said the squire.

“And,” quoth Peter quickly, “what saith the worshipful Mister Sternhold,

in the 45th psalm, 5th verse,--

‘Go forth with godly speed, in meekness, truth, and might,

And thy right hand shall thee instruct in works of dreadful might.’”

Peter quoted these verses, especially the last, with a truculent frown,

and a brandishing of the musket, that surprisingly encouraged the hearts

of his little armament; and with a general murmur of enthusiasm, the

warlike band marched off to The Spotted Dog.

Lester and his companion found Madeline and Ellinor standing at the

window of the hall; and Madeline’s light step was the first that

sprang forward to welcome their return: even the face of the Student

brightened, when he saw the kindling eye, the parted lip, the buoyant

form, from which the pure and innocent gladness she felt on seeing him

broke forth.

There was a remarkable trustingness, if I may so speak, in Madeline’s

disposition. Thoughtful and grave as she was, by nature, she was yet

ever inclined to the more sanguine colourings of life; she never

turned to the future with fear--a placid sentiment of Hope slept at

her heart--she was one who surrendered herself with a fond and implicit

faith to the guidance of all she loved; and to the chances of life. It

was a sweet indolence of the mind, which made one of her most beautiful

traits of character; there is something so unselfish in tempers

reluctant to despond. You see that such persons are not occupied with

their own existence; they are not fretting the calm of the present life,

with the egotisms of care, and conjecture, and calculation: if they

learn anxiety, it is for another; but in the heart of that other, how

entire is their trust!

It was this disposition in Madeline which perpetually charmed, and

yet perpetually wrung, the soul of her wild lover; and as she now

delightedly hung upon his arm, uttering her joy at seeing him safe, and

presently forgetting that there ever had been cause for alarm, his heart

was filled with the most gloomy sense of horror and desolation. “What,”

thought he, “if this poor, unconscious girl could dream that at this

moment I am girded with peril, from which I see no ultimate escape?

Delay it as I will, it seems as if the blow must come at last. What, if

she could think how fearful is my interest in these outrages, that in

all probability, if their authors are detected, there is one who will

drag me into their ruin; that I am given over, bound and blinded,

into the hands of another; and that other, a man steeled to mercy,

and withheld from my destruction by a thread--a thread that a blow

on himself would snap. Great God! wherever I turn, I see despair! And

she--she clings to me; and beholding me, thinks the whole earth is

filled with hope!”

While these thoughts darkened his mind, Madeline drew him onward into

the more sequestered walks of the garden, to show him some flowers she

had transplanted. And when an hour afterwards he returned to the hall,

so soothing had been the influence of her looks and words upon Aram,

that if he had not forgotten the situation in which he stood, he had at

least calmed himself to regard with a steady eye the chances of escape.

The meal of the day passed as cheerfully as usual, and when Aram and his

host were left over their abstemious potations, the former proposed a

walk before the evening deepened. Lester readily consented, and they

sauntered into the fields. The Squire soon perceived that something

was on Aram’s mind, of which he felt evident embarrassment in ridding

himself: at length the Student said rather abruptly: “My dear friend,

I am but a bad beggar, and therefore let me get over my request as

expeditiously as possible. You said to me once that you intended

bestowing some dowry upon Madeline; a dowry I would and could willingly

dispense with; but should you of that sum be now able to spare me some

portion as a loan,--should you have some three hundred pounds with

which you could accommodate me.--” “Say no more, Eugene, say no

more,” interrupted the Squire,--“you can have double that amount. Your

preparations for your approaching marriage, I ought to have foreseen,

must have occasioned you some inconvenience; you can have six hundred

pounds from me to-morrow.”

Aram’s eyes brightened. “It is too much, too much, my generous friend,”

said he; “the half suffices--but, but, a debt of old standing presses me

urgently, and to-morrow, or rather Monday morning, is the time fixed for

payment.”

“Consider it arranged,” said Lester, putting his hand on Aram’s arm,

and then leaning on it gently, he added, “And now that we are on this

subject, let me tell you what I intended as a gift to you, and my

dear Madeline; it is but small, but my estates are rigidly entailed on

Walter, and of poor value in themselves, and it is half the savings of

many years.”

The Squire then named a sum, which, however small it may seem to our

reader, was not considered a despicable portion for the daughter of

a small country squire at that day, and was in reality, a generous

sacrifice for one whose whole income was scarcely, at the most, seven

hundred a year. The sum mentioned doubled that now to be lent, and which

was of course a part of it; an equal portion was reserved for Ellinor.

“And to tell you the truth,” said the Squire, “you must give me some

little time for the remainder--for not thinking some months ago it would

be so soon wanted, I laid out eighteen hundred pounds, in the purchase

of Winclose Farm, six of which, (the remainder of your share,) I can pay

off at the end of the year; the other twelve, Ellinor’s portion, will

remain a mortgage on the farm itself. And between us,” added the Squire,

“I do hope that I need be in no hurry respecting her, dear girl. When

Walter returns, I trust matters may be arranged, in a manner, and

through a channel, that would gratify the most cherished wish of my

heart. I am convinced that Ellinor is exactly suited to him; and,

unless he should lose his senses for some one else in the course of his

travels, I trust that he will not be long returned before he will make

the same discovery. I think of writing to him very shortly after your

marriage, and making him promise, at all events, to revisit us at

Christmas. Ah! Eugene, we shall be a happy party, then, I trust. And be

assured, that we shall beat up your quarters, and put your hospitality,

and Madeline’s housewifery to the test.”

Therewith the good Squire ran on for some minutes in the warmth of his

heart, dilating on the fireside prospects before them, and rallying the

Student on those secluded habits, which he promised him he should no

longer indulge with impunity.

“But it is growing dark,” said he, awakening from the theme which had

carried him away, “and by this time Peter and our patrole will be at the

hall. I told them to look up in the evening, in order to appoint their

several duties and stations--let us turn back. Indeed, Aram, I can

assure you, that I, for my own part, have some strong reasons to take

precautions against any attack; for besides the old family plate,

(though that’s not much,) I have,--you know the bureau in the parlour to

the left of the hall--well, I have in that bureau three hundred guineas,

which I have not as yet been able to take to safe hands at--, and which,

by the way, will be your’s to-morrow. So, you see, it would be no light

misfortune to me to be robbed.”

“Hist!” said Aram, stopping short, “I think I heard steps on the other

side of the hedge.”

The Squire listened, but heard nothing; the senses of his companion

were, however, remarkably acute, more especially that of hearing.

“There is certainly some one; nay, I catch the steps of two persons,”

whispered he to Lester. “Let us come round the hedge by the gap below.”

They both quickened their pace, and gaining the other side of the hedge,

did indeed perceive two men in carters’ frocks, strolling on towards the

village.

“They are strangers too,” said the Squire suspiciously, “not Grassdale

men. Humph! could they have overheard us, think you?”

“If men whose business it is to overhear their neighbours--yes; but not

if they be honest men,” answered Aram, in one of those shrewd remarks

which he often uttered, and which seemed almost incompatible with the

tenor of the quiet and abstruse pursuits that he had adopted, and that

generally deaden the mind to worldly wisdom.

They had now approached the strangers, who, however, appeared mere

rustic clowns, and who pulled off their hats with the wonted obeisance

of their tribe.

“Hollo, my men,” said the Squire, assuming his magisterial air, for the

mildest Squire in Christendom can play the Bashaw, when he remembers he

is a Justice of the Peace. “Hollo! what are you doing here this time of

day? you are not after any good, I fear.”

“We ax pardon, your honour,” said the elder clown, in the peculiar

accent of the country, “but we be come from Gladsmuir; and be going to

work at Squire Nixon’s at Mow-hall, on Monday; so as I has a brother

living on the green afore the Squire’s, we be a-going to sleep there

to-night and spend the Sunday, your honour.”

“Humph! humph! What’s your name?”

“Joe Wood, your honour, and this here chap is, Will Hutchings.”

“Well, well, go along with you,” said the Squire: “And mind what you

are about. I should not be surprised if you snare one of Squire Nixon’s

hares by the way.”

“Oh, well and indeed, your honour.”--“Go along, go along,” said the

Squire, and away went the men.

“They seem honest bumpkins enough,” observed Lester.

“It would have pleased me better,” said Aram, “had the speaker of the

two particularized less; and you observed that he seemed eager not to

let his companion speak; that is a little suspicious.”

“Shall I call them back?” asked the Squire.

“Why it is scarcely worth while,” said Aram; “perhaps I over refine. And

now I look again at them, they seem really what they affect to be. No,

it is useless to molest the poor wretches any more. There is something,

Lester, humbling to human pride in a rustic’s life. It grates against

the heart to think of the tone in which we unconsciously permit

ourselves to address him. We see in him humanity in its simple state; it

is a sad thought to feel that we despise it; that all we respect in our

species is what has been created by art; the gaudy dress, the glittering

equipage, or even the cultivated intellect; the mere and naked material

of Nature, we eye with indifference or trample on with disdain. Poor

child of toil, from the grey dawn to the setting sun, one long task!--no

idea elicited--no thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him

the machine of others--the serf of the hard soil! And then too, mark how

we scowl upon his scanty holidays, how we hedge in his mirth with laws,

and turn his hilarity into crime! We make the whole of the gay world,

wherein we walk and take our pleasure, to him a place of snares and

perils. If he leave his labour for an instant, in that instant how many

temptations spring up to him! And yet we have no mercy for his

errors; the gaol--the transport-ship--the gallows; those are our sole

lecture-books, and our only methods of expostulation--ah, fie on the

disparities of the world! They cripple the heart, they blind the sense,

they concentrate the thousand links between man and man, into the two

basest of earthly ties--servility, and pride. Methinks the devils laugh

out when they hear us tell the boor that his soul is as glorious and

eternal as our own; and yet when in the grinding drudgery of his life,

not a spark of that soul can be called forth; when it sleeps, walled

around in its lumpish clay, from the cradle to the grave, without a

dream to stir the deadness of its torpor.”

“And yet, Aram,” said Lester, “the Lords of science have their ills.

Exalt the soul as you will, you cannot raise it above pain. Better,

perhaps, to let it sleep, when in waking it looks only upon a world of

trial.”

“You say well, you say well,” said Aram smiting his heart, “and I

suffered a foolish sentiment to carry me beyond the sober boundaries of

our daily sense.”

CHAPTER IV.

MILITARY PREPARATIONS.--THE COMMANDER AND HIS MAN.--ARAM IS

PERSUADED TO PASS THE NIGHT AT THE MANOR-HOUSE.

Falstaff.--“Bid my Lieutenant Peto meet me at the town’s end.

.. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts

in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads.”

--Henry IV.

They had scarcely reached the Manor-house, before the rain, which the

clouds had portended throughout the whole day, began to descend in

torrents, and to use the strong expression of the Roman poet--the night

rushed down, black and sudden, over the face of the earth.

The new watch were not by any means the hardy and experienced soldiery,

by whom rain and darkness are unheeded. They looked with great dismay

upon the character of the night in which their campaign was to commence.

The valorous Peter, who had sustained his own courage by repeated

applications to a little bottle, which he never failed to carry about

him in all the more bustling and enterprising occasions of life,

endeavoured, but with partial success, to maintain the ardour of his

band. Seated in the servants’ hall of the Manor-house, in a large

arm-chair, Jacobina on his knee, and his trusty musket, which, to the

great terror of the womankind, had never been uncocked throughout the

day, still grasped in his right hand, while the stock was grounded on

the floor; he indulged in martial harangues, plentifully interlarded

with plagiarisms from the worshipful translations of Messrs. Sternhold

and Hopkins, and psalmodic versions of a more doubtful authorship.

And when at the hour of ten, which was the appointed time, he led his

warlike force, which consisted of six rustics, armed with sticks of

incredible thickness, three guns, one pistol, a broadsword, and a

pitchfork, (a weapon likely to be more effectively used than all the

rest put together;) when at the hour of ten he led them up to the room

above, where they were to be passed in review before the critical eye

of the Squire, with Jacobina leading the on-guard, you could not fancy

a prettier picture for a hero in a little way, than mine host of the

Spotted Dog.

His hat was fastened tight on his brows by a blue pocket-handkerchief;

he wore a spencer of a light brown drugget, a world too loose, above a

leather jerkin; his breeches of corduroy, were met all of a sudden half

way up the thigh, by a detachment of Hessians, formerly in the service

of the Corporal, and bought some time since by Peter Dealtry to wear

when employed in shooting snipes for the Squire, to whom he occasionally

performed the office of game-keeper; suspended round his wrist by a bit

of black ribbon, was his constable’s baton; he shouldered his musket

gallantly, and he carried his person as erect as if the least deflexion

from its perpendicularity were to cost him his life. One may judge of

the revolution that had taken place in the village, when so peaceable a

man as Peter Dealtry was thus metamorphosed into a commander-in-chief.

The rest of the regiment hung sheepishly back; each trying to get as

near to the door, and as far from the ladies, as possible. But Peter

having made up his mind, that a hero should only look straight forward,

did not condescend to turn round, to perceive the irregularity of his

line. Secure in his own existence, he stood truculently forth, facing

the Squire, and prepared to receive his plaudits.

Madeline and Aram sat apart at one corner of the hearth, and Ellinor

leaned over the chair of the former; the mirth that she struggled to

suppress from being audible, mantling over her arch face and laughing

eyes; while the Squire, taking the pipe from his mouth, turned round

on his easy chair, and nodded complacently to the little corps, and the

great commander.

“We are all ready now, your honour,” said Peter, in a voice that did not

seem to belong to his body, so big did it sound, “all hot, all eager.”

“Why you yourself are a host, Peter,” said Ellinor with affected

gravity; “your sight alone would frighten an army of robbers: who could

have thought you could assume so military an air? The Corporal himself

was never so upright!”

“I have practised my present attitude all the day, Miss,” said Peter,

proudly, “and I believe I may now say as Mr. Sternhold says or sings, in

the twenty-sixth Psalm, verse twelfth.

‘My foot is stayed for all assays,

It standeth well and right,

Wherefore to God--will I give praise

In all the people’s sight!’

Jacobina, behave yourself, child. I don’t think, your honour, that we

miss the Corporal so much as I fancied at first, for we all does very

well without him.”

“Indeed you are a most worthy substitute, Peter; and now, Nell, just

reach me my hat and cloak; I will set you at your posts: you will have

an ugly night of it.”

“Very indeed, your honour,” cried all the army, speaking for the first

time.

“Silence--order--discipline,” said Peter gruffly. “March!”

But instead of marching across the hall, the recruits huddled up one

after the other, like a flock of geese, whom Jacobina might be supposed

to have set in motion, and each scraping to the ladies, as they

shuffled, sneaked, bundled, and bustled out at the door.

“We are well guarded now, Madeline,” said Ellinor; “I fancy we may go to

sleep as safely as if there were not a housebreaker in the world.”

“Why,” said Madeline, “let us trust they will be more efficient than

they seem, though I cannot persuade myself that we shall really need

them. One might almost as well conceive a tiger in our arbour, as a

robber in Grassdale. But dear, dear Eugene, do not--do not leave us

this night; Walter’s room is ready for you, and if it were only to walk

across that valley in such weather, it would be cruel to leave us. Let

me beseech you; come, you cannot, you dare not refuse me such a favour.”

Aram pleaded his vow, but it was overruled; Madeline proved herself a

most exquisite casuist in setting it aside. One by one his objections

were broken down; and how, as he gazed into those eyes, could he

keep any resolution, that Madeline wished him to break! The power she

possessed over him seemed exactly in proportion to his impregnability to

every one else. The surface on which the diamond cuts its easy way, will

yield to no more ignoble instrument; it is easy to shatter it, but by

only one substance can it be impressed. And in this instance Aram had

but one secret and strong cause to prevent his yielding to Madeline’s

wishes;--if he remained at the house this night, how could he well avoid

a similar compliance the next? And on the next was his interview with

Houseman. This reason was not, however, strong enough to enable him to

resist Madeline’s soft entreaties; he trusted to the time to furnish him

with excuses, and when Lester returned, Madeline with a triumphant air

informed him that Aram had consented to be their guest for the night.”

“Your influence is indeed greater than mine,” said Lester, wringing his

hat as the delicate fingers of Ellinor loosened his cloak; “yet one can

scarcely think our friend sacrifices much in concession, after proving

the weather without. I should pity our poor patrole most exceedingly,

if I were not thoroughly assured that within two hours every one of

them will have quietly slunk home; and even Peter himself, when he has

exhausted his bottle, will be the first to set the example. However,

I have stationed two of the men near our house, and the rest at equal

distances along the village.”

“Do you really think they will go home, Sir?” said Ellinor, in a little

alarm; “why they would be worse than I thought them, if they were driven

to bed by the rain. I knew they could not stand a pistol, but a shower,

however hard, I did imagine would scarcely quench their valour.”

“Never mind, girl,” said Lester, gaily chucking her under the chin, “we

are quite strong enough now to resist them. You see Madeline has grown

as brave as a lioness--Come, girls, come, let’s have supper, and stir up

the fire. And, Nell, where are my slippers?”

And thus on the little family scene, the cheerful wood fire flickering

against the polished wainscot; the supper table arranged, the Squire

drawing his oak chair towards it, Ellinor mixing his negus; and Aram

and Madeline, though three times summoned to the table, and having three

times answered to the summons, still lingering apart by the hearth--let

us drop the curtain.

We have only, ere we close our chapter, to observe, that when Lester

conducted Aram to his chamber he placed in his hands an order payable

at the county town, for three hundred pounds. “The rest,” he said in a

whisper, “is below, where I mentioned; and there in my secret drawer it

had better rest till the morning.”

The good Squire then, putting his finger to his lip, hurried away, to

avoid the thanks, which, indeed, however he might feel them, Aram was no

dexterous adept in expressing.

CHAPTER V.

THE SISTERS ALONE.--THE GOSSIP OF LOVE.--AN ALARM

--AND AN EVENT.

Juliet.--My true love is grown to such excess,

I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.

--Romeo and Juliet.

Eros.--Oh, a man in arms;

His weapon drawn, too!

--The False One.

It was a custom with the two sisters, when they repaired to their

chamber for the night, to sit conversing, sometimes even for hours,

before they finally retired to bed. This indeed was the usual time for

their little confidences, and their mutual dilations over those hopes

and plans for the future, which always occupy the larger share of the

thoughts and conversation of the young. I do not know any thing in the

world more lovely than such conferences between two beings who have

no secrets to relate but what arise, all fresh, from the springs of a

guiltless heart,--those pure and beautiful mysteries of an unsullied

nature which warm us to hear; and we think with a sort of wonder when we

feel how arid experience has made ourselves, that so much of the dew and

sparkle of existence still linger in the nooks and valleys, which are as

yet virgin of the sun and of mankind.

The sisters this night were more than commonly indifferent to sleep.

Madeline sate by the small but bright hearth of the chamber, in her

night dress, and Ellinor, who was much prouder of her sister’s beauty

than her own, was employed in knotting up the long and lustrous hair

which fell in rich luxuriance over Madeline’s throat and shoulders.

“There certainly never was such beautiful hair!” said Ellinor

admiringly; “and, let me see,--yes,--on Thursday fortnight I may be

dressing it, perhaps, for the last time--heigho!”

“Don’t flatter yourself that you are so near the end of your troublesome

duties,” said Madeline, with her pretty smile, which had been much

brighter and more frequent of late than it was formerly wont to be, so

that Lester had remarked “That Madeline really appeared to have become

the lighter and gayer of the two.”

“You will often come to stay with us for weeks together, at least

till--till you have a double right to be mistress here. Ah! my poor

hair,--you need not pull it so hard.”

“Be quiet, then,” said Ellinor, half laughing, and wholly blushing.

“Trust me, I have not been in love myself without learning its signs;

and I venture to prophesy that within six months you will come to

consult me whether or not,--for there is a great deal to be said on both

sides of the question,--you can make up your mind to sacrifice your own

wishes, and marry Walter Lester. Ah!--gently, gently. Nell--” “Promise

to be quiet.”

“I will--I will; but you began it.”

As Ellinor now finished her task, and kissed her sister’s forehead, she

sighed deeply.

“Happy Walter!” said Madeline.

“I was not sighing for Walter, but for you.”

“For me?--impossible! I cannot imagine any part of my future life that

can cost you a sigh. Ah! that I were more worthy of my happiness.”

“Well, then,” said Ellinor, “I sighed for myself;--I sighed to think we

should so soon be parted, and that the continuance of your society would

then depend not on our mutual love, but the will of another.”

“What, Ellinor, and can you suppose that Eugene,--my Eugene,--would not

welcome you as warmly as myself? Ah! you misjudge him; I know you have

not yet perceived how tender a heart lies beneath all that melancholy

and reserve.”

“I feel, indeed,” said Ellinor warmly, “as if it were impossible that

one whom you love should not be all that is good and noble; yet if this

reserve of his should increase, as is at least possible, with increasing

years; if our society should become again, as it once was, distasteful

to him, should I not lose you, Madeline?”

“But his reserve cannot increase: do you not perceive how much it is

softened already? Ah! be assured that I will charm it away.”

“But what is the cause of the melancholy that even now, at times,

evidently preys upon him?--has he never revealed it to you?”

“It is merely the early and long habit of solitude and study, Ellinor,”

replied Madeline; “and shall I own to you I would scarcely wish that

away; his tenderness itself seems linked with his melancholy. It is like

a sad but gentle music, that brings tears into our eyes, but which we

would not change for gayer airs for the world.”

“Well, I must own,” said Ellinor, reluctantly, “that I no longer wonder

at your infatuation; I can no longer chide you as I once did; there is,

assuredly, something in his voice, his look, which irresistibly sinks

into the heart. And there are moments when, what with his eyes and

forehead, his countenance seems more beautiful, more impressive, than

any I ever beheld. Perhaps, too, for you, it is better, that your lover

should be no longer in the first flush of youth. Your nature seems

to require something to venerate, as well as to love. And I have ever

observed at prayers, that you seem more especially rapt and carried

beyond yourself, in those passages which call peculiarly for worship and

adoration.”

“Yes, dearest,” said Madeline fervently, “I own that Eugene is of all

beings, not only of all whom I ever knew, but of whom I ever dreamed, or

imagined, the one that I am most fitted to love and to appreciate. His

wisdom, but more than that, the lofty tenor of his mind, calls forth all

that is highest and best in my own nature. I feel exalted when I listen

to him;--and yet, how gentle, with all that nobleness! And to think that

he should descend to love me, and so to love me. It is as if a star were

to leave its sphere!”

“Hark! one o’clock,” said Ellinor, as the deep voice of the clock told

the first hour of morning. “Heavens! how much louder the winds rave. And

how the heavy sleet drives against the window! Our poor watch without!

but you may be sure my uncle was right, and they are safe at home by

this time; nor is it likely, I should think, that even robbers would be

abroad in such weather!”

“I have heard,” said Madeline, “that robbers generally choose these

dark, stormy nights for their designs, but I confess I don’t feel much

alarm, and he is in the house. Draw nearer to the fire, Ellinor; is

it not pleasant to see how serenely it burns, while the storm howls

without! it is like my Eugene’s soul, luminous, and lone, amidst the

roar and darkness of this unquiet world!”

“There spoke himself,” said Ellinor smiling to perceive how invariably

women, who love, imitate the tone of the beloved one. And Madeline felt

it, and smiled too.

“Hist!” said Ellinor abruptly, “did you not hear a low, grating noise

below? Ah! the winds now prevent your catching the sound; but hush,

hush!--now the wind pauses,--there it is again!”

“Yes, I hear it,” said Madeline, turning pale, “it seems in the little

parlour; a continued, harsh, but very low, noise. Good heavens! it seems

at the window below.”

“It is like a file,” whispered Ellinor: “perhaps--” “You are right,”

said Madeline, suddenly rising, “it is a file, and at the bars my father

had fixed against the window yesterday. Let us go down, and alarm the

house.”

“No, no; for God’s sake, don’t be so rash,” cried Ellinor, losing all

presence of mind: “hark! the sound ceases, there is a louder noise

below,--and steps. Let us lock the door.”

But Madeline was of that fine and high order of spirit which rises in

proportion to danger, and calming her sister as well as she could, till

she found her attempts wholly ineffectual, she seized the light with a

steady hand, opened the door, and Ellinor still clinging to her, passed

the landing-place, and hastened to her father’s room; he slept at the

opposite corner of the staircase. Aram’s chamber was at the extreme end

of the house. Before she reached the door of Lester’s apartment, the

noise below grew loud and distinct--a scuffle--voices--curses--and

now--the sound of a pistol!--in a moment more the whole house was

stirring. Lester in his night robe, his broadsword in his hand, and his

long grey hair floating behind, was the first to appear; the servants,

old and young, male and female, now came thronging simultaneously round;

and in a general body, Lester several paces at their head, his daughters

following next to him, they rushed to the apartment whence the noise,

now suddenly stilled, had proceeded.

The window was opened, evidently by force; an instrument like a wedge

was fixed in the bureau containing Lester’s money, and seemed to have

been left there, as if the person using it had been disturbed before the

design for which it was introduced had been accomplished, and, (the only

evidence of life,) Aram stood, dressed, in the centre of the room, a

pistol in his left hand, a sword in his right; a bludgeon severed in two

lay at his feet, and on the floor within two yards of him, towards the

window, drops of blood yet warm, showed that the pistol had not been

discharged in vain.

“And is it you, my brave friend, that I have to thank for our safety?”

cried Lester in great emotion.

“You, Eugene!” repeated Madeline, sinking on his breast.

“But thanks hereafter,” continued Lester; “let us now to the

pursuit,--perhaps the villain may have perished beneath your bullet?”

“Ha!” muttered Aram, who had hitherto seemed unconscious of all around

him; so fixed had been his eye, so colourless his cheek, so motionless

his posture. “Ha! say you so?--think you I have slain him?--no, it

cannot be--the ball did not slay, I saw him stagger; but he rallied--not

so one who receives a mortal wound!--ha! ha!--there is blood, you say,

that is true; but what then!--it is not the first wound that kills, you

must strike again--pooh, pooh, what is a little blood!”

While he was thus muttering, Lester and the more active of the servants

had already sallied through the window, but the night was so intensely

dark that they could not penetrate a step beyond them. Lester returned,

therefore, in a few moments; and met Aram’s dark eye fixed upon him with

an unutterable expression of anxiety.

“You have found no one,” said he, “no dying man?--Ha!--well--well--well!

they must both have escaped; the night must favour them.”

“Do you fancy the villain was severely wounded?”

“Not so--I trust not so; he seemed able to--But stop--oh

God!--stop!--your foot is dabbling in blood--blood shed by me,--off!

off!”

Lester moved aside with a quick abhorrence, as he saw that his feet were

indeed smearing the blood over the polished and slippery surface of the

oak boards, and in moving he stumbled against a dark lantern in which

the light still burnt, and which the robbers in their flight had left.

“Yes,” said Aram observing it. “It was by that--their own light that I

saw them--saw their faces--and--and--(bursting into a loud, wild laugh)

they were both strangers!”

“Ah, I thought so, I knew so,” said Lester plucking the instrument from

the bureau. “I knew they could be no Grassdale men. What, did you fancy,

they could be? But--bless me, Madeline--what ho! help!--Aram, she has

fainted at your feet.”

And it was indeed true and remarkable, that so utter had been the

absorption of Aram’s mind, that he had been insensible not only to

the entrance of Madeline, but even that she had thrown herself on his

breast. And she, overcome by her feelings, had slid to the ground from

that momentary resting-place, in a swoon which Lester, in the general

tumult and confusion, was now the first to perceive.

At this exclamation, at the sound of Madeline’s name, the blood rushed

back from Aram’s heart, where it had gathered, icy and curdling; and,

awakened thoroughly and at once to himself, he knelt down, and weaving

his arms around her, supported her head on his breast, and called upon

her with the most passionate and moving exclamations.

But when the faint bloom retinged her cheek, and her lips stirred, he

printed a long kiss on that cheek--on those lips, and surrendered his

post to Ellinor; who, blushingly gathering the robe over the beautiful

breast from which it had been slightly drawn; now entreated all, save

the women of the house, to withdraw till her sister was restored.

Lester, eager to hear what his guest could relate, therefore took Aram

to his own apartment, where the particulars were briefly told.

Suspecting, which indeed was the chief reason that excused him to

himself in yielding to Madeline’s request, that the men Lester and

himself had encountered in their evening walk, might be other than they

seemed, and that they might have well overheard Lester’s communication,

as to the sum in his house, and the place where it was stored; he had

not undressed himself, but kept the door of his room open to listen

if any thing stirred. The keen sense of hearing, which we have before

remarked him to possess, enabled him to catch the sound of the file at

the bars, even before Ellinor, notwithstanding the distance of his own

chamber from the place, and seizing the sword which had been left in his

room, (the pistol was his own) he had descended to the room below.

“What!” said Lester, “and without a light?”

“The darkness is familiar to me,” said Aram. “I could walk by the edge

of a precipice in the darkest night without one false step, if I had but

once passed it before. I did not gain the room, however, till the window

had been forced; and by the light of a dark lantern which one of them

held, I perceived two men standing by the bureau--the rest you can

imagine; my victory was easy, for the bludgeon, with which one of them

aimed at me, gave way at once to the edge of your good sword, and my

pistol delivered me of the other.--There ends the history.”

Lester overwhelmed him with thanks and praises, but Aram, glad to

escape them, hurried away to see after Madeline, whom he now met on the

landing-place, leaning on Ellinor’s arm and still pale.

She gave him her hand, which he for one moment pressed passionately to

his lips, but dropped, the next, with an altered and chilled air. And

hastily observing he would not now detain her from a rest which she must

so much require, he turned away and descended the stairs. Some of the

servants were grouped around the place of encounter; he entered the

room, and again started at the sight of the blood.

“Bring water,” said he fiercely: “will you let the stagnant gore ooze

and rot into the boards, to startle the eye, and still the heart with

its filthy, and unutterable stain--water, I say! water!”

They hurried to obey him, and Lester coming into the room to see the

window reclosed by the help of boards found the Student bending over the

servants as they performed their reluctant task, and rating them with a

raised and harsh voice for the hastiness with which he accused them of

seeking to slur it over.

CHAPTER VI.

ARAM ALONE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.--HIS SOLILOQUY AND PROJECT.--

SCENE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MADELINE.

Luce non grata fruor;

Trepidante semper corde, non mortis metu

Sed--

--Seneca: Octavia, act i.