The two men servants of the house remained up the rest of the night; but

it was not till the morning had progressed far beyond the usual time

of rising in the fresh shades of Grassdale, that Madeline and Ellinor

became visible; even Lester left his bed an hour later than his wont;

and knocking at Aram’s door, found the Student was already abroad, while

it was evident that his bed had not been pressed during the whole of

the night. Lester descended into the garden, and was there met by Peter

Dealtry, and a detachment of the band; who, as common sense and Lester

had predicted, were indeed, at a very early period of the watch, driven

to their respective homes. They were now seriously concerned for their

unmanliness, which they passed off as well as they could upon their

conviction “that nobody at Grassdale could ever really be robbed;” and

promised with sincere contrition, that they would be most excellent

guards for the future. Peter was, in sooth, singularly chop-fallen; and

could only defend himself by an incoherent mutter, from which the Squire

turned somewhat impatiently, when he heard, louder than the rest, the

words “seventy-seventh psalm, seventeenth verse,

“The clouds that were both thick and black,

Did rain full plenteously.”

Leaving the Squire to the edification of the pious host, let us follow

the steps of Aram, who at the early dawn had quitted his sleepless

chamber, and, though the clouds at that time still poured down in a dull

and heavy sleet, wandered away, whither he neither knew, nor heeded. He

was now hurrying, with unabated speed, though with no purposed bourne

or object, over the chain of mountains that backed the green and lovely

valleys, among which his home was cast.

“Yes!” said he, at last halting abruptly, with a desperate resolution

stamped on his countenance, “yes! I will so determine. If, after this

interview, I feel that I cannot command and bind Houseman’s perpetual

secrecy, I will surrender Madeline at once. She has loved me generously

and trustingly. I will not link her life with one that may be called

hence in any hour, and to so dread an account. Neither shall the grey

hairs of Lester be brought with the sorrow of my shame, to a dishonoured

and untimely grave. And after the outrage of last night, the daring

outrage, how can I calculate on the safety of a day? though Houseman

was not present, though I can scarce believe that he knew or at least

abetted the attack; yet they were assuredly of his gang: had one been

seized, the clue might have traced to his detection--and he detected,

what should I have to dread! No, Madeline! no; not while this sword

hangs over me, will I subject thee to share the horror of my fate!”

This resolution, which was certainly generous, and yet no more than

honest, Aram had no sooner arrived at, than he dismissed, at once, by

one of those efforts which powerful minds can command, all the weak

and vacillating thoughts that might interfere with the sternness of his

determination. He seemed to breathe more freely, and the haggard wanness

of his brow, relaxed at least from the workings that, but the moment

before, distorted its wonted serenity, with a maniac wildness.

He pursued his desultory way now with a calmer step.

“What a night!” said he, again breaking into the low murmur in which he

was accustomed to hold commune with himself. “Had Houseman been one of

the ruffians! a shot might have freed me, and without a crime, for ever!

And till the light flashed on their brows, I thought the smaller man

bore his aspect. Ha, out, tempting thought! out on thee!” he cried

aloud, and stamping with his foot, then recalled by his own vehemence,

he cast a jealous and hurried glance round him, though at that moment

his step was on the very height of the mountains, where not even the

solitary shepherd, save in search of some more daring straggler of the

flock, ever brushed the dew from the cragged, yet fragrant soil. “Yet,”

he said, in a lower voice, and again sinking into the sombre depths of

his reverie, “it is a tempting, a wondrously tempting thought. And it

struck athwart me, like a flash of lightning when this hand was at his

throat--a tighter strain, another moment, and Eugene Aram had not had an

enemy, a witness against him left in the world. Ha! are the dead no foes

then? Are the dead no witnesses?” Here he relapsed into utter silence,

but his gestures continued wild, and his eyes wandered round, with a

bloodshot and unquiet glare. “Enough,” at length he said calmly; and

with the manner of one ‘who has rolled a stone from his heart;’ [Note:

Eastern saying.] “enough! I will not so sully myself; unless all other

hope of self-preservation be extinct. And why despond? the plan I have

thought of seems well-laid, wise, consummate at all points. Let me

consider--forfeited the moment he enters England--not given till he has

left it--paid periodically, and of such extent as to supply his wants,

preserve him from crime, and forbid the possibility of extorting

more: all this sounds well; and if not feasible at last, why farewell

Madeline, and I myself leave this land for ever. Come what will to

me--death in its vilest shape--let not the stroke fall on that breast.

And if it be,” he continued, his face lighting up, “if it be, as it may

yet, that I can chain this hell-hound, why, even then, the instant that

Madeline is mine, I will fly these scenes; I will seek a yet obscurer

and remoter corner of earth: I will choose another name--Fool! why did

I not so before? But matters it? What is writ is writ. Who can struggle

with the invisible and giant hand, that launched the world itself into

motion; and at whose predecree we hold the dark boon of life and death?”

It was not till evening that Aram, utterly worn out and exhausted, found

himself in the neighbourhood of Lester’s house. The sun had only broken

forth at its setting; and it now glittered from its western pyre over

the dripping hedges, and spread a brief, but magic glow along the

rich landscape around; the changing woods clad in the thousand dies of

Autumn; the scattered and peaceful cottages, with their long wreaths

of smoke curling upward, and the grey and venerable walls of the

Manor-house, with the Church hard by, and the delicate spire, which,

mixing itself with heaven, is at once the most touching and solemn

emblem of the Faith to which it is devoted. It was a sabbath eve; and

from the spot on which Aram stood, he might discern many a rustic train

trooping slowly up the green village lane towards the Church; and the

deep bell which summoned to the last service of the day now swung its

voice far over the sunlit and tranquil scene.

But it was not the setting sun, nor the autumnal landscape, nor the

voice of the holy bell that now arrested the step of Aram. At a little

distance before him, leaning over a gate, and seemingly waiting till

the ceasing of the bell should announce the time to enter the sacred

mansion, he beheld the figure of Madeline Lester. Her head, at the

moment, was averted from him, as if she were looking after Ellinor and

her uncle, who were in the churchyard among a little group of their

homely neighbours; and he was half in doubt whether to shun her

presence, when she suddenly turned round, and seeing him, uttered an

exclamation of joy. It was now too late for avoidance; and calling to

his aid that mastery over his features, which, in ordinary times, few

more eminently possessed, he approached his beautiful mistress with

a smile as serene, if not as glowing, as her own. But she had already

opened the gate, and bounding forward, met him half way.

“Ah, truant, truant,” said she, the whole day absent, without inquiry or

farewell! After this, when shall I believe that thou really lovest me?

“But,” continued Madeline, gazing on his countenance, which bore

witness, in its present languor, to the fierce emotions which had

lately raged within, “but, heavens! dearest, how pale you look; you are

fatigued; give me your hand, Eugene,--it is parched and dry. Come into

the house;--you must need rest and refreshment.”

“I am better here, my Madeline,--the air and the sun revive me: let us

rest by the stile yonder. But you were going to Church? and the bell has

ceased.”

“I could attend, I fear, little to the prayers now,” said Madeline,

“unless you feel well enough and will come to Church with me.”

“To Church!” said Aram, with a half shudder, “no; my thoughts are in no

mood for prayer.”

“Then you shall give your thoughts to me and I, in return, will pray for

you before I rest.”

And so saying, Madeline, with her usual innocent frankness of manner,

wound her arm in his, and they walked onward towards the stile Aram had

pointed out. It was a little rustic stile, with chesnut-trees hanging

over it on either side. It stands to this day, and I have pleased myself

with finding Walter Lester’s initials, and Madeline’s also, with the

date of the year, carved in half-worn letters on the wood, probably by

the hand of the former.

They now rested at this spot. All around them was still and solitary;

the groups of peasants had entered the Church, and nothing of life, save

the cattle grazing in the distant fields, or the thrush starting from

the wet bushes, was visible. The winds were lulled to rest, and, though

somewhat of the chill of autumn floated on the air, it only bore a

balm to the harassed brow and fevered veins of the Student; and

Madeline!--she felt nothing but his presence. It was exactly what we

picture to ourselves of a sabbath eve, unutterably serene and soft, and

borrowing from the very melancholy of the declining year an impressive,

yet a mild solemnity.

There are seasons, often in the most dark or turbulent periods of our

life, when, why we know not, we are suddenly called from ourselves,

by the remembrances of early childhood: something touches the electric

chain, and, lo! a host of shadowy and sweet recollections steal upon us.

The wheel rests, the oar is suspended, we are snatched from the labour

and travail of present life; we are born again, and live anew. As the

secret page in which the characters once written seem for ever effaced,

but which, if breathed upon, gives them again into view; so the memory

can revive the images invisible for years: but while we gaze, the breath

recedes from the surface, and all one moment so vivid, with the next

moment has become once more a blank!

“It is singular,” said Aram, “but often as I have paused at this spot,

and gazed upon this landscape, a likeness to the scenes of my childish

life, which it now seems to me to present, never occurred to me before.

Yes, yonder, in that cottage, with the sycamores in front, and the

orchard extending behind, till its boundary, as we now stand, seems lost

among the woodland, I could fancy that I looked upon my father’s home.

The clump of trees that lies yonder to the right could cheat me readily

to the belief that I saw the little grove in which, enamoured with the

first passion of study, I was wont to pore over the thrice-read book

through the long summer days;--a boy,--a thoughtful boy; yet, oh! how

happy! What worlds appeared then to me, to open in every page! how

exhaustless I thought the treasures and the hopes of life! and beautiful

on the mountain tops seemed to me the steps of Knowledge! I did not

dream of all that the musing and lonely passion that I nursed was to

entail upon me. There, in the clefts of the valley, or the ridges of the

hill, or the fragrant course of the stream, I began already to win its

history from the herb or flower; I saw nothing, that I did not long

to unravel its secrets; all that the earth nourished ministered to one

desire:--and what of low or sordid did there mingle with that desire?

The petty avarice, the mean ambition, the debasing love, even the heat,

the anger, the fickleness, the caprice of other men, did they allure

or bow down my nature from its steep and solitary eyrie? I lived but to

feed my mind; wisdom was my thirst, my dream, my aliment, my sole fount

and sustenance of life. And have I not sown the whirlwind and reaped the

wind? The glory of my youth is gone, my veins are chilled, my frame

is bowed, my heart is gnawed with cares, my nerves are unstrung as

a loosened bow: and what, after all, is my gain? Oh, God! what is my

gain?”

“Eugene, dear, dear Eugene!” murmured Madeline soothingly, and wrestling

with her tears, “is not your gain great? is it no triumph that you

stand, while yet young, almost alone in the world, for success in all

that you have attempted?”

“And what,” exclaimed Aram, breaking in upon her, “what is this world

which we ransack, but a stupendous charnel-house? Every thing that we

deem most lovely, ask its origin?--Decay! When we rifle nature, and

collect wisdom, are we not like the hags of old, culling simples from

the rank grave, and extracting sorceries from the rotting bones of

the dead? Every thing around us is fathered by corruption, battened by

corruption, and into corruption returns at last. Corruption is at once

the womb and grave of Nature, and the very beauty on which we gaze and

hang,--the cloud, and the tree, and the swarming waters,--all are one

vast panorama of death! But it did not always seem to me thus; and even

now I speak with a heated pulse and a dizzy brain. Come, Madeline, let

us change the theme.”

And dismissing at once from his language, and perhaps, as he proceeded,

also from his mind, all of its former gloom, except such as might

shade, but not embitter, the natural tenderness of remembrance, Aram now

related, with that vividness of diction, which, though we feel we can

very inadequately convey its effect, characterised his conversation, and

gave something of poetic interest to all he uttered; those reminiscences

which belong to childhood, and which all of us take delight to hear from

the lips of any one we love.

It was while on this theme that the lights which the deepening twilight

had now made necessary, became visible in the Church, streaming afar

through its large oriel window, and brightening the dark firs that

overshadowed the graves around: and just at that moment the organ, (a

gift from a rich rector, and the boast of the neighbouring country,)

stole upon the silence with its swelling and solemn note. There was

something in the strain of this sudden music that was so kindred with

the holy repose of the scene, and which chimed so exactly to the chord

that now vibrated in Aram’s mind, that it struck upon him at once with

an irresistible power. He paused abruptly “as if an angel spoke!” that

sound so peculiarly adapted to express sacred and unearthly emotion none

who have ever mourned or sinned can hear, at an unlooked for moment,

without a certain sentiment, that either subdues, or elevates, or awes.

But he,--he was a boy once more!--he was again in the village church of

his native place: his father, with his silver hair, stood again beside

him! there was his mother, pointing to him the holy verse; there

the half arch, half reverent face of his little sister, (she died

young!)--there the upward eye and hushed countenance of the preacher who

had first raised his mind to knowledge, and supplied its food,--all, all

lived, moved, breathed, again before him,--all, as when he was young and

guiltless, and at peace; hope and the future one word!

He bowed his head lower and lower; the hardness and hypocrisies of

pride, the sense of danger and of horror, that, in agitating, still

supported, the mind of this resolute and scheming man, at once forsook

him. Madeline felt his tears drop fast and burning on her hand, and the

next moment, overcome by the relief it afforded to a heart preyed upon

by fiery and dread secrets, which it could not reveal, and a frame

exhausted by the long and extreme tension of all its powers, he laid his

head upon that faithful bosom, and wept aloud.

CHAPTER VII.

ARAM’S SECRET EXPEDITION.--A SCENE WORTHY THE ACTORS.--ARAM’S

ADDRESS AND POWERS OF PERSUASION OR HYPOCRISY.--THEIR RESULT.

--A FEARFUL NIGHT.--ARAM’S SOLITARY RIDE HOMEWARD.

--WHOM HE MEETS BY THE WAY, AND WHAT HE SEES.

Macbeth. Now o’er the one half world

Nature seems dead.

Donalbain. Our separated fortune

Shall keep us both the safer.

Old Man. Hours dreadful and things strange.

--Macbeth.

“And you must really go to ------ to pay your importunate creditor this

very evening. Sunday is a bad day for such matters; but as you pay him

by an order, it does not much signify; and I can well understand your

impatience to feel discharged of the debt. But it is already late; and

if it must be so, you had better start.”

“True,” said Aram to the above remark of Lester’s, as the two stood

together without the door; “but do you feel quite secure and guarded

against any renewed attack?”

“Why, unless they bring a regiment, yes! I have put a body of our

patrole on a service where they can scarce be inefficient, viz. I have

stationed them in the house, instead of without; and I shall myself bear

them company through the greater part of the night: to-morrow I shall

remove all that I possess of value to--(the county town) including those

unlucky guineas, which you will not ease me of.”

“The order you have kindly given me will amply satisfy my purpose,”

answered Aram: “And so, there has been no clue to these robberies

discovered throughout the day?”

“None: to-morrow, the magistrates are to meet at--, and concert

measures: it is absolutely impossible, but that we should detect the

villains in a few days, viz. if they remain in these parts. I hope to

heaven you will not meet them this evening.”

“I shall go well armed,” answered Aram, “and the horse you lend me is

fleet and strong. And now farewell for the present; I shall probably

not return to Grassdale this night, or if I do, it will be at so late an

hour, that I shall seek my own domicile without disturbing you.”

“No, no; you had better remain in the town, and not return till

morning,” said the Squire; “and now let us come to the stables.”

To obviate all chance of suspicion as to the real place of his

destination, Aram deliberately rode to the town he had mentioned, as the

one in which his pretended creditor expected him. He put up at an inn,

walked forth as if to visit some one in the town, returned, remounted,

and by a circuitous route, came into the neighbourhood of the place in

which he was to meet Houseman: then turning into a long and dense chain

of wood, he fastened his horse to a tree, and looking to the priming of

his pistols, which he carried under his riding-cloak, proceeded to the

spot on foot.

The night was still, and not wholly dark; for the clouds lay scattered

though dense, and suffered many stars to gleam through the heavy air;

the moon herself was abroad, but on her decline, and looked forth with

a man and saddened aspect, as she travelled from cloud to cloud. It has

been the necessary course of our narrative, to pourtray Aram, more often

than to give an exact notion of his character we could have altogether

wished, in his weaker moments; but whenever he stood in the actual

presence of danger, his whole soul was in arms to cope with it worthily:

courage, sagacity, even cunning, all awakened to the encounter; and the

mind which his life had so austerely cultivated repaid him in the urgent

season, with its acute address, and unswerving hardihood. The Devil’s

Crag, as it was popularly called, was a spot consecrated by many a wild

tradition, which would not, perhaps, be wholly out of character with

the dark thread of this tale, were we in accordance with certain of

our brethren, who seem to think a novel like a bundle of wood, the more

faggots it contains the greater its value, allowed by the rapidity of

our narrative to relate them.

The same stream which lent so soft an attraction to the valleys of

Grassdale, here assumed a different character; broad, black, and

rushing, it whirled along a course, overhung by shagged and abrupt

banks. On the opposite side to that by which Aram now pursued his path,

an almost perpendicular mountain was covered with gigantic pine and fir,

that might have reminded a German wanderer of the darkest recesses of

the Hartz; and seemed, indeed, no unworthy haunt for the weird huntsman,

or the forest fiend. Over this wood the moon now shimmered, with the

pale and feeble light we have already described; and only threw into

a more sombre shade the motionless and gloomy foliage. Of all the

offspring of the forest, the Fir bears, perhaps, the most saddening and

desolate aspect. Its long branches, without absolute leaf or blossom;

its dead, dark, eternal hue, which the winter seems to wither not, nor

the spring to revive, have, I know not what of a mystic and unnatural

life. Around all woodland, there is that horror umbrarum which becomes

more remarkably solemn and awing amidst the silence and depth of night:

but this is yet more especially the characteristic of that sullen

evergreen. Perhaps, too, this effect is increased by the sterile and

dreary soil, on which, when in groves, it is generally found; and its

very hardiness, the very pertinacity with which it draws its strange

unfluctuating life, from the sternest wastes and most reluctant strata,

enhance, unconsciously, the unwelcome effect it is calculated to create

upon the mind. At this place, too, the waters that dashed beneath

gave yet additional wildness to the rank verdure of the wood, and

contributed, by their rushing darkness partially broken by the stars,

and the hoarse roar of their chafed course, a yet more grim and savage

sublimity to the scene.

Winding a narrow path, (for the whole country was as familiar as a

garden to his footstep) that led through the tall wet herbage, almost

along the perilous brink of the stream, Aram was now aware, by the

increased and deafening sound of the waters, that the appointed spot was

nearly gained; and presently the glimmering and imperfect light of the

skies, revealed the dim shape of a gigantic rock, that rose abruptly

from the middle of the stream; and which, rude, barren, vast, as it

really was, seemed now, by the uncertainty of night, like some monstrous

and deformed creature of the waters, suddenly emerging from their vexed

and dreary depths. This was the far-famed Crag, which had borrowed from

tradition its evil and ominous name. And now, the stream, bending round

with a broad and sudden swoop, showed at a little distance, ghostly and

indistinct through the darkness, the mighty Waterfall, whose roar had

been his guide. Only in one streak a-down the giant cataract, the

stars were reflected; and this long train of broken light glittered

preternaturally forth through the rugged crags and the sombre verdure,

that wrapped either side of the waterfall in utter and rayless gloom.

Nothing could exceed the forlorn and terrific grandeur of the spot; the

roar of the waters supplied to the ear what the night forbade to the

eye. Incessant and eternal they thundered down into the gulf; and then

shooting over that fearful basin, and forming another, but a mimic fall,

dashed on, till they were opposed by the sullen and abrupt crag below;

and besieging its base with a renewed roar, sent their foamy and angry

spray half way up the hoar ascent.

At this stern and dreary spot, well suited for such conferences as Aram

and Houseman alone could hold; and which, whatever was the original

secret that linked the two men thus strangely, seemed of necessity to

partake of a desperate and lawless character, with danger for its main

topic, and death itself for its colouring, Aram now paused, and with an

eye accustomed to the darkness, looked around for his companion.

He did not wait long: from the profound shadow that girded the space

immediately around the fall, Houseman now emerged and joined the

Student. The stunning noise of the cataract in the place where they met,

forbade any attempt to converse; and they walked on by the course of

the stream, to gain a spot less in reach of the deafening shout of the

mountain giant as he rushed with his banded waters, upon the valley like

a foe.

It was noticeable that as they proceeded, Aram walked on with an

unsuspicious and careless demeanour; but Houseman pointing out the way

with his hand, not leading it, kept a little behind Aram, and watched

his motions with a vigilant and wary eye. The Student, who had diverged

from the path at Houseman’s direction, now paused at a place where the

matted bushes seemed to forbid any farther progress; and said, for the

first time breaking the silence, “We cannot proceed; shall this be the

place of our conference?”

“No,” said Houseman, “we had better pierce the bushes. I know the way,

but will not lead it.”

“And wherefore?”

“The mark of your gripe is still on my throat,” replied Houseman,

significantly; “you know as well as I, that it is not always safe to

have a friend lagging behind.”

“Let us rest here, then,” said Aram, calmly, the darkness veiling any

alteration of his countenance, which his comrade’s suspicion might have

created.

“Yet it were much better,” said Houseman, doubtingly, “could we gain the

cave below.”

“The cave!” said Aram, starting, as if the word had a sound of fear.

“Ay, ay: but not St. Robert’s,” said Houseman; and the grin of his teeth

was visible through the dullness of the shade. “But come, give me your

hand, and I will venture to conduct you through the thicket:--that is

your left hand,” observed Houseman with a sharp and angry suspicion in

his tone; “give me the right.”

“As you will,” said Aram in a subdued, yet meaning voice, that seemed to

come from his heart; and thrilled, for an instant, to the bones of him

who heard it; “as you will; but for fourteen years I have not given this

right hand, in pledge of fellowship, to living man; you alone deserve

the courtesy--there!”

Houseman hesitated, before he took the hand now extended to him.

“Pshaw!” said he, as if indignant at himself, “what! scruples at a

shadow! Come,” (grasping the hand) “that’s well--so, so; now we are in

the thicket--tread firm--this way--hold,” continued Houseman, under his

breath, as suspicion anew seemed to cross him; “hold! we can see each

other’s face not even dimly now: but in this hand, my right is free, I

have a knife that has done good service ere this; and if I feel cause to

suspect that you meditate to play me false, I bury it in your heart; do

you heed me?”

“Fool!” said Aram, scornfully, “I should dread you dead yet more than

living.”

Houseman made no answer; but continued to grope on through the path in

the thicket, which he evidently knew well; though even in daylight,

so thick were the trees, and so artfully had their boughs been left to

cover the track, no path could have been discovered by one unacquainted

with the clue.

They had now walked on for some minutes, and of late their steps had

been threading a rugged, and somewhat precipitous descent: all this

while, the pulse of the hand Houseman held, beat with as steadfast and

calm a throb, as in the most quiet mood of learned meditation; although

Aram could not but be conscious that a mere accident, a slip of the

foot, an entanglement in the briars, might awaken the irritable fears of

his ruffian comrade, and bring the knife to his breast. But this was

not that form of death that could shake the nerves of Aram; nor, though

arming his whole soul to ward off one danger, was he well sensible of

another, that might have seemed equally near and probable, to a less

collected and energetic nature. Houseman now halted, again put aside the

boughs, proceeded a few steps, and by a certain dampness and oppression

in the air, Aram rightly conjectured himself in the cavern Houseman had

spoken of.

“We are landed now,” said Houseman, “but wait, I will strike a light; I

do not love darkness, even with another sort of companion than the one I

have now the honour to entertain!”

In a few moments a light was produced, and placed aloft on a crag in the

cavern; but the ray it gave was feeble and dull, and left all beyond the

immediate spot in which they stood, in a darkness little less Cimmerian

than before.

“‘Fore Gad, it is cold,” said Houseman shivering, “but I have taken

care, you see, to provide for a friend’s comfort;” so saying, he

approached a bundle of dry sticks and leaves, piled at one corner of

the cave, applied the light to the fuel, and presently, the fire rose

crackling, breaking into a thousand sparks, and freeing itself gradually

from the clouds of smoke in which it was enveloped. It now mounted into

a ruddy and cheering flame, and the warm glow played picturesquely upon

the grey sides of the cavern, which was of a rugged shape, and small

dimensions, and cast its reddening light over the forms of the two men.

Houseman stood close to the flame, spreading his hands over it, and

a sort of grim complacency stealing along features singularly

ill-favoured, and sinister in their expression, as he felt the animal

luxury of the warmth.

Across his middle was a broad leathern belt, containing a brace of

large horse pistols, and the knife, or rather dagger, with which he had

menaced Aram, an instrument sharpened on both sides, and nearly a foot

in length. Altogether, what with his muscular breadth of figure, his

hard and rugged features, his weapons, and a certain reckless, bravo

air which indescribably marked his attitude and bearing, it was not well

possible to imagine a fitter habitant for that grim cave, or one from

whom men of peace, like Eugene Aram, might have seemed to derive more

reasonable cause of alarm.

The Scholar stood at a little distance, waiting till his companion was

entirely prepared for the conference, and his pale and lofty features,

hushed in their usual deep, but at such a moment, almost preternatural

repose. He stood leaning with folded arms against the rude wall; the

light reflected upon his dark garments, with the graceful riding-cloak

of the day half falling from his shoulder, and revealing also the

pistols in his belt, and the sword, which, though commonly worn at

that time, by all pretending to superiority above the lower and trading

orders, Aram usually waived as a distinction, but now carried as a

defence. And nothing could be more striking, than the contrast between

the ruffian form of his companion, and the delicate and chiselled beauty

of the Student’s features, with their air of mournful intelligence and

serene command, and the slender, though nervous symmetry of his frame.

“Houseman,” said Aram, now advancing, as his comrade turned his face

from the flame, towards him; “before we enter on the main subject of our

proposed commune--tell me, were you engaged on the attempt last night

upon Lester’s house?”

“By the Fiend, no!” answered Houseman, nor did I learn it till this

morning; it was unpremeditated till within a few hours of the time, by

the two fools who alone planned it. The fact is, that myself and the

greater part of our little band, were engaged some miles off, in the

western part of the county. Two--our general--spies, had been, of

their own accord, into your neighbourhood, to reconnoitre. They marked

Lester’s house during the day, and gathered, (as I can say by experience

it was easy to do) from unsuspected inquiry in the village, for they

wore a clown’s dress, several particulars which induced them to think it

contained what might repay the trouble of breaking into it. And walking

along the fields, they overheard the good master of the house tell one

of his neighbours of a large sum at home; nay, even describe the place

where it was kept: that determined them;--they feared, (as the old man

indeed observed,) that the sum might be removed the next day; they had

noted the house sufficiently to profit by the description given: they

resolved, then, of themselves, for it was too late to reckon on our

assistance, to break into the room in which the money was kept--though

from the aroused vigilance of the frightened hamlet and the force within

the house, they resolved to attempt no farther booty. They reckoned

on the violence of the storm, and the darkness of the night to prevent

their being heard or seen; they were mistaken--the house was alarmed,

they were no sooner in the luckless room, than--“Well, I know the rest;

was the one wounded dangerously hurt?”

“Oh, he will recover, he will recover; our men are no chickens. But I

own I thought it natural that you might suspect me of sharing in the

attack; and though, as I have said before, I do not love you, I have

no wish to embroil matters so far as an outrage on the house of your

father-in-law, might be reasonably expected to do:--at all events, while

the gate to an amicable compromise between us is still open.”

“I am satisfied on this head,” said Aram, “and I can now treat with

you in a spirit of less distrustful precaution than before. I tell you,

Houseman, that the terms are no longer at your control; you must leave

this part of the country, and that forthwith, or you inevitably perish.

The whole population is alarmed, and the most vigilant of the London

Police have been already sent for. Life is sweet to you, as to us all,

and I cannot imagine you so mad, as to incur not the risk, but the

certainty, of losing it. You can no longer therefore, hold the threat of

your presence over my head. Besides, were you able to do so, I at least

have the power, which you seem to have forgotten, of freeing myself from

it. Am I chained to yonder valleys? have I not the facility of quitting

them at any moment I will? of seeking a hiding-place, which might

baffle, not only your vigilance to discover me, but that of the Law?

True, my approaching marriage puts some clog upon my wing, but you know

that I, of all men, am not likely to be the slave of passion. And what

ties are strong enough to arrest the steps of him who flies from a

fearful death? Am I using sophistry here, Houseman? Have I not reason on

my side?”

“What you say is true enough,” said Houseman reluctantly; “I do not

gainsay it. But I know you have not sought me, in this spot, and at this

hour, for the purpose of denying my claims: the desire of compromise

alone can have brought you hither.”

“You speak well,” said Aram, preserving the admirable coolness of his

manner; and continuing the deep and sagacious hypocrisy by which he

sought to baffle the dogged covetousness and keen sense of interest with

which he had to contend. “It is not easy for either of us to deceive

the other. We are men, whose perceptions a life of danger, has sharpened

upon all points; I speak to you frankly, for disguise is unavailing.

Though I can fly from your reach--though I can desert my present home

and my intended bride, I would fain think I have free and secure choice

to preserve that exact path and scene of life which I have chalked out

for myself: I would fain be rid of all apprehension from you. There are

two ways only by which this security can be won: the first is through

your death;--nay, start not, nor put your hand on your pistol; you have

not now cause to fear me. Had I chosen that method of escape, I could

have effected it long since: When, months ago, you slept under my

roof--ay, slept--what should have hindered me from stabbing you during

the slumber? Two nights since, when my blood was up, and the fury upon

me, what should have prevented me tightening the grasp that you so

resent, and laying you breathless at my feet? Nay, now, though you keep

your eye fixed on my motions, and your hand upon your weapon, you would

be no match for a desperate and resolved man, who might as well perish

in conflict with you, as by the protracted accomplishment of

your threats. Your ball might fail--(even now I see your hand

trembles)--mine, if I so will it, is certain death. No, Houseman, it

would be as vain for your eye to scan the dark pool into whose breast

you cataract casts its waters, as for your intellect to pierce the

depths of my mind and motives. Your murder, though in self-defence,

would lay a weight upon my soul, which would sink it for ever: I should

see, in your death, new chances of detection spread themselves before

me: the terrors of the dead are not to be bought or awed into silence;

I should pass from one peril into another; and the law’s dread vengeance

might fall upon me, through the last peril, even yet more surely than

through the first. Be composed, then, on this point! From my hand,

unless you urge it madly upon yourself, you are wholly safe. Let us

turn to my second method of attaining security. It lies, not in your

momentary cessation from persecutions; not in your absence from this

spot alone; you must quit the country--you must never return to it--your

home must be cast, and your very grave dug in a foreign soil. Are you

prepared for this? If not, I can say no more; and I again cast myself

passive into the arms of Fate.”

“You ask,” said Houseman, whose fears were allayed by Aram’s address,

though, at the same time, his dissolute and desperate nature was subdued

and tamed in spite of himself, by the very composure of the loftier mind

with which it was brought in contact: “You ask,” said he, “no trifling

favour of a man--to desert his country for ever; but I am no dreamer, to

love one spot better than another. I should, perhaps, prefer a foreign

clime, as the safer and the freer from old recollections, if I could

live in it as a man who loves the relish of life should do. Show me the

advantages I am to gain by exile, and farewell to the pale cliffs of

England for ever!”

“Your demand is just,” answered Aram; “listen, then. I am willing to

coin all my poor wealth, save alone the barest pittance wherewith to

sustain life; nay, more, I am prepared also to melt down the whole of

my possible expectations from others, into the form of an annuity to

yourself. But mark, it will be taken out of my hands, so that you can

have no power over me to alter the conditions with which it will be

saddled. It will be so vested that it shall commence the moment you

touch a foreign clime; and wholly and for ever cease the moment you set

foot on any part of English ground; or, mark also, at the moment of my

death. I shall then know that no farther hope from me can induce you to

risk this income; for, as I should have spent my all in attaining it,

you cannot even meditate the design of extorting more. I shall know that

you will not menace my life; for my death would be the destruction of

your fortunes. We shall live thus separate and secure from each other;

you will have only cause to hope for my safety; and I shall have no

reason to shudder at yours. Through one channel alone could I then

fear; namely, that in dying, you should enjoy the fruitless vengeance of

criminating me. But this chance I must patiently endure: you, if older,

are more robust and hardy than myself--your life will probably be

longer than mine; and, even were it otherwise, why should we destroy one

another? At my death-bed I will solemnly swear to respect your secret;

why not on your part, I say not swear, but resolve, to respect mine?

We cannot love one another; but why hate with a gratuitous and demon

vengeance? No, Houseman, however circumstances may have darkened or

steeled your heart, it is touched with humanity yet--you will have owed

to me the bread of a secure and easy existence--you will feel that

I have stripped myself, even to penury, to purchase the comforts

I cheerfully resign to you--you will remember that, instead of the

sacrifices enjoined by this alternative, I might have sought only to

counteract your threats, by attempting a life that you strove to make

a snare and torture to my own. You will remember this; and you will not

grudge me the austere and gloomy solitude in which I seek to forget,

or the one solace with which I, perhaps vainly, endeavour to cheer my

passage to a quiet grave. No, Houseman, no; dislike, hate, menace me

as you will, I still feel I shall have no cause to dread the mere

wantonness of your revenge.”

These words, aided by a tone of voice, and an expression of countenance

that gave them perhaps their chief effect, took even the hardened nature

of Houseman by surprise; he was affected by an emotion which he could

not have believed it possible the man who till then had galled him by

the humbling sense of inferiority, could have created. He extended his

hand to Aram.

“By--,” he exclaimed, with an oath which we spare the reader, “you

are right! you have made me as helpless in your hands, as an infant.

I accept your offer--if I were to refuse it, I should be driven to the

same courses I now pursue. But look you; I know not what may be the

amount of the annuity you can raise. I shall not, however, require more

than will satisfy wants, which, if not so scanty as your own, are not at

least very extravagant or very refined. As for the rest, if there be any

surplus, in God’s name keep it for yourself, and rest assured that, so

far as I am concerned, you shall be molested no more.”

“No, Houseman,” said Aram, with a half smile, “you shall have all I

first mentioned; that is, all beyond what nature craves, honourably and

fully. Man’s best resolutions are weak: if you knew I possessed aught

to spare, a fancied want, a momentary extravagance might tempt you to

demand it. Let us put ourselves beyond the possible reach of temptation.

But do not flatter yourself by the hope that the income will be

magnificent. My own annuity is but trifling, and the half of the dowry

I expect from my future father-in-law, is all that I can at present

obtain. The whole of that dowry is insignificant as a sum. But if this

does not suffice for you, I must beg or borrow elsewhere.”

“This, after all, is a pleasanter way of settling business,” said

Houseman, “than by threats and anger. And now I will tell you exactly

the sum on which, if I could receive it yearly, I could live without

looking beyond the pale of the Law for more--on which I could cheerfully

renounce England, and commence ‘the honest man.’ But then, hark you, I

must have half settled on my little daughter.”

“What! have you a child?” said Aram eagerly, and well pleased to find an

additional security for his own safety.

“Ay, a little girl, my only one, in her eighth year; she lives with her

grandmother, for she is motherless, and that girl must not be left quite

penniless should I be summoned hence before my time. Some twelve years

hence--as poor Jane promises to be pretty--she may be married off my

hands, but her childhood must not be left to the chances of beggary or

shame.”

“Doubtless not, doubtless not. Who shall say now that we ever outlive

feeling?” said Aram, “Half the annuity shall be settled upon her, should

she survive you; but on the same conditions, ceasing when I die, or the

instant of your return to England. And now, name the sum that you deem

sufficing.”

“Why,” said Houseman, counting on his fingers, and muttering

“twenty--fifty--wine and the creature cheap abroad--humph! a hundred for

living, and half as much for pleasure. Come, Aram, one hundred and fifty

guineas per annum, English money, will do for a foreign life--you see I

am easily satisfied.”

“Be it so,” said Aram, “I will engage by one means or another to procure

it. For this purpose I shall set out for London to-morrow; I will

not lose a moment in seeing the necessary settlement made as we have

specified. But meanwhile, you must engage to leave this neighbourhood,

and if possible, cause your comrades to do the same, although you will

not hesitate, for the sake of your own safety, immediately to separate

from them.”

“Now that we are on good terms,” replied Houseman, “I will not scruple

to oblige you in these particulars. My comrades intend to quit the

country before to-morrow; nay, half are already gone; by daybreak I

myself will be some miles hence, and separated from each of them. Let us

meet in London after the business is completed, and there conclude our

last interview on earth.”

“What will be your address?”

“In Lambeth there is a narrow alley that leads to the water-side, called

Peveril Lane. The last house to the right, towards the river, is my

usual lodging; a safe resting-place at all times, and for all men.”

“There then will I seek you. And now, Houseman, fare-you-well! As you

remember your word to me, may life flow smooth for your child.”

“Eugene Aram,” said Houseman, “there is about you something against

which the fiercer devil within me would rise in vain. I have read

that the tiger can be awed by the human eye, and you compel me into

submission by a spell equally unaccountable. You are a singular man, and

it seems to me a riddle, how we could ever have been thus connected; or

how--but we will not rip up the past, it is an ugly sight, and the fire

is just out. Those stories do not do for the dark. But to return;--were

it only for the sake of my child, you might depend upon me now; better

too an arrangement of this sort, than if I had a larger sum in hand

which I might be tempted to fling away, and in looking for more, run my

neck into a halter, and leave poor Jane upon charity. But come, it is

almost dark again, and no doubt you wish to be stirring: stay, I will

lead you back, and put you on the right track, lest you stumble on my

friends.”

“Is this cavern one of their haunts?” said Aram.

“Sometimes: but they sleep the other side of the Devil’s Crag to-night.

Nothing like a change of quarters for longevity--eh?”

“And they easily spare you.”

“Yes, if it be only on rare occasions, and on the plea of family

business. Now then, your hand, as before. Jesu! how it rains--lightning

too--I could look with less fear on a naked sword, than those red,

forked, blinding flashes--Hark! thunder.”

The night had now, indeed, suddenly changed its aspect; the rain

descended in torrents, even more impetuously than on the former night,

while the thunder burst over their very heads, as they wound upward

through the brake. With every instant, the lightning broke from the

riven chasm of the blackness that seemed suspended as in a solid

substance above, brightened the whole heaven into one livid and terrific

flame, and showed to the two men the faces of each other, rendered

deathlike and ghastly by the glare. Houseman was evidently affected

by the fear that sometimes seizes even the sturdiest criminals, when

exposed to those more fearful phenomena of the Heavens, which seem to

humble into nothing the power and the wrath of man. His teeth chattered,

and he muttered broken words about the peril of wandering near trees

when the lightning was of that forked character, accelerating his

pace at every sentence, and sometimes interrupting himself with an

ejaculation, half oath, half prayer, or a congratulation that the rain

at least diminished the danger. They soon cleared the thicket, and a

few minutes brought them once more to the banks of the stream, and the

increased roar of the cataract. No earthly scene perhaps could surpass

the appalling sublimity of that which they beheld;--every instant the

lightning, which became more and more frequent, converting the black

waters into billows of living fire, or wreathing itself in lurid spires

around the huge crag that now rose in sight; and again, as the thunder

rolled onward, darting its vain fury upon the rushing cataract, and the

tortured breast of the gulf that raved below low. And the sounds that

filled the air were even more fraught with terror and menace than the

scene;--the waving, the groans, the crash of the pines on the hill, the

impetuous force of the rain upon the whirling river, and the everlasting

roar of the cataract, answered anon by the yet more awful voice that

burst above it from the clouds.

They halted while yet sufficiently distant from the cataract to be heard

by each other. “My path,” said Aram, as the lightning now paused upon

the scene, and seemed literally to wrap in a lurid shroud the dark

figure of the Student, as he stood, with his hand calmly raised, and his

cheek pale, but dauntless and composed; “My path now lies yonder: in a

week we shall meet again.”

“By the fiend,” said Houseman, shuddering, “I would not, for a full

hundred, ride alone through the moor you will pass. There stands a

gibbet by the road, on which a parricide was hanged in chains. Pray

Heaven this night be no omen of the success of our present compact!”

“A steady heart, Houseman,” answered Aram, striking into the separate

path, “is its own omen.”

The Student soon gained the spot in which he had left his horse; the

animal had not attempted to break the bridle, but stood trembling from

limb to limb, and testified by a quick short neigh the satisfaction with

which it hailed the approach of its master, and found itself no longer

alone.

Aram remounted, and hastened once more into the main road. He scarcely

felt the rain, though the fierce wind drove it right against his path;

he scarcely marked the lightning, though at times it seemed to dart its

arrows on his very form; his heart was absorbed in the success of his

schemes.

“Let the storm without howl on,” thought he, “that within hath a respite

at last. Amidst the winds and rains I can breathe more freely than I

have done on the smoothest summer day. By the charm of a deeper mind

and a subtler tongue, I have then conquered this desperate foe; I have

silenced this inveterate spy: and, Heaven be praised, he too has human

ties; and by those ties I hold him! Now, then, I hasten to London--I

arrange this annuity--see that the law tightens every cord of the

compact; and when all is done, and this dangerous man fairly departed on

his exile, I return to Madeline, and devote to her a life no longer the

vassal of accident and the hour: but I have been taught caution.

Secure as my own prudence may have made me from farther apprehension of

Houseman, I will yet place myself wholly beyond his power: I will still

consummate my former purpose, adopt a new name, and seek a new retreat;

Madeline may not know the real cause; but this brain is not barren of

excuse. Ah!” as drawing his cloak closer round him, he felt the purse

hid within his breast which contained the order he had obtained from

Lester; “Ah! this will now add its quota to purchase, not a momentary

relief, but the stipend of perpetual silence. I have passed through the

ordeal easier than I had hoped for. Had the devil at his heart been

more difficult to lay, so necessary is his absence, that I must have

purchased it at any cost. Courage, Eugene Aram! thy mind, for which thou

hast lived, and for which thou hast hazarded thy soul--if soul and mind

be distinct from each other--thy mind can support thee yet through

every peril: not till thou art stricken into idiotcy, shalt thou behold

thyself defenceless. How cheerfully,” muttered he, after a momentary

pause, “how cheerfully, for safety, and to breathe with a quiet heart,

the air of Madeline’s presence, shall I rid myself of all save enough

to defy want. And want can never now come to me, as of old. He who knows

the sources of every science from which wealth is wrought holds even

wealth at his will.”

Breaking at every interval into these soliloquies, Aram continued to

breast the storm until he had won half his journey, and had come upon

a long and bleak moor, which was the entrance to that beautiful line of

country in which the valleys around Grassdale are embosomed: faster and

faster came the rain; and though the thunder-clouds were now behind,

they yet followed loweringly, in their black array, the path of the

lonely horseman.

But now he heard the sound of hoofs making towards him; he drew his

horse on one side of the road, and at that instant a broad flash of

lightning illumining the space around, he beheld four horsemen speeding

along at a rapid gallop; they were armed, and conversing loudly--their

oaths were heard jarringly and distinctly amidst all the more solemn

and terrific sounds of the night. They came on, sweeping by the Student,

whose hand was on his pistol, for he recognised in one of the riders the

man who had escaped unwounded from Lester’s house. He and his comrades

were evidently, then, Houseman’s desperate associates; and they too,

though they were borne too rapidly by Aram to be able to rein in their

horses on the spot, had seen the solitary traveller, and already wheeled

round, and called upon him to halt!

The lightning was again gone, and the darkness snatched the robbers and

their intended victim from the sight of each other. But Aram had not

lost a moment; fast fled his horse across the moor, and when, with the

next flash, he looked back, he saw the ruffians, unwilling even for

booty to encounter the horrors of the night, had followed him but a few

paces, and again turned round; still he dashed on, and had now nearly

passed the moor; the thunder rolled fainter and fainter from behind, and

the lightning only broke forth at prolonged intervals, when suddenly,

after a pause of unusual duration, it brought the whole scene into a

light, if less intolerable, even more livid than before. The horse, that

had hitherto sped on without start or stumble, now recoiled in abrupt

affright; and the horseman, looking up at the cause, beheld the Gibbet

of which Houseman had spoken immediately fronting his path, with its

ghastly tenant waving to and fro, as the winds rattled through the

parched and arid bones; and the inexpressible grin of the skull fixed,

as in mockery, upon his countenance.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH WE RETURN TO WALTER.--HIS DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO

MR. PERTINAX FILLGRAVE.--THE CORPORAL’S ADVICE,

AND THE CORPORAL’S VICTORY.

Let a Physician be ever so excellent,

there will be those that censure him.

--Gil Blas.

We left Walter in a situation of that critical nature, that it would be

inhuman to delay our return to him any longer. The blow by which he had

been felled, stunned him for an instant; but his frame was of no common

strength and hardihood, and the imminent peril in which he was placed,

served to recall him from the momentary insensibility. On recovering

himself, he felt that the ruffians were dragging him towards the hedge,

and the thought flashed upon him that their object was murder. Nerved by

this idea, he collected his strength, and suddenly wresting himself from

the grasp of one of the ruffians who had seized him by the collar, he

had already gained his knee, and now his feet, when a second blow once

more deprived him of sense.

When a dim and struggling consciousness recurred to him; he found that

the villains had dragged him to the opposite side of the hedge and were

deliberately robbing him. He was on the point of renewing an useless and

dangerous struggle, when one of the ruffians said, “I think he stirs, I

had better draw my knife across his throat.”

“Pooh, no!” replied another voice, “never kill if it can be helped:

trust me ‘tis an ugly thing to think of afterwards. Besides, what use

is it? A robbery, in these parts, is done and forgotten; but a murder

rouses the whole country.”

“Damnation, man! why, the deed’s done already, he’s as dead as a

door-nail.”

“Dead!” said the other in a startled voice; “no, no!” and leaning down,

the ruffian placed his hand on Walter’s heart. The unfortunate traveller

felt his flesh creep as the hand touched him, but prudently abstained

from motion or exclamation. He thought, however, as with dizzy and

half-shut eyes he caught the shadowy and dusk outline of the face that

bent over him, so closely that he felt the breath of its lips, that it

was one that he had seen before; and as the man now rose, and the wan

light of the skies gave a somewhat clearer view of his features, the

supposition was heightened, though not absolutely confirmed. But Walter

had no farther power to observe his plunderers: again his brain reeled;

the dark trees, the grim shadows of human forms, swam before his glazing

eye; and he sunk once more into a profound insensibility.

Meanwhile, the doughty Corporal had at the first sight of his master’s

fall, halted abruptly at the spot to which his steed had carried

him; and coming rapidly to the conclusion that three men were best

encountered at a distance, he fired his two pistols, and without staying

to see if they took effect, which, indeed, they did not, galloped down

the precipitous hill with as much despatch, as if it had been the last

stage to “Lunnun.”

“My poor young master!” muttered he: “But if the worst comes to the

worst, the chief part of the money’s in the saddle-bags any how; and so,

messieurs thieves, you’re bit--baugh!”

The Corporal was not long in reaching the town, and alarming the

loungers at the inn-door. A posse comitatus was soon formed; and, armed

as if they were to have encountered all the robbers between Hounslow

and the Apennine, a band of heroes, with the Corporal, who had first

deliberately reloaded his pistols, at their head, set off to succour

“the poor gentleman what was already murdered.”

They had not got far before they found Walter’s horse, which had luckily

broke from the robbers, and was now quietly regaling himself on a patch

of grass by the roadside. “He can get his supper, the beast,” grunted

the Corporal, thinking of his own; and bid one of the party try to catch

the animal, which, however, would have declined all such proffers, had

not a long neigh of recognition from the roman nose of the Corporal’s

steed, striking familiarly on the straggler’s ear, called it forthwith,

to the Corporal’s side; and (while the two chargers exchanged greeting)

the Corporal seized its rein.

When they came to the spot from which the robbers had made their sally,

all was still and tranquil; no Walter was to be seen: the Corporal

cautiously dismounted, and searched about with as much minuteness as

if he were looking for a pin; but the host of the inn at which the

travellers had dined the day before, stumbled at once on the right

track. Gouts of blood on the white chalky soil directed him to the

hedge, and creeping through a small and recent gap, he discovered the

yet breathing body of the young traveller.

Walter was now conducted with much care to the inn; a Surgeon was

already in attendance; for having heard that a gentleman had been

murdered without his knowledge, Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave had rushed from

his house, and placed himself on the road, that the poor creature might

not, at least, be buried without his assistance. So eager was he to

begin, that he scarce suffered the unfortunate Walter to be taken

within, before he whipped out his instruments, and set to work with the

smack of an amateur.

Although the Surgeon declared his patient to be in the greatest possible

danger, the sagacious Corporal, who thought himself more privileged

to know about wounds than any man of peace, by profession, however

destructive by practice, could possibly be, had himself examined those

his master had received, before he went down to taste his long-delayed

supper; and he now confidently assured the landlord, and the rest of the

good company in the kitchen, that the blows on the head had been mere

fly-bites, and that his master would be as well as ever in a week at the

farthest.

And, indeed, when Walter the very next morning woke from the stupor,

rather than sleep, he had undergone, he felt himself surprisingly

better than the Surgeon, producing his probe, hastened to assure him he

possibly could be.

By the help of Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, Walter was detained several days

in the town; nor is it wholly improbable, but that for the dexterity of

the Corporal, he might be in the town to this day; not, indeed in the

comfortable shelter of the old-fashioned inn, but in the colder quarters

of a certain green spot, in which, despite of its rural attractions, few

persons are willing to fix a permanent habitation.

Luckily, however, one evening, the Corporal, who had been, to say

truth, very regular in his attendance on his master; for, bating the

selfishness, consequent, perhaps, on his knowledge of the world, Jacob

Bunting was a good-natured man on the whole, and liked his master as

well as he did any thing, always excepting Jacobina, and board-wages;

one evening, we say, the Corporal coming into Walter’s apartment,

found him sitting up in his bed, with a very melancholy and dejected

expression of countenance.

“And well, Sir, what does the Doctor say?” asked the Corporal, drawing

aside the curtains.

“Ah, Bunting, I fancy it’s all over with me!”

“The Lord forbid, Sir! you’re a-jesting, surely?”

“Jesting! my good fellow, ah! just get me that phial.”

“The filthy stuff!” said the Corporal, with a wry face; “Well, Sir, if I

had had the dressing of you--been half way to Yorkshire by this. Man’s a

worm; and when a doctor gets un on his hook, he is sure to angle for the

devil with the bait--augh!”

“What! you really think that damned fellow, Fillgrave, is keeping me on

in this way?”

“Is he a fool, to give up three phials a day, 4s. 6d. item, ditto,

ditto?” cried the Corporal, as if astonished at the question; “but don’t

you feel yourself getting a deal better every day? Don’t you feel all

this ere stuff revive you?”

No, indeed, I was amazingly better the first day than I am now; I

progress from worse to worse. Ah! Bunting, if Peter Dealtry were here,

he might help me to an appropriate epitaph: as it is, I suppose I shall

be very simply labelled. Fillgrave will do the whole business, and put

it down in his bill--item, nine draughts--item, one epitaph.

“Lord-a-mercy, your honour,” said the Corporal, drawing out a little

red-spotted pocket-handkerchief; “how can--jest so?--it’s quite moving.”

“I wish we were moving!” sighed the patient.

“And so we might be,” cried the Corporal; “so we might, if you’d

pluck up a bit. Just let me look at your honour’s head; I knows what a

confusion is better nor any of ‘em.”

The Corporal having obtained permission, now removed the bandages

wherewith the Doctor had bound his intended sacrifice to Pluto, and

after peering into the wounds for about a minute, he thrust out his

under lip, with a contemptuous, “Pshaugh! augh! And how long,” said he,

“does Master Fillgrave say you be to be under his hands,--augh!”

“He gives me hopes that I may be taken out an airing very gently, (yes,

hearses always go very gently!) in about three weeks!”

The Corporal started, and broke into a long whistle. He then grinned

from ear to ear, snapped his fingers, and said, “Man of the world,

Sir,--man of the world every inch of him!”

“He seems resolved that I shall be a man of another world,” said Walter.

“Tell ye what, Sir--take my advice--your honour knows I be

no fool--throw off them ere wrappers; let me put on scrap of

plaister--pitch phials to devil--order out horses to-morrow, and when

you’ve been in the air half an hour, won’t know yourself again!”

“Bunting! the horses out to-morrow?--faith, I don’t think I could walk

across the room.”

“Just try, your honour.”

“Ah! I’m very weak, very weak--my dressing-gown and slippers--your arm,

Bunting--well, upon my honour, I walk very stoutly, eh? I should

not have thought this! leave go: why I really get on without your

assistance!”

“Walk as well as ever you did.”

“Now I’m out of bed, I don’t think I shall go back again to it.”

“Would not, if I was your honour.”

“And after so much exercise, I really fancy I’ve a sort of an appetite.”

“Like a beefsteak?”

“Nothing better.”

“Pint of wine?”

“Why that would be too much--eh?”

“Not it.”

“Go, then, my good Bunting; go and make haste--stop, I say that d--d

fellow--” “Good sign to swear,” interrupted the Corporal; “swore twice

within last five minutes--famous symptom!”

“Do you choose to hear me? That d--d fellow, Fillgrave, is coming back

in an hour to bleed me: do you mount guard--refuse to let him in--pay

him his bill--you have the money. And harkye, don’t be rude to the

rascal.”

“Rude, your honour! not I--been in the Forty-second--knows

discipline--only rude to the privates!”

The Corporal, having seen his master conduct himself respectably toward

the viands with which he supplied him--having set his room to rights,

brought him the candles, borrowed him a book, and left him for the

present in extremely good spirits, and prepared for the flight of the

morrow; the Corporal, I say, now lighting his pipe, stationed himself

at the door of the inn, and waited for Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave. Presently

the Doctor, who was a little thin man, came bustling across the street,

and was about, with a familiar “Good evening,” to pass by the Corporal,

when that worthy, dropping his pipe, said respectfully, “Beg pardon,

Sir--want to speak to you--a little favour. Will your honour walk in the

back-parlour?”

“Oh! another patient,” thought the Doctor; “these soldiers are careless

fellows--often get into scrapes. Yes, friend, I’m at your service.”

The Corporal showed the man of phials into the back-parlour, and,

hemming thrice, looked sheepish, as if in doubt how to begin. It was the

Doctor’s business to encourage the bashful.

“Well, my good man,” said he, brushing off, with the arm of his coat,

some dust that had settled on his inexpressibles, “so you want to

consult me?”

“Indeed, your honour, I do; but--feel a little awkward in doing so--a

stranger and all.”

“Pooh!--medical men are never strangers. I am the friend of every man

who requires my assistance.”

“Augh!--and I do require your honour’s assistance very sadly.”

“Well--well--speak out. Any thing of long standing?”

“Why, only since we have been here, Sir.”

“Oh, that’s all! Well.”

“Your honour’s so good--that--won’t scruple in telling you all. You

sees as how we were robbed--master at least was--had some little in my

pockets--but we poor servants are never too rich. You seems such a

kind gentleman--so attentive to master--though you must have felt how

disinterested it was to ‘tend a man what had been robbed--that I have no

hesitation in making bold to ask you to lend us a few guineas, just to

help us out with the bill here,--bother!”

“Fellow!” said the Doctor, rising, “I don’t know what you mean; but

I’d have you to learn that I am not to be cheated out of my time and

property. I shall insist upon being paid my bill instantly, before I

dress your master’s wound once more.”

“Augh!” said the Corporal, who was delighted to find the Doctor come

so immediately into the snare;--“won’t be so cruel surely,--why, you’ll

leave us without a shiner to pay my host here.”

“Nonsense!--Your master, if he’s a gentleman, can write home for money.”

“Ah, Sir, all very well to say so;--but, between you and me and the

bed-post--young master’s quarrelled with old master--old master won’t

give him a rap,--so I’m sure, since your honour’s a friend to every man

who requires your assistance--noble saying, Sir!--you won’t refuse us

a few guineas;--and as for your bill--why--” “Sir, you’re an impudent

vagabond!” cried the Doctor, as red as a rose-draught, and flinging out

of the room; “and I warn you, that I shall bring in my bill, and expect

to be paid within ten minutes.”

The Doctor waited for no answer--he hurried home, scratched off his

account, and flew back with it in as much haste as if his patient had

been a month longer under his care, and was consequently on the brink

of that happier world, where, since the inhabitants are immortal, it is

very evident that doctors, as being useless, are never admitted.

The Corporal met him as before.

“There, Sir,” cried the Doctor, breathlessly, and then putting his arms

akimbo, “take that to your master, and desire him to pay me instantly.”

“Augh! and shall do no such thing.”

“You won’t?”

“No, for shall pay you myself. Where’s your wee stamp--eh?”

And with great composure the Corporal drew out a well-filled purse, and

discharged the bill. The Doctor was so thunderstricken, that he pocketed

the money without uttering a word. He consoled himself, however, with

the belief that Walter, whom he had tamed into a becoming hypochondria,

would be sure to send for him the next morning. Alas, for mortal

expectations!--the next morning Walter was once more on the road.

CHAPTER II.

NEW TRACES OF THE FATE OF GEOFFREY LESTER.--WALTER AND THE

CORPORAL PROCEED ON A FRESH EXPEDITION.--THE CORPORAL IS

ESPECIALLY SAGACIOUS ON THE OLD TOPIC OF THE WORLD.--HIS

OPINIONS ON THE MEN WHO CLAIM ‘KNOWLEDGE THEREOF.--ON THE

ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY A VALET.--ON THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESSFUL

LOVE.--ON VIRTUE AND THE CONSTITUTION.--ON QUALITIES TO BE

DESIRED IN A MISTRESS,--A LANDSCAPE.

This way of talking of his very much enlivens the

conversation among us of a more sedate turn.

--Spectator, No. 3.

Walter found, while he made search himself, that it was no easy matter,

in so large a county as Yorkshire, to obtain even the preliminary

particulars, viz. the place of residence, and the name of the Colonel

from India whose dying gift his father had left the house of the worthy

Courtland, to claim and receive. But the moment he committed the inquiry

to the care of an active and intelligent lawyer, the case seemed to

brighten up prodigiously; and Walter was shortly informed that a Colonel

Elmore, who had been in India, had died in the year 17--; that by a

reference to his will it appeared that he had left to Daniel Clarke the

sum of a thousand pounds, and the house in which he resided before his

death, the latter being merely leasehold at a high rent, was specified

in the will to be of small value: it was situated in the outskirts of

Knaresborough. It was also discovered that a Mr. Jonas Elmore, the only

surviving executor of the will, and a distant relation of the deceased

Colonel’s, lived about fifty miles from York, and could, in all

probability, better than any one, afford Walter those farther

particulars of which he was so desirous to be informed. Walter

immediately proposed to his lawyer to accompany him to this gentleman’s

house; but it so happened that the lawyer could not, for three or four

days, leave his business at York, and Walter, exceedingly impatient to

proceed on the intelligence thus granted him, and disliking the meagre

information obtained from letters, when a personal interview could

be obtained, resolved himself to repair to Mr. Jonas Elmore’s without

farther delay; and behold, therefore, our worthy Corporal and his master

again mounted, and commencing a new journey.

The Corporal, always fond of adventure, was in high spirits.

“See, Sir,” said he to his master, patting with great affection the neck

of his steed, “See, Sir, how brisk the creturs are; what a deal of good

their long rest at York city’s done’em. Ah, your honour, what a fine

town that ere be!--yet,” added the Corporal, with an air of great

superiority, “it gives you no notion of Lunnun, like--on the faith of a

man, no!”

“Well, Bunting, perhaps we may be in London within a month hence.”

“And afore we gets there, your honour,--no offence,--but should like to

give you some advice; ‘tis ticklish place, that Lunnun, and though you

be by no manner of means deficient in genus, yet, Sir, you be young, and

I be--” “Old,--true, Bunting,” added Walter very gravely.

“Augh--bother! old, Sir, old, Sir!--A man in the prime of life,--hair

coal black, (bating a few grey ones that have had, since twenty--care,

and military service, Sir,)--carriage straight,--teeth strong,--not an

ail in the world, bating the rheumatics--is not old, Sir,--not by no

manner of means,--baugh!”

“You are very right, Bunting; when I said old, I meant experienced. I

assure you I shall be very grateful for your advice; and suppose, while

we walk our horses up this hill, you begin lecture the first. London’s a

fruitful subject. All you can say on it won’t be soon exhausted.”

“Ah, may well say that,” replied the Corporal, exceedingly flattered

with the permission he had obtained, “and any thing my poor wit can

suggest, quite at your honour’s sarvice--ehem!--hem! You must know

by Lunnun, I means the world, and by the world means Lunnun,--know

one--know t’other. But ‘tis not them as affects to be most knowing as

be so at bottom. Begging your honour’s pardon, I thinks gentlefolks what

lives only with gentlefolks, and call themselves men of the world, be

often no wiser nor Pagan creturs, and live in a gentile darkness.”

“The true knowledge of the world,” said Walter, “is only then for the

Corporals of the Forty-second,--eh, Bunting?”

“As to that, Sir,” quoth the Corporal, “‘tis not being of this calling

or of that calling that helps one on; ‘tis an inborn sort of genus the

talent of obsarving, and growing wise by obsarving. One picks up

crumb here, crumb there: but if one has not good digestion, Lord, what

sinnifies a feast?--Healthy man thrives on a ‘tatoe, sickly looks pale

on a haunch. You sees, your honour, as I said afore, I was own sarvant

to Colonel Dysart; he was a Lord’s nephy, a very gay gentleman, and

great hand with the ladies,--not a man more in the world;--so I had the

opportunity of larning what’s what among the best set; at his honour’s

expense, too,--augh! To my mind, Sir, there is not a place from which a

man has a better view of things than the bit carpet behind a gentleman’s

chair. The gentleman eats, and talks, and swears, and jests, and plays

cards and makes love, and tries to cheat, and is cheated, and his man

stands behind with his eyes and ears open,--augh!”

“One should go to service to learn diplomacy, I see,” said Walter,

greatly amused.

“Does not know what ‘plomacy be, Sir, but knows it would be better for

many a young master nor all the Colleges;--would not be so many bubbles

if my Lord could take a turn now and then with John. A-well, Sir!--how

I used to laugh in my sleeve like, when I saw my master, who was thought

the knowingest gentleman about Court, taken in every day smack afore my

face. There was one lady whom he had tried hard, as he thought, to get

away from her husband; and he used to be so mighty pleased at every

glance from her brown eyes--and be d--d to them!--and so careful the

husband should not see--so pluming himself on his discretion here, and

his conquest there,--when, Lord bless you, it was all settled ‘twixt man

and wife aforehand! And while the Colonel laughed at the cuckold, the

cuckold laughed at the dupe. For you sees, Sir, as how the Colonel was

a rich man, and the jewels as he bought for the lady went half into the

husband’s pocket--he! he!--That’s the way of the world, Sir,--that’s the

way of the world!”

“Upon my word, you draw a very bad picture of the world: you colour

highly; and, by the way, I observe that whenever you find any man

committing a roguish action, instead of calling him a scoundrel, you

show those great teeth of yours, and chuckle out ‘A man of the world! a

man of the world!”’

“To be sure, your honour; the proper name, too. ‘Tis your green-horns

who fly into a passion, and use hard words. You see, Sir, there’s one

thing we larn afore all other things in the world--to butter bread.

Knowledge of others, means only the knowledge which side bread’s

buttered. In short, Sir, the wiser grow, the more take care of oursels.

Some persons make a mistake, and, in trying to take care of themsels,

run neck into halter--baugh! they are not rascals--they are would-be

men of the world. Others be more prudent, (for, as I said afore, Sir,

discretion is a pair of stirrups;) they be the true men of the world.”

“I should have thought,” said Walter, “that the knowledge of the world

might be that knowledge which preserves us from being cheated, but not

that which enables us to cheat.”

“Augh!” quoth the Corporal, with that sort of smile with which you see

an old philosopher put down a sounding error from the lips of a young

disciple who flatters himself he has uttered something prodigiously

fine,--“Augh! and did not I tell you, t’other day, to look at the

professions, your honour? What would a laryer be if he did not know how

to cheat a witness and humbug a jury?--knows he is lying,--why is he

lying? for love of his fees, or his fame like, which gets fees;--Augh!

is not that cheating others?--The doctor, too, Master Fillgrave, for

instance?--” “Say no more of doctors; I abandon them to your satire,

without a word.”

“The lying knaves! Don’t they say one’s well when one’s ill--ill when

one’s well?--profess to know what don’t know?--thrust solemn phizzes

into every abomination, as if larning lay hid in a--? and all for their

neighbours’ money, or their own reputation, which makes money--augh! In

short, Sir--look where will, impossible to see so much cheating allowed,

praised, encouraged, and feel very angry with a cheat who has only

made a mistake. But when I sees a man butter his bread carefully--knife

steady--butter thick, and hungry fellows looking on and licking

chops--mothers stopping their brats--‘See, child--respectable man--how

thick his bread’s buttered!--pull off your hat to him:’--When I sees

that, my heart warms: there’s the true man of the world--augh!”

“Well, Bunting,” said Walter, laughing, “though you are thus lenient to

those unfortunate gentlemen whom others call rogues, and thus laudatory

of gentlemen who are at best discreetly selfish, I suppose you admit the

possibility of virtue, and your heart warms as much when you see a man

of worth as when you see a man of the world?”

“Why, you knows, your honour,” answered the Corporal, “so far as

vartue’s concerned, there’s a deal in constitution; but as for knowledge

of the world, one gets it oneself!”

“I don’t wonder, Bunting--as your opinion of women is much the same as

your opinion of men--that you are still unmarried.”

“Augh! but your honour mistakes!--I am no mice-and-trope. Men are

neither one thing nor t’other--neither good nor bad. A prudent

parson has nothing to fear from ‘em--nor a foolish one any thing to

gain--baugh! As to the women creturs, your honour, as I said, vartue’s

a deal in the constitution. Would not ask what a lassie’s mind be--nor

what her eddycation;--but see what her habits be, that’s all--habits and

constitution all one--play into one another’s hands.”

“And what sort of signs, Bunting, would you mostly esteem in a lady?”

“First place, Sir--woman I’d marry, must not mope when alone!--must be

able to ‘muse herself; must be easily ‘mused. That’s a great sign, Sir,

of an innocent mind, to be tickled with straws. Besides, employments

keeps ‘em out of harm’s way. Second place, should obsarve, if she was

very fond of places, your honour--sorry to move--that’s a sure sign she

won’t tire easily; but that if she like you now from fancy, she’ll

like you by and by from custom. Thirdly, your honour, she should not be

avarse to dress--a leaning that way shows she has a desire to please:

people who don’t care about pleasing, always sullen. Fourthly, she must

bear to be crossed--I’d be quite sure that she might be contradicted,

without mumping or storming;--‘cause then, you knows, your honour, if

she wanted any thing expensive--need not give it--augh! Fifthly, must

not be over religious, your honour; they pyehouse she-creturs always

thinks themsels so much better nor we men;--don’t understand our

language and ways, your honour: they wants us not only to belave, but to

tremble--bother!”

“I like your description well enough, on the whole,” said Walter, “and

when I look out for a wife, I shall come to you for advice.”

“Your honour may have it already--Miss Ellinor’s jist the thing.”

Walter turned away his head, and told Bunting, with great show of

indignation, not to be a fool.

The Corporal, who was not quite certain of his ground here, but who

knew that Madeline, at all events, was going to be married to Aram,

and deemed it, therefore, quite useless to waste any praise upon her,

thought that a few random shots of eulogium were worth throwing away on

a chance, and consequently continued.

“Augh, your honour--‘tis not ‘cause I have eyes, that I be’s a fool.

Miss Ellinor and your honour be only cousins, to be sure; but more like

brother and sister, nor any thing else. Howsomever, she’s a rare cretur,

whoever gets her has a face that puts one in good-humour with the world,

if one sees it first thing in the morning--‘tis as good as the sun in

July--augh! But, as I was saying, your honour--‘bout the women-creturs

in general--” “Enough of them, Bunting; let us suppose you have been so

fortunate as to find one to suit you--how would you woo her? Of course,

there are certain secrets of courtship, which you will not hesitate to

impart to one, who, like me, wants such assistance from art--much more

than you can do, who are so bountifully favoured by Nature.”

“As to Nature,” replied the Corporal, with considerable modesty, for he

never disputed the truth of the compliment--“‘tis not ‘cause a man be

six feet without’s shoes, that he’s any nearer to lady’s heart. Sir, I

will own to you, howsomever it makes ‘gainst your honour and myself, for

that matter--that don’t think one is a bit more lucky with the ladies

for being so handsome! ‘Tis all very well with them ere willing ones,

your honour--caught at a glance; but as for the better sort, one’s

beauty’s all bother! Why, Sir, when we see some of the most fortunatest

men among she-creturs--what poor little minnikens they be! One’s a

dwarf--another knock-kneed--a third squints--and a fourth might be

shown for a hape! Neither, Sir, is it your soft, insinivating, die-away

youths, as seem at first so seductive; they do very well for lovers,

your honour; but then it’s always rejected ones! Neither, your honour,

does the art of succeeding with the ladies ‘quire all those finniken,

nimini-pinimi’s, flourishes, and maxims, and saws, which the Colonel,

my old master, and the great gentlefolks, as be knowing, call the art of

love--baugh! The whole science, Sir, consists in these two rules--‘Ask

soon, and ask often.’”

“There seems no great difficulty in them, Bunting.”

“Not to us who has gumption, Sir; but then there is summut in the manner

of axing--one can’t be too hot--can’t flatter too much--and, above

all, one must never take a refusal. There, Sir, now--if you

takes my advice--may break the peace of all the husbands in

Lunnun--bother--whaugh!”

“My uncle little knows what a praiseworthy tutor he has secured me in

you, Bunting,” said Walter, laughing: “And now, while the road is so

good, let us make the most of it.”

As they had set out late in the day, and the Corporal was fearful of

another attack from a hedge, he resolved, that about evening, one of the

horses should be seized with a sudden lameness, (which he effected by

slily inserting a stone between the shoe and the hoof,) that required

immediate attention and a night’s rest; so that it was not till the

early noon of the next day that our travellers entered the village in

which Mr. Jonas Elmore resided.

It was a soft, tranquil day, though one of the very last in October; for

the reader will remember that Time had not stood still during Walter’s

submission to the care of Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, and his subsequent

journey and researches.

The sun-light rested on a broad patch of green heath, covered with

furze, and around it were scattered the cottages and farm-houses of the

little village. On the other side, as Walter descended the gentle hill

that led into this remote hamlet, wide and flat meadows, interspersed

with several fresh and shaded ponds, stretched away towards a belt of

rich woodland gorgeous with the melancholy pomp by which the “regal

year” seeks to veil its decay. Among these meadows you might now see

groups of cattle quietly grazing, or standing half hid in the still

and sheltered pools. Still farther, crossing to the woods, a solitary

sportsman walked careless on, surrounded by some half a dozen spaniels,

and the shrill small tongue of one younger straggler of the canine crew,

who had broke indecorously from the rest, and already entered the wood,

might be just heard, softened down by the distance, into a wild, cheery

sound, that animated, without disturbing, the serenity of the scene.

“After all,” said Walter aloud, “the scholar was right--there is nothing

like the country!”

“‘Oh, happiness of sweet retired content,

To be at once secure and innocent!’”

“Be them Verses in the Psalms, Sir?” said the Corporal, who was close

behind.

“No, Bunting; but they were written by one who, if I recollect

right, set the Psalms to verse:--[Denham.] I hope they meet with your

approbation?”

“Indeed, Sir, and no--since they ben’t in the Psalms, one has no right

to think about ‘em at all.”

“And why, Mr. Critic?”

“‘Cause what’s the use of security, if one’s innocent, and does not mean

to take advantage of it--baugh! One does not lock the door for nothing,

your honour!”

“You shall enlarge on that honest doctrine of yours another time;

meanwhile, call that shepherd, and ask the way to Mr. Elmore’s.”

The Corporal obeyed, and found that a clump of trees, at the farther

corner of the waste land, was the grove that surrounded Mr. Elmore’s

house; a short canter across the heath brought them to a white gate, and

having passed this, a comfortable brick mansion of moderate size stood

before them.

CHAPTER III.

A SCHOLAR, BUT OF A DIFFERENT MOULD FROM THE STUDENT OF

GRASSDALE.--NEW PARTICULARS CONCERNING GEOFFREY LESTER.--THE

JOURNEY RECOMMENCED.

Upon inquiring for Mr. Elmore, Walter was shown into a handsome library,

that appeared well-stocked with books, of that good, old-fashioned size

and solidity, which are now fast passing from the world, or at least

shrinking into old shops and public collections. The time may come, when

the mouldering remains of a folio will attract as much philosophical

astonishment as the bones of the mammoth. For behold, the deluge of

writers hath produced a new world of small octavo! and in the next

generation, thanks to the popular libraries, we shall only vibrate

between the duodecimo and the diamond edition. Nay, we foresee the

time when a very handsome collection may be carried about in one’s

waistcoat-pocket, and a whole library of the British Classics be neatly

arranged in a well-compacted snuff-box.

In a few minutes Mr. Elmore made his appearance; he was a short,

well-built man, about the age of fifty. Contrary to the established

mode, he wore no wig, and was very bald; except at the sides of the

head, and a little circular island of hair in the centre. But this

defect was rendered the less visible by a profusion of powder. He was

dressed with evident care and precision; a snuff-coloured coat was

adorned with a respectable profusion of gold lace; his breeches were of

plum-coloured satin; his salmon-coloured stockings, scrupulously drawn

up, displayed a very handsome calf; and a pair of steel buckles in his

high-heeled and square-toed shoes, were polished into a lustre which

almost rivalled the splendour of diamonds. Mr. Jonas Elmore was a

beau, a wit, and a scholar of the old school. He abounded in jests, in

quotations, in smart sayings, and pertinent anecdotes: but, withal, his

classical learning, (out of the classics he knew little enough,) was at

once elegant, but wearisome; pedantic, but profound.

To this gentleman Walter presented a letter of introduction which he had

obtained from a distinguished clergyman in York. Mr. Elmore received it

with a profound salutation--“Aha, from my friend, Dr. Hebraist,” said

he, glancing at the seal, “a most worthy man, and a ripe scholar. I

presume at once, Sir, from his introduction, that you yourself have

cultivated the literas humaniores. Pray sit down--ay--I see, you take up

a book, an excellent symptom; it gives me an immediate insight into

your character. But you have chanced, Sir, on light reading,--one of

the Greek novels, I think,--you must not judge of my studies by such a

specimen.”

“Nevertheless, Sir, it does not seem to my unskilful eye very easy

Greek.”

“Pretty well, Sir; barbarous, but amusing,--pray continue it. The

triumphal entry of Paulus Emilius is not ill told. I confess, that I

think novels might be made much higher works than they have been yet.

Doubtless, you remember what Aristotle says concerning Painters and

Sculptors, ‘that they teach and recommend virtue in a more efficacious

and powerful manner, than Philosophers by their dry precepts, and

are more capable of amending the vicious, than the best moral lessons

without such aid.’ But how much more, Sir, can a good novelist do this,

than the best sculptor or painter in the world! Every one can be

charmed by a fine novel, few by a fine painting. ‘Indocti rationem artis

intelligunt, indocti voluptatem.’ A happy sentence that in Quinctilian,

Sir, is it not? But, bless me, I am forgetting the letter of my good

friend Dr. Hebraist. The charms of your conversation carry me away. And

indeed I have seldom the happiness to meet a gentleman so well-informed

as yourself. I confess, Sir, I confess that I still retain the tastes of

my boyhood; the Muses cradled my childhood, they now smooth the pillow

of my footstool--Quem tu, Melpomene, are not yet subject to gout, dira

podagra: By the way, how is the worthy Doctor since his attack?--Ah, see

now, if you have not still, by your delightful converse, kept me from

his letter--yet, positively I need no introduction to you, Apollo has

already presented you to me. And as for the Doctor’s letter, I will read

it after dinner; for as Seneca--” “I beg your pardon a thousand times,

Sir,” said Walter, who began to despair of ever coming to the matter

which seemed lost sight of beneath this battery of erudition, “but you

will find by Dr. Hebraist’s letter, that it is only on business of the

utmost importance that I have presumed to break in upon the learned

leisure of Mr. Jonas Elmore.”

“Business!” replied Mr. Elmore, producing his spectacles, and

deliberately placing them athwart his nose,

“‘His mane edictum, post prandia Callirhoen, etc.

“Business in the morning, and the ladies after dinner. Well, Sir, I will

yield to you in the one, and you must yield to me in the other: I will

open the letter, and you shall dine here, and be introduced to Mrs.

Elmore;--What is your opinion of the modern method of folding letters?

I--but I see you are impatient.” Here Mr. Elmore at length broke the

seal; and to Walter’s great joy fairly read the contents within.

“Oh! I see, I see!” he said, refolding the epistle, and placing it in

his pocket-book; “my friend, Dr. Hebraist, says you are anxious to be

informed whether Mr. Clarke ever received the legacy of my poor cousin,

Colonel Elmore; and if so, any tidings I can give you of Mr. Clarke

himself; or any clue to discover him will be highly acceptable. I

gather, Sir, from my friend’s letter, that this is the substance of your

business with me, caput negotii;--although, like Timanthes, the painter,

he leaves more to be understood than is described, ‘intelligitur plus

quam pingitur,’ as Pliny has it.”

“Sir,” said Walter, drawing his chair close to Mr. Elmore, and his

anxiety forcing itself to his countenance, “that is indeed the substance

of my business with you; and so important will be any information

you can give me that I shall esteem it a--” “Not a very great favour,

eh?--not very great?”

“Yes, indeed, a very great obligation.”

“I hope not, Sir; for what says Tacitus--that profound reader of the

human heart,--‘beneficia eo usque loeta sunt,’ favours easily repaid

beget affection--favours beyond return engender hatred. But, Sir, a

truce to trifling;” and here Mr. Elmore composed his countenance, and

changed,--which he could do at will, so that the change was not expected

to last long--the pedant for the man of business.

“Mr. Clarke did receive his legacy: the lease of the house at

Knaresborough was also sold by his desire, and produced the sum of seven

hundred and fifty pounds; which being added to the farther sum of a

thousand pounds, which was bequeathed to him, amounted to seventeen

hundred and fifty pounds. It so happened, that my cousin had possessed

some very valuable jewels, which were bequeathed to myself. I, Sir,

studious, and a cultivator of the Muse, had no love and no use for these

baubles; I preferred barbaric gold to barbaric pearl; and knowing that

Clarke had been in India, from whence these jewels had been brought, I

showed them to him, and consulted his knowledge on these matters, as to

the best method of obtaining a sale. He offered to purchase them of me,

under the impression that he could turn them to a profitable speculation

in London. Accordingly we came to terms: I sold the greater part of them

to him for a sum a little exceeding a thousand pounds. He was pleased

with his bargain; and came to borrow the rest of me, in order to look at

them more considerately at home, and determine whether or not he should

buy them also. Well, Sir, (but here comes the remarkable part of the

story,) about three days after this last event, Mr. Clarke and my jewels

both disappeared in rather a strange and abrupt manner. In the middle

of the night he left his lodging at Knaresborough, and never returned;

neither himself nor my jewels were ever heard of more!”

“Good God!” exclaimed Walter, greatly agitated; “what was supposed to be

the cause of his disappearance?”

“That,” replied Elmore, “was never positively traced. It excited great

surprise and great conjecture at the time. Advertisements and handbills

were circulated throughout the country, but in vain. Mr. Clarke was

evidently a man of eccentric habits, of a hasty temper, and a wandering

manner of life; yet it is scarcely probable that he took this sudden

manner of leaving the country either from whim or some secret but honest

motive never divulged. The fact is, that he owed a few debts in the

town--that he had my jewels in his possession, and as (pardon me for

saying this, since you take an interest in him,) his connections were

entirely unknown in these parts, and his character not very highly

estimated,--(whether from his manner, or his conversation, or some

undefined and vague rumours, I cannot say)--it was considered by no

means improbable that he had decamped with his property in this sudden

manner in order to save himself that trouble of settling accounts

which a more seemly and public method of departure might have rendered

necessary. A man of the name of Houseman, with whom he was acquainted,

(a resident in Knaresborough,) declared that Clarke had borrowed rather

a considerable sum from him, and did not scruple openly to accuse him

of the evident design to avoid repayment. A few more dark but utterly

groundless conjectures were afloat; and since the closest search--the

minutest inquiry was employed without any result, the supposition that

he might have been robbed and murdered was strongly entertained for some

time; but as his body was never found, nor suspicion directed against

any particular person, these conjectures insensibly died away; and being

so complete a stranger to these parts, the very circumstance of his

disappearance was not likely to occupy, for very long, the attention

of that old gossip the Public, who, even in the remotest parts, has a

thousand topics to fill up her time and talk. And now, Sir, I think you

know as much of the particulars of the case as any one in these parts

can inform you.”

We may imagine the various sensations which this unsatisfactory

intelligence caused in the adventurous son of the lost wanderer. He

continued to throw out additional guesses, and to make farther inquiries

concerning a tale which seemed to him so mysterious, but without effect;

and he had the mortification to perceive, that the shrewd Jonas was, in

his own mind, fully convinced that the permanent disappearance of Clark

was accounted for only by the most dishonest motives.

“And,” added Elmore, I am confirmed in this belief by discovering

afterwards from a tradesman in York who had seen my cousin’s

jewels--that those I had trusted to Mr. Clarke’s hands were more

valuable than I had imagined them, and therefore it was probably worth

his while to make off with them as quietly as possible. He went on

foot, leaving his horse, a sorry nag, to settle with me and the other

claimants.

“I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurae!”

“Heavens!” thought Walter, sinking back in his chair sickened and

disheartened, “what a parent, if the opinions of all men who knew him be

true, do I thus zealously seek to recover!”

The good-natured Elmore, perceiving the unwelcome and painful impression

his account had produced on his young guest, now exerted himself to

remove, or at least to lessen it; and turning the conversation into a

classical channel, which with him was the Lethe to all cares, he soon

forgot that Clarke had ever existed, in expatiating on the unappreciated

excellences of Propertius, who, to his mind, was the most tender of all

elegiac poets, solely because he was the most learned. Fortunately this

vein of conversation, however tedious to Walter, preserved him from the

necessity of rejoinder, and left him to the quiet enjoyment of his own

gloomy and restless reflections.

At length the time touched upon dinner; Elmore, starting up, adjourned

to the drawing-room, in order to present the handsome stranger to the

placens uxor--the pleasing wife, whom, in passing through the hall, he

eulogized with an amazing felicity of diction.

The object of these praises was a tall, meagre lady, in a yellow dress

carried up to the chin, and who added a slight squint to the charms of

red hair, ill concealed by powder, and the dignity of a prodigiously

high nose. “There is nothing, Sir,” said Elmore, “nothing, believe me,

like matrimonial felicity. Julia, my dear, I trust the chickens will not

be overdone.”

“Indeed, Mr. Elmore, I cannot tell; I did not boil them.”

“Sir,” said Elmore, turning to his guest, I do not know whether you

will agree with me, but I think a slight tendency to gourmandism is

absolutely necessary to complete the character of a truly classical

mind. So many beautiful touches are there in the ancient poets--so

many delicate allusions in history and in anecdote relating to the

gratification of the palate, that if a man have no correspondent

sympathy with the illustrious epicures of old, he is rendered incapable

of enjoying the most beautiful passages, that--Come, Sir, the dinner is

served:

“‘Nutrimus lautis mollissima corpora mensis.’”

As they crossed the hall to the dining-room, a young lady, whom Elmore

hastily announced as his only daughter, appeared descending the stairs,

having evidently retired for the purpose of re-arranging her attire for

the conquest of the stranger. There was something in Miss Elmore that

reminded Walter of Ellinor, and, as the likeness struck him, he felt, by

the sudden and involuntary sigh it occasioned, how much the image of his

cousin had lately gained ground upon his heart.

Nothing of any note occurred during dinner, until the appearance of

the second course, when Elmore, throwing himself back with an air of

content, that signified the first edge of his appetite was blunted,

observed, Sir, the second course I always opine to be the more dignified

and rational part of a repast--

“‘Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit.’”

[That which is now reason, at first was but desire.]

“Ah! Mr. Elmore,” said the lady, glancing towards a brace of very

fine pigeons, “I cannot tell you how vexed I am at a mistake of the

gardener’s: you remember my poor pet pigeons, so attached to each

other--would not mix with the rest--quite an inseparable friendship,

Mr. Lester--well, they were killed by mistake, for a couple of vulgar

pigeons. Ah! I could not touch a bit of them for the world.”

“My love,” said Elmore, pausing, and with great solemnity, “hear how

beautiful a consolation is afforded to you in Valerius Maximus:--‘Ubi

idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, aliquando praestat morte

jungi quam vitae distrahi;’ which being interpreted, means, that

wherever, as in the case of your pigeons, a thoroughly high and sincere

affection exists, it is sometimes better to be joined in death than

divided in life.--Give me half the fatter one, if you please, Julia.”

“Sir,” said Elmore, when the ladies withdrew, “I cannot tell you how

pleased I am to meet with a gentleman so deeply imbued with classic

lore. I remember, several years ago, before my poor cousin died, it was

my lot, when I visited him at Knaresborough, to hold some delightful

conversations on learned matters with a very rising young scholar who

then resided at Knaresborough,--Eugene Aram. Conversations as difficult

to obtain as delightful to remember, for he was exceedingly reserved.”

“Aram!” repeated Walter.

“What, you know him then?--and where does he live now?”

“In--, very near my uncle’s residence. He is certainly a remarkable

man.”

“Yes, indeed he promised to become so. At the time I refer to, he was

poor to penury, and haughty as poor; but it was wonderful to note the

iron energy with which he pursued his progress to learning. Never did I

see a youth,--at that time he was no more,--so devoted to knowledge for

itself.

‘Doctrin‘ pretium triste magister habet.’”

“Methinks,” added Elmore, “I can see him now, stealing away from the

haunts of men,

‘With even step and musing gait,’--

across the quiet fields, or into the woods, whence he was certain not to

re-appear till night-fall. Ah! he was a strange and solitary being, but

full of genius, and promise of bright things hereafter. I have often

heard since of his fame as a scholar, but could never learn where he

lived or what was now his mode of life. Is he yet married?”

“Not yet, I believe; but he is not now so absolutely poor as you

describe him to have been then, though certainly far from rich.”

“Yes, yes, I remember that he received a legacy from a relation shortly

before he left Knaresborough. He had very delicate health at that time:

has he grown stronger with increasing years?”

“He does not complain of ill health. And pray, was he then of the same

austere and blameless habits of life that he now professes?”

“Nothing could be so faultless as his character appeared; the passions

of youth--(ah! I was a wild fellow at his age,) never seemed to venture

near one.

‘Quem casto erudit docta Minerva sinu.’

Well, I am surprised he has not married. We scholars, Sir, fall in love

with abstractions, and fancy the first woman we see is--Sir, let us

drink the ladies.”

The next day Walter, having resolved to set out for Knaresborough,

directed his course towards that town; he thought it yet possible that

he might, by strict personal inquiry, continue the clue that Elmore’s

account had, to present appearance, broken. The pursuit in which he

was engaged, combined, perhaps, with the early disappointment to his

affections, had given a grave and solemn tone to a mind naturally ardent

and elastic. His character acquired an earnestness and a dignity from

late events; and all that once had been hope within him, deepened into

thought. As now, on a gloomy and clouded day he pursued his course

along a bleak and melancholy road, his mind was filled with that dark

presentiment--that shadow from the coming event, which superstition

believes the herald of the more tragic discoveries, or the more

fearful incidents of life; he felt steeled, and prepared for some dread

denouement,--to a journey to which the hand of Providence seemed to

conduct his steps; and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all

beyond the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve with

which, in the tragic representations of life, we await the drawing up

of the curtain before the last act, which contains the catastrophe--that

while we long, we half shudder to behold.

Meanwhile, in following the adventures of Walter Lester, we have greatly

outstript the progress of events of Grassdale, and thither we now

return.

CHAPTER IV.

ARAM’S DEPARTURE.--MADELINE.--EXAGGERATION OF SENTIMENT

NATURAL IN LOVE.--MADELINE’S LETTER.--WALTER’S.--THE WALK.--

TWO VERY DIFFERENT PERSONS, YET BOTH INMATES OF THE SAME

COUNTRY VILLAGE.--THE HUMOURS OF LIFE, AND ITS DARK PASSIONS,

ARE FOUND IN JUXTA-POSITION EVERYWHERE.

Her thoughts as pure as the chaste morning’s breath,

When from the Night’s cold arms it creeps away,

Were clothed in words.

--Sir J. Suckling--Detraction Execrated

“You positively leave us then to-day, Eugene?” said the Squire.

“Indeed,” answered Aram, “I hear from my creditor, (now no longer so,

thanks to you,) that my relation is so dangerously ill, that if I have

any wish to see her alive, I have not an hour to lose. It is the last

surviving relative I have in the world.”

“I can say no more, then,” rejoined the Squire shrugging his shoulders:

“When do you expect to return?”

“At least, ere the day fixed for the wedding,” answered Aram, with a

grave and melancholy smile.

“Well, can you find time, think you, to call at the lodging in which my

nephew proposed to take up his abode,--my old lodging;--I will give you

the address,--and inquire if Walter has been heard of there: I confess

that I feel considerable alarm on his account. Since that short and

hurried letter which I read to you, I have heard nothing of him.”

“You may rely on my seeing him if in London, and faithfully reporting to

you all that I can learn towards removing your anxiety.”

“I do not doubt it; no heart is so kind as yours, Eugene. You will not

depart without receiving the additional sum you are entitled to claim

from me, since you think it may be useful to you in London, should you

find a favourable opportunity of increasing your annuity. And now I will

no longer detain you from taking your leave of Madeline.”

The plausible story which Aram had invented of the illness and

approaching death of his last living relation, was readily believed by

the simple family to whom it was told; and Madeline herself checked her

tears that she might not, for his sake, sadden a departure that seemed

inevitable. Aram accordingly repaired to London that day,--the one that

followed the night which witnessed his fearful visit to the “Devil’s

Crag.”

It is precisely at this part of my history that I love to pause for a

moment; a sort of breathing interval between the cloud that has been

long gathering, and the storm that is about to burst. And this interval

is not without its fleeting gleam of quiet and holy sunshine.

It was Madeline’s first absence from her lover since their vows had

plighted them to each other; and that first absence, when softened by

so many hopes as smiled upon her, is perhaps one of the most touching

passages in the history of a woman’s love. It is marvellous how many

things, unheeded before, suddenly become dear. She then feels what a

power of consecration there was in the mere presence of the one beloved;

the spot he touched, the book he read, have become a part of him--are

no longer inanimate--are inspired, and have a being and a voice. And the

heart, too, soothed in discovering so many new treasures, and opening

so delightful a world of memory, is not yet acquainted with that

weariness--that sense of exhaustion and solitude which are the true

pains of absence, and belong to the absence not of hope but regret.

“You are cheerful, dear Madeline,” said Ellinor, “though you did not

think it possible, and he not here!”

“I am occupied,” replied Madeline, “in discovering how much I loved

him.”

We do wrong when we censure a certain exaggeration in the sentiments

of those who love. True passion is necessarily heightened by its very

ardour to an elevation that seems extravagant only to those who cannot

feel it. The lofty language of a hero is a part of his character;

without that largeness of idea he had not been a hero. With love, it

is the same as with glory: what common minds would call natural in

sentiment, merely because it is homely, is not natural, except to tamed

affections. That is a very poor, nay, a very coarse, love, in which the

imagination makes not the greater part. And the Frenchman, who censured

the love of his mistress because it was so mixed with the imagination,

quarrelled with the body, for the soul which inspired and preserved it.

Yet we do not say that Madeline was so possessed by the confidence of

her love, that she did not admit the intrusion of a single doubt or

fear; when she recalled the frequent gloom and moody fitfulness of

her lover--his strange and mysterious communings with self--the sorrow

which, at times, as on that Sabbath eve when he wept upon her bosom,

appeared suddenly to come upon a nature so calm and stately, and without

a visible cause; when she recalled all these symptoms of a heart not

now at rest, it was not possible for her to reject altogether a certain

vague and dreary apprehension. Nor did she herself, although to Ellinor

she so affected, ascribe this cloudiness and caprice of mood merely to

the result of a solitary and meditative life; she attributed them to the

influence of an early grief, perhaps linked with the affections, and did

not doubt but that one day or another she should learn its secret.

As for remorse--the memory of any former sin--a life so austerely

blameless, a disposition so prompt to the activity of good, and so

enamoured of its beauty--a mind so cultivated, a temper so gentle, and

a heart so easily moved--all would have forbidden, to natures far more

suspicious than Madeline’s, the conception of such a thought. And so,

with a patient gladness, though not without some mixture of anxiety, she

suffered herself to glide onward to a future, which, come cloud, come

shine, was, she believed at least, to be shared with him.

On looking over the various papers from which I have woven this tale, I

find a letter from Madeline to Aram, dated at this time. The characters,

traced in the delicate and fair Italian hand coveted at that period, are

fading, and, in one part, wholly obliterated by time; but there seems to

me so much of what is genuine in the heart’s beautiful romance in

this effusion, that I will lay it before the reader without adding or

altering a word.

“Thank you, thank you, dearest Eugene! I have received, then, the first

letter you ever wrote me. I cannot tell you how strange it seemed to me,

and how agitated I felt on seeing it, more so, I think, than if it

had been yourself who had returned. However, when the first delight of

reading it faded away, I found that it had not made me so happy as it

ought to have done--as I thought at first it had done. You seem sad and

melancholy; a certain nameless gloom appears to me to hang over your

whole letter. It affects my spirits--why I know not--and my tears

fall even while I read the assurances of your unaltered, unalterable

love--and yet this assurance your Madeline--vain girl!--never for a

moment disbelieves. I have often read and often heard of the distrust

and jealousy that accompany love; but I think that such a love must be a

vulgar and low sentiment. To me there seems a religion in love, and its

very foundation is in faith. You say, dearest, that the noise and stir

of the great city oppress and weary you even more than you had expected.

You say those harsh faces, in which business, and care, and avarice, and

ambition write their lineaments, are wholly unfamiliar to you;--you turn

aside to avoid them,--you wrap yourself up in your solitary feelings

of aversion to those you see, and you call upon those not present--upon

your Madeline! and would that your Madeline were with you! It seems to

me--perhaps you will smile when I say this--that I alone can understand

you--I alone can read your heart and your emotions;--and oh! dearest

Eugene, that I could read also enough of your past history to know all

that has cast so habitual a shadow over that lofty heart and that

calm and profound nature! You smile when I ask you--but sometimes you

sigh,--and the sigh pleases and soothes me better than the smile.

“We have heard nothing more of Walter, and my father begins at times

to be seriously alarmed about him. Your account, too, corroborates that

alarm. It is strange that he has not yet visited London, and that you

can obtain no clue of him. He is evidently still in search of his lost

parent, and following some obscure and uncertain track. Poor Walter!

God speed him! The singular fate of his father, and the many conjectures

respecting him, have, I believe, preyed on Walter’s mind more than he

acknowledged. Ellinor found a paper in his closet, where we had occasion

to search the other day for something belonging to my father, which

was scribbled with all the various fragments of guess or information

concerning my uncle, obtained from time to time, and interspersed with

some remarks by Walter himself, that affected me strangely. It seems to

have been from early childhood the one desire of my cousin to discover

his father’s fate. Perhaps the discovery may be already made;--perhaps

my long-lost uncle may yet be present at our wedding.