CHAPTER XXVII

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the

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[Illustration: Confession]

CONFESSION

or,

THE BLIND HEART

A Domestic Story

By W. Gilmore Simms

Wagner. But of the world-the heart, the mind of man,

How happy could we know!

Faust. What can we know?

Who dares bestow the infant his true name?

The few who felt and knew, but blindly gave

Their knowledge to the multitude--they fell!

Incapable to keep their full hearts in,

They, from the first of immemorial time,

Were crucified or burnt.

Goethe's Faust, MS. Version.

CHAPTER I.

CONFESSION, OR THE BLIND HEART.

“Who dares bestow the infant his true name?

The few who felt and knew, but blindly gave

Their knowledge to the multitude--they fell

Incapable to keep their full hearts in,

They, from the first of immemorial time,

Were crucified or burnt.”--Goethe's “Faust.”

The pains and penalties of folly are not necessarily death. They were

in old times, perhaps, according to the text, and he who kept not to

himself the secrets of his silly heart was surely crucified or burnt.

Though lacking in penalties extreme like these, the present is not

without its own. All times, indeed, have their penalties for folly, much

more certainly than for crime; and this fact furnishes one of the most

human arguments in favor of the doctrine of rewards and punishments in

the future state. But these penalties are not always mortifications and

trials of the flesh. There are punishments of the soul; the spirit; the

sensibilities; the intellect--which are most usually the consequences of

one's own folly. There is a perversity of mood which is the worst of

all such penalties. There are tortures which the foolish heart equally

inflicts and endures. The passions riot on their own nature; and,

feeding as they do upon that bosom from which they spring, and in which

they flourish, may, not inaptly, be likened to that unnatural brood

which gnaws into the heart of the mother-bird, and sustains its

existence at the expense of hers. Meetly governed from the beginning,

they are dutiful agents that bless themselves in their own obedience;

but, pampered to excess, they are tyrants that never do justice, until

at last, when they fitly conclude the work of destruction by their own.

The narrative which follows is intended to illustrate these opinions. It

is the story of a blind heart--nay, of blind hearts--blind through their

own perversity--blind to their own interests--their own joys, hopes,

and proper sources of delight. In narrating my own fortunes, I depict

theirs; and the old leaven of wilfulness, which belongs to our nature,

has, in greater or less degree, a place in every human bosom.

I was the only one surviving of several sons. My parents died while I

was yet an infant. I never knew them. I was left to the doubtful charge

of relatives, who might as well have been strangers; and, from their

treatment, I learned to doubt and to distrust among the first fatal

lessons of my youth. I felt myself unloved--nay, as I fancied, disliked

and despised. I was not merely an orphan. I was poor, and was felt as

burdensome by those connections whom a dread of public opinion, rather

than a sense of duty and affection, persuaded to take me to their homes.

Here, then, when little more than three years old, I found myself--a

lonely brat, whom servants might flout at pleasure, and whom superiors

only regarded with a frown. I was just old enough to remember that I had

once experienced very different treatment. I had felt the caresses of a

fond mother--I had heard the cheering accents of a generous and a gentle

father. The one had soothed my griefs and encouraged my hopes--the other

had stimulated my energies and prompted my desires. Let no one

fancy that, because I was a child, these lessons were premature. All

education, to be valuable, must begin with the child's first efforts at

discrimination. Suddenly, both of these fond parents disappeared, and I

was just young enough to wonder why.

The change in my fortunes first touched my sensibilities, which it

finally excited until they became diseased. Neglected if not scorned,

I habitually looked to encounter nothing but neglect or scorn. The sure

result of this condition of mind was a look and feeling, on my part, of

habitual defiance. I grew up with the mood of one who goes forth with a

moral certainty that he must meet and provide against an enemy. But I am

now premature.

The uncle and aunt with whom I found shelter were what is called in

ordinary parlance, very good people. They attended the most

popular church with most popular punctuality. They prayed with

unction--subscribed to all the charities which had publicity and a

fashionable list to recommend them--helped to send missionaries to

Calcutta, Bombay, Owyhee, and other outlandish regions--paid their

debts when they became due with commendable readiness--and were, in all

out-of-door respects, the very sort of people who might congratulate

themselves, and thank God that they were very far superior to their

neighbors. My uncle had morning prayers at home, and my aunt thumbed

Hannah More in the evening; though it must be admitted that the former

could not always forbear, coming from church on the sabbath, to inquire

into the last news of the Liverpool cotton market, and my aunt never

failed, when they reached home, on the same blessed day, to make the

house ring with another sort of eloquence than that to which she had

listened with such sanctimonious devotion from the lips of the preacher.

There were some other little offsets against the perfectly evangelical

character of their religion. One of these--the first that attracted my

infant consideration--was naturally one which more directly concerned

myself. I soon discovered that, while I was sent to an ordinary charity

school of the country, in threadbare breeches, made of the meanest

material--their own son--a gentle and good, but puny boy, whom their

indulgence injured, and, perhaps, finally destroyed--was despatched to

a fashionable institution which taught all sorts of ologies--dressed in

such choice broadcloth and costly habiliments, as to make him an object

of envy and even odium among all his less fortunate school-fellows.

Poor little Edgar! His own good heart and correct natural understanding

showed him the equal folly of that treatment to which he was subjected,

and the injustice and unkindness which distinguished mine. He strove to

make amends, so far as I was concerned, for the error of his parents. He

was my playmate whenever he was permitted, but even this permission was

qualified by some remark, some direction or counsel, from one or other

of his parents, which was intended to let him know, and make me feel,

that there was a monstrous difference between us.

The servants discovered this difference as quickly as did the objects

of it; and though we were precisely of one age, and I was rather the

largest of the two, yet, in addressing us, they paid him the deference

which should only be shown to superior age, and treated me with the

contumely only due to inferior merit. It was “Master Edgar,” when he was

spoken to--and “you,” when I was the object of attention.

I do not speak of these things as of substantial evils affecting my

condition. Perhaps, in one or more respects, they were benefits.

They taught me humility in the first place, and made that humility

independence, by showing me that the lesson was bestowed in wantonness,

and not with the purpose of improvement. And, in proportion as my

physical nature suffered their neglect, it acquired strength by the very

roughening to which that neglect exposed it. In this I possessed a vast

advantage over my little companion. His frame, naturally feeble, sunk

under the oppressive tenderness to which the constant care of a vain

father, a doting mother, and sycophantic friends and servants, subjected

it. The attrition of boy with boy, in the half-manly sports of schoolboy

life--its very strifes and scuffles--would have brought his blood into

adequate circulation, and hardened his bones, and given elasticity to

his sinews. But from all these influences, he was carefully preserved

and protected. He was not allowed to run, for fear of being too much

heated. He could not jump, lest he might break a blood-vessel. In the

ball play he might get an eye knocked out; and even tops and marbles

were forbidden, lest he should soil his hands and wear out the knees

of his green breeches. If he indulged in these sports it was only by

stealth, and at the fearful cost of a falsehood on every such occasion.

When will parents learn that entirely to crush and keep down the proper

nature of the young, is to produce inevitable perversity, and stimulate

the boyish ingenuity to crime?

With me the case was very different. If cuffing and kicking could have

killed, I should have died many sudden and severe deaths in the rough

school to which I was sent. If eyes were likely to be lost in the

campus, corded balls of India-rubber, or still harder ones of wood,

impelled by shinny (goff) sticks, would have obliterated all of mine

though they had been numerous as those of Argus. My limbs and eyes

escaped all injury; my frame grew tall and vigorous in consequence of

neglect, even as the forest-tree, left to the conflict of all the winds

of heaven; while my poor little friend, Edgar, grew daily more and more

diminutive, just as some plant, which nursing and tendance within doors

deprive of the wholesome sunshine and generous breezes of the sky.

The paleness of his cheek increased, the languor of his frame, the

meagerness of his form, the inability of his nature! He was pining

rapidly away, in spite of that excessive care, which, perhaps, had been

in the first instance, the unhappy source of all his feebleness.

He died--and I became an object of greater dislike than ever to

his parents. They could not but contrast my strength, with his

feebleness--my improvement with his decline--and when they remembered

how little had been their regard for me and how much for him--without

ascribing the difference of result to the true cause--they repined at

the ways of Providence, and threw upon me the reproach of it. They gave

me less heed and fewer smiles than ever. If I improved at school, it was

well, perhaps; but they never inquired, and I could not help fancying

that it was with a positive expression of vexation, that my aunt heard,

on one occasion, from my teacher, in the presence of some guests, that I

was likely to be an honor to the family.

“An honor to the family, indeed!” This was the clear expression in

that Christian lady's eyes, as I saw them sink immediately after in a

scornful examination of my rugged frame and coarse garments.

The family had its own sources of honor, was the calm opinion of both

my patrons, as they turned their eyes upon their only remaining child--a

little girl about five years old, who was playing around them on the

carpet. This opinion was also mine, even then: and my eyes followed

theirs in the same direction. Julia Clifford was one of the sweetest

little fairies in the world. Tender-hearted, and just, and generous,

like the dear little brother, whom she had only known to lose, she

was yet as playful as a kitten. I was twice her age--just ten--at this

period; and a sort of instinct led me to adopt the little creature, in

place of poor Edgar, in the friendship of my boyish heart. I drew her

in her little wagon--carried her over the brooklet--constructed her tiny

playthings--and in consideration of my usefulness, in most generally

keeping her in the best of humors, her mother was not unwilling that I

should be her frequent playmate. Nay, at such times she could spare a

gentle word even to me, as one throws a bone to the dog, who has jumped

a pole, or plunged into the water, or worried some other dog, for his

amusement. At no other period did my worthy aunt vouchsafe me such

unlooked-for consideration.

But Julia Clifford was not my only friend. I had made another

shortly before the death of Edgar; though, passingly it may be said,

friendship-making was no easy business with a nature such as mine had

now become. The inevitable result of such treatment as that to which my

early years had been subjected, was fully realized. I was suspicious

to the last degree of all new faces--jealous of the regards of the

old; devoting myself where my affections were set and requiring

devotion--rigid, exclusive devotion--from their object in return. There

was a terrible earnestness in all my moods which made my very love a

thing to be feared. I was no trifler--I could not suffer to be trifled

with--and the ordinary friendships of man or boy can not long endure the

exactions of such a disposition. The penalties are usually thought to

be--and are--infinitely beyond the rewards and benefits.

My intimacies with William Edgerton were first formed under

circumstances which, of all others, are most likely to establish them on

a firm basis in our days of boyhood. He came to my rescue one evening,

when, returning from school, I was beset by three other boys, who

had resolved on drubbing me. My haughty deportment had vexed their

self-esteem, and, as the same cause had left me with few sympathies, it

was taken for granted that the unfairness of their assault would provoke

no censure. They were mistaken. In the moment of my greatest difficulty,

William Edgerton dashed in among them. My exigency rendered his

assistance a very singular benefit. My nose was already broken--one of

my eyes sealed up for a week's holyday; and I was suffering from small

annoyances, of hip, heart, leg, and thigh, occasioned by the repeated

cuffs, and the reckless kicks, which I was momently receiving from three

points of the compass. It is true that my enemies had their hurts to

complain of also; but the odds were too greatly against me for any

conduct or strength of mine to neutralize or overcome; and it was only

by Edgerton's interposition that I was saved from utter defeat and much

worse usage. The beating I had already suffered. I was sore from head to

foot for a week after; and my only consolation was that my enemies left

the ground in a condition, if anything, something worse than my own.

But I had gained a friend, and that was a sweet recompense, sweeter to

me, by far, than it is found or felt by schoolboys usually. None could

know or comprehend the force of my attachment--my dependence upon

the attachment of which I felt assured!--none but those who, with an

earnest, impetuous nature like my own--doomed to denial from the first,

and treated with injustice and unkindness--has felt the pang of a worse

privation from the beginning;--the privation of that sustenance, which

is the “very be all and end all” of its desire and its life--and

the denial of which chills and repels its fervor--throws it back in

despondency upon itself--fills it with suspicion, and racks it with a

never-ceasing conflict between its apprehension and its hopes.

Edgerton supplied a vacuum which my bosom had long felt. He was,

however, very unlike, in most respects, to myself. He was rather

phlegmatic than ardent--slow in his fancies, and shy in his associations

from very fastidiousness. He was too much governed by nice tastes, to be

an active or performing youth; and too much restrained by them also, to

be a popular one. This, perhaps, was the secret influence which

brought us together. A mutual sense of isolation--no matter from what

cause--awakened the sympathies between us. Our ties were formed, on my

part, simply because I was assured that I should have no rival; and on

his, possibly, because he perceived in my haughty reserve of character,

a sufficient security that his fastidious sensibilities would not be

likely to suffer outrage at my hands. In every other respect our moods

and tempers were utterly unlike. I thought him dull, very frequently,

when he was only balancing between jealous and sensitive tastes;--and

ignorant of the actual, when, in fact, his ignorance simply arose from

the decided preference which he gave to the foreign and abstract. He was

contemplative--an idealist; I was impetuous and devoted to the real

and living world around me, in which I was disposed to mingle with an

eagerness which might have been fatal; but for that restraint to which

my own distrust of all things and persons habitually subjected me.

CHAPTER II.

BOY PASSIONS--A PROFESSION CHOSEN.

Between William Edgerton and Julia Clifford my young life and best

affections were divided, entirely, if not equally. I lived for no

other--I cared to seek, to know, no other--and yet I often shrunk from

both. Even at that boyish period, while the heavier cares and the more

painful vexations of life were wanting to our annoyance, I had those

of that gnawing nature which seemed to be born of the tree whose evil

growth “brought death into the world and all our wo.” The pang of a

nameless jealousy--a sleepless distrust--rose unbidden to my heart at

seasons, when, in truth, there was no obvious cause. When Julia was

most gentle--when William was most generous--even then, I had learned to

repulse them with an indifference which I did not feel--a rudeness which

brought to my heart a pain even greater than that which my wantonness

inflicted upon theirs. I knew, even then, that I was perverse, unjust;

and that there was a littleness in the vexatious mood in which I

indulged, that was unjust to my own feelings, and unbecoming in a manly

nature. But even though I felt all this, as thoroughly as I could ever

feel it under any situation, I still could not succeed in overcoming

tha' insane will which drove me to its indulgence.

Vainly have I striven to account for the blindness of heart--for such

it is, in all such cases--which possessed me. Was there anything in

my secret nature, born at my birth and growing with my growth--which

impelled me to this willfulness. I can scarcely believe so; but, after

serious reflection, am compelled to think that it was the strict result

of moods growing out of the particular treatment to which I had been

subjected. It does not seem unnatural that an ardent temper of mind,

willing to confide, looking to love and affection for the only aliment

which it most and chiefly desires, and repelled in this search, frowned

on by its superiors as if it were something base, will, in time, grow to

be habitually wilful, even as the treatment which has schooled it. Had I

been governed and guided by justice, I am sure that I should never have

been unjust.

My waywardness in childhood did not often amount to rudeness, and never,

I may safely say, where Julia was concerned. In her case, it was simply

the exercise of a sullenness that repelled her approaches, even as

its own approaches had been repelled by others. At such periods I went

apart, communing, sternly with myself, refusing the sympathy that I most

yearned after, and resolving not to be comforted. Let me do the dear

child the justice to say that the only effect which this conduct had

upon her, was to increase her anxieties to soothe the repulsive spirit

which should have offended her. Perhaps, to provoke this anxiety in one

it loves, is the chief desire of such a spirit. It loves to behold the

persevering devotion, which it yet perversely toils to discourage. It

smiles within, with a bitter triumph, as it contemplates its own power,

to impart the same sorrow which a similar perversity has already made it

feel.

But, without seeking further to analyze and account for such a spirit,

it is quite sufficient if I have described it. Perhaps, there are other

hearts equally froward and wayward with my own. I know not if my story

will amend--perhaps it may not even instruct or inform them--I feel

that no story, however truthful, could have disarmed the humor of that

particular mood of mind which shows itself in the blindness of the heart

under which it was my lot to labor. I did not want knowledge of my own

perversity. I knew--I felt it--as clearly as if I had seen it written

in characters of light, on the walls of my chamber. But, until it had

exhausted itself and passed away by its own processes, no effort of

mine could have overcome or banished it. I stalked apart, under

its influence, a gloomy savage--scornful and sad--stern, yet

suffering--denying myself equally, in the perverse and wanton denial to

which I condemned all others.

Perhaps something of this temper is derived from the yearnings of the

mental nature. It may belong somewhat to the natural direction of a

mind having a decided tendency to imaginative pursuits. There is a dim,

vague, indefinite struggle, for ever going on in the nature of such a

person, after an existence and relations very foreign to the world in

which it lives; and equally far from, and hostile to that condition

in which it thrives. The vague discontent of such a mind is one of the

causes of its activity; and how far it may be stimulated into diseased

intensity by injudicious treatment, is a question of large importance

for the consideration of philosophers. The imaginative nature is one

singularly sensitive in its conditions; quick, jealous, watchful,

earnest, stirring, and perpetually breaking down the ordinary barriers

of the actual, in its struggles to ascertain the extent of the possible.

The tyranny which drives it from the ordinary resources and enjoyments

of the young, by throwing it more completely on its own, impels into

desperate activity that daring of the imaginative mood, which, at no

time, is wanting in courage and audacity. My mind was one singularly

imaginative in its structure; and my ardent temperament contributed

largely to its activity. Solitude, into which I was forced by the

repulsive and unkind treatment of my relatives, was also favorable to

the exercise of this influence; and my heart may be said to have taken,

in turn, every color and aspect which informed my eyes. It was a blind

heart for this very reason, in respect to all those things for which it

should have had a color of its own. Books and the woods--the voice of

waters and of song--the dim mysteries of poetry, and the whispers of

lonely forest-walks, which beguiled me into myself, and more remotely

from my fellows, were all, so far as my social relations were concerned,

evil influences! Influences which were only in part overcome by the

communion of such gentle beings as William Edgerton and Julia Clifford.

With these friends, and these only, I grew up. As my years advanced, my

intimacy with the former increased, and with the latter diminished. But

this diminution of intimacy did not lessen the kindness of her feelings,

or the ordinary devotedness of mine. She was still--when the perversity

of heart made me not blind--the sweet creature to whom the task of

ministering was a pleasure infinitely beyond any other which I knew.

But, as she grew up to girlhood, other prospects opened upon her eyes,

and other purposes upon those of her parents. At twelve she was carried

by maternal vanity into company--sent to the dancing school--provided

with teachers in music and painting, and made to understand--so far as

the actions, looks, and words of all around could teach--that she

was the cynosure of all eyes, to whom the whole world was bound in

deference.

Fortunately, in the case of Julia, the usual effects of maternal folly

and indiscretion did not ensue. Nature interposed to protect her, and

saved her in spite of them all. She was still the meek, modest

child, solicitous of the happiness of all around her--unobtrusive,

unassuming--kind to her inferiors, respectful to superiors, and

courteous to, and considerate of all other persons. Her advancing years,

which rendered these new acquisitions and accomplishments desirable, if

not necessary, at the same time prompted her foolish mother to another

step which betrayed the humiliating regard which she entertained for me.

When I was seventeen, Julia was twelve, and when neither she nor myself

had a solitary thought of love, the over considerate mother began to

think, on this subject, for us both. The result of her cogitations

determined her that it was no longer fitting that Julia should be my

companion. Our rambles in the woods together were forbidden; and Julia

was gravely informed that I was a poor youth, though her cousin--an

orphan whom her father's charity supported, and whom the public charity

schooled. The poor child artlessly told me all this, in a vain effort

to procure from me an explanation of the mystery (which her mother had

either failed or neglected to explain) by which such circumstances were

made to account for the new commands which had been given her. Well

might she, in her simplicity of heart, wonder why it was, that because I

was poor, she should be familiar with me no longer.

The circumstance opened my eyes to the fact that Julia was a tall

girl, growing fast, already in her teens, and likely, under the

rapidly-maturing influence of our summer sun, to be soon a woman. But

just then--just when she first tasked me to solve the mystery of her

mother's strange requisitions, I did not think of this. I was too much

filled with indignation--the mortified self-esteem was too actively

working in my bosom to suffer me to think of anything but the indignity

with which I was treated. A brief portion of the dialogue between the

child and my self, will give some glimpses of the blind heart by which I

was afflicted.

“Oh, you do not understand it, Julia. You do not know, then, that you

are the daughter of a rich merchant--the only daughter--that you have

servants to wait on you, and a carriage at command--that you can wear

fine silks, and have all things that money can buy, and a rich man's

daughter desire. You don't know these things, Julia, eh?”

“Yes, Edward, I hear you say so now, and I hear mamma often say the same

things; but still I don't see--”

“You don't see why that should make a difference between yourself and

your poor cousin, eh? Well, but it does; and though you don't see it

now, yet it will not be very long before you will see, and understand

it, and act upon it, too, as promptly as the wisest among them. Don't

you know that I am the object of your father's charity--that his bounty

feeds me--and that it would not be seemly that the world should behold

me on a familiar footing of equality or intimacy with the daughter of

my benefactor--my patron--without whom I should probably starve, or be a

common beggar upon the highway?”

“But father would not suffer that, Edward.”

“Oh, no! no!--he would not suffer it, Julia, simply because his own

pride and name would feel the shame and disgrace of such a thing. But

though he would keep me from beggary and the highway, Julia, neither

he nor your mother would spend a sixpence or make an effort to save my

feelings from pain and misery. They protect me from the scorn of others,

but they use me for their own.”

The girl hung her head in silence.

“And you, too,” I added--“the time will come when you too, Julia,

will shrink as promptly as themselves from being seen with your poor

relation. You--”

“No! no! Edward--how can you think of such a thing?” she replied with

girlish chiding.

“Think it!--I know it! The time will soon be here. But--obey your

mother, Julia. Go! leave me now. Begin, once the lesson which, before

many days, you will find it very easy to learn.”

This was all very manly, so I fancied at the time; and then blind with

the perverse heart which boiled within me, I felt not the wantonness of

my mood, and heeded not the bitter pain which I occasioned to her gentle

bosom. Her little hand grasped mine, her warm tears fell upon it; but

I flung away from her grasp, and left her to those childish meditations

which I had made sufficiently mournful.

Subsequent reflection, while it showed me the brutality of my conduct to

Julia, opened my eyes to the true meaning of her mother's interdiction;

and increased the pang of those bitter feelings, which my conscious

dependence had awakened in my breast, it was necessary that this

dependence should be lessened; that, as I was now approaching manhood, I

should cast about for the future, and adopt wisely and at once the

means of my support hereafter. It was necessary that I should begin the

business of life. On this head I had already reflected somewhat, and my

thoughts had taken their direction from more than one conference which I

had had with William Edgerton. His father was an eminent lawyer, and the

law had been adopted for his profession also. I determined to make it

mine; and to speak on this subject to my uncle. This I did. I chose an

afternoon, the very week in which my conversation had taken place with

Julia, and, while the dinner things were undergoing removal, with some

formality requested a private interview with him. He looked round at me

with a raised brow of inquiry--nodded his head--and shortly after rose

from the table. My aunt stared with an air of supercilious wonder; while

poor Julia, timid and trembling, barely ventured to give me a single

look, which said--and that was enough for me--“I wish I dared say more.”

My conference with my uncle was not of long duration. I told him it was

my purpose--my desire--to begin as soon as possible to do something for

myself. His answer signified that such was his opinion also. So far we

were agreed; but when I told him that it was my wish to study the law,

he answered with sufficient, and as I thought, scornful abruptness:--

“The law, indeed! What puts the law into your head? What preparations

have you made to study the law? You know nothing of languages which

every lawyer should know--Latin--”

I interrupted him to say that I had some slight knowledge of

Latin--sufficient, I fancied, for all legal purposes.

“Ah! indeed! where did you get it?”

“A friend lent me a grammar and dictionary, and I studied myself.”

“Oh, you are ambitious; but you deceive yourself. You were never made

for a lawyer. Besides, how are you to live while prosecuting your

studies? No, no! I have been thinking of something for you, Edward--and,

just now, it happens fortunately that old Squire Farmer, the bricklayer,

wants some apprentices--”

I could scarcely listen thus far.

“I thank you, sir, but I have no disposition to be a bricklayer.”

“You must do something for yourself. You can not expect to eat the bread

of idleness. I have done, and will do for you what I can--whatever is

necessary;--but I have my own family to provide for. I can not rob my

own child---”

“Nor do I expect it, Mr. Clifford,” I replied hastily, and with some

indignation. “It is my wish, sir, to draw as little as possible from

your income and resources. I would not rob Julia Clifford of a single

dollar. Nay, sir, I trust before many years to be able to refund you

every copper which has been spent upon me from the moment I entered your

household.”

He said hastily:--

“I wish nothing of that, Edward;--but the law is a study of years, and

is expensive and unpromising in every respect. Your clothes already call

for a considerable sum, and such a profession requires, more than almost

any other, that a student should be well dressed.”

“I promise you, sir, that my dress shall be such as shall not trespass

upon your income. I shall be governed by as much economy--”

He interrupted me to say, that

“His duty required that his brother's son should be dressed as well as

his associates.”

I replied, with tolerable composure:--

“I do not think, sir, that bricklaying will admit of very genteel

clothing, nor do I think that the vocation will suit me. I have

flattered myself, sir, that my talents--”

“Oh, you have talents, then, have you? Well, it is fortunate that the

discovery has been made in season.”

I bore with this, though my cheek was burning, and said--with an effort

to preserve my voice and temper, in which, though the difficulty was

great, I was tolerably successful--

“You have misunderstood me in some things, Mr. Clifford; and I will try

now to explain myself clearly in others. Having resolved, sir, that the

law shall be my profession---”

“Ha! resolved, say you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, go on--go on!”

“Having resolved to pursue the study of law, and seeing that I am

burdensome and expensive to you--believing, too, that I can relieve you

of the burden--I have simply requested permission of you to make the

attempt.”

“Why, how do you propose to do so?--how can you support yourself--that

is relieve me of the burden of your expenses--and study the law at the

same time?”

“Such things have been done, sir; and can be done again. I flatter

myself I can do it. Industry will enable me to do so. I propose to apply

for a clerkship in a mercantile establishment which I know stands in

need of assistance, and while there will pursue my studies in such

intervals of leisure as the business will afford me.”

“You seem to have the matter ready cut and dry. Why do you come to me,

then? Remember, I can make no advances.”

“I need none, sir. My simple object with you, sir, was to declare my

intention, and to request that I may be permitted to refer to you the

merchants to whom I mean to apply, for a knowledge of my character and

attainments.”

“Oh, certainly, you may--for the character;--but as to the

attainments”--with a sneering smile--“of them I can say nothing, and,

perhaps, the less said the better. I've no doubt you'll do well enough

with the merchants. It does not need much genius or attainment for such

situations. But, if you'll take my counsel, you'll go to the bricklayer.

We want bricklayers sadly. To be a tolerable lawyer, parts are

necessary; and God knows the country is over-stocked with hosts of

lawyers already, whose only parts lie in their impudence. Better think a

little while longer. Speak to old Farmer yourself.”

I smiled bitterly--thanked him for his counsel, which was only a studied

form of insult, and turned away from him without further speech, and

with a proud swelling of indignation at my heart. Thus our conference

ended. A week after, I was ensconced behind the counter of a wholesale

dealer, and my hands at night were already busy in turning over the

heavy folios of Chitty and Blackstone.

CHAPTER III.

ADMITTED AMONG THE LAWYERS

Behold me, then, merchandising by day, and conning by night the

intricate mysteries of law. Books for the latter purpose were furnished

by my old friend, William Edgerton, from his father's library. He

himself was a student, beginning about the same time with myself; though

with the superior privilege of devoting himself exclusively to this

study. But if he had more time, I was more indefatigable. My pride was

roused, and emulation soon enabled me to supply the want of leisure. My

nights were surrendered, almost wholly, to my new pursuit. I toiled with

all the earnestness which distinguished my temperament, stimulated to

a yet higher degree by those feelings of pride and pique, which were

resolved to convince my skeptical uncle that I was not entirely without

those talents, the assertion of which had so promptly provoked his

sneer. Besides, I had already learned that no such scheme as mine could

be successfully prosecuted, unless by a stern resolution; and this

implied the constant presence of a close, undeviating method in my

studies. I tasked myself accordingly to read--understandingly, if

possible--so many pages every night, making my notes, queries, doubts,

&c., EN PASSANT. In order to do this, I prescribed to myself a rule,

to pass directly from the toils of the day and the store to my chamber,

suffering no stoppage by the way, and studiously denying myself the

dangerous fascinations of that society which was everywhere at command,

in the persons of young men about my own age and condition. The

intensity of my character, and the suspiciousness which it induced,

helped me in this determination. Perhaps, there is no greater danger to

a young man's habits of study and business, than a chat at the street

corner, with a merry and thoughtless group. A single half hour consumed

in this manner, is almost always fatal to the remaining hours of the

day. It breaks into the circle, and impairs the method without which

the passage of the sun becomes a very weary and always an unprofitable

progress. If you would be a student or anything, you must plunge

headlong into it at the beginning--bury yourself in your business, and

work your way out of your toils, by sheer, dogged industry.

My labors were so far successful that I could prosecute my studies with

independence. I had left the dwelling of my uncle the moment I took

employment in the mercantile house. My salary, though small, was ample;

with my habits, it was particularly so. I had few of those vices in

which young men are apt to indulge, and which, when they become habits,

cease unhappily to be regarded as vices. I used tobacco in no shape,

and no ardent spirits. I needed no stimulants, and, by the way,

true industry never does. It is only indolence that needs drink; and

indolence does need it; and the sooner drunkenness kills indolence by

the use of drink, the better for society. The only objection to liquors

as an agent for ridding the community of a nuisance, is, that it is

rather too slow, and too offensive in its detailed operations; arsenic

would be far less offensive, more summary, and is far more certain.

You would seek vainly to cure drunkenness, unless you first cure the

idleness which is its root and strength, and, while they last, its

permanent support. But my object is not homily.

If I was free from vices such as these, however, I had vices of my own,

which were only less odious as they were less obvious. That vexing,

self-tormenting spirit of which I have spoken as the evil genius that

dogged my footsteps--that moral perverseness which I have described as

the “blind heart”--still afflicted me, though in a far less degree now

than when I was the inmate of my uncle's dwelling, and exposed to all

the caprices of himself, his wife and servants. I kept on good terms

with my employers, for the very natural reason that they saw me attend

to my business and theirs, with a hearty cheerfulness that went to work

promptly in whatever was to be done, and executed its tasks with

steady fortitude, neatness, and rapidity. But, even with them, I had my

sulks--my humors--my stubborn fits of sullenness, that seemed anxious to

provoke opposition, and awaken wrath. These, however, they considerately

forgave in consideration of my real usefulness: and as they perceived

that whatever might have been the unpleasantness occasioned by these

specimens of spleen, they were never suffered to interfere with or

retard the operations of business. “It's an ugly way he's got,” was,

probably, the utmost extent of what either of the partners said, and of

what is commonly said on such occasions by most persons, who do not care

to trouble themselves with a too close inquiry.

Well, at twenty-one, William Edgerton and myself were admitted to the

practice of the law, and that too with considerable credit to ourselves.

I had long since been carried by my friend into his family circle; and

Mr. Edgerton, his father, had been pleased to distinguish me with sundry

attentions, which were only grateful to me in consequence of the unusual

deference with which his manner evinced his regard. His gentle inquiries

and persuasive suggestions beguiled me into more freedom of speech than

I had ever before been accustomed to; and his judicious management of my

troubled spirit, for a time, stifled its contradictions, and suppressed

its habitual tendencies. But it was with some jealousy, and an erectness

of manner which was surely ungracious, though, perhaps, not offensive,

that I endured and replied to his inquiries into my personal condition,

my resources, and the nature of that dependence which I bore to the

family of my uncle. When he learned--which he did not from me--in what

manner I had pursued my studies--after what toils of the day, and

at what late hours of the night--when he found from a close private

examination, which he had given me, before my admission, that my

knowledge of the law was quite as good as the greater number of those

who apply for admission--he was pleased to express his astonishment at

my perseverance, and delight at my success. When, too, in addition to

this, he discovered, upon a minute inquiry from my employers and others,

that I was abstemious, and indulged in no excesses of any kind, his

interest in me increased, as I thought, who had been accustomed to

nothing of the sort, beyond all reasonable measure-and I soon had

occasion to perceive that it was no idle curiosity that prompted his

consideration and inquiry.

Without my knowledge, he paid a visit to my uncle. This gentleman, I may

be permitted here to say, had been quite as much surprised as anybody

else, at my determined prosecution of my studies in spite of the

difficulties by which I was surrounded. That I was pursuing them, while

in the mercantile establishment to which I had gone, he did not believe;

and very frequently when I was at his house--for I visited the family,

and sometimes, though unfrequently, dined with them on a sabbath--he

jeered me on my progress--the “wonderful progress,” as he was pleased

to term it--which he felt sure I was making with my Coke and Blackstone,

while baling blankets, or bundling up plains and kerseys. This I bore

patiently, sustained as I was by the proud, indomitable spirit within

me, which assured me of the ultimate triumph which I felt positive would

ensue. I enjoyed his surprise--a surprise that looked something like

consternation--when the very day of my admission to the bar, and after

that event, I encountered him in the street, and in answer to his usual

sarcastic inquiry:--

“Well, Edward, how does the law come on? How is Sir William Blackstone,

Sir Edward Coke, and the rest of the white heads?”

I simply put the parchment into his hands which declared my formal

introduction to those venerable gentry.

“Why, you don't mean? Is it possible? So you really are admitted--a

lawyer, eh?”

“You see, sir--and that, too, without any Greek.”

“Well, and what good is it to do you? To have a profession, Edward, is

one thing; to get business, another!”

“Yes, sir--but I take it, the profession must be had first. One step

is gained. That much is sure. The other, I trust, will follow in due

season.”

“True, but I still think that the bricklayer would make the more money.”

“Were money-making, sir, the only object of life, perhaps, then, that

would be the most desirable business; but--”

“Oh, I forgot--the talents, the talents are to be considered.”

And after the utterance of this sneer, our dialogue as may be supposed,

did not much longer continue.

I did not know of the contemplated visit of Mr. Edgerton to my worthy

uncle, nor of its purpose, or I should, most assuredly, have put my veto

upon the measure with all the tenacity of a resentful spirit; but this

gentleman, who was a man of nice sensibility as well as strong good

sense, readily comprehended a portion of my secret history from what

was known to him. He easily conceived that my uncle was somewhat of

a niggard from the manner in which I had employed myself during my

preparation for the bar. He thought, however, that my uncle, though

unwilling to expend money in the prosecution of a scheme which he did

not approve--now that the scheme was so far successful as to afford

every promise of a reasonable harvest, could not do less than come

forward to the assistance of one who had shown such a determined

disposition to assist himself.

He was mistaken. He little knew the man. His interview with my uncle was

a short one. The parties were already acquainted, though not intimately.

They knew each other as persons of standing in the same community, and

this made the opening of Mr. Edgerton's business easy. I state the tenor

of the interview as it came to my knowledge afterward.

“Mr. Clifford,” he said, “you have a nephew--a young gentleman, who has

been recently admitted to the bar--Mr. Edward Clifford.”

The reply, with a look of wonder was necessarily affirmative.

“I have had much pleasure,” continued the other, “in knowing him for

some time. He is an intimate of my eldest son, and from what has met my

eyes, sir, I should say, you are fortunate in having a nephew of so much

promise.”

“Why, yes, sir, I believe he is a clever youth enough,” was the costive

answer.

“He is more than that, sir. I regard him, indeed, as a most astonishing

young man. The very manner in which he has pursued his studies while

engaged in the harassing labors of a large wholesale business house of

this city--alone establishes this fact.”

The cheeks of my uncle reddened. The last sentence of Mr. Edgerton

was unfortunate for his object. It conveyed a tacit reproof, which the

niggardly conscience of Mr. Clifford readily appropriated and, perhaps,

anticipated. He dreaded lest Mr. Edgerton knew all.

“You are probably aware, Mr. Edgcrton,” he replied with equal hesitancy

and haste--“you have heard that Edward Clifford is an orphan--that he

has nothing, and it was therefore necessary that he should learn to

employ himself; though it was against my wish, sir, that he went into a

mercantile house.”

There was something suppressed in this--a mean evasion--for he could

not easily have told Mr. Edgcrton, without a blush, that, instead of the

mercantile establishment, he would have made me a bricklayer's hodman.

But this, it seems, Edgerton had found out for himself. His reply,

however, was calculated to soothe the jealous apprehensions of Mr.

Clifford. He had an object in view, which he thought too important to

risk for the small pleasure of a passing sarcasm.

“Perhaps, it has happened for the best, Mr. Clifford. You were right in

requiring the young man to do for himself. Were I worth millions, sir, I

should still prefer that my son should learn that lesson--that he should

work out his own deliverance with the sweat of his own brow.”

“I agree with you, sir, perfectly,” replied the other, with increased

complacency. “A boy learns to value his money as he should, only when he

has earned it for himself.”

“Ah! it is not for this object simply,” replied Mr. Edgerton, “that I

would have him acquire habits of industry; it is for the moral results

which such habits produce--the firmness, character, consistency--the

strength and independence--temperance, justice--all of which arise, and

almost only, from obedience to this law. But it is clear that one can

not do everything by himself, and this young man, though he has gone on

in a manner that might shame the best of us, is still not so thoroughly

independent as he fancies himself. It will be some time before he will

be able to realize anything from his profession, and he will need some

small assistance in the meantime.”

“I can not help him,” exclaimed Mr. Clifford, abruptly--“I have not the

means to spare. My own family need everything that I can give. He has

himself only to blame. He chose his profession for himself. I warned him

against it. He needn't send to me.”

“Do not mistake me, Mr. Clifford,” said Mr. Edgerton, calmly. “Your

nephew knows nothing of my present visit. I would be loath that he

should know. It was the singular independence of his mind that led me

to the conviction, that he would sooner die than ask assistance from

anybody, that persuaded me to suggest to you in what manner you might

afford him an almost necessary help, without offending his sensibility.”

“Humph!” exclaimed the other, while a sneer mantled upon his lips. “You

are very considerate, Mr. Edgerton; but the same sensibilities might

prompt him to reject the assistance when tendered.”

“No, sir,” replied Edgerton, mildly--“I think I could manage that.”

“I am sorry, sir, that I can not second your wishes in any material

respect,” was the answer of my uncle;--“but I will see Edward, and let

him know that my house is open to him as it was from, the time he

was four years old; and he shall have a seat at my table until he can

establish himself more to his satisfaction; but money, sir, in truth, I

have not a cent to spare. My own necessities--”

“Enough, sir,” said Mr. Edgerton, mildly; “I take it for granted, Mr.

Clifford, that if you could contribute to the success of your brother's

son, you certainly would neither refuse nor refrain to do so.”

“Oh, surely--certainly not,” replied the other, hastily. “Anything

that I could do--anything in reason, sir, I should be very happy to do,

but--”

And then followed the usual rigmarole about “his own family,” and

“hard times,” and “diminished resources,” and all those stereotype

commonplaces which are for ever on the lips of stereotype insincere

people. Mr. Clifford did not perceive the dry and somewhat scornful

innuendo, which lay at the bottom of Mr. Edgerton's seemingly innocent

assumption; and the latter took his leave, vexed with himself at

having made the unsuccessful application--but still more angry with the

meanness of character which he had encountered in my uncle.

CHAPTER IV.

“She still soothed The mock of others.”

It is not improbable that, after a few hours given to calm reflection,

my uncle perceived how obnoxious he might be made to public censure for

his narrow treatment of my claims; and the next day he sent for me in

order to tender me the freedom of his house--a tender which he had made

the day before to Mr. Edgerton in my behalf. But his offer had been

already anticipated by that excellent friend that very day. Coming warm

and fresh from his interview with my uncle, he called upon me, and in a

very plain, direct, business-like, but yet kind and considerate manner,

informed me that he stood very much in need of an assistant who would

prepare his papers--did me the honor to say that he fancied I would suit

him better than anybody else he knew, and offered me six hundred dollars

for my labors in that capacity for the first year of my service. My

engagement to him, he said at the same time, did not imply such entire

employment as would incapacitate me for the execution of any business

which might be intrusted to my hands individually. I was permitted the

use of a desk in his office, and was also permitted to hang out my own

banner from his window I readily persuaded myself that I could be

of service to Mr. Edgerton--such service as would, perhaps, leave

my obligation a light one--and promptly acceded to his offer. He had

scarcely departed when a servant brought a note from Mr. Clifford. Even

while meditating what he fancied was a favor, he could not forbear the

usual sneer. The following was his communication:

“DEAR EDWARD: If you can spare a moment from your numerous clients, and

are not in a great hurry to make your deposites, you will suffer me to

see you at the office before two o'clock. Yours affectionately, J. B.

CLIFFORD.”

“Very affectionately!”! exclaimed. It might be nothing more than a

pleasantry which he intended by the offensive passages in his note; but

the whole tenor of his character and conduct forbade this conviction.

“No! no!” I muttered to myself, as the doubt suggested itself to my

mind; “no! no! it is the old insolence--the insolence of pride, of

conscious wealth--of power, as he thinks, to crush! But he is mistaken.

He shall find defiance. Let him but repeat those sarcasms and that sneer

which are but too frequent on his lips when he speaks to me, and I will

answer him, for the first time, by a narration which shall sting him to

the very soul, if he has one!”

This resolution was scarcely made when the image of Julia Clifford--the

sweet child--a child now no longer-the sweet woman--interposed, and

my temper was subdued of its resolve, though its bitterness remained

unqualified.

And what of Julia Clifford? I have said but little of her for some

time past, but she has not been forgotten. Far from it. She was still

sufficiently the attraction that drew me to the dwelling of my

selfish uncle. In the three years that I had been at the mercantile

establishment, her progress, in mind and person, had been equally

ravishing and rapid. She was no more the child, but the blooming

girl--the delicate blossom swelling to the bud--the bud bursting into

the flower--but the bloom, and the beauty, and the innocence--the rich

tenderness, and the dewy sweet, still remained the same through all the

stages of her progress from the infant to the woman. Wealth, and the

arrogant example of those about her, had failed to change the naturally

true and pure simplicity of her character. She was not to be beguiled by

the one, nor misguided by the other, from the exquisite heart which was

still worthy of Eden. When I was admitted to the bar at twenty-one, she

was sixteen--the age in our southern country when a maiden looks her

loveliest. But I had scarcely felt the changes in the last three years

which had been going on in her. I beheld beauties added to beauties,

charms to charms; and she seemed every day to be the possessor of fresh

graces newly dropped from heaven; but there was no change. Increased

perfection does not imply change, nor does it suffer it.

It was my custom, as the condescending wish of my uncle expressed, that

I should take my Sunday dinner with his family. I complied with this

request, and it was no hard matter to do so. But it was a sense of

delight, not of duty, that made me comply; and, but for Julia, I feel

certain that I should never have darkened the doors, which opened to

admit me only through a sense of duty. But the attraction--scarcely

known to myself--drew me with singular punctuality; and I associated the

privilege which had been accorded me with another. I escorted the ladies

to church; sometimes, too, when the business of my employers permitted,

I spent an evening during the week with the family; and beholding Julia

I was not over-anxious to perceive the indifference with which I was

treated by all others.

But let me retrace my steps. I subdued my choler so far as to go, with a

tolerable appearance of calmness if not humility, to the interview which

my uncle had been pleased to solicit. I need not repeat in detail what

passed between us. It amounted simply to a supercilious offer, on his

part, of lodging and board, until I should be sufficiently independent

to open the oyster for myself. I thanked him with respect and civility,

but, to his surprise, declined to accept his offer.

“Why, what do you propose to do?” he demanded.

“Do what I have been doing for the three past years; work for myself,

and pay my board from the proceeds of my own labor.”

“What, you go back to the merchants, do you? You are wiser than I

thought. The law would not give you your bread here for twenty years in

this city.”

“You are mistaken, uncle,” I said, good humoredly--“it is from the law

that I propose to get my bread.”

“Indeed!--You are even more sanguine than I thought you. But, pray, upon

what do you base your expectations?--the talents, I suppose.”

I felt the rankling of this well-known and offensive sneer, but replied

simply to the point:--

“No, sir, upon assurances which you will probably think far more worthy

of respect. I have already been employed by Mr. Edgerton as an attorney,

at a salary of six hundred dollars.”

“Ah, indeed! Well, you are a fortunate fellow, I must say, to get such a

helping hand at the outset. But you may want some small amount to begin

with--you can not draw upon Mr. Edgerton before services are rendered,

and if fifty or a hundred dollars, Edward--”

“I thank you, sir;--so far from wanting money, I should be almost able

to lend some. I have saved some two hundred from my mercantile salary.”

I enjoyed the ghastly grin which rose to his features. It was evident

that he was not pleased that I should be independent. He had set out

with the conviction, when my father died, that my support and education

would devolve upon him, and though they did not, yet it was plain enough

to me that he was not unwilling that such should be the impression of

the community. I had disarmed him entirely by the simplest process, and,

mortified at being disappointed, he was disposed to hate the youth

who had baffled him. It was the strangest thing in the world that such

should be the feeling of any man, and that, too, in reference to so near

a relation; but the case is nevertheless true. I saw it in his looks

that moment--I felt it in his accents. I KNEW that such was the real

feeling in his soul. There are motives which grow from vanities, piques,

rivalries, and the miserable ostentations of a small spirit, which act

more terribly upon the passions of man, than even the desire of gain or

the love of woman. The heart of Mr. Clifford, was, after its particular

fashion, a blind heart, like my own.

“Well, I am glad you are so well off. You will dine with us on Sunday, I

suppose?”

My affirmative was a matter of course; and, on Sunday, the evident

gratification of Julia when she saw me, amply atoned for all her

father's asperities and injustice. She had heard of my success--and

though in a sneer from the lips of her father it was not the less

productive of an evident delight to her. She met me with the expression

of this delight upon all her features.

“I am so glad, so very glad, and so surprised, too, Cousin Edward, at

your success. And yet you kept it all to yourself. You might have told

ME, at least, that you were studying law. Why was it that I was never

allowed to know of your intention?”

“Your father knew it, Julia.”

“Yes, so he says now. He says you told him something about it when you

first went into a store; but he did not think you in earnest.”

“Not in earnest! He little knew me, Julia.”

“But your telling him, Edward, was not telling me. Why did you not tell

me?”

“You might not have kept my secret, Julia. You know what naughty things

are said of your sex, touching your inability to keep a secret.”

“Naughty things, indeed--naughty and untrue! I'm sure, I should have

kept your secret, if you desired it. But why should it be a secret?”

“Why, indeed!” I muttered, as the shadow of my perverseness passed

deeply over my heart. “Why, unless to protect myself from the sneers

which would stifle my ambition, and the sarcasm which would have stung

my heart.”

“But you have no fear of these from me, Cousin Edward,” she said gently,

and with dewy eyes, while her fingers slightly pressed upon my wrist.

“I know not that, Cousin Julia, I somehow suspect everything and

everybody now. I feel very lonely in the world--as if there was a

destiny at work to make my whole life one long conflict, which I must

carry on without sympathy or succor.”

“Oh, these are only notions, Edward.”

“Notions!” I exclaimed, giving her a bitter smile as I spoke, while my

thoughts reverted to the three years of unremitting and almost uncheered

labor through which I had passed.

“Yes, notions only, Cousin Edward. You are full of such notions. You

every now and then start up with a new one; and it makes you gloomy and

discontented--”

“I make no complaints, Julia.”

“No, that is the worst of it. You make no complaints, I think, because

you do not wish to be cured of them. You prefer nursing your supposed

cause of grief, with a sort of solitary pleasure--the gratification of a

haughty spirit, that is too proud to seek for solace, and to find it.”

Julia had in truth touched upon the true nature of my misanthropy--of

that self vexing and self-torturing spirit which too effectually blinds

the heart.

“But could I find it, Julia?” I asked, looking into her eyes with an

expression which I began to feel was something very new to mine.

“Perhaps--I think--you could,” was the half-tremulous answer, as she

beheld the peculiar expression of my glance. The entrance of Mrs.

Clifford, was, perhaps, for the first time, rather a relief to us both.

“And so you are a lawyer, Edward? Well, who would have thought of it? It

must be a very easy thing to be made a lawyer.”

Julia looked at me with eyes that reddened with vexation. I felt my

gorge rising; but when I reflected upon the ignorance, and the unworthy

nature of the speaker, I overcame the disposition to retort, and

smilingly replied:--

“It's not such hard work as bricklaying, certainly.”

“Ah,” she answered, “if it were only half so profitable. But Mr.

Clifford says that a lawyer now is only another name for a beggar--a

sort of genteel beggar. The town's overrun with them--half of them live

upon their friends.”

“I trust I shall not add to the number of this class, Mrs. Clifford.”

“Oh, no! I know YOU never will, Cousin Edward,” exclaimed Julia, with a

flush upon her cheeks at her own temerity.

“Really, Julia,” said her mother, “you are very confident. How do you

know anything about it?”

The sharp glances of rebuke which accompanied this speech daunted the

damsel for a moment, and her eyes were suddenly cast in confusion upon

the ground; but she raised them with boldness a moment after, as she

replied:--

“We have every assurance, mother, for what I say, in the fact that

Cousin Edward has been supporting himself at another business, while

actually pursuing the study of law for these three years; and that very

pride about which father spoke today, is another assurance--”

“Bless my stars, child, you have grown very pert on a sudden, to talk

about guaranties and assurances, just as if you was a lawyer yourself.

The next thing we hear, I suppose, will be that instead of being busy

over the 'Seven Champions' and the last fashions, you, too, will be

turning over the leaves of big law-books, and carrying on such studies

in secret to surprise a body, as if there was any merit or good in doing

such things secretly.”

Julia felt that she had only made bad worse, and she hung her head in

silence. For my part, though I suppressed my choler, the pang was only

the more keenly felt for the effort to hide it. In my secret soul, I

asked, “Will the day never come when I, too, will be able to strike and

sting?” I blushed an instant after, at the small and mean appetite

for revenge that such an inquiry implied. But I came to the support of

Julia.

“Let me say, Mrs. Clifford, that I think--nay, I know--that Julia is

right in her conjecture. The guaranty which I have given to my friends,

by the pride and industry which I have shown, should be sufficient to

convince them what my conduct shall be hereafter. I know that I shall

never trespass upon their feelings or their pockets. They shall neither

blush for nor lose by their relationship with Edward Clifford.”

“Well said! well spoken! with good emphasis and proper action. Forrest

himself could scarce have done it better!”

Such was the exclamation of Mr. Clifford, who entered the room at this

moment. His mock applause was accompanied by a clamorous clapping of his

hands. I felt my cheeks burn, and my blood boil. The truth is, I was

not free from the consciousness that I had suffered some of the

grandiloquent to appear in my manner while speaking the sentence which

had provoked the ridicule of my uncle. The sarcasm acquired increase of

sting in consequence of its being partially well-merited. I replied with

some little show of temper, which the imploring glances of Julia did

not altogether persuade me to suppress. The “blind heart” was

growing stronger within me, from the increasing conviction of my own

independence. In this sort of mimic warfare the day passed off as usual.

I attended the family to church in the afternoon, took tea, and

spent the evening with them--content to suffer the “stings and

arrows”--however outrageous, of my exemplary and Christian aunt and

uncle, if permitted to enjoy the presence and occasional smiles of the

true angel, whose influence could still temper my feelings into a humane

and patient toleration of influences which they yet burned to trample

under foot.

CHAPTER V.

DEBUT.

A brief interval now passed over, after my connection begun with

Mr. Edgerton, in which time the world went on with me more smoothly,

perhaps, than ever. My patron--for so this gentleman deserves to

be called--was as indulgent as I could wish. He soon discerned

the weaknesses in my character, and with the judgment of an old

practitioner, he knew how to subdue and soften, without seeming to

perceive them. I need not say that I was as diligent and industrious,

and not less studious, while in his employ, than I had been in that of

my mercantile acquaintance. The entire toils of the desk soon fell upon

my shoulders, and I acquired the reputation among my small circle of

acquaintance, of being a very good attorney for a young beginner. It

is true, I was greatly helped by the continued perusal of an admirable

collection of old precedents, which a long period of extensive practice

had accumulated in the collection of my friend. But to be an attorney,

simply, was not the bound of my ambition. I fancied that the forum was,

before all others, my true field of exertion. The ardency of my temper,

the fluency of my speech, the promptness of my thought, and the warmth

of my imagination, all conspired in impressing on me the belief that I

was particularly fitted for the arena of public disputation. This, I may

add, was the opinion of Mr. Edgerton also; and I soon sought an occasion

for the display of my powers.

It was the custom at our bar--and a custom full of danger--for young

beginners to take their cases from the criminal docket. Their “'prentice

han',” was usually exercised on some wretch from the stews, just as

the young surgeon is permitted to hack the carcass of a tenant of the

“Paupers' Field,” the better to prepare him for practice on living and

more worthy victims. Was there a rascal so notoriously given over to the

gallows that no hope could possibly be entertained of his extrication

from the toils of the evidence, and the deliberations of a jury, he was

considered fair game for the young lawyers, who, on such cases, gathered

about him with all the ghostly and keen propensities of vultures about

the body of the horse cast out upon the commons.

The custom was evil, and is now, I believe, abandoned. It led to much

irreverence among thoughtless young men--to an equal disregard of that

solemnity which should naturally attach to the court of justice, and to

the life of the prisoner arraigned before it. A thoughtless levity too

frequently filled the mind of the young lawyer and his hearers, when it

was known that the poor wretch on trial was simply regarded as an agent,

through whose miserable necessity, the beginner was to try his strength

and show his skill in the art of speech-making. It was my fortune,

acting rather in compliance with the custom than my own preference, to

select one of these victims and occasions for my debut. I could have

done otherwise. Mr. Edgerton freely tendered to me any one of several

cases of his own, on the civil docket, in which to make my appearance;

but I was unwilling to try my hand upon a case in which the penalty of

ill success might be a serious loss to my friend's client, and might

operate to the injury of his business; and, another reason for my

preference was to be found--though not expressed by me--in the secret

belief which I entertained that I was peculiarly gifted with the art of

appealing to the passions, and the sensibilities of my audience.

Having made my determination, I proceeded to prepare myself by a due

consideration of the case at large; the history of the transaction,

which involved the life of my client--(the allegation was for

murder)--and of the testimony of the witnesses so far as it had been

suggested in the EXPARTE examination before the grand jury. I reviewed

the several leading principles on the subject of the crime; its

character, the sort of evidence essential to conviction, and certainly,

to do myself all justice, as effectually prepared myself for the duties

of the trial as probably any young man of the time and community was

likely to have done. The case, I need not add, was hopelessly against

me; the testimony conclusive; and I had nothing to do but to weigh its

character with keen examination, pick out and expose its defects and

inconsistencies, and suggest as plausible a presumption in favor of

the accused, as could be reasonably made out from the possibilities

and doubts by which all human occurrences are necessarily attended.

Something, too, might be done by judicious appeals to the principle of

mercy, assuming for the jury a discretion on this subject which, by the

way, they have no right to exercise.

I was joined in the case by my friend, young Edgerton. So far our boyish

fortunes had run together, and he was not unwilling, though against his

father's counsel, to take the same occasion with me for entering the

world in company. The term began; the case was one of the last on the

criminal docket, and the five days which preceded that assigned for

the trial, were days, I am constrained to confess, of a thrilling and

terrible agitation to my mind. I can scarcely now recall the feelings

of that week without undergoing a partial return of the same painful

sensations. My soul was striving as with itself, and seeking an outlet

for escape. I panted, as if for breath--my tongue was parched--my lips

clammy--my voice, in the language of the poet, clove to the roof of my

throat. Altogether, I have never felt such emotions either before or

since.

I will not undertake to analyze them, or account for those conflicting

sensations which make us shrink, with something like terror, from

the very object which we desire. At length the day came, and the man;

attended by his father, William Edgerton, and myself, took our places,

and stood prepared for the issue. I looked round me with a dizzy feeling

of uncertainty. Objects appeared to swim and tremble before my sight. My

eyes were of as little service to me then as if they had been gazing to

blindness upon the sun. Everything was confused and imperfect. I could

see that the courthouse was filled to overflowing, and this increased my

feebleness. The case was one that had occasioned considerable excitement

in the community, It was one of no ordinary atrocity. This was a

sufficient reason why the audience should be large. There was yet

another. There were two new debutants. In a community where popular

eloquence is, of all others, perhaps the most desirable talent, this

circumstance was well calculated to bring many listeners. Besides,

something was expected from both Edgerton and myself. We had not reached

our present position without making for ourselves a little circle, in

which we had friends to approve and exult, and enemies to depreciate,

and condemn.

The proceedings were at length opened by the attorney-general, the

witnesses examined, and turned over to us for cross-examination. This

part of the duty was performed by my associate. The business fairly

begun, my distraction was lessened. My mind, driven to a point, made a

decisive stand; and the sound of Edgerton's voice, as he proposed his

questions, served still more to dissipate my confusion. I furnished

him with sundry questions, and our examination was admitted to be quite

searching and acute. My friend went through his part of the labor with

singular coolness. He was in little or no respect excited. He, perhaps,

was deficient in enthusiasm. If there was no faltering in what he said,

there was no fine phrensy. His remarks and utterance were subdued to

the plainest demands of the subject. They were shrewd and sensible, not

particularly ingenious, nor yet deficient in the proper analysis of the

evidence. He acquitted himself creditably.

It was my part to reply to the prosecuting attorney; but when I rose,

I was completely confounded. Never shall I forget the pang of that

impotence which seemed to overspread my frame, and to paralyze every

faculty of thought and speech. I was the victim to my own ardor. A

terrible reaction of mind had taken place, and I was prostrated. The

desire to achieve greatness--the belief that it was expected from

me--the consciousness that hundreds of eyes were then looking into mine

with hungering expectation, overwhelmed me! I felt that I could freely

have yielded myself for burial beneath the floor on which I stood.

My cheeks were burning, yet my hands were cold as ice, and my knees

tottered as with an ague. I strove to speak, however; the eyes of the

judge met mine, and they looked the language of encouragement--of pity.

But this expression only increased my confusion. I stammered out nothing

but broken syllables and incoherent sentences. What I was saying, I know

not--how long I presented this melancholy spectacle of imbecility to the

eyes of my audience, I know not. It may have been a few minutes only.

To me it seemed an age; and I was just endued with a sufficient power

of reflection to ask myself whether I had not better sit down at once in

irreversible despair, when my wandering and hitherto vacant eyes caught

a glance-a single glance--of a face opposite.

It was that of my uncle! He was perched on one of the loftiest benches,

conspicuous among the crowd--his eyes keenly fixed upon mine, and

his features actually brightened by a smile of triumphant malice and

exultation.

That glance restored me. That single smile brought me strength. I was

timid, and weak, and impotent no longer. Under the presence of habitual

scorn, my habitual pride and independence returned to me. The tremors

left my limbs. The clammy huskiness which had loaded my tongue, and made

it cleave to the roof of my mouth, instantly departed; and my whole mind

returned to my control as if beneath the command of some almighty voice.

I now saw the judge distinctly--I could see the distinct features

of every juryman; and with the pride of my restored consciousness, I

retorted the smile upon my uncle's face with one of contempt, which was

not without its bitterness.

Then I spoke, and spoke with an intenseness, a directness of purpose

and aim--a stern deliberateness--a fire and a feeling--which certainly

electrified my hearers with surprise, if with no more elevated emotions.

That one look of hostility had done more for my mind than could have

been effected in my behalf by all the kind looks and encouraging voices

of all the friends in creation.

After a brief exordium, containing some general proposition on the

subject of human testimony, which meant no more than to suggest the

propriety of giving to the prisoner the benefit of what was doubtful and

obscure in the testimony which had been taken against him--I

proceeded to compare and contrast its several parts. There were some

inconsistencies in the evidence which enable me to make something of a

case. The character of the witnesses was something more than doubtful

and that, too, helped, in a slight degree, my argument. This was rapid,

direct, closely wound together, and proved--such was the opinion freely

expressed by others, afterward--that I had the capacity for consecutive

arrangement of facts and inferences in a very remarkable degree. I

closed with an appeal in favor of that erring nature, which, even in

our own cases, led us hourly to the commission of sins and errors; and

which, where the individual was poor, wretched, and a stranger, under

the evil influences of destitution, vicious associations, and a lot in

life, which, of necessity, must be low, might well persuade us to look

with an eye of qualified rebuke upon his offences.

This was, of course, no argument, and was only to be considered the

natural close of my labors. Before I was half through I saw my uncle

rise from his seat, and hastily leave the court-room; and then I knew

that I was successful--that I had triumphed, through that stimulating

influence of his hate, over my own fears and feebleness. I felt sure

that the speech must be grateful to the rest of my hearers, which HE

could not stay to hear; and in this conviction, the tone of my spirits

became elevated--the thoughts gushed from me like rain, in a natural

and unrestrainable torrent of language--my voice was clear and full, far

more so than I had ever thought it could be made--and my action far more

animated, perhaps, than either good taste or the occasion justified. The

criminal was not acquitted; but both William Edgerton and myself were

judged to have been eminently successful.

The result of my debut, in other respects, was flattering far beyond

my expectations. Business poured in upon me. My old employers,

the merchants, were particularly encouraging and friendly. They

congratulated me warmly on my success, assured me that they had always

thought I was better calculated for the law than trade; and ended by

putting into my hands all their accounts that needed a legal agency for

collection. Mr. Edgerton was loud in his approbation, and that very week

saw his son and myself united in co-partnership, with the prospect of

an early withdrawal of the father from business in my favor. Indeed,

the latter gave us to understand that his only purpose now was to see

us fairly under way, with a sufficient knowledge of the practice, and

assured of the confident of his own friends, in order to give his years

and enfeebled health a respite from the toils of the profession.

My worthy uncle, true to himself, played a very different part from

these gentlemen. He hung back, forbore all words on the subject of my

debut, and of the promising auspices under which my career was begun,

and actually placed certain matters of legal business into the hands

of another lawyer. Of this, he himself gave me the first information in

very nearly this language:--

“I have just had to sue Yardle & Fellows, and a few others, Edward, and

I thought of employing you, but you are young, and there may be some

legal difficulties in the way:--but when you get older, and arrive at

some experience, we will see what can be done for you.”

“You are perfectly right, sir,” was my only answer, but the smile upon

my lips said everything. I saw, then, that HE COULD NOT SMILE. He was

now exchanging the feeling of scorn which he formerly entertained for

one of a darker quality. Hate was the necessary feeling which followed

the conviction of his having done me wilful injustice--not to speak of

the duties left undone, which were equally his shame.

There were several things to mortify him in my progress. His sagacity as

a man of the world stood rebuked--his conduct as a gentleman--his blood

as a relation, who had not striven for the welfare and good report of

his kin, and who had suffered unworthy prejudices, the result of equal

avarice and arrogance, to operate against him.

There is nothing which a base spirit remembers with so much malignant

tenacity as your success in his despite. Even in the small matter just

referred to, the appropriation of his law business, the observant fates

gave me my revenge. By a singular coincidence of events, the very firm

against which he had brought action the day before were clients of

Mr. Edgerton. That gentleman was taken with a serious illness at the

approach of the next court, and the business of their defence devolved

upon his son and myself; and finally, when it was disposed of, which

did not happen till near the close of that year, it so happened that I

argued the case; and was successful.

Mr Clifford was baffled, and you may judge the feeling with which he now

regarded me. He had long since ceased to jest with me and at my expense.

He was now very respectful, and I could see that his dislike grew

daily in strict degree with his deference. But the deportment of

Mr. Clifford--springing as it did from that devil, which each man is

supposed to carry at times in his bosom, and of whose presence in mine

at seasons I was far from unaware--gave me less annoyance than that of

another of his household. Julia, too, had put on an aspect which, if

not that of coldness, was at least, that of a very marked reserve. I

ascribed this to the influence of her parents--perhaps, to her own

sense of what was due to their obvious desires--to her own feeling of

indifference--to any and every cause but the right one.

There were other circumstances to alarm me, in connection with this

maiden. She was, as I have said, singularly beautiful; and, as I

thought, until now, singularly meek and considerate. Her charms, about

which there could be no two opinions, readily secured her numerous

admirers, and when these were strengthened by the supposed fortune of

which she was to be the heiress, the suitors were, some of them, almost

as pressing, after the fashion of the world in which we lived, as those

of Penelope. I now no longer secured her exclusive regard at the

evening fireside or in our way to church. There were gallants on either

hand--gay, dashing lads, with big whiskers, long locks, and smart

ratans, upon whom madame, our lady-mother, looked with far more

complacency than upon me. The course of Julia, herself, was, however,

unexceptionable. She was singularly cautious in her deportment, and, if

reserved to me the most jealous scrutiny--after due reflection--never

enabled me to discover that she was more lavish of her regards to any

other. But the discovery of her position led me to another discovery

which the reader will wonder, as I did myself, that I had not made

before. This was the momentous discovery that my heart was irretrievably

lost to her--that I loved her with all the intensity of a first passion,

which, like every other passion in my heart, was absorbing during its

prevalence. I could name my feelings to myself only when I perceived

that such feelings were entertained by others;--only when I found that

the prize, which I desired beyond all others, was likely to be borne

away by strangers, did I know how much it was desirable to myself.

The discovery of this affection instantly produced its natural effects

as well upon my deportment as upon my feelings; and that sleepless

spirit of suspicion and doubt--that true creature and consequence of the

habitual distrust which my treatment from boyhood had instilled into my

mind--at once rose to strength and authority within me, and swayed me

even as the blasts of November sway the bald tops of the slender trees

which the gusts have already denuded of all foliage. The change in

Julia's deportment, of which I have already spoken, increased the

febrile fears and suspicions which filled my soul and overcame my

judgment. She too--so I fancied--had learned to despise and dislike me,

under the goading influences of her father's malice and her mother's

silly prejudices. I jumped to the conclusion instantly, that I was bound

to my self to assert my superiority, my pride and independence, in such

a manner, as most effectually to satisfy all parties that their hate or

love was equally a matter of indifference.

You may judge what my behavior was after this. For a time, at least, it

was sufficiently unbecoming. The deportment of Julia grew more reserved

than ever, and her looks more grave. There was a sadness evidently

mingled with this gravity which, amid all the blindness of my heart,

I could not help but see. She became sadder and thinner every day; and

there was a wo-begone listlessness about her looks and movements which

began to give me pain and apprehension. I discovered, too after a while,

that some apprehensions had also crept into the minds of her parents in

respect to her health. Their looks were frequently addressed to her in

evident anxiety. They restrained her exercises, watched the weather when

she proposed to go abroad, strode in every way to keep her from fatigue

and exposure; and, altogether, exhibited a degree of solicitude which at

length had the effect of arousing mine.

Involuntarily, I approached her with more tenderness than my vexing

spirit had recently permitted me to show; but I recoiled from the

effects of my own attentions. I was vexed to perceive that my approaches

occasioned a start, a flutter--a shrinking inward--as if my advance had

been obtrusive, and my attempts at familiarity offensive.

I was then little schooled in the intricacies of the female heart. I

little conjectured the origin of that seemingly paradoxical movement of

the mind, which, in the case of one, sensitive and exquisitely delicate,

prompts to flight from the very pursuit which it would yet invite; which

dreads to be suspected of the secret which it yet most loves to cherish,

and seeks to protect, by concealment, the feelings which it may not

defend; even as the bird hides the little fledglings of its care from

the hunter, whom it dare not attack.

Stupid, and worse than stupid, my blind heart saw nothing of this, and

perverted what it saw. I construed the conduct of Julia into matter of

offence, to be taken in high dudgeon and resolutely resented; and I

drew myself up stiffly when she appeared, and by excess of ceremonious

politeness only, avoided the reproach of brutality. Yet, even at such

moments, I could see that there was a dewy reproach in her eyes, which

should have humbled me, and made me penitent. But the effects of fifteen

years of injudicious management were not to be dissipated in a few

days even by the Ithuriel spells of love. My sense of independence

and self-resource had been stimulated to a diseased excess, until,

constantly on the QUI VIVE, it became dogged and inflexible. It was a

work of time to soften me and make me relent; and the labor then was one

of my own secret thoughts, and unbiased private decision. The attempt to

persuade or reason me into a conviction was sure to be a failure.

Months passed in this manner without effecting any serious change in

Julia, or in bringing us a step nearer to one another. Meanwhile, the

sphere of my observation and importance increased, as the circle of my

acquaintance became extended. I was regarded as a rising young man,

and one likely to be successful ultimately in my profession. The social

privileges of my friends, the Edgertons, necessarily became mine; and it

soon occurred that I encountered my uncle and his family in circles

in which it was somewhat a matter of pride with him to be permitted to

move. This, as it increased my importance in his sight, did not diminish

his pains. But he treated me now with constant deference, though with

the same unvarying coldness. When in the presence of others, he warmed a

little. I was then “his nephew;” and he would affect to speak with great

familiarity on the subject of my business, my interests, the last

case in which I was engaged, and so forth--the object of which was to

persuade third persons that our relations were precisely as they should

be, and as people would naturally suppose them.

At all these places and periods, when it was my lot to meet with Julia,

she was most usually the belle of the night. A dozen attendants followed

in her train, solicitous of all her smiles, and only studious how to

afford her pleasure. I, only, stood aloof--I, who loved her with a more

intense fervor than all, simply because I had none, or few besides to

love. The heart which has been evermore denied, will always burn with

this intensity. Its passion, once enkindled, will be the all-absorbing

flame. Devoted itself, it exacts the most religious devotion; and,

unless it receives it, recoils upon its own resources, and shrouds

itself in gloom, simply to hide its sufferings from detection.

I affected that indifference to the charms of this maiden, which no one

of human sensibilities could have felt. Opinions might have differed

in respect to her beauty; but there could be none on the score of her

virtues and her amiability, and almost as few on the possessions of her

mind. Julia Clifford, though singularly unobtrusive in society, very

soon convinced all around her that she had an excellent understanding,

which study had improved, and grace had adorned by all the most

appropriate modes of cultivation. Her steps were always followed by a

crowd--her seat invariably encircled by a group to itself. I looked on

at a distance, wrapped up in the impenetrable folds of a pride, whose

sleeves were momently plucked, as I watched, by the nervous fingers of

jealousy and suspicion. Sometimes I caught a timid glance of her eye,

addressed to the spot where I stood, full of inquiry, and, as I could

not but believe, of apprehension;--and yet, at such moments; I turned

perversely from the spot, nor suffered myself to steal another look at

one, all of whose triumphs seemed made at my expense.

On one of these occasions we met--our eyes and hands, accidentally; and,

though I, myself, could not help starting back with a cold chill at

my heart, I yet fancied there was something monstrous insulting in the

evident recoil of her person from the contact with mine, at the

same moment. I was about to turn hurriedly away with a slight bow of

acknowledgment, when the touching tenderness of her glance, so full of

sweetness and sadness, made me shrink with shame from such a rudeness.

Besides, she was so pale, so thin, and really looked so unwell, that my

conscience, in spite of that blind heart whose perversity would still

have kept me to my first intention, rebuked me, and drove me to my duty.

I approached--I spoke to her--and my words, though few, under the better

impulses of the moment, were gentle and solicitous, as they should have

been. My tones, too, were softened:--wilfully as I still felt, I could

not forbear the exercise of that better ministry of the affections

which was disposed to make amends for previous misconduct. I do not know

exactly what I said--I probably did nothing more than utter the ordinary

phrases of social compliment;--but everything was obliterated from my

mind in an instant, by the startling directness of what was said by

her. Looking at me with a degree of intentness by which, alone, she

was, perhaps, able to preserve her seeming calmness, she replied by an

inquiry as remote from what my observation called for as possible, yet

how applicable to me and my conduct!

“Why do you treat me thus, Edward? Why do you neglect me as you do--as

if I were a stranger, or, at least, not a friend? What have I done to

merit this usage from one who---”

She did not finish the sentence, but her reproachful eyes, full of a

dewy suffusion that seemed very much like tears, appeared to conclude it

thus--

“One who--used to love me!”

So different was this speech from any that I looked for--so different

from what the usage of our conventional world would have seemed to

justify--so strange for one so timid, so silent usually on the subject

of her own griefs, as Julia Clifford--that I was absolutely confounded.

Where had she got this courage? By what strong feeling had it been

stimulated? Had I been at that time as well acquainted with the sex as

I have grown since, I must have seen that nothing but a deep interest in

my conduct and regard, could possibly have prompted the spirit of one so

gentle and shrinking, to the utterance of so searching an appeal. And

in what way could I answer it? How could I excuse myself? What say, to

justify that cold, rude indifference to a relative, and one who had ever

been gentle and kind and true to me. I had really nothing to complain

of. The vexing jealousies of my own suspicious heart had alone

informed it to its perversion; and there I stood--dumb, confused,

stupid-speaking, when I did speak, some incoherent, meaningless

sentences, which could no more have been understood by her than they can

now be remembered by me. I recovered myself, however, sufficiently soon

to say, before we were separated by the movements of the crowd:--

“I will come to you to-morrow, Julia. Will you suffer me to see you in

the morning, say at twelve?”

“Yes, come!” was all her answer; and the next moment the harsh accents

of her ever-watchful mother warned us to risk no more.

CHAPTER VI.

DENIAL AND DEFEAT.

My sleep that night was anything but satisfactory. I had feverish

dreams, unquiet slumbers, and woke at morning with an excruciating

headache. I was in no mood for an explanation such as my promise

necessarily implied, but I prepared my toilet with particular

care--spent two hours at my office in a vain endeavor to divert myself,

by a resort to business, from the conflicting and annoying sensations

which afflicted me, and then proceeded to the dwelling of my uncle.

I was fortunate in seeing Julia without the presence of her mother. That

good lady had become too fashionable to suffer herself to be seen at so

early an hour. Her vanity, in this respect, baffled her vigilance, for

she had her own apprehensions on the score of my influence upon her

daughter. Julia was scarcely so composed in the morning as she had

appeared on the preceding night. I was now fully conscious of a flutter

in her manner, a flush upon her face, an ill-suppressed apprehension in

her eyes, which betokened strong emotions actively at work. But my own

agitation did not suffer me to know the full extent of hers. For the

first time, on her appearance, did I ask myself the question--“For what

did I seek this interview?” What had I to say--what near? How explain my

conduct--my coldness? On what imaginary and unsubstantial premises base

the neglect in my deportment, amounting to rudeness, of which she had

sufficient reason and a just right to complain? When I came to review

my causes of vexation, how trivial did they seem. The reserve which had

irritated me, on her part, now that I analyzed its sources, seemed a

very natural reserve, such as was only maidenly and becoming. I now

recollected that she was no longer a child--no longer the lively little

fairy whom I could dandle on my knee and fling upon my shoulder,

without a scruple or complaint. I stood like a trembling culprit in

her presence. I was eloquent only through the force of a stricken

conscience.

“Julia!” I exclaimed when we met, “I have come to make atonement. I feel

how rude I have been, but that was only because I was very wretched.”

“Wretched, Edward!” she exclaimed with some surprise. “What should make

you wretched?”

“You--you have made me wretched.”

“Me!” Her surprise naturally increased

“Yes, you, dear Julia, and you only.”

I took her hand in mine. Mine was burning--hers was colder than the

icicles. Need I say more to those who comprehend the mysteries of

the youthful heart. Need I say that the tongue once loosed, and the

declaration of the soul must follow in a rush from the lips. I told her

how much I loved her;--how unhappy it made me to think that others

might bear away the prize; that, in this way, my rudeness arose from my

wretchedness, and my wretchedness only from my love. I did not speak in

vain. She confessed an equal feeling, and we were suffered a brief hour

of unmitigated happiness together.

Surely there is no joy like that which the heart feels in the first

moment when it gives utterance to its own, and hears the avowed passion

of the desired object:--a pure flame, the child of sentiment, just

blushing with the hues of passion, just budding with the breath and

bloom of life. No sin has touched the sentiment;--no gross smokes have

risen to involve and obscure the flame; the altar is tended by pure

hands; white spirits; and there is no reptile beneath the fresh

blossoming flowers which are laid thereon. The grosser passions sleep,

like the fumes at the shrine of Apollo, beneath the spell of that

master passion in whose presence they can only maintain a subordinate

existence. I loved; I had told my love;--and I was loved in return. I

trembled with the deep intoxication of that bewildering moment; and how

I found my way back to my office--whom I saw on the way, or to whom I

spoke, I know not. I loved;--I was beloved. He only can conceive the

delirium of this sweet knowledge who has passed a life like mine--who

has felt the frowns and the scorn, and the contempt of those who should

have nurtured him with smiles--whose soul, ardent and sensitive, has

been made to recoil cheerlessly back on itself--denied the sunshine of

the affections, and almost forbade to hope. Suddenly, when I believed

myself most destitute, I had awakened to fortune--to the realization

of desires which were beyond my fondest dreams. I, whom no affection

hitherto had blessed, had, in a moment, acquired that which seemed to

me to comprise all others, and for which all others might have been

profitably thrown away.

I fancied now that henceforth my sky was to be without a cloud. I did

not--nor did Julia imagine for a moment that any opposition to our love

could arise from her parents. What reason now could they have to oppose

it? There was no inequality in our social positions. My blood had taken

its rise from the same fountains with her own. In the world's estimation

my rank was quite as respectable as that of any in my uncle's circle,

and, for my condition, my resources, though small, were improving daily,

and I had already attained such a place among my professional brethren,

as to leave it no longer doubtful that it must continue to improve.

My income, with economy--such economy as two simple, single-minded

creatures, like Julia and myself, were willing to employ--would already

yield us a decent support. In short, the idea of my uncle's opposition

to the match never once entered my head. Yet he did oppose it. I was

confounded with his blunt, and almost rugged refusal.

“Why, sir, what are your objections?”

He answered with sufficient coolness.

“I am sorry to refuse you, Edward, but I have already formed other

arrangements for my daughter. I have designed her for another.”

“Indeed, sir--may I ask with whom?”

“Young Roberts--his father and myself have had the matter for some time

in deliberation. But do not speak of it, Edward--my confidence in you,

alone, induces me to state this fact.”

“I am very much obliged to you, sir;--but you do not surely mean to

force young Roberts upon Julia, if she is unwilling?”

“Ah, she will not be unwilling. She's a dutiful child, who will readily

recognise the desires of her parents as the truest wisdom.”

“But, Mr. Clifford--you forget that Julia has already admitted to me a

preference--”

“So you tell me, Edward, and it is with regret that I feel myself

compelled to say that I wholly disapprove of your seeking my daughter's

consent, before you first thought proper to obtain mine. This seems to

me very muck like an abuse of confidence.”

“Really, sir, you surprise me more than ever. Now that you force me to

speak, let me say that, regarding myself as of blood scarcely inferior

to that of my cousin, I can not see how the privilege of which I availed

myself in proposing for her hand, can be construed into a breach of

confidence. I trust, sir, that you have not contemplated your brother's

son in any degrading or unbecoming attitude.”

“No, no, surely not, Edward; but mere equality of birth does not

constitute a just claim, by itself, to the affections of a lady.”

“I trust the equality of birth, sir, is not impaired on my part by

misconduct--by a want of industry, capacity--by inequalities in other

respects--”

“And talents!”

He finished the sentence with the ancient sneer. But I was now a man--a

strong one, and, at this moment particularly a stern one.

“Stop, sir,” I retorted; “there must be an end to this. Whether you

accede to my application or not, sir, there is nothing to justify you

in an attempt to goad and mortify my feelings. I have proffered to you

a respectful application for the hand of of your daughter, and though I

were poorer, and humbler, and less worthy in all respects than I am, I

should still be entitled to respectful treatment. At another time, with

my sensibilities less deeply interested than they are, I should probably

submit, as I have already frequently submitted, to the unkind and

ungenerous sarcasms in which you have permitted yourself to indulge at

my expense. But my regard for your daughter alone would prompt me to

resent and repel them now. The object of my interview with you is quite

too sacred--too solemnly invested--to suffer me to stand silently under

the scornful usage even of her father.”

All this may have been deserved by Mr. Clifford, but it was scarcely

discreet in me. It gave him the opportunity which, I do not doubt, he

desired--the occasion which he had in view. It afforded him an excuse

for anger, for a regular outbreak between us, which, in some sort,

yielded him that justification for his refusal, without which he would

have found it a very difficult matter to account for or excuse. We

parted in mutual anger, the effect of which was to close his doors

against me, and exclude me from all opportunities of interview with

Julia, unless by stealth. Even then, these opportunities were secured

by my artifice, without her privity. As dutiful as fond, she urged

me against them; and, resolute to “honor her father and mother” in

obedience to those holy laws without a compliance with which there is

little hope and no happiness, she informed me with many tears that

she was now forbidden to see me, and would therefore avoid every

premeditated arrangement for our meeting. I did not do justice to her

character, but reproached her with coldness--with a want of affection,

sensibility, and feeling.

“Do not say so, Edward--do not--do not! I cold--I insensible--I wanting

in affection for you! How, how can you think so?” And she threw herself

on my bosom and sobbed until I began to fancy that convulsions would

follow.

We separated, finally, with assurances of mutual fidelity--assurances

which, I knew, from the exclusiveness of all my feelings, my

concentrative singleness of character, and entire dependence upon the

beloved object of those affections which were now the sole solace of

my heart, would not be difficult for me to keep. But I doubted HER

strength--HER resolution--against the pressing solicitations of parents

whom she had never been accustomed to withstand. But she quieted me

with that singular earnestness of look and manner which had once before

impressed me previous to our mutual explanation. Like vulgar thinkers

generally, I was apt to confound weakness of frame and delicacy of

organization with a want of courage and moral resources of strength and

consolation.

“Fear nothing for my truth, Edward. Though, in obedience to my parents,

I shall not marry against their will, be sure I shall never marry

against my own.”

“Ah, Julia, you think so, but--”

“I know so, Edward. Believe nothing that you hear against me or of

me, which is unfavorable to my fidelity, until you hear it from my own

lips.”

“But you will meet me again--soon?”

“No, no, do not ask it, Edward. We must not meet in this manner. It is

not right. It is criminal.”

I had soon another proof of the decisive manner in which my uncle seemed

disposed to carry on the war between us. Erring, like the greater

number of our young men, in their ambitious desire to enter public

life prematurely, I was easily persuaded to become a candidate for the

general assembly. I was now just twenty-five--at a time when young

men are not yet released from the bias of early associations, and the

unavoidable influence of guides, who are generally blind guides. Until

thirty, there are few men who think independently; and, until this habit

is acquired--which, in too many cases, never is acquired--the individual

is sadly out of place in the halls of legislation. It is this premature

disposition to enter into public life, which is the sole origin of

the numberless mistakes and miserable inconsistencies into which our

statesmen fall; which cling to their progress for ever after, preventing

their performances, and baffling them in all their hopes to secure the

confidence of the people. They are broken-down political hacks in the

prime of life, and just at the time when they should be first entering

upon the duties of the public man. Seduced, like the rest, as well by my

own vanity as the suggestions of favoring friends, I permitted my

name to be announced, and engaged actively in the canvass. Perhaps the

feverish state of my mind, in consequence of my relations with Julia

Clifford and her parents, made me more willing to adopt a measure,

about which, at any other time, I should have been singularly slow and

cautious. As a man of proud, reserved, and suspicious temper, I had

little or no confidence in my own strength with the people; and defeat

would be more mortifying than success grateful to a person of my

pride. I fancied, however, that popular life would somewhat subdue

the consuming passions which were rioting within my bosom; and I threw

myself into the thick of the struggle with all the ardor of a sanguine

temperament.

To my surprise and increased vexation, I found my worthy uncle striving

in every possible way, without actually declaring his purpose, in

opposing my efforts and prospects. It is true he did not utter my name;

but he had formed a complete ticket, in which my name was not; and

he was toiling with all the industry of a thoroughgoing partisan in

promoting its success. The cup which he had commended to my lips was

overrunning with the gall of bitterness. Hostility to me seemed really

to have been a sort of monomania with him from the first. How else was

this canton procedure to be accounted for? how, even with this belief,

could it be excused? His conduct was certainly one of those mysteries of

idiosyncracy upon which the moral philosopher may speculate to doomsday

without being a jot the wiser.

If his desire was to baffle me, he was successful. I was defeated, after

a close struggle, by a meagre majority of seven votes in some seventeen

hundred; and the night after the election was declared, he gave a ball

in honor of the successful candidates, in which his house was filled to

overflowing. I passed the dwelling about midnight. Music rang from the

illuminated parlor. The merry dance proceeded. All was life, gayety, and

rich profusion. And Julia! even then she might have been whirling in

the capricious movements of the dance with my happy rival--she as

happy--unconscious of him who glided like some angry spectre beneath her

windows, and almost within hearing of her thoughtless voice.

Such were my gloomy thoughts--such the dark and dismal subjects of my

lonely meditations. I did the poor girl wrong. That night she neither

sung nor danced; and when I saw her again, I was shocked at the visible

alteration for the worse which her appearance exhibited She was now

grown thin, almost to meagreness; her cheeks were very wan, her lips

whitened, and her beauty greatly faded in consequence of her suffering

health.

Yet, will it be believed that, in that interview, though such was her

obvious condition, my perverse spirit found the language of complaint

and suspicion more easy than that of devotion and tenderness. I know

that it would be easy, and feel that it would be natural, to account for

and to excuse this brutality, by a reference to those provocations which

I had received from her father. A warm temper, ardent and glowing, it is

very safe to imagine, must reasonably become soured and perverse by bad

treatment and continual injury. But this for me was no excuse. Julia

was a victim also of the same treatment, and in far greater degree than

myself, as she was far less able to endure it. Mine, however, was the

perverseness of impetuous blood--unrestrained, unchecked--having a

fearful will, an impetuous energy, and, gradually, with success and

power, swelling to the assertion of its own unqualified dominion--the

despotism of the blind heart.

Julia bore my reproaches until I was ashamed of them. Her submission

stung me, and I loved then too ardently not to arrive in time at

justice, and to make atonement. Would I had made it sooner! When I had

finished all my reproaches and complainings, she answered all by telling

me that the affair with young Roberts had been just closed, and she

hoped finally, by her unqualified rejection of his suit, even though

backed by all her father's solicitations, complaints, nay, threats and

anger. How ungenerous and unmanly, after this statement had been made,

appeared all the bitter eludings in which I had indulged! I need not say

what efforts I made to atone for my precipitation and injustice; and

how easily I found forgiveness from one who knew not how to harbor

unkindness--and if she even had the feeling in her bosom, entertained it

as one entertains his deadliest foe, and expelled it as soon as its real

character was discovered.

CHAPTER VII.

TEMPTATION.

Thus stood the affair between my fair cousin and myself--a condition of

things seriously and equally affecting her health and my temper--when

an explosion took place, of a nature calculated to humble my uncle and

myself, if not in equal degree, or to the same attitude, at least to a

most mortifying extent in both cases. I have not stated before--indeed,

it was not until the affair which I am now about to relate had actually

exploded, that I was made acquainted with any of the facts which

produced it--that, prior to my father's death, there had been some large

business connections between himself and my uncle. In those days secret

connections in business, however dangerous they might be in social,

and more than equivocal in moral respects, were considered among the

legitimate practices of tradesmen. What was the particular sort of

relations existing between my father and uncle, I am not now prepared to

state, nor is it absolutely necessary to my narrative. It is enough for

me to say that an exposure of them took place, in part, in consequence

of some discovering made by my father's unsatisfied creditors, by which

the obscure transactions of thirty years were brought to light, or

required to be brought to light; and in the development of which, the

fair business fame of my uncle was likely to be involved in a very

serious degree--not to speak of the inevitable effects upon his

resources of a discovery and proof of fraudulent concealment. The

reputation of my father must have suffered seriously, had it not been

generally known that he left nothing--a fact beyond dispute from the

history of my own career, in which neither goods nor chattels, lands nor

money, were suffered to enure to my advantage.

The business was brought to me. The merchant who brought it, and who

had been busy for some years in tracing out the testimony, so far as it

could be procured, gave me to understand that he had determined to place

it in my hands for two reasons: firstly, to enable me to release

the memory of my father from the imputation--under any circumstances

discreditable--of bankruptcy, by compelling my uncle to disgorge the

sums which he had appropriated, and which, as was alleged, would satisfy

all my father's creditors; and, secondly, to give me an opportunity of

revenging my own wrongs upon one, of whose course of conduct toward me

the populace had already seen enough, during the last election, to have

a tolerably correct idea.

I examined the papers, thanked my client for his friendly intentions,

but declined taking charge of the case for two other reasons. My

relations to the dead and to the living were either of them sufficient

reasons for this determination. I communicated the grounds of action,

in a respectful letter, to my uncle, and soon discovered, by the alarm

which he displayed in consequence, that the cause of the complaint was

in all probability good. The case belonged to the equity jurisdiction,

and the relator soon filed his bill.

My uncle's tribulation may be conjectured from the fact that he called

upon me, and seemed anxious enough to bury the hatchet. He wished me to

take part in the proceedings--insisted, somewhat earnestly, and strove

very hard to impress me with the conviction that my father's memory

demanded that I should devote myself to the task of meeting and

confounding the creditor who thus, as it were, had set to work to rake

up the ashes of the dead; but I answered all this very briefly and very

dryly:--

“If my father has participated in this fraud, he has reaped none of its

pleasant fruits. He lived poor, and died poor. The public know that;

and it will be difficult to persuade them, with a due knowledge of

these facts, that he deliberately perpetrated such unprofitable villany.

Besides, sir, you do not seem to remember that, if the claim of Banks,

Tressell, & Sons, is good, it relieves my father's memory of the only

imputation that now lies against it--that of being a bankrupt.”

“Ay!” he cried hoarsely, “but it makes me one--me, your uncle.”

“And what reason, sir, have I to remember or to heed this relationship?”

I demanded sternly, with a glance beneath which he quailed.

“True, true, Edward, your reproach is a just one. I have not been

the friend I should have been; but--let us be friends, now, and

hereafter--we must be friends. Mrs. Clifford is very anxious that it

should be so--and--and--Edward,” solemnly, “you must help me out of this

business. You must, by Heaven, you must--if you would not have me blow

my brains out!”

The man was giving true utterance to his misery--the fruit of those

pregnant fears which filled his mind.

“I would do for you, sir, whatever is proper for me to do, but can not

meddle in this unless you are prepared to make restitution, which I

should judge to be your best course.”

“How can you advise me to beggar my child? This claim, if recognised,

will sweep everything. The interest alone is a fortune. I can not think

of allowing it. I would rather die!”

“This is mere madness, Mr. Clifford; your death would not lessen the

difficulty. Hear me, sir, and face the matter manfully. You must do

justice. If what I understand be true, you have most unfortunately

suffered yourself to be blinded to the dishonor of the act which you

have committed; you have appropriated wealth which did not belong to

you, and, in thus doing, you have subjected the memory of my father to

the reproach of injustice which he did not deserve. I will not add the

reproach which I might with justice add, that, in thus wronging the

father's memory, and making it cover your own improper gains, you have

suffered his son to want those necessaries of education and sustenance,

which--”

“Say no more, Edward, and it shall all be amended. Listen to me now; but

stay--close that door for a moment--there!--Now, look you.”

And, having taken these precautionary steps, the infatuated man

proceeded to admit the dishonest practices of which he had been guilty.

His object in making the confession, however, was not that he might make

reparation. Far from it. It was rather to save from the clutch of his

creditors, from the grasp of justice, his ill-gotten possessions. I have

no patience in revealing the schemes by which this was to be effected;

but, as a preliminary, I was to be made the proprietor of one half of

the sum in question, and the possessor of his daughter's hand; in return

for which I was simply to share with him in the performance of certain

secret acts, which, without rendering his virtue any more conspicuous,

would have most effectually eradicated all of mine.

“I have listened to you, Mr. Clifford, and with great difficulty. I now

distinctly decline your proposals. Not even the bribe, so precious in my

sight, as that which you have tendered in the person of your daughter,

has power to tempt me into hesitation. I will have nothing to do with

you in this matter. Restore the property to your creditors.”

“But, Edward, you have not heard;--your share alone will be twenty odd

thousand dollars, without naming the interest!”

“Mr. Clifford, I am sorry for you. Doubly sorry that you persist in

seeing this thing in an improper light. Even were I disposed to

second your designs, it is scarcely possible, sir, that you could be

extricated. The discovery of those papers, and the extreme probability

that Hansford, the partner of the English firm of Davis, Pierce, &

Hansford, is surviving, and can be found, makes the probabilities

strongly against you. My advice to you, is, that you make a merit of

necessity;--that you endeavor to effect a compromise before the affair

has gone too far. The creditors will make some concessions sooner than

trust the uncertainties of a legal investigation, and whether you lose

or gain, a legal investigation is what you should particularly desire to

avoid. If you will adopt this counsel, I will act for you with Banks &

Tressel: and if you will give me carte blanche, I think I can persuade

them to a private arrangement by which they will receive the principal

in liquidation of all demands. This may be considered a very fair basis

for an arrangement, since the results of the speculation could only

accrue from the business capacities of the speculator, and did not

belong to a fund which the proprietor had resolved not to appropriate,

and which must therefore, have been entirely unproductive. I do not

promise you that they will accept, but it is not improbable. They are

men of business--they need, at this moment, particularly, an active

capital; and have had too much knowledge of the doubts and delays

attending a prolonged suit in equity, not to listen to a proposition

which yields them the entire principal of their claim.”

I need not repeat the arguments and entreaties by which I succeeded

in persuading my uncle to accede to the only arrangement which could

possibly have rescued him from the public exposure which was impending;

but he did consent, and, armed with his credentials, I proceeded to the

office of Banks & Tressell, without loss of time.

Though resolved, if I could effect the matter, that my uncle should

liquidate their claim to the uttermost farthing which they required, it

was my duty to make the best bargain which I could, in reference to his

unfortunate family. Accordingly, without suffering them to know that

I had carte blanche, I simply communicated to them my wish to have the

matter arranged without public investigation--that I was persuaded

from a hasty review which I had given to the case, that there were good

grounds for action;--but, at the same time, I dwelt upon the casualties

of such a course--the possibility that the chief living witness--if he

were living--might not be found, or might not survive long enough--as he

was reputed to be very old--for the purposes of examination before the

commission;--the long delays which belonged to a litigated suit, in

which the details of a mixed foreign and domestic business of so many

years was to be raked up, reviewed and explained; and the further

chances, in the event of final success, of the property of the debtor

being so covered, concealed, or made away with, as to baffle at last all

the industry and labors of the creditor.

The merchants were men of good sense, and estimated the proverb--“a bird

in hand is worth two in the bush”--at its true value. It did not require

much argument to persuade them to receive a sum of over forty thousand

dollars, and give a full discharge to the defendant; and I flattered

myself that the matter was all satisfactorily arranged, and had just

taken a seat at my table to write to Mr. Clifford to this effect, when,

to my horror, I receive a note from that gentleman, informing me of his

resolve to join issue with the claimants, and “maintain his RIGHTS(?) to

the last moment.” He thanked me, in very cold consequential style,

for my “FRIENDLY efforts”--the words italicised, as I have now written

it;--but conduced with informing me that he had taken the opinion of

older counsel, which, though it might be less correct than mine, was,

perhaps, more full of promise for his interests.

This note justified me in calling upon the unfortunate gentleman. It is

true I had not committed him to Banks & Tressell--the suggestions which

I had made for the arrangement were all proposed as a something which I

might be able to bring about in a future conference with him--but I was

too anxious to save him from his lamentable folly--from that miserable

love of money, which, overreaching itself in its blindness, as does

every passion--was not only about to deliver him to shame but to

destitution also.

I found him in Mrs. Clifford's presence. That simple and silly woman

had evidently been made privy to the whole transaction, so far as my

arguments had been connected with it;--for ALL the truth is not often to

be got out of the man who means or has perpetrated a dishonesty. She

had been alarmed at the immense loss of money, and consequently of

importance, with which the family was threatened; and without looking

into, or being able to comprehend the facts as they stood, she had taken

around against any measure which should involve such a sacrifice. Her

influence over the weak man beside her, was never so clear to me as now;

and in learning to despise his character more than ever, I discovered,

at the same time, the true source of many of his errors and much of his

misconduct. She did not often suffer him to reply for himself--yielded

me the ultimatum from her own lips; and condescended to assure me that

she could only ascribe the advice which I had given to her husband, to

the hostile disposition which I had always entertained for herself and

family. That I was “a wolf in sheep's clothing, SHE had long since been

able to see, though all others unhappily seemed blind.”

Here she scowled at her husband, who contented himself with walking to

and fro, playing with his coatskirts, and feeling, no doubt, a portion

of the shame which his miserable bondage to this silly woman necessarily

incurred.

“Mr. Clifford has got a lawyer who can do for him what it seems you can

not,” was her additional observation. “He promises to get him to dry

land, and save him without so much as wetting his shoes, though his

own blood relations, who are thought so smart, can not, it appears, do

anything.”

Of course I could have nothing to say to the worthy lady, but my

expostulations were freely urged to Mr. Clifford.

“You, at least,” said I, “should know the risks which you incur by this

obstinacy. Mrs. Clifford can not be expected to know; and I now warn

you, sir, that the case of Banks & Tressell is a very strong one, very

well arranged, and so admirably hung together, in its several links of

testimony, that even the absence of old Hansford (the chief witness),

should his answers never be obtained, would scarcely impair the

integrity of the evidence. In a purely moral point of view, nothing can

be more complete than it is now.”

“Well, and who would it convict, Mr. Edward Clifford?” exclaimed the

inveterate lady, anticipating her husband's answer with accustomed

interference; “who would it convict, if not your own father? It was as

much his business as my husband's; and if there's any shame, I'm sure

his memory and his son will have to bear their share of it; and this

makes it so much more wonderful to me that you should take sides against

Mr. Clifford, instead of standing up in his defence.”

“I would save him, madam, if you and he would let me,” I exclaimed

with some indignation. “Your reference to my father's share in this

transaction does not affect me, as it is very evident that you are not

altogether acquainted with the true part which he had in it. He had all

the risk, all the loss, all the blame--and your husband all the profit,

all the importance. He lived poor, and died so; without a knowledge of

those profitable results to his brother of which the latter has made his

own avails by leaving my father's memory to aspersion which he did not

deserve, and his son to destitution and reproach which he merited as

little. My father's memory is liable to no reproach when every creditor

knows that he died in a state of poverty, in which his only son has

ever lived. Neither he nor I ever shared any of the pleasant fruits, for

which we are yet to be made accountable.”

“And whose fault was it that you didn't get your share I'm sure Mr.

Clifford made you as handsome an offer yesterday as any man could

desire. Didn't he offer you half? But I suppose nothing short of the

whole would satisfy so ambitious a person.”

“Neither the half nor the whole will serve me, madam, in such a

business. My respect for your husband and his family would, of itself,

have been sufficient to prevent my acceptance of his offer.”

“But there was Julia, too, Edward!” said Mr. Clifford, approaching me

with a most insinuating smile.

“It is not yet too late,” said Mrs. Clifford, unbending a little. “Take

the offer of Mr. Clifford, Edward, and be one of us; and then this ugly

business--”

“Yes, my dear Edward, even now, though I have spoken with young Perkins

about the affair, and he tells me there's nothing so much to be afraid

of, yet, for the look of the thing, I'd rather that you should be seen

acting in the business. As it's so well known that your father had

nothing, and you nothing, it'll then be easy for the people to believe

that nothing was the gain of any of us; and--and--”

“Young Perkins may think and say what he pleases, and you are yourself

capable of judging how much respect you may pay to his opinion. Mine,

however, remains unchanged. You will have to pay this money--nay, this

necessity will not come alone. The development of all the particulars

connected with the transaction will disgrace you for ever, and drive you

from the community. Even were I to take part with you, I do not see that

it would change the aspect of affairs. So far from your sharing with me

the reputation of being profitless in the affair, the public would more

naturally suspect that I had shared with you--now, if not before--and

the whole amount involved would not seduce me to incur this imputation.”

“But my daughter--Julia--”

“Do not speak of her in this connection, I implore you, Mr. Clifford.

Let her name remain pure, uncontaminated by any considerations, whether

of mere gain or of the fraud which the gain is supposed to involve.

Freely would I give the sum in question, were it mine, and all the

wealth besides that I ever expect to acquire, to make Julia Clifford my

wife;--but I can not suffer myself, in such a case as this, to accept

her as a bribe, and to sanction crime. Nay, I am sure that she too would

be the first to object.”

“And so you really refuse? Well, the world's coming to a pretty pass.

But I told Mr. Clifford, months ago, that you had quite forgot yourself,

ever since you had grown so great with the Edgertons, and the Blakes,

and Fortescues, and all them high-headed people. But I'm sure, Mr.

Edward Clifford, my daughter needn't go a-begging to any man; and as for

this business, whatever you may say against young Perkins, I'll take

his opinion of the law against that of any other young lawyer in the

country. He's as good as the best, I'm thinking.”

“Your opinion is your own, Mrs. Clifford, but I beg to set you right on

the subject of mine. I did not say anything against Mr. Perkins.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon; I'm sure you did. You said he was nothing of a

lawyer, and something more.”

Was there ever a more perverse and evil and silly woman! I contented

myself with assuring her that she was mistaken and had very much

misunderstood me--took pains to repeat what I had really said, and then

cut short an interview that had been painful and humbling to me on many

grounds. I left the happy pair tête-à-tête, in their princely parlor

together, little fancying that there was another argument which had been

prepared to overthrow my feeble virtue. But all this had been arranged

by the small cunning of this really witless couple. I was left to find

my way down stairs as I might; and just when I was about to leave the

dwelling--vexed to the heart at the desperate stolidity of the miserable

man, whom avarice and weakness were about to expose to a loss which

might be averted in part, and an exposure to infamy which might wholly

be avoided--I was encountered by the attenuated form and wan countenance

of his suffering but still lovely daughter.

CHAPTER VIII.

LOVE FINDS NO SMOOTH WATER IN THE SEA OF LAW

“Julia!” I exclaimed, with a start which betrayed, I am sure, quite

as much surprise as pleasure. My mood was singularly inflexible. My

character was not easily shaken, and, once wrought upon by any leading

influence, my mind preserved the tone which it acquired beneath it, long

after the cause of provocation had been withdrawn. This earnestness of

character--amounting to intensity--gave me an habitual sternness of

look and expression, and I found it hard to acquire, of a sudden,

that command of muscle which would permit me to mould the stubborn

lineaments, at pleasure, to suit the moment. Not even where my heart was

most deeply interested--thus aroused--could I look the feelings of the

lover, which, nevertheless, were most truly the predominant ones within

my bosom.

“Julia,” I exclaimed, “I did not think to see you.”

“Ah, Edward, did you wish it?” she replied in very mournful accents,

gently reproachful, as she suffered me to take her hand in mine, and

lead her back to the parlor in the basement story. I seated her upon the

sofa, and took a place at her side.

“Why should I not wish to see you, Julia? What should lead you to fancy

now that I could wish otherwise?”

“Alas!” she replied, “I know not what to think--I scarcely know what

I say. I am very miserable. What is this they tell me? Can it be true,

Edward, that you are acting against my father--that you are trying to

bring him to shame and poverty?”

I released her hand. I fixed my eyes keenly upon hers.

“Julia, you have your instructions what to say. You are sent here for

this. They have set you in waiting to meet me here, and speak things

which you do not understand, and assert things which I know you can not

believe.”

“Edward, I believe YOU!” she exclaimed with emphasis, but with downcast

eyes; “but it does not matter whether I was sent here, or sought you of

my own free will. They tell me other things--there is more--but I have

not the heart to say it, and it needs not much.”

“If you believe me, Julia, it certainly does not need that you should

repeat to me what is said of me by enemies, equally unjust to me, and

hostile to themselves. Yet I can readily conjecture some things which

they have told you. Did they not tell you that your hand had been

proffered me, and that I had refused it?”

She hung her head in silence.

“You do not answer.”

“Spare me; ask me not.”

“Nay, tell me, Julia, that I may see how far you hold me worthy of your

love, your confidence. Speak to me--have they not told you some such

story?”

“Something of this; but I did not heed it, Edward.”

“Julia--nay!--did you not?”

“And if I did, Edward--”

“It surely was not to believe it?”

“No! no! no! I had no fears of you--have none, dear Edward! I knew that

it was not, could not be true.”

“Julia, it was true!”

“Ah!”

“True, indeed! There was more truth in THAT than in any other part of

the story. Nay, more--had they told you all the truth, dearest Julia,

that part, strange as it may appear, would have given you less pain than

pleasure.”

“How! Can it be so?”

“Your hand was proffered me by your father, and I refused it. Nay, look

not from me, dearest--fear not for my affection--fear nothing. I should

have no fear that you could suppose me false to you, though the whole

world should come and tell you so. True love is always secured by a

just confidence in the beloved object; and, without this confidence,

the whole life is a series of long doubts, struggles, griefs, and

apprehensions, which break down the strength, and lay the spirit in the

dust. I will now tell you, in few words, what is the relation in which

I stand to your father and his family. He, many years ago, committed an

error in business, which the laws distinguish by a harsher name. By

this error he became rich. Until recently, the proofs of this error were

unknown. They have lately been discovered by certain claimants, who are

demanding reparation. In the difficulty of your father, he came to me.

I examined the business, and have given it as my opinion that he should

stifle the legal process by endeavoring to make a private arrangement

with the creditors.”

“Could he do this?”

“He could. The creditors were willing, and at first he consented that I

should arrange it with them. He now rejects the arrangement.”

“But why?”

“Because it involves the surrender of the entire amount of property

which they claim--a sum of forty thousand dollars.”

“But, dear Edward, is it due?--does my father owe this money? If he

does, surely he can not refuse. Perhaps he thinks that he owes nothing.”

“Nay, Julia, unhappily he knows it, and the offer of your hand, and half

of the sum mentioned, was made to me, on the express condition that I

should exert my influence as a man, and my ingenuity as a lawyer, in

baffling the creditors and stifling the claim.”

The poor girl was silent and hung her head, her eyes fixed upon the

carpet, and the big tears slowly gathering, dropping from them, one,

by one. Meanwhile, I explained, as tenderly as I could, the evil

consequences which threatened Mr. Clifford in consequence of his

contumacy.

“Alas” she exclaimed, “it is not his fault. He would be willing--I

heard him say as much last night--but mother--she will not consent. She

refused positively the moment father said it would be necessary to sell

out, and move to a cheaper house. Oh, Edward, is there no way that

you can save us? Save my father from shame, though he gives up all the

money.”

“Would I not do this, Julia? Nay, were I owner of the necessary amount

myself, believe me, it should not be withheld.”

“I do believe you, Edward; but”--and here her voice sunk to a

whisper--“you must try again, try again and again--for I think that

father knows the danger, though mother does not; and I think--I hope--he

will be firm enough, when you press him, and warn him of the danger, to

do as you wish him.”

“I am afraid not, Julia. Your mother--”

“Do not fear; hope--hope all, dear Edward; for, to confess to you, I

KNOW that they are anxious to have your support--they said as much. Nay,

why should I hide anything from you? They sent me here to see--to speak

with you, and--”

“To see what your charms could do to persuade me to be a villain. Julia!

Julia! did you think to do this--to have me be the thing which they

would make me?”

“No! no!--Heaven forbid, dear Edward, that you should fancy that any

such desire had a place, even for a moment, in my mind. No! I knew not

that the case involved any but mere money considerations. I knew not

that--”

“Enough! Say no more, Julia! I do not think that you would counsel me to

my own shame.”

“No! no! You do me only justice. But, Edward, you will save my father!

You will try--you will see him again--”

“What! to suffer again the open scorn, the declared doubts of my

friendship and integrity, which is the constant language of your mother?

Can it be that you would desire that I should do this--nay, seek it?”

“For my poor father's sake!” she cried, gaspingly.

But I shook my head sternly.

“For mine, then--for mine! for mine!”

She threw herself into my arms, and clung to me until I promised all

that she required. And as I promised her, so I strove with her father.

I used every argument, resorted to every mode of persuasion, but all was

of no avail. Mr. Clifford was under the rigid, the iron government

of his fate! His wife was one of those miserably silly women--born,

according to Iago--

“To suckle fools and chronicle small beer”--

who, raised to the sudden control of unexpected wealth, becomes insane

upon it, and is blind, deaf, and dumb, to all counsel or reason which

suggests the possibility of its loss. From the very moment when Mr.

Clifford spoke of selling out house, horses, and carriage, as the

inevitable result which must follow his adoption of my recommendation,

she declared herself against it at all hazards, particularly when

her husband assured her that “the glorious uncertainties of the law”

afforded a possibility of his escape with less loss. The loss of money

was, with her, the item of most consideration; her mind was totally

insensible to that of reputation. She was willing to make this

compromise with me, as a sort of alternative, for, in that case, there

would be no diminution of attendance and expense--no loss of rank

and equipage. We should all live together--how harmoniously, one may

imagine--but the grandeur and the state would still be intact and

unimpaired. Even for this, however, she was not prepared, when she

discovered that there was no certainty that my alliance would bring

immunity to her husband. How this notion got even partially into his

head, I know not; unless in consequence of a growing imbecility of

intellect, which in a short time after betrayed itself more strikingly.

But of this in its own place.

My attempts to convince my unfortunate uncle were all rendered

unavailing, and shown to be so to Julia herself in a very short time

afterward. The insolence of Mrs. Clifford, when I did seek an interview

with her husband, was so offensive and unqualified, that Julia herself,

with a degree of indignation which she could not entirely suppress,

begged me to quit the house, and relieve myself from such undeserved

insult and abuse. I did so, but with no unfriendly wishes for the

wretched woman who presided over its destinies, and the no less wretched

husband whom she helped to make so; and my place as consulting friend

and counsellor was soon supplied by Mr. Perkins--one of those young

barristers, to be found in every community, who regard the “penny fee”

as the sine qua non, and obey implicitly the injunction of the scoundrel

in the play “Make money--honestly if you can, but--make money!” He was

one of those creatures who set people at loggerheads, goad foolish and

petulant clients into lawsuits, stir up commotions in little sets,

and invariably comfort the suit-bringer with the most satisfactory

assurances of success. It was the confident assurances of this person

which had determined Mr. Clifford--his wife rather--to resist to the

last the suit in question. Through the sheer force of impudence, this

man had obtained a tolerable share of practice. His clients, as may be

supposed, lay chiefly among such persons as, having no power or standard

for judging, necessarily look upon him who is most bold and pushing as

the most able and trustworthy. The bullies of the law--and, unhappily,

the profession has quite too many--are very commanding persons among the

multitude. Mr. Clifford knew this fellow's mental reputation very well,

and was not deceived by the confidence of his assurances; nay, to the

last, he showed a hankering desire to give me the entire control of the

subject; but the hostility of Mrs. Clifford overruled his more prudent

if not more honorable purposes; and, as he was compelled to seek a

lawyer, the questionable moral standing of Perkins decided his choice.

He wished one, in short, to do a certain piece of dirty work: and, as if

in anticipation of the future, he dreaded to unfold the case to any of

the veterans, the old-time gentlemen and worthies of the bar. I proposed

this to him. I offered to make a supposititious relation of the facts

for the opinion of Mr. Edgerton and others--nay, pledged myself to

procure a confidential consultation--anything, sooner than that he

should resort to a mode of extrication which, I assured him, would only

the more deeply involve him in the meshes of disgrace and loss. But

there was a fatality about this gentleman--a doom that would not be

baffled, and could not be stayed. The wilful mind always precipitates

itself down the abyss; and, whether acting by his own, or under the

influence of another's judgment, such was, most certainly, the case with

him. He was not to be saved. Mr. Perkins was regularly installed as

his defender--his counsellor, private and public--and I was compelled,

though with humiliating reluctance, to admit to the plaintiffs, Banks &

Tressell, that there was no longer any hope of compromise. The issue

on which hung equally his fortune and his reputation was insanely

challenged by my uncle.

CHAPTER IX.

DUELLO.

But my share in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was

no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave

the proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had

worn before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her

husband's lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of

the lawsuit. Her voluminous discourse involved her opinions of her

neighbors, friends, and relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I

was suddenly surprised by a visit from a gentleman--one of the members

of the bar--who placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read

this billet with no small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain

reports had reached his ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously

of his abilities and character, and concluded with an explicit demand,

not for an explanation, but an apology. My answer was immediate.

“You will do me the favor to say, Mr. Carter, that Mr. Perkins has been

misinformed. I never uttered anything in my life which could disparage

either his moral or legal reputation.”

“I am sorry to say, Mr. Clifford,” was the reply, “that denial is

unnecessary, and can not be received. Mr. Perkins has his information

from the lips of a lady; and, as a lady is not responsible, she can not

be allowed to err. I am required, sir to insist on an apology. I have

already framed it, and it only needs your signature.”

He drew a short, folded letter, from his pocket, and placed it before

me. There was so much cool impertinence in this proceeding, and in the

fellow's manner, that I could with difficulty refrain from flinging the

paper in his face. He was one of the little and vulgar clique of which

Perkins was a sort of centre. The whole set were conscious enough of the

low estimate which was put upon them by the gentlemen of the bar. Denied

caste, they were disposed to force their way to recognition by the

bully's process, and stung by some recent discouragements, Mr. Perkins

was, perhaps, rather glad than otherwise, of the silly, and no less

malicious than silly, tattle of Mrs. Clifford for I did not doubt that

the gross perversion of the truth which formed the basis of his note,

had originated with her, which enabled him to single out a victim, who,

as the times went, had suddenly risen to a comparative elevation which

is not often accorded to a young beginner. I readily conjectured his

object from his character and that of the man he sent. My own nature was

passionate; and the rude school through which my boyhood had gone,

had made me as tenacious of my position as the grave. That I should be

chafed by reptiles such as these, stung me to vexation; and though I

kept from any violence of action, my words did not lack of it.

“Mr. Perkins is, permit me to say, a very impertinent fellow; and, if

you please, our conference will cease from this moment.”

He was a little astounded--rose, and then recovering himself, proceeded

to reply with the air of a veteran martinet.

“I am glad, sir, that you give me an opportunity of proceeding with this

business without delay. My friend, Mr. Perkins, prepared me for some

such answer. Oblige me, sir, by reading this paper.” He handed me the

challenge for which his preliminaries had prepared me.

“Accepted, sir; I will send my friend to you in the course of the

morning.”

As I uttered this reply, I bowed and waved him to the door. He did not

answer, other than by a bow, and took his departure. The promptness

which I had shown impressed him with respect. Baffled, in his first

spring, the bully, like the tiger, is very apt to slink back to his

jungle. His departure gave me a brief opportunity for reflection, in

which I slightly turned over in my mind the arguments for and against

duelling. But these were now too late--even were they to decide me

against the practice--to affect the present transaction; and I sallied

out to seek a friend--a friend!

Here was the first difficulty. I had precious little choice among

friends. My temper was not one calculated to make or keep friends. My

earnestness of character, and intensity of mood, made me dictatorial;

and where self-esteem is a large and active development, as it must

be in an old aristocratic community, such qualities are continually

provoking popular hostility. My friends, too, were not of the kind to

whom such scrapes as the present were congenial. I was unwilling to go

to young Edgerton, as I did not wish to annoy his parents by my novel

anxieties. But where else could I turn? To him I went. When he heard my

story, he began by endeavoring to dissuade me from the meeting.

“I am pledged to it, William,” was my only answer.

“But, Edward, I am opposed to duelling myself, and should not promote or

encourage, in another, a practice which I would not be willing myself to

adopt.”

“A good and sufficient reason, William. You certainly should not. I will

go to Frank Kingsley.”

“He will serve you, I know; but, Edward, this duelling is a bad

business. It does no sort of good. Kill Perkins, and it does not prove

to him, even if he were then able to hear, that Mrs. Clifford spoke

a falsehood; and if he kills you, you are even still farther from

convincing him.

“I have no such desire, William; and your argument, by the way, is

one of those beggings of the question which the opponents of duelling

continually fall into when discussing the subject. The object of the

man, who, in a case like mine, fights a duel, is not to prove his truth,

but to protect himself from persecution. Perkins seeks to bully and

drive me out of the community. Public opinion here approves of this mode

of protecting one's self;--may, if I do not avail myself of its agency,

the same public opinion would assist my assailant in my expulsion. I

fight on the same ground that a nation fights when it goes to war. It is

the most obvious and easy mode to protect myself from injury and insult.

So long as I submit, Perkins will insult and bully, and the city will

encourage him, If I resist, I silence this fellow, and perhaps protect

other young beginners. I have not the most distant idea of convincing

him of my truth by fighting him--may, the idea of giving him

satisfaction is an idea that never entered my brain. I simply take a

popular mode of securing myself from outrage and persecution.”

“But, do you secure yourself? Has duelling this result?”

“Not invariably, perhaps; simply because the condition of humanity does

not recognise invariable results. If it is shown to be the probable, the

frequent result, it is all that can be expected of any human agency or

law.”

“But, is it probable--frequent?”

“Yes, almost certain, almost invariable. Look at the general manners,

the deportment, the forbearance, of all communities where duelling is

recognised as an agent of society. See the superior deference paid to

females, the unfrequency of bullying, the absence of blackguarding, the

higher tone of this public press, and of society in general, from which

the public press takes its tone, and which it represents in our country,

but does not often inform. Even seduction is a rare offence, and a

matter of general exclamation, where this extra-judicial agent is

recognised.”

And so forth. It is not necessary to repeat our discussion on this vexed

question, of its uses and abuses. I did not succeed in convincing him,

and, under existing circumstances, it is not reasonable to imagine that

his arguments had any influent over me. To Frank Kingsley I went, and

found him in better mood to take up the cudgels, and even make my cause

his own. He was one of those ardent bloods, who liked nothing better

than the excitement of such an affair; whether as principal or

assistant, it mattered little. To him I expressed my wish that his

arrangements should bring the matter to an issue, if possible, within

the next twenty-four hours.

“Prime!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands. “That's what I like. If you

shoot as quickly now, and as much to the point, you may count any button

on Perkins's coat.”

He proceeded to confer with the friend of my opponent, while, with a

meditative mind, I went to my office, necessarily oppressed with the

strange feelings belonging to my situation. In less than two hours after

Kingsley brought me the carte, by which I found that the meeting was

to take place two miles out of town, by sunrise the day after the one

ensuing--the weapons, pistols--distance, as customary, ten paces!

“You are a shot, of course?” said Kingsley.

My answer, in the negative, astonished him.

“Why, you will have little or no time for practice.”

“I do not intend it. My object is not to kill this man; but to make him

and all others see that the dread of what may be done, either by him or

them, will never reconcile me to submit to injury or insult. I shall

as effectually secure this object by going out, as I do, without

preparation, as if I were the best shot in America. He does not know

that I am not; and a pistol is always a source of danger when in the

grasp of a determined man.”

“You are a queer fellow in your notions, Clifford, and I can not say

that I altogether understand you; but you must certainly ride out with

me this afternoon, and bark a tree. It will do no hurt to a determined

man to be a skilful one also.”

“I see no use in it.”

“Why--what if you should wish to wing him?”

“I think I can do it without practice. But I have no such desire.”

“Really you are unnecessarily magnanimous. You may be put to it,

however. Should the first shot be ineffectual and he should demand a

second, would you throw away that also?”

“No! I should then try to shoot him. As my simple aim is to secure

myself from persecution, which is usually the most effectual mode of

destroying a young man in this country, I should resort only to such

a course as would be likely to yield me this security. That failing,

I should employ stronger measures; precisely as a nation would do in a

similar conflict with another nation. One must not suffer himself to be

destroyed or driven into exile. This is the first law of nature--this

of self-preservation. In maintaining this law, a man must do any or all

things which in his deliberate judgment, will be effectual for the end

proposed. Were I fighting with savages, for example, and knew that they

regarded their scalps with more reverence than their lives, I should

certainly scalp as well as slay.”

“They would call that barbarous?”

“Ay, no doubt; particularly in those countries where they paid from five

to fifty, and even one hundred pounds to one Indian for the scalp of

his brother, until they rid themselves of both. But see you not that

the scalping process, as it produces the most terror and annoyance,

is decidedly the most merciful, as being most likely to discourage

and deter from war. If the scalp could bo taken from the head of every

Seminole shot down, be sure the survivors never after would have come

within range of rifle-shot.”

But these discussions gave way to the business before me. Kingsley left

me to myself, and though sad and serious with oppressive thoughts, I

still had enough of the old habits, dominant with me, to go to my daily

concerns, and arrange my papers with considerable industry and customary

method. My professional business was set in order, and Edgerton duly

initiated in the knowledge of all such portions as needed explanation.

This done, I sat down and wrote a long farewell letter to Julia, and

one, more brief, but renewing the counsel I had previously given to

her father, in respect to the suit against him. These letters were so

disposed as to be sent in the event of my falling in the fight. The

interval which followed was not so easy to be borne. Conscience and

reflection were equally busy, and unpleasantly so. I longed for the time

of action which should silence these unpleasant monitors.

The brief space of twenty-four hours was soon overpassed, and my

anxieties ceased as the moment for the meeting with my enemy, drew nigh.

My friend called at my lodgings a good hour before daylight--it was a

point of credit with him that we should not delay the opposite party

the sixtieth part of a second. We drove out into the country in a close

carriage, taking a surgeon--who was a friend of Kingsley--along with

us. We were on the ground in due season, and some little time before

our customers. But they did not fail or delay us. They were there with

sufficient promptitude.

Perkins was a man of coolness and courage. He took his position with

admirable nonchalance; but I observed, when his eyes met mine, that they

were darkened with a scowl of anger. His brows were contracted, and

his face which was ordinarily red, had an increased flush upon it which

betrayed unusual excitement. He evidently regarded me with feelings of

bitter animosity. Perhaps this was natural enough, if he believed

the story of Mrs. Clifford--and my scornful answer to his friend, Mr.

Carter, was not calculated to lessen the soreness. For my part, I am

free to declare, I had not the smallest sentiment of unkindness toward

the fellow. I thought little of him, but did not hate--I could not have

hated him. I had no wish to do him hurt; and, as already stated, only

went out to put a stop to the further annoyances of insolents and

bullies, by the only effectual mode--precisely as I should have used a

bludgeon over his head, in the event of a personal assault upon me. Of

course, I had no purpose to do him any injury, unless--with the view

to my own safety. I resolved secretly to throw away my fire. Kingsley

suspected me of some such intention, and earnestly protested against it.

“I should not place you at all,” he said, “if I fancied you could do a

thing so d---d foolish. The fellow intends to shoot you if he can. Help

him to a share of the same sauce.”

I nodded as he proceeded to his arrangements. Here some conference

ensued between the seconds:--

“Mr. Carter was very sorry that such a business must proceed. Was it yet

too late to rectify mistakes? Might not the matter be adjusted?”

Kingsley, on such occasions, the very prince of punctilio, agreed that

the matter was a very lamentable one--to be regretted, and so forth--but

of the necessity of the thing, he, Mr. Carter, for his principal, must

be the only judge.

“Mr. Carter could answer for his friend, Mr. Perkins, that he was always

accessible to reason.”

“Mr. Kingsley never knew a man more so than HIS principal.”

“May we not reconcile the parties?” demanded Mr. Carter.

“Does Mr. Perkins withdraw his message?” answered Kingsley by another

question.

“He would do so, readily, were there any prospect of adjusting the

matter upon an honorable footing.”

“Mr. Carter will be pleased to name the basis for what he esteems an

honorable adjustment.”

“Mr. Perkins withdraws his challenge.”

“We have no objection to that.”

“He substitutes a courteous requisition upon Mr. Clifford for an

explanation of certain language, supposed to be offensive, made to a

lady.”

“Mr. Clifford denies, without qualification, the employment of any such

language.”

“This throws us back on our old ground,” said Carter--“there is a lady

in question--”

“Who can not certainly be brought into the controversy,” said

Kingsley--“I see no other remedy, Mr. Carter, but that we should place

the parties. We are here to answer to your final summons.”

“Very good, sir; this matter, and what happens, must lie at your door.

You are peremptory. I trust you have provided a surgeon.”

“His services are at your need, sir,” replied Kingsley with military

courtesy.

“I thank you, sir--my remark had reference to your own necessity. Shall

we toss up for the word?”

These preliminaries were soon adjusted. The word fell to Carter, and

thus gave an advantage to Perkins, as his ear was more familiar than

mine with the accents of his friend. We were placed, and the pistol put

into my hands, without my uttering a sentence.

“Coolly now, my dear fellow,” said Kingsley in a whisper, as he withdrew

from my side;--“wing him at least--but don't burn powder for nothing.”

Scarcely the lapse of a moment followed, when I heard the words “one,”

“two,” “three,” in tolerably rapid succession, and, at the utterance of

the last, I pulled trigger. My antagonist had done so at the first.

His eye was fixed upon mine with deliberate malignity--THAT I clearly

saw--but it did not affect my shot. This, I purposely threw away. The

skill of my enemy did not correspondend (sic) with his evident desires.

I was hurt, but very slightly. His bullet merely raised the skin upon

the fleshy part of my right thigh. We kept our places while a conference

ensued between the two seconds. Mr. Perkins, through his friend,

declared himself unsatisfied unless I apologized, or--in less unpleasant

language--explained. This demand was answered by Kingsley with cavalier

indifference He came to me with a second pistol. His good-humored visage

was now slightly ruffled.

“Clifford!” said he, as he put the weapon into my hand, “you must trifle

no longer. This fellow abuses your generosity. He knows, as well as I,

that you threw away your fire; and he will play the same game with you,

on the same terms, for a month together, Sundays not excepted. I am

not willing to stand by and see you risk your life in this manner; and,

unless you tell me that you will give him as good as he sends, I leave

you on the spot. Will you take aim this time?”

“I will!”

“You promise me then?”

“I do!”

I was conscious of the increased activity of my organ of destructiveness

as I said these words. I smiled with a feeling of pleasant

bitterness--that spicy sort of malice which you may sometimes rouse in

the bosom of the best-natured man in the world, by an attempt to do him

injustice. The wound I had received, though very trifling, had no little

to do with this determination. It was not unlike such a wound as would

be made by a smart stroke of a whip, and the effect upon my blood was

pretty much as if it had been inflicted by some such instrument. I was

stung and irritated by it, and the pertinacity of my enemy, particularly

as he must have seen that my shot was thrown away, decided me to punish

him if I could. I did so! I was not conscious that I was hurt myself,

until I saw him falling!--I then felt a heavy and numbing sensation in

the same thigh which had been touched before. A faintness relieved me

from present sensibility, and when I became conscious, I found myself

in the carriage, supported by Kingsley and the surgeon, on my way to my

lodgings. My wound was a flesh wound only; the ball was soon extracted,

and in a few weeks after, I was enabled to move about with scarcely a

feeling of inconvenience. My opponent suffered a much heavier penalty.

The bone of his leg was fractured, and it was several months before he

was considered perfectly safe. The lesson he got made him a sorer and

shorter--a wiser, if not a better man; but as I do not now, and did

not then, charge myself with the task of bringing about his moral

improvement, it is not incumbent upon me to say anything further on this

subject. We will leave him to get better as he may.

CHAPTER X.

HEAD WINDS.

The hurts of Perkins did not, unhappily, delay the progress of my uncle

to that destruction to which his silly wife and knavish lawyer

had destined him. His business was brought before the court by the

claimants, Messrs. Banks & Tressell; and a brief period only was left

him for putting in his answer. When I thought of Julia, I resolved, in

spite of all previous difficulties--the sneers of the father, and the

more direct, coarse insults of the mother--to make one more effort to

rescue him from the fate which threatened him. I felt sure that, for the

reasons already given, the merchants would still be willing to effect a

compromise which would secure them the principal of their claim, without

incurring the delay and risk of litigation. Accordingly, I penned a note

to Mr. Clifford, requesting permission to wait upon him at home, at

a stated hour. To this I received a cold, brief answer, covering the

permission which I sought. I went, but might as well have spared myself

the labor and annoyance of this visit. Mrs. Clifford was still in the

ascendant--still deaf to reason, and utterly blind to the base position

into which her meddlesome interference in the business threw her

husband. She had her answer ready; and did not merely content herself

with rejecting my overtures, but proceeded to speak in the language of

one who really regarded me as busily seeking, by covert ways, to effect

the ruin of her family. Her looks and language equally expressed the

indignation of a mind perfectly convinced of the fraudulent and evil

purposes of the person she addressed. Those of my uncle were scarcely

less offensive. A grin of malicious self-gratulation mantled his lips as

he thanked me for my counsel, which, he yet remarked, “however wise and

good, and well-intended, he did not think it advisable to adopt. He had

every confidence in the judgment of Mr. Perkins, who, though without the

great legal knowledge of some of his youthful neighbors, had enough

for his purposes; and had persuaded him to see the matter in a very

different point of view from that in which I was pleased to regard it.”

There was no doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for

their overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads to

self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather

of commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this

interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen the

hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I was constrained

to perceive that he labored under an intellectual feebleness and

incertitude which disconcerted his expression, left his thoughts

seemingly without purpose, and altogether convinced me that, if not

positively imbecile in mind and memory, there were yet some ugly

symptoms of incapacity growing upon him which might one day result

in the loss of both. I had always known him to be a weak-minded man,

disposed to vanity and caprice, but the weakness had expanded very much

in a brief period, and now presented itself to my view in sundry very

salient aspects. It was easy now to divert his attention from the

business which he had in hand--a single casual remark of courtesy or

observation would have this effect--and then his mind wandered from

the subject with all the levity and caprice of a thoughtless damsel.

He seemed to entertain now no sort of apprehension of his legal

difficulties, and spoke of them as topics already adjusted. Nay, for

that matter, he seemed to have no serious sense of any subject, whatever

might be its personal or general interest; but, passing from point to

point, exhibited that instability of mental vision which may not inaptly

be compared to that wandering glance which is usually supposed to

distinguish and denote, in the physical eye, the presence of insanity.

It was not often now that he indulged, while speaking to me, in that

manner of hostility--those sneers and sarcastic remarks--which had been

his common habit. This was another proof of the change which his mental

man had undergone. It was not that he was more prudent or more tolerant

than before. He was quite as little disposed to be generous toward me.

But he now appeared wholly incapable of that degree of intellectual

concentration which could enable him to examine a subject to its

close. He would begin to talk with me seriously enough, and with a due

solemnity, about the suit against him; but, in a tangent, he would dart

off to the consideration of some trifle, some household matter, or petty

affair, of which, at any other time, he must have known that his hearers

had no wish to hear. Poor Julia confirmed the conjectures which I

entertained, but did not utter, by telling me that her father had

changed very much in his ways ever since this business had been begun.

“Mother does not see it, but he is no longer the same man. Oh, Edward, I

sometimes think he's even growing childish.”

The fear was a well-founded one. Before the case was tried, Mr. Clifford

was generally regarded, among those who knew him intimately, as little

better than an imbecile; and so rapid was the progress of his infirmity,

that when the judgment was given, as it was, against him, he was wholly

unable to understand or fear its import. His own sense of guilt had

anticipated its effects, and his intense vanity was saved from public

shame only by the substitution of public pity. The decree of the court

gave all that was asked; and the handsome competence of the Cliffords

was exchanged for a miserable pittance, which enabled the family to live

only in the very humblest manner.

It will readily be conjectured, from what I have stated in respect to

myself, that mine was not the disposition to seek revenge, or find cause

for exultation in these deplorable events. I had no hostility against my

unhappy uncle; I should have scorned myself if I had. If such a feeling

ever filled my bosom, it would have been most effectually disarmed

by the sight of the wretched old man, a grinning, gibbering idiot,

half-dancing and half-shivering from the cold, over the remnants of a

miserable and scant fire in the severest evening in November. It was

when the affair was all over; when the property of the family was all in

the hands of the sheriff; when the mischievous counsel of such a person

as Jonathan Perkins, Esquire could do no more harm even to so foolish

a person as my uncle's wife; and when his presence, naturally enough

withdrawn from a family from which he could derive no further profit,

and which he had helped to ruin, was no longer likely to offend mine by

meeting him there--that I proceeded to renew my direct intercourse with

the unfortunate people whom I was not suffered to save.

The reader is not to suppose that I had kept myself entirely aloof

from the family until these disasters had happened. I sought Julia when

occasion offered, and, though she refused it, tendered my services and

my means whenever they might be bestowed with hope of good. And now,

when all was over, and I met her at the door, and she sank upon my

bosom, and wept in my embrace, still less than ever was I disposed to

show to her mother the natural triumph of a sagacity which had shown

itself at the expense of hers. I forgot, in the first glance of my

uncle, all his folly and unkindness. He was now a shadow, and the mental

wreck was one of the most deplorable, as it was one of the most rapid

and complete, that could be imagined. In less than seven months,

a strong man--strong in health--strong, as supposed, in

intellect--singularly acute in his dealings among tradesmen--regarded by

them as one of the most shrewd in the fraternity--vain of his parts, of

his family, and of his fortune--solicitous of display, and constant in

its indulgence!--that such a man should be stricken down to imbecility

and idiotism--a meagre skeleton in form--pale, puny, timid--crouching

by the fireplace--grinning with stealthy looks, momently cast around

him--and playing--his most constant employment--with the bellows strings

that hung beside him, or the little kitten, that, delighted with new

consideration, had learned to take her place constantly at his feet!

What a wreck!

But the moral man had been wrecked before, or this could not have been.

It was only because of his guilt--of its exposure rather--that he

sunk. In striving to shake off the oppressive burden, he shook off the

intellect which had been compelled chiefly to endure it. The sense of

shame, the conviction of loss, and, possibly, other causes of conscience

which lay yet deeper--for the progeny of crime is most frequently a

litter as numerous as a whelp's puppies--helped to crush the mind which

was neither strong enough to resist temptation at first, nor to bear

exposure at last. I turned away with a tear, which I could not suppress,

from the wretched spectacle. But I could have borne with more patience

to behold this ruin, than to subdue the rising reproach which I felt as

I turned to encounter Mrs. Clifford.

This weak woman, still weak, received me coldly, and I could see in her

looks that she regarded me as one whom it was natural to suppose would

feel some exultation at beholding their downfall. I saw this, but

determined to say nothing, in the attempt to undo these impressions. I

knew that time was the best teacher in all such matters, and resolved

that my deportment should gradually make her wiser on the subject of

that nature which she had so frequently abused, and which, I well

knew, she could never understand. But this hope I soon discovered to be

unavailing. Her disaster had only soured, not subdued her; and, with

the natural tendency of the vulgar mind, she seemed to regard me as the

person to whom she should ascribe all her misfortunes. As, to her narrow

intellect, it seemed natural that I should exult in the accomplishment

of my predictions, so it was a process equally natural that she should

couple me with their occurrence; and, indeed, I was too nearly connected

with the event, through the medium of my unconscious father, not to feel

some portion of the affliction on his account also; though neither his

memory nor my reputation suffered from the development of the affair in

the community where we lived.

Mrs. Clifford did not openly, or in words, betray the feelings which

were striving in her soul; but the general restraint which she put upon

herself in my presence, the acerbity of her tone, manner, and language,

to poor Julia, and the unvaried querulousness of her remarks, were

sufficient to apprize me of the spite which she would have willingly

bestowed upon myself, had she any tolerable occasion for doing so. A few

weeks served still further to humble the conceit and insolence of the

unfortunate woman. The affair turned out much more seriously than I

expected. A sudden fall in the value of real and personal estate, just

about the time when the sheriff's sale took place, rendered necessary

a second levy, which swept the miserable remnant of Mr. Clifford's

fortune, leaving nothing to my uncle but a small estate which had been

secured by settlement to Mrs. Clifford and her daughter, and which the

sheriff could not legally lay hands on.

I came forward at this juncture, and, having allowed them to remove into

the small tenement to which, in their reduced condition they found it

prudent to retire, I requested a private interview with Mrs. Clifford,

and readily obtained it.

I was received by the good lady in apparent state. All the little

furniture which she could save from the former, was transferred very

inappropriately to the present dwelling-house. The one was quite

unsuited to the other. The massive damask curtains accorded badly with

the little windows over which they were now suspended, and the sofa, ten

feet in length, occupied an unreasonable share of an apartment twelve by

sixteen. The dais of piled cushions, on which so many fashionable groups

had lounged in better times, now seemed a mountain, which begot ideas of

labor, difficulty, and up-hill employment, rather than ease, as the eye

beheld it cumbering two thirds of the miserable area into which it was

so untastefully compressed. These, and other articles of splendor and

luxury, if sold, would have yielded her the means to buy furniture more

suitable to her circumstances and situation, and left her with some

additional resources to meet the daily and sometimes pressing exigencies

of life.

The appearance of this parlor argued little in behalf of the salutary

effect which such reverses might be expected to produce in a mind even

tolerably sensible. They argued, I fancied, as unfavorably for my suit

as for the humility of the lady whom I was about to meet. If the

parlor of Mrs. Clifford bore such sufficient tokens of her weakness of

intellect, her own costume betrayed still more. She had made her person

a sort of frame or rack upon which she hung every particle of that

ostentatious drapery which she was in the habit of wearing at her

fashionable evenings. A year's income was paraded upon her back, and the

trumpery jewels of three generations found a place on every part of her

person where it is usual for fashionable folly to display such gewgaws.

She sailed into the room in a style that brought to my mind instantly

the description which Milton gives of the approach of Delilah to Samson,

after the first days of his blind captivity:--

“But who is this, what thing of sea or land?--

Female of sex it seems--

That so bedecked, ornate and gay,

Comes this way sailing, like a stately ship

Of Tarsus, bound for the isles

Of Javan or Gadire,

With all her bravery on and tackle trim,

Sails filled, and streamers waving,

Courted by all the winds that hold their play,

An amber scent of odorous perfume

Her harbinger!”

No description could have been more, just and literal in the case of

Mrs. Clifford. I could scarce believe my eyes; and when forced to do

so, I could scarcely suppose that this bravery was intended for my eyes

only. Nor was it;--but let me not anticipate. This spectacle, I need

not say, sobered me entirely, if anything was necessary to produce this

effect, and increased the grave apprehensions which were already at my

heart. The next consequence was to make the manner of my communication

serious even to severity. A smile, which was of that doubtful sort which

is always sinister and offensive, overspread her lips as she motioned

me to resume the seat from which I had risen at her entrance; while she

threw herself with an air of studied negligence upon one part of the

sofa. I felt the awkwardness of my position duly increased, as her

house, dress, and manner, convinced me that she was not yet subdued to

hers; but a conscious rectitude of intention carried me forward, and

lightened the task to my feelings.

“Mrs. Clifford,” I said, without circumlocution, “I have presumed to ask

your attention this morning to a brief communication which materially

affects my happiness, and which I trust may not diminish, if it does not

actually promote, yours. Before I make this communication, however, I

hope I may persuade myself that the little misunderstandings which

have occurred between us are no longer to be considered barriers to our

mutual peace, and happiness--”

“Misunderstandings, Mr. Clifford?--I don't know what misunderstandings

you mean. I'm sure I've never misunderstood you.”

I could not misunderstand the insolent tenor of this speech, but

I availed myself of the equivoque which it involved to express my

gratification that such was the case.

“My path will then be more easy, Mrs. Clifford--my purpose more easily

explained.”

“I am glad you think so, sir,” she answered coolly, smoothing down

certain folds of her frock, and crossing her hands upon her lap, while

she assumed the attitude of a patient listener. There was something

very repulsive in all this; but I saw that the only way to lessen the

unpleasantness of the scene, and to get on with her, would be to make

the interview as short as possible, and come at once to my object. This

I did.

“It is now more than a year, Mrs. Clifford, since I had the honor to

say to my uncle, that I entertained for my cousin Julia such a degree

of affection as to make it no longer doubtful to me that I should best

consult my own happiness by seeking to make her my wife. I had the

pleasure at the same time to inform him, which I believed to be true,

that Julia herself was not unwilling that such should be the nearer tie

between us--”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Clifford, I know all this; but my husband and myself

thought better of it, and--” she said with fidgety impatience.

“And my application was refused,” I said calmly; thus finishing the

sentence where she had paused.

“Well, sir, and what then?”

“At that time, madam, my uncle gave as a reason that he had other

arrangements in view.”

“Yes, sir, so we had; and this reminds me that those arrangements were

broken off entirely in consequence of the perversity which you taught

my daughter. I know it all, sir; there's no more need to tell me of

it, than there is to deny it. You put my daughter up to refusing young

Roberts, who would have jumped at her, as his father did--and he one of

the best families and best fortunes in the city. I'm sure I don't know,

sir, what object you can have in reminding me of these things.”

Here was ingenious perversity. I bore with it as well as I could, and

strove to preserve my consideration and calmness.

“You do your daughter injustice, Mrs. Clifford, and me no less, in

this opinion. But I do not seek to remind you of misunderstandings and

mistakes, the memory of which can do no good. My purpose now is to renew

the offer to you which I originally made to Mr. Clifford. My attachment

to your daughter remains unaltered, and I am happy to say that fortune

has favored me so far as to enable me to place her in a situation of

comparative comfort and independence which I could not offer then--”

“Which is as much as to say that she don't enjoy comfort and

independence where she is; and if she does not, sir, to whom is it all

owing, sir, but to you and your father? By your means it is that we are

reduced to poverty; but you shall see, sir, that we are not entirely

wanting in independence. My answer, sir, is just the same as Mr.

Clifford's was. I am very much obliged to you for THE HONOR you intend

my family, but we must decline it. As for the comfort and independence

which you proffer to my daughter, I am happy to inform you that she

can receive it at any moment from a source perhaps far more able than

yourself to afford both, if her perversity does not stand in the way,

as it did when young Roberts made his offers. Mr. Perkins, sir, the

excellent young man that you tried to murder, is to be here, sir, this

very morning, to see my daughter. Here's his letter, sir, which you may

read, that you may be under no apprehensions that my daughter will ever

suffer from a want of comfort and independence.”

She flung a letter down on the sofa beside her, but I simply bowed, and

declined looking at it. I did not, however, yield the contest in this

manner. I urged all that might properly be urged on the subject, and

with as much earnestness as could be permitted in an interview with a

lady--and such a lady!--but, as the reader may suppose, my toils were

taken in vain: all that I could suggest, either in the shape of reason

or expostulation, only served to make her more and more dogged, and

to increase her tone of insolence; and sore, stung with vexation,

disappointed, and something more than bewildered, I dashed almost

headlong out of the house, without seeing either Julia or her father,

precisely at the moment when Mr. Perkins was about to enter.

CHAPTER XI.

CRISIS.

The result of this interview of my rival with the mother of Julia, was

afforded me by the latter. The mother had already given her consent to

his suit--that of Julia alone was to be obtained; and to this end the

arts of the suitor and the mother were equally devoted. Her refusal only

brought with it new forms of persecution. Her steps were haunted by the

swain, to whom Mrs. Clifford gave secret notice of all her daughter's

intentions. He was her invariable attendant at church, where I had

the pain constantly to behold them, in such close proximity, that I at

length abandoned the customary house of worship, and found my pew in

another, where I could be enabled to endure the forms of service without

being oppressed by foreign and distracting thoughts and fancies.

Of the progress of the suit I had occasional intelligence from Julia

herself, whom I had, very reluctantly on her part, persuaded to meet me

at the house of a female relative and friend, who favored our desires

and managed our interviews. Brief were these stolen moments, but oh, how

blissful! The pleasures they afforded, however, were almost wholly mine.

The clandestine character of our meetings served to deprive her of the

joy which they otherwise might have yielded; and the fear that she was

not doing right, humbled her spirit and made her tremble with frequent

apprehensions.

At length Mrs. Clifford suspected our interviews, and detected them.

We had a most stormy scene on one occasion, when the sudden entrance

of this lady surprised us together, at the house of our friend. The

consequence of this was, a rupture between the ladies, which resulted in

Julia's being forbidden to visit the house of her relative again. This

measure was followed by others of such precaution, that at length I

could no longer communicate with her, or even seek her, unless when she

was on her way to church. Her appearance then was such as to awaken

all my apprehensions. Her form, always slender, was become more so.

The change was striking in a single week. Her face, usually pale and

delicate, was now haggard. Her walk was feeble, and without elasticity.

Her whole appearance was wo-begone and utterly spiritless. Days

and weeks passed, and my heart was filled with hourly-increasing

apprehensions. I returned to the familiar church, but here I suffered a

new alarm. That sabbath the family pew was unoccupied. While I trembled

lest something serious had befallen her, I was called on by the family

physician. This gentleman had been always friendly. He had been my

father's physician, and had been his friend and frequent guest; he knew

my history, and sympathized with my fortunes. He now know the history

of Julia's affections. She had made him her confidante so far, and he

brought me a letter from her. She was sick, as I expected. This letter

was of startling tenor:--

“Save me, Edward, if you can. I am now willing to do as you proposed.

I can no longer endure these annoyances--these cruel persecutions! My

mother tells me that I must submit and marry this man, if we would save

ourselves from ruin. It seems he has a claim against the estate for

professional services; and as we have no other means of payment, without

the sale of all that is left, he is base enough to insist upon my

hand as the condition of his forbearance. He uses threats now, since

entreaties have failed him. Oh, Edward, if you can save me, come!--for

of a certainty, I can not bear this persecution much long and live. I am

now willing to consent to do what Aunt Sophy recommended. Do not think

me bold to say so, dear Edward--if I am bold, it is despair which makes

me so.”

I read this letter with mingled feelings of indignation and

delight--indignation, because of the cruelties to which the worthless

mother and the base suitor subjected one so dear and innocent delight,

since the consent which she now yielded placed the means of saving her

at my control. The consent was to flight and clandestine marriage, to

which I had, with the assistance of our mutual friend, endeavored to

persuade her, in several instances, before.

The question now was, how to effect this object, since we had no

opportunities for communication; but, before I took any steps in the

matter, I made it a point of duty to deprive the infamous attorney,

Perkins, of his means of power over the unhappy family. I determined

to pay his legal charges; and William Edgerton, at my request, readily

undertook this part of the business. They were found to be extortionate,

and far beyond anything either warranted by the practice or the fee

bill. Edgerton counselled me to resist the claim; but the subject was

too delicate in all its relations, and my own affair with Perkins would

have made my active opposition seem somewhat the consequence of malice

and inveterate hostility. I preferred to pay the excess, which was done

by Edgerton, rather than have any further dispute or difficulty with

one whom I so much despised. Complete satisfaction was entered upon

the records of the court, and a certified discharge, under the hand

of Perkins himself--which he gave with a reluctance full of

mortification--was sent in a blank envelope to Mrs. Clifford. She was

thus deprived of the only excuse--if, indeed, such a woman ever needs an

excuse for wilfulness--for persecuting her unhappy daughter on the score

of the attorney.

But the possession of this document effected no sort of change in her

conduct. She pursued her victim with the same old tenacity. It was not

to favor Perkins that she strove for this object: it was to baffle ME.

That blind heart, which misguides all of us in turn, was predominant in

her, and rendered her totally incapable of seeing the cruel consequences

to her daughter which her perseverance threatened. Julia was now so

feeble as scarcely to leave her chamber; the physician was daily in

attendance; and, though I could not propose to make use of his services

in promoting a design which would subject him to the reproach of the

grossest treachery, yet, without counsel, he took it upon him plainly

to assure the mother that the disorder of her daughter arose solely from

her mental afflictions. He went farther. Mrs. Clifford, whose garrulity

was as notorious as her vanity and folly, herself took occasion, when

this was told her, to ascribe the effect to me; and, with her own

coloring, she continued, by going into a long history of our “course of

wooing.” The doctor availed himself of these statements to suggest the

necessity of a compromise, assuring Mrs. Clifford that I was really

a more deserving person than she thought me, and, in short, that some

concessions must be made, if it was her hope to save her daughter's

life.

“She is naturally feeble of frame, nervous and sensitive, and these

excitements, pressing upon her, will break down her constitution and her

spirits together. Let me warn you, Mrs. Clifford, while yet in season.

Dismiss your prejudices against this young man, whether well or ill

founded, and permit your daughter to marry him. Suffer me to assure you,

Mrs. Clifford, that such an event will do more toward her recovery than

all my medicine.”

“What, and see him the master of my house--he, the poor beggar-boy that

my husband fed in charity, and who turned from him with ingratitude in

his moment of difficulty, and left him to be despoiled by his enemies?

Never! never! Daughter of mine shall never be wife of his! The serpent!

to sting the hand of his benefactor!”

“My dear Mrs. Clifford, this prejudice of yours, besides being totally

unfounded, amounts to monomania. Now, I know something of all these

matters, as you should be aware; and I should be sorry to counsel

anything to you or to your family which would be either disgraceful or

injurious. So far from this young man being ungrateful, neglectful, or

suffering your husband to be preyed on by enemies, I am of opinion that,

if his counsel had been taken in this late unhappy business, you would

probably have been spared all of the misery and nearly one half of the

loss which has been incurred by the refusal to do so.”

“And so you, too, are against us, doctor? You, too, believe everything

that this young man tells you?”

“No, madam; I assure you, honestly, that I never heard a single word

from his lips in regard to this subject. It is spoken of by everybody

but himself.”

“Ay! ay! the whole town knows it, and from who else but him, I wonder?

But you needn't to talk, doctor, on the subject. My mind's made up.

Edward Clifford, while I have breath to say 'No,' and a hand to turn the

lock of the door against him, shall never again darken these doors!”

The physician was a man of too much experience to waste labor upon a

case so decidedly hopeless. He knew that no art within his compass could

cure so thorough a case of heart-blindness, and he gave her up; but he

did not give up Julia. He whispered words of consolation into her ears,

which, though vague, were yet far more useful than physic.

“Cheer up, my daughter; be of good heart and faith. I AM SURE that there

will be some remedy provided for you, before long, which will do you

good. I have given the letter to your aunt, and she promises to do as

you wish.”

It may be said, en passant, that the billet sent to me had been covered

in another to my female friend and Julia's relative; and that the

doctor, though not unconscious of the agency of this lady between us,

was yet guilty of no violation of the faith which is always implied

between the family and the physician. He might SUSPECT, but he did not

KNOW; and whatever might have been his suspicions, he certainly did not

have the most distant idea of that concession which Julia had made, and

of the course of conduct for which her mother's persecutions had now

prepared her mind.

Mr. Perkins, though deprived of his lien upon Mrs. Clifford, by reason

of his claim, did not in the least forego his intentions. His complaints

and threatenings necessarily ceased--his tone was something lowered;

but he possessed a hold upon this silly woman's prejudices which was

far superior to any which he might before have had upon her fears. His

hostility to me was grateful to the hate which she also entertained,

and which seemed to be more thoroughly infixed in her after her

downfall--which, as it has been seen, she ascribed to me; chiefly

because of my predictions that such would be the case. In due proportion

to her hate for me, was her desire to baffle my wishes, even though it

might be at the expense of her own daughter's life. But a vain mother

has no affections--none, at least, worthy of the name, and none which

she is not prepared to discard at the first requisition of her dearer

self. Her hate of me was so extreme as to render her blind to everything

besides--her daughter's sickness, the counsel of the physician, the

otherwise obvious vulgarity and meanness of Perkins, and that gross

injustice which I had suffered at her hands from the beginning, and

which, to many minds, might have amply justified in me the hostile

feelings which she laid to my charge. In this blindness she precipitated

events, and by her cruelty justified extremities in self-defence. The

moment that Julia exhibited some slight improvement, she was summoned

to an interview with Perkins, and in this interview her mother solemnly

swore that she should marry him. The base-minded suitor stood by in

silence, beheld the loathing of the maiden, heard her distinct refusal,

yet clung to his victim, and permitted the violence of the mother,

without rebuke--that rebuke which the true gentleman might have

administered in such a case, and which, to forbear, was the foulest

shame--the rebuke of his own decided refusal to participate in such

a sacrifice. But he was not capable of this; and Julia, stunned and

terrified, was shocked to hear Mrs. Clifford appoint the night of the

following Thursday for the forced nuptials.

“She will consent--she shall consent, Mr. Perkins,” were the vehement

assurances of the mother, as the craven-spirited suitor prepared to take

his leave. “I know her better than you do, and she knows me. Do you fear

nothing, but bring Mr--” (the divine) “along with you. We shall put an

end to this folly.”

“Oh, do not, do not, mother, if you would not drive me mad!” was the

exclamation of the destined victim, as she threw herself at the feet of

her unnatural parent. “You will kill me to wed this man! I can not marry

him--I can not love him. Why would you force this matter upon me--why!

why!”

“Why will you resist me, Julia? why will you provoke your mother to this

degree? You have only to consent willingly, and you know how kind I am.”

“I can not consent!” was the gasping decision of the maiden.

“You shall! you must! you will!”

“Never! never! On my knees I say it, mother. God will witness what you

refuse to believe. I will die before I consent to marry where I do not

give my heart.”

“Oh, you talk of dying, as if it was a very easy matter. But you won't

die. It's more easy to say than do. Do you come, Mr. Perkins. Don't you

mind--don't you believe in these denials, and oaths, and promises. It's

the way with all young ladies. They all make a mighty fuss when they're

going to be married; but they're all mighty willing, if the truth was

known. I ought to know something about it. I did just the same as she

when I was going to marry Mr. Clifford; yet nobody was more willing than

I was to get a husband. Do you come and bring the parson; she'll sing a

different tune when she stands up before him, I warrant you.”

“That shall never be, Mr. Perkins!” said the maiden solemnly, and

somewhat approaching the person whom she addressed. “I have already more

than once declined the honor you propose to do me. I now repeat to you

that I will sooner marry the grave and the winding-sheet than be your

wife! My mother mistakes me and all my feelings. For your own sake, if

not for mine, I beg that YOU will not mistake them; for, if the strength

is left me for speech, I will declare aloud to the reverend man whom you

are told to bring, the nature of those persecutions to which you have

been privy. I will tell him of the cruelty which I have been compelled

to endure, and which you have beheld and encouraged with your silence.”

Perkins looked aghast, muttered his unwillingness to prosecute his suit

under such circumstances, and prepared to take his leave. His mutterings

and apologies were all swallowed up in that furious storm of abuse and

denunciation which now poured from the lips of the exemplary mother.

These we need not repeat. Suffice it that the deep feelings of

Julia--her sense of propriety and good taste--prevailed to keep her

silent, while her mother, still raving, renewed her assurances to the

pettifogger that he should certainly receive his wife at her hands on

the evening of the ensuing Thursday. The unmanly suitor accepted her

assurances--and took leave of mother and daughter, with the expression

of a simpering hope, intended chiefly for the latter, that her

objections would resolve themselves into the usual maidenly scruples

when the appointed time should arrive. Julia mustered strength enough to

reply in language which brought down another storm from her mother upon

her devoted head.

“Do not deceive Perkins--do not let the assurances of my mother deceive

you. She does not know me. I can not and will not marry you. I will

sooner marry the grave--the winding-sheet--the worm!”

Her strength failed her the moment he left the apartment. She sank in a

fainting-fit upon the floor, and was thus saved from hearing the bitter

abuse which her miserable and misguided parent continued to lavish upon

her, even while undertaking the task of her restoration. The evident

exhaustion of her frame, her increasing feebleness, the agony of her

mind, and the possibly fatal termination of her indisposition, did not

in the least serve to modify the violent and vexing mood of this most

unnatural woman!

CHAPTER XII.

“GONE TO BE MARRIED.”

These proceedings, the tenor of which was briefly communicated to me

in a hurried note from Julia, despatched by the hands of the physician,

under a cover, to the friendly aunt, rendered it imperatively necessary

that, whatever we proposed to do should be done quickly, if we

entertained any hope to save.

The tone of her epistle alarmed me exceedingly in one respect, as

it evidently showed that she could not much longer save herself. Her

courage was sinking with her spirits, which were yielding rapidly

beneath the continued presence of that persecution which had so long

been acting upon her. She began now to distrust her own strength--her

very powers of utterance to declare her aversion to the proposed

marriage, if ever the trial was brought to the threatened issue before

the holy man.

“What am I to do--what say--” demanded her trembling epistle, “should

they go so far? Am I to declare the truth?--can I tell to strange ears

that it is my mother who forces this cruel sacrifice upon me? I dread I

can not. I fear that my soul and voice will equally fail me. I tremble,

dear Edward, when I think that the awful moment may find me speechless,

and my consent may be assumed from my silence. Save me from this trial,

dearest Edward; for I fear everything now--and fear myself--my unhappy

weakness of nerve and spirit more than all. Do not leave me to this

trial of my strength--for I have none. Save me if you can!”

It may be readily believed that I needed little soliciting to exertion

after this. The words of this letter occasioned an alarm in my mind,

little less--though of a different kind--than that which prevailed

in hers. I knew the weakness of hers--I knew hers--and felt the

apprehension that she might fail at the proper moment, even more vividly

than she expressed it.

This letter did not take me by surprise. Before it was received, and

soon after the first with which she had favored me, by the hands of the

friendly physician, I had begun my preparations with the view to our

clandestine marriage. I was only now required to quicken them. The

obstacle, on the face of it, was, comparatively, a small one. To get her

from a dwelling, in which, though her steps were watched, she was not

exactly a prisoner, was scarcely a difficulty, where the lover and the

lady are equally willing.

Our mode of operations was simple. There was a favorite servant--a

negro--who had been raised in the family, had been a playmate with my

poor deceased cousin and myself, and had always been held in particular

regard by both of us. He was not what is called a house-servant, but

was employed in the yard in doing various offices, such as cutting wood,

tending the garden, going of messages, and so forth. This was in the

better days of the Clifford family. Since its downfall he had been

instructed to look an owner, and, opportunely, at this moment, when I

was deliberating upon the process I should adopt for the extrication of

his young mistress, he came to me to request that I would buy him.

The presence of this servant suggested to me that he could assist me

materially in my plans. Without suffering him to know the intention

which I had formed I listened to his garrulous harangue. A negro is

usually very copious, where he has an auditor; and though, from his

situation, he could directly see nothing of the proceedings in the house

of his owner, yet, from his fellow-servants he had contrived to gather,

perhaps, a very correct account of the general condition of things. It

appeared from his story that the attachment of Miss Julia to myself was

very commonly understood. The effort of the mother to persuade her to

marry Perkins was also known to him; but of the arrangement that the

marriage should take place at the early day mentioned in her note, he

told me nothing, and, in all probability, this part of her proceedings

was kept a close secret by the wily dame Peter--the name of the

negro--went on to add, that, loving me, and loving his young mistress,

and knowing that we loved one another, and believing that we should one

day be married, he was anxious to have me for his future owner.

“I will buy you, Peter, on one condition.”

“Wha's dat, Mas' Ned?”

“That you serve me faithfully on trial, for five days, without letting

anybody know who you serve--that you carry my messages without letting

anybody hear them except that person to whom you are sent--and, if I

give you a note to carry, that you carry it safely, not only without

suffering anybody to see the note but the one to whom I send it, but

without suffering anybody to know or suspect that you've got such a

thing as a note about you.”

The fellow was all promises; and I penned a billet to Julia which, in

few words, briefly prepared her to expect my attendance at her house

at three in the afternoon of the very day when her nuptials were

contemplated. I then proceeded to a friend--Kingsley--the friend who had

served me in the meeting with Perkins; a bold, dashing, frank fellow,

who loved nothing better than a frolic which worried one of the parties;

and who, I well knew, would relish nothing more than to baffle Perkins

in a love affair, as we had already done in one of strife. To him

I unfolded my plan and craved his assistance, which was promised

instantly. My female friend, the relative of Julia, whose assistance

had been already given us, and whose quarrel with Mrs. Clifford in

consequence, had spiced her determination to annoy her still further

whenever occasion offered, was advised of our plans; and William

Edgerton readily undertook what seemed to be the most innocent part of

all, to procure a priest to officiate for us, at the house of the lady

in question, and at the appointed time.

My new retainer, Peter, brought me due intelligence of the delivery

of the note, in secret, to Julia, and a verbal answer from her made me

sanguine of success. The day came, and the hour; and in obedience to

our plan, my friend, Kingsley, proceeded boldly to the dwelling of Mrs.

Clifford, just as that lady had taken her seat at the dinner-table,

requesting to see and speak with her on business of importance. The

interview was vouchsafed him, though not until the worthy lady

had instructed the servant to say that she was just then at the

dinner-table, and would be glad if the gentleman would call again.

But the gentleman regretted that he could not call again. He was from

Kentucky, desirous of buying slaves, and must leave town the next

morning for the west. The mention of his, occupation, as Mrs. Clifford

had slaves to sell, was sufficient to persuade her to lay down the knife

and fork with promptness; and the servant was bade to show the Kentucky

gentleman, into the parlor. Our arrangement was, that, with the

departure of the lady from the table Julia should leave it also--descend

the stairs, and meet me at the entrance.

Trembling almost to fainting, the poor girl came to me, and I received

her into my arms, with something of a tremor also. I felt the prize

would be one that I should be very loath to lose; and joy led to

anxiety, and my anxiety rendered me nervous to a womanly degree. But

I did not lose my composure and when I had taken her into my arms, I

thought it would be only a prudent precaution to turn the key in the

outer dour, and leave it somewhere along the highway. This I did,

absolutely forgetting, that, in thus securing myself against any sudden

pursuit, I had also locked up my friend, the Kentucky trader.

Fortune favored our movements. Our preparations had been properly laid,

and Edgerton had the divine in waiting. In less than half an hour

after leaving the house of her parents, Julia and myself stood up to

be married. Pale, feeble, sad--the poor girl, though she felt no

reluctance, and suffered not the most momentary remorse for the steps

she had taken, and was about to take, was yet necessarily and naturally

impressed with the solemnity and the doubts which hung over the event.

Young, timid, artless, apprehensive, she was unsupported by those whom

nature had appointed to watch over and protect her; and though they had

neglected, and would have betrayed their trust, she yet could not but

feel that there was an incompleteness about the affair, which, not even

the solemn accents of the priest, the deep requisitions of those pledges

which she was called upon to make, and the evident conviction which she

now entertained, that what had been done was necessary to be done, for

her happiness, and even her life--could entirely remove. There was an

awful but sweet earnestness in the sad, intense glance of entreaty, with

which she regarded me when I made the final response. Her large black

eye dilated, even under the dewy suffusion of its tears, as it seemed to

say:--

“It is to you now--to you alone--that I look for that protection, that

happiness which was denied where I had best right to look for it. Ah!

let me not look, let me not yield myself to you in vain!”

How imploring, yet how resigned was that glance of tears--love in tears,

yet love that trusted without fear! It was the embodiment of innocence,

struggling between hope and doubt, and only strengthened for the future

by the pure, sweet faith which grew out of their conflict. I look back

upon that scene, I recall that glance, with a sinking of the heart which

is full of terror and terrible reproach. Ah! then, then, I had no fear,

no thought, that I should see that look, and others, more sad, more

imploring still, and see them without a corresponding faith and love! I

little knew, in that brief, blessed hour, how rapidly the blindness of

the heart comes on, even as the scale over the eyes--but such a scale as

no surgeon's knife can cut away.

CHAPTER XIII.

BAFFLED FURY.

In the first gush of my happiness--the ceremony being completed, and the

possession of my treasure certain--I had entirely forgotten my Kentucky

friend, whom I had locked up, in confidential TETE-A-TETE with madam,

my exemplary mother-in-law. He was a fellow with a strong dash of humor,

and could not resist the impulse to amuse himself at the expense of

the lady, by making an admirable scene of the proceeding. He began the

business by stating that he had heard she had several negroes whom she

wished to sell--that he was anxious to buy--he did not care how many,

and would give the very best prices of any trader in the market. At his

desire, all were summoned in attendance--some three or four in number,

that she had to dispose of--all but the worthy Peter, who, under

existing circumstances, was quite too necessary to my proceedings to be

dispensed with. These were all carefully examined by the trader. They

were asked their ages, their names, their qualities; whether they were

willing to go to Kentucky, the paradise of the western Indian, and so

forth--all those questions which, in ordinary cases, it is the custom of

the purchaser to ask. They were, then dismissed, and the Kentuckian next

discussed with the lady the subject of prices. But let the worthy fellow

speak for himself:--

“I was so cursed anxious,” he said, “to know whether you had got off and

in safety, for I was beginning to get monstrous tired of the old cat,

that I jumped up every now and then to take a peep out of the front

window. I made an excuse to spit on such occasions--though sometimes

I forgot to do so--and then I would go back and begin again, with

something about the bargain and the terms, and whether the negroes were

honest, and sound, and all that. Well, though I looked out as often as

I well could with civility, I saw nothing of you, and began to fear that

something had happened to unsettle the whole plan; but, after a while,

I saw Peter, with his mouth drawn back and hooked up into his ears, with

his white teeth glimmering like so many slips of moonshine in a dark

night, and I then concluded that all was as it should be. But seeing me

look out so earnestly and often, the good lady at length said:--

“'I suppose, sir, your horses are in waiting. Perhaps you'd like to have

a servant to mind them.'

“'No, ma'am, I'm obliged to you; but I left the hotel on foot.'

“'Yes, sir,' said she, 'but I thought it might be your horses seeing you

so often look out.'

“I could scarcely keep in my laughter. It did burst out into a sort of

chuckle; and, as you were then safe--I knew THAT from Peter's jaws--I

determined to have my own fun out of the old woman. So I said--pretty

much in this sort of fashion, for I longed to worry her, and knew just

how it could be done handsomest--I said:--

“'The truth is, ma'am--pardon me for the slight--but really I was quite

interested--struck, as I may say, by a very suspicious transaction that

met my eyes a while ago, when I first got up to spit from the window.'

“'Ah, indeed, sir! and pray, if I may ask, what was it you saw?'

“'Really very curious; but getting up to spit, and looking out before I

did so--necessary caution, ma'am--some persons might be just under the

window, you know--'

“'Yes, sir, yes.' The old creature began to look and talk mighty eager.

“'An ugly habit, ma'am--that of spitting. We Kentuckians carry it to

great excess. Foreigners, I'm told, count it monstrous vulgar--effect

of tobacco-chewing, ma'am--a deuced bad habit, I grant you, but 'tis a

habit, and there's no leaving it off, even if we would. I don't think

Kentuckians, as a people, a bit more vulgar than English, or French, or

Turks, or any other respectable people of other countries.'

“'No, sir, certainly not; but the transaction--what you saw.'

“Ah yes! beg pardon; but, as I was saying, something really quite

suspicious! Just as I was about to spit, when I went to the window, some

ten minutes ago--perhaps you did not observe, but I did not spit. Good

reason for it, ma'am--might have done mischief.”

“How, sir?”

“Ah that brings me to the question I want to ask: any handsome young

ladies living about here, ma'am?--here, in your neighborood?”

“Why, yes, sir,” answered the old tabby, with something like surprise;

“there's several--there's the Masons, just opposite: the Bagbys, next

door to them below, and Mr. Wilford's daughter: all of them would be

considered pretty by some persons. On the same side with us, there's

Mrs. Freeman and her two daughters, but the widow is accounted by many

the youngest looking and prettiest of the whole, though, to my thinking,

that's saying precious little for any. Next door to us is a Mr. and Mrs.

Gibbs, who have a daughter, and she IS rather pretty, but I don't know

much about them. It might be a mother's vanity, sir, but I think I may

be proud of having a daughter myself, who is about as pretty as any of

the best among them; and that's saying a great deal less for her than

might be said.”

“Ah, indeed--you a daughter, ma'am? But she is not grown-up, of

course--a mere child?”

“Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, said the old creature, tickled up to the

eyes, and looking at me with the sweetest smiles; though it may surprise

you very much, she is not only no child, but a woman grown; and, what's

more, I think she will be made a wife this very night.”

“Egad, then I suspect she's not the only one that's about to be made a

wife of. I suspect some one of these young ladies, your neighbors, will

be very soon in the same condition.”

“Indeed, sir--pray, who?--how do you know? and the old tabby edged

herself along the sofa until she almost got jam up beside me.”

“Well, said I, I don't KNOW exactly, but I'm deucedly suspicious of it,

and, more than that, there's some underhand work going on.”

This made her more curious than ever; and her hands and feet, and

indeed her whole body, got such a fidgeting, that I fancied she began to

think of getting St. Vitus for a bedfellow. Her eagerness made her ask

me two or three times what made me think so; and, seeing her anxiety, I

purposely delayed in order to worry her. I wished to see how far I could

run her up. When I did begin to explain, I went to work in a round-about

way enough--something thus, old Kentuck--as I began: “Well, ma'am,

this tobacco-chewing, as I said before, carried me, as you witnessed,

constantly to the window. I don't know that I chew more than many

others, but I know I chew too much for my good, and for decency, too,

ma'am.”

“Yes, sir, yes; but the young lady, and--”

“Ah, yes, ma'am. Well, then, going to the window once, twice, or thrice,

I could not help but see a young man standing beneath it, evidently in

waiting--very earnest, very watchful--seemingly very much interested and

anxious, as if waiting for somebody.”

“Is it possible?” whispered the tabby, full of expectation.

“Yes, very possible, ma'am--very true.” There he stood; I could even

hoar his deep-drawn sighs--deep, long, as if from the very bottom of his

heart.'

“Was he so VERY near, sir?”

“Just under the window--going to and fro--very anxious. I was almost

afraid I had spit on him, he looked up so hard--so--”

“What, sir, up at you? at--at MY windows, sir?”

“Not exactly, ma'am, that was only my notion, for I thought I might

have spit upon him, and so wakened his anger; but, indeed, he looked all

about him, as, indeed, it was natural that he should, you know, if he

meditated anything that wa'n't exactly right. There was a carriage in

waiting--a close carriage--not a hundred yards below, and--”

“Ah, sir, do tell me what sort of a looking young gentleman was it--eh?”

“Good-looking fellow enough, ma'am--rather tall, slenderish, but not so

slender--wore a black frock.” By this time the old creature was up at

the window--her long, skinny neck stretched out as far as it could go.

“Ah!” said I, “ma'am, you're quite too late, if you expect to see the

sport. They're off; I saw the last of them when I took my last spit from

the window. They were then--”

“But, sir, did he--did you say that this person--the person you spit

on--carried a young lady away with him?”

“You mistake me, ma'am--”

“Ah”--she drew a mighty long breath as if relieved.

“I did NOT spit upon him; I only came near doing it once or twice. If

I hadn't looked, I should very probably have divided my quid pretty

equally between both of them.”

“Both! both!” she almost screamed. “Did she go with him, then?--was

there in truth a young woman?”

“You never saw a creature in such a tearing fidget. Her long nose was

nearly stuck into my face, and both her hands, all claws extended,

seemed ready for my cheeks. I felt a little ticklish, I assure you; but

I kept up my courage, determined to see the game out, and answered very

deliberately, after I had put a fresh quid into my jaws:--”

“Ay, that she did, ma'am, and seemed deuced glad to go, as was natural

enough. A mighty pretty girl she was, too; rather thin, but pretty

enough to tempt a clever fellow to do anything. I reckon they're nigh

on to being man and wife by this time, let the old people say what they

will.”

“But the old put didn't wait to hear me say all this. Before the words

were well out of my mouth, she gave a bounce, to the bell-rope first--I

thought she'd ha' jerked it to pieces--and then to the head of the

stairs.”

“Excuse me for a moment, sir, if you please,” she said, in a

considerable fidget.

“Certainly, ma'am,” says I, with a great Kentucky sort of bow and

natural civility; and then I could hear her squalling from the head of

the stairs, and at the top of her voice, “Julia! Julia! Julia!”--but

there was no answer from Julia. Then came the servants; then came the

outcry; then she bounced back into the parlor, and blazed out at me for

not telling her at once that it was her daughter who had been carried

off, without making so long a story of it, and putting in so much talk

about tobacco.

“Lord bless you, my dear woman!” says I, “innocent enough, was that

pretty girl your daughter? That accounts for the fellow looking up at

the window so often; and I to fancy that it was all because I might have

given him a quid!”

“You must have seen her THEN!”

“Well, ma'am,” said I, “I must come again about the negroes. I see

you've got your hands full.”

“And, with that, I pushed down stairs, while she blazed out at her

husband, whom she called an old fool; and me, whom she called a young

one; and the negroes, whom she ordered to fly in a hundred ways in the

same breath; and, to make matters worse, she seized her hat and shawl,

and bounced down the steps after me. Here we were in a fix again, that

made her a hundred times more furious. The street-door was locked on the

outside, and the key gone, and I fastened up with the old mad tabby. I

tried to stand it while the servants were belaboring to break open, but

the storm was too heavy, and, raising a sash, I went through: and, in

good faith, I believe she bounced through after me; for, when I got

fairly into the street and looked round, there she went, bounce,

flounce, pell-mell, all in a rage, steam up, puffing like a

porpoise--though, thank Jupiter! she took another course from myself. I

was glad to get out of her clutches, I assure you.”

Such was Kingsley's account of his expedition, told in his particular

manner; and endued with the dramatic vitality which he was well able to

give it, it was inimitable. It needs but a few words to finish it. Mrs.

Clifford, with unerring instinct, made her way to the house of that

friendly lady who had assisted our proceedings. But she came too late

for anything but abuse. Julia was irrevocably mine. Bitter was the

clamor which, in our chamber, assailed us from below.

“Oh, Edward, how shall I meet her?” was the convulsive speech of Julia,

as she heard the fearful sounds of her mother's voice--a voice never

very musical, and which now, stimulated by unmeasured rage--the rage

of a baffled and wicked woman--poured forth a torrent of screams rather

than of human accents. We soon heard the rush of the torrent up stairs,

and in the direction of our chamber.

“Fear nothing, Julia; her power over you is now at an end. You are now

mine--mine only--mine irrevocably!”

“Ah, she is still my mother!” gasped the lovely trembler in my arms. A

moment more, and the old lady was battering at the door. I had locked it

within. Her voice, husky but subdued, now called to her daughter--

“Julia! Julia! Julia!--come out!”

“Who is there? what do you want?” I demanded. I was disposed to keep her

out, but Julia implored me to open the door. She had really no strength

to reply to the summons of the enraged woman; and her entreaty to me was

expressed in a whisper which scarcely filled my own ears. She was weak

almost to fainting. I trembled lest her weakness, coupled with her

fears, and the stormy scene that I felt might be reasonably anticipated,

would be too much for her powers of endurance. I hesitated. She put her

hand on my wrist.

“For my sake, Edward, let her in. Let her see me. We will have to

meet her, and better now--now, when I feel all the solemnity of my new

position, and while the pledges I have just made are most present to

my thoughts. Do not fear for me. I am weak and very feeble, but I am

resolute. I feel that I am not wrong.”

She could scarcely gasp out these brief sentences. I urged her not to

risk her strength in the interview.

“As you love me, do as I beg you,” she replied, with entreating

earnestness. “It does not become me to keep my mother, under any

circumstances, thus waiting at the door, and asking entrance.”

Meanwhile, the clamors of Mrs. Clifford were continued. Julia's aunt was

there also, and the controversy was hot and heavy between them. Annoyed

as I was, and apprehensive for Julia. I yet could not forbear laughing

at the ludicrousness of my position and the whole scene. I began to

think, from the equal violence of the two ancient dames without, that

they might finally get to blows. This was also the fear of Julia, and

another reason why we should throw open the door. I at length did so;

and soon had the doubtful satisfaction of transferring to myself all

the wrath of the disappointed mother. She rushed in, the moment the

door turned upon its hinges, almost upsetting me in the violence of her

onset. Bounding into the apartment with a fury that was utterly beyond

her own control, I was led to fear that she might absolutely inflict

violence upon her daughter, who by this time had sunk, in equal terror

and exhaustion, upon a sofa in the remotest corner of the room. I

hastily placed myself between them, and did not scruple, with extended

hands, to maintain a safe interval of space between the two. I will not

attempt to describe the tigress rage or the shrieking violence which

ensued on the part of this veteran termagant. It was only closed

at length, when, Julia having fainted under the storm, dead to all

appearance, I picked up the assailant VI ET ARMIS, and, in defiance

of screams and scratches--for she did not spare the use of her

talons--resolutely transported her from the chamber.

CHAPTER XIV.

ONE DEBT PAID.

Staggering forward under this burden--a burden equally active and

heavy--who should I encounter at the head of the stairs, but the

liege lord of the lady--my poor imbecile uncle. As soon as she beheld

him--foaming and almost unintelligible in her rage--she screamed for

succor--cried “murder” “rape,” “robbery,” and heaven knows what besides.

A moment before, though she scratched and scuffled to the utmost, she

had not employed her lungs. A momentary imprecation alone had broken

from her, as it were, perforce and unavoidably. Now, nothing could

exceed the stentorian tumult which her tongue maintained. She called

upon her husband to put me to death--to tear me in pieces--to do

anything and everything for the punishing of so dreadful an offender

as myself. In thus commanding him, she did not forbear uttering her own

unmeasured opinion of the demerits of the man whose performances she

required.

“If you had the spirit of a man, Clifford--if you were not a poor

shoat--you'd never have submitted so long as you have to this viper's

insolence. And there you stand, doing nothing--absolutely still as

a stock, though you see him beating your wife. Ah! you monster!--you

coward!--that I should ever have married a man that wasn't able to

protect me.”

This is a sufficient sample of her style, and not the worst. I am

constrained to confess that some portions of the good lady's language

would better have suited the modes of speech common enough among the

Grecian housekeepers at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. I

have omitted not a few of the bad words, and forborne the repetition of

that voluminous eloquence poured out, after the Billingsgate fashion,

equally upon myself, her daughter, and husband. During the vituperation

she still kicked and scuffled; my face suffered, and my eyes narrowly

escaped. But I grasped her firmly; and when her husband, my worthy

uncle, in obedience to her orders, sprang upon me, with the bludgeon

which he now habitually carried, I confronted him with the lusty person

of his spouse, and regret to say, that the first thwack intended for

my shoulders, descended with some considerable emphasis upon hers. This

increased her fury, and redoubled her screams. But it did not lessen

my determination, or make me change my mode of proceeding. I resolutely

pushed her before me. The husband stood at the head of the stairs and my

object was to carry her down to the lower story. The stairs were narrow,

and by keeping up a good watch, I contrived to force him to give ground,

using his spouse as a sort of battering-RAM--not to perpetrate a pun at

the expense of the genders--which, I happened to know, had always been

successful in making him give ground on all previous occasions. His

habitual deference for the dame, assisted me in my purpose. Step by

step, however, he disputed my advance; but I was finally successful;

without any injury beyond that which had been inflicted by the talons of

the fair lady, and perhaps a single and slight stroke upon the shoulder

from the club of her husband, I succeeded in landing her upon the lower

flat in safety. Beyond a squeeze or two, which the exigency of the case

made something more affectionate than any I should have been otherwise

pleased to bestow upon her, she suffered no hurt at my hands.

But, though willing to release her, she was not so willing herself to be

released. When I set her free, she flew at me with cat-like intrepidity;

and I found her a much more difficult customer than her husband. Him I

soon baffled. A moment sufficed to grapple with him and wrench the

stick from his hands, and then, with a moderate exercise of agility, I

contrived to spring up the stairway which I had just descended, regain

the chamber, and secure the door, before they could overtake or annoy me

with their further movements. My wife's aunt, meanwhile, had been busy

with her restoratives. Julia was now recovering from the fainting fit;

and I had the satisfaction of hearing from one of the servants that the

baffled enemy had gone off in a fury that made their departure seem a

flight rather than a mere retreat.

I should have treated the whole event with indifference--their rage and

their regard equally--but for my suffering and sensitive wife. Wronged

as she had been, and so persecuted as to render all her subsequent

conduct justifiable, she yet forgot none of her filial obligations; and,

in compliance with her earnest entreaties, I had already, the very day

after this conflict, prepared an elaborate and respectful epistle to

both father and mother, when an event took place of startling solemnity,

which was calculated to subdue my anger, and make the feelings of my

wife, if possible, more accessible than ever to the influences of fear

and sorrow. Only three days from our marriage had elapsed, when her

father was stricken speechless in the street. He was carried home for

dead. I have already hinted that, months before, and just after the

threatened discovery of those fraudulent measures by which he lost his

fortune, his mind had become singularly enfeebled; his memory

failing, and all his faculties of judgment--never very strong--growing

capricious, or else obtuse and unobserving. These were the symptoms of a

rapid physical change, the catastrophe of which was at hand. How far the

excitement growing out of his daughter's flight and marriage may have

precipitated this result, is problematical. It may be said, in this

place, that my wife's mother charged it all to my account. I was

pronounced the murderer of her husband. On this head I did not reproach

myself. It was necessary, however, that a reconciliation should take

place between the father and his child. To this I had, of course, no

sort of objection. But it will scarce be believed that the miserable

woman, her mother, opposed herself to their meeting with the utmost

violence of her character. Nothing but the outcry of the family and all

its friends--including the excellent physician whose secret services

had contributed so much toward my happiness--compelled her to give way,

though still ungraciously, to the earnest entreaty of her daughter

for permission to see her father before he died! and even then, by the

death-bed of the unhappy and almost unconscious man, she recommenced the

scene of abuse and bitter reproach, which, however ample the reader and

hearer may have already found it, it appears she had left unfinished. It

was in the midst of a furious tirade, directed against myself, chiefly,

and Julia, in part, that the spasms of death, unperceived by the mother,

passed over the contracted muscles of the father's face. The bitter

speech of the blind woman--blind of heart--was actually finished

after death had given the final blow to the victim. Of this she had no

suspicion, until instructed by the piercing shrieks of her daughter, who

fell swooning upon the corse before her.

CHAPTER XV.

HONEYMOON PERIOD.

It was supposed by Julia and certain of her friends that an event so

solemn, so impressive, and so unexpected, as the death of Mr. Clifford,

would reasonably affect the mind of his widow; and the concessions which

I had meditated to address to herself and her late husband were now

so varied as to apply solely to herself. I took considerable pains

in preparing my letter, with the view to soften her prejudices and

asperities, as well as to convince her reason. There was one suggestion

which Julia was disposed to insist on, to which, however, I was

singularly averse. In the destitution of Mrs. Clifford, her diminished

and still diminishing resources, not to speak of her loneliness, she

thought that I ought to tender her a home with us. Had she been any

other than the captious, cross-grained creature that she was--bad her

misfortunes produced only in part their legitimate and desirable effects

of subduing her perversity--I should have had no sort of objection. But

I knew her imperious and unreasonable nature; and I may here add,

that, by this time, I knew something of my own: I was a man of despotic

character. The constant conflicts which I had had from boyhood,

resulting as they had done in my frequent successes and final triumph,

had, naturally enough, made me dictatorial. Sanguine in temperament,

earnest in character, resolute in impulse, I was necessarily arbitrary

in mood. It was not likely that Mrs. Clifford would forget her

waywardnesses, and it was just as unreasonable that I should submit to

her insolences. Besides, one's home ought to be a very sacred place. It

is necessary that the peace there should compensate and console for the

strifes without. To hope for this in any household where there is more

than one master, would bo worse than idle. Nay, even if there were

peace, the chances are still great that there would be some lack of

propriety. Domestic regulations would become inutile. Children and

servants would equally fail of duty and improvement under conflicting

authorities; and all the sweet social harmonies of family would be

jarred away by misunderstandings if not bickerings, leading to coldness,

suspicion, and irremediable jealousies. These things seemed to threaten

me from the first moment when Julia submitted to me her desire that her

mother should be invited to take up her abode with us. I reasoned with

her against it; suggested all the grounds of objection which I really

felt; and reviewed at length the long history of our connection from my

childhood up, which had been distinguished by her constant hostility and

hate. “How,” I asked, “can it be hoped that there will be any change

for the better now? She is the same woman, I the same man! It is not

reasonable to think that the result of our reunion will be other than it

has been.” But Julia implored.

“I know what you say is reasonable--is just; but, dear Edward, she is my

mother, and she is alone.”

I yielded to her wishes. Could I else? My letter to her mother concluded

with a respectful entreaty that she would take apartments in our

dwelling, and a chair at our table, and lessen, to this extent, the

expenses of her own establishment.

“What!” exclaimed the frenzied woman to Julia's aunt, to whom the charge

of presenting the communication was committed--“what! eat the bread of

that insolent and ungrateful wretch? Never! never!”

She flung the epistle from her with disdain; and, to confess a truth,

though, on Julia's account, I should have wished a reconciliation, I was

by no means sorry, on my own, that such was her ultimatum. I gave myself

little further concern about this foolish person, and was happy to see

that in a short time my wife appeared to recover from the sadness and

stupor which the death of her father and the temper of her mother

had naturally induced. The truth is, she had, for so long a period

previously to her marriage, suffered from the persecutions of the

latter, and moaned over the shame and imbecility of the former, that

her present situation was one of great relief, and, for a while, of

comparative happiness.

We lived in a pleasant cottage in the suburbs. A broad and placid lake

spread out before our dwelling; and its tiny billows, under the pressure

of the sweet southwestern breezes, beat almost against our very doors.

Green and shady groves environed us on three sides, and sheltered

us from the intrusive gaze of the highway; and never was a brighter

collection of flowers and blossoms clustered around any habitation of

hope and happiness before. I rented the cottage on moderate terms, and

furnished it neatly, but simply, as became my resources. All things

considered, the prospect was fair and promising before us. Julia had few

toils, and ample leisure for painting and music, for both of which she

had considerable taste; for the former art, in particular, she possessed

no small talent.

Our city, indeed, seemed one peculiarly calculated for these arts. Our

sky was blue--deeply, beautifully blue; our climate mild and delightful.

Our people were singularly endowed with the genius for graceful and

felicitous performances. Music was an ordinary attribute of the great

mass; and in no community under the sun was there such an overflow of

talent in painting and sculpture. It was the grand error of our wise

heads to fancy that our city could be made one of great trade; and, in

a vain struggle to give it some commercial superiority over its neighbor

communities, the wealth of the people was thrown away upon projects

that yielded nothing; and the arts were left neglected in a region which

might have been made--and might still be made--if not exclusively,

at least pre-eminently their own. The ordinary look of the women was

beauty, the ordinary accent was sweetness. The soft moonlight evenings

were rendered doubly harmonious by the tender tinkling of the wandering

guitar, or the tones of the plaintive flute; while, from every third

dwelling, rose the more stately but scarcely sweeter melodies stricken

by pliant fingers from the yielding soul of the divine piano. The tastes

even of the mechanic were refined by this language, the purest In which

passion ever speaks; and an ambition--the result of the highest tone of

aristocratic influence upon society--prompted his desires to purposes

and a position to which in other regions he is not often permitted to

aspire. These influences were assisted by the peculiar location of

our city--by its suburban freedom from all closeness; its innumerable

gardens, the appanage of every household; its piazzas, verandahs,

porches; its broad and minstrel-wooing rivers; and the majestic and

evergreen forests, which grew and gathered around us on every hand. If

ever there was a city intended by nature more particularly than another

for the abodes and the offices of art, it was ours. It will become so

yet: the mean, money-loving soul of trade can not always keep it from

its destinies. We may never see it in our day; but so surely as we live,

and as it shall live, will it become an Athens in our land--a city of

empire by the sea, renowned for genius and taste--and the chosen retreat

of muses, younger and more vigorous, and not less lovely, than the old!

Julia was in a very high degree impregnated with the taste and desire

for art which seemed so generally the characteristic of our people. I

speak not now of the degree of skill which she possessed. Her teacher

was a foreigner, and a mere mechanic; but, while he taught her only the

ordinary laws of painting, her natural endowment wrought more actively

in favor of her performances. She soon discovered how much she could

learn from the little which her teacher knew; and when she made this

discovery, she ceased to have any use for his assistance. Books, the

study of the old masters, and such of the new as were available to her,

served her infinitely more in the prosecution of her efforts; and

these I stimulated by all means in my power: for I esteemed her natural

endowments to be very high, and very well knew how usual it is for young

ladies, after marriage, to give up those tastes and accomplishments

which had distinguished and heightened their previous charms. It was

quite enough that I admired the art, and tasked her to its pursuit, to

make her cling to it with alacrity and love. We wandered together early

in the morning and at the coming on of evening, over all the sweet,

enticing scenes which were frequent in our suburbs. Environed by two

rivers, wide and clear, with deep forests beyond--a broad bay opening

upon the sea in front--lovely islands of gleaming sand, strewn at

pleasant intervals, seeming, beneath the transparent moonlight, the

chosen places of retreat for naiads from the deep and fairies from

the grove--there was no lack of objects to delight the eye and woo

the pencil to its performances. Besides, never was blue sky, and

gold-and-purple sunset, more frequent, more rich, more shifting in its

shapes and colors, from beauty to superior beauty, than in our latitude.

The eye naturally turned up to it with a sense of hunger; the mind

naturally felt the wish to record such hues and aspects for the use of

venerating love; and the eager spirit, beginning to fancy the vision

wrought according to its own involuntary wish, seemed spontaneously to

cry aloud, in the language of the artist, on whom the consciousness of

genius was breaking with a sun-burst for the first time, “I, too, am a

painter!”

Julia's studio was soon full of beginnings. Fragmentary landscapes were

all about her. Like most southrons, she did not like to finish. There is

an impatience of toil--of its duration at least--in the southern

mind, which leaves it too frequently unperforming. This is a natural

characteristic of an excitable people. People easily moved are always

easily diverted from their objects. People of very vivid fancy are also

very capricious. There is yet another cause for the non-performance

of the southern mind--its fastidiousness. In a high state of social

refinement, the standards of taste become so very exacting, that

the mind prefers not to attempt, rather than to offend that critical

judgment which it feels to be equally active in its analysis and rigid

in its requisitions. Genius and ambition must be independent of

such restraints. “Be bold, be bold, be bold!” is the language of

encouragement in Spenser; and when he says, at the end, “Be not too

bold,” we are to consider the qualification as simply a quiet caution

not to allow proper courage to rush into rashness and insane license.

The GENIUS that suffers itself to be fettered by the PRECISE, will

perhaps learn how to polish marble, but will never make it live, and

will certainly never live very long itself!

With books and music, painting and flowers, we passed the happy moments

of the honeymoon. I yielded as little of myself and my mind to my office

and clients, in that period, as I possibly could. My cottage was

my paradise. My habits, as might be inferred from my history, were

singularly domestic. Doomed, as I had been, from my earliest years,

to know neither friends nor parents; isolated, in my infancy, from

all those tender ties which impress upon the heart, for all succeeding

years, tokens of the most endearing affection; denied the smiles of

those who yet filled my constant sight--my life was a long yearning for

things of love--for things to love! While the struggle continued between

Julia's parents and myself, though confiding in her love, I had yet no

confidence in my own hope to realize and to secure it. Now that it was

mine--mine, at last--I grew uxorious in its contemplation. Like the

miser, I had my treasure at home, and I hastened home to survey it with

precisely the same doubts, and hopes, and fears, which the disease of

avarice prompts in the unhappy heart of its victim To this disease, in

chief, I have to attribute all my future sorrows; but the time is not

yet for that. It is my joys now that I have to contemplate and describe.

How I dwelt, and how I dreamed! how I seemed to tread on air, in the

unaccustomed fullness of my spirit! how my whole soul, given up to the

one pursuit, I fondly fancied had secured its object! I fancied--nay,

for the time, I was happy! Surely, I was happy!

CHAPTER XVI.

THE HAPPY SEASON.

Surely, I then was happy! I can not deceive myself as to the character

of those brief Eden moments of security and peace. Even now, lone as

I appear in the sight of others--degraded as I feel myself--even now

I look back on our low white cottage, by the shores of that placid

lake--its little palings gleaming sweetly through its dense green

foliage--recall those happy, halcyon days, and feel that we both, for

the time, had attained the secret--the secret worth all the rest--of an

enjoyment actually felt, and quite as full, flush, and satisfactory, as

it had seemed in the perspective. Possession had taken nothing of the

gusto from hope. Truth had not impaired a single beauty of the ideal.

I looked in Julia's face at morning when I awakened, and her loveliness

did not fade. My lips, that drank sweetness from hers, did not cease

to believe the sweetness to be there--as pure, as warm, as full of

richness, as when I had only dreamed of their perfections. Our days

and nights were pure, and gentle, and fond. One twenty-four hours shall

speak for all.

When we rose at morning, we prepared for a ramble, either into the

woods, or along the banks of the lovely river that lay west of, and at

a short distance only from, our dwelling. There, wandering, as the sun

rose, we imparted to each other's eyes the several objects of beauty

which his rising glance betrayed. Sometimes we sat beneath a tree, while

she hurriedly sketched a clump of woods, the winding turn of the shore,

its occasional crescent form or abrupt headland, as they severally

appeared in a new light, and at a happy moment of time, beneath our

vision. The songs of pleasant birds allured us on; the sweet scent of

pines and myrtle refreshed us; and a gay, wholesome, hearty spirit was

awakened in our mutual bosoms, as thus, day after day, while, like the

d&y, our hearts were in their first youth, we resorted to the ever-fresh

mansions of the sovereign Nature. This habit produces purity of feeling,

and continues the habit in its earliest simplicity. The childlike laws

which it encourages and strengthens are those which virtue most loves,

and which strained forms of society are the first to overthrow. The pure

tastes of youth are those which are always most dear to humanity; and

love is easy of access, and peace not often a stranger to the mind,

where these tastes preserve their ascendency.

My profession was something at variance with these tastes and feelings.

The very idea of law, which presupposes the frequent occurrence of

injustice, engenders, by its practice, a habit of suspicion. To throw

doubt upon the fact, and defeat and prevent convictions of the probable,

are habits which lawyers soon acquire. This is natural from the daily

encounter with bad and striving men--men who employ the law as an

instrument by which to evade right, or inflict wrong; and, this apart,

the acute mind loves, for its own sake, the very exercise of doubt, by

which ingenuity is put in practice, and an adroit discrimination kept

constantly at work.

I was saved, however, from something of this danger. The injustice

which I had been subjected to, in my own boyhood, had filled me with the

keenest love for the right. The idea of injustice aroused my sternest

feelings of resistance. I had adopted the law as a profession with

something of a patriotic feeling. I felt that I could make it an

instrument for putting down the oppressor, the wrong-doer--for asserting

right, and maintaining innocence! I had my admiration, too, at that

period, of that logical astuteness, that wonderful tenacity of hold and

pursuit, and discrimination of attribute and subject, which distinguish

this profession beyond all others, and seem to confirm the assumption

made in its behalf, by which it has been declared the perfection of

human reason. It will not be subtracting anything from this estimate,

if I express my conviction, founded upon my own experience, that, though

such may be the character of the law as an abstract science, it deserves

no such encomium as it is ordinarily practised. Lawyers are too commonly

profound only in the technicalities of the profession; and a very keen

study and acquaintance with these--certainly a too great reliance upon

them, and upon the dicta of other lawyers--leads to a dreadful departure

from elementary principles, and a most woful (sic) disregard, if not

ignorance, of those profounder sources of knowledge without which laws

multiply at the expense of reason, and not in support of it; and lawyers

may be compared to those ignorant captains to whom good ships are

intrusted, who rely upon continual sounding to grope their way along the

accustomed shores. Let them once leave the shores, and get beyond

the reach of their plummets, and the good ship must owe its safety to

fortune and the favor of the winds, for further skill is none.

I did not find the practice of the law affect my taste for domestic

pleasures; on the contrary, it stimulated and preserved them. After

toiling a whole morning in the courts, it was a sweet reprieve to be

allowed to hurry off to my quiet cottage, and hear the one dear voice

of my household, and examine the quiet pictures. These never stunned me

with clamors; I was never pestered by them to determine the meum et tuum

between noisy disputants, neither of whom is exactly right. There,

my eye could repose on the sweetest scenes--scenes of beauty and

freshness-the shady verdure of the woods, the rich variety of flowers,

and pure, calm, transparent waters, hallowed by the meek glances of the

matron moon. No creature could have been more gentle than my wife. She

met me with a composed smile, equally bright and meek. I never heard

a complaint from her lips. The evils of which other men complain--the

complaints about servants, scoldings about delay or dinner--never

reached my ears. The kindest solicitude that, in my fatigue, or amid the

toils of a business of which wives can know little, and for which they

make too little allowance, there should be nothing at home to make me

irritable or give me disquiet, distinguished equally her sense and

her affection. If it became her duty to communicate any unpleasant

intelligence--any tidings which might awaken anger or impatience--she

carefully waited foi the proper time, when the excitement of my blood

was overcome, and repose of blood and brain had naturally brought about

a kindred composure of mind.

Our afternoons were usually spent in the shade of the garden or piazza.

Sometimes, I sat by her while she was sketching. At others, she helped

me to dress and train my garden-vines. Now and then we renewed our

rambles of the morning, heedfully observing the different aspects of the

same scenes and object, which had then delighted us, under the mellowing

smiles of the sun at its decline. With books, music, and chess, our

evenings passed away without our consciousness; and day melted into

night, and night departed and gave place to the new-born day, as quietly

as if life had, in truth, become to us a great instrument of harmony,

which bore us over the smooth seas of Time, to the gentle beating of

fairy and unseen minstrelsy. Truly, then, we were two happy children.

The older children of this world, stimulated by stronger tastes and

more lofty indulgences, may smile at the infantile simplicity of such

resources and modes of enjoyment. They were childish, but perhaps not

the less wise for that. Infancy lies very near to heaven. Childhood is

a not unfit study for angels; and happy were it for us could we maintain

the hearts and the hopes of that innocent period for a longer day within

our bosoms. In our world we grow too fast, too presumptuously. We live

on too rich food, moral and intellectual. The artifices of our tastes

prove most fatally the decline of our reason. But, for us--we two linked

hearts, so segregated from all beside--we certainly lived the lives

of children for a while. But we were not to live thus always. In some

worldly respects, _I_ was still a child: I cared little for its pomps,

its small honors, its puny efforts, its tinselly displays. But I had

vices of mind--vices of my own--sufficient to embitter the social world

where all seems now so sweet--where all, in truth, WAS sweet, and pure,

and worthy--and which might, under other circumstances, have been kept

so to the last. I am now to describe a change!

CHAPTER XVII.

THE EVIL PRINCIPLE.

Heretofore, I have spoken of the blind hearts of others--of Mr. Clifford

and his wilful wife--I have yet said little to show the blindness of

my own. This task is now before me, and, with whatever reluctance, the

exhibition shall resolutely be made. I have described a couple newly

wed--eminently happy--blessed with tolerable independence--resources

from without and within--dwelling in the smiles of Heaven, and not

uncheered by the friendly countenance of man. I am to display the cloud,

which hangs small at first, a mere speck, but which is to grow to a

gloomy tempest that is to swallow up the loveliness of the sky, and

blacken with gloom and sorrow the fairest aspects of the earth. I am to

show the worm in the bud which is to bring blight--the serpent in the

garden which is to spoil the Eden. Wo, beyond all other woes, that

this serpent should be engendered in one's own heart, producing its

blindness, and finally working its bane! Yet, so it is! The story is a

painful one to tell; the task is one of self-humiliation. But the truth

may inform others--may warn, may strengthen, may save--before their

hearts shall be utterly given up to that blindness which must end in

utter desperation and irretrievable overthrow.

If the reader has not been utterly unmindful of certain moral

suggestions which have been thrown out passingly in my previous

narrative, he will have seen that, constitutionally, I am of an

ardent, impetuous temper--an active mind, ready, earnest, impatient of

control--seeking the difficult for its own sake, and delighting in the

conquest which is unexpected by others.

Such a nature is usually frank and generous. It believes in the

affections--it depends upon them. It freely gives its own, but

challenges the equally free and spontaneous gift of yours in return.

It has little faith in the things which fill the hearts of the mere

worldlings. Worldly honors may delight it, but not worldly toys. It

has no veneration for gewgaws. The shows of furniture and of dress it

despises. The gorgeous equipage is an encumbrance to it; the imposing

jewel it would not wear, lest it might subtract something from that

homage which it prefers should be paid to the wearer. It is all

selfish--thoroughly selfish--but not after the world's fashion of

selfishness. It hoards nothing, and gives quite as much as it asks. What

does it ask? What? It asks for love--devoted attachment; the homage of

the loved one and the friends; the implicit confidence of all around it!

Ah! can anything be more exacting? Cruelly exacting, if it be not worthy

of that it asks!

Imagine such a nature, denied from the beginning! The parents of its

youth are gone!--the brother and the sister--the father and the friend!

It is destitute, utterly, of these! It is also destitute of those

resources of fortune which are supposed to be sufficient to command

them. It is thrown upon the protection, the charge of strangers. Not

strangers--no! From strangers, perhaps, but little could be expected. It

is thrown upon the care of relatives--a father's brother! Could the tie

be nearer? Not well! But it had been better if strangers had been its

guardians. Then it might have learned to endure more patiently. At

least, it would have felt less keenly the pangs inflicted by neglect,

contumely, injustice. In this situation it grows up, like some sapling

torn from its parent forest, its branches hacked off, its limbs

lacerated! It grows up in a stranger soil. The sharp winds assail it

from every quarter. But still it lives--it grows. It grows wildly,

rudely, ungracefully; but it is strong and tough, in consequence of its

exposure and its trials. Its vitality increases with every collision

which shakes and rends it; until, in the pathetic language of relatives

unhappily burdened with such encumbrances, “it seems impossible to kill

it!”

I will not say that mine tried to kill me, but I do say that they took

precious little care that I was not killed. The effect upon my body was

good, however--the effect of their indifference. This roughening process

is a part of physical training which very few parents understand. It is

essential--should be insisted on--but it must not be accompanied with a

moral roughening, which forces upon the mind of the pupil the conviction

that the ordeal is meant for his destruction rather than for his

good. There will be a recoil of the heart--a cruel recoil from the

humanities--if such a conviction once fills the mind. It was this recoil

which I felt! With warm affections seeking for objects of love--with

feelings of hope and veneration, imploring for altars to which to attach

themselves--I was commanded to go alone. The wilderness alone was open

to me: what wonder if my heart grew wild and capricious even as that of

the savage who dwells only amid their cheerless recesses? With a smile

judiciously bestowed--with a kind word, a gentle tone, an occasional

voice of earnest encouragement--my uncle and aunt might have fashioned

my heart at their pleasure. I should have been as clay in the hands

of the potter--a pliant willow in the grasp of the careful trainer. A

nature constituted like mine is, of all others, the most flexible; but

it is also, of all others, the most resisting and incorrigible. Approach

it with a judicious regard to its affections, and you do with it what

you please. Let it but fancy that it is the victim of your injustice,

however slight, and the war is an interminable one between you!

Thus did I learn the first lessons of suspiciousness. They attended

me to the schoolhouse; they governed and made me watchful there. The

schoolhouse, the play-places--the very regions of earnest faith and

unlimited confidence--produced no such effects in me. They might have

done so, had I ceased, on going to school, to see my relatives any

longer. But the daily presence of my uncle and aunt, with their system

of continued injustice, at length rendered my suspicious moods habitual.

I became shy. I approached nobody, or approached them with doubt and

watchfulness. I learned, at the earliest period, to look into character,

to analyze conduct, to pry into the mysterious involutions of the

working minds around me. I traced, or fancied that I traced, the

performance to the unexpressed and secret motive in which it had its

origin. I discovered, or believed that I discovered, that the world

was divided into banditti and hypocrites. At that day I made little

allowance for the existence of that larger class than all, who happen

to be the victims. Unless this were the larger class, the other two must

very much and very rapidly diminish. My infant philosophy did not carry

me very deeply into the recesses of my own heart. It was enough that

I felt some of its dearest rights to be outraged--I did not care to

inquire whether it was altogether right itself.

At length, there was a glimpse of dawn amid all this darkness. The world

was not altogether evil. All hearts were not shut against me; and in

the sweet smiles of Julia Clifford, in her kind attentions, soothing

assurances, and fond entreaties, there was opportunity, at last, for

my feelings to overflow. Like a mountain-stream long pent up, which at

length breaks through its confinements, my affections rushed into the

grateful channel which her pliant heart afforded me. They were wild, and

strong, and, devoted, in proportion to their long denial and

restraint. Was it not natural enough that I should love with no

ordinary attachment--that my love should be an impetuous

torrent--all-devoted--struggling, striving--rushing only in the one

direction--believing, in truth, that there was none other in the world

in which to run?

This was a natural consequence of the long sophistication of my

feelings. I knew nothing of the world--of society. I had shared in none

of its trusts; I had only felt its exactions. Like some country-boy,

or country-girl, for the first time brought into the great world, I

surrendered myself wholly to the first gratified impulse. I made no

conditions, no qualifications. I set all my hopes of heart upon a single

cast of the die, and did not ask what might be the consequences if the

throw was unfortunate.

One of the good effects of a free communication of the young with

society is, to lessen the exacting nature of the affections. People

who live too much to themselves--in their own centre, and for their own

single objects--become fastidious to disease. They ask too much from

their neighbors. Willing to surrender their OWN affections at a glance,

they fancy the world wanting in sensibility when they find that their

readiness in this respect fails to produce a corresponding readiness in

others. This is the natural history of that enthusiasm which is thrown

back upon itself and is chilled by denial. The complaint of coldness and

selfishness against the world is very common among very young or very

inexperienced men. The world gets a bad character, simply because it

refuses to lavish its affections along the highways--simply because

it is cautious in giving its trusts, and expects proofs of service and

actual sympathy rather than professions. Men like myself, of a warm,

impetuous nature, complain of the heartlessness of mankind. They fancy

themselves peculiarly the victims of an unkind destiny in this respect;

and finally cut their throats in a moment of frenzy, or degenerate

into a cynicism that delights in contradictions, in sarcasms, in

self-torture, and the bitterest hostility to their neighbors.

Society itself is the only and best corrective of this unhappy

disposition. The first gift to the young, therefore, should be the

gift of society. By this word society, however, I do not mean a set,

a clique, a pitiable little circle. Let the sphere of movement

be sufficiently extended--as large as possible--that the means of

observation and thought may be sufficiently comprehensive, and no

influences from one man or one family shall be suffered to give the bias

to the immature mind and inexperienced judgment. In society like this,

the errors, prejudices, weaknesses, of one man, are corrected by a

totally opposite form of character in another. The mind of the youth

hesitates. Hesitation brings circumspection, watchfulness; watchfulness,

discrimination; discrimination, choice; and a capacity to choose implies

the attainment of a certain degree of deliberateness and judgment with

which the youth may be permitted to go upon his way, supposed to be

provided for in the difficult respect of being able henceforward to take

care of himself.

I had no society--knew nothing of society--saw it at a distance, under

suspicious circumstances, and was myself an object of its suspicion. Its

attractions were desirable to me, but seemed unattainable. It required

some sacrifices to obtain its entrée, and these sacrifices were the very

ones which my independence would not allow me to make. My independence

was my treasure, duly valued in proportion to the constant strife by

which it was assailed. I had that! THAT could not be taken from me. THAT

kept me from sinking into the slave the tool, the sycophant, perhaps

the brute; THAT prompted me to hard study in secret places; THAT

strengthened my heart, when, desolate and striving against necessity, I

saw nothing of the smiles of society, and felt nothing of the bounties

of life. Then came my final emancipation--my success--my triumph! My

independence was assailed no longer. My talents were no longer doubted

or denied. My reluctant neighbors sent in their adhesion. My uncle

forbore his sneers. Lastly, and now--Julia was mine! My heart's desires

were all gratified as completely as my mind's ambition!

Was I happy? The inconsiderate mind will suppose this very

probable--will say, I should be. But evil seeds that are planted in

the young heart grow up with years--not so rapidly or openly as to

offend--and grow to be poisonous weeds with maturity. My feelings were

too devoted, too concentrative, too all-absorbing, to leave me happy,

even when they seemed gratified. The man who has but a single jewel in

the world, is very apt to labor under a constant apprehension of its

loss. He who knows but one object of attachment--whose heart's devotion

turns evermore but to one star of all the countless thousands in the

heavens--wo is he, if that star be shrouded from his gaze in the sudden

overflow of storms!--still more wo is he, when that star withdraws, or

seems to withdraw, its corresponding gaze, or turns it elsewhere upon

another worshipper! See you not the danger which threatened me? See you

not that, never having been beloved before--never having loved but the

one--I loved that one with all my heart, with all my soul, with all

my strength; and required from that one the equal love of heart,

soul, strength? See you not that my love--linked with impatient mind,

imperious blood, impetuous enthusiasm, and suspicious fear--was a

devotion exacting as the grave--searching as fever--as jealous of the

thing whose worship it demands as God is said to be of ours?

Mine was eminently a jealous heart! On this subject of jealousy, men

rarely judge correctly. They speak of Othello as jealous--Othello, one

of the least jealous of all human natures! Jealousy is a quality that

needs no cause. It makes its own cause. It will find or make occasion

for its exercise, in the most innocent circumstances. The PROOFS that

made Othello wretched and revengeful, were sufficient to have deceived

any jury under the sun. He had proofs. He had a strong case to go upon.

It would have influenced any judgment. He did not seek or find these

proofs for himself. He did not wish to find them. He was slow to see

them. His was not jealousy. His error was that of pride and self-esteem.

He was outraged in both. His mistake was in being too prompt of action

in a case which admitted of deliberation. This was the error of a

proud man, a soldier, prompt to decide, prompt to act, and to punish if

necessary. But never was human character less marked by a jealous mood

than that of Othello. His great self-esteem was, of itself, a sufficient

security against jealousy. Mine might have been, had it not been so

terribly diseased by ill-training.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PRESENTIMENTS.

Without apprehending the extent of my own weakness, the forms that it

would take, or the tyrannies that it would inflict, I was still not

totally uninformed on the subject of my peculiar character; and,

fearing then rather that I might pain my wife by some of its wanton

demonstrations, than that she would ever furnish me with, an occasion

for them, I took an opportunity, a few evenings after our marriage, to

suggest to her the necessity of regarding my outbreaks with an indulgent

eye.

My heart had been singularly softened by the most touching associations.

We sat together in our piazza, beneath a flood of the richest and

balmiest moonlight, screened only from its silvery blaze by interposing

masses of the woodbine, mingled with shoots of oleander, arbor-vitae,

and other shrub-trees. The mild breath of evening sufficed only to lift

quiveringly their green leaves and glowing blossoms, to stir the hair

upon our cheeks, and give to the atmosphere that wooing freshness which

seems so necessary a concomitant of the moonlight. The hand of Julia

was in mine. There were few words spoken between us; love has its own

sufficing language, and is content with that consciousness that all is

right which implores no other assurances. Julia had just risen from

the piano: we had both been touched with a deeper sense of the thousand

harmonies in nature, by listening to those of Rossini; and now, gazing

upon some transparent, fleecy, white clouds that were slowly pressing

forward in the path of the moonlight, as if in duteous attendance upon

some maiden queen, our mutual minds were busied in framing pictures from

the fine yet fantastic forms that glowed, gathering on our gaze. I felt

the hand of Julia trembling in my own. Her head sank upon my shoulder; I

felt a warm drop fall from her eyes upon my hand, and exclaimed--

“Julia, you weep! wherefore do you weep, dear wife?”

“With joy, my husband! My heart is full of joy. I am so happy, I can

only weep. Ah! tears alone speak for the true happiness.”

“Ah! would it last, Julia--would it last!”

“Oh, doubt not that it will last. Why should it not t What have we to

fear?”

Mine was a serious nature. I answered sadly, if not gloomily:--

“Because it is a joy of life that we feel, and it must share the

vicissitudes of life.”

“True, true, but love is a joy of eternal life as well as of this.”

There was a beautiful and consoling truth in this one little sentence,

which my self-absorption was too great, at the time, to suffer me to

see. Perhaps even she herself was not fully conscious of the glorious

and pregnant truth which lay at the bottom of what she said. Love is,

indeed, not merely a joy of eternal life: it is THE joy of eternal

life!--its particular joy--a dim shadow of which we sometimes feel in

this--pure, lasting, comparatively perfect, the more it approaches, in

its performances and its desires, the divine essence, of which it is so

poor a likeness. We should so live, so love, as to make the one run into

the other, even as a small river runs down, through a customary channel,

into the great deeps of the sea. Death should be to the affections

a mere channel through which they pass into a natural, a necessary

condition, where their streams flow with more freedom, and over which,

harmoniously controlling, as powerful, the spirit of love broods ever

with “dovelike wings outspread.” I answered, still gloomily, in the

customary world commonplaces:--

“We must expect the storm. It will not be moonlight always. We must look

for the cloud. Age, sickness, death!--ah! do these not follow on our

footsteps, ever unerring, certain always, but so often rapid? Soon,

how soon, they haunt us in the happiest moments--they meet us at every

corner! They never altogether leave us.”

“Enough, dear husband. Dwell not upon these gloomy thoughts. Ah! why

should you--NOW?'

“I will not; but there are others, Julia.”

“What others? Evils?”

“Sadder evils yet than these.”

“Oh, no!--I hope not.”

“Coldness of the once warm heart. The chill of affection in the loved

one. Estrangement--indifference!--ah, Julia!”

“Impossible, Edward! This can not, MUST not be, with us You do not think

that I could be cold to you; and you--ah! surely YOU will never cease to

love me?”

“Never, I trust, never!”

“No! you must not--SHALL not. Oh, Edward, let me die first before such

a fear should fill my breast. You I love, as none was loved before.

Without your love, I am nothing. If I can not hang upon you, where can I

hang?”

And she clung to me with a grasp as if life and death depended on it,

while her sobs, as from a full heart, were insuppressible in spite of

all her efforts.

“Fear nothing, dearest Julia: do you not believe that I love you?”

“Ah! if I did not, Edward--”

“It is with you always to make me love you. You are as completely the

mistress of my whole heart as if it had acknowledged no laws but yours

from the beginning.”

“What am I to do, dear Edward?”

“Forbear--be indulgent--pity me and spare me!”

“What mean you, Edward?”

“That heart which is all and only yours, Julia, is yet, I am assured,

a wilful and an erring heart! I feel that it is strange, wayward,

sometimes unjust to others, frequently to itself. It is a cross-grained,

capricious heart; you will find its exactions irksome.”

“Oh, I know it better. You wrong yourself.”

“No! In the solemn sweetness of this hour, dear Julia--now, while all

things are sweet to our eyes, all things dear to our affections--I

feel a chill of doubt and apprehension come over me. I am so happy--so

unusually happy--that I can not feel sure that I am so--that my

happiness will continue long. I will try, on my own part, to do nothing

by which to risk its loss. But I feel that I am too wilful, at times,

to be strong in keeping a resolution which is so very necessary to our

mutual happiness. You must help--you must strengthen me, Julia.”

“Oh, yes! but how? I will do anything--be anything.”

“I am capricious, wayward; at times, full of injustice. Love me not

less that I am so--that I sometimes show this waywardness to you--that

I sometimes do injustice to your love. Bear with me till the dark mood

passes from my heart. I have these moods, or have had them, frequently.

It may be--I trust it will be--that, blessed with your love, and secure

in its possession, there will be no room in my heart for such ugly

feelings. But I know not. They sometimes take supreme possession of me.

They seize upon me in all places. They wrap my spirit as in a cloud.

I sit apart. I scowl upon those around me. I feel moved to say bitter

things--to shoot darts in defiance at every glance--to envenom every

sentence which I speak. These are cruel moods. I have striven vainly

to shake them off. They have grown up with my growth--have shared in

whatever strength I have; and, while they embitter my own thoughts and

happiness, I dread that they will fling their shadow upon yours!”

She replied with gayety, with playfulness, but there was an effort in

it.

“Oh, you make the matter worse than it is. I suppose all that troubles

you is the blues. But you will never have them again. When I see them

coming on I will sit by you and sing to you. We will come out here and

watch the evening; or you shall read to me, or we will ramble in the

garden--or--a thousand things which shall make you forget that there was

ever such a thing in the world as sorrow.”

“Dear Julia--will you do this?”

“More--everything to make you happy.” And she drew me closer in her

embrace, and her lips with a tremulous, almost convulsive sweetness,

were pressed upon my forehead; and clinging there, oh! how sweetly did

she weep!

“You will tire of my waywardness--of my exactions. Ah! I shall force you

from my side by my caprice.”

“You can not, Edward, if you would,” she replied, in mournful accents

like my own, “I have no remedy against you! I have nobody now to whom to

turn. Have _I_ not driven all from my side--all but you?”

It was my task to soothe her now.

“Nay, Julia, be not you sorrowful. You must continue glad and blest,

that you may conquer my sullen moods, my dark presentiments. When I tell

you of the evils of my temper, I tell you of occasional clouds only.

Heaven forbid that they should give an enduring aspect to our heavens!”

She responded fervently to my ejaculation. I continued:--

“I have only sought to prepare you for the management of my arbitrary

nature, to keep you from suffering too much, and sinking beneath its

exactions. You will bear with me patiently. Forgive me for my evil

hours. Wait till the storm has overblown; and find me your own, then,

as much as before; and let me feel that you are still mine--that the

tempest has not separated our little vessels.”

“Will I not? Ah! do not fear for me, Edward. It is a happiness for me to

weep here--here, in your arms. When you are sad and moody, I will come

as now.”

“What if I repulse you?”

“You will not--no, no!--you will not.”

“But if I do I Suppose---”

“Ah! it is hard to suppose that. But I will not heed it. I will come

again.”

“And again?”

“And again!”

“Then you will conquer, Julia. I feel that you will conquer! You will

drive out the devils. Surely, then, I shall be incorrigible no longer.”

Such was my conviction then. I little knew myself.

CHAPTER XIX.

DISTRUST.

I little knew myself! This knowledge of one's self is the most important

knowledge, which very few of us acquire. We seldom look into our own

hearts for other objects than those which will administer to their petty

vanities and passing triumphs. Could we only look there sometimes for

the truth! But we are blind--blind all! In some respects I was one of

the blindest!

I have given a brief glimpse of our honeymoon. Perhaps, as the world

goes, the picture is by no means an attractive one. Quiet felicity forms

but a small item in the sources of happiness, now-a-days, among young

couples. Mine was sufficiently quiet and sufficiently humble. One would

suppose that he who builds so lowly should have no reason to apprehend

the hurricane. Social ambition was clearly no object with either of us.

We sighed neither for the glitter nor the regards of fashionable life.

Neither upon fine houses, jewels, or equipages, did we set our hearts.

For the pleasures of the table I had no passion, and never was young

woman so thoroughly regardless of display as Julia Clifford. To be let

alone--to be suffered to escape in our own way, unharming, unharmed,

through the dim avenues of life--was assuredly all that we asked from

man. Perhaps--I say it without cant--this, perhaps, was all that we

possibly asked from heaven. This was all that I asked, at least,

and this was much. It was asking what had never yet been accorded to

humanity. In the vain assumption of my heart I thought that my demands

were moderate.

Let no man console himself with the idea that his chances of success are

multiplied in degree with the insignificance, or seeming insignificance,

of his aims. Perhaps the very reverse of this is the truth. He who

seeks for many objects of enjoyment--whose tastes are diversified--has

probably the very best prospect that some of them may be gratified. He

is like the merchant whose ventures on the sea are divided among many

vessels. He may lose one or more, yet preserve the main bulk of

his fortune from the wreck. But he who has only a single bark--one

freightage, however costly--whose whole estate is invested in the one

venture--let him lose that, and all is lost. It does not matter that

his loss, speaking relatively, is but little. Suppose his shipment, in

general estimation, to be of small value. The loss to him is so much

the greater. It was the dearer to him because of its insignificance, and

being all that he had; is quite as conclusive of his ruin, as would be

the foundering of every vessel which the rich merchant sent to sea.

I was one of these petty traders. I invested my whole capital of the

affections in one precious jewel. Did I lose it, or simply fear its

loss? Time must show. But, of a truth, I felt as the miser feels with

his hoarded treasure. While I watched its richness and beauty, doubts

and dread beset me. Was it safe? Everything depended upon its security.

Thieves might break in and steal. Enough, for the present, to say, that

much of my security, and of the security of all who, like me, possess

a dear treasure, depends upon our convictions of security. He who

apprehends loss, is already robbed. The reality is scarcely worse than

the hourly anticipation of it.

My friends naturally became the visitors of my family. Certain of the

late Mrs. Clifford's friends were also ours. Our circle was sufficiently

large for those who already knew how to distinguish between the safe

pleasures of a small set, and the horse-play and heartless enjoyments

of fashionable jams. Were we permitted in this world to live only for

ourselves, we should have been perfectly gratified had this been even

less. We should have been very well content to have gone on from day to

day without ever beholding the shadow of a stranger upon our threshold.

This was not permitted, however. We had a round of congratulatory

visits. Among those who came, the first were the old, long-tried friends

to whom I owed so much--the Edgertons. No family could have been more

truly amiable than this; and William Edgerton was the most amiable of

the family. I have already said enough to persuade the reader that he

was a very worthy man. He was more. He was a principled one. Not very

highly endowed, perhaps, he was yet an intelligent gentleman. None could

be more modest in expression--none less obtrusive in deportment--none

more generous in service. The defects in his character were organic--not

moral. He had no vices--no vulgarities. But his temperament was an

inactive one. He was apt to be sluggish, and when excited was nervous.

He was not irritable, but easily discomposed. His tastes were active at

the expense of his genius. With ability, he was yet unperforming. His

standards were morbidly fastidious. Fearing to fall below them, he

desisted until the moment of action was passed for ever; and the feeling

of his own weakness, in this respect, made him often sad, but to do him

justice, never querulous.

With a person so constituted, the delicate tastes and sensibilities are

like to be indulged in a very high degree. William Edgerton loved music

and all the quiet arts. Painting was his particular delight. He himself

sketched with great spirit. He had the happy eye for the tout ensemble

in a fine landscape. He knew exactly how much to take in and what to

leave out, in the delineation of a lovely scene. This is a happy talent

for discrimination which the ordinary artist does not possess. It is the

capacity which, in the case of orators and poets, informs them of

the precise moment when they should stop. It is the happiest sort of

judgment, since, though the artist may be neither very excellent in

drawing, nor very felicitous in color, it enables him always to bestow a

certain propriety on his picture which compensates, to a certain degree,

for inferiority in other respects. To know how to grasp objects with

spirit, and bestow them with a due regard to mutual dependence, is one

of the most exquisite faculties of the landscape-painter.

William Edgerton, had he been forced by necessity to have made the art

of painting his profession would have made for himself a reputation

of no inferior kind. But amateur art, like amateur literature, rarely

produces any admirable fruits. Complete success only attends the devotee

to the muse. The worship must be exclusive at her altar; the attendance

constant and unremitting. There must be no partial, no divided homage.

She is a jealous mistress, like all the rest. The lover of her charms,

if he would secure her smiles, must be a professor at her shrine. He can

not come and go at pleasure. She resents such impertinence by neglect.

In plain terms, the fine arts must be made a business by those who

desire their favor. Like law, divinity, physic, they constitute a

profession of their own; require the same diligent endeavor, close

study, fond pursuit! William Edgerton loved painting, but his business

was the law. He loved painting too much to love his profession. He gave

too much of his time to the law to be a successful painter--too much

time to painting to be a lawyer. He was nothing! At the bar he never

rose a step after the first day, when, together, we appeared in our

mutual maiden case; and contenting himself with the occasional execution

of a landscape, sketchy and bold, but without finish, he remained

in that nether-land of public consideration, unable to grasp the

certainties of either pursuit at which he nevertheless was constantly

striving; striving, however, with that qualified degree of effort,

which, if it never could secure the prize, never could fatigue him much

with the endeavor to do so.

He was perfectly delighted when he first saw some of the sketches of my

wife. He had none of that little jealousy which so frequently impairs

the temper and the worth of amateurs. He could admire without prejudice,

and praise without reserve. He praised them. He evidently admired them.

He sought every occasion to see them, and omitted none in which to

declare his opinion of their merits. This, in the first pleasant season

of my marriage--when the leaves were yet green and fresh upon the tree

of love--was grateful to my feelings. I felt happy to discover that my

judgment had not erred in the selection of my wife. I stimulated her

industry that I might listen to my friend's eulogy. I suggested subjects

for her pencil. I fitted up an apartment especially as a studio for her

use. I bought her some fine studies, lay figures, heads in marble and

plaster; and lavished, in this way, the small surplus fund which had

heretofore accrued from my professional industry, and that personal

frugality with which it was accompanied.

William Edgerton was now for ever at our house. He brought his own

pictures for the inspection of my wife. He sometimes painted in her

studio. He devised rural and aquatic parties with sole reference to

landscape scenery and delineation; and indifferent to the law always,

he now abandoned himself almost entirely to those tastes which seemed to

have acquired of a sudden, the strangest and the strongest impulse.

In this--at least for a considerable space of time--I saw nothing very

remarkable. I knew his tastes previously. I had seen how little disposed

he was to grapple earnestly with the duties of his profession; and did

not conceive it surprising, that, with family resources sufficient to

yield him pecuniary independence, he should surrender himself up to the

luxurious influence of tastes which were equally lovely in themselves,

and natural to the first desires of his mind. But when for days he was

missed from his office--when the very hours of morning which are most

religiously devoted by the profession to its ostensible if not earnest

pursuit, were yielded up to the easel--and when, overlooking the

boundaries which, according to the conventional usage, made such a

course improper, he passed many of these mornings at my house, during my

absence, I began to entertain feelings of disquietude.

For these I had then no name. The feelings were vague and indefinable,

but not the less unpleasant. I did not fancy for a moment that I was

wronged, or likely to be wronged, but I felt that he was doing wrong.

Then, too, I had my misgivings of what the world would think! I did not

fancy that he had any design to wrong me; but there seemed to me a cruel

want of consideration in his conduct. But what annoyed me most was,

that Julia should receive him at such periods He was thoughtless,

enthusiastic in art, and thoughtless, perhaps, in consequence of his

enthusiasm. But I expected that she should think for both of us in such

a case. Women, alone, can be the true guardians of appearances where

they themselves are concerned; and it was matter of painful surprise to

me that she should not have asked herself the question: “What will the

neighbors think, during my husband's absence, to see a stranger, a

young man, coming to visit me with periodical regularity, morning after

morning?”

That she did not ask herself this question should have been a very

strong argument to show me that her thoughts were all innocent. But

there is a terrible truth in what Caesar said of his wife's reputation:

“She must be free from suspicion.” She must not only do nothing wrong,

but she must not suffer or do anything which might incur the suspicion

of wrong doing. There is nothing half so sensible to the breath

of calumny, as female reputation, particularly in regions of high

civilization, where women are raised to an artificial rank of respect,

which obviates, in most part, the obligations of their dependence upon

man, but increases, in due proportion, some of their responsibilities

to him. Poor Julia had no circumspection, because she had no feeling of

evil. I believe she was purity itself; I equally believe that William

Edgerton was quite incapable of evil design. But when I came from my

office, the first morning that he had thus passed at my house in my

absence, and she told me that he had been there, and how the time had

been spent, I felt a pang, like a sharp arrow, suddenly rush into my

brain. Julia had no reserve in telling me this fact. It was a subject

she seemed pleased to dwell upon. She narrated with the earnest,

unseeing spirit of a self-satisfied child, the sort of conversation

which had taken place between them--praised Edgerton's taste, his

delicacy, his subdued, persuasive manners, and showed herself as utterly

unsophisticated as any Swiss mountain-girl who voluntarily yields the

traveller a kiss, and tells her mother of it afterward. I listened with

chilled manners and a troubled mind.

“You are unwell, Edward,” she remarked tenderly, approaching and

throwing her arms around my neck, as she perceived the gradual gathering

of that cloud upon my brows.

“Why do you think so, Julia?”

“Oh, you look so sad--almost severe, Edward, and your words are so few

and cold. Have I offended you, dear Edward?”

I was confused at this direct question. I felt annoyed, ashamed. I

pleaded headache in justification of my manner--it did ache, and my

heart, too, but not with the ordinary pang; and I felt a warm blush

suffuse my cheek, as I yielded to the first suggestion which prompted me

to deceive my wife.

A large leading step was thus taken, and progress was easy afterward.

Oh! sweet spirit of confidence, thou only true saint, more needful than

all, to bind the ties of kindred and affection! why art thou so prompt

to fly at the approach of thy cold, dark enemy, distrust? Why dost thou

yield the field with so little struggle? Why, when the things, dearest

to thee of all in the world's gift--its most valued treasure, its

purest, sweetest, and proudest trophies--why, when these are the stake

which is to reward thy courage, thy adherence, to compensate thee for

trial, to console thee for loss and outrage--why is it that thou art so

ready to despond of the cause so dear to thee, and forfeit the conquest

by which alone thy whole existence is made sweet. This is the very

suicide of self. Fearful of loss, we forsake the prize, which we have

won; and hearkening to the counsel of a natural enemy, eat of that

bitter fruit which banishes for ever from our lips the sweet savor which

we knew before, and without which, no savor that is left is sweet.

CHAPTER XX.

PROGRESS OF THE EVIL SPIRIT.

If I felt so deeply annoyed at the first morning visit which William

Edgerton paid to my wife, what was my annoyance when these visits became

habitual. I was miserable but could not complain. I was ashamed of

the language of complaint on such a subject. There is something very

ridiculous in the idea of a jealous husband--it has always provoked

the laughter of the world; and I was one of those men who shrunk from

ridicule with a more than mortal dread. Besides, I really felt no alarm.

I had the utmost confidence in my wife's virtue. I had not the less

confidence in that of Edgerton. But I was jealous of her deference--of

her regard--for another. She was, in my eyes, as something sacred, set

apart--a treasure exclusively my own! Should it be that another should

come to divide her veneration with me? I was vexed that she should

derive satisfaction from another source than myself. This satisfaction

she derived from the visits of Edgerton. She freely avowed it.

“How amiable--how pleasant he is,” she would say, in the perfect

innocence of her heart; “and really, Edward, he has so much talent!”

These praises annoyed me. They were as so much wormwood to my spirit. It

must be remembered that I was not myself what the world calls an amiable

man. I doubt if any, even of my best friends, would describe me as a

pleasant one. I was a man of too direct and earnest a temperament

to establish a claim, in reasonable degree, to either of these

characteristics. I was, accordingly, something blunt in my address--the

tones of my voice were loud--my manner was all empressement, except when

I was actually angry, and then it was cold hard, dry, inflexible. I was

the last person in the world to pass for an amiable. Now, Julia, on the

other hand, was quiet, subdued, timorous--the tones of a strong, decided

voice startled her--she shrunk from controversy--yielded always with

a happy grace in anticipation of the conflict, and showed, in all

respects, that nice, almost nervous organization which attaches the

value of principles and morals to mere manners, and would be as much

shocked, perhaps, at the expression of a rudeness, as at the commission

of a sin. Not that such persons would hold a sin to be less criminal or

innocuous than would we ourselves; but that they regard mere conduct as

of so much more importance.

When, therefore, she praised William Edgerton for those qualities which

I well knew I did not possess, I could not resist the annoyance. My

self-esteem--continually active--stimulated as it had been by the

constant moral strife, to which it had been subjected from boyhood--was

continually apprehending disparagement. Of the purity of Julia's heart,

and the chastity of her conduct, the very freedom of her utterance was

conclusive. Had she felt one single improper emotion toward William

Edgerton, her lips would never have voluntarily uttered his name, and

never in the language of applause. On this head I had not then the

slightest apprehension. It was not jealousy so much as EGOISME that was

preying upon me. Whatever it was, however, it could not be repressed as

I listened to the eulogistic language of my wife. I strove, but

could not subdue, altogether, the evil spirit which was fast becoming

predominant within me. Yet, though speaking under its immediate

influence, I was very far from betraying its true nature. My egoisme

had not yet made such advances as to become reckless and incautious. I

surprised her by my answer to her eulogies.

“I have no doubt he is amiable--he is amiable--but that is not enough

for a man. He must be something more than amiable, if he would escape

the imputation of being feeble--something more if he would be anything!”

Julia looked at me with eyes of profound and dilating astonishment.

Having got thus far, it was easy to advance. The first step is half the

journey in all such cases.

“William Edgerton is a little too amiable, perhaps, for his own good.

It makes him listless and worthless. He will do nothing at pictures,

wasting his time only when he should be at his business.”

“But did I not understand you, Edward, that he was a man of fortune, and

independent of his profession?” she answered timidly.

“Even that will not justify a man in becoming a trifler. No man should

waste his time in painting, unless he makes a trade of it.”

“But his leisure, Edward,” suggested Julia, with a look of increasing

timidity.

“His leisure, indeed, Julia;--but he has been here all day--day after

day. If painting is such a passion with him, let him abandon law and

take to it. But he should not pursue one art while processing another.

It is as if a man hankered after that which he yet lacked the courage to

challenge and pursue openly.'

“I don't think you love pictures as you used to, Edward,” she remarked

to me, after a little interval passed in unusual silence.

“Perhaps it is because I have matters of more consequence to attend to.

YOU seem sufficiently devoted to them now to excuse my indifference.”

“Surely, dear Edward, something I have done vexes you. Tell me, husband.

Do not spare me. Say, in what have I offended?”

I had not the courage to be ingenuous. Ah! if I had!

“Nay, you have not offended,” I answered hastily--“I am only worried

with some unmanageable thoughts. The law, you know, is full of

provoking, exciting, irritating necessities.”

She looked at ne with a kind but searching glance. My soul seemed to

shrink from that scrutiny. My eyes sunk beneath her gaze.

“I wish I knew how to console you, Edward: to make you entirely happy.

I pray for it, Edward. I thought we were always to be so happy. Did

you not promise me that you would always leave your cares at your

office--that our cottage should be sacred to love and peace only?”

She put her arms about my neck, and looked into my face with such a

sweet, strange, persuasive smile--half mirth, half sadness--that

the evil spirit was subdued within me. I clasped her fervently in my

embrace, with all my old feelings of confidence and joy renewed. At

this moment the servant announced Mr. Edgerton, and with a start--a

movement--scarcely as gentle as it should have been, I put the fond and

still beloved woman from my embrace!

CHAPTER XXI.

CHANGES OF HOME.

From this time my intercourse with William Edgerton was, on my part, one

of the most painful and difficult constraint. I had nothing to reproach

him with; no grounds whatever for quarrel; and could not, in his

case--regarding the long intimacy which I had maintained with himself

and father, and the obligations which were due from me to both--adopt

such a manner of reserve and distance as to produce the result of

indifference and estrangement which I now anxiously desired. I was

still compelled to meet him--meet him, too, with an affectation of good

feeling and good humor, which I soon found it, of all things in the

world, the most difficult even to pretend. How much would I have given

could he only have provoked me to anger on any ground--could he

have given me an occasion for difference of any sort or to any

degree--anything which could have justified a mutual falling off from

the old intimacy! But William Edgerton was meekness and kindness

itself. His confidence in me was of the most unobservant, suspicionless

character; either that, or I succeeded better than I thought in the

effort to maintain the external aspects of old friendship. He saw

nothing of change in my deportment. He seemed not to see it, at least;

and came as usual, or more frequently than usual, to my house, until, at

length, the studio of my wife was quite as much his as hers--nay, more;

for, after a brief space, whether it was that Julia saw what troubled

me, or felt herself the imprudence of Edgerton's conduct, she almost

entirely surrendered it to him. She was not now so often to be seen in

it.

This proceeding alarmed me. I dreaded lest my secret should be

discovered. I was shocked lest my wife should suppose me jealous. The

feeling is one which carries with it a sufficiently severe commentary,

in the fact that most men are heartily ashamed to be thought to suffer

from it. But, if it vexed me to think that she should know or suspect

the truth, how much more was I troubled lest it should be seen or

suspected by others! This fear led to new circumspection. I now affected

levities of demeanor and remark; studiously absented myself from home

of an evening, leaving my wife with Edgerton, or any other friend who

happened to be present; and, though I began no practices of profligacy,

such as are common to young scapegraces in all times, I yet, to some

moderate extent, affected them.

A tone of sadness now marked the features of my wife. There was an

expression of anxiety in her countenance, which, amid all her previous

sufferings, I had never seen there before. She did not complain; but

sometimes, when we sat alone together, I reading, perhaps, and she

sewing, she would drop her work in her lap, and sigh suddenly and

deeply, as if the first shadows of the upgathering gloom were beginning

to cloud her young and innocent spirit, and force her apprehensions

into utterance. This did not escape me, but I read its signification, as

witches are said to read the Bible, backward. A gloomier fancy filled my

brain as I heard her unconscious sigh.

“It is the language of regret. She laments our marriage. She could have

found another, surely, who could have made her happier. Perhaps, had

Edgerton and herself known each other intimately before!--”

Dark, perverse imagining! It crushed me. I felt, I can not tell,

what bitterness. Let no one suppose that I endured less misery than I

inflicted. The miseries of the damned could not have exceeded mine in

some of the moments when these cruel conjectures filled my mind. Then

followed some such proofs as these of the presence of the Evil One:--

“You sigh, Julia. You are unhappy.”

“Unhappy? no, dear Edward, not unhappy! What makes you think so?”

“What makes you sigh, then?”

“I do not know. I am certainly not unhappy. Did I sigh, Edward?”

“Yes, and seemingly from the very bottom of your heart. I fear, Julia,

that you are not happy; nay, I am sure you are not! I feel that I am not

the man to make you happy. I am a perverse--”

“'Nay, Edward, now you speak so strangely, and your brow is stern,

and your tones tremble! What can it be afflicts you? You are angry at

something, dear Edward. Surely, it can not be with me.”

“And if it were, Julia, I am afraid it would give you little concern.”

“Now, Edward, you are cruel. You do me wrong. You do yourself wrong.

Why should you suppose that it would give me little concern to see you

angry? So far from this, I should regard it as the greatest misery which

I had to suffer. Do not speak so, dearest Edward--do not fancy such

things. Believe me, my husband, when I tell you that I know nothing half

so dear to me as your love--nothing that I would not sacrifice with a

pleasure, to secure, to preserve THAT!”

“Ah! would you give up painting?”

“Painting! that were a small sacrifice! I worked at it only because you

used to like it.”

“What, you think I do not like it now?”

“I KNOW you do not.”

“But you paint still?”

“No! I have not handled brush or pencil for a week. Mr. Edgerton was

reproaching me only yesterday for my neglect.”

“Ah, indeed! Well, you promised him to resume, did you not? He is a rare

persuader! He is so amiable, so mild--you could not well resist.”

It was from her face that I formed a rational conjecture of the

expression that must have appeared in mine. Her eyes dilated with a look

of timid wonder, not unmixed with apprehension. She actually shrunk

back a space; then, approaching, laid her hand upon my wrist, as she

exclaimed:--

“God of heaven, Edward, what strange thought is in your bosom? what is

the meaning of that look? Look not so again, if you would not kill me!”

I averted my face from hers, but without speaking. She threw her arms

around my neck.

“Do not turn away from me, Edward. Do not, do not, I entreat you! You

must not--no! not till you tell me what is troubling you--not till I

soothe you, and make you love me again as much as you did at first.”

When I turned to her again, the tears--hot, scalding tears--were already

streaming down my cheeks.

“Julia, God knows I love you! Never woman yet was more devotedly loved

by man! I love you too much--too deeply--too entirely! Alas, I love

nothing else!”

“Say not that you love me too much--that can not be! Do I not love

you--you only, you altogether? Should I not have your whole love in

return?”

“Ah, Julia! but my love is a convulsive eagerness of soul--a passion

that knows no limit! It is not that my heart is entirely yours: it is

that it is yours with a frenzied desperation. There is a fanaticism

in love as in religion. My love is that fanaticism. It burns--it

commands--where yours would but soothe and solicit.”

“But is mine the less true--the less valuable for this, dear Edward?”

“No, perhaps not! It may be even more true, more valuable; it may be

only less intense. But fanaticism, you know, is exacting--nothing

more so. It permits no half-passion, no moderate zeal. It insists upon

devotion like its own. Ah, Julia, could you but love as I do!”

“I love you all, Edward, all that I can, and as it belongs in my nature

to love. But I am a woman, and a timid one, you know. I am not capable

of that wild passion which you feel. Were I to indulge it, it would most

certainly destroy me. Even as it sometimes appears in you, it terrifies

and unnerves me. You are so impetuous!”

“Ah, you would have only the meek, the amiable!”

And thus, with an implied sarcasm, our conversation ended. Julia turned

on me a look of imploring, which was naturally one of reproach. It did

not have its proper influence upon me. I seized my hat, and hurried

from the house. I rushed, rather than walked, through the streets; and,

before I knew where I was, I found myself on the banks of the river,

under the shade of trees, with the soft evening breeze blowing upon me,

and the placid moon sailing quietly above. I threw myself down upon the

grass, and delivered myself up to gloomy thoughts. Here was I, then,

scarcely twenty-five years old; young, vigorous; with a probable chance

of fortune before me; a young and lovely wife, the very creature of

my first and only choice, one whom I tenderly loved, whom, if to

seek again, I should again, and again, and only, seek! Yet I was

miserable--miserable in the very possession of my first hopes, my best

joys--the very treasure that had always seemed the dearest in my sight.

Miserable blind heart! miserable indeed! For what was there to make

me miserable? Absolutely nothing--nothing that the outer world could

give--nothing that it could ever take away. But what fool is it that

fancies there must be a reason for one's wretchedness? The reason is in

our own hearts; in the perverseness which can make of its own heaven a

hell! not often fashion a heaven out of hell!

Brooding, I lay upon the sward, meditating unutterable things, and

as far as ever from any conclusion. Of one thing alone I was

satisfied--that I was unutterably miserable; that my destiny was written

in sable; that I was a man foredoomed to wo! Were my speculations

strange or unnatural! Unnatural indeed! There is a class of

surface-skimming persons, who pronounce all things unnatural which, to a

cool, unprovoked, and perhaps unprovokable mind, appear unreasonable: as

if a vexed nature and exacting passions were not the most unreasonable

yet most natural of all moral agents. My woes may have been groundless,

but it was surely not unnatural that I felt and entertained them.

Thus, with bitter mood, growing more bitter with every moment of its

unrestrained indulgence, I gloomed in loneliness beside the banks of

that silvery and smooth-flowing river. Certainly the natural world

around me lent no color to my fancies. While all was dark within, all

was bright without. A fiend was tugging at my heart; while from a little

white cottage, a few hundred yards below, which grew flush with the

margin of the stream, there stole forth the tender, tinkling strains of

a guitar, probably touched by fair fingers of a fair maiden, with some

enamored boy, blind and doting, hovering beside her. I, too, had stood

thus and hearkened thus, and where am I--what am I!

I started to my feet. I found something offensive in the music. It came

linked with a song which I had heard Julia sing a hundred times; and

when I thought of those hours of confidence, and felt myself where I

was, alone--and how lone!--bitterer than ever were the wayward pangs

which were preying upon the tenderest fibres of my heart.

In the next moment I ceased to be alone. I was met and jostled by

another person as I bounded forward, much too rapidly, in an effort to

bury myself in the deeper shadow of some neighboring trees. The

stranger was nearly overthrown in the collision, which extorted a hasty

exclamation from his lips, not unmingled with a famous oath or two.

In the voice. I recognised that of my friend Kingsley--the well-known

pseudo-Kentucky gentleman, who had acted a part so important in

extricating my wife from her mother's custody. I made myself known to

him in apologizing for my rudeness.

“You here!” said he; “I did not expect to meet you. I have just been

to your house, where I found your wife, and where I intended to stop a

while and wait for you. But Bill Edgerton, in the meanwhile, popped

in, and after that I could hear nothing but pictures and paintings,

Madonnas, Ecce Homos, and the like; till I began to fancy that I smelt

nothing but paint and varnish. So I popped out, with a pretty blunt

excuse, leaving the two amateurs to talk in oil and water-colors, and

settle the principles of art as they please. Like you, I fancy a real

landscape, here, by the water, and under the green trees, in preference

to a thousand of their painted pictures.”

It may be supposed that my mood underwent precious little improvement

after this communication. Dark conceits, darker than ever, came across

my mind. I longed to get away, and return to that home from which I had

banished confidence!--ah, only too happy if there still lingered hope!

But my friend, blunt, good-humored, and thoughtless creature as he was,

took for granted that I had come to look at the landscape, to admire

water-views by moonlight, and drink fresh draughts of sea-breeze from

the southwest; and, thrusting his arm through mine, he dragged me on,

down, almost to the threshold of the cottage, whence still issued the

tinkle, tinkle, of the guitar which had first driven me away.

“That girl sings well. Do you know her--Miss Davison? She's soon to

be married, THEY say (d--n 'they say,' however--the greatest

scandal-monger, if not mischief-maker and liar, in the world!)--she is

soon to be married to young Trescott--a clover lad who sniffles, plays

on the flute, wears whisker and imperial on the most cream-colored and

effeminate face you ever saw! A good fellow, nevertheless, but a silly!

She is a good fellow, too, rather the cleverest of the twain, and

perhaps the oldest. The match, if match it really is to be, none of the

wisest for that very reason. The damsel, now-a-days, who marries a lad

younger than herself, is laying up a large stock of pother, which is

to bother her when she becomes thirty--for even young ladies, you know,

after forty, may become thirty. A sort of dispensation of nature. She

sings well, nevertheless.”

I said something--it matters not what. Dark images of home were in my

eyes. I heard no song--saw no landscape The voice of Kingsley was a sort

of buzzing in my ears.

“You are dull to-night, but that song ought to soothe you. What a

cheery, light-hearted wench it is! Her voice does seem so to rise in

air, shaking its wings, and crying tira-la! tira-la! with an enthusiasm

which is catching! I almost feel prompted to kick up my heels, throw a

summerset, and, while turning on my axis, give her an echo of tira-la!

tira-la! tira-la! after her own fashion.”

“You are certainly a happy, mad fellow, Kingsley!” was my faint,

cheerless commentary upon a gayety of heart which I could not share, and

the unreserved expression of which, at that moment, only vexed me.

“And you no glad one, Clifford. That song, which almost prompts me to

dance, makes no impression on you! By-the-way, your wife used to sing so

well, and now I never hear her. That d---d painting, if you don't mind,

will make her give up everything else! As for Bill Edgerton, he cares

for nothing else out his varnish, trees, and umber-hills, and

streaky water. You shouldn't let him fill your wife's mind with this

oil-and-varnish spirit--giving up the piano, the guitar, and that

sweeter instrument than all, her own voice. D--n the paintings!--his

long talk on the subject almost makes me sick of everything like a

picture. I now look upon a beautiful landscape like this as a thing

that is shortly to be desecrated--taken in vain--scratched out of shape

and proportion upon a deal-board, and colored after such a fashion as

never before was seen in the natural world, upon, or under, or about

this solid earth. D--n the pictures, I say again!--but, for God's sake,

Clifford, don't let your wife give up the music! Make her play, even if

she don't like it. She likes the painting best, but I wouldn't allow it!

A wife is a sort of person that we set to do those things that we wish

done and can't do for ourselves. That's my definition of a wife. Now,

if I were in your place, with my present love for music and dislike of

pictures, I'd put her at the piano, and put the paint-saucers, and the

oil, and the smutted canvass, out of the window; and then--unless he

came to his senses like other people--I'd thrust Bill Edgerton out after

them! I'd never let the best friend in the world spoil my wife.”

The effect of this random chatter of my good-natured friend upon my

mind may well be imagined. It was fortunate that he was quite too much

occupied in what he was saying to note my annoyance. In vain, anxious

to be let off, was I restrained in utterance--cold, unpliable. The

good fellow took for granted that it was an act of friendship to try to

amuse; and thus, yearning with a nameless discontent and apprehension to

get home I was marched to and fro along the river-bank, from one scene

to another--he, meanwhile, utterly heedless of time, and as actively

bent on perpetual motion as if his sinews were of steel and his flesh

iron. Meanwhile, the guitar ceased, and the song in the cottage of Miss

Davison; the lights went out in that and all the other dwellings in

sight; the moon waned; and it was not till the clock from a distant

steeple tolled out the hour of eleven with startling solemnity, that

Kingsley exclaimed:--

“Well, mon ami, we have had a ramble, and I trust I have somewhat

dissipated your gloomy fit. And now to bed--what say you?--with what

appetite we may!”

With what appetite, indeed! We separated. I rushed homeward, the moment

he was out of sight--once more stood before my own dwelling. There the

lights remained unextinguished and William Edgerton was still a tenant

of my parlor!

CHAPTER XXII.

SELF-HUMILIATION.

I had not the courage to enter my own dwelling! My heart sank within me.

It was as if the whole hope of a long life, an intense desire, a keen

unremitting pursuit, had suddenly been for ever baffled. Let no one who

has not been in my situation; who has not been governed by like

moral and social influences from the beginning; who knows not my

sensibilities, and the organization--singular and strange it may be--of

my mind and body; let no such person jump to the conclusion that there

was any thing unnatural, however unreasonable and unreasoning, in the

wild passion which possessed me. I look back upon it with some surprise

myself. The fears which I felt, the sufferings I endured, however

unreasonable, were yet true to my training. That training made me

selfish; how selfish let my blindness show! In the blindness of self

I could see nothing but the thing I feared, the one phantom--phantom

though it were--which was sufficient to quell and crush all the better

part of man within me, banish all the real blessings which were at

command around me. I gave but a single second glance through the windows

of my habitation, and then darted desperately away from the entrance!

I bounded, without a consciousness, through the now still and dreary

streets, and found myself, without intending it, once more beside the

river, whose constant melancholy chidings, seemed the echoes-though in

the faintest possible degree--of the deep waters of some apprehensive

sorrow then rolling through all the channels of my soul.

What was it that I feared? What was it that I sought? Was it love?

Can it be that the strange passion which we call by this name, was the

source of that sad frenzy which filled and afflicted my heart? And was

I not successful in my love? Had I not found the sought?--won the

withheld? What was denied to me that I desired? I asked of myself these

questions. I asked them in vain. I could not answer them. I believe that

I can answer now. It was sincerity, earnestness, devotion from her, all

speaking through an intensity like that which I felt within my own soul.

Now, Julia lacked this earnestness, this intensity. Accustomed to

submission, her manner was habitually subdued. Her strongest utterance

was a tear, and that was most frequently hidden. She did not respond to

me in the language in which my affections were wont to speak. Sincerity

she did not lack--far from it--she was truth itself! It is the keener

pang to my conscience now, that I am compelled to admit this conviction.

Her modes of utterance were not less true than mine. They were not less

significant of truth; but they were after a different fashion. In a

moment of calm and reason, I might have believed this truth; nay, I knew

it, even at those moments when I was most unjust. It was not the truth

that I required so much as the presence of an attachment which could

equal mine in its degree and strength. This was not in her nature. She

was one taught to subdue her nature, to repress the tendencies of her

heart, to submit in silence and in meekness. She had invariably done so

until the insane urgency of her mother made her desperate. But for this

desperation she had still submitted, perhaps, had never been my wife.

In the fervent intensity of my own love, I fancied, from the beginning,

that there was something too temperate in the tone of hers. Were I to

be examined now, on this point, I should say that her deportment was one

which declared the nicest union of sensibility and maidenly propriety.

But, compared with mine, her passions were feeble, frigid. Mine were

equally intense and exacting. Perhaps, had she even responded to my

impetuosity with a like fervor, I should have recoiled from her with a

feeling of disgust much more rapid and much more legitimate, than was

that of my present frenzy.

Frenzy it was! and it led me to the performance of those things of which

I shame to speak. But the truth, and its honest utterance now, must be

one of those forms of atonement with which I may hope, perhaps vainly,

to lessen, in the sight of Heaven, some of my human offences. I had

scarcely reached the water-side before a new impulse drove me back. You

will scarcely believe me when I tell you that I descended to the base

character of the spy upon my household. The blush is red on my cheek

while I record the shameful error. I entered the garden, stole like

a felon to the lattice of the apartment in which my wife sat with her

guest, and looked in with a greedy fear, upon the features of the two!

What were my own features then? What the expression of my eyes? It was

well that I could not see them; I felt that they must be frightful. But

what did I expect to see in this espionage? As I live, honestly now, and

with what degree of honesty I then possessed, I may truly declare that

when I THOUGHT upon the subject at all, I had no more suspicion that my

wife would be guilty of any gross crime, than I had of the guilt of the

Deity himself. Far from it. Such a fancy never troubled me. But, what

was it to me, loving as I did, exclusive, and selfish, and exacting as

I was--what was it to me if, forbearing all crime of conduct, she yet

regarded another with eyes of idolatry--if her mind was yielded up to

him in deference and regard; and thoughts, disparaging to me, filled her

brain with his superior worth, manners, merits? He had tastes, perhaps

talents, which I had not. In the forum, in all the more energetic, more

imposing performances of life, William Edgerton, I knew, could take no

rank in competition with myself. But I was no ladies' man. I had no arts

of society. My manners were even rude. My address was direct almost to

bluntness. I had no discriminating graces, and could make no sacrifice,

in that school of polish, where the delicacy is too apt to become false,

and the performances trifling. It is idle to dwell on this; still more

idle to speculate upon probable causes. It may be that there are persons

in the world of both sexes, and governed by like influences, who have

been guilty of like follies; to them my revelations may be of service.

My discoveries, if I have made any, were quite too late to be of much

help to me.

To resume, I prowled like a guilty phantom around my own habitation. I

scanned closely, with the keenest eyes of jealousy, every feature, every

movement of the two within. In the eyes of Edgerton, I beheld--I did not

deceive myself in this--I beheld the speaking soul, devoted, rapt,

full of love for the object of his survey. That he loved her was to me

sufficiently clear. His words were few, faintly spoken, timid. His eyes

did not encounter hers; but when hers were averted, they riveted their

fixed glances upon her face with the adherence of the yearning steel for

the magnet! Bitterly did I gnash my teeth--bitterly did my spirit rise

in rebellion, as I noted these characteristics. But, vainly, with all my

perversity of feeling and judgment, did I examine the air, the look, the

action, the expression, the tones, the words of my wife, to make a like

discovery. All was passionless, all seeming pure, in her whole conduct.

She was gentle in her manner, kind in her words, considerate in her

attentions; but so entirely at ease, so evidently unconscious, as well

of improper thoughts in herself as of an improper tendency in him, that,

though still resolute to be wilful and unhappy, I yet could see nothing

of which I could reasonably complain. Nay, I fancied that there was a

touch of listlessness, amounting to indifference, in her air, as if she

really wished him to be gone; and, for a moment, my heart beat with a

returning flood of tenderness, that almost prompted me to rush suddenly

into the apartment and clasp her to my arms.

At length, Edgerton departed. When he rose to do so, I felt the

awkwardness of my situation--the meanness of which I had been

guilty--the disgrace which would follow detection. The shame I already

felt; but, though sickening beneath it, the passion which drove me into

the commission of so slavish an act, was still superior to all others,

and could not then be overcome. I hurried from the window and from the

premises while he was taking his leave. My mind was still in a frenzy.

I rambled off, unconsciously, to the most secluded places along the

suburbs, endeavoring to lose the thoughts that troubled me. I had now a

new cause for vexation. I was haunted by a conviction of my own shame.

How could I look Julia in the face--how meet and speak to her, and hear

the accents of her voice and my own after the unworthy espionage which

I had instituted upon her? Would not my eyes betray me--my faltering

accents, my abashed looks, my flushed and burning cheeks? I felt that it

was impossible for me to escape detection. I was sure that every look,

every tone, would sufficiently betray my secret. Perhaps I should not

have felt this fear, had I possessed the courage to resolve against the

repetition of my error. Could I have declared this resolution to myself,

to forego the miserable proceeding which I had that night begun, I feel

that I should then have taken one large step toward my own deliverance

from that formidable fiend which was then raging unmastered in my soul.

But I lacked the courage for this. Fatal deficiency! I felt impressed

with the necessity of keeping a strict watch upon Edgerton. I had

seen, with eyes that could not be deceived, the feeling which had

been expressed in his. I saw that he loved her, perhaps, without a

consciousness himself of the unhappy truth. I hurried to the conclusion,

accordingly, that he must be looked after. I did not so immediately

perceive that in looking after him, I was, in truth, looking after

Julia; for what was my watch upon Edgerton but a watch upon her? I had

not the confidence in her to leave her to herself. That was my error.

The true reasoning by which a man in my situation should be governed, is

comprised in a nutshell. Either the wife is virtuous or she is not. If

she is virtuous, she is safe without my espionage. If she is not, all

the watching in the world will not suffice to make her so. As for the

discovery of her falsehood, he will make that fast enough. The security

of the husband lies in his wife's purity, not in his own eyes. It must

be added to this argument that the most virtuous among us, man or woman,

is still very weak; and neither wife, nor daughter, nor son, should be

exposed to unnecessary temptation. Do we not daily implore in our own

prayers, to be saved from temptation?

I need not strive to declare what were my thoughts and feelings as I

wandered off from my dwelling and place of espionage that night. No

language of which I am possessed could embody to the idea of the reader

the thousandth part of what I suffered. An insane and morbid resentment

filled my heart. A close, heavy, hot stupor, pressed upon my brain. My

limbs seemed feeble as those of a child. I tottered in the streets. The

stars, bright mysterious watchers, seemed peering down into my face with

looks of smiling inquiry. The sudden bark of a watch-dog startled and

unnerved me. I felt with the consciousness of a mean action, all the

humiliating weakness which belongs to it.

It took me a goodly hour before I could muster up courage to return

home, and it was then midnight. Julia had retired to her chamber, but

not yet to her couch. She flew to me on my entrance--to my arms. I

shrunk from her embraces; but she grasped me with greater firmness. I

had never witnessed so much warmth in her before. It surprised me, but

the solution of it was easy. My long stay had made her apprehensive. It

was so unusual. My coldness, when she embraced me, was as startling

to her, as her sudden warmth was surprising to me. She pushed me from

her--still, however, holding me in her grasp, while she surveyed me.

Then she started, and with newer apprehensions.

Well she might. My looks alarmed her. My hair was dishevelled and

moist with the night-dews. My cheeks were very pale. There was a quick,

agitated, and dilating fullness of my eyes, which rolled hastily about

the apartment, never even resting upon her. They dared not. I caught a

hasty glance of myself in the mirror, and scarcely knew my own features.

It was natural enough that she should be alarmed. She clung to me with

increased fervency. She spoke hurriedly, but clearly, with an increased

and novel power of utterance, the due result of her excitement. Could

that excitement be occasioned by love for me--by a suspicion of the

truth, namely, that I had been watching her? I shuddered as this

last conjecture passed into my mind. That, indeed, would be a

humiliation--worse, more degrading, by far, than all.

“Oh, why have you left me--so long, so very long? where have you been?

what has happened?”

“Nothing--nothing.”

“Ah, but there is something, Edward. Speak! what is it, dear husband?

I see it in your eyes, your looks! Why do you turn from me? Look on me!

tell me! You are very pale, and your eyes are so wild, so strange! You

are sick, dear Edward; you are surely sick: tell me, what has happened?”

Wild and hurried as they were, never did tones of more touching

sweetness fall from any lips. They unmanned--nay, I use the wrong

word--they MANNED me for the time. They brought me back to my senses, to

a conviction of her truth, to a momentary conviction of my own folly.

My words fell from me without effort--few, hurried, husky--but it was a

sudden heartgush, which was unrestrainable.

“Ask me not, Julia-ask me nothing; but love me, only love me, and all

will be well--all is well.”

“Do I not--ah! do I not love you, Edward?”

“I believe you--God be praised, I DO believe you!”

“Oh, surely, Edward, you never doubted this.”

“No, no!--never!”

Such was the fervent ejaculation of my lips; such, in spite of its

seeming inconsistency, was the real belief within my soul. What was it,

then, that I did doubt? wherefore, then, the misery, the suspense, the

suspicion, which grew and gathered, corroding in my heart, the parent of

a thousand unnamed anxieties? It will be difficult to answer. The heart

of man is one of those strange creations, so various in its moods, so

infinite in its ramifications, so subtle and sudden in its transitions,

as to defy investigation as certainly as it refuses remedy and

relief. It is enough to say that, with one schooled as mine had been,

injuriously, and with injustice, there is little certainty in any of

its movements. It becomes habitually capricious, feeds upon passions

intensely, without seeming detriment; and, after a season, prefers the

unwholesome nutriment which it has made vital, to those purer natural

sources of strength and succor, without which, though it may still enjoy

life, it can never know happiness.

CHAPTER XXIII.

PROGRESS OF PASSION.

“But, do not leave me another time--not so long, Edward Do not leave me

alone. Your business is one thing. THAT you must, of course, attend to;

but hours--not of business--hours in which you do no business--hours of

leisure--your evenings, Edward--these you must share with me--you must

give to me entirely. Ah! will you not? will you not promise me?”

These were among the last words which she spoke to me ere we slept

that night. The next morning, almost at awaking, she resumed the same

language. I could not help perceiving that she spoke in tones of greater

earnestness than usual--an earnestness expressive of anxiety for which I

felt at some loss to account. Still, the tenor of what she said, at the

time, gave me pleasure--a satisfaction which I did not seek to conceal,

and which, while it lasted, was the sweetest of all pleasures to my

soul. But the busy devil in my heart made his suggestions also, which

were of a kind to produce any other but satisfying emotions. While I

stood in my wife's presence--in the hearing of her angel-voice, and

beholding the pure spirit speaking out from her eyes--he lay dormant,

rebuked, within his prison-house, crouching in quiet, waiting a more

auspicious moment for activity. Nor was he long in waiting; and then his

cold, insinuating doubts--his inquiries--begot and startled mine!

“Very good--all very good!” Such was the tone of his suggestions. “She

may well compound for the evenings with you, since she gives her whole

mornings to your rival.”

Archimedes asked but little for the propulsion of the world. The jealous

spirit--a spirit jealous like mine--asks still for the moving of that

little but densely-populous world, the human heart. I forgot the sweet

tones of my wife's words--the pure-souled words themselves--tones and

words which, while their sounds yet lingered in my ears, I could not

have questioned--I did not dare to question. The tempter grew in the

ascendant the moment I had passed out of her sight; and when I met

William Edgerton the next day, he acquired greatly-increased power over

my understanding.

William Edgerton had evidently undergone a change. He no longer met my

glances boldly with his own. Perhaps, had he done so, my eyes would have

been the first to shrink from the encounter. He looked down, or looked

aside, when he spoke to me; his words were few, timorous, hesitating,

but studiously conciliatory; and he lingered no longer in my presence

than was absolutely unavoidable. Was there not a consciousness in this?

and what consciousness? The devil at my heart answered, and answered

with truth, “He loves your wife.” It would have been well, perhaps, had

the cruel fiend said nothing farther. Alas! I would have pardoned, nay,

pitied William Edgerton, had the same chuckling spirit not assured me

that she also was not insensible to him. I was continually reminded of

the words, “Your business must, of course, be attended to!”--“What a

considerate wife!” said the tempter; “how very unusual with young wives,

with whom business is commonly the very last consideration!”

That very day, I found, on reaching home, that William Edgerton had

been there--had gone there almost the moment after he had left me at the

office; and that he had remained there, obviously at work in the studio,

until the time drew nigh for my return to dinner. My feelings forbade

any inquiries. These, facts were all related by my wife herself. I did

not ask to hear them. I asked for nothing more than she told. The dread

that my jealousy should be suspected made me put on a sturdy aspect of

indifference; and that exquisite sense of delicacy, which governed every

movement of my wife's heart and conduct, forbade her to say--what yet

she certainly desired I should know--that, in all that time, she had not

seen him, nor he her. She had studiously kept aloof in her chamber so

long as he remained. Meanwhile, I brooded over their supposed long

and secret interviews. These I took for granted. The happiness they

felt--the mutual smile they witnessed--the unconscious sighs they

uttered! Such a picture of their supposed felicity as my morbid

imagination conjured up would have roused a doubly damned and damning

fiend in the heart of any mortal.

What a task was mine, struggling with these images, these

convictions!--my pride struggling to conceal, my feelings struggling to

endure. Then, there were other conflicts. What friends had the Edgertons

been to me--father, mother--nay, that son himself, once so fondly

esteemed, once so fondly esteeming! Of course, no ties such as these

could have made me patient under wrong. But they were such as to render

it necessary that the wrong should be real, unquestionable, beyond

doubt, beyond excuse. This I felt, this I resolved.

“I will wait! I will be patient! I will endure, though the vulture gnaws

incessant at my heart! I will do nothing precipitate. No, no: I must

beware of that! But let me prove them treacherous--let them once falter,

and go aside from the straight path, and then--oh, then!”

Such, as in spoken words, was the unspoken resolution of my soul; and

this resolution required, first of all, that I should carry out the base

purpose which, without a purpose, I had already begun. I must be a spy

upon their interviews. They must be followed, watched--eyes, looks,

hands! Miserable necessity! but, under my present feelings and

determination, not the less a necessity. And I, alone, must do it; I,

alone, must peer busily into these mysteries, the revelation of

which can result only in my own ruin--seeking still, with an earnest

diligence, to discover that which I should rather have prayed for

eternal and unmitigated blindness, that I might not see! Mine was,

indeed, the philosophy of the madman.

I persevered in it like one. I yielded all opportunities for the meeting

of the parties--all opportunities which, in yielding, did not expose

me to the suspicion of having any sinister object. If, for example, I

found, or could conjecture, that William Edgerton was likely to be at

my house this or that evening, I studiously intimated, beforehand,

some necessity for being myself absent. This carried me frequently from

home--lone, wandering, vexing myself with the most hideous conjectures,

the most self-torturing apprehensions. I sped away, obviously, into the

city-to alleged meetings with friends or clients--or on some pretence

or other which seemed ordinary and natural But my course was to return,

and, under cover of night, to prowl, around my own premises, like some

guilty ghost, doomed to haunt the scene of former happiness, in its

wantonness rendered a scene of ever-during misery. Certainly, no guilty

ghost ever suffered in his penal tortures a torture worse than mine

at these humiliating moments. It was torture enough to me that I was

sensible of all the unhappy meanness of my conduct. On this head, though

I strove to excuse myself on the score of a supposed necessity, I could

not deceive myself--not--not for the smallest moment.

Weeks passed in this manner--weeks to me of misery--of annoyance and

secret suffering to my wife. In this time, my espionage resulted

in nothing but what has been already shown--in what was already

sufficiently obvious to me. William Edgerton continued his insane

attentions: he sought my dwelling with studious perseverance--sought it

particularly at those periods when he fancied I was absent--when he knew

it--though such were not his exclusive periods of visitation. He came

at times when I was at home. His passion for my wife was sufficiently

evident to me, though her deportment was such as to persuade mo that

she did not see it. All that I beheld of her conduct was irreproachable.

There was a singular and sweet dignity in her air and manner, when they

were together, that seemed one of the most insuperable barriers to any

rash or presumptuous approach. While there was no constraint about

her carriage, there was no familiarity--nothing to encourage or invite

familiarity. While she answered freely, responding to all the needs of

a suggested subject, she herself never seemed to broach one; and, after

hours of nightly watch, which ran through a period of weeks, in which

I strove at the shameful occupation of the espial, I was compelled

to admit that all her part was as purely unexceptionable as the most

jealous husband could have wished it.

But not so with the conduct of William Edgerton. His attentions were

increasing. His passion was assuming some of the forms of that delirium

to which, under encouragement, it is usually driven in the end. He now

passionately watched my wife's countenance, and no longer averted his

glance when it suddenly encountered hers. His eyes, naturally tender in

expression, now assumed a look of irrepressible ardency, from which, I

now fancied--pleased to fancy--that hers recoiled! He would linger long

in silence, silently watching her, and seemingly unconscious, the while,

equally of his scrutiny and his silence. At such times, I could perceive

that Julia would turn aside, or her own eyes would be marked by an

expression of the coldest vacancy, which, but for other circumstances,

or in any other condition of my mind, would have seemed to me conclusive

of her indignation or dislike. But, when such became my thought, it

was soon expelled by some suggestion from the busy devil of my

imagination:--

“They may well put on this appearance now; but are such their looks when

they meet, sometimes for a whole morning, in the painting-room?” Even

here, the fiend was silenced by a fact which was revealed to me in one

of my nocturnal watches.

“Clifford not at home?” said Edgerton one evening as he entered,

addressing my wife, and looking indifferently around the room. “I

wished to tell him about some pictures which are to be seen at ----'s

room--really a lovely Guido--an infant Savior--and something, said to be

by Carlo Dolce, though I doubt. You must see them. Shall I call for you

tomorrow morning?”

“I thank you, but have an engagement for the morning.”

“Well, the next day. They will remain but a few days longer in the

city.”

“I am sorry, but I shall not be able to go even the next day, I am so

busy.”

“Busy? ah! that reminds me to ask if you have given up the pencil

altogether? Have you wholly abandoned the studio? I never see you now

at work in the morning. I had no thought that you had so much of the

fashionable taste for morning calls, shopping, and the like.”

“Nor have I,” was the quiet answer. “I seldom leave home in the

morning.”

“Indeed!” with some doubtfulness of countenance, almost amounting to

chagrin--“indeed! how is it that I so seldom see you, then?”

“The cares of a household, I suppose, might be my sufficient excuse.

While my liege lord works abroad, I find my duties sufficiently urgent

to task all my time at home.”

“Really--but you do not propose to abandon the atelier entirely?

Clifford himself, with his great fondness for the art, will scarcely be

satisfied that you should, even on a pretence of work.”

“I do not know. I do not think that MY HUSBAND”--the last two words

certainly emphasized--“cares much about it. I suspect that music and

painting, however much they delighted and employed our girlhood, form

but a very insignificant part of our duties and enjoyments when we get

married.”

“But you do not mean to say that a fine landscape, or an exquisite head,

gives you less satisfaction than before your marriage?”

“I confess they do. Life is a very different thing before and after

marriage. It seems far more serious--it appears to me a possession now,

and time a sort of property which has to be economized and doled

out almost as cautiously as money. I have not touched a brush this

fortnight. I doubt if I have been in the painting-room more than once in

all this time.”

This conversation, which evidently discomfited William Elgerton, was

productive to me of no small satisfaction. After a brief interval,

consumed in silence, he resumed it:--

“But I must certainly get you to see these pictures. Nay, I must

also--since you keep at home--persuade you to look into the studio

tomorrow, if it be only to flatter my vanity by looking at a sketch

which I have amused myself upon the last three mornings. By-the-way, why

may we not look at it tonight?”

“We shall not be able to examine it carefully by night,” was the answer,

as I fancied, spoken with unwonted coldness and deliberation.

“So much the better for me,” he replied, with an ineffectual attempt to

laugh; “you will be less able to discern its defects.”

“The same difficulty will endanger its beauties,” Julia answered,

without offering to rise.

“Well, at least, you must arrange for seeing the pictures at ----'s.

They are to remain but a few days, and I would not have you miss seeing

them for the world. Suppose you say Saturday morning?”

“If nothing happens to prevent,” she said; “and I will endeavor to

persuade Mr. Clifford to look at them with us.”

“Oh, he is so full of his law and clients, that you will hardly

succeed.”

This was spoken with evident dissatisfaction. The arrangement, which

included me, seemed unnecessary. I need not say that I was better

pleased with my wife than I had been for some time previous; but here

the juggling fiend interposed again, to suggest the painful suspicion

that she knew of my whereabouts, of my jealousy, of my espionage; that

her words were rather meant for my ears than for those of Edgerton; or,

if this were not the case, her manner to Edgerton was simply adopted,

as she had now become conscious of her own feelings--feelings of

peril--feelings which would not permit her to trust herself. Ah! she

feared herself: she had discovered the passion of William Edgerton, and

it had taught her the character and tendency of her own. Was there ever

more self-destroying malice than was mine? I settled down upon this last

conviction. My wife's coldness was only assumed to prevent Edgerton from

seeing her weakness; and, for Edgerton himself, I now trembled with the

conviction that I should have to shed his blood.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A GROUP.

This conviction now began to haunt my mind with all the punctuality of

a shadow. It came to me unconsciously, uncalled for; mingled with other

thoughts and disturbed them all. Whether at my desk, or in the courts;

among men in the crowded mart, or in places simply where the idle and

the thoughtless congregate, it was still my companion. It was, however,

still a shadow only; a dull, intangible, half-formed image of the mind;

the crude creature of a fear rather than a desire; for, of a truth,

nothing could be more really terrible to me than the apparent necessity

of taking the life of one so dear to me once, and still so dear to the

only friends I had ever known. I need not say how silently I strove

to banish this conviction. My struggles on this subject were precisely

those which are felt by nervous men suddenly approaching a precipice,

and, though secure, flinging themselves off, in the extremity of their

apprehensions of that danger which has assumed in their imaginations an

aspect so absorbing. With such persons, the extreme anxiety to avoid

the deed, whether of evil or of mere danger, frequently provokes its

commission. I felt that this risk encountered me. I well knew that an

act often contemplated may be already considered half-performed; and

though I could not rid myself of the impression that I was destined to

do the deed the very idea of which made me shudder, I yet determined,

with all the remaining resolution of my virtue, to dismiss it from my

thought, as I resolved to escape from its performance if I could.

It would have been easy enough for me to have kept this resolution as it

was enough for me to make it, had it not clashed with a superior passion

in my mind; but that blindness of heart under which I labored, impaired

my judgment, enfeebled my resolution, baffled my prudence, defeated all

my faculties of self-preservation. I was, in fact, a monomaniac. On

one subject, I was incapable of thought, of sane reasoning, of fixed

purpose. I am unwilling to distinguish this madness by the word

“jealousy.” In the ordinary sense of the term it was not jealousy.

Phrenologists would call it an undue development of self-esteem,

diseased by frequent provocation into an irritable suspiciousness, which

influenced all the offices of thought. It was certain, to myself, that

in instituting the watch which I did over the conduct of my wife and

William Edgerton, I did not expect to discover the commission of any

gross act which, in the vulgar acceptation of the world, constitutes

the crime of infidelity. The pang would not have been less to my mind,

though every such act was forborne, if I perceived that her eyes yearned

for his coming, and her looks of despondency took note of his absence.

If I could see that she hearkened to his words with the ears of one who

deferred even to devotedness, and found that pleasure in his accents

which should only have been accorded to mine. It is the low nature,

alone, which seeks for developments beyond these, to constitute the sin

of faithlessness. Of looks, words, consideration, habitual deference,

and eager attention, I was quite as uxorious as I should have been of

the warm kiss, or the yielding, fond embrace. They were the same in my

eyes. It was for the momentary glance, the passing word, the forgetful

sigh, that I looked and listened, while I pursued the unhappy espionage

upon my wife and her lover. That he was her lover, was sufficiently

evident--how far she was pleased with his devotion was the question to

be asked and--answered!

The self-esteem which produced these developments of jealousy, in my

own home, was not unexercised abroad. The same exacting nature was busy

among my friends and mere acquaintance. Of these I had but few; to these

I could be devoted; for these I could toil; for these I could freely

have perished! But I demanded nothing less from them. Of their

consideration and regard I was equally uxorious as I was of the

affections of my wife. I was an INTENSIFIER in all my relations, and was

not willing to divide or share my sympathies. I became suspicious when

I found any of my acquaintance forming new intimacies, and sunk into

reserves which necessarily produced a severance of the old ties between

us. It naturally followed that my few friends became fewer, and I

finally stood alone. But enough of self-analysis, which, in truth,

owes its origin to the very same mental quality which I have been

discussing--the presence and prevalence of EGOISME. Let us hurry our

progress.

My wife advised me of the visit which William Edgerton had proposed to

the picture collection.

“I will go,” she said, “if you will.”

“You must go without me.”

“Ah, why? Surely, you can go one morning?”

“Impossible. The morning is the time for business. THAT must be attended

to, you know.”

“But you needn't slave yourself at it because it is business, Edward.

But that I know that you are not a money-loving man, I should suppose,

sometimes, from the continual plea of business, that you were a miser,

and delighted in filling old stockings to hide away in holes and chinks

of the wall. Come, now, Saturday is not usually a busy day with you

lawyers; steal it this once and go with us. I lose half the pleasure of

the sight always, when you are not with me, and when I know that you are

engaged in working for me elsewhere.”

“Ah, you mistake, Julia. You shall not flatter me into such a faith. You

lose precious little by my absence.”

“But, Edward, I do; believe me--it is true.”

“Impossible! No, no, Julia, when you look on the Carlo Dolce and the

Guido, you will forget not only the toils of the husband, but that you

have one at all. You will forget my harsh features in the contemplation

of softer ones.”

“Your features are not harsh ones, Edward.”

“Nay, you shall not persuade me that I am not an Orson--a very wild man

of the woods. I know I am. I know that I have harsh features; nay, I

fancy you know it too, by this time, Julia.”

“I admit the sternness at times, Edward, but I deny the harshness.

Besides, sternness, you know, is perfectly compatible with the

possession of the highest human beauty. I am not sure that a certain

portion of sternness is not absolutely necessary to manly beauty. It

seems to me that I have never yet seen what I call a handsome man, whose

features had not a certain sweet gravity, a sort of melancholy defiance,

in them which neutralized the effect of any effeminacy which mere

beauty must have had; and imparted to them a degree of character which

compelled you to turn again and look, and made you remember them, even

when they had disappeared from sight. Now, it may be the vanity of a

wife, Edward, but it seems to me that this is the very sort of face

which you possess.”

“Ah! you are very vain of me, I know--very!”

“Proud, fond--not vain!”

“You deceive yourself still, I suspect, even with your distinctions. But

you must forego the pleasure of displaying my 'stern beauties,' as your

particular possession, at the gallery. You must content yourself with

others not so stern, though perhaps not less beautiful, and certainly

more amiable. Edgerton will be your sufficient chaperon.”

“Yes, but I do not wish to be troubling Mr. Edgerton so frequently;

and, indeed, I would rather forego the pleasure of seeing the pictures

altogether, than trespass in this way upon his attention and leisure.”

“Indeed, but I am very sure you do not trespass upon either. He is an

idle, good fellow, relishes anything better than business, and you know

has such a passion for painting and pictures that its indulgence seems

to justify anything to his mind. He will forget everything in their

pursuit.”

All this was said with a studious indifference of manner. I was

singularly successful in concealing the expression of that agony which

was gnawing all the while upon my heart. I could smile, too, while I was

speaking--while I was suffering! Look calmly into her face and smile,

with a composure, a strength, the very consciousness of which was a

source of terrible overthrow to me at last. I was surprised to perceive

an air of chagrin upon Julia's countenance, which was certainly

unstudied. She was one of those who do not well conceal or cloak their

real sentiments. The faculty of doing so is usually much more strongly

possessed by women than by men--much more easily commanded--but SHE

had little of it. Why should she wear this expression of

disappointment--chagrin! Was she really anxious that I should attend

her? I began to think so--began to relent, and think of promising that I

would go with her, when she somewhat abruptly laid her hand upon my arm.

“Edward, you leave me too frequently. You stay from me too long,

particularly at evening. Do not forget, dear husband, how few female

friends I have; how few friends of any sort--how small is my social

circle. Besides, it is expected of all young people, newly married,

that they will be frequently together; and when it is seen that they are

often separate--that the wife goes abroad alone, or goes in the company

of persons not of the family, it begets a suspicion that all is not

well--that there is no peace, no love, in the family so divided. Do

not think, Edward, that I mean this reproachfully--that I mean

complaint--that I apprehend the loss of your love: oh no! I dread too

greatly any such loss to venture upon its suspicion lightly, but I would

guard against the conjectures of others--”

“So, then, it is not that you really wish my company. It is be-cause you

would simply maintain appearances.”

“I would do both, Edward. God knows I care as little for mere

appearances, so long as the substances, are good, as you do; but I

confess I would not have the neighbors speak of me as the neglected

wife; I would not have you the subject of vulgar reproach.”

“To what does all this tend?” I demanded impatiently.

“To nothing, Edward, if by speaking it I make you angry.”

“Do not speak it, then!” was my stern reply.

“I will not; do not turn away--do not be angry:” here she sobbed once,

convulsively; but with an effort of which I had not thought her capable,

she stifled the painful utterance, and continued grasping my wrist as

she spoke with both her hands, and speaking in a whisper--

“You are not going to leave me in anger. Oh, no! Do not! Kiss me, dear

husband, and forgive me. If I have vexed you, it was only because I was

so selfishly anxious to keep you more with me--to be more certain that

you are all my own!”

I escaped from this scene with some difficulty. I should be doing my own

heart, blind and wilful as it was, a very gross injustice, if I did not

confess that the sincere and natural deportment of Julia had rendered me

largely doubtful of the good sense or the good feeling of the course

I was pursuing. But the effects of it were temporary only. The very

feeling, thus forced upon me, that I was, and had been, doing wrong, was

a humiliating one; and calculated rather to sustain my self-esteem, even

though it lessened the amount of justification which my jealousy may

have supposed itself possessed of. The disease had been growing too long

within my bosom. It had taken too deep root--had spread its fibres into

a region too rank and stimulating not to baffle any ordinary diligence

on the part of the extirpator, even if he had been industrious and

sincere. It had been growing with my growth, had shared my strength from

the beginning, was a part of my very existence! Still, though not

with that hearty fondness which her feeling demanded, I returned her

caresses, folded her to my bosom, kissed the tears from her cheek, and

half promised myself, though I said nothing of this to her, that I would

attend her to the picture exhibition.

But I did not. Half an hour before the appointed time I resolved to

do so; but the evil spirit grew uppermost in that brief interval, and

suggested to me a course more in unison with its previous counsellings.

Under this mean prompting I prepared to go to the gallery, but not till

my wife had already gone there under Edgerton's escort. The object of

this afterthought was to surprise them there--to enter at the unguarded

moment, and read the language of their mutual eyes, when they least

apprehended such scrutiny.

Pitiful as was this design, I yet pursued it. I entered the picture room

at a moment which was sufficiently auspicious for my objects. They

were the only occupants of the apartment. I learned this fact before I

ascended the stairs from the keeper of the gallery, who sat in a lower

room. The stairs were carpeted. I wore light thin pumps, which were

noiseless. I may add, as a singular moral contradiction, that I not

only did not move stealthily, but that I set down my feet with greater

emphasis than was usual with me, as if I sought, in this way to lessen

somewhat the meanness of my proceeding. My approach, however, was

entirely unheard; and I stood for a few seconds in the doorway, gazing

upon the parties without making them conscious of my intrusion.

Julia was sitting, gazing, with hand lifted above her eyes, at a

Murillo--a ragged Spanish boy, true equally to the life and to the

peculiar characteristics of that artist--dark ground-work, keen, arch

expression, great vivacity, with an air of pregnant humor which speaks

of more than is shown, and makes you fancy that other pictures are to

follow in which the same boy must appear in different phases of feeling

and of fortune.

I need not say that the pictures, however, called for a momentary glance

only from me. My glances were following my thoughts, and they were

piercing through the only possible avenues, the cheeks, the lips, the

tell-tale eyes, deep down into the very hearts of the suspected parties.

They were so placed that, standing at the door, and half hidden from

sight by a screen, I could see with tolerable distinctness the true

expresion in each countenance, though I saw but half the face. Julia was

gazing upon the pictures, but Edgerton was gazing upon her! He had no

eyes for any other object; and I fancied, from the abstracted and almost

vacant expression of his looks, that I without startling him from his

dream. In his features, speaking, even in their obliviousness of all

without, was one sole, absorbing sentiment of devotion. His eyes were

riveted with a strenuous sort of gaze upon her, and her only. He stood

partly on one side, but still behind her, so that, without changing her

position, she could scarcely have beheld his countenance. I looked in

vain, in the brief space of time which I employed in surveying them, but

she never once turned her head; nor did he once withdraw his glance from

her neck and cheek, a part only of which could have been visible to him

where he stood. Her features, meanwhile, were subdued and placid. There

was nothing which could make me dissatisfied with her, had I not been

predisposed to this dissatisfaction; and when the tones of my voice were

heard, she started up to meet me with a sudden flash of pleasure in her

eyes which illuminated her whole countenance.

“Ah I you are come, then. I am so glad!”

She little knew why I had come. I blushed involuntarily with the

conviction of the base motive which had brought me. She immediately

grasped my arm, drew me to the contemplation of those pictures which

had more particularly pleased herself, absolutely seeming to forget that

there was a third person in the room. William Edgerton turned away and

busied himself, for the first time no doubt, in the examination of a

landscape on the opposite wall. I followed his movement with my glance

for a single instant, but his face was studiously averted.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE OLD GOOSE FINDS A YOUNG GANDER.

We will suppose some months to have elapsed in this manner--months,

to me, of prolonged torture and suspicion. Circumstances, like petty

billows of the sea, kept chafing upon the low places of my heart,

keeping alive the feverish irritation which had already done so much

toward destroying my peace, and overthrowing the guardian outposts of

my pride and honor. How long the strife was to bo continued before the

ocean-torrents should be let in--before the wild passions should quite

overwhelm my reason--was a subject of doubt, but not the less a subject

of present and of exceeding fear. In these matters, I need not say that

there was substantially very little change in the character of events

that marked the progress of my domestic life. William Edgerton still

continued the course which he had so unwittingly begun. He still sought

every opportunity to see my wife, and, if possible, to see her alone.

He avoided me as much as possible; seldom came to the office; absolutely

gave up his business altogether; and, when we met, though his words

and manner were solicitously kind, there was a close restraint upon the

latter, a hesitancy about the former, a timid apprehensiveness in his

eye, and a generally-shown reluctance to approach me, which I could

not but see, and could not but perceive, at the same time, that

he endeavored with ineffectual effort to conceal. He was evidently

conscious that he was doing wrong. It was equally clear to me that he

lacked the manly courage to do right. What was all this to end in?

The question became momently more and more serious. Suppose that he

possessed no sort of influence over my wife! Even suppose his advances

to stop where they were at present--his course already, so far, was a

humiliating indignity, allowing that it became perceptible to the eyes

of others. That revelation once made, there could be no more proper

forbearance on the part of the husband. The customs of our society, the

tone of public opinion--nay, outraged humanity itself--demanded then the

interposition of the avenger. And that revelation was at hand.

Meanwhile, the keenest eyes of suspicion could behold nothing in the

conduct of Julia which was not entirely unexceptionable. If William

Edgerton was still persevering in his pursuit, Julia seemed insensible

to his endeavors. Of course, they met frequently when it was not in

my power to see them. It was my error to suppose that they met more

frequently still--that he saw her invariably in his morning visits to

the studio, which was not often the case--and, when they did meet, that

she derived quite as much satisfaction from the interview as himself.

Of their meetings, except at night, when I was engaged in my miserable

watch upon them, I could say nothing. Failing to note anything evil at

such periods, my jealous imagination jumped to the conclusion that this

was because my espionage was suspected, and that their interviews at

other periods were distinguished by less prudence and reserve. And yet,

could I have reasoned rightly at this period, I must have seen that, if

such were the case, there would have been no such display of EMPRESSMENT

as William Edgerton made at these evening visits. Did he expend his

ardor in the day, did he apprehend my scrutiny at night, he would

surely have suppressed the eagerness of his glance--the profound,

all-forgetting adoration which marked his whole air, gaze, and manner.

Nor should I have been so wretchedly blind to what was the obvious

feeling of discontent and disquiet in her bosom. Never did evenings seem

to pass with more downright dullness to any one party in the world.

If Edgerton spoke to her, which he did not frequently, his address

was marked by a trepidation and hesitancy akin to fear--a manner which

certainly indicated anything but a foregone conclusion between them;

while her answers, on the other hand, were singularly cold, merely

replying, and calculated invariably to discourage everything like a

protracted conversation. What was said by Edgerton was sufficiently

harmless--nor harmless merely. It was most commonly mere ordinary

commonplace, the feeble effort of one who feels the necessity of speech,

yet dares not speak the voluminous passions which alone could furnish

him with energetic and manly utterance. Had the scales not been

abundantly thick and callous above my eyes, how easily might these

clandestine scrutinies have brought me back equally to happiness and my

senses! But though I thus beheld the parties, and saw the truth as I now

relate it, there was always then some little trifling circumstance that

would rise up, congenial to suspicion, and cloud my conclusions, and

throw me back upon old doubts and cruel jealousies. Edgerton's tone may,

at moments, have been more faltering and more tender than usual; Julia's

glance might sometimes encounter his, and then they both might seem to

fall, in mutual confusion, to the ground. Perhaps she sung some little

ditty at his instance--some ditty that she had often sung for me. Nay,

at his departure, she might have attended him to the entrance, and he

may have taken her hand and retained his grasp upon it rather longer

than was absolutely necessary for his farewell. How was I to know the

degree of pressure which he gave to the hand within his own? That single

grasp, not unfrequently, undid all the better impressions of a whole

evening consumed in these unworthy scrutinies. I will not seek further

to account for or to defend this unhappy weakness. Has not the great

poet of humanity said--

“Trifles, light as air,

Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong

As proofs Of Holy Writ”?

Medical men tell us of a predisposing condition of the system for

the inception of epidemic. It needs, after this, but the smallest

atmospheric changes, and the contagion spreads, and blackens, and taints

the entire body of society, even unto death. The history of the moral

constitution is not unanalogous to this. The disease, the damning doubt,

once in the mind, and the rest is easy. It may sleep and be silent for a

season, for years, unprovoked by stimulating circumstances; but let the

moral atmosphere once receive its color from the suddenly-passing cloud,

and the dark spot dilates within the heart, grows active, and rapidly

sends its poisonous and poisoning tendrils through all the avenues of

mind. Its bitter secretions in my soul affected all the objects of

my sight, even as the jaundiced man lives only in a saffron element.

Perhaps no course of conduct on the part of my wife could have seemed

to me entirely innocent. Certainly none could have been entirely

satisfactory, or have seemed entirely proper. Even her words, when she

spoke to me alone, were of a kind to feed my prevailing passion. Yet,

regarded under just moods, they should have been the most conclusive,

not simply of her innocence, but of the devotedness of her heart to

the requisitions of her duty. Her love and her sense of right seemed

harmoniously to keep together. Gentlest reproaches eluded me for

leaving her, when she sought for none but myself. Sweetest endearments

encountered my return, and fondest entreaties would have delayed the

hour of my departure. Her earnestness, when she implored me not to leave

her so frequently at night, almost reached intensity, and had a meaning,

equally expressive of her delicacy and apprehensions, which I was

unhappily too slow to understand.

Six months had probably elapsed from the time of Mr. Clifford's death,

when, returning from my office one day, who should I encounter in my

wife's company but her mother? Of this good lady I had been permitted to

see but precious little since my marriage. Not that she had kept aloof

from our dwelling entirely. Julia had always conceived it a duty to seek

her mother at frequent periods without regarding the ill treatment which

she received; and the latter, becoming gradually reconciled to what she

could no longer prevent, had at length so far put on the garments of

Christian charity as to make a visit to her daughter in return. Of

course, though I did not encourage it, I objected nothing to this

renewed intercourse; which continued to increase until, as in the

present instance, I sometimes encountered this good lady on my return

from my office. On these occasions I treated her with becoming respect,

though without familiarity. I inquired after her health, expressed

myself pleased to see her, and joined my wife in requesting her to stay

to dinner. Until now, she usually declined to do so; and her manner to

myself hitherto was that of a spoiled child indulging in his sulks. But,

this day, to my great consternation, she was all smiles and good humor.

A change so sudden portended danger. I looked to my wife, whose grave

countenance afforded me no explanation. I looked to the lady herself, my

own countenance no doubt sufficiently expressive of the wonder which I

felt, but there was little to be read in that quarter which could

give me any clue to the mystery. Yet she chattered like a magpie; her

conversation running on certain styles of dress, various purchases of

silks, and satins, and other stuffs, which she had been buying--a budget

of which, I afterward discovered, she had brought with her, in order to

display to her daughter. Then she spoke of her teeth, newly filed and

plugged, and grinned with frequent effort, that their improved condition

might be made apparent. Her chatter was peculiarly that of a flippant

and conceited girl-child of sixteen, whose head has been turned by

premature bringing out, and the tuition of some vain, silly, wriggling

mother. I could see, by my wife's looks, that there was a cause for all

this, and waited, with considerable apprehension, for the moment when we

should be alone, in order to receive from her an explanation. But little

of Mrs. Clifford's conversation was addressed to me, though that little

was evidently meant to be particularly civil. But, a little before she

took her departure, which was soon after dinner, she asked me with some

abruptness, though with a considerable smirk of meaning in her face, if

I “knew a Mr. Patrick Delaney.” I frankly admitted that I had not this

pleasure; and with a still more significant smirk, ending in a very

affected simper, meant to be very pleasant, she informed me, as she took

her leave, that Julia would make me wiser. I looked to Julia when she

was gone, and, with some chagrin, and with few words, she unravelled the

difficulty. Her mother--the old fool--was about to be married, and to

a Mr. Patrick Delaney, an Irish gentleman, fresh from the green island,

who had only been some eighteen months in America.

“You seem annoyed by this affair, Julia; but how does it affect you?”

“Oh, such a match can not turn out well. This Mr. Delaney is a young

man, only twenty-five, and what can he see in mother to induce him to

marry her? It can only be for the little pittance of property which she

possesses.”

I shrugged my shoulders while replying:--

“There must be some consideration in every marriage-contract.”

“Ah! but, Edward, what sort of a man can it be to whom money is the

consideration for marrying a woman old enough to be his mother?”

“And so little money, too. But, Julia, perhaps he marries her as a

mother. He is a modest youth, who knows his juvenility, and seeks

becoming guardianship. But the thing does not concern us at all.”

“She is my mother, Edward.”

“True; but still I do not see that the matter should concern us. You

do not apprehend that Mr. Patrick Delaney will seek to exercise the

authority of a father over either of us?”

“No! but I fear she will repent.”

“Why should that be a subject of fear which should be a subject of

gratulation? For my part, I hope she may repent. We are told she can not

be saved else.”

Julia was silent. I continued:--

“But what brings her here, and makes her so suddenly affable with me?

That is certainly a matter which looks threatening. Does she explain

this to you, Julia?”

“Not otherwise than by declaring she is sorry for former differences.”

“Ah, indeed! but her sorrow comes too late, and I very much suspect has

some motive. What more? the shaft is not yet shot.”

“You guess rightly; she invites us to the wedding, and insists that we

must come, as a proof that we harbor no malice.”

“Is that all?”

“All, I believe.”

“She is more considerate than I expected. Well, you promised her?”

“No; I told her I could say nothing without consulting you.”

“And would you wish to go, Julia?”

“Oh, surely, dear husband.”

“We will both go, then.”

A week afterward the affair took place, and we were among the

spectators.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE HEART-FIEND FINDS AN ECHO FROM THE FIEND WITHOUT.

And a spectacle it was! Mrs. Clifford, about to become Mrs. Delaney, was

determined that the change in her situation should be distinguished by

becoming eclat. Always a silly woman, fond of extravagance and show, she

prepared to celebrate an occasion of the greatest folly in a style of

greater extravagance than ever. She accordingly collected as many of her

former numerous acquaintances as were still willing to appear within a

circle in which wealth was no longer to be found. Her house was small,

but, as has been elsewhere stated in this narrative, she had made it

smaller by stuffing it with the massive and costly furniture which had

been less out of place in her former splendid mansion, and had there

much better accorded with her fortunes. She now still further stuffed

it with her guests. Of course, many of those present, came only to make

merry at her expense. Her husband was almost entirely unknown to any of

them; and it was enough to settle his pretensions in every mind, that,

in the vigor of his youth, a really fine-looking, well-made person

of twenty-five, he was about to connect himself, in marriage, with a

haggard old woman of fifty, whose personal charms, never very great,

were nearly all gone; and whose mind and manners, the grace of youth

being no more, were so very deficient in all those qualities which might

commend one to a husband. So far as externals went, Mr. Delaney was

a very proper man. He behaved with sufficient decorum, and unexpected

modesty; and went through the ordeal as composedly as if the occurrence

had been frequently before familiar; as indeed we shall discover in the

sequel, was certainly the case. But this does not concern us now.

Three rooms were thrown open to the company. We had refreshments in

abundance and great variety, and at a certain hour, we were astounded

by the clamor of tamborine and fiddle giving due notice to the dancers.

Among my few social accomplishments, this of dancing had never been

included. Naturally, I should, perhaps, be considered an awkward man.

I was conscious of this awkwardness at all times when not excited

by action or some earnest motive. I was incapable of that graceful

loitering, that flexibleness of mind and body, which excludes the idea

of intensity, of every sort, and which constitutes one of the great

essentials for success in a ball-room. It was in this very respect that

my FRIEND, William Edgerton, may be said to have excelled most young

men of our acquaintance. He was what, in common speech, is called an

accomplished man. Of very graceful person, without much earnestness

of character, he had acquired a certain fastidiousness of taste on the

subjects of costume and manners, which, without Brummellizing, he yet

carried to an extent which betrayed a considerable degree of mental

feebleness. This somewhat assimilated him to the fashionable dandy. He

walked with an air equally graceful, noble, and unaffected. He was never

on stilts, yet he was always EN REGLE. He had as little maurias, honte

as maurais ton. In short, whatever might have been his deficiencies, he

was confessedly a very neat specimen of the fine gentleman in its most

commendable social sense.

William Edgerton was among the guests of Mrs. Clifford. There had been

no previous intimacy between the Edgerton and Clifford families, yet he

had been specially invited. Mrs. C. could have had but a single motive

for inviting him--so I thought--that of making her evening a jam. She

had just that ambition of the lady of small fashion, who regards the

number rather than the quality of her guests, and would prefer a saloon

full of Esquimaux or Kanzas, and would partake of their sea-blubber,

rather than lose the triumph of making more noise than her rival

neighbors, the Sprigginses or Wigginses.

William Edgerton did not seek me; but, when I left the side of my wife

to pay my respects to some ladies at the opposite end of the room, he

approached her. A keen pang that rendered me unconscious of everything

I was saying--nay, even of the persons to whom I was addressing

myself--shot through my heart, as I beheld him crossing the floor to the

place that I had left. Involuntarily, the gracefulness of his person and

carriage provoked in my mind a contrast most unfavorable to me, between

him and myself. It was no satisfaction to me at that time to reflect

that I was less graceful only because I was more earnest, more sincere.

This is usually the case, and is reasonably accounted for. Intensity

and great earnestness of character, are wholly inconsistent with a nice

attention to forms, carriage, demeanor. But what does a lady care for

such distinction? Does she even suspect it? Not often. If she could only

fancy for a moment that the well-made but awkward man who traverses the

room before her, carried in his breast a soul of such ardency and volume

that it subjected his very motion arbitrarily to its own excitements,

its own convulsions; that the very awkwardness which offended her was

the result of the most deep and passionate feelings--feelings which,

like the buried flame in the mountain, are continually boiling up for

utterance--convulsing the prison-house which retained them--shaking the

solid earth with their pent throes, that will not always be pent! Ah!

these things do not move ladies' fancies. There are very few endowed

with that thoughtful pride which disdains surfaces. Julia Clifford was

one of these few! But I little knew it then.

The approach of William Edgerton to my wife was a signal for my torture

all that evening. From that moment my mind was wandering. I knew little

what I said, or looked, or did. My chat with those around me became, on

a sudden, bald and disjointed; and when I beheld the pair, both nobly

formed--he tall, graceful, manly--she, beautiful and bending as a

lily--a purity beaming, amid all their brightness, from her eyes--a

purity which, I had taught myself to believe, was no longer in her

heart--when I beheld them advance into the floor, conspicuous over

all the rest, in most eyes, as they certainly were in mine--I can not

describe--you may conjecture--the cold, fainting sickness which overcame

my soul. I could have lain myself down upon the lone, midnight rocks,

and surrendered myself to solitude and storm for ever.

They entered the stately measures of the Spanish dance But the grace

of movement which won the murmuring applause of all around me, only

increased the agony of my afflictions. I saw their linked arms--the

compliant, willing movements of their mutual forms--and dark were the

images of guilt and hateful suspicion which entered my brain and grew

to vivid forms, in action before me. I fancied the fierce, passionate

yearnings in the heart of Edgerton; I trembled when I conjectured what

fancies filled the heart of Julia. I can not linger over the torturing

influence of those moments--moments which seemed ages! Enough that I was

maddened with the delirium, now almost as its height, which had been for

months preying upon my brain like some corroding serpent.

The dance closed. Edgerton conducted her to a seat and placed himself

beside her. I kept aloof. I watched them from a distance; and in

sustaining this watch, I was compelled to recall my senses with a stern

degree of resolution which should save my feelings from the detection of

those inquisitive glances which I fancied were all around me. If I was

weakest among men, in the disease which destroyed my peace, Heaven knows

I was among the strongest of men in concealing its expression at the

very moment when every pulsation of my heart was an especial agony. I

affected indifference, threw myself into the midst of a group of such

people as talk of their neighbor's bonnets or breeches, the rise

of stocks, or the fall of rain; and how Mrs. Jenkins has set up her

carriage, and Mr. Higgins has been compelled to set down, and to sell

out his. Interesting details, perhaps, without which the nine in ten

might as well be tongueless or tongue-tied for ever. This stuff I had to

hear, and requite in like currency, while my brain was boiling, and

dim, but terrible images of strife, and storm, and agony, were rushing

through it with howling and hisses. There I sat, thus seemingly engaged,

but with an eye ever glancing covertly to the two, who, at that moment,

absorbed every thought of my mind, every feeling of my heart, and filled

them both with the bitterest commotion. The glances of their mutual

eyes, the expression of lip and check, I watched with the keenest

analysis of suspicion. In Julia, I saw sweetness mixed with a delicate

reserve. She seemed to speak but little. Her eyes wandered from her

companion--frequently to where I sat---but I gave myself due credit, at

such moments, for the ability with which I conducted my own espionage.

My inference--equally unjust and unnatural--that her timid glances to

my-self denoted in her bosom a consciousness of wrong--seemed to me the

most natural and inevitable inference. And when I noted the ardency

of Edgerton's gaze, his close, unrelaxing attentions, the seeming

forgetfulness of all around which he manifested, I hurried to the

conclusion that his words were of a character to suit his looks, and

betray in more emphatic utterance, the passion which they also betrayed.

The signal, after a short respite, devoted to fruits, ices, &c., was

made for the dancers, and William Edgerton rose. I noted his bow to

my wife, saw that he spoke, and necessarily concluded, that he again

solicited her to dance. Her lips moved--she bowed slightly--and he again

took his seat beside her. I inferred from this that she declined to

dance a second time. She was certainly more prudent than himself. I

assigned to prudence--to policy--on her part, what might well have been

placed to a nobler motive. I went further.

“She will not dance with him,” said the busy fiend at my shoulder, “for

the very reason that she prefers a quiet seat beside him. In the dance

they mingle with others; they can not speak with so much ease and

safety. Now she has him all to herself.”

I dashed away, forgetful, gloomily, from the knot by which I had been

encompassed. I passed into the adjoining room, which was connected by

folding doors, with that I left. The crowd necessarily grouped itself

around the dancers, and (sic) a window-jamb, I stood absolutely

forgetting where I was alone among the many--with my eye stretching over

the heads of the flying masses, to the remote spot where my wife still

sat with Edgerton. I was aroused from my hateful dream by a slight touch

upon my arm. I started with a painful sense of my own weakness--with a

natural dread that the secret misery under which I labored was no longer

a secret. I writhed under the conviction that the cold, the sneering,

and the worthless, were making merry with my afflictions. I met the gaze

of the bride--the mistress of ceremonies--my wife's mother Mrs. Delaney,

late Clifford. I shuddered as I beheld her glance. I could not mistake

the volume of meaning in her smile--that wretched smile of her thin,

withered lips, brimful of malignant cunning, which said emphatically as

such smile could say:--

“I see you on the rack; I know that you are writhing; and I enjoy your

tortures.”

I started, as if to leave her, with a look of fell defiance, roused,

ready to burst forth into utterance, upon my own face. But she gently

detained my arm.

“You are troubled.”

“No.”

“Ah! but you are. Stop awhile. You will feel better.”

“Thank you; but I feel very well.”

“No, no, you do not. You can not deceive me. I know where the shoe

pinches; but what did you expect? Were you simple enough to imagine that

a woman would be true to her husband, who was false to her own mother?”

“Fiend!” I muttered in her ear.

“Ha! ha! ha!” was the unmeasured response of the bel dame, loud enough

for the whole house to hear. I darted from her grasp, which would have

detained me still, made my way--how I know not--out of the house, and

found myself almost gasping for breath, in the open air of the street.

She, at least, had been sagacious enough to find out my secret

CHAPTER XXVII

KINGSLEY.

THE fiendish suggestion of the mother, against the purity of her own

child, almost divested me, for the moment, of my own rancor--almost

deprived me of my suspicions! Could anything have been more thoroughly

horrible and atrocious! It certainly betrayed how deep was the malignant

hatred which she had ever borne to myself, and of which her daughter

was now required to bear a portion. What a volume of human depravity was

opened on my sight, by that single utterance of this wretched mother.

Guilt and sin! ye are, indeed, the masters everywhere! How universal

is your dominion! How ye rage--how ye riot among souls, and minds,

and fancies--never utterly overthrown anywhere--busy

always--everywhere--sovereign in how many hapless regions of the heart!

Who is pure among men? Who can be sure of himself for a day--an hour?

Precious few! None, certainly, who do not distrust their own strength

with a humility only to be won from prayer--prayer coupled with moderate

desires, and the presence of a constant thought, which teaches that time

is a mere agent of eternity, and he who works for the one only, will not

even be secure of peace during the period for which he works. Truly, he

who lives not for the future is the very last who may reasonably hope to

enjoy the blessings of the present.

But this was not the season, nor was mine the mood, for moral

reflections of any sort. My secret was known! That was everything. When

the conduct of William Edgerton had become such, as to awaken the

notice of third persons, I was justified in exacting from him the heavy

responsibility he had incurred. The vague, indistinct conviction had

long floated before my mind, that I would be required to take his life.

The period which was to render this task necessary, was that which

had now arrived--when it had been seen by others--not interested like

myself--that he had passed the bounds of propriety. Of course, I was

arguing in a circle, from which I should have found it impossible to

extricate myself. Thousands might have seen that I was jealous, without

being able to see any just cause for my jealousy. It was, however, quite

enough for a proud spirit like my own, that its secret fear should be

revealed. It did not much matter, after this, whether my suspicions

were, or were not causeless. It was enough that they were known--that

busy, meddling women, and men about town, should distinguish me with a

finger--should say: “His wife is very pretty and--very charitable!”

“Ha! ha! ha!”

I, too, could laugh, under such musings, and in the spirit of Mrs.

Delaney--late Clifford.

“Ha! ha! ha!” The street echoed, beneath the windows of that reputable

lady, with my involuntary, fiendish laughter. I stood there--and the

music rang through my senses like the cries of exulting demons. She

was there--of my wife the thoughts ran thus, she was there, whirling,

perchance, in the mazes of that voluptuous dance, then recently become

fashionable among us; his arm about her waist--her form inclining to

his, as if seeking support and succor--and both of them forgetting all

things but the mutual intoxication which swallowed up all things and

thoughts in the absorbing sensuality of one! Or, perhaps, still

apart, they sat to themselves--her ear fastened upon his lips--her

consciousness given wholly to his discourse; and that discourse!--“Ha!

ha! ha!”--I laughed again, as I hurried away from the spot, with

gigantic strides, taking the direction which led to my own lonely

dwelling.

All was stillness there, but there was no peace. I entered the piazza,

threw myself into a chair, and gazed out upon the leaves and waters,

trying to collect my scattered thoughts--trying to subdue my blood,

that my thoughts might meet in deliberation upon the desolating prospect

which was then spread before me. But I struggled for this in vain. But

one thought was mine at that hour. But one fearful image gathered in

completeness and strength before my mind; and that was one calculated to

banish all others and baffle all their deliberations.

“The blood of William Edgerton must be shed, and by these hands! My

disgrace is known! There is no help for it!”

I had repeatedly resolved this gloomy conviction in my mind. It was now

to receive shape and substance. It was a thing no longer to be thought

upon. It was a thing to be done! This necessity staggered me. The

kindness of the father, the kindness and long true friendship of the son

himself, how could I requite this after such a fashion? How penetrate

the peaceful home of that fond family with an arm of such violence, as

to tend their proudest offspring from the parental tree, and, perhaps,

in destroying it, blight for ever the venerable trunk upon which it was

borne? Let it not be fancied that these feelings were without effect.

Let it not be supposed that I weakly, willingly, yielded to the

conviction of this cruel necessity--that I determined, without a

struggle, upon this seemingly necessary measure! Verily, I then, in

that dreary house and hour, wrestled like a strong man with the unbidden

prompter, who counselled me to the deed of blood. I wrestled with him

as the desperate man, knowing the supernatural strength of his enemy,

wrestles with a demon. The strife was a fearful one. I could not

suppress my groans of agony; and the cold sweat gathered and stood upon

my forehead in thick, clammy drops.

But the struggle was vain to effect my resolution. It had been too long

present as a distinct image before my imagination. I had already become

too familiar with its aspects. It had the look of a fate to my mind. I

fancied myself--as probably most men will do, whose self-esteem is

very active--the victim of a fate. My whole life tended to confirm

this notion. I was chosen out from the beginning for a certain work, in

which, my-self a victim, I was to carry out the designs of destiny in

the ease of other victims. I had struggled long not to believe

this--not to do this work. But the struggle was at last at an end. I was

convinced, finally. I was ready for the work. I was resigned to my fate.

But oh! how grateful once had one of these victims seemed in my eyes!

How beautiful, and still how dear was the other!

I rose from my seat and struggle, with the air of one strengthened by

thoughtful resolution for any act. Prayer could not have strengthened me

more. I felt a singular degree of strength. I can well understand that

of fanaticism from my own feelings. Nothing, in the shape of danger,

could have deterred me from the deed. I positively had no remaining

fear. But, how was it to be done? With this inquiry in my mind, still

unanswered, I took a light, went into my study, and drew from my

escritoir the few small weapons which I had in possession. These are

soon named. One was a neat little dirk--broad in blade, double-edged,

short--sufficient for all my purposes. I examined my pistols and loaded

them--a small, neat pair, the present of Edgerton himself. This fact

determined me not to use them. I restored them to the escritoir; put the

dagger between the folds of my vest, and prepared to leave the house.

At this moment a heavy knocking was heard at the gate I resumed my

seat in the piazza until the servant should report the nature of the

interruption. He was followed in by my friend Kingsley.

“I am glad to find you home,” said he abruptly, grasping my hand; “home,

and not a-bed. The hour is late, I know, but the devil never keeps

ordinary hours, and men, driven by his satanic majesty, have some excuse

for following his example.”

This exordium promised something unusual. The manner of Kingsley

betrayed excitement. Nay, it was soon evident he had been taking

a superfluous quantity of wine. His voice was thick, and he spoke

excessively loud in order to be intelligible. There was something like

a defying desperation in his tones, in the dare-devil swagger of his

movement, and the almost iron pressure of his grasp upon my fingers. I

subdued my own passions--nay, they were subdued--singularly so, by the

resolution I had made before his entrance, and was able, therefore, to

appear calm and smooth as summer water in his eyes.

“What's the matter?” I asked. “You seem excited. No evil, I trust?”

“Evil, indeed! Not much; but even if it were, I tell you Ned Clifford, I

am just now in the mood to say, 'Evil be thou my good!' I have reason to

say it; and, by the powers, it will not be said only. I will make evil

my good after a fashion of my own; but how much good or now little evil,

will be yet another question.”

I was interested, in spite of myself, by the vehemence and unusual

seriousness of my companion's manner. It somewhat harmonized with my own

temper, and in a measure beguiled me into a momentary heedlessness of my

particular griefs. I urged him to a more frank statement of the things

that troubled him.

“Can I serve you in anything?” was the inquiry which concluded my

assurance that I was sufficiently his friend to sympathize with him in

his afflictions.

“You can serve me, and I need your service. You can serve me in two

respects; nay, if you do not, I know not which side to turn for service.

In the first place, then, I wish a hundred dollars, and I wish it

to-night. In the next place, I wish a companion--a man not easily

scared, who will follow where I lead him, and take part in a 'knock down

and drag out,' if it should become necessary, without asking the why and

the wherefore.”

“You shall have the money, Kingsley.”

“Stay! Perhaps I may never pay it you again.”

“I shall regret that, for I can ill afford to lose any such sum; but,

even to know that would not prevent me from lending you in your need. It

is enough that you are in want. You tell me you are.”

“I am; but my wants are not such as a pure moralist, however strong

might be his friendship, would be disposed to gratify. I shall stake

that money on the roll of the dice.”

“Impossible! You do not game!”

“True as a gospel! Hark you, Clifford, and save us the homily. I am a

ruined man--ruined by the d---d dice and the deceptive cards. I shall

pay you back the hundred dollars, but I shall have precious little after

that.”

“But, surely, I was not misinformed. You were rich a few years ago.”

“A few months! But the case is the same. I am poor now. My riches had

wings. I am reduced to my tail-feathers; but I will flourish with

these to the last. I have fallen among thieves. They have clipped my

plumage--close! close! They have stripped me of everything, but some

small matters which, when sold, will just suffice to get me horse or

halter. Some dirty acres in Alabama, are all I absolutely have remaining

of any real value. But there is one thing that I may have, if I stake

boldly for it.”

“You will only lose again. The hope of a gamester rises, in due degree,

with the increasing lightness of his pockets.”

“Do not mistake me. I hope nothing from your hundred dollars; indeed,

fifty will answer. I propose to employ it only as a pretext. I expect to

lose it, and lose it this very night. But it will give me an opportunity

to ascertain what I have suspected--too late, indeed, to save

myself--that I have been the victim of false dice and figured cards. You

say you will let me have the money--will you go with me--Will you see me

through?”

He extended his hand as he spoke, I grasped it. He shook it with a

hearty feeling, while a bright smile almost, dissipated the cloud from

his face.

“You are a man, Clifford; and now, would you believe it, our excellent,

immaculate young friend, Mr. William Edgerton, refused me this money.”

“Strange! Edgerton is not selfish--he is not mean! From THAT vice he is

certainly free.”

“By G-d, I don't know that! He refused me the money; refused to go with

me. I saw him at eight o'clock, at his own room, where he was rigging

himself out for some d---d tea-drinking; told him my straits, my losses,

my object and all; and what was his plea, think you? Why, he disapproved

of gambling; couldn't think of lending me a sixpence for any such

purpose; and, as for going into such a suspected quarter as a

gambling-house--wouldn't do it for the world! Was there ever such a

puritan--such a humbug!”

I did William Edgerton only justice in my reply;--

“I've no doubt, Kingsley, that such are his real principles. He would

have lent you thrice the money, freely, had not your object been

avowed.”

“But what a devil sort of despotism is that! Can't a friend get drunk,

or game, or swagger? may he not depart from the highway, and sidle into

an alley, without souring his friend's temper and making him stingy?

I don't understand it at all. I'm glad, at least, to find you are of

another sort of stuff.”

“Nay, Kingsley, I will lend you the money--go with you, as you desire;

but, understand me, I do not, no more than Edgerton, approve of this

gambling.”

“Tut, tut! I don't want you to preach, though I could hear you with a

devilish sight better temper than him. There's a hundred things that

one's friend don't approve of, but shall he desert him for all that?

Leave him to be plucked, and kicked, and abandoned; and, moralizing,

with a grin over his fain, say, 'I told you so!' No! no! Give me the

fellow that'll stand by me--keep me out of evil, if he can, but stand by

me, nevertheless, at all events; and not suffer me to be swallowed up at

the last moment, when an outstretched finger might save!”

“But, am I to think, Kingsley, that my help can do this?”

“No! not exactly--it may--but if it does not, what then? I shall lose

the money, but you shan't. But, truth to speak, Clifford, I do not

propose to myself the recovery of what is lost. I know I have been the

prey of sharpers. That is to say, I have every reason to believe so,

and I have had a hint to that effect. I have a spice of the devil in me,

accordingly--a mocking, mortifying devil, that jeers me with my d---d

simplicity; and I propose to go and let the swindlers know, in a way as

little circuitous as possible, that I am not blind to the fact that they

have made an ass of me. There will be some satisfaction, in that. I

will write myself down an ass, for their benefit, only to enjoy the

satisfaction of kicking a little like one. I invite you on a kicking

expedition.”

I felt for my dagger in my bosom, as I answered: “Very good! Have you

weapons?”

“Hickory! You see! a moderate axe-handle, that'll make its sentiments

understood You are warned; you see what you are to expect. I will not

take you in. Are you ready for a scratch?”

“Allons!” I replied indifferently. The truth is, my bosom was full of a

recklessness of a far more sweeping character than his own. I was in the

mood for strife. It promised only the more thoroughly to prepare me

for the darker trial which was before me, and which my secret soul was

meditating all the while with an intense and gloomy tenacity of purpose.