"Not yet; but the dispatches from Sir Adrian relate that a clue is
obtained to his discovery."
In a word, Hermanus the stutterer, who, rebel as he was, hated English
traitors, succeeded in persuading his comrades that Lee and Brennard had
never had any view but self-aggrandisement. It was therefore resolved
in council to purchase their own pardon by delivering up the trader and
the convict. Poor Gray had been carried off with the wounded to the
hospital tent, and found to be seriously, though not mortally, hurt. He
had not an enemy among the Boers; but it was proved that he had
consented to serve a gun, and despite the decided step he had taken to
avoid firing upon his countrymen, there was no evidence to show whether
the act was the result of panic, or repentance.
He was, however, not to be condemned without a further hearing, when
more evidence could be collected, and was sent to Sir John Manvers's
division, with other convalescents, after the action.
Perfectly passive and resigned to his impending fate, the young deserter
met with compassion and solace at the kind hands of Mr Trail, who
obtained permission to lodge him in his own little dwelling. Gray was,
however, ironed whenever he passed the threshold; but, in spite of his
bonds, the poor lad confessed himself happier than he had been for
years.
Marion and Ormsby were, as in happier times, sitting, side by side,
under the willows that bent over the rushing waters of the two rivers.
They were not many paces from the house, and hearing the tramp of
horses' feet, hastened to learn the news brought by the express.
As they passed Mr Trail's cottage, they saw Gray walking up and down,
as he was permitted to do at certain hours of the day, between two
sentries.
Marion shuddered at sight of the manacled limbs of this slight,
handsome, and frank-hearted looking youth. He had been the associate of
Lyle! She was turning from him with a feeling of dislike, when his poor
attempt to salute her with his fettered hands disarmed the sentiment and
filled her heart with pity.
She passed on with her lover, and on entering the house, they learned
from Mrs Daveney that the express had brought private letters from Sir
Adrian to Sir John Manvers and Mr Daveney.
The latter was at this moment sent for by the General commanding the
division.
Sir John Manvers's marquee stood in the centre of the "canvas city,"
distinguished from all similar habitations by its superior size and the
greater space of ground allotted to it. The marquee was closed, two
sentinels were pacing silently up and down before it; the still aspect
of the domicile strongly contrasted with the life and stir of the
encampment, which, as usual in hours of peace, presented an agreeable
and busy scene.
The afternoon sun shone brightly on the gleaming waters of the winding
river, groups of soldiers dotted its banks, some sitting, talking
quietly together, some wrestling, some running, some cutting wood to
replenish the cooking fires. Among these were intermingled the dusky
forms of of Kafir men and women, the latter with long bundles of sticks,
accurately poised on their heads, which they had brought to exchange for
tobacco, or money where it could be got. Intermingled with these
scattered and motley groups might be seen the tall, manly form of the
young English settler, the diminutive shape of the lithe-limbed
Hottentot, the swarthy Griqua, and the grave Dutch colonist, and
collected in knots, or waiting apart in twos and threes, in grave
communion, were the officers of the division.
I have spoken of this division as a little army; in truth, it might so
be called, for on either side, parted from the encampment by a little
wilderness of mimosas, were the lagers and bivouacs of the native
levies, in all amounting with the regular troops to 3,000 men, who were
waiting the decision of Sir Adrian Fairfax to be disbanded.
Daveney walked through the encampment, neither looking to the right nor
the left, but not unobserved by the officers, who, heartily tired of the
inactivity without the excitement of the field, were longing to return
to quarters, and anxiously looked for news of all descriptions.
The General, Sir John Manvers, was not popular with those he commanded.
Cold, abstracted, haughty, self-opinionated, he was a striking evidence
of that mischievous system of _interest_, which, like a destructive
insect in a noble structure, injures and often destroys the whole.
Sir John had been appointed commander of the forces in Southern Africa
and temporary governor, not because he had served his country, not
because his judgment, his experience, his temper, or his principles
fitted him for the deep responsibility he assumed, but because he was
the brother-in-law of a man who had long held sway in the House of
Commons, and whose silence or vote could determine a question of vital
importance to certain landed proprietors of rank and power.
Sir John was provided for, and the bill was passed.
But a very short essay in the management of affairs served to prove that
the General was not the diplomatist for the Cape colony, with its
extraordinary mixture of tribes, its extended and complicated interests,
its untried population, its vague lines of demarcation between the
varied races occupying the pasture-grounds; and on the first substantial
information of the prospect of a war, one member of the Ministry
fortunately recollected that a former one had proved expensive, and that
Sir Adrian Fairfax had been the man who succeeded in bringing it to a
close. But Sir John Manvers could not be dismissed without a saving
clause in the document that gave him his _conge_; by this clause he was
offered a more agreeable and more lucrative government in a less
troublesome country. With this arrangement he was perfectly satisfied.
Thus it was desirable for all parties to bring the warfare to a close;
but Sir Adrian was a conscientious man, who did the duty he was paid to
do, and would not hurry over proceedings involving great results.
Sir John Manvers was chafed at the delay, and angry because Sir Adrian
would not take himself the office of Governor, and thus relieve the
former from his duties. With a delicacy as graceful as it was politic,
Sir Adrian delayed his installation as Governor till peace should be
proclaimed, contenting himself with the command of the principal
division of the army.
But, on hearing from Mr Daveney that Lyle was one of the principal
instigators to mischief, he deeply regretted the arrangement he had
made. It was, however, too late to alter his plan without compromising
his character for consistency.
On looking through the list of killed appended to the humble memorial of
the conquered Boers, it must be owned that a feeling of disappointment
arose in the breast of the General, all humane as he was, and he could
not conceal his uneasiness from his secretary, Frankfort, when he was
officially informed of Lyle's whereabouts, and of the convict's
intention to rally the Boers, and cause further trouble to the
Government.
But Daveney is wending his way across the camp-ground to Sir John
Manvers's marquee.
He held in his hand a letter, which he was requested by Sir Adrian to
place in Sir John's hands, when the latter should have been duly
prepared for its reception. Sir Adrian felt that the Commissioner was
one of the few men in the world whom he could trust with the unthankful
task.
Sir John Manvers bowed coldly on the entrance of Daveney, and pointing
to an open note before him, said, in a tone of vexation, "That note is
from Sir Adrian Fairfax; I confess its contents are beyond my
comprehension, and I am utterly at a loss to know, sir, why my friend
has thought it necessary to make you the medium of communication to me,
instead of addressing me on a point which he chooses to invest with
mystery."
Sir John Manvers had been accustomed to see men bend at once to his
haughty, imperious manner; but this was not the case now. Daveney bowed
with due deference to the General, but the mild blue eye of our good
friend expressed sincere compassion for the man, as he replied, "I
grieve indeed, sir, to be made the medium of communication on a subject
which will cause you not only surprise, but unmitigated pain. Sir, I
must beg you to be prepared for exceedingly unwelcome intelligence."
The last words were uttered less blandly than at first, for the proud
General sat with his arms folded and wrath darkening his brow, as the
Commissioner stood before him; but the latter was too kind at heart to
be overcome by the arrogant bearing of one who he knew must suffer
bitterly ere they parted, and checking the indignation incident on Sir
John's arrogant bearing, he said gently, "I admit that I am in your
eyes, sir, unduly honoured; but Sir Adrian Fairfax is my friend as well
as yours, and he has chosen that I should impart to you personally what
he dreads to write."
"Dread, sir! what do you mean? Speak out; what is there that _you_ can
tell me to make me shrink from hearing it?" and the stern man rose and
stood up with an air of defiance and contempt, as his eyes gleamed from
beneath his bent brows upon the kind countenance of the Commissioner.
"Speak, sir!" he continued, "I command you."
"This communication," replied Daveney, quietly, placing Sir Adrian's
letter on the table, "is private, as you perceive; this," laying a
larger document before the General, "is official. In the last, Sir
Adrian informs you, that a man of the name of Lee has been, with one or
two others, the chief confederate of the rebel chief Vander Roey, has
assisted the Boers in every way by facilitating the trade in gunpowder,
and is now on his way to the Singpoo River, where he purposes
establishing a settlement, and defying the laws of the colonial
government--"
Here the Commissioner paused.
"Well, sir!" said Sir John; "and again I desire to know why this
communication is not forwarded to me directly, instead of through you."
"Sir," replied Daveney, "I had imagined that my name was not altogether
unknown to you." A sudden flush suffused even the bald forehead of the
General; but he recovered himself instantly, and coldly remarked, "I had
not forgotten it, but you will excuse my saying that the reminiscence is
not agreeable to me, and expressing at the same time my perplexity at
your referring to private matters when employed--very strangely, it
seems to me--on official business you must excuse my requesting you to
speak to the purpose for which you came."
"The real name of the offender," replied the Commissioner, "is
communicated in the private letter; he is a convict, who was supposed to
have been wrecked in the _Trafalgar_, but who was wonderfully saved with
the deserter Gray, and succeeded in reaching the Amaponda country, spent
some months among Umlala's people, encouraging them in sedition,
trafficking in brandy and gunpowder, and at last made his way to Vander
Roey to fan the flame of rebellion among the Dutch."
Mr Daveney had summoned resolution to convey the above intelligence
with perfect calmness, and as he spoke he clearly perceived the inward
working of the heart he probed, despite the struggle against the display
of outward suffering.
As he referred to the "private letter," Sir John Manvers re-seated
himself, but forbore to take up the document, although his hand was
impulsively stretched out to take it. At the mention of the wreck of
the _Trafalgar_, the handsome face of the proud General was again deeply
suffused--the flush passed away, leaving a livid ring round the eyes and
mouth, and when the Commissioner ceased to speak, the countenance before
him, with its ashy lips and stony orbs, more resembled that of a corpse
than a living being.
The stern man moved his head with the rigidity of a figure worked by
springs--he waved his hand, indicating a wish to be left alone, but
Daveney did not stir. Hat in hand, he still stood contemplating with an
air of earnest sympathy the unfortunate Sir John Manvers--_the father of
Jasper Lyle--the convict--the rebel--the doomed traitor_!
Several minutes elapsed, mind and body seemed equally prostrated; but
Sir John's senses had not forsaken him, he had still the _capacity to
suffer_. His right hand lay fixed as marble on the table beside the
fatal letter, the nails were blue from the stagnant blood within, his
chest heaved with stifled sighs, the stony orbs grew bloodshot, the
ghastly features were convulsed.
He fought manfully, desperately, against nature, and conquered. He
rose, and trembling violently, Daveney was prepared to see him fall; but
although he tottered, he kept his ground.
Still he could not speak. A watch ticking on the camp-table sounded
like Time passing with a heavy tread; the din of the camp was but a
murmur in the distance, but it seemed strangely distinct. So did the
sentry's foot on the grass. How close he was; a canvas screen only
separated the suffering General from the careless happy soldier. A
chorus rose clear and joyous from the banks of the river, and laughter,
shrill and boisterous, pierced the air.
All these accustomed sounds now jarred harshly on the Commissioner's
ear, as before him stood the stern, cold, haughty man, suddenly assailed
by trouble, his ride tottering in the dust. He, the centre of this busy
crowd, had not a friend to whom he could turn for support or
consolation. In the kind Daveney's breast he might have met with
sympathy, but his was a nature which resented pity. Again he bade the
Commissioner depart, and the latter, regretful and anxious, retired,
leaving the unhappy man to the solitude of his marquee.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sun was setting, the camp-ground was dotted with fires, the games
were over, but the laughter and the song continued as the soldiers
lounged over their evening meal. The herd-boys were driving the flocks
and cattle over the heathy uplands, and Marion, Ormsby, and Mr Trail
stood at the rude gate of the new-made garden, watching the
Commissioner's approach from the lines.
He was so intent on what had passed between the General and himself,
that he forgot to ask the usual question, "How is my darling?" but he
was reminded of her by Marion telling him that her sister had fallen
into a deep and quiet sleep, and that the medical attendant foretold
improvement from the moisture which already bedewed her tense brow and
wasted hands.
At midnight Daveney looked forth upon the hushed camp-ground. The
stillness was only broken by the occasional challenge between the
watchful sentinels, and but one light burnt strong and clear in the vast
and tented field; it was in the General's marquee.
Before daybreak the Commissioner, accompanied by Mr Trail, and followed
by May, reconnoitred the location in which he had placed his dwelling.
Perfect silence reigned throughout, but still that light shone steadily.
Oh! to have lifted the canvassed screen of that pavilion, and seen
therein a strong man and a proud, pacing, pacing, to and fro, to and
fro, with arms lightly folded across his chest, striving to stifle the
emotions which rose and fell like a heavy tide, as his thoughts dragged
him back, and forced him to look upon the wasted, the irredeemable past!
And the laughing sun came forth from his gorgeous eastern throne, and
poured his beams alike upon the sleeping soldier and the waking General,
and it mocked the light of the poor lamp even as the things of heaven
mock all things of earth!
Both the public and the private despatch from Sir Adrian Fairfax to Sir
John Manvers lay open on the camp-table.
The first simply contained the official information respecting Lee; the
second was as follows:--
"My dear Sir John,--
"I have requested my good friend Daveney, the present Commissioner for
the Gaika tribes, to prepare you for intelligence which it gives me
unmitigated pain to write. My resolution not to accept the post of
Governor till my work here was done was founded on the best principles;
but I regret it now for your sake, since as you will have learned,
before opening this, the man Lee, named in my official despatch, 10th
May, 18--, is no other than Jasper Lyle. At present his identity is
known only to the Daveneys, their immediate friends, and myself, and I
see no way of your avoiding personal contact or correspondence with him,
unless you resolve to throw over publicly the reins of government to me.
Would to heaven, my dear friend, that this man had perished among the
unfortunate passengers of the _Trafalgar_, or that he had fallen in the
encounter with the Dutch at the stony ridges! My chief desire now is to
hear that he has got clear into the upper districts; but unhappily he
has made enemies among the people he affects to assist, and I am told
they are determined to yield him up to me. In such a case, as a
soldier, you know I have no alternative.
"In a word, my dear Sir John, my mind would be greatly relieved at
hearing that either you or he had quitted the colony. Pardon language
that appears uncourteous; my pen fails in expressing as it ought all
that I feel, all that I am ready to do in any way in which I may serve
you at this lamentable crisis.
"With great regard, and assuring you of my earnest regret at this
unfortunate and unlooked-for result of the late action against the
misguided Boers,
"I beg you to believe me most truly yours,
"Adrian Fairfax."
"To Sir John Manvers, Bart, K.C.B."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Known only to the Daveneys, their immediate friends, and myself!" Sir
John Manvers stopped from time to time in his circumscribed walk, and
read and re-read these odious and degrading words frequently during the
night, and as the sun poured his beams athwart the sickly lamp, he held
the letter to the flame, and finally casting the blackened paper to the
ground, crushed the ashes beneath his boot.
"So so--I am a gazing-stock for the Daveneys and their immediate
friends,--that soft-voiced, cautious missionary, that idler Ormsby, that
Frankfort, who writes such d--d laconic memoranda, that are in reality
orders! I am a mark for bad men's scorn and good men's pity. _Good_
men! What constitutes a good man? Is he one whom the devil has not
been _permitted_ to tempt?--_permitted_ to tempt, mark that!
"That one fatal error of my life. Was it my misfortune or my crime that
the citadel of my heart was weak, and that I could not drive out the
Tempter, who had been permitted to besiege and enter it?
"I am utterly confounded--which way shall I turn?--There seems but one
remedy."
He took up a pistol which lay, loaded only with powder, on the table.
With this he was wont to summon his valet, who occupied a tent too
distant to distinguish any other call.
Had it been loaded with ball, he might have lifted it to his head. He
cast it impatiently from him; the trigger caught in his watch-chain, and
the weapon went off. The valet, who stood with his master's coffee at
hand, entered the marquee almost immediately.
The General instinctively turned his back upon his servant; the latter,
accustomed to execute his duties without observation and without,
thanks, placed the little tray, with its small silver service, on the
table, and stood waiting further orders.
"You may go," said the General, in his usual voice; and the valet
retired.
It is indeed strange how a mind torn for hours by conflicting emotions
can in a moment, when pressed by necessity, bring itself to act in the
most trifling occurrences of life; reaction once produced, the brain
partially recovers its tone.
The morning light, the sound of the stirring _reveille_, its bugle
echoes answering each other from kloof to kloof, the rattle of
accoutrements, and the roll of the martial drums, with their shrill
accompaniments, the fifes, awoke the little world around.
Day is well represented as scattering roses in her path, for she brings
much comfort to the wretched, whose wretchedness is not all of their own
making. Amid the multitude who wake to the sunlight, some kind hand may
be stretched out to those who suffer. Hope is ever moving among the
crowd, but her mirror, remember, turns its bright face only to the
repentant--the truly repentant--to those who lift up their hearts to an
offended God, and pray that they may sin no more. Those who suffer
remorse, and dread only the world's contempt, have no part in the bright
promises of Hope; and all the freshness and the fragrance that life
offers to the humbly sorrowful falls to dust and ashes before the breath
of pride, which trembles before man, but seeks to defy the very laws
divine.
Yes; Sir John Manvers repented him truly of his former sin, not because
he feared God, but because he dreaded man's scorn and pity.
Reader, do we not see this day by day?
Sir John Manvers's destruction of Sir Adrian Fairfax's letter was
perfectly characteristic of the man. It was a written record against
him, therefore it should perish; and could he have seen all those who
were initiated in his secret perish likewise, he would have gone forth
to the world apparently unmoved, or with satisfaction so predominant as
to smother all remorseful sentiments.
Still they did not know all.
The real secret lay dormant in a little dark nook in one of the remotest
corners of Cornwall, and was inscribed in letters, now somewhat browned
by time, in a huge old volume, a parish register, kept as securely as if
the clergyman's whole welfare depended on the safety of its contents, in
a dim oak-wainscoted Vestry-room of a dilapidated church.
In a leaf of that register might be read these words, among the
Marriages solemnised in the parish of G--, county of Cornwall.
"John Lyle and Mary L--, residing at G--.
"In the presence of us, etc, etc."
By this time, dear reader, you will have given up all hopes of learning
the early part of Sir John Manvers's history from himself. He was not
the man to indite a record of his sin, or "folly," as he would probably
have termed it, even to his friend Sir Adrian Fairfax. I shall
therefore relate as succinctly as possible those events connected with
his opening career which influenced him through life, and finally
brought him to the strait in which he stands so miserably before you.
His first prospects were uncheering. His father held a small curacy in
Devonshire, and the circumstance of this poor curate marrying the
daughter of a baronet, in whose household he held the appointment of
chaplain, instead of leading to prosperous results, was the means of
impeding his progress in the Church. The union was cursed with the deep
and undying resentment of the lady's father, and the poor curate
struggled on till the grave gave him that rest which earth had denied
the living.
The wife he had chosen was not worthy of him. She had married him from
pique, and when he felt the world's frowns most keenly, she told him so.
But she did not often remind him of the wrong she had "done herself."
Cold, sullen, impatient of misfortune, and angry with him whose fault
had been in loving her too well, she nursed her wrath in silence. But
it was stamped upon her haughty brow, her dilated nostril, her curled
lip. She lived upon it! She looked upon the whole world as her enemy;
but the world did not think her worth quarrelling with--some called her
"poor Mrs Lyle."
"Poor Mrs Lyle! Who made me so?" she would say; and then, because her
Christian husband met her scorn without retort, she would utter some
bitter word, indicative of contempt, and relapse again into gloom.
But the iron entered into _his_ soul. He died, leaving her with a son,
who had little knowledge of his father, save that his mother spoke of
him as the author of all her misfortunes.
The child did not understand this. All he could recollect of his father
was the good man's deathbed--the thin hands held out to wife and child--
and pale lips parting, and blessing them that had mocked him; for the
boy had been taught to laugh his father to scorn.
An elder brother allowed Mrs Lyle a small annuity. She accepted it,
grumbling, because it was scanty; but the baronetcy was not rich, and
the brother did more for the sister than she deserved, for she had
always been ungracious.
Her son, although he resembled her, was not happy in her society; he was
glad when he went to school, and he found companions there who drew out
his better qualities; at sixteen his uncle desired that he should be
sent as a private pupil to a clergyman; at seventeen he lost his mother;
and at twenty, his uncle being also dead, he found himself without a
profession, and with two thousand pounds, a remnant of his mother's
fortune, for patrimony.
One being in the world loved this proud and gloomy boy--she was the
daughter of the Cornish clergyman whose pupil he had been. She was not
beautiful, but there was a graceful gaiety about her which relieved him
from himself. The principles of this poor motherless creature were not
what her father imagined them to be; indeed, he was too learned to have
much knowledge of human nature; but when he discovered the result of
Lyle's intimacy with his daughter, the old man's grief and terror were
overwhelming.
The sight of those white hairs bent to the dust with shame and sorrow,
was more than Lyle could bear--he, who had never known the strength of a
parent's love, was overcome. He married his victim--married her on her
deathbed: for, five hours afterwards he was a widower, and the father of
a son--the convict, Jasper Lyle.
The poor old clergyman wrote the record himself in the parish register,
and died the day after. By one of those fatalities which for a time are
permitted, to arrest the course of truth's clear stream, the medical
attendant and the nurse, who were the only people present at this
melancholy bridal, were laid together in the narrow churchyard of the
remote village, and the poor boy was committed to the care of a woman,
who, so long as she was regularly paid, was content to let him share her
scanty living with her own children. This woman believed the boy to be
young Lyle's natural son, for her husband was a new-comer in the
village, and neither of them could read, nor had they any acquaintances
there. After a while they left it, and carried young Jasper to London.
The stipend paid for him was unexpectedly raised to what was to them a
considerable annuity.
The baronetcy of Manvers, for want of male heirs, passed to the female
line, and, at the age of five-and-twenty, John Lyle found himself, by an
unlooked-for concurrence of circumstances, Sir John Manvers, with but a
slender income for his position.
Interest, however, got him a commission, though he was beyond the
regulated age--interest placed him on the staff of the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, and he, whose destinies had once appeared of no account, was
now the admired favourite of a showy court, for such might then be
termed the official residence of the Duke of L--, in Dublin. His tall,
aristocratic form, his grave beauty, his proud reserve, attracted the
attention of the elegant and witty Duchess of L--, and her admiration
stamped him with a _prestige_ surprising even to himself.
His past love! what was it now to him?--a dream-one, however, to which
he looked back with uneasiness, for was there not a living witness of
this "fantasy?" Every day, every hour, deepened the gulf between him
and the dark paths of his young life. He had never made a friend. No
one stood at hand to whom he might unburden his soul, and each
succeeding week found him placed more irrevocably in a false position.
He was looked upon as a rising man, poor in patrimony, but sure to force
his way to better things.
While he was halting between two opinions, a familiar face suddenly
carried him back to the old parsonage, and its dim and silent groves.
Although we may not have been intimate with an early associate, our
hearts are strangely stirred at sight of one with whom we have been in
communion under circumstances different or distant from those in which
we again meet.
Something of pleasure lit up Sir John's intelligent eye as he recognised
the open countenance of Sir Adrian Fairfax, who was younger than
himself, and whom he had known during the last few months of his
residence at the vicarage; they were the first months of love--months in
which life had been presented to him in its happiest phase.
But while the proud mind was debating which ought to be the first to
speak, a vision stood between the two which riveted the gaze of both,
and turned the current of young Manvers's thoughts.
It was the Lady Amabel, who in all the purity of beautiful and innocent
sixteen, suddenly appeared--the lily of the dazzling parterre. She
leaned on the arm of the Duke of L--, and moved up the room to the dais,
on which the Duchess was seated with the handsome and favourite
aide-de-camp.
But love is ever at cross purposes. The heart of this gentle being
stirred not, the eye was not illumined, as the young and handsome
baronet bent over her. She smiled when Sir Adrian came to greet her;
but he, at whose approach she blushed and trembled like a rose at
morning prime, was Daveney, then a young ensign, without a prospect in
the world save that to which blind fortune might lead him.
But the reader has seen that Daveney thought not of his gentle cousin.
Both were much together in the early part of that brilliant Dublin
season: but the young soldier changed his quarters--some said he
withdrew purposely from the light of those eyes, that tempted him to
love one whom it would be ruin to marry--some, that he was blind--some,
that he was heartless; no matter--they were sundered.
Meanwhile Sir John's heart was chilled towards one in whom he might have
found a friend; and when some months afterwards he saw that Lady Amabel
suffered Sir Adrian to talk to her for hours, the circumstance widened
the gulf.
Later, at the age of eight-and-twenty, Manvers became associated in
Ireland with the sweet and gracious being who eventually became his
wife. She had wealth, connection, talent, and, above all, the most
amiable disposition. The grave, austere young soldier was drawn
imperceptibly towards this happy, ardent being. She shone upon him like
sunlight upon snow--she was like a beam from heaven gilding the darkest
recesses of a mine.
He might have told her all. Many a time he was disposed to throw
himself at her feet, and disclose his early history; but her father--it
was from her mother she derived the stamp of aristocracy--was a
_parvenu_. Manvers dreaded, to lose this first real love, this darling
of his heart and albeit she would have gone with him to the desert, he
knew full well that his title and military interest, weighed heavily in
his favour with the father.
He kept his secret, and married the heiress; and, in the course of time,
he had almost forgot the very existence of his eldest born, when one day
he received a letter from the woman Watson, informing him that his son
had run away from her home; the boy, she said, must have been led
astray, and she hoped to trace him. The annuity must be paid as usual.
She doubted not he would be found, in same of the haunts of the
metropolis, and she would inform Sir John as soon as she received
tidings of the boy.
Upon this, after some hours' deliberation, Sir John Manvers wrote to
Mrs Watson, and, making it a condition that she should never again
address him on the subject of this miserable child, he settled an
annuity of two hundred a year on this woman and her husband for the
boy's maintenance, till of age, if he returned and reached the age of
one-and-twenty. At the age of one-and-twenty some other steps were to
be considered.
Sir John believed that the Watsons had some reason for endeavouring to
overreach him, but it was not so in this instance; the child really was
missing.
The man Watson would have pocketed the annuity without acting further in
the matter. Mrs Watson was "used to the child," and "had a liking for
him;" so she did her best to discover him, but for a long time without
success. Her husband kept back part of the sum allowed, and she
afterwards learned that he bribed some infamous people to keep young
Jasper out of the way of his nurse, who, though without firm principles,
was not bad-hearted.
Sir John soon began to hope--God forgive him!--that he should hear no
more of the poor boy cast upon the troubled waters of the world. In
those days there were no railways, nor electric telegraphs, nor police;
sin prospered much more secretly than it does now. Even now the little
church in Cornwall lies remote from populous places, for no _iron road_
can penetrate through the rugged defiles that lead to it.
Oh! that men would consider the future, and calculate even the chances
of the evils which may accumulate from the commission of one solitary
sin.
We are inclined to pity the youth, who in the poor curate's daughter
found relief after the gloomy days spent at home, and surely for him
whose heart was softened at the sight of the father's anguish them were
hopes of better things; but his besetting demon was pride--pride
fostered by his mother. Oh mothers! do you deeply weigh your
responsibilities?--do you remember that it is to your hands the virgin
soil of the garden foils for culture?
And lo! see what a strait this pride brought him to at last! And is it
not always so? Are we not perpetually punished by the very instruments
we have ourselves employed for evil? Do we not constantly stumble at
the pit we have digged to serve our own purposes?
Pride made Sir John Manvers hesitate ere he recognised Sir Adrian
Fairfax in the lighted saloons of Dublin Castle; he would have been his
friend, but the opportunity was lost; and, though in after-years the
incidents of their profession brought them nearer to each other, it then
was too late to remedy the evil.
When a man is embarked in a bad scheme, he is at no loss for reasons, or
rather excuses, for persevering in mischief; and Sir John Manvers,
becoming day by day more accustomed to look on the sin he had committed
as an error which could not be repaired, at last satisfied himself with
the notion, that to place his son in his true position would be to
entail irremediable sorrow on his household, and in nowise benefit the
unfortunate Jasper.
Jasper!--what could have induced him to permit the child to be called
after his grandfather, that poor, imbecile, wretched old curate?
Still, who was likely to search through an old parish register, and, in
doing so, who would stop to inquire into the identity of John Lyle and
his wife Mary and their son Jasper?
The very devils, we are told, "believe and tremble;" but how
short-sighted are men, who only calculate on human chances!
No; there was little chance of the old yellow-leaved parish register of
Tremorna ever being brought in evidence against him; and, besides, where
_was_ this boy--this Jasper?
Nurse Watson at length traced the child at last to some den of iniquity
in the heart of London. She had a woman's heart--it yearned to Jasper--
he was a fine, manly child; and when she had relieved him of his soiled
habiliments, and purified his strong young limbs with water, she was
pleased with herself at having rescued this gentleman's son from filth
and vice.
She had, it is true, no fixed principles; but she had benefited by this
child. She and her husband and children were living in ease and plenty
on the money paid for him; and she believed that, in spite of what he
had said, his father would rejoice at hearing that the lost sheep was
found and in safe keeping.
She sought Sir John at his house in one of the squares; she was
ungraciously received by his confidential valet, who would not give her
admittance to his master. She was of a passionate and determined
temper, and, enraged at the imperative tone of the saucy London menial,
she told him, in plain terms, that as he would not let her see Sir John,
whom she had watched into the house a few minutes before, he might carry
the message himself, and tell him that "Jasper was found."
Her voice was raised, her cheeks were crimson, her eyes flashed at the
cool impertinence of Sir John's "gentleman," and at this juncture a lady
descended the staircase and crossed the hall.
Lady Manvers, for it was she, stopped at once; and instead of retiring,
as some fine ladies would have done, or ordering the angry woman from
the hall, she walked quietly up to Mrs Watson, and with a look of
reproof to the valet, whose temper she knew, said, "My good woman, what
is the matter, and who is Jasper?"
The voice, the calm sweet face, the graceful air of the gentle
questioner, disarmed the wrath of the irritated woman; but she was at a
loss what to say. She stammered, looked confused; the valet's
self-satisfied mien provoked her, and, in a word, Lady Manvers was very
soon made aware that her husband had a secret which it was not his
intention to share with her.
Lady Manvers trembled exceedingly, but not with anger. No; after a
short time she was able to question herself as to what it would be her
duty to do. She led Mrs Watson into her dressing-room, and bid her
wait there till sent for; but Lady Manvers asked her no questions. No;
this high-minded, generous lady went at once to her husband.
She would scarcely have believed the truth from his own lips. She was
so proud of him, she would as soon have dreamt of his making her his
wife while another claimant to that title lived, as of his having an
heir to his estate unknown to her, the mother of his beautiful boy, his
darling Gerard.
Sir John was utterly startled and thrown off his guard, as his wife, in
her softest accent, but with her clear honest eyes fixed on his, asked
him to "trust her with the secret which the woman Watson would not
tell?" Who was Jasper? Who was Mrs Watson? Surely, if there was
concealment, there must be something wrong; or did dear John think she,
his own Nina, did not love him as she ought to do? Oh! if he had a
sorrow or anxiety, might she not share it? If the sin of an early day
hung heavy on his mind, would he not let her bear the burden with him?
And a hundred other such persuasive things she said, hanging on his
shoulder, with her sweet face lifted imploringly to his moody
countenance.
He bade her wait till evening for his reply; but she would not. She
drew from him that Jasper was his son; but, he added, she was never to
ask him about the boy's unfortunate and ruined mother.
So the father tacitly stamped the brand of illegitimacy on the brow of
his first-born; and the innocent woman he now deceived thanked him for
such concessions as he had made, and resolved, without asking further
permission, to send for Jasper.
But when Mrs Watson reached home, he had again absconded; and of this
she did not fail to inform Lady Manvers, whose gentleness had won her
regard.
The idea of this unfortunate child of ten years old, her husband's son,
wandering from haunt to haunt of iniquity, was a source of perpetual
anxiety to Lady Manvers. She drove from one magistrate's house to
another, trying to discover the little recreant. She dreaded
compromising her husband, yet was resolved on doing her duty. She met
with nothing but courtesy and kindness, but all seemed unavailing; and
she was beginning to despair, when, on the eve of departing for
Scotland, where Sir John's regiment was quartered, her attention was
riveted by a paragraph in the newspaper, which she could not help
connecting with the object of her search.
It was an extract from the minutes of a magistrate's court. A little
boy, "apparently between ten and eleven years," had been brought before
a magistrate, having been found among thieves and pickpockets in some
disorderly meeting.
The evidence presented a sorry picture.
There stood the child in the dock.
The magistrate, a man esteemed for his benevolence, examined the little
prisoner attentively ere he questioned him. At length the good man
said,--"How old are you, my boy?" The child did not answer. The
magistrate put the question again. No reply.
"Do you know," said Mr M--, "how old you are?"
"No," said the boy, his head bent down.
"Have you been brought here before?"
"No." Here a constable intimated that this was not true.
"It seems," said Mr M--, "that you _have_ been brought here before.
Why do you say no? Do you know that is a falsehood?"
"No:" still the same dogged look.
"Have you any parents?"
"No."
"Who do you belong to?"
"No one."
"Do you know what a lie is?"
"No."
"Do you know that it is wrong to steal?"
"No."
"Did you never hear of the Commandments?"
"No."
"Do you know the name of God?"
"No."
The kind-hearted magistrate stopped in these interrogatories, and laying
down his pen, leaned forward; sorrow shaded his benevolent face as he
said,--"My poor boy, what _do_ you know?" [This scene is taken from a
record in the _Times_ newspaper of 1850.]
These were the first words of kindness which had ever been spoken to
Jasper Lyle in his life, for he was the little prisoner; for though Mrs
Watson had, as she expressed, "a liking for him," she was rough-spoken
to her own children, whom she always _ordered_, never _asked_, to do her
bidding.
The unfortunate child lifted his face to Mr M--, and looked
half-wonderingly at it. The mode of speech was evidently beyond his
comprehension: he looked round at his evil associates, older by years in
crime than he was, and laughed.
The magistrate had the young prisoner removed from the dock, and taken
to his own house.
Lady Manvers ordered her carriage as soon as she had finished reading
this paragraph. She drove, without delay, to Mrs Watson's at Lambeth,
and then hastened to Mr M--'s.
She found him at home, and told her mission with her accustomed grace
and tact. Mr M--rose from his chair, opened the door of his library,
and led from an inner room a handsome boy, who, accustomed to resist,
would have run back, and even now drew his curly locks against his large
speaking eyes, and strove to shut out the sight of her who stood before
him as an angel of compassion.
Mrs Watson was summoned, and as Jasper recognised her, he dropped the
magistrate's hand, and went to the woman; but there was no demonstration
of tenderness on the part of either, and Lady Manvers, agitated and
dismayed, burst into tears.
When Sir John Manvers found that his wife had actually stood face to
face with his first-born son, he felt the reality of the secret buried
in the old Cornish church.
The departure for Scotland was delayed for some days. He spent many
hours in his library, affecting to be engaged in business with his
agent; but oh! the tortures he suffered! Now he would go to Nina, and
confess all. He opened the door; a merry voice echoed from the stairs,
his boy Gerard came bounding down, crying "Papa, papa." Sir John closed
the door abruptly; the boy cast his whip upon the ground and sat down
weeping on the mat. He had never been denied admittance before; but his
father's countenance had frightened him; he dared not lift his hand to
the lock, but he did not move; he sat there sobbing as if his little
heart would break.
And the father sat within; he had no tears, but his youngest son's
honest sobs struck to his heart.
He heard his wife come down the staircase; he heard her carry off the
weeping Gerard. The child went sobbing up the stairs on its mother's
shoulder, and Sir John felt that she would not intrude upon his privacy
at a juncture when old associations were so seriously revived.
Ah! how could that pure-minded, high-souled woman understand or believe
in his remorse?
Remorse without repentance!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir John Manvers easily taught his amiable wife to believe that she
having succeeded in persuading him to adopt his son and provide for him,
her mission was over; still Lady Manvers entreated that she might
continue to interest herself in the boy, till he became accustomed to
his new sphere of existence. She sought out an excellent clergyman at
Clapham, who took a limited number of pupils; she candidly admitted the
chief points in Jasper's story, she anticipated for the good man much
trouble and discouragement, she prepared him for the worst. He tried
his best with the child, but he had not strength either of mind or body
to cope with young Jasper.
The boy passed from one master to another, till a resolute man was found
to take charge of him as a Westminster scholar, when he battled through
life in Dean's Yard, Westminster, for twelve months; headed a conspiracy
against the assistant-masters, and would have been expelled, but that
his "uncle," as Sir John was reputed to be, had interest enough to
withdraw him privately, and finally to get him a commission.
It was Jasper Lyle's luck to be ordered at once to join his regiment in
India. He opened his military career before a fortress which
surrendered to the British arms. The banner planted on the battlements
was a rag dripping with gore. The young ensign was mentioned honourably
in general orders, and for a time the laurel wreath of fame acted as a
talisman in checking evil principles; but ill weeds are hard to
eradicate, and he would have been disgraced for debt; _had debt in the
army been disgraceful_. Sir John found himself answerable for bills
which his son had chosen to draw on his father's bankers, and an angry
correspondence took place, in which the baronet threatened to leave the
young man to the consequences of his folly and dishonesty.
And at every fresh revival of error, Lady Manvers pleaded for the
recreant, who each time promised fair; for his connection with the upper
classes of society had taught him to dread the ills of poverty.
Although he had been first made to believe that he was a distant
relation of Sir John's, he soon ascertained, through Mrs Watson, the
real position he held in Lady Manvers's eyes. Of his true condition he
could not dream. He was specious enough to keep his ground with his
father's gentle wife, and so, alternately in disgrace with the former,
and in treaty with the latter as a mediator, he contrived to keep his
commission and to satisfy his creditors.
An opportunity for an exchange to a regiment at the Cape occurred during
the government of Sir Adrian Fairfax, and Sir John Manvers, anxious to
rid himself even for a period of Jasper's presence, addressed a
confidential letter to Sir Adrian, with whom of late years he had become
more intimately acquainted, through the friendship existing between Lady
Amabel and Lady Manvers, and introducing the reprobate to him as "the
issue of an unfortunate connection," asked his Excellency's patronage.
Lyle had capital credentials as a soldier; his _domestic_ principles
were but lightly touched upon. He had been "rather wild," was "careless
in expenditure," etc. Sir John trusted that under Sir Adrian's kind
patronage he would "become steady;" in a word, the kind Sir Adrian, on
reading the letters of introduction forwarded to him by Lady Amabel, on
Lyle's arrival at Cape Town was more inclined to pity than condemn the
young man, and accordingly wrote, as we have seen, to his wife,
requesting her to receive the new-comer with hospitality.
From the period of his arrival at Newlands to his departure from the
colony, the reader has watched young Lyle's career. Afterwards ruined
in fortune, overcome by his evil passions, possessed, so to speak, by a
devil, he abjured all allegiance to his country's laws. Branded as a
swindler, he resolved on making a new road for himself in the great
wilderness of life, where bad men think that the race is to the swift
and the battle to the strong. The details of that career need not be
enlarged upon. Lyle himself related to Gray how the disciples of his
evil creed treated him: they abandoned him as recklessly as he would
have abandoned them.
Tried and convicted of seditious leadership at a time when other nations
were shaken to their centre by the thunders of republican eloquence, he
was condemned to transportation for life, and Sir John Manvers, striving
to suppress the whispers of conscience, reconciled himself to the issue
of events by hoping that he had "done the State some service" in
substituting for this vicious heir to his title and estate the docile
yet manly Gerard.
Ah! he _would_ not, he dared not, look into first causes.
News came home of the loss of the _Trafalgar_; a list of survivors and
of those drowned accompanied the official notification of the event.
Sir John Manvers was absent from his wife when informed of the dreadful
tidings. He shut himself up for some days, and people looked at him
when he emerged from his solitude, and whispers went about--"What a
shock Sir John Manvers had sustained in the death of his nephew, or, as
people believed him to be, his son, for whom he had formerly done so
much, but who was so incorrigibly vicious."
Next Sir John took steps to ascertain, through Sir Adrian Fairfax, all
the particulars of Jasper's marriage with Eleanor Daveney. He had heard
of the birth of a son, and he received with breathless thankfulness of
heart the tidings of poor little Francis Lyle's death.
He tried to wash his brain of these awful realities; he at times
rejoiced in some of the pleasantest things that life could give--a
lovely wife, with the sweetest temper and the firmest principles, graced
his hearth; beautiful children made his lofty halls musical with
laughter; many partings and meetings had endeared him more and more to
that beloved wife, those noble-looking children. He was in the prime of
life, and had won many laurels; but he was restless, eager for command,
impatient of solitude, yet reserved and abstracted in society.
He could not keep away the dread remorse that haunted him. All the
sophistry in the world could not veil the sin he had committed against
the helpless, unoffending infant, the melancholy legacy of his
ill-starred Mary. True, he had a strange facility of suppressing deadly
memories by the aspirations of some new ambition; but there were times
when, like our fallen parents at noon-day in the garden, he "heard the
voice of God," and was "afraid."
But all the remorse, all the repentance in the world, could not compel
the sea to "give up her dead;" and, if the strict performance of his
duty to his family and his country could have made atonement for his
early crime, God would have had compassion on the sinner. But God
requires another kind of repentance, another atonement, than that
existing between man and his brother. The thief on the cross was
justified and pardoned at the last moment; but albeit the justification
and the atonement sufficed to save, he acknowledged the justice of this
world's condemnation.
There was nothing of this in all Sir John Manvers's regrets for the
past. He trembled at the warning voice that pierced the worldly din
surrounding him, or disturbed the repose he sought; but he did not say
with David, "Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy
sight."
And so it is ever with sin prosperous; there may be warnings, there may
be misgivings, there may be heavy regrets for the ill we have done our
neighbour; but there is not that depth of remorse which bids us cast
ourselves before God for pardon and for grace to "lead a new life."
Still, long association with an amiable woman and an innocent family had
softened the heart of Sir John Manvers, and he would have given worlds
that he had never been tempted.
The command at the Cape of Good Hope was offered to him soon after the
loss of the _Trafalgar_; his acceptance of it was requested as a favour,
since every one knew it was eventually designed for Sir Adrian Fairfax,
then absent in India. Change of any kind was agreeable to Sir John, who
was weary of a country gentleman's life at home, and whose finances
would be advantageously recruited by a measure which would lead to
something better. He parted from his family with the less regret, that,
on obtaining a better appointment, they were to join him.
But when Mr Daveney presented himself before this proud General, with
the information that the wretched prodigal was not only alive, but would
ere long be brought forth to be tried for his life as a traitor, Sir
John Manvers beheld the truth in all its hideous nakedness.
"Better, oh better, had the sea engulfed him!" exclaimed the sinful
father, in the solitude of his tent, "than that my hand should sign his
death-warrant."
Sir John Manvers uttered these words as he heard the sentry again
challenge some invader of his privacy. He re-seated himself in his
easy-chair, tried to quell the anguished thoughts that surged within his
breast, and turned, with apparent calmness, to his aide-de-camp, who,
putting aside the canvas screen, stepped into the General's presence,
and laid before him a packet of letters brought in by another express.